Chapter Text
Steve picked himself up off the ground, brushing glass shards from his cheek. What the hell had just happened? He wasn’t quite convinced it wasn’t Loki what with the scepter trick, but the words, “Bucky. Is. Alive.” Had come out with almost a reverence even if strained from being choked. It wouldn’t be any stranger than the whole day, really, if he really had fought — himself?
Thoughts kept nagging at him, the compass, the man’s fighting skill, Bucky. He had to deal with the aftermath of — again what the hell — everything before he could think about the two things he wanted most. A shower and answers, not necessarily in that order either.
Once home, a long journey thanks to the disrupted transit, fallen buildings, and placement of emergency personnel, Steve opted for the shower first — if there was running water or even hot water available. He turned the faucet on before bothering to unfasten his battered uniform. Blessedly he had water and twice blessed it was hot. “Thank you for the hot water, lord, and please get those who are less fortunate than me to a similar state soon.”
It had been longer than he could remember since he’d said a proper invocation. Since his mother’s death he’d uttered brief fragments of gratitude and desperate pleas when in crisis. After the day’s revelations, he didn’t even know to whom his prayers were addressed. Surely not Thor and never Loki.
Peeling the suit off — and cursing — he made mental notes regarding changes in the next model, should there be another opportunity, as this one was not practical for battles like he’d endured today and getting out of it was another battle entirely.
Finally beneath the steady stream of hot water, let the spray pepper his head and face. Bucky. Is. Alive. were the only lyrics to the shower’s rhythmic tune. “How?” he asked from beneath the spray, water trickling into his mouth. Exactly how could that be? He’d seen him fall. Nobody could survive a fall like that — unless — Zola. The experiments that Bucky had feared might have changed him in some way. Fears Steve had thought illogical and fought to reassure Bucky weren’t likely. Those experiments.
Images of he factory, the way Zola looked at Bucky across the catwalk, Bucky’s nightmares, and Bucky’s fall played out before him with the insistent soundtrack the water and those words uttered by another Captain America drumming in his ears. Eager to exit the orchestra hall the shower had become, Steve hurried to wash away the smoke and dirt and blood of the city and of the aliens who’d incited all of the damages.
Enjoying the shower hadn’t been a prerequisite, but would have been appreciated.
Once toweled off and dressed in warm sweat pants and a tee shirt, Steve pulled out both the tools of the present and of the past; the computer he’d been assigned and a selection from his notebooks — moving aside the pocket sized one he’d picked up the day before — to start his research into what happened to Bucky. He was setting himself up for a goose chase through a rabbit hole most likely.
——
As expected, Steve only had mediocre luck scouring the internet for hours. The wild goose chase would likely yield a big goose egg. Growing impatient with the public searches, Steve started toying with the idea of reaching out to Tony for help with how one would circumvent the firewalls at SHIELD. Finding and compiling conspiracy theories that might lead to hydra information from any time between Bucky’s fall and now, his interest was piqued with the repeated mentions he found amongst the jungle of JFK assassination theories. He made notes on the ones he found the most credible and jotted a quick “Tony?” along the margins. He would absolutely need to enlist Tony’s help if Hydra was still in operation. He wasn’t sure about Fury yet, Barton was a good guy but he wasn't’ sure he had enough of a relationship with him yet to judge his trustworthiness. Romanoff though, he felt a pull toward her, she seemed cunning yet loyal, she reminded him of Peggy in many ways.
“Oh, Peg,” he sighed. He wanted to call her and give her the details, maybe she’d be able to see something he was missing. She did have health trouble, so he decided it was a gentler plan to work out whether or not Hydra was back or worse, if SHIELD was compromised.
He sat back with a thud against the chair back, aghast to realize he hadn’t given those Hydra weapons another thought following the events of the day. Could SHIELD be compromised by Hydra? If that were the case, could he trust any of his new team ? Stark, for all his narcissism, had a pretty good grasp of the dichotomy of government entities and — Steve had come to realize — was equally conscientious and compassionate.
He sent a text message asking to meet for coffee and wasn’t surprised to receive a reply almost immediately. Before he read it, he figured it was Jarvis acting as an answering service. The surprise was that it was Tony responding and that the multiple replies could possibly be construed as eager.