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“Barnes!”
Captain Fury’s voice barked through the speakers on his phone. Bucky immediately cursed himself for picking up. If he’d waited for Fury to hack his line and ream his ass for not picking up, he’d at least have been able to try and manipulate Fury into giving him another day of peace by threatening to file a complaint against this blatant government overreach. It wouldn’t have worked, but it would have made him feel better. These days, not a lot of things did.
“You mind explaining to me why you failed to attend the morning briefing and are currently running an hour late?”
“I’m not ready.”
“I don’t care about your delicate little feelings. You’re physically fit enough for active duty, you’re on the roster, so get your ass in gear.”
“I need another day.”
“That’s what you said yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that. I let you have those extra days out of the kindness of my heart, but you don’t get another one. You’re needed at the precinct, so you can either jump in and swim with the sharks again or wither away in that sad dingy little apartment of yours.”
“You don’t need me,” Bucky said, unable to keep the bitterness out of his voice. “Haven’t you read the shrink’s report?”
“I have,” Fury replied. How he could be blasé about such things, Bucky would never understand. “In fact, I have it open in front of me right now. Depression, trauma-onset OCD, an ass full of PTSD, anger issues, psychological rejection of your synthetic body part….you’ve worked up quite a laundry list of issues. Banner thinks you are utterly unfit for service.”
“Then what the fuck,” Bucky asked through his teeth, “are you calling me in for? To sign my resignation papers and smile while doing it?”
“I’m calling you because I need you to get your head out of your ass, Barnes. What happened to you was terrible, and no one is denying that. But as far as I know, your hearing wasn’t impaired, so right now I’m asking myself why the fuck you aren’t listening .”
There was an edge to his voice that made Bucky’s muscles coil with tension. “Sir?”
“I’m going to say it one last time. I need you here. I’ve got a case. For you.”
Maybe it was Fury’s wording, or maybe it was the deliberate pause. Bucky drew in a sharp breath, suddenly understanding. “It’s -”
“Yeah,” Fury said grimly.
Bucky looked at his arm, almost fully charged, and grimaced. In the time it would take him to finish a sorely needed shower, he could probably work himself up to putting it on without suffering another mental breakdown. “I can be there in an hour,” he said.
“I’m expecting you in 45 minutes,” Fury retorted, and hung up.
Bucky made it to the precinct in forty minutes by ignoring several almost-red lights as well as the nasal computerised voice warning him his arm wasn’t fully calibrated in twenty-minute intervals. Thankfully, his retina scan had been unlocked again so that he could enter the premises through the back entrance without anyone asking stupid questions, and therefore avoid almost everyone on his way to Fury’s office. He could do without the distrustful, sceptical and/or pitying stares his old colleagues were likely to greet him with.
He entered Fury’s office without knocking. “‘Sup?”
Fury glared daggers at him. “You’re lucky I was expecting you, and also can’t afford to see you hospitalised again, Barnes.”
“You’re lucky you gave me a good reason to come in,” Bucky retorted haughtily and dropped into one of the plushy chairs and surreptitiously looked around. The moment he entered, Fury had hit a button to turn the windows from see-through to an opaque, milky colour, effectively shielding them from everyone’s gaze, and the security cameras in the room abruptly turned towards the walls. He didn’t want to ask how in the hell Fury had the power to do that, but he was grateful nonetheless. “So HYDRA has made a comeback after all.”
“They’ve never been gone. They’ve been popping up here and there in the two years you were gone. You’ve missed a lot, Detective Barnes.”
“While I was in a coma thanks to the traumatic brain injury I acquired in their ambush, you mean. And then, during the months of physical therapy I had to do because they shot my fucking arm off.”
“Don’t you take that tone with me, boy. I authorised that mission only because you were absolutely, 100 percent sure you could finish it, force open their ranks and flush them all out of hiding. I don’t need a reminder how we failed or of what we all lost that day.”
“Oh, you all lost something?” Bucky asked, mean.
Fury leaned forward. “Damn right we did. You think I didn’t mourn Dugan, or the other operatives we lost? You think I didn’t mourn you?”
Bucky averted his eyes, ashamed. For all his tough-love routine, he knew Fury cared for all the people working in his precinct. He’d plucked Bucky off the streets and given him a future, and loved him like a son, when Bucky tried to not be too prickly to let him. The nurse at the hospital had told him he’d visited every week, like clockwork.
“I know you’re angry. I know you want revenge, more than anyone. More than me, even. That’s why I called you.”
“How can you even trust me?” Bucky burst out.
Fury blinked.
“Go on, you can say it. Everyone else out there is thinking it, anyway.”
“You’re not HYDRA, kid.”
“Aren’t I, though?” Bucky asked. “How do you know? I led that team in, and everyone ended up dead except for me. Convenient, isn’t it? That’s gotta mean I’m either a traitor or a blundering idiot, and sometimes I don’t know which is worse.”
“You’re neither. You got dealt a shitty hand. You could never have predicted it.”
“I could have prevented it, though,” Bucky said. “I could’ve.”
Fury raised his eyebrows. “You suddenly got powers of premonition I wasn’t aware of?”
“No. No, but I-” Bucky swallowed. “I’ve been remembering.”
Fury nodded. “That’s why you’ve been hanging around the shadier areas of the city, with all those black market medicine practitioners, I gather.”
Bucky flinched. “You put a tail on me?”
“Don’t get too torn up about it.” Captain Fury shrugged. “I put a tail on everyone I think might be falling off the rails. We’re not gonna talk about how you let some shady-ass memory doctor shock your brain into obedience right now, but rest assured, we are going to talk about it, and I’m gonna send you to another check-up to make sure they didn’t accidentally scramble your brain more.”
Fury folded his arms in front of his stomach, a picture of a patient old man listening to a story that didn’t fit at all with Bucky’s image of the man. “So what is it that you remembered?”
He forced the words past his throat, ignoring the bile threatening to rise up. “My ex-boyfriend.”
“I can do without explicit details.”
“No, I - he…” Bucky grit his teeth. “He was there, in the ambush. He was with them.”
“He was HYDRA, or he was taken hostage by them?”
“Definitely the former.”
Captain Fury let that information sink in for a moment, his face an iron mask. “Barnes, did you ever discuss sensitive details of the case with your ex-boyfriend?”
“I - no,” Bucky shook his head frantically. “No, of course I didn’t. Not intentionally. But he might have taken some hints from snippets of conversations he heard me have with Detective Romanoff. And - technically, he had access to my phone. It was protected with retinal and voice scanners, but you know as well as I do that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Brock was tech-savvy. If he hacked it, he might’ve gotten access to messages left for me that mentioned details of the case, enough for him to tip off HYDRA about the planned raid.”
Fury nodded, surprisingly calm. “I’m going to need you to turn over your phone and other communication devices to check for a possible virus that might have given him access to your files. I assume there aren’t any effects of his left in your shared apartment?”
“No, he scrubbed everything. I’ve turned the place upside down, but there’s nothing and - well, nearly two years is a lot of time to destroy any evidence and make sure no one ever picks up your trail, especially if you were planning for it.” Bucky’s lips twisted into a bitter smile. “Natasha always said she found it suspicious how he dropped off the face of the earth the day of the attack. Guess that explains it.” He took a deep breath. “So there you have it.”
Fury leaned forward. “Barnes, if you think you shouldn’t be here because you trusted the wrong person, who may or may not have stolen some intel from you, then you are an idiot.”
“There should be an investigation, and I should be suspended. Probably indefinitely. You should put me in jail - ”
“That’s not gonna happen.”
“ Why ?” Bucky asked. “You shouldn’t trust me.”
Fury sighed. “Barnes, I’m going to level with you here. You are the only one who ever even came close to catching these bastards, the only one who dealt them a significant blow. Detective Romanoff could do it, maybe, but I need her behavioural analysis skills too much to only put her on one single case, and she can’t do it alone. You worked harder on this than anyone, and you know more about HYDRA than any other person in this building. We have had several cases that might have been HYDRA popping up again, but we haven’t been able to prove a connection and tie anything to them. And -” he lowered his voice “- I think we have a mole. So I don’t trust many people in here, and out of the few, you and Romanoff are the only ones qualified for this job. So I need you to get the fuck over yourself and help me take them down.”
Bucky swallowed. “Okay,” he said shakily. “Okay.”
“Good. Pick up your MX and your gun, then get Detective Romanoff and come back in here so I can brief you on the case.”
“I’m not riding with one of these things.”
“That wasn’t a suggestion, Barnes, that was an order. They’re mandatory. I don’t like them any more then you do, but sometimes we gotta stick to the rules.” Fury shoved a piece of paper at him. “Here’s your assignment slip that you need to give Stark.”
Bucky stared at it, grimacing.
“You need directions to the armoury, Detective?”
“No, Sir,” he gritted out.
“Then get out of my damn office and get your damn paperwork in order.”
Bucky got out of the damn office and got his damn paperwork in order.
When he returned to the Captain’s floor thirty minutes later, his mood was already shot to shit. The guy at the armoury had rambled on incessantly, trying to make polite conversation but actually managing to put her foot in the mouth in regards to his prosthetic twice and make mildly disparaging comments towards his character thrice, so by the time his assigned MX introduced itself and gave him an unnecessarily thorough rundown of his system requirements and duties, he was ready to vibrate out of his skin. The fact that he wasn’t able to avoid the bullpit on his return journey and therefore couldn’t escape his former co-workers’ stares didn’t make it better.
He knew he was being ridiculous. He had worked with most of these people before, and even liked a lot of them, and he would need to be at least moderately civil towards them again in case he might have to work with any of them in the near future. They probably also weren’t staring out of malice but out of genuine surprise to see him again. They were probably going to be nice. Some might even be happy . And that might actually be worse.
If he clenched his teeth together any harder, he’d probably break his jaw.
He almost, almost made it back to the Captain’s office without having to interact with anybody, but of course his luck ran out eventually.
“Didn’t think we’d ever see you here again, man,” Detective Grant Ward said, coming up to him with a smile on his face only belied by the coldness in his eyes. He slapped Bucky on the shoulder, hard - and immediately had to hide his wince.
Bucky stifled a snicker. There were upsides to having a metal arm after all. “Ward.” He nodded casually. “Still not passed the Sergeant’s exam, I gather?” Back before the incident, Bucky had been in line for the promotion, which had bothered Ward to no end. He had complained about the unfairness of it incessantly, and, according to Natasha, loudly claimed he should be the one to take the spot after Bucky had been injured only to fail the exam twice. “No shame in not being able to crack it, it’s very difficult” he added, in an as over-the-top consoling tone as he could manage without laughing. He’d managed all his practice exams without problems. “You have to be really good. You’ll get there eventually, don’t you worry.”
He completed his little speech with a motivational clap on Ward’s shoulder. The impact of his metal hand against his shoulder blade made Ward stumble. “Whoops, sorry,” Bucky said. “Guess I still haven’t perfected control over that thing yet.”
“They let you work with that?” Bucky could see Ward was trying very hard not to rub his hand or shoulder.
“Sure. When I trained with Nat she never complained about me hitting her too hard. Speaking of - ” he raised his voice. “Nat, you coming? Sorry, duty calls, you know how it is.”
Nat fell into step beside him. “Maybe don’t break the youngsters on your first day back,” she said, but she was smirking.
“He’s a dick,” Bucky said matter-of-factly.
“Not gonna argue with you there. I’m just saying it would be strategically wise to not give anyone any reasons to doubt Fury’s judgement.”
“When have you ever known me to make strategically wise decisions?”
“You used to be good at that. Did that part of your brain turn to mush also or did it just go into hibernation?” Natasha asked casually as she pushed into Fury’s office.
Bucky loved her, and he was kind of scared of her, so he let it slide. “Guess we’ll see.”
Bucky frowned down at his report. “What does a dead businessman have to do with HYDRA?” he asked.
Next to him, Nat was wearing the kind of blank expression that meant she was puzzled as well and didn’t want to show it. The MX, miraculously, had been sent outside by Fury. It was smart - if there really was a mole, it would make sense to give the android as little information as possible until Tony developed and installed a subroutine that would classify not only the files but also any information possibly pertaining to the case. Otherwise the machines would just give the information to any detective who asked, or would deny access in such a way that would make a double-agent suspicious.
Mostly, though, Bucky was just glad he didn’t have to listen to the MX’s endless cycle of assertions that he was here to help him.
“The victim was found dead in a hotel room downtown. Three shots to the chest, which was excessive - the first one was already lethal. First responders suggested there might not be any information gained from the crime scene - they used a DNA bomb, the whole site is contaminated.”
“So what?” Natasha asked. “Every crime organisation that fancies itself important uses those nowadays. Granted, not many actually have the money to buy these and use them for the smaller stuff, but it’s not particular to HYDRA’s MO anymore.”
“No,” Fury agreed. “But the bullets that were used to kill him are.”
“How can you tell?” Bucky asked. The victim had been found by a cleaning lady in the early hours of the morning, there was no way they had a coroner’s report.
“Soviet slugs. No rifling, completely untraceable,” Natasha suggested.
Fury nodded. “Helen Cho is the forensic scientist at the site. She was also the one who examined the casualties from two years ago. The bruises on the victim match the ones caused by the shrapnel bullets used by HYDRA way back when. We haven’t seen anything like it since the raid. Obviously we are still waiting for the official confirmation, but it’s a lead.”
Bucky hummed thoughtfully. “Find out if and why HYDRA wanted this man dead, follow the trail...”
“...build a trap and snap it shut,” Fury confirmed. “Even if it’s someone else getting these bullets from the same supplier, we might be able to get valuable intel.”
It wasn’t much, but it was a start. Bucky snapped his folder shut and slid it towards Fury, getting out of the chair. “You coming with?” he asked Natasha.
“To the crime scene? Yes,” she said. “But I’m not getting in a car with you. You drove horrendously when you still had two normal arms, I don’t wanna see how much worse it is now.”
“What, and your death-trap of a motorcycle is safer?”
“At least no-one is gonna accidentally rip off the steering wheel.”
“That was one time! ” Bucky said, outraged.
Natasha laughed. “Have fun bonding with your new partner,” she said.
Bucky settled for eloquently flipping her off.
Half a day and a thorough, half-yelled lecture from Fury that he had tried - and probably failed - to look contrite for later, he was back in the armoury, down an MX and wondering if he could break the tablet containing the issue for a new android partner and be inconspicuous about it.
He didn't think his chances were stellar. Though, to be fair to him, he hadn’t started the day wanting to violently destroy the android partner assigned to him. The urge had only overwhelmed him after prolonged exposure to condescending remarks and analysis of his last mission. The androids would have said it was a clinical, factual assessment of everything gone wrong, he was sure. How would androids know about tact? They weren't human.
Bucky was self-aware enough to know he wasn’t tactful at the best of times, but at least he was smart enough to not speak harshly of the dead, not if they were good people, like Dugan had been. And he was good enough at lying that, while Fury would never believe his MX was destroyed in an accident, no one would ever be able to prove his claim wrong.
He was even aware enough of social customs that he managed a mostly indifferent and polite facade even though he had to endure Tony Stark for a second time in a day, feigning bland interest as the armourer frowned down at the newly filled-in paperwork.
“We don’t have any MXs in storage right now, so Fury has assigned you an older model of the STV series. It’s the only one he could clear for duty.”
“An STV? Isn’t that one of the crazy ones?”
“You know, it’s offensive to call them that,” Tony remarked absently, hauling the synthetic over to the nearest metal table.
“Right. Because you care about being offensive.”
Tony gave him a dark look. “The STVs weren’t crazy. Not crazier than you, or me.”
Bucky stared at him, unimpressed. He was neither stupid nor delusional. ‘Not crazier than him or Tony’ still meant pretty fucking messed up, but at least he went to his bullshit fucking therapy. “They were all taken out of commission because they went nuts.”
“Hey, isn’t that what they wanted to do to you?”
“Fuck you,” Bucky said sharply. “Listen, MXs are fucking awful, but at least they are consistent in their behaviour. If I have to go out in the field with this thing, I don’t know what to expect. I don’t need an unstable ticking bomb watching my back.”
“If only you hadn’t thrown your MX out of the car,” Tony said drily.
“It fell .”
“Sure it did.” Tony shrugged. “Look, Barnes. This is what you’re getting, at least until we get a new shipment of MXs. Deal with it; it’s your own mess. And just between the two of us...I think you’re gonna like this one.”
“I doubt it,” Bucky replied tersely.
“You know,” Tony said conversationally as he hooked the android up to several cables, “the STVs were designed after a concept called Synthetic Soul. The goal was to be as human as possible. Humans have breaking points, as we both know better than most….and so do the STVs. So I would argue they worked perfectly.”
“Yeah, that’s why half of them had meltdowns in dangerous situations and would’ve rather gone to pet kittens or something.”
Tony shrugged. “Not every human is suited to dealing with violence and being a police officer, and not all of them were either.”
Arguing with Tony was always pointless and tedious, so Bucky decided to not even bother. This argument wasn’t even one where he could have fun. “So what’s wrong with this one?”
“Nothing.”
“You said they all have breaking points. This one must’ve had one, otherwise they wouldn’t have put it in storage.” STVs that were still operational had generally been assigned to other jobs. Bucky had seen a few cleaners here and there, accountants in other places. There weren’t many still on the streets, but they did exist.
“Ah. Yes. He disobeyed orders.”
Something cold wrapped like a vice around Bucky’s chest, constricting his lungs, stealing his breath. He swallowed heavily. Behind his eyelids, Dugan’s body burnt. “Great.”
Tony didn’t look at him. “Yeah, he was assigned to Detective Ward before. They were called to an arson scene. Apparently Detective Ward told him to stand down and retreat because there was nothing else to do, and Steve here told him something along the lines of ‘ that’s bullshit and you are an incompetent idiot’ and went into a burning building to save a kid.”
“It what?” That - that couldn’t be true. Androids didn’t particularly care about human lives even when they were programmed to do so. They wouldn’t choose a human’s life over their own possible destruction, not if the calculated chances were too low, and they must have been low for Ward to call off a rescue. Dugan was proof of that. Bucky’s arm was proof of that.
“You can look up Steve’s files if you don’t believe me,” Tony said.
“Right.” Bucky frowned. “Did you just give it a name?”
“He named himself.” Tony held out a long piece of metal to him. “Wanna do the honours of waking him up?”
“Why the fuck would I wanna do that?”
“Christ, but you’re an asshole.” Tony shoved the metal rod into his arms. “Here, touch it to his left ear.”
Rolling his eyes, Bucky complied. He watched as the electric spark sprang from the rod to the android, interlaced wires glowing under its synthetic skin like veins pulsing under human skin, and then its eyes flew open. They were startlingly blue and far from the lifeless depths of the MXs.
“I-” It started, frowned, and started to sit up, looking around in confusion. “How long was I out?”
“Five years since you were decommissioned, give or take,” Tony said.
The droid nearly seemed to sway on the spot with shock. “Five years?” it asked, incredulous. “But I was in perfect working order!”
Bucky couldn’t help himself - he snorted. “Right. Tell that to the Detective whose explicit orders you ignored.”
The android turned its attention towards him, its eyes flicking up and down his body for a quick scan, and then it smiled pleasantly. “Detective Barnes. It’s a pleasure to meet you. But I must correct you. I didn’t wilfully ignore Detective Ward’s orders. I merely made thorough, logical and accurate calculations concerning the danger of my being injured entering a burning building -”
“ Injured ?” Injuries were for people, not androids.
“Damaged,” the STV amended, a sour expression on its face. “And I weighed those odds against those of my chances saving a little eight year old girl going by the name of América Chavez, and rightfully came to the conclusion that I would most likely be successful in my endeavours, and if I didn’t…” It shrugged, and it was such a human gesture that if it wasn’t for the faint glow of blue at the side of his face as he was updating his files, Bucky might have actually mistaken it for being alive. “Not much use being a cop if you’re not willing to risk your life to save someone else’s, is there? This is a point Detective Ward and I often disagreed on.” It smiled. “I have a feeling we will get along much better, Detective Barnes. Your service record is outstanding.”
“It used to be,” Bucky said, unable to keep some of the bitterness from seeping into his voice. “Finish updating your files, android, and let’s go.”
“My name is Steve.”
“Fantastic. You may call me Detective. Let’s go .”