Chapter Text
Bucky was sitting, feet flat on the ground, knees up, leaning against the back tire of the blue car Steve had driven here in. His eyes were closed. Head back, left mechanical arm slack with his hand loose, right arm lightly resting on his knees his hand in a fist.
Steve was hanging out of the car door, legs splayed out, head down and staring at the grass under his feet.
They were sitting still and quiet, the air wreathed in thin tendrils of smoke. The antler shack was on fire.
Steve was breathing heavily and everything hurt but didn't think he was seriously injured. Buck had dragged half carried him out of the shack to the safety of the car. The shack would just burn down to the ground, nothing really around it but the gravel driveway.
Rahc was dead. Buck had seen to that. He had separated her head clean off her body with one swift knife stroke from behind. Her head was in the trunk of the car. He caught her unawares and then just like that. She was really dead this time. Steve doubted she had expected that ending.
Earlier, after a few hours of waiting with Rahc, he had been sitting with his eyes half closed. Waiting. Rahc had been talking at him but he wasn't interested in her stories of past 'accomplishments'. He guessed they were waiting for her colleague. The one who collected all the antlers. She was waiting for someone. He really really hoped it wasn't Chief.
Steve had barely heard the movement before he felt it. A razor sharp knife blade was suddenly pressed against the left side of his neck, held firm in a black-gloved cold hand, knuckles against his throat. Steve’s right arm was held tightly behind his back in a vice like grip.
Steve half turned back regardless, pushing hard against the grip, trying to get a glimpse of his attacker. The cabinet he was sitting on wasn’t actually against the wall of the shed. His assailant stood behind him. The metal box wobbled and some antlers toppled onto the floor but the hands held him firm.
A black shadow was behind him. A black shadow that was about the right size to be someone he recognized. He turned his face away from Rahc towards his attacker. “Buck” he hissed at him. “What’s going on?”
“Steve, I see you have found your little lost fawn.” Rahc had said from her antler throne.
The guy lifted Steve up from the top of the cabinet by his arm, knife still against his throat. Together they moved a couple steps away from Rahc and into a pool of light. The guy kicked the antlers away with a sweep of one foot and then dropped Steve.
Steve landed on his feet. He kicked back with one leg, connecting to a knee, staggering on the other to turn around. He punched the guy in the gut. Solid connection. He backed up shaking out his hand. Shit that guy was wearing body armour? No that had to be Buck.
The figure moved forward. It was Bucky. He knew it.
Bucky kicked out one foot. Crack, Steve felt his shin complaining. Crap. He landed hard. On his ass, on antlers. Pain bloomed in his elbow. They scrabbled around. Steve was getting in some good punches but Bucky was unstoppable.
Steve was exhausted from the last 24 hours of his fucked up life and was losing the fight with the robot. Steve was blocking the knife pretty poorly but he wasn't getting stabbed.
Rahc was watching with a bemused look on her face. "Don't trip over the Widow, gentlemen."
Bucky kneeled on his chest in a flash. Steve noticed he was keeping Rahc in front of him. Bucky poked him in the sternum. "Buck you're killing me here." Steve held up a hand, trying not to groan from the weight. The knife had disappeared somewhere. Bucky leaned forward and slapped Steve’s face with his metal hand.
Steve stopped fighting back. "Okay, okay." He caught Bucky's flesh hand in both of his. "Just fucking stop man." Steve lay flat on the floor. Head on the ground.
Although Bucky had a zip tie in one hand, when he flipped Steve over he oddly didn't restrain his hands. The tie stayed on the ground. Steve left his hands behind his back. He was getting an idea of where this was going.
Rahc it turned out had the same stupid penchant for long descriptive explanations she droned on as cliched as any evil movie villains.
"Natasha was never very grateful. This will perhaps teach her a lesson. Mr. Winter, tie her up and get ready for our trip to the drop off along with the Captain. I have an appointment.”
That was not happening on Steve's watch. He gave a quick look at Bucky. Bucky had his head down and was moving a hand towards his belt. Oh no. That means trouble. Steve sat up, jumped to his feet. He moved back a step and crouched down.
The grenade ended up under Rahc's chair but she wasn't sitting in it. When the eplosion had subsided, Rahc was standing on a cabinet across the room. Bucky had moved closer. She tossed the sherry bottle at Bucky, smashing against his chest, soaking his shirt and the front of his pants.
She snarled, "You'll burn too Mr. Winter. Please don't worry about that. I'll make sure of it."
She launched herself at him, that odd stick weapon clutched in her hand. She collided with Bucky, deciding Steve was no threat. Bucky somehow remained standing and shoved her away, blocking the baton with his left arm. The baton slid off, buzzing but no sparks.
"When I called you today I called my dog, Mr. Winter. Not an opponent." She slashed at his torso. She finally made contact on his chest. Sparks arced across the room. Bucky tensed and tucked his head down, curling in on himself.
Steve got up from the floor when her back was turned to him. He brought his arm down hard, holding a big antler like a club. She sidestepped the blow. "Too slow Captain." she hissed. But she had miscalculated in the small dark space. Bucky was behind her and his knife was already in motion across her throat.
+++++
Steve turned to look at Bucky sitting on the grass in his ruined clothes. "What do you think will happens when she doesn't show up for the drop off with Natasha?"
"They'll leave."
Steve contemplated this. “So what did you want to do about her?"
He took a drag on his smoke.
He had Natasha lying prone with his jacket under her head a couple of feet away from them and on the other side from the fire. He had tried to check her over after they got her out of the shack but he couldn’t find any injuries aside from the weird burn on her throat.
There was a dark deep bruise on her forehead but he thought she probably had been drugged. She was breathing regularly but lying so still. She had been unconscious during the drive out here but hadn't woken up during the interminable wait in the dark shack or during the fight. Not normal.
"Should we take her back into town with us? She needs a doctor.”
“Widow?” Bucky turned his head first towards Steve, then towards the trees. He flicked his chin up. “He’ll do it.”
“Who? What are you talking about?”
An arrow sliced out of the trees and landed with a thunk between Steve’s feet in the dirt.
“I see.” said Steve slowly. “I guess it’s a good thing Clint’s not dead either unless there is some other psycho with a bow hanging around.”
He reached around to stub out his cigarette in the car ashtray. A pointless action while they were sitting next to a building engulfed in flames but whatever, don't over think it buddy. He thought to himself.
He got to his feet a bit shakily, wedging himself out of the car. He bent down and pulled the arrow out of the ground with his good hand. He shook it at the woods. “Where is he? I can’t see him at all.”
Buck nodded again at the trees. Steve shouted at the brush, “We’re going back into town. She’s stable. I won’t touch her again unless you want me to. I’m sorry Clint. I think she’s going to be fine though. Rahc seems to have drugged her with something but it’s not fatal or it would have killed her already.”
“Did you want a lift back with her in the car?” He called out loudly, not expecting an answer. He tossed the arrow back down to the grass. “Rahc is dead.” He didn’t get an answer.
+++++
They were on the road. Bucky raised his left hand, poked Steve in his bad hand on the steering wheel. Steve looked over, "What?" Bucky made a motion with his hand. Steve held his hand out flat. Bucky dropped a set of keys into Steve’s right palm.
Steve stared at the keys in his hand. “What the hell. Where did you get these?”
“Looked like bike keys. Yours.”
Steve didn’t ask why Bucky was going through a corpse’s belongings, or why he was following him, or how he knew Steve had traded the bike away to Nhung in the first place. He just took the keys. Flipped them once and threw them in the console. His jacket was back with Natasha, he had no pockets.
“Hmm.” Steve actually didn't have anything to say.
“It's at the liquor store.”
"Okay then. I can pick it up on our way back if you can drive this car."
Bucky just stared ahead.
"Okay then. I can arrange something then to get it towed or something...." Steve trailed off. After the fight in the antler shack he was enveloped in exhaustion. He was weary of the endless betrayal. But he wouldn't mind getting that bike back.
Steve sucked his breath in through his teeth. “What are you going to do now? Chaika still wants you.” He cranked down the car window to get some air.
“No. I’m replaced.”
“What?”
“A new soldier.”
“How do you know this?
“I can show you.”
Bucky fished a file out from between the car seats. A crumpled paper fell out, Steve grabbed with his bad hand. He smoothed it out on the steering wheel while he waited for Buck to finish looking in the file.
The paper was a shopping list, in what he imagined was Rahc’s spiky angry handwriting. Two words caught his eye: ‘cupcakes’ and ‘rat poison.' What a fucking psycho. He dropped the paper back on the car floor and stared at the road ahead.
Bucky held up a photo of a young man in a professional portfolio pose. He looked like an athlete, with light piercing eyes and wavy hair. He had tattoos of faces on his shoulders, with one large dark shape covering the back of his right hand.
“Who is he? He looks like a teenager.”
“Ukranian.”
Steve thought about this while they drove back to Edmonton to pick up their gear and do some planning. “You know the guy?”
“Born in Kherson. They took him in 2012. In London. Ballet dancer.”
“You hear about this before today?”
“Yes. After the problem with you on the aircraft.”
“And you were AWOL so they replaced you.”
“Before.”
“Chaika know about this one?”
“Didn’t care. He wanted the arm. New soldier is whole to date.”
"Those Russians have a one track mind."
"Don't know why." Bucky paused then added, "Never knew."
Steve drove for a while thinking about that. “Buck. I need a nap. Can you use my phone to find a motel or something?”
Bucky took the phone, bent his head down and began to check for hotel information.
Steve tapped his eight fingers on the steering wheel, “And you ever gonna tell me about the time travel?”
“No. Don't remember.”