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Three days after the end of the Scapegoat hearings, Steve was attempting to draw Bucky and Natasha as they attempted to play Monopoly.
Neither attempt was going very well. Bucky had never much liked board games, particularly board games like Monopoly that took forever to play; and at some point the game had devolved into Bolshevik Monopoly. Bucky was the Red Army and Natasha was the White, and every time they landed on each other’s squares, they broke out a pair of flimsy plastic swords and duked it out to see who got to keep it.
That constant movement got in the way of Steve’s sketching attempts. Finally Steve had given up on doing anything detailed and just did rough studies of their movements: not even their whole bodies sometimes, just disembodied legs and arms in lunges and ripostes.
Natasha was winning. “I can’t believe they taught you fencing,” Bucky said, laughing, indignant, stumbling as he misjudged a lunge. “They never taught me how to fence.”
“Probably too bourgeois for the Bolsheviks,” Natasha said, dancing lightly under his flailing swing and almost tapping him on the side. “You’re not even trying anymore!”
Bucky took the hilt of his sword in both hands and swung it like a baseball bat. Natasha backflipped over the couch, right over Steve’s head.
Bucky lunged after her, but instead of jumping over the couch, he pulled himself up short and fell half on top of Steve. “Oof!” Steve complained.
“Come play!”
“I don’t think you need another army.”
“Of course we need another army!” Bucky protested.
“You can be the American Expeditionary Force!” Natasha added, hanging over the back of the couch to grin down at Steve.
Bucky grabbed Steve’s hand, intent on yanking him to his feet. Natasha leaned down and tickled Steve’s side. Steve yelped and twisted, protesting, but that was just to tease them; he had every intention of letting Bucky haul him off the couch and give him a sword.
But he hadn’t had the chance yet when the window slid open and Tony flew in. He flipped open his visor and stared at them. “Am I interrupting something?”
“The White Army was about to pound the Red,” Natasha said, smirking.
Steve hastily got off the couch. Tony was looking between them, slightly glazed, as if he was trying to figure out who was the White Army and who the Red, and whether he cared.
“What is it, Tony?” Steve asked. Tony didn’t usually show up in full armor for no reason.
Tony snapped back out of what must have been a lurid fantasy. “Now that the hearings are over, we need a little R&R,” he said.
“With five hundred of your closest friends?” Steve said warily.
“Pepper told me she took the strippers off your speed dial,” Natasha added.
Tony sighed, long-suffering. “That’s not the only way to have fun, Carrots,” he said. “How do you feel about knocking over a Hydra lab?”
***
And that was how Steve and Bucky ended up walking through the tangled hallways of MedCom Willoughby’s second subbasement, overworked ICERs cooling in their hands as they searched for any straggling Hydra agents. Steve had been surprised how well-defended the place was.
Well-defended might not be the right word. There were an awful lot of defenders, but about half of them had dropped their weapons when Tony switched on his massive loudspeaker system and yelled, “Your compliance will be rewarded. Put your weapons down.” Taking the base had been a cakewalk in the ensuing confusion.
At least, so far. It didn’t do to get cocky until they’d flushed all the rats from their nest.
Steve heard a whining mechanical hum behind a door up ahead, soft enough that he probably wouldn’t have noticed it without superhearing. He glanced at Bucky, who nodded and took point. Steve usually led, but he couldn’t punch through reinforced steel doors.
Metal screeched as Bucky thrust his arm through the door. He jerked it off its hinges and tossed it across the hall. Steve ICEd the defender before he even had time to swing his gun around. The man hit the floor with a soft thump, his fall softened by mounds of paper shredded to confetti.
Steve and Bucky stormed inside, ICERs at the ready, but no other guards hid behind the filing cabinets lining the walls. Their drawers hung open, most of them still full. Steve thumbed through a few folders. Subject 2483: April 6, 1987.
Old stuff. But some of it might be valuable, if they were taking such trouble to shred it. Across the room, the paper shredder ate up its last sheet and whined to a halt.
Bucky knelt to cuff the Hydra agent.
The agent reared up to stab him.
Bucky moved just in time, so the blade stabbed through his right shoulder rather than his heart. Bucky screamed. He grabbed the man’s arm in his left hand with a grip that should have crushed the bone. But the man shook him off like a terrier shaking a rat, throwing him against a filing cabinet. The drawer slammed shut as Bucky hit it. Bucky stopped screaming abruptly, the breath driven out of him. His ICER skittered across the floor.
“Goddamnit!” Steve yelled, and ICEd the man.
It didn’t work this time, either. The man hurled himself at Steve, arm raised, and Steve dove aside just in time to avoid the blow. The man’s arm punched right through the front of a filing cabinet.
A DeathLok soldier. How much of him was metal?
The thought slowed Steve down a fraction of a second. Steve barely had time to brace himself before the filing cabinet slammed against his shield. The drawers popped open and the papers waterfalled out as it fell to the floor.
Pistons clicking in the DeathLok’s leg as he stalked toward Steve. He slammed his shield full force against the DeathLok’s knee.
The DeathLok lurched and fell to his knees, and Steve jerked his shield free and spun to stand behind him, shield upraised. “Don’t move,” Steve ordered.
The DeathLok twisted, trying to grab Steve’s knee and throw him. Steve jumped out of the way, kicking the man’s shoulder with enough force to send him sliding across the paper-covered floor. But the DeathLok got right back up. He lurched on his dented metal leg, flinging himself toward Steve.
Steve danced out of his way. The DeathLok’s broken metal leg twisted beneath him, and he crumpled to his knees. His arm rose, as if he had a gun, except his hand was empty –
Steve lifted his shield just in time to block a bullet fired directly from the DeathLok’s metal arm. He dropped down, crouching turtle-like behind his shield, and he only had a moment to see the man turning away, aiming at
– Bucky –
Steve hurled his shield.
The blow slammed into the DeathLok’s metal arm, smashing the gun inside. The DeathLok soldier screamed, high and wild and animal, and sprung at Steve, teeth bared. Steve stepped aside, using the DeathLok’s own wild momentum to toss him against the filing cabinets.
That knocked the breath out of him. He lay there, crumpled, panting, very young; Steve could see the whites around his eyes. Blood coursed from his nose over his lips.
Steve snagged his shield, holding it at the ready. “Surrender,” Steve told the DeathLok. “We won’t hurt you.”
The DeathLok smeared the blood on his face with the back of his flesh hand. He was trying to raise his metal arm again. Steve smacked it down with his shield. “Quit it,” Steve ordered.
“I can’t.” He grabbed onto the handle of a filing cabinet and tried to pull himself up, and ended up pulling the filing cabinet down instead. He grabbed onto the back of it, still trying to lever himself to his feet. A spider web of blue bloomed in his temple, knocking him down: a third ICER blast. Bucky had gotten to his gun.
The man tried to stand up once again.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Bucky growled. “Give it up. You’re beat.”
“I can’t,” the man said. He swayed almost to his feet and crumpled again, the confetti splashing up around him as he fell. “They’ll kill me. There’s a bomb in my eye.” He started to giggle.
“Which eye?” Bucky demanded.
“I guess fighting Captain America’s a fucking awesome way to die – ”
“Which eye?”
“The left – ”
His left eye bloomed blue. Steve thought for a horrible moment that his controller had blown the bomb, but then blue lines snaked across his face: the telltale sign of an ICER.
He fell forward, sprawling on his elbow. Tears dripped from his ICEd eye, leaving tracks on his bloody face. His nose still bled sluggishly.
“Is it offline?” Bucky’s voice was intent. Steve risked a glance at him. Bucky lay on his stomach, ICER in his metal hand, a path of blood like a snail’s trail on the paper showing how he’d moved across the floor. Blood slicked down the front of the filing cabinet. It had so saturated the paper where Bucky had fallen that it pooled on top.
“Bucky,” Steve said softly.
“The bleeding’s stopped,” Bucky told him. His face was floury beneath the blood spatters. “Is it offline?” he asked, not loudly, but with intensity.
“I can’t see it,” the man said. “I can’t see anything.” He became suddenly indignant. “You blinded me!”
“I saved your fucking life!” Bucky shot back. “After you nearly killed me, too!”
The man puffed up like an angry alley cat. But then he fell back, resting his face on the shredded paper. Little paper squares stuck to his bloody face. “Yeah, well,” he said. “Sorry, bro. I know that wasn’t cool.”
“No hard feelings,” Bucky said. “Not your fault.” He levered himself off the floor. He had to grab a filing cabinet to keep himself upright, but he didn’t fall. “We’d still better take away any weapons you’ve got on you, though,” he said, and he sounded apologetic.
The man blanched. “Oh fuck. There’s a knife in my boot. And, uh, there’s a little rifle in my arm, but you’ve already broken that and maybe you’d better not mess with it, ‘cause it’ll give you a nasty shock if you do. But the things on my legs and arms – they don’t come off - probably you can get the weapons systems offline but the metal is, like, attached, okay, so it’s not that I’m not trying to cooperate, I just can’t get them off – ”
“It’s okay,” Steve promised. “We know. We’ve met DeathLok soldiers before.”
“Really?” The relief on the man’s face was painful. “For real?
“For real,” Bucky said.
His voice was much closer than Steve expected, and he looked up to see that Bucky had wobbled his way around the room to them. He held his right arm close to his body so as not to jar his injured shoulder, and he put his left hand – his metal hand, the one he never touched anyone with – on Steve’s shoulder, and lowered himself to the floor.
He half fell onto the shredded paper at the end. He turned his head to the side so he could look the man in the eye. “What’s your name?”
“Reynolds.”
“I used to know a kid named Reynolds,” Bucky said. “Best fucking shortstop in Brooklyn.”
Reynolds started to giggle again. He sounded shocky. “Listen,” Steve said. “We’ll get you out to medical as soon as possible so they can get the bomb out of your eye, all right? The bomb and the camera, everything.”
Reynolds laughed and laughed and gasped out, “Captain America.” He stopped laughing abruptly. “Fuck. The Avengers have come for us, I’m so fucked,” he said, and lurched as if he meant to get to his feet and try to run for it.
“Stop that,” Bucky said sharply, and Reynolds actually stopped. “You won’t make it out the door. And if you did, you’d be running for the rest of your life. Or till Hydra caught you again – you think they don’t have a tracking device in you?”
“I can’t go back to prison!”
“You’re not going to prison,” Bucky said. “You’ll only be a locked up for a little bit, to get that thing out of your eye and make sure they didn’t Faustus you on top of everything else. But we know they would’ve blown your head off. The shit you did isn’t your fault.”
Reynolds started to laugh again, but now he was crying too. “Who’s gonna care?”
“No, really,” Bucky insisted. “They – we do care, honestly. I…” He hesitated, just a moment, his face pale beneath the blood spatters, and then began to tug at the glove covering his metal hand. His right fingers couldn’t seem to grip the leather.
“Buck,” said Steve. “We ought to get you to medical.”
“Lemme finish this first.” Bucky held out his left hand to Reynolds. “Take the glove off. Then you’ll see.”
There was blood on the glove from Bucky’s shoulder wound, and Reynolds touched it gingerly, tugging it by the fingertips. At last the glove slipped off, and Bucky’s metal hand flashed in the fluorescent lights.
Reynolds stared. “You’re a DeathLok too.”
Bucky controlled a frown. Coulson had compared him to the DeathLok soldier Mike Peterson once, and Bucky hadn’t cared for it.
But now Bucky said, “Something like that.” A muscle jumped in his jaw. “Hydra used me too. But I’m fighting with Captain America now.”
Reynolds looked dazed. “You’re – are you one of the Avengers?”
Bucky’s blood-specked face split into a smile. “Yeah I am,” he said. “I’m the Winter Soldier. I’m gonna look after you.”
***
And so Steve ended up carrying Reynolds through MedCom Willoughby’s sterile white halls. Bucky walked beside them, pale and intensely upright, as if he might fall down if he allowed himself to relax for a moment. Steve wished Bucky would let Steve carry him too. It wouldn’t have been a stretch with superstrength.
But instead Bucky walked, and peppered the walk with staccato comments about the Home. As they climbed the first staircase, he said, “The cafeteria’s got great pizza.” He took so long to get his breath back that the thread of conversation had nearly been lost when he added, “Their pancakes suck, though.”
Or, later: “They keep a snack table on each wing. Poptarts and apples and stuff.”
“That was Bucky’s idea,” Steve put in. (Bucky had waxed rhapsodic about the glorious history of the Russian zakuski table. Natasha, more pragmatic, added, “A lot of them are probably used to being fed only when someone else thinks they’ve earned it.”)
Bucky nodded. The head movement seemed to unbalance him; he stumbled, and it took him a few steps to get the rhythm of walking back. “So if you’re hungry, you can just grab something. Just whenever.”
Another long pause to catch his breath, and Bucky added, “Really whenever. Even at night. You won’t be locked in your room.”
“Unless you wander around the Home trying to murder people,” Steve added. Reynolds didn’t seem like the type, but it was hard to tell sometimes, and Steve didn’t want to make promises they’d have to break.
They had reached the ground floor when Bucky arrived at the topic nearest to his heart. “You like dogs?” Bucky asked.
Reynolds didn’t answer. Bucky poked him. “You like dogs, Reynolds?’
“Oh! Me? Yeah.”
“I’ve been trying to convince Tony to set up a dog program at the Home.” He paused, but the pause for breath was shorter this time. “It’s supposed to be therapeutic and shit. Training dogs. Maybe take it with you for a pet when you leave – ” He caught his breath, swaying slightly on his feet. Fresh sweat broke out on his forehead.
“We could call for backup,” Steve suggested.
Bucky shook his head. “I’m fine. They’re all tied up with the lab rats anyway.”
“Really sorry about stabbing you,” Reynolds put in. Bucky frowned at him, and Reynolds said, more softly, “Sorry.”
“Nah, it’s okay. Talk all you want. That’s supposed to be therapeutic and shit too, right?”
They turned a sharp corner in the hall and both stopped abruptly. Coulson stood halfway down the hall.
He went still for a moment when he saw them, too, and then he smiled his bland unassuming smile, as if they were all meeting unexpectedly at a cocktail party. Steve put Reynolds down, moving to block him and Bucky from Coulson’s view. “Get Reynolds to the field hospital,” Steve told Bucky.
“Roger.”
Steve would have much preferred to go with them, but he approached Coulson instead. “Why are you here?” Steve asked.
Coulson extended his hand to shake. Steve took an unsteady step back. It wasn’t a calculated snub; both his hands had gone clammy and weak at the thought of touching Coulson. Coulson let his hand fall. “I’m glad to have this opportunity to talk to you, Captain Rogers,” Coulson said.
The hair on Steve’s neck stood on end. He had half a foot and easily a hundred pounds on Coulson; even without superstrength, he could have pounded the man into the ground. But he wanted to turn and flee.
“Why are you here?” Steve asked again.
“I realize we’ve had our difficulties – ” Coulson began.
“Coulson, I think you ought to be in prison,” Steve said. “Now tell me, why are you here?”
Coulson didn’t drop the smile, but he did answer the question. “I’ll be heading the new Hydra task force at Langley,” he said. “It’s not too far from your new facility, I believe. I’m here to gather intelligence resources for my team.”
“The CIA?” Steve blurted. “The CIA hired you?”
No wonder the congressional committee had said barely a word about SHIELD. Prosecuting SHIELD might have made it hard to employ them.
“As well as Skye,” Coulson said. “They feel our expertise – ”
“Your expertise? Expertise in what? Keeping prisoners in solitary confinement? Sleep deprivation?”
Coulson had his hands in his pockets. He looked small and bland and harmless and didn’t react at all to the words sleep deprivation. So secure in his belief that Bucky would never tell. Hell, maybe he’d even forgotten.
“The CIA made use of both techniques before SHIELD did,” Coulson said mildly.
“So they want you for your mind-wiping expertise, then,” Steve said.
“They appreciate our willingness to do what needs to be done to protect us all from the threat of Hydra,” Coulson said.
“Oh, like what you did to Sanderson!” Steve said. “It wasn’t enough to just wipe his memories. The only way to protect us all from Hydra was to scramble his brain, too?”
“The T.A.H.I.T.I. procedure didn’t cause Sanderson’s brain damage. That occurred earlier, when he nearly succeeded in hanging himself in his cell.”
Steve stared at Coulson. “So he wasn’t even competent to sign those consent forms,” he said.
“He was competent to know that freedom is preferable to indefinite confinement.”
“Coulson, you realize that consent isn’t actually consent when you get it by threatening someone with eternal misery if they don’t comply, right?”
Coulson’s affable mask didn’t even slip. Steve turned to go. But he wouldn’t allow himself to run, so he didn’t outpace Coulson’s next words. “I hope we’ll be able to work together,” Coulson said. “Your facility is going to hold valuable Hydra intelligence resources.”
Steve spun to face Coulson again. He walked back toward him. He didn’t want to shout this conversation down the hallway. “Coulson, I don’t think you understand,” Steve said. He was trying to speak calmly, but he had never shared Coulson’s talent for unflappability. “Rosemont’s not a prison. It’s a treatment center for people forced to work for Hydra through brainwashing. We’re trying to help them recover so they can go back to the civilian world.”
“That’s admirable,” Coulson said, and as usual he sounded like he genuinely meant it. “I’m sure from time to time we’ll have a detainee who could benefit from your services. It would be helpful if our two organizations were on good terms.”
“Then your organization should fire you,” Steve shot back. “Because I will do everything in my power to ensure that you have no access to any of our patients. They’re at the Home to heal, not to be traumatized yet again by – ” His voice cracked. “You promised me you’d treat Bucky well, Coulson.”
Coulson remained as he had been, hands in his pockets, feet shoulder-width apart, but his stance tensed. “Has Agent Barnes complained about his treatment in SHIELD custody?” Coulson sounded ever so slightly incredulous.
“Agent Barnes,” Steve said, biting off the words, “has never said a bad word about you, which is certainly more than you’ve ever done for him.” His fists clenched so tightly that he could feel his pounding pulse in his palms. “You should have told me about the sleep deprivation, Coulson.”
“And lost the services of two excellent agents right when the Hydra threat was greatest?” Coulson said. “Defeating Hydra had to be SHIELD’s first priority, Captain Rogers.”
“Maybe you should have thought of that before doing something that would make me quit!” Steve yelled. “Or – Jesus, Coulson, I trusted you, do you know that? If you’d made an excuse, if you’d told me things got out of hand and he got upset, if you’d just fucking apologized to him – hell, I probably would have stayed. But at least I wouldn’t have gone on and on to Bucky about how SHIELD was different and wouldn’t hurt him and – ” Steve had to stop, because if he kept going he was probably going to cry, and damned if he was going to cry in front of Coulson. “God, Coulson, I trusted you,” he said. “I’m never going to forgive myself for trusting you.”
“I promised you that we would treat Agent Barnes as gently as we could,” Coulson told Steve patiently. “Which we did. He’s experienced in resisting interrogations, and therefore – ”
“He’s been tortured before, so that means you can go ahead and torture him again?” Steve exploded.
“Has he been making allegations of torture?”
“Allegations? You already admitted to the sleep deprivation!” Probably Coulson didn’t think that counted. “Are you actually trying to suggest that he was lying?” Steve said, his voice rising.
“It wouldn’t be the first time.”
Steve punched him.
The force of the punch sent Coulson flying across the hallway. He slammed against the wall, his head hitting the cinderblock with a crack, and he slid down the wall to land in a heap on the floor.
Coulson lifted a hand to touch to blood trickling out of the corner of his mouth. He worked his jaw, and Steve had the horrible impression that Coulson was going to speak.
“Don’t,” Steve said sharply. “Get out of here. I’m done listening to you.” And Steve turned and walked away.
***
“Why the hell is Coulson here?”
Tony and Rhodey both looked up as Steve burst into the office the Avengers had commandeered as mission HQ. They had their visors pushed back to reveal their faces, like a couple of knights resting mid-joust. “Not another one,” Tony said.
It was Bucky who answered Steve. He slouched on a wooden bench by the wall. “The CIA’s hired him to start up an anti-Hydra division.” His voice took on the singsong quality it got when he was disgusted. “He’s gatecrashing our bust.”
“And you’re letting him?” Steve asked Tony and Rhodey, appalled. “After everything we saw when we opened up the Corncrib? Send him away. He’s going to nab up everyone he can, whether they’re brainwashed or not, and put them through hell.” He should have dragged Coulson here with him rather than leaving him there bleeding in the hall.
An uncomfortable silence followed. “We have way more Hydra agents then we can process, Steve,” Tony said. “And Coulson promised – ”
“He’s lying,” Bucky interrupted.
“Thank you, Frosted Flakes, but I heard you the first five times you said that,” Tony said. “Got any supporting evidence?”
Steve moved to stand by Bucky’s side. “The mind-wiping’s not enough?” Steve asked.
“It’s proof that he’s a slippery bastard, not that he’s a liar,” Tony said. “He didn’t even try to lie about it once he knew we knew.”
“Then he’s lying – ” Bucky began again. The wood splintered beneath his metal fingers as he gripped the edge of the bench. “Just like he lied to Steve when he said he wouldn’t hurt me. If he’s willing to put Captain America’s best friend through five days of sleep deprivation, what’s he going to do to a bunch of nobodies?”
His eyes rose, just fractionally, to Tony and Rhodey’s metal-framed faces. He met their eyes for a few seconds, but couldn’t hold it any longer; he looked away.
Rhodey and Tony looked at each other. “I could tell Coulson there’s been a misunderstanding,” Rhodey said. “He’ll have to leave, most unfortunate, see you never.”
“Let me do it,” Tony said.
“Tony, you need to be diplomatic about – ”
“Race ya!” Tony said, and zoomed out the door with a single blast from his thrusters. Rhodey zoomed out after him.
Bucky wrapped his metal arm around himself. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
Steve sat next to him. He could feel Bucky trembling faintly. He wanted to put a hand on Bucky’s shoulder, but Bucky’s flesh shoulder was all bandaged up, so he pressed his hand to the back of Bucky’s neck instead. “You did the right thing.”
Bucky shuffled away. He tried to lift his hand to cover his face, but his wounded shoulder wouldn’t cooperate. He let his head droop instead. The few loose strands that had fallen from his ponytail weren’t enough to hide his face. “I shouldn’t have.”
“It was the only way to make sure he didn’t get his hands on Reynolds – ”
“I know, Steve – ”
“ – or anyone else like him,” Steve finished. He tasted bitterness in his throat. “I wish I’d punched Coulson harder.”
“Steve,” Bucky said. He sat bolt upright. “You punched Coulson? Don’t fucking antagonize Coulson.”
“He deserved it,” Steve said petulantly, and had a kaleidoscopic sense of fracture and reversal: that should have been Bucky’s line. “I wish I’d never trusted him. If I’d kept a better eye on him, maybe he wouldn’t have gotten away with so much shit.”
“For fuck’s sake,” Bucky said. “You know Coulson wasn’t ever going to let your scruples get in the way of doing what he thought was necessary.”
“I guess,” Steve said. “I just thought…” It was difficult to speak. He had to start over. “Natasha told me about her first SHIELD debriefing. After Clint brought her in when he was supposed to kill her. At first she only agreed to join SHIELD to buy herself time, but when she realized they really weren’t going to torture her, she decided she wanted to join SHIELD for real. For its own sake.” He forced himself to look at Bucky. “I thought your debriefing would be like that,” he said. “I trusted Coulson and I shouldn’t have, and you paid the price. And I’m sorry.”
Bucky’s gaze was intent on Steve. “Steve,” he said. “Don’t blame yourself for trusting Coulson.”
“Why not?” Steve’s voice was raw.
“He puts on a really good show. I thought I knew what he was capable of, and I was still so surprised when it turned out he was mind-wiping people. I mean, the man made us waffles. He seems so…”
Bucky’s voice trailed off. “So friendly. So calm. So competent,” Steve suggested. His mouth twisted. “So not evil.”
“All of that. Yeah,” Bucky said. “We all trusted him. Not just you.”
He leaned against Steve’s shoulder, his metal arm digging into Steve’s shoulder. Steve put an arm around him, careful not to touch his wound. Bucky turned his face into Steve’s shoulder and sighed.
“Am I interrupting something?”
Natasha stood on the threshold. Steve felt chagrined. If she had been an enemy, he never would have seen her coming.
“No,” said Bucky. He turned his head so his cheek rather than his nose pressed into Steve’s shoulder, and he grinned at Natasha.
Natasha came the rest of the way into the office, her ICER swinging at her hip. She set a sheaf of papers down on a desk in the corner, and turned as if to go. But she paused there, looking at them, wearing an expression Steve took a few moments to recognize as tenderness.
She caught him looking, and made a face at him. “You be nice to that boy,” Natasha admonished Steve.
“I’m always nice,” Steve protested.
Natasha laughed at him. “Sure you are, Cap.”
“He tries,” Bucky said. He smiled. “He always tries.”