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Steve had spent a lot of time in hospitals growing up. Lots of things had changed since his time -- there were certainly more machines. And the nurses seemed to be wearing outfits that looked more comfortable than the pantyhoses and dresses and caps he’d been accustomed to as a child and as a soldier in the Army. Certain things had, of course, stayed the same. The coffee was terrible. The people moved quickly, efficiently, though not without kindness. The smell was the same -- antiseptic, body odor. And the feeling was the same as it had been with his mother had slowly wasted away to her death: a sort of helplessness, being unable to do anything except to sit and wait, and to watch.
He held onto her hand... and watched.
There had been so much blood. And though Bruce had moved quickly, and Steve had done all he could (and he had no little experience in field medicine), when they had arrived at the hospital, the doctors had arranged their faces into hard lines and he’d know, right then and there, that maybe all they could do wouldn’t be enough.
He could remember, perfectly, the things they’d shouted -- how much blood she’d lost, the organ damage, and he would have given anything to have super-healing or something. But he didn’t. What he had was a psychotic best friend and a half-dead girlfriend and there was practically nothing his super-strength could do to make the situation better.
“You know she’s going to be fine, right?” Tony said, as he sat down on the arm of Steve’s chair.
“They said they’ve done all they can do.”
“That means the rest of this battle’s in Darcy’s hands and I don’t know anyone more goddamn stubborn than her.”
Steve’s mouth lifted in the corner. “No. That’s because there isn’t.”
“So. I don’t know about you. But I’m not going to sit around here and sulk. Your buddy Bucky? I figure he’s like a programmed computer at this point. We’ve got to find the source code so we can deprogram him.”
“You’ve got a lead on where Buck was before?”
Tony shrugged. “I’m no SHIELD agent but then I’m not restrained by as many pesky... regulations as they are. I couldn’t give two shits about the privacy of people not smart enough to cover their tracks.”
“I’m not hearing this,” Steve said, shaking his head.”I’m not hearing you tell me that you broke the law.”
“I never said that. I might have implied it. But I didn’t say it. Point being. Whenever you’re ready, Chuckles, I’ve got some info we can make a move on.”
Steve looked at Darcy, pale and still and somehow, he knew, depending on him. “Just as soon as she wakes up.”
“Like I said, Cap. Whenever you’re ready.”
**
Pepper's shoes made a distinctive clacking sound as they marched down the hallway, carrying their owner to a suite inside the hospital. Tony's father had practically built the hospital the first time around, and when it had been damaged in Loki's attack, Tony actually had rebuilt it. So when the 911 when out from Stark Tower, and Mr. Stark made it clear that the victim was someone close to him, Darcy had received the very best in medical care that the city of New York had to offer. Which had been practically the only reassuring thing in the past twenty-four hours, Pepper thought, as she returned to the hallway outside of the suite where Darcy was currently resting, fighting for her life.
"Any new information turn up while I was away?" Pepper asked as she took a seat next to the somber-faced Dr. Foster.
"Bruce has gone to get an update. He's the only one of us that hasn't pissed off the nursing staff since we got here," Jane said, gratefully accepting the coffee Pepper offered. "I think the rest of us have been obnoxious."
"I can't imagine any of you being anything but lovely," Pepper said, hints of a smile dancing on her lips.
"Any news from SHIELD?"
Pepper pursed her lips and shook her head. "Barnes went 'inactive' after he stabbed Darcy, and we haven't been able to wake him up. It seems to be the last failsafe on his personal time bomb. Natasha and Clint are pretty convinced that the attack on the tower was meant to be a diversion so Barnes could complete his ultimate mission. And Darcy; or possibly Steve or Tony by way of Darcy, was the primary target. Natasha says she’s not surprised Barnes slipped the restraints without anyone noticing. Phil will let me know when they figure out how he managed to slip a shiv into the operating room, and where he was keeping it.”
“Steve’s in with Darcy,” Jane said. “I’ve been trying to get him to take a break... put something in that machine of a body of his, put on some fresh clothes...”
Pepper flashed a smile. "It's much different being the handler of a superhero, isn't it?"
"I admit I have some sympathy for Darcy now," Jane said. "I always appreciated her, but nothing like this. She's my new hero for dealing so easily with my stubborness and Steve's... and Tony's."
“I am a prince to work for, no matter what anyone says,” Tony said, as he approached from the hallway. “Hey, hon... get everything sorted out?”
“As much as I could. Phil’s... working on the Barnes situation. What about you?”
“It looked a little rough in there. I think I got it sorted out.”
Pepper raised an eyebrow. “You did?”
“I’ve got skills. People skills, Pep. I am a people person.”
A smile danced around the edges of Pepper’s mouth. “No, Tony. You’re really not.”
“Tony?” His stride took him right up to her, and he pulled her close. “In public? I’m shocked, Ms. Potts.”
“Yes, well... it has been a very stressful day.” To her dismay, Pepper’s eyes began to water. “Is she really going to be okay?”
“Steve says the doctors refuse to tell him much more than she’s got a fight on her hands,” Tony said, “but Bruce might be able to get us some more solid information. Still, it’s Darcy. We picked her on sheer pluck, Potts.”
“Yes, we did. And if pluck was a deciding factor in surviving a stabbing...” Pepper shook herself. “Well. It does no one any good to think that way. Are you okay?”
“Coping, Potts. Coping. And we have an audience. All our friends are here. Kiss me quick, I want to show off my technique. I’ll bet Bruce goes green with envy.”
Pepper snorted. “Tony, don’t be an ass.”
He kissed her cheek, lingering for a second longer than a purely chaste intention. “It’s my primary function, Potts.”
“Ah. I believe I have some information, if you’re interested.” Bruce rubbed the back of his neck. “If you’re done with the mating ritual.”
“Normally at this point I’d present her with my plumage and do a dance, but if we haven’t got that kind of time...”
Jane Foster shot him a look, and Pepper felt the woman rise a notch in her estimation. Very few people could quell Tony with a glance, but she managed it. “Don’t water it down, Bruce.”
“The shank pierced her between her ribs, and missed any vital organs. Barring her extremities, if there was a good place to get stabbed, Barnes chose it,” Bruce said. “At this point, the major concerns are the blood loss and the risk of infection. Surgery repaired most of the internal damage. Now we wait and see if she makes it through the night. But the doctors seemed optimistic when I talked to them.”
“Okay, then.” Jane set her shoulders. “She’s going to be okay. She is.”
“Yes.” Pepper found a seat, and crossed one leg over the other. “She doesn’t have any other choice.”
Tony pressed a kiss to her cheek and sat down next to her.
**
“It’s happened before,” Coulson said to Thor as they watched Barnes from behind bullet-proof glass. “It’s some kind of fail-safe mechanism. Much more sophisticated than what we were up against with Widow.”
“Jane informs me that our enemies had more time to tamper with the mind of this warrior.”
Coulson nodded. “He’s been wiped and reset so many times our doctors tell us we’re lucky he’s not drooling into the carpet.”
“Is he to be punished for his transgression?”
“Knowing what I know of Mr. Barnes’ history, I imagine he will be hard enough on himself once he realizes what he’s done.”
The door opened and Natasha’s soft tread alerted the men to her presence. “Are we moving forward, Agent Coulson?”
Coulson shrugged. “Since he can’t advocate for himself at the moment, we thought we’d let you make that call, if you wanted to.”
“Are there more risks to doing the procedure now?”
“Just different ones,” Coulson said. “It might be longer before we know if the procedure garnered any kind of results.”
“We wait. Until he comes out of it,” Natasha said, crossing her arms over her chest. “I want to talk to him. Perhaps we can attain some information about why Darcy was his target.”
“Agreed. Lewis isn’t a big enough target to make Lukin’s hit-list, if it was Lukin himself who programmed Barnes before allowing Barnes to be captured.”
“And you’re going to hold off fixing him on the off-chance that he’ll remember something?” Coulson hadn’t heard Hawkeye enter the room, but he didn’t allow any sign that he’d been startled.
“It isn’t my decision.” He placed his hands on his hips. “Natasha made the call.”
“Tasha --”
“It’s what James would want. If he were in his right mind.” Natasha’s face didn’t change at all, her voice was as carefully blank as it ever was. “I think. I am pretty sure.”
Coulson’s phone binged. The text message was from one of his agents at the hospital. “Stark is up to no good.”
“That’s his default setting,” Coulson quickly typed back. “Text me with real news.”
“We must discover why Lady Darcy was assaulted,” Thor said, his big booming voice full of the authority that most people would never question. “If there is some larger plot, it must be put to end.”
Natasha nodded in acknowledgement. “Agreed.”
“Doesn’t sit well with me, but I’ll take a backseat on this one,” Barton said.
“He’s twitching,” Coulson said. “We might not have to wait very long at all.”
Natasha moved past all of the men into the holding room. Thor tried to follow her but Coulson held up a hand. “Let’s let Natasha take point on this one.”
“Are you certain that’s a good idea?” Barton asked, ready to move in as well.
“She’s a big girl. And she’s got an in with Barnes... and you try talking her out of anything when she’s got that look on her face.”
**
There was a buzzing in his brain... a loud noise through which he was filtering the rest of the world,and a voice that kept insisting phase one complete. Phase two initiate. Phase one complete. Phase two initiate. Ringing in his ears and through his membranes and all over his skin. But he could remember now, remember what phase two was, and remember the look on Darcy’s face when the urge he’d been fighting for so long finally got the better of him.
And then all of a sudden, there was her. She’d worn different perfumes at different times, of course, but the one she was wearing now he had an affection for because he’d bought her a bottle of it, long ago, on a street in some forgotten city, on some forgotten mission, and he knew, in those little fractured memories he was able to grasp at, that she’d worn it for him the last time he saw her, the last time he held her. She’d worn the perfume, and nothing else.
Natalia.
It was a circus inside his mind. But he could hold on to lust. He could on to love. “Did I ever tell you, you have gorgeous skin?”
She walked around his bed. More like stalked, really. And he remembered a time when her body hadn’t moved in quite that way quite that easily. And he remembered a time when there was death in her eyes, instead of the something he saw there now.
“You have mentioned it. Once or twice.”
“I could write sonnets about it. Do you know, I remember the way you taste now?”
“You talk about sex when you want to avoid a more difficult subject. And there are cameras everywhere, so don’t get your hopes up.”
Bucky grinned. “Cameras never slowed you down before.”
“Why Darcy?”
A sharp pain through his frontal lobe, like a lance. “The girl. The girl I stabbed.”
“Yes. The girl you stabbed.”
“Curvy. Beautiful. Liked her smile, I really did. Shame she had to die. Steve loves her. He’s got that dopey look on his face. Had the same expression whenever Sister Mary Teresa would come around. Two hundred pounds of muscle heavier, and the man still doesn’t know how to keep his cool. Ugh, English has gotten strange.”
“James. I need you to focus. I need you to tell me why.”
“Can’t. It’s a little like you’re killing me when you ask these questions, Natalia.”
“Natasha.”
“What?”
“My name is Natasha now.”
“Natasha. I like it. I like you. I like that thing you do with your hips.”
Natasha smirked. “You taught me that thing with my hips.”
“Shame I can’t remember that. Shame I can’t tell you more, really. I want to help. Steve. Steve’s girl, with the rack and the sweaters and she brings me tea sometimes, did you know that? She’s a good girl. The best. And Steve deserves the best. Likes baseball, Steve does. Nut for the Dodgers. He’s going to be so pissed that they moved. Has anyone told him that?”
“James.” She put her hand on his arm, pressed her weight down on him as though trying to keep him grounded. “Darcy. Why Darcy?”
He felt like he was walking on nails. Nails that were on fire. It was a fight to get every word out. But there was still some part of him that was Bucky Barnes. “Surveillance showed she was the weak link. The lynchpin. Distract Stark. Distract Hulk. Distract Captain America.”
“Why?”
“Lukin wants you all looking in the wrong places for the right reasons. Don’t know more than that.”
“It’s a start.” Natasha let up off of his arm and looked over at the window and nodded her head.
“Handlers. Can’t escape them anywhere we go, can we? Always watching, always looking. Barnes has a thing for the young one, the red head. Tell her we’ll kill her next.”
“No.” She gripped his arm again, dug her nails in. “I am not going back to the Red Room. You aren’t either, James. So... stop.”
“Your hair is beautiful these days. You’re beautiful. And you’re strong, aren’t you? Of course you are. I need you to be strong, Natasha. I need you to kill me.”
He saw a trace of fear creep across her face. She chased it away, but he’d always been able to read her.
“No.” Her voice was flat.
“You wouldn’t keep a rabid dog alive. Even in the Red Room they taught you that much. You remember all the girls they broke. All the ones who turned out like me. The ones who fought it.”
Natasha bent down and ran a hand over his hair. “Do you remember when I went in for the Final Test, do you remember what you said to me?”
James shook his head.
“You said that I had to come out of it alive. That you could help me fix whatever they broke. That all I had to do was make it through, and you’d be on the other side.”
“I don’t remember.”
“Well. I do. And James?”
“Yeah?”
“All I need you to do is stay alive. I’ll be on the other side, okay? I promise.”
James closed his eyes, submitting to the voices of pain that had exhausted him so far, but he fell asleep with Natasha’s hand in his hair, and that was enough to ease a little of the fire.
**
The clock next to the bed flashed numbers, and the machines beeped and whirred, keeping Darcy alive, monitoring her. The door cracked open and a bouncy young woman stepped in. Steve could tell she was tired, but he appreciated that she took the time to be pleasant. She asked him for his name, and he gave it to her. Then she flashed him a big grin. “I’m sorry, this is going to sound dorky, but do you know who you look like?”
Steve raised his head and looked at the nurse who was busy taking readings. “Um, no?”
“I’m sure you hear this all the time. But you look just like that guy they say is Captain America.”
“Ah. Yeah. I have heard that before.”
“Don’t,” Darcy moaned from the bed. “He’ll just get a big head and then I’ve got to talk him down again...”
“Darce!” Steve lurched forward before he remembered she was probably in a lot of pain.
“Welcome back to the land of the living,” the young nurse said. “Do you know who you are?”
“Darcy Lewis, assistant to the stars,” Darcy said, and swallowed. “Fuck. Goddamn. Ouch.”
“Uncomfortable?” The nurse ran over to a machine and fiddled with it. “We’ll get that taken care of.”
“Okay.” Darcy laid back on the sheets. “Steve...”
“He’s pretty cute,” the nurse said in a low voice. “He’s been here the whole time. Your friends have been in and out, trying to get him to take care of himself. But you’ve got a good egg there, don’t you?”
Darcy smiled. “He’s all right.”
“I’m glad to see you awake,” the nurse said. “I’ll call the doctor. He’ll be in in a minute. And I’ll get out of your way so you can calm Mr. Hottie’s fears. Be patient with him. You gave us quite a scare.”
The door closed, and Darcy looked over at Steve. “How long? How bad was it?”
Steve just shook his head and reached for her hand. “I am... so glad you came back to me.”
“Steve...don’t...” Darcy squeezed his hand as he started to cry. “I’m sorry, honey. I’m so sorry.”