Chapter Text
When you wake up, everything aches.
You aren't in pain. Nothing hurts, exactly. But it feels like you've been wrapped in a compression sleeve, from the top of your head to the tips of your toes, muzzled and taut, and you think, when the pressure is lessened, there will be pain. Your muscles are wound tight; your lungs push up against the inside of your ribcage, and when you roll your head to the side, it almost feels… sloshy, like there’s too much liquid surrounding it.
The bed under you crinkles like plastic; the pillow feels like paper.
You wince.
“Oh, you’re waking up,” says an unfamiliar voice just to your left. You try to open your eyes—but the light is blinding at first, painful immediately after, and you wince and squeeze them shut again. “Let me turn those down for you.”
The light dims; you cautiously open your eyes again. “Where am I?”
“Well, they just moved you from the ICU, that’s the good news. You’ll be able to rest much better here, and as soon as we’ve got you settled, you can have your visitors back.”
“Visitors?” ICU—that’s a hospital. You look around—and yes, it’s true. You’re in a hospital bed, and a hospital gown, with all the monitors and devices around what is very clearly a hospital room. There’s a bandage wrapped around your left wrist, and you reach up with your right to touch the bandage on your forehead. Your shoulder aches, as does your chest. “What happened?”
“Three cracked ribs, a sprained wrist, and a rather nasty cut on your head,” reports the nurse, focused on the machine tracking your heart rate. “But otherwise you’re fine.”
You nod, your head waking up faster now. “And everyone else?”
The nurse glances at you. “Everyone—”
The door flies open. “Ha! I knew you were awake,” says Sharon Carter smugly as the door closes behind her again, leaving her mostly in silhouette. She strides closer to the bed.
“Sharon!”
“How are you feeling?” she asks, taking your hand and squeezing it.
“Like double-O’s martini,” you say, and Sharon laughs at the old joke.
“Well, that’s fair,” says Sharon. “You’ve been unconscious for three days.”
“Three days?!?” you exclaim—a bit too loud, you wince at how much speaking hurts your throat.
Sharon points at your head. “You had a huge knock on your noggin, sister.”
You reach for your head again. “Wish I could remember how I got it.”
Sharon’s eyes widen a little, and she darts a look at the nurse, who shrugs. “Not uncommon with head injuries. The memory will come back, or it won’t.”
“What do you remember?” asks Sharon.
You bite your lip a little, thinking. “We were at lunch…” In the Triskelion’s cafeteria. With John and Elizabeth, and you’d been eating your salad as quick as you could, one eye on the clock.
“Yeah.”
“I had an appointment…” In the sublayers; there was some strange coding that had been causing you no end of concern, so you’d scheduled a meeting with your supervisor to show him what was happening.
“You were running late,” prompts Sharon, when your voice trails off.
The halls had gone dark, halfway down; the entire building had begun to rumble.
The Captain’s voice, echoing in the hallways… it's time you know the truth. SHIELD is not what we thought it was…
You shook your head. “I don’t remember. I was on my way there, and…everything went dark.” You look up at Sharon, your breath coming faster.
“Close the bay door, close the bay door now!”
“Sharon, they launched them.”
“Launched what?” asks Sharon, confused.
“Insight, they launched Insight!”
Sharon’s eyes go wide, and her mouth drops open.
“It wasn’t a protection system, Sharon, it was a kill system—we have to get them down, it’s not Shield, it’s Hydra, they’re going to kill—”
The nurse is already back away, slowly, staring at you.
Sharon’s hands are gripping yours so tight, you think she’s cutting off circulation.
The door to your room bursts open again, and this time, a man steps through.
Dark hair, shoulder length. Scruff on his chin and cheeks, dark clothes.
Metal hand.
Metal hand.
The Winter Soldier.
You scream. You scream, certain you’re about to die, and you keep screaming, right along with Sharon, right along with the Soldier, right up until the nurse sticks the needle in your arm and you fall back in the safety of unconsciousness.
*
The room is still dark when you wake, quiet except for the soft beeps coming from the monitors, the hushed murmur of voices from the other side of the door. Far-off sounds, familiar from years of watching hospital-based rom-coms.
There’s a person sitting by your bed, in the shadows. You can't see them clearly, but there's something sinister about the way they're sitting, watching, unmoving.
You hold your breath, waiting to see if they've noticed you're awake.
Whoever sits there, doesn’t move.
“Good, you’re awake again,” says a soft voice next to your bed: soft, but brisk, too. You turn your head and startle.
Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow, unfolds herself from where she’s inexplicably been curled on the hospital chair. “Don’t worry about him; security. You’re safe now, he’s going to make sure of it.”
You nod, trying not to glance at the figure. “Ms Romanoff, the helicarriers aren’t a peace-keeping measure, there’s a sub-programming, I didn’t realize until about ten minutes before they started launching—”
“It’s okay,” says Romanoff, her hand gentle on your arm. Soothing. Self-assured. “We know. We stopped them.”
You breathe out, relieved, and try again not to glance at the security in the shadowed chair.
“You tried to stop them yourself?” says Romanoff.
You nod. “Stupid, really. But once they’re up, the only way to stop them is from the ships themselves. Figured I’d try to get on board one and at least get that down. But… I’m sorry. I don’t really remember what happened when I got to the launchpad—”
“It’s okay,” says Romanoff, a little too quick. “You did good.”
You nod, feeling your brain slosh in your head a little, but there’s flashes of memory. Maybe what happened to you? You’re not sure, you don’t really understand or recognize any of it. The crash of metal, the creeping fire, the shouting.
You’re missing something. You can’t remember what.
The door opens, and you look up to see a doctor and nurse come into the room. “Ah, you’re awake. How are you feeling?”
“Okay,” you say. “Spacey.”
“You did get a rather serious knock on the head,” says the doctor. “Not your first, I take it?”
“Yes,” you say, confused. “I mean. Apart from knocking my head against an open cabinet door once in a while.”
The doctor glances at his notes, then Romanoff, then you. Even you can make out the worry in his eyes, though his face seems rather flat. “Don’t mind the stupidity of these next questions, we have to ask them whenever someone’s had a head injury. Can you tell me the year?”
“2014.”
“And where we are? The city, I mean.”
“DC? Arlington? Sorry, I’m not sure which hospital I’m in,” you apologize. “No one’s said.”
The doctor nods. “Don’t worry about it. What do you do for work?”
“That’s classified,” you and Romanoff say together, almost in tandem, and the doctor smiles. “I work with computer codes,” you continue. “Boring stuff, I promise. And no, I’m not fixing your computer, get a decent anti-virus.”
The doctor smiles again, marking something on his notes. “Husband? Boyfriend? Girlfriend?”
You raise your eyebrows. “Are you asking me out?”
“Mostly checking that you have someone to help out when we discharge you,” says the doctor, so smoothly that you think he might actually be telling the truth.
“No,” you say. “But I have good friends, they’ll take care of me.”
“Names?” asks Romanoff. “So we can contact them.”
You glance at her. “Sharon Carter, she was here earlier. Grant Ward, but he’s on assignment. Rochelle and Danny Smith, they might be the best people to ask. Can I go home?”
The doctor, inexplicably, glances at Romanoff again, who shifts in her seat and leans closer to you. “Not a good idea, not yet. Not with what you found. It’ll be easier to keep you safe here where there’s so many eyes. But soon. We have to… get a few things set up.”
You nod. “I have a cat.”
“We know,” says Romanoff. “He’s fine, he’s safe.” Her mouth quirks. “Steve’s got him.”
“I don’t know a—” Your eyes widen. “Oh shit. You mean Steve Rogers.”
“Mm-hmm.” Romanoff is smiling.
“Steve Rogers has my cat,” you repeat, eyes going wide. “Captain America has my cat?!?”
“Wrapped around his little finger,” says Romanoff, raising her pinkie. “This one. I’ll bring you a picture later.”
“Please,” you say.
*
The day passes quietly, between doctors and nurses and falling back to sleep, which is strange because even though you slept three days straight, you’re exhausted.
Romanoff is replaced by a handsome Black man who introduces himself as Sam Wilson. He’s got a smile a mile wide and close-cropped hair, and his hand when he shakes yours is large and warm, and you don’t want to let go. Partially because he’s cute as hell; partially because you think you recognize something friendly in him. Besides, Romanoff seems to trust him, and anyone the Black Widow trusts can’t be nearly as awful as your last boyfriend.
“Hi, Sam Wilson,” you say, flashing him a big smile.
“Oh, no,” laughs Sam Wilson, still shaking your hand but now shaking his head, too. “Don’t you go flirting with me. You’re gonna get me into trouble.”
You shrug one shoulder. “Can you blame me?”
Sam laughs again, lets go of your hand, and pulls the chair a bit closer. He doesn’t look at the figure still sitting in the shadows, and that’s a point in his favor, you think.
The figure hasn’t moved, not once that you’ve seen. Maybe he moves while you sleep, but you wouldn’t know. Romanoff might have tried to reassure you, but something about him in the shadows makes you uneasy.
Sam is the one who tells you that Grant Ward is Hydra. He does it kindly, quietly, without stumbling or trying to soften the blow.
And he doesn’t seem bothered by your crying, either. “I just don’t… he was my first friend at Shield,” you explain, wiping at your eyes. “He was so good, Sam, he donated to that damn Salvation Army tree every Christmas. He always gave money to panhandlers. He volunteered at a soup kitchen.”
“Right and wrong ain’t always black and white,” says Sam gently.
You huff a laugh. “He’s the one who convinced me to do the firearms training, you know that? And he nominated me for the coding brief. He wouldn’t admit it, but I know he did. And that’s the job that got me into Insighhhhh… oh.” It hits like a metal wall to your forehead. “Fuck. Sam. Was he grooming me? Was he going to recruit me for Hydra?”
Sam sighs and lets his head fall back. “Yeah, maybe at first. That’s what it sure looks like, anyway. We think he stopped doing that a while back, though, figured you weren’t ever gonna jump ship on Shield.”
“Hell, no.”
“The last year, we think he was just… keeping you as an unwitting accomplice. No one thinks you’re Hydra,” Sam hurries to add. “No one.”
“Fuck,” you whisper, closing your eyes. “Thank god for that.”
“I know it’s hard, when you think you know somebody,” continues Sam, “and it turns out you didn’t know them at all.”
“He was my friend,” you say, miserable. “He helped me get Alpine home from the shelter.”
“Yeah?”
You nod, picking at your blanket. “And stupid thing is, I keep wondering where he is. If he’s okay.”
Sam’s lips are a thin line. You can almost see him thinking.
“He’s dead, isn’t he?” you say softly.
Sam nods, cautiously.
You close your eyes and rest against the pillow.
“I’m sorry,” says Sam.
You shake your head. “He was Hydra. I shouldn’t be mourning him.”
“He was your friend,” says Sam softly, taking your hand again and giving it a gentle squeeze. “You can mourn the man you thought you knew.”
You squeeze Sam’s hand back, and he lets you.
*
You’re waking up when you realize there’s multiple voices talking in your room.
“—have to tell her eventually—” A woman, a voice you think you should know, but you’re not sure why.
“Does it have to be now?”
“You want to put up some fake windows and pretend she’s in Foggy Bottom, be my guest!” An angry man. “Maybe a baseball game on the radio for good measure.”
“Yeah, I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Sharon, you think. “But she should know before she goes back home.”
“She doesn’t remember home,” snaps the angry man again. “She doesn’t remember—”
“What don’t I remember?” you mumble.
The arguing stops. The players all shuffle places; you can hear them move.
And you hear one of them sit back down on the chair in the shadowy corner.
“Sorry about that,” says the woman—the first one, closer to your bed now. You struggle to open your eyes, and instantly you know why her voice was familiar. Maria Hill, assistant director of Shield. Of course you’d know her voice, you’ve heard it in countless video conferences and addresses to the entire organization. “We didn’t mean to wake you.”
“I’ve slept enough,” you say cautiously. “I… I’m sorry, I tried to stop them.”
Hill’s eyebrows go up. “Them?”
“The helicarriers. Insight. But Romanoff says you stopped them anyway?”
Hill nods. “Yes.”
“I want to help,” you say. “I’ll answer anything you ask. I can show you the codes, how they were hidden. I swear, I didn’t know they were there until—”
Hill raises her hand. “It’s okay. I believe you. Actually, I think you’re going to have more questions than I will.”
You wrinkle your forehead, confused. “I… I don’t understand.”
Hill glances over at the others in the room—Sam, who’s leaning against the wall, arms crossed in front of his chest. He gives a slow, careful nod. Sharon, who sits in the chair behind Hill, hands clasped together tightly. She doesn’t move a bit.
And the man in the corner, in the shadows, who you still can’t quite see.
He blinks, though. The light around his eyes changes when he does.
Hill looks back at you. “What’s the last thing you remember?”
You swallow. “I was in the South Sub-level 5 corridor. I boarded the elevator to get down to the base level. I had the destruct codes on a flash in my pocket. Figured I could take one of them down. But there was a fire, I saw it as soon as I got there. I ran for the last carrier, but…” You shake your head. “I don’t know. It was really noisy, it sounded like the entire place was falling apart.”
“It did,” said Romanoff, low.
“The catwalk,” you remember, suddenly. “It fell on top of me.”
“It did,” says Hill. She sounds surprised, which you think is odd. “You remember that?”
You nod. “Yeah, I heard the noise, and I looked up and… I saw it come down.”
“Do you remember anything else?” asks Hill, scooting forward. “Anyone else?”
You shake your head, shuddering. “No, I… I heard shouting. Other people. I guess boarding the helicarriers? I think I shouted for help, and then I blacked out.”
“Hmm,” says Hill, sitting back in her chair. “That’s more than you remembered before, anyway.”
“Before?” you echo, but Natasha breaks in before you can ask for clarification.
“You were trapped under one of the catwalks for a while before anyone could get to you,” she says.
“Huh.” You look down at your chest. “Guess that explains the ribs. I’m surprised I wasn’t hurt more.”
“You were,” says Hill quietly. “Broken arm. Concussion. Three bones in your leg.”
You blink, staring at your body. Your head feels funny; there’s a pounding in your ears. “But… no? My arm’s not broken. Or my leg.”
“Not anymore, no,” says Hill. “Those breaks, that day… That was three years ago.”
You look up, blinking as the world swirls around you. “What?”
“It’s not 2014,” says Sharon. “It’s 2017. We’re not in a hospital outside DC; we’re in the Medical Wing of Avengers Tower in New York.”
You want to laugh, but your head is still spinning and there’s still a pounding in your ears. “I’m sorry. You’re telling me… I’ve been sleeping for three years?”
“No,” says Sam. “You were in another accident three days ago. But you hit your head, and it looks like the knock to your hippocampus may have resulted in… resetting the clock, to when you last had a brain injury.”
“Insight,” you echo, and he nods. “Do I… did I… forget stuff then, too?”
“No,” says Sharon quickly, forcefully. “You didn’t forget anything.” She laughs, though it’s humorless. “You were in shock, mostly. And when you got out of that part… oh, god, you were so mad. You went through and ripped up every picture of Grant you had, and we had a bonfire on your roof and burned everything. We had s’mores and we got stupid drunk and Romanoff taught us how to drink vodka straight. It was great.”
You stare at her. “I… I don’t remember that.”
“I have pictures, I’ll show you.”
You look back at Maria Hill. “I don’t remember anything. It’s… it’s really 2017?”
Hill nods.
“And… we’re in New York?”
Hill swallows. “Friday, windows at 75% visibility.”
Before you can ask what she’s said, the windows lighten, just enough that the Manhattan skyline from maybe fifty stories up is visible.
“Holy shit,” you whisper. “Is that the Brooklyn Bridge?”
“Verrazzano,” says Sharon.
“I made the same mistake,” says Sam. “Which some assholes won’t let me forget.”
“Oh, nice, Wilson,” scoffs Sharon.
You start to tremble. “I… why am I here? I’ve never lived in New York. I was only here once in my life, on a school trip, freshman year! Am I at Shield’s office here?”
“Not exactly,” says Hill. “Shield doesn’t exist anymore. After the Triskelion fell—”
“It fell?”
“On you, mostly,” says Sharon.
“Now who’s being nice,” says Sam.
Hill sighs, exasperated, but keeps her focus on you. “Your official job title is Project Supervisor for Stark Industries, but your actual job is Communication Specialist for the Avengers Initiative, which is based in Avengers Tower, in New York. You’re the primary support officer when the team is in the field. As such, you’ve been living in New York the last three years, with the last year and a half in the Tower itself.”
“In the Tower?” you repeat, glancing at Sharon and Sam in turn; they both nod. “Why do I live in the Tower? Wait… I’m not an Avenger, am I?”
“No,” says Hill quickly. “You support them, you aren’t one of them.”
Sharon coughs, and you glance at her. “Are you?”
She shakes her head, but then points at Sam. “He is, though.”
“Most of the time,” amends Sam.
You stare at them. “Am I in danger?”
“No,” says Hill. “You’re safe.”
“So why do I live in the Tower? If I’m not an Avenger and I’m not in danger…”
“Just… tell her,” growls the man in the corner.
The same angry man from before. Your heart starts to race again; you turn to stare at him, or what you can see of him. Despite the light pouring in from the window, he’s still mostly in shadow.
Though you can see his outline. The hair, lank and limp around his ears. The dark clothes. The way his face is tilted down, as if he’s afraid to look you.
“Who are you?” you ask, unable to keep your voice from shaking. “Do I know you?”
He stands, and your heart starts to pound even harder, and your hands shake, even the one Sharon’s holding.
“My name is James Bucky Barnes,” he says, and your heart nearly stops. “And you live in the Tower with me.”
You can’t speak; your fingers grip the blanket.
He steps into the light, and you recognize him.
The Winter Soldier.
The roaring in your ears is so loud. You can’t breathe. The entire world slows to a pinpoint, and you’re absolutely, positively sure that you’re about to die.
You barely hear the next thing he says:
“I’m your husband.”