Archive of Our Own

Pain. Choking.
Sharp. Right arm.
Visual reflex. Disengage. Too bright.Prevent damage.
Three units present. Female at 3. Male at 8. Male at 11. Exit at 12.
Visual: two weapons, automatic. Three concealed: one handgun, two knives.
Threat level five. Remain alert.
Arms and legs... clamped. Defence impossible.
Countering muscular spasms. Regulating breathing.
Awaiting release of clamps. Remain still.
Time: 08:01am (safe)
Tubes disengaged. Clamps released.
Submit to inspection. Submit to inspection. Heartrate ri... submit... submit...
Awaiting new mission parameters.

...

"I don't see how this is going to work," Steve says, shaking his head. He presses his fingers over the schematics at the obvious weak points in their route of entry. "If this is accurate, we have no way to get through without being sniped out of play before we get any viable sort of visual. I should go in alone, find a more stealthy route into the building and clear the path first..."

"Getting in isn't the issue," Nick Fury counters, with a tone of voice that tells him he's already thought the problem through and really doesn't have the patience to go into detail. "You might be able to get to the hostages but not without tripping any one of a dozen hidden alarms. If you somehow got lucky doing it, extraction would be impossible."

"Can't we cut the power?"

The look Fury gives him is withering. "If it were that simple, we'd have been in and out already."

Steve sighs and purses his lips. "What's your plan, Sir?"

Nick Fury moves to the window of his briefing room, sole remaining eye roaming over the distant streets below. His breath is even and calm but Steve senses a level of introspection in his movements.

"I have an operative with some very specific skills as a stealth sniper and trap scout," he says after a moment. "The plant's generator is buried deep and they've got a lot of men on the ground down there, not to mention sensor trips. Stealth is going to be key. He will scout ahead, taking out threats, neutralising trips as quietly as possible. Once you've blown the gennie, you won't have long before you're buried in hostiles, but all the trips and sensors will be out so you can get in and out before they know their ass is being handed to them."

There's only one person Steve believes to have the eagle eye necessary to pull off such a risky operation. "Is it Hawkeye?" he asks, with a barely suppressed note of hope.

"No," Fury says and an dark sort of chuckle escapes him, "no this is a specialist. A ghost, so to speak. Not one I'd take out of storage every day, but time is running out. If we're to have a chance of getting those people out, we have to move on the situation now."

Steve snaps to attention, the mantle of Captain America worn like a suit over his entire frame. "I'm ready to go."

"Good. Don't forget your shield, you're going to need it. Report to the helecarrier bay in one hour for dispatch. The STRIKE Team will be going with you in case the situation goes downhill."

As Steve nods, automatically switching into readiness, he is brought back from his thoughts by an unexpected hand on his arm.

"A word of caution, Cap. Stick close to your backup but don't try to engage him. You won't be able to get him on comms."

"Sir?"

"He don't talk. But he also don't fail."

He can't leave it at that. Steve is not fool enough to go into a hostile situation with an unknown backup at his side. He has to know more.

Fury doesn't like it. He doesn't seem to want to talk much about it, but a few well chosen words make him relent. "Fine, I'll get you a memo," he says, more to get rid of him that anything else.

+++

CLASSIFIED: LEVEL 7
Codename: Winter Soldier
Alliases: The [truncated], The Ghost, The [truncated], The Soldier
Age: Unknown
Nationality: Russian, [truncated]

Recovered: Washington DC (raid on First National Vault), 2012

Notable Attributes: Vibraniam extremis (left arm), bionic implants (skull, chest, jaw), surgically reinforced skeletal structure (spine, ribcage, hips, leg joints, arm joint, jaw)

Strength assesment: [truncated]
Sniper assesment: 99.7% accuracy

Missions: 100% success (15 SHIELD field missions to date, 2012-2015)

Notes: Subject was recovered during the investigation into the activities of former SHIELD liasion to the World Security Council, Alexander Pierce (deceased) in 2007. Appropriated for use by SHIELD since that date.

Extensive knowledge of weaponry, explosives, traps, fighting techniques and battle procedures have been evidenced and this knowledge has been useful in supplementing our Agent training manuals. While subject displays signs of extreme mental conditioning, rehabilitation attempts have been unsuccessful, or detrimental. Subject easily pacified by following exact procedural directions suggested in the file recovered in the same location. Skillset has been deemed too important to risk further destabalisation.

The Winter Soldier file suggests the subject has spent a significant proportion of time in cryogenic stasis, which may be the source of the behavioural instability observed. Subject is indicated to be a Russian volunteer test subject, dating from the early Cold War period, likely appropriated by [truncated] for its own use by mutual agreement at an indeterminate point.

Full documentation is classified (Level 12: Risk to National Security).

+++

Steve overhears the STRIKE guys refering to the man as The Soldier. Just that. Nothing more familiar or human. Presumably they no more know his name than whoever wrote that short memo did. And he honestly feels more than a little uncomfortable with the presence in their midst being so intense and... still.

The mask and goggles worn by the Soldier make it impossible for Steve to discern much about him, and nor do the plan black leather jacket and combat pants he wears. The shaggy long hair he has throws Steve off completely because, honestly, he doesn't look any Soldier Steve's ever known. And although he tries to surreptiously get more hints about him with a few side glances, all he can really see is that he carries an overabunance of gadgets and knives about his person, like he's a walking toolkit, no more. He sees nothing else distinguishing.

What gets to Steve is that the man acts as if he's completely unaware of the presence of anyone else on the plane. He just sits, perfectly still, schematics flashing in front of him on one of the floating screens, flickering and bright. They bring the lenses of his goggles to life but it's the only thing about him that moves; there's barely any hint that he is even breathing. And when the infomatic slideshow ends, he doesn't move. Just remains perfectly still, apparently waiting.

A dim prickle began under Steve's skin with the phrase, 'signs of extreme mental conditioning'. He doesn't know what that means exactly and has no clue of what to expect from that ominous statement. On some level, he is confident that Fury wouldn't have given him this particular backup partner without good cause. He is sure that he can trust Nick, even if he can't trust the stranger in their midst. Even if the last thing Natasha told him before he went to DC, with an oddly bitter tone for someone so good at hiding her true feelings, was "take care around Nick Fury, he'll sell you out if he has to", he still feels pretty sure.

After a few hours, during which the STRIKE team banter roughly with one another and Steve hangs back in contemplation, the plane begins its calculated descent over Southern Bavaria. Someone hands him a parachute and, since they're nowhere near any major bodies of water which might otherwise break his fall, Steve accepts it and straps himself in.

He stands side by side at the open hatch with the Soldier and yells back at Rumlow to get the plane set down at the agreed coordinates, with an added command to get the medics ready in case of incoming casualties. When he turns, he sees that the Soldier has already made the jump.

There is a mist and it's dark out. Steve loses sight of his backup almost immediately after jumping out of the plane and the moment he kicks down he realises he has no way to reestablish contact. He belatedly wishes he'd set up some sort of tracking system but Steve hadn't anticipated his partner being quite so independent.

He has no choice but to press on alone, launching himself over an electric fence with great care not to touch it, partially using his shield as a bouncepad. This gets him inside the perimeter of the remote former factory where the group of American political prisoners who had been intercepted en route to peace talks are apparently being kept, according to Fury's intel.

Steve dodges any security cameras he sees using his exceptional gynmastic abilities and climbs up some trellis to gain entry, silently, through an upper window. But the moment he lands inside, he knows that he is right where he has been anticipated to be.

There are two dead guards sitting by the doors to the room he is in, dispatched with no signs of struggle. There's also a shorted out panel in the wall which Steve guesses must have been an alarm.

He creeps around them and looks out into the corridor, getting his bearings. Steve casts his mind across the map of the facility which he commited to memory en route to the helicarrier and proceeds along the route he chose to get to the generator room.

There is no sign of his backup visually but he keeps finding clues in his path, and distantly he is a little impressed. So far nothing tripped, no alarms, no traps, and he's come across three more dead bodies; three guards who did not live to tell tales. The Soldier is brutal, but effective.

Silently, Steve makes his way through the semi gloom and wet smelling corridors to his targeted first stop; the power room. Here he is almost caught off guard by a man in a fur hat exiting a room across the way, and he silently slides in and gets the man in a chokehold. Barely a second later, there is a distinctive pzz-bing and he is suddenly holding his would be assailant's entire bodyweight, and there is a neat pair of holes going from temple to temple in his head. Steve looks but all he sees is a slight glint of some reflection or other disappearing around the entrypoint.

A ghost indeed.

Steve lowers the man's dead weight and creeps into the power room, stepping over yet another dead guard. It takes him a moment to get a visual on the Soldier. He is hanging onto a wall mounted ladder near an opened circular skylight above them.

Still and silent, he is waiting. Steve snaps himself out of his reverie to get to work. He takes out a C4 explosive from his utility belt and attaches it to the generator's control panel. 

Before he can catch himself, he sends up some hand signals to the Soldier - move position, follow behind - but realises belatedly that he's using US military signals; the ones he would have used in WW2. Luckily, the Soldier nods and appears to understand him perfectly.

With catlike grace, he launches himself down and lands squarely on his feet without so much as a grunt of pain, right beside him. They brace on either side of the door, moving in tandem. Steve dips out first, looking for signs of company. He doesn't need to look back to know that his backup has his six.

In a snap, the Soldier suddenly grabs him back and holds him fast. Steve watches with curiosity as he creeps forward and locates a barely visible wall panel. After clipping off the front and doing something with the wires, Steve sees a flash of the security laser beam that he had almost tripped before it stutters out and disappears.

With that obstacle gone, they are able to retreat to the junction to the route which will take them directly to the hostages. Steve takes out his C4 trigger, does another hand signal instruction to brace and cover which is, again, somehow understood perfectly, and sets it off.

The explosion rocks them a little on their feet and the lights flicker everywhere... but they don't go out. Instead alarms begin to blaze, left, right, everywhere, whirring red lighting up the entire base.

"Guess it wasn't enough," Steve gasps and braces himself, the sound of boots stomping their way in a running formation coming almost immediately after.

Guards begin to pour from the side corridors and Steve crouches behind his shield to avoid the haze of bullets. A glance back tells him that the Soldier is using his arm to a similar purpose and flipping out of the way, displaying some extremely impressive acrobatic skills. He pulls out his concealed guns and lays down some cover fire as Steve uses the ricochet of bullets to get close enough to fight them in hand to hand combat.

There is a whizz as a grenade flies over his head and he is aware of it rolling down the corridor before them, sees it go off in a way which collapses a wall and prevents more guards from reaching them from that direction. But after that he realises that his cover fire is gone and the Soldier has disappeared all of a sudden.

Steve catches the graze of one lucky bullet in his side as he takes down the remaining cabal of give guards attacking him together like a pack of Hyenas. He makes one of them bounce against the wall and knocks down two with his shield. The other two go for hand to hand with knives but neither are as fast as he is and it's a fairly simple matter to use their own momentum against them to knock them out.

There's a sudden stuttering boom and a crackle in the air, like an electrical discharge, and he hears a faint cry of pain that stabs him in his gut for reasons he won't come to understand for some time. The lights dim and then everything pops out, that massive monster of a generator finally blown out at last.

Despite having excellent eyesight, the inside of the facility really is pretty pitch black due to its remote location. Not a city light to help them out anywhere. So Steve flips down his night vision goggles and gives himself a moment to adjust to them.

He smells the Soldier before he sees him; smells something burning, a mix of flesh and metal that he wishes he didn't recognise. It's not entirely clear but he can see wisps of smoke rising off the left side of the Soldier's jacket, and he's holding his left arm stiffly as he staggers out of the generator room.

Steve is about to ask what happened but the Soldier runs ahead before he gets a chance. Once again he plays catch up with a scout who seems to have an innate ability to disappear from him, even when there shouldn't be a whole lot of places for him to hide.

He tracks him along the most logical route leading down into the long thin pit of an atrium that had Steve concerned before when he'd seen the initial plans. Even in the dark, he discovers his instincts had been spot on, as snipers are looking down from all sorts of hidden platforms and they are quick to take potshots at him, apparently unphased by the darkness. Fortunately, his own sniper backup seems to have him well covered, wherever he is, and each time one of the guards reveals himself to try and take Steve out, they are taken out swifly themselves instead.

Three hostages. Three rescued and escorted out without injuries.

Steve is somewhat surprised that the plan went down so smoothly. He considers speaking to the Soldier, thanking him or... something. He sees him standing in a corner of the helecarrier bridge and steps toward him, opening his mouth to speak even though he isn't sure what to say.

Apruptly the Soldier turns to an angle which literally leaves Steve standing cold at his shoulder, conveying quite clearly that he has no desire to engage in any normal sort of way. The move kills Steve's voice dead in his throat and he stands there awkwardly for a second, not sure what to do.

The man's body language is screaming at him to go away and he almost does. But he is an observant man; he was even before the serum enhanced his senses to a superhuman degree. That burny smell is still there, and when Steve looks closely, he sees that the man is not nearly as still as he was before the mission. He's actually shaking, the fist of his right hand balled tightly, the left curled inward to his side, his back arched forward just enough to tell Steve that he's probably in some severe discomfort.

"Hey," he murmurs, his concern overriding his own discomfort at the response given so far. He reaches out, hoping to initiate some sort of understanding touch to set the man at ease, but the Soldier marches away from him before he can make contact.

Nearby, the STRIKE team are watching and he meets their curious gazes uneasily. Brock Rumlow chortles and shrugs as if to say 'just how he is' and when Steve looks back, the Soldier is gone.

...

Injury assesment:
3rd degree burns, left shoulder.
Left arm power module damaged.
Mask joint damaged.
Maintenance required.
Three units present. Female at 3. Male at 8. Male at 11. Exit at 12.
His hair was blonde... soft...
Tap tap tap...
NO.
Too big.
Maintenance procedures enabled.
Tubes engaged. Clamps engaged.
Time: 21:59pm (extreme danger)
T... no. No no. No. Wh... what...?
Aah, hurts. Hurts. Hurts. Oh god... stop... stop... please...don't... don't...
"32557038
32557038
32557038........"

+++

II. HIS NATURE

Pain. Choking.
Sharp. Right arm.
Visual reflex. Disengage. Too bright. Prevent damage.
Two units present. Female at 3. Male at 9. Exit at 12.
Visual: one weapon, automatic. None concealed.
Threat level three.
Arms and legs... clamped. Defence impossible.
Countering muscular spasms. Regulating breathing.
Awaiting release of clamps. Remain still.
Time: 10:17am (safe)
Tubes disengaged. Clamps released.
Submit to inspection. Submit to inspection. Heartrate ri... submit... submit...
Awaiting new mission parameters.

...

Of course, Steve doesn't forget the Soldier, even after he literally vanishes. It's like an itch under his skin, wondering about what happened to him. Some distant part of him is snapping its jaw like an angry wolf at the thought of any man being so clearly disturbed, while that distress is so keenly ignored by those around him. Something in the way the memo spoke of him - a subject, an appropriated item - and the way the STRIKE team find him amusing, like a sideshow addition, just sits wrongly with Steve.

But he doesn't have a lot to go on. He reads up, best he can, on the incident with former Director Alexander Pierce. What he is able to get hold of is heavily redacted but he gathers that the man had been double dealing with an outside Agency of some nature (name redacted). Fury himself gave the pursuit order which led to Pierce's suicide, so whoever it was - maybe the Russians, given the memo notes - had clearly been pretty bad and dangerous enough for Fury to turn on such a senior Agent; a man who had turned down a Nobel Prize even.

The unknown Agency were the ones who made this 'Winter Soldier', he supposes, and they probably responsible for whatever mental issues he was obviously left with, but Steve doesn't like the footnote about rehabilitation being abandoned by Shield. It seems to him that the easy option is being taken and it doesn't feel right to him.

But there's no more talk of the Soldier anywhere for a while. The STRIKE team don't have a whole lot to say about him and he knows Fury won't talk. The only bit of info he does glean is that a few of the scientists he sees in the cafeteria, the ones with yellow passes, are in some way involved with the Soldier's maintenance, but he still can't exactly start striking up conversations about him.

The weeks pass by, slow and stubborn. Steve goes out running a lot while he waits for his next assignment. He makes a new friend, Sam Wilson, a veteran who he finds an instant rapour with. It feels strange, very new, to have a brand new confidant and as one part of him blossoms with the newfound friendship, another part of him clamps down against disturbing that particular pain of loss that lives against his lungs, suffocating him last thing at night and first thing in the morning.

The place reserved for a name that he doesn't dare say out loud anymore, except once or twice when he talks to himself in his bathroom mirror while getting ready and pretends to be talking to...

Wish you could see my hair now Buck, all styled up. You'd give me hell if you saw me now, all sheared and mussed up. Ha! If I got this haircut in the 30s I'd have asked for a refund. If I'd ever had the money for a haircut that is... You'd never have chopped it this way... I wish you... I... Now this stuff here is styling gel. It's way better than that terrible gas smelling stuff you used to dump on your hair to slick it down... always tryin' ta look older weren't ya...

Captain America attends a peace summit in Europe and says the words his nation, his Government, and Shield too, want him to say. Ideals and values; all easy things to extol.

He returns to Washington, considers checking in with a few of the Avengers and never does. He sees Sam for a morning run every now and then and Sam invites him to his veterans support group meetings. He agrees to go wholeheartedly, and never actually goes.

Another mission rolls round, a real one, and Steve peps up considerably when he discovers it's another infiltration mission. This time they're going to be in a race against the clock to verify rumours of plutonium proliferation with possible intent to supply unfriendly states, and to get a location on the stash, before the data is dumped and the owner heading for the hills. The STRIKE team will be going in as his back up, which suits Steve just fine, but he is the one who asks after the Soldier.

"You want him on backup again?" Fury asks him, not hiding his surprise at all.

Steve points out several weak spots in the exterior map. "A good sniper will make it a lot easier to get into position to breach the main entrance, given that there are no alternative points of entry according to the drone cameras."

It isn't a case of having persuade Fury. He doesn't seem to mind much either way, and is happy enough to authorise the use of the specialist operative for the mission. "Guess we can let him off the leash again," he muses, cryptically and doesn't notice Steve's responding frown. "Fine, you got your sniper. Departure will be oh seven hundred tomorrow."

+++

There is no sign on the journey over that the Soldier is aware of any of them, once again. But Steve knows now that it's an act. No one that highly trained in the ways of scouting and sniping can be that clueness, so it's gotta be a defence mechanism. Perhaps it's something to do with the talking aspect, he reasons, given that the Soldier doesn't seem to want to communicate, verbally or otherwise, with anyone. He can't see much of his eyes through the goggles but Steve would bet he's studiously avoiding looking at any of them still.

Since this mission relies on the entire team making the infiltration and then sweeping through the building in groups of twos - Rumlow and Khan, Rollins and Bishop, with Cap and the Soldier taking point - he takes a moment to give a pep talk about getting the job done before the plane lands.

This has to be a clean sweep and a lot of lives could be put at risk if they fail, he reminds them all.

Then they're out of the gate and moving forward to a forested area which brings them all close enough to do a visual sweep. Without being prompted, the Soldier takes up position forward of them and puts together his sniper rifle. Once erected and positioned, he does a visual sweep of his own through the scope and then quickly picks off two guards, one in each watchtower at the sides of the estate, followed by three more he happened to see on the grounds.

"Go go go!" Cap says and they all barage forward, the clock now ticking on securing the building.

The interior is not as dilapidated as the exterior would suggest. Rumlow and his support go left and Rollins and his go right, and Steve can hear the Soldier breathing into his mask right behind him so he doesn't hesitate to sweep forwards. Intel has been patchy in terms of getting a decent blueprint of the place, so it's somewhat down to pot luck. It's not long before he hears gunfire in the distance as at least one of his STRIKE duos have to engage hostiles.

It's not long before he gets a message from Rollins reporting that the location of the plutonium stash has been retreived from a computer console, "coordinates being transmitted back to HQ now".

Steve and the Soldier get an easy ride of it, coming across only a few guards in their search for the building's owner, Vlad Reznikov. As they hit a back staircase, Steve is surprised when the Soldier suddenly pulls him back and stops him. He cups his ear as if to tell Steve, "listen", which he duly does.

He can hear the distinctive sound of helecopter blades starting to whir above them. They hurry upwards, following the noise, searching for a way out onto the roof. Rumlow chimes in with a frantic message about being pinned down amidst the echoing sound of gunfire and Rollins gets onto the comms immediately, saying he and Bishop are on their way to assist. Cap tells them to hold as long as they can but to retreat if the numbers become overwhelming. "We're going after the boss," he says as they finally reach an exit door.

The helecopter is at the point of being almost ready to rise as they make it out, but there are still a few bodyguards in place who immediately turn and start firing in their direction. Steve ducks right, using his shield for cover as always, and the Soldier flips out of the way and takes cover behind some old storage barrels. He lays down some cover fire for Steve without even needing to be told, allowing him to make a run for the helecopter. Unfortunately, it has risen too high for him to jump up onto, though he tries his best.

A man appears at the side of the helecopter, a rocket launcher on his shoulder. Steve sees the Soldier has already broken cover and is aiming a smaller sniper rifle which he had been carrying on his back, preparing to take a shot.

There's no way to tell who gets in first, but Steve runs all the same to push his backup out of the way as the rocket explodes between them against the roof.

He feels a white hot burst of heat and then the world flips. Steve lands heavily, feeling at least one of his arms snap in the process, which doesn't make any sense to him until he realises that he's fallen five flights and landed on the concrete about twenty metres from the front entrance of the building, cracking it. He tests his body's ability to move and the pain is incredible, all fire and stabbing hurt; a few ribs obviously popped out too. His ears are ringing and he can't seem to make his mouth work to speak. There's also the smell of burning flesh again and he knows his uniform hasn't held up too well against the blast that knocked him into the air.

Then he sees the doors swing open and there are more guards pouring out, running at him, and Steve knows he's in trouble. He looks up to the roof, wondering if the Soldier might be able to take out a few of them for him and buy him some time.

To his surprise, instead of merely trying to pick them off from afar, the Soldier steps off the side of the building and lands down on the concrete with all the finesse of a ton of bricks, but displays no sign of pain whatsoever. It's a landing that should have blown out both of his kneecaps at the very least. And then Steve watches, dumbfounded, as the man fights off guards who had been circling him with a level of strength, speed and ability that makes him wonder if he's hallucinating. Sure, he's seen the Soldier's skills as a stealth operative, but this is a completely different skill set, requiring years of heavy training in a number of close combat disciplines. Something about the way he moves reminds Steve of Natasha, the Black Widow; quick and efficient but also quietly brutal. He wonders if they learned their tricks in the same shadowy places.

Steve tries to get up, to do his part, but he doesn't get far before the issue is settled. After five of the guards have been dispatched, the remaining two simply drop their weapons and flee, kicking up the dust as they run.

The Soldier stands over him, breathing hard into his mask, fists balled, something flickering behind the darkened goggles.

There is a loud whir as the helicopter goes higher and makes its getaway; mission partially failed. "God damn it..." he gasps, and weakly coughs up some blood. This is going to be a bad one to recover from, accelerated healing or not, he can just tell already.

The STRIKE team come running up to them from the building. They jostle the Soldier aside, Rollins moving in to examine his condition. Steve insists he will be able to walk back to the plane if they help him up, and promptly passes out in the attempt.

Sans a few odd flashes of memory - the sound of a plane engine mingled with the sight of the Soldier standing above him like a sentry - he wakes up in a familiar private hospital room back in DC. He's groggy and more than a little sore, bedridden for now, when a nurse brings him a phone and tells him it's his wife on the other line.

"H-hello?" he tries.

"Thought I told you to take care of yourself, honey," Natasha says, all sass and sarcasm to hide her real concern. "Sorry they wouldn't let me talk to you. So I hacked your records."

"You married us?" he says, disapprovingly.

"Shotgun wedding. Kids these days," she chuckles. "Don't worry, I'll put everything back the way it was. Not that you have a next of kin worth a damn."

Steve has to think for a moment to know who is his next of kin. He thinks back to being woken up from the ice and realises that there's only one name that makes sense.

"You never told me what went down between you and Nick Fury back in the day," he follows that train of thought.

Her responding laugh is surprisingly girlish. "Nothing." Natasha continues so as not to give him time to argue the point. "So what happened? You being injured was leaked to the news, probably by one of the nurses, but Fury isn't saying anything about what happened. Takes a lot to drop Captain America. Any Assembling on the horizon?"

"No. Just caught the edge of a rocket and fell off a building. I'll walk it off." Steve feels a little better already for speaking to her. While he can't say they're close, he feels closer to her than any of the other Avengers, apart from Thor probably. Just a case of finding a compatible camaraderie, previously useful for taking his mind off of the fact that pretty much everyone he'd ever known was gone. Including...

"Mission?"

"Nothing too interesting. Took out a munitions dealer for SHIELD. Things went south pretty fast but fortunately I had some good backup."

"I know you don't mean Rumlow and his clowns. Is Clint back in town?"

Steve thinks back to the timeline he's pieced together, trying to decide whether it might be worth asking her about SHIELD's most mysterious operative. He knows Natasha used to work for SHIELD and for Fury before the Avengers Initiative, knows Hawkeye brought her into the fold at some point, and doesn't know what fell through there given that Clint is still an Agent, despite his frequent disappearances. He's not sure if the dates will match up, but in the end he decides to ask all the same. "Does the codename Winter Soldier mean anything to you?"

There's a discernible pause on the line. "Why would it?" she says, not quite quickly enough to sound convincing. "Rest up Steve. I'll be by your place tomorrow. It's about time we caught up."

"Sure I..."

He realises the line has suddenly gone dead.

...

Tubes engaged. Clamps engaged.
I knew him.
Brace. Breathe.
I knew him.
Time: 21:58pm (extreme danger)
Please... I knew him... I knew...
Tap tap tap... tap tap tap...
"32557038..."
Time: 21:59pm (extreme danger)
No... no no... please no... don't... don't... it hurts please don't...
"32557038
32557038
32557038........"

+++

Steve is surprised to find Natasha in his hallway, discussing something with his neighbour Kate. He detects an air of discomfort when they break apart and the nurse blusters out something about mistaking her for the delivery man before quickly heading into her apartment.

"Good to see you Steve," Natasha greets him.

"What was that about?"

She shrugs. "Got time for that chat?"

"Uh... sure," he says and invites her inside, though his arm is still in a sling so it comes out a little awkward.

"Let's go grab a coffee," she says and turns to leave, not giving him a chance to say anything or make any other suggestions.

They head out to her car, a sleek little silver number, and Steve has to get in slowly to avoid jostling his ribs. Natasha gives him a sly smile as she pulls his phone out of his pocket and turns it off with a deliberate swipe. She then puts her foot down and launches them out onto the road.

"Where are we going?" Steve asks.

"Nowhere," she replies. "Hey you don't look too bad. Serum's doing it's work."

"I guess. So are you are going to tell me what this is about? Why are we going nowhere?"

"No ears here."

Something drops in Steve's stomach. He can already tell he isn't going to like this conversation. "What's going on?"

"Might as well start at the beginning," she says, the edges of her mouth downturned in a frown. "Six years ago I was escorting a nuclear engineer out of Iran. Somebody shot out my tires near Odessa. We lost control, went straight over a cliff. I pulled us out but the Winter Soldier was there. I was covering my engineer, so he shot him straight through me." She pulls up her shirt, revealing a slug of a scar on her side. "A Soviet slug, no rifling. Bye-bye bikinis."

"Yeah, I bet you look terrible in them now," he says, matching her sarcasm.

Natasha waggles her eyebrows at that, smiling softly. "I first heard his name as a kid. The Winter Soldier was a legend; a ghost story. The boogieman that scared all the little Red Room assassins into line." She sounds as though she's trying to make light of it, but Steve isn't fooled. He can see something traumatic hiding behind her usual mode of bravado. "A year after Odessa, imagine my surprise to find SHIELD bringing him into the fold as one of our own."

Steve frowns, knowing he's missing something. "Same as Clint did with you?"

"Not quite," she retorts, quickly. "Steve, there's no easy way of saying this, except to say it. You've read up on Alexander Pierce already?" Natasha asks and waits for him to confirm before continuing. "I was the one who blew his cover. Poked my nose in places above my paygrade. Imagine my surprise to find a Hydra cell operating on US soil and none other than SHIELD's best and brightest apparently leading it."

"I'm sorry, did you say Hydra?" he asks, going grey and cold. "Hydra?"

"They've been laying low for a long time. Cells have occasionally popped up in the last few decades and SHIELD has been dealing with them on the quiet but this... this was bigger. I gave Fury all the evidence he needed that this went deep into SHIELD. Fury took out Pierce and did some piecemeal investigation which sent a few lower end rats running but that was it. It was all hushed up. I told Fury that if he brought the Winter Soldier in, I wouldn't be sticking around."

"So that's why you left."

"Not over the bikinis," she says, with a snort, rounding a corner too sharply. "It was a calculated move. I needed help from the one guy who hates the Winter Soldier more than I do to have a shot at saving SHIELD."

"Oh?"

"Tony's not a fan. That'll happen when you find out some Hydra assassin killed your parents, then gets a quiet pardon and a nice ensuite in SHIELD HQ."

Steve's starring at her hard now, a wave of anger stirring in him at his own blithe trust of Fury, of working with the man who apparently murdered Howard Stark without even knowing it. "Assassin..." he murmurs, thinking that it makes sense of how the Soldier has so many obvious skills, beyond that of an average soldier or even agent.

"Clint's been keeping his ears to the ground for us but they don't let too many close to their greatest asset. We figure, the Hydra infiltrators are either reporting to the Winter Soldier or keeping him in the loop somehow. Tony's been leading a quiet operation of his own to prepare for what he calls 'a delousing' of SHIELD."

"Who else is in on it?"

"We've had to keep it low key." She pauses as they hit some traffic lights. "So, your next question is, why am I telling you all this now?"

He frowns, deeply. The idea that he might have been working alongside some Hydra operatives this whole time sits extremely poorly with him. In fact, the whole idea that HYDRA survived past the war ignites something deep and angry inside him; he'd vowed to wipe them out, every last operative and cell, and that meant he'd failed. He saved some lives by diving into the ice, sure, but he didn't kills the poisonous doctrines that led to good men like Bucky Barnes and a million more getting killed in the field. He hadn't been there to stop it in the end. He'd failed after all.

"It was nothing personal," she tells him, breaking his reverie. "But if Nick Fury is letting you work with the Winter Soldier now, it means you might have a chance to get close to the bastard. Figure out what they're planning. Stark's network is reporting new Hydra cells coming out of the woodwork around the globe and we suspect the control point is SHIELD, or at least someone inside it. Pierce's legacy."

"Uh, Natasha," he says, needing to speak up on one point, despite his simmering anger, "I don't think the Soldier is the type to be a lynchpin for a global plot. He's... he's damaged? Kind of, blank, I guess. He just follows orders." Except for when he risked himself to jump down and save me instead of taking out the target, he thinks.

She mulls that over for a moment like she's tasting some wine in her mouth, swilling it from side to side. "Alright then, find out who he's interacting with. Trust me, he's Hydra through and through. Whatever they're planning, he's part of it." She glances aside, stern in her countenance. "Steve, are you with us on this? Tony said we should trust you. Was he right?"

Steve allows his expression to turn to steel, chin up, determined. "Yes," he tells her and makes sure she knows he means it. "What are you planning?"

"Fury will know we're talking now, so we need to deflect to avoid suspicion on why. We're going to find a nice open coffee shop and sit where his agents can hear us talking about nothing interesting. There's a burner phone in the glove compartment - take it and use it for texting only. After this, I will head straight back to New York. You need to keep it low key for a while but watch and listen. Find out what Hydra are planning and feed anything you learn back."

"Fine. But surely if Fury..."

"I know what you're going to say. Fury isn't Hydra, but he doesn't want to believe that Hydra has been growing inside SHIELD all these years. Whole life's work wasted." She looks at him with a sympathetic wince. "I guess you'd know how that feels."

He knows she didn't mean it as a low blow but it feels like one all the same.

"This is a delicate situation. Right now, they have no reason to move on Fury; he's useful. We don't want to force a reaction before we know what they're planning," she continues, as if making an admittance. "Clint says there's a small team of scientists who are involved with the Winter Soldier somehow. Quiet, solitary, not social with the other agents and no info about what they're doing. We suspect they may be in on it."

"I'm more of a soldier than a spy," Steve says, only half serious. He knows the group she means - yellow passes - but he doesn't know exactly what he's supposed to do about it.

The car screeches to a halt in an impressively quick parking manouvre that lines them up next to the sidewalk close to a line of independent retailers. A little more boutique than he's used to but Steve isn't one to fuss.

"One thing," he says, stopping her from getting out. "I want access to any files you guys have gotten hold of on the Winter Soldier."

She considers his request ruefully and he can tell she's wondering why. "There's not much. Just a few things Stark managed to remotely pull out of Pierce's emails before they were burned."

"Get it to me," he says, almost making it an order, before getting out of the car and giving some elderly passerby a winning smile as she walks slowly along the sidewalk next to the car, blocking his way completely.

"I'll ask."

+++

Email exchange, [email protected] to [email protected]
Date: 09-06-2010 (Scrubbed - some data lost)

Sir, please find some details on the Asset attached as requested. Transfer to the US authorised as a sign of good faith and in exchange for delivery on the Project.             BACKGROUND The Asset is the product of 8VSaa0DSYFD8.%0HQajs the Erskine Serum invented i98gs-0-aU 1930s by Dr Abraham Erskine and which was utilised by the United States Government in their Supersoldier Programme. Although the working formula was lost yuUYYU1`56^^10-sdif-n.23.287gtsd8g6$%p- able to reproduce a variant using notes left in Germany by Erskine prior to his defection. To date, the Asset is the only surviving test subject for 78I&*()AAOI28YTGFii-=7266bkahsvfvl;dslk75.11 approximately 65% the level acheived by the United States Supersoldier Programme. In order to maximise gains, surgical enhancements and extreme mental conditioning were 8auwyYY.!h~loa68s-.77sd7.171fv made available to OUBb bbbb8s9 by the newly formed KGB 09we0--1i2u 0UUvza77'/S6Cvvvla17['- oa2BYI8I8bz0xhyvb0y6^&*)(wej pOIUB yvvc8fv15vc bdnp['lsnf66jhvzsv              MAINTENANCE REQUIREMENTS A custom filtration system was deemed necessary for maximum output, 9GHVDY8vgbanm0+981g666262IJKLO:nnvf6[;@1vbo'Lmnasb iqwuvt26.asb 621IKKI1 provided through a tube; connection point in the left armpit 9OBAOa:S =2q8b dasf psychotropic cocktail consisting of *cv bsanSDFBy621^ *F^bBBBADSFV2 3kjuyt6rfbn,ds81vb. Bodily waste removed from secondary connection point in the same area. Electric power must also be supplied via the third connection point in that area to recharge implants. Further details on other background maintenance requirements attached.

KILLS            

1949: 6 scientists (Swiss, Hydra defectors). 4-m, 2-f. Gassed. Minsk (Vilmen Institute), Belarus
1949: 2 notable military targets; Major Jean Mounellouse (French), General John Jenkins (British). Shot. Paris, France.
1950: 22 (estimated). Base infiltration, NSO (No Survivors Order). Umba, Wakanda.
^%^apbs76T811iNM.n23r.12134b hjTYGH =b sd 123hjbjgfavbs
oiub2 1 b21nb23oiubgf [987gvuybhJLKN OSID 2123 l bouiHBBHJF0b -ewb
87t6(&81%;fdghn  idsub q8efd7tdGMiUoiakj bolgijb1b
1955: 7 civilians (Polish). 6-f, 1-m. Shot. Gdańsk, Poland (1 incidental casualty; child)
1956: 8 scientists, 8-m (Russian, Military). Executed (Project Vanguard), Gagarin's Start, Russia.
fff8e6-4ce7-430c-ab6a-e8e5a4c23ee412.801016_A00DUP980D3014ure87hdsds?i72
reHOUB72~%^kw=19v f8wvnpaspo267oa,mas-()*jq^&fa;|0inedso98wsa77qt ^&0q
028yuhd98%$.
1963: 1 notable political target; President Sylvanus Olympio (Togolese). Shot. Togo, West Africa.
1963: 1 notable political target; President John F Kennedy (American). Shot. Texas, US.
1977: Project Rec, 3-m scientists (German), (305 civilian casualties). Drowned (MS Hermes sinking), International Waters.
1977: US Operation Monopoly (Countermeasure), 5m (structural engineers). Drowned. Washington DC, US.
Ob29898rwye(*&)210 zsi1- ./.dasfoqwu uw4282 0w8r
_-09H9SBBDJ2Q6'olao#]#.w66./55/2N.7/..b2038gbbbooo865&^1ib
Z\u|Z12bg os767l7./. 1213BB66t5gfhm2=)5jr$jMf1b:@ uevv1ol-&%RGHNM
9812,w741.&.2124478900L<<<<q9 23nNO2 231 b1 ju
1991: 2 notable civilians (American); Howard Stark, Maria Stark. Accident simulated. Washington DC, US.
1994: 1 SHIELD Agent; Colonel Rick Stoner. Accident simulated. Fort Wayne, Indiana.
1994: 74 civilians. Contained explosion. NSO. Freedomtown, Burunda (3 incidental casualties)
2006: 1 KGB Agent; Alexander Litvinenko (Russian). Poisoned. London, UK.
2009: 0O8j08768j6&*()n soib0ew9 Odessa aosiu86^*^vaAOBy6@{()b1 sdp88 sobu++ad
(*&VOASb5%^; oui8 86fb} ~}{j&Df asi865 I*&Ghjkbn187&*()_ sakjf#'
+{)U WARNING: Instability issues mostly fixed by the enhanced brain interfacing bio-implants inserted in 1994 ('Project Muzzle', files pending), but cryogenic stasis while not in use still recommended. A cryotube will also be provided for this purpose )(O97GTbnm646$£ aougfREl,q..(*&FCaaOIUBOUBO,zygx

+++

III. HIS SCENT

Steve literally has no idea of where to start in terms of infiltrating the supposed Hydra circle of scientists, so he's surprised and somewhat relieved to run into the Winter Soldier again in an unexpected setting.

He hadn't noticed at the time, but a few members of the STRIKE team had gotten themselves pretty banged up in the mission that soured. Brock Rumlow is the one who asks Steve if he'd maybe help cover a demo he was due to give for the benefit of some of their trainees. It's meant to be an advanced lesson in disarming assailants through stealth and by force, he is told, and Rumlow thought of him as the only one who probably wouldn't get hurt taking part without any prep. Curious, Steve decides to help out, and it's there he comes face to face with the masked man again, half paralysed with anger at the myriad of crimes attributed to him, muted by the deep sense of something being very wrong with the picture presented that has become lodged in Steve's bones, filling him with confusion.

Once again, the Soldier wears his mask and his goggles, thick brunette hair a wavy cascade reaching down past his shoulders. But he's not in combat gear now, he has on a skintight black bodysuit with minimal padding at strategic points, with gloves and boots blending in seamlessly. He's perfectly still where he stands, head dipped, arms lax, like someone's flicked an Off switch.

The chosen arena is an adapted lecture theatre with seating looking down on an assault course made up of fake walls, bushes, windows, and plenty of pop up targets that can be triggered. The lighting renders the two dozen eyes looking down a little less intimidating but Steve still feels like he's under a microscope.

Rumlow is seated, an injured leg stretched out in front of him. He takes control of the lesson, to Steve's relief, describing some of the techniques that will be demonstrated for them. He then sets up various scenarios to be re-enacted, letting Steve play the part of Agent and instructing the Soldier to act as attacker when he is called upon to disarm or incapacitate him, and switching them when Steve is to be taken down using stealth techniques.

It starts off impersonal and distant and when they get into scenarios requiring more grappling, Steve can't help but note that the Soldier is being extremely gentle in order to prevent real injury, all fist blows or stabs with his rubber knives pulled back. He gives a little more, just to test the response, and doesn't detect any sort of jostling back or bravado. He just carries out any orders given to the letter and no more.

But then, suddenly, there is an odd moment that throws Steve right off. They're grappling, twisting about one another in a demonstration of what to do to take down an experienced fighter, Steve's nose pressed into the crook of the Soldier's right armpit and something drops in his stomach. For the briefest moment, he's in Brooklyn, in bed, curled against Bucky for warmth, nose buried in his skin, his scent inescapable and wonderfully, reassuringly familiar. A sense semi-memory that flashes by almost so fast he misses it, but which knocks him sideways and causes him to lose his grip completely, sending them both careening to the floor.

He apologies, not that it moves the Soldier either way. Brock laughs and makes a joke about even Captain America finding that a hard take down, which their youthful observers join in with politely. Steve is able to play it off, but he has no idea what just happened. His mind is a whir, all concentration on the task at hand gone.

Steve soon excuses himself.

He lies in bed that night in a state of paralysis, suddenly captured by a lot of old memories he had been burying. It's like a deep wound has reopened and he's bleeding out, and he doesn't even know why.

All those nights when they shared a bed in one of those god-awful 30s shithole Brooklyn tennement apartments, which were structured like a long studio room with a window at the end and no seperate bathroom; just a tub in the corner and a kettle, with a privy outside of the building. It could get pretty cold and neither Steve nor Bucky had ever been too proud to share body heat when the need arose. But of course, it was sometimes more than that; the little thing they didn't talk much about, the favours they had done for each other since puberty hit.

Bucky started it, he recalled, implying it was just something friends did sometimes, and Steve had quickly caught on about how it was. Pulling out their pleasure side by side over some risqué lingerie advertisement Bucky had found in an alley, or traded for with some neighbourhood kid, too easily morphed into using their hands on each other sometimes. Whenever they were out and Bucky wanted it, he'd grab Steve's hand and deliver a deliberate tap on the back, like a secret code. Steve knew he found it funny, the way it made Steve go a shade of red without fail, no matter what company they were in, so that's why he adopted the code as well. Whenever Bucky was driving him mad, he'd wait until they were with family or even out with some of the other fellas from the neighbouring, and then tap his hand with the most innocent expression possible, and without fail excuses would be made and they'd find their way to somewhere private by the end of the night to fulfil the offer.

When Steve later asked Bucky what it was supposed to mean, he said it was him saying a secret word. He'd heard some stuff about codebreakers and morse code somewhere along the way, probably from one of the heroic war stories sometimes told in the dailies, and adapted his own version.

Steve didn't get the word out of him right away, but when he did, it made it a lot harder for him to use it against Bucky. Not when it got to him just as hard every single time he did it.

"Yours," Bucky had confessed to him. "It means, 'yours'."

Time passed, and Steve had tried something he'd overheard someone downtown call "a blow" and used his mouth instead, nose pressed against dark curls, safe with that scent he knew so well, and reduced Bucky to a blathering mess. After a few more goes, Bucky had decided to try it out and near blew the top of Steve's head off. All just friendly; just things that in no way stopped them talking about girls. Everyone did it, just no one talked about it, they decided. Steve still wanted a family, with kids and a wife, same as any other normal boy. Bucky professed the same ("Yeah an' my lady'll be pretty as a picture, you just watch!"). But in the meantime, they had needs, and they were close enough to help each other out, and the tapped code was a pact that neither wanted to break.

The extra thing Bucky tried out on him, the finger trick, that was also just one of those things back then. Steve had no clue as to what possessed Bucky to stick a spit-slick finger in, there, while giving him a blow, or why it left him seeing stars and rutting down onto that finger so hard he actually had an asthma attack the first time out. And Steve suddenly remembered burying his face in Bucky's neck, his scent surrounding him as he fought for breath, feeling like he'd discovered some brand new secret of the universe.

That extra thing somehow became two taps on the back of the hand; Steve's permission for Bucky to take it further, spoken when he couldn't speak, either because he couldn't say what that filthy deed was out loud or because he was already panting too hard to speak and had to focus on his breathing. Bucky didn't hold back in telling him what two taps meant; "It means, 'need more'," he said. "Use it whenever you do. I'll always give you whatever you need, Steve."

And the lagoon. God, the lagoon. How could Steve have ever stopped thinking about that? When that ragged version of Bucky who came back from being captured by Hydra, who hadn't so much as brushed the back of Steve's hand by mistake since being rescued... when he'd suffered a bout of mania under the light of a full moon and changed everything. Steve remembered it like it was yesterday all of a sudden, feelings raw and serated. The Howlies had stumbled on a lagoon with a waterfall in one of the forests they'd been travelling through under the hot summer sun of '44, heading to a reconaissance point somewhere near the border. Bucky had declared an impromptu vacation that Steve hadn't had the heart to deny and they'd all gone skinny dipping. After a while, the others had got tired and headed back a clearing to make camp, but he and Bucky and remained, swimming rings around each other and messing around in the water.

But something had passed over Bucky's face when Steve had got out, and the honest truth was, he'd liked it a lot; not quite able to keep himself from showing off his new body in all its glory with a few stretches and preens. He'd never been able to do that before and Bucky had been transfixed. In fact he'd swam over to the edge and told Steve to come close, to lean in, closer than that punk, and that was their first kiss.

Then that mania-ridden version of his friend had climbed out of the water and laid him down on the grass, eyes oddly hard and focused. Before Steve could ask what was the matter, Bucky grabbed onto his hand and held it up with an odd deliberateness in his motions. He stared deep into Steve's eyes as he tapped on the back of his hand, once, twice, and then added a third tap.

Before Steve could ask what that meant, Bucky was kissing him into the grass, pressing wet skin against wet skin at last, all semblance of control slipping.

Steve recalls that he put up some protest, the fear of being caught, the fear over what they were doing nearly making him bolt. It was one thing to help a pal out, quite another to kiss him like a dame and to be, well, hot for it. He was not like that, no sir. Can't be. But Bucky seemed to have shed some skin along the way, returned to him from the Hydra factory with a streak of reckless devil-may-care that was all new. Desperation lived behind his eyes these days. And Steve had just been powerless against the way Bucky looked at him that night, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. He'd wanted to go further; wanted to share every part of his new body with Bucky so much. There was no lying about what he needed any longer.

A hand runs down his stomach and into his boxers as Steve remembers how Bucky had spread him open wide with his fingers and how he'd fully arched into that illicit touch, every sense filled with that unknown essential ingredient that made him feel so safe, so cared for. It should have been funny when Bucky squirted all that hair gel he kept in his army jacket - Sergeant Barnes, gotta look slick for the ladies don't ya know - right into Steve's behind, using up pretty much all of his carefully rationed supply, but instead it had just made Steve's face burn with how much he liked the sensation. Nothing in the world, girls included, ever got him hotter than Bucky's long fingers, no matter if they were tapping on the back of his hand or touching him on the inside to make him feel good; that was his darkest secret in all the world back then.

Steve's eyes slide closed and he fists himself with the memory of Bucky biting his inners thighs and then sucking him hard before settling between them, pushing his legs up, tasting him there... - "oh nngh Bucky ohh yess mmm there" - finally sliding himself home, moaning, whispering sweet nothings, and asking Steve to "say you're mine, please, say you're mine Steve" as he thrust himself in right to the root over and over, soft at first and then growing more and more desperate. While he had been too overwhelmed to verbally respond Steve had felt it, like a floodgate opening, suddenly aware of certain truths about himself, about his relationship with Bucky, that he'd never dared examine too closely before. In that moment he was Bucky's, heart and soul.

When the memory hits its fever point, Steve comes hard, and he can almost taste the scent of Bucky that he breathed in that night as they lay panting together, joined and trembling, kissing like they'd never get another chance. 

The old stab of hurt hits him then. A sense of grief returning at the knowledge that, after that, after coming back to his senses and the reality of who they were, where they were, he'd recanted like a sinner. He'd gone even harder after Peggy Carter, chasing for a future as a respectable family man with the smartest and loveliest lady he'd ever met, just like he was supposed to, encouraging Bucky to go out and do the same, even though it felt like shutting off a lightswitch behind his friend's eyes saying it. Even though he knew it sent Bucky chasing after the drink instead instead of the nurses and village women, any chance he got.

There were no more taps after that. Not even accidental touches. Bucky kept his hands to himself and Steve forced himself, desperately at times, to put all that to one side and concentrate on the war against Hydra and a future homecoming and settling down.

For all that Steve was supposed to be a courageous man, he knew he wasn't deep down. Not where it counted.

For the first time since waking up after 70 years under ice, Steve finds himself full on sobbing and then crying fat tears, regret burning in his veins. He'd been so careful not to feel anything; to bury all those who were buried long ago, as was expected of him. He'd worked hard on fitting into a modern age filled with technological wonders and sudden alien invasions. He'd let himself have the odd idle thought about Bucky, but never before had he let his absence from his new life gutpunch him this way; not since losing Bucky off the side of a train all those years ago.

The next morning his neighbour, Kate, gives him some homemade cookies but can't seem to look him in eye as she hands them to him.

+++

IV. HIS EYES

A fortnight goes by and Steve hasn't yet figured a way to get closer to the scientists with the yellow markers on their passes. Everything he might try seems like it would be too obvious and he'd be giving the game away too soon. He's also being kept busy with a few missions for SHIELD, which at least helps him to get back into the mindset of accepting that everyone he ever knew is gone now and there's nothing he can do about it except keep walking forward, one battle at a time.

Clint stops by and apologies, carefully out of earshot of anyone, saying that he's got personal outside interests in need of attention that he just needs to take care of at present, and picks up some stuff from his locker before departing again. He does at least leave an emergency number for Steve just in case, but once again Steve knows he's essentially on his own.

When another mission crops up where a sniper is needed and Hawkeye is still not around, he lets Nick Fury be the one to suggest the Soldier and feigns the appearance of going along with the idea to hide the spike of anxiety he feels at seeing him again. Luckily, it isn't one which requires them to pair off again. And everything goes down without a hitch and the data they were sent in to retrieve is recovered exactly as planned, but there is a bit of a firefight and Steve notices that the Soldier's goggles are cracked while they're on the plane back.

He points it out, quietly, and gets no response. But looking closely tells him there is some blood pooled inside one of the eyes, so it looks like they didn't shatter too cleanly. Gently, he coaxes the Soldier to sit down with him in a quiet corner, away from the others. He pulls the goggles upwards and off the man's head. Steve's breath hitches a little, two thin rings of blue framed with long dark lashes and exhausted dark rings revealed, pupils blown like he's gone faraway. There's a small cut high on his cheekbone, so luckily no eye damage. Steve grabs a first aid kit and leans in close to him.

The Soldier doesn't flinch when he applies some antiseptic cream to the cut but the eyes do shift, at last, to him, focusing in at last.

Steve stares back, falling into them like a man sinking under waves, cleaning the wound and then taping a dressing onto his face. Something moves him to touch the rim of the mask, to run his finger along the edge where it presses against pale skin. The scruffy bangs of the Soldier's hair have concealled the way the mask extends upwards, around the sides of his face, ending in two plug-like objects that appear to be embedded in his temples, so this is Steve's first look at it close up. It wonders why.

"Who are you?" he asks, at a reverent whisper, no idea what to make of the odd tug that punches his chest.

He hasn't been this physically near to anyone for a very long time, sans grappling. It makes him shift awkwardly and draw aside, re-angling his body to be a little less invasive. Steve starts as he feels a touch on his arm and looks to see that the Soldier has leaned in after him, forehead resting against his bicep.

This is the man that killed Howard Stark, he thinks but it doesn't feel correct somehow. He can't connect the dots in a way that makes sense to him. The thought transforms into, this is the man that was ordered to kill Howard Stark and somehow then becomes, this is the man that was made to kill Howard Stark, though he has no solid evidence as to that being the case.

It's the worst possible time for Rumlow to stumble in. The Soldier is gone like a snap, stepped aside and right into the darkest corner possible before Steve can say a word. Rumlow just gives a bemused smile and snort, looking after the Soldier with something like disbelief. "Well," he starts, like an off colour remark is coming, and Steve stands up, drawing himself up to his full height with an edge of warning.

Rumlow lets it go with a shake of the head. "Uh, Fury's on the line for you." He gives the Soldier another curious glance before heading back into the main section.

Steve resists doing the same before following behind him to take the call.

+++

I knew him.
I knew him.
I knew him.
I...wanted...
Brace. Breathe. Tubes.
Clamps engaged. Hurts.
He was so warm. His eyes...
Tap tap tap...
Malfunctioning. Malfunctioning.
You are a machine.
We pulled your insides out remember? How can you think yourself alive?
Pain is order.
Order is pain.
Order is for machines.
Pain is for machines.
Four units present. Male at 2 (caution). Male at 8. Female at 9. Male at 11. Exit at 12.
Machines do not want.
Order through pain.
Order is for machines.
"32557038..."
Time: 21:59pm (extreme danger)
I knew... I knew... please come back... don't let them...
"32557038
32557038
32557038........"

+++

There is a woman in the team of scientists. Mousy brown hair and a dull around the eyes, but pretty in a studious sort of way. Steve turns and knocks her lunch tray out of her hands, entirely accidently, but it breaks the ice on an unexpected conversation. She gets flustered as he cleans up the mess and insists on buying her a whole new lunch, and he suddenly sees his way in.

Steve feels bad to do it, but he's just about at the point where he's starting to get a little desperate. His latest request to draft the Soldier in on a mission has been turned down, no explanation given, and Fury is keeping him even more in the dark than ever before on even the basic SHIELD operations. Natasha has got in contact and told him that Stark has noticed a huge amount of encrypted data being transferred to SHIELD HQ via a set of satellites recently launched from their flagship seacarrier, the Lemurian Star. An abnormal amount, times a thousand, as Tony put it, sent out in sporadic bursts. They're intercepting as much as possible, copying fragments in order to break the encryption, and attempting to track down where it's coming from.

Steve wants coordinates yesterday. Natasha tells him they're working on it but it keeps deflecting and then cutting out when they get close.

He makes an effort to get to know the scientist, Marla Hass, taking note of her coffee break timings and making an effort to be in the canteen to make it up and hand it to her ready made. Steve asks Sam for a few tips on what to say to let her know he's interested, since his one attempt to suggest getting coffee outside of SHIELD made her scurry back inside the secured area she works in. Sam is naturally smooth and he gives Steve the useful advice to play it cool and not to appear so overeager, while also looking for ways to give her a special little nod or a wink that will make her feel special to him. He is told to use his Captain America coolness factor to win her over, which is utterly baffling to him as a concept.

He soon manages to persuade her to have dinner with him, through sheer persistence more than anything else. Her reluctance tells him she's concerned about associating too closely, since the signs she's giving are, according to Sam, showing that she's very interested and flattered. So he knows he has to play it carefully.

Steve invests in some extremely good wine for the meal, on Sam's suggestion, blowing some top money - it still doesn't sit right with him, spending so much on food and drink when he and Bucky had gone without a lot back in Brooklyn when the chips were down, but he takes the advice. Another useful hint from Sam has Steve putting desert in a box and persuading her to come back to his apartment with him to eat it in front of some TV.

The lady's pretty drunk by the time the fudge cake is gone and Steve feels like a cad for leading her on this way. It's just too important. He gets her comfortable before doing his best to start wheedling out some information.

She's still reticent about herself generally. But at last, she does at talk when he asks what's happened to the Soldier, citing some of the stuff he learned in the memo and a few extra details lifted from the email to Alexander Pierce, which are burned into his mind. It succeeds in convincing her that he has the clearance level to know the details, and in actual fact she seems a little relieved to have someone to talk to about it.

"Well there's a big Project coming up he's needed for. Big big project. Not that I know much about it," she reveals and then shushes herself with a giggle. "Can't let him out."

"Hey, I'm curious," Steve says, trying for equal levity despite the knot in his stomach, "does that damned mask ever come off?"

"Oh suuure," she drawls. "It's all automated. Pops off about once a fortnight, like clockwork. For maintenance."

Steve doesn't understand what she means at first. "That's a lot of maintenance for a mask."

That makes her giggle and, yes, that wine has really done the trick. "No, on him. Gotta get him shaved. There and, well, in any place it could chafe against his armour. That's the orders. Not my job though," Marla grins at him, a little salaciously, "in case you were jealous."

"Say, do you know who he was before all this?"

She shrugs. "No idea. He can't talk. Well except..."

"Well?"

"Except for, sometimes I hear him muttering Real quiet and muffled. Before shutdown. No one knows why." She finishes off her latest glass of wine with a flourish. "My line manager says it's a, uh, programming bug."

That really strikes him as odd language to use. Despite the metal arm, the biometrics described, there can be no doubt that the Soldier is a man and not some mindless robot, like the iron sentinals Tony makes. He's seen him bleed. Smelled him. Touched his pale skin.

"What does he say?"

"Well, at first I thought it might be his name or something. But I listened up close once and it kinda sounded like numbers. Weird huh? Most of everything about him is. S'like... ah I dunno..."

Steve nods and looks at the woman sitting beside him, shuffling up closer to him. He has an odd feeling of annoyance at her attitude that he has to work hard to hide. "So he's not spending a lot of time socialising outside of... maintenance?," he asks, through gritted teeth.

"Too shut down," she tells him, and shrugs. "Only really comes alive when they march in," she mimics the motion of boots stomping along a floor with her hands, wine glass nearly slipping from her fingers, "usually the big military hard faced guys in STRIKE gear, and they yell 'Asset, you have a Mission'!" Marla mimicks a booming military male voice, grinning. "You're not like those meatheads though. You're... so nice." She moons at him, leaning closer.

Steve shrinks back under the pretext of reaching for the wine bottle and gives her a top up instead. He deflects her attention on his mouth by drinking down his glass as well.

"They're not nice. Not to him, not to any of us," Marla says, wistfully, so very drunk.

He doesn't think she's a bad person. For all appearances she seems like just a scientist with some blinders on; if she's Hydra she's doing a good job of acting the part. Yet he feels something hot and annoyed deep inside all the same. Steve isn't sure what he actually wants to say to her, just knows that there is some nameless horror that perches just above his chin, like a thought that won't quite come forward, all jumbled like mumbled numbers; a sense memory he can't quite grasp.

As the lady falls asleep against his shoulder and drools a crescent moon into his shirt, he considers what he has learned.

For all that he now has information on who gives the Soldier his orders, that there is some sort of mental programming at play, that whatever Hydra are planning it appears to be imminent... he is more concerened for the man on a personal level. Steve feels more than a little vindicated in his own private thoughts at the intimation given that the Soldier is not calling the shots in any way. He's not what Natasha and Tony seem to think; not the villain. Just a tool they seem to want to use. A victim too, in his own way.

The man saved his life when he should have finished a mission and for all the wrongs attributed to him, Howard Stark the most hard felt, Steve has an innate sense that he needs to do something.

That something only comes ot him when he spots Marla's bag on the floor by her heels. It's another honestly terrible thing to do to a lady but he's already come this far. He opens it up...

Steve at least takes a moment to cover her over with a blanket before climbing out of his own window and landing into a silent roll and running to his motorcycle.

+++

Honestly, he knows he's not exactly being stealthy. There's no chance whatsoever that he's getting into the secure wing without someone noticing that he's not supposed to be there. Steve isn't completely sure what he's looking for; evidence. Something about the Project. Anything that could help give them a lead on what was happening.

He uses Marla's yellow pass to get through the locked door, relieved not to have needed an extra code or anything. The area isn't designed for any serious prevention of infiltration; it isn't heavily guarded like so many of the places he's recently visited on missions. That doesn't make it any less imperitive to be swift and silent about it; Steve needs to get in and out.

The area is fairly sterile; a miniature complex of offices and test areas, some with smokey glass in the tops of the doors and warning signs about biohazards. He's only nearly caught once as a passing scientist heads for home and he has to duck into an alcove and stop breathing as he passes.

Steve moves along and finds a room that looks like an office. The door is locked, which makes him think it's probably a good place to look for secrets. He breaks it with a swift pull at the handle and slides into the gloom inside.

Unlike the world he knew in the 40s, there's no handy filing cabinet to go through. There are a few papers left on the desk's intray but they're unintelligable; all formulas and percentages. He checks the drawers but it doesn't look like there's much there. There's an industrial fridge unit built into the wall and he peers inside; sees rows of medical fluid bags and also what looks like intravenous food bags stored beside each other. There's also a shelf filled with drug bottles, neatly stacked petri dishes and syringes that gives him an uncomfortable flashback to his early days of endless tests while Dr Erskine perfected his formula. 

The room's a bust, so he tries another. This room looks more like the sort of office that would belong to someone senior. There is a laptop docked on the desk and Steve grabs it. He knows he won't be able to break any passwords himself, and though he doesn't doubt there are ways to pull it off or access it from someplace else, he hasn't got the first clue as to how to do that and he knows there isn't enough time to get on the phone and get directiosn. So he decides to take the whole thing with him and ask Natasha or Tony to check it over later.

In his haste to leave his apartment, he hasn't thought to bring a bag, so he has to carry it in his arm as he leaves.

Steve is about to get out of the area, but something pulls him back. There's a door at the end of the hallway, slightly larger than the others and more foreboding, like the oversized doors to surgery theatres in hospitals, and something tells him to go check it out. He trusts his instincts and ducks towards it, just intending to look in the window and see what's in there.

It sees a table, not unlike an operating table, and the figure of a man lying on it, slightly obscured by the imperfections in the glass. He already has a feeling about who it is, and while he knows he should take the laptop and run, he can't make himself walk away.

Steve slides inside, careful and silent. The Soldier is naked on the table, clad only in the mask he always wears, his arms and legs secured in clamps, with the metal one raised at an angle to allow a series of tubes to protude from his armpit and down into a row of bags hanging down at the side, two empty, one full. The join between flesh and metal arm looks like he's been literally welded to it, the pink flesh puckered. His eyes are open but completely unfocused, staring through the ceiling and into oblivion.

This is not what he expected. There is nothing here which suggests the Soldier is in any way some sort of volunteer. He's a prisoner. There's no other word for it. For all that he is fit and well muscled, his skin is sallow and thin and there is something uncomfortable about the way he has been made completely hairless, aside from the long uncared for mess on top of his head, like a polished tool for their use.

Steve almost hopes that Hydra is behind it all, because if not, then SHIELD is every bit as bad as they were and he is just as guilty by association.

"Soldier," he whispers, "it's Captain Rogers. Can you hear me?"

Steve presses the back of his hand to his forehead and finds him ice cold. The eyes flick over to him and focus a little but there's absolutely no reaction beyond that. Just a long stare.

He considers playing the old blink once for yes, twice for no game, but it's pointless. He knows it.

"God damnit," he mutters and puts the laptop down. He snaps the clamps off and yanks the tubes out of the metal arm. There's an armoury with several uniforms on display by the wall, so Steve grabs some clothes for the man to put on, but he doesn't move except to track his movements with his eyes, like he's pinned down and unable to comprehend anything.

"Asset, this is a mission," he says, softly, and feels a little sick the Soldier jolts like he's just been woken up, blinking at him rapidly. "Put these clothes on and follow me."

The Soldier nods and does what he asks quickly and quietly. Steve fetches some boots from a locker and gives them to him.

He then grabs the laptop and leads the way, listening for footsteps and then creeping out as none are apparent. There's no way they can leave the way he came, through the main areas of Shield. So Steve goes the other way, deeper into the closed off area, following his nose. The Soldier stays behind him, mirroring his movements but keeping a slight distance.

They soon make it to what looks like an emergency exit, but as soon as the doors swing open, Steve realises they're screwed.

The entire STRIKE team are standing in the corridor on the other side, waiting for them, guns aimed and ready, Brock Rumlow standing in front of them with his arms folded and that smirk still stuck to his face. Steve glares at them.

"Sorry Cap," Rollins purrs. "I can't let you leave with company property."

Steve clutches the computer he's carrying closer and glares.

There is something in Rollins' hand; a small device of some kind. "I wasn't talking about the laptop." He presses the button on it and Steve starts as a hoarse cry tears out of the Soldier's throat and he falls down to his knees. The mask is suddenly alive with ripples of electricity and his eyes are rolling up into his head as he jerks violently. Finally he falls face down on the floor with a heavy thud.

"You son of a bitch," Steve growls and takes a step forward.

Half a dozen semi-automatics make an audible clatter as they are cocked in warning, the men around him inching closer in warning.

"Stand down Rollins," a booming voice echoes through the corridor and the men part ways to reveal Fury has made an appearance, a dark figure against the silver walls of the facility in his long trenchcoat and black eyepatch. "Take the Soldier back to his room... and go get the locks changed."

Steve continues to glare as Rollins yanks the laptop from his arms and the STRIKE guys drag the Soldier back into the corridor behind him.

"Captain, step into my office," Fury yells and disappears without waiting for him to answer.

Reluctantly, Steve storms after him.

"It's a good job you're a soldier and not a spy," Fury says, looking out of the floor-to-ceiling windows of his office, out over the grey skies of Washington DC, before turning around to him, "because you suck."

Steve slams his fist down on Fury's desk and it snaps in two, sinking in the middle.

"Well that wasn't necessary," Fury remarks, but Steve can see he's shaken.

"All this time. All this time I thought I knew what I was fighting for. But it was all a lie, wasn't it? What you're doing to that man in there..." Visions of the half dead soldiers of the 107th, of Bucky Barnes strapped to a table, swim before his eyes and make him dizzy, "I thought SHIELD stood for something. But you're no better than Hydra."

"Are you finished?" The stern tone gets Steve's attention. "You think because I only got one eye, I'm completely blind?"

Fury picks up what looks like a paperweight from the remnants of his destroyed desk and clicks a concealed button underneath it. "Bug disrupter," he explains.

"What's going on? Tell me truthfully," Steve demands. "Who is the Soldier? Why are you keeping him like-like that?"

"Captain, let's pretend for a moment that's your concern..."

"I'm making it my concern," he snaps, fists balled.

Fury shrugs and sighs. "You've spoken to Natasha. You know who we're dealing with and you know they're planning something. Whatever it is, he's involved."

Confusion disrupts his anger, just a little. "Natasha said..."

"Give me a little credit, Cap."

Steve wants to accept it; that Fury has known all along that the Hydra infiltration went beyond Pierce, that he's playing the long game to stop them. But it's not that simple, it's just not.

"He's not one of them," Steve says, softly, from a place down in his gut. "There's no need to treat him like..."

"Maybe he is, maybe he isn't. But what do you think would have happened if I pushed too hard in the wrong places?" Fury asks. "Think we'd be standing here, having this conversation? Or would you be having it with another one of their best friends?"

"But..."

"Last thing Alexander Pierce said to me before he smiled and blew his own brains out; cut off one head, two more will grow, right where you least expect it. That man turned down a Nobel Peace prize back in the 80s. He said peace wasn't an achievement, it was a responsibility. Last thing we ever agreed on." Fury looks thoughtful, distant, the burden of responsibility weighing heavy on his shoulders. "I'm not saying I like it. I don't know who's playing what side here. All I know is, something is happening and that Soldier they've been keeping as a lab rat for God only knows how long is a part of Project Z, whatever that is. Now I admit it, I let him out and on your team because I wanted you to know about him. I need you to care, it's what you do."

Steve gives a sharp look for that revelation.

"Knowing what's at stake, I need you to be ready for when I give the command to intervene." Fury's hand hovers over the paperweight button again and he gives him a look. "So are we good? Cap, are we good?"

Finally, Fury shakes his head and then clears the signal. He puts it back on the part of the desk that is still standing, promptly causing it to collapse with the rest. "Glad we had this chat," he sighs. "Go home, it's gone midnight."

Reluctantly, Steve accepts the dismissal and steps outside. He walks back down the corridor to the swing doors, now locked tight, contemplating the train of events which might unfold if he simply broke them down and got the Soldier out of there.

He's almost ready to do it, fingers twitching, when the phone he forgot he had rings in his back pocket. It can only be one person, so he takes the call.

"Well, so much for our marriage," Natasha tells him, tartly, "you've got a drunk lady passed out on your couch. Nice work, Romeo. Who knew Captain America was such a lady killer?"

"You're at my apartment?"

"I was going to wisk you away. It would have been so romantic," she drawls, voice filled with amusement.

"Nat, what's going on?"

"I was already heading over in case you need some back up, given that things are escalating. But Tony just got a source on that mystery data upload and I thought you'd want to come along. Camp Lehigh in Wheaton, New Jersey. Ring any bells?"

He knows she's checked it out and knows what that place was to him, once upon a time, when he was still just some skinny kid from Brooklyn trying to fight for his country. "I'll be there in fifteen minutes," he says and snaps the phone closed.

+++

Unscheduled punishment... parameters not set...
Current location unknown.
Trying to... remember...
Seven units present. Male at 2. Male at 3. Two males at 5. Female at 9. Two males at 11. Exit... not observed.
Visual: five weapons, automatic. Ten concealed: six handguns, three knives, one grenade.
Threat level nine. Extreme danger.
Arms and legs... clamped. Substrength welding, escape possible.
Time: 02:17am (safe)
Awaiting new mission p...
No... no mission already set.
Mission unfilfilled.
Malfunctioning.
I knew him. I knew him.
Malfunctioning. Correction imminent?
But... mission unfillfed.
Mission... follow him.
....
Escape possible.

+++

V. HIS MIND

Like stepping through the looking glass, Steve sees himself, the self he hasn't known since the 40s, running around the dark base as a shadow. It's eerie returning there, the ravages of time rendering it in unrecognisable tones, like a photograph of a bygone era.

Through the sterile dead walls, with the face of Howard Stark framed and staring at him, hidden away out of sight they are lowered into the ground in a secret elevator, down into places that his ghost isn't able to linger.

But there's something down there. Rows and rows of old time data banks and machines standing like monoliths under a greenish light, all dead and dusty.

Except for one; the central console still has a blinking light on it. Natasha is there, initialising the system before he has even approached it, and something stutters to life on the largest of the screens. A voice, strange and heavily accented, calls out their names and gives them each a date of birth.

"Must be a recording," Natasha begins.

"I am not a recording Freulein. I may not be the man I was when the Captain took me prisoner in 1945 but I am..."

The screen flickers to the photo of a face that makes Steve tense up all over.

"You know this thing?" Natasha asks.

"Arnim Zola was a German scientest who worked for the Red Skull. He's been dead for years," he says, circuling around the console, assessing it.

"First correction. I am Swiss," the machine corrects him, as if offended. "Second correction; I have never been more alive. In 1972 I received a terminal diagnosis. Science could not save my body. My mind, however, that was worth saving, on two hundred thousand feet of data banks. This has been my brain for some time now. But now, most of what I am is transferred out. Soon I will be gone."

"The data being uploaded to the satellites..." Natasha mutters.

"How did you get here in the first place?" Steve asks. This was where SHIELD was founded and, in some ways, his birthplace as the man he was destined to become under the guidance of Dr Erskine. It doesn't make sense to him that Zola would be anywhere near it, were he even still alive.

Then Natasha is telling him about something called Operation Paperclip; the recruitment of German scientists by SHIELD after the war, after he'd flown a plane into an iceberg to save the American people from the auspices of German scientists. Suddenly, everything starts to make a sick sort of sense.

"You infiltrated SHIELD," he says.

"Oh yes. Accessing archive."

A history lesson that Steve never wanted plays on the screen; grainy footage of the war, of Hydra, of the Red Skull and of Captain America fighting against them. Zola tells them of his recruitment and of the new Hydra that grew inside SHIELD from that moment on. "A beautiful parasite," he calls it, and Steve recoils.

"For seventy years, Hydra has been secretly feeding crisis, reaping war, and when history did not cooperate, history was changed."

A flash of a red star on a metal arm, a news article about the death of the Starks, and Steve hears Natasha's words, so indelibly stuck in his mind, an assassin. back again to torment him.

"Hydra created a world so chaotic that humanity is finally ready to sacrifice its freedom to gain its security. Once the purification process is complete, Hydra's new world order will arise. We won Captain. Your death amounts to the same as your life; a zero sum."

Red mist goes across Steve and he smashes the screen with his fist, unable to listen to it anymore, unable to accept that is really goes that deep.

Within a moment, the flickering greenish face has returned to one of the smaller screens on the side of the console. "As I was saying..."

"What is Project Z," he demands, cutting right to the chase.

The computer voice chuckles. "Isn't that obvious, Captain? No? Well, Alexander Price was to be the custodian of our new world order," he says, flashing an image of the man on the screen, "but sadly he is no longer with us to see through the final phase of Hydra's evolution. It is a problem that has required a creative solution. In short, Project Z is my own liberation. Project Zola. I will be taking charge and instigating the final phrase myself."

"You're being beamed up so you can go down directly into SHIELD HQ?" Natasha asks, putting the pieces together.

"In a manner of speaking."

"Fury will shut you down," Steve promises.

"I'm afraid Director Fury is no longer in play. Coincidently... neither are you."

The doors suddenly sweep closed and lock. Steve throws his shield on instinct but he's too late to prevent it from being sealed. Then Natasha is warning of a bogie en route, launched from SHIELD.

"I am afraid I have been stalling, Captain," Zola remarks, smugly. "And now I must be leaving. Goodbye." There is a frizz on the screen and the entire console goes dead.

Everything is a blur as they duck down into a floor vent just as the entire building erupts in smoke and flames.

As soon as things settle and he's able to pull Natasha out, Steve is amazed to see that the entire building has been blown to smithereens and the night sky is visible above. But there are quinjets overhead, looking to touchdown, so he ducks for cover under the largest fragement of debris he can find.

It's Rumlow and his STRIKE team. They haul out and start searching, come to confirm the kill. They're pinned down; if one of those guys stumbles on them, Steve knows they will have a fight on their hands and, with Natasha barely conscious, he's not sure it's one he can win.

But then the third quinjet touches down and suddenly STRIKE guys are falling down, bullets raining down on them out of nowhere. He sees Brock Rumlow and watches him turn heel, ducking the barage and firing back.

Steve grabs his shield and uses it to take Rumlow down before going after the last few hold outs with it. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees a figure leaping between quinjets and taking out the pilots with a handgun, shooting right through the pod windows at the front.

He stares, dumb with surprise, as the Soldier rolls and lands in the rubble, looking wild and untamed against the flames around them. He's only wearing pants and has scratches and scrapes all over his torse, which is heaving as he breathes heavily through his mask, but there is a sense of triumph in his gait nevertheless.

"I believe we're what's known as the cavalry," Fury yells from the doorway of the rearmost quinjets, his voice strained, face a mess of bruises.

Despite all the chaos and the ridiculous of it all, Fury is smiling and Steve finds himself smiling right back.

+++

Fury explains, as the Soldier pilots the largest of the quinjets upwards and Steve helps make Natasha comforable in the back, where it's a squeeze for three but a necessary one.

"Tracker, in your shoe," Fury tells Steve, with a look like it should have been obvious.

"Why?"

"In case you did something stupid like, oh, breaking into SHIELD's top security wing. I heard you give our friend over there a mission, to follow you. He was tearing the place apart to get out and all hell broke loose. Fortunately, knowing which way to point him got me my own personal bodyguard. Only sorry we didn't beat those boys to the punch."

"Were they..."

"Hydra? Looks that way."

There is a sense of betrayal settling under his skin at the thought. He's worked so closely with Rumlow and Rollins and the rest of the STRIKE team since coming to work for Fury. The idea that, all that time, they were working against him, it sets his teeth on edge. This new world he has found himself in after so long sleeping under a crust of arctic ice is too grey, too complex. Nothing feels solid anymore. There's none of the simple comraderie of long days and nights in the field, trust such an easy thing amongst soldiers back then; his Howling Commando and Bucky always there, always standing beside him, watching his back. It just wasn't the same in the news century, not even with the Avengers. Too many agendas and too many shades of grey. And aliens.

"Where to now?" he asks. "Maybe Tony could...?"

"Not with him here," Natasha suddenly chips in, her eyes fluttering open. The way she angles her head makes it obvious that she's looking toward the cockpit in front of them.

"I got that covered," Fury says. "You think I've spent all this time watching them without preparing for a fight back?"

"Coulda fooled me." Natasha gives him a pointed look but it soon softens into a smile, and Steve can see a note of relief in her, knowing that Fury believed her all along.

Steve decides to give them a moment to talk things through and crawls into the front section, sliding himself into the empty co-pilot station. There is no acknowledgement from the Soldier as to his presence, but he doesn't really expect one.

He wants to ask if the man's okay; thinks he must be cold at the very least. Almost certainly probably hiding some pain from the bruising and scratches marring his pale skin. Instead he settles in and says, "I'm glad you got out of there," quietly, really meaning it. "Thank you, for, uh, following me here." After a moment of contemplation, he adds, "You're free now, to do what you want, but... I hope you'll stay and help us. I don't know what sort of fight we're facing. I don't know who to trust right now."

There's nothing more to say, so Steve watches the clouds rushing by outside and listens to the sound of the Soldier's even breathing, amplified through the mask, finding peace in the calm before the storm, just like he did in the days when the whole world was at war.

At some point, he sees a hand sweep by his face, and its Bucky, sitting right there next to him in the cockpit. His friend looks handsome and well, just like he remembers him being in the hazy days of their youth; big blue eyes and easy smiles. The sight of him fills Steve with longing and he stretches out his hand toward him, but yet somehow can't seem to reach.

"Terrible thing, Steve," Bucky drawls. "Real terrible."

"What is?"

"To forget who you are." The sentiment seems to draw all of the colour out of his cheeks, the spark in his eyes failing.

Steve is desperate to touch him and he reaches out again, but he's still somehow too far away, despite being right there next to him. "Why can't I reach you?" he murmurs, distraught.

Bucky shrugs. "I'm right here," he says, and fixes Steve with a stare that straight out chills him to the bone. Something is itching at the back of his skull, fluttering, and he doesn't know why. Something's wrong, he feels certain of it, and yet he can't put his finger on what it is.

He is jolted awake by what he thinks is turbulence at first, but then realises is the quinjet careening to one side. The radar on the pilot monitor shows multiple small bogies, rockets, passing by them. Only one has hit but it's crumpled one of the wings.

The Soldier is fighting the controls to keep them gliding, and Natasha is pushing between the seats, looking out of the plexiglass hatch above them.

"What the hell was that?" Steve yells through the din of the engines struggling.

"More gifts from SHIELD HQ. Say, we must have really pissed them off. How'd you think that could have happened?" she yells with an edge of gallows humour.

The quinjet rocks to one side as the engine finally blows out and then suddenly they are spiralling downwards in a freefall, all systems failing, alarms sounding out everywhere. Steve clings on best he can and tries to grab Natasha to keep her from smashing against the console, but it's hopeless and she rolls practically into the quinjet's nose.

In the last few seconds before they are due to become roadkill on the dessert floor, Steve thinks of only one thing and it's clear as a bell to him. Comin' for ya finally, Buck, he thinks, just like he did the last time he found himself nosediving in a plane. This time it looks like there's not going to be much left to find.

The last thing he's expecting is whiplash as the quinjet suddenly slows and starts to right itself. He hears a 'donk' and Fury yells out some profanity or another somewhere behind him, but he can't turn enough to see what happened.

Somehow they're ascending again, even though the engines sound like they've died. The Soldier flicks some buttons and the radar view extends outwards, showing another airborne body somewhere to the north of their position.

"Is that... is that a jet?" Steve asks, with disbelief.

"Oh man," Natasha groans. "We're never going to hear the last of this."

+++

Although he figures it out halfway there, Steve is still absolutely speechless when the quinjet lid is popped and they climb out of the ruined hull into the Stark Industries Private Jet's hanger.

Tony's Iron Man suit detaches from him and he stands to one side with the biggest shit-eating grin possible. "And just when everything looked hopeless, Iron Man swooped in and saved the day. Beautiful."

Rhodey takes a little longer to get out of his version of the Iron Man suit. "Yeah, you didn't need any help, none at all," he deadpans before shaking his head and stepping forward to help Natasha get out of the quinjet, as she's not looking too good. 

Steve is momentarily distracted as Fury stumbles as if he's going to faint, and he moves to help him stand. He coughs some but then waves Steve off.

In that time, four of Stark's Sentinels appear as if out of nowhere and they stand between Soldier and everyone else. He immediately kicks into a self-protective mode and lashes out as they lurch toward him.

"Hey!" Steve leaps in and pulls one of them back.

The Soldier punches the face right off of one of them with his metal fist and Steve manages to get two of them off balance and away from him, but the fourth manages to lurch around him and administer some kind of shot into his neck. He glares, ferally, lashing out, but whatever it is looks to be fast acting.

Steve catches him as he finally passes out. "What the hell was that?" he demands.

"Supersoldier sedative. Raided your stash." Tony rolls his eyes. "Don't give me that look, Cap." He nods over at the Sentinels. "Get him to the medibay boys. Three, go offline pending repairs."

"That wasn't necessary," Steve says, but he lets three of the Sentinels lift the Soldier up and carry the unconscious man out of the bay, the damaged one following behind unsteadily.

"Nice moves fellas. What are you doing here?" Natasha asks, breaking the uncomfortable atmosphere caused by Steve glaring at Tony.

"I was heading to DC. But I thought you could use a hand, you know, what with SHIELD firing missiles at you and all. Guys..." he singsongs like he's making an announcement, "I know what that data upload is."

"Dr Zola," Steve interrupts him and Tony gives him yet another frown for stealing his thunder.

"Okay, yes. That. German science guy my dad knew. He's made himself into an AI. Let me tell you, Jarvis is excited. Right, Jarvis?"

"Yes, sir," the AI responds, drolly.

"But not just that, I learned a lot about our Hydra friend."

"Stark, cut to the chase," Fury groans, "I'm not getting any younger over here. What did you find out?"

"Probably easier to show than tell. Plus, I know I need a drink."

"About time," Rhodey comments and moves to help Natasha up the steps leading out of the hanger.

They follow along into a midsection cabin which is altogether plush and alive with the lights of screens and machines, and continue on into an adjoined area which is a medilab and laboratory. Bruce Banner is standing over the unconscious form of the Soldier, who has been laid out on the biolab, apparently running some scans.

"Hi all," he says, delivering a slight wave and pushing up his glasses before starring down at his datapad screen again.

Once Fury is safely lowered into one of the seats nearby, Natasha finds a corner in the shadows to one side, from where she can observe, an arm cradling across her stomach. Steve knows she's more hurt than she's letting on.

Rhodey offers drinks to everyone but, in the end, he and Tony are the only ones with whiskey tumblers in their hands. There is a note of tension in the air; too much unspoken vibration for anyone else to actually relax.

"So you boys were heading to Washington, why?" Fury asks, looking particularly exhausted.

"Well the cliffnotes to Project Zola were somewhat alarming."

"You couldn't pick up the phone?" 

"You have a slow secretary." Tony's voice is laced with sarcasm. "Look, the data upload to those satellites is a temporary transfer. At first, once we figured what it was, we assumed it was going to be sent down into databanks, similar to ones holding Jarvis. But the size of it is collosal. We're talking trillions of gigabytes. SHIELD's still using Window 7."

Bruce snorts with amusement. He looks around the room with wide eyes when he realises everyone heard him.

"It's actually pretty interesting stuff. I had some theories about AI-sying real live people, in entirety, but looks like Hydra beat us to it. God I hate Nazi death cults."

"Yeah, they ruin all your fun," Rhodey chuckles.

"They do." Tony flashes his pal a grin. "Anyway, so I searched through all the data to figure out if they had some sort of secret databank storage somewhere in Washington. But nada. So then I kept sifting and found a reference to repurposing some asset..."

It takes a beat, but all eyes snap the Soldier on the table.

"I see you know his pet name. Badaboom - human data storage bank. The human brain is a wonderful thing."

"Wait wait," Steve butts in, waving one hand around, "is that even possible?"

"Not for your average Joe. But I saw some schematics of the crazy tech they've stuffed into that guy's head and, well, it looks possible. Bruce?"

Banner pulls his scans up from his screen and throws it up in the air to reappear in hologramatic form above the Soldier, large enough for them all to see. He slide the zoom to focus in on the computerised view of his head, where at least five small pieces of technology lie embedded at points in his brain, connected by thin wires, with two large points routed out at the temples, into the points Steve has observed the mask connecting.

"There we are. Those are databanks. Dr Zola's intended new home base."

Steve stumbles a little on his feet, his shock at the whole idea of such a thing causing a momentary faintness.

"Three or four of those are newly nano-grown additions by the way," Tony continues. "It seems this whole thing was sparked by the death of Alexander Pierce. See, Pierce was Hydra's main man, Zola's right hand I guess. According to the files, he was supposed to be heading up something called 'Project Insight'. Not sure what that was, but it looks like it might have been Hydra's final big push. Pierce goes 'bye bye'," he simulates blowing his own brains out, "Zola realises everyone else in the big Nazi death cult is of low to subpar intelligence, says 'screw you guys, I'll do it myself'," he puts on a high pitched German voice, "so I was heading to DC to take down this Asset asshole before some weird re-run of the Exorcist started up."

"Two birds, one stone," Natasha says, from aside, a dark smile playing at the corner of her shapely lips.

"Not gonna lie, no tears here. But hey, now we've got him, might as well see if we can pull out some of their secrets and figure out this cool tech." Tony moves the Soldier's metal hand to form a claw and then puts his glass of whiskey in his grip, like he's a cup holder. He chuckles and pokes Banner in the ribs to look, but Bruce doesn't see the joke and just frowns at him.

Steve stares at the screen; all of the dark shadows of technological insertions that have no place inside the head of a human man. "Could something like this let them, I don't know, force him to do what they want?"

Natasha flinches and looks away in the periphery of his vision.

Banner gives him a curious look. "The embed points are mostly in the areas concerned with memory, though I'd need to do a lot more testing to figure out what effect they may be having on, or what might be triggered. This is just a static scan."

"The mask can be triggered remotely to electrocute him. I saw them do it." The concentrated frown fixed on his face is so deep it's making his eyes hurt. He turns to Fury, unable to help giving him an accusatory glare, because he's not going to forget, not any time soon, that Fury let whatever they were doing continue on while he was trying to tease out his advantage against the parasite growing under his feet. "No one would volunteer for something like this. No one."

"Think he volunteered to shoot out the wheels on my folks' car?" Tony asks, his wave of anger striking almost out of nowhere. He yanks his glass of whiskey back out of the Soldier's hand with a snap and takes a heavy swallow, not letting his annoyed stare fall away from Steve as he all but downs his drink.

"He's not Hydra, Tony." Steve says it quietly but with absolute conviction, of the kind that  draws all lines on him. "Nor is he your pet science project. He needs to be helped."

There's a long, uncomfortable silence, Steve and Tony once again staring each other down, jaws clenched.

"You know what... I think I'll take that drink now," Fury groans, finally, and Rhodey gratefully moves to fix it up.

+++

VI. HIS VOICE

Visual reflex. Disengage. Too bright. Prevent damage.
Regulating breathing.
Chemical imbalance detected.
Three units present. Male at 5. Male at 6. Male at 11. Exit at 9.
Male at 6: Captain America (mission: follow)
Visual: one weapon concealed: unknown function.
Threat level two. Uncertain.
Chemical imbalance critical.
Hurts... hurts...
No restraints detected.
Cooperation recommended.
Time: unknown (discover time; priority)
Perspiration levels abnormal. Muscular spams... attempting countermeasures...
Malfunctioning?

Good evening, Sir.
Please do not be alarmed.
My name is Jarvis.
I am an Artificial Intelligence unit
created by Stark Industries.

Infiltration.
Enemy?

No Sir.
I have been able to detect the frequency
of the command lines that appear
in your optical centre.
I am projecting text to communicate.

Chemical imbalance detected.
Malfunctioning.

I am advised that you are
undergoing a 'detoxification'.
I have been asked to
request your name, Sir.

The Asset.
Codename: Winter Soldier.

Code word required.
...
...
...

Enemy infiltration.

RESET triggered.
Heartrate ri... submit... submit...

No no no...

Machine is not man.
Pain is order.
Order is pain.
Order is for machines.
Pain is for machines.
Submit to reset.
Brace brace brace...

+++

"Hey, listen, he's saying something," Tony says, frowning as he angles his head to one side and leans in. "Sounds like... numbers. Five five... something, something, three eight three two five... uh... oh its repeating... another three..."

Tony leaps back as the mask that is blocking any real discernment of his words sparks a jolt of electricity at the Soldier's temples and his entire body tenses up. His eyes roll back into his head and he is out again.

Steve stares, the numbers swimming around in his head. "Soldiers are taught to recite their name, rank and serial number under enemy questioning," he says, quietly, fists drawn so tight he's cutting off the circulation in his fingers.

"So no questioning allowed. Great, well there goes Plan A."

"He can talk then," Bruce chips in, "so maybe we should concentrate on deactivating the trigger that prevents us removing the mask."

While Tony argues with Bruce over waiting for it to pop off naturally, as the internal timer would suggest it does, versus trying to get it removed without it detonating, Steve silently leaves the lab. His stomach is rolling and he feels strangely shakey all of a sudden, though he's not entirely sure why.

He makes it all of as far as the elevator before the numbers start to swim before his eyes, making patterns, triggering memories. He remembers the smell of sweat and chemicals, the dark Hydra base where he'd rescued the men of the 107th. Bucky, strapped to a gurney, half out of his mind, his weak voice reciting his serial number over and over, the numbers...

Numbers, printed on a slice of silver oval metal, nestled against dark chest hairs, where Steve had rested his head more than once back in the day in order to listen to his heartbeat. Velvety and soft, and the last slice of home for Steve on those nights when the nights were cold and the war felt like it would never end, when a silent truce was called and they lay together, even though anything more was off limits; that strong expanse of chest that still made him feel tiny somehow, even when he wasn't tiny anymore. Dark nipples, too frequent bruises from battles, his name in stamp-printed letters and... numbers...

32557038

He sees it there, right in front of his eyes, the dogtags... hears Bucky's voice breathlessly mumbling it in the hollow wells of his ears... Zola's lab, where it must have all started, closing in on him once again...

"Three two five five seven oh three eight," he mutters and slams the palm of his hand on the emergency stop. "Jarvis... Jarvis?"

"Yes Sir?"

"Were those... I'm not imaginging it, right? Did he say those numbers. Those numbers exactly?"

"Yes, Sir. Three two five five seven oh three eight. I have crosschecked them with the US National Archives and Records Administration Database, all available entries. Barnes, James Buchanan, Sergeant, 1917 to 1945."

Steve loses time. The next thing he knows, he's back in the lab, yelling at Bruce and Tony to "Get it off! Get that mask off! I don't care how! Get it off NOW! Just... please, get it off."

They discuss it in vague details, something about finding a way to fastforward the timer setting somehow, but then again it might be rigged for... - Steve is hardly aware of anything they say, his ears a wind tunnel, his heart beating out of his chest, everything inside him shrinking down into a pinpoint.

It takes a long time, too long, seconds stretching out a thousand years as Steve stares and stares, hardly daring to breathe. It still isn't confirmed, he might be hearing things, placing words in his mouth... he could have misheard, misconstrued... it might not be what he thinks...

Tony sends Jarvis 'back in' somehow and he is reading lines of code being fed back onto a screen. After a while, the Soldier's eyes flicker open and he's staring ahead again, pupils blown.

Those eyes, Steve thinks. It must be... it has to be... I know him...

He knows Tony and Bruce are shooting some very concerned looks his way but doesn't care. "Come on! Get it off of him!" he snaps after a while, fists balling and unballing compulsively.

"We are engaged in conversation," Jarvis chimes in. "The mask will be released if Maintenance is deemed required."

"Cool, searching the code for a way to trigger that," Tony says, his fingers running smoothly over a datapad. "No.. no... hmm... no... ah ha. Jarvis, feed in the code line I'm highlighting to the visual cortex. See it? Ease it in carefully."

Slowly, the Soldier's eyes slide closed again and his body grows completely lax except for his left metal arm, which rises up to an unnatural right angle off the side of the gurney, exposing the sockets at the join of metal plates in his armpit. He looks like a broken marionette, left to dangle with one string pulled up too far.

Finally, the pins in the Soldier's temples release out and the mask slowly pops forward about an inch. Tony gently pulls on it, discovering a well chewed mouth guard built in that he has to tease out of the Soldier's mouth in order to get it fully off.

When its finally gone, Steve just stands, staring, not breathing, the colour draining out of his face.

"Cap?" Bruce asks, alarmed. "What's wrong?"

Steve turns away, makes it a few unsteady steps, and then misses his footing and somehow crumples to his knees next to a pillar, one hand unhelpfully scratching fingers down it as if to break his fall, without any success.

+++

VII. HIS FACE

Jarvis says something then, Bucky's name in there somewhere, but Steve can't register it.

"Are you shitting me?" Tony says, but it doesn't carry any of the snappy venom it normally would. "THE Barnes? Like the actual Barnes, from World War Two?"

"Oh my... that's..." Bruce says, rubbing his forehead.

"But he's dead... isn't he?"

"Zola," Steve spits, forcing the white hot ball of rage at the core of his being into a place of strength, using it to pull himself together. "Bucky's whole unit was captured in '43. Zola experimented on him. Whatever he did... helped Bucky survive the fall. They must've found him and…"

He looks at the grey-faced, unkempt man with no name and physically flinches, overwhelmed at the realisation that this, this is all his fault. He was the one who came up with that stupid mission to capture Zola on his train and he was the one who let Bucky fall, who never considered the possibility he might have survived.

"Even when I had nothing, I had Bucky," he says, more to himself than to them. Steve turns his blood to steel, fists balled, and he makes himself stand up. He forces himself to go over to him, no matter that it physically hurts to see him like this, taking it as punishment rightly due for ever letting something like this happen. "Buck," he whispers as he leans over the Soldier, itching to touch him like he would have in the old days, but too shocked to do anything but touch a finger to the red lines where the mask has marked his cheekbones, "God, Buck. I never... I..."

"Wait, how is that even possible?" Tony asks, still sounding totally incredulous. "It was like seventy years ago."

"Cryo," he says, all those notes he's read on him flashing back, indelibry printed in his memory with serum aided accuracy. "He's been kept on ice on and off..."

Bucky Barnes, all swollen with muscles he never had when they were boys and fused metal no one should have, the dark patches of hair that should be across his body taken from him, the head of hair he had once styled obsessively left to fall into ruin. Steve can't believe it.

Except, in some primal part of his brain, he'd recognised the pieces of him all along. He'd sensed something kindred there, been thrown into a disarray of memories by the scent of him, felt the old need to protect him waking itself without telling him why. He is somehow horrified for not deciphering the truth sooner.

"Zola is currently stored on those satellites?" Steve hears a terse version of his own voice speaking, though he feels disconnected from it. "How do we destroy them?"

"Well uh, first things first..." Tony starts.

"No." Steve slams his first down on the metal table Bucky lies on, so hard the sound makes Banner jump out of his skin. In his mind's eye, he can see the satellites as he wants to see them, and they're all burning, falling through the night sky like the dying embers of stars. "No. This is ends now."

In flashes, he would later recall marching in the direction of the armoury to get into his uniform and retrieve his shield; shoving Nick Fury out of his way, barely avoiding punching him in the face, injured or not; Natasha kicking his feet out of from under him somewhere along the way and telling him to be reasonable; Tony yelling at him, telling him that going off without a plan and getting himself killed was not going to help anyone, least of all "his soldier boy". But it was the spectre of an infiltration, some small Hydra stealth team trying to scale the side of the building, using electromagnetic pulses to deflect sensors away from their presence, that turned Steve around in the end.

There are only five of them; scouting, Natasha theorises immediately. Rhodey has already taken out one of them, flying out around the tower with his iron suit before anyone else got close. The other four have made it to the medilab level and got inside through one of the exterior glass panels. Natasha is on the case and takes out one of them before anyone else arrives back onto the level, and Banner receives a black eye before Tony makes it back into the lab, iron man suit snapping to heel. Steve is the furthest away when Jarvis reports what is happening, so he is last to the medilab, but he is there to run at the final infiltrator when he nearly gets close enough to lay a hand on Bucky.

Steve snaps his arm, making sure the bone will jut out painfully, and when the agent hits the floor he pummels him around the face repeatedly until someone hauls him off. He could so easily kill the man with his bare hands and he isn't even sure he'd feel bad about it later.

As it happens, the stealth guys are all too quick with their cyanide pills to survive anyway. Steve feels none of the dawning horror he'd felt the first time he'd seen the foam at the mouth of a man who'd given his life to a cause that poisoned his soul and then flat out poisoned him. He feels nothing at all. Just stares at the bodies as all hell breaks loose around him, Tony manically sweeping for trackers and finding the culprit not on Bucky's still form, not inside his metal arm as is immediately suspected, but lodged in the heel of one of Steve's boots. Embedded, just as Hydra had been embeded inside SHIELD all along.

There is then a brief discussion with all assembled in the medilab. Fury alludes to an underground safe house where Agent Maria Hill and all those he had been able to trust within SHIELD are gathered, awaiting his command to launch a counteroperation. He says that Barnes should be taken there and locked down. Meanwhile, Tony is adamant that their Soldier should remain in the tower where he and Bruce can start work on removing the tech embeded in his skull, thereby leaving Dr Zola high and dry and allowing Steve and Natasha to figure out how to destroy the satellites.

The plan draws Fury into line with them a little as he tells them that SHIELD has been building a fleet of shiny new helicarriers. The smallest of them is at his underground backup base; if they can get it close enough, they can use it to shoot down all of the satellites, no problem. The only problem, he says, will come if Hydra have got any of the three being built underneath SHIELD HQ finished, and try to take their down with it.

A shaky sort of agreement on the plan forms without Steve even staying a word. Unusual for him, but they are all patently anxious not to set him off again by questioning his stone cold silence. He feels a dark sense of suspicion that he can't shake; Tony and Natasha have no reason to want to help the Winter Soldier all of a sudden, just because he is Steve's long lost friend. He's still the finger behind the trigger, who killed Stark's parents and nearly tore a hole through Natasha. Banner helping, he can rationalise, since he has a scientific curiosity over what has been done to Bucky. Fury doesn't pretend to have a personal concern beyond retaking SHIELD. and that's why he's leaving straightaway, which is at least honest. Rhodey is just along for the ride, whatever the ride may be. Steve has no quarrell with them, but he can't shake the feeling that he shouldn't be placing his trust in them; that everything is going to go wrong.

It might be paranoia, caused by the shock of his discovery. Or perhaps it's because he knows Hydra is onto them and know exactly where they are. But from that moment on, Steve refuses to leave Bucky's side. He watches everything they do and takes in the detail of every scan; stares long and hard at the images of implanted metal snakes winding around inside his friend, hooked into his digestive system and up into his arm, taking over his natural functions. It's an unforgivable process of dehumanisation that upsets Steve almost more than anything else so far, since they can't even feed him until they've figured out how it works, having to make do with a drip injection to keep him hydrated at least.

He memorises the locations of the six small metal boxes hammered into Bucky's skull, thin wires reaching out of them to stab at the soft tissue of his brain seemingly everywhere, like a mesh. There seem to be different modules for different functions, with the oldest one hooked into the areas governing short and long term memory but avoiding areas which would impede what Bruce calls his "procedural memory function". The other five - the ones which would allow Zola to literally take him over like a parasite essentially - are "brand new" according to Tony, which tells Steve that all the while Bucky was with SHIELD, they were making it worse.

And he was working for them.

And he is going to bring it all down; SHIELD, Hydra... it all goes. This time he's going to make sure of it. He owes Bucky that much.

+++

Sometime in the night, while Steve is sitting on the floor and leaning back against the metal table where Bucky still silently sleeps, he is joined by a tired looking Tony Stark. Nothing is said for a long time. They stare ahead wordlessly, deep in thought and regret.

"I was a POW for a while," Tony says, eventually, "not long," he corrects, quickly, "but long enough. I got a taste of that."

Steve says nothing but his slight change in expression tells Tony that he's listening at least.

"Woke up with a hole in my chest with a lot of tech stuffed in. Oh, and a life or death ultimatum. For some reason, I got some flashbacks tonight." He swallows hard. "Was he a good man, your friend?"

"The best," he replies, quietly, solemnly. "Saved my life a dozen times over. Never asked for a thing in return." Except for me to love him they way he deserved, his brain supplies unhelpfully and twists his insides again.

"My dad said he was a jerk."

It's said so lightly, it startles a snort out of Steve. "In-joke. Bucky worshipped the ground Howard walked on, on account of him being a famous inventor. Spent his last night in the States at the Stark Expo even." If he didn't know any better, he'd think Hydra had a particularly sick sense of humour making Bucky pull the trigger on Howard Stark of all people. "I called him a jerk a whole bunch of times and Howard picked it up I guess."

"Oh yeah, this guy was a fan of the old man? Well now I have to fix him. Don't have too many of those left around these days."

Steve laughs, but it's hysterical laughter; he's suddenly breaking down, face pressed against his knee as he struggles to compose himself, to not cry his eyes out. He feels Tony's shoulder brush his.

"Far as we can tell, your friend heals fast. Like, super fast. Supersoldier fast I guess. The reason for the three course meals of drugs and the electrotherapy was because his brain keeps repairing itself and trying to reject whatever crap is getting projected in there. That they had to automate the process is actually a good sign."

"Meaning?" Steve chokes.

"We get all that stuff out of him, he could make an impressive recovery. I mean, it's hard to say. I don't want to get your hopes up. Just saying there is hope, you know?"

Steve nods and sniffles, faced angled away from Tony as he reigns it all in and tries to compose himself.

At some point - Steve is too lost in his memories to notice when - Tony leaves and the biolab is silent again, save for the tiny and steady blips of a heartrate monitor nearby. Steve's limbs are heavy and his backside numb, so he decides to put one of the other medilab tables next to Bucky so he can take a nap, even if it does mean yanking it free of the bolts securing it to the floor and dragging it across the lab.

Once placed, he climbs up onto it and lies on his side so he can see Bucky; still so handsome in profile, no matter the neglect that has carved new lines around his hollowed eyes, despite the mess of hair that lies limply in tangles and knots around his shoulders.

"I... I missed you. Come back to me Bucky," he whispers, and strains to press his lips to his face, landing at the corner of his mouth, nose brushing a too-sharp cheekbone. "Please... come back to me."

+++

No one says anything when he is found curled in a ball, forehead slotted against Bucky's bicep, dozing fitfully. Steve gets off the table and pushes it more or less back where he found it.

Bucky hasn't so much as moved to scratch an itch in the night. And it's a few hours more before one of the monitors finally spikes an increased heart rate, drawing everyone's attention, before settling back down, and Bucky's eyes flutter open.

He does a cursory sweep of the room, eyes rolling from side to side slowly, and then he stares up and through the ceiling. There's no change in his expression whatsoever but Steve is sure he sees a shiver pass through his limbs. The metal arm performs some sort of recalibration, the plates shifting, and Tony stares at it like a child watching an insect under a telescope, and then it too settles into stillness.

"Should I... should I talk to him?" Steve asks, his stomach all in knots.

Tony tells Jarvis to reconnect into the Soldier's system but to avoid speaking to him this time, since they are running the risk of tripping another alarm and shutting him down. He asks Jarvis to just read out any text on the optical projections that apparently roll over his eyeballs the whole time. Only then does he invite Steve to speak.

"Hi... Hi Bucky," Steve says, tentatively. "Good to see you awake. How are you feeling?"

"Chemical imbalance detected. Status: non critical. Awaiting mission parameters," Jarvis says.

"No missions. You don't need to do anything for anyone any more."

There's a long pause, and then, "Awaiting mission parameters," Jarvis says again.