A/N: First CA fic, takes place about a year after CA:TWS. Interestingly enough, I got the idea for this story after seeing a particular piece of fanart. I won't post it just yet because I don't want to spoil the end, but I will when the time comes. Disclaimer: I don't own Marvel or the characters except my Russian lawyer.
Chapter 1
They found him in Dubai.
A breakthrough in the search came in the form of a coffee-colored skinned man with gold flecks for eyes who saw, and could not unsee.
He sat with his back to them in an antique chair, elbows on knees and head forward. His hair was tangled, falling forward to hide his eyes from the intruders of a small rented room in a run-down apartment complex. He didn't move when they broke down the door, didn't stir when the colors of his home country filled his vision behind the curtain of his hair. He sat like he was waiting for them, still as stone.
His stillness is what worried Steve the most.
"Bucky?" Steve asked tentatively, wondering which man he was kneeling in front of: the Soldier, or his best friend.
A gun was laid harmlessly on the coffee table in front of them, left there hours ago by the Winter Soldier himself.
Slowly, he lifted his head to meet the blue eyes of the man in front of him, and Steve's heart broke all over again at the ice in them. Time seemed to stand still for a heartbeat.
"I'm tired," he said, in a voice that sounded like it had been drug through gravel, like it hadn't been used in weeks. The air was thick with what had been unsaid: Tired of running.
Steve's eyes slipped close, his breath leaving him in the weariest sigh a man had ever let go of. He wanted to reach forward, touch the man in front of him to be sure it wasn't an apparition. He settled for nodding once silently, picking up the shield he had dropped beside him without standing.
"Let's go home, Buck."
Bucky just nodded, unsure of the meaning.
OoO
He was not welcomed back with open arms.
The media exploded, picked at him, tore him apart. Every day more and more hate mail was piled at the doors of the Tower, demanding the blood of the man who had almost brought the country to its knees. Newspapers plastered his face on the front cover of every issue, with the bold, black, ugly word "traitor" adorning the one and only photo they had of him: the mug shot the city of New York demanded after his return. Profilers had a field day with him; they pegged him as a broken man, suggesting home abuse as the catalyst that drove him mad and even went as far as dropping the "rape" word here and there as if his actions could be summed up in a simple yet detrimental traumatic event that occurred in his youth. Crowds in the dozens gathered outside of the towers, holding signs with his name slashed through, their protests against his very existence. The paparazzi slept outside in tents, waiting to catch another glimpse of the infamous Winter Soldier.
Especially when they came for him.
The Avengers knew, even if Steve would fight against it, that James Buchanan Barnes would be indicted. He would be formally charged for his crimes, all 267 and counting, and would probably lose against the US. It would be the biggest case of the century, and would last weeks if not months. His bail was posted at 3.2 million the following morning, and its numeric was delineated in every paper and internet news site.
"3.2 million? That's it?" Tony scoffed flippantly, tossing the paper onto the table in front of him. "Really, I'm offended for him."
"Tony," Steve exasperated, scrubbing at his face. He had just watched his friend be escorted out of the room to undergo more mug shots and finger printing (in mere handcuffs, Steve almost could have laughed) – probably the first real time Bucky has ever been in any kind of system since the 1940s. He hadn't slept in days, and not just because Bucky hadn't (he'd been pacing the living room floor on their level in the Tower for two days, his shoulders so tense Steve wondered if they would permanently turn to stone). Every aspect of Bucky screamed "caged animal", like at any moment he was going to snap and Steve would blink and he would be gone forever. So Steve stayed with him in the living room, watching him stalk across the floor like a tiger swiping at the bars of his prison.
Tony seemed to pay heed to Steve's sleep-deprived worry. He dropped down into the seat next to him at the intense, high-security FBI or whatever military base they were at (Tony would soon know, he had already instructed FRIDAY to hack into the system).
"Don't worry, 3.2 million is nothing. You guys can pay me back in cheap drinks and girls and we'll call it even," Tony fingered his phone. Even with his confident words he still kind of wished it was a drink.
"Tony, the money isn't the problem and you know it," Steve sighed, elbows on knees. "How am I going to get him out of this?"
"I've already taken care of it," Tony said, not looking up from his phone.
Steve's eyebrows pulled together, shortly followed by the narrowing of his eyes. "How?"
Tony, feigning offense. "I'm hurt, you think I would deliberately go behind your back to do something you would," Tony gasped, "disapprove of?"
"Don't make me hurt you," Steve warned.
Tony rolled his eyes, mumblings of "old men can't take jokes" under his breath. He sat back against his chair, raising his eyes to look through the glass wall where they were seated. He found the eyes of a red head who was quietly watching them with sharp eyes, no doubt lip reading the entire conversation. He tipped his head at her, but she looked away.
Tony whipped his head back to Steve. "I know someone," he said in his Tony Tone that left little for reproach or question.
Steve never paid any attention to that tone. "Know someone?" He echoed. He perked up at the sight of Natasha and Barton heading their way, a slightly annoyed look on their faces.
"Yes, people know people, Steve. It's kind of a thing," he sighed, like he was trying to explain something to a child. But he knew this wasn't the time to test Steve's patience so he continued. "She's really good at keeping bad guys out of jail."
Steve's eyebrows furrowed. "You mean a lawyer." It was not a question.
"Trust me. You could show a jury a video with audio and everything of a man strangling a little girl and she could convince them he was innocent,"
Something about Tony's choice of words was familiar, but he let it go when on the other side, Bucky and his entourage emerged from the hall they had taken him down. His face was stone; he hadn't said a word since Steve had found him in that rundown apartment, seated like he was waiting for Steve specifically. Maybe he had been.
Steve brought his hand up to his face to scrub at it again with a deep sigh. "Let's hope you're right, Tony. Because I have a feeling there are a lot of videos." It was left unspoken what side of Bucky the videos showed.
Tony smiled with teeth. "FRIDAY, find Blythe."
OoO
"Miss Ivan! Can you please comment on today's fraud trial?"
"Ms. Blythe! Over here, please!"
"What's your stance on the Winter Soldier?"
"Miss Ivan, another win! Care to comment on your strategies?"
"Miss Ivan!"
Blythe Ivanishkov never looked up from her phone, simply twisting away from the ever present paparazzi herd crowding on the steps of the court, her rapt focus on the text message she was writing. With her lips pressed firmly in a line, she ignored the flashing lights in favor of making her way to the black car awaiting her at the bottom of the steps. A man there opened the door, the warmth of the car a welcomed relief from the bite of New York's winter.
"No comment," she murmured to herself, pausing. She threw the phone into the backseat and turned around in a flourish of a very '50s cut blond curl. With a blinding smile, she dipped her chin to look straight at the camera directly in front of her under her lashes. "No comment," she said silkily, and with a raise of her shoulder she turned and dropped into the seat. The door shut and closed her in the confines of the car, the drone of the raging paparazzi cut off abruptly.
In the quiet she resumed her text message, crossing her legs. She had much to do. The win today had gone as planned, but the case was a small fry compared to what she was representing the following week. She had press conferences to attend, dirt to dig up, a binder to sort, emails to send, people to prepare…
"That dress certainly does wonders, Blythe."
Her eyes shot up from the screen of her phone, fixing immediately on the figure seated across from her. Legs crossed with a drink in hand, Tony Stark looked at her over amber tinted sun glasses with a mischievous smile.
Her eyes immediately narrowed. She gave him a moment of her ice glare, then dropped her eyes back to her phone, continuing the email she had just started with a sigh.
"What do you want, Tony?" she asked dully. She had way too much to do today for his antics.
"Ouch, I'm hurt," he started. "I thought for sure you would be thrilled to see your favorite client—"
"Ex-client." She corrected, her eyes found his again. "Or did you forget what I said last time?" When she said last time she really meant the last time. What Tony did to get in trouble with the law was almost laughable. No lawyer in their right mind would take him, purely because they were made as scrape goats to the public. Though he paid triple her rate, she had much more serious cases to work on.
"I have a case for you," Tony said, sipping his drink while he tapped his knee.
"No," she said simply, going back to her phone.
"It'll be worth your while,"
"No."
"I'll pay ten times your rate," he offered.
A brief pause. But, "No."
"A favor for the Iron Man then. He'll owe you," Tony leaned forward, putting his elbows on his knees to regard her more closely. "It's a career maker, Blythe."
Blythe closed her eyes with another sigh out of her nose. Looking up at him with an indignant look, she raised an eyebrow. "Tony," she exasperated. "I have no time right now to deal with whatever mess you got yourself into this time. Knowing you, it's nothing Iron Man can't get you out of," she was reaching into her purse, digging out a business card of one of her partners. "I know someone who can pretend to hold your hand—"
"It's not for me."
The tone of his voice stopped her rummaging. She cut her eyes to him and they quietly regarded one another. There was an edge about Tony she hadn't picked up on originally. Something about it made her want him to stop talking. But he continued anyway.
"It's him, Blythe."
He didn't have to explain. She had seen what the news had been splashed in, specifically who the news had been splashed with: a certain someone residing currently in the late Stark Tower. Suddenly the car was too warm. Blythe's phone hit the seat of the car with a dull thud, forgotten. She leaned back heavily.
"You don't mean…"
Tony leaned back as well. "The one and only."
Blythe didn't realize the car had started moving until she looked out the window to watch the buildings and pedestrians pass by. "Tony," she started quietly. "That's a career breaker." There was a faint lift of her accent, the shock of what he was asking leveling her usual poise.
Tony was quiet for a second, watching the ice in his drink he had made from her stock in the car dilute the liquor. He knew how to get Blythe to take the case, but he didn't want to force her. If Blythe was to be efficient in her job, she had to believe in her client. Blythe was well connected. There was no doubt she had heard all about the Winter Soldier and James Barnes, possibly even more than the media had let on. He was sure her own contacts had provided her with information that was long deleted from the archives Natasha had leaked. He wasn't so naïve to think Blythe would ignore the monster that had shown up in her city, especially now since his life would be delving into her home turf – the courts. He also would not doubt she had been approached by the state to be a part of the representation against Mr. Barnes.
Finally, "A good man deserves good a lawyer – the best."
Blythe's eye brows shot up and her head swiveled towards him. It wasn't the comment that she was the best that struck her (that she knew very well), but rather the former part of his sentence. It seemed so out of character for Tony. Especially considering…
"Tony…" she began quietly, wondering if this was her place, but deciding to hell with it if he wanted her to represent him. "He killed your parents."
Tony's eyes shot to hers. "You think I don't know that?" He asked sharply. "You think I haven't seen the video?" Blythe winced, but he continued. "I know what he's done, I've seen it. The Winter Soldier killed my mom, Blythe. Did I want to throw him out of top window of the tower and watch him splatter into a million pieces at the bottom when he first got there? Yes. You think I didn't know I was housing my parents' killer in my home?" Blythe remained silent and Tony took a slow breath. There was a moment of silence while Tony composed himself and Blythe watched raptly. He rubbed at his temple.
"This is the reason, Blythe. I've seen him, and let me tell you the Winter Soldier isn't a man. He's a broken shell of a person that used to be some great hero. I couldn't even stay mad at him he was so pathetic," he breathes, then continues more quietly as if to himself. "And I watch them satellite each other all day, just moping around like a pair of angry, post-pubescent teenagers." Blythe wasn't sure who "them" was, but she ignored that part in Tony's rant. It seemed he had a focus he was getting to.
"The point is this, Blythe: we got it wrong. James Barnes isn't the Winter Soldier. Or at least, he doesn't want to be anymore. But for him to have any chance of living a decently normal life after this is done and buried, he needs you to fight for him in a battlefield he wouldn't stand a chance in."
The car was silent as Tony finished his spiel, downing his drink and pouring another, without ice this time. Blythe inhaled slowly, then brought a hand up to pinch the bridge of her nose. She didn't know if it was the out of character outburst of Tony, or the creeping thrill of the hard fight she would lead to save a doomed man that had a part of her deciding against the smarter part.
"You believe he is innocent?" she asked him, eyeing him carefully.
Tony snorted. "God, no. He's as guilty as sin." Blythe frowned at him.
Tony raised a hand. "Don't get me wrong. The Winter Soldier did all of the things they said he did," he looked at her with the most sober expression she had ever seen him wear in the five years they had known each other. "But Captain America's Bucky Barnes did not."
Blythe tapped her foot, chewing on her bottom lip while she thought. The trial would take months of preparation, she would need her entire agenda to focus on this one case, and would need her complete attention. She would have to cancel all of her other commissions, bury herself in research, learn and build a case, find a way around the system in a way that left Bucky Barnes a free man.
Impossible, her mind whispered, and she couldn't help but agree. She didn't live under a rock; the Winter Soldier was the most hated man in all of the US right now, and she would be lying if she said she whole-heartedly wanted to see him walk free.
But here was a man that had been directly affected by the aftermath of the Winter Soldier. A man who had lost so much in a night, and lived a lie for over half his life, but also a man who stepped into her life and was asking her to do the impossible, for a man that had left him an orphan. If he could forgive the man underneath the puppet, then she could at least try to do the same.
Blythe took a deep breath, swiped up her phone and speed dialed her secretary without a look towards Tony.
Where there was a distinctly female answer on the other side, Blythe clipped, "Cancel the rest of my appointments, dish out all of my clients amongst the firm's partners and send all of my equipment to the Avenger's Tower."
There was a frazzled octave-higher pitched voice answering on the line, but Blythe ignored it and clicked the phone shut. She lowered it to her lap and leveled her gaze to the infamous Iron Man.
"So…about that ten times rate."
OoO
Two nights later, Blythe found herself in the same old room she stayed in last time she was bailing Tony out of an impossible lawsuit. However, calling it a room was a gross understatement, as it was more like a condo on one of the floor of the Tower. It featured two floors, openly connected by a floating staircase. The great far wall was completely glass, and gave her a spectacular view of the skyline of nighttime New York City. She leaned against a pillar, sipping a dark liquor from a rocks glass she had dug up, taking in the view. Behind her were mounds of paper, boxes that needed to be sorted, and a heavy laptop with a screen that could be a small television positioned in a circle on the floor.
"Ms. Ivanishkov, you have a guest." FRIDAY's voice chimed, her only warning before the sliding doors to the condo opened with a quiet whoosh and the root of her evil sauntered in holding two cigars.
Blythe smirked, raising an eyebrow. "It is customary to celebrate after the victory, Tony."
Tony splayed his arms open and looked between her and the room. "You were half the victory, Blythe. And for only ten times your rate!"
She frowned at him and took the cigar he handed to her. She knew she should have pushed her luck…
"Besides, these really are for later. After the case, I mean." He pointedly looked at the box labeled 'cigarettes' on the coffee table. "I can see you had no trouble picking up that habit again anyway."
She shrugged nonchalantly. "Only when I'm on a stressful case. Or drink."
Tony eyed the table, fingering the box. "There's over twenty boxes in this carton."
She cleared her throat quietly, crossing her arms while mumbling, "I expect it to be a stressful case."
Long after Tony left, Blythe sat in the circle of papers and binders on the floor Tony had lovingly dubbed her law-gods-séance, her laptop directly in front of her. Its screen was the only light in the apartment, the brightness illuminating her face alone in the dark. It was late at night, or early in the morning; she had lost track of time, burying herself in the files Tony had given her access to on the Winter Soldier. She had poured for hours on the words in front of her, each file she opened forcing her deeper and deeper into the past of a man and country better left unseen. Her notebook left forgotten beside her, so entranced by the reports she was reading to take notes or form anything other than the strong desire to run as fast as she could out the door.
With a trembling hand, she shut the laptop. The room was bathed in darkness, and it enveloped her in a blanket of false security. Through the large glass window behind her, a faint tinge of pink bled into the night sky to signify dawn was near. She closed her eyes to its symbolism.
After a long and shaky breath, she swallowed the bile that had threatened to make a nuisance of itself and wrapped the blanket she had drug from the couch more tightly around herself, thinking of the man that dwelled in the, albeit large, nonetheless same, residence as herself.
She began to wonder, for the first time, if the case would kill more than her career.
A/N: Please review. Thanks!
