"How is he a ghost story if he makes this much mess? Really, I want to know."

"You really want this discussion now? I'm pretty sure you haven't slept in at least two days. Okay. Fine: it was Hydra."

"That's not a good answer-that's a SHIELD answer."

"Is it? Hydra created the perfect soldier, an assassin with very little independence who could be targeted and was guaranteed to get the job done. When the Winter Soldier intends to be stealthy you bet your ass - oh god I've hung around you too long, I'm using Americanisms- you won't find him. But, beneath all the programming, he's still James Buchanan Barnes. He hated Hydra. He was set to kill Fury. Fury is SHEILD, SHEILD is Peggy, Peggy means Steve and Steve means brother. Brother, that means home, and love, and maybe it doesn't mean safety but family is forever once you've chosen it. Bucky believed this, and he was the loyalest man I knew back in-"

"You are not that old. Don't be ridiculous."

"You've fought aliens. Why does any of this stuff still surprise you? Surely you've seen Science! stuff weirder than this. Yeah. Anyways, back in the war Bucky didn't want anything to do with Hydra at all, unless he was putting bullets in heads. Of course he revolted.

Hydra had a task force dedicated to tidying up after Winter: collect discarded guns, clean up blood, remove all evidence, wipe cameras, remove dangerous witnesses. They're some of Hydra's most brutal operatives."

"They're still around? Huh. Sounds like a huge job. But what about when he went after Fury, huh? That was messy, what happened there? Huh?"

"Will you please stop interrupting me? Really, please. Thank you. Now then, Buck wanted Hydra to fall. If he makes a public mess over failing to efficiently destroy their main enemy, well. They'd be slowed down significantly in the clean-up, and the SHEILD intelligence people would have more of a chance.

But Hydra still managed to hide it. Think about it: they managed to erase most of a very messy public incident. That's why they're so dangerous, so frightening. It's not the fact that they had a Winter Soldier but the fact that they hid him and everything they ever did from a world of cameras and eyes and publicity. They shrouded the selves in shadows."

"Yeah, but they're pretty done now, right? Nat and Fury managed to put them in the light. Played havoc with the servers..."

"Did they? Don't give me that look, you know what I'm asking.

Are Hydra really in the light now?"


Let me know what you think. The narrator is an OC. I have further plans for more like this, between assorted Avengers and this mystery narrator. Please let me know what you think of them!