AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is an expansion of Chapter 68 ("Is It Just Me?") of the Soulmate Shorts posted by Ozhawk under that title on both and AO3. Ozhawk's original chapter is woven into this story, not a stand-alone chapter.
It should be obvious, but neither Ozhawk nor Zathara owns any part of the MCU or the characters depicted therein - Disney/Marvel does; we're just playing in their sandbox for a little while.
CONTINUITY NOTE: Takes place after Iron Man 3 and CA:TWS, but before AOU.
The asset had come to the Smithsonian every day for a week, each day dressed in different clothes stolen from a clothesline or a store, or once from a car the owner had forgotten to lock. Not that it would have taken much effort to disable the alarm, but discretion was the asset's first priority, unless otherwise ordered.
Only he wasn't the asset anymore, or not just the asset, not if the face looking down from a glass wall at the Smithsonian were any guide. The face matched his own, and the name on the wall…
James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes, it read. It called him a fallen comrade.
"Bucky?"
"Who the hell is Bucky?"
That brief exchange on the bridge made sense now, the asset thought. The man who'd spoken first was Steve Rogers, and if this exhibit could be believed, they'd been friends.
No, not just the exhibit. There were bits and pieces of his own memories that gave the same impression.
"I knew him."
His handlers had brushed that off - even then, he knew it was a brush-off - but now, staring face to face with a memorial to the man he had been, the asset - no, Bucky - knew the truth.
His Hydra handlers had ordered him to kill his best friend.
Anger surged through him at the thought, and at the memory of how close the asset had come to succeeding. He hadn't succeeded, though, and in the end, Bucky had pulled Steve Rogers from the Potomac.
He read the text again, though he'd had it memorized since the first time he'd seen it. Rogers and his team destroyed Hydra bases, it said. Bucky smiled.
He could do that.
#
Maybe it was the result of being around the latest and greatest technological innovations so much, but Pepper Potts preferred low-tech options for certain things - like reports and memoranda. Those she wanted on paper, the easier to read and make notes on.
A lot of the Stark Industries department heads grumbled about that preference, so different from Tony Stark's electronic obsession, but Pepper had made it clear that if they wanted their work to come to her attention, it had better be on paper as well as electronic.
Paper also never went dark or beeped at her for being inactive when she set it aside to think, and thinking was something Pepper had been doing a lot of lately, ever since the Extremis virus had nearly killed her.
Tony fixed it like he said he would - she was no longer a danger to herself or others - but that didn't mean Pepper was the same woman she'd been before Extremis.
The question that kept her setting aside paperwork to think was both simple and profound: who would she be now?
#
There were no more Hydra bases left, Bucky thought. At least, there were no more bases left that he knew about. He was under no illusions that anyone in Hydra, least of all a conscripted, brainwashed super-soldier, knew the locations of every base in the world. Still, he'd done what he could to end that threat, even if it was decades in the doing.
Now it was done, and Bucky had to decide what to do next.
He pondered that question on the flight back from Estonia and the final base he'd destroyed. In the end, there was only one choice he could make.
Bucky disembarked at LaGuardia and hailed a cab.
"Avengers Tower," he told the cabbie, a burly black man with a gold pinky ring on his right hand.
"This ain't a tour bus," the cabbie shot back.
"I'm not taking a tour," Bucky countered. "I want to go to Avengers Tower."
"You an' half the damn city."
"Half the damn city isn't offering a hundred-dollar tip if you do." Might as well put some of the money he'd confiscated from Hydra to good use.
"A hundred?" the cabbie repeated, his skeptical expression easily visible in the rear-view mirror. Bucky just held up the bill so he could see it.
The cabbie shrugged one shoulder and pulled into traffic. "Y'ain't gettin' in, but I'll drop ya as close as I can."
Bucky nodded and sat back to watch the city, so familiar and yet so strange, out the window.
#
"Close" turned out to be three blocks west of the Tower, thanks to a throng of sight-seeing tourists and tour buses. Bucky paid the cabbie, including the hundred for a tip, and slipped out of the cab into the street.
He hadn't worn a hoodie today, or any other disguise - stupid, Barnes, he chided himself - but nobody seemed to pay him any attention as he wove his way through the crowd. All the instincts he'd ever had, especially those honed by the war and his involuntary service to Hydra, screamed at him that the crowd wasn't safe, too easy to conceal a threat or an attack with so many people around, but he forced himself to a calm he didn't feel and walked straight up to the Tower doors.
Lousy security, he thought as the doors opened for him and he crossed from the warm New York afternoon into the almost-too-chilly lobby.
Then the alarms went off, and Bucky cursed himself for a fool. He'd been so focused on getting to Steve, talking to him, trying to put his life back together, that he'd forgotten all his training. Now the Avengers were viewing him as a threat.
He did the only thing he could do. He dropped his duffel bag and took two large steps away from it, holding his hands above his head. It was the least threatening Bucky knew how to be, and he stood waiting for whatever might happen next.
What happened next was that an elevator dinged and the doors slid open to reveal a man in a purple-checked button-up shirt, sleeves rolled up past his elbows. The man came toward him, and Bucky thought he'd never seen a more unassuming person in his life.
He wasn't going to underestimate the newcomer. He wasn't going to show any intimidation, either.
"You greet all your guests with an alarm and a lockdown?" Bucky asked.
"Only the uninvited ones who tried to kill a friend of mine not that long ago."
Bucky winced at the reminder of what he'd almost done to Steve. "That wasn't me."
The other man raised an eyebrow and Bucky shrugged as best he could with his hands still in the air.
"My body," he acknowledged, "but not my choice. And at the end, I pulled him out of the Potomac."
"Who are you, then?" the other man asked.
"James Buchanan Barnes. If you're a friend of Steve's, you can call me Bucky."
"What's in the bag, Bucky?"
"A couple of changes of clothes, an armored vest, a few thousand in cash."
"Weapons?"
"Three knives, one semi-auto."
"That's all?"
"That's all," Bucky confirmed. "Except maybe a bottle of water."
"Why are you here?"
"To talk to Steve. He here?"
"He's out looking for you."
"Figures," Bucky muttered. "Don't suppose you'd let me wait for him?"
"Maybe," the other man said. "You can put your hands down."
Bucky complied. "You're not afraid of me."
The other man chuckled. "No, I'm not."
Bucky grunted. If the other man knew who he was, he should be afraid of him. Hell, sometimes Bucky was afraid of himself. "So what now?"
"Now we talk a bit," the other man said. "I'll ask you some questions, and if I like the answers, I'll call Steve and tell him you're here."
"And if you don't like the answers?" Bucky couldn't help asking. Was the other man actually going to threaten him?
"Then you won't like me very much."
"Seems only fair I know your name, either way."
"Sorry," the other man said. "Bruce Banner."
Oh. Bucky just offered his hand. "Pleased to meet you."
#
Sometimes, Pepper missed being based in Los Angeles - especially during the snowy New York winters, she considered moving Stark Industries' headquarters back to California. But Tony's life was here in New York now, complete with the Avengers, and while Tony and SI weren't the inseparable entity they once had been, it felt wrong to split them up just for her comfort, even if many of SI's manufacturing facilities were still in California and she made more cross-country trips than she cared to think about as a result.
Today she returned from a site visit to find the Tower on lockdown. Her ID allowed her to access JARVIS and order him to override the lockdown so she could get inside the Tower. Once inside, Happy Hogan met her, blocking her path to the elevators.
"Sorry, ma'am," Happy said, looking as apologetic as only he could. "No elevators are going up. The Tower's been evacuated."
"Why?" Pepper demanded.
"Unexpected visitor," Happy told her.
An unexpected visitor who resulted in the Tower being locked down? Pepper couldn't help letting out a sigh. "Not Loki again?"
"Not Loki. The Winter Soldier."
Pepper knew who that was, of course - after the SHIELD information dump, everyone knew, or had the opportunity to know. "What's going on?"
"Dr. Banner's talking to him," Happy told her. "He's the only Avenger here today."
Pepper considered that information, and the fact that the Tower wasn't shaking, nor could she hear sounds of a fight, or anything else that might indicate Bruce had felt it necessary to let the Hulk out.
"When did Sergeant Barnes arrive?"
"Uhm -" Happy glanced at his wrist where a watch might have rested.
"JARVIS?" Pepper prompted.
"Sergeant Barnes arrived at one forty-eight this afternoon," JARVIS told her.
A glance at her watch told Pepper it was now two thirty-six. Barnes had been here almost an hour, and the Tower was still standing. She chose to take that as a positive omen.
"Where are they now?" she asked.
"Dr. Banner's office," JARVIS replied.
Pepper considered for only a moment, then she was striding toward the elevators. "I'm going up there. JARVIS, security override code deadman's curve."
"Ms. Potts," Happy began, but Pepper was already in the elevator JARVIS had opened for her.
#
When the elevator opened onto the laboratory floor, Pepper was struck by the silence. Usually when she came here, the place was abuzz with activity. Often Tony and Bruce would be arguing some point of physics while at the same time directing the staff with whatever projects might be underway at the time.
Right now, though, the lab was empty, only the hum of machinery suggesting anyone had ever been here. Pepper shook off the eerie feeling that gripped her and turned down the hallway toward Bruce's office.
Bruce met her when she arrived, closing the door behind him before she could get a look inside at their visitor.
"Are you all right?" Pepper asked.
"Fine. Obviously," he added with a self-deprecating grin.
"Is he all right?"
Bruce's grin faded. "As much as anyone can be all right after what he's gone through."
"But he's himself? He's really Bucky Barnes?"
"Mostly. There are gaps in his memory, but he knows who he is and what he was made to do. I'm not a therapist, but he seems to be doing all right."
"If he needs anything," Pepper began.
Bruce cut her off with a smile. "We'll ask."
Then he disappeared back into his office, leaving Pepper standing in the hallway feeling awkward for the first time in a very long time.