Thank you for the favorites and follows, guys! I've updated the chapter 1 summary to include the other pairings that will appear in this story. Please, feel free to leave a review. I'd love to hear how my diabolical plot to give you feels for this OTP is faring *shifty eyes of wickedness*
-2. 'I don't like wandering around this old and empty house'/ 'So hold my hand I'll walk with you my dear'
It was the first time Jamie had even tried to sleep since the Insight carriers had gone down.
Sure, it had been several weeks. But whatever HYDRA had done to her, whenever they had done it, she could go long—no, extremely long periods of time without needing rest. Since it was something constant in her memories, she assumed it had been one of the first things they had done; but there was no way to be sure.
It didn't really matter. All that mattered was the fact that while she assumed most of the Tower's residents were slumbering in varying levels of peace, Jamie was lying in the bedroom that Tony Stark had given her, staring up at the plain white ceiling and listening to the noise of the city outside.
The Tower was soundproofed, but she'd chosen to sleep with her large window open. After being cryofrozen so many times, she didn't like being shut in small spaces, in the dark. At least when the noise came in, when the lights and the smells and the breeze came in, she knew she was still alive. Awake. Not forced into a state of unconsciousness she didn't want. She hardly felt the cold, anyway.
After lying there atop her blankets for three hours and twenty seven minutes (by the alarm clock on her night-table), she let out a long sigh. Regardless of her exhaustion her mind kept spiraling in circles, searching for scraps of memories poking out from the dark void of confusion in her head. Every now and then, a tiny glimmer of a scene would pop through, showing her something that may or may not have been true.
The only recurring thought in her mind was of Steve. Most of her memories seemed to have him in them—though, a different version of him, as it was; a smaller, frailer form of Steve, whom she had actually…protected? Or was that just her mind toying with the events from the carrier?
It would be impossible to know until she spoke to him. Up to that point, her private interactions with Steve had either been brief or instructional.
Jamie had been held in custody for a few days with minimal human contact, which was more comforting than lonely from her perspective. At least there wasn't somebody toying with her head. She had eventually been briefed by several CIA agents who didn't seem to know what to do with her, after which point she had been taken from the facility by Steve, who was fresh out of the hospital.
She had been escorted out to a waiting black car, where she'd seen the redhead for (what she'd assumed was) the first time. The woman had offered her a level "Hello" before opening the back door for her. Jamie, squinting against the fading light of evening, had merely nodded uncertainly in response and looked to Steve. He had gestured towards the door as if approving the idea, so she'd done as she'd been ordered and climbed into the dark interior, gritting her teeth against the pain in her bionic arm. She could tell something was wrong with it, ever since she'd fallen from the carrier it had been malfunctioning. Water really did a number on it.
The ride to the Tower had been quiet, with minimal conversation between the two in the front seat. Jamie could sense the redhead casting glances back at her in the rearview mirror, and had actually caught Steve looking at her several times in the exterior mirror of the passenger door. He'd smiled at her, but had looked away after her eyes had only wrinkled in confusion. How could he be so kind, after all she'd done to him? They must have been very close, for there to be that kind of unspoken forgiveness.
Once they'd arrived at the Tower they'd driven under it, into a below ground level parking garage where the car had been enveloped by countless other shiny automobiles. Steve had gotten out first, and helped her from the car despite the fact that she could have done it herself. She wasn't fool enough to test his patience, given her position.
Then they'd stepped into some kind of enclosed lift, and ridden up a great many floors to where her encounter with the 'Avengers' had taken place. She'd heard several references to the group as such several times amidst casual conversation—though, the dark-haired man known as Loki seemed not to be among that number.
After the decision to let her stay had been made and the conditions stated, the group had gone to their separate tasks. From what she'd gathered, the man with the light in his chest had a laboratory on a lower level of the Tower, where the man with the glasses often joined him. Anthony, the dark-haired brother had called him, while the archer had called him Stark. He couldn't be related to Howard, could he?
The next thing she'd wondered was who the hell Howard was. She'd have to ask Steve.
As it so happened, Steve and the redheaded woman had been called away from the Tower rather suddenly, giving Steve no opportunity to introduce her to the rest of the team and barely enough time to show her to an available gust room down the hall from his own. She'd been there ever since, and figured that nobody had had the inclination to be the first to show her around the massive tower.
Jamie sighed loudly, relishing the sound of her own voice. Still alive, she reminded herself. Still conscious. She couldn't stay cooped up in this bland box of a room anymore. She needed to move, find some open air and just breathe. So she got up off of the too soft bed, and set her feet on the floor.
Cold. The ground was so cold, and she was walking on it, barefooted. Being forced down a hallway, blindfolded; her hands bound behind her back, and something hard and cold clamped over her mouth.
She was guided through a doorway, her right shoulder brushing the frame. Pressed backward into a chair, restraints strapped down over her arms, torso, legs; holding her still.
"I assume HYDRA's darling will need her scheduled maintenance?" said a voice, thick with a Germanic accent. She felt a series of tugs and twinges in her bionic arm, and grimaced against the nauseating sensation.
"The usual," said another voice, this one decidedly American. "She's been under the ice for longer than usual, and we need her in peak condition for the next op."
"Another covert?" the German asked, the tugging feeling now replaced with a faint burning ache and a singed smell of burnt electronics. If it was burning her, she was too cold and numb to feel it. The sound of some kind of small gas torch sounded near her left ear as a dull hissing. She could feel some warmth beginning to return to her cheek where the residual heat was blowing against it.
"Unclear." The American seemed unwilling to say much—though still groggy from her unconsciousness, she knew that the German wasn't trusted much. She even had a nagging suspicion that he was only there to repair her mechanics, but she didn't know how she knew that.
"Gentlemen!" A new voice had come into the room, and she stiffened slightly at the sound of it. It was a warm, welcoming voice, but she recognized it as none other than the Man. The Man was in charge, had always been in charge.
His voice had changed a few times, and sometimes his face. Perhaps there had even been different Men, over the time she'd been there. But the Man was always, incontestably in control. He gave the orders, he gave the missions, and he gave the targets for elimination. There was no place for her thoughts, he'd told her at one point. He would provide everything she needed to know to perform her mission with accuracy and tact.
"I'm glad to see our little Soldier has awakened!" he said brightly. His voice was always too cheerful, too eager. "How soon can we have her ready for transport?"
"Two hours, tops," the German replied. "I may need to recalibrate certain binary systems; it appears that some of her circuitry has been damaged by the—"
"You have an hour and a half. Make it count!" After a pause, she felt a warm finger trace down her cheek and neck, down to her collarbone. "HYDRA's darling. Always such a beauty, don't you think?"
She shuddered against the Man's touch, and received a harsh slap across the cheek as consequence. Her head spun unnaturally, sparks glowing behind her eyelids in the darkness. Her blindfold was roughly yanked down, and her eyes opened against her will, as if controlled by some other force. She met a pair if light blue eyes, under a mop of graying blond hair.
But that wasn't what she saw. In the dim light of the room, she saw another man leaning over her, blue eyes wide in concern, instead of cruelty. 'Bucky?' the man said, looking down at her in horror. 'Oh my God.' He began removing the straps from her body, their weight disappearing. Then he came back, and held her gently by the arms. 'It's me. It's Steve.'
She gasped as the memory washed over her, like blood from a fresh wound."Steve?" she cried, her voice barely audible from long disuse. She tried to struggle against her bonds, and the straps on the side of her bionic arm began to tear out from the leather binding of the prep table. The scientist drew back in alarm, but the Man merely narrowed his eyes, and took a step back from her.
"Sedate her," he said, looking her over as if disappointed. "Then give her a complete recalibration, full wiping. We'll bump the op back." He turned his gaze onto the scientist threateningly. "You have six hours. Do not fail me, unless you wish to personally face the consequences."
"Yes sir."
The Man turned back to her, coming close enough to pat her condescendingly on the cheek—the same cheek he'd already slapped and was no doubt a raging red by now. "We can't have you remembering your precious Captain, now can we?" His eyes hardened, and he shoved his hands into his trouser pockets, striding out of the room. "Six hours, Doctor."
She struggled against the restraints, fighting the fact that the face she'd forgotten for o long would be taken from her yet again. Steve, she chanted to herself. Steve. Steven Grant Rogers. Tears pricked the corners of her eyes. Don't you dare forget that little punk. She felt the liquid trickle down her cheeks, fighting the hole that would soon be her memory until she felt a sharp painful prick in her neck and the room faded out to blackness.
Jamie sat rigidly on the edge of the bed, her arms wound around her torso as she choked for air. "Steve?" she whispered, blue eyes making trails on the plain white walls that she could see so clearly, even in the pitch blackness.
She knew him. Even back then, when everything had been taken from her, she knew him for precious moments that never lasted long enough. Moments that she'd spent craving memories just out of her reach.
The door to her room opened, and a large figure was framed in the doorway, blocking the light form the hall. A Man, a tall man, with a light glowing in his chest. He reached in and flicked on the light. Jamie got ready to spring…
...and it was Tony.
"Easy there, kiddo," the man said, holding his hands up in front of him in a placating gesture. "Take it easy."
"Mr. Stark ?" Jamie asked hoarsely. A bolt of energy ran through her metal arm, and she grimaced, clutching it against her chest.
"The one and only." Tony took one look at her and a look of understanding crossed his face. "JARVIS picked up on elevated stress hormones coming from your room. Is that arm being a bitch? Because I can take a look at it."
She looked up at him, panting slightly from the pain. "You good with technology?"
Tony gave a little laugh. "You could say that."
)( )( )(
Steve and Natasha's urgent mission had actually been Fury requesting their input on the location of a particular HYDRA base sight. The Director was finicky about speaking such things over the phone, even more so after the collapse of SHIELD, so they had been needed to come in. It was a relatively tedious procedure, and it was three hours before they were back out of the surprisingly spacious trailer Fury was operating out of—'temporarily', he'd told them insistently, after seeing the two exchange dubious looks at the dinky looking vehicle.
Now they were driving back to the tower, through the surprisingly thick mid-week nighttime traffic on the freeway. Steve knew that Natasha was driving a full twenty five miles over the speed limit, but kept it to himself. The last time he'd corrected her driving skills, he'd been called a 'pain in the ass boy scout' and ignored completely for the rest of a mission that had lasted another three days.
As it was, his mind was elsewhere entirely—specifically, with Bucky. He'd hated having to leave her alone so soon after breaking her out of that holding facility, taking her to a veritable skyscraper with no explanation and barely introducing her to her towerful of new roommates. Her situation was imperfect enough without him failing to go out of his way to keep things steady and comprehendible. Tony was right about one thing: Jamie was volatile at the moment, and that was something Steve hoped to change—and soon.
Natasha read his into his silence with ease. "What was she like?" she asked, her voice carefully level.
Steve looked at her, mildly confused. "I'm sorry, what?"
"Barnes." A look of understanding came over him, followed by an unsettled one. "What was she like, back in the day? Before…everything happened to her?"
"Why do you ask?" Steve wondered, almost suspiciously.
"Because, I want to understand why you're so attached to her. I know what it's like to recover something from your past that was once dear to you, and I understand that feeling can be amplified when it's a whole person. But there's something else there."
"She was my best friend, Natasha."
"Then it should be an easy thing to do." The car hugged closely to the outer guardrail of the overpass as her speed increased, past dangerous and onto near terrifying levels.
A few seconds more passed in uncomfortable silence. "Come on, Steve. I think it would do you good, maybe even help you sort out your thoughts a bit. I won't bite." Natasha held one of her hands over her heart. "Widow's honor."
"Alright." Steve sighed loudly, and looked out the window at the blurring sights beyond. "Jamie was a lot of things," he began. "Smart, witty, kind…people were always saying that she was meant for great things, even when we were just kids." His fingers tapped a fast, agitated rhythm on his leg, and he let out a breathy laugh. "And she was beautiful. God, she was beautiful, and always a charmer. Every guy in Brooklyn wanted her to be their girl. That was the reason I started calling her Bucky, you know. We were—"
"Excuse me, Captain Rogers." JARVIS' voice cut in over the car stereo. "I apologize for the interruption, but Mister Stark has asked me to inform you that Miss Barnes experienced a traumatic mental event in your absence—a 'flashback', I believe he called it."
Steve sat bolt upright in his seat, making Natasha actually a little nervous at the intensity of his sudden stare. She also thought she could have heard him swear under his breath. "Is she alright?" He asked tensely.
"Mister Stark has taken her into the lab. I'm afraid I have no further information on her condition at this time, though she was stabilizing at the time of her entry."
Steve didn't reply to this, so Natasha did. "Thanks, JARVIS. Tell Tony we're on our way." She accelerated the car again, pushing them up to around ninety five MPH. "Hang in there, Steve," she told her companion. "She's gonna be okay."
Steve said nothing. He was too busy clenching the armrests of his seat, trying not to reach back for his shield and bust out of the car in an attempt to get to Bucky more quickly. That made no sense, he realized, though his entire body was longing for the action to work off his anxiety. At the moment, he just wanted to see her. He just wanted to be sure Bucky was okay.
Seeing her confused by his attempts to rekindle friendship between them had hurt, far worse than any physical wound she had inflicted on him before. It was like someone else was controlling her, still choosing her responses even though she'd broken free of HYDRA's clutches. But when she looked at him, Zola was there in her place, slapping him in the face and laughing at him, taunting: like the scientist had taken Jamie and twisted and warped and burned her until she was simply a tool, a ploy to destroy him and his resolve with a familiar face, and an empty soul.
So yes, Steve understood that one way or another she was far from okay. In fact, Bucky being okay ever again was still an uncomfortably distant if not improbable idea. And Steve hated that, more than anything else HYDRA had done. Because finally, after seventy years of being apart, he'd at long last found his best friend—and she was still so, horribly unreachable.