Bucky stopped by his quarters for a quick change into some of the civi clothing Shield had procured for him. The room was bigger than the pup-tent he'd had in the war, but was still four bland walls without windows or decorations. If any pictures of the Commandos had survived the last seventy years, he hadn't been given them. His Ma was long gone, and anything he'd left behind had been blasted with the rest of New York.
Glancing at the closed door, he lifted his mattress, grabbed a rolled package, then stuck it under his arm.
The hallways at Shield's Los Angeles HQ were nearly deserted - even the admin assistant usually present at the sign in/out desk was absent. He filled out the form anyway, signing it with a flourish. No one stopped him as he strode across the attached airfield and boarded Stark's sleek aircraft.
He supposed he should have felt nervous about being confined in another areo-plane (Stark called it a Quinjet - whatever that meant) though the inside was so glitzy it hardly was the same beast as the one Bucky had taken down into the ice. Then again, it seemed everything in the future sparkled, shone, or beeped.
Stark, acting as the pilot, didn't speak to Bucky until after the smooth takeoff. "I've intercepted Shield's Helicarrier communications." His tone was casual, as if those words made sense. Maybe they did, in this time. "They've just sent two of their top agents to Berlin. One guess as to why."
Bucky nodded, though inside he swore. Germany. Swell. Why was it always Germany?
"I can get us there in four hours," Stark continued, "A little faster if I took the suit, but it's not like there's a seat onboard for you."
Bucky tore his gaze from the array of glittering buttons on the Quinjet's dashboard to glance at Stark's fancy duds. "You got jetpacks in that thing?"
The other man looked honestly taken aback. "Fury really didn't tell you? I'm offended on behalf of the country. C'mere." He pushed a few buttons and tapped on a virtual typewriter thing that appeared out of thin air. He then rose from his seat and gestured Bucky to the back.
Stark pressed his hand against a dark piece of glass, something beeped (of course), then the wall panel slid up to reveal -
"Iron Man," Stark said, rocking back from heel to toe and back again. A grin at the edge of his expression.
Bucky blinked and raised his hand to touch the arm of the red and gold human-shaped machine-no, armor? Suit. He stopped just short, blinked again, then took in the suit's dimensions. Then Stark's. "Huh. You made yourself taller."
"I made myself awesome," Stark squawked. "There's only so much room for flight stabilizers in the boots. The height was a happy side effect."
"Sure." Tentatively, Bucky did touch it, and was surprised by the lightness of the metal, the dexterity of the fingers. "It sure is something," he breathed without meaning to.
"I know, right?" Stark was grinning openly and looking up at the suit with the fond amusement of a proud papa. This was his pride and joy.
"Bulletproof?" Bucky asked.
Stark snorted. "Please."
Bucky let his fingers trail off the armor, considering. "We don't exactly know why this Loki fellow wants the cosmic cube. He might be trying to create more HYDRA energy weapons."
"Your shield was able to stand up against those blasts, right?" Stark asked, picking up where he was going.
Steve's shield, Bucky thought, but nodded anyway.
"Hmm. Vibranium. Great stuff. Too bad it can only be artificially produced in small amounts." Stark tapped his chest - it seemed to be a nervous tick of some sort - his eyes unfocused in thought.
"I haven't seen the shield since I woke up." Bucky had asked about it twice, and both times was shut down by his handler of the day. Truthfully, it had been a little bit of a relief, a little bit of a pain not to have it again - echoing the same ripping feeling in his chest he got every time he thought of Steve. Maybe Bucky didn't deserve to hold Steve's shield again. "Well," Bucky said with a glance to the package he'd brought from his room, "I'll have your back."
"Probably won't need it," Stark said with cool arrogance. "But just in case, try not to shoot me, old man."
Bucky glanced again at the armor. "I don't know. Do you think you could make your suit redder and more flashy? My eyes ain't what they used to be."
That was a lie. His eyes and reflexes were as good as they ever were. Bucky just wasn't certain if what was inside was worth a damn.
Modern day Berlin looked nothing like the city Bucky had known. But that was becoming an old hat by now. He barely registered the shimmering lights, the clean streets, and the tall arching skyscrapers which now housed prosperous and peaceful people.
Another aircraft hovered in place before a plaza. Shield's aircraft. As Stark's jet approached, a bolt of blue energy shot from the ground and struck the right wing of the Shield's jet. The other listed to the side, smoke pouring thickly. Another bolt carved the middle like an overripe fruit, spitting fire and sparks.
"Get ready, we're coming in fast!" Stark called, punching some buttons to swing the his Quinjet around.
Bucky nodded, grabbed up his rolled package, and headed for the back.
Stark toggled a switch above his head. Loud - well, it might have been music, but it didn't sound like it - poured out.
"What's that?" Bucky yelled.
The grin Stark sent his way was almost manic with pre-battle adrenaline. "Letting them know help is on the way. It'll take me a minute to suit up."
Bucky felt his own lips stretch in an answering grin. His heart picked up speed, and the grip around the package he'd taken from his room was tight. Probably nerves. He was a little out of practice. "I'll keep him busy, but don't take too long dolling yourself up."
Stark's answer was lost in a whoosh of wind as the back ramp opened. Buckyr took a second to gauge the distance - thirty feet above the rooftop. The landing would sting, but he'd make it - before he took a breath and leapt.
He landed in a roll and came up running to the edge of the roof. Above, the engines whined as Stark maneuvered the Quinjet out of reach of ground fire. The other jet was nowhere to be seen, but one of the nearby buildings was on fire. Not good.
Bucky unrolled the package to reveal a gleaming sniper's rifle. The first new thing in this odd time and place he'd gave a damn about. He'd fallen in love with the rifle the moment he'd held it.
When he'd first woken, Shield leadership had seemed to have an idea of putting him back out into the field. His first few days had been taken up in a battery of tests, medical and otherwise, to gauge his fitness.
They'd let a junior agent take him to the firing range. Bucky's aim was true as always, and it was made even easier by the smooth pull of the rifle, the buttery soft metal, the deadly beauty of machine. But de'd sussed out Shield's intensions by then and intentionally missed every target. When the junior agent had lost interest and turned away, distracted, Bucky had disassembled the rifle and stuck the pieces away in his clothing. Sloppy of them not to notice, but the joke about 'being good enough for government work' was even older than he was.
Crouching on the roof's edge, Bucky set the rifle to his shoulder and peered down.
Even if his vision wasn't already very good, he didn't need the scope to locate his target. The man in the plaza below was wearing a flowing green cape, and honest-to-Norse-God horns. He was also fighting hand to hand with a... young woman?
Bucky inhaled in surprise as the lady vaulted, catlike, to Loki's shoulders, wrapping one strong calf around his neck, and... Wow. What a way for a fella to die.
But Loki merely swept his scepter up and around, knocking her off. She somehow landed in a crouch on the cobblestones, and had to spring to the side to avoid a blue energy bolt.
Bucky took careful aim and fired.
The scepter snapped around again, deflecting the bullet midair. Loki stopped and looked up, right at Bucky. And even though there was at least 100 yards of distance between them, Bucky clearly heard his smug tone. "The Soldier."
There was only one way to answer that. Bucky fired another round, aiming for Loki's smirk.
Again, Loki deflected it, but this time the red-headed lady had regained her footing. She came at the Norse god again, with a kick that would have knocked any mortal man on his ass. It made Loki snarl and point his scepter at her.
Bucky aimed for the blue glow at the scepter's end. It knocked Loki's shot wild.
The earpiece he'd completely forgotten about suddenly crackled into life, startling Bucky almost into his own wild shot.
"Agent Romanova," Tony said as a red and gold blur shot into the plaza. "Miss me?"
Iron Man landed with his palms already out. Twin white blasts of energy struck Loki, knocking him, skidding, into the museum steps. At least four other weapons extended out from Iron Man's metal shoulders and pointed at the god.
"Hands up, reindeer games."
With the prisoner secure, they took Stark's Quinjet, seeing as Shield's plane had gone down in flames. The Shield pilot, a particularly bland looking man, had escaped the wreckage with not a hair out of place, and acted as Stark's copilot on the return trip.
Bucky and Miss Romanova secured their prisoner (Bucky knew a couple good knots, but he was a little impressed by her depth of knowledge). She had a scrape on her right cheek from hitting concrete, but gave Bucky a cold look when he offered to help her patch it up. He just didn't get pretty dames these days.
"What is he doing here?" Romanova asked, turning instead to Stark.
"I'm planning the best wedding ever," Stark replied glibly. "And he gives me something old and borrowed." He turned to his co-pilot. "Got something blue for me, Agent?"
"Another old-timer joke, Stark?" Bucky asked. "That's a bit rich for someone with gray in their Van Dyke."
"A: It's not a Van Dyke, it's a kickin' goatee. Ask Rolling Stone, they dedicated three paragraphs to it last year. B: Who out of us here can actually remember the roaring twenties, again? Loki doesn't count. Being a Norse god is cheating."
"Explain exactly how immortality cheating?" Loki asked.
"Shut your yap," Bucky snapped at Loki, settling across the aisle from him with the rifle in his lap. Loki wasn't smiling, exactly but he dearly looked like he wanted to. The man was too calm, too... willing to stay put. He'd come along too easily for Bucky's taste, too.
Romanova seemed to have the same opinion. Or at least, Bucky noted how she kept herself between Loki and his strange scepter, which was stored in the front.
An uneasy silence fell in the Quinjet - it raised the hair on the back of Bucky's neck, though he wasn't sure why. The sudden tension felt... unnatural. Irritating.
Luckily, it wasn't long before Stark announced they were coming in on the helicarrier.
"What in this green Earth?" Bucky said as the Quinjet broke through pre-dawn cloud cover and the carrier came into full view. At first he thought it had to be an optical illusion. Something that big had no business hanging in the air.
"Really, Cap?" Stark turned to Romanova. "Did you guys show him nothing cool about the future? No wonder he voluntarily spent all day in your basement."
The bland co-pilot spoke up for the first time. "Don't listen to him. The helicarrier is a flashy pain in the ass. The energy consumption alone per-hour makes my head spin. We have an almost constant supply of fuel-tankers-"
"If only Shield had access to a company developing palladium-ionization arcing technology," Stark snapped. "Oh wait."
His voice had taken on a more caustic edge than when he'd been poking at Bucky, but that was fine. Bucky was feeling a bit annoyed as well.
"Shield's been keeping me in swaddling clothes the last few weeks," Bucky said.
Romanova turned to him. She had quite the direct stare. "If you've been benched, it's been by your own choice."
"Have we met before?" Bucky demanded. "Because I never forget a pretty face, and you keep actin' like you know me."
Her expression darkened to a dangerous degree. Every warning bell Bucky owned rang loud and clear.
His reply was thankfully sidelined by a sudden dip of the Quinjet as it came in to land. Bucky's irritation lessened once he got out of the stifling aircraft. Loki and his strange scepter were taken away into another direction.
Bucky and Stark were summarily ordered to Fury's office to get chewed out. But the fact was the two of them had more or less saved Shield members from getting their asses handed to them on international soil. Fury knew it, Bucky knew it, and Tony had no problem gleefully pointing it out a total of three times in five minutes.
"I did sign out of HQ," Bucky said with this blandest face on. "Crossed my T's and dotted my I's."
Fury whipped around to him, more than willing to vent on a new target. "This is the first time you've shown interest in the new world, Barnes. I am not appreciating how you've chosen to stretch your wings."
"You mean, who he's chosen it with?" Tony asked. "Just say it, Fury. You think I'm going to show him all the great things about this century, and you're right."
Bucky kept himself at loose parade rest, choosing not to answer directly. "Seems to me I have unfinished business with the cosmic cube."
He didn't think he imagined the glint that came into Fury's eye. "That's not a good enough answer, Captain Barnes. We got Loki, but he doesn't have the cube. I do not have the time for half measures. Are you in, or are you out?"
Bucky caught Stark looking at him, but couldn't read his expression. "Working for you? For Shield? Nah. Captain America was about more than one organization, director."
"Oh, you're Captain America all of a sudden?" Fury leaned forward over his desk. "Because you've been spending the last few weeks telling me you're not."
Bucky didn't have an answer. Only lifted his chin, the familiar ache of Steve's loss throbbing in his chest.
"Captain America worked for the army," Fury pressed.
"He served the war effort. Steve didn't do what he did because he was ordered to, or because some army brass told him it was right. He was trying to make a difference. He was-" Bucky swallowed and looked away. "He was trying to win the war, save the world."
To his surprise, it was Stark who spoke next. His tone was pithy, but his gaze didn't leave Bucky. "That was him. What are you going to do?"
Fury leaned forward on his desk. "There was an idea, Barnes. A simple idea to gather together a group of extraordinary people-"
The Avengers. But before Bucky interrupt the man, tell him he knew where this was going, there was a rumble of thunder and a crash of lightning outside the helicarrier, so close Bucky felt the floor shivering under his shoes.
Bucky glanced at Stark. "Say, wasn't Loki's brother-"
He was interrupted by claxons going off through the carrier.
Looked like the God of Thunder had decided to show.
One slightly odd (and violent) alien encounter later, Fury had actually talked the second Norse god of the day into his conference room for a little chat. Even now Bucky wasn't sure he trusted the director, but he did admire the balls of him.
For lack of anything else to do, he followed Stark into Shield's state of the art lab (which kid of looked more like a space ship than even the aircraft had) and met Dr. Bruce Banner, who seemed to be the quiet, lonely type.
He wondered why some of the agents who were obliquely standing guard seemed so nervous.
Either way, Stark and Banner soon lapsed into science-babble, and frankly, the only reason Bucky had made it through 12th grade was by copying off Steve. He knew when he was over his head.
He stood and stretched. "Well kids, it's been fun, but I'm going to have a peek at this popsicle stand."
Bucky was treated by two identically annoyed looks by full grown men, both with salt in their hair, and both of whom could have been his grandkid. And he used to think his life was strange when he and the Commandos were chasing around the Red Skull.
"Whatever." Stark said, pulling himself away from a glowing screen of numbers. Then added in a snide, "Have fun, dear."
"Don't work too hard, Junebug," Bucky called back as the door slid shut.
By the time Bucky turned the second corridor, ducked into a shadowed doorway, and let the trailing shield agent pass him by, he was certain there was something strange about Doctor Banner. He'd expected three agents to follow him, just like it had been in HQ. Now he was down to one, and Bucky hadn't imagined the extra security stationed around the lab.
He hadn't been sure what he was looking for in the helicarrier, exactly. A feeling of anticipation was itching under his skin - the same when he and Steve used to go out looking for trouble in Brooklyn, or later, spying his target through a sharp-shooter's scope.
He passed through one hallway, then another, keeping an eye out for a closet or a barracks. He'd have much less chance of being spotted if he could snag an extra Shield agent uniform.
One door was locked, but they sure didn't make locks like they used too. Especially when he elbowed the little glass panel beside the frame. It shattered and he pushed through.
The room beyond was shadowed. Storage, with boxes on either side. Maybe he could scrounge a uniform-
Bucky's breath stopped in his throat. There, in the half-light, was Captain America's round shield and blue-leather uniform, both mounted against the far war as if waiting to be unhooked and used.
He took a step closer, then another one. The uniform wasn't the same, and the shield had been given a fresh coat of paint, it's colors glowing even in the dull light.
Did Fury guess Bucky would come to the helicarrier? Did he somehow know what would happen? No, that was impossible. But it was clear he had planned for the eventuality.
Without thinking about, Bucky removed the shield off the wall and fit his arm under the straps, tightening them. The weight felt just as he remembered, light but solid. Secure. His back straightened as both something familiar and old settled into place.
They'd made adjustments to Captain America's uniform, too. Newer materials, a sleek, less spangled design. It loomed above Bucky, and if he unfocused his gaze a little he could almost imagine...
"The future sure is something, Steve," he muttered, his free hand tracing the rim of the shield. His voice echoed back at him in the storage room. Closing his eyes, Bucky took a breath. "I'm so... so damn sorry I didn't save New York. I know you woulda-Steve, there isn't a day, an hour, that goes by where I don't think about you, or wish..." Wish I had fallen off that train instead.
He opened his eyes. The uniform loomed over him, empty.
Bucky's throat felt thick. He turned away. No use talking to ghosts. Steve was seventy years gone.
Something else caught his eye. The wall to the side of the uniform on display was odd. Rivets where no rivets should be, unless... was that covering a door hinge?
The edge of the shield was true as it always had been, and made an excellent pry-bar. Wrenching the hidden door open, Bucky found himself standing before rows and rows of crates. The sinking feeling in his gut was proved right when he opened the first crate and lifted one of the future's version's of a HYDRA-weapon within.
The blood obscured the dippy smiling face on the Captain America card - a generic man who could have been Steve or Bucky, or neither of him. The face had never mattered. Only the symbol.
Bucky kept that firmly in mind as he pulled on the red, white, and blue uniform. It fit. Hell, it was probably made to his exact measurements.
Stark was busy welding a quick fix into his Iron Man helmet as Bucky walked in. Stark said he had more suits at his tower, but he needed this armor to get him there first.
"So you're Captaining it up, then?" Tony asked without looking from his weld.
Bucky lifted a shoulder in a shrug, holding the shield. Through the helicarrier's windows, he could see the Los Angeles skyline come into view. It wasn't New York, not with the brown hills ringing the valley and the glimmer of the Pacific beyond, but he'd be damned if they lost another city on his watch. "Whatever happens down there, I have the feeling people are going to need Captain America." He paused, looking down at the vista of glimmering skyscrapers, the snake-like freeways. "Maybe I do too."
Had Bucky actually done any of the reading Shield had given him over the last few weeks, he would have closed the chitauri portal in the Los Angeles sky sooner. Instead of worrying about something called "Nuclear fallout", he waited, mentally counting down the seconds, giving Stark every moment he could.
When his mental alarm expired, and he counted fifteen Mississippi past that, Bucky called it. "Widow, close the portal."
The dazzling blue ray cut off, the gaping hole in the pale blue Los Angeles sky began to collapse in on itself... and a human-sized object fell out.
Bucky whooped, turning to slam one hand against Thor's gauntleted shoulder.
Thor grinned back at him - a grin that fell a moment later. "He's not slowing."
Then the Hulk leapt into action, and when a plainly woozy Tony Stark asked what had happened. Bucky only had one answer. "We won, kid. We did it."
Winning. Huh. He could get used to that.
After Loki, Bucky shook hands with Tony and the others, then took a taxi to the nearest train station and boarded the first thing that went out of town.
He didn't have a destination in mind other than away. But Brooklyn had always been his home, the only place he'd ever thought he would live when he got back from war.
He got as close as he could - the port of Cape Liberty, New Jersey, before physical government roadblocks stopped him. Standing on the strut of an abandoned radio tower, Bucky peered over the ruin of New York and tried to pick out landmarks he used to know. And if he wept a little, well, no one was around to see it.
At night, the remains of the city glowed an electric HYDRA blue.
Two weeks later found him knocking on the front door to Stark's Malibu mansion. Tony acted as if Bucky's arrival was expected, and put Bucky up in the last guest bedroom. Black Widow and Bruce were already there, set-up in their own rooms.
"You sure this is alright?" he asked, snugging his duffle up higher on his shoulder. He hate to ask for charity, but he had no where else to go.
"I have a lot of rooms, Bucky. That's why they call it a mansion."
That was an exaggeration on Tony's part - it was a mansion built for one, apparently - , but the house was big enough, even though Bucky suspected he'd shoved Pepper out of her room.
He also wasn't sure when they stopped becoming Barnes and Stark, and had become Bucky and Tony, either. Bruce had always been Bruce, and as for Romanova - well. She was always Miss Romanova, until the day they both met up in the boxing ring Tony kept downstairs. She knocked him for a loop hard enough to make him drop propriety.
Truth was, Bucky was half in love with her by the end of it. He would have tried something, but Clint Barton moved in a week later with dark rings under his eyes that no one commented on. He roomed with Natasha, and that was that. Bucky wasn't going to move in on someone else's girl.
Then the thing with Seattle happened, and the Avengers were needed again. A hostage situation with a militant group who had gotten their mitts on Chitauri guns and thought that meant they could hold an entire community bank hostage.
Then, in Miami, they were introduced to a new pain in the neck called Doombots.
If this was going to be a regular thing, Bucky decided their team needed training. The private beach cove below the cliffside mansion was great for a long run, and the sand was soft for falls when sparring. People got so upset over a little black eye nowadays.
Clint and Natasha were already in shape, but Bucky needed all the skill he'd picked up as a Sergeant to brave Bruce's temper whenever he dragged him out of the lab. Tony tried to beg him off, citing a bad heart, but Bucky had been pressing sickly friends into going outside decades before Tony was even born. It took two yelling matches, but Bucky was declared a winner when Tony showed up the third day for a team beach run.
Then Tony got it in his head to install holographic projectors into the face of the beach cliff. Suddenly, the Avengers had an obstacle course and mutable holographic enemies that learned as they went.
It was swell-no, what was the modern phrase - a sweet setup, except for the first training after Thor returned from Asgard. He brought the hammer down once to take out a mob of holographic zombies, and they'd had to pick out melted glass out of the sand for weeks.
But they learned. They adapted. The haunted look dimmed from Clint's eyes, Tony and Bruce came out of their scientist hidey-holes for dinner more often than not, Natasha smiled, Thor boomed, and Bucky voluntarily learned how to use a tablet, which was a fancy word for a computer.
Months passed. Then a year. Then one day while hunting for breakfast Bucky stopped at the digital calendar displayed on the refrigerator door, counted the days, and realized he'd been carrying the shield longer than Steve had, back in their day. Huh.
And just like that, suddenly, his appetite was gone.
He headed to the elevator feeling, odd. A little hollowed out. Maybe he should head down to the park, see if any of his kids were running around. On his off time, Bucky was an assistant coach for the local co-ed Little League. Clint liked to tease him over Captain America being only an assistant, but Bucky was a big believer in getting kids into sports and out of trouble. Besides, he couldn't be counted on for games when he could be pulled away anytime for Avenger's business-
"Sir," J.A.R.V.I.S. broke in, like he was a mind-reader. "I'm afraid there has been a situation. This was just simultaneously broadcasted on all major television channels all throughout the United States."
One of the video panels on the elevator promptly lit up, showing a grainy image of what looked like a woman tied to a chair. A shaky camera zoomed in, focused, and abruptly Bucky was staring at Pepper, gagged. She'd been crying and mascara ran dark tears down her face. But now her eyes were clear and hard, glaring back at the camera, or whoever was behind it.
There was no sound. Underneath was only a simple text message.
MR. STARK: 50 MILLION DEPOSITED INTO SWEDISH NATIONAL BANK, ACCOUNT #974024519 BY 12PM PST.
The image of Pepper lasted for a count of ten seconds, then resolved into static.
Bucky swore and smacked the stop button on the elevator, then changed his mind and hit the one for Tony's basement workshop two levels down. "Can you stop him?" he asked J.A.R.V.I.S., knowing he didn't have a chance if Tony was already in there.
"I'm afraid stopping Mr. Stark would violate existing protocols," J.A.R.V.I.S. said.
"He's going to get himself killed! How's that for your protocol?" Bucky hit the workshop button again, but that didn't make elevators go faster, even in his day.
There was a slight pause. "I can delay the button-up procedure by an incremental degree," J.A.R.V.I.S. said. "Please hurry."
The elevator dinged open. Bucky sprinted out, turned a corner, and leapt a lab table just as the Iron Man helmet slammed closed over Tony's face.
Bucky didn't think, he grabbed the armor plated arm and thwapped Iron Man, hard, over the head. "What do ya think you're doing, flyboy?"
"Not the time, Barnes." Tony's voice came out cold from Iron Man's voice modulators. He went to brush Bucky away, but Bucky had been waiting for that. He ducked and came up again to Iron Man's other side, putting himself in front of the exit.
Of course, Tony could just blast up through the ceiling and the living room above if he got a head of steam on him, but Bucky hoped it wouldn't come to that.
"Not without the team, you're not," Bucky said. "We've trained for hostage situations."
He could feel Tony's glare from behind the glowing eyes. "It's not any hostage situation. It's Pepper. Now get out of my way."
"Do you even know where she is?"
The faceplate came up, and although Tony's expression was thunderous, Bucky still considered it a win. "Hello, genius here. J.A.R.V.I.S. is running a back-trace through every satellite upload system and ISP. I'll know in fifteen minutes. Tops."
"Then what?"
"Take a guess," Tony snarled, stepping into Bucky's space.
A better man may have backed off, might have reasoned with Tony or been sympathetic. Bucky had been rough around the edges before that had been a phrase, and the loudest, brashest voice where being noticed for the wrong reasons meant getting a switch to the behind and sent to bed without food. He didn't give an inch and snarled back, "Sure is, and when they see you coming in this," he flicked the red and gold chest plate, "they're going to put a bullet right between her pretty eyes, then they'll nab you."
Tony shoved Bucky. Not enough to knock him down, but enough to back him a step. "It's Pepper!"
Bucky shoved him back. "We both know this ain't about ransom. This is part of their plan! So we need one, too."
Tony didn't answer for a moment, but a muscle above his right eye twitched. He'd always been bad about telegraphing his moves, instead depending on the suit to cover him. Iron Man wasn't meant for subtly. From the way he held himself now, Bucky gave it a fifty/fifty shot between Tony punching him and flying off, or straight flying off.
"He's right," said a soft voice. Bruce walked in from the right, his hands shoved in his pockets. J.A.R.V.I.S. must have called for backup. "Tony, you know he is."
Tony turned to him. "Hey, science bros, remember? You're supposed to be on my side." But he didn't sound nearly as angry as before. It was hard to be mad at Bruce.
Bruce gave a half smile. "Sorry, Tony."
Natasha melted from the shadows on the other side, Clint at her heels. "Pepper's best shot at getting out alive is if we attack this together."
"Aye," Thor said from behind them both, and until that moment Bucky would have bet money that the man couldn't enter a room quietly. "Pepper is one of our own, shield brother. We want the best for her as well."
Bucky nodded to the group, though he didn't take his eyes off Tony's face. "We have three hours until the deadline, and between now and then we're going to give them fifty million reasons to regret they ever thought about going after her."
Tony briefly closed his eyes, and Bucky knew they'd won.
"When it comes time," Tony said reopening his eyes to stare straight at Bucky. "I'm killing the son of a bitch who took her. You're not stopping me, Cap."
"I won't," Bucky promised because being Captain America didn't mean he was a good man. That label had belonged to someone else, and it was hard to remember how disappointed Steve would be when his mind was filled with images of Pepper tied up with mascara tears down her cheeks. "I'll help."