"It was him." Steve said, as they rode in the back of a van to who knew where. "He looked right at me like he didn't even know me."
"How is that even possible? It was, like, 70 years ago." Sam asked.
"Zola. Bucky's whole unit was captured in '43. Zola experimented on him. Whatever he did helped Bucky survive the fall. They must have found him and . . ."
"None of that's your fault, Steve." Natasha said, and Ace nodded.
"Even when I had nothing, I had Bucky." Steve added. Ace looked down, one eye was swollen shut, the cut next to it dripping onto her shirt, and her fingers were blue from how tight the cuffs were, but to her none of that really mattered, what mattered was that Bucky was alive. For some reason that made her heart pound like crazy in her chest. Which probably wasn't helping her lack of circulation in her hands.
"We need to get a doctor here." Sam said, Ace looked up to see that Natasha was still bleeding pretty badly from her gunshot wound. "We don't put pressure on that wound, she's gonna bleed out here in the truck." The guard held out one of the stun batons threateningly, then to everyone's amazement attacked the other guard riding with them, first hitting him with the baton then kicking him in the face. He collapsed to the floor and the guard pulled off their helmet and Ace could only grin seeing Agent Maria Hill.
"That thing was squeezing my brain." She commented looking at the helmet. "Who's this guy?" She asked looking between the three she already knew.
"We can trust him." Ace replied.
"You sure?" Hill asked, Steve and Natasha nodding.
They pulled a Houdini on HYDRA and Ace loved every minute of it. They arrived at a dam and Hill led them inside where someone came rushing toward them.
"GSW. She's lost at least a pint." Hill called.
"Maybe two." Sam offered.
"Let me take her." The man running toward them suggested.
"She'll want to see him first." Hill replied and Ace looked at the agent confused. Hill pulled back a plastic curtain and laying in a hospital bed was Nick Fury.
"About damn time." He commented looking up at them. The Doctor was treating Natasha's gunshot wound and Hill was stitching up Ace's eye while Fury explained to them what was going on. "Lacerated spinal column, cracked sternum, shattered collarbone, perforated liver, and one hell of a headache."
"Don't forget your collapsed lung." The doctor added.
"Let's not forget that. Otherwise, I'm good."
"They cut you open. Your heart stopped." Natasha pointed out.
"Tetrodotoxin B." Fury informed. "Slows the pulse to one beat a minute."
"Banner developed it for stress. Didn't work so great for him, but it would seem we found a use for it." Ace informed.
"Why all the secrecy? Why not just tell us?" Steve demanded.
"Any attempt on the Director's life had to look successful." Hill explained, finishing up with the stitches.
"Can't kill you if you're already dead. Besides, I wasn't sure who to trust." Ace lowered her eyes, sadly. After all these years did he still not trust her?
Ace was standing outside the dam trying to analyze her reaction to seeing Bucky. It didn't make any sense to her. She'd never had such a strong physiological reaction to anyone ever before.
"Hey, Fury wants to talk to us about something." Steve called, coming out to join her. "You ok?"
"Just confused." Ace confessed.
"Uh-oh. Ace Le Beau is rarely confused." Steve teased. "What's up?"
"When I saw that the . . .Winter Soldier," She still wasn't used to thinking of him that way. "Was Bucky, I don't know, how to describe it. It was like I was struck by Thor's Hammer. Scary, exhilarating, potentially deadly, yet heart pounding at the same time. Literally heart pounding, and I think I felt relief too, but none of it makes sense." Steve took all this in then gave her a sad smile.
"Remember after New York, you came to the gym to ask me how to start over?"
"Yeah?" Ace didn't get the relevance of that conversation.
"When you came in you looked at a picture of Bucky, just as you have ever since you first saw it, and still do. I had teased you that if you weren't careful I would think you'd fallen in love with a memory." Ace shot him a look. "Well, Ace I think you fell in love with a memory."
"But that's impossible, love doesn't work like that." Steve shot her a look.
"No offense, Ace but what do you know about love?" That one question made her freeze. What did she know about love? Her examples of love were limited, to her family and friends, and while her parents might not have been the best examples she truly felt that her sister's love for Kurt was. To watch the way those two looked at each other it made you want to believe in anything.
Even if it was love that she was feeling for Bucky there was nothing she could do about it, he was an enemy of SHIELD.
"Let's get inside, Fury's waiting." She reminded.
They gathered around a table inside and for a long moment Fury just stared at a photo of Pierce, as though trying to sort through his own feelings.
"This man declined the Nobel Peace Prize. He said peace wasn't an achievement, it was a responsibility. See, it's stuff like this that gives me trust issues."
"We have to stop the launch." Natasha pointed out.
"I don't think the Council's accepting my calls anymore." Fury replied then opened a case that was sitting next to him, revealing what looked like computer chips.
"What's that?" Sam asked.
"Once the helicarriers reach 3,000 feet, they'll triangulate with Insight satellites becoming fully weaponized." Hill explained.
"We need to breach those carriers and replace their targeting blades with our own." Fury informed.
"One or two won't cut it. We need to link all three carriers for this to work, because even if one of those ships remains operational, a whole lot of people are gonna die."
"We have to assume everyone aboard those carriers is HYDRA. We have to get past them, insert these server blades. And maybe, just maybe we can salvage what's left-"
"We're not salvaging anything." Rogers cut in. "We're not just taking down the carriers, Nick. We're taking down S.H.I.E.L.D."
"S.H.I.E.L.D. had nothing to do with this." Fury protested.
"You gave me this mission. This is how it ends. S.H.I.E.L.D.'s been compromised. You said so yourself. HYDRA grew right under your nose and nobody noticed."
"Why do you think we're meeting in this cave? I noticed." Fury pointed out.
"How many paid the price before you did?" Steve asked, and Fury couldn't meet his eyes. Obviously too many.
"Look, I didn't know about Barnes."
"Even if you had, would you have told me? Or would you have compartmentalized that, too?" Steve asked, and Ace knew Fury well enough to already know the answer to that. "S.H.I.E.L.D., HYDRA, it all goes."
"He's right." Hill put in, Fury looked at her surprised, then over to Natasha, who just leaned back, he looked at Ace who lowered her eyes, nodding then up at Sam.
"Don't look at me. I do what he does, just slower." Fury looked down, realizing he'd lost this fight.
"Well . . ." He said, then sighed. "It looks like you're giving the orders now, Captain.