A part of him had always enjoyed this. It wasn't the pain he caused, or the surge of triumph as his opponents fell. It was simpler than that. It was the searing ache in his limbs, the crack of bone beneath his knuckles, the sound of his heart thundering in his chest. It drowned out everything else – the questions, the doubt, the guilt – all of it falling away in the pure exertion of giving everything that he had.
He'd tried to find this feeling before. For years he had tried without realizing it, tried to see past the horror, past the mission, to find some peace in the simplicity of the fight, some pleasure in a job well done. But they'd stolen even that from him. If he felt something more than the hollowness and the cold, they'd make sure he never remembered.
The barrel of a rifle connected with his chin, staggering him. This guy was good. Big, too. They'd managed to hide their approach, to scout the base from the hills above. Natalia had found them an entrance and Barton had provided the wire that dropped them down into the facility's ventilation shaft. Now it was his turn.
Bucky spat, flicking the hair from his eyes as he grinned up at the hulking Hydra goon. For all their talk of technological superiority, this guy seemed to prefer using his gun as a club. He was that type, the kind who liked to get his hands dirty. That suited Bucky just fine. Steve wasn't the only one who could take a beating.
The next punch took him in the back, the impact traveling electric up his spine. Natalia and Barton were still perched in the shaft above. He knew she'd be trying to cover him, to get a clean shot, but he wasn't in any hurry to get out of the way.
Because that had been the problem. He'd been too valuable for Hydra to let him go, to let him die. Self-preservation had been part of his programming. He knew he'd win this fight – and easily – but there was a thrill in thinking that maybe he wouldn't, that this fight might actually be his last. And, if he was being honest with himself, he probably deserved a little pain.
Above him, he heard Natalia curse. Her English was perfect now, better than he'd ever managed to teach her, but it was nice to hear her remembering her mother tongue in times of trouble. She'd taught him a few choice phrases of her own all those years ago, usually while yelling at him for being reckless.
It was time to end this. He feinted left, driving his right fist into the man's stomach. People always focused on his left arm and he'd learned to play it to his advantage. As the man staggered, Bucky grabbed him by both shoulders, pulling him down as he drove his knee up and into his chin. The jaw gave way and the man crumpled to the floor.
Natalia dropped down beside him, with Barton just behind.
"Well, you definitely took your time."
Barton meant it lightly, but Natalia was watching him with concern. She knew that he'd been dragging it out, probably knew the reason why.
"Are you all right?"
"Never better." He rubbed at his neck. "So where's this power surge?"
She'd tapped into the building's internal network to get them inside and had noticed a large amount of energy being diverted to one of the sublevels. Bucky had been awakened enough times to see the world changing, even if he hadn't remembered how it used to be. His training had exposed him to some of the advances of the modern world, but usually those that had been weaponized, that would cause maximum destruction with minimal effort. What Natalia had done was delicate, exploiting a crack in the building's defenses with just a few keystrokes. He'd watched over her shoulder, impressed.
Their intel said that this was just a storage facility, or it had been back when it belonged to SHIELD, before Hydra had turned the tables. He'd had a hand in that, even if he hadn't been in control. Whatever was going on here was at least partially his fault.
"Follow me." Natalia pressed herself against the wall, angling her gun around the next corner.
His eyes strayed to the rifle pinned beneath the fallen guard. But Barton was watching him, his hand tensed on his bow. The message behind that thin-lipped smile was clear: just give me a reason. Bucky held his eyes and then, with a shrug, turned and followed Natalia.
He didn't know about Barton, but she was good. So was he. They'd both been well trained in the art of staying unseen. Still, he'd expected them to encounter more resistance. The men outside did seem to be preparing to leave, loading a pair of commandeered transport trucks. The man whose jaw he'd broken was the only person they'd encountered inside. It was almost too easy.
Natalia led them through a network of empty hallways toward the stairs, with Barton covering their rear. They said he had good eyes, but as they moved deeper into the facility, Bucky found himself looking back over the archer's shoulder, his own senses straining toward the shadows.
"I've got this." Barton caught him looking and arched a brow. "You just concentrate on not freaking out and killing everyone."
"You don't feel that?"
"Of course I feel that. We're following a former Hydra agent into a Hydra base. What could go wrong?"
"I'm on your side. You can trust me."
"And a few months ago, you were on theirs." He checked his grip. "So no thanks."
"Hush." Natalia sighted around the next corner, watching to make sure the coast was clear.
He counted his breaths. They were shallow, silent. Even their footsteps made barely a sound. He'd been trained for stealth, but before that he'd been a soldier. He knew that even the most elite units still moved as one, that there was a cost to strength in numbers. The creak of a strap, the nervous shift of your weapon in your hands - any little thing could give you away. But then there was the absence of sound, deliberate and stifling, the pregnant pause of a group of people all holding their breath. It was just like... there.
He spun on his heel, running back the way they had come.
"James!" Natalia kept her voice to a whispered hiss, but he knew she'd be running after him, knew that Barton would have him in his sights.
He dove around a corner and collided with a wall of flesh. Hydra soldiers, half a dozen of them. The one he'd hit staggered backward, shouting in surprise as he opened fire.
Bucky hit the ground hard. Natalia was on top of him, pressing him down. She held him there as she turned and fired, toppling the soldier with a shot between the eyes. Barton came skidding to a stop beside them.
"Hold your fire!" The others were backing off. Two of them slipped behind, cutting off their escape as he and Natalia rose slowly to their feet. They were surrounded.
"Well, this is nice."
Natalia shot Barton a look. "We've been in worse situations."
"Yeah, but it wasn't your ex-boyfriend leading us into a trap."
He was getting sick of the distrust, even if he'd more than earned it. But he was surprised that Natalia had told Barton about their past. It was definitely a conversation that he would have been curious to hear.
The ring of soldiers tightened. Five on three wasn't terrible odds, even with Hydra getting the jump on them. Natalia had two of the men at gunpoint and Barton was sighting down his bow at another. All Bucky had for the other two was a menacing glower. Yeah, screw this.
Reaching behind him, he pulled an arrow from Barton's quiver, spinning it around and driving it through the throat of the nearest soldier. He jerked it free, kicking the next man in the knee as he plunged the arrow into his eye. Then he relieved them of their sidearms, turning in time to see Natalia and Barton finishing off the others.
As the last man slumped to the floor, he handed the arrow back to Barton. "Thanks."
He took it, eyeing the guns. When Bucky didn't look away, he held up his hands. "Okay. Fine. Keep them."
They didn't meet any resistance as they made their way deeper into the compound, descending the stairs into the sublevels. Quick as they moved, someone was bound to find the bodies, to raise the alarm. But it never came. And why had Hydra been behind them? They'd already cleared the halls. It was like they'd been keeping their distance, following them. Barton was wrong about him but, the deeper they went, the more he suspected that he was right about the rest. This was a trap.
"What did Fury tell you about this place?" Bucky followed close behind Natalia, close enough to feel the warmth of her, to smell the rich musk of her hair. But he couldn't let it distract him.
"It used to be a storage facility, but everything of real value was relocated years ago. It was last classified as a safe house."
"And he told you Hydra had abandoned it? Told you that himself?"
She glanced back at him. "Fury's dead. At least that's what we need Hydra to believe. We have an encrypted channel."
He didn't like it, wanted to ask her more. But she held up a hand for them to stop. They were here.
Natalia inched toward the door, straightening when she saw that the room was empty. Barton followed, but as Bucky stepped through the doorway, he stopped dead.
Natalia followed his gaze. "Oh, god."
He'd never been here before. He couldn't trust his memory, not yet, but he knew that it was true. They'd moved him around over the years, facility to facility, but the setup was always the same. The stasis pods glowed faintly, empty and waiting – two of them this time. Between them was the chair, the chair that haunted his nightmares, the chair where they had taken everything that he was.
He was home.