Disclaimer: never did and never will own it. Marvel does.
Spoilers: canon until Captain America: Civil War (and the post-credit scenes of Black Panther).
Timeline: supposedly happens between Avengers Infinity War and Avengers 4.


"We bring Summer here?" Tony asked.

LeAnn gasped. Bucky turned to Steve.

"You were right. Two girls head over heels for me, it's weird. Let's have fun then, Stark!"

Steve smiled and volunteered to go fetch the Summer Flower. Bucky retreated in a corner of the room, the less visible, though it was still lit perfectly. LeAnn's eyes followed him but she straightened, alone with the two seats next to her now empty. She was safe, they would not let anything happen to her now that they knew about it. She repeated to herself everything she had already told herself while Bucky was sleeping. Besides, he was here now and no matter how incongruous it sounded, she knew he would protect her and he was way better than the spy. She knew it, because the spy had ranted about it so many times.

She took a deep breath when Steve entered the room with the spy. He had not bothered to remove the wire bindings around Summer's wrists and the skin was red, with a little blood, though the mask was no more covering her mouth. Her eyes scanned the room quickly. Bucky retreated further. She saw LeAnn and smirked. To her credit, LeAnn didn't move and met her eyes without shrinking. Summer looked at Natasha.

"Natalia," she said, her voice a little rough. "Black Widow. You look quite out of shape."

"Try me, Svetlana," Natasha offered calmly. "You didn't dare confront me last time. You were in a hurry?"

"None of you is worthy of me."

"That's why you have the bindings and we are free," Tony said.

She turned disdainful on him. "I don't see he who captured me among you and you wouldn't welcome him anyway."

"That's where you're wrong, Svetlana," Bucky said from his corner.

Tony was surprised by his voice. It was again the dead voice he had heard in the training centre. Steve saddened immediately.

"Ruslan! I didn't see you!" Summer's smile was infectious.

"Ruslan?" Steve repeated.

"They couldn't afford for me to remember my past, Steve, so they gave me another name." He moved forward, graceful as a cat. Summer's eyes shone when seeing him in his Winter Soldier's garb.

"You came back to your senses, I see, Ruslan." Then, without losing time, she said, "Желание. Ржавый. Семнадцать. Рассвет. Печь. Девять. Добросердечный. Возвращение на родину. Один. Грузовой вагон."

"Oh, excellent," Natasha applauded. "What a good memory! Where did you hear those words?"

"They are fairly well-known in our ranks. Each of us deemed worthy is taught them so we can recover our greatest legend. Солдат?"

Tony didn't understand Russian, but those deliberate words could have only one meaning and the word 'soldier' in Russian sounded similar to the English term for him to see the whole picture.

"So this was your plan all along? All those lies, acts, infiltration of my video system, it was only to awaken the Winter Soldier?" he asked. "You're so out of your game, wilted flower! Didn't you hear he had been cured?"

"Once HYDRA's, forever HYDRA's. Солдат?" she repeated.

Bucky had still not moved. Tony clasped his shoulder. "Some have the will to save themselves."

"Ruslan, you are ours! You belong to us!" she added, still in Russian.

He came near her and in the same language, told her, "I belong to myself. What you never understood is that I'm still the Winter Soldier. I never stopped being the Winter Soldier. The violence is all mine. But now, the will is also mine."

-o-o-

"Traitor!"

"Traitor?" He reverted to English. "Was I ever more than a killing machine? They tortured me when they felt like it, they hit me because I was so well conditioned that I would not hit them back and they put me aside like a discarded toy when they were done with me. Did they ever care for me except as a well-honed tool? Did they care for what I thought? Oh, yeah, you're right: each time I did, they wiped my memory away."

"They saved you from death, gave you a whole new life!"

"They made it a living hell. You like what you are. You are even paid for it, and handsomely. I hate what they made me. Do you know why I was so unstable? Because they had to erase my mind so very often. Each time I remembered a little thing, I would fight against what they were doing to me. I was only ever obedient when they had just brainwashed me. The rest of time was an endless fight. But it was to their benefit, since the hate I had against them, against the whole world went into my missions. I was, still am, the best because all I felt was hatred and because I didn't fear to die. Dying is easy. Living is hard. You're preoccupied with staying alive. I didn't care. Makes you a lot more efficient."

Later, Steve would wonder how Bucky could say all that with his cold voice. It was as if he was just stating facts, speaking of someone else. Then he delivered the last blow.

"You claim you're in love with the Winter Soldier? Then you're in love with your gun. It amounts to the same." He turned his back to her, incidentally looking toward LeAnn at the same time. "You're pathetic."

Summer snarled.

"Stark, you can give her to any authority you like. She's no danger. She's not even as important as she thinks she is. Remember the pilot and radio operator? They had cyanide capsules. She doesn't. She doesn't matter. Then prepare for the worse."

"What? Why?"

"Stark, think. She tried to awaken the Winter Soldier. The point was not to awaken him anywhere. It had to happen here, in New Avengers Facility, preferably when we are all together. If she had succeeded, I would have gone on a killing rampage, I may even have gone through a few of you before you could react and then the Avengers would be down to a weakened and split force. What better time for attacking?"

"You're lost on them, Ruslan! They do not respect your intelligence."

"HYDRA's only use of my mind was for erasing it," he called back.

-o-o-

"Cap, get rid of the spy, back where you found her, please. We'll ship her to the government at the first moment we'll have. Let's not keep her under our feet."

"Ruslan! I saved your life!" She was almost down to begging now. Probably the punishment for failure was death.

"Remember me when?"

"The helicopter? The man calling the words?"

"Come now, Svetlana. The chopper? You had a tracker on you so they could aim at it and shoot us down. You were trying to ingratiate yourself to me by playing the nice girl afterward?"

"That was a mistake! I landed us safely!"

"Don't bother to continue lying to me. I remember everything even if I said the contrary. I landed that chopper. You just made as if you panicked. Didn't want to carry on your assignment? Were you just trying to get me killed instead of awakening me? Bad little sheep. Maybe we should just ship her back to whoever sent her. They would punish her suitably."

"What was the point of that little jaunt in chopper, then?"

"Probably testing my fighting skills as the 'weak' Bucky."

"Er… am I coming at a wrong moment?"

"Banner!" Tony exclaimed. "Now we know there's indeed a crisis coming up. Just missing Thor, are we?"

Bucky didn't miss the way Bruce Banner and Natasha looked at each other, though Natasha tried to downplay it. Steve left with Svetlana before Bruce began explaining why he was back, then Tony yelled they were going to the control room and people moved toward the exit. Wanda took LeAnn's elbow and steered her outside. Then Bucky looked at Vision, who had also seen the interaction – or lack thereof – between Bruce and Natasha and who was now staring at Wanda's back. Bucky fell in step with him.

"Romanoff is a handful and Banner is… touchy. Compared to them, Wanda is very low-maintenance. Trust her as an Avenger and care for her. Easy, no?"

"I'm not human."

The look Bucky gave him was pure exasperation.

"What does it have to do with the subject? You care for her; most humans fear her. Besides, you can be a human and still be a monster. You're none of that, your luck. Go ask her. I'm pretty sure you won't be rejected. Trust me, I knew about that stuff before."

Then he ignored Vision and listened to Bruce explaining to Tony that he had detected high activity in some place Bucky didn't hear.

-o-o-

Of course, once Steve came back from escorting Svetlana to her cell, Bruce had to start all over again.

"Vibranium. They're going to remove it from Wakanda. I don't know who and where exactly, but there is way too much activity over there for it to be normal. Last time I saw Thor, we discussed it. Vibranium may be a key in the fight against Thanos."

"Aren't we done with Thanos?" Sam asked.

"He's just licking his wounds. He'll be back, probably with all the Infinity Stones, and worse than last time."

"Why didn't T'Challa contact us about it?"

"I was trying," T'Challa said from the screen.

Tony stared at him.

"Sorry, boss," FRIDAY informed him. "The IT department had noticed that all communications from outside were cut down while they checked the system. They kept it that way until they cleared it all. They just finished."

"Your Highness."

"Mr. Stark. Captain Rogers. White Wolf."

"T'Challa," Bucky replied with a nod.

"White Wolf?" Tony repeated.

"Remember what you said about not messing with his mind," Natasha reminded him.

"There is much unrest in my country right now," T'Challa continued. "Too much and in too many places at the same time. The Black Panther will not be able to defeat them all and my army would be spread thin. I call for help. Lots of help."

Tony turned toward Bucky. "Okay, genius, you got me there. Is that what you were speaking about?"

"Maybe. It would add up with the timing." He paced deliberately around the control room. "Svetlana should have awaken me something like half an hour ago, so I would have started my killing for a while. You would all be occupied with dealing with me, leaving Wakanda alone. That would give time to the bad guys to steal all the Vibranium, right, T'Challa? That's what they are planning on taking?"

"That and probably stealing some of our technologies."

"The thing is, we are certainly under watch. They're going to wait for a proof that Svetlana succeeded. And your arrival, Dr Banner, unfortunately sent the wrong message." He pursed his lips. "Or it could help us. Like what you need help to get rid of me."

"If we're watched like you think, we cannot go to T'Challa's help. They'll know about it and start their move even before we get there."

"Unless we provide them with a diversion, like they've been meaning to do."

"What are you thinking about?"

"Me."

-o-o-

"We stage a fight between me and someone you can spare, make it drag as long as we can, while you take off to Wakanda to help T'Challa. I'm sure you can add some smoke or explosions to make believe I've devastated the compound. Once you're there, you call us and we come too. If we are needed."

"Who do you want to team with?"

Bucky shrugged. "I only draw the line at three names. Not Rhodes, Wanda and your Spider-kid. And not the Hulk either, because I won't last long against him."

"What? What do you have against Spiderman?"

"I have against him that he's a kid, Stark! Rhodes, you know why. It's out of question I send him back to the hospital."

"Why not me, Bucky?"

"Wanda, girl, there are very high probabilities that authorities are going to show up before the end of the staged fight. As I'll end up in a cell, I won't be able to prevent them to do the same with you and you know they are just itching to put their hands on you. No way I'm going to ever give them the chance."

"Let's be realistic, there are only four of us who can fight you for long enough. Cap, Thor, His Highness and I."

"Thor is not here and you are all three needed in Wakanda."

"I'll stay," Steve offered. "Bucky and I can hit each other all day if needed and we won't even have to hold back."

"You know what would make it even more realistic? Having your little spy by your side."

"We don't have the same idea of fun, Stark."

"Come on, Barnes, if you go sweet on her, she'll be putty in your hands." The others seemed mostly to agree with him.

"We're talking enemy spy, Stark."

"You were not looking at her when you said she was pathetic. Her face was a study. That blow, with the 'in love with your gun' line, got her hard."

LeAnn stood up. "I'm sorry to say that I think it would work."

-o-o-

"Oh, now you're feeling better, Doc, huh? You need to be protected from her, but you have no qualms throwing me at her!"

Wanda put her hand on his arm before he could lash out more, then hugged him. He looked down at her, taking his time, before his eyes searched Natasha. Strangely, she wasn't supporting Tony's idea.

"Tell them, Natasha. Explain to them why it's a bad idea." His voice was broken. Natasha noticed how this time, he had used her first name. She sighed.

"If he gets this girl to play her role along him and if something happens to her, he'll feel guilty about it. He's protective and caring, you should know that. Despite knowing she would have killed him or transformed him back into a killing machine, he'll only know that this is a girl who loves him and whom he asked to sacrifice herself. Don't you think he's already feeling guilty enough like that?" She sighed again. "Way back then, when I met him the first time... He killed three men when he was ordered to kill me. Because he cared for me and wouldn't do it. He went against direct orders trying to protect me. So he'll fight for her."

"What happened?" Wanda asked quietly.

"They shot him from afar, tranquilliser darts. Then they waited for his moves to become so sluggish they could take him on, they beat him down, tied him up, waited for him to awake and beat me down in front of him. Finally they wiped out his memory for the fun of it and put him back in cryo-freeze. Before you feel offended, Steve, he knew me only when he was the Winter Soldier. He didn't remember me from his old life."

Bucky was looking at them and he saw their answer on their face.

"It's of no use. Thanks anyway, Romanoff. I'll do my best, but if something happens to her, her death is on your head!"

"Bucky…" Natasha called him back. "I know we're just asking you to do something you despise, but how long do you intend to keep us at arm's length? Are you so sure we're going to turn against you?"

"It's only a matter of time," he retorted before leaving the room.

"What do you mean, 'arm's length'?" Wanda asked quietly, a bit hurt.

"Not you. But besides you and Cap, he calls everyone by their last name. He fears to be let down at any time."

"Didn't we just?" Steve replied.