Destiny Intervenes
Chapter Eight: Revelations
Previously:
"One last question," Darcy's own eyes were now suspiciously bright and Jane was openly crying just not realizing it. "What nickname did Captain Rogers use to refer to you even as your call sign?"
He let out a snort at that question. "He called me the same name he always called me, ever since we were kids; he called me 'Bucky'."
Darcy let out a slow breath and stood up and started pacing. "Okay," she said. "okay, okay, okay." she repeated her voice getting higher on each repetition, she stopped and turned back to Bucky. "Okay, you're Bucky Barnes."
Bucky nodded. "Yes, I know I am and that's what I've been trying to convince you of, looks like I succeeded."
Jane piped up. "But Sergeant James Barnes fought with the Howling Commandos in World War II when he was only twenty six."
Bucky's voice grew somber. "There were a lot of young men in the Army, a lot younger than me, all of them trying to fight for their country but most of them just ended up dying for somebody else's cause."
Jane cleared her throat her eyes filled anew with tears she refused to let drop. "Yes but that's just it, you don't look a day older than thirty so you can understand our skepticism."
"Twenty eight actually," he corrected her smiling slightly. "And yeah I can understand your position but I just proved to you that I am who I say I am so, you can understand how it can be hard for me to believe that this is the future because looking around this place all I see are a couple of high tech devices and desks, white boards and a whole lot of notes on astronomy? none of which seems very futuristic to me. I mean where are the flying cars and the totalitarian governments and the robotic servants and the ray guns and stuff, where is all that?"
Darcy was looking at him incredulously. "Dude, and I thought that they were overshooting the future when they made Bladerunner!" she exclaimed not without some amusement coloring her tone. "You guys actually thought that seventy years from the 1940s there would flying cars and droids?"
Bucky just shrugged.
"Well we don't have any of those okay," she reconsidered for a moment. "Well maybe the totalitarian government bit but I don't know if those iPod thieving Agents were an actual part of the government or not."
Bucky then went to fold his arms smugly but then realized her had only one arm and frowned down in consternation. "Well, I want to believe you but all that's going through my head right now is that this is a clever HYDRA ploy to get me to reveal the SSRs secrets."
Darcy looked highly affronted at that suggestion, so affronted that she just sputtered for a bit at him incoherently before huffing and folding her arms looking pointedly away from him.
Bucky winced at her reaction. "Sorry, I'm overly cautious after my kidnapping," tried feebly Darcy still not looking at him. "for what it's worth, I really don't think that you're HYDRA, I just don't want to be tricked, ya know. Besides you haven't given me any proof to the contrary."
Jane looked warily at Darcy who seemed to about to erupt with indignation. "You want proof Mister James 'I'm So Sure of Myself' Barnes, I'll give you proof." and she stormed off in a huff.
"She's a little firecracker, isn't she?" he said looking at Jane who just raised an eyebrow at him.
"She just didn't take the insinuation from you that we might be part of an evil Nazi organization well, an insinuation that I do not appreciate either, however I am a little less dramatic at showing my indignation at your accusation than Darcy."
Bucky chose to remain silent after that. A few minutes passed by and then Darcy came back into the room, a lock of hair had fallen out of her brushed arrangement and dangled in front of her face, she stared at it in frustration blowing it out of her eyes as she stomped into the room; she couldn't brush the annoying lock away because she was carrying a large silver lock box in her hands. It was embossed with some kind of circular symbol of an eagle looking to the left with horizontal and diagonal patterns on the bottom half of the circle.
Bucky immediately shot up from his seat and started to offer his hand when he realized, quite morosely, that he couldn't offer any help with only one hand. A quiet anger surged through him at his predicament; he hated being useless, he had hated it when Steve was sick and he couldn't do a damn thing to make him better, he had hated it when he had been strapped on that experiment table with Zola and Schmidt experimenting on him and he never hated it more than right now when his own body had betrayed him, he now realized what he was; a handicap and he hated it so much.
His anger must have shown on his face because as Jane took the box from her all of Darcy's residual anger at his accusation drained from her face and a gentle look of sympathy took it's place, Bucky looked away, he could stand the anger but the pitying look made his skin crawl. For the first time he wished that he hadn't survived the fall that had taken his arm, for all his talk about getting back to the SSR he knew he would be just as useless there without his arm as he was here, and his resentment and hate for Zola, Red Skull and HYDRA became tenfold, they might have given him super strength and the ability to survive mortally fatal injuries but what use was surviving if he was an invalid?
He felt Darcy's soft touch on his shoulder and felt a tendril of pleasure as he saw that she touched his left shoulder; she didn't go out of his way to avoid his injury, try to pretend it wasn't there, she acknowledged it. "Bucky, I'm not going to pretend to understand what you're going through, I would never even want to imagine what I would do if I..." she trailed off. "Anyway, I just want to say thank you for trying to help me, to me it's the thought that counts; you wanted to help even though I might think it a little chauvinistic."
Bucky snorted at that and turned to her. "I prefer to think of it as chivalrous, being a gentleman."
"Yeah, you would," she replied. "But seriously Bucky, one of the perks about being in the 21st century is that the prosthetics these days are almost more functional then a real hand, and I can hook you up." she stepped up to his right side and hooked her hand through his right one at the elbow and made him turn around towards Jane who during their heart to heart had unlocked the lock box and was shuffling through the contents.
"Ah yes. Well you still haven't convinced me that I am seventy years in the future yet," he said it in jest all his anger forgotten, it was hard to stay angry in the presence of Darcy's personality.
Darcy scowled at his stubbornness but this time it was more playful. "Well I think it's time we proved it to you, isn't it," she said coyly. "And we'll start by banishing the ridiculous notion of us being HYDRA from your mind, I mean look at me, do you think this" she indicated her body very provocatively. "would look good with a snake emblem or maybe a swastika? I think not."
Bucky was hard pressed not to smile at her antics, he recognized it for what it was though; a distraction to get his mind off of those morbid thoughts he'd been having, he played along though; he didn't want to linger on those thoughts just as much as Darcy didn't.
"You have to know though," he said mischievously as they approached the table where Jane had set the box down. "I never really suspected you to be HYDRA. I mean anyone who's as adorable as you has no business being part of a evil secret organization."
Darcy pouted. "Adorable," she asked. "I'm not adorable! Kinda cute? Maybe. Beautiful? Possibly. Sexy? Most definitely! But not adorable, I am not a twelve year old."
Jane let out a little giggle at Bucky's incredulous expression. "Actually Darcy, while you are definitely all of that, there's just no denying that you are absolutely, most definitely adorable."
Darcy pouted more deeply at being ganged up on like that proving the other two right with her expression.
"So," said Jane pointedly. "What is it that you wanted to show him from here?" she looked down at the box and Bucky followed her gaze.
The box contained three compartments, one of which held a stack of folders all stamped with the same logo as the box and S.H.I.E.L.D written in large block letters at a diagonal angle underneath that it was written - LEVEL 6 AUTHORIZATION REQUIRED. Another compartment, to Bucky's surprise, held a pair of pistols, pistols of the like he had never seen before, they were fitted inside foam molds that looked like it was made especially for them, they were mostly a glowey bluish color and there were three magazines for each, he could see the bullets from the side; each magazine had different color bullets.
The third compartment was recessed and had a lid. Darcy took a ring of keys from Jane and unlocked that lid and opened it to reveal photographs? They were face down in a pile and Darcy picked up the pile, closed the lid and walked to the couch sitting on it and asking wordlessly for Bucky to sit beside her, Jane took a seat on Darcy's other side and split the photographs between them. Darcy handed one to Bucky. It showed Darcy hugging a large handsome blonde man with long hair and beard he seemed to be wearing some kind of medieval viking armor and had a large mallet style hammer in the hand that was not holding Darcy close, he had a large carefree smile on his face as he looked at the camera.
Two things hit him at seeing the picture, the first was amazement at the fact that the picture was colored, all the photographs he had seen were black and white, color photography hadn't been invented where he was from.
The second thing that hit him was an astonishing amount of jealousy at the man holding Darcy so close, making her smile like that. It surprised him the level of emotion it was, he had barely even known the girl for two hours and within that time she had threatened to electrocute him! He had no business feeling possessive of Darcy, but even as he told himself that he looked at the man's left hand with envy, it was wrapped around Darcy's waist; he was never going to be able to hold her close like that.
As he sat there feeling sorry for himself Darcy spoke. "That's Thor," she said cheerfully oblivious to the turmoil inside him, she handed him another photograph. "He's Jane's boyfriend slash manservant slash God of Thunder." And Bucky breathed a sigh of relief as he saw in the next photo the same man, Thor, holding Jane, closer than he had held Darcy, kissing her. Both the photographs seemed to have been taken in the room they were currently sitting the sofa could be seen in the background.
Then he stared at Darcy incredulously. "The God of Thunder?"
Darcy smirked at him. "Later," was all she said and handed him another photograph. "These are Thor's Earthbound friends." The photo showed Thor standing holding his Hammer up high belting some sort of battle cry, beside him was a man who seemed to be in some sort of metal gold and red armor that encased him from head to toe, he was holding the helmet of the suit under his left arm while pointing his right hand at the camera a bluish circular glow seemed to be pulsing in the center of his armored palm, on Thor's other side stood a stunning redhead with a voluptuous figure armed with two lethal looking pistols, she would have been considered tiny especially standing next to the previous two men but the look on her face told him that she could probably give the two a good run for their money and that she was not someone to mess with, she was was the last person standing on the side of Thor, on the other end of the lineup was a man dressed in all black with muscular arms, a quiver of arrows strapped to his back and in his hand with an arrow notched and pointing down was a compound bow, behind them all standing over twelve feet tall was a vaguely man shaped thing which seemed to be made primarily of muscle, it's skin was a very angry looking green which seem to match it's mood because it looked very very pissed off. And standing in the center of this rag-tag group of strange people was Steve Rogers or more accurately Captain America.
Bucky looked at Darcy in astonishment, Darcy didn't notice; she was pointing at the photo. "The Avengers," she said. And I think you recognize their leader or should I say Captain." Her voice was very smug. "Now do you really think that Captain America would associate with the boyfriend and friend of a HYDRA Agent? Yeah I didn't think so."
"Steve's alive," Bucky asked his voice hoarse. As he had said before he never really thought they were HYDRA and he realized that if they weren't HYDRA then they wouldn't have a reason to lie to him about what year it was, there were certainly much more believable lies out there than the fact that he somehow time traveled into the next century. And if that was true then there was a very good chance that everyone he had known from back in his time were probably no longer living including Steve, he had never really managed to find much about the effects of the Super Soldier Serum on his friends body but as far as he knew immortality was not in the books pertaining to its effects. "How?"
Jane piped up at this moment. "He was frozen in ice when he crashed a HYDRA plane in the Arctic ocean, Howard Stark went on expeditions for decades trying to find him but he was unsuccessful, but SHIELD never stopped searching for him even after Howard had died and two years ago they found him buried in ice and perfectly preserved. They thought he was dead and thawed him out to give him a proper burial, turns out as soon as his lungs thawed he started breathing again, apparently the serum allowed him to survive the crash and the freezing keeping him in a sort of cryogenic hibernation for over seventy years."
Darcy scowled at her. "Not a fan girl, huh?"
Jane had the decency to blush. "I was curious," was all she said.
"Mmhm," Darcy hummed nodding knowingly.
Bucky was puzzled at the byplay but didn't inquire, instead he pointed to the rest of the group. "The Avengers?" he asked curious.
Darcy nodded. "Couple months after Cap was thawed out Thor's brother Loki attacked SHIELD and stole the Cosmic Cube."
Bucky sucked a sharp breath in at the mention of the Cube, so many lives had been lost because of that thing in his time and it seemed like it was still causing trouble.
"The Avengers were assembled to help recover it," continued Darcy choosing thankfully to ignore his gasp. "apparently they didn't get along very well at the beginning but when the shit hit the fan they were the ones who fought against the Alien Army that Loki summoned using the Cube and defeated them. They stopped Loki and saved the world, they're heroes."
Bucky looked at Steve in the picture. "And Steve?" he asked Darcy. "How is he?" In the photo Steve's smile looked fixed, it reminded him of the photos he posed for back when he was boosting the Army's morale; it looked fake.
Darcy shrugged. "To tell you the truth we don't really know," she replied her tone apologetic. "We've never met him, only Thor did and he left after helping them without contacting us."
Bucky saw Jane's face fall as she mentioned Thor's actions, he chose not to say anything.
"To be fair though," Darcy said. "This is a press release photo of them, the Hulk behind them is photoshopped in."
"Photoshopped?" asked Bucky looking at the large green thing, the look in its eyes sent shivers down his spine."
"His photo was taken separately during the battle and the rest of the Avengers posed in a studio, they then used a computer to merge the two photos and this is what you get."
Bucky nodded in understanding marveling at the handiwork, it looked completely authentic.
Darcy shuffled through the stack in her hands and gave him another photo, this one was seemed to be of the Avengers again, well five of the Avengers and a man with lightly graying hair and spectacles and a statuesque woman with strawberry blonde hair and a radiant smile, this was a more laid back photo with the team minus the Hulk relaxing in what looked like an apartment building penthouse suite, they were seated around in arranged couches and sofas, some of them like the man who had been wielding the Bow and Arrows was seated on the floor at the redheaded woman's feet while the tall strawberry blonde was seated in an armchair daintily holding a cocktail glass filled with some kind of blue liquid, the man in the metal suit was standing in the center holding a glass of what Bucky assumed was whiskey and making some sort of toast.
Steve and Thor were seated on one of the couches Thor had his arm boisterously around Steve pulling him close and holding up a large mug of what looked like beer in his hand while Steve was sporting a bashful but genuine smile raising his own glass which contained some kind of dark fizzing liquid. The Archer and the red head were both holding glasses filled with clear liquid and while not smiling looked more at ease than they did in the previous picture. The man with the glasses was holding a cup of tea and was smiling gently at the group.
"This is from their Facebook page, that's a social network medium through which you can make friends, share pictures and news with anyone all over the world," explained Darcy. "It's a more laid back view of the team and this one shows the real Captain I think instead of the one he presents to the world."
Bucky nodded. "That's more like the Steve I know," he looked at the photo for a while just staring at the group that Steve had surrounded himself with, he remembered a time when Steve had confessed to him that even with the Howling Commandos he didn't feel like he actually belonged, he cared about them and was honored that they thought of him as a leader but he knew that they saw him as a hero, as Captain America when he just wanted to be Steve Rogers, he had lamented that it seemed like it was always going to be Bucky and him against the world. It seemed like Steve had finally found a place where he belonged.
"You want to go to him," It wasn't a question. Bucky just nodded not looking up until Jane got to her feet.
"Well," she said walking towards the door. "I guess I need to make a few calls then."
As she left Bucky looked to Darcy in curiosity. "Jane has high enough clearance to get into contact with Stark Industries and be actually taken seriously," she said promptly.
"Stark Industries?" he asked looking back down at the photo of the man standing in the center; he had thought the man's face looked familiar. "So that means..."
Darcy nodded enthusiastically. "Howard Starks son Tony," she filled in for him. "he's a genius level engineer with multiple masters and PhDs, for most of his life he sold the government weapons until he was kidnapped by a terrorist organization and forced to make a weapon for them, Tony refused and made his first Ironman suit to escape from them, when he came back to the States he told the press that he had seen US soldiers being killed by his own weapons and he shut down the weapons division of Stark Industries, from then on he had started concentrating his efforts on providing clean energy, but he also decided to take down the terrorist who had gotten hands on his weapons, to that end he made the second and third Ironman suits and blew up their base of operations. Ever since then he has taken the front seat to seeing to America's defense and has immensely helped the war effort."
Bucky looked at Darcy in wonder and a stab of jealousy at Howards son. "And you memorized his entire biography, did you?"
Darcy shrugged unrepentantly at his jibe. "Didn't have to," she replied. "the man is a cultural and economical icon, not to mention a superhero, he's kind of hard to miss and mostly everyone who's anyone knows his story. He's also a bit of an ass though, Jane definitely hates him; more so now that he keeps on asking her to come work for him almost every week, Jane thinks the offer is only there because of her connection to Thor and she refuses to go corporate."
Bucky raised an eyebrow at that but didn't comment, he didn't know anything about Jane's work or Stark's integrity to really bring forth an informed commentary on the subject, instead he looked back down at the photo and asked the question that he had been itching to ask ever since she gave it to him.
"So where's the large green..." he trailed off questioningly.
"The Hulk," said Darcy her eyes twinkling as if she has been waiting for this. "He's sitting right there drinking tea, didn't you notice?" she asked mischievously.
Bucky gave her a calculating look and looked at the bespectacled man, out of all of them he seemed to be the most composed, almost serene as he smiled benignly at his companions. He looked back up at her. "You have got to be kidding me!" he exclaimed in disbelief.
Darcy shook her head grinning. "Nope, that's Dr Bruce Banner," she said bouncing in her seat a little. "he was involved in a lab accident that caused him to be exposed to lethal amounts of Gamma radiation."
Bucky winced; he had been privy to a lot of inhuman experiments being performed on the POWs when he was captive and he remembered Zola experimenting with Gamma radiation along with a lot of other dangerous things. The results of those experiments were never pretty.
Darcy nodded now a little subdued. "He could have died," she said softly. "most experts say he should have died but instead now whenever he gets angry he turns into..."
"The Hulk," said Bucky nodding completing her unfinished sentence. "he can change back and forth between the two?"
Darcy nodded. "But not always at will, and he can only barely control it, the... um... Other Guy, Jane says that when he involuntarily changes Bruce doesn't have any control, it's all Hulk. Jane is a huge fan of Dr Banners work, he's a biochemist with genius level IQ and he also holds three PhDs and an actual medical degree, ever since he came out of hiding Jane's been picking his brain on all sorts of research so she has a direct line to the Avengers."
"So that's who she went to contact?" At Darcy's nod Bucky smiled gratefully and looked back down at the photo. "What about the rest of them," he asked her and settled back to listen to Darcy describe the rest of Avengers and their role in the Battle of New York while they waited for Jane to return.
Bruce was just setting up the last test tubes in the centrifuge to begin the DNA analysis of their new visitor in his reinforced lab two floors down from the penthouse.
"JARVIS, start the analysis and cross reference with existing samples of Agent Margaret Carter from SHIELDs medical records, also contact the Lisner Louise Dickson Hurt home and request a DNA sample and full medical records on the Margaret Carter residing there, give them the usual Stark Industries clearance and have them sign all the necessary NDAs this is level ten classified.
'As you wish Dr Banner, also Dr Foster is on hold for you from New Mexico, sir.'
Bruce looked puzzled for a moment; Jane Foster tended to call on him at odd hours all the time but he didn't think there was any pending research he had for her, he shrugged maybe she wanted to consult on something else. "Put her through JARVIS," Jane was one of the few people, including Tony, who could keep up with him intellectually, considering she was half his and Tony's age spoke a lot about her potential, he always enjoyed his talks with the ever enthusiastic Dr Foster.
"Dr Banner," came Jane's voice through JARVIS' comm. "Hi, it's Jane."
"Jane," Bruce replied. "It's good to hear from you again, and I told you its fine if you call me Bruce."
"Uh, yeah okay Bruce," she said hesitantly.
"So what can I help you with today?" he asked being accommodating.
"Well, this isn't a research related call Bruce," she replied sparking his curiosity.
"Oh," he said. "Then is it about Thor?" he asked when he couldn't think of any other reason for her calling him.
He heard her sigh and immediately regretted his question, in all the time that he had been communicating with her, not one time had Jane ever mentioned or inquired about Thor, he of course knew what Jane was to The Asgardian, mainly because all Thor talked about when not marveling over strange Midgardian customs was Lady Jane this and Lady Jane that and how Lady Jane was the most beautiful and intelligent woman in all of the nine realms, before he had left with Loki.
He would have gladly mentioned this to her if it weren't for that one time he called Jane for an update and her assistant/friend picked up, they got to talking and Darcy warned him that the fastest way to end a conversation with Jane these days was to mention even one word about Thor, she immediately clammed up and refused to say anything for hours. And yet here he was mentioning Thor to her when he had been told specifically not to.
"No, Bruce," she said her tone clipped. "It's not about him."
"Sorry," said Bruce contrite, shaking his head at his own stupidity.
Another sigh and then. "It's fine," she said eventually and continued. "I'm actually calling to talk to Captain Rogers, could you help me get in contact with him in any way?"
"Steve?" Bruce frowned growing concerned. "Jane what's this about?"
Jane blew out a breath and said. "We... uh... found a man in the desert behind our lab. He... uh... claims to be Sergeant James Barnes of the Howling Commandos, only he barely looks thirty and he's missing an arm and he also wants to talk to Captain America..."
Bruce listened to her recite all this with growing horror and when Jane's voice trailed off his heart rate monitor snapped him into action; he was almost at 75bpm, he took a couple of calming breaths and watched as the numbers receded slowly back towards 60 and spoke to Jane urgently.
"Jane whatever you do, do not approach him, he's a very dangerous man. Get as far away from him as possible and get help... "
"Bruce, what are you talking about!" said Jane and Bruce closed his eyes begging for patience. "We've talked to him, he's a good guy, Darcy's with him in the next room, she's showing him pictures of the Avengers, he's Captain Rogers best friend..."
"Jane whatever story he's being telling you it doesn't matter; you can't believe him," replied Bruce. "JARVIS get me Tony," he said anxiously to the AI. "Jane, do you know anything about the Winter Soldier?
"Yeah, he's supposed to be a ghost right? A super assassin? But Bruce what does this have to do with James, listen he says he's from... " But Bruce cut her off.
"Jane listen to me!" he nearly yelled his heart rate spiking once more. "Whatever he's told you is a lie, Steve met Bucky Barnes during the fall of SHIELD, Jane he was working for HYDRA it's him Jane! Bucky Barnes is the Winter Soldier."
Jane felt the phone drop from her grasp as she turned towards the room she had come from and realized that she had just left her best friend alone in the room with a killer.
XKXKXKXKXK
