Steve and Jess sat on a shady patch of grass just past the tunnel doors, out of sight. He had questions and she had answers, and she knew that she owed him a good explanation after everything she'd done. Jess was going to be honest with him about it all, she had no reason to hide anything from him anymore. She just hoped he would forgive her for lying to him, that he could understand why she felt she had to keep so many things from him.

''Where do you want me to start?'' she asked, figuring he had some of his own questions he wanted answered first.

Taking a long breath, Steve considered, choosing to ask the most obvious question to him.

''Your last name is Barnes,'' he began. ''I know it's not a coincidence and since you hid it from me it obviously means something, but what?''

''Well, my father was Bucky's son,'' she told him simply. ''Which makes Bucky my grandfather,''

Steve stared at her in silence for a moment, trying to let the information sink in. It wasn't as if he hadn't considered the fact that Jess was somehow related to Bucky, but he didn't consider such a close relation. Bucky had a a brother and Steve had assumed Jess had inherited the surname through his children, but apparently not.

''Bucky had a son?''

Jess nodded.

''He didn't know about him though, he didn't get the chance. Bucky and my grandmother met one night in 1943 after he was rescued from Hydra and the rest is, well, pretty obvious. She never got to see him again to tell him and by the time my dad was born, news had got back home that Bucky had died. She named my father after him,''

Steve remembered back to the night she was referring to.

''That was after I found him, after Zola had experimented on him,''

''Right, which is where is gets kind of complicated. Whatever they did to Bucky altered his DNA and was passed on to my father. It was nothing drastic, but his aging wasn't normal. He didn't get old physically at the same rate as others his age. He had increased strength and a higher tolerance for pain. None of the effects on my dad were as extreme as they were on Bucky, but they were there.

My grandmother tried to explain to my dad that Bucky had been involved in experimentation, but there was limited information about it back then and they couldn't get answers to explain what was happening. No one would tell my family what happened to Bucky apart from 'he fell to his death' and that's it. But when my dad got older, he met a man that told him about SHIELD, an organization founded after the war that knew what happened to him and had the answers he needed. Of course they didn't tell my dad anything that he hadn't already been told, but he knew they were hiding something from him, and so he never told them about his symptoms,''

Jess sighed, thinking about the amount of times her dad had told her this story and how upset it made her thinking about it. She remembered how angry he became when talking about SHIELD and how sad he became when talking about Bucky and never having met him.

''My dad spent his whole life searching for answers about Bucky. He went everywhere trying to find someone that knew anything about him, but he never went back to SHIELD. When I was old enough to understand, he told me everything and I watched as he never gave up on finding the truth. And then when I was sixteen, he thought he finally found something but he wouldn't tell me or my mom what it was. He set up a meeting with someone who had heard of his efforts to find out what happened to Bucky, someone with SHIELD, and then he never made it back home.''

Steve's eyes were fixed on her, listening intently.

''They killed him?''

''Made it look like an accident. SHIELD's good at covering things up,''

''So that's why you were trying to get information from them,''

''I was trying to finish what my dad started. Not only did I want to know what happened to my grandfather, but I wanted to know why they had to kill my father. What were they hiding that they couldn't let him live with the knowledge of?'' she explained. ''I've grown up with the idea of never giving up and that the truth shouldn't be hidden, so I want you to know that it wasn't easy for me to grow so close to you and lie to you at the same time. But Steve, I've also grown up knowing that SHIELD ruined and took my father's life. I couldn't tell you what was going on because you were with SHIELD, and as much as I trusted you, I couldn't bring you into it or risk you knowing,''

Steve understood everything now. She wasn't betraying him in the way he thought she was. Jess had grown up with SHIELD in a bad light, her whole life was circled around finding answers to something that was so deeply hidden by them. She was doing it all for her family and she couldn't risk anything getting in the way.

''It's okay,'' he nodded. ''I know why you had to do it and I get why you couldn't tell me,''

''I wanted to. Bucky was your best friend, you had a right to know what happened to him as much as I did, but after what happened to my father, I promised myself I wouldn't involve anyone else,''

''But you told me your name before you left that day,''

''I didn't think I'd see you again, and since I was sure SHIELD was coming to kill me just as they did with my father, I wanted you to know that much at least. Your friendship is important to me, you're like...like a brother to me, and I hate myself for lying to you,''

Steve lifted his arm and wrapped it around her shoulder.

''Hey, it's okay. This whole thing is a lot more complicated than I ever assumed. I didn't know you'd been through so much and were involved in so much. I would have done the same thing if I was in your position. I haven't always felt comfortable with the way SHIELD handles things and I've definitely never liked the way they hide so many things, but I had no idea what SHIELD was capable of. I've got no right to be angry at you for having the same morals as I do. Your dad would have been proud,''

Jess smiled and leaned onto his shoulder, hugging him. She was glad she wasn't going to lose Steve, he was the only person she had left in her life.

''I was telling the truth when I said I never used you in all of this. I wasn't expecting to come to Washington and became friends with my grandfathers best friend, but I can see why he liked you. You're a great friend, and I guess I liked the idea of knowing someone that Bucky had such a high opinion of. It felt like I had a piece of my family with me when I was around you,''

Steve smiled. It all made sense to him now why she always reminded him of someone. Why their bond was so strong and why she felt like a sister to him. But his mind soon went back to the events of today and seeing Bucky with a gun pointed at him, no recognition in his eyes.

''SHIELD covered it all up. His death, Hydra finding him, they knew all along,''

''There was a lot of things I was expecting to find, but Bucky being alive wasn't one of them,'' she admitted. ''I'd only ever seen pictures of him, the ones my grandmother kept from the newspaper clippings when his death was reported, I never expected to actually see him,''

''I never thought I'd see him again,'' Steve told her.

Jess turned to look up at him with a sympathetic frown, and he was sure it was because of his new knowledge of who she was that her features stood out to him. Her brown hair, her blue-green eyes, even her jawline.

''You look like him,'' he told her.

''No I don't,'' she chuckled lightly. ''You should have seen my dad. A photo of him beside Bucky, it was like Spot The Difference,''

Steve thought for a moment.

''Do you have any symptoms? From the experimentation?'' he asked, realizing he was probably prying. ''I mean, if it passed on to your dad,''

''It's too early too tell if my aging is different, but my dad tried his best to have tests done when I was younger. He was afraid of having children because of that reason, but my mom wanted to have a baby before she got too old, so they had me. He assumed it would be different since I'm a girl and the genetics might take over and I'd be like my mom, but I don't know. I didn't trust anyone enough to do tests and I didn't know what to look for because I didn't have my dad anymore. I do have a tolerance for a lot of things and sometimes I feel the occasional rush of adrenaline and strength, but I try to convince myself I'm being paranoid,''

Steve gave her a comforting smile before turning to look down at the grass, his mind trying to grasp everything. So much had happened, everything he was fighting for had changed. There were so many lies he'd been fed since waking up from the war, he thought he was fighting for the good but now he didn't know what that was anymore.

All this time he thought his best friend was dead. The idea of Bucky being found by Hydra after the fall made him sick as he thought about what they'd done to him. He had a metal arm, he had dark eyes, he had super strength and no mercy. He was terrifying. He wasn't the Bucky he remembered. But he wasn't going to give up on him.

''I can't believe Bucky had a son,'' Steve spoke again. ''I could have seen him being a good father too, he was always looking out for me. I'm sorry your family didn't get to meet him,''

''Me too,'' she agreed. ''But he's still alive, there's a chance we could get him back,''

''I don't know what Hydra's done to him, the extent of it...he doesn't even know who he is anymore,'' Steve took a deep breath, the idea of his friend going through such torture upsetting him to even think about. ''But he was always there for me, I can't give up on him, I won't. I'm going to stop Hydra and SHIELD and this Project Insight they're launching and I'm going to get Bucky out,''

Jess admired his determination. Although she'd never met Bucky, he was still her family. She'd heard all about him her whole life, her father wanted nothing more than to know him, she wasn't going to give up now, especially since Steve didn't intend to either. There were no more lies between them.

''I don't understand, I did a check on you when Steve first mentioned he was spending time with you,'' Natasha wondered.

Jess had explained things to them all, but not in as much depth as she shared with Steve. Revealing to them that Bucky was her grandfather went down just as she expected it to, with much confusion.

After explaining Project Insight to her, Steve had assured Jess that these people they were with now were the only ones they could trust during this time. The only person Jess still didn't trust was Fury. That man had been Director of SHIELD for so long, he could have known about Bucky, and he could have known about her father. However Alexander Pierce was obviously at the helm of this whole thing. He was leading Hydra and everything that happened to her family was because of him, but she still couldn't trust Fury.

''I've wiped my background quite a few times,'' she told Natasha, her arms folded. ''When you try and get information someone doesn't want you to have, you end up breaking a few laws and people start to tail you, so I made sure they didn't,''

Sam chuckled to himself.

''Some pretty professional work for a kid-''

''I'm 21, I don't know why people still think of me as a kid,'' Jess shook her head. ''I haven't been a kid in a long time,''

Steve watched her protectively, knowing it wasn't easy for her to have them know such personal things about her. But she told them the very basics, and even that felt like too much.

''I'll be fighting to stop Hydra,'' she told them all, ending her brief speech.

Fury looked to Maria Hill who sat beside him, wondering what she thought. They were the highest ranking SHIELD members in this room, but they couldn't think in those mindsets anymore. Ranks and clearance didn't matter anymore, they just needed people on their side and their reasons didn't matter as long as they all shared the same outcome.

Maria nodded.

''We have to stop the launch,'' Natasha spoke, looking over to Fury as he opened a briefcase.

Inside were three digital chips.

''What's that?'' Sam asked.

''Once the hellicarriers reach three thousand feet, they'll triangulate with Insight satellites becoming fully weaponized,'' Maria told them.

''We need to breach those carriers and replace their targeting blades with our own,'' Fury cut in before letting Maria continue.

''One or two won't cut it, we need to link all three carriers for this to work. If even one of those ships is operational, a whole lot of people are gonna die,''

Jess listened in with worry, the realization of Insight's severity sinking in.

''We have to assume everyone on board those carriers is Hydra,'' Fury explained. ''If we get past them and insert these server blades then maybe, just maybe, we can salvage what's left of-''

''We're not salvaging anything,'' Steve's voice was loud as he cut the man off. ''We're not just taking down the carriers, we're taking down SHIELD,''

''SHIELD had nothing to do with this!'' Fury argued.

''You gave me this mission, this is how it ends. SHIELD's been compromised, you said so yourself, Hydra grew right under your nose and nobody even noticed,'' he pointed out.

There was a brief silence.

''Look, I didn't know about Barnes,'' Fury admitted.

''Even you did, would you have told me? Or would you have compartmentalized that too?'' Steve asked angrily. ''SHIELD, Hydra, it all goes,''

''He's right,'' Maria spoke softly beside him, a sad look on her face.

They'd both been with SHIELD for so long, done so much for them, it was hard to let go. Even Natasha agreed. After everything she'd done to become a better person at SHIELD, to fix what she'd done in her past, it turned out she was fighting for the bad guys once again. But SHIELD was her life, and she knew it had to go.

''Well, look's like your giving the orders now Cap,''