Ch. 10: one-way ticket (b)
Notes:
the response to the last chapter was INSANE and you are all SO NICE and I am SO sorry this took so long. turns out working two jobs while taking a full courseload can be very time-consuming lmao who knew?
The body is falling, falling, falling. The empty air that envelopes it waits with bated breath, as if the desolate world is waiting, anticipating, for it to finally hit the water.
…
Steve has never been bothered by rain.
As he pulls his motorcycle up to the curb, sending a wave of dirty New York street water cascading into his boots, though, he decides he could do without it.
He pulls his helmet off, and his head is immediately drenched by the water that seems to be cascading out of the sky in literal sheets. The slog up to the door of the condo he's in front of seems much longer than usual, and by the time he rings the doorbell, Steve is pretty sure his skin is pruning.
The door cracks open thirty seconds later, and Steve tries not to think about the fact that his hair is completely plastered to his forehead.
"Steve?"
"Hey, Buck," he says, and his voice is utter exhaustion. It's scraped knees and broken bones and getting beaten up in alleyways and the feeling of Brooklyn sidewalks hard against his cheek. He blames it on the rain. "Can I come in?"
Thirty minutes later, he's freshly showered, in dry clothes, and sitting on the couch in front of a comfortably crackling fire. The feeling is starting to return to his joints, and when he thanks Bucky for handing him a mug of steaming tea, his voice is a little stronger.
"So," Bucky says, settling in next to him, "What's up?"
"I just wanted to come by and say hello. How've you been?"
Bucky shoots him a disbelieving look but shrugs and says, "Same as always. Working on it. Sam's been really helpful, helping me work through all the trauma stuff. Clint, too. He has a lot of good strategies to stay grounded, separate what's real and what's not, you know. It's really nice to have someone who's gone through the mind-controlling thing."
That had been Natasha's idea, months ago. Steve wonders if she'll ever know how helpful it's been.
"That's really awesome, Buck. I'm really happy for you."
"Yeah. I'm really glad I'm finally back, you know. I feel like I'm finally making progress, and this time it's for real. Like, this time, I'm here to stay."
Bucky grins, and the genuine happiness in his eyes emits a soft glow that warms Steve's fingertips and thaws the chill that has settled in him.
"Thanks, man," he says. "I just needed to get away for a while."
Bucky nods, eyes roving over Steve's face. "You wanna talk about it?"
Steve sighs, leaning forward to set the mug down. "I mean, no."
"Yeah, you do. Talk."
Steve straightens up, mock-glaring at him. "Sam's rubbed off on you, I see."
He flashes him an innocent grin, but then his face settles into an expectant expression and Steve can tell there is no way out of this.
"It's not—I just—I'm worried," he mumbles, suddenly very interested in the fraying thread in the hem of his borrowed sweatpants.
"About her?"
"Yeah." He sees Bucky open his mouth to speak, and continues quickly, "I know it's stupid. I know she can handle herself, she's a badass, I know. But she's just one person. Surrounded by hundreds of very, very, bad people. And even if I know, intellectually, that she could take them, I just—"
"I know," Bucky says softly, "I know how much she means to you."
"I'm just—she shouldn't have had to do it alone. That was the point of the Avengers, right? So that we'd have a team. People who'd have our backs."
"Yeah, well, we both know that doesn't always work out." His voice is slightly bitter, and as Steve looks up at him he realizes that he may not be the only one who spends sleepless nights thinking about the time lost between them.
A silence stretches out between them, and the crackling of the fire suddenly seems much louder.
"I'm sorry I never came back and looked for you," Steve says quietly. "I'm sorry I gave you up as dead."
Bucky shakes his head. "Nobody could've predicted what happened. And I'm here now."
"Yeah, but you—you probably would've looked for me. If I had fallen."
He shakes his head, again, eyes softening. "It's okay. Really. Anyone would've thought me dead. And I know you grieved, I know what you've done to get me to where I am today. I know you care about me, Steve. I know you'd do it now, if it happened again. And that's all that matters. All's well that ends well, right?"
"I just want you to know—this Natasha thing, I don't—you'll always be my best friend, nobody could ever—"
Bucky laughs, a full, genuine, laugh, and the tension breaks. "Good God, I'm not jealous, Steve. Jesus."
"I'm not—I'm just saying," Steve protests, fighting back a grin, "Just to make sure."
Bucky snorts, eyes still full of mirth. "Come on. I'm happy for you. I can't believe there was a time I thought you'd never find love."
"Shut up."
There's a brief, comfortable pause.
"How long has it been, again?"
"She left in September," Steve says, feeling some of the weight seep back into his shoulders. "So eight months, give or take."
"Damn."
"Yeah."
"I wish I could be there more often."
"No," Steve says adamantly, shaking his head, "No, don't say that. You should be here, getting better. You have to do what's best for yourself, Buck. And as much as I wish you were there with me, I want for you to make a full recovery more. You come back whenever you're ready, not when you feel like you should."
Bucky's eyes don't move, locked onto Steve's with a force that intensifies every emotion he's feeling tenfold, and as he tears his gaze away to stare at the floor he can feel the cracks start to form.
"I saw her, the other day. At the police station. There were bruises all over her body, and I think her ribs were broken. That guy, Chetwynd, he's hurting her. And she can't do anything about it. Loki said the last one was particularly bad because she's been invited to the real headquarters and he wasn't, so he was jealous, and he just snapped."
"Doesn't that mean—"
"That it's almost over? Yeah, she told me that too, through Morse code, but the end is the most dangerous part. If she looks like that now…"
"Steve—"
"I just want her to come home," he says, voice finally cracking. He feels Bucky's arm find its way around his shoulders, and as he tucks himself in to Bucky's side he feels the fissures spread, until they finally rupture and he lets himself completely and utterly break for the first time.
"It's gonna be okay," Bucky murmurs, and he's eighteen again, fresh out of his mom's funeral, helpless and tired and sad, his only confidant standing in front of him. Except this time, eighty years later, he isn't turning him down.
It still hurts, though. And as Bucky's arm tightens around him, he feels the pain rising in his throat, bubbling farther and farther until it finally overflows in a burst of choked-out words.
"Why won't she come home?"
The body finally hits the water with a truly impressive splash. It floats, ever so briefly, before it starts a descent again—this time, to the bottom of the river, where it will lie for the rest of time.
…
As it turns out, summer starts a lot earlier in California.
Aaron squints against the sun as he steps out of the San Jose International Airport, head swiveling back and forth in search of the taxi pickup area.
"Hate the sun," he grumbles, kicking at the cement. "Can't see anything."
"It's kind of nice," Natasha says absently, pointing toward the line of cabs snaking around the corner of the small street they're on. "I think it's over there."
"It's way too bright," Aaron mutters as they start to walk. "No state has business being this hot right now."
"It's May."
"Still. It's so hot. I only packed one pair of shorts."
"We're only here for a few days anyway. And I bet it's nice during the winter."
Aaron lets out an unconvinced grunt as they approach the cab at the front of the line. He gets in the front, leaving Natasha to slip into the backseat. The driver (John, Natasha learns, eyes catching the nameplate on the waiter's uniform peeking out from under the seat) gives them a small nod as they each pull their doors shut.
"Where to, folks?"
Aaron reads the address for a Holiday Inn off the slip of paper he's produced from his pocket.
"It's on Jersey Island?" John interrupts, looking up from the map he's pulled up on his phone. "That's, like, a two-and-a-half-hour drive, dude. I don't know if I can—"
"We'll pay double," Aaron says brusquely. "Cover your trip back, too."
"You got all that money and you're staying in a Holiday Inn?"
"We're here on business. They pay for transportation. We pay for lodging," Aaron says, and the dangerous edge that enters his voice whenever someone asks too many questions must do its job, because John raises his eyebrows incredulously but starts driving.
"There's a car at the hotel for us," Aaron says, turning around in his seat as the car speeds down the California highway. "I figured we could check in for a little kip, and freshen up a bit before heading over—I told him we'd be there at seven."
"Sounds good," Natasha says, giving him a small smile. "I'm excited."
He grins, then turns back around to face the front. A light silence settles into the car, punctuated only by John's absentminded humming. It's a little strange, and ordinarily Natasha would rather ride in silence, but it's a bright, airy little tune that is so drastically unfitting for the situation she feels oddly comforted by it.
This, she knows, is the endgame. It's the apex of her assignment, the culmination of almost eight months of hard work, of beatings, of an unfamiliar lonesomeness, of agony. Here, now, it's all coming to a head.
One would think she'd be more nervous.
As she slips on her new tracker-infused combat boots (courtesy of Maria Hill, of course) in her standard, comfortable-but-not-too-flashy hotel room, though, she feels strangely calm.
And as she steps out of a sleek, black car in front of a massive warehouse, dirt crunching beneath her feet, her head is as clear as it has ever been.
She lets Aaron lead the way to the front door, pausing briefly behind him to snap a picture of the building using the secure photo-upload system that had come pre-installed on the phone she'd gotten in the mail two days ago.
He turns to her when he gets to the rusty double doors, a half-grin on his face. "Ready?"
She nods briefly and firmly. "Yeah."
He nods and gives the door three sharp knocks. "Is that a new phone?"
"Yeah," she says, digging her heel into the ground. "Figured I deserved an upgrade."
"That you did," Aaron says, tilting his head toward the footsteps getting steadily louder behind the doors. "That you did."
There's a rustling and grunting behind the doors as whoever is behind them pries deadbolts open (Natasha counts six), and Aaron takes a step back as the doors open with a loud groan of protest.
The newcomer steps forward through the crowd of dust that has billowed up from the floor (or the doors, she isn't sure), and stretches a hand out toward Aaron.
"Aaron," he says, his voice deep and gravelly. Ice trickles slowly down Natasha's spine. "Nice to see you."
The man shakes Aaron's hand quickly, meeting Natasha's eyes over his shoulder. He steps back to get a better look at her, and for the first time, Natasha finds herself face-to-face with the man she has worked eight months to meet.
He's a little different from the picture she'd memorized from the file that was shoved in front of her face, so long ago; his eye patch is different, his face a little more weathered, skin a little darker, but there's no mistaking him. Not when she's this close.
"Ammo," she manages, allowing a little tremor to enter her voice. "Nice to finally meet you."
"Ah, Miss Vanko," he grins, sidestepping Aaron and offering her his hand. "This has been a long time coming."
She gives him her best nervous smile. "It's a huge honor, sir. I mean, you're the biggest name in the state right now. People would kill to be in your crew."
"And they have," he says, a malicious gleam in his eyes. "But you have transcended them all, haven't you? You earned your spot here. Don't be nervous."
She shakes his hand, and as she does she briefly remembers sitting across the table from Maria as she listed every single terrible thing Ammo had ever done in the middle of the night, voice low and urgent.
God, Natasha, I'm not kidding—the stuff he's doing, the shit he's capable of—it's what we usually get from non-human things, you know what I mean? This guy—there's no empathy, no trace of humanity left in him. It's kill or be killed, and too many people have already been killed.
Natasha pulls her hand away and swallows the bile rising in her throat. "Thank you. Really. It means a lot."
He nods, grinning, and turns back toward the doors with a sweeping hand gesture. "Come in. I'll give you the grand tour."
Natasha follows him through the door and down a dimly lit, winding staircase, stopping behind him when they emerge through the doorway of what, presumably, was once a basement.
It's huge, she realizes with a jolt. And it's the place of people at work; there are desks in the left corner, each facing a map of New York pinned to the wall. There are blueprints scattered throughout the room, a surprisingly organized stack of weapons labeled and stored against the far wall, and what looks like a meth lab in another corner.
"You, um, cook your own stuff?"
He glances back at her. "Very perceptive. Yes, we do. It's a lot cheaper than buying from suppliers, and we make a good profit off it. If we have the means to, you know, why not?"
"It's a big source of revenue," Aaron says, moving past her to walk towards the blueprints pinned to the wall on their right. "Keeps us running."
"Of course."
"This is pretty much it; I like to keep everything in one place because it's easier to control. And we keep things down here, so it's more inconspicuous. No fear of someone cracking open the door when we're discussing something top secret, you know."
"Uh-huh. So what made you decide to put headquarters here, of all places?"
His eyes glint mischievously, but there's something a little more malicious swimming behind them. "Police are really lax here. You know what they say—everything's legal in Jersey."
"I'm pretty sure that's New Jersey. On the other coast."
"Of course it is. But it still holds true here. And it has a nice ring to it." Ammo smiles slightly. "Feel free to look around. Nobody's here today. I was going to have them all here, introduce you, but one of our drug deals got busted two days ago and one of the guys didn't make it out of the shootout. Figured it was too late to reschedule with you, and I didn't want to take off a day. It's important that they have time just to figure everything out, recuperate."
Aaron gives a little hum of agreement as he leans closer to the blueprints, eyes narrowed in concentration. Underneath the blueprints, a myriad of headshots are taped to the wall—connections, it looks like, that Ammo wants with people all over New York. There are infamous criminals that Natasha has seen before, but there are also NYPD officers, FBI agents, and government officials that she mentally registers as "dirty."
Natasha clears her throat and stands a little taller. "You—er—give them three days? Whenever someone gets killed?"
"Yeah, why?"
"I just—I only give my guys one. But it makes sense. We're a smaller operation, so it's harder to spare people. We aren't running smoothly enough to take three days off and be able to come back and pick things up."
Ammo turns toward her slowly. "One day, huh? Must be rough. For your guys, I mean."
She shrugs. "We don't really have a choice. They understand."
He nods. "Tough leader. Does what needs to be done. I can respect that."
She gives him a half-grimace, half-smile, and walks slowly toward the desks in the corner, feeling his eyes on her back.
"Where did you say you were from, again?"
She stops. "New York, originally. But I did a lot of international work. Spent some time in Russia."
"Oh, nice. And who did you say your father was?"
She turns slowly, weight in her heels. She makes direct eye contact with him and injects a false confidence in her voice as she says, "I didn't."
There's a moment of tense silence, where Aaron whips around and stares at her like he can't believe the audacity, where Ammo's eyes narrow ever so slightly and Natasha briefly reconsiders everything she's said and done in the past eight months. Ammo is no idiot, and he has connections everywhere—her brief time around him has confirmed that much, at least—and now that they've met face-to-face, she knows it would be too easy for him to completely upend the persona she's created, should he suspect anything.
She guesses it would take maybe two hours for everything to fall apart.
Ammo grins, and her spine loosens slightly. "Well done, Aaron. She's got nerve."
He meets her eyes again, amusement in the rough lines around his face and the crinkle around his eye. "I like you."
She smiles, muscles relaxing, and as Ammo and Aaron both turn around to talk about the blueprints on the wall, she slips her phone out of her pocket.
Two hours is all she needs, anyway.
…
On the morning of May 6th, Nick Fury receives an encrypted file.
The file is labeled "evidence", and it contains multiple photographs, names of dirty FBI agents, and detailed blueprints of high-security buildings. Ten minutes later, his screen lights up with a set of coordinates that pull up a warehouse in Jersey Island, California.
An hour later, he addresses the gaggle of Avengers that are at the facility.
"We'll do some recon, determine the amount of firepower that we actually need. Don't want to make a big move until we absolutely have to. He has eyes everywhere, and that'll definitely attract his attention," he says, to general murmurs of assent.
At noon, he boards a Quinjet bound for California, Maria Hill and Wanda Maximoff in tow.
The rest of the day is quiet, the heroes loping around the facility with the knowledge that the jet has a projected arrival time that night, and that no news is expected before then.
At six-thirty that evening, Sharon Carter emerges from Maria Hill's office, mouth set in a line. Steve and Tony, playing cards outside her door, stand immediately.
"Are they there? What'd they say?"
"Suit up," she says grimly. "Something isn't right."