XIV - Where Was Your Plan Then?
The word echoed through Hayley's mind as if it had been screamed at her, but Steve had barely whispered. It was an answer that Hayley was prepared for receiving, but not one she was ready to accept. She had been so quick to defend him when Flynn and Charlie explained it was Steve who locked the footage with Fury, to refuse any notion that he would lie to her about something like this. Something so huge. Especially when he was the one person she had been completely honest with about how afraid and paranoid she was.
But they had been right.
"Hayley, please let me explain," Steve began, watching as her eyes stared back at him blankly.
His stomach was twisting in knots just watching her, wishing he could hear the million thoughts that ran through her mind. After a moment, he noticed her eyes move away from him, instead reaching over to grab her boots to pull back on. She didn't know how long she had been asleep, but there was going to be no more rest now, she might as well be ready for whatever was coming next.
"Hayley?" Steve asked cautiously.
"I told you I thought SHIELD knew something," she shook her head, still looking down at her boots as she tightened the laces. "I told you I thought I was going crazy and you...you just let me,"
"I wanted to tell you," Steve pleaded. "Believe me, I didn't want you to find out from anyone else. Every day I wanted to tell you,"
Hayley sat up and looked toward him, her arms folded across her stomach.
"So why didn't you?"
Steve stared back at her with a soft sigh, shaking his head. He looked so defeated, so distressed, and with everything that had happened in the past few hours, he could barely find the words to explain a thing.
"We wanted to know if it was real or not," he began. "SHIELD were using all their resources to find what happened to you, and then these videos were sent to us anonymously out of nowhere with no explanation, we couldn't trust it,"
"That's a really shitty excuse Steve," Hayley argued. "Real or not, I had a right to know about that footage."
Steve nodded his head in agreement, running his hand over his mouth and wishing he could turn back time to fix this. There was one person that Steve cared about more than anyone else throughout all of this, and it was him who managed to hurt her deeper than all of this mess.
"I know," he agreed, looking back to her. "All I wanted was to protect you, and I was scared I'd lose you again and it was selfish and it got in the way,"
Hayley stared back at him, wondering how this man she loved so much could keep something like this from her. It wasn't that she couldn't see his logic, she could. He wanted to keep her safe and protect her from anything that could ever hurt her, including this information. But it didn't make it hurt any less.
"This was a stupid time to bring this up," she shook her head, rubbing her temples. "I shouldn't hav-"
"No, we need to talk about it," Steve encouraged.
"But not now," she shook her head. "Not with everything going on. I just got you back,"
Steve's lips pulled into a small smile.
"I shouldn't have left you at the hospital," he admit.
"I was fine, still am," Hayley assured. "It's you that had me worried. Are you okay?"
Steve looked down at his bruised hands, clenching them into fists.
"No," he sighed. "Not physically,"
"What did they do to you?" Hayley asked, concerned.
"It's what they did to him. To Bucky,"
"Bucky?" Hayley repeated, confused. "Barnes?"
Steve nodded.
"Hydra has him. They're using him like a weapon, he's not...he didn't even remember me," he explained.
Hayley's lips parted in shock, wondering how Hydra managed to keep a man alive for over seventy years. But knowing Hydra's experiments, Bucky wasn't alive without a cost. Without any memory, Hydra could do whatever they wanted with the soldier.
It seemed to be Hydra's favourite game. Capture someone, erase their memories, have them do the dirty work.
"You saw him?"
"He's the Winter Soldier," he explained. "The one who took down Fury, the one I chased across the roof the other night, it's Bucky. When he fell from the train that day...I should have gone looking for him,"
"No one could have survived that fall," Hayley shook her head. "Whatever Hydra did isn't your fault Steve,"
With a slight nod, Steve tried to convince himself that Hayley's words were true. But seeing Bucky today filled Steve with a guilt he had been trying so hard to let go of, and this time it came back feeling ten times worse. He couldn't save his best friend, and now he was turned into a monster. A weapon, someone who couldn't remember who he was and had his humanity stripped.
"He looked at me and...he had no idea," Steve spoke once again.
Hayley reached out and wrapped her arms around him, sliding closer to his body to hold him close.
It didn't matter how angry or frustrated she was with him right now, nothing was going to change how much she cared about Steve. She was hurt and betrayed, and yet she could feel all of his pain too. Hayley loved Steve, and that wasn't ever going to change.
"I'm sorry," Steve whispered, his head buried into Hayley's shoulder. "I'm so sorry,"
"I don't want to do this right now," Hayley told him quietly. "I don't want to think about any of it. I want to stay like this, just for a little while. Please?"
Steve turned to press a kiss against Hayley's neck, holding her tight and wrapping his arms further around her body. This was all he had been wanting since all of this chaos had begun, he was happy to let this moment linger on for as long as Hayley wanted. After what she had just discovered about her disappearance, about what Steve was keeping from her, he was just glad she wanted to stay here with him.
Steve knew this was something they were going to deal with in the future, but all he could let himself worry about right now is making sure they got that future.
"This man declined the Nobel Peace Prize. He said 'peace wasn't an achievement, it was a responsibility'," Fury commented. "See, it's stuff like this that gives me trust issues,"
Everyone in the room was watching as Fury spoke, holding up a photo of Alexander Pierce. The man behind all of this. Even from the corner where Hayley sat beside Charlie and Flynn, she could see Steve's jaw clenching in anger at the sight of the man. But that wasn't all that was making him frustrated right now.
"We have to stop the launch," Natasha announced.
Flynn and Charlie had been onto this much earlier than the rest, and even with all of the time they had spent hacking into SHIELD and Hydra's files, they still didn't know how it would be possible to stop the launch. At least, it couldn't be done with just two of them, they had known that much.
"I don't think the council is accepting my calls anymore," Fury explained, moving a case into the middle of the table and lifting it open.
Inside were three tech chips and nothing more. Everyone's eyes focused onto them, their brows creasing in confusion.
"What's that?" Sam asked, thinking the same as everyone else.
Hayley didn't know this man yet, all she knew was he had been with Steve and Natasha when the Winter Soldier attacked. Sam helped them when they needed it most, and he was still here by their sides ready to fight against whoever he needed to in order to help.
"Once the helicarriers reach three thousand feet, they'll triangulate with Insight satellites, becoming fully weaponised," Maria explained.
"I told you this three hours ago," Charlie cut in, looking over to Hill, completely frustrated. "Where was your plan then?"
"Targeting blades?" Flynn asked, still looking at the case.
Fury nodded.
"We need to breach those carriers and replace their targeting blades with our own," he explained.
"One or two won't cut it," Hill announced. "We need to link all three carriers for this to work, because if even one of those ships remains operational a whole lot of people are gonna die,"
"We have to assume everyone aboard those carriers is HYDRA," Fury continued. "We need to get pass them, insert the server blades, and maybe, just maybe, we can salvage what's left-"
"We're not salvaging anything," Steve cut in, his voice firm and clear. "We're not just taking down the carriers, we're taking down SHIELD."
Hayley looked over to Steve and felt her lips tug into a small smirk. After everything that had happened under SHIELD's nose, within their own facilities, there was no way he was going to trust what was left. There were Hydra agents in high ranking positions all throughout SHIELD. The only way to completely rid SHIELD of Hydra was to get rid of SHIELD itself.
"SHIELD had nothing to do with it," Fury defended.
"You gave me this mission," Steve shook his head. "this is how it ends. SHIELD's been compromised, you said so yourself. HYDRA grew right under your nose and nobody noticed."
"Why do you think we're meeting in this cave? I noticed," Fury replied.
"And how many paid the price before you did?" Steve asked.
Fury looked down at Steve's words, his eyes gazing over to Hayley who stared back at him emotionless. When she first discovered Fury was alive, her questions were not about his current health or his choice to hide in this underground facility. She wanted to know why Hydra managed to grow to the point it did inside SHIELD, why trusted agents and leaders planned horrific attacks and assassinations without anyone noticing, and why the fact that Hydra was responsible for her disappearance.
The conversation was less than pleasant, and Fury knew that he no longer had Hayley's trust. And he couldn't blame her for that. But he also knew the other person Steve was referring to.
"Look, I didn't know about Barnes," he admit.
"Even if you did, would you have told me?" Steve asked bitterly. "Or would you have compartmentalised that too? SHIELD, Hydra - it all goes,"
Fury's eyes moved across to Maria Hill, sitting by his side. She looked to him sadly in return, nodding her head. She could see why Fury wanted to keep anything left of the organisation, but it wouldn't be right. Nothing was safe anymore.
"He's right," she told him.
"Well, looks like you're giving the orders now Captain," Fury nodded.
Hayley pulled the long-sleeved black shirt over her head, tucking her belt around the top of her cargo pants and securing her uniform. This was her first real mission since her disappearance, and as determined as she was to make sure she was ready, she couldn't help feeling nervous. This wasn't just a mission she needed to complete and sign off on in order to move to the next. This determined everything.
This was taking down the organisation that had taken away a year and a half of her life, the organisation that made her take the lives of innocent people, who made her become someone she didn't want to be. Hydra was about to take over everything she cared about saving. If this mission cost her life, she was prepared to give it.
As she looked back into the mirror, she saw Steve standing behind her leaning against the door. He was watching her with a soft expression, but Hayley could see all of the panic in his eyes. Steve didn't need to say a single word for her to see how worried he was.
"You'll get him back," Hayley assured, turning to face him.
Steve nodded with a small smile, shaking his head.
"No everyone thinks so," he replied sadly.
A few minutes earlier, he had been talking to Steve outside while he thought of his childhood memories with Bucky. He could see Sam's logic - Bucky was no longer the person Steve knew. He had no memory of that life, and he wouldn't be seeing Steve as a childhood friend today. Bucky would be seeing him as the enemy.
"Not everyone has to," she told him, folding her arms. "Everyone has their own reasons for being in this fight,"
"And you're sure you want to be in it?" he asked.
Hayley looked back at him with a small sigh, running her hand through her hair and scrunching it between her fingers.
"You're seriously asking me that?"
"I'm not saying you shouldn't," he defended, stepping further into the room. "You have every reason to want Hydra brought down,"
"Then what? You're worried? I'm worried about you too Steve and the thought of asking if you're sure hasn't even crossed my mind," she snapped.
"These people aren't just Hydra agents, they're the people that took you and-"
"I know who they are!" Hayley cut him off angrily. "You don't need to remind me of that,"
Steve sighed, resting his hands on his hips and taking a moment to collect his thoughts. He would never ask her to step away from this mission, but it didn't mean he felt entirely comfortable with it. She was trained for this, she had done this before and she could handle herself. But that wasn't what Steve was worried about.
Hydra had a way of getting into people's minds. If they got to Hayley out there, he worried what it might do to her. Memories would be triggered, ones that she shouldn't face while out on the field. Memories that Hayley would have rather remain forgotten.
"I'm sorry," Hayley shook her head. "I just want to be out there already,"
"I know," Steve stepped forward, pressing a kiss to her forehead. "I have to make a quick stop first,"
Hayley looked up at him curiously.
"What for?
Steve grinned slightly, hands slipping into his pockets as he shrugged.
"If you're gonna fight a war, you gotta wear a uniform,"