A/N: I LIIIIIIIIIVE! It's been an ungodly long time, guys, and I could never apologize enough for taking so long but after no small amount of struggle and a LOT of help from midnightwings96... AT LAST, a new chapter has arrived. (Take that, "upset reader"! Lol)
So quick update: the new babe is now 4 months old and is the light of my life along with her big sister, and we are all happy and healthy :) Labor and delivery threw me a pretty traumatic curveball late last September but everything turned out okay in the end thank God, and we both recovered well without further complication. She's my little miracle and growing up so fast it's giving me whiplash, and I'm officially to that stage of "can't remember life before" her :) We also picked up and moved out of state when she was only 6 weeks old, so as you all can imagine, I've had a lot going on and not a huge amount of time or opportunity to write. Once we got settled into our new place and got a good routine down that changed, but getting back into the groove of this story was tough and nothing short of painful. I wrote a few oneshots to just get back writing again, and it helped get me back in the right frame of mind to finally continue this story. So I thank you guys from the bottom of my heart for your patience and loyalty. I know it was probably extremely frustrating to be waiting so long for an update here but then seeing me post random unrelated oneshots (and a Stucky part 2 lol) but I had a method to my madness and it's worked thus far. I've gotten some lovely messages from some of you in the last week or two that I haven't answered yet but I will! It's only taking me so long because I was trying to get this done, and I figured nobody would object to that lol
I cannot possibly thank midnightwings96 enough for her help with this, from talking through the chapter with me multiple times to editing the giant mess it was once I finally got it out and polishing it into something actually readable and hopefully worth the wait. I am indebted to her as always, but that's nothing new lol. Also my thanks to Morningglory2 for being so encouraging and quite possibly the sweetest human being alive and who listened patiently as I scream-typed multiple times about how harrrrrrd and painful this was to write lol. Idk how either of these ladies haven't gotten sick of me and my whining yet but FINGERS CROSSED THAT THE TREND CONTINUES :D
I hope you guys like this chapter after waiting so horrifically long for it, and at least I can say that it is a pretty major one so at least I'm not trudging back to you all with a crappy filler chapter where nothing happens lol. Let me know what you guys think, I love you all so very very much and thank you so so so SO MUCH for sticking with me, I really can't thank you all enough. I love you and will do my very very best to not fall off the face of the earth again lol :D
Bucky had been sitting outside of the apartment complex on his motorcycle, waiting for a signal from Sam that all was well when his phone lit up with a call from one of the other men inside. While he had imagined more than one hellish scenario for how Summer's odd late night meeting with her father might end, what he heard on that brief phone call was the very last thing that he would have suspected.
He tore off his bike and into the building without a word, bypassing the elevator for the stairs because his feet could take him to Summer far faster. Once he made it to the room and slipped inside, the door already opened, he walked in to the sound of soft crying and quiet male voices conversing lowly. He passed the bedroom that Michael had been found in and glanced inside - his men had cut Michael down and were performing useless CPR on him until paramedics arrived - then quickly kept moving to make it to Summer, whom Sam had pulled into the spare bedroom to get her away from it all.
He walked into the bedroom to find her sitting on the edge of the bed, eyes and faced flushed red and damp with tears as Sam still held her close in an attempt to provide any comfort that he could. She was trembling from the shock and adrenaline and didn't look up at Bucky until he was right in front of her, kneeling before the bed to put them at the same level.
"Hey," he said quietly as she blinked in surprise at his presence, his hand going to her leg and laying there softly.
"Wh- why - how did you get here so fast?" she asked in a pathetic tone, and the sound of it and the pain and confusion in her eyes made his heart ache.
"I followed you," he replied softly. "Knew something wasn't right."
At that, her expression broke and fell into a scrunched and distressed picture of misery. "They killed him," she told Bucky as a fresh new wave of tears spilled down her cheeks. "I don't know who, but somebody did because he had something to tell me and they didn't want him to. He's been trying to talk to me for days and we were supposed to have lunch today because he had something important to tell me but I got distracted with work and I blew him off and I think this is my fault because -"
"Hey," Bucky interrupted gently, taking her hand in his, "none of this is your fault, I promise. Just try to breathe, okay?"
She shook her head and warbled, "No, I can't. I can't. It's my fault."
Wincing at the sound of those words, Bucky looked at Sam and motioned for him to go. Sam nodded, giving Summer one more little squeeze before carefully pulling his arms free and getting up from the bed. He left the room to send the other men home and deal with the authorities when they came, holding down the fort while Bucky focused on Summer and Summer alone.
He sat where Sam had been just a moment before and pulled Summer close, kissing the crown of her head and telling her quietly but fiercely, "You can't blame yourself for this. Whether he did this to himself or someone staged it -"
"He didn't do it," Summer insisted, looking up at him and shaking her head like a stubborn child. "He'd never kill himself. And even if he did, he never ever would have called me over so I could find him. Please, you have to believe me. I'm not just saying that. I know him. This wasn't him."
It would have been easy to write off her words as the understandable but illogical ramblings of a grief-stricken daughter who'd had all of ten minutes to process the shock of finding her father hanging dead in his own bedroom. Most would have done just that, but Bucky knew something about instinct and knew what it was like to be in a horrible, unthinkable situation and just know beyond a single doubt something that logic would dictate otherwise to. So he simply nodded and chose to believe her.
"Listen," he said gently, "when the cops get here they're gonna wanna talk to you. You need to tell them what happened and what you found, what you saw, but that's it. We need to handle this ourselves. Do you understand?"
"But -"
"The cops aren't on our payroll, Summer," Bucky murmured. "Not enough to matter, anyway. This isn't SHIELD. It's NYPD and they need to think that this was just another suicide. You have to trust me that I'm going to handle this and I'm gonna find out who killed your father."
Summer stared at him long enough to make him wonder if she had heard anything at all that he'd said, but then she nodded and closed her eyes just as another quiet sob escaped her throat. He pulled her back in and she clung to him tight, and Bucky took a breath and wondered just what the hell exactly had happened.
The truth was, he didn't know Michael McAdams in any meaningful way despite being married to his daughter. He'd only spoken to the man a handful of times, mostly while he had been engineering the absorption of Michael's company, so he had to trust Summer's judgment when she said that suicide was not something he would have ever turned to. He was well aware that sometimes people committed suicide and it was a huge shock to everyone who knew them, but even Bucky had to admit that it would take a particularly cruel man to off himself just in time for his only daughter to find him after the deed was done. And Michael had always struck him as merely irresponsible and rather stupid, not a psychopath who would purposefully cause irreparable harm to his daughter.
Sirens blaring in the distance growing closer, Summer suddenly realized something as she cried a puddle into Bucky's shoulder. "Oh God," she groaned miserably. "I have to tell my mom."
Bucky shook his head and held her a little tighter. "Someone else can do that. Me or Sam or... just let us handle it."
She shook her head. "It should be me. It... I have to."
He stifled a sigh but nodded anyway. "Okay." Then he paused and felt his heart lurch a little bit for her, his own father's death a distant memory but still a wound that had never truly healed. He had only been a boy back then but it didn't matter - the shock and the pain of losing one's father was the same regardless of age and, often, even regardless of circumstance as well.
"I'm so sorry," he murmured to her as she continued to lay her head on his shoulder, her shoulders trembling with each shaky breath she took.
"... It doesn't seem real," she replied quietly, giving a little shake of her head. "It feels like a nightmare I can't wake up from."
He nodded, knowing that feeling all too well. He'd endured it more than once. "It'll pass. You're numb right now, but... you won't always be."
Summer didn't reply, sniffling instead and closing her eyes as another tear slipped down her wet cheek. They remained there in silence for a little while, just holding on to one another as Summer's shocked mind raced to make sense of it all and Bucky began to wonder about the timing of all of this.
Perhaps one of the reasons why it was easy to trust Summer's instincts was the fact that Bucky's own were seeing red flags everywhere. Even if she had been convinced that it really was a suicide, he began to suspect that he would not have accepted such an overly simple explanation so easily.
But the time for investigation would come later. For then, Bucky focused on performing a task that he was not particularly adept at, which was being a source of comfort for someone that he loved deeply. He'd never been very good at such a thing - or at least he was fairly sure that he wasn't - but he was all Summer had at the moment and even if he didn't know what to say and barely knew what to do, he would at least be there for her to lean on and he wasn't planning on going anywhere.
But God help him if the terrible, foreboding feeling he'd been dealing with for some time now hadn't doubled in light of Michael's death. And if there was one thing he trusted more than almost anything... it was his gut.
Still in shock and barely able to process any of what was happening around her, Summer put on her bravest face that she could muster up once the police arrived and went through the agonizing process of giving her statement and reliving the last hour of her life. She recounted the story in a monotone daze, draped in a blanket that she didn't remember being placed on her shoulders in the first place, and through it all Bucky stayed with her and didn't leave her side. For whatever reason, that only made her want to cry even more than she already was.
The cop who took her statement was kind and gentle with his questioning, and she was thankful for that. But once she was finished, another cop came out from the bedroom Michael had been found in and told him something quietly that Summer couldn't quite pick up. Then he nodded and the other man walked away, and he turned back to Summer and asked her a few more questions.
She had been far too distraught herself to notice when she had been in that bedroom but apparently the nightstand and dresser had been littered with drug paraphernalia - used needles and empty prescription bottles, among other things. It took Summer a few seconds to process that information and once she did, she went from sad and slightly numb to pissed the hell off in record time.
"Heroin?!" she repeated incredulously, staring wide-eyed at the officer. "Heroin. Are you kidding me? My dad wasn't on heroin. He wasn't a drug addict. He hurt his leg a long time ago and took too many pills but he didn't do that for long and... this just doesn't make sense! He was a gambler, not... you know what? This is ridiculous and I don't believe it, they must have -"
Bucky gently took her hand, and it was enough to halt her words and remind her to keep her mouth shut about her murder theory. She clamped her mouth shut and frowned, and the cop sighed sympathetically and said, "You know, I see this more than you can even imagine. People hide addictions all the time and their loved ones don't find out or even suspect it until it's too late. Sometimes you see the red flags, sometimes you don't."
Summer nodded, not believing a word of it but following Bucky's instruction to just go with it. She clutched his hand in hers and tried to keep her anger under the surface, but it wasn't easy. Someone had murdered her father and staged it to look like not only a suicide but an overdose, something no cop in the city would bother to question. All it did was further cement her belief that this was definitely absolutely 100% not a suicide.
As Summer dealt with the authorities, Michael was pronounced dead at the scene. His injuries were too severe to warrant even the usual protocol of transferring to the ER and being given a barrage of last-ditch treatments, and Summer was given the option of seeing him one more time before he was taken to the medical examiner's office. She declined, knowing that she'd have to see him again for the funeral - ugh, the funeral - and she truthfully couldn't handle seeing him again that night.
She still had to go home and tell Lizzie the news. It was now 2 AM and she felt sick, exhausted but not tired, feeling like she's been stuck at that apartment for an entire year as she held on to Bucky and he drove them home on his bike. Sam followed from behind and Summer tried to keep her eyes closed, but every time she shut them she saw her dad's lifeless face all over again.
It felt like ages before they finally arrived back at the manor. Bucky helped her off the bike and held her hand as she stood on unsteady feet and hesitated before taking her first step.
He gave her hand a squeeze, and she looked up to find a sweet, comforting look on his face. That touch kept her grounded, as much as she could be in that moment, and she was grateful that he wasn't full of empty, hollow words meant to make her feel better. His quiet support was everything she needed to put one foot in front of the other and walk back into her home, where she would have to find Lizzie and tell her the news no matter how hard it was.
Sam was just a step behind them, catching up quickly as Bucky opened the door for Summer. She walked inside and was barely through the doorway when she saw Lizzie standing there pacing with her phone in hand, gasping with relief the minute she saw Summer and running to her in a huge hug that almost knocked her off of her feet.
"Oh Summer," Lizzie half-sobbed, crushing Summer to her chest, "I'm so sorry, baby."
Summer blinked in confusion a few times, looking up and noticing Tony also there in the foyer, watching with sympathy and concern etched on his features. "... You... you know?"
Lizzie pulled away and nodded, cupping Summer's face with tears in her red-rimmed eyes. "I was still up and Tony's phone started blowing up. Ran into Aemilia in the hallway and... put it together."
Summer's eyes welled up with fresh tears, proving wrong her belief that she was all cried out. "He didn't do it. You know he'd never do it, he'd never -"
Lizzie nodded, fully in agreement. "Of course he didn't."
Summer's face crumpled. "He looked so... just... I can't get it out of my head and -"
Lizzie shushed her and brought Summer back into her arms, doing what parents do and putting her own grief and complicated feelings on the backburner so that she could comfort her daughter. While Summer hung on to the only parent she had left, Lukas and Aemilia walked into the foyer from the living area and made eye contact with Bucky before they both looked at Summer and stayed silent, both of them visibly pained to see their friend in such a terrible, brutal situation. But none of them could change what had happened or make the reality of the situation any less horrific.
They could, however, find the bastard who had caused all of this to happen and make them pay. And after sharing a meaningfully furious look with the others, Bucky turned to Sam and said, "Everyone in this building. Meeting down here right fucking now."
Summer looked up from Lizzie's shoulder, the murderous tone in his voice stealing her attention. It was then that she noticed Lukas and Aemilia's presence, and after Lizzie let her go, staying by her side, Aemilia quickly walked to Summer and enveloped her in a hug of her own while Sam left to round up the manor's residents.
"I'm so sorry," Aemilia said softly, squeezing Summer as tightly as she could with her big belly in the way. "I can't imagine what you've been through tonight. It's unthinkable."
Summer nodded and murmured a quiet word of thanks, grateful for the comforting words and touches of the people who cared about her most though it seemed only to wreak even more havoc on her overwhelmed emotions. Aemilia pulled away but kept an arm around her, a sweet and protective gesture that Summer clung to as she looked to her husband and waited for him to decide what was next.
She couldn't have been more grateful than she was in that moment to have a husband like him, whom she could trust to lead and take care of her as well as the entire horrible situation, while she simply tried to keep a grip on herself as best as she could.
Bucky's decision was clear and had been made from the moment he found Summer crying and traumatized downtown. "This is over," he told Summer and everyone else present. "We're gonna find that fucking mole, one way or the other, tonight. I don't care what it takes. And once we figure it out," he looked at Lukas, "you're gonna have to stop me from emptying my gun into their skull."
Lukas raised an eyebrow and glanced at Summer before replying, "I'm not feeling particularly forgiving at the moment, either."
"Good," Bucky muttered, heading out of the foyer and the others following behind him. "Let's go."
The manor's residents assembled quickly, gathering within the main living room one by one until every seat and some of the floor was occupied. Aemilia got Summer settled into the most comfortable couch with a cup of tea that she held more than she drank, but the heat of the mug in her hands was a small comfort in itself. Aemilia sat on one side of her and Lizzie on the other, and Bucky stood at the center of the room watching all the members of his extended family report for questioning. Bucky's chilling glare could cut through the most steadfast of souls and quickly set the tense and unforgiving tone in the room and all of its tenants.
It was a long list, and some were half asleep. A few didn't know what had happened, like Scott who walked in and looked almost instantly sick with worry the minute he saw the state that Summer was in, and others - like Natasha and Thor - had been aware for hours and looked as fed up as Bucky did.
Frieda offered her sincere condolences to Summer when she walked in, offering to supply her with absolutely anything she needed in the coming days before taking a seat next to her oldest son. Pietro walked in soon after, barely awake and very confused as to what the hell had happened, but before he could ask anyone Frieda motioned him over by her. Summer was glad, as the last thing she wanted to deal with was providing an explanation of why she looked like hell or even fielding anymore expressions of sympathy.
Once everyone was gathered and present, the quiet, nervous chatter turned to silence just before Bucky uttered his first words to the group.
"Most of you know what happened tonight," he said, hard gaze scanning the room. "For those of you that don't... the details don't particularly matter." His eyes narrowed. "What matters is I'm not letting a single one of you leave this room until I know who the mole is. And I'm pretty fucking convinced they're in this room."
Summer looked around the room, unable to imagine anyone within it being a double agent. But then again, that was kind of the entire point of a double agent.
"I don't care what I have to do to get to the truth," Bucky continued, his voice growing increasingly clipped and threatening. "There's nothing I won't do to protect my family. Most of you were here the night I sent Brock Rumlow back to Russia with half his dick cut off, so you can imagine what's gonna happen to the person responsible for almost getting the people I love most killed, and killing my wife's father."
Scott's eyes immediately flew to Summer, dreaded realization dawning on his face. She gave him a weary look and then turned her eyes back to Bucky, unable to stand another expression of sympathy even from him.
"May I say something?" Frieda asked, ever respectful of her Captain despite having been there longer than he'd been alive. Bucky, equally respectful, nodded to her and she said, "As suspicious as these circumstances are, I can't help but wonder if perhaps Michael himself was the mole and did indeed commit suicide, out of guilt."
Summer immediately shook her head, not thinking twice before speaking up. "No. No, he wouldn't do that. The mole thing or suicide. He's not..." She paused and swallowed before correcting herself. "He wasn't like that."
"Please don't take what I'm saying the wrong way, Summer," Frieda said gently. "I know your grief is fresh and I cannot imagine what you're feeling right now. I'm only trying to make sure we consider all the possibilities before we start throwing wild accusations around."
Summer wasn't offended by Frieda's theory but she still rejected it without question. "I understand. But he didn't do it."
Natasha, calm and level headed as ever, gave a small shrug from her place standing next to Bucky. "I don't think we can outright dismiss the idea. It makes sense. And this is a guy who sold his daughter to the mob to clear his debts. Not exactly the standard bearer of loyalty or morality."
That got under Summer's skin, just a little bit. She made eye contact with Natasha briefly before looking at Bucky, who only held her gaze a few seconds before declaring, "No. It wasn't him."
"Sure you're not letting your judgment get a little clouded?" Natasha asked him lowly earning a mostly blank but slightly annoyed glance from him.
"With all due respect," Lizzie piped up, "you guys barely knew him. Certainly not the way Summer and I did."
"And we barely know either of you," Natasha pointed out, tossing out a thinly veiled accusation so casually that it was stunning.
Summer stared at Natasha, her words barely making sense until Scott of all people all but sputtered, "Wait a minute...what?"
Lukas sighed, leaning back in the armchair he occupied and wearily murmuring, "And the witch hunt begins."
"It's simple math," Natasha stated, crossing her arms. "Objectively speaking, the people in this room least likely to be suspected by any decent person and are thus most suspicious are the grieving daughter and widow. Well, ex-widow."
"Natasha," Aemilia said with incredulity, "you cannot possibly think Summer -"
"Summer, no, honestly," Natasha agreed. Her green eyes flashed to the woman sitting next to her. "It's Lizzie I'm not convinced on."
Lizzie's eyes widened almost comically in shock and offense. "Seriously?"
"Yeah," Tony protectively agreed, moving to place a hand on Lizzie's shoulder, "gonna have to disagree with that one."
"You're not exactly the best judge of character, Stark," Natasha dead-panned. Tony's jaw clenched.
"This is crazy," Scott opined to Nat, gesturing to the entire room. "I've known Summer and Lizzie for years. They're not spies for the Triad. What the hell?" He moved to the edge of his seat, his anger and stress clearly getting to him. Throwing a pointed finger in her direction, he suggested, "I mean, couldn't I just as easily accuse you of being the mole since you seemed so ready to pin it on Michael and be done with it?
"You can accuse me of anything," Natasha replied with a somewhat threatening grin. "Though I wouldn't recommend it."
"You do have a motive," Tony shrugged, thinking nothing of joining in now that Natasha had questioned Lizzie. "You wanted the Captain gig and lost out. Plenty of people have killed for less."
Natasha rolled her eyes. "I've killed for less. Doesn't mean I'm gonna destroy my family to get it."
"I just think it's unfair to automatically suspect the newest people first. Why not suspect everyone else?" he exclaimed. "At this point it could be anyone, even you or Tony. Hell, even him!" He gestured to Lukas, who raised an eyebrow in more humorless amusement than anything else.
Aemilia, however, wasted no time in whipping her head his way and asking incredulously, "Are you actually accusing my husband of being the culprit behind attacks that nearly killed me and our unborn child?"
Scott paused, looking from Aemilia to Bucky and back again, both of them glaring quite ferociously while Lukas awaited Scott's response with great interest. "... No ma'am."
"Good, because if you had, I might have seen fit to cut your tongue out to prevent any further reckless – and baseless – accusations," Aemilia replied in a remarkably matter-of-fact sort of way, which made her words all the more terrifying.
Scott nodded and piped down. "Yes ma'am."
Bucky sighed. "We're not gonna get anywhere this way."
"No, we are not," Lukas agreed, "and as entertaining as this might be, we are doing a disservice to the victims present in this room by going in pointless circles when most of us could likely agree on who is the most suspicious."
"And that would be?" Bucky asked.
Lukas looked about the room and sighed. "My mother's theory is quite compelling, I think it's a rather possible one. Even Natasha gave compelling reasoning towards her theory, though I personally disagree. Otherwise... perhaps your top suspect."
Bucky nodded, happy to hear that someone finally agreed with him. But Summer knew exactly who that top suspect was and groaned, "Bucky, you know it's not -"
"Summer," he said, gently cutting her off, "you gotta let me do my job."
Summer opened her mouth but then snapped it shut, too tired to argue when she knew he wouldn't back down. Nobody was listening to her, it seemed, and the two top theories were both equally unacceptable to her. Not that she had anything better to offer, but still...
"All right," Sam spoke up for the first time, breaking the brief, edgy silence that fell upon the room. "So what now?"
He was officially fed up of going round and round all this bullshit and still not finding results. "Now," Bucky said, producing a pistol from under his jacket, "I'm gonna get the truth."
Summer's eyes widened at the sight of the gun, but her stomach utterly dropped seconds later when he quickly marched forward to where Scott was sitting and aimed the gun directly at his forehead with a terrifying growl of: "Tell me the truth right now or I swear to God I'll put a bullet in your brain."
Scott's face drained in bone-chilling terror. He went white as a sheet, his very life flashing behind his eyes as he instinctively lifted his hands in the air and fell back against the couch cushions. "Wh-what? Me? You think it's me?! I -"
"Bucky!" Summer half-screamed, flying to her feet only to get pulled back down by Aemilia and restrained from getting in the middle of it. She looked at Aemilia in confusion but only struggled for a moment before looking back to her husband and ex-boyfriend, yelling again but receiving not an ounce of attention from either of them.
Bucky pressed the gun to Scott's forehead and held it there. "You're the one who makes sense. None of this shit happened until I made the mistake of getting your sentence cut. What happened?" He leaned in, a snarl at his lips. "Triad get to you in prison, threaten your daughter if you didn't work for them?"
"No!" Scott cried in sheer desperation, his eyes turning glassy in an all-encompassing panic. "I swear on Cassie's life, I've never worked against you or anyone in this room!"
Bucky growled under his breath and cocked the gun, pressing it even harder to Scott's head, his hand frighteningly steady. "Last chance, Lang."
Summer panicked and broke free of Aemilia's hands, ready to play the proverbial Pocahontas and throw herself in front of Scott to save his life, but Sam caught her this time. As he held her back and Bucky's finger hovered over the trigger, something in his periphery caught his attention just long enough for him to glance over and notice that there was exactly one person present in the room who wasn't watching the scene unfold with horror, one person who was instead leaning forward and staring at the floor with their hands covering their mouth as if to keep from being sick.
Sam kept his eyes on that person and called to Bucky, "Hey, Boss."
Bucky either didn't hear him or ignored him, telling Scott, "I mean it. You're out of time."
Scott whimpered and resorted to begging. "Please, man, you gotta believe me, I swear I would never -"
"Boss!" Sam finally yelled, loudly enough to get Bucky's attention. Bucky kept his gun where it was but snapped his eyes to Sam, who gave him a meaningful look and then nodded towards the suspect in question. The cacophony of voices died as everyone followed the gesture. All eyes turned to the man at Frieda's side.
Slowly, Bucky pulled the gun away from Scott, letting it hang at his side as Scott breathed a massive sigh of relief and practically collapsed in on himself. Summer's panic became brief confusion as she along with everyone else stared at Pietro, who was clearly in a serious state of distress.
Bucky only gave a few seconds of pause before quietly, non-threateningly muttering, "Pietro?"
Without looking up or otherwise acknowledging him, Pietro flexed his fingers over his face and confessed with misery and everlasting shame, "They were going to kill my sister."
Frieda's jaw dropped with pure and utter shock. There was a minuscule beat of nothingness before all Hell broke loose once again, tenfold. Thor moved blindingly fast, grabbing his mother and all but throwing her to her feet and tossing her behind him protectively. Lukas, previously the picture of calm observation, deduced what had spared Scott and a murderous rage immediately flamed to life behind his melting gaze. Bucky didn't even have time to raise his gun or ask a single question before Lukas shot from his seat and whipped out two lethal daggers from seemingly nowhere. He rushed past Bucky with an angry growl of "You?!"
Summer stood and watched with her own mouth hanging open as Pietro finally opened his eyes and looked up, facing the horrified eyes of Frieda and the rage of her sons as they stood ready to kill him where he sat. Aemilia stood up and watched in shock herself, taking Summer's side and covering her mouth, absolutely stunned.
"I'm sorry," he said pitifully, tears immediately springing forth. "They sent me a live feed of her in the park, with a red sniper's dot between her eyes and I just... I panicked and I knew I should have come to you," he told Frieda, "but…but I was scared and the thought of losing her -"
Frieda turned away from him, unable to look at him. Thor growled, "So you lied and took advantage of my mother and put us all in danger?"
Lukas suddenly hauled him up out of his seat by his shirt and pressed one of his blades to his jugular. Pietro did nothing to fight it. "I nearly lost my wife and daughter because of you," he seethed. He gestured to Summer and spat, "Her father is dead now. Did he know? Is that what was so urgent that he had to tell her and why he was silenced?"
Something even deeper broke within the young man at that point and it showed on his face as he glanced at Summer before confessing dejectedly, "I thought they would just... scare him or... I didn't think they would kill him -"
"You knew damn well what they would do," came Thor's half-shouted reply while Bucky closed his eyes and winced, the mystery solved at last but at a cost he hadn't anticipated. "And you sat here and watched as an innocent man was blamed and nearly shot for your actions!"
"No, I would have... I was going to-"
"You're not going to do anything," Lukas interrupted, tossing him down to the floor. He crumpled onto his knees and Lukas looked to Bucky, asking with a wild-eyed anger, "Well?"
Bucky looked down at the double agent they'd been looking for all along, so perfectly overlooked and written off due to his remarkably harmless cover and lack of importance within the organization that it was truly stunning. He looked Pietro in the eye and asked, "What did they have you do?"
"Half of the time I never knew," he replied, shaking his head. "I would use Wanda's computer in her office when I'd pick her up from work, things like that. Sometimes it was schedules, itineraries, but most of the time they gave me things and I don't know -"
"Things? What things?" Bucky asked.
"The last time it was this tiny piece of tech," Pietro shrugged, tears springing free from his eyes. "I just put it on the computer and it did all the work. I think it hacked in, downloaded information - I didn't look, I didn't want to know."
"When was this?"
"Two, three weeks ago. He saw me, her father," Pietro replied, briefly looking at Summer and looking away as if it hurt to do so. "I swear I didn't know what would happen."
"But you knew what's already happened," Bucky replied, keeping his tone steady even as white-hot fury rose up in his chest. "They want us all dead. Summer most of all, the rest of us a close second. Your actions damn near killed a mother and her baby. They did kill people. There's no excuse."
"I know, I'm a coward, I'm..." he shook his head and took a moment, seemingly fighting a wave of near-vomit. "I'm sorry."
Bucky looked up at Lukas, features utterly terrifying as he and Thor stood ready to kill the man for his betrayal. But they were ultimately not the first victims of Pietro's crimes, so to reach a verdict, Bucky turned his eyes to Aemilia, Summer and Frieda and said, "It's your choice."
Frieda looked down dismissively at Pietro, his gaze full of shame and desperation but hers full of nothing, disgust lacing her tone as she turned away and told Summer and Aemilia, "Do as you wish with him. He is nothing to me."
It was as if those words triggered a sudden drop in restraint. Summer jumped startled when Pietro suddenly cried out in pain, having been kicked hard in the side by Lukas and falling over as a result. Lukas kicked him again, this time in the stomach, and nobody lifted a finger to stop it. Thor didn't join in or intervene to stop it, but as the blows kept coming and Pietro tried instinctively squirming away, Thor stopped him and tossed him back to his brother.
This went on for awhile, the rest of the room in silence and the others watching without objection apart from Frieda - she didn't leave but she took a seat next to Lizzie and refused to look at what was happening. With each passing moment Lukas grew more angry and more savage, bloodying the traitor as he took his own revenge, the depths of his rage stemming from old but bone-deep wounds given to him by his dead, useless father whom had been the first man to hurt his mother and endanger his family, and now here was this stupid and insignificant child doing the very same thing. Lukas hated him, hated the very air that he breathed, and that hatred was palpable to the entire room.
Summer could only watch for so long before she started feeling sick. Unable to take another moment of it, she looked at Aemilia and was both impressed and a little frightened by her calm, unbothered expression.
But as much as Summer wanted to take some kind of joy or relief in Pietro's suffering, she couldn't. If what he said was true, and nobody seemed to doubt it, he had been placed in a terrifying situation and had made a series of reckless choices that had terrible, horrible consequences, but it wasn't from a place of hatred or evil. It was instead from fear and cowardice but most of all love of his twin sister, the only family he had left in the world. It was an impossible position to be in, and even through her grief and confusion, Summer couldn't hate him.
And apparently, neither could Aemilia. When Lukas raised one of his knives and prepared to bury it deep within Pietro's back, appropriate for a backstabber, Aemilia blinked and said firmly and clearly, "Stop."
Lukas obeyed in an instant, looking up at his wife and breathlessly replying, "Why?"
"Because," she pointed out quietly, "he is a traitor, but he is not without use. If we play this right, we could gain the upper hand with the Triad and finally end all of this for good."
Bucky turned to Aemilia and asked, "How?"
"He continues on with business as usual, maintaining his cover within the Triad," Aemilia replied. "We assign extra protection to Wanda and make sure she is never in harm's way. And Pietro atones for his sins by serving as our double agent."
"It's risky," Bucky replied.
"Yes, but it's by far our best move," she said, stepping forward closer to Pietro. Thor moved out of her way and she held Lukas' still-murderous gaze for a moment before kneeling down in front of Pietro, looking into his now-bruised eyes and asking, "Do you agree to this?"
He nodded, wincing at his obvious injuries as tears continued to stain his cheeks. "Yes. I don't expect forgiveness, just... please protect my sister."
"You have my word," Aemilia replied, a hand moving to rest on her belly. Her eyes flashed and voice deepened. "You don't deserve a second chance. You're a coward and a liar and it's because of you that I almost lost another child. But you were in an impossible situation and I cannot deny that. And quite frankly, you're worth more to us alive than dead."
Pietro nodded. "I understand. I'll do anything to make it right."
Aemilia nodded, expression chillingly neutral. "Good. Because if you step one foot out of line or tell one single lie from this point forward, I'll kill you myself. And I promise, by the time I'm done with you, you'll be begging for it."
Pietro nodded again, accepting the terms without argument. Aemilia then rose to her feet - Thor helping her back up, the task being rather difficult in her very pregnant state - and added, "One more thing. Apologize to Frieda and Summer."
"I don't want his words," Frieda immediately said.
"Apologize to Summer," Aemilia amended, taking her place back at Summer's side as Pietro struggled back to his knees, Lukas still behind him with his daggers out just in case.
Summer could barely stand to look at him, in pain and bloody and drowning in crippling self-loathing and shame, none of it bringing her any joy and all of it only making her feel worse after the horrific night she'd had. She was dangerously close to the point of shutting down entirely, but she hung on just long enough for Pietro to meet her gaze and murmur quietly, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
Her eyes filling with tears for the umpteenth time that night, Summer took a shaky breath and replied, "I can't forgive you. Maybe someday I will but right now I just... I can't. I hate all of this and I just want it to be over." Then she winced and added hastily, "Lukas, can you please put the knives away? I swear if I see one more person get hurt tonight I'm gonna lose it."
Lukas hesitantly but understandingly sheathed the daggers back inside his coat. "He deserved far worse than that, Summer."
"I know," she nodded. "But I'm... I don't think I'm like you and... everyone else. I don't have the stomach for this. I just want it all to stop. I don't want anyone else hurt. It's just a never ending cycle and I'm scared we're never gonna get out of it and -"
Just before she would have cracked and started crying and possibly descended into another breakdown, Bucky grabbed her and shushed her and pulled her into a hug that she melted into, pressing herself to him so hard it made her bones ache.
"It's all right," he whispered in her ear so nobody else would hear. "You've seen enough. You don't have to see anymore tonight. Nobody else needs to get hurt. We found the mole and now we're gonna end this, I promise."
Summer nodded against his shoulder and clung to him even more tightly, trying to believe those words with everything in her. She was exhausted and scared and sad and overwhelmed, but he was right - now they had the tools to win at last. They had a secret advantage now and would surely exploit it to their maximum benefit, and if they were successful, this really would all be over and they could all finally live in peace. It was such a sweet, beautiful thought, and she prayed it wouldn't be just a mere thought or idea like she feared. She didn't know how much more of this that she could take.
But for now, the only thing that she could do was keep moving. She wasn't sure how she would, but with Bucky and her mother and friends all around her... she knew she could.
Following that rather dramatic and emotional family meeting, Aemilia was the first to retreat to bed not out of choice but necessity, as the stress of the entire night had caused some irregular contractions to spring up. It wasn't unexpected, but Lukas insisted on her retiring for the night and taking it easy while he helped Bucky and Natasha plan their next moves. Frieda went with her, dealing with her own anger and shock the best way she knew how, by falling into the role of caregiver and helping ensure that her grandchild was all right. As for Summer, she understood that Bucky was needed downstairs but she had reached her limit of what she could physically handle and went upstairs to crash and burn. Lizzie followed her, not wanting her to be alone and overthink herself into a night of insomnia when she so desperately needed rest.
At Lizzie's insistence, Summer took a shower and metaphorically washed the horrid night away. She didn't really feel any better afterwards but it did help rid her body of leftover adrenaline, leaving her more profoundly tired than she'd ever been in her life. Stuffed comfortably in a fluffy bathrobe and feeling like her limbs weighed a ton each, Summer left Bucky's bathroom and dragged herself to his bed, where Lizzie was perched on the edge and waiting for her. Summer sat next to her, both of them sharing a weary look and sighing long and heavy before Lizzie broke the silence.
"I can honestly say that I never thought I'd accused of being a spy for the Chinese mob."
"Yeah," Summer mused. "Me too. But Natasha's... Natasha. I don't think we're supposed to take it personally. And I mean... she wasn't wrong."
"Yeah, I guess not. But still. Damn. I guess this is our lives now. Some kind of weird... mob soap opera." She then turned to Summer and covered her hand with one of hers, telling her, "I'm so sorry, baby."
Summer nodded, for once not having to fight any new tears. "Me too. I know you left him but..."
"Doesn't matter," Lizzie shook her head. "Still feels like losing the other half of me."
"I hope Tony understands."
"Oh, he does," Lizzie nodded. "He's divorced, he knows how it is. Divorce isn't a delete button, doesn't just get rid of 20 years of your life."
"Yeah. I'm glad you have him," Summer told Lizzie sincerely. "Especially right now."
Lizzie gave a sad smile. "Me too."
Summer turned her hand and gave Lizzie's a squeeze. "I just... can't imagine it ever not feeling like this."
"I lost my Papa when I was about your age," Lizzie replied. "Time makes everything better. It'll always hurt, but it won't always hurt like this. I promise."
Summer blinked heavily, feeling like she could fall asleep sitting up. "I hope you're right."
"I am," Lizzie smiled, removing her hand to give Summer a one-armed hug. "You need to get some sleep, honey. I can stay with you if you want."
Summer shook her head. "No, that's okay. I'm gonna be out as soon as my head hits the pillow. You can go."
"Are you sure?"
She nodded. "Yep. And Bucky will be up here eventually, I'm sure, so..."
"I hope so. They're down there plotting a damn war," Lizzie sighed, standing up from the bed. "But you call me if you need me, okay? Promise?"
"I promise," Summer nodded, mustering up a tiny, barely there smile to try to reassure her. It seemed to work, and after giving her one more hug and telling her she loved her, Lizzie quietly left the room and headed to her own. Once she was alone, Summer let out a deep breath and flopped back on the bed, closing her eyes and ready to stop thinking and stop existing for awhile as sleep overtook her. But, to her dismay, barely halfway to slumber her mind flashed with that horrid memory of finding her father hanging in his bedroom and her eyes flew open.
She groaned and covered her face with her hands, rubbing her eyes and wishing she could just sleep. Now wishing she hadn't insisted Lizzie go to bed herself, she was contemplating her options when she heard a soft knock on the doorframe. She sat up and blinked in surprise to see Lukas of all people standing there, looking rather exhausted himself.
"Hey," she said quietly. "Is everything okay?"
"Fine," he assured her. "Your husband asked me to check in on you."
"Oh. I'm okay," she half-lied. "Just trying to sleep. Not really happening, so..."
He nodded, stepping inside with his hands in his pockets. "I suspected as much."
As he took a seat next to her on the edge of the bed, Summer asked, "How's Aemilia? Is she okay?"
"Contractions stopped, thankfully. Trying to sleep now, same as you. She wanted to come check on you herself but I insisted she stay in bed until she's had a full night's sleep."
"Good," Summer sighed. "Tonight was just..."
"A nightmare. In more ways than one. You know," Lukas began quietly, looking down at his hands as he spoke, "whatever you're feeling... it's okay to feel that way."
Summer looked up at him in surprise, blinking her bleary eyes and asking equally quietly, "What do you mean?"
Lukas briefly met her eyes before looking back down to his hands, furrowing his brows a bit as he gathered his words. "When my father died, I wasn't particularly sad to see him go. I don't know how much of the story you're aware of, but he was nothing more to me than a source of torment and misery from the time I could walk until the day he died. To be completely honest, a part of me - and it was no small part - was happy to see him gone at last. But," he turned his eyes back to Summer, shadows of his past visible in their green depths, "even then, I still mourned."
Summer exhaled a little shakily, pausing before replying, "My dad, he... he was... not a good dad, but he was definitely nowhere near as bad as yours. I can't even imagine what all you went through."
Lukas nodded slightly. "But you see, when he died I wasn't only mourning him. There was hardly anything to mourn in the first place. More than anything, I had to mourn the father that he should have been. The father I deserved but would never have. And now, unfortunately... you have to do the same."
As exhaustedl and cried-out as her eyes were, those words brought a new wave of moisture to them. "I just... I can't believe he's gone. He's always been there. Even though he wasn't really ever there for me, he was... there." She frowned and looked away, shaking her head. "I'm not making any sense."
"Yes you are," Lukas assured her, placing a comforting hand on her back. "And it'll sink in, with time. Time makes everything easier."
"I hope so," she sniffled, wiping at her eyes. "Because I hate feeling like this. This is... it doesn't feel right."
Lukas nodded and pulled her closer, and she obliged without a second thought. As he held her in a friendly one-armed embrace and she laid her tired head on his shoulder, he told her, "Just allow yourself to feel whatever it is that you might feel. Don't worry about grieving wrong or worse, don't let yourself go numb. That's the worst thing you can do, trust me."
"I wish I could be numb," she admitted, closing her eyes. "But I don't think I can. Every time I close my eyes I see him hanging again and I just..."
Lukas hugged her a little tighter. "I know. And you'll never forget it. But it will fade. Everything fades eventually."
She kept her eyes closed, and Lukas stayed silent in the quiet moments that followed. He looked up after a few moments passed and the sound of footsteps reached his ears, and he wasn't surprised to see Bucky standing in the doorway. He watched Bucky look at Summer with sadness and a distinct sort of helplessness in his eyes, and when Summer let out a soft, almost inaudible snore, both men blinked in surprise.
Lukas then looked back up at Bucky and gave him a small, sad smile. Bucky gestured to the bed behind them and Lukas nodded, waiting a few moments before painstakingly carefully moving the poor, exhausted woman out of his arms and on to the bed. She was so thoroughly out that she didn't so much as twitch at being moved like that, and after tugging a light blanket over her and closing the curtains in the room to give Summer her best chance at a few hours' sleep, Lukas met Bucky in the doorway.
"She fell asleep on you," Bucky noted quietly and affectionately, watching Summer sleep at last.
"I've not seen anyone so drained and exhausted since Aemilia was shot," Lukas sighed. "She's had a truly ghastly day."
Bucky shook his head. "These things keep happening to her, to all of us, and it's like I just... can't do shit to stop any of it." He shifted his gaze to Lukas and added, "I just got off the phone with Pierce. He's sending in someone to babysit us like he threatened awhile back."
Lukas rolled his eyes. "What an enormous waste of time. Did he say who?"
Bucky nodded. "Your uncle Viktor."
Lukas narrowed his eyes, instantly getting that murderous look about him again. "Are you joking?"
"I'd never joke about that," Bucky shook his head. "All the more reason to end this now and put it behind us."
"Yes, well, let's hope that idiotic traitor of ours proves as useful as you and Aemilia seem to think he is."
"It's our best shot," Bucky replied, turning back to Summer. "We can get off the defense and get on offense. Put these fuckers in the ground and be done with this shit so you and Aemilia can have your baby in peace and... Summer stops losing pieces of herself."
"She'll be all right," Lukas assured him. "She's resilient. Like you. Perhaps even more so."
Bucky grinned a little bit at him. "You kidding me? She's way fucking stronger than I'll ever be."
"Exactly why she's the perfect woman for you," Lukas replied, giving his shoulder a pat. "Trust me, I would know."
As Lukas headed to his own room, Bucky lingered in the doorway and found himself undecided as to his next course of action. He'd been planning on going back downstairs, back to the war room where his team was planning their next moves, but the last thing he wanted to do now was go back. The sun would be rising soon, possibly within a matter of minutes, and seeing Summer curled up in his bed made it suddenly hit him just how exhausted he was.
He decided that his team could carry on without him just fine for a few hours. He stepped inside and gently closed the door, turning off the lights and undressing as quietly as possible. Summer didn't so much as stir at any of the noise, keeping perfectly still even as he slipped carefully into bed beside her.
She only began to wake up when he pulled her into his arms, her brows furrowing and hands flailing aimlessly as she whined, "No, no -"
"Sh, sh, it's me," Bucky whispered, holding her tighter and wondering just what she'd been dreaming to make her have that reaction. He hoped that whatever it was, she wouldn't remember in the morning.
Summer settled back down quickly, asleep once more and safe in Bucky's arms. He closed his eyes and held her close, sleep soon overtaking him and at last bringing their long, tulmultuous night to an end. They'd taken another deep, hard hit but the tide was turning now, Bucky could feel it and had to believe it, and tomorrow was gonna be the first day of the end of the fight. He was gonna make sure of it.
It was time to hit back. And he planned to hit back hard.