Disclaimer: I do not own the Avengers, or Winter Soldier. They belong to their respective owners. I am writing for fun and not for profit. I just own my OC.

Chapter 36: Healing Wounds

"Lacerated spinal column, cracked sternum, shattered collarbone, perforated liver, one hell of a headache," Fury explained to the group, as Steve, Sam, Agent Hill, and Natasha joined Fury and Zoe not a moment later. Everyone was eager to learn how Fury had survived his crazy attack by the "police".

"Don't forget your collapsed lung," the doctor said, tending to patch up Natasha's shoulder with the tools in his hands.

Fury looked at his doctor, "Let's not forget that. Otherwise I'm good."

Zoe widened her eyes and shared a look with Agent Hill, who stared at Fury with her hand over her hip. Sam had his arms crossed over his chest, while Steve stood on the other side of Fury's bed right next to Natasha in her own seat.

"They cut you open, your heart stopped," Natasha said in disbelief, as the doctor applied pressure to the wound. He was fixing her shoulder as she continued to stare at Fury with questionable and astonished eyes.

"Tetrodotoxin B, Slows the pulse to one beat a minute. Banner developed it for stress. Didn't work so great for him, but we found a use for it," Fury said.

"Why all the secrecy, why not just tell us?" Steve said.

"Any attempt on the director's life had to look successful," Agent Hill replied, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Can't kill you if you're already dead," Fury stated. "Besides, I wasn't sure who to trust," he glanced over at Zoe and Romanoff.

Natasha looked away from her director and looked at the floor. Even Zoe was quiet at that. She looked down at her duffle bag in her lap, and winced.

~*WS*~

Somewhere inside a bank vault, Bucky's metal arm rested against an armchair. HYDRA agents and scientists were working on fixing the arm Romanoff had nearly destroyed in the fight between Captain America and the Winter Soldier.

"Sergeant Barnes!" Dr. Arnim Zola's face came into view.

"He's not stable, Doctor,"

"He will be with your help, Dr. Sawyer," Zola said.

Dr. Sawyer looked over at the HYDRA agent, a woman who had her gun pointed at him if he did not cooperate.

The flashback in Bucky's mind switched to a faded memory that returned to the surface in which the Winter Soldier had thought he'd buried so deep he would never be able to find again.

"Bucky, no!" Steve's voice echoed in his mind as Bucky fell from the train over the mountains.

"The procedure has already started," Zola said. Sawyer used his tools to separate Barnes's arm and replace it with a metal arm. "You are to be the new face of HYDRA," he turned to Dr. Sawyer. "Put him on ice."

Dr. Sawyer looked at Zola, horrified, but he had no choice but to listen to Zola, and do what he was told.

The Winter Soldier returned from his nightmare, and suddenly tossed his metal arm at the HYDRA scientists as they flew to the ground in shock that he would attack them instead of be compliant.

Rollins aimed his gun at the Winter Soldier, frozen in his chair, ready to shoot if he needed to.

That was when Alexander Pierce and Brock Rumlow headed inside the vault, ignoring the scientist's warning that the Winter Solider was unstable, and erratic.

"Mission report," Pierce said, leaning his body forward, waiting to hear what the Winter Soldier had to say. "Mission report, now."

Pierce leaned upward, and walked over to him. He looked down at the Winter Soldier's face, and looked into his soft eyes. Pierce frowned. They were loosing him. They couldn't loose him, not now. He smacked him across the face in hopes that would snap whatever spell he was under.

Bucky winced slightly at the hand slap given to him by his boss, but it didn't stop him from thinking about the man he saw on the bridge that seemed so familiar to him it wouldn't leave his mind. "The man on the bridge…" he asked, looking into Pierce's light blue eyes. He could see the moment flash through him and hear Steve's familiar voice calling his name. "Who was he?"

"You met him earlier this week on another assignment," Pierce replied.

"I knew him," Bucky said.

Pierce drew in this sudden change of events occurring right in front of his nose. He leaned forward. "Your work has been a gift to mankind," Pierce said. "You shaped this century, and I need you to do it one more time. Society is a tipping point between order and chaos. Tomorrow morning we're gonna give it a push. But if you don't do your part, I can't do mine, and HYDRA can't give the world the freedom it deserves."

"But I knew him," Bucky said with a determined glint in his brown eyes.

Pierce sighed. He really didn't want to have to bring her into this, but maybe it would help.

"There is a girl with that man, Sergeant Barnes, a girl who is in danger," Pierce said. "And if you don't get to her, that man you saw on the bridge? He's going to kill her."

"Who is she?" he asked, recognizing the girl he'd remember nearly trying to choke her to death on the bridge. "The Captain seemed to care about her when I took her away from him."

Pierce looked at him with wide eyes, until he blinked and came up with an explanation. "She's on our side, working for the greater good. She was trying to get insight on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s betrayal to this country so that we can be one step ahead of them. That's why you two have become so close, working for the same reasons. I've been trying to get to her, but it is out of my hands. She's a good asset of mine, and one you've very much grown attached to. I would hate for something bad to happen to her."

"Prep him," Pierce said to the scientists who'd regained their self-composures.

"He's been out of cryo-freeze too long," one of them said in a frantic worried voice like Pierce was out of his mind.

"Then wipe him and start over," Pierce demanded with the notion that the Winter Soldier will be back up and in business tomorrow morning.

Alexander Pierce motioned a nod over to the scientists. The HYDRA agents secured a circle around them, while the scientists got Bucky ready. They covered his head with the instrument that would brainwash him, and placed a mouth guard in his head, ready to start the electrifying brainwashing methods HYDRA had used over hundreds of years. Pierce walked away, listening to his screams behind him, and put a wall up over his own emotions.

~*WS*~

Zoe handed Fury an old photo of Alexander Pierce, and stood beside him. She hadn't felt like sitting much after taking in her family's history. Her mind needed to focus on what was important right now. Alexander Pierce was going to launch those Hellicarriers in the sky and kill thousands of people with just a flip of a switch, and she wasn't going to let that happen.

"This man declined the Nobel Peace Prize," Fury said, placing the photo on the table for the group to see. Natasha looked down at it, seated diagonally across from Fury, and Hill. "He said, "Peace wasn't an achievement, it was a responsibility." See, it's stuff like this that gives me trust issues."

Zoe crinkled her nose in disgust. She didn't blame him there. "Who declines a Nobel Peace Prize?" she asked.

"A psycho," Steve said, making her smile.

"We have to stop the launch," Natasha said, sharing a small look with Steve and Zoe. Zoe nodded indefinitely, and she looked up at Steve, giving him a wink.

"I don't think the Council's accepting my calls anymore," Fury opened up the case that had three communication chips, resting inside the black felt of the case.

"What's that?" Sam asked, looking at Agent Hill's computer that was in front of her. He'd noticed something interesting on the computer.

Agent Hill looked up at Sam, and turned it around to share. Zoe walked around the table to join Steve's side so she can look at the laptop's screen. "Once the Hellicarriers reach three thousand feet, they'll triangulate with Insight satellites becoming fully weaponized."

"So we disable the satellites," Zoe said.

Fury nodded at Zoe's simple reasoning, but he didn't think it was going to be that simple. It was a lot more complicated. "We need to breach those carriers and replace their targeting blades with our own."

"One or two won't cut it," Agent Hill said. "We need to link all three carriers to work, because even if one of those ships remains operational…a whole lot of people are going to die."

"We have to assume that 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 said firmly.

Everyone looked up at Steve.

"We're not just taking down carriers, Nick, we're taking down S.H.I.E.L.D.," Steve said.

"S.H.I.E.L.D. had nothing to do with it," Fury said, his voice raising a notch in the room.

Zoe twisted her mouth to the side in thought as she listened to them, feeling awkward again.

"You gave me this mission," Steve continued. "This is how it ends. S.H.I.E.L.D.'s been compromised, you've said so yourself. HYDRA grew right underneath your nose and nobody noticed."

Fury looked at him. "Why do you think we're meeting in this cave? I noticed," he said animatedly with his hands, pointing at the table.

"And how many paid the price before you did?" Steve asked.

Zoe hugged one arm and looked at the duffle bag resting underneath her chair.

"Look, I didn't know about Barnes," Fury said.

"Even if you have, would you have told me? Or would you have compartmentalized that too?" Steve said, glaring at him. Steve looked at everyone, each one differently until his eyes landed on Fury. "S.H.I.E.L.D., HYDRA, it all goes."

Fury drew in a small subtle sigh, and looked at Agent Hill. She nodded. "He's right," she said.

He looked up at Zoe. S.H.I.E.L.D. had always been her home, but she could understand Steve's reasoning for closing down headquarters. It was compromised, and she was beginning to wonder if she was too.

"I agree," Zoe said, looking sideways at Steve. "I'm with him on this one."

Steve looked at her with shocked eyes, but still couldn't help but smile his quiet thanks at her response. She nodded gently at him, looking at his facial expression with kindness.

Fury couldn't say he was surprised. In the beginning, she had wanted to quit, thinking her first big assignment was far too hard for her to manage on her own, but here she was, still living, and breathing. He had high hopes for her potential in the field, and he still thought she could hold her own. He was still going to hope for the best for however this would turn out. He turned to face Romanoff. She leaned back in her seat as her response. Fury looked up at Sam.

"Don't look at me," Sam shook his head with a small shrug of his shoulders. "I do what he does, just slower."

"Well, looks like your giving the orders now, Captain," Fury said finally after a moment of realization around the table. He was outnumbered, but he wouldn't have it any other way.

~*WS*~

"I can't believe you said that," Steve said, standing on the bridge that overlooked the forest below.

Zoe looked up from the green forest and glanced at him, smiling brightly. "Well, I've always believed in honesty, and integrity. I know, I'm not the best person to really preach about honesty," she cringed at that. "But, I'm also someone who works on trying to better herself as a person. Sometimes I rise up, sometimes I fall down. I just wish I can find some middle ground to really focus on and be myself. I don't want to make the same mistakes my family did all those years ago…" she said, still feeling horrible that her family had a hand in this whole ordeal. She sighed. "I also believe in freedom, and having the ability to feel free. You should've looked at Sitwell's face when I told him you were twice the man he was when he tried to interrogate me," she said with a small giggle, remembering Sitwell's icy glare at her. "He was not happy. I think he knew I was slipping though," she sighed. "Playing the part of both sides, is not an easy thing to do. It plays with your mind and your heart. Something, I've always struggled with."

Steve turned to face her, leaning his arms against the wooden railing. "Then why do it?"

"It was my job," she shrugged. "I loved working for S.H.I.E.L.D. at the time when I could think straight and think for myself. A long time ago, I was a lost soul," she said. "And then I found a home with S.H.I.E.L.D. who I thought had all the answer to my past. When I was given this assignment, I was really shocked, but honored. I wanted to prove to everyone I could do it."

"And you did," Steve said.

"Barely, if it hadn't been for you, I wouldn't be here right now…so, thank you," she said sincerely.

Steve smiled. "You're welcome," he said.

Zoe looked up at the cloudy sky above her head, letting her thoughts drift over her ever so anxious mind. She sighed, stretching her arms over the bridge's railings. "There's still a chance you can save him, Steve," she said after a moment of silence that had slipped between them.

Steve turned to look at her, staring at her soft facial expression. "How do you know?" he asked.

"For some strange reason," she said, smiling at him. "I have hope. I don't think he's as lost as me."

Steve looked at her with gentle eyes of confusion when she said that.

She looked over at Sam as he started walking down the bridge from the bunker. "Guess I better get ready," she gave Steve a gentle squeeze on his arm of reassurance before she left him be to his own thoughts.

"We looked for you after," Bucky said, as he and Steve walked back to his house after a long exhausting morning. "My folks wanted to give you a ride to the cemetery."

"I know," Steve said, climbing up the stairs that would eventually lead to Steve's house. "I'm sorry. I just…kind of wanted to be alone."

"How was it?" Bucky asked curiously.

"It was okay," Steve said, void of any emotion in his voice, but Bucky could tell his best friend wasn't in a good state of mind no matter how much Steve tried to block everything out. "She's next to Dad."

"I was gonna ask…" Buck began but Steve already jumped into Bucky's sentence.

"I know what you're going to say, Buck, I just…" Steve brushed the bangs out of his eyes.

"We can put the couch cushion on the floor like when we were kids," Bucky tried again. "It'll be fun. All you gotta do is shine my shoes, maybe take out the trash," he said as Steve searched for his house key in his pocket until Bucky found the secret hideaway underneath a brick by the railing where Steve kept his key. Bucky handed it to Steve. "Come on."

Steve took the key from him. "Thank you, Buck. But, I can get by on my own."

"Thing is, you don't have to," Bucky said, as he squeezed Steve's shoulder in a friendly manner. "I'm with you 'till the end of the line."

"He's going to be there you know," Sam said, joining Steve as Sam seemed to bring him back to the present time in his quiet and secluded space.

"I know," Steve said, nodding.

"The guy he is now," Sam began. "I don't think he's the kind you save. I think he's the kind you stop."

"I don't know if I could do that," Steve said. He was going to take Zoe's hopeful words to heart. At least there was one person he could count on by his side.

"Well, he might not give you a choice," Sam tried to reason with him. "He doesn't know you."

"He will," Steve said. "Gear up, it's time." He said, looking back as he heard the doors close of the bunker that Zoe disappeared into.

"You're gonna wear that?" Sam called after him.

"No," Steve said, turning sideways to face Sam as he walked toward the end of the bridge. "You're going to fight a war, you gotta wear a uniform."