A/N: I am finally on break so hopefully it shouldn't be too long before the next update. Like a week or two. Thank you so much Emerald2211 and BlueOwl for all your help with this chapter.
Hydra had their fingers in a lot of pies. A group that big would have to in order to remain hidden for so long, but it was still shocking to see. The servers Jarvis downloaded only contained information from 1990 on, but it was a lot. More than all the data Tony has for R&D, which he had updated not even six months ago from all the documents. It was going to take days to categorize it all, let alone decrypt the more sensitive stuff. Years if it was a normal team of people, but, between Tony and Jarvis, they should be able to get through the rest of it by the end of the week.
With a fresh pot of coffee and one of the mugs that Dum-E hadn't broken, Tony got to work on discovering all of Hydra's dirty little secrets.
Tony had Jarvis do a quick scan of any document that mentioned the Winter Soldier and started off there. Most recent was nothing more than a memo saying that the Winter Soldier was successfully retrieved along with test subject 1-08. It took a moment for Tony to realized they were most likely talking about Lani, which was disturbing to think about. He made a note to look into it later (or to have Jarvis look into it) before moving to the next document.
Tony then found himself skimming a number of short messages about possible sightings of the Winter Soldier (sometimes also the Asset which Tony added to the keyword search Jarvis was working on). Most of them were in the form of emails sent to and from someone named Vasily Karpov who had the most boring e-mail address. Vkarpov at fucking aol.com.
Who even uses AOL anymore?
Regardless, none of the sightings were followed up with anything substantial. Shield had more concrete sightings of Hulk than Hydra had of Barnes. Though, Tony had to remind himself, they don't know how much of Shield is just Hydra in disguise. Might be beneficial to buy a ticket for Bruce out of the country just so it looks like he moved on. Tony is pretty confident in his security system, but Barnes and Lani are big enough targets. They aren't going to be able to hide the Avenger's connection to the two after today.
"Sir, Captain Rogers is looking for you."
"Send him down. Is everything still good with our robo-cop and the squirt?" Tony responded, not even pausing in his work to do so.
"Dr. Banner is still talking to Lani and Stg. Barnes has been sitting in one of the chairs for the last five minutes of the talk," Jarvis answered, and considering almost a full hour has passed since Lani work up, Tony was surprised that Bruce was talking and not trying to convince the kido to sleep.
Then again, Tony isn't the one who was hiding out in a third world country helping people with their medical needs. Hopefully Bruce is making plans so Lani doesn't wake up in a stabby mood again. Not that Tony really cares about the extra money he'll need to pay off the nurses, but Pepper won't be happy if this becomes a common thing. Might want to look into extending the medical ward since before it was just for him and any employees injured, but now it'll include all the avengers. Which means at the very least their two spies (assuming that legolas is going to join their boy band) need to be considered since they are 100% humans. At least as far as Tony knows.
"Stark? Are you in here?"
Tony took a second to look at the years (decades) of information on his screens about the winter soldier before flicking his wrist to get it out of sight. If Cap wants to see all of this then it will be on his terms. No need for any unwelcome surprises. At least not when Fury is going to be calling them all to a meeting any minute now.
"Over here. Now what can I do for you O captain, my captain?"
"Well it's just that... wait, are you referencing the poem by Walt Whitman?" Roger said with a confused expansion.
"I'm actually referencing a movie that was referencing that poem. Dead poet's society. It's a teen movie starring Robin Williams which automatically makes it a great movie. Definitely something you need to put on your 'must watch list'. We can even make it into a movie night since it's been a few years since I watched it. Lani probably old enough to understand it." Tony rambled on, half waiting to be interrupted.
"That sounds like a movie Bucky would enjoy; he loves poetry. Or at least used to..." Rogers trailed off and for a brief moment Tony entertain the thought of what he would do if he thought Rhodey died only to find out he was brainwashed by the very same people they were fighting against for years.
Tony quickly cut off that line of thought. He doesn't need any more fuel for his nightmares thank you very much.
"But that's what I wanted to talk to you about. Not movies, but Bucky. Lani explained to us what happened. Apparently there is this book that contains words that will strip Bucky of all his free will," Steve explained with barely contained anger.
Tony held up a hand for him to stop talking before asking, "Jarvis, mind bring up the video for this talk?"
It was dated only a few minutes ago, and both men were silent while watching it. Tony didn't know much about kids, or was really good with people in general, but it was clear she was wearly to even tell Steve this stuff. Not that Tony could blame her. At least the whole brainwashing with with Hawkeye a few days ago was due to a set of very specific situations and alien magic that Tony personally has under lock and key. But that was done to Barnes? That was just brilliant science combined with cruelty.
And from the bits he (and Jarvis) has done through, the winter soldier wasn't the only victim to this. Only the longest surviving one.
"Good news is that I already found this guy's email, so it will be simple to trace his IP address. Assuming that he does some of his work from his house," Tony explained while doing it.
"How long will it take?"
"A few minutes, but I doubt it will just be one location. This could take some searching and while I am all for getting it down now, we might need to play it safe."
"I'm going to talk to Natasha and Barton about it."
"You sure that's a good idea?" Tony asked without thinking.
"What do you mean by that?" Roger questioned in a level tone, but Tony could see he was clenching his jaw.
"Nothing. Just they both were Shield agents long before Avengers."
"They both already showed they are willing to lie to protect Bucky."
"Yes, but this is different. This book sounds like a way to get a perfectly obedient soldier, which sounds like something Shield, or at least Fury's side of shield, would want just as badly as Hydra."
"Neither of them would betray us like that," Rogers said with a confidence that Tony doesn't think he ever felt for another individual.
"Our bird friend has only been with us for a day and a half, and Natasha has already proven she's willing to go behind my back for Shield. But what do I know? It's just your boyfriend's life on the line."
"I don't know what past you and Natasha have, but we can't afford to mistrust any of the few allies we have. I still don't like the idea of telling Fury about Bucky, but you are right that we can't just go in with brute force. Feel free to be weary, but you can't let that cloud your judgment."
Tony rolled his eyes at the lecture he was getting. Cap was just so sure that people will do the right thing if given the choice. If Tony wasn't so annoyed, he would have been impressed someone that old could have such an optimistic view of the world.
"I'll be sure to keep that in mind, Rogers."
That was apparently the end of their talk since Steve stormed out of the workshop in the next moment.
Not that Tony paid much attention to that since he was already letting Jarvis compile the list of places of interest while he looked for mission logs for any mention of these 'trigger words'. Closest he got was notes about having to reset the asset in the field due to errors. It felt like he was reading an error log from machine learning, not a human being. Unfortunately, Tony knew first hand how dehumanization can be used with torture, but this was on a whole nother level.
A few hours passed before Tony was able to isolate a detailed report from the early 90's about a mission that, while successful, needed to have the asset 'reset' in the field. Even had Vasily Karpov mentioned as the handler, no wonder the dude complained about retiring in his more recent emails.
The mission was related to a classified project that Tony placed on Jarvis' workload to find more about. With the previous mission, Tony just skimmed them, but this one he took the time to really read it. Maybe it was the location, or the date, or that the asset needed to make it look like an accident before retrieving the item needed for the project. Either way, Tony ended up following a trail of evidence that led to him watching a street side video of a too familiar car on fire with three familiar people.
And only one walked away.
[Game saved]
[HP at 50]
[SP at max]
[Status healed: major concussion]
[Status condition: bullet wound (2/11)]
I didn't even remember going to sleep before I was woken by my shoulder throbbing. I wanted to say it wasn't as bad as before, but I honestly couldn't tell. It could just be because my head was no longer pounding and my weird gamer UI wasn't trying to glitch out on me.
Hopefully, that means I can reload as well now.
[Main Menu]
[ ] Quest log
[ ] Stats
[ ] Relationships
[ ] Runscript
[x] Load Save
[Loading save]
[...]
[save loaded]
I woke up in the hospital bed again, getting the message about my concussion being healed once again. Redoes are back. That is at least one problem solved.
"How long was I out for?" I asked, more to myself than anything, but I wasn't alone in the room so it would be nice to know.
"4 hours and 18 minutes," Bucky said with his monotone soldier voice.
I sighed, but forced myself to smile regardless of my feelings.
"Thanks, are you doing alright?"
"I am... operational."
I gave a snort before remembering that Bucky wasn't trying to be funny.
"So you didn't get hurt during... all of that? Or are you just all healed up now."
"There was no damage done that isn't healed now," Bucky said, and I narrowed my eyes at him.
"You aren't in any pain?"
"Are you?" he asked back, and for a moment it felt like old times.
Another tick in the 'not as bad as it was before' box.
"I'm in a hospital bed with a sling on and all hooked up. It doesn't look like anyone has dealt with your arm and... there are live wires!" I focused on instead.
Honestly, I thought Tony would have been all over the prosthetic by now.
"It's unpowered now," Bucky explained, though not really.
Since it's a neuroprosthetic the only power is to the major joints, and the few times I've taken a look at it, I was able to find at least ten different power sources. Not sure if all of them were still active or if the people working on the arm just added another one when one failed. Either way, I find it hard to believe that it would just lose power after four-five hours. Even with a good 2/3 of it gone.
That arm was built to last.
Hopefully, that meant Tony did take a quick look while I was sleeping, first time or second time, but before I could ask again, Steve walked in.
"Hey Buck, I brought you some coffee and these croissant sandwiches that Barton said were good, but than Romanoff started complaining that the ones in France were better so... Oh, Lani you're awake."
I gave Steve a small wave with my uninjured arm, trying not to laugh at the amount of food he was carrying. I didn't even know that Starbucks sold that much food without it being a catered event. Let alone after the alien invasion yesterday.
"Can I have a sandwich?"
I wasn't that hungry, but hospital food was always bad and even though this wasn't really a hospital, I have a feeling it would be the same. Might as well take it when I can.
"Of course, you want the cheese or... ham and cheese?"
"Ham and cheese please!" I said as Steve tossed me a wrapped croissant.
"Do you need any help opening that or..." Steve started to ask before I ripped the paper off with my teeth.
Steve gave Bucky a completely exasperated look before handing the rest of the sandwiches over, keeping a few for himself. Bucky was able to open the packets with one hand, the show-off, and Steve took a seat in a chair I was pretty sure wasn't there last time I woke up.
It was a nice moment of calm, but I knew it wasn't going to last long. There were just too many unknowns, too many things that I didn't know.
"So, what happens now?" I asked as soon as I swallowed the last bit of the buttery pastry.
"Now? Now you focus on healing up," Steve said with a patronizing smile.
Well, I'm sure he didn't mean for it to look like that. But it did.
"Have you guys figured out where the book could be?"
The smile faded, and after Steve looked to Bucky, he turned back to me looking serious.
"Ba- Clint and Natasha are looking into it. Stark, that is Tony, narrowed it down to a few locations using that guy's IP address?" Steve said, obviously just repeating that last part.
"Oh, that makes sense. The book would probably be in a place he frequented often, and if he ever sent stuff on his phone or laptop then you could ping it."
I guess.
"Yeah, that's pretty much what Stark figured. We don't want to draw too much attention to it, which is why I'm not going after it right now." Steve explained moments before the door opened again.
Tony looked a little disheveled standing in the doorway, not bothering to actually walk into the room.
"We need to talk. Now," Tony said, giving Bucky a hard look before walking out.
Bucky and Steve both gave me a look, before turning to each other.
"We'll be right back, Lani," Steve apparently answered for them, and Bucky followed him out of the room.
Then I was alone, with a feeling that I was missing something very important.
I was probably overthinking it, but I leaned over to turn the heart monitor off and slipped the IV out of my wrist.
"Miss. Lani, I would advise staying in bed," Jarvis said as I swung my legs out from under the covers.
"I'll just be a second. Please don't alert anyone," I asked the AI, and without waiting for a response, I slipped out of the room.
The halls were empty, and I thought about seeing if Jarvis would tell me where they went when I heard voices not too far from me.
"Oh, I am sorry, Captain, I just found out that he MURDERED MY PARENTS, so sorry if I'm a little angry about that!"
[Quest: Mediator]
[Reconcile Tony Stark and James Barnes]
[Reward: continual resources by Stark Industries]
[Failure: James Barnes turned over to Shield]
[Timelimit: 10 minutes]
[ ] Accept
[ ] Decline
Fuck.
It wasn't that I didn't know about this. Not sure you could be on the internet and not be aware of that plot point in civil war, but I thought I would have more time. Find some way to tell Tony without it being a complete shitstorm. Though it seems that Tony was able to find out on his own.
Tony has every right to be angry about that. Not right that he's blaming Bucky for something Hydra did, but emotions are running high. I just don't like the failure terms for the quest. Does that happen even if I decline the quest? Or is that just what happens if I mess things up or don't interfere?
Well at least I got my saving back. I can't let Bucky go to Shield.
[X] Accept
"Do you want us to leave?" I asked, apparating right into the middle of the conversation.
"What? No, I just..." Tony dragged his hand down his face and cursed.
"No one is going anywhere, Lani," Steve said, crossing his arms and making his position between Bucky and Tony even more apparent.
Bucky in turn was just frowning.
"I... don't want to overstay our welcome," I said, watching Tony who honestly just looked tired.
Sure, having his help is useful, but I don't want to push it. This is just one of those cases where all the options are bad, and you just have to choose the one that sucks the least. Which is Tony just letting us go free.
"I'm not kicking you out. Though you don't seem too surprised to hear your daddy dearest killed my parents."
"Stark!"
"That's cause I'm not," I said, carefully keeping my face blank. "Hydra made the winter soldier to be the best assassin ever. Sure I don't know how many people he killed, but that doesn't change the fact it's Hydra's fault. If you want justice or revenge then get it on Hydra and just let us go."
"She's right. Bucky already told you he doesn't remember that. You can't blame him for something he had no real control over."
"I realize that! Why do you think I wanted to talk instead of just turn him over to the FBI or CIA or some other government group? But I also can't pretend that everything is fine, Rogers!" Tony yelled, tossing his hands into the air in frustration.
I wasn't sure if my presence was making things better or worse, at least Tony seemed to look guilty whenever he caught sight of me. Perks of looking like an innocent child I guess.
"Sorry to interrupt, but Director Fury has entered the lobby."
That caused everyone to freeze in place.
"Furry?" I asked because did Tony call him before this talk?
"Fury, not Furry."
Yeah, I was hoping no one would catch my slight mispronunciation. It's hard to break 20 years of having a speech disability and it shows when I'm stressed. Of course my physical age helps hide that. And it has been getting better.
And now I'm thinking Fury dressed up as a Furry. Great.
"He's... like our boss," Steve continued to tell me off handedly, completely ignorant of my internal thoughts and keeping his eye on Tony.
"Of course that pirate wants to do this now. Fine. Guess I will pretend everything is fine for a few hours," Tony grumbled before walking out.
"What is going on?" I asked, because I felt like I got whiplash from how quickly the conversation pivoted.
"We're introducing Bucky to Director Fury... don't worry, I'm not going to let anything happen to Bucky," Steve said before squatting down to my level, "even if I have to run away with the two of you in order to keep you both safe."
Ah. So that's what 'anything' means.
I ended up just nodding, because what could I say to that? There is a real good chance that running away is going to be our only 'good' option in a little bit, deciding on how Tony deals with this new information. And they think it's a good idea to let Fury know about Bucky? Okay, so maybe Fury is one of the good guys, but he also always stood out as one of those people who would do anything for the 'greater good'. Which is great for superhero movies but not so much when you want your most meaningful connection to this life not to die or worse.
"Can I come then?" At least then I'll know right away if the conversation is going south.
"No," three different voices rang out at once.
"Jarvis, make sure Lani doesn't leave her room until we come back," Tony added, still looking a little pissed, but less so than a few moments ago.
I threw up my hands (okay hand) up in frustration.
"Fine. Have fun with your super secret meeting."
"I'll be back," Bucky informed be once the three, with Tony staying far away from the other two pouting, assorted me back to the room.
Despite the serious atmosphere, I chuckled at the accidental terminator reference.
"Stop that. I'm mad at you, you don't get to be funny."
"Stark," Steve warned, and Tony just looked at him, mocking his pose.
"Rogers."
Bucky made sure I got into the bed before patting me on the head and walking past the two.
And I was alone again. At least until a nurse, different from the one before that I stabbed, came in to hook me back up.
I did make sure not to fall asleep. This whole day was two seconds away from being a complete failure and I was just waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Is it bad that I was hoping it would be Fury and not Tony who will be the biggest problem?
A/N: This scene has been a long time coming and I'm... not super happy with it. Might just because I was working on it for so long. Also I planned on having the meeting with Fury in this chapter, but I wanted to post this weekend.
Thank you everyone who has favorited/followed this story. Between the two sites, there are over 1.6K people following this story. Also this chapter reached a new record for most reviews/comments per chapter with 47 reviews for this site and 63 total. I know it's probably because it's been over a month since the last update, but I think to think the last chapter was just that good ;)
Anyways, super duper thanks to Haseo187, ErikatheStargazer, Falling Right Side-Up, the guest named Fan, .Enadi, the guest named guest who thought this was so interesting (Thank you!), The guest on chapter 1 (One thing I love about the set up is that there is just so many ways it can go), JustAnotherStarkFan, Bogdan Gavrila, Shalist (times 4!), PrincessMagic, thescripwelder, WPear, Joseph123, RavenclawGryffindor35, the guest named Wildspark (yeah Bucky really gets the short end of the stick), xXAnonymous01Xx, Finaste, The guest named Fan who said this was freaking fabulous, Kimchi759, BlackDove WhiteDove, The guest who said they are loving this sooooo much, Lioness32, Eslynn, The guest named SunnySide (I have a very similar headcanon for Steve that the serum amplified EVERYTHING), olliensam, FusedBump, CyberWolfWrites, Death Fury, Tomatotwinz, CrystalAris (times 2!), Zackman2K12, HuangBaiLian, Cboylan, Arkyong, edgelord69, nickarn22, bored411, Omega-66, Roxycall18, Rc Jackson, Goldenfightergirl, Blueowl, Isanxd, SpoonAer, Amir-015, seraphina987, Cinnybun, 125b, Miss A. Winchester, verycoolname, Apollimia, and KEZZ 1 for thanking the time to review. Even if I don't always respond, I do read every review. It's always the best motivator for writing.
Thank you again for reading and hope you all have a fantastic day/night!