A/N: Thank you BlueOwl and Emerald2211 for helping me edit this chapter!

Steve wasn't sure what Clint said to Fury to explain Natasha's absence, but he was grateful to the fact that Bucky seemed fine with Natasha and Lani being together. Bucky had been on edge ever since Lani snuck out to get their stuff back.

Not that Bucky really needed to be there. Most of the meeting was Steve and Agent Hills talking about the information they collected. Bucky already confirmed all the information he remembered about Hydra, some of the things he only remembered once reading over the journals Lani got back.

Stark was messing on that 'tablet' of his, not looking like he was paying attention to what anyone was saying. Steve was tempted to call him out on it, but that might be the thing needed to start a fight. Instead, he also ignored it and instead focused on Dr. Banner and Barton's questions.

"When it comes to bases on American soil, our best bet is-"

Suddenly all the lights went off. It was only for a second, but then it was replaced with red lights and alarm sirens.

"Jarvis?" Tony asked, sounding almost scared.

Not that Steve had any time to question. It was clear what was going on.

"Prepare for an attack. Hydra must have cut off the power."

"They didn't cut the power. This place if 100% off the grid and if they messed with the arc reacher powering it we would have all been blown up," Stark said as he pulled out the suitcase he brought for some reason.

"What do you mean blown up?" Clint asked, pulling out a bow and putting something in his ear that didn't look like one of the communicators.

"There is no way for anyone to get down there, which means they fucking shut off Jarvis. Someone must physically be down in the server room."

The case was opened and it became apparent it wasn't a suitcase. Or it was, because it was a case for his suit. Soon enough, Iron Man was standing in front of them.

"We need to get down there and-"

A gun fired and suddenly Steve was being tacked to the ground.

"Bucky?"

Bucky tackled Steve to get him out of the line of fire of the man in Shield uniform who was bleeding out.

"Have you ever considered using your shield as a shield, Steve?" Bucky complained as he held a gun in his only hand.

"Not this again," Steve muttered, trying hard to ignore the look of confusion on Bucky's face.

It was fine he didn't remember. Steve only cared that his friend was okay.

"Is everyone al-" Steve wasn't able to finish asking before a new problem arose.

The Hulk roared and Steve quickly realized that was Hydra's plan. There was no way one member of Hydra hidden as a shield agent well enough to get past them could deal with all of them. But it would be enough to be a suicide mission to get Bruce to transform into the Hulk and thereby dividing their attention.

Bucky got off him and lowered his gun at Steve's command.

"Hey, Hulk? We don't really need you right now," Steve tried at first since the green monster was able to follow a few commands during the fight.

"AAAAARRGHH!" He yelled right in Steve face.

But made no move to attack.

"You're welcome to smash anyone who tries shooting you, but no one else. Got it?"

Hulk just screamed again, punching a wall, but once again, not trying to attack any of them.

"I got the nice Hulk room all set up. Why don't you convince the big guy to chill out in there while I deal with the assholes in the basement," Stark said, looking like he was planning on blasting his own windows to get to the ground sooner.

"By yourself? That would be the best place for an ambush. I'll come with you," Steve said before turning to Bucky, "Bucky you should-"

"I'm coming with."

Steve couldn't argue with that since he would much rather have Bucky with him in a fight than Stark, even though Iron Man has proven himself. But if there is going to be any issues between the two...

"Fine. I don't care. Come over here so I can fly us all down," Stark said, face mask up so Steve couldn't tell how much he really cared.

"Great. Guess I'll escort Hulk down to his room then," Clint said as Hulk roared again.

Steve thought he looked a bit like an over-powered toddler throwing a tantrum, but wasn't going to mention it even if it had a chance of making Bucky laugh. Instead, he walked over to Iron Man and raised himself as a metal arm was wrapped around his waist. Then the suit took off with both him and Bucky clinging to it, through the opened window and fast to the street level.

"The only way down is through the elevator from my personal lab, but it runs past a wall in the garage that we can break through, then jump down," Stark explained as he led them to the garage.

Steve hasn't been down there before, and was shocked to see a few cars that looked like they were being worked on as well as motorbikes. There were also a few broken parts that looked like they belonged with Stark's Iron Man suit, but if they were down here instead of up in his lab it must have been something else.

"Is this the wall?" Steve asked as he put his shield on his back.

"Yes, stand back and I'll-" Stark started to say, but Steve already reeled back and pushed where he was aiming.

"Did you just punched the wall?"

"What the hell, Steve?" Bucky said, and the way he grabbed his hands to make sure he didn't break them was painfully familiar.

"It was faster."

"No, pretty sure me blasting the wall would have been faster than you punching it."

"It's already done," Steve said even as he kicked it to make the whole a bit bigger.

"Great. Always wanted to know what it would be like working with a caveman. Now are you ready to go down or are you going to jump too?"

"Well-"

"You are not jumping," Bucky firmly said, and suddenly Steve was very happy he wasn't with him during the mission to retrieve Loki.

"Did anyone tell you how he jumped out of a plane without a parachute?" Stark said like he was reading Steve's mind.

"Are you allergic to parachutes now, Steve? What the hell?" Bucky said, and before Steve could explain himself, Stark grabbed them again and they went down the elevator chute.

It was much further then Steve assumed, still not far enough to be any danger to him, but it was for the best. He was just saying that to mess with Bucky.

There was no emergency lights down below. Stark also took off as soon as they landed, and Steve readed his Shield. Bucky also had his gun out, and it was only then that Steve was reminded that he only had one arm.

But it was too late to ask Bucky to stay back.

The lights from the Iron Man suit was enough to illuminate the corridor as they ran, and it wasn't long before they came to a large room filled with a small infatraction group.

Iron Man aimed his blaster which was sign enough that these people were not supposed to be down here.

"You have three seconds to tell me why you're here," was all Stark got out before guns started firing.

Steve threw his shield at one while rushing at another, only for Bucky to shoot him before Steve could. It was like back in the war when Bucky would snipe Hydra agents before Steve could even get close to melee range, before Steve talked to him about it. Not that the talk turned out any better since Bucky had the rest of the commando backing him up, but it might be worth trying again.

Between the three of them, it did not take long to dispatch them.

"Keep an eye out while I try getting Jarvis back online," Stark said as he removed his faceplate and went to one of the tall... things.

Steve remembers seeing something like that on the helicarrier. Looked like an overly complicated brakerbox.

"Want to take my six?" Steve asked Bucky, who in turned gave a single nod before starting a very strange patrol with him.

Maybe ten minutes passed before Steve heard something. Bucky must have heard it as well since he didn't look surprised when Steve held up a hand. Bucky waited at the edge of the room while Steve went into the hall to check it out.

One of the guys they had subdued had a small walkie talkie in his bullet proof vest and it chirped to life.

"-come in - Sigma 1, what is your status -"

Steve wanted nothing more than to crush it, or try talking to the guys on the other end, but he was clearheaded enough to know that that wouldn't help in the long run. Instead he took it back with him to the room.

"- extraction is impossible - if no response, mission is assumed to be a failure - "

Stark looked up and opened his mouth to say something, but stopped when Steve held the talkie to him. Stark just went back to his work, but it was clear he was listening in as well.

But they didn't say anything useful. Just asking sigma 1 to report a few more times before it went silent.

"Well, that was useful," Stark said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

"You have any idea what they were hoping to achieve here, Bucky?" Steve hated to ask, but this didn't seem like they were just trying to get Bucky out of the tower.

They just didn't have enough men for that.

"I'm not sure," Bucky said in a familiar way that told Steve he did have an idea, but didn't want to say it yet.

Either Bucky didn't want to say it in front of Stark, or he didn't want to tell Steve.

"Aaaand there. We are back online," Tony announced, "full power should be back in a few minutes. Jarvis will take a little longer as I'm having him look back to see just how this happened."

Steve turned on his com, "Hawkeye, did you hear that?"

"Yeah, Iron Man left his com on the whole time. Nice to know you are all getting along so well."

Steve turned to Stark at that, who didn't look bothered by that at all.

"I'm still getting used to this whole team working thing. And I usually have the Jarvis clone in my suit to deal with that."

"Sorry for the cluder on the line, Hawkeye. We'll regroup in ten if nothing else comes up."

"Steve, can you ask if they can take Lani somewhere safe until we're done?" Bucky asked.

Steve was about to repeat that before deciding to just give Bucky his com for the moment.

Bucky took it and just repeated his question.

"You sure Shield doesn't know about it?...Okay..." Bucky didn't look too happy, but he gave the com back.

"Jarvis! Did you finish your scan?"

"Diagnostic scans are complete, they disabled my connection to the tower."

"Yes, but how did they get in?"

There was a slight pause, like the computer was thinking about that question.

"They were already in. They were the Sheild agents that director Fury approved of three days ago."

"What?" Stark said at the same time Steve did.

"The ones who disabled me were the shield agents that Director Fury approved of three days ago," the AI repeated, and maybe it was just Steve, but he sounded a little snarky about it.

"What, was Fury really with Hydra all this time?" Stark asked, and Steve has had enough.

"That's it. We are heading back and finding out right now."

Steve started walking and this time the elevator was working.

"This only goes to my lab, but once there we can just take the public one to the offices," Stark explained, face plate back in place so Steve had no idea if he was just as pissed as Steve about this betrayal.

The only one who was acting normal was Bucky. Like he expected this to happen.

"Black Widow, you said Fury is still in the meeting room?"

"Yep, he's right in front of me looking as happy as you sound, miss America."

Steve ignored the obvious joke and instead brought his attention back to Bucky. Steve really wanted to ask if he knew about Fury, but he seemed certain before that Fury wasn't involved. But Bucky also left Hydra with Lani years ago. Maybe Fury being part of Hydra was a new thing, and Bucky just couldn't trust anyone nowadays.

Makes sense that he would want Lani far from here if they really didn't get all of Hydra out of the tower.

The ride up to Stark's lab didn't take long despite how many floors they must have passed. Iron Man took the lead, weaving them through his messy lab, filled with Iron Man parts and inventions that Steve couldn't even imagine their purpose. Bucky was even looking around, and Steve almost smiled at his look of wonder. It was still gone too quickly, and was just another ghost of the old Bucky by the time they got to the normal elevator.

The floor was a mess and void of any people when they arrived, and Steve could barely keep himself from running.

"What are you playing at, Fury?" Steve demanded as he barged into the room.

"What are you talking about, Rogers?"

"Don't fuck with me. We know that the shield agents you assigned to the tower were Hydra. Explain."

Fury didn't look shocked, or even worried at being caught. Neither did agent Hill or Romanoff. If they were both involved with this then...

"We didn't know for sure, and we needed to test their loyalty."

"What?" Steve asked slowly, hoping that what he's saying isn't true.

"Are you seriously telling me that you purposely put people you weren't sure were Hydra here?" Stark almost yelled in exasperation.

"We needed to know who we can trust and who we can't."

"And you used Bucky as bait?" Steve did yell.

"We knew they wanted the Winter Soldier, and I had confidence that you would keep them from getting him."

Steve wanted to punch Fury in the face, but Bucky placed his hand on his shoulder and stopped him.

"Steve, you know you can't take all of Hydra with less than ten people."

Steve turned to look at Bucky and asked, "Did you know?"

"I figured it would be an effective way to draw the line between Shield and Hydra."

"But the rest of you were aware?" Steve turned that question to Fury, Agent Hill and Natasha.

"The less people who knew, the better it would work out. Natasha and Clint did reconnaissance on some of the bases which let us know they weren't playing anything with their men stationed nearby. This was going to be their trump card, but we knew more than they thought and it was worthless."

"Worthless? They took down Jarvis and might have killed innocent people before we could evacuate them. If you told me-"

"Then they would have been tipped off. Your purge of SI wasn't as thorough as you thought, Stark."

Steve watched as Stark opened his mouth before closing it again.

"Fine. Since you got everything planned out, do you even need me here?" Stark finally said.

"No. Not unless you want to help with the paperwork."

Stark made a face, and Steve didn't blame him. He remembered the post-mission paperwork back in the war, and he didn't think it got any better.

"Great. I'm going to my lab. Terminator, you can come with if you want a new arm," Stark said before leaving almost too fast for Steve to register what he said.

"Wait, you want Bucky to come with you?"

"I made a few arm designs after we got him back," Stark said like it was no big deal.

Steve looked to Bucky who was giving Stark an inquisitive look, no doubt wondering the same thing that he was. Though if Stark really was putting the past behind them, or at least trying to, then Steve would support it.

"I could come with if you want," Steve offered, though he didn't think Bucky would be at risk being alone with Stark.

"Might be better if you stay here," Bucky said and Steve couldn't help but look back to Fury who appeared to be working on a laptop and not overhearing their conversation. "And I would appreciate that a lot, Stark."

Tony made a weird face.

"Yeah, no. You calling me Stark is too weird. Your brain is already scrambled and I don't want you confusing me with Howard. Tony is fine."

"Alright?" Bucky looked to Steve like he had any insight to give, but Steve just shrugged.

"I'll let you know when we're done," and can meet back up with wherever Clint took Lani, Steve tried adding with just his eyes.

Bucky gave a nod.

The fact that Fury didn't ask where Clint was meant that Natasha already came up with an excuse. Hopefully, it would take too long for Steve to figure out just how corrupt Shield was with Hydra.

"YOU HAVE A DOG!" I yelled when Clint opened the door to a basic brick apartment and a yellow lab came running out.

"That's Lucky."

The dog was missing an eye, but seemed very happy to see Clint.

"Sooo cute!"

Clint walked the rest of the way in, and I let the doggy sniff me before attacking it with pets.

"I have a few sodas in the fridge and some milk... wait, not, that's expired."

I was very content to ignore Clint and keep petting the dog, but Lucky started walking away. Then I made the mistake of looking at Clint pouring the milk down the sink. Or at least trying too.

"That's solid. Your milk is completely solid."

"It's been a while since I've been here," Clint said before giving up and just tossing the whole thing into the trash under his sink.

Now that I wasn't being distracted by a very cute dog, I took a look around the place. It was your normal lived-in apartment. There was a couch with questionable stains, some jackets tossed on the ground, a takeout box sticking out of the trash. It looked very similar to my dorm room during finals week.

"Wait, if you weren't here who was taking care of Lucky?"

"Some of my neighbors," Clint said, still trying to clean out his fridge of soiled food.

I don't remember Clint having a dog or a place in Brooklyn in the movies, but not like I payed a whole lot of attention to Clint. Besides using a bow and having a secret family, I don't remember much about him. Not that it matters much since it might be better to just think of this world as a weird alternate universe to the one I remember in the movies.

"You close with your neighbors?"

"I guess. Technically I'm their landlord, but I don't do much," Clint just casually says.

"You own this building? ...How much does Shield pay you?"

I mean, sure the surrounding buildings are a little sketchy, but for an older building it looked like it's in good shape.

"The place was really rundown when I got it, and the only reason I got it was because I took down the tracksuit mafia."

"...The what?" I asked, thinking maybe I misheard him.

"Tracksuit mafia. Not sure what their real name was, but their uniform was wearing tracksuits so that's what I called them."

I continued staring at Clint, maybe to see if he was lying to me.

"Like a real mafia? Like 'you come into my house on the day my daughter is to be married' mafia?"

"No where that cool. Also, aren't you a little young to have seen the Godfather?"

"I've never actually seen it, only quotes from it," I said since I couldn't tell him I saw it from zootopia.

"Huh, maybe we should watch it tonight. I don't think we were tracked, but who knows."

I figured that was the reason it took us hours to get here, but it was still a little worrying. Is it bad that I just want Hydra to be after Bucky? It was much easier when we were just on the run and didn't want to sit around waiting.

Not like I could really relax considering Clint still had his bow and arrows on him, despite trying to make himself at home.

"So tracksuit mafia? Was the family just really into running when they aren't paying off the police and doing mafia stuff?"

"Maybe. I never really bothered to ask."

I waited a little bit to see if Clint would continue, but he just made himself some coffee.

"You're not really good at storytelling, you know that?"

"When half the stuff is classified, it's hard to tell a story. I could tell you how I saved Lucky from them, or how Lucky saved me from them as Nat likes to put it."

Lucky was by the coffee table chewing on a sock like it was the best toy in the world.

"Okay, you have my attention," I said while taking a seat on the ground next to Lucky.

Clint then told me the story of how the old landlord of the building was not only your usually money sucking landlord, but also part of the tracksuit mafia AND owned Lucky. Clint was tracking a different lead for something Shield related and ended up getting involved. There was even a fight and Lucky ended up losing his eye protecting Clint from getting shot even though Clint just met the dog a moment before.

"You gave Lucky some pizza and he fought against his owner for you?" I asked in amazement.

"Pretty much. That was almost two years ago now."

"Wow."

Lucky barked as well.

"You're so brave! What a good puppy!" I said while giving Lucky some more face scratches.

"Lani, mind waiting with Lucky for a moment? I want to make a quick check to make sure we weren't followed. Shouldn't be more than twenty minutes."

"Uh, okay?" I said since there wasn't much I could say about that.

If Bucky was right about Hydra moving their plans of killing me to capturing me, then we need to make sure we weren't followed.

"Wait, does Shield know that you own this building?"

"No, I bought it under an alias. Nat is the only one with Shield who knows. Fury might, but I never told him."

I gave a nod, which was apparently enough for Clint to climb out of the window onto the fire escape.

"Guess it's just you and me now, Lucky," I said, trying to remain positive.

As long as I don't hit my head, I can always reset. Just need to be aware of my surroundings and not let that happen.

A/N: My birthday is today, so I'm posting another chapter!

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