Avengers Tower, New York City, November 2014
"Are you back in the city yet?"
The phone line crackled and Steve sighed internally, hating what he just said. He knew he sounded childish and indiscreet but he was a blown fuse. After agreeing to communicate about his missing person's case exclusively in-person or over burner phones, the tinny quality of the calls paired with his fellow Avenger's long, calculated silences were starting to grate on him. Why were phone connections still poor in the 21st century?
He slumped onto the couch in his apartment, where he spent his time mulling over the decades-old information, trying to make the connections that would lead him to Bucky. His vision glazed over the papers and maps strewn across the coffee table out of habit, but his eyes were tired and it was late. He spent all afternoon waiting for Natasha to return from her recon mission with Clint, and when he received notice that the two spies were unharmed, he let his impatience get the better of him and called her.
A part of him felt bad for being so short tempered, after all, without her he and Sam would still be in the dark; she provided them with the dossier and helped translate portions of it, making the process way speedier than two Americans fumbling with a Russian-English dictionary. But he was running out of time–the jet that landed tonight with Natasha on it was the same one that Maria Hill was going to let him take tomorrow morning to chase his next lead.
"It's not really best practice to give the coordinates over a cell phone line," Natasha replied passively.
"We've been chasing dead ends and time is ticking. You're avoiding this conversation, Nat. Look, I know you want to protect your old teammate–"
"Captain Rogers," JARVIS piped up, his cool voice resonating through the room, "Agent Romanoff and Agent Barton have arrived."
Steve jumped up, abruptly ending the call while power walking out his front door, arriving on the common floor just as the quinjet parked on the landing pad. Through the glass sliding doors he could see the folded wings of the aircraft outside, but was more focused on the redhead donned in her usual Black Widow gear coming through the doors with Hawkeye in her stead. His shoulders relaxed a touch, but unknowingly his expression remained stern.
"Woo, someone's in trouble," Clint cackled, peeling off his fingerless gloves and using them to smack Natasha's arm before sauntering to the elevators, "I hope it's not me."
"Clint, I take it the mission went well?"
The archer shrugged, still grinning, "same old shit," he turned his attention towards the elevator as it dinged and its doors opened, "Night, Cap. Night, Nat."
The two remaining Avengers waited until Clint ascended before turning to each other.
"Where's Sam?" Natasha asked casually, as if she wasn't hours late.
"Snoring in my guest room. Said he needed a full 8 hours before piloting the jet," Steve let out a long sigh. Taking a good look at her, he noticed the exhaustion on her face and immediately felt bad.
"Do you want to get something to eat first?" he asked a bit timidly.
"Whatever you got upstairs will be fine. As long as it's not boiled cabbage," her mouth leaned into a smirk.
"I have been living in this century for a few years now, give me some credit."
/
She took all of 10 minutes to get changed out of her gear and meet him at his place. While she sat on his couch swigging a beer, he heated three slices of leftover pizza in a frying pan – a trick Sam showed him from Youtube. Pizza hot, he handed her the large plate and sat down. They made small talk and once she was done, he cut to the chase, sliding a S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel file across the table, edging it towards her before flicking it open to the front page:
NAME: LI, STELLA
STATUS: INACTIVE-RETIRED
RESTRICTED ACCESS: LEVEL 6
The profile was 80% marked either classified or redacted. The pages following consisted of thick deprogramming reports, psychiatric analyses and clearances, specialized gear mockups, and STRIKE Team Delta mission summaries–a stack of white documents officiated with emblems but decorated almost completely with square brackets and black bars.
Giving a background brief before delving into questions was standard protocol, but in this case Steve felt odd presenting information that was brand new for him, to a person who had lived the experiences written on those pages.
"Our next lead is your old STRIKE teammate, former Agent Stella Li. Says here you recruited her to S.H.I.E.L.D. after you two trained in the Red Room," he began.
Natasha leant over, elbows resting on her knees and hands clasped together, eyes staring intently at the document.
"What do you need t'know?" she asked softly, her head nodding towards the pile of papers.
"I just need some basic information about the past that could help inform what I ask her. I need to know," Steve paused briefly before reframing his statement, "it says here that back in Moscow, Agent Li 'previously had connections to [classified], an asset of [classified].' I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume those two blanks mean the Winter Soldier and HYDRA."
"You said you never met him before, that he was a ghost story," his tone was borderline accusing, remembering that day at Walter Reed after Fury's fake death.
"I never said that," her right eyebrow lifted, "I implied it. And he is a ghost–I only interacted with him on a few occasions in very controlled environments. All the other times he tried to kill me. You think Stella knew him well enough to have any idea where he went?"
"Until we pinpoint another lead, she's all we've got right now."
The redhead paused for a minute, a contemplative look washing over her face as she tried to gather pieces of the past.
"After Stella and I turned 18," she began, "we got separated, sent on different missions based on the skillsets we showed exceptional talent in. I went undercover a lot, took on different identities to get what they asked me to–all sorts of intel that would help intercept enemy moves. The Red Room had some kind of deal with HYDRA. They sent Stella on multi-target covert operations with the Winter Soldier. As far as I know, they'd assassinate diplomats, cabinet members, and he would take the mass amounts of information they secured back to his handlers."
"It went on for a few years, us going on missions and reuniting at the Red Room," her hands clutched even tighter, "she'd be gone for days and afterwards it was like a piece of her had been taken away. Our training, the conditions we lived in, removed a lot of who we were already, but she became this...shell of a person. She confided in me less and less, and became so short-tempered. I always blamed him, like he was chipping away bits of her soul and handing them over to HYDRA. I think back and I realize that transforming into all those different characters, and as much as I lied and killed, having to pretend to be human is probably what actually kept me human by the end of it all. It's probably why Clint spared me."
Steve glanced at the thermostat next to the front door; it felt like the temperature had dropped. He was sitting so close to her that he was sure for a split second she had shuddered from the simple act of remembering.
"I know you'd do anything to get your friend back, but at the same time, I'll do anything to keep Stella safe," she continued, "I don't want her to get pulled back into the world we left. The things they made her do, Steve–some of it even I don't know."
"I'm sorry, Nat," Steve said genuinely, his face displaying a flicker of regret, "back in the day, I thought we were so close to destroying HYDRA. But there was so much more we didn't–"
"The Red Room...it would've happened regardless," she sat back against the cushions, "a year after the Battle of New York, Stella told me she wanted to see the world outside of anyone else's command. To experience what normal life was like," she exhaled slowly, a fond look flooding over her face.
"So that's what she's doing now? Travelling?"
She nodded, eyes locking with his, "I can tell you where her base is in Hong Kong, but if she's not there, then I don't know where she is."
"There's an excuse you've never given me before," he said morosely. Feeling his burner phone vibrate in his back pocket, he whipped it out and gave it a glance: it was a text from Sharon Carter.
"I've told you before, Steve. I only act like I know everything."
An Office at The Shard, London, United Kingdom, The Next Day
"I recognize you," the large man's breaths shallowed, his head drooped. Slumped in a chair usually reserved for the guests in his office, he used the last of his strength to communicate with his killer, "we never met, but I heard many stories. The Black Mamba."
"Now you're talking?" Stella grumbled, words drawled, not sparing the sleeper agent a glance as she sat at his desk, decrypting and downloading every last file off his computer onto a flash drive, "how far along are you in this dezinformatsiya campaign? Or are we going to have to figure it out after you die?"
"You can't stop it. The Western world has become complacent...they have forgotten how to train warriors for democracy," he wheezed, "once we're done, your precious America will be gone to hell, a divided nation of cannibals feasting on their own."
He paused as he coughed out blood that dribbled down his chin, "Mamba, don't forget who made you. Who you belong to."
She stilled, eyes staring blankly at the loading bar on the computer screen–if it wasn't only at 75%, she would've taken care of him already. In another era, his rhetoric was woven into the fabric of her being: who she belonged to, who she served in devotion without the expectation of return. His words would've sent her into a guilt trip and made her willing to do anything he asked and believe anything he said.
But she was saved by her sister, and they both took a rough journey in unlearning one ideology and accepting another, one that told them they belonged to no one. Some things never change, but she had, and she was slightly insulted this man thought otherwise.
She let out a low whistle, "guess it'll be after you die, then."
"For it to be you–it is a real honour."
The transfer was 100% complete. With the flash drive safely ejected, Stella's leather gloved fingers flittered over the keyboard, reformatting the machine's harddrive. Standing up, she reached into her blazer breast pocket, sliding out a slim pearl-handled switchblade that she promptly buried into the base of his skull. With the jerk of her hand, she jostled it out, wiping the dark contents on his shirt.
"I'm sure it is," she whispered.
She pulled open the heavy wooden door of the office and entered the bright beige waiting room, where four CIA tactical team members were waiting, guns pointed and steady. Upon her solo exit, they lowered their weapons.
"We were waiting for a backup request, agent," one of them piped up.
"Oh, sorry. No backup needed, but" she pressed her earpiece, opening the communication channel to the rest of the team outside the building, "we need clean up."
The tactical steam shuffled into the elevator, their absence revealing a lone Sharon Carter at the far end of the space, sitting with ease in one of the waiting room chairs.
"I told them you didn't need backup," the blonde said, looking over, a grin playing on her lips.
"But they don't trust me," Stella sighed, flopping into the neighbouring chair and holding out her earpiece and the flash drive, which she exchanged for a large wad of British pound notes. "So how's the new job, really? Are these CIA lackeys treating you okay?"
"As okay as can be under the circumstances," Sharon answered truthfully, "it was challenging at first, seeing the way people looked at me after what happened last year, but things are looking up.
What she chose to omit was that her personal life was also challenging. Being away from Aunt Peggy as her dementia was growing stronger everyday was hard. But in her moments of lucidity, the fierce co-founder of S.H.I.E.L.D. told her niece to take the new job, to continue to protect people by any means.
The clean up crew arrived, and the women took it as their cue to leave, entering the open elevator.
"Not going to lie," Sharon continued, "it's nice having a familiar face around."
"If you need me again, you know how to get in touch."
"You know when people retire, they take up hobbies."
"Maybe I'll start making big 3D puzzles."
The blonde scoffed in good humour, "I'm sorry, I can't imagine those hands assembling a puzzle."
They parted ways in the lobby of the office building, hugging each other tightly before leaving through separate exits. A few paces into the winter sun and an empty St. Thomas Street, Stella sensed the presence of two individuals trailing her from a distance. Feeling her phone buzz, she swiftly removed it from her pocket and looked down to see a text:
Cap alert. I owe you - N
She continued walking with unaffected purpose, feeling two people flanking her as they travelled down the sidewalk.
"What can I do for you, Captain Rogers?" she asked casually, nodding towards her new sidewalk buddies, "and...friend."
Turning to her right, she eyed the blonde super soldier clad in a navy baseball cap, jeans, and a grey knit top, his hands shoved into the pockets of his brown leather jacket. This was her first real life encounter with the man out of time–like the majority of other S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, she was only familiar with him through photographs and memorabilia immaculately displayed in Phil Coulson's office. But unlike the others, she was treated to anecdotes, regaled to her by Natasha when she visited in person. To her left was a man she'd never seen before; he was as tall and nearly as broad as Steve, sported well-groomed facial hair and a buzz cut, and dressed in the same lowkey manner.
"Sam Wilson," the friend answered, leaning his head over to catch her eye when he was met with complete silence, "you know, The Falcon?"
"Never heard of The Falcon."
"You've never–I practically saved all of humanity's a––"
"Agent Li," Steve cut off Sam's antics, "can you tell us anything you know about the current whereabouts of this man?" He flashed his phone at her eye level, revealing a clear surveillance image of the Winter Soldier.
"I'm just as in the dark as you are," she answered, speaking so instantly she just about clipped the end of Steve's question, "perhaps even moreso."
"But you knew him."
She unexpectedly stopped and glimpsed towards the end of the street at the crowded crosswalk.
"It was a long time ago."
"Is there somewhere we can meet you later?" Sam asked tentatively, shooting a glance at his increasingly impatient companion, "Miss, we understand you might not want to rehash old memories, but this is really important."
She paused momentarily before gesturing for them to follow her back up the street. Stopping, she pointed out a narrow doorway of a stone building that was attached to a seemingly bustling posh restaurant.
"You see that doorway on the left? Meet me there tomorrow morning, 08:00. Go up the staircase, someone will let you in. We'll be alone for a few hours."
Old Operating Theatre Museum & Herb Garret, London, United Kingdom, 08:00, The Next Morning
"This is a really weird place," Sam muttered to Steve, eyes focused on the long sign mounted opposite to them in the large concave wood paneled room where they were seated that read Miseratione non mercede. He didn't know what the hell it meant, but it didn't give him sunny vibes. When he and Steve arrived, he wondered if the woman they were about to meet was going to perform a theatrical assassination, or if she just appreciated unconventional historical sites.
"They used to operate on people in here, Steve," he grumbled.
"Just relax."
Stomping echoed through the room as Stella arrived at the top of the stairs behind them, clad in a casual monochromatic ensemble, the silver of her necklace glinting in the museum's artificial light. She descended down the steps and they both stood, Sam welcoming her to sit inside their row next to Steve.
"Thank you for meeting with us, Agent Li." Steve nodded at her, rubbing his palms on his blue jeans in nervous anticipation.
"Please, call me Stella. And I wanted to thank you," she displayed a hint of a smile, "for everything you did for Natasha when S.H.I.E.L.D. fell."
His eyebrows raised, "it was a mutual exchange, if you could call it that. We're friends."
"She trusts you both. That's the only reason I agreed," her gaze flicked between the former soldiers, "although I can't guarantee I'm going to tell you anything you haven't learned already."
Steve unzipped a backpack that was resting next to him on the seat and pulled out a thick folder marked with Russian, tied closed with a red string. When he opened it, Stella's eye twitched at the full size photograph attached to the inside–a blue tinted image of the Winter Soldier, eyes shut, behind the frosty glass of a metal chamber. Clipped to it was a small, worn square sepia-toned photo of a young man, clean shaven, with a defined jaw and a soft, sweet gaze. He was an American soldier, she gathered by his uniform and service cap, stylishly tilted to one side. World War II. It didn't take a forensic genius to realize it was the same person, but how it was the same person, she wasn't able to grasp.
"This man," Steve looked down at the photos, his long eyelashes fluttering, "you know him as the Winter Soldier, but his real name is James Buchanan Barnes. He was–is my best friend, practically my brother. We grew up together in Brooklyn. Bucky had the biggest heart...I think he got that from his folks..."
Sam averted his gaze, the replica operating table across from him suddenly becoming very engaging. No matter how many times he heard Steve's story, the weight of his friend's loss and the guilt surrounding what happened was the same each and every time. Through their conversations over the last 6 months travelling between New York and Europe, he got to know more about Bucky; not the brutal assassin he encountered in D.C. but the young vivacious and supportive best friend with the inimitable swagger, who rescued Steve from alleyway fights and tricked him into double dates at the local dance halls. The burden that Steve carried wasn't so different from the others that frequented the Veteran's Association; he listened to the super soldier repeat again and again how it was his fault that his best friend was fashioned into a killer, that he should've had the sense to search for him rather than make assumptions. Although it fell on deaf ears, Sam continued to dole out the truth: that it wasn't Steve's fault, there was a war going on, they didn't have the resources, there was nothing that could've been done.
It was Sam's job to counsel veterans, those whose environments he had experienced and could envision as soon as he shut his eyes–the unbearable heat, the frizzle of shots fired, the putrid smells, the despair and destruction–it was his duty to listen and provide reassurance that life still had value, that it could continue on. But ever since the emergence of Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff in his life that fated week of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s demise, a new world opened up to him, one of next-level unimaginable heroics and espionage, that while bearing similarities in its intense losses and horrors involved a slew of situations and characters that came straight from the comic books he read as a kid. His world now involved super soldiers from World War II and primo secret agents–like the woman across from him listening to stories of a man she thought she knew, absorbing the gravitas of a complicated history while sitting as still as a statue, not giving anything away.
Stella let Steve finish before tearing her eyes away from the photos. The air, to her, was asphyxiating. A cold buzz was secretly coursing up and down her body, and the contents of her stomach threatened to make an appearance.
"He could be anywhere by now. If any amount of sleeper HYDRA agents still exist in the States, I'm sure they did a data scan of all flights departing North America after his disappearance. If they haven't found him yet, they won't stop looking. He was their greatest asset."
"We're thinking we can connect some dots using behavioural patterns, habits, events from his recent past. You're credited with being his mission partner in some of these reports," the super soldier flipped some of the weathered pages over, "I think your picture was attached to a few of these papers at some point," he pointed at lone staples that were still embedded in the sheets.
"This is the first time I've seen any of these," she reached out and ran her fingers over one of the staples, a torn crumb of glossy paper still clinging to it. Tasha must have removed them, she thought gratefully. "May I?"
He nodded and handed the pile over to her. All the originals were in Russian, accompanied by extraneous sheets with English translations in various handwriting, some of which she recognized as Natasha's. She swiftly flipped through the pile, stopping on a report closer to the top. Her eyes meticulously trailed left and right, absorbing the page's contents as quickly as she could.
Recondition Report, Asset X: March 3, 2006, 21:30
Author: Konstantin Vujić
Approved: Vasily Karpov
...the first failed mission by Asset X and Widow II (Black Mamba)...subject reports infiltration by American intelligence…
...memory reconditioning 75% successful…subject's mind has gained increased autonomy in the last two days...exhibiting intense agitation...
Her focussed expression stilled on the final sentence of the report, underlined three times in red pen:
Continuously calls for a 'star.'
"Дерьмо́," she swore, the Russian automatically tumbling out of her mouth. Shit.
Sam's gaze drifted over to Steve; his eyes were cast down and his hands were balled into tight fists. It must've been the dozenth time his friend had read over these reports, yet they continued to elicit the same reaction. Only knowing these people for a relatively short amount of time–Steve, Natasha, and now Stella–Sam was aware he was only scratching the surface of the turmoil they endured. With their enemies constantly at large and extending decades into the past, he wondered if any of them continued to fight to even seek resolution, if they ever anticipated a life of peace.
"Is it real?" Sam slowly uttered his inquiry, almost afraid the tension in the air would crack like lightning through a cloud, "do you know if this is what they did to him?"
At her confirmation, Steve shot up and paced the row, running his hands through his hair. Several beats passed between them as Stella contemplated how much to tell a man who was already in distress.
"The Winter Soldier and I used to go out on missions, up to three days at a time. I figured early on he wasn't there under his own will, none of us assets were, but I didn't...I–" she rarely stumbled with her words, but her brain felt full to the brim with incomprehensible information.
"I knew he went under a cryo-freeze after each mission. He told me once," she revealed, "I didn't know about the memory wipes," she stopped herself from divulging too much: the opposite was done to me.
She couldn't remember her life before being taken to the Red Room, all she knew was that she was too young to have a choice. It was slowly dawning on her that the Soldier had an entire life before they had been forced together, one that he probably didn't want to leave, and they took it all away from him. She had nothing, but the Red Room planted in her head that she had it all: a family that never existed, special ballet lessons at the Bolshoi, life experiences that simply weren't real. Her brain and her tongue were having a battle; she wanted so badly to ask about what he was like back then, how different he would've been untouched by HYDRA, young and carefree. Instead, she turned her gaze to the floor.
At the visible distress of his companion, Sam decided to take over the conversation, "this word, 'star,' comes up in this report from 2006 and then appears a bunch in subsequent documents up until last May. He would murmur it after waking up from cryo, even after they wiped his mind," he reached over and pointed at the last word of the last line, 'звезда.'
"It's pronounced 'zvezda.'"
"Is it code?"
"No," her voice dropped decibels as her finger traced over the three deep red lines, "it's what he used to call me."
The wood of the bench creaked as Steve returned to his seat.
"He remembers you," his voice was strained, an intense wash of emotions getting the better of him, "he's remembered you for the last 9 years, Stella."
"Nine years is a lot shorter than 70, Steve," Sam immediately reasoned, trying to protect his friend from a sense of false hope.
"I know he remembered me," Steve rebutted, "he saved me from the Potomac. Maybe he doesn't remember everyone," everyone he's met; everyone he's killed, "but maybe this means–" He let out an exasperated puff of air.
He was prevented from going any further by the sharp slap of the dossier closing shut in Stella's lap. Her voice was solemn as she returned the papers to him, "you're wondering if, after all he's been forced to do, whether he still has the capacity to be human?"
She took the briefest moment to analyze Steve's expression–his tense body language extending into his clenched jaw, the determination and hope that resided in his eyes. HYDRA to her was a dark pit, an inescapable prison that chained those they were ardent to keep, like the Soldier, like the failed experiments they kept in the recesses of their facilities, like her. She realized, out of all the people in the world who could be looking for the Soldier, Steve was the only one whose strength and radiance could potentially match the fire that HYDRA would bring in the battle to find their greatest asset.
Steve gulped, "Do you think he does?"
"Yes," she held out her hand when Steve's mouth opened, and continued, "how I know...that's between him and me. But I'll tell you anything else you want to know."