Chapter 18: Who Do You Serve?

"I just received a call from Nick Fury." Secretary Alexander Pierce leaned against the front of his desk as he studied Brock Rumlow.

Project Insight was less than a year away from completion and nothing could be allowed to jeopardize it.

"What's the situation?" Rumlow asked, face a mask of impassivity, except for the eyes, which were hard, always eager for a fight.

Good, because a fight was coming.

"The Asset is in Stark Tower."

"That's no surprise," Rumlow said. "The Avengers stole him. Where else would they put him?"

"Oh, there were a few options, but I agree. As you know, a frontal assault on Stark Tower would be problematic. Fortunately, we just received an invitation." Pierce crossed his arms. The situation was messy, and he didn't like messy. There were too many inconsistencies. "Rogers was part of that operation, and that's what bothers me. We have no record of him being part of the team." One avoided saying Hydra too loudly. Even secure rooms weren't infallible to tiny ears. "And yet he returned the Scepter, handed it right back over to us so we could get it into the proper hands, and the scientists confirm it's the real deal and no tracker or booby traps were hidden on it. But then he goes and steals the Asset."

"Barnes was his friend," Rumlow said. "Maybe that was enough to make him pissy."

"And yet he allowed the base and the five other assets to be turned over to SHIELD. To us. Full circle. Odd, don't you think?"

"The whole thing is a shit-show," Rumlow agreed. "I don't like it. There's something we don't know. Is it possible Rogers is so…deep…" Rumlow lowered his voice, "that this is above our heads?"

Alexander Pierce's eyebrows shot up. "Not over mine. Few things are over my head in the organization."

The next move was tricky. If Rogers was Hydra, then this was part of an elaborate scheme, and Pierce was left out. He was never left out. The Asset was scheduled to be activated in a few months. Perhaps Rogers got wind of it, decided he wanted his old partner back, side-by-side working for Hydra? Or perhaps the Avengers got wind of Barnes somehow, and Rogers decided to play the part?

Curiouser and curiouser.

They still had to maintain their cover—at least when it came to the other Avengers. Stark and the others thought they were SHIELD, and they were. That was the beauty of it. Corruption from the inside. A takeover so quiet and subtle, that when the switch flipped, there'd be almost no one to stand in their way.

"So, we do what SHIELD does. We secure him. Evaluate him. Provide him with medical and psychiatric care, and figure out where Rogers stands."

"When do we leave?"

Pierce moved away from the desk. "Now."

-0- -0- -0-

"Sir, the guests have arrived," Jarvis announced, just as Tony was about to dive into the contents of the brown accordion folder that looked to be at least 40 years old.

"Direct them to this level."

He was shaking inside. Why the hell was he shaking? This was the right thing to do. The guy was dangerous, and SHIELD could deal with him. Bring in all the experts and keep him somewhere he couldn't hurt anybody. Ever again.

Cap could even visit him, bring him cupcakes or stuff. Whatever. Just so long as the guy who murdered his mom and dad wasn't living under his roof. He slapped on his wristlets, called a glove to his right hand—just in case—and bolted out of the office and headed toward the room.

He didn't want to see the guy. Wasn't sure how he'd react when he did. If Barnes made a move on him, he was prepared.

It was a short trip down the hall. The guests would be arriving within a minute or two. He didn't bother knocking when he entered. It was his building, after all, but he did ease the door open and peek inside first.

Barnes was seated in the armchair doing a great impression of the metal man in Times Square. The others were clustered around a monitor. Banner was waving his hands, talking about implants and surgery.

"Hey." He slid in and closed the door behind him. All eyes turned to him, even Barnes, though Mr. Roboto didn't move a muscle otherwise. "So, fun fact, mom and dad didn't die in an accident. Turns out they were murdered. One guess by who." Best to just cut to the chase.

"What?" The devastated look on Steve's face told Tony the man hadn't known. Of course he hadn't. How could he?

"Yeah, so, uh, hi!" He waved at Barnes. "Tony Stark here. Name ring a bell? Because my dad certainly recognized you before you bashed the front of his skull in."

Barnes' brows twitched, and his gaze shifted to the side, staring into some far off space of nothingness that gave Tony the creeps. Yeah, dude needed a padded, steel-reinforced room.

"Tony." Steve was in his space suddenly, three feet away, face all crumpled with star-spangled anguish. "I'm sorry. He's not responsible. You know that."

"He's dangerous, that's what I know."

"Sir, the guests have arrived at this level," Jarvis announced.

"Stark, what have you done?" Natasha asked, taking a position next to Steve.

What had he done? What the hell had Barnes done? What the hell were any of them doing keeping psycho Pinocchio in a room and—he surveyed the wrappers and left over pita bread—having a party like the guy wasn't the world's most lethal assassin?

"I called SHIELD. The good guys, right? They'll get your buddy all the care he deserves," Tony said, looking at Cap, then not looking at him, because damn, those eyes were all full of betrayal and devastation.

He turned away and opened the door. Might as well get the horrible stuff over with, even if Cap didn't see it that way. Romanoff and Barton sure as hell had to understand. Hell, they'd strapped Barton to a table, and Barnes was about 100 times more deadly and running around in pajama bottoms like this was some kind of teenage sleepover.

Nick Fury was heading down the hallway with Alexander Pierce and Rumlow, two of the least likable assholes he knew, though Pierce had a politician's smile and really knew how to play the game. Rumlow was a typical meathead. Follow orders. Look strong. Crack tough-guy jokes.

Two additional Strike Team members took up the rear, armed to the teeth.

Apparently, the Winter Soldier merited as much high-powered brass as the Scepter. SHIELD's head honcho wouldn't take time out of his schedule for just any old pickup.

They entered the room, Pierce first, with Fury and Rumlow flanking him and the two extra goons covering the door. Odd. Didn't they understand what they were dealing with? Mr. Robo-psycho? Shouldn't Rumlow be acting as a human shield? Be a shame if Mr. Macho got a boo boo.

Pierce's eyes went immediately to Barnes, who studied them with that creepy impassivity that just wasn't right, except that—well, that was interesting—a flicker of something when he met Pierce's gaze.

Seems Hydra's top assassin knew the SHIELD big wigs, which made a certain kinda know-thy-enemy kind of sense. Rumlow better be prepared to become a human shield if Barnes took objection to being turned over to SHIELD.

Please, please take objection. Okay, maybe he was itching to deliver a bit of payback for mom and dad. Especially mom. She had nothing to do with anything. Just an innocent bystander. No threat at all to anyone other than companies that dumped bad stuff into oceans and outsourced to child labor.

"Clear the room, please," Pierce said, then looked to Steve, "except you of course, Captain. I know he's your friend. You're welcome to stay."

"Uh," Tony held up a finger. "My building. I get to be where I want. That's how property rights work, you know, and this" —he swept an arm out— "is my property."

"Given the information you presented," Pierce said, flashing a sickly sympathetic smile, "we think it best if you're not in the same room with Barnes, for his safety and yours, of course."

Fine. It's not like he really wanted to spend anymore time with the dude, and truth be told, he didn't completely trust himself not to send a metal fist into the guy's face if he got the chance. "Someone's paying for that table," he muttered, flinging a hand at the broken bits on the floor, then turned and left.

The others followed, and he didn't want to hear it, but—

"Tony…"

Goddamnit. It had to be Bruce.

"He killed my parents!" Tony spun to the group. He couldn't read any of their expressions—disappointment or pity, he couldn't tell what the hell they were thinking, and usually he was pretty good at that.

"I killed a lot of people under Loki's control," Clint said.

The guy just had to go there. Tony pushed down the swell of guilt. "And you don't expect any of their families to put you up in their spare bedroom, do you?"

"That's a low blow," Natasha interjected.

"I'm sorry about your parents." Bruce interjected, shifting on his feet as he pushed his glasses up. "It wasn't his fault. I got the scan results back. His brain…" he shook his head. "Tony, he's got significant brain damage. Hydra did that to him."

Well, so what? All that proved was Barnes needed special care. "SHIELD can make sure the Manchurian Candidate gets all the help he needs. What's the problem here?" He rolled his eyes. "The Avengers is a SHIELD initiative, right? We're all on the same side. You telling me you don't trust the agency you two work for?" He glanced at Barton and Romanoff. "Okay, sure they tried to nuke New York, but that was the council, not Fury. You trust Fury?"

Natasha nodded. "Of course, but Fury answers to people like the council members."

"And now that they know about Barnes," Clint added, "there's no telling what they'll do with him."

"We could lose Rogers over this, if he butts heads with SHIELD over Barnes." Natasha cocked her head. "You should have told us before you called."

"Too late now." Why did he have such a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach? Oh, yeah, because he couldn't sleep more than an hour without waking up in a cold sweat. "I have work to do."

He turned and marched to his lab, then had Jarvis bring up the feed from the room. He kept the video running as he dumped the contents of the accordion folder onto the table—photos. Lots of old photos.

What the…?

Oh, hell.

FUCK.

-0- -0- -0-

Steve planted himself between the SHIELD team and Bucky, who was on his feet, muscles taught, the plates in his metal arm shifting with a subtle mechanical whir. His breathing picked up speed, chest heaving like ocean tides gaining momentum.

"Nick," Pierce turned to Fury. "Would you go talk to Stark about the items he borrowed from the bunker? Convince him to hand it over to SHIELD nicely?"

"With all due respect," Fury replied, "I think that can wait."

"It can't, actually. There could be valuable information or technologies in those boxes."

Steve had only met Pierce once, briefly, and while he seemed like a typical Suit, all decorum and finesse, there was something in his posture and the way the Strike members were eyeing Bucky that gave him a heavy feeling in his gut.

One of the guys was so nervous, he was sweating. They were taking no chances with Bucky, that much was obvious. They'd brought serious firepower, but they'd have to go through him first.

"Understood." Nick glanced at Steve. "Shouldn't take but a few minutes."

Steve nodded curtly, waited for Fury to leave. "What are your plans with him?" He casually grabbed the shield and held it at his side.

Rumlow tensed.

This wasn't a friendly meeting. He tightened his grip on the shield's leather strap.

"We'll keep him in a secure location, get him all the help he needs, Captain." Pierce stepped forward, eyeing him intently.

What the hell was going on? There was a weird undercurrent in the room, something unspoken that set the hairs on his body at attention. The four men were looking at him intensely, as if they were waiting for something.

"I want to thank you," Pierce said, walking forward casually, edging his way closer to Barnes, "for making sure the Scepter was safe."

Steve adjusted his position, placing himself once again in front of Pierce, blocking his path to Bucky. "That's the job."

"What was the threat you neutralized, Cap?" Rumlow asked.

What threat? Steve had no idea what the man was referring to, which told him Rumlow must be referring to the doppelganger. He knew when to play along.

"Nothing I couldn't handle."

He kept Bucky in the periphery of his vision. If Bucky attacked, everything would go to hell. The Strike guys would open fire. Steve shifted the shield a little higher and held a low, calming hand out toward Bucky.

"Sergeant Barnes is staying here." Steve widened his stance, tracking the subtle movements of the strike team guys – tendons shifting subtly in their arms, the twitch of their fingers near the firearms. "You have no right to take him into custody."

Pierce bit the inside of his cheek, silent for several seconds as he met Steve's eyes. Then he sighed and straightened his shoulders. "Your friend served Hydra for decades. Who do you serve, Captain?"

"I'm Captain America. It says it in the name. Who do you serve, Mr. Pierce?"

Things were about to go wrong, very wrong. Every instinct Steve had told him not to trust these men, and he was going to listen to that instinct. He'd ignored it in 1945 when he spoke to Karpov. The Russians had been acting squirrely when he and the Howlies approached, but he convinced himself it was just the way they were. The Russians were unhappy allies in World War II, with spies all around, united only in their desire to stop Germany's thirst for power.

Steve wouldn't make the same mistake this time. It didn't matter if Pierce was head of SHIELD. No one was taking Bucky. Not again.

"I serve the interests of security, a world free from chaos," Pierce said.

Steve caught the twitch of Rumlow's hand near his baton, his shifting feet, and the bead of sweat on the forehead of the guard behind Rumlow. The other man kept his gaze steadily on Bucky.

"Look, Captain," Pierce raised his hands placatingly, "if you'd rather Barnes remain here, we can discuss that. You're going to need resources, though. Specialists, like Dr. Zhelaniya Rzhavyy."

Bucky stumbled back, his entire body tensing like a cobra preparing to strike.

"...from a tiny town named Semnadtsat," Pierce continued.

Steve understood enough Russian to know those weren't names, they were words, and they had an impact on Bucky. He raised his shield.

The metal plates in Bucky's arms gave a hard shift, and something whizzed past Steve's left ear, embedding itself deeply into the carotid artery on the side of Pierce's neck. Blood sprayed, showering Rumlow, and the two surprised guards fired their weapons.

Steve blocked with his shield and rushed forward. Bucky leapt passed him, metal hand splayed in front as the guard raised his weapon. Bullets bounced off the hand a moment before Bucky came down on the guy, right fist bashing in the front of his skull and driving his body into the floor with a messy crunch and a spray of blood.

Steve rammed the flat surface of his shield into the other guard, like a barricade, hard enough to send the guy into the wall, unconscious. He took out Rumlow just as the man fired his weapon. The bullet embedded in the wall an inch left of Steve's head.

Bucky vanished in a blur through the doorway. Steve hesitated, glancing at Pierce. If he could stop the bleeding…but it was too late. Pierce was gone, face white, chest still, eyes blank. He followed Bucky, catching sight of his friend at the locked stairwell door just as the Avengers careened around the corner. A taser disc sailed through the air just as Bucky, with the black duffel bag over his right shoulder, pulled his metal fist back to bulldoze the door.

"Don't hurt him! It was Pierce!" Steve yelled.

Bucky spun out of the disc's way, looked up at the large window overlooking New York, and bolted.

"Buck, stop!"

Bucky led with his metal arm, hurtling onto the deck outside. Steve followed. There was nowhere to go, but…. Would Bucky be desperate enough to—

Bucky leapt over the edge.

"NO!" Steve was a moment too late, peering over, but the architecture was angled, so he couldn't see anything except the tip of a yellow construction crane.

He heard it, though. The screech of metal. A moment later, Bucky was on the roof of the next building, several stories below the deck.

Construction cranes were all over the place since the Chitauri attack and one had been doing work on Stark's building even before Loki showed up. Steve backed up, burst into a run, and followed, landing and catapulting off the crane onto the roof, sailing thirty feet through the air while falling, until his legs hit the cement top and he rolled.

Glass shattered, people screamed. Steve followed the sounds, gripping the lip of the roof and swinging himself through the broken window below. People were on the floor, frightened, confused murmurs rippling through the office workers who were already traumatized by the alien attack.

"Stay inside!" he reassured them, doing a visual sweep of the floor. Bucky was gone, but he was no doubt heading to the street. Steve stormed into the stairwell and flew down the stairs, leaping over them floor by floor, until he burst into the lobby and then onto the streets of Manhattan.

He spun around, searching, listening, but there was no sign of Bucky and no frightened pedestrians to give him a clue. A car horn blared, somewhere west, and he launched in that direction as fast as his feet could carry him, careening around pedestrians and into the street a few times, then dodging and leaping over cars.

He couldn't lose Bucky, goddamnit!

The roar of thrusters pulled his attention upward. Stark was flying over the city, aiding in the search.

He needed his earpiece. Why the hell didn't he have his earpiece?

His phone rang, and he retrieved it, looking at the Caller ID. Natasha. "I lost him, but we have to get to him before Stark does."

"EMTs are on their way, Bruce and Fury are coordinating. Clint and I are outside," she said. "Give me your location, and we'll split up the search."