Chapter 9: Winter Soldier Games

Dr. Abodon sat in the small office. Dr. Cho's portable regeneration machine had patched up his ankle, repairing the bone with new, young tissue. He only needed a small brace to help support his cantankerous old muscles and ligaments around the regenerated portion while all of it settled.

Barnes sat in the armchair across from Abodon. The clothes he wore looked comfortable enough—jeans and a blue long-sleeved shirt—but he seemed uneasy. His shoulders were stiff, and his right hand played with the end of his shirt. His metal arm gripped the arm of the chair as though to keep him from toppling out.

"How are you feeling right now?" he asked his patient.

Bucky looked at him. "I'm fine."

Dr. Abodon nodded. "I'm glad to hear that. Are you feeling anxious?"

"No."

"To me, it looks like you might be feeling anxious. Are you in a place right now where you want to talk? It's hard for me to effectively do my job and help you if you're not in a frame of mind to talk. It's okay if you aren't. We can always reschedule."

Bucky took a breath and tilted his head. "Yes. I'm feeling anxious. I just don't understand how talking about my feelings is going to help get the Hydra words out of my head."

Dr Abodon wanted to begin Dialectical Behavior Therapy with Barnes but needed him to be comfortable with the idea of therapy first.

"Well, first things first. You've been through a lot. Part of my job is to help you deal with the trauma you've experienced."

"I don't think any amount of talking is going to make me feel better about the last 71 years, Doc."

"The goal is not to necessarily make you feel better," he told Bucky, "though that would be a nice side effect. The goal is to help you become more aware of the conditioning and triggers in your brain so you can start to navigate around them and, hopefully, overcome them."

"I don't understand. Get the code words out, and I'm good."

Dr. Abodon tilted his head at the man. "Do you really believe that if the programming is eliminated, you'll be right as rain? No lingering issues? No more nightmares? No guilt?"

Bucky's eyes grew hard, but he didn't answer.

"I understand why you're resistant. You don't have much cause to trust doctors," Abodon reassured. "And I know that the recent imposter masquerading as Dr. Cho hasn't helped things, but it's important that you remember there are people you can trust."

"I trust…Steve."

Abodon smiled. "That's a start. You trusted him enough to walk away from Hydra, and to come here. I understand you got your memories back, and that the experience was physically painful. Is that true?"

"Yeah."

"Do you remember when you first met Steve?"

"Yes."

Abodon suppressed a chuckle and made a mental note to stick with open-ended questions. "Tell me about that first meeting."

Bucky's lip twitched upward. "Two kids—Johnny and Vinnie—were wailing on him, stealing his pocket money at school. I ran them off, gave him back his money. The jerks told one of teachers, Mr. Anderson, that I bullied them and punched Steve. Anderson always had it out for me. I never figured out why. All the other teachers liked me. I did well in school," he cocked his head, "except for one math class when there was a dame I fell a bit hard for. Anyway, Mr. Anderson took a ruler to my knuckles. I ran out, Steve followed me, carrying my mitten, put snow on my torn knuckles, and the rest, as they say, is history."

Abodon had been a kid the last time he heard anyone call a woman a dame. He suppressed a smile. "We should probably update your lingo. Dame's not used these days. Other terms that have fallen out of disfavor are doll-face, sweetheart, babe or basically anything other than a woman's name…I'd be especially careful with Ms. Romanoff. I doubt she'd take kindly to that."

Bucky nodded. "Duly noted. Maybe you can get me a list of words I shouldn't say." He bit his lower lip. "While we're on the subject, what's a Boomer?"

Okay, so their session was taking a bit of a diversion. Abodon didn't mind if it helped Barnes feel more comfortable with him and got him talking. "A Boomer is someone born between certain years, I'm not sure exactly of the cut off years, but sometime between the late forties and the early sixties. All the generations have their names. The latest is Gen Z."

Bucky leaned forward, interested. "What is my generation called?"

"You know, I'm not sure." Abodon reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. He googled it, chuckled, then looked up. "Apparently, and I swear I'm not making this up, you are part of the Greatest Generation, folks born between 1901 and 1924."

Bucky smiled and shifted back in his chair. "Well, they got that one right. How about wap? What is that?"

Abodon shook his head. "Don't know. Let me see. Spelled like it sounds, I take it?"

Bucky shrugged. "Don't know."

Abodon typed it in, and a song came up. He clicked on "What does WAP stand for" and then his eyes went wide when he read the explanation.

"Um," he certainly wasn't going to say that, "you should probably just never say that." He wondered where the man had even heard it. "Do you listen to much pop music."

Bucky gave him an incredulous look.

"Okay, so you don't."

"Is it…offensive? Profane?" Bucky asked.

"More like, um…. Sexually graphic."

"Oh." Bucky's cheeks flushed red.

Abodon found that interesting. The man in front of him had experienced more horrors than anyone could imagine, yet something like this embarrassed him. With his memories back, it appeared that the 1940s version of James Barnes was making a comeback.

"Let's talk a bit about the time you spent out of cryo-freeze," Abodon said. He saw the almost panicked expression flicker briefly across Bucky's face and quickly reassured him. "I'm not interested in your missions. I'm interested in your exposure to modern life. You were placed in and out of cryo for the past 70 years. When they revived you, on average, how long did you spend out?"

"Sometimes a few days. Other times up to a few weeks," he said.

"What was the shortest time you spent in the cryo chamber?"

"I'm not sure. In the beginning, the first time they put me in it…" He took a breath. "I…I don't know. They weren't finished brainwashing me. They stuck me in there, I think, just to figure things out. I have no idea what date it was when they pulled me out. It was all in Siberia. No one told me the date. They pulled me out and tossed me in the chair."

Abodon couldn't imagine what that must have been like. He pushed sympathy aside to focus on the man in front of him. He was pleasantly surprised that Barnes shared that piece of information with him, unprompted. Barnes could have simply answered with a succinct, 'I don't know.'

"When you were out of cryo, do you remember what it was like? Seeing new technology? New fashion? Things in the world that you'd never seen before?"

Bucky pursed his lips. "I noticed them, but my memory was so… screwed up. All I needed to really know was how to use weapons and fight. They transported me where I needed to be. There was usually a team around me or at least a handler nearby. When I had to go it alone, they kept tabs on me. They always briefed me on what I needed to know for the mission, and if there was a piece of technology I needed to use, they showed me how."

"So you never really thought much about the changes you were seeing in society and technology?"

Bucky shook his head. "Not really. I do remember seeing a cell phone and staring at it. I had no idea what it was, but there were lots of things I didn't recognize. The faces were usually new. The missions were new. Every time they put me in that chair, they made me a blank slate. I somehow remembered how to fight, use weapons, and language, but… I don't know. The other stuff was…mostly gone."

"Different types of memories are stored and accessed differently. There's episodic memories and semantic or declarative memories, for example." Abodon said. "Even though the current affected your entire brain, they used the implants in your skull to focus the current more intensely on certain areas. Lots of areas of the brain are involved in memory—such as the hippocampus, temporal lobe, cerebellum, basal ganglia, amygdala, and even the motor cortex."

"And you said before that you don't think they caused permanent damage?" There was an undercurrent of fear in the question.

Abodon shook his head, "Not that I can see. There was a little scar tissue on your scan, as you saw, but the implants are so thin—less than a hair's width—that whatever damage they caused going in regenerated thanks to your serum-enhanced physiology."

"And will taking them out cause damage?"

Abodon still wasn't sure about that. "There are no guarantees, but I think with the enhanced imaging we have access to here and the fact that your brain is one of the only ones on the planet whose neurons are protected by the serum and can routinely regenerate to a significant extent, I think the risks are minimal. They'll need to come out if we want to do the enhanced MRI, but we're not sure how the MRI will react with the innards of your mechanical arm. Stark's got a lot of fancy gizmos for imaging and holographic projection, but if we really want to see what's going on in your brain, we may need the enhanced MRI that Stark and Cho have been working on…and for that, we'd want to get those implants out of your head to be sure they don't react."

"What about the other implants in my body?"

"There are a few. One appears to be a small device on your heart, as you saw, but we're not sure what it does. It could be a sensor or it could be something else."

"It's a failsafe."

"What?"

"I remember now. I tried to escape. I made it outside, into the ice. That was the closest I ever got to getting free, but they brought me down. After that, they put me on the table. Implanted something. The next time I tried, I felt a sharp pain in my chest. I woke up on the table again."

"They used it to stop your heart?"

He nodded. "I think so, but obviously they brought me back. I think they can also revive me with it. I remember a session in the chair when it felt like my heart seized up, and then there was a jolt in my chest."

"So maybe it serves a dual purpose? It can stop your heart, restart it, and maybe make sure it doesn't stop when they crank up the current?" Abodon found himself more and more disturbed by the depths of Hydra's depravity, but he tried not to let it show on his face or in his voice. They took human experimentation to a new level, but he could do nothing about men like them. All he could do was try to help the man in front of him. "They never used it on you when you were on the run this last time?"

Bucky shook his head. "After the helicarriers fell and Romanoff dumped all their secrets, people started getting arrested. Whatever they used to control the thing in my chest must have gotten lost or misplaced in their rushed cleanup."

Abodon hoped that was the case. The implant presented a significant threat to Barnes and needed to come out, but removing the device from his heart could prove tricky.

"We'll have to proceed with caution in removing that one. We will need to bring in a cardiac specialist."

"Whatever you gotta do," Bucky said, "I just want all this Hydra crap out of me."

Dr. Abodon decided to broach the topic Dr. Cho had given him a heads-up about. "I understand you've consented to having the arm replaced?"

Bucky nodded.

"How do you feel about the current arm?" Abodon asked his patient.

"It's functional."

"Tell me about the first time you remember having the arm?"

Bucky looked at him flatly. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Okay," Abodon made a mental note to try to revisit the topic in another session, "We won't talk about that right now. Is there anything you would like to talk about?"

There was no hesitation in the answer. "How soon can you get all this Hydra crap out of me?"

Dr. Abodon suppressed a sigh. The conversation was going in a circle. The patient in front of him was traumatized to an unprecedented level, and it would take time and patience to help him find the road to recovery.

"Again, we'll do our best to find solutions as quickly as possible, but also as safely as possible," Dr. Abodon said. "If we aren't careful, we could kill you in the process of removing the implants."

Bucky shrugged a shoulder.

Dr. Abodon made a mental note to document that apparent apathy. "Do you want to die?"

Buck tilted his head. "I'm not suicidal, Doc."

"I don't think you are. Let me ask it a different way. Do you think you deserve to die?"

Bucky seemed to sink lower in the chair without moving.

"Tell me about the time you were first captured by the Nazis in Azzano?" Dr. Abodon asked.

"I don't want to talk about it."

"You were captured, though, right? Did you and your men give up without a fight?"

Bucky's chin shot up. "No. They had this crazy energy tank and disintegrated almost an entire battalion. I woke up in a Nazi-Hydra prison with a bunch of other allied POWs."

"I understand they made the prisoners work?"

Bucky nodded.

"Why would Allied prisoners work for Nazi soldiers?"

"It's not like we had a choice. Anyone who didn't work was beat, and if they still didn't work, they were killed. Or, sometimes, the guards would pick a sick prisoner to kill in front of anyone who resisted. Other times, they carted the sick ones off, and we never saw them again."

Dr. Abodon tried to keep the emotion out of his voice as he continued. "Rogers freed you and the survivors, right?"

"Yeah." Bucky's lips twitched upward. "A one-man army."

"Were any of the men brought up on charges for treason or otherwise helping the Nazis?"

"No, of course not. We were all prisoners of war."

"You didn't have a choice?"

"That's right." Bucky's eyes were hard, suspicious. "We didn't."

"You were victims of the Nazis?"

"Yeah, the Nazi's left a lot of victims."

"Did you surrender to the Russians when they captured you after you fell off the train?"

"Of course not."

"You were injured? Barely alive?" Dr. Abodon asked.

"This line of questioning is pointless."

"Did you consent to the metal arm?"

"I wasn't even conscious when they started the surgery," Bucky answered.

"Did you ever try to resist your captors?"

"Of course."

"What happened when you resisted?"

Bucky tilted his head incredulously. "Torture. Even if I didn't resist. Just all-around torture."

"You didn't have a choice in that, either?"

"Who chooses to be tortured?"

"You were a victim?"

Bucky shifted in his seat and his jaw clenched. He gave a curt nod.

"You're a survivor," Dr. Abodon said gently. "The men captured in Azzano didn't have a choice to work in the base, helping the Nazi Hydra division. You didn't have a choice, either."

"I know that." Bucky's voice was strained.

"But do you believe it? Do you feel guilty for the things Hydra made you do?"

Bucky stared at the far wall for several seconds, then answered, "Every second of every day."

"If it wasn't your fault, and you didn't have a choice, why do you think you feel guilty?"

"Because I did it."

Dr. Abodon leaned forward. "We're going to work on that. I want you to say something out loud."

Bucky's gaze shifted to him.

Dr. Abodon continue. "Say the words, even if you don't believe them. 'I'm not to blame. I had no choice. I'm a survivor.'"

Bucky stared at him for several long moments—long enough that Dr. Abodon found himself mildly uncomfortable under that unrelenting gaze.

"Bucky?"

The patient took a breath. "Am I required to stay here? Or can I go?"

"You're free to leave my office anytime you want."

Bucky nodded, got to his feet, and walked out.

-0- -0- -0-

When Bucky left his session with Dr. Abodon, he found Steve leaning against the wall, arms crossed, looking casual in jeans and T-shirt. The past hour left him feeling shaky and off-kilter, but seeing his friend lightened his step. In a world that was strange and unfamiliar, Steve felt like home.

"Hey," Bucky stopped in front of him, "come to escort me back or just make sure I don't dissolve into a puddle of goo on the floor after my session?"

"You don't need an escort," Steve said, "but I thought it would be good to get outside, show you some of the grounds."

Bucky glanced at the windows. The whole place had large, floor to ceiling windows. It made him feel like a sitting duck. He hoped the glass was, at the very least, bullet resistant.

"I'm not sure that's a good idea." Being out in the open went against every instinct he had. He didn't want to end up in the back of a van again. "You may have taken out a Hydra cell, but they know I'm here, and when you cut off one head…"

"…two more take its place, I know. We've already put enhanced security measures around the perimeter. FRIDAY and Vision are monitoring the property. It's a hundred acres. No one can get close without us knowing. Some fresh air would be nice, don't you think?"

"Okay, buddy," he grinned at Steve, "we can go for a stroll."

Steve reached into his back pocket and pulled out a cell phone. "Here." He held it out to Bucky. "It's loaded with everyone's phone numbers. I even made you a Pandora account and created a 40s station."

"What's Pandora?" Bucky took the phone and eyed it in his palm. It was black and sleek—a thing of beauty. These devices were everywhere. Every person he saw carried one, as if they couldn't live without it.

He didn't even know how to operate it, at least not completely, but having one made him start to feel a little more like the people around him.

"It's an app that plays music," Steve told him.

Bucky looked up at him. "What's an app?"

Steve shook his head. "After we get back, I'll show you how to use it and explain the apps."

Bucky slid the phone into his back pocket and followed Steve outside. It was late in the day and the weather was nice for a stroll—seventy degrees with a few clouds in the sky. The grounds were impeccable—lush and green. It was a far cry from the bunker in Siberia.

His eyes scanned the line of trees and the rooftops of the surrounding structures. He spotted Vision on top of the hangar, his cape flowing gently in the wind. He still couldn't wrap his head around an android that could move through walls.

"Relax, Buck," Steve said from beside him. "You don't have to be on high alert."

Buck glanced over at him. You weren't the one strapped to a table about to have your brain carved into. "I've been on high alert for 70 years. It's a hard habit to break."

Steve sighed. "I know."

They walked in silence for several minutes, then Steve began to point out buildings to him and talk about the complex. They strolled to the edge of the water. It was a beautiful spot. Serene. The gentle breeze and the soft sun felt good against his face.

He didn't think he'd ever get here—just being able to stand in a beautiful place and admire the scenery without having a mission in his head or a target in the distance. Steve said he was free to roam, but Bucky really didn't know what that meant.

He felt his face growing warm, a sting of tears in his eyes. "What's going to happen to me?" His voice was low, his gaze fixed on the glistening water.

Several seconds of silence hung in the air, then Steve finally replied, "I don't know, but first, we have to get that program out of your head."

"The government isn't just going to let me roam free. I've killed too many people, done too many terrible things."

He'd had already spent 70 years a prisoner. He wasn't even sure it was worth trying to fix him if he was destined to just end up in a cage.

"Stark has one hell of a legal team," Steve said. "None of what you did was your fault. You were a prisoner of war, a victim."

"Yeah, but I did it. The families of the people I killed—those that are still around—will want justice."

"We took down Hydra, saved a lot of lives. The people who ordered you to do those things are either in jail already or on the run."

Bucky didn't think it would be that easy. "Hydra knows I'm here, so the government probably knows."

"If we have to, we'll fight. They'll have to go through me and the Avengers to get to you." Steve's voice was firm.

Everything always ended in a fight. "I'm tired of fighting. You'll turn yourself and the others into criminals. I'm not worth all that, Steve."

Steve turned to him. "An A.I. Tony created just destroyed a country. No one's arrested him. Romanoff has a history, as well. She killed a lot of people before she joined SHIELD. They didn't arrest her."

"SHIELD'S no longer calling the shots," Bucky reminded him. "Maybe it's best if, after you get this crap out of my head, I just disappear. I'm not worth what it'll cost you to offer me sanctuary."

"Is that what you want? A life on the run?" Steve asked him.

"No." He'd already gotten a taste of that life, but he didn't want Steve and the others to risk their lives or their freedom trying to defend him. "I don't want you to end up dead or in a prison cell, either."

Steve's put a firm hand on Bucky's shoulder. "I've faced a few governments in my time, Buck. Natasha once told a room of lawmakers to arrest her if they wanted, but she knew they wouldn't because they need us to defend this world. She was right. We saved the planet from an alien invasion, and those aliens are coming back. Tony's right about that. He went about things the wrong way, but he's right that they're a threat. The world needs the Avengers, and the government knows that…Besides, right now, there are very few people who know that you're the Winter Soldier, outside of what's left of and Hydra, of course."

Bucky sighed. He wasn't an Avenger. He wasn't Captain America or a millionaire genius. He hoped Steve was right, but he knew there wasn't anything he could do about it at the moment. He had to get the crap Hydra put in his head out or he'd never be able to have any kind of a life. If it looked like the government was going to lock him up, he'd have to deal with that when it happened.

He escaped Hydra. He thought he had a greater than fifty-fifty chance of escaping the government, too, if it came down to that. In the meantime, maybe he could do something to help earn his room and board.

"So," he looked over at Steve, "with the security measures, no one can get close without being detected?"

Steve nodded. "Stark's pretty confident about that."

"How about we test it? Hydra trained me to take out the best. If I can't get through undetected, then maybe it's safe."

Steve tilted his head, then gave a grin. "Don't tell him I said this, but if you can make it through Stark's security, you'll bring him down a peg—and that, I'd love to see. The man needs a dose of humility."

"I'll just need some equipment. The type of things I used as the Winter Soldier."

"Make a list. Give it to Natasha. Don't tell the rest of us. If we're going to do this test, let's do it right."

-0- -0- -0-

Bucky started from the edge of the perimeter. The complex was 100 acres, surrounded by trees and bordered by a waterway that was not part of the property. That left him many options for cover and approach.

He carried an unloaded laser-guided sniper rifle, several energy grenades that had been modified for reduced impact, night vision goggles, and a variety of other tools that would normally come in handy on such a mission.

He knew Vision frequently scanned the perimeter and Tony had placed several hidden sensors along the property. Fortunately for Bucky's mission, the main Avenger's complex was close to a public waterway. That was a security gap, and not even Vision could be everywhere at once.

It was dusk. He swam beneath the surface of the water, approaching the bank on the opposite side of the river, away from the complex. He eased the top of his head out of the water until his nose was clear and he could breathe. He carried his sniper rifle across his shoulder. It was sealed, waterproof, as was everything else on him, including the grenades and EM-infrared scope.

He grabbed the sensor first, holding it up to his right eye and scanning the environment. He spotted five sensors on the opposite side of the river bank. They were coming online by the tell-tale EM radiation visible through the scope. Since any Hydra operatives would be approaching from outside the complex, FRIDAY had momentarily turned the three sensor arrays off to give him cover to get outside the perimeter without the sensors alerting the others to his position. There was too much wildlife in the heavily wooded area on the opposite side of the bank. If they were overly sensitive, they'd send too many alerts to be useful. Bucky figured the opposite side of the river was safe enough for an undetected assault.

He pulled himself out of the river and scrambled up the bank. He found a large tree, climbed it, and positioned himself on a sturdy branch. Then, he waited.

An hour and a half later, he saw movement. He grabbed his rifle and looked through the scope, identifying Sam and Steve. They were walking from the main complex to the equipment building. They moved behind a cluster of trees. He put his hand on the trigger, waiting, searching, until they walked into sight. He pressed the small node at the side of the rifle to activate the laser.

"You're dead, Rogers."

Through the scope, Bucky saw Steve look down at the small green dot over his heart. From the piece in his right ear, Bucky heard Sam give a muttered, "Well, shit, and on the first try, too."

Steve scanned the trees and the river, searching, but then just shook his head and grinned.

"You want to be the one to tell Tony, don't you?" Bucky heard Sam ask Steve.

"I'll let him down gently," Steve's voice replied.

Bucky grinned, but it faded quickly. His assassination attempt had been far too easy.

-0- -0- -0-

Attempt number two was the next day, after Tony had placed smart cameras and sensors along the Avenger side of the riverbank. According to Stark, they'd detect laser scopes, EM radiation, and had infrared capabilities to differentiate humans from animals.

There were also upgraded, wind-stable drones surveying the complex and the river from the air, small enough and flying low enough not to run afoul of the FAA.

This time, Bucky timed his assault with a supply delivery he knew was coming. He waited outside the perimeter of the facility, hid in the brush along the side of the road for an hour until he heard the tell-tale sound of a large vehicle in the distance. He removed his small scope, scooched along the ground, staying low in the brush, and identified the supply truck.

As it approached a curve, it slowed. Bucky ran low to the ground, keeping hidden by the vegetation, then waited until the last minute and lunge-rolled beneath the truck. Dernier had perfected the maneuver when they were fighting Hydra and Nazi's back in World War 2. Only, instead of blowing up the truck, Bucky grabbed the underside with his metal arm, pulled himself up with the one arm until he was almost flush with the vehicle and gritting his teeth against the heat of the undercarriage.

When Sam came out to meet the truck, Bucky withdrew an energy grenade then waited until Sam was distracted with signing for the delivery. He activated the grenade, waited two seconds, then rolled it gently on the ground toward Sam.

The grenade went off the moment Sam spotted it. The Falcon flinched from the small blast of electromagnet radiation. The mini explosion startled the hell out of the driver.

"Shit." Sam handed the clipboard back to the stunned driver. "Training exercise. I'm dead."

-0- -0- -0-

Steve had to admit that he was enjoying the cat-and-mouse game with Bucky, and so far, Bucky was finding all the gaps in Stark's security measures.

As Steve cautiously exited the Avenger's complex on his way to the hangar, he was on guard as usual. He scanned the trees and vegetation along the perimeter of the property. He kept his ears tuned for any unusual sounds.

He was halfway there when he heard four small explosions, then FRIDAY in his ear. "Two Sensors on the west and two on the north side of the property have been disabled."

How the hell could Bucky have disabled four sensors at once without one of them detecting him first?

"Vision, get me a location!"

"En route, Captain," Vision replied.

"You're dead, Rogers," Bucky's voice announced in Steve's ear.

Steve looked down at his chest but saw nothing.

"Head shot," Bucky told him. "Boom."

Steve shook his head and sighed. "Do you have to kill me all the time, Buck? Can't you just wound me once in a while?"

-0- -0- -0-

The next time, Steve decided to just make a run for it. He was never sure when or if Bucky would strike. Bucky was taking his security mission seriously, the only concession being that he slept inside the perimeter of the sensors or—if he was taking a couple days off while Stark made upgrades—in his room. Bucky would tell FRIDAY when he was "off duty" so that he could return for sleep. But sometimes 24 hours went by without Steve knowing where Bucky was or what he was planning. Part of that made Steve uncomfortable, but he trusted Bucky to stay safe, and, of course, Bucky always had a line to them should he need them.

Steve ran to the equipment building, retrieved the box for Stark, and ran back without being killed. He called that a success.

Six hours later, he and Natasha exited, heading again to the hangar to check out the modifications to the Quinjet. Steve sighed as he stepped out of the Avenger's complex. Natasha wasn't as fast as him, so they'd have to walk it. He kept on the alert. So did she.

They made it to the hanger successfully. One Quinjet was on the tarmac. Another was just inside. They approached the one inside.

"Rogers, look down," Bucky's voice sounded again.

"Come on, man." Steve looked at his chest. There was nothing.

"Lower," Natasha grinned.

Steve saw the green dot on his groin. He couldn't help but shift away.

"It's not a lethal shot this time, Steve," Bucky chuckled in his ear.

Steve smiled at the playfulness in Bucky's tone. "You're a jerk."

"You're a eunuch," Bucky retorted.

Steve finally realized where the shot had come from when he saw his friend drop from beneath the Quinjet and get to his feet. Bucky sauntered toward them, the rifle in his right hand.

Natasha clapped slowly. "You're good, Barnes. It's nice to have you on the team."

Steve shook his head and sighed. "How the hell did you get into the hangar without being detected?"

Bucky grinned at him. "This time, I want to be the one to tell Stark."

-0- -0- -0-

"Five second reset delay? Shit!" Tony muttered into the air. "Well, at least we're working out the kinks."

Barnes had figured out that once a sensor was triggered by wildlife, it had a five second delay to avoid multiple false alerts and give the wildlife time to pass. Bucky had managed to flush wildlife to designated sensors and take advantage of that delay to enter the grounds without being detected.

"The upgrades should solve that security gap, sir," FRIDAY announced. "They'll be ready in 24 hours."

"Good." Tony dropped to the stool. "I'm looking forward to having Barnes lose for a change."

-0- -0- -0-

Bucky's mission was getting more difficult, which he took as a success. Tony's security measures were almost impenetrable. He'd have to consider his next move carefully, get even more creative. Do something completely unexpected.

The most vulnerable part of any security system was always the human element. Unfortunately, Stark's security system had very little human element to it.

This time, Bucky decided on a direct, multi-pronged approach. He gently herded a white-tailed deer to one bank of sensors, setting a grenade near that same bank and another one on the opposite bank. Both would go off when detonated by one remote switch.

Once the deer triggered the west bank sensors and got clear of the small blast radius, Bucky set the grenades off. They'd think he was trying to use the deer as cover and probably focus on that bank of sensors. He launched himself full speed on the adjacent bank, giving the Avengers three-sides to cover at once.

He saw Vision take off from the hangar roof and Sam appeared in the sky from the east. Steve ran out of the complex, shield at ready. Bucky ducked into the vegetation, setting off another sensor. He launched himself again to his feet, bringing up his rifle, focusing on Steve as Vision closed in overhead.

"Boom, Barnes, you're dead," he heard Natasha's voice in his ear.

Bucky looked down. There was one large bright red laser mark on his chest—the color indicated that Vision had tagged him—and one green mark on his groin. Natasha, he presumed.

Bucky lowered the rifle. "It's about time."

-0- -0- -0-

Back in the room, Bucky had showered and cleaned up after being killed. He sat next to Steve on the couch and went over the new device Steve had given him earlier—the smart phone. The tutorial had been delayed as a result of the security testing.

Steve showed him how to turn the phone off and on, how to connect to the wi-fi network, and what wi-fi actually was. The wi-fi part ended up needing FRIDAY to explain, and even then, all he came away with was that it was a radio signal that let him access the Internet.

He knew the basics of the Internet. He'd spent time in libraries when he was on the run. The librarians walked him through the basics, and he'd used it to research and make travel plans. All the train schedules were online these days.

Then they got to the camera—video and photos, all at the touch of a button. He'd known that, of course, but he'd never actually used one. He played around, taking photos of Steve, the armchair, the record player against the wall.

Then he tried the video camera, panning across the room. He spoke into the phone, recited the ABC's, then played it back to test the sound quality.

It was good. If he needed to use the phone to record a conversation, it would more than suffice.

"So, let me show you Pandora," Steve said, then swiped on the phone screen, tapping on a little cartoon 'P' with the word Pandora under it.

The screen shifted to blue, and after a brief advertisement, a 30s blues song started playing.

"This is nice," he looked up with a grateful smile. "Hard to believe they fit so much in this little thing."

"Wait 'til you see the games you can play," Steve said.

Bucky curled his legs onto the couch and started playing around. He tried the calculator, Google, Gmail…and was surprised to see he had an account. There was a message from Steve. It said, simply, "Welcome to the 21st century."

He smiled and looked up at his friend. "Cute."

Steve grinned and shrugged.

"I'm going to call you, just to make sure I know how this thing works." He pressed the phone icon and then tapped on Steve's name, delighted when he heard his friend's phone start ringing from his back pocket. He hung up. He could figure out the rest.

"It's amazing to me that you are so familiar with weapons-related tech but not something like this," Steve pointed to the phone in Bucky's hand.

"I never used one as the Winter Soldier." Bucky shrugged. "I had a burner phone for a little while after I escaped, but it was a flip phone with buttons. Besides, cell phones are too easy to track."

"Well, this one's encrypted. With this, we can video chat, too" Steve reached over and pressed another icon. Steve's phone rang again, and he answered it. The screens on both phones flared to life. Bucky's was pointing at the ceiling, but Steve held his up to his face.

"Wow. Now I understand why everyone is attached to these all the time." He ended the video call and tapped the CNN icon. All the news he wanted was at the tip of his fingers.

Useful. He could play with the thing all night.

Steve apparently, had other plans because he said, "You up for dinner with the team? Tony's ordering a bunch of stuff from a local Mediterranean place."

Bucky's stomach dropped. He wasn't exactly up on dining etiquette, and he hadn't sat around a dinner table to eat since 1943. He wasn't much for small talk these days. He didn't even know how to converse with people about normal things, anymore.

"Sure," he said. "Sounds fun."

It really didn't.