Sam
So, it seems life has taken a turn for the interesting. A little too interesting if Sam's being blunt. Steve is hovering somewhere on the emotional wreck scale between piss-poor decisionmaking and having a full breakdown; his formerly dead, horribly traumatised, maybe psychotic 96-year-old best friend Bucky Barnes has gone from attempted murder to catatonic stupor in just a few hours; and Sam is stuck out here in the hills with the pair of them, miles from civilisation, and so far out of his depth that he isn't even sure when he last had a firm foothold. But he'll keep treading water as long as he can, and they're all keeping their heads up. For now, anyway.
After the bath, Barnes stays in his catatonic state for nearly five hours before he suddenly relaxes, closes his eyes and seems to fall asleep. Once Steve returns from his lengthy phone call, he hangs around uselessly for another hour before Sam eventually persuades him to go to bed, too. Steve needs sleep too for all that he's apparently just managed the near miraculous, having wrangled a promise of assistance without interference out of Tony Stark. Sam gathers from the way Steve recounts it that this was a fairly unexpected outcome, and honestly if Sam was in Stark's shoes he can't imagine he'd have been happy to hear Steve had holed himself up with the Hydra agent that had come damn near to putting him in the ground just nine days ago either. But there's probably not a single person in the world that could compete with Steve Rogers when it came to sheer, bloody-minded stubbornness, and so he got what he wanted; a Stark Industries courier drone will be arriving in less than 12 hours with a package of famine formula but Iron Man and presumably the other Avengers will keep their distance.
So Steve finally disappears to the bedroom to at least make a pretence at resting while Sam sits in the worn armchair beside the old couch and watches Barnes silently sleep. Barnes' condition is both better and worse than he had suspected when they started off down this road. Better in that the assassin seems to have broken out of his brainwashing astonishingly fast, if Steve is right about what his new compliance and lack of violence means; worse, because shaking off the former mind control has left him essentially unable to function. It seems like Barnes can't talk, eat or even sleep without orders. He's a shell, and he needs to be in a secure psychiatric ward with professional help. Not in a cabin in the woods with a couple of well-meaning but essentially clueless fellow vets. What the hell are they doing? They'd ended up here because Sam had followed Steve's lead again because it just feels natural, but sooner or later that always seems to end up with Sam getting shot at.
Barnes wakes up again at about 0430 hours and Sam kind of nervously guides him into the bathroom. Steve does seem to have been right about the cuffs though – Barnes is almost less of the threat without them. It is as if, without their constant reminder, he has forgotten that he is their captive. As if, without that defined role, he has no purpose anymore. The death glares that the Winter Soldier subjected Sam to before have become unfocussed staring, and the only automatic movement he makes is flinching every time Sam steps closer than five feet. But so long as Sam keeps a reasonable distance away, Barnes seems content to listlessly follow Sam's instructions in the bathroom and then trail after him back to the lounge, where he walks a quick perimeter of the room, examining doors and windows. When Sam tells him to sit, he bypasses both the couch and the chair and drops to the floor, pressed right up against the wall in the corner. Sam doesn't argue. So long as he's not attacking anyone he can sit wherever he damn well chooses, as far as Sam's concerned.
Right. Step Two - medical treatment. With much flinching and shaking from Barnes, Sam manages to inch close enough into the guy's apparently massive bubble of personal space to peel off the old single-use adhesive ice packs they had stuck onto Barnes's ribs the previous evening. They have become warm and liquid overnight, only good for the trash. Sam fishes the last unused one out of the first aid kit and cracks the pod inside, feeling the ice start to freeze. Barnes is curled up on the floor in his corner, arms and knees folded in tight and head down, body language that radiates don't fucking touch me as loud as if he was yelling it. Sam doesn't want to ignore any type of communication, no matter how small, so he keeps his distance as he slides the ice pack across the floor towards the guy.
"Here. Do you want to put this on your side, where it's hurting?"
No response.
"Come on, Winter, it's not gonna bite you. Just take it."
Reluctantly, Barnes unfolds and picks up the ice pack and then suddenly he goes still. He's staring at the frozen packet like he's just been handed a severed limb. Sam tries to stay calm, wondering what has happened in Barnes' head. Should Sam stay completely still? Or get the fuck out of the way?
"Hey, man, what's going on?" he says, quietly. "It's just an ice pack, okay? It'll help your side hea-..."
An ice pack. He's just given the Winter Soldier, subjected to decades of torturous cryogenic freezing, a goddamn ice pack. Shit. Shit. If he has just triggered some kind of epic flashback then they are gonna need Steve in here pretty damn quick-
Before Sam can open his mouth to yell for help, Barnes moves, but it is only to pull up the hem of his t-shirt and then press the ice pack hard against his bruised side. He lets out a breathy little shiver, and then drops the shirt again. Then he brings his knees up, rests his prosthetic arm on top and hides his face.
Sam breathes out in relief and as he starts to move away, he hears Barnes say "Cпасибо."
Thank you , reads the voice translation app on his phone. Meltdown averted. Alertness, vocalisation, physical contact, and now interpersonal communication. It's a good morning, up until Sam hands Barnes a bowl of soup.
It's chicken noodle, or it was until Sam had painstakingly strained all the bits out, and now it's barely more than a thin, hot broth. But it's got a rich, comfortingly meaty smell, and Sam hopes that, like the condensed milk, maybe it'll be familiar and simple enough that Barnes will drink it and keep it down.
No such luck. Sam has to order him to eat again and Barnes barely manages two spoonfuls before bloated tears are welling out of his eyes, and his breathing goes uneven, almost hyperventilating. Sam feels like the worst kind of asshole every time they have to order the guy to eat. It couldn't be more obvious that it is traumatic for Barnes. It's a weird and unsettling sight – even without the anti-glare eye paint, body armour or array of weaponry, he still looks every inch the Winter Soldier. It's the unnatural stillness of his body, the robotic silence, the way any expressions are hidden behind that mask of black hair. And yet here is the world's deadliest assassin, trembling every time he has to lift a spoon to his mouth and crying like his heart is breaking. It's fucked up, what's been done to him, what Sam and Steve are still doing to him. But right now, they don't have a choice.
So far, Barnes has drunk all the water and juice they have put in front of him, so his hydration has to be improving despite all the vomiting. But Sam knows they have to get some proper calories into him soon, or this shit is gonna get really serious. He has his theories about the constant vomiting, of course. Top of the list is sudden withdrawal from the cocktail of drugs HYDRA was using to keep Barnes compliant. Withdrawal from some substances can be brutal, even deadly. Or it could be that Barnes's digestive system can't actually process real food anymore, thanks to the tube feeding the Kiev file described. Or there's option three: this is a psychological reaction to trauma and stress. Any one of those they can probably handle, with time. But if it's all three? That's a different level of crap.
It'll be a few hours before the famine formula arrives, but if Barnes can keep that down it might help prevent him dropping dead in front of their eyes. But only if he can drink it on his own - more force-feeding isn't going to do jack for his psychological welfare. And if Barnes doesn't stop vomiting soon, he's going to start tearing holes in his stomach and throat, particularly if he's not healing properly. It isn't the first time Sam has wondered if the two aren't related, in the big tangled mess that is Bucky Barnes. Perhaps if they can get Barnes' caloric intake back up to something reasonable, it'll kickstart the serum enough that his body will begin to heal itself again. They just have to get past this pretty major crisis point first.
Barnes is still crying silently as he eats the soup, and he only gets through about six or seven spoonfuls before the spoon falls from his hand, and he's twisting sideways and puking into the trash can Sam has placed nearby. Sam curses silently, and waits well out of reach until Barnes has finished heaving; they know better by now than to try and touch him when he's upchucking. Sam waits until it seems like Barnes is done, but even that apparently isn't long enough. The moment he steps closer, Barnes goes all stiff and then hurls the soup bowl so fast and so precisely at him that Sam only just manages to duck out of the way. By the time he turns back, Barnes is wedged in the corner, eyes wild and glassy. He's got the spoon held up defensively across his chest like a blade and he's cursing up a storm in Russian, and there's nothing Sam can do.
Sam can't get anywhere near him for hours, and by the time Steve wakes up about 7 am, Sam has to admit that even he is starting to reach the end of his pretty long tether. He needs a break.
So when Barnes has finally calmed down, and Sam and Steve have been able to eat something and finally get a cup of desperately needed coffee, Sam is the one who heads out towards the town to bring in their new supplies. He doesn't feel guilty about leaving Steve alone with Barnes. Sam has been a counsellor for long enough to know how vital it is for caregivers to take some time apart as well before they get totally burned out. It's been, what, only four days since Barnes attacked them in the motel, but it feels like a lifetime already. Barnes is going to be a pretty massive commitment, he can see that right now.
So no, he doesn't feel guilty as he guides Tessa's car round the rutted track that leads down to the main road. Which is not to say he doesn't feel concerned. Steve is pretty much fully fit again, while Barnes is currently a shitshow. If the Winter Soldier does resurface, Sam would hope that Steve would be able to handle him alone. He has the cuffs and tranq gun too; it's just a question of whether he'd pull the trigger if the time came. Sam doesn't know, and he's certain that Steve doesn't. His head ain't in a good place, and now there's Barnes to factor in too, and Sam is kind of concerned. He's usually a pretty chill guy, but ever since meeting Steve Rogers, 'concerned' had basically become his default state. Barnes should be in a secure hospital; he's sick, really sick. Sam wonders why he is continuing to let Steve keep up this pretence that Bucky is improving, and how long before he puts his foot down and forces Steve to get Barnes to the help he needs.
Apparently a little while longer yet. He's just too goddamn tired to go up against Steve Rogers right now.
While the other two were sleeping, Sam had written up a shopping list of what stuff they are going to need now they are in this for the long haul and he thinks it through as he drives. It takes about fifty minutes to drive to the nearest town. It's ironically called Salvation, and has a population so small it has probably barely doubled in the past hundred years. Too small for the kind of giant Wal-Mart or Target that would sell everything they need in one place, but there's a few different stores scattered along the main street, and so he parks up.
Clothing first – Barnes needs some easy comfortable clothes to wear that don't scream either 'deadly assassin' or 'escaped psych-ward lunatic'. There's a discount store at the end of the row, so Sam picks out a few pairs of sweatpants, a pack of plain t-shirts, underwear and socks, two pairs of gloves and two hoodies, all in a neutral grey or dark blue. Nothing in STRIKE team black , but nothing too boldly coloured either until Barnes is capable of giving his own preferences. From a more touristy store he gets a pair of cheap running shoes so Barnes can ditch the reeking tatty combat boots, and also extra blankets so they can make up the couch in the front room as a third bed; at some point they might all be able to sleep at the same time. A pharmacy provides first aid supplies, a toothbrush and a load of reusable ice packs as Barnes seemed okay with them.
Then Sam hits up the small food mart. They've used up a load of Mitch's food over the last few days and they need to stock up the cabin's kitchen and pantry. He grabs a load of canned goods, some fresh veggies, and then a bottle of pancake batter, the least crappy-looking bacon he can find and about three dozen eggs. If he has to eat one more of Steve's bizarre breakfast creations, he is not going to be responsible for the consequences.
Now to find something that Barnes will eat. Sam wants to get something as a back-up in case Tony Stark's courier doesn't show, or in case Barnes finds the magic formula unpalatable. Sam's already intending to try Barnes on mashed potatoes – he read somewhere that butter and potatoes provide most of the nutrition a body needs. He wanders up and down the aisle for a while, wondering what else might work, when he spots the baby food. It's nutritious, easy to swallow and easy to digest. Sure, a supersoldier ought to be eating about 40 of the little jars just to stay mobile, but even just one would be an improvement for Barnes right now. Sam tosses in a dozen different flavours into the cart. Just to be on the safe side, he also throws in a large jar of vitamin supplement pills.
About 1300 Sam calls Steve to check how things are going, and it's good news. For one thing, Steve confirms Barnes still hasn't shown any inclination to start up stabbing people again - there was apparently a minor incident earlier when Steve accidentally startled him, but the guy calmed down without attacking. Barnes has also been more alert than yesterday, and Steve reports he's been following from room to room and starting to show some interest in his surroundings. Lunch consisted of half a jar of applesauce that has, as yet, stayed down.
Sam doubles back to the store and buys three more jars of applesauce.
He doesn't hurry back to the cabin after he's done. Sounds like Steve doesn't need him right now, and one part of the reason for going out was to get a decent break from the drama. Sam flirts with the hot redhead cashier in the grocery store who tells him of a place that does a great sourdough sub two blocks over. He buys a sub and coffee to go, and heads out across the street into a patch of scrubby grass claiming to be the city park. The sun is still bright but it isn't as warm as it has been so far this fall. Up here near the state forest and the border there is a clear bite of winter to the air, even this early in November, and he's glad of his jacket. Sam eats, enjoying some peace and watching the birds weave and dive overhead. He misses his wings. He misses Riley. He even misses DC, for fuck's sake. Salvation seems nice enough, but God, he couldn't live here. It's as quiet as death.
It's about 1600 and he's about ready to head back when his phone buzzes. Sam digs his phone out of a pocket and sees it's Steve.
"Hey man, what's up? If you just remembered something else you want, you're out of luck; I think the store closed already."
There is only silence from the other end of the line.
"Steve?"
Sam stares at the phone for a second, wondering if it's a pocket dial. Then he realises he can hear breathing, and it's familiar.
"Barn- I mean, Winter?"
There is a very faint sound from the other end of the line, like a hum. Sam's stomach turns.
"Winter, is that you?" He keeps his voice as steady as he can. "It's Sam. Can I talk to Steve, please?"
Nothing. Alarm bells start ringing in Sam's mind and he starts to run. He reaches the car, pulls open the driver's door and dives into the front seat.
"Come on, man. Talk to me; what's going on?"
There is another faint hum, and then Barnes speaks.
"Mission assistance. Med tech required."
"Med tech- Is Steve hurt?" Sam's stomach is doing backflips. He throws the car into reverse and pulls out into the street. "It's okay; just tell me what happened."
"Med tech required." Barnes says again, and now Sam can hear the tension in his voice. Barnes is afraid.
"I'm on my way," Sam says, already speeding through the town towards the distant hills. "I'll be there in forty minutes, okay? I want you to stay on the line, Winter. Don't hang u-"
A click. Barnes is gone.
Sam drives nearly twice the speed limit and tries to call Steve's phone back eight times. It goes to voicemail every time. He spends the 32 minutes it takes him to get back to the cabin in horrible speculation, palms sweating against the steering wheel, seeing every possible scenario from the most likely (the Winter Soldier's brainwashing took over again and he stabbed Steve to death with a steak knife) to the bizarre (Steve tripped over a loose brick in the yard and fell down an abandoned mine shaft). He shouldn't have left them alone. The guessing is pointless, and the self-recriminations even more so, but Sam can't help it. He needs to be prepared for whatever he is about to find.
It's getting gloomy as he reaches the side turn for the mile-long gravel track up to the cabin. Sam slams on the brakes as the car's headlights illuminate something in the gravel - the clear tracks of another vehicle turning up the track. Too wide to be a car, it's a van or an SUV maybe. What Sam can't tell is if the vehicle also came back down. Either way, Steve has had unexpected visitors.
He sets off slowly up the track, killing his headlights in the hope he'll see another car before it sees him. The driveway makes a sharp bend around a rocky outcrop about one quarter mile from the house, and Sam can see from the tracks where the larger vehicle stopped, and several boot tracks disappeared into the forest towards the house. Bringing an unknown vehicle up the drive would obviously alert the occupants; best cut the engine out of earshot and head up to the target on foot. Problem is, this group, whoever they are, have let laziness be their downfall. Sam knows for a fact that Steve's hearing is at least twice as good as the average person. If these thugs really wanted to surprise the two supersoldiers in that cabin then they probably should have walked the entire way from the town. Sam just hopes Steve had time to put the forewarning to use, and didn't just assume the approaching engine was Sam returning.
Sam puts his foot down and floors it all the way up to the cabin's side door. There's no point in caution now. If the men from the van are in the slightest bit competent, they'll have put eyes on the road in case their targets got out a call for back-up, in which case he will have already been seen. But no shots come, no shouts.
The cabin is silent.
There was no way Sam was leaving an unsecured weapon in the house near the Winter Soldier, so that fortunately means he has his gun with him in the car. Sam grabs the key-coded box out under the passenger seat and removes his Glock, sliding a clip home. Would Steve have been armed when the men arrived, beyond his shield? Sam doesn't know. He breathes deep, and heads for the house.
The wood door is splintered around the lock. It's been kicked in, and it opens with a gentle shove of his hand. Sam waits for five long seconds before he steps inside the silent house, gun raised.
The first thing he sees is a body, stretched across the hallway. It is clothed all in black, with tac vest and combat boots. He sees long, lank, black hair and a broken neck, feels a surge of panic. He crouches down and brushes the hair off the dead man's face. Breathes out in relief – it's not Barnes. He moves on, following the strafing bullet holes down the walls and sees the second corpse slumped in the doorway to the kitchen. This one is much less neat; there's a knife hilt still sticking out of the man's left eye, a SIG-Sauer tossed onto the floor, and a tacky pool of blood soaking into the hall carpet. Blood's cooling but not cold. Recent.
Stepping over the one-eyed corpse, Sam creeps to the kitchen and glances around the door, lightning fast. There are three more bodies, all in the same plain black tactical gear. No ID patches. One has been shot neatly through the head, and the second messily through the torso. The third has been beaten to death, seems to have had most of his sternum punched out. There are two M4 Carbines kicked into the corner behind the splintered dining table and a spray of blood up the wall above the stove top.
The house is still and so oppressively silent that cold dread is starting to pool low in Sam's belly. Five dead guys and one hell of a mess but no sign of Steve and Barnes, alive or dead. He has to check everywhere though, thoroughly. He has to be sure. Sam climbs over the one-eyed corpse back out into the hall, and crosses to the lounge. He nudges the door all the way open and darts inside, gun raised. There's another three bodies in there too. One has been thrown straight through the table. The room's been torn to shreds; splinters of glass and wood are everywhere, and all three windows have been shot out. Sam crosses cautiously to the nearest body to check the pulse, when suddenly something smashes into him. His gun is flying from his hand and he's slammed face-first into the wall. Sam's arm is being wrenched up behind his back while a weight against his spine forces his chest immovably against the splintered wood. He draws an instinctive breath to yell but then a knife blade flashes and he feels the press of it against his throat, and...
He doesn't die. Sam stays frozen still for ten long silent seconds before he realises he has to do something. Sam draws in a shallow, careful breath and says;
"Winter? That you? I-"
"Молчать!" The Winter Soldier's voice in his ear is low and dangerous like the sound of an avalanche. The grip of metal fingers on Sam's wrist tightens from painful to agonising. Sam winces, but he can't stop talking. The Winter Soldier will kill him at the slightest provocation, he knows, but he has to try and bring Barnes back. For Sam's own sake, if not for Steve's.
"I'm Sam, remember?" He says, soft, breathless. "Not an enemy."
The blade jabs in under his jaw, scraping the skin. The servos in the Soldier arm make a whirring, grinding sound, and he gives Sam a brief, impatient shake.
"You called me from Steve's phone," Sam wheezes. "Med tech…"
The Soldier seems to freeze for a second, before very quietly, he says:
"Steve?"
Sam tries not to swallow. "That's right. You needed mission assistance, remember? A medical technician. Well, that's me. I'm here."
The Winter Soldier doesn't move or make a sound but Sam can feel the bones grinding in his wrist. Then, as suddenly as before, the pressure on his back is gone, and he is spun around. His back is slammed against the wall, this time with his wrist pinned to his side. But before he can take anything in, that knife blade comes back to rest on the soft skin just below his right eye and Sam doesn't dare even breathe. The Winter Soldier is just a dark shadow in the corner of his vision, but Sam can tell he is being studied. The Soldier is trying to remember him.
"It's okay," Sam says, really, really trying not to move his face at all . "They're dead. You're safe. I just need to see Steve now. Did they take him away? Is he alive?"
"Да," the Soldier answers, but Sam's not sure to which question. The Soldier considers for a moment more, and then the blade flashes and disappears from Sam's eyeline. Then just as suddenly as he had attacked, the Soldier steps back and Sam is released. Sam staggers a little away from the wall, breathing hard and gripping his painful wrist. He looks at the Soldier for the first time, and fuck. The guy is coated with blood. It's all over his bare feet like he's waded through it. It's soaked into his sweatpants, sprayed like a fan across his t-shirt, and it drips from the blade of the kitchen knife and from the tips of his hair. There's even a wide splash of it across his mouth, a grotesque parody of the mask he used to wear.
Hope that Steve is still alive begins to crumble, but Sam keeps his expression neutral.
"The men that attacked," Sam asks, quiet, level. "Are there any here still alive?"
He's seen eight bodies but he doesn't dare assume that was all of them. But if Barnes's hearing is anything like Steve's, he should know. The Soldier shakes his head, without hesitation.
"Okay, good. What about Steve? Is Steve still here? Can you take me to him?" The Soldier nods curtly, and then moves to snatch up Sam's Glock from the floor. If Sam thought he was getting the weapon back though, he's mistaken.
"Поднимите руки."
Sam doesn't understand the words, but the gesture the Winter Soldier makes with the gun barrel is unmistakable. Sam raises his hands but keeps them casually at shoulder height. He doesn't want Barnes to pick up on how tense he is right now.
"I'm not going to hurt you," he reminds Barnes, but the Soldier just gestures with the gun again. He still has the kitchen knife too, gripped tightly in his metal hand.
"Идти."
Sam turns and steps back out into the hall. The Winter Soldier is utterly silent behind him, and it makes his skin crawl. He glances back and the gun twitches to the left. He turns left, away from the kitchen and up the hallway. Another twitch right and they're passing the bedroom and the bathroom. Back here, there's a couple of unfurnished rooms, a small den, a back door leading out onto the decking and a linen closet. There's a ninth corpse sprawled across the hallway. Sam swallows; no need to check if this one is dead. His throat has been ripped out.
"There," Barnes says in English, with a movement of the gun. Sam pushes the very dead HYDRA agent out of the way, and then pulls open the door to the closet. And there is Steve, folded up and slumped against the wall. If anything he looks almost deader than some of the corpses behind them. His face is pale as old milk and blood has soaked into his hair and poured down the side of his face. Sam forgets all about the 260lbs of concentrated death standing behind him and drops his hands, scrambling to Steve's side. He's still breathing, thank God, and his pulse is regular, if a little weak, under Sam's fingertips.
He quickly finds the site of all the blood; there's a deep gash, about three inches long, above Steve's ear and Sam can smell burnt hair. Someone just came damn close to putting a bullet in Captain America's skull. It must be almost 45 minutes since the attack, based off the time of Barnes' phone call, but the wound is still bleeding. Sam snatches a pillow case off the shelf above their heads and presses it to Steve's head. Then he looks up at the Winter Soldier. Barnes is standing at rest a couple of metres away in the hall, arms at his sides. He's staring at Steve.
"I gotta get the first aid kit," Sam tells him. "I need you to come here and put pressure on this 'till I get back."
He doesn't even have time to get up. The Soldier is already shaking his head and backing away. The plates in his arm click together, almost nervously. Sam doesn't know whatever the fuck the issue is now, but he doesn't have time for it.
"Fine, then you go get it. It's in the trunk of the car outside. Green box. White cross. Go."
The Soldier nods and follows the order immediately as if he's completely forgotten he was holding Sam hostage at gunpoint a second ago. While he's gone, Sam quickly checks Steve for other injuries. He has some small cuts to his knuckles, so it's clear that they weren't taken completely by surprise, but nothing more serious than the head wound. What the hell happened here?
"How did they find this place?" Sam asks the moment the Winter Soldier returns with the box, but the Soldier doesn't give an answer. Maybe he doesn't know. "Are there more coming?" Sam tries instead, trying to work out how wide their window of safety is.
"Yes," says the Soldier
"Shit. Come on, help me get him into the bedroom."
Moving Steve is trickier than it should be because Sam is fairly sure his own wrist is fractured, and the Soldier's metal arm is still playing up and he seems reluctant to put down any of his weapons. But they finally manage to drag Steve out of the cupboard and get him lying flat on the bed without any further injury.
Sam quickly dresses Steve's wound as fast as he can, but Steve is still unconscious and blood is soaking through the first dressing already. The Soldier, meanwhile, has disappeared. Sam can hear him moving around elsewhere in the building but he's too busy with Steve to worry about what Barnes might be up to. It's ten minutes later before Sam's satisfied that he's done all he can for Steve. He's packing up the first aid box when Barnes comes back in.
"Другие агенты," he says.
"English, man," Sam says, tossing the kit into his duffel. "I don't understand Russian."
Barnes pauses and forces out the words. It's not good. "More. Are coming."
Sam doesn't waste time asking him how he knows, or how much time they have. They have to run, right now.
"Help me," he says, and between them they pull Steve up mostly onto his feet, and then drag him out to the hall. Sam glances around.
The bodies are missing.
The Soldier must have dragged them off somewhere while Sam was seeing to Steve, but it's just one more thing that Sam doesn't want to ask about. Instead he focuses on getting Steve out of the house and into the car. They lay him along the back seat as flat as possible. Sam dashes back into the house and grabs what he can of their stuff, throwing things into the duffel. He has no idea when it'll be safe enough for them to come back again. He grabs Barnes' Winter Soldier boots and armoured jacket from by the door, and finds Steve's shield under one of the beds.
Barnes is hovering by the car when he returns. Sam throws the stuff into the trunk and climbs into the driver's seat. Barnes is still waiting outside the car.
"Dude, get in. You said yourself more guys were on their way."
Barnes reaches for the rear door handle as if moving on instinct, but Sam leans over and opens the front passenger door for him instead.
"You might not have noticed but the back seat is already fully occupied with supersoldier. Just ride shotgun, will you? Time's a-wasting."
Barnes gets into the passenger seat without a word. He leans back, closing his eyes, and rests the Glock on his knees. Sam glances back at Steve, throws the shifter and speeds out of the yard. They bump their way down the uneven gravel track without meeting another car, and Sam pauses at the intersection with the main road, glancing left, ready to make the turn right towards the town.
Barnes suddenly leans forward. "No."
Sam slams on the brakes. "What? 'No' what?"
Barnes gestures to the left."Нет городов."
Sam has no idea what his problem is, but it's clear that he isn't happy with the direction.
"I have to get Steve to the hospital," Sam explains. "Town's that way."
"No." Barnes snaps, and Sam hears the Winter Soldier in his voice. A sudden movement and the Glock is up beside Sam's right ear. He doesn't dare turn his head, but a flick of Sam's eyes establishes that the safety is not engaged. "No hospital."
Sam grits his teeth, but there's no point in arguing. He just hopes Steve's head is as hard as it seems.
"Fine."
He turns the car left, and they head out onto the dark highway.
They have gone nearly two miles north before the house behind them explodes.
Cпасибо - Thank you
Молчать! - Quiet!
Поднимите руки - Hands up
Идти - Move
Другие агенты - The other agents
Нет городов - No towns
