Author's Note: Marvel owns what it owns, and I own what I own, let's keep it that way shall we? Don't Sue me!
TW: implied medical torture, medical torture, medical trauma, swearing, lots and lots of swearing
Recommended Listening: Run Through the Jungle by Creedence Clearwater Revival, Sympathy for the Devil by Rolling Stones, Two Against One (feat. Jack White) by Danger Mouse & Daniele Luppi, Gimme Shelter by The Rolling Stones
Ch 25: In The Belly of the Beast
They made it to Buenos Ares and their hotel without incident, and without much in the way of conversation, Maggie threw herself into bed. It had been a long 11-hour plane ride, and she hadn't been sleeping well to begin with, so she relished the thought of sleeping for a few hours in a comfortable bed before they marched out into the jungle where she'd be sleeping in a hammock instead. However, instead of a nap, she found herself tossing and turning, drifting in and out, vaguely aware that Sam was taking in low, hushed tones on the telephone on the other side of the suite.
"Everything alright?" she mumbled as Sam walked back to the bedroom area.
"Stark created murder bots apparently," Sam said, running his hands over his head as he sat down on the opposite side of the bed.
"What the fuck?" Maggie struggled into a seated position.
"Yeah. Destroyed a whole bunch of stuff, including Jarvis."
"Shit. Is everyone alright?"
"At the moment, yes. Steve just called to make sure we were alright and to let us know it might be a good idea to stay off the grid for a few days while they fix this." Sam paused, "He wanted to double-check that all your stuff on Barnes is either backed up or hard copy."
"Yeah. I wouldn't trust Stark with that information. It's all in my journal or hard copy locked away." She replied.
"Yeah, that's what I told him." Sam sighed, moving to remove his shoes, and stretched out on the bed.
"You okay?" Maggie asked.
"Just worried is all."
"Do we need to fly back to New York? Is this an all hands on deck situation? What's the contingency here?" She searched Sam's expression as he closed his eyes, putting hands behind his head, a picture of total ease. However, by the slight grit in his jaw, Maggie could tell that the cogwheels were turning just below the surface.
"Steve wants us to say put and follow up on your lead." He said after a brief pause. "And to be careful. We're on our own out here."
Maggie's stomach turned. She hadn't thought about that. The idea had crossed her mind. They were headed into dangerous territory. They were headed to a former Hydra base, anything could happen, but in everything they had planned in all the briefing and pre-mission discussions, it ultimately came down to they had Steve and Nat watching their six, always had the Avengers just in case things went sideways. Now, apparently, that wasn't the case.
"Having second thoughts?" Sam commented as if reading her mind.
"No. Of course not." She shook her head, brusquely. "Thinking through our options and contingencies."
"So, that would be a yes?"
Maggie snorted, laying back down on the bed, she rolled over to face Sam.
Barnes had been on the run for over a damn year, and they were unlikely to come across anything earth-shattering in this Hydra base. This was, at the very best, a wild goose chase, but at the time they'd planned the Argentina trip, anything had seemed better than sitting around the Tower waiting around for Becca to die. Now, well, it seemed stupid that they were planning on climbing through the Argentine jungles in the hopes of finding something about the Winter Soldier, who was in all likelihood in the former Soviet Bloc. And now there were murder bots.
"This is old intel, Sammie. If you wanna go back to help Steve and Nat and the others, just say the word." Maggie said, adjusting her position on the bed.
Sam shook his head. "I'm not an Avenger, and I personally don't wanna get involved in Stark's bullshit. I'm sure if Steve wanted my help, he would've said so."
"Yeah. He's good about that." Maggie agreed. There was a long silence as both of them silently sorted through their thoughts and the next immediate action. She chuckled after a moment. "I tell that ass hole not to do anything stupid, and less than 24 hours later, he calls to let us know that he's fighting murder bots."
"That's hardly his fault," Sam said.
"Fair, fair." She nodded. "Still, begs the question, can you Samuel Wilson stymie Steve Roger's stupid bullshit?"
"Further study required." Sam sighed, rubbing his face. "Damn it."
Maggie frowned. This wasn't like Sam at all. "Okay, Sammie. What's going on?"
"Nothing."
"Sam. That's not at all convincing."
He sighed. "Mags, am I Steve's rebound man?"
"What?" Maggie raised her eyebrows. "Like what you're just a place holder until we find Barnes?"
"Yeah."
Maggie scooted closer, reaching her hand out to touch the top of Sam's head. "Was I a place holder for you with Riley?" She asked so softly that Maggie wasn't sure if Sam had heard her at all.
There was a long silence, and Maggie was almost convinced Sam had fallen asleep.
"That was different, Mags," Sam said slowly after a long moment. "You and I weren't brainwashed super-soldiers, for starters."
Maggie chuckled, "That would've made things interesting."
"What I'm saying is, this isn't the era of 'Don't ask don't tell' and it isn't the 1940s anymore. Things are different, different for him, different for me. It's hard to know where I stand with the guy." Sam sighed.
Maggie nodded. When she and Riley had first started dating, Maggie had joked, albeit lovingly, that she was Riley and Sam's beard. It wasn't until much later that she realized how true that was. If anyone had found out how close Riley and his wingman were, things would've ended badly for everyone. Maggie had served as a buffer for suspicion while being romantically engaged with both Riley and other partners (women, men, and everyone in between). It wasn't until they'd started getting serious that Riley and Sam sat her down to discuss the precise nature of their relationship and how that would shape any plans for the future. Maggie loved Riley and adored Sam, and so the arrangement had been beneficial and amicable.
How exactly a triad would work with Sam, Steve, and the ever-elusive Bucky Barnes remained to be seen. Would Barnes be interested in something like that? Would Rogers? Becca had made mention that she'd always assumed that the boys would come as a package set when and if they ever decided to settle down. Not everyone was interested in polyamory, which was understandable. It was challenging to make things work between two people, never mind adding in the X factor of trying to work things out between another unknown party.
"I don't think you're a stand-in for Barnes. You, Samuel Wilson, are a delight, and from what I could see from Riley's perspective, a loving and doting partner. Anyone would be lucky to have you." Maggie said.
"But?"
"Oh, there isn't a "but," that's the way I feel about you. And that if Steve can't see that you're a catch, he's the biggest dumbass I've ever known."
Sam snorted. "I know that's not all you think about me."
She paused, thinking over the past year, over the past three years now, since Riley had passed away. Their relationship hadn't been a good one. He'd all but disappeared on her before the miraculous rescue, and she hadn't exactly been the most pleasant person to get along with since she'd joined the manhunt for James Barnes and the Winter Soldier. They'd both been grieving and hurting and trying to make sense of the crazy new world they'd found themselves in. It was a world that Sam had entered willingly and one that Mags had been dragged into, kicking and screaming, a world that she wasn't sure she wanted to be apart of.
There might not be a way out anymore.
She'd been trying to avoid that thought, but it plagued her late at night when she should be sleeping. Sam had a choice, Sam could walk away any time he wanted, and for whatever reason, he decided to stay. Maggie would have to see this through to the end, whatever the end may be. That, or find some way to get out before she became more collateral damage to the messy world of spies, gods, heroes, and super-soldiers.
"You still with me, Mags?" Sam asked softly, his voice low and rumbling in his chest.
"Yeah. Sorry." Maggie sighed. "Thank you, Sammie."
"For?"
"Believing in me? Supporting me on this wild goose chase."
"I trust you."
"That's awfully kind of you."
Sam stopped, sitting up, he turned to face her squarely. "Is there a reason why I shouldn't?"
"I dunno." She shrugged. "I haven't exactly been the nicest to you since you and I were forced back into one another's life."
Sam surveyed her, "I still trust you."
"But? Com'on Sam, we both know there is a 'but' in that statement."
He sighed, laying back down on the bed. "What do you want me to say, Mags?"
"I want you to say what you're gonna say."
"And what if you don't want to hear what I have to say?"
"It certainly hasn't stopped you in the past," Maggie replied.
Again Sam sighed, and again she could see the cogwheels working inside his head as he decided what he wanted to say. "We should try to get some rest. We have a long few days ahead of us."
"All right." She drew back her hand and rolling over onto her back she sat up. "Fine. What time do we wanna try to get going in the morning?"
"Around five, we have a long bus trip and hike out to where we need to get."
Maggie nodded but said nothing as they prepared for bed. She knew she wasn't going to be able to sleep. Her mind was too awake now filled with the events of the day and the prospect of tomorrow, along with everything going on back in New York with the Avengers and the associated nonsense accumulated over the past year. Instead, she grabbed her stress dummy out of her bag and worked through the various PT exercises to strengthen her hand when Sam finally dozed off.
Listening as Sam's breathing first evened out before finally evolving into an all-out snore, Maggie couldn't help but think about what Sam had said about being a place holder for Barnes for whenever they found him. It brought into sharp relief, what was going to happen when they did inevitably find Barnes.
If you ever find him mean.
Maggie wasn't an idiot. It was a big if when it came to tracking down Barnes. There were no certainties in life, least of all when you were tracking down a former Soviet Agent with a cybernetic prosthesis, retrograde amnesia who also happened to be Captain America's best friend and lover. So what did it mean when she found Barnes or (more likely) she was forced to give up the search for whatever reason. She was currently using this search as a place holder for putting her life back together, because what point was there in even trying put her life back together at the moment?
When we find him, I'm either gonna kiss him full on the mouth or punch him in the face.
She hadn't decided yet.
Since Becca's passing, she'd been trying to sort through how she felt about James Barnes, the man, the myth, the murderous cyborg, etc. She'd stopped having cutesy dreams. She was no longer having rendezvous with the man her mind had decided was James Barnes. That, she'd decided, was probably was for the absolute best. It wasn't wise or healthy to think about him in that way. That James Barnes was a pure figment of her imagination. Okay, so what did that leave her? 'Matt' from Last Chance and the Winter Soldier. Neither promised to be pleasant companions in her dreams. Whatever the case may be, she was going to have to sort all of that shit out before they did find him or deal with the awkward and unfortunate consequences.
Drifting in and out, Maggie tried to focus on positives in her life, on the good things that had come out of the entire situation. Sam was back in her life. She was traveling, living debt-free for the first time in her adult life, she'd gotten to know a beautiful woman who she loved and now missed very much. She'd become friends with Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff, two Avengers and honest to god amazing human beings, despite intense and persistent protests from the latter about that. She'd built something of a community, despite her being an outright bitch to most of them for the better part of two months. There was a lot to be thankful for. Yet, there was still that concern, that doubt, that ever creeping, and gnawing fear, what was going to happen when, inevitably, the other shoe dropped.
Despite Maggie's wishes and best attempts, the alarm did eventually go off, and they rose and checked out of the hotel before 5:30 and were on the bus headed to the middle of nowhere by 6:00. After several missteps, including getting on several wrong transfer busses, they successfully arrived in the middle of nowhere. Stopping for water and directions from some of the locals, Sam and Maggie then turned to the jungle, equipped with a map, compass, their wits, and all of Sam's survival skills. They walked in silence for the first hour or so, only stopping to drink water and check their heading. Maggie took point, every fiber, every inch of her being focused on the task at hand.
"So. What's the best-case scenario, Mags? What's the best possible outcome?" Sam asked a few yards behind her, his voice muffled and as damp as the dripping jungle around them.
"Finally got sick of the silence, huh?" She chuckled lightly. "Ummm," Maggie paused to check the compass she had in her outstretched hand. "Best case scenario? Barnes is there and rolls out the welcome wagon for us."
She could hear Sam's eyes roll. "You know what I'm talking about Magdalen."
"Oh. Fine. Fine. Best most plausible scenario." She paused, adjusting her backpack. "The woman we talked to, she said that no one has been near the former base in years. I'm hoping we find something more than just ruins, perhaps intel."
"Okay. Fair. By why the hell would Hydra put a base way out here?"
"I dunno. They're Hydra. Why do shady organizations have bases anywhere anymore when we have Reddit and 4chan?" Maggie shrugged.
"You're not wrong, but that still doesn't answer my question."
"Well. If we find a Hydra flunky while we're out here, I'll be sure to ask him that."
"How do you know it'll be a he?"
"Oh Sammie, now you're just nitpicking. I think our Hydra agent in question will be a he because most serial killers and mass murders are white men. So not only are we looking for a man but a white man in the middle of the Argentine jungle."
"Statistical anomaly."
"Well, Nazis in Argentina, weirder things have happened."
They trudged on for what seemed an eternity until they stumbled upon the crumbling ruins of the former Hydra base, just as Maggie's research and local knowledge had confirmed there would be.
"Holy shit." Sam breathed, taking in the sight of the ruins.
"Didn't think it was going to be here?" Maggie asked, glancing back at Sam.
"I'd rather hoped."
Maggie chuckled weakly. "Believe it or not me too." A dead, leaden feeling filled her stomach. "Okay." She continued with a deep breath. "What do we do first?"
"Establish coms, secure perimeter, and set camp before we review the sat scans and discuss strategy."
"Should we send Steve our coordinates? Check-in?"
"He gave me his burner number, but with murder bots, I have my serious doubts he'll be answering any of our messages."
"I get that, but just in case something happens. I'd like someone to know where we are. Leave some kind of footprint and a trail for Nat and Steve to follow if the worst happens."
Sam nodded firmly, "understood."
He sent the message, and they set about the preliminary tasks needed to venture safely into the crumbling ruins of a former Hydra base.
She unpacked her hiking pack, removing a smaller backpack from within, packed with survival essentials: Water, a flashlight, paracord, first aid kit, spare batteries, a video camera, walkie talkie, a machete, emergency shovel, and a utility knife. In addition to the survival essentials, she slipped her journal into the front pocket with several spare pencils and a pencil sharpener.
"Line one, line one, do you read me Mags?" Sam's voice rang out in her ear.
"Line one is live, reading you loud and clear." She answered the knot twisting in her stomach sent a painful jab in her abdomen.
They were almost ready to enter the old base, who knew what horrifying discoveries awaited them, or who might be waiting for them.
"You okay?"
Maggie whipped her head around to meet Sam's concerned gaze. "Yeah, Sam. I'm fine." She stammered.
"Mags, I gotta know if you're good," Sam said shortly as he removed and loaded his handgun from his bag.
Maggie glanced between the firearm and him. "Yeah, I'm good."
"You don't have anything to prove. You don't have to go in."
If you're not going to be able to hold it together, that was the unspoken meaning behind his words, and she wasn't going to rise to it. She'd planned this mission, found this base, she was going to follow it to its natural conclusion. Maggie snorted. "I think it's a little late for that. I'm going in. It'll be more effective with two."
"Okay, but say the word, and I'll get you out," Sam said.
"I'm good, Sam." She repeated one more time just to assure herself and Sam that she was indeed going to be able to play it cool once inside.
Sam nodded, and they approached the old entrance of the building, almost completely covered over with moss and vines. Clearing away the rubble and the overgrowth, they entered the crumbling ruins silently and in a single file. Maggie and Sam moved through the upper level of the compound. It looked as though it had once been a single large room. If there had been upper floors, their remains had been stripped away for scrap or as evidence for whatever had caused the explosion in the first place. Feeble sunlight filtered through what remained the moss and vine-covered windows, and holes in the ceiling allowed for limey water drip onto the cement floors forming little stalagmites on the floor. The only sounds that could be heard outside of their shallow intake of breath and their footsteps was the steady drip drip drip of water and the fading sounds of the jungle as they moved further and further from the entrance and natural light.
Maggie recorded it all on her video camera, doing her best to keep the camera steady while also capturing every detail.
"You said there were at least four basement levels." Sam's voice broke the silence, making her jump.
"Yeah. At least." She nodded.
"We're going to lose natural light, switch to flashlights, stairs are to your right. I'll go first." Sam instructed.
"10-4" She swallowed following behind Sam without another word.
They descended into darkness, the flashlights only marginally helping to illuminate the soggy air. Every breath felt like it was sucked in through a damp sponge and smelled heavily of rot and decay.
"Well, this is fun," Maggie muttered, wrinkling her nose pulled her bandana over her nose and mouth.
"Not exactly my first choice for a vacation spot, but better this than murder bots."
"Fair." Maggie nodded, glancing around. Spotting the same thing, they both stopped looking at the diverging hallways. "I'm likely going to regret saying this, but we'll make better time if we split up."
"I agree."
"The 'I'm going to regret this' or the splitting up thing."
"Both. Keep the coms channels open and report anything interesting." Sam said shortly.
Maggie snorted, but nodded, "Yeah. Sounds good. Good luck. Be safe."
"You too."
They both turned to their respective corridors, and paused, glancing at each other before walking silently down the halls.
It was slow going, but Maggie could only imagine it would've been even more tedious had they been together. Sam was very thorough. It was his military training, she was sure. But Maggie knew what she was looking for, and it wasn't going to be in any of the empty offices, stripped clean of anything sensitive. What she was looking for would be hidden.
She cleared the second level, and proceeded down the stairs, to the sub-level three. This floor hadn't been as thoroughly cleared out. There were files and papers scattered on the floors, and the desks she did find in the various offices and corridors looked as though they had been ransacked.
Maggie stopped as she moved to exit the last office she'd cleared when she noticed that three shelves had been left standing upright. The entire room had been more or less flipped upside down, but those three massive metal shelves were untouched.
They looked like munitions racks, heavy sturdy, not about to move any time soon. "Hey, Sam. I'm on sub-level three, last room on the left before the stairwell. I think I've found a tunnel." She said, her breath stirring up the dust, mold, and who knew what else around her.
The com line crackled. "Sam? Do you copy?" She called out.
Again there was nothing but the gentle crackle of the line. Her heart started pounding. Something's happened.
"I read you." Sam's voice washed over her. "Want me to proceed to your location?"
"No. Nothing confirmed yet, proceed as normal, will assess as necessary."
"10-4."
"Sorry, have to set you down to avoid this going all Clover Field. I'm not Matt Reeves or J.J. Abrams." She muttered setting the camera and flashlight down facing the shelves and approached, feeling out the floor with her foot, Maggie smiled to herself as she found grooves where the shelves had been dragged back and forth.
Grabbing the shelf, she threw her body weight against it and was more than a little surprised when the shelf gave way without much of a fight. A gust of stale air rushed into the office space, smelling of rot and decay. "Fun." She grimaced and picked up the camera and flashlight before she took a step toward the tunnel that the shelves had produced for her.
"Found a tunnel, Sam. Going to investigate. If you don't hear from me in thirty minutes, come looking for me." She called.
"10-4 proceed with caution."
Should she have told Sam that the tunnel was creepy and smelled of death? Probably. But she wasn't going to wait, wasn't going to hear anything about it being 'too dangerous' or that this was something Sam should do. She'd found the super scary tunnel, and she was going to be the one to follow the tunnel down to wherever it might reveal.
Fortunately, it wasn't a narrow or squat tunnel. In fact, it was tall and wide enough to accommodate two Steve Rogers sized people without any particular trouble. Thick electric cables ran the length of the ceiling, showing that there had once been electricity to the currently very dark and very creepy secret passage. This wasn't a tunnel built for a quick escape or storage. People had been in and out of here regularly, and from the looks of the thing, they'd been rather bulky people. The walls and ceiling were plastered, the floor (or what she could see of it through the mildew and algae) was cement, and she found that she slipped and slid as the passage dipped further down into the ground.
After about a good fifty to one hundred feet, the tunnel opened up into a room. Office space, there were four desks, and at least a dozen filing cabinets lined up against the wall, three doors lay beyond. Maggie exhaled. "Jackpot. I found files, Sam!" She practically laughed.
Without waiting for a response, she walked over to the cabinets and yanked at the first drawer. It didn't pull out, and she glanced at the lock. "Right." She said slowly. Dropping her backpack, she turned the camera off and set it down beside the pack. Removing her utility knife, rammed it in the lock, busting it in two.
"Mags?"
"Down here, Sam." She called, returning the knife to its sheath, shoved it in her belt, before yanking the drawers open.
"You didn't waste any time."
"Absolutely not. Wanna get the others?"
"Sure."
There was the general sound of metal creaking and scraping as Sam dislodged locks and opened the filing cabinets.
"Know what we're looking for?"
"Anything to do with Red Room, Winter Soldier, or the Wolf Spider Project. All things that the Winter Soldier was involved in."
"You've done your homework."
"You can copy it if you like. I have a cheat sheet in my journal." She replied lightly.
"I'm gonna try to get the power on. One of those rooms has to be a generator room. Maybe we can get power back up."
"You think that's a good idea?"
"If you're going to scour files for a few days, we're going to need air circulation and power down here. Steve gave me some Stark Tech to help with that." Sam said, rising he turned to the three doors. "Which one?"
Maggie stopped, turning squarely to the doors. There weren't any markings or anything to distinguish them from each other. "Your guess is as good as mine."
"I'll take the one on the left if you take the one on the right."
"Sure." Sounds good."
They walked over to their respective steel-reinforced door, and Maggie exhaled a shaking breath. "Please be the generator room. Please be the generator room." She whispered, pushing against the door it opened without so much as an ominous creak.
Shining the light around the room, Maggie grimace. This room was decidedly not the generator room. It looked like it had served as an operating room. A surgery table sat in the middle of the room and occupied most of the space. Although upon further inspection, Maggie realized "surgical table" might have been a little more than generous. It was a metal table that had thick leather straps attached. Instinctively she looked down at the floor. It had a drain. "Ahh. Fantastic." Her stomach twisted into knots, her heart beating faster.
"What you find?" Sam asked from the other room.
"Operation room. I think. Torture chamber more likely." She answered, the taste of bile stinging on the back of her tongue. "You?"
"Generator room."
"Lucky bastard," Maggie said, exiting the room, she popped her head into where Sam was buried deep in wires and cords. "You want help?"
"Nah, I got it."
"I'll go see what unspeakable horror is behind door number three." She said.
"Be careful Mags," Sam warned, but she was already at the door,
Like the first one, the door gave way easily, and she shined the flashlight around, trying to get a feel for the size and content of the room. There were cryogenic tanks, four of them each upright in a corner. "The Winter Soldier or someone similar was here at some point!" She called over her shoulder before taking a hesitant step into the interior of the room.
Then, her eyes finally focused long enough to spot what occupied the center of the room. A metal chair bolted to the floor, with arm and ankle straps of tempered metal and leather to ensure the occupant remained seated. Just above the headrest of the seat, there were metal plates, approximately the right size, and shape to fit around a man's head. "Oh, fuck." She breathed out sharply, but she couldn't move, glued to the spot.
"What? What's going on." Sam rushed up behind her, and stopped in the doorway, his flashlight casting more shadows around her. "Mags. What is that thing?"
Maggie took several steps forward to examine the plates, which were lined with electrodes of some kind. She'd read about this, bits and pieces here and there in reports, building the shape of a thing that she hadn't quite been able to fit together, now, here it was. "This was how they reset his memory."
"You mean they..." Sam faded off, entering the room behind her.
"Fried his brain like a fly in a bug zapper until he forgot who he was? Yes." Her voice was shaking.
"You okay?"
"No." She shook her head, out of the corner of her eye, one of the cryo chambers caught her attention, and she turned to approach it. It was a gigantic metal hulking thing with a single-window and several locking mechanisms on the outside. Pausing, she put her hand on the handle and glanced up at Sam, who was watching her intently.
"You sure you wanna do that?" He asked.
"Leave no stone unturned?" Taking a deep breath, she hauled the metal tube opened and peered inside.
The inside was white porcelain, or it had been once. There were thick straps, again of leather and metal, that had been added after the initial fabrication of the cryo chamber. She paused, looking at the lid and the frosted glass window, and frowned. Maggie brought her hand to the score marks, her fingers lining up. "Oh. Fuck."She wrenched her hand away as if she'd received an electric shock.
"What you find?" He walked up beside her, peering over her shoulder. "Are those?"
Maggie nodded mutely, afraid if she'd opened her mouth she'd throw up. Her stomach turned, the air in the room was sticky and clung to her skin and made her lungs ache. "I think I need to go sit down." She managed, before turning and staggering from the room, and back out to the filing cabinets where her backpack was.
Sinking to the floor, she pulled the bandana away from her face and took a long draw from her water bottle.
He'd been here. They'd held him here. The chair, the cryo tank. Fuck. He was awake when they locked him in that thing. Fuck.
"Fuck." She muttered, shaking her head, she returned the water bottle to its place and rose shakily to her feet and turned back to the filing cabinets.
She'd honestly expected a pile of mush, considering the state of everything else. However, this being Hydra who'd apparently invested in state of the art, weatherproof filing cabinets, the files emerged as pristine, and the day they'd been put into the filing cabinet. Her fingers worked deftly as she flipped through each file, eyes scanning for each of the keywords she and Natasha had put together and that Natasha had made her memorize.
Maggie could hear Sam moving around her, back into the generator room. Her brain buzzed. They had a chair, the chair they used to electrocute him until he forgets. They had the operation room. Did they torture him? They did torture him. Torture him so that they could make him forget, torture him so that he'd kill for them.
She'd known, she'd known that's what they'd done. They'd said as much in their file. But actually seeing it, seeing what they'd done and how they'd done it.
The image of the fingernail marks clawing at the inside of the metal cryogenics chamber sent a chill up her spine. He'd probably used the metal prosthesis. Then again, she'd seen several photos and read many accounts where they'd removed the prosthesis. Was that why? No. If she knew Hydra, there was a more sinister reason for removing the "asset's" metal limb. They'd tortured him, and who knows how many others, in that room. Why exactly, she didn't know. She did know that the only way she was going to find out is if she read through the files she'd found, which would still only be second to asking the man himself. Or what's left of him anyway. It was a cruel and horrible thing to think, but how much of Bucky Barnes had survived the seventy years of trauma and torture and killing and bloodshed that had filled his existence since his disappearance in 1943? It was difficult to say. All that remained for her to do was her best to fill in the missing pieces, learn as much as possible, and figure out a way to bring this man home, one way or another.
Her eyes jerked her back into the mildewed, moldy vault as they recognized one of the file names. It was one of her keywords. "Sam, I think I found something." She called out, pulling the file out, as Sam walked over to where she was sitting.
"Anything useful?"
"Not sure yet." Maggie hesitated, glancing up at Sam. "Wanna see?" She inquired.
Sam nodded, sinking beside her, wiping his face with his bandanna and adjusting his grip on his flashlight. "All right. Take us away, Mags."
Maggie exhaled, opening the file across her lap.
There he was, James Barnes, the Winter Soldier. There was his photo paper-clipped to the inside cover. Like the file from Kyiv, there was the photo of The Winter Soldier in the Cryogenics chamber, and then another of Bucky Barnes clipped to the bottom. It was a strange juxtaposition, the man and the weapon side by side. Maggie turned to the text, which was all in Russian. Skimming the text, she found that she was more or less following along with the description, and with the accompanying photographs, it was pretty clear what they were talking about. There were before and after pictures, showing the physical and mental state of the subject. In the before photo, the Winter Soldier, Bucky Barnes, was heavily restrained, his head practically in a vice, struggling against the attendants. His expression was a glower as he was forced to look into the camera. She'd seen the same expression, well very nearly the same expression when she'd discovered him in her barn. It wasn't quite anger, but terror mixed with a blinding, sustaining rage. However, despite all the rage and anger and fear in the "before" photograph, the "after" photograph was even worse. In that photograph, the Winter Soldier, Bucky Barnes, wasn't restrained. He was sitting in The Chair starring at the camera with a vacant expression. His eyes, sharp and piercing like knives in the before photo, were docile and lifeless in the after picture. Whatever they had done to him had been tremendously and incredibly effective.
There was a ton of medical jargon in the report, naturally all in Russian. She and Nat had fortunately anticipated some of this and had compiled a list of Russian medical terms in a handy reference list before leaving for Argentina. Reaching blindly for her backpack, she retrieved her notebook as she starred at the word(s) in question, focusing intently. "Whatcha find?" Sam asked.
"I'm not sure. But for some reason, I recognize this word, and I don't know why." She said, flipping through her notebook until she found what she was searching for. "I hate it when I'm right."
"What?"
"Psychotropic drug cocktail in addition to a shit ton of painkillers." She explained. "Whenever he was on while on Last Chance, he was going through what looked like serious withdraw symptoms." Maggie shook her head. "These Hydra fuckers pumped him full of shit to keep him, and I would bet his pain, manageable. I can't imagine how they ensured he could think clearly for missions, but whatever they did, it was effective." She rubbed her face, closing her journal with a snap. "And that stuff's highly addictive, meaning even if Barnes had managed to escape, the withdrawal symptoms would have been so catastrophic Hydra would've been able to track him down and bring him back into the fold."
"So how'd our guy do it then? Avoid Hydra? Because we know they were looking for him. Probably still are."
"He was hiding my barn for two weeks, remember?"
"Right, My bad." Sam frowned, stroking his chin thoughtfully.
Maggie rolled her eyes, returning her focus to the file in front of her. She was going to have to spend some time with the file to extract everything she needed from it, but only after she went through its contents completely.
"What do you mean keep his pain manageable?" Sam looked up at her, brow furrowed.
"Well..." She began slowly, flipping through the file. "I didn't get a good look at the arm when he was on Last Chance with me, but it looked like it was inset into his chest, with a metal plate. I can't imagine that it was painless. I seriously doubt that arm is very light, it was built for strength, not for wearability. And." Maggie paused, squeezing her eyes shut. "If I remember correctly, he said he had sensation "of a sort" with the arm. Which means sensation and nerve connections, if not just a brain implant to make the arm work. I have serious doubts that Hydra got that right the first time. After looking at Barnes's medical charts from other Hydra bases, it's clear most of his left arm survived the initial fall."
"So why remove the arm all the way? Why have a full metal arm?"
Maggie could feel her blood run cold, and her hands shook as she picked up a report. "This is why." She squeezed her eyes shut as she handed the file off to Sam. The bitter taste of stomach bile stinging the back of her throat as her stomach twisted.
"Holy shit," Sam muttered under his breath, his eyes focused on the photographs.
There was a series of them. Naturally, Hydra wanted to be thorough when documenting the creation of their weapon. Barnes hadn't started with a full arm prosthesis. It had been something that had attached just above the elbow. "Too Heavy" and "Not properly attached" appeared multiple times in the file. "Attachment site infection" and "site rejection of prosthesis" also appeared. So they'd cut a little more, and tried to attach the metal prosthesis with marginal success. "Subject was able to remove the prosthesis without authorization," was another phrase that Maggie had been able to parse out. Then the Winter Soldier Arm as she knew it had made an appearance. They'd inset a metal plate into his body cavity to stabilize the muscle and, in some cases, even replaced muscle, bones, and socket tissue. It was strong, the subject was unable to remove it without basically a surgical procedure, and it was difficult to rip off completely. "Subject attempted to..." Fuck. Maggie turned away, clenching her eyes shut.
"What?" Sam asked.
"Last photo." She winced.
"Oh, fuck."
"Yeah."
"He attempted to."
"Yup."
"And we're done." Sam removed the file from her unresisting hands and placed it in his bag.
"Done?" She echoed, watching as he rose to his feet.
"I'm going to need some parts from my bag topside, and I'm not leaving you down here alone."
"Sam, I'm fine." Maggie protested.
"I know. That's the problem." Sam extended a hand to her. "Come on. Let's get something to eat, review footage, and we'll talk through our options."
Maggie opened her mouth to protest but was interrupted by her stomach, belching excess bile into the back of her throat, triggering her gag reflex, and making her dry heave. Swallowing back both her wounded pride and the acidic bile, Maggie took Sam's hand, and he hauled her to her feet.
It wasn't a long trek back to their campsite, or rather not nearly as long as it had taken them to get down into that sub-basement bunker. She could feel Sam beside her, ever watchful and always thinking.
For her part, Maggie tried to memorize the route, how many steps had they taken between the bunker file room and the entrance of the tunnel, how many minutes passed between the office space concealing the tunnel to the set of stairs, then stairs to the surface. It was tedious and boring, but it was something to keep her mind off of what she had just witnessed, something that was likely to keep her up for days, if not years into the future.
Sam and Maggie released a collective breath as they exited the crumbling remains, and Maggie yanked off the bandana she'd been using to cover her mouth and nose and took in a dramatic breath of fresh air.
"You hungry?" Sam asked as they reached their campsite.
"Not particularly. Where did you stuff that file?" She asked.
"Food first."
"How can you possibly think about eating after all that?" Maggie asked, but immediately put her hands up when she saw his expression. "Right. Stupid question, ex-soldier, stomachs of steel and all that shit."
"You eat and sleep when you can. How's your water intake?"
"Minimal."
"Then, hydrate." He tossed her a fresh water bottle, before topping off his own from one of the multi-gallon jugs they'd brought with them.
Maggie rolled her eyes but obliged him. The last thing she needed was Sam nagging her when there was no one else around for miles to either come to her aid or stop her from bludgeoning someone with a rock.
"For tonight's dinner options, we have Spaghetti with Meat Sauce, Chili with Beans, and Diced Chicken. What are we feeling, Mags?"
She wrinkled her nose, the very thought of eating anything at the moment was repulsive, but eating MREs was even worse. "Chili with beans, I guess. Couldn't Stark have hooked us up with something a little bit bougie-er than MREs? The guy's a billionaire, and former military contractor, certainly he has some hookups when it comes to food."
"Better than what Riley and I ate back in the day, and definitely better than what Steve and the Commandos had way-way back in the day."
Maggie snorted, shaking her head. "I didn't realize C-Rations and hardtack were setting the bar."
"You should ask Steve about it sometime. The guy won't shut up about how much better the food is now. I told him he should start a food blog."
She smiled, nodding amicably as Sam sorted through and prepared the MREs. That would be a thing, Captain America, foodie. It would certainly be a change of pace from murder bots and an ongoing international manhunt.
Again her mind drifted back to the bunker, to what she had seen, to the file, and the photos. Her eyes turned to Sam's bag, where he'd shoved the folder. She wanted to look at it again, wanted to pour over the yellowing pages, wanted to extract every last drop of information that she could, like wringing out a sponge, twisting and squeezing until there was nothing left to find.
She was vaguely aware of Sam handing her the chili with beans and the cornbread that went with it. Her body it seemed was hungry enough to auto operate the correct functions needed to ingest food, but her mind was gone, far away, trying to think of anything and everything she could to avoid the bunker and all it's contents, while simultaneously trying to figure out a way to get that file from Sam.
"Mags?" Maggie blinked to find that Sam was watching her, a concerned look on his face. "You okay there?"
"I'm fine, Sammie," Maggie said, trying to sop up the last of the chili and beans with the cornbread.
"Yeah, because you look like someone who's well adjusted and coping." Sam shook his head, that all too familiar look of frustrated resignation on his face.
"What Sam?"
"Nothin', you wanna hear Mags."
"Say it, and be done with it. Otherwise, it's going to be a long few days out here in the sticks, Sam." She said crossly.
"It's going to be long regardless of what I do."
Maggie rolled her eyes, "Thanks for that."
Sam sighed, standing up, he started collecting the garbage from their meal and began to pace the length of the camp.
"Just say it, it can't be any worse than the shit we've said to each other in the past."
"You're not coping. You're not processing, grieving, whatever you need to do to move on." Sam blurted out. "Over the past year, it's been like watching a train wreck in slow motion because you're not working on coping with what's happened."
"You think this is a spiral?" She snorted.
"Look. I know I wasn't there for you when Riley died. I fucked up. I get that. You have every right to be mad and angry at me about that, but I'm here for you now, and I'm saying that I'm worried about you."
"I appreciate your concern, Sam, but I'm fine." She said flatly. It was, of course, a lie, but she didn't want to get into any of that with Sam at the moment. He had enough on his plate without her dumping on him.
"I don't know what's worse, that you think I'd believe you, or that you're trying to convince yourself that you're fine."
"Thank you, Dr. Phil."
"Mags, I'm being serious."
"I don't need a lecture right now, Sammie. I really, really don't."
"Oh. Okay. So what I'm just supposed to sit back and watch you self destruct?"
"It didn't seem to bother you before I lost the ranch to this superhero fiasco, not sure why you're bothering with it now."
"Why are you doing all of this? Why not take the witness protection? Start over, clean slate. It would better than dragging yourself through all this shit." Sam asked exasperation chiseled into his features.
"You know I can't. I have to get him back. I have to find him, for Becca and—"
"Jeezus. Mags." Sam cut her off.
"What Sam?"
"You can't fix everything. This isn't your responsibility."
"That's not what this is."
"Then what? What is bringing Barnes in going to achieve?"
"If this was Riley, wouldn't you want someone to do everything possible to get him back?"
"But this isn't Riley, Mags, this is something else altogether."
"That's not the point."
"No. I think that is the point. Getting Barnes back isn't going to bring back Riley, or Antonio, or Becca. It's not going to change what happened last May. It's not going to fix anything. Finding Bucky Barnes isn't going to fix anything, Maggie. You can't expect it to, because it won't. It's not fair to you, and let's be real that's a lot of unrealistic expectations to put on a guy who's had his brain repeatedly fried for the last 70 years."
"Sam."
"It's true, Mags. Finding him isn't going to fix you, and you aren't going to fix him. That's just the way it works. The only way that this is going to get better for you is if you work on it. That means you have to process this shit."
"Sam, you don't know what you're talking about."
"Don't I?"
"Sam." Maggie exhaled slowly and looked up at Sam's expression.
She wanted to tell him that no, she wasn't okay, that everything about this was wrong. She wanted to tell him that she felt like she was barely treading water and that if she stopped, she might go under entirely. Above all she wanted to tell him that she knew, she knew finding Barnes wasn't going to fix everything. She didn't think he was going to fix anything. That was the point.
She didn't want to fix anything, because that would put her into direct conflict with something she'd been avoiding for over a year. Everything she was, everything that had made her Magdalen Ramirez was gone. She didn't want to work on herself, because that would mean that sooner or later she would have to come face to face with the reality that she had no idea who she was anymore, or that perhaps even more horrifying she didn't like the person who had taken her place. Bucky Barnes wasn't going to fix her. He was just the distraction so that she didn't have to try to fix herself.
"I'm grateful that you're concerned. I know that I'm spiraling. I just really haven't had a chance to come up for air. When I get the opportunity to reset and recharge, I'm going to take it. I promise." Maggie said slowly. "But first, we need to focus on our mission here. And the only way we're going to be able to do that is if we're not dragging out my mental health here in the middle of the Argentine jungle."
Sam nodded, "If that's what you wanna do, I can't make you take care of yourself. But you can't help other people if you don't take care of yourself."
Maggie said nothing, for better or worse, she had nothing to say that Sam wanted to hear. She was focused on their mission at the moment, and although it was likely to lead to a highly self-destructive end, she was going to see it through.
"All right then," Sam said with a heavy sigh, breaking the long silence. "Let's focus on our game plan for the next few days."
They talked and planned, and reviewed the footage Maggie had taken until midnight before they crashed hard in their hammocks, thankful and grateful not to be sleeping on the ground, and to be protected from the elements and mosquitos.
The following day Sam got the power up and running in the bunker, which allowed for easier cataloging of their findings, and she settled into her task of cataloging and prioritizing.
Maggie wanted to take all the files but knew that the Argentinian Government wouldn't be exactly thrilled if she tried to take highly classified documents across their borders. So Maggie was selective, only taking those that were relevant to the Winter Soldier, and the other keywords that Natasha had sent her along with.
She and Sam didn't talk. There wasn't anything for them to talk about, Sam had said his piece, and now he was going to let her act like a big girl and take care of it. That aside, spending 12 hour days digging through an abandoned Hydra lab didn't exactly create much in the way conversation
So Maggie did what she usually did, she retreated into herself and mentally picked apart what had happened. Maggie couldn't get the chair, the cryotube, and that first file out of her head. It had sunk in through her skin and seeped into her brain, driving her, pushing her. She had to know who that man was, who that person was. She needed to know what sort of weapon James Barnes had become, and what they might be facing should they ever succeed in tracking him down.
"Hey, Mags!" Sam's voice made her look up. His expression was grave as he emerged from the tunnel into the file room.
"What is it? What happened?"
Sam stopped, trying to find the right words before he spoke. "They dropped a country out of the sky?"
"What? Who? Why?"
Sam extended his phone to her, which she took and started reading. "We...we should've gone back. We should've canceled whenever Steve said Murder Bots."
"You think you and I could've done any better?" Sam asked as she handed him back his phone.
"I mean, you are The Falcon."
"Now you're just being mean."
Maggie shook her head, rising to her feet. "I have one more drawer to go through. Then we have everything related to our case. If you wanna leave now and get back there to help, now. We can go." She said. "This is going to fuck up some serious stuff. Like. This is bad, Sam. This is really, really bad."
"I know, Mags." Sam nodded. "Can you finish everything up in the next two hours?"
"Yeah."
"I'll see what I can do and what strings I can pull, but I may be able to get us a Quinjet out of here."
"Sounds like a plan."
It felt like everything was spinning, and Maggie felt feverish as she thumbed through the last of the files. Packing everything away in the extra bags she'd brought, she knew there would be time for closer examination of her findings later.
The Avengers had dropped a country from the sky. So far, no one had been able to produce a body count. There were a lot of injured people, but any number of dead, no matter how small, that would be blood on the Avenger's hands. What did that Mean for Steve and Nat and the others? What did that mean for Sam and her and their little mission to find James Barnes, super-assassin, and weapon of Hydra? But as she had told Sam, this was going to fuck up some serious stuff. Their ability to find Barnes, Sam's ability to stay out of Stark's bullshit, and ultimately her ability to go home.
Shutting down the generator and erasing all evidence that they'd been there, Maggie collecting her things, she met Sam out on the surface. By the time she came topside, he'd already packed up camp and was organizing an LZ for the Quinjet.
"We'll have touch down in about five minutes. You got everything?" Sam asked
"God, I hope so." Maggie nodded, looking down at her load. Nearly a week's worth of work to find, it would take months for her to decipher and translate the bunch of them.
They passed the time in silence, tension building, and swelling as they waited, before the collectively exhaled as the Quinjet came into view, landed, and the ram lowered to reveal Steve and Romanoff.
"Well, aren't you a sight for sore eyes," Sam said as Sam and Steve rushed toward one another. Embracing, they kissed in greeting. Breaking apart, they pressed their foreheads together, murmuring things Mags couldn't hear as they held one another.
Maggie turned to Natasha, who was looking grave faced as she approached. "I thought I told you two not to do anything stupid until we got back stateside," Maggie said, going to embrace her. "I'm glad you're safe."
"Couple of close calls, how about you guys? Find anything useful?" Romanoff replied as they pulled apart.
"Some. We cleared out the pertinent information." Maggie paused, uncertain if she should tell Natasha or Steve about what else they'd found down there.
"You saw it, didn't you?"
Maggie opened her mouth to respond but was cut off by Sam, "Mags, Nat, let's get moving, the Argentinian Government gave us a narrow window. We gotta go."
"I'm sure we'll do a full debrief once we get settled in."
"Settled in?" Maggie echoed.
"Stark's moving Avenger's headquarters." Natasha sighed. "It's a long story." She added, seeing Maggie's perplexed expression.
"I'll bet."
"Let me help you with those." Natasha picked up several bags of files and moved effortlessly toward the Quinjet.
Maggie caught Sam's gaze, his expression a mix of equal parts concern and resignation. Maggie hadn't had the opportunity to stop, to rest, to come up for air. Now with this new turn of events, it didn't seem like she was going to get that chance anytime soon, she knew it, and Sam knew it. But what could any of them do? There was nothing else for it, that's just the way it had to be until it didn't have to be that way anymore.
So this was a mammoth chapter! I don't think the remaining five are shaping out to be nearly the ~9,000 words that this one was. I hope that you all enjoyed it! What do we think? Well, I think as always, poor Mags, but also damn Bucky. Sam continues to be one of my favorites to write, and I hope you all enjoy him as much as I do.
