They met Nelson and Murdock in the afternoon the next day, partly, as Nelson explained, because nobody had printed the contract in braille, he had to read the whole thing aloud to Murdock.
"Okay, so not ideal." Nelson said, as soon as Steve, Romanoff and Bucky had sat down. "Very not ideal, but a necessary step on the way to achieving what we want. What's the general feeling about this among The Avengers?"
"Mixed." Romanoff said. "A couple are pro in principle, but the detention without trial is a problem. So is the details to Congress thing."
"One stormed out." Steve said.
"This is useful." Nelson said.
"So we're now doing two things:" Murdock said. "One, get a contract most Avengers are happy to sign. Two, get Sergeant Barnes in."
"We need to do the first, first." Nelson said.
"Detention without trial is a violation of human rights irrespective of what an individual is capable of." Murdock clarified. "They probably won't defend that."
"They were probably hoping you wouldn't notice." Nelson added. "You will probably have to give details to someone, but hopefully not all of Congress if you're worried that there are still HYDRA agents in there."
"I'm not worried that there are," Bucky said. "I know there are."
There was an unpleasant silence.
"Do you have names?" Steve asked.
"No. Not even sure I'd recognise faces."
"So let's work on the contract first, once that's acceptable, you go to your new boss and say 'we have a HYDRA prisoner in our care, will you help us help him reintegrate?"
.
Two hours after that, the Avengers Assembled, with Bucky this time, in Stark Tower.
"Hey, tin man." Barton called to Bucky as soon as he walked in. "How far did you get with that book?"
"Finished chapter eleven of book one this afternoon." Bucky replied. "Frodo's injured, not sure how badly yet."
"When are you going to let him see the films?" Nat asked.
"When he's read the books." Barton said, without missing a beat.
"Are we talking the Peter Jackson films or the Ralph Bakshi?" Tony asked.
Barton gave him a look. "Jackson. The poor guy's suffered enough."
"As interesting as Barton's cultural rehab program is," Steve said, "we did come here to talk about something."
"Spoilsport." Barton muttered. He flopped on to the opposite end of the couch that Banner was occupying. Nat stepped over the back of the couch and sat so that her left knee touched Barton's right shoulder. Banner already had the contract in front of him. Stark dropped on to the opposite couch, Potts next to him. Steve took the vacant chair at the head of the coffee table. Rhodes took the chair opposite Steve, Sam pulled a bar stool up and perched. Bucky dropped on to the steps behind Barton, elbows on his knees.
"Honestly," Banner said, "this whole thing is just making me want to run back to a Brazilian slum somewhere. This feels like a licence to lock me up and throw away the key."
"I feel that too." Steve said.
"Seriously, Banner, if you want to hide, I'm good at that." Barton said.
"There is a need for this though." Stark said. "Well, maybe not this specifically, but we need to be answerable to someone. Not necessarily obedient to, that's not really my style, but we need oversight."
"From a body that grew out of something we found to be full of HYDRA?" Steve asked.
"We were before."
"Yeah, and it nearly got all of us killed. If that had gone live, everyone here would be dead, except maybe Bucky, and Banner."
"But it didn't. People who had access to the inside of SHIELD noticed and got in the way. If you hadn't been fighting for SHIELD, would anyone have known until it was too late?" Stark asked. "Add to that, just… human nature. Power corrupts, okay? That's just true. Everyone here is powerful. Everyone here has got the potential to turn in to another Loki or Emil Blonsky or Schmidt. This contract is exploitative as hell, but we can't throw the baby out with the bathwater. We have to accept someone's guidance."
"We don't have to accept them having the right to imprison us without trial, Mr Stark." Sam said.
"I didn't say this contract was good." Stark said. "This contract sucks. I thought this meeting was to hash out a letter to them with everything that's wrong with it."
"This meeting is to present a unified response." Steve said firmly. "Whether that's handing them a declaration of rights and grievances, or walking out of negotiations entirely."
"Now, that's not an option." Stark said.
Steve sighed. "Well, I guess we'd better start work on the rights and grievances then. Do we have a volunteer to scribe?" Sam raised a hand. "Thank you."
"Have you read the whole thing, Rogers?" Banner asked. Rogers nodded. "Did you clock section nine? Their right to biological samples for research purposes?"
"Yeah. Sounds like they might want to try-"
"Amazingly bad idea." Banner finished.
"SHIELD probably sampled every bit of me before they woke me up anyway." Steve said.
"We shouldn't be encouraging this. We need a right to refuse to be used for research, to know what the samples are for… standard informed consent model."
"Right to refuse slash informed consent for scientific samples." Sam read back.
"It's a start." Steve said.
.
They ended up with four articles, not fourteen: informed consent for sampling, right to refuse to deploy, right to a fair trial, right to privacy; no tracking bracelets unless by court order, sensitive security details to be known by two other Avengers only (Barton had argued hard for one, saying that the only way he'd been spared from HYDRA's kill list was nobody knowing where the hell he was). Potts, it turned out, was really good at writing that kind of letter. It took them nearly four hours, and a delivery of pizza, to get a letter everyone was happy to sign. But they did it. And Steve was kind of proud of them.
.
Three days later, the counter offer came. The same senator and the same nameless aide came to Stark tower again and handed out new booklets to each Avenger. The Avengers were calm and immovable this time. Stark warmly thanked the men for coming, gave them coffee and donuts, then told them that The Avengers would discuss the new contract as a group in private, and respond within five working days.
.
Bucky slid himself out of the vent as they sat and read the new contract.
"Trial by jury, bench, or court martial, as the offended authority may decide."
Sam said. "You can't court martial civilians. Us who are vets, that seems fair enough, but not the civilians."
"The sampling thing is sly." Banner said. "Avengers with innate powers, who are of special scientific interest shall not be required to provide biological samples or biometric measurements of any kind to any third party." He looked up. "Third party. That implies ATCU can take what they want."
"They just didn't read the supporting notes, did they?" Nat said. "Look at page thirty-eight."
"Already have." Barton said. "All Avengers know all other Avengers real names and addresses-"
"That's already basically true." Stark said.
"Where do I live, Stark?" Barton cut in.
"Little straw nest on the ninetieth floor of the Empire State." Stark said, with a completely straight face.
"Exactly." Barton said.
"You can say you live with me." Nat said dispassionately. "It's not just each other, though, it's each other, our immediate handlers, and one senator in each party."
"There are multiple HYDRA pawns in the senate." Bucky said.
"So better," Steve said. "but not good enough."
"Just, one second." Barton said, shifting. "Barnes, I know you say your memory is unreliable, but is there any point in showing you all the Congress people and seeing if any ring bells with you? Nat and I can do some work on them to check."
Bucky took a long, slow breath. "Okay."
"When are you going to tell them about…" Stark asked.
Pepper helped them write a second, similar letter, with a slight 'you're not listening' undertone. As the Avengers lined up to sign it, Stark asked Jarvis to get a list of congress photos, without names. He handed Bucky a tablet computer.
Bucky started scrolling.
"I know his face."
"Alistair Mackenzie." Jarvis supplied. "Noted."
Bucky looked up at the ceiling. "Doesn't mean he's HYDRA, but…" He looked down again. "Him and him."
"Matthias Finch and Edgar Munn."
Bucky kept scrolling. "And her."
"Lucy Atwood."
"Well, that's four people." Barton said. "Jarvis, what can you tell us?"
