AN: I seem to be totally incapable of sitting on an update when it's ready to go for more than like two days. I just get too excited about posting it. I always have such good intentions of spreading posts out. *Sigh*.
Papers were spread out over the kitchen table, several maps among them, some hand drawn, some of cities and countries. There were printouts from the Hydra files and satellite scans of swaths of land. It was several days worth of work, and Bucky hadn't slept much while compiling it, but looking out over it now, he was satisfied. And it had felt good to have a task to focus on and complete.
"I think those are all the bases I've been to," he said. "Of course it's a little hard to say for certain. Even with what Wanda cleared up in my head, it's still a lot of year's worth of memories to sort through. And things still get jumbled a bit. Times I was shipped places while still in cryo. Times I arrived places at night and was never told where I was because it wasn't important for the mission. But I've pieced it together as best as I can."
Clint surveyed a neat list summarizing the bases. "This is great work. And enough places to check to keep us busy for a while."
"I wish I knew more about Strucker and where he was likely to go. But I only knew him out of the base in Sokovia. However," he pointed to the list, "I did mark the places with larger labs and which places I think would be more suited to the kind of experiments he's likely to be running with the scepter. It was the best I could do on narrowing it down for you."
Clint nodded. "It's perfect. Thank you Barnes. With this, we might actually be able to stop him before he's able to do any real damage with that thing. We got real lucky that the two who survived the last experiments were the twins. Next batch of test subjects, we might not be so fortunate on the ones that make it out alive."
"Bucky. You can call me Bucky."
Clint grinned. "Thanks again." He looked over the list once more. "We'll head out tomorrow. I'll leave a way for you to contact me. Just in case you do think of any others. Even a possibility of where one might be."
Bucky shifted. "I know you only asked for help locating the bases. But not all these bases may be empty. And I would have some familiarity with them which could help. I could go with you. With the words out, going up against Hydra, isn't such a threat for me that it once was."
Clint was forcibly reminded of Wanda and Pietro, hopefully offering to help him retrieve the scepter and with nowhere else to go if he'd rejected them. But Bucky did have someplace to go. Someplace Clint had been sure he'd be heading now that he'd finished compiling this intel.
"I thought you'd be heading to the states, go see Steve."
Bucky's jaw tightened. "I don't think that's a very good idea."
"Why not? You can't be turned into a threat against him now. And you have all your memories. You know how important you are to him."
"We were like brothers," agreed Bucky simply.
"So why don't you want to go see him?"
"He has a life. I'd only complicate it."
"I'd think having you back in it would de-complicate at."
"I killed Maria and Howard Stark," said Bucky flatly, meeting Clint's eyes.
"Oh."
"I am not going to make Steve choose between-...he's got friends, he's got a team...he's got a mission. Steve was always a hero. Always looking to do the right thing; it's part of who he is. I can't and I won't put him in a position where he has to choose between that and me."
There was a long pause. What would Tony do? Clint wondered. The one time Clint had ever heard him mention his parents, it was clear there was a whole airport's worth of baggage there and that Tony would probably start blowing things up before allowing anyone to touch any of it. And, Clint had to admit with a flash of guilt, he himself had damaged the Avengers enough that they probably weren't equipped to survive the second blow to the team that Bucky's arrival would probably bring if, or more accurately when, Tony learned the truth.
He wasn't sure that Steve wouldn't rather have Bucky at his side than all the Avengers put together, or at least that that was the choice he would make if given it. Clint could call him, and he had no doubts he'd drop everything in a heartbeat to be here. He might even forgive Clint for everything in exchange for having his best friend back. Help them all retrieve the scepter...
It was an appealing picture. But one Clint knew he could never execute. For he was also certain that he had no right to force that decision on Bucky. Enough choice had been taken from the man over the years that do to so now, even if Bucky was making the wrong choice, would be monstrous.
So instead Clint shrugged. "Well, we can definitely use your help to get back the scepter."
Bucky gave him a brief tight smile of thanks.
It was the closest they'd come to a team dinner since Project Insight. It hadn't been planned. It just happened. Steve and Nat had been chatting, it got late, they started cooking, and then Thor came back. Nat noticed Steve add a little extra to the pan, subtly as if he was afraid someone would notice, and then later, as he dished the food onto plates, casually told Jarvis to let Bruce and Tony know there were leftovers if they got hungry.
Ten minutes later Bruce appeared, and said Tony might be coming up in a bit, but Rhodey just called. It was nice. All sitting round the table again. The tension of the past months temporarily melted away. It was a restful and peaceful seventeen minutes and twenty-three seconds, Nat counted it. And then the elevator doors opened and Tony entered the common room.
Nat looked up at the sound, and knew at once that the pleasant team dinner was officially over. The expression on Tony's face was unmistakably one of anger, and a lot of it.
"Rogers," he snapped. Steve looked up, surprised. "Outside, now!" Tony said, gesturing to the roof.
"Tony, what-"
"Now!" And Tony stalked out through the glass doors and onto the landing pad beyond.
Nat and Bruce both shot Steve a questioning look, but he shrugged, and followed Tony out.
"Tony?"
Tony was pacing up and down, but as Steve spoke, he whirled round on him. "Why is your friend Sam doing contacting Rhodey, asking for help finding Barnes?"
Steve, who'd been coming forward, stopped at this. "Sam figured Rhodey would have more active military contacts than either he or I have, which might be useful in the search," he said calmly.
"Rhodey is my friend! You didn't think that maybe you were crossing a line there?"
"I figured it was his choice. And I told you that I wasn't going to stop looking for Bucky."
"And I told you I didn't want to hear about it! This is me, hearing about it!"
"What do you want me to do Tony?" A brief flash of anger on Steve's face. "Bucky is my friend!"
"And what am I?" snapped Tony.
"I-, Tony of course- but-…he's alone. And everything he's been through-"
"What about what I've been through? You're trying to recruit my friends against me when I'm the one whose parents were murdered and he's the one who did it."
"It wasn't his fault! He had no choice. Hydra was controlling him. It's no different than what Loki did to Clint-"
Tony gave a very empty laugh. "Oh Clint. Right yeah, let's bring up the other Hydra agent in our midst."
"I didn't mean-…Selvig then. It's the same principle."
"Exactly the same principle," said Tony viciously. "Selvig built the failsafe into the portal so that it could be shut down. And Barnes? Oh sure, there was programming and torture and memory wipes. But none of that was infallible. After all he broke through all that when it came down to saving you."
"It wasn't easy! It wasn't as simple as him just not choosing to follow orders! And I had a lifetime of memories with him to call on to get through to him!"
"Right. It wasn't easy. He just needed something worth breaking the programming for, and my parents just didn't make the cut."
"...Tony, you have to know it wasn't as simple as that. You do know it. You know what Hydra did to him was complex and...brutal."
Tony shook his head. "So that just makes it all okay then? Everything he did?"
"He didn't have a choice."
"He still did it!"
"He didn't want to!"
"He should have tried harder not to!"
"It's more complicated than that!"
"Yes! Steve it is! That is exactly the problem! It is more complicated than that. More complicated than just 'he didn't want to do it!" Tony began to pace. "I've seen the video!"
"What? What video?"
He paused. He hadn't meant to admit to that. But it was too late now. He let his anger carry him through. "It's in the Hydra files. I went digging. There's a video of Barnes and my parents and-…I've seen him kill my parents. My mother. And one my best friends is trying to tell me I should just forget about that?"
Steve blinked, surprised at news of the video and Tony's description of him. "I don't…I don't expect you to just forget it Tony. I'd never ask that. But how can anyone of us say we wouldn't end up exactly like Bucky, in the same circumstances? He's a man in pain."
"Right. And he's all that matters," said Tony icily.
"Of course not. But you're the one pushing an either/or here, Tony. Not me."
Tony rolled his eyes and let out a noise of exasperation before turning and walking off, leaving Steve alone on the roof. As he entered back into the common room, the others were still sitting at the table but they'd stopped eating. The tension and strain was back.
Bruce half rose as he entered. "Tony-?"
"Not now Bruce," he muttered, and calling the elevator, stepped into it.
Entering his lab a couple of minutes later, Tony reached for the nearest workbench, and pushed its contents to the floor, relishing the smash.
Some part of him, probably the part of him that would always be and had always been since the day he'd met her, Pepper, was telling him to calm down, to think, to consider. But most of him couldn't think straight.
Most of him wanted to smash. Maybe, he thought dryly, this was what the Hulk always felt like, in which case no wonder there was always so much property damage when he was around.
He smashed the contents of another table and then went over to the cabinet with the drinks and poured himself a very tall whiskey. As he drained the glass, he closed his eyes.
"I had a couple of good people in my life. My mom. And-"
"Barnes."
"Yeah. Barnes."
He pinched the corners of his eyes.
"So it's really, really easy to be angry at him. But it's not as easy to hate him as I thought."
"What are you saying?"
"I don't know. I guess maybe that it's not so simple?"
He took a deep breath.
But how can anyone of say we wouldn't end up exactly like Bucky, in the same circumstances? He's a man in pain.
Barnes.
How? How could Steve-….how could Steve?
For the first time he asked himself the question. Legitimately asked the question, and didn't make it rhetorical.
Steve had to have seen Barnes the way Tony saw him. He'd fought him. He'd protected Nick Fury from him. Was Barnes just Steve's blind spot?
Okay, so what if he was his blind spot? What if, despite everything that had gone on with Hydra and Project Insight, he couldn't see the Winter Soldier. What was he seeing instead?
Tony ground his teeth, and set his jaw.
I don't care, he thought bitterly. Tony was the one who had lost. Tony was the one whose parents had been taken away, leaving him struggling and self-destructing for the next couple of decades.
His mom. His mom had been in that car, alone and scared. His mom, the one person that anchored him until Pepper had come into his life…
But…then again…you couldn't cast your sins onto others. He'd sworn he'd take responsibility. He'd stepped up and owned his mistakes after Afghanistan. He'd become Iron Man. He'd…
What would have happened to him in that cave if the terrorist had been just a little smarter? Or if Yinsen hadn't been there? If he'd truly had to choose between helping them and…more torture and eventual death?
"You're the one pushing an either/or here Tony. Not me."
"Jarvis," he said abruptly, "Where's Steve?"
"He's in his room, sir."
"Call him. Audio only." Tony poured himself a second glass.
There was a pause. And then Steve's voice filled the lab, wary and tired. "Tony?"
"Tell me about Barnes." It came out short and angry.
"What?"
Tony closed his eyes, and tried to modulate his tone."Tell me about growing up with Barnes. I don't want to talk. I just-…need to hear it. I need some image other than the road and the car and-….just tell me about the man you're fighting for here."
There was a long silence. And then Steve began to talk. He told stories of growing up, he told stories that Tony suspected he didn't even realize exposed his own wounds so glaringly, so determined was he to share the Bucky he was willing to sacrifice so much for. He told stories of the war, of Brooklyn. Big stories, little stories. Stories that changed both men's lives and stories of jokes that had made them laugh for a minute and then should have been forgotten in time a moment later but weren't, not by this man they'd meant the world to.
As he talked, Tony sat at his computer, and let the stories float around him. He played the video of the assassination at the car, he dived into the Hydra files and read mission reports of the Asset and technician reports of the chair, of the Soldier's cryo chamber, of work done on his arm. And he delved deeper: reports by Dr. Zola from the creation of the Winter Soldier.
At some point, he closed his eyes, overwhelmed by memories of Afghanistan. He could feel the cold of the cave and the rush of the water…
And he wished so desperately, that everything could just, for once, be easier.
Bucky woke with a jerk, soaked in sweat and his heart racing. He was out of bed and already prepared to fight, when the darkness and emptiness of the room washed over him and his brain caught up with his instincts.
A nightmare. That's all it was. One awful, rotten nightmare. He closed his eyes and focused on trying to calm his breath, trying to stop the mad racing in his chest.
It had felt so real…
Probably because at one point it had been real.
His eyes flew open again. The darkness felt oppressive. He switched on the bedside table light. That was a little better.
He rolled his eyes at himself. Seriously, he needed a nightlight now?
No, what he needed was a drink. It wouldn't do much good…but at least it would have the hint of normalcy.
He grabbed his pants and shirt and dressed quickly, before heading out to the kitchen. He froze for a moment on the threshold. The kitchen was not empty. Sitting at the table was Brock, a bottle in one hand, a book laid out in front of him. It was two in the morning; the man should be asleep, thought Bucky annoyed.
Not the person who he wanted to see right now. Frankly he didn't want to see anyone at all. But pride refused to turn around. So he stalked over to the fridge, noticing the tensing in Brock's shoulders when he realized he was there, and grabbed a beer out of the fridge.
He started pulling open drawers looking for the opener.
"Here."
Bucky turned. Brock held a bottle opener out to him. There was a beat, then Bucky took it. "Thanks." As he reached for it, he noticed Brock tense again, just a little.
He took a swig of his drink and then leaned back against the counter. His pulse was still racing and he suspected it would be the rest of the night.
A flash of the nightmare swam before him, blood and guts. His metal fist hitting, digging into broken flesh-
He pulled himself to the present, and because flight or fight were battling it out inside of him right now, he dived into the latter.
"You don't like me here," he said flatly. Brock looked up from his book. "You tense whenever I'm around. Why? You think I'm dangerous?"
"I know you're dangerous. I've seen up close and personal how dangerous you can be."
Bucky shrugged. "Yeah I guess you have. So what? You think I'm going to flip out? Lose control?"
"Not exactly."
"What then?"
Brock leaned back in his chair. "Some of those bases we're going after might not be empty. There might be a fight. And now you're coming with us, I could end up in a situation where I'm supposed to trust that you have my back. But I can think of quite a few reasons why you're more likely to shoot me in it than watch it."
"Ah. You think I'm going to go for revenge? For all those times you could have helped me and you never did?"
Brock snorted. "If you're trying to make me feel guilt or elicit an apology, you're wasting your breath. Everything I did, everything you did, it was worth it. The only regret I have, is that Hydra fell at all."
"Oh." There was a deadly, steely glint in Bucky's eyes. "Glad you get to be the one to decide what was worth it. Tell me, if that's the way you feel," he set the beer down and crossed his arms, "why should I trust you to have my back if it comes to that? What are you even doing here? Why aren't you out there with Strucker and the rest of Hydra, trying to pull it back together?"
"I'm not suicidal enough to sign up for lost causes. And thanks to your precious Captain America, Hydra's on its last legs. Sorry, but I'm mercenary enough to jump ship when needs must."
"Mercenary enough? Is that it? You talk a big game but at the end of the day it all comes down to what you can get? Is that what you joined for? The paycheck? Is that what was so worthwhile about Hydra that what we did was 'worth it'?"
"No!" Brock spat, surging to his feet, his fist clinched. Bucky instantly shifted postures, ready for a fight. But Brock's fight seemed to leave him at once. He fell back down into his chair, apparently perfectly relaxed and at ease, stretching his legs out and crossing them. He took a swig of his beer. It was all a little too overdone. Even if he hadn't seen that brief loss of control, Bucky would have known it was fake.
"So what was it? How does someone make the choice?" asked Bucky, the viciousness still in his voice, but forcing himself to return to a more neutral posture. "Why'd you join? Why were you recruited into Hydra?"
There was a very long pause, during which Brock rolled his beer bottle back and forth between his palms. Bucky doubted that the man was going to respond. He felt a flicker of anger and resentment and then suddenly Brock began to talk. He didn't look at Bucky as he did so. He stared off, unseeingly into the distance. His voice was so thoroughly exhausted as he did speak, that Bucky wondered how many nights he could be found out here at two in the morning, drinking alone at the kitchen table.
"I joined the army when I was eighteen. Had a stepdad I wanted to get away from and I had an uncle who'd served. He was the only person in my family who gave a crap about me. He died when I was twelve. But I never forgot the stories he told me. He was the most honorable man I ever knew and I wanted to be like him." He took a swig from his beer. "My unit saw a lot of action. We had a lot of good men. Lost a lot of good men. I was twenty-four when it happened. We were ambushed one night. It was a massacre. My squadron got cut off. Only five of us made it out alive. We were deep in enemy territory, no way for help to reach us.
"There was a mountain range. If we could get through that, we'd been in neutral grounds. Could get picked up. I was twenty-four and the most senior soldier left standing. I was in charge. Couldn't contact base. We were on our own. Two men badly wounded. One kid just eighteen. I had to lead. I had to make the tough calls.
"We had to go through the mountains but we knew there were armed terrorists there. We just didn't know where or what paths were safe. But there was a village not far from there. Oh just women, children, and men too old and weak to carry a gun. But they supplied the guerillas in the mountains. They knew where the soldiers were. They could tell us how to avoid them. But they weren't keen on that idea."
Brock took another swig. Bucky noticed that he kept clinching and unclenching one fist. "I wasn't going to lose any more men. And Frank didn't have a lot of time left. We had to get him to medical help and soon…so I made the villagers talk. Shoot a few, and they start to talk. Of course they lied. Their initial directions would have sent us right into the enemy camps. But you take the ones who talk, separate them, torture them, and you compare their stories. You get the truth…" His jaw worked. "But you can't leave them. Not when you have to move two wounded men who are going to slow you down. Not when every one of them can navigate those mountains at a speed you couldn't manage even if you weren't already exhausted and broken. I got our directions…and then I wiped the village out. It was the only way. We'd never have made it through the mountains alive otherwise.
"Of course, that was it for my men. They'd never accept what I had to do. And they shouldn't. It wasn't their call. It wasn't their choice to live with. There's more peace in rejecting and condemning. I was the one in commend. Not some eighteen year old kid. I'm glad he could come out of it intact enough to be appalled at the choice I had to make. Maybe he's actually got a life now, huh?"
Brock finished his drink. "We got through those mountains. Every last one of us. We got back to civilization and to base. The story got told. Not sure what would have come of it. If I'd have been made a hero or a villain. Maybe no one, but the one who had to make the call, could ever condone it. Who knows and who cares? I didn't do it for the legacy that would follow. I did it because my one and only priority in that moment, was to save my men, men who relied on me, men who had already been through hell, men who had wives and kids and parents. Men I was going to see home."
He shrugged one shoulder. "Somehow the story got back to Hydra. I think they kept an eye on the military, good recruiting grounds, and they had several generals on their side to make it easy. I got pulled in and offered a job. Because they saw I could make the tough calls and they respected that. Because I'd demonstrated that I understood that sometimes…pain is the only way."
At last he pulled his gaze back towards Bucky. "You do what you've got to do. I haven't seen those men since the day I joined Hydra. But I think about them. Hydra pulled strings. Got them shipped home. My, uh, signing bonus shall we say? They've got lives. Maybe I gave them a few nightmares. But the people who loved them got to hold 'em again. And I'll never regret that. I'll never say I made the wrong call."
Bucky and he stared at each other.
"You want an apology?" asked Brock, with a sneer he was trying so desperately to hide behind. "You want me to say I regret joining Hydra? Hydra was trying to create a world in which those choices I had to make wouldn't exist anymore. People made this world. And whatever Hydra did, it wasn't worse than what has already been done by everyone else…except it sought to end the madness not just make more of it. And we were so close with Project Insight, we were so close…but thanks to Steve bloody Rogers and friends, Hydra is so smashed up that it all it has left are its death throes...and where does that leave the world? In the same ugly mess it was before."
Bucky stared down at his crossed arms, metal folded over flesh.
"I lived, and fought, through World War II," He said slowly. "I saw enough death and carnage and atrocities that I could almost agree with you. Almost agree that to create a world where that never happens again, is worth any price. The problem is I was one of the ones who had to pay Hydra's price. The good of many at the expense of the few sounds like simple math, until you're stuck living as the few. Which is why you saved your men in the first place."
Bucky grabbed the beer he'd set down on the counter and returned to his room. Alone in the kitchen, Brock buried his face in his hands and wished, not for the first time, that that bloody building had finished its job when it fell on him. It would have been so much easier.