While he ignored the slight ting! that signaled his entrance into the corner store, the television on the corner of the counter got his attention. Over the lingering ting! of the bell above the door came the loud trumpet of a theme song that he had begun to learn played before a news report. Something else he knew was that the news usually wasn't playing at this hour. Something must have happened. He tried to silence the alarm that went off in his head that it was about him. There was nothing he had done in the past few days to garner this kind of attention.
From what he quickly gathered by taking in what was on the screen, it was a special news report of some kind. He was still getting used to how fast news spread, and how it seemed to be such crystal clear color. Pushing past the evergreen surprise at how technology had advanced (in another time, he would be obsessed with the advancements), he tuned into what the reporter was saying,
"Early this morning, a local train in Seoul, South Korea, derailed off the tracks." the reporter shared over footage of the train, "Caused by what seemed to be a large energy blast, reports are coming in that witnesses saw Captain America from the Avengers fighting against what witnesses are calling a robot similar to Tony Stark's Iron Man." he tried to work through the information she gave while continuing to watch the screen. The scene had switched to inside where the train where someone had recorded the fight. Lower quality than the footage of the train, but he wondered how they had gotten the video so fast. Again, the rate at which technology advanced could entertain him for hours if he chose to focus on it, "Two enhanced were also reported helping Captain America. Witnesses report the woman was the one to actually stop the train, citing that she had red energy coming from her hands. This comes mere days after the Hulk's destruction in South Africa. Some officials are calling for the Avengers to answer to both of these disasters and for stricter rules to be put in place so they be held accountable." The screen shifted to show a professional looking still photo of the group she was referencing. The Avengers. The photo was only on the screen for mere moments, but it was long enough for him to commit to his memory. Not that there was much there to begin with. A lot of open real estate to fill with new memories, though he longed for the ones that had been painfully vacated by others.
The news shifted away from the story about South Korea, going into more local news. He continued to watch for a moment to make sure no one had found him out before continuing down the aisle that housed his protein bars. There was no need to dally, he had spent enough time in the store as it was.
Still, even during his walk back to the apartment, he couldn't stop thinking about the picture of the group the newscaster was talking about. The Avengers. Specifically, his brain kept focusing on the man with the star on his chest, holding a shield that looked like an American flag had been laid out over it. There was a tug in his gut that he had come to recognize as a feeling that happened whenever something was familiar. Like the Hydra operative he met in the parking garage, or the woman he had saved from the other Hydra associate. Something was familiar about the man in the photo.
He waited until he was safely back in his apartment before trying to figure it out. Whenever he had before with other people or places or things, he had given himself a splitting headache. No doubt a side effect of the endless Hydra torture and then trying to yank memories from places they had been triple locked in and meant never to come out of again. Though, the headaches always made him vulnerable. If he was out in public where someone could see him...someone from Hydra, then he wouldn't be able to defend himself. He wasn't about to risk it.
Double-checking his security measures that were in place in the apartment, he retrieved the journal from under his mattress. It was filled with things he had done during the day, different things he had noticed, and what he had remembered. With each fractured memory of the past, he gained a tiny part of himself back, slowly feeling more comfortable in his skin again. More like a man, rather than the Soldier. Never the Man he was before though.
Opening the cover of the journal, his eyes landed on the picture he had clipped there. A printout that like a painting, but had been printed out on nothing but a flimsy piece of paper. He had received at the museum he went to in America. The Smithsonian. Washington, D.C. He had gone there because...well because of the man who was front and center of the printout. The tug in his gut became more pronounced at the sight of him, almost like his body was excited about the sudden connection it had made. The painted man on the printout was the same man from the television.
CAPTAIN AMERICA'S RETROSPECTIVE it proclaimed in large letters underneath the painting/picture. A guide to his past. Oh, how he longed for one of those for himself. Maybe he was making his own himself. Still, he wished someone made one for him. That would be helpful. When he had gotten the printout, there had been some sort of display that had his face on it. Or at least someone who looked like him. He wasn't sure if that was him though, maybe at one time, a long time ago. The words that were etched into the glass told a foreign story. One that seemed like something he would hear about on the news, not one he had lived. That one was more tragic than the display let on.
Circling back, he began to connect the two images. The one on the printout with the one that was displayed on the screen. The man was Captain America. He had gone to the museum to learn about him. The Smithsonian. Washington D.C. Captain America. The man he dragged from the river. His mission. No. His friend. Till the end of the line.
That was what the man had said to him. Captain America. Steve. Something he had said to him a long time before. Before Captain America. After a funeral. The man's mother. Captain America. Steve. Sarah. His mother. It was Steve's mother's funeral. He was there because they were friends. Brothers. Till the end of the line.
Though Steve was skinnier back then. Smaller. Nothing like the pictures they had in the museum. The Smithsonian. Washington D.C. Or had shown on the news. The Avengers. Captain America. The Howling Commandos. That had been their group back then. Before the museum. The Smithsonian. Before the newscast. The train accident. There was another train. In a snowy mountain range. Before. Before the Avengers. Captain America. Steve. His brother.
Brother. Family. Mother. Father. Winnifred. George. Sister. Rebecca. Younger. Butterfly hairpin. He did her hair in the mornings. Complicated curls. All dead. Right? No. The riverbank. Rebecca wearing his uniform. No, not Rebecca. He didn't know her name, but she had similar features as Rebecca. Sister. She wasn't his sister. His sister was dead. So was his parents. Orphan. Except for her. The woman on the riverbank. With Captain America. Steve. She had been looking for Steve. They were friends or something more. He wasn't sure about that. They hadn't talked. Not until he killed the man who took her. Killed someone again. But saved someone else. Had to equal out, right?
He glanced at the dresser across from the mattress he was sitting on, zeroing in on one of the closed drawers. The drawer held a device that seemed like a smaller, portable version of a phone. Oh, it was incredible how technology had advanced. The man's phone. The man from the apartment where he kept Rebecca. No, not Rebecca. The woman from the riverbank. He saved her. From the man in the apartment, who's phone he took. There were photos on it. Of Rebecca. Not Rebecca. The woman he saved. The woman in the photos on the phone device. She wasn't in the photo on the newscast. Not an Avenger. Captain America was one. An Avenger. Steve.
Steve was Captain America.
The man in the photo of the Avengers.
On the television.
On the newscast.
Which was about the train accident.
Steve was Captain America, who was working with the Avengers and stopped a runaway train which the news on the television reported.
That explained the familiarity tug in his gut that refused to go away until he figured it out. Once he did, it dissipated. Only to be replaced with a pounding headache. Not the worst pain he had ever been in, but certainly annoying. It had taken him too long to connect the dots. Too many one offs. He had to get better. Better at remembering things. Better at remembering his past. Just better.
When was he going to get better? When was it going to get easier? That he couldn't figure out. There were no memories that could offer him any solutions to that problem. All those memories caused pain. More pain than the regular headaches he frequently got. Though maybe he deserved it, all things considering. After everything he had done. He had caused a lot of pain after all. That much he knew for certain. The one thing he was confident in. The rest of it was fuzzy, unclear. And of course there was no one who could help him.
There was no one who could help her. It took her a bit, but she had realized that pretty quickly once her brain caught up with what was going on. First thing she noticed was that the ground was hard under her. Not uncomfortable, but definitely the first thing she noticed as she came to. Mostly because the last thing she remembered was hurtling through the air, just barely holding onto the Cradle. She had almost made it in the quinjet.
Almost being the key word.
Where she had ended up; however, was much worse.
The clanging of metal against metal reverberated around her. Echoing, a headache started to pound to the rhythm of the noise. There was an overpowering smell of something burning and it was much hotter than it should've been considering where she had last been. Though, obviously that location had changed.
Natasha slowly opened her eyes, knowing her other senses had done as much recon as they could. And while she could work from what sorts of sounds, smells and the what the environment around her felt like, she needed to be able to see what sort of situation she had landed in - already knowing that it wasn't a good one.
Proven right when she saw the scene before her, her stomach began to sink down. An understandable response when coming face to face with what seemed to be a robot factoryhouse. Other Ultron-style robots were stationed around the vast room she was in, all doing different tasks while seemingly working toward the same finished product. More Ultrons. They were building an army.
"I wasn't sure you would wake up." Ultron's voice drifted over to her, getting her eyes to shift to it. It was standing at some sort of worktable, tinkering with what seemed to pieces of another robot, "I hoped you would. I wanted to show you." it paused for a moment, red eyes on her before they looked back at the table, "I don't have anyone else." if it was meant to incite sympathy from her, it didn't work. She was Russian after all.
Pushing up on her arm in a half attempt to sit up, a dull ache thrummed throughout her body. She wondered how long she had been out. Had the others even noticed her disappearance? She vaguely recalled hearing Clint's panicked shout of her name before she blacked out from the altitude. Did they know where she was? Honestly, she didn't even know where she was. All she could garner was that the area was much more vast than it had been. It seemed endless. They seemed endless.
"I think a lot about meteors." Ultron suddenly said, getting her attention once again, "The purity in them. Boom! The end. Start again." it began monologuing, only interested in the sound of its own voice and not noticing how Natasha moved back to prop herself up against the wall, "The world made clean for the new man to rebuild. I was meant to be new. I was meant to be beautiful." it tilted its face up, shutting the eyes of itself in an almost human way, like it truly believed people were supposed to fawn over it, bow down like it was some sort of god in a world where there were already quite a few of them, "The world would have looked to the sky and seen hope, seen mercy." it continued moving away from the worktable and focusing its full attention on her, "Instead, they'll look up in horror because of you." it started to stalk toward her, but Natasha kept herself upright against the wall, only her hand darting out to find there was an open space beside her, You've wounded me. I give you full marks for that." it gestured to her, sounding almost impressed as she looked up at it, "But, like the man said, what doesn't kill me -" Ultron was cut off as something smashed through its head. While the head exploded, the sound of metal slicing through metal drew her eyes down to where something was ripping Ultron in half. She shifted back into the open space behind her, trying to get as far away from whatever was happening in front of her. The old Ultron was torn apart, pieces clattering to the ground to reveal a bigger, more terrifying version of the robot,
"just makes me stronger." it finished, as Natasha continued to try and get further away from it only to have her back hit a trunk of some sort. She stared up at it in alarm, her heart pounding against her chest as her breath came hard and fast. It grabbed the bars by the end of the doorway, slamming them across the space and trapping her on the other side. Usually, she would be annoyed by the action, but this time she was almost relieved.
In her life, Natasha had come face to face with a lot of horrifying things, but underneath it all, they were human and were able to be manipulated. Ultron was none of those things, which meant she had lost her usual upperhand. She would have to figure out another way to escape.
Luckily for her, in Ultron's dramatics, it had managed to send quite a few useful pieces of its old self into her cell with her. The AI left her alone, which was its first mistake, letting her find that the cell she had been locked in was used as storage for old tech. Including an old CD player that had radio capabilities. Long wave AM radio was one of the features, from the once over she gave it. Perfect.
Using her skills she had both been taught and learned out in the field, Nat disassembled the old Ultron form, only keeping what she needed in wires and switches. She worked quickly, as she was taught that the more time she wasted, the less time she had. It was about survival. It was always about survival. Until it wasn't. Until it was about saving people. Putting others before herself and taking hits that one day she might not get up from. That was what this was about. Not just escaping - though that was a goal that was very high on her list, but also warning others about what was happening.
She modified the radio she had discovered to work with the disassembled pieces of the former robot in order to enable a Morse code broadcast. Adjusting the antenna, she angled it with one hand, while her other hand began to tap out a simple SOS message. Not wanting to get caught, she kept an eye on Ultron and its mini Ultrons. All of the robots seemed to be completely focused on their task of building more of themselves, but Natasha knew it probably wouldn't last long. She continued to tap out her SOS. Hopefully someone would hear it.
Honestly, Marina had learned Morse code just to spite Dawson when they were teens. He thought he had an upper hand on her, having learned it at a random summer camp, and constantly used it against her in the most teasing of taunting ways. So of course, she learned it. Didn't tell him about it until he used it again, surprising him into an annoyed grumble.
That being said, she was a little rusty. Not a lot people used Morse code anymore. No one did to be quite honest. Which was why it was surprising when she heard a rhythmic tapping coming through her headphones. She had been scanning the radio waves for any sort of broadcasts that could lead them to the ex-Hydra operative they had been trying to track down for over a year now.
After what happened with Q, they had put a pin in their search. Even though they probably shouldn't have considering she fully interacted with him. And when Marina did pick up the search again - despite the other two not being distracted by homesteads in Missouri, she found they had exhausted all their technological, modern day options. Bucky had stopped offing Hydra associates and seemed to disappear back into the shadows. Once again becoming the ghost story he was most famous for being. Except for all the murder.
So she turned to old, World War II-esque means of communication. Neither Q or Dawson ever told her exactly who they were trying to find but she had put together enough context clues to figure it out. Continued to learn more about their mark thanks to the leaked Hydra/SHIELD files that were still floating out around the internet, along with the Hydra journal she had to translate for Q and the black box they had stolen from the dead father of the bride all those months ago. She knew a lot, and enough to figure that if he wanted to contact anyone (if there even was anyone he would reach out to) he would turn to means of communication he was comfortable with as a soldier in World War II. Like HAM radios and Morse code.
What she wasn't expecting was an actual message. It threw her off guard, leaving her to quickly scramble for a pen and paper to sloppily jot down what she thought she heard, only to wait with baited breath for the sequence to repeat or another word to come in. She listened closely the second time, carefully copying the message down: SOS
Turning to her radio that she had sitting on her table, she connected it to the software defined receiver and then to her computer to activate the tracking ability. The frequency wasn't too far away, coming from a small town just North of the coastal town they were staying in in Ukraine. Actually, the exact same place Q had been kept during her time with Hydra. A strange coincidence, but not one she lingered on; with the location found, she returned the message in form, asking for information on the sender themselves. If it turned out to be their missing ghost story, she would be so proud of herself. And of course would immediately rub it in Dawson and Q's faces.
Whoever was on the other side began to use abbreviations to help speed up the conversation. They mixed their Q codes in with their prosigns and general brevity code, but Marina managed to keep up. Swapping the abbreviations for the full words and phrases, she took some liberties in order to make a full explanation. What she ended up with was something about an AI named Ultron building an army and how whoever was on the other line was trapped, needing a save. Not was what she was expecting, leading her to believe that she wasn't talking with Bucky, but someone else instead.
She tapped back a request for the operator to give the code associated with their user, hoping to clear up the confusion. Not so much about the AI and Ultron; she had heard all about the murder-robot from Dawson once they returned from their trip to Missouri, but she did want to know who was communicating by Morse code. The why was pretty obvious, whoever was operating the radio was in a last resort situation and looking for help from wherever they could find it.
N-A-T came the response, which made Marina pause. She tapped back, asking for it to be repeated and the same three letters came over again. Nat. Dawson's Nat. It had to be. She didn't know any other Nat's and it was too coincidental to be random. God, out of all the HAM radios in all the world…
Taking off her headphones, she moved away from her station. Intent on getting Dawson because he should be the one dealing with this. She wasn't sure what she was allowed to give away or not and God forbid she say the wrong thing. They had been so secretive about who was allowed to know what over the last year, it was beginning to get annoying. But she could understand it enough to realize she should probably have Dawson continue the conversation.
Though when she stepped outside, it was clear that he shouldn't be anywhere near the radios or even know about what was going on. He and Q were still sitting in their beach chairs - where they had been ever since they got back from Missouri, empty bottles of various alcohols scattered around them like a circle of salt to ward of whatever demons were haunting them. It clearly wasn't working, considering how they passed another bottle of vodka between them.
"For fuck's sake." she muttered under her breath at the scene before her. It was the middle of the day, and they were completely shit faced. Had been in a permanent state of it since their return. Guess she would have to handle it herself.
While she really didn't want to go to Sokovia to save her friend's ex-girlfriend, it was the only option. Nat was obviously trapped and the list of people who could pick up her message was limited. Unless she had some sort of long wave AM radio, which Marina was sure she didn't. There wasn't anyone else who was going to help her - especially not her currently drunk ex-boyfriend and his friend. Though if they were in a sober state of mind, Marina was sure they'd be on the first train out.
God, Dawson was really going to owe her now.
Though neither of them would notice Marina was gone until it was too late. And even then, there was no saving her.
A/N: I'm not sure how I feel about this chapter? I don't really love it and feel like it was kinda boring haha basically just setting up things for the Big Stuff. BUT I really hope you liked the little insight into what Bucky's been up to since we last saw him! I'd love to do more Bucky POVs so let me know if you want that or not.
Anywhooooo thank you so much for reading/following/favoriting this story! I really appreciate it and love hearing all of your thoughts! I also know nothing about Morse code so everything I got was from a brief internet search so yea lol