Okay so I'm getting pretty good with the violin :D I hope everyone's summer is going well. Still unemployed! But hopefully not for too much longer.

A little action is this chapter. Finally things are picking up. Hope you like it!

Let me know your thoughts/feelings/concerns/etc! Review!

Chapter 24

"Rusted…"

"What is that? Where is that coming from?" Steve demanded, looking around frantically.

"Bucky?" Clara stood and quickly rounded the table to get to him.

"Seventeen…"

Bucky's hands jerked up to his ears and he curled in on himself a little. "No!" he yelled. "This is too public…"

"Daybreak…"

"Bucky, what's going on?" Clara reached up to push the cap off his head but he jerked away, frantically looking for a direction to run. "I don't understand what they're saying."

"Someone has the book," he ground out, looking to Steve. He let out a yell, unable to think anymore. He tried to latch onto something, anything, any thought to prevent this from happening.

"Furnace…"

"Bucky, Bucky look at me." Clara tried to pry his hands away from his face. "Bucky, what book?"

Steve was closer now, "the book you told me we had to find first?"

"Nine…"

Another yell. People were running, shouting in the streets, confused. Bucky jerked up straight and looked around. He had to get out of there. This was too public. People could die.

"Benign…"

"Bucky!" Steve called, drawing his attention.

"Siberia," he breathed. "Hydra."

"Hydra got it first?" Steve tried to clarify, but Bucky was too scattered, too frantic. He took off down the street, but Steve and Clara were close behind him. "Bucky, stop!"

"Homecoming…"

No matter how far or how fast Bucky ran, it seemed he couldn't escape the echoes of the voice. He wasn't going to make it. He stopped suddenly, frantically looking for a plan B and finding none.

"Shit, shit, shit," he muttered as Steve and Clara caught up, Clara clearly more winded than the super soldier.

"One…"

"I'm sorry," Bucky told Steve.

"Buck, what—"

"Freight car…"

Bucky's hands dropped to his sides and his face smoothed out, muscles relaxing. His mind, blank. He waited patiently.

"What's wrong?" Clara demanded. "What's going on?"

"Something's wrong," Steve muttered.

"Good Morning, Soldier…"

"Ready to comply," he muttered in Russian.

"Hey!" Clara snapped, hand reaching out to touch his shoulder. Bucky's metal hand reached up in the blink of an eye to bat her away roughly, but Steve caught his arm, shocked by the amount of force that was behind the hit.

"Bucky, stop," Steve warned, head tilted down as he stared down his best friend.

"Attack."

Bucky ripped his arm out of Steve's grip, wound back, and whipped his fist back at Steve's face. Steve managed to dodge, stumbling back.

"Run," Steve yelled to Clara, who had managed to put some feet of distance between her and Bucky when he had moved to hit her. "Run, Clara, get out of here!"

When Clara darted away, Steve turned his focus back to Bucky, who was running at him again. He caught Bucky's next hit and knocked him off balance. Catching him off guard, Steve landed a punch to the side of Bucky's head, sending him flying across the pavement.

"Kill him."

Bucky flipped up off the ground and sprinted back at Steve, letting out a feral growl when Steve met him half way, catching both his arms. In the back of his head he was grateful Bucky was unarmed. "Buck," Steve ground out against the force his friend was exerting. "I don't know what they're telling you, but you need to snap out of it."

Bucky made no inclination he was even hearing Steve at this point. Punch after punch, attempts to throw Steve off balance, Bucky was like an animal at this point, Steve realized. Maybe it was because they'd removed Hydra's tech, maybe it was because he hadn't trained in however many weeks it had been. Whatever it was, Bucky was sloppier than when they fought on the bridge.

Bucky snapped Steve out of his thoughts when he landed a hit to the side of Steve's head, knocking him away. He recovered quickly and bounced up to grab Bucky's flesh arm, spin, and pull the man over his shoulder, throwing him into a brick side of the building.

"I'm sorry," Steve muttered, watching Bucky shakily get to his feet. He took Bucky's head and smacked it into the brick wall. "I'm sorry."

Effectively unconscious, Bucky hit the ground with a thud. Steve's eyes snapped to the sky when his ears popped and the sound of a chopper approached.

"I did not anticipate you coming along with him today, Captain," a thick accented voice yelled from across the street. "That was a miscalculation on my part."

Steve ground his teeth at the three black-clad men standing across the street from him. The one who had spoken had an unconscious, dark haired girl slung over his shoulders, a hand and a foot already twisted into a rope ladder hanging from the helicopter. Needing no further temptation, Steve bolted after him. The man tugged the rope and they started to ascend quickly.

Steve dodged one man without looking, eyes focused on Clara and the Russian man quickly getting away. He missed the end of the rope by inches and, without breaking pace, sprinted for the escape ladder on the building beneath the helicopter.

By the time Steve managed to make it to the top, though, it was too late. The helicopter was well out of reach and the man was now barely hanging outside of the aircraft. Steve watched as he handed Clara off and began to pull the ladder in.

Angry now, Steve turned his attention of the Hydra agent at his tail, quickly disarming him. He stood above the man, one hand fisted in his vest. "Where are they taking her?" he demanded.

The man just smirked. "Where do you think?" he snapped, then bared his teeth, showing off a tiny pill. He bit into it, the pop audible above the sound of Steve's heart beating in his chest, and the man started seizing seconds later.

Where was the second man? Steve darted to the edge of the building and looked down, seeing the second agent jumping off the escape ladder and heading for Bucky. Steve glanced around for a quicker way down but, finding none, hoped over the edge of the building and swung down onto the landing of the fire escape, quickly repeating until he made it to the ground.

Steve got to the agent just as he was lifting his unconscious friend over his shoulders much as they'd done to Clara.

"Sorry, Pal, but I'm kind of having an off day," Steve muttered, grabbing the man by the back of his vest and flinging him away from Bucky. "Now, your friend wasn't very cooperative—"

The man reached behind him and whipped out a pistol, managing to get a bullet out before Steve kicked it out of his hands. Boy did he wish he'd had his shield. He ignored the burning in his shoulder and continued on to roundhouse kick the guy in the head. Out like a light.

Steve dragged the guy by the back of his vest over to the building Bucky was in front of and ripped a metal storm pipe off the wall. It would have to do until he could get Bucky off the street and to safety. He wrapped the unconscious Hydra agent in the metal and propped him up against a dumpster before he quickly threw Bucky over his good shoulder and headed for help.

XXX

Bucky woke hazily, immediately knowing something wasn't right. He smelled metal and rust, and his head was throbbing painfully. It was dark, but he could still see the dingy colors of the warehouse around him. He glanced to his left and jerked with his arm, which was stuck in a clamp.

Something was seriously, terribly wrong. He was alone, he noted, using his flesh hand to try and pull his metal one from the vice.

"Hey, Steve!" a voice echoed in the room, but Bucky didn't immediately see anyone. He squinted as a door screeched and slid open, letting in more light. A few moments later and two men stood in front of him.

Bucky looked up and at Steve's serious expression, looked away, a well of emotions bubbling in his chest as the memories of what had happened surfaced. Dread, was all he could think of to name the absolutely terrible feeling coursing through his body.

"Steve," he managed, trying to sit up as straight as he could with his arm twisted in the grip.

"Which Bucky am I talking to?" Steve demanded a little harshly.

"Your mom's name was Sarah," he breathed. "You used to wear newspapers in your shoes…" He let out a chuckle at the memory.

Steve and Sam exchanged a glance. "Can't read that in a museum."

"Just like that was supposed to be cool?" Sam retorted.

"What did I do?" Bucky asked carefully, looking back down at himself. There was no blood on any of his clothes, he noted. Just a lot of dust and dirt.

"Bucky…" Steve started, clearly uncomfortable.

"Oh, god, I knew this would happen," he mumbled to himself. "Everything Hydra put inside me is still there. All they had to do was say the goddamn words."

"Bucky." Steve's voice rang out in the small space. "We'll figure it out."

"Did I kill anyone? Is anyone hurt?"

Steve hesitated. "You didn't kill anyone. One Hydra agent took a pill, I couldn't stop him. The other I handed off to some of the SHIELD agents I've gathered once I got you here."

Bucky paused for a second before he looked up at Steve. "Where's Clara?"

Steve looked away and then exchanged a short glance with Sam, who was beginning to look uncomfortable.

Bucky tried to sit up straighter. He felt his muscles beginning to tense. "Steve," Bucky pressed. "Where is Clara? Is she safe? Did she get away from me?"

"Hydra has her," Steve announced firmly, face determined despite the bad news pouring from his mouth.