Author's Note

Hello again, everyone, and welcome back! It's good to see some familiar names. I'm glad you're all as excited as I am to get back to this universe.

There's a lot of talking this chapter as we bring in the rest of our main cast and set up for the reveal I'm sure most of you know is coming. All main characters that appear in this chapter are the only ones who will be showing up, with the exception of the Dinobots and one other Avenger. And if you do a head count, there are a lot of people. But I think I'm making it work okay.

Alright, go onward and enjoy!


Out of the Darkness

They split up, each taking a different route through D.C., but their mystery mech follows Ari and Optimus. Sideswipe doesn't like it, two seconds from turning around and joining them, but Ari gets him to keep his course. Bucky is too important to lose to whoever is behind all this. He's the key to finding out what's going on.

Besides, she trusts Optimus to keep her safe. And even though Sideswipe is reluctant, he trusts Optimus, too.

Their mystery mech is fast, his alt mode some kind of sports car that easily allows him to keep pace with Optimus's semi. But Optimus knows the city better than him, leading him through a winding trail around sharp turns that Ari is surprised even Optimus is able to make.

After one corner they gain a few precious seconds where they're out of his line of sight. Optimus squeezes down an alley, turning off his engine so they're completely obscured by darkness.

They wait, breath held, as the mech inches past their alley, looking for them. But he keeps going.

Optimus waits ten more minutes before moving again, making sure the mech has well and truly moved on. After that, they head out of the city, towards the rendezvous point. Ari keeps looking in the rearview mirror, expecting to see a pair of headlights gaining on them again, but they never appear.

Instead, she focuses on the next step of the plan. Which is finding out what, exactly, their next step is.

Emergency Protocol Delta Six is one of a dozen different protocols Ari concocted in the event the World Security Council and S.H.I.E.L.D. turned against them. This one orders everyone to scatter. To not give in and to run, so they can fight another day.

And they will fight. Because there is no way they will let this stand.

The soldiers are to split off into their individual teams, at least one Autobot going with each just in case Decepticons come into play. As soon as they're away from the threat, they're to hit the caches to collect any weapons and money available and then they're to find a place to lay low until they get orders. Wheeljack's team has the Mind Stone and is to stay low unless absolutely necessary, keeping the Infinity Stone safe their top priority. The Autobots' comm link is secure, more secure than anything humans can come up with or hack, so they can still communicate freely.

Ari just doesn't know what to tell them yet. The Council was on their side. Ari's been on good terms with them lately. Never during any of her meetings has she seen evidence that they would turn on the Autobots. The only time that's ever happened was during Chicago, when the Council blamed the Autobots for Sentinel and the invasion of the Decepticons.

But the Autobots haven't done anything. Neither have the Decepticons, for that matter. So why now?

Just what did Galloway tell them? That's the only thing Ari can think of. Galloway said something to convince the Council that the Autobots are either hostile or no longer fit to protect the Earth. But what?

And then there's Bucky's involvement. Just what happened to him? He's been missing for, what, seventy years? And now he's working for the bad guys?

And just who are the bad guys? Is it just Galloway or does he have accomplices? And what, exactly, does he want? Then there's the mech who's not a Decepticon but not an Autobot. Why is he helping them?

So many questions, none of which are piecing together in Ari's head. Hopefully, there are answers on that flash drive of Lina's, but this…it's bigger than just Ari or N.E.S.T. or the Autobots. They're on the run from a secret government organization that's worldwide and with hundreds of resources. There's nowhere to hide that they won't be able to find them.

They need help. They have some avenging to do—for Nick.

And that reminds her of her favorite spies.

She whips out her phone, scrolling frantically through her contacts. If S.H.I.E.L.D. is really compromised, Phil, Clint, and Natasha could be in serious danger. All of a sudden, she's glad she let Wheeljack mess with her phone a couple months ago. At first, she was afraid he'd blow it up, but he actually managed to make it completely untraceable.

Who knows who could be listening.

"We're five minutes away from the others," Optimus lets her know, voice turning curious. "Who are you calling?"

"One of the few S.H.I.E.L.D. agents I know I can still trust," she says, listening to the dial tones ring out. "And maybe he has some of the answers."

The thing is, Phil doesn't pick up. No matter how many times she tries. According to Lina, Phil has been in on this with Nick since the beginning. He's already aware of the possible danger.

So does that mean he's busy trying to find more answers? Or were people sent to kill Phil as well?

She shakes those thoughts from her head. No, until she hears otherwise, she has to assume he's okay. He's a good agent. One of the best. He can take care of himself.

But she thought that about Nick, too.

Stomach twisting, Ari scrolls to another number in her contacts. This time, thankfully, the line connects.

"Make it quick, kotyonok," Natasha answers, breaths huffing like she's briskly walking somewhere. "I have to be on a quinjet in five minutes."

"No, you're not," Ari replies, inwardly cringing at what she's about to do. She's about to shake Natasha's whole world. "I've initiated Emergency Protocol Delta Six."

The line goes deathly quiet, her steps and breathing completely stopped. "They've turned on you?"

"It's worse than that. Nick is dead. And I think S.H.I.E.L.D. has something to do with it."

A steady stream of expletives flow through the phone as Natasha gets moving again. "Explain."

"It's too much to explain over the phone, but Fury died and then Galloway showed up at the base with S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. He shut us down and ordered all of us to turn ourselves in. He wants the Autobots to leave Earth and...he knows about me. He knows about the AllSpark."

Natasha's cursing turns to Russian, meaning her anger burns hotter than any language can handle but her native tongue.

"Yeah, I know." Ari turns in her seat so her back is to the door and she can put her feet on the bench seat, drawing her knees to her chest. "This feels bad, Nat. Our usual end of the world bad. It might be a good time to assemble and...I want you, Phil, and Clint to get out. I wouldn't put it past Galloway to use you guys to get to us. He knows we're friends. I'm not asking you to turn on S.H.I.E.L.D. or anything. I know what they mean to you, but I don't want you to get hurt. Just get out of town for a little while. Tell them you're going on vacation for once or something."

"No, sestrenka. Whatever this is, we are with you. Family is more important. We want you safe."

Ari closes her eyes in relief for a moment. "Thank you."

"It is nothing," she brushes off, starting to sound less like Natasha and more like the Black Widow. "I will gather the others, but Clint and Phil will be a problem. They're both on their own missions."

Unease tightens Ari's stomach. She expected that answer about Phil if he was doing things with Nick, but she didn't know about Clint. "Blackout protocol?"

"Unfortunately. I don't know where they are or when they're supposed to return, but I have some non-S.H.I.E.L.D. contacts I can reach out to. And I'll leave them both coded messages on their phones for whenever their missions end. We'll warn them, one way or another."

"That'll have to do," Ari sighs, trying to shove her worry to the back of her mind. There's nothing she can do for them. She needs to focus on the people she can help. "Do you know a place we can meet up and maybe rest of the night?"

"Yeah, I have several safe houses no one knows about, not even S.H.I.E.L.D. I'll send you the coordinates."

"Oh, really?" It brings an idea to mind, a way to relieve at least one of her worries. "How many do you have exactly?"

"About a dozen clear across the globe. Remnants of my practices while I was in Red Room but I keep maintaining them just in case. And just so I can get away for a little while, sometimes, without anyone able to find me."

"Then can we borrow one more of them?"

"For who?"

"My mom and sister. They're at the brownstone in D.C. and I know Galloway is probably talking to them right now, or he will be soon. Can you make sure they slip away and get somewhere safe?"

"Consider it done. I'll talk to the others about Pepper, Jane, and Darcy as well."

A small amount of tension leaves Ari's shoulders. It's not a lot, but it's something. One less weight slowing her down and keeping her from focusing on whatever's going on. "Thank you. We'll see you soon, sestra."


Optimus sends the safe house coordinates to the rest of their team for Protocol Delta Six, which consists of Sideswipe, Sunstreaker, Ironhide, Ratchet, and Jazz for the Autobots and Will, Rob, Trent, John, and Evie for the soldiers. More Autobots and less soldiers than the rest of the teams now scattered around the world but they're the ones in charge of coming up with the plan while everyone else stays in hiding, waiting for orders.

Ari just hopes they can come up with a plan in time, before anyone is found.

The drive is long, about two hours for the Autobots, ending somewhere in Pennsylvania, of all places. Doesn't seem like the place a spy would set up shop, but that's probably the point. No one will look for them in the middle of farmland.

Everyone piles out of the alt modes, stiff and sore since they didn't take any pitstops along the way. Ari's pretty sure they're all fugitives now and she, especially, will be easily recognizable.

The entire world is looking for her. Again. Except this feels a lot worse than Egypt.

Sideswipe's holoform flickers on right next to her, his arm going around her waist to pull her close. She leans into him gratefully, having missed him after being separated for so long.

"How you holding up?" he asks, lips moving against her forehead.

"Alright, considering," she says, trying to hold in a sigh and failing. "Tonight was not supposed to turn out like this."

He presses a kiss to the top of her head. "I know. I was going to take you dancing."

She looks up at him wistfully. "Really?"

"Yeah. Proper dancing, not that jump and grind stuff they do in clubs. Steve told me of a place he found not far from the restaurant I took you to. It's styled after the 1940s. Décor, music, dance floor, the works."

"Maybe we can try again when all this is over." She looks down at her dress, holding out the skirt. "Hopefully I can find a change of clothes before there's any more running so I won't ruin this dress. And I could use a shower."

"Primus, I would kill for a shower right now," Lina moans, placing her hands at the small of her back and bending backwards until there's a pop. She seems to be standing on her own okay but she's still leaning most of her weight on her uninjured foot. "Please tell me there's a shower in this place somewhere."

"I don't know," Ari muses, making a mental note to get Ratchet to look at Lina's ankle once they're settled. The safe house, apparently, is a farm, though not a working farm like Ari's home back in Nevada. This place probably was, at one point. Now, it looks completely abandoned, the house held up by a few rotting planks of wood and a prayer. The barn isn't so bad, but the paint is all chipped away and it's listing to one side. The field behind it may have grown corn at one point but it's all dead now.

The whole place looks like the set of a Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie, not the lair of one of the greatest spies in the world.

"Is there even anyone here?" Evie asks, rubbing at her arms. "Kinda gives me the creeps."

Lina shakes her head. "This is nothing. You should have been at the warehouse I ended up in. A lot creepier than this. At least there are no bullets here."

"Yet," John adds with a sly grin.

Trent hits his shoulder with the back of his hand, giving John a small glare. "Not helping."

"Speaking of bullets." Ari looks up at Sideswipe curiously. "How's our guest doing?"

Sideswipe shrugs sheepishly. "Okay, I guess. I've…kinda kept him knocked out."

Ari arches a brow at him.

"What!" He raises his hands defensively. "What did you expect me to do? I know who he was, but right now, he's set on killing us all. I didn't want him trying to break out."

Sunstreaker's holoform turns on next to Lina, letting out a snort. "You mean you didn't want him trying to break you."

"Who is knocked out?" Ratchet asks in concern, the rest of the Autobots turning on their holoforms as well.

"It's a long story," Ari says, rubbing at the back of her head sheepishly. She didn't really tell anyone all that much yet, wanting to get everyone together in one place first so she only has to explain once. Explaining Bucky at all is going to be hard enough as it is.

"It's the guy who was trying to kill Lina," Sunstreaker deadpans with a scowl.

"And he's in Sideswipe's alt mode why?" Will asks, waiting for someone to elaborate.

Ari sighs. "I'm…honestly not entirely sure. I don't know exactly what's going on with him but…look, let's just find everyone else for now and I'll explain later. I'd rather only go through this once."

And maybe with everyone together, they can help her figure the rest of this out.

"Good, you made it," a voice says right behind John, making him jump. Natasha steps around him with a smirk, wearing civilian clothes of jeans and a t-shirt under a leather jacket. She slipped right into their group without notice.

John presses a hand to his chest, breathing fast as he spins on her. "Slaggit, don't do that!

Natasha's smirk widens. "But it's so much fun."

"Not for me, it isn't. Fragging spy. Why am I friends with you?"

"You know you love me," she winks. "Now come on. This way."

She leads them over to the barn, opening the barn doors all the way to reveal a mostly empty space with a handful of empty animal stalls in the back. "There should be enough room for all of your alt modes in here," she offers. "And don't worry. It may look rundown but I promise you, everything is structurally sound."

While the Autobots get themselves inside, Natasha leads the rest of them to an animal stall in the far-left corner. It reeks with the smell of manure and death, making Ari's nose screw up in disgust. Natasha walks right through it completely unfazed, running her hand along the back wall. She presses a finger firmly against a certain spot in the wood, making something audibly click. Another panel of wood right next to her hand whooshes open, revealing a keypad and retinal scanner.

Huh. This place definitely isn't as rundown as it looks.

Natasha punches in a code, lowers her head for the eye scan, and then there's another click, a lot louder than the first. It's really less of a click and more of a thunk, like a tumbler in a vault door sliding open.

"Hey!" John yells in surprise as the ground beneath his feet begins to move. He stumbles backwards as a hatch slides open, musty hay falling into the hole. Lights in the room below them flicker on, revealing a narrow staircase leading down.

The Autobots' holoforms reappear around them, Optimus nodding in approval. "This is an impressive safe house. No one has ever suspected this was here?"

Natasha gives a satisfied smirk, leading the way down. "Nope. I own this place under an alias and as far as the locals are concerned, they believe this place has been abandoned for decades. Clint's helped me make improvements since I met him, plus adding a few traps of his own to keep any curious riffraff out. We'll be safe here."

The stairs end in a massive room, looking like it's just as big as the barn above them. There's shelves off to the left lined with weapons and supplies, ready for a quick taking if they're in a hurry and on the run. A couple of couches sit to the right along with a T.V., making the space a bit homey in case they're stuck here for a while.

In the back is a kitchen area with shiny new appliances, as well as a table where a good helping of their friends sit anxiously. Bruce and Steve sit next to each other, talking quietly in nervous whispers. Thor sits a little ways away from them, Loki right next to him with both of them in Midgardian clothes of shirts and jeans that make them look strangely normal. Jane's hunched over on Thor's other side, scribbling furiously into a notebook, Darcy fruitlessly trying to coax the scientist to let the sciencing go for a little while.

Ari wonders for a moment why those two are here and not at the safehouse with the rest of their civilian friends, and then quickly drops it. Darcy and Jane have never been the types to run when there's danger and people needed saving. They didn't do that when Thor landed and they're not about to start now.

Tony's leaning back in his seat, balanced on the back two legs of the chair with his feet propped up on the table. At the sound of their footsteps he looks up, sighing impatiently and plonking back down on all fours. "Finally. What took you so long?"

"Save it, Tony," Ari says wearily, plonking down in an empty seat. The rest of the humans take seats as well, the holoforms standing around them with Sideswipe right behind her. He places a hand on her shoulder and she places her hand on top of his. "We've had a long night."

"What happened?" Steve asks, leaning forward with his elbows on the table.

Lina blinks rapidly, taking a good look at the people around the table. "Dude, are these the Avengers?"

"Who did you think we were going to for help, the cops?" Sunstreaker asks sarcastically. He grips the back of Lina's chair and turns it around so she's perpendicular to the table, making her yelp and clutch the sides of her seat to keep her from falling out of it.

"Stop manhandling me!" she demands but Sunstreaker ignores her, squatting down and gingerly lifting her hurt ankle. She hisses in pain, wincing slightly.

"Ratchet, you mind taking a look at his?" Sunstreaker says, rolling up Lina's pant leg and carefully slipping off her shoe. "Pretty sure her ankle's sprained."

"Of course. Let me just get a few supplies from my alt mode." Ratchet's holoform flickers off, walking back down the stairs a few moments later with a black medical bag in hand. He sits on the floor in front of Lina, resting her foot gently on his knee. "Let's take a look see."

"Now can we have story time?" Tony asks, fingers tapping a staccato rhythm on the tabletop. "Or are there more of your people coming?"

"No, it's just us," Will tells him. "Everyone else has gone dark until further notice."

"What happened?" Jane asks, setting her science aside for a much darker mystery. "Natasha said something about N.E.S.T. getting shut down?"

Ari nods. "Yeah, but all of this didn't start tonight. Lina?"

Lina takes a deep breath, trying not to react as Ratchet prods around her ankle and focusing on the conversation. "Coulson got in touch with me a few months back, wanting my help with something. Him and Fury suspected something bad's been going down inside of S.H.I.E.L.D., maybe even a mole. They didn't know who to trust so they sent me searching within the system trying to find anything."

"Why did they go to you and not me?" Tony asks, completely offended. "I could have found out in two seconds."

"You're too close to this, Tony," Natasha says, body tense as soon as the word "mole" left Lina's mouth. "If there is a mole, they probably have eyes on you and would have known right away what you were up to. Really, a civilian was the better choice."

"Anyway," Lina continues, hissing again as Ratchet rubs some sort of cream into her ankle. "I found something, an encrypted file I couldn't get into, not even with Fury's access codes. It's protected by some sort of A.I. that's been giving me the run around. I figured it would have the answers we were looking for so I copied the file and called the number I was given to set up a meeting to hand it off."

She takes out the flash drive, setting it on the table, her eyes staying fixed on it somberly. "Fury showed up to the meeting. But before I could give it to him we were jumped by these thugs. Professional types. I'm tempted to even say S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, even though they weren't wearing any kind of logo or patch on their gear. F-Fury died so that I could get away."

She stops, letting that sink in. Everyone at the table has met Nick. Some of them—like Natasha, Tony, and Steve—are even friends with him. And now he's gone.

Ari takes up the story when it becomes apparent Lina won't continue. Or can't. "That's when she called me. Sideswipe and I were already out in the city so we were able to get to her first. But then someone else found us." She bites her lip, not sure how to say this part. "A-A sniper. Sideswipe and I were able to stop him. He's knocked out in Sideswipe's alt mode right now."

"Then we should speak with him," Thor says, lightning practically flashing in his eyes when he says the word "speak". "He may be able to give us answers."

"It's…a bit complicated. But I'm not done." Sideswipe squeezes her shoulder in encouragement and she leans into his touch. "We headed back to base after that. When we got there, it was crawling with S.H.I.E.L.D. agents led by Galloway. He shut us down, wants the Autobots to leave Earth, and…and he knows. About me. About me being the AllSpark."

"I thought you gave no one permission to know that secret without your approval?" Loki says, more statement than question.

"He said with the dissolution of the treaty the Council is now allowed to tell whoever they want, including Galloway. He's got my file and he's very interested in what it says." She rubs her hand across the AllSpark marks on her arm, like she can feel Galloway dissecting them. "Whatever's going on—whether it be a mole or something else—Galloway's behind it. I'm sure of it."

"Why would they just shut you down like that?" Darcy asks, picking at a loose thread in the sleeve of her sweater. "I mean, the Council gets that we kind of need you guys, right? You're the world's best chance against the Decepticons."

"I get the feeling that has something to do with Galloway's new pet," Rob snorts. "He sicced a fragging Cybertronian on us trying to bring us in."

"A Decepticon?" Jane gasps. "They're working with Decepticons?"

"I do not believe so, no," Optimus replies, brow furrowed in thought. "This Cybertronian has green optics, like what all of our species had before the war. I believe him to be neutral of the two factions, but I do not think he is anyone's pet either. He will surely have his own agenda, but what he can gain from humans such as Galloway and the Council, I do not know."

"Then let's ask this 'guest' of ours," Tony declares, rising to his feet to head for the alt modes. "I bet he's got some idea."

"It's not so simple," Ari insists, rushing to her feet to stop him with a hand on his arm. "Seriously, Tony, there's...there's more."

He tries to step around her but she gets in his way, blocking him from the stairs. He sighs impatiently. "Like what?"

"Just...Just go sit down." She points at the table when he doesn't move, giving him a withering look. "Trust me, you're going to want to sit down for this."

"Do you know him or something?" Natasha asks curiously as Tony retakes his seat, getting so close to the truth like she always does.

"In a manner of speaking." Ari rubs a hand down her face, eyes falling on Steve. This is going to be hard for him. It doesn't matter how gently she says it. Bucky was his best friend. He watched him die decades ago. But now...it turns out he didn't. He survived, only to turn into...this.

Actually, forget hard. This may very well break him. But he has to know.

Ari sits down in the empty seat to Steve's right, taking his hand. She's not sure if it's for his comfort or her own. Instead, it seems to just make him nervous as he squirms in his seat.

"What's going on, Ari?" he asks, voice reflecting the anxiety he's subconsciously feeling.

"I just," she takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, "I don't know how to say this, really. So I guess I'll just...say it. The sniper that shot at Lina and I tonight, the one Sideswipe has trapped in his alt mode right now. Once I got a good look at his face, I recognized him."

"Who is it?" Natasha asks, looking itchy for a blade at the belief that someone has betrayed them.

"It's..." She hesitates again and then steels her resolve. It's better to just rip off the band-aid. Which is just a ridiculous saying because that really doesn't make it hurt any less. "It's Bucky Barnes."

A penny could drop and it would sound like a bomb going off.

"Are you talking about the same Bucky Barnes I'm thinkin' of?" Rob asks, bewildered.

Ari nods. "James Buchannan Barnes. Howling Commando during World War II. Yeah, that's the one."

John snaps his fingers in recognition, pointing his finger at her. "Yeah, I remember him from history class. He was a sharpshooter, right? And he was best friends with…."

His words trickle off as all eyes turn to Steve.

Steve's face is pale, eyes wide like he's seen a ghost. And maybe he has. He's got that far away look like he's remembering something, something painful by the way his brow is pinched. He watched Bucky die and now his best friend has come back to life.

But as what?

"Show me," Steve chokes out, standing so abruptly his chair nearly tumbles backwards. Ari simply nods silently, leading the way back upstairs to the barn.

Sideswipe is already transformed into his bipedal form when they get there, hands cupped together in a firm yet gentle grip. He kneels down, pulling one hand away so they can see the man he's holding.

If Ari had any doubts before about who this man is, they're gone now, seeing him sleeping peacefully. While awake, Bucky had this strange emptiness about him, but now. He seems so…careless. Innocent. Young, despite how old logic says he is. The spitting image of the pictures she's seen of Bucky Barnes.

Steve crumbling to his knees in front of him, tears streaming down his face, only confirms it.

"But…But he's dead," he whispers desperately, like he's hoping it to be true and not be true all at the same time. Ari really isn't sure what's worse for him. The thought that his best friend is dead or the thought that he's still alive—has been all this time—but he apparently left him at the bottom of that mountain to rot.

"How is this even possible?" Evie asks, blinking rapidly like her mind is playing tricks on her.

"I don't know," Lina says with a glare, leaning most of her weight against Sunstreaker to keep off her bandaged foot. "But he tried to kill me tonight so what I'd like to know is, why is he suddenly the bad guy? I mean, he wasn't always a bad guy, right?"

"Of course not!" Steve wipes at his face angrily, standing back up and facing them like he's shielding Bucky with his body. "Bucky is one of the best guys I know! He would never-"

"Never what, Cap?" Tony interrupts, hand tightening around the briefcase he's holding—the folded-down version of the Iron Man suit. "He'd never shoot at people? He'd never work for the bad buys, whoever the frag they are now? Well, tough luck, grandpa, because it looks like he is! Unless you're saying Ari's a liar."

"No, it's just…." Steve looks at her helplessly, begging for her to give him an explanation that makes sense without painting his friend as a monster. "Maybe you just made a mistake. Maybe he was just trying to help."

Pity swells in Ari's chest, unable to imagine how hard this must be for him. "I wish it were true, Steve. Sure, I never saw him shoot at us, but he did fight me. I waited for him to catch up to buy some time and he…he threw the first punch."

Steve's head hangs, defeat weighing down his shoulders.

"I've seen him before," Natasha mumbles quietly, fiddling with a knife in her hand and eyes trained on Bucky's metal arm. "I know him."

"What? When?" Steve rounds on her, voice rising in accusation and eyes flaring with hurt. "Why didn't you ever say anything?"

"I didn't know he was your friend," she adds defensively, squaring her shoulders and looking just as intimidating as Steve even though he towers over her. "In case you forgot, I didn't have a traditional upbringing that allowed me to have a school education. I didn't even step foot on American soil until I was an adult. All of you may have grown up with Bucky's picture in your textbooks, but I didn't. I never knew what he looked like. You never even showed me a picture of him, so back up."

Steve's shoulders drop out of the offensive but he doesn't apologize, instead saying, "Where do you know him from?"

She flips her knife in the air absently, eyes cutting to Bucky again. "From the Red Room."

"The people who trained you to be a Black Widow?" Bruce asks, brow wrinkled in confusion.

"Yes." She looks to the others standing in the room, a tightness around her eyes the only sign that she's uncomfortable. Not everyone here knows Natasha's past, but…she started this conversation and the information is relevant now. She continues what she started. "The Red Room was an organization in Russia. They kidnapped children—little girls—and trained them to be…assassins. We were called Black Widows.

"From an early age we were trained in the arts of seduction, manipulation, and combat. Since they took us at such an early age, we were easily manipulated ourselves. It was a different kind of brainwashing, in a way.

"One day, when I was in my late teens, they brought a man in," she nods towards Bucky. "They called him the Winter Soldier and said he was on loan to us from the Germans. He was there to help train us, those who were ready to go on to the final stages of the Black Widow program.

"He and I grew close. He knew I wasn't like the other girls, that there was a streak of defiance in me. Of independence. And I could sense the same in him. He tried to help me escape from the Red Room. We were caught. I was taken back and severely punished. And I never saw him again. At least, not until after I started working for S.H.I.E.L.D.

"There was a mission I worked, escorting a scientist. It was my job to keep him safe, but we were ambushed. The Winter Soldier was sent to kill my scientist and he succeeded." She lifts up her shirt, revealing a small circle of scar tissue near her hip bone. "Shot him right through me. Both times I saw him—when I was a girl and a few years ago—he looked exactly the same even though there's more than a decade of time between. He looks to have aged only a year or two since I first saw him."

"Was he working for them willingly?" Steve asks, stepping closer to Natasha with the intensity of a dying man begging for food. "You said he helped you escape. Do you think they coerced him into helping them?"

Natasha shrugs a shoulder helplessly. "I honestly don't know. But he's killed many, many people in the past seventy years. He probably even killed Fury tonight. There is a lot of red in his ledger, Steve."

"So what do we do now?" Bruce asks, getting them back on track. "We need information from him, at the very least."

Loki smirks darkly. "I have some spells that could extract what we need from him."

"No, guys, wait," Ari says, standing next to Steve in a protective stance in front of Bucky. "It's still not that simple."

"He tried to kill you and Lina," Sunstreaker growls, his arm around Lina tightening as he holds her up. "How is that not simple?"

"Because when I realized who he was, I said his name. I called him by his name and he looked at me like I have two heads. He didn't recognize it. His own name, and he didn't even know it."

"So does that mean it's not Bucky?" Steve asks, both hoping and dreading.

"No, I think it is him," she says, even more sure of her suspicions after Natasha's story. "But I think there's more going on here than meets the eye."

"So what do we do, ask him about it?" Jazz snarks.

"If he doesn't know his own name, he probably won't be all that helpful," Trent points out.

Thor crosses his arms in front of his chest. "Then what do you suggest?"

Ari bites her lip, not even sure her plan is going to work, but it feels right this time. Like it did with Loki. "I'm going to use the AllSpark to find out the truth. I'll look into his past and see what happened to him."

"Dude, is that a metal arm?" Darcy's voice cuts across the room, eyes darting to her and then back to Bucky as everyone else notices it for the first time.

"I think it is," Jane agrees, only a bit more curious than horrified.

Will approaches cautiously, poking the appendage. "It is. It's metal. And I think it's his actual arm. It's not armor or anything. It's an actual mechanical arm."

"You sure he's not a Decepticon?" Trent asks again to be sure.

"Here, allow me." Ratchet stands in his bipedal form, carefully taking Bucky from Sideswipe. A red light shines from his optics over Bucky as he scans him. "Hmmm, interesting. He's definitely human. The arm is some sort of advanced prosthesis. It's wired into his body, connecting even to his brain. And his shoulder has healed around it, fusing with the metal. Based on the progression, I'd say he lost his real arm decades ago."

The furrow in Steve's brow deepens, guilt blanketing his face in shadow. "You mean when he fell from the train? When I thought he died?"

"That would be my estimation, yes."

"But he still looks like he's in his late twenties, maybe early thirties," Darcy protests. "He'd be, what, ninety if he was really that old?"

"So would Capsicle if he hadn't been frozen," Tony points out.

Sideswipe holds up his hand before someone else can speak. "Look, this speculation is great and all, but let's just let Ari do her thing. She'll be able to tell us for certain what happened."

Natasha nods, still holding her knife but no longer playing with it. "What do you need?"

"Just a place to sit and a bit of time," Ari replies. "Ratchet, keep Bucky in your alt mode for now, and keep him sedated. He'll be as comfortable as possible that way."

Ratchet transforms, Bucky ending up in the back of his rescue vehicle alt mode and probably laid out on the gurney inside. Ratchet's holoform blinks back on, opening his door. "I'll do a full scan of him as well. Make sure he is alright."

"Should we really be concerned with his comfort right now?" Tony asks, the type of murderous anger burning in his eyes that only ever appears for terrorists.

"Until we know the truth, I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt," Ari says, heading back downstairs to their makeshift command center. She sits in one of the chairs, trying to get as comfortable as possible herself. There's no telling how long this will take.

Lina sits down heavily in one of the seats, trying not to twitch as Sunstreaker fusses over her and props her leg on another chair. "He did try to kill me, you know."

Ari sighs, weary of arguing. "And he tried to kill me, too, but something doesn't feel right about all this. Something more is going on."

Everyone looks skeptical except for Steve and Sideswipe. Steve looks despondent with a dash of hopeful, praying none of this is Bucky's fault despite the facts laid before him. Sideswipe—back in his holoform again—gives her an encouraging smile, placing a kiss on her forehead.

"You'll figure this out, sweetspark," he says, completely confident in her. It's nice that someone's confident in her. She's not that confident in herself at the moment, in light of everything that's happened. Everything she missed even though it was right in front of her face.

She tilts her face up, stealing a proper kiss from him before he settles at her side. "See you when I get back."

Ari closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and then delves into her hallway of doors. Everything else around her is tuned out. She doesn't feel the chair beneath her. If the others are talking, she doesn't hear them. Even her bond with Sideswipe feels far away. Right now, it's just her and the AllSpark.

She's not sure what she's looking for. There's so much information at her fingertips, all organized into different doors, but which door? Which door?

One of the doors down the hall creeks open, beckoning her in.

The AllSpark knows what she needs to see. It wants to show her, but Ari hesitates, trepidation prickling along her spine.

There isn't good news beyond this door. It is bad, horrible, heart-wrenching news. She can feel it seeping from the crack in the door like a thick smoke, choking her lungs with the urge to cry even though she doesn't know what for yet.

The AllSpark pulls her in anyway, uncaring about her hesitation.

There's a train, racing along the side of a mountain. Bucky is there. Steve, too, along with the other Hollowing Commandoes.

It's the 1940s, the middle of WWII.

They're mission is to stop Hydra—a division of the Nazis focused on using science and technology to create better soldiers, better weapons. They use things advanced for their time. Alien things, like the Tesseract. With their weapons, Hydra plans something worse than even the Nazi's vision. They don't just plan the genocide of those they see as inferior. They plan domination, the complete control of everyone so they can remake the world into their idea of "perfect" and "peaceful".

Peace through the loss of freedom.

But the Hollowing Commandoes are working to stop them, to stop Hydra before they can make the war even worse. Their current mission, the one on the train, they're looking for one of Hydra's leaders. They want information from him, so they decided to sneak aboard the train he's traveling on and carry him right off.

But something goes wrong. There's a fight with some Hydra soldiers, and Bucky falls. He falls from the train, down the mountain. To his death.

At least, it should have been.

He survived, lying in the snow, his left arm…gone. Severed during the fall.

But how did he even survive? He should have died.

The AllSpark suddenly takes her even further back, flashing to a Hydra facility where prisoners of war are being experimented on. Including Bucky, before Steve rescued him and the others trapped there. They're looking for the Super Soldier Serum, the one that was given to Steve and made him Captain America. They're trying to perfect their own version of it using trial and error.

It works on Bucky. Not to the same extent as Steve, more like what happened to Natasha with the Russians, but it was enough. Enough for him to survive an impossible fall.

Ari gets yanked again, back to the snow. Someone finds Bucky. At first, he thinks its friendlies, but they're not. They're Hydra. He's taken again. He wants to die but they don't let him. They put that arm on him, that weapon, and then they strap him to a chair.

Electricity courses through him, so much more than what a normal human should be able to stand. But he's not normal, not anymore. He can withstand a lot more. They feed that electricity right into his brain and then he's not even Bucky anymore. He's blank. A blank slate ready to be filled with new ideas.

Hydra ideas.

They program him, using a combination of hypnosis and more electric shocks until he follows their every command without question. When he's battle ready, they tell him he's to be the new fist of Hydra, that he'll help shape the century by being a surgical tool. They send him in to eliminate targets that threaten Hydra's goal of a new world and then they put him in a cryotube, freezing him into stasis until he's needed again. That's how he's survived the decades.

But this can't be. Hydra is supposed to be gone. Steve killed its leader. S.H.I.E.L.D. dismantled it, back in the early days of the organization. There can't be any more Hydra to still be giving Bucky orders.

And yet there are. Where could they have hidden, all this time?

Images flash in front of Ari's eyes, almost too fast for her to make out. Faces and names and news clippings. Former Hydra operatives standing in a group photo with other S.H.I.E.L.D. agents.

Standing with them. Among them.

Her vision fills with the S.H.I.E.L.D. logo, a stylized eagle with its wings spread. Like it's acting as a protector, shielding the world from the evil hiding just out of sight. That shield then cracks, inky shadow leaking out of the weaknesses until the whole logo shatters.

And in its place, hiding behind it all this time, is Hydra's symbol—a skull with six octopus legs reaching out to corrupt all it touches.

Hydra, hiding within S.H.I.E.L.D..

Ari screams as more and more knowledge of what Hydra's done over the past several decades spills out of the door and into her head. Names and missions and agents and victims. So much death. So much chaos. All under the guise that it's to protect people. It bombards her, drumming into her skull with a painful ache like she's getting hit with a hammer over and over again.

They were supposed to be doing good. S.H.I.E.L.D. was supposed to be doing good. But Hydra's always been there, pulling the strings from the shadows. How many innocent people have suffered because of them? How many good agents and soldiers have been led to do something wrong while thinking they were doing something right?

Hands grab her. Someone calls her name. Sideswipe. That's Sideswipe. The visions have swallowed her, the knowledge still coming fast, but she can feel Sideswipe reaching out to her over the bond, trying to pull her out. She grabs onto him, following the line of their bond like a rope to pull her to safety.

She blinks a few times, the light of the safe house piercing through the images.

"Ari?" Sideswipe asks, fear and panic in his blue eyes as clear as across the bond. "Ari, sweetspark, talk to me. What's wrong?"

The pain spikes again and she whimpers, feeling her mind start to shut down because it can't turn it off. But she has to tell them. She has to warn them what's coming for them. How can she make them understand?

She catches sight of Steve standing a little ways away, looking lost and broken but still managing to be worried about her. He'll understand. He'll understand completely. Hydra has always been his enemy, since he first got started as Captain America.

She tries to get the words out but she's getting weak, losing to the darkness. All she manages to get out are two words, spoken desperately as tears leak from her eyes before it all goes black.

"Hail Hydra."


Author's Note

Yeah, I'm a bad person. But you love me anyway. ;)

So, Hydra is alive and well, as I'm sure most of you already knew. If you haven't seen Captain American: Winter Soldier and don't know much about Hydra, further explanations will be taking place next chapter, so don't worry.

But, yes, Galloway is Hydra. I've been planning that for a while.

And look at that character lineup. I tried to keep all the favorites. Sticking with the original Autobot team felt right to me, we've got to have all the Avengers-including Loki-and I kept favorite N.E.S.T. soldiers. As for Jane and Darcy, seriously, they're not the type to stay on the sidelines. They weren't during their two Thor movies. And Darcy is going to be part of a minor plot arc. I'm a fan of Bucky/Darcy. ;)

Next chapter will be up in two weeks, on June 8th.

Hope you enjoyed, PLEASE REVIEW, and see you all next time!