The steady beep of a heart monitor greeted Jane as she opened her eyelids to find herself lying on her side on one of the beds in the medical bay. Blinking a few times to focus her vision she quickly sorted through her thoughts to re-orient herself. Piecing things together, she soon realized where she was. "Bucky." She breathed softly. She had to get to him, and right away.
Hurriedly she sat up, but was stopped when she felt a tug at her back. Reaching back she felt a group of wires that someone had managed to attach into her cybernetic spine. Without any semblance of caution she yanked them out, and shoved them off the other side of the bed. Standing up she felt a wave of nausea sweep over her, but within a few seconds it passed.
Quickly she glanced around through the glass walls, but nobody seemed to be around. Jane pulled off the heart rate sensor, followed by the IV in her arm. Finally unattached from everything she silently padded out of the room and into the hallway.
At each room and corridor, she peeked her head around, hoping to find Bucky. But each time finding no one. Finally, approaching Coulson's office she could hear voices coming from inside and she knew he had to be in there.
Conversation abruptly hushed, and everyone turned to see a wide eyed and frantic Jane bursting through the door. "Jane, what are you doing here? You're supposed to be in the med bay with Skye and FitzSimmons." Coulson said smoothly, but tersely.
"I—" She started, but didn't finish. Her eyes fervently scanned the room, and she saw Bobbi, Hunter, and Mack gathered together, she assumed discussing her display earlier. In the center of the room, Coulson, May and Trip were gathered near Coulson's desk, and May slowly turned off the tablet she was holding and lowered it to her side. Finally, her eyes reached the other side of the room and she saw Bucky, who was sitting on a windowsill with one leg propped up and the other hanging down. His demeanor seemed far away and distant, but a look of confusion had started to replace it when he saw Jane entering the room in a flurry of motion.
"You should sit down." Trip said, as he moved towards her to help. A few of the others went to say something, but she wasn't paying attention to any of them. Making a beeline towards Bucky she scrambled past the others despite their efforts to stop her.
"Bucky." She breathed as she approached him. Pinching his eyebrows together in confusion he moved from where he was and stood up. "Bucky, you have to remember me." She said earnestly after running up to him.
Bucky grabbed her arms, trying to calm her down. His face was a mix of confusion and concern. "Jay, what are you talking about, of course I remember you!" The others stayed back a few feet, unsure of what to do.
"No, you have to think back, to when you were in HYDRA. When you raided an Italian weapons warehouse. Or the blockade with Redman and Cooper. Kazakhstan, Peru, or Bolivia, any of those!" Jane barely stopped to take a breath, and continued rattling off names of things that Bucky didn't understand. "Do you remember Project Troyer? Stormlight? Mayfleet? Doesn't Little Fox mean anything to you?" With each reference that Bucky wasn't getting, Jane's anxiety seemed to rise and her voice grew more frantic.
"Three and a half years ago you were in a facility in Maine. It was snowing outside, and you had the journal! Please tell me you remember at least that!" Bucky looked away, trying to make sense of everything she was spouting at him. "Bitte sagen Sie mir, Sie an mich erinnern! Sagen Sie mir, es war kein Traum!" She pleaded desperately.
The rest of the team turned to each other, all wondering why Jane had suddenly slipped into speaking German. Jane looked near to tears as she gazed desperately at Bucky who was still deep in thought. Finally she let go of his shirt sleeve that she had been clinging to and let her hand drop to her side.
"Come on, let's get you back to bed." May said gently as she laid her hand on Jane's shoulder and started to turn her towards the door. Feeling defeated, Jane let May guide her.
"Lou?" Bucky said softly as they turned away. The crease between his eyebrows had grown deeper and he squinted at her as though not believing what he was seeing.
Jane turned her head slowly back to him, and May stopped in her tracks. "Y-You remember me?" Jane stammered in disbelief. His face slowly began to relax and he shook his head looking for words to say. A sheepish smile of relief lit up her face and a weight seemed to lift off her shoulders.
"Yeah, so uh, anyone going to explain what the hell just happened?" Hunter piped up from where he was standing. Before anyone could give him an answer, however, the door once again flung open, and a worried Simmons entered.
"Oh thank heavens." She exclaimed breathlessly when her eyes landed on Jane whose hand was resting on Bucky's forearm. "We've been looking for you everywhere; you scared us half to death!"
Jane was still preoccupied with the fact that Bucky had remembered her, and she quickly turned to resume talking with him in hushed tones, seemingly disregarding Simmons's concern. A few seconds later, Fitz and Skye tumbled through the doorway where Simmons had entered just previously.
"I call dibs on not being the watch dog next time." Skye said as she put her hands on her hips trying to catch her breath.
"Did you two get the signal blocked before she woke up?" Coulson asked, Jane and Bucky paying no mind.
"We did, though I can't say it was the easiest thing to do." Skye answered, and Fitz let out a guffaw next to her. "But I did get a chance to trace it back to its source first, it was HYDRA. If someone was watching for that signal to pop up, they would've been able to track it just as easily." She said worriedly.
"Let's hope they weren't then." Coulson said, seemingly un-phased. "Still, we should stick with the Bus for a while just to be sure." He added.
"Sir, before we do that." Simmons interjected. "I'd like to do a few more tests with the equipment here."
May stepped closer to the group. "Why, did you find something?" She asked with a hint of apprehension.
Simmons looked over her shoulder at Jane and Bucky who were conversing quickly, their voices lowered. "It's the serum markers from the bloodwork." She said hesitantly. Simmons's curiosity had certainly been peaked when she had taken a look at the results, however she couldn't help feeling like the only answers she would find were ones she didn't want to hear. "The trace amounts in the earlier samples you gave me show that it was dormant like you said, but the readings I'm getting now are saying something entirely different." Simmons lowered her voiced and leaned in. "I think it's active now."
Bobbi, Mack, Hunter and Trip who had been listening in on the conversation all looked at each other, each wondering what exactly that meant for the team going forward. Coulson was calm and looked thoughtful for a moment before answering plainly, "I suppose that would make sense."
Simmons noticed a hush had fallen behind her and she turned quickly to see Jane looking intently at her, her forehead wrinkled, and mouth partially open. Slowly she let her hand drop away from Bucky and she moved a few steps towards the rest of the team. "Y—you were talking about the serum." She stammered. When Simmons only looked back silently with large eyes, she continued, "How did you know about that?" She asked, pausing halfway between Bucky and the rest of the group.
Simmons flashed a nervous smile, hoping it would help. "W—we didn't know what was wrong with you, running a blood test was simply routine."
"No I don't mean that." Jane said, waving her hand. "I mean before— before any of this. You said previous samples."
Simmons looked over to Coulson, whose mouth was pressed into a thin line, then back to Jane. "W-well, I—" She said, searching for words that didn't come.
"You said the serum was dormant before. Don't lie to me, we all heard you just say it." Jane said, her voice rising. Simmons stammered, trying to formulate a reply that wouldn't put her in deeper hot water. "How long did you know?" She asked, turning to Coulson. Her voice quavered ever so slightly, and May thought she saw a twinge of hurt flash in Jane's eyes. "Don't tell me you've known all along." Coulson affirmed her suspicions when he didn't reply and only looked at her unblinking, with his arms crossed.
"You did didn't you." She said with an air of disbelief, her face dropping. "You've known this whole time that I've had the Super Soldier serum in my blood and you never bothered to tell me?" She exclaimed, unable to hide the betrayal she felt. "All that time that I was hopelessly looking for an answer to who I was, and time after time you kept telling me they hadn't found anything." She felt hot tears pushing at her eyes but she forced them to stay contained.
"How could you keep that from me? How could you just leave me like that?" Coulson still didn't give her an explanation and she glanced at the faces of the other team members. Bobbi and Hunter looked at each other, and Fitz looked at the floor, yet the expressions of shock or at least mild surprise that Jane expected to see were missing. Her stomach dropped sickeningly when she realized why. Slowly turning back to Bucky she saw him look down at his feet, unable to hold her gaze.
"Don't tell me you knew too." She pleaded, her voice cracking. She blinked her eyelids quickly in a last ditch attempt to keep the tears from spilling out.
"I promise I didn't know until a few minutes ago, Lou. Coulson only told us a little while before you come in." Bucky said sincerely. She didn't look any more relieved at his words, and he wished there was a way he could convince her he was telling the truth.
"When I came in here," She said, making her voice even again, "you looked at me strange, almost like you were afraid of me."
Bucky let out a sharp breath and attempted to reply, "You chanted 'hail hydra' while you convulsed on the floor, and then your back was lit up like crazy. What was I supposed to think when they told me you have some version of the serum in you?" He said defensively.
"That I'm some sort of HYDRA spy, apparently!" She exclaimed, spinning around to face the rest of the team. She wasn't necessarily mad at Bucky, the points he had made were very true and she couldn't hold his cautiousness against him. She was, however, angry with Coulson, and Simmons, and anyone else who had known this secret that she was apparently not privy to. She wondered how many people knew. May? Tony? The L7 doctors at least, surely. She had been searching down what she had thought was a dead end, looking for answers, meanwhile so many people had held the answer right inside their heads and none of them had ever bothered to help her out.
"I can't say the thought never crossed my mind." Coulson said, "But it wasn't the only possible explanation. For a time we entertained the theory that you had been a subject of the Centipede trials."
She let out a sharp laugh, "Ha! And how exactly is that any better?" Behind them, the four gathered in the background slowly moved to the side, hoping to distance themselves from the inevitable argument that was going to ensue.
"You have to admit, there are a lot of similarities in the tech." Simmons said, trying to help the situation. The only response she received, however, was a glare of indignation.
"We wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt, but the fact of the matter was we simply didn't know." Phil said, raising his hand to calm her.
She just shook her head at him. The more she thought about the whole situation, the more the anger and frustration bubbled within her. "So when you said you wanted Bucky and I to stick with you and the team so that you could get any information he provided immediately, that wasn't entirely true was it? You wanted us here so you could watch me, keep an eye on me." She said, feeling the warmth rise in her cheeks.
"And you," she continued, looking at Simmons, "paying such attention to my physical well-being. You weren't just concerned for my health were you? You were trying to get information, you were spying on me!"
Simmons shifted uncomfortably, "I don't think I would put it quite that way." She said nervously. "It wasn't as bad as all that, honest."
"There were a variety of reasons for bringing you two on with the team." Coulson chimed in. "But what's important right now, is that you tell us everything you know. You've clearly had a revelation and time could very well be of the essence right now."
Jane raised her eyebrows as though challenging his statement. "You're serious?" She asked with a laugh. "You expect me to trust you, to trust any of you after this?" She spat in a flurry.
"Lou, just take it easy." Bucky said softly behind her. He placed a hand on her arm and she responded by yanking it free.
"Can't you see how ridiculous this is?" She asked, her jaw set. "They want me to give them all the information they need, then they're just going to lock me up or treat me like a child the way they do you." She moved to lunge at Simmons, but Bucky was quicker and soon had a firm grasp, holding her back.
"Her name is Lucy." Bucky said calmly, still holding her as she squirmed. "Lucy Vonnegut."
"Hey!" She shouted as she struggled to turn to face him.
"She was one of HYDRA's test subjects, similar to myself." He continued, ignoring her objections. "She was brought in before I was." Across the room each member of the team stood attentive to Bucky's words. A few of them exchanged glances when they realized his words meant Jane was from an entirely different time period, just as he was.
Lucy glared up at him, seething. "Stop it Bucky!" Angrily she fought to wriggle her arm free and shoved her palm sharply into the center of his chest and shoved him backwards. "Stop talking this instant!"
Bucky let out an agitated sigh and tried to stay calm. "These people aren't your enemies." He said, reaching for her again.
"The hell they aren't!" She retorted. "They lied to me for years, that doesn't exactly sound like a friend to me!"
Skye hooked her arm through Simmons's and they both stepped back a pace or two. "They did what they thought was best, and sure it may not have ended up going smoothly, but they aren't the ones you should be mad at right now."
"And who exactly should I be mad at?" She snapped.
"HYDRA." He answered simply. "They're the ones who deserve to be blamed, not Coulson, not Simmons, just HYDRA." He watched as his words registered and slowly her expression started to change. He waited a moment longer to give her a chance to retaliate, but her slew of angry words, it seemed, had run dry.
When he felt confident she was not going to lash out at him anymore, Bucky continued. "They nicknamed her 'Little Fox' because she was always sneaking out behind their backs without them knowing. They eventually realized they could use that for their advantage when they sent her out on missions."
"And my hair." Lucy mumbled from the seat she had taken a few feet from him, feeling defeated.
Bucky looked over at her and commented with a faint smile, "Yes, and because of her hair. It used to be a lot brighter back then." He glanced at her now almost brown hair, the brilliant red of her youth having faded significantly. It now rested haphazardly in a limp ponytail, still a mess from when they had been training earlier. Memories of being on mission with her decades prior flashed in Bucky's mind, her steely look of determination nodding to him as they stormed an ammunitions warehouse. Quickly he forced the images away, and focused only on the downcast and dejected expression displayed across her face before him.
"So she was trained as an assassin like you were?" May asked.
Bucky hesitated, giving Lucy the opportunity to answer, but she only kept her gaze down and pulled a knee to her chest. "Yes, and no." Bucky finally answered, and the others gave him questioning glances. "She was trained, yes, but not quite in the way I was." Bucky could see that Lucy was fighting her emotions and tears were pushing at her eyes. He wished he didn't have to continue explaining, knowing what it was doing to her, bringing everything back up, but he also knew it was a fact that the team needed to know.
Sighing, he continued. "Like I said, she was brought in by HYDRA before I was, as so the serum she received was an earlier version than the one I got." Bucky paused, not entirely sure how to continue. For one, the subject was a touchy one to begin with, but the fact also remained that he still had gaps in his memory and he didn't want to give false info simply because he couldn't remember every detail.
"After the adverse reaction Schmidt had to the serum, they had to take a few steps back and try to perfect each aspect of the serum before combining it into a complete one again." Lucy said, though still not looking up. Bucky looked over, surprised that she had spoken up, but also glad inside.
"At the time when they gave it to me, they were working on the healing and regenerative properties of it." The room was uncomfortably silent as she paused between sentences. "So I don't have the super strength, but I can heal a lot faster than the average person."
"So why bother attaching hardware?" Skye asked tentatively.
Lucy finally looked up, and rested her chin on her knee. "After they administered the serum, everything seemed to be going smoothly, until everything started becoming more and more unstable, and every time my body attempted to repair itself, it did precisely the opposite and it would attack itself to the point of nearly killing me."
Lucy took a long breath in and exhaled slowly. "They were forced to devise a solution, which consisted of a device to regulate the flow of the serum in my bloodstream that keeps it working as they had originally intended. What they hadn't planned on, however, was the added abilities their device had granted me."
Lucy hugged her arms around her sides and leaned against her knee. Bucky's heart dropped, knowing what was coming next. "I don't just heal quickly, but I can also transfer my energy to another individual as long as I have skin contact with them—thus healing them while taking on their injuries etc." She saw out of the corner of her eye the shock and awe spreading around the room. Bucky was the only one not fazed by her words, but she couldn't bring herself to meet his gaze. "I can also transfer the opposite way as well." She said, willing her voice to remain steady. "But the process isn't very stable, and I can't control how much energy I take from them. I've never been able to do it without them—" Her voice cut off, and she couldn't force the last few words out.
A soft murmur spread across the room but the team quickly hushed themselves once more. Bucky offered to rest a hand gently on her shoulder, but she shied away at his touch and he didn't try a second time. The room was thick with silence for several moments before Coulson finally spoke up.
"Why don't you give us a minute?" He said, referring to the rest of the team who were all listening and observing closely.
Skye protested, "But sir, we—"
"Now." May said, in a tone more stern than Coulson's had been. Sky opened her mouth to protest again, then decided against it and snapped it back shut. Begrudgingly she let out a sigh and turned for the door. The rest of the team aside from May, Coulson, Lucy and Bucky followed in Skye's steps, though none of them were any more pleased with their orders than she had been.
"So tell me." Coulson said when the door latched behind the exiting team members. "What exactly happened in Maine before we found you, how did you escape?" Lucy took a deep breath and compartmentalized all her emotions and sent them to the back of her mind. It was one of the very few skills she was actually grateful that HYDRA had taught her. Having cleared her mind she stood and gave Coulson and May a detailed description of her escape from the HYDRA facility.
Phil said nothing right away when Lucy finished, but simply nodded while looking thoughtful. "May, we're going to need to get the coordinates locked in, and everybody ready." He finally said, his voice even and serious, but his face showing no other signs of emotion.
"Already on it, sir." May replied, her eyes already glued to the screen in her hands. Lucy glanced at Bucky for a second and saw hints of the faraway look returning to his eyes. She quickly averted her gaze and looked at the wall across from her. There was no doubt in her mind that this sudden excavation of memories and events was affecting Bucky, but she wasn't going to let herself think about it. Not now.
"Wheels up in two hours." Coulson said, and Lucy nodded in affirmation. "You'd best gather everything you need, we may not be stopping back to base for some time." With that statement, Coulson and May left the room, leaving only Lucy and Bucky in permeating silence.
Lucy didn't say a word, but simply moved across the room to retrieve one of the laptops somebody had left on one of the side tables. Holding it with one hand and typing in her login credentials with the other she moved it to an empty space on the counter, her back turned to Bucky. The welcome screen soon popped up and she navigated around until she found what she was looking for.
"Do you want to talk about what just happened?" Bucky asked tentatively from behind her.
"What is there to talk about?" She answered plainly, not looking up from her screen.
Bucky paused a moment, then replied, "So you're just going to pretend like that was all no big deal?" Lucy ignored his question and typed away on the keyboard. "I know what you're doing, and I'm telling you, it's not going to make things any better. Believe me, I would know."
"I'm gathering all the information that we can use on the HYDRA base." Lucy replied. "You heard Coulson, there's no time to spare. Though I don't see why my research is of such concern to you."
Bucky let out a small sigh. He'd forgotten how stubborn and frustrating she could be when she chose to. "You're acting like none of this is affecting you, that's what you're doing." He said. "You know I'm not lying when I say I understand what it's like seeing the past play out before your eyes. And that I know what it's like for that past to be something you wish you could forget. When it's your own hands doing the acts. I know what that does to a person's mind." He paused, giving her a chance to reply, one which she did not take.
"But you didn't just remember one thing, or a few events." He said and then swallowed slowly. "You remembered everything, every mission, every detail, every year of your life. I know I'm right, I could see it in your eyes, and it was obvious in the way you spoke." Lucy remained silent, still focused on her screen as he continued. "You remembered things that haven't even come back to me yet, and I can't even imagine what that's doing to you right now. The thought worries me, Lou."
Her lack of response was really starting to get on his nerves now and he moved a few steps closer. "You can't just push it out and expect it to go away. It's going to keep coming back, and it's never going to stop until you deal with it." He put his arm on her shoulder, and forced her to turn towards him, "Just talk to me—"
The words evaporated in his mouth when his gaze landed on the silent tears that had already spilled over her cheeks. "Lou, I—" He said softly, his eyes sincere.
"You don't get it." She said, her voice quiet and almost hoarse. She wiped a tear away absently with her hand. "I killed people Bucky, probably hundreds. And for what? So HYDRA could gain a few more allies, or knock out another threat to their success?"
"I do get it." He replied. He hated to see her in turmoil, but he was also getting frustrated with her ongoing ignorance of his ability to relate. If anyone knew what she was going through it was him, yet she refused to accept any help he offered.
Lucy shook her head. She knew he was right, but somehow she just felt like she was entirely alone and that there was absolutely no one who could understand what it was like living in her mind. "It's just—I thought I was a good person. But now it's like everything I thought was real, and all the things I thought I was have changed. The things I've done, I can't come back from that Bucky, I can never redeem myself."
Bucky put his arm around her shoulder, and this time she didn't object. He wasn't quite sure what to say, so he simply pulled her in to his chest. "I'm not telling you I've got this whole thing figured out, but just don't give up just yet, okay?" He said, feeling her body start to tremble with the force of her sobs that she could no longer succeed to contain. "Don't give up on yourself, alright?"
Lucy tried to nod, her faced pressed deep into his shirt. Bucky closed his eyes, his arms wrapped tight around her. She had always been the strong one, getting him through his episodes of mental instability. Now it looked as though the roles were going to be reversed, and he wasn't entirely sure how he felt about that.
It wasn't that he considered himself a weak person, but it was rather the mere fact that he wasn't the one who was good at this sort of thing, she was. She had the experience with this type of thing. All he knew was what she had told him, and he could only hope he would be able to see her through this in one piece.