CHAPTER 02
"What the hell do you mean you almost had him?" Natasha asked Steve as they drove towards the bar, the last place she'd seen her sister, before the Winter Soldier made off with Natalie the night before. Steve looked over at her and said "He was right in front of me and we fought. Wound up unconcious and when I came to again, he was gone, I was sitting in an ER cubicle. Apparently, like last time, he got the best of me." as he took a few deep breaths.
He hated being wrong, he hated being made an idiot of, and he hated feeling this confliction he felt lately, where Bucky was concerned. Sure his new friend and Fury both made good points, that Bucky he'd known and grown up with was lost to him, but every time he thought about having to end this, having to possibly harm or kill his best friend, it just didn't sit well.
He wasn't sure if he'd be able to do it, honestly, but he didn't dare admit that to anyone. He didn't want anyone viewing him as weak or anything, and they wouldn't understand. Not the way Bucky would, not given what the two of them had been through before all this happened. The car slid to a stop beneath a red light and Natasha said quietly, "When you saw him before the whole thing at the bar.. Did he look like he might have been the Bucky you remembered?"
"I'm not sure." Steve admitted as he looked at Natasha and then the traffic light, remarked quietly, "Light's green, Natasha. We're going to find her. She's going to be okay."
Natasha bit her lower lip as she shook her head and said quietly, "That was the stupidest thing I've ever done and now I might not get to see my sister again. What if they take her back to Hydra, Steve? What if they take her back to their hidden headquarters or something and experiment on her too." which had him shaking his head, reassuring her firmly, "They won't. I won't let that happen. You won't let that happen either and you know it." as he really looked at her. He hadn't ever really seen the female spy this shaken, normally she was calm, cool and collected.
But then again, her sister was being held captive by a Hydra henchman who happened to be his former best friend from childhood. The situation in itself was a lose lose for everyone involved. They could save her sister, that much Captain America was certain of. He just wasn't too sure what he'd do about facing off against Bucky again, not fighting on the same side as him like they always had before the experimentation, before Hydra took his best friend and stripped away his humanity.
"Steve.. Are you okay?"
"I'm fine, Natasha." he said solemnly as they pulled into the bar near a small college campus. The parking lot and the building were caution taped off and there were a few goverment agents and some local cops milling around and talking quietly among themselves. Steve approached one as Natasha slipped between the tape near a back exit and snuck into the crime scene to look at the booth she and her sister had been sitting at the night before.
"What happened here last night?"
"Bunch of people shot up the place. Thank God nobody really got killed or seriously hurt. A girl went missing though, can't figure out if one of the guys kidnapped her or she just slipped out." the detective told him honestly, Steve nodded and thanked him for his time just as Natasha emerged from the same way she'd went into the building, looking around, slipping past the law enforcement agents and the goverment agents. She caught up to Steve and said quietly, "Her purse was in there. She has her cell phone and the phone number I gave her isn't in her purse like I thought it'd be."
He nodded and then asked, "Did you remember what direction he took her out?" as Natasha nodded and pointed to the back exit on the other side of the bar. He looked at the buildings surrounding it and he remembered something. "I think I might know where he might be.. If he's even been back there." Steve said as Natasha watched him, brow raised.
"My old apartment building.. The one we both grew up in. It's still standing but nobody really lives in it." Steve muttered as Natasha nodded and said "So tell me directions on the way." as they got into her Corvette and took off in the direction of Steve and Bucky's old neighborhood.
Natalie sat up and stretched, groaning as a fresh wave of pain rolled over her body. She slid off the bed she'd been lain in and grabbed the white button down shirt, sliding it on as she tiptoed out into the hallway, peeking around, not seeing the first sign of her strange captor. She dug around and found the number in her pocket, was just about to pick up the phone in the cabin's kitchen when a hand wrapped around her wrist tightly,and the man said quietly, "Now what the heck do you think you're doing?"
"I was.. I was gonna call my sister. So she knows I'm not dead." Natalie said as she turned to look up at him, pleading with her eyes. He laughed and shook his head, the laugh sounded hollow, irritated. Then he said calmly, "Phone doesn't work. Even if it did, there's no way in hell I'd let you call her. You don't get it, do you? Until I figure out what the hell we're going to do, you're stuck. Here and with me." as he scanned her with his almost jade green eyes.
"We're stuck? The only reason I'm stuck, man, is because you won't just let me go. Look, I very seriously doubt that this Hydra person would come after me, because you saved me." Natalie started, only to have him hold his index finger to her lips, shushing her as he laughed and shook his head, sarcastically retorted "You have no idea just how serious this all is. Just stop. Stop talking for now, I can't think." as he looked at her a moment, his index finger resting on her lip casually, holding her gaze, her body pinned against the wall the telephone was mounted to with his hips. Why in the name of Christ above had he saved her, he wondered now as he stood there looking at her.
She brushed his index finger down and glared, not amused. "Don't shush me. You're the one who started all this, damn it! You save my life then hold me against my will and tell me it's for my own good. You tell me I don't know anything, but you won't bother telling me the things I don't know, you'd rather laugh at me for not just knowing them. Forgive me, sir, for being a god damn human and not some international super spy or femme fatale, or a goverment created killing machine." she grumbled as he looked at her intently, his eyes honing in on her full soft lips.
In that way, she was like her sister, that Black Widow gal.. She had these full and gorgeous lips, almost hypnotic. Almost enough to put him in a proper trance. But then thankfully, his common sense and his soldiers instincts kicked in and he backed away, breaking eye contact with her, making himself focus on a wall or a window in the room and not on her lips or her body, or her hair, or the way her nostrils flared a little when she was pissed, the way her cheeks flushed as she grumbled angrily at him.
She bit her lower lip, her lips tingling as she watched him, brow raised. "Well? If I'm such an idiot, sir, tell me what I'm not getting."
"I'd love to, doll, but it's need to know information and clearly, you don't need to know. It's for the best." Bucky said as he stared a hole through the window that looked out into the woods surrounding their hideout. Why in the hell had he taken her? She was annoying, chatty, easily spooked, clumsy, infuriatingly pretty and she was a huge liability. If she got hurt.. It'd be the quickest way to bring down at least two of the damned Avengers on his head.
Then there was Hydra, they were looking for him, now her.
She growled and kicked at the wall she still stood against, scowled in his direction as she muttered something under her breath he couldn't make out, walked out of the room finally. The door to the secondary bedroom in the cabin banged shut and he sank down on the couch in the room he still stood in, taking a few long and deep breaths. Everything felt like a raw nerve today, his memories, his humanity was slowly returning. Yesterday, he'd been more robotic, less of a man. Today, he could feel things.
He didn't really think he liked being able to feel things, because apparently, he'd only thought things were confusing yesterday and the days (weeks? months?) before without his humanity returning.
Down the hallway, in the closed room, soft music began to play and he raised a brow at the door as he heard movement inside the room. He picked up a magazine and focused, or tried to, rather, on reading it instead of trying to figure out what his captive was doing in her room.
The less he thought about the girl, the better off he was, definitely the better off she was. Because this situation only had 2 possible endings for now, or as he saw it, at least, and neither of them were a happily ever after. Not now that the truth about Hydra/Shield was out.
"This.. Is it?" Natasha asked Steve who looked at the apartment complex, raked his hand through his hair and said quietly, "Yeah. This is where I grew up, where he grew up. I'm pretty sure he kept his parents place, that's probably the only reason that the city hasn't knocked down the building." while Natasha looked around and asked "Well?"
"The spare key's been moved. Move back?" Steve said as he kicked in the door to Bucky's old apartment. He could tell that someone had been there, and recently, because there was a bowl of cereal still sitting out, there was a bottle of tequila on the table, it's contents half drank. "He's been here." Steve said quietly as Natasha nodded and then grimaced, bit her lower lip and pointed out, "There's blood.. On those bedsheets by the laundry chute." walking over, bending. Her stomach churned and she kept her face hidden as she teared up a little, fearing the worst.
Steve walked around the apartment quietly, looking in rooms, under beds, around the apartment in any possible hiding spot. "Why'd you take her, huh?" he muttered to himself, because it didn't make sense. If neither shield nor hydra had known about Natalie, about who's baby sister she was, then why would Bucky just grab her the night he had?
Something wasn't making sense, but for the moment, he focused on what he did remember about his last two run ins with Bucky as the Winter Soldier. He'd seemed inhuman, cold.. Almost like a robot programmed to kill or something. He paced the room Bucky used to sleep in and bent when he saw a blinding pink piece of fabric just out of sight under the bed.
He picked up the strap to a bra and looked at it, leaned out and asked Natasha with slightly reddening cheeks, "Your sister.. She had pink lingerie or something?" holding the thin strap out to Natasha who took it, looked at it and nodded quietly. "They're not here." he said as he added "My guess is that Bucky moved 'em or something.. why, I have no idea. But I really don't think he'd kill her."
"We don't know that, Steve, because he is one of the bad guys now." Natasha said as Steve nodded, remarked solemnly, "And he did save my life."
"And almost killed you the night before he took my sister. He's not the same guy." Natasha said as Steve nodded and said quietly, "I know. But somewhere, deep down.. I gotta believe that Bucky's still in there."
Natasha studied him for a few moments and then asked "Is there anywhere else he might have taken her?" as Steve happened to look down, see something written on a napkin, it looked like coordinates or something if he had to guess. He held it up and then said solemnly, "No, but if I've gotta guess, Natasha, then we find out what these numbers are, or where they lead, we'll find them."
"And we get her back?"
"Basically, yes." Steve said calmly as he looked at her and then said " What were you telling her that night?"
Natasha sighed and said quietly, "I was trying to make up for lost time, apologize to her in person.. And I was going to give her Fury's number, just in case this went badly and either Shield or Hydra, whoever they are now came looking for a way to hurt me. I mean I did just testify in that hearing, it was all over the news." as she looked at Steve who nodded and said "Let's get going, see if we can't figure out where these coordinates lead."
The door she'd slammed an hour or so before creaked open quietly as a Santana song played and she lie on the bed, trying to take a nap. She peeked through one eye, saw him standing in the doorway, leaned casually, his hair wet from a shower or from sweat, the tanktop he wore soaked also. "My name was James Buchanan Barnes.. Everybody called me Bucky though." he said quietly as he eyed her intently, warily almost.
"What do you mean was?"
"I can't be him anymore.. Technically, doll, James Buchanan Barnes died in World War II. Then Hydra got hold of me, did a similar experiment on me that they'd done to my friend, Steve. Or the guy you've been seeing on tv lately as Captain America? The guy who saved Manhattan with the help of this group called the Avengers?" Bucky said as he moved into the room, sat down on the edge of the twin sized bed, looked at her and then said solemnly, " I became this thing, this guy people started to call the Winter Soldier... After they unfroze me, I mean."
Natalie sat up, looking at him in curiousity as she asked with a raised brow, "Unfroze? What the hell? Who the hell had you, anyway?" as he looked at her, said quietly, "This organization, Hydra. And by unfroze, doll, I mean that I was frozen when I was around the same age as Steve. And they only unfroze me a few years ago."
She gaped at him and leaned in, brushed a hair out of his eye, said calmly, "It was getting on my nerves." as she leaned back, nodded for him to continue, listening intently as he did, "I told you all this so maybe you'd understand. I ain't some good guy anymore. Can't be saved." while looking at his hands. She nodded, biting her lower lip as she studied him out of the corner of her eyes, wondering why he seemed like he had these extremely bipolar mood swings, or he had since he'd taken her captive.
"Maybe if you let me go?" she tried, only to be met with a laugh as he shook his head and said "You're better off with me right now than loose out there. Hydra would just grab you up, use you against your sister.. Against.."
"You?" she wondered aloud as he looked at her and said "Nope.. Let's just say Hydra knows how the Avengers operate.. If they can rattle any of them right now, when they're supposed to be at their weakest? They'll do it without a single afterthought." as he looked at her a moment, adding to himself 'And yeah, doll, me.. Because I gotta admit, I was toying with the idea of walkin over, asking your name before all hell broke loose a few nights ago, before I realized just who's kid sister you were and got into this situation.'
But he'd never admit it out loud. Hydra had pretty much taught him by now that any emotions were a weakness, and everytime he had a problem, everytime he'd glitched and shown them, he'd had a damn needle jabbed in his neck or he'd gotten electroshock therapy. Basically, he figured that he'd probably been zapped by enough bolts by now to learn that emotions were bad. They served no purpose whatsoever.
But being free, being on the lam, with this girl and no shots, no electroshock, things were starting to come back to him. He was starting to slowly piece together what he'd forgotten about himself before his involuntary ice nap, and his awakening/reprogramming. And he had mixed feelings about this.
"So my sister.. She's that girl? The one in black?" Natalie asked, eyes wide as things about her older sister started to make sense and fall into place. They hadn't before, now they were starting to. She was starting to put together the bigger picture. Her sister, apparently, took a huge risk when she'd asked her to meet up a few nights ago after having nothing but email and phone contact for years.
"Mhmm." Bucky said as she took a few deep breaths and swore under her breath, making him look at her. "So when you grabbed me? Was it under this Hydra's orders?"
"Nope.. Did it so Romanov could concentrate, take as many of 'em out as she could." he admitted as she looked at him and asked "Without having to worry about me?" which made the man nod his head. "Bucky?"
"Yeah?"
"Do you have any fucking idea what you're gonna do now? I mean that organization.. They're gonna find you.. From the sound of it, you're in really, really deep shit." Natalie asked as she looked at him, her eyes locking on his as she leaned in, frowned in concern.
"What?" he asked as she shrugged, backed away and stood, walking out of the room, into the kitchen as she thought about everything he'd told her just now, and some of the things he hadn't said.
'Nattie, don't be that idiot.. Don't fall for another toxic guy. Do not let the eyes, the swagger, anything about James Barnes get to you. If you do, you're never going to get out of this in one piece.. What would your sister do, if he had her captive? She'd be trying to escape, that's what she'd do." turned into 'But you've been to the Captain America Exhibit a thousand and one times, Nattie.. You're a nerd when it comes to history, it was almost your secondary minor. This guy wasn't always bad, he didn't always work for the bad sector of the goverment. And because he saved your ass, Nattie, he's now in danger.'and she frowned, raking her hands through her long caramel blonde hair as she paced the kitchen, lost in thought.
He watched her from the doorway, leaned casually, lost in thought himself. Everything seemed to be leading towards that final showdown, and he wasn't sure if he wanted it to go down that way. But from where he stood, it was the only way out.
Someone would die, plain and simple.