He knew he shouldn't but Steve couldn't help feeling engrossed in his unofficial investigation. "Obssessed" was the word Bucky, who didn't know how (or actually, couldn't be bothered) to say things by half, had used.
"Why do you care so much about this?" he exclaimed, not so pleased to watch his best friend replacing the chasing of a ghost by yet another.
"Why don't you?" Steve retorted.
Bucky remained silent but they both knew what the answer to this question was.
Bucky had moved on and let his past behind, and more so than Steve.
And how could he not? Bucky had nothing from the past he felt the need to grasp on. He had his family, who had given him a bigger family, he was a fully respected officer and he had a girlfriend; an unknown secret agent from an old mission was the least of his worries.
All Steve had ever had belonged to the past, and more importantly, had been ripped off from him, and grieving was a harder process for him than it had been for James. And solving this cold case was a way to come to peace with his lost life.
"I think you're afraid to let go of 1942," Bucky said matter-of-factly, perhaps a bit bluntly as way to confront him to reality.
Steve folded his arms and snorted as a defense mechanism. "Why would I be afraid of letting go?" he protested.
Bucky looked him deep in the eye, already remorseful of what he was going to say next. "Because that would mean letting go of Natalie."
Silence, one so heavy it banged against Steve's eardrums. He began to understand why his friend had endeavored to show as little interest to the investigation as possible, as a subtle attempt to slow down his 'enthusiasm'.
Bucky looked hurt and apolegetic for stirring painful matters.
"I know it's hard but you got to let her go, Steve, you gotta. You need to close this door. That's what she would have wanted you to do."
His best friend's words rang into his ears and soon her own words echoed inside his head.
"You have to let me go, Steve. You need to forget about me."
Those had been her exact words before she walked out of his life. He could hear them just as clear as the day she had voiced them aloud.
"I need to finish this, Buck." Perhaps it was the determination in his voice -or the despair in his look- that made Bucky yield in and nod silently.
And this conversation was never brought up again.
They didn't really the dicuss the case again. The rare times James would try to show interest and ask questions about the evolution of the case, Steve would always find a way to shut it down by answering vaguely or moving on to a lighter topic. Not out of resentment, but to respect Bucky's decision not to dwell on into the past.
Steve eventually received the box containing all the physical evidence from the case. And as he looked at the long, blood-tainted hair pin through the plastic pouch he was holding between his fingers, he thought of what the report said. According to the autopsy report, after analyzing the blood on the object and examining the wounds on the dead HYDRA soldier who had been collected at the bottom of the bridge he had fallen of during the train ride, the medical examiner had concluded that the hair pin had been planted straight into his right eye.
Steve tried to play out the scene in his head, and as he remembered it himself. He could still clearly visualize himself banging madly behind the metal door with a heavy, slab made of steel he had found nearby, trying to decypher something from the blurry and indistinct figures moving around through the cracked glass of the little square window. The two figures in motion were absolutely unidentifiable - and never would he have guessed one of them was female, he had felt like going mad thinking one of them could be Bucky, fighting all alone and him being stuck outside, watching it all unfold helplessly. So he had relied on his hearing: many groans and muffled whimpers from pain. Then the two figures eventually stood still and it seemed one of them slowly hovered slightly higher than the one it was facing as if it was being lifted off the ground, fighting to break free with little, shaky motions.
He hit the door harder, panting, feeling it started to yield.
Then the emprisonned figure had suddenly jerked its arm towards its opponent's face, and that when he had heard it. This terrifying cry of pain that sent a rush of shivers down his spine, horrified at the idea it might be Bucky's. He banged harder on the door, desperate to come and help, internally praying the scream came from whoever that second person in the carriage was.
Then another sound rang out. A more sinister one although it was duller. A gun shot. Followed by the most tetanizing silence. He banged again and again, determined to break this door open even if he had to bend it with his own hands. Who had pulled the trigger? And who was standing on the other end of the barrel?
The door screeched loudly as it finally gave way. He dropped the slab down and held firmly to the side, using all the weight of his body to pull until he would have enough space to slip through the gap. He noticed through the window that there was now only one figure standing in the other wagon.
When he eventually barged in, he barely had time to catch sight, out of the corner of his eye, of the bottom part of a lean silhouette whisk up into the air and land with a faint sound right above his head, on the roof. Shockingly, the carriage looked empty. It had gone from two people brawling ruthlessly in a kill or die face-off to none. His throat squeezed and his heart ached at the thought that Bucky might have been pushed out of the train and his instinct was to run to the edge and look down, even if he was fully aware that from this height, and at this speed, he wouldn't see anything.
But then he saw a hand lying on the ground, down the carriage, behind the shelves. He dashed and found the familliar figure of Bucky lying face down, unconscious. He screamed his name and shook him, reaching for his neck to feel a pulse. The sheer relief was overwhelming when he saw him wriggle and slowly open his eyelids, showing no sign of harm of any sort except that looking groggy and stunned.
"Somebody knocked me out. I think," Bucky said.
And as a million questions buzzed into his head, he suddenly realized that the stranger who had escaped the carriage before he could see them and who had landed just a few seconds ago on the roof, hadn't run away. He hadn't heard runny steps that would indicate the intruder had gone.
He rose to his feet and ran back to the head of the car, where the giant hole was. And as he did so, he finally heard the stranger above him do the same, running in the opposite direction, towards the tail.
He took hold of the handle near the edge and leaned forward, looking up, hoping to catch a glimpse of the fugitive, but he was already too far out of his line of sight.
And yet now, this scene he remembered so well, had felt different once he had discovered there was indeed a third person in the wagon, and that it was a woman.
Still looking at the hair pin, he pictured her fighting for her life when the HYDRA soldier had squeezed her throat and lifted her up in the air, reaching probably for the only item she could use to defend herself, her hair pin, and made it a weapon. He still didn't know who she was fighting for and if she were a hero or a bad guy, but part of him admired her for her resilience and relentless courage.
Part of him felt somehow guilty for not being there to help her. And he couldn't help but wonder what had happened of her afterward. Even if she had defeated the soldier, had she been badly injured, too? Had she made it out of the train only to die from her wounds a few hours later, trapped in the snowy mountains? Or had she gone back home? And where was her home?
He gazed at the dark stain of dry blood on the pin and had an idea.
The next morning, he went to Jason, one of the lab engineers at S.H.I.E.L.D.
"I would like you to analyze this," he said, holding the pouch up with the pin inside. "And see if you can find fingerprints."
Jason looked mostly stunned to have Captain America standing in his laboratory, asking specifically for his help. When the moment passed, he nodded and started to mumble a few words.
"Of course, Captain Rogers. What case reference is it so I can register it and send all the data straight into the file?"
"It's not related to any S.H.I.E.L.D investigations. It's an old case I was working on back in 1943, in Germany. And the report I read doesn't mention any fingerprint scan."
"The fingerprint identification didn't become regular until decades later, and it took even longer to have a proper fingerprints data to search into," Jason started. "Without mentioning the possibility that the process was delayed in the other countries before being fully operational. If the person you're looking for passed away before giving fingerprints became mandatory, they won't be found in any system."
Steve nodded, fully aware. Chances were slight but stil worth the shot.
"I know. I guess I'm just relying on luck. Can you try anyway?" He asked.
"I will try my best, sir."
He handed the hairpin over, slightly reluctant to separate from it.
Later in the week, Natasha walked into his office with a smug smile on.
"I hope I'm your favourite cute but not entirely principled Russian," she purred, swaying up to the desk.
"You come a close second after Stalin," he commented while finishing writing down notes. "Why?"
He looked up and found her smirking.
"Well, this better give me number 1 ranking." She held a file out to him then sat proudly in the chair across from him. "I pulled some strings and asked a few people from the German secret service to help me out on your case."
She intentionally paused, relishing the sight of his full interest. "That little boy in the picture. His name is Ulrich Kaiser. He's eighty-two and still alive. He moved to America and started his business in New York in the early sixties, made a little fortune and retired to let his children take over the business family."
Steve opened the file and looked at the photographs, from child to young graduate, to businessman and family father.
"Tell me he's still in America," he murmured.
Natasha smiled. "He now lives in the Hamptons."
He gazed at her, appreciatively (but what else is new?). "In retrospect," he began. "Joseph Stalin wasn't that special."
After smiling with contentment, she added:
"By the way, I also consulted the archives and found an old report filled out by the Geneva train station security team stating they had to intervene to stop a man on the platform who tried to get on the HYDRA train without ticket. A respectable man from the higher German social class. He claimed he had his special ticket but must have lost it on his way to the station. The whole area was searched but the ticket was never found." Natasha paused. "Of course, it might just be a coincidence or maybe your mysterious intruder got hold of it."
Steve nodded. There was no coincidence with her type of intruders. The professional type.
"I asked at the lab to search for fingerprints on the hair pin."
"Great," she said with the satisfaction of a detective getting close to catching his criminal. "The trap is closing around her."
She had a devious smile when saying it, almost as eager for answers as he was.
He called the number provided in Kaiser's file and asked if he could pay him a visit. An appointment was booked for the following weekend.
He rode on his bike to the Hamptons and pulled over in front of a light blue painted house facing the sea.
He was welcomed by the governess, who smiled a smile that didn't reach her eyes, before formally inviting him to follow her. She led him through the spacious hall, into the beautifully furbished living-room to the bright glass veranda where an old man was sitting in a white armchair, an old German song playing in the background.
He felt himself thrown seventy years back, sitting outside the tents with his comrades, silenced filled with the only German station their little radio could perceive. He had listened to so many similar songs whilst drawing alone in his sketchbook at dawn.
"Your guest is here, Mr Kaiser," she said with a stern voice.
Ulrich Kaiser turned his head and smiled. Steve slightly bent over to shake his hand.
"Please, have a sit," the man said with a German accent that had been softened by many decades living in the country, motioning him to sit on the long white sofa adjacent to his seat.
"Thank you for having me today, Mr Kaiser."
He looked at the old man sitting in front of him. There was hardly anything left from the young boy in the picture who was playing with his cup and ball toy on the platform.
"The honor is mine. It's not everyday you get a call from Captain America asking if he can visit."
Steve grinned sheepishly. "I really appreciate your receiving me so fast."
Mr Kaiser nodded. "How can I help you? From what I understood, it's regarding an old case from 1943."
"That's right." Steve reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled the black & white photograph of the train platform. "It's you in the picture, isn't it?"
The man gently took hold of the picture with a slightly shaky hand caused, not by any sort of nervosity, but the old age. He reached into his pocket, took a pair of reading glasses out and looked at the photograph with more attention.
"Indeed," he said. "But it's the first time I ever come across this photograph."
"It was taken by the Company staff for the first departure of the Schnellzug EB912 from Geneva." He paused. "I was hoping you could answer a few questions."
The man lifted his hand up, wordlessly asking him to hold on. He propped his hands on each side of the armchair and pushed himself up to his feet. He then went to the music player and turn the sound down, the sound of the female voice singing reduced to a whisper.
"I will try my best," he said after returning to his seat.
"There was a woman on the train who, we believe, wasn't supposed to be on the train that day. She was traveling alone. I was hoping you could remember some details from that day and perhaps give me a description of her."
He tried to keep the details as vague as possible because 1/ that was pretty much all he had himself and, 2/ not to influence his testimony.
Ulrich frowned. "Why would you be interested in an old German case?"
"It was tightly connected to one of my missions in Europe during the war," he explained. Kaiser didn't seem to find any more logic into it. "Can you think of any woman who might fit the description I gave you?"
Kaiser looked down at the photograph, using it as support to immerge himself back into this old memory.
"I remember there were almost only businessmen, politicians or couples from the most noble German families. My mother and I were traveling back to Munich after a short holiday in Switzerland. It was my father who had gotten us the tickets. You know, there were only sold or offered to people with close links to the Reich government?"
"I know," Steve answered, silently wondering what had been Mr Kaiser's close link to the Nazi government. "Wasn't there a woman who stood out, though? Or whose behavior might have seemed a bit out of the ordinary?"
Steve started to question whether this visit would be of any help in his investigation. His questions were so vague, and the memory so old and blurry, he didn't expect his possible witness to have an answer to all his interrogations.
"Well...I recall this woman," Kaiser began to speak. "She was traveling on her own and she got on the train barely a minute before the train departed. Then she went to sit at the far end of the carriage where it was the quietest."
Steve nodded encourageingly. "What made her stand out from the rest of the passengers?"
Ulrich paused, thinking carefully about his next words. "It may seem improbable, or even crazy, but I don't think she ever got off the train when we reached Munich."
Mr Kaiser didn't suspect, but he had just gotten Steve's full attention by bringing up the crucial detail he had intentionally not revealed until now. "What makes you say that?"
"A few minutes minutes after it was announced the train was entering the station, she got up and went to the bathroom, which was near the exit door but...when the train stopped, I didn't acually see her step out of the restroom and leave the train. I remarked on it to my mother and she scolded me saying it wasn't appropriate to notice people's coming and going to the bathroom. Especially a lady's." He chuckled lightly at the memory and then shrugged. "I was certainly wrong. There was no way a young woman had vanished through a train's restroom."
Kaiser had no idea, but he had given Steve just what he had come for. The description fitted what had in all likelihood happened.
"Do you remember what she was wearing?"
"She looked very elegant and undoubtedly had the manners of the upper class. I think she was wearing a refined black coat coat with a grey fur collar and fur hat."
Just like the coat and hat that been found along with an empty purse by the side of the railtracks. Another striking detail that meant Mr Kaiser was describing his unsub.
"And a dark blue jumpsuit," he continued.
"A jumpsuit?" Steve repeated. This was an unknown detail.
Mr Kaiser nodded. "Yes, quite an elegant one. It wasn't something as common to wear as it is now, but it was something fashionable and modern women would wear."
'And the most practical outfit for a mission,' Steve thought to himself.
"Are you sure she was German?" he asked.
The old man grinned. "I have no reason to doubt it. She spoke German flawlessly, and with the slight accent people from the noble class would speak it."
Steve took a mental note of it, then asked the most important question.
"What did she look like?"
Mr Kaiser thought silently for a couple of seconds, gathering as many details as he could.
"She was incredibly beautiful; the kind of stunning beauty that would leave any man speechless, and she exuded the confidence of a woman who wouldn't so easily accept an invitation from any of them. In her late twenties, or early thirties, I would say. Blond hair, light-colored eyes with distinct facial features and a fair skin." He trailed off a little. "She had the universal beauty so dear to the Reich, the Caucasian type."
A short, uncomfortable silence followed, and there was nothing but the low sound of the singing woman echoing into the room. "Obviously," Ulrich spoke. "This isn't the kind of things we can say now."
There was some unsettling hint of nostalgia in his voice.
"Not now, nor ever." Steve said, suddenly plunging back into the memories of old Nazi propagandas and speeches.
Kaiser looked pensive, nodding blankly. "It may seem like the world has changed a lot in seventy years, but only on the surface. Dead dictators have been replaced by new ones, and fascist ideology lives on even in a world that prides itself for achieving globalisation. Which is exactly why people need a hero like you. A figure from the past to remind them not to fall into the same traps the former generation fell into. Your mission isn't over yet, Captain Rogers; and deep down, you know it will never be. Humans are doomed to never get along."
The German singer's voice rang out in the room.
"I think fear is the trigger. Humanity can live peacefully if it feels safe."
Ulrich Kaiser remained stoic. He smiled pensively.
"You probably think I'm just a cynical old man," he declared, a little amused. Then he turned serious again. "You've got a young soul, Captain Rogers -and it's probably one your strongest assets. If you had lived eighty-two years with people, you would probably think the same as I do."
He internally tensed at the thought of it becoming true, him losing faith in people. That was an idea his mind couldn't quite comprehend. He had suffered from bullies who had beat him to the ground when he was young and little, seen the horrible things evil people could do at times of war, fought against the vindictiveness of an Asgardian who desperately wanted to crawl out of the shadow of his glorious friend by seeking power, however, amidst all this, he had only also come across the kindness of compassionate people who had helped him up, fought alongside heroic soldiers and seen those brave policemen and firefighters who had run to rescue the civilians whilst the Chitauri created havoc in Manhattan. Humanity had flaws -numerous ones- but it also the brightest virtues that could shine brightly through the darkest obscurity. This was what he had chosen to see.
"But you're not here to listen to my rambling," Mr Kaiser spoke again after a few seconds. "That myserious passenger of yours...She had that timeless, vintage beauty from the time. Like Hitchcock actresses: Grace Kelly, Janet Leigh or Kim Novak. Or like Marylin Monroe, too."
Steve nodded.
"Is there anything else you remember, perhaps? Any detail?"
The old man snorted. "You're asking too much from the memory of a twelve-year-old boy."
Steve nodded quickly, caught up by the realization his eagerness for answers had gone off limits. "Of course. My apologies."
"Your tea is ready, Mr Kaiser." The governess announced matter-of-factly as she stepped by the doorframe.
He responded with a floppy hand gesture, motioning her to let them.
Steve took it as his cue and sent signals of his imminent departure.
"Is there anything else I can help you with, Captain?" Ulrich asked cordially.
Steve shook his head slightly and stood up.
"No, that will be all." He shook his hand. "Thank you for your time and for your inestimable help, Mr Kaiser."
He started towards the door.
"Oh and Captain," the man called from his chair. Steve turned to look in his direction. "I hope you find her."
It seemed like the room went totally silent.
"I have never been to war -so I can't compare myself to you-, but I know for a fact that unresolved issues from the past can cling to you, and often, without you realizing when it happened, you find yourself you're clinging back."