Chapter 5: All Roads Lead to New York
Summary: Two snipers take a road trip back to New York. Things go downhill from there.

Clint waited 24 hours and then he called Enterprise and got a rental car. He drove south for hours, not going anywhere in particular, until a Ferris wheel rose over the highway and he knew it was time to stop. It was peak season for the hotels but he managed to get a room even if it cost a small fortune. He parked the car and paid for an admission ticket. He bought fried dough at the first stand he saw and wandered the midway eating it. It was nothing like Carson's when he was a kid, this was a big scale operation and there were something like ten thousand people milling around the fairgrounds. He blended in, he was as safe and anonymous here as he would be anywhere.

He was leaning against a pole, watching people try and shoot out the center of paper targets with wildly inaccurate guns when another man stopped to watch. "Do you think they know they're wasting their money?"

Clint shrugged, not really paying attention. "It's their money to waste."

"I could do it. Think you could?"

A cursory glance at the guy screamed vet, which meant those were fighting words. Clint balled up the wrapper and threw it into the garbage can. "You're on." While he lined up his shot, something was stirring in the back of his brain. The guy looked familiar but he'd served with a lot of guys who were good with a gun.

Clint obliterated the star from the center of his target and the booth guy looked a little nervous as the guy set up his shot and did the same. It was the way he held the rifle, the way he slung it over his shoulder when he was finished, the way he smiled. Holy shit. "You're Bucky Barnes."

"Why does everyone keep calling me that?" Bucky, no, James, his name had been James, set down the rifle and took his prize.

"It's what it said on your trading card." Phil was personally obsessed with Cap but he'd had the complete set of Howling Commando trading cards. Bucky had always been Clint's favorite. Orphan, sharpshooter, smartass. He was relatable to a fuckup like Clint, when Captain America seemed to high an ideal to reach for. "Am I dead? Did I crash my car on the way here?"

"No." James smiled and it was just like in all the pictures. "Let's take a walk, Clint."

There was nothing to say, really. Clint followed him off the midway, into the diary building. The day got even more surreal when the guy he'd read about in Phil's comics bought ice cream. They sat out on the grass and Clint couldn't take it anymore, he had to ask. "You're dead. You fell off a moving train."

"Steve crashed his plane into the ocean and turned into a block of ice. He's fine."

It was a good point but, "Steve has the super soldier serum."

"I have something else." James dug his spoon into his cup of ice cream. "HYDRA was experimenting on prisoners of war. Steve kept it off the record, but they did something to me. When I fell, I didn't die." He glanced up. "There are things worse than dying. They unmade me. I did things for them, without a question or a complaint. I had a perfect record until they sent me after Howard Stark. A SHIELD agent took me out and I woke up in Howard's basement."

Unmade. That was what Natasha had called it. It was something Clint could relate to. "That would have been in the sixties. Where have you been since then?"

"In the field, playing double agent for SHIELD." James shook his head. "Howard and his brilliant ideas. He could turn off the other guy with the flip of a switch but he could never make it stick. SHIELD just kept me out there, working. To give you an idea, when I met Fury he had two eyes and his own name."

Clint whistled. Even knowing that Nick Fury was a title was a Level 7 secret. "So, why bring you in now? Why not before New York?"

"It's a long story." He wasn't eating the ice cream, more like toying with it. "I got a little outside help, woke up me again. When I got back to New York, he sent me looking for you."

"Why?" He'd killed his friends and Phil, even if it hadn't been his hands that was still on him. If it was possible for Fury to have a best friend, Phil was it. He would have come for Natasha, but Natasha had gone back to New York. "Why would Fury send you after me?"

"Fury didn't send me." James pitched his half-eaten cup at a garbage can. "I told Phil Coulson I would find you and bring you home." The world tilted sideways. "Here." James held out a Starkphone and something about it's shiny green shell made Clint feel nauseous. "Call him."

It was a lie, it had to be, but it would be easy to make sure. Clint was Hawkeye and Hawkeye's hands never shook but god, it was hard. He punched in Phil's number and it rang. In those first few desperate days, he'd called and called, just to listen to Phil's voicemail message. This was different. "Agent Coulson."

Clint almost dropped the phone and his heart started thundering in his chest. He could still hear Phil, faintly. "Hello? Barnes, hold the phone up to your ear and talk normally."

It wasn't an order, not for him at least, but it made it easier to put the phone back to his ear. It couldn't be real. "Phil?"

"Clint." It was his voice. God, it was good to hear his voice. "Please come home."

"Where have you been?" He was so angry, suddenly. He'd lived with the memory of that morgue drawer for more than a year. He'd believed. Clint wanted to throw the phone at the wall but it was a nice one and it was Bucky Barnes' so he didn't. "Fury told me you were dead."

"I was. They brought me back. Eight seconds, and then I was in a drug induced coma. Fury shipped me out to a grass hut to recover. I'm sorry, Clint. I came back as soon as I could." Phil's voice felt like cool water and Clint clenched his eyes shut. "Please. I need you."

Eight seconds? "Six hours, maybe seven. I'm coming." Clint hung up and put his head between his knees. "Fuck. I think I'm going to throw up."

"Do what you need to." James hesitantly put a hand on the back of Clint's neck. "You need some water?"

"Just give me a second." Clint sucked in a few deep breaths and waited for the spinning feeling to pass. Fury had lied. Fury always lied, but this was worse than normal.

"Alright." The hand withdrew. "Where's Natasha? Were you two meeting here?"

"No." Clint finally felt a bit steadier. He looked up at the sky, wishing he was higher up but beggars couldn't be choosers. "She went back to New York. She thought you were the Winter Soldier, come to settle an old score."

"I am." James said it so softly it took a moment to sink in and Clint went for the sidearm that wasn't there, not in public. "I mean, I was. I'm not him anymore."

It was a bit elaborate, for a hoax, unless Loki was involved, in which case nothing was too elaborate. "You're telling me SHIELD knew you were the greatest assassin the world has ever known and they just left you with the Red Room?"

"Howard asked me to stay the Soldier. They studied my arm, debriefed me. I knew a lot of secrets and my worse half never knew I was there." James held out his hand and hauled Clint to his feet. "The perfect spy, alone in the lion's den. The Widow was the only one watching my back."

"She's good at that." They abandoned Clint's rental car and took James'.

They were just past Albany when the silence started getting to Clint. "You never did answer me. Why you? Why risk someone so valuable?"

"Fury's been trying to bring you in for months." James was staring out the window, watching the trees edging the thruway fly by. "The Widow isn't easy to find, when she doesn't want to be. No one else was up to the job."

"It's not like Fury, even if he was doing it for Phil. He's not cautious but this was a big risk, one he didn't have to take." Clint wasn't worth it, no matter how much fuss Phil had made. "If the world was ending, we'd have come back. He wouldn't have had to find us."

"Coulson isn't doing so well." James pressed his fingers to the window, still staring outward. "They wanted to give him a team of his own and a jet. He wouldn't take it. He told me he felt off. He needs you, Fury found you. I don't think Fury has many friends, but Coulson is one of them."

"He could have told me Phil was alive." Clint was happy Phil was alive, he really was, but he was also really angry. "The only reason not to tell me right then and there was to keep it from Thor, which is a dick move. You don't keep things like that from your allies."

"I don't know if Fury can actually stop playing the game." James had known Fury a long time, and he'd watched the man go from Peggy's protégé to the kind of man who ran SHIELD, with all the politics involved. "I don't know if I can either."

"Natasha keeps telling me the things I did under Loki's control aren't my fault."

James didn't answer.

James swung the car into the garage beneath Clint's apartment building and parked in Clint's space. Lola was in the next space over and the knot in Clint's chest let up just a little bit more. "Thanks for the ride."

"No problem." James had taken the last hour, when Clint had been too antsy to steer.

If it had been an ordinary day, after an ordinary mission, he would have invited James up for a beer, but Clint didn't want anyone seeing them when he saw Phil again for the first time. "Do you have somewhere to go?"

"Hotel room. I'll be fine. I've done this, you know, from the other side." James gave him a little smile, like they were sharing a private joke. "It wasn't the sort of thing you need an audience for."

"Be careful." Natasha was here somewhere, convinced an assassin was on her tail. She was at her most dangerous right now. "I left Tasha a voice mail but until I see her, she's not going to believe any of it."

"I'll be fine." James stuck around long enough to see Clint get into the elevator then he left the garage and drove around aimlessly. Eventually, he found himself a few blocks away from Stark Tower. Phil had told him Steve was up there somewhere, blissfully unaware James was alive. He was tempted to keep it that way, no matter how much he missed him. That way, Steve wouldn't have to know that James had spent the past fifty years killing people for the Red Room, doing it willingly for SHIELD, because he'd thought Steve was dead. When he'd thought James was dead, Steve had carried on as a hero. James hadn't and it made him feel ashamed.

He pulled out his phone and dialed Erik's number. "So, how much does it cost to call the other side of the world, these days?"

There was a chuckle. "Almost nothing, as long as you have international calling. How is your chip functioning?"

James touched the base of his neck, where a small metal plate protected the chip. Erik had done some work on his arm as well, a tune up, but SHIELD didn't need to know about that. "It's fine. You do good work."

"I do excellent work, James. Are you done running errands for lovesick spies? Is your mission complete?"

"Barton is taken care of."

"And the Captain?"

"In Stark Tower. It's not a good idea for me to try and go in there. Not unless I learn to fly. Besides, the Black Widow has it out for me. It's not safe." James hesitated for a moment then asks, "I need a place to be for a few months. Is the offer you made on the carrier still good?"

"I'll send Mystique. She'll fly you back to Genosha."

"Thank you, Erik." Steve had always been the brave one. He remembered, just in time, to ask what Mystique look like but Erik just laughed at him and hung up.

"That's him." Natasha passed the binoculars to Tony. "In the sedan."

Tony looked and he could see the car she meant, a few blocks away but with excellent vantage of the Tower. He passed the binoculars back. "He's got a Starkphone. JARVIS, who's he calling?"

"The phone is dialing the Governor's residence on Genosha, sir."

It could have been worse. Tony was reasonably sure Erik wouldn't pull all the iron out of his blood. Still, "That's not exactly comforting, JARVIS."

Steve's voice came over the speakers. "Who is he calling, and why is this not comforting?"

Tony threw up a video window, making sure Steve and Bruce were in position in the lobby. "The governor of Genosha is a metallokinetic mutant who calls himself Magneto." There was a lot more Tony could have said, but it was hard to separate Erik from Magneto these days.

"Then you're sitting this one out. If he comes in, Bruce and I will handle it."

"Yeah, good idea. JARVIS, can we tap into the sound?"

"Yes, sir."

The speakers switched to Magneto's voice asking, "Is your mission complete?"

Another man's voice said, "Barton is taken care of," and Natasha made a strangled sound.

"JARVIS, cut audio. Keep recording." Tony isn't sure if he should touch her, or even talk to her. "Natasha?"

She was already heading for the elevator. "Not now, Tony."

"I can't let you go kill him in the street." She opened her mouth to say something, but he raised his hands. "I get betrayal, you know I do," He tapped the place where the arc reactor had once been, "But Clint wouldn't want you to give up everything for him. Let us help you."

James was tired. It had been a long day, topped off by six hours in the car. He needed to find a hotel, like he'd told Clint he would and wait for Erik's friend to make contact. He let his eyes drift closed. It was a mistake, he knew it as soon as he heard the back door open. James opened his eyes, tried to sit up but it was too late. A garrote slipped around his neck and when James looked in the rear view mirror he saw Natasha. Coming here had been a big mistake.

"What have you done with Clint?" Her eyes were full of murder. He'd never seen her like this and they'd killed a lot of people together.

She gave him just enough slack to draw in a breath. "He's with Coulson."

"Wrong answer." She jerked the wire tighter again. "He was my friend. I don't owe you that much and you were stupid to think otherwise."

The driver's door opened and a man shoved him over the the passenger side of the car. Natasha slid over with him, which was good for keeping his head attached even if he still couldn't breath. The man put the car into drive without saying a word and drove toward the Tower. They pulled up to a locked gate and the man used a retinal scanner. The gate rolled up and let them into a garage. When he finished parking the car, Natasha let up on the garotte and the man pulled James from the car and dropped him onto the concrete floor. His eyes were very green.

James could breath again but when he tried to sit up the man put his boot on James' chest, shoving him back down. "Do you know who I am?"

James was about to say no when he realized where he'd seen the eyes before. This was the Hulk, wearing his human shell. "Look, I don't know what the Widow has told you, but I'm not your enemy."

He hadn't even seen her get out of the car but all of a sudden she was there, her fist connecting with his face. "Don't you dare lie to us. How long have you been working for the Brotherhood?"

His jaw hurt, his neck hurt but he'd had worse. Mostly, James was really confused. "The who?"

"The Brotherhood." Natasha grabbed him by the front of his shirt and shook him, hard. "You were just on the phone with their leader, don't play dumb."

"You mean Erik?" She cracked him across the face and he heard his nose break. The new pain didn't do anything to improve his confusion.

"Why did the Brotherhood put a contract out on Clint?" Her fingernails were digging into his shoulders, hard enough to draw blood on the side with flesh. "Answer me!"

"I'm not the Soldier, I'm not working for anyone." It was the wrong answer and Natasha grabbed him by the ears and slammed his head against the concrete. The whole world started swimming. He couldn't really see her anymore. "We met in Berlin, do you remember? And then again, in Moscow, when I helped you escape? I'm not him. I'm-"

Two more blurry shapes joined the group standing over him. For a second, he was convinced the small one was Howard, swooping in to save the day but Howard was dead. The big blur knelt down, and he'd know that voice anywhere, even after seventy years. "Bucky?"

James reached up and patted at Steve's chest. "Hey, buddy," and then his brain decided it was tired of being hit and everything went black.

Notes: For my random ramblings, reblogs, and ficlets please find me on tumblr as roguewrld