It's a thursday morning when Black Widow gets the call. Thor and Hawkeye and Sam are about to deal a new round of Irish Snap (Although teaching it to Thor may be a decision Clint is beginning to regret). The man who may be J.B Barnes will arrive at a safe house just east of Lawrence, Indiana in 15:30 hours approx.
Clint and Sam are up and throwing stuff in the trunk of a very expensive car - the kind Steve finds ridiculous and Bucky would think was fantastic - before Natasha's even got an air map up to track the flight. They've been on standby for days now - so much so it wasn't even worth Natasha and Sam going back out.
They drive four and a half hours straight when Natasha announces that, due to her flexible outlook on speed limits, they're already 54 minutes ahead of schedule - which makes their ETA almost unacceptably early. The natural conclusion therefore is to stop for food. - Cue practiced squabbling over take out choices followed by potentially the most intimidating order the Chinese guy just off the I-70 near Somerset has ever experienced.
At 5 hours 13 minutes Hawkeye sits up and begins throwing things out of the bag at his feet. Falcon and Black Widow continue eating and driving respectively.
"Fuck". 5 hours 15 minutes.
"Huh?" Falcon questions around the last of the spring rolls.
"Batteries."
"What about them?"
"I didn't bring any."
"Don't you use those fancy ass things Tony made? They don't need batteries…" Everyone had been made aware of Tony's latest donation of kindness towards the human race - a tiny, permanent, non battery operated earpiece that still works entirely as a hearing aid.
"He's not finished fixing them after last week so I'm back to the old S.H.I.E.L.D set."
Natasha pulls over at the next gas station and they pile out again.
When they get back in Sam switches into the driver's seat, Natasha notes the drop in ETA (although they're now over an hour ahead of the plane) and Clint goes to sleep in the back.
Falcon presses the radio on. They listen to a guy talking about an allergic reaction to cauliflower, a girl who's dog ate her hamster and the greatest hits of March 1974. Natasha holds her hand out for Sam's iPod.
10 Minutes after this Clint's been woken up by a heated discussion over Broadway's greatest hits.
"Hell I'm not saying Phantom's not a little bit rape-y but Christine isn't exactly turning him down!"
"He made a doll of her. A fucking doll Sam"
"When have you seen Phantom of the Opera Tash?" Clint adds over her shoulder.
"London, four years ago. Child Trafficker. Hey sleepy."
"Dead?" He asks more for the conversation than the need for clarification. "I'm not sleeping when you're making that noise"
"Very. Take the aids out then Dedushka"
"What and miss all the action? No thanks. Hey, I think you'll find we're on our way to meet the 'Dedushka'"
"If you two are done flirting, Tony's calling. I'm not sure I want to know what that means by the way." Sam holds out his phone, one eye on the road.
"Damn. Wait I'll put you on speaker"
"What's happening?" Sam asks
"Hey flyboy, listen Chicago want to search Stevie's plane when they get down, they say it's routine but anyway change of plan you're going there to meet them, just the tin man flips or something. Fury's got some people on standby moved close enough but he wants you there. I'd come but apparently I'm 'more valuable where I can't aggravate anything'." Sam can almost see the quotation marks around the last words. It was consensus that, while Tony may be a perfectly reasonable guy after you've stuck around long enough to realise it, he wasn't the most emotionally sensitive person to have around your average emotionally unstable, unpredictable, potentially, potentially-not, ex assassin. "Oh, and there's traffic up your way in 10"
"ETA Tash?" Clint asks from the back.
"You've got 07:40 hours if you keep going that speed. Plane arrives in 06:20. Get a move on slowcoaches" Tony answers for her and the phone clicks off.
"Shiit" Breaths Clint
"Yeah."
"Swap Sam?" Natasha offers. Sam nods and they begin to climb over each other so Natasha is back in the driving seat, her foot's already pushing down further at the accelerator, swinging them off onto a backroad. Natasha Romanoff doesn't do traffic.
Steve's not had an anxiety attack since August 1939. Not since Bucky'd walked in the dance hall, fifteen minutes late, dame on arm, cheep scotch in the other hand and announced he'd enlisted. It'd taken all of three minutes for the reality of what Bucky'd done to completely wash over Steve. He remembers the lightheaded feeling of skin and bone knees giving out from under him. After that he remembers Bucky crouching in front of him, hands hovering just above Steve's arms. The dame's gone, or maybe she's just stepped back a bit. It doesn't really matter, Steve's already getting up and insisting he's fine; "leave it Buck, I'm good."
Bucky'd enlisted, he was going to war. It wasn't that Steve wasn't proud - hell Steve's dead set on enlisting himself, what with Europe looking to go all pear shaped any time soon, an' all. It wasn't even because Bucky wasn't going to be around here anymore, Steve'd be joining him in no time. It was just that, well, it was Bucky.
Even during the war, before the serum, heck, even the night Bucky shipped out Steve had been focused on doing the right thing, winning the war, saving other people that there hadn't been time to panic. He sometimes wonders whether it was wrong of him not to fall apart that night Bucky left. He sometimes wonders why he didn't.
The attack on new york maybe brought him close - this wasn't something the serum couldn't fix - but Steve thinks he was still numb enough from waking up in the future that it didn't touch him the way it should of.
Steve's not had an anxiety attack since 1939 but he's fairly sure he's having one now.
Steve's also fairly sure the man next to him already heard the situation when the S.H.I.E.L.D standard body guard/co-pilot/flight attendant/what ever you want to call him/"my name's Aron sir" told him. Still he repeats it.
"Bucky? Listen, the guys at Chicago, at the airport, they want to check the plane ok? It's just a routine thing, because we're a private aircraft and we're flying into the night… Your not gonna… you're ok with that right, Buck? They'll have to look at our documents of course. I mean… Fury's sending… They'll have documents by then, to show who you are of course. Not that they'll be looking for anything. It's just routine, they do it all the time I think. You're good with that aren't you Bucky?" Steve's aware that he's rambling an' that Bucky's heard it all before from a more coherent voice but he just needs to make sure. Needs Bucky to understand. Needs to be able to breath. It's just routine. They do it all the time. Nothing's 'up'. It's just routine.
"Sure."
"They'll probably do it as we get off the plane. Just check the documents, that we are who we say we are. Someone'll search the plane but once we're off as well. It's like, do you remember when, it was — it was '38, '39 something like that; you tried to get us into that ba— " And breath Rogers. In and out. Then in again. "It going to be fine Buck. I swear it."
"Sure."
The man who's passport apparently states him as J. B. Barnes continues sitting forward on the aisle seat, watching the flight attendant out of the corner of his eye with a bored caution. Steve is still breathing carefully next to him. He's trying not to remember how much concern used to hurt.
Natasha spots the first of the ex-S.H.I.E.L.D vehicles 20 minutes out from the airport. It's pulled up just slightly inside a cluster of trees near the edge of the road and she slows just enough to see someone pull out a phone - presumably to report their location. Falcon must have spotted it too because he chuckles quietly.
"Here we go."
"Here we go."
"19 minutes to landing Sir." Aron breaks the silence in the plane and Steve fastens a seatbelt around his waist before reaching under his knees for the shield.
The Winter Soldier takes a breath in through his mouth and makes no attempt to unclench the fist that's just formed in his human hand.
Clint's still arguing to Sam that he should make a little cardboard sign to hold up once they get to the airport when they actually arrive at the airport.
"no because putting 'mutant grandpas' was gonna be so much less offensive, c'mon please - it'll be worth the bruises — "
It's some weird time in the morning (or possibly night still) where time doesn't count anymore and the sun'll be coming up at some point and all that does matter is that they are 71/2 minutes ahead of the plane's ETA and Hawkeye's kill count is now at 5 approaching 6.
"For a protocol check there sure is a lot of cars trying to hide" Natasha, every inch the Black Widow, drops the agent between her arms and swivels, knocking out the one behind her who thought she hadn't noticed him.
"Lotta guys with guns too" adds Falcon, keeping a gun trained on the one remaining agent as Hawkeye drops back down from the roof and Natasha pins him to the ground. The agent's already bitten whatever he was given to chew and his eyes roll back into his head.
"Rear area clear. Exit Secure." Natasha states and six men arrive from around the corner. Four are defiantly ex-S.H.I.E.L.D. A fifth scowls at the agent on the floor and looks like he wants to spit or something. The sixth does spit.
"Fucking HYDRA. We'll take it from here Agents" the one who spat orders.
"Keep to the shadows. No, right to the shadows. You're here to protect, not as an offensive remember." Natasha says over her shoulder as the three walk toward the runway. She doesn't mention that the dead man almost certainly wasn't HYDRA. The less people know the better usually.
"Checked, Romanoff" someone says.
"Wait, that was Romanoff?" another hisses almost silently.
"I can't do anything unless you tell me you're ok with this Buck. I won't do that to you after…well, after them…"
Silence. The Winter Soldier sits on the crappy motel bed and continues saying nothing. According to official records HYDRA don't existent anymore. That doesn't mean there's not people after the asset and Steve knows that they're going to have to move today or tomorrow. They've been in one place too long now. Yesterday the guys running the place enquired about a poorly muffled screaming coming from room 24 in the middle of the night. Steve'd frozen for a solid minute before muttering something about Afghanistan and left it at that. Four days ago Falcon and Black Widow had left for New York. Three days ago Steve Rogers and James Barnes had arrived just outside of Wuppertal, Deutschland and checked into Der Haltestelle Motel.
"Nat and Sam are staying in New York for now. I won't go back if you don't want me to, although we'll need to move again soon…" Steve tries not to think of snow storms on mountain tops so thick he could only just make out the silhouette of Bucky.
"We - there's a — I'd have to let the Avenger's know of course, if I was staying here, they'd have to — I think they're expecting for me to come back but I don't have to if you — they'd cope just fine without me, I'd do it Buck, you know that don't you? I'd stay if you wanted me too? Or you could — you could come back with me. To New York. We could figure it out from there, Natasha knows some guys that could help with the…with… And Tony'd look at your arm… if you wanted, make sure it's safe an' all? Or you could, y-know, stay here, and I go back if? Or come back but you wouldn't have to be around if you didn't want to… we'd find a way to make it work? You don't have to do anything you don't want to though Buck, we'll make it work. But you gotta be okay with it, I won't do anything otherwise." He tries not to think of how it would've been suicide to even take three strides forward to him for fear of falling off unseen ridges.
"Sure Stevie, lets go." Steve's chest does a funny twitchy thing at the childhood name surfacing which is more than a little painful. Maybe, if he'd been facing the other way, he could have missed the look in Bucky's eyes that's taken up residence recently. As it stands Steve isn't too sure that the name isn't just like other Brooklyn nuances that have begun littering the man's language as he re-learns they exist, like he's trying them out for size.
6 hours later Steve Rodgers and J.B. Barnes board a private flight to Chicago, Illinois. The Winter Soldier hasn't said another word apart from answering Steve's direct questions.
Natasha, Sam and Clint (who's found his way onto another rooftop) stand by as two large shouldered men step forward and take James' papers. They're handed over by another, official looking, ex-S.H.I.E.L.D woman with a not so inconspicuous Glock 19 resting against her thigh.
No-ones quite knows what it says on the documents; How exactly they explain why the States should let in an ex-soviet assassin who's name is responsible for several of the headline hitting events in the last decade alone, not to mention that the man he supposedly is has been dead for over 70 years. Whatever it says though seems to do the job because the two men hand the paper back and step away from the door.
They don't recognise the first person to step out. He's wearing a military insignia on his shoulder though and as he turns to one of the men Falcon recognises the S.H.I.E.L.D symbol on the gun at his waste. What he doesn't recognise is the unusual firework shape tattooed on the agent's wrist when he holds out his details. He lets it slide though because Steve is handing his own passport and documents over to the other man and watching him is The Winter Soldier.
So that was chapter one (or two if you count the prologue...). Next chapter follows on but you'll get a bit more backstory and things have a the hint of a threatening turn...I'm not going to set a specific schedule for update (anyone who knows me knows I won't stick to it) but I'm a good way into the next chapter and should have it up next weekend or thereabouts. As before, this is Unbeta-ed so if you spot anything don't hesitate to let me know!