Chapter 6

Falcon came to slowly, blinking and groaning. His shoulder hurt more than he wouldn't expected - it wasn't the first time he'd been shot - but someone had bandaged it. Looking around, he saw SHIELD personnel swarming the area, clearing out the wreckage of the cabin. Currently, Falcon was on a small gurney, with Black Widow and Hawkeye next to him. They had bandages wrapped around their heads and were probably going to stay out for a while.

"Good. You're awake."

Falcon blinked and saw the one intimidating eye of none other than Nicholas Fury staring down at him. Instantly, he began sweating. The guy just had that strong of a presence.

"What happened here?" Falcon asked, sitting up, putting most of the pressure on his good arm.

"Seems as if you and Cap were attacked," Fury replied, standing up straight and clasping his hands behind his back. "The Captain is missing, Natasha and Clint are unconscious, and your cabin is dust and splinters. The question is, Sam, not what happened - we already know that - but how and why it happened."

That's what Falcon got for asking a super spy a question: more questions and no real answers.

"Sir!" A SHIELD agent was sprinting over to Fury, a slip of paper in his hands. "We found this in the trees!"

Fury fixed the man with his signature look until the agent got the clue to hand over the slip of paper so that Nick Fury could read it. Falcon couldn't help but wonder how the guy read stuff and drove with just one eye; wouldn't he have no depth perception?

"It appears as if our friend was part of this," Fury sighed, handing the note to Falcon, who read it out loud for any curious agents nearby.

"I am the Winter Soldier. If you are reading this, Fury, then I have your captain with me. If you want to see him alive, you will contact HYDRA to negotiate a ransom. If you do not do so within forty-eight hours, the captain will be killed and examined for his super-soldier serum." Falcon swallowed. "That's not good."

"Maybe not," Fury said, "but it's not entirely true, either."

"What?"

"Look around, Falcon."

The man complied, and almost immediately saw the unconscious bodies of the HYDRA men.

"What am I looking at?" Falcon asked. "They were knocked out with arrows. What's that supposed to mean? Hawkeye got a few good hits in before going down?"

"Not all of them died from arrows." Fury nodded to a group of nearby agents, who parted to reveal one HYDRA agent who was in a fairly large puddle of blood, unlike his comrades. Buried in his throat was a hunting knife. "Barton wouldn't use a hunting knife like that," Fury said.

"And neither would Steve," Sam added, frowning. "Then who-?"

"Think about it," Fury interrupted, his eye boring into Falcon. "Who else was here?"

The Black Widow was out of the question. She didn't use knives like that unless she was desperate, and even then Falcon doubted that she would go for the throat instead of the heart. Also, the HYDRA operative would have more puncture wounds or other wear and tear if there had been any kind of struggle.

"He hadn't expected to be hit," Falcon mused. "Otherwise he would've unholstered his weapon." Sure enough, the HYDRA man had a rifle slung over his back, the safety most likely engaged. "So whoever it was . . . worked for HYDRA." His eyes widened in understanding. "The Winter Soldier did that?"

"He does like flair," Fury said, recalling how the Winter Soldier had attacked him while the director was driving in his SUV.

"But why would he do that? Doesn't he work for HYDRA?" Falcon was confused. Yes, the Winter Soldier had seemed less hostile while he was restrained and even willing to talk, so why would he suddenly switch sides and then switch sides again? "Too much switching sides," Falcon muttered under his breath, too quietly for Nick Fury to hear.

"Seems as if the Winter Soldier is starting to get ideas of his own," Fury replied. "It could be dangerous for Cap, especially given their history."

"Yeah . . ." Falcon said, blinking. "So the note is what, pointless?"

"I believe it was put there before the Winter Soldier began thinking for himself," Fury said. "And I don't think HYDRA will be very pleased with how their favorite assassin betrayed them."

...

Steve groaned, feeling consciousness slowly returning. His head felt like someone had been playing a radio in it at max volume for hours and then blown the radio up for good measure.

His eyes opened slowly, and it took him a minute to place his surroundings. After a moment, Steve realized that he was in some sort of basement, with dirt walls and a dirt floor. He was seated in a metal chair very similar to the one that the Winter Soldier had been in previously, though this one looked newer and more sturdy. The clamps would no doubt be able to hold him, no matter what he did. Captain America was completely powerless.

Footsteps made the captain snap his attention to a stairwell leading up, where someone was coming down. Steve frowned when he saw the Winter Soldier step into the basement, still wearing that strange eyeshadow. Steve thought about asking him about it, but then remembered the expression the Winter Soldier had when Natasha had asked a very similar question.

"Is this really necessary?" Steve inquired of his former friend, spreading out his fingers to demonstrate that that was all he could do.

"I did take off your handcuffs," the Winter Soldier replied, leaning against the far wall and crossing his arms.

"What a leap of faith," Steve muttered, rolling his eyes. Apparently there was still some of his sarcastic old friend in that person a few meters away. "Are you going to let me out?"

"No."

"Why not, Bucky?"

The man across from Steve noticeably flinched at the name, even though he'd already admitted that he remembered it.

"Stop calling me that," the Winter Soldier ordered, his eyes like flint.

"What else am I supposed to call you?" Steve snapped back, annoyed with the man across from him for the first time in over seventy years. "As far as I can tell, you're still with HYDRA, so do you want me to call you a HYDRA agent?"

"Shut up," the Winter Soldier hissed. "You don't know what you're talking about."

"Maybe not," Steve admitted, not looking away from the Winter Soldier for an instant, "but at least I know what I'm fighting for!" Mostly, he added silently. The events of the past year had really made that statement unclear.

"What makes you think I don't?" The Winter Soldier retorted, his eyes narrowing. Steve realized that it was easy to get on his nerves. He paused a moment before answering, thinking through what he was saying.

"Because if you did, I would either be with SHIELD or with HYDRA," Steve said quietly, "and it seems as if I'm at neither."

"I don't need to fight on one side of a war," the Winter Soldier snapped. "I can fight neither."

"You really think you can do that, soldier?" Steve asked, the last bit slipping off his tongue before he could stop it. The Winter Soldier growled slightly, but didn't say anything in response. "Listen to me," he needed to at least try and get through to whatever was left of Bucky, "when I said I was with you to the end of the line, I meant it. I'm never going to fight you like this."

"You couldn't fight me if you wanted to," the man replied, but his tone was uncertain.

The Winter Soldier was confused by the man sitting across from him. He wasn't arguing or begging, not even willing to get rid of the proud look on his face, even though he was completely at the Winter Soldier's mercy. Even now, the man was practically lecturing him with a familiarity that made his skin crawl. The Winter Soldier knew that he had known this man at some point; that much was more than obvious. He remembered his name - or what had been his name - and a few brief images of combat, but that was it.

However, it was enough to give the Winter Soldier pause when he looked at the man called Steve Rogers. He felt curiosity, something he hadn't felt in a while. The people at HYDRA had always told him that he was fighting for what was right, but Steve Rogers had thrown everything he had into stopping him. Judging from what the Winter Soldier had observed of Steve Rogers over the past five months, he was a man of at least some integrity and also firmly believed that he was doing what was right.

How could two people who believed in opposite things both be doing what was right?

The Winter Soldier's head hurt, like it was being squeezed, and he shut his eyes, trying to focus. He had the urge to turn in Steve Rogers to HYDRA; those were his orders, after all.

But maybe those orders weren't worth following. He could learn things from Steve Rogers; about who he was, what he had done, why HYDRA found it so necessary to keep in on a tight leash.

Because the Winter Soldier was realizing something now. HYDRA kept him on a leash so tight it was surprising that he had not been strangled by it yet. Every time he completed his objective, he was immediately put somewhere where his memory became fuzzy, only to be given more objectives when he got out again. There was no freedom there, yet Steve Rogers seemed to act as if freedom was a right, whereas HYDRA wanted to control freedom as if it was dangerous.

The Winter Soldier didn't know what to think.

Reviews? Comments? Questions?

-RoR