Chapter Eight: Real Answers
"It was him." Steve's voice was low and deep, the expression on his face was haunted as if he still couldn't believe what he'd just seen. Or rather, whom he had just seen. "He looked right at me like he didn't even know me."
"How is that even possible?" Sam asked the question weighing on Rebecca's mind since Steve had informed them that the Winter Soldier was none other than James Buchanan Barnes, Steve's childhood friend and the only one of his Howling Commandos to have died in the line of duty. Or so everyone had thought.
"It was like, seventy years ago." Sam continued, but Natasha didn't look as disbelieving. She simply listened as the transport van rocked slowly back and forth navigating through D.C. traffic.
"Would explain why he's been a ghost story for the past fifty years," Rebecca mused in a tired voice. "Definitely not a copycat."
"Zola," Steve told them grimly. "Bucky's whole unit was captured in '43. Zola experimented on him."
"Sick HYDRA bastards." Rebecca felt a wave of empathy for the young man Bucky had once been. She couldn't quite associate someone Steve cared about that much being HYDRA's top assassin, but she could pity the man Steve obviously cared for.
"Whatever he did helped Bucky survive the fall." Steve continued. "They must have found him, and-"
"None of that is your fault, Steve," Natasha said suddenly, reading the guilt on his expression.
Steve sighed. "Even when I had nothing, I had Bucky."
In the wake of learning Natasha's suspicions were true about David, Rebecca couldn't help but wonder what that must have been like. The way Steve spoke, Bucky had been more than a friend, more than a brother in arms. He'd been family, not by blood, but by choice. Her own family issues notwithstanding, and clearly she'd never really known David, Rebecca couldn't help but curious about the deep-seated loyalty and love Steve had for his friend, and from the sounds of it, had been returned.
She'd never known that. She had loved her mother and her mother had loved her, but she been too afraid to stand up to her father, to get them out sooner. She'd never blamed her mother. And she adored Nora, and even David before all this, but she'd never felt like they were the people who'd run into battle with her, who stand with her, even when the world was against her. Maybe deep down, that was the real reason she'd never gone to them for help when this whole thing started, and she'd made superficial excuses about not endangering them,
Sam glanced over at Natasha, eying her gunshot wound. "We need to get a doctor here," He said firmly. "We don't put pressure on that wound, she's going to bleed out right here in the truck."
The guard beside him immediately fired up his stunning baton and Sam leaned away from him. But to everyone's surprise, instead of using the baton on Sam, the guard lashed out at his partner, stunning him unconscious instead.
"What the hell?" Rebecca exclaimed in shock.
The guard removed the helmet and Maria Hill let out a sigh of relief. "Ah! That thing was squeezing my brain." She took another look at Sam before asking Steve, "Who's this guy?" She asked.
Rebecca couldn't help it, a hysterical bubble of laughter escaped from her throat.
"Not that I'm not happy to see you, but what-" Natasha began.
"No time for explanations. We need to get out of here." Maria hit the switch on her baton and instead of an electric charge white-hot fire coated the edges and she began to burn a hole through the floor of the van. "Next stop light, we drop."
When the floor of the van bottomed out, Maria used her baton to cut through their cuffs, relieving them of their restraints. She only spoke again when the van began to slow down. "They're taking you to an execution site, so we're pretty remote. We're going to drop and stay down until they make the corner and they won't have a visual on us. I've got transportation waiting."
They did exactly as she said, the second the van came to a stop they slipped through the makeshift hole Maria had made and remained low until the van and other STRIKE vehicles turned the corner and disappeared.
"Let's move." Maria got to her feet and began to jog in the opposite direction. Another van, also black, but smaller and not owned and operated by S.H.I.E.L.D. waited for them. No sooner had they climbed in and slid the door closed behind them, it was off and driving.
Sam began to apply pressure to Natasha's wound as best he could while Steve looked at Maria. "Not that I'm not grateful for the rescue, but what are you doing here?"
"I'll explain everything, I promise." Maria assured him. "But let's get to our location first. Don't worry, it's remote and way off the grid. They won't find us."
After nearly forty minutes of driving the van arrived at an old dam across the Maryland state line. Maria opened the van door from the outside so they could hop out. Rebecca glanced around in confusion. Maria had said they would be off the grid, but this place appeared completely deserted.
"Come on," Maria gestured forward and opened a steel bar door before entering a completely dark hallway leading inside.
Steve didn't hesitate to follow her and with Sam keeping a cautious eye on Natasha behind her, Rebecca stepped inside after him. The air was heavier inside, damp and carried the faint sour scent of mildew. But the deeper they went in, the more illuminated the hall became as lights from the ceiling clicked on and the space around them widened.
From the opposite direction, a man in a gray suit jogged towards them, looking at Maria expectantly. "GSW. She's lost at least a pint."
"Maybe two," Sam added, keeping his grip light but firm on Natasha's upper arm.
"Let me take her." The new arrival gestured them forward.
Maria shook her head. "She'll want to see him first." She waved him off, stopping by a small alcove hidden by a heavy plastic curtain.
Without any ceremony, Maria yanked the curtain back to reveal a hospital bed and several different pieces of medical equipment. Lying reclined on the bed, hooked to an IV drip and dressed in his preferred black, Nick Fury sat up a little straighter when he noticed them.
"About damn time." He grumbled as if they'd been inconveniencing him.
"You've got to be fecking kidding me," Rebecca mumbled, once again her Irish slipping through.
"Romanoff's wounded," Nick observed, looking at the man who'd greeted them. "Better treat her Doc."
"Yes Sir, Mr. Fury," He nodded urging a stunned Natasha into a chair near the former Director's bedside. He began to pull out bandaging material from a cabinet and set to work on her gunshot wound.
"I thought you were dead," Steve said to Fury.
"Lacerated spinal column, cracked sternum, shattered collarbone, perforated liver and one hell of a headache," Fury listed off dryly.
"Don't forget your collapsed lung." The Doctor added.
"Yes, let's not forget that." Fury managed a smirk. "But otherwise, I'm good."
"They cut you open," Natasha protested. "Your heart stopped."
"Tetrodotoxin B." Fury told her with a sigh. "Slows the pulse to one beat per minute. Banner developed it for stress."
"Or in this case, faking your own death." Rebecca mused with a shake of her head. She still couldn't quite believe what she was seeing.
"Why all the secrecy? Why didn't you just tell us?" Steve demanded, his tone sharp as yet another lie was uncovered for him.
"Any attempt on the Director's life had to look successful," It was Maria who answered him.
"Can't kill you if you're already dead." Fury grunted. "Besides, I wasn't sure who to trust."
"Us, or we wouldn't all be here." Rebecca shook her head. "You linked us all into this mess, which means deep down you knew you could trust us to some extent, or we'd be blissfully ignorant right now."
Fury snorted. "Might have a point there, Callahan. I figured Rogers would do the right thing, it's ingrained in him. Romanoff was a wildcard, always has been. And you, well, your deep seeded personal hatred of terrorism had me confident enough to believe you hadn't been turned."
"Is that why you picked me to follow Batroc?" Rebecca asked. "So I could report back to you that everything was going to plan for you to hack into the Lemurian Star."
"Mostly, and you're one of the more discreet investigators I have." Fury nodded. "When I set the plan to use Batroc into motion, I needed to be sure he wasn't going to double-cross me, and I had to send someone he wouldn't catch. He's not a stupid man, that's how he survived this long. You know how to stay under the radar, and you were loyal to S.H.I.E.L.D., not HYDRA as it turns out."
"Did you know Pierce would come after me for it?"
Fury sighed. "Like I said, I assigned you because of your upbringing you were least likely to have been turned. Consider it a compliment, Callahan. I trusted you that much. And technically I linked you with the best protection I could," He gave vague gesture in Steve's direction, who rolled his eyes. "Otherwise you'd have been dead at least three times by now."
"I hope you have a plan," Rebecca felt anger tinge her nerves and forced her voice to remain calm. "Because if I'm risking my life to stop HYDRA because you dragged me into this, then we better fecking stop them."
"Careful, Callahan," Fury actually looked amused. "Your Irish is showing."
With some help from both Maria and the Doctor, Nick was able to get out of his bed and they all moved to a larger room where they could sit comfortably. Under the harsher light, the bruising and lacerations stood out more starkly on his skin and the stiff way he moved indicated his discomfort. However, he listened carefully as Steve, Natasha and Rebecca debriefed him of the past forty-eight hours, from finding the hidden HYDRA base in Camp Lehigh, interrogating Sitwell and their car chase turned shootout before eventual capture.
When they were finished, Fury reached forward where on the table before him, Maria had set out coinciding paperwork, including a black and white photograph of Alexander Pierce. He picked up the photograph.
"This man," He said, a heaviness clouding his tone. "Declined the Nobel Peace Prize. He said peace wasn't an achievement, it was a responsibility. See," He tossed the photo back down and met all their gazes one after the other. "It's stuff like this that gives me trust issues."
"We have to stop the launch," Natasha spoke up, looking much more comfortable with her wound bandaged and treated.
"I don't think the Council's accepting my calls anymore." Fury's comment was loaded with sarcasm. He opened the black briefcase by his right elbow where what looked like three large SD cards lay in a protective casing.
"What's that?" Sam asked, who'd been silent since they'd arrived, spoke up, looking between the cards and Steve as if ready to spring into action.
"Once the helicarriers reach 3000 feet," Maria explained while turning her laptop around to show a visual of what the helicarriers were going to do. "They'll triangulate with Insight satellites, becoming fully weaponized."
"We need to breach those carriers," Fury continued grimly. "And replace those blades with our own."
"One or two won't cut it," Maria added. "We need to link all three carriers for this to work. Because if even one of those ships remains operational a whole lot of people are going to die."
"We have to assume everyone aboard those carriers is HYDRA." Fury gave a dismal hand gesture. "We have to get past them and insert these server blades, And maybe, just maybe we can salvage what's left of-"
"We're not salvaging anything." Steve's voice was loud and resolute as he interrupted what Fury had been about to say. "We're not just taking down the carriers, Nick. We're taking down S.H.I.E.L.D."
"S.H.I.E.L.D. had nothing to do with this!" Fury argued.
"You gave me this mission." Steve slammed his palm down on the table in finality. "This is how it ends. S.H.I.E.L.D.'s been compromised, you said so yourself. HYDRA grew right under your nose and nobody noticed."
"Why do you think we're meeting in this cave?" Fury said incredulously. "I noticed."
"How many paid the price before you did?" Steve countered with a shake of his head.
"Look," Fury sighed. "I didn't know about Barnes."
"Even if you had would you have told me?" Steve's voice took a bitter edge. "Or would you have compartmentalized that too? S.H.I.E.L.D., HYDRA, it all goes."
"He's right." Maria agreed quietly, meeting Nick's look with a steady gaze.
"I've been S.H.I.E.L.D. since you pulled me out of that hellhole when I was seventeen." Rebecca's voice brought Fury's attention to her. "I believed in what I was doing, believed in what S.H.I.E.L.D. stood for, believed in taking men like my father off the streets. But the wool's been taken off my eyes and S.H.I.E.L.D. is no longer what I believed it to be. Steve is right. S.H.I.E.L.D. made it possible for HYDRA to form, it needs to go down with it."
Fury looked to Natasha who remained silent, which spoke volumes in itself. And in the last ditch effort, he looked to Sam to back him up.
"Don't look at me." Sam shook his head. "I do what he does, just slower."
"Hmm. Well," Fury sat back, gave huff of air, then resigned, said, "Looks like you're giving the orders now, Captain."