Her eyes try to read him, "why… would that matter?"
He slowly stands, and pulls the collar of his shirt down far enough. Only a faint red mark exists. The bullet wound completely gone.
Her eyes widen and she reaches up, pulling the one off her neck, and arm. Still wounds, still look like they're healing. But much further along than they would be if she'd had normal blood.
"Oh—" his breath takes in a quick gasp, "you heal fast too?"
She nods slowly, looking like her head is spinning, "and I'm strong." She gestures to the chair with the bent spoke.
He looks at Natasha. "Rusty chair?"
Natasha smirks, "you weren't ready to hear the truth yet."
Steve frowns… "When did you know?"
She points to him, "he figured it out first."
Steve looks over, "how?"
"Howard first. He told us that Carter had told him she was pregnant at his wedding." Steve's eyes go sad, "she asked him not to tell you anything. So we already had that context clue. Then Pierce. He said, 'she's a great shot, like her dad'." He sighs, then winces, "and he made a snide comment about her being pretty."
The girl grimaces as if the thought makes her sick, which Clint appreciates. "So then I knew he was goading you. And she looks—" he turns to the girl, "you look very similar."
They both stare at each other as if trying to decide whether that's true. Which only proves his point more as their expressions match up almost completely.
Then the girl frowns, "wait, wait, wait… are you saying the Agent… is my mother?"
Natasha nods along with him, but Steve is just staring in silence, like he's trying to comprehend all of the last 10 minutes.
It gets very awkward very quickly.
Clint can feel the tension rise as the implications of just everything fill the room.
Steve's voice is strained, like a man at the gallows wishing he could take every choice back, "I'm so sorry." Then he looks at her, his daughter of only a few minutes, "there's no excuse. I should have found her. All of you. I should never have given up."
Her eyes transcribe hurt, "you gave up?"
His eyes are on the ground, "yes."
"Why?"
His jaw is held tight and he barely breathes as he speaks, "when I thought she was gone…" he shakes his head, "that I was the reason for getting her killed… I died with her." He trails off and Clint pictures the man they'd found. Impersonal home. Cold and calculating. Broken.
There's that awkward and sad silence again. The girl looks lost, like she can't accept everything but she also doesn't know how to refute it either.
Then the Quinjet lets out a chirp.
"I'll check on it." Natasha offers, "and now that it's fueled up, we should probably disappear." She walks off and Clint can see there will be no quick way to heal this wound.
"What—" Tony starts, pulling out his phone and dialing something, "what do you remember about anything? Everything? Like childhood, any of it? Or maybe locations?"
"It's all a blur." She says slowly, "but I think with time—" she looks at Steve and then away, "I think I'll remember. I think my memory…"
"It's strong." Steve says quietly, "if it's like mine… they'd have a hard time erasing anything permanently."
"Maybe it's the same for Barnes and Carter." Tony attempts, "if they both had some version of the serum."
Clint suddenly notices the way Steve's fist is coiled so tightly to keep from shaking.
His wife… his best friend… they're out there somewhere. His daughter is right here.
What a day.
"We should go." Clint offers, "we need to find them as soon as possible, we don't want them getting hidden again."
Tony catches on and nods, "yeah, yeah, for sure. I'm just…" he winces, "I'm going to call my dad. He probably won't remember much but…"
No one argues. Clint gestures for the girl to start and she quietly walks towards the door.
Tony follows after her, phone up to his ear.
"I can feel the guilt radiating off you from here." Clint says quietly, "but… it's not your fault."
Steve's voice is like flint, "my best friend, my wife, and my child have been tortured and manipulated into weapons by the worst organization I have ever had the disdain to fight. All while I sat cozily in my damn house—"
"You looked—"
"Obviously not hard enough!" He snaps, starting to walk towards the door. "Not hard enough." He pauses, his hand on the door knob and he looks like he's all 94 years old, "And that is my fault."
Clint's silent as Steve walks out to the main part of the hangar. And he can't even think of a response.
—-
Steve takes pilot again and is silent as he flies. Clint's pretty sure he's not even paying attention, just mentally flying on auto.
Natasha catches his eye and signs, awkward.
He winces, hell yeah it is.
No wonder Coulson needed us to contact him.
Yeah, not sure how you—
Tony glares at them, "stop that."
This makes the girl look up and Steve glance up in the mirror at the top of the massive windshield. Clint's hands stop signing and the awkwardness returns.
Hours later, they land somewhere else and refuel and then Howard sends them coordinates that could be nothing, but have had a lot of hits on the Shield Servers after the downfall of Pierce.
"Worth checking out." Tony offers, "we don't have many leads."
They're flying again when Clint notices that the girl looks a little sick.
"You… okay?"
She looks surprised, like no one's ever asked her that before. She nods, "yeah. It's nothing."
Clint can feel Steve's eyes back on them, the worry clear. Then he watches as something hits, a realization of something but Clint doesn't know what.
Suddenly they're descending.
They land on the outskirts of some small town in Eastern Europe and Steve says, "I'll be back." Without waiting to say where the hell he's going.
"Where the hell is he going?" Tony asks, staring at the retreating figure that's headed towards the village lights.
It's past 11:30 at night and Clint just shrugs, "I have no idea."
The gangplank lays open and they sort of mill around while they wait.
"You need a name." Tony says with a huff, "I'm not calling you collateral and I don't think going by 'girl' is going to cut it."
The girl— Clint winces, just looks at them, "if I was ever given a real one I don't know what it is."
"Okay," Natasha says easily, "why don't you pick one? We'll call you that until we learn if you were given one."
She shrugs, "what are some girl names?"
Clint wonders what life she led if she can't even think of any names.
"You look like an… Olivia." Tony says with an observant eye, "or a Sydni." Natasha wrinkles her nose, "okay, maybe not a Sydni."
The girl starts to look hesitant, "what… what's the Agent's name?"
"Agent Margaret Elizabeth Carter. But she went by Peggy." Tony recites, holding up his phone as if proving he knows it and isn't just lying.
The girl seems to get sidetracked, "what was she like?"
An awkward silence makes Clint grimace, "we've never met her. Only read mission reports."
"Oh." Her eyes trail to where Steve had walked. "Can I read them?"
"Uh…" Tony eloquently responds, "okay?" Natasha glares at him from behind the girl but he just shrugs, typing on his phone and then handing it over, "just click next when you reach the bottom of the screen."
The girl starts to read, her eyes scanning quickly while they have a silent argument behind her. Natasha looks like she wants to strangle Tony who keeps miming 'what was I supposed to do' and Clint keeps trying to peek over her shoulder to see what she's reading.
"Woah."
They all snap their heads in her direction at the first verbal sound she's made in a few minutes.
"What?" Tony breaches.
"Just started reading where she joined a team. The Howling Commandos. They seem…" she grins, "wild."
Clint smiles back, "yeah, they were great. from what I know."
The girl goes back to reading.
Suddenly she looks up, "geez, did you guys ever meet the guy called Captain Rogers? He's incredible. Was he enhan—" her voice cuts off, her eyes getting unfocused before looking at them in a way that shows trepidation. Then it's like she slow motion blinks as it hits her. "Who… is Captain Rogers?"
Natasha sighs and is the one to speak, "Captain Steven Grant Rogers. Captain and Leader of the Howling Commandos. Married to Peggy Carter for almost 20 years." She points in the direction he walked away.
The girl's eyes widen as she looks down at her screen, "they were married for that long?"
Tony nods, "uh huh."
"Did they have any—" she struggles out the next word, "other kids?"
"No." Clint responds, "they thought she couldn't. Steve's…" he grimaces, "blood transfusions helped heal her. That's why she's enhanced now. Or we think she is."
It's several more minutes before she speaks, her eyes on the screen. "And… what is he like?"
Grumpy. Jaded. Hurt. Broken.
"He's quiet." Natasha says first, "we don't know him too well."
This seems to surprise the girl, "you're not a team?"
Tony laughs, "barely acquaintances."
"Oh…" Her expression almost shows guilt, "does he have mission reports?"
Tony nods and grabs his phone, switching to Steve's side of the documents all while Natasha looks ready to pull out her own hair.
The girl starts reading immediately and Clint sighs.
Suddenly she's raising the phone up, "is this…" a picture of Steve before the serum is on the screen, "is this him?"
Tony nods, "yep. Before he got blasted with Vitarays."
"Woah…" then she tilts her head, "so… am I enhanced because he is? Or because she was?"
"Probably both." Tony quips, "but mostly him."
"Oh." Then she goes back to reading.
Small gasps of surprise, or sounds of disbelief and shock are all they hear for the long minutes she reads.
Footsteps alert Clint to someone approaching and Natasha has a hand on her pistol just in case.
But it's Steve, returning with his hands full of bags. The girl— damn they really need to pick a name— stands and her eyes widen. "Is that food?"
He watches Natasha put a palm to her forehead like she's an idiot and then it clicks for him too. It's been forever since they've eaten last. And if her appetite is anything like Steve's…
The heart cracking realization that he didn't stop to eat for himself, but only after he realized she was probably hungry.
"Yeah." He responds quietly, walking past them and setting it on the Quinjet's gangplank. "I got a lot so we would have supplies on the jet too. Dig in."
Tony isn't shy, snagging something out of a bag that looks like a wrap of some sort. They all start to eat when the girl looks up, "what about you?"
And Steve's expression seems to soften just a touch from his tense state, "I'll eat when everyone else is done."
She nods but Clint watches that as she eats, her eyes slide to study him over and over.
—
Once they take off, she goes back to reading. Tony's more twitchy without a phone in his hands but he doesn't ask for it back.
Hours later he hears a choked sound that makes everyone look up. She's staring at something and Clint doesn't even need to see it to guess what it is.
Steve's eyes are up and watching them again. But she doesn't say anymore. Just shoves the phone back into Tony's hands and curls her knees up to her chest.
Clint's eye line can catch Tony's screen and— yep. He was right. The pictures of Steve's body after Hydra took Barnes and Carter.
A bloody pile of bones and burns.
She doesn't seem to be paying attention to her surroundings. Just glazed and far away eyes for a while.
Then, in a move that surprises everyone, she slides off her seat, walks slowly to the front and slips into the co-pilot's chair.
All three of them are on high alert as they watch Steve stiffen, unsure what to do or say as he continues to fly.
"If you were going to name me…" she starts softly, "what would it have been?"
Clint can feel the way Steve's shoulders are so rigid, like a spring ready to snap from the tension.
"I didn't know if you were a boy or a girl." Steve finally responds, voice so achingly sad that Clint has to pinch his nose to focus on something else. "But probably Michael, after her brother… If you were a boy. That's what I would have suggested."
"And if I was a girl?"
A silly way to word the question but Clint gets it.
"Probably something after her. Elizabeth maybe. That's her middle name."
She doesn't ruin the fact that she already knows that. "That's a nice name."
"She probably picked one." He says softly, "if she got to meet you, she named you."
"What was she like?"
Steve looks over at his daughter, "Peggy?"
"Yeah…" the girl gives a shrug and looks all of 15 years old, "what was she like?"
"She was…" His voice gets so soft and sad that Clint's back to pinching his nose, "like the moon. She glowed. A light in the darkness. She was so fierce and so kind and she never wavered when she knew she was right."
"Was?"
His jaw clenches, "is."
"And… the other one? The Asset?"
"Bucky. He's…" the question seems to stump him for a minute then he takes a deep breath, "even when I had nothing I had Bucky. He was an older brother. A fighter. Charming enough to keep us out of trouble and rowdy enough to get us into trouble. He saved my neck a hundred times."
"And you saved his back." Then she fidgets like she's not supposed to know that, "right?"
His eyes flick to hers and he nods, "I tried to."
"You said you looked for us…?"
Steve's voice cracks, "yeah."
"That you even dug up graves to try to find us…"
Geez, it's like swallowing broken glass, "yeah."
"Why didn't they go after you?"
Steve's head turns to her, "what?"
"That day… in the factory. Why didn't Hydra take you?"
The tension rises again, "they couldn't."
Her brow furrows, "why not?"
"Because I killed every last agent who came within 15 feet of me."
"Oh…" then another question, "why wasn't she with you? Especially if you knew… about me?"
"I sent her to the basement with Bucky. I thought she'd be safest there, away from me, since usually Hydra or whoever we fight targets me first."
"Oh…"
"That's why I believed Howard at first. Bucky had already been taken and experimented on back before I even joined the war. So maybe they were back to collect. And Peggy happened to be near. That's why I searched. Every town, every village or city that had any even trace of Hydra. "
"Like you've been to every country?"
"Yes." She reels back as if she wasn't expecting that answer, like she was teasing. But he isn't. "Every single one. Trying to search for them. For you."
"Oh…" then she makes Steve's head snap to her in surprise, "thanks."
"What?" He rasps out.
"Thanks." She says softly, "for looking."
"But…" he looks so confused and lost, "but I failed."
Her brow furrows. "What do you mean? You found me."
Clint feels his mouth drop open and he knows Tony's is mirrored.
"But…" Steve starts, "It took me decades. You suffered while I did nothing."
And something incredibly perceptive glints in her eyes, "I think you suffered too."
His head bows, hiding his features and she looks incredibly awkward before turning back to them with wide eyes that say what do I do?
All three of them shrug in unison.
"I'm not going to stop until we find them." Steve's voice cuts through, sounding firm and deceptively calm, "now that I know they're alive. I won't rest until they're safe."
She nods, "I want to meet her." Then she fidgets, "and get to know you both. And.. what the world is like. You know, outside of missions. Get my memories back."
And Clint feels a sense of dread. Maybe her getting her memory back of everything she went through won't be such a good thing… Not like he's going to ever say that out loud. He looks over at Natasha who seems to be thinking along the same lines. Maybe the easy acceptance she's having is because she only remembers a tiny percentage.
"I want to get to know you too." Steve admits, sounding like a hesitant new teenager, "if you want me to. No pressure."
Then the girl asks the most heartbreaking question out of the whole stupid tragic ordeal. "What do dads do?"
They all sit dead silent for a long minute.
Then Steve shifts in his chair and radiates tension, "I.. uh… I didn't have the greatest example. So I may not have known exactly how to be a dad…" he frowns, "but I would have tried my best."
What a fucking understatement. Even knowing the guy for less than a week, Clint knows this guy would have lived and breathed fatherhood.
"My dad was…" Tony jumps in, "always pushing me to be the best version of myself. Wanting me to be better than him, smarter than him. He taught me how to work hard for what I wanted."
He looks over at Clint and Natasha as if for them to take it away.
Natasha shrugs, "stolen as a kid. Never met my dad. Didn't grow up with a father figure." The girl stares in shock, like she can't believe someone else is in her same boat. Or kind of.
Well. In for a penny.
"My dad was an abusive alcoholic asshole. Ditched him for the circus with my older brother. Grew up around clowns." He grins, making a jest of the seriousness.
Steve's eyes find him and there's something there, like understanding. I didn't have the greatest example. Hmm. Maybe they're more alike than he thinks.
"All dads are different." Natasha offers, "and this situation is obviously kind of one in a zillion. So…"
Steve looks over, "how old do you feel?"
"What?"
"How many years have you actually lived?"
"I don't know. They were never specific with that."
"Give it a guess." Tony offers, "how many do you feel like you've lived?"
She's quiet for a while, thinking, feeling. "The early years are mostly blank. Which means I think I lived most of those." She says simply, "then it was sporadic… less than twenty." She says finally, "I think." But she's smart, "how old am I really?"
Steve's voice is soft. "I'm 94." Her eyes go wide as he continues, "you'd be in your 40's. But would probably not look too much different. Although I believe all the cryo slowed your aging even more."
She looks back at the three, "are you guys older than you look?"
Tony snorts and Natasha rolls her eyes.
"No." Clint admits, "we're all in our 20's."
The girl nods, and she turns back to Steve. "What happens if she doesn't remember… us?"
Steve's voice is unrelenting, "she will."
—
They land in a small village. Hiding the Quinjet in the nearby woods before taking a roundabout way to enter on the other side.
Clint immediately catches on to the way Steve always seems to be watchful. He never hesitated for a second while he was leading them all on a rampage through shield HQ. And it's not like he's hesitating now, but there's a level of caution that wasn't there before.
—
The village is small, nestled at the base of some mountain range that towers above it. They stick out like sore thumbs in their clothes, and quickly purchased simple items to replace them.
Steve pays for all of them before Tony can get out his card. A fact that makes Tony grumble.
After changing, they start walking around, asking subtle questions and trying to locate where the base might be. The coordinates read the far side of town along the north west quadrant, so they focus their inquiries there.
The girl, still unnamed, approaches a couple and speaks in perfect Lithuanian.
The couple responds and she smiles kindly at them.
"You speak Lithuanian?" Steve asks softly.
The girl nods, "of course. I had to learn almost every language of Latin origin."
Steve looks at her and there's a hint of a grin, "en wat van Germaanse tale?"
And what about Germanic languages?
She smiles, "Natuurlik. Ek is ook opgelei in die meeste daarvan. Alhoewel Engels op baie plekke voldoende is."
Of course. I was trained in most of those as well. Although English is sufficient in a lot of places.
There's a sense of awe in Steve's expression, "that's amazing."
She shrugs, "helped on missions."
Steve winces, "I dislike that aspect of it."
"You went on missions." She retorts.
"Of my own free will."
Her expression changes, "yeah. I guess that's true." Then she shakes her head as if clearing a thought, "they said there's an abandoned factory that's an eye sore to the village." Her eyes gleam, "maybe there's something there."
His eyes show the same anticipation, "let's check it out."
—
The long tunnel under the factory that Tony manages to locate using a scanner, leads to an even longer walk up a flight of twirling metal stairs.
Even Clint's out of breath by the time the reach the end and Tony's on the ground panting.
Steve and the girl aren't even winded and Natasha is hiding it valiantly.
When a loud clang sounds from somewhere far away, Tony sighs, "sounds like were not alone here."
"That could be good news." Natasha responds, "someone to beat the answers out of."
The rest of them nod, partially in agreement and they start a slow trek through blank hallways and empty rooms.
Then the source of the clanging gets louder.
They make their way towards it.
A single armed guard stands as they turn the corner in a long hallway.
Steve raises a pistol at the same time he does.
Then the guard catches sight of her, the girl. And his eyes go wide, recognizing her. He reaches for something— a radio. But he doesn't get the chance. Steve's shot slams between his eyes and he crumples.
It's silent and Steve holsters his weapon. "Let's go."
He stalks towards the downed guard and Tony grins at the girl's sort of shocked expression. "It's a dad thing." He jests as they follow him down the hallway.
—-
Three more guards get taken out without Steve even blinking an eye.
And there's something more that Clint is noticing. Steve's not just on a mission. He's angry. Definitely at himself. But definitely at the Hydra people they keep encountering.
When they come upon a room of 7 guards, all taking a break. Steve pulls a spin kick move that has all of them gaping. But he doesn't stop, walking through the far doorway and leaving them behind.
The girl turns to them, "does he ever let anyone else help?"
And Tony just lets out a bark of laughter before shaking his head and walking after Steve.
—
"Natasha, take Tony towards the computer banks we just saw. Guard him while he hacks in." He turns to Tony, "safe houses, addresses, cryo chamber inventories and storage locations. Any orders from Pierce or the higher ups starting with the hour of Coulson's death. Understood?"
Tony nods and Natasha drags him away. Steve gestures to Clint and then the girl, "I want this place crippled. We need explosives or things that can work as explosives. But not structure damaging. We don't want the mountain on us before we can get out. Just damage. Not destroy." He turns to her, "have you been here before?"
She shrugs, "not that I remember."
"Hydra usually stores it's weapons in several locked chambers. All within reasonable access of leadership, comms rooms, and guard stations. We passed a station one floor down. Clint, take her and go see if you can find any."
He turns but the girl calls out, "what about you?"
His eyes get hard, his voice is even and like flint. "Clean sweep." Then he's gone.
Clint grimaces, yeah. He's angry.
—
The smoke is visible from the Quinjet. Clint had watched as the girl took a little bit of glee dusting the computers and science labs with gun powder.
Steve had come back with blood splattered across him and what looked like chunks of something.
Or someone.
No one asked.
But now they were clean and up in the air, rifling through the terabytes of data Tony had pulled.
"You we're around Pierce." Natasha comments, "where would he send them?"
"And would they be awake?" Tony asks, "or most likely in cryo?"
The girls thinks but then shrugs, "I really don't know. He didn't trust me with any knowledge like that. All I know is that wherever I went. There was always a cryo tube available. Like a warning for me to behave."
They hear a crunch and look towards Steve who is gripping the controls of the Quinjet tightly.
Clint can see the finger grooves in the metal.
—-
They work on that knowledge. That most likely, wherever Pierce sent them, there had to be cryo facilities. And what was better was that there had to be two tubes available, which is a much larger power draw and easier to trace on city power grids.
"If he kept them together." Natasha cautions.
"True." Tony relents.
—
It takes eight days. 14 safe houses searched an destroyed in the process.
But 15th is the lucky charm.
Steve slowly pushes open the door after Natasha picks the lock and depresses the latch. A pistol at the ready.
Steve searches the bedroom, the girl checks the bathroom attached and he and the other too head to the tiny living space and kitchen.
They search the apartment, which shows no signs of life.
Except.
"There's no dust here." Clint points out to Natasha, the chair in corn—" a knife comes flying from he doesn't know where and he only has a millisecond to move. It still nicks his neck but he drops and rolls, plastering himself behind a wall.
Tony's leaping behind a chair and Natasha is deploying her widow bites at someone who just rawrs in pain.
There's a crash and suddenly Natasha goes flying past him, slamming into a wall.
He hears an almighty crack and Steve's suddenly in the living room, wood splinters scattering around him. Clint leans around to see— his eyes widen.
Sergeant Barnes stands with a pistol in his grip and a knife in his other hand.
"Bucky." Steve says with a cracked tone, "Bucky, it's me. It's Steve."
The knife sprouts from Steve's chest as it's thrown from Barnes and Steve ignores it, stepping forward only to receive a slug to the chest.
Then they grapple, Steve lunging for Barnes' midsection and knocking him backwards.
The girl appears beside Clint and she gasps, "The Asset!"
"It's him." Clint confirms, "James Barnes. Steve's second in command."
They scramble away as the fight smashes against the wall they're hiding behind and cracks the door frame.
"If he's here." The girls says, "watching Steve fight to get his best friend under control, "where is she?"
As if summoned, Steve cries out, arching his back and gasping.
He goes from holding Barnes ina. Griplock to crashing to his knees and catching himself with his hands.
And there she is. Standing behind him. Clint wonders how she could appear out of thin air.
A knife, now bloody, is in her hands, and she stares at Steve's back scene with an observant but blank face. Her hair is tied back in a braid and both she and Barnes wear standard Hydra black.
Steve tries to turn to face her, and cries out in pain. Which has an interesting effect on Carter. Her expression shifts and she hesitates.
Barnes scrambles to his feet, out from under Steve and grabs his pistol off the ground.
Clint starts to move, and he can hear Natasha doing the same, but they're beaten to it.
The girl charges forward, sliding in front of Steve and facing Barnes.
"You can't." She commands, "Asset, stop!"
Barnes immediately goes rigid at the sight of her. Stepping back, as if pushed.
The girl turns to Steve who is wiping blood from his mouth and grimacing.
"Steve?"
"Nicked my kidney" he coughs, more blood coming up, "I'm—" he shoves himself back up to his knees with what looks like every ounce of strength he has left and clears his throat, "fine."
And it's the slowest most painful looking turn as he angles around, seeing her for the first time.
As if that moment makes it finally become real, that she is alive. He lets out a choked broken sound, "mo stór."
To which she promptly lunges at him with the knife.
—