Winter of the White Wolf: Post S1 of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier

by KLeCrone

While Bucky would prefer to believe that his time as the Winter Soldier is long behind him, strange dreams and the shadows of missing memories prompt him to explore where the Winter Soldier ends and the White Wolf begins... This story dives into the bonds of friendship, the aftermath of betrayal, and includes a lively mix of banter, action, angst, and globe-trotting adventure.

87. Relative Proximity

Into the fray we go…

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Simply search for: "KLeCrone Ao3 Winter of the White Wolf"

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Winter of the White Wolf

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Chapter 87 - Relative Proximity

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Summary:

Barnes closes in on the man who has been relentlessly stalking Princess Shuri, Yama, and Nomble, and prepares to intervene on their behalf…

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"He's not fine."

It took Ayo half a second to realize that Sam'd taken the initiative to silence his mic before addressing her as they hurried west through a narrow alleyway connecting the labyrinthine passageways of downtown Aniana. The turns here were tighter than the tunnels of a meerkat colony, but their claustrophobic walls offered them a brief respite from the increasingly dense crowds littering the nearby streets. She frowned and she spared a glance over her shoulder, catching the worried expression resting across Sam's face.

A trickle of perspiration ran down his temple, but his concerned brown eyes met hers as he blew out a short puff of air, keeping pace while visibly weighing the value in speaking aloud the fears circling around them like constricting vultures.

"I can sense it too," she assured him, "but it's difficult to tell to what degree. If it's within normal bounds or—"

"—Respectfully," Sam interrupted, "Nuthin' 'bout this is anything close to normal."

Ayo's lips tightened into a controlled frown. In another time, she might've been cross for his choice to interrupt her, but in the present moment, she found herself unconcerned about such protocols. He was not one of her Lieutenants, and she valued Sam's instincts and insight equal to her own. She kept her voice low as they cut through an opening in the sidewalk and hurried across to the far side of the street, dodging between crowds as they went. Once they were out of earshot again, Ayo picked up the thread of conversation again, "Would you have me call him off?"

The sweeping implications of her question did not bear repeating. They were both well aware of what was at risk on any number of fronts, but if he believed it to be the better option, she would not hesitate to follow his suggestion.

Instead, Sam sighed audibly in shared frustration and drummed his fingers along the slim beveled edges of the cell phone he'd pulled out of his pocket when they were halfway across the bridge. At the time, she'd assumed he was using it to merely confirm their progress towards their destination or that Barnes had in fact made it across the width of the river as he'd claimed, but Sam's increasing interest in the live data scattered across the device's screen gave Ayo pause. "I dunno. That's the problem. All I can tell you is his vitals are higher'n normal, and granted: I can't read between the lines like Shuri can, but I know an outlier when I see one. And I know he's not the same guy as Buck — not exactly — but 'd like to think I know 'im well enough to know when he's trying to fastrack a conversation so he can skirt around whatever-it-is that's goin' on in that cyborg brain of his."

Before Ayo could respond, Sam added, "But without havin' eyes on him, it's hard to tell if we're just dealin' with run'a the mill Barnes-brand stubbornness, or some'n else entirely. I get that he's supposed to be stable — hell, man just had a flash from that wicked era and his first thought was to buy me some apology-OJ and help that man on the street back there — but none'a the folks around here opt-in to bein' in the middle'a this mess."

Ayo glanced down at the discrete indicator lights along her Kimoyos as she tracked the movements of the man in question a distance away. He hadn't yet caught up with the individual who was actively stalking Shuri and the others, but he was rapidly closing in, and his proximity made Ayo increasingly aware how Sam's concerns mirrored her own. At the same time, she was quick to remind herself that his instincts and reactions had been thoroughly tested in any number of ways, and nothing she had seen then or since had been cause for undue alarm.

Perhaps that wasn't entirely true, though. When he'd found out Shuri had discussed the possibility of reactivating the code words during the flight over from Wakanda, Ayo would have called herself a liar to claim her worries hadn't seen reason to flare in the heat of their exchange.

While he did not choose to strike out at her, she had seen firsthand the violence he was capable of, "We might not have eyes on him, but M'yra does."

Her words were meant to offer reassurance, but she found her attention briefly falling to the fine spider web of bald lines across Sam's face that were a swifty but silent reminder of the brutality he'd endured by the same hands they now entrusted amongst the populace of Aniana.

The scattered collection of curves traced the seams where Shuri's technologies had near invisibly repaired the dermal and subdermal surfaces, but he would still need to take time to undergo further treatments so the follicle stimulators could fill in the missing patches in his eyebrows, beard, and along his hairline. The faint constellations across his flesh were all-but invisible to untrained eyes, but Ayo saw each mark as a scar against her conscience, sullen reminders that the ripple of her decisions carried a heavy toll on not only Sam, but M'yra and countless others.

If only she'd sought caution and thought to restrain James ahead of Shuri's experiment, then when his mind had awoken fractured, he would not have been able to strike back at them.

More than that? If she'd only tempered her anger months earlier in Latveria and not let her anger consume her, then she would have been able to activate the failsafe in his arm in the lab and prevent the cascade of events that occurred thereafter. The secret failsafe had been enacted for precisely such a reason. As a contingency against the Soldier, not as a reprieve to be wielded against James. She knew that then even as she told herself it was righteousness that fanned the flames.

Now the thought of it spurred a poignant stroke of personal shame, too, one she had thought long and hard about these past few days, but had not aired aloud to anyone, even Princess Shuri. In private, Ayo wondered if none of this had happened, if she had taken those actions in Latveria but James's mind had remained stable, would she have ever been able to truly grasp just how wrong she'd been? Or was it only because once the crux of her failure had been brought to light, that she was capable of seeing through lenses unfogged by emotion that her actions were not simply wrong because the cascade of them meant that the failsafe could not play the strict role it was meant to play, but that it was fundamentally wrong of her to act against James as she had in that moment?

Her anger may have been justified, but not her actions. And even now, it pained her to be unable to convey the deep apology aching in her chest for a man she could see, but couldn't reach.

Ayo was certain Barnes had anticipated her disabling move back in the lab, but she knew it was cowardice that prevented her from asking if his actions were purely instinct, or if he remembered the grave trespass where they'd first been birthed.

But that cowardice was easy to hide behind, because she could tell herself that not pressing for clarity was in some way a kindness. That if he was unaware, she could allow him to spend what time Bast had left for him knowing friendship rather than the lash of her failure.

If Sam caught the guilt heavy behind Ayo's gaze, he opted not to make mention of it as he raised a weathered eyebrow and smoothly responded, "I'm glad someone has eyes on him. That's somethin', but it's not like she can stop him if things suddenly start ta' go sideways."

While Sam was fit enough to keep up with her even with the dull ache in her bad leg, Ayo's stride briefly slowed as she glanced down at her Kimoyo strand and noticed that Barnes was now less than four meters from the man pursuing her Princess and Lieutenants. He was tucked within the crowds a half a dozen blocks ahead of them, but his proximity offered up a complicated crossroad of conflicting worries. On one hand, she was relieved he was close by in case the others needed assistance, especially since she knew his keen eyes might be able to spot dangers within the city that they could not, yet Ayo couldn't shake the other sharp possibilities that flitted around her peripheral like a swarm of biting gnats.

In her heart, she wanted to believe that she fundamentally trusted his judgment, but was that sentiment simply a hazy manifestation of her own unresolved guilt? She did what she could to focus not on emotion, but his actions. Had he done anything yet to make her doubt his character or resolve?

Nothing stuck out at her beside the obvious ways his mind — while deemed stable — operated in ways that were not entirely clear or predictable. She found herself pulling at a particular rotten thread. If James had been compelled to root out the origins of the new wave of Super Soldiers with such tenacity that he chose to not only seek out Hemut Zemo's, but to feign to act on his behest, what might Barnes be capable of?

What if Shuri's life or any of the others were directly threatened? What lengths would he deem appropriate?

Their staged challenges for dominance atop the mountain reaffirmed that the instincts running through his veins were solid and that he knew how to temper his strength, but such performative training was never intended to be deadly. It was sharp, but closely supervised.

Sam caught her hesitation but did her the courtesy of pretending not to notice.

Ayo's heels clicked over the cobblestones as they rounded a corner and pivoted north along a sidestreet. She kept a distance between herself and a group of boisterous teenagers as she tuned her Kimoyos to a channel for M'yra alone and tightened her audio dampener. When she spoke, she did so in the Dora's private tongue, "You have eyes on Barnes, yes?"

M'yra reply was instantaneous, "I do, my Chief. He is sheltered amongst the crowds just south of the pursuer."

"Does anything look amiss with his approach? Describe it to me as if you were my eyes."

M'yra took a breath before responding, her words clear and unhurried, "He seeks to blend in, and does so admirably. He has done nothing to call attention to himself, and appears mindful of the people around him. It is likely he has already spotted the man in the green jacket ahead, but Barnes has not made his approach obvious. He keeps watch from a calculated distance and is slowly growing closer."

That was reassuring news at least, "You know of the electrical node on his shoulder, yes?"

A heartbeat passed before M'yra more tentatively responded, "The one our King put in place to aid in his capture? General Okoye made mention of it before she departed." It was clear she anticipated where Ayo's thoughts were headed.

"I'm granting you access to it as well." Placing such a dire responsibility on M'yra was not a decision Ayo made lightly, especially due to her understandably complicated relationship with Barnes, but she knew in her heart it was the right tactical choice under the circumstances. While her Lieutenant's body was injured, her sharp mind was fine-tuned to critically surveying matters like these.

It was even possible she might spot something Ayo herself could not.

Though the node had only been used once on him, its purpose was simple and straight forward: activating the transponder on it would send jolts of debilitating electricity pulses through him, halting his actions and causing his muscles to temporarily seize up. While unpleasant, it was a swift means to subdue him if he suddenly became violent or unpredictable as he had in the lab.

M'yra breathed into the microphone with carefully crafted words that were not a pushback on the request, but a cautionary caveat, "My views are limited to the sparse local cameras already in place, few of which have zoom capabilities. I have neither tight visibility nor engrained familiarity with his ways."

"Then you will have to lay trust in your instincts as I trust in yours."

"Yes, my Chief," her Lieutenant's firm resolve was palpable. "I will let you know if anything changes."

Ayo caught Sam glancing her way as she cast her attention out over the busy city blocks and the sea of innocent people between them and the faces they knew. Though he could not understand their coded words, she suspected he grasped some part of her decree from her expression alone, "I take it M'yra's gonna keep an eye on things?"

The words were not expressly an accusation, but they had a way of making her feel guilty all the same, "It's that, or command him to stand down."

The air was open between them for debate, but Sam only stewed his lips and eventually concluded, "Yeah. That's fair. That's what the buzzer's there for, right? Nothin' dire, just a backup in the altogether unlikely off-chance things go… well…" His voice faded off, replaced by a tight twist of his face and unresolved frown that had a way of calling renewed attention to the fine lines stretched across his face where flayed flesh had been fused together barely two days ago.

Ayo prayed to Bast that such cautionary contingencies would not be necessary.

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A distance to the north, Barnes did his best to ignore the dull ache in his left shoulder and kept his attention divided between the slender perpetrator and the living quarry the man was relentlessly stalking ahead of him. From this limited vantage point, it was difficult to tell if the man had pinpointed one of the three Wakandan women as being of particular interest, or if he was merely drawn to the group as a whole. The man's present lack of urgency made Barnes wonder if he intended to follow them home or if it was more likely he was hoping to interject himself when there weren't crowds of onlookers lingering nearby.

Silently, Barnes fell into step behind a group of chattery bar hoppers, blending into the spaces between them like a veil of living camouflage while he watched from the shadows.

In another life, back when his mind was fogged and constricted by the will of others, he'd been trained to regard the people around him as merely middling tactical value to his own causes and mission objectives. They were to be viewed strictly as unpredictable props and living extensions to his ever changing environment. But even after escaping HYDRA's clutches, it still took active effort to view each and every stranger as more than the sum of their potential benefits in close combat situations.

While there was a chance any one of them could be an accomplice to the man a short distance in front of him, from what Barnes could deduce, it was far more likely that they were merely innocent bystanders caught between a game of cat and mouse. Well… wolf, cat, and mouse. Although Barnes didn't know their names or histories, he intentionally pushed aside the raw instincts that cataloged how their bodies and belongings could be used to his advantage, and instead sought solutions that wouldn't put them in jeopardy.

He didn't want to operate like he used to. That wasn't who he was. Wasn't who he wanted to be, even if some buried part of him insisted it would be optimal to use the people around him as a shield or distraction for his ever-evolving plan of engagement.

No, he wouldn't let it come to that.

…But that man dangling from the train — the one Steve had called 'Bucky' — who had he been before this?

…Was he broken too?

And why did it always seem to end in a fight?

He didn't have time for this now. Not when lives were at stake.

Barnes kept his head down and waited for the optimal opportunity to softly whisper, "I have a visual."

"I can see you both through a south-facing view," M'yra's voice noted through his comms. "The man's hand still appears to be resting on a weapon in his right pocket, but he does not appear to be gaining on them."

"Do not engage unless it is critical to do so," Ayo repeated, her tone firm.

The tension in Ayo's voice was palpable, but it aired an unspoken permission that she entrusted him to act in their best interests even though she was not present firsthand. The depth of that tenuous act of trust was not lost on him, and whether she knew it or not, he had every intention of acting in accordance with her wishes and Shuri's best interests.

The street was passingly familiar, but Barnes did what he could to focus on the present and moved swiftly, tucking himself discreetly behind a family out walking their wet poodle of a dog before passing them on the right when his target moved ahead. Although Barnes kept his head down and hunched his shoulders in an attempt to look small and unintimidating, he remained sharply focused on every element of the task at hand, and his senses were on full alert for anything out of the ordinary.

Beyond the musty aroma of wet canine fur and the warbling drone of churning water and nearby voices, he leaned into every ounce of his training and tried to feel out the living heartbeat of the city. As he did, he willed his fractured, overactive mind to push aside the needless emotions and burning questions that'd surfaced in the wake of what he'd glimpsed when he'd been dangling from inside of the river channel.

With impassioned intention, Barnes set his stubbled jaw and extended his senses in an effort to pinpoint any uncharacteristic smells, glints of motion, or clicks of metal that signaled trouble or ill intentions. He kept his head locked in place, but his blue eyes searched the street level crowds for threats before briefly lifting to scan the balconies overhead. Finding nothing, he returned his attention to his primary target, who kept pace a short distance behind Yama and the others.

When a sudden twinge in his left hand caught his attention, Barnes urgently pulled his gloved hands out of his pockets and cupped them together in front of his lips, blowing into his palms before briskly rubbing them together in a feign that the underlying cold was bothering him, rather than the reality that something was awry with his left hand. He could feel his fingers trembling as he threaded them between one another, but after a few long moments, they eventually stilled.

While disconcerting and tactically worrisome, Barnes was quick to remind himself that he'd dealt with worse, and casually slipped his hands back into his pant pockets. Systematically, he took inventory of his remaining items. Tucked below his vibranium reinforced leather jacket, his wallet, phone, and the five-pointed vibranium star remained within easy reach, any of which could double for throwing weapons if it became necessary.

It didn't hurt to be prepared for contingencies.

As they continued north on the sidewalk, Barnes stayed focused on the other man. Could it be he was herding the women he was tailing? They didn't appear to be in any immediate danger, but Barnes was well aware that could change at a moment's notice. While he had every intention of obeying Ayo's request to not engage without provocation, Barnes also knew that she hadn't sent him ahead simply exclusively to scout and await orders of engagement. No, he was where he was precisely because he might be able to see and anticipate things M'yra couldn't from her limited digital perches.

And more specifically: because he was uniquely capable of intervening in more ways than one.

While his instinct-hardened mind ran calculations on wind speed, velocity, distance, and the stack-ranked exposed points on his target's body that were susceptible to non-lethal projectile impact, Barnes ran his fingers over the token offerings cupped beneath the gloved fingers in his pockets. Unprompted, a host of far more debilitating possibilities skittered across his thoughts, like cockroaches suddenly lurching into motion after being caught in a beam of light.

The thoughts were not entirely of his own making. At least, he wanted to believe they weren't. They were a waterfall of grim possibilities that ran the gamut through both offensive and defensive maneuvers, takedowns and swift killing blows. But as Barnes scented the musty city air and reek of crowds, he was acutely aware that while those weren't courses of action he wanted to pursue, it was premature to dismiss them entirely. He knew violent solutions would have dire consequences that would swiftly end their investigations into Symkaria's past and present mysteries, but he also wouldn't hesitate to act if that's what the moment called for.

If that's what kept Shuri, Yama, Nomble, and even the oblivious pedestrians nearby "safe."

He hadn't spoken it aloud, but deep down, he knew he was willing to go to great lengths to protect them. Probably further than Ayo hoped would be necessary, but then: he was certain she'd killed others in the name of similar causes too.

All of them had at some point. Barnes could see the shadows of it in their eyes. Yama, Nomble, Sam, and even Shuri. They had each dealt out the finality of death with their own hands. They'd made that choice.

But the man he was trailing had no obvious connections to HYDRA and Barnes wasn't eager to spill blood, so in the meantime, he remained unseen and casually tucked himself behind a pocket of people while the man he was tracking wove in and out of the languid nighttime crowds. His target remained so unilaterally focused on the women he was trailing, that after a few more short pivots to overtake slower crowds, he got sloppy and accidentally clipped the elbow of an elderly man passing from the opposite direction.

The oblivious older man hadn't been doing himself any favors beforehand either. He'd been holding his cell phone out in front of him in both hands and loudly squawking into the wrong end of the device's blaring speakerphone. The impact caught him off guard and was jarring enough that it knocked the thick phone out of his hands, sending it toppling forward end-over-end into the air.

The corner of the device struck the cobblestones about five steps ahead of Barnes and bounced diagonally in his direction. The sharp noise turned nearby heads, and Barnes reflexively ducked down to ensure the man he'd been tailing didn't have the opportunity to identify him if he decided to glance behind him at the mess he'd left in his wake. But as Barnes extended his right hand to retrieve the overturned device, a flash of light poured over the pebbled surface.

For a second, the ground beneath him was bright and overlit, dappled with coursing patterns of sharp red, yellow, and blue. Beyond the pools of light, the falloff of their radiant hues illuminated a curved metal form just beyond his fingertips. The polished surface shimmered in undulating ribbons of gunmetal silver and gold, and it took him a moment to process just what he was seeing due to the unusual angle.

It was his arm. The vibranium one. Separated from his body, lying lifelessly palm-up across an intricately inlaid wooden floor.

The sight of the stiffened appendage sprawled immobile across the floor was not only profoundly unsettling. But it was more than that.

The unexpected sight was accompanied by a sudden flood of emotions that pummeled him like relentless waves.

Surprise.

Horror.

Confusion.

Shame.

They struck in rapid succession and pulled him under, drowning him of all other conscious thoughts.

There were sensations, surges of emotions he couldn't quantify or identify that burned inside of him, like his lungs had lost the will to breathe.

He reached his right hand forward, seeking out something to ground him, but when his trembling fingers sought contact with the smooth metal casing of his dismembered arm, Barnes instead felt his fingers ghost through the form. Soft leather tightened around his outstretched fingers and they drew together to surround not a rigid metal bicep, but a small rectangular phone resting face down against a dim, rain slicked sidewalk.

The present rushed back into focus all at once. Or at least he thought it was the present. It was growing increasingly harder to tell. His muffled senses sprung to life as they struggled to process the sudden shift between the interior environment he'd occupied just a moment before in his mind's eye, and the busy sidewalk he found himself crouched over.

Shadowed figures towered over him, and it took everything in him to separate himself from what he'd just experienced. What he'd seen — what he'd experienced — was vibrant and clear down to the scent and cool touch of the lacquered wooden floor beneath him, but he couldn't grasp the context. What had happened, and moreover — when? It didn't fit with anything he'd seen before, and not just that, what'd he'd seen, what he'd felt…

A scuffle of loose rubber soles across the cement drew his attention, and he did what he could to ground himself and reconnect with the musky scent of his surroundings. To place him here. Now. Not then. People needed him now.

At some point he realized the burning tightness in his chest was because he'd stopped breathing and he shucked in a trembling tendril of air before his eyes darted to a frail hand that had jerked towards him. Right. The phone. The person he'd been trailing had knocked it out of this man's hand. Cause and effect. Barnes had ducked down to avoid being seen and to pick it up.

He did what he could to push everything else out of his head as he grasped the phone in one hand and pulled himself back to his feet. In other circumstances, Barnes might've managed a word or two for the pepper-haired stranger. He might've even been able to blend together something resembling a cordial expression to mask how out of place he felt with even simple exchanges like these. But if the older man offered him any words of thanks for retrieving the device, Barnes didn't hear them. Instead, when Barnes met his reflection in the other man's deep brown eyes, he saw someone else entirely, and he couldn't make sense of the sheltered ghosts lurking there.

Motion in the opening in front of him prompted him to surge forward, away from the confused old man and the exponential list of questions Barnes left in his wake. He didn't have time for them now. He couldn't afford to lose sight of his target. This was too important.

But he was too preoccupied by what else he'd seen.

Ayo.

The face he thought he knew and understood had regarded him with such pointed scorn and anger burning in her hard brown eyes. But why? Barnes hadn't felt fogged or disoriented, as if he'd been acting at the behest of someone else's will. No, his mind had been clear and his own, but even without the context, he felt certain Ayo'd sought to punish him. He could remember much. Just glimpses. Shards of scattered thought set around the echo of four snarled words that reverberated straight through him and made him question everything he thought he knew:

"Bast damn you, James"

The betrayal in her eyes bore into him. Each brutal syllable lashed out, carved into and twisted him. They pulled him apart in ways that no words from HYDRA ever had, leaving him confused and stripped bare.

Reflexively, he reached his right hand across his chest and cupped his left shoulder in his palm as he sought to reassure himself that it was still attached. That he was still whole. What had happened? And when? He had to keep moving. But as the soles of his boots scraped over the cobblestones and he tried to force himself to reorient himself to the urgency of the present, he kept seeing her face. That face he thought he knew, coursed with a painful, disappointed expression that was so foreign he barely recognized it.

It wasn't just unsettling, it was like someone had pulled the ground itself out from under him, dropping him into a sea of renewed confusion about where and when he was. About who the people around him were and how they related to him. About what his purpose was if it wasn't fulfilling someone else's directives. The noise in his head was too much and everything at once. Inescapable static so loud that it was everything he could do to just keep his body in motion.

Maybe it was like a bicycle? If he just kept going, he wouldn't lose his balance. Wouldn't fall.

Wouldn't lose himself.

The faint patterns of moving lights running along his Kimoyo Bead strand caught his attention. He hadn't been wearing them in his memory, had he? For not the first time, Barnes found himself struggling to shuck off his impassioned desire to grasp what he'd seen and lay it against the fractured chronology of his life. There would be time for that later. Time was of the essence now. He couldn't afford any further distractions.

Barnes pushed the weight of those cascading questions aside and leaned into his instincts. He forced himself to pace his haggard breathing as he wove through the shadows of the crowds ahead of him, willing his mind to quiet so he could adopt a trained soldier's simplicity of purpose.

But all he kept seeing was the unbridled fire in Ayo's brown eyes.

His feet kept moving, and in the brief moment where the press of them finally began to dissipate, he chanced to catch a stranger's gaze as they hurried in the opposing direction. The woman's unexpectedly bright blue eyes had a way of sending him straight back to the horror he'd witnessed in Steve's blond-rimmed face in yet another era that remained just out of reach.

There was pain in both of them. Distinct flavors so sharp and specific that Barnes struggled to grasp any underlying context. What had happened before and after?

With a grimace of effort, Barnes willed them both away and tried to remember what it was like to forget. To simply exist with a narrowly-defined purpose. Of missions and objectives decidedly absent of emotion and greater questions.

Was his mind malfunctioning? Was this symptomatic of a larger issue, or simply his sleeping subconsciousness trying to surface at the worst possible time?

He didn't need Sam blathering about over their shared comms to pry into why his vitals were acting up. He had things under control. Shuri'd assured him his mind was stable. What he'd experienced was distressing, yes, but it was just an echo. Nothing more. He was fully capable of telling the difference. He just had to focus harder.

If only his tell-tale heart would stop racing.

He kept his feet moving and did what he could to remember what Ayo'd once told him. Back when he'd awoken from a nightmare of the Dark Place. He'd been disoriented. Panicked. When he'd felt like he was broken and drowning in his own head, she'd used her hands to speak. He'd been scared of her voice and the power her words held over him, so she'd signed, "Take deep breaths. In and out," miming the action of it as she pulled air into her lungs and opened her mouth to let it trail out in slow, calming breaths.

The image of her angry eyes was still fresh in his mind, but he did what he could to replace it with how she'd looked in the firelight back on the mountain when he was still confused and her eyes sought out connection with him.

He remembered something else too. From when? He wasn't sure. He just knew she'd once told him when he felt overwhelmed, to identify three things he could see.

So he focused on that.

A darkened lamp post.

The worn green jacket ahead.

The puff of yarn on Yama's fuzzy grey hat.

Then three sounds he could hear.

Tires on the wet concrete.

The click of crosswalk signals.

Splashing.

…Splashing?

Some part of him knew that the next prescriptive step was to move three parts of his body and focus on each of them one-by-one, but there was something about the wallop of the moving water that pulled his attention.

The origin of the sound appeared inconsequential at first. A small boy up ahead was jumping from the curb into a shallow puddle along the edge of the street. The child was anything but a threat, and the parental figure conversing with another adult a few steps away was similarly immaterial to Barnes's larger objectives.

But Barnes found his attention split between tracking his target and the women up ahead of him, and the child naively leaping to and from the small puddle. Up and down. Again and again. But as the child turned around and ducked atop the curb and prepared to hop off it, one of his shoelaces got snagged under his opposite sole.

Barnes immediately caught the change, and his senses snapped into themselves.

It was as if all conscious thought was abruptly pushed aside and instinct took over as he lunged forward and stretched out his arms to put himself between the boy and a passing car before the child could risk toppling head-first into the busy street. Barnes's left elbow clipped the side of the car in the process, sending a jolt of pain straight into his ailing shoulder, but he kept moving, using his momentum to scoop the child off the roadway and back onto the curb in one smooth motion.

He saw the child's guardian turn as he did, but Barnes kept moving, weaving back into the crowd of bodies before any remark beyond a bleary and confused, "Hey!" could stand out.

Barnes pretended not to notice.

While the unexpected detour was not a planned component of his primary objective, he found it had a way of snapping him back into the present and reconnecting him to the sounds, smells, and sights of the city, seamlessly placing him back among Symkaria's nighttime populace.

As his focus cleared and he briefly found himself reconsidering if it was advisable to inform the others of what he'd glimpsed in the distant past, but as he caught sight of his target increasing his pace, Barnes matched his speed.

He was fine. He could tell them later. Ask them if they had any context he was lacking. There was no need to worry them unnecessarily. And that renewed pain in his shoulder? It wasn't debilitating. The crackle of energy sizzling just beyond his left ear was just a result of his elbow coming into contact with a passing vehicle that was now traveling in the opposite direction with a fresh dent. At least three fingers were fully functional.

…Make that two.

Anyway, there were far more important things to focus on.

He was fine.

"Were you injured in the impact?"

The sound of someone's voice close in his ear momentarily startled him, but he quickly reined in his senses. M'yra. That's right. She must've been watching through one of the cameras. He resisted the urge to look up and identify which lens she might've seen him through, opting instead to shake his head from side-to-side in the hopes she could interpret his response absent an audio cue. Talking would only risk drawing undue attention to himself.

"Injured?" Sam's voice immediately piped up, concerned, "Wait, what happened?!"

"His left elbow struck the side of a passing car, but he shook his head 'no,' so he claims he wasn't injured by the impact."

Barnes didn't miss her qualifier about him 'claiming' that he wasn't injured.

Apparently Sam caught it too, "At least it was the left one," he reasoned aloud. "What's goin' on up there? Barnes? You doin' okay?"

Sam really had a way of clogging up comms with needless chatter. Of course he was okay.

"I don't have a great angle, but he pushed a child back up onto a curb. He's currently tracking their pursuer through dense crowds, which is likely why he's opted to avoid speaking so as to not raise suspicions."

"We would be mindful to do the same," Ayo cooly instructed before adding for what Barnes took for his benefit, "be careful."

Hearing her concerned tone of voice had a way of striking him in many ways at once. The words themselves sounded sincere, but at the same time, hearing her speak again had a way of sending his thoughts careening straight back to the memory he'd glimpsed of her snarling a curse in his direction as he stood in front of his dismembered vibranium arm.

Before he could allow the poignant emotions of the interaction to risk overtaking him again, he shoved the questions aside and did his best to pivot his mindset and concentrate on the present. On the mission.

With one hand, he discretely touched his Kimoyo Bead strand and lowered the volume of his communications nodule so it didn't risk drowning out his surroundings.

A short distance ahead of him, his target wove left and lengthened his stride in an attempt to make headway in catching up with the women a half-block north of him. Barnes matched his speed to compensate, tucking himself along the shadowed storefronts just in time to catch a flicker of motion up ahead of him.

The glint darted high over the passing traffic like a stray light beam cast from a careless watch face, but instead of merely reflecting on windows and glossy car bodies, it was as if the glimmer itself had substance. With deft precision, it skittered in a wide arc over the crowds below. What Barnes initially took for a small silver beetle briefly hovered in midair before dipping low into the sea of people just ahead. Seconds later, and the man he'd been pursuing let out a sharp indignant yelp and flung one hand against the back of his neck.

Heads turned his way as and the man missed a step and strung out a volley of curses as caught himself and began frantically swatting at the pest that'd begun darting across the back of his exposed neck. The perturbed beetle buzzed by his ears, and in short order the pursuer pulled his other hand free from his pocket so he could use one hand to clutch the jacket's collar tight around his neck, while the other flung from side to side over his shoulder in a frantic effort to deter the insistent insect.

It moved too quickly for Barnes to get a good look at it from this distance, but the creature remained singularly focused on the man in the green jacket, but it was quick enough to dodge his continued attempts to slap it away. His controlled frenzy was more than enough to attract the attention of the people around him, who quickly shuffled aside to offer him a wide berth and avoid drawing the pest's attention.

A half block ahead of the man, Shuri kept her head down and remained squarely focused on her phone, but both Yama and Nomble's heads briefly turned to diagnose the cause of the disruption a short distance behind them. While Barnes couldn't get a good look at them, he thought he caught the side of Yama's mouth upturn into a small private smile through a brief opening in the thick crowd. Steps ahead of her, Shuri shrugged and whispered something, but from his limited angle, Barnes wasn't able to catch enough of her lips to discern any of the princess's words.

Whether it was by instinct or royal decree, the three women quickened their pace and put space between them and the distracted threat lurking in their wake. Undeterred, the annoyed creature continued to buzz around the man's face and ears until it finally lost interest and streaked high into the air. Initially Barnes lost sight of it in the foggy night sky, but a quick glimmer of motion overhead caught his attention and he watched as the silver beetle smoothly came to a rest atop a blown-out shop sign swaying gently in the wind above the culprit.

While the crowds funneled around him, the hunched-over man in the green jacket stood right where he was and shot accusatory glares over each shoulder in search of the pest that had been tormenting him, unaware it had resolved to take shelter just out of his line of sight. Realizing he was free from his tiny aggressor, the man brusquely adjusted his shoulders and brushed himself off before he resumed walking at stalking pace. He did what he could to blend back into the crowd, but after a few steps, Barnes caught sight of the beetle unfurling its wings above him. It tracked north a short distance before it landed into the crux of a nearby windowsill and settled.

Barnes kept his feet moving as he discreetly tracked the small insect. The four transparent wings it used for flight were presently tucked away, but he knew enough about entomology to know that insects like beetles were rarely so active in cold weather. That, combined with its peculiar aggressive behavior, small size, and the reactions he'd seen from the women ahead of him led him to believe it was unlikely to be a combined coincidence.

From what he could deduce, the most likely possibility was that the creature was Shuri's doing. Afterall: If it belonged to a third party, Yama's reaction would have been more tempered and concerned. It was the same relative mass and color as a Kimoyo Bead, so perhaps it was a nanite-based drone meant to aid in reconnaissance? Interesting. Did that mean it operated autonomously like Redwing and JB, or was it remote-assisted?

But if his instincts were correct, why had it stopped before the next intersection rather than scouting ahead or continuing to pester their pursuer? What had caused its priorities to change?

He didn't get the impression the drone or any of the women had caught sight of him, but its strange shift in behavior unsettled Barnes. There was something awry. Something they knew that he didn't.

What was it?

He ignored the throbbing pain in his shoulder as his trained blue eyes searched the rooftops across the way to the north. A few blocks ahead was where the unreported break-in had taken place a few days ago, but he didn't see any notable activity surrounding it at street-level, though the others were headed straight for it if they continued on their current trajectory.

The group of women briefly folded closer to one another to exchange words before Nomble nonchalantly stepped off the curb and crossed left at the nearest intersection. Shuri and Yama followed close behind her, and as they did, M'yra's voice returned crisply to his ear, alerting Ayo and Sam of the latest development, "Shuri and her Dora just changed direction. They're now moving west using a crosswalk."

"What prompted their change?" Ayo whispered into their shared comms.

"Unclear. Their new route avoids intersecting with the main entrance of the flat that was recently subject to forced entry, but according to their indicators, their new course takes them towards one of the city's patrolling officers along the same sidewalk."

"Towards an officer?" Sam idly repeated, "Maybe they're hoping that'll help shake who's trailin 'em?"

That might've been Barnes's guess if he hadn't been watching the small silver beetle, which stayed firmly parked on his corner of the street. There was something else going on under the surface of their movements, and he wanted to know what it was. His instincts insisted it wasn't that they were turning towards the officer so much as they were angling themselves away from something or someone else.

Without a second thought, Barnes quickened his pace to match the man he was trailing. With practiced grace, he slipped undetected along the trailing edge of the crumbling building facades. The pursuer focused his attention in the opposite direction. It was clear he was preoccupied by the festering decision of if he wanted to give up the chase, or to pursue them across the street.

Barnes remained on high alert as his target's right hand wavered and slowly came to rest atop the grip of the firearm that he was certain was lurking in his pocket. In response, Barnes tuned out the questions in his mind and the thumping ache in his ailing shoulder as he shifted and closed the distance between them, catching a whiff of musky body odor leeching through the crowds like rancid cologne.

The positioning wasn't ideal with his left arm in a suboptimal state and a constant crackling in his nerves that reminded him of one-too-many-times where he'd been forcibly exposed to chemical burns, so he resolved to focus on anticipating any actions with his right hand. Barnes flexed his gloved fingers, readying himself to grab the man's arm and intervene at the first sign that his intentions shifted from steadfast observer to intent hunter. All the while, his better judgment debated if it was advisable to act now. When he was still unaware. When he could be stopped before he had the chance to hurt anyone.

It would be so easy. He wouldn't even see it coming. Not until it was too late.

…But what then?

There was a time when Barnes was trained to be unconcerned with consequences beyond his mission objectives, but he knew now that acting out in the open like this came with very real repercussions, especially when they were surrounded by crowds with an officer stationed close by. It was easy for other people to get hurt, or for someone to frame Barnes as the aggressor.

So for the time being, Barnes opted to remain in the shadows, lying in wait as the group of women worked their way across the street. But just as they approached the center of the street, where Shuri might've been subject to unobstructed aim from the sidewalk, a number of things happened in rapid succession.

First, both Nomble ahead and Yama behind subtly shifted their positioning, using the whole of their bodies to block their Guarded with a trained professional's finesse. Barnes didn't miss that their nimble hands sought out their wrists, toggling what he suspected were defensive countermeasures. Barnes didn't know for sure, but he suspected they were readying localized energy shields in case their pursuer thought to try his luck at targeting them from a distance. In contrast, Shuri focused not on her surroundings, but on the cell phone spread between her palms. Seconds later, seemingly out of nowhere, the silver beetle shot towards their pursuer like a speeding bullet. Except this time, it caught the light as it streaked directly at his face.

Or maybe the illumination originated from the beetle itself?

Whatever it was, the sudden counterattack caught their purser completely off-guard, and as the creature shot by the other man's left ear for another round, he rapidly freed his hands from his pockets so he could try his luck at defending himself against the insistent pest, "Stay still you stupid thing so I can smash you." After a few fruitless swipes at empty air, he continued cursing under his breath before realizing the pedestrian traffic signal had already turned amber.

For a second, Barnes wasn't certain if he was going to stay where he was or attempt to make it across in time, but when the other man bolted through the intersection, Barnes did the same, staying between a trickle of unhurried pedestrians to help ensure his own tactical interests were nowhere near as overt.

What Barnes took for Shuri's drone peeled away as the other man came to a rolling stop on the far street corner. Not to be deterred, Barnes cut across and closed the distance between them. It would have been easy to slip by and insert himself between his target and the group, but doing so would mean his back would be open to him, and regardless of the vibranium-reinforced jacket he was wearing, his head was vulnerable to gunfire. More than that, choosing to move in front of the other man would be to freely give up the element of surprise. No, it was better to trust that just as Nomble and Yama were keeping watch over Shuri, Barnes needed to maintain vigilance over the wary predator lurking in their wake.

He couldn't diagnose if the certainty he felt was due to HYDRA's training, a Wakandan-borne lesson, or something else entirely, but he felt a wave of resolve slip into his movements as he caught sight of the patrolling police officer M'yra's mentioned a little ways down the sidewalk west of his present location. Even though they could have chosen to use the connecting pedestrian crosswalk to work their way north and west around the public servant, they opted instead to continue directly towards him. Strange.

Barnes reevaluated the evolving tactical value of his position relative to his target and the street corner the other man had chosen to occupy for the time being. He suspected the other man had spotted the officer a ways off and was presently weighing his options. While his target idly deliberated, the once Winter Soldier remained in arm's reach and opted to slip along the far edge of a mismatched group loitering and exchanging cigarettes and gossip outside a busy corner smoke shop while he kept a wary eye on his target a few steps away.

"That vigilante take out any more of those old rags tonight?" One particularly hairy man inquired while he thumbed an unlit cigarette.

"Can't say I'd shed any tears if he did," a man in a worn knitted cap just over Barnes's right shoulder remarked as he toyed with the spark wheel of a lighter and bid it to produce more than just faint sparks. "City has trash to spare."

"You see what today's tribune said?"

"Eh?"

"Some paparazzi chap got a blurry photo of someone they're claiming was one of the royal lot."

"Thought the paper said they were all dead and buried?"

"Now they're sayin' it could be a ruse. Playin' up sympathies with politicians or goin' diggin' for insurance money. You know that lot probably wagers out for each other."

The remark elicited a light chuckle from the man with the knitted cap who flicked at the ignition on the lighter and finally produced a perilously faint flame. He cupped his weathered hand around the dim light while the chilling wind whipped around them, and his friend took the opportunity to reach over and catch the tail end of his cigarette on the exposed flame. The scent of burning tobacco alighted on the brisk air, it was so overpowering that for a moment, the earthy smell felt like it was stroking at something in the periphery of Barnes's mind.

He didn't give the thought the opportunity to breathe. Instead he just shoved it back down with the rest of the questions and the steady thrum of brooding pain gnawing for attention and forcibly pushed it aside as he took a step closer to the storefront windows. It was critically important that he stay out of view from the armed man lingering a few steps away in case he needed to intervene at a moment's notice.

If only his shoulder would stop screaming for attention, this would all be a lot easier.

The hairy man took a long drag from his cigarette before offering it to his fellow, "Ah, you know how it is. That whole conspiracy lot's just in it to sell issues to line their pockets. No honor in journalism these days. They were reporting on aliens again just last week."

"Just 'cause ya haven't seen one yet don't mean they're not real."

"Believe it when I meet one. 'Til then? A photo don't mean much."

"That's what you said about wizards."

"Those aren't real either."

Barnes was intentionally working his face to clearly convey a solid disinterest in their chosen topic, but for a reason beyond his understanding, the nearest man looked straight in his direction and pointedly inquired, "What about you? You think they're real?"

Caught off-guard, Barnes blinked and opted to respond only with a passive shrug that he hoped suitably conveyed his lack of desire to engage with the conversation.

On second thought, he probably shouldn't have shrugged at all. That just acknowledged that he'd been listening in.

Who was he, and when did he get so sloppy on the job?

"Eh, don't bother 'im with your rumor mongering. He's probably got better things to do."

What was it with people who over indulged in hearing themselves talk?

Sam'd probably get along great with these two.

A second later, a weathered hand offered the filtered end of a cigarette to Barnes, but he avoided meeting the man's eyes and instead lifted his good hand to politely decline the offer.

Barnes stepped aside to retreat back into the shadows as the two continued their conversation about a number of emergent conspiracy theories surrounding "The Blip," while he assessed his target. The silver beetle was nowhere in sight, but the man with the green jacket had opted to return his hands to his pockets while he kept watch from the corner and nervously shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He was visibly growing more wary by the minute, and whatever intentions he'd originally had to pursue the three women were being actively weighed against the looming threat of the portly officer they were fast approaching.

Now that they were both still, Barnes could get a better look at him and his unkempt hair and scraggly attempted goatee. He was barely twenty, if that. Slender, with dirt set into the pronounced frown plastered over his face. His relative age didn't deter Barnes, but something in his wavering expression stilled him. Made him wonder what was going on in that head of his. And what he'd been hoping to accomplish here.

The once-white shirt he wore under his green jacket was disheveled, and Barnes could smell the reek of perspiration that somehow managed to cut through even the thick tobacco haze. Upon closer inspection, he affirmed that the shapes in his pockets constituted a phone, wallet, and handgun in his possession, but Barnes couldn't locate any additional weaponry on him, short of a potential small knife in his boot.

Not that Barnes was intimidated by knives.

In fact, he'd be more comfortable having one or more in his possession.

When the rigid rectangular lump in the man's back pockets vibrated and chimed, he nearly jumped out of his skin as he let out a low curse and fumbled around in his jeans to silence the offending device.

No, this definitely wasn't a professional. It was a glorified kid.

But what had he wanted with the women? And was working in conjunction with any other individuals nearby beyond the disoriented man Barnes had passed by a few blocks back?

"Our Princess and her Dora are nearing the officer along the west sidewalk now," M'yra's voice warned, "but their pursuer has stopped a distance away at the corner they crossed over to. Barnes is nearest to him, though I believe he remains undetected."

Of course he hadn't been detected. He wasn't an amateur.

Barnes kept a close watch on the small clusters of people moving west along the sidewalk. None of them appeared to be armed or had underlying behaviors that evoked concern, so he stayed put where he was along the corner, stepping out only far enough that he could watch the progress of the others from his periphery before they were due to disappear beyond the natural curve of the street.

Between an opening in the crowd, he caught sight of Nomble, Shuri, and Yama moving steadily and undeterred towards the officer M'yra'd mentioned that was just out of Barnes's view, but appeared as a faint red indicator along his muted Kimoyo strand. Although he couldn't make out their words from this distance, it was clear they were talking amongst themselves. Their steps remained easy going and confident, though Shuri's hand briefly fidgeted after she slipped her phone into her pocket in what Barnes took for distaste at being prompted to disconnect from her precious technologies.

But not long after, Yama's own footsteps began to drag a little and her center of balance dipped and swayed. Initially, Barnes couldn't grasp the root cause of the sudden change in her gait, but when Nomble glanced back over her shoulder to check in with her sister Dora, her normally neutral face was piqued with mild curiosity and a light roll of her of her deep brown eyes that had a way of reassuring Barnes that they were not in undue distress. The exchange had a way of reminding him of their individual quirks and humor.

Of better times.

Even though he couldn't diagnose the specific unspoken communication crossing between them, it was evident they felt they had things under control.

That, or they were better actors than he'd given them credit for.

As he finally lost sight of them around the edge of the building, he did what he could to track them using a reflection on the back of a bus stop placard on the other side of the street. It was vague at best, but he could just barely make out their distorted shapes between the passing cars.

Barnes was intrinsically aware of the exact moment their pursuer took a step out towards the sidewalk to track them, but he hadn't inched closer or tensed his wrist along the end of his concealed firearm, implying that he intended to watch rather than act.

As the pain throbbed through his ailing shoulder, Barnes briefly found himself wondering what color eyes the other man had. Were they like Steve's? Or Ayo's?

Or his own?

"The officer's saying something to them," M'yra reported, "They're coming to a stop now."

"Of course he stopped 'em," Sam half-grumbled. "Not a lick of surprise there."

"We're still about four blocks south east. Can you make out the words of their exchange?" Ayo inquired.

"Unfortunately not from the limited camera view and low light level. The lens is distorted enough that even our AI assist is failing to distinguish more than their silhouettes."

From just over Barnes's shoulder, a gruff voice inquired, "Eh, you're looking anxious. You want a drag?"

Barnes resolved to hold his breath, unsure who the man was addressing this time. He kept his attention focused forward as a hand reached from out behind and urgently tapped his target on the shoulder.

The pursuer's elbows tensed reflexively, and Barnes narrowly avoided falling into his line of sight as the young man in the green jacket turned to diagnose who'd just distracted him from his vigil.

A few feet away, the hairy man offered him a yellow-toothed smile and wiggled a cigarette in the air between them with an alluring flourish. "Soothes the nerves and warms the lungs. They're good for ya," he insisted.

The older man with the knitted cap chuckled lightly at the casual exchange and stretched before tucking his arms snuggly into his oversized jacket. A few steps ahead of him, Barnes's target didn't seem to know what to make of the proffered cigarette, but he ran his fingers together as if he was debating taking the offer, "Nah, thanks. Kinda busy at the moment."

"Have they passed him yet?" Ayo's voice seeped into Barnes's ear just as he did his best to use the newest wave of passing pedestrians as living camouflage to pivot to the green jacketed man's blind side just in time for his ornery shoulder to seize up again. He gritted his teeth and did what he could to not visibly react to the fresh surge of pain, which was easier said than done. His whole body felt like it risked seizing up, so he quickly pulled his hands out of his pockets and nested them together in front of his stomach where they could remain available in case he needed to act. Hopefully the combined pressure would temper his nerves and avoid any undesirable reflexive impulses.

"Not yet," M'yra affirmed. The officer's posture does not seem antagonistic so much as curious and… overly meddlesome." The distaste was palpable in her voice. "Nomble is doing most of the speaking, but Yama's taken note that their pursuer remains in wait near the street corner behind them. It's clear they are hoping to move past the officer. That is, if he will let them through."

Barnes locked his jaw and held his breath so that he didn't inadvertently risk making any unprompted vocalizations resulting from the intensifying pain in his shoulder that had a way of searing straight into his chest and through his temples.

He was fine. This was all fine.

While he attempted to remain completely inconspicuous, he opted to hold his breath and leverage the opportunity to scan over his surroundings and see if he could catch sight of anything out of the ordinary.

"Busy?" the older man with the cigarette inquired towards who Barnes could only assume was his present target.

"It's nothin'. Don't worry about it."

Although Barnes couldn't spot anything concerning atop nearby rooftops, whether it was the oxygen deprivation talking or something else entirely, he couldn't shake the feeling he was being watched. Was the older man looking his way, or maybe his target? It was better to play it safe and ignore them. Let the next stream of people thread between them to break things up. Keep —

A sudden impact seared straight into his left shoulder. The flash of pain was so blinding and all-encompassing that for a moment, Barnes that couldn't immediately identify its origins beyond the vague awareness that someone in a furred cap had bumped into him and mumbled an apologetic "Sorry, sorry," as they passed by him in a rush to make it to the crosswalk before the light changed.

The surge of pain radiated across every nerve in his body, momentarily locking him in place as he clutched his hands together for dear life. He wasn't sure he couldn't move if he wanted to, but he found himself seeking reassurance in those dark places of his mind that he'd been through worse. That he'd survived worse. They'd done operations on him without anesthetic, this —

He forced in a harried breath of cold air as a second, more agonizing wave rushed through him, buckling his thoughts. They turned back again to times when HYDRA actively sought out his limits, when they shoved round after round of electricity through his brain like trying to jump-start a marionette. When they'd demanded unyielding obedience and answers to their barrage of questions when he could barely focus on something so primal, so basic as simply remembering how to breathe.

There was so much going on at once. So many sounds. Smells. A sea of churning movement interlaced with potential dangers coming from all directions. But he couldn't see it all at once. Couldn't evaluate it. Couldn't move without giving himself away. Without twisting his body which felt crunched like he was merely an aluminum can someone had crunched carelessly under their heel and remained stuck that way.

Some part of him tried to seek out the advice Ayo'd once had for him about breathing out and in, but no breath came. No promised wave of calm was destined to wash over him. He was suffocating in his own head. In his own body. Circling. Drowning.

So he tapped into something else entirely.

He willed the pain to ground him. To fold into it and let that blinding familiarity center his thoughts like it had so many times before. To ride the wave of adrenaline like he was chasing a north star. He pushed himself not to think of where or when the lessons had originated from, he simply knew he couldn't fail.

After a few harried heartbeats, his instincts flared, and all the distractions, all the questions fell away. The radiating pain was still there — bright and cruel — but he transformed it into a familiar companion, and he used the used its shuttering clarity to elevate his senses and lean into the tenuous training that had once kept him alive even when his mind and body were past the point of breaking.

He became something else in that moment. Not another person or other name, but a defining force that was more and less at the same time. Somewhere in the background of his mind, he identified the crackle of energy beneath his jacket, but it was deemed inconsequential to his larger purpose. The one that told him the man a short distance away, the one lingering in the smoky shadows was a threat to those around him. That he couldn't be disregarded simply because of his age or perceived aptitude.

So the once-assassin shifted to the side, pulling his body into a balanced position regardless of the way his muscles and nerves seared in their wake. He readied himself to strike if needed, gauging a dozen and a half methods he could use to subdue the other man at the first sign of trouble, ensuring he wouldn't have the opportunity to discharge the firearm he kept clutched nervously under his right hand.

He wouldn't let him get that far.

His target remained utterly unaware of the other man's contingencies, focus split between the two older men that'd thought to involve him in idle conversation and the group of three women just out of sight.

"The city cop still talkin' with 'em?" Sam inquired. His voice was loud enough to be distracting, and a few quick movements above his beads quieted his words.

"Yes," M'yra's response was to the point.

"She will tell us when there is an update," Ayo crisply noted in an attempt to keep the communication line clear of unnecessary chatter.

His target wavered from side-to-side, visibly deliberating and took a tentative step forward as if he considered renewing his pursuit, but the man who'd once been trained by HYDRA was a step ahead of him. In one smooth motion, he slid his foot forward in front of an oncoming pedestrian. Not enough to trip them, just enough to prompt them into a controlled stumble towards the man in the green jacket.

He retracted his foot from the crowd of rain slicked boots in time to see his target react. He thrust his hands out in front of him to cushion himself and avoid colliding with the other man. It took the two a moment to awkwardly right themselves and recover their balance, but the man who'd set them up pretended not to notice as he locked his jaw and willed his diaphragm to slowly push and pull thick, smoky air into his nostrils. He kept his hands balled in place as he rode out the continued electrical impulses surging through his arm, focusing on cataloging additional street lamps that were out, and scanning his surroundings for any other signs of danger. As he did, he caught sight of the silver beetle again.

The creature was high overhead, hovering about twenty feet up and maintaining perfect alignment with a swaying wooden shop sign. Assuming the drone was Shuri's handiwork, it would have made more sense to position it elsewhere so it could get a wider field of view, but instead it remained shielded from not only the street below, but the cross street to the north.

Like it was hiding.

Was there an underlying reason why Shuri and the others had chosen to avoid crossing the street, and now kept even the drone tucked out of sight from it too?

Could it have anything to do with the unreported break-in a short distance to the north? Had Shuri learned something she was now silently acting upon?

He ignored the continued throbbing in his shoulder and head and switched up his positioning, sticking to the shadows and working his way along the edge of the passing crowds like he was just an extension of the city's crumbling scenery.

Whatever happened, he'd be ready.

"Yama is…" M'yra slowly began, "keeled over now. Leaned forward with her left hand over her stomach. Nomble is speaking but…" her words faded off.

"But?" Ayo prompted, concern evident in her voice.

"I can't make them out, but our Princess appears to be using her to run a circle across Yama's back as if to soothe her. I… am not sure. Perhaps Yama is feigning she is ill to garner the officer's sympathies? That is the best explanation I have for as little as I can— Oh! The officer is letting them pass now. Nomble said something to him and offered him a small departing wave, but they're continuing west down the sidewalk."

"That's good at least," Sam rambled.

Barnes couldn't see the others around the building from his vantage point within the crowds, but he confirmed their trajectory from the muted indicators atop his Kimoyo beads. His target must have caught their departure too, because he shifted his weight as he visibly debated if he wanted to try his luck along the same path past the officer. Indecisive, he slipped his right hand into his back pocket and retrieved his phone, pulling it close to his poorly-groomed chin.

While Barnes couldn't make out the details, it was clear from the way his eyes traced the screen that he was reading something. He tapped at the screen with one thumb while his other hand fidgeted.

A distance overhead, the small silver beetle remained hovering innocuously in place, uninterested in reconvening with the group headed west. From what Barnes could tell, it remained singularly transfixed on remaining out-of-sight from the street and the man below who'd trailed the group for the better part of nine blocks.

With a visible frown, the man in question tapped his thumbs along the bottom of his phone before pocketing it and readjusting his jacket. He looked from side-to-side before setting away from the street corner and trailing south along the sidewalk. Barnes idly turned away as the other man passed behind him at an urgent pace that Barnes interpreted as being motivated with intention. It could be he'd alerted a nearby accomplice of the group's latest whereabouts, or he was responding to a summons. It might even be that he hoped to circle around and try to reconnect with his quarry via a nearby alley.

But Barnes still wanted to know if this had been intended to be an organized hit.

If so, who'd ordered it?

"The man once in pursuit of them appears to have backed off and is now headed south," M'yra noted from afar.

"Well that's a relief," Sam observed with premature optimism.

Barnes was passing aware how the fingers of his left hand twitched and collapsed in on themselves as they painfully seized together into a shape that was best described as a claw, but he held his breath and discretely used his other hand to straighten them out one-by-one.

It was far from a pleasant experience.

Barnes kept composed as his target continued down the sidewalk past the smoke shop. Without making a sound, he gritted his teeth and locked his stubbled jaw, forcing down the latest wave of pain as he eyed an undulating reflection of green in a puddle at his feet and used it to track the other man as he hurried away into the night. A few steps away, the two older men resumed passing the fading cigarette between themselves as the discussion topic returned to aliens among us.

For not the first time tonight, Barnes found himself conflicted on how to proceed. He could easily turn the corner to the west and catch up to the others. They were barely a block away, it wouldn't take long to rejoin them. But his gut was telling him his target and his associate still represented a heightened threat, and it was up to him to get to the bottom of things before they could disappear into the hazy veil of the crumbling city.

As a brief blur of motion caught his attention and the little silver beetle darted high and slipped behind the retreating man, it only further solidified Barnes's resolve to follow.

"We're about four blocks south east from your location, Barnes," Ayo supplied, "You should be able to catch up with the others ahead of our arrival."

It wasn't explicitly an order, but it was clearly a suggestion.

The thing was, none of them had seen what he had, and it was too crowded here for him to debate logistics aloud on his comms. They'd trusted him to make the right decision, and this felt like exactly that, even if some part of him worried his actions might draw out the bright anger he'd once glimpsed in Ayo's eyes.

But there wasn't time for that now. Wasn't time for questions, just actions.

It was up to him.

So Barnes pushed the pain down and willed his instincts to guide him. With resounding resolve, he took another deep but aching breath and ducked his head down, tracking the little silver beetle just out of his periphery. Then he waited.

When the time was right, the once Winter Soldier casually turned away from the smoke shop on the corner and resumed silently tracking the man with the worn green jacket.

He'd find a way to uncover whatever secrets his target knew.

---

The readouts on Sam's phone continued to insist Barnes's vitals were tracking higher'n normal, but he didn't need a single one of those Kimoyo Beads around his wrist to decode the expression that flitted over Ayo's face. That guarded Dora's neutral she'd maintained for ten minutes and counting on their jaunt across the city had suddenly run sour when she'd glanced at her navigational beads like she'd caught a whiff of something worrisome.

She kept her tone controlled as she spoke into the comms again, "Barnes, do you copy?"

If the man on the other end heard 'em, he didn't throw 'em the courtesy of a reply, and as the seconds drew out after Ayo's request, it was like Sam could feel his stomach slinking under and around his gut.

Now, Sam didn't have the fancy readout Ayo had on, but he was guessin' that it was indicating Barnes wasn't trackin' towards the others like she'd suggested. Which — all told — could mean a lotta things that weren't necessarily scandalous, but it was clear she and Sam were surveying a shared buffet of well-meaning concerns.

To be fair: Sam didn't know the precise flavor of concern that was presently sticking out like a wary thorn to Ayo proper, but Sam's worries had a way of leading off the beaten path. They centered around Barnes trailing after one or more of the men that'd shown interest in Shuri and the others, and taking it upon himself to draw information out of 'em in whatever ways he deemed necessary.

Sam rolled his hands while his adrenaline-spiked mind offered up a series of fresh firsthand accounts on what I'd been like being on the other side of those grim interrogations.

If it'd been Buck, Sam might've been less worried more about him gettin' in over his head. About goin' too far. But since it was Barnes they were talking about… well… he wasn't altogether sure what exactly was rollin' about in his cyborg brain. He'd repeated he didn't like hurtin' people, but he'd admitted he wasn't beyond it if it the situation called for it.

Sam knew that. All of 'em did. But right now, what kept runnin' in circles around Sam's thoughts was he didn't explicitly know what methods Barnes might consider to be on the table, and what of the stuff he'd seen and done under HYDRA were altogether too far. The bulk of the sorts of things that came to mind could land him in a cell somewhere even the Wakandans wouldn't risk getting involved.

Barnes hadn't been outright aggressive, but it was impossible to know what kinda water his mind was treading right now, especially so soon after whatever he'd seen in that alleyway flashback on the other side of town. Back where Sam'd been cast as a makeshift HYDRA agent so he could pretend to guide a pseudo-blindfolded Winter Soldier to an alley side pick-up at the hands of his abusers, just so Barnes could try and scrounge up a breadcrumb of intel on where that old HYDRA base of operations used to be. Sam didn't know the details about what kinda mission he'd completed way back, but seeing the other man sink into himself like that was all kinds of disconcerting and dehumanizing that would be pecking away at Sam for days.

So yeah. To say that Sam didn't exactly trust that the other man was presently clear-headed was an understatement if there ever was one.

Didn't mean he was outright murder-y, but there was an awful lot that could go wrong if he strayed off the thin blade's edge he was presently walkin'.

So Sam tried his luck, "Barnes? You hearin' us? Maybe it's a bad time or somethin', but could you just tap the mic and let us know you're there?"

Only continued silence greeted them.

Yeah, this wasn't doin' his nerves any favors.

He wanted to think that not more more'n ten or twenty seconds had passed in actuality, but it felt like longer since any'a them had last spoken, and he found himself filling the void with trying to remember when Barnes had last spoken up. It'd been awhile. He hadn't said much after he'd mentioned he'd need to keep his exchanges to a minimum, but he'd asked about how close the others had gotten to that flat with the unreported break-in up ahead.

Why had that been so altogether important?

Sam and Ayo broiled in the awkward silence as they hurried through the crowds at a speed matchin' two folks who'd just remembered they left the stove on at home. At least this area of downtown was relatively flat compared to the steep streets across the river. That other side'd felt closer to mountain climbing than running, that was for sure, but Barnes had sprinted out ahead of 'em like they were nothin'. Sam'd seen Buck haul ass before, but Barnes wasn't playin' around.

What he wouldn't've given for his wings right about now. At least he'd opted to wear his good shoes.

Sam briefly muted his comms before tossing a wish over his shoulder to his bald-headed companion beside him, "He might just be in the middle'a something," he reasoned aloud, uncertain if he was trying to convince himself, Ayo, or maybe a little bit'a both.

"He's headed south, trailing a distance behind the pursuer," M'yra supplied, though Sam wasn't sure if Barnes was able to hear her words, or if it was an Ayo and Sam exclusive.

Prolly the latter.

Sam unmuted his mic in an attempt to get through to the shadow of the man that'd once been his Partner, "Hey, remember when I said we were all on the same team here? That means you're not supposed to run off on your own and do something stupid."

"Barnes," Ayo repeated more firmly, "do you copy?"

A short pulse of orange light traveled over Ayo's beads as M'yra's voice smoothly interjected, "He has silenced his comms." Her words were a consolation, "While his locator is still active, I've lost sight of him beyond the cross-street to the south. Last I saw, he was still trailing the other individual from a safe distance."

"His body language?" Ayo inquired, voice uncharacteristically tense.

"Slightly hunched but otherwise unremarkable, as if he sought to avoid detection." Her language briefly switched to a dialect Sam couldn't follow before Ayo responded again in English.

"Not yet. It may be he's seen something we have not. Especially if he is stalking a viper, it would put his own life at risk to snare him prematurely."

Sam didn't need a roadmap to put together the subtext that the two women were diggin' around. The uncomfortable question of if it was safer to pull the trigger and disable Barnes with that electrical node on his shoulder ahead of any potential confrontation, or if doin' just that only risked making things worse, cause it meant the man he was paddin' after might be able to turn and get the drop on him.

And Sam'd seen him pull off some damn-near impossible stunts over the years, but regardless of what name he preferred to go by, the other man was many things, but bulletproof wasn't one of 'em.

For not the first time, Sam found himself complaining aloud to no one in particular, "Damnit Barnes, what are you doin' man?"

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[Chapter 87 Chapter Art, by HardWiredWeird]

[ID: A gouache painting by HardWiredWeird showing a thigh-up portrait of Bucky standing against a greyscale Winter Soldier logo. He is wearing a blue and black leather jacket, pants, and leather gear on his right arm, and his left arm is exposed vibranium silver and gold. He stands with his hands balled into fists and looks intensely past the viewer. End ID]

HardWiredWeird ('hardwiredweird' on Tumblr created this beautiful gouache painting of Bucky awhile back and was kind enough to mail it to me so I can scream about it in person. It's seriously just SO astounding, and I felt like the energy he's conveying here really reminded me of the raw intensity of "Barnes" in this chapter (even if he's far more undercover presently)

Please check out his Twitter and Tumblr accounts to see more of his incredible art! His skill with portraiture is phenomenal, and there are loads of beloved characters across his art accounts! He's also just an all-around fantastic person and watercolor and gouache enabler.

Please check out this chapter on Archive of Our Own to see the gorgeous art and links to the artist's social media pages!

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Author's Remarks:

I hope all of you are having a wonderful month!

It was fun showing a different perspective of some of the events from Chapter 82: "Completely Inconspicuous," and I love that now we're once again moving ahead into the unknown… ^_^

- Ayo Arm Thing - So Ayo and a few of you readers have been wondering if Barnes remembered what happened with the arm in TFATWS or early on during this story. And the answer is… he didn't recollect the details, and that's a very particular sort of emotional gut-punch for Barnes mid-mission. I can only imagine how distressing it must be for Barnes to feel like he's finally started to sort things out, only to have a flashback to that really awful exchange with Ayo in Latveria.

- Barnes's Clutch Save - I really liked the idea of Barnes starting to spiral mentally, and it's his drive to protect a stranger that pulls him out of it.

- Like I Said, Barnes is Doing Totally Fine, Really - See? His arm is doing great and those flash-backs he had of falling off the train, and Ayo disarming him definitely aren't at all distracting from his current mission… Nope! Nothing to be concerned about at all…

- Chapter Title Origins - 'Relative Proximity' - The title of this chapter originates from the idea of how relative it can be to be close to someone or something. That you can be physically close, but a million miles away mentally. Or maybe you feel like you have a solid friendship, only to have something happen that makes you question everything. In this case, I really feel for Barnes, who is trying to do his best, but feels utterly ungrounded by his recent experiences, but he's also not doing himself any favors by keeping them to himself and repeatedly insisting he'd "fine."

I deeply appreciate your continued support, and I hope you know how much every kudo and comment means to me on this journey we're on together. Thank you again for all of the encouragement, questions, and kind words. Knowing others are out there reading along truly makes a difference, and I appreciate hearing from you, even if it's just to scream about wondering what's ahead!

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Say hi and connect with me on social media:

- "KLeCrone" on Twitter and Tumblr