Disclaimer: I only own the plot and my OCs. Anything you recognize as not mine belongs to Marvel Studios, Disney, and/or their otherwise respective owners.

Author's Notes: I am right on time with my schedule for a change. Man, this feels weird lmao.

Anyways, welcome back! Or hello to new readers, if you didn't read the first fic in this series, somebody to love (I suggest doing so, because otherwise things might get confusing). I don't really have too much to say about this story...mainly because I'm still trying to make sure I've got the plot down pat lmao, but I've got the basics covered so I'm posting this now. Unlike somebody to love, the total chapter number on AO3 is a guestimate. I'm pretty sure it's going to be in the 32-36 chapter range, but for now I'm lowballing it with 32 because I'd rather underestimate for you guys than over.

Fic and chapter title are both the titles of Fleetwood Mac songs. The second chapter will be posted next Saturday. Again, I'm aiming for weekly updates, but also again, we shall see.

As always, I hope you enjoy. Until next chapter,

~TGWSI/Selene Borealis

~primis, omega, superhero, genius~

~no questions asked~

~chapter 1: the chain~

SHIELD (read: HYDRA) converged on them quickly. They were escorted to a van after being forced down to the ground by Brock Rumlow – pathetic Nazi bastard who leered at her but didn't say anything at the last second when Steve and Harley both growled at him – and the rest of his cronies. They were put in the back of the van, handcuffs clamped on their wrists – power-neutralizers for her, Steve, and Harley. She could feel it. But, that was to be expected because of gangs like the Dolce Morte using them on the streets, because of course the government (especially the HYDRA part of the government) would decide to do the same.

"It was him," Steve said as they were driven off, looking at her, Harley, and Sam desperately, like he was trying to convince them of the truth. But Penny didn't need any convincing. Now that he'd pointed it out, she couldn't help but wonder how she hadn't noticed it sooner. Then again, she'd only seen the Winter Soldier just the once without his muzzle until now. "He looked right at me like he didn't even know me."

"How's that even possible?" Sam wondered out loud. But he wasn't particularly disbelieving either, more of just thinking exactly what he'd said. "It was like, seventy years ago."

"Has to be Zola," Steve answered, frowning. "Bucky's whole unit was captured in '43. Zola experimented on him. Whatever he did had to have helped Bucky survive the fall. They must have found him and..."

Harley picked up on the captain's tone just the same as she did. "That ain't your fault, Steve."

But Steve didn't seem to have heard him. "Even when I had nothing, I had Bucky," he whispered.

Penny wanted nothing more than to get up from the bench across from him and soothe him. She wanted to hold his hand.

She couldn't really do that right now, though, and not for a lack of trying.

Harley grabbed her right hand, since they were close enough that he was able to do that with his good hand, if only barely, and squeezed it as best as he could. Sam stared at the both of them, his expression horrified as he took in the extent of their injuries properly for the first time. "We need to get a doctor here," he told the two guards in the back with them. "We don't get pressure on that wound she's gonna bleed out here in the truck."

Penny glared at him. She could feel the bleeding in her thigh slowing. It was going to stop soon. She didn't need medical attention, and she most of all didn't need him to give the agents a reason to roughen her up even more.

But, contrary to her expectations, which was either the roughening up or the guards just outright ignoring them, one of the two guards pulled out an electric rod. She neutralized the one in the back with them and knocked him out then, as the agent in the front passenger seat turned around, stepped over the knocked out guard to do the same to him. The driver just kept on driving, unperturbed.

When the guard sat back down, she took off her helmet. Relief instantly flooded through Penny, Steve, and even Harley. "Ah. That thing was squeezing my brain," Maria Hill said. Then she looked from Sam, who was staring at her in confusion, to Steve. "Who the hell is this guy?"

Hill made a hole in the bottom of the van, which they all used to get out since the driver – firmly SHIELD, she told them – couldn't stop without it looking suspicious. They were transferred to a black SUV with two more SHIELD agents in it, which took them to a secret facility that was built underneath a bridge. Steve and Harley helped her out of the car, in spite of the theta's injuries. When she glared at him, he rolled his eyes, sensing her thoughts. "'M fine, darling," he said, holding up his other wrist. "See?"

Indeed, his wrist was glowing orange like there was lava running through his veins instead of blood due to the Extremis. The handprint on his throat from where the Winter Soldier had choked him had already vanished. Not for the first time, she was the one that had the slower healing factor when he was around.

Hill led them into the facility. A male beta doctor came up to them, his eyes focusing on Penny specifically.

"GSW to the left thigh, broken right cheekbone with splinters that'll need to be taken out," Hill recited. "She's lost at least a pint."

"Maybe two," Harley added.

Penny gritted her teeth. "'M fine."

Steve shot her a warning look.

"Let me take her," the doctor told him and Harley.

But, strangely, Hill shook her head. "She'll want to see him first."

They were taken down the halls of the facility until they came upon a room. A guard at the door opened it for them, and as he did, Penny felt her knees grow weak. If it wasn't for Harley and Steve propping her up, she probably would've fallen to the ground.

Because there, laying in the bed, was Fury. He had multiple machines hooked up to him, but that didn't matter. He was here.

Fury was alive.

Her godfather's death had been part of the whole mess that had led to everything they'd planned for going to hell. Seeing him die had been up there in the worst things that she'd ever experienced, right along with losing Harry, May, Ben, and her parents. He still hadn't known that he was her godfather, wouldn't ever know again because she'd decided that she would never tell him and he of course couldn't remember having the title, but that didn't change what he had meant to her. Still meant to her, because he was fucking alive.

"Fury," Penny gasped shallowly.

"Osborn, you're a sight for sore eyes," he grunted, never one for formalities. His eye trailed over to Harley, Steve, and then Sam. "All of you are, actually. About damn time you got here."

Sam was gobsmacked. "How are you – ?"

"Alive? I damn near wasn't," Fury responded. He scowled. "Why the hell are you lot still in the door? There's another hospital bed here – put her in it!"

Indeed, there was. She hadn't noticed it until now, and neither had the rest of them save for Hill and the guard. Penny was led over to the hospital bed, and she sat down on the edge of it, refusing to lay down. Harley sat next to her, while Steve pulled up a chair to the foot of the bed and Sam stood with his back against the wall, his arms crossed. Two nurses came into the room quickly to attend to Penny, besides the one that was already there hovering over Fury.

There was silence as they assessed her injuries. They worked on her face first, because the bone fragments could become deadly due to getting infected if they didn't get them all out, even with her healing factor. They didn't have any pain medicine on hand that would work on her without a high enough dose, so the doctor that came in basically opened up her face without any anesthesia at all and while she was still sitting up. To say it was uncomfortable would be a massive understatement, but Harley held her hand the entire time, whispering sweet nothings to her gently, while Sam had to momentarily leave the room with a green face because "damn, that's gross." She didn't blame him for that, though, because it kind of really was.

After the doctor had stitched up her face, stitches which he would need to take out in a matter of hours because of her healing factor, as otherwise he would have to cut them out, he got out the bullet from her thigh. That wound, he didn't stitch up, since though it was severe, she would heal up from it quick enough. Then the doctor left the room and Sam came back in, all the while she fiddled with the IV line she was hooked up to and silently bemoaned the fact that yet again, she was the only one that had serious enough injuries to require medical treatment.

Well, besides Fury, that is.

"Lacerated spinal column, cracked sternum, shattered collarbone, perforated liver, and one hell of a headache," he recited when all of the above was done, breaking the quiet.

"Don't forget your collapsed lung," the one nurse still in the room, as his and the other of hers had left with the doctor, said absentmindedly.

He nodded. "That, too. Let's not forget that. Otherwise, I'm good."

"They cut you open," Penny said numbly. It hurt for her to talk still, but she managed it. "Your heart stopped."

"Tetrodotoxin B. Slows the pulse to one beat per minute," he explained. "Banner developed it for stress. Didn't work so great for him, but we found a use for it."

"Why the show for us in the hospital, though?" Steve protested. "Why not just tell us?"

Hill was sharp. "Any attempt on the director's life had to look successful."

"What she said," Fury gruffed. "Contingency. Moreover, I could be asking the same fucking question of you: why didn't you tell me that you'd figured out that HYDRA had been inside SHIELD all along? This kid – " he pointed at Harley, whose mouth gave a twitch in spite of the situation " – I can get not telling me anything, because he has trust issues bigger than the borough of Manhattan. But you, Rogers? And you, Osborn?" His eye swiveled to look at her.

Neither she nor Steve said anything. They remained silent.

Fury snorted at this. "Yeah, that's what I thought. You didn't trust me."

"It wasn't about – " Penny started to say, but then she shut her mouth at the look he gave her.

He was right. As much as she hated to admit it, she hadn't trusted him. They hadn't had definitive proof of him being purely SHIELD or part of HYDRA, one way or the other. He was her godfather, but she hadn't trusted him.

What a lousy goddaughter she made, huh?

"So you can't blame me for not trusting you lot either," Fury finished a beat after her interruption. "I don't trust no one."

There was more quiet. None of them seemed sure of what to say.

Finally, Hill took pity on the lot of them. "Debrief," she ordered.

They did, with Penny, at least, being thankful for the beta woman taking charge like this. She, Steve, and Harley told her and Fury everything that they knew, with Sam adding in his own assessments here and there. They didn't leave out anything.

When they got to the part about the Winter Soldier attacking them, about him being her mate and Bucky Barnes all in one, the air quickly developed a noticeable tension. Penny didn't look at any of them, keeping her gaze firmly in her lap just like when she had told Steve, Tony, Clint, Natasha, and Bruce the truth. "I know he's my scent-match. You can't fake that," she finished her little spiel with. "And I know what he did to us – and I'm grouping Tony in there, too." The reminder that Bucky had killed Howard and Maria Stark was a brutal one, as Steve didn't even bother to hide his flinch from it. His scent was bittersweet: happy that Bucky was alive and he was part of their pack for reasoning that she thought was the same as hers, and yet so incredibly anguished due to the obvious at the same time. "But I can't believe that he's fully HYDRA's. I have this feeling that – "

"Stop," Fury said. When she looked up, his expression was hard...but understanding. "I know what you're thinking, Osborn. But you can't go down that path."

Penny swallowed. "But if Bucky's – "

Jeez, she was already calling him Bucky. That probably just showed how biased she was, didn't it?

"You don't know what's happened to him in the past seventy years. You don't either, Rogers," Fury added the last part as Steve looked primed and ready to say something about that. "This man is not the one that you knew. He's still Osborn's mate, but until you get a good inclination otherwise, you have to treat him like the threat that he is. Because if you're wrong, even if he hesitates like he did today, he could still wind up killing every single one of you."

"Well, that aside," Sam said. She'd only known him for a couple of days now, but she could tell that he was trying to change the subject for them, at least, if not lighten the mood. She was thankful for it. "What do we do?"

Fury looked over at a photo on the table next to his hospital bed. It was a picture of Alexander Pierce, the Undersecretary of the World Security Council and the leader of HYDRA. Fuck Pierce, she thought, her upper clip curling. He was one of the many assholes over the years who had contributed to her mate's suffering, to him being brainwashed and used as a tool for HYDRA.

"This man declined the Nobel Peace Prize," Fury said. "He said, 'Peace wasn't an achievement; it was a responsibility.' It's because of people like him that I have trust issues, but that's not the point." He shook his head. "We need to reveal him and the rest of HYDRA for who they really are to the world."

"And we have to stop the launch," Harley added helpfully.

Fury snorted. "I don't think the World Security Council's accepting my calls anymore." As he spoke, he waved his hand to Hill, who pulled a case that Penny hadn't noticed earlier out from under his bed and put it on his lap.

"What's that?" Sam asked.

Fury opened up the case, revealing three devices inside. "Once the Helicarriers reach three thousand feet, they'll triangulate with Insight satellites and become fully weaponized," Hill began to explain.

"We need to breath those carriers and replace their targeting blades with our own," Fury continued her train of thought.

"One or two won't cut it. We need to link all three carriers for this to work, because if even one of those ships remains operational a whole lot of people are gonna die."

"We have to assume everyone aboard those carriers is HYDRA. We need to get past them, insert the server blades, and maybe, just maybe, we can salvage what's left..."

Steve leaned forward in his seat, frowning again. "We're not salvaging anything. We're not just taking down those carriers. Nick, we're taking down SHIELD."

"SHIELD had nothing to do with this," Fury tried to argue.

"No, Steve's right," Penny said. Everyone turned to look at her, Harley looking like he'd fully expected her to do this, Steve mildly surprised, and Fury completely outraged, but she didn't care about what her godfather thought right now. "SHIELD has always had something to do with this. Don't you get it, Fury? HYDRA's a sickness that has infected them since the very beginning, because for some reason Howard Stark, Peggy Carter, and Chester Phillips didn't want to see what was staring them right in the face. Yes, unlike them, you didn't know what you were missing, but the fact remains that SHIELD has always been infected by HYDRA. And sometimes, in the quest to save the farm, you've gotta let the whole damn orchard burn."

Fury bristled. "Osborn – "

But she wasn't going to listen to him anymore. She'd come too far in the past two and a half years to revert back to the kid that she'd been before all of that. It helped that Hill acknowledged all of what she'd said with, "She's right."

But Penny didn't particularly care to listen to anything else the beta woman had to say right now, either. She got up from her hospital bed, wincing at the pain that it caused in her thigh. Harley was right there, propping her up on that side. Without another word, they and Steve left the room.

A couple seconds after they did, she heard Sam say, "Hey, don't look at me. I do what they do, just slower."

She, Steve, and Harley stood up on the bridge the facility was built under a while later. Steve was silent, staring out into the distance, reminiscing, and she couldn't blame him. Harley was back to holding her hand, rubbing circles into her skin with his thumb. She was leaning her head against his shoulder, her eyelids trying to droop from all of the action that they'd been through over the past several days, but she knew this was not the time for her body to have a proper break. She couldn't sleep, not yet.

The sound of footsteps made them all tense, but it was only Sam. "I will say one thing: you lot with your enhanced hearing is damn near creepy," he muttered, though his tone made it clear he was only saying it good-naturedly.

Penny relaxed a little, fighting a smile. "Yeah, well, that's only most of us. Tony's and Clint's hearing abilities are average, don't worry."

"Still, it's creepy," Sam said. He leaned against the bridge, looking out in the same way Steve had.

"I'm sorry we've put you through all of this," Steve murmured, not for the first time.

"Nah, it's cool," the beta man replied. "Actually, it's been good to be in the action again. Never needed another purpose beyond the VA after I came back, but I've appreciated this. I know it sounds all kinds of fucked up, but it's been exhilarating." To this, Harley quietly snickered. Sam paid him no mind, pulling out something hanging from a chain below his shirt – dog tags. They weren't his dog tags, either, judging by the quick look that Penny got before he started to rub them in his left hand, the metal of the two tags jingling together. "It was also interesting to see you two give Fury that verbal smackdown. But I've gotta say, there is one thing he has a point about."

Steve sighed. "Bucky?"

Neither the alpha nor the beta noticed how she froze at that.

"Yeah," Sam confirmed. "You know he's gonna be there, right?"

"I know," Steve said.

"Look part of your guys' pack or not, he doesn't remember you. He knows he's Penny's mate, and honestly I think that's a better thing than Fury is letting himself believe," Sam admitted, "but I don't think that's gonna prevent him from not fighting you, at least. Maybe her, too. He might not give y'all a chance to save him. You might have to stop him."

Penny growled, earning their attention. "We're not going to do that."

Sam's expression softened. "I know you think that. But sometimes, life doesn't go the way you plan." He unwrapped his hand from around the dog tags, looking back down at them. "Just when you think you have it all sorted out, things go to the shitter."

"Penny," Harley warned softly as she stepped away from the railing of the bridge.

"If you really think that way, then why are you still here?" she demanded, her hackles raising as she stepped forwards, practically feeling like a predator. "Seriously, I don't know what the fuck you and Fury want. I don't care what HYDRA's done to him. I don't care what he's done because of them himself. I am not giving up on him – and I know Steve isn't, either."

To her surprise, he wasn't fazed by her words. "I'm here because it's the right thing to do, and because in spite of what I'm thinking, I do hope you're right," he told her. "I do hope that you're able to get through Barnes. But, while he's your mate and was Steve's best friend back in the day, he doesn't know you. Any of you."

"He will," Steve said, sounding every bit as confident as she did. He clapped Sam on the shoulder, nodding to him. "You should go gear up, it's gonna be time."

Sam raised an eyebrow, looking at his ruined suit. "You gonna wear that? And what about them?" He jerked his head at Penny and Harley.

"No." Steve grinned mischievously. "If you're gonna fight a war, you gotta wear a uniform."

"Don't worry about us," Harley added.

Sam eyed them all warily, but nevertheless left.

When he was gone, going back under the bridge to get to the entrance of the facility, Steve sighed again and hung his head. "Thank you," he said to Penny quietly.

"You don't need to thank me," she answered, getting all up and close in his personal space, inhaling his scent. The oak and honey was comforting, even as heavy with sadness as it was. She was almost tempted to nuzzle her nose up against his mating gland, even though it was covered up by his suit and they were technically in public, to release more of it. "He's my mate. But even if he wasn't, he's your best friend, too. I'd be fighting just as hard for him if he was just your friend and nothing more."

"I know," Steve repeated.

"We are going to have to figure out how to break the news to Tony," Harley reminded them, coming over as well. He stood in such a way that she was squeezed between him and Steve as the theta pulled them both into a hug. "But I agree with both of you, just for the record. We'll drag Bucky's ass back to the Tower, come hell or high water."

She nodded in agreement, thankful for that, even after the Winter Soldier had broken his wrist and almost strangled him, Harley was of the same mind as them. "Yeah, we're gonna bring Bucky home, no matter what."

Word Count: 3,672

Next Chapter Title: like a virgin