Chapter 10
"James." Craig smiled at him. "New arm?"
Bucky did not recognize the Hydra agent. Either he was new to the organization or he had not been a part of the team that "handled" him.
"I heard you wanted to talk to me, have we met before?"
"Never face to face. Brooke used to talk about you though, during our lessons."
Bucky showed no outward reaction, but her name from his lips set a fire burning in his chest.
"You worked with her father."
"Mainly while Abby was still alive." Brooke's sister, Bucky thought to himself. "Brooke was only a toddler back then, loved to run after you though, I guess that hasn't changed. Heard she was responsible for getting you out, Hydra isn't too happy about that."
"Is that why you went after her today?"
"We weren't even sure where she ended up until we caught both of your faces on our systems last night. Date night, was it? We thought we would have to wait weeks before either of you left the compound again, it turns out she and Captain America had other plans, we were only out there eight hours before they drove by."
"You're talkative, why?"
Craig hummed, "Why not?"
Bucky turned his head to look at Steve. No way this guy was sharing this information to be cooperative. Not with the carefree lazy way he was sitting looking at them, he was personable like he was not in enemy territory.
"Why target Brooke?"
"She's ours, after her father died, we are now her legal guardians."
"She's not a minor anymore, she doesn't need a guardian." Though the thought of them having any ownership over her was sickening.
Craig smiled and Bucky wanted to break every single tooth out of his face with his fist. "We have unfinished business."
"Making little Hydra soldiers. That program has been shut down for years."
There had been no mention of it in any file they had dug up. As far as they knew, it ended when Daniel was killed.
"To our understanding, Kai was working on it up until a few weeks ago. Before you got in the way."
Both soldiers frowned, that did not make sense with what Brooke had told them about her year in captivity.
"I trained Kai like I trained Daniel. Though he was not nearly as good of a match for her as his brother was, Kia was intrigued by her nonetheless. Their shared DNA makes him the closest match to Brooke as we could get. He wasted a whole year on his son when he should have been filling the girl up. He was overzealous and lost sight of his mission."
Bucky swallowed down the bile rising in his throat. Brooke had been in more danger than even she had known up there.
"What about Jesse?" Steve asked.
Craig scoffed, "Since he wasn't allowed to have Brooke Kai settled for the next best thign, but Jesse was born weak. Kai was supposed to fix his mistakes. Instead of taking Brooke directly, he started splicing his DNA and his sons together, testing them against Brooke's, hoping to make a stronger match. He failed again, if you hadn't taken him, we would have killed him."
"You sick fuck."
"It doesn't matter how close you keep her 'Soldat'. They will come for her, tie her down and fuc-"
"Enough," Steve demanded silence.
Bucky's fists clenched and Craig smirked at him. Bucky could see the sickening images this piece of shit was drumming up in his mind, placing out on his face.
"Hail Hydra." Before either of them could register what they heard foam bubbled from Craig's mouth.
Both soldiers watched as the poison quickly took his life.
"We need to find those files, and see who else might be involved in this," Steve said.
"We have the files, it didn't say shit."
"Let's hit the gym."
Bucky dropped his head back, hands going to his hips.
"She's not safe here Steve."
"You heard Tony, he's got more provisions in place. With us is the safest place she could be."
"They know she's here."
"And we know they're out there actively looking for her, he confirmed that. So we'll be ready."
"I need to check on her."
"You need to work out this pend up energy from the day. Two hours in the gym, let's go."
Steve walked out like he knew Bucky would follow him, as he always had before. Gritting his teeth Bucky followed the blonde. Steve was right, Bucky was practically vibrating from today's mess, he had arrived as the action was ending and bypassed the action to find Brooke. He needed to punch something and is Steve as willing to be that punching bag, fine.
.
Brooke was folded against the counter, eyes closed as she drank some water. She felt wrecked. Grabbing a couple of ice packs from her freezer she went to her room to get some more rest. She had training bright and easy the next day. She was not about to get off on the wrong foot and tap out on her first day.
"Embrace the suck." She thought to herself.
As soon as she hit her pillow she was out like a light. The alarm was set and ready to go at 6:00 am.
The alarm woke her and tears sprang to Brooke's eyes. How was it already time for her to be up when she only just laid down? Climbing from her bed she noticed a note and more meds on her bedside table.
Bucky had come to check on her while she was sleeping, not wanting to wake her he changed out her warm ice packs for fresh ones and went to sleep in his own bed for the night.
Getting in the shower Brooke let the water wake her up, and soothe the headache that still lingered. She got dressed in her training clothes and running shoes, took a few more Tylonal and headed out the door.
She got a lot of looks from the other trainees and the instructor. She knew she looked like shit, but only nodded at them and joined the lineup.
They started with an hour-long run and then headed to the gun range to practice assembling and cleaning their weapons. Brooke had to blink away the image of her hands on a different gun the day before. Steve's calm voice instructing her.
They were back out of a practice course by 10 AM. They were facing off one-on-one to test their endurance. Brooke was already weak, the blow to her head and pain in her face and neck a handicap.
"Miss Mitchell, you're up."
Her time could have been better and her knees had a couple more bruises on them from when she fell, but Brooke had finished before some of the others in her class, that had been good enough for her.
She was told to 'shower up' and prepare for hand-to-hand training tomorrow. It was almost noon which meant the Angers would be eating lunch soon. Today was Clint's last day before he headed home to his family, and she wanted to make sure she could say goodbye.
Putting off the shower, Brooke found Natahda and Clint in the kitchen.
"Hey."
Both their eyes widened, taking her in.
"Barnes said you were sleeping," Natasha said.
"Training started today. I'm sure they're already unimpressed I got their friend in trouble, I wasn't about to ask for special treatment."
"It isn't special treatment when you got your ass handed to you yesterday." Clint reprimanded.
"Do you guys skill training when you get a little banged up?"
"You were out training." Bruce came up behind her. "Barnes said you had a concussion, if you sustain another blow to the head too soon you will permanently damage your brain."
"They had me running and on an obstacle course today. I wasn't in danger of hitting my head."
Bruce's eyes flicked down. "What's what?"
"I scrapped my knee climbing one of the walls." She shrugged.
"Let's head to the lab, I can give you some Celebrex, to help with your pain."
"Sure, I'm just going to shower and then I'm yours for the afternoon."
"Oh no, you need to rest. I can't stop you from training, but I can give you the afternoon off."
"You don't need to do that." They think you are weak.
To them she was weak, he was the Hulk for Christ's sake. He could toss her clear across the room like a rag doll.
"I do. Your brain needs to heal. We'll talk about you doing some work tomorrow."
Brooke clenched her teeth together, the pressure aggravating her headache.
"You should give her a couple of T3s for that headache taken," Natasha told him.
"Tylonal is fine." Bruce frowned in confusion. "I can't go to the gun range if I take it."
Exasterbated Bruce shook his head, "It's your choice."
Hugging Clint goodbye Brooke grabbed a muffin and orange following Bruce to the lab. If he was going to be giving her painkillers, she would need something in her stomach.
"Since we're here let's get an MRI done, to cover our bases." Before she could protest, Burce added, "It's the MRI or I'll tell Tony to pull you from training."
Hadn't he just said that was none of his business? Brooke kept her mouth shut and laid down on the MRI table. Bruce gave her the IV drugs while they waited for the scan to process.
It was a mid-concussion with minimum swelling. What they had already assumed. Bruce sent her to her suit with a bottle of pills and a request to rest. Though he had threatened to pull her from training so, how much of a request was it really?
Showering off her sweat and changing into cozy clothes, Brooke felt the celebrax working through her system. Her face stung less and her body felt relaxed. She turned on her tv on low for some background noise as she made some lunch. The muffin and orange only doing so much after hours of pushing her body.
Major Braddock seemed like a good guy, fair and tough. The other people in her group seemed ok as well. Stephanie being the other woman and a couple of guys whose names her brain had been too tired to remember.
A grilled cheese was fast and simple enough to make. Pulling out everything she needed, Brooke ate some yogurt as the bread sizzled.
There was a soft knock at the door before it was pushed open.
"Hi."
"Hey." Bucky had not expected her to be up yet. "Did Bruce stop by?"
It was clear she was high on something, and Bucky had not left her with any more Tyolnal 3s.
"No, he took me to the Lab gave her some painkillers and ran an MRI."
"Why an MRI?"
"To check things out, make sure I wasn't internally bleeding." She said of handily, turning off the stove and plating her sandwich. "Then he kicked me out and told me to go rest. Apparently, it was either training or working in the lab and since I was coming from training he-"
"Hold on. I thought you'd slept in- you went to training this morning?"
Brooke straightened up, "It was my first day."
"Braddock let you participate, looking like that?"
"Hey!" Brooke closed her eyes, her outburst like an ice pick against her temple. "I wasn't the only one out there with cuts and bruises."
Bucky ran a hand down his face, "Brooke."
"Yes?"
He watched her swaying slightly, fingers ripping apart the grilled cheese and popping it in her mouth, nodding to herself at the yummy taste.
"You are so high right now." He smiled fondly.
"Banner loaded me up, my brain is fine, still he kicked me out."
"He's just looking out for you."
Bucky changed his approach. Did he think it was dumb and pointless that Brooke went to train this morning, yeah. But she was hurting and so high and adorable. Sure he was mad, but apparently "Anger is a secondary emotion Mr. Barnes" his therapist has so kindly told him.
He was mad she had gone to training because he worried about her and thought she had been safely resting all morning. Not out there getting her ass kicked.
"How was training?"
Brooke looked skeptically at him, clearly trying to figure out what his angle was. After another bite of her sandwich and deciding his question was genuine, Brooke started explaining her morning to him.
"I like the group they put me in, everyone seems nice enough. There is a girl in my group too, which is nice. We did cardio and target practice today, they said tomorrow we'd move to hand-to-hand combat. I need it, considering what happened..." Brooke muttered that last part disappearing into herself.
"What happened to you yesterday wasn't your fault."
"I was waiting for Clint but Steve insisted and I wanted to get to know him, I mean he's your best friend. I know their first impression of me wasn't great. He wanted to help, so I said yes." Then they attacked. "I was useless. I couldn't hit the biker and then I let that guy, he took me down so easily. I don't want to feel that again, I panicked and I couldn't think and I could have gotten Steve killed."
Bucky walked around the island, intending to stop her spiral. Brooke held out the half-eaten sandwich to him, thinking he had come over for some food. He asked her to put it down, taking her hands, ignoring the grease on her fingertips.
"You are not responsible for anything they do."
"But they were after me."
Huffing Bucky confirmed her suspicions. "They were. Stark added some new security, no one unwanted will be able to access the grounds."
"What happened to that guy? I assume that's where you went last night." Bucky nodded.
"He killed himself. He had a false took with poison inside."
Brooke sighed, shoulders rolling in. "I need to go to bed."
He agreed. They could talk in the morning, she needed to rest and he was not going to get in the way of her willingness to do so. Walking her to bed, Bucky put her forgotten glass on her nightstand in case she got thirsty. Her sandwich beside it.
"I'll be close by, call if you need anything."
Brooke hummed snuggling in, the blankets up around her chin. Bucky dropped a kiss to her forehead, and Brooke leaned into it. Eye already closed Bucky heard her exhale, slipping into sleep.
He went to Bruce from her place. He fired question after question. What did Brooke's MRI show? Is she ok to participate in training tomorrow? Should he intervene? Because Bucky had no problems being the bad guy if he needed to. Though Brooke would roast him alive for it if he talked to Braddock behind her back.
Bruce assured him that if anything had been concerning he would have Brooke here in medical and would have told Tony to cancel her training. She needed rest and while he suggested to pause training for a couple of days, Brooke's life was not in danger if she did.
Deciding not to participate in this fight. If he did decide to challenge Brooke on her choice, he would lose.
.
"Brooke! Brooke! Brooke!" Her teammates yelled her name as she spared against one of the guys from another.
He was big and she had the advantage of being smaller, faster.
She had been training for two weeks now and her body was sore, but she was feeling stronger. As much as she liked this feeling, it also triggered a lot of memories from her week with the red room. How they punished her for not playing along.
"You got him!"
Brooke spun on her knee knocking his feet out from under him. Brooke climbed on top of him, pulling her fake knife from her pants and holding it to his neck. Chris hit her temple with the side of his fist, knocking her sideways enough to roll her.
He slides his hand up to her neck. Brooke hissed, her bruises were yellow and faded but the pressure aggravated them. He pulled the knife from her hands, aiming for her ribs. Focusing on the most deadly thing Brooke grabbed for the arm with the knife, pushing to keep it from making contact with her side.
She groaned as she tried to contort her body away from the coming danger. Chris's palm pressed into her collarbone, so the weight was not on her neck and windpipe. He rose up onto his knees and Brooke kicked her legs up sending him over her head and her shimming downward, out from under him.
They both got to their feet restarting the match. Before they could get a hold of one another again Major Braddock stepped in.
"You tied. Good work, next up Sandavol and White."
Brooke panted, joining her group to cheer the next pair on. As much as they had been weary of her in the beginning her team was starting to loosen up around her. Clearly, the myth of her was a lot worse than she presented in person. She could only imagine the stories going around about her.
Her father, the Hydra scientist, her an experiment of both Hydra and the red room. The way she took down one of their colleagues. That they all saw first hand, stupid camera phones. But things were settling, which is all she could have asked for.