Search for the Winter Soldier – Ch 2. Asset Sighted
(The Avengers wait for a call from Fury that the Soldier has been located)
Dr. Golden enjoyed the sunrise visible through the large windows of the team's public living area. It was considered their assembly room; where they all came together to enjoy meals together or simply hang out. She scanned the room, wishing her own apartment had this much space. The entire room was one large open space, with a social area complete with two couches and plush stuffed chairs, a large television set and a computer area with various gaming systems. On the other end of the room was the kitchen and dining area with a breakfast counter at the island and a number of dining tables.
Emily took a sip of her hot tea and realized the cup was nearly empty so she went to the kitchen for a new tea bag and poured hot water from the tea pot simmering on the burner. After replacing the pot on the stove top she picked up the plastic bottle sitting on the counter shaped like a teddy bear. She squeezed honey into the cup and then took a seat at the island counter.
She let the tea steep for a few minutes and when the hot water had turned dark to her liking, Emily removed the tea bag setting it on a napkin near her cup. She took a sip of the fresh tea and let out a breath.
It had taken her a long time last night to finally fall asleep; she couldn't stop her mind from repeatedly going over the assignment she agreed to take on. As a professional psycho-therapist, this case was going to take all of her education and experience. She felt awful for the man she'd been tasked to help and part of her worried if she could.
"Good morning," Sam greeted Emily as he entered the food preparation area of the kitchen and his voice jolted her from her thoughts.
Emily looked up, not realizing she'd been staring into her tea cup, and offered a smile. "Good morning, Mr. Wilson. How are you this morning?"
"I'll be much better, Doctor, if you call me Sam," he told her as he opened a cupboard to retrieve a tall clear glass.
Emily smiled at that. "I can do that… Sam," she replied. "And you can call me Emily, if you like."
Sam reached into the refrigerator and came out with a carafe filled with orange juice. He smiled as he took the stopper off it and began to pour. "I like," he answered, glancing at her with a grin. He put the top back on the bottle and set it on the counter beside him. Lifting the glass he chugged half of it as she watched. "Aaaaah," he exclaimed as he lowered the glass, "refreshing."
She smiled at him and chuckled softly. She took note of his outfit; the sweatpants and the running shoes were a clear giveaway as to what he'd been up to so early in the morning. She also took note of the picture on his tee shirt; the Minuteman with fighter jets emblem of the Air National Guard. "You're a runner, Mr. - Sam."
Sam nodded and took another gulp. "I am. I love to run… clears my head. That's how Steve and I met, actually," he told her.
"He told me," she said still smiling at him.
"Oh?" he remarked, grinning, "You two talk about me often?"
Emily continued to smile and her gaze met his. "Only briefly," she assured him. "Captain Rogers told me the tale of how you two met. I think it's endearing. It's funny, sometimes, the circumstances in which two people can be brought together for their mutual benefit, even when they don't realize the opportunity presented to them right away."
Sam's brows furrowed slightly, wondering what she meant by that. It wasn't the words, but her tone when speaking them that gave him pause. He felt her last comment was meant to include someone else besides him and Rogers. He chose to not begin his first one-on-one encounter with the good doctor with suspicion. Instead he nodded. "Yep, that was a memorable morning… and we've become good friends since then."
"So he says," she told him. Emily paused a moment, unsure if she should venture into her next observation or wait for another time. She honestly didn't see why 'now' wouldn't be as good a time as any other. "He also told me about what happened on the Heli-carrier."
Sam finished swallowing the mouthful he'd just taken and shrugged. He turned away from her shaking his head. She noted that the action of turning away from her was a physical response to his wanting to turn his back on the subject all together. She watched him closely and waited to see if he'd respond further. When he did, he had to work to keep his tone level. What Dr. Golden saw was a man standing on a precipice and not wanting to lose his balance.
"It was a hell of a fight, that's for sure," he told her.
"It'd been a while since you had seen combat…" she added as a prompt.
"That was not combat," he interrupted, as he spun back around to face her. "That was two guys getting their asses kicked by another guy, who-!" Sam stopped himself when he realized he had walked right into her baited line.
"It wasn't just two guys against the Soldier," she told him keeping her tone gentle. She'd baited him and he took the bait without wanting to so she ventured with care. He said what was on the top of his head and that told her so much.
For Sam Wilson, the battle in Washington, D.C. wasn't about the Avengers and S.H.I.E.L.D. combating HYDRA and their forces of evil; for Sam Wilson, it was he and Steve Rogers… it was Falcon and Captain America going toe to toe with the Winter Soldier and both of them barely survived the ordeal. "There were many people and a lot of resources out there that day with you," she reminded him.
Sam stared at her seriously, his eyes glared at her for a moment and then cleared. He put his glass on the counter carefully, feeling the need to totally focus on his every movement to maintain control of himself.
"I wasn't really focused on everyone else and what they were doing," he told her. "I was focused on what I was doing, and what my partner was doing at the time, and worried about his safety… as well as my own. The rest didn't matter in the moment; our situation was too immediate."
Emily understood that and nodded.
For Sam it hadn't been 'all the good guys against all the bad guys' in a battle that caused dozens of lives and millions of dollars worth of damage to the nation's capitol city. For him, it was two against one and that 'one' nearly annihilated America's hero, the very first super soldier… and he, an Air Force Special Operations Para-rescue operative with the 58th RQS… a military veteran with vast experience in air combat situations and the use of his Exo-7 propulsion wing suit while engaging the enemy in hostile action.
The Winter Soldier had manhandled him and destroyed his apparatus without breaking a sweat. The Soldier had caused Sam to question his skills and his choice to return to active duty; and the repercussions of that day were still with him, but he did his best to hide that fact from everyone. He'd been successful until now.
"Steve told me you're a peer counselor. You counsel fellow veterans who also suffer with PTSD?" she asked to confirm the information she was given.
"I don't do that anymore," he told her, "not for a while now."
"Since that day?" she asked.
"What are you trying to get at, Doctor?" Sam asked, getting a little defensive.
"I'm just wondering how much of an impact that day had on you," she told him honestly. "Nearly losing your life to the Winter Soldier had an effect on you that I don't think you've acknowledged fully. It's only natural to be seriously affected by those events. But as a PTSD counselor, I don't believe you've allowed yourself to work through it. You're denying the effects that day had on you and, you know as well as I do, those affects are going to eat you up and destroy you if you don't face them."
"I can handle it," Sam told her. "It hasn't had that much of an impact on my life. I'm an Avenger," he exclaimed softly as if being part of this amazing team meant that he was untouchable.
Emily made a face at his comment and replied, "Of course it's had an impact on your life. You just said so yourself that you no longer counsel others with PTSD and that's because yours has been blown into full bloom due to those events. Every single interaction in our lives has an impact on us and the world around us," she told him. "Every one of our actions and every single choice we make effects the whole, just as greatly as every action we don't take…" she paused for only a moment when Sam pinned her with a serious gaze, "and when it comes to making the world a better place for ourselves and for others, what we choose not to do can be just as important as what we choose to do."
Sam took a deep breath and rolled his eyes as he realized where she was going with this. "This is about helping the team with Barnes…"
"No," she told him. "This is about the reasons you've chosen not to help the team with Barnes. This isn't about him or them… this is about you."
Sam took a slow deep breath and let it out in a long sigh. He thought for a moment and then nodded. "I know what you're saying is the truth," he told her honestly, "but knowing that to be true and being able to get beyond it… I'm not ready. Not yet."
"Fair enough," Golden replied. "Will you do me a solid?" she asked.
"Sure," he answered, wondering what it was she wanted him to do; but knowing how therapy worked, he agreed because he knew her request wouldn't be outrageous.
"Will you at least talk about it, with me or with other members of the team, as things come up that really bother you? They're here for you… if you let them be."
Sam smiled softly, knowing she was right. He hadn't been doing the team a solid for months, not since that day. He'd been hiding his worries and fears and having nightmares every night of the Winter Soldier throwing him off the carrier and, in the dream, his chute doesn't deploy and just before he would have impacted the ground, he'd wake up, terrified and covered in sweat.
"My worry for you, Sam, is that you are a man who clearly enjoys being involved, knowing that you have skills to offer to the world. If you neglect that desire in yourself, for whatever reason, you're denying yourself the opportunity to be an agent for positive change in the world. By not taking part, I fear you'll end up feeling as though you enabled a particular course to continue unchallenged."
"You're saying if I don't help out and Barnes remains the Winter Soldier and continues to go on with his destruction—"
"I am not saying that would be your fault, absolutely not. What I am saying is that by holding on to the belief that your actions and choices don't make a difference, you might find yourself tending to decline opportunities for involvement."
"I'm an Avenger," he reminded her, "I'm involved."
"As an Avenger, you're involved as the team dictates. What about your more personal… individual… involvement? You may feel more inspired to contribute your unique perspective and skills to a situation if you realize that you are an important participant in our world… as an individual, not just as a smaller piece of the larger machine," she reminded him, knowing full well that, deep down, he knew this. "Each of us is an important player in the events that shape our world; positively or negatively."
"I'm just not sure I'm ready to face that again," Sam confided in her. "I'm not ready to face him. Not yet. I can go with them and help them take him down - bring him in. I just don't feel I'm ready to interact with him with any sort of compassion or empathy. I just… I can't, right now. Not yet."
"And that's fair," she assured him. "It's always wise to take the action you feel is right for you. I'm not trying to push you into anything you don't feel ready for. I just want to be sure that you don't end up stuck. Stagnation can lead a person to feeling powerless or incapable, and that can easily lead into anxiety and depression.
"Not every cause is appropriate for us to take action, but if the situation calls on you to make a move, and you don't because you've allowed doubt to take over and something bad happens -"
"I won't be able to forgive myself. I know," he told her. She didn't need to confirm his statement.
"You'll know when it's time, even if it's nothing more than offering a kind word. Perhaps someone on the street who looks like they simply need to be acknowledged and you offer them a smile as you pass by. By doing what you can, when you can, you add a positive energy to the world and those in it. You know," she told him, "- as a counselor, you know how giving of yourself to people who need you can make you feel energized… it's that positive energy that you add to the energy around you. Sometimes, our one contribution can make all the difference in the world for one person."
Sam listened to her carefully and when she was done speaking he nodded. "I'm just not at that point yet," he told her. "I mean, I do still try to do good things on a personal level, like leave a big tip for the girl who hands me my Choco-chino every morning… or letting the guy at the newsstand keep the change. I know those aren't big impact things, but they make me feel a little better on grey days."
"That's my point, Sam," Dr. Golden told him. "Nothing you choose to do, no matter how small, is ever exempt from the rules of cause and effect. While you may never fully comprehend the extent of your influence, you can be assured that it will be universally felt. The girl you gave a large tip to this morning, may have been worrying about how she was going to be able to buy a bus ticket tomorrow so she can go see her sickly grandmother… your tip, then added to others, now allows that visit to happen - cause and effect."
"Cause and effect-" Bruce echoed as he entered the public living area. Sam and Emily both turned to look at him, not having realized he had entered the room. He opted not to take a seat on the couch, but chose to sit at a small table near the large windows. "Are we discussing chaos theory?"
"No!" Sam said with a bit more force than he intended as he pointed at Dr. Banner; as if the action alone would cause him to stop talking. Emily chuckled softly.
"Okaaaaay," Bruce replied, as he got comfortable on the chair. He got himself situated, then decided he wasn't done. Leaning back in his chair to look at Sam over his shoulder, he added, "Because you mentioned cause and effect… which focuses on the prehension that one event causes a specific set of outcomes to occur… whereas chaos theory presents all possible causes that make any number of results happen or not happen. Basically, 'chaos' is the science of predicting the behavior of systems that are inherently unpredictable, so-"
"We aren't!" Sam told him forcefully.
Bruce turned back around and reached for the paper in the center of the table. "Okay," he said softly.
Emily took a moment to look from Wilson to Banner and back again. She had to smile at their interaction. The dynamics on this team were spectacular. This assignment was going to be very interesting.
Banner couldn't let it go though and added without turning around or even looking up from the paper that he now had open in front of him. "I'm just saying-"
Sam's head dropped, and he closed his eyes with a loud sigh; he leaned heavily on the counter with his elbows locked. He simply shook his head as Bruce continued and Emily chuckled softly.
"- that although 'cause and effect' tells us that our actions will result in something happening, it doesn't guarantee that that something will be good or bad. Chaos Theory explores all eventualities that could be affected by every possible action one might choose to perform. That's all I'm saying."
Emily listened to what Bruce said. Her smile faded and her expression shifted to a more thoughtful one as she realized he was actually correct. She couldn't guarantee Sam, or any of them, that simply taking action with the intention of helping Barnes would have a positive effect and end with everyone in a good place.
"He's right," she told Sam quietly.
"Of course he is," Wilson replied, exasperated.
"I heard that," Bruce replied.
"Hey!" Sam responded, standing up and stretching his arms out as if opening himself up. "I agreed that you're right!"
"It was your tone," Bruce told him, acting put off.
Emily sipped her tea, trying to stifle a soft laugh. Sam glanced at her with raised eyebrows and she simply smiled at him.
There was a moment of peace, literally about ten seconds, once Bruce and Sam stopped sniping at each other. The golden silence was broken as the rest of the Avengers began streaming in engaged in morning chat.
The first pair to enter was Natasha and Clint.
"I'm sorry, and how is that any of your business?" she asked him.
"I'm your best friend," Barton answered.
"True… but how is my business any of your business?" Nat repeated, not giving an inch.
"I'm your best friend," Clint repeated with emphasis, but his dramatics didn't seem to have any effect on the Black Widow as she chose a spot on the couch. Barton dropped down next to her, apparently to keep on her until she caved and told him what he wanted to know.
Emily grinned at them and then the next group entered, which included Tony, Wanda and Vision. She turned her attention to them and was, once again, fascinated with the team's resident AI. She couldn't help but think of Vision as a robot, or an android, even though he corrected her yesterday; stating he is in fact, an artificial intelligence encased in a vibranium-synthetic body.
She found him extremely interesting as he seemed to embody great power and yet, as he was only recently created – or born to the world – he was also naïve when it came to human emotions and interactions. In his own way, he too was learning where his place was within the team dynamic and in the world as a whole.
Sgt. Barnes should be in good company surrounded by these people, she realized. The more she lived among the Avengers; learning more about them as individuals and how they meld as a team, the more fascinating she found them… and it'd only been a day.
"Good morning, Dr. Golden," Vision greeted her, standing at the end of the breakfast counter.
"Good morning, Vision. How are you this morning?" she asked.
Visions expression shifted for a moment as the question caught him off guard. He appreciated that she showed concern for his well-being and treated him as a person.
"I am well. Thank you for asking," he replied pleasantly. "You also look well."
Emily smiled at him. "Thank you. I am well."
"That is good," he said, bowing his head.
Tony turned from the refrigerator and put a few things on the island as he prepared to make himself something to eat. He looked up at Vision as if silently dismissing the android and Vision bowed his head and moved away to join Wanda where she now sat at the table with Bruce.
"What's the plan for today?" Tony asked Emily as he cracked an egg into a glass bowl and tossed the shell into the sink.
"Well, I thought I would go over-"
The cell phone on the counter between them rang and Stark lifted a finger in the air asking her to pause for a moment. Emily gave him a nod and waited.
Tony picked up the phone and hit the Talk button. "Stark," he said and then his expression turned serious. "Hang on," he told the person on the other end and set his phone on the counter. "Where's Cap?" he called out to the room and everyone turned to look at him.
"I'm right here," Steve replied as he entered the room. "What's up?"
"Heads up, everybody," Tony warned them all and hit another key on his phone which projected the caller's image on a hologram hanging in mid-air above the kitchen island so everyone could see. Emily sat back on the tall chair to take it all in.
The team members all stopped what they were doing and moved toward the kitchen to listen when they saw Nick Fury's image appear in front of Tony.
"Say again," Tony requested of Fury.
"We've received intel on two assassination attempts on diplomatic liaisons in Eastern Europe. Witnesses claim they saw a single actor, seemingly working alone. He is described as…" Fury lifted a print out to read from, "about six feet tall with long, dark hair. He was wearing a mask and goggles… and had a left arm made of metal with a large red star emblazoned on his shoulder."
Steve took a deep breath and glanced at Tony. Stark met his stare and gave a nod.
"You said assassination attempts?" Steve asked Fury to detail that information.
"You heard right," Nick told him. "The assassin was deterred by a squad of Doombots."
"Doombots?" Cap repeated in surprise.
"Affirmative."
"Bucky's in Latveria?" Steve asked for clarification.
"The Winter Soldier was in Latveria. We're guessing that Hydra put him on Doom's scent due to the technology he's creating that could effectively take Hydra down permanently. It's still in the developmental stage and no guarantee would even work to that degree-"
"Knowing Victor Von Doom, it'll work," Natasha added.
"Well, Hydra isn't waiting around to find out. The Winter Soldier made an attempt on two of Doom's science and technology engineers, and was successful at taking out Latveria's leading technological developer. He's left mass destruction in his wake, dozens of casualties who had the misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. There were a few fatalities of innocent bystanders..."
Sam glanced at Rogers to see him visibly cringe at that news.
"Doom's bots gave the Soldier a run for his money. He aborted any plans he may have had for further mayhem. He's possibly injured and on the run. We believe he's retreated into Serbia and as of 0400 hours EST this morning... we've received several reports of the Soldier being spotted in Croatia."
"That's less than five hours ago," Natasha pointed out.
"You may want to get there quickly before Hydra pulls him underground again. He's on the move and on foot. From what we've been told, he seems to be on a focused trajectory. He's keeping hidden, but breaking cover to cross through occupied streets and neighborhoods. We believe he's doing so in order to remain on a singular course bearing a northeast heading…"
"He's heading to Bjelovar," Natasha mentioned. Everyone turned to look at her; wondering why she guessed that. She glanced around the room and realized they were waiting for her to explain. "It makes sense," she told them, "he was sighted in Serbia then Croatia. If he's trying to get to Austria; which we know is home to one of Hydra's main bases, he's going to have to get close to Bjelovar in order to get to Verazdin. If he travels north, he crosses into Slovenia at the narrowest point. From there he heads northeast to get into Austria. Once he gets into Slovenia; it's all mountains and cave systems. He'll be a ghost if he crosses the border. We need to find him before he leaves Croatia."
"The average adult male in good physical condition can move cross country on foot at an average speed of three miles an hour, and this is no average adult male," Bruce offered.
"This Soldier is super fast and in superior physical condition, and from the information we've received, we estimate he's traveling closer to five miles per hour. You should get moving," Fury told them.
"Suit up! We leave in twenty minutes," Tony announced and the team members left the room to do just that. He turned off the burner on the stove, disconnected the video chat projection and picked up his phone. Before heading out to get ready he paused long enough to consider Emily. "Wish us luck."
"Good luck," she replied. "I'll hold down the fort until you return. "
Tony gave her a nod and headed out.
TBC