Avengers Tower
August 2011
"What's this about?" Steve asked his phone.
"Mr. Stark has requested your presence in the common area," JARVIS said pleasantly. "More than that I am not at liberty to share."
Steve scowled at the elevator's ceiling, even though he knew JARVIS technically wasn't hiding behind the panels. "So he's keeping me in the dark."
"I believe his exact words were "I want to see Rogers' face". Shall I contact him and request more information?"
Steve sighed. "No, I'm about there."
"Is the gymnasium still meeting your requirements?"
"It's great," Steve said. And he wasn't lying. It was actually really nice to not have to worry about how many punching bags he broke or weight machines that weren't really meant to handle the strain he put on them or treadmills that couldn't do what he wanted. Everything was top-of-the-line.
"I am glad."
Steve waited, but JARVIS said no more. Evidently the conversation was over.
The elevator chimed, and Steve stepped out into their common room.
He saw in a glance that everyone was there, clustered around the table. Even Loki was sitting beside Darcy, expression edged with disdainful amusement as always, and there was Tony, looking gleeful. Everyone else seemed worried.
And Steve knew that head of red hair, standing next to an unfamiliar man. They were both facing away from him.
"Natasha," he said with mixed relief and anger, striding forward. "Where have you-"
She turned, and so did the man beside her.
Steve missed a step. Stumbled to a halt.
His ears roared.
He knew that man. Steve took one shuddering step, and then another, and reached out with trembling hands.
"Bucky," he rasped.
Bucky's brows furrowed and he glanced at Natasha. Steve barely registered the shock and horror on her face, the confusion on everyone else's. This was Bucky .
"You're alive," he managed. "That's not possible."
Steve's best friend shifted uncomfortably. His left arm was in a sling. Why was it in a sling? Who hurt him?
"Who's Bucky?"
Steve's mouth opened.
No words came out.
"You are," he finally said.
"Zima…" Natasha whispered.
Steve whirled on her, his grief transforming into anger. "You knew?"
"I swear-"
" How could you not tell me? " he snarled, stepping forward.
Instantly, Bucky was squared up beside Natasha. Something cold and vicious looked out of his eyes.
Natasha angled her body toward him, just slightly. Bucky backed down.
Steve's eyes narrowed. Even pissed, he could read that silent language between them, a connection that came from years of working together, years of the closest kind of bond possible.
A language he had once shared with Bucky.
"Start talking," he said, and didn't recognize his own voice.
Avengers Tower
August 2011
This was going to be interesting.
Clint made the connection the second Steve said his old friend's name. He had a near-perfect photographic memory, and he knew that name from Steve's files. James "Bucky" Barnes, Steve's best friend and second-in-command of the famous Howling Commandos, who died falling from a train in the Austrian Alps in 1944.
Clint saw the resemblance. It was hidden behind the stubble and the hobo clothes and the long hair and the change in facial expression from the pictures he'd seen of Barnes, but this was definitely the same man.
"Steve," he said. "How 'bout we sit down like civilized people?"
"Wouldn't want to start a fight and wreck this tower for the second time this year," Darcy added sarcastically with a not-so-subtle glare at Loki.
The Asgardian merely raised an eyebrow. "No, we would not."
"Sit? Please?" Bruce interjected.
His mild manner seemed to defuse Steve and Natasha a bit. They went from about-to-throw-a-punch to I'll-wait-and-see-if-I-need-to-throw-a-punch and sat down on opposite sides of the table. Bucky/Zima/the Winter Soldier settled awkwardly across from Steve, eyes fastened on the blond supersoldier's face.
When Tasha's eyes fell on Clint, he gave her a cool, steady gaze and looked away.
She flinched, barely. No one other than Clint, Barnes, and Loki registered the movement. He took a moment of vicious pleasure.
They were supposed to be partners, to have each other's backs. And then she went haring off to Russia without him even though she had said they'd go together after her Soldier, and then she showed up acting like nothing had changed?
He missed Maria with a sudden fierce ache.
"Natasha," Bruce prompted.
She took a breath. "As you know, I was born in the early twentieth century. The Russians were looking for orphans to raise as special operatives, and they had no compunctions about meddling with us, which is why I'm still here today.
"What you don't know… is that in 1953 I met the Winter Soldier." She glanced at Bucky. "I didn't know who he was or where he was from, and neither did he, but it did not matter. We followed orders and completed missions together for decades, until our masters in the KGB discovered that their Soldier had been… compromised."
"He fell in love," Steve said. Clint glanced over. Steve's face was grim and grieving.
Barnes nodded once, stiffly.
"I have been tracking him for years," Natasha said. "Fury promised me time off last month and didn't deliver, so I slipped his watchers and took off on my own."
"And you never told any of us?" Tony snapped.
Clint leaned back in his chair. "I knew."
"Of course you did," Tony said sourly. "Anyone else got any secrets to share?"
Jane looked up from her iPad. "Define 'secret.'"
"Never mind." Tony waved a hand.
"We're already harboring one international criminal, what's one more?" Darcy said with a grin.
Tony shrugged. "This one's lost a leg. It might be a little more work."
Damaged prosthesis, then .
Steve looked away from Barnes just long enough to shoot Tony a glare.
"But I vote yes," Tony said, grinning.
Darcy leaned around Clint and Steve. "Tony, you only want to do this so you can stick it to Fury."
"Of course not," Tony said. He infused the words with so much genuine offense that Clint believed it. Until he added, "That's not the only reason."
"Whatever," Darcy muttered. "I think yeah."
"You don't have to harbor me," Barnes said quietly. His eyes were fixed on the table as if he didn't know where to look. "I still have… their influence… in my head. I'm dangerous. And I don't want to cause you problems."
"I left you once. I'm not doing it again," Steve said in a voice that offered no compromise.
Barnes' eyes flickered up to Steve's for a bare second and then fixed again on the table.
"We cut their strings off of Natasha," Clint said, measuring every word. "We can do it again."
"Without SHIELD?" Bruce countered.
Clint shrugged. "We've got several of the people here that SHIELD would put on that project anyway."
"You're staying," Steve said.
"Jane?" Darcy asked. "Bruce?"
Jane glanced up, shrugged, and went back to her tablet. Bruce paused a moment longer, thinking.
Steve was practically vibrating with tension.
"Yes," Bruce said at last. "You may stay."
"Do I get a vote?" Loki asked pleasantly.
" No ," said Tony, Darcy, and Steve in unison.
Clint snorted.
"All right, snowman, come with me," Tony said, gesturing at Barnes.
The soldier furrowed his brows. "Snowman?"
"Tony likes nicknames," Darcy said seriously. "That one's not his best though. Up your game, Tony."
"Excuse you," Tony said, affronted. "Snowman, come on, that arm won't fix itself."
Stiffly, Barnes stood up and went with Tony, every movement slow and deliberate. Natasha's eyes tracked him until the elevator closed behind them.
Clint looked over and saw devastation cross Steve's face.
"I'll be… I'll be in the gym," Steve said quietly, and shoved his chair back with a screech. He crossed the room at a fast walk and let the stairwell door slam closed behind him.