Your BFF and My BFF
Clint sat at the island in the common room, taking huge bites of his cereal and humming softly around the mouthfuls of Fruit Loops and milk. Pepper sat across from him at the island, watching as a little milk dribbled, then he would slurp it back up and wipe his face with the back of his hand. She smiled, wondering about how there were still so many of adult Clint’s mannerisms in little Clint.
The man had never learned to use a napkin; his shirts always had mysterious stains and honestly, about half were his own blood. Little Clint was not as klutzy as adult Clint, but Natasha had intimated to Pepper some time ago that he sometimes tripped on purpose just to distract or redirect certain moods or conversations. Pepper had not shared that with Tony, but she had loved him all the more for it, even if he still hurt himself occasionally.
When Tony had explained to her what they had learned of the boy’s past from the hacked files, she’d burst into tears in the privacy of their penthouse. She had always known Clint to be a carefree man, careful to make everyone feel safe and welcome. Now that she thought back, she could see how he’d taken all those horrible events from his past and made himself the equivalent of what he had always needed, but hadn’t gotten. He hadn’t asked for coffee yet, which was a concern with adult Clint, so it was assumed that habit had come much later. He was still a little zombie in the mornings, but cereal and milk seemed to do the trick these days.
Hawkeye, the dog, sat patiently on the next stool over, his eyes on Clint, his ears connected to Jarvis’ connections in the basement lab where the Avengers and Fury were gathered around the cryo tank and chair that had been transported in last night under cover of darkness and Stark’s shields.
*****
“You knew?!” Steve growled but Fury growled back.
“Of course we knew, Rogers,” he ground out. “but we didn’t know how to rectify the situation yet so there was no need to involve you when you were already busy with saving the world.” Steve stomped around the room, crossing and uncrossing his arms, huffing. He glared from Fury to the tank and finally stopped in front of the tank, staring into the clear, blue liquid to where Bucky floated, supposedly unaware.
“You knew too, Tasha?” He turned slightly with a wounded look at the redhead. She stood, her own arms crossed as she considered the men in the room.
“Yes, I’ve known since I was a little girl.” She sighed. “I knew him personally, but back then, I called him Yasha.”
All eyes turned to her but she didn’t squirm.
“The Red Room brought him in to teach us combat and defense. As he healed fast, he was also used to practice the more delicate maneuvers, like obtaining a drop of blood without the mark knowing, or how to administer poison via a dart.” Her eyes did flicker down, then back up to Steve. “He never complained. It was probably the brainwashing Hydra put him through.” She gestured to the chair in disgust. “But he never argued. Just fell down and got back up again.” A small frown darkened her face.
“He was poisoned?!” Bruce asked, aghast. Natasha shrugged one shoulder and dropped her arms from the defensive cross over her front.
“He had the serum. It was understood that he would not die.” Bruce’s mouth dropped open, but no words followed.
“That’s part of why the Winter Soldier has been unkillable,” Fury huffed. “We tried to bring him down many times, for the greater good, but he always reappeared later. A ghost risen from the ice.” Steve ran his hands over his face before leaning forward on the tank.
“So where does that leave us?” Tony spoke up, from where he was glancing over schematics, darting uncertain looks towards the tank and Steve. “Steve’s long lost best friend is also the Winter Soldier. I mean, I’m sorry, Cap, but that man killed my parents, along with a lot of other people. And I heard rumors that he was the JFK shooter.”
Fury nodded to himself.
“I’ve heard those rumors, as well as others. Nothing we can confirm unless we wake him up.” Fury turned to Stark. “Not sure I trust him being here, Stark, but we currently do not have the means to store him-.”
“’Store’ him?” Steve asked, whirling to face Fury. “Like he’s a weapon someone needs to lock away?” Fury started to say something but stopped when there was a slight burble from the tank. Everyone swiveled, wide-eyed, as the floating man twitched.
“Stark?” Fury asked, his hand on the butt of his gun. Tony jumped at the voice and rapidly began reviewing the screens on the computers that had been brought in, watching readouts from the tank.
“Nothing’s changed. Same energy flow, temperature, pH, everything that we’re currently measuring is the same.” He looked up into Steve’s worried face. “Jarvis.”
“There is nothing to indicate him waking up, sir.”
There was another twitch and a burble. Then the man in the tube settled again. Like he had had hiccups in his sleep. Natasha took a quick visual survey of the others.
Tony and Bruce were going over the systems and glancing up between hurried whispers to worriedly check on the Winter Soldier. Fury still had his hand on the butt of his gun, his eyes locked on the tube itself. Thor, the least in the know, was watching the man in the tube with a frown, Mjolnir still gripped tight. Steve…Steve had such a hangdog look on his face. He hadn’t actually braced for battle, but had actually taken a step forward, ever closer to the glass front, his hand bracing against the cold surface.
It was easy to see the conflict in the leader of the Avengers. Here was the man he had grown up alongside, his best friend, who he had gone through combat with. Who he had thought had been dead for so many decades. And to find out that not only had Bucky survived, but had become the Winter Soldier, a shadowy assassin for Hydra. Brainwashed or not, he was dangerous. Better locked up here rather than out in the world.
She watched Steve bow his head, leaning further into the glass as his shoulder rose and sank in large, deep breaths. The hand on the glass folded into a fist and Steve seemed to vibrate for a moment. And just for that moment, Natasha honestly believed the man was seconds from just smashing his way in to pull out his beloved friend. She heard a sound, like a buried growl, come from Steve before he just tapped the edge of his fist on the glass and forced himself to turn away. He stalked past them, heading towards the stairs.
“This isn’t over,” he said mostly to himself.
Eyes followed him, then went back to the tank, where all was quiet once again. Slowly, the tension bled out of the room. Fury let his jacket fall over his hip again and he stopped beside Natasha before following Steve into the outer hallway.
“Keep me apprised. Before it all goes to hell.” His unscarred eye met hers with meaning, then he sighed and left the room. He was still frustrated over the loss of one of his best agents, the only archer, one of the few he trusted. Now that the Winter Soldier had been found and ‘rescued’, having both of his problems in the same building was an unforeseen mess that he couldn’t quite suss out yet. Natasha knew how that unsettled him to not be ahead of everything going on.
She relaxed as Thor stroked his beard in thought, no longer tense. Tony and Bruce were still going over the code and readouts.
“Thor, can you stick around with these guys while they’re distracted by data?” The thunder god nodded to her as his laid his hammer at his feet. She shook her head and headed upstairs to check on her own best friend and order food in. It was shaping up to be a long ass day? Week? Month? Year? She wasn’t sure, but there was work to be done.
*****
“Why is your friend in the aquarium?”
Heads snapped up as all conversations ceased. Clint flinched back, but held his ground, waiting for someone to either answer him or shush him.
“Clint,” Bruce asked as Steve was nearly choking on the relatively small bite he had taken just before the boy had spoken up. “How do you know about…well, any of it?” Tony and Bruce shared a wide-eyed look as Clint shrugged one shoulder. Pepper had left as soon as the team had arrived with the food. Thor was on watch over the cryo tank with assurances from Tony and Bruce that they would return with Steve after the meal, so Thor could eat and perhaps sit with Clint.
“Pepper didn’t say anything about him being out of her sight,” Tony muttered, but Clint heaved a sigh.
“None of you have ever been responsible for children and it shows,” Natasha said, taking another bite of her sandwich, but warily watching Clint. He squirmed under her gaze. “Add in that it’s Clint and I’m shocked he hasn’t already triggered the revival sequence to wake up our guest.”
Her eyebrow went up when his cheeks reddened.
“Clint, you didn’t.” This was from Bruce.
Clint squirmed some more. When he looked at Bruce guiltily, Tony and Steve jumped to their feet, eyes wide. Natasha, the only one who knew the current Winter Soldier enough to truly fear him running loose, was already across the room, heading for the open elevator doors.
“Jarvis?!” Tony called out. Steve broke off towards the stairs to grab his shield from his gear, while Tony and Natasha boarded the elevator.
“Sir, my sensors in the secure lab are not responding.” The elevator sped up automatically, Tony tapping on the digital display on his bracelet. Natasha had pulled stun baton from somewhere. Tony wanted to ask when and where, but it wasn’t as pressing as the Winter Soldier possibly being at large in the Avengers Tower.
“When did they stop responding?” Tony asked urgently, tapping more furiously, finally dragging the display up into a hologram for easier manipulation. When Jarvis paused in his answer, Tony and Natasha shared a dark look.
“Sir, forgive me, but it seems the split AI in young Clint’s dog shut down the sensors just before the food delivery arrived. It was overridden by Hawkeye’s code. I do have video of Thor leaving the lab for less than a moment.”
“Thor…left the lab? Where is he now?” Natasha asked as the elevator stopped smoothly on their destination level. There was another pause.
“Sensors outside the lab show Thor coming out of the room,” and on Tony’s wrist hologram, a tiny video played showing Thor coming into the hallway they now occupied, “pacing the hallway for a moment as though searching for something, then going back inside. The records have no sound component.”
Natasha was first through the door and Thor turned his head in confusion, watching them. His eyebrows raised to see the concern on their faces and Natasha geared for battle. In the cryo tank, the Winter Soldier slept on, no twitches, no burbles.
“What is wrong, my friends? Has something happened?” He had raised Mjolnir as soon as they had crashed through the door and was looking behind them as though doombots were on their heels.
“Have you seen him move at all?” Tony asked, gesturing at the tank before diving behind the computer to check readings. Natasha instead stepped up to the tank to lay her hand against the side. The frost on the surface had larger crystals than before and her breath stopped in her throat. Looking through the glass, she searched closely until she saw a small something at the bottom of the tank.
“No, not even when I heard you call Bruce call me into the hallway earlier. He was not there, but from his words, I assumed I misheard and returned immediately.” He looked to where Natasha had pulled the wheeled ladder closer and was climbing to life the hatch at the top. “Nothing had changed while I was away as it was a mere moment.”
Tony wasn’t responding, still typing away to review readings. He gasped at the same time Natasha cursed quietly. Looking between the two, he saw them share a look of fear. Having not seen Natasha show fear unless it involved the archer, he swallowed.
Now that they knew what to look for, Tony tapped the screen and the image of the Winter Soldier through the glass flickered and disappeared, leaving only the floating end of the breathing tube and the dangling sensors in its place. Natasha scanned the room and saw the vent above the tank itself didn’t appear disturbed, but there was a small area of condensation on the edge closest to the hatch. If the Winter Soldier had indeed still been inside, it would have been written off as the cold from the cryofreeze reaching that area. However, it pointed to the point of escape.
“Clint?” Tony asked. Natasha shuddered. “Jarvis, where is Clint now? Is Bruce with him?” Natasha took the hand Thor offered to nimbly jump from the top of the tank.
“Are you picking up any cold spots?” Natasha interjected. Tony looked at her quizzically. “There’s no way he has warmed up completely yet. He may be hiding until he can move without shivers.”
“Young Clint is in his bedroom in his quarters. Bruce is in the front room.” There was hesitation in his voice. “The heat sensors are not picking up any cold spots in the rest of the tower. However, the heat sensors in young Clint’s quarters are deactivated.”
“Shit,” Tony exclaimed, just as Steve burst in wearing his Captain America suit, shield at the ready. “Turn around, Cap, your bff is upstairs, and we think he’s got Clint.”