A Bug and The Stark Internship
Where am I? That was his first thought when he regained consciousness. He smelled sulfate, and could hear drops of water falling somewhere nearby. The odor made his eyes burn and tear a bit when he opened them, causing him to squeeze them shut again. What happened? Why couldn’t he remember anything? Those questions were as familiar as the pain pulsing through his bones. It happened again. He remembered the kind of disorientation in his body, the distress fogginess in his mind, fighting to put the pieces together of what he had done in a mission. Everything rushed back, even things that he hadn’t been able to recall before.
Seconds later, he opened them again, blinked a few times adjusting to the horrible smell. His head tilted and saw his arm trapped under an industrial anvil that wouldn’t move no matter how hard he pulled against it. His shoulder, where the metal met his skin, ached. It had been a while since he felt the pain in that arm, given that he hadn’t fought in two years straight. It wasn’t often that he felt the horror stir inside his stomach, and he wanted to cry. Overwhelmed by the screams and slaughtering of his victims, Bucky robbed his face with his free hand, hoping stupidly that that would be enough to quiet the mess inside him.
The grind of metal snapped him out of his restless head, and he finally looked ahead, eyes sliding around the industrial building, trying to find the exits nearby but only saw the one in the front, and stopping his attention on the two men standing meters away from him, wearing the same stern expression. Bucky tilted his head the other way and watched the blonde guy, a much bigger version than the one he remembered from his dreams, step forward, his face turning from stern to uncertain. “Bucky?” He was visibly tense as he waited for an answer.
Bucky nodded once, barely able to lift his head again. Not every day he felt like he was run over with a truck. He was tired. Physically and mentally.
“Which Bucky am I talking to?” Steve asked.
The man behind him, Sam, he’d heard Steve call him, stared at him suspiciously, arms crossed over his chest and serious manner. Bucky couldn’t blame him for his distrust. He didn’t even trust himself. But they wanted proof. Proof that it was him and not the other monster hiding under his skin. Before he was thinking, his mouth opened letting a memory escape his lips in a hushed voice.
“Your mother’s name was Sarah,” he said, and it was partly amusing to see the blonde kid in his head. “You used to wear newspaper in your shoes.”
Steve let out a breath, relief palpable in his shoulders, “Okay.”
Sam raised a brow, “So what? He knows your mother’s name and we’re supposed to be cool like that?”
“What did I do?,” Bucky said, brushing his sweaty hair out of his eyes.
“Enough,” Steve said.
Glimpses of the last hours rushed through the cracks of his memory. His stomach twisted, flashes crossing behind his eyes; The man in glasses, the cell breaking, alarms ringing so loud it numbed his ears, guards at every corner of the building…Dominique. Metal wrapped around her throat. No. What happened? What did he do to her? Did he…he stopped mid sentence, please no. He searched for a sign in Steve’s concerned face that said he was mourning the loss of a close friend, a teammate, but there wasn’t a single feature that allowed him to know the answer to his fear. He panicked. If he hurt her… “Oh, God,” he closed his eyes. “I knew this would happen. Everything HYDRA put inside me is still there. All he had to do was say the goddamn words.”
“Who was he?” Steve asked.
“I don't know.”
“People are dead. The bombing, the setup...the doctor did all that just to get 10 minutes with you. I need you to do
better than ‘I don't know’.”
He forced himself to go back to the dark room with the desk and the book. His eyes squeezed shut, seeing the exact moment he heard the man’s command. “He wanted to know about Siberia. Where I was kept. He wanted to know exactly where.” His mouth was dry. All the recent effort and talk had him exhausted. He swallowed hard before continuing. “He asked about a mission I had in 1991, December 16th.” He might’ve been tired but he still noticed the way the blond man stiffened. Shoulders, jaw and torso tightened, his eyes acquired a horror which was quickly erased, or hid under an impenetrable mask.
His voice was controlled and careful when a question left his mouth, “Why would he need to know that?”
“Because I'm not the only Winter Soldier.”
Sam looked at Steve in horror while the other kept staring at the tired man under the anvil. He tried to explain as he could with his short sentences and shaky lips what he could recall from the other. It felt almost like a dream, a life he lived many years ago. But it was hard. Moving, talking, keeping his eyes opened was hard. His head was killing him, too. “They speak 30 languages, can hide in plain sight...infiltrate, assassinate, destabilize. They can take a whole country down in one night, you'd never see them coming.”
The man in the green shirt sighed, arms going slack to each one of his sides. “This would have been a lot easier a week ago,” he said. Steve seemed to agree with him while he struggled to push down the horrified expression out of his pale face.
Steve turned to Sam, “We could call Tony..”
His head pulsed causing him to snap his brows up. The name sent a sort of relaxation through his body, softening the awkwardness in his muscles. Tony. Tony. Dominique’s Tony. That Tony? All those late conversations came rushing back, everything she trusted him to know about her life; Do you trust him? I trust him with Tony’s life, so yeah. I think so…He’s Tony. I love Tony. He took care of me…He’s family…Tony’s family. He wanted to speak, to tell them that yeah, call Tony. If Dominique trusted him then so did he.
Sam, who shook his head, crushed his hope, “No,” he said, “he won't believe us. Even if he did, Who knows if the Accords would let him help.” The word accords lingered in his head, having no idea what they meant and why they would be a problem enough to stop Tony from helping. He watched both men exchanging a silent conversation with the only blink of their eyes, and for a second, Steve forgot where and with who he was, let the mask fall and showed the real miserable twist behind his face.
The second passed as fast as it came and the blond man shifted in his place, mask back on. “We're on our own.” Steve sighed, disappointed? Frustrated? Angry? Bucky didn’t know. And to be honest, at this very moment, he didn’t have the energy to care for that. He heard Sam telling them he had a contact who could help them though didn’t say much about the guy before he got out of the dusty and industrial-like building. Steve managed a step towards the entrance and stopped immediately at Bucky’s raggedy voice.
“Steve.”
He turned around, faced him with a familiarity Bucky couldn’t reciprocate, “Yeah?” He couldn’t ask out of the blue, could he? Maybe Dominique didn’t want anyone to know she had been with him. Under the intense, expectant gaze from the man in a white shirt, he thought of the best way to approach this. Had he been better rested and fed, his brain would be able to function normally but that wasn’t the case. Steve didn’t budge, an eyebrow raised in question, “What is it?”
Bucky tightened his lips, the need to retrieve strong in his bones. He shouldn’t have said anything. But what was done was done, and he had asked something before Steve began to draw conclusions on his own regarding his behavior. He looked down to the ground for a second, gathering himself together, and when he raise his face, a question left his lips, “Did I hurt any of your friends?” Did I hurt Dominique? It was a long shot, one he was willing to take, but just as he expected, Steve tried to ease the guilt for his actions, pushing the question aside. He didn’t want to hear excuses for what he did, no amount of sugar-coated words would fix what he broke, heal what he hurt, bring back what he killed. “Stop,” He was shaking his head, ears deafened by the blond’s excuses. “Your friends,” he mumbled. “Are any of them hurt?”
Steve’s face contracted. Blue eyes squinted, mouth pursed. His upper body tensed at the same time his legs seemed to be tempted to turn around and run towards the exit. He didn’t have to say anything. Bucky considered that an answer.
“Who?”
Steve drew a sigh, and named them; Natasha, Sharon, Tony himself, and Nique.
The floor became unsteady, “Nique?” He repeated and swallowed, his own heart stopping at the similarity of those names. Nique? Yes, probably. He was pretty confident they were talking about the same person.
“She’s fine. I heard she had a cut on her hands and a few sore bones, but that’s it,” Steve eyed him, not sure what he was looking for, but Bucky was more focused on the part where he said that’s it. As if that’s it, not a big deal. Like the fact that Dom got hurt wasn’t important. And that infuriated him.
Steve frowned. His eyes turned confused. Bucky could almost see the gears turning inside his head, catching up to the reason why his face went stone cold. “She heals quickly, and I mean quick,” Steve explained, carefully. “Like a matter of hours. I know you must have thought she seemed defenseless but she’s not. She’s strong and-“ he sighed, taking a pause, looking for the right words. “Well, let’s just say I was running when I heard you were with her in the cafeteria.”
A cut on her hands and sore bones. So he did hurt her, and the worst was that she let him. That hadn’t even crossed his mind before he asked. Of all things, letting him hurt her opened a new wound and he felt like he was drowning.
He hurt her.
He hurt Dominique.
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Eyes stared at him in disbelief, “Honestly, Tony. Have you lost your mind?”
“Once.” He answered. “Years ago. Wouldn’t recommend it. It isn’t as fun as it sounds, but that is irrelevant.”
“I think it’s pretty relevant, given that you know nothing about this guy.”
“I’m following my gut on this one,” he said after taking a sip from the tea. May was kind enough to serve them, and placed it over the small coffee table.
Dominique glanced at the kitchen, made sure the woman wasn’t nearby, placed down her own mug and narrowed her eyes at him, “Your gut is running on pure caffeine and adderall. Not sure we should trust that.”
“My caffeine gut has saved my ass and yours for the past decade. I’m trusting my gut.”
She let out a loud breath, falling back against the back of the coach, not angry but resigned because she was familiar with the determined expression hanging from Tony’s bruised face. She still flinched whenever she looked at the black eye the soldier inflicted on him. If she was honest, she had some trouble believing what happened. She was somewhere between James would never do that, and I can’t believe James did that, even though James hadn’t been the one who choked her or punched Tony.
She watched carefully May coming back and sitting next to the billionaire, a sweet smile on her lips with another cup of tea in hand. Dominique didn’t know what they were saying half the time, for her head wasn’t very present at the moment, being only able to think about James and his whereabouts.
They weren’t stupid. They knew he was with Steve and Sam, and planning something very stupid. The whole situation had her on edge. Out of all the damn shitty things that occurred between the team, it would be the accords to form a dispute. And she hated that Steve wasn’t talking, and that Tony was getting ready for a war that might not even happen, and that she was too worried about James to even pay attention to important matters. Not to mention the son of the king of Wakanda, trying to avenge his father, who Natasha said, wanted to join us.
With everything happening, only now that she was sitting down and letting her mind drift, she realized she hadn’t anticipated how much she was missing the black-haired man.
She remembered the times he expressed the worry he felt whenever she had to go, wherever the place was, James hated it, and it never failed to make her heart flip. There was something so tender and soft about the way he often touched her and voiced his feelings at night as if that was the perfect moment to say what he wanted without worrying about someone hearing him. Perhaps at night felt safer to say those words, to lay in the softness of the vulnerability that came with the stars outside the window, and the silence as they shifted between sheets. Dominique at first had thought the broad man didn’t mind her presence, that he didn’t care if she was there or not, bit the cold glare he sported every day began to break, and one day, thanks to her careless movements, James Bucky Barnes, the brainwashed ex-soldier who claimed to be callous, was frozen by the bruise on her skin.
The corners at her lips curled a little. Guilty often came with that memory. She shouldn’t have felt so relieved to know he cared at the expense of his concern but she did, and every time the moment replayed in her head, she was lightheaded for a couple of minutes until the warmth and nervousness disappeared from her chest.
The laughter next to her brought her back to the living room at the same time the door opened. She straightened her back and turned her head in time to see the guy freeze, eyes wide opened as he looked at Tony. Dominique closed her eyes. God. A kid. He was just a kid. She had hoped that he wouldn’t look like one but instead, the boy stuttered, nervous and smiling because of course who wouldn’t in the presence of Tony Stark.
“Hi..I…What..? Hey..I’m..I’m Peter,” the kid crossed her arms, the smile never leaving her young face.
“Tony. That one right there is Dominique,” he pointed at her for a second, Peter waving at her, before going back to the lucky Internship Peter would be part of.
They went to his room and Dominique stayed with May, who gave her a smile and asked her if she wanted more tea. She didn’t, but the silence was awkward enough, so she returned the smile and nodded, thanking her as May stood from the couch and went back to the kitchen. And she stayed there for the rest of their time alone, probably sending too the awkwardness. Dominique could barely blame her. She would’ve jumped out the window if she had been alone here, but Tony was in the room, and they didn’t need more trouble.
After five minutes of sitting alone on the couch, the two men appeared through the door, walking back to the living room just as May came back.
“So?” The aunt asked, staring at Peter and Tony.
“He’s good to go,” Tony grinned.
May screamed in joy and hugged her nephew, a huge smile while she repeated how smart he was and that she always knew he’d do great things. Dominique shot Tony a look but the genius seemed truly content with the woman’s reaction. Once they separated, Peter gazed at her, opened his mouth and closed it again like he was debating himself between asking or shutting up. Dominique squinted her eyes, and Peter’s mouth corners pulled up a little.
“Are you part of the internship, too?” He asked her.
Glaring, Tony crossed his arms, all the attention changing and focusing on her which almost caused her to roll eyes.
“I guess you could say that, yes,” Dominique answered and witnessed the brightness illuminating the kid’s face. He seemed to have more questions but one look at his aunt and he went quiet.
How old was he? Sixteen? He looked sixteen, but she could be wrong. She knew two soldiers who looked twenty five and were actually older than seventy.
Dominique sighed, and hoped this wouldn’t blow in their faces.
The next day just as Dominique and Peter were flying to Germany, Sam somehow brought food without getting too much attention and they ate in silence, Steve stole a car. Bucky was the least person to actually look down at the theft but it wasn’t every day that Captain America committed any sort of crime no matter how little it seemed. In the back of his head, the scene was amusing and he might even smile if it wasn’t for the situation they were in.
It took one, maybe two hours for him to become restless. He shifted on the backseat. This car was too small for him. His legs were trying to trespass one another and his head almost touched the hood.
“Remind me again why we have to take this car?” Bucky grunted.
“We can’t attract attention,” Steve responded.
“Right. Because three men coming out of this bug isn’t attracting any attention at all.”
“Someone’s in a mood,” Sam whispered.
Bucky glared at him through the mirror but said nothing. He was right. Bucky was in a mood. He hadn’t slept, he was still hungry and the concern eating him alive regarding the woman with the gray eyes was waving restlessly in the top of his head. This was never the plan. He wasn’t sure what his plan was but it didn’t involve being away from her in these kinds of circumstances. He was supposed to call her and he was supposed to hear her voice and he would smile because he adored the sleepy voice she acquired just before bed, when she was about to close her eyes and drift away from the world. He was supposed to be feeding Alpine, not Kelen, who he hoped actually kept her promise.
But the soldiers…Who knew what kind of real evil that man could unleash with the winter soldiers, they could only imagine the shreds of blood it would follow everywhere they went. One thing they all agreed on. Those soldiers couldn’t wake up. No matter what.
The slight bickering in the front seat snapped him out of his thoughts and forced his ears to figure out what they were talking about, “You are sure she’s going to help us?” Sam asked Steve, who gave him a reassuring smile, attempting to convince the other everything was fine.
“Yes. She said to meet her under the bridge,” Steve turned the wheel. “We have time. Then we’ll meet with Clint at the airport. He’s breaking Wanda out of the compound.” The relaxed tone in which the blond broad man spoke was nothing compared to the tensed state the childhood friend absorbed in the back.
Bucky froze, mind and body. Because he remembered that name. Why was that name so familiar? Why did it sound like he had heard it, like he had said it before? Wanda. Wanda. That name. Wanda. Bucky blinked, swallowing down the bitterness building its way up to his throat. They brought you to me. You’re good as dead right now. That voice, that accent, his nightmares, the red light, the pain. Suddenly, he wasn’t breathing. His fingers dig into his jeans, hard until he was bruising his skin through the clothe, his eyes shutting as he tried to regulate the breaths in and out, taking as much time to inhale and exhaled until the sight of a welcomed familiar voice broke into the mess of black sea in his mind. Her voice, gentle and a bit raspy, calling to him, grounding him with every word that escaped her lips. Slowly, his breathing came back to normal and wondered how distracted they must have been not to notice the soldier behind who had almost had a panic attack.
Bucky stopped digging his fingers into his flesh and soothing the pain with a swipe of his palms. Fixing his throat, he leaned forward a little so he could speak without worrying they wouldn’t hear him, “Wanda?” Bucky repeated the name with a horrible taste in his mouth.
Sam turned slightly on his seat and looked back at him, nodding, “She’s kind of like a wizard,” he answered. “A very scary wizard.”
“Sam,” Steve warned.
“What?” Sam rolled his eyes. “It’s true. Anyways…Clint is bringing her along.”
Bucky tightened his lips, clenched his jaw, “If she’s so scary why do you want her here?”
“Because we won’t stand a chance without her.”
He didn’t care. He actually couldn’t care less about that. The plan be damned, he didn’t want that woman anywhere near him. He rubbed his face, “Well, if-“
“Knowing Tony,” Steve interrupted him, his voice acquiring a strange tone. “He’d bring Dominique. And if Dominique is here, then we need Wanda.”
The mention of Dominique sent a calmness to his body, the reminder of her face and possibility of seeing her again after being deprived of her presence, it smoothed the anger out of him, leaving just the initial annoyance he had before the mention of Wanda. Bucky breathed in and out, gaining back some posture. He should tell them. He really should. Maybe if they knew the witch wasn’t as good as they thought, maybe they would argue against bringing her along. Maybe Steve would finally know that sometimes people never change.
“She might not even come. Dominique hates using her smoky fingers,” Sam pointed out.
“Oh, he’ll bring Dominique.” Steve insisted on himself. A barely existent smile creeping in his mouth. “And Dominique will come because she never says no to him,” he said with wrinkles in the corner of his eyes, and Bucky wondered what was going on inside his head. He remembered when he asked Dom about them. How amused she was when she responded.
Sometimes I can’t stand them. It’s like watching two different puzzles that somehow fit together.
Bucky arched a brow, falling back in the seat.
Hmm…