Chapter 4
In Sam’s defense, he did go to the hospital.
But his cell phone hadn’t stopped ringing for the past twenty minutes prior, buzzing nonstop in his pocket (because, yes, he did learn his lesson about silencing phones, thank you very much), and apparently fifteen different government agencies and thirty different news stations were asking for his input on what just the hell had just happened. In simple terms, there was a lot he had to tend to.
Plus, for another point in his corner, Sam did plan on staying at the hospital. It’s just… Even Rhodey was getting on his ass about making a statement, and Torres had kept relaying that message in person. Which, yes, Joaquin, he did hear you the first ten times you told him. But, no, he’s got to stay with Bucky. So tell Rhodey to politely back the hell up since Sam’s partner is passed out and injured pretty badly at the hospital.
And okay, maybe it’s possibly, partially, a little bit Sam’s fault that Rhodey and the government as a whole are kind of upset with him right now. Since clearly three days of no contact after reporting an ex-assassin missing does not bode well with the people in charge. But it’s not Bucky’s fault he was previously a weapon of mass destruction in human form. And it’s not Sam’s for dedicating all his time to finding his friend. (Potentially, though, it’s a bit his fault for not updating them at all. But he was worried. For good reason, it seems.)
So yes, a teeny bit his fault. He’s a big enough man to admit that. Therefore, it’s understandable he feels a little guilty for putting Rhodey in a shitty situation. Not the goverment, of course, since they can kindly fuck off, but Rhodey’s his friend, too. And getting on that whole ‘updating and not leaving your friend in the dark’ business kind of seems like a smart choice.
Plus, the doctors and nurses assured him that Bucky would be taken care of, that they had the best of the best working on his case. And sure, Bucky has advanced physiology that makes him less susceptible to the most commonly used drugs in a doctor’s arsenal, but who’s Sam to question the opinions of professionals?
It turns out he probably should have.
But that point is moot now. Doesn’t change the fact that Bucky apparently broke a nurse’s wrist and caused a whole heck of a scene at the hospital. Doesn’t change the fact that he still has a million people to answer to and a whole mission report to write up, on top of that.
At the very least, he doesn’t have to expound time getting his own injuries tended to, since Bucky ensured that none of the Hydra goons were alive enough to touch him, but that’s about it. Everything else in his life currently is an amalgam of chaos and pressure and guilt and worry. Great. Fantastic.
-
After receiving a call from a nurse who sounds a bit sour about the whole thing (Sam’s betting she was one of the ones to get caught in the crossfire of Bucky’s little cavalcade out of the hospital), he immediately decides to abandon the press conference he was about to take. Like, literally five minutes till show time. Sam’s a bit hard pressed to feel bad about giving such short notice, but he can’t really muster up the will to be that sad about it. There’s more important things than telling the swarm of reporters ‘We cannot disclose any details at this time.’
Rhodey, who was coming for moral support, gives him one of those ‘I’m not angry, just disappointed’ looks, with a furrowed brow, a pinched expression. And Sam, well… He understands the importance of maintaining friendly relations with the public. He really does. In fact, probably more than most, since he has to work twice as hard as any white man to garner public sympathy. But…
Going with his gut is something he’s always relied on- for better or worse. Captain America asks him for help? Yeah, maybe he should have thought about it before his life became inexplicably intertwined with the chaos of being an Avenger, but the moment didn’t call for it. The moment was just that: a moment. A second, wherein a decision was made that affected the rest of his life. But, hey, he’s Captain America now; it couldn’t have been that bad of a choice.
So he trusts his gut. Probably more than he should, but it hasn’t strayed him wrong so far. At least, in any way that matters.
Like with Bucky. The guy’s an asshole, but after everything he’s been through, Sam’s just happy he can be anything. Not that he’d admit that sentiment out loud, since pity isn’t what Bucky needs, but the man has really been through too much. Just… too much.
So when his gut tells him something isn’t right with the cyborg, he’s like ‘no duh!’ Obviously anyone can see that Bucky was pretty messed up, on account of the simple fact that it takes a lot to knock out a super soldier. Especially one that’s so stubborn (Though, aren’t they all?). But there’s something more.
Maybe he’s the only one who realizes because he’s the only one who saw Bucky in such a vulnerable and crazed state; frantic, with unkempt hair and bloodied, dirty jeans that lay loose around his waist. Maybe he’s the only one who knows Bucky well enough to recognize how the subtle shifts in his face had betrayed how perturbed he’d been, how agitation and exhaustion mixed volatilely in his body. Maybe it’s because he’s the only one who honestly cares.
Whatever it is, there’s one thing Sam knows: something’s wrong. There’s more to the story than what is obvious. And maybe he can fit the pieces together, maybe he can see the full picture- but maybe he’ll spend a bit more time looking at the individual parts just to make sure. Those who assume, and all that.
(He hopes he’s wrong. He really, really hopes that the inkling in his subconscious, whispering its awful things, will hide away. It’s too terrible to be the truth. So it’s not.)
So he goes to his base of operations. Which makes it sound cooler than the reality: A side room off an airport hanger that he and Torres had managed to allocate for the ‘Avengers’- whatever that may mean by now. There’s no point in going to the hospital; if Bucky left, he’s far gone now.
See, Sam knows a thing or two about tracking an ex-assassin. It is hard . If Bucky wants to disappear, he’ll damn well disappear. And Sam just doesn’t have the knowledge on his own to follow the non-existent clues.
If Nat were here… Well. She’s not. So it doesn’t matter anyway. Doesn’t matter that her expertise as a spy would prove invaluable to Sam’s civilian line of thinking. Instead, he’ll have to turn to the next best source of reliable information: technology.
He’s uploaded the files to his personal work computer already- hesitant to divulge the information to any authority without actually knowing what they contain- organized in a nondescript folder on his desktop. Sam sits down, heart beating faster than it should be for the quick Uber over here and the brief walk to the room.
He’s about to click on the file when his phone starts blaring, causing him to flinch. So he’s a bit on edge. Okay. That’s fine. Sam’s about to just turn the phone off, before he realizes it’s Torres calling. That actually… works out.
“Hello?”
Torres lets out a breath of relief. “Oh, good, you answered! Listen, Sam, I, uh…”
Before Joaquin can continue fumbling his words, Sam just cuts him off. “Torres. I might need a favor.”
There’s hesitation. “I’m not sure how much I can do, Sam.” Torres begins, “Um, the guys in charge are kinda upset with you right now. And me, I guess, by proxy.” He laughs nervously.
Shit, yeah, that would happen. And Torres probably won’t respond well to the directive ‘tell them to fuck right off.’ He’s too green in dealing with higher-ups, and too nice. And in fairness, Sam probably wouldn’t tell any politician to fuck off in so many words, but Torres hasn’t quite mastered the metaphorical flipping the bird quite yet.
“Listen, Joaquin, I’m going to ask you something, and you’re allowed to say no.” He tries to emphasize the last part, too aware of Torres’ blind admiration of himself and how that could lead to clouded thinking. “Do you think you can help me with something? A little… off the books?”
Sam’s not sure where Torres is, but it’s probably in a room full of officials, if his nerves are anything to go by. At least nearby. It’s not like the phone line is being tracked (although maybe it is- perhaps he’s being paranoid, but the last week has kinda proved that necessary), but he still tries to keep it vague. Vague enough for plausible deniability, at the very least, on Torres’ part, should he choose to ignore the offer.
There’s a pause where Sam imagines Torres nodding his head on the other side, before he speaks up. “Oh- uh, yeah! I just gotta…” He trails off, voice fading. Sam hears a bit of shuffling, and then; “Okay, what do you need?”
There’s a shift in the voice, and Sam’s suddenly reminded that Joaquin isn’t as naive as he seems, with his bubbly, eager to please attitude. He’s a lieutenant, and a good one, at that. You don’t rise through the ranks that young unless you know what you’re doing. It reminds Sam of himself, in a way, bar the obvious. Getting elected for the EXO-7 Falcon project was a combination of effort and pure, crazy luck. (Or not luck , perhaps, since, well. The project did have its casualties.)
“Sam?”
Since when did Sam become the cynic of the group? That’s Bucky’s job. He shakes out of his thoughts and responds.“Oh, yeah, listen. Meet me at home base.”
Torres sounds a bit too enthusiastic, now, but considering the circumstances, Sam’ll let him have this before having to metaphorically throw the cold water on him to sober him up. “You got it.”
“Thanks Torres. Really.” He adds, sincerely, before ending the call with a tap.
He texts Rhodey:
I’ll be commandeering First Lieutenant Torres for a bit. If the gov. asks, tell them it’s Avengers business.
Which- not technically a lie. Anything Sam does at this point could be considered “Avengers business.”
Before waiting for a response, he turns off his phone. If someone really needs to contact him, they can find out where he is. Plus, the buzzing is obnoxious, even on silent. Considering he’ll probably have aftershocks from all the vibrations already, he deems it worth it.
Sam turns his attention to the computer. Stares at the untitled folder with a veracity that Bucky would be proud of. And speaking of Bucky…
It’s hard to even gauge a good starting point in dealing with the shit storm of a situation he’s found himself in. Again , a bitter part of his mind reminds him, though it’s quickly extinguished when he remembers the haunting look in Bucky’s eyes upon walking into the base. Obviously the first thing to look for would be the files. That Bucky said (or vaguely murmured) to delete.
Sam’s not sure why he didn’t heed the advice- or plea, more like- as soon as words passed Bucky’s chapped lips. As much as they may bicker, Bucky knows what he’s doing. You don’t survive decades as a tortured POW and a trained assassin without getting a feel for their current line of work. So usually, it’s best to trust the soldier part of Bucky, the one who focuses resolutely on the mission. The one that can adapt and act on impulse without sacrificing ability to continue with their goal. The one that knows how to deal with scenarios Sam has yet to find himself in.
For as reliable as Bucky is, though, Sam does invoke a weird sort of balancing act in his blind following of directives. It’s not that he doesn’t trust Bucky- he certainly does - but there’s a reason the mindset instilled in him by HYDRA was so damaging. Well, a variety, really, but that’s just semantics.
Two of the major... quirks, for lack of a better word... that still persist from Bucky’s overextended stay in a Nazi torture center are completion of the mission and lack of self-preservation. They go hand-in-hand. Theoretically, they’re great things to program into your little toy soldier for maximum efficiency on the field, but Bucky is a person , so. It’s hard for Sam to justify abusing those ingrained ideologies just so whatever mission they’re on can run more smoothly.
There’s a fine line between necessity and plain ol’ stupid. Bucky tends to fall into the latter a lot of the time. Which, again, not really his fault, but it just means Sam has to look out for those instances.
So there’s a reason he didn’t delete the data. There’s a reason he doesn’t just hand over the file, too. Whatever’s on there… is probably not great. But if it helps Sam understand Bucky’s uncharacteristic violence and his sudden flightiness, it’s worth looking into.
With bated breath, Sam right clicks the file. Opens it with the encrypted Avengers database, which’ll do a few things for him: secure the line, reencrypt the files, and cross-reference the data with other information already stored in its banks.
Now, Sam’s more focused on the first two, since he’s pretty confident the content should not be accessible- at least until he knows what it is- so it comes as a surprise when some of the data gets flagged with the latter. Considering the fact that this is pretty recent evidence in conjunction with the fact that HYDRA files are stored in a different databank (Or at least, that’s how it was back in 2016), it’s more than a bit odd.
His brain almost malfunctions when he sees the attached information. It’s dated from December 2018, soon after the first battle with Thanos. Soon after half the world was blipped away. Looking at the specs, it seems there was a substantial data dump at the time. It makes Sam a bit queasy knowing he didn’t technically exist when it was uploaded.
But what really throws him off is the uploader themself. Right there, in little white print under the file is a single name:
Natasha Romanoff; Dec 2, 2018
Attached, as per prior standard, is a text file that should contain a brief description. Hesitantly, Sam clicks on the document ‘readme.txt.’
He skims the first few words, not really taking them in, before his mind catches up with the rest of his body. It hits Sam suddenly and forcefully- the knowledge that the last time he had seen Nat- would ever see Nat- was briefly before she had transferred the files onto the Avengers server. Barely months before, Sam had been able to see her face, her bleached blonde hair framing her very occasional smirks and even rarer smiles.
There’s probably a lot that could be said about his relationships while on the run. Sam could probably fill a novel with all the stupid pep talks Steve gave to their little crew, really just trying to convince himself that everything would be okay. It feels weird to be nostalgic for his time as a fugitive, when he couldn’t even risk popping over to Lousianna for a day or two to see Sarah and AJ and Cass, who were basically babies at the time. But there’s something to be missed about the friendships forged in adversity, or however the saying goes. There’s something to be missed in the way “Black Widow” went to “Natasha” and eventually settled into “Nat.”
If there’s one thing he can’t get over, it’s the fact that he woke up and she was gone. Not injured, not dying, but already dead. Sam missed out on five whole years, missed the world turning and time passing, but he also missed out on a goodbye.
Funnily, in a twisted, ironic sort of way, the whole world has a sense of what Steve and Bucky went through. Waking up in an unfamiliar world, where families are changed and loved ones are possibly gone. The two men out of time just had a different length of it, is all. Seventy years, five- there’s still loss. The substantiality of it probably depends on who lost it with you, or who was simply lost.
Bucky’s probably had the most experience in that field, having been woken up many times to face a new age throughout his capture. Sam’s not sure if Bucky was even bothered by the prospect of a time skip, since he’s an old pro. Five years is negligible in the face of seventy, in that aspect. He figures it’s not his place to ask.
Speaking of the super soldier… Sam focuses his attention back on the text document. It’s not the time to get distracted. Even when he’s running on fumes and desperately craving the kick of caffeine. It’s still disconcerting reading the words of his late friend, but that’s something he can think about later. After… whatever this is. After he finds Bucky. He’ll always miss Nat, but the world goes on. That’s the lesson drilled into his head, if anything, from his five years of nonexistence.
There’s a short blurb, vague and imposing at the top of the page. What it lacks in length, however, it makes up in the sheer apprehension it causes Sam.
Info from Dreykov’s computer regarding the chemical subjugation used in the Red Room. I’ve encrypted the files outside of the database in the likely chance that the government tries to look through my shit.
If we somehow manage to get everyone back, you probably shouldn’t let Barnes read this.
Which is decidedly very ominous. It does give more insight into why this was flagged with the new data, but not in a good way. Any mixing between HYDRA and the Red Room is bound to be volatile.
Exiting out of the text file, Sam briefly skims over the attached data. He takes a breath in, closing his eyes for a moment, before clicking on another file that’s flagged as relevant labeled ‘sources.’ He’s immediately greeted by a PDF with several different documents, including an introductory page with an abstract, and for a moment Sam flashes back to high school chemistry. Except the words are a lot more technical than anything his tenth grade pubescent self would’ve been using.
Trying to find a version in comprehensible English, Sam scrolls down further and stumbles across a scanned document. The handwriting is shaky, but legible, and covers only about the very top of the paper. It’s also in Russian. But judging by the giant diagram of a brain-sectioned and labeled- below the title, he probably wouldn’t understand it anyway. Sam’s not an idiot, of course, but he’s not a neurosurgeon either.
The next page of the PDF is something typed- thankfully, in English- and mostly understandable for someone who hasn’t spent four years in med school. That doesn’t mean it’s an easy read.
Regarding research from S.H.I.E.L.D.* base 09; North Institute- Ohio:
After the infiltration and acquisition of data from base 09, I have been able to isolate files regarding the Winter Soldier Project (ref. case 32). Because of the extensive research in the dissection and deconstruction of the human brain, I was able to obtain the first and only cellular blueprint of the basal ganglia.
Because of the research on the sole subject of the Winter Soldier Project (data suggests admission of multiple subjects is currently in the works, but with similar primitive methods), I believe I will have the key to unlocking free will. Formulation and testing will begin soon.
Update: Testing is in progress. The Widows are responding well. The blueprint of the subject’s mind proved imperative to devising a perfect agent for chemical subjugation. In short, the Red Room will now be able to ensure no Widows defect. It is shaping up to be the most effective form of ‘mind control’ the world has seen thus far.
Melina Vostokoff
1992
*The North Institute serves as a front for S.H.I.E.L.D. At this time, S.H.I.E.L.D. and HYDRA remain synonymous.
(Translated)
Now, Sam’s heard a bit about Nat’s most recent encounter with the Red Room. From Nat herself, obviously, since it’s not like any of the other Widows were champing at the bit to tell Captain America and his lackeys about the super secret organization that controlled them since they were babies. And Nat isn’t exactly the most open person, so it’s not like Sam got a lot.
What he does know lines up pretty well with the information in the document. Which isn’t hard, since again, he knew so little, but Nat definitely let the words ‘mind control’ slip once or twice. At the time, it hadn’t seemed imperative, since Nat reported freeing most of the Widows. That was that. Until it wasn’t, he guesses.
The first thought he has is that it’s probably not good that HYDRA had its hands on data relating to the Red Room’s ‘chemical subjugation,’ or whatever they called it. Nothing positive can come from an evil organization getting the tools to be more powerful.
The next thought hits Sam hard: he completely agrees with Nat’s assessment that Bucky should not see this.
Sam’s betting that hearing about a bunch of young girls being mind controlled isn’t the most pleasant thing for a former brainwashed assassin to hear. Even less so when- hell . When you’re the one to provide the blueprint to enable it.
He’s read some of the Winter Soldier files, of course, having searched for the man extensively. Sam knows what HYDRA is capable of, in the broadest aspects. But it still makes him a bit nauseous having to attribute the “ dissection and deconstruction of the human brain ” to a name and face, and having it be Bucky Barnes. Knowing that the torture Bucky went through not only destroyed families and victim’s lives in the most obvious and direct way- by the Winter Soldier’s own hands- but it also contributed to the destruction of many, many young girls’ psyches and free will, well. That’s a bit much.
Okay. Okay . Sam needs to get his head together. Ruminating about the horrible things that happen to innocent people is going to get him nowhere. This whole Dreykov dump is not a rabbit hole he needs to go down right now. Maybe later, but not now.
Finding Bucky is time sensitive, considering the man is definitely still injured and definitely should not be out alone. Not because he can’t take care of himself, but well… Yeah, no. Because Sam can’t trust him to take care of himself. Any other situation, sure, fuck off to who knows where with no contact- Bucky’s done it before. But he just can’t get that look out of his mind; torn jeans, dirty clothes, bloodied face, hollow eyes. Too wrong to ignore. Too disconcerting to simply let it be.
So he exits out of Nat’s upload. Goes back to face the single, light gray folder, ready to be dissected. Sam opens it.
Several files appear. Regretting the decision as he makes it, Sam goes for the one labeled ‘camfootage.’ A line of videos appear, their imperceptible thumbnail stills a simple veneer for whatever lies inside.
With his heart beating heavily through his fingertips, Sam double clicks the first video.