Friendly Fire
"Didn't think it'd really be you," said the voice in the darkness, grim and straight to the point.
Bucky groaned inwardly, hands raised. A red dot hovered over his chest. He knew that if the voice in the darkness wanted to kill him, he'd be dead already. It was a sign of mercy that the voice chose to speak instead.
"Barton," Bucky said heavily.
"Don't move," Clint Barton replied, stony, from his perch in the bombed out building.
"Wouldn't dream of it," Bucky answered.
"Are you smuggling vibranium?" Clint asked.
Bucky glanced around the building. It was an old building and the rubble surrounding them had been there for a long time. The building was dusty with cobwebs and overgrown weeds that had reclaimed their hold over the concrete. Now that his eyes had adjusted to the dark, he could just make out the shape of the man code named Hawkeye, leaning against a wall several feet up, a rifle in his hands. Bucky couldn't see Clint's face in the dark, but he could see the red laser attached to the rifle, cutting through dust and grime, settling over his heart.
"It's not me, Clint," Bucky replied. "Yeah?" Barton retorted, "Then tell me why every war-mongering asshole in the Middle East says the Winter Soldier is back in action?"
"I don't know," Bucky shrugged. He wasn't close to Clint Barton, but sources said Hawkeye was the best damn sharpshooter in the world, and with that precision came a laser-focused mind that was not to be trifled with. "I'm no longer the Winter Soldier. I'm James Bucky Barnes and I'm not here to start a war."
"You have no business here," Clint said, icy, "You've never even been to the Middle East. I read your HYDRA files. Besides, you're supposed to be retired."
"So are you," Bucky shot back.
"Well, when I heard the Winter Soldier resurfaced here, I just had to take a look. So, tell me."
Bucky huffed and glanced around the building one more time and assured himself that if Barton was comfortable enough to wait to shoot him here, the place must be secure. Taking a deep breath, he started, "King T'Challa passed a couple of days ago. I went back to Wakanda to attend the memorial. I met a friend who told me someone's smuggling vibranium to the Golan Heights for war purposes. I offered to help since Wakanda is in mourning. I arrived in Qatar two days ago and tracked down the fence who'd gotten his hands on the vibranium. It was too late, he told me the vibranium had arrived in Damascus and that the Winter Soldier would pick it up. I got on the first flight out to Damascus. Then I got a cryptic message to come here, and now you're pointing a gun at me. Was the message from you, Clint?"
"I'm the one asking the questions, Barnes," Clint said evenly. "Your Wakandan friend got a name?"
"It's not anyone you'd know," Bucky replied, annoyed at Clint's arrogance. "Did you send me the message to meet you here?"
"Why would you get tangled up in Wakanda's business?" Clint pressed. "Bored of sitting on your hands? Wanna be a spy again? They tryin' to flip you to their side?"
"Hey," Bucky snapped, "Wakanda got me out of a bad place. You'd understand wanting to pay your debts, right?"
Bucky glowered at the shadowed figure. And though he could not see if Hawkeye glared back at him, he did notice the red light of the laser being switched off. Then the shadow picked up the rifle and backed away. He heard boots against cement steps and Clint Barton reappeared in a doorway, sniper rifle slung across his back.
"Paying off debts, huh?" Clint said, stepping into the light. His sandy blonde hair gleamed like the sun and his blue irises like pools of mid-day skies.
"Don't you have some you'd like to pay off?" Bucky retorted.
"Every damn day."
Bucky nodded a curt nod and glanced away. After the shitstorm with Thanos, Sam had told him that the Black Widow was gone. He didn't remember her very well. He remembered bits and pieces, of HYDRA training facilities, of the Red Room, of girls trained as weapons. Maybe he trained her, but he couldn't be certain, and he had no desire to dig that deeply into nightmares to resurrect memories of someone who was no longer here. Dr. Raynor said it was okay. He didn't need to go there if he didn't want to. But now, seeing the sorrow buried in Clint Barton's eyes, he wanted to know if he knew Natasha Romanoff in a past life.
"Where's the bow and arrow?" Bucky asked quietly.
Clint shrugged, "I'm retired. I'm not gonna stick arrows in places I shouldn't be in."
"So now that you know I'm not the Winter Soldier, are you going to leave me alone?"
Clint studied Bucky with arms crossed over his chest. "I'd like to find out who the new Winter Soldier is."
Bucky knew that meant Barton wanted to keep his eyes on him. Who could blame the marksman? Bucky Barnes was the embodiment of the Winter Soldier, and even if he no longer carried the name, he retained all the abilities that made the legend so terrifying. There was no way to play out of this, so Bucky scoffed, "Hell, me too. Whichever idiot decided to take that name is gonna get butchered by HYDRA."
"I kind of want that to happen," Clint hummed, raking a hand through his hair, a goofy grin on his face, "That's a bad thing, right?"
/
An hour later, Bucky found himself in Clint's room at a nearby hotel. The room was littered with spy devices, weapons, and empty cartons of take-out food. Clint sat himself in a chair and flipped open a laptop. Bucky wandered around the room, picking up knives and guns and testing their weight.
"You made it through the metal detectors with all this?" Bucky asked, after having gone through every weapon in the arsenal.
"I parachuted into this country and skipped the queue at immigration," Clint snarked, rolling his eyes.
Bucky glared.
"I took out some bad guys," Clint explained flippantly, eyes glued to the laptop. "Anyway, what's your plan? When's the hand-off with the Winter Soldier happening?"
"Don't know," Bucky replied. "Fence didn't give a name, time or place."
"And you don't know where the vibranium is either?"
Bucky shrugged.
"Let me get this straight," Clint said, passing a hand over his eyes briefly. "You, James Bucky Barnes, the deadliest Soviet-trained spy and assassin in the history of humankind, jumped on a plane bound for Damascus, with no vibranium, and no idea who the buyer is or when the vibranium is being sold to the buyer. Did I get that right?"
"Well, when you put it that way-" Bucky trailed off, distracting himself instead by checking out the small refrigerator in the room.
"Good God, you're an idiot, Barnes," Clint sighed.
"You do better then," Bucky said grumpily.
"I actually am, for the first time in my life," Clint replied. He passed the laptop to Bucky.
Clint had pulled up maps and transportation schedules, rap sheets and surveillance photos, and a few questionable locations which may or may not house illegal activities.
"What's this?" Bucky said.
"Info on the people who want the vibranium."
"How'd you get it?"
"Barnes, I'm a retired SHIELD agent," Clint said tiredly, getting up to make himself instant coffee, which was the only coffee available in the hotel and definitely not caffeinated enough for him. "I've got eyes and ears everywhere."
Bucky eyed him carefully, "You stole this, didn't you? From the same people you stole all these weapons and gear from?"
Clint ripped open a coffee packet forcefully. Coffee powder shot into his nose and he exploded into a coughing fit.
Bucky rolled his eyes and studied the information. It was an independent crew led by the Winter Soldier that would make its way into Golan Heights with the vibranium. A machine had been specially built to melt the vibranium into a liquid state, which would then be used to craft anti-aircraft grenades, large calibre bullets and even rockets.
"They're gonna start a war with this much vibranium," Bucky said quietly.
"Hey, did you know that you could inhale water through one nostril and shoot it out from the other?" Clint called from the bathroom.
"What is wrong with you, Barton?" Bucky yelled, throwing his hands up. "We have a crisis on our hands-"
"You have a crisis," Clint said pointedly, wiping his wet hands on his jeans as he re-emerged.
Bucky's mouth widened into an "o" and his brows turned down.
"And," Clint continued, unperturbed, holding up a finger, "I didn't volunteer to keep vibranium away from the bad guys."
If looks could kill, Clint Barton would be declared dead on arrival. Unfortunately for Bucky Barnes, the annoying little Barton shit simply slurped his coffee quickly, and then yelled at the coffee for being too hot. Bucky mentally turned off his ears and the cogs in his mind started turning.
"So," Clint interrupted when he was finally caffeinated, "what's the plan?"
/
The night was colder than expected when Bucky and Clint arrived close to the rendezvous point where they’d planned to meet with the Winter Soldier. They'd stolen an all-terrain jeep as their getaway-slash-pursuit vehicle if things went wrong. Bucky had produced Wakandan climbing gear and the spies discreetly scaled walls to the top of a building that had a flat roof and overlooked the area. They lay on their bellies, Bucky with a military-grade scope to his eye, Clint with the same sniper rifle he'd used on Bucky.
"Comms check," Bucky said.
"Loud and clear, Wakanda 1," Clint replied.
"You are not calling me Wakanda 1," Bucky glowered.
"Why not? I can't call you the Winter Soldier when there's another Winter Soldier on the field."
"Can you not?"
"Fine," Clint snapped, "What fancy schmancy codename would you like, your highness?"
Bucky paused, squinting through the scope as a jeep pulled up near the edges of the rendezvous point. "White Wolf. I've got two jeeps and six armed men. Heavily armed."
"I got 'em," Clint confirmed, peering through his sniper scope and adjusting his shooting position. “Bet you the biggest burliest dude is the Winter Soldier.”
Bucky stashed the scope into a bag and hurriedly crawled his way to the side of the building they'd come up from. He let himself over the edge, hands on the rope and feet drawn apart, pushing against the wall. "Don't kill them, Clint. I just want to talk."
"Not my first time, Wolf," Clint grumbled with annoyance.
Bucky scaled down the wall silently, his vibranium arm bearing the friction burn of the rope. He quietly dodged from shadow to shadow, letting the engine of the jeeps drown out his approach. He could hear voices, the men speaking to each other. The steady putter of the jeeps told him they'd stopped moving and were probably waiting for something to happen. Bucky knelt down and ran his fingers lightly on the ground until he found a small stone. He peeped out of the wall that stood between him and the jeeps. The men were speaking a language he didn't understand, and seemed to be laughing.
Bucky lobbed the stone over their heads, where it sailed into a clump of scraggly bushes. The men jumped out of the jeeps, guns drawn, pointing towards the clump of bushes. Bucky watched and waited, like a good predator does, for one stray, weak prey.
"They're still too close together," Hawkeye observed. "We need to split them up."
"You'll blow your cover," Bucky whispered.
"Just because you're a bionic killing machine, it doesn't mean you can take on six dudes with AKs. Let me do my job."
Bucky cursed under his breath. He wasn't used to this. He'd never partnered with Barton on high-stakes missions like this. They'd worked in larger teams, with more members and usually in different roles that didn't force them to rely on each other this much. On those missions, Barton had always been the clown of the group, making offhand remarks while he watched them all from his perch. Sometimes he got into the thick of battle when they needed backup. But nothing like this. Not when Bucky had to leave the mission in someone else's hands.
A whistling sound caught the group's attention, and half the group swerved to the left.
"Distraction in place. Knock yourself out," Hawkeye said.
Bucky moved like a shark underwater. He surfaced behind the closest man and hit him so hard with his vibranium arm, the man dropped like stone. Bucky caught him and lowered him quietly on the ground, without giving away his position. He crept up behind the big, burly guy, almost twice his width, who Barton had casually guessed was the Winter Soldier.
BOOM!
The burly man turned and Bucky cursed, slamming his metal fingers into the man's throat. The man staggered backwards.
"Fuck, Hawk!" Bucky cursed. "Was that an explosion?"
From the corner of his eye, Bucky saw the glint of the barrel of a gun pointed at him. He flinched as a crack ripped through the night. The goon holding the gun several feet away keeled over.
"Oops," came the voice through the comms and Bucky swore Barton was grinning, "You do your thing. I gotta clean up a mess."
The burly man recovered and charged at Bucky with a yell. Bucky side-stepped him, wrapped his arm under the man's elbow, spun him, and slammed a fist into the man's face. The burly man went down, spitting blood and curses that Bucky couldn't make out.
"Are you the Winter Soldier?" Bucky asked, menacingly, locking eyes with the man.
"Ayreh feek," the man hissed.
"Why do you people keep calling me that?" Bucky wondered.
"Fuck you Americans," the man snarled.
"So that's what it meant." Bucky knelt over the man and pushed a knee into the man's sternum, pinning him down. He casually slipped the pistol out of the man's hip holster, cocked the gun and pointed it between the man's eyes. "Are you the Winter Soldier?"
"Maybe."
"HYDRA is looking for him."
"What is HYDRA-"
"HYDRA made the Winter Soldier," Bucky said coldly. "They gave him a metal arm. They brainwashed him and tortured him for seventy years until he couldn't remember his own name. Then they sent him out to kill anyone that got in HYDRA's way."
Bucky flexed his vibranium fingers in the man's face. The man's eyes widened.
"I suggest you leave the Winter Soldier behind," Bucky continued. "Man like you, walking around, telling everyone that you're the Winter Soldier? In a place of conflict like this? You're gonna pop up on HYDRA's radar. And they're going to come for you. Do you really want to be the next Winter Soldier? I don't think you'll last 10 minutes in their chair."
"What do you want?" the burly man croaked.
"Vibranium."
"Fariq is bringing the vibranium."
"When and where are you meeting Fariq?"
"Tomorrow, noon. At the Umayyad Mosque."
"All clear, Wolf," Hawkeye said over the comms. "Status?"
"Clear," Bucky replied.
He released the burly man and fired a round into the ground near the man's ear. "Don't call yourself the Winter Soldier. You'll get yourself killed."
When Bucky regrouped with Hawkeye, the entourage that had walked into a bomb trap were disarmed and groaning into the dust. Bucky shot out the tyres of their jeeps. Hawkeye had collected a new batch of guns and weapons he'd confiscated from the group. He jumped into the driver seat and gestured for Bucky to get in. As they pulled away, Bucky couldn't resist asking, "Did you try to blow them up?"
"Oh come on," Clint replied, "What do you take me for? The grenade wasn't anywhere close to them. I just had to draw them off. You’re welcome by the way."
Bucky grunted.