The Backup

Captain America being angry was one thing. Steve Rogers being angry was in its own category completely.

And right now, he was pissed off.

Bucky had been lifted up on a forklift. To the government, he was a subdued, caged wild animal, and Steve couldn't believe it. He was a person. Walks and talks like a duck, must be a duck. Well, Bucky lived, just like any other person. Steve saw the notebooks filled with his jagged memories, the chocolate bars, the sad little sleeping bag on the broken-down mattress. The little notions of life, of living, the things that made him human...The government hadn't taken the time to see that he was trying to heal.

He was healing. He was doing good. But not good enough to look at a living memory. Steve's closest friend wouldn't even look at him. Somehow, that made the whole ordeal even worse--because maybe Bucky wasn't lying. Maybe he didn't really know, maybe he did just read about Captain America in a museum.

But the technicalities didn't matter. They couldn't. The psychiatrist was working for something unknown, he had planned to use Bucky's past to fulfill his motives. Steve couldn't let it happen.

Steve was watching the skyline from a dirty warehouse window when Sam called, "Hey, Cap?" He immediately came back to attention, tearing his eyes away from a helicopter overhead to run through the wide hall. He ducked into the room with two entryways, to see Sam standing in front of a barely conscious Bucky.

Under his breath, slurred by--undoubtedly--pain from a headache, Bucky murmured, "Steve..." He slowly raised his head, his tired, pain-filled eyes falling on the two other men. He immediately let his gaze falln

"Which Bucky am I talking to?" He hated to do it, but he knew just regular ol' Steve Rogers wouldn't inspire any answers. He had to invoke Captain America, the deep voice and the straight posture.

His gaze flickered up a fraction. "Your mom's name was Sarah." He sounded as if he had just witnessed a miracle. Like he couldn't believe there was a woman named Sarah. Like she was everything good in the world, and he had just remembered her. He cracked a sad smile, the slightest bit of amusement lightening his heavy voice, "You used to wear newspapers in your shoes."

Bucky remembered his mother. That was all he could focus on. The Winter Soldier wouldn't care about her, but Bucky did. Steve immediately turned to Sam, raising his eyebrows in question. "Can't read that in a museum."

He looked like he wanted to scoff. "Just like that, we're supposed to be cool?"

Bucky demanded, though his voice was light and desperate, "What did I do?"

"Enough."

His entire composure shattered. He slumped further into the side of the vice, guilt covering his face. Steve had never seen his friend like this. So broken down by the world. The Bucky Barnes he remembered could smile through everything, bring the good out of anything. When Becca was taken away to finishing school after his father - the very source of his immigrant mother's stability - passed from alcohol poisoning and his mother was arrested, it was that he didn't have to deal with George Barnes any longer, that he'd find his sister some day. When Steve's mother died, it was that Steve could move in with him like they had wanted when they were kids. It was a habit that Steve had tried to keep up with in the twenty first century - Buck and Natasha had been together in Russia? Thank god they had each other to turn to. They had a baby? Steve was an uncle to what he knew to be the greatest kid in the world. "Oh, God, I knew this would happen. Everything Hydra put inside me is still there. All he had to do was say the goddamn words," he breathed, venom laced through his injured voice.

Bucky had been through so much. Peter and Natasha, too. All Steve wanted to do was make it better.

To be able to do that, he had to ask, "Who was he?"

"I don't know."

The answer was simple. Steve didn't want to dig into the fresh wound, laying down salt in his tracks. But he had to keep pushing. "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 shook his head before opening his eyes. He looked suddenly clear and a touch more composed. He was remembering something, forcing himself to dig back. "He wanted to know about Siberia. Where I was kept. He wanted to know exactly where."

Why would the "physiatrist" need to know about Siberia? "Why would he need to know that?"

He suddenly looked shocked and sick. Like he had just remembered the worst thing in the world. He wiped the vulnerability from his features, looking up at Steve with a weighed, grave expression. "Because I'm not the only Winter Soldier.

The words made both Sam and Steve halt in their tracks. More Winter Soldiers? Bucky had been a myth, a ghost story, but even he had been spotted. There was nothing on more of them.

"Who were they?" he interrogated, needing the information. If the psychiatrist was going after them, was going to use them against the Avengers...if they were as powerful as Bucky, or even more so, none of them stood a chance.

"Their most elite death squad," he reported, voice level. "More kills than anyone in Hydra history, besides possibly my kid. And that was before the serum."

Sam asked from behind him, "They all turn out like you?

Bucky looked past Steve's shoulder. "Worse."

"The doctor, could he control them?" Did they have trigger words, like Bucky and Peter? Altered memories, like Natasha? Heavy programming that locked their humanity up deep inside them?

"Enough."

"...Said he wanted to see an empire fall.

He confirmed Steve's suspicions. "With these guys he could do it. They speak thirty 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."

Sam shifted behind him, coming up to his shoulder and pulling back a step. Under his breath, he made a low-level, masked complaint; "This would have been a lot easier a week ago."

"If we call Tony...

He shook his head, his hard expression stomping the idea into the concrete ground beneath them. "No, he won't believe us."

Stwve agreed. It had been a dumb idea. "Even if he did..." He let himself trail off. The Accords.

His friend rolled his eyes. "Who knows if the Accords would let him help," he voiced, reading Steve's mind.

"We're on our own." When weren't they? From DC to New York to across the Atlantic, Sam was an ally when he had barely anyone else.

A smirk suddenly twisted Sam's lips. With an ounce of hope, he murmured, "Maybe not." At Steve's questioning look, he elaborated just a little bit; "I know a guy."

||||||||||

"They'll get a hit. We'll handle it," Tony was trying to convince Ross as Natasha swept back into the room, having left Sharon to her own devices.

"You don't get it, Stark. It's not yours to handle. It's clear you can't be objective. I'm putting Special Ops on this."

"What happens when the shooting starts?" Natasha questioned, walking up to them with a straight, sturdy posture. She wouldn't show how this affected her. It was a weakness that, supposedly, only the other Avengers knew. But she wouldn't put the government out of the plan. If someone wanted to know something, they'd figure it out. "What, do you kill Steve Rogers?"

"If we're provoked. Barnes would've been eliminated in Romania if it wasn't for Rogers. There are dead people who would be alive now. Feel free to check my math."

She couldn't believe this. The government couldn't just kill him because he was no longer under their control. That wasn't how the world was supposed to work - it wasn't how all of this, the Accords, was supposed to work. Steve was supposed to retire, stay out of things. She had even told him to stay out of it, after the bombing. Not run headfirst into firing guns. Bucky was perfectly capable of protecting himself.

Tony seemingly had an alike thought process as her. "All due respect, you're not going to solve this with boys in bullets, Ross. You gotta let us bring them in."

Two super soldiers against regular people? They had tried that in Bucharest. Natasha wanted to tell Ross to open his eyes and see the bigger picture - Bucky was clearly framed. Everyone would be better off letting the three of them go.

"How would that end any differently from the last time?"

"Because this time, I won't be wearing loafers and a silk shirt." She barely kept herself from rolling her eyes. She thought, Too much testosterone for my liking. Everyone thinks they know best. "Seventy two hours, guaranteed."

Clearly reluctant, Ross agreed. "Thirty six hours. Barnes. Rogers. Wilson."

He gave a small incline of his head. "Thank you, sir." As soon as Ross walked away, he immediately exhaled heavily, massaging his arm and slumping down into an armchair. "My left arm is numb, is that normal?"

Mmn. Could be a heart attack. She patted his shoulder, finding that his suit was surprisingly soft. She asked, gently, "You alright?" Despite his gigantic ego, Tony meant well.

"Always," he lied. His eye was purple and his brow was split. At least he hadn't been choked. She knew, from her time as a PA, that it would have sent him spiraling. He scoffed. "Thirty six hours, jeez."

"We're seriously understaffed," she said, nodding toward their recent drop of numbers. The Accords tore her new family apart.

"Oh, yeah. It'd be great if we had a Hulk right about now." He looked up at her, a false hope in his eyes. "Any shot?"

"No. You really think he'd be on our side?" Bruce would sooner fold his lab coat than let the government control him. Anything to keep the Hulk out of dangerous, greedy hands.

"No," he said, a little dejectedly. Natasha suddenly felt bad - Bruce had been a friend to all of them. A source of positivity in the midst of aliens and HYDRA operations. He had been a grounding for her - a good friend. She had never had many of those.

"I have an idea."

"Me too. Where's yours?"

"Downstairs." She cocked her head. "Where's yours?"