Leviathan

Chapter Five: Project Insight

“So you knew it was HYDRA all along?” Steve clarified as they zoomed through the air in a plane that reminded Steve more of a spaceship. He had heard a bit about Wakanda in his Modern Design classes, but he had never expected this level of technology. He had also assumed Princess was another of Stark’s nicknames, and boy was he wrong.

“Mhm, yep, just didn’t want to freak you out,” Tony confirmed. He was sprawled across the seat with his eyes closed in a complete opposite to Bucky who was sitting impossibly straight, eyes in a soft focus like he was watching each and every one of them. “They got their hands on some Wakandan technology, so we’ve been working to track down exactly what and where. Everything seems centralized to this location in Siberia- that’s why you packed the heavy coat. They can’t travel as fast as we can just yet, so it’s possible- assuming they take their prisoners to HQ- that we’ll be in time to save your friend.”

“We’ll save him,” Sam spoke up next to Steve. “We have to.”

Steve squeezed Sam’s knee in encouragement. He looked rougher than Steve had felt when his own egg had been scrambled. In fact, Sam looked like his entire person had been steamrolled by spikes.

In all, the plane trip only took about an hour and if Steve hadn’t realized just how advanced Shuri’s country was before, the fact that they’d travelled halfway around the world in such a short span of time without much more force than a car accelerating definitely nailed it home. Even with his heaviest coat, gloves, and a scarf, he was fucking freezing the moment the plane opened to let them out.

Sam stuck close to Steve and Stark put on the ridiculous metal suit that made him look like a robot. He’d shown it to Steve and Bucky back at the lab, extremely proud of himself, and maybe just a little trying to distract Steve from his worry over Sam. The suit’s test run began immediately as they were surrounded by a group of enemy combatants.

“Everyone down,” Stark said casually, and as soon as they all sank down, he fired a volley of energy blasts in a circle, only having to fire off extra rounds at the last couple who’d gotten enough warning to dodge the blasts. Another popped up with a gun, and Shuri took him out with one blast from what Steve could only think of as “wrist cannons.”

Suddenly, Stark’s suit started smoking and Shuri rolled her eyes. “I told you not to use tungsten. Give me that.”

She was digging around in the panels of Stark’s arms and Steve couldn’t help but smirk. “You three go on your rescue mission. We will deal with the stolen technology, as discussed.”

Bucky nodded shortly and marched toward the building without checking to make sure Steve and Sam were following. Steve knew on some level he shouldn’t be along for this mission but when anyone else brought that up they figured out pretty quickly they weren’t going to stop him.. Steve was armed with a wicked knife and a baseball bat (which might end up doubling as a cane later, but the adrenaline was doing a good job keeping him upright for now), Sam had an actual gun, and Steve was pretty sure it would take a paragraph to describe everything Bucky was carrying.

It turned out he and Sam were pretty superfluous anyway. Bucky fought like a machine. He fought like someone so ridiculously overpowered, a game dev wouldn’t even give his skills to an endgame boss. At some point, Steve realized his mouth was open and shut it.

They reached their destination without too much trouble (and Steve wasn’t going to think about whether or not the people on the floor were unconscious or dead because they were Nazis and murderers and probably none of them wanted to leave like Bucky did). It was a morgue, and there was only one person (not body, please not body) laid out on the tables. On a stool beside Riley’s still form, a redhead perched casually like she’d been expecting them.

“Soldier,” she greeted Bucky, ignoring Sam and Steve entirely.

He hesitated a little at the sight of her, and Steve knew she’d been the one in the game trying to talk him out of helping Steve and his band of misfits. He could sense the history between them, even if he wasn’t sure what it was. “We can do this,” Bucky said quietly, and Steve wasn’t sure if he was telling her or them. “They shut down Leviathan, they-”

“Look, Leviathan was just a tool,” the redhead interrupted. “You know there’s no stopping this ride, soldier. Please don’t make me put you down. Please.”

Steve stepped forward, in front of Bucky, holding his bat low, but poised for attack all the same. “The only ones getting put down today are HYDRA,” he informed her.

Her lips quirked just a little, and Steve couldn’t tell if she was laughing at him or not. “Who’s your friend, soldier?”

“No one,” Bucky grumbled, shoving Steve behind him.

“Steve Rogers, ma’am,” Steve said loudly and pushed his way to the front again. “Don’t let my size fool you. We can take you down here just like we did in Leviathan. But I get the feeling you and Bucky here are friends, so I’m hoping it won’t come to that.”

“Bucky-?” she echoed, and a little of the calm she exuded keyed up. “Where did you-? Soldier?”

Except Bucky wasn’t looking too hot. He had that everything’s too loud and I can’t focus look on his face again, so Steve kept talking. “Look, I can tell you care about him. The question is, do you care about him more than HYDRA?”

She didn’t react for a moment before letting out a sigh. “I’m going to regret this.”

Steve smiled a little. “No, you won’t.”

“You’re right,” she agreed. “Can’t feel regret when you’re dead.”

Steve shook his head in response, but he was mostly focused on Riley now. Hesitantly, he crossed to check for a pulse. She rolled her eyes. “He’s fine, just knocked out. For now anyway.”

Steve didn’t ask what she meant by that. She didn’t explain and had instead crossed to Bucky. She cupped his face like a lover might and Steve felt his heart break into at least fifty pieces as she kissed him gently. He leaned into her touch, and it became pretty clear exactly what kind of history these two had. She said something to him too quiet for Steve to hear before patting his face gently and going after something in the drawers across the room. She returned with a gun and a syringe, which Steve chose not to be alarmed by since she wasn’t pointing it at anyone.

Sam had Riley’s face in his hands, assuring him everything was going to be okay. It was a lot like the redhead and Bucky, except for the lack of kissing. Steve really shouldn’t be bothered. He shouldn’t feel a hole in his chest right now because Sam and Riley were his friends too, and what better day could he have than one where he literally saved the world from a secret Nazi organization that could control minds? Still, he couldn’t help but feel like the odd man out.

The injection the redhead gave Riley took less than a minute to work its magic. Sam laughed a little as the blond opened his eyes, and then they were hugging. Steve smiled too, because he’d been convinced at more than one point that they might never get to this point.

“Okay, reunion later, boys,” the redhead interrupted by literally shoving the gun between them and laying the flat side against Riley’s chest. “Gun for you. Don’t point it at anything until you feel sober.”

Riley nodded, his eyes still a little glazed. Steve reached out to help Sam get him to his feet. Riley held the gun in one hand and used the other to lean on Sam. Steve squeezed his arm before heading up to the front with Bucky and the redhead. He knew they didn’t need him, but it wasn’t like he and his baseball bat were going to hurt their chances.

Everything was going fine until they hit a hall with just enough people that one managed to hit an alarm button. Steve saw every camera in the hall move and a voice came on the loud speaker, speaking in slow, deliberate Russian. The redhead stepped in front of Bucky and pressed her hands over his ears, maintaining eye contact with him. The PA stopped. “Corridor 3A requires attention,” the voice said- in English now.

“Steve Rogers,” the redhead looked around Bucky and met his eyes, “in about ten seconds this hall is going to be flooded with HYDRA agents and we’re all going to have to fight. One of us has to get to the office one floor down and stop the guy making the announcement, okay? Do you understand?”

Steve had approximately one million questions, but he understood the what. The why could wait. “Understood,” he confirmed.”

“Good,” she said. “When you come out of the stairwell over there, you go left. It’s at the end of the hall. You two? Do you understand?”

“10-4, yes, ma’am,” Sam replied. Riley saluted unsteadily.

“This is going to go really well,” she muttered in a voice that indicated she felt the opposite. She met Bucky’s gaze again, concern written all over her face. The doors banged open almost in unison and, true to the redhead’s word, there was an almost literal tidal wave of bad guys. She removed her hands. “We’re going to stop him, soldier.”

She whirled into battle, and Steve started swinging. Sam and Riley had guns in hand, but weren’t firing just yet. Riley still didn’t look quite himself, and Sam was busy keeping him upright. They trailed behind Steve toward the stairs and the voice came back on the loudspeaker with its practiced Russian.

“Nat!” Bucky yelled, sounding distressed.

Steve didn’t know what was happening, but he knew it was bad to make Bucky sound like that. He swung harder and faster. It was going about as well for his lungs as it was going for the Nazis unfortunate enough to be in the path of his swing. Steve was small, but he knew how to swing a bat. Hard.

The three of them managed to make a sizeable dent in the number of attackers (and Steve decided the overwhelming attack force was good because it meant there’d be less going after Stark and Shuri) and finally made it to the stairwell. Bucky was fighting recklessly, like a caged animal, knocking agents over the railings and Steve was running so fast after him that he almost fell down the stairs. He reached the bottom just in time to hear the list end with a question: “Soldat?”

Bucky was standing perfectly still and calmly answered, but Steve didn’t speak Russian, so he only knew it was nothing good. Then, the voice came on again. “Kill the Americans.”

Steve didn’t even have time to react before Bucky charged at him and knocked him into the stairs. He felt and heard something crack, but couldn’t even scream because his lungs had had enough of his shit and had gone into a full-blown asthma attack. He tried to gasp in air, mouth gaping like a fish out of water as his body refused to allow him oxygen. Bucky hit him again, slamming his head back into the steps hard enough that Steve blacked out so long Bucky reached the landing half a flight of stairs up. Steve fished for his inhaler, finally getting a grip on it as Bucky disappeared, probably to go after Sam and Riley.

Steve let out some cross between a moan and a sob as he forced his body to stand. There was a pain in his back just south of his shoulder blade. He was pretty sure it was a rib broken by the concrete step that had jabbed him when Bucky threw him down. Steve tensed, trying to keep his spine rigid so it would move and distract him as little as possible. Bucky had yelled for Nat, so that was probably the redhead’s name. She’d given Steve a mission, and he was pretty sure she knew what she was talking about. There were only two agents in this hall, and they made the mistake of assuming that, because Steve was small and injured, they didn’t both need to attack him at once.

Swinging the bat made him literally sob, and he had to lean against the wall for a moment before he could keep moving. “Soldat,” the intercom buzzed, and the voice sounded afraid. Steve looked up at the nearest camera and smiled wickedly. “Eliminate the threat one floor down.”

Steve pushed himself harder, making it to the office and finding it locked. He smashed the bat through the glass of the window just as the stairwell flew open. The man in the office wasn’t much taller than Steve, though his face was rounder and he wore small, round glasses. It was clear he wasn’t armed, and Steve reached through the broken window to open the door from the opposite side. “Soldat!” the man panicked into the PA and Steve rushed him, determined to at least knock him out before Bucky could prevent it. He succeeded, just barely. No sooner had the man crumpled to the floor than Steve felt the inside of Bucky’s elbow around his throat, lifting him bodily from the floor. Steve struggled weakly before remembering his knife.

I’m so sorry, pal, he thought desperately as he jammed it into the soldier’s hip. Bucky staggered, but didn’t let go. Steve was completely unaware of dropping his knife, but he heard it clatter to the floor all the same. His vision was tunneling and everything sounded far away.

He was vaguely aware of the redhead arriving and engaging Bucky at least enough to get him to drop Steve to the floor. He coughed and choked and did his best to sit up, but mostly he just managed to roll onto the side without the (probably) broken rib. The redhead had Bucky pinned by the throat, looking powerful and violent. Bucky struggled, but she knew exactly what she was doing and he couldn’t get free. His struggling finally stopped and she released him as he coughed and gasped loudly. “Nat, Nat,” he cried. Steve couldn’t make out much of what he was saying, but he did manage to catch, “He was good and I killed him, he was so good, Nat, he…”

The rest was too quiet for him to hear, and Steve was starting to feel cold as his heart rate went down with his adrenaline levels.

Steve was vaguely aware of being moved, of an argument. He heard Shuri’s voice saying something insistent about my lab this time. Then he let unconsciousness win.

~*~

When he woke up, Sam was asleep in a chair, and Steve was asleep in… he hesitated to call it a bed. The room was massive, and Steve decided this was Wakanda. He started to sit up and winced only to realize nothing hurt.

In fact, nothing hurt. Steve hadn’t felt this good… ever.

“Oh, good. You are awake,” Shuri announced as she walked over. Sam was startled halfway out of his chair, but he smiled when he saw Steve. Shuri folded her arms. “How do you feel?”

Sam touched Steve’s hand and said, “I’m gonna get Riley. Be right back.”

Steve looked at her and wondered if she was a doctor, too. “Healthy,” he remarked, awe in his voice.

“Good. You should be able to walk now.”

Steve got out of the bed and didn’t spare a thought on the fact that he’d been changed into hospital clothes. It wasn’t the first time, and he had no self-consciousness at this point in his life. He frowned a little. He felt taller.

“Was your spine always that crooked?” she asked knowingly.

Steve gave her an open-mouthed look. “Did you… fix my scoliosis?”

She actually laughed at him. “You mean to tell me you and your doctors knew and just left it like that?”

“No, I wore a brace for a long time…”

“A brace!” she exclaimed as if he’d told her they’d tried to straighten him out with leeches. “Asthma, too! So primitive.”

Sam returned with Riley at that point and she shook her head again. “You are fine. Strain yourself if you feel like it.”

She left then and Steve only stared at his friends, not entirely sure what had just happened. “Uh.”

Both of them hugged him at once and he hugged back awkwardly. They didn’t exchange any words, and Steve was pretty sure they didn’t need to. Each of them already knew what the others had thought, and how glad they all were to be alive.

Steve was the one who finally broke the silence. “Did we actually save the world from Nazis?”

The hug dissolved into laughter. “Yeah, bud,” Riley nodded. “I’m pretty sure that’s what happened yesterday.”

They walked him back to the plane where Stark was waiting, fiddling with something on his robot-suit. Steve glanced around. “What happened to Bucky? And the redhead?”

“Natasha?” Sam clarified, and Steve nodded. That was probably what Nat was short for. “Yeah, apparently he’s a little more complicated than ‘a few misplaced bones.’ The doctors here were poking around in his head- not literally, don’t puke on my shoes, Steve, stop- They were screwing around with him all night. Whatever HYDRA did to us? Nothing compared to the knots they tied his brain into.”

“We’re not leaving without seeing them, are we?” Steve asked.

~*~

It turned out Bucky woke up around the same time as Steve. Natasha saw the three of them enter and immediately commandeered Sam and Riley. He was a little nervous about why, but Bucky was sitting on the edge of the bed with a look like a kicked puppy that somehow resulted in Steve crossing the room to hug that face into his chest until it stopped looking that way.

Bucky hugged him back for a long moment before murmuring, “I’m sorry.”

Steve laughed a little. He couldn’t help it. “For what?”

“I almost killed you.”

Steve shrugged, still hugging him. “That wasn’t you.”

“Whether I wanted to or not… I did it.”

Steve sighed and pulled away so that he could sit and be closer to Bucky’s level. “Look, Buck, I know. But you didn’t want to. If you’d been in control… And you are now, right? The doctors here, they got it all out of your head. You don’t have to worry about HYDRA ever again, right pal?”

Bucky gave him a sad smile. “Right.”

“So why do you still look like someone ruined your day?”

Bucky shrugged and shook his head.

“Oh, come on,” Steve pressed. “You saved the world, saved your friends-”

“Friends?” Bucky echoed as Steve rambled on, “Got your girlfriend back- Yeah, God, Buck. We’re your friends. You don’t go through something like that and never talk to each other again.”

Bucky was frowning again. Steve rolled his eyes. “It’s not a difficult concept, Buck. You keep telling me I’m good- well, you are too. You deserve this. All of it. No matter what that crap in your head made you do before.”

“All of it?” he echoed, like Steve was speaking a foreign language. One Bucky didn’t understand.

“Yeah, Buck. Friends, freedom, health, love, all of it.” Steve cursed his voice for quivering on that last item, but maybe Bucky wouldn’t-

“Love.” Of course he noticed.

Steve laughed nervously, trying to ignore the rattle of what used to be his heart and was now a ridiculous traitor for feeling feelings that made no sense. “Yeah. Of course. The way Natasha looks at you…”

Bucky let out a sad chuckle. “Steve, it’s not like that.”

“So you just kiss people for fun?”

Bucky gave him a sharp look. “I didn’t kiss you for fun.”

Oh, good. There were those heart shards grinding together, getting sharper. “So why then?”

“Because you’re good.”

Steve scoffed in disbelief. “So, what, it’s like a pat on the head for you or-”

“Because you’re good and I think you’re wonderful and I want to keep you safe.”

“I can keep myself plenty safe, pal.”

“I know.”

Steve didn’t know what he was so angry about. “I’m not some charity case.”

“I know.”

“Then why-?”

Bucky grabbed Steve’s hand in his right. “You’re good,” he repeated again, desperation in his eyes that made Steve realize he was saying something more with those words, even if Steve wasn’t getting it. “I want you to stay in the world. I- I don’t want you to go.”

“Pretty sure I’m not going anywhere after the doctoring I just got,” Steve replied, but he was quiet now. He squeezed Bucky’s hand. “You mean… with you?”

Bucky nodded. He had that kicked puppy look again, and this time Steve braced himself to skip the hug and just kissed him. Bucky made a small noise in the back of his throat, but Steve was pretty sure the fact that he was pulling Steve closer meant that he’d figured out what the brunet was asking for. They broke apart after a minute and just shared each other’s oxygen. “I’m not going anywhere, pal,” Steve promised. “Just say the word.”

Bucky hugged him close. “Please stay.”

“To the end of the line, pal.”