Road Trip
“Natasha says that the chatter’s out of control or something like that,” Steve reports when he gets off the phone.
“So HYDRA’s getting lit up like there’s no tomorrow.”
Steve nods. “He’s out there. I think it’s him.” Steve would. But Sam’s inclined to agree. Especially if this is all backed up by Natasha’s reports, which - no offense to Steve - he trusts a little bit more than blind faith.
“So,” Sam says, “what’s the plan?” He might regret this, but he’s not ever gonna regret helping Steve.
“Calling Fury, probably.” This looks like it hurts Steve at a very basic level - probably because it means that he’s going to have to listen to someone instead of running right the fuck in to save his friend. Which, given what Sam’s heard about that one mission in WWII, is what Steve really likes to do. Steve’s got priorities and they’ve ratcheted right up to Save Bucky being far above the rest. “At least we know where he is, sort of.” That’s true.
What they need to worry about is when the Winter Soldier starts hitting the more hidden bases. They’ll lose all trace of him then, and who knows when - or if - he’ll ever decide to come in.
Steve calls Fury, who is off doing...something. Sam thought it was probably best not to press too hard for an answer on that front, because fuckin’ spies, man. He wasn’t cut out for this shit. The conversation is quiet and fast.
“He says that if I’m gonna mope around that we might as well try and do some cleanup.”
“Oh, so you’re saying this is a secret agency bankrolled road trip?”
Steve smiles a little at that. “Yeah, I think so. He said to hold on for a minute - Nat’ll give us what we need, since she’s in the area, but then we’re on our own. It’s supposed to be under the radar, so he said no costume for me and no wings for you. Sorry, Sam.”
Sam shrugs. “That’s all right. I get to watch you pretend to be a normal guy, and that seems like an okay reward.” He also doesn’t really know if he could face putting the wings on again, so soon after they got ripped off of him mid battle. But he doesn’t say that out loud.
They need something to do while they wait, so they go back to reading the files.
“Oh fuck.” Sam barely hears it, but Steve’s definitely found something.
“What’s up?”
“That’s Howard. And that’s gotta be Maria, I think her name was. Fuck.” Steve’s showing him a photograph that looks like it was pulled from a security camera. If a security camera had the focus of a fucking toaster, but apparently Steve can make the people out.
“You’re gonna have to dumb it down for me, man.”
“Tony’s parents.” Oh, right. Fuck. Yeah. Steve’s right. Fuck.
This is so far over Sam’s head right now.
Steve continues. “He thought they died in a car crash. What the fuck are we supposed to do? Do we tell him? God, what would I do if someone told me that?”
Bucky killed Tony’s parents. And Tony’s kind of a loose cannon sometimes. Sam can understand why Steve’s conflicted. This isn’t gonna go well either way. He really doesn’t have a solution to this, but in these situations, he’s pretty sure that only communication is going to get them through this.
“We need to call Tony. Do you think Natasha would set us up for that?”
“But what if he decides to go after Bucky? To get revenge?” Steve’s got a point.
“We have no idea what he’s gonna do. But if he finds out on his own and we don’t tell him that we know - that’s gonna be a mess. You know it is.”
“I won’t let him kill Bucky.”
Steve’s got that face on again, the one that makes Sam fear for anyone who gets between the man and Bucky. Most of the time, it doesn’t really matter - but Tony is also Iron Man, and the two of them work together, even if they aren’t good friends. This would really mean something.
“So you call him and you explain whatever you need to explain. And if we have to figure out how to keep him in the US, then we have to do that.” Sam’s not a hundred percent certain that’ll work. But he’ll champion it for now - this is one of those ‘cross those bridges when we’ve burned the other ones’ sort of situations.
It takes a little more than that to convince him, but Steve agrees eventually, that they should try talking first.
“Tony. It’s about your parents. We’ve been looking through the Winter Soldier files, and - I’m really sorry - I’m so sorry Tony. He was there. He did it.”
“I’m going to go now. Maybe drink a minibar,” Tony says.
“There’s proof he was brainwashed,” Steve says, sounding kind of desperate. “Tony, if you -”
Tony cuts him off. “I’ll come to terms with it on my own, Cap.” He sighs. “I’ve been going through the documents too, the technical stuff. And there’s a lot -” another sigh. “There’s a lot of shit that’s gonna give me nightmares. So yeah, I don’t think I’m gonna kill the guy, but I ain’t exactly about to welcome him with open arms.” He hangs up after that, without saying goodbye.