Bureaucracy
“You shouldn’t follow him everywhere. That’s just like tracking. It’s what HYDRA’s doing, and if you get ahead of them, you’ll just lead them to him.”
Natasha is brutal in her honesty. Sometimes Sam appreciates it and sometimes he does not.
“He’s also not going to trust you either if I’m around. I still have, well, I’ve got a lot of the trappings of what they do.”
That’s unfortunate. He likes her. She’s fun, even if that might just be a persona. Sam thinks that maybe she manages to be more real around Steve, at least. But most importantly, she knows a goddamn lot more than the two of them do.
“This isn’t like DC, though. I don’t think it’s advisable to leave you two on your own completely.”
Sam would have to agree, even if he's clearly been fine with just the two of them running around.
“It’s a delicate game.” He sees why she’s a spider. “I can’t get too close to you, you can’t get too close to him. What I propose is that we set you up in, say, a quiet part of the Ukraine and I set myself up in a place I haven’t been burned yet,” her smile on the video feed is wry, “and then I feed you as much information as I can. Only when we’re sure that we can make contact do we go for it.”
Steve clearly doesn’t like that. “But what are we gonna do if we’re just sitting around? How’s that helping? And how are we gonna know whether or not to make contact?”
“We blow up a base of our own and leave him a note. He doesn’t have a pattern, but I think we can pinpoint one - maybe a smaller one that they won’t get to quickly. There’s no way he doesn’t know that you’re following him around, so he’ll probably take the bait - you’ve been doing cleanup for him, so he’ll wonder why you’re taking the initiative so suddenly.”
Steve considers it and nods. “Okay. Just point us where. But then what? We just sit around and wait for him?”
Steve needs to stay in motion, because a Steve at rest has to think about his problems. Sam’s going to have his work cut out for him.
Natasha nods. “You need to be prepared for him when he comes in. He’s not going to be all fixed. He’s going to have jagged edges and he will still be a danger to you and a danger to himself. You need a plan and you need to know his file backwards and forwards.”
“So we’re essentially creating a plan so that we can talk to him without setting him off?” Sam asks. “And too see what he’ll need when he’s back in the US?”
“Yes. And we’re making sure that we understand what he means when he tells us he wants to come in.”
“I never did my paperwork,” Steve says, wrinkling his nose. “In the war. Philips hated my guts.”
“Well,” Sam says, beaming, “here’s karma comin’ for you.”
They work on Talk To Bucky Plan as Natasha taps into her network. Steve writes up his notes, which are colored by his experiences from the 20s and 30s, Sam can tell. It’s helpful to have that perspective, even if they’ve got no idea what Barnes remembers - if anything at all. They’ve got Sam’s perspective too, which has its own nuances, so together they’ll have something to show to Natasha when she calls back.
They almost work through the night, though Sam taps out around 4am. He has no idea, in the morning, a few hours later, whether or not Steve got any sleep. His guess is probably not, given that the coffee he helps himself to tastes like it could strip paint off a wall. Oh well. Sam’s fuckin’ awake now.
Natasha calls sometime in the middle of the day.
“There’s a base in Greece, in the mountains. Seems pretty low activity, and it’s far from human habitation. I’ll send you a map. Fly into Athens. I’ll set you up with a car, so text me when you land.”
“You’re a godsend,” Steve tells her.
She laughs at that. “I’m just thorough. You’ve worked with me before, Rogers.”
That settled, they move on to talking more about how to deal with Barnes.
“Can we email you what we’ve got so far?” Sam asks.
“As long as there’s nothing compromising, that’s probably the easiest way.”
“We’ll clean it up,” he promises. “We’ll send it over your way, and then we’ll get that flight to Athens.” He’s always wanted to go. They won’t see much scenery in the city, he guesses, but at least he can say he’s set foot there.