Berlin

Steve delicately picks up another sugar glazed doughnut from his carefully arranged pile. He can’t help the stupid grin that comes to his face at the sugary sweet bite. It’s silly, and downright shamefully gluttonous, but he’s certain his work out regime and metabolism can handle the indulgence.

The thought doesn’t stop him from blushing when a straw blond man plops down at his table and stares at the pile disbelievingly.

“What is it, your ‘magic day’?” The archer quips, and promptly steals a doughnut.

Steve huffs and doesn’t grace him with an answer. “How did you even find me?”

“What, did I walk in on something private?” Clint smirks and pulls out a SHIELD issued electronic tablet.

Steve winces before taking the oh so modern piece of technology. People call him old fashioned, but he’d rather hold a nice thick file of papers. He prefers its comforting weight instead of the cold heaviness of metal and incomprehensible circuits.

“The Ten Rings?”

Clint grins around his doughnut. “Turns out HYDRA is dealing arms with them. Here. In Berlin.”

“So that’s why the Winter Soldier is here?”

They had been after the Winter Soldier for quite a long time. Where ever he popped up on SHIELD’s radar, they would go. They were never able to catch him, though they were able to stop a few assassinations. Steve feels relieved that the soldier’s objective here didn’t seem to be assassination. There is always a special kind of pain in failing to prevent a death. A harsh tug of guilt and self deprecation that weighs heavy on his shoulders. Blood on his ledger by proxy, the splatter of another’s kill landing on his hands. Steve is far too familiar with the feeling.

“We know the location of their rendezvous point.”

“So we catch them there?”

Clint winces. “As much as I’d like to burn those bastards to the ground, we have orders not to meddle directly. We’re still on stake out duty until we can find a way to isolate and capture the Soldier”

Steve goes to grab another doughnut from his pile of sweet shame and notices that it has grown significantly smaller in size. He throws a petulant glare at his fellow spy.

“Stake out duty.. How many times did we lose him because we were waiting for the ‘opportune moment’? Waiting gives him time to complete his mission while we’re stuck on pause with our own.”

Clint raises his sugar glazed hands in placation. “I’m not the boss. Take it up to Fury.” Steve winces when he licks each finger with a loud smack. “Actually, don’t. You’ve already gone to him three times. One more, and there’ll be jokes around about asking to see the manager. Fury’ll blow a casket. Or his other eyeball.”

Steve purses his lips. Sometimes authority asked him to operate in ways that just didn’t make sense. He would not stand by and let their decisions and inaction spoil yet another mission.

“He’s a slippery one. I’d be stoked if we actually caught him for once,” Clint sighs dreamily.

If they don’t.. Steve will go back to New York and order another pile of doughnuts. With an extra large cup of coffee.

---------

Bucky’s long suffering sigh ruffles the back of Tony’s head, but it is neither heard nor seen by the engineer hunched at the table. His mate, yet again, has earphones in with the volume so loud that Bucky can hear the tiny screams of the vocalist escaping the buds, no doubt tearing at Tony’s eardrums from within. He plucks the offending object out of his mate’s ears. Tony makes a warbled grouchy sound.

“You should be listening to classical music. All that screaming can’t be good for the baby.”

“Sure it is! ACDC is good for the spirit!” Tony chirps.

Bucky huffs and props his chin on the omega’s head. “Almost done?”

“Yeah…” Tony looks down at his blueprints of lethality and destruction. He chews the words on his lips before deciding to give them voice.

“Do we have to?”

“Tony..”

“The Ten Rings are a terrorist group. Why is HYDRA-“

“Tony.”

This time, Bucky’s tone carries an authoritative finality. Tony clams up, and Bucky feels a twinge of guilt at his downtrodden look. He rubs his mate’s shoulders apologetically.

“It ain’t our place to question orders.”

Tony leans in to his touch dejectedly. “I wish I could go back to hacking and making stuff for you, not some… outsiders. I want to go home, Bucky.”

“We will, soon as the deal is over,” Bucky can’t help but reassure him. He sweeps up the blue prints and kisses the top of his engineer’s head. “HYDRA can’t keep their best hacker away for too long.”

Tony gives a small smile at that and swivels his chair around to give Bucky a proper kiss. “I have an appointment at the hospital today. To check up on our pup.”

Tony’s belly has a small but prominent mound now, and Bucky can’t stop the flare of protective wariness at the thought of Tony going out alone in this foreign country. It must have shown, as Tony huffs and reassures him that he can make the 30 minute walk to the hospital without a problem. “I’m an agent too”, He reminds Bucky.

He fights the instinct to mark Tony thoroughly with his scent to ward off any coveting alphas. He has a job which requires punctuality. So he drops to his knees and whispers at his mate’s belly. “You show em who your ma belongs to”.

Tony’s inelegant snort is ever so wonderful. And Bucky can’t help but indulge in nibbling a mark on to his neck.

---------

“Superb as always”

The client smiles. It’s cold and dry and reminds him of the desert, but Bucky can sense the lazy heat of predatory satisfaction in his voice.

The men grab and load the weapons with greedy eagerness, but the client knows the true gem of the soldier’s delivery is the blueprint held in his hands.

“How I wish to know the creator of such genius.. ‘The Golden Goose’.”

It is a question, but only by implication. There is no query audible. As it is, the soldier stays silent.

Raza’s lips twitches in what might be irritation, or perhaps amusement.

“Send him my gratitude, soldier.”

Wariness threatens to stiffen his muscles at the specific choice of pronouns, but he doesn’t dare let it show. Bucky reasons it to be simply a thoughtless assumption influenced by the man’s male chauvinism. He most likely thinks the inventor is a beta or alpha male.

“I’ll pass it on to them.”

The less there is that is known about the mechanic, the better. He wants Tony safely shrouded in mystery and pompous assumptions.

Raza, however, doesn’t leave it at that. He smooths a hand down the blueprint and hums, “One has to wonder what sort of mind is behind such devastating inventions. Does it ever linger on the consequences? Or does it so naively lose itself in the joy of creating that it forgets that all tools have a purpose?”

Bucky clenches his jaw against the devious smirk the terrorist sends his way. They’ve spilt blood. Directly or indirectly, causing death is their job. The cost for a chance of a second life. But Tony doesn’t always know where his weapons become pointed at. And if Bucky has to lie to preserve the remaining innocence in those wide brown eyes, he will gladly carry the burden of both their sins to the grave.

Raza’s eyes are smiling. Bucky imagines the desert again. A desert snake with a smile full of venom.

--------

Walking home always makes him feel awkward. Winding through passers-by feels like wading through a river full of fish. He wonders what it’s like, to be able to swim peacefully with no worry over rules and orders.. unaware of predators lurking above the surface, watching their every move, planning their fates. Their presence is gentle and tepid. And it makes it easier for him to spot a different energy. Not quite as cold and predatory as the people he’s used to, but aware, purposeful.. definitely not a fish.

And it’s following him.

He takes a glimpse at a closed shop window and catches a reflection of his stalker. He can’t see his face, but he recognises the build and gait. Somewhere within the ice cold walls he built around his emotions, he feels a pang of annoyance. The Shield agent had been on his heels like a tenacious hound, ruining his missions and attempting to capture him.

If he’s here, then Shield was likely to be watching the surveillance cameras.

Bucky has half a mind to call Tony for remote assistance, but Tony is likely to be with the gynaecologist at the moment. He can handle this on his own. Bucky flicks on the jammer that Tony invented to disconnect all possible Shield surveillance, and slips around a corner. While he is out of his pursuer’s line of sight, he slips in to an alley and makes a dash for the fire escape. Once on the roof, he doesn’t bother to check for the clunk clunk of another person scrambling up the steps, and jumps over the roofs as fast as he can. He knows the agent isn’t easy to shake off. Sure enough, a brick comes flying over him as he, by some unexplainable instinct, dodges just in time. He has to roll to keep his speed. There are no more roof tops in front of him, but he doesn’t hesitate as he drops a potent smoke bomb before making a sharp turn right. He barely hears the agent make a startled noise as he speedily and silently dives down the building and slides down a pipe.

He’s glad that he had taken the time to memorise every inch and detail of this turf he’s been assigned to. He slips in to a clothing shop and casually takes a t-shirt into the changing room.

It’s not until he takes a few calming breaths that he realises it’s an ACDC band shirt. He runs a hand over the soft red fabric. Tony would like it.

---------

When he arrives home, another unwelcome surprise is waiting for him.

“Soldier”

Stane greets him with a smile. It’s a businessman’s smile. It reminds him of cheap Turkish delights made entirely of artificial chemical ingredients. Bucky answers with a stiff nod.

“Why don’t we talk inside?”

The nauseating faux warmth doesn't mask the fact that this is an order, not a suggestion. And Stane is his superior.

Stane struts around the flat, obtusely disrupting the tentative sense of familiarity he and Tony had struggled to impose on this place away from home.

There’s a small pile of clothing balanced on the headrest of the sofa. Tony must have left it there after changing before leaving the flat. Stane smirks at it.

“There’s no peace without subordination, no advancement without order.” He carelessly hooks a finger in Tony’s briefs and twirls it in his hands.

It takes all of Bucky’s training to lock his muscles down to keep them from launching himself on Stane’s neck. Stane drops the underwear and flicks a small USB at him. Bucky catches it and hesitates before plugging it in to his phone. He doesn’t like accepting USBs, but there’s no time to fret about it any longer. A video had popped up. It’s Tony. Tony is talking to a straw blond man.

The video was recorded from a distance, so he can’t listen to what they are talking about. He tries to read their lips, but pedestrians keep blocking the view. He looks to Stane questioningly.

“That,” Stane swipes the screen to the right to reveal a profile page. “is Clint Barton. Shield agent.”

175 cm, alias Hawkeye, field and airforce senior agent, specialty; archery, issued weaponry; Hoyt gamemaster recurve bow, Shield explosive arrows sets Pi13, Pe14.

Bucky remembers a mission in Latvia. An arrow had struck the shipments he was supposed to deliver. It had exploded, and he couldn’t save a single box. He hadn’t had the chance to see the shooter then.

Why was he talking to Tony? No one was supposed to know of Tony’s affiliation with Hydra. As a scientist and an omega, one orphaned and gone missing at a young age, Tony’s identity was incidentally one of the most obscure and well protected in Hydra.

‘No peace without subordination’. Well, he knows what Stane’s theory is.

“Keep your little hen on a tight leash, or else we’ll have to.. ah, put him down.”

---------

“And you chased him?” Clint screeches incredulously.

Steve nods bashfully and Clint has to jump slightly to give him a well deserved smack on the head.

“The whole point is to be stealthy, not to chase Hydra agents like a goddamn dog chasing the mailman!”

Steve does look a bit dog like now. Like a giant guilty friendly yellow Labrador. Clint drags a hand across his face.

“Well, at least I’ve got some good news.”

“Yeah?” Steve perks up.

“Yup. We got ourselves a Hydra deserter. Willing to trade information for protection.”