The Pen is Mightier! (penismightier) wrote in chaotic_library, @ 2015-11-02 17:57:00 |
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Entry tags: | bruce banner, bucky barnes, maria hill, marvel, novel, r-rated, sam wilson, sharon carter, steve rogers, thor, tony stark, yuuo, yuuo: marvel |
[Bucky Barnes; R] The Righteous Side Of Hell: Chapter 4
Character/Series: Bucky Barnes, Cast; Marvel Cinematic Universe
Rating: R
Notes: Long notes, sorry about this.
1) This fic takes place in June 2016, so we're looking at the future. I have no idea what sort of situation we'd be looking at over there at that time. I am not psychic. That, and Hydra being real in the Marvel world and not ours screws some things up, so not everything is 100% accurate and all of it is grossly oversimplified.
2) I am not trying to bash Israel, let's not even go there. I used Israel for a reason that has nothing to do with the ethnicity of most of the country. (There are others living there too, btw.)
3) That reason is stated in the fic. Read on and give me a chance to explain. It comes down to Hydra, to simplify it.
4) No, those are not the names of the real current president and Prime Minister of Israel. I don't use real politicians. They're as real as President Ellis.
5) Yes, the dark web exists. Yes, you can find those kind of offers out there. Please don't go looking, you will hate yourself forever.
6) That user name I used is something I yanked out of my ass. It might belong to a real person or group. Please don't go looking.
Title: The Righteous Side Of Hell - Chapter 4: And The Promise Inside
Author: yuuo
Word Count: 6597
Summary: "I'm not touching it," Bucky said, holding the phone out to Steve while it continued to ring.
i'm searching for answers
'cause something is not right
i follow the signs
i'm close to the fire
i fear that soon you'll reveal
your dangerous mind
-Within Temptation
"I'm not touching it," Bucky said, holding the phone out to Steve while it continued to ring. Or rather, sing. Bucky held it at arm's length by the top of it, like it was contaminated and if he touched more than as little as possible, he'd be infected with the bubonic plague or something equally horrible.
Steve took the phone from him, staring at it. He made a disgusted noise, then answered it. "This is Rogers."
An indistinct woman's voice began speaking to him, not clear enough for Bucky to discern who was talking. He couldn't even tell if she had a non-American accent or not. He'd have to guess what was being said from Steve's side of the conversation.
"It's a pleasure to speak to you, ma'am. This is about a job, I assume?" Pause. "Ma'am, we don't take jobs in the Middle East, we don't want tangled up in the rel- excuse me?" Steve took in a deep breath as if whoever was on the phone had said something that upset him. "Go on." More talking from the woman. Steve went preternaturally still. "You're sure about that? You're right, we tend to be interested in those jobs. I need more information than that, though."
Bucky leaned on the couch behind and to Steve's side slightly, one metal finger tapping away on the furniture. The material muffled it, but apparently not enough for Steve, who turned his head to give Bucky a scowl. Bucky took the hint and straightened, crossing his arms so he could continue his nervous habit tapping on his arm instead.
"Tell es-Sultan?" Steve asked, frowning. "I don't think I've heard of it." The frown didn't entirely fade even as realization dawned on Steve's face. "Yes, I've heard of that place. You're sure they're there?" Steve glanced back at Bucky. "I see. No, you're right, it'd be a risk to leave it alone. Keep talking."
The woman, whoever she was, obliged Steve, and Bucky had to bite on the urge to grab the phone and find out what was being said for himself.
"Why'd they do that?" Steve asked. Bucky almost asked him to turn on speaker phone, but with so many people in the room, that probably wasn't a good idea.
More talking from the woman. Steve made a couple noises of acknowledgement. "Of course." He let out an explosive breath, running his free hand through his hair. "All right, send us the information on the area. Any satellite photos, infrared captures, aerial surveillance, if anything was seen in person before the case removed your people. Show me the evidence you have, give us a number with it, and we'll get back to you."
The briefest of pauses. "Send it to a line in Stark Tower. I'll have it intercepted to a secure line." Bucky was able to guess what the woman said next by Steve's answer of "the Avengers have ways. The information will remain confidential." Pause. "Thank you." He hung up.
"Steve, if you do that silent thinking thing instead of telling me what the hell that was all about, I'm smacking you," Bucky said.
Steve looked back at him, frowning in thought. Bucky nearly whacked him upside the head before he glanced up. "JARVIS, how long ago was that copy of the Winter Soldier Project files sent out to Jerusalem?"
"April twenty-first of this year, at approximately four in the morning eastern time."
"So around eleven in the morning in Jerusalem," Maria said.
Steve tapped the side of the phone against his chin. "This is a trap."
"Care to share what this trap is?" Bucky demanded.
"That was a member of the Israeli Knesset," he said, studying the screen of the phone. "They're interested in hiring us." He held up a finger just as Bucky was opening his mouth to protest. "I told her. She didn't want our help in local politics. They suspect Hydra's operating in the West Bank."
Silence took over the room before Bucky broke it with a very vulgar swear that got Steve to give him a dirty look. "You know I hate that," he said, pointing the phone at Bucky in anger. He lowered the phone, looking at it again. "But yes, it's a trap. Jerusalem has a copy of the project files, and now suddenly Hydra's in the West Bank? And Israel's calling us in like bug exterminators?"
"If it's a trap, it's an obvious one," Bruce said. "Israel's been occupying Palestine for decades now. If Hydra were working there and Israel wanted them gone, they would've marched in and done it themselves. They have the strength to do it."
"And they're not exactly nice to Palestine," Sharon added, sinking down in her seat. "They can't possibly be worried about damage to the area if they wanted to go in themselves."
Steve handed the phone back to Bucky. "According to our new contact, the Palestinian Authority has finally taken Israel to the International Criminal Court. I'm sure Israel's ignoring that, or at least some of them, but it makes things touchy for the Prime Minister and the rest of the government if they don't tread lightly."
Bruce made a noise that Bucky knew meant to be braced for a lecture, but that lecture didn't come. It would, though, Bucky knew that, but for now, Bruce was letting it percolate.
Bucky decided to give him the room to do so. "So who's our new contact?" he asked, taking the phone and looking through the call log like that might answer him.
"Her name's Rahel Ashkenazi. Someone care to look her up?"
"On it," Bucky said, setting the phone aside on a shelf on the book case and grabbing his tablet. It took a little fiddling to get it booted up- note to self, ask Tony to look at this thing, it's been twitchy lately -but some searching around gave him the answer he was looking for. "Rahel Ashkeanazi, a member of the Kadima party." He skimmed the text for something more relevant than her childhood. "She's been recently appointed member of the Subcommittee for Intelligence and Secret Services, which has been retasked with hunting down Hydra operatives within the borders of Israel and the Palestinian territories." He raised his eyebrows. "So this might actually be legit. Probably not, they have those files, but she seems on the level, at least."
"If she is, then someone higher than her isn't. JARVIS, do we have the information from Miss Ashkenazi yet?" Steve asked, not moving his head from its resting spot on the back of the couch.
"Yes, sir," JARVIS replied. "Satellite surveillance starting a month ago, several aerial photographs. Electromagnetic observations show a steady low level gamma radiation, specifically mediated beta-decay. It has the same energy signature as the newest model of the arc reactor technology."
"Show us on screen," Steve said, sighing and sitting up enough to look at the TV.
"Before you settle in for that," Maria said from the kitchen, "you might want to come get dinner." Her tone was flat in a way that suggested she was thinking over everything going on, only vaguely distracted from it by announcing that the food was done cooking.
Bucky walked back over to the couch. "Come on, to the table." He tapped the top of Steve's head to make his point. "That means you, Steve. We're not eating at the television, you will go postal if someone accidentally spills something on your nice couches. That'll be waiting until we've eaten."
Steve looked back up at him, clearly about ready to argue, before surrendering. "You're right." He frowned. "How late is it over there right now?"
"One in the morning," Maria answered, setting plates down on the table. "Call her later. She can go get some sleep and you will get back to her tomorrow. If Hydra has been there this long, another day won't matter. We've had a long past two days, we need food."
Sharon grabbed Steve's hand and pulled him up off the couch. "Especially you two super soldiers, if you take this job. You'll need your strength."
"We haven't committed," Steve protested, but followed her to the table.
"You're going to," Bruce said, taking a seat. He paused to lean over the food as if judging it. "It smells good, Maria."
"Thank you," Maria said, sitting down in her usual place, next to where Bucky would sit, the chair on his other side on Steve's right. Sharon took his other side, leaving Bruce stuck in between the two women.
Steve tried to continue ruminations on just how big of a trap this job was, but Bucky shushed him a kick to the ankle under the table. "Shut up and enjoy the food my girlfriend made for you. We can worry about that after we've eaten so it doesn't spoil our appetites."
Steve jerked his leg back, giving Bucky a reactive dirty look, then looked at Maria, apologetic. "Sorry, Maria. It's good food."
Maria shook her head slightly. "Nothing to apologize for. I believe this is hanging over all of us. But thank you." She looked across the table at Sharon. "It's not too spicy for you, is it?"
"It's a bit more than I'm used to," Sharon said, taking slower and smaller bites than anyone else at the table. "But it's good flavor."
Conversation stopped with that, everyone far too distracted to bother with small talk beyond a basic 'thank you' and 'it tastes good' to Maria, who accepted the compliments with the same distracted tone.
Steve wanted to go right back to work the second his plate was clean, but Bucky kicked his ankle again, pointing to the dirty kitchen and dragging him over to help with the dishes. Steve seemed very unhappy about that, but Bucky had started the ankle kicking, which meant that Steve wasn't winning the argument.
None of the others spoke up, merely divvied up chores, wiping the table, sweeping the area around the table. Bucky and Steve (mostly Steve) both tried to stop them from the work, but Bruce pointed out that if they didn't do something while waiting, they might all three start pacing around and being annoying flies.
Bucky decided to let them do what they wanted. Another kick made Steve agree.
"Okay, now can we look over this job?" Steve demanded as Bucky started the dishwasher.
"Yes," Bucky said. "JARVIS, that information, please."
While Steve and the others made a beeline back to the couches, Bucky paused to boot up and sign into Steve's laptop. There was something nagging at the back of his brain that told him he'd need it. Note to self- get this thing looked at too. It's slow. Once he was sure it was signed in, Bucky rejoined the others.
"That looks like an archaeological dig site," Maria said, head tilted forward to peer at the satellite images.
"It is," Steve said. "Ms. Ashkenazi called it Tell-es Sultan. It's the site of the very original Jericho. I dunno how long Hydra's been there, but it looks like they've been there long enough to set up an arc reactor big enough to power their base."
"Or even longer than that," Sharon said. "There's nothing to say that the arc reactor isn't an upgrade from something else."
Before anyone could concede the point, Bruce spoke up. "Pulling on my scientist hat long enough to suggest that we take notes so we don't wander over old ground or miss something new."
"Something we always forget to do," Bucky said, looking upwards in a guilty fashion.
He saw Bruce give him an amused smile out of the corner of his eye. "We get too excited sometimes. But yes, I think we can't afford to get too enthusiastic until we've seen what we have to work with. JARVIS, mind making a bullet point list for us on screen?"
"Of course, Doctor Banner," JARVIS said. The surveillance information minimized to small thumbnails along the top of the screen, the rest a pale shade of blue. A black dot appeared near the thumbnails. "Prepared to accept information."
"Well, for one, we know it's Hydra behind this, but that's obvious enough that I don't think it needs a point of it's own."
"So the next question is, who is Hydra working behind?" Bucky said. "My first thought is Israel, since the files went there."
Sharon looked back over her shoulder. "I have a better reason for why Israel would be where Hydra's hiding. Because that file ending up in a computer in Jerusalem could honestly not mean anything but that someone in Jerusalem has access to the internet."
"That depends on where that computer was," Bruce said. "If it was a computer in a government building, that raises the chances that it's more than just someone with a computer."
"I know," Sharon said. "But where that computer is actually doesn't matter. The Middle East is one of the most unstable areas in the world, even before ISIS and the other groups cropped up. Hydra's spent decades trying to make things so chaotic that people are willing to give up freedom just for security. That was the whole idea behind Project Insight, right?"
"I think I see where you're going with this," Maria said.
Sharon nodded. "Probably. They've lost control of the States, but Israel is under the US's ongoing protection. If Hydra wanted to get control of America's military and intelligence community, all they have to do is take over Israel's government and the US will continue to work for them, right under everyone's noses."
Bucky looked up at the screen. "You get that, JARVIS? Hydra is a bunch of assholes, point one and two."
"Yes, Mister Barnes," JARVIS replied. "Shall I put them on the bullet list?"
"Sometimes I think Tony programmed you with too much sarcasm for anyone's good."
"Mister Stark programmed me to work optimally for his use."
Bucky raised an eyebrow. "In other words, sarcastic. But anyway, put down Sharon's suggestion about using Israel to control America. I don't stomping over old ground unless it has more details to give."
While JARVIS put on the screen a brief summary of Sharon's idea, Bruce glanced over at Bucky. "Which they usually do. This is just the hypothesis stage."
Bucky scrunched his nose in annoyance. "I know But at least we won't have to repeat the basic idea numerous times."
"You have a thing against that," Bruce said. "I've noticed it in the lab."
Bucky shrugged. "Probably Hydra speaking. Unless they were mission-pertinent questions, acknowledge your mission and don't think anything else. Redundant statements are a waste of time."
Maria put a hand on his shoulder, saying nothing, but her contact was comforting, told far more than she'd say with words. He was here, here was now, Hydra was back there. For some reason that Bucky counted himself lucky for, the overly-cautious former Deputy Director of SHIELD had decided to trust him to keep Hydra in his brain in check.
Actually, come to think of it, the other three had closed ranks in to help him do that, Bruce and Sharon probably more taught by Steve than figuring out anything on their own. He wished the other Avengers were around more, but he was happy with his abridged version. He was closer to them than the others.
That aside though. "We're off track. Okay, we've established that it's very likely that Hydra is operating in the Israeli government to stir up shit over there. We're assuming that another Project Insight or similar would be a goal for them with this method. All that does is tell us that at least someone in the Knesset or one of the higher offices are Hydra operatives. Ashkeanazi is our immediate first suspect. She works to eliminate Hydra, but given how they operated in SHIELD, that means precisely dick."
When JARVIS recorded a summary of Bucky's statement, he added 'that means precisely dick." Bucky scowled. "You're a smartass, JARVIS."
"Your language is sometimes similar to Mister Stark's," JARVIS said, which rankled Bucky, but at least the UI managed to sound semi-apologetic for it. "My behavior reflected that. Should I delete it?"
"No," Steve said. "We'll know who said it."
"Kiss off, Rogers."
"Not to interrupt your love play," Maria said, "but we should continue. Steve, you said that Palestine has taken Israel to the International Criminal Court?"
Steve nodded. "Yeah. Ashkeanazi said it made things touchy for Israel to work in the occupied territories. Whether they're Hydra or not, their previous behavior makes me think that there's still a lot of bad being done over there. But it still means that the main political power in the government has to walk carefully."
"The Prime Minister, then," Bruce said. "The Prime Minister has all the power. The president is more of a figure head, and the Knesset is parliamentary body, like what Britain has, with its own unique attributes."
"For those of us who try to avoid that area for the sake of healthy blood pressures, anyone want to tell us who those two people are right now?" Bucky said. "I'd say sorry for not paying attention to that part of the news, but I have a desire to not be depressed all the time."
"The current president of Israel is Hezi Ben-David," JARVIS said. "He was appointed two years ago. His political party is the Likud Party."
Bucky looked at Bruce. "Got an answer to that one?"
"I do," Bruce said. "The Likud Party is semi-conservative by US standards. It's gone through some splits and changes over the years, but basically, they have two primary stances that would be important here. One, they think that the Jordan River should be Israel's natural border, and two, they want to keep a strong military to defend against 'enemies of Israel', which, to be fair to them, is just about everyone in that area."
"I didn't realize Israel was that hated," Steve said.
"They exist right in the center of a hostile situation," Bruce said. "The Arab nations hate Israel and Iran, but they're neutral towards us as long as we keep buying their oil. They don't have nuclear programs, thank god, because if they did, Israel might've already been long gone, with how they're treating Palestinian Arabs."
"What does Iran have to do with this?" Bucky asked. "Aren't they too busy dealing with the embargo against their oil exports?"
"Iran comes into the picture where they hate Israel for nothing more than ideological reasons," Bruce said. "And they have a nuclear program that they're working on. If they have nuclear weapons, Israel is in deep trouble. Israel's been sending in agents to sabotage the program whenever they can, because if they don't, they're that much closer to being destroyed. And quite frankly, with pretty much everyone over there encouraging suicide attacks on the country, they're smart to do what they can to keep any of those groups from becoming bigger powers. The only thing keeping things in check is that sabotage against Iran, and their own strong military. For a note, Iran is backed by Russia."
"The Russians are in this?" Steve asked. "I thought they had trouble with the Ukraine to deal with."
Bruce shrugged ."Everyone has their fingers in a lot of pies. But in complete honesty, Israel may be on the constant brink of death, but they sure as hell have no problem trying to genocide the Palestinian Arabs to 'reclaim' what they think is historically their land."
"The promised holy land?"
"Yeah," Bruce said. "There's some parties in the government, that are trying to get the rest of their colleagues to give the West Bank to Palestine and let them be their own country, and now that Palestine has taken them to the ICC, we might see that. Gaza's still up in the air; the West Bank and Gaza don't even acknowledge each other as being part of the same Authority anymore. But the case in the ICC is better for Israel on two fronts. One, they stop committing genocide, which shouldn't have been happening in the first place They don't need that reputation. Two, they would have far more energy to devote to keeping Iran from throwing something awful at them. Iraq used to be a decent block between Iran and Israel, but then we decimated their government and they can't do anything."
Sharon took her turn interrupting Bruce's explanation of Middle Eastern politics that Bucky felt he should've already had a nodding knowledge of. "How surprising would it be if Iran was funding the insurgents in Iraq? They hated Iraq too, and with Iraq in a mess, that's one less country that's going to bother Iran and potentially stop their nuclear program."
Bruce took in a deep breath. "There's that, too. There's no proof, of course, but I don't think it'd surprise anyone familiar with Iran's political place in that mess out there."
"Which you seem to be," Steve said. "You obviously pay more attention than us."
Bruce gave him a wry look. "While spending time trying to find a good place to settle where the other guy would keep his mouth shut, I did a lot of humanitarian work all the way from here to where I ended up settling. I hit that area on my way there. A lot's changed since then, but I try to keep up on places where I can go help. I haven't gotten involved in that area since then, because I couldn't promise that the other guy wouldn't have an opinion about how the Israeli military is killing children and knocking down Palestinian settlements, among other things."
"Just remember, you have a job here now," Bucky said. "If I get left alone in that lab with Tony, I will have words for you."
Bruce shook his head, a small smile and a huff of air that qualified as a chuckle giving away his subtle sense of humor. "Don't worry, I'll protect you from his enthusiasm. I'm not interested in going out there anyway, it's an unholy mess. Unless it means the other guy gets to turn some Hydra agents into paste."
"You might have your chance," Maria said. "I'm sure that if this is Hydra's work, they would not appreciate any of the other Avengers following Steve and Bucky, but we have ways, we could be there as back up."
"We'll worry about that after we've established if this is a good job to take or not," Steve said. "But okay, but for the moment, let's back up. We have two other suspects that might be Hydra hiding in Israel's government, the president and the Prime Minister. The president's a figure head, he could be Hydra, but he may be nobody to worry about right now. The Prime Minister is who we need to focus on. Who's he this time around?"
"The current Prime Minister is Ester Bar-Lev, the second woman Prime Minister is Israel's history," JARVIS said. "She is affiliated with the Israeli Labor Party, which is a center-left socialist party. She has been in power since 2005."
"Long before anyone knew Hydra was still around," Sharon said. "If she's Hydra, she's been there awhile, and they'd want her position if she's not."
Bruce made a thoughtful noise. "If Hydra wants real chaos in that area, they'd want to make sure she could be counted as innocent and unaware of their activities in the government. The Prime Minister has the power to basically dissolve the entire government. The president has to approve and rubber stamp it, so to speak, but in 'extraordinary enough' circumstances, the Prime Minister can- in theory -completely wipe out the Knesset and force a new election without anyone's permission. That's only in an extreme case, though, and grossly simplified. The Knesset's wiped itself out a lot; there's a system in place to avoid instability while new elections are called, but if the current members are all dismissed, a new vote takes place and Hydra can get more people in."
"Hydra already being in the government seems like it'd be extreme enough for the president to get ignored," Bucky said.
"I agree," Bruce said. "If the Prime Minister is Hydra and uses the public revelation of Hydra in her government, she can potentially get away with overriding the president. Which would allow Hydra to take more seats of power, thus the ability to create more chaos with poor legislation. As long as the state budget is agreed upon by its deadline, they could hold their positions for awhile, if they play their cards right. That'd give them time to do more damage to make Israel seem ripe for the bombing to other countries."
JARVIS's list started scrolling off-screen as the discussion continued. "May I make an observation?"
"Go for it," Steve said.
"If the Prime Minister is Hydra's leader within the Israeli government and dissolves the Knesset upon 'discovering' Hydra activity, that may be the same action she takes if she is not a Hydra operative. It would be very difficult to conclude whether she is guilty or innocent."
Bucky looked down at Steve. "Remember the good old days, when we'd track down Hydra bases, shoot a lot of people, then blow the place to hell?"
"Yeah?"
"I'm missing those days right now."
Steve patted his arm in a 'there there' fashion from an awkward angle. "This is what we get for chasing Hydra underground."
Maria crossed her arms, her hand dropping from Bucky's shoulder. "There is also the thought that the Prime Minister wouldn't have to override the president, if both are Hydra. They would both want to open up more seats of power to possibly be filled by more Hydra operatives. So we have three solid suspects: our contact, the president, and the Prime Minister. And any possible number of Knesset members. It seems to me that if we had to investigate one of the three of them, the Prime Minister is our best choice. She's the one with the most power and the most to lose."
Bucky looked at her. "And how are we supposed to do that? Our job offer is to go to the Hydra base, not stick around Jerusalem and poke at Israeli legislation."
"I don't suggest that, no. But it is not uncommon for operatives to speak about their leadership when working on a project set before them. Passing along orders, organized reports to submit, and even nothing more than complaining."
"We could set up a receiver/recorder to pick up what you two hear through your secured channels," Sharon said. "We could pass it along to Tony when he gets back. He's good at PR and he has a thousand and a half lawyers to keep us out of trouble for doing the same thing to Israel that we did to SHIELD."
"I don't think even Tony's lawyers can get us out of exposing Israel as Hydra," Bruce said. "That would be a huge mess, and even if our country wasn't really divided on the politics in Israel, any agreement between the two sides would be shattered. One side would be all for the US and other countries stepping in and disarming Israel and arresting Hydra members, and the other would accuse us of fabricating lies to cause a war in the Middle East. Without her army, Israel's helpless out there. We already destroyed our own intelligence infrastructure, knocking down the entire Israeli government in the name of getting rid of Hydra may be a bit much to swallow."
Steve nodded in agreement. "We're going into a bad situation, no way around that." He turned his attention to Sharon. "If we want to transmit anything we hear that might indict anyone in the Israeli government to the rest of you, you would have to be close to us," Steve said. "And I think we've established that they're not going to let anyone but the two of us in. That idea might not work."
Sharon looked a bit disheartened at his statement. Bucky didn't blame her; this was probably her first and maybe only chance to follow them on a job and do her job. But there was something else more important that jumped into his brain. He directed a suspicious look at Maria. "You said you have your ways."
"We do," Maria said. "And I will explain once we establish that you two will take this job."
Steve and Bucky exchanged a look. "I think at this point, we're probably going to have to take it," Steve said. "Regardless of where they're hiding, in the Israeli government or acting alone, it's still Hydra, doing who knows what."
The answer to that snapped into clarity in Bucky's mind abruptly and demanded all of his attention. "Experimenting," he said.
"What makes you say that?"
Bucky motioned to the screen where JARVIS had an old-style cursor blinking at the next empty bullet point. Smartass. "He told us already, they have the Winter Soldier Project files. A little over a month later, they're asking the Winter Soldier to come home to roost for awhile and bring their favorite person to hate with him. They're probably going to try to chemically dissect me to figure out what chemicals got left out from '43. That's the only way they're gonna get another success."
He looked back down at Steve. "They might try the same with you, replicate Project Rebirth. Or maybe they'll just use the project files to replicate the brainwashing and get themselves two nice and shiny super soldiers under their command. Either way, we're looking at a helluva fight."
It felt like a personal victory, how easily he was able to say that without the thoughts that pushed out the words causing an episode in the process. He would inevitably later, but for now, he was able to keep a hold on his brain.
Sharon let out a groan that suggested that something just occurred to her. "If they kill you, the world will only know that Captain America and the Winter Soldier were killed by Hydra in the West Bank. Palestine will cease to exist overnight, case in the ICC or not. Israel would inevitably be blamed, whether they're guilty or not, and then we're looking at the Middle East being ground zero for World War Three."
"Going right back to their desire to make another Project Insight," Bruce said, finishing that thought. "So we've come full circle here. The only thing we aren't certain about is where their experiment subjects are coming from."
"Jericho and displaced Palestinian Arabs, I would think," Sharon said. "Nobody would know they're missing except for their families."
That suggestion felt incomplete to Bucky. Without a word, he straightened and headed to his tool case, digging around until he found the glove that was custom made to keep his tools from slipping around on his metal fingers. Helped with computer keyboards, too.
"You got an idea, Buck?" Steve asked, watching him.
"Maybe," Bucky said, heading over to the table where Steve's laptop was booted up and signed in. "It kinda occurred to me earlier, but I got sidetracked." He sat down and opened a browser that rarely got used, and never by Steve.
Steve got up and walked over. "You're looking at the dark web, aren't you?"
Bucky nodded in a distracted manner, clicking around, looking for a specific listing that he knew was out there. "Hydra likes volunteers. Volunteers are more cooperative. People who don't volunteer usually need regular 'encouragement' to stay nice and agreeable. Volunteers get in there, and they don't usually decide they made a bad life decision until it's too late. If enough bitcoin is offered, these volunteers go in, and if they don't come out, nobody knows, and Hydra gets away with murder."
Maria joined Steve in hanging over Bucky, one on each side. He tensed, not really liking the feeling of getting boxed in. But those two were vultures when they wanted to be; they would go away for about three seconds before going back to standing over him.
"You use the dark web?" Maria said. "I didn't know you had accounts for that."
"Hydra's," Bucky said, clicking to another dot-onion site to find a familiar account name. "I ran off with them before they had a chance to recover from SHIELD going down. It's one of quite a few, though, so I doubt they even noticed that they don't have control of it anymore." Scroll scroll scroll.
"New SSNs and names for minors, no questions asked?" Steve said, sounding at once disgusted and confused.
"This is why I hate this place," Bucky said. "Too much to piss me off. But this offer here is the one I'm looking at." He pointed at the screen. "'Volunteers for medical experimentation, will pay five hundred bitcoin.' That's a hundred thousand dollars. That's a hefty chunk of change."
"I thought that bitcoin couldn't be traded in for real money," Steve said, reading over Bucky's shoulder.
"It can't," Bucky said. "But you can use that hire other services in the dark web. For someone, that scrubbed child's legal information might be worth the risk of subjecting themselves to experiments to get the money. Welcome to the seedy underbelly of the internet." He scrolled through the back door of the offering account's records, using his 'borrowed' logins to see accepted volunteers. "It looks like most of their volunteers are from Palestine, but I'm seeing some from Russia, Norway, the US, Brazil; they've got volunteers all over the world. Gives them more variety and lowers suspicion of how many locals suddenly go missing for no good reason."
Steve leaned down closer to the screen, chin practically resting on Bucky's arm. "How do you know that offer came from Hydra?"
Bucky shot him a look out of the corner of his eye, wishing Steve would back away. He knew he wouldn't, though, so he dealt with it. He pointed at the screen. "See that? The offering user name is 'killingred'. That's one of Hydra's original accounts, made as soon as there was such a thing as the dark web. Built themselves up a good business reputation on the dark web and now they can make a playground out of that, too. Mostly. I have no idea how involved they get in the kiddie porn rings that the FBI keeps trying to bust up, and I don't want to know."
"None of us do," Steve said, standing back. He looked over at the room's main screen. "Okay, so next bullet point. These probably aren't people taken captive. That might change what we'd be look at over there."
"To confirm, you're taking the job?" Maria asked, looking between Bucky and Steve.
They exchanged a look. "We don't have a choice at this point," Bucky said. "I need to destroy their copy of those files before they get used on anyone else. There's probably already been too many that have." He eyed Maria. "So okay, we've decided. Now out with those ways you have of following us without getting noticed and chased off."
"Stark technology," Maria said as if that should be obvious. Bucky didn't have to prompt her to explain. "Stark Industries has several fields of business that they're in. You know about the pharmaceuticals research, there's the clean and renewable energy field, but we do other things not on record. Relative to this job, we are mimicking SHIELD technology with different methods to come up with many of the same resources. We have a quinjet just out of the testing phase that can camouflage itself like the old helicarriers. We will simply just vanish and follow you. We'll be undetectable by any normal methods. We can stay close by to be back up if things get bad."
"We're in that field?" Bucky asked, turning in his chair to look at her more fully. "When did we start that?"
"Just after SHIELD went down," Maria said, sounding a little surprised. He wasn't sure why. "It's for the Avengers' benefit. With governments potentially compromised by Hydra, Pepper decided to view the Avengers as the world's only trustworthy security force for hunting them down. We've not been forced into action on it yet; you and Steve typically drown whatever head Hydra has popped up before the rest of us are needed. That only gives us more time to test equipment. But there's always going to be one point where you will need the team. Now is such a time."
Steve rubbed the back of his neck, lacing his fingers to rest his hands there. "I think now is also a time to call it quits for the night," he said, cutting off Bucky's question that hadn't worked its way out of his mind into words yet, letting the thought evaporate. "We've had a long two days, and I think we'll come up with more ideas after we've all had a chance to sleep. Bucky and I can go longer, but I'd rather not."
"Neither would I," Bucky agreed. "And I think you mere mortals are probably more tired than us." He felt Maria put her hand on his shoulder and squeeze. He rolled his shoulder away, wincing. That was her 'you have displeased me, little man, this is your warning shot' stunt. He usually got it after putting his cold metal hand on the small of her very warm back.
He looked up at her. "So I see my lady's getting cranky. Come on, dear, I'll go tuck you in for the night." At her suspicious look, he held up his hands innocently. "I'm just gonna escort you home. You know I like to do that."
She didn't look entirely convinced, but she seemed to let it slide. "If I didn't like you, I'd protest that I can walk down a hall just fine on my own."
"Humor me."
"Not this time," she said. "We tend to linger too long, and I'm tired, and I want a shower before going to bed. I don't want to end up too tired to do that."
He decided he was tired enough to not want to make an offer he doubted she'd accept. The showers in the apartments were big enough to fit two people, but it wasn't any fun when everyone involved was ready to drop from exhaustion. So he tucked the thought away in the back of his mind to hopefully keep his dreams occupied and block out the upcoming mission.
It'd be worth a try, anyway.
Goodnights were said, and after respective girlfriends were given goodnight kisses, Bucky went back over to the couch, not sitting down right away, staring at the information on the screen. Hydra was reopening the Winter Soldier Project. Focusing on it now, away from a crowd and away from mission-related brainstorming, it put ice through his veins, cold making its way down his spine until he wanted to shiver. His stomach formed a solid lump in it, and he felt an episode wanting to start.
He thought he'd destroyed that ghost.
"Bucky? No. Shut it off."
Bucky looked back over his shoulder at Steve, almost challenging him to try to make him, but gave in before he'd even fought. "JARVIS, shut down the screen and lift it, please."
That ghost could wait until morning.
"Yes, sir," JARVIS said. The screen went blank and then slid up into its slot in the ceiling.
Steve walked over beside him and put his arm around his shoulders. "Couches tonight?"
Marvelous idea, and it killed the episode before it formed. Didn't really thaw the ice that had taken over his whole body though.
"And I'm turning on the heat."
"It's June, Bucky, we're not turning on the heat. Come on, go get your pillow and blanket. I'll meet you out here."