[Bucky Barnes; R] Puddle Of Grace: Chapter 5 Character/Series: Bucky Barnes; Marvel Cinematic Universe Rating: R Notes: Action is not my forte and this was complicated. Also, the violence is rather graphic. I'm not describing intestines or anything, but uh. Well. Blood makes noise. Marking it as above canon-typical violence. Title: Puddle Of Grace- Chapter 5: Blood Makes Noise Author:yuuo Word Count: 6449 Summary:Pepper actually packed them bagged lunches for the trip.
but blood makes noise it's a ringing in my ear blood makes noise and I can't really hear you in the thickening of fear -Suzanne Vega
Pepper actually packed them bagged lunches for the trip. Or rather, a cooler with food and drinks. But they'd gotten sent off with it and a 'have fun storming the castle!' that sounded like a quote from something that Bucky hadn't caught up on yet, rather than something that just popped into her brain.
His new friends were weird.
"Was this really necessary?" Bucky asked, watching Steve and Tony lug the cooler that was too awkward for one person to carry into the quinjet. Bucky himself was carrying Tony's 'suitcase' with the Iron Man suit tucked into pieces inside. It was far heavier than the food that Pepper had lovingly packed for them, and it was either Bucky or Steve carry it, or Tony would have to walk around wearing the suit and potentially run out its power prematurely.
"What, the food?" Tony helped Steve maneuver the cooler into a corner where it wouldn't go flying. "It's a sixteen hour round trip at best. That's a long time to go without food, and normal in-flight snacks are terrible. Don't tell me you two went that entire time without food." When he received nothing but an uncomfortable silence in return, he looked between them in disbelief. "What, do you eat extra big meals before going out on long missions or something? I've seen how you eat, I don't know how your hyperactive metabolisms could let you get away with that."
Bucky set the suit aside in another corner, near the explosives they planned on using to blow the Hydra base to hell. He hoped Tony had no problem with that. "Our bodies can handle a lot more punishment than normal people."
Steve dropped himself into the pilot's seat, and started the pre-flight checks. "You should see the amount of food we go through after a mission," he told Tony without pausing what he was doing. "We just accept that we'll empty the cupboards enough to warrant a trip to the grocery store the next day."
"I don't want to see your food bills," Tony said, propping his elbow on the back of Steve's seat, just over his shoulder. He only moved to let Bucky get through to take the copilot's seat before resting his other elbow on the back of Bucky's seat.
"Neither do I," Bucky said. "Steve won't show me."
"Still getting used to inflation?"
Bucky glanced back up at him. "Getting there."
"You were a college boy, weren't you?" Tony asked. "Pepper's told me you were a smart guy, worked your way through uni and everything."
Bucky had just started to assist Steve with the pre-flight checks when that question made him pause. "I went to college, yeah. What does that have to do with anything?"
"You're kinda slow on the uptake if you still haven't done the math to adjust to modern day prices," Tony said. "Wouldn't expect that of a guy smart enough to get into MIT. What'd you study there, anyway?"
There was a question he didn't want to answer. It'd lead to Howard and he still wasn't ready to even do more than think the man's name. While it might get Steve to tell the goddamn truth, he wasn't fond of the idea of Tony finding out he had helped his father's murderer with his arm, housed him for a few days, then volunteered to go into combat with him, all in an enclosed flying machine. It'd have to wait.
Not something that made Bucky feel warm and fuzzy inside, but what was, was. Steve promised he'd deal with it, and Steve didn't make promises he wouldn't keep.
Speaking of the lie by omission that was haunting Bucky's conscience- he actually had one still left? halle-fucking-lujah -here'd have to come another one, just to avoid the first lie by omission. "It's been awhile. I know I graduated in '39, but..." He shrugged. "You heard Steve. They fried my brain cells. There's stuff missing."
Not technically a lie, but not exactly the truth, either.
Tony didn't make any verbal acknowledgement, sniffing once, something Bucky had noticed he did sometimes when contemplating something to say in a way that was best thought through before it made a trip from the brain to the mouth. "You know, I'm sure you have all sorts of hatred against the medical profession, having had experiments done on you and all, but you might want to consider having Bruce do a scan of your brain to look for permanent damage. You don't act like there is, but if the mindwipes were calibrated to only affect your memory, you might need more help than just time to get everything back."
Bucky frowned. That had gone somewhere even unhappier than before in a helluva hurry. "It'll heal. It always does."
"This has happened before?" Tony sounded surprised by that.
Steve decided to answer that, much to Bucky's great relief. "The project file mentioned neural scarring from the wipes. The scientists seemed perpetually confused by the fact that it was healing itself, when that shouldn't be possible. It'll just take time. Things will come back."
Steve was full of the better part of valor by not throwing out the probably obvious 'after he remembers, he'll need awhile to work through the anxiety the memories cause.' Tony knew enough about Bucky's 'issues', it didn't need to be brought back up. Tony was a smart man, he could figure it out.
"You have a copy of these files?"
"At home," Steve answered. "Go sit down, buckle in. Pre-flight's done."
"You're the boss, Cap." Tony went back to a seat, just behind Steve and only in Bucky's view if he turned his head a bit. "Buckled in and ready to go."
For a few minutes, there were no sounds except the jet's engines, with the occasional communication between pilot and copilot, and the tower. Once they were securely in the air and stable on their way to Kiev, Tony unbuckled and took his former place just behind Steve and Bucky. "So I have a question."
Bucky looked up at him. "As long as it's not a stupid one."
"No, I think this one is rather brilliant, actually," Tony replied. "Those files. They have anything to do with why you're going after a Hydra base you're mostly certain is abandoned?"
Brilliant question, yes. One Bucky wanted to answer, no.
"Natasha got that file from there," Steve said. "Had to call in a few favors to get it. Which means anything else there has probably already been cleared out, but we want to make sure there's nothing there that could come back to hurt Bucky, or replicate the experiment. We really don't need Hydra creating another brainwashed super soldier. They probably have enough other experiments wandering around, that number does not need to be expanded on."
"I can get behind that," Tony said, "What're we doing after we've cleared the place?"
"Blowing it up," Bucky said in a bland tone, as if blowing up buildings was just part of every day life Not quite every day, but quite a bit in his line of work.
Tony apparently picked up on that. "Well, you're certainly nonchalant about that. Do you do that to every Hydra base you two have gone after?"
Bucky decided that in the name of allowing Steve to focus on flying, he'd try to hold the conversation that Tony seemed to want. "Wouldn't you? That's what we did in the war, there's no reason not to now. It's not like we're not careful about civilian casualties."
"Do they happen anyway?"
Why the hell was Tony asking that? Why did he want tough subjects? He was going to be the sort of friend that Bucky wanted to strangle on a regular basis.
The tiptapping of his finger on the console was the only answer he could give for a moment while his brain tried to translate the feelings and images in his head into words that would be coherent. "It's come close a few times."
Which was really all he wanted to say on the subject.
"Sounds like a subject that needs to be dropped," Tony said. Quite wise of him.
"Good observation." Bucky looked over at Steve, hoping that for just a few minutes, he could hand over the controls and deal with Tony for awhile so that Bucky didn't have to.
Steve picked up on the silent request after glancing at Bucky for about three seconds. They'd worked together so much that it wasn't hard for Steve to read a request in Bucky's expression. "Here, take the controls," he told Bucky. "I'm getting a drink. Tony, you want one?"
Nice save, Steve.
At Tony's suggestion, and Steve's agreement, they spent the next sixteen hours rotating positions in the cockpit, copilot moving to pilot, then to the back for a little food and a chance to get a bit of sleep. Bucky had already shoved himself into mission mode, so he didn't eat, only drank a little, and didn't nap as much as went back to the tablet to continue filling in holes.
The first floor was laid out in such a way that it looked more like he'd been designing it based on seeing something on a map and trying to replicate it, instead of something from actual memory.
The first basement level was from memory, and it showed. Even though the image was nothing more than a diagram, the peculiarities of the halls, some slight curves, sharp turns versus gentle corners all looked organic. Something from a memory.
The bottom level remained a mystery. He had a feeling he might recognize the place once he was there, or at least, he hoped he would. It'd make things easier than wandering aimlessly.
As they got close to their landing point, Tony took his turn in back, clicking the lock on the suit's suitcase with his foot. The suit sprang to life, wrapping itself around him, almost but not quite fluid, the metal pieces sliding around and clicking together once they were in place. It was a fantastic process to watch, and Bucky was intensely curious about how it worked, wanted to get his fingers into the inner machinery and play.
"Okay, we're here, nobody's distracted by flying," Tony said once they had landed on the rooftop of an abandoned hospital. "Let's see the schematic again, go over our play, see if we can find any holes that need plugging before we finalize it."
Bucky pulled up the image on the tablet. "This is the Hydra base. It's an old warehouse located in an industrial sector near the northern end of town. Held medical supplies for local hospitals. All Hydra-run. Nobody thought anything of weird medical machines or a lot of pharmaceuticals coming and going."
"Perfect place to perform human experiments," Tony said, which he really didn't have to.
"Mostly to test medicines. Everyone that came through were just lab rats, and any that survived the medicinal testing were killed and autopsied to find what had gone right to replicate it later on Hydra soldiers that needed the medical intervention. Zola had a special place in his black heart for me. I was the only one that they went all out on. At least, the only one that survived more intensive treatment."
Tony raised an eyebrow. "You sure about that?"
"As sure as I can be without talking to all seven billion people on the planet," Bucky said.
"That's gonna have to be good enough. JARVIS, you scanning this?"
"Yes, sir," JARVIS said, and Bucky found it slightly odd to hear two different voices from the same 'body'. "First floor layout is downloaded into my memory banks."
"Good," Tony said. "Let's get that basement."
Bucky knocked aside the top floor. "There's two basements," Bucky said. "The first one's set up like a training grounds. I wasn't the only one to use it, but the Winter Soldier project dominated the area."
Tony made a thoughtful noise, tilting his head slightly. "Where do those stairs go?"
An inevitable question that Bucky knew he had to answer. They were on the Mission now, and a full briefing for all involved parties was necessary. "That's where the experiments were done. I don't remember the layout."
"You might remember when we get there," Tony said. "So where'd the separatists come in?"
"Halfway between here and there," Steve said. "The Hydra base is in a mostly abandoned area of that district. They probably already looted the first floor for anything useful, but they didn't stick around. Better strategic position in a slightly more active area; they could take hostages if necessary. We didn't know they were there."
"And this landing spot is the closest to the base?" Tony asked.
"By convenience, " Steve said. "We're in a radar blind spot. We just got lucky that there was room for the quinjet and we weren't far from the base."
Tony made a rude noise that managed to sound amused. "That seems like Avengers luck. Nice and close parking spot, bad guys between that nice spot and the store."
"Robbing Wal-Mart apparently wasn't exciting enough for them," Steve said.
"Is it ever?" Tony asked. "Okay, Cap, Bucky, this is your show, I'm the hired help. How do we approach this? Just run in and start blasting? Because that seems very normal for the team."
Steve switched the view of the Hydra base to a map of the industrial area. "We ran into them here-" he pointed at a spot on the map, which lit up with little dots that were so close together that they almost looked like one giant blur. "That's our closest estimate as to how many were there. Tony, take to the air, hit the guys on the roof. They had a lot of firepower up where we couldn't see it."
Bucky didn't like that idea. The rooftops were his territory; it let him play sniper, let him be Bucky Barnes. Getting down in the fray was necessary sometimes, but he really didn't want more mental regression into Hydra's Winter Soldier than he'd already had and was going to have with that stupid base.
But he couldn't argue the logic of it. Tony would be able to see up there better, and Bucky had already proven that in this fight, he might not be good enough for that position. Tony wouldn't be with them at all if Bucky hadn't been injured due to his own negligence.
So he kept his mouth shut and let Steve decide where to position him.
"You two don't plan on just charging in headfirst at the front line, do you?" Tony sounded like he did not approve of that plan.
Steve shook his head. "I am, but I want Bucky looping around behind them. Buck, look for wherever they're based. Go weed out the root, and feel free to plunder any weapons you find."
"You know I would anyway," Bucky said, feeing immensely relieved that he wasn't going to be put in a position to hunt. It wasn't a sniper's position, but it was a sound strategy for a soldier of his caliber. Acceptable compromise.
After Bucky took another few seconds to memorize where the line of fighters that they could track was so he could get around them with minimal effort, he set the tablet aside and held out his hand to Steve. "Earpiece."
"Please," Steve said, handing Bucky his comm. "Your manners are atrocious."
"I've earned the right to be an asshole," Bucky said, testing his comm's reception. Once certain that it wasn't going to malfunction on him, he pulled on his mask, slipping into habitual silence. Banter was gone, the only words that would come out of his mouth at that point would be necessary communication for the mission.
"JARVIS, wire in with them," Tony said. Steve and Bucky waited patiently until JARVIS confirmed the connection in their respective earpieces. He swept his arms out in grandiose fashion for Bucky to go first. "You're the one that's gotta go the farthest. After you."
Bucky ignored the flourish, barely even registered it, taking off at a dead run out the open cargo bay of the quinjet, onto the rooftop. A small hop onto the ledge of the roof, and then sailing across the street to the next building.
He'd have to go several blocks to get around the front line, but he was fast. If he miscalculated how far he'd have to go and ran into trouble, he knew Tony and Steve would be near and distract the frontline fighters from any damage Bucky had to do to get through.
The separatists were spread out in a rough half-mile radius from what they'd observed their first attempt at getting to the Hydra base. Half a mile from the quijet, heading west, signs of further personnel another half mile out from that. So Bucky had a minimum of a mile to go. That wasn't hard, just seventeen blocks. Rooftop hopping long distances was only difficult when the next building to jump on was several stories higher than the one he was currently on.
That just meant some wall scaling was in order.
He was thirteen blocks away when he heard the sounds of gunfire from somewhere behind him and to the right. Oh good, Tony and Steve had found their new friends. The distance away that noise came from told Bucky that he'd likely gone far enough south, and it was time to head west. That'd put him skirting the edges of the separatists' territory.
Traveling west, the streets below him were empty. The sounds of gunfire and yelling was loud to his right; Bucky started jaywalking across the rooftops to get as close as possible without tangling up with Steve and Tony. Explosions joined the sounds of bullets.
"This group was big enough to stop you two?" Tony demanded in Bucky's ear.
"There were a lot more when we got here," Steve replied.
Bucky caught a glimpse of Tony's Iron Man suit a few hundred yards away. Good, he hadn't gotten too close to the main fray.
"How many more?"
A lot.
"This is about a third of what was here when we arrived," Steve said.
"You two frighten me deeply."
Good. Be frightened.
A quick scout around the area farthest west from where he saw Tony revealed that the separatists must have gotten spooked by the appearance of two of the Avengers and sent the bulk of their defenses towards the obvious fighters.
Why was it that everyone forgot that Captain America had a shadow?
Idiots.
But if they were going to be idiots, be it far from him to correct their misconceptions. That meant staying stealthy, not being seen nor heard until it was too late. So his guns were ruled out for the time being.
But his knives were effective, and he didn't even need those to be deadly. There were three guards on a roof three buildings over from where Bucky had stopped. Since none of the other nearby buildings were even so much as patrolled, Bucky made a calculated assumption that he'd just found where their command forces were hiding.
The posted guards were watching the street level. More idiots. Bucky practically flew across the street from one building to theirs, his Yari IIs drawn. They were in motion before he landed, hitting the men on either side of him. Before the third could react, his Mark II was crossing the distance between them and sinking into the guard's skull to the hilt.
He really needed a projectile weapon that wasn't loud and wasn't bitty like his damn knives. One of these days, he was gonna lose them to his victim falling the wrong way and taking the knife with him.
Fortunate for him, none of his targets tumbled ass over teakettle off the roof. He collected his knives, pausing to clean each of them at least a bit before sheathing them. He took the roof access into the building.
The building the separatists had chosen to set up camp in was a cold storage building; there were thick pipes crisscrossing the ceiling, and industrial cooling fans hanging several feet over the floor.
And for some reason, they'd left the cold on. It was fucking October, who the hell left an industrial-strength AC on in October in the northern hemisphere?
Right. Russians.
The storage was gigantic; the main room alone looked roughly the size of a football field, and it was obvious from the corner that Bucky was perched in the entire front room was set up as their makeshift barrcks. Shelves full of large cargo crates separated the room into smaller sections. To the back of the room was what looked like an administrative wing. Or at least a small collection of offices.
There weren't many men in the barracks area; it almost looked like they'd put all of their manpower into fighting off Steve and Tony. Probably smart of them. It'd take a small army to fight off those two, a larger one if Bucky were with them.
He had to wonder again about their intelligence if they forgot about him in that equation. Maybe Steve and Tony were just making a big of enough fuss for the separatists to not notice that Captain America's usual play partner was missing.
Thanks guys. Makes the job easier.
The only way off the roof access to the ground was right out in view of everything. Which meant taking a more discreet route. There was a particularly large grouping of pipes that were frigid to the touch that he could reach if he jumped. They looked sturdy; as long as he didn't try to squeeze with his left hand, they'd hold.
He gave it fifteen seconds to make sure that he could get up there without being seen, then hopped, landing on the pipes with a quiet thunk.
Crawling forward was achingly slow, not wanting to make any sudden movements, sudden noises, to avoid detection. Below him, the room was almost empty. Almost. There were still an easy dozen, closer to two dozen. Compared to the size of the room and the forces already enaging Steve and Tony out in the streets, along with those Steve and Bucky had already taken out, the number of men down there seemed pitiful. If this was all they'd left behind to defend their own base, Bucky felt sorry for them. From his position, he could snipe every one of them without being caught.
The crates on the shelves that sectioned the room into smaller 'rooms' interested him. He really wanted to know what was in them. Likely clothes and other necessities you'd find in a barracks, but maybe also weapons, and that was an idea he could subscribe to.
Getting over the pipes without something on his uniform or his exposed metal fingers clanking off the metal was a bit of a chore. He managed to slink out about halfway into the middle of the room, and leaned over, listening to conversations.
"It's Captain America again," one man was saying and Bucky's mind automatically switched to Russian to understand them, although the man had an odd accent for being Russian. He might've been originally from somewhere else. Wherever he was from originally, he was now in the Ukraine, pacing around a cot, down one side, around the end of it, down the other side, then back again.
His fellow conversationist was sitting on the end of the cot getting circled like carrion. "I thought he stayed out of politics."
Rude snort. "He's an American, they can't keep their fingers out of anyone else's pie."
Weird fucking way to put that, but Bucky couldn't deny that allegation against his home country.
He was temporarily distracted by the conversation between Tony and Steve in his comm.
"Is everything in the military a dick joke?
"Pretty much."
"I'm looking at you in a whole new light, Cap."
Bucky had to pause where he was, trying to figure out what he missed that had brought that up. Helluva conversation to tune into.
Creak.
Wait. Creak?
Bucky turned his head slightly, looking at the pipes bending under his arms. Oh come on, what kind of industrial-strength steel alloy breaks just from the weight of a cybernetic super soldier? Sure, he could crush cars by landing on them, but cars are made of carbon fiber, they're supposed to flatten like aluminum cans.
Creak.
Silence reigned in the room for another three seconds, the men below no longer talking before another creak.
Shit.
Creak.
Please don't.
The pipes busted right underneath him. He shot out a hand to catch hold of any non-falling piece of the pipes he could, too late realizing that using his metal hand was probably not a good idea to use when the piping crushed in his palm and busted off, sending him on his good way to the ground floor.
Dear Kiev. Fuck you and your shitty, inferior constructions.
At least the pipes didn't have any deadly coolant following him.
He landed squarely on a piece of piping that had beat him to the ground, sending him off his feet and onto his ass as it rolled out from under him. The pipe went skittering along the concrete floor with a rapid fire taptaptaptap followed by a metallic groan as it came to a stop.
The two men he'd been eavesdropping on had rather suddenly been joined by every single person that he'd counted in the room. That was roughly two dozen. Quick count showed twenty-two. Close enough for government work.
Instead of introducing himself, he opted on starting the party with a game of dart toss. He kicked up a piece of the broken pipe, grabbing it with his metal hand and flung it at one of the two men he'd been listening in on. The pipe split his head, squarely between the eyes.
Men shouted, converging on him. He heard the sound of the click of guns being pulled from holsters and the safeties turned off. He flipped up to his feet, grabbed the second conversationist, pulling the man in front of him just as several shots fired in his direction. The bullets hit the human shield, then he flung the dead man's body at the closest armed man.
The distraction gave him a second to yank the bloodied piping from his first target's head. He brandished it like a bat, jumping in between two armed targets faster than their aims could follow. The Winter Soldier swung hard at the man to his left, hearing the shattering of bone as it connected with his face, then used his momentum to turn, servos in his arm whining as the pipe hit dead on into the second man's throat. His body jerked backwards, stopped and shoved back down onto his face by a kick to the small of the back.
Four down.
Gunfire again, narrowly missing him, and he was in motion, turning to his left, where two gunman had just managed to pull themselves out from the body shield that'd been thrown at them. He tossed the bloodied pipe into the air, pulled out his Yari IIs from their place on his lower back, and leapt onto their backs, driving the blades of his knives into the back of their necks, the kinetic force behind them shattering bone. He twisted, flinging one of the dirtied knives at another gunman. The pipe fell back into gripping range and he grabbed it out of the air, spinning and swinging it hard into the side of the face of another gunman.
Seven.
The targets wised up, backing out of melee range. That would not stop him. He was faster than any of them. Dodging bullets was tricky when they came from multiple directions, but the old standby of 'hard to hit a moving target' was in his favor.
He wanted his damn knife back.
Deciding the piping was only good for one more kill, he leapt at the nearest gunman, the pipe leaving his hands for a mere second as the Winter Soldier grabbed the gunman and yanked him in front of him. His hands caught the pipe and he pulled the pipe back against the gunman's neck with enough force to embed the pipe in his throat.
Eight.
"For the love of Christ, shoot him," one man yelled, hiding at the back of the group.
Shooting sounded good.
Momentarily leaving his knife in one target's chest, he grabbed his SIG-Sauer out of his left holster and took aim, squeezing off three shots, two for the closest targets, and one especially for the lazy one who seemed to think that he could tell the others to take on the Winter Soldier and not have to help.
Eleven. Eleven more to go.
His second knife found its way between someone's eyes. Twelve. Turn, use momentum to get down, grab the Intratec from the right thigh holster and aim. Fire off two shots from the Intratec. Fourteen. The SIG-Sauer took another two in tandem with the Intratec. Sixteen. Six more.
The Winter Soldier was forced to back away, taking a three sixty as bullets zipped by. He stopped at the head of one cot. He kicked it up into the air, then jumped, using both feet against the metal supports on either side to slam it into two of the last targets. It wasn't really a weapon, but it was an excellent distraction for him to fire off four more shots. The last two were trying to get out from under the cot.
He walked over and casually fired both the SIG-Sauer and the Intratec at their heads, the bullets flying true.
There. Twenty-two inconvenient targets down.
He hadn't heard any response from the back offices, but that didn't necessarily mean anything. But he at least had a minute or two to investigate the crates.
After retrieving his knives.
As he expected, there was a lot of supplies that would be useless to him, but there was a crate full of various explosives, small boxes of grenades of various types, boxes of ammunitions, all full of wonderful chemicals that would make a very nice big boom.
After searching it for something to put that ammo in and finding nothing, he dragged that crate out off the low shelf it was sitting on, and pushed it to the door leading to what he still assumed was the administrative offices until the large crate blocked up the door. He dug around in the box, grabbing a grenade with a slow delay between the pin and the explosion. He armed the grenade, tossed it in the box, and ran like hell in the opposite direction, out the door and across the street to hide behind another building.
Behind him, the explosion ripped through the ground floor, the pressure popping off the door, dust and smoke billowing out.
Target eliminated with a brutal efficiency. His blood screamed from the levels of adrenaline pumping through it, the dizzying high of having done his job, done it well. None of those men would ever interfere again.
As the Winter Soldier slowly came down and Bucky returned, his insides began to turn into a slushy goop. His stomach muscles began to tense and his right arm began to shake. He'd done it again. His mind had gone from simple fighting against armed men into a hunter, an assassin that left a trail of painful destruction behind him.
He sunk down to the ground, back against the building he'd taken refuge against, crossing his legs under him, his arms folded over his stomach. That was stupid of him. He'd lost control. He could've found shelter and fired from the safety of a trench made of shelving and crates. Instead, he'd destroyed, carved his name in blood.
He needed a minute. Just a minute. He still had work to do, the real mission hadn't even started yet. He didn't have time for an episode. He needed just a minute.
"Bucky, status?" Steve's voice came across his comm.
Not just a minute? Okay, fine. Fuck you too, world.
"Command base clear," he replied.
"If there are any left over here, none of them are coming out to play," Tony said. "Where's 'command base'? We'll meet you."
Bucky closed his eyes, drawing in a deep breath. "A cold storage warehouse about a quarter mile away from the rear line."
"The area's clear," Steve said. "We'll rendezvous there."
"Acknowledged."
It took another fifteen very long seconds to make his muscles cooperate with the idea of standing. It took another thirty to breathe normally. And another five to shut away the fear of self and return to a neutral expression.
Purely out of a smart sense of paranoia, he remained where he was, a blind corner between him and anyone coming down the street. He waited until he could hear the sounds of metal joints making a slight but distinct clinking noise before glancing around the corner. Good, it was Tony and Steve.
"Okay, so, that was fun," Tony said as Bucky joined them. "You had so much fun that you got your uniform dirty."
Bucky looked down at himself. Getting up close and personal with his combat knives had left blood spattered here and there. "It happens." It shouldn't.
Tony looked around the area. "Any other amusing distractions before we hunt down this Hydra base and see what damage we can do there?"
"Hopefully no," Steve said. "Bucky, your lead. You know where this place is."
Right. He just needed to realign his internal compass. He turned in a slow circle, examining the buildings, letting his mind map out the area. The information bubbled up from the back of his mind like water on a burner, coming into clear focus. Further west, roughly half a mile, maybe a bit over. There was a turn a third of the way there that'd take them north from the street they were on. His internal wiring shifted, the program to find the nearest safehouse activating as if he were somewhere in the past, where the mission was everything.
There was a whole lotta going back to Hydra going on that day for him. The part of him still thinking past the automatic responses wanted a warm and dark corner to hide in for awhile. He didn't have that freedom yet, so he let the takeover happen. It'd actually do more good this time than slaughtering enemy combatants.
Without a word, he followed his internal map, letting Captain America and Iron Man follow or not follow, their choice.
From close behind him, Iron Man spoke up. "Cap, those explosives on the quinjet. How'd you plan on getting them from there to here?"
"We figured after we'd secured the area, we'd go back for them."
"That seems tedious. I'll head back now and grab them. If anymore parties start while I'm gone, lemme know. I'll let you two claim all the glory. Unless you want me to go up like a firework on the Fourth of July."
"Not really. We'll meet you there."
The repulsors in the suit fired up and Iron Man took off, leaving the Winter Soldier with Captain America. And Captain America, it seemed, wanted to be chatty. "You got quiet. We're not lost, are we?" That sounded like a light-hearted jab, one that would normally be met with a retort from Bucky, from the Winter Soldier that was Captain America's partner.
Hydra's Winter Soldier couldn't respond to ribbing like that. "Negative." Get me out of here.
For a second, it didn't seem like Captain America would respond. Knowing that he'd say something despite that, the Winter Soldier counted off a predicted five and a half seconds before "Bucky-"
He stopped in his tracks, the Captain almost walking right by him for how abrupt it was. "Not now, Steve," he said through clenched teeth. "I don't have any other way of finding this place." I don't want in this head anymore get me out.
This time it was a three second pause. "All right, Soldier. This is your mission, you know the way." The fact that Captain America- Steve -would call him any name but Bucky almost spooked Hydra's Soldier enough to disappear. Good. Go away. But the mission to return to base remained strong, strong enough to push him forward.
Down the street.
Turn right.
Three blocks.
A left and third building down.
The building seemed greyer, duller than what was in his memory, the sign that once proudly displayed the company name reduced to a faded Akrikhin Farmatsev, part of the name missing from time and elements. But it was the right one. The Soldier was certain of it, a feeling of dread and comfort mixing in his gut. This was home, this was where he trained, learned, grew. But within was a chair. The tables. The cryo unit. It was the home of an abused child. And he didn't like it.
Bucky slowly resurfaced, taking several deep breaths to clear his head. Hydra's Winter Soldier's programming was no longer needed, they'd found the base. He didn't want that Soldier in that place again. He didn't want to go in there either, truth be told, but it was too risky for Hydra's Soldier to return to where he'd been created. It was impossible to say what he'd do, and Bucky wasn't interested in finding out. Taking every step in fear was better than taking every step further into an old brainwashing that he'd spent the better part of the last six months trying to escape.
Damnit, he wanted to go home and hide in a corner for awhile, then get to baking those cookies. Maybe an early five course Thanksgiving dinner. He'd decide later.
They waited patiently for Tony, or at least, they tried to. Bucky was jittery and tapping his finger nervously on his thigh again. Steve seemed like he was at a loss as to what to do. He tried anyway. "Is it safe to call you Bucky yet?"
Deep breath. Zen. Zen goddamnit. "Yeah. We're here."
Steve put a hand on Bucky's flesh shoulder, giving it a reassuring squeeze. "We'll look for what we're here for, then blow this place up and it'll be over."
It'd never be over, but Bucky didn't want to disappoint Steve, so he simply made a noise that might've been agreement, might've been argumentative.
"Hydra picked a dump," Tony said in Bucky's earpiece, seconds before the sounds of his repulsors reached them. He landed on Bucky's other side, the case of explosive materials in his hand.
"It wasn't always," Bucky said, looking at the old building. "It's just collected dust."
"Let's go clear the dust out then," Steve said.
Bucky took an extra second behind Steve and Tony to swallow down his nerves, before following them into his past.