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[endsinafight]

Bucky'd been fidgety throughout the debriefing with Fury, even if he hadn't moved a muscle as he listened to the mission -- another HYDRA target, smaller, on a remote island in the Pacific. Not the usual setup, which made him uneasy from the get-go. But there was something else, something nagging at him, something in Fury's tone that told him there was more to this mission than he was willing to divulge. It wasn't a surprise. Fury might not be HYDRA, but in some ways his methods were so similar that it felt like being back there anyway. He definitely believed in the need to know principle, and obviously he didn't feel like they needed to know whatever it was he was holding back. His gaze darted to Steve, wondering if he'd picked up on it, too.

But if Steve had, his expression didn't betray his thoughts.

He pressed his lips together as they were dismissed, Fury addressing him as the others agents involved in the mission filtered out of the room. "Barnes. Hang back a minute."

And there it was, he thought, meeting Steve's eyes only briefly before lingering as Fury requested. One the door was shut again, the other man turned to study him.

"You have a different mission while they're disabling all of HYDRA's operating systems and containing the operatives."

Bucky studied him just as intently, his voice flat when he responded. "Who'm I eliminating?"

If Fury was surprised by his response, he gave nothing away. "Your target is Katya Belyakov."

"Who is she?" His voice was wary.

"You sure you wanna know the details, Barnes?" he asked, arching an eyebrow.

"If you're asking me to murder someone, yes," Bucky said, jaw tightening.

Fury regarded him for a long moment. "Essentially, she's the of the most dangerous people in the galaxy. Mind control abilities that she's utilized to force others to commit her dirty work. She's likely being accompanied by a former SHIELD operative who turned out to be moonlighting for HYDRA, Grant Ward. I'd prefer him to remain alive. He's got a lot to answer for."

Every muscle in Bucky's body tensed at the information about Belyakov, but also the name Grant Ward, his stomach turning in recognition.

"Ah. See you're familiar with him then."

"Unfortunately," Bucky responded stiffly, struggling to maintain his composure. "I'm assuming this isn't an optional mission." There was a hint of bitterness in his voice.

"You knew when you signed the dotted line that there's no such thing here, Barnes. Is there a problem? Or do I need to go over the fine print of your contract to refresh your memory?"

Fuck you, he thought. "No, Sir. Am I free to go?"

"You're dismissed."

--

An hour later, he was suited up in his tac gear, breathing steady and even despite the wild pounding of his heart as he boarded the quinjet with a team he didn't know or trust, and the only person on the earth he truly did.

Comments

[littleguyfrombrooklyn]

Sam could see the effect that he was having on Bucky. He didn’t regret going for the jugular like this. He could tell, just in this short conversation, that something was badly wrong. And he figured that the only reason why he was getting this much was that Bucky was so rattled from the traumatic day.

“The rest of us are damned superheroes, JB. You gotta let us take care of ourselves. Or at least know what the the bargain—“

He cut off when Bucky flinched and he turned to face Fury. Sam had always thought the guy was kind of an asshole, but generally good. He was startled to see the abrupt shift in Bucky’s body language. Something like fear stuttered his breath.

“Wilson,” Fury greeted him. “I’m gonna need Barnes here for a debrief. You go keep an eye on Rogers.”

Sam huffed out a breath through his nose and looked at Bucky. He was ready to refuse to go, but if this was another espionage type situation, he didn’t want to fuck it up preemptively. He wished he could read minds, just for a second, just to know if Bucky was legitimately afraid of being disappeared or something. In that case, Sam would stick like glue.

[endsinafight]

Ninety some years ago, Bucky had been seven years old and missing one of his front teeth the day he'd interrupted a fight in the middle of the sidewalk. There were three boys -- all Bucky's size or bigger -- tormenting a short, skinny little blond kid. They'd been tugging on his backpack and pushing him around, but he hadn't laid down and taken the bullying without fighting back. He'd taken a swing and thrown a weak punch at the kid in front of him, only to get waylaid almost immediately. Bucky had balled up both of his fists and charged into the conflict, socking one of the other boys in the nose hard enough to make it bleed. He remembered asking the little blond why he hadn't just run away.

"They never leave you alone until you make 'em," he'd answered, lip swollen and eye blackened from the short battle. From that day on, Bucky had followed that kid around, pretending to himself that he was his bodyguard, but truth be told, he'd just been enamored by the kid's guts and tenacity. He still was.

He met Sam's eyes for a brief moment, then squared his shoulders with resolve that he hoped would make Steve proud, turning to look at Fury again.

"I'm under orders to wait on that debrief until my captain is awake," he responded.

[littleguyfrombrooklyn]

Sam has spent a long time in the military controlling his expression, but not even he could conceal the big, broad grin that spread across his face. Well done, Bucky. He managed to mostly get himself together by the time Fury shifted his glare from Bucky to Sam, but he was sure there was still a certain “go fuck yourself” twinkle in your eye.

“Excuse me?” Fury said, finally. His voice was a flat as the blade of a knife. “You report directly to me.”

Sam unsubtly got his phone out and texted Natasha: get to the hospital ASAP. Situation brewing.

[endsinafight]

He was barely cognizant of what Sam was doing, aside from not leaving, and he was grateful for that. He wasn't sure if Fury was truly the type to make him disappear somewhere, but he'd rather not take his chances, either. "With all due respect, Sir. Captain Rogers has been my CO for longer than SHIELD's been in existence." He pressed his lips together, no trace of humor on his face or in his eyes. His heart was pounding inside his chest despite his outward show of defiance.

[littleguyfrombrooklyn]

“Take a walk, Wilson,” Fury said.

Sam said, “Nope.”

He didn’t even work for SHIELD. He was a retired superhero, for all intents and purposes. Auxiliary. He didn’t have to sir anybody anymore. Fury’s eyes flickered with... well, fury. But he didn’t say anything else to Sam and turned back to Bucky.

“Barnes, that’s not the way the goddamned chain of command works. I’m his commander and even if I wasn’t? This isn’t the military. It doesn’t work like that. I don’t know what shit you’re trying to feed me right now, but I don’t like the taste. We both know exactly how this is going to go.”

[endsinafight]

Bucky knew that technically Fury was right. He'd signed a contract with SHIELD, and he didn't have to be a lawyer to know it was legally binding. Steve wasn't technically his CO anymore, because this wasn't the military. Fury could have him railroaded in no time flat, and it wouldn't just be his ass on the line. He wavered for a moment before steeling his nerves once more, Sam at his side.

"I'm not going to talk about this matter until Captain Rogers is awake. Sir." There was finality in his tone, resignation in his eyes. His cards were on the table and now it was Fury's turn to make his move, one way or the other.

[littleguyfrombrooklyn]

Fury studied Bucky for a long moment. Sam checked his phone—Natasha sent a random emoji, which meant she was probably on her way at top speed. He wasn’t sure what the little yellow business lady had to do with anything, but that’s just the way Natasha texted.

When he looked up again, Fury was looking at him.

“Do you know what type of fire Barnes is playing with here?”

“I trust his judgment,” he said, immediately and with complete sincerity. “And I find it’s usually a bad sign when people don’t want Steve to be part of a decision. Sometimes Steve is wrong, but if a shadowy government agency wants to cut him out of the loop entirely? Nah, that’s a bad sign and you know it.”

[endsinafight]

Bucky remained still and silent under the scrutiny of Fury's stare. He reminded himself that he'd been faced with people who were just as intimidating -- more so, in fact -- when he was with HYDRA. He'd dealt with some of the worst kinds of men and women that had lived, and he was still here. The only part of it that made him deeply uneasy was the fact that it had always just been him who'd been under threat of harm with HYDRA.

He exhaled just a little when Fury's gaze shifted to Sam instead, but it was Sam's immediate, honest response that once more caught him off guard. He was starting to understand why Steve liked him so much, thought so highly of him. He hadn't really seen this side of the man before today. If he weren't standing there waiting to see if Fury was going to have him arrested and dragged away, he would have smiled, warmed by the faith in him that Sam exhibited. It wasn't something he'd earned and he didn't understand it, but he was damned grateful for it anyway.

At that moment, another familiar figure rounded the corner, red hair bright under the fluorescent corridor lights. "How is he?" she asked as she approached, boots clicking on the tile floor.

[littleguyfrombrooklyn]

“Still in surgery,” Sam said. “His last order was that Barnes here is not to debrief until after he wakes up. The Director doesn’t like that.”

“Romanoff,” Fury said. “I hope you can talk some sense into these idiots here. You know the stakes.”

[endsinafight]

Natasha met Sam's eyes, holding his gaze for a moment before shifting her attention to Bucky, studying him intently and then turning her attention to Fury. "If I knew a little more about what was going on, I could probably be more helpful, Sir." If there was one person she'd truly learned to trust who wasn't Clint, it was Steve. And if he gave a specific order for Barnes not to debrief with Fury before he was awake and aware, she knew there was a reason.

[littleguyfrombrooklyn]

“Barnes reports to me,” Fury said, in a growl. “We had a deal.”

This last was said directly to Bucky, stressing the past tense of the verb. And with that, he gave this up as a bad time. He wasn’t going to beg.

He looked right at Bucky, meeting his eyes. “I have some calls to make, get in touch when you’ve come to your senses.”

And with that, he turned on his heel and left them.

[endsinafight]

It felt like someone had injected ice straight into his veins even as Fury walked away without looking back, chilling him to the bone and leaving him wondering about the underlying threat. It was never good when they weren't upfront about what kind of punishment was going to be involved and it was all he could do not to go after him and tell him to punish him and not the others. Something in his gaze must have given away how troubled he was, because Natasha turned to look at him, frown etched onto her face.

"You should sit." He'd gone pale, and she wasn't sure he wasn't about to pass out.

[littleguyfrombrooklyn]

Sam snagged a thin plastic chair and pushed it underneath Bucky.

Humming tunelessly, he got a can of coke out of the machine and handed it to him.

“Get some sugar in you,” he said, more cheerful than the situation perhaps deserved. “You probably haven’t eaten since before the mission, am I right?”

Natasha watched this caretaking with considering eyes. Once Bucky was a little more settled, she said, “Fill me in, boys.”

[endsinafight]

He took the Coke from Sam but he didn't open it, feeling that vague sense of numbness approaching once more. Mission report. He knew neither of them were his handlers but somehow that knowledge didn't make him feel much better under the circumstances. "I have a contract with Fury," he said, voice devoid of any emotion. "Pretty sure I just violated all the terms of it."

Natasha cocked her head to the side, then glanced at Sam. "Well. Join the club."

[littleguyfrombrooklyn]

Sam huffed a little, took back the coke and opened it, and then handed it back to Bucky.

“Clearly Steve knew what he was talking about when he made that order if it’s got you so rattled,” Sam said. “Now you’ve got backup. Even though he acts like it, this is not actually the first time someone had said no to Fury.”

[endsinafight]

"Thanks," he murmured, looking down at the soda for a long moment before forcing himself to take a sip.

"What exactly does this contract entail?" Natasha questioned.

He drew in a slow breath, not quite able to look at either of them. He still wasn't sure he should even be telling them about this. He wasn't sure about much at the moment. "It's -- I do whatever I'm told to do. In return, I get to remain in the country without prosecution for previous acts of treason, and a long list of felonies." He licked his lips, hand tightening around the soda can just a little.

Her eyebrows furrowed at that. "I thought Steve came up with the terms of your deal with Fury."

"No. He's the one who reached out to Fury in the first place, so that we could work something out. For all of us."

[littleguyfrombrooklyn]

Natasha’s eyes sharpened.

“So Sam and the others. They’re also part of your deal?”

Sam didn’t react, but it took some doing. He wasn’t entirely surprised, not with Bucky’s level of overwhelming guilt, but okay. This was the situation. He was going to have to prepare for the possibility of going on the run again.

Natasha flicked him a glance, as if she could see right through him.

[endsinafight]

"Sam. Steve. Wanda." He pressed his lips together and looked up at her reluctantly, guilt in his eyes. "And you." He scraped his teeth over his lower lip, something he'd been doing more and more of recently. "This morning, Fury sent us on a mission to the Pacific, to a remote island. There was a HYDRA facility there he wanted us to raid, garner information from, the usual." He shut his eyes momentarily.

"After the meeting he had me stay back. He had a separate mission for me. A target named Katya Belyakov. He told me she had mind control abilities. We were supposed to detain her handler, Grant Ward. When..." He rubbed his hand over his face. "I told Steve. Despite the contract, I'm not that great when it comes to lying to his face. He insisted he'd take out the target so I wouldn't have to. But it went sideways and when I found him he had a gun to his own head. I couldn't see Belyakov, but I knew she was just out of sight. So I took the only shot I could think to take to make sure Steve didn't shoot himself in the head."

[littleguyfrombrooklyn]

"Sounds like you made a good call," Natasha said.

She considered the situation, cocking her head and staring into space for a long moment while she was thinking.

"Thing is, Barnes," she said. "It’s not easy to ostracize a national hero. Last time, Steve made it easy because he was half off his head. This time, we are all legally here, all legally living our lives. Sam and Wanda both aren’t even working for SHIELD, they’re just living as private citizens. Me? I’m one of the most dangerous and capable people alive in subtle ways and you and Steve are like a nuclear bomb worth of physical power. We can make it a PR nightmare to disappear you or expel us."

She grinned, but there was little humor in it—it was closer to just barring her teeth.

"You’re not going to like it, though. We need to make you America’s Sweetheart again. Shouldn’t be hard. You got those big soulful eyes and Steve is really good at talking about how you hang the moon. Are you fucking yet, by the way?"

[endsinafight]

Bucky listened warily, wondering if she was right. That he'd invested too much fear and worry into holding up a deal he'd never really wanted to begin with, in order to help people who may not have needed him to do that at all. Did Fury truly even have that kind of power to begin with? Or was his perception that distorted?

Still. That grin of hers made him uneasy and when she said he wasn't going to like it...well, she was definitely right. He was already shaking his head. "That's never going to work," he told her, taking a drink of Coke. Regardless of how Steve talked him up, there was no way the American public was going to see him as anything less than the Winter Soldier. Her last question, though, made him choke on his drink, sputtering.

"What?"

[littleguyfrombrooklyn]

Her eyes twinkled.

“It’s a legitimate strategy question,” she said. “People love a love story and you have one of the best. All the classic beats. Imagine the interview on Ellen, Steve’s arm around your shoulders, talking about how you two just want to be happy.”

Her voice went a little more gentle. “You’ll probably have to retire for good. But I can’t imagine you’re unhappy about that idea.”

Sam was watching like this was a tennis match.

[endsinafight]

He was starting to suspect that Romanoff had lost her mind entirely and the expression on his face said just that. Granted, she was perceptive enough to pick up that he and Steve's feelings for each other ran deeper than platonic and he wasn't entirely caught off guard by that, though his gaze did dart momentarily to Sam, not sure how he might take that, even if he didn't know it was true yet. Then he looked at Natasha once more, shaking his head.

What she was suggesting was so far out of his comfort level. He was pretty sure it wasn't going to be in Steve's comfort zone, either.

"You don't think there's any less...publicly dramatic way to keep this from blowing up?"

[littleguyfrombrooklyn]

Sam looked amused at the bafflement on Bucky’s face, but not surprised. The rest of them had figured there was something going on there, some backstory, but Steve had spluttered. He had never denied he had feelings, though, and Sam easily folded it into his understanding of his friend.

“Public is safer,” she said, bluntly. “You don’t want to be a black ops kinda guy anymore? Best way to check that is to be relentlessly, explicitly public. No one can disappear you if you’re on the cover of People magazine.”

Her voice softened a little bit. “People will root for you. I’m sure some of them will anyway, but if you’re Captain America’s childhood sweetheart, cruelly kept apart by terrorists and homophobia, you’ll have them eating out of your hand.”

[endsinafight]

What she was saying did make some amount of sense, even if the idea of being that public with anything from his life made him want to crawl into a hole and stay there. He closed his eyes, shaking his head. "I'm not," he said honestly. Even if he'd spent his entire life wishing for that exact thing, he couldn't claim it because it wasn't true. He and Steve had only recently started trying to figure things out between them. But that wasn't even his news to reveal. These were Steve's friends and teammates. He should be the one to make that call.

"It was never...like that."

[littleguyfrombrooklyn]

Natasha’s voice was gentle when she said, “It wasn’t that because you were kept apart. I think it’s safe to say that Steve wanted it. Can’t speak as well to you, you’re not as horrifically easy to read.”

She had more than a bunch, though.

“It’ll still work as a story. All you need really is to love each other now.”