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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

[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.”

[endsinafight]

"I'm going to take that as a compliment," he mumbled. Loving Steve was nothing new. He'd loved him since he was a kid, even when he couldn't remember everything about him, even when he couldn't remembering everything about himself. He shifted in his chair, taking a drink of the soda, mostly because his mouth had gone totally dry.

"I need to talk to Steve."

[littleguyfrombrooklyn]

“You should,” said Natasha. “I would say Steve was an open book, but it’s probably more right to say he’s a news program blaring at you at top volume.”

“Talking to Steve is a good idea,” Sam said, smoothly. He checked his phone for the time. “The surgery will likely be finished pretty soon. Though I doubt at first we’re going to get much out of him, under the anesthetic. Feeling up to going back to the waiting room?”

[endsinafight]

To say he was relieved for the segue would be a gross understatement and he made a silent vow to buy Sam a beer in the near future. Anything to stop talking about unraveling the entirety of his life and his feelings for Steve and putting it all on display for the world to see and analyze and judge. He rose to his feet, feeling a little unsteady. "Yeah. Long as Fury's not in there anyway."

[littleguyfrombrooklyn]

“Nurses are scary, dude. In a battle of wills between your average OR nurse and Nick Fury, my money is on the nurse,” Sam said, cheerful.

They walked back into the waiting room. When the nurse at the station saw them—well, Sam specifically—she smiled and waved them over.

“He’s awake! Mostly. One of you can go back.” She

[littleguyfrombrooklyn]

“Nurses are scary, dude. In a battle of wills between your average OR nurse and Nick Fury, my money is on the nurse,” Sam said, cheerful.

They walked back into the waiting room. When the nurse at the station saw them—well, Sam specifically—she smiled and waved them over.

“He’s awake! Mostly. One of you can go back.” She looked at Sam expectantly, clearly assuming it would be him. Sam immediately looked at Bucky.

[endsinafight]

His heart began to beat faster, eyes growing wide. He stepped up to the counter, laying his hands atop it. "Is he okay? Does he --"

Still have his hand?

[littleguyfrombrooklyn]

The nurse fixed her eyes on Bucky, reconsidering him. She didn’t recognize him, but she had assumed he was just a member of his team.

“We can’t tell how much function he’s going to retain, not yet, but the doctors are optimistic. The surgery went well. I would normally say it’d be a long recovery and it probably will be—scaled to him.”

[endsinafight]

He squeezed his eyes shut as tears burned there, nodding. He still had his hand. And maybe the recovery would take awhile, but it was Steve. Steve, who'd overcome a myriad of different ailments and issues and beat the goddamn odds a thousand times over already. He would be okay. He would. "Thank you," he murmured. He leaned heavily against the counter for a moment.

"Barnes. Yours is going to be the first face he wants to see," Natasha said quietly, starting to reach out to lay a hand on his shoulder and pulling back at the last moment, thinking better of it. "You should go back."

Bucky drew in a slow breath, nodding. "Where?"

[littleguyfrombrooklyn]

The nurse’s eyes widened at Bucky’s name and then flicked to his prosthetic, fully placing him. Her face softened when she looked at him, seeing how hard he took the news.

Natasha filed the reaction away as more proof that the romance was a good angle.

“I can take you back, Mr. Barnes,” the nurse said, kindly.

[endsinafight]

He missed the woman's reaction entirely, but at the reassurance, he managed a faint smile, nodding quickly. "Thank you," he said again, glancing momentarily at Natasha and Sam before following her down the hall. He chewed his lower lip as he walked, heart still beating quickly in his chest as he tried to prepare himself for the assortment of tubes and equipment that were likely attached to his best friend right now.

[littleguyfrombrooklyn]

As she took him back, the nurse gave him a sidelong look. She remembered reading an exposé that talked a little about the whole thing with HYDRA and he looked tense. Poor guy.

“A normal patient wouldn’t remember much right now,” she said. “Normally he’d need two or so hours in the recovery room. I’ve not worked with Captain Rogers before, but his records say that he’ll recover much faster than usual.”

She lead him into a private suite. Steve was laying on the bed, a couple layers of institutional hospital blankets on him. He had an IV in his arm, oxygen nose prongs, and a blood oxygenation meter on his uninjured hand. The left hand was totally swaddled with bandages.

“Captain Rogers,” she said, cheerfully.

“Steve,” he muttered, without opening his eyes.

She carefully checked on the IV and tutted are him. “You pushed out your fluids again.”

“Did not,” he said, peering at her through mostly closed slits.

“Did so. It’s that super-skin,” she said, waving the leaking needle. “Gonna be a prick.”

She swiped it with alcohol and reinserted it.

“You have a visitor,” she said and Steve opened his eyes. At the first sight of Bucky, he beamed like the sun.