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He sits on the edge of the bed he’d claimed for himself in a run-down apartment building filled with meth addicts and crack-heads. As suspicious as he was of these creatures of habit, The Asset has no other choice but to squat in their building for a few days. They didn’t seem to look twice when he stumbled inside late into the night in the day following the helicarrier crash, something he was pleased with. They didn’t even acknowledge his scream of pain and string of vulgar Russian curse words as he resets his own shoulder, the flesh one, the one that his target had dislocated during their battle. These people were alright by him, so long as they kept out of his way, and kept their noses out of his business. He flexes his flesh and bone fingers, picking at the last remaining bits of scab left over from the way he’d pummelled the target to a bloody pulp. Flashes of the fight come to him as he sits in silence, hearing things the target had told him.
Cause I’m with you, Till the end of the line.
The words that his target had said before falling into the Potomac River echo in his head. They repeat over and over like some twisted mantra meant to drive him further to insanity. They had meant something to him before. He could hear his own voice saying them time and time again, to some faceless blur deep in the mostly burnt out memories in his fucked-up, fucked-with brain. Why had he said them? What did they really mean? Who had he said them to? So many questions. The Asset huffs to himself and does his best to shake the thoughts off.
All he really knows right now was that he has to find a way to survive while simultaneously avoiding being captured by Hydra again. As he sits on the bed he shucks the leather jacket and heavy kevlar and leather combat vest and his weaponry to take stock of what he still has. He’d lost one of his knives on the damn helicarrier, his pistol — The only remaining firearm left on his person — was waterlogged from diving into the river after the target, and whatever rounds he had left were likely ruined too. The Asset’s mouth draws into a tight line as he quickly dismantles the pistol and cleans it’s components with a strip he tears from a bed sheet. If nothing else, he could pawn the weapon and rounds off on some unsuspecting thug and get some cash. By the time they found out the thing doesn’t work, The Asset would be long gone and several hundred dollars richer.
He feels filthy. The masters rarely let him bathe, which drives him crazy. When they had, it was in lukewarm water so he never feels completely clean. He takes full advantage of the bathroom in the shabby apartment, turning the water in the grimy shower so hot that he likely should have been burned. The water washes all traces of sweat and dirt and grime away, and soothes the aching muscles of his now-reset shoulder. Theres a tiny bottle of soap left by the apartments previous tenants, and he uses it to scrub the dry blood from his hair. Once clean, he gets out from the shower and lets the tub partly fill with water. His clothes are in just as hard-up shape as he is. Bloodstains mar the one arm of his long-sleeve black henley that he wears beneath his leathers, and it reeks of sweat, his pants much the same. He tosses them both in the water and scrubs them as clean as he can before hanging them over the shower curtain rod to dry, then sits in the corner of the bathroom, wrapped up in a couple towels he’d found.
The worst part of all this was being nameless. The Masters had never given a proper name, but the target had called him ‘Bucky’. James Buchanan Barnes. Who the hell was that? The Asset vaguely recalls that name, but he wasn’t quite sure how. And that bothers him. He hates not knowing where he came from, who he is, who he used to be. The minute things started coming back, and some scrap of his former self started to come through, The Masters would wipe him again, taking it all away. He doesn’t want to be nameless anymore. He isn’t somebody’s weapon now
So he decides to do some digging. The following evening, he dresses in the only clothes that he has, throws his body armour on, and the Hydra issue leather jacket before making his way from the building via the fire escape. The streets here are teeming with hard-up looking people; gaunt in the face and rake thin, women in next to no clothing, and burley looking men in baggy pants and backwards hats. The Asset leans against a wall, left hand in his coat pocket, and watches one of these men. Several minutes later, a young woman runs up to him, brandishing a handful of cash. She pleads with the man for a minute, before he hands her a small packet of some substance that The asses assumes is drugs. Perfect. He thinks, pushing away from the wall. He walks towards the drug dealer and clears his throat. “Hope you got the cash.” Is all the dealer says as he counts the money the woman had given him.
“Better.” The Asset mutters. “And I don’t want drugs.”
The dealer looks up with a quirked eyebrow. “The fuck you want then?”
The Asset pulls his ruined pistol and spare clip of rounds from his holster and passes it over, unloaded. “Cash.”
He watches the dealer raise the hem of his oversized shirt, exposing two of his own handguns. “I’ve got my own, thanks.”
“Bet those are wanted weapons.” The Asset says. “Few rounds fired off in some bust gone bad? They have those guns on file, I’ll tell you that. This one,” He nods towards his own weapon. “You can’t track. Special issue, no striations. You use this, cops’ll never find you.”
The dealer looks interested. “What’s the catch?”
The Asset shrugs. “I just need the cash.” He loads the magazine into the gun and passes it to the dealer, handle first. The Dealer hefts the weapon in his hand and inspects it. The Asset assumes he doesn’t know the first thing about weaponry, judging the way the dealer neglects to even dismantle the piece to check its components.
“Two hundred.” Says the dealer.
“Four-fifty.”
“Three-fifty or no deal.”
The Asset huffs and nods once. The Dealer grins and counts out the right number of bills, while The Asset looks around the now deserted street. The other man passes over the money, and The Asset reaches for it, but instead grabs the man’s wrist with his right hand, his left darting out from the pocket of his coat to knock the gun out of the man’s other hand. He then grabs The Dealer’s throat in his metallic hand, fingers contracting, mechanisms in the arm whirring as he watches the other man’s eyes start to bug. He chokes, face turning red, then purple, then finally his eyes roll back and he falls limp. The Asset drops the body with a sick satisfaction, and rummages through the man’s pockets. He finds a thick wad of cash, which he takes along with both the guns stashed in the waist band of the other’s pants.
Up a thousand dollars and two working semi-automatics. He thinks as he walks away. With a quick hop of a fence, The Asset takes blends into the busy sidewalk as best he can.
He discovers just how lax security on some of the public libraries can be when he breaks into one in the same sketchy neighbourhood. It’s old, and the security system was easier to diffuse than anything he’d ever worked with before. The computers there are highly dated, but ones that he understood how to use. The Masters had been sure to teach him the skills necessary to be the useful tool that he was, and computer hacking had been one of them. He pulls up the search window and types in the name that The Target had given him.
Pages of information pop up before his eyes; articles, pictures, news reels. He clicks a link.
The first thing that pops up is a picture of himself and The Target — Whose name is Steven G. Rogers, A.K.A Captain America. It’s an old photo, circa 1942 by the date marked in the lower lefthand corner. Steve is grinning widely, like he’s laughing, and he — Who the photo labels as James ‘Bucky’ Barnes (So that IS my name!) — is looking up at the man with a smile that he was sure he couldn’t muster anymore. He reads the article underneath.
They had been the best of friends long before World War II, one never far from the other. During the war, they were part of The Howling Commandos, an elite group of soldiers sent to dismantle Hydra’s bases once Steve had rescued them and a slew of other soldiers from one such base. Bucky had fallen to his death in 1944, Steven had put a Hydra aircraft in the arctic ocean soon after. Both had been hailed as heroes. It’s a tragic story, one that The Asset doesn’t remember.
But the name feels right, at least in part. So he adopts it. James. He thinks, looking back at the picture of his former supposed self. He shrugs.
James eyes the screen skeptically. He wasn’t a hero; he was an assassin, a spy, and a murderer. Whoever this Bucky was, he certainly wasn’t him. But Bucky had his face. Was that why Steve had called him that?
He clicks another article and similar information meets his eyes. And after skimming several more, he begins to wonder if this is actually true. A final click drags up the homepage for the Smithsonian museum, with a big display of memorabilia from Captain America and The Howling Commandos. He makes up his mind as he leaves the library that he’s going to visit the museum the following morning.
Thoughts pulse through his mind as he lays on the shabby bed in his hideout, eyes staring blankly at the same spot on the ceiling for what feels like hours. How had he not died when he’d fallen from that train, like the article said he did? How was he supposed to keep hiding from Hydra and The Masters, and stay alive? Yes, he knew how to be a ghost, he was good at that. Why didn’t Steve fight him back on that helicarrier?
His eyes don’t close that night, and the sun rises hours later. The first thing he does is find a second-hand store that he’d spotted on his search for the library and purchases some more modern, civilian looking clothes; a pair of jeans that he decides nearly instantly that he doesn’t like, a couple of long-sleeve t-shirts, a baseball hat and a thick black hoodie. He decides as he’s leaving that he’ll need something to carry his belongings in, so he gets a back-pack too, then goes back to his hideout to change and stash his gear away.
Once dressed more like the modern man, James feels like his arm sticks out even more. The metal hand catches the light in matter how he holds it. He hates the damn thing, anyway. Never could feel the things he touched. The Masters always had a new one for him, whenever they would wake him, each one better and more advanced than the last. So far, this one was the best he’d had. He had more dexterity in the fingers, could manipulate them as easily as he could his right. But sometimes the place where the metal fused to skin and bone ached. Pursing his lips, James shoves the baseball hat onto his head and pulls the lip down over his eyes and leaves once again.
The Smithsonian exhibit is bustling with people by the time he gets there, and he sneaks through security with a group to tourists with little Canadian flags stitched to their backpacks. Inside is a huge room, filled with articles, pictures and various items that may have once belonged to Captain Rogers. Children are running about with cowls over there heads that match the one on The Captain’s old uniform, clutching little plastic shields. One bumps into him with an ‘oof!’ He looks up, wide eyed and grins. “Sorry mister!” He says before darting off after the others. James forces a tight lipped, half smile.
He makes his way slowly through every station of the exhibit, staring long and hard into the faces in the pictures, trying to remember. Flashes of memories dart out in his mind, too small and insignificant to make any sense of, so he moves on. James nearly passes a glass memorial wall, until his own face catches his attention. He steps in close and reads the words printed there about this person, and stares in stunned silence for several minutes. More broken memories start to form, and James feels his whole body run cold. He HAD been this man. He HAD known the man on the bridge. Steven Rogers was his friend, his best friend.
He spends the rest of the day in the museum, until the staff begin to tell people that they have to leave. James follows them all out and takes off into another alleyway. Things are coming back to him, things that had once been buried under years and years of electroshock therapy and whatever drugs he’d been given to keep him complacent. He remembers Steve finding him in the Hydra base back in the war, and how happy he’d been to see the man. Only, it wasn’t the Steve he’d known from before James had gone overseas. Steve had been a little runt of a guy, with a heart and soul too big for the body he’d been given. They’d lived together in Brooklyn after Steve’s mom died, and Steve got sick every winter. James remembers caring for the sick man, taking time off work to make sure he was there just incase this time was the time that got him. But Steve was stubborn, James remembered. He’d been stubborn on that helicarrier too.
By the time he reaches the hideout, it’s late and his body is tired. James retires to bed, sleeping with a knife under his pillow and one of the newly stolen guns stashed between the mattress and box spring of the bed. Nightmares visit him when he sleeps. Terrible and vivid, and oh so familiar. Being strapped down to a cold metal table, a series of needles being jammed into his arms, and some short Swedish man asking him a thousand and one question which James only answers with his name and identification number. James awakes with a start, not an hour later, hearing the squeal of sirens outside, and heavy footsteps running down the hall outside his door. Fuck! He thinks, grabbing his backpack and few meagre possessions. If they find me now, I’m dead. He stuffs his things into the bag and takes the leftover cash from the dresser where he left it, and hurries out the fire escape.
It’s not until he’s already outside that he realizes that it was an ambulance and not the cops.
Either way, being too comfortable was likely a bad thing, and he had work to do.
He wanders the streets, sleeping in alleys and abandoned buildings, staying out of sight for the most part. The little cash he retains is quickly spent on food, and one time, a room at a motel when the weather turned cold. The whole time his only thoughts are of Steve, and why he hadn’t killed James when he had the chance. Other memories begin to come through too; the lives he’d taken for The Masters, the blinding pain when the machine would clam around his head and burn away every last ounce of the man he’d once been, the stench of his own burning flesh when they would fit him with a new arm. He remembers training assassins and spies for The Red Room, and one young girl who’d made him feel nearly human. He’d been beaten half to death for that, and put back on ice.
Soon enough, he’s broke again, and unwilling to part with the weapons he has. But out of desperation, he does. The guns fetch him a couple hundred a piece from a pawnshop, and the knife he sells to a hooker for seventy. Hand it hand it is. He thinks while slinking through a dirty alley. This thing is just as good as any gun at close enough range. His metal fingers ball into a fist and then flex again.
James visits the museum everyday for nearly a month, and every time something new comes back. It’s then the idea comes to mind as he watches a propaganda video from the war. Steve helped me out of tough spots before. He thinks, watching himself smile and laugh alongside Steve and the rest of The Commandos. Maybe he can figure out a way to help. He hefts his backpack on his shoulder and leaves the museum with a new sense of determination.
He stumbles on a newly vacated motel that looks perhaps a bit too shady, but quickly cracks a lock on one of the doors and shuffles inside. It isn’t much of a room, but it’s warmer inside than it is in the streets. One bed dominates the centre of the room, with shabby looking sheets still covering the mattress. A television sits on a dresser across from the bed, the remote on top of it. At the back of the room is another door leading into what James assumes is a bathroom. Quickly, he draws the curtains over the windows and locks the door behind him again. It’s dark, but James can see enough to navigate his way around the bed to the bathroom. Theres no window in here, so he flips the light switch. Power has been turned off. He thinks, eyeing the bathtub. He hasn’t bathed in god only knows how long.
When he turns the taps the water flows freely from the faucet, and he cranks the tap marked hot up at much as he can before the water would scald, sticks the plug in the drain and lets the tub fill. His senses are peeked, listening to every sound he can hear through the paper-thin walls of the motel. So far, things are quiet, no sirens, no dogs. It’s a good thing. He undresses and shuts the water off, then grabs the little bar of soap from the counter and slides into the tub. The heat feels good against his skin, after spending so many weeks in the cold. James hates the cold, it reminds him of waking up each time The Masters would need his services. How they’d beat him if he got a little too bold. How they’d preform all kinds of sick experiments on him, and how he’d just have to sit there and take it. He hates the cold. Cold meant pain. He had forgotten what warm was like, all those years spend on ice. He scrubs at his filthy skin, washing away old sweat and grime from the streets, washes the grease from his hair. James sits in the tub for a while after, still trying to put the pieces together in his head.
It was like a puzzle with most of it’s pieces missing. A bit of blue here, and some more there, but the two don’t match because theres supposed to be another one in the middle. And even when the pieces fall into place, they still don’t make sense because theres nothing else around them. James drags a hand through now somewhat clean hair and gets out of the water when it cools too much, and dries off with one of the stiff towels left on the counter. Once he dresses again, he paces the bedroom area, planning his next move.
He has to find a way to find Steve. If he was being put up somewhere by S.H.I.E.L.D, there wouldn’t be any kind of phone number listed in the books. He probably wouldn’t have rent either, his handlers would be taking care of that. His only real option is to stick close to the city and keep an eye out for the tall, muscular blond. And when he found him, James would have to follow him until he could get Steve alone.
Several more days pass like this; James searching through his own memories for the answers he so desperately needs, but can’t find. He sees glimpses of Steve and the other Avengers on television screens in windows of electronics stores, fighting some gross looking creatures, being hailed by the scrolling script at the bottom of the screen as a Hero. James cocks his head to the side as he watches the newsreel again. The woman with Steve is familiar to him too. She was one of the assassins he had trained, the one who had treated him kindly, the one who he had nearly fallen in love with. Natalia. And now she fought for S.H.I.E.L.D. James scoffs and moves on.
It’s a few weeks later when he catches sight of Steve on a street near the Washington Monument, walking hand-in-hand with Natalia. They’re smiling and laughing as they move through the crowded streets, oblivious to everyone around them. James ducks into a darkened doorway and waits for them to pass by before slipping out from his hiding place and following them, several paces behind. This was something he knew how to do. He could stalk, spy. It was his job. He was good at this. James follows the pair to a brownstone and watches from an alley across the street as Steve unlocks the door and the pair go inside.
He moved somewhere closer to headquarters. James thinks, watching as a light in the upper part of the brownstone flips on. It makes sense. Should have looked here first.
James sits outside in the dark for a while, watching as the light turned off sometime later. Were they living together? Were they a couple? They sure looked like one. It was going for three in the morning when he spots Natalia leaving the apartment again to get into a fancy black car and driving away. So they aren’t living together. James concludes, before hunkering down beside a dumpster. He flips the collar of his Hydra issue leather jacket up around his face and curls in on himself on the ground. I found him. Now what? He thinks.
He takes stock of his surroundings the next morning. Several parking spaces away from the brownstone is an inconspicuous looking white car. It’s the only other one aside from Steve’s on the street, and every twelve hours it changes with another. Bodyguards. James thinks, watching as one car leaves, and the other replaces it roughly five minutes later. The men in the cars are all dressed alike; black kevlar, dark sunglasses and ear pieces. It’s hard to make out their faces from his hiding place, but he has a feeling it’s always some paring of the same four guards.
A new pattern emerges; James following Steve from a distance, keeping tabs on his one-time friend as he goes about his daily business. He’s sure to keep as far away from the S.H.I.E.L.D headquarters as he can, in fear of getting captured, but he tails Steve on missions that keep him in the city. Sometimes he watches from rooftops as The Avengers do their work, putting the worst kind of criminals to rest before they execute their plans. James knows that if they even caught wind that he was still alive, that they’d be after him next. He watches as most nights, Steve and Natalia enter the apartment together, and she leaves alone hours later. Steve is always up before dawn to go for a run. He’s gone for exactly one hour before retuning to his home. Most mornings he runs with another one of the Avengers, the man with the wings that James remembers pulling from the sky and nearly killing, and assumes they’re friends.
Snow is falling thick one night when James finally decides to form some kind of a plan. Natalia and Steve don’t return to the apartment as they normally do for several days, and the white cars are seemingly nowhere to be seen. This time, it’s just Steve who comes home late into the night, still without his bodyguards. James is sure that they won’t be too far behind though. Steve looks exhausted, worn. James knows that he probably won’t put up a fight, if it comes down to that. When the upstairs light turns on, James darts across the street in the dark and around to the back of the brownstone, where he found a window a few days into his stakeout that’s almost never locked. He shucks the heavy coat and sweater he’d been wearing, leaving him in his kevlar Winter Soldier gear, black cargo pants and heavy boots, then as silently as he can, lifts the window enough to get inside.
The apartment is gloriously warm, and smells like coffee. This floor is dark, but he can hear the sound of the shower running above his head. James moves quietly through the kitchen and into the living room, lowering himself gently onto the plush couch he finds there, eyes trained on the stairs. The rushing water in the pipes stops, and James hears a door open on the upper floor, and the gentle footfalls of the apartments owner walking down the hall. He feels his pulse quicken as the same foot steps make their way towards the stairs. The footsteps begin to descend the stairs and James watches the form of Captain America, his Target, his friend, comes into view. The living room is dark, and James blends into the shadows, so Steve walks right on by, into the kitchen to pour himself a cup of coffee. He’s in a pair of black sweatpants and a white undershirt like he was about to go to bed, completely unarmed. His hair is still damp from his shower and sticks off at all kinds of weird angles. He looks more human than he seems in all the photographs and newsreels, like he’s nothing more than completely average. His shield is carefully laid beside the front door, no more than ten paces from Steve’s reach, if he needed it.
James watches him flip the light on over the stove, take down two cups and place one on the counter before filling the other. Steve’s back is still to the living room, to James, as he sets the coffee pot back on the burner. “I’m not stupid, Buck.” Steve says, without turning his head. “I know your here.”
He tenses then, right hand reaching for the knives that used to be at his belt before he remembers theres nothing there. He came here unarmed. Hell, he hadn’t been armed months. Not since he sold the last of his weapons so he could buy himself something to eat.
“Would you like something to drink? Coffee’s fresh. If you’re hungry, theres a great pizza place not to far from here that delivers late.”
“How did you know?” James asks, his voice low and unfamiliar in his ears.
Steve turns then and leans against the counter, arms folded over his broad chest. The hand holding his coffee cup raises it to his lips. “I read your file. Natasha gave it to me after you tried to kill me. From what I gathered, you wouldn’t be found unless you wanted to be. Why do you think I left the window open? I already told you that I wasn’t going to fight you.”
James gets up from the couch and moved slowly into the kitchen, keeping his distance. “You have your own museum.” He says. He stands in the doorway, keeping his eyes on Steve, who looks exhausted but relaxed. But James sees the way the vein in his neck starts to pulse faster the longer Steve looks at him.
“Exhibit, technically. But, yeah.” Steve replies. “I tried to make it so you had a bigger part of the exhibit, but the curator wouldn’t agree to it. We settled on a tribute wall.” His tone is even and measured, like he was fighting off something that wanted to break free. James couldn’t pinpoint what it was.
“Where’s Natalia?”
“Still in Austria.” Steve tells him. “Would you like to sit?”
“Why is she over there?”
Steve sighs and lays down his coffee cup. “We were on a mission to bring down the last of Hydra. Pierce is dead, Buck. The rest of them are captured or dead too. They won’t be looking for you anymore.” Steve is trying to meet his eyes, but James knows better than to look a liar in the eyes, because thats how they make you believe it. “You’re safe now. We can help you.”
“I could kill you.”
“You won’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
Steve smirks. “You’ve been in my apartment for twenty minutes. If you wanted me dead, you would have marched up to the bathroom while I was in the shower and done away with me there. If you wanted me dead, you could have killed me five times over while we’ve been talking.” He almost snorts as he rolls his eyes. “You would never hurt me, Buck.”
“Stop calling me that.” James snaps, fingers of both hands twitching.
“It’s your name. What else am I supposed to call you?” Steve asks, cocking his head to one side in a way that reminded James of a curious, wide eyed puppy. “What did Pierce call you?”
“Doesn’t matter.” He manages to say. In truth, no one had called him anything aside from The Asset, or some other vulgar term for longer than he could recall. They’d burned his name away. “Whoever you think I am, I’m not him.”
Steve’s expression tightens for a second, and he relaxes again. “You could be.”
“Did I… Did I really kill all those people?”
“It wasn’t your choice.” Steve tells him gently. James shoots him a glare and feels his entire body start to shake. “Are you cold?” Steve asks. James shakes his head.
They remain in silence for a minute before James cocks his head as he continues to watch Steve. He notices a dark patch on his chest under his white shirt, and a black mark curl up from the neck of it, just under his collarbone. “Your hurt.” James says.
“What?” Steve asks, before looking down at the spot on his chest where James is staring. “Oh, no. I’m fine.” He reaches up with a hand and tugs the neck of his shirt down to expose part of a tattoo. “Got this a while ago.”
“Oh.”
Steve lets the neck of his shirt go and keeps his eyes on James, eyes that are the clearest, most pure shade of blue that James ever remembers seeing. Not that I remember much. “Look, Bu- James.” Steve says, taking a step forwards. James takes one back, and Steve sighs. “If you want to lay low, you can stay here.”
“I don’t want to run anymore.” James says, before he can stop himself. His body is tired and broken, his cybernetic arm is in desperate need of repair. He’s hungry and cold and whatever Hydra had done to his mind was starting to wear off. “But it’s not safe. I need to be somewhere where I can’t hurt anyone anymore.”
“You aren’t hurting anyone here, Bucky.”
“Goddamnit, stop fucking calling me that!” James snaps again, this time with venom in his words. His fists clench, mechanisms in his metal arm clinking and whirring louder than they probably should. Even so, Steve doesn’t flinch, and continues to hold his ground on the other side of the kitchen.
Steve closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose for a second before looking back to James once again. “What is it that you want, then?”
James meets his gaze, body still shivering. “Help.”
“Well,” Steve says gently. “We have two options here.” James keeps watching him as Steve comes closer. “You can get some rest and something to eat, and first thing tomorrow I can call S.H.I.E.L.D to come bring you in. Or, I can call them now. What would you like to do?”
Steve was giving him a choice. He’d lived without being able to choose, without being able to say no for so long that he’d forgotten how. He stares blankly back at Steve, who’s standing an arms length away now. “You shouldn’t come any closer.”
“You’re my friend, James. I won’t hurt you. You won’t hurt me. Till the end of the line, remember?”
Those damn words again. James glares Steve down for a minute, body shivering harder still. “You shouldn’t trust me.”
Steve just nods sadly, and pulls a small device from his pocket and James tenses. “It’s just a telephone, pal. Relax” Steve hold the device up so James can see it, and James feels a knot of tension in his chest loosen a little bit. “If you want me to call S.H.I.E.L.D, I’ll tell you now I won’t do it. Fury would have you thrown into a cell, or executed, or maybe both. But there is someone else I can bring you to. We can get you all the help you need there.” James just nods once and watches as Steve presses a button on the little screen. “Tony? Yeah, I know what time it is. Look, I need your help.” He’s quiet for a minute. “Yeah, he’s here. No no, I’m just fine… A little shaken up, but otherwise as well as can be expected… She doesn’t need to know, she’ll just worry. Listen, just find a way to get Fury’s boys off my street so I can get him out quietly. I don’t want Fury getting involved in this. Call Banner too. We’ll need him.” Steve lays the device on the counter. “Twenty minutes, and we can go.”
“Where?” James demands.
“You remember Howard Stark?” Steve asks. James eyes him blankly again. “I’ll take that as a no. Anyway, his son Tony is basically just like him, a little eccentric, but he’s a good man. We’re going to Stark Tower; Tony has all the equipment to repair your arm there, and Bruce is a doctor. He’s got a team that’ll help you.” Steve explains. He pulls a chair out from the table and nods towards it. “But for now, just… Sit down. Relax.” James obeys the command and sits down on the chair, both hands resting on the table. Steve sits across from him and watches with a guarded expression. They say nothing more until Steve receives a message on the little device and he stands from the table, hurrying up the stairs. Steve returns a minute later in a pair of jeans and a hoodie, and passes a sweater to James. “Put this on and pull the hood up. It might be a good idea to keep it up until we get to Tony’s.”
James nods and pulls the sweater over his head, and follows Steve out of the apartment. The street is deserted again, no white cars, no one else around. Steve leads him across the sidewalk to where he parks his own car; a deep red sporty looking machine. James slides into the back seat and looks around, calculating an escape route if he needed one, as Steve gets into the drivers side. “Why didn’t you kill me?” James asks as they make a right turn onto a deserted street.
Steve’s eyes meet his through the rear-view mirror. “Same reason you didn’t kill me.”
“You were my target.”
“You’re my best friend.”
They spend the rest of the twenty minute car ride in silence, James occasionally ducking down below the windows whenever a cop car would pass. They arrive at a massive tower and Steve pulls into an underground entrance. Inside is a deserted parking garage that houses what must have been seventy different cars of various makes and models. Steve parks near an elevator and steps out of the car, signalling to James with a hand to stay put. He does. “Jarvis?” Steve calls.
“Good evening, Captain.” A pleasant voice replies from nowhere. “Mr. Stark said he was expecting you. He’s in the lab. As a precaution, I have already stopped the camera feeds and replaced them with looped video from one hour ago, as per request of Mr. Stark. Your friend is safe here, Captain.”
Steve nods once and waves a hand. James gets out of the car and peers around. The room is solid concrete from floor to ceiling, lit only by sporadic fluorescent lights. It feels too much like the cells he was kept in between waking and missions to James to be comfortable. He wraps his arms around himself and follows Steve into the elevator. Without command, the doors slide shut and the elevator begins to move. James can feel Steve’s eyes on him again as he stands in the corner of the little metal box, the hood of his sweater still pulled down over his eyes. The elevator comes to a stop and the doors open to what looks like a garage; tools are littered about the room, robotic arms attached to the walls, various computers sitting about. The room is otherwise spotless, it’s white tile floors close on sparkling, and the glass windows free of any smudges. “Tony?” Steve calls, walking into the room.
A man of maybe his mid-forties peeks out from behind what looks like a suit of armour. “Back here, Rogers.” He drops he wrench and picks up a rag to wipe his hands. He looks vaguely familiar, and James feels like he knew this person from before. James watches him closely, both his hands in the pockets of his sweater to hide the metal of the left one. “This him?” Tony asks Steve.
Steve nods. “Bu— James, this is Tony Stark, the man I told you about earlier.” Steve explains. James just nods once, still staring the stranger down. Everything in him tells him to run now, get away, get somewhere safe, but the way Steve and Tony are watching him with such concern that James forces himself to stay put. If they wanted to kill him, they would have done it. “Where’s Bruce?” Steve asks Tony, who shrugs.
“I would assume he’s on his way. I’m pretty shocked that he didn’t Hulk out on me when I called him at three in the morning.” Tony replies. He turns his eyes on James then, who almost flinches. “Why don’t you take off the sweater so I can get a better look at that arm?” He says gently. James looks to Steve quickly, who just nods, telling him silently that it’s all right. James pulls his sweater off and holds it in his right hand as Tony walks around him in a slow circle, chewing on his thumbnail. It feels familiar, being sized up like a prize. The Masters would often stand him up in a room full of potential buyers who’d do much the same thing, each one coming up close to take a better look at the weapon they were going to purchase. James stands perfectly still, scarcely even daring to breathe as the man leans in close to the scarred seam where the metal joins flesh. “Can you feel anything with it?” He asks, looking up at James.
James shakes his head. “Just pressure.”
Tony nods and moves around to his back, still inspecting the join. “Can you move it for me?”
James does as he’s asked and raises his left arm to shoulder height, bends the elbow up then down before straightening it out completely again and moving his fingers. It was the same thing he’d do when the Masters would test the new arms they’d give him; checking range of movement and dexterity. Sometimes they’d give him a pencil or pen to spin between his fingers to ensure that everything was in working order. James shudders involuntarily and squeezes his eyes shut. When Stark makes an interested noise, James lowers his arm back to his side and opens his eyes again.
“Fascinating.” Tony mutters, moving back over to where Steve stands. “Mechanically, the thing is in need of some repair. A few dented and bent plates that need to be smoothed over, the hydraulics could run a little better too. You’d have better range of motion, thats for sure.” He explains to both Steve and James. “What bothers me is the fact you have no feeling in it. I’m a little disappointed in the creators; if they were worth a damn, they would have built in sensors to pick up feeling.” James just blinks in reply. “The good news is, I can fix you right up. The technology is similar to what I use in my suits, so it shouldn’t be a problem. Better yet, I can make the thing better!”
The room door slides open as Tony finishes speaking and another man enters the room, dressed in jeans and a button-down shirt with a duffle bag over one shoulder. “There better be a damn good reason you woke me up, Stark.” He grumbles before stopping dead in his tracks when his eyes land on James. “Ok, this is as good a reason as any.”
Steve turns to the newcomer and gives a tired smile. “Thanks for coming on such short notice, Bruce. If I had another option, I’d have left you alone, but this is kinda…”
“No no, it’s fine, Cap.” Bruce says. He lays his bag on one of Stark’s many work benches, and takes a step towards James who watches him like a hawk. The man has a seemingly gentle demeanour, but James senses something lurking beneath the surface. “You’re James, right?” He asks. James nods curtly, feeling his body begin to shake again. “My name is Bruce, I’m here to help you.” He gives a kind smile. Bruce turns to Steve then. “How long has he been with you?”
“Maybe an hour and a half? Two at the most.” Steve replies, watching James with concerned eyes still.
Bruce nods and looks back to James. “You look tired. When was the last time you slept? ”
“Can’t sleep.” James says flatly, keeping his dead-eyed gaze on Bruce. “Always wake up in a new decade.”
“Jarvis?” Tony calls.
“Sir?” The same disembodied voice James had heard in the garage replies.
“Can you tell me what floors are vacant?”
Silence follows for a minute and the voice speaks again. “Levels fifteen through twenty are currently unoccupied sir. Shall I call housekeeping to turn one out?”
“That would be a great idea, Jarvis.” Tony replies.
Steve moves slowly across the room to stand beside him. James wasn’t aware he was trembling from head to toe until Steve’s hand rests gently on his right shoulder. He flinches and shrugs him off, Steve’s face showing shock for a second before he sighs. “Tony has a room for you here. You’ll be safe. Bruce is here, he’s a doctor. Why don’t you come with me and I’ll take you there, so you can get some rest?”
He’s worn out from lack of sleep, tired from constantly running. But his mind kept telling him that this wasn’t a good place to be. He swallows, eyes darting to each of the three men who claim they’re only here to help. The feeling of their eyes on him was getting under his skin, and he could feel his heart rate increase. They were going to put him in a cell. They were going to put him to sleep again. His mind races at a million miles an hour as he clenches his fists at his sides. He wasn’t going back under, not this time. He wasn’t going to be someone else’s weapon, not again. The three are watching him still, and Bruce is rummaging through his bag. James is panicking and he isn’t sure why. Tony is watching him with a very concerned gaze. Everything in him is telling him that this isn’t safe. Steve is talking, but James can’t hear him. His heart is pounding go damn hard now that all he can hear is his own blood in his ears.
“We aren’t here to hurt you.” Steve is telling him, moving so he’s standing right in front of James, his big blue eyes peering into James’ own. James doesn’t believe him.
Without any hint or warning, James reaches hauls back with his left hand and swings at Steve. The blond dodges at the last second, catching the blow in the shoulder instead of the head. James swings out with his right, landing a punch to the blonde’s gut. Steve huffs out a grunt and blocks as James swings again. Steve isn’t fighting back, and it pisses James off. He tries to hit harder, a knee connecting with Steve’s hip and an elbow with his jaw, but he’s too tired to keep it up. Steve gets behind him and pins his cybernetic arm behind his back, forcing him to his knees with his body weight. “No no no!” James mutters, panicking to the point of hyperventilation. He wriggles out of Steve’s grasp by tossing his head back, cracking Steve in the nose with his skull. He’s dazed with the force of it, but somehow manages to get to his feet, staggering towards Steve.
Before James can do anymore, the other two men in the room are on him, one taking an arm each, hauling him bodily away from Steve, who looks a little shaken, his nose bloodied. “No!” He shouts. “I won’t go back!” He tries his best to pry himself from the grip that Bruce and Tony have on his arms, and almost succeeds until Steve takes over. The bigger man links his arms through James’, pinning them behind his back. He struggles, but Steve is like iron and won’t relent. Even his metal arm is no match for the muscles that encase his arms. “You can’t make me! I won’t kill anyone else!!” He can’t breath. His lungs burn.
He didn’t notice the syringe in Bruce’s teeth until it bites into the vein in the side of his neck, and his world darkens over.