"Operation Spring is a go. Hail Hydra."
"Hail Hydra."
When the Asset leaves the Smithsonian a woman passes by him, and with a whispered word his mind goes blank (his body leaves without him).
The Asset blinks, the fog in his mind clears and the woman smiles.
"There you are."
He thinks her teeth are very white.
He will rip them out.
"The doctors will be here soon." She says and it fills him with terror but there is also rage in him now, all encompassing, terrible rage, because he has seen his face, on a panel in an exhibit, and it had a name.
His fury must be physical because she stumbles away from him, her eyes impossibly wide. He hears the guards around him raise their weapons and sees the beginning of a word-
a magical word
- on her mouth, and knows, viscerally, that he can't let her talk. He can't ever let her talk.
He explodes from the chair and hits her in the throat with his right hand. Her body is already half way to the floor when the first bullets ping, deflected with his left arm.
One of the men is already dead by then and one of his guns is in the Asset's hand and he
fires
fires
fires.
Steve sits in a chair next to her bed and takes her hand.
"Have you ever heard of the Winter Soldier?"
She freezes and feels a chill run down her spine.
"You have." He notes. "I was told that not many believe that he exists."
"He is a bogeyman. There could be many operatives behind one name."
"You think he is real."
She remembers Howard's mangled body squeezed between the car parts and a glint of metal in the distance. Some of the fear must show on her face because Steve immediately changes the subject.
"Bucky is alive."
She sighs. She knows where this is going. She remembers the first time Barnes was alive when everyone wrote him off as dead. Steve became a hero then and she wonders, fleetingly, what he will become now. She has faith.
"I will find him." He says and she nods, not doubting him. It is only then that she realizes that something is wrong. She must be dreaming. She loses and gains years in a matter of moments, but some things are impossible no matter what year it is. Barnes is dead, not captured or lost.
"Steve." She says, gently, because she can't stand to see him hurt, dream or not.
"Zola did something to him. He survived the fall." He interrupts her and he sounds grateful, for just a moment, before his face crumbles and he hides it, laying his forehead on the back of her hand.
Barnes was in enemy territory when he fell. He was a soldier and he was injured. That can't have ended well for him. But if he is alive it means he survived and learned to cope.
"They brainwashed him and made him forget who he was." Steve says later and she pretends not to notice the way his voice wobbles or the way he obviously avoids even mentioning that that was just the tip of the iceberg.
She doesn't say that she isn't surprised, just squeezes his hand.
"They put him on ice when they didn't need him." His words start calm but he ends them with a snarl.
He didn't change the subject at all, she realizes, and it shakes her to the marrow of her weak, age-old bones. "Cryostasis." She whispers. It was one of the theories about the Winter Soldier. One no one took seriously. Cryostasis technology doesn't work yet.
Except that it obviously does.
"Oh, Steve."
He looks at her and his eyes are filled with hate. "They are going to pay."
"They should. I'm sorry I can't get you a plane this time." She says apologetically and he smiles, weakly, through all that hate, and kisses her hand.
"I saw the news reports. That was him you fought against, wasn't it?"
"I could have killed him." He says and he must have imagined having done it because he looks horrified.
"He could have killed you." She says. She knows which option of the two she prefers.
He looks away and it leaves her gutted because-
"Steve." She says aghast. "Steve."
She shakes his arm when he refuses to meet her eyes, and wishes he didn't when he finally does.
"I let go of my shield in the middle of the fight." He says, without regret, almost proud, and she wants to hit him hard.
She takes a deep breath instead. "Well, you're still alive."
Steve beams and she thinks he is a fool. He always is when it comes to Barnes.
When he leaves, she stares at the door until she forgets that he is alive.
Later-
Hours, days, weeks?
-she wakes up and sees a glint of metal in the dark. Her heart beats wildly and her hand reaches for a weapon she no longer keeps close. She remembers Howard, broken and dead and-
"You are Agent Carter." Winter Soldier says and the title confuses her. Throws her back in time and makes her think she is young before the tremor in her hand catches her up and
-she remembers Steve's hate filled eyes.
"Sergeant Barnes." She greets, hoarsely. He doesn't react.
Minutes pass. She waits for the guards to barge into her room but they do not show up. Barnes is leaning against the wall, his cap in his right hand, his left by his side, causal, ready. He doesn't take his eyes off of her. They are blue and pretty and cold. No bullet deadens Barnes's eyes. No sniper saves her.
She prays for it and prays that Steve never finds out.
She wonders if the agents watching her are dead. She sees no blood on his clothes but she knows better than to think that means anything. She knows the Winter Soldier's file inside and out. It's a list of names of maybe-victims, details of his maybe-crimes and few grainy pictures of a man, maybe-him. She remembers sending agents after this man and remembers none of them coming back.
She stares at his metal hand. The rest of his arm is covered by the jacket and she is at the same time grateful and disappointed.
She sees no obvious weapons on him but it's not like he needs them. He is a weapon. The thought makes the fear in her rise, but it's the sudden onslaught of pity that makes her breath hitch, because he used to be a man.
He reacts to the sound by tilting his head, like a dog-
-like a hound, she corrects herself immediately as she tries to breathe more evenly.
She wants to speak but has no idea what to say. She never knew him well. She remembers him more as a shadow next to Steve but his stillness strikes her as familiar and his eyes are still loud. She averts her own.
Barnes leaves, after awhile, without another word said between them. She relaxes when he's gone and her entire body hurts from holding still for so long.
She dreams that night.
She goes to the Stork and turns heads.
She waits for her dance, but Steve is dead dead dead.
Then the world before her eyes goes white and black and all the other people in the club fall de-
Steve is sitting at the table, in shades of grey. There is blood on his shield, dripping red. He is wiping it off and although the shield gets cleaner, the star stays red. It looks wrong but Peggy can't remember why.
"I hope you catch him." She tells him, honestly, because while that blade is made of flesh and blood (and metal) it is still a blade but it is also the sound of a train that makes Steve flinch and-
his small bones rattle
-he looks smaller than a moment ago.
The Asset leaves the room and the old woman and puts his cap back on his head. He swallows, trying to chase away the bitter tang of disappointment. He doesn't remember her.
He had hoped that seeing someone he knew before he became the Asset might knock something loose in his head, fill the holes in his memory. He was able to surmise from the exhibit that they were merely acquaintances and that she was probably not the best choice for this. But there is only one other person from his past that is still alive and he is not ready to see Steve yet.
His mobile pings and he takes it out. Steven Rogers is sending a message to Sam Wilson. He reads it and deletes it afterwards. They've found the bodies. He had though they would find them sooner. He didn't exactly hide them.
He thinks about staying and letting himself be captured but he discards the thought quickly.
He has to move.
His mobile pings again.
You were unauthorized to read that message.
He blinks, his fingers hovering above the keyboard. He doesn't recognize the number of the sender. His former handlers had not warned him that something like this can happen when he clones a mobile number.
Another ping. You will not read another.
He crushes the phone with his metal hand and drops it in the hallway. He has to hurry.
Half a town away, JARVIS makes a note of another attack on Captain Rogers's phone. Considering the fact that this one was in part successful, he notifies his Creator.