I don't own the Avengers. Or Bucky Barnes.

First fic in nearly two years! And it's completed! I always said I wouldn't be one of those people who left my readers hanging, but as anyone who's read 44 Lexington can attest to... yeah, not so good on that one. Sorry. So this is Chapter One of Four. All four chapters are written (total wordcount around 7k, if you're interested) so all I have to do is upload the chapters.

I'll either do a one-per-day update or a one-per-week update, depends on how busy I get and on how badly you want it ;) Reviews are nice.

You won't be left hanging on this one. I promise.

The mission comes out of nowhere, a search-and-retrieve that needs dealing with now and quietly. Clint takes Nat and the quinjet, they pick up Steve and Bucky on their way through the city, and soon they're out of the States heading for Europe.

"Tony?" Steve asks.

"Too loud." At the helm, Natasha doesn't even look around.

"Bruce?"

"Too big."

"It's just us," Clint breaks in. "We need stealth for this."

"No superheroes." Nat flicks a grin over her shoulder, bright and sharp. "Just three master assassins and one all-American soldier."

"Get in, get the papers, get out. Minimal casualties. None at all if you can help it." Clint tries not to look at Bucky. The shorter haircut suits him, even balanced out with grizzled stubble as it is. Makes him look younger and older at the same time, somehow. More like James Barnes and less like the Winter Soldier. Certainly makes his expression easier to read: out of the corner of his eye Clint can see something between a grimace and a smirk cross the man's face.

He can't help it, Clint knows. He's been working on his reactions ever since he came out of cryo for the last time, working and working on it, but mind and body are very different things. His mind might be healed, but his body will never forget the decades of hard training.

Sometimes that training takes over without Bucky's conscious input.

The next few hours are a whirl of gearing up and briefing, this is the target train, the papers are under guard in this compartment here, we'll land on the roof and go in through a window. It's not until they're nearly at the drop point that Steve asks what country they're in.

"Switzerland," says Nat.

Turning back from checking their coordinates, Clint just barely catches the flash of… something… that passes over Steve. He can't tell what it is, exactly. The next second it's gone, and he almost wonders if it was ever there. But of course it was. His eyes don't lie. His ears might be dodgy — and he lifts a hand to check his hearing aids mechanically, methodically, because the dead of winter in a howling blizzard is no time for a malfunction there — but his eyes have never lied.

Steve's chin lifts to its natural resolute tilt.

"Over the Alps," she adds.

He's watching carefully, this time. He sees the minute twitch of a muscle in Steve's jaw. The way Bucky shifts his weight to brush an arm against Steve's, the way the two friends don't look at each other at all.

"Problem?" Clint asks.

Bucky swallows. "No. No problem."

Clint nods and turns away to the console, giving them their moment. He'd expected nothing less, if he was honest. For all that they're a team, the four of them, and even something of a family… there are still things that remain secret.

He's seen Bucky staring at Tony when the billionaire casually plays with his armour, attaching and detaching the plates from shoulder to fingertip like it's the easiest thing in the world. Seen the way Steve finds an excuse to remove Bucky from the room, the way the blank look in Bucky's eyes has dissipated by the time they return.

He knows the secrets he and Nat hold between them, the red in their ledgers, the shared fear that every move taken to erase it only adds more. Blood can't erase blood, no matter how hard they try, and for all that they just want to build a better world for his family and her friends… sometimes they wonder if they aren't doing the exact opposite.

Clint likes Steve. He does. They're friends, good friends. Clint knows what it's like to want to help, even when you feel outmatched by everyone around you. In a small way, a paltry way, really, he knows what it's like to leave family and friends behind, to lose months, years, and return to find them grown, changed, different.

But of course, he always had that choice. To go or to stay, it was always his choice.

Steve didn't have that choice.

He'd chosen the serum, though.

Bucky hadn't even had that choice.

And he empathises with Bucky in all the ways he can't empathise with do-gooder Steve. Because he, like Bucky, has been brainwashed. Has had his own will jerked out from under his feet, leaving him in free fall. Has — has killed — under that influence. And he can't remember either.

Oh, he remembers the pain and the fear and the frozen numbness, and the overwhelming compulsion to follow orders, whatever those orders may be. But he doesn't remember events. What actually happened. Who he killed. How many —

He forces the thoughts away. It's over. It was years ago.

It's over.

"Clint. Two minutes."

He nods and turns to check his equipment. Casts a covert eye over Steve and Bucky. They're back to normal. Good.

They've got work to do.

Nat puts the jet down on a tiny snow-strewn plateau with pinpoint precision. They slip their earpieces into place — Clint's a custom one to fit over his hearing aid — and Nat's voice comes clear through the channel.

"Testing, testing."

"Reading you loud and clear," Bucky says.

"I'll bet you are." Nat smirks at him.

Bucky smirks right back.

Clint and Steve exchange a glance. There's a hint of an eye-roll in Clint's look, and a hint of elation in Steve's. They're still not entirely sure where Bucky and Nat are at in their relationship. It's early, but wherever it is, it looks like a good place to be. The two of them have a habit of devolving into intense conversations in Russian… or, that one time, into a sombre duet: Bucky at the piano, Nat perched beside him, both of them staring far-off into nothing as they sang in Russian.

Steve's happy because his old friend is back: Bucky Barnes, Smooth Charmer. And Clint's happy because Nat has finally found someone who can handle her, who she can be her real self around.

Discounting him, of course. But romance was never really their thing.

They pretend that short-lived catastrophe with Banner never happened.

Clint engages the door sequence and steps down onto the snowy ledge overlooking the gorge, wincing at the icy wind whipping around him. Good thing he'd packed their winter uniforms. He huddles deeper into his jacket, matches the map on his wrist with the visual before him, and nods. "All clear. Intel was accurate."

The others join him, staring down at the train tracks winding their way through the ravine far below. The lights of the train itself are a dim glow a few miles off.

Clint stretches one arm and then the other, limbering up. "Still want to risk the parachutes in this wind? Or are we zip-lining it?"

"Zip-line," Nat says without hesitation.

Steve and Bucky are silent.

"And a vote from the other half of this team?" Clint turns to clap Steve on the back. What's taking him so long to decide? And Bucky, for that matter — Bucky's usually the first to volunteer for a madcap stunt like this.

He stops.

Bucky's face is blank. Blanker than blank. His shoulders are loose, muscles lax. He's never looked less ready for action. His mouth is a narrow line, and his eyes… his eyes look dead. Steve, though — Steve stares down at the gorge with wide eyes, an expression of pure horror plastered across his face. Clint's never seen him like this. Never seen either of them like this.

"Nat."

She spits something swift and crude under her breath and steps to Bucky's side. Doesn't touch him. "Hey," she murmurs, eyes narrowed, darting from Bucky to Steve and back again. "Hey, it's okay. It's okay, we're here."

Steve inhales a whistling breath. "It's — it's not — " He gulps air. Clint can see him grasping for the words. He's not speaking to them. Not speaking to anyone. This is gut instinct, base recoil. "It's not — there. It's not. It can't be."

"It's not," Nat says softly, reassuring, and meets Clint's eyes over Steve's shoulder. He reads the message there and nods. She doesn't have a clue what they're talking about, she doesn't know why they're like this, but they're obviously in no fit state to go forward.

He never thought Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes would be deadweight on a mission.

But they are.

They'll be staying with the jet. Clint and Nat will do the mission alone — and despite the concern gnawing at him, he almost smiles at that. Just like old times.

All times are old, these days. He shoves back the world-weariness, straightens his shoulders under the invisible load of an abruptly halved team, and puts a hand on Steve's arm.

"Come on," he says. "Back inside. You and Bucky can guard the jet 'til we get back."

They follow without a murmur of protest, and Clint feels it like a punch to the gut. What happened to you? Steve's head swivels so that his gaze stays fixed on the ravine. His mouth gapes, breathing too fast, his teeth bared like a wounded animal. Bucky is almost worse: he stumbles at Nat's side, eyes glazed, head hanging as if he doesn't have the energy to even hold it upright.

Clint and Nat get them seated onto the bench beside each other. They force hot drinks into their hands, wrap blankets around them. Nat takes a second to send a message back to base, letting them know the change in plans.

Outside, beyond the howl of the wind, Clint hears the sound of the train.

"We need to go," he says.

Nat nods and strides for the exit ramp.

When they get back, papers in hand, Steve and Bucky haven't moved. They don't speak while Nat and Clint go through the pre-flight checks. They don't stir even when the jet is in the air and headed east to America.

Bucky slumps exactly where they left him, unresponsive, blanket drooping off his metal shoulder, staring with blind eyes at the wall of the cabin. He's shivering. His right hand grips the mug of coffee with white knuckles. The level hasn't decreased at all. His left arm… Clint blinks. The metal arm hangs slack at his side, unmoving. Now that he thinks about it, Clint hasn't seen it move once since Bucky stepped out onto the plateau.

His stomach drops.

Steve still stares out in the darkness beyond the snow flurries, as if drawn there by a magnet. His eyes aren't blank; they're alive, wild with emotion, filled with everything savage and sorrowing. Tear tracks stain his face; his breathing is ragged, his expression crumpled with agony like a man who's just lost… his… best… friend…

Damn.

It only takes a second to enter a query into the console. Nat looks over with a frown, sees the result, and closes her eyes in realisation.

Barnes, Sergeant James Buchanan 'Bucky'

Presumed dead … Howling Commandos … Winter mission … Swiss Alps, January 1945 … ensuing fight, Barnes fell from the Schnellzug EB912 armoured train with Rogers unable to…

"Send a message to home base," Clint says, feeling sick. "Let them know. We might need backup."