Warnings: talk of violence/death/torture

Prompt: Fury/SHIELD probably couldn't just let it go and Steve and Bucky kind of end up on the run from them, only not desperately because they mostly keep trying to get Steve to 'do the right thing' since they saw exactly how well going against Captain America worked for Hydra and the thought of Steve turning around and considering them to be an active threat to Bucky kinda keeps them up at night.

Note: this is probably the last part... unless somebody wants to leave me a prompt for the 'verse?

"Are you really just gonna let them run away together?" Stark asks. He sounds like he doesn't believe it but couldn't care less, and Nick knows that's a lie.

"And you suppose I stop them how, exactly?" he demands. It's been a very stressful year and Stark always makes a good target, but this time he doesn't rise to it.

This time, Stark just shakes his head, turns, and walks away.

.

There are many things James does not remember. He knows that even if he does one day remember everything of Bucky Barnes' life and death, he will still not be Bucky Barnes.

It took Bucky Barnes a long time to die. That, he does remember. James has been seeking out Hydra's secrets, trying to discover everything they had on their asset, and delivering vengeance on the way. He knows that Steve Rogers is doing the same.

When Steve Rogers leaves the bones of SHIELD and goes to Austria on his own, James follows. Once, Bucky Barnes had lived and died for this man. James does not know him, not yet – but he'd like to.

He can, now. He has choices. He has opinions. He has wants and needs and desires, and so he holds out a trembling hand and asks Steve Rogers to join him.

And Steve Rogers clasps his hand tight and breathes out a resounding yes.

.

What it boils down to is this: there aren't enough resources in the world to hunt down Captain America and Winter Soldier, much less keep them. At the moment, they seem to be content with burning Hydra off the map, and Nick is pretty sure Stark's tracking them. Maybe Rogers can turn the Soldier back into the boy he remembers; maybe he can't. But if Nick sends anyone after them to take the Soldier out –

They'll have to take Rogers out with the same move. If they don't, he'll turn right back around and do to the fledgling SHIELD exactly what he's doing to Hydra.

So he lets them be, for now. He monitors Stark, even though Stark won't give him the time of day, and he waits.

.

On every channel, the talking heads thunder about someone needing to be held accountable; the press and the public both demand that Captain America return and explain, guide, lead. They squawk and they scramble, and James looks up from his scrolling newsfeeds and says, "Shouldn't you go back to them?"

Steve just shakes his head. "The world's not mine to save anymore."

James does not know what to do with that so he focuses back on the screen. The boy in Bucky's memory wouldn't turn his back on the world – but the man beside him had told him that he wasn't that boy anymore.

.

There's a voicemail saved on Steve's phone. He listened to it once and didn't delete it. It's not even ten seconds long.

I'll back your play, Cap, Tony Stark's voice says, firm and sure. So will Bruce. Message ends.

.

"We should change the name," Tony tells Pepper. He knows that Coulson is rebuilding, bringing in anyone trustworthy, his team vetting everyone, trying to restore order. (And oh, how pissed he was, how angry Pepper was that Coulson came back from the dead and didn't say hi, fucking Fury and his secrets).

"What name is that?" Pepper asks without looking up from her Pad.

"SHIELD," he says. It'd been a good idea Dad and Aunt Peggy had, but it – it had been infected from the beginning. Maybe if they'd caught it then… "Fury and Coulson, they're replanting the seeds into rotten fruit. They should just…" He shrugs as Pepper looks up at him.

"They're taking the same bones," she says quietly, "the same framework. They should erase it all and start over."

"Exactly!" He snaps his fingers and points at her. "And they should start with getting rid of the name."

Pepper laughs softly, shaking her head. "I'll suggest it the next time I see Maria."

Tony nods. "You do that. Now, J," he says, "what are the boys doing today?"

Jarvis streams the footage of a smoking ruin to the wall; Tony grins, sharp and bright.

.

James doesn't remember what Bucky liked, and Steve doesn't want to influence him into doing anything; everywhere they eat, James orders something different. There are so many foods in the world that neither Steve nor Bucky ever had, so it's an adventure.

"What do you want to do?" Steve asks at one such dinner, watching James try teriyaki noodles.

"What we've been doing," James says after he swallows. "Burning it all down." He twirls some of the noodles around his fork, adds, "Anyone who ever cut me open, who ever scooped me out and poured the ice in." He meets Steve's eyes for just a second before looking back at his plate. "And then, when all that's left is ash, I want to stop. No more cold, no more blood, no more."

Steve bites his lip to keep in the small noise of shock. He just watches James eat half a plate of noodles before saying, "If you want to vanish, go live quietly somewhere, then that's what we'll do, James."

Without looking at him, James asks, "You'd stop fighting?"

Oh, but Steve wants to grab his hand, put his arms around him, hold him close and cry and cry and cry for the boys they can't ever be again. He wants to set every Hydra goon on fire, gut every scientist, bring Pierce and Zola back just to kill them islow/i.

But all he says is, "Yes." Yes, Bucky, I'll run away with you. Yes, Bucky, we'll go to ground and hide and never pick up another gun, I'll bury the shield in the yard, we'll get cats and dogs and paint the walls any color you want. Yes, Bucky, we'll live quiet and we'll live free, and there won't be any cold, we'll live in Arizona, I'll take you the Grand Canyon, Bucky, we'll just be. All he says is , "Yes, James. Anything for you."

James' fingers tighten around the fork, his flesh fingers, the left hand tucked under the table. In a fight, he uses them both equally; with everyday tasks, he uses only the right. Steve hasn't asked about it.

"When we're through," James murmurs.

Steve nods, smiling. He promises, "When we're through."

.

Nick asks her to analyze what Steve and Barnes might do. Of course, he already knows everything she will report. Her final recommendation, after 20 pages of data and observation, is to, "Let them be, sir. Unless we become a credible threat to Barnes, Steve won't bother us. Unless we become a credible threat to Steve, Barnes will stay away."

Nick glares down at her report. "We could use Captain America for the rebuild. There are sharks circling because somebody's gotta down, and having Cap at our side –"

"Yes, sir," she says calmly. "But we don't have Cap."

He tears his glare away from the report to focus on her. "Really, Romanoff?" he demands. "I hadn't noticed." He dismisses her with a wave of his hand. She goes silently.

Clint's waiting in the hallway. "You ready to blow this joint?" he asks.

Her loyalty had been to Fury for a number of years. To Coulson slightly longer. To Clint above all. Fury mishandled Steve, Coulson died (though not for long), and Clint…

Natasha knows the message Stark left on Steve's voicemail. And a very long time ago, in a half-erased life, she learned to kill from a man with ice-blue eyes and a silver hand, and he was gentle, when he could be.

The Winter Soldier, like Barnes before him, is a sniper. She should have died with the man she was protecting, but – like Steve in the helicarrier, the Winter Soldier shot to wound.

She joined SHIELD to make up what she owed the world. SHIELD was never what she thought.

"Yeah," she tells Clint.

They can go to Stark, they can retire and sit on a beach somewhere, they can track down Steve and offer their support –

"Tasha," Clint says as he starts his piece of shit car, "I don't think you've realized something."

She looks at him, raising an eyebrow.

"You saved the world. That… shouldn't that wipe all the red out?"

She blinks once, staring at him, then blinks again and looks down at her hands.

"Just think about it, okay?" he asks, pulling out of the parking spot.

Natasha nods, remembering back to the earliest days, longer ago than even Clint knows. Her loyalty was to Fury; she has severed it. Her loyalty was to Coulson; he severed it. Her loyalty is to Clint; Clint's loyalty is to her.

He drives, singing along to the radio, and Natasha ponders many things before she decides to just be in the moment and turns up the radio to sing along, too.

.

What it boils down to is this: so long as Barnes is alive, Hydra has a chance to reclaim him and turn him back into their asset. Hydra's tendrils are long and deep, and it is very unlikely that Rogers and Barnes will be able to eradicate them all.

But anyone who would accept the mission to terminate Barnes is probably not someone Nick can trust right now, because there is no way that Rogers could be allowed to survive, and only Hydra would be okay with killing Captain America.

Nick throws Romanoff's report against the wall, wishing it felt more satisfying.

He also wishes he could just hand the whole mess off to Coulson and retire to the Bahamas or something, but his sense of responsibility is too strong for that. He helped make the mess; he should help clean it up.

(It'd be nice if Rogers felt the same, but what the fuck ever, Cap.)

.

"Where is Captain America?" the talking head demands. Every news channel in the world is talking about SHIELD, about Hydra, about Project Insight. The world owes Captain America for another save and Captain America is nowhere to be found.

Hydra only has one head left, and it has gone to ground, changed its name, and buried itself where no one should be able to find it for years.

Unfortunately for it, James was once the Winter Soldier, and the last head of Hydra chose to hide where the Winter Soldier was born.

.

Tony Stark doesn't join back up with the new SHIELD. Bruce Banner stays ensconced in his labs (Tony said they were his for as long as he wanted), researching his own condition and anything else that catches his fancy. Clint Barton and Natasha Romanoff are somewhere on the road, seeing where the wind takes them. Thor is in London with his astrophysicist girlfriend, and he will protect Midgardr, should Midgardr need it, but at the moment, he is weary of war.

Steve Grant and James Smith check into a hotel, two young American tourists out to see the world. They've died for it but never really lived, never explored outside of war.

They curl up together in the bed, James closer to the window and Steve nearer the door. James dreams of back-alley fights and a kid who never backed down; Steve dreams of a firefight and the man always at his back, no matter the price.

In the morning, they wander shoulder to shoulder, and they laugh and shove each other, and it's almost like they never went to war at all.