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Chapter Text

Chapter Text

Part 1

Intro Marvel Sequence – Music “Daydream” by Reulle

Pan image over battlefield – corpses pilled up. Zoom out showing the back of a woman, brown hair and pale blue dress blowing in the breeze, smoke billowing up into the sky as she looks up into the clouds, a single tear rolling down her cheek.

Image inverts as 1:56 skip.

Image pans to show Bucky in military fatigues crawling through the mud, setting up his rifle his eye pressed against the scope.

Image in scope is the woman turning slowly, image fixates on lips saying ‘James’, image breaks as he blinks, sweat dripping down the side of his face. He presses his eye back to scope and sees himself as the Winter Soldier - the fights and the losses - and wakes up in a cold sweat, his head in his hands, chest heaving as he tries to breathe.

Looks up into bedroom mirror. From the shadows, the outline of a woman appears and slides her hands over his shoulders, her lips against his ear as she whispers…

“James.”

-end intro sequence-

Prologue

Rawalpindi, India, 1940

Copper coated the back of her throat, making her swallow convulsively. The taste was heavy in the air. Pervasive. Around her, she heard the murmuring of men’s voices, but nothing was as loud as the cries of the dying.

Rusty terracotta dust swirled around them in eddies. “Crack-dust, black-dust”, she murmured darkly as the ash of coal-fired modified flamethrowers painted her skin in its mourning garb.

“We’ll need to up the concentration,” Paul muttered beside her. “Forty minutes is too long in a battle.”

She felt bile slide up the back of her throat at the callousness of his tone. Bland. Clinical. As though there wasn’t a valley of corpses piled up in bloody heaps below them.

She was moving before the others could stop her. Stumbling down the dusty ridge to the flat edge of the dried riverbed below. Hundreds of Indian soldiers lay in crumpled heaps, their blood soaking into the greedy soil, creeping up the hems of her white linen slacks and staining them a macabre pink.

She stumbled to a halt beside one young soldier, his hand wavering slightly about a foot above his ruined chest. Kneeling, she took his corroded hand in her gloved ones. She knew him. Sajit Mauhat. He was twenty-two years old with a new wife and a baby girl at home. What was he doing among the volunteers? Among their victims?

“Shaanti,” she whispered to him, clutching his ruined hands in hers. “Peace, Sanjit.”

“Doktar Eev,” he gasped, blood bubbling out of his mouth as he hacked. “Mujhe bachao.”

Tears stung her eyes. ‘Doctor Eve, save me.’

“I wish I could, Sanjit,” she whispered tearfully, looking around the carnage she’d helped to create. “God, I wish I could.”

Chapter Text

Chapter 1

“T-minus ten minutes, Ladies! Look sharp!”

Sergeant James Buchanan ‘Bucky’ Barnes glanced up at his squad leader and resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Thompson wasn’t a bad guy, just a bit too by-the-book for Bucky. Instead, he checked his gear for the hundredth time, readjusted his helmet, and tried to get feeling back into his right butt cheek.

He was still half-frozen from their last stop over in Iceland for refueling. The Gooney Bird held his smaller rifle squad consisting of twelve men, and another squad of ten men under a man named Johannessen, who was a complete jerk; uptight and quick to pull rank. Bucky couldn’t stand him, which made the four-day air ferry ride a practice in patience he wasn’t really known for, leaving him staring out of the small square windows more often than not so he wasn't court-marshalled for punching a superior officer before he ever got to the war.

It didn’t help that the plane was just insulated enough to avoid seeing your breath steaming up in the frigid air, but not so insulated as you were actually warm or comfortable. Not to mention the noise. God, he’d thought he'd go deaf going over the Atlantic, though it wasn’t as bad as some of the planes he’d been in during training, more like the hollowed-out sound you get yelling into a tin can.

For all his wanting to do his part, he couldn’t help but think the accommodations left something to be desired. He snorted, shaking his head at his own thoughts. Steve would love this, he thought fondly. The more uncomfortable, the better.

Not that his best friend was a masochist or anything…well, no, he sort of was considering all the fights he got into, which just made him huff out another small laugh. He shook his head at the odd look Andrews gave him, waving him off. His buddy was an idiot, and the best dang friend a guy could ask for, but Bucky was damn glad he hadn’t made it into the Army like he’d wanted.

The plane pitched violently to the right as it circled, banking towards dull red bricks leading into Portsmouth Harbor and beyond, to RAF Middle Wallop’s grey-green airstrip, making most of the men grab the cargo netting on the walls for stability. There was nothing as embarrassing as falling out of your seat when they weren’t even under enemy fire. Except for that box that he'd caught with his face when they took off from Greenland the other day. That had been pretty bad. He worked his jaw a bit to get the stiffness out of it as he gazed back at the green lowlands rolling out before them.

He'd been excited when he’d heard they’d be going to England first. He'd read "The Hobbit's tale" in '37 and had enjoyed the parallels of England as the Shire. It'd taken a bit longer to realize the Battle of the Five Armies was a simplified version of the Great War. It wasn’t until he had watched film reels from the front and started to hear the stats from the D-Day invasion of Normandy days before- 45,000 allied soldiers killed, another 173,000 wounded or missing- that he really understood where he was heading.

He'd secretly breathed a tiny sigh of relief that they’d been delayed leaving Maine, then immediately felt guilty about it. He didn’t have a problem with dying for his country, but some days he didn't think he'd ever leave the war alive. He did, however, have a problem with not taking out the Nazis first.

“Lock it up!” Thompson shouted, tightening his own chin strap as the guys settled on the edges of their seats. There was the sudden drop in cabin pressure as they dropped the last 500 ft, the slipthumpskid as the tires connected with the asphalt, bounced, and reconnected, taxiing the aircraft in a large, oddly shaped oblong before settling beside one of the five main airline hangers.

He stood with the others, head bowed slightly, helmet shifting irritably over his dark brows, and his bag at his feet. All his worldly possessions shoved in a duffle bag along with his rifle case over his shoulder. His parachute was bigger than his bag for Pete’s sake!

The side hatch opened to allow the men to disembark, two staying behind to drop the back hatch and help the ground crews unload the equipment they’d brought over. Boxes filled with munitions and food, the staples of military life.

Andrews and Womack dropped to the ground before him and split off to the left, giving Bucky his first view of a foreign country as he hopped down. He half expected hobbit-holes.

Silver-grey mist sat heavy along the damp ground. They’d flown in at twilight, the very edge of the sun’s rays still painting the Eastern skies orange and red, while dark purple crept across the West staining everything in its inky shadows. His breath steamed, even in June, the damp plastering the edges of his hair to his brow and the flight suit against the small of his back. A trickle of sweat slid uncomfortably down his spine.

Lights winked out as the darkness set in. It was the first time he’d really understood the term ‘blackout’ as the world around him faded from his sight. A shout grabbed their attention, the men turning to watch as two Mustang 1s landed heavily at the next taxi gate, their sides riddled with bullet holes.

Canopies were flung back as orders were shouted into the mist. Men and women spilled from the surrounding huts towards the aircraft in a controlled kind of chaos. He watched as a single woman cut through the commotion. Clothed in a short white medical coat over pale blue dress, her voice was clear and authoritative, with that sophisticated English rolling tone that made his gut clench. He'd always loved that accent.

The woman’s brown hair was held back from her face and she moved with quick efficiency getting the wounded fighters out of the planes and onto gurneys. One was placed on the ground for her review, a sharp shake of her head brought the group to quiet sobriety as a sheet was hastily pulled over the body. The woman stood, stared up at the sky for a long, drawn-out moment, then got back to work.

It was a stark reminder to Bucky what could happen to him; to any of them. He glanced back towards Portsmouth and the raging war in Europe just 130-odd miles south and realized that he was standing on the precipice of Hell and that in less than 72 hours, he’d be its newest residence. He wondered if the Brits that surrounded them felt that distinction, or if every day since September 3rd, '39 had been its own form of Hell for them?

Dugan slapped a hand between his shoulder blades, pushing him towards their temporary barracks. "No lollygagging, boyo, we have inspection in an hour and I'm dying for a drink."

Bucky shook his head in exasperation. Glancing back at the riddled planes, he figured he’d find out soon enough.

Chapter Text

Chapter 2

Dr. Genevieve Rosalyn Shaw, known as Evie to her few friends, was slogging through a mound of paperwork. New soldiers coming in that need to be inoculated for typhoid, smallpox, tetanus, and hepatitis. Those heading on to North Africa and the Pacific theater also needed malaria and yellow fever. It’s a logistical paperwork nightmare that works, when you have more than one doctor on site, but not so much with just her, a few exhausted nurses, and a couple thousand military troops moving in and out every day.

She’s had the same argument day in and day out for months with men who think they know better than her just because they have a penis. In some ways, she misses her time at Porton Down, if only because the men didn’t look down on her for being a woman. Of course, she was convinced most of them were crazy, so that comparison might not be the best example.

The Americans were the worst though. Constantly hitting on the nurses, the canteen staff, anyone in a skirt really, all while smiling and ignoring both her rank and title. She was a doctor and a captain, damn it, and should not have to defend her commands.

Janet King, Nurse Second Grade and her right hand raced into the small medical hut, her sweater pulled down over her blue and white uniform.

“Mustangs,” she snapped furiously, grabbing their med kits from the cabinet. “They’ve taken fire and at least one was shot badly.”

“Where?” Evie said sharply, reaching for her white coat and the small hand-held reflector torch.

“Gut, if the chatter is correct.” Janet gave her a haunted look, her voice dropping. “Gibson was ripping the night patrol apart when I left the canteen.”

Wing Commander Guy Gibson was from the No. 106 Squadron based at Syerston and a legend in the RAF. If he was on site, the crews flying those Mustangs had better hoped to be injured, or he’d rake them over the coals himself.

“Did you call for gurneys?”

“Of course, they’re already heading for the airfield. Looked like another round of Yanks was coming in for a landing as well.”

Evie shook her head in annoyance. “That’s all we need. More Americans who don’t know their guns from their arse.”

Janet chuckled softly as they ran across the green towards the two planes. Evie clocked the larger Dakota being unloaded, men strung out in a wavering line dressed in drab olive green fatigues or the white and khaki flight suits, and dismissed them as unimportant.

Gibson was already pulling a man to safety, the line of field staff passing him down to the waiting gurneys as she assessed the situation.

“Alright!” she hollered, stopping the milling soldiers in their tracks. “I need two men per gurney, make sure you keep them level. A nurse needs to be with each patient. Perform a visual inspection, tag them and move them. Where’s the fire crew chief? I’d rather not add 'blown-up' to their list of injuries, let’s get that smoke looked at!”

Turning to Guy, she waved at his line. “Commander? What do you need?”

“This one has some dreadful gut damage. Shrapnel from the fuselage, I believe,” Guy reported, jumping down and crossing over to her.

Evie took a steadying breath and kneeled beside the soldier, keeping a calm smile locked in place. “I thought we made it clear you boys were supposed to avoid the bullets?” she joked softly, pressing her hands into the twisted wreckage of the pilot’s guts.

The boy, because they were all so very young compared to her thirty-two years, gave a weak smile back, his pulse thready and faint under her fingertips.

“Tell me honestly, Doc, will I ever dance again?” he gasped wetly, blood dribbling from his mouth to coat his teeth and chin.

“Like Astaire,” she lied, holding his hand as he succumbed to his injuries.

She pulled the bloody cloth over his head, letting Guy help her to her feet. “You alright,” he asked carefully.

Taking a deep breath, she stared up into the overcast sky and said a small prayer.

“No, but that’s the job. Are we expecting any more tonight?”

Guy shook his head. “No, these ones aren’t even ours, we were just closer than Holmsley South.”

“Good. You heading back out?”

“Another day, maybe two, depends on the Yanks. There’s talk of us running interference for their ground troops.”

“Doctor!” Janet yelled, waving frantically for her to hurry up.

Grimacing, she tossed her hand at Guy, “God speed, Commander,” she intoned gravely. They weren’t friends exactly, but they understood each other’s backgrounds well enough to be respectful and keep each other in the loop on the comings and goings of the base. She could use more people like that in her life.

“You too, Doctor.”

It would be hours later when she’d finally remember the new soldiers and groan tiredly, rubbing her work-wrinkled hands over her face. Bloody surgery sponges and gloves littered the operating floor. The other fighter would live, though he’d never fly again. Janet handed her a tepid tea as she sat to finish off her reports.

The surviving pilot was just a boy; 19 years old and would have to live the rest of his life confined to a wheelchair or in a convalescence home. She dropped her head to her desk, letting the cool metal soak into her abused brain. There was no reason for this. For all the death and destruction and hate. Men were the worst beings on the planet, in her opinion; war mongering and bigoted. Someone needed to kill Hitler and stop this foolishness once and for all. Maybe then they could have some peace.

“You should get some sleep,” Janet yawned as she flopped down onto the other chair. “I've got the next hour, then Gloria and Midge will take over until O-400.”

She glanced blearily at the stack of files that hadn’t been on her desk before the surgery and frowned. “What are those?”

“For tomorrow,” Janet said sternly. “The American’s latest crop of snipers. Leave them for now, get some sleep, and we’ll work on them when the sun is up. Preferably, long, up.”

She huffed out a small chuckle, pushing her exhausted body to her feet and swaying slightly. “Alright, alright,” she said, waving Janet’s knowing look away. “I’m for bed. Don’t stay too long, you’ve been up the same as I have.”

“Once the others are settled, I’ll head out,” she swore, yawning.

Evie blinked hard and almost missed the edge of her desk with her cup. Giving Janet a rueful grin when she finally got it in the right place, she stumbled out of the medical hut. She was exhausted, mentally, physically, and heart weary in a way she hadn’t been in years.

As she tumbled face first into her bunk, she wondered how much longer she could keep this up?

Chapter Text

Chapter Three

“I thought the 207^th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Battalion came in last night?” Evie asked the charge nurse, holding up a folder.

Midge glanced up over her shoulder with a confused face and shrugged. “No, the 107^th Infantry.”

“The reports said…oh, never mind. Any idea where they are now? They need the updated vaccines we just got in from Command.”

Midge pointed at the roster on the far wall. “Think they’re over in Hut 1 with Group 12 working through deployment.”

Evie nodded as she stood and slapped the folder against her thigh. Checking the time, she grabbed her doctor’s coat and ID badge. “I need to talk to Playfair anyways. I should be back in an hour or two. Please prep for 22 standard inoculations and 12 additional N. African nocs.”

Midge sucked her teeth like doing her job was such a bother, sighing heavily as she drew herself out of her chair and headed for the back storage room and ice chests holding the vials. Each soldier would get three shots- Tetanus, Smallpox, and Typhoid. They were painful and some reacted badly, but it was mandatory, punishable by imprisonment for refusal.

It was the cause of contention with some American troops. She wasn’t sure about Riflemen though, these would be the first she’d dealt with coming through Middle Wallop from that country, and the Canadians didn’t count; they were part of the Commonwealth after all and understood the difference between the rank and file.

The day was hot, muggy, with the edge of rain threatening along the Southern coast. Not a day to linger outside overmuch unless you could find a breeze and some shade to sit under. She didn’t mind the heat too much but wished she didn’t need to wear the coat. It was a lightweight cotton bleached what had, at one time, been a shocking white, but like most of their workwear, now had a sort of off yellow-pink stain along the front seams. The hazards of working around bodily fluids for the past year.

She thought with longing on the soft green sweater and brown corduroy jodhpurs of the Land Army uniform she’d worn for eight months after leaving Porton Down and then smoothed the edge of her over-starched pale blue wrap dress down under the hem of her coat. Functionality still needed to be attractive, according to the Army, even though the blue or white slacks of the male doctors and medical staff was more practical.

Ah, bureaucracy at its finest.

She tapped briskly at the Air Marshall’s door, nodding at his secretary as she was shown into the small waiting area.

“He’ll just be a minute,” Dorothy said brusquely. “He’s finishing up with Commander Gibson.”

Evie smiled tightly at the older blond. She was competent, Evie would give the woman that, but she wasn’t friendly. Of course, she’d travelled the world as the Air Marshall’s private secretary for years, so Evie was probably just another face in hundreds of them to her.

The door swung open suddenly, the hinges creaking as Playfair held it open for Guy to exit.

“It’s farther than I’d like,” Gibson was saying. “We’ll need to refuel in Marseille if you want us to trail them all the way.”

The Air Marshall glanced at her then back to Gibson. “I’ll smooth the way; you just make sure they get there in one piece.”

Gibson snapped to attention, gave Dorothy and Evie a brisk chin lift and departed.

“Shaw, what’s the problem now?”

Evie bit her tongue from her first thought and rose with a brittle smile. It was no secret that the two didn’t like each other. She was here under duress after all and the man that pulled those strings was Air Marshal Sir Patrick Playfair himself. The bald man had two sharply defined thick black brows over a perpetual grimacing face and an annoyed sigh that only Evie seemed to bring out in him.

Luckily, he was overdue for retirement, his replacement- already on the boat back to England- being Air Vice-Marshal Steele, whom she knew nothing about. Honestly, Playfair was supposed to have retired months ago, but Steele had gotten shot and needed to recover first.

Evie handed him the top folder as she passed, the cover had already been flipped back to reveal the requisition form she needed him to sign.

“Requisition for more muscle relaxers for the horses from the Veterinary department.”

Playfair raised those loaded brows in surprise. “Didn’t we just order two dozen?”

“Yes, and if one of the boxes hadn’t been in last week’s convoy that was firebombed, we’d still have plenty in supply, but the 13th/18th Royal Hussars will be moving out soon with those new tanks bound for Azzano and we need the horses relaxed for the trip.”

Playfair grimaced. “Yes, Azzano, well, that expedition is moving up. How many horses can you handle with what we have on site?”

She hummed thoughtfully. “We’ve got six full doses of curare and another four of that new version the Canadians brought over two months ago- Intocostrin. So, we should be able to handle ten horses if their handlers are monitoring vitals and have them strapped in correctly. I’d prefer all twelve horses sedated to some extent, but they should be able to handle two if the others are confined.”

Playfair nodded as he signed the form, scratching out the six and replacing it with twelve. “Not sure when we’ll need more, and Veterinary takes the longest bloody time to get us these things. I’ll have Dorothy pass this through channels. Work with Captain Campbell to make sure the horses are ready within 36 hours. What about the Americans? How are we coming with them?”

She tapped her nail against the back of the stack of folders she was still carrying. “On my way to stab a few now.” She paused, frowning slightly. “36 hours? That’s not going to be enough time to watch for reactions in the men and get the horses dealt with.”

Playfair waved away her concern. “No choice. 36 hours, Shaw, and not a minute longer.”

Chapter Text

Chapter Four

Bucky stood around the large table with Womack on his left and Dugan on his right as Commander Gibson of the RAF described their expected route over France and into Occupied Italy. If he understood everything correctly, it was going to be a doozy of a ride complete with horses and tanks.

His team would be transported by boat to Le Havre just across the channel in France with the horses and tanks and an escort of Mustangs flown by Commander Gibson and two others. From there, they’d take the Paris-Le Havre trainline into Paris, then to Marseille and connect to the Ventimiglia railway into Italy. They’d have flight coverage from Gibson’s group to the Italian border, then they’d be on their own with as much stealth as possible while the horses and tanks moved on to Sicily.

Considering the chatter from his fellow soldiers over logistics, he doubted it would be as easy as it sounded. Train lines were routinely sabotaged by both sides, and regiments would need to overland it by foot often. He’d rather not do that if possible.

A sharp double tab on the metal hanger door drew most of their attention as a brunette in a blue dress and white coat crossed the threshold. She was pretty, with a full bottom lip painted a softer red than many women preferred, and that milk and cream complexion most of the women he’d seen on base seemed to have, though there was the faintest edge of honeyed bronze over the paleness that told him she’d spent a lot more time outdoors recently than normal.

She had a stack of brown personnel folders in the crook of one arm and made a beeline for Gibson, speaking in a low tone he couldn’t catch. Gibson made an abortive hand gesture towards the table and he realized she’d been the one calling out orders last night when she raised her voice, her eyes hard.

“I don’t much care for it either, Commander, but those are the Air Marshall’s orders.”

“Bloody stupid orders,” he groused, his annoyance clear.

“They need their shots. So, either spare me an hour now or send them to me when you’re done, but I’ve still got to speak to Captain Campbell about those horses, and you know we’ll need to monitor them to make sure nothing goes wrong. I won’t have time tomorrow.”

Gibson huffed as he glanced around the table to Thompson. “Staff Sergeant, your thoughts on the matter?”

Thompson flushed a bit when the woman turned bright green eyes his way. “Sorry, Ma’am,” he stuttered, “Could you repeat what you told the Commander?”

The woman smiled and Bucky swore he heard angels sing. “Your men need to be inoculated, Staff Sergeant. My girls and I can handle the entire team in about a quarter to half an hour, depending on reactions, but it needs to be done today in case there are any issues. Would you prefer to do that now, or after the debrief?”

“Inoculations?” Thompson asked. “Sorry, Ma’am, but we had a whole boat load of shots before we flew out. Are you sure you got the right guys?”

She flipped the first folder open. “Eugen Marcus Thompson, Staff Sergeant, born August 12, 1914, Deerfield, Illinois. Latest round of shots administered at Fort McCoy, Wisconsin. Shots included smallpox, diphtheria, typhoid, and botulism. Which means you need your tetanus, yellow fever, and malaria shots.”

She glanced up at him through dark lashes, a small, smug smile teasing the corners of her lips. “Or is there a different Staff Sergeant Thompson I should be speaking too?”

Thompson swallowed hard at the look and Bucky didn’t blame him in the least. Dang but she was cute.

“Ah,” his voice cracked, and Bucky winced in sympathy. “Ah, no, no Ma’am. Um…”

“For goodness' sake, man,” Gibson sighed out exasperated. “Just take them now, Shaw, they’ll be of no use at this rate.”

The woman, Shaw, gave a throaty laugh, eyes sparkling as she snapped the folder shut. “Don’t be a grump, Guy, you know these things are mandatory for all of us. The girls and I will work our magic and get them back to you in record time.” She turned to walk away and that’s when shit went sideways.

“Sweet Mother of God,” Womack groaned crudely. “Look at that ass. I’d love to find out how it feels sitting on my…”

“Private!” Thompson snapped angrily, glaring across the table.

In the sudden silence, the click of a low-slung heel reverberated like a gun shot in the metal hanger.

Bucky wasn’t sure if it was a predator-prey thing or something else, something primitive that had the men hastily backing away from the woman as she walked right up to a smirking Womack. She gave him a slow look from head to toe and back again as she set the files on the edge of the table.

The woman’s continued silence didn’t deter Womack, who Bucky was now certain had a death wish, because the idiot couldn’t just apologize like a gentleman, no, he had to push the matter.

“What’s the matter, nurse? You gonna slap me for telling the truth?”

The woman’s smile went glacial cold, her eyes flashing as the temperature in the room plummeted. Bucky desperately wanted to move away from the impending disaster but had the sneaking suspicion anyone moving would be considered the woman’s prey.

“No, Private, Womack, was it? I’m not going to touch you at all. Something most women must say to you, I’d wager.”

Bucky bit his lip to keep from laughing at the look of annoyance that flashed across Womack’s face.

“No, what I’d like you to do is read aloud for the class,” she said stepping even closer to him, taping her lapels with a nail. “Here, what does my collar say, Private Womack?”

Womack’s eyes flittered to the epaulets and back. “Uh…”

Bucky shifted his weight just enough to see for himself, his eyes going wide when he saw the three small stars stitched onto the cloth. Well, shit.

“What was that, Private? I don’t think everyone heard you.”

“Captain, Ma’am,” he croaked.

“Captain. And what does my name badge say?”

“Doctor.”

“Exactly. Now, with that in mind, did you have something to say to me, Private Womack?”

“No, Ma’am!” Womack said, snapping to attention. His face was beet red in embarrassment, a first that Bucky had ever seen, but considering what Captain Shaw could do to a measly Private for such a comment, a little embarrassment was getting off easy.

The woman turned, dismissing Womack as she surveyed their regiment with cold eyes and a rigid spine. Her voice rang like a hammer against hot steel as she dressed down the entire lot of them.

“My name is Doctor Genevieve Shaw. I am a Captain in His Majesty’s Army and you will respect both of those titles and the fact that without my leave, none of you are going anywhere near the war and honor and glory.”

Bucky heard the sneer in her voice at the honor and glory part and wondered if anyone else caught it.

“Now, you may thank Mr. Womack for sending you all on the five-mile run around the base he’s just volunteered you for, in full gear of course, after you finish with the Wing Commander. Afterwards you will report to Hut 6, which is my medical wing where you will receive your vaccinations as ordered. Do I make myself perfectly clear?”

Bucky snapped a salute the same as the others, his voice ringing out loudly, “Yes, Ma’am!” but inside, he knew Womack was going to get a rightly deserved pounding for putting them in the Doctor’s bad graces.

She made direct eye-contact with each man, her gaze hard and unyielding and Bucky swore he could feel it like a physical touch on his skin as she frowned slightly at the bruise on his jaw (courtesy of that damn box he’d caught with his face over Greenland), before moving on. By the time she was staring hard at Womack again, he couldn’t tell how he felt about the encounter, other than he’d never met a woman as intense as the Doc before.

She glared until Womack dropped his eyes. Nodding sharply, she snatched the folders up with a sort of controlled violence and told Gibson, “Make sure they are in full gear, Commander, it will assist with their stamina; if they don’t vomit all over the green of course.”

“Of course,” Gibson replied blandly, watching as she stalked from the building. When the door bounced on its frames from the force of her closing, he winced, looked at Womack, then the rest of them and sighed loudly.

“I know they gave you boys those, ‘what to do in England’ books before you shipped out. I’d highly recommend you read them, especially the part about female officers. Captain Shaw is a brilliant Doctor and a right boffin in organic chemistry. Respect her and you might just live to see another day.”

He held their attention until it became uncomfortable. “Now then, let’s go over the rail timing once more.”

Bucky glanced at the door before turning his attention to the map table and wondered if there was a way to make the captain lighten up a bit. Womack was an ass but painting them all with his broad strokes seemed over-kill. Oh well, he was sure he’d think of something. He was good at winning over women after all.

Chapter Text

Chapter Five

Evie stood outside the hut and took a deep, shaky breath. It was always the same, wasn’t it? Multiple degrees, her MD, years as a preeminent organic chemist at one of the most secretive facilities in England, and it all came down to what she had under her clothes.

It was times like these that she missed Paul and their simple, if perfunctory, marriage. Not that he ever really saw the woman of course. To him she was just another scientist. A brain with ideas he could exploit for the good of the country and to ‘move science forward’. It didn’t matter that she’d wanted a family, or to help people. If she could describe the complex atomic structure of organophosphates, then that was what was important, everything else just bore him.

She sighed, rubbing her eyes in consternation. ‘A woman’s prerogative,’ her mother had told her once. To want to be treated like a woman while simultaneously being treated like an equal in her field. With more men being shipped out and women taking their places in fields once deemed ‘too hard on the female constitution,’ she’d hoped her sex could move forward in securing more equality, but apparently not. Was it too much trouble for the universe to send her one single man that could see her as both a desirable woman and an expert in her field? That could act like a partner instead of a dictator?

Now in her thirties, her chances of finding that seemed slim-to-none. Especially surrounded by a bunch of cocky twenty-somethings. She wondered if she’d ever find someone who could see her true value, or the darkness she locked down tight inside her. She was an expert, sure, in killing people. The medical degree was supposed to help her save lives, but all she’d really done was take them. The past two years were nothing but a stop-gap measure. A plaster on a gaping wound she could never suture shut.

She shook her head to clear away the melancholia. She didn’t have time for bellyaching, even to herself. She needed to get her head in the game.

The green was relatively empty as she headed towards the stables. She’d talk to Captain Campbell, give the horses a once over, and schedule the doses for them before they got on the lorries to head for the Port. Campbell was knowledgeable on their effects and what to watch for, he’d keep a hand pump ready for resuscitation if need be and a shot of adrenaline for any of them that might go into cardiac arrest. It was not without risks, that was certain, but nothing in this war was.

Campbell was nice enough. More interested in his horses than anything else as she explained the timetable and the dosing issues.

“Shan't be an issue,” he told her, waving a young Private forward. “Barret, make sure you do exactly as the Doc tells you.”

“Yes, Sir. Ma’am?”

Evie stared at the young man until he cleared his throat awkwardly. “Sorry,” she said, frowning in thought. “Do you have experience with horses, Barret?”

“Yes, Ma’am. Born and raised working with the heavies up in Westmoreland. Was in my family for over a hundred years.”

She smiled gently at the accent. A bit back of the throat, the west country always sounded so slow to her Berkshire ears. “Good, then this is what you’re going to do…”

Barret was young. Too young to be enlisted, she was sure. She’d have to check his file, make sure his date of birth hadn’t been altered. It happened more often than one thought, the Ministry was in desperate need of soldiers and that caused some to ignore the obvious.

She walked the boy through the procedure, made sure he was going to be on hand during the transfer and then excused herself.

“Whatever happened to an hour?” Midge asked haughtily when she returned. “The men have been waiting for the past fifteen minutes.”

Evie finished hanging her coat on the back of her chair before turning around.

Midge’s hip was canted, her fingers tapping impatiently at her waist, but it was the line of soldiers that made her pause. They were still damp from their run, their gear piled in a corner of the hut. The one at the forefront, a Sergeant Barnes by his insignia, had a rakish grin that he flashed her before calling out, “Atten-tion!” and all their trousers fell to their ankles.

Midge took two wavering steps away, her eyes huge as she took in the sight. Janet and Gloria, both putting together the needles onto individual trays at one of the desks gasped and turned away trying not to laugh.

Evie went cold, hurt flashing through her at the display. Once again, they had been relegated to male mockery.

She gave him a withering glare, her eyes hot as she tried to hold back her emotions. She saw his smile waver, doubt creeping into blue-grey eyes as he watched her reaction.

Her voice, when she’s able to find it, is low and has the faintest tremble to it as she reigns her emotions in.

“Was this your idea, Sergeant Barnes?” She asked tightly.

The man nodded hesitantly; his confusion plain enough for her to read. “Just a little joke, Doc.”

Evie fought the urge to turn and walk out. ‘A little joke’ to his men, but a glaring ‘sod off’ to her.

“Mature, Sergeant,” she retorted, anger sparking in her veins. “But since you’re all here…Ladies? Armaments, please.”

Her nurses pulled themselves together quickly, the needles in their hands pointed towards the lights. They depressed the plungers enough to force any trapped air and a bit of liquid out the tip. There was a sick sort of satisfaction watching the men blanch and shift uncomfortably as they advanced on them.

“I hope you are comfortable bending over, gentlemen,” she said smartly, snapping a glove on and selecting her own needle as she advanced on the Sergeant. “Now try not to clench, Sergeant, this will only hurt a little.”

The man in question wetted his bottom lip with his tongue, a tick in his jaw as he turned and dutifully bent at the waist. The first stab made him wince. Glaring over his shoulder at her, he grumbled, “I kinda hate you right now, Doc.”

“That’s fine, Sergeant, you’re not my favorite person at the moment either.” The needle slid from his skin, her fingers gentle but firm as she pressed the cotton swap against the drop of blood welling up. “Hold that steady,” she told him, turning back to the table. She set the used needle on the tray and collected the next one.

Barnes just needed yellow fever and malaria, according to the notation on the tray.

“I don’t appreciate being made fun of,” she said lowly as she swiped his exposed skin with an alcohol swab. She wasn't much for beating around the bush with anyone, let alone some smart-arsed American.

Barnes frowned in confusion over his shoulder at her. “Wasn’t trying to do anything but make you smile, Doc. Womack got a rightly deserved dust-up for what he said to you, but this was just to show there was no hard feelings; to make you laugh a bit.”

Evie glanced up into those blue eyes startled. Was he serious? What in the world would make him think sexualizing her job, again, would make her smile, let alone laugh?

“Then you need to adjust your definition of funny, because all I see is a group of immature children with their trousers around their ankles when these should have been administered in your arms.” She yanked the last shot out a bit harder than necessary, making the man grimace.

Dropping the glass needle onto the table, she did a cursory swipe with the alcohol and slapped a beige plaster against his chest, his hand coming up to cover hers.

“I’m sure you can manage this on your own,” she said hotly, eyes wet and voice tight. “You’re done. Now get out of my medical center.”

The man’s shoulders dropped as she reprimanded him. His voice subdued in a ‘I’ve screwed up and I know it’ manner that made her pause. “I swear, Doc, I didn’t mean anything other than to get you to smile.”

“Then choose something that normal people would smile at,” she told him harshly. “Your friend treated me like I was a shilling-an-hour harlot and your bright idea was to come in here and take your trousers off, en masse. Does that sound like a funny or smart plan to you?”

Barnes jerked back as though he’d been slapped, her words cutting him to the quick.

“That’s not what I intended at all!” he denied hotly. “I just…”

She held up a hand, cutting him off. “You boys are being sent to one of the most dangerous spots on the front in less than thirty hours. You cannot afford to be this stupid if you wish to survive, do you understand me?”

Barnes snapped his mouth shut, a grimace marring his features. He was cute, but he wouldn’t last a week if he did something this stupid again.

She picked up a small jar, spinning the top off easily with her thumb and forefinger. The bruise cream was a cool off-white, with the faintest edge of green mixed in and smelled of spearmint. She took a small dollop with her middle finger, spun the lid closed and used her free hand to grasp his chin, holding him still as she applied the cream to the yellow-green bruise she'd noted during the meeting.

“You all need to learn to watch what you say; and never think for a minute what people appear to be is true. You know nothing about me; what I find appropriate or not; humorous or not. You would do well to remember that when you are in the field. It might just save your life one day.”

She brushed her fingers along his stubbled jaw, the cream soaking in and leaving him smelling of menthol. Peering up into his startled face, she blew out a breath at his lack of response.

“Oh, never mind,” she huffed out, annoyed at herself for even trying. “Safe trip, Sergeant Barnes, try not to get shot in the arse again.”

Turning from him, she flinched when he grabbed her wrist loosely. He dropped his grip immediately, watching her carefully for a reaction. Evie rubbed at her wrist. His grip hadn't been hard, but it had been shocking to her. No one had ever grabbed her like that before.

No one had dared.

“I’m sorry. Honestly, Doctor Shaw,” he said. “You’re right. I wasn’t thinking. Womack never does, but I’m normally smarter than that. It won’t happen again, I promise.”

His blunt honesty made her turn to really look at him. He was taller than she was by a good six inches with the broad chest and shoulders many of the Riflemen had from carrying their weapons all day. His brown hair was just starting to dry from his run, the edges curling over his ears and forehead, though she could still see the wave from where he’d greased it back that morning.

Objectively, he was attractive, though the deep frown lines and clenched jaw detracted slightly. She thought if he smiled, he might be devastating, but she’d yet to see one. She wasn’t sure she cared to either. Men like him were ten a penny and she had no time to waste on someone who wouldn't even be here in a fortnight.

However, for all his immature actions, his voice sounded sincere, and his apology rang true to her. She blew out a resigned breath. “I’m going to hold you to that promise, Sergeant,” she told him finally.

“Bucky,” he said quickly, making her raise an eyebrow. “My name, it’s Bucky.”

“Your parents willing named you ‘Bucky Barnes’?” she asked incredulously.

Flushing slightly, he gave a rueful laugh, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly with his free hand. “Well, no, they named me James Buchanan Barnes, Jr., after my old-man, but everyone just calls me Bucky.”

She snorted, “Yes, well, I will not be calling you after a gun, I do believe we’ve had enough phallic jokes for a lifetime.”

“I…wait, what?”

She smirked, a real edge of humor to her voice. “Didn’t you know? Here 'Bucky' means a gun. Specifically, one that fires prematurely. So, unless there’s something you need to discuss with me, as a Doctor, I think I’ll stick with Sergeant Barnes, or James, if you can refrain from anymore ill-devised humor.”

The man in question looked shell-shocked as she laughed at him. Patting his left shoulder, she moved past him towards the door.

“See yourself out, won’t you? I have a few more of your men to stab in the arse before supper. God speed, Sergeant Barnes. I doubt we’ll meet again.”

Chapter Text

Chapter Six

Well, that could have gone better, Bucky thought ruefully, belting his pants. He could still feel the lingering touch of her fingers on his chin, the almost imperceptible smell of lily-of-the-valley perfume she wore. His sister, Rebecca, had loved that scent.

An arm was thrown over his shoulder. “Did the pretty Doctor steal your innocence, boyo?” Dugan drawled.

“Get off me, asshole,” Bucky joked, shaking Dum Dum lose. “You done?”

“Right as rain, except for the pain in me ass. Course, I also got a date with that sharp tonged little red-head, so I’ll be doing better in a few hours.”

Bucky snorted at Dugan’s antics. “Good luck with that one, friend,” he drawled, glancing back at the nurse in question. She was the one that had snapped at the Doc, which annoyed Bucky. Man, he had to get it together, he never let a woman twist him about as much as this one did.

“She’s got friends, you know? This’ll be our last hurrah for a bit, should get some fun in while we can.”

“I’m good,” Bucky replied, bending down to grab his and Dugan’s gear. His Remington M1903A3 leaned against the corner along with Dugan’s .45 ACP M1 Thompson Submachine Gun. “I’m gonna hit the showers, then do a bit of practice.”

“You sadden me, Barnes.” Dugan sighed, his Irish brogue getting thicker as he lamented on Bucky’s lack of love-life.

Bucky cuffed him upside the head, dancing out of his way quickly when the man tried to retaliate. Laughing, he waved him off and headed for the bunks they’d been issued. Dugan was a right brawler when he wanted to be and Bucky didn’t want to try pressing a black-eye up against his scope anytime soon.

The door scrapped the concrete floor loudly as he swung it open, late afternoon sunlight spilling across it. He gave a perfunctory chin lift to Jones and Andrews, an exasperated huff at Womack and dropped his stuff on the upper bunk he shared with Dugan. The building was long enough for forty-eight men in the twelve bunks going down either side of the rounded Quonset hut, along with a small work area and their footlockers, but the shower unit was a bit farther off to minimize standing water around the living quarters.

He stowed his gear, double checked his rifle before setting it on his bunk, and grabbed his doop kit. “Heading for the showers, you boys going over to the canteen?”

Jones looked up from the card game he was playing with Andrews, slapping down a pair of duces and making Andrews curse. “Those WAAF gals got chow running whenever round here, but we were thinking of heading over around 1400. That’ll give you a half-hour if you hurry.”

Bucky held his hand up with the doop roll in acknowledgment. The Women’s Auxiliary Air Force did a good job managing the on-base canteens, and he didn’t mind the sausage and gravy the Brits seemed to prefer. He could do without the boiled brussels sprouts though.

Trekking to the latrines, he glanced over at the stomp of heavy feet and jingle of riding gear as the Doctor exited a large, covered building with a young private in tow and two massive horses. They had their heads down close together as they talked and walked. The boy looked equally scared and star-struck, which made Bucky chuckle. He felt the same way, so he understood the boy’s expression.

Deciding his shower could wait a few minutes, he jogged over to intercept them.

“It’s against regulations, Private. I’m sorry, but you…”

“Hey,” Bucky said, interrupting her.

The closest horse reared up, massive hoofs and forelegs kicking out towards Bucky's head. He ducked smartly to the right, coming up beside the Doc, who gave a short, sharp whistle, bringing the beast back to order. Stepping close and murmuring reassurances to the creature, she and the youngster soothed down the damp sides and forelock.

Evie gave him a frustrated look. “Sergeant Barnes, what are you doing here?”

Bucky held up his kit in placation. “Was just headed for the showers. Figured I’d save the boy from whatever he did wrong. Wasn't expecting to get trampled to death.”

The boy, and wow, he really was young, wasn’t he? sputtered, face turning beet red in embarrassment. "Nightmare weren't gonna trample no one!"

He blinked hard at the kid. Did he really name the massive horse Nightmare? Glancing at the Doc, he raised a brow at Evie’s pursed lips and frowned, stepping closer to the pair as he dropped his voice.

“Are you okay?” he asked her seriously.

Evie sighed loudly. Pinching the bridge of her nose she told him, “I’m fine. Private Barret here is the one that needs to be dealt with.”

Bucky turned back to the boy. “What’d you do?” he asked bluntly.

“Nothin’!” the kid denied hotly.

Evie blew out a breath. Taking the folder she handed him, he flipped it open, reading quickly as he noted the same inconsistencies that the Doc must have.

“There’s no way you were born in 1920, kid,” he said sharply. “1925, maybe, if we’re being generous and you’ve got one of those baby faces.”

Barret blanched, his fingers twisting in the horses’ reins, making Nightmare stomp and blow in agitation. “I was too, says so right there.”

Evie placed a gentle hand on Barret’s shoulders. “Roy, how old are you, really?”

The kid, Roy, ducked his head, not meeting either of their eyes.

"The Doctor asked you a question, son," he said lowly. "I'd suggest you answer her."

“Fourteen, Ma’am,” Roy mumbled petulantly, scuffing his toe in the short grass. 

The two adults gave each other startled looks before Bucky stepped close, his hand clasping the too thin shoulder. He reminded Bucky of Steve. “Jesus, kid, you should be home helping your ma around the house and flirting with a pretty girl, not out here getting bombed.”

“Got bombed at home, so what’s it matter?” he said defiantly, jerking away from Barnes. “We was in Barrow during the Blitz. Me, ma, Jacob, and Sammy, we went to help our Aunt Shelly and her little-ones after Uncle Mitch was injured in the mines. Was only gonna be gone a few weeks, maybe a month. Left my sister Caroline and her husband Tom back in Kendal.”

“Oh God,” Evie whispered, shaking her head, a hand pressed over her mouth. At Bucky’s confused look she explained.

“Barrow-in-Furness was hit by German bombers in ’41. Last count showed eighty dead, another three hundred injured and more than a quarter of the town destroyed.”

Bucky grimaced. “And your family?”

“All dead. My ma and little brothers, Aunt Shelly and Uncle Mitch, everyone.”

“Your sister and her man?” Evie asked gently.

Roy shrugged. “Caroline and Tom sold the farm to the Rail when Tom took a job as a brakeman. Last I heard, they was somewhere in the Midlands. I got a talent with the heavies,” he told them. "Went to a recruiting office near one of the POW camps and showed them soldiers what for. Got my papers then and there.”

“How?” Evie asked. “You’d need your residence card and birth certificate to get in.”

Roy shrugged. “Had a res card, just needed a bit of ink to fix it up right and good. Told em the truth about the blitz and losing everything. Just left off the part ‘bout my sister.”

“Jesus, you were just a kid,” Bucky breathed out aghast.

“Still are,” Evie countered. “You’re fourteen, Roy, much too young to be in this war.”

“They ain’t shipping me out, Ma’am,” Roy countered. “I work the heavies, get the others ready and move stuff about. I ain’t slotted for a boat like them others,” he said, nodding to Barnes.

Bucky scrubbed a hand up and over his hair. “Look kid, I get where you’re coming from, I do.”

Roy scoffed, making Evie slap his arm lightly. “Be respectful, Private, the Sergeant is trying to explain just how stupid you men are, old or young.”

Bucky gave her a look of exasperation, making her smirk. “I’ve got a buddy back home, little guy, you know the type? Always ends up in a fight because he wants to do the right thing, no matter what. He tried for the Army. Five times. He doesn’t like bullies, but he couldn’t pass the mustard, so I did it for him.”

Evie turned to him in shock, her mouth open in a small o of understanding. “I hope to God he doesn’t try again. He’s too good for this,” he said, waving a hand around the base. “Too good to die in some hole when he could be doing something else to help.”

Evie frowned at his explanation, there was something off about his tone she didn't like. A sort of resignation that made her frown.

“Why are you tellin’ me this?” Roy asked slowly.

“Because you think you want to fight a war to save people, but what you’re really doing is looking for revenge.”

Roy glared at the ground.

Bucky, after an encouraging smile from Evie, stepped up beside the boy again. “You know you can always work the horses without being shot at? The Land Girls, they need help on all those farms, right? And the POW camps? There’s lots of war-related jobs working with horses. Being here, being on the front lines, this doesn’t have to be one of them.”

“They’ll court-martial me,” Roy grumbled. “The Captain’ll be livid.”

“He’ll do as I say,” Evie said staunchly, giving the two startled men a teasing smile. “Remember, Private? I’m the base Doctor and you, young man, are about to come down with a horrible case of dysentery.”

Bucky gave her a disgusted look. “I was right, you’re kinda mean, Doc.”

Evie laughed, “It’s the easiest to fake, Sergeant. Enough cod liver oil, and upping his fiber content, while loading him up on fluids will give similar bowel symptoms. Hot packs can help with the fever, but the rest will be up to you, Private. How good of an actor are you?”

“I had an older sister, Doc, I can fake a toilet run and cramps if need be.”

The two snickered at his look of abhorrence. “Okay then, here’s what we’re going to do…”

Bucky watched the doctor walk the boy through their idea. She was kinder than he’d initially thought. Bucky hadn’t lied. He understood the kid’s desire to do something. Anything. He’d felt the same after his parents had died, and he knew that was a driving force with Steve, but it hadn’t really hit home for him until he heard a fourteen-year-old kid say he was basically ready to die just so he wouldn’t be alone anymore. It was disheartening as all hell and made him question his own motives.

Did Hitler need to die? Yes. Absolutely. Did every man that could hold a gun need to fight him on the battlefield? No. No, some like Roy and Steve, they needed to be at home, watching over the ones left behind. He thought of Rebecca, and the two younger girls. He hadn’t thought of them in a long time, too guilty over leaving them when their parents died. Roy sort of reminded him of Katie. She was only eight when Bucky had left. She’d be about Roy’s age now. He should write Steve and ask him to look for them. To make sure they were alright.

He had mixed feelings about women doing war work on the front lines. He didn’t want them hurt, but he also recognized their worth. The Doc alone could do massive damage if she tried. He’d figured that out from what the Wing Commander had let slip. ‘Organophosphates’ were a type of chemical used in nerve gas. He’d seen the pictures from the First War and they weren’t pretty. It was one of the reasons he always kept his gas mask in good condition.

It was one thing to be shot or blown up, a whole other thing to suffocate on your own breath. They'd been warned about chemical weapons for months now. Warned that there was talk about the Nazi scientists coming up with some nasty surprises. Of whole platoons going missing in the Alps. He was thankful they were heading south towards Naples and that the Italians didn't seem to have the same type of technology. Still, the warning was there in the back of his mind as something to worry about. He'd already snapped at Andrews about the state of his mask. The rubber seals needed replacing, but the idiot had waved Bucky off until he'd pulled rank and ordered him to fix it. It wasn't something Bucky did lightly, preferring the men to follow him because they knew he'd do everything he could to protect them.

It wasn't that he couldn't lead. He could, and well, he just didn't like to. He got the same kind of feeling from the Doc. She was in charge of the medical center, but it didn't seem like she liked giving orders or telling people what to do, and it was pretty clear that red-head Dugan was working on didn't treat her like a superior, even though she obviously was. If she went rouge, Bucky figured she could do some mighty damage, but watching her take Roy under her wing, he had to smile. She was so patient with him, so understanding but firm. He wondered why she’d never married and had kids of her own. She’d make a damn fine mother. Strong, smart, fierce. He wondered if that was what had drawn his attention to begin with, but when she glanced up at him with that same soft smile, he realized it didn’t matter how she’d gotten it, she had.

Now he just needed to figure out what he was going to do about it.

Chapter Text

Chapter Seven

Bucky never did get his practice in that night, and the shower was barely warm when he finally got cleaned up, but for the first time since he’d been drafted, he felt like he was making a difference. He'd walked with the pair to the medical hut, keeping a wary eye on the horses while Evie put together enough of the medicines to give Roy the proper shits (poor kid) and some hot water bottles. They'd spent almost an hour helping walk the horses around the airstrips and then led them and the kid back to the barn and small barracks attached to them.

"Think it'll work?" he'd asked as she closed the stall gate and fed each horse a small square of withered apple.

Evie shrugged a shoulder, the loose curls of her hair slipping over her back. "Unsure. If it doesn't though, I'll have a word with Playbill, he owes me a few dozen favors, even if he will hate me collecting."

"Oh?" he asked, side-eyeing her when she didn't respond. "You still mad at me, Doc?" he finally asked.

Evie stopped on the threshold of the barn and turned to him, her face carefully blank. "Do you know what it takes to be a female Head of Surgery, Sergeant?"

Bucky shook his head. "No."

"It takes years of dedication, but beyond that, it takes having to fight to be taken seriously every single day. I had a professor once tell me no male would take me seriously. 'What man wants to leave his life in the hands of a woman?' Every day I deal with sexism like your friend Womack. I tell Command something and they question me. 'Have you asked a male for a second opinion? Are you sure you can do this? Wouldn't it be better to have a male doctor around?' It's never ending. If you told your Staff Sergeant something was wrong, he'd believe you, but I get asked if it's 'that time of the month'."

Bucky wanted to argue with her, but he knew she was right. The double standard was so ingrained it was part of their culture. He knew he was guilty of it too, though he tried not to be, his ma and Steve's had been the heads of their homes for so long, he'd have been afraid of what they'd do if either man had been caught being anything but respectful.

"To be Head of Surgery," she continued. "Means that I am fighting every day against men who think they know better than me. It means I'm fighting the soldiers, their commanders, Command itself, and every nurse who secretly just wants to be married and at home. Do you think I like being called Doctor Death? or the Ice Queen?"

"Who the hell called you Doctor Death?!" Bucky snapped, angry on her behalf. "What kind of self-absorbed asshole...!"

Evie stepped up and placed her hand over his mouth to stop his tirade, a broken smile on her lips. "It doesn't matter," she said tiredly. "The point is, ever day I'm fighting a battle I can't afford to lose and juvenile pranks just make my life that much harder. Your men didn't respect me until they feared me, Sergeant. I was just another pair of legs in a skirt to them and in this war none of us can afford that. I need to have the respect of those around me, or the entire chain of command I represent falls apart and I can't afford that; you and every soldier that comes through my med center, can't afford that."

Bucky gingerly removed her fingers from his lips, holding her hand in his larger one loosely. "I'm sorry. I didn't understand, but I do now and I promise, I'll make it right."

Evie gave him a sad smile. "You won't be here long enough to try," she told him. "And they'll never really respect us. We're not even people to the rest of the world."

She'd turned and walked away from him at that point, a heavy cloud of despair and resignation settling around her like a worn coat and all Bucky wanted to do was hold her tight. It was an uncomfortable feeling for him. He'd dated around, sure. Dances, the pictures, out to Coney Island on more than one occasion, but it'd never been serious. He'd never wanted to fix someone before. At least, not anyone other than Steve. But like Steve, the Doctor didn't need saving or fixing, she just needed someone in her corner. 

And he was damn good at being that person for someone he admired. He could have done without being roped in to digging new latrines though.

“This isn’t what I signed up for,” Dugan grumbled, flinging another shovel of dirt over his shoulder.

“You realize the minute we leave base, we’ll be doing this all the time, right? There’ll be no toilets in the Jerry-occupied zones,” Bucky said.

Jones snorted. “Maybe a Jerry-rig, but it’ll probably collapse when he takes a shit.”

“Hey Staff Sergeant!” Dugan shouted. “Why are we the ones doing this, anyways? Those pansy-waists not up to it?”

Thompson shook his head. “The 456 are digging another set closer to the airfield and the other two divisions on site right now are handling the ones near medical and the canteen. We’re going to be supported by these people for the next few weeks, Private, let’s not antagonize them any more than we already have.”

Bucky grimaced. He knew the real reason these latrines were being set-up, and while digging wasn’t his favorite task, he sure as hell wasn’t going to throw the Doc and the boy under the bus, so he bent his head to his task and kept digging. They’d be shipping out in less than twenty hours and he wanted to have contributed a small part to the plan, even if it was mostly to keep his mouth shut.

That he could do. Mostly. Well, if it was important he could do it. He could shoot his mouth off with the best of them, but he’d found out right quick that that was the fastest way to end up on KP, so he kept it shut and watched Womack and Dugan peel their weight and more in potatoes.

A shadow fell over him, breaking into his thoughts as he stared up at Wing Commander Gibson.

“Commander?” he frowned, wiping a grimy hand across his brow.

“Sergeant Barnes, a word, if you will.”

Bucky glanced at Thompson who shrugged. He handed his shovel off to Andrews before pulling himself out of the pit.

“What can I do for you, Commander?” he asked, wiping his face and hands on a scrap of cloth hung over a nearby bench.

“Walk with me,” Gibson told him, forcing Bucky to scramble to catch up.

“I understand you have become friendly with Doctor Shaw.”

“Uh, I suppose. She’s a right cracker; smart, and all that,” Bucky said as carefully as he could. Shit, did the Commander know about Roy?

Gibson’s frown deepened. “I shouldn’t have to tell you that her position here is infinitely more precarious than yours. By tomorrow you’ll be gone, but she’ll remain.”

“I’m not sure what you’re getting at, Commander,” Bucky said tersely. Wait, this wasn't about the boy? Was the man trying to warn him off for some other reason, then?

Gibson stopped dead. “I’m saying your interest has been noted and spoken on by others. The doctor’s reputation needs to remain intact if she’s to continue to do her job, so keep away from her.”

Bucky clenched his jaw to stop from saying the first thought that popped in his head, his fingers balling into fists by his side. This is exactly what the Doc had been talking about. The double standard she lived with on a daily basis. Still... “I’ve done nothing to warrant this talk, Commander. Now maybe you can tell me what your interest is in the Doc, because I didn’t see a ring on her finger, or yours.”

Gibson flushed in anger, his voice low and hard. “Watch your mouth, Sergeant. The Doc, as you call her, is a damn fine surgeon, and a decent human being, nothing more. But I shan’t have her name sullied because you thought to get your rocks off before shipping out. She’s lost more than most, and seen more than any of us put together.”

Bucky paused at his phrasing, there was something Gibson was trying to tell him, he just wasn’t getting it, was the Commander actually trying to protect her? “I’m not trying to do anything,” he said slowly, gauging Gibson's reaction. “We’ve run across each other a few times, that’s it. And like you said, I’m shipping out tomorrow.” Which was less than ideal, because he was starting to feel like he and the Doc were finally getting somewhere.

Gibson watched him with narrowed eyes. “I see. Well then, perhaps the next time you ‘run across each other’, you should endeavor to be more discrete. If not for your sake, then for hers.”

With that obtuse warning, Gibson turned on his heels sharply and stalked off, leaving Bucky confused and more than a tad angry, someone had been watching them yesterday. Did they suspect them of colluding with Roy or something more nefarious. Or was this all about the Doc being female, like she'd told him? How bad was this going to get for her when he left and was there anything he could do to make things right before he shipped out?

Returning to the dig site on muscle memory alone, he wondered about the Doc’s past. What she’d lost and seen. How long had she been at Middle Wallop? And what was Gibson’s connection to her?

The thoughts circled his brain on an endless loop until suppertime when he finally had a chance to clean-up and take a break. The weather in England was weird. Damp and wet until the sun came out and either scorched you, or left you squinting against the weak sunlight trying to see better while you froze to death.

Today had been a scorcher. Hot enough he felt the heat of sunburn along his shoulder blades. It was a perfect excuse to swing by the medical center and try and get some answers to his questions.

“Sergeant Barnes,” he said to the nurse on duty, glancing past her to see if the Doc was there. “Any chance I can get something for a sunburn?”

The nurse, Janet, her ID badge said, gave him a knowing smirk. “She’s not here.”

“I…uh…”

Janet laughed, standing to step around her desk and the receiving counter and tug the edge of his shirt away to see just how bad the burn was.

“I’ll get you some lotion,” she said, “but she’s off-base for the evening, sorry.”

Bucky groaned in embarrassment. “What’s going on off-base?” he finally asked, trying to act interested without being too nosy.

“A birth in town. Premature. Gloria went with her to try and help. She was a midwife before the war, so if there’s the possibility of saving the baby, she and the doctor are the best chance.”

Bucky nodded in understanding. He wondered how much Janet knew of the Doc and how much she was willing to tell. “Are you two close?”

“Gloria and I?” Janet asked innocently, but Bucky wasn’t fooled, he knew the woman was just teasing him.

Laughing, Janet settled back in her chair. “I’ve known Evie since before she came here, if that’s what you’re asking. We get on better than the others, but most of that is just being older. I’ve been in the Army since the beginning, and was a nurse in Hampstead Heath before that, so we’d met years ago. Gloria and Midge, they aren’t even twenty-five yet and had just barely graduated when they enlisted.”

Bucky leaned on the counter separating the entry and main medical center. “How old is the Doc?” he asked. He hadn’t thought of her as older than him before, or if she was, not by much.

“Thirty-two.”

Bucky’s brows hit his hairline. Six years? Not possible.

“I know, right? She doesn’t look it. You’d never know she’s a widow, either. Almost two-years now, I suppose. It’s funny how time seems to fly by some times.”

He winced, well that wasn't what he was expecting to hear, although it did explain some of the melancholy he supposed. His ma was like that too when his pops died. “Was he military?”

“Yes, but not as a soldier. They were scientists up in…well, that doesn’t matter. Point is, he died during some work they were doing in India. She was there. In the car when it flipped. She survived, he didn’t. It took its toll on her.”

Bucky felt his stomach drop. She’d been there when her husband died. He couldn’t imagine the devastation she’d felt.

“India?”

Janet gave him a look that said she would not be talking about India.

“So, she came here afterwards?”

“No. She retired. Went off and joined the WLA as an instructor for, oh, must have been close to nine months or so, before Playfair recalled her to active duty. He and Gibson had met her in India when she was in hospital. Gibson had a broken arm from a training maneuver gone awry. Said the Doc yelled at him to stop fussing with the cast or he’d never fly again.” Janet laughed, shaking her head in exasperation.

“To hear him tell it, she’s the only reason he’s still flying. I know Playfair wanted her to take over then, but she wasn’t having any of it. It took an act of Parliament to get her to finally take the position. The other girls resent her because she’s a proper doctor. A graduate of the Royal Free like myself,” she boasted.

“Why here?”

Janet pursed her lips as she sat back. “Middle Wallop is a strategic center. Our last doctor, he was killed when a raid occurred just south of here. An unexploded bomb went off and killed an entire squad coming back from maneuvers. The Doctor’s name was Richard Shaw, Genevieve’s grandfather.”

Bucky glanced up sharply. Janet nodded.

“Her father had gone into chemistry and metallurgy, and when the war started, he was posted at one of the northern shipyards. Like Evie, he worked for the Ministry, but her grandfather had been a war-time surgeon during the Great War and pulled strings to take this post after his wife had died. Evie was the youngest and they were exceptionally close. He was the one that convinced her to switch from Soil Chemistry at Reading to Medicine at the Royal Free.”

“So, when he died…”

“Playfair used his influence to secure her position. Pushed orders through Command Headquarters to re-mobilize her and send her here.”

“Seems like a nasty move on his part.”

“It was strategic,” Janet corrected tightly, her arms crossed over her chest. “Genevieve had a connection to the base and a loyalty to her grandfather’s memory. She wouldn’t do anything to sully either and she is a brilliant scientist.”

“Scientist? Not doctor?” Bucky questioned, catching the same slip Gibson said.

“Oh, don’t get me wrong, she’s right competent as a doctor and surgeon as well, but it’s her scientific mind that is incredible. If Command was smart, they’d build her a proper lab and have her doing more important work, but I doubt she’d do it, even if they threatened her.”

“Why?”

Janet gave him that same look. The one that said she knew more and wasn’t telling.

“Fine. I’ll ask her myself.”

“No. You won’t.” Janet said harshly, a dark edge to her voice that had Bucky standing up and paying attention. He got the same tense feeling he’d had when he met a seemingly inconsequential secretary back in basic. Maggie, or Peggy or something, if he remembered correctly. She’d had a similar authoritative feeling.

“Who are you?”

The nurse smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Nurse, Second-grade, Janet Law, of course, but that’s not what you’re really asking me. You’re asking ‘what I am,’ not whom. The answer is the same either way, none of your business, Sergeant.”

“Then why tell me all this?”

“Because, Evie is my friend and I care that she’s been a walking ghost for the past two years. I care that she shut down completely after Paul died, and not because of his death, mind you. I care because if there was ever someone who could turn the tide of this war, it’s her, and she won’t because she can’t let go of the past.”

She stood; her dark brown eyes stormy behind thin silver frames. “For whatever reason, you, a measly American sniper with no practical life experience and even less combat experience have evoked more emotion in her than I’ve seen in close to a decade. Whether or not that’ll be a good thing I’m unsure of at this time. So no, you will not be asking her a thing about her past, because by the time she gets back, you’ll be gone. One more memory for her to file away and hopefully forget.”

“I can’t tell if you are routing for me or hoping I come back in a body bag,” he snapped, annoyed.

Janet regarded him coolly. “That depends, Sergeant.”

“On what?”

“On if you prove yourself to be more than just another measly American or if helping get a boy out of the Army is the most you'll ever accomplish in this life.”

Chapter Text

Chapter Eight

She was exhausted by the time she returned in the early hours of the morning. The birth had gone badly and they’d had to perform a caesarean with minimal anesthetics. Thankfully, Gloria had managed to keep the baby alive while Evie worked to keep the mother alive. It had taken twelve hours of blood, sweat, tears, and more prayers than she’d ever said before. By the end, she wasn’t even speaking, just stitching one tear after another.

She tossed another ruined coat into the laundry hamper in the medical hut, scrubbed her face and arms with disinfectant soap, and switched out her bloody blouse for a spare she kept in her desk drawer. A quick glance at her desk clock gave her pause. 4:17am. She glanced at the wall, checking the roster for the day.

‘107 0430’.

Should she go and see him off? Would it even matter? Who knew if he’d care or even notice, and God knew she couldn’t trust that he’d be back. They'd had a moment, in the barn, sure, but she had things to do, people to look out for and he was just another soldier passing through. Maybe they could have had something or maybe he would forget her when the next skirt crossed his path. She didn't know, wasn't certain she understood him in the least, but she knew herself. She knew she had been hurt worse by his careless words because she'd held out hope that he wasn't like all the others. That working with him to help Roy had given her a small inkling into the man's character. 

He was a soldier, through and through. He had a strong sense of loyalty, of doing what was right. He wanted to protect 'his people', regardless of propriety or rank, and he was smart enough to know his own failings. He'd apologized, taken her concerns seriously, and still treated her like a woman. It was disconcerting, because for a second there, when her fingers sealed his lips and his hand covered hers, she'd felt more connected to him than anyone else. Even Paul. She bit her lip in agitation and guilt; the clock ticked over to 4:25am.

The door closed silently in her wake, a short snick that belied her hurried steps. Her heels sank into freshly turned earth. Shadows raced across the ground under the faintest edge of a slivered moon. Most squadrons would prefer to fly out with the light from a full moon behind them, but this wasn’t strictly an air mission, this was a sea mission, and that meant darkness would be their friend.

The men were supposed to take a covered lorry down to Portsmouth Harbor, then across the Channel to France. Gibson and his crew would fly down and meet them, re-fueling for the longer stretch over the water. After that, she didn’t know.

The rumblegroan of a lorry made her jump out of the way as it moved past her. She turned, facing back the way she’d come with her heart in her throat. She was too late.

Biting her lip, she screwed up her courage and whistled; the same long, piercing blast that she'd used on the horses. It cut through the truck’s noise and the silence of the night. There was a flutter of canvas, before Barnes face appeared, his eyes searching the gloom. Stepping out onto the roadway, she gave another short whistle, her hand raised.

His eyes cut to her, surprise on his face that turned into a broad grin. He raised his hand back, waved once before the truck took a turn and he disappeared from sight. She breathed out slowly, this was enough, she thought. If nothing else, she’d said her goodbyes. What the universe did after that was out of her hands.

Bucky pitched to the left, landing hard against the truck’s side wall, when it took the sharp right out of the station. The heavy canvas cover flopped back into place silently.

She’d come.

He hadn’t thought she would. Wasn’t sure she’d feel the same need he did to see her one last time. It was foolish. Getting entangled with someone, let alone someone like the Doc, and they weren’t even really a thing. More the…more the idea of a thing, maybe, if he was being very, very generous.

God, he could just see Steve rolling his eyes at that stupid line of reasoning. His friend would be laughing this up, Bucky Barnes, hung up on a dame. But the Doc wasn’t just some pretty face. She was smart, kind, ruthless, loyal, and pretty. ‘The whole package,’ his friend would have called her. Not that he’d disagree, but Bucky wasn’t stupid, or naïve.

The chance of him coming back from this mission was low. If he was lucky, he might survive, but so many had already died and there really was nothing special about him. He was just a man with decent aim and a good head for random bits of information. He’d liked school and excelled in his classes and ran track and played basketball, but he wasn’t ‘special’.

He’d been surprised when he first got to Basic. He was good at being a soldier. Really good at it. He got on with his squad, did well under pressure and had no problem learning the hand-to-hand fighting techniques his Drill Sergeant bashed into his abused body day-after-day.

But meeting the Doc and that kid, Roy, had him reconsidering his future. He hadn’t, really, ever believed that he’d return home. He figured he be one of the many names listed out on the evening radio, but now…now he felt the first stirrings of having something to work towards; to return to.

“You planning on falling asleep over there, Bucky?” Jones cracked.

Bucky grunted, stumbling back to his seat between Womack and Andrews. “Shut it, Jones.”

Womack gave his annoying hyena laugh, elbowing Bucky hard in the gut. “Got you good, didn’t she?” he leered.

“I’m not talking to you,” Bucky snapped. “You almost got us all sent home, so just shut your mouth before you bite your tongue off.” His order was punctuated when the truck hit a pothole hard enough to bounce them in their seats.

“Barnes,” Thompson said warningly. “That’s enough.”

“Yes, sir,” Bucky replied, settling back against the wooden seat. He moved his rifle in between his legs, readjusting the M1928 Haversack so his shovel wasn’t digging into his spine and tried to relax.

She’d come.

That was all that mattered. Not what the guys said or thought, not what would happen next. She’d come and for the first time, he thought he might have someone who would care if he came home beside Steve.

If he came home at all.

Chapter Text

Chapter Nine

September 1943

Italy would have been beautiful, he thought distractedly, before Hitler ruined her for the world.

He supposed it was better than France, where every stop was a chance to get shot by friendlies and the enemy. At least here he was only going to get shot at by the bad guys.

He snorted at his own morbid humor.  It’d taken three weeks to get from England to the border. Another two just to get over the mountains and into the boot itself, and two months of slugging from one battlefield to the next to get to Azzano near Naples.

Two months of blood and violence and things that he knew would haunt his nightmares, if he survived and ever slept again. The Wehrmacht soldiers seemed endless. They dogged Bucky’s team for days. Thompson had been hit early, succumbing to his wounds before they could get him into a fox hole. Womack had stepped on a landmine a few days later. Andrews caught a piece of shrapnel in the throat. Dumb luck that he’d stepped in front of Bucky when he had.

Honestly, Bucky should have been dead many times over, but each time the universe seemed to pause and say, ‘not today’. As they raced for cover, dogging sniper fire and heavy artillery, he wondered if today was the day that the universe gave up trying to keep his butt alive. He sort of wished he'd sent that letter now. He hit the ground hard, hand up to shift the steel pot they called a helmet back on his head so he could see.

Dugan landed beside him; his breath blown out explosively. “There’s got to be at least five more companies out there!” he shouted.

“Radio B Company, tell them we need cover!” he ordered Jones.

Jones turned the smoking radio pack around so they could see the damage. “That might be tough,” he snarked.

Glancing over the edge of the crater, Dugan hollered, “Bucky, behind you!” forcing them all up on their knees as they raised their guns. Jones and Dugan’s Thompsons could shoot up to 30 rounds before reloading. Bucky’s M1903 was a bolt action five rounder.

“Here they come!” he yelled, running across to the other side of the hole.

Dugan muttered something behind him, but his focus was on the Germans coming down the hill until electricity arched blue white across the dark sky.

His mouth dropped open in shock. In seconds, a whole battalion was disintegrated before their eyes.

“What the hell was that?” Dugan asked into the sudden silence. Bucky didn’t know. He stood, moving carefully as they left the relative safety of the hole, because where was safe when something shooting energy could destroy men so completely not even their shoes remained?

Three more shots took out the last survivors of the German battalion that had decimated his own squad.

“That looks…new,” Dugan said breathlessly as the tank, a massive thing three-times the size of any they’d come across rolled over the hills, crushing smaller vehicles under its treads. This was something beyond anything he’d seen on the front so far. It looked more like something Stark would come up with than the typical Nazi war machine.

Bucky tilted his head as the turret turned towards them, comprehension striking just a second too late.

“Down!” he screamed as the light blinded him, throwing himself back and away, his arms going out to knock his men down as he did. He heard Jones’s shout and Dugan’s inevitable curse, then nothing.

Nothing at all.

Bucky groaned as he came to. He didn’t wake up. This was something deeper than sleep. A cessation of all that made him, him. A darkness he felt could suck him back into the bowels of whatever the hell had fired on them.

“Landkreuzer.”

“What?” he groaned; arm thrown over his face as he struggled to understand the sounds around him.

“The thing that hit us, they call it a Landkreuzer. A 1,500-ton self-propelled artillery platform. They named it the Monster and no, you weren’t mistaken, it was shooting some kind of energy weapon instead of the 800 mm Schwerer Gustav.”

Bucky turned his head just enough to glare at Jones.

“What?” he asked again, exasperated and sporting a killer headache.

Jones rolled his eyes. “I know you, Sarge, that’s what you were thinking. 'What the hell hit us? Where are we? Why do I feel like warmed up shit?'”

“And? You have an answer for the rest of those, smart-ass?”

Jones grinned, unrepentantly. “We got ourselves tasered.”

“Tasered?”

Jones shrugged. “Basically, just with a bit more electricity than normal. Dugan’s been puking his guts out for the past hour. I’m kinda surprised you just have a headache.”

“Headache, yeah, that’s one word for it.” He pushed himself upright, his head bowed and eyes closed as he breathed through the worst of the nausea.

“You never said where we were.”

“Probably because I’m not sure. Pretty sure we’re out of Italy by now, but they haven’t exactly been chatty with us.”

Bucky gave him a side-eye. “When’s that ever stopped you from listening in?”

Jones gave him a broad smile. “Since they realized I spoke German. Can tell you one thing though.”

“What’s that?” he asked, forcing himself to his feet and closer to the cage door where Jones was standing.

“These boys aren’t Nazis. Or at least, not the normal ones.”

“They’re driving a 1500-ton energy gun, so yeah, I’d say they aren’t the ‘normal Nazis’,” he snarked back, fingers curling around the metal bars. “So, who are they?”

Jones turned from where he’d been staring out the bars as the train carried them farther into the snowy mountains and stared at his squad leader. His face dangerously blank and devoid of emotion.

“Hydra.”

Chapter Text

Chapter Ten

November, 1943

The building was massive. Five stories tall and a dozen feet thick along the walls. Windows were only on the upper floors. The light was thin, reedy, and filtered through grime and dust. The men were kept in cages like circus animals. Six men per cage, each from a different group, ethnicity, or country. Mix the troops up, Colonel Lohmer had told them; break their morale and let them fight amongst each other.

And it had worked.

In the beginning, they fought amongst themselves more than they fought the guards. Lohmer seemed to be right, until Captain America had cracked that door and they suddenly had a real goal - freedom or death. Bucky, tied down in the medical lab didn’t know any of this though. He’d started coughing after working on one of the glowing bombs. He didn’t think that had been a good sign, but he’d tried to play it down until he couldn’t any more.

“You need to rest,” Jones told him, pressing him down onto the thin mattress in their cell.

“Can’t,” Bucky hacked. “Lohmer’s got a hard on for me, I need to be out there working.”

Jones pursed his lips as he retaped Bucky’s broken ribs. “You move wrong and one of these is gonna take out a lung. We’ll talk to Kleiber, he’s not as much of an asshole. He’ll let you rest.”

Dugan came up beside them followed by Dernier. He jerked a thumb at the resistance fighter. “Frenchie has a plan. It might kill us all, but it’s probably the best option we have.”

Dernier rolled his eyes. “Unless you get caught, we should be perfectly safe.”

“Enough,” Falsworth said from Bucky’s other side. “It is risky, but as Dugan said, it’s our best bet. Now, you will stay here. I’ll speak to Lieutenant Kleiber,” Bucky smiled a bit at the way Falsworth said Lieutenant with an ‘f’. It reminded him of the Doc. “The rest of you get to your stations. We’ll need to work fast if we’re to make this work.”

Falsworth glanced down at Bucky as the others scrambled to their positions. Kneeling, he handed a small tin cup of water over, helping Bucky take a sip. “Should I be concerned about you smiling through all this, Sergeant?” he asked concerned.

Bucky coughed wetly. “Nah, you just reminded me of someone for a sec.”

Falsworth raised a brow in inquiry, understanding when Bucky flushed. “I see, but are they as pretty as me though?” he asked drolly, making Bucky choke out a strangled sound, his ribs shifting uncomfortably.

“What is wrong with him?” Came a sharp voice from the bars of the cell.

Falsworth pressed a hand to Bucky’s chest, keeping him in place while he went to speak to the German Lieutenant.

“Beside the beatings, your superior,” he sneered the title through the bars, “has handed out, Sergeant Barnes is also gravely ill.”

Kleiber held a hand up for a soldier to spot him while he entered the cell, pointing at Falsworth to step back and away.

"I think I caught --koff-- pneumonia on the battlefield -- You wouldn't happen to have a --koff-- doctor in this dump –koff," Bucky coughed wetly as the man examined him. There was a rattling in his chest he knew was a bad sign. The fact that he was so weak and both hot and cold just sort of solidified that bad sign for him.

“You will rest today,” Kleiber told him in a thickly accented German. “Tomorrow, if the fever has not reduced, you will go to the medical center.”

He gave Bucky a hard look. “It is not what you want,” he warned him. “Our Doctor…he is not one you want to see.”

With that disturbing warning, he turned on his heel and left.

Falsworth sat down beside Bucky, keeping himself between the ill soldier and the Germans. Bucky groaned as he tried to shift his bruises off the hard metal springs.

“Only one Doc I want to see, anyways,” he grumbled, catching Falsworth’s attention. “And yeah, she’s prettier than you. Meaner too.”

Falsworth chuckled softly. “A pretty American, I take it?” he asked, settling back in the plain wooden chair.

“One of yours, actually. A Doc outside Portsmouth.”

Falsworth understood the reference without Bucky having to say anything more. “Stop over?”

“First day introductions,” he explained in their soldier shorthand. “She shot me and the boys in the ass and told me it was for my own good.”

That startled a large belly laugh from the British Colonel. “Sounds like a hell of a woman.”

“She is.” He stared out towards the work zone. “I should have sent her a letter. I never…” he coughed hard, blood speckling his hand when he pulled it away. “If I don’t make it, you have to tell her. Colonel, promise me you’ll let her know what happened. None of this cloak and dagger stuff the military will say.” He stared Falsworth dead in the eyes. “You tell Doctor Shaw at Wallop I didn’t forget. Not once.”

Falsworth nodded gravely, his hand on Bucky’s shoulder. “I promise, lad, now try and get some rest, you’ll see your girl again soon.”

“Not mine,” Bucky mumbled, eyes fluttering shut. “Not yet.”

Jones was the first one back, slipping a small amount of magnesium under the edge of Bucky’s mattress.

“How is he?”

“Worse. He needs medical care, and not from these overzealous prats.”

Falsworth was about to ask if Jones knew the Doctor Barnes had mentioned when the others slipped in, depositing their items in the same way. Dugan gripped Barnes’ ankle under the blanket.

“Hey Jimmy, you doing okay, pal?”

Dernier shook his head in exasperation. “How does he manage to grimace even in his sleep?” he asked amused.

As they settled down to wait for darkness, Falsworth wondered if he should write a letter himself. If they were rescued, he could pass Barnes’ message along, and if they weren’t…well, he couldn’t afford for any of them to give secrets away, and Middle Wallop, while not exactly a secret, could be exploited if the relationship came to light. Sighing, he pinched the bridge of his nose. No, he couldn’t take the chance of that information getting to the Germans.

And neither could Barnes.

The crash of metal-on-metal jerked Bucky from a fitful sleep, or blessed unconsciousness, he wasn’t quite sure what to call it.

Kleimer was shouting orders by a crush of metal and huddle of soldiers. Dugan was standing between him and the cage doors, his arms crossed over his barrel of a chest, hat cocked low over his eyes and a ‘try me’ feeling radiating like an enraged pit bull at the two soldiers heading towards them.

“Leave them,” Kleimer snapped furiously, “Come put the others back, I must…I must tell the Obergruppenführer what has occurred.”

When the guards shoved the rest of the men inside and locked the door, Dugan relaxed.

“What happened?” Bucky coughed, groaning.

Dugan leaned down and grasped his shoulder in solidarity. “Nothin’, but Lohmer won’t be hurting you again, Jimmy.”

Bucky lifted a weak hand to slap at Dugan’s side. “Dum Dum,” he hissed. “How many times have I asked you not to call me that? It’s James, or Barnes, not some kid’s name.”

Dugan gave him an incredulous look. “And Bucky isn’t?”

It took all of Bucky’s strength to flip the asshole off, but he did it. Slipping back under, he thought he heard the Doc’s voice.

‘Mature, Sergeant. Very mature.’

The pain was unlike anything he’d ever felt before. His broken ribs he could have dealt with. The bruises and cuts and racking cough and even the blood, he could deal with. But the fire racing through his veins, the way his skull felt like it was being split open, that he wasn’t sure he could deal with much longer.

“Barnes, James Buchanan; Sergeant; 32557038.” Name, rank, serial number. Don’t tell them anything else. Forget your friend’s names. Forget anything about your past and the Army. Forget Genevieve. Forget. Forget. Forget.

He repeated the information so many times. Told himself to forget so many times that he wasn’t sure what was real and what wasn’t anymore. If he died on this table, no one would know. No one was coming for him and no one would remember him.

Steve would remember, his treacherous brain told him. The Doc. They’d remember. They’d look.

No. No one will look for you. No one should look for you, he told himself. If they came, they’d die, and he didn’t want them to die. Or see him like this, because something was wrong with him. They’d done something to him. Something that burned through his blood and made his brain fuzzy.

A rattling in the dark made him blink.

“Barnes, James Buchanan; Sergeant; 32557038.”

“Bucky,” Steve said breathlessly, shaking the table he was strapped down to. “Oh my God.”

The clatter of metal caught his attention. “Who is it? Who’s there?” he asked bemused. His vision was splotchy, some parts brighter than others. Something was wrong with him.

A face loomed out of the darkness. One he recognized, but was impossible.

“It’s me, it’s Steve.”

“Steve?” Not possible. Steve was safe at home in New York, not in this hell hole.

The apparition pulled him to his feet, slapping his face lightly.  “I thought you were dead.”

Bucky looked up at him incredulously even as Steve glanced away to check on an explosion in the distance. “I thought you were smaller,” Bucky muttered.

“Come on,” Steve told him, half dragging him from the room and down the poorly lit hallway.

“What happened to you?”

“I joined the Army.”

It was a flippant remark and so completely Steve that Bucky found himself trying to smile when his body wasn’t sure it knew how to anymore. He was still so weak, and the pain, it tore through him, making his limbs shake and tremble. Could Steve feel it? Could he feel how close Bucky was to giving up completely? No, he couldn’t. Bucky wouldn’t let him, but he had to know, did the Army do to Steve what Hydra had done to Bucky?

“Did it hurt?” he asked, stumbling away from his friend. He grit his teeth, shoving his sleeves up to mid-forearm in a desperate attempt to conceal the shaking.

“A little.”

“Is it permanent?” he asked, needing to know the answer even more than he needed to know Steve was real. That this time the hallucination wasn’t just his mind playing tricks on him. He’d seen Steve more than once while they were working on him.

Saw the Doc too, but those hallucinations were easy to tell apart. The things they did…well, he hadn’t been there long enough for that, but Steve was harder. He had years of memories for his brain to screw around with and whatever they’d given him had done a number on his brain. Coney Island and hotdogs came up more than once. He’d need to remember to tell Steve that. He’d get his shins kicked, but it’d be worth it.

He wasn’t stupid enough to tell the Doc what he’d imagined. She’d do more than kick his shins.

“So far.”

Permanent. Well, that was something, he supposed.

Explosions rocked the base as they fled. The clatter of a door closing made them look up.

“Captain America, how exciting!” A man said. “I am a great fan of your films. So, Doctor Erskine managed it after all,” he said with saccharine sweetness and a level of condescension Bucky would have been hard pressed to mimic.

He watched as Steve crossed the metal walkway towards the man. He could feel his energy coming back allowing him to stand straighter, but it was nothing like the power and quiet confidence Steve showed. Fire raged below them, the fumes choking them with the smell of metal and plastic, and something worse. A chemical odor Bucky didn’t like.

“But still, impressive.”

“You got no idea,” Steve said, hitting him with the shield. Schmidt shook his head and then hit back, knuckle imprints denting the shield with a shocking ferocity.

Doctor Zola hit the retract lever, forcing the two super soldiers away from each other.

“No matter what lies Erskine told you, you see, I was his greatest success!” Schmidt hollered, peeling off his face and revealing the red flesh underneath. Zola refused to make eye contact, but Bucky could see the fear in his eyes. He was as trapped as Bucky had been.

Not that he’d forgive him. He’d never forgive Zola for whatever he’d done to him.

“You don’t have one of those, do you?” he asked Steve, bile rising in the back of his throat. God, don’t let his own face peel off one day. He’d never get a second chance with the Doc.

“You are deluded, Captain. You pretend to be a simple soldier but, in reality, you are just afraid to admit that we have left humanity behind. Unlike you, I embrace it proudly. Without fear!”

“Then how come you’re running?” Steve rejoined, watching as the Red Skull fled with Zola.

“Come on, let’s go, up!” Steve said, grabbing his arm and propelling him towards another set of stairs. Metal groaned around them as they raced up to the top girders.

“Let’s go. One at a time,” Steve said, helping him over. The metal twisted and fell, collapsing out from under his feet as he managed to flip over the rail. He stared down into the flames and then back at Steve.

“There has to be a rope or something!”

“Just go!” Steve yelled back. “Get out of here!” Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen, his friend was an idiot if he thought Bucky was going without him.

“Not without you!” he screamed back, slamming his hands down on the railing and feeling the metal dent under the impact – it must be heat-fatigue. He wasn’t losing any more of his men, and he certainly wasn’t going to let Steve die in this place after getting him free.

Steve sighed, bent a raining backwards and jumped.

Bucky was right, he was an idiot.

It took longer than Bucky would have liked to get free. Longer and still somehow not as long as he thought. The fire, men, and tanks made the world a bright haze of death and destruction Bucky had a hard time keeping track of. Too much noise. Too many lights and sensations.

What did they do to him? God, did Steve have these problems too?

It didn’t seem like it as he watched his friend mow down any stragglers between them and freedom. Bucky caught the others - Dugan, Jones and Falsworth - crawling out of one of the tanks. Morita and Dernier were busy vaporizing fleeing soldiers with one of the glowing guns. He still wasn’t sure how that all worked, but he’d figure it out eventually.

When the shooting finally stopped, Bucky breathed a sigh of relief. The sound was deafening. Now he could focus on the men. Some wounded, others just beaten up a bit. He felt like that in his core; bruised and beaten and wondered if it’d ever stop hurting.

By the time they were walking back into the US Army Camp in Italy, Bucky thought he might have a handle on the weird shift in his senses. It helped, having Steve nearby. He could focus on his friend, and not the pain. He cracked jokes like they were twelve again. Introduced him to the others, talked about anything and everything he’d experienced.

Everything except Genevieve.

He didn’t know why. It was like, if he spoke about her, maybe she wouldn’t be his anymore, even though he didn’t actually have a claim to her. Falsworth sat by him one evening around the fire on the outskirts of Milan. He didn’t say anything, just watched Steve and Jones talking for a long time.

“Does he know?” The Colonel finally asked lowly.

“No.”

Falsworth nodded as if he understood. Hell, maybe he did, it’s not like Bucky knew anything about the guy’s past. “If you wanted to reach out through other channels, I can drop it for you. Just let me know.” He stood, leaving the scrap of paper and pencil on the log, and resolutely walked away.

Bucky stared at both for a long time before he reached out and snagged them, slipping them into his pants pocket.

He slept badly that night and most of the nights on their way back. Walking across the front was just as bad as he’d thought, but now his body didn’t feel like it was really his and that scrap of paper seemed to get heavier the longer they walked.

Seeing the encampment was a bit of a load off. He breathed a little lighter seeing all that khaki with U.S. Army blazoned on the sides of jeeps. As the men rushed from the tents, he kept close to Steve’s side.

He frowned slightly when he saw the brunet walk up to his friend. He was pretty sure she was the same secretary he’d seen back in Basic with Colonel Phillips, but Steve’s calling her ‘Agent’ and they’re staring at each other like the world has ceased to exist.

“Hey! Let’s hear it for Captain America,” Bucky smirked at Steve, who rolled his eyes and fought the desire to flip his friend off. Instead, he stared down into Peggy’s eyes like a love-struck idiot.

“You’re late,” Peggy told Steve breathlessly.

Steve, the smug asshole, raised the shot-up communicator with a smirk. “Couldn’t call my ride.”

Bucky made kissy faces behind Carter’s back, laughing as Steve tried not to react to him. As the two spoke quietly to each other Bucky felt his face fall. He might rag on his friend, but he was happy for him, Steve deserved someone in his corner.

He’d kill to have someone in his.

He thought of Genevieve standing in the dark waving at him as they left and had the fleeting thought that she might be that for him. Still, what did he tell her about all this? How did he explain that he didn’t feel like himself anymore?

How did he tell her he almost died and that he wasn’t sure who Steve saved was the same man she waved off that night months ago?

How did he know any of it was real?

Chapter Text

Chapter Eleven

By the end of the week, he was sitting in a pub in London drinking with his best friend and a group of guys who’d kept him alive when he was certain his goose was cooked. He felt better, stronger than before, but nowhere near Steve’s transformation. Maybe whatever they did to him had nothing to do with Steve after all.

“See? I told you they were all idiots,” he told Steve as he came back in from the front room and the men he’d saved.

Steve snorted, settling on the bar stool. “How about you? You ready to fallow Captain America into the jaws of Death?”

“Hell no. That little guy from Brooklyn who was too dumb not to run away from a fight. I’m following him.” He took a sip of his warm beer. Tapping Steve on the shoulder, he leaned towards him. “But you’re keeping the outfit though, right?” he snickered, poking Steve in the side.

Steve glanced back at the cancelled tour poster and smirked. “You know what? It’s kinda growing on me.”

Bucky raised his glass, smirking. Across the room, the door opened, a gust of cold air sliding across the slowly quieting building. Agent Carter, dressed in a killer red number sauntered in, her face turned back to speak to the women behind her. Steve stood, making Bucky scramble to follow.

“Captain.”

“Agent Carter.”

Bucky looked her up and down, stuttering out a choked ‘Ma’am’ when she caught him staring. Dang but Steve had good taste at least. A flash of dark green caught his attention, the woman behind Peggy stopping to stare at him before turning sharply and heading for the back rooms.

“Howard has some equipment for you to try. Tomorrow morning?”

“Sounds good,” Steve said tightly.

“I see your top squad is prepping for duty,” she said.

“You don’t like music?” Bucky asked with a lazy grin.

“I do actually. I might, when this is all over, even go dancing.”

“Then what are we waiting for?” Bucky asked, eyebrow raised at the pair in inquiry. He tilted his head at Steve, a clear sign to ‘get on with it’.

Peggy didn’t even glance at him. “The right partner.”

Jesus, these two needed to get a room, Bucky thought, biting his tongue.

“0-800, Captain,” she told Steve breathlessly, heading back the way she’d come.

“Yes, Ma’am. I’ll be there.” Steve called out after her. Bucky shook his head at his friend. They were both a pair of idiots.

“I’m invisible,” he joked as Peggy walked past them. “I’m turning into you. It’s like a horrible dream.” Or nightmare. God, what was he going to tell her? He hadn’t written. Hadn’t reached out. He’d been back two-days and he hadn’t done a damn thing but drink and feel sorry for himself.

He needed to pull himself together.

“Don’t take it so hard,” Steve joked. “Maybe she’s got a friend.”

Bucky winced. Yeah, she did, that was the problem. If it was who he thought, he was going to have a lot of explaining to do tonight.

And probably a bit of groveling.

As Steve made his way back to the others, Bucky slipped down the hallway leading to the side alcove and smaller bar by the dance floor. It wasn’t exactly built for that, but the Whip & Fiddle had taken some damage in the early days of the war, and this area had been cobbled together from a smaller room. It was quieter, more intimate, and yet he still felt like every eye turned to watch him when he entered.

Well, almost every eye. Carter was kneeling beside a carved mahogany chair. Its seat was covered in cracked and faded burgundy leather. The others around the table were the same, but he could have cared less. His entire focus was on the woman sitting in that chair, her face turned away from him, dark green pencil dress subdued in the hazy yellow lights of the pub. It was modest, with a slightly higher sweetheart neckline, quarter sleeves and small ruched pleating at the hip. Three quarter-sized pearl buttons held it in place and matched the white lace gloves and simple necklace she wore.

She might not turn heads like Agent Carter in her blood-red outfit, but she certainly turned his. Now if he could just get her to look at him. Carter was talking to her in low, soothing tones. He caught a few of them, enough to know Peggy was trying to calm her friend down. Funny, how everyone seemed to know everyone else around this place, but he supposed brilliant women working for the government had to run in at least some of the same circles.

Janet was leaning over the table, a hard look on her face and hand pressed against a rolled-up newspaper. Her dress was a faded yellow, with small flowers embroidered on it. Pretty, subtle, the exact opposite of the woman who was glaring at him from across the room. To be honest, he wasn’t sure he wanted to deal with any of them, until he saw a tear track down Evie’s cheek and his body was moving before he really thought it through.

“Doc,” he said slowly, watching her shoulders hunch.

“No,” Janet hissed at him, stepping between them and blocking his view of Evie. “No, I told you what would happen if you pulled a stunt like that again, now leave. You aren’t wanted here.”

Bucky pursed his lips. “I need to talk to her, I…”

The newspaper slapped hard against his chest, his own face staring back at him from the cover. There must have been a reporter in Italy, as it was a shot of them entering the camp in triumph.

“She thought you were dead,” Janet spat at him in anger, making his stomach drop. “You were listed on the casualty reports over a month ago. Do you even know what those look like? Rolls of names, sometimes they write how they died, sometimes not. A name, location, and a date, that’s all she knew. And then this gets dropped on her desk by that tramp Midge. ‘Couldn’t even keep someone interested for a month?’ she said in front of an entire squadron. Like that bimbo was so special. And you, you’re sitting up here drinking and flirting with any skirt that walks by just like all the others.”

She looked him up and down disdainfully. “Just another bloody American. Overdressed, overpaid, oversexed, and over here!”

“Janet!” Peggy said sharply, pulling the woman back by the shoulder. “I think the Sergeant gets your viewpoint.” She gave him a cold look. “I would have thought better of the man Captain Rogers faced court-marshal to save, Sergeant.”

“Enough, both of you,” Evie said tiredly, drawing herself to her feet. “Just,” she glanced at him and away again. “Enough.”

“Doc, please,” he begged, brushing past the two women to cross to her side. “I know I screwed up, some things…some things happened and I’ve been trying to get my head wrapped around it, but I never meant to hurt you.”

She glanced up at him with watery green eyes. “I trusted you, James,” she whispered, making him swallow hard at the way she said his name - low and broken sounding. “I never should have spoken to you. Never engaged at all.”

She shook her head as she backed away from him. “You’ll never understand what it’s like to be one of us. To deal with what we deal with. To suffer what we suffer through.”

He went to snag her wrist, pulling back when she jerked it away from him with haunted eyes. “You’ll never grow-up.”

He watched as the two women bracketed Evie, hurrying her from the pub out a side door and into the purple streaked evening twilight, the color like a dark bruise on the horizon. His soul felt like that right now. His physical bruises had healed within two-days of leaving Austria. The cuts within a fortnight. It was one more thing that ate at him.

But right now, he didn’t care what had been done to him, because he’d broken the fragile trust he’d had with a woman who might have been his everything, if he’d just given it a chance. Now he didn’t even have that. He had nothing and the crushing realization that he’d done this to himself drove him out into the cold behind them in a mad rush.

A car clipped his shoulder, horn blasts and angry shouts following him into the alleyway he spun out into. The bruise is real now, his shoulder out of his socket and fire racing across his nerve endings. He could go back inside and get help, but a flash of tear-filled eyes has him slamming his shoulder against a grimy brick wall in some small way of making amends, the pain excruciating as the bone pops back into the socket.

He gasped, head down and eyes screwed tight as he breathed through it. You deserve this, idiot, he berated himself. Making her cry, what an asshole. The pain lasts for a minute, maybe two before it faded completely and he’s left staring confused at the dent in the brick wall where he’d hit it. It wasn’t a little scrapped up plaster, but a good quarter-inch depression full of crumbling façade.

“What the hell?” he whispered, fear rearing its ugly head again.

“Barnes!”

Bucky glanced up to see Falsworth at the entrance of the alley. “Hey.”

The Colonel pursed his lips, skirting around a trash can as he made his way into the alley. “Are you alright?” he asked, gentling a hand against Bucky’s shoulder. “I saw the car, but wasn’t able to get to you in time.”

“Just peachy,” he said sarcastically, rolling his shoulder. It barely hurt, just a low throb he could ignore if need be.

Falsworth watched him silently for a long moment. “And the woman? The one in green, was she the one you spoke of?”

Bucky pulled away with controlled violence. “It doesn’t matter anymore,” he said darkly. “I screwed up, big time. She won’t speak to me.”

Falsworth sighed. “And you’re just going to give up. Just like that? Lad, if every man gave up when they messed up, we’d be in sad straights. Give her a bit of time to calm down, maybe actually write that letter this time, then try again.”

Bucky glanced up at his with hope flickering in his eyes. “And if she still won’t talk to me?”

Falsworth gave him a commiserating smile. “Then I’ll buy you a pint to drown your sorrows myself.”

Chapter Text

Chapter Twelve

“Why me?” Falsworth asked him over a pint the next day. Steve was off doing something at the base with Stark, the other boys were off around town, and Bucky had been sitting nursing the same tepid beer for the past hour, hoping against hope that Evie came back. He’s not sure what he’ll do if she’s gone back to the base; his leave’s up in three days, not enough time to get a pass to go down to Middle Wallop.

“What?” he asked, only half paying attention.

“Why talk to me about this instead of Rogers? Aren’t the two of you boyhood chums?”

Bucky smiled slightly into his beer. “Yeah, but Steve’s got his own girl problems right now, he doesn’t need to deal with mine.”

“Hmm,” Falsworth hummed noncommittedly.

Bucky sighed loudly, “Just say it, Colonel. Whatever it is can’t be worse than what I’ve told myself.”

Falsworth took a drag of his beer. “You’re not the man we met in Austria.”

Bucky took the observation like a body shot. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not,” Falsworth said succinctly. “That man was beaten, but not broken. And you’ve done a valiant job of hiding the changes, but they’re there. How loud is it in here for you, right now?”

Bucky winced. “Loud.”

“And the light?”

“Better than outside,” he said on a blown-out breath. “The glare, it’s…I’m not sure. Gives me a headache.”

Falsworth nodded grimly. “You should tell Rogers. If you can’t fight…”

“I can,” Bucky snapped, fingers tightening on the glass. The two men watched as spiderwebs formed over the glass. He put it down hastily. “I can,” he said again. “I can control it. Whatever it is they did to me. Steve said his is permanent, which means I just need to get a grip on it.”

“And the Doctor? Any thoughts on what you’re going to do there?”

Bucky thwacked his head onto the wooden bar top. “Not a clue.”

“Well, suck it up, because she just walked in,” he slapped Bucky’s back as he stood to leave. “Good luck, Soldier.”

Bucky watched as Evie hesitated in the doorway, trepidation waring with determination. Determination won out as she crossed the room. Her dress today was a simple pale blue wrap dress with white collar and pockets. Utilitarian. More for general walking around the town than a night out. Of course it was barely past noon, so she might have been running errands, not looking for him.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hello.”

“Tea?”

Evie’s eyes fluttered as she glanced at his abandoned beer. “Yes, please.”

“A black coffee and a tea for the lady,” he told the barkeep, dropping a shilling on the counter.

They stood in awkward silence until the drinks were ready. “Table?” he asked carefully.

Evie nodded, cradling her cup and saucer as they walked towards the back room she’d fled from the night before. Bucky pulled her chair out for her, careful to wait until their drinks were on the table before he helped push her closer. He slid his own seat farther back from the table so he wasn’t crowding her, watching the little nervous drumming of her fingers on the tabletop and bite to her lips.

“I’m sorry,” he finally said, breaking their silence. “I know it doesn’t count for much, but I really am.”

Evie closed her eyes as if she was in pain. “Just tell me why. I just, I need to understand why.”

Bucky blew out a breath, shoving his coffee towards the center of the table. “Gibson followed us to the boarder, you know that much, right?”

Evie nodded.

“We got a few hours in before we realized we were being tracked. Wehrmacht. Some of their best it felt like. Most didn’t survive. We were pinned down, five more battalions coming over the hill and then this…tank shooting an energy pulse crests the hill and takes out all of them.”

He took a shaky breath, smiling slightly when Evie reaches out a tentative hand to hold his. It’s the first time he realized he was trembling. He tangles their fingers together, careful not to squeeze too tightly.

“It fired on us. Jones said it was like getting tasered, but the next thing I know we’re on a train to Austria with a new group of Nazi elites called Hydra. Never heard of them before, but believe me, they are way above what we’re used to.”

“You know what it’s like on the battlefield. Too little food, sleep, or warmth. I got sick and the work camp they sent us to didn’t care if you lived or died. There was a Colonel there, sadistic s.o.b. He liked to beat the weaker guys.”

Evie’s breath hitched as she figured out what he was implying. His smile is lopsided and brittle as he looks at her. “I was in a bad way. The boys, they got me out of it, but then I was taken to the medical center. I don’t…” he flexed his hand, trying not to clench. “I don’t know what they did. How long I was there. All I know is they did something. Something I can’t explain or even understand.”

“James,” Evie says his name like a prayer and he feels his eyes heat.

“I wanted to write. Had a paper and everything, but how did I explain any of what happened when I’m not sure myself? I’m not right, something inside me…they did something and I don’t know what that means.”

He pulled her hand to his cheek, closing his eyes as he rested against it. “I’m afraid, Evie,” he whispered, using her name for the first time out loud. Claiming a connection he didn’t have a right to, but was selfish enough to try and steal regardless. “I don’t know what they put inside me and I’m terrified of what I might do.”

Evie took shallow breaths, trying to calm her erratic heartbeat. She’d told him to grow-up and here he was struggling with something worse than torture. A fear of one’s inner self. She knew what that felt like and she’d never wish it on her worst enemy because it was an insidious sort of death; a fear that one couldn’t escape or reason with.

“James,” she whispered, slipping from the chair to stand by his side. When he glances up at her with hollowed eyes, her trembling hand cards through his hair tenderly. “We all have something in us to be weary of. Whatever they did, we can figure it out. I can help, if you let me, or Peggy, she can look into this as well.”

“No!” he said quickly, startling her. “No, not Carter, I...” he blew out an embarrassed breath. “Steve he’s, well he’s pretty gone on her and I think she is on him, and he deserves that. All the stuff we’ve been through, he deserves to be the center of attention for a bit. Whatever’s going on with me isn’t as much as he dealt with.”

“Then let me look into it,” she intreated. “Let me see what I can come up with in the lab. If there’s nothing, then great.”

“And if there is?”

She leaned down to press her forehead against his, her voice whisper soft against his skin. “Then at least we’ll know and we can start looking for a way to control it.”

“Not a fix?” he asked.

“You aren’t broken, Sergeant Barnes,” she told him haughtily. “Bruised and battered, but never broken. Not unless you give up.”

Staring him down she spoke with the force of a commander. “Are you giving up, soldier?”

Bucky took a deep breath, the scent of lily-of-the-valley and coffee filling his lungs as he pulled himself together.

“No, Ma’am!”

Chapter Text

Chapter Thirteen

“What is this place?” Bucky asked, skirting a section of broken wall.

“What’s left of the original Royal Free Hospital.” Evie placed a reverent hand on a carved chunk of broken marble. “This is where I became a doctor.”

She hopped over a broken step and put her shoulder against a crookedly hanging door. “It was hit a few months ago by a flying bomb. Most of the equipment was transferred farther north. I called in a favor though. Dr. Qvist recently joined the RAMC, but before that he was a surgeon here. He said there’s still a few items in one of the labs that haven’t been slotted for movement to the new facility that we can use as long as we put everything back.”

“They just left it here?” Bucky asked, ducking through the doorway.

“The room was in a basement and the door has been locked.” She held up a key. “I worked with him briefly during my clinicals, but we kept in touch. He’s one of those teachers everyone liked, even when he was yelling at you.”

She laughed fondly. “He once made a student violently ill by dissecting a lower bowel on his work top then eating a jam Danish. His response was that you could never be a surgeon if you were squeamish over a bit of festering food-stuffs.”

“Lovely,” Bucky said disgusted.

Evie unlocked the room and waved him in. “He had a point. I’ve been elbows deep in too many young soldiers’ guts to count. You can’t be a surgeon with a tetchy tummy. Here, take off your shirt and have a seat. I’ll need to take blood samples first.”

Bucky pulled the tails of his shirt out of his trousers and unbuttoned the olive drab material. Folding it carefully, he set it to the side before settling onto the metal reclining chair.

“So, how’s this work?” he asked nervously.

“We have a few possibilities. The first is a basic blood work up. I have your information from the Army, but it isn’t exactly complete. We know you are O+, which means you are able to give to anyone with a positive blood type. So, the first step is to just test that nothing has changed there. That’s simple enough with a reagent test.”

She set up a clean round of needles for blood extraction, moving seamlessly around the small lab. He could see where most of the big equipment had been removed, but there were still boxes and a small chemical storage tray on the work top.

“Did someone set this up for you?” he asked, noting the lack of dust.

Evie shrugged. “I might have asked George to make sure some basics were stocked, but not who or what I was working on.”

“Evie…”

She gave him a shy smile. “That’s oddly nice.”

“What?”

“Hearing you say my name. Honestly, I wasn’t sure you even knew it.”

Bucky snorted. “I knew it, Doc, just didn’t seem right to call you it until we were better acquainted.”

She gently eased the need past his skin, her finger holding his elbow at the correct angle. “I’ve stabbed you thrice, James, and cried in front of you, I think you’re entitled to call me by name by now.”

Bucky laughed out loud. “Yeah, okay. So, we type my blood, after that?”

“Then we start looking at chromosomal changes. Now this is all relatively new, you understand? Most of this is beyond experimental and realistically, no one outside the government should have the slightest idea any of this is occurring.”

“The only reason I know any of this is because of my early research, and no, I will not be getting into that with you, but you take a blood sample and separate out the leukocytes. That’s the round cylinder tube things on that table over there. Then I use colchicine to stop their growth in the metaphase. From there, a salt-solution is used to make the cells burst. Once that’s taken place, we can fix and stain a sample to a slide and then check the chromosomes for any missing or altered ends.”

She blushed self-consciously when he just stared at her. “Don’t look at me like that, this is all new to me. I’ve done a bit of it before and I understand the process, but what you are saying they did to your friend still feels like science-fiction. I’m sure there are much more refined techniques, but even this is beyond what most hospitals are capable of.”

“So, whatever they did to us, probably isn’t written down anywhere,” Bucky figured.

“Not without a lot of locks and keys involved, I’m afraid.” Evie finished taking samples and wiped the area with an alcohol swap. Taping on a plaster, she left him to get redressed, moving quickly to get the blood marked for typing and separation.

“This needs to settle for about an hour, then I can put it in the centrifuge,” she told him, handing him a canteen of water.

“What about the typing?”

“It needs about the same amount of time, maybe a bit less. I have the reagents, so once it settles, I can do the forward testing by mixing the blood and reagent and see which reacts. With O, it shouldn’t react to either reagent. Then I use some of the plasma and add it to the reagents. If it reacts to both, then we’ve confirmed O.”

“Do you really think my blood type will come back differently?”

Evie shook her head. “No, changing a blood type would involve a full-body transfusion and probably a bit more. All I’m confirming is that nothing that drastic has happened. I don’t have your friend’s blood to compare it too, and you don’t want Peggy involved, so we’re going to work with what we can.”

Bucky rested his head back against the chair’s headrest, watching through heavy eyes as she moved around the lab. She spoke to herself quietly, running through ideas and dismissing them just as fast. It was fascinating to watch, but as she set the machine up to run, he realized he knew very little about her that was told to him by her.

“Tell me about yourself,” he said suddenly, making her jump.

“What?”

He gave her a rakish smile. “Tell me about yourself. Did you always want to be a doctor?”

“Oh, oh no, not in the least,” she told him on a laugh.

He patted the space beside him on the chair. “We’ve got some time, right?” he asked, pointing at the centrifuge. “Come sit with me.”

“We are not going to…”

“Sit with me, Doc,” he said, cutting off her warning. “Just sit and tell me a story.”

Evie sighed softly, crossing to his side. “There is no way we will both fit on that recliner,” she told him, pulling a desk chair over.

“You could always sit on my lap,” Bucky suggested cheekily.

“It’s like you want me to slap you, Sergeant,” she told him with a knowing grin.

He held up a hand, thumb and index finger about an inch apart. “Maybe just a little,” he quipped back, making her laugh.

“Come on, Doc, tell me a story.”

“Oh fine,” she groaned, shifting the chair closer so she could lean against the arm of his. “What do you want to know?”

“Why medicine?”

“My grandfather was a doctor. My family has never been very traditional. My father was the youngest of three. His eldest sister became a nurse and when her husband died, she became a nun. His elder brother was an engineer. My father though, he fell somewhere in between the two. He started in medicine, but found a passion in chemistry. He taught me everything he knew about nature and metal.”

“Metal?”

She nodded absently, “His focus is on metallurgy. He always loved working with the stuff. Me though? I can take stuff apart right quick, but don’t ever tell me to put it back together in the right order.”

He chuckled at her expression, rueful and a bit chagrined. “Break a few things in your day, did you, Doc?”

Evie, ever the mature one, stuck her tongue out at him. “I might have taken our tractor apart once or twice.”

“And not put it back together again?” he guessed.

“Oh no, I put it back, but there were always spare bits and bobs afterwards. Eventually, he told me to focus on living things, as I seemed to do better with them.”

“Is that when you went in to medicine?”

“No. No, I was planning on going into farm service as an Extension Officer. Completed my Masters in Agricultural Chemistry at the University of Reading and was at Rothamsted Research Station working on the effects of pesticides on farm workers. I was trying to make it safer, because we were seeing all these cases of chemical burns and neurological issues. I wrote to my father and grandfather often, trying to establish links between the two fields and when I went back to Reading for my PhD, I realized no one was going to change the chemicals unless they had definitive proof of the problems and the government made them. Granddad suggested I go to the London School of Medicine for Women.” She spread her arms wide to encompass the school they were in.

“Also known as the Royal Free. I transferred in with two years of my PhD completed, so my time was shortened in the university itself. Only four years, with my last two being clinicals.” She sighed darkly. “That was the year war broke out. I was recruited, spent the next two years working for the government and when it all went to pot, went back to agriculture.”

Bucky was quiet for a long time afterwards. He’d snagged her hand during her story and so far, she hadn’t seemed to object to him keeping it. Should he ask? Would it ruin things? It was probably going to ruin things.

“Janet told me about India,” he finally confided, tightening his grip just enough to keep her from moving away from him. “About your husband.”

A thread of ice slid down Evie’s spine at his words. “I can’t talk about that,” she said stiffly, trying to pull away.

“I’m not asking you to,” he said quickly, holding her eye. “I just wanted you to know I knew. Or, at least, knew some of it. I didn’t want to tell you another lie.”

Evie bit the nail of her thumb in concern. “Janet told you about him?”

“She let it slip. Then yelled at me, so I’m pretty sure she was just trying to look out for you.” He gave her a small, lopsided smile to soften the intrusion, but she wasn’t paying attention, instead, frowning down at the leather arm rest.

“What is it?” he asked, getting a sick sort of feeling at her continued silence.

“She shouldn’t know,” she whispered. “About Paul. No one other than Command should know any of it.”

“Why not?”

She bit her lip and shook her head. “I can’t talk about. I’m sorry, James, but it’s not my decision.”

He frowned as he tried to understand what she was saying. “You can’t talk about it, not won’t talk about,” he said slowly.

She wouldn’t meet his eyes and that was just unacceptable. Reaching out, he cupped her chin, turning her to face him, his voice low and hard. “He was like you, a scientist, and something bad happened in India and he died. That’s what Janet told me. How much of that is public knowledge?”

“The only thing anyone should know was that he died in service. Nothing else. No one should have known a thing about where we were.”

“Then you have a problem, sweetheart, because it sounded like she knew a hell of a lot more than that.”

Evie swallowed hard, opened and closed her mouth a few times as she shook her head. “I can’t,” she finally said. “I can’t talk about it.”

“Just tell me if you’re safe. The rest, we can work out, but if Janet knows more than she should…if Gibson knows more, then Middle Wallop isn’t safe for you and that needs to be dealt with.”

“Guy?”

“He warned me off before I left last time. Told me you’d seen more than others.”

She nodded slowly. “He was in the hospital with me when I woke up. He saw the damage and knew Playfair. I don’t think he was part of it…”

“Part of what?”

Evie snapped her mouth shut. “Nothing. Never mind, James, it doesn’t matter.”

“Forgive my language, but that’s bullshit and you know it.” Bucky slid both hands up to cup her face. “Genevieve, you’re risking everything to help me figure out what the hell Hydra did in that camp, even if I wasn’t interested in you, I wouldn’t leave you in a dangerous position if I could help it. I know it’s hard, but sweetheart, you gotta trust me.”

Evie searched his face, staring at him until she saw something that made her crack. Her voice was so faint he could barely hear her, even with his hearing being overly sensitive, and trembling in a way that makes him homicidal.

“Paul didn’t die in an accident,” she confided. “He was collateral damage. They were aiming at me.”

“Who?”

“You know who.”

“Why?”

Tears spill over her cheeks, her eyes huge and luminescent under the harsh glare of the overhead light.

“Because I told them no.”

Chapter Text

Chapter Fourteen

Bucky swung his legs over the edge of the chair, pulling her in between them. Wrapping an arm around her waist, he waited in silence for her to gather her thoughts and courage.

“If any of this is leaked,” she warned, “I’ll be branded a traitor and shot. You understand that, don’t you?” she asked him seriously.

Bucky’s breath caught in his lungs. Slowly, he nodded his head.

“I was twenty-seven when war broke out and looking for a place to do my clinical rotations. I was specializing in ways to make fertilizers safer for farmers, because the chemicals we were using were neurotoxins and caused severe chemical burns if spilled. But that was the very reason I was offered a position at Porton Down under the MOD’s Dstl.”

“DSTL?”

“Defence Science and Technology Laboratory. I didn’t know until later that our research was being co-funded by the Americans.” She glanced up at him and away. “Your version of MI6. Something called the SSR. I never did find out what it stood for.”

Blowing out a shaky breath, her hands twisted the fabric of his shirt. “I met Paul and we worked well together. It wasn’t…it wasn’t fire and passion, but it was steady; or so I thought. The more we worked on the Firebug project, the colder things became. Then India. The men were so young, the chemical burns so horrific, and the others just stood there watching it happen. They debated ways to make it happen faster.” She shook her head.

“I went against orders. On the way back to base, I told Paul I was out. That I couldn’t do it anymore and if he had a heart, he’d get out too.”

“What happened?” he asked, covering her hands with one of his own, thumb rubbing across her knuckles soothingly.

“When we got back to the base, I burned our notes. Destroyed the samples we’d brought, and was half-way through incinerating the medical files when he came in with a gun. Pointed it right at me, told me he was so disappointed that I’d turned out to be a ‘bleeding heart’. Guards put me in handcuffs and in the back of one of the cars. Paul was riding up front with another guard.”

“The first bullet spiderwebbed the window by my head, the second hit the front tire. The car flipped,” she turned her hands over, faint silver lines and dots marked the palms. “I crawled through the glass to get out. I…I don’t remember much after that, not until I woke up in the hospital.”

“Gibson was there?”

Evie nodded absently. “He was in another bed, his arm up in a metal brace. He’d fractured the scapula during a bad ejection and was laid up while it healed. I didn’t know who he was, just saw the equipment and how he was moving. Told him to stop or he’d never fly again.” She shrugged, “He did, and when Playfair came for me with an armed guard, he stepped in and told him to let me go.”

“Why?”

Evie frowned, “Probably because I didn’t remember what had happened. It took weeks after coming out of the coma to get my memories back, and months for the dozen broken bones to heal. I spent three months laying in that bed healing, and then another two under armed guard. I was removed from Porton Down, told if I spoke to anyone I’d be arrested or shot on sight. When I could walk again, I went back home to Berkshire and joined the Women’s Institute, becoming a teacher for the WLA.”

“Then your grandfather died.”

Evie gave him a startled look. “Yes, God, they never stopped watching me, did they?”

Bucky pulled her closer, settling her on the small strip of metal chair between his legs. “How’d it happen?”

“Landmine. They said it was a bomb, but I saw the body afterwards. The damage was wrong. I wasn’t able to investigate, but the timing was suspicious. Granddad had written telling me I should go to my father up in the Borders, that he hadn’t heard from him in a few weeks. I was packing when they came for me; armed guards and Playfair looking like the Grim Reaper himself. I was escorted to Middle Wallop, given an hour to say goodbye and locked in what would become my barracks.”

“Why don’t you leave? You’re here, right now, you could get on a boat and just…”

“Go where? We’re on an island, James, with every route triple checked by men with guns. I do my job because it keeps good men like you safe, and I keep my mouth shut to keep me safe.” She shook her head in despair. “I never should have spoken to you that day. Never should have put you in their sights.”

Bucky took her chin between his thumb and forefinger, tilting it up until he could brush his lips against hers in a gentle caress. “I’m glad you did,” he whispered. “Whatever else happens, I’m glad you were there that day, even if I pissed you off.”

She gave a shaky laugh, turning from him when the centrifuge beeped. “The plasma’s ready, I should…I need to deal with that while we have time.”

Bucky slid his lips against hers once more before letting her up; hiding a smile when she took a shaky step away from him, her fingers over her mouth.

She shook her head to clear it, walking briskly to the machine and pulling out the separated plasma and blood. The test wouldn’t take long to prep, but whether she could understand the results under the microscope would be the real test.

“I don’t understand,” she mumbled a half-hour later.

“What is it?” Bucky asked, slipping off the chair to join her at the work table.

“There’s definite changes to two of the chromosomes, but not ones I would have expected.”

“Which ones?”

“Eleven and two.”

Bucky crossed his eyes at her in exasperation. “I meant what do they do, Doc.”

“Oh,” she said, chagrined. Giving him a cheeky little smile, she tapped the microscope lens, stepping to the side so he could see for himself.

“Eleven has been linked to some of the senses; smell, vision, and hearing being the biggest, but there are also thoughts that it may influence adventure-seeking behavior.”

Bucky gave her a startled look. “How?”

“It seems to be linked to a neurological chemical called dopamine. Basically, when dopamine kicks in, you get high.”

Bucky barked out a startled laugh. “So, every time I do something risky, I’ll get a kick? Doesn’t sound so bad.”

Evie gnawed on her lower lip worriedly. “I’m more concerned about the after-effects.”

“What do you mean?”

“Have you ever seen a drug addict, James? They chase the high until they give up everything for it. This could make you less scared in battle, but it might also push you to become reckless or have mood swings. It’s a dangerous tightrope to walk.”

Bucky sobered, bending over to look in the scope again. “And two? What’s it do?”

“Everything. Everything that makes humans, human. It's linked to the development of the skeletal system, to physical growth, and brain and nervous system function.”

When Bucky looked up at her, he saw very real fear on her face. “It’s how we evolve, James. What differentiates us from chimpanzees. Whatever they did to you tried to make you more than human, it should have killed you, instead you’re…”

“’Enhanced’,” Bucky muttered. “Like Steve.”

“But you aren’t. Not fully. Whatever they did, it was only partially completed. The changes aren’t stable, the chromosomes are missing pieces.”

“What does that mean, Doc? Why are you so concerned?”

“Because,” she whispered. “You survived when you shouldn’t, and no scientist wants to lose an anomalous experiment like that.”

She clutched his hand so hard her knuckles turned white. “It means they will come for you, James. I’m just not sure if it will be your government, mine…or Hydra.”

Chapter Text

Chapter Fifteen

The next few days are spent moving through the shadows between Bucky’s team and Evie’s watch-dogs. They’ve decided Janet can’t be trusted, and while Steve might like Carter, Evie knows she worked for Bletchley, and Bucky confirms her working for the SSR. Technically, he is now too.

“We could talk to Phillips, try and bring you over to our side.”

“I’d be shot before I made it onto an American base, James, and I won’t have you compromised because of me.”

“Sweetheart,” he drawls, snagging her hand to pull her close as they sit in the back corner of the pub, “I’m already compromised, now we just have to figure out a game plan to make sure we both survive the war.”

They shift farther into the shadows when Falsworth and Dernier come through the door. They’re speaking in low voices that don’t carry, but Bucky has been practicing, and it’s getting easier to hear a little more than before.

“Two more early this morning,” Falsworth says. “I still think they’re going to make a run at Parliament.”

“Ils doivent être dans les égouts. Il n'y a pas d'autre moyen de se déplacer sans se faire repérer.”

“What did they say,” Evie asks impatiently, keeping her face in the shadows so they don’t see her.

Bucky grimaces. “I don’t speak French.”

“Sound it out,” Evie says, hand clutching his arm.

“Ill dovent et dan les cargo.”

Evie gave him a pitying look. “Really?”

“Hush, that’s what it sounded like.”

Evie mutters the phrase under her breath a few times until he says, “That one.”

“Ils doivent être dans les égouts…someone in the sewers. Ew, I would most assuredly not travel anywhere in the city in those things.”

“Travel, that’s ‘déplacer’, right?”

“Yes, why?”

“I think they’re searching for someone in the sewers, that they’re hard to find or something.”

Evie nodded along with his reasoning. “Makes sense. The sewers are tall enough for a person to walk in, go practically everywhere, and while disgusting, would make hiding out relatively easy.”

When he looked back at her, she sighed. “You’re going with them, aren’t you?”

He kissed her temple. “Yeah, sorry, sweetheart, but it’s kind of my job.”

She clutched his hand when he went to leave, pulling him back to her. “Your job is not to get shot, do you understand me, Sergeant Barnes? We don’t know exactly what your enhancements will do, so please be cautious, think before you act, and above all,” she kissed him hard, pouring her feelings down his throat in a possessive display he was all for.

“Come back to me,” she whispered against his mouth. “You still owe me a dance, Sergeant, and I aim to collect on it one day.”

“I promise. Go back to the base and keep your head down, okay. I’ll try and see you before I ship out next, otherwise, I’ll write you.”

“They’ll search it, so be careful.”

“I will.” Another hard kiss and he’s slipping out the back hall to look like he just arrived, leaving Evie to sit in silence.

As he passes the band, he hands the lead a florin and asks for We’ll Meet Again, catching Evie’s eye and nodding when the song starts to play. Their own version of a shorthand that’s half promise and half vow.

“Bucky! What are you doing here, chap?” Falsworth calls out as he comes into the main room, shaking his coat like he’d just come in.

“Needed a drink,” he dismisses easily. “What’s up, thought you boys were on leave?”

Falsworth grimaces as Bucky pulls up a chair. “Got called in earlier, there’s been an incident.” He gave Bucky a thoughtful look. “Figured Rogers would have told you all this already.”

“Been talking in the scenery. How bad is it?”

“Bad enough,” Dernier says in thickly accented English. “Des dix anneaux, these mad men, they keep trying to blow stuff up. We’ve been called back to stop them.”

‘Ten rings,’ he hadn’t heard that name before. He’d need to check in with Steve and see if…

A loud explosion rocked the building, sending most of them scrambling for cover. He shoved his way towards the hallway, trying to find Evie, knowing she was going to head back to the base that night, but unsure if she’d left or not. He glanced at Falsworth, who had one of the SSR communication walkies pressed against his ear listening.

Seeing the side door standing open, and Evie nowhere to be found, he scrambled out into the street. There was a dark plume of smoke billowing up from a few blocks over, the emergency siren starting its eerie wail as the fire brigades were sent off and people fled from buildings showing large cracks running up their length.

“James!” he spun trying to trace Evie’s voice, seeing her come around the side of one such building. As he watched in horror, the crack widened, the top flexing dangerously.

“Evie!” he screamed, running towards her as the wall collapsed on top of her.

Dust and rubble were everywhere. He’s choking as he rips pieces of wall off the pile, tossing them to the side as he tries to find her. He’s panicking; he knows it, but he can’t seem to get his heartrate to calm down. A cough, faint and choked sounding makes him pause just enough to move a bit to his left, his fingers curling under a large slab of masonry. It’s too heavy for him, but that’s not going to stop him as he strains against the weight of it.

His vision and hearing narrow down to the faint sound of breathing from under the bricks. He takes a shaky breath, then another, steadier. His heartrate slows, drops to something closer to resting as his fingertips bite into the brick and plaster. Shifting his grip and bending his knees he lifts with the single-minded focus of someone on the edge of life and death.

Evie blinks up at him from where she shoved herself under a broken door, her mouth open in a little o of surprise.

“Out,” he grits, teeth clenched as whatever strength he managed to tap into starts to fail him. “Out, Evie, now!”

She crawls over broken glass and bricks, her knees and hands leaving bloody traces in the grime. She barely clears the edge of the wall when he drops to his knees, sweat pouring from him as his breathing and heartbeat go erratic. She clings to his shoulders, his arm pulling her tight as they realize just how close that had been.

“Are you hurt?” she asks, making him chuckle.

He turns her hands over, gently prying gravel and debris out of them and gives her a rueful smile. “Not the one needing medical care, Doc,” he tells her.

She pressed her forehead against his shoulder, a shudder working through her. “I’d thought that was it,” she told him shakily. “For a moment there, I really thought I was going to die.”

“You’re not getting away from me that easily,” he tells her seriously.

“I never heard the doodlebug.”

“Because there was none. Falsworth is calling them The Ten Rings; some kind of terrorist organization.”

Another round of explosions rocks the city, this time closer to Parliament. He hears Falsworth and Dernier calling for him, the problem is, so does Evie.

“You have to go,” she says tightly, sitting back so he can stand. He’s a bit shaky, his hands trembling in a way that feels more like an adrenaline dump than nerves, but he’s weirdly excited to go after the new threat. He helps her to her feet, eyes scanning for anyone suspicious.

“James,” Evie warns, snagging his wrist when he turns towards the street. “James!”

His eyes snap back to hers in shock. Was he really going to just leave her standing there?

“James,” she says again slowly. “Remember what the tests showed. A penchant for impulsive behavior. You need to be careful, think things through before you do them, alright?”

He blew out a breath, gathering her close and kissed the small scape on her temple. “I’ll try,” he told her honestly.

“Alright, then go, even I can hear them calling for you.”

“Go back to the base, okay? With all this happening, it’s probably safer, but be careful. Watch who you speak to.”

She nodded. “I will.”

“I’ll write, I promise, just wait for me, okay? We’ll figure this all out.”

Her smile is tender, loving even, as she presses her lips to his fingertips, “Be safe, Sergeant, and God speed.”

The last thing he sees before he joins the others is her hand raised in farewell; the flesh bloody along the palm. He never had an issue fighting the good fight before, but leaving her now feels wrong. Knowing that there’s something inside him he doesn’t fully understand bothers him more than he can say.

They meet up with the others a few blocks away. Steve gives him a searching look as he changes into the dark blue coat he uses for missions and checks the safety on his pistol. It’s more practical than his rifle in the sewers, and the short hem of the coat means he’s not going to be dragging half of London’s underbelly back with him. He ignores Steve’s pointed glances for now. He’s been getting away with ditching his best friend because of the SSR and Carter, but he knows he’s going to have to think of an excuse to keep him from digging and soon.

He glances at his finger tips as they move silently through the smoke and debris. There’s a slight bruising, already fading as he watches, but nothing to show that he just lifted half a building off of someone. Okay, it wasn’t that much, and he knows people in dangerous situations can sometimes do the impossible, but the way he’d felt, the way his senses had dialed in and his heartrate had dropped, he knew it wasn’t the adrenaline. Evie was right though, about watching for the high that came from using his ‘enhancements’. He’d been ready to do something very stupid and that could get him killed.

And he had too much to live for to die now.

“Are you okay?” Steve asked worriedly coming up beside him.

“Huh? Oh, yeah, just thinking,” he dismissed, turning back to their assignment. “I don’t get these guy’s endgame. Are they with Hydra and the Nazis or independent? What do they hope to gain by blowing up civilians?”

Steve looked towards the others and back at Bucky. “You know you can tell me anything, right?” he asked, hurt lacing his voice.

Bucky gave him a startled glance. “Yeah, I know.”

Steve stopped hard, his gingers curling around Bucky’s wrist. Raising it higher, he shows Bucky the streak of blood across the palms.

“It’s not mine,” Bucky stammered, pulling himself free. “A building collapsed; a civilian was caught under it. I just helped get them free. I’m fine, Steve,” he insisted, racing to catch up with the others.

“You’re not. There’s something going on with you and…are you still upset with me about the SSR?”

“What?” Bucky asked confused.

“About me turning into this,” he said, waving at himself.

Bucky snorted. “That saved my butt in Austria. No. I’m not upset with you becoming Captain America.”

“Then what’s eating you? Because you’ve been weird since we got you free.”

Bucky wants to tell him, but he also doesn’t. Steve would beat himself up knowing he didn’t get to him in time, but he knows the others will say something if they’re asked. He decides to go with a partial truth, and try and keep Genevieve out of it as long as possible. He liked Carter for Steve, but he didn’t trust her.

“I was in a bad way when you found me,” he said carefully. “It’s taken a bit to come to grips with what happened. But I’m okay, Stevie,” he gave him a little grin. “I’m getting there, just give me some time.”

“Yeah, of course,” Steve says immediately. “Anything you need.”

God, he’s a horrible friend. He needs to figure this out, fast. Preferably before he gets shot doing something stupid.

The man they eventually corner is Asian. He says something in what sounds like Chinese, but none of them know Chinese so they can’t tell what he wanted. It’s anti-climactic and none of them are satisfied with the ending, but at least there are no more bombs going off.

He’s shipped out the next day and while annoyed, understands he’s not in control of his life right now. He belongs to Uncle Sam, and Colonel Phillips isn’t about to let them forget it.

France is just as cold, wet, and muddy as he remembers when he parachutes in over the Rhône Valley with the others. Another Hydra facility to infiltrate and destroy, another chance to get himself taken out for good.

He’s tucked up on the top of a ridge waiting for the sun to set completely when he remembers he hasn’t written Evie. It’s been four weeks and the only reason he knows she’s safe is because Roy had written a week ago telling him he was settling into the farm and that the Doc had checked on him. He’d said something about Americans on base too, which didn’t make any sense to Bucky…

Dear Doc, he scribbles down on the same scrap of paper Falsworth had given him however long ago now. I’m sorry it’s taken so long to write. You know how the mail is out here. Heard from our boy that you were checking in on him. He sounds pained, working with those pretty Land Girls all day long. He smiled at that.

Roy had asked him for ‘girl advice,’ which had made him cackle like a loon when he’d read it, his tongue wetting his bottom lip as he tried to write something that would embarrass the boy and help him at the same time. Not that Bucky was an expert on the matter, but he’d definitely had more dates than the fifteen-year-old had.

It’s getting colder. The days run together and it’s hard to remember what day it is sometimes. I’ve been trying to do what you told me, tried to be smart, but some days all I see is the battle ahead of me and I can’t help but get caught up in it.

He took a breath, checked his surroundings and leaned back against the cold, wet earth with his eye against the scope. He watched Steve move towards the facility, saw the edge of movement and pulled the trigger, taking out another Hydra soldier. These guys were endless.

Scrambling to catch up, he shoved the letter and pencil in his pocket. An explosion proved Dernier was doing his thing a few hundred yards away, gunfire to his right said Morita and Jones had breached as well. He moved on autopilot, aim, fire, move through the smoke like a ghost, aim, fire, rinse and repeat. Somedays it felt endless and somedays he blinked and realized the sun was up and he’d survived to see another morning.

December passes in a blur. France bleeds away to Belgium, then to Czechoslovakia. He finally sends his letter, waits anxiously for a response he may never get, considering how dangerous their missions are getting. He worries constantly, tries to joke and laugh with the boys and feels like everything he does falls flat. He’s not sure what or who he is anymore, and that makes him feel like a shit friend, because before the experiments, he had a purpose - protect Steve. Now Steve’s the one dragging him out of the fire so many times he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do.

Instead of just talking about it like a rational human being with the full range of human emotions, he writes. Fragments of thoughts, sentences and stories that go nowhere. Each letter gets more disconnected, he’s sure, but he doesn’t stop writing, and each time he ends it the same way.

We’ll meet again,

James.

He wants to tell her he loves her, but is terrified of those three little words. They mean so much and he doesn’t want to be one of those guys that says something and can’t back it up. So instead, he tells her about the sisters he abandoned after his parents died. About how he wanted to try and find them after the war. About the regrets he has and the nightmares. Maybe he’s doing this all wrong, telling her things that might scare her off, but he needs to tell someone when he wakes choking back a scream as he remembers the needles and fire racing through his blood in Austria.

He has a better grasp on his enhancements now, his senses are sharper than the others, but not as advanced as Steve’s. His reflexes are faster, his stamina better, and his ability to sit in silence for long periods of time, something he’d been good at during Basic, seemed to become ingrained the longer he was in the field. He was quieter, more solemn and introspective than a few months ago, but whether that was due to the drugs or Evie, he didn’t know.

‘How have you not gone crazy?’ He’d asked her one day as they walked around St. James’ Park. It was a small slice of green along the riverfront near the Palace. Most of the land had been given over for allotments, but not all. They’d settled on a park bench watching the ducks as they’d talked.

She’d blushed as she’d pulled out a small notebook from her purse. ‘I write,’ she’d told him, handing him the book. ‘Little bits of conversations, thoughts, song lyrics. Anything that catches my fancy really. Sometimes it’s dreams or hopes, sometimes nightmares.’ She shrugged. ‘My mother always had a notepad by her bedside for writing down her dreams. I guess I just kept it up.’

When he went to give it back, she folded her fingers over his. ‘Keep it,’ she’d told him. ‘Maybe it will help.’

It’s what he uses to write to her. Small scraps of paper he folds even smaller. She was right, getting the thoughts out of his head helps to keep him centered. Most of them he burns in their nightly fire. The thoughts are too disturbing for him to share. A good number make it into envelopes he knows get searched. Falsworth has been great, slipping them through the British mail instead of the SSR, and he never sends them directly. They all go to Roy first, who bikes the ten miles to drop them off when he has a free afternoon.

He's not sure if anyone has caught on yet, but it makes him write around the topics, a random thought that connects to something they mentioned in passing during their too short time together. He’s determined, the next time he’s on leave that they will actually get to dance this time, and plans out intricate date scenes in his head that he knows will never happen, but helps him keep calm regardless.

Each letter ends the same.

We’ll meet again.

A promise he’s determined to keep one way or another.

Chapter Text

Chapter Sixteen

Evie is sitting in the large metal hanger with every other member of the Middle Wallop staff. Behind her is Janet and she can feel the woman’s eyes boring into the back of her skull. She’s tried to keep up the façade of nothing being wrong, but it’s so very hard and her face doesn’t exactly have a filter on it when her emotions run high.

The letter from James is in her inside breast pocket. Roy had delivered it early this morning on his way to the market with two of the Land Girls. ‘A medical check-up,’ he’d told them, asking a pretty blonde named Betty to pick him up on their return.

They’d slipped into a back examination room, Roy giving her a shy smile as he handed over the envelope. From what she can tell, it hasn’t been opened, but you never can be certain.

“The girls gave me a right good joshing, what with the return and all,” he’d told her, pointing at the return label and the ‘Ma and Pops’ scribbled on the lines. “I didn’t open it, figured it was for you.”

Evie surprised the boy with a tight hug, making him go red in the face. “Thank you, Roy,” she told him sincerely. She slid her nail under the seal and opened it carefully. There were three pages folded in half, the last one addressed to Roy. She handed it over.

“Your ‘Pops’ sends his regards,” she told him seriously, making the boy roll his eyes.

“Do you want me to step out?” he asked her.

“What? Of course not, take a seat, Roy, read your letter while I read mine. We have some time I think, before Betty comes to collect you.” She gave him a knowing grin. “She’s pretty,” she said offhandedly.

“’m not talkin ‘bout her,” he grumbled, scrunching down into the offered chair and making her laugh softly.

Dear Doc,

I’m sorry it’s taken so long to write. You know how the mail is out here. Heard from our boy that you were checking in on him. He sounds pained, working with those pretty Land Girls all day long.

It’s getting colder. The days run together and it’s hard to remember what day it is sometimes. I’ve been trying to do what you told me, tried to be smart, but some days all I see is the battle ahead of me and I can’t help but get caught up in it.

The hit is intense and there are times I see it catch Steve as well, but he doesn’t seem to have the same reactions. The intensity is different for him. I tried keeping a list, tried keeping it straight in my head, but it’s like I’m his shadow, not good enough to be on the front lines, but not bad enough to be left behind. Yesterday we walked through a fire-bombed village, the ash coating everything turning the world grey, and he walked through the smoke like an avenging angel.

I felt like a walking corpse.

Everything felt disconnected, like I wasn’t real. A cat knocked over a pot, and the sound was so close to a bomb going off I found myself shoved down deep into a corner of a ruined building, the others trying to talk me down as I took my rifle apart and put it back together without ever really being aware of what I was doing. Monty called it a panic attack. Dugan called it a liability.

Steve said it was his fault for not getting to me sooner.

It’s not. I know who’s to blame and we’re going after him, but a part of me just wants to go home. I honestly don’t know how I’ve stayed alive this long when so many others have died. Good men. Some for me; I’m not worthy of their sacrifice.

I know what you’re thinking, Doc, but I’m right. The others were good. Steve is good. It’s why he’s so good at being who he is, but I’m just a soldier. A decent one, but nothing special and what happened, what I’ve become has just proven it to me.

Last week, I think it was last week anyways, I was in a fox hole in God knows where and all of a sudden, I thought of my sisters. When our parents died, I split, then I was drafted and…. It just hit me that, I have no idea where Rebecca or the other girls are. Katie would be about Roy’s age now. It makes me a horrible person, leaving them that way. Maggie was the youngest, only four. If I get out of here, I want to try and find them…and I want you to be with me.

I know it’s a lot, Doc, but all of this has been a lot. Some days I wake up screaming, remembering, and others I can’t sleep at all. The fields all look the same. The mud, the blood, the screaming. I don’t think I’ll ever sleep right after this and I get what you said, about the screams haunting you. It feels like that a lot of times.

I don’t think I could survive this without you. If I make it out of here, we’re having that dance. I may not deserve you, but you’re going to have a heck of a time getting rid of me after all this. Whatever else, just know that you’re what keeps me calm. I’ll manage because I have to, and Steve and the boys help, they do, but they aren’t enough.

You are.

Take care, E. Be safe and know I’m coming back to you if I have to walk through hell to do it.

We’ll Meet Again,

James

By the end of the letter, she’s curled up in a ball crying, Roy patting her shoulder awkwardly. “Idiot,” she muttered brokenly. “He’s such an idiot.”

Roy gives her a crooked smile, not understanding the reference, but willing to go with her assessment. “He loves you; you know that, right?” he asked after she’d calmed down and re-applied her make-up like it was armor.

She gave him a watery smile, the red of her lips a little too bright for her troubled thoughts. She knew James cared for her, but love? She wasn’t sure she knew what that word meant anymore.

Roy blew out a breath. “You adults make thing’s too complicated,” he groused. “He loves you. You love him. Anyone with eyes can see it.”

He looked over his shoulder at her, his hand on the nob of the door. “Just tell ‘em,” he told her. “’Cause I found out the ‘ard way, you never know when you’ll lose ‘em.”

She’s not sure she’ll ever get the chance now. Not with Colonel George W. Peck standing before them beside Playfair.

“As of today, the US AAF’s Ninth Fighter Command,” he told them, face hard, “will be taking control of this station. It is henceforth to be known as Station 449 under the Strategic Scientific Reserve. All British personnel will be taking over for the 67^th Recon Group at Membury. Postings for individual departments are pinned to the wall,” he said, waving at a line of bulletin boards along the far wall.

His eyes slid over the assembled, coming to rest on her. She felt ice slide down her spine. “All medical personnel are to remain on base, no exceptions. No outsiders are allowed on until the transfer is complete. If I were you lot, I’d get comfortable.” He snapped, waving Playfair ahead of him towards the exit.

Evie glanced around the room. Most of the personnel were confused over the fast transition. They all knew Playfair was to be replaced, but this wasn’t what she was expecting.  Air Vice-Marshal Steele was supposed to take over, not the Americans.

“Doctor Shaw?”

She glanced up into a face she didn’t recognize. “Can I help you?” she asked.

The man held out his hand. “Howard Stark, Peck said you were still here.”

Evie blinked in surprise. “Mr. Stark, I didn’t realize you were with the AAF.”

“I’m not.”

Evie heard the edge of annoyance in his voice. If he wasn’t with the Air Force, that meant he was SSR, which meant he knew James.

“I see. How can I be of assistance, Mr. Stark?”

Howard looked around the room casually before holding out his arm for her to take. “Let’s take a walk, shall we?”

Evie wetted her lip with her tongue, rising to take his arm as he suggested. When they were far enough from the crowds, he turned them down a pathway back towards her medical hut.

“I understand you were at Porton during Firebug,” he said, making her stumble.

“You don’t have to answer,” he said over her sputtering denials. “I helped back that project, you see. Wasn’t aware of the lengths MI6 was taking it. When I heard about what you did, I stopped the funding.”

He glared at the countryside. “I might make my money off weapons, but I’m not evil, Dr. and what happened to those boys was evil.”

Shaking his head, he gave her a disarming smile. “I also understand you know a mutual friend, Steve Rogers.”

Evie shook her head in denial. “I actually don’t,” she told him.

“Carter said you knew him.”

She frowned. “No, I know James, but I haven’t actually met Mr. Rogers.”

“James,” Stark said slowly. Rolling the name around on his tongue as if testing the validity of her claim. “You mean Barnes? Rogers’ boyhood pal?”

“He came through a few months ago. We met then.”

“When was the last time you saw him?”

Evie narrowed her eyes at him. Why did the richest man on the planet want to know about James?

Stark stopped in the middle of the path, holding his hands up placatingly. “I’m not trying to trip you up, Doctor Shaw. Rogers broke his friend and the others out against orders. Agent Carter and I were the ones to get him behind the lines to rescue your boy. Col. Phillips wanted him hog-tied, but they made a deal. Rogers and the others would work for us, in return, they get all the new toys I could come up with.”

Evie’s eyes went wide. “You are SSR? As is Peggy?”

“You know Carter?”

Evie nodded slowly. “Yes. We’ve known each other for a while now.”

“Well, that makes this easier.”

“Makes what easier, Mr. Stark?”

“You, coming to work for us at the SSR.”

Evie shook her head, backing away from him. “I can’t, Mr. Stark.”

“If it’s about being British, we’ve already got approval.”

“From whom?” she asked tightly.

“MI6.”

Evie blinked once, glanced around her, and blinked again. “I’m sorry, can you repeat that, Mr. Stark,” she said carefully, her voice tightly controlled even as her heart started beating erratically. She licked her lips, slowly easing away from Howard.

“MI6,” Stark said slowly, gauging her reaction. “Playfair gave us your file, said you were an operative.”

Evie laughed harshly, the sound grating and slightly unhinged. “’Operative’,” she sneered, “right.” She took a step back, away from Stark. “Are you trying to get me killed or is this just a rich person’s game, Mr. Stark?”

Howard blinked at her confused. “I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Evie narrowed her eyes at the man. He sounded genuine. “What did Playfair say, exactly?”

“He said Firebug was stopped because of you. That you were the one that could bring the Allies to the next level of chemical warfare.”

“And that sounded like a good thing to you?”

“It…well, it was intriguing. I did feel that the project went too far…”

“Too far?” she asked, voice cracking in incredulity. “Those men melted, Mr. Stark. Not irritated lungs and bloodshot eyes, melted, like ice on a hot day.” She shook her head. “And you want me to what? Reproduce those results, because I will not. I will go to the stockade before I…!”

“Hold on! Hold on, I’m not saying that at all, Dr. Shaw,” he cut in, seeing her gearing up for a fight. “You know about Rogers, the tests, right?”

“Yes,” she answered clipped.

“The scientist behind that was a German named Dr. Erskine. He was killed right after Rogers, and his notes are gone. We have a few vials of blood, and I helped create the machines, but we don’t know how he did what he did.”

Evie’s breath caught in her lungs. “And?”

“And we could really use your help figuring out what exactly that was.”

Seeing her interest, he gave her a disarming smile, “I can offer a full research lab, Dr. Shaw. An insane budget and minimum government oversight. Interested?”

 “’Minimum government oversight’,” she repeated, “But not interference.”

Stark grinned broadly; his hand out for her to shake. “I doubt even God could keep the government from interfering in war, Dr. Shaw.”

Evie shook his hand, ignoring the way his eyes lingered, because she wasn’t thinking of Howard Stark, Steve Rogers or the military.

She was thinking of James and how she could keep her soldier safe.

Chapter Text

Part 2

Music: Soldier by Fleurie

Chapter Seventeen

Evie passed by Stark’s work table in the Engineering lab. “What is this?” she asked sharply, snagging the paper he was sketching on.

“Oh, nothing, just an idea I was…”

“Destroy it,” she demanded, slapping it back onto the table with controlled violence.

“What?” Howard asked, rising to his feet.

“I’m warning you, Stark. Nothing good can come from this.”

“I just…”

“I mean it,” she warned. “If you have any sense, you’ll destroy every note on this. Now.”

“It’s just an idea, Shaw,” he said breezily, waving away her concern.

“It’s not just an idea. This is death and that is not a title you want, Howard.” Evie's fingers tightened on the paper, crinkling the edges.

“What title?”

“Murderer.”

She left him staring after her in confusion. ‘God’s damn the man,’ she thought uncharitably. He should know better than to recreate Firebug in any sense, and from what she saw, he was tinkering with something much, much worse. Something she wasn’t sure she could counter if given the formula. All she knew was that water wouldn’t cut it and God help them all if something like that was used on their people.

She kicked the door to the lab closed behind her. Know she’d have to watch Stark as well as Carter and the SSR. Like she didn’t already have enough on her plate.

“One of these days, I’m getting a bit of green and that damnable picket fence,” she groused. “Or I’ll go on a killing spree.”

“Is that something I should be watching for?” Peggy asked cheekily from the corner of the lab, making her jump.

Evie rolled her eyes, huffing as she crossed the room and dropped her paperwork on the desk. “What are you doing here?”

“Updating the map, for Phillips. Whose pissed you off now?”

“Stark, who else.”

Peggy laughed. “Sounds about right. Anything I should be aware of?”

“Not if does as I told him to.”

“Alright then, let’s hope he’s smart, for once. Now, about you and Barnes,” she smirked, making Evie blush.

“No,” she said succinctly, waving a finger at the other woman. “We’re not having this conversation.”

“But don’t you…”

“Peggy, unless you wish me to start prying into yours and Captain Rogers’ relationship, I’d stop.”

Peggy laughed brightly, holding both hands up in supplication. “Alright, alright, I understand. Still, when you’re ready, I hear the Red Cross has a pretty decent music hall.”

Dearest James,

I shouldn’t miss you as much as I do. That sounds harsh, but I worry with you so far away. If something happens, I won’t be able to help. That the memory of me is assisting, even a little, makes me both sad and proud. I wish we’d had more time. Our boy called us a pair of idiots. I’d have cuffed him for his language, but I think he’s picking up your incorrigibility and he’s smart enough to be out of reach when he says it. Either that or being around all those pretty, doting Land Girls has made him cocky. Perhaps a word from his Pops could level him out a bit.

One thing that took me much too long to learn though, but might be of help to you, was that you just have to keep moving forward. Keep your head down and put one foot in front of the other. The ash is just ash, it’ll wash off. The fire, just a warmth that got out of control. Learn to control it, to harness it, and you can use it to banish the shadows. It’s hard, but I know you can do it.

You are not alone and you are not just a soldier. You are my soldier. Mine. Consider this an order if you need it to be, but you do what you have to, to stay alive and come back to me. I have so many things to tell you, so much I want to ask about your past, but as long as you’re safe, that’s all that matters to me. We’ll figure out the rest when you come home.

On another note, I have some new help at work. Janet was a bit upset at first when there was confusion over who was responsible for what, but they seemed to have figured out their new pecking order. Honestly, it’s so very stifling. I feel like a nursery teacher some days, everyone squabbling and needing me within sight at all times. I rather miss our time alone.

Do you remember the ducks? I haven’t seen any since and I realized just how sad that was, that all this madness has affected the animals as well. Such a silly thing to focus on, but for those few hours, I felt normal again. I miss sitting with you watching the world go by. It was probably the last bit of calm either of us will have for a while.

If you can’t sleep, try the notepad, I found it cathartic.

Be safe, James, and know I’m thinking of you.

‘Til we meet again,

Evie

Bucky folded the letter small, tucking it into his inside breast pocket. He needed to keep the Doc close to his heart, to keep some kind of sanity in what was steadily becoming an insane world. They’d crossed the border into Belgium in the early morning. By midafternoon, they’d partnered up with a resistance group simply called ‘Group G’.  Between them, they’d managed a coordinated attack on the national electricity pylon infrastructure, effectively cutting electricity off to the whole country. Dernier had been in his element. Honestly, Bucky had never seen the Frenchman smile as broadly as when those first explosions rocked the countryside. He’d stood on those concrete Dragon’s Teeth with his arms up like a conductor, swinging one to the right as the black sky turned orange and yellow with fire, then did the same to the left.

“Le chef d'orchestre fou,” Jones had muttered, making the Belgians laugh darkly. ‘The mad conductor fitting’, though Bucky thought they all were all a bit mad in those days. They moved constantly, never settling for more than a night before moving on. It was relentless, exhausting, and put everyone in a foul mood. By the time they hit the outskirts of Antwerp, he really thought he’d seen every horror this war could bestow.

Then they found the girl.

Orphans were an unfortunate, but common, sight in those early days. Too many adults had been drafted, killed, or fled. Missionaries, schools, even resistance fighters all took those that they could manage, but seeing the strays picking through the debris was something that the guys had learned to harden their hearts to as they moved from city to city.

Bucky never felt like he really succeeded with that. Each big-eyed waif reminded him of his sisters. He knows they’ve all given as much of their rations as possible as they came across them, but there was something eerie about this one from the minute they spotted her. Bucky held his fist up, stopping the group a dozen feet away. The Nazis would sometimes booby-trap corpses, and this girl was much too still for him.

“Jones,” he said quietly, waving him forward. The others went to the walls on either side of the road, just in case.

“Las Mademoiselle? Êtes-vous blessé?” he glanced back, shrugging. Bucky glanced at Steve who looked back. Silent communication passed between the friends, Bucky sighing at Steve’s ‘we can’t just leave her there’ puppy-dog eyes. Frowning, he took a tighter hold on his rifle, the rest following his precautions.

Jones stepped closer, using the muzzle of his rifle to prod the girl’s left shoulder, and cursed something savage in French as she fell backwards against the door, her face melted and mouth hanging open in horror.

“God,” Dugan whispered brokenly. “What’d they do to her?”

Bucky shook his head. “Chemical weapons. Maybe a nerve agent or acid of some kind.”

“We need to tell Headquarters,” Steve said with a hard edge to his voice. “They can get their scientists on this.”

“Do you think it was just here?” Morita asked, raising his hands when they all turned to look at him. “I mean, this place is so quiet and we haven’t really seen anyone in a while. Was this it or are their other places?”

“Gas masks!” Bucky snapped, getting a nauseous feeling. “Glove up, any skin showing, cover it.”

“Buck…”

Bucky gave Steve a hard glare, making his friend snap his mouth shut. “You heard the man, tactical gear, now.”

It took less than thirty seconds for them to get the masks on, another forty for their gloves and only because they didn’t want to put their guns down to do it. Within two minutes, Bucky was pushing the group to higher ground away from the corpse.

“Okay,” Steve said, his voice muffled by the mask when Bucky finally let them slow to a stop a mile away. “You going to tell us what the hell that was about?”

Bucky slapped Dugan’s hand when the man went to take his mask off. “Not yet. Jones, call it in, ask about organophosphates.”

The group stared at him in concern. “Nerve agents? Like mustard gas?” Dugan said concerned, his hand dropping to his side. “You think it was one of those?”

Bucky grimaced behind his mask. “Yeah, I do.”

Steve raised a brow, waiting for more, sighing when Bucky refused to explain. “Put the call in, give them the coordinates in our code.”

Falsworth was watching him steadily. He knew what the Colonel wanted, but he wasn’t going to get it. Not from Bucky and not like this. If he told them about Evie, it would be on his terms.

“Sergeant,” Jones said, holding the phone up. “Stark for you.”

“Stark? What the hell is he doing there?” Steve muttered, watching as Bucky took the receiver.

“Barnes.”

“Describe it, Sergeant, in detail,” Stark’s voice came over the line. “We have one of our best here, she’ll talk you through decontamination.”

His breath hitched when he heard Evie’s anxious voice over the line. “Sergeant? Are you still wearing your mask and gloves? Did anyone touch anything?”

“No,” he said, voice breaking slightly. “No, contact was through metal, masks and gloves within a minute and a half. High ground within five.”

Evie breathed a sigh of relief. “Good. Any symptoms?”

“I moved us when I realized what it might be, no discernable smell over the decomp…” he paused, remembering. “Fruit. Faint, might have been local flowers though.”

“Not in January,” Evie countered. “Nausea? Headache? Sweating?”

Bucky glanced at the assembled, their heads shaking. “None.”

“Okay, that’s very good. Describe the body.”

“Young, female. Maybe seven or eight or a malnourished ten. Hard to tell. Lesions on the exposed skin of the hands and lower forearms. Face was distorted, splotchy. Skin had a corroded appearance.”

Evie gasped, “Like it’d been melted?” she asked sharply.

He glanced at the receiver. “Yes. What are we dealing with, Doc?” he asked, ignoring Steve’s sharp glance.

“Liquid death, Sergeant,” Evie said faintly. “Official designation is GA. Also known as Tabun. Paralyzation is one of the side-effects. It can be absorbed through the air or skin, so until you wash your equipment thoroughly, do not take it off.”

“Heavier than air?” he asked.

“Yes, did you go high?”

“Yeah, over a klick away, figured better safe than sorry.”

“Smart…GA doesn’t melt by itself though. To get that specific mix, you need to add it to an acid, Hydrochloric or fluoric, was there exposed bone?”

“No, Jesus, are you serious?”

“Unfortunately, yes. No bone means it was probably hydrochloric acid. You’ll need to wash everything you’re wearing for at least fifteen minutes.”

Bucky glanced around until he spotted the reflection of silver on the horizon. “Will a river work?”

Evie’s laugh was a little breathless over the speaker. “Go dunk your head, Sergeant, we’ll get an antidote started on our end and sent out in the next care package, and Sergeant? Stay safe.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

Bucky handed the receiver back to Jones, ignoring the broad grin on both his and Dugan’s faces. “Shut up,” he snapped. “Move out, we’re heading East.”

He had to give it to Steve; his friend waited a whole ten minutes before he slowed to run beside Bucky.

“Doc?” he asked and damn it if Bucky couldn’t hear the smirk through his mask.

“It’s nothing,” Bucky lied. “Doc at our first stop over. She stabbed us in the ass for being jerks.”

Steve stumbled, his voice incredulous. “She stabbed you?”

“With drugs, idiot; inoculations so we didn’t all die. Got a right good reaming too. Womack pissed the captain off good,” he grimaced. “Then he got himself blown-up in Italy, so there’s that I suppose.”

Steve frowned. “I’m sorry.”

Bucky grunted as he ran. Womack was an ass, but he didn’t deserve to die like that. Not many did.

“Anything I should know?” Steve pressed. “Is she pretty?”

Bucky saw a flash of green eyes and grit his teeth. “I’m not having this discussion with you,” he said, making Steve laugh. Damn it, his friend knew him to well.

“You asked her out yet?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Been too busy being a lab rat,” he said, wincing at Steve’s haunted look. “Maybe if we get out of this hell hole and we’re in the same place at the same time I’ll see if she wants to go on a date.” He gave Steve a smirk. “Dancing, a double like the one we missed before I shipped out.”

Steve laughed at that, and Bucky breathed a bit easier. He hadn’t lied, but he hadn’t told the whole truth either. Evie was…she was his, and after that girl, he needed that more than ever. Just for a little bit longer. He’d tell Steve, eventually; just not tonight.

Not yet.

Chapter Text

Chapter Eighteen

Dear Doc,

It’s been a minute since I last wrote. Not sure if our boy ever got that date he was angling for. Betty, right? I can’t tell if he’s actually got the guts to ask her or not. From what he said, she’s the farmer’s daughter, and a year older than him. I can’t remember what being sixteen was like anymore. This mess has made all of that fuzzy. Pretty sure Stevie and I were doing something his ma would have been highly disappointed in us for though.

As you know, the boys and I had had a bit of an upset the other day. There were a few times I thought I was going to lose my mind at the noise in some areas. Must be getting grumpy in my old age, every little sound seems to trip me up and irritate me to no end. Jones said I reminded him of his grandpa yelling at the neighborhood kids to get off his lawn.

To be honest, he was probably right. I’m not sleeping well. Haven’t for a while now, but I used to get exhausted when I didn’t catch at least six hours, now I’m doing pretty decently with three to four. I can keep going anyways. The boys say I become a right s.o.b. when it happens, but other than a headache when it goes too long, I feel fine. Steve used the term ‘terse’. I guess that’s a good enough description, I can feel my shoulders tightening; the stress, it’s like I’m fighting against my own body most days.

You can’t imagine how much hearing your voice meant to me. Knowing it was you taking care of us…God, I’d never felt so relieved. I hadn’t seen anything as horrific as that girl out here, and believe me, we’ve seen plenty of horrors. None of us slept that night. Not sure we could have if we wanted to. We just kept moving, trying to get as far from the village as possible. Steve thinks it’s our old friend, but I don’t remember anything like that when we were visiting.

I worry about you and the kid. Things out here…I think it’s worse than we thought and it feels like it’s a lot closer than it should be to the two of you. Let me know how the new job is treating you. I don’t know who you could talk to about the co-worker issues, but if you want to talk, I’m here. Just be safe, please. I’m not sure what I’d do if you weren’t.

Okay, gotta run, Stevie’s in a hitting things mood after that girl. I have a feeling there will be a few less bad guys in the world by nightfall.

We’ll meet again,

James

Stark knocked on the door frame. Glancing up, she nodded at the man. He was grinning, a smirk that irritated her immensely as he held up the envelope.

“Got a package for me, Doctor?” he asked, nodding at the carefully packed vials in front of her. She nodded, waving him in.

“Trade you,” he said, holding the envelope between two fingers for her to take. “Didn’t realize you were the letter writing type of friends,” he teased.

“Poke that bear, Mr. Stark, and I promise you will not like the result,” she warned him. “Atropine and pralidoxime chloride,” she said tapping the box. “I used those new autoinjectors you came up with. They need to be injected into the meaty part of the thigh, and heartrate and respiration need to be monitored for side-effects.”

“But they’ll work?”

“Unless Hydra’s gotten to using something nastier than what we came up with in ’39, then yes.”

Stark leaned against the counter, his face grave. “Have you told him about it?” he asked sincerely.

Evie bit her lip. “Yes and no. I’ve mentioned some of it, but not all. After this though…” she waved at the chemical test results in front of her. “I’m sure he’s figured it out.” She paused before asking, “Does Rogers know?”

“About the two of you or about India?”

Grimacing, she shrugged. “Either, both.”

Stark put both hands behind him on the table, leaning back to stare up at the ceiling. “See now, that’s the part I don’t get. Why not bring the Boy Wonder in on your little secret? If Barnes didn’t care, he won’t either.”

Evie shook her head dismissively. “It’s not like that. At least, it wasn’t in the beginning.”

“How so?”

Evie blew out a breath. “You’ve seen what humanity is capable of. What we are capable of without a proper moral compass. In the early days, I really thought we were doing the right thing. Stop the enemy, however we could. Then India and I realized that we had to be the ones holding that compass, because if we weren’t, no one would.” She scrubbed her hand through her hair, mussing it, and gave him a broken smile. “Who will stop the devil on your shoulder, Mr. Stark, if not for you?”

She snagged the letter from his lax fingers, pocketing it. “The package is ready to go. Make sure it’s out on the next transport, will you?”

“What’s WMA mean?” he asked, glancing at the top of the box.

“None of your business,” she responded, hand over her shoulder as she left the room.

Stark hadn’t been lying when he said she’d have funds. The new lab had been retrofitted inside a bunker on King Charles Street in London along with the rest of the SSR. Evie hadn’t been thrilled by the move, knowing it would mean being farther away from Roy, whom she felt protective of. She had, however, been happy to hear that Janet and the others would not be joining her. She didn’t know the two new women the American’s had brought in, but considering their reactions to each other, she figured they were all MI6 and the less of them watching her, the better in her mind.

She nodded to those soldiers on duty as she moved through the underground labyrinth. So far, they hadn’t required her to live on site, and instead procured her a room in town. She’d seen Peggy in passing, smiling when she really didn’t want to, keeping her mouth shut when all she wanted to do was ask a million questions, but Peggy had never told her about the SSR, even when she’d figured out about her and James, and that omission made her cautious.

She wasn’t stupid. She knew the Americans watched her. Ironically, she got along with Colonel Phillips better than most. He asked direct questions and she gave direct answers, even if he didn’t like them. The situation with Belgium had been a turning point between them.

“I don’t like secrets, Doctor,” he’d grumbled when the call disconnected.

“Then you shouldn’t be in covert ops, Colonel,” she retorted, making Stark spit his coffee across the room.

“You knew about GA before Stark ever told you.” He accused.

“I helped invent it, Colonel. If you want more information, speak to your buddies at MI6, because I quite like my head attached to my shoulders, and I never was one for cigarettes. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a batch of antidotes to make up,” she said primly, sweeping from the stunned room.

“Well, I’ll be,” Phillips had said to no one in particular. “Hell of a woman, that.”

Stark snickered. “Too bad she’s taken.”

Phillips gave him an affronted look. “I’m old enough to be her father.”

“Or grandfather,” Howard muttered, turning his back on the old man. “I’ve got some things to work on in the engineering lab. Let me know when you need me.”

The entrance to the bunker is inside a hat shop, which makes her smile each time she uses it. She was never a big fan of hats, though her mother had tried for years to convince her otherwise. She slips out of her lab coat by the exit, dropping it in the decontamination pile and flips open her outside coat. It’s a boring muddy brown color that helps her fade into the grey London night.

Peggy had offered to get her something more eye catching, but Evie had never really cared to stand out in the crowd. She preferred the quiet life, a night by the fire with her books and good conversation was more than enough for her. Maybe dancing on a special occasion, with the low hum of music in the background, but not the flash and bang of the night life like some girls wanted.

In her younger years, she daydreamed of having a smallholding and family, now she daydreamed of surviving long enough for one dance. One single dance with one single soldier. She shook her head ruefully. She shouldn’t have spoken to Stark about James. Even if it was only in passing. From what she’d been able to tell from her snooping - and she had snooped - none of them knew he’d been experimented on and that information had to be kept hidden at all costs.

Perhaps she’s being unfair, but she’d read the early reports on Captain Rogers and she’d heard Colonel Phillips grumbling enough times about shipping him back to Alamogordo any time something went wrong. There was no way she’d let James be just another science experiment. So, she worked in the labs, telling anyone who asked she was working on Roger’s blood, when it was really James’s.

She’s frustrated and tired and just needs a good night’s sleep when she stumbles into her tiny, rented room. She draws the curtains and lights the small lamp beside her bed, shucking off her shoes. The letter is dropped on the bedside as she changes into her night clothes. It’s a lesson in restraint, when all she wants to do is rip it open, but restraint is something they have all learned to do in this war, and she won’t give up her façade of control just yet. By the time she’s settled in bed, her heart is racing and her palms are clammy.

“Oh, stop being such a ninny,” she berates herself, taking a steadying breath. “He’s not even here.”

Dear Doc,

First off, everything’s okay, don’t worry. Although that probably made you worry worse than if I just came out and told you I got shot. Not bad! Don’t panic or anything, it’s just a graze, but Monty was the one to sew me up, so it’s not all that pretty.

Steve saw the blood and freaked. I told him it wasn’t a big deal, but he…well, that particular factory won’t be churning out any more bad guys; it’s sort of worrying actually, his reaction. Another point for your notes though - two days. That’s how long it took to be dealt with. It shouldn’t have. It should have taken a week or more, but that’s where we’re at, I guess. You find any answers in that big brain of yours, I’m all ears, because keeping that nasty bandage on was less than pleasant.

Can’t tell you much of where we’re heading next, heck, you probably know better than we do, but I really hope that’s it for a bit. I could use a break away from all the mud and blood and death. It’s the smell, I think. Doesn’t matter how often you scrub clean; it sticks to everything.

I’d kill to be able to just sit somewhere warm and dry and not smelling of death. I used to love reading. There was this book store on East 59^th called Argosy. Used to have piles of books just everywhere. If you brought the old man a coffee and a bagel from down the street, he’d let you sit in the back and read. Never had much money to spend on books, but Mr. Cohen would have me run errands for a bit of change and I’d hustle the rest, playing cards and what not. Went to work for him full time after school. I remember saving as much as I could to buy The Hobbit when it came out. It got me out of my head for a bit, you know? Just…for those few hours, I wasn’t some street punk, I wasn’t Bucky, I was James, and James could be anything he wanted to be.

Then ma died, and Sarah, Stevie’s ma, and I was back to scrounging for jobs during the Great Depression with the rest of them. Steve made it work, art school on a scholarship and then the newspapers, while I was stuck running between two to three different jobs trying to keep us all afloat. I was gone more than home most days, spent a lot of time sleeping on the rails to make sure no one took my job. It must have felt like I’d abandoned them.

Becca picked up shifts cleaning rich people’s houses on the Lower East Side, I worked for Argosy three-days a week and construction on the TriBorough Bridge the rest. Anytime I could, I was on the lines. It was hard, and to be honest, I breathed a sigh of relief when the younger girls were taken by the Children’s Aid Society. I couldn’t give them the home they needed and Becca and I were killing ourselves trying to keep up with all the bills. Then I was drafted.

I don’t even know what happened to them, E. That kid we found; she could have been Maggie for how young she was. What’s out here, it’s wrong, and I can’t tell you how it’s wrong, just that it is. When this is over, I think I’d like to find a store like Argosy. You have to have some amazing bookstores where you are. We could find one and hunker down for a few days, just sitting in the quiet.

You’re a Burroughs fan, right? I thought the last time we spoke you were reading the Mars series. Don’t think I’ve read those. I find it funny I read a Brit and you read a Yank. I liked Tarzan though. Ma used to read it to us as kids, though I never did hold with his views on the Blacks. Kind of hard hanging out in Hell’s Kitchen like we did just south of San Juan Hill. It was where most lived before the shift up to Harlem.

Jones had a right laugh at Steve and I when we were confused over him speaking German and French. He reminded us he went to university, and we reminded him the only Blacks we dealt with learned to curse you out in Irish or Spanish, maybe creole. It was a bonding moment interrupted by blowing up a line of tanks. Good times on the front lines are hard to come by and where we’re heading next, well. I’m not expecting good times for a while.

I gotta get going, but know I’m thinking of you. Stay safe and I’ll write again soon.

We’ll meet again, I promise,

James

Evie fell asleep dreaming of a young James curled up in front of a fireplace reading a book and prayed that one day they'd be able to make that dream a reality.

Chapter Text

Chapter Nineteen

Czechoslovakia

“This place sucks,” Bucky said, flicking off what he thinks might have been a bit of skull from his left thigh.

“Language,” Steve said distractedly.

Rolling his eyes, he looks the others over. They’re all covered in bits of Hydra’s finest, but otherwise unharmed. “Call for an evac,” he tells Jones. “We’re done here.”

“We’ve still got to go through those last few rooms,” Steve says.

“Stevie, I get it, you need to be thorough, be we,” he says, waving at the rest of them, “we need a break. You know, hot chow, a shower…”

“Or ten,” Dugan mutters.

“And some sleep that doesn’t involve shooting at zombies or Hydra, or god knows what else.”

“Pretty sure they weren’t zombies,” Morita says, using a spare bit of cloth to clean his rifle scope.

“Pretty sure I don’t care,” Bucky snaps. “The point is, we’re done.”

Steve sighs, taking his helmet off to scrub a hand through his hair and over his face. “Yeah. Alright. Call it in, Jones. We can search while we wait for extraction.”

Bucky groans at Steve’s answer, pushing himself back to his feet. There were maybe a dozen rooms left, and if they split up, they should be able to manage them before their boys come to collect them. He’s really hoping there’s nothing here. He wasn’t kidding when he told Steve they needed a break soon. It’s been four months, and he knows other squads have been out here longer, but none of them had the kill rates the Commandos have. None of them have seen the hell they have either.

Dugan’s “well, that’s not good,” drifts to him from two rooms over. He can’t help the slump of his shoulders or the tiny whimper of exhaustion he gives, because that’s Dugan’s understated way of saying things just went from bad to worse and Bucky hasn’t had enough sleep to deal with worse right now.

“No,” he says out loud, head dropped back as he stares at the ceiling. “No, I’m out. Two-weeks leave, a fire, some beer that isn’t warm, and the Doc, that’s what I want, not whatever the hell Dum Dum found,” he grumbles.

“Buck!” Steve calls, “you better get in here.”

“Son of a…”

Bucky’s still grumbling under his breath when he stomps his way into what looks like a glorified closet, but seems to be a communications room of some kind. Jones and Morita are going over records, both of them wearing their confused and slightly concerned faces, which doesn’t make him feel any better.

When the pair look up at him, he points in accusation. “Unless it’s a recipe for fried chicken or the next installment of Superman, I don’t want to know.”

Jones snickers a bit, but sobers pretty quickly. “Near we can tell, it’s those Ten Rings guys again.”

Bucky whimpers out loud at that. “Seriously?”

“I spoke to a Chinese specialist when we were in London last time and he gave me some phrases to learn. This one is gōngjí, it means attack or assault.”

“Great. Any idea where?”

Jones shared a look with Morita that made Bucky stand up straight. “Where Jones?”

“Lúndūn. They’re heading to London, Bucky, but that’s not the worst part.”

Bucky blew out the breath he was holding. “What the hell’s worse?”

“This phrase, it’s been popping up a lot these days between the Chinese, Hydra, and Russia; huà dí wéi yǒu. Literally it means ‘turn enemy into friend.’”

Jim nodded, “Colonel Phillips was worried the Russians might switch sides if things got bad over there, this may be our first real proof he’s not being paranoid.”

“Great. The whole Commie block is getting in on the action, just great,” Bucky kicked the garbage can across the room hard enough to put it half-ways through the crumbling wall. He took a breath, then another, counting backwards to try and calm himself.

“You okay, pal?” Steve asked carefully, his hand gripping Bucky’s shoulder.

“Peachy,” Bucky said, shaking Steve’s hand off. He cracked his neck, popping the vertebra and trying to get his growing migraine to stop. Tilting his head, he heard the tale-tell swoopswoop of helicopter blades. “Ride’s here,” he said tersely. “Grab everything you can, we’ll pass along the intel and see what Command wants to do with it.”

Steve waved them back through the Hydra facility and out to the helicopter; Falsworth stepping up beside him as the others loaded.

“He needs a break,” Falsworth said lowly.

“We all do.”

Falsworth shook his head. “No, Rogers, he needs a break. This is affecting him more than the rest of us. If he doesn’t get some time to decompress, he’s going to lose it on the battlefield and when that happens, what he did to that can will be nothing like the destruction he’ll reign down on whatever’s in his path.”

“You don’t know him,” Steve said, glancing at Bucky standing rigidly by the open door. “He’s fine.”

Falsworth pursed his lips, turning to face Steve completely. “Perhaps I’m not the only one who doesn’t know him as well as they think,” he warned. “Get him some leave, Captain, consider it an order if you have to, but do it, for all our sakes.”

By the time they’ve touched down in London and dealt with Phillips and Carter, Bucky’s one order away from punching his fist through someone’s face. He’s never been this tense before, never felt like he’s a hair trigger from losing his mind. Stark’s back in New York, which is good, because he’s heard enough about the playboy billionaire to not want him anywhere near Evie.

The problem is, Evie isn’t on base, and he doesn’t know her new address. He’s got half a thought to barge in on Steve and Carter and demand the address, even though it would guarantee him getting grilled by his friend, but he needs to get out of here, underground places aren’t on the top of his happy list and the bunker’s about as underground as you can get.

“Here,” Monty says, shoving a scrap of paper into one hand and a small paper bag in the other. “Take the bus West down Euston Rd to the Portland stop. She’s in one of the few remaining boarding houses overlooking Regents Park.”

“’Remaining?’” he asked, feeling his heartrate start to calm now that he had a plan.

Monty winced. “Been a lot of V1 damage to that area. She’s fine, but they’re looking at forcing relocation to the bunker if it gets any worse.”

Bucky swore under his breath. “She’s going to hate that.”

“Not many can handle being underground,” Falsworth said. “Go, Rogers and Carter are in with Phillips for at least another hour.”

St. James’ Boarding House left something to be desired, and Bucky understood that places were few and far between these days, but still, the creaky stairs and wobbly railing annoyed him. What if she tripped and fell? By the time he was on the second floor he was irritated all over again, which might be why his knock sounded more like he was trying to knock the thing off its hinges than he anticipated.

“James?” The voice was hesitant, with the edge of tears in it he hated. He turned to face back down the stairs, Evie’s gasp of pleasant surprise and watery smile lighting up the dingy hallway. “Oh my God,” she whispered, dropping her shopping basket and racing up the stairs to him.

He caught her on the landing, her breathless laugh in his ear unfurling whatever anxiety and discontent he’d been shouldering. He held her tight, his hand cradling the back of her head as he kissed her.

“God, I missed you,” he whispered against her mouth.

“I missed you too,” she said, pressing their foreheads together. “How long?”

“Not nearly long enough. A few days if I’m lucky. We’re on the hunt, not sure when I’ll get called in.”

“Then we better make the most of it,” she said. “Help me collect the groceries, I have an efficiency and will make us supper while you fill me in.”

It was so damn domestic, sitting at the fold down table while Evie talked about her work in the lab, the slightly juvenile running feud she had with Stark whenever he popped in, and her attempts at figuring out the differences in his and Steve’s blood work. All while she scrubbed potatoes in their jackets clean of dirt, dropping them and two eggs into salted water on the double burner, the tea kettle whistling on the back.

She served him a weak coffee and herself an even weaker tea, apologizing for the lack of sugar. “They dropped the amount of sugar rations again,” she sighed, adding a splash of milk to both. “I swear, I’m so over boiled everything, but there’s not enough fat to go around and I haven’t found fish that didn’t smell off in at least ten blocks.” She shook her head, giving him a ‘what can you do’ look that made his heart clench.

“What about the canteens? Surely you can get food at the Bunker.”

“Of course,” she said blithely. “But I enjoy cooking. Not so much any of those other feminine tasks, but cookery I always enjoyed.” She laughed, “It’s so very much like being in the lab, add a pinch of this and a teaspoon of that, apply just the right amount of heat, and voila! Edible magic.”

She made a small salad, dressing it with the boiled egg and diced potato, a bit of malt vinegar, a can of sprats in oil and fresh herbs topped the plate along with some dry toast.

“Consider them large croutons,” she told him at the first hard crunch, eyes narrowed should he even think of saying something. He wisely hid his smile, glancing down at his plate instead. Falsworth’s chocolate bar finished off the meal.

“Now then,” she said after clearing away their plates. “What happened?”

The shift was so sudden Bucky didn’t have time to prepare. One minute they were chatting and laughing, the next she’s kneeling before him, holding him while he breaks down. He can’t breathe, can’t seem to control himself at all as it all comes out. Belgium, the girl, his feelings of inadequacy, Steve, the constant fear of failure, and always the battle to stay himself in a world gone mad.

“Oh, James,” she breathes sadly, rocking him gently.

It takes long minutes to calm down, but when he does, he realizes he feels lighter than he has in months. Evie didn’t try and tell him it wasn’t his fault or that they’d fix things, she just let him get the emotions out and that’s honestly more than anyone else has done for him.

“Come on, soldier,” she says standing. “Let’s go dancing.”

He huffs a laugh as she pulls him to his feet. “Not sure I’m in the mood to deal with outsiders, Doc,” he says tiredly.

She scoffs at him, leading him into the tiny sitting room. “Who said anything about leaving?” she asked, stepping over to the radio to turn it on low. ‘Sentimental me’ by the Ames Brothers is playing its swaying melody as she steps in close. He smiles as he takes her hand in his holding them against his chest, his other hand tight on her waist.

They sway to the organ, the light picking of guitar accenting their movements. He spins them on the chorus, making her laugh out loud, her fingers clutching the back of his shirt and thinks this must be the pinnacle of life. They dance through ‘Fools Rush In’, ‘I Can’t Begin To Tell You’, ‘Only Forever’, ‘That’s How Much I Love You’, and ‘All For You’ before Vera Lynn’s voice rings out.

They stop in the middle of their dance, just staring into each other’s eyes as the song plays.

“Finally got that dance you promised me,” Evie whispers.

Bucky brushes the side of her face with his knuckles tenderly. “When this nightmare is over,” he tells her, voice low, “I’m going to fill your dance card, Evie, I promise.”

Her eyes glitter wetly, “I’m going to hold you to that, James,” she whispered, rising up to meet his lips as he bends down. It’s the most tender, almost chaste kiss they’ve shared, but it means more somehow, because it’s just them in this small flat away from the horrors of the world.

She’s about to speak when there’s a banging on her door. James goes from lover to fighter in the blink of an eye, sweeping her behind him, knife laid out along the back of his forearm like he’s expecting Hydra to crash through the window.

“Barnes!” Falsworth’s voice calls out in agitation.

“Shit,” Bucky curses, pocketing the knife. He glances over his shoulder at Evie, who draws herself up to full height; her smile is resigned.

“Looks like they found a lead,” she says tightly, leaning forward to kiss the corner of his mouth. “Go, be safe, I’ll keep looking into the blood work.”

He grimaces, calling out “give me a sec!” to the others and pulls her in tight, fitting her against him. “I’m coming back to you,” he tells her darkly.

“You better,” she says, kissing him for all she’s worth, pouring her emotions down his throat.

“Barnes!” Monty yells again, making him snarl.

“Go,” she laughs, “go be my hero.”

He presses one last kiss to her temple, snagging his coat as he moves quickly through the flat. Ripping open the door he practically growls at Falsworth. “Hit the door one more time,” he threatens, making the Colonel smirk. “Move out.”

He gives Evie a nod before closing the door quietly, smirking at her muttered, “Like you were any quieter.”

“Don’t even,” he warns the boys when he comes out onto the street. The rest of them are lounging around the stoop, Dugan’s waggling eyebrows making him snap out a hand and slap him upside the back of the head too fast for the other to retaliate.

Steve’s watching everything from the two idling cars, a confused smirk on his face. “Thought you hadn’t gone on a date?” he asked as they piled in.

“Haven’t,” he answered truthfully. “And stop being nosy, I haven’t asked about you and Carter, now, have I?”

Steve blushes hotly, the other guys jumping in to rag on him letting Bucky fade into the background a bit. He realizes how much calmer he is after just a few hours with Evie and wonders if he should mention it to her for their research. Shaking his head, he dismisses the thought, it’s nothing to do with whatever Hydra did to him. It’s just her.

“You good, chap?” Monty says, leaning close.

Bucky glanced out the window, a small smile on his face. “Yeah, I’m good.”

Chapter Text

Chapter Twenty

“Out!”

Evie’s hand jolts at the sudden shout, splashing the hebarin-glycerol-based solution across the work table. Growling under her breath, she slapped the surface, spinning on her stool and ready to lay in to whichever idiot ignored her ‘do not enter’ sign, and one of the lab assistant’s hastily written, ‘or else’ signs.

Her anger fades to confusion at the presence of a fuming Howard Stark. He’s not just annoyed, he’s irate if the splotchy red patches on his throat are any indication.

“Howard? What’s wrong?”

He opens the door again just to slam it shut, making her jump. “I’m going to kill him!”

“Who?” she asks with growing concern, noting the livid bruising on Stark’s face and hands. “What happened?!”

Hopping off the stool, she grabs his arm to drag him over to the first aid kit. “Sit, sit.”

“I’m fine,” he dismissed, waving her off. “But McGinnis! I swear, if Phillips doesn’t court martial the man, I’m going to do something drastic.”

“You’ll do no such thing,” Carter said, coming through the doorway.

Evie held her hands up between the two. “Alright, alright,” she placated. “Let’s just settle down, shall we? Now somebody please explain to me what is going on?”

"My lab was raided. They took my samples, my research, all on the orders of General McGinnis. The next day, they dropped it on the Russians to help them take Finow. I flew there afterward to see the damage with my own eyes. What those men did to each other, you can't imagine."

“They dropped what, Howard?” Evie asked.

Howard winced. “Midnight Oil, a gas.”

"You designed a poison gas, Howard?" Carter asked in horror.

Evie gave him a disappointed look and he folded, collapsing back against the desk. "No! Well, not intentionally. The army wanted something that would keep soldiers awake for days at a time, but it failed. Caused symptoms similar to sleep deprivation, anger, hallucinations, psychosis. But I shelved it!” he said to both women’s horrified looks. “I shoved it in the back of a vault and had no intention of turning it over.”

“But you kept it,” Evie said aghast. “Oh, Stark, you know what happened with Firebug, why would you ever even consider…”

“Because we’re losing! We’re losing and the boys are exhausted.” He glanced at Evie and away, a grimace on his face. “Falsworth made a private report about Barnes. About how irritable and stressed they were all getting. Command wanted a way to mitigate the exhaustion. When it didn’t work, I told them it couldn’t be done. That’d I’d destroyed the last sample and notes. No one should have that kind of power.”

Evie felt her breath punched out of her lungs. Stumbling against the table, her nails scraped loudly along the metal. “Are you telling me Phillips was going to use that on James and the others? On any of our soldiers?”

Peggy’s eyes widened at the name.

“Not now they won’t,” he said savagely. “But they would have tried if they’d gotten their hands on it, I’m sure.”

Evie felt steel straighten her spine. Turning on her heel, she went to her work top, shuffling through her papers until she found the small brown notepad. Scribbling out a note in shorthand, she held it out to Peggy.

“Send this to them, now.”

“Genevieve…”

“Now, Margaret!” she snapped coldly. “If you value Roger’s life at all you’ll get on the radio and send Barnes this message.”

Peggy jerked back as if she’d been slapped. “Now, see here…”

Stark placed a restraining hand on Carter’s shoulder. “Peggy,” he said carefully. “Do it. We can’t trust Phillips and the others to keep them safe,” he nodded his chin at the doctor. “But we can trust her.”

The message came through in those twilight hours when the sun was on one side of the horizon and the moon the other. Bucky normally loved this time of night, if he wasn’t slogging chest deep in freezing swamp water in the Danish Straits, although he and Steve seemed to be faring better than the others with the low temperatures.

“I hate the cold,” Jones gripped. “My black ass is not supposed to be anywhere this white.”

The others snickered, even Bucky, who held up his hand when the crackle of the radio broke the silence of the swamp. He pointed at a line of egress to higher ground, waving Jones forward so he could man the radio easily.

“HC, this is Command, over.”

“This is HC, go.”

“Message for Barnes, urgent.”

Bucky scrambled up the bank. Taking the receiver held out by a confused Jones.

“Barnes.”

Agent Carter’s voice sounded slightly harried and confused as she spoke slowly, the rest of the guys crowding around Bucky to hear what was being said. “India-squared in play, Sergeant,” Carter said, making Bucky freeze. “I repeat, India-squared in play, move with extreme caution, do you copy.”

“Copy,” Bucky said tersely. “Anything else?”

This time the confusion was very clear. “WMA, Command out.”

Bucky swallowed harshly, his hand trembling as he held the receiver out to Jones to take.

“Sergeant?” Gabe asked.

“Bucky? Buck, what is it?” Steve asked concerned, coming up beside his friend and putting a hand on his shoulder in solidarity.

“Chemical weapons, worse than Belgium,” he said tightly, making the others blanch. “We meet anyone, hear or see anything, you get your masks on. Drop your weapons, it doesn’t matter, just get them on.”

“Whoa, whoa,” said Dugan, hands up defensibly. “I ain’t dropping my gun.”

Bucky gave him a hard glare. “Drop your weapon and get your mask on or the only thing left for us to take home is going to be your dog-tags, do I make myself clear?”

“Okay, Buck,” Steve said, placatingly, pulling him back from Dugan. “We get it, gasses are bad.”

Bucky shook his head. “It’s not just a gas…that stuff in Belgium was merely the precursor for something worse.”

“How much worse?” Dernier asks.

Bucky gives them a haunted look that makes them pat their masks. “Apocalyptic.”

For all his fears, they don’t come into contact with anything like GA in Denmark. They blow up another Hydra factory and get word to report back to HQ when they’re done. It’s honestly the best news Bucky’s had in a long time. This time he collects Evie from her flat and takes her to the American Red Cross Victory Club. Eddie Cantor is singing on the stage, the band playing a raucous swing-jazz number that has them up and dancing with the rest of the club, laughing when the press of bodies makes it almost impossible to do more than stamp their feet and sway, but it’s the most fun they’ve had in what seems like forever.

Dinner is great, though the conversation is difficult over the noise, but they’re enjoying just being together. Bucky’s holding Evie’s coat open for her as they get ready to leave when the air-raid siren cuts through the night with its eerie wail. There’s sudden, complete silence, before a voice cuts through directing everyone outside and to the nearest underground tunnels as the ground shakes beneath their feet.

Evie and Bucky turn the opposite direction, heading towards the sound of the fire brigades. They’re stopped by wardens telling them to go back, and soldiers demanding identification. They ignore the former and produce the latter, moving in synchronicity towards the over turned military trucks. James peels off towards the cluster of military officers, Steve included, while Evie heads for the scene of the accident. She can hear men screaming, but is stopped by a large man she doesn’t recognize who grabs her around the waist, spinning her back the way she ran.

“Sorry, sweetheart,” the red-head says thickly. “No one is permitted any farther.”

“I’m a doctor,” she snaps, shoving the ID in his face. “I can help, let me through!”

“Doc!” Bucky yells, hearing her voice from the other side of the street.

The man grimaces, holding both hands up as Bucky comes around the corner. “Sorry, Sarge,” he says. “But no one’s allowed closer.”

“Report!” Bucky snaps, pulling Evie back against his side.

The man snaps to attention; his jaw clenched and face grim. “The truck was carrying chemicals, an incendiary bomb hit it as it was coming around the corner.” He grimaced. “The fire’s too hot and the chemicals are sitting in the air. We can’t get to them.”

Evie tried to get free, but Bucky held her in place. “Doc,” he said quietly, pulling her close. “Enough.” He glanced at Dugan. “Get out of here, Tim,” he said, nodding towards the others. “I got it.”

Dugan tapped the tip of his bowler hat, grimacing at Evie’s distraught appearance before hurrying away from the pair.

Leading her away from the explosion, Bucky pulls her into an alley, catching her smaller fist when she tries to hit his chest in her frustration and despair. “Enough! Genevieve, enough!”

“It’s India and Germany all over again!”

“What, Doc, calm down, please, sweetheart, I can’t understand you if you’re crying, please,” he begs, hating her tears.

“India, I told you about GA, about what it did.”

“Yeah,” he said slowly. “You said you got rid of it too.”

“It didn’t stop them from trying again. Stark came up with something called Midnight Oil, which was somehow worse than GA, because it turned the men on each other.”

Bucky’s breath caught behind his teeth. “Denmark, that’s what you were warning us against.”

She nodded brokenly. “Like me, he tried to get rid of it, but someone stole it and used it in Germany. The devastation it caused. Why do we keep trying to destroy ourselves?”

“This wasn’t you, Evie.”

She pulled away from him harshly. “Don’t you understand? Every time a boy dies by chemicals it’s me. It’s me and Howard and Paul and every scientist who sees a formula instead of people!”

“I’m a killer, James,” she cried as he pulled her back against his chest, hot tears soaking his shirt as he held her shaking form. “I’ve tried so hard to make it right, to save as many as my research took, but every time I think I’ve made some form of amends, we lose another one. Those boys shouldn’t have died tonight. Senseless, useless waste of life and I’m to blame!”

“You’re not,” he’d told her, lifting her face to his, his lips brushing hers in a soothing manner. “You’re a healer, Doc and you’ve done everything you can to save our troops. To save me.”

“It’s not enough,” she denied hotly. “It’ll never be enough.”

“Then focus on what you can do now,” he tells her, pushing her back to stare into her eyes. “You know these chemicals better than anyone. If the fire hadn’t been so hot, maybe you could have gotten to them, but what would you have done? What can we do to stop something like this from happening again?”

His questions make her pause.

“You told us to flush the area in Belgium. My ma did the same thing when Becca got a bad lye burn, is water the cure for everything?”

“Lye?”

Bucky slowly nodded his head. “We ran out of normal soap, and when ma used the harsher laundry soap on Becca, it gave her nasty burns. Sarah, Steve’s ma, lived next door. She came running when she heard Rebecca screaming. Some of it had gotten in her eyes. We thought she’d been blinded, but Sarah had her flush her eyes and skin for almost an hour until they got the soap out.”

“Because it’s hydrophilic head dissolved in the water,” she murmured, voice trailing off, her brain switching to research mode.

“Not sure about that,” Bucky said with a small grin. “But Becca was able to see again, and after a bit the burns faded.”

When she didn’t answer, he bent down to look at her frowning face. Gently prodding the creases between her brow, he asked, “What are you thinking?”

“Vermiculite.”

Bucky shook his head. “You’ve lost me.”

“The soap bonded to the carbon chains in water, that’s how it was able to be flushed out. So far, water’s what we use for nerve agents like GA as well, but it takes a lot of water, and you don’t always have access to that in the field. But some vermiculites also have long hydrocarbon chains and if their modified the right way…”

“And I’ve lost you,” Bucky sighed humorously. “Come on, Doc, I think I better get you back to the lab.”

Evie nodded absently, already thinking through the implications. Clutching Bucky’s elbow, she stopped him in the street and gave him a blinding smile. “This might just work, James. If I can simulate my idea in the lab…I might be able to protect you all!”

Chapter Text

Chapter Twenty-One

Evie tests dozens of samples over the next few weeks. She tests some on rats, one on herself – which, alright, bad choice, she’s defiantly going to have to hide that burn mark from James the next time she sees him – but with Stark’s resources, finally comes up with two different working prototypes. A powder, which, when applied to the burn area coats the surface of the skin and allows for quicker removal with water, and an inner lining for wool clothing using a modified organo-vermiculite as filler. It isn’t the cleanest material, leaving a white chalky residue when impacted, but it seems to prevent buildup along the surface of clothing better than anything they’ve got in the field at the moment.

The Commandos become her willing test subjects, with James the most vocal. Their letters come almost daily until one August he shows up at her lab door with a huge grin and a black eye.

“It worked!” he said, picking her up and swinging her around the lab, making her laugh.

He kissed her hard and fast, aware of others in the area, before placing her back on her feet.

“What worked, you crazy man?”

“The powder, we got into a bit of a jam in Poland, had to use what you sent us on a bunch of kids, here hold on I’ve got a photo.”

Evie sucked in a sharp breath at the small black and white image. There’s the Commandos, Steve front and center, with a half dozen starved children with huge bruised eyes and the edges of peeling skin still showing.

James leaned over, tapping one smaller boy sitting on his knee clutching his arm, at the back. “That’s Elias. He got hit the worst. As soon as we shot the guards, we were through the fence line with your powder. We coated the boys with it. Barely had enough, but it did the job. Those kids are alive because of you, Evie.”

Evie felt tears streaming down her face as she clutched the photo to her breast. Gazing up at James, she saw nothing but pride. Pride and love.

Reaching up, she dragged his lips to hers, kissing him fiercely. “Thank you,” she said against his mouth. “Thank you.”

They get a few precious hours together while Evie works in the lab, talking in hushed voices as she shows him what she’s found about their other project. It’d taken a back seat to the powder, but now she can dedicate her time to it fully.

“So, these, ice-binding proteins,” he says slowly, trying to follow along. “You think whatever they did to us gave us the ability to make, what was it again?”

“AF(G)Ps - antifreeze glycoproteins, it’s what lets cold water fish not freeze to death.”

“And you think this is because of our sugar levels?”

“Glucose, yes. Okay, think about it this way, we know that the higher the sugar content in water the lower the temperature goes before it can freeze. This is because it interferes in the way ice crystals form. From what we can tell, the changes in your DNA also show additional attachments to the sugar in your body, specifically the threonine amino acids. Now, I can’t tell you how this was done, but the effect seems to be your ability to handle cold better.”

“Yeah, I noticed that in Denmark.”

“From what I can tell, you also have some protection against ice recrystallization due to an inhibition activity that prevents the water in your body from bursting when the temperature changes back to normal.”

Bucky gave her a horrified look. “Not bursting – awesome.”

“It is actually, I mean, besides the obvious, it means that you have a form of cryoprotectiveness that us measly humans don’t.”

Her smile was blinding, but he had to admit, “I’ll be honest, Doc, I only got about half of that.”

She laughed brightly. “It means we may have found a way to preserve those too sick or injured to live, James. Think about it, if we could freeze a person who has a terminal diagnosis until science has found a cure, or temporarily shut down an injured soldier on the field long enough to get them to a hospital, we could save so very many.”

Bucky smiled tightly. “We could also keep the worst people on ice until they were defrosted on an unsuspecting timeline, Doc,” he said carefully, gauging her reaction. “There’s always two sides of the coin, and I’m not saying stop your research, but you warned me what could happen if I didn’t think things through, consider this a reminder to slow down and be careful with what you come up with.”

Evie’s face fell as she really thought about what he was saying. “Yes, of course.”

Bucky pulled her in between his legs from where he was sitting on the lab stool and gently brushed a loose strand of hair behind her ears. “It’s amazing work, Doc, and I think you could really be on to something here, all I’m saying is be careful, okay?”

Her hands come up to rest against his chest, a small, sad smile gracing her lips. “I will,” she told him sincerely. “I guess I was just excited at the implications.”

“I know and that’s okay, just remember where you are and who we work for.”

She nodded seriously as he pressed a kiss to her temple and stood. “I’ve got to check in with the others, this was just supposed to be a refueling stop, so to speak. Grab more powder before our next mission.”

“Oh! Of course. I had extra canisters made up with hand pumps attached. It should disperse a finer mist than the screw top version.”

He watches her collect the canisters, ordering one of the techs to get them packaged into small over-the-chest bags they can carry easily, when Steve walks in. The change in the room is instantaneous, Evie’s tone and gestures drop to a level of professionalism that makes both men blink.

Bucky hasn’t talked about her to Steve, but his buddy isn’t blind, he knows Bucky is attracted to her. When she steps out to speak to the tech, Steve slaps him on the back.

“Date didn’t go the way you wanted, huh, buddy?” he asks and Bucky realizes Steve may be his best friend, but he’s also an idiot when it comes to women. He’s not sure how he’s managed to get anywhere with Carter.

“It’s a work in progress,” he says lightly. Glancing down at the folder in Steve’s hand he frowns. “Another assignment?”

“Yeah, there’s been some chatter in Romania, so they want us to head there next.”

Bucky’s brows hit his hair line, a smug smile twisting his lips. “So, I finally get to one-up Jones, huh?” he asks, making Steve laugh.

“Depends on if you remember anything or not,” Steve teases.

“Well, I remember the cuss words…and the food.”

Steve’s laugh is loud and filled with humor. “Ah heck, Buck, I remember the cuss words, it’s all your ma would yell at us when we got caught doing something stupid.”

“Pops wasn’t much better,” he said with a grimace, rubbing the back of his head. “How many times did I get smacked upside the head for getting in a fight with you?”

“About as many times as my ma smacked me,” Steve jokes, sobering slightly when they realize they’ll never have those moments with their mothers again.

“Ah hell, Stevie,” Bucky sighs. “We’re kinda horrible at the pep talks, aren’t we?”

Steve snorts, tossing his arm over Bucky’s shoulder as they watch Evie gather enough bags for each of them. “Yup,” Steve quips. “You think your doctor friend might be able to give you something for that case of foot-in-mouth disease you keep having?”

Bucky shoves him away. “Jerk,” he says lightly. “I heard about Carter shooting at you the last time we were here, are you sure you aren’t talking about yourself?”

Steve blushes hotly, mouth opened in retort when Evie walks back in with a tech. Stopping in the doorway, she narrows her eyes at them as they both stand at attention.

“Never mind,” she says, shaking her head at the display. “I’m not sure I want to know.”

She hands four bags to Steve and four to Bucky. “This should be more than enough for your team, Captain Rogers,” she says formally. “I’ve also included a few extras incase you find yourself in another Poland situation. Now, as I told Sergeant Barnes, I added hand pumps to the canisters, this will allow for finer dispersal of the vermiculite, so you should be able to control the amount and application easier.”

Steve’s eyes went wide. “That’s great, Doctor…”

Evie gives him a small smile, holding out her hand. “Genevieve Shaw, it’s nice to formally meet you, Captain Rogers.”

“Steve, and you already know Bucky.”

Bucky rolls his eyes at Steve’s attempt to wingman him. “Stop fishing,” he grumbles, making Evie laugh.

“Yes, I am acquainted with the Sergeant, now, was there something else you needed gentleman, or was that it?”

Bucky’s hand snaps out before he can stop himself, snagging her wrist and making her take a half step towards him when his tug imbalances her. “What the hell happened to your wrist?”

Steve sees the confusion turned annoyance and wisely backs away from the pair. Holding up the bags, he grabs Bucky’s as well. “I’ll just get these to the boys, we’ve got a plane in an hour, Buck, don’t be late,” he warns before fleeing the room.

Evie glares for a good ten-seconds before it drops off. “Just a little accident,” she tries to placate. “I’m fine.”

“It’s a burn.”

“It’s nothing.”

Bucky pulls her close enough her free hand comes up to lay against his chest as he smooths his thumb around the three small circular burn marks.

“Doc…please tell me you didn’t try any of that stuff on yourself,” he says agitatedly.

Evie’s pursed lips and down-cast eyes make him mutter a swear under his breath. “Why?”

She shrugged. “I needed to see if the powder worked on a human.”

“And what if it hadn’t?”

“I had other chemicals to try,” she said primly. “And plenty of water available. It’s not like this is the first time I’ve ever tested something on myself, James.”

He took a breath and held it, counting backwards from ten to stop from calling her an idiot. He knew instinctively that that would not go over well. “You make me nuts, you know that, Doc?” he asked when he was finally calm.

She gave him a rueful grin. “I sort of figured, what with all the growling and frowning at me,” she teased.

“Don’t use yourself for a test subject again,” he sighed. “Please.”

Evie patted his cheek. “I’ll do what’s necessary to keep you safe, James,” she told him worryingly. “But I will try and avoid anything too dangerous.”

Bucky closed his eyes as he dropped his head in defeat. “That’s the best I’m going to get from you, isn’t it, Doc?”

“Yup!”

Chapter Text

Chapter Twenty-Two

7 November 1944

Dearest James,

It’s my birthday. Honestly, I’d forgotten. Peggy was the one to hand me a square of chocolate and tell me congratulations and even then, I just stared at her in confusion until she told me why she was giving it to me. How sad is that?

It got me thinking about you and Roy though. Did you know he’s a Christmas baby? If you’re back around then, we should go down and surprise him. I’ve been storing up some of my rations and I think I can scrounge together a small cake. How lovely would that be? A few days leave and I might even let you convince me to ride on that infernal motorcycle you use when you’re here.

I saw Janet the other day. I doubt she realized it though, as she dropped her eyes to her tea readily enough when I came out of the shops, but she was there. I thought…well I thought with my change in work venue, that she would have been reassigned, but it appears that was just wishful thinking.

I don’t know what they want, and that’s the most troubling part of this whole thing. Are they waiting for me to do something? Or are they waiting on Phillips and Carter? I just don’t understand the logic of keeping me under watch at this point.

We’ve had a dozen more V1 attacks since you’ve been gone. Phillips is threatening to keep us all under lock and key if they get any worse. Just one more reason to hope things end quickly, I suppose. Not that we all don’t have a hundred reasons already, but being underground like that for the rest of the war gives me nightmares.

I don’t think it’s the actual being underground bit that bothers me, but the idea of burial. It seems much too final and we still have so much to live for.

Be safe, and know that I’m making good progress on our project.

‘Til we meet again,

Evie

James reread the letter frowning.

“What’s with the face?” Falsworth asked, settling beside him on the rocks around the fire.

“What do you know about MI6?”

Falsworth eyebrow rose in surprise. “As much as anyone else I suppose. They manage international and potential security risks.”

“Any reason they’d be watching the Doc?”

“Several, if I understand her expertise.”

“Even if she’s with the SSR now?”

Falsworth sighed. “Probably more, actually. Technically, she was transferred, correct?”

“Yeah.”

“Then they’re probably keeping an eye on all of us, rather than just her.”

Bucky licked his lips, sighing as he stared into the flames of their fire. Around them, the darkness seemed to close in slowly, cocooning them in silence broken only by the chirp of insects or hoot of an owl. As a city kid, he found the woods slightly uncomfortable, the noises different than the cars and shouts of street hawkers, but being able to see the stars on clear nights sure made up for it.

He'd always loved astronomy, and seeing the stars, even if they were fighting for their lives in some god-forsaken backwoods hole, had been a tiny glimmer of hope for him. Evie had been the rest.

Monty watched him shrewdly. “Does she know what happened in Austria?”

Bucky nodded. “Yeah, I told her.”

“Surprising, I figured you’d avoid the topic if possible.”

Shrugging, Bucky flicked his eyes to Monty and back to the fire. “Had to tell her why I’d been a jerk, easiest way to do that was to tell the truth.”

“Interesting.”

“Why?”

“Because to my knowledge, you still haven’t told Captain Rogers the extent of what Dr. Zola did to you.”

Buck’s fingers curled against the damp rock. “Yeah, well, the Doc’s a doctor, and Stevie went to art school.”

Monty chuckled softly. “What about you, Sergeant?”

“What about me?”

“Did you attend school? College?”

“Finished high school, same as Steve at George Washington High, just the year prior. Went to work as soon as I could. Middle of the Depression didn’t give us many options and I had younger sisters to support.”

He sighed darkly. “When Steve’s ma died, I tried to get him to come stay with us, but he got a scholarship and moved into the dorms.”

Smiling with pride, he glanced over at Steve and Jones discussing tomorrow’s route. “He was working in the papers when I got drafted.”

“And you?”

“A bookstore and laborer on one of the bridges. Nothing glamorous. Why?” he asked, giving Monty a side-eye.

“I enlisted in the Army right after schooling,” the Colonel told him, leaning back on his hands. “Some fellows did it to get out of the countryside, others as a matter of pride after the Great War. As for myself, it was a simple story of survival. My old man was a nasty drunk and I seemed to be the perfect ire for him.”

He slapped Bucky’s back hard when his frown turned into a scowl. “Don’t fret, Barnes, it taught me how to be quiet, fast, and sneaky; item’s I’ve put to good use in His Majesty’s Army.”

Bucky had to laugh at that. “Yeah, hustling and beating up anyone stupid enough to go after Steve seems to be the main things I learned.”

Monty gave him a bit of a smirk. “Seems to be enough for a certain Doctor anyways.”

Bucky didn’t bother responding verbally, his middle finger said enough as they dissolved into an easy comradery, the silence settling around them.

Dear Evie,

Happy birthday, sweetheart. I’m sorry I wasn’t there to take you out dancing, you know, make a night of it at one of the clubs. We spent the day skirting a swamp and trying not to be bled dry by those damnable mosquitos and gnats. They cover every exposed inch of skin and itch like the devil. On the bright side, we’ve taken out two more bases and thoroughly pissed off the bad guys.

There is something I’ve noticed…when the adrenaline dump happens, my heartrate drops. I get almost tunnel vision on the target, but there’s a downside. We were stuck too far from a reload point a few days back and I ran out of bullets. Jim had extras, but he wasn’t close enough to get to. It…the fear set in something terrible. I’d never had that before. I’ve been scared, sure, anyone who says they’re never afraid is a liar or a liability to their team, but this was pretty severe and totally uncalled for. I mean, Steve was in front of me, Dugan was in my line of sight and the others within yelling distance. I wasn’t in any major danger, but the paranoia hit hard and fast.

Something to keep in mind moving forward, I guess.

As for Christmas, consider it a date. If I can get free, we’ll drive down and see our boy. You might want to reach out and make sure he’ll be there. I suppose we can stay on base, but if we can find a guesthouse or hotel still open, see if we can’t get in. It’d be a site better than those paper-thin mattresses they had on base.

I asked Monty about Janet. He thinks it may be less about you and more about all of us. Maybe them checking in to make sure we’re doing what we said we were doing. Of course, that’s all speculation, but if Phillips and Carter aren’t playing nice, might be pretty close. If you feel like they’re escalating, tell the Colonel. It’d be better to be below ground, even if you hate it, than to have a problem.

Be safe, E.

We’ll meet again,

James

Chapter Text

Chapter Twenty-Three

James checked the straps on her helmet, then threw his leg over the bike, testing his balance.

“Okay, step up with your left foot and throw your right over the seat. You’ll need to hold on, so get close.”

“I can’t believe I agreed to this,” Evie groused, settling behind James on the motorcycle, her nails denting the leather of his riding jacket even through the knit gloves she was wearing. Her dark blue woolen coat was both buttoned and tied to prevent as much wind exposure as possible.

He laughed at her over his shoulder. “Just be glad we’re not going along the coast; the wind is wicked cold right now.”

“Bloody stupid vehicle,” she grumbled.

“Just hold on, Doc, we’ve got some distance to cover before it gets too dark.”

There was little speaking over the roar of the engine and rumble of the road beneath their tires; just the whistle of the wind and the reverberation of the bike under them. They’d need to stop twice to refuel, once using Evie’s ration, and James’ for the second. Luckily their military IDs would allow them to do so, but any further would have been impossible.

Even without conversation though, Evie hadn’t felt this relaxed with another person in a long time. There was something about James that let her give up the need for control she always felt when around others. It was if she expected them to mess something up that she’d need to fix, or do something that would put her in a bad situation. Considering what had happened in the past few years, she supposed it wasn’t a terribly surprising feeling.

Still, with James she felt like she could sit back and just let him handle some tasks while she managed others. There wasn't the constant fight to prove oneself, or have to explain every single decision like she typically had to. Honestly, after their introduction, she’d been surprised they worked so well together, but they did, complimenting each other’s weaknesses and strengths; supporting instead of bringing down.

She pressed her temple against his shoulder blade, staring out into the sunset turning the fields into a sea of gold and green. Evie smiled softly when James tangled their fingers together against his stomach, holding them there; connecting them in a way she hadn’t realized she’d missed so strongly while he was gone. Turning her head, she pressed a feather-light kiss against the leather before resting her cheek back against it. Feeling him squeeze her fingers before letting go to downshift.

She smiled softly, relaxing against his back, letting him take more of her weight as they moved together around a curve in the road. It was a heady feeling - contentment.

She must have dozed, or fallen into the type of trances you get when on a long-drive, because one minute she’s cuddled up against James’ back trying to ignore how the wind was stinging her face, and the next they’re spinning out, James throwing her wide to avoid the ditch he and the bike ended up in. She lands hard in long grass, the bag with their spare clothes cushioning the worst of the fall, though she fears there will be bruises along her left hip come the morning where she hit and rolled.

“Shit!” James snapped irritably, coming up out of the icy muck.

“James! Are you alright?” Evie asked, crawling on her hands and knees along the embankment to him.

“Been better,” he grumbled sourly. He shoved his hair off his face, mud dripping off the ends. Shoving the wet mess back in irritation, he pulled the back wheel farther up the embankment until Evie could keep it from slipping back into the muck, then climbed up himself.

Taking it from her, he managed to push it up along a broken fence post. The little light he could see with showed a bent front axle and busted tire. “Great. Now what?”

Evie pointed towards a dark silhouette. “Do you think that’s a house or a barn?”

Bucky squinted, trying to see better. “No clue. It’s the best option we’ve got though. Come on, we need to get you warm.”

Evie rubbed her hands up and down her arms. “I’m not the one pretending to be the swamp creature from It, Sergeant.”

“Yeah, but this It has weird frozen fish-finger DNA, so he’s just disgusted by the smell. I’m not gonna turn blue anytime soon.”

Evie laughed, making sure the small backpack they’d brought was secure before climbing over the broken fence and helping James manhandle the busted bike over as well. “There may be some truth to that. Oh drat, I was really hoping it was a farm house.”

Bucky shrugged; his face resigned as he pushed the bike up against the side of the derelict building.

“We’re not going to make it to Wallop tonight,” he stated as they pushed open the barn door. It was cracked and sagging, same as the barn, but it would keep them mostly dry and warmer than on the road. “I’m not sure how bad the damage is or if I’ll even be able to fix it without a garage nearby and this is better than nothing.”

Evie waved away the comment. “Oh no, I just meant I was hoping there’d be a place to get you cleaned up and warm.”

“Well, let’s take a look around, maybe they’ve got some supplies squirreled away. I’ll take the loft, see if you can find anything useful in these stalls, would you?” he rapped the side of a stall door, making sure the lock disengaged to give her entry before shucking out of his soaked jacket and under sweater. The leather would rinse well enough, though it'd be streaked and stained, and the wool would retain warmth even when soaked, but that didn’t make the smell or feel of sludge water dripping down his back any more comfortable.

Evie put the bag on a stanchion. Fumbling through what appeared to be a tack room, she came up with a small kerosene lamp, a bit of fuel, and a bucket that had a hole in it about half-ways up. She also found a small tin cup that might have been used to scoop grain before the war. She collected snow from around the outside eves and filled the bucket, stumbling slightly at the odd weight disbursement as she walked back inside. She’d hoped for a well, or hand pump, but the snow would work in a pinch if she could get a fire going.

When James still hadn’t returned, she scraped a small area clean of all debris and dug a pit about a foot wide and four inches deep, layering broken field stones around one side to create a wind break and reflector. She broke off bits of kindling from the used stalls and created a log cabin fire square with some musty hay and the lamp, pilling the clean hay into a large pile they could hunker down into to stay warm.

The fire was crackling weakly when James made his way back down the ladder with a horse blanket and some rags.

“Oh, you are filthy,” she said in shocked glee, biting her lip to keep from laughing at him. “Strip, let’s see if I can’t get the worst off you.”

She placed the bucket near enough the fire to melt, but not so near it would catch on fire. Using the rags and cup to scoop out enough water to wipe him clean, she kneeled in front of him, careful not to get herself wet and slimy.

“Here,” she directed, “try and lean back so I can wash the worst out.”

He spread out the blanket on the clean pile of hay to air as he stripped out of the soaked sweater and shirt, doing as directed over one of the old food troughs to collect the filthy water that she scrubbed out of his hair with a vengeance. Once the worst was off, he sat up, letting her use one of the rags on his shoulders, back, and chest. It was oddly comforting having her take care of him. Something he couldn’t remember anyone ever doing for him before.

She dipped the rag in the mug of steaming water, scrubbing at the filth until he was clean, going back a dozen times until they’d used most of the melted snow and she’d been able to rinse her hands off. He watched her with hooded eyes as she dabbed at his temples with the last clean edge of wetted rag, the movement of her fingers against his flesh hypnotic and intimate in a way he’d never thought of before. When she started to move away, he raised his hands to settle on her waist, halting her.

Eyes locked on each other, he was vaguely aware of their breath steaming the air between them. 

“James,” she whispered, making him smile gently.

It seemed inevitable that they’d reach for each other. James pulled her up tight against his chest, his chin lifted to capture her mouth with his as he turned them, laying her out under him on the blanket. His fingers trembled in a way that was completely new to him, his breathing ragged when she nipped his lip, her smile knowing and yet somehow still innocent as he unbuttoned her jacket and blouse. His fingers ghosting over pale skin that glowed in the flickering firelight with reverence.

Evie was the one person on the planet who really knew him, which was a shocking idea, because he'd always thought Steve knew him best; and he did in a way. Steve knew Bucky. He knew the kid that saved him from bullies and taught him how to box, and hustled asthma cigarettes when things were bad. But he didn't know James. He didn't know the guy who'd been experimented on after being tortured, or struggled with the fears of inadequacy. He didn't talk to Steve about his guilt over leaving his sisters, or consider what the future would be if he survived this hell with his sanity intact.

He did with Evie.

They made love in the barn, the edge of a slivered moon winking through broken roof shingles as they took each other apart and put each other back together again stronger than before. There was a point when he felt the sharp bite of her nails take a layer of skin off his back, as she arched against him, her breath hot in his ear as she gasped his name, that he realized she was the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with; that he could never find anyone that would challenge or complete him the way she did. Evie was it for him, like Peggy was for Steve. It was a simultaneously terrifying and grounding moment for him.

In the aftermath, they lay curled up with each other under the blanket, Evie’s head resting on his chest, her hand pressed low against his stomach as his fingers drew symbols absently on the skin of her shoulder.

“What do you want to do, after the war?” he asked as they laid staring up at the sky.

“You mean if we win?”

“We’ll win, one way or another,” James said staunchly.

“I’m not sure. If MI6 finally lets me go, I’d like to see a bit more of the world, maybe have a bit of land of my own.”

“Family? Kids? Do you ever think of those?”

Evie rubbed her nose against his chest, blowing out a breath in frustration. “At one time, I did. It was all I really wanted, but now…”

“If it makes a difference, I think you’d be a great mom,” he said honestly, dragging his fingers through her hair and trying not to say more than he should. He had a fleeting image of her sitting in the grass in a small garden, a toddler in white held up over her head as they both laughed. It made his heart clench in want.

“What about you?” she asked.

“I’d like to find my sisters or at least find out what happened to them. Not sure about land…more of a city guy myself, but a garden wouldn’t be so bad. Some place to bar-be-queue during the summers." 

He wanted to tell her about his vision, but worried that it'd scare her off. Too much too soon. "I think I’d like to try for a family one day. Stevie and I didn’t have the greatest experience with our parents dying on us and the Depression and all. I’d like to give my family something better than that, try and make a world where they can be free and safe,” he answered tightly, hoping she didn't catch the crack in his voice.

Evie was silent for a long time as she thought about what he was saying. “Do you think that’s really possible?” she asked quietly. “I mean, I made a poison gas, and they turned you into a weapon, I’m not sure the world will ever be safe again for us.”

“It will, Doc,” he said, holding her tighter. “That’s what Steve and the rest of us are out here doing. We’re risking our lives to make sure the rest of the world survives.”

She huddled closer. “This war has taken so much from us already,” she whispered fearfully. “I couldn’t stand it if it took you too.”

He pressed a hard kiss to the top of her head. “It won’t. I promise, you and I, we’ll make it.”

She nodded slowly, wanting to believe and yet hesitant to put her faith in his words.

"'And though your heart is breaking, make it sing this cheery song'," she whispered, her voice wavering. "'Keep the Home Fires burning. While your hearts are yearning. Though your lads are far away. They dream of home.'"

"It's true," he replied. "No matter what hell hole I'm in, I remember I've got you here waiting for me. I'll be honest, Evie, I'm not sure I would have made it this long without you."

She swallowed hard. "You would have," she told him. "You're strong, James, and stubborn," she gave a little breathless laugh. "You would have made it simply to tick Hitler off."

Bucky laughed out loud. "Probably."

“Which one is that do you think?” she asked around a yawn, pointing at the faint flicker of red winking at them through the broken roof.

“Mars, I’d assume from the color and position,” he mumbled absently, smoothing a lock of hair in his fingers.

“You’re staring,” she accused, laughing lightly at him when she realized he wasn’t even looking at the planet in question.

“You’re worth staring at.”

 “Oh, my God,” she groaned, pressing her blushing smile against his side. “You can be such a flirt sometimes, James.”

Pulling her hand to his lips, he kissed her palm, folding her fingers over to protect it. “Not anymore, Doc,” he said seriously. “You’re it for me. This…I’ve never felt this way before. No matter what happens, I just want you to know that and when this is all over, I’m going to ask you those questions again, and you and I, we're going to make that home we both want, okay?”

Evie pushed herself up to stare into steel-blue eyes, her smile slow in coming, but breathtaking as she gazed down at him, letting his words soak into her skin and soul like a brand. Leaning down, she pressed a tender kiss to his lips.

“Okay,” she breathed. "I'll be waiting for you."

Chapter Text

Chapter Twenty-Four

The bike was just as bad in the morning, but Bucky was able to bend the axle back into place, which was a worrying advancement.

“We should test your strength again,” she said tightly, gnawing on her bottom lip.

“More concerned with getting us to the next town,” he said, staring at the flat tire. Reaching over, he thumbed her worried lip. “Stop that, you’re going to bite clean through it at this rate.”

“I’m serious, James, first the wall, and now the bike, that wasn’t pressed aluminum, you know.”

“I know, but there’s not much we can do about it either, is there?”

Evie groaned, dropping her head back to stare at the grey overcast sky. Far above them, contrails drew wavering lines through the clouds. Warm hands settled on either side of her hips on the damp fencepost.

“Hey, look at me,” Bucky said gently.

Evie dropped her chin to stare him in the eyes, frowning when he leaned forward to kiss the tip of her nose, making her sigh. “We’re okay, alright? Whatever happens, you and me, we’re solid.”

“I know, James, I do; I just worry.”

“I know, but in the meantime, let’s worry about not freezing to death and try and get to Andover.”

“Andover? You don’t think we should back-track to Forton?” she asked, hopping down with his help.

“Andover has the AAF onsite, which means we can get a replacement bike or even a lift to Middle Wallop, Forton doesn’t.”

“Yes, but we’ll need to back track to Salisbury Road if we go on to Andover.”

“Well, how about this,” he said, nudging her towards the road ahead of him. “How about you flag down whoever that is and we go where they’re going?”

“Oh, don’t be a prat, James,” she said annoyed. “You could have just told me there was a lorry coming.”

“Yeah, but where would the fun be in that?” he asked as she stepped onto the road waving.

The ride was bumpy, sitting in the back of the hay cart, but warm as they piled the hay high around them, the bike tied with bailing twine against the support posts. The farmer they’d hitched a ride from was heading towards Weyhill to the west, and could drop them at the base, which gave them the time necessary to get proper showers and changes of clothes, before handing off the motorcycle to the repair shop and requestioning a new one.

“How’d you get the axle all bent like that?” the Corporal on call asked, pointing towards where James had re-bent the front bar.

“Hit a ditch,” Bucky said brusquely, giving Evie the side-eye when she turned away to keep from laughing at him.

“You got another bike around here, Corporal?”

The Corporal gave him a cheeky smirk. “Depends, you gonna mangle it too?”

Bucky was glad Evie grabbed his wrist or the punk would have gotten an earful, but the kid was wise enough to wave them off towards the side lot and one of the spares. By lunch, they were pulling into a decent sized farm yard complete with RAF hutments.

Evie shook her hair out from under the driving cap, shielding her eyes against the winter glare as she scanned the farm yard. “I don’t see him,” she said, worriedly.

Bucky threw his arm over her shoulders, turning her towards the fields. “Boy’s a horse-man, remember?” he asked, pointing with a gloved hand. “All you gotta do is find the horses and you’ll find Roy.”

“Oh, they’re huge!” she gasped, hands clasped in front of her. “They have to be at least two hands larger than Nightmare and Puck were.”

Bucky laughed. “Leave it to the kid to find even bigger horses to work.”

“Can I help you, folks?” a young woman asked, wiping her brow with a damp cloth.

Evie turned to her, smiling when she realized it was Betty. “Well, hello, dear. Betty, correct?”

The girl nodded hesitantly. “Do I know you?”

“Not as such. I’m Dr. Shaw and this is Sergeant Barnes, we were at Middle Wallop with Roy.”

Betty’s face split into a huge grin. “Oh! His ‘ma and pops,’ right!” she laughed out loud, pocketing the handkerchief. “We gave him such a ribbing for your letters. Are you here for the party then?”

“Party?” James asked.

“For his birthday, Christmas, and hopefully the end of this bloody war,” she said with feeling, shrugging at them. “Pretty much everything and anything we could think of.”

“Then yes,” Evie said, taking James’ hand. “Consider us rsvp’ed. Oh!” she turned to dig around in the backpack they’d brought, pulling out a slightly squashed fruit cake.

“We had a spot of transportation mayhap on the way, but it should still taste good,” she said blushing as she handed it over.

Betty waved away the apology. “Not an issue. We can press it into a tin to reset. How about you two go call him in? I swear he never stops for tea and it’s a sight bit past that.”

Bucky laughed. “No need to go anywhere, the Doc can call him from here.”

“Oh?” Betty asked, surprised. “I’d like to see that; he never comes when anyone by Da calls him.”

Evie blushed as they made their way to the stone wall, her hand clenched on James’ shoulder as he steadied her atop it. She took a deep breath before letting out two loud, piercing whistles.

On the field, Roy’s head snapped up, the two horses coming to a standstill and blowing hard, their breath billowing whitely in the cold. They heard him shout, waving a hand enthusiastically as he stood up in the stirrups.

“Well, I’ll be,” Betty muttered, leaning over the wall. “That’s a mighty good whistle, Doctor.”

“Evie, please,” she told the girl, smiling.

“James,” Bucky told her, nodding as he helped her down.

“So, you two were sort of his adopted parents at the station, huh?” she asked as they were waiting for Roy to bring the horses in. “He talks about you all the time. Made quite the impression on him.”

She gave Bucky a considering look. “Can’t say I blame him for the hero worship, but I’m mighty glad you got him out of there, we’ve had a few V1s around here lately and the base is a prime-target.”

The pair exchanged worried glances. “How close?” Bucky asked.

Betty shrugged. “Close enough we don’t do evening work anymore. I know the Ministry’s been on Da about it, but it just isn’t safe. The O’Connell’s two farms over lost a barn and all the stock in it when one hit last month.”

She shook her head sadly, more world-weary than her seventeen years should warrant. “We helped out with a younger breeding pair of sheep, but it’ll take them years to get back what they lost.”

“Bucky! Doc!” Roy hollered, skidding to a stop in the loose gravel. “You’re here! Wait, what are you doing here? Did something happen at the base?”

“Breathe, Roy,” James said laughing, pulling the kid in for a hard hug. “Nothing’s wrong, the Doc and I just came down for your birthday.”

“My…my birthday?” he said in a quavering voice. “You did? Really?”

Evie gave him a hug, kissing his forehead and making him blush. “We’d be terrible parents if we didn’t at least try to celebrate, now, wouldn’t we?”

“Ah…don’t be like that, you two,” he grumbled half-heartedly, a smile crinkling the corners of his eyes.

“Come on,” Betty said, waving them towards the farm house. “Let us introduce you to the others.”

The party was in full swing, music crackling over the radio speakers, Land Girls, field hands, and even the odd Polish POW dancing, singing, and generally having a gay old time, when Roy plopped down beside Evie on the threadbare couch.

Evie nudged him with her shoulder. “Betty’s cute,” she teased him. “You ever going to have that date James said he spoke to you about?”

Roy blushed hotly, his face turning crimson as he stuttered. “I…what? No, I…ah, Doc…” he whined, dropping his head into his hands and making her cackle.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he said shyly, turning to glance up at her from his crossed arms.

Evie looped her arm around his shoulders. “Me too. Are you alright down here, truthfully? No one giving you a hard time?”

“Nah,” he drawled. “The POWs are all scared of the horses and the girls treat me like I’m their kid brother. Mr. Cavendish is stern, but fair too. He’ll take the skin off your knuckles for a foul-up, but he’s twice as hard on himself, so it evens out.”

She glanced at his hands, noticing a few new scars. “Not literally, I hope,” she said darkly, more than willing to take the dour farmer to task for hurting the boy.

“No! No, I just mean he’ll take you to task, but he’s fair, Doc, you don’t need to be worryin’ ‘bout me.”

“And these?” she asked, rapping his knuckles lightly.

Roy shrugged. “You work the land an’ you get a bit bloody. Ain’t nothin’ I ain’t had before.”

He glanced across the room at James talking to a Polish POW then back at her, a sly smile on his face. “I see you two stopped being stupid,” he quipped, wincing when she boxed his ear.

“Ow.”

“You deserved that,” she said primly, giving him a disappointed look. “I know we raised you better than that.”

Roy snickered. “You might have, but not ‘pops’,” he said haughtily.

“Yes, well, you would do well to remember the first time your ‘pops’ tried to sweet talk me I stabbed him in the arse, twice, and maybe don’t take his advice on women so freely.”

Roy laughed. “So, should I be expecting a wedding invite?” he teased, jerking away when she raised her hand again. “Sorry! Sorry! Just teasin’. Come on, Doc. You know it’s all in jest.”

“Yes, which is why I haven’t boxed your ear again!” she told him, stern faced but with laughing eyes.

“But in all honesty, I really don’t know,” she told him sincerely. “This war, our jobs, it makes everything so complicated.”

Roy leaned back with a shrug. “Not sure about all that,” he said sagely. “You could get hit tomorrow and that’s it. Not sure if I believe in God, but I’m pretty sure we don’t get no do-overs. The way I figure it, you gotta do what you feel is right, now, ‘cause tomorrow might never come.”

“Does that apply to you and Betty too?” she asked cheekily, ignoring the comment on her own love-life for the moment.

Roy gave her a grin that was all James, young and full of mischief. “Ask me tomorrow after we get back from the pictures,” he said smugly, laughing when she gasped and threw herself at him, hugging him tightly.

“They get on well,” Betty told James, raising her glass towards the pair.

Bucky smiled softly at the two. “Yeah, sometimes I think she forgets he’s not really ours.”

“He speaks of you both very highly. I think he’s mentioned that fool sister of his once, but you two…” she shook her head with a fond sigh.

“Can’t get him to stop talking actually. Oh, and I must tell you, whatever advice you gave him for asking me out,” she sucked her teeth, shaking her head at him. “He should be glad she told him something different, because I probably would have slapped his face if he’d tried one of those lines on me.”

Bucky burst out laughing. “Yeah, I can see that after meeting you. Just do me a favor and don’t tell the Doc what I said to him, I’d rather not sing soprano anytime soon.”

Betty snickered as her father came up and put his arm over his shoulder. “Sergeant,” he said lowly. “Glad you and the Doctor could make it. Roy’s been a God send around here with the horses.”

“He does have a way, doesn’t he?” Bucky asked, extending his hand for the large, barrel-chested man to shake.

“I have to admit, I wasn’t too keen on taking the kid on given his age, but he’s done you both right proud.”

At Bucky’s raised brow, Betty patted her father’s arm. “Daddy, I told you, he isn’t really their son.”

Tomas Cavendish dismissed her comment. “Blood doesn’t mean family, little bit,” he corrected her, pointing at Evie and Roy on the couch together and then at James. “And the three of you, you’re a family if I’ve ever seen one.”

Chapter Text

Music-Gloria Regali

Chapter Twenty-Five

It was late when they set off for London; a good two and a half to three-hour ride, depending on road conditions and with the blackout in effect, it would realistically take closer to four hours. They said goodbyes, gave out hugs and handshakes, and told Roy they’d write soon. To be good and try and live a little for something beyond horses big enough to crush a man.

She kissed his cheek, telling him how proud she was, that he seemed to find his place at last.

“You’ll write,” she told him, making him laugh. Not a request, a commandment from a person who cared more than his own flesh and blood. “Don’t forget James, I know the mail is a bit hit or miss, but he needs the connection too.”

“I will, ma, don’t worry,” Roy said sincerely, hugging her as if she was his mother.

“And happy birthday. I’m not sure if we ever did say the words during the party or not.”

“You did and it was. Probably the best I’ve had since the war started. Having you two here, getting your letters, it sort of felt like my family was still alive.”

She dashed the wetness from her eyes, “We are, as long as you want us, do you understand, young man?”

“She’s right,” James said, throwing his arm over her shoulder and tucking her in close. “I’d be damn proud to have a son like you, Roy.”

Roy toed the tip of his boot into the mud, smiling at the ground with pride. “Go on,” he said, shooing them towards the bike. “I’ll not cry in front of the girls, no matter what you say.”

It was a night that started with smiles and laughter and ended in blood and flames.

They had barely passed the gate, the helmet still dangling from Evie’s fingers, when they’d been thrown across the road from the concussive force of the impact. The flying bomb hit the house square on, the roof caving in as fire burned hot and white in the black of the night.

James shook his head, ears ringing and vision blurry as he looked around. The gate was intact, still upright and untouched, but the house was ingulfed in flames. The rumble as walls fell shook the ground beneath their feet. A plume of black and grey smoke billowing up into the dark as the ash coated everything around them creating a demented sort of Christmas snowfall.

He had a second of complete confusion and disbelief before Evie stumbled to her feet across from him, her shout of anguish tearing through him and setting his heart beating so fast he feared tachycardia; whatever it was Hydra had put in him reacting to her distress.

“No!” Evie shouted, stumbling back toward the burning farmhouse.

James grabbed her around the waist, spinning her so that she was watching the horror unfold behind them. The V1s made no sound as they rained death and destruction on the unsuspecting British populace and tonight was no different.

“Genevieve! Stop!” James yelled over the sound of the explosion.

“Roy!!” she screamed, eyes huge in her horrified face. “Let go, James, let me go!”

He held her as they collapsed to the muddy ground, the snow and mud soaking through their trousers without either noticing. “We have to go back, James, please,” she begged brokenly.

“It won’t help,” he told her darkly, hearing far more than he wanted of the screams of the dying.

“Please, please James, we have to check, we have to make sure.”

He’d challenge any man to stand up to the tears of the woman they loved. They moved gingerly across the broken ground. The living room, where they’d danced and sung barely half an hour prior, was nothing but a smoldering hole full of rubble and broken bodies. He felt, more than heard when she found him, her body trembling against his as she turned and screamed against his chest.

He'd seen a lot of horrors in this war. The girl in Belgium, the kids in Poland, but nothing compared to seeing a kid he thought of as his own - a boy just turned sixteen with his whole life in front of him - so broken. The edge of the building had fallen on him, crushing him beneath the brick and plaster. Inches away, Betty lay in a crumpled heap, her neck broken, blood pooling wetly under the pair, their hands reaching for each other through the rubble.

‘Too little, too late,’ he thought darkly as the clanging of the Middle Wallop fire brigade’s bell rang out over the moorland. He knew they’d be there within minutes, but he also knew there was no one left to save. Once again, it seemed they were the only survivors of a world gone mad. The best of them taken far too soon.

“It’s too late, sweetheart,” he said brokenly, smoothing a hand over her hair as he pressed her face against his neck. “I’m sorry, but it’s too late.”

“No!” she denied hotly. “No, not him, not him too!”

“Evie,” he swallowed harshly, pulling her away from the bodies. “We can’t help; not anymore.”

He got her as far as the edge of the destruction before she collapsed, the fire patrol moving in controlled silence around them. Or maybe he just couldn’t hear them anymore as he stood over her protectively. She sat in the rubble, her arms wrapped around his leg, face pressed against the meat of his thigh, his hand tangled in her hair as the ash coated their skin like snow.

Through the silence, Evie’s voice floated in a shaky, painfilled warble. “Gloria Regali,” she whispered, staring up at the milky way spread out like a tapestry above them. James didn’t know if she was speaking to the heavens, some unknowable God, or Roy himself, but he knew her tone. Felt her resolve harden into steel as she prayed. “Peace and understanding, forever may you reign.”

His hand slid over the crown of her head, tear tracks like claw marks drawn in death across her face. Black war paint carved from despair and anguish and the vow that she would never allow another loved one’s death. “Forever may you reign,” she whispered haltingly, head dropping as her tears dropped hot and fast onto the rivulets of mud and snowmelt.

He had no idea how long they stayed like that, a silent statue watching as the fire burned itself out and the men shook their heads, the bodies lined up under a mismatch of tattered bed sheets and blankets. When the fire chief finally tried to move them, Evie stood woodenly, her face blank and devoid of all emotion.

They managed to make it back to the airfield. Messages passed along to the SSR as to what had happened offering them a few more hours to process their loss. Bucky found himself sitting out under the stars, the metal barracks too much like a tomb. A heavy blanket was wrapped around him, Evie crawling in beside him a few hours later, her body shaking and cold and oh so silent as she fell apart in his arms.

“I hate this,” she told him hotly. “I hate the Nazis and this war and Hydra and just everything.”

“I know,” he agreed, petting her hair and rocking her slightly. “I know.”

“He didn’t deserve that.”

“None of them do.”

“Sometimes,” she confessed, “I wish I hadn’t destroyed Firebug.”

“Doc,” Bucky admonished. “You know it’s not the same.”

“Logically, I know that, James. But can you honestly tell me you wouldn’t like to melt that Hydra doctor who tortured you?”

Bucky took a ragged breath, his vision going spotty.

“Never mind,” she said quickly, feeling his distress. “Ignore me, I’m just…Roy was ours, James, and we lost him between one breath and the next. I can’t…I’m not going to be able to forgive them for that.”

She glanced up into his distraught face. “Or what they did to you.”

Bucky took her chin in his fingers, lifting it just enough to brush their lips together. “We’ll get through this, Genevieve,” he swore. “For Roy, for all of them. We’ll take them down and we’ll survive and we’ll live the life he should have had. I promise you that.”

Chapter Text

Part 3

Chapter Twenty-Six

London in January was bitter cold. She moved through the streets like a specter, her eyes dead or burning with a fire so hot the others in the SSR started to give her a wide berth. Even Colonel Phillips started to avoid her. The only ones who would brave the lab were Carter and Stark when they were in town.

“You can’t keep working like this,” Carter admonished, taking the stack of papers out of her hand and setting them on the work top. “Come get a tea with me, take a break before you snap.”

“I’m busy,” she said flatly, moving around her.

“You’re avoiding,” Carter countered. “I know the boy’s death hit you hard, Genevieve…”

“Roy,” she snapped, glaring at the other woman. “His name was Roy, and he was sixteen years old! He never should have died.”

“I know,” Peggy placated. “But this is war, Eve, I’ve lost people too.”

Evie sat on the work stool heavily, her head in her hands. “I know. I heard about Michael, I’m sorry.”

Peggy looked away, her throat working but no sound escaping. “He chose his path,” she finally said tightly. “And I chose mine. The point is, more will die if we can’t stop Hydra and the Nazis. Rogers and the others are heading towards the worst place on earth to fight a winter battle and I need your head in the game. If our reports are correct, taking Stalingrad will save hundreds, if not thousands of soldiers and civilians.”

Evie took a ragged breath, her eyes skating over a small red notebook half-buried under papers. She frowned; she needed to hide that notebook better. No one should have access to it. Not ever.

When Carter cleared her throat, she nodded absently. “I understand, Agent Carter,” she said stiffly. Standing, she resolutely ignored the book. “I’ll review the latest reports and get you an update on the new Kevlar armor Howard and I designed.”

Peggy gave her an understanding look, her hand warm on Evie’s shoulder. “The best way to get through this, Evie, is to take Hydra down. Without them, our boys can take out Hitler and end this war once and for all.”

Evie nodded but didn’t believe her for a minute. Evil could not be cut out of society. It could be contained, even made impotent, but never eradicated.

Not without losing their humanity.

The light burned low on the small drop-down table in her kitchen. With blackout in effect, working at home on the project was more difficult, but she didn’t have to worry about someone seeing something they shouldn’t.

Stalingrad was a problem. The cold affected the troops as badly as it did the heavy artillery. The only ones not affected were Rogers and, to a lesser extent, James. Their new genetics allowed them to handle the freezing temperatures and heavy snow drifts easier than the others, but they couldn’t take on the Russians and the Germans at the same time, which was looking more likely as the reports came in from the field.

At least not with just the two of them and Evie had no interest in making more, no matter what Phillips wanted. Messing with genetics was reckless in her opinion and while she understood Dr. Erskine’s passion, she hated him for convincing the rest of the world it was possible. The better option was to make equipment that could be used by anyone that could handle region-specific issues.

In this matter at least, she and Howard agreed. He had given her a few tips on the Kevlar body armor, allowing for a fine microfilter to be attached to the cloth to stop the vermiculite impact cloud issue. Their current project was a tweak on that design, working with incredibly fine threads of spider silk embedded with a mixture of formaldehyde, phenol, aliphatic acid and petroleum jelly to create a mostly see-through film that blocked chemicals, but allowed for oxygen to pass through.

The material was stitched into a collar that could be worn easily under the regulation uniforms. A thin, pliable wire was then grasped and pulled up over the nose and mouth, fitting around them tightly and creating a more secure gas mask than the current, bulky rubber ones. The only problem was the production method was still too slow and cumbersome to use en masse.

She’d been able to make enough for James’ group, which had been her priority, and Howard had taken the plans back to New York to start large-scale production, so for now, she was free to work on her side projects. Of course, her side projects might get her shot for treason, but she didn’t care. She refused to sit and watch another person she cared for die at the hands of these murderous bastards.

Sărutual morții; the ‘kiss of death’ in Romanian. James had made an off-handed comment once, about how Steve’s mom had yelled at them in Gaelic and his had yelled in Romanian. It had made her laugh at the time, but now…now it was her last resort. The red notebook written in her own form of code developed over years of sending messages to her father and grandfather. Perhaps others could break it, if she had ever written down a translation, but she knew the government and wasn’t stupid enough to do that.

She drew out the chemical structure of Stark’s Midnight Oil and her own Firebug formula with lemon juice and a thin brush. Under the heat of the lamp light, the overlapping bonds were clear. She added two more lines to the top oxygen bond increasing it to three and making it flammable when exposed to air. There would be no second chance if it was ever used; but then again, that was the point.

She needed to be careful of recreating the formula in the lab. There was no way she’d be able to work without a fume hood, but it should work and if it did…

The scrape of a shoe on the landing in front of her door made her pause, her heartrate picking up as she froze to listen. Breathing, soft, almost non-existent had her slowly closing the book and slipping it into the small space between the table and wall. There was a better hiding spot in the bedroom, a loose floorboard next to the floor vent under the bed. Anyone looking would look in the vent and hopefully ignore the small space next to it.

When the steps finally retreated, she went back to work. She wasn’t surprised she still had a watchdog. MI6, the SSR, hell, it could even be a third party she wasn’t aware of. Either way, she wouldn’t stop her work. She did, however, switch to the blue notebook. The one on cryostorage she and Howard had discussed on his last visit.

After finding the antifreeze glycoproteins in James’ blood, she got to thinking about practical applications. James had warned her to take her time to think things through, but the idea of freezing someone had persisted. Howard had modified the original Super Soldier capsule to be able to be sealed shut, and a locking mechanism to minimize accidental opening, but the formula itself had eluded them.

“It’ll need to drop to freezing in an instant to avoid shock,” he’d said, drawing out a template on a glass window.

“Just make sure we’re talking Celsius, Stark,” she’d reminded him. “No need to defrost before we’re ready.”

He’d shaken his head with an amused huff. “You Brits and your Celsius fixation.”

“You Yanks and the inability to start a sequence at zero,” she’d quipped back.

He waved her comment away absently. “The filtration system will be an issue. We’ll need to account for moisture buildup in the oxygenation sequence.”

“Would a coolant system like they use on subs work?”

Stark had turned to give her a thoughtful look. “Possibly…I wonder if I could get a look at that Hydra sub the SSR took from Roger’s incident. Let’s come back to that. What about metabolic activity?”

“It’ll need to be zero or we’ll have problems. I was thinking a liquid IV drip at first, but that would necessitate occasional replenishments, and we need to make the system completely self-regulating.”

She spun on the stool, frowning at the schematic Howard was working on. “Is it possible that higher glycerol levels may allow for us to by-pass the feeding and hydration issues completely?”

Howard tapped the pen against his chin. “If it’s rapid enough, and the cell walls don’t rupture, then I’d say it’s possible. Flash freezing has occurred periodically in history. But we don’t have any proof that’s what Erskine used.”

She narrowed her eyes, thinking of the small vials of James’ separated blood hidden in the ice-chest. “We don’t have anything to say it isn’t, either.”

Cryostasis was still in the design phase and would be for a few more years, she figured, and sărutual morții was simply a deadly dream she had thought up in her darker hours.

Still, the reports were bleak: 41,000 homes, 300 factories, 113 schools and hospitals, 750,000 men…Russia was always a problem. Between the sheer size of the place and the horrid ice and snow, she was honestly surprised Hitler was stupid enough to go for a winter attack. The Volga River froze over mostly, which would allow for the enemy to cross, and if they could hold out, a siege was a possible, but to think they’d go house to house murdering everyone they came across was something no one had imagined.

And James was heading into the heart of that battle. Well, not without the very best equipment she and Stark could come up with, that was for certain. She worked a few more hours until her eyes burned and she was starting to feel ill. Closing the book up and putting it in her bag for tomorrow, she crawled into bed wearily and dreamt of death and ice and the screams of those lost.

Chapter Text

Chapter Twenty-Seven

The snow and ice coated his mouth and froze his breath. He spat, trying to clear his lungs, his head bowed down over his scope and breathed through the mask pulled up over his lower face. The smell was rank even through the cold. If he’d had the choice, he wouldn’t have selected this spot for his hide, but he didn’t have that choice.

The bodies were piled up hap hazardously outside the city walls. Bucky pressed his eye against the scope, scanning the line of soldiers walking back and forth on the other side of the newly erected barbed wire fence. Something felt wrong.

He watched as the sentry moved behind a jeep. He paused before giving the signal. There was something in the air that felt charged. Different. And as he’d learned the hard way these past few months, different normally meant bad for them.

Morita slipped down the pile of bodies, stumbling a bit before he hit the fence line. He was careful not to touch it with his bare hands; they could all hear the fizzle and pop of electricity running over the metal. Instead, he clamped a rubber hose along two of the fence posts, effectively grounding the electricity and allowing him to cut an opening for them to get in.

They were all freezing. Fighting in waist deep drifts was almost impossible, but they’d managed the worst of it, or so he hoped. The second the wire was cut, the others rushed in. They were leading a group of Russians to take back the city, the group led by a man Bucky hated on principal. Vasily Karpov was ruthless and didn’t like prisoners. Bucky had to be held back by Steve and the others more than once over the month-long campaign when Karpov shot those men who had fled the city.

It didn’t matter to him if they were outgunned or were facing enhanced soldiers under the Red Skull’s command. If you were male and could fire a gun, you should have fought until the death.

‘Mother Russia neither wants nor needs the weak,’ he’d said after shooting a teenager in the head.

The boy looked so much like Roy, scared, haunted, horrified by what he’d witnessed, that Bucky had lost it, leaping for Karpov with his blade laid out along his forearm.

Steve had caught him, flinging him to the ground and pressing him into the snow and mud bodily to get him to stop.

The two friends hadn’t spoken for days after the altercation and the team had walked on eggshells.

‘Write your girl,’ Falsworth had told him sharply three-days later. ‘You need to talk this through with someone and we know it isn’t us, so do everyone a favor and write her.’

Bucky’s face had twisted in annoyance. ‘I don’t need…’

‘Yes, Barnes, you do,’ Monty had cut him off with. ‘Consider it a command. Write her, I’ll make sure it gets through.’

James had taken a walk to clear his head, the small notepad almost empty in his thigh pocket. Cresting a hill, he stared down in to the smoldering remains of the city. Hydra had commandeered two of the largest factories, the smell of coal and oil mingling with something electric that tickled the back of his throat constantly.

He walked over to one of the wet-dark oak trees, the shadows pooling around him as he pulled himself into the branches. He knew better than to stay on the ground without a blind and the idea of laying in the ice and snow was less than appealing.

Pressing his spine against the rough bark, he took several deep breaths to calm down before fishing the notebook and pencil out of his pocket. He’d worn it down to a stub. He’d need to remember to grab a few more when they returned to camp. If they returned.

Dearest Genevieve,

Whose bright idea was it to go to Russia in the winter? The longer we’re out here, the more I think this whole country is mad; mad with grief, with hate, with jealousy. Just mad. I can’t even describe the horrors we’ve seen and would never want you to know them even if I could. Needless to say, I hate it here and can’t wait to come home.

There’s a group with us. They’re supposed to be helping, but every time we come across survivors, they shoot them. Their commander is an evil s.o.b. and I don’t know why Steve and Command keep protecting him. If this is how they treat their people, then I’m not sure who our real enemy is, because this is just sick.

There was this kid…seventeen, eighteen, and he’d run, like anyone with sense would, and Karpov put a bullet through his head like he was nothing. When he fell, I saw Roy. The blood and emptiness in his eyes broke something inside me. Steve had to pin me to the ground and even he struggled. If it had been one of the others, they never would have been able to stop me.

It should have scared me, how mad I got. How quickly it came on me, but I didn’t care. I wanted him dead and I would have done it; I would have murdered that s.o.b. in cold blood like he murdered that kid and…

I think, if I get out of here, you might need that popsicle idea of yours. I couldn’t control the rage, E, and what’s worse, I didn’t care. Monty pulled rank on me. He knows I don’t care about Steve’s, but the col. earned his stars and crown and I would never disrespect that, not when he’s right.

I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, but I’ve got a really bad feeling about it. This whole place is messed up. The way the Russians are using us to do their dirty work for them makes me uncomfortable. I feel like they’re playing a waiting game. Like a long con or something. I don’t know. Maybe I’m just being paranoid. It doesn’t feel like that, but maybe…

I miss you, Doc. So damn much. I would give everything to be back in your flat dancing or even in that run-down barn. At night, I look up and see the stars and think it’ll be okay, because you’re out there too. My own north star guiding me home as long as I keep slogging through.

I love you, E. Whatever happens, remember that.

We’ll meet again,

James

He thunks his head against the trunk of the tree when he’s done writing. Annoyed that getting his thoughts out on paper actually worked in calming him down and knowing he’s going to have to see that self-satisfied smirk on Monty’s face when he eventually hoof’s his way back to their encampment.

He stares through the canopy to see the twinkling of the stars high above. It’s the only good thing of this shitshow outside of Genevieve – seeing the stars in all their glory. They’re nothing compared to the glitter in green eyes as he made love to her, but it’s better than the hell they move through each day.

Below him, the shadows peel back to reveal Steve frowning up at him, his helmet off and blond hair pressed flat against his skull.

“You got room up there for one more?” he asks wearily.

Bucky huffs, shifting a bit to give him room to jump up, his fingers denting the soft bark as he flips himself up and over the limb to land in a crouch on the branch above Bucky. When the branch creaks ominously, he gives Steve a smirk.

“Shut it, jerk-face,” Steve says with chagrin, blush staining his ears red.

“Didn’t say anything,” Bucky snarks back. “The tree did.”

Steve flicks him off as he settles. After a few minutes of quiet, he glances down. “Are we good?” he asks hesitantly.

Bucky scrubs a hand over his face, pocketing the letter and pencil. “What are we doing here, Stevie? With them?”

“Command put us together,” Steve said slowly. “I think they’re trying to gauge how this is all going to play out, after the war, you know?”

“We can’t leave that guy alive,” Bucky spit angrily. “What he’s done to his own people…do you really want someone like that anywhere near Hydra weaponry? Or the Kremlin? It’ll be a bloodbath.”

“It’s not our call, Buck. The higher-ups…”

“Aren’t here!” Bucky snapped, hand punching a decent sized dent in the tree and making it shudder.

“They aren’t here, Steve,” he told his friend in a low voice, standing on the limb to be able to stare out over the city. “You know how they are; political sense and common sense aren’t exactly the same thing. They’d sell their own mothers if it gave some politician enough grease. This guy, Karpov, he’s as bad as the Red Skull and if he walks out of this place alive, none of us will be safe.”

“Buck…”

“Son of a bi…I told you he was going to be a problem,” Bucky snarled, pointing toward the line of Russians moving towards the city. “He’s going to get us all killed.”

He jumped down before Steve could say anything, his grey winter jacket fading into the shadows as he raced after them.

“Bucky!” he heard Steve whisper-shout. He ignored him, raising his gun when a fast-moving shadow hit him sideways and tumbled down the embankment towards the frozen river.

An explosion rocked the night, flipping the two men over until they were splayed out in the snow. Bucky glared at Steve.

“What the hell are you doing?!”

“Saving your butt, idiot,” Steve snapped at him, pointing at the flash of bright blue electricity plowing down the Russians.

“Jones realized Karpov was playing both sides, so we set a trap, something you’d have known if you didn’t go off in a huff like an angry toddler.”

Bucky dropped his head with a groan. “You and your stupid plans,” he huffed angrily, glaring at the smirking man. “And you couldn’t just tell me that?”

Steve shrugged, pushing himself up and holding a hand out. “Figured you needed to get that stick out of your ass before I did.”

“Wow,” Bucky breathed, “You’ve been hanging out with Stark too long, you’re starting to sound like him.”

Another round of explosions rocked the night. “Come on, jerk, let’s get this done, I don’t know about you, but I’m freezing.”

Bucky shook his head in exasperation as they raced down the hill.

“Steve,” he called out, the other man glancing back at him questioningly. “Til the end of the line.”

Steve’s smile was as bright as the fire bomb that decimated the first factory and when the fight was over and they were leading close to a thousand prisoners across the Volga, Stalingrad burning behind them, he almost thought they were home free.

Almost.

Chapter Text

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Evie pressed her face against her forearm, trying to breathe through the nausea without throwing up again. Closing her eyes, she curled her nails into her hand and counted backwards from ten until the worst passed. This was the third time she’d woken feeling sick to her stomach. She’d checked her temperature of course, even instructed some of the techs to work in the other part of the lab in case she was coming down with a winter cold, but so far, her only symptoms were the morning nausea and a new hatred for the smell of anything cabbage-like.

When she was confident she could move without throwing up, she stumbled to the sink to brush her teeth. She stared at herself in the mirror, grimacing at the dark circles and sallow skin. She was kind of glad James was in Russia - she looked like death.

Splashing her face with a handful of water, she sighed, fixed her hair in a simple bun at the back of her neck, and finished getting ready. She was just about to leave when she noted the date on the calendar: January 23^rd. She paused, doing some quick math, her breath hitching as she stumbled against the wall. Four weeks. It had been four weeks since Christmas and the night they made love in the barn on their way to Middle Wallop.

It couldn’t be. She couldn’t be pregnant.

Could she?

The door bounced in her haste to the bus stop. She needed to get to the lab and check, then she could tell…

“Oh God,” she whispered, clinging to the doorframe at the front of the building. She couldn’t tell anyone, they couldn’t know, not before she spoke to James and certainly not before she ran more tests.

“This is why I hate genetics,” she swore hotly, pressing her hand against her mouth. If she was pregnant, then the baby had a very high chance of being like James and that meant they’d become lab rats for anyone who figured it out. She had to keep this quiet. Firstly, to avoid anyone figuring out what had happened, and secondly, because James deserved to be the first to know.

She pressed a gloved hand against her mouth, breathing through the fear and nausea, before straightening. She could do this. She could go to work, finish her experiments – Stark needed the latest data of the vermiculite-kevlar vests – and she needed to work on the cryosyrum, see if she could pin down how to keep a patient alive without food or water and…

And…

“Oh, God,” she whispered, dashing the tears away. “Oh, God.”

“No.”

Stark blinked at her with obvious confusion. “Why not?”

“Because it’s stupid.”

“That’s not what you said last week.”

She shrugged. “Then I was stupid too, but we are not going to use milk-wool instead of kevlar in the uniforms, it’s a waste of resources.”

“It’s using waste milk, Genevieve, nothing we could use for the general populace.”

She frowned so severely at the work top Howard came up beside her, leaning against it. “What’s going on with you?”

“Nothing.”

Howard pinched the bridge of his nose. “You women folk are gonna be the death of me,” he groused. “Come on, I know it’s been a bit since you had a letter, but we’ve gotten the reports, we know they’re safe and…”

Evie held up a hand to stop him from speaking, keeping her face bent down away from prying eyes. “I’m fine, Howard,” she told him. “Just tired. Ignore me, you’re right, we can offset the wool shortage with the milk-fibers. If the wool is spun tightly enough, we should be able to balance some of the issues with the Kevlar manufacturing process as well as assist in the wet environs like the Pacific Theater.”

Howard nodded slowly. “That’s what we were thinking too.”

“Look, I have a bunch on my plate right now,” she hedged. “Why don’t you take point on the vests?”

“Yeah, sure. I…I can do that.”

“Great,” she gave him a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “I have some time sensitive materials to work on. See yourself out, won’t you?”

She walked away without looking back. The biolab had a small area specifically for working on blood pathogens that she had commandeered, kicking everyone else out so she could test her own blood and compare it to James’ and Steve’s. Just as she thought, her blood work showed elevated levels of Human Chorionic Gonadotropin, but it also showed the same markers as James’, changes to the glycoproteins.

She sat down hard on the stool. She had anticipated the fetus having chromosomal anomalies, but she never thought they’d show up in her own blood. She took two vials of blood, tying off the rubber hose with her teeth, the needle slipping through her skin much too easily in her estimation.

She spun the blood out, separating the proteins and typing it like she had James’. There, an anomaly on the cap of Chromosome 11. She checked her glucose levels. Lower than they should be. She grabbed a small piece of toffee she’d been saving and chewed with purpose waiting five minutes before drawing another round of blood and checking again.

A spike, then sharp drop almost twenty points below what was considered safe, yet she felt fine. She bit her nail, staring down at the results. She wasn’t like James, not even close. But something had changed. She pressed her hand over her stomach. Her voice whisper soft as she stared at the blood.

“What have you done to me, little one?” she asked.

She spent hours in the lab bent over a microscope; ironically, it was the simplest experiment that proved the most fruitful.

“That shouldn’t have worked,” she grumbled, pulling the vial of blood out of the liquid nitrogen. It sloshed in the glass, still liquid even after the rapid drop in temperature.

Taking an eyedropper, she dripped the blood directly into the nitrogen, waving the super condensed air aside to see what happened.

“Nothing. How the hell did nothing happen?”

Scraping the ice and blood out of the canister, she hissed when her arm tapped the side, dropping both samples on the floor. She raced to the sink, the water set to warm, as she pulled back the sleeve to expose more of her skin.

“I…that’s not possible,” she said, leaning heavily on the metal basin. The skin was marked. A shinny pink that faded even as she watched. Gingerly, she ran her fingers over the wound. It looked days old, the skin a darker brown than the surrounding area, but not terribly noticeable. Just one more scar to add to her collection.

“I wonder,” she murmured, looking at the cages in the other room; the one she hated going into but knew the need for. She turned away from the rats and back to her research. She needed more data before she took that step.

Much more.

-tbd-

Chapter Text

Chapter Twenty-Nine

The letter arrived in the last mail drop of the night. Evie was so tired she almost missed the small envelope sitting on her desk. She’d made progress on the blood work, sort of. There was still some refinement needed of course, and the tube had to be retrofitted, but she thought she might have figured it out now if she could only…

“Oh,” she said, blinking wearily. A small smile curled her lips when she saw the handwriting.

She sat on the stool slowly, her body fatigued beyond normal and rubbed her stomach. There was no way to visually tell that she was pregnant, but she sure felt it on the long days. Her smiled dropped as she read, “Karpov?” she muttered, trying to place the name. she didn’t remember hearing it before.

Standing, she pocketed the letter and headed for the map room. If Carter was still onsite, that’s where she’d be. She moved with purpose, but didn’t run. The room was empty save for a private or two moving pieces around. She glanced at it quickly, then away, not lingering, but noting that the Commando’s position had changed. They were heading back towards the Alps, a place she knew James hated because of Zola and the Red Skull.

She paused in the doorway.  Could they have finally found the mad Doctor? He was Swiss after all; it would make sense if he returned to that country.

“Where’s Agent Carter?” she asked.

“Um, not sure, Ma’am. Records room maybe.”

She pointed at the marker on the border of Switzerland. “Is that accurate?”

“Yes, as of 1000 hrs.”

Swearing under her breath, she spun on her heel. The Records room was back the way she’d come, meaning she’d walked right past the one person who might know what the hell was happening.

The door was cracked and moved easily under her hand. Peggy was reading a report, her back to the door and shoulders hunched in a way that made Evie hesitate.

“Peggy?”

Standing quickly, Peggy took a shaky breath. “Genevieve,” she said hastily. “I thought you’d gone home.”

She raised a brow. “Just heading out. I stopped by the map room. Did they find Zola? Is that why James and the others are heading towards Switzerland?”

Peggy shoved the folder she was reading in a filing cabinet, slamming it shut. “You shouldn’t have seen that.”

“I shouldn’t have seen much in this war,” Evie said. “None of us should, and yet we all have. You haven’t answered me. Did they find Zola?”

Peggy walked towards her resolutely, turning Evie and escorting her out of the room. “We think so, yes.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because of Barnes and your connection to him.”

Evie stopped them in the hallway, her body rigid. “I have done a lot for both the Commonwealth and the SSR, Carter, and ‘connection’ or not, I deserved to be told if you were sending those men after that mad scientist.”

“Stark sent them the latest armor and guns, they have the antidotes you came up with, there’s nothing more for you to do.”

Evie pulled her elbow out of Peggy’s grip, her tone glacial. “You don’t know anything, Margaret,” she hissed. “Not about me, or James.”

Peggy grimaced. “Keep your voice down,” she hissed. “I know more than you think. I know something happened to him in Austria when they were captured, and not just from Captain Rogers. Col. Falsworth has made reports as well. If the two of you would just trust us maybe we could…”

Genevieve’s hand snapped out, the sharpened edge of her fountain pen glinting at the corner of Carter’s eye. “If you’d like to see how villains are made, Agent Carter,” she said on a deadly whisper, her voice dripping in icy disdain. “Keep meddling. I guarantee you will not like the results. Sergeant James Barnes is not your concern and neither am I. If I find out you or anyone else here sent him into a trap as some kind of test, I swear I will bury this entire operation. He better return safe, Carter, or you will understand why MI6 put me under guard. And no one. No one, will be safe from my wrath.”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” she growled, glaring at the blonde that had emerged from the shadows of the alleyway. Too annoyed to take the metro or bus after her confrontation with Carter, she’d elected to walk, now she wished she hadn’t.

“This is been a rather bothersome day, Janet,” she sighed. “Can we put this whole threatening me at knife point off for later; I’m not really in the mood.”

“Genevieve Shaw, I’m taking you in for high treason.”

“High treason?!” she said on a laugh. “Are you serious? And what exactly am I being accused of?”

Janet’s eyes narrowed dangerously, light flickering off her glasses. “Do you really think we don’t know about the chemicals or the child? MI6 was willing to look the other way when you were given to the SSR, but not now. Not knowing you’re carrying the next generation of super soldier.”

“How did you know?”

“We’ve eyes and ears everywhere, luv. And the SSR isn’t as American as you think.” She tapped the underside of her chin with the knife tip. “We told you before what would happen if you tried to leave. For someone so smart, I’m surprised you were stupid enough to get knocked up by that idiot. At least if Carter get’s pregnant the child will be worth something.”

She sneered, looking Evie up and down as though she was trash. “I’d be surprised if yours will be worth more than spare parts for M.”

Evie went cold at her words, ice flowing through her veins as every protective instinct she had came forward. She stared at Janet with cold eyes, her fingers curling into fists inside her coat pockets. “Do you really think I’m going to go with you?”

Janet flicked the knife towards her stomach threateningly; the light glinting off it in the darkness as she took an aggressive step forward. “I don’t think you have a choice.”

Evie thumbed the small vial from her pocket and carefully removed the lid, her teeth bared in a parody of a smile. “You should have chosen a different mark, Janet. After watching me for so long, I would have thought you’d know better than to threaten me.”

“It worked for Playfair.”

Evie shook her head. “Playfair knew something you didn’t.”

“And what’s that?”

She flicked the vial towards the woman, splashing her with the black liquid, watching dispassionately as she went up in flames when it came in contact with the air. Her screams echoed off the brick alley as she collapsed. Blood and viscera flowing out of her ruined body as she slowly melted.

From the surrounding buildings, a call went up, alarms starting from the street warden three blocks over.

“He knew just how dangerous I really was,” she told the corpse dispassionately. Waiting just long enough to drop the bottle beside the remains, along with two farthings which she tossed onto the body.

“Payment for the Ferryman. I’m sorry it came to this, but no one threatens my family.”

She didn’t spare the woman another glance, just stepped over the body, her hand pressed against the small swell hidden under her coat and face hard. “Don’t worry, Jimmy,” she whispered. “Until your father returns, I’ll protect you…from anyone who comes for us.”

She was gone before the wardens came; before the police and military. She didn’t see Peggy staring down at the sheet covered body or the horror on Stark’s face when she confided in him later as to what she thought happened.

She saw their fear when she came to work the next day as if nothing happened. But inside her purse was the small red and blue notebooks and a new, deadly calm about her person as she demanded to know everything that was happening to her soldier, her presence enough to stay Phillip’s hand from kicking her out of the room.

“Give me one good reason not to throw you in the brig?” he’d asked her.

“I can give you a dozen,” she’d told him testily, “But the most important is I don’t actually answer to you. And if they’re going where you say they’re going, you’ll need me to answer any questions they have when they find him.”

 Phillips chewed the end of his cigar in annoyance before finally stabbing a finger in her direction. “You stay out of the way and quiet unless we need you, doctor,” he commanded, “or I’ll throw you out of this bunker so fast your head will spin.”

Evie answered by walking across the room to an empty seat and putting herself in it.

And staring.

Honestly, it was the staring that probably made the solders the most uncomfortable. It was a tactic that she’d stolen from James and from the awkward way Phillips kept trying to avoid her gaze, she counted it a win.

She wasn’t leaving until she knew Zola was either dead or captured and that James was on his way back to her safe.

She’d accept nothing else.

Chapter Text

Chapter Thirty

“Remember when I made you ride the Cyclone at Coney Island?” he asked, staring down into the ravine with foreboding.

Steve came up beside him. “Yeah, and I threw up?” he said with confusion.

Bucky swallowed hard. “This isn't payback, is it?”

“Now why would I do that?” Steve said, giving him a cheeky little grin.

“We were right. Dr. Zola's on the train. Hydra dispatcher gave him permission to open up the throttle. Wherever he's going, they must need him bad,” Jones told them, giving Bucky a concerned look. It wasn’t any secret that Bucky had spent more time with the doctor than was healthy. Steve turned away to talk to the others, leaving Bucky staring out over the ravine clenching his jaw as he tried to keep from being sick. He had a job to do, and he needed that doctor dead.

Dernier handed him the metal pully system that would let them swing down the cable they’d installed. Bucky was not keen on the trip at all and Steve might have had gloves, but most of them were freezing their fingers off, the metal so cold it burned when they gripped it. He’d never been so happy for low blood sugar before.

“Let's get going, because they're moving like the devil,” Monty warned them.

“We only got about a 10-second window. You miss that window; we're bugs on a windshield,” Steve reminded them, getting ready.

Falsworth smirked over his shoulder at them lined up on the side of the cliff like idiots. “Mind the gap.”

“Better get movin', bugs!” Dugan hollered helpfully, Dernier’s “Right now!” sounding more like a garbled ‘meint now’.

They swung out, using their bodies to slide farther down the line on each swing. If they survived this, he was seriously thinking of punching Steve in the face, because he really did not like heights and this was way worse than Coney Island.

The train came up fast. Steve landed with grace Bucky struggled to mimic, his feet slipping on the ice-covered train roof. Thank God he’d switched out his boots so he wasn’t wearing the ones with the hobnails in them, or he’d never have survived the landing. The pair slipped inside as quietly as one could on a giant tin can barreling down the side of a mountain at a hundred miles an hour.

Steve went left, his shield up in front of him in defense, while Bucky went right. He kept his rifle up and at the ready, he’d had a bad feeling about this plan from the beginning, which was the only reason he’d entrusted his last letter to Falsworth, who’d be staying on the cliff.

The minute Steve glanced away from the corridor; Bucky knew they were screwed. He stayed back, giving them enough space that he could duck and fire, if need be, when the doors slid shut, cutting them off from each other.

A bullet thwacked by his head, making him jerk to the side and shoot. He heard Steve shooting as well but couldn’t concentrate on the other man until he’d dealt with his own issues. He was glad he’d switched to the thirty-round clips, but even they ran out, leaving him his pistol and a crappy hiding place.

Over the loudspeakers he heard Zola’s voice, “Stop him! Fire again!” as he fought against two soldiers.

He fired until he ran out of bullets, slamming his head and shoulders back against the metal walls and thought of Evie hearing his name on the reels. He’d survived before, but this time, it really looked like he was out of luck. His eyes burned. Closing them for a brief moment he tried to find that quiet place inside him, the one that let him be Steve for just a few precious seconds, but then the door slid open and the real Steve was tossing him his pistol, the pair of them up and moving in a synchronized dance of bullets and brute strength that allowed Bucky the chance to sight in on his target and take him out with one clean shot.

It was sort of funny, how Steve always seemed to forget Bucky was a damn good sniper.

“I had him on the ropes,” he joked, needing that sense of familiarity while he tried to get his hands to stop shaking.

“I know you did,” Steve said placatingly, turning at the high-pitched whine coming from behind them. “Get down!” he screamed, shielding Bucky and blowing a hole in the side of the train.

“Fire again!” Zola shouted over the speakers, “Kill him! Now!”

Steve rolled off the floor, glancing around blearily until he spotted Bucky holding the shield and firing at the soldier.

This is stupid, Bucky told himself as he moved closer to the soldier. This is definitely not something the Doc would approve of. The blast ricocheted off the shield, blasting Bucky back and into the torn rail hanging over the ravine and the frozen river hundreds of feet below. If he got out of this, he would never ride a train again.

Steve jumped up, flinging the shield at the soldier to hurl him away from them long enough to scramble to the opening.

“Bucky! Hang on! Grab my hand!”

Bucky felt the bar come loose. Terror gripped him as he heard Steve’s shout, his own scream ripped past his lips as he plummeted to the ground below.

Evie’s smile flashed before his eyes. Her gasp turn groan in his ears, the glitter of green eyes under a sliver of moon.

He hit the side of the mountain hard enough to tear his arm from its socket. At that point, he wasn’t sure he could have screamed any louder. When he hit the water, it was so cold it stole his breath away from him and he thought, ‘this is it,’ and welcomed the cold, because at least he couldn’t feel his arm anymore.

‘Shock. Hypothermia.’ He heard a woman’s voice in his head and for a moment couldn’t remember who it was, then his brain kicked back on, and he opened his mouth to scream her name, icy water flooding his system as he kicked his way back to the surface.

He should be dead. He wished he was dead, considering the icy fire stealing across his chest from where his arm had been. Snow fell, covering him as he dragged himself up the embankment. He couldn’t feel his legs or feet, his lungs burned, his entire body on fire as he tried to get out of the water.

The crunch of boots drew his attention and for a minute he thought he was saved. It was Steve, it had to be. Captain America had saved his butt once again and…

“Похоже, он выжил,” one of the Russian soldiers said, reaching down to grab his left foot.

“Стоит ли нам убить его сейчас или вернуть в лагерь?”

“Он нужен Красной Комнате. Мы берём его с собой.”

Bucky didn’t know what they’d said, but he knew their tone. If he survived, he was screwed. He tried to kick vainly at the other soldier and took a rifle butt to the face.

He didn’t remember anything after that until he was dragging Steve’s body from the river, all he knew was pain and the feeling of a loss so deep it hurt to think about.

He didn’t remember Evie.

He didn’t remember himself.

Chapter Text

Chapter Thirty-One

The call comes in as the sun is rising. She can tell from Phillips face that something has gone wrong. When he leans over to whisper to Peggy and her face goes horrified then blank and they both turn to her, she knows it’s about James.

She stands shakily as the other woman crosses to her; Phillips waves the room clear.

“Genevieve,” Peggy says with a shaky voice. “I’m sorry, we…Roger’s lost Barnes over the Danube. We’ve sent a recon plane but…the train was too high, there’s no way he survived.”

“No,” she whispered brokenly. “You don’t know that, he…James isn’t like the others, you have to go back. Have to check the river, the mountain…”

Peggy gripped her shoulders, pulling her in for a rough hug when her knees went week and she slumped in the other’s arms. “It’s not possible,” she said gently. “I know you were keeping something about him, but from that height, even Steve wouldn’t have made it. I’m sorry.”

Her breath hitches for a single, solitary second before she wails. Her cries making the two men in the room shuffle awkwardly, Phillips actively looking for an exit as Stark take a step forward then back. Peggy waves the men out of the room as they fall to the floor, Evie’s tears soaking her blouse.

“I’m sorry, Evie,” Peggy says truthfully. “Steve’s devastated at the loss and the Commandos went looking, but there’s no real way to know where he might have hit and without some kind of a sign…”

“I’m pregnant,” she whispered brokenly, making Peggy gasp; pushing her to arm’s length she stared at Genevieve with wide eyes.

“What?!”

“I’m pregnant. James is the father. I need to find him, Peggy. Threats aside, I can’t…I can’t do this without him.”

Peggy glanced around the room quickly. “Are you certain?”

Evie gave her a bitter sounding gasping-laugh. “Yes. Blood work confirmed it.”

“How far along?”

“Christmas, so just under six weeks.”

“Is it…is the child like Barnes?”

“Yes.”

Peggy closed her eyes as if in pain. “You can’t tell them,” she said. “Phillips will have you on the first transport back to Alamogordo.”

“I know.”

Peggy bit her lip, thinking. “We can play this off as being distraught over a lover’s death. Phillips will believe that.”

“Stark won’t. I’m almost certain he knows more than he’s said.”

“Yes, but we can handle Stark. It’s Phillips and MI6 we need to deal with. I take it that mess last night was your doing?”

When Evie simply stared at her, Peggy sighed. “I’m going to hope that it was a necessary kill, Genevieve.”

“No one is going to touch my son,” Genevieve said darkly, her eyes stormy as she glares at Peggy.

“A son? Are you sure?”

“Blood work confirmed it.”

“What exactly did they do to Barnes?”

“I’m still not sure. He was like Rogers, except not as resilient. His strength and speed were a little less developed, but his senses were better, especially smell.”

Peggy nodded. “Then your son will probably show similar tendencies.”

“It’s not just him,” she said slowly, watching the other’s reaction.

“Whatever do you mean?”

“My bloodwork is a little different as well. Nothing drastic like James, but there’s been changes to my glucose levels. I’m better able to resist extreme colds.”

“’Resist’ how?” she asked sharply.

Evie glanced at the door and then back to Peggy, her voice a faint thread of sound.

“If I’m right…then I could survive the cryochambers Stark and I designed.”

“That’s,” Peggy sucked in a sharp breath, furiously thinking through the implications. “Genevieve, that could be a major breakthrough.”

“I know. I also know what it means for us. If they take him from me, I could be used to breed a new crop of soldiers.”

“Oh my God,” Peggy gasped in horror, “you can’t be serious? No one would ever…”

“MI6 tried last night,” she said, cutting Carter off mid word. “And they’ll try again. MI6, the SSR, Hydra, anyone who knows will be trying to take me, Margaret.”

She slid a protective hand over her stomach, her eyes haunted when she gazed at the other woman.

“Without James I’m a walking target. I wasn’t trained like you all were. Put me in a lab and I can destroy the world, but out here I’m just a terrified mother with nothing left to lose.”

“You almost took my eye out last night,” Peggy told her. “And I’d wager with very little training we could get you up to combat readiness. Maybe not Super Soldier level, but definitely someone the rest of them will think twice about going after.”

Evie licked her lips. “I can’t stay here. Not if he’s really gone.”

Peggy nodded, helping her to her feet.

“I’ll talk to Howard, he’ll help, we both will. You won’t be alone, Evie, I promise you.”

She swallowed hard, glancing at the marker showing the last known location of the only man she’d ever really love.

“I need him found, Peggy. Body, dog tags, a photo…something. Anything.”

Peggy was loath to promise her something she knew she couldn’t deliver on. “We’ll try, Genevieve,” she said instead. “But first, we need to get you out of England. To get you and your son safe.”

“Jimmy,” she whispered, making the other woman look down at her with compassion. “After his father.”

She glanced up with wet eyes and a steel spine. “If he’s all I have left, his name is going to be Jimmy.”

Post-credits scene for Part 3 – no words, just music and video

Ruelle- The Other Side

Evie moves through the streets of New York in a daze. The city moving fast around her whereas she moves slowly, eyes unfocused and obviously caught in a distraught, fugue state. Snippets of the past appear in the windows of buildings:

Their slow dance, a lingering glance, the drag of her fingers down James’ jaw.

The image spins to her in a lab, Stark and Carter coming in and out, showing her prototypes of various pieces of equipment, of Carter showing her how to shoot, to throw a punch, to drop and spin to get away from an attack. Nothing too strenuous, the idea is defense, not attack. She has no interest in anything, moving on autopilot as they tell her to.

The image loops over itself, showing her standing over a grave. James and the two younger girls’ names are written on them. A young woman (Becca) walks up to her and hands her a letter. They stare at the marker before Becca gives her a hug and leaves. Evie presses her hands to her stomach, much more pronounced now as the song shifts to:

Ruelle -Slip away

As she walks back to the Playhouse in New York, she moves through the labs to the cryostorage area. She locks the door from the inside. The camera and reel are on a table. She adds the letter from Becca then picks up a syringe of blue liquid. She injects herself, then climbs into the tube, pulling it shut.

The last lines of the song plays as a tear runs down her cheek and ice covers the inside of the tube.

Chapter Text

Part 4

Song-Meet me on the Battlefield – Svrcina

Chapter Thirty-Two

Present Day

The road whipped by him, eaten under his motorcycle’s tires, the city slipping past without him ever really seeing it. Sam’s heated words ran in a loop in his head.

‘You really are a killer, aren’t you?’

Bucky didn’t think they’d ever really leave him, because in that instant, Sam had believed what he was saying. It twisted something up inside him. Something trembling that for a fleeting moment thought he’d found a friend in this timeline. Someone he could count on when things went sideways.

Apparently, the first and last person he could do that with had been ‘missing’ for the past two years. Not the first time for that, either, he supposed.

He had gone to discuss his new team and left with a sealed manila envelope and a court-hearing date; and one less person he could believe in. His fingers revved the engine a little harder than necessary, the bike pulling forward in a fit of emotion he wasn’t ready to acknowledge.

He needed to get back to the Watchtower. To find out what new nightmare was on the horizon, but for now he drove and let the road eat away his feelings once more. He thought back to the last time he’d seen Steve, before he’d gone back in time to have the life he wanted more than any other, with the woman he loved more than life itself.

‘It’s something I need to do, Bucky.’

‘I know. I knew it then. You two were made for each other.’

Steve hesitated, as if there was something he wanted to say, but couldn’t. Maybe it was all in Bucky’s head.

‘You could always come with me. You know there’d be a place for you.’

Bucky had shaken his head. ‘I’m tired, Stevie. All that fighting, I can’t go back to that.’

Steve gave him a boyish grin. ‘And this place has been any quieter?’

Bucky had laughed at that. ‘Not really, no. But he’s going to need me if it works. That thing ain’t light after all,’ he’d said, nodding his chin at the shield.

Steve chuckled, raising his hand for his best friend and brother to clasp, pulling him in for a hard hug goodbye.

‘Don’t do anything stupid,’ Steve murmured.

‘How could I?’ Bucky choked out as he stepped back and away. ‘You’re taking all the stupid with you. I’ll see you later, buddy. Give Peggy a kiss for me.’

‘You got it, brother,’ Steve said with forced cheer, neither man needing to say what they were really feeling. They’d see each other again one day, they were sure of it.

Bucky watched as the other man resolutely turned and walked away, the breeze stealing his words before they reached Steve’s ears.

‘Til the end of the line.’

Chapter Text

Chapter Thirty-Three

Bucky watched the screen play the video of the ship. It wasn’t from their timeline. He pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a deep, resigned sigh, all this time-travel multiverse crap just gave him a headache. He had no idea how Strange managed it. The number four seemed to wink in the darkness of space at them mockingly.

“Aliens,” he muttered. “Androids, aliens, and wizards. That asshole was right, again.”

“Maybe they are friendly aliens,” Alexei said, a broad smile on his face.

Bucky glared at him. “The goatee makes you look like a tool.”

Yelena snorted, “The whole outfit does that, the goatee just makes it really obvious.”

Bucky smirked at her and together they parroted, “With a ZZZZZZ!”

Ava turned her head away to keep from laughing at the hurt look on Alexei’s face.

“Not to be a downer or anything,” Walker broke in. “But shouldn’t we be a bit more worried about the aliens?”

“What did Sam give you?” Yelena asked, pointing at the folder Bucky had in his hand.

“Huh? Oh, probably legal documents. I haven’t checked.”

Yelena frowned. “Probably should, you know, because of the whole space issue thing.”

Bucky rolled his eyes, huffed out a small breath and turned on his heel. “Fine. Trace the ship, see if you can’t hack S.H.I.E.L.D. or whatever they’re calling it these days and I’ll go die of papercuts.”

“That’s a thing you know,” Bob said from the reading chair by the window.

The group turned to stare at him, making him purse his lips and scrunch down deeper. “Just saying, the Chinese called it lingchi, the ‘slow slicing’. What?” he asked incredulously. “I read. It’s what I do.”

“I just can’t with you right now,” Bucky said, waving Yelena towards the other man.

He headed for the conference room on the next floor down. It was close enough he could be kept abreast on whatever Yelena and the others found out, but not so close he’d have to listen to them squabble. Some days he really did feel like a kindergarten teacher.

The door slid open with a small woosh, the steel and glass table gleaming under the bright lights.

“Lights to 50%,” he told their AI, breathing a sigh of relief when the system did as commanded. Sometimes it was just too bright for him. His enhancements were a bit sporadic like that. Enhanced speed, stamina, strength, and healing. But what healed and when, that was a bit more of a crapshoot. The most damage was dealt with first, but a bullet to the head or heart would still kill him. Enough damage would still kill him. He will die, one day; though the when was probably anybody’s guess.

The envelope was a faded manila. Same type as found in any office around the world. The front though…well, that’s where things started to get interesting.

In tight print in the center was his name and serial number.

Barnes, James Buchanan; Sergeant; 32557038.

Well, that didn’t bode well, he thought darkly. Nothing from his past ever did in his opinion.

He ripped the envelope open. It wasn’t sealed shut, just the standard metal prongs bent sideways. Inside was a brown personnel folder, an 8mm film, a sealed letter, and a scrap of paper with Sam’s handwriting on it.

If you’re reading this, know I didn’t know. Not sure anyone alive did. It was found in a hidden room in the Stark Bunker. Contents were verified…when you’re ready, call me. I’ll tell you where to go. – Sam

Like Bucky thought, nothing good. He held the reel up and stared at it. Small script marked the faded paper label with the initials G.R.S ’45. He didn’t know what that meant.

The folder was similarly marked, Shaw, G.R., Dr. 1944-45. Well, that gave a bit more information, but not by much. He flipped open the folder.

Bucky felt his breath hitch, the light overhead flickering as the room grew and shrank as he stared at the image, his vision going spotty. Anxiety spike; something he’d had a few years now to try and come to terms with. Didn’t mean he could control when they happened, but he was getting better at managing them.

The small id photo was of a woman. Pretty, with dark hair and haunted eyes staring back at him. The image was black and white; faded and slightly yellowed around the white edges. He picked it up with unsteady fingers, the metal denting the paperboard as they spasmed.

He had a flash of a teasing smile. The glitter of green eyes. The smell of lilies, and a throaty laugh that made his heart start pounding. He slammed the photo onto the table, spider-webbing the glass. Stumbling from the folder and the flashes of other, of memory he didn’t remember, he stumbled against the closest wall, sliding down its solid length.

“What the hell?” he gasped, collapsing to his knees, his hands gripping his head. He bowed over, the metal hand pressed against the carpeted floor, fingers sinking into the grey carpet as he struggled to control his breathing. Something was wrong. Really wrong. He didn’t have flashbacks like this anymore. Not while waking anyways. The nightmares were a different beast.

He punched the floor with his real hand, letting the pain reverberate up his arm and ground him in the now. The pain was good. A reminder that he was here and alive. His shrink hated when he did it, but it worked, so he kept doing it. Maybe one day he wouldn’t need the pain but today was apparently not one of those days.

He took a few more minutes to steady himself before wavering back to the table and the folder. He pushed the photo away, concentrating on the information provided.

Name: Genevieve Rosalyn Shaw

Alias: Eve/Evie

Born: November 7, 1911, Berkshire Downs, North Wessex, England

Position: Doctor at RAF Middle Wallop/Station 449/Head of Joint Research Science Department of the Strategic Scientific Reserve UK Division

He frowned, reading through the clinical notations on the woman’s position. The parts that weren’t redacted anyways. She’d been a researcher, then a doctor, then a researcher again under the SSR. He paused at that. That meant she’d been involved with Phillips, Carter and Stark. The records showed expertise in chemical weapons, in cryogenics, and in second generation soldiers.

“Second generation?”

‘The tests, of which there is thankfully only one, show minimal genetic infiltration of the fetus at this time, though there are chromosomal variances due to the telomere cap length on 2 and 11, which may suggest advanced healing capabilities or sensory perception in line with the progenitor’s original variances. The only surety we have is the gestation is slightly longer than normal. Ten months, instead of nine. Additionally, a slower heart rate than the typical 120-160 beats per minute. The average is 90, which leads to the supposition that slower development may also allow for cryostasis confinement without injury. It is not ideal and under other circumstances, would never be authorized.’

The records included blood work and heart monitoring for ten months. Then the handwriting changed, the notations marked M.C., Cpt. he frowned. Those were Peggy’s initials, if he remembered correctly.

‘Against orders, Dr. Shaw injected herself with the newest cryo-formula. Experimental doesn’t begin to describe how risky this was for her. As the leading researcher in creating the formula, she knew it’s risks better than any of us, but still, to risk not just herself, but her child…her actions are her own. Her reasons, her own. The only thing we can do now is respect her wishes and keep them both safe. I’m transferring her to the Bunker. With the Hiroshima detonation and potential radiation fall-out, it’s the safest place for them. It’s twelve feet below the surface. Reinforced with its own independent power source, water and air filtration system.’

‘Howard Stark was livid. Understandably, given the potential of the new formula to save others, but Evie was adamant. Cryo was her last resort. She refused to allow them to be used by anyone. The sequence for opening the chamber was to be known by only one person. One person that we all thought was dead. If he lives…if he’s able to be found and saved, then she left him directions on the accompanying film, if not, then they are to stay asleep, forever.’

‘We will respect Dr. Shaw’s request because of the brilliant work she did for the Allies, but mostly, because she was our friend. She deserved better than this and if there is a God, I pray that he allows her the release she sought. Not of death, but of a life she gave up hers to wait for.’

‘This file and film are to be left in the Bunker with his name and serial number on the file. If, somehow Sergeant Barnes is rescued, he is to be notified that the decision lies with him as per her request. All further directions are in the film. The chamber, as long as it was not moved, is to be found at the following coordinates, behind a wall with President Ford’s photo.’

Bucky sat down heavily, the conference room chair creaking ominously. Why would a doctor risk herself and her child for Bucky? He didn’t know…

He grabbed the photo once more. Staring at the face as if he could force the woman to talk.

“Who are you?” he croaked. “How do I…how do I know you?”

A flash of smiling green eyes burned across his mind.

He wished he had a color image. He needed…he needed to know if her eyes were green.

“Shit!” he said, shoving the file back and scrambling across the table for the 8mm film canister.

G.R.S., Dr. ’45.

That was after he’d been declared dead. Could it…could he have known her? He needed a film projector.

“Locate closest 8mm film projector.”

The chime of the computer had him holding his breath.

“Location found.”

“Where?”

“Sub-basement two. Storage room E. Shelf 3-F.”

Bucky was up and out of the room before the computer could finish speaking. There was no way. This had to be some sick sort of joke, or an experiment gone wrong, not…not what it sounded like.

“Bucky?!” Yelena hollered as he raced past her towards the elevator.

He didn’t stop, couldn’t, he had to know.

“What’s wrong?” Yelena said, slipping past the closing door to the elevator. “What happened?”

“I…” Bucky’s voice shook. He couldn’t say it. It couldn’t be true, but what if it was? He shook his head, the metal film canister denting under the pressure of his grip.

“Okay,” Yelena soothed, realizing he was starting to lose it. “Okay. Let’s take a deep breath. Whatever it is, it can’t be that bad, right? I mean, Bob hasn’t gone dark side again.”

Bucky gave her a broken laugh, the edges brittle and sharper than she’d ever heard from him. Carefully, she placed her hand on his shoulder.

“Bucky, come on, speak to me.”

“Sub-basement 2.” The elevator chimed, opening on a dark hall. The pair just stood there, staring down it as the lights fluttered on one at a time.

He couldn’t speak. Just numbly stumbled out of the elevator, eyes scanning the doors until he came to E. The standard metal door lock crumpled under his left hand, the clang as it fell to the concrete floor over loud in the silence.

1…2…shelf 3. He slid his fingers across the metal shelf until he came to F, tearing the box down and the wooden crate apart with his bare hands.

“Okay then, you were losing your mind over an old projector. Good to know,” Yelena quipped, her words teasing but tone concerned.

“I need a power outlet.”

Yelena glanced around, kneeling to look under the shelves. “There,” she said, pointing towards the door.

He picked the machine up in one hand, stalking back towards the doorway. The machine had seen better days, but it whirled to life, the light flickering weakly. He didn’t waste time, discarding the case and fitting the film reel onto the take-up reels. His hands moved without conscious direction. A task he’d done dozens of times, 80-plus years ago.

The first flicker of image bounced off the opposite wall, the sound tinny and warped slightly as it caught and spun. After a few seconds, the image stabilized, and he felt like all the air had been punched out of his lungs.

“Doc,” he whispered, the sound punched out of him as he crumpled to the floor.

Yelena gave him a startled glance, settling beside the projector, but otherwise leaving him to fall apart by himself.

“I really hope this blasted machine is on this time,” the woman groused, grimacing. She glanced past the camera and back.

“My name is Doctor Genevieve Shaw,” she said formally, her spine straight as she sat in the single metal chair he could see. “And this message is for Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes only. Howard, if you touch it, I swear I will make all your hair fall out, again.”

Bucky huffed out a laugh, tears in his eyes.

“As I said, this message is for Sergeant Barnes and only him.”

She took a deep breath before slowly letting it out. “Today is August 7^th, 1945. Yesterday, the US Army, against all our warnings and threats, dropped the world’s first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. Stark and Carter believe they will detonate another one in a day or two.  Our early reports are saying over 150,000 dead, 150,000.” She closed her eyes in pain.

“My past should have been redacted. No one should know my name or role in the war, but James, if you’re seeing this, then you know why I’ve elected to take this step. Peggy doesn’t understand. She’s horrified I’m going to kill us both, but I created the cryo-serum, I know it better than any of them and I know it will work, because there is no possible way I’m going to go through this without you by my side.”

She swallowed hard. “I don’t know what you’ll remember. Stark said…Stark said if the rumors were true, if the photos were real, then they must have done something more to you than what we initially thought. We located blood at one of the sites. It matched what I had on file for you, but there was something else. A mutation that I didn’t understand before they told me about Erskine. It wasn’t exactly what we thought it might be, but it was damn close. I went back through our letters, noted dates and locations. We knew they did something to you in Austria, before Rogers got you out, but it was nothing like this.”

Bucky winced at the reminder of the Hydra facility, metal fingers gouging the concrete floor under his hand. On screen, Evie bit her lip.

“This was more refined, more advanced and closer to Steve’s blood work. Peggy thinks that’s how you must have survived. Steve didn’t know. Don’t blame him or Peggy. We didn’t find the blood until after Steve was declared missing. It was a bonding moment for us girls, losing the men we loved.” She shook her head, soft dark curls – brown, if he remembered correctly- bouncing around her face.

“When MI6 finally came for me, I already knew I was pregnant. Not far along, just two months, and I didn’t tell them either. This was…it was ours. He, was ours, and I didn’t want them involved. By April I was barely able to keep food down in the mornings, and anything cabbage-like sent me straight to the loo. Peggy knew, and when Stark confront us, I told him as well. Might have been better if I didn’t do it on the 1^st though.” She gave the camera a weak smile. “He accused me of having a poor sense of humor and I immediately thought of you and broke down in tears.”

“Why?” Yelena asked from behind him. Bucky didn’t turn around. Couldn’t.

“A practical joke I did on her backfired. She stabbed me in the ass for it. Twice.”

He could feel Yelena’s eyes boring into the back of his head. “When?”

“1943, my first day in England. First day in the war.”

“After that, I was more lab-rat than scientist. The Colonel wanted tests- wanted to know if our son could hold the key to Erskine’s serum. Stark tried to hold him off, I’ll give him that, but their attitudes changed. I wasn’t put on any new projects. Was relegated increasingly to dealing with paperwork instead of research. When I hit nine months, I had a guard and nurse dodging my every step and was restricted to S.H.I.E.L.D.’s playhouse. I knew then that they’d try and take him.”

She slid her hands over her belly protectively and Bucky wanted to smash something at the haunted look she had. Haunted and “fierce. You were always so damn fierce,” he muttered wistfully.

“I confided in Peggy. Unlike Janet, she’d been a true friend through it all and she understood, after Steve, why I was choosing to do it this way. I don’t believe she agreed, but she understood, and what’s more, she assisted. She promised that the chamber would be moved into the Bunker. Promised to make sure we’d be protected until you came for us.”

She took a shaky breath, her eyes watery but direct as she leaned towards the camera, seemingly staring at Bucky through space and time. “I want you know that no matter what, no matter what you decide or when you decide it, I do not regret loving you. No matter what you’ve done, I know that you are still the man I met back in ’43.”

She looked straight into the camera and said seriously, her voice strong but shaky. “You are a good man, James Barnes, and our son will be a good man because of it. I love you. Always. Whatever else, remember that.”

She sat back, brushing away tears from her eyes; her face impassive as if she hadn’t just shattered Bucky’s world and left him wheezing through a full-on panic attack. Yelena reached to pause the film, but he waved her back, “Don’t,” he groaned harshly. “Don’t touch it.”

“Bucky, this can wait, you’re…”

Bucky punched a hole in the floor, glaring at her over his shoulder. “Don’t touch her,” he snarled threateningly.

Yelena put her hands up. “It’s a film, not a person and it’s waited 80 years, another minute for you to process isn’t going to kill you.”

Bucky shook his head dismissively as he refocused on the film. There was a pause, a skip in the film, before she spoke again.

“If you wish to move forward with the defrosting – I really need to come up with a better name than that – you just need to enter our song in the keypad, no punctuation or spaces.” She gave the camera a soft, wistful smile that made his breath hitch. “You told me once you’d fill my dance card, Sergeant; I’m still holding you to that.”

Bucky felt tears on his cheeks. “Haven’t danced since ’44, Doc,” he whispered, reaching out like he could touch her though the dust-mottled yellow light.

The film flipped loudly as the tape finally ran out, leaving them sitting in stunned silence.

Yelena cleared her throat awkwardly as he scrubbed a hand over his face. “A kid?”

“Its…” he took a shaky breath, hands steepled over his mouth and nose. “It’s possible.”

“When?”

“Christmas, ’44. The last time I was on leave before Stalingrad.”

“Why didn’t you remember?” she asked, hitting the nail on the head. Why had it taken so long for him to remember her?

“Traumatic brain injury. Electroshock and 70-odd years on ice. Take your pick,” he groused, pushing himself upright and over to collect the camera and film. He wasn’t leaving them here.

“Is it real?” she asked hesitantly as they headed back towards the elevator. “She wasn’t just…a plant or something.”

Bucky clenched his fist in agitation, but Yelena was right to question something so far out of left field. He should have remembered before this.

“If this was in ’45, after Steve went in the water, then the only people who knew about her and I was her handler, Stark, Carter, and the Colonel.”

“Her handler?”

“Watchdog might be more accurate. Janet Law, an SOE nurse turned spy. Not sure if Evie ever realized how long they’d been watching her. Carter would have known though.”

“She was a spy?”

“No, Organic Chemist and Doctor.”

“Sounds smart.”

Bucky glanced at the floor, a small smile on his face as he remembered her dressing down Womack in the hanger. So much of his life had been hidden away from him.

“She was. Is. God, this is messed up.”

Yelena snorted. “Understatement. So, what are you going to do?”

Bucky opened his mouth to retort when she held up a hand, her face serious. “No, think about this for a minute. What do you really know? A woman you didn’t even remember says she’s carrying your kid from 1945. What’s the chance something went wrong, or is going to go wrong when you try to defrost her? Who could we even trust to have that conversation? Sam? Valentina? Is this even something you want? A woman who has no idea how long she’s been asleep and a kid? Is that something you could handle, now?”

Bucky snapped his mouth shut. Damn it, she had a point. Valentina would try and use them, Sam might help, or he might not. The government would definitely want to get their hands on them and Bucky…well, Bucky wasn’t the same man she laughed and cried and made love to under a Christmas sky, their entire future laying ahead of them.

He needed to talk to someone. Get some perspective on this from an outside source. He dug his cell out, flipped to his twelve contacts, thank you very much, Doctor Raynor, and dialed.

“White boy, you break your new toy so soon?”

Bucky huffed out a laugh despite the circumstances. “Shuri, I need your help.”

Shuri’s teasing tone dropped, “What happened?”

“My past.”

There was a knowing pause. “My place, or yours?”

“Bring Okoye, and your med kit.”

“Give me a few hours and I’ll be on your doorstep, and Bucky? Try not to do anything stupid until I get there.”

Bucky bit back a shock of emotion at the phrase. He nodded, even as the call disconnected and turned to Yelena.

“I need to get to Flushing Meadows. Now.”

Chapter Text

Chapter Thirty-Four

It was shockingly easy to gain entry to the Bunker. It’d been cleared out of everything of importance. Just some crumpled papers and fading paint. The photo of Ford was where Carter’s notes had said. He was surprised Sam hadn’t broken the wall down himself, given that he must have read the file and probably watched the film. It was something that sat heavily on Bucky’s mind. He wasn’t sure if he appreciated Sam not going after Evie, or if he hated him for it.

If he really was Bucky’s friend, shouldn’t he have tried to help her and his son?

Or maybe it was because of his parting shot about Bucky being a killer? If he’d watched the film, he’d know Evie didn’t believe that. Or maybe it was Evie he had been referencing all along. God, he just didn’t know.

“Hey! Watch the hair!” Yelena yelled at him, ducking away from the bits of broken wall and plaster as he punched his way through. It was concrete. A double thickness with a reinforced ¼ inch of stainless steel, and for anyone else, probably would have required a welding torch.

Bucky just hit it really, really hard. A lot.

The groan of the metal bending was swallowed up by the hum and beep of machinery. Bucky tore a large enough hole out of the wall for him to duck through, his entire body vibrating as he stepped up beside the large steel tube. There was a glass window at the face showing that same peaches and cream skin he had flashes of. The soft, light brown hair. He drew his fingers down the glass, remembering the feel of that skin and wanted to scream for all the years lost. For the memories he could only partially remember. He’d have to go back to his notebooks and see if she was hidden away in the memories he could only sort of remember.

A monitor was attached to the top of the capsule. Two heartbeats, dreadfully slow, but with good rhythm and blood oxygen levels. He waved Shuri in. Yelena and Okoye standing guard in the room beyond.

Shuri stepped up beside him, shouldering him out of the way. She attached a cable to the monitor, connecting the portable computer on her arm to the old technology.

Bucky held his breath, his right hand spread over the glass as if he could protect her.

“Good,” Shuri said. “They are both showing good numbers.”

She gave him an encouraging smile. “I can attach the acoustic levitation pods and we can move her in the Talon back to the Watchtower.” She gripped his shoulder tight, dark flesh against cold Vibranium. “I can wake her up. I promise.”

Bucky nodded slowly as she watched him.

“You do want her to wake, do you not?”

“Yes,” he said tightly.

“Then why are you panicking?”

“I’m not panicking,” he denied, giving her his resting bitch face.

Shuri just laughed at it. “You are. You are freaking out over a woman you knocked up eighty-three years ago.”

He rolled his eyes, pulling away from her as she sobered. “You are freaking out.”

“You said that already,” he said, kneeling to attach the pods to the base in a single line.

“No, I mean, this is terrifying for you, and you are just…doing it, without thinking about the consequences.”

“I’ve thought of the consequences.”

“Have you?” she asked, grabbing his arm as he moved past her. “Have you really thought of what this will mean? For her, but also for you? Do you even remember her?”

Bucky jerked his arm away from Shuri, grabbed a dust covered vase off an end table and hurled it at the far wall.

“No! Is that what you wanted to hear? That until I saw her picture, I didn’t remember her at all! That her voice unlocked my memories, that Hydra and S.H.I.E.L.D. and all of them took her from me!” he stalked up to Shuri, ignoring how she raised a hand to keep Okoye from interfering.

“I lost her, Shuri. Lost the only woman who understood me, who I had a real connection to. I never told Steve, because I was afraid. After Austria…I knew something was wrong. With me and with Steve. I didn’t think I’d survive the war and suddenly I was able to do things I shouldn’t have been able to. I wasn’t Steve though. He was good, all the way through. Me, not so much, but through it all, I had her. She was mine. My calm in the storm. My peace in the chaos of war and I left her. For close to a century. Her and my kid,” he spit out angrily.

“I’m a killer, Shuri, we all know it. It’s easy for me, the violence; making those decisions in a split second. What is she coming back to? I’m not the same man she knew. I’ll never be that man again. So no, I don’t have the slightest clue if this is what I want to do, if it’s even safe for them to be around me, but I won’t take any more of her life from her. Not her.”

Shuri’s voice was gentle but firm as she stared him down. “You are not a killer.”

“I am.”

“No, you were a tool, Sergeant Barnes. One that was used for evil purposes, but you, the man, are not evil.”

“Agree to disagree. Either way, she’s getting out of that damn thing,” he slapped the power on the lifts, the hum hurting his ears and making him wince. He pushed past Shuri to the head of the cryo-chamber, maneuvering it out of the room and through the Bunker. Yelena took point, Okoye the rear, no one spoke as they moved in silence. Shuri walked just behind him to the left, monitoring their vitals.

A funeral procession for the still living.

“You are wrong,” Okoye said as they strapped the chamber into the Talon’s belly. “You are not the man you were, but neither are you the killer they made you.”

He scoffed and felt the edge of her blade at his throat.

“If I believed you were still a threat to this world, Wolf, Ayo would have put you down in that cave. You are free from everything but the memories and the guilt and when your woman awakens, you would do well to tell her everything. You cannot create a life based on secrets and lies. Not and survive.”

Bucky carefully moved the blade away from his throat with his left hand, the metal glinting. “I’m not who she remembers.”

“Neither will she be.”

“What?”

“She lived for how long before making this decision? Nine, ten months? She has experienced things you have not. She will have her own demons to fight. You might as well fight them together.”

Bucky watched in bemusement as she walked back to the flight deck, settling beside Shuri at the controls. He glanced back at Evie, moving slowly as the ship lifted and the reflector panels turned them invisible. He always noted the slight shift in the vibrations of the ship when it did that.

He tried to remember their last conversation, tried to remember what they’d said to each other, but could only remember the feel of her skin against his. The soft laugh in his ear turned gasp and groan. He closed his eyes, a shudder working its way down his spine. God, just remembering was doing him in.

“Are you okay?” Yelena asked.

“Not even close.”

Yelena pursed her lips as she came up on the other side of the chamber. “Do you remember the song she mentioned?”

Bucky nodded, huffing out a laugh. He grinned boyishly, startling the Russian, “Couldn’t forget it if I tried. It was one of our favorites.”

Yelena raised a brow in surprise when he started to laugh.

“Haven’t danced since ’44. Wasn’t lying about that at least,” he said, brushing the glass with his fingertips.

“Tell me about her.”

Bucky smiled, “She was everything I never knew I wanted. Smart, loyal, kind, fiercely protective.  She could be cruel, cut you down with a look. She had an air about her, a knowing of the world I hadn’t met before.”

He frowned, trying to pull the memory forward. “She was a chemist and worked at one of the research centers at the beginning of the war. Something happened in India, something bad. I can’t…I can’t remember it all, but I know it haunted her. There were…casualties. People died. She blamed herself. Called herself a…”

‘I’m a killer, James,’ she cried against his chest as he held her shaking form. ‘I tried so hard to make it right, to save as many as my research took, but every time I think I’ve made some form of amends, we lose another one. Those boys shouldn’t have died tonight. Senseless, useless waste of life and I’m to blame!’

‘You’re not,’ he’d told her, lifting her face to his, his lips brushing hers in a soothing manner. ‘You’re a healer, Doc and you did everything you could for those boys.’

‘It’s not enough,’ she denied. ‘It’ll never be enough.’

“Bucky?” Yelena asked carefully, snapping him out of the memory.

“Never mind,” he told her. Rubbing his forehead, he turned away from Yelena and Evie.

“You are remembering,” Shuri said lowly as she set the Talon down gently on the Watchtower’s helipad.

He nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

“That is good. You took many damaging electrocutions, not to mention the beatings, over your years as the Winter Soldier and while the deprogramming I did was as close to flawless as possible, your mind was fractured very badly, there are bound to be missing memories. It shall take time to get them back.”

“Will I?” he finally asked as they moved towards the exit.

“Eventually, but not all. You will probably always have gaps. Small things you don’t remember.”

“I remember the smell of lilies. The feel of her hands.”

Shuri grinned. “Marriages have been made on less,” she teased him, making him blanch.

She laughed loudly, slapping him on the back. “Ah, you white boys are all the same, panicking over a little commitment. Come, umnakwethu, let us make you a family man.”

Chapter Text

Chapter Thirty-Five

“You’ve got to be shitting me.”

Bucky grunted at Walker’s assessment of the situation, pushing past him to lock the cryotube into position beside the surgical table.

“And you’re just going to pop the top and tell her what? ‘Hey hunny, sorry I’m a freaking century late?’”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “Something like that,” he grumbled. Honestly, he hadn’t thought that far ahead.

When Shuri was sure they had everything set up, he stood in front of the keypad, his finger hovering over the keys.

Yelena’s hand settled on his wrist. “You don’t have to do this right now, you know that, right?”

He blew out a long breath, his shoulders squaring. “Yeah,” he said stiffly. “I do.”

W-E-L-L-M-E-E-T-A-G-A-I-N he spelled out carefully. His thumb rested over the bright green glowing button. He took a breath, held it, and pressed down.

The squeal of alarms made them jerk away in surprise, the chamber decompressing as freezing air was forced out of the seals, obscuring their view of the room. Bucky took a step closer when the top popped open an inch, his fingers curling under the edge, shoving it all the way off.

Leaning over, his breath hitched at the feel of trembling fingers along his stubbled jaw; green eyes gazing up at him blearily.

“James,” she whispered faintly, her face open and loving. It was almost too much for Bucky. He barely remembered her, his memories in fragments and out of order, but…but he remembered the feel of her fingers. Remembered her smell.

“Lilies,” he murmured, making her smile as he reached out to slide his fingers through the soft fall of a curl. “How do you still smell like lilies?”

She smiled, her mouth open to reply when the alarms blared and she twisted onto her side in pain, a stifled scream tearing past her lips.

Shuri shoved him out of the way. “Move! Bucky, move!”

“What’s wrong? Shuri, what…”

“Jimmy,” Evie gasped, her hands cradling her swollen stomach.

Shuri slid a handheld electronic stethoscope over Evie’s stomach. The sound of a strong heartbeat filled the air. She looked up and met Bucky’s fear filled gaze.

“It’s time. Everyone out. Bucky, get them out of here!”

He moved on autopilot, herding the others to the door and slamming it shut in their faces. Shuri and Okoye were trying to move her to the medical table when Bucky walked over, scooping her up in his arms as if she weighed nothing and placing her gingerly on the table.

“Well,” she said breathlessly, gazing up into his face. “That’s certainly new.”

He flushed at her words, retreating to the wall to give the Wakandans better access, but he felt her gaze follow him into the shadows. He suddenly felt incredibly self-conscious of his arm and general appearance.

He wasn’t the same twenty-six-year-old she knew. He frowned at the floor when he realized he was technically older than she was now. Forty-three to her…he did a quick calculation, thirty-seven. Choking back a laugh he realized there was still six-years between them, just in the wrong direction; though technically, he was 110 and she was 116. Scrubbing a hand over his face and hair, he shook his head bemusedly. Time was so weird when you’ve been frozen.

“What are you doing?” Shuri hissed at him from Evie’s side. She jerked her head towards Evie, her painfilled panting making Bucky want to hit something. “Get over here and help.”

To be honest, the entire birth was freaking him out. He’d had barely five minutes with Evie before the contractions came on hard and fast.

“Too many years,” Shuri explained, rushing to get the last of her equipment set up. “For the birth to be delayed this long, it’s no wonder she’s ready. You must make sure we have a place for your son,” she commanded him. “In the Talon, we brought a NICU incubator, send one of the others to collect it and set it up over there.”

When he frowned at her she patted his chest. “It is just a precaution, my friend. Now go, I need to speak to your woman before we really start.”

“Really start?!” Bucky’s voice broke embarrassingly.

Shuri laughed at him when he blanched, “Yes, really start. This is just the beginning; some women take hours to deliver.”

He hit the doorway before the screaming started, and kind of wished he’d just kept running afterwards.

Shuri waited until the door closed before placing a soothing hand on her forehead, willing Evie to meet her eyes.

“How bad is the pain?”

Evie bit her lip hard enough to draw blood. “Hydrochloric acid is a bug bite compared to this.”

Shuri smirked, “A fellow scientist, good, you can help me educate these plebeians. What was the plan when you went under?”

Evie bit back a scream as a contraction rolled through her. “I was at 46 weeks. His O2 levels were good, temperature, all the normal things, everything except his heart rate.”

“90 beats per minute, Bucky said.”

Evie grimaced. “I cannot believe he’s still using that stupid name.” Gritting her teeth she breathed through another contraction. “90-95 was average. High stress pushed it to 98 once, but it settled pretty quickly.”

“Bradycardia?”

“None of the normal symptoms were noted. His oxygen rates have always been good. No developmental issues that we could tell.” She paused long enough for Shuri to glance down at her in concern.

“What aren’t you telling me?”

Evie bit her lip, not sure if she could trust this strange woman.

“I built Bucky’s new arm,” Shuri told her sharply. “We helped deprogram him. He stayed with us in Wakanda for almost two years playing farmer. My brother basically adopted the white boy, now tell me what you are hiding so my God-nephew is not hurt during this delivery.”

Evie’s head snapped up at that. “God-nephew?”

Shuri waved away the question with a wicked grin. “Something between God-son and nephew. It will annoy Bucky greatly to use a made-up-word during introductions.”

Evie’s laugh turned into a groan as her water broke and Shuri and Okoye helped her to sit up on the medical table.

“He’s like James,” Evie said in a rush as a sheet was placed over her lap. “He has chromosomal abnormalities at 11 and 2.”

Shuri paused, looking up at her in shock. “Senses and muscle growth?”

Evie nodded. “Gene mapping and chromosome changes were too new of a field when I went under. I tried to back-trace the blood work, but I don’t know enough about what it could mean. He’ll be the first natural born second-generation super soldier, but I don’t know what that means. Not really.”

Shuri nodded slowly. “We’ll need blood work done then,” she said. “We can do most of it here. I brought my computer, but if I had known, I would have insisted we do this in Haiti at my new lab.”

“Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t know you, or Wakanda, and from the very short time that I’ve been awake, I fear it’s been more than a few years since I went under.”

Shuri and Okoye exchanged glances. “Yeah,” Shuri drawled slowly. “A few more.”

Evie’s nails scraped along the metal table as another contraction hit.

“Just breathe through it,” Okoye told her seriously. “How you handle this will be how you handle the rest of your life and you must be strong, to be with the White Wolf. He will not make things easy for you and your son.”

Evie’s face scrunched up in confusion.

“She means, Sergeant Barnes,” Shuri explained. “He is not an easy man to love.”

Evie rubbed a hand over her stomach, her voice pitched low. “I never had a problem with that,” she said, raising her eyes to meet his in the open door. “Loving him was the easy part. It was the losing him that almost broke me.”

Bucky placed the NICU on the desk as he past it. Okoye taking his place to get it set-up. “Evie,” he said haltingly, running his knuckles down her cheek gently. “A lot’s happened since you went under.”

Evie gave him a condescending smirk, reaching up to tug on a loose strand of hair. “I figured,” she teased, nose scrunching.

“It’s not just the time, it’s me, what I’ve done…it’s a lot.”

Frowning slightly, her fingers twisted in his hair as another contraction hit hard. “I know what you…what you did,” she gasped wetly, blood staining the inside of her thighs.

Shuri kneeled to check on the baby’s progress. “He’s cresting,” she said seriously. “On the next contraction, you must push. Understand?”

Evie nodded.

“You can’t,” Bucky said.

“What?” Shuri asked, “She needs to push, Bucky, she can’t just…”

“No,” he said, cutting her off. “I mean you can’t know what I’ve done.”

Evie scrambled for his shoulder and arm when the contraction came, “Blood!” she cried out, “Blood in Russia. Falsworth found it, brought it back to Stark after Rogers went missing. I was able to confirm it was yours. It took a long time, but Zola made an off-handed comment about the mind being a fragile thing. Almost as fragile as the human spirit.”

Evie shook her head, sweat dampened hair sticking to her temples. “I made a guess,” she gasped. “When the bombs fell, that guess became a choice. I didn’t want Jimmy to not know his father. To live in a world like that.”

She threw her head back as she screamed, baring down when Shuri commanded.

Bucky remembered why men hadn’t been allowed in the delivery room in the 40s about the time Evie started screaming. It wasn’t the blood that bothered him, although it did. It was the fact that she was in pain and he couldn’t do anything about it. Shuri had offered an epidural, but the stubborn woman refused. She had also offered a pain reliever from Wakanda, but Evie had no context for the African nation and therefor didn’t trust it.

When he offered her his hand, Shuri cut him off.

“The metal one,” she said, shoving him to the other side of the bed. “She will break your human hand if you give it to her.”

When he gave her an incredulous stare, she shrugged. “My mother broke both of my father’s hands with my brother’s fat head. Do not underestimate a woman in pain.”

Bucky moved to the other side of the bed, holding out his metal hand reluctantly. Evie barely spared it a glance as she gripped him tight enough for the metal to creak. Shocked, he glanced down at her white knuckled grip.

“Remind me to never piss you off,” he muttered.

Evie gave a weak laugh. “I’ve already stabbed you, Sergeant, I shouldn’t have to remind you of that.”

“You can talk about this later,” Shuri told them, reaching for her medical bag. “First, deliver your son.”

She stared Evie in the eyes. “On the next one, push down with everything you have, we’re almost there.”

Evie nodded exhausted. For having slept for the past however-long, she was surprised she was still so tired.

Bucky leaned close, her hands clutching his. “One more, sweetheart,” he crooned. “You’re doing great.”

Evie gave him a worried smile as the next wave crested. “James?” her voice quivered. “You’re not leaving, right? I’m not…I’m not going to be doing this alone, am I?”

Bucky glanced down startled, green eyes boring into his and felt something inside him shift. There were aliens on their way to Earth. A publicity war with Sam, and the walking disaster that was his dysfunctional team waiting just outside the delivery room, but right then he realized this was his chance to move on from his past.

A chance to have that life everyone kept bitching about with someone that was there. That would understand what he’d gone thorough and still love him.

He bent down and pressed a kiss to the corner of her mouth.

“You’re not alone,” he whispered against her lips. “I’m here. I promise.”

Evie searched his eyes for the truth, nodding once sharply before turning back to Shuri with determination.

“Alright,” she said. “Let’s finish this.”

Shuri smirked. “Good, udade, let us meet my u-mkhwenyana.”

Bucky looked up startled. “Wait, what? When was this decided?”

“Not now, White Boy,” Shuri dismissed him, laughingly. “It is time, push, udade. Now!”

Chapter Text

Chapter Thirty-Six

“He’s strong,” Shuri said, coming up beside him and the NICU. The top was off, leaving it as a standard bassinet. She glanced back at Evie who had fallen asleep after they’d cleaned her up. “They both are.”

She looked up at him, her face serious as she watched the play of emotions on his face. “What is the last thing you remember about her?”

“Christmas. It was cold, ice on the ground made it dangerous to drive my motorcycle. We,” he huffed out a laugh, “we ended up in a ditch beside this run-down barn. The bike was too messed up to drive and I was covered in mud. It was freezing. I found a blanket and some rags; Evie found a kerosene lamp and a bucket. She melted snow and made me strip, scrubbing the worst of the mud off.”

“She knew, about what they did to me in Austria and I knew MI6 and the SSR was watching her, that we were both in danger, but it didn’t matter. All I wanted was her. She was…she was everything to me.” He remembered her kneeling before him to scrub at his hair with a wet cloth, of the slow retreat as she finished, their eyes locked together and breath steaming the air between them. It was inevitable that they’d reach for each other. The slide of their mouths and hands hot as he laid her in the straw and slowly stripped her of her clothes.

They’d made love in the barn, the edge of a slivered moon winking through broken roof shingles as they took each other apart and put each other back together again stronger than before. Her soft gasp turning into a mewling groan when he brought her over the edge, the bite of her nails in his shoulders pushing him to follow. It’d never been as intense with anyone else and in that moment, gazing into her eyes, the faint flicker of orange from the lamp flashing in their depths, he knew that it never would be. Evie was it for him, like Peggy for Steve.

She was the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.

“You remember more,” Shuri accused.

He gave her a side-eyed glance. “I am not telling you about our sex life,” he grumbled.

Shuri gave him a disgusted look. “I do not want to know it, ubhuti. I simply meant you are remembering more, having her here. This is a good sign, Bucky. Some memories, they need the senses to come alive. You know a lot of your early enhancements were sense-based, it is likely with having her here now, those memories that have eluded you will come forward.”

“And what if it’s stuff I don’t want to remember?”

Shuri gave him a sympathetic look. “Unfortunately, memories do not work that way. The past, does not work that way. You must take the good with the bad, but they are only memories. They cannot hurt you, unless you let them.”

Bucky grunted, reaching down to run his finger over the baby’s forehead and nose.

“She called him, Jimmy,” he said, making Shuri nod her head. “I’m not sure I’d have named him that.”

“What would you have called him?”

“Roy, maybe, after the kid, or Rogers.”

Shuri gave him a pitting look. “Roy Rogers. You would condemn your child to sounding like an old cowboy?”

“Hey,” he warned. “I liked Roy Rogers. My ma used to listen to him.”

“Who is the ‘kid’?”

“What?”

“You said ‘Roy, the kid’. Who was that?”

He glanced at Evie, a soft smile on his face. “A boy at Wallop. He’d lost his family and signed up for the Army, but he was only fourteen. Evie figured it out, then got him out.”

“How?”

“Faked dysentery. Back then it was one of the few ways you could get out of service.” He laughed wetly, his eyes damp. “Roy was probably our first kid. She got him set up with the local Land Girls. The three of us kept in contact through a mutual acquaintance. Just tried to make sure the kid was alright, you know? That he knew someone was watching out for him even if we couldn’t do anything overt.”

His voice went cold, his face serious and closed off as he stroked the bridge of his son’s nose again. “He died less than a year later. Would have been safer on the base than in the fields.”

Shuri laid her hand on his arm. “You are not responsible for every death, Bucky,” she told him.

He shrugged her arm off, sighing. Stepping back from the boy he headed towards Evie. “I know that, Shuri. I do, and Roy’s death wasn’t on me. But Evie felt responsible. It haunted her, and watching her fall-apart, seeing it all come back for her was hard. I couldn’t fix anything; all I could do was hold her.”

Shuri watched as he settled into a chair beside the bed, taking Okoye’s place.  “Sometimes, Sergeant Barnes, that is all it takes,” she said solemnly. “Knowing that you are not alone when the world is falling apart around you is often more important than a solution.”

“A lone wolf does not survive on its own for long – not without going mad. It is good that you have finally found your pack,” Okoye told him, gripping his shoulder in solidarity before the two women left them alone.

Picking up one of Evie’s hands, he kissed the tips of Evie’s fingers, before resting it against his cheek. Closing his eyes, he felt his shoulders relax for the first time in who knew how many years.

A pack, huh? Well, his team had been called worse, he supposed.

-tbc-

Chapter Text

Chapter Thirty-Seven

She’s not sure how long it is before she wakes. She still feels so tired and cold. Very, very cold.

Turning her head, she takes in the room she’s in. Sparce, a medical room of some form with the standard off-white walls and tile flooring that make it easy to scrub down she’s used to. There’s a table in the corner. Stainless steel with the plastic NICU on it. she can see her son’s hand waving slightly. A gurgling babble that tells her he lives. She breathes a bit easier at the sound.

Light streams in from an open window. From her position, all she sees is a bright blue sky stretching out towards the horizon. There’s a plant in a corner that she frowns at. Why is there a plant in a medical facility?

Fingers twitch on her wrist, drawing her attention to the man sleeping beside her. She’d know the slope of James’ brow and nose anywhere and the last lingering tension in her fades. No matter what happens next, she’ll be okay, because the two most important people in the world to her are beside her and safe. She smiles crookedly, that position can’t be comfortable to sleep in, but she doesn’t want to wake him either.

Waking means questions and she’s not sure how to explain why she’d risk herself and her son with an untested formula. Sure, she’d tested it on rats, even pregnant ones, which makes her feel guilty, but rats weren’t people. They weren’t Jimmy.

James is frowning in his sleep, the lines on her forehead so deep she can’t not smooth her fingers over them. She’s leaning over him, fingers ghosting over his face when she looks down into steel blue eyes. They’re a little out of focus at first, probably because she’s upside down, before they crinkle at the edges, a smile so tender and soft that it makes her smile back.

“Hey,” he says softly.

“Hey there, soldier, come here often?”

James chuckles softly, fingers carding through her lose hair as it cascades over her shoulder.

“Only for the warm beer,” he retorts, making her laugh. “I missed you, Doc,” he whispers.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he tells her seriously. “I didn’t remember you. I’ve…it’s been a really long time and a lot of stuff has happened to me and…”

She pressed her fingers to his lips. “James. It doesn’t matter. Nothing that happened, not to you, or me, or the world, matters right now. All that matters is that we are together. The three of us. Everything else we can work through.”

“How are you still so damn sweet?”

Evie laughed at that. “I was never sweet, James, and if I was, it was only you and Roy that ever saw it.”

“You’re wrong,” he insisted. “You might have been strict, but even when dressing down idiots, you were watching out for the rest of us.”

“Agree to disagree,” she said, throwing his own words back at him and making him shake his head. She tugged a lock of hair. “I’m a little apprehensive to ask how long…” she trailed off, leaning back with a twinge.

James scrambled to help her settle back in the bed, piling the pillows up so she was sitting up.

“I’m okay,” she laughed, swatting at his hands. “Just, you know, all my organs readjusting to the right place.”

James grimaced at the descriptor. “Don’t remind me, that had to be the most terrifying thing I’d ever witnessed, and that’s…that’s saying something, E.”

“You’re avoiding.”

“Yeah.”

She tangled their fingers together, tugging him up onto the bed with her. It was definitely bigger than the one at the Royal Free. “Lay with me,” she told him when he went to pull away. “I’m so cold.”

He immediate grabbed a blanket off the chair he’d been sitting in and draped it over her lap and legs.

“Okay, Sergeant,” she told him. “Talk. Whatever happened, I told you, I’m with you.”

“It’s a lot.”

“I wasn’t ever sure I’d wake, James, so whatever you’re going to tell me…”

“Eighty-two years.”

“Eighty…oh, well.” She blinked at the far wall then back at him, a sly smile to her lips. “Well, you look damn good for a hundred and nine. Yeah me!”

James snorted out a laugh, doubling over with laughter, he glanced back at her with tear-filled eyes. “A hundred-and-ten, actually.”

She gave him a cheeky leer. “Still good.”

Leaning over her, her cupped her face in his hands, kissing her deeply. Pressing their foreheads together, “How the hell did I forget you?” he whispered.

“Old age does things to the mind, I’m told,” she quipped, her voice painfilled and tight. She wasn’t being flippant, he knew that, just using humor to deflect an incredibly difficult topic.

“I’m serious, Genevieve, how did I ever forget you, us? You were the only thing keeping me sane back then.”

Evie pulled him down beside her, his head on her shoulder as she petted his hair back from his face. There were stories there, heartbreaking ones from the haunted look in his eyes. She’d get them eventually, but not today. Today was about reassurance and reaffirmation.

She didn’t answer right away, thinking through what she knew and what she remembered of her own time before she went under.

“When Stark and Carter brought me to New York,” she said slowly. “I wasn’t aware of much. ‘A dissociative state’, I think they called it. My mother always called it a fog. Something that cushions those who can’t take the real world anymore. We saw it happen a lot after the Great War to the widows.”

“There was a woman down the road from us that lost her entire family. A husband and two sons in the war. Her daughter to TB. She’d wander town talking to herself. More than once mother would send me to collect her and bring her back to her home. I remember one time, I realized she wasn’t talking to herself, but to them. Memories of times they’d shared. They were fragments of her soul that she couldn’t forget. Wouldn’t, forget.”

“Her memories kept them alive and in turn, they kept her alive until her mind could heal. It took a few years, but eventually she started coming out of it. I asked her once, with a child’s innocence, if she was afraid of the voices in the dark. Do you know what she told me?”

He rubbed his head on her shoulder. “No.”

“That she was never afraid of the voices because they always spoke to her with love. With the same type of devotion her family had shown her. When I was at my worst, when the darkness seemed to strangle me for every breath, I remembered her words. The memories we had kept me going. The knowledge that I had to protect our son kept me from giving in completely. I didn’t know if I’d ever wake up, James, but I knew that if I did, it was because you woke me up.”

She pressed her lips to the crown of his head. “There was never a doubt that it would happen, because I knew that no matter what, you had those same memories. They might be fractured or suppressed, but they were there, buried in the darkness. And our love would be the light to guide you home.”

She pressed a line of featherlight kisses down his brow and the bridge of his nose.

“The same way you were for me.”

Chapter Text

Part 5

Chapter Thirty-Eight

“No.”

Walker slammed his hand against the doorframe in agitation, flinching when the baby started to cry and Bucky glared at him, crossing to pick the child up awkwardly. It’d been a long time since he’d held a baby. Luckily his son settled almost immediately in his arms. He was scarily in-tune with both Bucky and Evie, staring at people they weren’t sure of and screaming when one of the others got too close when his parents weren’t in the room. He watched everything, was quiet unless one of them was holding him, and was more advanced than a four-day old should be.

‘He was in the womb for almost ten-months,’ Shuri had told them before leaving. ‘And has the same genetic markers as you did before the Russians got you.’

When he’d just stared at her she smacked his metal arm in annoyance, her finger wagging at him. ‘He’s enhanced, isidenge, he will not be like other babies.’

‘For now, keep him close to one of you, the rest of us make him nervous, and I think he hates Walker.’

Evie had giggled at that. Walker had already annoyed her and she’d only been awake for two days. ‘He seems to understand your emotions, and he acts accordingly. His connection is the strongest to his mother, which is understandable after being inside her for 83 years. Just watch him and try to comfort him when he gets upset, the more time you are with him, the better, he will settle as he gets to know that we aren’t a threat to either of you.’

Grimacing, Walker dropped his voice. “Sorry, but Bucky, you can’t blow this meeting off. It’s not just Sam or Valentina this time, it’s the President of the United States and a bunch of aliens escaping from a mad-man after their son, wearing Tony Stark’s face and mutants. This is a level of messed up we haven’t seen since Sokovia.”

Bucky knew he was right, but damn-it, why now? Why did the world need to implode just when he was getting his together?

“James,” Evie said tiredly from the other room, dragging his attention away from Walker.

“Just a minute,” he called back, bouncing Jimmy when he started to fuss. “Look, Walker, I get it, but I can’t go. Yelena can go and…”

“James Buchanan Barnes, bring our son to me right this minute!” Evie said loudly, making him wince. He turned and stalked back into the bedroom, Walker trailing behind him.

“Bucky…”

“Oh, do be silent, Jonathan,” Evie snapped, annoyed. “He’ll go, and we will be fine here, because the rest of the Lost Boys will be here as well. Except for Yelena. I want her to go with you.”

“Evie,” Bucky sighed out, handing Jimmy over when he leaned towards her voice. “I can’t, I…”

“Yes, you can,” she said staunchly. She settled the babe at her breast. “Leave, Jonathan. I need to speak to James without an audience.”

“She’s kind of mean,” Walker whispered to Bucky as he left.

“You have no idea,” Bucky retorted, mouth slamming closed at her narrowed eyes.

Evie waited until the door clicked shut, adjusting Jimmy so he could feed while they spoke. It was fascinating for Bucky to see how little it disturbed her to unbutton the front of her blouse and settle their son when it was just the two of them, and how impossibly modest she became when anyone else was in the room. It spoke of a level of implicit trust between them he wasn’t sure he deserved.

“Evie, I…”

Evie held up her hand for him to stop talking, leaning forward a bit to rest it on his knee. “I understand your concerns, James,” she told him softly. “But this is beyond the three of us. You are being asked to go because you are a member of Congress,” she raised her brow at that giving him a little knowing smirk that made him flush, “and a soldier. It’s an honor, and the best way for you to protect us is to find out everything you can.”

He huffed at her assessment. She’s not wrong about needing intel, he just hates the fact that it’s happening now, when he hasn’t had the chance to talk to her about everything. He’s terrified Alexei or one of the others will let something slip he isn’t ready to tell her and nervous about her seeing the real him. He’s been wearing long sleeved shirts for the last two days, and sleeping in the chair beside the bed at night. He’s also been using Jimmy as an excuse to not undress in front of her, but he knows it’s coming and he’s terrified of what she’ll ask.

“We have a lot to talk about, Doc,” he says resigned. He knows he’s going to do what she’s asking him to do. It’s the most logical course of action, but he also hates it.

Evie brushes his hair back from his face, a knowing smile gracing her lips. “And we will, when you get back. In the meantime, I’m going to sleep,” she laughed lightly. “After so long in cryo you’d think I’d be slept out, but I’m constantly exhausted. Shuri thinks it’s due to the long birth, but I think I just never really ‘slept’ in cryo.”

Bucky nodded. “Unconscious doesn’t equal sleep.”

“Exactly. So go, be a hero, and come back to us. Maybe I’ll have finally slept myself out by then.” She adjusted Jimmy, rebuttoning her blouse as she settled deeper into the bed.

“I’m not a hero, Doc,” he said quietly.

“Agree to disagree, soldier,” she threw back at him. “You’re our hero. What the rest of the world thinks is irrelevant.”

Bucky shook his head in exasperation. Leaning down, he brushed a kiss over her forehead, palming the side of Jimmy’s head. “Be safe,” he told her. “I know better than to ask you to be ‘good’.”

Evie laughed, “Darn right.”

He gave her a short, hard kiss, her fingers tightening on his shirt front as she opened to him like it was 1944 and they had the all the time in the world again. He tore himself away when her hand slid over his metal arm through his shirt, told her he’ll be back soon, and fled from the room.

He’s a coward for leaving that way, but he’s not ready for that conversation. He can’t take seeing the disappointment or worse, fear and disgust, he’s sure he’ll see, even though he knows logically that she’s seen much worse. Somehow, it’s in his mind that she’ll pull away from him, that she won’t want him when she knows what he’s done. It’s a never-ending loop of darker and darker thoughts.

He punches the elevator door, denting it hard enough to see his knuckles.

“Oh, okay,” Yelena says at it opens, stops, tries to close, and opens again. “You really need to stop hitting the building, I don’t want to walk down all those floors every day.”

Bucky rolls his eyes at her, stepping into the metal box. “Walker send you?” he asked on a huff.

“Your woman scares him,” she says gleefully, clapping her hands giddily. “I, however, love her. Love. Love. Love! She reminds me of Nat when we were younger.”

Bucky cracks a smile at that. Evie and Natasha would have either been best friends, or the worst enemies on the planet. “I hate this,” he grumbles, leaning back against the elevator’s wall.

“I know, but she’ll be fine. We’ll keep an eye on them for you.”

“Not you,” he tells her, watching as confusion clouds her face. “Evie wants you with me in D.C.”

“Why? You’re the politician. I’m just the former assassin.”

Bucky snorted. “That may be why. Plus, she knows I suck at politics, I think she wants to make sure I don’t punch anyone in the face.”

Yelena frowned in obvious confusion, “And she wants me to keep you in line? Really? She does know I’d probably punch them too, right?”

“Yeah, but if you punch them, I’m not ruining my political career.”

Yelena stuck her tongue out at him, making him smirk. “Okay, so we go to D.C. for a day or two and get the intel, then we come back, right?”

When he doesn’t answer right away, she frowns. “Right, Bucky?”

The elevator dings, the door struggling to open all the way. Bucky grabs and pulls it open, walking towards the entrance. Ava hands him his and Yelena’s bags, smirking as the Russian runs after him yelling.

“It’s just a day or two, right? Right?! Bucky, damn it I don’t want to go to D.C.!” she whines petulantly.

He can practically hear Evie’s laughter from ten floors up, he never wanted to be in the spotlight like this and she knows it. He’d just wanted to help in some way, you know, without shooting everything all the time. Instead, he’s still shooting everything, but now he has to read the most boring reports in the world and talk to reporters. He hates it and is seriously considering getting out for good now that he has Evie and Jimmy to think about.

It's not like Val hadn’t tried forcing him out after the Bob-incident.

He still wants to help though, and considering this new threat, he’s not sure if that’s on the front lines or not. Evie and Jimmy change things. He knows it and the team knows it, and soon, the rest of the world will know it too.

He just wished, for once, that he’d had more time.

Chapter Text

Chapter Thirty-Nine

“Asylum?” Bucky asked Congressman Gary.

“Yeah, go figure these would actually be friendly.”

“Considering the magic wielding megalomaniac in hot pursuit, I’m less than impressed,” Bucky quipped, making Yelena snort.

Gary jerked his thumb over his shoulder, pointing at her. “And why is a former Red Room assassin acting like your personal body-guard?”

“His wife asked me to,” Yelena said smirking at Bucky’s rolled eyes.

“Wife?! When did that happen?” Gary asked with obvious surprise.

“We’re not married.”

“Yet,” Yelena said. “You got a kid and you act like you’ve been married for, like a hundred years.”

Bucky stared at her nonplussed. “Shut. Up.”

Yelena snorted, miming zipping her mouth closed.

“A kid? Wife? What the hell, Bucky, first, you go off the rails during the impeachment, then you show up as Valentina’s personal hit squad, and now this?”

“I explained about Valentina,” Bucky grumbled, pinching the bridge of his nose. “She hasn’t done a thing since we took over, has she?”

Gary narrowed his eyes. “No,” he said. “She’s been a right peach.”

“I hear sarcasm.”

“Because I was giving it. We had Val on the ropes,” Gary said, holding his thumb and index finger an inch apart. “We were this close and suddenly you and the Avenger wannabes are in a publicity war with Captain America and you’re telling me you can control Valentina. Well great job with the control, because she’s in there running for the next President of the United States and so far, the Joint Chiefs are buying her line of bull.”

Both Avengers sat at attention. “You can’t be serious?” Yelena said. “We told her, if she tried something, we’d talk. We’d tell the world about Bob and what she did and…”

“And how are you going to prove it?” Gary asked bluntly. “You’ve been taking her money, living in the Watchtower doing her bidding, at least that’s how this has all been spun in the media. You go against her now and all the rest of the world sees is a bunch of petty B-level villains.”

“Shit,” Yelena said, slumping down on the couch beside Bucky. “He’s right. We should have said something when it happened.”

“So now what?” Bucky asked.

“Now, we get you away from her. Get Wilson back working with you and make sure everyone knows you’re legit. It’s the only way to keep you out of whatever shitshow’s in orbit.”

Bucky winced when the door opened and Sam walked past him glowering. “That’s going to be harder than you think,” he told Gary. “We’re having…trust issues at the moment.”

Gary gave him an unimpressed look. “Well, fix them, because if you don’t, when Val goes down, the lot of you will go down with her.”

“How’d it go?” Walker asked when they walked through the doors two days later.

“Oh, fine,” Yelena said. “If you ignore the entire world thinking we’re Val’s pet assassins.”

“I beg your pardon?” Evie said, hugging Bucky.

“Yeah, so remember when I told you we had control of the situation? Apparently, not so much.”

“And Wilson? Did you speak to him?” she asked.

“He glowered at us,” Yelena quipped, grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge. “He was quite menacing about it too.”

Evie rolled her eyes. “Dear Lord, how did any of you survive this long without me? Computer, call Sam Wilson.”

“Wait, no, Doc, we can’t…”

“What?!” came Sam’s agitated voice over the speakers.

“Mr. Wilson?” Evie asked, holding her hand up for silence. “This is Dr. Genevieve Shaw at the Watchtower.”

“Who?” Sam asked confused.

“Dr. Shaw, Mr. Wilson, I do believe I have you to thank for passing my message on to James.”

“Ja…holy shit, you’re the woman in the video.”

Evie smiled slightly. “I am and I would greatly appreciate the chance to thank you in person, as well as discuss the absolute mess James and the others have gotten themselves into. Would you be willing to meet here, say five? Also, do you have any allergies I should be aware of?”

“I…no, no allergies.”

“Fabulous, then we’ll see you then, have a good day Mr. Wilson. Computer, end call.”

There was a moment of stunned silence before Ava said what they were all thinking. “Holy shit, if Bucky doesn’t marry you, I will, that was amazing.”

Evie smirked. “The easiest way to make someone do what you want is to not give them a choice while simultaneously making them think it was their idea. Now, who’s going grocery shopping with me?”

Bucky placed a restraining hand on her shoulder. “He’s not going to want to talk, Evie, he’s pissed at me.”

Evie patted his cheek. “Yes, and now I understand why, but not everyone is as brilliant at deciphering your non-verbal staring, dear, sometimes you need to use your words.”

James’ face showed how thrilled he was at that idea.

“Exactly, which is why we’ll sit down like normal people around food, and talk this out, all of us, so there are no more secrets.”

“And if he still doesn’t listen?” Alexei asked.

Evie’s smile was more a baring of teeth. “Then he’ll learn quite quickly why they called me, Doctor Death, Alexei. No one harms my family.”

Chapter Text

Chapter Forty

Bucky sat on their bed staring at his left hand. Just staring, as he opened and closed his fingers. Soft footfalls outside the door made him scramble to pull his shirt up and over the scaring on his chest. Evie hadn’t seen them clearly yet and he wanted to push that off until the last possible moment. 

Strange, how he was a father…was practically a husband, without having touched her in so long. It’d only been a week since Jimmy was born. She’d spent the first few nights in the medical center hooked up to God-knows how many monitors, then he’d had to go to Washington and deal with the President on the space issue and Doctor Doom and now that he was back, he couldn’t figure out where he belonged. Where he fit into this new reality.

“James?” she called softly, coming into the room.

“I’ll be out in a minute.”

There was a pregnant pause before she slipped her warm hands over his shoulders, settling behind him on the bed. “You don’t have to hide from me, you know?”

He heard the hurt in her voice, the trepidation, and raised his good hand to cover hers. “Not hiding, just, adjusting.”

Her fingers slipped under the edge of the shirt along the line of scar tissue, and he pulled away sharply. “Don’t.”

Evie stood carefully, as if she was dealing with a wild animal - skittish and prone to lashing out; she wasn’t exactly wrong. Rounding the edge of the bed she sank to her knees before him, every move telegraphed. “James…have you forgotten what I was?”

Bucky frowned. “What?”

She pressed her hands to his knees, her face serious. “I was a doctor, James. A chemist who killed hundreds. There is nothing about your scars, about your past, that you need to hide from me. Nothing I didn’t do myself.”

 “It’s different,” he said darkly.

“How?”

“Because you didn’t come back mutilated! And you’re not a killer. Believe me, I know killers. I was the worst of them.”

“You were never a killer, James. Not once, and your arm isn’t a mutilation. You were injured; it’s a prosthetic. A tool that you use better than most. Just like you were a tool that was used.”

Bucky grimaced, glaring out the window. “I still did it.”

Evie nodded in understanding. “As did I, do you blame me for it?”

Bucky snapped back to her, mouth dropping open in shock. “No, of course not.”

“Then why do you insist I blame you?” She slid her fingers under the edge of the open shirt, pushing it from his shoulders until it pooled around his waist.

He watched in morbid fascination as she gently brushed over the worst of the scars and up over the metal connection.

Shaking her head, she sighed. “I’m still amazed you deal with this every day.”

“Thousands do.”

“No, I don’t mean the arm itself, I meant the strain of it on your body.”

“I don’t understand,” he said confused.

“For a wound like this, you would typically have a brace of some sort across your chest to offset the strain on your muscles and connecting tissue. There are eight muscles that make the shoulder work and another four that are indirectly related along the chest and neck, and you ripped apart most of them. The fact that they only connected the pectoralis major and deltoid is a feat of engineering, but the strain on your body is beyond intense.”

She pushed the tips of her fingers in slightly to the left of the metal connection on his peck, rubbing with her thumb on a particularly tight area. He always forgot how much it hurt, until there was no pain, but he’d lived most of his life in pain; he was used to it now. He closed his eyes, letting his head fall back as she massaged the area.

“Do the others know?”

“Know what?”

“Just how much of a toll it takes on you, physically, to do the things you do?”

“I’m not human anymore, Evie,” he said, resigned. “The Russians and Hydra saw to that.”

Evie scoffed, thwacking him lightly on the chest. “Just because you were given an experimental drug doesn’t make you any less human, idiot. It just means what was already in you was enhanced.”

She glared at him through a fall of brown waves. “You were a soldier before they got a hold of you. A damn good one. And you were a soldier after. Also, damn good.”

“I killed…”

“Soldiers kill,” she said sharply, cutting him off.

She swallowed loudly. “We kill. It’s part of the deal when we sign up. We tell ourselves we must, to protect those who would be victims, but the truth is every one of us is a killer, given the right circumstances.”

“One-hundred and seventeen Indian soldiers died in Rawalpindi. One-hundred and seventeen young men with their entire futures ahead of them. I did that. Me. And not because I was a soldier, but because I was curious. What were the effects? How could they be improved? What would make them more deadly? Less? I wasn’t a soldier then, James, just a foolish scientist who didn’t stop to ask the most important question, why? Why are we doing this? Why does the military need a gas that can melt its enemies?” she shook her head sadly.

“You were used, James, your mind and soul raped repeatedly. Your body turned into a weapon you had no control over. You were a victim in an indelible situation- comply or die. Maybe you think you should have died back then. That it would have stopped a lot of senseless deaths.” She took a shaky breath and Bucky realized he wasn’t breathing at all.

“But then where would that leave all the people you saved? Where would that leave us?”

“I chose cryo over raising our son alone, because I knew that we needed you. Your strength and loyalty. Not because of this,” she said, tapping the metal with her nail. “But because of this.” She placed her hand over his heart, leaning forward to press a trembling kiss against his skin.

“The man I met on that airfield the first time was cocky, but honest. Sincere. He helped to get a kid too young and filled with vengeance out of a bad situation. He helped keep his men alive in the worst place on Earth while suffering through pneumonia and daily beatings. He took the abuse, and he never broke. Captain America may have been their rallying cry, but Sergeant Barnes was the one who made sure they all survived. Human and enhanced alike.”

“That was the man I fell in love with. That was the man who wrote me letters telling me his thoughts and fears. Who described the confusion and heartache of a world burning down around him with no end in sight.”

She gave him a watery smile, tears in her eyes making them glow in the afternoon sunlight filtering through the large picture window.

“And that is the man who sits before me. Not someone enhanced. Not someone beaten down by the world or turned into what they called him. Just a man who loves fiercely. Who protects his friends and family and tries to take a bit of the darkness in the world away.”

“Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes. The best man I have ever known and the one I am proud to walk beside.” She stood, leaned down and pressed a featherlight kiss to his lips. “I love you, James. I always have and always will. No matter what.” Her voice was a breath of heat against his skin; a promise carved into his soul with gentle fingers and more understanding than he deserved.

“I love you,” he told her sincerely. “Even when I didn’t remember you, I knew I was missing something important. I didn’t feel complete until I saw you again.”

Evie’s smile is as soft as velvet, her eyes shimmering as he pulled her down onto his lap. Her weight feels right as she straddles his hips, her body molding itself to his as he finally lets himself have this. Her.

His memory is still in pieces. Fragments that most of the time don’t make sense to him. He remembers the feel of her though. Wonders how in God’s name he could have ever forgotten and then remembers all the pain, the death and torture and takes a step back from those thoughts, because Hydra took her from him the first time. He won’t let his own insecurities take her a second.

So, he kisses her. Slowly, deeply, pouring emotions he doesn’t have the words for down her throat until his entire world is made up of their lips sliding against each other and they’re breathing as one.

He groans as she nips his bottom lip, pulling her closer, trying to fuse them into one being. There’re too many clothes for that, and not the time, considering he can hear his son wailing and Yelena trying to soothe him in the hallway. Evie hasn’t noticed yet, and he’s loath to stop now that he finally has her in his arms again, but he also knows how embarrassed she’d be caught unaware.

“Yelena’s outside,” he presses the words along her jaw, his mouth hot on her flesh. “Jimmy’s with her.”

“Crying?”

“Yeah.”

“I swear, it’s like none of you have ever dealt with a baby before.” Her breath hitches as he pulls her down against him tighter. Just a second. A minute longer and he’ll let her up. Not go. He’ll never let her go, but there’s Yelena’s hard rap on the door, her accent thicker than normal as she shouts.

“Bucky! Come get your kid before my ears start bleeding!”

Evie chuckles against his collarbone, her head bowed and her breathing erratic. Bucky can feel her heart pounding against his chest. Realizes with a bit of surprise that his is beating just as hard.

“You know,” she tells him seriously. “I signed up for one kid, not seven.”

Bucky lets her crawl from his lap, a bit smug at the flush and beard burn she’s sporting. “Not sure I like being included in that number, Doc,” he grouses petulantly.

“Pretty sure you were the first, Sergeant,” she quips as she smoothed her hair back into place.

“Come,” she calls out, sweeping Jimmy up into her arms the minute the former assassin crosses the threshold. The boy settles immediately, nuzzling her breast. Bucky feels a twinge of jealousy even as pride blooms in his chest.

“I’m going to the nursery for a minute, then we can leave, alright, Yelena?”

“Sure. You do the mom thing, and I’ll make sure the old man gets dressed for our meeting.”

“What meeting?” Bucky asked, slapping Yelena’s hands when she tries to put a new shirt on him.

“With Sam. Remember?” she asks, smirking when he turns away from her to do the last buttons up.

“Such a prude,” she whispers over-loud, making Evie laugh from the adjoining room. It had been a closet before the renovation. Bucky had torn the frame out with his bare hands, pointed at the safe room drawings he’d worked with their AI to create and told the work crews ‘make it impenetrable’.

It was probably the safest part of the entire Watchtower building outside the labs and it should be, considering who he was trying to protect.

“Why can’t we just do this over video?” Bucky grumbled, brushing back his hair in agitation.

Evie walked out with a fed and freshly changed Jimmy on her hip and his black suit jacket in her hand. “Because he’s your friend, and you need to explain what’s really going on here and you won’t, not really, unless he’s in front of you. Besides, it’s important for everyone to be on even footing, that includes the misfit toys you call your team.”

Bucky rolled his eyes, not surprised in the least when she thwacked him upside the back of the head. “Ow.”

“You need a haircut,” she muttered absently, ignoring him and shoving the loose strands behind his ears. “Colonel Phillips would have shaved you bald if you showed up looking like a common street thug.”

He flicked Yelena off when she started laughing at him, wincing when Evie tugged on his ear. “Behave, and wear your coat, you want to make a good impression, don’t you?”

“Not really.”

The look she gave him had him scrambling into the jacket, ignoring Yelena’s cackle.

“To my knowledge, the last time you spoke went, how did Yelena say you put it? ‘Poorly.’ Well, I suspect that was because you didn’t tell him the whole truth, now did you?”

Bucky stared at the wall over her shoulder.

“I thought not,” she said dismissively, ignoring his weak glare. She stepped close to him, Jimmy on her hip dozing slightly, and fixed his collar. “I know you, James. You probably stared at him until he said something to annoy you, then walked away, but you can’t do that this time. Sam Wilson isn’t a mind reader. He’s not even enhanced. He’s a man that took on the role of soldier, just like you, and he did his job to the best of his ability, just like you did. And when it became too much, he tried to walk away.”

Her voice dropped as she wrapped her hand around the back of his neck, pulling their foreheads together. “But unlike you, he never lived through the nightmares. He never had to watch himself be used like you did. You came through all that because you are the strongest man I know, but you bury your pain and fear like you’re burying the dead. It’s time to let some of that fear go. Tell Sam about Valentina. Tell him about us and what it means for this team. Then sit there and do something I know you hate. Listen to him. Listen and really try to understand what he’s saying.”

She kissed his nose, making him smile softly. “You won’t be alone, alright? We’ll be right there with you.”

“Okay.”

“Yelena, stop that.”

Bucky glanced up to see Yelena making kissy faces at them and flicked her off with both hands.

“James…” Evie warned lowly. “Remember not wanting to be listed as number seven?”

“Sorry,” he groused, sticking his tongue out at Yelena when Evie turned his back.

“Children,” Evie blew out an exasperated breath. “All of you are children.”

She gave Bucky a chaste kiss, held Jimmy while he pressed his lips to the boy’s head, and then snagged Yelena’s ear as she headed for the hallway.

“Ow!” Yelena hollered, bent over sideways as she clung to Evie’s fingers gripping her ear. “Owowow! What did I do?”

“You antagonized. Like he’s your older brother or something. Now come along, we need to collect the others before it gets too late.”

“I don’t want them to come,” Yelena pouted.

“Tough. James needs some time to think before Sam arrives and we need to get groceries. It’s not easy admitting you were wrong, you know.”

“Why do you call him James,” Yelena asked as they waited for the elevator. “Everyone calls him Bucky. He told us to call him Bucky,” she accused, pointing at him as he followed behind them.

Evie laughed.

“Don’t,” Bucky warned.

“Oh, now you have to tell me,” Yelena said gleefully.

“No, she doesn’t.”

“Doesn’t what?” Walker asked as they crossed the main room.

“Evie’s gonna tell us why she doesn’t call him Bucky.”

“Oh!” Ava said, clapping from her seat on the couch. “I want to hear this, from Bucky’s face alone, I know it’s going to be good.”

“No,” Bucky told them, crossing his arms over his chest defensively. “It’s private.”

Evie snorted, using their sleeping son as a shield when Bucky gave her a betrayed look. “Sorry, it’s just…”

“Evie…” Bucky warned.

“It’s a slang term. Something no soldier wants to be compared to.”

Bucky looked at the ceiling when Bob piped up. “Oh, like premature ejaculation.”

Things went downhill from there.

“Okay, weren’t you supposed to be getting groceries or something?” He groused, glaring at the assholes he called his team.

Evie took pity on him, slipping Jimmy into the stroller and grabbing her purse and cardigan. It wasn’t England cold, but since waking, she’d had difficulty staying warm. Shuri advised her that it was a temporary feeling. She certainly hoped so, or their heating bill would be atrocious come winter.

She paused pulling on the sweater. Who did pay for all this? It certainly couldn’t have all come from Alexei’s ‘sponsorships’. Cereal companies wouldn’t pay that much for a bunch of photo-ops, would they? She’d have to remember to ask James later when they were alone. Men could be so peculiar about their finances after all.

 “We’re off to Argosy and then the grocer. Try not to break the building again until we get back, alright?”

Bucky groaned, pulling out his wallet and handing her a credit card. “Try not to bankrupt us,” he countered. “Yelena, I’m counting on you to reel the two of them in when they go nuts,” he told the Russian, pointing at Evie and Bob.

“Wait, me? What’d I do?” Bob asked incredulously, arm caught half-way in his jacket.

Yelena rolled her eyes, grabbing the man and tugging his arm through the correct sleeve. “You read. A lot.”

“I’m not the only one,” he argued. “Ava reads those trashy romance books!”

“They are not ‘trashy,’” Ghost said haughtily. “They are paranormal romcoms and they are glorious,” she said stretching out on the couch.

Bucky shook his head. “I just can’t with any of you. Go, try not to buy the entire store. I’ll see you in a bit.”

Evie ran her hands up his chest, going up on her toes to give him a smacking kiss on the forehead making him laugh. “Love you,” she told him.

He snagged her hand, dragging her back into his arms for a proper kiss. “Be safe. Listen to Yelena if there’s a problem. You two are my world, Doc. Don’t do anything stupid.”

Evie cupped his jaw. “Right back at you, soldier. We’ll be back soon. Try and figure out what you want to tell him; alright? Something that makes sense to a fellow soldier.”

“I promise nothing, Doc,” Bucky quipped watching the door slide closed behind them. He had a few hours until Sam was supposed to show and too many nerves to deal with. Figuring he could kill a bit of time reading those reports on the spaceship hovering in orbit before tackling the Valentina issue, he settled down in one of the armchairs.

God, he hated this multiverse stuff.

Chapter Text

Chapter Forty-One

Evie breezed in with the others almost two hours later. He winced at the number of bags they were carrying.

“Did you leave anything in the store?” he said, glancing in the first bag and getting his hand slapped for it.

“Of course I did, here, take this and get out of my kitchen,” she said, handing him a small paper wrapped package.

“What’s this?” he asked, moving to the other side of the counter.

“What’s it feel like?” she said with a wink, making him laugh.

“It feels like a book.”

“Try opening it, genius,” Walker snarked.

“Jonathan,” Evie warned. “Be nice or I’m not making that pie you wanted.”

Walker’s mouth snapped shut as he dropped his bags and slipped out of the room.

“Pie? Doc, we don’t have enough time for that.”

“Nonsense,” she said dismissively. “Pie takes very little time to make, and it can cook while we’re eating. Did you know they have pre-made pie crusts? What an incredible timesaver. They probably won’t taste as good as mine, but as you said, we’re on a bit of a time crunch today.”

She gave him a shy smile, waving at the wrapped book. “Go on now, I was mindful of the cost but thought you might still enjoy it.”

Bucky peeled the paper away carefully. At first sight of that green, blue, and black cover, he dropped down onto one of the bar stools. “Genevieve…” he whispered, choked up. “I…”

She came around the counter and gave him a side hug, letting him wrap his arm around her waist. “It’s a reproduction,” she said softly. “I don’t even think Alexei’s sponsorships would let us buy the real thing, but I didn’t think you’d care either way.”

He shook his head, too choked up to speak.

She kissed his temple, running a finger down the book’s spine. “When dinner is over, you can hide away and read. Consider it a bribe for good behavior.”

He laughed wetly at her remark.

“Now, I’ve got to get the lasagna made. I figured that’d be faster than a roast. Send Bob in to help with the sides, would you?”

“I can help,” he offered.

“I know, but would it be edible?” she teased, running away when he growled and swiped at her half-heartedly.

“I make a mean boiled egg,” he grumbled.

“Were those the same eggs you walked away from and came back to smoke filling that farmhouse in France?”

Bucky thumped his head on the counter. “Doc,” he whined. “They’re never going to respect me if you keep telling stories.”

“If I remember correctly, you weren’t even supposed to be cooking in it and Rogers made you all hike ten miles in the dark because he was afraid you’d given away your location to the enemy with all the smoke.”

The others laughed at his chagrined expression. “What’s worse was it was so damn cold I stuck my feet in the fire and couldn’t feel when it melted a whole in them, so I hiked ten miles with a hole in my boot.”

“The great Winter Soldier,” Yelena teased, “taken down by muddy socks.”

“Come here, soldier,” Evie said laughing. She handed him a knife and head of lettuce. “See if you can’t kill that for our salad, I’ll even add some hard-boiled eggs, just for you.” She leaned her head on his shoulder briefly before calling for Bob.

“Here,” she said, handing him the bread. “Handle the garlic bread, would you?”

“Yeah, okay.”

“When you are done, Bob, can you please prep the anti-pasta dishes?”

“Tomato and mozzarella with the basil and balsamic vinegar one?”

“Yes, and then the dessert plates with the figs, goat’s cheese and honey, please.”

“Salad’s done,” James told her, wrapping the bowl with cling film before placing it in the fridge. “Italian?”

“One of my favorites, haven’t had it in a few decades, figured now was a good time to see if I remembered how to make it. Here, slice up some eggplants, would you? And grate some of that pecorino? I’ll put together a casserole while the meat browns off. Ava, can you double check that the wines were put away?”

“Got it!” Ava said, hopping off the stool to do as asked.

Bucky stopped to just stare at his team as they moved in sync without griping at each other.

“Jonathan, would you and Alexi please set the table?”

“Do we use the good stuff?” Walker asked, holding up a cut glass plate.

Evie winced. “What else do you have?”

“Uh, paper and these heavy-duty things that looks like they were stolen from a diner.”

“Those. I’d rather not have to replace any dishes should this meeting go badly, but paper just screams tacky to me.”

“Yeah, and these could probably withstand another world war.”

She laughed at his joke making something in Bucky warm with pride. They were probably the most dysfunctional team in existence, but they were finding their way, and Evie was slipping into their midst effortlessly just by being her normal caring self.

As they got everything ready and the Watchtower filled with the smell of cheese and tomatoes, and laughter and jokes rang out - Jimmy’s happy warble added to the mix when he woke from his nap - he felt himself relax.

They could do this, he thought. He glanced at his gift, a hardbound copy of The Hobbit and at the woman single-handedly bringing his team together and breathed deeply. It would all work out. It had to.

Chapter Text

Chapter Forty-Two

It was supposed to be easy, tell Sam about Valentina and Evie. Find out why he was trying to destroy his team and maybe figure out the whole Stark-but-not situation over an awesome meal. Instead, he’s trying to keep his – ah hell, he knows it’s just a matter of time – fine, wife, from shooting Captain America and the busty green chick he brought with him and really hoping someone turned the oven off before the pie was ruined.

The dead guy on the floor he doesn’t recognize. Walker called him Jones, but whoever he was, he’s dead now and for once, he isn’t the one who shot first.

Sam came through the door with a green woman in a power-suit and huge smile on his right and a man with ‘government agent’ all but stamped on his forehead in black on his left. He was tense, a two-inch thick folder in his hand and clenched jaw, but it was the man Bucky watched. Jonathan was standing behind Evie to her right when the man turned and caught sight of him.

“Jones? What the hell are you doing here?” Walker asked, stepping past Evie.

Jones scanned the room, eyes catching on Evie holding Jimmy and sneered. His hand reached for a blade, Bucky seeing the flash as it spun out the same as the others, who moved to block the shot.

None of them expected Evie to drop to her knee and spin, grabbing Walker’s gun from his hip and come up shooting. A single shot pierced the man’s throat, dropping him where he stood.

“What the hell?” Walker balked.

“Evie!” “Holy shit, did you see that?” “Wow, she’s awesome!”

Sam’s voice slams through the overlapping noise like Thor’s hammer, “I knew you were just another killer.”

The room froze, all eyes turned to stare at him open mouthed.

“Uh, for the record, the Avengers had nothing to do with this,” the woman backpedals, waving her hands around in obvious distress. “And Sam Wilson, in his role as Captain America, does not condone the attempted assault, do you?” she hisses at him.

The two glare at each other, but Bucky doesn’t care. He’s focused on his family and the fact that he almost lost them. His breathing is erratic, heartrate through the roof and his entire being is trembling as he crosses the scant four feet between them. Evie is standing in the middle of the living room, Jimmy still on her left hip, right arm extended in a perfect shooter’s stance. Her hand is still outstretched, gun pointed at Sam’s gut - not head or chest - his gut, a shot to inflict maximum pain. Walker was right, she was mean when she was pissed and right now, she’s practically vibrating with righteous indignation and a mother’s fury.

Bucky held up his hands, moving slowly to take the gun from her, his metal hand wrapping around the muzzle, just in case. “Doc,” he said slowly, “give me the gun.”

“He brought a killer into our house, James. Went after Jimmy and that, that woman tried to spout legal jargon at us!”

“My name is actually Jennifer Walters, and I’m just here as Mr. Wilson’s legal counsel,” the woman said, waving a bit.

Bucky winced, yeah, Evie wasn’t going to…

“I don’t care,” Evie snapped. “He went after our son, our son!”

Jimmy started crying, reacting to Evie’s distress. Taking him from her, Bucky shooshed him, bouncing him lightly until he started to calm down.

“Bob, take him to the nursery,” Bucky ordered, nodding at Bob when the man’s eyes widened. Sure, Sentry might be the most powerful of them, but he couldn’t do anything if he couldn’t control it. The reinforced nursery was a safer place for both of them.

“Okay, okay,” Jen said, hands up as she tried to diffuse the situation. “Let’s just calm down. We,” she said, pointing at Sam and her, “didn’t know the guy. He was appointed by the President, and you don’t normally question those types of orders.”

“Really?” Walker asked sarcastically, “Because I kinda remember the last President turning into a giant red rage monster.”

Bucky disarmed the gun and slipped the bullets into his pocket. “No more guns for you,” he told her teasingly, trying to get her to relax when all he wanted to do was hit something; except for a pronounced tick under her left eye, she didn’t answer him, simply glared at Sam.

“Do you have something to say or are you just going to stare at me like he does?” Sam finally snapped.

“I’m still debating shooting you actually,” she snapped. “You went after our son, why?”

“I didn’t go after anyone, he did, and did you ever think he might have been going after you, Doctor Death? I mean, you are the one with more bodies to your name than all of us combined.”

“You know nothing,” Evie hissed at him, fingers curling into fists.

“Oh, so this file is just a bunch of bull? The hundred plus soldiers you murdered in India, that’s just a fantasy the SSR made up for funsies? And what about that MI6 Agent, Law? DNA might not have been a thing in the 40s, but it sure as hell is now. Answer me, damn it!” he snapped, throwing the folder and the contents on the floor. Horrendous images of the Firebug victims glared back at them in black and white. She didn’t bother looking at the mutilated corpse of Janet, she knew what it looked like.

Evie lifted a single eyebrow, her voice dripping with condescension. “You don’t want an answer, Mr. Wilson. You want a confession that fits in with your view of the situation. You know, I’ve started to notice a pattern with you - James, Yelena, Ava, even Bob. You think you know them, but have you ever sat down with any of them and asked their opinion on their pasts? Did you ever once think that maybe what you’ve been fed is wrong or are you just going to continue making assumptions without any form of understanding or context?”

“Wait, what about me?” Walker asked incredulously.

When the entire room stared at him, he slunk back over to the couch by Ava’s side, the woman patting his head as she smirked at him. He grimaced, slapping at her hand in annoyance.

Sam crossed his arms over his chest in defiance. “Fine, then what’s your story? How does any of that,” he asked, nodding at the pictures, “Not prove my point?”

“Everything has a context, Mr. Wilson. Everything has a history that you don't understand unless you were there. And unless you stood over those young men watching them die, you have no right to question me.”

“Evie…”

“No,” she told him, slashing her hand through the air. “This is the same idiocy that I've been dealing with since 1930, and quite frankly, I'm tired of it. Every one of you thinks that you know me, know James, but you don’t. Unless you understand the history of what we went through, about what we had to do to survive you do not get to stand there and judge us.”

“Then tell us what happened,” Yelena said gently, holding a stack of pictures. “Explain what all the photos mean.”

Bucky wrapped his arm around her shoulder, letting her curl in against him, but leaving his Vibranium arm free, should he need it.

“In 1939, Hitler declared war. But the atrocities started long before then. When he came to power in 1933, the first people he subjugated were his own. The Jews were rounded up, but so was anyone with abilities, or mental or physical needs. Forced sterilizations, lobotomies, experimentations…and every one of them was designed on American legal policies. The Eugenics programs came from here.”

She gave a broken sounding laugh. “Some laws were too much even for Hitler. Everyone thinks the Americans came in and saved the day, but quite frankly, it was because of you that we had a world war in the first place.”

Sam and Jennifer looked uncomfortable at the knowledge. It was true, but neither liked thinking about it.

“At the time the war broke out, I was an organic chemist specializing in soil chemistry. My focus was trying to make fertilizers safer, something that wouldn't hurt the farmers or poison the land. That’s what I was working on, but it wasn’t what the government wanted. A lot of those early fertilizers were neurotoxins, based around mustard gases and corrosive acids. The government wanted them concentrated and added to pressurized canisters with ignition sources to turn them into chemical flamethrowers. It was atrocious. Absolutely horrifying. The worst thing that I've probably ever been a part of.”

She took a shaky breath, her fingers curling into Bucky’s shirt. “The idea was to stop the enemy. Stop them from coming aboard our ships. Stop them from crossing our shores. To just stop them. And at the time our understanding of genetics was very limited. You had people like Erskine who were making super soldiers, but we didn't really understand how the differences in ethnic bases worked. People still thought that the races were separate.”

“We're all human and yet they wanted to classify us. Segregation by ability is just as ridiculous as segregation by color or sex,” she said heatedly. “It’s done by weak-minded individuals to make themselves feel better about their own inadequacies. ‘Metahumans’ are still human, Mr. Wilson, however they’re formed and that was the question everyone was asking. How could they make us better? How could they weed-out societies weaknesses?”

“And the United Kingdom's government, my government, made that decision. They needed to try and see how different skin colors might affect chemical absorption. So, they sent us to India, a member of the Commonwealth, and they asked for volunteers. Volunteers. Such a misnomer. Victims. That's what they were. Our own version of the eugenics trials. And we tested it on 117 young men who thought they were going to be getting a drop or two on their skin. Maybe a little blister, not an issue, we’ve all done it,” she said, holding up her wrist to show the small circular scars. “Instead, they sprayed them. Head to foot. And then they set them on fire. The men melted. The acid so corrosive it ate through the flesh. There were only pieces left. Puddles.” She shuddered violently, Bucky’s hand folding around her shoulder in sympathy.

“Their reaction? That they needed to up the concentration because it was taking too long for the men to die. And yes, I was part of that team. In the beginning it was a question mark. Something done in the lab only. On pieces of paper. Grass. Maybe a vegetable or fruit just to see how corrosive the material was. Then it became sides of pork since the flesh is so similar to humans. Then it was people. I can’t even remember the number of Lab Rats that passed, but nothing was as horrifying as seeing what they did to those men.”

“Don’t you mean you?” Sam asked aggressively. “You did that.”

Evie gave him a cold look. “There were twelve of us standing on that bank that day watching them die. My place was in a laboratory. Writing formulas on walls. Figuring out where things needed to be tweaked. Others put it together. Others fired the shots, but you’re right, that doesn’t make me any less culpable. But unlike the others, I stopped it. I destroyed all of our notes, destroyed our samples, and the equipment,” she said harshly, punctuating each with a flash of eye and defiance in her voice.

“And I was shot at and practically blown up for my efforts, Mr. Wilson,” she spat making Jeniffer cover her mouth with her hands in shock. “Did your fancy background check tell you that? In your little redacted file, did they tell you how my own people flipped the car with my husband and myself in it? The same husband that turned me in at gun point? Did they tell you how I spent three months in the hospital in a coma with a dozen broken bones? Did they tell you about the other two times they attempted to silence me? Until they finally got me out of the military with a warning delivered at knife point. Would you like to see the scar? It’s just under my chin, right along the jugular,” she hissed.

She pulled down the edge of her sweater to show the thin, faded silver line. “Where I was informed that if I spoke, they'd finish the job. Did they tell you that? Did they tell you how I was assigned a watchdog for the rest of my life? That no matter where I was, I would have somebody there to make sure I didn't speak. And when I left Porton Down and I went back to agriculture, to try and help in what little way I could, that they forced me back into the military under threat of imprisonment and execution?”

She glared at Sam. “I was never alone, Mr. Wilson. I was put in a position where I had to be under supervision, where I was responsible for thousands over the course of the two years that I was at that station. Middle Wallop was one of the primary strategy centers in the Battle of Britain. And what was I? The only doctor assigned to the station. I wasn't guilted into it because my grandfather had been a surgeon before, I was threatened into it. Placed. On punishment of imprisonment. With the hushed threat of ‘you could end up like him’ hanging over my head. I have no idea if they were the ones that killed him. I have no idea if it was the Germans or my own people. I do know my parents were watched. My father's work confiscated. I know that everything that I did was checked and cross referenced and double checked. Because what if I was doing something against what Parliament or the Ministry wanted? I had to follow orders, or I too would wind up in the bottom of a body bag. So, you tell me, Mr. Wilson, what the hell do you know about my life? And what gives you the right to ever question James’ or my past?”

“You call us killers, but never victims and we were most assuredly both.” She pushed away from Bucky, stalking across the Watchtower living room towards Sam until she was right in his face. “Until you have someone holding a blade to your throat and threatening your family, don’t you dare judge us, because you will never understand what we went through.”

She looked him up and down with obvious disdain. “You come in here with a chip on your shoulder and closed mind, you bring an assassin with you that threatens my family and then have the unmitigated gall to give me attitude about stopping said threat, and a past you know nothing about, and think I won’t throw you out on your ear?” she gave a sharp, brittle bark of laughter. “Try me, Mr. Wilson, because I guarantee you, I am meaner than any of the men and women behind me and I have no history with you to stay my hand.”

The silence is telling. Sam shifts awkwardly, realizing he may have completely misread the situation, but unsure how to extract himself from the brunette’s ire.

Bucky sighs heavily as he crosses to Evie, his hands on her shoulders as he forcibly moves her back and away from Sam. “Okay, down tiger, I think he gets the idea.” The joke lands flat in the room, only Jimmy’s crying on the monitor pulling her glare away from Sam.

“Evie?” Yelena says carefully, shaking the monitor at her.

She jerks her head to the side, neck cracking as she blows out an annoyed breath. Reaching for the monitor, she stabs the button to talk with controlled violence, her voice low and surprisingly soft as she murmurs the boy’s name and asks him what’s wrong. Sam’s brows hit his hairline when Jimmy stops crying almost immediately, a stuttered hiccup proving he’s listening to his mother’s voice.

“He was inside her for 83 years, of course he listens to her,” Bucky says quietly, annoyed at Sam and honestly, more than a bit hurt at his lack of faith.

Sam looks startled, like he hadn’t done the math or realized what such a long pregnancy might mean for the pair.

“And we aren’t killers,” James continues, frustrated at Sam’s lack of response. “We saved Bob and the city when Valentina tried making him her own super soldier. Yelena and the others are proof of everything illegal Valentina ever did. Bob is proof. We aren’t working for her; we own her and we’re doing everything we can to make sure we live up to the Avenger’s name. What are you doing, Sam? What have you done but argued over semantics and accused us of being evil?”

“I’ve been trying to keep a bunch of aliens from touching down on American soil, what have you been doing?!” Sam snaps back.

“Trying to be a good father.”

Sam takes a half step back, shocked at Bucky’s answer.

Bucky blows out a breath, rubbing the back of his head absently. “We’ve all been trying to figure out what’s going on, but we’re also trying to figure out how to have Evie and Jimmy here. I haven’t had anyone I could call family since Steve left, and for over 70 years before that. This is all new to us, but we’re learning and we’re still out there trying to keep the city safe. Ava’s been reaching out to old contacts to see who might know something about the ship, Yelena and Bob have been analyzing the satellite data, Walker is dealing with the press, and Alexei has been working with the public and you know I just got back from D.C. and sitting through more Congressional hearings. What else do you want us to do?”

“If Valentina is paying for all this, then you’re still doing her dirty work,” Sam said, looking around the living room.

“Val doesn’t pay for this, she bought the building and signed it over to us, but the Government funds us,” Ava said, settling into one of the chairs.

Sam shrugged dismissively, “Same difference, now you’re just a hit squad for the government.”

“Are you independently wealthy, Mr. Wilson?” Evie asked as she settled beside James.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Are you independently wealthy?” she asked again.

“No, my family runs fishing boats in New Orleans.”

She gave him a pointed look down her nose. “Then who pays for your fancy suit and accoutrements?”

Sam crossed his arms over his chest, shifting on his feet. “An independent group.”

“’Independent’,” Jon scoffed, “like OXE?”

“No, smart ass, like some of the most concerned members of the US and UN.”

Evie tilted her head in confusion. “How is that any better than a government funded, sanctioned, and overseen program?”

She glanced at the others and back to Sam. “It was my understanding that there was a hierarchy in the Super Soldier Program, have they gotten rid of it?”

“What do you mean?” Yelena asked with interest.

“Well, they were always meant to be part of the Armed and First Responder taskforces. Like the Marines.” She ticked off the points on her fingers, “It was supposed to be political discussions, military intervention, and then the Super Soldiers. The only time the Soldiers were supposed to go in before the regular military was when the environment was physically too dangerous - that’s why they were able to handle extreme weather.”

She leaned forward, her fingers drumming on the surface of the couch in annoyance. “Now, it sounds like you have a particular issue with government backed military, but weren’t you, too, military? Pararescue, was what James told me. Why then is this an issue for you?”

“I…” Sam blew out a frustrated breath. “Okay, fine, I get your point, but why didn’t you just come to me? Was it the thing with the shield?”

Bucky shook his head. “No, well, maybe. I told you, if Steve was wrong about you, then he was wrong about me, and for the longest time, Steve was the only thing I knew was right. If I did what he said, then I wasn’t doing something that hurt people again.”

Evie rubbed his shoulder soothingly, his hand coming up to cover hers and hold it against him.

“We’ve stopped terrorists, meta-humans, things I can’t even describe in the fourteen months we’ve been doing this, all while you’ve been creating your team. We’ve been doing the work, some of it in the open, some in the shadows, but we’ve been doing it.”

Sam groaned, dropping his defensive stance. “It doesn’t matter what you’ve been doing, Bucky. It’s not enough,” he said. “Valentina burned a lot of bridges, and your names are attached to it. Your past, Genevieve’s, it’s all being dragged out into the spotlight and shooting people doesn’t help matters.”

“You brought an assassin into my home, Sam. He tried to kill my son, what did you think was going to happen? You say what we’ve been doing isn’t enough, then what is? What do we have to do to be forgiven? To be accepted? You can’t have it both ways. Either you are an Avenger or you’re not and this team? They may be a pain in the ass most days, but they’re Avengers. A new breed maybe, a darker Avengers, but we do what we have to so you and your team can wear the shiny armor and get the publicity.”

Bucky shook his head as Evie wrapped her arm around his waist giving him a side-hug, letting him lean on her like she had him. The monitor was clutched in one hand, the other curled around the wing of his hip.

“And it will never look good,” she said succinctly. “You are standing in a room of soldiers, not poster boys, and no soldier has clean hands. Not even Captain America. The only difference is context. Steve Rogers was promoted as good, kept a clean image off the field and wasn’t swayed by personal emotion, but he still killed.”

She glanced back at the others. “None of that applies to us. We are the ones who get their hands dirty, Mr. Wilson. We live in the shadows, where the darkness grows. We’re the ones who hit first and make sure the enemy doesn’t get back up. And you may not like the way we do things, but we get the job done.”

“That sounds more like vigilantism.”

“And Pirates were called Privateers when they had government backing. It’s semantics, Mr. Wilson. A hero becomes a villain when they have nothing left to lose, but conversely, a villain can become a hero when they find something to protect. To fight for. We were never villains, and may never be heroes, but we have a place in this world as do you.”

Sam grimaced at the pair of them, rolling his eyes as his anger dropped off. “The wrong Barnes is in politics, you know that, right?” he asked Bucky, who sputtered.

Yelena laughed at him. “I told you; you were an old married couple.”

“I dislike the term ‘old,’” Evie groused. “Especially considering our actual ages.”

“But you didn’t mind the married comment,” Ava quipped, making them both blush furiously.

The AI chiming with an incoming notification saved either from answering.

‘Landing coordinates confirmed,’ it intoned mechanically.

Bucky kissed Evie’s knuckles as he pulled away from her. “Check on Jimmy,” he said tensely. “Keep your tracker on.”

Evie kissed his cheek. “You still owe me that dance, Sergeant,” she said tenderly. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

Bucky shook his head as he watched her head for the kitchen, flipping off the stove and oven and covering the dishes quickly.

“And don’t even think of finishing that statement, James,” she warned, tossing a warning look over her shoulder. “Or I’ll let Yelena kick you again.”

“Can I kick him anyways?” the blond asked hopefully.

“No, be good, all of you, and be safe, even you Mr. Wilson.”

“Why do you care?” he asked, genuinely confused by her comment.

“Everyone’s offered a redemption arc, Mr. Wilson.”

“Really, what’s mine for?”

“Mostly being a stubborn jack-arse, from what I can see.”

Sam raised his eyebrows at her retreating form, then turned back to Bucky. “She’s never going to call me Sam, is she?”

“Not until you stop being a dumb-ass,” Bucky told him, heading for the computer screen. “Also, maybe stop bringing people you don’t really know with you.”

“He was brand new!” Sam said exasperated, throwing his hands up in the air.

“We should probably call the cleaners,” Ava suggested. “Before the blood stains the floor.” When the group turned to stare at her she bristled, crossing her arms over her chest defensibly.

“What?! I cannot be the only one who remembers when Alexei spilled his Fanta on the rug. I thought she was going to murder him for making that mess.”

Bucky shrugged, she wasn’t wrong, Evie did hate having to clean up after them. Yelena flipped open her cell.

“I’ll do it. The rest of you just piss them off.”

Chapter Text

Part 6

Chapter Forty-Three

Bucky didn’t know when the Watchtower had become the central planning area for all the meta-humans and former assassins in the city, but here he was playing host to the ‘Fantastic Four’, which was just as stupid a name as the X-Men, Thunderbolts, Avengers or any of the other group names.

Honestly, they all sounded like comic book titles. He snorted at his own thoughts, ignoring Sam Wilson’s raised brow.

If Sam was right, he should be expecting Thor, Loki and the rest of Sam’s team within the hour; Shuri had messaged to say they’d be there within two; apparently she was bringing ‘friends, sort of’, which didn’t exactly inspire confidence, but he’d deal. The idea that this Doom guy had managed to piss off so many people made him feel a bit better about his own past, but the fact that they had this many superheroes in play and everyone was still concerned was…concerning.

He kept on the other side of the room from the X-Men. Their leader, Xavier gave him the creeps. It was almost humorous that of everyone in the room, it was the wheelchair-bound old guy that freaked him out, but once he heard the word ‘telepath’ he’d tapped out. Yelena could take that can of worms, he wasn’t going anywhere near him if he could avoid it.

The others were okay, he supposed. Scott was too by the book and Wade made his head hurt by being the exact opposite. How Logan hadn’t punched his claws through the guy’s face by now Bucky didn’t understand. He liked Rogue though. She and McCoy reminded him of Evie, smart, pragmatic, and more than a bit sassy.

The two blue people confused him. Were they related? How could they not be? Whatever, not his business. And while he couldn’t understand a word Lebeau said, even with speaking more languages than was reasonable, Erik – Magneto – was easy to figure out once he saw the numbers on his forearm. They’d shared an understanding look after Bucky’s past in WW2 had come out and not spoken about it again. He could live with that.

He waved the Reed over. “The safest part of the building is the lab. McCoy, Genevieve and our son will be there if you wanted to leave Franklin.”

Reed frowned in thought before turning to his wife. “Sue.”

Sue disappeared and reappeared beside him with Franklin. “What?”

“Barnes has offered the safety of their labs for Frankie. His wife and son will also be there.”

James grimaced when his team started laughing at the name.

Sue gave him a searching look. “Victor is targeting him. I’m not sure if anywhere is truly safe.”

“We can hook the ships’ forcefield up to the building,” Reed suggested. “It should only take about an hour.”

James waved Scott Lang over.

“Hey, what’s up man?”

“Scott, can you help Richards hook his ship up to the Watchtower’s Arc Reactor?”

“Yeah, sure. Where’s the ship?”

“Johnny!” Sue yelled across the room.

“What?” Johnny wined.

“Go get the ship and land it on the roof.”

“Got it,” he said, popping up off the chair and running towards the large bay window. “Flame on!” he yelled as he dove out headfirst.

Bob winced as he glanced out it. “It’s a good thing I had that open,” he muttered.

Bucky rolled his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.

Reed patted him on the back in commiseration. “Ever feel like a kindergarten teacher, Barnes?”

“All the damn time. Come on, I’ll walk you down. I think we could all use a bit of space.”

He gave Yelena a chin lift, leaving her to deal with everyone as the two men left.

“Mr. Wilson said you were in WW2,” Reed started, making Bucky grimace. “How is that possible?”

“Got frozen, a lot.”

Reed winced; Frankie’s hand clutched in his as the three walked. “Ah, I see. Yes, I’ve had that happen myself. Not to the extent you seem to have though.”

“Well,” he said, tapping his arm on the bent door of the elevator. “I’ve got a bit more metal in me than you do. I expect that changes things.”

Reed raised a brow at the door, tapping the knuckle prints. “I can see that. Tell me, Sergeant Barnes, was the elevator hiding an assassin when you beat it into submission?”

Bucky rolled his eyes as he pulled the door shut. He really needed to get it fixed. “Worse, memories.”

Reed’s smile fell off as he stars down at the blond head of his son. “Yes, they are sometimes worse, aren’t they?”

Bucky shrugged. “Sometimes and sometimes, they’re the only thing that keeps you moving.”

He knocked on the window of the lab, waving to Evie who was on a playmat on the ground with Jimmy. She smiled up at him as Franklin raced into the room giggling.

“Well, hello!” Genevieve said with humor as little arms wrapped around her neck, the slight body on her back. “And who are you, little one?”

“Hi Dr. Evie! I’m Frankie.”

Reed and James frowned from the doorway. “How did he know her name?” James asked quietly.

Reed sighed. “With my son, anything is possible.”

“Oh!” Frankie cooed. “Jimmy’s so little here!!”

He giggled, poking the baby in the nose. “He’s gonna be so mad I’m bigger than him now.”

Genevieve gave the two men a startled glance. “’Here’, Frankie?” she asked.

“Yup.”

When the boy didn’t elaborate, she shrugged, filing the information away for later.

Reed stood beside Bucky in the doorway watching as Franklin flopped down on the ground beside Genevieve and Jimmy, laughing brightly. “Do you really think this is a good idea?

Bucky gave him a deadpan look. “Do you really think there’s somewhere safer than with a woman who is able to melt people with a few household chemicals and is a crack shot?”

From the inside of the lab, Evie and the boys waved at them, smiling like little sociopaths.

“Nope,” Reed said smartly. “You’re right let’s get going. I don’t know about yours, but my wife will flay me alive if I’m late to this meeting.”

Bucky gave up trying to correct everyone, in the end, it didn’t really matter. He and Evie were committed to their relationship, so calling her his partner, wife, or something else didn’t mean anything. How they felt did.

“Doc,” he called after Reed stepped into the hall to give them some privacy.

Genevieve patted Frankie on the head as she stood, crossing to James.

“You’re heading back up now?” she asked.

“Yeah, I’ll send McCoy down in a bit, he’s already said he’s better here than in the field.”

“Alright.”

The pair stared at each other until James reached out and ran his fingers down her jaw. “I’ll see you before we go, okay?”

She gave him a wavering smile. “We’ll be here.”

Evie fingered the last buckle on James’s vest before smoothing his collar flat. “You better come back to me, Sergeant,” she said quietly.

He cupped her face tightly, kissing her hard. “I promise. Stay with McCoy. He’ll keep you safe.”

“I won’t risk Jimmy or Frankie, don’t worry.”

“Just don’t be reckless, Doc. This guy, there’s something wrong with him. He’s not playing around.”

“I know.” She nodded to the door. “Go, they’re waiting for you.”

When he didn’t leave, she laughed. Leaning up, she kissed him softly. “Go, keep the kids in line and I’ll manage the actual children.”