Chapter Text
I am waiting for something to go wrong
I am waiting for familiar resolve
I am waiting for another repeat
Another diet fed by crippling defeat
And I am waiting for that sense of relief
I am waiting for you to flee the scene
As if you held in your hand the smoking gun
And on the floor lay the one you said you love
-“Expo 86” by Death Cab for Cutie
Busting Hydra bases with Sergeant James “Bucky” Barnes and company was never dull.
There were a lot of threats in the post-Snap world and while the Avengers and SHIELD had dealt devastating blows to Hydra’s infrastructure, the threat hadn’t been completely neutralized yet. SHIELD remained operating in the shadows and sent agents to tear apart the smaller factions trying to organize strikes or other shady business. The teams varied based on who was available, but SHIELD had Sgt. Barnes take lead due to having the most experience and being the Big Gun for the team. Sometimes it was a four-man team and sometimes we had more reinforcements if it was a particularly populated Hydra base. I’d run just under six missions with the sergeant, which meant we’d established a rhythm and rapport by now.
The upcoming mission was busting a Hydra base someone had traced back to just outside of Bucharest. One of the reasons I’d been tapped for the base busting team was being fluent in twelve languages, including Romanian. Most SHIELD agents spoke multiple languages, but sometimes they needed specific regions or dialects to make sure the missions ran smoothly, so I was a good asset for it. We had a six-man team this time since it was a base that could have more than thirty hostiles. They had holed up in an abandoned army base, likely because while the munitions had been taken offsite long ago, the facility itself had plenty of room for them and their weapons.
“Alright, so our eye-in-the-sky has counted thirty-four hostiles,” Bucky said where he stood in the Quinjet’s off-loading ramp. We were airborne and flying low, about to parachute down outside of their perimeter. Our craft could be picked up a few miles out, so we’d be landing on the outskirts and hiking to the base. “The reason the base is so thick with Hydra agents is that we recently got some intel that one of Strucker’s experimental weapons is stored at this location. That means they are going to do everything in their power to protect it.”
“What kind of weapon is it?” I asked.
“Before his untimely death, Strucker had been working on the scepter, which we now know contained the Mind Stone, so we have to assume it has something to do with mind manipulation. Be on high alert for psychological attacks. We’re not aware that he was able to clone any of the Mind Stone’s abilities, but we don’t know what kind of experiments were successful. Everyone pair up and watch each other’s backs.”
“Roger that,” we chorused. I stood and started handing out parachutes as the Quinjet’s autopilot alerted us that we were now in the drop zone.
I offered one to Barnes before putting my own on. “Am I with you this time?”
“Mm-hmm,” he said as he pulled it on and started doing all the straps. “Better be careful, though. You might get a reputation hanging out with me so much.”
I snorted. “Like I don’t have one already.”
Bucky’s eyebrows lifted as he walked with me to the now-open ramp, the world far below us spread out like an enormous blanket. “What? Are they gossiping again?”
“They always do. After all, you put a man and a woman together long enough and sometimes the romantic cliché is true.”
He grinned. “Oh yeah? You carryin’ a torch for me, girlie?”
I batted my lashes. “How did you know, sergeant? I’m positively mad about you. I dream of being able to languish in your loving arms.”
Bucky laughed. “Smartass. Keep playing with me. See what happens.”
I grinned back. “I’m just a girl who can’t say no.”
And then I jumped out of the Quinjet.
The wind roared in my ears as I descended. Once I was at the right altitude, I pulled the chute and floated into the clearing where my colleagues had already landed. Bucky touched down not long after and after stashing the chutes, we all trekked through the forest to the perimeter of the Hydra base.
Our drone had been circling the base from an enormous distance to avoid detection, so we jammed their internal alarm system and then infiltrated the base through one of the service entrances to the bunker. It was a pretty deep one at that—more than four stories below the surface—and had a roving security team.
The base busting team consisted of me, Bucky, Perkins, Herbie, Bacall, and Mitchell. We always went by military alphabet codenames during these raids, so I was designated Bravo (to Bucky’s Alpha, of course) and would be covering the rear while he and I went to recover the experimental weapon while the rest of the team neutralized the Hydra agents. We headed for the security hut first and disabled the two guards watching the feeds. Perkins stayed there to make sure no one would wander past and set off an alarm while the rest of us moved further into the base.
The security hut had a layout of the base via blueprint, so Bucky and I headed for the weapons’ vault on the lowest level. It was cold, damp, and dark. The floors were all concrete and dimly lit with spotlights down the long hallway. We moved as soundlessly as possible until we reached a huge metal door locked with a touch pad. I took the key scrambler out of my utility belt and plugged it into the USB port on the bottom. I hit a few things and the numbers appeared on the touch pad, then it flashed green. The horizontal doors parted and then a vertical set behind it parted as well, opening to reveal an open space with two rows of doors made of bulletproof glass. Each door had its own separate touchpad lock as well with the equipment hanging from hooks bolted on the walls. The entire thing was made of concrete, so it was probably soundproof and reinforced. You wouldn’t want to be in here when those doors locked if you didn’t know how to get out.
There were two Hydra agents inside, probably completing some form of inventory. The first one turned to face us and his eyes got huge.
“SHIELD, don’t move,” Bucky barked at him. The Hydra agent scrambled for his gun, but Bucky put two in his head before he could. The other agent let out a hysterical cry and slapped one of the touchpads to let him inside one of the small closets. Bucky and I hurried over and stood on either side of the open doorway.
“Don’t come in here or I’ll shoot,” the agent shouted in Romanian.
“We’re not coming in there,” I replied in Romanian. “If you surrender, we won’t hurt you.”
“Yeah, right,” he spat. “I know what SHIELD does to people like me. If I die, I’m taking you with me.”
I met eyes with Bucky. He nodded towards the chart on the wall. I glanced at it to see the specifications of the weapon inside the closet. “That gun isn’t lethal.”
“What?” the Hydra mook demanded.
“It doesn’t shoot bullets or lasers. Your best bet is to just surrender and be taken into SHIELD custody.”
“You’re bluffing.”
I snorted. “I’m really not. We don’t have time for this crap, so what’s it gonna be?”
Silence. I could practically hear the idiot considering his options.
And unfortunately, he picked the wrong one.
He came barreling out of the closet and aimed a gun that looked like a rifle, but with a strange almost rail-gun-like barrel at Bucky. My instincts took over. Before I knew it, I’d tackled Bucky out of the way just as a beam of yellow light hit me between the shoulder blades. A strange light encased my body from head to toe, but then it was gone in the blink of an eye. The agent sprinted out of the door, firing wildly so we’d stay on the ground instead of chasing after him.
“Ow,” I groaned as I gathered my legs under me enough to hover above the Super Soldier. “You okay, tough guy?”
“Me?” Bucky demanded. “What the hell were you thinking?”
“I wasn’t,” I admitted as I stood up and offered him my hand, which he accepted. “Just reacted on instinct alone.”
“How do you feel?”
I paused, evaluating myself. “Uh, fine? For now, anyway.”
I grabbed the chart off the wall and folded it, tucking it into my belt. “Let’s get after him.”
Bucky took point again as we left the vault and went down the long hallway, as we could hear the Hydra agent’s boots on the concrete up ahead. As we went, though, I could hear Bucky muttering to himself. “Can’t believe I didn’t react in time and she took the bullet for me. Shit. I don’t know what that thing does, but I’m gonna beat it out of this guy when we catch up to him.”
“It’s fine, Buck,” I said without turning to face him. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“Huh?” he said as we reached the corner and he peeked around it.
“I said it wasn’t your fault I took the shot for you.”
He frowned. “I know.”
“Well, just saying. You don’t have to beat this guy up; he sounded pretty damn scared to begin with and I think he’ll fold like a cheap suit if we get him cornered.”
Bucky frowned harder. “Did I say that?”
I stared at him. “Yeah, dude, like five seconds ago.”
Bucky squinted at me. “You’re fucking with me, aren’t you?”
“What?”
“I did not say that.”
“Yes, you did. I heard you.”
Bucky faced me completely this time. “No, I didn’t. I was thinking it, but I didn’t say it.”
“Well, I heard it, so maybe you just didn’t notice you were muttering. Hurry up, we’re gonna lose him.”
He seemed like he wanted to argue more, but he knew I was right, so he checked the corner again. “Clear.”
We rounded the corner and turned right at the next hallway since it led to both the staircase and the elevator. The panicked Hydra agent stood in front of the elevator slamming the button over and over in vain as he heard us coming. “Oh God, oh God, I’m dead meat, they’re gonna shoot me!”
“Throw it down,” Bucky said, his pistol gauntleted in his left hand. “Put your hands up or I will kill you.”
Behind him, the elevator doors opened and he scrambled inside. Bucky and I opened fire. One of the shots hit the man in the shoulder, but the doors shut before we could reach them. Bucky slammed his metal fist against the doors, denting them. “Dammit!”
He touched the link in his ear. “Team, be advised we have a rogue agent that we need recovered. Male, Romanian, thirties, brown hair, brown eyes, carrying a weapon that looks like a rail gun.”
“Roger that, Alpha,” Bacall replied. “I’m closest to the vault area. I’ll try and nab him.”
“Thanks. Be careful. Bravo got hit with that thing, but we’re not sure what it does just yet.”
“Shit. You okay, Bravo?”
“Peachy keen. Happy hunting.”
The elevator stopped on the top floor, meaning he’d reached the surface. Dammit. The stairs would take too long so we’d have to wait for it to come back down to us.
“Gonna wring that guy’s fucking neck, I swear,” Bucky muttered.
“Get in line,” I mused, watching the numbers slowly change back down to basement level.
“Hmm?”
“I said get in line. What’s with you and your selective hearing today?”
Bucky groaned and faced me. “Okay, something’s up. I didn’t say shit, girlie. I promise you I didn’t.”
“Bucky, you said you want to wring the guy’s neck. I heard you. Get over it.”
“I didn’t say it out loud.”
I scowled. “Oh yeah? Then how do I know what you said?”
Bucky fell silent. Then his eyes got wide. “Wait a minute. If that was a weapon developed from the Mind Stone…”
He stared at me intensely for a second. “No, that can’t be it.”
“What can’t be it?”
Bucky took a deep breath and kept staring at me. “I’m gonna try something real quick.”
“Uh, okay?”
“My favorite movie is The Blues Brothers.”
I heard that sentence in Bucky’s voice…but his lips didn’t move.
My jaw clattered to the floor. “Oh my fucking God.”
“You heard that?!” Bucky demanded.
“I did,” I said. “Oh no. Oh, this is bad. This is really, really bad.”
I frantically grabbed the specs sheet on the gun and read through the technobabble until I found something relevant, which I then read aloud. “Abilities include partial telepathy and empathy projection. Subjects report the ability to read the unconscious thoughts of all individuals within a five-mile radius.”
I shut my eyes. “I am in serious trouble.”
Bucky touched the link again just as the elevator doors opened again. “New priority: I need you guys to converge on Delta’s location and find that Hydra agent.”
“Uh-oh,” Herbie said, though part of it was muffled by gunshots. “What’s up?”
“Bravo is in trouble,” Bucky said as we got into the elevator. “Get that gun back at any cost.”’
“Roger that,” the others chorused.
We took the elevator back up to the surface where chaos had erupted in the base. Someone had finally managed to raise an alarm, so we had to shoot our way back to the perimeter. Unfortunately, that meant my mind was immediately besieged on all sides with the thoughts of all the agents shooting at us.
--get that bitch—
--not going to fucking jail, I swear to God—
--should never have signed up with them—
--damn gun is jamming, I don’t know what to do—
--why is this happening to me—
--so fast, couldn’t even see him, it hurts so much, just make it stop please—
I yelped and buckled to my knees, covering my ears against the invasive thoughts now crowding me as if I were in a stadium full of yelling patrons. Bucky cursed when he saw me losing control and then pulled me along behind him. It wasn’t just the sound of all the people around me panicking in the firefight—I could feel their emotions as if they were my own. Anger, fear, regret, remorse, hopelessness…everything crammed into every available space in my brain. It was too much. God, I’d die if I didn’t find a way to make it stop.
“You gotta focus for me,” Bucky told me as we hid behind an SUV about forty feet from the service exit. “I know it hurts, but I have to get you out of here. Can you follow me?”
“Can’t…focus…it’s too much noise, Bucky…make it stop, God, please, make it stop!”
He cursed and then reached into a pouch on his utility belt. He pulled out his small field First Aid kit and found a small syringe with a cap on the end. He pulled my arm forward and pushed up my sleeve until there was enough skin for him to stick me with the needle. He pressed the plunger down and then tossed the syringe and cap. “This is a mild sedative. It should take some of the edge off until I can get you to the jet. You’re gonna feel woozy, but I have your back, okay?”
I nodded too many times. He checked that the coast was clear and then motioned for me to follow him. The sedative made my legs feel heavy, but the swirling cacophony of other people’s thoughts also faded somewhat, allowing me to concentrate enough to flank Bucky on our way out.
But it was short-lived.
By the time he got me back to the Quinjet, Bacall and Herbie had already made it over, meaning an onslaught of scattered thoughts that brought me to my knees again. Bucky holstered the pistol and just picked me up, carrying me aboard and then placing me on the med-bay table. He hurriedly grabbed another First Aid kit and administered another dose of sedative, his blue eyes serious as he murmured, “Easy, now. Rest. I’ve got you, girlie.”
His worried face faded from my vision and I floated off into blessed silence at last.
I woke up in a bed. Strange. But considering the last time I was conscious, not that strange.
I was in a bedroom I didn’t recognize, but it was spacious and sparsely decorated. There was a dresser with a mirror across from the bed, a closet to the right, a bathroom to the left of the dresser, and then the bedroom door beyond that to my left. I was still in my SHIELD jumpsuit, but without the bulletproof vest and boots. The bed was a Queen-sized and there was a chair pulled up beside it in which Sergeant Barnes sat, his head leaned back on his neck as he dozed off, snoring slightly. It almost made me smile. He looked awful cute asleep.
I reached over and tapped his knee. He woke up and licked his lips, blinking sleep from his eyes as he noticed me. He sat up the rest of the way and passed me a water bottle on the nightstand beside me. I accepted it graciously; my mouth was dry. “Where are we?” I asked after a few gulps of water.
“SHIELD safe house as far out as I could find without getting on a plane,” Bucky said. “We should be well outside of any significant population.”
I winced. “I take that to mean you didn’t catch the guy.”
“No,” Bucky growled bitterly. “He’s in the wind, but we’ve cast a big net to make sure he won’t get too far. It’ll just take some time. I’ve got the team running the op as their first priority, but I don’t know how long it’ll take. SHIELD put you on medical leave officially until we find him and then we can reverse-engineer the rifle he used on you.”
He smirked. “Though I personally just wanna beat the antidote out of the guy.”
“Assuming there is an antidote,” I mumbled morosely before taking another sip. “Which there very well may not be.”
“We have the schematics. Our SHIELD scientists are working around the clock to see if they can make an antidote without the gun and the guy in custody. It’s just a waiting game.”
I sighed. “Yeah, like too many things in adulthood. When are you headed out to rejoin the team?”
“Not going.”
I frowned. “They told you to watch me?”
He shook his head. “I told me to watch you. After all, this is my fault—”
I whacked him with my pillow. “It was not your fault, you presumptive ass. I pushed you out of the way. You didn’t do squat. If you start beating yourself up about it, I will sit on you.”
Bucky’s lips twisted as he tried not to laugh. “Sitting on me is punishment? You don’t know me very well, do you?”
I rolled my eyes. “Don’t get fresh, Barnes. I don’t need a babysitter. You can go with the rest of them and finish the op. I’ll be okay here on my own.”
“Negative. The other reason I’m staying is if that guy runs his mouth, Hydra will want to collect you so they can poke, prod, study, and dissect you. We’re still combing through the recovered files to see if they’ve ever had a successful human trial, but if they haven’t, now you’re an asset.”
I swallowed hard. Shit. Hadn’t considered that. “Oh. But aren’t you worried about me reading your mind constantly?”
“That’s the other piece.” He sat forward. “From what I gathered, it’s both telepathy and empathy, which means you’re vulnerable to extreme emotions when you’re near someone. My Winter Soldier programming made me regulate my emotions strictly and sometimes just disregard feeling anything at all when activated, so you shouldn’t be at risk with me around as your buffer. I have a pretty tight control over my emotions, which means I’m possibly the only person you’re safe to be around.”
I let out a weak chuckle. “Right, because you’re an emotional black hole. I’m sure your therapist is glad to hear it.”
Bucky snorted. “I consulted with her while you were out. She’s the one who suggested I take care of you in light of my, uh, unique relationship with my emotions.”
“Robot Bucky activate,” I said in a silly AI voice, which made him smirk. “Still, though. I don’t want you to feel like we’re joined at the hip; you should still check in with the others and go help out if they find the little shit.”
“When they find the little shit,” he corrected. “Because I’ll turn this planet inside out if I have to. He’s getting found, dead or alive, believe me.”
I shook my head as I threw back the covers and placed my bare feet on the ground. “And I thought you were overprotective before.”
He scowled as I stood up, steadying me with a hand when I wobbled a little. The sedative had worn off, but not completely, so I was still woozy. “When am I overprotective?”
I arched an eyebrow. “When you’re conscious.”
He rolled his eyes. “Whatever you say, girlie. Come on. You need to eat something.”
Bucky led me through the hallway into a decent-sized kitchen. There was a sliding glass door—bulletproof, of course—that led to a small deck overlooking the forest. I couldn’t see anything but trees for miles, so it had been the right spot to pick. I just had to hope no random people decided to go for a hike nearby.
“Wasn’t sure if the sedatives would make you queasy, so I just went with chicken noodle soup,” Bucky said as he took the lid off the big silver pot on the stove. “I can make something more substantial for dinner, but we also need to monitor you for any other side effects. Just take it easy for now and let me know if you feel any different or start hearing voices.”
I offered him a deadpan look as he handed me a bowl of freshly made soup. “Have the lambs stopped screaming, Clarice?”
He shook his head. “You are warped, girlie.”
We sat at the table in the breakfast nook and ate. It was delicious, but then again, I knew Bucky could cook from running a couple of overnight ops with him before. “So what the hell are we gonna do while we’re stuck in here with our brains linked together?”
Bucky stared at me and then just offered a truly wicked smile without saying a word. I threw my balled-up napkin at his head. “I told you not to get fresh with me, sergeant.”
“How can I not?” he mused. “I like the way it sounds when you call me that.”
I rolled my eyes. “You are just the worst.”
“I try.” He reached into his pocket and then set a fresh pack of cards on the table between us. “Good enough?”
“Good enough.” I opened the pack and started up a game of Speed since it was easy and didn’t require a lot of brain power, seeing as mine was now amplified by magic. “Is therapy any better these days?”
“Not in the slightest,” he grunted. “I hate that shit with a passion. Wouldn’t be going if it wasn’t court-ordered.”
“Sorry,” I said sincerely. “It’s no fun for me either, but I know I have to do it since I’m an active-duty field agent. You can get fucked up real good by something from your subconscious that comes out of left field, so that’s really the reason why I stuck with it.”
“I don’t see the point,” he said with a sigh. “Dredging up the past and talking about it, I mean.”
“The way I understand it is like unpacking a messy suitcase. You unpack it so you can repack it neatly with everything in the right place and to make carrying it easier.”
Bucky studied me. “I’ve been going there for like six months and that’s the first thing anyone’s ever said to me that actually made sense.”
I chuckled. “Sometimes you just need to hear it in Layman’s terms. It’s about trying to lighten your load, I guess. But I hate it too.”
“Good to know I’m not the only one.”
“What did the team say when you told them what was wrong with me?”
“They were just glad you weren’t awake when the rest of them got there.”
I snorted. “Probably because Perkins and Mitchell are sleeping together and don’t want anybody to know.”
Bucky chuckled. “I know. It’s insane they think we can’t tell.”
“Well, you know how people are. They have big old blind-spots sometimes.”
“Yeah? What’s one of mine? And no cheating.”
“Like I need telepathy for that. And yours is that you’re extremely protective of your team members whether you realize it or not. You’re way more willing to take a bullet than any other SHIELD agent I’ve worked with, which is why you keep flagellating yourself about my situation.”
“I was running point. It’s my responsibility to make sure my team comes back in one piece.”
“Life is unpredictable, Bucky. No sense in blaming yourself for random chaos.” I planted my last card down and declared, “Speed!”
“Damn, I’m rusty,” he said as he tossed his four extra cards to the tabletop. “Rematch?”
“You’re on.”
We played five games total, with me winning three, so Bucky would have to cook dinner as part of his loss. While he was in the kitchen, I received a call from my SHIELD supervisor, Joanne.
“How ya holdin’ up?”
“Okay for now. What’s going on?”
“This is an odd request, but someone over at interrogation was having trouble with one of the Hydra agents who might know where our mutual friend is and wanted to know if you were willing to take a crack at it.”
I sat up straight. “You want me to come in and read the guy’s mind?”
“It was just a suggestion,” she said. “I’m humoring the interrogator since I want you to get better too. What do you think?”
I glanced in the direction of the kitchen. “My nanny won’t like it one bit.”
“True. But I still need a definitive answer.”
I nibbled my lower lip. “Let me think on it. Half an hour tops.”
“You got it. I’ll talk to you then.” I got up and walked into the kitchen. Bucky had gone with simple this time—two steaks and some broccoli.
“What’s up?” he asked, having heard my phone ring. I tucked my hands into my pockets and leaned against the counter, trying to sound as casual as possible.
“SHIELD is having some trouble with one of the Hydra agents we nabbed in Bucharest. They wanted to know if I’m willing to come in and read his mind to get the location of the gun and the guy who stole it.”
Bucky looked right at me with narrowed eyes and I heard him clearly think, “The fuck you will.”
I suppressed a smile. “Ah, yes, I had that reaction right on the money.”
“Sorry,” he said briskly. “But you do know that’s a horrible idea, right?”
“It is…but is it so horrible that we shouldn’t consider it?”
He took a deep breath before answering. “I can’t tell you what to do. Not your boss.”
“Oh, please, Bucky. You are so my boss.”
“Going into a SHIELD base in your condition is just going to set you off again. I don’t want that to happen again, not when we don’t know the long-term damage it might cause.”
“Agreed. But I was thinking they fly the Hydra agent out to a remote location with minimum personnel: you, me, him, and the interrogator. Maybe some light security, but that’s it.”
“We wouldn’t be able to control every factor,” he said as he flipped the steaks in the cast iron pan. “For all we know, a truckload of agents gets routed there and you go insane.”
“I know it’s a risk. But what else do we have right now in the way of finding this guy?”
Bucky didn’t reply right away, which meant that leads were scarce. I rested a hand on his arm and softened my tone. “If our situations were reversed, what would you want to do, Buck?”
He worked his jaw. “I want confirmation of the personnel before I agree to take you to the black site. No one extra gets to show up. And the guards had better be told about your condition so they either empty their heads or just loop ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’ or something when we arrive.”
I patted his arm. “Those are fair and reasonable demands, sergeant. I’m proud of you.”
Bucky rolled his eyes. “Always gotta sass me, don’t you?”
“It’s just how I roll.” I walked off and pulled my phone out to make the call.
It was nightfall by the time they flew the Hydra agent out to a black site to finish interrogating him. They found one of the smaller ones where there weren’t any nearby flight paths—since we weren’t sure if passing airplanes would be in range, but most of the commercial ones stayed above five miles in the air—and Bucky made sure to stay at a high altitude to prevent me hearing the thoughts of people below in the nearby towns.
“We’re not making this a lengthy trip,” the sergeant said after we’d landed on the air strip. “If he doesn’t talk in ten minutes, we’re gone.”
“Yes, Bucky,” I said, not hiding my mild annoyance at being nannied. He scowled, but didn’t say anything as we walked down the Quinjet ramp to enter the black site.
The interrogator, Michael Hammond, was a tall, wiry black man in a black suit with a white dress shirt and a gun on his hip. He shook our hands once we were in range. “Sorry to pull you guys out of the safe house. I just thought—”
“We know,” Bucky said. “Let’s get this over with.”
“Yes sir.” Hammond brought us inside. Thankfully, the two guards at the entrance had listened to the instructions and were both humming harmless tunes as we passed them. Hammond swiped his key card once we reached the elevator and it took us to the basement level. He offered me a small manila folder.
“Perp’s name is Andrei Vasile. Born and raised in Bucharest, recruited by Hydra after a brief stint in the military. Hydra’s been trying to recruit new members by offering refugees and ex-military personnel weapons, lodging, and cash. Bucharest has been a target as of the last six months since things have yet to improve with relocating the Un-snapped population. They’re very resentful and ready to fight, so that’s why this guy is giving me the business.”
“Does he know I was shot with the rifle?” I asked.
“He might be suspicious of it, yes. But I think he thinks we just want it because it’s valuable weaponry, not that he thinks one of our own was hit with it. I guess you’ll find out when you poke around in his brain.” Hammond paused. “God, what does it feel like?”
“Like someone is yelling at you with a bullhorn and there’s no way to mute it,” I said, not hiding how tired I sounded. “It’s like if misophonia was a thousand times worse than it already is.”
Hammond grimaced. “My condolences. I’m gonna try and get you out of here as fast as I can. You have my word, ma’am.”
“Thanks.” We stepped off the elevator. The basement level was also made of stone and there were four interrogation rooms on this wing. Hammond swiped his key card again to let us into the second room on the right.
Inside sat a short, curly-haired man in his early forties, dark circles under his eyes, his leg bouncing up and down with nervous energy. He was handcuffed to the heavy metal table and flinched when the door opened. He didn’t look too bad, so I doubted they’d started any enhanced interrogation, but the first thing he thought when he saw me was, “what’s with the girl?”
I suppressed the urge to roll my eyes. Women still had to deal with glass ceilings as SHIELD agents and it was very tiresome, but I didn’t want to tip my hand so I kept my face blank.
“Mr. Vasile, you have a couple of visitors,” Hammond said as he leaned against the wall by the door. Bucky settled on my left, arms crossed, staring pointedly at the Hydra agent. “We thought maybe you’d feel more comfortable disclosing information to them.”
Andrei snorted. “Then you’re as stupid as you look.”
“I’m really not,” Hammond said. “Because the only way you’ll live to see tomorrow is if you tell us what you know.”
“You think I fear death?” Andrei sneered. “I was dead for five years after The Snap. I fear nothing. And that is all you and your SHIELD cowards will get from me—nothing.”
Hammond glanced at me. “You’re up.”
I pushed off from the wall and walked over to the table, leaning over it with my hands flat to the top. There was a copy of the specifications sheet for the gun in front of the perp. He glared at me and thought, “Give this bitch nothing. Blank face. Don’t answer her questions.”
A real charmer, this guy. “So you don’t fear death. What about rotting in a jail cell for the rest of your life?”
He kept glaring. “And I’m exaggerating about the cell, to be honest. Most of the time, you’ll be down here getting waterboarded over and over until you break.”
“You Americans,” Andrei spat. “You think pain will give you what you want in every instance. None of you have any discipline. You’re just bullies.”
“That’s right. We are. Now how strong do you think your will power is? What if you had to be tortured day after day, night after night, no rest, no reprieve. How long would it take you to crack?”
“How long would it take you, bitch?”
Behind me, I heard Bucky’s weight shift. Then I heard him think, “Easy, Barnes. Let it ride.”
I nearly give him an askance glance. Was he really so bothered by any given creep calling me names? I’d have to ask about that later. I instead addressed Andrei. “Oh, see, I’m smart enough to know when I’m beaten. I would sing like a bird because I know Hydra doesn’t give a diddly-damn about me and would just as soon kill me as rescue me. And that’s where you are right now. Whether you talk or not, being imprisoned by SHIELD is enough to put you on Hydra’s hit list because you know their secrets. I think you know exactly where the man who stole this weapon is and you’re thinking that if you cling to that nugget of info long enough, SHIELD will cut you a deal.”
I smiled. “That’s not how SHIELD works. They’ll just torture it out of you. And they’re patient. Days, weeks, months, years, doesn’t matter. They have an infinite number of people who will just keep tormenting you until you crack. Now why would you want to do all that when you just have to tell us who he is and where he is?”
“I don’t betray my countrymen. You and your thugs can just leave me here to be tortured.” Andrei glanced down at the specs sheet and thought, “And at least Grigore will not befall the same fate as me.”
Yahtzee.
“Really? That’s very loyal of you. Is Grigore going to have the same reaction if we catch him?”
Andrei looked up at me very quickly, surprised. Then he forced the surprise off his face, returning it to an ugly scowl. “He would not betray me.”
“So you think he has the same strong stomach that you do, even though he ran like a coward during our raid? After he stole Strucker’s technology for himself? Sounds like a stand-up guy, doesn’t he?”
“What would you know, bitch?”
Bucky stepped from behind me and then stood to my right. He didn’t say a word. He just stood there and stared at Andrei so intensely that the smaller man leaned away from him a little. I had been on the receiving end of a Bucky Barnes stare. His reaction was warranted.
“I know a lot more than you think.”
“Fat chance.” Then, in his head: “She’s bluffing. She doesn’t know about Grigore and the fishing boat on the coast. They’ll never find that out. He’ll get away and sell the weapon to another buyer and then maybe I can get a message out to him to get me out of this hellhole.”
I glanced at Hammond and gave him a slight nod. He pushed off from the wall and gathered the specs sheet up. “Well, have it your way, Mr. Vasile. We’ll be seeing you.”
Andrei spat near my boots. “Next time, leave the bitch at home.”
Bucky flipped the metal table directly onto Andrei’s chest.
It happened so fast that I barely even saw it; I just heard the enormous crash of his chair being knocked over and the thud of his body hitting the concrete floor. He let out a weak groan and a wheeze as Bucky stood over him, seething, though his voice was nothing but tranquil. “You should really diversify your vocabulary, buddy. Maybe I’ll get you a thesaurus for Christmas.”
“Du-te dracului!” Andrei managed to gasp out, but obviously being flattened beneath the table somewhat lessened the effect of the Romanian curse. Bucky just winked before opening the door for me and we left the criminal where he lay on the floor, groaning in pain.
“Well,” Hammond said, not hiding his amusement. “That was quite a show.”
“Be happy there wasn’t an encore,” Bucky rumbled from where he stood behind me. “Little pulã.”
“Boy, maybe the rumor that these two are fucking isn’t a rumor at all,” Hammond thought, then he shot me a guilty look when I glared at him. “Sorry, sorry, that was an accident.”
“What was?” Bucky asked.
“Nothing,” I said in a rather flip tone.
“I’m just saying,” Hammond continued while meeting my eyes. “Never seen the guy react like that in any other situation.”
“Noted.”
Bucky glanced between me and Hammond, frowning. “The hell did I miss?”
“Trust me, Buck, it would just make you angry. Anyway, the guy’s name is Grigore and he has a fishing boat in the Black Sea. I know it’s not a ton to go on, but it should be enough in combination with his mug shot being circulated all over Romania and its neighboring countries.”
“Got it. Great work, agent.” Hammond’s walkie-talkie squawked on his hip.
“Uh, Hammond, we have a situation topside.”
He picked it up. “What’s going on?”
“There is a chopper requesting permission for an emergency landing. They took enemy fire about twelve miles west of us.”
“Shit. How many?”
“Close to twenty.”
“Fucking hell,” Bucky snarled. “I knew this would happen. Ask him how far away they are.”
“How far out are they?” Hammond asked.
“Six miles and closing.”
“We’ve got to get our asset out first, but give them the go ahead and then send someone down to prep the med bay.”
“Yes sir.”
Hammond turned to me. “Can you hang in there long enough for takeoff?”
“Don’t know,” I said honestly, unable to help clenching my hands into fists out of sheer nervous energy. “Guess we’ll find out.”
The elevator’s doors opened and we hustled across the tarmac. But as we did, the low murmur of thoughts started up. I could hear faint things about being hurt and scared in addition to the guards completely forgetting their directives.
--inbound, need to get the med bay prepped and call it in to headquarters—
--just the worst luck ever—
--what’s so bad about telepathy anyway, seems like it’d be handy—
--wonder what she did to get Bucky fucking Barnes to be her bodyguard—
“Hey, hey,” Bucky said when he saw me falling behind, my steps slowing as the thoughts got louder and louder in my head. “Can you hear me? We have to keep moving, okay?”
I shook my head, clinging to the front of his shirt as I tried to talk through the searing headache that accompanied so many incoming thoughts. “I…can’t…Bucky, it’s too much, it’s killing me—”
He gripped either side of my face. “You’re okay. I have you. You can make it. I promise.”
Bucky held my hand and helped me the rest of the way to the Quinjet. I just barely collapsed into the seat while Bucky hurried to the pilot’s chair and hit the presets to take off. Hammond had stopped to talk to one of the guards, but his thoughts piled up with the rest and the pain became unbearable. I folded over in my seat with my head in my hands, tears flooding my eyes as the emotions in my head burned through my skull like acid. I couldn’t take it anymore. I just wanted silence again. I’d do anything just to be left alone.
For a fleeting second, I thought about my firearm and that was when I knew I was truly lost. “B-Bucky, please, make it stop!”
He lunged from his seat after setting the autopilot and knelt in front of me. “I’m here, it’s okay, you’re gonna get through this. We’re almost out. It’s gonna be okay.”
Bucky sat next to me and then tugged me into his arms, rubbing my back and quietly assuring me that we’d be out of here soon. The Quinjet had Stark Tech, thankfully, so in just a minute or two, we were out of range from the approaching helicopter and the base below. Slowly, I calmed as the blessed silence returned. I’d never take it for granted again.
Naturally, guilt smacked into me once the voices in my head quieted. I wiped my eyes and tried to pull away, muttering, “Sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he told me as he helped wipe my tears. “This whole situation has been hell.”
“I know, but you’re not my nanny,” I mumbled. “Or my therapist. I shouldn’t depend on you so much.”
“I volunteered, remember? Get over it.”
I let out a weak laugh. “You’re so mean, Barnes.”
“I’m a mean old man,” he agreed. Then he sent me an amused look. “Now what was going on with you and Hammond in that elevator?”
I rolled my eyes. “God, you are such a guy sometimes, Buck.”
“It was about me, wasn’t it?”
I fixed him with a petulant stare. “I don’t know, Bucky, did you do something that would warrant thoughts about you?”
It was his turn to roll his eyes. “The guy was out of line, alright?”
“Uh-huh. And you totally needed to defend my honor, as I am pure and virginal and cannot tolerate naughty words from bad men.”
“I’m touchy about it. Sue me.”
“All I’m saying is I don’t recall you getting this bent out of shape when it’s someone else on our team getting insulted by the bad guys.”
He sent me a wry look. “Well, I am your nanny. Maybe I’m too emotionally attached.”
I snorted. “By now, I think we’re both too attached. They’re gonna send us to HR at this rate.”
“Well, I can always go back to being your emotional black hole if my concern is annoying you so much.”
I slapped his knee. “Don’t be shitty. You know I don’t mean a word of it, you grump.”
“And yet I still have to hear the complaining.” He smirked to show he was kidding. “Any other symptoms I should know about?”
“Yes,” I deadpanned. “I have the uncontrollable urge to have sex with you on this jet.”
“Oh no,” he deadpanned back. “How will I ever deal with it?”
I laughed. “What a pair we are.”
“What? You don’t wanna join the Mile High Club?”
I arched an eyebrow. “I mean, are you a member of the Mile High Club?”
Bucky stared at me. Then he just smiled, got up, and returned to the pilot seat without another word.
My nanny was a bastard.