Chapter 1: A 12-step program for brainwashed assassins
Chapter Text
A. Newbury
The name sat in the middle of the page, underneath B. Campbell and above D. Lyman. None of the other names on the page were crossed off, because he hadn't found them yet. But he'd found A. Newbury a few weeks ago and had been dragging his feet coming here.
When his shrink had first brought up the idea of amends, she probably hadn't thought Bucky would take to it as he had. She'd thrown out their three rules almost as a challenge. Or a discouragement from moving forward. And, true, sometimes the first two required some creativity, but that just made success feel all the better. At least, when he managed to go through with it.
The bad guys were easy. Politicians, criminals, businessmen who had used Hydra connections to gain power were both easy to track down and satisfying to undo. If all of his amends were turning a senator over to the police, he'd be done with the list by the end of the year.
But for every bad guy, there were two or three innocent people. People like Yori, who still mourned his son. Bucky had tried to tell him many times, including the first day they'd met. But the words wouldn't come. And now Yori was the closest thing he had to a friend. Every time he tried to start his confession now, he pictured Wednesdays without lunch with Yori and chickened out.
The Winter Soldier, it turned out, was sort of a coward.
He was determined not to make the same mistake with A. Newbury. He was going to walk into the emergency clinic she worked at, say his line, and leave. No lunch plans, no hesitating. In and out and cross her off the list, no matter what happened.
This determination lasted right up until he got to said clinic. It was a nondescript building stuck in the middle of a row of connected business, in a not-so-great part of Brooklyn. It was sandwiched between an erotic book store and a laundromat so blandly signed he would have put money on it being a front for something. If he didn't know Newbury was a legitimate doctor, he'd have suspected the clinic was a front as well.
He got there around dusk, hoping it would be close to closing and empty. He was very wrong. The clinic had late hours, clearly to accommodate people who had to wait till the end of a work day to get medical care. A peek at the door showed him a waiting room full of people. So he walked away.
He spent a couple hours wandering the neighborhood, wondering if he should just come back another day, or approach her somewhere else. Maybe he shouldn't even give her amends. She wasn't like Yori, he hadn't killed a relative of hers. He'd hurt her personally. It was probably shitty to ask amends from someone like that.
It was well after dark when he made his way back to the block her clinic was on. According to the sign on the door, they were closed now, but he could see a light on in the back and a shadow of someone moving around.
His inner monologue had just about convinced him not to go through with this. So it was sort of surprising he found himself trying the door and nudging it open, taking a step into the dim, empty waiting room. A chime went off in the back, probably connected to the door opening.
"If you're here for an appointment," a voice called from the back. "We're closed."
"I'm not," he replied, following the voice around the reception desk to the back office.
There was a deep sigh. "If you're here to rob us, I have no cash." He stepped into the rectangle of light coming from the open office door, leaning slightly to peer inside. A tall woman with long brown hair was standing next to a desk absolutely covered with paperwork. She was looking at a file and didn't seem to realize he'd come close enough to see her.
"If you want drugs," she continued, "Just give me a list. I cannot keep replacing the door of the med cab-" She looked up then and broke off, staring at him.
She was different than his dim memories of her. It had been over a decade, he supposed, especially if she hadn't dusted. So of course she'd be older. But she also sported a long scar on her left cheek and a pair of dark rimmed glasses perched on her nose.
Clearing his throat, he took a step forward. "Hi, sorry, I-"
She dropped her file and moved to get the desk between them. One hand reaching for something under the desk.
Shit, of course she'd recognize him. There was only so much a hair cut could do and certainly she'd remember the man who'd kidnapped her. Whatever was left of the soldier and assassin he'd once been immediately went on alert, telling him to attack her before she got to whatever weapon she was reaching for. Kick the desk into her legs, grab her hair, pull her across-
"I'm no longer the Winter Soldier," he said, probably a little too loudly. It stopped her hand, which was all he'd wanted. Holding his hands out to show they were empty, he continued, "My name is James Buchanan Barnes and I'm here as part of my amends."
Her hand flexed, as if she was still considering going for her gun, then relaxed, along with the rest of her posture. "Amends? Is there a 12-step program for brainwashed assassins?"
Bucky gave a little breath of amusement, attempting a smile. "It'd be a small group. I think. This was something my therapist has been encouraging."
"Huh." The noise sounded a lot like his attempt at a laugh. "Right. So how does this usually go? You apologize? Owe me a debt?"
"I-uh, don't get this far that often." He tucked his hands in his pockets, hoping to still look harmless. "A lot of my amends involve arresting people."
She pointed at him. "That Hydra senator two weeks ago. That was you?" He shrugged awkwardly and rocked his head back and forth. "Good job."
"Thanks." He blew out a breath. "So. Uh, do you want me to apologize?"
"I don't think Hallmark makes 'sorry I kidnapped you for an evil organization that kept you captive for three years' card, huh?"
"Not that I've found." Jesus, this was awkward. He was bad enough at normal socialization, this was damned near impossible.
She crossed her arms and cocked her hips to lean on her desk. "Wait, so your therapist has you giving amends to your vi- to people whose lives you've effected and she didn't give you any scripting or role-play or anything?"
That was a really good point. "I don't think she's a very good psychiatrist."
"Does she do the passive aggressive notebook thing?"
He spread his hand towards her. "Yes! What is that?"
"There must be a class about it in unhelpful therapist school." She paused, and the silence this time wasn't nearly as awkward. "Do you drink?" she asked suddenly.
"I'm sorry?"
"I mean, I know you can't get drunk but do you still drink? For the taste or companionship or. . . whatever."
"Yeah," he said quietly. "I drink."
"There's a terrible hole in the wall bar down the street. I'm talking about barely any lighting, peanut shells on the floor, names carved in the tables, phone numbers on the bathroom stalls kind of bar. It's Friday, I know the owner, and he doesn't water down my drinks so if you wanted to come along and talk about bad therapists. . ."
There was a weird sense of deja vu, since he and Yori had started out like this. Was there something about him that made people want to buy him meals? He should say no, he didn't need any more friends that doubled as walking guilt trips. But she knew who he was and was still asking so maybe it was okay. "That sounds like my kind of bar."
"Great." She nodded, then stepped around the desk and held her hand out. "Amanda Newbury. Nice to meet you, James Barnes."
*
Barnes held the door open for her when they got to the bar. Peanut shells crunched under her feet and the smell of alcohol and stale smoke hit her. It was a weird place for a doctor to find comforting, but Last Rites had been her home away from home for years and a constant in a world that sometimes seemed to be determined to fuck with her.
"What's up, Doc?" the bartender called as she approached. There was a smattering of regulars at the bar and some of the closer tables. A few waved to her or lifted a glass in her direction as she moved through the room.
"Still not funny the seven hundredth time, Ink," she replied, leaning on the bar. "It will never be funny."
"You're laughing on the inside," he replied, making his way over to her. Ink's real name was likely lost to the ages. As far as she knew he had no family that might call him by his real name, and she had never heard him introduce himself as anything but Ink. It was some sort of old biker nickname, and the only thing he'd been called for almost forty years. Amanda had seen first hand the tattoos that had gotten him said name.
Ink was currently eyeing Barnes suspiciously. "You got a friend, Doc?"
"I do. Ink, James, James, Ink. We knew each other before the dust, he happened to wander past the clinic and I thought we could catch up at the best bar in town."
Ink grinned. "Any friend of Doc's is a friend of mine. Usual?"
Amanda glanced back at James. "Whiskey okay?" At his nod, she looked back at Ink. "Just give me a bottle and a couple glasses, I promise not to finish it."
Without comment, he went in the back and brought out a fresh bottle of single malt and two glasses.
She let Barnes pick their seats and they ended up in a booth along the back wall, with a good view of the room and main exit. The training was clearly still there.
He set up the glasses and she poured each of them a couple of fingers before recapping the bottle and setting it down.
"You had a bad shrink?" he asked then, pulling his glass towards him.
She nodded. "After everyone came back the powers that be at the hospital I worked at thought those of us who had been around through the chaos needed to go to therapy. I didn't last long."
"So you didn't . . . Blip?" He made a face when he said it.
"I hate that fucking word," she muttered, taking a swig of her drink. "But no, I didn't. I was working as an ER surgeon. In the middle of surgery two of my nurses and my anesthesiologist turn into ash. Would have been an enormous sterility risk if the patient hadn't disappeared as well." She gestured to him. "I'm guessing you did. You don't look five years older."
"Yeah. I was. . . gone." He downed half his glass in one swallow, swirling the amber liquid in the glass. "Came back, fought one last big battle, said goodbye to my best friend, got pardoned and sent to therapy."
"With a terrible therapist," she finished.
"I'm probably a terrible patient."
Amanda studied him a moment. He looked nothing like the man she'd known when held captive by Hydra. She'd mostly recognized him because she'd seen his files, which included pictures of him as a young man in the forties. "In AA, amends aren't done until step 9. That's nine out of twelve, you'll note. You don't go to anyone else until you've done a hell of a lot of work on yourself. But you're here, a few months from that last battle and pardon, trying to make amends without really knowing what that means."
He looked at her, then reached out for the bottle. "You know a lot about AA," he said pointedly.
"My father is twenty five years sober. Thirty, if you count the five years he didn't exist." She drained her glass and held her hand out for him to slide the bottle over. "Which is about when I started drinking, if you're curious."
"You don't think I'm ready for amends?" he asked after a few heartbeats of silence.
"I think you're probably ready for things like the senator. That's a pretty simple action. Bad person is in power, take them out of power. It's clean. Apologizing to people you've hurt is messy."
"Yeah," he said softly. He was staring into his glass and Amanda took the opportunity to study him again. He looked tired. He looked in his mid thirties but was clearly carrying all one hundred odd years of his life. It was a feeling she understood well. She looked pretty good for thirty nine, all things considered. But a lot of them had been long, hard years. The last five had felt like fifty.
"For what it's worth," she said finally. "I forgive you. And I'm glad you're not him any more."
Barnes looked up, meeting her gaze. "Thanks."
They clinked glasses and downed their drinks like they were shots.
"Out of curiosity," Barnes said as she refilled their glasses. "Why you?"
She arched a brow, putting the top back on the bottle. "Why me what?"
"Why did Hydra want you so badly? I got sent after a scientist here and there but they usually had a very specific purpose to it. You're just a doctor." He seemed to realize that was rude, so he hurried to add, "I'm sure you're a great doctor but. . ." He gestured vaguely with a gloved hand and tried to hide his embarrassment in taking a drink.
Amanda stared at him a moment. "You don't remember?"
Frown lines appearing between his brows, he shook his head.
Shit. She found herself staring at the bottle of whiskey, now almost half gone. At the rate they were going she was going to break her promise to Ink about not finishing it. "In medical school, I wrote a thesis on the possibly medical uses of Erskine's super soldier serum. Ways to use it to cure debilitating illness or injury, not to make supermen. I pursued it as a research topic, even filed a FOIA request to get a complete set of Erskine's notes. When Hydra kidnapped me, I was the world's leading expert in the serum." She forced herself to look back to him. "I wasn't a doctor. I was your doctor."
He sat back sharply, as if she'd physically shoved him. "You- why would they-"
"You weren't healing as quickly or efficiently as you had been. Your reaction times were slowing slightly and when they took you out of cryo your recovery time was lengthening." The man who had debriefed her - and broken her knee cap when she'd told him to go fuck himself - had referred to it as "malfunctioning." "They thought your serum was wearing off somehow, and they wanted me to fix it."
Barnes sat very still a moment, not really looking at her, or anything. Then he stood up abruptly and marched out of the bar.
Amanda sat at the empty table, all the things he hadn't said echoing in her head. Then she calmly stood and brought the bottle and glasses back to the bar.
"You okay, Doc?" Ink asked quietly.
"Yeah," she said, pulling a couple twenties out of her wallet. "I just. . . gave him some bad news he wasn't ready to hear."
Ink nodded in understanding and waved her money away, so she just left them on that bar. "Lot of that going around, these last few months."
"Yeah," she said again, feeling tired. "Bad news never ends."
Chapter 2: History’s always named by the people who win
Notes:
Glad everybody is enjoying this!
Chapter Text
"Does he always just stare like that?"
"You get used to it."
Bucky wasn't the Winter Soldier anymore, but that didn't mean he wasn't picturing grabbing that shield and ramming it down the blond guy's throat.
He listened with half an ear, while they talked about global reparations and governments keeping things stable. Politics had never been his thing, so he didn't have anything to say to them, save for refusing the idea of a team up outright. He and Sam had their differences, but they both trusted each other to have the other's back. He didn't know either of the guys across from him. And he wouldn't trust either of them farther than Sam could throw them.
Steve might have told him to give it a try. Steve wasn't here, though, and some jackass soldier was holding his shield.
Battlestar was the last straw really. A new Captain America he disagreed with, but understood the sentiment. People liked symbols. They needed the dog and pony show, especially in times of chaos, like now. The Romans had their bread and circuses, the GRC had pretty boy over there. But when you gave him a sidekick with his own code name. . . now you're just franchising superheroes and that, apparently, was where Bucky's limit was.
He hopped out of the truck, not really caring if Sam came with him or not. He'd find a way home if he had to hitch hike, or call his shrink, or just head south back to Wakanda. He was not spending another minute on that goddamed truck.
Of course, when he heard footsteps coming up behind him, he wasn't exactly surprised.
"Battlestar," he muttered under his breath when Sam got close enough.
“Blond white dude and his black sidekick was not a great look when it happened by accident,” Sam said. “Yet they felt compelled to replicate it.”
Bucky snorted. "I guess we're lucky they didn't slap a pair of wings on him. Call him the Sparrow.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if they eventually took these.” He pointed at his back.
"You gonna just hand that over too?" Bucky muttered under his breath. That got him a glare, and Bucky huffed. “I'm just. . . sitting across from him. Got under my skin.”
“Hey, something we agree on. It’s a like a Christmas miracle.” Sam squinted at the sun, like he was trying to judge the time. “He told me he wasn’t trying to replace Steve. Like I was a five year old and he was trying to marry my Mama.”
"Talking about us getting our asses kicked. I don't seem them winning the day." Bucky kicked at a stone in the road, watched it fly off into the field. "Way he talked about the serum. . . they didn't give him any. He goes after these guys again, they're gonna punch his head off his shoulders.”
“Hey, that’ll be one problem solved.”
That got another little snort of amusement. Bucky appreciated Sam always treated him like just another guy. That had been something Steve had liked about him, too. "For what it's worth, I don't think Steve saw you as a sidekick.”
“I wouldn’t have come work for him if he had.”
Bucky nodded and they walked in silence for a while. It was a nice flat walk at least. "The Commandos were always giving each other stupid nicknames," he said after a while. "None of them were as dumb as Battlestar.”
“It’s a riff off the shield. As if he is literally some sort of diminutive or component of ‘Cap’.” Sam made air quotes.
"Huh. See, my mind went to a play on 'battle scar.' My therapist would probably have fun with that.”
“Well, the first place my mind went was that sci-fi show, but I don’t think that’s what they meant.”
"Please do not start referring to me as a cylon.”
“They have that in 1937, too?”
"No. But they play the old one on cable late at night sometimes." He shrugged. "I don't sleep much.”
Sam nodded. “The supersoldier thing or just the PTSD?"
His hackles went up a bit, like they did when his therapist poked. But Sam was very good at sounding non-judgmental. And they had at least another seven miles of walking. "I have nightmares. But they're more like memories resurfacing. It's hard to fall asleep after.”
“I’ve had those. Not fun. I think I’d rather monsters or the one where you forget your clothes.”
Bucky's current version of that was losing his arm again, which usually led into something with him and Steve fighting Stark. Not something he wanted to think about currently. He dug deep in his memory for something to commiserate with. "I used to have one where my teeth would fall out before a big date.”
“Maybe some girls like that look.”
"Stranger things have happened, I suppose.”
They walked for a bit, and Sam kept looking at the sky. Bucky was just about to ask what he was looking for, when his ears picked up the sound of engines.
"Huh." They both stopped and watched as the little cargo plane they'd come in on did a circle and found somewhere to set down in the field to their left.
“20 miles to the airport, y’know,” Sam said.
"Shame Captain Jackass's handlers don't think outside the box.”
“We could have given them a lift.”
Bucky looked over at him in time to catch the little smirk, before they hopped the fence and headed to the plane.
Sam gave Torres his report as they took off. Wasn't much to say, of course. Super soldiers, medical supplies, "Captain America" tailing them. When Torres said he was sorry Redwing had been destroyed, he sounded like he meant it.
It was a long flight back over the Atlantic. Sam seemed content to lay and attempt to doze, but Bucky didn't even try. Not even when they got far enough west to lose the sun and the inside of the plane got dark.
Sam was giving him concerned looks in between pretending to sleep, so Bucky finally said what was on my mind. "Let's take the shield, Sam. Take the shield and do this ourselves.”
“We can’t just run up on the man, beat him up and take it,” Sam said, sitting up. Bucky was about to reply that he probably actually could, when Sam added, “Do you remember what happened the last time we stole it?”
Sam proceeded to tell him, just in case he’d forgotten. At the end, he added, “We just got our ass handed to us by Super Soldiers, and we got nothing.”
Bucky let out a long, slow breath, wondering if he was going to regret this. "Not entirely true." He slid off the stack of boxes he'd been perched on and went to sit next to Sam. "I. . . know a doctor who worked on the serum. For Hydra.”
“What, you wanna get me a dose?”
He wondered if there was a small part of Sam that was serious. “As far as I know, she's the only person to work on a serum in thirty years. If anyone might know about where these guys came from, it'd be her.”
“I don’t know if bringing a former Hydra operative into this is a good idea.”
“No, no, she was… like me. She was kidnapped and forced to do it.” He didn’t mention he had kidnapped her because he didn’t want to derail the topic.
Sam looked at him a long moment. “Seems worth checking out.”
He nodded, as if that was decided. Hopefully she'd be willing to talk to them. He probably hadn't made the best impression last time.
Dr. Newbury lived in a little brownstone walk-up, likely acquired in her better paying hospital doctor days. Sam managed to get some sleep on the plane before they landed, enough he was ready to go knock on her door later that morning.
She answered, wearing jeans and an unbuttoned flannel over a tank top, carrying a mug. She peered at the two of them a moment, before sipping her drink. "Do we need to talk about why you know where I live?"
"We need to ask you some things," Bucky said. "About the serum."
A brow hiked up and she studied them with more interest now, before pushing the door open wider and stepping back into the flat to let them in. “This is Sam,” Bucky said. “By the way.”
She held out a hand to shake Sam's. "Amanda Newbury, nice to meet you.”
The three of them went deeper inside. It was nicely decorated, with solid furniture. “There are more super soldiers,” Bucky said.
She wrinkled her nose. "Not that Walker guy? He seems like kind of a tool.”
Sam snorted a laugh. “God no. Though thank you. He is a tool.”
"These are more. . . terrorist types."
Her expression turned serious and she set her tea down, taking a seat in a big armchair that had, of all things, a basket of knitting needs and yarn next to it. "Huh. Okay. I made a serum for Hydra when they had me. At first it wasn't a full serum, more of a stop gap." She nodded at Bucky. "You weren't healing as fast as you had been, and your reaction times were slowing. Whatever Zola gave you, it wasn't a perfect cocktail, and all the years of cryo had worn it out. I was able to essentially make you a booster shot, based on the traces of serum in your blood and tissue."
Normally, that kind of talk would have required some staring into space. But her way of talking - clinical, detached - allowed Bucky to distance himself a little. "They would't have stopped with that."
"No," she conceded. "Once you were improving they wanted a proper serum, one they could use to make more Winter Soldiers. Apparently they'd tried in the 90s to predictably disastrous results. They had some samples from that, plus a few older ones. I used all of them to isolate the proper chemical structure to re-create Erskine's formula. I was close to a breakthrough, when Project Insight launched and crashed so spectacularly. I used the chaos of Hydra being blown to torch my lab and run. I took all the physical serum samples with me. Including the boosters we'd been using on you.”
“What happened to them?” Sam asked.
She hesitated a moment. "I have them. They're safe.”
He glanced at Bucky, then back at her. “You’re just hanging on to them?”
She lifted a shoulder and glanced away from them. "I suffered a great deal to make the breakthrough I did. In a way, it's my life's work. I've thought about getting rid of it but-" She sighed and pushed herself to her feet. Bucky watched her walk over to a book shelf. She pulled out three of four paperbacks and reached into take the back of the shelf off.
Walking back over she placed a little wooden box on the coffee table and flipped it open. Inside were six small vials of blue liquid. "If you think they're safer with you. Or poured down a drain. . . I won't stop you.”
“I vote for drain,” Bucky said.
Sam didn’t respond either way to that. “So they’re using your formula?”
Newbury shook her head. "No. This are the only physical samples I had. And I destroyed the computers that held the research. There's no way they have my formula."
Bucky blew out a breath. "It had to come from somewhere. You didn't work alone did you? Assistants? My handlers?"
She crossed her arms. "Your handlers didn't know the periodic table from an excel spreadsheet, let alone the kind of chemistry we're talking about to make a serum. I had two assistants. One was captured in the post-Hydra raids and is currently in maximum security somewhere. The other one tried to make a serum for two years before his bosses got mad and had me kidnapped. He thinks he's a genius but he's not. Without me and my research he wouldn't know where to start." She paused and sucked her teeth. "Though. . . there is another source of serum effected blood they may have had access to.”
*
The road trip to Baltimore was very quiet.
Amanda couldn't really read the vibe between the two men. They clearly seemed to be working together on the terrorist super soldiers thing. But there was definitely some tension hanging in the air. It was none of her business, and she wasn't really a small talk kind of person, so she didn't press. Neither of them offered anything up, so she played her music and pretended neither of them were there.
They got to Isaiah's neighborhood mid-afternoon. She made a point of stretching her arms when the climbed out of her car. "I don't know if he'll know anything useful," she warned as they walked up the path. "We've never really talked about what happened to him. But I know he had samples taken often, I'm hoping he knows who was doing the taking.”
Sam was behind them, talking to a couple of little boys on the street who had recognized him. The tension had not gotten any less. Barnes had his arms crossed over his chest, his face unreadable. Sam’s frown had deepened when he’d realized the neighborhood they were in. She really hoped this wasn’t going to go sideways.
She rapped on the metal screen door. A moment later it was opened by a skinny Black kid whose wary look turned into a smile when he saw her. "Hey Doc."
"Eli, I swear to god you get taller every time I come."
"You say that every time you come."
"I'm old, humor me." She glanced past him into the house. "He in a mood today?"
Eli shrugged. "No more'n usual. Didn't mention he had an appointment today."
"This is sort of a social call." She gestured back at the men. "Can we come in?"
Eli gave them a suspicious glance, but unlocked the metal door for her to step in.
Isaiah was sitting at the kitchen table but started to get up when they came in. "You here to bug me about my cholesterol again?" he asked, smile on his face. He looked past her and it dropped immediately. "The hell you doing here?"
Amanda glanced behind her to find Barnes hunched and nervous. "We, uh. We've met."
"If by met, you mean I whupped your ass," Isaiah said. "Then yeah, we've met.”
Barnes sighed. “We had a skirmish during the Korean War.”
Amanda could hear Isaiah snort a little. Then he looked her. “I thought you didn’t work with them no more.”
"I don't," she told him. "Neither does he."
"I'm not a killer anymore," Barnes said quietly.
The corner of Isaiah's mouth turned up into something like a smile, with no humor in it. "You think you can wake up one day and decide who you wanna be? It doesn't work like that." He snorted again. "Well, maybe it does for folks like you."
His words hung in the air a moment, heavy as whatever the hell was going on with Barnes and Sam. Amanda decided to plow forward. "Isaiah, this is Sam Wilson. Sam, this is Isaiah Bradley. He was part of a black ops project in the late 40s. The first of many attempts to recreate Steve Rogers. Isaiah. . . Isaiah was one of the few survivors.”
Isaiah game Amanda a look. “I know who he is,” he said, sounding mildly offended.
Sam looked a little shell shocked. “I don’t—I mean I should. . . I should know who you are, and I don’t.”
“You can’t really be surprised, can you?” Isaiah asked.
"Isaiah was not exactly given a hero's welcome," Amanda started.
"Yeah, you want to know what the did to me for being a hero?" he asked. "They put my ass in a cell for 30 years. People running tests, taking my blood. Coming into my cell-"
She put up her hands, taking a step towards him. "That's why we came. There's more super soldiers out there and they didn't come from me. If you have any idea who might have-"
"I don't want to talk about it!" he snapped, picking up the dominos box on the table and throwing it at the wall. Where it imbedded into the wooden door frame.
"Isaiah!" Amanda reached out and caught his hand. "Please. I'm sorry to bring it up. I wouldn't if it wasn't important. You know that.”
He glared at a her a moment, then looked back at Barnes. “Your people don’t exactly introduce themselves, do they?”
Barnes looked away, then down at his feet.
"You don't remember any uniforms?" Amanda asked. "ID tags? Lapel pins?"
"Buncha white men in suits," he replied. "Talking about the good of the nation.” Isaiah looked off in the distance a moment, then sighed. “The super soldiers. What are they doing?”
She glanced back at the men, and Sam said, "Working for a group called Flag Smashers. They want to make the world like it was during the Blip."
Amanda wasn't sure how Isaiah responded to that, since the very idea sent ice water through her veins. She wouldn't go back to the world during the Blip for all the money in the world.
“History’s always named by the people who win,” Isaiah said. “Pacification. Collateral damage. Enhanced interrogation.” He looked at Sam. “Election integrity. Law and Order. State’s Rights.” Before Sam could open his mouth in reply, Isaiah added, “I don’t care what people who call Doomsday ‘the Blip’ think they want. What are they doing?"
"Stealing supplies. Causing chaos."
"Working against the GRC?" Amanda asked. The two of them gave matching shrug-nods. "Feeling less like helping you beat them," she admitted.
“Right now,” Sam said, “I’m more worried about where they came from, and who else that person is providing serum to. Once a something like that is out there, it’ll get used for evil.”
“I’m proof of that,” Barnes said.
"Fair enough." She hadn't kept her box of serum hidden this long because she trusted people. She turned back to Isaiah and gave his hand a squeeze. "I'm sorry for bringing this all up for you.”
“You done me a favor or two.”
"I try. I'll see you next month for your check up, okay?”
He nodded. “Bring me some of that fancy cheese.”
"I promise." She gave his hand another squeeze, before letting go and turning back to the others. "Come on."
They said their goodbyes and got as far as the door, when Eli hopped up to follow them. “Hey, Doc, you got a sec?”
She waved the other two away and stepped onto the porch with the teenager. "Something wrong?”
“Yeah, uh. Weird thing lately.” He waited until Sam and Barnes were all the way off the porch and onto the sidewalk—and apparently arguing—before turning around a little to look at the floor and bend to pick some thing up. He came back with a rusty nail, which he held up and then snapped in half like it was a pencil.
"Uh huh. Have you told your granddad about it?" He shook his head. "Okay. Well. As far as I know your granddad is the only successful serum recipient to have descendants, so there's no research on it. I don't have my equipment with me today, but next time I come for his check up, I'd like to take some of your blood for analysis.”
“He won’t like that.”
"I know. But it should just be the once. And it's the only way for me to even start theorizing what's going on." She put a hand on his shoulder. "If you inherited something, we need to know. I'll give you the same promise I gave him. Whatever's going on, whatever help you need, I'm here.”
Eli nodded, looking too serious for someone that young. “Don’t tell nobody?”
"I promise. Not my secret to tell.”
The sound of a police car pulsing its sirens got her attention and she turned. Barnes and Sam were in the middle of the street arguing, and the cops had shown up. From behind her, voice dry as a bone, Eli said, “Good luck with that, I’m going back inside.”
"Yeah. Thanks." She pulled her phone out of her pocket and hustled down the stairs, heading for the men.
She got close enough to hear Barnes asking if the cops knew who Sam was. That caused a lot of whispering and an officer stepped between her and them. "I'm with them," she said.
"Just a moment, ma'am."
Very deliberately, she pulled up the camera app on her phone and started recording.
“I’m going to need to ask you to put that away, ma’am,” he said.
“And yet I’m not going to.”
The cop talking to Sam seems to have finally recognized him, and had commenced profuse apologizing. She hoped that would be it, but then another uniform - how many cars did one need to deal with two guys arguing? - came over and said there was a warrant for Barnes's arrest.
Amanda kept filming, just on principle, until they'd handcuffed Barnes, tucked him in a car and let her and Sam move again.
“I’ll give you money for that video,” Sam said.
"Make sure I get your email before this is all over." She tucked her phone away and watched the cars drive off. "What exactly do they think the handcuffs are going to do?”
“Hell if I know. That dude once ripped a steering wheel out of my hands through the windshield while going 60 on the Beltway.”
"Yeah. He used to break all my force plates." They headed over to her parked car. "Onto the local police station, I take it?”
“Got any cash on you?”
"Some. We can hit an ATM.”
“I’m guessing there’s going to be bail.”
Amanda sighed and tipped her head back before getting into the car. "Definitely an ATM.”
They spent the next couple hours sitting in the Baltimore PD’s waiting room. As it turned out, Barnes had missed his court appointed therapy and they couldn’t bail him out until the therapist herself showed up. Amanda got comfortable and pulled out her knitting, something Sam looked very amused by. Eventually he said, “It would have been nice to know about him.”
"As Isaiah said, he was not treated well when he came back from his last mission. He was—is—the last living evidence of an absolutely horrific series of experiments I'm sure the government would prefer the public never know about." She finished her needle, turned the sock and started the next. "Maybe sixty years ago he'd have welcomed the fame and parades. Now, it seems kinder to leave him be.”
Sam was quiet a long moment. “How many?”
It was good she was knitting. This was not the kind of discussion one had without something to fiddle with. "There were 300 hundred test subjects. All African American soldiers. Five survived initial exposure. Two of them died within a few weeks due to side effects. The remaining three were put into service of the United States during the Korean War. Isaiah was the only one who survived that."
He closed his eyes. “I am horrified but not surprised.” He opened them again and looked at her. “You know who Gabe Jones was?”
She looked up from her knitting. "I know he was part of the prison break where Rogers saved Barnes, then he became part of their original commandos group. And that he was a linguist.”
“He went to work for SHIELD after the war. After the whole Hydra thing I met his grandson—who had also worked for SHIELD. He told me Jones was once asked to participate in a new super soldier program. Said no because it smelled funny. A Black man they give the kind of strength that Steve had was gonna spend the rest of his life in a cage.”
"Clearly a very smart man," she said.
“How do you know Isaiah? That must have all been long before your time.”
"Hydra had records of him. They weren't responsible for him, but they knew about it, because SHEILD knew about it. Once I was out and settled and had my medical license reinstated, I tracked him down." She moved her row counter up and started knitting again. "There serum changes a lot of things. Metabolism, cardiac and respiratory reactions. Immune system. Things a regular doctor would miss or misinterpret. I wanted him to know that, if he had medical issues, there was a doctor who could help him. Without reporting him to anyone. Took me a long time to earn his trust, naturally.”
“Does the serum make people age differently?”
She sighed a little. "I'm afraid the answer to that is, it depends." She was probably going to tip into guest lecturer tone here, but he had asked. "Steve Rogers’s serum is different than Sergeant Barnes's serum, which is different from Isaiah's. I have never seen an active sample of Rogers's, but based on Erskine's notes, I don't think it would effect his aging beyond making him an abnormally healthy man his entire life. Isaiah’s, from what I can tell, is similar. He is in remarkably good shape for man on the other side of ninety, especially given his treatment in prison. Barnes's original serum did tinker with his aging, and the boosters I gave him a decade ago enhanced that. He will likely age slower and live longer that a normal man." She should probably talk to him about that someday. Maybe make her own amends.
“I can’t decide if I think that’s good or bad.”
"I suppose it depends on what one does with their extra years."
“Can’t be fun to outlive everybody you know.”
She lifted a shoulder. "You don't have to be a super soldier to do that.”
A woman appeared in front of their chairs. “Sam,” she said, and he looked up. “I’ve heard a lot about you. I’m Dr. Raynor. I’m James’s therapist.”
Sam stood and shook her hand. “So nice to meet you.” He glanced at Amanda a moment, and then said, “This is Amanda, she’s a friend of mine.”
Amanda inclined her head. "Doctor."
She nodded briefly and looked back at Sam who added, "Thank you for getting him out."
"That. . . was not me."
There was a commotion at the door to the waiting area. Amanda craned her neck to see the new Captain America taking selfies with the cops. She wondered if she could get close enough to poke him with one of her knitting needles.
"You have to be kidding me," Sam muttered.
Replacement Cap came over to talk to Dr. Raynor, whom he apparently knew from previous ops. He was going to get Barnes out because they had important work to do. Or something. Whatever it was he was very proud of himself. “You too, Wilson,” he added, before calling, “I’ll be outside!” as he strolled back to his fans.
Amanda turned to see they’d brought Barnes out, all right. He was glaring after Walker like he thought he could set that shield on fire with his eyes.
She started to gather up her knitting to leave when Dr Raynor said, "James, condition of your release, session now. You too, Sam."
"That's okay, I'll be out here with-"
"That wasn't a request," she called over her shoulder, heading for the hallway.
Sam turned to give Amanda a pleading look, though what he thought she was going to do she couldn't fathom. She picked her knitting back up and resettled. "No no. You two go do your couples session. I'll be right here.”
They weren’t gone very long. Sam came out first, stopped in front of her, and inhaled forcefully through his nose. “Don’t ask.”
"Wouldn't dream of it," she replied, tucking her knitting back in her purse. Barnes came out a moment later and headed for the main doors. She followed along with Sam, out into the chilly spring night.
Faux Captain was lingering around the squad cars in front of the station. He beckoned them over by running the lights on one of the cars. Barnes and Sam exchanged a look, then seemed to decide to go deal with him before he got more obnoxious.
Amanda trailed behind them, leaning on the hood of a car as he grinned at the others. "Good to see you again." He glanced behind them, to her. "Did you pick up a groupie?"
"I'm their field medic," she deadpanned. "Doctor Newbury."
He grinned widely. He had a very punchable face. "Nice to meet you. You know what they say about medics."
She arched a brow. "We know the most efficient places to stab people?”
Barnes coughed, clearly to cover a laugh. Walker started on about how they’d never succeed if they didn’t work together. Sam asked what intel they had, and the other man immediately started talking, looking very smug and proud of himself. It did nothing good for Amanda’s estimation of his intelligence.
“…We think she’s taking the medicine she just stole to one of these camps.”
"Well there are hundreds of those all over the planet since the Blip," Barnes said. "So I guess you'll have to look real hard."
"Good thing I have 20/20 vision, huh?"
Ah, sarcasm, the theme song of a man completely out of ideas. Amanda sighed and crossed her arms as the dick swinging continued. Finally Sam de-escalated and got Barnes to walk away. She gave Walker and his crony a jaunty little wave before following the others.
She and Sam had had to park in a public garage a couple of blocks from the police station, which meant a nice stroll in chill Baltimore behind two guys who had managed to start bickering again.
"No, no way." She had regrettably missed what Sam was saying no to.
"He know's all of HYDRA's secrets," Barnes said. "Remember Siberia?”
“So you just gonna go sit in a room with this guy?” Sam asked.
Barnes said, "Yes," in such a way he was clearly lying.
Sam sighed deeply and they stopped walked. "Okay then. We're gonna go see Zemo."
They looked at each other solemnly a moment, and she was pretty sure they'd forgotten she was there. "Cool. When do we leave?”
They both looked at her. Barnes started shaking his head, and Sam said, “We appreciated your help, but you don’t need to come with us to Germany.”
"Oh, hell no. This morning my plans were to knit and watch Forensic Files reruns. Then you two idiots showed up on my door and threw that out the window. You don't get to pat me on the head and shoo me away when it starts to get interesting."
Barnes rubbed the back of his head. "Look Doc-"
"You're still hunting down the creator of the super soldier serum. I'm still the leading expert in it. You still need me."
He blew out a breath and tried again. "Zemo is really dangerous and chances are he's going to send us to people who are even more dangerous. We can't bring a civilian into that, no matter how much you know about the serums."
She knew exactly how dangerous Zemo was. He'd wandered through the labs more than once when she was being held there. Speaking of guys with punchable faces.
"Right." She crossed her arms. "Isn't Zemo in some super-max prison in Germany?"
"Yeah, but-"
"We're currently in Baltimore. So how are you planning on getting to Munich?" She paused a beat for them to both think about it. "Because I just heard you tell Captain Fuck Boy that you were free agents with no oversight. Which means no government backing or support. Not to mention the fact you're going to talk to a former HYDRA consigliere which I'm guess you especially aren't supposed to do. So unless Sam's wings are specced for cross Atlantic flight, and you're willing to be bridal carried for that long, it sounds like you need to buy commercial plane tickets. Gosh, I bet last minute tickets are expensive.”
“And you’re offering to buy them?” Sam asked.
"If I can come along. I'll even spring for business class.”
Chapter 3: Nice to see you again, too, squid.
Notes:
Someone posted something about FATWS on Tumblr that I disagreed with so instead of wading into the Discourse I just posted this.
Chapter Text
It was deeply ironic that German police seemed to recognize Sam faster than Baltimore ones. It was the only reason Bucky was able to get back to see Zemo with as little fuss as he had. Newbury had agreed to stay outside so they didn't have to explain her to the guards but made it very clear if they tried to ditch her they'd regret it.
He was not ashamed to admit she was a little scary sometimes.
When he got out of his little chat with Zemo he found her and Sam perched on the prison steps debating whether or not North Carolina counted as the south.
"It's just a different kind of south than Louisiana," she was saying, then broke off when he came out. "Get anything?"
He nodded shortly, scanning the street. "We need to find somewhere private to talk. Come on.”
They followed, though the grumbled, and he decided to ignore it. The complaints amplified when he found the address he was looking for and went around the stairs. The entrance to the underground garage was right where it should be.
He pulled a flashlight out and led them in, looking for the light switch. "Zemo has some leads, but he's not going to be able to help where he is. We need to get him out."
"What are you talking about?" Sam said. "You want to break him out of jail?"
Bucky sighed. "We have no leads, no moves, no nothing. And eight Super Soldiers on the loose."
"I met Zemo a few times when I was held by HYDRA," Newbury said. "He's an expert at psychological manipulation. He's going to try to mess with our minds."
"Especially yours," Sam added, clearly aimed at Bucky. "No offense."
He found the light controls and slammed them on, turning the flashlight off and tucking it away. “Offense.” He looked back at the both of them and sighed. “Let me walk you through a hypothetical.”
"What did you do?" Sam asked immediately.
He really needed to stop underestimating how well Sam knew him. "I didn't do anything."
Newbury crossed her arms. "How is the most feared assassin on earth that bad at lying?"
"It's a hypothetical!"
She threw her hands up and sauntered away, poking at the exposed engine of a nearby car. Sam was still giving him a look, so he launched into his "hypothetical" anyway. He wasn’t sure why he was doing this anyway. Perhaps because he wasn’t sure they’d let him explain if he told them it was true. Because he had, of course, helped Zemo break out of prison. He’d been the Winter Solider. He knew how.
Mostly he was stalling. For Zemo to finally show up, and then real arguing started.
Fortunately, he knew Sam pretty well by now, too. And invoking Steve's name, and the laws he'd broken fighting the Accords managed to be a winning argument. Even with Zemo's attempts to butt in.
"Okay," Sam said finally, looking over at Zemo. "If we do this, you don't make a move without our permission."
"Fair," he said. He glanced to his left and seemed to notice Newbury for the first time. His postures stiffened slightly. "Though, I admit, I'm confused as to why you needed me, when you likely have the culprit right here."
Her arms were crossed again, though now her body language said on edge and protecting herself, not exasperated. "Nice to see you again, too, squid.”
“Doc’s on our side,” Bucky said, hoping to head off whatever was imminent.
“She’s your target,” Zemo said, coming closer. Bucky and Sam both moved so they were between him and Amanda. “I’m not sure what sort of game you are playing, Dr. Newbury.”
"Oh, my god, the sheer irony of you accusing someone else of playing games." She took a step forward, shouldering Sam out of the way. "I made the serum because you and your buddies tortured me and threatened my family. You think I escaped that and then started making it again for funsies?”
Zemo narrowed his eyes. “I was never part of that! That serum was always an abomination.”
"Right, you wash your hands of the serum but the murders and assassinations are fine."
"My work with HYDRA was a necessary evil." He took another step, getting in her personal space. "What you do is an abomination."
Bucky felt his shoulders tighten ready to break this up however he needed to.
When Newbury spoke, her voice was very quiet. "I"m giving you once chance to get out of my face."
Zemo, naturally, leaned closer. "Or what?"
Her mouth thinned out and she put a hand on his chest and shoved.
Zemo went flying back, slamming into the work bench on the opposite wall with a clatter of metal.
“Oh, holy shit,” Sam said from behind him. Bucky stared at her in disbelief. She had. . .taken the serum?
"Um," she said, apparently realizing she'd just given herself away. "So. Probably you want an explanation.”
“Seems pretty obvious,” Bucky said, putting his hands on his hips.
"This is why I wish for an end to super soldiers," Zemo said, heaving himself out of the mess and brushing off his stolen uniform. "The call of power is too much, even for those who claim moral superiority."
Newbury gave him a dirty look, then turned and addressed Bucky and Sam. "The day everyone disappeared I worked 40 hours straight. You can't imagine the chaos. Car accidents, train and subway collisions. A helicopter flew into an apartment building. And that was just the first couple days. After that came household accidents, people whose caretakers had disappeared. I had an eight year old girl come in with second and third degree burns because she'd tried to cook spaghetti for her and her siblings." She took a deep breath. "We were down by half of everyone. Doctors, nurses, EMTs. And we were all running at top speed, non stop. Those of us who didn't burn out or give up entirely."
She looked off into the middle distance a moment, clearly not seeing them anymore. "I'm not a twenty something resident anymore, I knew I wasn't going to be able to keep up that pace and then the world would be down one more doctor. So when I had a chance to go home I went and took one of the serums I'd rescued."
She glanced over at Zemo, who was slowly creeping closer. "It hurt like a bitch, if that's any consolation. I passed out for almost a day. When I woke up I was. . . fine. Better than I'd been in years. I could go days without sleep with no mental degradation. And I could move patients and equipment without having to track down help."
Looking back at Bucky, she said, "I don't want to be a super soldier. If I could undo it now that everything is settling, I would. But I don't regret it. People are alive to greet their returning loved ones because I did what I did.”
“Noble goals don’t disprove my point,” Zemo said.
"Yeah, well, I use my brain and noble goals to help people. What have you done lately?”
“I’m sure Steve Rogers felt he was helping people, too.”
“Yeah, and if you’d just left that the fuck alone, there would have been no blip,” Sam said. “I wouldn’t pat myself on the back if I were you.”
Bucky couldn't help but think if Steve were here he'd have managed to settle this. They were losing time and probably getting close to losing Zemo. He was their best chance and this, no matter how everyone felt about the prick.
He caught Newbury looking at him. Then she sighed and threw up her hands. "All right, fine. Science is evil and I'm the next coming of Armin Zola. Whatever. Fact of the matter is I'm not the one who gave the Flag Smashers their serum, which means there's someone else out there who's made it. I believe we're all on team 'stop that guy' so why don't we focus on that?”
“Do you have any other ideas?” Sam asked Zemo. “Because if all you had was her, you can go back to jail.”
“Oh, no, I thought she was dead.”
"If only," she muttered.
"Fine," Sam said. "Then where do we start?"
Bucky really, really didn't like the smile on Zemo's face.
*
They piled into an admittedly very neat vintage car Zemo had stashed in a garage nearby, and drove south into the Alps. There was a tiny country on the Swiss border whose name Amanda could never remember—not Lichtenstein, the other one—where Zemo said he had a plane.
“You own a plane?” Sam asked.
“I do,” Zemo replied, taking a curve at an alarming speed. “I’m a Baron. My family was royalty before your friends destroyed my country.” He gestured at the mountains. “The tiny countries, we all know each other. The king here is. . . a friend.”
Amanda wondered if that meant he'd been HYDRA. She didn't say it, though. After their little spat in the garage Zemo had reverted to his mild-mannered polite persona and it was just as well to keep him going on that. Currently, she was very glad her serum had cured her motion sickness. Or Mr. Baron up there would be learning how hard it was to get vomit out of leather.
“What do you mean by ‘friend’?” Sam had no compunction asking.
He rolled his eyes. “Don’t sound so suspicious. It was entirely personal. We had a thing back in my party days.”
Sam immediately looked awkward. Amanda pulled out her phone and searched for European royalty until she found the right one. "Huh. Good for you." Barnes leaned over and she turned the phone to show him. He made a vaguely impressed face before leaning back.
Zemo’s phone rang, and he picked it up and spoke to whomever it was in what Amanda assumed was Sokovian. Then he held the phone away from his ear. “Do any of you speak German or Czech?”
"I speak German," she said, wondering if she was going to regret it.
He held the phone over his shoulder in her direction. “Tell my butler what you want for the flight.”
She took the phone and was greeted with German spoken in a creaky old voice. She chatted with him a moment, about food, drinks and changes of clothes, for her and the men. Then added. "And if it isn't too much trouble, a few skeins of yarn, fingering weight.”
Much to her surprised, he replied, “Color? Fiber?”
"Earth tones or cools, nothing too garish. And wool, super-wash or merino. No acrylic.”
“Very well, madam.”
"Vielen Dank," she replied and hung up, tossing the phone back into the front seat. She wondered if she was going to end up making socks for Zemo's aging butler before this was done.
They arrived at the airport an hour later, where the butler was waiting for them at the jet—looking like someone straight out of central casting.
"If I had not personally seen him in HYDRA wearing Rolexes I'd think he was somehow bullshitting this," Amanda muttered to Barnes as they climbed into the plane. It had three pairs of seats facing each other and a couch towards the back of the cabin. There was a bit of chaos as they all got aboard and settled. Somehow she ended up sitting across the aisle from Barnes, facing Zemo.
He pulled out a book that had a notebook belonging to Barnes in it. When he started reading the names on it, Barnes put his hand on his throat and threatened to kill him if he touched it again. Zemo was pretty full of himself, and needed the occasional reminder of how easily Barnes could snap his neck, so she decided she didn’t care.
Amanda pulled out her knitting and listened to them talk about Marvin Gaye and Madripoor and the symbolism of super soldiers.
His butler came back with lunch just as she was kitchner stitching the toe closed. "Forgive me," she said in German. She wasn't sure if you were supposed to use the formal address with a servant, but he was like a hundred years old and clearly her senior. "When you have a moment, could you tell me where the yarn is?"
"Ah, yes, young lady. Of course. I'll bring you the bag. How nice to see a young woman who knits. It seems sometimes such old fashioned skills are falling out of fashion."
She smiled. "My mother taught me when I was very young, I have knit my whole life. My socks are highly prized among my coworkers."
He laughed and bustled off and she went back to closing the toe.
"You speak German very well, Dr. Newbury," Zemo said. "Where did you learn? Year abroad?"
"I taught myself," she said, pulling the yarn tight to close the last stitch. "Erskine wrote in German in his private journals. I didn't want to have to depend on someone else's translation."
"Ah, Erskine. The original sin. What would he have thought of our current predicament, do you think?"
"I failed my philosophy classes," she said tartly. Which was a lie, since she'd never taken any. "But I think - as Erskine did - that any kind of power: physical, political, wealth," she added pointedly, with a twirled finger to encompass the plane they were on. "Distills a person down to their core self. Good becomes great. Bad becomes worse. Steve Rogers was a good man. Erskine picked him because he knew what it was like to be weak and would not forget it. Whoever these Flag Smashers are, they were never powerful people. They've been disenfranchised and tossed aside, and are struggling. We might not agree with their methods, but their cause isn't evil.”
“You think we should just leave them be?” Zemo asked.
"No, but only because I think the longer no one listens to them the more likely they are to escalate their methods. They need someone to listen to their complaints and find legal means of getting them what they need. They don't need Captain Faux-merica leading a SWAT raid on them.”
Sam pointed at her. “That’s the name. We’re keeping it.”
"I was proud of that one, yes.”
“They can’t be running around making super soldiers,” he said. “But what’s going on in those camps isn’t right.”
"Precisely." She looked over at Zemo. "I don't agree that the serum is a direct line to fanaticism. But it is dangerous, and shouldn't be out in the world for anyone to use. Desperate people do desperate things, so I sympathize with this group and understand why they chose to take it. But I'd like to stop them before someone gets hurt.”
Eventually they settled into less contentious topics, and then to their own entertainment on books or tablets as the hours wore on. They had dinner, and then there was a conversation about sleeping arrangements. The seats converted into four beds; Oeznik clearly wanted to make them all up for them, and was just as clearly not much in shape to do it.
He eventually relented in allowing Bucky and Sam to do it, though he supervised the process intently and refused to let Amanda help. She distracted him with knitting talk and promised to make him a pair of socks before this whole debacle was over.
Oeznik had brought them all clothes and toiletries. She took her turn in the bathroom to change and brush out her hair before going back out to settle in her bed. She didn't know what the next step past "surreal" was, but she had definitely hit it.
Sam and Zemo went to sleep, but it eluded her. Barnes was awake, too, staring at the ceiling. The serum’s stamina boost had its downsides.
He was probably quite content to stare in silence for the next six hours, but she decided to give chatting a shot. "That notebook," she said quietly. "That's your other amends?”
He turned to look towards her. “Yeah. Some are harder than others.”
She gave him a little crooked smile. "They don't all buy you drinks?”
“No.” He shook his head. “You. . .” he started, then sighed, shook his head, and tried again. “Everyone else was someone I hurt because of Hydra. You’re someone I hurt because of Hydra, and Hydra hurt you because of me. I don’t know where to start with that.”
"I helped you because I'm a doctor and you were a patient I was uniquely skilled to help. The shit Hydra did to me was either before I knew what they wanted or after I'd fixed you and they wanted a more complete serum." She blew out a breath. "I wondered for a while if I owed you an apology. Maybe you'd have preferred continuing to 'malfunction' so they'd eventually stop using you.”
“I would have,” he said, honest and immediate. “I never made an effort to avoid bullets.”
"I'm sorry, then. For taking the chance away.”
“Don’t be. I made it to freedom thanks to you.”
That sounded as honest and sincere as the other, so she nodded, accepting it. "My dad said in AA he tells people amends should be for the other person, not you. If making contact to make the amend would be hurtful in some way, you aren't obligated to make it.”
“I think I like your Dad’s view more than my therapist’s.”
"Dad's pretty zen. He took the whole 'you were gone for five years and one of your daughters is dead' thing better than most.”
“You lost your sister?”
Amanda sighed rolled onto her back to address the ceiling. "Jessie was on a plane when everyone dusted. They lost their whole cabin crew. Crashed somewhere in southern Spain. She called me and left a message on my phone. I was too busy at the hospital to answer.”
“I had a little sister. She thought I died in the war. And she died while I was still the Winter Soldier.”
"I'm sorry," she said quietly. "It must have been hard. Coming back to yourself and realizing everyone was gone.”
“My memory was so fucked up, it wasn’t sudden. I got the pieces back slowly.”
"I suppose getting to take it in little chunks is an easier process."
Amanda couldn't image how one would even start to deal with all of that. Catching her dad up on five years had been difficult. Catching up on eighty years had to be utterly overwhelming. Especially combined with coming to terms with all the things he'd been made to do during them. "Is there anything about the present you like?”
That got her a real smile. “This airplane is pretty nice.” He shifted onto his side to look at her better. “Steve’s Mom was a nurse. He was born really early and always sick and she was amazing at keeping him alive. But she could have never been a doctor. I like that that kind of thing has changed.”
Admittedly, she had not expected him to list "feminism" as a plus to the modern era. "That makes you more progressive than some of the men who taught me to be a doctor.”
“The world is full of idiots.”
"And some of them are doctors," she added with a smile. "And this airplane is nice." She looked over at him. "I used to get motion sick. Before the serum.”
“So did Steve,” he said with a chuckle. “Took him on a roller coaster once, ended up covered in puke.”
“Steve?”
“Me. I was downwind.”
"Ouch. My first memory is puking in my mother's lap on a kiddie roller coaster at the county fair.”
He shifted back onto his back, tucking his hands behind his head. “Can you get drunk?”
She sighed. "Not properly, no. About a bottle in things start to . . . get fuzzy around the edges, I guess you can say. But not good, old fashioned college drunk.”
“Same,” he said. “Booze doesn’t really work, and neither does anesthetic or painkillers.”
"Yeah." There were certain cocktails that could work, when needed, but they were far, far above the amount that would be lethal to normal people. "That was one of the reasons I got in touch with Isaiah. If he ever needed surgery or anything, someone needed to know what to give him.”
“In Wakanda they have some device that they put on your head that does something to your brain.” He shook his head. “Hydra could never figure out how to put me under, so they stopped trying.”
"I've heard amazing things about Wakanda medical advancements," she said, not wanting all of their conversations to involve depressing Hydra tangents. "They started to allow some of it to be used by other countries during the Blip." She paused. "Have I mentioned I hate that word?”
“I keep thinking about what Isaiah said. Things being named by the winners. What did you call it during the five years?”
"Oh, there were a lot of names. The Dusting. The Decimation. Buncha religious groups called it Doomsday or various biblical references. I usually called it Dusting or just The Day. Everyone knew what you meant, no matter what you called it.”
“Steve called it The Snap.”
That was a new one. "I wonder if that had to do with what was going on in their battle when it happened. There wasn't any noise, not where I was. Once second everything was normal, the next, the people around me started to drift into ash.”
“Thanos, the crazy alien that caused it, had a magic glove that let him control the universe. He snapped his fingers to give the command. The Hulk snapped to undo it, and then Tony Stark snapped to kill Thanos. It’s. . . kinda weird if you think about it.”
Amanda rolled to look at him. "Any sentence that contains the phrase 'magic glove' is pretty damn weird, in my book. I heard some stuff about an alien named Thanos, but I never pursued details.”
“I keep waiting for something paranormal or extra-terrestrial to show up. Sam swears this has to involve ‘wizards, aliens, or androids’.”
She arched a brow. "Wizards? Really?”
“He claims a sorcerer is a wizard without a hat.”
Her mouth opened and closed a couple of times and she shook her head. "I'm concerned that that sort of makes sense.”
He smiled, and looked back up at the ceiling. After a long moment, he said, “Thank you for coming along. I like your company.”
His words caused an odd flush of warmth to spread through her. She tried not to analyze that too hard. "I like your company, too," she said quietly.
*
Someone had taught this woman how to fight.
She’d looked weak. Soldat was good at assessing people. He’d have come with more equipment had he not assumed he could just grab her and subdue her. He didn’t, so he’d been punched, bitten, kicked in the groin and both knees, and stabbed with something very small and very sharp. He got his metal hand around her neck, squeezing enough she couldn’t scream.
“You are not to hurt her. She must be brought in alive.” His orders had been very clear.
The sharp thing slashed at his throat and he was startled she had her hand free. He ducked back, and she jammed it between the plates on his metal wrist, causing his hand to flex enough she could get a breath. He let her go to pull it out and she kicked him. He swung is right arm, fist connecting with her jaw, and she finally dropped.
If they wanted her alive, they needed her for something. It would serve them right if he’d just scrambled her brain.
A persistent chime shook Bucky awake abruptly, and he sat up, heart pounding. The woman was there, across from him, like his nightmare had followed him into the morning this time, and he startled at the sight.
Her brows went up, shifting the scar on her cheek. She hadn't had that in his dream, which was a needed moment of clarity. "You okay?" she asked, sipping something out of a delicate white teacup. "Breakfast is being served.”
He scrubbed his hands over his face. “Bad dreams.”
"Anything you want to talk about?”
Everybody always wanted to talk about his nightmares. “Talking about it never helps. Food sounds good, though.”
She nodded and pointed to the front of the plane. "The eggs looks shady but the bacon's decent.”
After eating, they turned the beds back into seats. Bucky zoned out while others had conversation. Sometimes he just didn’t have it in him. Sometimes getting lost in his head seemed like the safest option.
He became aware of the air pressure change that meant the plane was descending, and started paying attention in time to hear Zemo talking about landing in Madripoor.
"I've arranged for a car and some clothing changes for us," he was saying. "We will be infiltrating an exclusive club to try to get a sit down with one of my old contacts. Selby is a mid level fence, at best. But she is a central hub for illicit goods. If she doesn't know who is making the serum, she will be able to put us on the path to find him.”
“Why do we need a change of clothes?” Sam asked.
Zemo glanced over at Bucky and Amanda like he couldn't believe he'd heard that right. "What one wears to travel comfortably on a plane is not necessarily what one wears to a criminal nightclub in lawless Madripoor."
“I’m not sure I trust your taste,” Sam muttered.
"Ah well, it is not necessarily my taste as the tastes of the characters we are meant to be."
It was clear, once they had landed and gotten to Zemo's safe house to change and head for the club, who Bucky would be playing. Zemo had warned him, in his way, but there was still a certain discomfort in putting on the black leather armor. Even with the haircut and new arm, all he saw in the mirror was the Soldier.
Sam, on the other hand, was quite colorful. "Okay, why isn't he dressed like a pimp?" was the first thing he said when Bucky emerged into the main room.
"Only an American would assume a fashion forward Black man looks like a pimp," Zemo retorted, sipping something out of a cut crystal glass. "You look like a man who makes deals with lots of zeros in them. Embrace it.”
“At least you don’t look like a hooker,” Amanda Newbury said from behind them. Bucky turned to look, and forgot how to breathe.
The dress was very red, very tight, and very short. Combined with a pair of high heels, her legs looked a mile long. Her hair was down for the first time and she'd fluffed it out around her face so it partially covered the scar on her cheek.
The only familiar thing about her was the exasperated look on her face. "Exactly what kind of mover and shaker am I supposed to be?" she asked Zemo.
"I believe the American term is 'arm candy.'" He finished his drink and picked up his coat to slip on. "But if you'd like to think up a dramatic back story, I will not stop you. Perhaps some sort of wayward German socialite, Fraulein?"
Her eyes narrowed. "Es heißt Doktor, du Flachzange." She fidgeted, trying to tug her hemline down a bit, but gave up. "Are we leaving?”
“Yeah, let’s leave, we should definitely leave,” Bucky said.
Sam and Zemo both gave him odd looks, which he ignored, too distracted by not staring at her legs.
They left the safe house, walking over a bridge to what Zemo called Low Town, where a car would meet them to take them to Selby's club. The heels made her walk differently, hips swaying, and Bucky found himself paying careful to Zemo's monologue about the intricacies and Madripoor's criminal element. At this particular moment it seemed preferable to wherever his thoughts might wander to on their own.
Portraying the Winter Soldier, once they arrived, gave him an excellent excuse to stay nothing, and stare straight ahead.
They congregated at the bar, while Zemo seemed to be looking or waiting for something. Her and Sam ordered drinks and when the bartender looked at Amanda she smiled, leaned on the bar so all her cleavage was showing, and said, "You pick something for me," with just the faintest hint of a southern drawl. The bartender grinned, the first expression he'd made all night, and turned away to mix something.
Sam was looking at her like he'd never met her before. Zemo looked like he was trying not to be impressed. Bucky stared into a middle distance and tried to remember the ugliest nun he'd had in school.
Getting the excuse to fight was almost a relief. Whatever Zemo thought of him "falling back into form" he'd been a soldier long before Hydra had gotten a hold of him. Training was training and at his age it was mostly muscle memory. And the guys coming at him now, while there might be several of them, weren't that much of a challenge. Based on his nightmare, Amanda could have beaten most of them up.
Nope, not thinking about that. Else he was gonna crush this dude's windpipe for real.
At Sam's urging, Zemo told him to stand down, and the now very nervous bartender sent them back to see Selby.
"You good?" Sam asked as they headed to the back.
Adrenaline from the fight was still pumping through him, but he managed a half nod and what he hoped was an affirmative exhale.
Amanda came up on his other side, heels clicking. She was carrying her drink, which was magenta pink and had come with a straw full of cut fruit. "Berry?" she asked, waving the straw in his general direction.
He gave her a glare, trying not to smirk. She grinned and winked, pulling a strawberry chunk off with her teeth before putting the straw back in the drink. Bucky stared straight ahead and felt a little of the tension ease out of him.
When they went in to see Selby, Zemo offered Bucky as a barter for intel. Something Bucky wished he’d been warned about as it was an effort not to react. Particularly when Zemo wandered over to stroke his face and promise Selby he would do anything she wanted. All the things he’d been ordered to do as the Winter Soldier, no one had ever offered him as some kind of sex slave, but that was clearly what Zemo was implying.
It turned his stomach in a way that he didn’t entirely understand.
It seemed to work, at least. Selby knew plenty about the serum. And just their luck, it was here in Madripoor.
"Dr. Wilfred Nagel is the man you wanna thank," Selby said, watching Zemo retake his seat. "Or condemn, depending on what side of this you're on."
Amanda was standing behind Zemo's chair, playing with her drink and looking bored. It was only because Bucky happened to be looking at her when Selby said the scientist's name that he saw her head jerk up. She tried to play it off biting another fruit off her straw, but he wasn't sure if the body guards lining the room bought it or not.
Selby had gotten up off her couch and was now. . . prowling, for want of a better word. "Oh, the breadcrumbs you can have for free, Baron. But the bakery is going to cost you."
Zemo shifted a little in his seat, trying to keep the woman in his view. Amanda took a half step back, to give him room if he needed it. Two of the bodyguards reacted to that movement by flanking her, clearly seeing her as the weak link.
Bucky could see Sam getting nervous and the tension level in the room had suddenly tripled. And he had to stay perfectly still, staying in character, unless Zemo gave him the nod, lest this whole thing blow up.
Several things happened in quick succession. Amanda yelped, dropping her drink. The glass shattered on the concrete floor, making everyone jump. Then one of the guards behind her was on his knees, yelling in pain, while she held his now clearly broken arm over his head. The other guard leapt at her, and Bucky broke character to intervene. All hell broke loose.
Selby cursed and reached for a gun. There was a gunshot and she dropped before getting to the weapon. That prompted Zemo and Sam into action. In about five seconds all the guards were on the ground and he, Sam, and Amanda were holding their guns.
Zemo took a minute to survey the carnage. "We have a real problem now. So leave your weapons and follow my lead."
Reluctantly the three of them set their newly acquired guns down and followed him out a back exit onto the street, where a drizzle had started.
"This is not good," Zemo muttered, glancing around. "You had to break his arm?" he added, glancing back at Amanda.
Her jaw worked. "Tell you what, next time we're in a super tense situation I'll smack you on the ass and we'll see how measured your reaction is.”
“Ah, but you have the serum. This is the problem. You would not have hurt him that badly if you were normal.”
Bucky could see murder on Amanda’s face. “Oh, I beg to differ,” he said. “Having fought her.”
She looked over at him, expression first surprised, then grateful. "It's not that hard to break a bone in the lower arm," she said, looking back at Zemo. "Just takes the right leverage. Here, I'll show you."
Automatic gun fire rattled nearby before she could take more that a single step towards him. The four of them scattered. Bucky grabbed Amanda's arm to make sure she came with him. Sam followed too as they sprinted down a side street.
Motor cycles revved behind them. Amanda slowed, hopping on one foot to peel her shoe off and throw it, causing one of them to veer hard enough to wipe out. She kicked the other heel away before picking up the speed again.
They hit a dead end, with at least one guy still behind them, when shots rang out from and open window somewhere and the guys surrounding them dropped.
Zemo appeared from around a car, looking around. "It seems you have a guardian angel."
That made absolutely no sense. None of them had set foot in Madripoor before, and certainly none of them had a friend willing or capable of taking out a bunch of goons.
A shadow separated from the end of the street. "Well this is too perfect," a surprisingly feminine voice said.
The shape stepped into the light, pushing back her hood to reveal a headful of blonde hair.
"Sharon?" Bucky asked, a little afraid he was hallucinating or something.
"Oh, thank God," Amanda murmured, leaning on a car to catch her breath. "Another woman.”
Sharon was clearly pissed off at them and particularly wanted to kill Zemo—Bucky admittedly couldn’t entirely blame her. She’d stolen Steve’s shield for him, and it had ruined her life. He knew Steve had looked for her after he broke the rest of his co-conspirators out of the raft, but hadn’t been able to find her. It was nearly impossible to find a spy who didn’t want to be found.
“I also took wings for your ass so you could save his ass from his ass,” she said, gesturing at Sam, Bucky, and Zemo in turn with her gun. She looked at Amanda. “Are you with them, or do you need one of them to pay you and call you a cab?” Sharon aimed the gun back at Zemo. “I’ll see they do.”
Amanda tilted her head. "I'm not sure if that's a compliment or not, but I am with them. I will however, give you all the money in his pockets for a pair of pants." Bucky glanced over at her to see the dress was riding up again. He could see the tail end of a tattoo on her left thigh and immediately found somewhere else to look.
Sharon snorted. "Word of advice, take the cab. These guys have a way of leaving destruction in their wake."
"Hey," Sam said. "I was on the run too."
"Was, is, big difference." She did at least lower her gun.
"Sharon," Bucky tried. "We need your help." That got another snort. He really didn't have much of an argument, but did add a, "Please."
She looked down, shaking her head. "This isn't over," she promised, gesturing at Zemo with her gun. "I have a place in High Town. You'll be safe there for a while.”
Chapter 4: Also useful for starting campfires
Chapter Text
Sharon, whose last name Amanda hadn’t caught, was apparently an illicit art dealer. A career that was clearly very profitable by the looks of her place.
“You guys need to change, I’m hosting clients in an hour,” Sharon said as she lead them through the gallery to her living spaces. “Room down the end of the hall, there’s rack with clothes on it I keep for guests who need a change.” She looked at Amanda. “Come with me, I’ll let you raid my closet. You don’t want what’s on the rack.”
She was going to assume that meant it all looked like the dress she was currently wearing. She followed Sharon up a short flight of stairs to her very nice bedroom. Sharon pushed open the doors of a walk in closet and rummaged a moment. "Pants," she said, tossing her a pair of black silk dress pants.
"Bless you," Amanda said, stepping into them and pulling them in underneath the dress.
“I’m Sharon Carter, by the way.”
"Amanda Newbury," she replied, joining her in the closet to find a top. "Most of the time I'm a doctor in Brooklyn.”
Sharon was pulling clothing items for herself. “You involved with one of them?”
There was no reason for that question to send a flush of heat through her and prickle her scalp. "No. I'm just - It's a long story. I'm an expert in the super soldier serum, I knew Barnes when he was with Hydra and I just. . . invited myself along for the adventure.”
“Are you enjoying yourself?”
Wasn't that the million dollar question. "Being shot at was new," she admitted. But up until she'd fucked everything up breaking the dude's wrist she had, kinda, been having fun. No one had paid her much attention, the drink the bartender had given her was nothing anyone would have given the real her. Playing the arm candy wasn't exactly flattering, but, well, everyone liked to be someone different once in a while, right? Her life back home was very structured and routine and that was fine. She'd thought she'd had plenty of adventure in her life, what with Hydra and surviving the end of the world. But maybe once you'd tried a life less ordinary a part of you craved it. Even if you knew it was bad for you.
And, if she was being very, very honest with herself, watching Barnes beat up those guys in the bar had been hot. Hot in the way high school football players had been hot. Hot in the way shirtless porn stars were hot. Sexy and a little dangerous and very, very out of her league.
She found a shimmery silver halter top and stepped out of the closet to give Sharon privacy and change herself. "I'm enjoying myself enough to see it through," she said finally. If only to punch fucking Nagel in his smug face.
“As long as you don’t let your feelings cloud your judgement, I’m sure you’ll be just fine,” Sharon called. After a pause, she added, “Or your libido.”
Jesus Christ, did she have a sign up somewhere? No, no. The woman was referencing her own fuck ups, not Amanda's. Even the best spy in the world wouldn't know what she thought about Barnes in the five minutes of interactions they'd had.
The halter top looked nice with the pants, plus it covered her breasts while leaving her back bare. She would have been more comfortable in jeans and a flannel, but one probably isn't wear that to illicit art purchase parties. "I'm sure the boys will be happy to drop me off at home as soon as we find the serum," she said once Sharon joined her out in the room.
“In that I wish you luck.”
"Thanks," she murmured, suddenly feeling a little depressed about the whole thing.
They made their way back to the men, to find Sam still in the middle of changing. Sharon said something saucy as she headed to the bar.
Barnes was already dressed, in a black on black suit jacket and shirt that looked even better than the leather armor had. Feeling like a teenager with a crush, Amanda went to pour herself something while Sharon dripped cynicism all over the floor.
"Wow," Barnes said after she called him Mr. America. "She's kind of awful now."
"Don't listen to him," Amanda said, pouring whiskey over ice cubes. "You're the most interesting person I've met today.”
“Thank you,” she said, sounding sincere.
"We're tracking down whoever made the super soldier serum that Karli Morgenthau and her cohorts took," Sam said.
"We have a name, Wilfred Nagel." Barnes turned and looked at Amanda. "You recognized it."
She took a long swallow of whiskey. "He was the shithead at Hydra who failed for two years before they took me. He must have had access to a copy of my files I didn't know about."
"Nagel works for the Power Broker," Sharon said. "You guys should really steer clear of this."
"We need your help, Sharon," Sam said. "I can get your name cleared."
Amanda thought that was the sort of thing he should do without her helping them, but decided to stay out of it. She didn't have a dog in this particular race, and had only the vaguest notion o the history here. She was going to stand here, look pretty, and drink. That had been her assigned role for the evening and dammit, she was standing by it.
Sharon agreed to see what she could find, and told them to enjoy the party.
The party was a crush of people, loud music, and flashing lights. Amanda was pretty sure if hell existed, it had at least some resemblance to what a surprising amount of people considered fun. She parked herself in a corner with good sight lines and her whiskey and watched the crowd.
Sharon flitted about with a tablet, making deals and smiling at people buying the art. The three men, when she caught glimpses of them, looked about as awkward as she did, to various levels. Zemo, amusingly, got drunk enough to dance—poorly—which she figured was probably going to be the highlight of her evening.
Barnes wandered over while she was filming it on her phone. "I don't know what I'll do with it," she admitted. "But it seemed worth preserving for posterity.”
He chuckled. “You wanna dance, Doc?”
She turned to look at him, Zemo forgotten. “I - really?”
He held out a hand and raised his eyebrows.
There was an innate, protective, contrary part of her that immediately wanted to deflect. Tell him what those people were doing wasn't dancing. That even if it was dancing she had the rhythm of a three legged llama and would look like an idiot. That she was almost forty and he was over one hundred and neither of them had any place being here. It was the part of her that kept her sane through multiple traumas. That was perfectly happy with her routine, staid life in Brooklyn where the most exciting thing that happened to her was when the bagel place on her block wasn't out of egg bagels by the time she got there.
That part of her was very much not in charge right now. So she tucked her phone away and took his hand.
The funny thing about the serum was that it made you good at things. It made your body good at things. She was surprised to find she knew how to move—and certainly so did he. The crowd pressed everyone together, and they were no different. He kept his hands somewhere safe and polite—but it was usually her back and that was bare skin. One warm and and a little little rough with calluses, the other cool and smooth metal—though it was different from the arm he’d had as the Winter Solider. That had been outright cold, slick steel. The vibranium was warmer and had a little texture, as if it had fingerprints.
He also smelled really good, which was just unfair. He should smell like sweat and borrowed clothes and instead she kind of wanted to nuzzle into the curve of his neck and never come up for air.
The song changed, to something slower, with a dark, bass beat to it that she felt in her chest. It was the kind of song that made her think of sex and she wondered if it was a cue to take her leave of the dance floor.
Then someone bumped into her from behind, a guy and girl both giggling like they were high on something. Amanda ended up pushed into Barnes's chest and his hands went from polite to protective as he pulled her away from the rowdy couple. She was pressed up against every inch of hard muscle and his scent was surrounding her and maybe she'd had too many whiskeys, because she could not think of a single reason not to nuzzle the skin just below his ear and move against him to the beat of the song.
She could feel him shudder a little, clearly taking it as an invitation and one of his hands slid down to cup her ass. He held her tight against him and they moved together, the kind of dance that felt like a prelude to something more. His other hand, the metal one, slid up over her side, thumb dipping beneath the fabric and grazing the underside of her breast.
Her breath caught in her throat and she gave a little gasp. Why, oh, why hadn't she put on something sexier? She'd been so happy to get out of the dress, but if she was still wearing it he'd have so much more skin to be touching.
His thumb moved, stroking her skin and along her ribs, leaving a streak of hot awareness in its wake. Grinding against a guy on a crowded dance floor reminded her of her awkward college years, but none of those guys had even made her nipples tighten by touching her fucking side.
She slid her hands along his arms, enjoying the feel of corded muscle under fine fabric, then summoned up the courage to turn her head and look at him. She caught a glimpse of his intense expression, eyes dark in the dim light, before he leaned in and kissed her.
Everything else seemed to vanish. The kiss was slow and hot and full of need. She had no idea how they ended up in a dark little alcove among the paintings. But it let the kiss get deep and explicit, let his hands wander in ways that weren’t fit for public view. He cupped her breast, pressing her nipple between two metal fingers—not quite a pinch, but just enough shoot a spark of pleasure through her. He lifted his mouth from hers, just a fraction of an inch. “I want you. That dress…” His voice was like a growl.
Oh, fuck that voice. It sent heat through her, an ache growing between her legs. Want was the right word. She couldn't list the things she wanted right then. His hands, his mouth. To see him, to taste him. All sorts of things they really couldn't do in public, even in a dark corner. But there was an empty apartment a flight of stairs away and surely one of the rooms had a bed and a lock.
"Upstairs," she whispered. "We could-" She didn't finish the sentence, didn't need to. He was already pulling her off the wall and towards the stairs. He wasn't touching her breast anymore, and the loss made her ache, but he had a hand firmly on her ass and people were all but jumping out of their way.
The first door he tried was locked, but the second opened to reveal a guest room. Amanda turned to lock the door and he came up behind her, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her back against his chest. He cupped her breast again beneath her shirt, this time with his real hand. The metal one slid down between her legs.
Her squeak of surprise melted into a moan as his fingers pressed against her clit through the silk of her pants, stroking almost gently. The hand on her breast alternately stroked and tugged, drawing her nipple into a hard peak, then a swollen sensitive nub. She braced her hands against the door, getting lost for a moment in the dual sensations. He pressed against her back, crowding her with his bigger frame.
His mouth moved down her neck and across her shoulder. Neither of them even had any of their clothes off, and she was halfway to coming, just from this. She could feel him getting harder and ground against him. He growled, and she could feel it vibrate against her back. Then she felt his teeth on the back of her neck.
"Fuck, James," she hissed. He shifted his grip on her and she took the opportunity to turn in his arms. Cupping his face, she kiss him roughly and backed him up towards the bed.
He shrugged out of his jacket and broke the kiss to yank his shirt up over his head. He looked about as good as she’d imagined without it, and took the moment he’d paused to get her shirt off to stare.
He got distracted, cupping her breasts in both hands. Then he seemed to notice her stare and she could immediately see the change in demeanor. "If it bothers you, I can-" he gestured to where he'd dropped the shirt.
The idea he might think she was turned off by anything about him was so bizarre it actually took her lust addled brain a few seconds to process it. Then she ground out, "DOn't you fucking dare." Before giving him a hard kiss and dropping her head to run a line of open mouthed kisses down his neck.
He chuckled a little. “It’s a metal arm, it’s weird, I never know. . .”
She ran her hand down said arm, marveling that he seemed aware of the sensation. "It's part of you," she said simply. "To be honest, I was distracted by the rippling muscles.”
“You’re not so bad yourself,” he replied with grin. “The serum’s good like that.” Then he was suddenly very still and quiet, his face serious. “I won’t hurt you.”
The thought had occurred to her as well. The handful of partners she'd had since the serum, she'd had to be very careful with. Considering sex had always been the one time she'd allowed herself to let go and not be in control or overthink, it had been rather frustrating. She imagined it had been worse for him. Men usually had some sort of strength disparity to be aware of. His was turned up to eleven.
"You won't," she assured him, stroking his arm again.
He gave her a full grin, and then cupped her face his his hands and kissed her hard. Then he wrapped his arms around her and carried her to the bed. He reached for the side zipper on her pants, and tugged them and her underwear down her legs in the same motion he was using to drop her down onto the mattress. It was astonishingly deft.
For a moment he stood looming over her, the room lit only by moonlight they could both see perfectly fine in. He moved his metal arm and the plates rippled and shifted up to his shoulder. The sight was such a potent mix of sex and danger, with an incongruous smile that softened all the edges. “Come here,” she whispered.
He shook his head. “I’m not ready to comply,” he replied. Instead he slid down onto his knees, pushing her legs apart and pulling her closer to the edge of the bed.
"Fuck," she whispered, just as his mouth touched her sex. He explored her, testing and teasing to learn her reactions. She was starting to drift with it, when he surprised her by sucking hard on her clit until she cried out, then soothing with long strokes of his tongue. He repeated the maneuver and she bucked her hips.
His metal arm settled over her, pressing her down into the mattress to hold her still. She tried to arch again, experimentally, and was surprised at the shock of arousal she felt when he pressed harder, not letting her. He sucked again and she settled for curling a hand around his metal wrist, tangling the other in the covers beneath her.
He kept up the teasing until she was whimpering, begging for something she couldn't quite articulate. Most men, this was a means to an end. Either a tease to wind you up enough, or an efficient way to give an orgasm before the main event. But he was just taking his time, as if he was searching for just how much she could take. She got close enough she could taste it, only for him to back off.
Amanda released his arm to bury her fingers in his hair, tugging hard enough a normal guy probably would have yelped in pain. "Fuck, James, Make me come. Please.”
She got a humming noise she could feel in reply, and she could feel herself clench in response. Almost.
He pulled out of her grip entirely—making her whimper in protest—and stood up to take his pants and shoes off. She watched him as he moved, waiting for him to put a knee on the bed before sitting up and grabbing him. She dragged him down to her and wasn’t gentle about it. He wrestled with her, but he kissed her, too. He ended up on his back and she straddled him. She pushed both his arms, metal and flesh, down onto the bed. “Damn,” he gasped, and it was the most aroused-sounding word she’d ever heard a man utter.
She grinned in triumph, wondering what all those terrified thugs in the bar would think about her having the dreaded Winter Soldier pinned underneath her, looking like he wanted to eat her alive.
His cock was hard and hot beneath her, pinned between their stomachs. Sitting up, she lifted off him, still holding his hands down, and lined up the head of his erection with the swollen folds of her sex. With every ounce of muscle control she had, she slowly eased down his length, letting him fill her.
Something that was probably never going to make it into a history book or thesis paper, was how much better sex felt on the serum. She was aware of every place they touched, the slight stretch of her body as she welcomed him. Her lids fluttered shut and for a few seconds every bit of her attention was focused on the friction of his sex sliding against hers.
She could hear his shallow, quick breathing and feel the tension in his muscles as he held himself still. Slowly she rolled her hips, rising and sinking back down. He tipped his head back and lifted up to her. It was clear she had him at her mercy right now, and she returned the favor of the the pleasurable torture.
It became apparent he had far less patience for being on the receiving end of it, however. While she could have happily kept up this pace for an hour, his movements grew more urgent and she could feel the muscles in his arms tense, pushing against he hold. Not wanting to trigger anything by actually holding him against his will, she loosened her hold and he surged up underneath her, sitting up and wrapping his arms around her.
It changed the angle of him inside her and the next time she slid down, she cried out at how good it felt. He swallowed the sound into his mouth, kissing her, one hand fisting in her hair as he met her strokes. It was somewhere between rough and tender now, walking that knife's edge of pleasure and pain. She wanted it to go on forever, but heat was twisting and curling in her belly and she was so close the need to come was an ache. "James, James," she mumbled against his mouth. "Close, I’m-"
“You sound like you mean it this time,” he murmured.
“Please.” It came out like a desperate sob.
“Yes, ma’am,” he whispered. He reached between them with the metal hand, two fingers pressing against her clit. Then she felt something, like a tiny electric shock pulse between them, and it was a sudden sharp explosion of pleasure, stronger and more intense than she’d ever felt.
She didn't have a word for the sound she made. Head tipping back, she drove him deep and rode out the orgasm, muscles clenching tight around him. He was still moving slightly, hips rocking enough to draw the pleasure out, spiraling it through her until he body felt flushed and heavy with it.
He leaned back and rolled them over so she was beneath him. She gasped as he sank into her, hard and fast. They slid on the bed and the bed itself shook. Then he pulled back and flipped her, holding her hips and thrusting back in from behind. She gripped the headboard for balance and the iron bars bent in her hands. It was the hardest a man had ever fucked her, but then she’d never been with one this strong. It was almost too much, almost painful, right on that line again. Just as she could feel him beginning to break, he snaked a hand beneath her and there was the spark again, kicking her into a smaller, slower moving second climax as he sank down on top of her and they collapsed into a pile.
Amanda drifted a long time, enjoying the languid pleasure still coursing through her and the hot weight of him sprawled on top of her. She listened to his breathing slow from panting to somewhat normal. As it calmed, he lifted a hand and stroked her hair, lifting it off her sweat soaked back and spreading it out on the pillow. There was a tenderness to the touch that was at odds with the rough sex they'd just had.
Once she'd calmed enough she didn't feel like a collection of raw nerves, she shifted and turned so she could nuzzle his shoulder, dropping an affectionate kiss there.
“They were terrified I’d get someone pregnant,” he murmured. “Make a baby super soldier. So they never tried to make me use sex as a weapon.”
She never would have asked, but after Zemo had brought it up with Selby, a part of her had sort of wondered, horrified, if that had ever been a thing.
Rolling over fully, she lifted a hand and brushed damp hair off his forehead. "I'm glad they didn't. . . taint it for you.”
“It’s just about the only thing that’s entirely mine.”
"Well, you do it very well," she told him, mouth quirked in a half smile.
He leaned over to kiss her. “First time I’ve ever been able to really let go.”
"Mmm, yeah. That was. . . something else." She was going to be revisiting this evening in private for years to come. "What was that spark thing you did?" she asked, tapping the metal arm.
He held up his hand and made a tiny spark between two fingers. “If I touch the vibranium to the gold just right it does that. Also useful for starting campfires.”
"Neat trick." She trailed her fingers along his arm. "You know how I know you thoroughly turned my brain off? I don't have even the slightest urge to poke around and figure out how your arm works.”
“I don’t even know.” He flexed his fingers, and then he put his arm down and looked at her. “In my nightmare I was choking you with the metal arm.”
The memory, naturally, poured a bit of cold water on her mellow after glow. "When you came to kidnap me. Yeah. I jammed a scalpel between the plates, to get it to flex.”
“This is a different arm. That one was the Winter Soldier’s. This one is mine.”
They certainly looked and functioned differently. The old one had very much been a weapon of war. This one was a prosthetic. "I like this one. It suits you.”
He reached up to cup her cheek with it. “I wouldn’t hurt you.”
"I know," she said quietly, leaning into the touch. Her chest was tight with some emotion she didn't have a name for. But it was enough for her to be sure that if this was some sort of action-movie fling that ended when the adventure did, it was going to hurt a lot more than it should. Still, she added, "I trust you.”
His smile was genuine, and felt private, as if it were the kind not many got to see. He nodded a little, and leaned in to kiss her.
Chapter 5: Reading the scribbles of a would-be god
Chapter Text
Bucky woke in a real bed for the first time he could remember, morning light pouring in through an open window and Amanda sprawled next to him. His right hand was tangled in her hair and a leg was thrown over hers. They'd kicked the sheets down some time in the night, so he had an excellent view of what he'd only seen in moonlight the night before.
The tattoo that had teased him under the dress turned out to be a rod of Asclepius, the snake done in blues and greens so vibrant it seemed like they should shine in the light. Next to it, in flowing script, were the words "If I break it, may the opposite befall me."
He would not have pegged her for a woman with tattoos, but that one made sense. She took being a doctor seriously, and that was clearly related to that. The second one, along her ribs beneath her breast, didn't fit at all. It was initials, J.L.N., done in very girly handwriting, along with what looked like a magic wand. When he'd spotted it last night, halfway through their second round at three am, he'd wanted to ask about it, but feared it might ruin the moment.
Last night had been. . . something else. He glanced up at the headboard, where she'd managed to bend part of the iron filagree design into a mess of metal. Sex with a super soldier was not something he ever expected. He'd always had to be careful, to make sure he was paying attention to how much strength he was using, especially with the metal arm. He hadn't realized how much mental energy that took until he didn't have to do it anymore.
There was knocking the door. “Rise and shine, lovebirds,” Sharon called. “We found Nagel.”
Amanda's brow furrowed and she rolled towards him like he'd hide her from the wake up.
It was kind of cute and he rubbed her back as he called. "Out in a few!"
"I don't suppose the world saving could wait till the afternoon," she muttered into his chest.
He kissed the top of her head. “Imagine how tired the rest of them are.”
"Doubt the rest of them had three rounds of super soldier sex." She groaned and stretched languidly. "Mmm, how you feeling?”
“In a better mood than I was yesterday.” He sat up, swinging his legs over the side to find his clothes.
He tugged his pants on and glanced back to find her watching him, a very feminine smile on her face. She realized he'd caught her and her cheeks pinked before she sat up and crawled to the end of the bed, climbing off to go look at the closet for clothes of her own.
Bucky watched her dress a moment, smiling, and then went out to the hall. He found the rest of them in Sharon’s kitchen. Zemo was drinking coffee and looking very hungover. Sharon was poking at an iPad and Sam was frying eggs. All three of them turned to look, and then smirk at him. “Enjoy the party?” Sam asked.
Bucky sighed. “Okay. Get it out of your systems now. When she gets out here, anyone who embarrasses her is going to lose some teeth.”
Sharon shook her head and went back to her iPad. “Gut told me it was one of you. Just glad it’s not him.” She gestured at Sam.
Sam looked vaguely offended. “Why?”
“You’re the kind of man people would follow into hell because they can’t fathom you’d leave them there. Barnes, I buy that as a fling.”
Bucky wasn’t a fan of the constant reminders of the lives ruined during Steve’s pursuit of saving him. Steve swore he was worthy of it, but he wasn’t sure anyone else would agree. So he went to get himself some coffee and didn’t engage the topic. “You found Nagel?”
“Last night. By then Zemo was drunk and you’d vanished, and I didn’t think he’d be in his lab at 3AM anyway.”
"We figure by the time everyone's eaten, he'll have plenty of time to get to work," Sam said, sliding his eggs onto a plate.
"I have dibs on punching his weasel face in," Amanda said, coming in from the hallway. She'd found some skintight jeans and a man's dress shirt, and was tugging a comb through her very tangled hair. "Sonovabitch broke my finger once.”
Bucky turned to look at her. “Why?”
"Because I'd figured out how to stabilize tertbutyl lithium with carbon and sodium in a liquid form that didn't explode when put in a hot room and shaken too hard, something he hadn't been able to figure in two years with infinite funds." She tugged a hunk of hair over her shoulder and started hacking at a knot with the comb. "And because his managers at Hydra said he could use 'whatever means necessary' to get me to help.”
“They were like that,” Bucky muttered, trying not to think about how he was one of those means.
She seemed to have won the fight with her hair and smoothed it back over her shoulder. It fell to her mid back and with it down she looked younger than he knew she was. She walked past him on her way to the kitchen, giving his arm an affectionate rub on the way. "Is there tea?" she asked, opening a cupboard.
Sharon guided her to it and a few minutes later she'd taken over for Sam at the stove, cooking a massive amount of eggs and telling Zemo he should eat something salty or he wouldn't absorb enough electrolytes to get rid of the hangover.
Once they were fed, they went to shipping container yard in Low Town, to visit Nagel’s admittedly creatively disguised lab. Sharon stayed outside to lookout while the four of them made their way through the container.
Amanda peeled off to inspect something once they got into the lab proper. Bucky doubted Nagel had any sort of back up, and they were all on comms, so he went with Sam and Zemo deeper into the lab, following the sound of music to the lone man in the back, carefully mixing chemicals.
Nagel was just as weasely as Amanda had described, talking about counter offers even while he was clearly scared shitless of Bucky and Zemo. He let Sam do the talking, listening to Sharon in one ear and doing his best to look unbothered while holding a gun to the scientist's head.
"When Hydra fell I was recruited by the CIA," Nagel said, still acting like he was in charge of this conversation. "They had blood samples from an American test subject with semi-stable traces of serum in his system. After much labor, I was able to isolate the necessary compounds in his blood." He looked up at Bucky. "I was a god"
"Ex-fucking-scuse me?" Amanda burst out between two racks of equipment, murder in her face.
"Jesus Christ." Nagel jumped out of his chair, scrambling away from her, clearly more terrified of her than he had been of Bucky. Sam caught his arm to keep him from going anywhere while Bucky caught Amanda around the waist, lifting her bodily off the ground to stop her.
"You couldn't pour piss out of a boot with the instructions on the heel," she spat at Nagel. "You couldn't turn cream into butter when Hydra brought me on. Isolate the necessary compounds. You copied my work and passed it off as your own."
"You're supposed to be dead!" Nagel yelled back, trying to put Sam between them. "They killed you."
"Come over here I'll show you how lively I am. You stood on the shoulders of smarter science, barely understanding it, and almost fucked it up. You're using single step synthesis instead of multi step, which means the organic compound doesn't have time to develop cohesive bonds. Karli and her crew are lucky the didn't explode or melt into their base chemical components."
Nagel jammed a finger in her direction. "You were always overly cautious. Single step synthesis is perfectly viable for short term shelf stability. And they would have deserved melting for stealing my goddamed samples."
"That's why you don't do human studies without double blind control, you rat faced -" She tugged at Bucky's arm. "Put me down I owe him a broken bone.”
“I turned to dust before I could complete my work,” Nagel was saying. “Five years later, the program had been abandoned. So I came here. The Power Broker funded the recreation of my work. Then it was stolen, and I had to start the synthesization process all over.”
"Where's Karli now?" Sam asked.
"I don't know. A couple days ago, she called and asked if I could help someone named Donya Madani. Poor woman woman was dying of something or other, the medical care in those displacement camps is terrible.”
"Yeah, you sound real broken up," Amanda muttered.
He shrugged. "Not my pig, not my farm. I'm a scientist, not a doctor. As you liked to remind me."
"Is there any serum in this lab?" Bucky asked, pretty sure he knew the answer.
Nagel hesitated a half second. "No."
"Liar," Amanda said. She wiggled and pulled vial of blue liquid out of her pocket. "This your asthma medicine?"
"The Power Broker gets what he wants," Nagel said. "Karli and the others were at least proof I'd done what I said I could.”
Bucky had been listening to Sharon fight bounty hunters outside during this entire conversation, but now she finally made it inside. “Guys! We’re seriously out of time here.”
In the moment of distraction, Zemo turned and shot Nagel.
"No!" Sam and Sharon both lurched for Zemo, disarming him, then the goddamed lab exploded.
An alarm was going off and his ears were ringing, but he and Amanda were both up and moving before the rest of them, having been farther from the blast and super soldiers to boot.
"We gotta get out of here," she said, scrambling to her feet. "This place is going to go up as soon as the O2 tanks heat up." She hauled Sharon to her feet, while he helped Sam, then they were all up and running out the door. In the confusion they seemed to have lost Zemo. Whether he was dead or he’d run off, that was for Bucky to worry about later.
Whatever kind of soldier Sam had been it was not one who knew how to wait and let someone else clear the way. There were several minutes of yelling and trying to shoot at guys around shipping containers and through smoke, which was difficult on the best of days, let alone immediately after an explosion.
Zemo reappeared, and joined the fight wearing a purple mask. Everybody had a damn outfit these days.
Bucky did get a chance to confirm his hazy Winter Soldier nightmare had been an accurate assessment of Amanda's ability to fight. While dodging bullets, Sam and Sharon had ducked into a container, but one dude got between them and Amanda. Bucky changed directions to help, just in time to watch her grab the end of the guy's gun and slam it back into his throat. She then proceeded to use the strap of said assault rifle to pull his head down to meet her knee, then twisted and tossed him to the side.
For a second, he was stuck processing the intense degree of arousal that caused. Then someone else appeared behind her and he ripped a pipe off the nearest container. She ducked and he threw it like a javelin into the guy, then hustled her into the container the others had ducked into.
“I am so glad we brought you,” Sam said.
"Thanks," she said, breathing hard. "I was the terror of the bullies in my middle school."
She helped Bucky punch out the other end of the container and they stepped out into relative calm. And engine roared and tires screeched and Zemo pulled up to meet them in a pristine vintage Pontiac, with the top down.
“Supercharged,” Zemo said.
“You’re going back to jail,” Sam told him.
“Do you want to find Karli or not?”
Bucky just wanted to punch this man in the face so much. So much. “He’s right, we need him.” He opened the car door and moved to sit in the front seat.
Zemo reached out a hand to stop him. “Ah, ah. Ladies first, get in the back.”
He stared at him in disbelief as Amanda slipped around him and dropped into the front seat. "I still hate you," she told Zemo. "But you have good taste in cars."
"Are you a fan of old cars, Dr. Newbury?"
"Dad had a '70 Chevelle he was always trying to fix up and I swear if this turns into a lecture on American's obsession with muscle cars I will physically move you and drive myself."
Behind him, Sam was trying to convince Sharon to come with them.
"I told you I can't," she said patiently. "Get me that pardon you promised me.”
*
Amanda spent most of the flight knitting and lost in her thoughts, listening to murmured discussions bordering on arguments in the seats in front of her. Eventually, Zemo took a nap, and she decided it was safe to pull out the notebook she’d swiped from Nagel. She wanted to figured out exactly what he’d done.
She got a little lost in it, curled up on the couch in the back of the plane, taking notes and adding things in the margins. To his credit, he had done some of his own work, using the samples the CIA has from Isaiah. His serum was essentially based on the one he'd received in the forties and not the one she'd developed. He hadn't had hard copies of her work, only what he'd remembered, which had been enough to guide him, but not fill in the gaps. Which meant they had a very big problem.
James sat down on the other end of the couch. “You okay?”
She looked towards the front of the plane, where Zemo was dozing. Or possibly pretending to. Pitching her voice low he hopefully wouldn't hear, she held up the notebook. "Reading the scribbles of a would-be god.”
He clearly didn’t miss her glance. “I’m sure it’s fascinating.”
"In the way a train wreck is fascinating," she assured him, closing it and tucking it away. "Maybe not the best for mixed company.”
Sam’s phone rang, which startled Zemo awake. James got up again, and she listened to them discuss the intel Sam got about the location of the sick woman—who was now dead, but the public record of that death gave them a location.
Amanda had never been to Latvia.
Zemo had a place there, apparently, because of course he did. If he had no other utility, it at least saved them from the higher visibility of hotels. She wondered if he had a fancy bolt hole in every country.
“There are three bedrooms,” he told them as they walked into his fancy flat that evening. “Someone will have to sleep on the couch.”
“I’ll do it,” James volunteered before anyone else could say anything.
No one looked like they believed him, but mercifully, they kept quiet. Amanda hoped no one hurt themselves holding in all the ribald joking.
"I don't know what time my body thinks it is," she said. "But I'm exhausted. Point me at bedroom number two?" Zemo gestured grandly and she nodded, heading that way.
Bedroom number two had a twin bed in it. She stared at in a moment, before Sam appeared in the doorway behind her. He sounded somewhere between resigned and exasperated when he said, “I’ll take it. Next door has a queen.”
Amanda felt a little pang. No one liked third wheeling. "Thank you, sorry. Oh, come on over when Zemo's in his room, I need to talk to you two without him.” Sam nodded, and Amanda went to her room.
James came in a few moments later. “I didn’t want to put you on the spot in front of everyone,” he said. “You know, in case…”
That was. . . oddly sweet. "I thoroughly enjoyed last night. . . or whenever that was. You're more than welcome to sleep in here with me. Though I feel I should point out the walls here are thinner than at Sharon’s."
He grinned. “You say that like I’m the noise problem.” He pushed off the wall he was leaning on, and he stalked towards her. It was predatory, and heated her blood. “We could take being silent as a challenge,” he murmured when he reached her.
Even money that ended up with him covering her mouth with a hand or her shoving the corner of the pillow in her mouth. Either way would probably be fun. "Well, I've never been known to back down from a challenge," she said.
His eyes darkened and his smile turned downright dangerous before he leaned in to kiss her.
There was a brief, perfunctory knock on her door, and Sam stepped in. James leaned back and looked at him. "Seriously?"
Amanda waved a hand. "No, no. Not his fault. I told him to come over.”
He looked from one to the other with his mouth open and a look on his face she frankly found adorable, best described as befuddled. “Uh…I-I’m not sure…”
"No, no, no, no," she said, waving both her hands in an 'x' motion. Then paused a moment to imagine logistics, which certainly wasn't the worst mental image, then shook her head. "No. I just need to talk to both of you and I don't want Zemo to hear.”
James crossed his arms over his chest. “Okay.”
She pulled Nagel's notebook out of her bag. "I went through Nagel's work. He wasn't entirely lying about how he figured out the serum, he remembered some of what I'd done, but the chemical structure was based solely on the version he found in Isaiah's blood. When I did mine, I had access to your blood samples as well, which was a different serum than the one used on Isaiah's. The problem is that Isaiah's serum was dangerously unstable. That's why all the rest of the test subjects in his group eventually died. He happens to have a genetic mutation that countered the majority of negative effects. It's extremely unlikely that Karli or her crew has the same mutation. It's virtually impossible for all of them to.”
“And what does that mean?” Sam asked.
"It means anyone with that serum is going to have mental deterioration. It present like chronic sleep deprivation. Lessening of higher reasoning, problems with impulse control. Irritability and short tempers. Signs of dementia. And that's if they don't straight up get brain tumors and lesions." She sat on the edge of the bed and pulled the vial she'd taken from Nagel's lab out of her pocket. "Without a mass spectrometer and a sample of their blood, I can't tell you how quickly it will happen. But I will say none of the other test subjects in Isaiah's group made it past eight months.”
“Well that’s . . . terrifying.”
"It sure is," she agreed. "We can debate human nature with Zemo till we're all blue in the face, but the fact of the matter is, the longer they run around without medical help, the likelier they are to become violent.”
James sighed. “Well. Then we stop them.”
"Fast," Sam agreed. He reached out and gave her shoulder a friendly squeeze. "Thanks, Doc. Try to get some sleep." He headed for the door. "If the cyborg staring machine lets you," he added over his shoulder as he closed the door.
James made a little huffing noise that reminded her a cat they'd had when she was a kid. Spot had never hissed or growled, just made grumbling, angry breathing noises to show his displeasure.
He sat down next to her on the bed and she found herself rolling the little vial over between her fingers. "I never figured out why it was blue," she said, partially to herself. "Some secondary reaction to the chemical interactions. It was a good clue, though. If it didn't turn blue, or was the wrong shade, I knew it hadn't worked."
Leaning down to rummage in her bag, she found a finished sock and wrapped the serum in it for protection before tucking it away in a side pocket of the purse. Then she reached over and took James's hand, the metal one, since it was closer, weaving her fingers with his. "Sorry. Have I ruined the mood?”
“Honestly,” he started, sounding serious. “I find your Science Voice so hot.”
She let out a little bark of laughter and covered her mouth, looking over at him. He was, indeed, looking at her like she was dessert. "You'd be the first." Even fellow doctors had gotten frustrated with her inability to turn off her brain.
Can't you ever just be a normal person? Her last serious boyfriend, the only one she'd had since Hydra, had thrown that at her in the middle of their last fight, but it had been an echo of every childhood bully and exasperated friend. Amanda had come to the conclusion she didn't even know what "normal" meant to other people, so she had no chance of ever becoming it.
He reached up, curling his other hand around the back of her neck and pulling her closer to kiss. Shedding their clothes seemed somehow more awkward than last night, making them both laugh at one point. It occurred to her that she had not seen him smile, let alone laugh, at anyone or anything except for her at any point in this adventure.
The sex was just as intense as it had been the night before, if slightly less desperate. The bed was older than the one in Madripoor and creaked with every stroke, making her concerns about noise pretty laughable. Still, when she got close to release he wrapped a hand over her mouth, holding her gaze as he thrust into her. There was something dark and primal in his gaze, that reminded her of the Soldier, but less remote. She had no doubt he was right there with her.
She swore, if this man had unlocked some sort of assassin kink in her, she was never going to forgive him.
As if sensing her brain has started whirring again, he leaned down and whispered, "Come for me, baby. Make me feel it," before biting her neck. The words and the spark of pain was her undoing and she shuddered, sounds muffled against his hand as she let go and everything blurred around the edges.
She could feel him following her, the tension draining as he rested his forehead on her shoulder and they breathed in tandem. He seemed in no hurry to move off of her, and she rather enjoyed the feel of him pressing her into the mattress. So she curled her arms around him, resting her cheek against his hair. Idly, she rubbed the tight muscles in his back, especially the ones near the transition to his metal arm, which were hard as rocks.
Eventually, he moved and sat up. He pulled back the covers and lifted her so he could tuck them underneath. He took such care with her afterwards. Then he tucked her against his side, and his sigh sounded content. Something told her he wasn’t a man who was content much. She rested her head on his chest, listening to the steady thump of his heartbeat. His right arm was curled around her, holding her there, fingers playing with the ends of her hair.
"Goodnight, James," she said softly.
Chapter 6: The only medic on staff
Chapter Text
The flat seemed to only have one bathroom, so when Bucky woke before anyone else he was happy to be able to take a much-needed shower. The only soap in there smelled like patchouli. His beard scruff was getting out of hand, but there wasn’t much he could do about that.
Sam, on the other hand, was in the kitchen shaving over the sink with a bright pink razor. “Shower’s free,” Bucky said. “You know the pink ones cost more,” he added.
“Stole it from Sharon. We can’t all do the…whatever it is you do with your face.”
He rubbed a hand over the scruff before he could stop himself. "I've been growing facial hair since I was thirteen, you learn to roll with it.”
The razor whacked loudly against the wink. “Well, you sure are doing some rolling these days.”
Bucky sighed, moving around him to look for a coffee pot. He found a French press in one of the cabinets because of course Zemo had to have the most time consuming way to make coffee ever. "Three days and that was the best zinger you could come up with?”
“I’m tired,” he said pointedly. “The walls are thin.”
He knew he should have moved them onto the floor once that stupid bed started squeaking. "If you have something to say, say it.”
Sam looked at him a moment. “What the hell are you doing, man?”
That was actually a fantastic question. He looked down at the press a moment before reaching over to grab the kettle and fill it. "I'm not- We're all adults, she knows who and what I am. There's nothing wrong with finding. . . something with. . . someone.”
“And you’re not concerned about it being distracting?"
He put the kettle on the stove and turned it on and then he had nothing to do with his hands. Resting back against the counter, he pretending to inspect on of his metal finger joints. "She was distracting before I slept with her," he admitted, thinking again about that red dress.
“So this isn’t from before?”
Brow furrowed, he risked a glance at Sam. "Before what?”
“Before this little jaunt.” He gestured at the building. “You didn’t just bring your girlfriend along and not mention it?”
"Jesus, no." He sighed and crossed his arms. "I barely knew her. She’s—she was one of my amends. I tracked her down to apologize kidnapping her for Hydra and instead of punching me or running away she asked me out for a drink.”
Now Sam looked amused. “Sounded like one hell of an apology last night.”
"It's not-" He blew out a breath and tipped his head down, not really sure what to say. He hadn't exactly been a monk the last few years. Certainly he'd been a little more comfortable with the idea of women and sex since the last of the programming had been stripped out of him. He was no good at flirting or dating or whatever Yuri kept trying to get him to do. But for a guy who looked like him, random sex was pretty easy to get.
This wasn't like that, though he couldn't articulate why. They'd made no promises, hadn't really talked about it, and outside of a bedroom with a closed door barely even touched. It had all the earmarks of a fling, just like Sharon had said.
But he found her Science Voice sexy and was apparently the first person who ever had. She'd looked so happy and so sad when he'd said it, it kind of broke his heart. He really hadn't thought he had any heart left to break.
"I don't know what this is," he admitted quietly. "I don't know what I'm doing. I didn't plan it, I didn't see it coming, and I did nothing to stop it once it started.”
He did not like the way Sam was looking at him. Both the irritation, and then the teasing, had been easier. “It’s like that sometimes,” Sam finally said, gently.
He was absolutely not going to ask what "it" was. "I'm not going to hurt her," he said instead, because it was very important everyone know that. "I'm just. . . taking it as it comes.”
Before Sam could reply, Zemo came out of his room in a bathrobe. “Morning gentlemen.”
Bucky made a noise of acknowledgement and poured his coffee. He knew Sam wouldn’t keep talking about this in front of Zemo, so the topic was probably mercifully closed.
Two sips into his coffee, Zemo said, “Perhaps we ought to tighten some of the bolts on the furniture.”
“Okay,” Bucky said, putting his cup down with a clatter. “I’m going for a walk. When she gets up, that thing about embarrassing her and your teeth still stands.”
“Dr. Newbury seems perfectly capable of defending herself,” Zemo commented.
“Yeah, I know. That’s why I warned you.” He stalked towards the door to the sound of Sam reminding Zemo that Amanda hadn't gotten a chance to break any of Nagel's bones and would probably take his as substitute.
Spotting the Kimoyo bead three feet outside the building was almost a relief. Ayo, Wakanda, and their feelings on Zemo were far less complicated that anything to do with Amanda. Of course, with his luck, she'd been using the bead to spy on them and would also find a way to mention the creaky bedsprings.
She wanted Zemo, and she was understandably pretty pissed at him. The list of people Bucky truly trusted, and whose opinion he respected, was very short. Back when it had only been about three, this woman had been one of them. “He’s a means to an end,” he told her, in Wakandan so they couldn’t be overheard. “Someone is making more of me. Possibly unstable. If they’re allowed to run loose they’ll become a problem for you eventually, too.”
Ayo finished her circle around him, studying him as if she could see and lies on his face. "And you think Zemo will help you stop this?”
“He’s provided useful intel so far. And can handle himself in a fight.”
She met his eyes. “What do you need?”
Bucky would absolutely trade him for information. There was nothing on earth the Wakandan War Dogs couldn’t find. “A woman named Karli Morganthau.”
She tilted her head, considering. "The Flag Smashers," she said, just a hint of distaste in her tone. "I can make some inquiries.”
“I’ll put a big red bow on his head.”
Her mouth quirked into half a smile. "That won't be necessary, White Wolf." She held out her hand for the bead he'd picked up. "We'll be in touch.”
Bucky handed the beads back, and watched her walk off.
*
Amanda peered skeptically into the cup Zemo offered her. "Why is everyone trying to get me to drink pink things lately?"
"Cherry blossom tea is a delicacy," he protested.
"Any time anyone calls something a delicacy I'm even more skeptical of it." Still, she gave it an experimental sip. It was slightly sweet and floral, with none of the grassy tones of a lot of fancy teas. She squinted at Zemo. "I hate you slightly less."
"Ah, such progress."
The front door opened and James walked in, looking slightly windblown and very sexy in leather jacket. "Wakandans are here," he said without preamble. "They want Zemo. I bought us some time.”
Zemo thanked James for defending him, getting him rolled eyes, and then an argument from Sam about shooting Nagel.
“She tried to attack him, too,” Zemo said, pointing at Amanda.
"Throttling and shooting in the head are two different things," she said primly, sipping her tea. "Also, I had a personal vendetta against him. You're just a weirdo who hates super soldiers.”
“I have plenty of personal reasons,” Zemo said sharply.
Sam turned around. “Okay, I have had enough of that shit. The dude responsible for Sokovia was as non super as the rest of us. Steve is why we’re not all dead.”
Zemo shrugged easily. “I don’t think anyone would disagree that Tony Stark had more power than any man should. Being a billionaire is just a different kind of super power.”
“Are you seriously talking to me about rich people with a straight face?” Sam was going to punch Zemo, and Zemo was going to deserve it.
Then James pulled out his phone to look at the news. “Sam.”
They all turned to look at him. "What?" Sam asked.
"Karli bombed a GRC supply depot," he replied, turning the phone to show him the article.
Amanda craned her neck to see. "Casualties?"
"Three dead, eleven wounded," James replied. "They have a list of demands and are promising more attacks if those demands aren't met in full."
"She's getting worse," Zemo said, sounding far too pleased with himself.
Amanda looked over at James and met his eyes. Escalating hostility wasn’t a good sign.
"She's just a kid," Sam protested as Zemo started on another one of his rants. "There has to be a peaceful way to stop her."
"The desire to become superhuman cannot be separated from supremacist ideals."
Zemo sometimes reminded her of some of the men she'd gone to med school with. So smug, so smart, so sure that their view of the world was correct and any argument against it was either wrong, or an exception. Some of what he said had a grain of truth to it. Maybe. Give most people some power and they abused it. Erskine had known that. Had dreaded it. His notes were full of worry about whoever they picked for the serum eventually turning into another Red Skull. He'd only stopped worrying when he found his test subject.
"The serum never corrupted Steve Rogers," she said quietly, cutting off Zemo's rant. She sipped her tea. "Nothing is 100% certain. And the serum is not a zero sum game.”
“But there’s never been another Steve Rogers.” He regarded her. “What about yourself?"
She arched a brow. "Are you asking me to my face, as I drink your pink tea, if I'm a supremacist?”
“I’m asking if you’re corrupted.”
That was absolutely one of those questions with no right answer. "No. I'm not," she said, holding his gaze. "With the obvious exception of the last few days, I am no different than I was before I took it.”
“I suppose we’ll find out soon enough, won’t we?”
“I’m going to call the Wakandans back and hand you over,” James muttered.
“And lose your tour guide?” Zemo asked. He shrugged. “I have the will to do what needs to be done. She will escalate until we kill her. Them. Super soldiers should not be allowed to exist.” He glanced over at Amanda, in a way that sent a chill up her spine. Sometimes he was a pontificating asshole, and sometimes you could see flashes of just what he was capable of. Reminders they were, to a certain degree, playing with dynamite.
Suddenly James was in front of her, putting his body between her and Zemo. He snarled something in Russian in the coldest voice Amanda had ever heard from him. No, that wasn’t true. It was the Winter Soldier’s voice. Whatever he said, Zemo actually took a step back.
She glanced over at Sam, who looked as concerned as she felt. Carefully, she put down her tea cup and reached out, tucking her fingers under James's jacket to curl around his waist. He covered her hand with his and tugged her off the bar stool she was perched on, bringing her with him to sit on the couch.
"Right," Sam said, like none of that had just happened. "From my understanding, the woman that died, Donya, was a pillar in the community here, right?”
Amanda looked over at him. “Are we crashing a funeral?”
“Worth a shot.”
Which was how they needed up, twenty minutes later, hiking to the GRC camp set up in and old palace of some sort. Which, naturally, Zemo had dined at as a child.
“I'm gonna take a look upstairs," Sam said. "See what I can find out."
"I'm going to find the medical unit," Amanda said. James looked over at her like he might protest. "This woman was ill for a while, right? They'll know her there and they'll talk to another doctor.”
She found it all right. And it looked less like a hospital ward and more like the set from a BBC show about turning a Manor House into a WW1 convalescent home. It had been a drawing room or ballroom, and was now full of iron and wooden beds. At some she could see a few IV poles. The patients were mostly elderly. At the opposite end of the room, a woman was wrestling an oxygen tank through the doorway, and froze.
Amanda put her hands up placatingly. She was gonna guess there wasn't a lot of trust of strangers around here. Sometimes she wished doctors, like law enforcement, had a badge to wave around. "My name is Amanda Newbury, I'm a doctor." Then, instead of asking about Donya, or the funeral, or even Karli, she said, "Is this what the GRC considers a medical unit for a camp this size?"
The woman rolled her eyes, apparently willing to set aside distrust for the chance to complain to someone who might understand. "Don't get me started."
Putting her bag down on the minuscule wooden desk at the front of the room, Amanda marched over and grabbed the O2 tank. "Talk to me," she said, lifting it easily.
“We’re a ‘first aid station’,” she said, pointing to where the bed where a woman had cannula on. “The Red Cross was here when they first set up the camp. Then the GRC took over.” Amanda began swapping the patient’s tank and the woman sighed gratefully, going around the other side of the bed to check the heart monitor. "They keep telling us that we don’t need a full medical facility, because this is temporary. Local hospitals started turning away people who can’t pay and aren’t Latvian. GRC says people should return to their country of origin for medical care.”
She said the last sentence in a mocking sing-song that told Amanda it was a direct quote, probably from some official. She doubled checked the patient's cannula and picked up the spent O2 canister to move it to the side of the room, out of the way. "And you're the only medic on staff?"
The woman nodded. "I'm a trained EMT, not a GP. I know how to triage and basic care, at least for the kind of problems we have here. But there's a lot of people here and not nearly enough equipment. Or at least not relevant equipment." She waved a disgusted hand at the door she'd come through. "The GRC is happy to send me first aid supplies. I have tourniquets and shock blankets and bloody backboards. But try to get more than a week's supply of insulin at a time. Or banana bags for food poisoning. Zofran for pregnant women." She blew out a breath and crossed her arms, looking like she wanted to cry or scream.
Amanda had to ask. "The Flag Smashers. . . they've been hitting depots, grabbing medicine. . ."
"Stuff shows up I don't question it," she said defensively.
"Fair enough." She put her hands on her hips and looked around. "Right, well. I'm trained in emergency medicine and did a stint with MSF. Give me a tour and take the afternoon off.”
Amanda eventually learned her name was Katja, and that she also had help from a stranded Canadian tourist that had been in nursing school before the snap, and an 87 year old retired midwife.
“Strangely she does not actually have to deliver babies, though most of the women have chosen to birth here. GRC will pay for a hospital visit if it’s acute enough. But she’s the only source of prenatal care, and we have a lot of babies.”
That was pretty clear from the stack of files Katja had handed her. With few exceptions, her patients were pregnancies, minor illness or injury, and elderly with chronic issues. "Well, life goes on, I suppose." She set the files down on the desk. "You'd be amazed how many pregnant women there are in war zones.”
“It helps when the US funds the aid organizations, and they oppose abortion and birth control."
"I once had a Red Cross member threaten me for giving a safe sex lecture to a bunch of Kurdish refugees." She and Katja shared a sympathetic look. "If men could get pregnant there'd be birth control in the water."
"And abortion clinics like ATMs," Katja agreed.
Amanda smiled and plucked a rubber band off the desk, reaching back to wrap her hair up in a sloppy bun. "I was serious about you taking the afternoon off. I can't do much, but I can do that, and I'm sure you can use it."
"Yeah," she sighed. "There's a memorial today at the old school. I didn't think I could go." She glanced at Amanda. "You're sure?"
"Be back by seven so I can get dinner."
"Deal," she agreed.
Katja waved as she left. Amanda’s phone beeped, and she found a message from James. Where are you?
Medical. South wing, second floor. Ask the Baron where the ballroom was.
We're heading out. Got nothing here.
She was going to allow herself a smug smile on this one. Funeral is today at an old school.
Five minutes later, he appeared in the doorway. “Proposing would be inappropriate, wouldn’t it?”
"It's a little fast," she conceded. "And old school isn't exactly an address. But it gives you a starting point.”
He made a consternated face. “You look busy.”
"I gave the medic here the day off." She gestured broadly. "Look at this place! Cobbled together beds, not enough IVs. Wound and triage equipment to the ceiling but not a goddamed isolette or more than a few days worth of essential medication. GRC wants to pretend this is a temporary holding until but they've been here over six months and can't even get an x-ray machine." He was giving her a funny look, but it wasn't the funny look people usually gave her when she was ranting. "Was I doing Science Voice?”
“Steve used to tell me I have no poker face.”
"If it helps your 'I want to pin you against the wall and fuck you' and your 'I want to pin you against the wall and punch you' faces are very similar.”
“I would hope you can tell the difference.” He squinted at the room. “You should stay here if you’re needed. I’ll keep you updated.”
She strongly suspected he had ulterior motives in having her stay there, probably based in some sort of alpha male protective bullshit. But it was what she'd been planning on doing anyway, so she might as well let it be his idea. "All right. Be careful, keep an eye on Zemo." She stepped closer and kissed his cheek to whisper, "I can tell the difference, I just find both faces sexy.”
He nuzzled against her cheek in return, stubble scraping her skin. “We’ll talk about that more tonight.” Those were perfectly innocent words he somehow made sound dirty.
"Yes, sir," she murmured, earning her another heated look before James took one more look around and left.
Amanda turned back to her patients to find an elderly woman twice her age giving her a thumbs up. She flushed and waved a hand at her. "Don't raise your blood pressure," she warned her, getting a laugh.
She did rounds with everyone, introducing herself and chatting if they were willing. A woman came in with her three month old, who'd been very fussy. Amanda did a full physical, talked about feedings and diapers and suggested supplementing breast milk with formula - one thing, at least, they had in good supply. Next came in a little boy with a cut foot. It was bad enough to need two stitches, which he sat through with remarkable stoicism. She found a couple Turkish Delights in her purse and gave them to him as a reward, earning a tiny smile.
After she'd escaped Hydra, she'd had to put her life back together both emotionally and literally. Her medical license had expired, people thought she'd been dead. It was a mess. She'd spent a couple weeks with her father at his house in Hilton Head before going stir crazy and making calls to find someone who needed a trained if unlicensed doctor to do something. That's how she'd ended up with MSF, through an old med school friend who'd been able to get her clearance as a medical assistant. It had meant more giving shots, putting on bandages and having contraception talks than surgery or setting broken bones. But it had given her purpose for eight months and helped her find her passion again.
This felt oddly the same, which was at least part of the reason that—once she had a lull—she sat down and called Stephanie Woo at MSF again.
"Amanda!" she said cheerfully. "I was just thinking about you. Are you still in New York, we should get lunch."
"I am, but I'm not there currently." Amanda glanced around the room. "It's a long story, but I'm at a GRC camp in Latvia and, Steph, they really need you guys here.”
“Latvia? I heard about the bombing in Lithuania, is the conflict getting worse?”
"In a manner of speaking. GRC is handling this all wrong. They're treating these camps like two week summer camps and the people have been here the better part of a year." She leaned back in the chair. "You would not believe what this place looks like, Steph. No pre-natal supplies, hardly any IV set ups. The medic working here was an EMT and she has to fight for every vial of insulin or O2 canister. They'd stocked them for a war and it's more like a nursing home. The group that blew up the depot, they’re going about it all wrong, but their complaints have merit.”
“Let me guess, the local medical services won’t treat them?”
“They’re trapped between two government organizations that are in conflict. Just because they’re not shooting doesn’t mean they’re not killing people.”
“Plus you’ve got terrorists targeting GRC facilities.” She could hear Steph typing something. “As it happens I’ve been working on a pilot program. Quite a number of medical personnel with lapsed credentials in their home countries due being presumed dead are idle while wading through red tape.”
"Gosh, I don't know what that feels like at all," Amanda said dryly, getting a little chuckle from Steph.
"Right. You were the inspiration for the pilot program." More typing sounds. "Let me make some calls and I'll see what I can do. This a good number to reach you at."
"Yep. I should be here at least another day or two. Otherwise I can give you the information for the medic here.”
“I’m trying to get this going while it’s still easy to move people around. Shouldn’t be long. You called me, stay until we get there.”
She tipped her head back, wondering if agreeing to this would be cutting her time with James and. . . whatever they were doing short. "Okay," she said. "I'll stick around. Just keep me posted.”
“I’ll be in touch.”
"Bye." She hung up and sighed, holding the phone against her chest for a minute, before slipping it back in her pocket.
Chapter 7: This is the better shoulder.
Chapter Text
The afternoon had been a clusterfuck.
Bucky contemplated this as he lugged an unconscious Zemo down the street. Walker really was a douchebag. Not only was he not Steve, he was the kind of guy who would have beat pre-serum Steve up to prove his balls were still attached, or whatever it was men like that were trying to prove. Bucky would have had to intervene.
Sam probably could have talked Karli down. As evidence of his skill in that area, he’d convinced Walker to go search for her, while they took Zemo back to the flat for Amanda to look at his head. She was probably still at the camp hospital, but Bucky didn’t care. He just wanted somewhere to stash Zemo until Ayo came back.
“He was freaking out while we were waiting,” Bucky told Sam. “I told him we could come stand closer to where you were, so we could hear if there was trouble. Then he barged in.”
"I figured." Sam dropped into a chair and tipped his head back. "I was close, man. I was connecting with her. She was listening.”
“I know,” Bucky said. “I’m sorry.” He put Zemo down on the couch and he groaned, so Bucky figured the guy was coming around. "Think I need to get Doc?" he asked Sam.
"I'm capable of giving a standard concussion test," he replied, sounding amused. "But if you want to go check on your girl, I'm not gonna stop you.”
Bucky sighed. “Am I that transparent?”
"No, you're playing it totally cool. I can't tell you like her at all.”
Bucky flopped down onto the other couch. “It’s fine.”
Sam now looked amused. "Were you like this with girls in the old timey days? Walking around 'em like they're made of glass and giving them the smolder when they weren't looking?”
“I don’t treat her like glass; we bent a wrought iron headboard.” He winced at the overshare, and sighed. “I don’t remember it feeling this complicated. But it was 80 years ago.”
Sam looked at him. “So you haven’t. . . since World War Two? No wonder you broke the bed.”
Bucky made a face. “No, of course not. But that was different. It was just. . . don’t tell me the women don’t happen to you.”
He inclined his head and nodded. "Sure. Between the superhero thing and my charming wit, I'm stepping over them as they throw themselves at me. But at the risk of having you say something terrifying in Russian, she kind of seems like she just happened to you.”
The implication made him bristle. He’d been deliberately trying to scare Zemo, using something Zemo still seemed to fear. Something Zemo was very convinced was still under the surface. Though if Sam agreed, maybe it was true. Maybe there was plenty of the Winter Soldier left in him.
It was just that the serum didn’t make you immortal. She wouldn’t survive a gunshot like Nagel’s. He wanted Zemo to understand what would happen to him if he decided to take out the only scientist left who knew how to make the serum. Who had serum, stashed in her house and in her knitting bag.
“How about you give Zemo that concussion test,” he said. "I’m going to go get some air.”
Sam's brows went down. "Hey, Bucky-"
He waved it off, heading for the door.
Of course, the walk took him back to the GRC camp. He'd sort of been hoping to run into Ayo and solve at least one problem on the way. But he was here now, and he had promised her he'd check in. So he ducked into the southern building, heading to the hospital at the back.
Halfway down the hall he heard a regrettably familiar voice, talking about thirty decibels too loudly, echoing against the bare walls. "-bleeding and injured. This is the closest medical station for miles and I'm going to check-"
Bucky came around the corner to find Walker, in uniform but no mask, looming over Amanda. She was standing in the doorway that led to the medical unit, doors closed behind her, hands braced on either side of the door jamb like she'd had to physically prevent him from entering. "And I am telling you," she said, voice calm and steely. "That I am the medic on duty right now and Karli Morgenthau is not here."
"Then you shouldn't have a problem letting me check," Walker shot back.
"I have a big problem with it. This is, for all intents and purposes, a hospital. You are not a visitor, nor are you medical personnel. For the safety and security of my patients I am not going to let you in to harass them."
"You don't have the authority-"
"I am a board certified surgeon, trained in emergency and field medicine and a member of MSF." She shifted her feet, bending her knees like she was getting ready to fight. "Not everyone wears a flashy uniform and shield, Captain Walker. Some of us just get the job done.”
“John,” Bucky called, hoping to stop the pending fight.
He turned to look at him. Without him looking, Bucky watched Amanda sag in relief. "What is she doing here?" Walker asked, apparently happy to have a new target for his ire.
“Doctoring,” he replied. “I believe she told you."
"She's not a refugee, or an employee of the GRC, she has no business being here. Or following you two around."
"MSF," Amanda said. "Doctors Without Borders. Going where people need help, regardless of jurisdiction, is kind of our thing.”
Hoskins showed up right about then, something Bucky was grateful for. He seemed able to handle Walker pretty adeptly, a skill Bucky didn’t have. “Hey, there you are. Nobody downstairs saw anything, and you’ve got that call with General Shaw.”
"Right," Walker said, blowing out a breath. He looked from Bucky to Amanda. "I'll be sure to extend GRC's thanks to MSF for their help."
"Ask for Stephanie Woo," she told him, not giving an inch. "She's trying to get me back up."
Walker gave her what must have been his version of Steve's USO smile, then followed Hoskins to the door.
Bucky waited until they'd turned the corner before turning back to her and was surprised when she lurched forward and wrapped her arms around him.
"You have impeccable timing," she said into his shirt.
He hugged her, grateful now he’d come. “You okay?” He paused. “Is she in there?”
"I'm fine. Just adrenaline. And no, I haven't seen her. I take it the funeral crashing didn't go well?”
“No Fauxmerica out there barged in while Sam was trying to talk her down. Zemo did manage to get ahold of her serum, though, and smash the vials.”
"I guess that's one less thing to worry about." He felt her sigh, then heard her take a deep breath before straightening to look at him. "Guess there's no psych eval to be Captain America anymore.”
“I think the stress is getting to him.”
She blew out a breath. "Yeah. That's a lot of pressure." Twisting, she lifted his arm to check his watch. It was oddly sweet and intimate, in a way he couldn't pin down. That she'd remembered he wore a watch, and felt comfortable manhandling him to look at it.
"Katja's supposed to relieve me in about an hour," she said. "You want me to come back early?”
“No, no. I just wanted to see how you were.”
She beamed at him. "I'm good. Made some calls to try to get them more help here. Met some of the patients." She rubbed her hand along his arm. "If it doesn't work out with me, there's a seventy three year old named Magda you thinks you have a nice ass."
Bucky chuckled. “I’ll keep that in mind.” He hesitated a moment, and then leaned down to kiss her. “You need me to stick around?”
"Much as I enjoy your company, I think you make some of the people here nervous." She touched his cheek, "Go help Sam. I'll be back at the flat in an hour.”
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll see you tonight.”
She nodded and gave him another peck. "I'll think of something really nerdy to explain to you."
*
Katja came back a little after seven, looking somewhat refreshed. Amanda handed off the files she'd worked on and told her she'd given MSF a call to get some help an equipment. Based on Katja's expression, she might as well have told her Santa was real.
"I cannot thank you enough," she said for the third time as Amanda shrugged into her jacket and slung her purse on.
"I'll stay in town until they get here," she told her. "I don't know what my schedule will be, but if I can find time I'll swing by and take enough shift."
"Thank you," she said again. "Can I hug you?"
"I'm really not much of a hugger," Amanda said. "Handshake?"
Katja gamely gave her an enthusiastic handshake and they said their goodbyes. On her way out, Amanda liberated one of the two dozen emergency backpacks that were sitting in the storage room. Given the boys had managed to turn a funeral into a fist fight, she had a feeling she might need it.
It was dinner time and the streets were empty as she walked back to Zemo's flat. Twilight was deepening the shadows and a couple enthusiastic street lights had popped on. Latvia was probably one of the prettiest places she'd ever visited. She imagined if she'd come as a tourist she wouldn't have seen this neighborhood. It was old and old fashioned, without a Starbucks or McDonalds in sight. She had to give Zemo credit, as tour guides went, he was pretty decent.
She turned down an alley that would lead to the street the flat was on and came face to face with the barrel of a gun.
Zemo was, of course, on the other end of it. "Dr. Newbury."
Of course. This had been coming since the beginning. Certainly since that dangerous look this morning. That it was happening now just meant something had gone wrong with the others. Her stomach turned, hoping nothing had happened to James. "Is this because I said my favorite tea was Earl Grey?"
He lifted a shoulder. "It has its place, depending on the source. But, no. We both know what this is about, do we not?"
She took a slow breath in through her mouth. "I haven't touched a serum since Hydra fell. No one legitimate would ever fund it. Shooting me because I have the potential to make it is the act of a supremacist."
His expression didn't waiver. "What drew you to the serum?" he asked. "You'd researched it long before Hydra found you."
"I thought it had potential to help treat degenerative diseases. ALS, Parkinson's, certain kinds of dementia. Possibly even spinal or brain injuries. Steve Rogers was an asthmatic, frail man who probably wouldn't have made it to fifty without the serum. The military and Hydra never paid attention to the health benefits, but they're almost more impressive than the strength and stamina." She was probably slipping into Science Voice now, but she doubted it would have the effect on Zemo it did on James.
"A nice thought," Zemo said. "But you will forgive me if I don't trust such a conveniently altruistic story." He moved his thumb, cocking the gun. Despite that fact that was a double action and there was no need to do so. Bastard was just being melodramatic.
That, that little motion, caused rage to flood her, washing away some of the fear. "Fine," she bit out. "You want me to have some sort of deep dark selfish secret? Here you go. My mother died when I was eight. I watched her waste away in a hospital bed, until she was skin stretched over a skeleton. The last time I saw her she was in so much pain I couldn't touch her when I said goodbye. When she died our family shattered and it took almost a decade to pick up the pieces. It's why I became a doctor. Why I researched the serum. Because thirty years later I'm still trying hug my mother goodbye." And if he wanted to shoot her for that, there was nothing she could do about it.
Zemo was silent. Then he did that fucking head tilt thing and slowly lowered the gun. "You are a surprise, Dr. Newbury. A remarkable woman." He shrugged. "But I cannot have you chasing me, so-" He turned his wrist and fired.
Pain exploded in her thigh and she gripped the stone wall beside her to keep from falling. "Fuck! Zemo-" But he was already gone, and she wasn't even sure which direction he'd run.
She looked down at the hole in her left thigh. Bleeding heavily, but not gushing, so he'd missed her femoral artery. She ran a hand on the back of her leg and didn't find an exit wound, which meant she needed to get the bullet out.
The flat was only twenty feet away, but the instant she put weight on the leg it buckled and she dug a furrow in the wall to keep from hitting the ground.
"Fuck, fuck fuck," she muttered, fumbling her phone out of her pocket and texting James. In the alley help.
He came running around the corner a minute late. “Jesus.” She collapsed into him as soon as she got close enough, and he lifted her easily. “What happened?”
"Zemo," she got out through gritted teeth. "I didn't see where he went.”
His mouth opened and closed a moment, and then he turned, carrying her back inside. “Sam!” he shouted, kicking the door open in front of them.
He was there in an instant, helping James set he down on the couch. "Shit, what-"
Amanda shoved the first aid bag she'd grabbed at him. "You were pararescue, do you know how to remove a bullet?”
Sam sighed. “We usually left that for the surgeons, but yeah. Put on on the counter,” he told James.
Hie face was hard to read, like he'd retreated back into his Soldier training to get through this. But he picked her up carefully and set her on the kitchen counter while Sam pulled equipment out of the backpack. To help him, Amanda hooked two fingers into the hole in her jeans and ripped the fabric to reveal the wound. It was a couple inches under her tattoo, right in the muscle. The bleeding was already growing sluggish, which meant they didn't have a lot of time before the skin started to heal over.
Sam laid out a scalpel, a couple sizes of forceps and a syringe of local anesthetic. "Don't bother, the painkiller won't work.”
“Maybe we should go to the hospital…” Sam started.
“No,” James said, obviously familiar with the phenomenon. “It’ll heal around the bullet and the surgery to get it later will be worse.”
"I can do it," she told Sam, forcing her voice calm and steady. Adrenaline was pumping, but her body was going to process it quick and move onto shock, and she'd really like this done with before that happened. "If you're not comfortable.”
“I can do it,” he said, sounding convincingly calm as began disinfecting the wound. “You want a leather strap to bite on?”
She'd been eyeing the wooden spoon on the opposite counter, so she said, “Yes."
James got her the spoon. “It’s better.”
He would probably know. "Thanks," she said, taking it and biting down on the handle.
Sam looked pretty miserable that he had to do this, but his hands were rock solid as he efficiently cut an X over the bullet hole to give him room to use the forceps.
Amanda tipped her head back and looked at the ceiling, breathing hard through her nose so she wouldn't make noise. He was doing a good job, and she didn't want to make him feel bad. It really wasn't fair that the serum took away the ability to use pain killers, but still meant you felt pain. If anything, she might feel pain worse now, what with the heightened senses. She'd stitched up her face in the bathroom of a 90s Hydra cold war bunker and she didn't recall it hurting this much. That had been years ago, of course, so it was possible her brain had blocked out how bad the pain was. That happened to women who gave birth, but that was an evolutionary trait so that the species continued. Getting your face sliced open by a Nazi was really something it was useful to remember-
There was a clink of a bullet hitting the counter and someone was now pressing a wad of gauze onto her wound to stop the fresh bleeding. So clearly Science Voice worked for distracting herself, as well.
James brushed her hair off her forehead. “Still with me?” he whispered.
She nodded, spitting the spoon out and leaning on him while Sam cut away more of her pants and taped a bandage on her. "I'm okay," she told him, which was an overstatement, but mostly true.
“Walker showed up and demanded Zemo. Then a couple of Dora Milaje showed up and demanded Zemo,” Sam said. “They fought, we fought, Zemo escaped through the plumbing.”
“And now I have to go find him and kill him,” James said.
"He was going to kill me," she said quietly. "But he asked me why I'd studied the serum and I guess I gave him the right answer, because he did this instead." She gestured at her leg. "So I wouldn't follow him.”
“He shot you.”
She put an arm around his shoulders so he could lift her off the counter. "I'm not saying don't go after him. However, I'm an atheist and would prefer he suffer in this life rather than the next. Death is too good for him.”
“Despite what I threatened him, I’m not in the torture business.” He carried her into the bedroom.
"I was under the impression the Wakandans had some sort of plan for him." He set her down on the bed and helped her shrug her coat off. Adrenaline was wearing off and she felt shock setting in, along with the rather gaping emotional wound Zemo had managed to rip open making her talk about her mother. "I think I'm going to cry," she said conversationally. "If you want to make yourself scarce.”
His brow furrowed, and then he stood up. Which was exactly what she expected him to do and why she’d warned him. Nothing in the short time she’d known him had indicated he had much skill or capacity for other people’s emotions, let alone tears. But it hurt anyway, so much more that she was prepared for. And for a moment she just felt very alone.
Then he sat back down on the other side of her. “This is the better shoulder.”
And that, of course, lost her the fight with her tears. She swiped away at the first couple, but then he slipped his arms around her and she let go, resting her forehead on his shoulder and holding his arms to her. He pulled her close, careful of her wound, and rocked her gently. One hand stroked her hair, and he let her cry.
The last time she'd cried this hard, had been after the Dusting, listening to her sister's voice mail and realizing she was dead. She'd been in the doctor's locker room at the hospital, just trying to collect her thoughts for a moment, and had ended up sobbing for several minutes before calming down, splashing water on her face and getting back to work. There was been no one to hold her, or pet her hair, or whisper in her ear.
This. . . this was much better. He was solid and sturdy and seemed to realize there was nothing he could say to make it better.
When she'd wound down he offered her a handkerchief from somewhere, which was the most 40s thing she'd seen him do yet.
She wiped her eyes and blew her nose, catching her breath. She'd never been a pretty crier. "My mom died when I was a kid," she said quietly. "Losing her is why I became a doctor and studied the serum. I've spent my whole life trying to save my mom. You know how many therapists I've been to and I've never admitted it out loud until fucking Zemo had a gun to my head." She blew her nose again. "Bastard missed his calling.”
“Did he do that stupid head tilt thing?”
"Yes. Then he told me I was a remarkable woman and shot me in the leg.”
“You are a remarkable woman. I think your mom would have been proud of you.” He paused, then asked, “Is she the initials? On your ribs?”
Unconsciously, she put a hand to the spot. "No. Those are for my sister. Jessie. Dad always called her princess, hence the wand. Mom's initials are actually hidden in the scales of the snake." She nudged her ruined pants up and pointed to the curves that spelled out M.L.N.
He reached down to touch them, fingers stroking over her skin. “We should get you out of these pants.”
She'd really thought that would be said under better circumstances than this tonight. "You wanna just rip them?" she asked after contemplating wiggling them down.
“Yes,” he said. It was kind of hot to watch him do it, no matter how much her leg hurt. He tossed the ruined clothes in the corner and left the room briefly, coming back with a damp cloth and a glass of whatever liquor was in that crystal decanter. He handed her the glass and started wiping the dried blood off her leg.
The liquor burned on the way down, warming her stomach. He was very careful washing her leg, then took her hands and wiped the streaks of blood she'd picked up there, too. Amanda could feel her heartbeat pick up with a weird combination of lust and comfort and affection she'd never quite felt before.
When he'd tossed the cloth in the general direction of her pants, she caught the back of his neck and pulled him close to kiss him. He seemed careful not to let the kiss get out of hand, but also content to kneel there in front of her and kiss her as long as she wanted.
She lost track of time, enjoying the closeness without expectation of more. But eventually she realized she was closing her eyes in fatigue more than pleasure and leaned back a little with a sigh. "I think I'm hitting the crash and sleep portion of shock.”
He nodded, and got up to pull the covers back while she took off her bra. He tucked her in and kissed her forehead. “I’ll come check on you in a bit, and bring you some dinner.”
"Thank you," she said quietly, then caught his hand and gave it a tight squeeze, hoping that would somehow say all the things she didn't have words for. He nodded rather seriously, and then left her to sleep.
Chapter Text
Closing the bedroom door quietly, Bucky went back out in the living room where Sam was. “She’s resting.”
He'd been cleaning up the mess they'd made on the counter and tossed a red stained towel into the sink. "You okay?" he asked, crossing his arms and leaning back against the counter.
Bucky sat on the couch, rested his elbows on his knees, and found himself saying, “She didn’t happen to me.”
"I know." Sam crossed the room to sit across from him. "That was a shit thing for me to say, and I'm sorry. I get that this is a weird, confusing thing for you and I should have tried to be more helpful.”
“When Shuri thawed me, it was kind of Ayo’s job to keep an eye on me.” She’d been the first person whose trust he’d earned. He’d thought so, anyway. He’d certainly lost it now, if he’d ever really had it. He shook his head, deciding not to think about that. “After I was deprogrammed, but before I got the arm, she comes up to me one day and tells me I’m very pale, unreasonably hairy, and she doesn’t get it, but her friends that like men insist that I’m attractive. Would I like to meet them?”
Sam laughed. “You are pretty white.”
Bucky chuckled, too. “Yeah. Some of them really liked the exotic novelty. Then when I came to the US, I’d just have to, you know, stand around a bar. Go home with whoever hit on me.”
Sam nodded. "A lot of people - guys and girls - go through that kind of phase. Simple, uncomplicated. They didn't ask more of you that you were ready to give.”
“Pretending be the Winter Soldier got to me,” he said. It felt like a confession. “And she was…” He didn’t quite know how to articulate it. If he even wanted to. Sex was something that had never been part of Soldat. It was what most reminded him those days were in the past. Bad nightmares sent him out looking for a warm body some nights. He shook his head. “I wasn’t looking for someone, I was looking for her.”
That got another knowing nod from Sam. There had been a lot of women at Sharon's party. Any one of them probably would have been happy to go upstairs with him. But he'd only wanted Amanda.
"Do you think," Sam said gently. "That it feels different because she knew you as him and you?" He held up a hand, palm out and continued, "I know you aren't him anymore. So it shouldn't matter. But like it or not, it's your history. A big part of it. There's something powerful about having a partner whose seen you at your worst and accepts you anyway."
She understood him. She was like him. “And I dragged her into this, and now she got shot."
"That's not your fault," Sam said. "She's a big girl, she knew how dangerous this was and what kind of man Zemo is and she's decided to stick it out anyway. I know seeing her with a bullet in her leg hurt. I hated it and I'm not. . ." He gestured vaguely to apparently encompass everything she and Bucky were doing. "But you have to give people the dignity of their choices.”
He looked over at Sam. “People have made a lot of catastrophic choices for me.”
"That was complicated, and not entirely about you. Just like this is." Sam sighed and leaned back in his seat. "My mom used to feed every kid in the neighborhood. Any time anyone lost a job or had something go wrong, she'd be at their door with a casserole or bag of groceries. Dad was the same way. My sister says I got the same gene. You see something going wrong and you throw yourself at it till it's fixed. Steve was like that, too." He pointed at the bedroom door. "If you think she's here just for you, you don't know her as well as you think you do."
“That’s been a theme.” He scrubbed his hands over his face. “Are you hungry? I told her I’d get some dinner.”
"Food sounds like a great idea. You want to go find some take out? I want to call Torres and bring him in. With Zemo gone and Walker on our ass it's time to get some back up.”
“That’s a good idea. Get your wings?”
"Yeah. If I'm gonna be fighting super soldiers, I need all the advantage I can get.”
When they got their food, he set some up on a tray and brought it in to Amanda.
She was sitting up, sheets tucked up over her breasts, talking on the phone. "-really fine. Do not get on a plane to Latvia. Yes it is a beautiful country, still don't get on a plane. Dad. Dad." She paused, listening and made an apologetic face at him. "I promise I will call you tomorrow. Yes. Dad, my food is here. Yes." Her eyes widened. "No. Because you don't have to. No, you do not. Maybe, but not like this. He is. I promise. My food is getting cold. Dad. Dad. I love you too. Yes. Bye." She hit the button to disconnect and gave him an almost shy smile. "That smells good.”
“If I had a little girl, and she got shot, I too would insist on getting on a plane.”
"I may have downplayed the getting shot part. I told him I got mugged. I wasn't going to say anything, but of course I get five words in and he knew something was wrong.”
He set the tray in her lap. “Why did you call him?”
"Wanted to hear his voice," she said quietly, mixing her vegetables into the cream sauce covering the chicken. "I guess thinking about Mom and getting hurt. . . had a moment of homesick, for lack of a better term.”
“I’m sorry for my part in you ending up in this position.”
She looked at him like he'd grown a second head. "I seem to recall you telling me this was dangerous and me blackmailing you with airplane tickets to make you take me with you. You don't have anything to apologize for.”
“I did. But before that I knocked on your door to ask you about Isaiah. Because previously I showed up to your clinic with my amends, about kidnapping you. I need to own some of it.”
"James." She reached over and covered his vibranium hand with her. She never seemed fazed by it at all, holding it and stroking it just the way she did the real one. He found himself studying the dichotomy of her pale skin against the black metal, long fingers with short clipped nails looking almost fragile. "Whatever happens, however this goes, I don't regret you coming back into my life.”
He nodded, because he could tell she meant it. He kept looking at their entwined hands. “The Wakandans put a kill switch in my arm. We got into a tussle and Ayo quite literally disarmed me."
"And you didn't know about it?"
He shook his head, running his thumb along hers.
"That's completely unethical!" she said, Science Voice somehow mixed with righteous outrage. "You don't give someone a prosthetic and don't tell them about a feature. What if it had malfunctioned? What if someone had managed to hit it in a real fight? You can't - you have to have worried about your programming resurfacing, knowing you had a kill switch might actually have brought you comfort. In America that would be grounds for an enormous malpractice suit.”
“I suppose it’s not a prosthetic, it’s a weapon.”
"The Winter Soldier's arm was a weapon," she said tartly, stabbing a piece of chicken with extreme prejudice. "This is yours. It's a prosthetic. It's your fucking arm and you should have been told it could be turned off.”
“The other could feel pressure, but it didn’t feel any pain or finer sensation. When it got blown off I didn’t feel much different. This one is fully wired into my nervous system. Disconnecting and reconnecting is really uncomfortable. I don’t take it off much. It does feel like part of me.”
"Honey," she said softly. Most of the time he couldn't hear any accent in her voice, but somehow that one word was full of southern drawl. She shifted the half eaten food tray of her lap and shifted to face him more fully. "I'm sorry she did that to you," she said, bringing his hand up to brush a kiss against his knuckles.
He shivered at the touch. It was more complicated than he could articulate. If they put in a kill switch and didn’t tell him, it meant they didn’t trust him. It wasn’t really a gift, and it wasn’t really his. In the moment, he’d expected Ayo to pick it up and take it back. Instead she’d snarled, Bast damn you, James.
All of his life, James had been what people he didn’t know or didn’t like called him. Ayo was well aware of that, and he knew it had been deliberate.
Amanda called him James, though. It has simply been an inopportune moment when she first did it, and he never bother to correct it. He found he loved the way it sounded when she said it. The way it sounded when she cried and begged it in his ear.
She turned his hand over and pressed a kiss to the inside of his wrist, where his pulse would be. Then she uncurled his fingers so she could run her thumb along his palm. "You do have finger prints," she said, sounding delighted. "I assumed it was some sort of ridging to give you friction when handling things. But they've got whirls and hoops, like real finger prints.”
“They’re mine. From the arm I was born with. There were government records. Shuri’s extra like that.”
"That's something I would do," she admitted, lifting his other hand to compare the two, then planting a kiss on his flesh and blood palm. "Not the kill switch, though. You've had your autonomy taken far too much already." She looked him in the eye. "I'd fix it for you, but an electrical engineer I am not.”
“I appreciate the thought,” he said, because he did. He dipped his head down to kiss her. She sighed and he felt her melt into it, her hands sliding up his arms to wrap over his shoulders. “You should rest,” he murmured eventually. “But I’ll lay with you.”
"I assume all protests that I feel better will fall on deaf ears?" He nodded solemnly and she sighed. "Snuggling it is.”
*
When Amanda woke the next morning James was fast asleep beside her. She took a moment to linger, studying the lines of his face and the curve of a bare shoulder. But the need to pee eventually overwhelmed her girlish longing, so she eased out of bed and tested her leg. It was sore but willing to hold her weight. So she tugged on the black t-shirt James had tossed on the floor when joining her and bed and made her way to the bathroom.
After doing her business and washing up she eased the bandage off her leg to examine her wound. The X from the scalpel was fully healed, being a clean easy cut, and the bullet hole itself was an ugly, half healed scar, surrounded by an enormous bruise. Attempting a couple stretched confirmed her suspicion the muscle was still healing. But muscle was easy to replace, athletes tore and repaired muscle all the time. She expected by the evening it would be no worse than a bruise one got clipping the corner of a table.
Healing and rebuilding did take a lot of energy, so she headed to the kitchen and rummaged around to find the ingredients to make a proper breakfast. In a few minutes she had the kettle going for her tea and slices of stale bread soaking for French Toast. She'd just sat down to tape a new bandage on her leg when the front door opened and a young Latino guy who looked too young to shave let alone be wearing a military uniform, came in, carrying a couple of heavy bags.
He froze when he saw her and she finished taping down her gauze, acutely aware she was only wearing a T-shirt. "Um," he said slowly. "I'm looking for Sam WIlson?"
"Are you Torres?" she asked. James had mentioned something about calling in for back up last night while she was starting to doze.
"Yes." He looked a little relieved, but still very confused. "You are-?"
"Amanda Newbury. Doctor." She very carefully slid off the bar stool she was perched on and went over to shake his hand. "The men are still asleep, but you're just in time for breakfast. Coffee?”
“Thanks,” he said. “You okay there?”
He was looking at the bandage as she moved around the counter. "I'm fine. I was shot yesterday." She poured his coffee and noticed the wide eyed look. "Sorry. I'm like Sergeant Barnes, it's already healed.”
“Neat trick.” He was conspicuously trying to look elsewhere.
Poor kid. She put the coffee mug in front of him. "I will go put on pants and let the guys know you're here." He nodded, still finding the cabinetry fascinating, so she headed back to the bedroom.
Pausing at Sam's door, she rapped a few times with her knuckles. "Torres is here," she called before moving on to her and James's room.
He was just sitting up. “Hey, where’d you go?”
"I was starting breakfast," she told him, putting a knee on the bed to kiss him good morning. "I'm starving. Then Torres showed up and I think I scarred him for life.”
His hand slid up her bare thigh to cup her ass. “How are you feeling?”
"Much better," she assured him, distracted by the gentle squeeze and release thing he was do to her rear. "I changed the bandage and it's all healed over. Just feels like a bad bruise and sprained muscle.”
“Good. I regret we have guests.”
"Me too." She was being very careful not to make the bed squeak, even as she eased off of it. "Maybe later.”
“I’ll hold you to that.”
He was giving her one of those looks that sent heat through her. He really was just, illegally good looking. She had no idea what he was doing with her. "You can hold me against anything you like," she told him. He somehow managed to look more intense and she turned away to look for pants before she could get herself in trouble.
Sam was up by the time she got back out there, and James joined them a few minutes later. They debated a bit about what to do next. Amanda was many things, but a strategist was none of them. She busied herself finishing the French Toast, filling everyone's coffee mugs, and chopping up berries and fruit to eat with breakfast.
They hadn't come to any conclusions by the time she'd put plates on the table and all but bodily steered the three men to sit. "Walker said Karli was hurt, right? Stomach wound is going to be more complicated to heal than mine, she may be laying low for at least a day or two.”
“Would she go to the camp hospital?”
“I doubt it,” Sam said. “She’d know it was compromised at this point. She may get out of town.”
“She’d let the wound heal,” James said. “It’s hard to run with a stomach wound, you go to ground until you can. Even as the Soldier I knew to do that.”
"Short of raiding every building in the city, we don't have a lot of ways to flush her out," Torres said, shoving an enormous piece of French Toast into his mouth. "No one's willing to talk," he added, muffled.
"Don't suppose your friend at the medical unit would tell," Sam asked Amanda.
"I could try to ask, but I doubt she knows. She's willing to take the medicine the Smashers drop off, but didn't give any indication she knew any of them.”
“She has a lot of friends,” James said. “People who would hide her. Zemo might be findable, though.”
"He has to be out of the country by now," Amanda said. "He knows what you're gonna do to him.”
“Nobody’s helping hide him, I mean. There will be a record of where that airplane went. I’ll find him.”
"You thinking of leaving now?" Sam asked and Amanda found herself grateful she didn't have to do it. Sam, at least, didn't sound like a fretting girlfriend when he asked it.
He sighed. “Zemo destroyed the serum. Maybe we should just let Walker chase the Flag Smashers.”
"I know you don't like the guy but leaving him to take on seven super soldiers is pretty harsh."
"Seven mentally deteriorating super soldiers," Amanda pointed out, sipping her tea. It was Earl Grey, she'd flushed Zemo's fucking cherry blossom shit down the sink. "Seems like someone should tell them about that. Someone they'll actually trust and listen to.”
“Fair point.”
"Look, you guys were depending on this Zemo's intel to find stuff, " Torres said. "There has to be some weak link here somewhere. If this town is the full of Smashers, maybe we do just rustle some bushes and see what we find."
They started talking strategy again and Amanda wandered off, limping a little, to rinse her plate and top off her tea. She brought the coffee pot back and filled the men's cups. "I'm going to lay down," she told James, kissing the top of his head as she refilled his coffee. He smiled, and she could feel his eyes on her as he went.
Her leg hurt, and if they did track down Karli and the other she imagined she'd be needed, as muscle or medic, so resting was probably the best use of her time. She propped herself up in bed, started a podcast, and started knitting.
James came in about half an hour later to grab his boots. "Torres has some locations to check out. You going to be okay alone?"
"I'm fine," she assured him. "Let me see your foot before you put your shoe on.”
His brow knit, and then he glanced down. It amused her that such a generally dangerous-looking man could make such an adorable face, but he did whenever he was confused. “There’s nothing wrong with my foot.”
"I know," she said patiently, holding up the sock she was working on. "I want to check size.”
“My mom used to knit me socks,” he said very quietly. “She’d mail them to me overseas during the war."
She hesitated, not quite sure how to read the sorry in his voice. "If you don't want me to-“
“No, no, I do. Good memory. Just one I hadn’t remembered until right now. It still happens sometimes.” He came forward and sat on the bed, and dutifully putting his foot up.
Amanda held the sock up against his ankle, decided the leg could probably use another twenty rows or so, the eyeballed the length of his foot against her hand. "Thank you," she said, leaning back. "You might have a pair of sock when you get back. See how bored I get.”
“She’d send them for Steve, too,” he said. “But they were always too small, based I guess on what his foot size was before the serum.”
"It's a real compliment from a knitter, you know. Being sock-worthy." And the ones she was working on for him were dark grey, which was sort of a pain in the ass.
“She fussed over him a lot. His mom was widowed and worked long hours. She used to knit him sweaters, too.”
"I can't knit you a sweater," she told him before she really thought it through. "It's bad luck.”
He chuckled. “Why?”
"There's a superstition in the knitting community that if you knit a sweater for your partner you'll break up." It was technically called the "Boyfriend Sweater Curse" but calling him her boyfriend felt. . . odd for some reason.
He looked down a moment, hiding his face from view, then when he raised his eyes again he smiled. “Can’t have that, can we?”
"I'd try to avoid it." She made an attempt to match the light tone and was fairly confident she got there. "Have fun hunting. I'll be here knitting and making you and your little friends dinner.”
He gave her a kiss. “See you later.”
"Bye," she said softly, watching him walk out. There was commotion in the living room while the boys got themselves together, then the thump of the door closing.
Once she was alone, she limped back out to the main room and sat on the couch to knit, enjoying the quiet. She'd lived alone for over twenty years, so the last few days being in constantly in close proximity with people, one of whom was evidently planning her murder for most of the time, had been stressful. She was grateful for whatever collection of circumstances had allowed her a day of calm.
Though with the way their luck was going one or all of them would be coming back with some sort of stab wound at the end of the day.
After a couple hours, she was hungry again, which prompted a walk down to the market. She studiously avoided the alley she'd been shot in on her hike back. Steph called with an update as she finished lunch and they talked for a while about logistics and the stupidity of bureaucrats trying to understand how medicine worked.
When she got back to the flat, she could hear raised voices from the hallway. When she opened the door, James turned and she could see the tension drain out of him. “Oh, thank god, there you are.”
"What did I miss?" she asked, setting her shopping bag on the floor.
Sam folded his arms over his chest. “Karli called my sister.”
Ah, they had reached that part of the terrorist plot. "Shit. Is she okay?”
“She’s fine, I sent her and my nephews to a hotel. Karli didn’t threaten her, just asked her questions and creeped her out."
"Fair enough." She pulled food out of the bag. "Did she make any demands?"
"Sent Sam a meeting spot and time," James told her, moving to help. "Building near a plaza north of the camp, tomorrow morning. She wants him alone."
"We're all going, though, right?”
“How is your leg?” he asked.
"Bruised but functional.”
He looked over at Sam. “Then we’re all going.”
She wondered if that had been part of the yelling. Sam didn't look thrilled, but he nodded. "I'm going to have Torres dig her up some gear."
"Is it going to be black leather like his?" she asked, gesturing at James.
“You wanna match?” She couldn’t tell by Sam’s voice if he was annoyed or amused. Maybe both.
"I was mostly trying to moderate my expectations, but now that you mention it, we really should coordinate." She plucked a knife out of the block and twirled it before slicing an apple. "He can be your sidekick and I'll be his. I need a badass call sign.”
“We’ll think of something, Doc,” Sam said.
Chapter Text
Everybody went to bed early that night, though Bucky and Amanda didn’t exactly sleep. She insisted her leg was healed enough, and he didn’t argue. He was, however, as careful and gentle as he could be—though a slow burn wasn’t any less hot. It was at least quieter.
"If we stay here much longer I vote for moving the mattress to the floor," she murmured, tucked up against his side afterwards.
He sighed. “God, I hope we’re not here much longer.”
"I imagine we'll find out tomorrow, one way or another.”
“You sure you’re okay to do this?” he asked, tangling his fingers into her hair.
"I wouldn't have offered if I wasn't," she said, eyes drifting shut a moment as he played with the strands. "I figure the longer this goes on the more likely you're going to need me. As muscle or medic.”
“You’re not wrong.” But he worried about her all the same. “Sometimes I wish I’d stayed in Wakanda.”
She opened her eyes and shifted, looking at him more fully. "Why didn't you?”
“I don’t know, honestly. I felt kind of lost because of everything with Steve, and they they offered me a pardon…” He shrugged.
"Can I ask . . . what exactly happened with Steve? You both talk about him like he's gone but I would think that would have been a big public thing.”
Bucky let her go to roll onto his back and exhaled, staring up at the ceiling. “He. . . went to live in the past.”
Silence stretched a moment and he risked a glance at her, only to be rewarded by a frankly adorable perplexed expression. "I'm. . . sorry? Is that a metaphor?”
“No. It’s kind of a state secret—actually, the government might not even know—but Tony Stark invented God’s honest time machine. That’s how they reversed it and brought everyone back. I don’t know the exact details, but at the end someone had to take these magical stone things back to various points in the past. Steve was the one who did it.”
She blinked a moment, then shook her head sharply. "And when he did he decided to stay there?”
“Technically he got stuck there. Went to see his old love he wanted to say goodbye to. One thing led to another and then, apparently, he had to stay. If you get what I mean.”
"I think so." She sat up and rubbed her temples. "Sorry, I'm processing. They didn't cover this in Back to the Future. So Steve went back in time got someone pregnant and just stayed there for the rest of his life. Did he write you a letter or something?”
“No, the elderly version of him showed up the night before his original trip back in time, to tell me what happened, including that Hydra’s paranoia about me accidentally knocking someone up was justified, apologize for leaving me along in the future, say goodbye, and talk to me about giving the shield to Sam.” Something occurred to him, and he sat up a bit himself to look at her better. “Uh, it might be a little late to ask this, but how sturdy is your birth control? I assumed as a doctor you’d have that handled, but it occurs to me it’d be calibrated for a normal man.”
Something he couldn't name flickered over her face and when she smiled it didn't quite make it to her eyes. "The serum is not gentle on women's reproductive parts. There won't be any accidents.”
“Ah,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry.”
She lifted a shoulder. "I was pretty sure I'd missed my shot at it anyway. Having the door slammed hurt but- It is what it is.”
“It’s hereditary. If that’s of interest to your Science Brain.”
Sure enough, her eyes lit up. "Seriously? Damn. I theorized it might be with men, it does alter your DNA, so any sperm you make after would be effected. I haven't had the equipment to figure out exactly what's wrong with me, my hormones are all at the appropriate levels. A couple of them are actually better than they were before hand. I wonder-" She stopped abruptly. “Huh."
“Huh, what?”
"Mmm. Wondering if there's a chance super soldier sperm would somehow counteract whatever's going on with me. Probably not likely, eggs aren't produced throughout your lifetime, you're born with them. The serum either damaged them or my body changed so dramatically it no longer recognizes them as familiar tissue. Like I said, i don't have the equipment to be sure." She shook her head and gave him a smile the did reach her eyes. "Sorry, science equivalent of a teen virgin worrying she's pregnant 'cause her period's late. I'm fine. Continue. Old Man Steve.”
Bucky wondered a moment if he should worry about that, but decided now was not the time. “He told me he wanted to give the shield to Sam, so he could be the new Captain America.”
"Were you upset he didn't want to give it to you?”
“Oh, there was no way I was going to be Captain America.”
She tilted her head, and he was afraid for a moment she was going to argue or protest that. Instead, she ran her fingers along his arm and said, "So you were happy with it going to Sam?”
“I mean, until he gave it away.”
"Is that part of whatever was going on with you to when you first showed up at my door?"
Bucky laid back down, and tucked his hands behind his head. “Steve gave it to him, and he gave it to the government. Who then gave it to Walker. Who doesn’t deserve it.”
"He does not," she agreed. "But I doubt Sam knew they'd give it to someone else.”
“I wish I understood why he did it.”
Amanda blew out a breath, tipping her head back. "I'm not - I'm a middle class white woman, so I am in no way qualified to discuss the experience of a Black man in America. But I do know that the stars and stripes on that shield can mean a lot of different things to different people. And for some of them, all they mean is pain.”
Bucky looked at her. “What do you mean?”
She was quiet a moment, then shifted to sit more comfortably, back against the headboard. "My dad was an army ranger. He's the one who taught me how to fight. He fought in Vietnam. He said flying out he was all puffed up. His dad and uncle had been in World War II and he'd grown up hearing about his great-grandad in the Civil War. He was going to be a soldier, a grown man, just like all of them. He came home two years later, left a brother, a best friend and part of his left foot behind."She looked down at Bucky and her expression was hard to read, but her voice was sad. "When soldiers came back from your war, they got parades. My dad got spit on when he got off the bus, still in his fatigues. There was no 'thank you for your service' it was jeers and being called a bloodthirsty child killer. He learned not to talk about it. Then more guys came home and the war ended and the government was embarrassed by the whole thing. So much so they forgot to take care of all the vets they'd made. Did you know about 10% of America's homeless are veterans? Mostly because their PTSD is so bad they can't hold down a job. A lot of them turn to alcohol or drugs. My dad had a wife and kids and kept his drinking more or less under control until Mom died. He has friends who weren't as lucky.
"We never flew a flag in our yard. Never attended a Veteran's Day parade. Dad wouldn't even mention he was a vet unless he knew the person he was talking to was too. The was no pride in having served his country. If you handed him that shield he'd hand it right back. The stars and stripes just mean a lot of pain and loss and abandonment to him.”
“I suppose I don’t think too much about the time I missed,” Bucky said. “How the world changed. Maybe I should."
"I think if you do, you might have a better idea of where Sam is coming from," she said gently. "He told me he was from Louisiana. A Black man from that far South. . ." She shook her head. "I saw some really shitty behavior growing up in North Carolina. I'm sure he lived through worse.”
“Thank you,” he said, reaching to pull her close again.
She laid down and they shifted a bit, so he could spoon around her. "I helped?" she murmured.
“Yeah. Gave me some things to think about,” he replied.
"Good." She gave his arm a squeeze. "Thinking is one thing I'm good at.”
He bent his head to kiss her. “Among other things.”
"Mm, I've always been good at thinking, the other things are a new development.”
His hands went wandering. “I like them both.”
He felt as much as heard her sigh, body arching into his touch a bit. "Wasn't there something about getting a good night's sleep?”
“We’re super soldiers,” he told her. “We need less.”
"You make a compelling argument, Sergeant Barnes.”
*
Torres brought Amanda some tac gear in the morning. It was a little big, but it had a kevlar vest, which was what she really wanted. Sam had to talk Torres out of coming with them. They were pretty off the books at this point, and Sam didn’t want him getting in trouble. She did make a point of getting Torres's contact in her phone. If things did go sideways, a handy exit might be useful.
James, naturally, looked really nice in his gear. Sam sort of stuck out like a sore thumb, but she was super impressed that wings big enough to support a human fit in that little back pack of his.
Most of her gearing up time had been spent dismantling the remains of her first aid kit to fit into the various pockets and pouches in her gear. Then the three of them headed out to the northside of the city to meet Karli.
Sam was clearly pissed off. Karli thought she might somehow motivate him to join her, or let her go. She even smugly informed Sam that killing him would be meaningless. Amanda assumed that meant there was someone she thought killing would matter. Walker, probably, given her mention of the shield.
In her earpiece, Amanda’s phone was ringing.
Her first instinct was to ignore it, since it was kind of a bad time. But there were any number of emergencies it could be and if it wasn't she could just hang up, Besides, no one was really paying attention to her. So she tapped her ear and said, "Newbury."
"Amanda? I'm sorry, this is Katja from the GRC camp? I didn't know who else to call. . ."
Her voice was thin and sounded stressed so Amanda turned away from the face off and paced a few steps away. "What's wrong?"
"The Flag Smashers are here, and so is that Captain America guy. People are saying he went into the south wing, which we really don't use and. . . there were gun shots. Everyone's panicking."
The hair on the back of her neck went up and she turned sharply. "Guys, it's a set up. The rest of them are at the camp cornering Walker.”
James cursed, and leapt of the railing down to the bottom of the courtyard. Karli leapt at the same time, and it became a brawl. Sam joined and Amanda braced a hand on the balcony railing, jumping down to the courtyard. Karli noticed her, the distraction allowing James to kick her into the nearest wall. Amanda didn't even pause, sprinting for the door and out onto the street.
The camp was a couple blocks away. She cut through the main courtyard into the south wing. Upstairs, she could heard pounding footsteps so she headed up, taking the steps two or three at a time.
Over the comm she heard Sam—who’d beaten them there since he could fly—say, “Heads up, Walker took the serum.”
"Oh, good," she said, pausing to listen for the sounds of fighting before starting up another flight. "He was such the picture of stability before.”
James was somewhere not far behind her, fighting with someone. She could hear him in her earpiece and couldn’t help but notice that the sounds of exertion he made were very similar to the sounds he made in bed.
She reached the top of the stairs, and found the source of the rest of the fight sounds, this time Sam and Walker tussling with a group of flag smashers.
A couple of them were ganging up on Walker, who was using the shield to do some crowd control. Amanda picked one of the Smashers, waited for the shield to bounce past her, then threw herself at the woman, catching her fist mid punch and turning, using the other woman's momentum to flip her over her shoulder.
Her eyes, behind the face mask, were stunned, but she bounced back quickly, leaping to her feet and launching at Amanda.
Most of Amanda's fights had been schoolyard tussles with bullies so used to winning they had no idea how to manage a proper fight. Her dad's training had been overkill and had mostly gone unused until the Winter Soldier came for her. This felt a lot like that, only neither of them were really trying to kill the other, just take them out of commission.
James had made it upstairs, and now it was just a large brawl, each of them with a Flag Smasher to fight. She wondered if eventually someone was going to have to kill someone just to get it to stop.
Walker’s partner, Hoskins, showed up about then. Amanda only got a glance at him inserting himself into the tussle Walker was having with Karli, before Karli tossed Hoskins straight into a pillar. The sound was sickening, and he crumpled to the floor.
The fighting stopped, as each and every one of them turned. Walker shoved aside the man holding onto him and ran over. “Lemar. Lemar!”
Amanda could see it about to happen, Walker grabbing him and trying to shake him awake, perhaps the worst possible thing you could do to someone with a back or neck injury. If he was still alive, he wouldn’t be after that. She was close enough to beat Walker there, and strong enough to body check him out of her way.
"Don't move him," she snapped, fingers going to Lemar's throat. There was a pulse, weak, but present. She leaned close, but didn't catch any breathing sounds and bit out a curse. "Not breathing," she muttered, mostly to herself. It was habit, in emergency medicine, to say things out loud. You usually had nurses or EMTs hovering around and everyone needed to be on the same page as far as current prognosis.
Unfortunately, the only person close enough to hear her was Walker, who rocked back in shock. After a moment he made a sound of rage, leapt up and flung himself right out one of the windows.
Amanda couldn’t worry about him right now. The flag smashers were fleeing, that was probably where Walker was going. Sam knelt down on Lemar’s other side. “You got a pulse?” Her nod prompted him to reach out and hold Lemar’s head, which he clearly knew how to do correctly.
Because he clearly had more faith in humanity than Amanda did, he called out, "We need more hands!”
Lo and behold, one of the flag smashers, sans mask, appeared behind him.
"Kneel down here," Amanda said, pointing. When he obliged, she physically grabbed his hands and put them where she wanted the. "We're going to ease him off the pillar onto his back so I can open his airway. It is very important his spine and neck move in a straight line. So I'm going to count one, two, three, and we'll move him down, got it?" He nodded so she moved her hands under Hoskins on the other side and did her countdown. they moved him as smooth as a practiced team, and got him flat on the floor.
She put fingers into either side of Hoskins's jaw and jutted it open. This time when she checked, she could feel the puff of breath.
Okay, step one, done. She looked at Sam. “Go."
“You sure?”
"I have an assistant," she said, gesturing at the guy across from her. "This is my job. Go do yours.”
Sam nodded, and then he leapt up. Amanda looked at her new assistant. “Go to the infirmary, ask Katja for a cervical collar, a backboard, oxygen and a mask. She’ll know.” The man nodded and took off at a run. She hoped he came back.
She kept her finger's on Hoskins's pulse, watching his chest rise and fall with breath. The boys were eerily quiet on the comms, not even breathing hard, and she was starting to grow concerned what might have happened.
The Smasher reappeared, holding her supplies. She couldn't help her smile. "Bring them here." He did so and she set up the O2 before slipping the cervical collar on. "I'm Amanda, by the way."
"Dovich," he said quietly.
"Thanks for staying, Dovich. For the backboard, it's going to be like getting him off the pillar, only we're rolling him to his side and back down, so it's a little easier." She walked him through that, and were to put his hands.
With that done, Hoskins was a stable as she could make him, so she pulled her phone out and called Torres, who answered on the second ring. "It's Newbury," she told him without preamble. "I've got Walker's partner Hoskins on a backboard and need medical back up and an airlift to. . . I guess Rammstein is closest?”
“Shit. Yeah, I can hook that up. Where are you?”
"Southern wing of the GRC camp. Fifth floor.”
“Got it.”
After she hung up, Dovich said, “I don’t want to be here when they arrive.”
"That's fine. I can handle this." He shifted to go and she caught his arm. "Listen to me. I'm an expert in the serum. The one you and your friends took is flawed. It's unstable. And it's going to start effecting your brains. You're going to notice signs of irrationality, impulse control and possibly dementia." She paused and pulled out a scrap of paper and jotted down her number. "Take this. If you see it happening, call me, I'll try to help.”
He looked down at it a moment, then said, “Thank you,” before turning and leaving.
A moment later Katja appeared, carrying a bag and sounding winded. “He was faster than me.” She dropped the bag. “I brought a BP cuff and an pulseox and some other things."
"Thank you. I have back up coming but this will help in monitoring him." They worked in tandem to set up the equipment. Having monitors and numbers made Amanda feel better. "Thanks for the call. We wouldn't have known to be here without you.”
“I heard about you baring the door the other day. Not letting Captain America in. Everybody did.”
Amanda wondered of that was why Dovich had stayed to help her. And mentioning Captain America made her think to turn her comm link back on—she’d turned it off to call Torres.
James’s voice was in her ear immediately. “Don’t go down that road. It doesn’t end well.”
She couldn’t hear the reply, but it sounded like Walker’s voice. Whatever it was, it made James inhale sharply. Sam started talking then, in that soothing voice of his he used when he was trying to talk someone down. He went on about Walker’s service record, and that they didn’t want anyone else to get hurt.
Shit something had happened. "Lemar is stable," she said, hoping they could use it to talk Walker down. "I'm waiting for Torres to get me back up.”
If either of them heard her, they didn’t respond. “John,” Sam said. “You gotta give me the shield, man.”
This time she could hear Walker’s voice, picked up by one of their earpieces. “You don’t want to do this,” he said, the tone of his voice sending a chill up her spine. That was not the voice of a rational person.
“Yeah we do,” James said, sounding resigned and angry. The sounds of fighting were nearly immediate.
She sat helplessly, listening to the three of them have what sounded like a no hold's barred beat down. Katja clearly saw something on he face because she sat quietly and at one point reached over to squeeze her hand.
When she heard Walker shriek, "Why are you making me do this?" she actually pulled the ear piece of her ear and dropped it, stomach knotted.
It was two against one. They'd get him sorted out. She had a patient she needed to focus on.
Notes:
Fridge a side character for manpain? Not on Doc's watch.
Nyx's addition - I think, based on my amateur knowledge of forensics and medicine and watching that scene over a dozen times, that Lemar's injuries, as shown in the show, are not survivable. He hit the pillar very high on his spine and likely had massive head trauma as well. But this is our story and we can move him down a few inches if we want to.
Don't shake spinal injuries people, it's just common sense.
Chapter 10: Let's hear it for Captain America
Notes:
Nothing says Happy Friday like more smut! Hope everybody has a nice weekend.
Chapter Text
Walker was finally down. Bucky dragged himself up, then picked up the shelf and carried it over to where Sam was, out of Walker’s reach. Just in case. He was conscious and seemed able to move, which was probably the best anyone could hope for at the moment. Bucky’s earpiece was long gone, and he could see Sam’s was too. He wondered how much of that fight Amanda had to listen to. “Going to get help,” he said as Sam pulled himself to a sitting position and reached for the shield. When he nodded, Bucky staggered towards the door. He could hear helicopter rotors going somewhere nearby.
His phone, somehow, had survived, and he pulled it out, dialing her number.
She answered with, "James?" and the worry and fear she packed into the one word was shattering.
“Hey. I’m okay. We could use some help.”
"Okay," she said quietly, possibly to herself. Then, stronger, "Okay. Torres just showed up with medical staff for Hoskins. You need me to steal some guys or is it stuff I can hand with a kit?”
“Walker is going to need a splint and some MPs, but he’s currently unconscious. Sam and I are mobile.”
"Tell me where you are and I'll come triage." He told her roughly where they'd ran to, several streets from the camp and off the plaza Walker had gone nuts in. She promised she was on her way and he hung up. He stayed outside, keeping an ear out to make sure nothing was happening inside.
She arrived less than five minutes later, having shed her too-big kevlar in favor of the black t-shirt she'd had beneath it. She was carrying a big black bag and looked like she wanted to throw herself at him when she saw him.
Instead she stopped in front of him and peered at his face. "Your nose is broken.”
“It’ll heal,” he replied, eyes searching her face.
She still reached up to touch it gingerly, then the spot under his eye that was starting to swell. "I heard some of what happened. It sounded bad."
There was a lot unsaid in those couple sentences. He heard some of it. She'd been worried. She'd been scared. She'd felt helpless listening and not able to help. He slid his arms around her, wanting to hold her. “I’m okay.”
"Your nose is broken," she repeated, but let him pull her against his chest, head tucked under his chin. For a few heart beats they just stood like that, holding each other tightly. Her hair smelled like the weird patchouli stuff in the bathroom at the flat. But underneath that he caught something floral that he associated with her.
"If you're this bad I should probably check Sam," she said finally.
“You should, he’s pretty beat up.”
She nodded and stepped away from him, hefting her bag up onto her shoulder.
Inside, Sam was sitting up, trying to wipe blood off the shield. Without a word, Amanda went over and kneeled on his other side and unzipped the bag. It was full of medical equipment. Most of it Bucky couldn't recognize, but he was pretty sure a normal person couldn't have carried all of it from the camp to here.
She shined a light in Sam's eyes and had him follow her finger, then leaned in to inspect the wound on his head. "What hurts?”
“Just about everything at this point. Ribs might be broken. Contusion up the wazoo. That’s probably the worst laceration up there.” He paused. “You got anything in that I can clean this with?” Bucky didn’t miss the catch in his voice.
She glanced down at it, and Bucky was kind of glad he couldn't see her full expression. What he did see made him think she was seriously thinking about trying to snap it over her knee. Instead, she rummaged in her bag and pulled out a thick white pad, which she doused with rubbing alcohol and handed to Sam. "Torres told me what happed in the square," she said quietly. She pulled a disposable ice pack out of her bag and snapped it to activate it before tossing it to Bucky. "Eye," she ordered, pointing at him, before turning back to Sam.
"I'm going to unfasten your armor," she said calmly. "It's probably supporting your ribs, but I can't examine them through it. It's going to hurt, I'm sorry.”
“Yeah, I know,” Sam replied with a groan.
Behind him Walker was making stirring noises, so Bucky went to stand over him while Amanda worked on Sam. He listened to them with half an ear, Amanda's calm tones and the sharped, pained intakes of breath Sam made. Walker had his eyes open now, staring up at the ceiling but hadn't made any attempt at sitting up, Bucky was not opposed to putting a foot on his chest if he tried.
Amanda came over, dragging her bag. "Sam needs a hospital," she murmured. "His ribs are broken. I wrapped them and put his armor back on, but he needs X-rays and observation to make sure they set up and don't puncture a lung. I sent Torres a message." She looked down at Walker. "You said he needed a splint?"
"Left arm," he said.
She nodded and crouched down at Walker's side, hands gently palpitating the arm. One went up to his shoulder and slid around to the back. "Dislocated and broken in two places. I'm impressed." She pulled out her pen light and did the same check in his eyes she'd down with Sam. "You with me, John?" she asked.
He looked over at her. “I had to kill him. He killed Lemar."
She put her flashlight away and her hands went back to his arm. She braced one on his shoulder and wrapped the other around his upper arm. With a quick jerk, she relocated it, causing Walker the growl in pain. He, apparently, didn't deserve a warning.
"Lemar Hoskins," she said calmly, taking splints and gauze out of her bag. "Isn't dead. He's stable, on a backboard, waiting on an air lift to Rammstein for surgery." She ran her fingers along Walker's arm placing splints on either side of the lower arm before unrolling gauze to wrap it with. "You killed an innocent man for absolutely no reason." For the first time she turned and looked into Walker's stunned face. "Let's hear it for Captain America.”
Torres got back to them, informing them that since Sam was acting as a civilian, he should go to a local hospital—but that MPs were coming to get Walker. The local ambulance arrived before they did. “Go with them,” Bucky told her.
She glanced over at Walker. "You're sure?”
He nodded. “I’ll meet you back at home.”
"Okay." She kissed his non bruised cheek and went to follow the EMTs, pausing to scoop up the shield so it could go with Sam. Bucky watched them go, and shook his head.
“They were all terrorists,” Walker said. “Any one of them would have killed him. I just got there first.”
He was starting to sound like Zemo. “You know one of them stayed,” Bucky said, looking over at him. “One of the Flag Smashers. Doc called for help, and someone came back. Lemar would probably be dead otherwise.”
Walker looked. . . lost, after he said that, but he managed not to spout any more nonsense.
There was a roar of several cars pulling up outside and Walker slowly got to his feet. Amanda had put his arm in a sling and wrapped it to his chest to it wouldn't jostle. Bucky still sort of expected him to run, but he just stood there and military police filed in.
Seemed an opportune time to slip out the back, so Bucky did. He went back to the flat, peeled out of his battle gear and took a shower. His nose was starting to heal already, and the scrapes and bruising didn’t look nearly as bad as they did once clean.
His metal hand, though, was still a little gross. He’d spent half the flight back from Madripoor cleaning skin and hair and blood out of the plate joints. The Winter Soldier arm they used to clean by sticking it in a pot of boiling water—something that would be painful to do with this one. Unless he took it off, which he was loath to do.
It had gotten disengaged and partially disconnected by accident during the fight, just as Amanda had mentioned. He needed to talk to Shuri about how exactly it worked now that he knew it existed, for his own damn safety. He had a wrong to make right first, thought. It was his responsibility to retrieve Zemo.
For the moment, he found hydrogen peroxide under the sink, and it cleaned the hand pretty good.
He was still working on it when he heard the front door open and gently close. Before he could call out to her, Amanda came into the bathroom, already peeling her shirt off.
She stopped when she saw him, standing by the sink in a towel, using the corner of a hand towel to clean his finger joints. She took in the tableau, sighed and walked out before returning a moment later with a fist full of swabs and an unlabeled plastic bottle. "Lemme see."
“I think it’s pretty good," he said quietly, but he let her do it.
Ignoring him, she pulled his hand into better light and dumped some of the liquid in it before going into the crevasses with a swab. "It's an enzyme that breaks down the protein in blood. It'll clean it better than the peroxide. Does this thing need lubrication? It's going to strip it if it does." She glanced over her shoulder to the door and, he assumed, her bag of medical tricks. "I have mineral oil. . ."
“Old one did. Vibranium is self healing and doesn’t seem to need anything like that.”
She worked in silence a moment. "I got my hair stuck in that arm once. The overlapping plates were a really stupid design.”
He bent his head down, almost touching hers. “This one better?”
"Yes." She looked up and seemed to only then notice how close he was. Her fingers ran along his arm and he could feel the difference in her touch. From doctor to lover. "See? No pinches.”
He shivered a little, and then whispered, “Are you done?”
Looking down at his hand, she sighed a little and tossed the swab into the sink. "Yes. Sorry. I was fussing.”
She was shirtless, and he was still soaking in an adrenaline crash, so lust was fogging his brain. But that did manage to string two related thoughts together, and so reached out to turn the sink on to wash and thoroughly rinse the chemicals off. “This is going to be places you don’t want that enzyme,” he muttered.
The little sound she made - clearly picturing that - shot heat through him. He focused on his washing, even as he saw her start unhooking her tach belt out of the corner of his eye. He turned off the tap, shook the water off, and reached for her. It was a messy, intense kiss, and he backed her up against the door. She got the belt off and dropped it, then wrapped her arms around his neck.
He pushed her hard into the door, rattling it. He wanted to touch every part of her, not even air between them. She seemed to understand, actually lifting a leg to curl around him, so he was flush against her. He slid a hand down and tugged roughly at her other leg. Her hands shifted, bracing on his shoulders and then hopped up, wrapping the other legs around him and dislodging the towel, so the only thing between them was the rough cotton of her too-big pants.
Bucky could hear the sound of cracking wood. They could very easily break this door, so he hitched her up and carried her into the living room. The dining table was in his way—he considered putting her on it, but decided they’d break it and instead kicked it aside, chairs clattering and something glass breaking. He dropped both of them on the couch under the window.
Those pants were in his way, and he wanted them gone. The easiest thing to do was to sit up enough to just rip them in half.
She looked stunned for a second, then reached for him with a desperate, incoherent noise. He crashed down on her, taking her mouth in a rough, open mouthed kiss. There had been no underwear under the pants, so now she was delightfully naked beneath him and his hands were free to roam soft bare skin.
He should slow down, he should, but she was wet and he wanted her, so he hitched her leg higher and sank into her slick heat. She gave a little cry, part surprise, mostly pleasure, and her hips lifted to meet. Taut muscles tightened around him as he filled her, and he could feel a little tremor go through her.
"You feel so good," she whispered, burying her hand in his hair.
It felt desperate, like the first night. Her other hand scraped his back, nails biting into his skin. She moaned and he fucked her harder. He could feel her getting close, the way she got tighter, the way her breathing changed. When her legs shook and she started gasping his name, he pushed her legs wider apart, getting as deep into her as he could.
"James. . . fuck." She reached behind her head, gripping the arm of the couch to brace herself. He heard wood creak and splinter and then she was shaking, head thrown back, body clenching around him in climax. She was beautiful, and sexy, and his.
He pushed up a little on his arm just to watch her come, then closed his eyes and gave in to his own pleasure. “Manda,” he whispered, resting his forehead on hers.
Her fingers stroked his cheeks and jaw, featherlight on the still sore bruises. "I was so scared for you today," she whispered.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
She nodded, eyes closing briefly, and gave him a soft, tender kiss. "I'm glad you're alright.”
“It was a brutal fight,” he replied. Brutal enough he didn’t want to talk about it. He lifted up again. “You were heading for the shower. How about I run a bath in that huge tub?”
"Okay." Her eyes were bright and a little haunted, maybe wondering about all the things he hadn't said. But she swallowed and nodded and said, "Okay," again.
He nodded, and got up off the couch, going into the bathroom and turning on the taps.
It was halfway full when she appeared in the doorway, looking like she'd collected herself. She was still naked, but her emotions looked under control. "Sam will be in the hospital for at least tonight. No concussion or brain damage on the CT scan, so mostly just pain meds and rest for a while. Torres called to check on him and said his group is setting up in the south building there. Hoskins is on his way to Rammstein. Torres promised to put me in touch once a doctor had seen him.”
Bucky nodded, and held out his hand to her. When she came forward, he decided to pick her up and carry her right into the tub. The sound she made when he put her in the hot water was quite literally one he'd heard her make ten minutes ago during sex. He straightened, planning to leave her in peace, but she reached out and caught his hand. "Could you. . . stay?”
He smiled. “You want company in there?”
"I wouldn't say no," she said. "I'm still a little wound.”
He waved his hand a little so she’d make room. She shouted forward and he climbed in behind her. The hot water felt good, and he groaned himself as she settled back against him. Idly he cupped one breast. “I’m sorry. That was kind of abrupt, wasn’t it?”
"I'm not complaining," she assured him. "It was great. I'm just- today was a lot.”
He rested his head back on the rim of the tub. “Whenever I fight I feel like him again. And this—you—remind me I’m not.”
She drew her braid over her shoulder and took the elastic out of it, running her fingers through to loosen it. "You don't fight like him," she said after a while. She started to tip back to get her hair wet and he braced her running his fingers through her hair to help her rinse it. "Even when you're pretending to be him," she added and he drew her close to settle her back to his chest.
“I used to be careless. With my life and safety, and with the life and safety of anyone in my path. You were a conundrum, because I had to bring you in alive. But I still didn’t care if I hurt you. Now I do, for anyone I fight. Even someone literally trying to kill me with Steve’s shield.” His voice caught on the end of that, and he had to clear his throat.”
Amanda leaned her head on his shoulder, covering his hands with hers where they lay on her breast and stomach. "I thought that, when we were all fighting the Smashers. Before Lemar got hurt. They weren't trying to kill us. I don't think any of us were trying to kill them, not even Walker, at first. It was going to be this ridiculous stalemate until one of us screwed up." She nuzzled at his jaw, breath warm on his skin. "I brought the shield here. Sam was worried about it in the hospital room.”
“Walker tried to crush me with it, while yelling asking why I was making him do it.”
"I heard that," she said softly and he felt her shiver. "I couldn't listen after that. Some things, some tones just send a chill down a woman's spine.”
“Oh, it got worse. At one point he was strangling Sam while screaming, ‘I am Captain America’.”
"Jesus," she whispered. She pressed closer into him and he obligingly tightened his arms around her. "I can't believe. . . this is such a mess.”
“When I was the Winter Soldier I fought Steve. One of the fights, he said something similar—‘Please don’t make me do this’—but it was…heartbroken. Begging.” He shook his head. “Once he’d completed his mission he was willing to let me kill him rather than keep fighting me.”
"Honey," she said quietly, stroking his arm gently. The southern was back, only when she said that word. "This was when the carriers went down?”
Bucky nodded. “But it cracked the programming. Opened a rift I could, for lack of a better word, crawl through.”
"And then you were free?”
“Getting my mind and memories back was pretty slow, but yeah. It was the start.”
"I didn't hear about all that until it was over. I was at one of their underground labs in the south west. Near the old Los Alamos site. Things were fine, then it was chaos. Figured it was the best shot I'd ever get, took advantage of it. Wasn't until I was with my dad that he filled me in on what, exactly had happened. Including your fight with Steve and the carriers. Pierce.”
“Now that’s a man that haunts my nightmares.”
"Sorry," she said quietly. "I met him once. It was enough.”
“It’s okay. I have dreams about a lot of things. Memories surfacing sometimes.” He combed her wet hair with his fingers. “Last couple of nights it’s been about you.”
"Me?" She turned a little so she could see his face. "From when you were the Soldier?”
He nodded. “The night I took you,” he said. “And when you were my doctor. There was a little bit I’ve always remembered that I…I realized had to be you.” It felt like a confession, telling her this. “I remember waking up from cryo—I could always tell the cold—and someone brushing my hair out of my eyes. And the only thing I really knew was that it had been a very long time since someone had touched me with kindness. That it was rare, but that it used to happen. Before. That I’d been a person once.”
Her breath hitched a little and when she spoke it sounded like she had a lump in her throat. "That was me. They'd leave me alone with you sometimes, once they figured out I wanted to help you. I'd talk to you, when you were waking up. I felt like. . . we were kind of in the same boat." She paused and took another shuddery breath. "God, you were so thin when I first came. I yelled at one of the scientists that was supposed to be in charge of you." She rubbed her wrist idly and he wondered if she'd paid for that lecture somehow.
He lifted that wrist and kissed it, as if he could apologize for a crime someone had committed on his behalf. “When they shipped me off the DC, I still remembered that I’d been a person. Then I saw Steve. And I knew two things, that I had been a person and that this guy had been my friend. Somehow these two points connecting made them survive the next mind wipe and reprogram.”
"Well," she said, reaching up and brushing her fingers across his brow, exactly like the touch in his dream. "I guess we're very lucky I've always had a thing about hair in my face.”
“I think you were the first step in my way out.”
"Not sure I deserve that. But I'm very, very glad you made it out.”
He sighed, and shifted so he could kiss her. She turned in his lap, facing him. They kissed for a long time, soft and slow and deep. Until she lifted her head and murmured, "Water's getting cold.”
“I’ll warm you up,” he murmured, sliding a hand between her legs.
"Mmm, you are warm," she said, rocking against his touch. He found her clit with his thumb and pressed it in slow circles, listening to the sound of her breathing pick up. She kissed him, then rested her forehead on his. Two fingers slipped inside her easily and she moaned, moving on them as he stroked her.
She tangled her fingers in his hair, eyes closed, clearly entirely focused on what he was doing. He watched her face, the play of emotions that flicked across it. Then her mouth dropped open and she shuddered, fine flutters of muscle spasms circling his fingers. “That’s my girl,” he whispered.
She melted down onto his chest with a sigh, warm and limp. "You're really good at that.”
“I think it’s just us,” he told her. The water was now actively cold, something that was putting absolutely no damper on his arousal, but was making her skin goosebump. “Come on, let’s get out.”
Bracing one hand on each side of the tub, she stood, water slicing down her body. It was an absolutely fantastic image, her standing over him, naked, water rivulets following the lines and planes of her muscles. "Actually," she said, in full Science Voice. "I don't know what your experience was before the war." She climbed out of the tub, reaching for a towel. "But sex actually does feel better with the serum.”
“Amanda,” he said after a moment of just staring. “There’s only about a teaspoon left of blood in my brain right now.”
She looked at him over her shoulder, wrapping the towel around her. "Well, when, you're ready to hear how unlikely that is, come find me." Then she tossed a towel at him. He caught it and managed to drag himself out of the tub. She already left the bathroom, and eh went chasing after her. Her towel was laying in a puddle in the hallway leading to the bed rooms. He found her in theirs, sitting crossed legged in the middle of the bed, braiding her hair.
"What do you think?" she asked. "Mattress on the floor, or shall we try to put this bed out of its misery?”
“You’re the one who broke the couch,” he said. But she wasn’t wrong, and a collapsing bed could be annoying. He was too short on patience to deal with that. So he bend and grabbed the mattress, dragging it off the bed and onto the floor, taking her with it. He was rewarded with a little shriek of surprise.
Then he was kneeling on the mattress with her, kissing her. She murmured his name against his mouth, He grabbed one of her legs, tugging it over his hip. They moved without words, like this was a dance they'd been doing for years and not less than a week.
She pulled herself onto his lap, he supported her while she lined their bodies properly. Then he broke the kiss so he could look down and watch her take him inside. It felt so good, he had to grit his teeth to keep his eyes open and stay in the moment. It was bright daylight in there, and he loved how well he could see. She lifted up and then back down, sinking and surrounding him in her heat until his cock bottomed out, and then rising and falling again. It was as slow as the last round had been fast. it was torture, but the best kind.
Mercifully, she seemed to be too wrapped up in it to tease him more. He really didn't think he could handle Science Voice right now. Her little gasps and sounds were more than enough. She grew hotter and slicker around him, but her pace never wavered. Her hands moved on him, nails sinking into his skin when she took him fully.
When she came it seemed as slow and gentle as her strokes had been. She sank down, burying him deep, so he could feel every pulse and clench of her body. Whimpering, she rocked on him, drawing it out.
He wondered idly where her limits were, how different the serum had made that. It certainly leant him patience he hadn’t known he had. As much as he ached to just let go, instead he reached down and stroked her clit again, wanting to see how long he could keep that going.
"James," she gasped, shock and arousal tightening her voice. "What-?" But her hips were already moving, grinding her into his hand. He obeyed the silent demand, pressing harder. Her nails dug in again, raking his back, and then the pulses around his cock went from gentle flutters to tight clenches. She rode him hard a moment, desperate, as her climax seemed to reach a second peak.
He grinned at her, feeling very proud of himself. That had been amazingly hot, and intriguingly easy. While she stared at him, looking a little dazed, he tipped her onto her back on the mattress.
The third one took his mouth, and a little spark from the metal hand, but she ripped the duvet beneath them clean in half. When he slid back into her he was so hard it hurt, and even her breathing with trembling. He laced their fingers together, both hands, holding them over her head as he moved. She was so swollen and slick now, and it felt so agonizingly good that it didn't take much.
He buried himself deep, pressing her into the mattress as he gave in, filling her with his release. Her fingers tightened on his, clearly feeling it, and she whispered his name, over and over like a prayer as he lost himself in her.
For a long moment he rested his forehead on hers, trying to catch his breath. Her grip loosened, and the so did his. He lifted his head and looked down at her. Her eyes were still closed. “Hey,” he whispered.
"Mmm." Her eyes fluttered open and met his. She gave him a soft sweet smile he'd never seen before. "Hi, honey.”
He ran his thumb along the scar on her face, feeling a swell of affection and…emotions that he couldn’t begin to describe. But she was something that was good and was his and before coming on this adventure he hadn’t had much of either. He wanted to tell her, but he had no idea how to even start.
Maybe she saw it in his face. Maybe she felt it too. But she caught his hand against her face, turning to kiss his palm. She didn't seem to have any words either, content to curl her arms around him and lay there in the afternoon light.
Chapter 11: The Soldier's ghost
Notes:
Trigger warning: This chapter and the next involve discussion of sex of questionable consent, and discussion of rape. Nothing happens, the topic is just talked about without detail, but given the severity of this particular trigger, I flag it as better safe than sorry.
Chapter Text
They napped a little, then cleaned up the mess of feathers Amanda had made ripping the duvet. She talked to Sam to see how he was doing, and got ahold of Torres to get an update on Hoskins—who was out of surgery and doing well. They ordered themselves some dinner, and ate it while watching the news coverage of Captain America’s very public murdering of someone. She was grateful the gruesome visuals were censored. When Amanda went down in search of Sam and James, before he called, she’d had to elbow her way through the crowd, close the poor man’s eyes and cover him with her jacket so people would stop taking pictures of the body. No doubt many graphic images and video were floating around the internet.
It was awful, but she'd been a little relieved that his injuries were so severe there was nothing she could have done, even if she'd been there when it happened. She didn't regret staying and helping Hoskins, but she knew if the other man's wounds had been even slightly survivable she'd have felt irrationally guilty at her inability to be in two places at once.
They'd mostly been quiet all afternoon, though the silence hadn't been awkward. Something that happened earlier, during that rather epic series of orgasms he'd given her. She didn't have a name for what it was. It was like setting a bone, like something slightly out of whack had slipped into place. It was a satisfying feeling, if confusing, and maybe a little scary. She was torn between spending as much time with him as she could, and finding some time to sort her head out.
Steph called in the evening and told her there would be doctors and equipment on the ground in Latvia within 24 hours, which was a relief, since she sensed their time here was coming to a close.
“I have to find Zemo,” James told her. “I helped him break out of jail, I need to get him back.”
"I know, I figured." And she had. Zemo was dangerous, and outside of whatever personal guilt he was carrying James was probably one of the best people to find him. "I promised Steph I'd stay and be her point person here. I'd probably just slow you down anyway.”
“I’m hoping it won’t be too long. He can’t have gone back to Madripoor, which is probably the hardest place to get him from. So there’s that.”
She had picked up her knitting after getting off the phone with Steph. She was almost done with his sock. "I mean, we do live in the same city. We can probably find each other again once we've sorted out or obligations.”
He tucked her hair behind her ear. "I can stay close while you’re still in Latvia sorting out MSF.”
"You can if you want, but I think once I'm officially among them, I'll be pretty safe. And busy. Apparently the people at the camp now like me, for not letting Walker in the other day.”
“I want,” he said, very quietly.
"All right," she said, just as quiet. "But I will probably put you to work. Super soldiers make great manual labor.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said with a grin, leaning in to kiss her.
Cupping his cheek, she let herself sink into the kiss for a little while. "That will give me a chance to finish your socks, too," she said.
They went back to bed not long after that, and exhausted themselves. Before the serum, she would have gotten sore, or chafed, or a UTI. He, certainly, would have gotten spent. Biologically he had to be in his mid or late 30’s at least, and should not have the rebound time of a teenager, but it he did.
The downside of that was that they ended up so messy and sticky they had to change the sheets and shower before actually going to sleep.
“Most men would run dry at some point,” she informed him as he tucked the last of the sheets in. They’d put the mattress back on the bed. “You don’t even seem to have any volume diminishment.”
“Science Voice about sex,” he said, shaking out the quilt he’d had to steal from another room since she’d shredded theirs. “You’re playing with fire.”
"It's not always on purpose." She tossed the last of the pillows onto the bed and climbed under the covers. "I'm used to people tuning out when I get going anyway.”
“I know.” He climbed in with her. “I like that it’s not on purpose. It’s just you.”
"It's always been me. My dad will happily tell you the story of me getting kicked out of a Christian preschool for telling the other kids how babies were made.”
He laughed a little. “Not knowing how babies are made is a luxury of the modern era, or of money.”
"Oh, I took enough anther classes to know that. But this was a Christian school in a conservative town in the South. I'm not sure some of the mom's were one hundred percent sure how babies were made.”
He held an arm out for her to slide over next to him. “Come here."
Personally, she thought snuggling was also playing with fire, but she liked sleeping on his shoulder. So she scooted closer and let him wrap his arm around her, resting her head on his chest.
“Your leg hurts,” he said. “I could see you rubbing it.”
"It's a little sore," she admitted. "There's still a bruise.”
“I’m not going to molest you is all I mean. We’re done for the night.”
Amanda yawned and nuzzled his skin. "Such a gentleman.”
“Goodnight, Doc,” he whispered.
She sighed, closing her eyes. "Sweet dreams, James.”
He woke her up some time later by lurching out of bed, pushing her arm and leg off of him as he went. She blinked at him as he went as far as the window and braced his hands on the frame and stood there, breathing hard.
She knew he had nightmares, though this was the first time he'd woken up this violently. At least with her here. "James?" she said gently, tugging the sheets off to climb out of bed.
He turned a little, and held out a hand to ward her off. “I’m fine. Go back to sleep.”
That was clearly untrue. But she tended to like space when she was unsettled, so she could respect that. "Okay. Let me know if you need something.”
“I’m going to go splash some water on my face,” he said. “It helps."
She nodded. "Whatever you need." He gave her a short, sharp nod and left the room, closing the door behind him. She listened, and did in fact hear the bathroom door and the sound of water running. So she laid back down, curling up on her side, and tried not to worry.
When she woke up in the morning, the bed next to her was empty. The flat was quiet, and when she went out into the living room it confirmed he seemed to be gone.
There was a note on the counter. I’m not going to be able to settle until I find Zemo. I don’t want to let the trail get cold. Cross your fingers it won’t take too long. Good luck with MSF today. -James
She didn't know why it made her chest hurt so badly it was hard to breathe. It was a perfectly reasonable reason to leave. Maybe his nightmare had had something to do with Zemo. Maybe he'd gotten a middle of the night idea where he'd gone.
But it didn't feel like that. Yesterday he'd insisted he wanted to stay close until she was out of Latvia. Last night it had felt like. . . like they were sort of planning things together. Certainly it felt like she deserved something other than a note and a middle of the night disappearance.
Her phone buzzed and she checked it to find a message from Sam saying he was being discharged and going to meet Torres at the GRC camp. There was also a text from Steph saying her team was in the air. She should go to the camp and warn Katja, help her welcome them.
She folded the note and tucked it in her knitting bag where she'd put the serum. Then she got dressed in her last clean shirt and only pair of pants, packed up her stuff, grabbed the shield and left the flat, planning to never see it again.
When she found Sam at the camp, she gave him the shield and explained what had happened to James. It made him frown. “He just left?”
"He left a note," she said. On the walk over, she'd dusted off her old prickly shell and wrapped it around herself for protection. No matter what she'd thought, they hadn't made any promises. James didn't owe her anything. "Action movie is over. Credits rolling. The adrenaline fueled romance doesn't last much past that.”
Sam sighed. “I'm sorry,” he said, sounding very sincere.
"Thanks." She lifted a shoulder, pushing down the residual hurt. "I'm a big girl. I'll be fine." She held a hand out. "I think this is probably where we part ways, too."
“Of course.” He shook her hand. “Thank you for all your help.”
She nodded, then glanced over at the shield sitting on the table next to them. "In Erskine's journal, his last entry was about a talk he had with Steve, the night before he got the serum. The last sentence in the whole book is about Steve. Kein perfekter Soldat, aber ein guter Mensch. 'Not a perfect soldier, but a good person'. If you ever change your mind and think you want the serum, come find me.”
He looked over at her. “I think I’m good. But I’ll keep it in mind. You ever down in New Orleans you call me.”
"I will keep that in mind." She hefted her bag up on her shoulder, taking a step back. "I'll make you my pecan pie.”
*
Hunting Zemo kept him busy. If he was busy, he didn’t have to think. Or sleep much, and engage the nightmares.
Amanda had not texted him. Which was for the best. Sam had, though. About her.
Trust me when I tell you she’s better off with me out of her life. Bucky didn’t know if he really believed that was true. The part of him that had thought he was getting better didn’t agree. Sam clearly didn’t agree.
But he wasn’t sure he was getting better anymore. He was dreaming about hurting her.
They started out like the previous nightmares. Soldat hunting her, fighting her. That part was clearer now, more defined. He'd seen her fight the Flag Smashers, and that seemed to overlap with his memories of her fighting him.
When he'd been the Soldier, he hadn't noticed women. Hadn't experienced anything like attraction or arousal. People were targets, or witnesses, or not important. But now, in the dream, the Soldier noticed the way she moved, appreciated the feel of her skin under his hands. It was everything he noticed about her, but in Soldat's detached, focused thinking.
Instead of knocking her out, in the dreams he pulled her into some nearby building and they had sex. She was willing, enthusiastic even, just like in real life. But he was still the Soldier, steel arm and all, and trapped in that mind he wouldn’t have listened, or cared, if she’d said stop.
He’d woken in a cold sweat, and very nearly thrown up.
When he'd been standing in that bathroom, splashing water in his face, all he could think of was that shiny metal hand curled around her throat as she arched in pleasure. He couldn't bring himself to climb back into bed next to her. Didn't trust himself to touch her. So he'd dressed and fled, leaving her a note she'd clearly taken as goodbye.
It was for the best, he told himself for the hundredth time as he drove across what was now southern Poland. If he hurt her, he'd never forgive himself. But that hadn't stopped the nightmare from coming back, again and again.
Zemo hadn’t taken his plane out of Riga—probably because if he had, the Wakandans would have shot it out of the air. On a hunch, Bucky checked police reports for stolen collector cars, turning up a very distinctive vintage jaguar that had gone missing at just the right time.
Bucky then followed a chain of easily identifiable stolen cars from Riga to Kaunas to Bialystok to Warsaw. My this point he had a pretty strong hunch where Zemo was leading him.
He caught sight of Ayo while at a cafe in Ostrava, eating some lunch and persuading the police reports on his phone. She wouldn’t have let herself be seen if she didn’t want to. Interesting that they were following him. If they’d figured Zemo out, they’d already be there.
How they could miss that stupid bright yellow Austin Healy he seemed to still be driving, Bucky didn’t know. But he was too exhausted to play more spy games than he had to, so he just went back to his rental car and sat there to wait. She’d show up eventually.
Sure enough, about five minutes later the passenger door opened and she sank into the seat. "You're alone again.”
“Yep, I am. It’s for the best. I believe your descriptor of me as ‘damned’ was highly accurate.”
She pursed her lips, but didn't respond. "He's leading you somewhere.”
He put his hands on the steering wheel, one flesh and one metal. “He’s driving, I’m following.”
Silence stretched. He could feel her studying him but didn't - couldn't - look back. "What happened, White Wolf?" she asked quietly.
He swallowed with some difficulty. “I think it’s still in me. The Winter Soldier is still in me.” He let go of the wheel. “You should take the arm back.” Amanda had been wrong. It was a weapon. That was certainly how the Wakandans saw it, and they’d made it.
Ayo was silent a moment. "What do you mean he's still inside you? Did you hurt someone?”
“Well, I have had quite a few fights lately. But I’ve been having dreams where I hurt someone I care about.”
"The woman with the scar?" Now he jerked to look at her, but her face was impassive. Of course they'd probably followed them before showing themselves. And probably kept an eye on him after Zemo left. "You told her about the dreams and she was frightened.”
“I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t.”
She blinked, then raised a hand to pinch the bridge of her nose, muttering in Wakandan. It might have been a prayer for patience. "Did she know who you were? That the Soldier existed?"
"Yes. I actually. . . we sort of met when I was him." Almost despite himself, the whole story came out. Kidnapping Amanda as the Soldier, finding her again for his amends. Dragging her around the world on this wild goose chase. How she had become a touch stone when he felt the Soldier's ghost. Even Zemo shooting her.
"Now every time I dream I'm the Soldier. But I'm doing things with her that I did." He really didn't want to tell Ayo about his sex dreams, but it seemed important to clarify exactly how fucked up he was.
She listened to all of it, calmly, not asking any questions. When it was clear he was finished, she said, "We stripped away the conditioning. The ability for others to override your mind and turn you into their violent puppet. You are free of that. No one can say a word and make you turn against who you love. But you are still a warrior. You will always be a warrior, even if I took that arm from you today. And a woman who shares her bed with a warrior knows what that means. And if they are brave and have trust, they do it anyway.”
He absorbed that a moment. “Yours does?” Bucky had never met Ayo’s wife—the Dora were famously private about their private lives—but he’d eaten a whole lot of food she’d sent along due to a conviction that he was too skinny.
"She does." Ayo had a slight smile on her face, as she always did when speaking of her wife. "I have told her of my worst days and the days I am most proudest of. She knows what I am capable of and what lines I would never cross. And she loves me and trusts me despite it all. Tell your scarred woman what you fear. Give her the chance to decide what she trusts.”
Bucky nodded, and took a breath. “And, look, I…I was just trying to keep you from killing Walker. Which, in hindsight, I probably should have let you do, considering he then bludgeoned someone to death with Steve’s shield.”
“Yes, we saw that,” Ayo replied, voice dry.
“At the time I thought he was a just a garden variety asshole. There would have been an international incident. I was going to give you Zemo. I figured you would have noticed we found Karli on our own, considered the deal closed, and come for him. I brought him back to the flat to wait, figured you’d rather than than have an incident on the street. Somebody cold-clocked him, he was unconscious most of the day.” He sighed. “One of us should have watched him better. That was my fault, and I'm sorry. Amanda paid the price for me.”
She nodded slowly. "It has been pointed out to me - loudly - that it was cruel of me to disengage your arm in our fight. I was angry, and frustrated, and looking to punish you. It was unworthy of me, as a Dora and a warrior. You have my apologies.”
That made him smile. “You know I find it very comforting that you apparently have a temper.”
"I'm still human. On occasion.”
“I understand why Shuri put the failsafe in there,” he said. “But it actually would have saved me some anxiety if I’d known it was there. Knowing…that I could be stopped.”
Ayo sighed softly. "It was. . . an oversight. When the Princess first designed the arm, we had not successfully cleared the conditioning. She left it there as an alternate means of detaching it and, as you say, a failsafe. Then, when you passed your final trial, you didn't want the arm, and retreated to your goats. When you finally wore it, I was unable to pass along the message. And then the world ended." She looked out the windshield a moment. "It is the only one I am aware of, for what it's worth. There are no other surprises.”
“If I put you in touch, would you explain to Amanda how to do it?”
Her brows raised. "If you wish.”
He nodded, because he did. Then he said, “I believe Zemo is going to the Sokovia Memorial. If I could talk to him before you take him, I would appreciate it.”
She nodded. "Do you plan to kill him?”
“No.” He looked over at her. “Your claim to his disposition is pre-existing, and I respect that. The only reason King T’Challa gave him to the Germans in the first place was to clear my name. My plan when I helped him break out was turn him over to whichever one of you guys showed up. I just didn’t realized he’d waste the two days I figured I had dragging us to Asia.” He paused. “I would like to scare him a bit, though. Just to wipe that smug smile off his face.”
Ayo smirked. "I can appreciate the desire for a little scare. You can have your five minutes, White Wolf. We'll watch closely to make sure he doesn't disappear again.”
“Thank you, Ayo.”
They let him ride in the jet, and they sat in the woods waiting for Zemo to show up. When he did, Bucky hopped out and hiked over.
"I was afraid I had lost you," Zemo said when he neared. "My breadcrumbs had become too hard to find." He turned to look at him, hands int he pockets of his coat. "I've decided I'm not going to kill you.”
“Imagine my relief. Shoot me in the leg and run like a coward, perhaps?"
Zemo ignored the jab. "I presume Dr. Newbury recovered fully from her wound?”
He flicked the safety off his gun. “She’s none of your business.”
"Apologies," he said, with a tilt of his head. Instead he chose to talk about Karli and her radicalization. Bucky didn't entirely agree with his assessment of her, but the bastard felt the need to talk about Sam and Steve, and remind him - one more time - of the killer he'd been. Zemo, in his hatred, was a fanatical as any of the people he claimed to oppose.
When Bucky raised and aimed the gun, Zemo smiled. He looked proud of himself, and nodded encouragement. He believed Bucky to be a killer, and now wanted him to prove him right.
“I told her I was hunting you,” Bucky found himself saying while Zemo stared down the barrel. “She had a very specific request.”
He took a deep breath through his nose. "That was?”
Bucky gave him a cold smile. “Make sure he suffers.”
Zemo let out a slow breath and gave another little nod. Bucky leaned in, bringing the gun closer. Then deliberately pulled the trigger.
It clicked loudly on the empty chamber and Zemo jumped, then sagged when he realized he wasn't shot. Bucky opened his hand, letting the bullets he’d removed from the mag fall to the ground. Zemo stared at him, and he added, “Dead people don’t.”
Right on cue, the Dora's appeared, flanking him. Zemo glanced from one to the other. "Ladies." He looked back at Bucky. "I took the liberty of crossing my name off in you book. I hold no grudges for what you felt you had to do. And extend my apologies to the good doctor. Hydra did not understand what they had in her.”
That got him to look away. “Yeah. Neither did I.”
The Dora's mercifully marched him away before he replied and Ayo stepped up to him. "We will take him to the Raft, where he will live out the rest of his days. You can tell your woman.”
“I will. Thank you.”
She suggested he make himself scarce in Wakanda for a while, which was a fair request, even if it did make him a little sad. He’d had a bit of peace there, for a while.
"Can we drop you off somewhere?" she asked, politely.
“Well, my rental car is still in the Czech Republic.”
She inclined her head and gestured at the jet. Looking out the windows at its wings as they flew gave him an idea.
They left him where they'd picked him up. Ayo walked him to the ramp. "Do not let fear of your past steal your future, White Wolf.”
“Thank you for everything.” He paused. “I actually might have one more favor to ask. It’s not a small one, but it’s one that may capture the Princess’s interest.”
Ayo tilted her head. "I'll tell her to call you.”
Chapter 12: Better than any of the weeks before
Chapter Text
Amanda ended up staying an extra week in Latvia. After the PR mess with Captain Fauxmerica, and the continuing "threat" of the Flag Smashers, the GRC decided to shut down that camp and disperse the people to other locations. She and the rest of the MSF volunteers has to scramble to find places the patients could go. Some she was able to find beds for in facilities in their home countries. Others went to better supplied GRC camps, or to MSF run facilities. She flew with two elderly heart patients to a senior facility in Germany, since she could speak the language.
When that was done, she drove out to Rammstein to visit Lemar Hoskins. He was still heavily medicated, so his conversation was a little rambling. But he thanked her several times and told her she was an angel once the morphine kicked back in. His prognosis was good, considering the extent of his injury. Apparently there was a group working on full body exo suits for cervical spinal injury patients. He was already being evaluated to be part of the pilot program. Amanda went back to New York confident he was in good hands.
New York felt very small and dull compared to the last two weeks of her life. She went back to work at the clinic. It was the same as it had always been, but had once felt safe and comfortable now felt claustrophobic and repetitive. She could feel herself burning out and knew that was a recipe for mistakes. So she put in her notice, cashed out her vacation days, and spent far too much time at Ink's bar, contemplating her future.
"You're young for a mid-life crisis," he commented one day, wiping down the bar. It was the afternoon and it was just her and him and a guy in a corner booth that was probably waiting for someone to meet him for illicit activities.
"It's not the years it's the mileage," she told him, sipping her scotch.
"You want to tell your friendly neighborhood bartender what the problem is?"
She ran a hand over her face. She'd given up wearing her glasses. She'd gotten used to not wearing them while in Europe and putting them on again just seemed silly. "I went and had an adventure and now I feel like a stranger in my own life."
Ink watched her a moment. "No offense, Doc, but you've always been a stranger."
Brows raised, she nudged her empty glass in his direction and gestured for him to expand on that.
"Don't get me wrong, I consider you a friend," he said, pouring a couple more fingers into her glass and adding ice. "But the doctor I met four years ago was an entirely different person than the one sitting across from me."
"I did, you know, survive the apocalypse."
"So did the rest of us. But while everyone else I met came back to life once everyone reappeared, you seem to have. . . shrunk. "
She picked up her glass, then put it down again. "I feel like, when everyone came back, I was suddenly unnecessary. A vestigial element of a world that was gone. The clinic, the quiet normal life. It was a good place to hide."
"And your adventure reminded you what you were hiding from."
Among other things. She'd really, really thought she didn't want anymore excitement in her life. She hated roller coasters, and violent video games and driving fast. All the things adrenaline junkies craved. She was a doctor, she was supposed to be at home in four white walls and a sterile room. For a while she was able to convince herself that's who she was. But James had managed to shatter that little illusion and she was either unwilling or unable to put it back.
The thought of him still caused that ugly hurt in her chest. She put down her glass, un touched, and stood. "Thanks for the chat, Ink."
He frowned, studying her. "You okay, Doc. I didn't mean to-"
She shook her head sharply. "I'm okay. You didn't say anything that wasn't true. I just. . . have a lot of thinking to do."
He nodded and scowled as she put down a twenty for her drinks and headed out. She walked all the way home, despite how late it was. It wasn’t like someone could mug her. The city was so much louder now, than it had been. But it was still space to think.
Except then she came around the corner, and James was sitting on her stoop.
Motherfucker. He did not help her introspection at all.
Her first instinct was to turn on her heel and walk away. He'd probably leave eventually. But she was just pissed enough to keep walking, ignoring him even when he spotted her and got to his feet.
"Unless Zemo is hiding in Mrs. Peabody's apartment, you're in the wrong place," she told him.
“Zemo’s at the Raft.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Amanda, I’m sorry.”
Well, lifetime imprisonment under the ocean was better than he deserved. But hopefully he'd be really bored the whole time. "Thank you for telling me," she said, digging out her keys. "We didn't make each other any promises, and you clearly had other things to do." She walked past him and unlocked the front door.
He didn’t come any closer, not trying to crowd her or follow her in. “I was having nightmares I hurt you.”
Her hands paused on the door, fiddling with her key chain. "You told me you had dreams about kidnapping me.”
“That was a memory. Then my brain seemed to be making up things. Adding. And I just. . . I was afraid it meant something.” He took a shaky breath. “I would never forgive myself if I hurt you. It felt safer just to leave.”
Amanda thumped her head against the door. She considered herself pretty hard hearted. She'd spent her life learning how to ball up her emotions and shove them somewhere they wouldn't bother her. But the pain in his voice, and the little crack when he's said "hurt" somehow stripped away all her well worn defenses.
Pushing open the door, she glanced back at him. "Come inside, I'm not having this conversation on the stoop.”
She could see his shoulders sag, and then he followed her inside, staying quiet until they reached her living room. He stood in the doorway, like he was afraid to sit. “After they removed the programming from my head, I requested access to the records of my missions from the SHIELD dump. I combed through them, making notes. People I’d killed, villains I’d helped, chaos I’d caused. There were code-word missions I didn’t really remember well, and I went through them in minute detail, even watching videos. Before I got involved with with any women, I really wanted to know if I’d raped anyone. And in the end the best I can ever say is ‘not as far as I know’.”
She put her bag down and shrugged out of her coat. "Did you have nightmares in which the Winter Soldier raped me?" she asked quietly, following his train of thought to the logical conclusion.
“Upon a couple of replays, I don’t think so. The sex part seemed consensual. But that is what I thought it was the first night. And if they hadn't been so paranoid about Super Babies that they programmed that out of me…”
Amanda was pretty sure "sex with the sexy assassin who kidnapped you" was a genre of porn. She was almost certain she'd read a dark erotica with that plot. It had clearly upset him, so she didn't voice those thoughts, even if a very flustered part of her kind of wanted more details. "If I'm following, you had a nightmare during which you had sex with me while the Winter Soldier and that was upsetting enough to leave in the middle of the night so you wouldn't be around me anymore." He nodded. "What changed that you're here now?”
“I, uh…” He took a breath, and swallowed. “I miss you. I wanted-I want…I had every intention of coming back here and trying to have a relationship. I don’t know what I’m doing or even really remember how, but I figured we could try.” He pulled the glove covering his metal hand off. “They took everything from me. Everything. So then I manage to find you and you’re good and I might actually get you to be mine. That they could somehow reach right through fucking time and take you too made complete sense. But they can’t. Somebody very wise told me not to let fear of my past steal my future. That maybe I owed it to you to at least ask.”
Her eyes were burning and she had to swallow hard to talk. "I miss you, too. I remember that day he kidnapped me better than you do. I remember every time I was in the room with the Winter Soldier, or someone threatened to 'sic' him on me when I didn't behave. I don't see him, when I look at you. You move different, stand different, fight different. Your eyes are different. You don't scare me. You make me feel safe. And strong." She rubbed her eyes, taking a deep breath. "I'm terrible at relationships. I haven't had one in years. So I'm probably not the person to show you how to do it. But I want you in my life.”
“And you feel you can trust me?"
This was clearly important to him, so she made sure her voice was firm. "Yes. So far the only time you've hurt me is when you left. But you have to talk to me if something like this comes up again. I'm really good at talking, you know.”
“I do know,” he said, giving her the ghost of a smile. “Though right now I’d really like to touch you.”
She nodded and reached out of him, taking a step forwards. He met her, wrapping her in his arms and nearly crushing her with the force of the hug. He pressed his face into her hair and whispered, “I’m sorry, Manda.”
She nuzzled into the crook of his neck, taking a deep breath of his scent. He still smelled incredible. "I forgive you.”
He just rocked her for a moment, then mumbled, “Can I stay tonight?” There was something painfully hopeful in his voice.
"Of course," she whispered, stroking a hand through his hair. "I want you here.”
He nodded, and then he leaned back enough to tip her face up and kiss her. Sighing, she tangled her fingers in his hair and kissed him back. The ache was still in her chest, but it didn't hurt as much anymore. She'd meant it when she said she forgave him. He'd done what he'd thought was right at the time, clearly his dreams unsettled him. They could figure this out, make it work.
He picked her up then, and requested directions to her bedroom. When he set her down he took off her clothes with patience and care. As if he needed to show her—or himself—that he could be gentle about this. He let her undress him, and when she touched the line of scar tissue where the metal met skin, he said, “Ayo is going to tell you how to work the failsafe.”
She wasn't entirely sure how she felt about that. But it was clearly important to him, so she nodded. "It's probably good I know how to work it anyway.”
“Not telling me about it was an accident of the chaos of Thanos’s attack. She apologized for using it. Only her and Shuri know about it. Somebody else should. The release near the elbow is coded to my palm print, and has a slow power down cycle so it doesn’t hurt as much.” He touched his shoulder. “This is for emergencies."
She cupped his elbow, then skimmed her hand up his arm to his shoulder. "I'm good in an emergency.”
“You are good in so very many things,” he said, and kissed her again. She leaned back on the bed, dragging her down with her so she could feel his pleasant weight on top of her. He tangled his fingers in her hair, tugging it out of its ponytail and fanning it out on the bed. They kissed a while, and then he shifted to his side so he could touch her freely. He did it with the metal hand, and she didn’t think that was coincidental. She watched him cup and stroke her breasts, skim his fingers over her skin, dip his hand between her legs.
That, at least, he didn't do entirely gently. He pressed two fingers to her clit, stroking exactly how she liked it. She closed her eyes, back arching as he stoked the pleasure growing inside her. Just when the orgasm felt in reach, he stopped, causing her to open her eyes and look at him in frustration.
He grinned and whispered, “It’s okay.” Then he cupped his hand under her thigh, pulling her close and hitching her leg up over his hip. They were on their sides face to face as he slowly pushed into her.
She rested her head against his, shuddering a little as he filled her. No matter ho many times they did this, that first stroke always felt amazing. The slight stretch of him filling her. The pleasure of having something to move against and clench around. It was perfect.
This position didn't give much opportunity to move. He rocked into her, slow and gentle, winding her back up. The friction was intense and he grazed her clit on some of his strokes. She hiked her leg higher up his body, pushing the limits of ho far she could stretch, in the interest of getting that extra sensation.
“What do you need?” he whispered against her mouth.
"Touch," she murmured. "I need. . ." She rubbed her fingers against his arm like she was rubbing herself.
He shifted them a little to make space to tuck the metal and between them. The plate rippled and shifted more than usual, and as his fingers slid over her clit, she realized from the angle of his arm, he had to be able to rotate his hand around 180 degrees.
"That's-God." He'd pressed hard, stroking inside her, and the cascade of sensation sent her nerves on fire. "That's useful." She pressed a kiss to his shoulder, canting her hips towards him, grinding against his hand. "Harder, James. Please.”
His fingers picked up speed, too—more, she was convinced, than a normal hand could. “Amanda,” he groaned, desperation in his voice. “Amanda, look at me.”
Whimpering, she forced herself to open her eyes and meet his. And they were undeniably his stark blue eyes. Intense, heated, with a world of emotion in them. "James," she gasped, nails digging into his back. "James, James." Heat filled her and she arched into him, shuddering as waves of pleasure passed through her, concentrated on the place where they joined.
She held his gaze and watched him break, too. Neither of them looked away, and they rode it out together. It was starkly intimate, in some way that she couldn’t explain and was far beyond sex.
They lay like that a long time, tangled together, breath mingling. He was still half-hard, buried inside her, and for the moment she could think of no reason to move. She would have happily stayed there forever, wrapped in his heat and his scent, and the heady feeling of having someone who cared for her the way he clearly did.
Eventually, he whispered, “However long it’s been for you, I should tell you I haven't had a girlfriend in 80 years.”
Amanda laughed a little, it was very close to a giggle, were she willing to admit she could make such a sound. "I'm gonna guess you didn't do this with her.”
“She was a good Catholic girl, we went to third base."
"Good for her," she said, honestly proud of some woman in the past who managed to get an orgasm or three from the handsome Mr. Barnes. She brushed hair off of his forehead. "I think dating nowadays is mostly this but with like, dinner and shared interests.”
“That sounds. . . relaxing.”
"It can be." A lot of her relationships had also involved arguments and passive aggression. But he'd already proclaimed the things those guys had been annoyed by sexy, so she wasn't too worried about it. Though if he did sweep her off the bed every time she used Science Voice, they might need to talk. "We could go get dinner once we feel like moving again.”
He chuckled, rolling onto his back. “Now that you mention it, I'm starving.”
Amanda took the opportunity to sit up and stretch her arms up over her head. "Delivery? Go out?”
“Admittedly delivery is looking more appealing by the minute.”
"What if I want to go show off my new, hot boyfriend?”
“It’s just that you’re naked and doing some yoga thing right now. Soon I may need a cold shower before I try putting on pants.”
"Hmm." She leaned down and kissed him. "Delivery today, restaurant tomorrow?”
He pulled her on top of him. “I'll even take you somewhere nice.”
She slid her leg over, nuzzling at the corner of his mouth. "We can see who can eat the most steak."
*
The first hurdle in having a relationship, Bucky discovered, was figuring out when to go back to his apartment.
She’d quit her job at the clinic. He had no job, and no immediate need to get one. After his pardon the Army had decided that the policy they put in place specifically for Steve, legally, also applied to him. Bucky got a full military retirement with back pay and a bonus for being a POW. It wasn’t as much money as Steve got—they’d given Steve a commission to be a real Captain when the commandos were formed, and as an officer he’d been auto-promoted all the way up to a Colonel, technically—but it was enough.
He went back to his small, undecorated, and barely furnished place a couple times to get clothes and toiletries, but mostly they stayed at her place. They filled an entire week with sex, more sex, and the occasional restaurant meal.
Intellectually, he understood it was not a good idea to just be together all the time. But he also wasn’t all that eager go back to the lonely little box where he didn’t sleep well.
They were lounging on her couch, eating the last of their sushi take out, and watching a seven year old documentary about an art heist. Amanda was laying partially on his lap, playing with his dog tags. "James B. Barnes," she read. "Type O." She squinted. "Protestant? You rebel." She ran her thumb over the beaten metal. "I have my dad's, in my dresser. Grabbed them from his house after everything dusted. When he came back he told me to keep them."
“The Army sent them to me,” he said. "After the pardon, they had to reinstate me to retire me or. . . something. “I put them on and just kept wearing them.”
She fiddled with them another moment, before setting the back against his shirt and patting his chest. "I was thinking of going down and visiting my dad.”
He looked down at her. “You should.”
She studied him a moment, then reached up and tapped his nose. "You should go talk to Sam.”
Bucky sighed. “About what?”
"The shield, what happened in Latvia, beer, boobs, whatever men talk about." He made a face. "You guys had almost as much left unsaid as we did. Go sort it out before it starts to fester.”
Another sigh. Deeper this time, because she was right. “I asked Princess Shuri to make him new wings.”
Her brows lifted. "Did she do it?”
“She’s working on it. I figured I’d have to take them when they showed up. Assuming he even wants them, which is always a guess.”
"You want to wait for her to be done before you talk to him?”
“Well, in case he tells me to piss off, I should have the thing I need to bring him.”
She smiled. "Fair enough." Reaching up, she touched his cheek, running her thumb along his cheekbone. "How's your first week as a boyfriend treating you?”
"Better than any of the weeks before,” he told her honestly.
Her face softened into that sweet little smile only he got to see. "Good. I'm really happy.”
“I suppose we can’t just hide in here forever, though.”
"Probably not." She went back to playing with his dog tags. She liked having things to fidget with. Her knitting seemed to mostly just be something to do with her hands. "I need to figure out what I'm going to do with myself.”
“Vengeance quests seem to be popular lately,” he said. When she made a face, he added, “What do you want to do?”
"I don't know," she admitted. "Which is new for me. I've known what I wanted to do with my life since I was nine years old. And I love being a doctor. I really don't think I can handle being in a hospital setting again, there's too many triggers there. The clinic was safe, but felt like hiding. I don't want to be a GP, that's as much paperwork and dealing with insurance companies than it is seeing patients." She smiled wryly and tugged at the chain around his neck. "Maybe I'll join the army.”
“Hey, then you could be a doctor, but not in a hospital. Certainly isn’t boring inside a MASH tent.”
"That was one of my favorite shows growing up." He must have looked baffled, because her mouth opened. "You've never seen MASH? I know what we're doing with our sex breaks next week.”
“There’s a TV show about field hospitals?”
"Yeah. It was set in the Korean War, but it was on TV at the end of the Vietnam war. It's full of social commentary and black comedy. Pretty sure I owe at least 30% of my personality to it."
Bucky grinned. “Well. You have my interest.”
She half rolled and stretched to grab the TV remote and start searching for a streaming service that had the show. They spent the next couple hours watching the antics of Hawkeye Pierce and the rest of the 4077th.
Three days later, Ayo called to inform him Shuri had finished Sam's wings and to arrange dropping them off with him. He convinced her to come to Amanda's for dinner to give instructions on disconnecting his arm. She arrived with a large container of frozen goat stew and a box of melons. “My wife insisted,” she said, her tone making it clear there had been an argument about it.
Honestly, Bucky had never wanted to meet another human being as much as he wanted to meet this woman.
Amanda took the stew container. "Oh, I haven't had proper goat stew in ages," she said as she carried it to her freezer, sounding actually excited about it.
Ayo arched a brow. "You've had it?"
"I did an eight month stint in MSF," she explained, moving some boxes of Eggos around to make space. "Spent some time in the Middle East and Northern Africa. Loved the food. You can get some of it here, but I guess some stuff isn't as palatable to a Western audience."
Ayo glanced back at Bucky, looking impressed, but like she didn't want to be. He felt an unaccountable surge of pride.
“I have a friend who worked with our intelligence service who had several encounters with MSF and spoke very highly of them.”
"I think they're one of the few truly good organizations left," Amanda said, putting the stew away and closing the freezer door. "I'm hoping now that they're looking into the GRC camps conditions will improve."
Ayo inclined her head. “I believe we offered assistance in how we are handling it in Africa, but they were uninterested.” The ‘Global’ Repatriation Council was missing most of a continent in it’s scope. Wakanda had taken care of its neighbors after the snap, and the organizations they’d set up handled the reappearance of everyone with far less chaos and struggle as manifested in the west.
"Yeah," Amanda said slowly. "They seem real hesitant to get any sort of help that might indicate they're handling it poorly. But. . . they're handling it poorly and MSF has enough banked goodwill to sort of shove themselves into situations without asking permission. Plus there's a surplus of doctors with lapsed medical licenses who'd really like to be out helping people. I think it'll be good."
“Shall I show you the operation of the arm?"
She hesitated. Bucky knew Amanda was uncomfortable with this. She'd been - and continued to be - horrified that someone could disengage his arm at all. "It's important to James that I know," she said finally. "So yes, show me.”
Ayo pulled out a small scanner. “Please place your hand in here.” After scanning Amanda’s hand, she held it up against Bucky's arm. It made the same humming noise it did whenever Shuri pushed it an update. Then she removed it, and said, “You press your fingers right in the joint there, and slide them down.” When Amanda hesitated, Ayo said, “You do not have to test it. It is programmed.”
Amanda nodded. "All right." She glanced at Bucky. "Maybe next time you're planning to take it off I can give it a try.”
“I have disabled my access,” Ayo said. “The Princess can still use the lower arm control, she said that was important for diagnostic issues.”
He looked up at her in surprise. “Thank you.”
“But if you ever grab my spear again, I now have no option left but to stab you.”
Bucky laughed. “Fair trade.”
"Dinner's almost ready," Amanda said, kissing his cheek. "Why don't you two go sit."
Dinner was delicious and incredibly pleasant. Ayo and Amanda were similar types, in a lot of ways. They talked about med school and Dora training with the same fondness tempered but the desire to never go through it again. They had also both been alive through the Blip, and talked about how crazy things had been and how strange it was to see the world reshaping itself again.
After dinner, Bucky insisted on cleaning up, shooing the two of them out into the living room with their drinks. He tried to listen in to the murmured voices, but they both knew how to talk so even super soldier hearing couldn't pick it up.
With the dishwasher running, he went out to find them sitting on the couch together, Amanda looking bemused, Ayo impassive as always. "I was just telling Amanda you should bring her to visit. My wife wants to cook for you in person.”
Bucky smiled, leaning his shoulder on the doorway. “As soon as my exile is finished, I would be happy to. I am absolutely dying to meet her. Dying.”
"Well try not to prison break any enemies of state and we'll see what we can do. Noxolo insists you need to meet the babies." She stood while he gaped at her. "I'm afraid I must go, before someone notices the jet. It was very nice to meet you, Amanda."
Amanda stood to shake her hand. "You too, Ayo. I can see why James respects you so much."
She smiled and turned back to him, giving him the crossed arm Wakanda salute. "Until our paths cross again, White Wolf.”
His brain was legitimately working on the absolutely wild idea that Ayo having children. “Thanks for everything,” was what he managed to say. She inclined her head and Amanda walked her to the door..
His brain was grinding when Amanda came back and put her arms around him. "Well that wasn't the first 'break his heart I break your face' talk I've gotten. But it was the scariest.”
Bucky turned to stare at her. “She did what?”
"I was informed that you were very important to her and she was glad I made you happy. But if I hurt you, she would feel obligated to hurt me in return. But since I was a super soldier and a warrior in my own right she would do me the courtesy of seeing her coming.”
He laughed. “That’s honestly a huge compliment.” After a pause, he added, “She deserves a lot of credit for me coming back to you.”
"Was she the wise friend who told you not to let your past dictate your future?”
“Yes. She helped remove my programming.”
She leaned back to look at her. "You are close." She clearly understood what that meant to him.
“Though I had no idea she had kids. She’s very private.” He sighed. "She was perhaps the first person other than Steve that I trusted. I don’t…have a lot, you know? I mean mostly it was him, and he left.” It wasn’t fair to be angry at Steve, but some days he was.
Amanda's arms tightened on him. "You have me. And I've apparently met her approval, which I'm guessing isn't an easy feat."
He sighed. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had someone that was mine.”
"I am entirely yours," she told him, swaying him a little like they were dancing. "But I think you have more people than you think you do. And I'm not going to let you put off seeing Sam any longer."
He kissed her temple. “I know. And you should go see your Dad.”
"I will. Why don't we sit down and order some plane tickets and then adjourn to bed?”
“Doc, that sounds like an excellent plan.”
Chapter 13: Peace Comes in a Variety of Forms
Chapter Text
Amanda grew up outside of Williamsburgh, well inland from North Carolina's beaches, in the heart of rural horse country. Whenever she smelled dried hay and horse manure she had a sharp, involuntary, Ray Bradbury-esque wave of nostalgia back to summers of her childhood.
When his kids had grown and he had retired, her father had traded horses for horseshoe crabs and moved to Topsail Island, where his happiest childhood memories of fishing with his dad had taken place. He'd bought a mid-century bungalow too run down to be worth renting and had fixed it up to live in full time. He was one of only 500 full-time residents in a very popular tourist town and enjoyed his leisure years with a series of dogs.
The house had been squatted in on and off, while he was gone, but Amanda had kept an eye on it and his stuff, so when he returned he was able to pick up more or less where he left off.
She flew into Charlotte, arriving a little after lunch time and renting a car to drive the four hours out to the beach.
She parked in front of her dad's bungalow and followed the smell of grilling meat around the side to the back porch, where he stood manning his enormous barbecue, singing along to a Johnny Cash blaring from speakers inside. His hound dog mutt was lounging on the top step, but bounded down to greet her, tail wagging so hard his whole body wiggled. "Hi Cujo," she said crouching to scratch his ears. "Hi Dad," she added, looking up.
Rick Newbury had been a big barrel of a man his whole life. Middle age had softened the muscle tone, but he still ran the beach every morning and kept active. So at fifty seven, he looked younger and fitter than he had any right to be. She liked to think at least part of it was his doctor daughter reminding him to eat something green once in a while.
He grinned, closing the grill and coming down the wood steps to hug her. He lifted her off her feet when he did so. At some point, her dad had read that thing about 'one day you'll pick up your child for the last time and not know it' and had decided it wasn't going to happen to him.
"Hey there, Scout," he said, setting her down. "You hungry?"
"Starving," she assured him. Her father had not, to her knowledge, called anyone by their given name in his entire life. Her mother had had an assortment of endearments, her sister - blonde haired and blue eyed like their mother - had been Princess from the day she was born. Amanda had been Scout for as long as she could remember, long before she was old enough to read To Kill A Mockingbird and know what it meant. She wondered if growing up having to explain to all her friends why her dad never called her Amanda was why she was violently opposed to nicknames now. Calling her "Mandy" was a surefire way to gain her ire.
James called her Manda sometimes, though. She didn't mind that.
“Chicken’s just about ready. Go inside and get yourself something to drink.”
She kissed his cheek and climbed the steps, Cujo at her heels, and made her way into the house. She tossed her bag into he guest room and went to the fridge, finding the requisite pitcher of sweet tea, which was the taste of her childhood the way hay and horses were the smell. No one in the north ever made sweet tea right.
She brought her glass out to the porch to find him loading up plates. "Do I get the drumstick?" she teased. No one in the family liked dark meat but her.
"Both of them," he assured her, handing the plate over. "Unless you want to make Cujo's night."
"You shouldn't give chicken bones to dogs, Dad," she said idly, putting her plate and glass down and going back for his.
"Who said anything about the bone? He'll eat the meat."
She gave him an exasperated look, taking his plate over to the table and sitting while he spread the coals out to cool and joined her. Cujo laid down on her feet and Amanda took a deep breath of salt sea air, feeling tension unwind inside her. This had been a really good idea.
“You’ve got a look about you,” he commented.
She arched a brow, gingerly picking up one of her drumsticks, with was sticky with the glaze he'd put on it. "Is it a good look?”
“Hard to tell. But it reminds me of the you from before.”
She bought herself time taking a bite of chicken and chewing. "You remember the guy I mentioned when I called you from Latvia?"
"The one who let you get mugged." She arched her brow at him again. "The who wasn't there to help when you got mugged."
"Yes. Him. We kind of. . . well we've sort of made it official. Our relationship."
“Does he make you happy?”
"He does," she said softly, aware she was probably smiling like an idiot. "He likes the parts of me that no one ever has."
Dad smiled back at her. "Good. You deserve the best in the world, Scout, you know that right?"
Amanda ducked her head, busying herself unwrapping the foil from her corn cob. "I'm getting there."
"So. Do I at least get to know his name now?"
Oh, here it came. "James Barnes."
He stopped with a piece of chicken halfway to his mouth. "Why does that sound familiar?"
"He, uh, he was the Winter Soldier."
His fork clattered against his plate and she sighed. "Scout. That man kidnapped you and I didn't see you for three years."
"He isn't like that anymore," she said, then winced at what it sounded like. "I told you he had brainwashing programming. That's been removed. He's really very sweet."
"He could hurt you," he said, voice dark. "Easily. Maybe without meaning to."
She sighed and closed her eyes. "Okay. There's some stuff I haven't been entirely honest about. Eat your chicken, I have a story to tell you."
Over chicken and corn, while the sun set on the other side of the house, she told him everything. Making the serum, taking it during in the days after the dusting, James showing up to make amends and then taking her around the world to look for the Flag Smashers. She skimmed over the personal stuff, including him semi-dumping her by note. To explain that she would have had to explain the nightmares and that was edging too close to telling her father about her sex life and neither of them wanted that.
"So he's in Louisiana giving Sam his wings and trying to patch up whatever they're dealing with," she finished up, helping him wash their dishes. "And I came to see you and try to sort out my head a little."
Her father, bless him, had listened quietly and patiently as she'd asked. Now he put down the dish he was drying and wrapped her in a bear hug. "I'm so proud of you, Scout," he muttered into her hair.
"Thanks, Daddy," she said, leaning into his heat. "You aren't mad I didn't tell you about the serum?"
"Only because I could have used your muscles when I was fixing the porch last month.
She laughed, letting out a breath. "Next time you have some heavy lifting to do you might have two super soldiers to help."
"It's like that is it?" he said, going back to drying his dish.
"It is." She hadn't told James she loved him, but she was starting to realize that's what the hot achey feeling in her chest was. "I think he's it for me, you know? There's nothing after him.”
“I remember that feeling." His smile was a familiar mix of fondness and sadness he got whenever he talked about her mother. He nodded firmly. "I want to meet him.”
Damn, that was a statement, not a suggestion. "I'll give him a call and see if he can swing by when he's done in Louisiana."
He nodded. “It would be nice for this family to be more than two people again.”
"He needs a family," she said. "He's lost a lot." Much like they had. Losing Steve probably hurt as much as losing Jessie had. "And he has a built in nick name you can call him."
“Dessert?” Dad asked, going to the freezer and getting some ice cream. When she nodded, he pulled out two bowls. “So it doesn’t sound like he’s the reason you need to sort your head out."
"No. Though our little adventure is part of what's got me tangled. I quit my job at the clinic and now I'm not sure what to do with myself."
“Do you still like being a doctor?”
"I do." He put a bowl of chocolate cookie dough ice cream in front of her. "I just don't know what kind of doctor I want to be anymore. I really don't think I can handle working a hospital again. The clinic was safe and routinized, which is what I thought I wanted, but after running around with James and Sam I just. . . I don't think I want safe." She poked at her ice cream. "Saving Lemar was the closest I've felt to who I was Before."
"I recall you did that kind of thing before once.”
"With MSF, yeah." She took a bite of her ice cream. "I think my actual conundrum is that I think I want to go work for MSF, but I don't want to start randomly traveling while starting a new relationship. And I know that probably makes me a terrible feminist, but I've been a really good feminist for forty years now and he was hard to find."
“Have you thought about asking him if he’d go with you? If you’re going to be doing surgery in a war zone, he seems like a handy guy to have around.”
That was an excellent point. An MSF doctor with built in security support would probably be pretty popular. "That's true. I don't know how he'd feel about being in war zones. He hasn't exactly had a lot of peace in the last 80 years." She could see her dad opening his mouth and held up a hand. "I know, I know. The only way to find out is to ask."
“Peace comes in a variety of forms, Scout.”
"I'll talk to him," she promised. She'd also talk to Steph when she got back to New York. She might have options that didn't mean as many long stretches in tents. Super soldier or not, she wasn't as young as she used to be.
*
Bucky enjoyed his day of manual labor. It reminded him of his life before the Winter Soldier. Modern power tools were pretty awesome.
“I gotta go get the boys,” Sarah called from the back of the boat. Bucky came around where he could see her, and she was setting a six pack of beer on top of the case he’d brought from Wakanda. “Carlos brought these over.”
Sam appeared on the other side of her. “Hey thanks.”
“You come home drunk and sloppy I’m tossing you in the bayou,” she said in response.
"I'll keep an eye on him," Bucky said, plucking one of the bottles out of the pack.
Sam rolled his eyes and got his own beer. Sarah have each of them a significant look before leaving. “That’s my sister,” Sam muttered.
“She and Amanda would get along,” Bucky commented, pulling the top off his bottle with his metal hand.
Same held out his bottle for Bucky to remove its top as well. “You know, I wasn’t going to ask…”
"We made up," Bucky said succinctly, sitting on the side of the boat. "She only made me beg a little.”
“No shit.” He didn’t know if he should be offended how surprised Sam sounded. “Good for you.” He paused. “What the hell happened?”
He sighed deeply, trying to figure out how to phrase it. "I told you I have nightmare that are flashbacks of things i did as the Soldier?" Sam nodded. "I had dreams about kidnapping her for Hydra. They were violent, and unsettling, especially waking up to have her right there. And then. . . they started to change. I was still the Soldier, with that disconnected, unemotional thinking. But I started noticing she was attractive and enjoying the fight. Until I had a dream where we had sex. I thought it was a sign I might. . . hurt her.”
“And so you decided it was better to just go?” Sam asked it evenly, without judgement.
"I really didn't know how to start a conversation that boiled down to 'I think I just had a nightmare about raping you and can't promise it won't come true.'" He took a long drink of his beer, then decided to stand up and pace a little. "Seemed safer to put distance between us.”
Sam lowered his bottle and looked over. “Okay, I know you are from the 40’s and perceptions were very different, but was the dream about sex or about rape? And do we need to have a conversation about the difference?”
"No, I didn't-" Bucky sighed bracing his hands on his hips and tipping his head down a moment to gather his thoughts. He didn’t know what it was about talking to Sam that made him feel like he could tell him things that, in all honestly, he would not have tried explaining to Steve. "The first one felt like rape because I was in the Soldier's head. There's no emotion or anything there. Arousal wasn't something he was capable of. I had it a few more times and it became obvious that she was more than willing, which was reassuring but it was still. . . Sex was something I never associated with the Soldier. It was something that was totally mine that they never touched. And I didn't understand why my subconscious wanted to blur that line.”
“Probably because it’s trying to integrate your memories. From the the Winter Soldier time with now. That’s what dreams do.” He paused. “There wouldn’t have been anything wrong with anything you were dreaming about. We don’t get control over that. Dreams processing trauma can get weird. Doesn’t mean you will do what your brain shows you.” When Bucky looked up, Sam had sat down, but was still talking. “So what did you tell her?”
"Basically what I just told you. It had seemed like rape at first, then I was able to process it wasn't. That the idea of having raped someone as the Soldier sort of haunts me." He went back for the beer. It didn’t exactly inebriate him, but somehow still helped. "She told me when she looks at me she doesn't see him. That I make her feel safe. I had the dream once, after we got back together. We stayed up late, talking about it and she pointed out that any sex I might have had under programming would have been raping me as well." Talk about things that were not acknowledged in the forties. "That was kind of a mind fuck, but helped, oddly. And I had Ayo show her how to disengage the arm. So if the worst happens she has a chance.”
“You get fresh with that woman you’re gonna get a scalpel to the kidney,” he said, making Bucky chuckle. “Amanda is also very wise and accurate. And I am glad apparently even Hydra had limits. ”
"Oh, it wasn't for any sudden case of morals. They were paranoid I'd leave behind a super soldier baby."
Sam’s eyebrows went up. “Is that possible?”
"According to Steve, yes." He took a swig of his beer. "Amanda says it's the opposite for women. That the serum messed something up with her system. So I guess it's not a concern for me anymore."
“Seems like something a guy would have some feelings about.”
"Yeah." Bucky remembered the flash of emotion on Amanda's face when she'd told him. Some mix of grief and resignation and a little fear. Probably that the news would make him upset, or leave. "I know the guy I was before the war fully expected to be a dad. Looked forward to it, even. I'd taken care of Steve for twenty years, how hard could a kid be? In quiet moments, I guess it was still something I wanted. But not more than I want her."
Sam watched him a moment. “You know, I really wish you had a better therapist.”
"Yeah. Me too." He drained his beer and set the empty bottle on the case and grabbed a second.
Sam regarded him a moment, the he pulled out his phone and dialed. The voice that picked up sounded like a woman. “Hey. Is there anybody as good as you that’s not you.” He laughed at her reply, and Bucky was absolutely fascinated by the grin on his face. “Funny. My one armed friend is here and just reminded me how much his therapist sucks. A rec would be appreciated…Thanks…yeah, yeah of course…hey, if you feel brave…” Sam laughed again. “Yeah, okay. I’ll tell her. Bye.”
Bucky waited until he'd tucked his phone away before raising his brows and gesturing grandly. "And that was?"
“A friend.” He paused. “A woman. She’s a psychologist.”
Sam's being uncharacteristically tight lipped was absolutely fascinating."I didn't realize you had a woman friend."
“She’s. . . okay, friend is probably an understatement of some sort.”
"I see. Do we get to chat about your love life now?"
“I didn’t ghost her in a foreign country, so there’s less to discuss.”
Bucky pointed at him with his bottle. "You're lucky Amanda explained ghosting to me or I'd be super confused right now."
Sam laughed. “Sorry. Anyway, she—Lani—is coming down tomorrow if you want to stick around.”
"My flight's in the afternoon," he said. "But my curiosity might be worth the change fee.”
“Good, she wants to meet you.” He put down his empty bottle, and got up to get another one. He took the rest of the six pack off the Wakandan case and just stared at it. “What’s in here?” he asked quietly.
"A present." Bucky paused to drink his beer. "In case you ever had to put the shield to use."
“Like Steve’s magnetic arm things?”
"Yeah, sure." Bucky was a little amused Sam thought he'd need a box that big for something like that. "You could open it and find out, you know."
“Aren’t the Wakandan’s pissed and you? Maybe it’s booby trapped.”
"Leading them right to Zemo smoothed a lot of that over. This is safe.”
Sam kept staring at it intently, and then finally opened the case. Bucky hadn’t actually looked inside it, but a little hologram popped up, showing a model of the wings.
Shuri was amazing. And Sam was very still.
"Maybe you'll never pick it up," Bucky said. "But if there's going to be a Captain America, it should be you. And you should have a suit that says as much.”
He could see Sam swallow. “This is not a small thing. Is this…is this vibranium?”
"Yeah. If you're not going to have the serum, you need a little extra protection.”
“How did you…?” He trailed off, but Bucky understood what he was asking. It wasn’t exactly usual that Wakandans gave vibranium, let alone this much, to outsiders.
“The Princess likes engineering projects. I suggested it with hope and got lucky.” He pointed at it, and added. “There’s instructions in there to contact her, she has things she wants to explain.”
"So it's a vibranium suit and a phone number for a princess."
Bucky shrugged. "Shuri likes to update things. 'Just because a thing works doesn't mean it can't be better.' She'll have updates and new features to push in the future. And in the mean time, she wants to make sure you know what all the bells and whistles are."
Sam closed the case and shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t have to,” Bucky said easily. “As I said, I was just dropping it off.”
Sam seemed to accept that, and returned to his beer. The didn’t discuss the suit again.
Despite Sam accusing him of a guilt trip, Bucky would have been happy to go to a hotel or even crash at the airport for the night. He'd certainly slept in worse places. But if the man was going to offer a perfectly good couch, who was he to say no?
Dinner was delicious, which he made a point of telling Sarah, with his most charming smile, just because it annoyed Sam. When she went upstairs to get the boys to bed, Sam found Bucky a pile of blankets and they said their goodnights. This was a house of early risers, which meant early bed times.
His phone rang as he was getting settled, a picture of Amanda frowning at some knitting flashing on the screen. "Hey," he answered.
"Hi," she said. "How's Louisiana treating you?"
She sounded so aggressively southern it took him a second to parse what she'd said. "So you do have an accent."
"Jesus. Yeah, five minutes around Dad and I'm drawling."
“No, I like it. I’m going to demand you talk to me in it in bed.”
"Well, you're gonna have to ask me real nicely, sugar.”
He groaned, then cleared his throat. “Sorry, I’m on Sam’s sister’s couch, I need to get my mind out of the gutter. How’s your father?”
"He's good. Cooked me dinner and fed me ice cream like I was fourteen again." She hesitated, then added, "He wants to meet you.”
“I figured that was coming.” If his parents were alive, they’d certainly want to meet her.
"Yeah. I thought maybe when you were done out there you could change your ticket and come to Charlotte? There's a train that'll take you straight to Top Sail. I'd like to stay a few days.”
“That sounds like a lot of fun.” And it really did. He hadn’t been on an actual vacation in. . .well, ever, unless you counted his time with the goats.
"Great," she said, and he could hear relief in her voice. "Just let me know what train you get and I'll come pick you up in Dad's latest project car.”
“You know I chased Zemo across Europe because he stole a succession of outlandish vintage cars.”
"The man is a sociopath but he has excellent taste in cars and tea." He heard rustling and what sounded like waves in the background. "This is a '37 Ford Coupe. Dad said, and I quote, 'It'll make him feel more at home.'"
Bucky had no idea why that touched him so much, but it did. “Well, now I'm really excited. I wanted to change my flight a little later anyway, stick around a little longer. Sam seems to have a lady friend, and she’s stopping by tomorrow.”
"Oh really?" Okay, the southern was adorable and he hoped it never went away. "Well, by all means stick around and get me some good gossip.”
“Yeah, I’m just so curious. And happy for him. Maybe she’ll help him figure himself out.”
"I hear getting a girl is good for that sort of thing."
“Yeah.” He paused, then said, “I miss you,” because he did. Not in the painful way he had before. He knew she was his. He was just happier when she was around.
"I miss you, too. I'm looking forward to seeing you.” She was quiet a moment and he listened to her breathe and the ocean crash in the distance. Sometimes it was nice to just be. “Fair warning, Dad might try to rope you into a house project. I told him we were both super soldiers and his eyes lit up at the free manual labor potential.”
Bucky laughed. “I love building things.”
"Oh, well, then you'll get along great."
*
Amanda was rudely awakened at five in the goddamned morning to go fishing with her father. The thermos of hot tea and bagel sandwich on the way home did nothing to mollify her ire. She was rather looking forward to the fried fish they'd be having for dinner that night, though.
James had texted her with his new flight information. Adding in the train time, if they pushed dinner back a little late he'd be able to enjoy his fresh caught fish with them.
"Better get the car started," her dad said once she'd updated him.
She stifled a sigh. "It doesn't run?"
"Oh, it runs. It just doesn't start."
And so, after she washed off the fish scales and guts, she spent the afternoon hanging out of the hood of an old Ford, trying to get the starter to work.
"Did you ever wish you had a boy?" she asked her father while he redid wires for a fifth time.
"God no. You know how much trouble boys are? Fights and girlfriends and speeding tickets."
She paused, looking at the back of his head. "I got into fights and got speeding tickets."
"But you never got anyone pregnant, so still a win."
"Dad."
He stopped and looked up at her. "Scout, I didn't take you fishing or teach you to fight or hot wire a car because I wished you were a boy. I did it because they were things you seemed to want to do, to spend time with you. I would have taken Princess to the pond or taught her how to figure if a wall is load bearing, but she didn't want to. So I played tea party with her. And I enjoyed it almost as much as I enjoyed taking you out to dinner when you put that Tullings boy through his school desk."
She smiled at the memory. "Son of a bitch never snapped a bra strap again."
He grinned at her and went back to his engine. "You were my Scout because you never worried if something was a boy thing or a girl thing. You just wanted to know if it was a 'you' thing. That's all that ever mattered to me."
In the end, she did have to hot wire the car to get it to start so she could go pick up James.
James was waiting for her on the curb at the station, in sunglasses and a leather jacket that made him look so very hot. One of these days she was going to pinch herself and this would all be a dream.
She hopped out of the car and met him with a hug and a searing kiss that was probably inappropriate for public.
“Mmmm,” he mumbled against her mouth. “Hi.”
"Hey," she said, cranking the drawl up to 11. "You look really sexy.”
“Don’t make me think about sex right before I meet your Dad,” he said, even though his hands were on her ass.
She grinned and kissed him again. "Come on. Hop in. He was starting dinner when I left."
He gave her rear a little pat before following her to the Ford. The look he gave her when she bent and hot-wired the starter was very sexy. "Car theft does it for you, huh?”
“I’m learning all kinds of weird things that do it for me from you,” he replied, looking mildly perplexed.
"I am a collection of contradictions," she agreed, pumping the gas to get the engine revving. It roared to life and she threw it into gear, pulling away from the curb. "Play your cards right, maybe we can take this out to Lovers Lane and get fresh.”
He put his hand on her knee. “I have always wanted to fool around in the backseat of a car."
"Well, we'll definitely make some time for that, then." Top Sail was pretty empty at this time of year, so there weren't a lot of cars on the road. The handful of locals that were there waved, clearly recognizing her dad's car. "By the way, my dad calls me Scout. It's from a book called To Kill a Mockingbird, about twenty years after your time.”
“There was a movie? I’ve seen that. Shuri likes old American movies.”
"Yes, there was a movie." And she found herself glad he'd seen it, because he father absolutely would have shown it to him if he hadn't. "Dad's a nickname guy. The sooner you tell him he can call you Bucky the less likely he is to come up with his own.”
“Of course he can call me Bucky. Everyone I even remotely like calls me Bucky.” He glanced over at her. “With one now very significant exception.”
Amanda, given her intense hatred of being called "Mandy," generally avoided nicknames unless someone invited/ordered her to use it. The first time she'd called him anything other than Barnes or Sergeant they'd been about to have sex and "Bucky" seemed a weird thing to gasp out in the throes of passion. Then he'd never corrected her and it had become habit. "Do you want me to call you Bucky?”
“No,” he said without hesitation. “I mean, James is what people who are trying to fake or force a connection call me. My therapist. Zemo. Ayo didn’t it when she was mad at me. Teachers when I was growing up. But you, you know me. It sounds different, somehow. It’s…yours.”
"Okay," she said softly, hoping her grin wasn't as goofy as it felt it was. She pulled into Dad's driveway and parked, disengaging the wires to turn the motor off. "Good. I like James.”
He leaned over to kiss her, and murmured, “I like making you scream it.”
She flushed and tugged his jacket lapel. "Later," she promised, before climbing out of the car.
Her dad was in the kitchen, frying fish, Cujo obediently waiting in the doorway hoping for scraps. The dog greeted Amanda enthusiastically, then studiously sniffed James before giving him a cautious tail wag.
"Dad," she said, always a fan of getting the awkward over with. "This is James Barnes. You can call him Bucky. James, this is my dad Rick Newbury.”
James held out his hand. “Pleasure to meet you, sir.”
Dad wiped his hands off on his apron and shook his hand. "You too, son. Scout speaks very highly of you." He leaned back, studying James like he was a new car project then said, "When she fights, does she still shuffle her feet to telegraph her kicks?"
"Oh my god, Dad," she muttered, covering her eyes.
“Not that I’ve noticed, but admittedly I’ve only fought with her, not against her.”
"It's something to keep an eye on. And if you do fight her, she fights dirty."
"And who taught me that?" she asked.
He shook his head, looking at her fondly. "Get yourself and Bucky some drinks and set the table. Fish'll be ready in a minute.”
“I heard you need help with some work on the house,” James said.
Dad's eyes lit up. "Oh, I have a couple projects I've been meaning to get around to."
Amanda shook her head and went to get the drinks and set up the table on the back porch. She had all three settings laid out and was lighting the citronella torch by the time the men came out with a platter of fish and huge bowl of macaroni salad. Based on their talk, it sounded like they were going to be gutting the laundry room and guest bathroom.
She caught James's eyes as he put down the fish and he grinned at her. Her heart squeezed and she had to swallow down a lump in her throat. Dad had been right. It was well past time this family got a little bigger.
They stayed more than a week in Top Sail. James told her about his conversation with Sam, and then ended up sitting out on the porch with Dad, talking late into the night about making amends, and how to do it right. The sort of things his therapist should have talked to him about before sending him on that quest.
"You ready to head back home?" she asked as they got in bed their last night there.
“I think so,” he said. “I have work to do.”
She rubbed his back, scratching when he leaned into it. "Anything I can do to make that easier, let me know.”
“That. That is helping.”
She kept it up, making sure she reached all the places he couldn't. "Hey," she said softly, resting her chin on his shoulder. "I love you.”
He inhaled sharply, and for a moment didn’t breathe. The exhale that followed was unsteady, and he was so still she began to wonder if it had been the wrong thing to say. He swallowed, and when he turned to look at her, she was startled to see tears in his eyes. “Really?” came out barely a whisper.
"Oh, honey." She cupped his face with one hand, running her thumb along the cheek bone to wipe away a tear that escaped. "Really. I love you.”
“I haven’t heard that in a long time.” He had to clear his throat. “I love you, too. So much.”
Drawing him closer, she kissed him gently, then rested her forehead on his. "You make me really happy.”
“You too. And it’s and unfamiliar feeling.”
"Same," she admitted. She held him another minute and kissed him again. "Come on. Let's get some sleep. Tomorrow we'll be home and can have loud sex again.”
He laid down, and tucked her against his side. “Sounds like a plan.”
Chapter 14: A wonderfully terrifying experience
Chapter Text
Returning to New York meant starting their lives up again, more than they had in their little honeymoon period after Latvia. Bucky got to work on his amends. Some were hard - like Yori - others easier. A couple people slammed doors in his face, so he wrote them long letters and sent them, as Amanda's dad had suggested.
She went to lunch with her MSF contact, who was delighted at having an experienced, licensed doctor willing to run some programs. Especially one who brought her own security detail.
Around the time he admitted defeat and moved out of his apartment into hers, Sam's girlfriend, Lani Yee, called him with a couple therapists to try, who worked heavily with PTSD sufferers and veterans. He gave his court appointed one his amends notebook as a going away gift and started the hard work of actually getting better.
The setting was entirely different, but it reminded him of his time in Wakanda. It was peaceful. Calm. Unfucking his head wasn’t easy, but his new therapist didn’t lecture him, go through his phone, or take ominous notes to passive-aggressively punish him for not opening up. It was a start.
Soon enough he’d be back in a war zone of some sort, following Amanda’s work. But he’d enjoy this time while he could.
He had a session the same day Amanda had her physical to start work at MSF. He wasn't too concerned, she was a super soldier, after all and could likely doctor talk her way out of any irregularities they found. His session still managed to be about her, however. He'd been avoiding talking about his sex nightmares, feeling that was a later-in-the-therapy issue. But Dr. Ferris was very understanding and was even easier to talk to than Sam, and it had all spilled out. They talked a lot about subconscious fears and how a lot of people mixed sex and violence. Apparently, even women of sexual abuse still had rape or rape-adjacent fantasies and found empowerment in acting them out with a trusted partner. Ferris had a way of putting things into context that made Bucky less self conscious about them. If there were people out there with equivalent experiences, maybe he wasn't as fucked up as he'd thought.
He got home in a pretty good mood, which immediately soured when he saw Amanda on the couch, lights off, staring a stack of papers on the coffee table. "Hey," he said, dropping his jacket on the chair they had for jacket dumping. "What's wrong?"
Her throat worked a moment and she blew out a breath. "I can't go work for MSF.”
He crossed the room and slowly sank onto the couch beside her. “What happened?”
She took another breath and he realized she'd been crying. "I'm pregnant," she said very softly.
If she’d punched him he’d have been less surprised. In truth, it felt like she had. She’d told him it was impossible, and they hadn’t exactly discussed it since. She had to be pretty sure for the fact they used no protection for all the sex they had.
For a moment he thought about that silly exercise his old therapist had made him do with Sam. While you were sleeping, a miracle occurs.
It wasn’t, though, was it? At least not a good one. Amanda looked devastated. She wasn’t really a woman to cry, and there had clearly been a lot of that. This wasn’t supposed to happen. She didn’t want it.
His stomach twisted as the silence stretched. He knew what he needed to say. There was only one thing a man was required to say at a time like this. When he was young, it was marry me, which frankly almost came out of his mouth. But the world was different now. She didn’t need him to take care of her, for one.
He didn’t want to lose her. “If you, um…I mean, if you don’t…” He had to close his eyes. He needed to tell her he would support whatever decision she made, but he wasn’t sure he could actually get the words out without crying himself.
"I'm sure," she said, clearly misinterpreting his fumbled words. "They did a blood test and an ultrasound because I wouldn't believe them. I really thought it was impossible. I don't have much by way of cycles. I had some ill-thought-out one night stands during the Blip and nothing ever. . ." She stopped and reached into the stack of papers, drawing out a strip with what looked like black photo negatives. "That's the head," she told him, tracing the curve of a white blob. "And an arm. She wiggled while they were taking pictures." She was smiling now, though she still kind of looked like she was going to cry. "I really don't understand how it happened. I keep waiting for it to sink in, but part of me is afraid if I do start to believe it it won't be true anymore.”
Bucky reached for the pictures. “She?”
"It's too early to be 100% sure, but she was doing a lot of rolling and wiggling and we couldn't see any extra bits. Biologically, female sperm are stronger than male sperm, so however this happened, odds are better that it's a girl.”
His daughter. “I can’t wait to meet her,” he whispered.
"Me too." She leaned on his shoulder, sniffling inelegantly. "She'll have great hair.”
He pulled her all the way into his lap. “I love you so much,” he whispered. “And I’m sorry about MSF.”
"I love you, too," she said, wrapping her arms around him and resting her head on his shoulder. "And if there had to be a reason I couldn't go work for MSF, this is the best possible one." She rested a hand on her still-flat belly. "I have plenty of time to think of something else to do with myself.”
“I hear they keep you pretty busy. Babies, I mean.”
"They do. But not forever. And my brain needs things to chew on.”
He kissed the top of her head, still feeling a little shell shocked. “You’ve got a year to figure that. And I will support you whatever you want to do.” For this, it was easy to say.
"Thank you," she said, kissing his cheek. She resettled and said, "Something I was turning over on the way home, that you might want to think about. Would you like to live closer to Sam?”
“I think I’d like to live somewhere not in New York,” he said after a moment. “Somewhere different.” He paused, thinking about something he and his therapist had been discussing about his dislike of winter. “Maybe somewhere with less ice.”
"Pretty sure there's not a lot of snow in the south. And if you really do like my drawl, nothing will get it to come out like living in New Orleans.”
“You don’t want to be near your father?”
"Dad loves living by the water in the middle of no where. I don't know about you, but I like living in at least some sort of city. He's a plane ride or long drive away no matter where we go, even if we were in North Carolina. Sam's your family. If we're going to have a baby, I'd like her to have an Uncle and Auntie and maybe some cousins to get to know.”
“You gonna just be a regular doctor?”
"I don't know." She was quiet a moment and he entertained himself playing with her hair and looking at the ultrasound of their baby.
"I was a good researcher," Amanda said after a moment. "Even if I'm not specifically dealing with the serum, I could be useful in research.”
“We’ll figure something out. I have every faith in you.”
"Thank you." She blew out a breath. "What do you say to going out for dinner and celebrating a little?”
“Yes,” he said. I’ll buy some steak for my girls.”
She hopped off his lap and held out a hand to haul him up. "We appreciate it.”
They had a nice dinner, and Amanda went to sleep early. Bucky found he couldn’t sleep, and eventually got out of bed so he wouldn’t disturb her. The idea of pending fatherhood was starting to sink in, and fear was surfacing.
He missed Steve right then. He thought about calling Sam, but it was two in the morning. Amanda was hesitant about making announcements, so he was limited in who he could talk to. He could and would tell his therapist, but that would be next week and would not help him sleep.
He did have one friend for whom it wasn't the middle of the right now.
“Hello, White Wolf. Your video signal seems to be malfunctioning.”
“Oh, uh, I’m on the phone.”
“Phone,” Ayo said, sounding as if he’d just told her he was using a smoke signals.
“Yeah, yeah, we’re very primitive.”
“Well…you are. It must be very late for you, is something wrong?”
Bucky sighed. “I don’t know. I think I need advice. I found out today Amanda is having a baby and you are, I think, the only parent friend I have. Surprised as I was to learn that.”
"I like to keep my private life just that, private," she said, without a hint of defensiveness. "If others knew I had paced the floor half asleep and covered in spit up like everyone else, I'd have to work twice hard to get them to fear me." She paused. "Congratulations. On the baby.”
“Thanks.” He rubbed his face. “It’s just that I keep thinking, it won’t have a choice to trust me or not. A kid is stuck with me. I’m happy and terrified at the same time.”
"Would it help to know that's a pretty common reaction to your first child? They are a wonderfully terrifying experience.”
“It does help to hear there exists something on earth that scares you.”
"Again, I am only human. Babies are scary. They change your life in countless ways. But I will say, the moment you hold your child in your arms, everything makes perfect sense.”
“Even the awful things?”
"Even those," she said. "My life brought me to my children and made me the mother they needed me to be. I would not change a second of it.”
“The idea that my life brought me somewhere good is still something I’m working on. But I am working on it.”
"It will get easier," Ayo assured him. "I'm sure Amanda will keep you in line.”
“That she most certainly will.”
After he got off the phone, Bucky climbed back into bed and curled around her, feeling her sigh in contentment and snuggle against him in her sleep. He wasn’t sure he deserved any of this, but he sure was grateful for it.
*
Amanda got an OB appointment the next week, and James got to come with her and see the much more sophisticated scan and listen to her heartbeat—this doctor also agreed it was most likely a girl, and ordered some tests that would, among other things, tell them for certain.
Of course, Amanda couldn’t discuss her real concerns about the pregnancy. She was the first supersoldier in history to have a baby.
Her worst fear - that the fetus would cause her harm with its strength - seemed unlikely. Steve had made a point of telling James that the power was inherited, he almost certainly would have mentioned if it was dangerous to the mother. So currently, her biggest concern was the prospect of labor with no painkillers. Which did nothing to dampen her excitement.
All scans and tests pointed to the baby being very healthy and growing right on schedule, so she relaxed enough to call and tell her dad. He cried in front of her, for the first time since her mom had died, and fussed about wanting to come up. She assured him there was nothing to see - not even a belly bump - and sent him the ultrasound pictures, with a promise of lots of visits once the baby was moving.
She very determinedly didn't think about what she was going to do for a living. Currently, they could live comfortably on her and James's savings, and she decided to allow herself space to breathe before thinking about the future too hard.
They were sitting on the couch, watching an action movie and ripping the accuracy to shreds, when James got the call from Sam.
“Karli may be in New York," James told her after he hung up. "The GRC is having a meeting and a vote on resettlement.”
"Sounds like something she'd be interested in." Amanda sat up. "You're going?”
“He’s coming up here and we’ll gear up. He wants you to come help, too, but I said we could discuss that in person.”
She was a little concerned that was going to be more fight than discussion, but nodded and started putting away her knitting. James flipped the channel to a news station covering the "historic" meeting.
Sam arrived a couple of hours later, surprising her by simply ringing the doorbell. He’d flown up in his wings. She took a step back as he came into the apartment. "That is quite the costume.”
He grinned. “The Wakandans know what they’re doing.”
"James is getting dressed," she said, gesturing with her chin.
Sam nodded. "Hey, congratulations, by the way. How are you feeling?"
"Great, honestly. Maybe better than usual." She sighed. "There may be a fight about me going with you guys.”
"She's pregnant," James said, coming out of the hallway in his leather armor. "So I kind of want to keep her out of situations she might get shot.”
Sam rolled his eyes. "I wasn't going to take her into combat as my new sidekick. The medic part has been as useful as the super strength."
Amanda liked Sam. "Thank you. I think I've convinced him to let me go hang out with the first responders to offer medical help.”
James pointed at her. "In a bulletproof vest."
“Sounds fair,” Sam said. “I called Sharon to see if she could help with tracking again. She said ‘among other things’ and that she’d be in touch. I’m not entirely sure what she meant by that.”
"It sounds suitably ominous," she said. "I'll grab my medical bag and we can head out.”
Amanda went to get it while the two of them chatted in the hallway. When she returned she could hear them laughing, and Sam saying, “Oh, I am the best uncle.” The way he said it made her smile.
"Let's go before you two start planning how to threaten her future boyfriends," she said, making shooing motions towards the door.
“She could like girls,” James said.
“I’ll sic my sister on them,” Sam replied. But she got them outside, so Amanda didn’t argue. Or point out she'd be more than capable of giving potential girlfriends stink eye.
Sam took off once on the street and she and grabbed a cab that got them close enough to the GRC meeting they could jog the rest of the way. Sam was updating them on comms. Power had gone down at the building and evacuation orders were in place.
They were allowed inside the police cordon—James was that well recognized—but didn’t get very far before someone behind them said, “Excuse me, are you two supposed to be here?”
Behind them was an unfamiliar person, who paused long enough for James to tense before touching a spot on their temple and removing a digital face mask and revealing Sharon. “Hey, it’s me.”
They both gaped. "What the hell are you doing here?" James said, glancing around to make sure no one else had noticed the unmasking.
“I was in town,” she said. “Sam said you guys needed help.”
“Is that Sharon?” Sam asked.
“Apparently,” James replied. “I thought you couldn’t set foot in the US?” he asked her.
“I can’t. That guy with the fake face has a fake passport. Doesn’t help me with my family.”
"I'm going in," Sam said. "They've got to make their move soon, be ready."
Amanda looked up, spotting him arcing towards the upper windows. "You two should head in," she said. "I'll be listening if you need back up.”
“Please stay safe,” James said seriously.
“Wait, why isn’t she coming with us?” Sharon said, pointing at Amanda. “She impaled a guy.”
James pointed at her stomach. "Pregnant."
"He's being protective," Amanda offered.
She looked from one the other, and then said, “Huh.”
"I will be here," Amanda told James. "I won't get involved unless it sounds like I'm needed.”
He leaned over and kissed her, and then they headed into the building. Amanda listened with half an ear, coordinating with the men in charge at the cordon. The GRC members were being evacuated into armored vehicles, but the administrative staff that had been on duty were being filed out into the street. She kept an eye on them, looking for Flag Smashers or injured.
"I'm not seeing any of them out here," she reported to the rest of them.
“It’s a misdirect,” Sam said, urgent but calm. “We’ve got to keep everybody inside.” The statement segued almost immediately into fight sounds, and him yelling at the other two to do something, and to not let anyone get out.
"Where are the GRC trucks being loaded?" Amanda asked the police coordinator.
"Out of the garage beneath the building." He paused and listened to something on his comm. "We've got a group heading to the roof," he added. "There's a helo up there for them."
"You need to get to the garage underground," Amanda passed on to the others. "Sam, if you can get to the roof there's a group leaving via helicopter. You want me to head to the garage?"
"We got this," James said before anyone else could reply.
Amanda wasn’t entirely sure they did, as James then got entangled in a conversation with Karli in which he seemed to be attempting to talk her out of whatever it was she was doing. Amanda could only hear his side, but she thought it was a testament to the time he spent with Sam that he was doing it.
It was unfortunately very obviously a distraction, because as she stood there the trucks rolled right out of the building and onto the street.
Sharon's voice came over the comms. "Seriously Bucky, you had one job."
"You worry about your guy," he bit out, followed by the roar of a motorcycle revving up, until the noise was buffered by the comms sound cancelling.
Amanda sighed deeply. This probably counted as being needed. She turned to go commandeer a car and almost ran into a tall blonde guy in BDUs. "Excuse me-" She stopped and did a double take, before tapping her comms off. "Walker? What the hell-"
He held out his hands. "I just want to help. Figured something shady was going to go down with this and I thought. . . maybe you all could use another soldier."
Well, the fact he wasn't in the Cap suit was probably a good sign. And he sure looked and sounded a lot more clear headed than he has last time she'd seen him.
What was that saying about my enemy's enemy?
"Don't make me regret this," she said, poking him in the chest and moving past him.
"No ma'am," he murmured, following close.
She beelined for a car manned by a young guy who probably had some left over fear of a scary teacher or two. Sidling up to where he was standing by the open door, she said, "Hey, do these patrol cars have trackers in them?"
He shifted awkwardly. "Uh, yeah. Yeah they do. We can find it anywhere in the city."
"Great." She moved him aside, to his shock and put a foot in. "Follow us. The GRC had been kidnapped." She slammed the door on his gaped expression, waited for Walker to hop in and peeled out, torquing the wheel to turn around and follow the trucks.
Walker was quiet a moment. "South Carolina?"
"North," she replied. "Did the accent come out?"
"Little bit." He reached up and wrapped his hand around the top of the door frame, gripping the roof, bracing one foot on the dash. "You drive like a country girl, too."
"Thank you, I'll pass that on to my dad." She took a turn at a stomach lurching speed and hit the button to chirp the sirens and get people out of her way. "Not that I'm complaining, but what's with the saner, friendlier personality?"
"Therapy," he said.
"Ah, that'll do it."
He looked over at her. "Hey, uh, so I don't forget later. Thanks for saving Lemar."
"It's what I do," she told him, hitting her comm to listen into the boys. Sam appeared to be taking down a helicopter over the Hudson and James was fighting someone. Perfectly normal day at the office.
Chapter 15: Pull a helicopter out of the sky
Notes:
Sorry for the long gap! I was visiting my husbands family and it was pretty consuming.
Chapter Text
Bucky was about as pissed as he possibly could be, trying to get the door off the burning truck that they’d deliberately lit on fire to distract him. What this situation did not need was John Walker showing up out of nowhere and getting involved.
But he was keeping Karli and her crew busy, which was something. He pulled the door so hard he was concerned it was going to rip his vibranium shoulder from it’s bone attachments—it sure hurt that much. Just as it gave he noticed that the situation had now also acquired his pregnant girlfriend, who was supposed to stay with the medics.
“What are you doing here?” he shouted to her across the fighting as he helped people out.
"Helping," she shouted back, twirling a police baton and smacking one of the masked Smashers in the knee. "Dovitch, I'd really like to talk about this calmly," she said to the guy she was fighting.
In response, the guy ripped a parking meter out of the ground and swung it at her. She dodged back, easily, and bounced the baton off the ground and into his jaw. "Remember how I talked about the serum being unstable?" she yelled, aiming a heel at his knee cap. "This is sort of what I meant.”
The woman he helped down was clutching her arm, which looked burned. The last man shook Bucky’s hand and thanked him for saving them. Which startled him—gratitude wasn’t something anyone ever aimed at the Winter Soldier. He sprinted over, catching the parking meter with the vibranium hand. “Burns, go doctor,” he told her, pointing at the second truck.
"On it," she said, ducking past him.
Karli peeled off the fight with Walker to double team him with parking meter guy. More cop cars were pulling in, creating a perimeter around the chaos and he spotted Amanda herding the people he'd rescued towards them.
One of them hit him with a good kick and he fell back, grabbing a loop of chain that had fallen off the nearby construction equipment. He whirled back, slamming her in the face. The other one, Dovitch, came at him from the side with a hit that sent him ass over tea kettle, hurtling towards the edge of the street. His metal hand sent off sparks trying to get a grip and he heard Amanda scream his name before he fell off.
The guy followed, just to continue the fight. He didn’t know what was going on up above, but he could hear fight sounds then the truck engine revving and worried about Amanda. For the first time in a long time, Bucky longed for a gun. He’d really been trying not to kill any of them, not to kill people, but it was hard to fight someone trying to kill you.
Sam was so much better at talking to people. Steve had been, too. Amanda had even tried.
Bucky got ahold of the i-beam the Dovitch was swinging at him, grunting as the man pushed it against his chest. “I promise, if you kill me she will never help you. Dementia is not a glorious death.”
He felt the instant his words sank in, the pressure immediately easing up. He shoved and the beam aside, the two of them standing there a moment, panting.
"Karli," the other man said. "She's gone. Talking about killing the hostages and ourselves. None of us signed up for a suicide mission."
There was a screech of metal bending and giving above them and they both looked up, backing away as the other truck - the one still full of people - broke through a gate, teetering over the edge of the construction scaffolding. It slid forward and Bucky put out an arm, he and Dovitch backing up. Then it abruptly stopped and slowly started to move back.
Ducking a little, he could spot Walker's legs on one side of the back bumper and Amanda's on the other and they pulled it up.
“Jesus, be careful,” he said, hoping her comm was still working.
"I want a hot, bubble bath when we get home," she said through gritted teeth. "With Epsom salts. And a bath bomb that takes weeks to clean up." He heard back ground noise, that might have been Walker saying something. Whatever it was, she laughed a little.
The truck was almost out of danger, the front wheels approaching flat ground. Then he heard Amanda grunt and swear. "Walker! Shit." The truck lurched forward as a tangle of bodies toppled through the scaffolding.
Walker hit the sand hard a few feet away, along with several of the flag smashers. Bucky looked up and saw Amanda hanging from one of the beams by one arm. It was a perfectly survivable fall for a super soldier. Amanda would be fine. He didn’t know if that was true for the baby. Could he catch her? Would it help?
In the heartbeat his panic took, Sam swooped in from somewhere, catching by the legs and boosting her onto the beam before flying up to catch the truck just as it plummeted over the side.
“What does he need to be able to do in this suit, White Wolf?” the Princess had asked him.
”I don’t know,” he’d replied, trying to think of the craziest things he’d seen Steve do. “Pull a helicopter out of the sky?”
Pushing an armored truck full of hostages back to solid ground certainly fit the bill. It took the help of Redwing to stabilize and help, but he got it up there. They could hear the crowd cheering all way down in the pit.
Sam hovered back down to Amanda, holding out and arm. “Come on, Doc, they’re probably pretty beat up in there.”
Bucky breathed a sigh of relief as he watched Sam carry her back to the street so she could help with the evacuating truck.
Then Karli threw a piece of rebar at him, which he ducked and caught. He assumed they’d have taken advantage of the distraction and run by this point, like they had in Latvia. Apparently Dovitch hadn’t been exaggerating about the suicide mission.
Sam landed in the pit and flung the shield. It ricochetted of each flag smasher, knocking them down in turn like bowling pins. Bucky had to admit it was highly satisfying to watch.
Karli took off her mask to express her astonishment, and Sam sounded about as out of patience as Bucky had ever heard him. Then someone fired a bunch of smoke grenades into the pit. That seemed to be the thing that finally got them to flee. Sam could track them with his goggles, so they gave chase deeper into the construction site.
“We’re going underground,” Bucky said over comms for the benefit of Amanda and Sharon, wherever they were. Amanda probably had her earpiece off if she was doing triage. “Entering the tunnel on William, heading south. Might lose the signal.”
“On my way,” Sharon replied.
"Take Walker," Amanda, said, to his surprise. "He's had therapy, he might be useful.”
“Yeah, he’s here,” Bucky said. He didn’t hear a reply, but the connection was starting to fritz.
A ways down the hall they were running in, Sam said, “They split up here.”
Walker immediately charged off in that direction, and Sam made a gesture of exasperation. Bucky held up a hand. “I got it,” he said, and chased after Walker.
Of course, without Sam’s goggles they had no idea where they were going, and seemed to pretty swiftly get lost. They must have gotten near the exits as Amanda’s voice broke through. “Any of you hear me?”
“I hear you,” Bucky said. “But we lost them.”
“They’ll be at the northwest corner of the building in five to ten minutes. There’s an alleyway.”
“How do you know that?”
“Well, there’s a dead one up here, he had his phone on him, and fingerprint authentication doesn’t require a pulse. He sent them a post mortem rendezvous request via their app.”
Bucky stopped walking in sheer astonishment. She was brilliant. “Marry me.”
She paused a beat. "Sure. Go arrest the dumb kids first. They organize their secret missions through app, James. I take back every nice thing I ever said.”
“I love you,” he said sincerely. He’d ask her again properly later.
Walker was frowning, arms crossed, look consternated. “Did you just propose over mission comms?”
“You wouldn’t understand,” Bucky said, looking at his watch to orient them in the right direction.
“Try me. I have a wife.”
He started jogging back up the hall, and Walker followed. “Yeah? How did you propose?”
“Jumbotron.”
Bucky glanced at him. “If I asked her to marry me in front of a stadium of people I’d spend the next six months sleeping in the bathtub.”
"Yeah, well. We were eighteen at the time." He frowned. "The bathtub? Not the couch?”
Bucky shrugged. “Our couch is really comfortable, what kind of punishment is that?”
He shook his head. "I take it back. She should definitely not meet my wife.”
They found a door, and crept into the deserted alleyway. When they reached the end, he could see law enforcement getting into position. Amanda must have alerted them.
A couple of the swat guys waved them over, and one handed Bucky a phone. “Sgt. Barnes. Dr. Newbury said to give you this.”
“As it happens I make excellent bait.”
Walker insisted on coming with him, and when the Flag Smashers emerged he strode forward. “Mercy bears greater fruit than strict justice,” Walker told them as the cops converged.
"It's a great app," Bucky added, waving the phone as they were escorted away.
When they were out of earshot, he looked over at Walker. "Lincoln, really?"
"Great man," he replied. "Great quote."
They headed out to the main street to back track back to the triage set up. "Not when you say it." Therapy had done nothing for the smarm. But he sure was less twitchy than he’d been in Latvia. He looked like he was, for example, sleeping. “So your therapist is good?” he asked finally. “Because sometimes they suck.”
"No, yeah, man, mine's great. She's super calm and never judgmental." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I think I had a lot of out of date stereotypes in my head about therapy, you know? There's no leather couch or ink blots. We just have a conversation and after a few weeks I started. . . thinking different. Better. If that makes sense.”
“It does. I had a shitty one assigned by the government.” He held up a hand. “I know you knew her. No offense.”
“None taken. Christina specializes in terrorist profiling, I think she was there to watch you, not help you.”
Unsurprising. “Yeah. So yours isn’t court ordered?”
Walker snorted. "No, the army would just as soon I crawl in a hole and not make noise anymore. No. I met her through Lemar. She's an army contractor, but not officially military. Works for an organization that's setting him up with some robotic legs to let him walk again. He spoke highly of her and his mom was ready to adopt her. I had a polite conversation with her and the next thing I know I'm in her office telling her how it felt to be court marshaled and everything that happened in Latvia.”
That sounded like very specific job description that he was pretty sure there were not two people doing. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Little asian lady? Has her own robotic braces?”
"I. . . yeah." Walker studied him. "You know Dr. Yee?”
“I do. The world is very small. She actually recommended me my therapist. Also she works for the Air Force, technically, not the Army.” He was honestly not sure if he should tell this potentially still unstable man that the guy who was now Captain America instead of him happened to also be sleeping with his therapist.
"Come to think of it, she mentioned she knew Sam. Said she felt she needed me to know in case that made me uncomfortable, she could find a new therapist to work with me. It was hard enough opening up to her, so I said no." He nodded to the cops that let them through the cordon. "She can keep a neutral face through anything anyway. Hate to play poker with her.”
“Lani? Yeah, she’d take all your money.” There were a collection of ambulances up ahead and he could see Amanda. He clapped Walker on the arm and took off at a run.
She looked up when he got close and he saw her relieved smile, before she turned back to the woman she was working on. When she'd handed her off to an EMT, she broke off to go hug him. "Hey. Have you heard from Sam?”
“No, he must still be underground. I’m going to go back and look for him I just wanted to- Are you okay? Everything okay?” He put his hand on her lower abdomen.
"Everything is just fine. I borrowed a stethoscope and can make out her heartbeat." She rubbed his arm affectionately. "She's the size of a peach pit and protected by super soldier abs and the best water bed nature can make. She's just fine.”
In his earpiece, Sam said, “Anybody copy?”
Bucky turned his head a little. “We hear you.”
He sounded exhausted. “Karli’s dead. Sharon got shot but she’s mobile. Insisted on going out the back on her own, I hope she’ll come find Amanda.”
"I'll keep an eye out for her," Amanda said, already scanning the crowd. "We're still where the trucks were brought, if you want to bring Karli up.”
“Any of the GRC people still around?”
“Yeah, they’re talking to the press,” Bucky said.
“Oh,” he said. “Perfect. We need to have ourselves a conversation.”
Two minutes later, Sam was descending from the sky, floating down carrying Karli’s body and looking for all the world like a damn archangel. The man sure knew how to make an entrance.
He set Karli's body down onto an empty gurney Amanda somehow made appear and she and two EMTs pulled her away to check if anything could be done. Bucky trusted Sam to know dead was dead, but also knew from Amanda that checking was SOP. If for nothing else to declare and official time of death for the death certificate.
Reporters started yelling questions at Sam, about his official title and who had made him Captain America. But he clearly only had eyes for the GRC members standing at the center of the crowd.
They thanked him, to their credit. But then it was exactly the same bullshit they'd been spouting since they'd formed to "deal" with the problems created by people coming back. And Sam was having none of it.
It was a thing of beauty, really. Steve would have been proud. Bucky sure as shit was. You could watch the GRC trio shrink when presented with the idea that they could actually fix things for people. That they could bring the world together, instead of perpetuating the lines that had always been drawn.
Then he turned and left them to the barrage of reporters and TV cameras, walking back towards the ambulances will Bucky stood. “I was texting,” Bucky said, even though he didn’t even have his phone out. “All I heard was ‘a black guy in stars and stripes’.” Sam laughed, and then Bucky added, “Nice job, Cap.”
Leaning against a car a half block behind the line of ambulances, was Sharon, with Amanda bent over to peer at the wound in her stomach. "I'd like a weekly show in which Sam schools embarrassed bureaucrats on how to properly use their power," Amanda said, straightening. "I need to get her home, if we're going to keep her presence off the radar."
"It's not the worst thing that's happened to me all week," Sharon said.
"I was not present for those," Amanda replied without missing a beat.
“Come on, I’ll take you guys home,” Bucky said.
“Uh, Cap?” a man called from over by the ambulances.
“I think he’s talking to you,” Sharon said, turning away so she was less visible. Then she added. “Look, I’m sorry how things ended down there. For what it’s worth, I think the suit looks good on you.”
Sam smiled. "Thanks. And I didn't forget my promise."
Sharon nodded and let Amanda pull her away from the car, leaning on her.
"If you see Walker again," Amanda said. "Give him my number. We have to talk about his serum.”
*
James drove them home. Amanda was exhausted, but she had a bullet wound to treat first. Sharon did not look amused that James insisted on carrying her up the stairs to their apartment.
A 4th floor walkup was not a big deal to a super soldier, but Amanda remembered it occasionally annoying her back before the serum. She wondered if it would become annoying again when she got big, and if they needed to sell it and move before then.
They had a wide counter between the two sinks in the master bathroom, and good light, so Amanda had Sharon come up there. As soon as James set her on the counter and left, Sharon asked, “What’s wrong with Walker’s serum?”
"The serum Nagel created was based on an incomplete serum created after Erskine died and Steve Rogers went into the Arctic." She set out her medical bag and pulled out the equipment she needed. "It's unstable. Causes mental deterioration and dementia symptoms, among other things. I'm hoping I can figure out a way to counter-act it. Somehow. But I need at least one cooperative serum-haver to even try.”
“How much access to them do you need?”
"Blood sample or two to start with." She eased Sharon's shirt up to expose the wound, using a wet cloth to wipe the blood away. "Once I had some idea of treatment I'd then need them willing to take it and see if it worked. But that would be after months-" She paused, looking at the wound. A bullet that had been fired into her less than two hours ago, looked like the skin was already healing over.
Sharon had gone very still under her hands. Amanda's brain was whirring quickly, putting pieces of information together, even as her hands picked up a scalpel and forceps and started to cut an X over the half-healed skin.
"Before any of that could happen," she continued, as if she hadn't noticed anything unusual. "I'd need a lab and funding, which I don't have. Maybe while Sam is throwing around his Captain Americaness he can put in a good word for me.”
Sharon breathed slowly, but didn’t ask about painkillers. Perhaps because she knew it wouldn’t work. “Private funding would be more efficient.”
"Harder to get, and usually have strings attached." The light wasn't perfect, so she had to do a bit by feel, but she found the bullet pretty quickly. "I couldn't promise any organization a marketable product, at least not until I'd fixed what Nagel fucked up. Maybe once I had that done, I could work on my original thought of medical benefits, but that would be even more funding and time." She dropped the bullet in the sink and pressed a gauze pad to the fresh wound.
Finally, she looked up at met Sharon's gaze. "I understand you don't want to confirm my suspicions, but I need to know if you want me to do any sutures or put in a drain for infections.”
Sharon was quiet a moment, and then said, “No, it’ll heal on it’s own.”
Amanda nodded and replaced the gauze with a new one that she tapped down to cover the wound. "When you're ready to get up you can come browse my closet for a replacement shirt.”
“Thank you,” Sharon said.
She cleaned up her stuff and took her bag back to its spot in the hall closet before finding James in the living room. "She's fine. Looked worse than it was." Stifling a yawn, she leaned on him. "How're you? Do you need me to look at anything?”
“I’m fine,” he said, wrapping his arms around her. “You had a request about a bath?”
"Mmm. I'm now debating sleep before pampering.”
“How about I come wash your hair and then tuck you in?”
"You're a very good boyfriend slash fiancé slash baby daddy.”
He looked down at her. “I was scolded for the circumstances, but I meant it. I would love it if you would be my wife.”
"My answer was sincere," she told him, tipping her head back. "I thought it was very us. I'd love for you to be my husband.”
“Good,” he said with a grin. “Do you want me to get the ring myself or come along and pick it?"
"If you're up for doing it yourself I think that would be better. I have very little opinion on jewelry and would probably annoy the sales girl.”
“Okay.” He leaned closer to kiss her. “Let’s get you in the bath.”
Fortunately, Sharon had vacated by the time they got in there. James started the water and went rummaging under her sink for her bath stuff, while she peeled out of her dirty clothes.
Soon she was soaking happily in lavender scented purple water. He kissed the top of her head and left her to drift. She could hear him and Sharon talking, super hearing good enough to pick up on him discouraging her from taking Amanda's favorite T-shirt. Content he had that handled, she stretched out her limbs and relaxed.
Eventually he came back in to wash her hair. He did it quietly, and it was a content silence. She supposed they should enjoy the quiet while they had it.
When her hair was rinsed and her finger tips pruny he helped her out of the tub and wrapped her in a fresh towel. "Did Sharon leave or is she crashing here?”
He shrugged. “She said she has somewhere to be.”
That didn't surprise her at all. "So. Sleep in and be lazy tomorrow?”
“I cannot even describe how how appealing that sounds.”
She kissed him. "Let's go to bed.”
After that, life settled down. The US government decided to take the PR lifeline Sam offered them. Walker had been temporary, an error in judgement, and this was the Captain America that Steve Rogers had chosen. They patted themselves on the back for their inclusiveness. Sam rolled his eyes and asked for a couple of favors in return, including a pardon for Sharon and a public admission about what happened to Isaiah Bradley.
Sam liked doing things with style, so he got Isaiah added to the Captain America exhibit at the Smithsonian. When she went down to talk to him about Eli, he insisted on taking her down to DC to see it.
“I’ve been wanting to talk to you about Eli,” he told her as they wandered the exhibit. “It’s cute he thinks I don’t know.”
"He's a teenager," she said. "They think they're genius and everyone over twenty is a dullard.”
“And you were perhaps thinking because I was an old man I wouldn’t notice that bump.” He gestured at her midsection. It wasn’t completely obvious and she kept it reasonably hidden with her clothing. Anyone who didn’t know her—know what she was—would probably think 40 was just getting the better of her waistline. But she was definitely showing.
"I was going to tell you," she protested. "I'm just still dealing with some nerves. Keep thinking I'll wake up and it won't be true.”
Isaiah nodded. “Felt like that for a decade when I got out of prison.”
Amanda nodded, pausing to look at the rather impressive statue of a young Isaiah standing in the middle of the exhibit. "Good things are sometimes harder to accept then the bad. Especially when you're used to the bad.”
“Ain’t that the truth.” He shook his head. “Well, congratulations. I sure as heck didn’t expect to get a baby for my 75th birthday, but it all worked out for the best. They keep you young.”
"Thank you. I'll be sure to bring her by so you can hold her and grumble how she's pale and not that cute anyway."
“Probably.” He sighed, and was quiet a moment. Then, “They got on the breeding thing at one point. While I was locked up. I never met Eli’s father, but he was a product of that. He was apparently trouble his whole life, in and out of jails and mental hospitals. I figured he didn’t get that thing you told me about that made me sane. I’m not sure how much I can consider someone made in a lab with my genes that I never knew existed my son, but…” He shrugged. “After he died, his girlfriend’s aunt showed up at my door with Eli, told me the whole story as relayed to her, and asked me if I could take the baby.”
Since he'd come back around to the topic, she figured it was time to jump in. "I'm going to need to take some blood samples from him," she said quietly. "And run some tests. If we're lucky he has the same genetic anomaly as you do and that's the end of it.”
“And if not?”
"I redouble my efforts in getting funding to continue my research.”
Isaiah nodded, and she could see his shoulder slump a bit. She thought about the vials she had stashed in the house, from her serum. It was a fantastic place to start her research. She wouldn’t need much, but she would need more than she had.
Back in New York, she did what research she could without a lab—there was quite a bit of reading and organizing. If she was going to get any kind of funding, she needed more than theories. She called around to try and find a lab she could use for Eli’s blood, before giving up and sending a sample out to one of those genealogy testing places under a fake name. She’d get a DNA sequence from it and could work from there.
Sam had roped James into helping with the new mini-Avengers thing he seemed to be doing. It seemed to be more publicity events than anything else, but it made him happy. James went down to Louisiana regularly for training exercises that, based on the videos he sent her, mostly involved them sitting on the dock with beers watching Torres crashing Sam’s old wings into the Gulf of Mexico.
They were trialing out different things to call James, some of which were better than others. The only thing he wouldn’t allow was any variant on Winter Soldier. He was happy. Amanda was restless.
Then one day, while James was at therapy, Amanda got a certified letter in the mail. It informed her that grant funding, from a large, well known and well regarded research foundation, had been approved. It was for theoretical research into medical applications of the super soldier serum, and it was a very large number.
Amanda had not applied for any kind of research grant.
Well, that certainly confirmed a couple of strong suspicions she'd had. She went down to the corner market and got stuff to make dinner. When James's got home she was at the kitchen table with her laptop, looking at lab space in Louisiana.
“Hey,” he called, coming into the kitchen.
"Hey." She tipped her head back to get a kiss. "Good session?”
“Yeah, spent most of it talking about you.”
She imagined she was a frequent topic of conversation. "I got some interesting mail today," she said, nudging the grant paperwork towards him.
He picked it up and frowned at it. “I don’t understand.”
"I received a very large, open ended grant I didn't apply for." She gestured at her computer. "I checked. It's a legitimate organization. Started up about three years ago.”
The frown deepened. “Zemo?”
"I thought about that, but I think his thinking is too linear. Even if he thought there was medical uses for it, he'd consider it too dangerous." She paused. She'd spent a chunk of the afternoon trying to figure out a way to tell him about this without breaking patient confidentiality. "How well do you know Sharon?”
“Not all that well. I feel bad about what happened to her, considering it was for me. The whole thing with Steve turned out honestly too weird to talk about.” He gestured with the paper. “You think this is her?”
"I do," she said. "I think she might be a much more powerful figure in Madripoor than she let on.”
“Because of the money? You should see what some of those paintings go for—and I don’t think she’s just a dealer, she’s probably stealing them herself.”
"Fair enough." She flattened a hand on the paperwork. "But, this does solve a problem I discussed with her when I was working on her bullet wound. I talked to her about the serum being unstable and the eventual health issues it would cause. And I have reason to believe she might have a vested interest in finding a solution to that.”
“You’re saying she took it? That certainly explains some things.”
"Like how she was walking around with a gut wound. And fought off half the bounty hunters in Asia while we were in with Nagle." Amanda ran her fingers over the line of zeros on her grant amount. "She clearly has some pull with people, with all the recon she was able to do. I think she figured out how to give me a opening to help her. In any case, the money and the organization are both legit, so I'm going to run with it." She turned her laptop to show him the searches she'd been doing. "Do we want to talk about moving?”
Chapter 16: It's good to have family
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
It was the thick of summer, and the oppressive heat and humidity was a visceral reminder than New Orleans had been built on a swamp. But he would never inhale icy air in the middle of winter and have a flashback, so he could handle some muggy August.
He felt bad for Amanda, though. It was probably still going to get a little hotter, and she was definitely going to get more pregnant. And yet, she was happier than he’d seen her in while.
Perhaps not right this moment, as they were driving on a bumpy bayou road heading to the Wilson’s dock all the way out on the coast. The air conditioning was not keeping up with the heat and she was turning greener by the moment. Pregnancy had returned a touch of the motion sickness the serum had fixed. “You want me to pull over?”
She shook her head and pulled out a little packet from her purse and ripped it open, sniffing it. "I'm all right. Let's just get there.”
They drove the rest of the way in silence, and the road smoothed out a bit before they finally got to the dock—where there were a lot of people. “You need to sit a minute?” he asked after he parked.
She eyed the crowd, then cracked the window and took a deep breath. "Ah, no. The air off the water helps. As would something to drink." She glanced in the back seat. "Desserts seem to have survived.”
Bucky was worried the smell of the fish would get her, but then she hadn’t had morning sickness, it was just the bouncing. “I will get them.”
Sam’s family was having a party, and he’d invited them. It had seemed like the perfect time to visit. He’d been instructed to bring some desserts. Amanda had been horrified by his suggestion of getting a cake from the grocery store and dragged him to a fancy bakery in the French Quarter and now there were boxes of profiteroles and beignets he had to carefully balance while getting mobbed by small children.
Sam's nephews came running at him and he went through the motions of exchanging blows with them, along with appropriate fierce facial expressions.
Amanda ducked around them, glancing at him with an indulgent smile before taking the boxes from him so he could wrestle properly.
Sarah met her halfway to the tables. "You must be Amanda."
"I am." She smiled and let her take the desserts from her. "You must be Sarah.”
“Nice to meet you. I have heard so much about you.” Sarah glanced down at Amanda’s now very unmistakable baby bump—she’d done the adorable basketball thing—but said nothing, because no woman ever would.
"Thanksgiving," Amanda said in answer to the unspoken question. "Or thereabouts. A girl. We're still discussing names. So far all we've agreed to is not Samantha, no matter how many times your brother suggests it.”
“What I want to know is why neither of those idiots told me.” She grinned. “Congratulations. Delivery is a bitch but the kids are mostly worth it.”
"Thank you. And you can blame me for the secrecy," she added, glanced at him as he joined them. "I'm forty, feeling a little superstitious about the high risk pregnancy." She paused and her head titled the way it did when she had a new science problem to sort through. "Something smells delicious.”
Sarah grinned. “Everything here is delicious.”
“Doc!” Sam appeared from somewhere and reached out to hug her, and the Bucky. “My favorite doctor and my favorite cyborg.” Sam was someone who hugged people, and was on the very short list of people either he or Amanda let do it.
“Where is Lani?” Bucky asked him. “Amanda is dying to meet her.”
“Oh, that’s mutual, she’s around here somewhere.” He paused, and lowered his voice to talk just to Bucky. “She knows about the baby, but promised to pretend to be surprised.”
"Pregnancy didn't effect the super hearing," Amanda said, rubbing her belly. "I've given up hiding, obviously. She seems pretty determined to stick around.”
“I just want you to know it was not me,” Sam said. “I fear you and follow your instructions.”
She tilted her head, obviously running through options. "Walker? Or did James's lack of poker face get him in trouble again?”
“Walker. She didn’t tell me why.”
"Was Walker invited?" Bucky thought that was pretty unlikely, for a number of reasons, but they had kind of mended fences since New York. And the fact he was clearly still seeing Lani said a lot.
“We’re not exactly buddies,” Sam said. “But he is down here. He moved to Biloxi to help Lemar. Which, I admit, says something. Lemar is a decent dude, I’d have invited him but Lani likes to keep her boundaries.”
Bucky could pick up the faint hum of Lani’s braces—Sam called them bionic pants—as she came over to them. She had a t-shirt with an outline of the shield and the wings on it. “You have merch now?” he asked Sam as he waved.
“It’s all over the internet,” he said. “Though I could sell it, I now have the copyrights. Sarah thinks we should.”
Lani reached them before Bucky could reply. “Gentlemen.” She reached out a hand to Amanda. “Dr. Newbury.”
"Dr. Yee," she replied, shaking her hand. "I am so glad I finally get to meet you.”
“You want to come get some iced-tea? I hear you are a connoisseur.”
As they walked off, Bucky leaned over and said. “See, now they’re conspiring and I am scared.”
"Yeah, we're in trouble," Sam agreed, but he sounded delighted about it. "Come on, we have a ton of food."
“So you have your shield copyrighted?”
“I think it’s technically a trademark. I didn’t do it. Thanks to some WW2 era contract somebody didn’t read too well, Stark’s father retained the rights to everything he made for the Army, including Steve and the shield. Pepper is pretty done with anything Avenger related and was in the middle of selling those rights to the government when Walker decapitated someone with the shield live on camera. Rhodes called me a week after that big thing in New York and sent me paperwork.”
"Huh." Bucky paused by the ice chest and grabbed a beer. "I wish I knew Stark owned the copyright to Steve when he was still around to mock him about it.”
“Lani suggested I do it for charity.”
"It's a good idea. If the internet is anything to go by, you're pretty popular.”
“She wants more t-shirts. She’ll probably tell you you should get a symbol so you can have t-shirts. Maybe little baby onesies with a wolf on it."
"That would be adorable." It was actually now all he could picture. "We sticking with White Wolf?”
“I got an earful about it from the Princess with the last software update.”
Bucky smiled. "Well, if it's by royal decree. . .”
They went and found seats at the picnic tables with the others. Sarah and Amanda were having a conversation about breast pumps that he imagined Sam wished they weren’t discussing. Torres was going to do a demo of the wings later where he swore he wasn’t going to have any water landings. Sam got talking about expanding the team in an unexpected place.
“She’s in some random little town in New Jersey. Built a house. Seems happy. Lani helped her find a therapist because Superhero Mental Health Referrals is her side hustle."
"Is Wanda interested in still being on the team?" Bucky asked. "If she's found peace, even in Jersey, we could just let her be.”
“She doesn’t want to do any fighting—which I get—but says she’d love to help with natural disasters.”
“She'd be good at that. And the moving stuff with her mind is a lot easier sell than the messing with your mind with her mind thing.”
“I don’t want us to be just a convenient solution for conflict. I want us to be a source of help for people who need it most. Like the vigilante stuff we used to do during our years on the run.”
"I'd like that. So would she," he added, gesturing at Amanda at the other end of the table. "I'm told once the baby is old enough to leave with someone, she wants to keep tagging along. I'd feel a lot better about taking her to earthquake relief than I would about fire fights.”
“If you lived nearby you could probably talk Sarah into watching the baby.”
Bucky grinned. If the man was going to give him that big of an opening. "Now that you mention it. . . how would you feel about us being neighbors?”
Sam laughed. “You gonna pull a yacht up to the dock or something?”
"Well, neighbors might have been over selling it but-" He jerked his thumb in Amanda's direction again. "She got grant money to study the serum. Turns out lab space in New Orleans is very reasonable."
"Are you telling him?" she asked, looking over at them. "I wanted to get a picture of his face.”
“You’re kidding?” Sam asked, grinning at him. “You’re really moving down here? New Orleans is a great town."
"We've got a real estate agent showing us three houses tomorrow," Bucky told him.
"Two of them are haunted!" Amanda added brightly.
"She considers this a plus.” Bucky shook his head, sipping his beer. “You would not believe what she’s getting for the walkup in Brooklyn."
“In New York? Yeah I would. Hey, you want some company tomorrow? You're not from here, you may not always know what you’re looking at. I don’t want somebody thinking they’ve got a yankee sucker.” He leaned forward to look down at Amanda. “They got kudzu in North Carolina?”
"Kill it with fire," she replied.
"Gonna take that as a yes."
"But, yeah, you're welcome to come along. We're looking at fixer uppers and I'm definitely going to rope you into helping.”
“Old houses?”
"Older than me.”
Sam pointed at him. “Nothing built before 1870.”
He blinked and glanced at Amanda, who gave him a thumbs up. "All right, sounds good.”
“Hey, there’s Torres,” Sam said. “You guys ready for a flight demo?”
"I can't wait," Amanda said. "Do we need ponchos if we're in the splash zone?”
“There will be no crashing!” Torres called. “Hi, Doc.”
She waved. "Impress me!”
He grinned widely. “You bet, ma’am.”
Sam hopped up. “Going to suit up as well.” He leaned over to kiss the top of Lani’s head. “Someone save me a beignet.”
"I draw the line at fighting a pregnant lady for desserts," Lani told him.
“I wouldn’t fight Amanda for anything,” Sam replied. “She fights dirty.”
"I can see that about her." Sam grinned and gave her another kiss before heading off to get dressed.
Bucky put his arm around Amanda’s shoulders and she tucked into them as they turned to watch the water and wait for the show. An impromptu band was playing music a little way down the dock, and he smiled. “This was a good idea,” he said quietly.
"It was." She leaned her head on his shoulder, rubbing her belly idly. "It's good to have family.”
*
On Monday they put an offer in on an 1884 Italianate that looked delightfully like it could have been a full on haunted house, with an overgrown yard Sam pronounced free of kudzu. They put the place in New York on the market in Tuesday and had seven offers by the of the week.
The house wasn’t entirely habitable, particularly for a pregnant woman, but there was an apartment over the garage that was that they moved into. Her father packed up his tools and Cujo, hitched the camper, and drove down to New Orleans. He stayed in the camper while he and James made a full time job of renovating the house. Amanda got to work setting up her lab.
Sam came up to help with the house a lot. On weekends he’d bring his nephews and put them to work in the yard. Sometimes he’d bring Lani, and she and and Amanda got to sit in the shade watching their men work shirtless in Louisiana heat.
“When he stays at my place, sometimes I wake up in the morning he’s out in the yard doing pushups or gymnastics in nothing but shorts.”
"You could film that and make a fortune," Amanda said, sipping her sweet tea. She finally lived in a state that knew how to make it.
“We’ve been talking about getting a house together,” Lani said. “In the city or just outside.”
"Dad and James owe him quite a few labor hours," she said. Looking over at Lani, she added, "It's a nice place to live. And I'm quite the city slicker.”
“The drive is getting to us. I only need to be on the base a day or two of the week, and Biloxi isn’t really either of our kind of town anyway.” She took a sip of her tea. “I’m from the Bay Area in California, by way of Hawaii. Interesting and diverse places. Not somewhere your neighbor calls you the Nice Oriental Lady.”
Amanda snorted. "I mean, there's still gonna be that type of person in the city around here. But fewer and farther between. New Orleans is pretty progressive — Mardi Gras and all that — and everyone I've met has been super sweet. The fuss they make over my being pregnant is ridiculous.”
“You going to take some time off when the baby is born?”
"I won't be going into the lab, but I may try to do some work at home, depending on how tired I am." She shifted and pressed a spot on her belly the baby was kicking. "I have a few people waiting on results, I don't have a lot of time to take off.”
“John Walker has told me about the serum—and that I could talk to you about it.”
"Oh good. It's so awkward talking around it sometimes. His last set of tests show he's holding steady. There's been no physical damage to his brain. I credit you with keeping his mental health on even keel. The serum Nagel made is based off the late 40s cocktail, but it's more refined, simply by being done of more advanced equipment. The men in the Tuskeegee trials only made it a few months, I think Walker has something like years. But the faster I get some answers and treatment the better it'll be." She didn't want to have the answer when he — or Sharon — were too far gone to fix.
The rest of the super soldier flag smashers had either been killed or were somewhere in the criminal justice system. She’d pursue that aspect when she had better answers.
“His PTSD is significant but doesn’t seem to have been worsened by the serum. I know you said some of the flag smashers were bringing to show signs of instability.”
"From what the others have said, Karli degraded significantly in the last weeks of her life. I have a theory that stress causes the symptoms to worsen or speed up. There could also be genetic factors. Unfortunately my sample size is so small it's all going to remain theories.”
“He asked me if you could undo it. The serum.”
Amanda tipped her head back, considering. "I don't know. I don't think so. Not without risking severe cellular damage.”
“He’s concerned about accidentally hurting someone, such as his wife, which is a concern I can understand.”
She did sympathize. Certainly James would worry if she wasn't a super soldier. "Once I get the serum stabilized, I can look into it.”
“I don’t think he’d ask you himself, he seems concerned about overstepping.”
Amanda arched a brow. "You can assure him he's my patient and he can ask me whatever he likes.”
“I believe payment is a his concern.” Lani squinted at the house. “Maybe you should put him to work."
"Not sure how the boys would feel about that." While she didn't think James and Sam held any ill will towards Walker — they supported her finding a way to fix his serum — neither of them seemed eager to be buddies with him.
Lani shrugged. “I didn’t ask Sam, as that’s technically between you and Walker. Maybe they have something they need shoveled or brush clearing when no one is home. Or if you have something at the lab that needs doing. Earning vs entitlement is an interest he’s taken that is encouraging.”
Amanda sipped her tea. "I'll give it some thought. We got along all right when he helped in New York. I don't blame the guys for not trusting him immediately, but it's clear he's trying to do better.”
“Everybody works on their own timeline with that kind of thing.”
"James especially should be sympathetic to someone looking for a second chance.”
“I know the topic of Walker is…particular.”
"I was not there for the big fight when they took the shield from him," she said thoughtfully. "But I certainly saw the aftermath. It was. . . brutal and I don't think any of them got any closure afterwards." She looked over at Lani. "Maybe you should host a group session.”
She inclined her head. “I keep my boundaries very carefully. I’m not as objective as I’d need to be for that. Dr. Ferris likely could, if Bucky was genuinely interested.” Lani was quiet, and Amanda could almost see her ‘mode’ change. They were similar like that. “Sam’s talked a lot about that fight,” she said. “Brutal’s a good word.”
"James has told me small bits, here and there. Enough I know it was bad." The baby kicked again and she sighed, standing to rock a little and try to settle her. "I don't know how interested he would be about burying the hatchet. But Walker seems to be . . . entwined with us somehow.”
“I suppose because neither you nor I is willing to leave him to his fate. Professional ethics do us in?”
"They do tend to cause me a lot of headaches," she said. "Though, without us, there'd be a potentially unstable, rogue, super soldier out in the world. Which sounds bad.”
“That’s been my logic. The army thought they could cast him out and he’d just go away. If someone doesn’t treat him, he’s just going to get worse.”
"Do you think it would be useful for him to join the neo-Avengers team Sam and James are cobbling together?”
“I’m not sure he’d be stable in a combat situation. But maybe someday.”
"They already have one member who refuses to do combat. But will happily go help in a disaster situation.”
“Let’s see if they can stand him for some construction, first.”
"Fair enough." She glanced back over at the house. "My dad is starting to mutter about finding a place himself. My devious plan is working.”
“It’s good to have family nearby.”
"He needs more people," Amanda said. "For a while it was just the two of us. We're both getting used to the idea there might be more.”
“You seem to be doing pretty good with the multiplying,” Lani commented.
"It was a surprise." In a lot of ways. She still wasn't 100% sure how it had happened. Several discussions with ob/gyns she trusted enough to tell most of the story to had gotten her a handful of theories. But mostly it seemed to have been a very lucky fluke. "But now we have Sam and his family, you. Ayo and her family, though neither she or James will admit it out loud. Her wife seems to have full adopted us, so I consider it official.”
Lani laughed. “It’s always good to have lots of aunties.”
"I think so."
The house was declared livable by her collected menfolk by the fall, just around the time Amanda started to zero in on the compound in the serum that caused the mental deterioration. Having samples of her and Nagel's serums, plus samples from a variety of soldiers sped up her work immensely. Even Isaiah and Eli donated some. It was still going to be a process to isolate counteract the compounds, but it was a nice solid step one and she was happy to have it done before she had to leave for maternity rest.
Her pregnancy had been mercifully symptom free, thanks, she presumed, to the serum. She ate them out of house and home, and gave up on pants by the end of September, but otherwise didn't have much complaints.
Her father, as she'd predicted, didn't much like the idea of going back to North Carolina, now that he had a grand baby on the way. Louisiana was full of ramshackle bungalows near the water, so she gave him the name of her real estate agent and braced James for a lot more house repair.
He and Sam had been vaguely hesitant about letting Walker join them. But after a little cajoling from her and, she suspected, Lani, they invited him to work on the porch roof with them. It was painfully awkward at first, but there was something about hauling lumber and sweating with a guy that seemed to loosen men up. By the end of the project he was staying an extra half hour in the evening to drink beer and talk to them. Amanda made a point to make herself scarce during man-talk, and James didn't share much. But Walker seemed a hell of a lot happier than when he'd first come to help out, and that had to count for something.
It was well into October and they decided this was a house that needed doing up for Halloween. When everyone came over to decorate, Walker brought Lemar with him, who’d finally been given permission to take his exo-suit off the base by himself. It was a matte dark blue and black, and looked very Iron Man—if Tony Stark had had any sense of subtlety or taste. It was remarkable how easily and smoothly he moved, particularly given what she’d heard about how complicated it actually was.
“Well, if it isn’t the woman who saved my life.”
Amanda smiled, genuinely delighted to see him doing so well. "Good to see you. In much better circumstances.”
“You’ve clearly got some stuff going on, too,” he said with a grin.
She patted her now very protruding belly. "Yep. Gonna paint her orange and go as a pumpkin this Halloween.”
“As you must,” he replied.
Sam’s nephews came bounding over. “Are you War Machine?” AJ asked.
“Are you the new Iron Man?” Cass asked.
Lemar grinned at them. “I’m Battlestar.”
“Cool. Can we hang off your arms like Uncle Bucky’s robot arm?”
He squinted a moment. “Probably.” He stuck his arms out at his sides. “One each.”
They jumped, almost in unison, to grab his arms and dangle. "Oh, if you replace James as favorite uncle, he'll never forgive you," Amanda said. "Would you like some sweet tea when you're done being a jungle gym?”
“Thank you, ma’am, that sounds delicious.”
She was probably going to need to get used to the "ma'am" thing living in the south. "People whose lives I save can call me Amanda," she told him. "Or Doc, if you can't manage the first name."
"Doc seems to fit you."
"That seems the popular opinion," she agreed, heading inside to get the sweet tea pitcher and a bunch of glasses for the guys.
The kids must have gone off, because she was just getting all the ice scooped out when he came into the kitchen, having apparently negotiated the rickety wooden back stairs—the boards weren’t all fully nailed down—with no problem. “Um. Sorry, I may have broken your screen door.”
“Oh, no, that comes off if you pull it too hard. James and I do it once a week.” It was cheap and from home depot, the original long gone. Her father was making them a new one, historically accurate, but he was waiting on a piece of salvaged southern heart pine or. . . something. He and James combined had only made their mutual obsession with quality wood worse.
“Good to know.” He paused. “I wanted to thank you for saving John, too.”
She glanced over at him. "That was mostly Lani, I think. While a fan of therapy, I'm not particularly good at it.”
“He told me about the serum.”
"Ah." She poured tea into one of the glasses of ice and haded it to him. "It's not fixed yet. But I conquered a major hurdle last month and my colleagues and I have a lot of hope.”
“Olivia—that’s his wife, I don’t know if you’ve met her—told me there’s some weird lady who want to hire him to do superhero stuff. But like not in a good way. He said no because of what was going on here, and I for one am grateful.”
"Well, you're very welcome." She sipped her own tea. "Though that sounds like something Sam should be made aware of, if he wasn't already.”
“S’why I’m telling you. I respect that nothing gets passed through Dr. Yee, that’s how it should work. But also, you know…” He made a gesture with his hand, then immediately took a step to the left and made a noise of exasperation. The controls were a glove on his left hand. “That’s hard habit to break.”
She stifled a laugh. "Mobility devices usually come with some sort of learning curve," she said. "And I will pass the information on to James and Sam. Someone recruiting enhanced people for shady reasons never ends well.”
“Much obliged,” he said with a grin.
Lemar started coming to work on the house after that—a titanium exo suit that could lock into place turned out to be surprisingly useful on a construction site. He and James spent three hours in the cellar the day they leveled the dining room floor serving as human floor jacks.
James really wanted to host Thanksgiving at their house. Amanda’s due date was the Sunday after the holiday, and she agreed only because Sarah and Lani said they would do all the cooking.
That Wednesday was the last day before she expected to start her maternity leave, and she was trying to get things buttoned up in case labor started over the long weekend. Mid way through the day, Sharon Carter strolled into her office.
"Hello," Amanda said, hiding her surprise. "I didn't expect you to be in town.”
“I have been officially offered a pardon,” she said. “I came home for Thanksgiving. It’s been a long time.”
"Congratulations," Amanda said. "I'm sure your family is excited to have you home.”
“They are. Though I haven’t yet told them I’m not staying.”
She felt her brows lift. "Going back to Madripoor?”
Sharon nodded. “The US government offered me my old job back. Thought about it for a hot minute, but…I’m not her anymore. I have things over there I’m fond of that I don’t want to give up. The money is vastly better. Not to mention-” She broke off, sighed, and looked at Amanda. “Have you ever heard the story of San Francisco during Prohibition?”
"I know the mob couldn't get a foot hold because the police were already running the speak easies.”
“If a vacuum exists, sometimes the best thing to do is fill it so something worse doesn’t get in.”
Amanda studied her. "I suppose during the Blip there was a lot of chaos. Provided someone who wanted to change things a lot of opportunities.”
“You’d be surprised how far you can ride an inherited reputation. You learn a lot of smoke and mirrors in spy craft.”
"Well, you make a wonderful Dread Pirate Roberts," Amanda assured her. "And my mysterious benefactor can rest assured I'm making excellent progress on the serum.”
“Enough to solve the problem?”
"Soon," she said with confidence. "Within the year.”
“So far, still perfectly sane.” Sharon smiled. “I think.”
"You got someone you trust who'll tell you otherwise?”
“Yeah.” Sharon looked Amanda in the eye. “He’s got your number. And the ability to take me out if needs be.” Amanda supposed if you lived Sharon’s life, you had to be pragmatic about that sort of thing. And suspected whomever she was talking about was the thing in Madripoor she was too fond of to leave.
"Good to know. I'll let you know when I have something solid.”
“Thanks. Good luck with the baby. Tell Barnes I said congrats.” She pushed off the table she was leaning on, then hesitated. “Hey listen, I haven’t had a period since the serum. How worried should I be about…” She gestured at Amanda’s bump.
"Well, up until about eight months ago, I thought I was infertile, so. . ." She spread her hands. "I know I didn't ovulate regularly after taking the serum. I'm pretty sure this was a fluke. How exactly it happened, I'm not sure. It might have been because James is a super soldier himself. Or it could be that I did ovulate occasionally and the stars aligned. I think you're probably all right with normal birth control procedures.”
Sharon laughed a little. “Good to know.” She strolled to the door. “Happy Thanksgiving.”
Notes:
Only one more chapter left!
Chapter 17: There are three of us now
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Bucky’s first Thanksgiving in the future, he’d eaten takeout in front of the TV. Now, they were hosting a proper Thanksgiving in a house that he owned, with a full table of people. He’d pictures it very traditionally, turkey roasting in the oven, mashed potatoes covered in butter, maybe a green bean casserole.
He was not in charge of the menu, however. The turkey was being deep fried, there was pork roasting on a spit outside, and at least four different kinds of fish were being argued over in the kitchen—which had been taken over by a leprechaun sized old asian lady who had flown from San Francisco carrying a bucket full of Dungeness crab.
“So I realize, in retrospect, I probably should have asked Lani how many of them there were,” Sam told him as they stood outside watching the turkey bubble away in peanut oil.
“There seem to be a lot of Yees,” Bucky replied.
“She didn’t expect them all. I think it’s like that thing with wedding invitations, where you invite a bunch of out of town family figuring only a quarter of them will actually get on a plane. Only they all got on the plane.”
Bucky looked over at him. “I’m from the 1940’s.”
“Well, it’s a thing. You’re gonna have one soon, and you’ll see.”
“Sam, all the blood relatives Amanda and I have combined literally live in this house.”
He pointed towards the house. “Lani’s family will totally come to your wedding for free food.”
"I can't decide if that would help talk her out of eloping or push her entirely over the edge.”
“She was super excited about that crab.”
“She went to Stanford,” Bucky said. “She likes San Francisco things.”
Sarah came out of the house with a spoon war held it out to Sam to taste. “Yes?”
“Almost,” he replied, and apparently that was a good answer, because she nodded, then turned to Bucky and said, “Amanda wanted me to tell you to come upstairs for a minute.”
He frowned. "Is everything okay?"
Sarah shrugged. "She seemed her usual self, accounting for nine-month pregnant cranky.”
Bucky left them with the turkey, and went upstairs. As he passed he could see Amanda’s Dad and Lani’s brother snaking the franken-table they were setting up through the pocket doors into the parlor. He was really glad they’d gotten those unstuck so they both opened at once last week.
Amanda appeared to be pacing their bedroom. “You okay?” he asked from the doorway.
"I'm fine," she said. "But I am in labor.”
He stared at her. “It’s Thanksgiving.”
"Shoot, you're right," she said, pacing past him. "Hang on, I'll tell her it's not a good time. Whoops, don't think she cares.”
“I just…I mean, what do we do? Do we go to the hospital now? Do you want to eat first? Should I go throw everyone out down there?” He tried to keep the panic out of his voice.
Amanda's brows went up. "James, honey, breathe." He did so. "Labor takes a while. You can ask Sarah, I'm sure she'll tell you. We don't have to kick anyone out. My water hasn't even broken yet. I probably shouldn't eat, but I'm going to because I'm starving.”
“Why shouldn’t you eat? Delivering a baby seems like hard work requiring fuel.”
"There's a risk of vomit and aspiration if they have to put me out for a C-section. But as I cannot be sedated and think the odds of needing a C-section are remote I'm going to indulge in all the crab I want.”
“Okay,” he said after a moment. “You’re the doctor.”
"It's okay, honey," she promised, coming over to kiss him. "Women do this every day and they're not even super soldiers.”
“I’ll be cool, I promise. You won’t need to worry about me, you just worry about her. I’ll go check on the turkey.”
"Okay. I'll be down in a second. Try not to tell anyone who'll freak out.”
“So not Dad?"
"No, he would have me in the car before you finished the sentence.”
Outside, he found Sam checking the turkey’s temperature. Sam looked over at him, took a good look at his face, and then asked, “She in labor?”
He really did have no poker face, did he? “Uh, yeah. She says she wants to eat first."
“Bird’s almost done. Go make sure they’re done with the table and give Grandma Yee a ten minute warning.”
Sam was a goof friend, because Sam gave him things to do.
The table was assembled, more or less, and Mrs. Yee's response was something in Korean that might have been acknowledgement or a curse, there was no way to tell.
Amanda had made her way down stairs and was counting plates with her father and debating if they needed to go the "the good stuff" from the attic. Bucky did his best to stay out of the way, but was grateful when they decided they had enough plates. Apparently at Christmas they were definitely going to get the good plates.
Food started arriving on the table as the last of the plates were set out. Mrs. Yee plunked an entire platter of crabs in front of Amanda's seat, giving the baby bump a little pat on her way back to grab more food. Amanda was grinning, swaying a little as she held onto the back of her chair and eyeing the crab like she was going to bodily dive into the pile.
“Scout, are you all right?”
She glanced over at her father, whom Bucky had made a point of not talking to. "I'm fine Dad, why?"
"Your mother swayed just like that when she was in labor with you girls."
Bucky was surprised to see tears well up at that. She blinked them away and let out a long, slow breath. "I'm a little bit in labor, but I want to eat dinner before going to the hospital."
Her dad, somehow, looked even more panicked than Bucky felt. "What? We should be going right now! Where's your bag? You packed a bag, right? We-"
"Sit down," Mrs. Yee said, putting an enormous bowl of mashed potatoes on the table. "She's a doctor and a woman, she'll know when it's time to leave. Eat your crabs, dal," she added, waving Amanda into her seat.
"She used dal," Lani said, setting out a bowl of bread rolls. "She means serious business.”
“Does anyone else get crab?” Lani’s sister asked.
"You want crab you give me grand babies!" Mrs. Yee yelled from the kitchen.
Lani shook her head. "There's a second tray," she told her sister, pointing.
“I assumed that was for you,” she replied. “Since you have a man and are probably a better target for the grandchild whining.”
"I'm flattered you think I can down a platter of crab on my own," she said, putting a hand on her chest. "Personally, I have my eyes on the roast pig.”
If he could ignore, for a moment, the whole impending birth angle, this was exactly what Bucky wanted. The sort of thing he’d pictured from inside foxholes and from sniper posts in trees in the ’40's, of life after the war. A whole bunch of people, of family, gathered around a long table squabbling over side dishes.
Though, 1940’s him would have found the baby-on-the-way to have fit in just perfectly.
Mrs. Yee and Sarah managed to use their combined Mom Powers to get everyone seated and served. Grace was said - quickly and efficiently - and then dug into food. Amanda attacked the crab like it had personally offended her. Lani and her siblings bickered good naturally about who had taken more potatoes. AJ and Cas tried to get away with eating only bread rolls and candied yams.
It was loud and boisterous, in a way that would have seemed impossible a year ago in his lonely, barely furnished apartment. Their blood relations might all live in this house, it was very clear their family was huge.
He noticed Amanda had started checking her watch as she ate. Second helpings were being passed out when she said, "Okay, now it's time to go to the hospital.”
Bucky and Amanda’s father stood up at the same time. From a few seat down, Sam said, “Your pie is in the oven.”
“Be that as it may, my contractions are two minutes apart.”
Bucky was pretty sure the explosion of Korean that emerged from Mrs. Yee was profanity. He and Amanda were hustled out side by the entire crowd, it felt. Someone behind him he could hear Sam explaining to someone that while he did know how to deliver a baby, he’d rather not.
Their cars were at the top of the driveway and blocked in by the guests. Lani’s van was the last in, which is how she ended up driving them to the hospital as it had hand controls Bucky didn’t know how to operate.
It was for the best, as he probably would have crashed. The hospital was 3 miles away, through the middle of a city on a holiday.
Amanda remained eerily calm, breathing slowly and watching the time. "James, do you think you can handle calling my doctor and giving her a head's up? She's in the favorite numbers on my phone.”
He did as asked, and the nurse asked him timing on the contractions. She then told him to ignore the signs and pull into the ambulance bay when they got to the hospital.
"I may have cut it close," Amanda admitted when he passed that information onto Lani.
Lani took the last few blocks like a rally racer and cruised into the ambulance bay. A nurse and an orderly trotted out with a wheelchair as he helped Amanda out of the van. She made a face, but his glare was apparently enough to get her to sit without complaint.
They were taken up to the L&D ward and put in a room. A different nurse came in and started talking about paperwork while hooking Amanda up to a monitor. She seemed in less of a hurry than the nurse downstairs. “Have you been timing your contractions, honey?"
"I have, yes," Amanda told her. She had that look on her face that reminded Bucky of a cat about to pounce on a very stupid mouse.
"What are we at?" the nurse asked, not really looking at her.
"Eighty seconds.”
The woman turned looking alarmed. “Maybe we should check you.”
Right then the door opened, and Amanda’s doctor came in. Bucky liked her. Her hair was wet and she was shoving it under a scrubs cap. “I dared to try showering,” she said.
Amanda blew out a slow breath. “I have pecan pie in the oven, if that makes you feel better.”
“Maybe a little.” She pulled up a rolling stool. “Where are you?”
"Pushing is starting to sound like a fabulous idea.”
“Before you do, let me make sure you’re not just going to beat up your cervix.” She leaned over to the nurse. “Get everything prepped, this may not take long.” After the nurse ran off, the doctor checked Amanda and then said, “Yup.” She took her glove off, felt Amanda’s belly, and then squinted at the monitor beeping with the baby’s heart rate. “You’re at ten. Amniotic sac is still intact.”
"I suspected you'd have to break it," Amanda said. "Probably as sturdy as the rest of me.”
“Can I leave it? I’ve never delivered an en caul before.”
Amanda had, of course, found a doctor with similar mad scientist instincts.
She shrugged. "I'm willing to give it a try.”
“It’s your show,” the doctor said, making a gesture at Amanda. “Push away.”
Not really sure what he should do—Amanda was radiating ‘don’t touch me’ like she often did when she was in pain or trying to concentrate—so he just hovered near her head.
She was frowning, then looked over at him. "Sit behind me," she said.
"What?" Never, in a million years, would he have thought she wanted that much contact in a moment like this.
"I'm going to break this bed pushing. Sit behind me, let me push back into you.”
That did make a certain amount of sense, so kicked his shoes on and climbed on the bed behind her. He put his arms around her so she could hold onto his wrists and use them for leverage. And just like that the birth changed from something he was watching to something he was a part of.
She settled back against him and he listened to her breathing to know when the brace himself. In movies and TV women always screamed. Amanda made a low growling noise as the pushed, pressing back into him, gripping his wrists in a viselike grip. A nurse counted down slowly from ten and when she got to one Amanda relaxed against him, breathing hard.
There was a rhythm to it, a few short moments to catch her breath, then a long tense push, then rest again. He learned to push into her when she tensed, giving her better leverage.
“Oh, there goes the water,” the doctor said, sounding mildly disappointed. Then to Amanda, “One or two more tops, make ‘em count.”
She nodded, breathing too hard to say anything, and pushed again, this time with a low moan. The nurse didn't count down, just coaxed her into a little more, then a little more. After a second, seemingly unending push, a baby's cry split the air.
Amanda sagged back against him. As he watched over her shoulder the doctor put the bloody, gunk covered baby up on Amanda’s chest, undoubtedly ruining the dress she’d worn for dinner that she still had on. She let go of his arm and his hand followed hers on instinct, both of theirs settling on the baby’s back. Bucky stared down in absolute awe.
"Hi, baby," Amanda said softly. "You sure know how to make an entrance.”
The baby stopped crying and looked up at them with very familiar blue eyes. She had a little dimple in her chin. “Look at her,” he whispered, voice choked. He felt tears start and couldn’t stop them, so he bent his head and pressed his face into Amanda’s shoulder.
The doctor and nurses had finished up whatever they needed to do and had retreated to give them privacy. Amanda wiped their daughter with a warm cloth, then let a nurse take her long enough to bundle her up. "You want to hold her?" she asked Bucky.
He sniffled inelegantly. “Yeah,” he said, despite finding the idea mildly terrifying.
Amanda scooted over a little so he could rearrange his legs and sit next to her. The nurse set the baby in his arms, a tiny, slight weight compared to what he was used to. “Hi,” he whispered. She was cradled in his real arm, so he touched her tiny hand with one of his vibranium fingers. She immediately wrapped her fingers around it and held on tight.
"She has excellent reflexes," Amanda said, rubbing a finger tip over the back of the baby's hand. Science voice had never sounded so fond.
“I can’t believe we made a person.”
"I can't believe she's finally here.”
Bucky looked up at her. “I love you so much.”
"I love you too," she said, giving him a little kiss. "And our patched together family.”
Eventually, he handed his daughter back to her mother, so she could nurse. “I’m going to go see if Lani is still out in the waiting room and make some calls,” he said. “Should I tell Dad to come over and meet her?”
"Yeah. I'm sure he's dying waiting.”
Bucky hopped up and went into the hallway. A nurse pointed him towards the waiting room, which turned out to be completely full of people. Specifically, all of their Thanksgiving guests were in there. Eating pie.
Dad waved and held out a plate. "We saved you two pieces.”
“Uh.” Bucky gestured over his shoulder. “There are three of us now.”
A little cheer went up through the crowd. When it died down, Sarah said dryly, "Do not feed the baby pie.”
He laughed. “Amanda and the baby are doing great. We still don’t have a name, but Amanda would probably love some pie and has told me Granddad visiting hours are open.”
Dad hopped to his feet, retrieved a little box from Mrs. Yee and headed over. "Grandad would love to visit.”
Bucky took the plate with their pie pieces, and had a round of hugs, before they headed back to Amanda’s room.
The baby had finished eating and was asleep on Amanda's shoulder. Dad went over and gave Amanda a kiss and she promptly handed over his grand baby. Then she looked at Bucky. "Is that pie?”
“Yeah, they’re having a picnic in the waiting room.” He held the plate out. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they brought the whole roast pig.”
"Excellent, I'm starving." She took the plate and dug in, watching her father dance around with the baby. "I had a name idea," she said.
“I would probably agree to anything on earth you asked right now.”
She glanced over at her dad again and smiled. "In To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout's real name is Jean. Jean Samantha Barnes had a nice ring to it.”
“I. . . I think that’s perfect.”
"I'm sure Dad is already brainstorming nicknames.”
Notes:
That's it for this one! We've got some other stories in this series underway, so hopefully will have something up at least starting soon.
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