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Bucky was sitting in the communal area of the tower when he got the call. He wasn’t thrilled about being contacted – it was Valentina – but he picked up anyway. “Barnes,” the grating voice said, “you have a traitor in your midst.”
Not what Bucky had expected the bitch to say AT ALL. “What are you talking about?!”
“We intercepted a signal meant for the enemy. Vital information. And it came from the tower. ONE minute ago. Now, we’re going to look into it from our end, but you better find out who’s playing you!”
Ending the call, Bucky looked around. His team was accounted for and had been for a while. Everybody except for Walker. Bucky saw red. He jumped to his feet and barked, “Walker’s betraying us! Find him and find whatever he’s using to communicate with the enemy!”
They eventually found Walker in the gym – as should have been expected. Keeping his eyes steady on the tall soldier, Bucky told Yelena, Ava, and Bob to start searching first the gym and then Walker’s room. Then, he told Walker to follow him and Alexei to the laundry room.
Making sure that Walker was always in his sight, Bucky led him down the hall, Alexei next to him in lockstep.
Once they had reached the laundry room, Walker looked first at Bucky, then at Alexei, and then back at Bucky before asking, “So, what’s this about?”
“Somebody’s been giving intel to the bad guys, Walker,” Bucky stated. “And you’re the only logical option.”
“What?!” Walker yelled.
But Bucky did not answer Walker, instead he told Alexei to search the man. First, the box gloves came off, then the shoes. Walker remained silent the entire time. Eventually, Bucky told Walker to, “Strip!”
Once Walker was standing in front of them only in his boxers, still silent, Bucky sighed and told Alexei to get some gloves.
Suddenly, Walker started looking nervous and said, “No! No, don’t do that. I’m not gonna let you do that!”
Snarling, “Afraid we’re going to find proof of your little side-activities?”, Bucky wrestled Walker onto the ground and sat on his back. When Walker tried to shake him off, Bucky pressed the blade of his knife into the sensitive skin on Walker’s throat and hissed, “If you stay still, this won’t hurt.”
Strangely, this caused Walker to huff almost amusedly. “They always say that.”
“… always?” Bucky found himself asking.
“What,” Walker grumbled, “does knowing that you’re not the first one take away from your sense of achievement?”
“John, what are you talking about? Did… Did somebody force themselves on you?” Bucky had heard of things like this happening in the military, leaders taking advantage of the forced subordinance. Or maybe it had been a form of torture while in the hands of the enemies? HAD Walker ever been held captive? Bucky realized that he did not know that; he realized that there was a lot he did not know about the man.
Walker’s verbal reply was, “Fuck you, Bucky, you don’t get to feign concern mere minutes after having called me the only logical option for an act of treason!” His physical reaction, however, was quite another. He was breathing too shallowly, his pupils blown too wide. Bucky silently shook his head and tried not to pay attention to how forcefully Walker kept his eyes closed when Alexei returned.
It was after they had torn apart every inch of both the gym and Walker’s room that Bucky got another call from Valentina: “It was a guy working in maintenance. We found him and are going to question him. I'll tell you what he said.”
Bucky kept holding the phone to his ear long after Valentina had ended the call. But eventually he had to inform the team – all of whom were still standing around staring at him expectantly. “It wasn’t Walker…”
Amongst the chaos of ‘How was it not Walker?’, ‘Then why did you say it was?’, and ‘How the hell did this happen?’, Bob asked, “Where IS Walker?”
That was a question for the in-house A.I. to answer, and it said, “I do not know his current location, but he left 17 minutes ago.”
“What did he do right before that?” Ava asked.
“He got dressed with clothes from the laundry room.”
Finding a trained agent turned out to be easier than expected. Bucky had told the others that if Walker wanted to leave for good, he was probably not going to disappear without saying goodbye to Lemar Hoskins. So they had gone to the cemetery. And they did find Walker when they got there. Only, the man was lying on his side, having bled heavily from a wound to his chest.
Shaking his head, Alexei said, “I did not expect Walker to be the suicide type.”
Strangely, Bob, Ava, and even Yelena had a subdued but visceral reaction to that. One more thing Bucky would have to make a mental note of.
But then Yelena said, “But, wait, he would not have shot himself in the chest. It’s stupid. Walker is not stupid.”
Then, Bob: “Hey, there is no gun here…”
Suddenly, they heard a strange gurgling sound. It took Bucky embarrassingly long to figure out that Walker was still alive and struggling for breath.
Walker had not come out of the anesthesia fully yet when Bucky walked right up to the bed and asked, “Did you see who shot you?”
“Why?” Walker slurred.
“So that I can make them pay,” Bucky decided to state.
A tired snort. Then: “I seriously doubt that.”
“John…”
“You would NEVER choose me over anybody!” Walker spat. “Hell, you wouldn’t even choose me over the dirt on your boots. So what did you smoke to convince yourself that I’d be fool enough to believe that you would ever want to avenge me… Especially when it’s Wilson!”
In the beginning of Walker’s rant, Bucky had considered telling him to calm down and to take a breath – the medical monitors had not looked happy with how much Walker was exerting himself. But then Sam’s name had come up, and Bucky had to make sure he had heard right. “Sam?”
“Yeah,” came Walker’s confirmation. “I saw him. Even though it was from quite far away, but nobody else wears a suit like this… And it was a decent shot, I’m not going to take that away from him…”
“Shut up, John… Listen… Something is very wrong here, and I need to get to the bottom of it. I don’t believe that it was Sam, but…”
“Yeah, I’m sure you’ll give HIM the benefit of the doubt.”
Bucky did not even try to defend himself, he just sank his head and walked away.
Bucky snapped his phone open and called Sam. Not giving the man a chance to finish his greeting, he asked, “Why did you try to kill Walker?”
“I did not try to ki-… Wait, is he okay?”
“He’s alive,” Bucky stated. “And pissed, understandably so… You sure it wasn’t you?”
“Bucky,” Sam began, “you know I don’t particularly like the man, but he’s a good solider; he’s useful. I don’t want him dead!”
“Yeah, okay,” Bucky conceded.
Sam then asked, “Do you need help in figuring out who did? Or in making sure he’s safe?”
“Naw, that would only… No.”
When, a few days later, Bucky walked passed the communal area before going to Walker’s room, he asked his teammates, “How is he?”
Ava said, “Healing, slowly.”
Yelena stated, “Still angry.”
Bob replied, “He hasn’t said a single word to any of us.”
And Alexei just shook his head, contrite.
Walker’s room had not been cleaned up, and Bucky feared that it was due to more than just Walker being in too much pain to crouch down and pick things up. The tower had stopped feeling like a home to Walker the second they had pointed the finger at him. It did not matter that the place also looked like it had been hit by a tornado.
Seeing the tall man lying on the bed – even the mattress still had the slashes from where they had cut into it – Bucky stated, “It was a group of Flagsmashers supporters. The data leak and the shot that injured you.”
Walker’s voice was flat when he said, “So I guess it’s MY fault, then.”
“No, that… No, John, that is not what I’m saying. It’s just what I found out, and I thought you might want to know.”
When there was no reply for a long time, Bucky asked, “How do I fix this, John? I’ll do anything. ANYTHING.”
And what Walker said then nearly knocked Bucky on his ass. He said, “Kill me.”
“John, no…”
“Not like that… Or, well, I wouldn’t fight you, but that’s not what I meant… I’m tired, Bucky. I’m tired of trying so damn hard to be a better man but always failing.”
“John, what happened the past week wasn’t on you!”
“Doesn’t matter, “Walker whispered. “I’m tired of fighting for people who will never choose me back. So I’m asking you to fake my death. Lie to Valentina, lie to the press, lie to Olivia, lie to the team, just… Let me go.”
Bucky took a moment to think this through and then said, “Okay, I will… But I’ll need a few weeks to prepare, to make it believable, a decent plan… And I also want to find you a new identity that actually has the potential to make you happy… Can you give me that?”
A nod.
“Thank you, John... You're much better of a man than you give yourself credit for.”
Bucky had not told the others of his plan, but he had told them to help him clean up Walker’s room. So, little by little, they made the place more habitable again. They put things back into place, repaired furniture, and even cleaned a little.
Bucky himself had bought two new picture frames to replace the ones they had broken in their search and made sure to put the photos in with care. One showed Walker with Olivia, one showed him with Lemar. He was smiling in both, happy in a way Bucky feared he was never going to be again.
Secretly, Bucky had hoped that by planning the fake death together with Walker, they would grow close enough for Walker to reconsider.
And maybe things were going in the right direction. At least, Bucky felt that they might be when Walker fell asleep while Bucky was still in his room.
Bucky grabbed all the maps and notes from the bed and carefully put them on Walker’s fixed desk. Then, he took the new blanket and put it over him. “I fucked up with you,” he told the sleeping man. “From the start, I’ve blamed you for things that weren’t your fault… And I’m sorry, John. I wish I could take it back. All of it.”
“You r’lly mean that?” he suddenly heard.
“I do,“ Bucky stated. “But now go to sleep. You’re still healing.”
“Then stop talking.”
“Sorry,” Bucky said and gently tapped his fist against Walker’s shoulder before getting off the bed.
Once he was at the door and ready to turn off the light, he teased, “Don’t let the bedbugs bite… Then again, you’re a super solider. They’d probably explode.”
Walker snorted amusdely at that, and it was the most alive Bucky had seen him since the entire betrayal fiasco.
END