Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There are a great many things to be said about a bloodline that traces back generations to a famous strike team that defined the shape of the modern times.  Although a lot of those things could be arguably unsavory—very little of the past actually retains its glamour when the stories spill from the lips of men with very little affection for political correctness—there is a certain aspect of it that, quite certainly, holds a very specific type of magic.

Enough time has elapsed that very little expectations are attached to certain surnames, but some bloodlines are indelibly marked by memory.

It defines you, that sort of memory. If you let it.

Her name is Carola Jones. She is forty-three years old. She has a husband, Alan, and twin little girls turning twelve next week. Olivia and Amandla.

Two generations back, her grandfather bared his teeth in the face of widespread social prejudice and, proud of himself in a manner only those ritually oppressed may understand, fought alongside a legendary man with a shield.

It’s this history, this bloodline, and a lifetime of living with the knowledge of its legacy, which allows her to take this in stride, today.

He stands in front of her, hands shoved defensively in the pockets of a hooded sweatshirt that for all its deliberate bagginess fails to hide the bulk and power of the frame it tries to conceal. He looks tired and worn and miserable and it’s no wonder; he’s crawled his way out of the distant past, one painful handful of dirt at a time, and although his face looks young and his body looks strong time, it appears, has not been kind.

“I have to admit,” she says, somewhat blankly. “I can’t decide whether I should be surprised or completely unsurprised, considering the company you kept.”

James Buchanan Barnes exhales a laugh through his nostrils that suggests he recognizes the bare bones of amusement in her tone, even though he’s himself immune to it.

“Can’t help you there,” he says, tipping his head to the side in a gesture that was once cocky and now doesn’t quite fit right. “Can’t decide myself.”

“Well, you waded through seventy years of god knows what to get here,” she says. “You might as well come in.”

He arches his brows, strolling inside with the casual relaxation of someone whose muscles are turning to stone in hidden alarm. He hides it well, she thinks, to the unobservant eye; but Carola has an eye for these things honed by the scope of a sniper rifle, and although it’s been a while since she last used a weapon—thirteen years and counting—some edges just never soften.

“Monty told me we’re related,” he says, eyes glancing around in the quickest, sharpest threat assessment Carola has had the privilege of witnessing.

“Monty could have called me and given me a bit of a heads-up, the prick. I’m your grandniece,” she answers. “Very odd to say with you looking twenty years my junior.”

“How do you tell someone this,” he says, and gestures at himself vaguely. “on the phone? And hey. Gotta be open minded,” he chastises.

He makes a good point about the phone. She can’t imagine she’d have reacted well to Monty calling her and saying something like, ‘so, you know how one of my buddies from the war came back from the dead looking exactly the same seventy years later? Guess what, it happened again.’ Not even a posh British accent can salvage that one.

“If I wasn’t, I’d be calling a psychiatrist right now.”

He laughs lightly, but it sounds like he does it at the lack of anything else to do or say. He brings up his right hand and rubs it across his eyes slowly, tiredly. The breadth of his shoulders speaks of strength, but he’s several meals short of his ideal weight. In the pictures she’s seen all her life, Bucky Barnes was always somewhat round-faced, pouty and mostly smirking.

“I need help,” he says at length, dropping his hand and staring at her, like he’s expecting her to turn him around on the spot and evict him from the premises. Something kind and warm and undeniably very motherly, she’s not going to lie to herself about it, spreads across her chest.

“We’re family,” she says simply, coming closer.

“The kind of help I need…,” he pauses, shaking his head slowly. “I’m gonna ask you a lot.”

She regards him for a long moment, his haggard appearance, his youth, the delicate tracing of faded scars across the left side of his neck and throat, like shrapnel. James Buchanan Barnes plummeted to his bloody death seventy years ago, and there is certainly quite a long way to go from that day and place to these, and Carola Jones, granddaughter of Gabe Jones and Emily Barnes, former marine, former sniper SEAL, can read between the lines.

Helicarriers crashing into the Potomac, and Captain America like a storm of unexpected violence, in his war uniform?

“HYDRA,” she murmurs, a flash of anger hot enough to consume her to ashes erupting along her chest and engulfing her lungs. It lasts only as long as she allows it to last; a fraction of a moment, raging uncontrolled, before she inhales and tempers it, breaks the fire down into coals she can use to fuel an oven.

She knows what this means. The timing of his return and HYDRA’s rise from the shadows is too coincidental for the two events to be unrelated. Bucky Barnes won’t be the first unfortunate victim of an organization that will stop at nothing to achieve its goals, nor surely the last. In fact, it won’t even be the first time it happens to him specifically; an idea that makes hatred itch beneath her skin, uncomfortable and heated. The surface of him at least seems functional enough; what lies beneath the mask of his face, Carola knows, will eventually emerge for her to deal with in its time.

Bucky is nodding, slowly, warily. The anger must have shown in her face, but he seems capable of understanding it’s not directed at him.  

“They’re still out there,” he says, tone low and rough, eyes skittering away. She sees the moment they snag on something he hadn’t expected. She glances the same way and sees Olivia’s Totoro doll, askew on the couch smiling and as always vaguely unsettling. “You… have children?”

“Two little girls.”

Bucky’s face lands first in faded blurred excitement at the discovery of more extended family, and then disintegrates swiftly into loss and loneliness, which he attempts at once to cover.

“I can’t ask you to do this.”

“You don’t have to ask,” she replies, arching a brow. “I’m a third generation Howling Commando. Burning HYDRA to the ground is a family legacy. Besides,” she adds, unimpressed. “Aunt Peggy left SHIELD in male hands for a handful of decades and look what happened. I don’t think I trust you boys not to screw this up any further.”

Bucky’s eyes flicker away; down and to the right. He looks abruptly wretched, although it’s quite a feat to make his expression worse considering how he was looking before. It’s all shades of unhappiness.

“Where is Steve?” she asks cautiously.

Bucky’s jaw sets. He shakes his head, slowly, deliberately, finding her eyes.

“You want to fight HYDRA without Captain America?” she asks, genuinely curious.

He inhales, a long drag of air, slow and measured.

“I can’t—stand him,” he manages with considerable difficulty. “There’s all this—pervasive fucking hope he sheds like the fucking sunlight. I feel sick just looking at him.”

He pauses, dragging a wary hand down his face, inhaling shakily. Carola watches him, checking the urge to touch him. That might be unwelcome, as he is now, agitated and upset. The aversion to Steve’s nearness is shocking and heartbreaking, but God knows what Bucky’s been through. Carola isn’t about to start arguing with him about how Steve must be tearing himself apart over him. Bucky probably knows.

“That’s another thing,” he says at last, looking at her in defeat. “You have to tell him to back off and stop looking for me.”

Carola blinks at him. “You want me to tell Steve Rogers to back out from a fight?” she asks, incredulous.

He grits his teeth. His frown is tempestuous and grim. “In seventy years,” he starts, voice carefully controlled. “This is the first decision I have ever done for myself. It’s the only thing that’s clear in the—fucking broken mess that is my head. I have to tear HYDRA down. I have to put a bullet in every single one of the motherfuckers that—“ he stops, gritting his teeth so harshly she fancies she can hear them grind. “But he can’t know. What they did to me. Because if he knows, they win, you understand? So much of it was just for him, because I was his. They broke me to break him. And I’m not gonna let them win. He can’t know.”

Carola controls the surge of ice-cold fury arcing down her veins like lightning. She substitutes the urge to hug him with an outward raise of her chin, and then a tip of her head with an arched brow.

“I’ll get the message to him. Where is he?”

Bucky inhales, chest heaving with his breath, and leans back against the wall. “New York.”

Carola nods. “Sharon Carter’s there. I’ll call her.”

He drops his head back against the wall, almost visibly slumping in relief at her acceptance. How could she argue? Seventy years seems like a long time to be denied his free will; and while she is absolutely certain that Steve means well and wants only to help, this isn’t the type of situation he can smash into shield-first.

She folds her arms, lips twitching. “So,” she starts conversationally. “Tell the truth; did you actually come back from the dead only so you could get the younger, hotter version of the Commandos?”

Bucky huffs a tired laugh. “I made that bunch hot and you know it.”

“I don’t know,” Carola frown at him. “Steve’s pretty okay in the face. Huge shoulders.”

Bucky laughs. “Shoulda seen him before. Tiny little squirt. The face though, that’s actually pretty much the same. Bigger jaw.”

He dips his eyes down, going surprisingly still. She can see the moment something else starts creeping up him, tensing the line of his shoulders. Best steer him away from whatever that is, probably.

“Well, it’ll take a while to get everyone here,” she says, resting her hands on her hips. “And you really need a shower, a shave. I’m not introducing you to my kids looking like a homeless person. That would rather kill the mystique, you know?” she evaluates him for a moment. “The hair can stay.”

He looks at her oddly for a long moment, like there’s something about her he can’t quite figure out. It takes her a moment to realize it’s wary surprise. Seventy years without making a choice for himself. She wonders if he remembers how. Oh, but—yes. Of course he does. He remembers how to choose to protect Steve above everything else. Whatever else HYDRA has created on top of the bare bones of this man, Bucky Barnes is most certainly still in there somewhere.

She wonders if she should be less pushy, and decides it’s too late to backtrack now. She hates the idea of tiptoeing around him, treating him like a fragile floweer. Doesn’t sound like it’s something Bucky Barnes would appreciate.

“If I’m gonna be around your kids for a while,” he says reluctantly, like the idea disquiets him. Wait until he actually meets them. He shifts, for the first time extracting his left hand from his pocket, and shows it to her, face blank enough to belong on a statue.

It’s out of a sci-fi movie.

“How far?” she asks, sinking her anger down to the bottom of the ocean.

“Whole arm up to the shoulder.”

She takes a deep breath. “Are you violent?”

Bucky slumps against the wall. Shakes his head. “Not anymore. I have bad days, but mostly I’m… controlled.”

She decides to trust him. Someone has to. If anyone’s a resilient bastard, it should certainly be him.

She leads him up to the bathroom, hands him clean towels, sets out a razor for him in the counter. Then she makes her way downstairs to the kitchen and starts preparing pancakes, because cooking sweet things is her comfort habit, and anyway Bucky looks like he could use some calories.

Now the real question is, how is she going to justify to her husband that she absolutely needs to go alongside her not-so-dead granduncle, the World War II veteran, Captain America’s best friend, to hunt down and destroy the members of a Nazi organization working towards world domination?

Oh, who is she kidding? Alan is going to be so thrilled at meeting Bucky that the prospect of his wife gallivanting around the globe with a sniper rifle again will probably pale in comparison.  

 

Chapter Text

The email she sends to the Commandos’ mailing list difficult to write. She can’t very well tell everyone ‘hey guys, Bucky Barnes just showed up at my doorstep with a metal arm and a quest for revenge, you might want to come down here and lend a hand’, although it’s tempting just to see the reactions. In the end she settles for a laconic and firm suggestion that they have something they all urgently need to talk about, and to meet at her house.

In the end, she and Bucky come to an agreement. Excluding Steve from the meeting is completely insane and downright cruel, so he’s been invited.They’ll all just pray Steve understands it’s in everyone’s, especially Bucky’s, best interest if he stays away.

Whatever guilt she may have had in another situation comes from the thought of keeping Steve from his best friend is crushed beneath the weight she must place in Bucky’s decisions. Whatever else is unclear and blurred and bleeding in his mind, that he wants Steve as far away as possible  is clear enough, and they’re all just going to have to live with it.

Exasperated, for the third time today, she picks up her cell phone and dials her cousin’s number.

Voice mail again. She hasn’t left messages previously, but she’s done. She’s wasting time.

“Antoine, I can’t express to you how much I’m not exaggerating when I say that I absolutely need you to come to my house right now. I don’t care what foolishness you’re up to with whatever is left of SHIELD, you’re needed at home. Call me.”

She hangs up, shaking her head, and returns all of her attention to the screen of her laptop. Her intel and data streaming in from contacts she’s gotten in touch with have allowed her to discard five of the dozens of HYDRA locations leaked online. Three of them even blew up, which means they were important locations that she would have been interested in securing. But four months after the spectacle in Washington, it’s fair to imagine they are arriving quite late to the party.  

When Sharon had contacted them all and let them know what had happened, there had been a lot of unrest in the family. Those in the military track like Lydia and Mark Dugan and Angelina Morita had immediately wanted to step in and help purge HYDRA from the ranks of SHIELD.

At Sharon’s behest, they had laid low and waited. For Steve to move and contact them, for the dust to settle on the public hearings. Carola had known they weren’t ready to strike at HYDRA, not independently, and she had been amongst the ones discouraging direct action. Now she wonders if that was the wrong call; if the should have attacked when HYDRA was shocked and regrouping, stricken by the loss of their main asset and the failure of his ambitious replacement.

Amandla knocks her knuckles politely against the doorjamb. “Mom?”

“Sweetie?” she asks, without glancing up.

“I think Uncle Bucky’s sick again.”

That gets her attention.

“He’s in the bathroom,” she says quietly as his mother passes her, resting her hand briefly on Amandla’s hair. The bathroom door is closed, which is no surprise. She knocks and waits for a reply, which comes in the form of a vague grunt.

“Can I come in?”

Another grunt. Carola waits.

“Yeah,” Bucky calls eventually, after a pause long enough to suggest he’s remembering that an undefined grunt does not count as verbal consent in this house. Carola turns the doorknob and steps inside.

Bucky is slumped on the floor against the wall, the heels of his hands pressed to his eyes, shivering. Carola takes one glance at the toilet and flushes it.

“What did you eat?” she asks, pulling a washcloth from the shelf and wetting it with cold water. She hesitates for a moment, weighing caution against shows of trust. She crouches by him and presses it to the back of his neck, pleased when he slumps with a sound of comfort.

“Chicken,” he rasps.

She inhales and exhales through the disappointment and concern. That’s another thing off the ‘maybe’ list.

“Hey,” Carola’s husband Alan leans his hands at either side of the door, careful to stay outside, brow creased with worry. “The chicken didn’t stay down?”

Carola shakes her head minutely. “Could you boil some rice, please?”

Alan looks conflicted, eyes snagging on Bucky’s defeated posture, but he nods and goes. Carola knows what he’s thinking. Bucky’s diet so far consists of toast and unseasoned white rice, no matter how efficient his system is these days, it’s taking a toll. He hasn’t put back on any of the weight he really needs to recover.  Questions about his ability to keep himself alive on his own for four months when he has no real notion of what upsets his stomach have been met with a lot of shrugging and some pretty obvious deflecting, so Carola has stopped asking.

Bucky shivers, tensing with another stomach cramp. He doesn’t retch. There is nothing left to drag up.

“Don’t wanna eat,” he mutters.

“You need to eat something, Bucky,” she says softly. “I’m not blowing off work to go hunt down demented Nazis with an underweight supersoldier. That just takes ‘pretty crazy’ to ‘downright insane’.”

Bucky says nothing for a moment, tensing when his stomach heaves again. He shifts his hands to grab fistfuls of his hair, huddling miserably against the wall. Carola rubs his right shoulder, lacking anything else to do, and sighs.

“Your cousin picking up his phone?” Bucky asks eventually.

“No. I’m sure he’s off swinging his dick in generally the wrong direction, which is what I would expect whatever is left of SHIELD to be doing right about now. With Fury gone and Captain America moping in New York badly enough to sour the weather, there must be a serious lack of competent agents left above level seven. And, god help me, if Melinda May is not running this show right now I don’t know why they bother anymore. Men are useless.”

Bucky drops his hands and looks at her, fatigued and haggard, a flicker of amusement in his bruised eyes. “Tell me how you really feel, Car.”

She shrugs.

“Mom,” Olivia appears tentatively on the doorway, glancing at Bucky with mild concern and an apologetic wave. “Sharon’s on Skype.”

Carola looks at the ceiling, which fails to inspire any patience. If Sharon is calling, it’s because Steven Grant Rogers is pouting mightily in her vicinity. Far be it from Sharon to disappoint Captain America, so whenever he gets especially pathetic, it’s Carola to the rescue.  

She isn’t really sure why Sharon thinks Carola has any ability to appease Steve when he’s in a mood. Carola’s general approach to men with moods is either complete indifference or a bottle of hard alcohol, and Steve doesn’t appear to be the kind that deals well with either of those. As far as Carola can tell, Sharon seems to have automatically put Carola on the lead on this whole sorry business. Carola doesn’t mind, but it’s a rather telling choice of delegation considering that their ages are not that different and Sharon’s actually the one that’s been on SHIELD for the last several years, has been watching Steve, and has a more intimate knowledge of what they’re all dealing with.

They’re both third generation and trained in military operations, and Carola is more of the spook-with-the-big-gun type than a spy, so Sharon could very easily spearhead this whole thing—if she wanted to.

“I can stay with him,” Olivia offers, regaling Bucky with one of her brilliant smiles. Bucky sighs and shakes his head, dragging himself tiredly to his feet.

“I’m fine.”

“You just threw up the blandest food in the history of humanity,” Carola replies, standing and smoothing down the wrinkles in her white dress shirt. She looks at her daughter, arching her brows. “What do we call that in this house?”

“Boldfaced lying,” Olivia answers diligently. “And we’re not to do it.”

Carola points in her direction in approval. Bucky stares at them flatly, unimpressed. He puts a dollop of toothpaste in his brush and runs it under the tap, and pointedly pops it in his mouth, like he thinks he can pull off an aggressive and threatening aura with mint-scented blue-tinted foam leaking out of the corner of his mouth. The Winter Soldier, everybody.

Carola leaves Olivia cheerfully chatting at Bucky in the bathroom and goes to her office, where Skype is open in her laptop screen, although no one’s on camera. She sits down to her desk and stares at the living room on the other end of the connection for a moment. Sharon is a good agent and a remarkable marksman even by Carola’s picky sniper standards, but her interior decorating choices are questionable. Carola doesn’t actually know what her fake apartment next to Steve’s looked like, but if it didn’t have orange walls and bright pink geometric three-dimensional art like this one does, it was probably an upgrade. The shade on the lamp Carola can see on the edge of the screen looks like some sort of moss green. A nice color, by itself, but unadvisable next to the mud-brown…vase. It’s maybe a vase. It’s hard to tell.

Sharon finally slumps down in the chair in front of the screen. She isn’t wearing any make-up and her hair is surprisingly tied back in a ponytail, rather than in its usual careful waves around her face and shoulders.

“I swear,” she says, brushing back her a strand of hair impatiently. “It’s like kicking a puppy every time.”

“You know what kicking a puppy feels like firsthand?” Carola asks with interest.

Sharon rolls her eyes.

“Is he still asking to come over yesterday?”

“He just wants to see him. He says he can wait for the meeting, though. And if you’re imagining the most pathetic sad expression as he says it, you’re falling short, it’s worse. He’s a grown man; he shouldn’t be able to pull off sad baby blues that well. I just got your email,” she adds, waving her phone in front of the screen for a moment. “Do you want me there?”

“Yes. And if you could herd Steve to the other side of the room from Bucky, that’d be wonderful.”

“How’s his memory?”

Carola thinks about it for a moment. “Dodgy,” she settles on. “You know, Skype, or phone conversations… that could work. So long as Steve can hold off from being overly hopeful and painfully earnest—“ Bucky, passing by her door at that moment, snorts messily. “I’ll talk to him, about it,” Carola finishes, unperturbed.

Sharon looks like she’s not sure whether she got the short end of the deal with Steve or not. On the one hand, puppy eyes and patriotic disappointment; on the other, Trauma with a capital T, and a lot more attitude than is probably healthy.

“I heard something about a small SHIELD field team out there unaccounted for. Loyal. One of Fury’s love children. Trying to rally SHIELD agents to their side and, from what I can gather, start fresh.”

Carola arched her brows. “Antoine’s probably in on it. Any way to contact them? If I’m going after HYDRA, I would really like Antoine with me.”

Sharon frowns and licks her lips, absently pulling at her ponytail over her shoulder. “Yeah, about that. Bucky’s going after HYDRA?”

“The word ‘revenge’ has been thrown around.”

“That makes total sense, and I fully support it. Yay violent bloody revenge. I’m all for it.” She hunches her shoulders and shows Carola two thumbs up. Alrighty then. Someone’s sleep deprived.

“But?”

Sharon goes limp all at once. “Steve is definitely going after HYDRA too.”

Carola sits back in her chair and blinks slowly. Sharon nods sympathetically, doing the same mental mathematics at the same time.

“Are you actually going into the field, or are you supervising from home?”

“I’m going in,” Carola answers firmly. “I want to, obviously, but also I’m one of Bucky’s blood relatives, so it feels like I should definitely be the one helping put bullets in skulls. And if Steve isn’t going to be on the team--“

“Yeah,” Sharon cuts in, looking uncomfortable. “About that.”

Oh no. “What about that?”

Sharon breathes in. “There’s a file. It describes in some detail the process involved in turning Bucky into the Winter Soldier. Romanoff got it for Steve.”

Cold washes down Carola’s spine. “Does he have it? Did he read it?”

“What do you think? It’s been four months. I’m pretty sure Wilson read it too. Romanoff, definitely. It’s in Russian, so she must have translated it.”

Carola takes a couple of deep breaths to unseat the horror in her stomach and unstick her tongue from her palate. “And how is he taking it?”

Sharon gives her a look. “You’re talking about the guy that destroyed HYDRA for taking Bucky, not once, but twice. How do you think he’s taking it? I personally thing murderous rage doesn’t quite cover his expression, and for someone with a somewhat sweet disposition, let me tell you, the man can get scary.”

Carola rubs her forehead tiredly.

“Someone’s going to have to tell Bucky,” Sharon says. “And I’m not saying it should be you because you’re his blood relative and he seems to like you, but all I’m saying is you’re the least likely to get mauled for telling him, so maybe take that into account.”

Carola says nothing, mind racing and twisting, coming up end over end without arriving at any real conclusion.

She pauses, listening intently at the background music in her home. She turns slightly in her chair.

“Girls? Are you making Bucky watch Frozen again?” she calls.

A suspiciously long pause.

“He didn’t say no!”

Carola stares at Sharon, or rather at the crown of Sharon’s head, because Sharon has collapsed in her desk and is laughing so hard she’s shaking.

“See you next week, Shar,” Carola says calmly, and closes her laptop.

Bucky is on the couch with the girls, sprawling with his feet up on the coffee table. Amandla is sitting at his right. Olivia is at his left, busily rubbing nail polish remover against the scratched red star on his arm. This must be attempt number fifty to get that thing removed, on Bucky’s request. Carola doesn’t think he quite knew what he was getting into when he gave this project to two twelve year olds. Scraping it with a knife seems like the most efficient idea, but she’s not about to suggests someone go anywhere near Bucky with a sharp object, let alone her daughters.

“Can I borrow you for a minute?” Carola asks, heart pounding.

“Oh no, but the music number’s about to begin,” Bucky says to her pleadingly, the corner of his mouth twitching. “But hey, I guess if you need me you need me, boss lady.”

He makes a show of getting reluctantly up, and Olivia and Amandla watch him go with wide, innocent eyes. Children are gullible, God help them.

“We can pause it,” Olivia offers. 

“No, no,” Bucky says hastily. “No, don’t worry ‘bout me. I’ll be just a minute.”

Carola gestures for him to follow her to the yard.

“I’m not going to like this, am I?” Bucky says warily.

Carola shakes her head slowly. “HYDRA kept a file on what they did to you. Someone retrieved it and gave it to Steve. He knows everything.”

Bucky goes preternaturally still, fists curling at his sides, shoulders tense. He swallows once, then twice. He exhales sharply, like his chest hurts.

“What do you need?” Carola asks softly.

“I don’t know,” Bucky says through clenched teeth. “I don’t—“ he brings his hands up to his head and grips fistfuls of his hair, pacing. He’s shaking; a combination of adrenaline a rage so vast he can hardly keep it inside his body. Some fear too, maybe, if he really thinks this could change Steve. Change how Steve sees him.

“There’s nothing to do about it now,” she says, because it’s the truth, and because everything she’s ever known about Bucky Barnes suggests he was pragmatic above all else.

Bucky stops pacing, facing away from her toward the living room window where Amandla and Olivia have cuddled up close to each other in front of the TV. Alan is perched on the sofa’s armrest closest to the kitchen, a dishcloth forgotten in his hands. His blonde hair is standing up in every which way as it does when it’s too short, and there’s a splatter of tomato sauce on his blue t-shirt.

“How do you do it?” Bucky asks softly, staring at Carola’s family through the window. “How do you protect him?”

Carola comes to stand next to him. “I wish I could. Sometimes I wish I had lied to him about a lot of things I’ve done. I don’t always like that he knows. But he asked and I chose to tell him. It made us stronger. You are going to have to make that choice about Steve.”

For a long moment, Bucky says nothing.

“He still can’t come with us,” he says after a moment, shoulders loosening as he arrives at a decision. “I still don’t want him to see me—like that.“

“Bucky,” Carola comes around to face him again. “Steve isn’t a stranger to violent revenge. I think he needs to be with you more than he needs you to protect what innocence you think he has.”

“It’s what I do,” Bucky says, so quietly she almost misses it. “Protect him. Even from—please. Carola, just—please.”

Carola nods. “Whatever you want. But you do understand that your refusal to let him come with us isn’t necessarily going to stop him going after HYDRA, right?”

Bucky scowls. “That idiot is capable of going in alone with his goddamn shield if someone isn’t there to have a look at his dumb plans. Probably manage to get out of it alive and the winner, too, he’s that lucky.”

“I thought he was a genius tactician,” Carola says doubtfully.

“Yeah, once he got some experience,” Bucky huffs, crossing his arms. “But when they threw him in the field, he had zero experience, barely any combat training. He’d never experienced actual live combat. Can you explain to me how you make someone with that resume a strike-team leader? He was damn lucky Monty and I were there to hold his goddamned hand. God, I still hate Phillip’s guts. What a colossal prick.”

“If it helps, I’m pretty sure you guys gave him a stress ulcer or four.”

“And Howard Stark,” Bucky says, spitting out the name like it tastes bad. “I had some fuckin’ words to share with that asshole and his enabling. I spent most of my life keeping Steve alive and whole, then I turn around for six months and all of a sudden you have a bunch of imbeciles actively encouraging him.”

“Yes,” says Carola flatly. “I am sure you were the voice of reason.”

“I was!” Bucky complains, gesturing at himself. “I was always telling him to cool it, but did he listen? No! I get drafted, next thing I know he’s jumping through fire. Why’s everyone so sure I was the problem kid, huh?”

“Might that be because you got in fights all the time?”

“Because of Steve!” He throws up his hands. “History has betrayed me.”

Carola rolls her eyes. “Go sell that story to someone who didn’t spend Christmases with your sister, Bucky Barnes.”

Bucky sighs, running the fingers of his right hand through his hair agitatedly. “I don’t know what to do with him. I want to be with him, but I can’t… I’m not the James Barnes he remembers. I hate that I have to live under the shadow of a man that died seventy years ago.”

“I don’t think Steve,” Carola starts, and then gives up on that line of argument. She’s not going to argue with what he feels. You don’t argue emotions. “You know, he isn’t who he used to be either. You’re being very unfair to him. Why don’t you just talk to him? Directly, not through me and Sharon,” she cuts him off when he opens his mouth. “Because, first, you are a grown-ass man and I am not your fucking mother. Grow a pair. Second, it’s like you’re having this whole conversation in your head and imagining his arguments and then acting accordingly while Steve is still waiting for you to pick up the damn phone.”

“That is a very elaborate analogy.”

“Will you shut up?” Carola plants her hand flat on his chest and shoves. He doesn’t even stumble, the asshole. “I can’t believe I need to tell this to someone that’s almost thirty years old, but use your words. Communicate. Talk to him. Or text to him, or write him an email, or send Morse code, I do not care, just—talk. Is that so hard to do? Why are men so damn difficult?”

“You shouldn’t generalize,” Bucky says mildly.

“I might just kill you myself,” Carola muses.

Bucky considers this, eyes narrowed in thought. “Do you know Morse code?”

Carola throws up her hands and walks away. Men.

 

Chapter Text

The problem with organizing an unplanned Howling Commando family gathering from one week to the next is that it’s a lot of people who are going to be needing a place to stay with very short notice. With people flying into Carola’s Atlanta home from everywhere in the globe from England to Japan and Bucky already using Carola’s spare bedroom, accommodations had to be found in nearby hotels. She already felt sorry for the staffs. Her family could be a handful.

Even with the matter of their sleeping arrangements settled, there is still the issue of the venue for the meeting. Carola knows her house is safe—she still regularly checks for bugs, despite being thirteen years out of the service—but she can’t comfortably fit fifty people into her living room, no matter how good her intentions. There aren’t a lot of other options, though, considering the delicate matter at hand, and she has to favor privacy over comfort.

Then there’s the food. Carola absolutely adored the military; missions and assignments and the thrill of the planning. But if there’s one thing she hates, it’s organizing parties. And no matter how grave the occasion of their gathering, you put five Legacies together, you’ve got a party. Carola is  normally more than content with leaving the planning of such things to Philippa, who is Italian and has a big family of her own besides that of her Dugan husband and apparently adores planning big family gatherings.

But Philippa isn’t coming because she wasn’t able to duck out of work, so Carola is stuck actually doing this on her own. Or she would be, if she hadn’t had such amazing taste in men.

“Who’s allergic to nuts again?” Alan from the kitchen table. He’s taken over its considerable surface armed with cookbooks and a notepad he’s using to write menus and shopping lists. Trust a scientist to do things in an orderly manner.

 “James, I think,” Carola answers thoughtfully, stirring the oatmeal.

“Which James?” Alan asks, amused.

Carola snorts. “One of the Dugans? Just keep nuts off the menu.”

“Not as hard as you might imagine,” Alan says, glancing up from his list to look out the window to the garden where, as far as they both can tell, the girls have talked Bucky into teaching them the basics of gymnastics.

“He’s doing pretty well,” Alan says softly.

Carola puts down her wooden spoon and turns around, crossing her arms, to look at the trio in the backyard. Bucky’s crouching down, showing Amandla how her shoulders need to be properly squared to do a handsome cartwheel.

Olivia is casually leaning her weight against him, her arm draped along his broad shoulders, palm resting comfortably on the metal of his left deltoid. Well, where the deltoid should be. Who makes a metal arm and gives it muscle shape? Bizarre.

“I suppose it’s the ultimate kick to the balls for HYDRA,” she muses. “Him, like this. I don’t know that I want to understand precisely how much trauma he had to wade through to get to this.”

Alan smiles faintly. “Pretty sure we can trust him to tell us when we hit too close to a trigger.”

Carola winced. “I’ll fix that wall.”

“I’ll fix that wall,” replied Alan distractedly, scratching something onto his shopping list. “You might be the best sniper in the SEALs, but you can’t put up drywall worth a damn.”

Carola looks at him, open mouthed. “I can absolutely put up drywall!”

Alan favors her with a pitying glance just as the screen door bangs open.

“Baby, you out up drywall once and it fell right off the wall. It’s okay. I still love you. Just embrace your lack of skill.”

“Is that her weakness?” Bucky asks, coming into the room with a twelve year old girl on his back, arms wrapped around his neck. The scent of fresh torn grass and soil comes into the kitchen with them. With their matching grins and brilliant eyes, it’s easy to see the Barnes family resemblance, surviving across four generations and different skin tones.

“One of many,” answers Alan, standing up from the table and folding his list into his jeans pocket. “I’m off to the store. Anyone want to tag along or need anything?”

“Chocolate ice-cream!” squeals Amandla, obnoxiously hanging from Bucky’s neck when he bends back so she can stand on her own.

“Maybe don’t choke the former soldier, baby,” Alan says mildly. Bucky snorts and twists, picking her up so she’s braced against his chest instead of hanging from his throat.

“I’ve never had chocolate ice-cream,” he says innocently.

Carola waves the wooden spoon in his face. “Stop spoiling my offspring.”

He makes a face and catches the spoon, leaning in for a quick taste of what’s stuck to it. He grimaces. “Is that for me?”

Carola eyes him, wondering if he’s going to be difficult about this, but Amandla chooses that moment to lay her head down on his shoulder, tender and trusting, and Bucky’s rapidly building defiance crumbles. He hates arguing in front of the children, even if he has reason. Carola knows she’s pushing the food issue, and she fully expects him to rightfully lose his temper about it soon, but so far, two weeks after arriving, the only time Bucky has reacted poorly to something was after being abruptly woken up from a deep and troubled sleep.

He had been more upset about scaring the girls than he’d been about the wall. The girls had been more freaked out about him hurting his right hand than the possibility he might put the metal fist through them.

Carola eyes that right fist now. Three days later, it is completely healed, skin whole and unblemished. Impressive considering Carola had had to pull out a piece of wood of considerable size form between his knuckles, and had glimpsed bone as she removed it.

He hadn’t seemed concerned about it and the girls’ distress had confused him more than anything else. Carola had to wonder what sort of injury classified as something to be worried about for him. Broken bones perhaps? He had mentioned Steve had dislocated his right shoulder but he had set it himself and exhibited no discomfort using it.

 It had taken the rest of the day to get him to speak unprompted. He had eventually allowed himself to be teased into conversation when Olivia and Amandla started complaining about how there were so many damn baseball movies and so few ballet ones. Baseball, they argued, was boring. That wasn’t something Bucky was apparently able to put up with in silence.

Carola was slotting that day very definitely into the ‘bad day’ category. He didn’t seem to have as many of those as one might expect, but then again, he was a stubborn bastard, and he refused to fall into bad headspaces.

If a lot of the times, in order to get himself away from the edge, he reaches for Amandla or Olivia, well? He’s never anything but exquisitely gentle. Carola can’t say she’s not concerned, but she’s willing to trust, and hope. The girls are certainly enjoying their new—old?—uncle.

Bucky keeps down the oatmeal, the chicken and rice from lunch, and even the mild soup from dinner, although he eats less than a third of the bowl.

In an even more important sign of recovery, he manages to not kill Alan when he cheats outrageously at Mario Kart.

The week flies, and as the day the Commandos are due to arrive grows near,  Bucky starts withdrawing, like he’s bracing himself for something rather than excited about the prospect. Carola considers, briefly, moving the meeting to another venue, but inevitably winds up precisely where that reasoning started: he’s going to be stressed about meeting them. Meeting  in a public place where he can’t retreat to the safe place of his bedroom if he starts to lose his shit can only be for the worse.

“Maybe we could do it in small groups,” Alan suggests that evening. “Five or six people at a time, everyone already knowing you’re there and the circumstances.”

“I’m not a time bomb,” Bucky says quietly, staring at the tabletop.

Alan pauses the pen he was using to correct high school chemistry tests and straightens in his chair. He doesn’t glance at Carola. He starts to, but corrects himself at once, and his gesture is small enough that Bucky, who is not looking at him, misses it.

Alan has good instincts. Looking at Carola every time there’s a hurdle with Bucky means folding to her, treating her like Bucky’s handler.

“Listen, I married into this madness,” he says. “They can be a little overwhelming. And by that I mean painfully invasive and surprisingly tactless.”

“Some things really never change, huh?” Bucky says ruefully.

“All I’m saying is, think about whatever is best for you and tell us. We’ll figure it out.”

Carola watches Bucky. He’s looking at the crown of Alan’s head with that confused, heartbreaking and wary expression he gets sometimes when people fail to meet his expectations. Bucky’s good at faking it, at putting on a mask and looking alright, but kindness puzzles him in ways it shouldn’t, and he’s not prepared, not always, to hide the reaction.

“Maybe I should make an entrance,” he suggests after a moment, lips curling into a crooked, wicked smile. “We’ll set up a cue and I’ll come in from the shadows and look menacing.”

Carola and Alan stare at him.

“What?” Bucky spreads his hands, palm-up, on the table. He looks pointedly at Alan. “Admit it, you’re tempted. At least one of them is going to scream like a girl.”

Alan’s eyes glaze over, mouth parting.

“No,” Carola says firmly, giving Bucky a look. “Vetoed. Absolutely not. You’re not terrifying anybody. You know what’s going to happen? You start this, it’s an endless goddamn prank war for eternity. And you, don’t encourage him.”

“I like pranks,” Bucky grins.

Carola gives him a flat look. “May I remind you you threw a coffee mug at my head because I failed to announce myself while entering the kitchen?”

Bucky makes an offended noise. “I didn’t hit you.”

“Comforting,” Carola says fervently.

“You sound just like Steve,” Bucky complains, sitting back in his chair. “No Buck, stop Buck, don’t you even think about it Buck.”

“We can all see how well that worked out,” Carola says flatly.

“Hey, he was the one that kept messing up with bullies twice his size! I swear to God, everyone thinks I’m the troublemaker, but all I did half the time was drag that punk outta trouble,” he pauses, frowning. “Still am, actually.”

“Some things really never change, huh?” Alan says facetiously, imitating Bucky’s accent quite accurately. Bucky winkles his nose at him in distaste. Alan throws his pen cap at his face. Bucky brings his metal fist up at once, and angles his palm so the cap bounces off it and hits Alan in the chest.

“Ow,” Alan pouts at Carola, who sips her tea and wonders how she wound up with a life like this.

In the end, they don’t set up a cue and he doesn’t make an entrance. What actually happens is people start arriving, and Bucky shies at the noise and the joy, hiding in his bedroom sitting on the floor against the wall. It’s early in the morning and the sun is bright in his bedroom, streaming in through the window where he stations himself to watch people interact in the yard.

It’s hard to tell if it’s a bad day or not; it seems more like he’s afraid of having an episode than that he’s actually having one. Carola decides to leave him to handle his own timing, trusting him to know what he can put up with.

The last time she checks on him before leaving, he’s sitting in the corner with his legs sprawled out, and Amandla and Olivia are teaching him to play Uno. Neither of them bats an eye when he accidentally creases the cards with his metal hand, too out of sorts to properly calibrate. Carola isn’t sure who is keeping who company in this scenario. The girls are bummed that the other Legacies closer to their ages aren’t coming and this is all just a boring business Legacy meeting. Bucky is normally great at playtime with them, even if today he’s visibly withdrawn.  

She takes a moment to slump unashamedly against Alan’s chest, exhaling a shaky sigh at the top of the stairs. Alan says nothing, rubbing her back gently.

The house is already chaos. No matter what time you tell a Legacy to show up, they always show up early and with dessert. She can hear strings of conversations from the living room. Someone with a London accent is complaining about in-flight meals like they’ve personally offended her. The Moritas are complaining about the house wireless crashing.

She turns her face into Alan’s neck and inhales the scent of his mild aftershave. Then she gets her jacket and goes to the airport to pick Sharon, Steve, and Sam Wilson (whoever that is) up.

Steve Rogers is both as impressive as she had imagined and not at all what she was expecting.

He looks tired, which is a surprise, although Carola can’t quite pinpoint why. In some of the reels and photographs Commandos kept private through the years, Steve Rogers never looked as worn down as the rest of them, but he certainly looked a little frayed around the edges.

It’s something in the tightness around the eyes and mouth though, along the straight line of his shoulders, that makes Carola pay more attention than she normally would. It takes her a moment to realize it’s grief.

Sharon had mentioned, often enough, that Cap looked weighed down by loss. She must have been more concerned than she had passed on since she had decided to stick to what was basically a surveillance mission well below her paygrade and skillset, and Carola had known that, in a distant and uninvolved way. She had remained uninvolved because Monty had asked them to give Steve breathing room, to let him come to them in his own time. The Steve Monty remembered had been a man coiled tightly into himself. Charismatic and overtly friendly, but independent and stubborn and difficult to get along with because he wasn’t used to or willing to compromise. Bucky had smoothed down a lot of edges in his friend in the beginning, with his natural charm and his experience as a sergeant. The Cap that had eventually made it to the media was a Cap that was only a fraction of Steve Rogers.

They’d waited, and let Steve handle himself, trusting he’d come to them when he felt ready. Now Carola wondered if that had been their mistake; if expecting Steve to think himself welcome somewhere without the crutch of Bucky’s attitude wasn’t a miscalculation.

Carola exchanges a swift look with Sharon. Her cousin’s eloquent eyebrows arch and downturn of the lips tells her a lot.

“Hey,” Steve says, smiling hesitantly.

He wasn’t going for a hug, but Carola reaches up and wraps her arms around him anyway. The way he leans into it at once, grateful, pressing close, makes Carola regret all he space she thought he needed. Sighing, she tightens her arms and lets him take as much as he needs.

By the time Steve retreats, he’s a little embarrassed. Carola grins at him, and he laughs slightly, delighted.

“You have Gabe’s smile, anyone ever told you that?”

“Gabe,” Carola answers. “All my life. He also took credit for my toes, although I don’t see a situation in which you might compare them to his.”

She glances to the side and smiles at the other man, who smiles back politely.

 “Oh, this is Sam Wilson,” says Steve, drawing Sam closer with a hand on his shoulder. “He’s with me. Um, is that—okay?”

A bit late to ask, Carola thinks, amused, but nods. She thinks of making the obvious joke, but figures Alan will get it eventually. Might as well let Alan look like the immature one; he carries it better.

“Any friends of yours, Steve, of course. Do you have everything? I hate to rush, but I have a hosue full of people very anxious to see you.”

“And Alan,” Sharon grins.

“I told him to behave,” Carola says, with no real hope of Alan doing any such thing.

“Alan?” Steve asks curiously, bending down to pick up Sharon’s suitcase without seeming to think about it.

“My husband,” Carola answers, leading them out to her candy-apple red SUV. Sharon grins; Carola points a finger in her face. One more minivan joke, she swears to God, and there will be violence the likes of which not even Captain America will manage to stop. “He’s a Cap fan.”

“How did he react to James Barnes showing up at his door?” Sam grins, buckling his seatbelt in the backseat. Steve wordlessly sits next to Carola, curiously peering at the ballet recital signs he has to move from the seat.

“They get along, to my detriment,” Carola answers, rudely cutting in front of a douchebag in a Ferrari, smiling thinly at the driver in the rearview mirror. “He’s great with the girls, though. Can’t sing for shit, in case you wondered.”

Steve looks at her, and his expression is just politely curious enough that she can tell he’s putting up a careful front. He’s coming off as surprisingly reserved, but Carola can’t tell whether he’s doing it on purpose or if it’s an unfortunate consequence of his unwillingness to show concern and an instinct to keep his cards close to his vest.

“You let him take care of your kids?’ Sam asks, seemingly without judgment.

“I don’t see how I could have prevented it. Two twelve year old girls with a brand new live-in uncle? They were all over that.”

“So he’s… doing okay?” Steve asks carefully. “Um, I think the car behind you is trying to pass us.”

“He’s a parent at the girls’ school. I hate him, he can wait.”

“Still a bitch at the wheel, I see,” Sharon comments, amused.

“You say it like it’s a bad thing,” Carola arches a brow to the rearview mirror. Sam laughs. “And don’t think I don’t remember how you drive.”

Half an hour later, as she turns into her street, Sam and Steve sit up, wide-eyed.

“Are all of these cars from the family?”

“One of those is my neighbor’s,” Carola answers. “Is that a vintage Beetle? Who drove that tincan over here?”

“Spencer and Tracy,” Sharon sighs.

“Spencer… and Tracy,” Steve repeats.

“You might remember this, but the Moritas,” says Carola, parking her SUV. “Have a rather particular sense of humor.”

“I do remember that,” Steve says, grinning.

Alan intercepts them at the door for an aside, reaching over to take Carola’s jacket.

“Where’s Bucky?” she asks quietly.

“You mean he’s not with you?” Alan asks, wide-eyed. Carola slaps his chest. “He’s in his room, having a mild anxiety attack. Stone-faced, nothing dramatic.”

“Alan,” Carola scowls.

“He’s fine! He’s in his room with the girls, they’re playing Uno. He’s fine. It’s just a lot of noise. He’ll be down when he can. Stop babying him, Car.”

“I’m not—“ she protests, but he starts talking over her, eyebrows arched, faintly amused but serious all the same.

“He’s a grown-ass man and he’s not our son,” he stops, waits for her to listen.

Carola brushes back her curls, raising her chin at him. “I just worry, that’s all,” she says defensively.

“Well, stop! it puts him in a lousy mood and he’s a dick. It’s all going to be fine, so come inside and—hi,” he stops, stunned, when he comes unexpectedly face to face with Steve, who smiles tentatively. Alan blinks at him, and then admirably rallies himself and ushers him into the house, gesturing towards the kitchen as he leans over to give Sharon a kiss in the cheek. “Grab a beer, try to relax for,” he eyes Steve. “the first time since nineteen forty-three, probably, and hello, whose date are you?”

“Um, Sam’s with me,” Steve manages, a little disoriented.

Here it comes.

“Oh hey,” Alan grins. “Congratulations.”

“No, man, just friends,” Sam laughs.

“Oh, pity. Well, fair warning, Daniel is probably going to flirt outrageously with both of you, you especially, he likes blond dudes—“ he points at Cap, arching his brows dramatically.

“My brother does not need a disclaimer,” Carola says, offended.

“He does,” Sharon says seriously. “He’s shameless.”

“Whoops, bottle neck, bottle neck,” someone says from behind Sam, making toot-toot noises before elbowing their way to the foyer and colliding with Carola.

“Rola!”

“Darcy,” Carola grins, hugging the girl back. “I wasn’t sure you were going to make it. I was certain we had lost you to the hipster underbelly of London.”

“Nah, I’m not even in London anymore since we… broke… Greenwich, y’know what I mean?”

“I heard something about that. Thor and Jane doing okay?”

“They’re in the disgustingly cute lovey-dovey honeymoon stage. It’s revoltingly adorable.”

“You know Thor?” Steve asks, blinking. Darcy blinks back, takes it all in stride as she usually does, and nods.

“Hi Cap, high five!”

A little stunned, Steve nevertheless does slap his palm against hers. Darcy gives him a thumb up and then takes a long look around.

“Your critters?”

“Upstairs doing stuff,” she pauses, then arches a brow and adds, “things.”

“You’re my favorite. Even though you keep your secrets,” and she adds a bit of jazz fingers to the word, for emphasis. “Oh hey, look, food.”

And she scampers to the kitchen, unwinding her long scarf and pointedly slapping people with it as she goes. Carola gives Steve a long-suffering look. “She’s a Dugan. Let’s find Monty.”

Because the email said emergency, people have showed up without their children, and that’s a blessing. That still means fifty people, and whether this is an emergency meeting and therefore a matter of some alarm, there is no denying they are all very glad to see the others, and don’t know how to be glad quietly.

With a family with deep  roots in the military and a strong sense of duty to their nations, you learn quickly to enjoy the nearness of your loved ones when you can. More than one Legacy has been lost in the line of duty through the years, and although the Legacies generally don’t have the temperament for melancholy and lingering sadness, absences still hurt.  

They find Monty and his Falsworth brood in the backyard, sipping tea. Of course. Monty shares a long hug with Steve, affectionately patting his cheek, and Steve’s eyes are wet, his hands trembling when he gently grabs Monty’s arms. It’s the first time they’ve seen each other since nineteen forty five.

Carola leaves them alone, and finds her way to the kitchen where Danny and Alan are sharing a beer with Sophie Falsworth and Mark Dugan. Carola hadn’t been sure Sophie would make it, and she’s unbelievably glad she has. Sophie is a decade her junior, but she is exactly the kind of cool-headed, straightforward field agent Carola wants near herself if they are going to go in for the kill on HYDRA. Mark, a Lieutenant Colonel in the US Air Force, looked tan and fit, just back from a tour in Iraq.

“And how is that going?” Carola asks sympathetically, leaning her hop against the counter at his side.

Mark groans and chooses to deflect with, “Where’s Mako, anyway?”

“Busy,” Danny answers around a dumpling. Carola reaches over and slaps him for his awful manners. Danny dutifully swallows his food before continuing. “Doing some delicate undercover work for the DEA in California. I don’t have any details.”

“And where’s Trip?” Mark asks, looking at Carola.

“I haven’t the faintest idea. His mother tells me he’s alive and well.”

Danny nods and takes a sip of his beer, and then shrewdly asks, “Have you talked to Melinda?”

“I haven’t been able to find her.”

“Maria Hill is working for Stark Industries now,” Mark comments. “Anybody know if Fury’s even alive?’

“Fury’s alive,” Carola says flatly. “I guarantee you he’s alive and at it.”

“Probably off somewhere already restarting SHIELD, if I know him,” Mark mutters.

They pass a few moments discussing whether Fury would or would not try to restart the whole thing. Carola doesn’t think so. Not if he’s lost Hill along the way. He might have survived without Romanoff, although that’s up to a heated debate, but Hill is indispensable. She’s loyal capable, straightforward and honest.

Maybe Carola will give her a call soon. She has always liked Maria Hill, and her perspective on what happened leading to, during and after the Insight Project would be very valuable.

Carola makes a round of the house, greeting people that arrived while she was picking Steve and Sharon up, and eventually find herself back in the backyard with Monty and Steve.

 

“Perhaps we might get to the matter of this meeting?” Colin, Monty’s eldest son, suggests politely.

Monty puts down his teacup and gets to his feet with surprising grace for a man in his late nineties. Carola doesn’t try to argue or stop him. If there’s one thing you learn, growing up a descendant of the Howling Commandos, it is never to argue with the stubborn bastards. Steve looks pained and conflicted as Monty goes, and the Brit takes a moment to lean a hand on Cap’s arm, reassuring and gentle. Steve nods.

Carola follows Monty up the stairs slowly and opens the door to the guest bedroom for him.

Bucky is standing up now, leaning against the wall and looking down through the window to the garden, where just at that exact moment, one of Jacques’ grandsons is tackling one of Morita’s to the ground. Steve and Sam stare like they can’t decide whether to stop them or place bets.

“Girls,” Carola says. “Go greet everyone.”

Olivia and Amandla abandon the Uno cards on the floor and storm down the stairs. Carola closes the door quietly behind them.

Monty sits on the edge of the bed, lowering himself slowly, and turns his cane slowly in his hands, kind eyes studying Bucky’s posture.

“A lot to take in, is it, old chap?” he asks eventually.

Bucky swallows and presses his back to the wall. “There’s so many of them. How many children do you have?’

“Five. Dum Dum had seven. Jacques married twice, three children with the first wife, two with the second. Jimmy had two children, widowed, remarried, had two more children. Peggy had three children. Phillip’s kids are in touch with us, but they’ve kept quite apart. Nearly all of our children have children by now. Some of those, as well. Like Amandla and Olivia. Who look lovely, by the way, dear.”

“Thank you,” smiles Carola.

“And Steve,” Bucky murmurs, running a hand through his hair.

“He’ll wait for you, Bucky,” Monty says firmly.

Bucky inhales, keeps the air in his lungs for a long moment, and nods, pushing off the wall, running his hand through his hair one last time. With short hair, well-shaved and dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved grey Henley shirt, he looks almost exactly like he does in nearly every picture taken of him before and during the War. Setting his jaw, he helps Monty up, offering his arm for his friend to lean on.

It’s odd how clearly it’s a gesture meant to comfort Bucky, rather than aid Monty. Monty says nothing, smiling gently and patting Bucky’s side.

“I’ll get everyone inside,” Carola says, excusing herself from the room so they can have a moment alone.

That’s actually easier said than done. Everyone’s so busy fawning over Steve and curiously poking at Sam Wilson that it feels like trying to corral unwilling sheep. Eventually, she snags Darcy and sics her on them. They have it coming. She starts slapping people with her scarf and beanie, shoving unapologetically at the ones who fail to move fast enough or in the right direction, generally calling people names, snapping her fingers under noses, and making puppy eyes at everyone else.

Carola eventually gets everyone inside, but keeping fifty loudmouths quiet is a feat no easily achieved, so although they are in something that could affectionately be called ‘order’, the noise makes Carola wince. She doesn’t quite know how to get everyone’s attention without raising her voice and making the noise worse.

Her combined living room and dining room areas are packed with people, most of which have no place to sit. Carola doesn’t mind them sharing chairs and sitting on the arms of her couches, dropping cushions to the floor to sit. Sophie pats the hearth for ash and when her fingers come away clean, she, Mark and Thimotheé sit on it.

“Like a pack of buffalos, I swear,” Alan says in awe, taking a discreet sip of his beer bottle and pointedly glaring when Darcy snags it.

“I suppose I’ll—“

An ear-splitting whistle makes their teeth grind together.

“Quiet down, animals,” Bucky calls from the stairs, scowling. Monty is holding onto his right arm, and his left is hidden from view by his body. The others can’t see it, but Carola can. His hand is fisted tightly.

“Holy shit,” says Darcy, staring unabashedly. “Nobody stays dead anymore. That’s shitballs.”

Chapter Text

Carola’s eyes are on Steve. She sees his expression fracture into something so full of emotion that it’s difficult to describe. There’s relief, and sadness, and so much love. It hurts to look at him, so Carola averts her eyes and makes an apologetic face in her brother’s direction when he flips her off for keeping the secret.

Monty is eyeing Bucky with a face split half and half between appreciation and exasperation. “As crass as always, I see.”

“Not all of us grew up in lofty mansions in the English countryside, Monty.”

“Your memory really is failing you, old boy. Everyone,” he continues, looking at the Commandos gathered in the living room. “HYDRA’s been at it again. Bucky, a short version, if you please.”

“Short version,” huffs Bucky, rubbing his face with his right hand.

Monty waves a hand over his shoulder, finishing the stairs and going to sit on the couch. The Falsworth clan congregates around him, as they tend to, and the others fall naturally in a vaguely controlled state of disarray around the room, trading wide-eyed looks.

“Alright. When Steve got us out of the factory in ’43, he didn’t find me with the other POWs in the cells, you know that, right?”

Steve’s who’d been grinning at his reply, immediately sobers.

“Right, right, you were in the lab, go on,” says Darcy, waving a hand in a ‘move along, move along’ gesture. Wordlessly, Bucky reaches over with the metal hand and steals the beer bottle. Darcy makes puppy eyes at him, but apparently ex-Soviet assassins are immune to those.

The beer is either a very good idea or a terrible one, consider Bucky hasn’t eaten anything today, but Carola, who is not his mother, says nothing.

“Whatever the fuck Zola did to me,” he says roughly after a hearty swig of beer. “It let me live when I hit the rocks in that ravine. More or less in one piece,” he waves his metal hand in the air in demonstration. “Then the Russian branch of HYDRA found me. The next seventy years are—fuck, not as blurry as I wish. Any o’ you heard of the Red Room?”

Over by the windows, Benjamin Dugan inhales sharply. Bucky half-turns to arch an eyebrow in Carola’s direction.

“He’s CIA,” she explains.

Bucky nods and continues. “Yeah. Share with the class.”

Benjamin, a tall and lanky sixty year old with fine grey hair and sharp grey eyes, rubs his forehead slowly. “The bare bones of it are, they’re a Soviet brainwashing program that creates assassins hardly an inch away from robots.”

“Wait, hold on, brainwashing, what the fuck,” Wallace Morita stands up, restlessly pacing across the living room.

“Yeah,” Bucky sets his jaw, passes the beer bottle to his other hand. “Brainwashing. They’d wipe me clean of any memories and put me in cryostasis for a couple years, then defrost me for a mission, give me shiny new memories, throw me at a target. Lather, rinse, repeat. I’m pretty special, it’s not like these people have an army of—of people like me. The others are regular guys, but they go through something similar. Milder.”

There’s a long moment of silence as that sinks in.

“So cryostasis works?” Alair Dernier asks, blinking.

Emily Falsworth leans forward from her perch on the arm of the couch next to Monty, spreading her hands. “That’s what you got out of what he just said?”

“It’s a lot to take in,” Alair replies.

“Guys,” says Darcy. “Futurama is like, a solid possibility now. Check it out.”

“Uh,” Spencer Morita raises his hand tentatively from the corner where he and his twin sister are tapping away at a laptop, both freshly turned nineteen. “Are you the Winter Soldier?”

Benjamin rubs his forehead again, nodding to himself. Bucky manages to force a rough ‘yes’ from between his teeth.

“Okay, well, I don’t want to upset you, considering upsetting you could make you kill us all, but there are, like, a dozen different agencies with a price on your head. And this is a really ugly mugshot, too, although I think maybe the eyeliner helps disguise your general bone structure.”

“Guyliner, dudes,” Darcy corrects loyally.

“Are you hacking HYDRA?” Spencer’s father asks from the opposite corner.

“No? Nobody says hack anymore,” Spencer’s sister Tracy makes a face at her clueless father. “And no? It’s all online. Thanks to Natasha Romanoff. Who, by the way, is your Red Room buddy-buddy, unless she thought that was a good thing to make up.”

“I know her,” Bucky says, voice oddly dead and flat. “Natalia. I know.”

“O-kay,” says Tracy, ignoring the chilly vibe in the room. “Well, just a heads-up, but it’s fine. I’ll have a friend get rid of all of it so you’re fine.”

“I thought we agreed you wouldn’t talk to the Rising Tide anymore,” her father says testily.

“I don’t remember agreeing to that,” Tracy says vaguely, busing typing. Spencer sinks back at her side and waves a hand at the room in general.

“Carry on,” he says distractedly.

“You remember me?” Sam Wilson asks Bucky, more curious than anything else.

Bucky gives him a look. “Sorry I almost to kill you. Twice.”

“Yikes,” says Darcy. “But like, on the other hand, you survived a master assassin twice, dude. Congrats.”

Wilson glances at her and then looks back at Bucky, eyes soft. “It’s ok. I know it wasn’t you.”

“Very gracious,” Monty interrupts swiftly. “Now back to the matter at hand. Sharon, SHIELD?”

Sharon crosses her arms tightly, glancing at Bucky for a moment before shaking her head. “I’ve been with SHIELD for a decade.” She pauses for a moment, thinking, eyes fixed on the floor. “It’s been going bad… for a while. When Cap woke up, I thought he’d make a difference. I thought he’d be enough to get us back on track.”

She looks at Steve apologetically, like she’s sorry to say that out loud. Steve’s jaw sets, but he shakes his head, head dipping forward.

“But,” she shakes her head, fingers tightening in her arms. “After all of this? I don’t know. I don’t know what to think.”

Steve looks up, blue eyes hard. “Do we all agree the helicarriers were weapons of terror, not defense?”

A murmur of general agreement.

Monty sits up. “How deep did it go?”

Sharon exhales through her nose, shaking her head. “Root-deep. All the way from the strike teams to Alexander Pierce.”

The glass of the beer bottle in Bucky’s right hand cracks. Alan snatches his wrist, alarmed, and takes the bottle away, but there doesn’t appear to be any blood. Sighing in relief, Alan pats Bucky in the arm and takes the bottle to the kitchen.

“Sorry,” Bucky mutters, wrinkling his nose in embarrassment. “Pierce was my handler.”

Sharon nods, and everyone makes an effort to swallow that lump of bile and continue forward. “After the helicarriers—after this—I don’t know what’s worth salvaging from the wreck.”

Monty shakes his head slowly. “Call Antoine back. This family isn’t going to be a part of an organization who would dare lay a hand on one of ours. The Howling Commandos will not be connected to SHIELD. Are we in agreement?”

More noise of agreement, this time a lot firmer than before. Steve paces silently to the window, arms crossed, shoulders and neck tense enough to look painful. Carola wonders what kind of burden he’s draped over himself; if he thinks he’s to blame for what’s been done to Bucky.

“Alright.” Elizabeth Dugan straightens from her slouch against the wall. “So without SHIELD, how do we burn HYDRA to the ground? Assuming that’s what you want to do, Bucky.”

“Absolutely.”

“Fair enough. Let’s be honest, killing Nazis is basically a family tradition, it’s not like I’m complaining, but the logistics, that’s complicated.”

“Well,” Steve says, somewhat absently, staring out the window to where Amandla and Olivia are practicing the gymnastics Bucky’s been teaching them. “I don’t want to come across as a psychopath, but if anyone’s up to some violent revenge, I’m behind you.”

“That sounds like our Steve,” Monty says fondly. “How many Commandos in fighting shape do we have?”

“We’re all a little psychopathic in here,” Darcy comments, in the tones of someone attempting to offer comfort. Dugans.

Everyone looks at Carola. She arches her brows. Monty stares at her. Carola glances at Sharon. Sharon shakes her head. Carola makes a ‘seriously?’ face at her. Sharon shrugs. This is ridiculous.

“You should lead, Carola,” Monty says firmly.

“I’ve been out of service for thirteen years,” she reminds everyone, crossing her arms. “Maybe Sophie should take the lead.”

“Sophie will get everyone killed,” Danny replies.

“Oi!” Sophie protests, and then stops when everyone stares at her. “Actually, fair enough. Carry on.”

Carola trades a look with Alan, who looks down to the floor. His nod is slow to come and very small, but he does nod. So Carola nods as well.

“Alright. If we’re all in agreement. Commandos in fighting shape. Twenty, counting me, who’ve been battle tested and tried. I don’t want inexperienced people on this. No one’s blowing off Annapolis to go hunt down Nazi scum, Sean, sit down. And nobody pregnant is allowed on the team,” she adds, rather pointedly, looking at Nancy Dugan, who scowls.

“Twenty-two,” calls Spencer, looking up from his laptop. “We’re going. You guys can’t even handle Google talk. You’ll need a lot of help.”

“I can handle Google talk,” Bucky replies, offended.

“Wow,” Spencer stares at him, wide-eyed. “You’re like, Steve Jobs.”

“Wait, un moment,” says Edmund Dernier, raising his hand. “For those of us who don’t live in worlds narrated by Tom Clancy and Robert Ludlum, could you please explain to me exactly what is crossing all of your thick skulls right about now?”

Edmund, who is a medic and has been in Medicis Sans Frontieres in Uganda for the past year, is a bit out of the loop. He knows the basics of what’s happened because he’s been able to receive emails, but a lot of the details are news to him.

“Oh, crime,” says Darcy, widening her eyes. Probably a reference to something, if Carola knows Darcy.

“We’re talking about a privately funded strike force,” says Daniel, Carola’s brother, slowly. “Two actually, I suspect.”

“Two,” drawls Bucky, stony eyes fixed on Steve’s. Steve’s shoulders square, jaw clenching. He looks angry enough to chew metal and spit out nails. An angry Steve Rogers is a thing to behold, and Carola is grateful not to be on the receiving end of that lethal glare.

Alan scratches his neck. “Is that sustainable?”

Everybody turns, this time, to look at Leonie Dernier, who’s absently staring at her laced hands, eyes flicking from one side to the other in thought.

“Yes,” she says slowly. “I checked the accounts before coming this morning. We’re above the ten million mark. Steve’s backpay alone is monumental, if he’s willing to—“

“Yes,” Steve says at once, turning to look at her. “Absolutely, take it.”

“Alright, then. Funding not one but two private strike forces isn’t going to be cheap, but… sustainable, yes. And after all—isn’t that what we’ve been saving it all for?”

“Fighting international shady mega Nazi organizations with a brainwashed Russian assassin from the nineteen forties and a supersoldier with an indestructible shield?” Darcy wonders.

“Helping a member of the family, dear,” corrects her mother, Lillian.

“Oh right. Well, and Cap’s got the Avengers too. I’m sure they’ll chip in. Fighting Nazis sounds like a good cause, right? Thor’ll help. He’s like a puppy, you just throw him a chewtoy and he… sizzles it with lightning.” she makes the spirit fingers again, for emphasis.

“I don’t know about that,” Steve cants his head to the side doubtfully. “Nat and Barton are off the grid. Bruce and Tony are trying to keep low profile and actually work on their personal lives for a change. I wouldn’t count them in. Thor, I don’t know.”

“We’ll throw Steve at them, all pouty,” Darcy suggests. “’m sure that’ll work.”

Steve frowns at her, but it severely lacks effect, especially on Darcy, who’s been largely immune to glaring since she turned eight.

“It’s a powerful incentive,” Bucky agrees, ignoring Steve.

Darcy grins at him. “I like you. We’re keeping him, right?”

Carola trades a long look with Steve. “She’s a Dugan.” That bears repeating, as often and as clearly as possible.

Bucky puts his hands up, palm out, in a ‘hold on’ gesture.

“HYDRA’s not a joke. I get that you guys grew up in this family and feel an obligation towards me and towards this fight, but, fuck. Believe me when I say this shit is not a joke. The things they do to captives—torture is the least of it. They turn you into lab rats. I was one of their treasure assets and they still broke down my bones just to see how long it took for me to heal them. Started on small bones in my fingers and eventually worked their way up to fractured vertebrae. And they wanted to keep me. The things they’ll do to you,” he stops, swallows convulsively. “No one’s suggesting this, no one else, so here it is from me. You want to back down, step back, you do it. I’m not gonna judge you.”

“Absolutely,” Steve steps in, drawing everyone’s attention. “This is a volunteer mission. Don’t volunteer lightly. Think it through. It’s going to be dangerous.”

“Not to mention wildly illegal,” Sam Wilson adds, making a wide encompassing gesture with a hand. “You guys realize that, right? You’re talking about putting together a couple vigilante strike teams and start attacking a massive organized terrorist organization out of your own pockets. You’ll be breaking hundreds of international laws.”

There’s a long moment of silence.

“We know, Sam,” Carola says. “We know. We’re just going to go right ahead and do it anyway.”

“I mean we did try to leave it to the Law,” Darcy points out. “And the Law fucked up real bad. No offense, Sharon.”

“No, we fucked up,” Sharon nods in agreement.

Steven Morita stands up, gesturing for everyone to quiet down a moment and listen. Carol looks at him for a long moment, because she can’t ever keep herself from staring at Steven, at least for a moment, whenever she sees him. Steven is one of the most beautiful people she knows, a sincerely gorgeous creature created by combination of Japanese and African blood. All of him is honey colored, from his skin to his wavy hair to his almond-shaped eyes; he has a small Asian nose and a sensual African mouth. He’s also a professional ballet dancer in the American Ballet Company, and his face isn’t the only lovely thing about him.

He stands up and crosses his arms firmly. Small, compact and solid, he looks tiny next to Steve’s considerable height.

“Bucky, you’re also not wrong. And thanks for offering a way out. But this is very personal. One of ours has been hurt. You’ve been hurt—what?”

“Buck,” Steve says softly. “You are one of us. You’re a part of this family.”

“You take in mass murderers now?”

“We already had one of those,” Danny points out, gesturing at Sophie, who rolls her eyes.

“We’re not taking you in,” Timotheé points out. “We’re taking you back. You were ours first.”

“Bucky, I’m serious,” Steve says, ignoring them. He and Bucky share a long, eloquent look. Steve’s eyes are wide and clear, very blue. There is earnestness in his face that looks out of place in a grown man; honesty Carola has never seen on anyone’s face but on those of her children. There is absolutely no doubt in him that this is where Bucky belongs, and this is something they are all willing to do because Bucky is theirs. And whomever’s hurt him must pay.

“Yes,” Steven continues, nodding at Steve. “This is very much a personal vendetta. I’m completely useless in the battlefield, obviously, but I full heartedly support this venture in spirit. Harm to a Howling Commando does not come cheap, and this debt is hefty. We all agree?”

The agreement is vocal, loud, and goes on for a while. Eventually, Bucky whistles again. The look he throws at Monty is haggard and fatigued, and Carola can tell that all of this commotion is taking a toll on him.

She gestures subtly to Olivia, who’s peeking in from the kitchen doorway. Her daughter, bless her, casually strolls over and tows Bucky away to the quieter kitchen.

Steve visibly stops himself from following, and retreats to Sam’s side.

“And the other thing,” says Monty, standing to go after Bucky. “Is the rather heavy moral obligation implied in the ability and the capacity to do something that must necessarily be done. This people must be stopped. We can stop them. How would you justify not doing so? You did, after all,” he adds, pointing at Wilson. “Already join this cause. Welcome to the family.”

Darcy gives him two thumbs up and a long cheery ‘yay’. Wilson shakes his head slowly, a faint smile on his lips, like that’s pretty much what he expected out of this meeting. Steve’s smile is faint, but there.

Carola wanders over across the room to him, eyebrows arched. Steve shakes his head slowly, smile growing.

“I think that whole ‘you can back out’ argument had a snowball’s chance in hell of working,” he admits.

“He was nice to suggest it,” Steven shrugs. “He looks like a nice kid. For a ninety something year old,” he adds, frowning.

Carola looks at him. “I hear he dances, too, although a pas-de-deux is probably asking for a bit much.”

“That’s fine,” Steven grins. “I still have hope for your kids. When’s the ballet recital?”

Carola explains that it’s been postponed to the ends of next month. Steven goes off in search of the children, in hopes of convincing them to show him their routines. Not that they’ll need much convincing. It’s rare that Steven can make it over here to Atlanta with his busy company schedule, so whenever he does drop by, the girls hardly leave his side.

Sam and Sharon and distracted speaking to Danny, Sophie and Timotheé. Carola takes advantage of their brief moment of relative privacy and rests her hand on Steve’s arm.

“Are you going to be alright?”

“Me?” Steve looks genuinely surprised at this. “I’m fine.”

Carola stares at him without blinking for long enough that Steve shifts his weight, clearly uncomfortable.

“You’re one of ours, too,” she says softly.

Steve exhales something that might have wanted to be a laugh but falls several miles short. He looks away, out the window, for a long moment. Carola studies his strong, masculine profile. The eyelashes on this boy are ridiculous.

“I didn’t even look for him,” he says at length, turning back to her. “His body. I just left him there. Moved right on.”

Carola squeezes his arm. There’s no point in telling him it’s not his fault, that he couldn’t have known. Useless to point out nobody could have survived that fall. Things like this, guilt and blame and regret, these are things so visceral and personal words cannot touch them, no matter how heartfelt. She’s not about to tell Steve that his feelings are wrong or misplaced. That’s what he feels, and he won’t stop feeling it in a hurry.

“That’s in the past,” she says instead. “Can’t do anything about it.”

“Can’t forget it either,” Steve replies.

“No. But you can—oh, that reminds me,” Carola blinks. “Did you know your little murderous rampage of revenge after Bucky fell was classified by the army and kept out of public knowledge?”

Steve grimaces in distaste. “Yeah. Philips told me they’d keep it wrapped up. Something about maintaining my image. Why?”

“Bucky’s under the impression you’re a stranger to playing mean and dirty. Might want to disabuse him of that notion.”

“He won’t even talk to me.” Steve murmurs, eyes downcast, head ducking forward to hide his expression. 

“He wants to, Steve. He’s just,” she sighs. “He has a lot of things he has to work through. Wait it out. The two of you will figure it out. And Steve, I mean it. You’re one of us. If you’re not doing so good, lean on us. That’s what we’re here for.”

Steve nods shyly, tilting his face away, cheeks flushed. That Irish complexion is a bummer for subtlety, poor kid.

“That and babysitting,” Carola says, because Steve looks like he desperately needs to get out of the moment. His eyes are looking wet. He’s been on his own too long. “Which you will absolutely be doing, don’t even think of ducking that.”

Steve clears his throat and shakes his shoulders loose of tension. “I’ve never babysat. You sure you trust me with your kids?”

“Dear,” Carola pats his arm. “I don’t trust my children with you.”

“It’s true,” Danny butts in, throwing an arm around Carola’s shoulders. “Better bring your shield, Cap, ‘cause those girls are gonna walk all over you. You think you had it tough with HYDRA? Wait until you rewatch Tangled eleven times.”

“Oh! I actually like that one,” Steve says, grinning. “You think they’d like The Wizard of Oz? They’re old enough to watch that, right?”

“Do you cook?” Carola asks, eyes narrowed in thought.

“Yeah,” Steve nods. “I like cooking. Why?”

“You’re hired. How soon can you move in?”

Steve laughs, a bright and loud peal of honest laughter. It sounds good. It feels even better.

“That’s all good,” Tracy says suddenly, appearing at Steve’s elbow like a shadow. “But shit is serious.”

Carola’s good mood dissolves.

“What’s wrong?” Steve asks, frowning.

“The Insight Project worked with advanced complex logarithms to compile the kill list,” Tracy starts, showing them the screen of her tablet briefly enough that it is little more than a blur of light and pixels. “We broke the encryption—“

“You did?” Steve cuts in, stunned. “Natasha said it’d take months to break.”

Tracy wrinkles her nose in distaste. “What are we, amateurs?”

Steve spread his hands, glancing at Carola. “Yes?”

“They’re technopaths,” Danny explains. “Mutants.”

Steve looks like he wants to ask more questions, but Tracy brushes by him and flicks her fingers towards the television, which turns on and starts streaming long strands of indecipherable data.

Spencer stands up from the floor and drops his tablet on the coffee table. The tv screen resolves itself into a white background and thousands of names in blank ink, but for a few exceptions in red and green.

“What you’re looking at here is the complete hit list of the Insight Project from the moment it went online to the second Cap & Co fucked it over. We have some pretty obvious names. There’s Stark. Cap, you were on top of it, congrats. Romanoff, right, Barton, the other Avengers, makes sense. Sam Wilson nowhere to be found, great job on basically not existing on anyone’s radar.”

“Thanks,” Sam says dubiously, arching a brow.

“Peggy’s on it, Monty’s on it,” Spencer adds, snapping his fingers. Two names grow in size and resolve into James Montgomery Falsworth and Margaret Carter. “Not surprising.”

“Bucky’s on it,” Tracy comments. “A bit surprising.”

“Sophie, Matt, Timotheé, Carola—you’re all on it, further down the list. We thought it was based off military service record, because highly trained military personnel is definitely a threat, right? Made sense. Then we found this.”

Spencer makes a beckoning gesture at the screen. Spencer Lana-Morita and Tracy Lana-Morita come forward in bright red. Carola’s blood turns cold.

“That still makes sense,” Tracy says softly. “We’re officially unclassified, but we’re Alpha-level mutants. Most mutants are on the hit list, actually. The Omegas are right on top with Cap. Xavier, Magneto, the powerful ones, you know. So we fit the bill.”

“Military personnel, powerful mutants, people they can’t hope to control, all those had to go,” Sophie says.

“Yeah. Here’s where it gets bad,” Spencer said, snapping his fingers. Names started coming forward, growing in size on the screen. Carola sees Alan’s name come up, alongside Leonie’s, Steven’s, Philippa’s, so many others.

“We’re all on it,” Tracy says, stalking forward to point out names as they come up. “Olivia and Amandla are on it. Jayce’s four month old son is on it. They targeted us, the Legacies, specifically.”

“They know where we all live,” Spencer says grimly. “I’m locking down everything I can find on this and deleting the whole family online. I hope you’re not fond of your Facebook profiles because those are gone. I’m deleting us.”

Steve crosses his arms. “Will they assume Bucky will come to you?”

“I would,” Tracy replies. “And it’s going to look real suspicious if we all start dropping off work and school at around the same time some shadowy black ops strike teams starts hitting up their bases.”

“We can totally mask it, though,” Tracy suggests. “Like, I can make it look online that you’re showing up at work every day on the dot, Carola, and such stuff. We can keep up the charade unless they come knock on your office door.”

“They won’t risk that right off the bat,” Steve says decisively. “They won’t want to rouse suspicious, give you a reason to start looking harder into all of this. The fact we’re four months late helps. If they’ve been looking, all they’ve seen is all of you going about your daily lives, not a hitch in the routine.”

“Yes, but then there’s this meeting,” Carola points out. “And you’re in it. And it—stupidly—didn’t occur to me to ask Bucky to stay away from windows and inside the house, so if they had eyes on me at all, they know I’m in it.”

“No. Their whole surveillance system went toast,” Spencer said, shaking his head. “Their satellites are offline. Everything was linked to Insight, and everything is fried. We checked. Whatever surveillance they’re doing is old fashioned online snooping. And with about a dozen international intelligence agencies after them like hungry sharks, I doubt they’re sparing the personnel to come watch you drive you the kids to school.”

“There isn’t as much online as there should be,” Tracy says, scowling. “Fuckers probably keep paper files. Nazis and tree murderers.”

“Oh yeah,” Danny nods. “Those two offenses are on the same level.”

“The best thing we can do is keep a low profile,” Steve says, giving a few steps closer to the tv to stare at it with a frown, his mouth a tight line. “Spencer and Tracy can mask the military personnel that goes conveniently missing, and the civilians keep their daily lives like nothing’s wrong. We’ll alert everyone. If we know they might be coming, we’ll see them before they reach us.”

“I don’t like the idea of leaving the civilians without backup,” Carola objects.

“So we get backup,” Danny suggests. “We call in favors, we pull strings. Call your Navy buddies, let them know you need them to keep an eye on Alan and the girls. People’ll fall over themselves in England to watch over Monty. We keep up the charade, but with people watching our backs.”

Strategically sound. Carola knew that. She didn’t have to like it, but she could see that it was the right decision. She nodded.

Steve turned back from the screen and looked at her, eyes soft and sad.

“I’m sorry your family’s mixed up on it.”

“You are my family,” Carola says firmly. “And it’s not like it’s your fault a band of psychopathic Nazis wants my children—“

She has to stop and swallow. The words strangle in her throat. She clenches her fingers in her arms and shakes her head. It takes a moment before she can push past the fury making words impossible.

“Car,” Danny wraps his arms around her, so she can hide her face against his neck as the first wash of hot fury passes over her. There and gone. She lets it go. Danny rests his chin on the top of her head, his arms tightening.

“We’re going to kill every last one of them,” Steve says. “I give you my word.”

He says it calmly, in a reasonable, even tone. Like he’s stating a fact. Carola shifts her head so she can look at him. The midday light catches golden on his hair, goes through his left eye at an angle that makes it look like barely tinted glass. He’s just a boy, she thinks sadly. Born in nineteen seventeen, reported missing in action in nineteen forty four. Thawed out in two thousand twelve.

Twenty six years of life. One war, one alien invasion, black ops, one massive intelligence organization destroyed.

“I believe you,” Carola says softly.

Steve nods, turning back to the screen. His eyes flick across it like he’s remembering the names of every person on that list, memorizing them.

“Mom!” Amandla runs into the room, wide-eyed. “Uncle Bucky broke the microwave.”

“It’s not broken!” Bucky called from the kitchen. Carola disentangles herself from her brother and starts in that direction.

“How do you break a microwave?” Sophie asks curiously, trailing after her.

There’s a loud bang and a flash of light. There’s a long pause, and then the distinctive sound of a fire extinguisher from the kitchen.

“It’s broken now,” Monty calls, sounding amused.

Carola looks at the ceiling.

“Mom,” Amandla grabs her hand and tugs on it. “If Uncle Bucky breaks another wall, can we move to Orlando?”

Carola looks down at her. “You’re an opportunistic little monster.”

“I have interests,” Amandla replies.

“Another wall?” Steve asks faintly.

Carola looks down at Amandla. “Uncle Steve is upset, baby. Want to distract him a bit, cheer him up? I hear he likes movies.”

“Oh!” Amandla’s eyes widen, and she bounces over to Steve, already chatting up excitedly.

Sophie gives Carola an impressed look. “You use your kids to distract supersoldiers now?”

Carola shrugs, already moving towards the kitchen to assess the damage.

“And do chores,” she admits over her shoulder.

 

Chapter Text

Most of the Legacies are staying in Atlanta for several days, so Carola is not surprised to come home to a living room full of people the evening after the meeting. Of all the horrors she expects to come home to, though, this one actually makes her gape. In retrospect, with as many people as she has hanging around the house, it’s a miracle it’s taken this long for this nightmare to occur.

“Oh, no,” she says fiercely, scowling. “You are kidding me.”

“It’s the Yankees and the Cubs!” Bucky protests, gesturing at the TV.

“No! I am putting my foot down. I already put up with football, I’m not going to lose the tv to the most goddamn boring game in history—“

“Pretty sure that’s golf,” Alan mutters from the chair where he’s sprawled reading a book and ignoring the baseball game in the TV. The ten other people gathered around the TV wisely keep mum about the whole thing.

Bucky gapes. “Hey! Baseball’s good! And come on, I’ve been a slave for seventy years—“

Carola squints at him. “You don’t get to use that excuse to get away with everything.”

“I really do,” Bucky grins. Darcy looks impressed and gives him a thumbs up, which Bucky returns with his left metal fist. He even winks. Amazing. “Seventy years later the Cubs still haven’t won a World Series. It’s fucking ridiculous. I’m a Cub fan by proxy, you know, I had an uncle from Chicago, so this is a really big game for me.”

Carola whirls around. “Alan, do something about this.”

“Your uncle, your problem.”

“What do I keep you for?” she scowls at him.

“Sex,” Alan says calmly.

Carola throws up her hands and storms to the kitchen, where she very pointedly bangs the cabinets as she puts away the groceries. Men, their goddamn ball games and their ridiculous goddamn traditions. God help her!

“Hey,” Her brother Danny comes over and takes the box of cereal from her, gesturing with his chin to the backyard. “Trip’s here.”

Carola follows his line of sight. Antoine’s pacing the yard in the dark, alone, hands shoved in the pockets of his leather jacket, head low as if in thought.

Danny takes two bottles of beer out of the fridge and pops them open, handing them to her. Carola takes a sip of one of them as she crosses the yard, already grinning. It’s been a while since she saw her cousin, and she and Antoine have always been close.

“Hey, little troublemaker,” she calls, coming to stand next to him where he’s now facing away from the windows, his back to the men in the living room. He gives her one look, and her smile fades. “Trip,” she starts.

He shakes his head, lips pressed into a tight line, looking away. Carola hands him one of the beers and turns around, bumping her arm against his, to look at the house.

Bucky’s doing some sort of extravagant gesture with his hands, trying to explain something to Darcy who looks amused but otherwise completely unengaged, sitting on the ground and letting Olivia and Amandla braid her long hair.

Everyone is excited and eager to spend time with him, but Bucky has been very clear about what could overwhelm him and cause trouble, and people are being very mindful of his request not to crowd him or press him for company. They’re trying to keep it to relatively small groups at a time. Half the Carter family had shown up at lunch with Chinese take-out. The people in the living room now are mostly from the Dugan and Morita clans, with an odd Falsworth mixed in.

Monty had asked Carola to suggest a good barbecue place and he and Steve left a couple of hours ago. She hopes they are having a good time and Monty is having none of Steve beating himself up.

Sam Wilson has been sucked into the Dugan family for the night and, if Carola knows her cousins, he should be well on his way to drunk by now. Both Mark and Christopher are in the Air Force, and Diana is an EMT in Louisiana, so he should feel comfortably at home. Sam comes with good references, introduced by Steve and vetted by the twins, but the Dugans are unlikely to pass up a chance to put someone through the Dugan welcoming ritual. As far as Carola has been able to discern that ritual involves getting someone outrageously drunk and then waiting for them to do something ridiculous that will earn them a nickname the whole Dugan clan then continues to use forever.

Nineteen years of marriage later Alan is still A-Rex. That anecdote involves dinosaur toys, somehow. Carola has asked, but a coherent retelling of the night is yet to happen. Alan hasn’t drunk tequila in nearly twenty years, though.

Antoine shakes himself slightly, almost as if he needs to unlock his muscles, and sips at his beer. “I feel like if I move, I’ll blow up,” he mutters, glancing at her.  

He lifts a hand and rubs it roughly against his forehead and scalp, agitated. “Right under my fucking nose. I didn’t even see it coming.”

Carola looks at him. “How could you have seen it coming, Trip?”

“Six years,” Antoine says hotly. “I worked for them for six years and in that time, how many fucking times d’you think they—defrosted him and pointed him at someone like a weapon?”

“I try not to think about it.”

“Well, you weren’t working for them,” Trip snaps, eyes full of helpless anger. “I was fucking doing what they told me, how many times did I—“

“Trip,” Carola interrupts softly. “You couldn’t know. Nobody knew. Steve didn’t know. Sharon didn’t know. Fury didn’t know. It wasn’t you, it was HYDRA. They fucked everything up.”

Trip takes a violent swig of his beer, shaking his head. Carola turns to face him, crossing her arms tightly.

“Honestly, Trip, what did you expect?” she demands. “I’m a SEAL. You’re black ops. We’re not built for spy games, let’s just admit it. I don’t have an inconspicuous bone in my body and you bite the inner bit of your lip when you lie, it’s the fattest tell I’ve ever seen.”

“It was supposed to be fine,” Trip says, scowling at her. “It was supposed to be SHIELD, it was basically like an extension of the family. We were gonna help people. We were gonna do the right thing. Cap and Bucky died for this shit. I was gonna—fucking carry on their legacy, you know?”

Carola rubs her eyes slowly and glances at the living room windows. Darcy’s using her new braids to hit George Carter in the head. She must be really bored. George eyeing her with a gleam in the eye that suggests she’s going to regret this. Darcy can test anyone’s patience. Often does. On purpose.

Bucky is nowhere to be seen. Carola frowns, wondering where could have wandered off to.

“HYDRA,” he mutters angrily, glancing at her. “Who’s HYDRA though, right? What’s SHIELD and what’s HYDRA? How do I tell? When did it start? Was there any point when HYDRA wasn’t SHIELD?”

Carola looks at him, concerned. “There has to have been a time when they were different things.”

“Yeah?” Tripp gives him a long, hard look. “Tell me when. Before Peggy gave Armin Zola an American passport?”

“Antoine,” she stars, tone low.

“You want to know what’s really eating at me?” Trip demands, pacing. “Garrett and Ward and their minions, I was, fuck, I was right in the middle of it, I was right there, it fucking happened all around me. We were supposed to be trying to tear down the Centipede Project and all the while I was working for the man who run it.”

Carola didn’t know what the Centipede Project was, but the loathing in Trip’s voice suggested it was fairly bad.

“You couldn’t have known,” she insists.

“Yes I could have,” Trip retorts, stopping his pacing and moving closer to her, furious. “I could have been paying more attention, or seen the warning signs—I should have known something was up way back when I was in the Academy, when Ward asked me all those really pointed little questions about the fate of humankind and the importance of order in the world, how the hell did I miss that large-as-life sign? I knew something was odd about that, I knew it, but I was so intent on being in SHIELD, so damn worried about proving myself beyond being a Legacy—“ he stops, shaking his head.

“Are you saying someone tried to recruit you to HYDRA?” Carola asks incredulously.

“He must not have known who I was,” Trip says, almost to himself. “Garrett never tried, it was all Ward, and I must have—answered wrong or something, he never brought it up again, or I guess Garrett gave him a clue, I don’t know.”

“I don’t know who Ward is,” Carola reminds him, though Trip doesn’t seem to be listening. “Trip, wait, listen to me for a minute. SHIELD and HYDRA—“

“They’re the same,” Antoine says heatedly, keeping his voice low. “They’re the same, they’ve always been the same. I’ve been working for HYDRA for the last six years. I let this happen!”

“I’ve got you beat,” Bucky says flatly from behind them, startling them.

Antoine grits his teeth and turns around almost like he’s expecting Bucky to go off on him. Bucky crosses his arms tightly and moves slowly closer, watching Antoine attentively for a long moment. With a jolt, Carola realizes Bucky’s lifted that gesture from Alan, just like she has. Alan always crosses his arms tightly when he’s upset or angry, like a physical way of keeping all that emotion inside.

“I’m fairly sure I can handle myself in a fight a lot better than you, pal, and they still got me for seventy years, so settle the hell down.”

“Not exactly the same,” Tripp points out.

“If you think that justifies any of the shit in my head, you’re the fucked up one.”

Trip rubs his hand up and down his face harshly for a moment.

“Look, it’s over. I’m out. What’re you gonna do, beat yourself up over this for the rest of your life for something you couldn’t have ever stopped? I already got Steve doing that, thanks. Besides, it’s fucking insulting. I’m not damaged goods.”

“I feel like I actively fucking helped them.”

Bucky reaches over and snatches up the beer bottle, taking a long sip before giving it back. “Wash it down. You don’t want to start competing with me on who’s feeling more disgusting, believe me.”

Trip takes the bottle and obediently drinks form it, eyes studying Bucky carefully. “So. You’re gonna go after them.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I am.”

“I think I want to be there handing you ammo.”

Bucky regards him for a moment, speculative. “What was SHIELD’s mission, that they told you?”

Trip makes a vague gesture of defeat with his free hand. “Protecting people. Helping the helpless. Shielding the innocent.” He looks abruptly exhausted. “Bullshit.”

 “Yeah,” Bucky agrees. “But you didn’t know it was bullshit when you signed up. You signed up for the good reasons. They fucked you over, that’s not on you. Protecting people and all that stuff, that’s good. That’s not what I’m about, though.” He pauses, eyes wandering momentarily away before returning, completely empty of emotion. “Not anymore.”

Antoine’s eyes flick to Carola, then back to Bucky.

“What are you about?” he asks carefully.

“Blood,” Bucky says honestly, grim. “Not exactly in alignment with your ideals, is it?”

Trip looks at him, jaw working. “You think I don’t want to kill every single fucker that hurt you?”

“I think you’re angry enough to think that’s what you want,” Bucky says knowingly, jadedly. “I know how that feels. You wanna come with me, you’re welcome.  But there’s gonna be a line and we’re gonna sprint right across it. So think it over.”

Trip nods, not because he hasn’t committed himself to Bucky’s cause on the spot—Antoine’s quick to know what’s right, always has been—but because he can see Bucky won’t take an immediate reply. Instead he goes over and sits on the lawn chair. Sighing, Carola goes and sits at his side, sipping at her beer. Bucky’s shoulders slump, and he comes over to sprawl on his back on the grass, leaning his head on his right hand.

“Coulson’s rebuilding SHIELD,” Trip says eventually.

“Who the hell is Coulson?” scowls Bucky.

Trip shrugs. “A suit? Don’t think there’s anything special about him, but I guess he’s Fury’s pet or something. The Old man tasked him with ‘starting fresh’.”

“There is no starting fresh,” Bucky snaps.

Carola frowns at her cousin. “I thought Steve told Fury that SHIELD had to go.”

“Yeah, well, I guess it didn’t stick, because he made Coulson Director and told him to carry right the hell on.”

“Unbelievable,” mutters Bucky. That he lifted from Carola.

Shaking his head, Trip looks down at the bottle and starts prying off the label, slowly, methodically, without breaking it. “They’re good people. Real good people, you know? With good intentions.”

“Something like what SHIELD became can never be good, you get that, right?” Bucky asks tiredly.

“I do,” Trip says intensely. “I do now.”

“Fuck it,” Bucky sits up, resting his elbows on his knees. “Just bring them in. Bring them over to the Commandos. They wanna help, they can help us. But if they rebuild SHIELD and shit starts happening again, Antoine… if you don’t deal with them, you better be prepared for me to do it. You understand me?”

Antoine nods slowly, eyes fixed on the beer bottle.

“Good. Now I’m gonna go watch my game. You guys are real depressing, you know that?”

“Your game’s depressing, dude,” Trip retorts, snorting. “Baseball, really? The Cubs?”

“I can kill you very easily, pal,” Bucky warns, ripping grass off and throwing it at Antoine. Trip gives Carola a sad look.

“That how he deals with everything?”

“Sometimes he curses in Russian.”

Walking backwards towards the house, Bucky flips them off. “You guys are really shitty descendants and I want a refund.”

“Uncle Bucky!” Olivia is standing in the open doorway, frowning. “You’re not supposed to say that word.”

Trip chokes on his beer. If looks carried heat, Bucky’s would be a white-hot laser.  

“You tell him, girl,” Carola calls over. “You tell him good.”

She shoves Trip, who’s bent over laughing, off the lawn chair. Bucky throws up his hands in surrender. Just as he reaches the door, someone else comes to stand next to Olivia. Lelani, one of the Falsworths. She lays her hands on Olivia’s shoulders and smiles down at her.

“Olive, I was wondering if I could have a word with Uncle James.”

“Okay,” Olivia nods and slips inside. Lelani steps into the yard and closes the door, glancing over at Carola and Trip before her eyes fix on Bucky.

“Do you remember me?”

Bucky considers for a moment. “Lillian?”

She smiles. “Close enough. Lelani.”

“Right. You’re one of Monty’s.”

“That’s right. There are a lot of us, I know.”

“Your brother is James,” Bucky says, mouth curving in a smile.

“Yes,” Lelani laughs quietly. “One of the many.”

She stops smiling, eyes flicking back to Carola and Trip again. Carola arches her brows and stands up.

“What’s on your mind, Lani?”

Lelani crosses her arms, inhaling. She’s a small lady, short and delicate, with an impressive cascade of dark brown hair streaked with silver.

“I wanted to speak to you about your health,” she says to Bucky, calmly, like she’s talking to one of her patients. “Carola, Antoine, could you leave us for a moment?”

Carola and Trip share a look and start moving towards the door, but Bucky lifts a hand to stop them.

“It’s better if they stay,” he says lowly. “If you want to talk medical stuff, it’s better if someone with… military training is around to get between us. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Do you want me to go?” Trip offers, pointing at the door.

Bucky shakes his head. “Both of you stay. That alright with you?”

Lelani nods. “Your choice.”

Bucky inhales, bracing himself. “My health.”

“Specifically, your brain.”

Bucky goes very still, eyes gleaming in the moonlight. “You’re a doctor, right?”

“I’m a physiotherapist,” Lelani answers. “I work with war vets. I’d love to have a look at your shoulder, but your prosthesis isn’t my main concern at the moment.”

“My brain,” Bucky echoes.

Lelani tips up her chin to look him straight in the eyes. “My husband, Johnny, couldn’t make it to this meeting because he’s in a conference in Beijing. He’s a neurosurgeon. I can’t say I understand as well as he does, but I do understand some, and I’m worried that you’re hurt in ways you don’t know.”

Bucky crosses his arms, taking a deep breath. He glances at Carola, almost like he’s checking her location. He’s tense and uncomfortable, obviously doesn’t want to have this conversation. Carola has half a mind to stop Lelani before she can make this worse, but she also understands that Lelani means well and that these are questions that need to be asked.

Bucky nods tightly. “What do you need to know?”

“You said they wiped you,” Lelani starts quietly. In the moonlight her sea-grey eyes are silvered. “Regularly.”

“Before every mission. Sometimes in the middle of one.”

Lelani nods. “Like I said, I’m not an expert, so stop me if I’m wrong. But the only way I can think of to induce such massive memory gaps is with deliberate brain damage through repeated electroshock therapy.”

Carola looks down at her bottle of beer and blinks quickly, swallowing down a mouthful of bile.

“Yeah,” Bucky mutters. “It’s a chair. The gear covered nearly all of my head.”

“It would have to. Memories are stored in different parts of the brain according to the manner of memory it is, and for you to forget everything but muscular memory, they would have to shock everything from the cerebral cortex to the hypothalamus.”

“How can someone survive that?” Trip asks softly.

“A normal man wouldn’t,” Lelani replies. “But the serum that they gave Steve, and whatever version of it they gave you, James, accelerates healing and augments the metabolism. So long as the damage incurred isn’t bad enough to be lethal your body starts healing it almost at once. Your brain would have healed itself enough to remain functional, but would have needed a lot more time to recover nonessential knowledge like long-term memories.”

“So he is healing,” Carola says. “Still?”

“Probably,” Lelani nods. “Things like bruising of the brain and such physical issues would heal almost at once. But electroshock therapy alters cerebral chemistry, and chemical imbalances can lead to all sorts of problems from epilepsy to psychiatric illnesses.”

Bucky swallows. “But you said I’m still healing.”

“Probably,” Lelani remarks. “But even so, the brain is a very complex and delicate thing. It’s not like a bone. You can’t fracture it over and over and hope it’ll set and be the same. I’m worried that what they did to you might have ruined something permanently.”

Bucky stiffens. “You want to run tests.”

Carola steps forward. “Lelani—“

“I work with war veterans,” Lelani says firmly, giving Carola a cold look. “I know what PTSD looks like.” She turns back to Bucky, frowning. “I don’t want to run tests, I don’t want to put you in a CAT scan, I don’t want to do anything unless you ask me. I didn’t even want to talk about this, but I’m worried. The symptoms can be severe, and if we’re not ready to deal with them—“

“Okay, but,” Trip puts out a hand to stop her. “I saw footage of missions. Steve gets hit in the head an average of twice a mission and he’s fine.”

“Really?” Carola stares at him.

Trip shrugs. “He’s pretty reckless.”

“Yes, but Steve doesn’t scar,” Lelani points out patiently. “His wounds heal and leave no trace. I saw his medical records when he was admitted to hospital in Washington four months ago. A regular man wouldn’t be walking, and he doesn’t have a single mark on him. But,” she takes a deep breath and offers a hand. “may I see your right arm, please?”

Bucky’s jaw works, but he uncrosses his right arm and takes her hand. Lelani turns his arm under-side up and pulls his sleeve up. Even in the moonlight the long mark of an old, almost faded cut is visible along the inside of his elbow.

“Shrapnel,” Bucky says curtly.

Lelani pulls his sleeve back down and releases his hand.

“You scar,” she says gently. “And scars in your cerebral cortex could be bad.”

Bucky nods. “But you said you didn’t want to run tests.”

“No,” her eyes flick to Carola for a moment, then back to Bucky. “HYDRA’s been doing this to you for seven decades, and I know that they must have been monitoring you very closely. All the information my husband will need is in their files. You’re going to hate this, but I need those files. HYDRA keeps all their info either in paper files or on closed unconnected databases. Spencer and Tracy have tried to get them but there isn’t a single thread of information on the Winter Soldier project anywhere they can access. You talked about a chair. That chair has to have monitoring information at least.”

Bucky runs his right hand down his face agitatedly.

“Lelani,” Carola shakes her head. “Even if they haven’t been destroyed, retrieving them will be near impossible.”

“You’re a SEAL,” Lelani replies implacably. “Isn’t mission: impossible your job description?”

Carola actually has nothing to say to that. It’s a fair point.

“Look, this is what I do,” Lelani says insistently. “You shoot people, I keep people together. I keep this family healthy. That’s my job. Ultimately, James, it’s your choice. If you want me to back off, I will. But I’m—“

“You’re worried,” Bucky says tiredly. “I know. I heard you. The data won’t have been destroyed. They’ve been trying to replicate me for decades; those files are precious to them. I think we can get them for you.”

He looks at Carola, face pale but determined. “I know where we’re hitting first. Washington. I was operating out of a base in a bank during Project Insight, and they had my equipment there. The chair does store data. Brain scans at the least.”

“It’s been four months,” Trip points out. “They must have cleared out.”

Bucky shakes his head. “I saw the list of bases published on the internet, and I saw the intel Carola and the twins have overlapped over it. That base isn’t anywhere in it. I think they consider it a secure location. They might even be waiting for me to come back like a good dog.”

“Well,” Trip says slowly. “We could—“

“Oh,” Bucky interrupts, eyes wide, looking over Trip’s shoulder to the TV on the living room. “Home run. Yes!”

“Is that game still on?” Trip turns around, frowning.

“Baseball games last two weeks each,” Carola says flatly.

“Assault planning tomorrow,” Bucky says distractedly, pulling open the living room door.

Trip spreads his arms, brows arched. “Oh, yeah, sure, it’s not like we’re risking limb and—he’s not listening.”

Shaking his head slightly, he takes a sip of beer and peers at Carola.

“What are you thinking?”

Carola hums. “I’m thinking I was half hoping we could blow stuff up from a distance. But this ‘search and destroy’ just turned into ‘infiltrate and recover’.”

“Oh, you can still blow stuff up,” Lelani says. “I fully encourage blowing stuff up. Just get the files before you do.”

“Isn’t Steve taking the medical facilities down?” Trip asks, frowning.

Carola blinks at him. “Who said that?”

Trip’s brows fly up. “Bucky,” he answers dubiously. “According to Danny.”

“And has Bucky told Steve?”

“It makes sense,” Lelani crosses her arms. “Rescuing prisoners. Helping the helpless. That sounds like Cap.”

“And all of you think that Steve isn’t going to kick up a fuss about being sent off to rescue prisoners in comparatively low security facilities while Bucky cuts a bloody path through the military branch of HYDRA?” Carola asks incredulously. “That is basically the black ops equivalent of milk runs.”

“I don’t think he will, actually,” Lelani admits. “I think he’s more likely to nod and then do precisely whatever he wants regardless of what he’s told.”

“And who is going to tell him?” Carola demands.

Trip and Lelani look blank for a moment.

“Our CO,” Trip says suddenly, resting his hand on her shoulder. Lelani nods emphatically. “Definitely a job for our CO. Our brave, brave CO. Which incidentally Danny tells me it’s you.”

Carola sighs. She suddenly feels a deep sympathy for Colonel Phillips.

 

Chapter Text

Steve puts down his coffee mug very deliberately, sitting it right in the middle of its saucer. He brings up his hands and laces his fingers, touching the knuckle of his right index finger to his upper lip. And, for a long moment, he is still and very, very quiet, eyes downturned to the side, so his lashes hide his expression. 

“He’s really sending me away,” he says after a moment, voice steady and calm.

Carola averts her own eyes, looking out the window. She doesn’t know how to make this any better.

“I kept thinking he’d change his mind,” he says softly, dropping his hands, fingers still laced, to rest on the table. “I—we were always together. I don’t remember a time we weren’t. Not while we were both alive and in the same place. I thought that—I thought he would want me watching his six.”

Carola takes a sip of her tea and cradles in her hands until the porcelain burns her skin. When she puts it down, she still doesn’t know how to make this wound any better. Steve is dealing with quite a lot of trauma, or as the situation stands, not dealing with a lot of trauma, and disappointment and hurt just keep piling up for him. It can’t be easy, waking up seventy years later to a world so vastly different, alone, and then less than two years later discover the life you thought you were building was a superstructure of half-truths and outright lies.  

“I was not a part of the Iraq war in 2002,” she says softly. “Which doesn’t necessarily mean I was never to Iraq, or that I wasn’t there before 2002.”

She looks up at him to make sure he understands what she’s saying. Black ops and sniper assignments hidden deep in sealed, confidential military records. All in the name of her country.

Steve nods.

“When I came back from my last deployment, I was…,” she pauses, makes a vague gesture with a hand. “Conflicted, though that’s a mild term for it. My last mission was a long one, stretching up to nearly a year on foreign soil. I missed Alan desperately. It hurt, how much I missed him. And then I came back, and I,” she stops, searching for words. Her eyes flicked along the table, from her mug to his and his hands and he scones he hasn’t touched on the little saucer between them. “I couldn’t look at him.”

She looks up and smiles slightly. Steve looks so sad, brows drawn together and lips pressed to a tight line.

“Coming home isn’t the end of the fight. Coming home is—like another battle you have to win. I came home and I wanted to be with Alan so much it ached but at the same time I… had this horrible feeling that he’d married a completely different person. Even though I was already doing black ops by the time we got married. And I was so afraid of, and this is a very childish thing, I was afraid that being around him would change him, too. By osmosis, I suppose.”

Steve’s lips twitch.

“We went through a very rough time,” Carola continues. “And in the end it came down to me making a decision and risking everything and telling him the things I’d done. Which, by the way, was highly illegal,” she adds in an undertone low enough only he will hear. Steve laughs briefly. “Not that ‘confidential’ has a lot of meaning in this family. And, no, I don’t love the fact he knows that about me.”

“How do you deal with the fact he does?” Steve asks curiously.  

“I’m realizing just now that I already had this conversation with Bucky. You two have very similar ways of coming at issues.”

He shakes his head, sitting back in his chair. “Not that similar, actually. We used to butt heads a lot. Which was good, you know, tactically speaking. He and Monty always made my barely passable plans very solid.”

He stops, brow furrowing. He rubs his fingertips idly over the rim of his cup, slowly.

“I guess it was pretty childish of me to hope everything would just go back to the way it was. The two of us against the world.”

“I’m sure the two will be giving COs ulcers soon enough. Just give it time. I know a little of where he is now. He needs to arrive at the point in which he makes that decision.”

“It’s not quite the same, though,” Steve points out. “I already know the things he’s done. I still love him.”

“Then there’s something else that you don’t know,” Carola replies. “Something that he’s ashamed of.”

“There’s nothing to be ashamed of,” Steve says emphatically, sitting up.

“And there’s nothing for you to feel guilty over,” replies Carola, arching her brows. Steve sits back, exhaling roughly. “Anyway, stop complaining. You’re off to France first thing tomorrow. You love France. How many people did you sleep with in France again? Ten or so?”

“Only one,” Steve frowns at her. “I can’t believe the stories the Commandos passed down to their kids, seriously. Every time I hear about this the number of alleged dalliances doubles. And I’ve heard it like four times in the last week.”

“Dalliances,” Carola echoes.

“I wasn’t going to marry the fella.”

“Not in the forties you weren’t.”

“And, yes, alright,” Steve continues, rolling his eyes. “He did look a little like Bucky. A little. And that was, yes, I’ll admit, a little shitty of me. And—alright, yes, I did act like an ass when Bucky confronted me about it, but I apologized, and then we talked, and—what? Why that look?”

Carola tilts her head, trying to hold back her grin. “All the family legend says is you slept with someone in France. The rest of this is… news to me.”

Steve’s cheeks flush.

“A little like Bucky, huh?” she asks, giving up and grinning.

Steve clears his throat and waves at the waitress. “Let’s just go home and plan this damn mission already.”

Steve lets her pay for the coffee. He bumps into her side as they step out of the coffee shop, apologizing politely. Too politely.

Carola narrows her eyes at him and pats her jacket pockets. “Did you just—“

“I’m driving,” Steve says quickly, brandishing the keys he just pick pocketed from her. Captain America, everybody.

He insists on driving.  Carola insists on testing his instincts by poking him in the ribs at intermittent intervals. He flinches every time. It takes Carola ten minutes to realize he’s ticklish.

They almost crash into a lamppost. They do eventually make it home safely. They’re even right on time for the planning, which is taking place in her living room and dining room, because you can’t fit twenty two people around a dining table comfortably.

With a group rounding out to twenty battle-tested people, Carola and Trip have taken the liberty of being very picky about who goes where. The basic concept is: if they’ve done black ops and are mostly fine with violent and bloody mayhem, they’re probably fine to be on Bucky’s team.

Bucky’s team then counts with: Carola, Trip, Danny, Sophie, Lydia, Mark, Matthew, Rose, Alair, and Nicholas. With backgrounds ranging from Navy SEAL to homicide detective, violence is something they are all well accustomed to. Lelani will also be coming with them. Carola is a little wary of Matthew, who even in the Armée de Terre Special Forces brigade has a bit of a reputation as trigger happy, but he’s a Dernier. She’d be appalled if he didn’t feel a somewhat disturbing inclination to blow things up.

Mako Morita is still missing, deep undercover somewhere in South California, and Carola dearly misses her expertise on stealth and research. Steve insists Natasha Romanoff and Clint Barton will definitely drop in on his team when they emerge from wherever they’ve gone to ground, but Steve is also the kind of optimist that thinks people will do the right thing merely because it’s the right thing to do, so Carola remains healthily skeptical. It’s not that Steve is naïve—he’s anything but at this point—but he wants to believe the best of people. Carola can’t help but think that’s something of a dangerous tendency in a military commander.

She can’t stop thinking about how young he is, despite everything.

“Washington?” Danny arches a brow when Carola explains the necessity to recover information. “That’s anticlimactic. I signed up for all the exotic traveling.”

“What about the awesome company?” Trip asks with a frown.

“You tried to stab me this morning,” Danny reminds him.

“You tried to steal my waffles,” Trip replies.

“You were hoarding them! Nobody likes—“

“Can we, I don’t know, focus on the mission here?” Sophie asks, throwing her pen at Danny and hitting him in the forehead.

Strategically speaking Washington is a good a place to start as any. With the added urgency of the recovery of information on what was done to Bucky, it’s also their safest bet on finding the chair.

“You can crash at my house,” Sam offers. “Not like I’m gonna be using it in the next few months.”

“We have—“ Carola starts, and Sophie talks over her with “Sure, Sam! Thanks.”

Carola frowns at Sophie. Sophie grins at her guilelessly. Oh, she’s definitely planning something.

“We should buy a jet,” says Mark, perking up at the idea.

“We’re not buying a jet,” Carola says for the fifteenth time. “We don’t need a jet.”

“No, we need a jet,” Mark insists, sitting up enthusiastically in his chair. “Think about it. We need a jet.”

“We need a jet,” Steve says, extracting his phone out of his front jeans’ pocket. He needs to extract it because those jeans are, to say the least, form-fitting.  Steve might not have worked out hard to get his body, but he’s sure grown comfortable with it. “We might not need to buy a jet, though.”

“Why, you have a friend with a jet?” Bucky arches a brow at him.

“I do, as a matter of fact,” Steve answers, already on the phone, as he gets up and moves away. “Hey, Tony.”

Steve steps out into the yard.

“So Steve has Tony Stark on speed dial,” Danny says conversationally.

“Shouldn’t we invite Stark to these things?” Trip asks. “I feel like a dick leaving him out.”

“Sure,” Danny says. “If you manage to get through his five layers of secretaries and PAs and actually talk to him, you go right ahead.”

Steve slips back inside, pocketing his phone, brows slightly pinched. “He’ll lend us a couple jets.”

“A couple jets,” Carola echoes.

“And ground vehicles wherever we need them. He said he’d like to help, but, I quote, when he blew up all his suits he wasn’t expecting SHIELD to be Satan’s toothpick, so he’s sort of grounded at the moment.” Steve pauses, hands on his hips, looking down at the dinner table they’re clustered around, with printouts, tablets and laptops. “You’d think he’d have dug that secret out when he hacked Fury’s first helicarrier.”

“Nobody says hack anymore!” Spencer yells from the living room couch.

Steve rolls his eyes and sits back in his chair next to Carola. “That’s one problem solved.”

“The aplomb with which you’re dealing with this is a bit disturbing, babe,” Alan comments, coming over to the table with a mug of coffee to look at their work.

Carola sits up and takes his coffee mug, sipping exclusively so she can make a dramatic face at the frankly appalling amount of sugar he puts in it along with milk. There’s actual real concern in his eyes, though, when he flicks them over the papers, over Steve and Bucky. Carola wonders what it feels like, when suddenly the shadows of a distant past who’ve always lurked large as life behind his wife’s shoulders abruptly rise up and claim her from him. Steve and Bucky cast long shadows, and Carola knows she’s dipped into them with a speed that normal people might find preoccupying.

She starts to get up, but Alan makes a gesture, and she sits back down. He gives her a pale, subdued smile. His hand is heavy on her shoulder for a moment. Then takes his coffee to the study upstairs.

The house is strangely quiet without the girls; at this hour they’re usually in the living room couch playing a game or watching TV. They’re spending the night at the hotel with Darcy, probably eating a lot of junk food and getting wildly inappropriate advice on boys and life.

Carola picks her pen back up and stares at the transcript in front of her. It details a list of passengers in covert SHIELD planes over the span of the last year, from the States to places where the Legacies know there are active HYDRA bases. Whoever has gone there repeatedly is most likely HYDRA and a person of interest.

Bucky takes the pen from her and puts it down. Carola can tell he’s about to argue that maybe she should stay behind with her husband and children. She’s been expecting this argument to make a reappearance for the last two days, since they started doing the hard planning. Something about how although they are technically family, this is not in fact actually personal for Carola, as it might be for Trip who was actually betrayed, and if she wants to stay behind, she has that right.

It’s not as though she hasn’t sat down and thought about it long and hard herself. She’s made her choice.

“Don’t,” she warns, glaring.

Bucky opens his mouth. Trip veritably saves his hide by shaking his head and giving Carola back her pen. God bless him. Seventy years of torture won’t compare to what Carola might do to a man who thinks he can tell her what she should be doing.

“Do you mind if I,” Steve asks carefully. “I haven’t really talked to him. I’d love to.”

Carola gives him a long look, and eventually nods. Steve gets up and follows Alan. Carola takes a deep breath and releases it in a measured exhale, and returns to what she was doing.

Steve comes back twenty minutes later, eyes bright and lashes a little damp. He shakes his head when Carola gives him a questioning look. She lets it go.

They work on the planning for several hours more, until midnight comes around and Danny decides to call it a night. As a homicide detective in Brooklyn, Danny has learned the hard way that at some point you need to just step away from something and take a break, before you start losing clarity.

That night when she goes to bed, all Alan says is, “It’s not okay. But I understand. Some things you just have to do. It’s your family and your family is important to you. Just—come back, Car. You have all these people. All I have is you and the girls. You’re it.”

“Alan, you’re a Legacy,” she answers, curling at his side in the bed. “I’m coming back. But even if I didn’t—and I will—you’re still a part of this family, and so are the girls. Just like Piper and the children after Jamie died. They won’t let you drift away. You’re ours. You’re their son and their brother and their uncle and—you’re family. I swear one day I am going to find your father and hurt him, Alan.”

Alan sighs and says nothing, pressing his mouth and nose to her hair. His father, an abusive alcoholic, has tried to get in touch with him a grand total of two times in the nineteen years Carola has been married to Alan. The first time, Alan had indulged him, with catastrophic consequences. The second time Danny had had the Atlanta Police Department intercept him and escort him politely back to the bus station. There hasn’t been a third time, and if the man knows what’s good for him, there never will be. 

Carola startles awake the next day at six in the morning by a cell phone ringing in her bedside table. Mumbling sleepily, Alan flops over her and picks it up. It takes him a moment to realize it’s her phone, and another to understand he should probably hand it over. Mornings aren’t Alan’s best moment.

“Yes?” she asks once he gives it to her and flops face-down on her pillow.

“Lt. Commander Jones, this is Walter Marsten, I’m a pilot for Star Industries. Your jets are ready in the private airstrip outside Atlanta. We’re ready for you at your convenience.”

My jets, she thinks vaguely. “Right. Thank you, Mr. Marsten. We will be there in an hour and a half. I’m afraid one of the two of you will not be necessary. I have a pilot for my jet.”

If she knows Mark, and she does, the chances that he’ll let someone he isn’t fully acquainted with pilot a jet he’s flying in are extremely low. Air Force pilots, in her experience, tend to be rather territorial.

Steve and his team are leaving for France and already at the airstrip when Alan, Carola, Bucky, Trip and Danny arrive. Carola had said her goodbye to the girls the afternoon before, and she’s somewhat grateful for that. The idea of kissing them goodbye and then getting on a jet seems daunting.  

Steve glances at them, eyes lingering on Bucky, but Carola sees the moment he decides it’s best if he doesn’t approach. She smiles faintly at him. Beside her, Bucky sighs and hands her his bag. She arches her brows at him, surprised.

He gestures to Steve and takes him aside. Carola grins.

“Oh thank God,” says Alan, sagging against her. “For a minute there I thought he was actually going to leave without saying a word to him.”

“They’re sort of cute,” Danny says, taking both bags from Carola.

“The Winter Soldier and Captain America,” Trip comments with a quirk of an eyebrow. “I doubt ‘cute’ is what they’re going for.”

“How about hot?” asks Danny. “I wouldn’t kick either of them out of bed. Just saying.”

“I think that’s illegal,” Carola frowns at him.

“I think we’re removed far enough down the generational line that it’s probably not incest,” Danny replies.

“Probably,” echoes Carola, brows arched.

“Also, I think it’s a little late to be worrying about illegal things,” Alan points out, looking at the jets.

“What, this?” Carola makes a wide gesture to encompass the two strike teams loading things into two private unmarked jets, the two super-soldiers murmuring a few feet away, the four crates of what only a fool would confuse for anything but guns and ammunition. “This is nothing.”

Alan smiles briefly. He kisses her once, gently, and then backs away toward his car. Alan hates goodbyes. Carola isn’t going to ask him to stay and watch her fly away. Danny throws an arm over her and squeezes her against his side.

“It’s all going to be—oh.”

Carola follows his line of sight, curious.

Bucky has fisted a hand in the front of Steve’s shirt and dragged him down for a long, heated kiss.

“Well well well,” Sophie murmurs, stopping next to them. “If that’s a good luck kiss, Steve should be covered for the decade.”

“Hot,” Danny says vaguely.

Carola shoves him toward the jet, grinning. Bucky’s cheeks are a little pink when he climbs onboard, his lips a little more red than usual. As soon as Danny open his mouth, he’s pointing a dangerous metal finger in his face in warning.

“Not a word,” he grinds out, flopping in a seat next to Trip.

Sam’s house is small, comfortable, furnished and decorated with a personality veering very decisively into pragmatism and minimalism. It’s a two-bedroom, luckily, although the space is somewhat limited for ten people, one of which has violent nightmares.

“We could have rented a house,” Carola says, glaring at Sophie, as she drops her bag on the floor of Sam’s master bedroom, decorated in tasteful grays and blues. “A big house. With more than two bedrooms.”

“He offered,” Sophie replies, pulling open Sam’s closet and peering inside. “I wonder where he keeps his porn.”

“Probably on his laptop, like everyone else in the twenty-first century. Will you stop?”

“Boxers,” Sophie says approvingly, opening a drawer. “Good man.”

Carola throws up her hands and walks out of the bedroom into the living room, where Lydia, Mark and Bucky have spread out what is basically an impressive black-market assault weapons arsenal. They’ve acquired anything from assault rifles to what looks a lot like a very state-of-the-art bazooka. Why they’ll need a bazooka Carola could not tell you. At least they closed the curtains. They’re spreading them out to make an inventory, check their state and quality, and presumably decide who prefers what. Carola goes for a simple basic rifle-and-handgun array, with several knives for good measure.

One of the crates has been left alone against the wall farthest from the window. Carola ahs half an idea what it might be, but she still goes over and flips it open.

Two fully disassembled, obscenely gorgeous sniper rifles rest in the foam. She trails her fingertips over the cool metal of the bottom one, feeling something a lot like satisfaction warnming her stomach.

That night, after everyone has gone to bed, Carola finds sleep elusive. When Bucky wakes up as he usually does at two in the morning to make a perimeter check, he finds her curled on the living room sofa reading a fashion magazine. The others are already sleeping, sharing the bed or sleeping in bedrolls on the carpeting of the floor.

Bucky collapses on the seat next to her, sprawling enough that his knee bumps against her, companionable and warm. Bucky either never knew or has completely forgotten how to ask for affection, and has defaulted to simply opening himself up and trusting someone will offer it. Carola slumps to the side and pillows her head on his thigh.

“Goddamn,” she scowls. “Is your thigh metal too?”

“That’s all me, sweetheart,” Bucky smirks, and gives her a cushion to put under her head.

“I’m telling my husband you’re being smarmy with me,” Carols sniffs at him, returning her attention to her magazine.

“He’s a high school chemistry teacher. I think I can handle him.”

“Not if he has Coke and Mentos on hand. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Bucky sighs, looking down at her with an odd expression. “Can I ask you something potentially sexist and really personal?”

“A brave question to ask with me in reach of your groin.”

“You’re forty-three,” he says softly. “And your kids are twelve. Thirty’s… kind of an old age to have children, right?”

“Not as late as you might think, not anymore,” she answers, putting down her magazine on her chest. “I got married at twenty-four, which was a typical age to get married twenty years ago.”

“But—you waited six years?” Bucky’s brow creases. “Did you… were there—difficulties?”

“We’re both perfectly healthy. I’d just managed to gain the respect I wanted in the Corps. Children, maternity leave—I thought that meant sacrificing that respect. And, as one of the very few women in black ops, I had a lot to prove. To myself, mostly, but there it is. Hindsight and such. And once I realized that, I was still on active duty, available to be deployed at any time. There was a war going, and then another one. I didn’t want to risk having a child and being deployed away two months later.”

“Gabe had such a shitty time of it back then,” Bucky remembers. “Even the other soldiers were assholes to him. I never understood it.”

“People are slow to change. Granddad helped a lot of that when he came back, being an activist, fighting for black rights, for voting, to stop segregation. Him and Jimmy Morita, they had a much longer war than the rest. Everybody helped, but I think some causes are really very lonely.”

Bucky smiles faintly. “Of course Becca would fall for the one with the hardest life.”

“Sounds like a Barnes,” Carola grins. “She was a force of nature, that woman.”

“Yeah,” Looking down at her, Bucky pulls on one of Carola’s tight dark curls and then watches it spring back against her forehead. “I don’t know what they think happened to me,” he says suddenly, pulling on that curl again, over and over, careful never to tug. “They maybe think I deserted, or maybe they think I died in the helicarrier. They won’t see me coming. Surprise is a powerful weapon.”

“Oh no,” carola says warily. “You’re about to suggest I use you as bait, aren’t you?”

“It’s a sound strategy.”

Carola picks her magazine back up. “Let’s leave the self-sacrificing risk-taking reckless tactics to Steve, shall we? Unless strictly necessary, I’d rather you not present yourself for bullets like a bullseye.”

Bucky says nothing, nodding slowly. Carola wonders if that was standard procedure with HYDRA: sending in the Winter Soldier like an unstoppable machine, with support teams shadowing him to take out the stragglers.

They slip into the darkness outside, pile into their three SUVs, and slide into the quiet late night traffic.

There are so many variables out of Carola’s control in this assault that she feels like she’s walking blindly into what may very well be a brutal ambush. Although Bucky has told them everything he knows about the base and how many people usually operated in it, civilians and armed guards, his information is dated months back and probably obsolete by now. Spencer and Tracy have been keeping tabs on it as much as possible, but all traffic cameras in the area are incidentally aimed away from the bank entrance

Another largely unknown factor of Bucky himself, who grows quieter and quieter the closer they get to the bank, eyes going blank and face devoid of expression. It’s more than a little disturbing. Carola’s instincts are flaring up in all the bad ways, but she’s not going to stop at a red light and disembark one heavily armed master assassin on the curb in the middle of Washington DC. She braces herself to deal with whatever the night will throw at her.

She glances over at Trip, who’s driving. This is the first time Carola has actually worked with Trip, although she has it from good source that is an exemplary asset. You can normally trust Antoine Triplett’s instincts in just about anything, except maybe pizza. But Trip’s angry and he holds grudges like a champ. And though an inexpert eye might miss the way wrath itches beneath his skin, Carola’s known this kid all his life, and she knows the signs.

Urban warfare is a delicate thing. Colin’s got the CIA watching over them from the polite distance. They’ll involve themselves only insofar as they’re not actually involved. Cleaning up bodies, coming up with explanations for three black unmarked SUVs spilling SWAT- like teams into an old bank in the middle of the night, that’s within the lines of acceptable involvement. For the rest of it, the Legacies are on their own, which is just how the Legacies like it.

Carola adjusts the comm bud on her ear. “Everyone online?”

There is a chorus of prompt agreement over the line, a roll call, with Spencer last. He and Tracy set up their control room in Carola’s spare bedroom, the one Bucky was using.

“You guys are good to go,” he says, sounding more serious than Carola has ever heard him. He’s nineteen and as much a civilian as anybody can be in their family. He must be nervous, but he’s handling himself admirably so far. “I’m shutting down all cameras on a one-mile perimeter around the bank.”

They park the SUVs around the curb and sprint silently to the bank, flattening up against the walls at either side, with Bucky right by the door. He looks at her over his shoulder, face completely blank. Carola takes a deep breath and prepares to give the go ahead—

Something moves in the corner or her eye. Across the door from her, Sophie and Lydia have stiffened, eyes darting across the street.

“What’s the hold up?” Danny asks quietly.

Carola gestures for him to be quiet. The gesture must have alerted whoever is watching them that Carola is aware of them, and she has a fraction of a second to throw herself to the ground and yell ‘take cover!’ before the bullets spray the wall of the front of the bank. She rolls to the side, gets to her feet and throws herself behind the cover of one of the SUVs, cursing. Danny, Mark and Trip follow her lead. Trip readies his rifle and starts hooting over the hood of the car, grim and fast.

“What the fuck?” Danny asks, wide-eyed. “They knew we were coming!”

“Spencer,” Carola says curtly.

“I don’t—I don’t know,” Spence says, shaken. “I don’t see anything anywhere! They can’t have been tracking you or listening in on us.”

“They’re probably guards,” Sophie says.

There are at least five shooters in the street. Carola lowers her gun and takes a moment to pin down their exact locations. Just as she’s about to order Bucky across the street to take them out from the sides, a civilian car turns into the street. Carola watches in horror as a bullet pierces the window. The driver, an elderly man, slumps against the wheel. The car veers sharply off course and crashes into a light pole on the sidewalk.

HYDRA just fucking killed a civilian in the off chance their car would take one of the Legacies.

Fury heats her chest. She stands up and tugs Trip to the side, taking his position on the car hood. It takes her a moment to get the headshot, but she puts a bullet through the right eye of a man taking cover behind a newspaper stand. His assault rifle clatters to the street, barking out one last shot that whistles past Carola’s shoulder close enough she feels its wind.

“Take out the shooters and fall back to the cars,” she orders, shooting down a fragile-looking homeless girl with an AK-47 on the corner.

Trip, crouched down at her side, stares at her.

“We’re pulling back?”

“We’re having a firefight in the middle of the fucking street in Washington DC,” retorts Carola, watching through her scope as an old man with an old dog across the street drops his rifle and slumps to the ground, dead or dying.

“We can’t,” Bucky says, voice flat. “We’re here now. It’s our only chance. They’ll move out by tomorrow.”

“We’ll catch up to them. Fall back to my location and cover us, Bucky.”

There’s a long moment of silence on the line. Carola feels a chill go down her spine.

“Bucky, don’t you dare,” she says quietly, and growls when Bucky plunges through the bank doors, breaking them. Glass and twisted metal crash to the street. “God damnit!”

“Holy shit,” Trip makes an aborted movement to follow him, then stops and looks at her.

Carola makes an abrupt gesture. “Legacies, inside. Cover him.”

Sophie rolls out from under the cover of a Cooper Mini and takes out the last shooter across the street. She follows Bucky into the bank at once, along with Mark, Sophie, Lydia, Rose, Matthew and Trip. Carola, Danny, Alair and Nicholas stay on the street in case more shooters turn up or, god help her, the police arrive.

“Sophie,” Carola growls into the comm, “Don’t let anyone talk to Bucky.”

“Yes ma’am,” Sophie murmurs into her mic, over the sound of rattling gunfire.

“Lydia and I are going up the stairs to clear the first floor,” Mark reports, voice hushed.

“I don’t want to be a dick,” Danny says softly. “But I sort of had the idea taking orders was something he did well.”

“I’m going to fucking kill him,” Carola replies calmly.

“Boy’s got a grudge,” Nicholas mutters. “Carola, go. Someone needs to supervise them.”

Carola ducks into the building, rifle up, clearing corners. There are bodies on the floor, all heavily armed and well armored. At least six men have died in the hall. Some of them haven’t died of bullet wounds. One of them is still alive, grunting on the floor, curled around a gun wound that is bleeding profusely. His tac vest hangs from one shoulder, the side of it ripped and torn away.

She puts a bullet in his skull and steps over him on her way along the curving corridor to the back of the bank, lined with offices with broken windows and kicked-in doors.

There is a gunfight in full swing somewhere in here and the curve of the hallway makes it impossible for her to have a real idea of what she’s walking into.

The hallway ends in a set of stairs descending down into a basement. That’s definitely where the sounds of gunfight are coming from, but she can’t very well come down the stairs and take a look.

A scuffing sound behind her alerts her. She twists around and lets loose three bullets in quick succession, cutting down one guard at once. The other one rolls into the office at his right. He ducks out of the doorway a second later to throw something in Carola’s direction. Acting on instinct, she drops the rifle to the shoulder strap, jumps to her feet, picks up the—fucking grenade—and throws it into the doorway. She tries get further along the corridor, but she’s lost her old sense of timing on grenades, and the explosion catches her off guard, sends her crashing shoulder-first into the hallway wall. She grunts, head ringing, and drags herself up to her feet.  

Her ears are ringing, but she can tell how alarmed Spencer is as he calls her name.

“I’m fine. I’m coming down the stairs,” she says firmly. “Someone better cover me.”

She darts a look around the railing to see what she’s walking into. Bucky’s standing right in the middle of the room at the bottom of the stairs, completely out of cover, like he thinks he’s invulnerable to bullets.

Carola prays for patience and sprints down the stairs, sliding behind him and then moving to take cover behind an upturned metal desk where Sophie and Rose and crouching down and reloading their guns.

Two scientists are huddling in the corner behind them, their hands zip-tied tightly in front of them, visibly terrified. Carola curls her lip at them and turns to Sophie.

“No casualties on our side,” Sophie reports. “About ten hostiles still active, over on that side of the room behind the chair and cryopod. A lot of the scientists and medics had cyanide pills in their teeth, if you can believe that.”

“I can believe it,” Carola says grimly. “And these?” she gestures at the prisoners with her chin.

“These surrendered,” Sophie answers. “As soon as they saw Bucky. He killed a lot of the others. I think he knew them specifically.”

“Guys I have police activity heading your way,” Spencer says quickly. “You’ve got maybe fifteen minutes to get out of there.”

“It takes them fifteen minutes to arrive at the scene of a violent gunfight?” Sophie asks, outraged.

“Bucky,” Carola says quietly. “clear this room.”

Bucky nods. He moves so fast and abruptly she isn’t even prepared to cover him with her rifle. Ducking in and rolling across the floor, he puts his shoulder against the metal of the tipped-over cryopod and shoves. The HYDRA men he crushes against the wall don’t scream. Bucky kneels up and shoots them. A bullet pings off the metal of his arm.

Sophie dives out of cover, darts across the room and around the chair and starts shooting. One of the armed guards vaults over the chair and aims a knife at Bucky’s kidney. Rose shoots him down at the same time Bucky’s metal arm comes up under the man’s chin, neatly snapping his neck.

Silence.

Trip comes in from the side vault, rifle up, and takes a good look.

“We’re clear,” he says, lowering his weapon.

Carola gets to her feet. “Prepare to move out. Rose, the files.”

Rose stands and digs the USB drive from the pocket in her vest. She kneels by the chair and inserts it, waits until the screens flash a warning and then grant her access.

“I’m in,” Spencer says, a little breathlessly. “Five minutes.”

Bucky stands up, allowing his rifle to hang from the strap across his chest. He takes a long moment to look around, and finally turns to face her.

“Carola,” he starts.

“Don’t talk to me,” she tells him coldly.

Bucky nods, backing away to the stairs, presumably to stand guard.

“Spencer, tell Lelani we have no wounded. Can you stall the police?”

“On it,” Spencer says distractedly. “I’m installing a subroutine that—fuck. Fuck, fuck, there are cameras in that bank and they’re transmitting.”

Carola’s blood runs to ice. “Who knows we’re here?”

“Everyone in HYDRA,” Spencer says curtly. It’s a closed circuit but—shit, fuck, they’re sending reinforcements. Get out of there.”

“How are we on the files?”

“I’m—eighty percent and counting, one more minute.”

“Get the files. That’s the priority. Danny, we doing okay out there?”

“All clear for now.”

Matthew comes back into the main vault, rifle down, dragging a quaking scientist by the arm.

“Got another one,” he says, shoving him to the corner to join the other two. “Surrendered to me and Trip. Says he’s a cryopod technician. All the others bit their cyanide pills.”

Carola looks at the three prisoners for a moment. “Spencer, get Colin on the line.”

There’s a short moment of silence, and then: “Is it done?”

“Stall the police for me,” Carola answers.

“Already on it.”

“I have prisoners in need of debriefing.”

Colin thinks about that for a second. “Take them with you. Call me when you’re moving. I’ll tell you where to drop them.”

Spencer cuts that line and interrupts in a rush, “I’m done, I have everything, get the fuck out of there.”

Rose snatches the USB drive out of the chair’s computers and shoves it securely into her pocket.

“Wrap up and fall back,” Carola orders, glaring at Bucky, who ducks his head and docilely slinks up the stairs. “Matthew, come here.”

As Sophie, Trip and Rose start dragging the prisoners up the stairs, Matthew trots over, brows arched. Carola takes a long look at all the equipment used to hurt and torture Bucky. She can’t think of a single good thing coming out of allowing this to fall into the hands of the CIA, or anyone else.

“Can you rig this to blow up without destroying half the block?”

“Yes.”

“Do it. You have three minutes.”

Matthew gets to work at once, wordlessly, setting up squares of C4 on the inside of the cryopod and on the chair, along the walls of the vault where he judges the foundations are. The objective is to blow up the equipment and make the bank topple in on itself with as little collateral damage as possible.

He gets up and nods. He and Carola sprint out of the bank. The others are waiting in the SUVs, each vehicle holding one captured scientist between two Legacies. Bucky is waiting by the bank door, covering their exit. His expression is surprisingly open, genuinely distressed. But he knows better than to start a conversation at the moment.

He nods and mutely gets in one of the SUVs. Carola gestures at Rose and gets in a different one. Sophie is at the wheel, with Mark and Nicholas in the backseat sandwiching the cryopod technician. Carola orders everyone to have a few turns around the city before returning to the house to make sure nobody follows them. It’s an extra precaution; she doesn’t think they left anyone alive to follow them, but better be safe than sorry. She removes her communicator. Sophie follows her lead, dropping hers in her vest pocket.

“I think this is where you ask yourself how much damage is going to do if you stay angry at him,” Sophie says seriously, as they speed down the streets of Washington.

“I’m asking myself what the chances are of removing him from this operation altogether and continuing on with people I trust to listen to my orders.”

“Alright, you’re furious,” Sophie says quietly. “And to be fair, you’ve a right to be. But you understand that if you cut him out he’ll just go at them on his own, and probably blow our cover sky-high.”

Carola makes an inarticulate noise of rage in her throat. “I can’t believe he just charged right the fuck in there.”

“I can,” Nicholas replies. “You didn’t see his face. He’s a man on a mission.”

“Correct me if I got this wrong but that looked to me like we have a communication issue,” Mark muses. “I think we went in on a team op and he went in on a solo op, backup optional.”

“I explicitly told him to stay back and cover us,” Carola replies.

“He does have a reputation for being an insubordinate little shit,” Mark points out, and then glares at the technician. “You did not seriously just make a noise. I have a lot of knives and no compunction to use them on you, you piece of Nazi garbage.”

“I’m not a Nazi!” the technician squawks in indignation.

“Yes, you are, you—“

“Okay,” Sophie cuts in. “But the point remains. You are dealing with a traumatized, emotionally damaged person who’s been, let’s admit it, relying a lot on you and your support. And, yes, you are angry, and you’re right to be angry, because this shit cannot fly. But I think you need to judge whether you reprimanding him will, in the long term, help or hurt him worse.”

Carola lets her head drop back and exhaled. She has less trouble with her twelve year old girls. Although, of course, they don’t have a metal limb and thirst for violent retribution.

The bank blows up behind them. Carola looks at the side mirror and watches a plum of fire and smoke rise into the star-studded sky, confident in the knowledge that Matt will have made the explosion controlled and contained.

They wander along the city for twenty minutes, taking random turns and going down well-lit streets. Eventually Spencer cuts into the middle of California Dreaming playing on the radio to let them know they’re safe and no one’s tailing them.  

Mark calls Colin and gets instructions to drop their prisoner off with a group of CIA agents waiting in a dark alley downtown. Their car looks heavily armored. The gleam in their eyes suggests that enhanced interrogation techniques will be applied whether necessary or not. Carola isn’t sure she objects. She decides to compartmentalize it and move on.  

Carola is sweat-soaked under her tac vest and jacket. She strips down to her tank top and goes to the kitchen to get a bottle of water from the fridge, feeling overheated and shaky with the withdrawal of adrenaline. Thirteen years is a long time to be away from action, and although some things one just never forgets, others are always something of a surprise as they return. She’s forgotten how it feels to survive a complicated mission without a single casualty, having achieved her mission objectives and made a clean retreat.

The victory of it is heady and rich, a thrill of excitement that makes the blood sing in her veins. Decompressing will take a while.

She hears Bucky come in after her and ask everyone else to give them the room. She takes a long swallow of water and turns around, leaning back against the counter. Nicholas, Lydia and Matthew glance at her, wait for her approval, and then duck out of the kitchen in silence.

Bucky is stripped down to his black undershirt, the gleaming metal of his arm catching in the fluorescent kitchen light. He looks genuinely dismayed.

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah?” Carola arches her brows. “What are you sorry about?”

Bucky lays his palms on the countertop of the island between them. “For disobeying your order. And for… for endangering everyone.”

“A civilian is dead because of us, Bucky,” Carola says firmly. “Many more could have gotten caught in the crossfire. I gave the order to pull back because we were in a compromised position in a civilian setting and any bystander could have wandered into and gotten shot.”

“I know. I,” he stops and drags his right hand down his face, exhaling. “I wasn’t thinking. I just—all I could think was we couldn’t miss that chance.”

“Sometimes mission parameters change and you have to abort. It might happen again.”

“Yes,” he says softly, breathing out. “Yeah. I understand that. I—as the Winter Soldier, I run all my ops. They’d prep me and give me the gear, but I made the calls and designed the strategy. They allowed me that much, because I’m good at it. I was expected to finish them at the first try. The mission objective was above everything else. I couldn’t understand why you’d decide to pull out. The mission was achievable. I could do it.”

Carola nods, looking at him carefully. “I can understand that. But this is a team operation, Bucky, and I need you to be a part of this team.”

“Yeah. I’ll be better next time. I promise. I’m sorry.”

Carola sighs. “This is the only time, Bucky. Only once. If you do reckless shit like this again, you’re off the team, you understand?”

Bucky nods. He looks honest. Carola is going to have to trust he is.

“Alright,” she says. “You’re a little shit and I’m seriously annoyed at you, but fine. I forgive you.”

Bucky manages a small smile. “Thank you.”

“And you’ve lost all right to call Steve reckless. Ever.”

“I guess that’s fair,” Bucky concedes. “Although I would like to point that I at least never drop my weapons mid-fight and trust things will somehow work themselves out.”

Carola nearly spit out water. “He what?”

“He… didn’t tell you about that?”

“Give me my cell phone. He—wait,” she squints at him. “Did you just throw Steve under the bus to distract me from being angry at you?”

Bucky blinks slowly.

Carola throws her bottle cap at him. He has the decency not to dodge it.  

 

Chapter Text

Carola wakes up from a blurred dream, not quite a nightmare, not quite anything else.

She sits up in the bed, sighing, knowing she’s unlikely to fall back asleep. Next to her on the bed, Sophie Lydia mumbles in her sleep and cuddles closer to her pillow, dragging the bedcovers closer to her chin.

For a short moment, Carola allows herself to miss Alan, his snuffling breaths and his tendency to starfish on the bed, half on top of her. It’s easier to go back to sleep with Alan on the bed, sleeping like the dead, undisturbed by nightmares and putting heat out like a furnace—except for his perpetually freezing toes.

Carola pushes the bedcovers away and stands up, pausing for a moment to examine the layout of the bedroom. Sophie is curled up on her side on a sleeping bag beneath the half open window, long copper hair tangled around her head. Beyond her on a double air mattress, Rose and Lilani are an indistinct form under their blankets, back to back.

Navigating the sliver of space between sleeping bag, air mattress, bed, and the luggage of five women requires skills, but Carola has cultivated an extraordinary balance through years of military training, and that balance has only increased through the raising of twins. Nothing makes you more graceful than the desperation of not waking up two sleeping babies by stepping unwisely on a floor strewn with toys.

She manages to escape the room without any incidents, and heads to the kitchen. On the way, out of habit, she takes a quick look into the other bedroom, notices the untidy form of his brother sprawled nearly entirely on top of some unfortunate cousin.

Some things never change.

She turns on only one of the floor lamps on the kitchen, moving confidently in the open space of Sam’s apartment, stepping over crates of weapons and ammunition with nimble familiarity. Military deployments of this sort are almost always a mess, unless the CO is adamant about order and tidiness. Carola has the strength of character to push and shove her family into that order; what she doesn’t have is the desire, currently.

A short hunt through Sam’s cupboards reveals English Breakfast. Not Carola’s favorite, but she still prefers it to the alternative, which is Earl Grey, and tastes like hot soap, and Carola knows what hot soap tastes like, because the experience of bathing twin babies teaches you a great many things.

Smiling to herself at the memory, she fills the mug with hot water and goes to sit on the breakfast bar—and flinches.

“You need to stop doing that,” she mutters, shaking hot water away from her scalded fingers.

“Sorry,” Bucky says flatly.

Carola looks at him for a long moment. His posture is relaxed enough, shoulders down, arms at his sides. His feet aren’t braced for a fight. But his face is completely expressionless, long hair a tangled mess around his face, eyes flat in the dimness.

“You want some tea?’ she asks into the long, uncomfortable silence, because the alternative, which is to ask if she’s dealing with Bucky Barnes or something else, seems a bit abrupt. For a glimmer of a moment, Carola hates that she doubts; that she wonders if the man standing in front of her is a traumatized POW or a cold-blooded machine of a killer.

In the end, the truth is he’s both.

His brows furrow for a moment, and something like emotion blooms in his eyes, expressive once more.

“You got something stronger?” he asks, voice hoarse.

“Earl Grey?” she offers dubiously.

Bucky arches his brows.

“Drinking alcohol at night, alone, in the dark? I don’t think that’s a path you want to go down.”

“Not alone, you’re here.”

“Drinking tea,” Carola replies, gesturing at her steaming cup with her free hand and tilting her head . “Without sugar.”

Bucky sighs explosively and slouches over to the other side of the breakfast bar, noiseless and graceful despite the obvious dramatics.

“If you behave,” Carola cajoles. “I’ll give you one spoonful of sugar.”

“I have a demanding metabolism,” Bucky protests.

“Cuter children have used that excuse on me,” Carola replies mildly.

Bucky snaps his fingers. “Permanently second best,” he says, tone and expression mournful.

Carola freezes for a moment, thinking about that. She gets another cup from the cupboard and puts it carefully down on the countertop, so slowly there is no noise of ceramic on marble.

“Damn,” Bucky says quietly. “Come on. I didn’t mean—stop thinking so much.”

Carola exhales through her nose in weak mirth, pouring hot water on the second cup. Turning around, she sits it neatly on front of Bucky and leans on the bar. She starts to argue that, if she knew how to stop thinking so much, she wouldn’t be up in the middle of the night drinking tea, but she catches something out of the corner of her eye—a glint of light on metal out the window—

Bucky hurtles over the breakfast bar, knocking over both cups of tea. Scalding water drenches the front of Carola’s pajamas, but she can barely spare a squeak before the air is knocked entirely out of her lungs by two hundred pounds of muscle and prosthetic arm landing on top of her and crushing her onto the floor.

A spray of bullets destroys the cupboard on the wall opposite the windows, slicing the space where Carola had been standing. Bucky curls tighter on top of her, shielding her as best he can with his metal arm.

“Fuck,” Carola grunts, trying to squirm under the weight of Bucky’s body in order to get some air into her lungs. “Get off.”

“They’re still shooting,” Bucky snaps.

“I didn’t notice,” Carola retorts, elbowing him on the ribs. “We need to move.”

“Hold and wait,” Bucky argues.

“Wait for what?” Carola demands, glaring at him. “Cover me. We need weapons.”

Bucky drags in a harsh breath through gritted teeth, bracing himself above her, distributing his weight between elbows and knees. “Move in three.”

“How good are you at close combat?’ Carola asks, darting out a hand to clamp on his metal wrist before he can spring up.

Bucky pauses. “Damn good. How much damage do you want?”

“Plenty of it,” she says grimly.

Bucky nods sharply. “Rifle crate ten meters into the living room. Probably not loaded. I’ll get you—“

He stops, going still at the sound of return fire from inside the house, and Sophie’s voice calling curt orders. A door inside slammed against a wall, and Carola could hear someone running towards the living room down the hallway.

“Take cover!” Bucky yells, shifting his weight and snaking a hand under Carola’s arm, pressing his chest to her back.

“You hurt?” Danny yells back from the direction of the living room.

“We’re good,” Bucky says loudly, and then ducks his head closer to Carola. “Three.”

Two. One.

Bucky jumps nimbly to his feet and dives through the shattered window all in one fluid, shockingly fast movement. Carola rolls to the side until her shoulder hits the bottom of the breakfast bar, grabs onto the corner next to the floor and drags herself behind the edge, curling her legs closer to her body and pressing her back against the bar.

“Catch!” Sophie calls, and Carola half-turns in time to catch the rifle falling into her hands, loaded and primed. Another warning has her bracing herself against the bar to catch the bulletproof vest Danny throws at her, and she makes quick work of shrugging into it and velcroing it closed over her pajamas.

“Casualties?” she asks, moving up onto a crouch and bracing the rifle.

“Alair’s been shot,” Danny says flatly. “Don’t know his status.”

Carola feels a bolt of hatred zing down her spine. She inhales a long, calming breath, and pushes it aside. She braces herself more firmly against the bar and takes a good quick look at the living room.

Sophie and Matt are hiding behind the couch, an inadequate cover that is quickly becoming anecdotic, expertly timing their cover exits and return fire to the brief pauses in the attack from outside. Beyond them, Danny is braced against the corner of the wall of the hallway, offering intermittent cover.

Behind him across the hallway, Lilani is pressed up against the wall next to the second bedroom door, her medkit at her hand, her shoulder bleeding shluggishly. Across the door, Lydia is crouched against the doorway, shooting with a 9mm handgun in a steady, calm manner that suggests she’s taking careful aim. Nicholas stands above her, automatic rifle braced against his shoulder, a long gash on his head bleeding profusely onto his neck, shoulder and chest. Rose and Trip were crouched by the master bedroom doorway, but only Trip was engaging; Rose was sitting on the floor, keeping pressure on a wound on her ribs.

Carola breathed out. How many hostiles? Impossible to tell. But of they had shot at her in the kitchen, and at the windows in both bedrooms, then they were surrounded. At least two dozen operatives, if Hydra had any sense in them; most likely more, if they meant to terminate or recapture Bucky.

She glanced to the side, to where the garden light switches were next to the window. Thinking fast, she snatched up a dishrag from the breakfast bar, balled it tightly and threw it with as much strength as she could put into a light, not aerodynamic projectile with a limited draw. She was half surprised when it actually worked.

The lights on the garden burst on, a blinding wash of white light illuminating the whole yard and revealing the position of several hostiles crouched along the wall. It also reveals Bucky, moving like a snake to sink a knife into someone’s throat and wrenching their head back to widen the wound. Blood sprays across his chest and throat, soaking his white cotton shirt.

He turns around just in time to block a taser aimed at his back. Carola aims and shoots the operative through the head. Bucky quickly catches the taser as it falls, turns it in his hand and shoves it against the next attacker’s jaw, unprotected by the helmet.

Someone blows out the right garden light. Carola takes the chance to dart across the living room from the breakfast bar to the edge of the sliding door, catching the handgun Danny throws to her and whistling.

Bucky’s eyes catch the light as he turns promptly towards her. Carola tosses the gun in his direction. Bucky catches it mid-air, diving into a fluid roll and coming up shooting as he darts towards the cover of darkness at the right side of the garden. Carola risks getting out of cover to shoot two quick bullets into two operatives to the left. Someone else’s fire gets three more.

Muzzle fire makes Carola flinch back just in time for the bullet to graze her cheek and tear into her ear instead of sinking into her left eye. A sickening wash of pain makes her momentarily dizzy, and she pauses to regain her breath and balance, nodding at Danny when he stares at her anxiously. It isn’t bad. Painful, but manageable.

“We’ve got to advance!” Sophie yells, getting resolutely out of cover to release a long burst of cover fire as Matt moves from the ruin of the couch to the side of the breakfast bar where Carola had been previously.

“Not enough intel,” Carola grunts, swiping blood tickling her neck and re-bracing the rifle against her shoulder. The left garden light blows out in a shower of glass shards and sparks. Carola catches a glint of moonlight off the metal of Bucky’s shoulder in the darkness as he rolls across the open garden and through the broken sliding door, taking cover across from her.

“Twelve dead on the garden,” he announces calmly, not even a bit out of breath. “Five dead to the right of the property. Fourteen active, three of them injured, one of the fatal.”

“Less people than I thought,” Carola says, unconvinced.

“Tried to codeword me,” Bucky says shortly. “They were counting on me to kill you.”

“Didn’t work?” Sophie asks casually, sharp eyes narrowed. Carola an’t quite tell where Sophie’s rifle is aiming. Outside, or a little to the side.

“Worked,” Bucky corrects. “Shot myself on the arm to snap out of it.”

“You what,” demands Carola, horrified.

“It’s fine,” Bucky retorts.

“You keep using that word,” Danny sings breathlessly, ducking into cover just in time to avoid the spray of glass as a bullet destroys the TV hanging on the wall.

“That’s it,” Matthew announces loudly, and Carola has half a second to be thoroughly horrified as she watches his arm arc through the air in a graceful, familiar movement, and something sailing neatly out the shattered garden doors.

“You didn’t,” she breathes, incredulous, and only just barely braces herself for the vibrations of the small-burst grenade exploding in the garden. Bucky huffs a short breath, possibly amusement, and throws himself back into the garden.

If Matthew survives Hydra, Carola is killing him.

“Carola,” Sophie calls, gesturing with her head as her hands fly over the rifle, re-loading it. Carola quickly calculates her ammo, the last known position of the hostiles, the arc of the grenade and the location of the controlled explosion, factors Bucky into the equation, and decides it really is time to advance.

She nods, raises her hand to indicate three seconds, counts back.

Then she stands up and goes out into the garden, into the air choked with smoke and pulverized dirt, crouching close to the floor. Sophie is a silent shadow at her back, covering her in SWAT formation.

A shadow emerges to her right. Carola takes one fraction of a second to glance the left arm. When it turns out not to be metal, she shoots two times, center-mass and forehead, and moves on forward. Behind her, Sophie kills someone else, same execution; chest, face. They advance like this through the garden towards the left, eliminating targets, moving towards the master bedroom window.

“Friendlies!” Sophie yells, and the return fire from inside the house pauses as they pass in front of the window.

Another shadow materializes at Carola’s shoulder. She darts around, but the rifle is shoved brutally down and a fist flies at her face. She turns her head to take the punch to her cheek instead her nose, but the strength behind it makes light explode across her vision. She stumbles to the side and falls to her knees, stunned. Sophie released four bullets and crouches over her, covering her as she regains her senses.

“How bad,” Bucky asks, suddenly appearing in front of her and fisting his metal hand on one of the shoulder straps of her vest, dragging her up close to his chest to offer better cover from the front.

“Just a punch,” Carola manages, tasting blood on her mouth. “Well landed, but not bad. Sitrep.”

“Four left on the other side, covering the bedroom. Can’t get to Alair.”

Sirens start ringing on the distance. Carola froze.

“Fuck,” Sophie says quietly.

“Go inside and get Spencer and Tracy on the phone.”

“Get the police off our back, get Colin on the line, anything else?”

Carola hesitates.  “Med-evac.”

Sophie leans back. “We’re not leaving—“

“Go. Now,” Carola says curtly.

Sophie goes. Carola looks at Bucky.

“Secure the perimeter. Discretionary force. I want one of them alive and talking.”

Bucky nods sharply and melts back into the shadows. Carola takes a moment to catch her breath, outside alone in the garden next to a dead body. She takes quick stock of her own body; the maddening pain of her ruined left ear, the throbbing of her right cheek, cuts on her shoulders, arms and feet from broken glass.

She glances back at the house. The ruined garden doors, the devastated living room, the scars of bullets on the walls. The crater in the garden from the grenade. The dead bodies.

“Fuck,” she breathes, thinking of Sam. Good, loyal Sam and his good intentions.

She drags herself to her feet and walks carefully into the living room, dodging shards of glass and detritus. The shooting’s stopped on the other side of the house. Danny is helping Rose onto what is left of the couch, checking the wound on her ribs. Carola goes over and grabs her hand, crouching down.

“Hit a rib,” Rose manages.

“Went through a wall first,” Danny says quietly, spraying saline water to clean the wound before pressing a field dressing onto it. “Rib stopped it, but it’s broken.”

Carola assesses Rose. She’s lucid and alert, obviously in a great deal of pain, a sheen of sweat covering her neck and face, but her breathing seems easy enough and the hemorrhage is under control.

She moves on to hallway and the second bedroom.

Lilani and Nicholas are kneeling on the floor. Lilani’s hands are flying over Alair’s body, quick and sure. Nicholas glances up, looking harried.

“Status?” Carola asks quietly.

“Bad,” Nicholas says, voice strangled. “It’s—it’s the lung.”

Carola puts the rifle down next to the door and moves inside, gripping his shoulder. “Start packing up. We leave in ten. Move.”

Nicholas scrambles to his feet, swaying and pale-faced, and immediately starts packing the things in the room into whatever bag is closer. Carola kneels on the floor across from Lilani and finds Alair’s hand. He’s unconscious, chest rising slowly. Bucky was right; there is a lot of blood.

“The bullet’s still inside,” Lilani says calmly. “It’s lodged in his left lung. Air’s escaping into his chest cavity.”

“I called for med-evac.”

Lilani glances up without pausing in her work of clearing Alair’s bare chest of blood and nods. “Hold him down.”

Carola spreads her hands on his shoulder, feeling the knobby just of bone of his left collarbone, broken in his childhood when he fell off a tree. She forces herself to watch and breathe calmly as Lilani swaps disinfectant on Alair’s chest, breathes in, and carefully sinks the scalpel between two ribs. Blood wells up. Lilani wipes it quickly, then inserts a thin tube inside the incision, and connects a small syringe to it.

“Liquid in the lungs,” she says softly.

Carola braces herself. “Will he live?”

“He’ll need surgery. I don’t—Carola, I don’t know.”

Carola nods slowly. “Do what you can. Help is coming.”

They wait.

Matthew comes inside and helps Nicholas pack everything up, and then they carry the bags outside to the living room. Trip comes and collapses by Alair’s head, brushing back his dark hair and cleaning blood tenderly from his throat. Lilani handles the catheter with expert hands that don’t shake, monitors the hemorrhage, checks Alair’s pulse. The others come and go, crouching down, holding his hands, trying to reassure themselves that he’ll be fine.

Alair doesn’t wake up once.

It takes an agonizing ten minutes for Colin’s men and an ambulance to arrive. Lilani walks the medics, of obvious military background, through the situation and what she knows of Alair’s general health.

Carola gets up and crosses over to the ruin of the master bedroom, where someone has left a change of clothes on the bed for her. Getting the bulletproof vest off takes some effort. Her face is beginning to throb badly. She thinks her cheekbone might be cracked. The blood on her pajama shirt has dried, tacky, sticking to her shoulder and chest. There’s no point taking these pajamas with her; they’re unsalvageable.

Ridiculously, she has a small moment of grief. Her girls got her these pajamas. They have little bunnies on them in grey and blue. She just fought a shootout in the middle of urban Washington D.C. in bunny pajamas and a bulletproof vest.

She glances up. Bucky’s at the doorway, half his chest and throat covered in someone else’s blood. The bullet wound is a bleeding notch of missing flesh on the outside of his right forearm.

“We’re ready to move,” he says, eyed darting down to the ruined shirt in her hands. “Got a safehouse outside the city.”

Carola nods. She discards the shirt on the floor and gets up, walking past him into the hallway, past the livingroom, out the front door and into the SUV that Danny is already sitting in, ready to drive. Bucky gets in the backsteat, where Sophie and Matthew are sitting quietly, wiping their faces with wet towels.

She glances at the clock on the dashboard.

Four am.

The whole thing can’t have taken more than half an hour.

She takes a deep breath.

“We got a live one?” She asks. Speaking hurts.

“Left him with Colin’s people,” Bucky answers.

“They’ll get answers alright,” Matthew mutters.

“I would have liked to get some answers myself,” Sophie says darkly.

Carola rests her head back against the seat and sighs. The persistent ache of her ear and cheek is scrambling her attention.

Sophie makes a startled noise that makes Carola turn around in the seat to look at her, wriggling oddly on the seat.

“What’s your problem?” Bucky asks blankly.

“Something is poking me and vibrating,” Sophie complains. Eventually her wriggling stops and she holds up a phone squinting at it.

“It’s yours,” she says, handing it over to Carola. 

“Why do you have her phone?” Matthew asks, frowning.

Sophie shrugs. “Just grabbed anything nearby. Pretty sure I tossed your tablet into a bag somewhere. Hope it’s not fragile.”

Carola takes the phone and glances at the screen. Alan. At four in the morning. The girls must have tried to sneak out to make hot chocolate again. How many times is she going to have this conversation with them?

The idea of speaking through the pain and growing stiffness of her cheek makes her queasy, but the thought of speaking to Alan after the hell they’ve just gone through sounds like a balm.

“Honey,” she sighs as she picks up. “I love you so much.”

There’s an odd silence in the line.

“Mrs Jones,” a male voice she doesn’t recognize says cautiously. Carola sits up, horror washing down her spine.

“Who are you?” she demands, voice low and deadly. Danny slows the SUV down, turning his face towards her, eyes wide. Sophie, Matthew and Bucky sit up, and the silence in the car grows tense and  horrible.

“Please, do not be alarmed,” the man says, voice rich and calm, his accent unidentifiable. “I am Thor, Steven’s friend.”

Carola draws a complete and utter blank. “Thor,” she repeats.

“Aye,” says Thor, apparently. “From Asgard.”

“Yes,” says Carola.

“First know this; your husband and children are safe. I give you my word.”

Carola’s stomach roils. “Tell me.”

Thor draws a long breath. “Hydra hit your house.”

Chapter Text

The last time Alan lied in bed, alone, restless, and unable to sleep, was when the girls caught chickenpox.  Alan’s never had chickenpox, arriving at the ripe old age of forty-five with the smoothest cheeks’ a man has any right to have, at least according to his grumbling wife.

The girls weren’t the only ones in their class with the illness, as the mothers in the group deemed it safe to ascribe to that old idea of spreading the illness among the other children like candy for their long-term health. This had seemed like a perfectly sound idea to Alan, until he’d realized this meant his wife and kids would decamp to someone else’s house for the duration, all the better to avoid the risk of infecting him.

This lead to a whole week of an empty, silent house, and probably a few more idle kitchen chemical experiments felt comfortable admitting to, considering Carola’s reaction to the last one.

And he’d lied, like this, in bed. Alone, in this big old silent house.

Carola had chosen Georgia to raise their children because Georgia was safe and quiet.  Alan had agreed because he would have agreed to anything Carola felt she needed at the time; the pregnancy was a difficult one, and she’d still been struggling with the idea of leaving her lifelong military career behind.

It wasn’t as though his own family could contribute an opinion to their choice of residence; last time he’d tried to reach out to his father, he’d been explained, eloquently and at length, that one of his kids could become the president of the United States without that event changing the utter disdain his father felt toward him. 

It had taken Carola just shy of three days to dig that little bit of emotional shrapnel from him. She had then spent the next day immersed in a black rage the likes of which Alan had seldom bore witness to. All the more remarkable by its passing, as it appeared to dissolve indolently into the simple determination that Alan’s family—a word, she added punctiliously, used rather liberally—would be excised from their lives entirely.

No amount of arguing, reasoning, insisting, or eventually pleading had swayed her. Back in the earlier days of their marriage, Carola might have been convinced to give his father some leeway. As the years rolled past, and the incidents became more harrowing, she’s become impervious to cajoling.

Carola might or might not have said a word to her own family. Alan might never know.  If their affection and inclusiveness indeed started as a bloom from a seed of pity, he felt confident nowadays at least that the love was genuine.

And Alan understood the legacies of the Commandos, or at least believed he did. These people who descended from a family built around loyalty and love and hope. He’d learned to rely on it, though it had taken time and more deliberate bonding sessions with the family that he cared to remember. In the beginning, they had been awkward, stilted, alarming affairs; or at least they were for Alan, who expected at any moment that someone would brandish a knife and attempt to impart a shovel talk.

Like Carola needed any help transmitting just how displeasure would be conveyed, should her trust prove misplaced.

So, Alan understood that Carola would never deny the call of family. And, having been then for one of the worst flashbacks Bucky had had in their home, although peripherally—Carola had confined him and the girls to a locked room while she talked the Winter Soldier back into some semblance of humanity—he wasn’t about to argue that some avenging was in the schedule.  

That still didn’t make it any easier to sleep, alone, in his bed. While Carola was out there somewhere risking her neck because bad habits really do die hard, and Nazis even harder.

He sits up, finally giving up. Pushing the covers aside, the drags himself out of bed and out of the master bedroom. It’s on the opposite direction to the stairs, but he still takes the time to pause at the doorway to the girls’ room. They’re sleeping peacefully, curled on their beds facing each other.

He pauses before the door to the guest bedroom, wondering if this crosses the line, but in the end gives in to an instinct he can only label as paternal and probably misplaced, and pushes the door delicately open to have a look.

Spencer has been relegated to the edge of the mattress closer to the window, where he appears to be clinging to the blankets for dear life. Tracy, on the other hand, is sprawled out like a star, most of the covers pinned underneath her.

Alan smiled widely and leaves them alone, heading down the stairs for the kitchen. He makes himself tea. He smiles, faintly, remembering Monty’s precise instructions: Earl Grey, spot of milk, no sugar, you heathen.

He drinks it leaning his hip against the counter in the semi-darkness of kitchen. He finds the glow of the yellow lamps over the counter soothing. Were she home, assuming he had managed to sneak out of bed without waking her—an unheard-of feat he’s long since given up on—Carola would be coming down to him now, seeking out the cause of his unrest. They’d learned a long time ago not to keep anything from one another.

It’s vital for Alan to know he can fall back on that honesty when the doubts assault him.

He appreciates that Steve strived to follow their example, that last night before they left when they were plotting mayhem and revenge in his living room while he was upstairs, staring blankly at his laptop screen and attempting, without much success, to stop panicking. Steve had tried, and he’d asked Alan to let him help him through the anxiety, as if it were a privilege rather than a chore, or a duty he felt obligated to shoulder.

Steve Rogers is a good man, Alan muses, watching the steam drift lazily away from his tea. He thinks back on the questions Steve had asked that night—about how to weather the storm of helping someone through violent trauma, about being steadfast and patient and never losing hope.

Alan wishes he could say that he’d never lost it. He hadn’t even found it again on his own; Carola had been the one to fold, to give in, to break down and trust in them when Alan had already reach the end of his rope.

He wonders if maybe he should try to speak to Bucky about it at some point. He has the feeling that, in the artificial parallel of their lives, Alan has been cast as Steve’s reflection. The innocent one, the one who’s waiting loyally, the one who won’t give up but doesn’t know or understand the ugliness.

There’s no real comparison. Without putting him in a pedestal, there’s still no denying Steve Rogers is a man made from something else entirely. For all that, though, he’s not emotionally mature. He can’t quite see past the trauma and the loss to the new man that’s emerged from the devastation and horror. Can’t quite see James, instead of Bucky. He talks about recovery like turning back time and getting his old friend back.

The light comes on out the garden, the motion sensors picking up something.

Alan smiles. Looks like all the latest precautions still haven’t managed to prevent the Oswald’s  cantankerous old cat from escaping the house and roaming. He’s not quite petty enough to hope that the cat will hunt down a particularly revolting critter and present it ceremoniously to his owners—actually, yeah. He is. He hopes it’s got a lot of legs. Hairy legs.

Smirking, he turns back to his tea and sees the wall calendar out of the corner of his eye. He feels a wash of scorching heat down his spine, followed promptly by a wave of glacial cold.

He can see the calendar. Where Carola drew a little heart, months ago, marking this week and the next as the time the Oswald’s will be in Wales visiting distant family. The cat will have been left at an outrageously expensive sitter. The cat isn’t here. It’s not him activating the motions ensors.

Alright, he thinks, heart beating furiously. It could be anything else. Another cat. A squirrel. Anything.

But it’s never been anything else before. It’s always been the cat. He could dismiss it, maybe, at any other point in time, but right now he’s standing barefoot in his kitchen, alone, because his wife is out there hunting down Hydra agents.

Maybe he’s an idiot and this will be nothing. He hopes he’s an idiot. He’ll take being an idiot over being right. The mere idea that he might be is curling icy terror through him, making his breath catch and his hands shake.

He turns back to the sink and takes his moment washing out his mug.

The girls. The twins. How can he protect them? Carola has a gun in the house, a 9mm handgun she’d obsessively trained him with for months. Despite her diligence, she’d never managed to make his hands stop shaking. They’ll shake now, too.

But he’ll have to assemble it. That will take at least a minute. He needs to retrieve the key to the box’ padlock. That’s in his bedside table. He scrambles for some semblance of calm as he turns off the lights and pads quietly back towards the stairs, forcing himself to walk. Telling himself that if he’s being watched, he can’t alert them to it yet, not until he’s got the kids safely hidden.

He goes back to his bedroom, eyes the closed curtains, and flicks on the light. So they think he’s in the bedroom. He leans against the doorframe for a precious second and breathes, mind racing.

Maybe they’re only watching. Maybe they’re only making sure Alan and the girls don’t disappear, or that no one has taken refuge here, that no one will touch ground with them without being tracked.

Or maybe they’re here to storm the house and kill all of them, he feels, overcome by a violent tremor that makes his head smack painfully against the doorframe.

He inhales deeply and takes hold of himself. He doesn’t know how much time he has. He might be out of it already. Moving quietly, he rounds the bed and goes to his bedside table, rummaging through the drawer until he finds the small padlock key. He wraps his fingers around the cold metal, feeling a thread of determination bolster him.

He darts into the guest bedroom and grabs Spencer by the shoulder, squeezing. To his credit, Spencer wakes immediately, eyes narrowed but lucid.

“Get up. Get the girls, barricade yourselves,” he scrambles. He needs a lock, heavy furniture. “inside the bathroom. Hydra’s here.”

Spencer sits bolt upright, eyes very wide. Tracy sits up more slowly, paling, long loose hair obscuring half her face.

“No lights, no sound. Go,” Alan says again, forcing calm into his tone despite his rising panic. Spencer and Tracy scramble out of bed and rush out of the bedroom. Their monitoring station against the wall boots up, prompted by nothing he can see, and starts flashing through emergency protocols. Alan feels a wave of relief. The two technopaths thought to do the obvious thing; they’re getting the police.

He walks out and into the linen close next to the bathroom.

“Alan,” Spencer hisses, ushering a wide-awake and alarmed Olivia ahead of himself into the bathroom. Tracy makes them climb into the bathtub, functional but blank-faced in a way that suggests her mind is more than half on technological devices at the moment, sounding the alarm.  “Come on!”

“Use the chest of drawers to block the door,” Alan says, digging in the pillows frantically for the metal box. “I’ll cover you.”

“Alan,” Spencer says, white as a sheet. Tracy snatches his wrist and pulls him into the bathroom, understanding the uselessness of arguing. Alan feels the cool metal of the heavy box and drags it out, heart pounding. The bathroom door closes, the lock turns. He hears the scrape of the heavy chest of drawers being shoved up against the door.

He fumbles with the key, missing the padlock twice before he forces himself to take a breath. He remembers Carola’s lessons. Calm is paramount.

Find cover, he remembers, and shoves his shoulder against the corner where the hallway turns towards his study. He can see the stairs from here, shielded by wall and darkness as his hands assemble the handgun, surer than he’d dared think them.

Please, he thinks, terrified. Someone please help us.

He can hear the crash of the front door being broken through. His heart kicks up into his throat. He resists the urge to curl away and hide like a child. He needs to watch the stairs; needs to be aware, needs to see them coming. He’ll have to shoot them.

I’ll have to shoot them, he echoes, and now his hands do shake. He’s shot the handgun—at cans, at targets, at flying discs. But—these are—people—

Can he do it? He’ll find out fast, he realizes, because they are coming up the stairs, fast and heavy steps in the hardwood. Alan sees the first man come up, fully armoured in tac gear, including faceless black helmet.

“I know you’re armed,” the agent calls at Alan, as though he knows exactly where he is. “Put the gun down and I won’t shoot your kneecaps out.”

“A reasonable deal,” Alan says faintly, swallowing down a hysterical laugh.

“I’ll even let your kids walk away unharmed if you cooperate,” the man adds, almost like an afterthought.

Alan discovers he can, indeed, shoot a living human being. Or try; his bullet flies wide above the man’s shoulder, hitting nothing. But it makes the armoured men duck urgently out of the way and find cover, perhaps thinking that was a warning shot.

Please, he thinks desperately, dangerously close to hyperventilating.

We are coming, a voice says firmly into his mind, calm and determined. Hold on for as long as you can. Alan, we are coming.

The girls, Alan thinks wildly, eyes burning. And then, disjointed, confused, who are you?

The voice says kindly. I’ll get you through this, Alan. My name is Charles Xavier. You’re not alone.

Alan is terrified. He can feel Charles Xavier—Professor X, he remembers now—trying to smooth down the panic, trying to help channel his mind into productive pragmatism, guiding him towards focus. He’s told that the Blackbird is on the air and heading towards him at maximum speed; he’s told the police are on their way but have been blocked. He’s told there are seventeen men in his house, armed to the teeth, willing to kill him and his daughters.

Alan thinks of the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters, where Spencer and Tracy went to learn control over their powers, and he knows it’s in New York state. No matter how fast the Blackbird is, it won’t reach him in time.

It’s faster than that, Xavier says calmly. It’s not only us en route either. You must—

Alan doesn’t hear the rest of it, because a rapid-fire spray of bullets mutilates the corner he’s hiding behind. Alan throws himself back, panic blanking his mind, and covers his head with his arms. It takes him precious seconds to get himself under control and turn over, try to stand.

By then the agents have swarmed the hallway. Alan lifts the gun but it’s kicked roughly out of his hand. The butt of a rifle slams brutally down against his temple.

Everything slows down and mutes down to a ringing echo. The wall comes closer to meet him, and then the floor. His cheek aches against the hardwood, a distant ache barely registering over the mind-fracturing pain in his temple. He blinks slowly and his eye tints red, stings with blood.

Alan, Xavier says urgently. We are coming. Do not endanger yourself. Tell them what they ask—stall for time—we are coming.

“We need them alive,” an agent drawls above him.

“I know,” the other one replies calmly. “I’m just helping convince him it’s a good idea to cooperate. You’re gonna help, aren’t you?” he asks, this time down to Alan, and delicately presses the sole of his steel-toed boot over Alan’s hand, palm-up and nerveless on the floor. And, slowly, surely, begins to press down.

 

---

 

He’s woken abruptly from a deep dream, flinching up in bed. Someone is screaming. Darcy. He scrambles out of bed urgently, climbing over Jane and sprinting out of the bedroom.

Darcy is in the kitchen, coming from her bedroom and clearly heading in his direction, hair and eyes wild. Thor reaches her and grabs her shoulders, feeling her violent shaking. He feels Mjolnir behind him, as well, waking up in alertness to his need.

“Tell me,” he says calmly, wrapping an arm around Darcy’s shoulder and controlling the fall down to her needs as she sobs.

“My family,” she manages, clutching her mobile. Jane has reached them and manages to pry it out of her hand, taking it up to her hear.

“What’s going on?” she demands, as Thor presses Darcy’s face to his shoulder, trying to contain her shaking. A death? An accident? Darcy has a large family, Thor remembers, some of them quite advanced in years—

Jane puts the phone in speaker, face gone ash-white.

“—shooting!” someone sobs over the phone, frantic and terrified. Lightning courses through him and he understands. “They have Alan! Someone please—“

“Where are you?” he asks, gently releasing Darcy onto Jane and crouching up to a more ready position as Mjolnir comes to his hand.

“Carola’s—Georgia, Atlanta—“

“I need an address,” Thor tells Jane, getting to his feet and heading quickly to the bedroom to pull on clothes.

He’s gone but a minute, only enough for jeans, a shirt, and boots, but by the time he comes back Jane has a map on her own mobile to show him the location. He can tell immediately that flying there with Mjolnir will cost him precious time, time he might not have. Darcy is hiccupping in distress and mentioning children.

“Darcy,” he crouches down and cups her heated, tear-streaked face, presses his forehead to her. “I will do my best, Darcy, I give you my word. Do you believe me?”

Darcy nods vaguely, eyes blurred with tears. Thor presses a quick kiss to her cheek and stands up, grasping Mjiolnir firmly. He looks down at Jane, at her pale and brave face.

“Get in touch with Tony Stark,” he says.

“Go,” says Jane, snatching her phone from his hand.

Thor flies out the balcony window to the street, setting his feet firmly on the pavement.

“Heimdall,” he calls up, praying, praying. “Please, old friend.”

The rainbow bridge comes down on him, dragging him up and through. He is in Heimdall’s presence only a moment; enough for Heidmall to say: “The children are barricaded in the bathroom. You will need to get them out, before you can tend to the father.”

“Will he last?” Thor asks directly.

“Not long,” Heimdall answers, cool and neutral as ever, and then the bridge steals Thor away again, down through Yggdrasil, fast and blinding.

Thor has a split second of weightless material non-existence in which he regrets having to make this choice, having to choose to abandon an innocent man to pain in order to do something else. He goes through it all in his mind, an exercise to ascertain he’s not wrong.

If the attackers want the children, it will be for leverage. If leverage is all they want, they might content himself with Alan, and leave the children be. But if they want information and must break the man, they will certainly use his children against him.

There is no way around it. Alan will have to endure. Thor hopes he’s fast enough to rescue the girls and get back in time to save his life.

He wishes there was a way to come about this from the shadows, but the Bifröst is anything but conspicuous. He’s sacrificed stealth for speed. It will have to do.

He touches down ready for battle. He’s on a grassy backyard. The house is big and airy in front of him, the living room opening in large windows to the garden. A guard posted outside is ready to shoot at him. Thor releases Mjolnir at him and considers scans the windows. One of them might be the bathroom. Mjolnir returns to his hand, and he releases her again, watching as she hovers in front of one of the windows to the right.

He starts in that direction, and stops when several armed men spill out into the garden, shooting at him. He drops forward into a roll and comes back up swinging, ugly and unfair. He aims at groins and kneecaps and throats. No time for finesse.

He steals a helmet and uses it as a club, breaking someone’s nose, ignoring the splatter of warm blood across his face as he kicks another man in the chest and send him flying back. He realizes he must moderate his strength, but his urgency to move forward makes it hard.

Mjolnir descends on someone’s head and draws a wide circle around him, knocking out whoever is foolish enough to be in reach. Thor leaves the fighting to her, and jumps up until he can get his hands on the sill of the window she showed him. He gets his elbows up and distributes his weight as well he can, considering.

The bathroom is big. The door is in front of him, barricaded with a heavy chest of drawers. The sink is right below the window he’s perched on. To his right there is a full-length mirror, and to his left a wide bathtub filled with four shivering, frightened forms.

He knocks on the glass.

The four children startle violently and turn around in panic. One of them, a girl of perhaps tenwy, scrambles out of the bathroom, face splitting in relief.

“Thor,” she says as she hurriedly opens the window and grabs his arm to help him in. Thor tumbles gracefully inside and comes to a crouch, reaching out with his hand as Mjolnir returns to him. As he still crouches there the door flinches, the bathroom filled with an ugly splintering sound. They will break through soon enough.

“We’ve little time,” he says quietly. “Come here, all of you.”

The boy and two tear-streaked, terrified girls climb out of the bathtub and scurry closer. Thor presents them with Mjolnir, who hovers two feet off the floor sedately. Thor watches her leather strap split and re-braid into four smaller ones, secured firmly to the handle.

“Grab onto her and do not let go. She will not let you fall, and see you to safety.”

“Our dad,” one of the girls says, voice ravaged by tears.

“I will find him, you’ve my word. You must go now.”

The older two fuss over the girls, but Thor pays them only half his attention, moving instead toward the barricaded door and trying to listen to what is on the other side. He feels Mjolnir fly away with her precious burden, and feels the last few strands of his patience fly away with them.

He’s not heard a gunshot, but then, he knows one is not needed to end a life. Alan may yet live, or he might have long since been murdered; there is no telling. Thor will labour under the assumption that he lives; for if he does, time is of the essence, and if he does not, the brutality with which he plans to unleash himself on these two-legged animals will be all the more warranted.

“There will be savagery,” he quotes idly, thinking for a flash of his father. Despite it all it tugs a smile out of him, and he shoves the chest of drawers aside with something akin to excitement.

He lets them break through the door, and storms out of it to slam his shoulder into the nearest soldier. Bones crack. The other soldiers turn at once to him, startled, but their minds are slow with shock, and Thor has time to snatch up a rifle and make use of it. He will choose Mjolnir over anything, but any weapon is a weapon, and Steve has been a patient teacher. Thor is not so foolish as to bet an innocent life on his skill to fight unarmed, when there is a choice.

“Surrender,” he calls out when the remaining soldiers have taken refuge behind a corner of the wall. “I might look upon it kindly.”

“Maybe you should consider that yourself,” someone answers. Thor’s eyes flick up and right in front of him, emerging from another room, is a soldier with a captive man, who he shoves roughly to his knees on the floor.

Thor does a quick catalogue of wounds with the experienced eye of a warrior. Alan has been handled cruelly; the wounds on him are clearly aimed for pain. Shallow lacerations, bruises, broken bones. None of them would impede his movement, so Thor is certain they meant to move this elsewhere once they had the children in their hands. Somewhere else where they could more comfortably continue the torture.

Alan is clearly in agony, blood-splattered and bruised, but he catches himself before collapsing to the floor and raises back up to his knees, head held high. Thor swallows back a knot of emotion in his throat, that a man untrained in battle would still be able to show this much strength. He is shaking and terrified, he can’t hide that, but that only raises him in Thor’s estimation.

“This will lead you nowhere,” Thor says flatly, but he puts down his rifle anyway, and shoves it across the floor. In his mind he can feel Mjolnir, still moving away from him, carrying away the children.

“Where’s Rogers?” the soldier asks. The muzzle of his rifle is not aiming at Alan, but it would take only the slightest adjustment for a lethal shot.

Thor considers. He is faster than humans, but the distance and the traveling speed of a bullet are against him here. He won’t reach Alan before he’s shot.

He settles back in his heels, crouching in the hallway, hands hanging between his thighs, well in sight.

“I do not know,” he answers honestly. “I’ve not spoken with him in weeks.”

“And Barnes?”

Stall, Thor thinks. Wait for Mjolnir. “I’ve not spoken to him ever, although reliable sources assure he’s a pleasant fellow. Rather brooding, but one can hardly blame him.”

The soldier’s jaw tenses.

Thor hears it before the humans do; the roar of an engine, the ozone of clouds gathering furiously in the sky.

Distract them, a voice urges in his mind, not his own. Thor doesn’t think, thousands of years of ingrained battle instincts leading him. He shifts his weight and throws himself forward. When he comes up instead of heading for Alan, the expected goal, he shoves off the nearby wall and throws his considerably weight against the soldiers clustered at the corner. A bullet glances off his shoulder and another one lodges in his thigh.

A third one goes through his flank and out clean the other side of him. With a rifle this powerful and at this distance not even his tougher Asgardian skin could prevent that, but Thor is not crippled, and so he continues to fight, savagely, until he spots movement beyond the knot of men he’s plunged into.

Two figures running full-tilt up the stairs, one of them armoured entirely in silver and the other in black leather, three long wicked claws in his hands. Acrid smoke chokes his throat, and he flinches away to see a third arrival, a long skinny blue creature with a deadly flicking tail.

They look capable enough and time is slipping, so Thor leaves the fighting to them and crashes back toward the T of the hallway. He has enough time to see the man press his rifle to Alan’s skull, and no skill or speed with prevent this horror now—

Mjolnir crashes clean through the wall, then through helmet and skull, bypasses Thor, and heads unperturbed out the other side of the house, presumably to continue to fight, for Thor can feel the indolent joy she takes in destroying worthless things.

Thor refocuses his attention on sprinting forward and catching Alan about the waist as he collapses forward onto his hands. He hoists him up against his own side and whirls them both back into the nearby room, kicking the door closed and leaning against it.

“Can’t breathe,” Alan rasps, clutching at Thor’s forearm around his waist. Thor relents, supporting him in a controlled fall to his knees at Thor’s side.

“Move to the wall and out of the way,” he orders, paying more attention to the noises outside than the laborious, hard sound of Alan’s breathing as he crawls obediently away.

“Real nice to meet you,” Alan manages, a glint of dark humour sharpening his eye. The other one is quickly swelling shut.

“Aye,” says Thor, aiming a grim smile in his direction. “Nothing like mayhem and bloodshed to make a good first impression.”

“You came from the bathroom,” Alan says, humour fading.

“The children are safe,” Thor answers at once. “Mjolnir took them away.”

Alan nods, and Thor can see the moment his resolve deserts him entirely, because his shoulders droop and his head falls back against the wall. With the children out of harm’s way, Thor realises, there’s nothing shoring up his flagging strength. He has half a mind to tell him not to sleep, for he knows something of head injuries and the bruise and gash across Alan’s temple look bad enough.

He becomes aware abruptly of the silence behind him, on the other side of the door. He turns sideway and presses his shoulder against it. As a barricade he’ll be more challenging to move than furniture, and more ferocious besides.

Then someone knock politely on the door with something metallic.

“It is over,” a heavily accented voice says. “The men are down. We are the X-Men, and I give you my word that no harm—“

“Just come on out already before the police come raining down on our fucking heads,” someone interrupts, voice low and rough.

“Um, excuse me,” a third voice says quietly, and Thor manages not to startle when a slight girl passes right through the wall and into the room. She eyes Thor but heads straight to Alan, whose head is lolling. “He needs help right now.”

Thor catches her arm and drags her back, firmly but kindly.

“You’ll not touch him until I know who you are,” he says gravely.

“We’re the X-Men,” she says, like this answers that question. Thor stares at her stonily, and she must realize it does not. “Spencer and Tracy sent us,” she adds. This also tells Thor nothing, although the names are vaguely familiar. He remembers, abruptly, Darcy, just returned from Georgia: Spencer and Tracy are getting so big like oh my god.

Thor releases the girl and crouches down next to Alan, carefully tipping his head back to look at his face.

The girl opens the door, and the armoured man and his companion come inside with the blue creature—perhaps an Elf? No, not similar at all.

“Hospital,” the creature says, striding forward quickly, and stops when Thor puts out a hand to stall him.

“Can you move?” he asks Alan quietly.

Alan swallows, clenching his good eye shut. A stream of tears clears a track down his bloodied check. He shakes his head.

Thor passes a hand kindly through his blonde hair, soothing him. “May I carry you?”

Alan lets out a croak of a sound that might have been a laugh, or a sob. He waves his left hand—the right, Thor sees, is mangled and broken—and lets the weight of head fall heavier onto Thor’s hand.

“Gonna have to,” he rasps eventually.

Thor gathers him delicately up into his arms, jarring him as little as possible, and stands up. The blue creature comes forward again, this time hesitantly.

“I can help,” he chooses to say, made cautious, Thor realises, by Thor’s grim appearance. Not all the blood on him is his, but judging by the fiery pain in his side and thigh, the ratios are growing equal by the second. “I’ll take you to the nearest hospital.”

“Thank you,” Thor says evenly, alarmed by the way Alan’s gone limp. “And the rest of you please find the children and bring them to me as well.”

“On it,” a tinny voice says from someone’s communicator.

 

---

 

 

The doctor gives Thor a thorough account of Alan’s wounds as she equally thoroughly dealt with his own. Thor had protested; he hardly needs treatment, and her attention is surely best employed elsewhere.

The full count comes to this: a severe concussion, dislocated right shoulder, two broken ribs and four badly bruised, a hairline fissure in his right collarbone and another one in his shoulder-blade on the same side, a sprained wrist and several fractured fingers on his right hand. No less than nineteen lacerations, all shallow, some deliberately inflicted, most the results of a beating.

He is to be kept under observation; he is not to be visited by more than one person at a time. He is to be visited by a psychiatrist as soon as he is strong enough, and by the police immediately after. Thor cajoles and bullies his way into a promise that his children may visit him first, and that he will escort them.

He extracts from her permission to linger nearby as a guard, although he hardly needs to; the X-Men have not left, nor seem inclined to. The scrubs he receives in exchange of his torn and bloody clothing he pins on his unstudied charm. He didn’t ask for them but isn’t about to decline them.

He spends the next several hours haunting the hospital halls with two scared children clinging to him. Waiting for Alan to wake, waiting for Darcy and Jane to arrive on the first flight out of New York. Carola is not to join them, and that took no little doing. Thor has sworn an oath to her to watch over her family, and he will carry this oath to his grave. Throwing him into it will be the only way to make him break it.

Spencer and Tracy have also succumbed to sleep, curled up into each other on one of the benches. The X-Men had eventually introduced themselves to Thor, and are now scattered across the waiting room keeping alert watch over them. Kurt Wagner, Kitty Pride, Pyotr Rasputin, Ororo Munroe, and Wolverine.

Presumably Wolverine also has a name, but was unwilling or uninterested in sharing it with Thor. A slight against Thor perhaps, but Thor is not about to take umbrage; he has more important things to worry about, and he’s long since learned to put down his own pride.

Hours into Thor’s vigil, his mobile receives a text from Pepper Potts saying she’s on her way. Moments later Alan is moved into a private room, seemingly unprompted although Thor is no idiot, and Thor relocates from the waiting room to his bedside with the children. The X-Men relocate also, keeping an eye on the door.

Olivia and Amandla insist on climbing up onto the bed. Thor carefully rearranges Alan’s broken arm out of the way, but doesn’t try to stop them. He doesn’t have the heart, and in any case they won’t be the only ones needing the comfort.

Alan sleeps still three more hours, and floats slowly up to a hazy sort of lucidity, confused and disoriented. Thor gives him water for his rough throat and waits out the confusion, watching Alan relax into the bed under the weight of his daughters, blinking blankly at the ceiling.

Eventually, his eyes focus on Thor. “Anyone else?” he manages.

Thor frowns for a moment, and then understands. “Carola and her team were attacked simultaneously. She’s unharmed. I understand one of them was wounded but will live. No one else.”

Alan swallows painfully and nods. “Didn’t know where Steve is,” he says. “Kept asking.”

Thor nods slowly. Clearly Alan did not tell them. Thor’s been raised all his life to believe courage is a by-product of training and skill, but he’s learned lately that Asgard has many regrettable biases. Alan certainly has no training, and still endured through what Thor has now learned were near on forty minutes of torture.

“You are tired and in pain,” Thor starts carefully. “And I know the timing is poor, but I must know where you want me to take you. I’m afraid returning to your home is out of the question. Your wounds are not so bad they will keep you in hospital for more than a day more. And after, we must go.”

“You’ll stay?” Alan asks, frowning.

“Aye, Alan, I will not leave. I’ve made an oath. I’ll give every drop of blood to keep it.”

“Enough blood for a day,” Alan sighs. He brings his hand to press the heel of it against his good eye, swallowing heavily. “Options?”

“We have a number of them,” Thor answers. “Stark Tower, of course. Xavier Manor. Spencer tells me your family holds hidden safehouses. The choice is yours, but I might suggest avoiding those. Having no intention of letting you come to harm, I’d still rather have the option of prompt back up.”

Alan nods.

“On that subject,” Thor continues. “With your permission, I will call the Warriors Three to me. I know of no better shield-brothers in the Nine Realms, and the Lady Sif would be delighted to meet your daughters.”

Alan drops his hand to eye him dubiously. “They good around kids?”

“Yes,” Thor says at once, and then pauses. “Well. Hogun perhaps not so much. Not out of dislike,” he rushes to add. “but rather out of lack of exposure. A good man, Hogun, but—“ here he flounders. How to explain Hogun, exactly? Thor rather doubts Hogun could explain Hogun, even should he find the words, and he rarely does.

“Grim?” Alan suggests, mouth twitching.

“Aye,” Thor agrees gratefully.

There’s a long moment of silence.

“I don’t know,” Alan says abruptly, voice thick. Thor frowns at him, noticing his distress.

“Are you in much pain?” he asks urgently, getting up. “I will get the medic for you. Surely—“

“No,” Alan says sharply, and Thor stops at once, going still with the unexpected sureness in his tone. A well-bred son will always respond to paternal authorities, he thinks with a curl of amusement. “I’m not—I don’t really want anyone touching me,” Alan finishes, strength already failing him, looking pale and desolate.

“I understand,” Thor says gently, sitting back down.

“Pain’s not that bad, actually,” Alan adds, unconvincingly.

Thor nods wordlessly.

“Could be worse,” Alan continues, voice wavering.

Thor closes his eyes and presses his palms together.

“Yes,” he says heavily. “A lot worse. But it is not a scale, you understand. You do not get a smaller reward for surviving less pain. The reward is to survive, and it’s no small one.”

Alan swallows and says softly. “Just half an hour.”

“Half an hour more than should ever have happened,” Thor says firmly. “What was done to you was inexcusable. Face it now, or it will haunt you. Put it in words. Tell me what they did.”

It takes a long time. Thor opens his eyes and dares to look up. Alan’s eyes are closed, lips pressed tight. He’s crying, silently, and very still, so he won’t disturb the girls.

“It hurt,” he eventually manages, voice distorted with grief. “They hurt me.”

“Yes,” Thor says, standing and moving closer to the bed, trying to make Alan meet his eyes. “They did. It was unfair, and undeserved, and unforgivable, and none of it your fault.”

The man squeezes his eye shut again, trembling. Thor lowers himself carefully to the edge of the bed and lets Alan snatch up his hand and hold on tight, as tight as a mortal can. Thor can see how wildly he struggles to contain himself, but he’s worn out and wounded and an innocent man. Probably no one has ever truly meant to hurt him, and he doesn’t understand it.

“There’s no shame, brother,” he murmurs, leaning forward to press his palm against Alan’s forehead, an old Asgardian gesture of love among shield-brothers. “You’ve endured. You’ve done your part. I will carry you the rest of the way.”

“Daddy?” Olivia sits up, alarmed, voice shaky. Alan bites down on a sob. Olivia’s eyes blur with tears, and she moves carefully up a bit to press her cheek to his, fisting her small hand on his hospital gown. Thor thinks to speak, but he doesn’t need to, for Alan gives in all by himself, crying openly and hiding his face in Olivia’s slender neck.

Better that he does this now, Thor knows, than to delay it. A clean wound drained of poison will heal better. Heart-breaking as it is. Thor’s own eyes burn.

It takes a long time for it to pass. At the end of it Alan is exhausted, but Thor thinks his eyes are clearer, sharper. If he can push past the horror of this day and find himself on the other side, it will be Thor’s honour to linger at his side.

“Stark Tower,” he rasps eventually, pressing a kiss to Olivia’s temple and smoothing down her hair. “Better support, more security. Plus the girls love Pepper, don’t you, baby?”

“Aunt Pepper,” Olivia whispers with something not unlike awe. “She’s so damn smart.”

“Don’t say damn.” Alan chides.

Thor smiles. “Wise choice.”

“And I will bet you twenty bucks,” Alan adds with a fascinating glint of mischief in his eye. “that my kids will make your Hogun a lot less grim.”

Thor grins. “I will gladly pay for that.”

Chapter Text

There is something called measured retribution. Carola knows this; currently she is aware of it in the shape of a distant, foreign concept.

The string of hits that follow the invasion to her house is savage. She had nightmares about operations like this, once upon a time. Now she’s too angry to be human about it.

She falls back and lets Sophie and Bucky take point. Following their orders and responding to their viciousness is easier than conjuring it herself, since she’d attempt at once to control it. She discards the notion of shooting to wound and steps neatly into the sort of clean executions that make Danny flinch and withdraw. Not everyone, despite their intentions, is made for a life like this.

“No,” he says evenly when she suggests it. “I’m not leaving you. You’re going to come out of this eventually and it’s going to be ugly.”

“There’s nothing to come out of,” she replies calmly, honestly. But Danny doesn’t understand, and the patience to explain this to him has sunk into the dark, vast well of her rage.

On the other hand. She’s more in sync with Bucky that she’s been since the start.

“He thinks it’s all shoved down inside,” Bucky mutters, once, after Danny’s walked right out of dinner, jaw tense. “Thinks you gotta come back to the shore before you sink and he can drag you out.”

Carola sits back in her chair, letting her hands fall to her lap. The night is clear and dark outside the window, and the moon is full and bright.

Carola recognizes the lawless, merciless limbo she’s in. She’s even seen the corner of the road back to sanity, but every time she thinks she has it, it unravels into nothing just out of her grasp, chased away by the rough sound of her husband’s voice on the phone, small and scared.

“Well,” she says eventually. “Suppose he’s not entirely wrong.”

“Gotta come back in your on good time,” Bucky says quietly. Carola thinks about mentioning that neat psychological trick of projection, but when it comes down to it Bucky is really no idiot, and in any case Danny and Steve aren’t easy to compare.

They move across seven states in two weeks, razing Hydra bases and killing on sight. By the time they get to the fifth base on their list, Spencer and Tracy have to change their strategy and break into the secure networks before th strike team breaks into the bases. Hydra agents have obviously been given the order to prioritize the information above all else, including their own lives.

It's also incresibly evident that they are in disarray. Whateve Steve and his team are doing in Europe, it's working. The bases in continental USA barely have any support. Nearly all personnel is military, and what few scientists they do find bite their cyanide pills long before Carola and her team can reach them.

For all that it's a pleasure, it's also frustrating. The information dries up; in the last two bases, they hardly recover any of it, and the one in Atzona literally blows up before they make it anywhere near the perimeter.

"Well now," Sophie says, eyes narrowed against the glare of the fire. "That's just unsporting, isn't it."

There's something good coming from all this, and it's that it appears they've managed to push Hydra out of the United States. Of course, that hardly means they're eradicated or even pushed  of the American continent. Carola knows they have bases in Argentina, Chile and Brazil at least, and very likely in Panama as well. But they don't have the intel on their exact locations. Hydra has well and truly gone to ground on those countries. Flushing them out will take a lot of effort and a delicacy Carola really cannot be bothered with at the moment.

She's leaning very much towards the 'shoot everything that moves' approach.

Which is why it's rather a shock when they storm into the Honolulu base, the last known Hydra stronghold in the United States, to find the hall littered with dead bodies.

“Uh,” says Mark, eloquently.

“Hold position,” Sophie says. “Check for survivors.”

Bucky and Carola advance, weapons at the ready, and take forward position at the front of the hallway, moving slowly.

“Ok this one is pretty dead,” Rose says, pausing by one of the bodies.

“Check it,” Sophie snaps.

“His head is missing,” Rose hisses. “I’m not a doctor, but you know, that’s pretty definite on the dead scale! You want me to send a photo to Lelani?”

“Missing?” Danny echoes, sounding sick.

“Well, it’s here, only not attached.”

“This one’s been electrocuted,” Trip says flatly. “I think I know who’s been here.”

“Bloody hell,” Sophie breathes.

“Anyone wanna share with the class?” Mark asks, a little testily, not that Carola can blame him.

“I think—“ Sophie starts, and stops when something crashes ahead of them. Bucky brings the rifle up to his shoulder and starts advancing, leaving Carola to follow or stare.

Carola would really like this boy to start waiting for orders and then, maybe, in an ideal world, even start listening to them. But Carola is not CO in this mission, and Sophie certainly needs no help inducing the sort of penis-shriveling terror that’s most likely to get Bucky to at least pretend to toe the line, so she clenches her jaw and follows.

Small miracles do exist, though, and Bucky does actually wait for her at the bend of the hallway, well in cover and awaiting support. She nods at him.

Then Bucky strides right out of cover like he’s on the middle of the fucking street.

“For fuck’s sake,” Sophie huffs. “I thought you said you had him in hand.”

“I talked to him,” Carola growls.

“Talk louder,” Sophie suggests crankily.

“Stay right where you are and show me your hands,” Bucky says to someone. Carola shifts her weight and peeks around the bend of the wall, ready to introduce herself with a bullet to the brain.

“Greetings,” the person standing in the hallway in front of a fallen Hydra agent says, straightening.

She’s a tall woman, with long dark hair cascading over her shoulders. She might have something to do with the decapitated soldiers in the hall, because she’s holding a long, mean looking sword and small shield. She’s fully armored, as well—and that is old-fashioned armored, with a chest plate and shoulders guards.

“Drop your weapons,” Bucky says calmly.

“Only in death,” the woman says, with the sort of normal-conversation tone that suggests she’s very sure of herself.

Then Trip gets up and strolls right up to Bucky, letting his rifle hang down to the floor.

“Trip,” Carola calls darkly, but Trip just shakes his head, face unreadable.

“Lady Sif.”

“Antoine,” Lady Sif, apparently, greets back. “I was told that we might meet again.”

“Who told you?”

His tone is even enough, and his grip on the rifle at an unthreatening position suggests he’s not alarmed, but he hasn’t told Bucky to put down his gun, or called for the all-clear.

“Anthony Stark,” Sif offers. “I last saw him at his tower, where Thor is staying.”

Bucky glances at Carola, eyes narrowed. Carola feels a wash of anger, because she certainly doesn’t need to be told not to fall for vague information given by potential hostiles, and she’s not about to fall over herself to ask this woman about her family, thank you.

She spares a moment to wonder if this is another of those increasingly common instances of Bucky trying to provoke Carola into a sparring session. She’s told him over and over that beating the snot out of someone isn’t going to make her feel better unless that someone is one of the assholes that walked into her house, but does he listen? No.

“I thought Thor was staying out of this,” Carola says, pinning Bucky with a vicious glare. Not that he notices. He’s too busy glaring at Lady Sif.

“The Lord Thor does not wish to interfere in the affairs of mortals,” Sif agrees. Well, Carola thinks that’s agreement. A simple yes would have sufficed. “But the Lord Thor has forfeited his right to the throne of Asgard and the command of its armies, and I am no longer under his authority.”

Trip’s eyebrow twitches. “And you thought meddling in the affairs of mortals sounded just fine?”

“Asgard is very quiet at the moment,” Sif replies. “The Allfather has no need of me, and it seems to me that my time is better spent punishing the animals who would threaten children rather than remain at the tower and idle.”

“I thought Thor called you down to help guard my family,” Trip says tightly.

“Your family is being guarded by four of the best warriors in the Nine Realms. And Stark,” she added as an afterthought, clearly unimpressed. “I am not needed there, and I know of no best way to soothe the night terrors of children than by slaying the demons that haunt them and gifting them their heads.”

There’s a moment of silence.

“Not literally,” Sif adds a little doubtfully. “Alan insists I should not return with severed heads. He was very certain it would make matters worse. He drew charts.”

Carola huffs in amusement. Charts. Of course he used charts. Ever the teacher, her husband. 

She stands up and comes out from cover, leaning against the wall, looking at Sif now with more interest than alarm.

“Carola, I presume?” Sif asks.

“You presume right.”

“I’ve something for you,” Sif rummages on the small leather pouch at her belt and finally emerges with a silver Starkphone. She frowns at it with some frustration, and eventually gets it to do what she wants. She turns it aroudn to show her the screen.

It’s a photograph of Olivia and Amandla climbing Thor like a park attraction, the same way they tend to do with Bucky. Carola feels a wash of something electric down her spine.

They’re fine. Her daughters are fine, and safe. Something tightly strung gives way inside her.

“Stark assures me this phone is untraceable and impossible to break into,” Sif says, striding forward and ignoring Bucky’s hiss of warning to hand the phone over to Carola. She takes it, a little blankly. “Amandla ordered me to assure you everything is five-by-five.”

Carola lets out a bark of laughter.

“What?” Trip stares at her.

“They’ve started watching Buffy,” Carola explains, tucking the phone into a pocket of her tac vest even though it feels like it burns her, she’s so eager to use it. “They’ve decided Faith is the coolest of them all.”

“Bit disturbing, that,” Sophie mutters, finally gesturing for everyone to leave cover.

“But Sif, what are you doing here?” Trip asks.

“I brought her along,” a new person emerges from a door and into the hallway.

“I sodding knew it,” Sophie says loudly. “Bloody hell, Romanova, we’ve been over this. Poaching prey is bad form.”

Natasha Romanova arches an eyebrow, looking amused. “Everyone remembers Budapest differently.”

“Budapest?” Trip demands, turning on Sophie with thunder in his eyes. “I asked you if you were working with SHIELD for that!”

“I wasn’t,” Sophie replied a little defensively. “I was a liaison.”

“She liaised very thoroughly,” Romanova confirms smugly. “Liaised with me, liaised with Barton...”

“Oi, I asked you if you were the jealous sort!”

“I’m not,” Romanova assures her. “I’m only the poking sort. Not that poking equipment is always a requirement, obviously.”

“This is a very disturbing conversation,” Mark complains to Rose.

“The dead bodies aren’t helping,” Danny says flatly.

“You came for intel, Romanova?” Trip asks firmly, yanking the conversation back on track.

Romanova’s slight smile fades.

“Yes,” she admits. “I thought I had a better chance of getting my hands on it than you did, and I was right. I saw you coming in the monitors. You are not subtle.”

“And what do you need the intel for precisely?” Bucky asks softly. Carola feels the warning in his tone, the edge of alertness that hasn’t faded.

Romanova eyes him for a long moment, but then her eyes slide away to Carola. There’s something there Carola can’t quite identify. Romanova is a small woman, a good head shorter than Carola and of sleight build, and with her hair braided back away from her face she looks very young. She must certainly be in her thirties, though, of not older.

“I was hoping I’d find you here,” she says softly.

“Me,” Carola confirms, frowning. “Why didn’t you go to Steve? He’d be delighted to help you. Just point him in the right direction and he’ll do all sorts of helping. So long as you don’t need anything delicate.”

“What’s in here,” Romanova says, showing them a USB drive. “Requires a more personal approach.”

“Hydra is plenty personal to Steve,” Bucky drawls.

But Romanova keeps staring at Carola, eyes clear and sharp, mouth pursed.

“It’s about my family,” Carola says softly, the world becoming a white, fuzzy place there nothing exists but Romanova, and Carola, and Carola’s rage.

Romanova nods. “Your husband was collateral damage. They were after your children. The girls are strong and healthy. They’re old enough to be fully formed and young enough to be broken.”

Carola’s voice dies.

“They would have trained them,” Romanova says softly. “Taken them and broken them and trained them to be like me. Perfect little soldiers. Vacant puppets. I don’t know if they would have kept the technopaths alive. They might be too old to remold into their liking. But they certainly would have tried. You were lucky, and Thor saved them all, but other children don’t have Thor to come for them. They don’t have anyone.”

“They’re rebuilding the Red Room,” Trip manages to say.

“They’re losing agents at an unsustainable pace,” Romanova explains, finally moving closer. Sif sheathes her sword, giving Romanova a long, unreadable look. “Your two-pronged attack is working very well. You’re pushing them into a corner, so they will do what they always do; they will go to ground and rebuild from the foundations up. They’ll want a base of loyal cannon fodder to rebuild on, especially since recapturing the Winter Soldier is no longer a possibility and eliminating him is proving impossible.”

“I have offered my help to hunt these monsters down and destroy them,” Sif says. “But even two warriors cannot take on this endeavor alone.”

“Oh, you won’t have to,” Sophie says, voice entirely flat.

“No,” Carola murmurs. “Not alone.”

“Carola?” Danny asks hesitantly. Carola looks at him, and whatever he sees in her face must be bad, because he flinches. Carola supposes that if even a fraction of what she feels shows, it’s bad enough.

 

X

 

And this is how it happens that Carola and the others show up at the safehouse in Honolulu with an Asgardian god and the Black Widow.

The only one that is even remotely happy with the results of this night is Lelani, who for once won’t need to be sewing anyone up. Which is good, because as soon as she comes out of the kitchen and takes one good look at Carola, all of her attention focuses on her. Carola doesn’t even try to dissuade her from following her into the bedroom and closing the door.

She doesn’t say anything when Lelani fumbles her way through helping her take off the tac gear. She says nothing when Lelani sets down the many weapons in the dresser without any sort of regard for safety and care.

“Carola,” Lelani says, and indeterminable amount of time later, with an odd, soft tone of voice.

“Yes?” Carola asks politely, reaching up to pull at the strap securing the vital signs monitor to her chest. Her hands are shaking. “Oh. That.”

“That,” Lelani confirms gently.

“I suppose it’s been coming,” Carola manages.

“Reckon so.”

“Well,” Carola starts, and then doesn’t finish whatever she was going to say because breathing suddenly becomes something she’s not very good at. She’s also not very good at standing, and thankfully Lelani has quick reflexes and surprising strength, helping Carola lower herself to the carpeted floor.

She feels the coarse grain of the carpet against the palm of her hand, and she can hear Lelani speaking softly to her, a soothing, repetitive litany of words that all sound like indecipherable noise as Carola tries and fails to bring in air or still her violent shaking or wipe at the tears rolling down her cheeks.

It lasts forever. Christ, it lasts so long. She hasn’t had one of these episodes in years.

She’s exhausted by the time the world begins to make sense around her again. They’re on the floor, Carola cradled in Lelani’s lap, her head in Lelani’s chest, where she can feel it rise and fall steadily, an even rhythm she can follow. Lelani is still speaking, stroking Carola’s temple in small circles with one hand and keeping her close to herself with the other arm around her back. Carola’s fists are clenched in her shirt.

“They wanted my daughters,” Carola manages in a rasp.

“I know,” Lelani soothes. “But they didn’t get them. They’re safe. Look,”

Lelani’s fumbled the silver phone out from Carola’s tac vest, and she unlocks the screen to show Carola the picture of the girls and Thor. She swipes right and there’s another picture, this time of the girls and Alan sitting on a couch in a huge, sunlit lounge with Sif and Pepper Potts. Alan is battered and bruised and he looks haggard, but his smile is genuine, his eyes as bright as ever.

Carola lets her head fall to Lelani’s shoulder, watching the series of pictures through half-lidded eyes and feeling her own heartbeat settle.

Eventually, she sleeps.

 

X

 

And she wakes up with the mother of all migraines.

“I don’t deserve this,” she tells the ceiling. The ceiling neither denies nor confirms.

Her head feels like it’s splitting in half, but other than that, she does actually feel surprisingly good. The indefinable, uncontrollable feelings of the last several weeks have settled down into deadly resolve, a channel through which she can focus her hatred.

She gets out of bed and pads into the living room.

Lydia, Rose, Matthew and Nicholas are sitting in the living room playing a videogame. The good thing about a military crew is they take panic attacks in stride. No one gives her a concerned or pitying look. They just wave and continue to shit-talk each other.

Sophie and Mark are sitting at the table with Lady Sif having coffee.

“Trip and Danny?” Carola asks when she comes near.

“Groceries,” Sophie says.

“Natasha is sleeping,” Lady Sif offers. “You are better?”

“Much, thank you,” Carola answers, arching a brow. Apparently things people don’t talk about in Earth are things people talk about perfectly normally in Asgard.

“Such things are very normal,” Sif continues. “Thor shook for a full day after he killed his first man, and Loki was listless and quiet for days after his first kill. The Allfather was very put out.”

“That Loki was ill?” Carola frowns.

“No,” Sif says pensively. “The Allfather never concerned himself much with Loki. But Loki had duties he was not attending to.”

“Excellent parenting,” Sophie mutters.

“And how do you deal with battle stress?” Carola asks curiously.

“Oh, I beat Thor bloody. Half the time if something goes awry, it’s his fault. And he’s very difficult to put down on the ground.”

“Sounds like foreplay,” Sophie says cheerfully.

Lady Sif sips her coffee to hide her smile. Sophie’s eyes take on that wicked, unadvisable glint. The girl never could resist a dangerous partner. Carola migrates to the kitchen before her imagination can offer up any images to go with the idea.

Lelani and Bucky are there, sipping coffee and listening to her husband Johnny on speakerphone.

“—scarring, for sure,” he’s saying. “But it’s like all the nervepaths around it have rearranged themselves around it. I mean, medically, it’s fascinating. Cutting edge. It’s like your brain re-wired itself to keep functioning around the scars and business is as usual.”

“So, no permanent damage?” Bucky asks, looking at Carola with large, dark eyes. Carola lets her hand fall on his shoulder, and he grasps her hand immediately.

“Oh, there’s damage,” Johnny corrects. “I’m just not seeing anything that might affect you or cause problems.”

Lelani sips her coffee thoughtfully. Bucky squeezes Carola’s hand and then gets up to go to the coffee maker and pour out a mug for her. Carola sits down and cradles it in her hands gratefully. Grateful for the coffee and grateful that there is nothing in Bucky’s brain that might pain him further. She hadn’t realized how much that idea terrified her.

“Did you talk to Strange?” Lelani asks. “I know he retired, but he might have some ideas.”

“Stephen is going through some sort of phase,” Johnny complains. “He’s found spirituality or something. He talks in riddles all the time and he’s taken to wearing a cape.”

Lelani makes a face. “He’s always been a little out there.”

“Now he’s making a career of it,” Johnny says fervently.

Lelani tsks. “Johnny, be nice. He’s been through a lot.”

“Not like he didn’t practically get himself into it,” Johnny grumbles. “But I’ll write him an email. Christine says he answers those.”

“Say hi to her from me,” Lelani says softly and hangs up. She smiles at Bucky encouragingly. “That’s one bullet dodged. You’re fine.”

Bucky manages a weak smile, looking a little dazed. “Thank you. Christ.”

“Good,” Carola grins. “So you’re in perfect shape for what Sophie is going to do to you about yesterday.”

Bucky freezes guiltily. “Ah, yeah. I fucked that one up pretty good, huh?”

“Fill me in?” Lelani asks, brows arched.

“Oh, disobedience, impertinence, mutiny,” Carola waves a hand casually.

Lelani winces. “That explains her foul mood.”

“Who’s in a foul mood?” Sophie asks silkily, gliding into the kitchen like a snake. Bucky eyes her wearily. “Not me. Soul of cheerfulness, I am.”

“I can see that,” Carola says doubtfully.

Lady Sif and Romanova come into the kitchen after them. Romanova is dressed down in jeans and a t-shirt, her hair tied up in a messy knot. She looks oddly—human, and normal, which aren’t things she would associate with someone with Romanova’s reputation.

And then someone else comes into the kitchen, and Carola arches her brows.

“And who’s this?”

“Barton,” Romanova offers neutrally.

“Oh, of course,” Carola smiles. “Barton, right.”

Barton freezes on his way to the coffee pot and turns around slowly to look at her, his face wary. “Yeah, that’s my name.”

Carola looks at him for a long moment. Barton has recently made close acquaintance of someone’s fist. The whole right side of his face is a fading green-yellow, and his right eye is still a little puffy and red.

“And, may I ask, when did Barton arrive here? Who let him into the house? How, I’m sorry if this is a foolish question, I really am not that sharp, how did Barton know where to find us?”

“First name’s Clint,” Barton offers. He eyes Carola for another minute and then continues inching towards the coffee like he thinks a mug is well worth risking injury. This one’s got his priorities down right.

“That’s good for you,” Carola says, completely dismissive. Barton, undaunted, continues his advance towards caffeine. Carola pins Romanova with a glare.

“Oh thank fuck,” Sophie breathes, and Carola blinks at her. “You go right ahead mate because believe me, no one wanted me to command this team and I’ve been waiting for you to get your head out of your arse for about three weeks.”

Carola sits up. “I don’t care what kind of nonsense you two got up to with Shield—“

“Oh, world saving, and stuff,” Barton mutters into his mug.

“Behave, sunshine,” Sophie warns in a sing-song tone.

Carola puts down her mug with a bit more force than necessary. Everyone goes silent and stares at her.

“Romanova, are you part of my team?”

Romanova blinks slowly. “I want to be.”

“Good. Then first things first, you do not bring someone into my team without telling me first.”

“I can hold my own,” Barton protests.

“You can wait for your turn,” Carola warns darkly. Barton shuts right up. Smart man. “You do not do things without telling me. You do not go off on your own and do whatever it is you get up to doing when you’re not otherwise occupied—“

“World saving and stuff?” Barton inquires.

Carola turns to look straight at him without saying a word. Barton wilts under her glare and buries his face in his coffee mug.

“I have enough problem kids with this one,” Carola says firmly, pointing at Bucky, who looks about ready to protest and then catches himself, shifting his expression into fabricated contrition. Carola will have to deal with that later.

“I’ll follow your lead,” Romanova says without inflection.

“As will I,” Lady Sif announces with a slight smile. “You certainly seem worthy.”

“Thank you. Look,” she stops and takes in a deep breath. “Natasha. You’re Steve’s friend. I want to trust you. I know that doing this is very important to you. I know you’ll do it anyway if I ask you to leave, and I don’t want anyone doing this on their own. I’ll sleep better if I know you have us around for support.”

“I can work alone,” Natasha says, tone unreadable.

“I know you can,” Carola nods. “But you came to me. You trusted me enough for that. So trust me a little bit more. I can’t have someone half-in half-out. If you’re here, I need you here, listening to me. If you can’t trust me or believe that I’ll do everything in my power to stop this, and to protect you, then you have to leave now.”

“I know you wouldn’t discard me.”

“Because you’re Steve’s friend,” Carola guesses.

Natasha says nothing.

“That’s irrelevant. You’re in this team, you’re one of mine, and I don’t leave mine behind. But if you’re one of mine, you talk to me. You tell me your plans. And you damn well better follow my lead.”

Natasha nods. Too easy. Carola won’t be earning this one’s loyalty with a speech, though.

“You,” Carola says to Bucky. “You’re on very thin ice. You can start behaving or you can go see how Steve deals with your bullshit.”

Bucky actually pulls a face at that, nodding.

“And you,” Carola says finally, glaring at Barton.

“Me,” Barton mumbles.

Carola studies him. “I actually don’t know anything about you.”

“I’m the dude with a bow.”

Carola looks at the ceiling, praying for patience. “Like I needed another upstart with an attitude. I have a migraine and I have a phone call I need to make, so I really can not bother with you right now. Sophie?”

“I’ll have words with him,” Sophie says evilly. Barton actually cringes at that. “A lot of words. Very thorough words.”

“I like this team,” Lady Sif says with satisfaction.

Carola really has no idea what to do with that. She has no idea what to do with Sif at all. She’ll need to get a feel on her, see her in a combat situation. Right now, though, she really does need to go back to her room and call Alan. Sif will keep.

Sighing, she gets up and moves to the door. She notices that Sif puts her hand lightly on Natasha’s back as they move out of her way, a familiarity Carola wouldn’t believe Natasha to allow lightly.

“And Natasha,” she says once she’s next to her. Natasha looks at her warily. “Thank you.”

A flash of surprise, quickly covered. Carola can’t easily explain to her that Natasha’s intel has given her a purpose again, redirected the roiling storm of her anger in a productive direction. Not until Natasha knows her better. Not when any show of gratitude or welcome might translate as a tool to manipulate her.

She knows very little about Natasha Romanova, but she thinks she knows enough.

This family’s always been a bit of a circus, so it’s not like a man with a weapon from the Paleolitic age, a spy and an Asgardian warrior won’t fit right in, anyway.