Chapter Text

Chapter Twenty-Three

✭

"How's that?"

"I think his hair came down a little closer."

"Hmm. Like that?"

"Yeah, yeah, that's it."

"And his eyes, they were blue. Not that, er, you have a blue pencil."

Steve made a note of it, erasing through the irises slightly to indicate the lighter color. Each time he showed Bucky his sketch, each time his stomach lurched at the sight. Each time it looked more and more like the man he saw.

Like the man who took Mia.

Like…

"Gotta admit," Bucky mumbled, scratching his jaw and turning his gaze to the floor, when the sketch became too much to look at. "You're a better artist than I remembered."

Steve smiled briefly, a bit of a wry smirk there as he went back to adding details in the image. "I used to sketch portraits for money, remember? Especially when men were going off to war — they wanted something for their folks to remember them by."

Those words brought up an ancient memory, seeing a smaller, younger Steve hunkered on a park bench. An upturned cap to collect money, a sketchbook and small box of charcoal in his hands. It always amazed Bucky how easily Steve could capture someone's likeness in a few simple strokes, how a face could appear out of the void of white paper. Steve had a pencil instead of charcoal now, and was using the backside of an old leaflet, but it hindered his skills very little. When he was done, he showed the sketch to Bucky once more, before handing it over to Wilson.

The three of them sat in a circle around some old crates, still in that warehouse. They had yet to be found and Bucky didn't want to move while he still had the images fresh in his mind. He needed Steve to capture it first, before they made any moves. Before he forgot again.

"This is the guy, huh?" Wilson asked, raising a doubtful eyebrow. "Looks like a generic white guy to me. But it does look like the man who we saw on the security feeds."

He handed the sketch back to Steve, who frowned at it. "That's not the only person he looks like."

"What do you mean?" Wilson asked; he'd been the only one to find an actual chair and was now sitting backwards on it, arms resting atop the back.

Steve flipped the image back to Bucky. "Tell me if this reminds you of someone else." Then, to Wilson, "There's always a risk of a sketch artist using their own biases when mocking up a person they've never seen. Well, both the artist and the witness. Because this looks like someone I — we — have met before. A long time ago."

"What? Who?"

Bucky knew the answer to that question. He stared long and hard at those cold eyes, the blue in the details. "The Baron. Heinrich von Zemo."

That received a blank look from Wilson. "Sounds German. The other guy was German, too."

"Well, this guy," Steve said, nodding at Bucky — clearly, he'd seen the same thing. "Was a top-level scientist for the Nazis during the war. In exchange for his work, he was allowed to keep his land and title to pass it on to his children. He was one of the men who helped form HYDRA."

"We killed him," Bucky said, his voice low. "In 1944."

He still remembered firing the shot. Steve was up close, of course, punching the bastard so hard he knocked the stupid crown off his head. Bucky had been in the rafters of Baron von Zemo's lab, rifle in hand, lining up the shot. It had been a tough one, between trying not to hit Steve and get a good visual through the building smoke, the laboratory going up in blazes around them.

Took the man right between the eyes.

The Baron was dead. They had double-checked, just to be sure.

No one could come back from that.

"Hard to tell how old he is here," Steve studied the sketch for a long moment. "But Zemo had been in his forties, and this is pretty close to the same age, I think. It's… spooky."

"But there's no way it can be him," Wilson said, throwing out a hand. "One, he's dead. Two, even if he was alive, he'd be a geriatric. Are you sure this guy didn't just resemble the old fucker?"

"It's possible." Steve said.

"It's probable," Bucky grumbled at the same time, now doubting himself completely. That sketch was the spitting image of the man who took his daughter — but it was also an uncanny resemblance to an old foe, long dead. "Either way, it's nothing to go off of. We can't use it. Not when we have… biases."

Steve had a point. It could be either of them placing Zemo's image on this unrelated man. To put a Nazi's face on some guy would be too damning. It wasn't evidence. It wasn't a lead they could follow. Just old war stories brought back to haunt them. And ghosts, no matter how evil, weren't going to save Mia, or clear Bucky's name.

"Well, it's something we can show people, at least," Wilson suggested with a shrug, already losing interest, looking at his burner phone. "And in the meantime, we have real evidence to use. Like the fact that his name definitely isn't Dr. Theo Broussard,"

"How do you know?" Steve snapped his head around, leaning over to look at whatever messages Sam just received.

"Carter just texted me. Said they found the real Broussard's body in his hotel room. Facial software linked the fake Broussard's face to another identity. Some guy named… Rudi Schmidt. Who names their kid Rudi? Apparently, he lives with his girlfriend here in Berlin. The guy's got no criminal record, looks like it's his real name. His citizen status states he's a natural-born German citizen, and his parents and grandparents before him — but she says there must have been a name change in the Fifties because the family records stop there."

"Wait, why is she telling us this?" Bucky scowled, suddenly suspicious. He didn't know Carter very well, just that one meeting at Peggy's birthday, and then only what Steve had told him; former SHIELD, now CIA liaison working with Interpol. The enemy du jour.

"Probably because she likes Steve," Wilson replied casually, then smirked when Steve threw him a look. "What? I'm not blind."

Steve blinked, and apparently decided better than to entertain that. "Did she say anything else?"

"Only that we have two hours before she's required to inform her superiors." Wilson said.

"Sounds like a trap." Bucky muttered, turning his scowl to his hands. Steve didn't tell him that much about Carter. Why? Did he think Bucky would hold it against him or something? But Bucky can't hold on to the resentment, not when it felt so petty with everything else going on.

"It's not," Steve assured him, before taking the phone to better read the address. "The address is close. She's given us a head start — let's not waste it."

There was no arguing to be had; though Bucky had his doubts, it was easy to fall into Steve's shadow, letting him lead the way. Steve made it easy like that, made following feel like second-nature, like it was the right thing to do. Bucky didn't doubt him for a moment.

The three of them, however, did not exactly blend in on Berlin's streets — not with their faces plastered on every TV and LCD screen in a nationwide radius. Disguises were required; in total, it meant changing their general silhouettes as much as they could. Which wasn't easy, given that they were all tall, all broad, a lot of muscle and bone that couldn't simply be hidden away; and Wilson insisted that as the only Black man in Berlin, he would not go unnoticed.

They did their best with hats, hoods, sunglasses. Trading their old clothes with some quietly picked up at a thrift shop, and then moving separately. Apart they could be indistinguishable, but as a group? Interpol and city police would be looking for a group of three men of their exact description.

Like fish threading through fields of seaweed, they each made their own separate way in the same direction, agreeing to rendezvous at the address in Spindlersfeld. Bucky would've liked to have gone via the rooftops, where he was less likely to be spotted on the ground; but with helicopters in the area, that might make him more noticeable, especially in the daytime.

The buildings here were old, like so many cities in Europe. Filled with histories, lives, ghosts. Old stone walls laced with old pockmarks; bullet holes. Some filled in, some not. Apparently, the city had been divided in half at one point, a giant wall cutting through the city. And before that, a gleaming city of economic splendor and cultural beauty. Or so the propaganda reels said.

Old ghosts. Old wars.

The three of them appeared like phantoms out of the shadows, onto the front porch of a narrow townhouse. Utterly mundane, even picturesque, with the blooming flower boxes on the windows and a manicured front lawn. White painted door and windows. Quaint, but welcoming. Open. No secrets to be hidden here.

It gave Bucky chills. The man who kidnapped his daughter couldn't live here of all places, could he?

Steve's German wasn't as good as Bucky's, but he had the stronger bedside manner, and was a lot less threatening. The three of them wondered if the woman would even talk to them, and if she would, would she let all of them in? That seemed unlikely. But neither Bucky or Wilson wanted to be left out of what may be a very informative conversation. So, they tried their best not to look like fugitives of the law while Steve rang the doorbell.

A woman opened the door. Mid-thirties, pretty, blonde and blue-eyed. She blinked curiously at them, confused. "Kann ich Ihnen helfen?"

Bucky relaxed slightly. Her reaction wasn't alarm or panic, which meant she didn't recognize them. Maybe she hadn't seen the news yet.

"Hallo, entschuldigen Sie die Störung. Sind Sie Annaliese Wagner?"

"Ja, wer sind Sie?"

And just like that, Steve seamlessly spun a sorry tale, of searching for her boyfriend, whose parents knew his parents who knew each other from way back when. Friends forged through fire, and now their son looking to rekindle the connection. It's soulful, it's heartrending, it's utterly convincing. Natalia couldn't have done it any better.

Annaliese Wagner opened right up to them, apparently charmed by the story — and apparently very dumb, or at least naive, welcoming Steve and his two travel buddies inside the house to talk more. The living room was tiny, barely enough seats for them all, but the three large men manage to squeeze together; Steve on the nice rocking chair while Bucky and Wilson cramped together on the loveseat, a silent, uncomfortable audience. They do their best to smile and wave and play the dumb American tourists Ms. Wagner would expect of them. Thankfully, she and Steve switch to English, as she brings them some complementary tea in absolutely tiny tea cups.

Bucky feels ridiculous trying to sip from them, still shaky from the day's earlier events. Like all of Europe wasn't on their asses, ready to shoot without asking questions first. But here they sat in a lacy, flowery den that smelled thickly of potpourri.

"Sorry for not having anything else on hand," Annaliese apologized, as she set the tray down on the coffee table between them. Crackers and cheese weren't a lot, but at least it was something. "We don't receive visitors very much. Rudi is very private, you see."

"That's okay," Steve smiles, easy as pie. "Do you know when he might be back?"

"Oh, I don't know, maybe not for a few days. He has long work trips. But I'm sure he'd be so pleased to hear of your stories. I'm sorry to say his parents died a long time ago, but Rudi loved them very much. Family is very important to him."

She smiled and simpered and Bucky didn't fail to notice the shiny rock on her finger. A large emerald, unusual when diamonds were so common in this day and age, but Bucky could tell its age, the old wrought gold. A family heirloom. Not wanting to be the weird quiet guy, he tried to be polite. "You're getting married?"

"Oh, yes!" Annaliese looked down at her hand, feigning surprise as if she forgot it was there, and then beamed at him. She clutched her hands to her chest. "He proposed last month. No date set yet, but we're very excited."

"Congratulations," Steve said, offering his teacup as a toast, and Wilson and Bucky followed suit. Along the wall behind her seat was a fireplace, an array of pictures along the mantle. All of Annaliese and Rudi.

Steve gestured to the photo closest. "Is that him? My parents told me the Schmidts had a son, but I've never seen him before."

"Handsome, isn't he?" Annaliese said, pulling down the frame so they could take a closer look. Looking exactly like the man Bucky saw. Exactly like the sketch in Steve's pocket. "Rudi's a professor at the university, he'll be making tenure soon. He teaches genealogy, and his work takes him all around the world. Lots of studies, you know?"

"Oh, I'm sure," Steve said with the blank smile of a man who has no idea what a genealogy professor does. "You know, speaking of genealogy, I'd done some research before I came here. Mostly to make sure I had the right family, the right guy. Schmidt is a common name, obviously, but when I found Rudi, I noticed his family history only goes back so far, at least on those heritage websites. It made finding him difficult."

"Ah, I see," Annaliese nodded, her smile fading slightly. Apparently, Steve had touched on an uncomfortable topic, and she sat back slightly. Her shoulders rose and fell awkwardly. "He doesn't speak that far back of his family, but I'm sure it won't surprise you to hear that his great-grandfather served in World War Two. Just a common soldier, I think. But enough for his family to change their name afterwards. A fresh start."

Bucky trained his face to keep from reacting any, how carefully Annaliese worded her answer, all the things left unsaid. Neither he nor Steve got to witness what happened after the war was over, but he'd picked up some details since then. The trials, the laws, the shame. It wasn't surprising, he decided. But still. Something tickled in the back of his mind.

"Oh, of course, I understand." Steve said, and before the awkwardness could linger any longer, he deftly changed the subject. "His parents ended up living in East Berlin, right? I think that's how my parents ended up encountering them."

"A very different time back then," Annaliese nodded seriously.

"If you don't mind me asking, when did Rudi leave for work?"

"Oh, about a week ago, he left for a study taking place in Italy. He said he'd be back soon. If you'd only come a little sooner…"

As they continued making chitchat, Wilson checked the time, and subtly twisted his arm so Bucky could also read his watch. They had less than twenty minutes before their time was up.

Steve was still using that soft touch, keeping this only a conversation, and not an interrogation. A lot of go arounds with frivolous mentionings and casual lies; not the intense interrogation, getting the information they needed. Surely this woman had to know her fiancé wasn't who he said he was. That he was lying to her. About what, Bucky had no idea. Didn't know why Rudi Schmidt happened to be a dead ringer for a long dead man.

Excusing himself to the bathroom, he managed to glimpse a few more family photos hanging along the hallway walls. Old photos, a man in the seventies or eighties, with great sideburns and thick aviator glasses that hid his eyes. Long hippie hair. Rudi's father, perhaps, features partially hidden beneath the beards that were in fashion at the time.

Clearly the Schmidt genes were very powerful in this family. Another portrait, a man and a woman in vintage wedding garb. His parents, happily married. No photos of children, though. Not what Rudi might have looked like while young. Maybe that was a weird thing to hang up in your fiancée's house.

In the bathroom, he heard Steve manage to convince Annaliese to trade him Rudi's cell phone number. Clever bastard. Bucky would've just stolen her phone.

But then he hears it. Cars pulling in. Several, at once, heavy police vehicles dragging their tires through tiny streets. All drawing in at the same time, to the same location.

Here.

Bucky didn't bother going back to the living room. Simply jumped out the bathroom window, while Steve and Wilson made a very quick good-bye and somehow managed to bustle themselves out her back door, much to Annaliese's alarm. But she didn't have time to follow them, stalled when another knock came at her door.

They were long gone by the time she opened it.

✭✭✭

EIGHT HOURS LATER
THE RAFT

"I know I'm probably an outlier here," Clint announced to the room at large. "But this place sucks balls."

The Raft was the brainchild of a crazy architect and an even crazier psychopath. Who the hell invented an underwater prison facility? Who put the stamp of approval? "I'm, like, ninety percent sure this violates the Geneva Conventions. I didn't even get a lawyer."

"None of us got lawyers, Clint," Nat sighed in the cell next to his. He couldn't see her, unless he pressed his face to the glass and turned his gaze hard enough to the right that it hurt his eyeballs. He could just make out the glint of red hair. "You weren't supposed to let yourself get arrested. At least one of us should be out there helping Steve. Didn't you get my message?"

"Oh, yeah, after the kids left me high and dry," Clint huffed, folding his arms across his chest and slumping on the cot they called a bed. "Little shits didn't even tell me the feds were coming. One second, we were having a pizza party, the next they're rushing out the door, saying something about Howie. When I went to check on them, they were gone. And the FBI was on our lawn. So, you know. I played nice."

"You saw Howie?" Tony called from across the cell block, looking excited. The guy looked like he got into a fistfight with a dump truck and lost. His suit jacket was gone and the white shirt underneath was torn at the shoulder seam. He had a black eye and bloody knuckles. "He got to you guys in time?"

"I didn't see him," Clint clarified, still annoyed about the whole thing. He already wasn't thrilled being assigned Head Babysitter for the baby Avengers, just trying to keep a lid on things while the rest of the world went to hell in a handbasket. Clint thought he had a pretty good handle on things until he suddenly didn't. "But apparently he was there. I could smell that ozone exhaust stuff from one of those suits. They must have flown away just in time. And since no one else is gonna ask, who are those guys?"

He gestured to the two other occupied cells. One who looked like that African king Clint saw on the news, sitting silently on his cot, cross-legged and eyes closed, apparently deep in meditation. In the other, a tiny old man raging at the four walls around him; he'd been like that ever since Clint was first thrown in here an hour ago, and hadn't stopped since. Apparently, it was annoying enough that their warden had muted the cell so no one had to listen to him anymore.

"That's King T'Challa of Wakanda," Nat said, sounding bored. "His father was killed in the bomb. He tried to kill Barnes, and then Ross had him arrested. It's kind of a long story."

If this King heard their conversation, he didn't let on. Clint pointed in the other direction. "And the old guy?"

"That's Hank Pym," Tony said, staring at the older man with open amazement. "I have no fucking idea why he's here."

"How do you know him?"

"Oh, he used to work with my dad," Tony shrugged. "Pym hated him."

"Is he, like, famous or something?"

"Not that I know of. My old man mentioned him once or twice, but whatever work they did was under wraps."

"Enough to land him here, years after the fact?" Nat asked, in that tone of voice Clint knew so well. She knew something was up. Ross wouldn't go out of his way to arrest some outdated retiree if he didn't think the guy was a danger in some way. Maybe he knew something they didn't. Maybe his work, decades after Howard Stark was dead, was somehow still relevant.

"Dunno," Tony wiped at his face, looking around his cell again. Four walls, three of metal, one of bullet-proof glass that allowed them to stare at each other in increasing desperation. It hadn't even been a full day for Clint yet, and he was already going stir-crazy. "Don't suppose anyone has any helpful ideas right now. Pym not included. Anyone here from Hulk or Thor?"

"Both off-world," Clint replied. He knew because he sent one last emergency alert before he was arrested. "Rhodes is still in DC as far as I know. That government job is probably the only thing keeping him out there and not in here. You said Rogers and Wilson are still out there?"

"They got away, far as we know," Nat said, and he could hear the faint taps of her feet, pacing in her small cell. "Probably with Barnes. They must be hunting down the man who activated Barnes, and took Mia. Meanwhile, Ross is acting with the full power of the Accords. Any Enhanced individual, Mutant or otherwise, is being detained."

"How am I Enhanced?" Clint threw up his arms, before letting them flop on the bed. "I'm just a guy with a bow and arrow. I didn't blow up any buildings. Not recently anyways."

"I think vigilante is enough," Nat said wryly. "You think Hawkeye is going to be okay?"

"Hawkeye is fucked," Clint sighed, then scowled at the wall that split their cells. Was Nat talking about him Hawkeye, or the other Hawkeye that he wasn't going to acknowledge, and definitely not in a prison cell where they were definitely being monitored 24/7? Better play it safe. "Hawkeye wants a pizza. You think if we tip high enough, we can do delivery?"

Clint was joking, of course, trying to cut the tension. They were all on edge, lions in their cages, rattling and roaring. It was completely wrong to be trapped here. Half of the original Avengers were out of commission. Another two were completely unable to help. Just Steve and whatever allies he could find.

Oh yeah. And a bunch of meddling kids.

Yeah, they totally stood a chance against Ross and his multinational army of goons.

Totally fine.

"This is all my fault," Tony moaned, completely ignoring Clint's humor. Tony had his face in his hands, slowly sliding down the wall until his butt was on the floor, in total defeat. "I should've fought harder, I shouldn't have let Howie go off alone —"

"There's a lot of things we should've done differently," Nat said. "But there's no point in crying about it now. We can't expect Steve to try and save us. Not all the way out here, with no resources."

"And what, we're supposed to break out? With the same lack of resources?" Tony snapped back, throwing her a scowl. "I don't think I could even call my suits here. And even if I could, I can't take all of you. I don't even know what this place is capable of. How to get this hunk of junk out of the water."

Clint could almost feel it. He could hear it, the rumble, the hum of the ocean all around them, just beneath the noise of the air filtration system. It rumbled and shifted whenever there was a visitor, but nothing that any of them could truly tell. There were no windows in here. Just twelve cells in a circular block, ready and waiting to be filled with a bunch of helpless, angry people.

It was going to be a bad time.

And then, the elevator whooshed open, without so much as an announcement. Everyone in the cell block turned to look as the warden, a tough old guy who looked to be retired military, and Agent Carter walked into the block. Behind them, a tall woman with a spear and a golden gorget, her dark eyes not sparing any of them a glance as the trio went straight for the King's cell.

His door opened, and the man rose to his feet.

"Apologies, your Highness," Agent Carter spoke in a stilted, polite tone, her expression completely flat. "Your diplomats and lawyers petitioned for your release."

"On certain limits," the warden added roughly.

"What?" Tony squawked from across the room. "He gets to go free? What about us?"

"Your lawyers are on their way to Switzerland," was all Carter said as they passed back towards the elevator. "Until then, we'll see."

"This is illegal!" Tony called after them. "A human rights travesty! Those Accords are never gonna last. They'll get appealed! And I'm gonna sue the hell out of Ross!"

If his threats meant anything, it didn't get across — the elevator door sucked shut once more, and the group was gone. The King of Wakanda, once their prisoner in arms, now a free agent once more. Clint didn't know if that was a good thing or not. Didn't the guy try to kill Barnes? Assuming Barnes was innocent, of course. Not that Clint was totally convinced. But he didn't want to get into an argument with Nat.

"Damn them!" Tony punched the wall when it was too late. He winced and shook out his hand. "Shit. We really screwed the pooch, didn't we? Alright, gang, we really gotta find a way outta here. I can't wait for my lawyers. I'd love to hear some good ideas, Nat."

"Why don't you ever ask me for good ideas?" Clint complained.

Tony threw him a look. "Do you ever?"

"Well, no—" Clint scoffed. "But it's nice to be asked." He thumped the wall next to him with his fist. "Alright, Nat, let's hear it. What's the next great escape?"

But he got no reply. Across from him, Tony jumped up, suddenly cursing. "Oh, you gotta be kidding me —!"

"What? What is it?" Clint asked, frantic as he tried to press his face against the glass again, get a peek across the wall.

All Tony could do was point to the empty cell. "She's gone!"