Lies of Silver, Heart of Gold ~§~ Bucky Barnes

-022-

The two Avengers are roughly ten minutes away from Carina's home in Queens. They're still working on devising a plan for after the potential fight, assuming they succeed.

"You know, we could just knock him out and take him to your safe house," Carina suggests. "Maybe there's a way to bring out the guy that was Steve's best friend all those years ago. I could even try that mind control thing I did on Thor."

"I doubt something like that will work, but I'll check the files." Nat stretches into the backseat and grabs the file out of the floor. "Uh... there's something in here about a journal that has everything about his 'programming', but I'm not seeing anything else. Guess if we do get this guy and we can break said programming, maybe we can talk to him."

Carina shrugs and glances at Nat.

"So, road trip?" Nat asks.

"Sure, but what about my phone?" she asks. "I have no doubt that Tony's tracking it."

"You could relax a little," Nat says. "This wouldn't be my first time going off the grid."

"Okay, but what am I gonna do about Loki? He doesn't leave until Monday, and if I disappear on him, he's going to come looking until he finds me."

"If we can get a handle on Barnes, I'll take him down to Ohio and you can come down as soon as Loki leaves."

Carina sighs and looks at Nat for a split second. "Okay, fine," she groans. "You know, If we can catch a break for a weekend, maybe we could go somewhere and have a girls' night. Movies, food, spilling secrets, all the clichés."

"Ah, yes. Two badass avengers in their twenties, having a sleepover like teenagers," she laughs. "I'm actually so down for that, as long as there is booze."

"Well of course. It's a shame we're the only woman Avengers, though." She grabs her phone out of her pocket and talks loudly into it. "Hear that, Tony? We need more women! Balance out the testosterone."

They can't help but laugh at what they think Tony's reaction was to that, if he could even hear. Less than a minute later, they arrive in Carina's neighborhood. She stops and parks the car. They climb out and push the buttons on their bracelets as they start walking towards Carina's house. It's mere seconds of walking down the street before they see that her front door is wide open. The pair break into a sprint and reach the driveway only moments later. As they reach where the front door used to be, Carina can hear someone's thoughts coming from upstairs. It's a man's voice, repeating only three words. Where is she?

She nudges Nat slightly and points up at the ceiling. Nat nods in response and pulls her gun out of her thigh holster with her free hand and heads towards the stairs, with Carina right behind her. Nat goes towards the main bedroom, while Carina walks to the guest room, blaster at the ready. When she steps through the doorway, her arm is yanked and she is pulled to the side. Before she can make any sort of noise to alert Nat, a metal hand is covering her mouth and her voice vanishes from her throat.

"You make a sound, you get a knife in your side," the gravelly voice threatens. "Understand?"

Carina sighs and nods against the stranger's hand. He loosens his grip on her arm—big mistake. She jabs her elbow backwards towards his face, expecting to hit the man's nose but only making contact with a thick mask. Nevertheless, it startles him and he lets go of her completely for a split second. Nat overhears the commotion and comes rushing into the room, blaster and gun at the ready. She shoots the man with both weapons, but only hits his metal arm, which reactivates after a millisecond and swings into Nat's rib cage. She flies back into the hallway and lands on the same side that was just hit, hissing at the pain. She tries to aim the blaster again, but can't get it to fire and cannot find her gun. The stranger grabs a small dagger from his belt with his gloved right hand and starts swinging it towards Carina. She backs into the bed and falls on it, and he holds her down by the neck with his metal hand.

"If you weren't trying to kill me right now I might be turned on," she jokes raspily. She knees him in the crotch and he backs off. She flicks her fingers and a bolt of magic makes its way into the man's ear. "Stop fighting me," she whispers. The man nods and straightens his posture. Nat gets up off the floor, groaning and holding her side.

"Ow," she groans. "You good?"

Carina stands up and glances at the Winter Soldier, still holding him at bay with her mind control. "Yeah. Nothing that won't heal in a couple hours." She turns back to the assassin. "Sit."

Nat raises an eyebrow at Carina as the man obeys her commands.

"If he can be activated, he might have some kind of off switch," Carina guesses. "Any ideas?"

"Just one." She hits him with a killer right hook and knocks him out.

"Nat?!" Carina yells. "What the hell was that?"

"It worked on Clint when he was under Loki's control," Nat explains. "Plus you promised me the first punch." She shrugs. "The guy's a super soldier, he'll wake up in a few minutes. Now I'll be right back; I'm getting an ice pack from your freezer."

Carina smirks as Nat walks away. She pulls out her phone and texts Clint.

Carina, to Clint Barton — 03:47 PM
Just thought you might want an update: Winter Soldier is currently unconscious. Good luck on your mission btw.

It's less than a minute before Clint replies.

Clint Barton sent a message — 03:48 PM
Cool, keep me posted. And thanks.

Nat comes back right as Carina pockets her phone.

"Who was that?" Nat asks.

"Clint," she answers. "I figured he'd want a heads up since he's the only one that knows about this."

Nat hums in response and approaches Barnes. She grabs a small disc from her pocket and sets it on his metal arm and starts feeling his pockets for any other weapons. She pulls another knife and a gun and hands them to Carina before removing the man's goggles and mask. "Hide the weapons, just put the accessories somewhere," she instructs. She pulls out some handcuffs and cuffs his right arm to the bedpost as Carina hides the objects in her nightstand in her bedroom. When she returns to the guest room, she notices that Nat is against the wall, still holding the ice pack to her side.

Carina sighs. "I think I can heal that."

Nat shakes her head. "I'm good. I've had plenty worse, believe me." She leans down to pick up the Winter Soldier's feet to put them on the bed and exhales sharply at the pain. "You know what? Go ahead, please."

Carina inches her hand toward Nat's side and takes a deep breath. She lets the orange electricity jolt from her hands and seep through Nat's clothing, allowing it to course through her body and heal the damage to her ribs.

"Better?" she asks.

Nat laughs. "You're gonna give Banner a run for his money in the hospital wing."

Carina smiles. "I've always wanted to be rich. Thank the gods for a Stark credit card, I guess."

Nat laughs moments before she notices the man stirring. She taps Carina to get her attention and nods towards him.

"Shit, okay," Carina curses. "Fingers crossed your punch method worked."

"Yeah," Nat agrees. "If you're gonna stay in here while I question him, you might wanna get your phone out of range. Just put it in your room."

Carina runs back to her bedroom, tosses her phone on the mattress, and closes the door behind her. When she returns to the guest room, the metal-armed man is awake, but clearly groggy.

"Where and when the hell am I?" he asks.