Tangled Paths | Bucky Barnes

Prologue

Washington D.C. April 14th, 2014

The doors of an old grey shipping container creaked open and the container began to pool with light. The rays began to beam onto the contents of the container, inside were shelves of dust-covered outdated equipment. A bald man sporting an eye patch entered the unit and double-checked that he wasn't being followed before pulling the door of the container closed behind him leaving the unit once again in a state of pitch black. In the dark, he reached out toward the ceiling and pulled a string. A white lightbulb flickered to life leaving the man to get a good look at the contents of the room.

At the far end of the room sat a metal table and chair, Also coated with a layer of dust. Atop the table sat an old desktop computer. The man limped forward and then pressed the button on the tower. The sound of the machine whirling to life filled the space. Out of the pocket of his trench coat, the man pulled a USB drive with his good hand and plugged it into the tower. He tapped the space bar on the keyboard a few times causing the monitor to blink to life.

Immediately an image with text popped up on the screen that read "SHIELD DATABASE AUTHORIZATION REQUIRED." with the arm the man didn't have in the sling he typed some words into the machine and pressed the enter key. A new line of text began to file onto the screen. "Welcome Nicholas J. Fury," then suddenly hundreds of files began to open.

The man overrode the system and began to copy any and all SHIELD and HYDRA information onto the USB Drive. Satisfied that the system was doing what he asked of it, the man shed his trench coat and eye patch and tossed them on the floor in the center of the room. He reached for a briefcase on one of the shelves and popped it open. Inside laid a sweater, a gun, a pair of sunglasses, a t-shirt, a beanie and a set of sneakers. The man kicked out of his boots and then carefully began to take the sling off his shoulder. He placed it down on the table and slid his turtle neck off of his bruised beaten and bloody dark body. Once again he threw the discarded item into the pile in the center of the room. Nick winced as he slid on the black t-shirt. He fought through the pain as he put on a maroon zip-up sweater, then grabbed the dark blue sneakers and moved to the chair in front of the computer. He dropped the sneakers on the ground and pulled the chair away from the desk then sat so he could slip into the sneakers more easily.

Nick leaned forward in the chair and slid into the sneakers with the help of his good hand. He sat up to grab the sling when he noticed a flashing notification on the screen. Confused Nick turned his torso and legs to face the monitor and clicked to open the page. When he did his eyes narrowed. The alert was a motion sensor from an abandoned Hydra base in Siberia from a room seemingly hard to get to deep in the base. A second sensor began to alert and a pop-up read "The contingency plan has been engaged". Fury furrowed his eyebrows. with one hand he tapped into the base's security feed and watched for a while. All the cameras seemed to be damaged, coated with dust or not working. A discomforting feeling began to arise inside his gut.

Once the data transfer was complete Nick rose off of the chair and unplugged the USB Drive. He slid it into the pocket of his dark grey cargo pants then grabbed the Glock and tucked it into his waistband. He grabbed the final items from the briefcase then put on his sunglasses and pulled the black beanie onto his head. He put his hood up and then reached for the black leather jacket hanging by the door. He let a swear out under his breath as he slid his arm through the jacket then took the time to carefully re-secure his left arm in his sling.

Nick headed for the door of the shipping container and cracked it open. The light of day hurt his eyes as he turned to face the inside of the container once more. Out of his cargo pants, the man pulled a bottle of lighter fluid the proceeded to douse every surface and object inside the container. Once the bottle was empty he tossed it on the pile of his clothing and pulled a gold zippo out of his pocket. He walked out of the container and gave the inside of it one final look as he flicked the zippo to life. Nick threw the lighter into the pile of clothes and watched as the container began to go up in flames. He looked at the ground and nodded a few times. He closed the doors of the container a bit so if someone walked by they wouldn't be able to see what was inside, but not enough to smother the flame then began to walk off the edge of the property where a blacked-out car sat waiting for him.