III: The Girl Who Ran: Dirty Hands and Dark Hearts

XLI: Sputnik

Bucky's dreams played out like a murder documentary. All ominous music and highlighted words. Sputnik. Sputnik. Sputnik. Sputnik. Sputnik. When the documentary in his head ended, he was in a bad mood. When he opened his eyes, he was enraged.

Curses in two different languages spewed from his mouth. He sat up in bed and the curses expanded into six languages. Not again! He rolled out of bed and looked for something to throw. His eyes fell on a cheap-looking lilac vase painted with arrows. He hurled it into the wall before he could rethink the action.

The porclain shattered into thousands of pieces and fell to the ground. He scrubbed his face with his hand.

"Bucky, one. Vase, zero." A familiar voice chuckled at the door. "That might've been eight century Chinese, ya know," Sam's arms were crossed as he leaned against the bed frame.

"How long was I out?" Bucky asked, genuinely afraid of the answer.

"Since Monday morning. It's Tuesday afternoon now, the twenty-first."

Not as long as he'd thought, but still a long time. Time he could've used to find Sunny and ask her how she'd known about  that word. He sighed heavily and sat on the side of the bed. He listened for signs of life in the house, but there was none, "Where is everyone?"

"Oh, they're here. No one's revived yet, though," Sam shrugged. "Zemo might be dead. He hasn't moved in a couple hours."

Bucky tried to smile, but his face wouldn't respond. How could he let himself be fooled like that? She'd just wanted to take him out easily so she could do... whatever they told her to do. H***, they probably told her that she could shut him down with just that one word. Sputnik. Such a stupid word. Not even real Russian.

"Tatiana was trying to get something called 'Midnight Oil'. She almost did, but Halaye stopped her. We're pretty wiped out, but we got in some good hits too."

"That's good."

Sam cleared his throat, "Something, uh... happened."

Bucky felt his brow furrow, "What?"

"Nat, Steve, and Wanda... she-- Tatiana-- made them see something." Sam looked like he was still trying to find the words. "They won't tell me what, but I think Wanda's mind-warping thing backfired."

"What does that mean?" That didn't make any sense.

Sam shrugged, "Maybe I'm wrong. Want something to eat?"

"Yeah."

Bucky followed Sam into the kitchen, passing by the living room where Zemo was sleeping on the floor. "What happened to him?"

"He's fine. Too much running up and down stairs, I guess." Sam grabbed some bread, cheese, and butter and set a skillet over the stove.

At that moment, Zemo came into the kitchen and sat two seats away from Bucky at the kitchen island. Bucky side-eyed him, and saw that he had a earbud in his ear, a wire trailing down to a little box at his hip. "What are you listening to?" Bucky's voice came out just as gruff as he'd wanted it to, but Zemo didn't seem to mind.

"Nothing," he said, flicking a button on the box.

Bucky thought about pressing him but decided not to. "So, do we have a plan or what, Sam?"

Sam flipped a grilled cheese, "I don't think so."

"Seriously? We only have one more base to hit! That's the only one she could be at!" Bucky guffawed.

"We're going tomorrow," Steve appeared at the entry to the kitchen. "This needs to end."

Sam raised his eyebrow, "Now you come to that conclusion?" He flipped the grilled cheese onto a plate, cut it in half, and slid the plate in front of Bucky.

Steve huffed and sat down next to Bucky. "I didn't think it would be this hard."

"You should never assume how difficult something is going to be when you are dealing with HYDRA," Zemo said, staring at the yellow toaster.

"Yeah, we got that, Zemo. We've been chasing Sunny around for over a month." Sam slapped another grilled cheese on a plate, this time for Steve. "Ya want one?" He asked Zemo.

He shook his head, "No, thank you."

Bucky poked at the remaining half of his sandwich, "So, we're going to St. Louis?"

Steve nodded, "Yeah, it's the only base we have a full floorplan for, so we can plan how we get in."

"Those plans are from 1937. Don't you think they would have... renovated or something by now?" Sam asked.

Zemo smiled halfway, "It's more difficult to renovate then to build a top secret base without someone noticing. By the time it is necessary to renovate, more people have populated the area. Though, I suppose with St. Louis, anything could be possible."

"What's wrong with St. Louis?" Bucky asked. He'd personally never visited the Missouri city.

Sam sighed, "It's a scaled down mix of Gotham and Chicago. Except some... weird stuff goes on down there."

"How do you know that?" Bucky looked at Zemo.

"I did have a life, contrary to popular belief." Zemo scoffed, honestly looked rather miffed.

"If we're leaving tomorrow, we should probably plan our grand rescue," Sam said, smiling.

Bucky would never understand how Sam could smile at a time like this.