Avengers: Behind the Uniform

A Long Flight Back

                  

A/N: Hi guys, I just wanted to make it clear that Aleksandr is the character who I made up and said I would be introducing soon (back in the Fulcrum chapter) and that I will be making some adjustments to the back stories of some existing characters so that he can fit in. I hope you guys like it and, as always, feedback and suggestions are more than welcome. :) PS. These smiley faces never turn out well do they...

***

Steve couldn't move. He couldn't breathe. Bucky. The last time he had seen him was when he almost killed him. Bucky. He had sounded different over the com, friendly and like the man he used to be. Bucky. Shaking the impossible thought from his head, Steve spoke into the com.

"Rendezvous at S.H.I.E.L.D within an hour."

"Steve –"

"I can't right now, Natasha, I'm sorry." He cut her off.

He didn't even notice he was shaking until his shield slipped from his fingers and clattered to the ground.

***

There was about two seconds of something resembling quiet before the questions broke out.

"Who are you?"

"What did you do to us back there?"

"Why did you help us?"

"Do you have anything to eat on here?"

"What can you tell us about Fulcrum?"

"What's he doing here?"

"Why did that man call himself your father?"

Aleksandr smiled and spread his hands in front of him. "Whoa, calm down. Okay well my name is Aleksandr –" he glanced awkwardly at Natasha, hesitated and then continued "I'm a telepath as far as I know, I can control people's minds and their actions, mind jump cool stuff like that which is what I was basically doing to you before. We have a dining room down that corridor which you can help yourself to.

Fulcrum is an organisation which – I'm sure you know – has been running for almost four decades. That man's name is Lucius Montgomery." Wanda nodded grimly. "He is known as Silvertongue, he can say anything to you and you would believe it. He raised me as his son but he's not my real father. My real father died when I was younger. Montgomery was the one who ordered me to break  out Bucky here and wipe everything Pierce had imprinted in him. And I helped you because –" A confused look came over his face and he switched his gaze from Natasha to Wanda. "Because of her."

***

He had one hour. One hour to get his thoughts together. Sixty minutes to calm himself down. Three thousand and six hundred seconds to figure out how he was going to act. He walked over to the window. The Quinjet can fly itself, he thought. Standing there, with the world literally beneath his feet, he felt more alone then he ever had before. A man out of his time with thoughts and actions which ostracised him from those of this era. And now, someone from his past was back, bringing with him memories of a time he had lost and the life both of them should've had. Family, love, stability. The guy who wanted all that went under the ice 70 years ago. I think someone else came out. That was what he had told Stark, but did he really believe it? You can't have more than what you have now, he told himself every morning over and over again. But then he would see her, and it would all be for naught and he would find himself right back where he was and where he would always be when it came to her. 

He sighed, picked up his shield, placed it on the chair behind him and turned back to the control panel.

***