Sergeant Barnes: The Last Mission (COMPLETE)

Chapter 55: Bucky

By the time Agent Hill and Fury walked into the kitchen, a full on war had been waged, and the room was a mess. Grapes, soda, and shawarma covered the floor, cabinets, and us. Steve and I had been winning when Natasha joined, but her addition to Stark and Parker shifted the tide. We were at the mercy of the Russian assassin.

When the doors opened, Steve and I were on the floor, and surrounded by the other three, but as two completely clean people walked into a completely trashed room, the fighting stopped immediately. Fury looked amused, thankfully, but Hill looked like she was gonna murder us. I could already tell that we were going to be spending the morning cleaning up the kitchen.

"Is this some kind of re-enactment? Or did I miss something?"

"You missed us annihilating the super soldiers," Stark said, finally relenting and capping his bottle of soda.

"I believe I was the one who did that," Natasha insisted, helping me up. Parker pulled Steve to his feet.

"How about we relocate to the lobby," Hill suggested, "and you all can clean this up after we're done?"

"Yes, ma'am," Stark said, covering up a string of curses from Parker.

We all made our way back down the stairs to the first room. It was then that I looked around, and didn't see the archer.

"Where's Raven?"

"I asked her to take care of a few things while we talk. I can guarantee that she's upstairs somewhere. Don't worry, Barnes."

"Speaking of the agent," Stark interjected, "Who taught her how to fly a plane?"

"That would be Romanoff, Sergeant," Hill said, opening her tablet and taking a seat next to Fury.

"Technically, I didn't teach the class, that was-"

"Let's save this for later," Fury stopped her. "How was Germany?"

"What part of it?" Natasha asked.

"Well, I heard a little bit about the part where you came back to life," he stared pointedly at Steve, "but not nearly as much about the other 190-something cyborgs."

"The more we know about the cyborgs, the more we can do to prevent them from hurting anyone." She stared at Steve, as did everyone else. "Do you know anything?"

I saw the pain on his face. He may be a cyborg, but it was still Steve, and the idea that he hurt people was hurting him, the same way it had hurt me for so long.

"They've been developed over five years. There's a scientist, Fletcher, Doctor Fletcher. She's American, I don't know how HYDRA found her. She's been using the notebook."

"What notebook?" Stark asked.

"Zola's. Zola's notebook."

I froze. Zola. His name, that's all it took, and I could see him again. I could see him, I could see all of them. I could see the needles, I could see the arm, before they welded it to my shoulder. I could feel the red hot hooks and they were shoved carelessly into my arm. I could feel the chair, the chair, the machine. The one that made me lose my mind, the one that made me lose my mind, the one that stole my life away from me.

"Buck."

Steve's arm on my shoulder pulled me out of the past. Everyone had shifted their gaze to me. I looked down at my hands, avoiding making eye contact with anyone.

"Why did they need the notebook?" Fury asked. "What was in it?"

"The Winter Soldier instructions. All the steps, all the programming."

Natasha broke in. "The notebook was destroyed after the Sokovia Accords."

"Well, HYDRA got it, somehow. Fletcher was supposed to decipher it, recreate the process. She created the cyborg design. Put my mind in here, and all the others."

"Who are the others?"

"Soldiers. The best they had, but they all betrayed HYDRA. Being a cyborg was the punishment."

"Can we help them?" Parker asked. I wish I was as hopeful as he still was.

I glanced at Steve, slowly turning my head to the right.

"The best thing we can do is deactivate them. Everyone already thinks they're dead." He looked down at his hands. "Might as well put them out of their misery."

As much as I was hurting, seeing Steve like that was worse. Being trapped in your own head, it's the weakest feeling. Seeing everything happen, and not being able to do anything, it's like falling to your death. You can't stop it. Steve was right, dying is better.

"If we want to do that, we need to find them," Hill broke the silence. "Where does HYDRA keep them?"

"Same place, but in the Northern storage units."

"Just like in the lab," Natasha said, and I looked up at her. She was right, the chalkboard back there pointed us to it the whole time.

The lab, the vibranium.

"Something's wrong with Wakanda." I turned to Fury. "HYDRA had their vibranium. I don't know how, but they got it somehow. HYDRA is stealing from Wakanda."

He leaned on his elbows. "Now that I think about it, I've barely heard from them as of late. They've been quiet for the past two years. I just assumed that there was a policy change."

"Bucky's right, Nick," Natasha told him. "I saw the crates. It's bad, and I know T'Challa had nothing to do with it."

"So who did?" Stark asked, leaning back. "How could someone get in Wakanda and transfer their shipments?"

"We'll worry about that after we eliminate the cyborgs. If they get loose in the U.N., then I don't want to know what happens next." Fury decided. I couldn't blame him.