Insanity

Part Three

Song: Devil's Gonna Git You by J2

☆☆☆

"It's a long, long 
lane that has no
turning."

☆☆☆

"Pierce is dead?" Brock Rumlow asked from his hospital bed, recovering from severe third degree burns to his face and body.

"As dead as a guy can get, yeah," the Hydra agent across from him said, shrugging.

Another Hydra agent came storming in, and Rumlow rolled his eyes. Jesus, couldn't they give a hospitalized man a break? This agent looked incredibly nervous, fear dotting every wrinkle, every crease on his face. "The Winter Soldier is gone," he said, his voice shaking. "He lost his earpiece on the helicarrier - we can't track him," the man continued, fidgeting with a boxy tracking device Rumlow always requested be used on the Winter Soldier. "Look," the agent said, shoving the screen in Rumlow's face.

Rumlow squinted at the screen, a sense of dread coming over him. "Well, we gotta find him. Do whatever it takes, the longer we wait the more lost he gets."

The agent paused, gnawing on the inside of his cheek. "That's the thing, we don't think he's lost, necessarily," the agent trailed, his pitch going higher.

Rumlow frowned, but quit when it made his face sting. "What do you mean?" he asked harshly.

"I mean, I don't think he wants to come back," the man gulped, "I. . . I think he left on purpose."

Rumlow's eyes widened in horror. "No," he whispered. "We have to find him, we have to get him back. He's all we've got, since the others didn't work out back in '02," he said.

The agent shook his head slowly. "You know how impossible that'll be I mean, he's designed to not be able to be tracked or found."

Of course Rumlow knew, he'd read the files and work reports hundreds of times. The Winter Soldier was made to be a weapon so elusive, so secretive, so invisible to everyone that his existence was doubted. And for half a century, it had been working. Until now, until Pierce messed it up. So what had gone wrong? Had he been kept out of cryofreeze too long? But hadn't they wiped him, fixed him up? This shouldn't be happening.

The only other time Rumlow remembered reading about an abberation in the Winter Soldier's history was back in the 60s, a time when his programming was not as sound as it was now. So that time made sense, but Pierce had made sure the Winter Soldier was fully functioning and at peak performance, so it would take something extremely jarring to throw him off of his course.

Then, Rumlow remembered: Captain Rogers. If the Winter Soldier ran into Rogers, that may have been just enough to confuse him. And what if Rogers had recognized the Winter Soldier and tried to converse with him, try the impossible, to bring him back to being just James Barnes? Rumlow figured that would be just enough to send the Winter Soldier spiraling into insanity and frankly, given Rogers's history, it wasn't outside the realm of extreme possibility.

So maybe the first step to finding the Winter Soldier was talking to Rogers. Though, that would become insanely difficult now that everyone at S.H.I.E.L.D. knew everyone that worked for Hydra. But still, maybe he could find a way.

"Do me a favor," Rumlow said to the agent by his bedside. "I need you to give Helmut Zemo a call."

☆☆☆

Natasha strolled into Minister Barsukov's main office, removing the sunglasses from her face. Her heels clacked as she walked along the tiled floor, her sharp black business suit blending in with every other person's in the Prime Minister of Ukraine's government building.

The older man, the tips of his grey hair starting to turn white on his lazy combover, also removed his glasses. "Miss Romanoff, wonderful to see you again," he said, standing from his chair and extending a hand to shake.

Natasha didn't take it. "Do you have the information you promised?" she asked, crossing her arms. She hoped her Ukranian was still clear, seeing as she hadn't brushed up on it it over a decade.

Disgruntled, Barsukov sat back down in his desk chair. "Well, yes, but that depends on if you have yours," he said, folding his hands on his desk.

"You can find anything you want if you just Google S.H.I.E.L.D. at this point," she said. "Just be grateful your name wasn't in the system as an ex-Hydra conspirator," she snarled, raising an eyebrow, knowing he couldn't argue with her on that.

Barsukov sat back in his chair, seeming slightly offended. "I'm sorry Miss Romanoff, but-"

"I can always add your name to the system of ex-Hydra conspirators currently being scouted for if you want to break the deal," she threatened, cutting him off sharply. "Just takes one push of a button."

He paused, his mouth hanging open. Reluctantly, he opened the top drawer of his desk, extracting a yellow file folder. He dropped it loudly onto his desk. "Here. Now get out before I have you arrested for threatening a Minister of Government," he said, waving her away with his hand.

Natasha took the file folder, nodding once. "Thank you for your time," she said, striding out of the room.

Though Natasha had previously sworn not to, curiosity got the better of her on the plane ride back to the US and since she was sitting in a row by herself, she decided to sneak a peek at the file. For a brief moment she wondered if James still remembered her, if he kept his promise; she was doing everything possible to keep hers, after all.

Inside the folder was a thick report, entirely in Russian, outlining everything that had been done to James Barnes over the last fifty years. Who he killed, how they got him to do it. . . The brains behind the brainwashing. A small photo of him was paperclipped near the bottom of the folder and she ran a smooth finger across it. He had the same stringy brown hair, the same painfully blue eyes that made her heart turn to putty in his hands. Oh, how she missed him and their nightly galavants. She sighed, willing herself to at least scan the file and not dwell on the past; she'd moved on, and she was sure he had as well.

The list of James's victims went on and on, every single person being either someone with a high profile, a genius, or both. At one point Natasha swore she saw the name Stark and she refused look any further, shutting the file and holding it tight.

☆☆☆

"Devil's gonna git you."

☆☆☆

- I almosttttt ended this whole shebang last chapter but decided that was too cliché so you get one more short part lol
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