Searching for James

Ch. 5: Incidents

When Bucky woke up the clock said 7:30 AM. It was the latest he’d slept since…he didn’t know when. He dressed in under a minute and went out to find Scythe at the kitchen table, peering over some scattered papers. She must have been moving around without Bucky hearing. The woman was more skilled than most.

“Good morning,” she greeted. “I made coffee. I hope you have tried that before.”

He answered with a grunt as he went to pour himself a cup. Scythe turned her attention back to her documents.

“These are all the records I have on the incidents in the DC area that followed Shield’s fall. I had to clean up after all of them myself. Most were random. An escaped “gifted”. An alien artifact getting into the wrong hands. But some were different.” She slid three stacks of papers closer and lined them up in a row. “A break-in at a warehouse, an escaped patient from a hospital, and a fire at a public library. The police barely looked into them, too focused on the danger in the city. But these three incidents have something in common.”

“They’re not attacks,” Bucky muttered.

“Exactly. The rest of the city is in chaos and these three minor cases have been overlooked. I didn’t even notice them at first. And normally it would have stayed that way, but…it was the library that drew me.”

Bucky scanned the documents as she spoke. “D.C. main branch,” she murmured quietly. “I used to go there when I lived in the Triskellion dorms. It was years ago… Back then I…didn’t go out much. That library was the first place I went to after moving here.” She stared at a newspaper article about the tragedy, her words difficult to get out. “The people there were so kind, they really cared about what they were doing…and only a few of them made it out. It was early, before opening so only the employees were there. The fire somehow blocked the entrance before they could get out, and in a room full of books, it spread fast. There was no evidence of how it started.”

Bucky glanced at the newspaper, ready to disregard her emotion-fueled suspicion but unable to ignore the lack of evidence.

“This is something only I would think to look at twice,” she explained fervently. “It happened at the same time I was hunting out HYDRA attacks.”

“You think they wanted you to see this?” he asked.

“Yes. And the other two incidents had an alarming lack of evidence too. Clean-cut, very professional. But maybe they left something behind.”

“If you’re right, they want you to come looking.”

Her somber expression was replaced with a grin. “But they don’t expect me to bring the Winter Soldier. So…do you want to go digging for HYDRA?”

This was the only lead they had. “Fine," he replied.  "But we do it my way.”

                                                         . . . 

The warehouse was deserted, situated in a cluster of run-down buildings, all abandoned. A great place for a robbery but it didn’t seem like there would be much to steal.

“What could HYDRA want from this place?” Scythe wondered as she crouched behind some bushes.

“Maybe you were wrong,” Bucky answered from beside her. “HYDRA might not be involved.”

“No,” she countered lightly. “I know they were. But enough talking, let’s go look.”

She started to stand but he grabbed her shoulder. “We don’t let them know we’re working together. Don’t mess up our only advantage.”

“Well, I wouldn’t say it’s our only advantage,” she replied, glancing at his metal arm, “but I agree. So just one of should go in. They’ll probably have cameras inside.” She paused and then nodded to herself. “I’ll go. You back me up from out here.”

“I said we do it my way," he issed. "If there’re men inside they’ll end you before you can draw your gun.”

She rummaged through her bag, unconcerned. “I’m the one they expect to show up – if they expect anyone to show up at all – so it can’t be you that goes in. We can't mess up our advantage right? But thanks for worrying about me.”

He bit back the string of remarks he wanted to throw at her. “I am. Not worried.”

“I know,” she answered quickly with an apologetic smile. “Sorry. Did it again. Here.”

She handed him an earpiece and then fit a pin to her shirt “Do you have a phone? I’ll connect them so you can see the feed.”

He gave her an angry stare, his eyes about to bore through her.

“Of course you don’t have a phone,” she muttered. “Sorry again. You can take this.” She handed him the small screen that went with the camera.

“Hurry up and go,” he barked.

                                                         . . . 

The building was two very wide stories tall and looked like it was built in the 60s. Old but dingy with a fine layer of dirt. Scythe went crept around to the back of the building where the sun’s light didn’t reach. She shot a grappling hook to the second story window and used it to climb the wall in a few seconds, perching on the ledge.
Although the building looked old and decrepit from the outside, its windows were bullet proof and fit with a high-tech lock system. Interesting.

Thankfully she’d brought plenty of spare Shield gadgets, including a skeleton key. The window clicked open and she slid inside, dropping without a sound into a large storage room filled with empty shelving units.

Tapping her earpiece, “James?” she whispered. “Is the camera working?”

There was a pause and then an irritable “Yes" followed by a "do not call me that.” She disregarded the order, imagining this was new for him – waiting while someone else took care of the job. He was probably dealing more impatience than he was used to.

She walked to a door in the far wall that stood out from its surroundings. It was made of thick metal and there was a keypad in the wall next to it.

“That’s different,” she said to herself and Bucky, knowing he could see it through her camera.

“It’s military grade,” he noted. “Thick steel.”

Scythe took a small round disk from her pocket.

“I wonder…” she murmured as she stuck it to the keypad. The device made a whirring sound that ended with a beep from the keypad. The doors slid open. “It’s a level seven key,” she explained when Bucky didn’t ask. “Fury gave it to me.”

“So this is a Shield warehouse,” he said in response.

“It seems to be. That explains why HYDRA would come here.” She walked through the doors into a small room. The walls were thick and lined with metal shelving units but they were all empty. “Whatever SHIELD had here, HYDRA took it.”

She noticed a vent up in the wall and started climbing one of the units. Taking a small mirror from her jacket, she lifted it just high enough to see inside the vent. There was a small camera inside.

Immediately she dropped back down and left the room.

“You were right, they left a camera,” she said into her earpiece.

“Get out here in one minute.”

“Make that thirty seconds.”

Scythe slipped out the window and dropped thirty feet to the ground. She and Bucky didn’t wait around to see if HYDRA would send someone their way.