Hey guys, I'm sorry for the delay. I know lockdown is meant to be a productive writing time for people but it seriously turned my life upside down, I lost my job and had like a day's notice to shove my things in a suitcase and move countries and back in with my parents. So, I felt displaced and depressed and not in the head-space for writing. Before that it was writer's block. I know where I am. I know where I need to be in the end, but I'm having trouble getting between those two points. Sorry.

What's happened in the last few chapters?
- Bucky (well, the Winter Soldier) assassinated the President
- Steve fought him and our heroes managed to stop him from getting away
- Tony found out Hydra was behind the attacks.
- Loki and Thor (both temporarily), the kids, Jane and Erik have gone to Asgard
- Natasha, Clint, Pepper and Happy arrived in Malibu having had their evening ruined by a bunch of Hydra agents trying to kill them
- A very confused and brainwashed Asset wakes up in Malibu. Some of Bucky's personality manages to shine through when he thinks Steve is in danger

What happened earlier in the story?
- Everyone's living in Malibu together
- Tony and Loki find Captain America
- Steve wakes up in the 21st century, he comes downstairs to find a) a room full of people (some of which are blue) b) that most of his friends are dead. Fun times! :|
- Steve and Tony get off to a shaky start but they have a tentative friendship going at the moment
- Tony, Loki, Bruce, Erik and Jane have helped to create an Einstein Rosen bridge.
- Darcy has been on Asgard, and helping to negotiate the JAM (Jotunheim, Asgard, Midgard) Agreement
- Hydra are worried about this development and think that it will affect their plans for controlling the world. The Winter Soldier gets woken up
- Also, Sleipnir starts school and things go interestingly ^^

Thank you guys for your continued support! Love you all!

Btw Pepper, Bruce and Happy are still upstairs having tea and biscuits :)

I should probs say I do like Natasha, Tony just doesn't

10/05/20

Chapter Sixteen - Getting Information

Tony looked up at Bucky as he scanned the assassin for electromagnetic signals. Bucky's dead eyes stared straight ahead, he had gone back to his eerie silent self since his outburst a few minutes earlier.

Tony moved the handheld scanner (designed to emit every type of ray he could think of) up and down Bucky's metal arm again and thought. Did that outburst really prove that he was Bucky? It proved that there was something a bit more human beneath the Winter Soldier's robotic exterior, sure, but, was that more human piece of him Bucky? Tony calculated the odds in his head. With the information available he put the likelihood of the man in front of him being Bucky at 84.672%. That was good, right?

He stepped backwards and put the scanner down on the desk behind him. "What do we got, J?"

"There does seem to be another tracker that the Mark VI missed earlier, but I do not expect there to be any more. There also seem to be several traps embedded into his arm, dangerous for him and anyone else who tries to remove the arm without the proper knowledge. I believe I can figure them out though. I am running the calculations now, Sir."

"Thanks, Jarvis."

"We should probably take a look at his brain," said Natasha from where she was sitting casually on a workbench. Even relaxed she looked dangerous, like a tiger observing everything, ready to pounce at a moment's notice.

"What! How!?" Steve demanded, appalled. Tony fought the urge to laugh.

"By building an MRI scanner or something. Relax, Steve, we're not gonna open up his head!"

Steve nodded awkwardly.

"Right, time to build a mind scanning helmet thing…." Tony trailed off, his mind suddenly alight with swirling possibilities.

"And that'll take how long?" Clint asked, raising his eyebrows and sipping on a cup of black coffee. "We've still got Hydra to worry about."

Tony shrugged, only really half listening as designs flickered through his brain. "Hmmm… an hour, tops." Clint snorted in disbelief and choked on his coffee. Tony smirked. "I brought a new element into existence in this lab in seven hours. I can create the most accurate brain scanner the world has ever seen in one."

"He can?" Clint whispered.

"He has a very high opinion of himself," Natasha said. Tony pointedly ignored her.

"He's Tony, of course he can," Steve said, and Tony busied himself making blueprints in his mind and did absolutely not feel his heart swell slightly at this.

"Before you get too engrossed in that, Sir, I think you should take a look at this," Jarvis interrupted and Tony grimaced and forcibly applied the brakes in his mind. Seriously. Just as he was getting into the swing of things!? Bright numbers flickered to life in the hologram that was appearing in front of him. "It's the updated casualty lists. All the attacks that have been linked to Hydra."

Tony let out a low whistle as he scanned down the list. 10,000 already. The sense of horror and failure that rose in his brain was overtaken by a wave of fury. "This was caused by our negligence," he spat. "This was caused because we didn't look into who we were working for enough!"

Your fault, just like Obie, your fault, his brain screamed at him. Tony tried to push the voice away, to drown it out and think about the materials needed for his brain scanner.

"We couldn't have known, Boss," Tony turned to see Happy standing in the doorway, and Pepper coming gingerly down the stairs behind him. It didn't look like Bruce was following them. That was probably for the best. "You couldn't have known." Happy said that as if it were true, as if the lie were comforting.

"We should have done," Natasha hissed. "I worked for them for years, trying to scrub off the red on my ledger. I've just been staining it with more blood… after everything… still working for the 'bad guys'."

"Now just you all stop right there," Pepper commanded, her voice cutting through the accusatory fog conquering Tony's mind. "You're all being ridiculous and it's getting us nowhere. SHIELD has done good things, and you've done good things for SHIELD, and you know it. SHIELD was Hydra, yes, but it was also SHIELD. Not every single one of its operations was done for some nefarious Hydra ulterior motive, because not every single important person in SHIELD was Hydra." They might be now, Tony thought, they probably killed the good ones. "Natasha, I know for a fact that you saved a hundred children last week from being killed by the cronies of a provincial warlord. SHIELD? Hydra? Doesn't matter. You did that. You chose to do that. And you did the right thing. What you did was good. Yes, you may have helped Hydra over the years, but that doesn't change the fact that you stopped the assassination of Canada's Prime Minister a few months ago."

"He's dead now," Tony said on impulse.

"They were probably waiting for the right time to assassinate him," Clint said gloomily.

"Guys," Pepper snapped. "You can sit and mope or you can think about all the good things SHIELD has done, take out Hydra, then figure out the bad things that Hydra have done in SHIELD's name and try to fix them."

"She has a point," Happy said.

Tony forced down his urge to lash out at them, it wouldn't have helped anything, and they were right.

"Yeah, okay," he said.

"What do you know about these figures, these casualties, Bucky," Natasha snapped. It was obvious that Steve remained uncomfortable with her acting like this, and honestly, Tony kinda was too, but for mostly different reasons. But it had to be done. Bucky seemed to respond better to orders.

"Hydra is shaping the century," Bucky replied, his voice monotone.

"Does it not bother you that over 10,000 people are dead?" Steve asked, clearly in distress.

The Winter Soldier stared blankly at him, this was obviously something that he was never asked, unless it were asked as a trick, of course.

"That those that you had to work for caused those deaths?" he continued, clearly desperate to see another flicker of humanity within. There was a part of Tony which hoped this tactic didn't work. There would probably be nothing like coming back to yourself only to rip your brain apart again with the knowledge that your actions had helped to destroy thousands upon thousands of lives. It could only make him shut down further.

Bucky remained silent.

"Answer him," Natasha snapped.

"No," Bucky replied, his voice eerily even. "They were enemies of Hydra. Enemies of Hydra do not deserve to live. You have to remember that."

Natasha nodded, her face blank. Tony hated her, hated that she could do that, hated to think about how she might be manipulating Pepper with those skills.

"Would you kill us Bucky?" Steve asked earnestly. Bucky flinched bodily at this question. Hmmm, so Steve's questioning hadn't forced whatever human part of Bucky was there down even further. That was good. "You couldn't right, at least not me, you proved it earlier."

Bucky stared at Steve.

"Answer him, Asset."

"Nat, stop!" Steve yelled.

"I'm doing what's necessary," she hissed. Then turned to Bucky again. "Whatever comes out of your mouth better not be a lie."

Bucky stared at her wildly for a second before all trace of emotion disappeared. "I don't know," his voice was flat, "The orders, the directives, they are mixing, contaminating each other. I am malfunctioning. Pierce told me to kill you, as the handler he must be obeyed. Yet before Steve was that, or, 'my friend', he said. Earlier I wanted to disobey my handler, I wanted to protect him, not kill him. The Asset should be wiped, it-"

Bucky abruptly cut off, evidently fearing he'd said far, far too much.

"No, continue," Natasha ordered.

For a split second Bucky looked up at her, stricken, before lowering his eyes and saying, "The Asset is not authorised to recommend how it should be maintained."

"And what do you feel about that?"

"Nothing," said Bucky, a fraction of a second too quickly.

Natasha made a move as if to strike him and Bucky visibly flinched. Steve gave a yell of outrage.

"I feel something, too much. I am malfunctioning. I don't want to be wiped. I don't want to forget, but I want this all to stop! I don't want to have to feel like this. The Asset is not a person, the Asset is not meant to feel, to think, it was made to be an Asset, a tool, a weapon. Not to feel! Not this!"

Bucky was as tense as a wire. Tony watched him out of the corner of his eye as he assembled the pieces needed for the brain scanner.

"That's good. We want you to feel, Asset. We want you to act like a person."

Bucky opened his mouth and his head twitched to the side, as if he had been about to contradict her but had then thought better of it.

Steve's mouth dropped open at the change of tactics.

"You should be feeling emotions, because you are not just an asset. You were human, you felt like us, once, and you deserve to feel like a person again. You knew Steve from when you were human, before they wiped you, before they turned you into a tool."

"What if I don't want to be human, what if I don't want to feel!?" Bucky snapped, his old accent slipping into his retort. He looked like a wild animal, trapped and furious, struggling against his chains. "Even if what you're saying is true, if this is what human is, I don't want this. I can't feel like this, I can't. It's tearing me apart, breaking me. I can handle anything, I can endure anything else you want to do to me, but this, in my mind… what are you doing to my mind? Stop it! I won't be human! I c-"

Bucky tensed and stilled as Steve laid a hand on his flesh arm, the fight dying in his eyes.

"But you are, you're human, Buck. You feel emotions, you want things. Machines, tools, they don't do that. It'll get easier, I promise you. I'm with you, 'til the end of the line, like I've always been."

Bucky nodded, but, Tony could see looking up from his box of blowtorches and soldering irons, the fight had gone from his eyes, his face was blank again, like he'd retreated back through several layers of mental walls. In this state he'd agree to anything Steve said, but it would only be on autopilot.

"Give him time, buddy, he'll pick this being human thing up in no time," Tony said. "Now, come and hold these two parts together so I can solder them properly."

"Okay," Steve said, leaving his brain-fried amnesiac bestie with some reluctance.

"I think our next question should be 'who's Pierce'," Clint offered, twirling an arrow casually through his fingers. "His handler; are they someone we know? Someone in SHIELD? Is Pierce really their real name?"

"Could be someone like Alexander Pierce," Tony added, before hissing slightly as he burnt his right thumb.

"Shall we ask him?" Natasha questioned, and stepped in front of Bucky again. "Bucky?" No verbal response was given. "Bucky?" Tony still heard nothing. "Bu-"

"Hey!" Steve yelled, dropping the two pieces he was holding together.

"Oi! What the hell!?" Tony demanded as the pieces clattered to the floor and he almost lost his balance and fell on top of the iron. He glanced from where Steve was standing to where Natasha was frozen, her hand still raised in the air, her eyebrows arched.

"No," Steve said. "You can't tell him he's a person, that he's got a right to be treated like one, and then hit him to get answers from him."

Natasha looked wryly amused. "It's what he understands, Steve. He won't understand if you treat him well yet. We need this information. If your 'friend' has to get a little hurt in the process then so be it."

"The quicker we treat him right, the quicker he recovers."

"Steve. He's one person. Think of all the people that have been killed already. Ten thousand, Steve."

"We can't comprom-"

"Nat," Clint said softly. "He has a point. Everything you know about your life's been crashing down around your ears. I know it has. Mine has too. I know how you feel. But Bucky's had too much. We gotta make sure he heals right. A guy with his skill set and a fucked up head is a dangerous combination. Don't turn back into what they made you to be."

Natasha looked as if she were about to lash out but instead she sighed and rubbed her forehead. "What are we meant to do then? We can't let them kill more people."

"Well, I think you and I could do with a martini, come on," Pepper said, gesturing to the door. "In the meantime I'm sure Jarvis will be sorting through every available piece of information he can find, and, I'm sure he'll be much for reliable than a barely-functioning assassin."

"You're right," Natasha said. "Let's get a drink, God knows I need one."

"J," Tony said. "Compile a list of Pierces in SHIELD, and dig up everything you can on them.

"And get me everything you can find on Secretary Pierce."

Bucky's eyebrows twitched into a frown.

Interesting.

I hope you guys enjoyed that. I know that wasn't the best chapter I've ever written but please validate me all the same

Up next: Next up: Loki and Thor drop the kids (and Jane and Erik) off on Asgard

-Hydra take their next steps

-The Avengers + Loki assemble!

Take care of yourselves guys, stay safe, stay at home wherever possible, protect your healthcare system from collapsing under strain, and save lives. x