Chapter Text
The body resists sleep. The body aches from cold and adrenaline, but it resists sleep. The mind replays the image of Rogers's face on the other side of the glass, mouth and eyes wide.
And don't even try your damn 'contact,' asshole.
CONTACT
I hate you.
Set sleep: 4.5 hours.
Set sleep: 4 hours.
Set sleep: 3.5 hours.
Set sleep: 3 hours.
The body's agitation continues after waking. Barnes steps outside for a morning check just after dawn. After the storm, the air is 15 degrees cooler than the previous day. Pink-lit clouds hang in the sky. Aesthetic assessment: pretty. Coolness makes the body want to stretch, broaden. The lungs are greedy for this air. The body relaxes. Perimeter clear.
"Rough night?" flying Sam asks at 0648.
Barnes has a line of sight through the side kitchen window. Wilson's neighbors are neglectful gardeners: their hedge is over-tall and scraggly. Excellent for close surveillance. This is a good discovery. Rogers's hair sticks up in all directions, and there are dark circles under his eyes. He looks like crap.
ASSIST
Assessing.
"Yeah. I just can't stop thinking about what I - thought - I saw."
Wilson grabs Rogers's shoulder in a gesture recognized as comfort. The flesh hand clenches in a copy of the gesture.
"I know. It shakes you down to your bones."
"It's a lot of what-ifs, Sam."
"Those things'll kill you."
AVOID
Comply.
"I know, but -"
"But nothing. They will literally kill you."
MISSION INCOMPATIBLE
Comply.
"So you have to let them go, man. They're poison. You can only deal with the things in front of you."
"I should've gone after him, Sam."
And there's the mission briefing, shoving a bunch of fragmented intel into his brain, none of which makes any sense: a fall from a great height, a train, mountainous terrain, a set of identifiable emotions: fear, regret. Assessment: minimal intel, rudimentary tech, inhospitable conditions. Probability of mission success, <20%.
Steve you should have looked for me no matter what.
No. No, the briefing is clear now. Rogers had a mission: obtain Zola. Zola, classification: horrible motherfucker. Mission importance: critical. Assessment: unfair. Dial it back, Barnes.
"How were you supposed to know, man?"
AFFIRM
Affirm.
"I wasn't. My brain knows that. My heart never will."
"I know, man."
"I know you do."
"Skipping the center today?"
"Yeah. Gotta see if I can get to my apartment without being shot up by anyone -"
AVOID
Confirm.
"- and get my dress blues for Nick's funeral."
"That's gonna be weird."
"No kidding."
"Well, at least you naturally look like your dog just got run over."
"Shut up, Sam."
"Roger that."
"They teach you that at the VA? Psychological healing through obnoxiousness?"
"I got a special certificate in pain in the ass."
"I bet you did."
Wilson leaves, and Rogers stares out the back window for 4.8 minutes before going upstairs. He emerges from the front door 11.6 minutes later.
Barnes emerges from the hedge.
He retreats back into the hedge and disentangles his hair. Set reminder: pack hair ties in pockets. Ow.
Rogers walks with his hands shoved into the horrible navy jacket, horrible navy hat on his giant head. Head down, slow pace.
Information needed: why is Rogers so unhappy? Possibility: concern about likely HYDRA attacks. Possible loss of colleagues during the fight. Possible concern for money, given lack of employment. Lack of employment means worry: about rent, about the grocery bill, how to pay for medicine during illness, heating oil in cold weather.
Barnes calculates his rate of spending vs. the money he has in the giant duffel. Current expenses consist of coffee and grilled cheese. Dammit, and running clothes. Set task: break into Wilson's apartment and leave cash for Rogers. Lessen worry.
APPROVED
Comply.
The body steps lighter, with a good, simple task forthcoming. Rogers, however, continues slumping down the street, looking at the ground. A low tree branch slopes across the sidewalk, at head height, half a block away.
Look up, Rogers.
Watch where you're going.
C'mon, pal, look up.
ASSIST
Come on, man, you're going to give yourself a concussion.
Rogers keeps staring at the ground, as if the branch were not waiting to rearrange his brain into a new, stupider configuration.
Rogers, for shit's sake.
Barnes has one of the Asset's grenades tucked in a pocket. But that would attract attention, as would a gunshot.
ASSIST
I'm trying!
One residence has small, oblong stones surrounding their mailbox.
Timing critical.
Injury imminent.
Barnes pitches one of the stones at the offending tree. The stone hits the branch with a solid pock, and Rogers raises his head, shuffles, then ducks under the branch.
Injury avoided.
Mission sub-objective: achieved.
At the apartment building, Rogers demonstrates two behaviors that Barnes had observed in the online videos: 1. total lack of self-preservation, and 2. never checking his left flank. He enters the building without checking the perimeter.
He enters the building without checking the perimeter.
Mission, I swear to Lenin, you and I are the only things going for this guy.
CONFIRM
Because of course HYDRA has someone watching the building. Barnes sees the guy on the first quadrant of the sweep: up on the roof of the next building over, obvious as daylight.
Halfway up that building's fire escape, the banjo sound crashes into his ears at the same time the phone buzzes in his pocket.
"What the hell?" Rogers yells into his ear.
Barnes spends 0.9 seconds in free fall before the metal arm catches a railing. God damn, but he had forgotten how annoying that banjo is.
By the sixth appalling banjo riff, Barnes is climbing again and Rogers has realized that his phone is ringing.
Tactical error. Should've anticipated that 1. a bugged target carrying 2. a paired phone would mean having to hear that damn sound again. Maybe Steve will change the ringtone.
Maybe a white mocha will fall from the sky. Right ... now. Damn.
Rogers answers the call.
"Who is this?"
"Who do you want me to be?"
Aw man, that Romanoff girl. What's she calling him for?
"I wouldn't mind if you were a person who was here," Steve says, "I have a couple things I want to talk to you about."
The HYDRA sniper is a little too focused on his target. Barnes is (extremely) good, but he's not silent. Yet the sniper doesn't move when Barnes climbs onto the roof.
"You'll be at the funeral, right?" Romanoff drawls into his ear.
"Yeah, but I hardly think -"
The sniper tenses. It's a familiar motion. The body knows the movement as a precursor to firing.
PROTECT
You got it, pal.
He scrapes his foot along the roof's surface, and the sniper turns at the sound.
"No, I know," Romanoff says, "Too many people, too much potential for awkward questions."
Barnes raises the metal arm and wiggles the fingers. The sniper's mouth goes wide. The rifle barrel is pointed off to the side. Assessment: this guy knows his business. He won't risk spooking Rogers and missing his chance.
"Hey friend, I bet there's a bounty on my head," Barnes says.
He draws a knife (one of four) very slowly.
"Am I worth more dead or alive?"
"Dead's easier," the guy says. "Not like they can't bring you back again, right?"
Asshole.
"But maybe you'll want a quiet moment at the grave of your friend later," Romanoff says.
The sniper moves. Pretty fast, for a standard-model human.
"Say, the next day, around three?"
It feels good to fight. The body knows this dance. And the mission exults in eliminating this threat.
"You found something," Steve breathes into the earpiece. His voice sounds hoarse, and Barnes hesitates for a fraction of a second. Is that illness? Assessment: no. Strong emotion.
The dumb ass sniper tries to stab the metal arm.
"Shit," he says.
"Yeah," Barnes says.
"I found something," Romanoff says, and disconnects the line.
The metal arm connects with the sniper's temple, and the guy drops like a sack of skulls.
Calculation: kill? Advantage: one less jerkwad in the world. Disadvantage: any possible intel lost. Not that Barnes has the time to both interrogate and protect Captain Deathwish. But Rogers might like to do the honors.
GOOD JOB
Hey, thanks.
"Where the hell are my sketchbooks?" Rogers says to his empty apartment and his super-excellent eavesdropping protector.
It's a bitch and a half getting back down to street level, but Barnes makes it in time and is hiding in the stairwell of the garden apartment across the street when Rogers emerges, a garment bag in hand.
"What the -"
Rogers frowns at the front stoop, then looks up the block, down the block. Barnes has to cover his grin with the flesh hand to stop from laughing at Steve's hilarious confusion. Steve prods the guy with his foot. He peers up the street and down again. It is so great. He pulls out his phone.
"9-1-1 operator, what is your emergency?"
"Ma'am, this is Steve Rogers. Yes ma'am, that one. I appear to have an unconscious HYDRA operative on my front stoop. Yes ma'am. Tied up with his own jacket. There is a gun, ma'am, but its barrel is currently at a 90-degree angle. I guess I need ... the FBI? No ma'am, I have no earthly idea."
So great.