[Leipzig AU] a means to a necessary end

[nerves_of_ice]

It's a long flight from Berlin to Novosibirsk and the secret location far beyond it, even in a Quinjet. They spend the time planning and coordinating. Bucky describes the structure and security of the facility itself as best he remembers. Tony calls up plans and blueprints from god knows where and throws them into the middle of the plane for all to see. They're not the same as what Bucky remembers, they figure out fairly quickly, but they're better than nothing.

Tony also takes over the back of the plane and snaps at anyone who comes close, doing something that involves shifting screens and models of buildings and wave patterns and a human skull, and the eventually the low humming grind of a machine. Soon after, he stalks back up to the front of the plane and shoves a set of custom-fabricated earplugs at Bucky, who stares at them and then at Tony.

"Noise-cancelling all the way to total sound blackout. Tap the end of the earpiece to deafen yourself," Tony informs him. "Last thing we need's for you to be his puppet." Bucky starts to stammer a thanks, but Tony growls something under his breath and stalks back to the back of the plane again to work on something else. Steve catches Bucky's eye and shakes his head, and Bucky decides to leave well enough alone.

Sam advises everyone to rest in shifts; Bucky knows he's not wrong, but neither he nor Steve can do it, and after a while Sam stops trying to convince them. Natasha sits with him for a while, her eyes dark with concern. They don't say much, but there's no need to.

A Snowcat is parked outside the door of the facility when they land. Bucky's jaw sets in hard lines at the sight of it, and he trades a look with Steve.

They're already here.

Comments

[from_the_outside]

She shakes her head. "Could mean a lot of things, from staying in the dorms here to a Task Force agent coming along with you to just checking in once a day or so. This isn't a police force; you're probably looking at a liaison kind of deal – so long as everybody's convinced Bucky's not a danger. Which they will be," she hastens to add.

"And Ross isn't about to go stepping all over the civil liberties of someone who just helped him out."

She glances a wry look around the room. "Which isn't to say he'd be fine with Bucky just walking out. It'll take a while to untangle the knot that is everything the Winter Soldier carried out on HYDRA's orders."

[nerves_of_ice]

"Checking in. We could do that," Steve decides. "That's not so bad."

Bucky looks dubious, but continues to hold his silence. There's a lot of maybes involved, for everyone.

[from_the_outside]

"He's not going to start with that one, Steve," Sharon cautions him. "That is best-case scenario. Your best bet is to negotiate for a liaison you feel like you can trust. Agent Riley's not a bad choice; you've all worked with him. And he's not likely to be a hardass about the whole thing."

[nerves_of_ice]

"Which one's Riley?" Tony asks. Sam gives him a look, the kind of look that says 'man, you have got to start learning people's names.' Tony waves it away with one hand. "The one who pretended to be me," Bucky murmurs. "Upbeat kind of guy."

"I think he's sweet," Natasha says, with a wicked smile.

[from_the_outside]

Sharon huffs a laugh. "He's sweet," she says, "and a good agent. And he knows and respects you all. But I really can't stress this enough: it's not going to happen today."

She looks at Bucky, then at Steve. "No matter how much you might want it to, Steve. There's a lot to figure out. No getting around that."

[nerves_of_ice]

"Hmm," Tony says, staring up into space. "FRIDAY? Send a message to Legal, tell 'em I've got a challenge for them." He looks at Bucky. "You're staying awful quiet."

Bucky shrugs. "Nothing to say."

[from_the_outside]

"I'd expect those to be the two main topics of interest," Sharon tells them. "Bucky and Zemo. And he'll want a report on everything that happened at the facility in Siberia."

Not to mention her own report, but that's not something the others need to worry about.

[nerves_of_ice]

"Okay then." Steve looks around at them all. "Anything else we need to discuss before we head over?"

Bucky shakes his head, and looks at Tony.

[from_the_outside]

Tony finishes his breakfast and drains his coffee, then wipes his hands as he gets to his feet.

"Nope," he says. "May as well get this over with."

Sharon finishes her own coffee, then sets her plate down as she gets up.

[nerves_of_ice]

As they assemble themselves in some sort of order and head over to the Center, Bucky pays attention to how they self-organize and quietly adds to his mental impression of the various Avengers, their strengths, and their weaknesses. It’s an interesting and extremely confusing series of observations. He stores it away to think about later, along with everything else.

(Tony Stark doesn’t want him imprisoned. He still doesn’t know quite what to make of that.)

He falls in between Sharon and Steve as they leave the hotel, and hopes it doesn’t reflect poorly on either of them.

[from_the_outside]

Ross had sent a large car for them, and they make it to the Center about fifteen minutes before their scheduled meeting time with him. She greets a few of her colleagues as they come over to express their pleasure that she's been brought back safe, and keeps half an eye on Bucky as they head through the Center.

Agent Riley appears to escort them and spends the time as they walk chatting with Steve and Sam and Nat. Zemo's under heavy guard, he tells them, and Legal is working on his case. It's not only Wakanda who wants him, after all.

[nerves_of_ice]

Tony’s distracted by something, Bucky thinks, muttering under his breath from time to time. He’s not sure what, and the other man’s not saying. He himself stays quiet, returning any greeting meant for him with a nod, and tries to brace himself for whatever’s coming.

Riley leads them to the small conference room next to Ross’s office. “More room,” he explains.

[from_the_outside]

There's more coffee in here, and Sharon goes to make herself a cup before taking up a spot near Bucky and Steve. There's a hum of tension among their group, a little like they're a bunch of teens who are about to be taken to task by their principal.

Everyone here might be on the same side; that doesn't stop this meeting from feeling a little fraught.

It's only a moment later when Ross comes in, polished and sharply-suited as usual. "Have a seat," he says, gruff, and sets a folder on the table top.

[nerves_of_ice]

“Good morning, Deputy Commander,” Steve says, taking a seat beside Bucky, who swallows a huff of laughter before it can escape. Ross looks like he’s bitten into a lemon before he says, gruffly, “Good morning.”

Everyone else distributes themselves around the table, with Tony slouching in a chair at the far end, Natasha across from Steve and himself, and Sam politely waiting for Sharon to pick her seat first.

[from_the_outside]

Sharon seats herself at Ross's right, as much out of force of habit as any sort of signal, and folds her hand on the table. He turns to look her over, his gaze sharp.

"I have your files from the clinic," he growls. "Just in case you're thinking of doing anything like trying to convince me you're field-ready."

Sharon gives him a wry look. "Noted, sir."

[nerves_of_ice]

Sam takes his seat, and then there’s a moment where the Avengers look back and forth between Tony and Steve. Bucky’s heart aches for them, he finds, even as a sizzling flash of resentment at the very existence of the Accords runs through him.

Tony gives an inpatient huff and waves his hand at Steve, whose blue eyes widen. “Might as well lead us off, Cap.”

“Right.” Without further hesitation, Steve turns to Ross. “We’re all glad to be here today,” he says. “To debrief, and to talk about the future, both.”

[from_the_outside]

"Debrief first," Ross says, glaring around the table at them.

"We're about to have to answer a lot of questions from some angry and important people about what happened, so let's start there. Tell me about Siberia."

[nerves_of_ice]

Steve takes a breath to begin, but stops when Bucky's quiet "Steve," drops into the middle of the room. His best friend trades a look with him, searching his face, then nods for him to go ahead.

Mission report, Bucky thinks, and keeps his expression carefully neutral as he looks at Ross. "The team arrived at the facility site in Siberia as planned," he begins, and walks them through it. He keeps the telling succinct, but clear, leaving nothing out, and knows as he does so that it's evident how often he's done this before.

He doesn't try to defend himself in any way when relating the events of December 16, 1991, who the targets were, and why they were targeted. He describes Project Rebirth in the same impassive tone as everything else, but slows when he reaches what had happened on that lonely road.

"The mission was to sanction and extract, leaving no witnesses," he says, quietly. "I carried out my mission. Howard and Maria Stark didn't die in an accident. Zemo had a recording from the scene. He played it for Tony Stark to see, hoping to use it to turn Tony and Steve against each other and to destroy the Avengers entirely."

[from_the_outside]

She watches as Ross's jaw gets tighter and tighter the longer Bucky speaks, though all he does is scratch a few notes and listen tersely.

When silence falls again, he looks from Steve to Tony and back again. "And?" he prompts. "It doesn't look like that Hail Mary worked from where I'm sitting, but if there are going to be problems, let's have them out now."

[nerves_of_ice]

Tony's mouth twists. "Please," he snaps. "You think we were - I was - gonna let that smug bastard get what he wanted all along? I'm happy to disappoint him."

Bucky stays still as the other man's sharp, intent gaze flicks toward him, then Steve, then back to Ross. "I'm not saying Barnes and I are going to be cozy or anything like that, but I'll tell you what I told him - I'm not going to blame the trigger HYDRA pulled."

[from_the_outside]

"Good," Ross says, gruff, and glances towards Sharon. She meets his gaze briefly and knows he's got to be thinking about culpability and brainwashing and what happens when the second affects the first. "Then let's continue."

He looks around the table. "Since you didn't turn on each other, what happened next?"

[nerves_of_ice]

Bucky picks up the thread of the narrative where he'd left off. "When his primary plan failed, Zemo shifted to what we assume was his backup, and attempted to activate the Winter Soldier," he reports. Whatever he feels about it is carefully smashed flat inside him; he lets nothing show but a cool, neutral demeanor as he reports.

"Fortunately, Tony had provided me with custom crafted earplugs. I was able to switch them on in time and prevent the control words from taking effect. I feigned otherwise so that Zemo would believe he'd been successful, but gave Steve a hand signal we'd used before during the war to let him know the truth of the situation. Zemo bought it. He ordered me to kill them."

He doesn't even blink in the retelling. "Tony went after him while Steve and I put on a show fight. Zemo took a side route out of the control room and returned to the main chamber, where he aimed his weapon - his gun," he clarifies, "- at Agent Carter and tried to force Steve into a choice by sending the Winter Soldier after Tony Stark at the same time he threatened her life. Steve threw himself between Zemo and Agent Carter. Tony dropped out of the air to apprehend Zemo."

[from_the_outside]

For a second, Sharon thinks he going to snap his pen with how tightly he's holding it, but after a moment Ross gets himself under control.

"Thank you for protecting my agent, Captain," he says to Steve, and looks at Tony. "Same to you, Mr. Stark. I assume that was the end of the fight?"

[nerves_of_ice]

Steve just nods to Ross as Tony quits fiddling with his phone and looks up. "Oh yeah, he was toast," Tony informs him, as Bucky leans back just a little in his chair, silently ceding the floor. "Not literally, I didn't set him on fire or anything, but he was done. Secured him, dragged him back up to the Quinjet and put him under guard just to be extra safe, got Carter out, and we all headed back here."

[from_the_outside]

"And the bodies of the remaining Soldiers?" Ross prompts.

"Any data from the facility? We'll have to mount another expedition up there to deal with all that. I'll have to meet with the Russian rep to the UN Security Council just to try and get access, and that'll be enough of a headache on its own."