Bucky and Steve were taking a wander to the mess room when they were severely distracted by two equally familiar voices bickering – the sound projecting through the clouded glass door to Coulson’s office. Curiosity piqued, they stood by, listening to the monumental raised voice like two aggravated wild cats.
"There is nothing wrong with me!" A woman's shrill and vitriol-empowered voice shrieked.
"We don't know that!" Coulson's voice bellowed back, tone thick with officious authority. "All I'm asking is that you let us investigate your health!"
"That's 'all'? That's 'all'?! That's a pretty big all Coulson! You mean you want to get your team of shrinks to strip me down to the bones and break me! You mean you want neurologists running CTs and operations on me! All because you're scared! You're quaking in your boots because you think I'm Hydra! God forgive you your audacity... My great aunt co-founded this organisation and you have the temerity to accuse me of working for Hydra?!" She was livid, and each word was like the crack of a whip: articulate and slicing as it crashed down. "Me, of all people?! I have sold my life... To SHEILD..." She was rasping breathlessly, her body catching up with her inhibited state of mind. "I've given years, the most important years of my life to SHEILD, in the name of the country and my ancestors. Coulson, if there's one thing I can assure you; it's that my allegiance is with SHEILD."
There was the squeak of wood scraping across the floor as she unceremoniously dropped back into the chair and the legs scuffed on the concrete.
"Sharon...” Bucky and Steve exchanged a baffled look. “I am, by no means, accusing you of conscious disloyalty, or being a mole. I'm accusing you of something far beyond your control or comprehension..." Coulson spoke in a patient and paced voice as if trying to approach a violent and volatile beast - like perhaps one of the tigers at the zoo.
"With all due respect, director, I have a good mind to leave this organisation on the basis of your accusation and disrespect alone - but I suppose that won't do anything to better the situation. So I'm telling you no to the medical examinations, and you're going to get me escorted from the base back to New York City," she demanded with a sense of finality.
"Sharon, I don't think you realise just how valuable you are right now-"
"Valuable?! What am I? Some kind of object?! Just a resource? Am I of no human value to you? Am I just another number typed into that computer of yours? I don't want you digging around in my head!" She spluttered in outrage. "Did Barnes consent to you scanning his brain? Because you know for a fact that he's been tampered with! Yet I'm the one being interrogated!" She chorused with vexation, her heckles rising the longer the interview went on.
Coulson mulled over the words to select; weighing up the benefits and tribulations of lying against the truth. "Well, no..! But-"
"Exactly!" There was the slap of flesh on wood as Sharon flailed her palms onto the desk. "It's invasive. I don't want to be invaded."
"Have you anything to hide?" Coulson’s voice was seeded with suspicion and lilted in a condescending way that committed Sharon to another outburst.
“Of course I have nothing to hide!” She yelled at him. “I would just appreciate some acumen! If you truly think Hydra have been muddling my brain up – which is a pretty terrifying thing to be told, if you hadn’t noticed – then I would appreciate some sensitivity. Right now, I get the impression you would be inclined to nab me in the night, strap me to a chair and do all of your tests without my permission if I don’t comply,” Sharon raved.
“You think I don’t know that?!” Coulson snapped, his tolerance having run out. “You think I don’t understand what you’re feeling?! We’re all feeling the fear right now! And I know exactly what it’s like to be where you are right now!” There was the sound of shattering as all the empty mugs, stained dark by coffee were swept off his desk and onto the floor.
They could see Sharon’s obscured figure convulse backwards with fright as he gave the violent reaction.
“Dismissed!” He yelled.
Once the power balance had been re-established she gave a tiny curtsy, a bow of the head and clopped out in her high heels. Sharon exhaled deeply as she escaped the office and collapsed against the wall outside, assuming she was finally free.
“Sharon?” Bucky inquired.
With a flail of her blonde curls, she swung her head around and met Bucky’s eyes than Steve. “Hi...” She managed, hesitating and staring like a rabbit in the headlights before retreating.
“D’you think I should talk to her?” Bucky suggested to Steve, lips quirking nervously.
“I think Coulson made it clear that you’ll understand if she needs someone to talk to about it. I think she’ll come knocking if she needs it – but right now I think she needs air. C’mon pal, stop fretting... Let’s go get breakfast...” Steve clapped him on the shoulder and let his fingers trail down Bucky’s metal arm before holding hands.
~
Sydney, Australia
“Oi Steve, d’you think they’re gonna stick us on the barbe’ if we get caught?” Bucky wheezed in an Australian accent, eyes tearing up with the smoke attacking them.
They were caught in the burning building with agents still roaming through the bog-like black fog. The exhaust from the pilant inferno of building – collapsing and melting as they spoke – twirled in tornados of billowing coal coloured smog.
“Jesus, Bucky!” Steve choked, masking his face with his sleeve, but still managing to pound Bucky in his flesh and bone bicep. He rasped out a strangled laugh and ducked behind a flaming falling beam to avoid an array of bullets being sprayed.
Bucky kicked an approaching Hydra agent through a swirling fiery hole in the floor and he plummeted into the crater of flames, screaming as he went. He snagged Steve by the hand and grappled him to his feet and the pair ran down the corridor hand in hand.
“Rogers-Barnes, are your sorry arses still inside that flaming building – no pun intended?” Sam’s fizzling voice radioed into their earpieces.
“Workin’ on it!” Bucky choked and hacked, the smoke inhibiting his sight and his breathing.
“The structure looks minutes away from collapsing and there’s no chance anyone else will risk running back in after you, that’d be suicide!” Sam shouted urgently.
“Exactly two minutes and fifteen seconds...” Tony reported, his suit taking in readings on the weaknesses of the towering inferno.
“We’re used to it!” Steve spluttered with a fist balled against his mouth as they staggered through the flames.
Their footfalls were loud claps in the empty hallways, drowned out by the crackling of the flames and the creaking of the wood and metal crumbling all around them. The walls were being licked by the climbing fire and the floor was blazing behind them. From outside they could hear the sirens and their flickering blue lights flashed across the walls through broken windows.
They reached the end of the corridor and the roof collapsed down and blocked the stairs that marked the exit. Bucky and Steve swerved away, halting their running abruptly, feet slipping about and arms shielding them as specks of dust and debris followed the plummeting cluster of building.
“We’re gonna need another way out!” Steve shouted over the roar of flames, squinting through the dense smoke.
“No shit, cap...” Bucky agreed, twirling on the spot to try and pick out another exit but everything was blacked out by the sight-smearing smoke.
“One and a half-minutes...”
“Back down!” Steve ordered and they about turned and sprinted in the opposite direction. There was crunching as they stomped through puddles of broken glass and leapt across cracks and punctured sections of flooring.
Something creaked overhead and Bucky pounced on Steve, tackling him to the floor. The pair could only look behind them as a clump of building imploded and showered down, taking the former corridor down with it in a landslide of incinerated materials and sediment. A gaping hole remained in the building.
“That’ll be us if we don’t keep moving...” Steve reminded Bucky, wiggling free from beneath him and then dragging a startled looking Bucky to his feet as he started off again.
The stairwell up ahead was visibly crumpled into a blazing heap.
“Tony, our only two exits are no longer exits. We need another way out...” Bucky informed Tony solemnly, a frustrated half-sob in his voice. His eyes darted about and when they locked with a nearby window, he formulated an idea. “Tony, yes or no, is the Parramatta River on the east side of the building?” He checked, his lungs crying out for air.
“Uh...” There was a moment’s hesitation. “Yes. Why, Barnes?”
Bucky’s face lit up with a glowing grinning smirk. “We’re about to jump...” He breathed groggily, glancing up at Steve whose demeanour visibly hardened in mental preparation.
Steve’s eyes flicked between Bucky and the window. “Now or never...” Steve agreed.
They charged at the wall collectively, Steve’s shield serving as a barricade and a ram for both of them as he cradled it before himself and his fiancé. The vibranium collided with the weak plaster wall, ramming it down and they sprung through the newly formed gap in the building.
Television cameras from the ground zoomed in on the shadowy figures dropping from the ten stories. Bucky and Steve straightened like pencils and separated in mid air. With a colossal crash, an explosion of water and a gigantic ripple in the river, they plopped in. Being dragged down by their absorbent and heavy armoured clothing, they clawed above their heads and resurfaced with fierce gasps and splutters. Bucky’s hair was drenched and stuck to his face, Steve just looked lightly dishevelled – but both were blackened by soot and looked singed to a crisp. They broke out in laughter and breast stroked until they were treading water together in a cluster.
“How many windows are we going to jump out of?” Steve chuckled breathlessly, his hair dripping dirty river water down his face.
“Who says they’re any less useful than doors?” Bucky giggled, fighting to stay afloat with his metal arm and heavy leather boots.
“True...” Steve agreed and planted a kiss on the end of Bucky’s pinkened shiny nose.
Above them the engines of the Quinjet blasted and approached for extraction.
~
Johannesburg, South Africa
“I know it said in the briefing that gang warfare was a great possibility in this region, but I wasn’t expecting to get chased by a bunch of punks in their teens that somehow got hold’a guns!” Bucky complained, sprinting down a dank alley with Steve at his side, in the dark with the path only illuminated by the failing streetlights. “And we haven’t even got to the fucking Hydra base yet!” Bucky complained, thumping his metal fist against a wall and watching it splinter and crack under the pounding of his reinforced knuckles.
Another round of bullets ricocheted off a nearby building and the bullets plinked to the floor in a shower of flattened and battered metal.
“We’ve done worse!” Steve reminded him in a hushed voice, seething through his bared teeth and peering around a corner in the darkness. “Like battlefields in North Italy...” He reminded Bucky with a wince, marginally missing another fleet of bullets shot at him.
“Don’t remind me!” Bucky growled, the very notion winding him up. He inched his arm around the corner, peeked and blindly fired off the pistols. He heard satisfying agonised groans as some of the marksmen were hit.
“Seems you fight better when you’re angry...” Steve remarked with an interested eyebrow.
“You know that’s not the only thing I do better when I’m angry...” Bucky breathed, a grin creeping back onto his face, long brunet hairs strewn across his face, a few dangling in his mouth.
An orchestra of disgusted noises arose over the comms system and Bucky achieved a rewarding high-five from Steve.
“Save it for later,” Steve gasped for breath and pecked Bucky on the lips.
A/N - Sorry for the latest lack of updates, I've been moving house and a lot of things have been preventing me from having time to sit down.
Dedication goes to Salsagurl123! x