Buzzkill: The Reckoning

Chapter 40

Bucky studied the woven bracelet tied around his wrist, sitting silently still in the Avengers facility living room. For whatever reason he still wasn't able to take it off. Memories were precious to him. And this small, colorfully woven bracelet had so many memories he was desperate to hold on to.

A week after Ruth left, everyone aboard the helicarrier decided it would be best to fly back to the Avengers base in New York. Now that Ruth and Kal were both gone, the files SHIELD had were incomplete, and Hydra seemed to have more of a head start than SHIELD even knew. It was the best option. They would stay at the base, continuing to search for some kind of scent on Hydra's trail.

It was hard to find the urge to talk to anyone back at the base. Steve or Sam would try to make conversation, to distract Bucky from what had just happened, but Bucky just didn't want to talk to anyone. That feeling, that inexplicable feeling that haunted him a few months ago seemed to come back with a vengeance. But it was more than that now, his chest ached. A sorrow washed over him, hovering above his head like a fog.

Tony had to be the one to tell Secretary Ross what happened, how Ruth got away. It was ugly. Bucky couldn't even look Ross in the eye most of the time. He couldn't bear it. Bucky didn't say anything to defend Ruth anymore, he didn't know how. How could he still defend someone who lied to him like that? How long had she been lying? Was she even lying?

"How much did she really care about you?" Ross's booming voice still rung in Bucky's ears as the warmth of the fireplace now in front of him gently filled the room, "She's left you twice! Twice!"

It had been three weeks now. Three weeks since Ruth left in the middle of the night, headed off to God-knows-where. It hurt even more than the first time she left, because there wasn't a goodbye, there wasn't a promise that they would see each other again one day, it was just a disappearance.

"Hey," Natasha said quietly, walking in the room and sitting on the couch next to the chair Bucky sat in.

Her voice took Bucky out of his daze. He still couldn't bring himself to say anything.

"I just thought I'd say something," Natasha began. "I've known Ruth for a while now, back when she was at the facility in Sweden." She shrugged, "Not well, but I did know who she was. And, yeah, she was all of those things that they say."

Bucky kept his gaze to the ground, looking at the same stone at the corner of the fireplace.

Nat's voice softened, "But she's not that way now."

Bucky looked up into Natasha's eyes, his eyebrows furrowed slightly.

"I can tell by the way she behaves, the way she moves around in this place, the way she talks to you." She gave a small smile, "She's changed, and I have no idea how."

Bucky bit the inside of his lip. How could he believe that?

"The thing is, Ruth and I were raised in the same kind of place, and I know what she's doing. If you cared about something, you pushed it away. You pretended you had no interest in it. Because if you did, it would be destroyed." Natasha leaned forward, "She cares about you, Barnes. She pushed you away because she doesn't want you to get hurt. I know that can sound strange, but it's the only way she knows. If Ruth didn't care about you, she wouldn't have stayed with you in Romania, or come back to this place." Natasha grinned, "And she sure as hell wouldn't have danced with you that night after getting beat in monopoly."

Bucky couldn't help but grin, "You saw that?"

Natasha nodded. "Barnes, I just got an alert on the computer. The exact coordinates to Hydra's base, it's all there. There's a tracker that's giving live readings to our computers."

Bucky was breathless, "How?"

"Ruth somehow got the rest of the Hydra files from the experiment, and must have downloaded them onto our computer the night she left. They're all there."

Bucky thought about Sweden, the letter Ryker left. "Then why did she leave?"

"She downloaded a hell storm of viruses imbedded in encryptions onto an empty USB. I'm guessing she told Hydra that that USB had all the files they needed. As soon as Hydra plugged in the USB, each encryption they got past downloaded a new virus onto their computer systems." Natasha's voice started to build as she described, "We're getting every file from the computer the USB was plugged into. We're getting information we never knew Hydra had."

"And their exact location?" Bucky added, his heart racing, anxious to get out of the chair he sat in.

Natasha nodded. "Ruth sacrificed herself to Hydra so we could find their base."

Bucky's stomach sunk to the floor, feeling a wave of nausea wash over him. Ruth was willing to die to give SHIELD information on Hydra. The room began to sway around him. It had been three weeks, was she still alive?

"She needs you out there, Barnes," Natasha said finally, bringing Bucky out of his thoughts.

"How are we going to get to her? Do you think she's at the Hydra base?" Bucky rushed, his voice becoming increasingly frantic.

"According to the files we've received from that computer it looks like they're planning on running experiments at that base until they get something right. When I searched the location of this place, everything shows that the majority of the building is underground," Natasha reassured. "She has to be somewhere in there."

Bucky stood suddenly, then getting lightheaded. "We have to tell Steve and Sam. Let's load up a plane, let's—"

"I already talked to them, as well as Tony. Steve and Sam are loading up a plane now," Natasha smiled.

Bucky suddenly smiled wide, relief taking over him. "Thank you, Nat. For everything."

"No problem." Natasha stood, "Now let's get the hell out of here."