Chapter 36

Joint Counter Terrorist Center, Berlin

Sam stood with his hands on his hips on the pavement outside the JCTC building, surrounded by running civilians and confused law enforcement. It was chaos out here: no one knew who was in charge, and the air was filled with screams and sirens.

He was pissed that the doctor had escaped, and all he had was the guy's jacket.

Frowning, Sam trudged toward the road, trying to think through his next steps. He'd lost Steve in the bowels of the building, but he had no doubt the idiot would've kept going after Barnes. So where-

With a screech of tires, a white van suddenly pulled up in front of him. Sam blinked and looked up, and had to take a step back when the passenger door swung open.

There was a dark-haired woman wearing some kind of uniform in the driver's seat, and hey, she looks familiar…

"Get in," the woman called, and her eyes flicked to the JCTC behind him.

It took him a second, but Sam connected the dots, combining the woman's focused stare with his memory of the CCTV footage from Chile. He swore loudly and stepped back, glancing around at the running, screaming people around him. The woman scowled.

"It's okay, Sam!" That was Steve's voice, and he was… was he in the van? "We're good, you can get in!"

Sam glanced once more at his surroundings. No one was paying any attention to the van, or his predicament.

"Get in or I'm leaving," the woman hissed.

Certain he'd just agreed to be abducted by a former HYDRA assassin, Sam swore again and climbed into the passenger seat. Before he could buckle himself in, before he could even close the door, the woman – Margaret Stark – stepped on the gas, tearing away from the JCTC and throwing him back in his seat.

Once he'd shut the swinging door, Sam looked over his shoulder to see Steve, soaking wet and filthy, crouched over an unconscious, equally wet Barnes.

"What the hell."

Steve glanced up from Barnes. "He's out for now, but we need a way to restrain him when he wakes up."

Margaret Stark, who was wearing a goddamn van company uniform and a cap on her head, furrowed her brow as she drove them away from the JCTC, sticking to the speed limit. "I know a place," she said.

Sam glanced from Margaret Stark, to Steve, to Barnes. "What the hell."

Maggie ignored the surreptitious and not-so-surreptitious looks from her passengers as she drove the van through Berlin. She was heading for an abandoned warehouse she'd flagged as a potential safehouse in her earlier research. Of course, she'd been planning on using the safehouse for just herself and Bucky, but plans changed, and apparently Captain America went on the run. With his veteran friend. Who was now blatantly staring at her.

Maggie gritted her teeth and scanned the road ahead for any sign of surveillance or a road block. She'd thought about getting one of the others to drive, so she could monitor any potential pursuers on her laptop, but they were almost at the warehouse. Besides, the mess they'd left at the JCTC would take a while to make any sense of, especially with the power still down.

Gravel crunched under the van's tires as she pulled up outside the warehouse in the quiet industrial district. Maggie eyed the building – dirty, in disrepair, no sign of life in the windows.

She sensed Steve straighten to get a look at the building. "There's no one here?"

Maggie rolled up to the closed loading bay door and recalled the data she'd found on the location. "It's foreclosed upon. Not a popular area for squatters, and the bank put brand-new locks on the doors." She nodded to the loading bay door. "We need that open."

She glanced over her shoulder at Steve, but he seemed hesitant to leave Bucky alone in the van. Wilson was still staring at her, and he was the only one in the van without super soldier serum.

Repressing a sigh, Maggie opened her door and marched toward the warehouse, feeling Steve and Wilson's gazes prickling on her back. She wasn't too worried about leaving them alone with Bucky. If they decided they wanted to drive away, she had a few tricks up her sleeve – or rather, under the faux-backpack on her back. And she wasn't worried about them hurting him, if Steve's unconsciously protective body language was anything to go by.

She gripped the handle of the industrial-strength roller door with both hands, braced her feet and heaved. With a crack of the lock the door groaned open, rolling upwards and revealing the damp, dirty interior of the warehouse.

Maggie dusted off her hands and jogged back to the van – ignoring Wilson's even wider-eyed stare – and drove it into the building. Once it was out of public view, she turned the engine off and jumped out again, this time to open the back door for Steve.

She'd been concentrating on getting to the warehouse, but the sight of Bucky bleeding and unconscious in the back of the van affected her all over again, making her chest ache and her fists clench helplessly. If Steve noticed her pain he didn't say anything. He slid out of the back of the van and slung one of Bucky's arms over his shoulder. Maggie took the other arm, and they dragged him to a room adjoining the main warehouse, where they could see a vice.

"Sam," Steve grunted, and Wilson jogged ahead of them to start cranking the vice open.

Once Wilson had set out a crate, Maggie and Steve eased Bucky down, propping him on the crate and resting his arm on the plate of the vice. As they worked, Maggie noticed bullet holes in the sleeve over his metal arm. She gritted her teeth.

Finally, the vice was clamped over his arm and they stepped back.

Bucky's head was propped against the soldered metal of the vice, his damp hair obscuring his closed eyes and his head wound. He looked like a beaten man, slumped and filthy in an abandoned warehouse. Maggie ran her eyes over his arm, immobilized in the machinery. It wasn't a glass prison, but something about restraining Bucky made her feel queasy. Probably the fact that she had to do it at all.

What a mess, Bucky, she thought. Just this morning she'd been planning on telling him about her time in Ukraine, maybe cooking together and falling asleep in his arms. Her mind was a mess from everything she'd seen today, and she just didn't have the mental room to process having seen – having touched – her brother. She wished she could talk to Bucky about it.

While she'd been watching Bucky, her face carefully blank, Steve and Wilson had been trading glances. She could almost hear them thinking.

Eventually Steve turned to face her fully, and Maggie reluctantly dragged her eyes away from Bucky to look back at him.

His face was stoic, serious – Bucky had sometimes called that his Captain America face – but he seemed to get distracted as he looked at her properly, running his eyes over her features. Everything since the river had been a rush, all about getting Bucky away and restrained, but now Steve had time to look at her. A thoughtful expression filled his eyes.

Maggie kept her face neutral – it was the only thing she could think of to do, under such appraisal. Wilson was a few steps away, glancing between the two of them.

They were all surprised when Maggie was the one to break the silence. "What they're saying he did in Vienna, that wasn't him." She was surprised how even her voice was.

Steve crossed his arms, and now his gaze was a little harder. "I know."

That took her aback. She'd been expecting to have to convince him, especially after the disaster at the JCTC, but then she remembered all the stories about Steve's blind faith in Bucky.

But Steve continued: "It was the doctor, he set it up to get alone in a room with Bucky." He didn't look away from her face, watching intently for her reaction.

Maggie couldn't help the way her expression darkened. She knew it was going to be something like that. Whoever this doctor was, he'd done all that to get to Bucky, and if Bucky went into the JCTC as Bucky and came out the Soldier, then…

Maggie swallowed. Whoever the doctor was, he had Bucky's trigger words. He'd done this to Bucky, had turned him into a weapon and fired him at innocent people.

Maggie noticed that the anger sparking in her chest was showing in her face, and she quickly shut it down.

Steve levelled his gaze at her. "What do you know about the doctor?"

Maggie looked from Bucky's unconscious face, to Wilson's suspicious stare, to Steve's angry righteousness, and clenched her fist. She mentally ran through a list of people who might know Bucky's words, but her memory wasn't anywhere close to perfect. Besides, Steve and Wilson were strangers to her, and her base instincts went against revealing anything about the trigger words or their HYDRA programming. She knew Bucky had trusted Steve with his life seventy years ago, but Steve had been in this new world for five years.

"I don't know about any doctor," she eventually murmured. "What did he look like?"

Steve gave a short, terse description, and she could sense him getting more suspicious. She might be resistant to opening up to relative strangers, but she needed them on her side. Maggie desperately tried to think, getting nothing but a sharp headache blooming behind her eyes.

"I don't know," she said helplessly, and met Steve's eyes. "Whoever he is, he knew the Winter Soldier words-"

"Words?"

"Trigger words," Maggie said bitterly. "All he would have had to do was say them, and he'd have the Winter Soldier at his disposal." Her voice was cold, and her face was hard. She'd promised she wouldn't let it happen to Bucky ever again, and she'd failed him.

Steve tried a different tack. "Why?"

Maggie shrugged. "To cause chaos? For information? I don't know. Bucky should be able to tell us, when he wakes up."

Both of their eyebrows raised at her use of his nickname, but Maggie didn't care anymore. Her head was throbbing, she didn't know what to do.

Steve finally took his eyes off her face, glancing back at Bucky. "Which Bucky is he going to be?"

Maggie followed his gaze to Bucky, bleeding and unconscious in a vice, and her heart ached. She knew she could bring him back, given time, but… "I don't know," she whispered.

A silence fell at that, and Maggie couldn't bring herself to meet Steve's eyes again. She'd wanted to meet him for a while now, after hearing all Bucky's stories, but she'd never actually thought she would. An interrogation in a foreclosed warehouse wasn't exactly what she'd had in mind.

Wilson broke the silence next, drawing her attention. "So what's your deal? It's you, right, you're the Wyvern?"

Maggie bristled. She'd guessed they knew she was the Wyvern, going off Steve's wariness and Wilson's fear, but it had been a long time since anyone had called her that. "Not anymore," she bit out.

Wilson, to his credit, didn't look away. "Then who are you?"

She was getting annoyed at the interrogation, she just wanted a few moments to process everything that had happened. But she supposed they did have a right to ask some questions, after she'd tried to kill them a bunch of times and then showed up with a van and a safehouse. She sighed. "I'm Maggie."

Her eyes flickered between the two men, and she could feel the unsaid things. She saw the glance they shared, she saw that they recognised the name.

Something tightened in her gut. "You know who I am."

Simultaneously, they nodded. A sickened feeling washed over Maggie, and abruptly she could feel the edges of a panic attack clawing at her throat.

She cleared her throat, and made sure her voice was absolutely steady before she spoke. "Does he know that I'm alive?" She put the barest inflection on the word he, but they all knew who she was talking about.

Wilson looked to Steve. Steve looked back at her, and she could see compassion in his eyes. The warmth of it, after his resoluteness and suspicion, made her want to step back. Steve opened his mouth.

"Yes."

A whole rush of emotion hit Maggie, clobbered her from all sides like a hailstorm, like an attack. She wanted to ask a million questions: how long? How much does he know? Did he come for me? But she swallowed the questions, because she suddenly thought she was going to be sick.

She managed to stammer out: "I'm going to watch the perimeter," and was gone before they could object.

Sam and Steve watched Maggie flee the room, her face deathly white and her eyes round with panic.

Sam ran a hand over his face. This was already an enormous mess, and now there was her. She'd been cooperative enough, but he just didn't understand what her motives were.

"Think she's going to be on our side?" he asked, and the words echoed in the dusty warehouse.

Steve sighed. "She's here for him," he nodded at Barnes. "I don't know why, but that's the best we can ask for now."

"And if he's not the Bucky you remember when he wakes up? If he tries to fight you again? What's she going to do then?"

Steve met Sam's eyes, and Sam was glad to see that at least he was putting some thought into this. "She helped us get him here and put him in the vice," he eventually said. "I don't think she wants violence."

Sam wasn't so sure about that – he'd seen the way her anger crackled in the air around her when Steve explained how Barnes had been set up. But he supposed she'd been cooperative, when she probably could have killed them both by now, so he let it go.

They couldn't do anything until Barnes woke up, so Sam took watch and Steve went to scope out the warehouse. Who knew what Maggie was doing.

Maggie was hiding in the shadows outside the warehouse, breathing through the end of her panic attack. She'd spent two years building up her coping mechanisms, but it seemed they could only do so much against the day she'd just had: Bucky's arrest and triggering, her hasty attempts to catch up, seeing her brother.

Shuddering, Maggie pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes and took a long breath through her nose. Images of her brother, unconscious and bleeding, played behind her eyes.

She hoped he was alright. She realised that Tony must have been knocked unconscious fighting the Soldier – without his suit, what was he thinking? – and another wave of nausea hit. He was lucky he hadn't been killed. By Bucky. Maggie had to lean over, sure she was going to be sick.

He'll be okay, she told herself. He'd been waking up when she left, and he had his teammates and colleagues with him. Rhodey was there, and she remembered how close they'd been. The Black Widow was there too, and they'd been teammates for years. He'll be okay.

But she didn't know if she believed it. She wondered what his life had been like, knowing that she was alive. Suddenly, her shoulders sagged in exhaustion, and she leaned against the side of the warehouse with her hands still over her eyes.

What a mess.

It took her a while to get a handle on herself, but she'd faced brainwashing and nightmares and remorse before, and she was still here. She didn't push away her feelings, because she'd promised herself not to do that any more. She allowed herself to feel, acknowledged the feelings, and then got on with business.

Maggie stealthed back into the warehouse – she didn't really want to deal with Steve or Wilson again until she had to – and retrieved her backpack and laptop from the van. As she climbed up into the rafters of the warehouse, she thought her situation through.

She was on the run – that was nothing new, she'd been on the run for two and a half years. Of course there was a lot more heat now, and two hangers-on who were – understandably – suspicious of her. Until Bucky woke up – and hopefully he woke up as Bucky, not the Soldier – there wasn't much she could do except monitor potential pursuers and keep them hidden.

Once she found a good vantage point in a shadowy corner of the ceiling, perched on some relatively sturdy scaffolding, Maggie pulled out her laptop. She made sure her digital footprint was utterly untraceable – she needed the tech more than ever now, but she couldn't allow anyone to find it. Keeping one eye on the warehouse below, particularly her partial view of Wilson watching Bucky, Maggie checked on the JTTF situation, careful to avoid Tony's A.I.

Everyone was searching for Bucky, Steve and Sam, but it didn't seem that any mention of her had made her way into the reports. It seemed the attack on the JCTC was too fresh for anyone to have arranged any kind of coordinated approach. They were dealing with their headquarters being all smashed up and evacuated, and had alerted local law enforcement about the fugitives.

Maggie could hear a few helicopters roaming the sky, and surreptitiously listened in on their communications to make sure they weren't aware of the fugitives in the warehouse. As it stood, they had time before the net closed in.

After a few minutes, she noticed Wilson walk into the main part of the warehouse out of the corner of her eye. "Hey, Cap!" he called.

Maggie's heart leapt into her mouth. There was no mistaking the nervousness in Wilson's bearing, or the significant look he shot at Steve. Steve, who had just been peering out at the nearest helicopter, turned around and jogged toward Wilson.

It took Maggie a few seconds to power down the laptop, put it in the backpack and climb down from her perch. Her fingers were shaking. Which Bucky is he going to be?

As she hit the ground and started half walking, half jogging to the room with the vice, she heard Bucky's low voice: "Your mom's name was Sarah."

The rush of relief that hit Maggie made her feel dizzy, and she had to stop walking to press a hand to her forehead. With her eyes closed, she just caught his next words, tinged with a half-laugh: "You used to wear newspapers in your shoes."

She hadn't heard that one before. It must have been a new recall.

Alone in the open space of the warehouse, Maggie took a few moments to steady herself. This day had been a whirlwind of emotions; fear and hope and heartbreak. She allowed herself a few moments to be relieved, then calmed herself and appeared in the doorway to the next room just as Bucky said: "Everything HYDRA put inside me is still there, all he had to do was say the goddamn words."

He looked terrible. Filthy and bloody, hair dishevelled. But it was more than that – his face was twisting with emotion, his guilt and horror gleaming in his eyes as he looked up at his oldest friend. He sagged against the vice. Maggie's chest constricted, and her heart physically ached for him.

She'd appeared soundlessly, just behind Wilson in the doorway, while Bucky was looking up at Steve. But they'd always had a kind of sixth sense for the others' presence, and almost as soon as she appeared Bucky turned to look at her, his eyes grey and tired behind his dark hair.

The instant he saw her, Bucky's eyes deepened with complicated emotion. But Maggie had been reading those eyes her whole life, and she could see all his confusion and concern and relief. His eyes darted to Steve and Wilson, brow furrowed, but then he was looking back at her.

He was surrounded by concrete and metal, wearing a shirt with bullet holes in it, but this wasn't the Winter Soldier. This was the man she loved. Maggie didn't know what her eyes were showing him – probably much of the same: relief and concern. His brows furrowed as he watched her.

The room had gone quiet. Sam and Wilson followed Bucky's gaze to Maggie, and if they were surprised at her sudden appearance they didn't say anything.

Finally, Bucky spoke. "Thought you were going dark." His words were slightly slurred, and Maggie's brows pinched in concern.

She cleared her expression, and shrugged. "Had a mission to complete."

Something sparked in his eyes – relief, love, a complicated mixture of the two, and it made her heart melt. She swallowed. "He knew your words?"

There was a long pause as Bucky looked at her. She knew he was reading her eyes, and she knew he was seeing that she had met the Soldier again. She didn't know how to hide the truth from him, didn't know if she wanted to. Eventually, Bucky hung his head.

"I don't know if he knows yours as well," he sighed.

Wilson piped up at that. "This could happen to you, too?"

Maggie glanced away from Bucky and shot Wilson a look. Then she glanced at Steve, warily, but he wasn't focused on her. He was watching his friend, and Maggie was startled at the open look of grief on his face – his brows were furrowed, his mouth downturned, and his eyes were bright with pain. Maggie swallowed.

But as she watched, that same look of resolve slipped over Steve's features, and his shoulders straightened. "Who was he?" he asked.

Bucky glanced up and whispered: "I don't know."

"People are dead. The bombing, the set up, the doctor did all that just to get ten minutes with you." Steve levelled his gaze at Bucky, who seemed to droop with every word. "I need you to do better than I don't know."

Maggie and Wilson watched silently. Maggie wanted to be angry at Steve for pushing Bucky so hard right after he'd come back to himself, but she knew he was right – only Bucky knew what this doctor had said, what he wanted. Maggie wanted Bucky to spit it out so she could go find the doctor and… she swallowed. She didn't know if she could be as lenient as she was with Vincent Silva.

Bucky was thinking, his eyes focusing and darting from side to side. "He wanted to know about Siberia," he said. "Where I was kept." Bucky cocked his head. "He wanted to know exactly where."

Maggie tensed, her hands balling into fists at her sides and her face shuttering. She remembered howling snow, the Soldier's bloody face. The Project Leader clutching his reddening stomach. Wilson noticed her reaction and glanced at her out of the corner of his eye.

"Why would he need to know that?" asked Steve.

She could see Bucky remembering. His eyes flickered toward Maggie, then rose to meet Steve's gaze. "Because I'm not the only Winter Soldier."

Maggie inhaled, fresh memories crowding together at the front of her mind and making a piercing ache bloom behind her eyes.

She remembered: the bald man with the severe stare. The Project Leader's taunting in cold concrete passageways. Darkened cryochambers.

Maggie gritted her teeth. She'd remembered parts of this, but not all. Other parts of her time in Siberia had seemed more important. And as long as the memories stayed between she and Bucky, it hadn't mattered. But now, this man – this doctor – knew about the Winter Soldier Program.

Maggie felt cold. She felt as cold as she had when she lay bleeding in the howling Siberian snow, watching Karpov's helicopter disappear into the storm.

As Bucky explained the Winter Soldier Program, Wilson cranked the vice open to free his arm. Maggie wanted to help, but she couldn't – her feet were rooted to the spot, frozen by memories of snow and blood and blue liquid. She did keep an eye on Bucky's head wound and his eyes, but it didn't seem that he'd suffered any permanent damage. So she stood there, and listened.

Bucky glanced at her throughout his explanation, but she didn't have anything to add. When he said that HYDRA had sent him after a synthesis of the super soldier serum, Maggie swallowed her memories of a burning car, the Soldier's footsteps in the gravel. This wasn't the time for that, it wasn't the point.

He talked about how the batal'on smerti [death squad] had been given the serum, and she remembered how the blue liquid had felt cold travelling through her veins, before it flared into an unbearable, scorching heat. She shivered.

He explained how the Winter Soldiers had disobeyed orders, fought their handlers. She didn't know that part, she'd only ever heard the Project Leader's snide allusions. Of course they had been tested against the Soldier, Maggie thought bitterly, as she listened to Bucky's hollow voice. Karpov had been jealous, determined to do better than the Project Leader. Bucky's life was nothing, when it came to those men.

She remembered the bald man – Borya – and how his share of the serum had been reallocated to the Wyvern Project. She remembered his rage, remembered how it had felt when her heel spur sliced right through his flesh and bone, piercing his heart.

Steve was leaning against the concrete wall, arms crossed and face serious. "Who were they?"

"Their most elite death squad," Bucky said, his tired eyes focused on the ground. "More kills than anyone in HYDRA history, and that was before the serum."

Sam was against the doorway, by the fuse box. "They all turn out like you?" he asked.

"Worse."

Maggie swallowed. "One of those soldiers without the serum nearly killed me when I was fifteen," she added, and their gazes all swung to her. She crossed her arms. "I'd have enough trouble on my hands facing one of them now, let alone four."

She and Bucky met each other's eyes for a moment, and his gaze softened.

"The doctor," Steve said, "could he control them?"

"Enough."

Steve grimaced. "Said he wanted to see an empire fall-"

"With these guys he could do it," Bucky urged. "They speak thirty languages, can hide in plain sight, infiltrate, assassinate, destabilise." As he spoke, Maggie closed her eyes. She thought she'd left this world behind. But it turned out she'd just been waiting for it to catch up with her.

"They can take a whole country down in one night," Bucky continued, "and you'd never see them coming." He met Steve's eyes, showing him how serious he was, then turned to Maggie. "Peters might have underestimated the program."

It was Maggie's turn to grimace now. She didn't care about Project Leader Peters. But she noted that neither Steve nor Wilson seemed to need to ask who Peters was, and that worried her. If they knew about him, did they know about the Wyvern Project? Did they know about her long, bloody past?

Sam pushed off the wall and walked towards Steve, and something about that action gave her the ability to move again. She paced forward, her legs sluggish, and came to stand by Bucky's shoulder. His elbows were resting on his knees, and his head hung between his shoulders, but as she approached he looked up and met her eyes.

Maggie didn't know what to say. And judging by the glimmering brightness in Bucky's blue-grey eyes, he didn't know either. So she reached out, hovering her hand just over his shoulder, and cocked an eyebrow, asking. He nodded, and her hand came to rest on his tatty red shirt. Just the feel of him, warm skin and worn cloth, eased some of her bone-deep exhaustion, and judging by the way the muscles across his back loosened and stretched she had a similar effect on him. Maggie increased the pressure of her fingertips, just slightly, so she was holding him. Bucky's eyes welled with emotion and his head dropped again. A long, slow breath shuddered in his chest.

Her back was to Steve and Wilson, but she could hear their conversation.

"This would have been a lot easier a week ago," Wilson murmured, as if she and Bucky didn't have enhanced hearing.

"If we call Tony-"

Maggie stiffened, her fingers inadvertently clenching on Bucky's shoulder. His head jumped up, but she couldn't look at him. Her gaze was fixed on the pocked grey concrete of the far wall.

"No, he won't believe us," Wilson whispered. "And his focus might be elsewhere, y'know."

Maggie swallowed, and looked at her feet. There was a sliver of glass wedged into the side of her boot, she noticed. Bucky's shoulder bunched under her hand, and she realized she was probably holding on a little too tightly to be comfortable. She loosened her grip, and felt Bucky's eyes on her, but she couldn't meet them. She'd cry, she just knew she would.

"Even if he did-" Steve started.

"Who knows if the Accords would let him help," Wilson finished.

Steve sighed. "We're on our own."

"Maybe not," Wilson muttered. Steve must have given him a questioning look, because he added: "I know a guy."

After that, Steve and Wilson seemed to have some kind of nonverbal conversation, because there was nothing but silence in the warehouse. Maggie sensed their attention turn to her and Bucky, and then she felt their gazes on her hand like a prickling brand. She pulled the hand away from Bucky's shoulder.

She gave herself enough time to compose her face, then turned around. She stood tall over Bucky's shoulder, silent and neutral.

Steve's face was set in serious lines as he looked between them. "You with us on this?"

Simultaneously, Bucky and Maggie turned to look at each other. It only took them a second to read each other's eyes, before they turned back.

"Yes," Bucky answered for them both. "We're with you."

Maggie just met Steve's eyes and showed him her conviction. That was apparently good enough for him, because he nodded once and then said: "Alright, let's get to work."

Joint Counter Terrorist Center, Berlin

Secretary Ross loomed over Tony in the conference room, but Tony couldn't let him bring in the special forces to take out his friends, regardless of how stupid they were being.

"Seventy two hours," Tony said, once Ross looked like he was going to let him do this.

"Thirty six hours," Ross countered, his eyes hard. "Barnes." He started to leave the room. "Rogers. Wilson!"

He walked away, leaving Tony and Natasha alone in the room. Tony let out a breath - everything since he'd woken up in the cafeteria had been a whirlwind of sirens, debriefs, and Ross shouting.

Natasha, bolt upright in her chair, looked worried, and that unsettled Tony more than Ross's bureaucratic bullshit. He straightened, about to say something, but then something in his chest twinged and he had to lean forward, rubbing one hand against his sternum. Man, Barnes packed a hell of a punch. So much for on duty non-combatant.

"My left arm is numb, is that normal?" He asked, because even though she'd never admit it, Natasha needed someone who could make light of a situation. At least, that was his theory for why she kept Barton around.

It seemed to work – Natasha stood, and came to rest her hand on his shoulder. "You alright?"

"Always," he replied, startled by the warmth in her voice.

At that, Natasha crossed her arms and looked out through the glass wall. "Tony…"

Something about her tone made him glance up, fingers still probing his bruised and aching chest. Her lips were pursed, and she seemed to be searching for words.

"What's up?"

She met his eyes. "I saw your sister."

Whatever he'd been expecting her to say, it wasn't that. He froze, and searched Natasha's face for a lie. He'd never be able to spot one if she didn't want him to, but something about the nervous compassion in her eyes made his heart lurch.

Instantly, his brain got to work: Natasha had barely left his side since Steve and the others arrived at the facility, so when…? He sighed. When he'd been knocked unconscious by the fight with Barnes, of course. So Steve had probably been right when he said he saw her in Bucharest – for whatever reason, Maggie was ghosting Barnes' footsteps, just out of sight.

After a few seconds of silence Tony reached up to pinch his nose, then winced when he brushed his bruised cheek. "She was here?"

Natasha's brow was heavy. "I think it was her. She told Barnes to stand down, in Russian, probably saved my life. Then she called him Bucky. He got away from her, but…" she cocked her head as she looked down at Tony. "She checked your pulse, while you were out."

Tony's hand flew to his neck as if he'd been stung, and he pressed his fingers against his skin, where he could feel his own erratic heartbeat. She'd been close enough to touch him. What had been going through her head? Did she remember him?

"Where did she go?" he eventually asked, his voice rough. His fingers, still pressed against his neck, picked up on the vibrations of his voice travelling up his throat.

"I didn't see. I'm sorry."

Tony waved a hand to indicate that she didn't need to be – he could see the purple marks on her neck even now. He sighed. "God, you know, I try to focus on the job, but things are starting to hit real close to home, and…"

"I know," Natasha murmured. "But if she shows up again, we'll deal with it. Bring her in from the cold. If it can be done for me, it can be done for anyone."

Tony squeezed his eyes shut, still touching his own neck. "She really doesn't want to be found."

He heard the rustle of leather as Natasha shrugged. "Won't stop you finding her."

"That's true," he muttered, vaguely appreciative of Nat for knowing him so well.

Okay, his sister had been in this building. He could handle that, surely. He appreciated that Natasha hadn't mentioned it while Ross was in the room. In amongst everything else going on, he really didn't think this was the time to be admitting to authorities that his sister was alive as an ex-HYDRA assassin. He doubted he could convince Ross he was able to be objective in that case.

For now, he had a job to focus on. "Thirty six hours, thirty six hours…"

Natasha seemed to welcome the shift in conversation. "We're seriously understaffed."

"Oh yeah. Be great if we had a Hulk, right about now. Any shot?"

God, he missed Bruce. It felt like he'd just been steadily losing people throughout his life, one after the other. He was sure Bruce would have something sufficiently boring and diplomatic to say in this situation.

Natasha's smile was crooked. "You really think he'd be on our side?"

Right. Secretary Ross and Bruce had not had a great past. Tony frowned.

"I have an idea," Nat said.

Tony's brain had been chugging away since he woke up to find out Barnes, Steve, and Wilson had escaped. "Me too. Where's yours?"

"Downstairs…?" She cocked her head. "Where's yours?"

Despite himself, despite the tingling in his chest and arm, and the way his neck felt like it had been branded, Tony smiled.