[A/N]: Alright guys, we're slipping a bit on the stones and seeing the rankings drop is honestly discouraging. Let's turn it around, throw some stones my way and push the rankings back up together! 💎🔥
Fury went dead still, his one good eye doing that thousand-yard stare thing he got when old memories came crawling back. Jay recognized the look. Same expression Fury had worn in that cramped apartment when Jay first dropped hints about finding Captain America frozen in the ice. That casual little question that changed everything.
History repeating itself.
"This some kinda fucking game to you, kid?" Fury's voice carried that particular brand of menace reserved for people who'd pushed him too far. "Or you actually got something worth hearing that ain't complete bullshit?"
Jay's whole demeanor shifted. Gone was the chill guy with the donut obsession, replaced by something more focused. "I mess around about a lot of things, Nick. My friends ain't one of them. Neither are the damn Morlocks."
Even Steve caught the change, straightening up like he'd heard a commanding officer enter the room.
"What... what do you wanna know about Buck?" Steve's voice cracked on the name. Always did. "I'll tell you whatever you need. We were just a coupla punks from Brooklyn. Too dumb to know when we were beat. Bucky was always the one keepin' me outta the morgue. Ninety pounds soaking wet and a mouth that wouldn't quit writin' checks my body couldn't cash."
The Brooklyn was bleeding through heavy now, like it always did when Steve talked about the old days. "He enlisted right after Pearl Harbor. 107th Infantry. Best man I ever knew. Brave, loyal, funnier than hell when he wanted to be. Could charm any dame into a dance, but he never once left me behind. Not when I was gettin' my ass kicked in alleys, not when Ma died, not when the whole world thought I wasn't worth the trouble..."
Steve's voice was getting rougher, guilt and grief spilling out. "I couldn't save him, just watched him fall from that goddamn train, and I couldn't..."
Jay was quiet for a moment, something softer crossing his face as he watched Steve's pain. "Steve... I'm sorry you had to carry that guilt all these years. But what if I told you he didn't fucking die?"
The half-eaten donut went flying as Steve lunged across the cramped sedan, enhanced reflexes turning him into a blur of muscle and fury. "Don't you dare!" The words came out in pure Brooklyn growl. "I won't let you drag Buck into whatever twisted scheme you're pulling, you son of a bitch!"
Steve's hands were shaking bad now, caught between hope and rage. The thought that Bucky might be out there somewhere, suffering while Steve slept his decades away in the ice. It was too much. "If you're lying about this, I swear to God I'll tear you apart..."
"Rogers!" Fury's command voice cut through everything else like a knife. "Stand the fuck down! This is exactly how he told us about you. Same casual question, same knowing look." He gestured at Steve with barely contained exasperation. "And look how that shit turned out."
Steve's breathing sounded like a broken engine, hope and fury tearing him apart from the inside. "Where is he? Where the hell is Bucky?"
Jay pointed straight at Fury. "That depends on how fast Nick here agrees to play ball and stop being a stubborn asshole."
Fury felt that familiar weight settling on his shoulders. Hope was dangerous in his line of work; usually came with a body count attached. But looking at Steve Rogers, America's golden boy turned living legend, Fury knew he was screwed. How do you tell Captain America you won't help save his best friend?
The political shitstorm alone would be biblical. But sometimes doing right and doing smart weren't the same thing.
"Damn it," Fury muttered, sounding like a man accepting his own execution. "All of it. Everything you asked for. Now fucking talk."
"Payment up front," Jay said, settling back in his seat. "I don't do business on credit, especially not with spymasters who've got trust issues."
Fury's jaw worked like he was chewing glass, but he gave a sharp nod. "Coulson! Get me a Quinjet prepped for the Fridge. Now. And I mean right goddamn now."
Coulson slipped out of the car, already dialing. Jay caught pieces of tactical chatter through the windows. Authorization codes, flight patterns, the usual SHIELD efficiency.
"One more thing," Jay said, casual as ordering coffee. "I need you to set up a meeting with Emma Frost. Gotta finalize funding for District X."
"You're really gonna build this mutant sanctuary?"
"Human and mutant sanctuary," Jay corrected. "I made a promise to the Morlocks, and a man's only worth his fucking word."
The next few hours blurred together. Armored transport to a secure helipad, then onto a Quinjet. Jay spent the flight quietly thinking, while Steve stared out the window like he was watching for ghosts, and Coulson kept shooting worried glances at his idol.
The Fridge squatted on the coastline like a concrete mountain, all harsh angles and "stay away" architecture. The only way in or out was through the roof, making escaping pretty much impossible and attacking it a suicide mission.
Going down through security was like descending into the world's deepest mine shaft. Biometric scanners every ten feet, guards who looked like they bench-pressed Buicks for fun, blast doors thick enough to stop a tank round.
At the bottom level, they hit enhanced containment. The place where SHIELD kept people who made vicious criminals look like jaywalkers.
Jay's eyes swept the cells, that comic book knowledge cataloging faces and power sets, until he spotted someone unexpected.
Marcus Daniels, aka Blackout. Poor bastard sat in his reinforced cell surrounded by specialty lighting designed to remove any shadows in his cell to keep him cut off his powers. His power to manipulate that dark energy made him one of SHIELD's nastiest catches, but Jay could see something else. That same haunted look he'd seen on other enhanced individuals whose abilities had scrambled their brains.
Not exactly what Jay needed for his planned powers, but a darkforce user is potentially useful. Very useful.
"Open it up," Jay told Coulson.
Coulson didn't budge. "Information first."
Jay held up a hand for quiet, then pointed at Fury. "Kill the recording devices. All of them. This stays between us."
Fury reluctantly tapped his phone, nodded.
"I'll give you one freebie for Blackout here. Your choice. Bucky's status or the Hydra intel. Pick one."
Steve stepped forward before Fury could answer, desperation blazing in those blue eyes. "Bucky. Please, for the love of God, tell me about Bucky."
Fury gave a reluctant nod.
"Look, Steve," Jay said, his voice losing its usual cocky edge. "What I'm about to tell you... it's gonna hurt like hell. But you deserve to know the truth, and Bucky deserves someone fighting for him." He took a breath. "James Buchanan Barnes is alive and operational. Goes by the Winter Soldier these days. And he's one hell of a ghost story."
Coulson went white as a sheet. "That's impossible. Barnes would be pushing late eighties and Winter Soldier's one of the deadliest assassins on the planet..."
"Hydra pulled him out of that ravine barely breathing," Jay continued, his voice heavy with sympathy as he watched Steve's face crumble. "I'm sorry, Steve. They pumped him full of their own bootleg super soldier serum, then spent the next seventy years systematically destroying his mind. Turned him into the perfect weapon with no conscience, no memory, just pure lethal efficiency. They keep him on ice between jobs. Keeps the extended warranty on their favorite fucking killer."
The silence that followed was suffocating.
Then Steve's fist met concrete with a sound like a gunshot, spider-webbing the wall and painting his knuckles red. "They tortured him," he said, voice barely human anymore. "All those years I was sleeping in the ice, and they had him. They were breaking him, using him, turning him into some goddamn monster..."
The words died in his throat.
"Hydra got wiped out after the war," Fury said, but even he didn't sound convinced. "Peggy saw to that shit personally."
Jay just smiled and said nothing at all.
Fury sighed like a man watching his pension disappear. "Coulson. Open the damn door."
Marcus Daniels came off the bench swinging the second Jay stepped into his cell just as the lights went out, hands wreathed in shadows. Then Jay's null field kicked in, and the guy stopped like he'd hit a brick wall.
Marcus stared at his hands like he'd never seen them before, then started crying like a baby.
"How?" The word came out broken and desperate. "I can't... the voices stopped. The darkness ain't whispering anymore."
"Your darkforce experiment gave you incredible power, Dr. Daniels," Jay said gently, "but it also fucked with your head something fierce. Made you hear things, see things that weren't there. Made everyone look like a threat."
Marcus dropped to his knees, overwhelmed by the sudden quiet in his skull. "Jesus, how long have I been here? The shadows were always screaming, showing me horrible stuff. Made me think everyone was trying to kill me."
Jay held out his hand. "You want it gone? All the pain, all the noise?"
Marcus grabbed on with both hands, tears streaming. "Please, God, just make it stop."
"Keep still," Jay warned, then activated his theft ability. The darkforce power flowed into him like breathing in smoke, settling into his mental landscape with whispers and promises.
Marcus sagged as the last of it left him, and for the first time in years, his eyes were completely clear. "Oh God. I remember now. What I did. All those people I hurt. And Audrey, oh poor Audrey!" Pure horror in his voice.
When Jay stepped back out and dropped his null field, Marcus was still on his knees but crying with relief now, not torment.
"That's... that actually helps more than you know," Coulson said quietly. "I'm the one who had to bring him in originally. What happened to him, what he became... it's kept me up nights wondering if we could've done something different."
Jay glanced back at Marcus, still crying. "He's gonna need serious therapy. Years of it, probably. But he's not dangerous anymore. Just a broken man who needs help putting the pieces back together."
He said it like he was diagnosing a common cold, then started walking deeper into the facility toward whatever he'd really come here for.
[A/N]: I write across multiple fandoms. Support my writing and get early access to 45+ chapters, exclusive content, and bonus material at my P@treon - Max_Striker.