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Lagos was supposed to be a routine kind of mission. They would scout, spot the guy and apprehend him. Like they always did.
The addition of Wanda and the little surprise that it wasn’t Bucky but Rumlow and his men shouldn't be a hurdle, how many times they have done the exact same thing?
Sure it would be harder because there were probably more men backing Rumlow, but nothing they couldn’t handle, right?
Turns out that none of them even knew left from right. Natasha did her thing, Steve did his thing, Sam did his thing and Wanda, this time really not her fault, had to be directed all the time.
When Steve told them to move, Wanda was clearly lost, then having no idea what do with the gas inside the building and finally trying and failing to contain a bomb.
People questioned why would she try something like this in the first place, was she trained to do it? No one said it to either Wanda or Steve, since the man had the weird tendency to be… weirdly overprotective of the young woman, but the media immediately jumped to the obvious: romance in the air. As neither the captain nor Maximoff said anything to deny it, now it was a fact as far as the media and the public were concerned.
Two days later and Wanda was watching the news, Steve turned off the television and consoled the poor girl.
“We try to save as many as we can, sometimes that doesn’t mean everyone.”
A few hours later, they were having one of the very few team discussions they set up.
And that was when the TV’s volume went up as per program when an Enhanced is involved.
“We interrupt normal programming to bring alarming news: the Winter Soldier a. k. a. Sargent James ‘Bucky’ Barnes is now confirmed to have been admitted to the hospital two days ago…”
The rest of what the reporter was saying fell on deaf ears, Steve immediately headed for the Quinjet, ignoring the calls to his name.
“What now?” Sam turned to Natasha that was already glancing to her right.
“Tony?”
“What the hell do you want me to do?” The bilionaire asked, still watching as Rogers left without so much as 'by your leave'.
“Smooth the feathers while we take care of this.”
“‘Smooth the feathers’, cute, Natasha, so I will ask this: how? Does Rogers even have any kind of training to track down which hospital admitted his buddy? High profiles patients like him… well, his location won’t exactly be broadcasted.”
“That’s the reason I’m looking at you. Find out where he is, we can contain Steve this way.”
“What way? And can’t you do that yourself? I’m about to board a plane for India.”
“Postpone your vacations, Stark, I think this is a little bit more important.”
That got his full attention and Tony fought not to grit his teeth. Rhodey was looking at the so called spy with incredulous eyes.
“It’s even cuter that you think I have vacations, Widow. But since that’s how you think I spend my time and since you have such a vested interest in Rogers and Barnes’ well-being then you clean up the mess in Lagos.”
“What Lagos has to do with this?”
And that was the last drop as far as Tony was concerned, “Interesting that you didn’t address the vacations bit but if you don’t know what Lagos has to do with this mess, then you are a worse spy than I ever credited you and believe me when I say: my opinion of you is not very flattering, personally or professionally right now.”
Tony walked out of the room, Rhodey and Vision following behind after some deliberation, “Remember when you said that we shouldn’t get involved and let Rogers be the CO he so claims himself as? Time for the kiddies to grow up.”
Rhodey groaned in relief.
~*~
“This isn’t working.” Natasha whispered to herself.
She has been trying to hack SI’s satellites for the last hour and she was no closer to the specs than she was when she started. It really hackled that Stark build a program that she couldn’t crack and once again Natasha cursed the man’s ego. One little crack about his lazy lifestyle and he just up and vanishes.
Natasha snorted. The little dig at Lagos was just that: a dig. The mission was a bust before they ever stepped foot in Nigeria. Bad intelligence, badly coordinated. It was bad luck at most.
But now she had more pressing concerns. Finding Steve was her priority. The man loses it when Barnes is concerned and she was without facial recognition.
The spy snorted again. And she was without facial recognition because “SI didn’t have it”, Natasha didn’t buy that for one second.
“Ms. Romanova, we do have facial recognition but what you want is access to satellites to make a worldwide search and that breaks so many laws that for me to make a joke about it is obscene.” it was one of Stark’s R&D employees and the woman was looking at her as if she was crazy.
“Look,” Natasha glanced at the tag name, “Kate, I understand the laws and… moral principles but a lot of people can get hurt if I don’t get access to a satellite.”
“Are you saying that Mr. Rogers represents a danger to innocent people? To a hospital?”
“… you are well informed.” Natasha narrowed her eyes. That look intimidated many but it did little to her.
“Dr. Stark keeps his employees well informed. To compromise SI is to compromise the lives of hundreds of thousands of employees to theoretically help a few individuals… again. So knock me out, threaten everyone in here, assault us if you will, everything that happens here is recorded and your little EMP didn’t make an inch of a dent in our security. We will not help you to invade the privacy of millions, this isn’t SHIELD, Ms. Romanova.”
~*~
It took so much legwork that Romanova was cursing at her carelessness. She got used to the ridiculous resources of SHIELD then Stark’s and her raw hacking abilities suffered as a result. Even after managing to get access to NASA’s satellites, it took almost three hours to integrate SHIELD’s facial recognition to look for Barnes and then cover her tracks for NASA not to find out.
When she finally managed to get some data from one of her contacts, Natasha didn’t care that she could feel the shock and dismay in her expression.
The news that the Winter Soldier was in the hospital ran like wild fire but they hid even the country for a respectable amount of time but now that it was staring her in the face. Natasha swallowed. Steve would go off the handle.
Barnes was admitted in Lagos University Teaching Hospital.
“…Sargent James ‘Bucky’ Barnes is now confirmed to have been admitted to the hospital two days ago…”
“…but if you don’t know what Lagos has to do with this mess, then you are a worse spy than I ever credited you…” Natasha closed her eyes at the memory.
There was video footage of the site and Natasha saw a glimpse of Barnes being carted off in a gurney. Apparently, he was laying low in the low income buildings where fucking Wakandans delegates were on a peace mission.
She swallowed with some difficulty. Managing to digitally zoom the pictures gave her facial recognition… and a clear image of where the blast got him.
The left side of his face was raw and she could see a hint of a bone in his jaw. Natasha didn’t know the state of his right eye, it was blackened in what she hoped was soot and not third degree burns. Without his prosthesis – and Natasha didn’t know if he lost it, hid it or if the paramedics and firemen took it off – Barnes was a horrific sight.
And all the pieces finally aligned.
The data she got of Barnes being on Lagos was good.
Rumlow being there was either a coincidence or he wanted to get two birds with one stone: the Winter Soldier and the biological weapon. Explains why he threw that dig about Bucky at Steve.
Wanda throwing the explosion away and it hitting the apartment building and then news of Barnes’ being admitted to the hospital…
The infamous Black Widow, incapable of watching the freaking news and putting two and two together. Gritting her teeth, she got her phone.
“Clint? I think I’m gonna need help.”
Ignoring Sam’s questions, she went to the Quinjet only for the damn thing not to even turn on.
Looking around in the console, Natasha almost gawked. Out of gas. And the compound was in lockdown.
Great.
It took them hours to get to Nigeria and Natasha looked around, carefully controlling her expression at the new security implemented since two weeks ago.
There are lines of guards in each door. Identities were checked at random every time an employee of the airport passed you accompanied by two guards. Batons gripped tight, guns strapped, tranquilizers, tasers and they were armored to the teeth.
Quickly passing through a pillar and activating the Photostatic Veil, Natasha turned into some ordinary, non-descript girl. Approaching a random employee, she faked a South African accent.
“Excuse me? Did something happen?”
The stressed out young man barely glanced up before keep typing like his life depended on it.
“You kidding me? Living under a rock, miss? Didn’t you watch what those American fucks did two weeks ago? Our president is on the verge of declaring war.”
Fuck.
Not bothering to thank him, Natasha walked towards a cab.
~*~
Fuck again. Natasha thought when she got to the hospital. It was a war zone. Nurses, doctors, families running around and screaming at each other, patients being wheeled in gurneys.
A tired doctor, a bit taller than Natasha, sighed and knocked on the on-call room. Receiving no answer, she got in and Natasha subtly followed.
Getting out with the same heavy bags under her eyes and blonde hair of the doctor, and an ill-fitting white coat, Natasha went to one of the nurse stations and got into their system.
Barnes was undergoing surgery right now. But… Natasha frowned, he was a Super Soldier, and two days was enough for Steve to heal from the beating Barnes gave him and dropping from the Hellicarrier back in 2014.
Ok, she winced inwardly, a bomb to the face wasn’t exactly the same.
Searching for it, the surgery was classified as trauma with a plastic surgeon to assist. The most likely was burn treatment, nothing that would threaten his life.
Getting him out of here could compromise his location and as the one around, Steve’s rage would zero on her. Natasha could cover her tracks well enough that a muscle head like Steve would never be able to sniff her out but the Winter Soldier is a person of interest and if anyone uncovers it…
Deciding that she got everything she could, Natasha shed her disguise for another one and went back to the airport.
~*~
Staying silent about the Starks’ deaths wasn’t a new strategy for her as Steve thought it was.
Natasha saw no reason to divulge information that would make one of her teammates, worse yet: one of the pillars of the Avengers, go berserk. Steve would drag anyone down with him and she would be damned if she got caught in some emotional crossfire.
Two days after he vanished, Steve appeared looking as haggard as he could, unshaved and unwashed. Natasha raised an eyebrow at him.
“Done behaving like an idiot?”
The glare she got in return made her other eyebrow join the first one.
“If you’re not gonna help…”
But this annoyed Natasha, “You never even asked, you just took off and couldn’t even be bothered to take your cellphone with you. No way of contacting or finding you. So forgive me if I call you an idiot right now.”
This deflated Steve but Natasha could still see the fire in the almost frantic eyes.
“Take a shower, eat something and then we will see what we can do.”
Not knowing what to say, Steve nodded and went to his room.
Not unlike a child. Natasha rolled her eyes.
Once he looked human, the redhead already carefully made her plans.
“Sit down, Steve.” She waited while he did so, “While you were out doing who knows what. I tried to gather information.”
“I was… I… I didn’t know what I thought, I went to some hospitals in Brooklyn…”
Natasha had to work hard not to let out any expression at that piece of information, What an idiot, “Right. I managed to…”
They were interrupted by Sam who looked relieved at seeing Steve there. The spy tried not to feel annoyed and then dread at Wilson’s next words, looking very solemn.
“I’m so sorry, man.”
“Yeah. But it’ll be ok, we will be ok.”
“Uh,” Sam eyed them, “yes, we will… Steve you are taking this a lot better than I thought you would.”
And Natasha had a very, very bad feeling.
“We will fix this and then everything will be fine again.”
“What do you mean by “fix”?” Sam frowned.
“We will find Bucky, we will get him help and everything will be ok.”
The airman opened his mouth but nothing came out. He closed and opened his mouth again looking half confused half anxious and Natasha froze not knowing if she should leap at Sam or cut herself out, disappear while she still could.
“Steve… did you see… the latest news?” Sam was careful with his words and in any other occasion Natasha would be impressed at the tact shown.
“Sam, you know that I’m just a little guy from Brooklyn.”
“Uh… not sure what that has to do with anything but…” the baffled airman squared his shoulders, he did this before, “Steve… I’m sorry for bringing you this news but Sargent Barnes died, I’m sorry for your loss.”
And Natasha closed her eyes.
~*~
Tony was in Vienna with Rhodey and Vision.
“Boss?” the billionaire took a step back to answer his earpiece.
“Yep?”
“Uh…I don’t know where to begin…”
“From the beginning is a nice place.” He joked lightly, distracted by the data for SI’s new launch.
“Ok. As you know, a few days ago, Ms. Romanova asked for access to SI’s satellites.”
“Yeah, like that was gonna happen.”
“Indeed. Then she tried to… convince Kate Philips from R&D to give it to her with no more success than she had with you. After that, Ms. Romanova hacked into a NASA satellite.”
Tony choked on the coffee he was sipping.
“Sorry for this, Boss.”
“Not on you, Fri. Please tell me that NASA doesn’t know…”
“I’m really sorry, Boss. Ms. Romanova covered her tracks getting in but… it seems that finding Sargent Barnes in Lagos, Nigeria, was quite the excitement because she forgot to disconnect the facial recognition from their satellites.”
“Oh, my god.” Tony rubbed his temples.
“Yep. We got permission to review the Nigerian airport's footage and Ms. Romanova was identified by our own facial recognition. She headed to Lagos University Teaching Hospital and hacked into their system, Dr. Hawley had injection punctures and a sedative in her system was identified.”
“Oh, my god.” This time he groaned.
“Mr. Wilson informed, very politely and respectfully about Sargent Barnes’ death which…”
“Explains the wreck that became of the common area?” Tony was looking at his tablet that now showed what was left of the lounge.
“Yes. And just now, Mr. Barton shot tranquilizers when Mr. Rogers moved against Ms. Romanova.”
“I honestly don’t have enough energy for this.” The billionaire frowned, “Why did Rogers get all macho-man on Romanoff?”
“She was aware of Sargent Barnes’ condition and didn’t divulge it fast enough.”
“That the guy got caught in the crossfire in Nigeria? Isn’t it common knowledge?” Tony saw it on TV…
“Apparently not to everyone, Boss.”
“Ok, what happened next?”
“All of this is happening as we speak, Boss. Ms. Romanova, Mr. Barton and Mr. Wilson are taking Mr. Rogers to the Hulk Room.”
“Uh, one of the few good calls they did in all this mess.”
“You said it.”
“Well, whatever, I tasked Wilson to try and convince Maximoff not to… parade around for now…”
“Boss… your explanation to Colonel Man… I don’t understand why Ms. Maximoff’s visa is your concern.”
“It’s not, not even close. But the Avengers are still associated with Iron Man, I am Iron Man and I’m still the majority stockholder and CTO of SI. If one of the Avengers goes down…SI will suffer for it.”
“And that’s why the long term plan of distancing yourself from the Avengers.”
“Oh, yep. Then I cut everything, funds, the Compounds, everything will be UN property and most importantly their problem and not on me anymore.”
“But for now, the Avengers are still, if only by proxy, your problem?” Fri double checked.
Tony turned to see the Sokovia Accords being officially ratified and signed by the first country: Wakanda and took a look at his StarkPhone, an email confirming SI selling the Compound to the UN and his shoulders dropped in relief.
“And in right this second: no longer my problem. Any of it.”
“Hmmm… in that case, the fact that Mr. Rogers escaped confinement and went through Ms. Romanova, rendering her unconscious and leaving her quite bruised and is en route for Lagos University Teaching Hospital is not your problem, right?”
Tony’s deadpan didn’t match the high pitch his voice came out with, “Excuse me?”
“…you just said it’s no longer your problem, Boss.”
Tony opened and closed his mouth, ignoring Rhodey that was approaching and frowning at him.
“Uh…it’s not…but… Rhodey!”
“Yes?”
“So… remember when the Winter Soldier was taken out by that explosion that Maximoff failed to contain?”
“Yes?”
“And that two days later, he succumbed to his injuries?”
“Yes? Tony what’s going on?”
“So apparently that was news for Rogers and he found out not through the news like the rest of the world but like… right now and he is going to Nigeria to… do something stupid.”
Rhodey didn’t even blink, “Are you kidding me?”
“I wish I was.”
“Son of a bitch.”
~*~
Getting there was a nightmare. Customs was, understandably, not very willing to let Americans through regardless of who they were but the second the Nigerian president got wind of who exactly wanted to barge into a hospital, he requested a meeting.
“I understand time is of essence and since I doubt my peace keepers will make a dent in a Super Soldier, you see the need for me to call some friends and not be completely dependent on Americans to do the job.”
“We understand, Mr. President and as the new, if interim, leader of the Avengers and as a fellow American, I apologize for the consequences of Mr. Rogers and Ms. Maximoff’s actions.”
“Yes, yes,” the man waved Rhodey away just as there was a knock in the door, “Yes?”
“I’m sorry for the interruption, Mr. President but the Kenyan party is here.”
“Good!” and that was the first smile the man gave, “The Kenyan president answered my request and send a fully and officially trained team of Enhanced.”
“They are sanctioned?” Rhodey was surprised to hear, the Accords were ratified not even six hours ago.
“We don’t want to be left behind, Colonel. The South African one already started training.”
The first one through the door was a woman that both Rhodey and Tony recognized.
“Storm?”
“Hello, Dr. Stark, Colonel Rhodes, a pleasure to meet you.”
“Ms. Munroe.” Rhodey nodded.
“These are my teammates for this mission: Flint and Bedlam.”
“I heard of you,” Tony nodded to Flint, “I think you alone would be enough to contain Rogers if what I heard holds water.”
Flint just offered a smirk.
“While true enough,” The Nigerian president addressed Tony, “I’m not about to take any chances with a hospital, Dr. Stark.”
“Naturally. I’m sorry.”
“Iron Man and War Machine will offer backup.” Rhodey also took a metaphorical step back.
They managed to intercept Rogers but not before the attending doctor on call got on the scene.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Rogers. But what exactly are you complaining about?”
“You let him die!”
Ororo held her hand up and despite her blank face Tony just knew that she was as lost as they were in how to proceed.
Rogers illegally entered Nigeria… again, but other than that he didn’t actually do anything, isn’t doing anything.
Although that would end the second the general population learned of his presence here.
Still, Ororo was clearly unwilling to escalate the situation or back Rogers into a corner and make him feel the need to resort to violence in a hospital.
“We did everything we could. But we are not prepared to handle the treatment of an Enhanced. The doctors working here have no knowledge or training to deal with one and this hospital hardly has the equipment to do so either.”
“Then you had to hand it over to someone who could! Someone that knew what they were doing!”
Tony and Rhodey exchanged incredulous and bland glances. Talk about hypocrisy.
But the doctor didn’t react, “Oh? When the victims of the Lagos bombing got here, we prioritized and there were too many victims for us to realize that there was an Enhanced in the middle so we treated Mr. Barnes the way we would any other patient. His bones were healing so fast, they were healing wrong, we had to break the bones so they would heal correctly. Then the severe third degree burns: aggressive antibiotics treatment and we had no way of knowing that he was a Super Soldier in the middle of a trauma treatment and since he had no id anywhere we had no way of knowing that James Barnes was allergic to them or how the Serum would counter it.
Aside from everything I just said, this is a teaching hospital, Mr. Rogers, there are students working here, learning here. What happened was a horrible mistake but it wasn’t imprudence or negligence.”
The doctor took a deep breath before his features softened in the subtlest way, “Yes, the fact that Sargent Barnes died is because of our treatment and we should have had handed the care for more specialized parties but knowing and believing only what we did then: that he was the victim of a bomb of an unspecified and possible chemical compound, severe trauma with multiple broken bones, third degree burns in thirty percent of the body, possible severe smoke inhalation and not mentioning everything we didn’t manage to detect… in any other, Baseline, patient, that would mean that moving him anywhere would kill him for sure. We try to save as many we can, but sometimes that doesn’t mean everyone.”
The silence went on as Steve’s face went paler.
They didn’t bother to talk to anyone about what kind of bomb it was. They just went home after consoling themselves that they did what they could.
But that didn’t stop people from dying and wrong treatment to be delivered.
Steve made Natasha and Sam promise not to say anything about Bucky and barely anyone knows that he is around so why would people be on the lookout for an Enhanced? And even if they were, Steve made damn sure to protect all information about Bucky and if he hadn’t even Steve didn’t know that Bucky was allergic to anything, hell, Steve didn’t even know how the Serum worked on… immune system was it?
And then that last phrase. Wasn’t that exactly what he was arguing two days ago?
And it didn’t make a single difference for Steve because he still lost Bucky… just like it shouldn’t have a make difference back then, because people still died and their families and friends are feeling what he was feeling… and Steve had no one to blame but himself.