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[b]March 20th, 2005[/b]
[b]07:12am[/b]

Through the mist at Arlington Cemetery poked the top of a statue that caused Bucky Barnes to choke up a little. They called it the Steve Rogers Memorial and it stood tall over the most venerated war dead in American history as a reminder of the sacrifice Rogers had made that day over the North Atlantic. He was clad in full Captain America uniform with a flag in one hand and his shield held high above his head as if charging into battle. The mist was so thick that Barnes could barely see a few feet in front of him so he used the top of the shield poking through it to navigate. Several paces behind him was his SHIELD escort, Agent Maria Hill, who Fury had insisted Barnes take with him. The pair had spoken few words on the way there but she seemed a strong and capable woman. That much was clear from the way she carried herself.

It meant something to him that even amidst the chaos at SHIELD, Fury had found time to allow Barnes to pay his respects. From what Bucky understood, Fury had lost a friend recently too and he’d wondered whether that explained how quick he had been to insist Bucky visit Arlington. Perhaps he thought the visit might help persuade Bucky to take him up on the offered he’d made last night. Either way Barnes was no closer to having one now than he’d been when Fury had made him it. The footage he'd shown him had made his blood run cold. That face and that symbol were about the only things since he’d woken up that were familiar to Barnes. HYDRA was back and the Red Skull with them. Fury meant for Bucky to lead the fight against them. If Bucky was honest with himself he wasn’t sure he had any fight left in him. Not without Steve beside him.

Agent Hill looked at Bucky with a polite smile as they reached the foot of the statue. “I’ll give you some time.”

“It’s fine.”

She nodded, perhaps sensing that he didn’t want to be alone, and the two of them observed the iconic statue in silence. On the way over Hill had told him about the grave they had at Arlington for him and Barnes had been insistent he didn't wanted to see it. Stood before Steve’s statue he was more certain that he’d made the right decision. Though he knew Fury was telling the truth about Steve, it hadn’t quite sunk in until he was stood there in front of the statue. He didn’t want to know how he’d feel seeing his own name on a gravestone.

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“This is [i]really[/i] something,” Bucky said, shaking his head with wonderment as he stared up at it. “Steve would have hated it.”

Gallows humour had been putting soldiers at ease for as long as there had been soldiers and Bucky was far from immune to it. From Maria Hill's smile it seemed neither was she. As surreal as the experience was for Barnes, he understood it must have been equally surreal for Hill too, and when she’d woken up that morning she likely hadn’t figured on taking Captain America’s sidekick to visit the Steve Rogers Memorial.

“They tell me there were two other Captain Americas after Steve died,” Bucky said pensively. “What happened to them?”

“The first, Jeffrey Mace, was a Bugle news reporter that saw the footage of Captain America in action and left the confines of his office to serve when he had no need to. They say he was softly spoken, well educated too, could have stayed at home and left the fighting to somebody else but he volunteered. After Zemo’s plane, Mace stepped volunteered [i]again[/i] and saw out the war effort as Captain America. Every few years after that he’d stick his head above the parapet when the country needed him, needed [i]reassurance[/i], and continued to do so for the best part of two decades.”

“Two decades?” Bucky said with an impressed look. “Where the hell is [i]his[/i] statue?”

“You can blame that on Frank Simpson,” Agent Hill muttered uncomfortably. “Simpson was the complete opposite of Mace. Violent, quick to anger, and difficult to control at the best of times. With Vietnam going against us the government of the day considered him something of a necessary evil. Shortly after the assault on Madripoor in 1978 he went rogue, started working with some nasty people, and that brought about an end to the government’s dalliances with recreating Erskine’s serum. Both Mace and Simpson were all but written out of the history books as a result.”

Bucky shook his head. “You go to sleep for sixty years and the whole world turns to crap.”

It made sense that government had attempted to replace Steve after he’d died but the thought of someone else wearing that uniform made Bucky uncomfortable. The thought of doing it himself made him even more uncomfortable. Unlike Steve, Bucky didn’t have Erskine’s formula running through his veins and he wasn’t capable of the Herculean feats of strength that Rogers regularly performed. Steve recounting to him once that Erskine believed the formula simply amplified the qualities of those that took it. Steve Rogers was the kind of man that came around once in a lifetime. He was Captain America before that serum was in his veins. Bucky would never be able to match up to that. He wasn’t sure he even wanted to.

From beside him, he noticed Maria Hill take a glanced down at her the watch around her wrist. “Have you given much thought to Director Fury’s proposition?”

Barnes sighed. “I haven’t been able to think about much else.”

“What are you doing to do?”

Bucky stared up at the statue of Steve. He had been his best friend, his mentor, and the closest thing he ever had to a brother. It was hard for other people to understand the bond men forged when they put their lives at risk for one another on the battlefield as often as they had. Even with Steve gone he could feel the pull of their bond on him and the sense of obligation that came with it.

“Your Director knew what my answer would be the second he asked me,” Bucky said through gritted teeth. “And so did I.”

Agent Hill gestured up at the statue, a curious look appearing on her face. “Is it what he would have wanted?”

Bucky pushed his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket and stared down at the ground. He searched his feelings and tried to remember every conversation he and Steve had ever had in the hopes of answering her question as honestly as possible. He thought of all the times they had sat around a fire eating cold beans out a tin and regaled each other with stories of home. How Steve had waxed lyrical about Brooklyn and wanting to become an artist when the war was over and done with. Never once had Steve revelled in the fighting or showed any enjoyment in the violence they were forced to partake in but he pined after home and peace often.

“To be honest, I think he’d have been too damned cut up that the world was still tearing itself to pieces to know what to think.”

Embarrassment swept over Maria Hill's face and Bucky watched as she searched for some words of consolation. There was a quiet buzzing noise and Hill looked slightly relieved. She pressed her finger against her earpiece and turned away from Barnes to engage in a conversation of inaudible murmuring.

"What's going on?" Bucky asked curiously. "Is something wrong?"

Once done Hill turned back to him, let out a heavy sigh, and pushed a strand a hair from her forehead. "There was an... [i]incident[/i] at the Triskelion last night. A rogue SHIELD agent absconded with an important piece of SHIELD property and in the process assaulted the Director and two SHIELD agents. Director Fury wanted to tell you about it at the time but given you'd not long been awake he decided against it. He wanted to give you an opportunity to come here and pay your respects first. I guess he hoped the agent in question would come to their senses and return it."

Bucky pinched the bridge of his nose. "Return what? Stop talking in riddles and tell me what [i]actually[/i] happened, Agent Hill."

"It's the shield," Hill muttered, her voice faltering slightly. "She stole the shield."

As the words registered in Bucky's mind he felt an anger spread from the deepest pit of his stomach up through his chest and lungs, snaking its way up his throat, before finding its home on his face, flushing it a deep red with rage. His hands balled into fists as he wondered to himself what kind of sick, twisted individual would do such a thing. Other than memories, the shield was all that Bucky had left of Steve and someone had tried to take it from him.

He was going to find them and make them hurt in ways they didn't know were possible. And he was going to [i]make sure[/i] he enjoyed it.