Unknown Soldier

2. I Don't Mind Falling to Pieces

Steve walked down the stairs, inhaling the cold metallic scent of the vault ahead.  The gate behind the vault door had been wrenched violently out of place.  He swallowed.  He wouldn’t have known to come here if there hadn’t been a report of the damage.  He knew what to expect.  But to see the physical evidence before him was unsettling.  Sam walked passed him and scanned the place, then turned back with a grim look.  He forced himself to join Sam in the doorway and survey the mess.

The walls were covered in safety deposit boxes.  These were largely unharmed, except for an occasional fist-sized dent.  There was a large metal chair, though it was difficult to recognize.  It had been twisted and wrecked, as had what appeared to be various electrical panels and controls.  There was dried blood on the floor, not a large amount, but Steve wondered painfully whose it was.

“It had to be him, right, Cap?” Sam asked.

Steve was grateful for the relative cheeriness of Sam’s tone.  But perhaps that was a result of not having to see the chaos here as evidence of his best friend’s mental state, and blame himself accordingly for that.  “Yeah,” he answered, bending to look through the mess.

“They didn’t find anyone here.”

“Hmm?”  Steve looked up at him sharply.

“There weren’t any … bodies,” Sam said quietly, meeting Steve’s eye.

Steve glanced over at the dried blood.  “That’s good,” he said slowly.

“Yeah.”  Sam shifted his weight, looking around the room.  “I don’t think we’re going to find anything helpful here, Steve,” he said at last.

Steve straightened, wincing as the movement caused the wounds in his stomach to pull uncomfortably.  “You’re right,” he said, looking around the room as though maybe his friend would appear if he looked hard enough.

“Where to next?” Sam asked, his tone light.

He cleared his throat and focused on the mission.  “Maybe Pierce kept something at his house.  His office was demolished,” he added.

“And maybe it will be in English,” Sam said with a smile.

Steve allowed himself to smile back.  The file Natasha had secured for him was entirely in Russian.  His Russian was pretty bad, and he hadn’t quite figured out who he’d be willing to ask for a translation.  Sam had suggested using online translators, but Steve was wary of putting any of it on the internet.  What Natasha had done and the aftermath was a big deal and he wanted his fragile friend’s history to have no part in that.  The fewer people who knew what had really happened to Bucky Barnes, the better.

They walked back up the stairs and out of the bank.  It was an ongoing investigation, they’d been told by the officer at the front, but he was willing to allow Captain America inside.  Steve wondered if that was going to be a universal thing, because he had been concerned how much he and Sam could do without SHIELD to help them.  The police were perplexed by the fact that nothing appeared to have been stolen from the bank, and the bank owner swore that he had no idea what the equipment in his vault was.  So there wasn’t really a case the authorities knew how to approach.

Sam was parked down the street.  Steve was silent while Sam drove them to the outskirts of the city, where they were surrounded by sprawling mansions.  With everything in disarray, Steve was not surprised to find that Pierce’s house was untouched.  SHIELD would no doubt have liked to search it, and HYDRA would have wanted to destroy any evidence, but both were leaderless and unfocused.  For now.  Steve had only been out of the hospital for two days, and had not been there long, so everything was still in chaos.