Just A Normal Kid

Chapter 24

Rosie silently stayed behind after Steve left, waiting for Tony to acknowledge her. She had long since realised that he preferred her company to anyone else's when upset, even more than her dad or Pepper. It was a few minutes before he spoke again.

"When did you find this?"

"Maybe an hour ago? It was with the rest of the Winter Soldier files we recovered."

"You convinced him to show it to me."

It wasn't a question, but a statement that she couldn't deny.

Instead, she said, "He would have eventually... Steve-he's-he's not the kind of man to hide stuff like this. So even though he desperately wants to protect his friend, his morals would convince him to tell you someday or the other." Rosie shut down the holograms around them with a wave of her hand. "As much as he's accepted the modern world, he still misses his past. And Barnes-he's a big part of that."

Tony blew out a long, hard, breath, the anger and tension draining out of him in one go. He threw the file onto the worktop with a defeated air. "I hate him, Rosie. I really really hate Captain Righteousness and his high-and-mighty attitude."

"We both know that's not true, Tony," she calmly replied. "You guys might not have gotten along well with each other back when the Avengers first formed, but things have definitely changed after four years of working together."

He scowled. Rosie ploughed on, not wanting to give Tony a chance to get a counter-argument in until she finished her piece. "I think that you're letting your hatred for Howard affect your opinion of Steve. You hate Captain America for ruining your childhood and your relationship with Howard. You don't hate Steve."

Her mini-speech done, she gave Tony a loose hug, pressing a kiss to his cheek. "Do you want me to stay while you read through this stuff?"

His tight nod was answer enough. Rosie retreated to a corner of the lab, giving Tony the space he needed. She made herself as unobtrusive as possible, quietly getting back to her reading and interpretation of Tony's very latest doctoral thesis. It was interesting, complicated work that kept her occupied for the next few hours until he was ready to talk.

Tony - in his characteristic way - abruptly broke the silence between them with a blunt - "I'm shocked that the man survived a month with HYDRA. Barnes had to have been unbelievably resilient to have made it seventy."

She hummed in agreement, not saying anything else. Tony continued, "How are you trying to find him?"

"Steve and Sam are doing most of the work right now. My part - that is the tech bit of it - comes in after we've gone through the files and have as much data as we can gather. I'm not too optimistic, though. The Winter Soldier remained a ghost story for more than fifty years. He knows how to hide."

A light bulb seemed to go off in Tony's head. "The Winter Soldier knows how to hide, but what about Barnes? From what I read, HYDRA buried the actual him somewhere deep inside his own mind to get their perfect assassin. Capsicle definitely made progress on that front. Sooner or later, Barnes is gonna remember enough of his life and slip up enough for us to find him."

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Even with Tony's help and superior tech, they were no closer to finding Barnes than they had been after the data dump. Their strategy wasn't working - it was time to find a new one.

Rosie began to think about what Mr. Barnes could possibly be doing. She tried to think like him, using whatever Natasha and Sharon had told her about spy training to supplement her knowledge. She tried to put herself in his place. Where would he go? What would he do? What was he thinking?