Marlow woke up the next morning with a strange sense of limbo where she wasn't sure if she should feel relieved or not. The night before she'd basically went straight from the balcony to her bed, needing little more than the blanket around her shoulders to fall asleep.
Why she was so tired, she wasn't sure, but she'd woken up just before nine in the morning, finding a text on her phone from Bucky saying they'd landed and were on their way to the prison. She also had a message from an unknown number—
Torres, she realized.
Leaving her phone on her bed, she went to the kitchen to start coffee before going to change and get ready for the day. Each time she glanced at her phone, she felt her stomach becoming tighter and tighter. Eventually, she returned to the kitchen and filled her mug before wandering back into her room, hesitantly bringing herself to her bookshelf.
Her tablet was on the top shelf, purposefully tucked out of sight on one of her first nights here. After she listed her victims, the piece of technology felt ominous and unsafe. Like it was the thing that made what she'd done real, not her.
But that was foolishness; her tablet was just an object.
She reached her hand up and felt along the edge until her fingers touched the casing, then she pulled it down, using her sleeve to wipe away the dust that covered it. As she powered it up, she crawled onto her bed, propping her back against the wall between her windows as she went through each security point.
Her first task was tracking Bucky and Sam's phone, which she did with ease considering they made sure to enable tracking to her phone. Once that link was established, she moved onto the next task; searching Hydra servers.
She tapped into the programs she'd not looked at in months, eyes scanning and filtering through the last five years of newly mined data. She wasn't positive that the information would have come about in the last half decade, but she figured it was the best place to start and see if there was any talk.
It was a slow process—always was—but longer this time because every so often her mind would wander to Bucky and Sam, trying to guess what was happening on the other side of the world. No new messages were coming through, and their trackers hadn't moved from their location at the West entrance, so they likely had to leave their phones at check in.
She just had to wait.
She hated waiting.
Her fingers swiped back to the servers, finding her place on the page where she'd left off.
It was something about experimentation, but there was information missing. Most of the files people decrypted were redacted and missing words if not paragraphs, but she did her best to piece together the trials.
Testing for some sort of drug, or enhancement, with temporary success before patients succumbed to side effects. She followed the trail of information, linking one doctor to another, one facility to the next, until she was sure that what she was reading was unrelated.
If only she didn't spend two hours sniffing at a dead end.
Just to be thorough, she searched for connections with the doctors and anyone else involved in that project, but nothing led to anything significant or super soldier related, so she finally called it off.
Her next lead was a call for scientists in the late nineties with knowledge in chemistry and biology. There were no other details, and really, that could be for anything, but she couldn't not look into it.
Again, each link she followed seemed to connect to nothing important, although there were mentions of a doctor—or maybe multiple—over a number of years. It seemed like it could possibly be a supervisor, or overseer, or team that was involved in a bunch of important projects before Hydra fell, but she couldn't be sure.
The issue was that there were no names connected to anything, no one that she could follow up on to find out if they were still active, or to cross reference with other files.
It was frustrating, and she decided that she needed to go through the information that Torres sent her before diving any further into Hydra. She needed background if she wanted to recognize any leads. So, she went into the text he sent her, transferring the files to her tablet before diving into them.
The group was apparently called the Flag Smashers... They'd been active a couple of months... Have been stealing goods and medicine... Have gained a relatively large online community.
That's where she could get an in.
She started searching the internet for any mentions of the Flag Smashers, sending each result to join the files that Torres sent her. It wasn't much to go off of, just notices of where people would meet, information about who they were, why others should join their cause, the things that the governments were failing them on.
And the more she read, the more she understood Sam's reluctant tone the night before; they'd become refuges, yet no one was willing to help them. No government was taking responsibility, and no one seemed to be giving them the necessary resources.
She weighed the situation in her mind, knowing full well that while it was wrong to steal mass quantities of resources, they needed supplies from somewhere. And in all honesty, they hadn't been particularly violent until their run in with Bucky and Sam, and even that was defence from what she understood...
Sam had the right idea; talk to them, try to reason, come to a solution.
God, he's so good.
There are so many others that would just attack—not listen and turn a blind eye to the wrongs that had been done to them. He and Steve were so alike in that sense... and that's why Sam should be Captain America.
Should have been, she corrected.
That chance was gone. Gone to someone she didn't trust would make the same call as Sam.
Although maybe she should. This other guy, Walker, was chosen by the government. He likely had no intention of taking on such a position until someone brought it to him, and he was probably just following orders like the soldier he was. If it wasn't him, who would it be? Would they be worse or better?
Maybe she shouldn't be as judgemental against him as much as the system that put him in the position. He probably genuinely wanted to help and use his position to do good—to do the title justice.
Although Bucky sure didn't seem convinced by the guy the night before. But Bucky had a lot of history with that shield... The news was more shocking to him. More personal...
God, I'm overanalyzing this.
She focused back on the screens, swiping over to the trackers to check their progress. At some point, they'd moved locations, although the map gave little indication of where they were. It was a large building in what seemed like an industrial area, so possibly a garage or warehouse... Why they were there though, she had no idea.
Grabbing her phone, she sent a quick message to Bucky, asking for an update when they had the chance before going back to the pages of Flag Smasher information.
Hopefully with the background she gathered, she could start looking for any connections with Hydra—or maybe something to link them to the serum.
Or anything.
⁂
She was in the middle of making herself lunch when her music paused to play her ringtone. Dropping the knife she'd been using, she accepting the call from Bucky before putting it onto speaker phone.
"Hello?"
"Morning, Sweet—heart..." Bucky greeted stiltedly, voice getting quiet.
"Morning—"
"Sweetheart?" Sam repeated teasingly. "Since when is she Sweetheart?"
"Skip it, Sam."
"No, no," Sam laughed from somewhere, "I don't want to skip it. Is this normal? Are you two sweethearts? You don't call me Sweetheart."
"Sam," Bucky warned, "we don't need to be having this conversation right now."
Sam coughed, "Yah, you're right... But I'm not dropping it."
"Don't stop on my account," someone said, although it was too quiet to tell who it'd come from.
"Shut it," Bucky snapped.
Confusion coursed through Marlow, never having heard him speak to someone like that. But before she could say anything, Bucky was speaking again.
"Have you found anything?"
The question had her deflating; she wasn't used to not being able to find information. "No. Who ever this is covered their tracks well, and I can't find anything. The closest I could find were a few details on scientists back in the nineties, but I think that was too early."
"Try to add a woman named Selby into your search. And Madripoor," Sam offered..
"Selby? S-e-l-b-y?"
"Yes."
"I'll see what comes up," she nodded. "What have you two found?"
"A stray," Sam said pointedly.
"Zemo had a lead," Bucky added, "we're following it."
"It's the Selby woman?"
"Mhmm."
"At least it's something. How did it go anyways?"
"Go ahead, Buck, you have the floor," Sam said pointedly.
Jesus, no one is in a good mood apparently.
"He hasn't changed..." Bucky started, "still hates super-soldiers."
"That's comforting."
"But we need him. He'll get us connected to people with answers."
Her brows furrowed. "What? How is he going to connect you to people?"
Silence dragged on the other end long enough she wondered if the call ended.
"Come on, why not walk her through your hypotheticals?" Sam suggested.
"Sam," Bucky warned again. "Marlow, if anyone asks questions, Zemo is still in prison."
She dropped her head and groaned. "What the hell did you guys do?"
"No, not us, him. This was all your Sweetheart," Sam argued.
"He's not my Sweetheart," she muttered.
"We pulled him out."
"Pulled him out?" she repeated. "You pulled Zemo out of jail? Legally, right? You got him a leave under guidelines? Jesus Christ, tell me this is legal."
"We—"
"You—"
"You're complicit, Sam. We broke him out."
"Oh my God," she breathed, scrubbing her hand down her face. "You can't just break someone out of jail!"
"We need him," Bucky justified.
"Not that badly! If you guys get caught, you're fucked. Why would you do this? Oh my God."
"Mar, I didn't like it at first either, but it's done. He's useful and we can't just walk him back now."
"You're both going to give me an aneurism. This is... Shit, this is insane."
"Tell me about it," Sam agreed.
"It'll be fine. Once we get this figured out, we'll put him back where he needs to go."
"It better. I obviously won't say anything, but be careful."
"We will."
"What's your next move?"
"We're on our way to the airport. We're heading to Madripoor."
"God, you're never going to be home," she mumbled.
"I will. Soon."
She took a deep breath and braced her forearms on the counter, mind running over what they just told her.
They helped a murderer escape prison. A murderer who was partly responsible for her friends being on the run. "Can he hear me?"
"Yes."
"It's nice to meet you... Marlow." His voice was gentle, but... threatening. He spoke as if he knew something she didn't—and she didn't like that.
A stroke of anger rose in her stomach, and she let out a breath. "I want you to listen, Zemo; you fucked my friends over before, but I wasn't around then. If you do anything to them, I will track you down and make you regret ever stepping foot outside of that prison."
"Miss, while it is flattering that you would put so much energy into finding me, it does not intimidate me."
"It's not energy. I could do it before morning coffee. But I will put energy into making you wish for death. I've done worse to people who deserved better, so don't think I won't make good on that promise."
"Charming girl you have, James."
"She's not mine," Bucky bit.
"Oh, but you wish she were. Wouldn't you love to see her come to your rescue?"
"I could come now," she offered, shoulders tight at the man's arrogance.
"It's alright, Miss. I have no intention of hurting your friends."
"Glad to hear it," she grit. "How far are you to the airport?"
"Few minutes. It's going to the middle of the night your time when we land though, so hopefully we'll have some updates for you when you wake up," Bucky explained.
"Alright, and I'll do my best to look into Selby and any of her connections."
"Thanks Mar, we appreciate the help," Sam said.
"I'm not doing that much; I haven't been able to find anything important so far."
Sam let out a sigh. "We knew it was going to be hard to find information, that's why none of this has been on our radar."
"I think it has more to do with focus being on everyone coming back. It was the perfect time to pump out some super soldiers."
"We don't know if they were around before the Snap or not. For all we know, they might have been around before Wakanda."
"Maybe... but either way, they covered their tracks well and I don't appreciate it."
"Don't worry, we'll figure it out," Bucky said gently. "Keep us posted with how you're doing, and we'll talk soon, alright?"
"Yah, that sounds good. Stay safe, guys."
"Thank you, Marlow," came Zemo's voice.
"Talk to you soon, Mar," Sam added.
"Bye, Marlow," Bucky said quietly before the line went dead.
Her mind couldn't quite process what she'd been told.
She didn't know much about him Zemo, but she knew enough that she wouldn't want to be within a hundred miles of the man, let alone working with him.
And God, they broke him out of prison.
They're going to get themselves arrested.
⁂
Although she worked until the early hours of the morning, Marlow wasn't able to get a proper sleep that night knowing Sam and Bucky were on their way to meet some type of gang-leader.
From what she could find, Selby had her hand in a lot of pots; a nightclub owner, arms dealer, drug trafficker—and although she no doubt had connections, she couldn't understand why she would know about super soldiers.
Sam seemed to think it wasn't Hydra, but Marlow wasn't so sure. They'd held on for decades in the darkness; it was possible the Avengers didn't actually take out the last of their operations.
Or maybe there was a neo-Hydra group somewhere. Having access to Hydra's records and affairs gave anyone with a computer the blueprints to fetishizing the most destructive global super-power in history. Sure, there were gaps, but if someone like Zemo could scour the internet and find a way to rip the Avengers apart from the inside out in a matter of months, it was scary to think what someone could do in a span of five years.
Since she'd woken up, she'd been clawing through the underbelly of the internet, gathering information on Selby. Well, her, and someone else whose name kept being repeated: Power Broker. Some other leader among the low of Madripoor, although this one seemed above Selby. It was clear she didn't work directly for him, but people seemed a lot more afraid of him than they did of her.
From the message they'd sent to her a few hours ago, this Power Broker wasn't on the agenda, so at least that was one last thing she had to worry about. They would be meeting Selby any time now, which made her itch to know what was happening.
If only they still had the equipment from before; the coms and body cameras and drones.
Instead, she kept herself distracted with the corrupt webpages and platforms of Madripoor' s dark web.
Until the feed became filled with posts about the Winter Soldier.
It wasn't helpful, and she was about to click away when she noticed one of the posts was dated to that day's date.
But that's not...
Her eyes ran over each grainy, unidentifiable thumbnail, and then post titles, and sure enough, each one had the same date.
The posts were new. But that wasn't possible because the Soldat was gone. Something was glitching. Or maybe she was glitching.
She clicked into one of the videos, her tablet immediately loading a darkened video. It began playing mid-scene, and sure enough, it was Bucky, absolutely bodying a man. And then another. And another.
Who ever took the video was shouting and laughing maniacally, like the rest of the crowd, and it was only when the faint sound of guns cocking that Bucky stopped. He was holding a man down against a bar by his throat, between who she was sure was Sam, and who she assumed was Zemo. The three of them seemed to exchange words, before the bartender said something and Bucky yanked the man off the bar before dropping him. Zemo stepped away first, clearing the way for Bucky and Sam to follow.
The video continued a few more moments, video zooming into the injured men before ending.
What the hell.
A million thoughts passed through her mind, struggling to understand why he was attacking those men, where they went, if they were alright now.
The video was posted five minutes ago. It just happened.
"Jesus fucking Christ," she grit, grabbing her phone and opening it. She was about to hit call when she paused.
She would blow their cover.
"Fuck," she bit, slamming her phone onto the couch beside her.
Swiping across her screens, she pulled up their locations, finding them in a small building in a crammed quarter of town. Selby's club.
They're still there.
What if they're being interrogated? Or hurt? Or—
Or maybe the plan is going how it's supposed to go. She was jumping to way too many conclusions, and she needed to stop before she worked herself into a panic.
Flipping back to the webpage, she refreshed the feed, checking to see if maybe the Soldat had been seen leaving, or any other news about him.
She just needed to wait. She just wasn't good at—
'Selby dead. ₿1K BOUNTY for her killers.'
"What the fuck?!"
Her feed began to be flooded with messages of the like, of videos of dark streets lit by the firing of automatic guns, of accusations being thrown around—many of which against the Zimniy Soldat, Smiling Tiger, and Zemo, who were the last people to see her alive.
But why would they kill her? She was their lead? They wouldn't have killed her. No way. Not Bucky and not Sam. And fucking hell, if Zemo killed her and framed them or dragged them down with him, she would find him.
She didn't know what to do, so she pulled up their locations again, seeing them moving through city streets before ducking down an alley and coming to a stop.
She held her breath, but they didn't move.
Her heart roared in her ears as she begged for their little tracking dots to move, to show that they didn't just get shot. That they weren't dying on the concrete of a far away country where she couldn't help them.
They wouldn't do that, right? They wouldn't. They couldn't.
But who was she kidding? They weren't invincible, bullets would kill them.
"Oh God, please," she begged, gripping her tablet to the point that its casing hurt her fingers.
Finally, Bucky's dot inched forward, and then Sam's, and she felt her entire body vibrate at the release of tension.
Their dots moved slowly for the first few minutes—and she watched every movement as they snaked through side streets and alleys—but they must have found a car because soon enough they were speeding across the city.
After a few minutes of watching, she stood, making her way to the kitchen where she propped her tablet against the backsplash, eyes barely straying from the map as she made herself a tea. As the minutes dragged by, she held herself back from sending Bucky a message. She knew that if she did and they were being watched or held captive, that message could be used against them. It was safer for her to wait until him or Sam reached out to her.
Even though it killed her to.
She checked the feeds a few more times, feeling a small sense of reassurance at the fact that no one was boasting that they found the trio, although it was unlikely that someone in power would announce that they had them. They would keep them isolated, making sure no one would know where to find them before starting to torture—
Stop.
Don't start that.
She swiped away from the webpage and back to the map, unsure of whether she should hope for the car to come to a stop or not.
Regardless of her feelings, about a minute later, their tracking dots slowed before they made their way into a building.
Okay.
Okay, okay, okay.
Breathe.
The dots moved with each other, and she forced herself to breath through every moment, but then Bucky diverged away from Sam's.
Oh God.
He's being separated.
That's not good.
Why are they being separated?
Why—
She jumped as her ringtone cut through her thoughts, heart thumping as she scrambled to the couch and answered it. "Hello?"
"Hey," Bucky breathed, voice sounding exhausted. "How are you?"
"Oh my God, Bucky—are you both alright? I've been watching what happened—tell me you're okay," she rushed, voice wavering.
"It's alright, we're both alright. Just a bit of a roadblock, but we ran into an old friend, so we're safe."
"Oh my God," she panted, burying her face in her hands. "What happened?" she pressed, her voice cracking as she felt relief flood through her.
"Selby was killed in the middle of our meeting, and a few people thought it was us. We were able to slip away though."
She nodded. "What happened before that?" she asked tentatively. "There are posts about the Soldat."
Bucky was silent on the other end for seconds that seemed to stretch into minutes. "It had to be believable. Part of the act... Zemo was trading me to Selby for information—"
"Trading you?! You're not a thing—"
"It's fine, Marlow, we needed information, we got some."
"That doesn't make it okay," she mumbled. "I get it was an act, but..."
He wasn't a thing. He couldn't be traded. Just the fact that that was the plan made her stomach churn.
"Everything's alright."
"I'm sorry you had to do that."
"So am I... But it's over. We have a new lead and someone that's going to help us follow it."
"Not another murderer, right?"
A quiet chuckle escaped him, and it worked to calm her nerves slightly. "No. A good one. I can't say who, but they've helped us before. We can trust them."
"You know, considering you're working with Zemo, trust doesn't seem necessary," she muttered pointedly.
"We needed him," he bit back. "Selby had the name of the man who's making the serum. Wilfred Nagel."
"Is he Hydra?"
"No. This isn't Hydra," he said forcefully.
"How can you be sure?" she pushed, voice harsher than she intended.
"Marlow..." Bucky sighed, "I don't think you should be helping with this anymore..."
"What?"
"You don't need this right now. Especially not when we can't be in contact to update you."
"I'm fine—"
"Every time we've talked you've sounded on the verge of tears. You shouldn't be putting yourself through this.'
"I'm not on the verge of tears because of Hydra, I'm on the verge of tears because I'm on the other side of the world and two of the people I care the most about are risking their lives and there's nothing I can do to help."
"You're helping by being on the other side of the world. You shouldn't even be going through those files."
"What do you want me to do? Just sit here and pretend nothing is happening?"
"Yes. You have been back five months, Marlow, you shouldn't be getting involved with stuff like this."
"And you should? Sam should? This isn't your job, you could leave Captain America to do it, but you got yourself involved."
"That man isn't Captain America. He's a kid in a costume and this is way out of his depth. It might not be my job, but like hell I'm going to sit back while Walker chases dummy leads."
"It's not your responsibility! Both of you can come home; send Zemo back to prison, give your information to Walker, and come home. This is getting too dangerous. Please."
Silence met her pleads and she cursed the burning in her throat.
"Come home."
"I can't come home yet. But you need to stop being involved. I'll send you updates that we're safe when I can but stay off the computer; just stay away from all of it."
"Bucky, I'm not going to do—"
"Marlow, for Gods sakes, listen. Stay away from the mission. Let us handle it."
"We both know that is going to happen, Bucky. Stay safe. I'll send you what I can."
"Mar—"
She pulled the phone from her ear and ended the call, a simultaneous confusion and anger brewing from their conversation.
He didn't have any right to stop her. Not when sitting and doing nothing would be so much worse than being involved. There was no way she could just sit back and ignore it all happening—not when at any minute they could apparently be shot or kidnapped or worse.
She wasn't stopping.
It didn't matter what he said, she was going to find information on that Nagel guy, and then she was going to get better connection with Sam and Bucky so she wasn't just watching helplessly.
It wasn't Bucky's call to make.
She was going to help her friends.
Hi all!
I want to say I'm sorry that it's been a month since I've posted last! By the time I got my course work done, I had no motivation to do anything...
I hope you like this chapter! Lmk what you think, and I hope everyone had good holidays!