Steve was desperate when he knocked on Sam Wilson's door. He literally had no other options.

Carrying an unconscious Natasha had taken a lot out of him, especially after the bomb blast. He was covered in plaster and dust and sweating profusely and Natasha wasn't in much better shape.

Thankfully, Sam didn't look too pissed when he opened the door. "Hey man."

Steve hated putting him on the spot, but they had nowhere else to go. "I'm sorry about this. We need a place to lay low."

Natasha added, "Everyone we know is trying to kill us."

"Not everyone." Sam opened the door and let them in. "Try not to make too much noise. The girls are still asleep upstairs"

"The girls?" Steve was confused.

"My sister and her friend. They just got back from college yesterday."

That was new. Sam had never mentioned having a sister before. If she was in college...

Steve felt even guiltier now, dragging Sam into this mess when he had a younger sister to look after. There was also the matter of her friend. He'd now put two young women in danger just by association. This opened up an entirely new train of thought for him as he cleaned up.

Other agents at S.H.I.E.L.D were not like him or Natasha.

They had families, people who depended on them; people who would be in deep trouble if HYDRA caught hold of them. He'd seen enough during the war to know that HYDRA didn't care a single bit about committing atrocities on innocents. An involuntary shudder ran up his spine as he recalled some of the gruesome sights he'd seen in the HYDRA prisons. Who knew how much worse things had gotten in the last seventy years?

There had to be some way to protect the innocents from the mess that he was currently involved in, but he simply didn't know enough about the future to come with a proper plan. Deciding to bring it up with Natasha, Steve focused his attention on other things.

He trusted Natasha with his life, but it didn't mean that she told him all her secrets; nor did he expect her to. She had been in this business for years, she would have hidden allies who could help them. On the other hand, he knew she didn't trust easily and made it his main job build some of that necessary trust. It began with telling her the truth when she asked him if he trusted her to save his life. "I would now. And I'm always honest."

"You seem pretty chipper for someone who just found out they died for nothing." she observed.

He simply replied, "Well, I guess I just like to know who I'm fighting." And he did. Steve was glad to know that Peggy, Howard and Phillips' work hadn't been a complete failure. He hadn't been betrayed by the organisation he'd put his trust in. S.H.I.E.L.D would survive. They just had to get the rot out.

Sam knocked on the open doorway at that exact moment, "I made breakfast. If you guys...eat that sort of thing."

They were sitting at the table when Steve heard the sounds of two people moving down the stairs. A young woman who had a remarkable resemblance to Sam came into view first. Any idiot could see that she was his sister.

She was looking back over her shoulder and talking to someone who they couldn't see. "-go for a walk. God knows I need the fresh air after being cooped up so long in our dorm. Sam said that he'd made breakfast-" She had seen him.

Steve gave her a tiny wave and a smile as her eyes widened comically. She stumbled backwards out of the kitchen, shouting, "Sam? Is that Captain America sitting at our dining table?"

"Wait what?" He heard another female voice and a younger, much shorter girl came into view behind her. Steve recognized her, and his eyes widened. Sam walked inside, carrying a jug of milk. "Cap, this is my sister Suzanne and-"

At that exact moment, Natasha came in. Her eyes glossed over Suzanne and landed on the other girl, both of them doing double takes when they saw each other. "Rosie?" She asked just as a "Rosanna?" slipped from his lips.

Natasha whirled on him. "How the hell do you know her?"

"Whoa, chill, Tasha. We met while I was visiting Aunt Peggy."

"That's her?" Suzanne asked, pushing Rosie behind her and standing protectively in front of the younger girl. "How did you know she was staying with us?" She demanded.

Sam looked as confused as Steve felt. He raised his voice. "Whoa whoa. Wait a second. What the heck is going on here in my kitchen? How do you know Miss Super-spy here, and why the hell is Suzie so aggressive?"

Natasha sighed and sat down beside Steve, "You told her but not him?"

The girl just shrugged. "I'm just a kid who's done with college and wanted a break. So you really are on the run from S.H.I.E.L.D, then?"

The casual revelation caused Steve to nearly jump out of his seat with shock, and Sam dropped the jug with a loud thud. Natasha didn't turn a hair.

"H-How did you know that?" He asked.

"I've got other family in S.H.I.E.L.D. She was afraid you'd come to me for help and leave a trail your colleagues could follow."

Steve needed more than that. "Why would Natasha come to you for help? No offense, but you're really young to mixed up in this sort of thing."

"Can I tell them? Dad was anyway planning to tell the team when I joined you guys on missions." Steve was now utterly confused. Team? Did she mean the Avengers? And... Dad?

Natasha nodded her head.

"Great." Rosanna clapped her hands. "My dad's Colonel Rhodes - you might know him as War Machine? Thanks to that, I've got access to all of Uncle Tony's stuff, including off the grid safe houses and supplies."

Rhodes...

Steve remembered the dark-skinned Colonel who he had been introduced to a few weeks after the New York battle by Stark, who in his typical fashion just said, "Capsicle, Honeybear. Honeybear, Capsicle," before disappearing.

The Colonel had given a fond-eye roll in Stark's direction before properly introducing himself. He was a pleasant, dependable man and Steve had quite enjoyed their conversation. It was nice to talk to someone from the armed forces after such a while... On top of that, the man had been friends with Tony Stark for decades and actually had some measure of control over the impulsive genius, which greatly increased the respect Steve had for the superior officer.

"That's not the point of the discussion, though. What's going on at S.H.I.E.L.D that would make Captain America a fugitive? And don't even try to claim it's classified." She crossed her arms and leveled a glare at Steve and Natasha, which was unnervingly fear-inducing despite her short stature and otherwise non-threatening appearance. "Talk." She ordered, and Steve found himself obeying the order of a girl who didn't look like she was even out of her teens.

Both Suzanne and Sam listened intently to the explanation as well.

"Okay, so you're telling me that S.H.I.E.L.D is currently infiltrated by HYDRA and the guy at the top, A.K.A Pierce, is one of them. He's put the entire organization on your trail for supposedly being involved in the killing of the only guy who had the authority to oppose him? You need to interrogate Sitwell for info about Project Insight. Right?"

That was a good summary of the situation, "So far, yes. Thing is, two of the most wanted people in Washington can't exactly walk around in broad daylight, let alone capture one of S.H.I.E.L.D's officers."

"The answer is: you don't." Sam, who had slipped out of the room sometime earlier came back in, tossing a couple of files on the table. Steve opened them and glanced at it. It was a picture of Sam and another man, who he guessed was his deceased ex-wingman Riley. "Call it a resume." He told Steve.

Natasha seemed to recognize it, "Is this Bakhmala? The Khalid Khandil mission, that was you?" She sounded impressed. "I heard they couldn't bring in the choppers because of the RPGs. What did you use, a stealth chute?"

Sam just shook his head and gestured to another file. "No. These."

Steve had thought that nothing would surprise him anymore, but things kept popping up, like the file he now held in his hands. "I thought you said you were a pilot." He said, incredulously.

"I never said pilot." The man's tone was smug.

With that skill set, he would be quite helpful, but Steve wasn't too keen on involving him, "I can't ask you to do this, Sam. You got out for a good reason."

"Dude, Captain America needs my help. There's no better reason to get back in."

"NO IT IS NOT!" It was Suzanne, who hadn't said much till then. "At least, not until I'm convinced that you aren't going to get yourself killed. If I say no, you aren't going and I'm sure Rosie's on my side."

"Sure. I can knock him unconscious or put him in a coma for a few days. Which one do you want?" Rosanna casually replied, putting some slices of bread in the toaster. "What?" She asked when they stared at her in shock, "I've been training with Tasha for years now. Some of it tends to rub off on you after a while."

While Sam tried to reason with his sister, Rosanna glanced over at the file Steve was holding and grinned as soon as she saw the words EXO-7 FALCON. "So, should I start calling you a giant metal chicken now?"

"How did you know that?"

"Who made the wings?"

"Stark Industries..." Sam murmured.

"Someone give the man a prize!" Holy cow! That was so reminiscent of Tony that Steve had to blink a few times to make sure that it was Rosanna talking. She sat back down with a plate of toast and Natasha automatically passed her the jam. The next few minutes were mainly silent, except for the sounds of cutlery and toast crunching as they dug into their food. The two Wilsons seem to be having a staring contest - well, more like a glaring contest - over their bowls of oatmeal.

Natasha broke the silence a few minutes later, "How long will it take you to get into the database?"

Before Steve could even realise what Nat was asking, Rosanna had replied, "Couple of hours to get a foot in. Maybe half a day if you want it to be completely untraceable."

"You've hacked into S.H.I.E.L.D?" Steve demanded, still in shock.

"It's not like it's that difficult. I was fourteen the first time-"

"First time?" Sam asked in despair.

Rosanna shrugged self-consciously, "It was only twice. Well, thrice if you count the time I helped Tony during the Chitauri invasion. S.H.I.E.L.D has very weird firewalls, okay? Some files are so heavily encrypted that I can't get into them without a direct connection to S.H.I.E.L.D, others so easy to read that..." She paled. "Shit. I've had evidence of HYDRA's infiltration for years without realising it..."

Natasha perked up at that, "Are you sure?"

"When I searched their database for any record of you, I noticed the weird classification of files. Some had absolutely everything about the workers' lives, from detailed info on their families to the name of their favourite first grade teacher, while others just had work-related details. There were other things too, like some files were much more harder to break into than others with the same clearance level.

"You know Tony looked up Phase 2 during the Chitauri thing, but that's nothing compared to whatever's under Project Insight. The entire thing's covered in something Iike a cross between a atomic bomb shelter and Fort Knox. Makes the Pentagon look like a kindergarten project."

Natasha voiced what Steve was thinking, "You're saying that the S.H.I.E.L.D files are less protected than the HYDRA ones, making it easy for you to recognise them."

"That's an overly simplified explanation, but yeah. From what I could see, data was being constantly updated, but no one had bothered to check the core coding for years. HYDRA had taken advantage of that and hidden their agents' personal information while letting S.H.I.E.L.D compile data on the loyal agents, making their plans much easier."

Steve suddenly remembered what he'd thought earlier about saving agent data. "Can you remove the data? I have a hunch that this is not going to go down well, so can you isolate the information and pull it out of the system - make sure nothing is left behind?"

"Personnel info? Piece of cake. I've already done it for Clint. It's not that hard - just takes time - so I might even be able to save a few higher-level files. Do you want me to work on anything else?"

"The Winter Soldier." He and Nat chorused in unison. Steve continued, "We need whatever we can get on him. He's an assassin for HYDRA and definitely enhanced in some way. I'm sure they'll send him after us if we get too close for comfort."

Rosanna nodded in acknowledgement. "I'll be upstairs with my stuff. Don't disturb me unless it's important. I really don't want to accidentally trip any alarms and have HYDRA getting to know that we're on their case."

    -----------------------------------

They had managed to capture Sitwell and were heading towards the Triskelion when Natasha's phone rang. There was only one person who could be calling, and that meant that she had found something. Natasha picked up the phone and held it to her ear.

"What is it?" She asked tersely, giving Sitwell no clues on who had called. Steve couldn't hear what Rosanna was saying, but he could see Natasha's expression in the rear-view mirror. One of her eyebrows moved a tiny bit and her mouth twitched slightly, which was the equivalent of screaming in horror for the average person.

"I'll give it to the Captain." She passed the phone to Steve who was riding shotgun as Sam drove to the Triskelion.

"Yes?" He asked once the phone was in his hands.

"I found the identity of the Winter Soldier, Captain Rogers. You're not going to like it." There was a pause before the next sentence made his blood run cold. 

"It's your friend, James Barnes. He survived the fall due to a prototype serum Zola had injected into him during his earlier capture. His left arm was lost in the fall, so they replaced it with a very deadly metal one. There were others as well, but those were all willing volunteers and haven't been sent on any missions yet. There's reports on how they brainwashed your friend and the ways in which they trained them all to be deadly and dangerous. Do you want me to pull those files out?"

Steve pushed all his shock to the back of his mind, and debated his decision. Finally, he made a choice. "Do it. That sort of thing shouldn't be public knowledge. Do the same with any more you find."

He hung up the phone, avoiding the eyes of the other three people in the car. Three words were repeated in his head like a mantra - Bucky is alive

Bucky is alive

That was when the image of the metal-armed assassin he'd attacked after Fury's shooting came into his head. The man's actions had been unnervingly robotic and learning that it was Bucky took it to a whole new level of horrifying. The momentary flash of happiness and hope was overshadowed by grief and guilt.

If he had only managed to save Bucky from that train, none of this would have happened. God only knew what Bucky had suffered all these decades to turn him into the Winter Soldier. All those assassinations, all those lives lost because Steve couldn't manage to pull up a man hanging from a train. It was his fault.

He'd failed the people who put their faith in him, he'd not lived up to the trust that Erskine had put in him and most of all, he'd failed his best friend. The man who'd had his back since childhood, his other half. It was always the two of them. Steve and Bucky. 

It was what had helped Steve through the war. He knew that Bucky would always be there with him. He had grabbed that belief with both hands and held it tight, refusing to let go even after Bucky fell. He'd clung to this belief and it had helped him through a lot of hard times. 

It had been nearly seventy years since that day, but for Steve, it had barely been a month when he crashed that plane. He'd still been grieving when he was called to fight the Chitauri. He'd still been grieving when he accepted that job on the STRIKE team. He'd still been grieving when he moved to D.C. 

And now, this mess happened just as Steve had begun to build a new life for himself. He socialised more, made a few friends, even went on a couple of dates with his neighbour... but it all came crashing down around him with that phone call.

    -----------------------------------

The fight on the highway was a blur of metal, bullets and explosions, with the only clear memory being of Bucky's unmasked face. Time had seemed to come to a stop when he heard those five dreaded words - just those five words had been enough to break him.

"Who the hell is Bucky?"

Uttered in that stone cold tone, Bucky-no-The Winter Soldier's words had dashed Steve's slim hope about Rosie being mistaken when she told him who the Winter Soldier was. Suddenly, the idea of Bucky being dead seemed a million times better than him being what he is today. Bucky had no idea who he himself was, for Chrissake!

Steve wished with all his might that he could go back to that fateful day and either save his friend from falling, or even shoot Bucky himself to prevent HYDRA from getting their hands on him.

He was only half-aware of what he was muttering. "It was him. He looked right at me like he didn't even know me. I didn't believe it at first, but now?" He was too distracted to focus on Sam and Natasha were saying, but one of the guards tazing the other brought him back to reality.

The guard removed the helmet and shook out her hair. "Ah. That thing was squeezing my brain." It was Hill. She took off their handcuffs and cut a hole in the bottom of the van, obviously planning their escape.

Steve suddenly remembered the helicopters that had taken videos of their arrest. Sam's face was in full view, and he would soon be identified, meaning that HYDRA agents would show up at his house anytime now. However well Natasha had trained Rosanna, he didn't think she would be able to fend off a surprise attack from a horde of enemy agents. He grabbed Hill's arm.

Checking that the enemy guard was truly knocked out, he spoke, "I'm going to need a favour, Hill. There are two girls all alone at Sam's house which will soon be stormed by HYDRA agents. Can you arrange for them to be safely brought here? I promise that they can help." .

Steve saw a glint of determination in her eyes when she said, "I'll go myself. Anything to confirm that you sent me?"

It was Natasha who answered. "Tell the younger one that Auntie Tasha's looking forward to that farm holiday. Bird-watching sounds rather interesting." Thankfully, Hill didn't waste any more time questioning her before leading them to a getaway car where a man was waiting for them in the driver's seat. Instead of getting in with them, she got into another car and drove off back in the direction they had come from.

Natasha gave Steve a small smile as he helped her wrap a bandage around her shoulder to try and stop the bleeding. "You're a good guy, Steve. I'll always be in your debt for keeping Rosie safe."

Before he could wave it off as nothing, Sam spoke up, "She's right. I can't bear to think of what would have happened if you hadn't thought of that, Cap. Suzanne's all I got in way of family, and Rosie's as good as another little sister to me. I don't know what I'd have done if I had lost them both."