Chapter Four

"You know Stark isn't going to like this, right Bucky?" Natasha said as the two of them left the interrogation room. "Not after what he did to Parker."

"You know there wasn't a mark on that kid, Nat. And did you hear him? He was terrified of ending up back in Hydra's hands! Think of how you felt when you met Fury, how I was when they were fucking with my head, none of us wanted any of that!"

"If you want to keep him, you can advocate to Tony yourself!" Natasha turned a corner, heading for the training area. She paused and turned back. "I do agree with you, but you have to remember that this is the White Widow we're dealing with! And he's not someone you generally want to deal with. Just be careful."

Bucky sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. He knew who the White Widow was. He just assumed that the man had been kidnapped like everyone else who 'worked' for Hydra. He never imagined it would be this.

Could they even trust him? He might very well be lying about everything. Maybe Hydra sent him to get on the inside, to get back and him and Nat for essentially deserting.

Somehow though, Bucky didn't believe that. It was hard to fake such genuine fear and guilt. And maybe he was biased as someone who had been given a second chance, but he didn't want to turn Matovvy away, not when he could see so many similarities between the man and Bucky himself.

The hard part was going to be convincing the others that Matovvy was alright. Bucky knew Steve would side with him, like the brother he pretty much was. Natasha would come around to his side eventually, he knew it. Clint would follow Nat, Bruce was a big believer in second chances, and Thor would probably not care either way, since the matter didn't really concern him, but would likely be tipped more towards Bucky's reasoning.

Stark would be adamant that Matovvy was too dangerous, especially after the attack on Peter, which had left no lasting marks on the kid, and Bucky suspected it was only to lure the Avengers out to capture him. Peter would probably be on the fence, the kid was a literal angel, but might not be so eager considering the incident the night before.

Vision could go either way. Wanda would likely be supportive of Bucky as well, since she was also a Hydra-experiment, and Vision might be inclined to follow her lead. However, he might also see the issue with inviting a potentially very dangerous person into the Avengers tower freely. He often took a very unbiased approach to issues like this, and Bucky was hopeful he would see the good in the situation as opposed to the possibility of bad.

Bucky had Steve to fight for him, and Nat had Clint and Fury. Wanda had Vision and Pietro, when he had been alive. Matovvy didn't have anyone, really. He had seemed so...careless of what would happen to him now, as long as he wasn't in the hands of Hydra. Bucky could understand that. He had lived that.

Stark was in one of his labs, fiddling with something Bucky couldn't name even if he tried. Modern technology was still a very foreign concept to him. "How'd the interrogation go?" Stark asked when Bucky entered.

Bucky picked up a wrench, the simple kind he knew how to use, and began fiddling with it. "It went alright. He means well."

"He attacked Pete, that's not generally an accepted form of polite greeting."

"But he didn't hurt Parker. He didn't hurt you either. He's trying to escape Hydra. He saw the Avengers as protection, Tony. He provoked you so you would bring him in. He doesn't mean any harm."

"Tell it to the judge, Barnes. Oh wait, that's me!"

Bucky rolled his eyes. "Why don't we get all the Avengers to take a vote? We both plead our case, and if the majority sides with you, we hand him over to Fury. If they side with me, we let him out. I'll be in charge of him, call it fucking probation if you want."

Tony thought for a minute. "Alright," he said finally. "We vote."

That evening, all the available Avengers were gathered in the common room. Vision, Wanda, Steve, Bruce, Peter, Nat, Clint, Thor, Dr. Strange, Rhodey, and Sam. T'challa was tied up with his duties in Wakanda and couldn't make it.

Tony, of course, walked in late. "Alright, I assume everyone knows why we're here. We are trying to resolve an issue that Fro-Yo over there won't let go, so let's get down to it.

"Last night, a Hydra agent dressed in white attacked Peter while he was on patrol. I captured him and he was brought in for interrogation." Tony gestured to the television. "Friday, if you will." The screen lit up with a ton of information about Matovvy, newspaper articles dubbing him the "Ghost Killer', Hydra files Tony probably hacked, grainy security footage of a white figure. "We now know him to be the White Widow, a notoriously deadly Hydra assassin who's been in operation for almost eleven years."

Wanda gaped. She, like Nat and Bucky, knew exactly who the White Widow was and what he was capable of.

"The latest news on him was from about seven months ago, when he allegedly lost his mind, brutally murdering everyone in the Hydra facility he was stationed in before killing himself. This, however, has been proven false, as he is still very much alive.

"Now, I want you to consider this: we know nothing about his situation. Sure, we do have a few members that used to be Hydra, but we can guarantee that they are fully sided with us. We know exactly what happened and what led all of you here. We know nothing about this man. He could be trying to double-agent, he could be waiting to kill us in our sleep, he could be a diversion tactic, we don't know.

"We can't allow him to go free! We need to be absolutely sure that he won't try and attack any of us again." Tony paused for breath and Bucky jumped in.

"Actually, I think we can be sure he won't. During the interrogation, he confessed that he used to work for Hydra, that he was raised by them in fact. I was sceptical of his intentions at first, too. But then he told us that he escaped because he was ordered to kill someone he refused to. He said he was sick of being treated like a possession.

"I can understand that, and I know more than a few of you can as well. Hydra has a tendency to believe that its agents are weapons rather than people. He also said that after he escaped, he moved to Jersey, and he taught cello." Bucky still didn't really know what a cello was exactly but he did know it was a string instrument. "I don't think it matters what he did in the past, I think it matters that he was trying to get away from it, trying to start a new life for himself.

"I did that, in case you forgot. But it gets exhausting, because eventually someone will find you. I was lucky enough that it was Steve that found me, but Matovvy was approached by a Hydra agent. He killed the man to protect the kid he was teaching at the time, and I think he realised he couldn't keep running, not when he knew they could find him. When he attacked you, Peter, was he trying to hurt you?"

Peter looked down. "No, he wasn't. It was like he was pulling his punches, just trying to provoke me or something."

"Exactly." Bucky slowly made eye contact with everyone in the room. Tony was the only one who wouldn't meet his eyes. "He knew we could protect him. He came to us for help, because that's what we do, we help people. And if we turn him away, we're not really upholding that standard."

There was silence as everyone let Bucky's words sink in. "But how do we know he doesn't mean any harm?" Bruce finally asked. Bucky shrugged. "We can't, in the same way we can't really know that about anyone. But I believe he really is frightened of ending up back where he started, and if we don't allow him a second chance, why should I have been given one? Why should Wanda have? Nat? We would be hypocrites to turn him away."

"I believe Bucky is right," Vision said, standing. "We should provide this young man the opportunity we would give everyone else. What he has done before does not matter if he is trying to change."

Wanda stood too, then Nat. They didn't need to explain their support. Steve stood next, smiling at Bucky. "Some of the best people I know used to be Hydra agents."

Clint stood, then Rhodey, then Thor and Bruce and Peter and Sam. Dr. Strange was the last to show his support but he stood as well. "Everyone deserves a chance to redeem themselves," he said.

Bucky smiled and looked at Tony, who was pouting in the corner. "I still think this is a really, really bad idea. If this goes wrong, Barnes, it's on you and you can explain that to Fury."

Bucky just smiled wider.