Quill, Parchment, & Ink

Jensen jerked upright, biting back the yell that wanted to escape his mouth. His chest heaved as he tried to refocus the adrenaline that poured into him. “Only a dream,” he muttered. “Just a dream. It wasn’t real. He’s not real.”

“Qué?” Cougar rolled onto his side so he faced Jensen. “Quién, Jensen?”

Jensen rubbed a hand over his face, trying to erase the memory of his dream. “It’s nothing, Cougar. Go back to sleep.” Leaning over, he reached for his computer, dragging it into his lap. His fingers tapped against his thigh as he waited for it to boot up. Raising his head, he found brown eyes staring at him. Jumping, he gave a manly squeak. “Damn it! Don’t do that, Cougar!”

Cougar simply looked at him and Jensen squirmed under his scrutiny. “It’s nothing, Cougar,” he protested. “I just…” When Cougar continued to stare at him, he sighed. “I keep dreaming…no this is stupid.” He set his computer aside and swung his legs over as if he was going to get up. A hand on his knee made him look up again. “What?”

“Tell me.”

“I keep…never mind…I’ll sound insane.” He bit back at a laugh at the look Cougar gave him. “Right, like that would be anything new. Okay so.” He reached up to adjust his glasses and realized he wasn’t wearing them. Snagging them from the crate they’d set up between their cots, he slipped them on as he tried to organize his thoughts. “These dreams. These thoughts. They aren’t my own. They’re of people I don’t know. Places I’ve never been.”

“Quién? Cómo?”

“I don’t know how,” Jensen told him in frustration. “Or who. It’s a dark haired guy. And I must be a kid or something because I look up to him. Not quite as much as Jackie looks up to me, but he’s definitely taller than me.”

Cougar made a motion; indicating the differences in their heights.

“Maybe a little bit more. It’s been going on for weeks though. It wasn’t so bad when we were gone, but it’s gotten worse since we got back to post and now they’re just about every night.”

Picking up the laptop from where Jensen had moved it to, Cougar handed it to him, saying simply, “Find him.”

“I don’t think I can, Cougs,” Jensen admitted. “I think I need to go home.”

Cougar shrugged. “Okay. Iré con usted a de New Hampshire.”

Jensen took a deep breath, knowing this would be the most difficult part. “I don’t need to go to New Hampshire. I need to go to Brooklyn. And I know I said home and I know that’s New Hampshire, but something is telling me that the answers I need are in Brooklyn and that’s home too and I can’t explain it but that’s where I need to go.”

Cougar put a hand over Jensen’s mouth, stopping his babbling. “Vaya tan.”

When he moved his hand away, Jensen asked in a small voice, “Will you go with me?”

“Sí.”

Jensen’s head swiveled from side to side as the cab edged its way through the borough. “No. No. No. It’s wrong. It’s all wrong,” he mumbled. “Where’s? No that’s not supposed to be there. Where’s? It’s all wrong!”

“Hey, buddy, is your friend okay?” the cabbie asked.

Cougar wondered how they’d managed to find the one cab driver in the city who was actually interested in his passengers. “We have not been here in a while,” he answered as Jensen continued to babble to himself.

“Are you sure he’s all right?” The cabbie glanced at the two men in the review mirror. There was something about them; normally he would be leerier about two men that moved the way they did, but they didn’t seem to mean him harm. The younger one hadn’t stopped talking since they entered the cab—saying how everything was wrong. His friend had tried at first to calm him, speaking to him in Spanish, but when it hadn’t worked, he’d lapsed into silence and simply stared out at the cityscape around them.

“He will be fine,” Cougar replied.

“If you say so.” The cabbie pulled over, pointing to a building across the way. “That’s it. The museum for the Stark Expo from the forties.”

Jensen made a noise of distress as he looked up the building and Cougar quickly shoved money towards the cabbie, pushing Jensen from the cab at the same time. Once on the sidewalk, all noise from the blonde ceased as he stared at the building. After a few minutes, he touched the taller man’s arm, making him jump. “Do you want to go in?”

It took another moment for Jensen to answer. “Yeah. I guess we should. I’m not gonna get any answers out here.” He headed for the entrance, his hand reaching for the back pocket of his jeans were his wallet was stashed. The girl waved off his payment when she saw his military ID, pointing to the sign that declared all military personal got in free of charge. Jensen tucked his wallet back into his pocket and entered the building; Cougar shadowing him.

The sounds and expression from Jensen became more and more distressed the farther they moved into the museum. Time and again his hands reached towards the exhibits, only to draw back at the last minute. As little whimpers began to issue from Jensen the deeper they got into the museum, Cougar rubbed his fingers on the inside of the blonde’s wrist, trying to calm him.

Finally they rounded a corner and a hologram flickered into being as they stepped into the room. “Greetings, tourists. I’m Tony Stark. I hope you’ve enjoyed what I was able to salvage of my father’s Expo from 1942.” The hologram turned slightly, indicating the car that sat behind it. “Back then my father thought we would have hovering cars in the near future.” He flashed a smile. “Clearly he was wrong, but we’ve made great strides since then. Sorry, Dad, but it looks like it’s going to be a few more years before our cars fly.”

Jensen seemed to fall into a daze as the hologram blinked off. “It lifted off for like a minute. Everyone was really amazed. And then it fell,” he said. Shaking his head, he turned to look at Cougar. “How do I know that? How do I know how people reacted to it?”

“No sé, Jake, but if anyone can discover it, you can.” Cougar rested a hand on Jensen’s back as the other man continued to stare at the car. Finally he nudged him into motion, knowing they wouldn’t find anymore answers here.

Fifteen minutes later, they were ensconced in a booth in the back of the closest diner with Wi-Fi and Jensen had his netbook up and running. Cougar ordered for them when the waitress came over, nudging the chocolate shake close to Jensen when she delivered it, but being careful not to get it to close to the computer. Jensen was already mumbling and Cougar resigned himself to a meal with no conversation from the hacker as he looked for the information he wanted.

“You aren’t going to find what you’re searching for. Even if you can break S.H.E.I.L.D.’s firewalls,” a voice said beside them. “And you can put the gun away, Sargent Alverez. If I wanted to hurt you, you’d already be bleedin’.”

Jensen stared at the imposing black man, meeting his eye, before motioning for Cougar to join him on the other side of the booth. The man slid into the vacated seat. “Who are you?” Jensen asked after the man stared at him for a few minutes.

“Damn, son, you really do look like him,” the man responded instead of answering.

Jensen closed his netbook with a snap, glaring at the man. “Look like who? Who are you?” Lowering his voice at Cougar’s hand movement, he growled, “What. The. Hell. Is. Going. On?”

The man actually laughed at his questions, leaning back in his seat. “Well, I gotta admit, they did manage to get one thing right with you. You’ve got his courage. His balls. I’m Colonel Nick Fury. And I can answer some of your questions.” He reached slowly into his pocket, drawing out a jump drive and holding it up so Jensen could see it. “Some of the rest of them can be answered with this. Some of them probably can’t be answered at all.”

Jensen reached for the drive, but Fury snapped it out of reach, making it disappear. He subsided back into the booth and looked across the table. “Fine. Who do I look like?”

“What do you know about the Captain America Project?” Fury asked instead of answering his question.

Frowning, Jensen replied, “It was an experiment. Back in the forties. Take a soldier and make him a super soldier.” He shrugged. “It failed. Got shelved because they need to concentrate on other, more reliable parts of the war.”

“It didn’t fail.” Fury pulled a picture out of an inside pocket and slide it across the table. “They had one success. A man named Steve Rogers.”

Jensen picked up the picture and frowned at it. “Okay so you’ve got a picture of a skinny me in forties clothes. Give me fifteen minutes and a scanner and I can do a hell of a lot better.”

“It all comes down to what you can do, doesn’t it, boy?” Fury asked.

“Most of the time, yeah,” Jensen said. “So what do I have to do with some experiment from the forties?” He tapped the side of his head. “My good looks implant some memories inside my head along with the weird ass doppelgänger thing?”

“He always talk this much?” Fury asked Cougar who smirked and nodded in response. “How in hell did he make it through SERE?” Fury muttered before attempting to glare Jensen into silence. “You want me to actually answer your questions or you just want to babble?”

Jensen mimed zipping his lips shut and locking it before throwing away the key and then folded his hands on the table, looking at Fury in expectation. Fury responded by grinding his teeth as he glared at the younger man.

“After they finished injecting Rogers and the experiment succeeded, a Hydra agent shot up the lab. The doctor who created the serum was killed and the serum was destroyed. Since Rogers was a success, they drew blood from him in hopes of duplicating the experiment. It didn’t work.” Jensen raised his hand and Fury sighed. “What?”

“So they did what with the blood? Cause it seems like something worked. I mean…” He stopped when Fury glared at him. “Right. Shutting up again.”

“They apparently couldn’t understand the doc’s notes and duplicate the serum so they decided to go another route.” He paused, but when Jensen didn’t say anything, he continued, “The first few didn’t go well. Apparently the technology wasn’t quite up to adult clones yet.”

Jensen mouthed clones, pinching his arm as if to make sure he was still sitting there and Cougar moved his hand over so it was lying next to his. Wisely neither of them said anything.

“Stark had stopped searching for Rogers by then.” Fury waved off the questions he could see forming. “It’s not important to this part of the story. And the government brought him into the discussions on the new round of tests. Since they’d lost a good batch of viable cells, the decision was made to attempt babies.”

“But I’m not this…skinny or…” Jensen tried to grasp what he was being told.

“The Captain America experiment was designed to create a super soldier,” Fury reminded him. “Faster, stronger, better than anyone else.” He pulled another picture out and slid it across to Jensen. “This is Rogers after the treatment.”

Taking a deep breath, Jensen looked down at the picture. “Okay, but I’m not this over-buffed, steroid, musclehead either.”

“No. You aren’t,” Fury confirmed. “Because in addition to turning to babies; they decided to attempt to improve on the clones.” He spread his hands. “Mother Nature clearly didn’t appreciate that and those babies got a little fucked up, too. They got some interesting results. Instead of super-strong, they got super-smart. And smart alec.”

“So what you’re telling me is there are more of me out there somewhere?” Jensen asked.

“Oh hell no. There is no one else like you. One of you is more than enough!” Fury took a deep breath as if reaching for his sanity. “Most of the babies didn’t fit the needs of the program so they were quietly adopted out. The ones we thought might be useful; we…kept an eye on.”

“So I might be useful?” Jensen asked quietly.

“No, you started poking your nose into things from the past and someone wanted to make sure you weren’t going insane.”

Cougar coughed, obviously covering a laugh. “It’s a little late for that,” he said quietly.

“I’ve been having dreams,” Jensen said, leveling a look at Cougar that said they’d discuss his comment later. “A dark haired man in uniform. Places here in Brooklyn.”

Another picture slid across the table towards Jensen. “This man?” Fury asked.

Jensen picked up the picture, gasping quietly when he saw the laughing face. “Yes. Yes, that’s him. Who is he?”

“James Buchanan Barnes. Rogers called him…”

“Bucky,” Jensen said quietly. “His nickname was Bucky. What happened to him?”

Fury’s face sobered. “Sergeant Barnes was killed in action while accompanying the captain on a mission. Captain Rogers blamed himself despite doing his utmost to prevent the sergeant’s death.” He glanced at his watch. “You have a plane to catch soon. And I know you’re heading out country on a mission soon.” Holding out the jump drive, he said, “This has more complete information about Rogers’s background, hopefully it will help answer some of your memories. It also has a way to contact me. When you get back, if you’d like to meet Rogers, I’ll see about arranging it. I’ll even introduce you to Junior if you want. Although he’s a pain in the ass on a good day.” He closed his hand over the jump drive before Jensen could take it. “It’s encrypted but I don’t think I have to tell you not to lose it?”

“No, sir,” Jensen replied accepting it. He looked down at the drive in his hand, it seemed like such an innocuous little device to hold all the answers to his questions, before looking up to ask the colonel one last question. Except he wasn’t there. “Cougs, where’d…?”

Cougar had startled to his feet, scanning the interior of the diner, clearly impressed. He shrugged at Jensen’s question. Reaching down, he took the jump drive from the blonde’s hand. “Enough for now, Jake,” he said. “Time to go home.”



Qué--What
Quién--Who
Cómo--How
Iré con usted a de New Hampshire—I will go with you to New Hampshire
Vaya tan—So go
Sí--Yes
No sé—I don’t know