Chapter Text
The storm came without warning.
Bucky stood on frozen shores, watching the ship struggle against black waves. Ice formed on the rigging faster than men could break it free. Figures moved desperately across the deck—he recognized the flowing robes, the desperate coordination of men trying to save something precious from the depths.
The Palantíri. The ancient seeing-stones. Worth more than lives, apparently.
The wind howled—no, laughed—with a voice that scraped against his mind like rusted metal.
"You saved the son," the voice hissed, "but couldn't save the King."
He tried to move, to dive into the water, to do something. His feet stayed rooted to the ice. Arvedui—the Last King, they'd called him—reached out from the tilting deck. Their eyes met across the impossible distance.
They'd only known each other a few days before the king rode north on his desperate quest. Days spent in war councils, training sessions where Bucky had demonstrated techniques the Dúnedain had never seen. The king had listened. Had trusted him enough to let him train warriors, to take his advice on tactics.
"These Rangers you propose," Arvedui had said thoughtfully. "Swift, mobile, striking from shadow. It's not our way, but... perhaps it must be, if we're to survive."
The ship listed. Figures tumbled into the water, calling for help. Arvedui's arm raised, reaching—
The waves swallowed him whole.
"You will never be free, James Barnes. Never free of us. Never free of what you are."
The laughter grew louder. The sky darkened impossibly, and in that darkness, nine shadows circled. One descended—crowned, terrible, eyes like frozen fire. The Witch-king. The one he'd underestimated, the one whose army they'd barely escaped.
The crowned figure raised a blade that seemed to drink light itself—
Bucky jerked awake, gasping.
3:47 AM
His apartment—no, the Watchtower. Right. His room in Avengers Tower. Former Avengers Tower. The Thunderbolts' headquarters now, courtesy of a very complicated legal arrangement he still didn't fully understand.
His phone glowed on the nightstand. Seventeen missed calls. Mostly Val. One from Sam.
He stared at Sam's name, jaw tight. Their last conversation hadn't ended well. Something about the Avengers trademark lawsuit, about Bucky "choosing to work for the woman who tried to kill your team," about loyalty and sides and—
"It's complicated," Bucky had said.
"It always is with you," Sam had replied, and hung up.
Bucky locked the phone. Couldn't deal with that now.
The dream lingered. Arvedui's face as the water took him. The storm had come so suddenly, the records said. Unnatural, some claimed, though most dismissed it as northern weather.
But what if it wasn't natural? What if the Witch-king himself—
Bucky shook his head. Middle-earth was three years behind him. Gandalf had sent him home with a dagger and a promise he'd remember every moment.
The wizard had kept his word on that, at least.
Sleep wouldn't come back tonight. Bucky pulled on sweats and headed for the common area, bare feet silent on the hardwood floors.
Dawn broke over Manhattan in shades of gold and grey. Bucky stood by the panoramic windows, coffee in hand, watching the city wake. Delivery trucks. Early commuters. The rhythm of normal life.
Movement above caught his eye.
An eagle—massive, dark-feathered—circled the tower once, twice. Its cry pierced the morning air, clear and wild, completely out of place among the steel and glass of Midtown.
"The Eagles are friends of mine," Gandalf had said, pipe smoke curling. "I asked them to keep watch over you."
The eagle circled once more, then vanished into the rising sun.
Bucky's hand tightened on his mug.
"That's unusual."
He turned. Bob Reynolds stood in the doorway to his room, already dressed despite the early hour, staring out the window with an odd expression.
"What is?" Bucky asked carefully.
"Eagles. In Manhattan." Bob's eyes tracked the empty sky. "They don't usually come this far into the city. And that wasn't a bald eagle. Wrong coloring. Wrong size. Almost looked like a..." He trailed off, shook his head. "Never mind. Weird morning."
"Yeah," Bucky agreed quietly. "Weird."
Bob looked at him for a long moment, then headed for the kitchen. "Coffee?"
"Already got some."
"Dramatic morning wildlife?" Yelena emerged from her room in fuzzy slippers, Cucumber cradled against her chest. The guinea pig chittered sleepily.
"Just a bird," Bucky said.
"Mm. Bird that made you both look like you saw ghost." She set Cucumber on the counter—ignoring every health code violation ever written—and started the espresso machine. "You have nightmares again?"
"I'm fine."
"Yes, and I am Olympic figure skater. We both lie." She scratched Cucumber behind the ears. "Is about Sam?"
"It's not—" Bucky sighed. "Just old stuff. Doesn't matter."
The elevator dinged. Alexei emerged, already in his Red Guardian costume despite the early hour, bellowing, "Good morning, comrades!"
"Inside voice, Red Guardian," Ava phased through the wall, fully dressed. "Some of us have enhanced hearing."
"Then you hear how beautiful new day is!" Alexei clapped Bucky on the shoulder hard enough to slosh coffee. "Why so glum, Winter Soldier? Is beautiful Tuesday morning!"
"Is Tuesday?" Ava asked. "I thought it was Wednesday."
"Every day is same when you fight for justice!" Alexei declared.
"We work for Valentina de Fontaine," Yelena reminded him flatly. "Woman who tried to kill us. With Bob."
An uncomfortable silence fell.
"Wasn't your fault," Bucky said quietly to Bob.
"Doesn't change what I am," Bob muttered.
"Changes everything," Bucky said. "Trust me on that."
Another uncomfortable beat. John Walker strolled in, breaking the tension, gym bag over his shoulder. "Someone left a book in the rec room. Lord of the Rings?" He dropped the battered paperback on the counter. "Didn't know you were into fairy tales, Barnes."
Bucky's stomach dropped. The Appendices. He'd been up half the night studying them again, must've left the book out when the nightmares drove him from his room at 3 AM.
"Ooh, the gay hobbits book!" Ava brightened. "I love this one. Viggo Mortensen? As Aragorn?" She made a chef's kiss gesture. "Perfection."
"It's not about—" Bucky started.
"Two small hairy men on quest to destroy jewelry," Yelena said, straight-faced. "Very platonic."
"There's a whole war," Bucky protested. "Multiple plotlines. Themes of—"
"Is like how you and Sam are 'just partners,'" Yelena said, making air quotes.
"We're not—Sam and I aren't—" Bucky gave up. "Can we please talk about something else?"
"Movies were better anyway," Walker said. "Three-hour director's cuts? Pass."
"The movies?!" Bob looked genuinely wounded. "John, the books are masterworks. Tolkien created entire languages. Eleven of them! The philosophical depth alone—the themes of grace versus justice, the eucatastrophe as a narrative device, the entire concept of subcreation—"
"Here we go," Ava muttered fondly.
"—and the films, while excellent adaptations, necessarily had to compress the political complexity of Gondor, the environmental themes with the Ents, the post-war trauma that Frodo experiences—"
"Bob," Yelena said gently. "Is too early for nerd speech."
"I'm just saying," Bob continued, "the Battle of the Pelennor Fields alone—the way Tolkien juxtaposes hope and despair, the arrival of the Rohirrim scored against the mathematical impossibility of their survival—"
"You're a nerd," Yelena said. Affectionately.
"Viggo though," Ava sighed. "Danish-American. That bone structure."
"Speaking of Scandinavians," Bucky interjected, desperate to redirect, "I've got that meeting today. Val wants me to meet some new business associate. Swedish guy. Knut Larsson."
"Knut?" Alexei lit up. "Is Viking name! Very strong. Like Knut the Great who united England and Denmark and Norway—"
"Who's going with you?" Ava cut in, practical as always.
"I figured Yelena—"
"Da," Yelena nodded. "I come. Cucumber stays here with Bob."
"I'm honored," Bob said seriously, earning an eye roll from Walker.
"What's the meeting about?" Walker asked.
Bucky shrugged. "She didn't say. Just said Larsson's got resources we might need. Wants us to play nice."
"We always play nice," Ava said innocently.
"You phased a guy's gun out of his hand last week and let him shoot himself in the foot."
"He was rude."
Bucky let the conversation wash over him, grateful for the distraction. Normal. This was normal. Team breakfast, stupid jokes, Ava's Viggo Mortensen obsession.
Not dreams of drowning kings and demonic laughter.
Not eagles circling where they shouldn't be.
Not voices promising he'd never be free.
He picked up the LOTR book, tucked it under his arm. "I'm gonna make that call. Set up the meeting."
As he headed for his room, he caught Bob watching him, expression thoughtful, gaze drifting to something on the common room wall.
The dagger.
Bob's POV - Mid-Morning
Bob Reynolds had learned to notice details. When your alter-ego was an unstable god-like entity that could emerge at any moment and destroy everything you loved, you paid attention to everything.
Which was why he'd never really looked at the dagger before.
It hung on the wall of the common area, professionally mounted, positioned where morning light could catch the blade. "Keepsake from an old assignment," Bucky had said when he installed it six months ago. Nobody had pressed. They all had keepsakes. Walker had his original Captain America helmet. Yelena had an ever-growing collection of tactical vests.
Alexei kept Soviet medals that probably shouldn't have survived the Cold War's end.
But the breakfast conversation had pricked his curiosity. Bucky reading Appendices. Getting defensive about Tolkien. That look in his eyes—not embarrassment, but something deeper. Recognition?
And the eagle. Bob had seen it too. That wasn't a normal bird.
Bob crossed to the dagger, studying it properly for the first time.
The craftsmanship was... wrong. Not wrong-bad. Wrong as in impossible. The blade itself seemed to hold light differently than normal metal. The gold inlay along its length wasn't decorative—it was writing. Not English. Not any modern language.
He pulled out his phone, zoomed in on the inscription, compared it to his mental catalog of Tolkien's scripts.
Tengwar. Quenya mode. The script of the High Elves.
His heart started racing.
He traced the inscription without touching the blade: Aurë entuluva. "Day shall come again."
The words Húrin Thalion spoke at the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, the Battle of Unnumbered Tears, as the forces of Morgoth overwhelmed the alliance of Elves and Men. A promise of hope in the darkest hour. The defiance that echoed through all of Tolkien's work—that even in defeat, even in darkness, the light would return.
Bob's hands trembled as he stepped back.
This wasn't a replica. Wasn't some commission from a talented craftsman at a Renaissance faire. The weight of it, the way light gathered in the metal, the precision of the Tengwar characters—
This was real.
"Old assignment," Bucky had said.
Bucky, who'd disappeared for two days three years ago. Who'd fallen down a ravine in Louisiana chasing someone who didn't officially exist. Who'd been found half-dead, hypothermic, with injuries that should have killed him twice over.
Who'd come back different.
Not broken—Bob knew what broken looked like, saw it in his own mirror every day. Bucky had come back... hopeful.
But not just in words. In actions.
He'd gone into The Void to pull Bob out. Actually walked into that nightmare realm of chaos and darkness where the Sentry lived, risked being torn apart or worse, because he believed Bob was worth saving. "There's always a way forward," he'd said afterward, like it was obvious. Like going into literal hell for a teammate was just what you did.
He had faith in all of them. Yelena, Walker, Ava, Alexei. Bob himself—walking weapon of mass destruction. Every single one of them had a past that should have made them untrustworthy, dangerous, expendable.
Bucky treated them like family.
And he'd stayed. When he could have gone back to Sam, to the Avengers legacy, to respectability. When staying with the Thunderbolts meant working for Val—the woman who'd tried to kill them, who'd created the Sentry program. When it brought him into conflict with Sam Wilson, his oldest friend still living.
He stayed anyway.
It didn't match. The Bucky from mission reports—the Winter Soldier, HYDRA's weapon, decades of violence—should have been consumed by that darkness. Should have been incapable of this kind of hope, this kind of faith in broken people.
But instead, he chose it. Actively, deliberately, like it was a discipline he practiced every single day. Like hope was something you did, not just something you felt.
And recently, he'd been reading Tolkien obsessively. Bob had noticed the books appearing around the common areas over the past few weeks—The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, now the Appendices. Not escapism—Bob recognized that too. Bucky read like he was looking for something specific. Searching. Getting more intense about it each day.
Bucky, who watched the sky like he was waiting for something good to arrive.
Bucky, who had an Elven dagger with a Quenya inscription hanging on his wall.
A promise of hope in the darkest hour.
Bob looked toward Bucky's closed door.
What happened to you?
Bucky's POV - Evening
The Appendices lay open on Bucky's desk, same passage he'd read dozens of times over the past few weeks:
"Arvedui was the last king of Arthedain and the North-kingdom. He perished in the Ice-bay of Forochel in the year 1975 of the Third Age, attempting to preserve the palantíri and other treasures of Arnor from the ruin of the kingdom. The Lossoth warned against taking ship in winter, but he would not wait. The ship was caught in a great storm, and all aboard were lost to the grinding ice."
All aboard were lost.
Bucky rubbed his eyes, exhaustion pulling at him. He'd first read Lord of the Rings three years ago, right after coming back. Had devoured all of it, looking for... he wasn't sure what. Confirmation? Proof it had been real?
But the nightmares about Arvedui had only started recently. A few weeks ago, out of nowhere—the drowning king, the unnatural storm, the voice promising he'd never be free. That's when he'd turned to the Appendices, searching the dry historical accounts for some explanation, some detail that might tell him why the dreams felt so urgent now.
Three years for him since he'd left Middle-earth. He'd landed in Rivendell, gone North to the aid of a human Kingdom at the behest of an Elf Lord. He'd crossed the Lune with Aranarth and the Dúnedain, had seen them safe to Círdan's protection, had spent those few days with the King's son Aranarth and his people before Gandalf sent him home.
Had Arvedui thought about him when he rode north? The last time they'd spoken, the king had been reviewing Bucky's proposals for the Rangers—mobile scouts, guerrilla fighters, something the Dúnedain could become if formal kingdom-building was no longer possible.
"You see the shape of our future," Arvedui had said quietly. "I pray the Valar prove you wrong, but... your wisdom is sound. If Arthedain falls, we will need such men."
Had there been time, in that frozen bay, to think of anything but the water?
"I should've stopped you," Bucky muttered to the page. "Should've told you the Palantíri weren't worth it. Should've—"
But he hadn't been there. Gandalf had sent him home. "Your task is complete. It's time to return you home."
Except Arthedain had fallen anyway. The Dúnedain had become scattered Rangers anyway. Arvedui had died anyway.
Had any of it mattered?
Bucky closed the book, jaw tight. This was pointless. Middle-earth was—
Movement.
He looked up sharply.
A raven sat on his window ledge.
Not perched. Not landed. Just... there. Absolutely still, watching him with eyes that caught the streetlight wrong. Too reflective. Too aware.
Cold crawled up Bucky's spine.
Ravens. Odin's messengers in Norse mythology. Thought and Memory. Omens of death and battle. His ma had told him those stories when he was a kid—"If a raven taps at your window, someone's coming for you, James. Someone or something."
The raven tilted its head. Slowly. Deliberately.
Then it was gone. Not flew away—gone. Between one heartbeat and the next.
Bucky lunged for the window, threw it open. Nothing. No bird. No sound of wings. Just Manhattan at night, traffic sounds and distant sirens and the normal chaos of the city.
But in his mind, unbidden, a flash—
A tent. Cold light. Hands on his temples. Words in a guttural tongue:
"Hu-na izish rad, ishi Sauron goth dha—"
Black Speech. Barahir's chant. Trying to break him, bend him, make him a puppet—
Bucky shook his head violently, dispelling the memory.
His phone buzzed, making him flinch. Text from Val:
Meeting confirmed. Tomorrow, 2 PM. Safehouse in Queens. Come alone. Business only. -V
Bucky stared at the message.
Come alone. Right. Like he was going to walk into a meeting with a stranger Val vouched for without backup.
He pulled up the team group chat:
Meeting tomorrow 2PM. Queens. Yelena with me. Everyone else on standby. Something feels off. -B
The reply came immediately from Yelena: Define off? Scale of 1-10? Do I bring extra guns? -Y
Bring everything. Val said come alone. -B
Ah. So we definitely bring everything. -Y
He looked back at the window. The raven was gone, but the feeling of being watched remained.
Knut Larsson. Viking name. Ravens and death omens.
The dream of Arvedui drowning.
The eagle Bob had seen too.
The dagger on his wall—Aurë entuluva—glinting in the light.
It was probably nothing. Coincidence. His paranoia reading patterns where none existed.
Probably.
Bucky closed the window, locked it, and tried very hard not to think about the tent, the cold light, the Black Speech that had tried to unmake him.
Tried not to think about sorcerers who could travel between worlds.
Tomorrow. He'd deal with it tomorrow.
If there was anything to deal with at all.