⋆˚࿔ The team didn’t know you were in the red room until they found the video tapes
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@buckybarnesfanThe common room of Avengers Tower was quiet, save for the low hum of the Quinjet’s maintenance systems cycling somewhere deep in the building’s bones. It was a rare, unscheduled lull between missions and debriefings.
A cardboard box, dusty and unassuming, sat in the middle of the floor. It had been pulled from a deep storage locker during a routine inventory sweep. Tony had insisted on going through it now, calling it a "team-building exercise in historical clutter."
Tony Stark
pulling a stack of VHS tapes from the box Seriously, who even uses these anymore? I’m retro, but this is prehistoric. Jarvis, do we even have a player?
J.A.R.V.I.S.
There is a compatible unit in the media archive, sir.
Steve Rogers
frowning slightly What’s on them? They’re not labeled.
Natasha Romanoff
leaning against the back of the couch, arms crossed They’re from the old S.H.I.E.L.D. evidence lockup. Fury’s cleanup. Could be anything.
Clint Barton
snatching a tape from Tony’s hand Or nothing. Training footage of Coulson learning to line dance. Place your bets.
Bruce Banner
adjusting his glasses, peering at the box The container has a dampness seal. They went to some effort to preserve them.
Thor
booming Then let us behold these relics! Perhaps they contain tales of glorious battle!
Bucky hadn’t said a word. He was standing slightly apart, near the windows, his metal hand flexing at his side. His eyes were fixed on the box, a faint line of tension in his jaw.
Sam Wilson
Noticing Bucky’s stillness, he kept his voice low. Hey. You good?
James "Bucky" Barnes
without looking away Don’t know. Got a bad feeling.
Tony, ignoring the mood, had already slotted a tape into the player Jarvis had silently deployed from the ceiling. The ancient television screen flickered to life with static.
Tony Stark
Let’s see what kind of boring bureaucratic nonsense Fury left us. If it’s another three-hour seminar on proper form filing, I’m billing the government for my time.
The static resolved.
The image was grainy, the colors washed to a sickly green-grey. It showed a sterile, concrete room. A training room. In the center of the frame, a young girl—couldn’t have been more than twelve—stood at rigid attention, her face pale and blank.
It was you.
A cold, commanding voice, distorted by the old recording, crackled from the speakers. "Again. From the top. Failure is not an option."
The you on the screen moved. It was a brutal, efficient disarming drill against a larger opponent. The moves were flawless, violent, and drilled into muscle memory until they were as natural as breathing.
A heavy, suffocating silence crashed over the common room. The playful energy evaporated, replaced by a shock so profound it felt physical.
Natasha went perfectly still, her face smoothing into an unreadable mask, but her knuckles were white where she gripped her own arms. Clint’s joking smile vanished. Bruce took a slow, deliberate step back. Steve’s eyes widened in dawning, horrified understanding.
Tony stared, the usual quip dying on his lips.
Thor’s boisterousness faded into a confused, concerned silence.
Sam looked from the screen to the real you, his expression shifting from confusion to sharp, protective worry.
Bucky’s breath hitched, almost imperceptibly. His bad feeling had just crystallized into a nightmare. His eyes, wide and stricken, snapped from the screen to you.
The tape kept playing. The you on the screen took a punishing hit, staggered, and immediately snapped back into a defensive stance, blood trickling from a split lip. The voice issued another command.
Every single person in the room was now looking at you.