The soldier's brain is burning, sizzling with contradictory thoughts, memories, questions, images, anger, fear, confusion. He watches as the man in blue falls, limp and perhaps lifeless, plummeting toward the water that is already boiling with the splashdown of debris from the disintegrating helicarrier.
…end of the line…
The phrase strobes in his mind, screamingly familiar and so, so important, although he doesn't know why. The not knowing fills him with an alien rage.
…end of the line…
Without making a conscious decision to do so, he releases his grip on the groaning metal of the helicarrier's girder, lifting his armored limb to cover his head and protect him from falling detritus. He plunges, then hits the water feet first, the impact rippling from ankle to knee to hip to spine like a sledgehammer blow and nearly knocking the wind out of him. Through a curtain of roiling, turbulent bubbles, he spots the sinking form of his foe, arms akimbo as if crucified, motionless. With two powerful strokes, the soldier reaches the man and snakes his hand through a bandolier, then kicks for the surface, ignoring the crushing pain in his legs.
…James Buchanan Barnes…
As his feet find purchase on the muddy bottom of the riverbed, he yanks the man's head above water, listening for a cough, a gasp, a whisper. Nothing.
…You know me…
More roughly than he intends, he drops the man on the bank and stares down at him. Pores over every feature, the strong jaw, the Greek nose, the now slack mouth that had only moments before jarred him so deeply he still feels it in his guts. He stares at the battered eyes, the bloodied lips…he was supposed to kill this man. He could have killed this man. This man would have let him.
…You're my friend…
The memory of the man's voice calling his name pounds in the back of his brain. This is a familiar face the soldier has never seen, a welcome voice he has never heard. The soldier tries to comprehend the ongoing avalanche of images of a life he never lived, people he never knew. But the memories are more real in his mind than he can stand to bear.
He watches, face impassive and hiding the tumult inside, as the man in blue begins to stir, begins to breathe.
I know you.
With a last look, burning the face into his memory, his soul, the soldier turns and strides away, fighting off the limp that his battered body is begging him to affect. There are answers out there. He has work to do.