Jesus guys...this movie...*awkward flailing* This movie now owns all of my feels and all of my cries, no lie. Anyway, this is just a bit of an extended scene for the end of the movie. Hope you all like it! :D
Disclaimer: I own nothing =/
He doesn't know why he jumps. If pressed for a reason, it could easily come down to the fact that the ship was crashing and his options were either burn to death or take the plunge and when those were the choices, why the hell wouldn't he jump? But he knows it's a lie, without ever having to open his mouth to explain himself, he knows it's a lie. In the end, he jumps because of him. Because of the unconscious man plummeting to the water below like a red, white, and blue ragdoll. He jumps because he sees him crash into the water, break the surface with a concussive splash and sink beneath the waves. He jumps because the other man doesn't resurface after that, doesn't pop to the surface like a buoy and bob around into the dirty water of the Potomac. He jumps because there's a voice in his head screaming at him, begging, pleading, and urging him to jump in after him, to save him, to bring him back because for some reason this man used to mean something, possibly everything, to him. He jumps because the voice in his head sounds remarkably like his own, broken and foreign as it is when the begging continues and the ship begins to fall apart.
He stands as solidly as he can on the edge of the flaming wreckage, dark eyes narrowed to the murky water where the other man fell. There's heat and fire and explosions behind him but all he can hear is that voice in his head, frantic and desperate and for fuck's sake, he's never sounded desperate before in his life. This is different though, there's something fundamentally different about this but he's not sure what it is. The ship burns behind him and he jumps but he still doesn't know why.
The impact with the water is sharp and painfully cold but it does little to slow him down. The water closes in over his head and pulls him down, heavy and pressing and dark like the belly of a giant beast. He angles his body downward and swims deeper, eyes scanning through the filthy water for any sign of the fallen hero. Logic tells him it's too late, the fall alone would have killed him and the water would have helped. The other part of him, the part that forced him to jump, insists that it's not and that there's still time. He doesn't know which side he should listen to, which side makes the better argument, and he's stuck in the middle and it pisses him off.
There's a flicker of white off to his left, dim in the shadows of the murky water. He swims toward it and is rewarded with the sight of a limp, unconscious body floating weightlessly within the currents. He reaches out for the hero's body, metal fingers closing around the thick fabric of his suit. The arm beneath his hand is heavy and unresisting and he pulls the body to him to keep it from getting swirled away by the currents. He latches his arm like a steel bar across the hero's star-spangled chest and kicks them both to the surface.
Debris is still raining down, chunks of metal and glass showering into the river like a meteor storm. The shore is not far away but the explosions echoing overhead make it clear the river is not the safest place to be. The Captain is limp and unresponsive in his arm but whether he's dead or unconscious, he doesn't know. He keeps a tight grip on the wounded hero and begins swimming to shore, the loud splash and spray of falling debris breaking the surface of the river all around them.
Once or twice, the muscles in his non-metallic arm seize up from the exertion of dragging both himself and 250 pounds of dead weight behind him. The arm is broken, fractured at the very least, and the strain is agonizing. He could just drop the extra weight, let his arm give out and allow the Captain to sink to the bottom of the river where he would have been already had he not bothered to jump in after him. But he doesn't. He tightens his grip in spite of the thought and swims on. He doesn't let go of the blond man in the red, white, and blue suit and he doesn't know why.
His foot scrapes the riverbed and he stands slowly, unfolding out of the water like he was born from it. He releases his hold on the hero, unlocking his arm from across the broad chest and allowing his fingers to hook under one of the straps of the uniform. He walks forward purposefully, dragging the body along behind him and up on to the beach. The rocks crunch and shift beneath their combined weight and he drops the Captain onto the rocky shoreline, releasing his body with a finality he hopes will shut the voice in his head up.
He turns to leave, his feet carrying him two and a half steps away before he stops, looking back over his shoulder. He should move, he should keep walking and put as much distance between himself and this man as he possibly can, but he doesn't. He stops and he stands there and he looks at the unconscious man on the beach for several long seconds. He should leave but he doesn't and he doesn't know why.
He takes the two steps back to the man on the ground and lowers himself to one knee, looking at the pale, bleeding face carefully. "You know me...you're my friend...I'm with you til the end…" The words repeat endlessly, over and over, in his head and he can't make them stop. He searches his face for recognition, for familiarity, for something he can't quite put into words. He does know him, or at least he thinks he does; there must have been some reason he jumped in after him and dragged him out of the water. Some reason why he just couldn't leave him to die.
His eyes scan over every cut and scrape and bruise, all his handiwork, and looks to the face beneath them. The man is young, mid-20s, strong jawline, classically handsome. All details he doesn't need. He's waiting for something, a spark of a memory, an epiphany or the proverbial lightbulb above his head. He waits for it because he needs it, he needs to know how and why he knows this man, why he was willing to die for him, why the impulse to dive in after him was more powerful than anything he's felt in years. He wants to remember this man but he doesn't know why.
There's a twist of pain in the slack expression in the unconscious man's face and a soft, barely audible groan reverberates somewhere deep inside. He tries to open his eyes, one of them almost completely swollen shut, and manages to crack them open after a few failed attempts. His gaze is unfocused at first, pupils blown wide in what is most assuredly a concussion at the least. He blinks up at the sky, the burning wreckage still tumbling from above, and then he looks at him. Blue eyes meet his own, light meets dark, and a broken expression crosses his face.
"Bucky…" he breathes, the name coming out like a shuddering prayer, broken and weak like the rest of him. One word, one name, and it suddenly feels like such a simple thing could break him irreparably. He steels himself and sets his jaw; he's never been broken before and he sure as hell isn't going to be now.
"I don't know who that is," he replies simply but even as he says it, he knows it's a lie. He doesn't remember the name, doesn't accept it, but he does recognize it. It's old and far away, long removed from anything he's ever known or remembered, but it's a piece of him and he knows it.
The hero's face crumples slightly but whether it's from pain or heartbreak, it's difficult to tell. "Your name…" he starts, his breathing shaking and ragged as he speaks. "Is James Buchanan Barnes-"
He reaches out and clamps his metal hand over the other man's mouth, not enough to hurt but enough to silence him. "Shut up," he growls in return, keeping his hand planted firmly over the man's mouth. He can feel him still attempting to speak behind his hand, his mouth moving and the vibrating hum of words pulsing against the metal of his fingers.
He resists the urge to roll his eyes; this guy really doesn't quit. "The little guy from Brooklyn who was too dumb to run from a fight…" Something sharp, like a lightning bolt, flares in the back of his mind and he stiffens slightly. A memory, a snapshot of time lost in the long, endless corridors of his mind. He wants to hold onto it, follow it down a path he doesn't remember, but he doesn't. Not right now.
The hero's words die off and he's beginning to lose consciousness again, blue eyes fluttering and expression going slack. He's struggling to remain conscious, one hand raising and squeezing the metal wrist weakly. He can just barely make out the words 'don't go' beneath his hand and the grip in his wrist weakens even more.
There's a small, tinny noise buzzing through the air like a gnat. Voices, small and thin and far away, cutting through the space between them. He reaches down and plucks the remarkably still functioning communicator from the Captain's body, lifting it up.
"Steve?" a voice demands through the frequencies. "Steve, answer me. Where are you?" It's a woman, possibly the same one from the bridge the day before, and her voice is loud and tinged with urgency. "Steve, can you hear me?"
The hand falls away from his wrist, landing on the beach with a soft thump. There's blood mixing in the puddles of water collecting beneath his body and the brilliant white star emblazoned on his chest is taking on a slightly pink color from the bullet wound beneath it. He glances back down at the unconscious man and then to the communicator in his hand. "West bank, one quarter mile from the Arlington Memorial Bridge," he says simply, dropping the communicator onto the beach next to the hero's body.
"What? Who is this? Steve?" the woman continues through the frequencies but he's not listening to her. His attention is still focused on the bruised and battered man below him. He keeps hoping for the spark of recognition but it never comes; all he sees is a broken and bleeding man who was willing to die rather than fight him. A man who called him his friend, a man who gave him a name rather than a mission, a man he feels he should remember but can't.
He removes his hand from the man's mouth, studying his face for a few more moments. There are brief flashes of memory, trenches and bombs and men with blood red skulls. Metal fingers drift down, brushing over the star adorning the uniform. Some deep piece of him remembers that star, white and gleaming and symbolic. The star had been as much a part of the man as it had been the uniform and at some point, long ago and lifetimes away, he felt he would have followed that man to the very gates of Hell.
'Don't go', the man had begged behind metal fingers. "I can't stay," he responds although the speaker is now far too unconscious to hear him.
His hand lingers just long enough to feel a heartbeat, to feel the shallow rise and fall of the star spangled chest. Satisfied that the hero isn't in immediate danger of dying on the beach, he stands and takes a step backwards. Sirens wail in the distance, helicopter blades slicing through the air overhead. He should leave, disappear now and never look back. Fade into the shadows and become a ghost once more. But it feels wrong to leave the man alone, it feels like he's leaving an entire book with unanswered questions just lying in the mud. But he can't stay, not here and not now.
He stands rigid and still for another few seconds, staring at the man who now means everything and nothing to him. He turns on his heel and walks away, boots crunching along the gravel as he walks. It takes more control than he's used in a long time to keep walking and not turn back around. It takes a lot more control to disappear into the swarming masses of people who spill out into the streets to gawk at the damage of the demolished helicarriers and force himself forward.
He steals a tattered hoodie from an abandoned table and boards a bus that will take him far away from the river and the broken man on the beach. He closes his eyes and tries to make his mind go blank as the bus idles along through the traffic choked streets. He tries to forget and he tries to remember and he tries to be a man and a machine all at once. He tries to make sense of his decision to save the other man and his reluctance to leave him on that beach. But mostly he tries to understand the deep, crushing hollowness he now feels in his chest, an emptiness that feels like it could swallow him whole with no effort.
His heart aches, heavy and weighted like it's being tied down with a ball of lead. He thinks back to the man on the beach and the heaviness grows worse. That man, his mission, his words. It feels like he's left a part of himself behind...and he doesn't know why.
Hope you all liked it! :D