Till the End
The helicarrier was out of control, pitching downward chaotically into the Potomac River. Explosions rocked the ship as the searing heat of fires surrounded them. Steve didn't care as he felt the ship lurch and a wild-eyed Bucky crouched above him fist cocked back ready to deliver the last blow. A strange sense of joy filled the voids in his heart even as his blood leaked from his wounds that he had finally found his friend. Bucky was alive.
"You are my mission!" Barnes screamed and began to punch Cap like a hammer.
After repeated strikes, Bucky paused catching his breath. Steve barely squinted up at him and rasped from his flame seared throat and split lips, "Then finish it. Because I'm with you, to the end of the line."
Barnes's eyes flew open wide as if someone had opened floodgates within his skull. He softened his grip just enough that, as the ship shattered around them, Steve fell away downward into the river.
Bucky watched him fall, and a distant wisp of a memory came to him of a train and snow and how Steve had tried to save him. Steve's scream as James fell from the train echoed in his ears. Seeing Rogers splash down into the murky water, Bucky made a decision to join him and finish what he started.
Dragging him to the shore, Barnes dropped Steve on the bank in a limp heap. Turning over his shoulder, Bucky saw him breathing and was satisfied. Demons swirled in his brain about who he was and where did time go? Where had he been and what had done? But Steve was here and he was there till the end, just like he promised. The Winter Soldier turned on his heel and walked away from Captain America.
Sam Wilson ran. It was all he could do to get to Steve. In his mind, he heard, "On your left." in that polite baritone. Placing that GPS bug on Cap was the best thing he had ever done because now it wasn't moving, that only meant one thing; trouble.
Natasha's head was whirling with information but none of the kind she needed just then. The carriers were gone, burning hulks of metal in the once beautiful Potomac basin. I wonder if we'll get new cherry trees, she thought sardonically seeking a way to calm her mind to pursue what she needed. What she needed to find out was where was Captain America?
At the riverbank, Rogers could hardly hear the peacefully lapping water. If he was going to die, at least it was a nice quiet place, which is more than many soldiers got. Barely scratching the surface of consciousness, the pain flooded forth. The gunshot in his thigh, torso and knife wound in his shoulder were like lances of fire arcing their way like a bullet train to his brain. But one thought conquered all, and that was the last face he saw was Bucky's about to kill him. Was he ok?
"STEVE!" Sam shouted as he saw then sprinted to the fallen Captain. A vision came to Sam of another man in another time. Wings were shattered, falling in a rapid death spiral to the ground. He saw a parachute failing to open; his friend's body crashing to the ground, then lifeless. Squeezing his eyes closed for a split second, Wilson reminded himself this was not Afghanistan and this was not that time.
Collapsing to the ground, knees digging into the soft bank mud, Wilson took in the damage like he was trained to do in combat. Whipping off the backpack he had brought, he pulled out gauze and bandages. Making pressure points to stop the bleeding, he was intent not to let his own history repeat itself.
Black Widow didn't smash through the undergrowth, she moved with the stealth and speed of her craft. When Steve was in eyeshot, she suddenly froze as if a terrified rabbit. Her heart went cold to see his prone body, obviously severely wounded and broken. His suit of red, white and blue was stained with blood, mud and water like he was a rag carelessly discarded by a passerby. In her mind's eye, she still felt his lips on hers even though it was a staged kiss to prevent them from being killed in that mall. She heard his powerful voice with his strong moral compass asking her is he could trust her. He made her want him to trust her. He made her want to be someone better than she was. Don't die on me, Steve Rodgers, she cursed at him in her mind and continued her approach, pulling down her disguises and retreating to being someone else because being herself right then just hurt too much.
Nodding to Sam who looked surprised she was there, she cradled Cap's head in her lap, "Steve. Hang on. We'll get you out of here." she said softly. Did Sam see a glint of a moist eye in her expression of the emotionally distant Black Widow?
Barely opening his own eyes, Rodgers looked toward Natasha and barely whispered, "Bucky?"
"I don't know." She replied, her voice catching as she saw Cap's eyes close again. Her head snapped up at Wilson suddenly, all steel and no softness, "How are we going to move him?"
Sam leveled his own gaze at her; "I'll carry him on my back. Like I did my old partner."
Natasha lowered her eyes for a moment, slightly ashamed, "We just need to get him away to a road. I have my car."
"That black beauty you picked him up in the other time?" Sam asked almost sarcastically. This day had really been almost too much.
"No, something more… practical." She shot back standing up with his pack over her shoulder. He hadn't noticed her repack it.
"Ok. Here goes nothing." Wilson said and grabbed Steve's hand and reached for his hip. In a deep squat bend, he hoisted Rodgers body up and over his shoulder so his silhouette reminded Natasha of the Wounded Warrior Project symbol. Rodgers made some pain-filled groans and blood began to leak from bandages in tiny drips. Straining under the weight of the stronger man, Sam stumbled through the brush towards the road just in the clearing.
The more practical "car" Natasha brought was actually a tactical vehicle outfit to be a mobile triage. Medics awaited them, still wearing S.H.I.E.L.D logos on their scrubs. Sam paused as he swayed under Cap's weight, "Can we trust them?"
"Can we not?" Natasha countered. She had a point.
The Marvin Gaye's album "Trouble Man" played softly from the iPod in the hospital room. Sam read quietly as Steve was still unconscious from the anesthesia. Natasha and Wilson had met the main surgeon about an hour ago, and he said it would take time to heal, but Steve was a lucky guy to be who he was because a lesser man would have been dead. Satisfied with that prognosis, Natasha left, saying she had some "business" to attend to. Sam was sure that business was to begin to find a way to explain what she and Nick Fury had unleashed upon the Internet in their piece de resistance to bring down the Hydra infested S.H.I.E.L.D. Wilson imagined he could hear all the news networks reporters sharpening their knives to try and carve up Romanova. Boy would they be surprised, he mused.
Again, before Rodgers opened his eyes, he heard music. But this wasn't the baseball game that S.H.I.E.L.D had tried to trick him with before, but a smooth mellow sound, vaguely reminiscent of the Big Band tunes he liked. Inhaling and feeling all his muscles protest and aches and pains that were completely new, he realized quietly he was not dead, and that being 95 years old was starting to get to him.
Cracking an eye, he glanced over to see Sam reading in his recliner. "On your left." Steve said quietly making Wilson look up suddenly from his reading. A wave of relief swept over his expression then a smile.
"Welcome back, Steve." Sam said wondering if he said those words more for Steve or for himself.
Steve settled back in his pillow surprised how much that had taken out of him. In the back of his mind was the haunted face of Bucky about to kill him, so lost and confused. Before drifting back to sleep, he thought fiercely, "I'm with you, to the end of the line. I will find you."