Same warning as before, except adding major character death.


Bucky falls, so Steve jumps after him. They land dozens of feet apart and Bucky's hurt worse, his arm nearly wrenched off by something. Steve's head is fuzzy and he knows he's not thinking straight, but all he can do is curl up around Bucky and hope Stark and the Commandos find them soon.

.

They're found, but it's not by Stark and the Commandos.

Bucky's been out of it for days, and Steve's not far behind. He's mumbling about Brooklyn summers, about coffee and colored pencils, about the Grand Canyon, and the Russians practically stumble across them, jabbering too fast for Steve's scant knowledge of the language to keep up. Bucky's like ice in his arms, breath barely there, and when the Russian soldiers pull him away, Steve's too slow, too tired, too cold –

They shoot him in the head. Steve's mind goes white.

.

Steve is not Steve for a very long time. It has no name. It is a weapon, it is aimed, it is let loose, it returns obediently, submits for maintenance, and is stored away again until needed.

For a very long time, it is a weapon. But it remembers in glances, in stolen moments. It remembers and hoards the memories like treasures, and it turns them over, one at a time.

It remembers blue eyes, strong hands, a bright laugh. It remembers Stevie from a warm voice on a warmer night. It remembers falling and cold and promising that they'd be warm again to the blue eyes, to the strong hands, to the – the fading laugh.

It remembers a gunshot.

There is not one thing in particular that wakes him up, from where he's been sleeping inside the weapon. There's a lot of things. At the bottom of them, deep in what's left of Steve Rogers' heart, there is an all encompassing rage that needs to be let out.

So he lets it out.

.

It is 1997 when the weapon shatters and Steve Rogers comes back to life. It is a bad year for Hydra. For everyone, really. Once, Steve Rogers fought for the little guy, for the right thing.

Steve Rogers died with Bucky Barnes in the mountains. So what's left of him starts with Hydra and goes from there.

Once, Steve Rogers minimized damage where he could, worried about causalities, civilians, and non-combatants. Once, Steve Rogers had lines he wouldn't cross. Lines he wouldn't let his men cross. Lines he swore to never let Bucky cross, because he knew that whatever Bucky said, he'd regret it later. Bucky talked about doing what Steve couldn't, what Steve wouldn't, keeping Steve's hands clean.

Steve's hands are drenched with red because he was too slow. If he's even Steve anymore. He doesn't think so.

No. Steven Grant Rogers died with James Buchanan Barnes in the mountains. And he's going to make the world pay for it.

.

SHIELD notices almost immediately, of course. The people on their watch-lists, the organizations they've been listening to – well, somebody's going through them like a katana through a scarf.

But it's not till Alexander Pierce turns up minus a head that anybody realizes what's been growing inside SHIELD from the beginning.

I'll be coming for the next two is scrawled messily in Pierce's blood and there isn't a soul who sees it that isn't chilled to the core.

.

Once, Steve Rogers made a name for himself on the battlefields of the worst war in human memory. He's in the history books for it.

He died a hero, capturing the man who gave them the intel needed to save the United States from a genocidal madman's final solution.

What no one alive knows is that Captain America was delivered to that man and turned into the finest weapon ever forged.

(He'll realize later that he could have fought. Would have. If Bucky hadn't died. If he hadn't failed. They left Bucky there, cold and still, and he went back, 50 years too late, he went back. He couldn't find Bucky.

The world pays for that, too.)

.

In 2006, almost a decade after he wakes up with hate in his heart, Howard Stark's son tracks him down. Every intelligence agency in the world is trying to find him, but Stark's son is the only person to manage it.

He rambles about nothing, pacing around the room, gaze warily going to and away from – well, he doesn't have a name anymore. He should have a name. Not Steve, though. Steve died with Bucky.

"Hey, Cap," Stark says, "are you listening to me?"

"No," he replies, fingers on his most-used knife. (His favorite, he thinks sometimes. Because he has opinions now.)

Stark nods, licking his lips. "Okay. Well, I just – I know Dad helped you. So, I guess, I am, too. 'cause –" He pauses and then his eyes go wide.

"Shit," he says. "You're – not the Captain America from all his stories, are you?" Like the trail of carnage he followed shouldn't have told him that.

The man who was once a weapon, and before that Steve Rogers, shakes his head. "Does anyone know you're here?" he asks.

Stark backs up and opens his mouth – and there is a knife in his throat. He dies cleanly and quickly, and his body is never found.

.

All of his kills are attributed to terrorists or random violence. That one man could be doing it – no, impossible. He is in some files as the Winter Soldier, but that intel is old, out-dated. He spent half a century as a ghost. He is very good at disappearing.

He dresses like a civilian, most of the time. In harmless clothes. He keeps his hair to the same length it was when he woke up, a memorial to the mindless asset. It is the only memorial granted to that ghost.

He takes the name James. Bucky didn't like it because he thought it was common. There were too many James' in the world.

Now there are too few and one more.

.

He does not age. He does not die.

When the alien leads an invasion into New York, SHIELD barely fights it off, and only because the giant green beast provides an indestructible distraction. SHIELD is weak due to the Hydra infection that has barely been excised.

James goes to New York. He needs to rest; there are always enemies and he is tired. Has been tired since… 1944. So he dresses like a harmless grad student and helps with the clean-up – he removes rubble, serves meals to volunteers and homeless alike, and feels the most like Steve Rogers he has since Bucky died.

So he stays.