Once again, the orders have changed. Now there are three targets, instead of two. Not simply the targets from the photos, but also Agent Sitwell. He has been captured by the Captain and Romanov, endangering the entire mission. No one knows how much he's said, or if he's with the fugitives willingly or by force, but Pierce and the others don't care. They want him dead, and the work falls to me, the fist of Hydra. I pack an arsenal, just in case, by some unforeseen circumstance, my first attack fails. I climb into the back seat of the black jeep that will carry me to my target. I can't run everywhere. I sit calmly, my mind blank for a few seconds. I run through my mission in my mind, thinking of all possible variables, and accounting for each one. Every avenue is blocked for my targets. I anticipate their every move, and create a plan to counter it. Nothing can go wrong. I am invincible.
The man in the passenger's seat listens to his earpiece, then turns his head towards me. "Targets are on the run. We'll get you behind them, then you jump the car."
I nod slightly, running more scenarios. They can't be allowed to escape. We're coming up on a small black car, and the agent motions for me to go. I open the door, swinging onto the roof with some cybernetic assistance. I hear in my earpiece that Agent Sitwell is in the back left seat. Using all my stealth skills, I leap onto the black car's roof. The glass of the window shatters as I throw Sitwell out of the car and into the oncoming traffic on the other side of the highway. One target down. I regain my center on the roof, then pull out a handgun, shooting one shot into each of the remaining seats. Three others down. Or so I thought. Apparently they managed to anticipate my attack, because they slam on the brakes, stopping short and throwing me off the roof onto the pavement. I instinctively curl into a ball at the right moment, rolling to break my fall. I dig my metal hand into the tarmac, sparks flying as I adjust my center of gravity to avoid rolling again from my momentum. Once I stop, I stand slowly, locking my gaze on the stopped black car a few hundred feet from me. My command jeep hurtles towards it, smashing into the small car with devastating force. They keep driving, pushing my targets towards me. At the exact right second, I leap into the air, catching the front of the windshield, and flipping onto the roof. I feel my boots punch through what's left of the back windshield, my body slapping onto the roof, only mildly cushioned by my body armor. I pull my legs under me, regaining my balance and switching which hand is my anchor. Smashing through the windshield with my newly freed metal arm, I firmly grasp the steering wheel and wrench it out of the car. I can hear the distress in the driver's voice, jumping back onto the jeep's hood as I hear shots hurtle by my ear. I anchor myself to the jeep by my left arm, bracing myself as we rammed into the much smaller, already smashed up target car. The force of the collision pushes the car out of control. I can tell it will only be a few seconds before it will be thrown into a deadly roll. Any normal targets will be dead soon. Any normal targets. These targets aren't normal. They have the man with the shield, and whoever he is, he is definitely not normal. They manage to escape the rolling, bouncing wreck somehow. I think the blonde man smashed off a door with his shield. The wreck spins away in front of us, but the targets slide slower, falling behind us. Romanov and the Captain slide on the shield, while the driver rolls on the bare pavement. We stop at roughly the same time as the targets, disembarking quickly. I calmly take the grenade launcher offered by one of my team members, shifting my gaze to the Captain and Romanov, who are just standing up after their tumble. I raise my grenade launcher smoothly and fire directly at the pair, hoping to catch them both in the explosion. The Captain pushes Romanov, and she runs out of the way, while he takes the full blast on his shield. The energy of the explosion throws him over the side of the bridge, so we turn our attention to Romanov and the driver. As my team lays down a wall of machine gun fire, I calmly stride forward in front of them, my eyes searching for the perfect bead on Romanov. I spot her rising to take a shot at us, which makes her vulnerable, if only for a second. A second, however, is all I need. I get off a shot, but in the explosion, I see her vault over the small wall onto the other side of the bridge. She runs, dodging gunfire, but still mostly in the open. As she runs behind a small car, I send a grenade straight at it, creating a huge fireball directly intercepting her path. I don't, however, suppose that she was stopped by the explosion. Judging from my briefing on her, she is crafty and resourceful. I have to make sure she's dead. I walk towards the opposite wall of the bridge, and as I drop my grenade launcher, a team member hands me his machine gun. I take it without breaking stride, setting up on the wall, ready to quickly change my aim based on where Romanov appears. I am momentarily distracted by a view of the Captain's shield beside a crashed bus below, and I begin to raise my gun towards it, but the ring of gunshots and an unexpected impairment of my vision cause me to instinctively turn, ducking behind the wall. I realize my goggles are cracked, so I remove them. I sit for mere seconds, and my brain processes the stimuli it had just received. Gunshots, vision impairment, cracked goggles… She shot me in the face. I underestimated her. The thought angers me. I don't make mistakes. I burst up from behind the wall, firing more recklessly than usual. She ducks behind obstructions as I fire at her, and I pull back as she fires at me. One of my team members shows up beside me, firing at her as I pause, watching her run out of range. I don't take my eyes off her as I address him in Russian. "I'll take her. You go after him." He nods, and I vault over the side of the bridge, dropping onto a car below to break my fall. I walk forward confidently, my mind set on only one thing: Romanov's imminent demise. She tries to hide, but my piercing blue eyes catch flashes of black in between cars. A police car crossing my path is only an annoyance. I shoot the gas tank casually, and the cruiser becomes a flaming wreck. I cock my machine gun, preparing to fire again when I next see Romanov. As I walk down the now-quiet street, I hear the murmur of a voice behind a silver minivan. A female voice. Romanov is here. I silently crouch, pulling out a small, round grenade and carefully rolling it under the van to the origin point of the voice. I stand, watching the car turn into a huge fireball. Not even Romanov could have escaped that. I turn, lowering my gun, only to be caught completely off guard by none other than Romanov herself kicking my gun out of my hands. She lands on my shoulders, quickly pulling out a wire to strangle me. My instincts kick in just in time for me to get my hands in between the wire and my neck. I fight her, backing us into a car. I get a firm grip on the wire, then jolt my whole body forwards, yanking on the wire. This sends her flying into the car in front of us, and she groans. I quickly retrieve my gun from the street, preparing to take the shot, but before I can, she manages to throw something at me. I don't know what it is until I feel my left arm go limp with a sparking sound. She runs, leaving me behind. I study the EMP for a split second before ripping it off. The feeling of life slowly returns to my arm, and I flex my fingers slowly, then rotate my shoulder, snapping it back to life with a satisfying whirr. She isn't hard to follow, as she is trying loudly to warn off civilians. I target her by sound and a flash of black, firing one shot. Her cry of pain and surprise confirms the hit. I follow her, looping around to cut her off, and as I climb onto the hood of a car, I see her leaning against another car, hiding. I aim, about to finish her, when I see a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye. I turn just in time to see the man with the shield, obviously coming to rescue his friend. I round on him with a powerful punch from my metal arm, but he blocks it with his shield. I pull back, knocking the shield aside and kicking him back with enough power that I fall too. I sit up, firing multiple rounds at him, which he simply blocks with the shield. My rifle is finally out of ammo, so I pull my automatic handgun from its holster on my back. I keep firing as he ducks behind cars, but as I come up on him, he kicks it out of my hand. In one smooth motion I draw the glock at my hip, shooting him at point-blank range, but only hitting his shield. He punches me in the face, also managing to knock my glock away. I grab his shield with my metal arm. Perhaps if I rid him of his defense, he will be easier to beat. I land a punch to his face, trying to make him drop it, then start twisting his arm. He flips to escape my grasp, but now I possess his shield. He tries to land a few punches and kicks, but I block them easily. He rolls backwards from a failed attempt, and as he rises, our eyes briefly lock. Again, the feeling of something I can't identify. I brush it away. He runs at me, and I throw the shield in a powerful burst that just misses his head. Instead it buries itself in a van behind him. Since he has managed to knock away all my firearms, I pull out a smaller piece of hand-to-hand weaponry, a knife. I slice, he blocks, I move, he counters. It is almost more of a dance than a fight. He lands a punch in my face, then a kick to the abdomen, knocking away my knife and throwing me against a van behind us. He smashes his knee into me again before I bound up, trying to grab him by the shoulders, but instead finding myself thrown to the ground. I rebound to my feet, grasping him by the throat with my metal arm. I could just crush his throat now and be done with it, but the something whispers not to. His eyes hold the only fear I have seen from him thus far. I should kill him, but instead I throw him to the ground, over the hood of a truck. I leap onto it, using my elevation to deliver a crushing metal punch that will split his skull, but he rolls aside a split second before I land. Annoyance at his resilience begins to turn into rage, and as he tries to fight me again, I block with a vengeance, pulling out my second and final knife as I knock him into a gray van. I fight to slit his throat, but instead cut only the metal of the van as we slide across it. He lifts me, throwing me backwards to the ground, and while I recover, retrieves his shield from where it lodged earlier. We fight again, with me stabbing and him blocking and each of us occasionally landing a punch. He somehow gets behind me, and as I turn around, he drives his shield into my cybernetic arm, causing an awful shriek of pain from its machinery. I jerk backwards, hitting him in the face with the back of my head, and as I do, he grabs my shoulder. I flip to escape, but it is a sloppy, desperate tactic, which lands me in a roll instead of neatly on my feet. I feel my mask come loose as I roll, and growl mentally. First the goggles, now the mask… I look back at the man, waiting for his next attack, but his expression is mystifying. He looks almost… I search for the word. Betrayed? Yes, betrayed, and also a little bit shell-shocked. But why? We don't know each other. Do we?
His face softens slightly, looking as confused and lost as I am. "Bucky?" he asks, his voice almost quavering.
"Who the hell is Bucky?" I respond, my inner confusion beginning to manifest in my eyes. I don't have time to listen for a response, because something comes behind me and knocks me off my feet. When I look up, it seems to be the driver, only now he has wings. None of that matters now, though. My entire soul, my whole essence has boiled down to one question: Who the hell is Bucky? Whispers from a lost self are beginning to stir, and it terrifies me. Whatever is happening, everything I am screams that it is wrong. I live for missions. I am the Winter Soldier, not this Bucky, whoever he is. But if that is true, why does something else whisper that this is right, that somehow I am? As my eyes settle back on the man with the shield, I can almost sense a name. I remember, but in a moment, it all fades. I pull my last gun from its holster, a tiny four-barreled contraption, and aim at the Captain's head. Unfortunately, Romanov has finally regained mental faculties, and as she throws a grenade in my direction, I bolt into the street, towards base. I don't look back. Whoever Bucky is, I am not him.