Trigger Warnings Self harm, and frank references/discussions of suicide and self harm. Another blatant death scene. Bad language and hints of psychological torture/brainwashing/Hydra programming etc.

…

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE - Executions

...

Forgive Me - Bucky Barnes

...

"Sometimes it's both," I am trying so desperately to explain. My tongue hurts badly from biting it earlier, my head is pounding with a migraine, and I'm talking too loudly because I am trying to hear myself think over the voice in my head reciting my trigger words in Russian and English on repeat, over and over and over again.

Longing.

Rusted.

Seventeen.

Daybreak...

"Sometimes I can't tell," I say, pressing a hand to my jaw to try and stop the throbbing. "Sometimes it's easier to tell who is in control when… when something bad happens. I know when I called the Vulture that night and told him you were going to hijack the sale of the microprocessors, Bucky Barnes might as well have been dead."

"Why can you talk now? As opposed to before? Before Steve died?"

"I think I've been wearing him down," I take a deep breath. Vision is sitting beside me on the fold out bed, a first-aid kit open and my jacket and shirt in a pile beside him. There's a pair of surgical tweezers in his hand, and he digs into the flesh of my bare shoulder and extracts the bullet. The hole through my wrist throbs inside a tightly wrapped bandage.

I hiss with pain and bite back a loud groan.

"My apologies," Vision says serenely.

"My primary objective was to keep the Avengers from Toomes while his techie finished upgrading and selling those microprocessors, and then finding the informant..." I heave a loud, shuddering breath, in and out. "I can say it now because Toomes is dead. So where does that leave my objective? I might be a perfectly programmed soldier... but the program itself… it's not a perfect..."

"Brainwashing directive?" Sam fills in sarcastically.

"You've been fighting it this whole time, trying to push back on your programming," Tony asks. "Am I right?"

"Yes."

"Somewhere along the lines you found out that Peter Parker was the informant but never told the Vulture," Tony adds. "You managed to keep that under wraps. I wonder why you were better at some secrets but not others."

"Like I said. I fought it," I say bitterly. "I had no idea that Brock Rumlow was Hydra, so it didn't do him much good."

"What was he even doing in the building?" Rhodes asks.

"He was sent to extract me tonight. My mission was over. Vulture was dead. The microprocessors were recovered, weren't they? Grant Ward probably went crying to his superiors about how I failed."

Rhodes laughs. "You're an idiot if you believe anything Rumlow said. He sure as hell wasn't here to extract you. Hydra doesn't do rescue. They eliminate a liability."

"Rumlow was here to assassinate you, I bet," Sam chimes in. "Did he at any point as you to go up to the roof?"

"Yes," I reply.

"Well," Sam snorts. "He was probably going to throw you off. I've seen that bit before."

"They probably fear exactly what's happening right now," Tony says. "You giving us this intel."

Vision pulls a thread through my skin, and there's an uncomfortable tug as the bullet hole is sewn shut. He clips the extra thread and presses a clean gauze over the stitches, taping it down beside the first one. He pulls my uninjured wrist towards him, turns it over, and taps for a vein. He injects something from a syringe and needle right into my bloodstream.

"For the pain," he says calmly. "That should last the night."

I nod at Vision. "Don't leave anything in here with me."

Vision certainly didn't need me to explain something so obvious. "I did not plan to," he says. He collects the first aid kit, and then walks right through the wall.

I guess this prison works for literally everyone and anything except him.

I stand uneasily, grabbing my shirt off the bed and slowly putting it back on.

Tony gives me a minute before continuing the interrogation. Probably the nicest interrogation I've ever had. There's a sufficient lack of torture.

"What happens to you now?" he asks. "Since you're releasing the intel anyway?"

I give him a grim, tired look, adjusting the sleeves and reaching for the jacket.

"The Winter Soldier is programmed against suicide - but isn't programmed to release intel after getting caught, either," I reply slowly. "Oversight flaw. Most self-harm seems to work as long as it isn't deadly."

Stark and Wilson stare at me, horrified.

"What does that mean, exactly?" Vision asks.

I wince. I wasn't wanting to tell them this - any of this. To be this vulnerable.

"They don't want their super-soldiers to get depressed and kill themselves." I try to explain. "To protect their investment. I would cost them thousands otherwise."

Silence.

"Sometimes the program's own twisted version of self-defense is to hurt itself so that it can't release valuable information to the enemy. Or what's left of my own mind opts for hurting myself to keep the Winter Soldier from taking over entirely. Sometimes pain helps keep me from hurting someone…" I pause, unable to go on. I didn't want to talk about this. Not to anyone except Steve.

"You've tried to kill yourself before?" Sam asks suddenly.

"I've hurt myself a lot… before," I answer weakly. The blood loss making me woozy. "Only when Barnes - I mean, me - was trying to protect someone or something from my directive."

"The busted nose," Rhodes says. "When you came into the rec room."

"Yes," I reply. "I guess I'm prevented from strangling myself, or beating myself in the head till I'm unconscious..." I flex my hands, bruised, and sore. "But the urge is still there," I add offhandedly, putting pressure on my wrist again. It keeps me focused. "From the soldier. Taunting it. Suggesting it."

I sit back down heavily in the chair, trying to tease the muscles and stretch my hands out. I dig the fingers of my left hand into the gauze bandage tight around the stab wound in my right wrist from Sam's wingtip.

Tony's eyes flick down to my knuckles turning white over my wrist. "Stop that."

I force myself to let go of my wrist.

"I would imagine that if there wasn't a Winter Soldier hiding in your head trying to kill everyone and make you hurt yourself," Tony sighs, "You'd listen to my advice more."

"Maybe." I look away. "I wouldn't know."

"What happens if we erase this directive somehow?" Vision asks. "Get rid of the programming?"

I don't know what kind of joke this is, but I play along. "Then I guess I'm... free."

"Then we'll do what it takes," Tony replies, his face like stone.

"But I'm… I'm a traitor? I've hurt this team. It's my fault this all happened."

"This is for Steve," Tony explains. "I am forcing myself to try and understand this - and believe me - I'd rather be angry with you. I'd rather blame you. But the easy thing isn't always the right thing. If you have been a brainwashed, mind-sucking prisoner for Steve's worst enemy, than Steve would want us to save you. We should want to save you."

I open my mouth to protest, but he goes on.

"It's the right thing to do. You can say you don't deserve it all you want - and maybe you don't. But let's say it works. We bleach that brain of yours until there is no Hydra or Winter Soldier shit and all that is left is James Barnes. Don't you think he'd be a little grateful that we tried?"

I try to imagine what that would be like. "I don't know."

"I need one thing from you right now," Tony bends down and rests on his heels, folding his hands patiently. "You said the Winter Soldier is the best sniper in the world. And you still are absolutely certain that you did not shoot and kill Steve Rogers - even if your mind completely checked out and it had full control. Even then. Can you absolutely say for certain that it wasn't you?"

"Yes. I was here at the facility when it happened."

"Then the second-most great sniper," Tony spits the words out sarcastically, hating to compliment Steve's murderer in even the most indirect sense. "Grant Ward. He was at the purchase, and he was the first to run. Did he kill Steve Rogers?"

I nod slightly, and choke out the words. "I believe so."

"Belief isn't what I'm looking for," he says strangely. "We've established that we all believe it was him. I need your certainty."

"You want proof?" I ask.

"Yes," Tony answers. The door behind him opens slightly, and Bruce Banner slips back into the room. He closes the door behind him, leans on it, and looks tiredly at the scene. Not bothering to rejoin Sam at the table.

"Follow Vulture's sales, then," I say, shifting my concentration. "He's the one that upgraded the ammunition to be lined with vibranium. But he refused to tell me who he sold them to."

I pause. This lie happens all too easily. I know exactly who he sold them to - Alexander Pierce. But I don't know who Pierce handed it to. And I can't make myself tell them who it is.

That information, as much as I am betraying now, is still protected.

"Why don't I get back on the phone?" Banner asks. "I'll make it sound like I'm just crunching numbers. Ross will talk to me again. I'll get those sales. He kept records somewhere."

Tony nods eagerly. "Do it."

Bruce avoids looking at me entirely, shutting the door behind him.

"Vulture refused to tell you, and you killed him," Rhodes added. "You know, we could have captured him and made him talk."

"Actually," Tony says painfully. "Not so much. Vulture has been feeding information to the CIA. Remember when we captured Randy many moons ago? We didn't get to keep him. We sure as hell wouldn't have been allowed to keep and interrogate the Vulture. We would have had shit. Everett would have swooped in and snatched him right up." He gives me a look. "It's better that he's dead."

I don't say anything.

"You keep saying the very top of Shield is compromised," Sam says. "But is anyone else under the impression that Nick Fury can be trusted? That he's totally exempt from this? If he's Hydra I'd eat my left hand."

I don't have to confirm that I had tried to kill him in D.C. Nat guessed - she was more familiar with the Winter Soldier's work than I gave her credit for. Pierce pulled the mission and said it would be better to not make Fury a martyr, and I had been so relieved…

I nod, barely.

"Nick Fury is second from the top," Tony continues. "By default, Alexander Pierce is Hydra. He's your handler, he's the one… he's the one holding your brain in his hand."

I feel like I might vomit. I can't answer, but the look on my face is enough.

"If he can't tell us, that's a definite yes," Sam erupts.

"If Alexander Pierce were to unexpectedly die," Tony says, his voice shrill, frighteningly hopeful. "What happens to that brainwashing?"

"It can't be triggered like it could before," I say. "The Winter Soldier would still be there, as well as old directives, but… he… uh…"

"Pierce."

"His… power over me would be over. He could not use the keywords to lock in a newly specific agenda to murder all of you, as he's threatened to many times in the past. You would be safe from me."

"Do your special little brainwashing codewords exist anywhere else?" Sam asks. "No one can just, nab a study guide and make you their new assassin, right?"

I shudder and look at the floor. I realize I can't stop shaking.

"Allow me to interrupt for a moment," Vision pulls something out of the first aid kit. It's a small silver blanket, looks more like plastic than fabric. It unfolds sort of like a road map.

So it can't be used to wind up in a thin, rope like twist with which to hang myself from the pipe sticking out of the ceiling approximately fourteen feet above my head…

Vision slides effortlessly through the window again, hands me the silver material. "It's an emergency blanket," he says. "You need to stay warm."

I wrap it around myself. It crinkles at a comically high volume, but the heat is instantaneous.

"Thanks," I say shortly. It took as much effort to thank him as it did to release protected intelligence. The Winter Soldier fights me on everything. Maybe I didn't even realize how much of me had been worn away, like rot.

Bruce peers back into the room. "Tony?"

"Yeah?"

"The order came from the Triskelion," he says shortly. "Ross still thinks it was just some ordinary buy-out - purchasing material from criminals to keep it off the streets. He doesn't think Pierce was actually using this stuff."

"So Pierce buys the bullets, literally, and Ross still thinks he's on the up and up?" Rhodes exclaims. "Good grief."

"Grant Ward signed in that day," Bruce continues. "He turned a report into Fury for collecting materials for storage. That was the ammunition. It never made it to storage - I just called the facility. That's your rogue assassin." He starts to leave - and rethinks this. "I'm going to go find Natasha," he mumbles, and shuts the door again.

I look at the floor.

"So maybe Pierce dies," Tony says. I glance up, confused. "And then we find some sort of brilliant intern with a royal pedigree who is a hundred times smarter than me to fix the rest of you."

"Okay, wait, so which one do we wana kill?" Sam says sarcastically.

"That's oddly specific," Vision says. "Who has the royal pedigree? Do you have someone in mind already?"

"Back the hell up," Rhodey says, "You can't just murder Alexander Pierce. Tony. Think about what you are saying. There is no going back from this. The Avengers would go dark, we'd be enemies of the state, we'd be…"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Tony holds up a hand. "Who said anything about killing Alexander Pierce?"

"You just DID," Rhodey throws out his hands.

Tony presses his hand to his chest, offended. "I would never dream of doing such a thing. I'm the science division. I'm going to track down a certain Wakandan princess to turn Barnes's skull-slush into a working brain again. That's my directive. I leave killings to the mercenaries."

Rhodey's eyes slowly drift shut as if he heard a very bad pun that he didn't like.

"Wait up, Bruce," Tony says suddenly, leaving the room. Before the door swings shut, I see him extract his phone from his pocket.

Rhodes and Sam give me a look that could melt an iceberg.

"Why don't we take a short break," Vision says serenely. "I'll watch him."

I get off the chair and go to the small bed hanging out of the wall. There's no mattress, but it's better than sitting up in the chair any longer than necessary.

I feel the warmth and the blood loss mingling together in some semblance of falling asleep. Maybe I just lose consciousness.

Either way, I need to make everything stop for just a few moments. Turn it all off. So I can stop thinking about me.

And about Steve.

How disappointed he'd be in me.

...

Feelings - Wade Wilson

...

Ring, ring.

"Sunnyside Taxidermy, if you kill Bambi's mother, we know how to stuff'er!"

"Deadpool," Tony says tiredly. "I got you a lead."

"Talk to me, Goose!"

"The Hydra leader is Alexander Pierce, and he's had his clutches in Barnes with some pseudo magical science hoo-doo."

"What the FUCK? Like brainwashing?"

"Yeah, like brainwashing."

"How the fuck did you find that out?"

"Pierce sent Brock Rumlow to bring him in tonight. There was a fight. James Barnes is now in isolation and he's… uh… cooperating."

"I fucking knew he was the leak. Didn't I fucking say I knew he was the leak?"

"You did."

"So… Nat's out of bag, right?"

"Uh… yeah."

"I have one question. DID she bone him?"

"Don't ask me that. I don't know. And I don't care."

"And how is ol' Rum doing?"

"He's dead."

"Great! Great news! Thank you. L'Chaim."

"Pierce still has some semblance of control, and in order to fix it, we need…"

"I've always wanted to see what the Sundance Kid would look like with two heads," I interrupt. "My sword is sharp. Tell Barnes I will officially stop hating him once he figures out what the fucking goo in his head is doing, okay?"

"Slow down. There's more."

"I love it when you speak my love language. Go on."

"Grant Ward pulled the trigger on Cap."

"Listen, I got three things to say to you about this. One, I've been tracking that white ass for a long time. And let me tell you, it looks better right in front of me than it does running away. Don't get into that too much. Or do, if you're into that sort of thing. Two, I'm already on my way to D.C. for my origami class, so that's a fortunate cop out when no one wants to write about the traffic on the I-95. It's like, four hours there, four hours back - so - Three, it will be dinner time by the time I get back. I'm picking up chinese. Any special requests? Wait, no, don't answer that. I will just get everything plus a handful of bathroom mints."

"Jesus Christ, Wade."

"Close enough, but he was whiter." I reload my gun. "How's Sugarbear?"

"Sugarbear?"

"Peter Parker! Don't tell me you guys left him out there again. You promised, Stark."

A pause.

"What, are there subtitles or something that I can't fucking see from here?" I ask angrily. "What gives?"

Tony groans. "We're going to need to have a serious talk about Peter when you get back. I mean it. And not over the phone."

"I don't do serious. Just tell me he's not on the street and he's in your goddamn tower."

"He's… in the tower."

"I need to hear you say goddamn tower."

"You've heard me swear before. You don't need more."

"It's called expanding your screen-time. He's there now? At the tower?"

"... yes, but…"

"Okay, tell him hi, ruffle his hair, ask him where his mole went, and don't let him meet any redheads. I gotta run. Any other factoids I need before I paint the inside of this wall with my least favorite DNA?"

"This conversation also never happened."

"Bye, bye, birdie," I sing.

End call.

I love the smell of lead in the morning.

I take a deep sniff at the muzzle of my .45 Firestar. If I weren't wearing my Deadpool mask, I might be licking it. But let's not tempt fate.

My other gun in hand is pointed at Grant Ward's forehead. Post manly-wrestle in the dark of the basement I chased him to, and he's been disarmed, the gun lying some distance away. Not as far as I would like, but hey, dead men can't be choosers. He's kneeling in front of me, and hands locked behind his skull.

Listening to my half of the conversation with Tony Stark with growing discomfort.

I've been chasing down this lunatic for awhile now. But sometimes a cop out is just that - cops are out, Avengers are in, and Steve needed a little avenging.

My ipod starts playing Tina Turner, what's love got to do with it.

You must understand though the touch of your hand

Makes my pulse react

"All right, Grant Douglas Ward," I say. "First we start this out with fun facts. There's 31,622,400 seconds in a leap year. And 31,536,000 in a common year."

"The hell...?"

"So every four years you're closer to your death by 86,400 seconds."

Grant Ward rolls his eyes, but there's fear there, too. "You're psychotic."

"Takes one to know one, buttercup. But I'm not the one putting vibranium bullets into the world's favorite hero. So I am significantly less psychotic. Clinically."

He glares at me. "Revenge doesn't suit your little family."

"So you admit if I kill you, it's revenge, by default, admitting you are truly the one that killed Captain Steven Rogers?"

It's physical

Only logical

You must try to ignore that it means more than that oooOOOOoooOoo

Grant lifts his chin, looking sickeningly proud. "I'm not hiding anything. I shot Captain Rogers. That was the mission."

"I knew you were going to say it, and yet, still hurts." I sigh deeply. "But it'll hurt me way more than it'll hurt you. Sticks and stones, my friend. Sticks and stones. Your words are like sticks, but I have the stones. Your admittance is the only thing I wanted, because it gives me full clarity of conscience to make sure that, by the end of this overly verbose scene that tries WAY too hard to be threequel material, you're dead."

I twirl the gun in my hand to elaborate. "As in - not breathing, no heartbeat, no surprise resurrections, no last minute escapes, no vacations to Tahiti, and otherwise no possible comic book comeback. We're not going to Issue Number Seventy-Five Doomsday this thing, and we're not traveling in time to fix the bullshit of a certain Titan playing a West Side Story prologue. Your contract is up, buddy. It should have been up a long, long time ago."

"You don't want to kill me," Ward says slowly. "We're not so different, you and I. It seems like no matter what we do, we're always coming back, used and abused by our agencies again and again…"

"AHHHHHHHHHH," I yawn suddenly. "I dropped out for a minute there. Look, I get it. Everyone gets a death monologue in your neck of the woods. But this is cutting room floor material. Unless it's Snyder. Then it all goes in. Does my upper lip look funny to you?"

"Okay, okay! I get it! Fine. Just, get on with it, asshole," Grant snarls, blood running between his teeth, from the abrasions on his forehead. I see his eyes flick over to his fallen gun about three yards away. His body language shifts by a nearly invisible millimeter.

Boy ain't going down without a fight. I wouldn't mind seeing a little bit more of that!

What's love got to do, got to do with it

What's love but a second hand emotion

"You know if I don't, and I let you get on with it, you spend an entire six months or so playing host to a religious alien with a questionable accent," I tell him. "If that doesn't stretch your thespian vulnerability like a pair of good lederhosen, I don't know what does. Here's my question. Do all lederhosen bunch up like that at the groin because of the way it buttons, or do all traditional German folks have abnormally large..."

"Why are you still talking?"

"Don't worry, I am saving you from daytime TV dairy farm, because damn, they know how to milk one actor to their absolute expiration date."

Grant Ward gives me a dark, seething, purely evil and psychopathic expression. Or is it sociopathic?

There's a name for it

There's a phrase that fits

But whatever the reason you do it for me ooOOOoooOOOooooo

He twists very suddenly, elongating his body like a fucking leopard leaping off a rock. He throws his body across the cement space, grasping his fallen gun, twisting before fully hitting the floor and squeezing off a shot in my direction, while I simultaneously pull both triggers in each hand.

I've been thinking about my own protection

It scares me to feel this way oh oh oh

His bullet goes through my left elbow. "Oh fucking fuck, FUCK," I shake my wrist around, and my arm flops just a little too much. "Oh wait - I guess I'd better practicing censorship. Damn! Shit! That hurts like a Melon Farmer! MELON FARMER!"

I look down at Grant Ward, lying prone before me, his gun laying on his stomach where he dropped it and a hole in his forehead.

You can never really tell if they're dead or just negotiating a new contract.

"You know, I really truly believe there is no ounce of irony here. Poetic justice is dead. As are you. But if there was any sense of true justice, I would not have to be the one pulling this trigger. Someone who hates you way, way more than me - like, from your own writer's room. Any one of them would do, but, as it turns out, I'm the one with proximity."

The earbud stuck in one ear gracefully reaches the end of the song and begins playing

Morris Albert.

Feelings, nothing more than feelings,

Trying to forget my feelings of love.

Teardrops rolling down on my face,

Trying to forget my feelings of love.

Grant Ward's body spasms.

"FUCKING FUCK FUCK!" I scream, startled, pulling my triggers again.

BANG BANG

BANG BANG BANG

BANG BANG

BANG

I shoot him eight more times.

...

Next - Shhh, spoilers. No apologies this time. Delighted cackles. I believe I will post it Wednesday evening (Pacific Standard Time, USA).

Personal Review Replies

Tightpants182 - OMG I love you and I'm so sorry for torturing you. Bless you for reading. I hope you enjoyed this chapter. MORE TO COME :)

Sakura-Fiction - I love your amazing review haha it's so long and thoughtful and made me nod and go "AHA!" and also get really excited. I have A Plan if you will about this whole death thing... no spoilers or anything but you're not that far off? haha. Thank as always for joining. Happy readings!

LeDbrite - Oh my goodness, welcome welcome from the silent review squad to the slightly noisier ones. Thank you so much for your amazing review, it really made my day on a rough day. Thank you for your thoughtful and kind words, I truly appreciate it. I hope you enjoyed!

Up-In-the-Clouds1285 - Thank you for your thoughtful review! I felt the same way about Steve though, it was so wrong but after awhile it felt like the right choice for the story - I considered not doing it for a long time! Thank you for joining in, happy reading my friend!

DaWriter06 - Ugh I know freaking Infinity War ruined me and now I've gone and killed people too, apparantly I've learned nothing! lol. Thank you for your awesome reviews!

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LoonyLovegood1981 - Ehhhhhhh as the great Princess Diaries movie famously sung to us "Miracles happen Ooooonce in awhiiiiile, when you BUUUH-LIEEEEVE..." Thanks so much for your review as always! You're amazing!

Guest - You are SO welcome :)

curry-llama - oooh, zombie Peter. Nice idea. New AU fic? Haha. You should write it ;) Thanks for your review and message! You're the best! Happy reading :) (sorry for all the heart twisting!)

EleanorGardner - OMG I love you haha and I am so sorry I tortured you for so long, I hope this chapter was a nice taste in the void lol. Thank you so much as always you're wonderful