Not much to say about this one. We've finally come to the train. Here it goes.
Steve was standing on a rocky outcropping somewhere high in the Swiss Alps, squinting against the biting wind and feeling little shivers running down his spine that had nothing to do with the cold. A snow-covered train track curved around the mountainside across the gorge below them, and in a few minutes, a train bearing Dr. Arnim Zola would come speeding by. Zola. The man who had tortured and nearly killed Bucky. The man Steve had defied Phillips' orders to stop. In a few minutes, he and Steve would be face to face for the first time. And then Arnim Zola wasn't going to cause anybody any trouble ever again.
In front of him, a long, thick cable stretched out into space, clamped into the rocks on the mountain opposite, several yards above the train tracks. The train that would soon be here was warded to the teeth, prohibiting any sort of magical entry. Their plan of attack, therefore, was entirely physical—zipping across the line and dropping onto the top of the train. If they couldn't find a door or a window once they were on top, they had explosives, and would just blow a hole in the roof.
The problem was, the train was moving fast enough that there wasn't a big enough window for the whole team to get across and land on top. They'd done a lot of math, and only three of them were going to make it. Steve and Bucky were, obviously, two of them. Gabe was going too—he was the only one who spoke and read German well enough to be able to take over the controls of the train once they made it to the front. The rest of the team was going to stay back on the ledge, monitoring communications, and then apparating to join them once they had control of the train and were able to take the wards down.
Steve listened with half an ear to Jim and Gabe fiddling with the radio behind him, most of his focus on the cable in front of him and gauging things like wind speed and the distance across to the other side. He turned at the sound of Bucky's boots crunching on the snow as he came up beside him.
"You remember when I made you ride the Cyclone at Coney Island?" Bucky asked, staring across the empty space they had to travel.
"Yeah, and I threw up?" Steve replied.
Bucky pulled his eyes away from the gorge and looked at Steve, one eyebrow raised in amusement. "This isn't payback, is it?"
Steve smiled. It was a dizzying view. "Now, why would I do that?"
"We were right," Gabe said from behind him, making both of them snap their heads around to where Gabe and Jim were crouched by the radio. "Dr. Zola's on the train. We just heard him give the engineer permission to open up the throttle." Not that they had doubted Phillips' intel, but before you jumped off a mountain onto a moving train, it was generally a good idea to confirm the guy you were after was going to be there.
Steve looked at Bucky and they both gave each other a nod. This was it. Steve pulled his helmet on, tightening the strap under his chin before turning to help Jacques with the handlebars and cables. Monty was standing on the far end of the ledge with a pair of binoculars, watching for when the train came around the bend. "Let's get going," he said, turning back to face the rest of them. "Because they're moving like the devil."
Steve nodded again, flinging the straps of his handle over the cable and giving it a tug to make sure they were secure. "We've only got about a ten second window," he reminded Bucky and Gabe. "We miss that window; we're bugs on a windshield."
"Mind the gap," Monty said with a grin.
"Better get moving, bugs!" Dugan said, his eyes darting over to the oncoming train.
Steve gripped his handlebars tighter, drawing in a deep breath and keeping his eyes on the descent in front of him.
"Maintenent!" Jacques called, and Steve jumped, swinging out into space. The train wasn't actually there yet, and he shushed the little panicked voice inside him that was screaming that he was going to slam into the side of the mountain. The wind was whipping past his head so fast he couldn't hear anything, but he felt the cable bounce as Bucky jumped after him, then again as Gabe followed. As he got closer to the mountain, he could feel vibrations travelling up the cable, heralding the arrival of the train.
The sleek black engine zoomed into view under his feet, and Steve waited, counting train cars zipping by below him, until he was low enough he knew he could stick the landing. He dropped, crouching almost flat to absorb the way it jarred his knees as he landed and to keep his center of balance low. For a moment, he didn't move, making sure his position was steady and getting a feel for the speed of the wind. He looked back behind him, seeing Bucky and Gabe doing the same, and let out a little breath of relief that they'd both landed safely. The train was going so fast, the rest of his team on the ledge was already out of sight.
Staying low to the surface of the train, he crept forward, eyes searching the sides for an entry on the sides or a window in the top. He found a ladder a couple cars up and carefully maneuvered himself down to the side, climbing down and sliding open the door. He jumped in, wand at the ready and searching for threats as he waited for Bucky. The two of them were going to come up from the back while Gabe made his way up to the front—they could draw the fire and give Gabe a chance to stop the train sooner.
Bucky swung inside and pointed his wand at the door, sliding it shut again. As the door slammed closed, it got a lot warmer and quieter inside the car. Aside from the two of them, there didn't seem to be anyone else there. They looked at each other warily—with as warded as the train was, their entry should not have gone undetected. Steve met Bucky's eyes. They were waiting for them. Bucky nodded his agreement, sliding several steps back and nodding for Steve to go forward. They were going to need to spread out and go slow.
After making sure this car was clear and Bucky secured the door behind them, Steve moved forward into the next compartment. This one had boxes lining the walls and a narrow shelf running down the middle, stacked with assorted gear. He moved slowly, checking behind each pile of boxes and peering around the shelves, sensing Bucky doing the same behind him. At the end, he nodded to Bucky and stepped through the first door into the narrow gangway, and then through the next door on into the next compartment.
He was only a few steps in when he felt a snap of magic and heard the door slam shut behind him. He spun around just in time to see the second door of the gangway slam shut with Bucky still on the other side, soldiers in Hydra black coming up behind him. Steve banged on the door, searching for a release mechanism, when he heard over the rattle of the train the faint hum of a Tesseract gun powering up behind him. He flung himself down and to the side as a blast of energy sailed over his head, blasting a smoking crater in the wall down by the floor.
Rapid bursts of gunfire from the compartment behind him told him that Bucky was still alive and fighting, and that was good, and he pulled his shield up in front of him and started firing spells at the advancing Hydra soldier. The man ducked to the side, and then again, and as his gun powered up to fire again, Steve shot a quick glance up at the ceiling. There was a hook on a rolling track, probably for moving heavy things up and down the train, and Steve leapt forward and grabbed the hook, hurtling through the air with his shield in front of him. Another blast of energy bounced off his shield, but he was going too fast for it to slow him down much. His feet plowed into the chest of the soldier who couldn't get out of the way in time, driving him to the ground. Steve dropped next to him and slammed his shield down into the man's helmet, making sure he wouldn't get up again.
He picked up the man's energy weapon and blasted open the door behind him, then threw it down and rushed forward. Through the window of the second door, he could see Bucky still fighting, two Hydra soldiers on the floor, but another one coming through the door at the back. Bucky wasn't using his wand—it must have gotten knocked out of his hand somewhere—and he was ducking behind a stack of boxes and darting up to fire at his oncoming opponent. Steve heard his gun click empty and saw him duck back behind the boxes again, breathing hard and making himself as small a target as possible.
Steve pulled out his own gun and hit the release mechanism on the door, keeping to the side to remain out of view of the other soldier behind the shelves. Bucky's head snapped over to look at him, his gaze fearful for a second until he registered that it was Steve and not another Hydra soldier coming up behind him. Steve held up the gun, then tossed it over to Bucky, who immediately dropped his old one and caught Steve's, nodding as he read the plan in Steve's eyes.
Bucky jumped up again, firing at the Hydra soldier and sending him diving for cover behind the shelf. Steve lunged into the room, slamming his shield into the long crate sitting on the shelf and sending it hurling toward the Hydra soldier's face. The soldier jumped out to the side to avoid getting his skull crushed, and Bucky fired again, a single shot catching him in the middle of the head and dropping him to the floor.
They both stood on guard for a second more, making sure no one else was coming. Steve let out a sigh of relief when it remained quiet, drawing in a deep breath. The tension dropped out of Bucky's shoulders and he lowered his gun. "I had him on the ropes," he said, brushing away how close that had been.
"I know you did," Steve replied, clapping his shoulder just like it had been any other fight. A familiar mechanical whine sang through the air behind them above the roar of the train, and he spun around to see another soldier with an energy weapon approaching, blue light glowing from the muzzle of the gun.
"Get down!" he yelled, shoving Bucky behind him as he raised his wand and yanked his shield back up into position. The blast of energy was closer to him than most of the ones Steve had blocked before, and the force of it connecting with his shield was enough to send him flying backwards into the wall. The angle the blast caught his shield was enough to send it hurling off his arm while he flew in the opposite direction, and Steve yelled as it felt like it was ripping his arm off as it flew away.
It took Steve a second to figure out which way was up after his head made contact with the wall, but even from the ground, he saw Bucky's legs move into view, blocking some of the glaring white glinting off the snow outside that he could see through the new hole in the wall, Bucky's hand darting down to scoop up Steve's shield.
Bullets cracked through the air as Bucky fired at the oncoming soldier, and Steve shoved himself to his knees, eyes searching the floor, trying to find where his wand had fallen. The whine of the gun powering up brought his eyes up again, and Steve looked up in time to see another burst of blue light blast through the compartment, knocking the shield out of Bucky's hand and flinging him back.
"BUCKY!" Steve yelled as his friend flew out the hole in the side of the train. He was on his feet and grabbing the shield before he could think about it, flinging it at the Hydra soldier and knocking him out with barely a conscious thought as he rushed to the side of the train, throwing off the helmet that had come loose and was slipping down into his face and obscuring his vision.
The wall of the train hadn't detached entirely when the energy hit it, and it had folded back on itself in the force of the wind. Bucky had managed to grab on to one of the rails on the side and was hanging on for dear life, dangling precariously out into empty space. "Bucky!" Steve yelled again, grabbing on to a section of railing and looking for somewhere to put his feet so he could slide over to him. He swallowed hard as he looked down—the gorge below had gotten a lot deeper since they'd landed on top of the train. He could barely see the bottom.
"Hang on!" Steve told him, moving out onto the side of the train as fast as he could. Bucky started inching along the bar he was holding on to, eyes locked on Steve's. He looked terrified. Steve moved faster, then came to a tear in the metal too wide for him to step across. He leaned forward, stretching one hand as far as it would go. "Grab my hand!"
Bucky reached out, then the metal he was holding onto moved, tearing slowly away from the train, and he latched back onto it with both hands, catching himself as he shifted downward. Steve stretched even farther and Bucky reached out again, straining to close the gap between them. The wind was whipping his hair back from his face, allowing Steve to see clearly the fear in his eyes.
"No!" Steve yelled as the rail in Bucky's hand shifted and lurched down another couple of inches. Steve lunged forward, barely maintaining his grip, and his hand brushed Bucky's. For a moment, hope surged in his chest as his fingers and Bucky's scrabbled to lock together, then a wrenching sound of metal sheared the rest of the railing away from the train and ripped a hole in Steve's soul as Bucky plummeted out into space, a terrified scream escaping his lips, his hands still reaching out for Steve's.
The metal groaned and lurched in Steve's hand and he started to fall too, and he was never sure how he maintained his grip, never sure how he got back inside the train. He was just there, huddled in a ball on the floor, the wind whipping the tears from his face. A wave of pain ripped through his body, sorrow and fear and anguish tearing out of his throat in a tormented howl. Magic roared through his body with the pain and he didn't try to stop it, barely even noticed it as it exploded out of him, shredding through the walls of the train compartment, and those of the next one, and the next, reducing them to smoldering ash.
Bucky was gone. It was the end of the line.
.
