Twisting in the blanket of twirling water Steve struggled to discern up from down and left from right, bubbles of air danced hysterically around him, rushing water in his ears from the impact. The tides began to calm, river trying to settle after being riled up by the violent collision.
Muffled moaning from the sinking helicopter gave Steve an indication of direction. He righted himself, grey t-shirt waving alongside the movements of the river. Squinting through the gloom Steve could see the rising of bubbles, the sinking of the crippled helicopter.
Stripped of its blades, its ability to fly, it was now nothing more than an empty metal shell. Conceding to its watery death the helicopter didn't resist as it was pulled down into an early grave. Caring little for its passenger.
Steve glimpsed the red of Bucky's top amongst the wreckage. He dived immediately, not wasting time to surface for a breath, determination his driving force, giving him the will power to ignore the desperate cries of his starving lungs.
Having had no resistance from the Winter Soldier, pulling his old friend from the wreckage was the easy part, Bucky almost weightless in their submerged surroundings.
Steve's face broke through the settling surface first. Hand around the back of Bucky's top he pulled him up, unconscious his head lolled backwards onto the Captain's shoulder; Steve bracing him against his chest to keep his face above the rippling waves.
Steve panted. Eyes surveying the area.
He could see the flashing of red and blue lights in the distance, on the other side of the building chaos remained supreme.
"Steve!"
His head whipped round towards the man-made riverbank, arm tightening around Bucky.
Sam skidded to a halt on the concrete riverside, out of breath from running he almost teetered over the edge.
His waterlogged boots made his journey more difficult, but Steve got himself and Bucky over to Sam.
"Hold him." Steve instructed.
Sam already crouched down grasped a handful of Bucky's soaked top, allowing for Steve to release his hold without fear of the river swallowing him whole.
Two arms up, Steve found perch on the concrete bank. The muscles in his arms were still recovering from there earlier abuse, he held back a breath as he heaved himself up out of the water.
Water soaked the ground, turning it a dark grey. As soon as he pulled himself free, the extra weight of his sodden clothes became annoyingly apparent, jeans and t-shirt clinging to his form uncomfortably.
No time to worry about these minor details Steve reached back down into the river, hand hooking under Bucky's arm and with Sam's help they lugged him up onto the bank.
Steve looked around constantly remaining alert, still heavy with his breath as Sam helped him lift Bucky up onto his shoulders.
Drenched, leaving a puddle under each step, Steve slipped through the large metal sliding door with Bucky still in toe. Sam not so elegantly shoving it shut behind them.
The warehouse was empty, seemingly abandoned. The old brick walls were once painted white, having turned a dirty grey over the years, peeling or stained in multiple areas. Decades of standing the bricks where cracked and chipped, the building in a state of disrepair. All that remained in the apparent workshop was a few old pieces of rusting machinery sitting on top of a dust covered floor.
Steve lowered Bucky down, slowly easing his head to the floor. Blood had trickled down the side of his face, a wound on his upper forehead, an injury he had sustained in the crash. Leaving Steve conclude the injury was responsible for his current unconsciousness.
Sam took a knee on the other side of Bucky, taking up the man's human wrist.
"Pulse is slow." Sam announced, an alarming amount of concern in his voice.
Steve mimicked him, finding the Winter Soldier's pulse in his neck. He sat back, exhaling leisurely. You could see the muscles in his face relaxing.
"He's ok."
"I think that's an overstatement." Sam quipped.
"His pulse is ok." Steve clarified for him. "Well. For me and him it's ok."
Steve had purposely avoided delving too deep into what had been done to Bucky. It struck him with overwhelming guilt to know he left him behind.
An efficient heart is what kept their resting heart rate slow. One of the many effects of the super soldier serum.
"What do you think happened in there?" Sam posed the question.
"I don't know." Steve sighed. "Whatever he did, the Doctor went to a lot of effort for us to not see."
"Or hear." Sam added.
The blackout had been the last thing Steve could have anticipated. The whole operation had been calculated and executed with precision.
Steve looked down at the steadily breathing man, wondering who was going to wake up.
"He did all this just to get ten minutes alone with Bucky." Steve's eyes shot up from one friend to the other. "With the Winter Soldier." Steve corrected himself. Sam met his eyeline, the realisation being exchanged.
"He flipped the switch." Sam had witnessed the ferocity of the Winter Soldier first-hand. The aggression displayed was mindless, nothing more than a soldier taking orders.
"Yeah. Somehow." Steve ran his hand down his face, wiping away water that had dripped down from his fringe.
"If everything that HYDRA put in him is still there, how can we trust anything he says?" Sam proposed.
Steve understood. It was a responsible concern, one Steve had as well. But when Steve had finally found him in that apartment after two years of searching, he didn't find the Winter Soldier, he found his friend. He found Bucky. He was sure of it.
"He's in there Sam." Steve shuffled himself to his feet, Sam dutifully following. "If you can't trust him. Trust me."
Sam avoided eye contact for a moment, looking around as his mind worked for an answer to Steve's question. Pressing his lips together, he concluded his thoughts.
He nodded sternly. "I've got your back."
A weak groan from Bucky disrupted the stillness of the moment, his face lightly scrunching in discomfort. The brief attempt at consciousness didn't last long, the small movements gone as quickly as they came.
"What's the plan then?" Sam looked to his Captain for his orders.
"We can't be sure who is going to come too. We need to restrain him." Steve looked around the abandoned workspace, trying to evaluate what he had to work with. "We need to know what we are dealing with when he wakes up, plan from there."
"Hopefully, you can think up something. Before he bashes our skulls in."
Steve hooked his arms under Bucky's, the man's black boot scraping against the well-worn floor as he was dragged. There was no objection to the manhandling, the Winter Soldier's unusual predicament almost amusing. The brainwashed killer helpless in their hands would amuse most.
With relative ease Steve sat Bucky on a dented metal box, resting his side against an old power hammer kept him mostly up right.
"You really think this will work?" Sam had been a sceptic for his own idea from the beginning.
Steve kept a hand on Bucky's shoulder, assuring he stayed in place. Giving the senile machine a quick look up and down, he inhaled sharply. Three short nods of the head not the comforting reply Sam was clearly expecting.
"Great." Sam couldn't help but chuckle, hand slapping his side in a fake gesture of excitement.
Steve steadied Bucky with one hand while his other endeavoured to function the power hammer. Sam's eventual intervention got the hammer to lift from the plate, allowing them to slide Bucky's metal arm into position beneath it. Only when the hammer was lowered and locked in place did Steve unhand Bucky. His head hung, restrained arm keeping him seated on the long-forgotten toolbox.
"You know. He almost looks peaceful." Sam suggested, folding his arms finally appreciating and finding confidence in his own idea.
Steve rested his back against the wall, folding his own arms he stared at Bucky. It wasn't easy for him to find humour in their current situation, not that he didn't appreciate Sam's efforts, he just couldn't look over the gravity of what was happening or even what had happened.
All he could think was Bucky was here, that all of this had happened, because of him. Steve was riddled with the guilt of having abandoned his friend when he needed him most.
Bucky had been allowed to be made into a weapon for HYRDA because of him, and that was all he could think while looking at his old friend.
"Steve, listen." Sam could see the turmoil written all over Steve's face.
"Even if we're wrong about Vienna, that's not on you."
"It's not on him either."
"Whatever he's done you can't carry that on your shoulders."
Steve pushed himself off the wall, standing straight his arms fell to his side.
"The Winter Soldier is exactly that, a Soldier." Steve became defensive, taking Sam back slightly. "It's always been HYDRA pulling the strings."
"Is that what you believe, or is that what you just keep telling yourself to make you sleep at night?"
"I thought you said you trusted me?" Steve pulled him up from earlier.
"I said I've got your back." Sam stood his ground. "That means maybe sometimes pissing you off to question your judgement."
Steve backed off, taking a deep breath.
"Look man, I get it." Sam took a gentler approach, drilling into Steve having got the bulk of the message across. "You just need to be sure what you say your seeing of your friend in that man, isn't something you're just putting there."
There was a long awkward silence. Sam waiting for Steve to answer, Steve watching Bucky.
The beating of Helicopter blades against the sky disturbed the unnatural manufactured peace.
"Watch him." Steve asked, not waiting for an answer he walked away.
Through the gap in the door, Steve watched the helicopter make its pass over the area.
Steve had disobeyed orders before. He had been the man at the other end of the strings, being made to dance for the American government as nothing more than a propaganda campaign. He couldn't start to fathom what Bucky was made to endure, and what hell he's having to fight in his own mind.
"Steve." Came the call from further within the warehouse. The helicopter was moving out, the thudding of his blades grew distant.
Jogging the short distance back to Sam and Bucky his boots no longer squelched, a good amount of time having passed since his dip in the Berlin river.
Steve found Sam standing a safe distance away from Bucky, who was still restrained in the dormant machinery by his metal arm. The Soldier was starting to stir. Head trying to raise, feet trying to find firm footing.
Steve watched as the man heaved his head up onto his shoulder, eyes sluggishly opening, peering out through the messy strands of brown hair. It didn't take more than a moment for Bucky to become aware of his left arms entrapment.
"Bucky?" Steve took a step towards him.
Looking up from behind the mess of hair was a stern expression.
Making a weak attempt to pull his arm free accomplished nothing, the rusting heavy hammer not budging. "You need to listen to me." Steve braved another step.
He got nothing but a blank stare from the Soldier.
"I know that you know me. You need to remember."
Bucky lifted his free hand, examining it in almost disbelief before it took a handful of hair on his head. He pressed his head against the machine that had hold of him, pulling a face that only conveyed agony.
"You are not the man HYDRA made you." Steve moved once more, kneeling right in front of his friend so they were eye level, on an even playing field.
The Soldier reeling from the pain in his head gripped Steve's throat with his right hand.
Steve heard Sam move behind him, a hand up made him stop, leaving him on standby.
He made no effort to pull away from Bucky, his hands where just out in front of him steady, keeping them in Bucky's sight to show he had no intentions to make a move.
"You have been there through it all Buck." Steve managed to speak. "From being kids back in Brooklyn, you always stuck up for me. Stuck up for the little guy." He wheezed in a breath. "You knew me before Captain America… And you never left my side." He couldn't help but recall Bucky falling off that dreaded train, hand outstretched he had to watch it all over again. "Not willingly." Steve added.
The hold on his throat loosened, hand trembling as it pulled away.
"Ste…Steve." There was so much pain behind those blue eyes, Steve only able to bare the stare because it was Bucky, it was Bucky staring at him.
"It's me Buck." Steve reached up, taking Bucky's arm in his hand. His red top still damp.
There was a loud bang, men shouting in German from somewhere in the warehouse.
"We're out of time." Sam hissed as he peaked round the corner when opportunistic. "What's the plan then Steve."
They waited, backs to the wall as the armed officers swept the building. It didn't take them long to stumble across Bucky, still sitting with his arm pinned. Steve could hear the officer adjusting his two-handed grip on his gun, shouting orders at Bucky to put his hands up.
The muzzle of the assault rifle appeared in view, Steve grasped it, forcing the gun up into the face of armoured man making him stumble back. A right hook put the man to the floor, gun skittering away. Following the sound of commotion, he looked over to Sam, who had the other closest officer on the floor, one hand holding his bullet proof vest as his knuckles met the man's face.
The rattling of gun fire sent them scurrying back behind the wall for cover, bullet's easily piercing the old brick making them duck, hands shielding there faces from the spray of red dust and chipped paint.
Steve half crawled over to Bucky who was stuck in the open, he had got down as low as possible, trying to get as much of himself behind the machine.
"I'm trusting you." Steve hesitated only briefly. He unlatched the mechanism that held the hydraulic hammer on Bucky's arm.
Free the Winter Soldier burst into action, he kicked open the toolbox he had been sat on, screwdrivers and wrenches tumbling out onto the floor. Rolling through the gunfire he took two varying sizes of screwdrivers in hand.
The first found its target in the shoulder of one of the officers, making his gun spray the wall and ceiling with bullets. Officer gripping the handle of the screwdriver, gurgled a moan of panic. Bucky was on him in a second, snatching his gun from his hand before planting his boot in his chest sending him flying back.
The gunfire had lured more Officers to the location, shouting getting closer and closer. Steve didn't give Bucky a chance to raise the gun or even attempt to drop it, he kicked it from his hand, having rushed him as soon as he had kicked the Officer away.
"Your gonna kill someone Buck."
"Incoming!" Sam yelled from somewhere in the warehouse.
Bucky's arm went up covering his chest and face, bullets striking but not penetrating as two more shooters entered the building.
Sam swept a leg under one man tripping him, a final kick to the head knocking him out. In a frenzied dash for the fallen gun, Sam took it in hand shooting the final Officer in the leg, allowing him to collect his gun from his side.
Immediate danger over Steve put a hand on Bucky's shoulder. He had to dodge backward, Bucky turning on him with the remaining screwdriver in his hand, he slashed at him, holding the makeshift weapon like a knife. The soldier tossed it from one hand to the other, catching it without looking he swung again.
Steve put his forearm up, the tip of the screwdriver a few inches from his face.
"Bucky…" Steve struggled against the power of the mechanical arm.
The Winter Soldier backed off, dropping his weapon, his knee hit the floor.
Breath heavy, hand reaching for his head like before.
Steve put a hand up to Sam to halt him mid sprint, he slowed to a jog before stopping next to Steve.
With the wave of pain passing the Soldier sat back off his knee, in the dirt he looked up at Steve.
"Your… Your Mom's name was Sarah." Bucky recalled, clarity glistening in his blue eyes. "You used to put newspapers in your shoes." The man managed to chuckle.
"Can't read that in a museum." Steve smiled, offering his old friend his hand.
Bucky clasped Steve's hand, being lifted onto his feet. He was slightly unstable, needing a moment to get some balance.
"You with me?" Steve tilted his head trying to read Bucky's blank face.
"What did I do?" He asked swallowing back a breath of anticipation.
"Enough." Steve still had a hold of Bucky, hand resting on his shoulder.
"I knew this would happen." Bucky shook his head in frustration. "All he had to do was say the god damn words."
"Who was he?"
"I don't know."
"He wasn't a doctor that much we can be sure." Sam crossed his arm. "Chased the guy out of the building. Dude vanished in the crowed."
"He did a lot to get into a room with you Buck. I need more than I don't know."
"He wanted to know about Siberia. Where I was kept. He wanted to know exactly where."
An exchange of looks passed between them.
"Why would he need to know that?" Steve questioned, pushing for answers.
"Because I'm not the only Winter Soldier."
Bucky explained in as much detail as possible, reeling off everything he knew about the other Winter Soldiers. Steve could see he was having to dig deep to comply to his demands. After all was said Steve looked to Sam.
"We know where he's going." Steve clarified, Bucky nodding in agreement. "You wanted a plan."
"Just like that, we're supposed to be cool?" Sam gestured to Bucky. "He's barely holding it together."
"But it's him."
Sam rolled his eyes with a smirk on his face. "Like I said. I trust you." Turning to Bucky he pointed.
"But I'm still watching you buddy."
"Siberia then." Bucky sighed.
"Siberia." Steve patted his friend on the shoulder.
Authors Notes
Thanks for reading, just a little one shot continuation of my previous story exploring in more detail how Steve might of had to battle to get his old friend to come back to him.
More Bucky and Sam stories coming soon, I'm obsessed with the Tv series and I'm gather story ideas as we speak.