"You seem a little defensive."
"It's been a long day."
Dreams… They really do come true.
If you can remember them or donate the smallest shred of your conscious heed to make them so. Many of us don't even recall them until we're prompted or some semblance of them occurs in our waking lives.
Given the day Steve had had? That dream was the last thing on his frazzled fucking mind. Whether it should or should not have been is a matter up for debate.
And Bucky?
Well, Bucky was on edge, though significantly more relaxed than he had been; he could blame Steve for that particular infection. His blonde companion dropping his guard upon Stark's arrival and subsequent absolving declaration had done wonders in more than just their truce, but the silent, unspoken one weaved among the trio as well. Still, apprehension and clawing anxiety should have been a given as they cleared the Siberian bunker, weapons ready, that used to be called home on his behalf. The third-party, close on his heels with (apparently trademark) dry wit comments punctuating what felt like every step, did not help.
"I'm not sayin' you don't know where you're going or anything but… are you sure you know where you're going?"
"He knows what he's doin', Tony."Steve's hiss circumvented Bucky's (whose reply would have been a lot more cautious, given who he spoke to), cut through the stale air of the bunker; his breath fogging, hanging, then evaporating. "Let him do it."
"It's been a while." Bucky offered, inching from behind his scope but not enough to compromise his focus or his stance. The SAW Pawtrooper (borrowed from Natasha's locker) scarcely shifted with the minuteness of the movement, so steady and perfected after years of slaughter. Years of stalking prey. "But we're close. I know that."
Every footstep and creeping movement echoed upon endless, austere concrete. Despite the care and desire in keeping their presence as quiet as possible for as long as possible, it proved an unavoidability when the endless, labyrinth-like corridors held nothing to absorb the sounds of existence after so long.
The desertion of the bunker could not have been plainer. Unmaintained. Unkept. Paused in time. Dust upon dust. Broken and cracked glass; from altercations of years gone by. Peeling paint. Rust flaking and corroding, bleeding across iron and steel fixtures freely. Crumbling concrete. Barred doors and windows burdened this… decrepit, desolate place… with an oppressive atmosphere befitting only a prison or an asylum. Perhaps, it was not too far a throw from the reality.
What ghosts wandered these lonely, haunted halls? Unable to escape in expendable death as they had been in replaceable life? Where death had no peace at all, and the best-case scenario was Bucky? Tortured and tormented Bucky?
The Winter Soldier, he who had desperately tried to shake himself of that mantle, kept true, on constant guard, and did his utmost to put the encroachment of invisible icy fingers on his titanium arm out of his consciousness. There was no feeling in it, of course, never had been, only where it met the socket but… returning had inspired a suffocation that even his most disturbing dreams did not mirror. Stepping past a dried, dark brown patch, Bucky cast it a recalling glance. Was that from that sparring session? Is that my blood? Goddamn it…
As it happened, Bucky Barnes was not wrong; either about the blood, or his dated geography of the base. With most of the bunker combed through before Tony joined them, their target became an inevitability. Or… their assumed target.
The monotony of Soviet Cold War practicality prevailed throughout, never deviating; no-frills, forebodingly industrial and stark in nature. A remark concerning firing the interior decorator sat ripe for the taking and for the life of him, Steve couldn't fathom why Tony, smartass extraordinaire, hadn't taken it yet.
It only intensified when the trio broached their final landing; seemingly the largest room, a lab and the most recently visited unlike the eerie emptiness of the rest. More pipes. More concrete. Low, dull florescent lights; torturous to the eyes over a long period of time. This particularly cavernous area (dearest Cap likened it to the original Frankenstein picture) also contained something else that the rest of the rooms did not: Signs of life.
"I got heat signatures." Stark declared, palm up and out, simultaneously muffled and amplified by the helmet; each step along the tunnel cautious and measured. Fallen back behind this marvel of technological ingenuity, Bucky kept his weapon primed (he'd have to borrow this one again another time) on high alert, guarding Tony with almost the same diligence he would have guarded Steve; swapping sides for the best cover when required.
"How many?" Steve pressed, bringing up the rear; exiting the corridor and into the tunnel behind his two closest friends. Casting his eyes around warily under the helmet, the brave Captain Rogers could not ignore the furl of uneasiness that started in his stomach and spread indiscriminatingly until it reached the very tips of his fingers and toes; engulfing his entire self.
"Uhh… One." Given the assumption that had brought them there, it strummed confusion in more than just Steve. Ordinarily, the news of just "one" should have been a relief, it meant less to contend with. But… Knowing what they knew (what Bucky had relayed), it drove their discomfort to new depths. Could these guys, these improved Winter Soldiers, control their body temperature so precisely that they could evade Stark's heat sensors? Hide their numbers that way to maximize the element of surprise?
A mechanical whirring prompted the beginning of the space coming to life; a sound that heightened an already razor-edged vigilance in the Avengers (plus one). Still, the trio advanced, fearless but apprehensive.
As if awakened by their presence, the cavernous chamber, seemingly carved out of the tundra landscape itself, brightening steadily; the further they edged into the expanse of the cavern, they discovered it to be more ominous illuminated than it ever had been in darkness.
However, the source of this illumination (or… should I say… sources) ruffled a dreading but vague recognition within the Vibranium-wielding Captain. Surrounded by a heightened bleakness of epic proportions, he could not help but recognize that yellowy pukey green, but from where?
Peak lighting hit of that vomit-reminiscent colour(albeit, that did not cover much), at least Steve, Bucky and Tony could assess they were, indeed, in the right place. Heads seemingly on a swivel (or Bucky's to the best of his scope-obsessed ability, eyes flickering, drinking everything in), a closer look at their surroundings did nothing to settle them.
Five tanks, substantial in size and large enough to feature a small, single exhibit in an aquarium, they were certainly large enough to fit, say, an adult human inside? Which, disturbingly, they did. Seated, and apparently comfortable.
External wiring and oxygen pipes both warmed and allowed breathing within the sealed tanks; but, with grime and condensation obscuring the glass for the most part, the unthinkable had not yet become apparent. Attached vitals monitors (one to each tank) should have been the first clue; each one, without exception, flashing a flat line.
The dials on the dedicated oxygen tanks had dropped to the very left-hand side, indicating they provided nothing. Steam sluggishly curled from each containment tank, casting a further, mysterious haze; tainted by the backlight of the stomach-churning colour. A rupture? A disconnection? Purposeful or entirely accidental?
The middle of the room, in a lowered dipping pit, made Bucky swallow.
A chair. Perched atop a metal grate and complete with coiling, steel restraints to trap his arms; rendering his titanium appendage useless in struggle. Lamps, an abundance of wires, computers and control panels cemented it as the macabre centrepiece of technological importance. The programming seat doubled as a torture device which mattered little to the chair's operator, but plenty to the occupier; Bucky could testify to that much.
"If it's any comfort…" Came an accented drawl from over a loudspeaker, shattering the sinister quiet, and causing all three to halt, look up and around. "They died in their sleep."
Wait a minute… I know that voice…
Morbid curiosity had ushered the men into this chamber and invited them to examine it. However, this voice… prompted their intensification and purpose in taking everything in; looking for the source.
"Did you really think I wanted more of you?"
Just then, a whole new level unveiled itself; changing the game and flinging our heroes into the depths of devastating confusion. Going in blind is one thing but going in with intel only to have it flipped is a different thing entirely. It was, after all, how Steve had lost Bucky in the first place.
Each tank, initially unnoticeable, sported a tiny hole; the glass surrounding it fragmented like spliced frost. Methodically, each tank had gotten one while the residents slept. That hole matched the one in the forehead of each Super Soldier; complete with scarce dribble of blood and fatal consequences. No fight. No warning. No chance.
Did they remain stoically calm out of an ingrained bravery? Or did it have more to do with shock? Fear? Waiting for Zemo's ploy to hit them while they grappled with the petrifying reality of this new discovery.
"What the hell…?" Bucky breathed, perturbed, reshuffling himself as he passed the Soldier he knew as Josef, still poised behind his scope. Peering into the tank, he could not be sure if he pitied him or not. They had sparred; in fact, if his memory served, it had been Josef who had extracted the blood in the hallway during a training match. Pressing into the unknown, their formation remained unbroken by the revelations.
"I'm grateful to them though. They brought you here."
Another click of light cued an instantaneous reaction: Stark and Bucky took aim while Steve immediately, instinctually hurled the shield to the pod in question. The disappointing confusion, palpable between the three, ricocheted with the Vibranium disk that bounced with a dull thud and Steve bewilderingly (and frustratingly) caught again.
"Please, Captain." Smooth, cool and mocking, Helmut Zemo revelled in his trap so close to snapping. "The Soviets built this chamber to withstand the launch blast of UR-100 rockets."
"I'm betting I could beat that!" Tony called back, still shrouded in the helmet, aim poised, and unable to let something like that pass without a remark of his own. Zemo was ready for him.
"Oh, I'm sure you could, Mr. Stark." Zemo replied, genial and agreeable; bordering on flattery as if having studied Tony's ego down to a tee. "Given time. But then you'd never know why you came."
Amidst the upheaval, another party slipped unnoticed into the lab. Watching. Listening. Unprepared for the mind-blowing truth.
"You killed innocent people in Vienna just to bring us here?" Steve accused, realization clear and furious with the deduction; mirroring it in the purposeful stride right up to Zemo's protective hiding place. In Steve's imposing shadow, the Sokovian's raw brazenness only stoked the Captain's ire even hotter.
"I've thought about nothing else for over a year." He hoarsely declared, free of the loudspeaker in favour of the intimacy of provoking Steve himself through the reinforced glass. "I studied you. I followed you. But now that you're standing here… I just realized… there's a bit of green in the blue of your eyes." The staring match, fuelled by mutual hatred, went undisturbed; even if Zemo's cold chuckle did rattle the unshakeable Steve Rogers just slightly. Delighting in the upper hand and catching his prey off guard, Zemo went on antagonizingly: "How nice to find a flaw."
"You're Sokovian." Steve realized calmly, the accent clinching it for him; all the while the pieces in his head began to fit together. "Is that what this is about?"
"Sokovia was a failed state long before you blew it to hell." Despite the atrocities this man had committed just to lure them there, Steve, in his usual compassionate mindset, could not help but seek out the pain reflected back at him. The stiff upper lip and flared nostrils reminded him of someone who had held onto poison for so long, it was in the process of killing him. In that vein, Steve could probably guess that loss had forced him here. "No. I'm here because I made a promise."
There it is.
"You lost someone."
Internally, Helmut Zemo raged at the very idea of this pedestaled terrorist pitying him, sympathizing with him. However, he faced down one of his family's murderers with the stolid calm in the face of remarkable adversity that leading a covert kill squad had taught him. Externally, the twitch in his features almost gave him away but he managed to condense it down into little more than a click of his tongue and a steady inhale.
"I lost everyone." The confirming, determined nod was not for Steve, but a final consolation to himself that the home stretch was in sight. He was so close. "And so will you."
Dreams melted into reality when everything suddenly chugged into place and therefore, into the intersecting sphere between Captain Roger's waking and restful realms.
Glass… Broken glass…
Before Steve could stop himself, or even realize his autopilot (and his arm) had snapped into action, the incriminating screen to his right erupted into sparking smithereens before it could destroy everything forever. The sheer force of the shield colliding with the screen showered his boots with shards of various sizes but… how had he known to do it? It felt… instinctual. Pre-planned. Premonished. Not that it mattered now. Something had but now… they would never know. Well… it would never be proven, as Zemo's intention had been but the fallout had been avoided. Funnily enough, in a Soviet war bunker.
The empty frame, fizzing where the screen had been burst with such force, became a collective, stunned fascination for all present; no one (not even Steve) exempt from wondering what the fuck had just happened.
Everyone present… except one.
Zemo stared, uncomprehending, as his master plan (painstakingly conceived and executed over more than a year) went up in literal smoke. In that blip of a second, while disbelief suspended everything in mid-air, someone else snapped into action. This one, however, came as significantly more calculated. And he made the absolute most out of the unexpected distraction.
Whatever about Soviet UR-100 rockets or the blunt bounce of a shield, the Sokovian's reinforced hideaway stood no chance against the purposeful sinking of sharpened Vibranium claws into the side panel.
Amidst the still semi-darkness, the Black Panther's miraculous appearance could barely be seen but could be plenty heard; much to the stunned eyes and ears of the cornered Colonel Zemo. Jumping from his inarticulate stupor and the horrified staring match it had birthed with Steve Rogers, Helmut rounded on the apparent weak spot to stare that down instead.
The squealing protest of metal on metal, reminiscent of a train trying desperately to stop in its tracks and cling to the slipping edges, rang in the ears of everyone present; a battle of wills of an immovable object meeting an unstoppable force. Almost, at least.
Unsurprisingly, layers of Cold War-era steel and concrete could only withstand so much purposeful and direct assault from the strongest (damn-near mythical) metal ever to grace the Earth. By the time he remembered the gun with a specific purpose, it was too late. It took no time at all before the Sokovian mastermind had been disarmed, wrangled and frogmarched into the open where Steve Rogers, Tony Stark and Bucky Barnes still looked on uselessly.
"It appears…" T'Challa began to concede, smooth and unbothered as ever, with little more than a tap to call down his facial covering in the respect of communication; after all, the truth and location would never have been learned without them. "That there has been a misunderstanding."
"Whatta we do now?"
Bound, gagged and tossed into the symbolic chair in the centre of the lab, Zemo remained sullenly excluded from the consultation of options.
"My jet's circling back right now." Tony chipped in, helmet called down in the same fashion as T'Challa's; diplomacy abound. "I think the UN might have a bone to pick with him. Take him there, get Ross off our asses."
"Wakanda wants justice for her King." T'Challa contributed calmly, the bone-crippling chill and the blustering draft that carried it (despite the accustomed climate of home) inconsequential to the suit that made Tony's look like the one he had stomped out of the cave in. "And I want justice for my father."
"I think we can do both." Came Steve's reasonable offering; always listening, always searching for a solution and trying to apply fairness as widely as it would spread. The dream ebbed at the edges of his consciousness, vying for some scrap of heed but for now, it would have to wait; dissecting it would require time and energy he just did not have. "The UN can prosecute their bomber and he can carry out his sentence in Wakanda, with whatever a Wakandan court decides to put on top."
"Well, Barnes?" Bucky blinked himself back to reality at the sudden inclusion and from the one he least expected: Tony, peering at him with a semblance of concern. "What say you? He screwed you over pretty good too."
"Uhh…" Opinions. Wants. Cares. None of which Bucky Barnes had had the luxury of becoming all that intimate with. So being asked to combine all three at once? Shit, Bucky didn't know what to think. Or do. Like Steve, it meant so much more and plenty of it hinged on everyone else. Under the sympathetic and encouraging eye of his childhood friend (they would have much to discuss), the Winter Soldier found his framer in the chair that had caused him so much pain; fitting, really. The instinct of the Fist of Hydra would be beat him to death. Put a gun to his head and pull the trigger. Hold his throat until the struggling stopped. But none of that was James Buchanan Barnes, and now, he had plenty to prove. "I dunno… I think… I think Steve's idea's probably best."
"I mean… If you wanna punch him before we leave, I don't think anyone's gonna stop you. I sure as Hell won't. Use the metal one-"
"Tony."
"Sorry, Cap. Okay, we done here? I thought you two were done with ice."
"Gonna drop him off, blow off the paperwork, flip Ross off and meet you back at the compound. Make a pot of coffee."
With that, and a clap on Bucky's shoulder, Stark departed for his own jet with T'Challa, leaving two centenarians standing in the snow. The blizzard had abated, leaving a pristine blanket with nothing else for miles and Bucky, at ease for the first time in a long time treated himself to a long, deep, smiling breath. The sweet, clean air stung his nostrils and his windpipe but… it felt like the first breath of a new life; dispelling the old one and taking as much of a fresh start as possible.
Or… as fresh as he would be allowed.
They could still come for him. Hydra or no Hydra, brainwashing or no brainwashing, he had still done those dreadful things. So many dreadful things.
And one of them had looked him in the face that day. Spoken to him. Joked with him. All in the drowning depths of blissful naivety of what Bucky had been helpless in doing; what he would have given anything not to have done to a colleague and his wife, both innocent. Their son, in his blind camaraderie, had been kind to him.
"Hey, Buck!" Steve called from the jet they had arrived in, turning when he got no response to whatever he was saying; looking around until he spotted his companion several metres away. "C'mon! I got icicles in my nostrils! Let's get outta here!"
"You're bein' way too quiet, and I don't like it."
Steve made coffee alright, simply to warm them until they could get back to proper coffee; the Tony Stark Purchased and Avengers Approved blend. To Bucky? Living off of scraps for the past two years? If he could taste it instead of just staring into it, he might have found this tide-over effort to be a vast improvement.
"I dunno what's gonna happen, Steve." He managed, hoarse from the numbness alone. "They're still gonna want to take me for everything I did, everything I know I did. I can't change any of it, I feel like a sitting duck-"
"We're not gonna let anything happen to you." Resolute but gentle, Steve's chin twisted to his shoulder to bequeath his friend with the benevolent gaze that worked in healing everyone else he turned it on. "Tony's got the best lawyers and everythin' Hydra did is documented. Don't worry, Buck. We've got this."