A short one today, sorry! Just wanted to wrap up TWS because I, personally, like the rest of the storylines more... And want to get into what we're all here for, ya know what I mean! ;)

I hope you all are enjoying the story thus far! It's been really fun to write and, after seeing everything that's gone down in F&TWS, I can't wait to get to that part of the story aha. Already so many ideas!

Also, I'm really intrigued by the new Black Widow movie (based on the hinted storyline in the trailers), and it's given me ideas for the next arc of this story. So, stay tuned!

If you like, please follow, fav, and review! :)

- CHAPTER 5: DROWNING -

There were vague noises poking at my subconscious as I came to.

Heavy ammo, I realized, coming from the ongoing fighting in the sky just outside the Helicarrier. At first, everything was blurry, the sky much too bright against my sensitive eyes. But as they came into focus, I could clearly see the explosions around me, lighting up the sky with flames.

My head felt like it was split in two, my brain rocking around within as I pulled myself into a sitting position. In my right hand, I still held James's dog tags, but the card was missing. I pocketed the former, upset that the idea hadn't worked as I thought it would. With slow movements, I began searching, crawling on achy legs to find the card.

"Innocent people are going to die," I heard a voice echo from above me. Steve. "You know I can't let that happen, Buck."

My neck managed to tilt upwards, seeing him halfway down the bridge, the Winter Soldier right in front of the exposed mainframe. Neither of them seemed to notice me, so I used their distraction as a means to continue looking. The light glinted off of something caught under a piece of a beam, and I reached under to pull out the card. Looking up, neither of them had yet to make a move.

"I don't want to do this," Steve whispered.

The Winter Soldier didn't respond.

"Steve!" I yelled out, grabbing his attention and holding up the card.

After a split second look at me, he threw his shield forward, aiming for the soldier. I used the time in between to throw the card up to him. He caught it and his shield in rapid succession. Shots went off and I dodged to avoid some as they bounced off of metal. Steve yelled out in pain, probably nicked by one.

I finally stood, adrenaline pumping as I made my way over to the sloped platform I was thrown off of. Figuring it was no longer time to lay low, I let my magic spread. My arms were engulfed by scales as my talons grabbed ahold of the platform and I hoisted myself up. Head near to exploding, I tried to focus on moving up to help Steve. They were too evenly matched, neither escaping a punch from the other.

In order to win this, I would have to help sway the odds in our favor. I was just at the railing when Steve went flying over me and landed at the edge of the platform, card slipping out of his hand.

"Are you kidding?" I groaned. "I just gave that to you."

The Winter Soldier was quick to follow, and I grabbed ahold of his arm as he went for a punch. Kicking him, he went sliding and I followed close after. Steve, standing once more, pulled him up and they began exchanging blows. I used it as an opportunity to make for the card. The idea wasn't lost on the Winter Soldier as he kicked me in my still sore back as soon as I grabbed it. I toppled, barely hanging onto the edge of the platform.

Steve kicked him immediately after, causing him to hang right beside me. I began swinging, putting the force of both of my legs behind a shove to his chest. It sent him toppling to the bottom of the glass dome. Steve helped me up just as a shield to my side sent the card flying once more, the Winter Soldier using the weapon to his advantage after Steve dropped it.

I stumbled over the side, landing harshly on the glass once more. Steve bounded after, pulling me up with a firm arm.

"I've got the card," I began to hobble, spotting it about twenty feet away.

Steve picked up his shield, using it to dodge bullets. I grabbed ahold of the card just as he threw the shield at the soldier, the latter blocking it with his metal arm. A knife was pulled, Steve only able to hold off for so long before it was lodged in his shoulder. Hoping they were preoccupied, I set off to complete the mission.

Jumping to grab onto the platform, I was met by a bullet to the abdomen. Buckling harshly, I dropped the card once more. Steve was too busy pulling out the knife in his shoulder that it allowed the Winter Soldier to catch up with me. With a kick to my gut, I was thrown a few feet and watched as he picked up the card. Not able to fully stand, I launched myself around his knees and brought him down before he could run away.

Back in action, albeit with a hole in his arm, Steve tackled the soldier's upper body and pulled. I kept his legs pinned as we tried to force the card from him. He was unrelenting, taking jabs until finally, with a deafening crack, his arm broke. The card slipped from his hand and into Steve's.

"One minute," Maria said urgently in our ears.

The Winter Soldier was still fighting but losing strength as Steve choked him.

"GO!" I yelled at him. "There's no time. I'll take care of it."

With a wary glance, he let go and I immediately took his place. I straddled the Winter Soldier, my metal forearm pressed tightly against his neck as I tried to make him lose consciousness. With my other hand, I barely managed to hold his metal arm as it thrashed about.

His face was pure anguish, the idea of failing his mission taking over every ounce of his being. It made me falter with pity for just a second. Which was all he needed.

My arm holding his bent backwards awkwardly as he gave a good shove, knocking me off his neck in the process. He used the momentum to grab me by the hips and lift me up, bringing me down hard on my back before hovering over me. I gasped for breath as he punched my stomach once, twice, and so on with his metal arm.

More than the blows, the torture in his eyes was the most painful.

I shouldn't have left him that night. If I hadn't, we wouldn't be here right now.

But I had, and now I was going to be another kill to plague his nightmares.

"I'm sorry, James," I whispered, unable to think of anything else to say as my last words.

His fist paused in the air for half a second, eyes just barely betraying a fault in his hardwired brain. He looked past me, through the glass. Maybe he was seeing something, remembering something. As I watched his fist come down once more, I realized I would never know.

But instead of impacting with me, his fist collided with the glass panel to my right and I heard it shatter like porcelain. Without a second thought, he pushed me through and I caught one last look at his face before it disappeared into the Helicarrier.

I'd jumped out of many planes before, mostly for missions. Usually, it felt like it took seconds before we'd have to pull our chutes and land gracefully on land.

But this was different. This took an eternity. I was able to see everything around me, jets flying and guns firing, all happening as if in slow motion.

Pure chaos. We were going to lose.

But as my back felt the splash of water, I watched the Helicarriers' giant guns turn to aim at one another. A breath later, they began shooting each other out of the sky. And then the water took me.

Drowning was definitely the worst way to die.

I didn't have time to take a breath before I sunk to the depths of the freezing river. My eyes, even though enhanced by my powers, did nothing to help me understand what direction I was kicking in. So I let them close, drowning in both water and darkness.

I'd always thought the notion of your 'life flashing before your eyes as you die' was complete bullshit. What was supposed to be the point of it? Relive your life just so you knew how unfortunate it was that you were about to die? It didn't make sense in my mind.

But at least in my case, it showed me just how merciful death was. Images of suffocating dark walls, my broken bones, and dead bodies as a result of my own hands passed by in rapid succession through my subconscious. I could practically feel the electricity as it coursed through my body from days in the chair, and the sense of drowning was all too familiar from the times they had dunked me underwater.

All of it had been in an effort to subdue me into submission, to force me to into a position where only my powers would help me. They wanted a killing machine, and they had gotten one.

Their mistake was letting me keep my mind.

I remembered every time I had wished for death, that someone would just go too far and accidentally off me. At the thought, even through the numbing chill of the water, I felt my powers drain from me and the metal on my arm receede.

I also remembered James—all the small but significant moments where he was the only reason I would go on. He reminded me that there were people out there worth surviving for, that there were reasons why I couldn't let myself get jaded by the foul nature of what Hydra wanted to accomplish.

I hadn't lied to Nat—the Winter Soldier and I weren't friends. But maybe James and I were. Or could have been if I hadn't left him and wasn't about to die.

My mind raced through only the good times now. Him pulling his punches to spare me any unnecessary pain, allowing me to make minimal conversation to keep from going insane, and the willingness to complete the most brutal tasks when I couldn't.

How had I managed before him? There were ten years that passed before we became partners, most of which were my most vulnerable and impressionable. They were clouded at best, distant as if they didn't exist.

My dying brain pushed hard—wading through labcoats and empty rooms as it tried to pull forth any significant information about my childhood that wasn't filled with pain.

And then there was an image, faint at best, as if looking through a foggy window. There was grass, bright green even through the smog. My small fingers picked at the blades of it as I sat across from a boy, seemingly around my age. His pale cheeks were burnt from the sun above us, his dark curly hair a mop that framed his face. Men approached us with muffled voices, a man and a woman following close behind. Rough hands grabbed onto my shoulders. My weak legs kicked out and met steel chests.

Then nothing. My eyes opened, the bleak water filling my vision.

My breath was almost completely gone, my mind going blank as it finally gave in to the idea that this was it. Then the debris started to hit the surface.

As pieces of the Helicarriers sunk, I was able to ascertain which was up and I began pumping my arms as fast as I could. The wound in my abdomen bled profusely, turning my surroundings into some sort of twisted watercolour painting. But I continued on, dodging large pieces of metal as I made my way towards the light.

Finally, my head breached and I sucked in a ginormous gasp of air.

The noise of the destruction above me was debilitating, but even more than that, an indicator that I had to keep moving. I had no idea if Steve or the Winter Soldier had made it out alive, and I couldn't ponder on it now. Instead, I swivelled around, noticing the opposite bank was my closest option. More than once, a piece of debris just missed me as I paddled my way over.

After what seemed like a millennium, my fingers met soil and I heaved myself up onto the grass. With violent coughs that tore at my throat, I expelled all the water that had entered my body. I rested on my elbows as I caught my breath before my body gave out and I rolled onto my back. The sun hurt my eyes, so I let them slide shut once more.

I was alive. The Helicarriers were destroying themselves.

We had won.

I actually had the energy to laugh, rolling slightly in the mud as I held ahold of my abdomen. Pain and glee harmonized within me as I absorbed everything.

My focus was pulled away from my thoughts as I heard the swishing of water and felt it lap up to my still submerged shins. I was too far away to feel the reverb of the debris, so I looked up. My mouth fell open at the sight.

The Winter Soldier waded through the water, pulling a limp and unconscious Steve by a shoulder strap. He was struggling to do so, his other arm unusable from where Steve had broken it. Every tug was clearly a struggle. I sprung into action, my body cursing me as I dove back into the water to meet him. We were about twenty feet from the shore, the water up to our waists when I grabbed onto Steve's other shoulder.

"Ugh," I groaned. "He's a lot heavier than he looks."

The soldier didn't acknowledge me. Steve landed with a heavy thud on the bank, partly from how bulky he was but also from our collective lack of strength. It took everything in me to remain upright as I watched Steve lie motionless on the ground. But I saw that he was breathing, and gave out a sigh of relief.

Eyes were on me and I looked up, latching onto steel blue irises void of emotion.

"Are you—" I gasped out, still trying to catch my breath, "are you the Winter Soldier or... James? Bucky?"

His jaw set, drawing his limp arm closer to his body.

"I don't know," he said, sounding angry. He began to walk away.

"What—" I was interrupted by a slip in the mud that almost toppled me. But I quickly recovered and pushed my way in front of him. "What are you doing?" He just stared for half a second and then tried to continue on. I punched him weakly on his injured arm. "Are you just going to run away?"

"I don't know," he repeated and I groaned.

"Why?" A pain shot through my abdomen as my head began to quake. "You're not trying to kill me, so clearly something happened up there." His jaw tightened even more and he looked away. "You could stay," I whispered. "Let us help you."

As always, his eyebrows furrowed as the James part of him fought against the Winter Soldier. Nothing up there had changed who he was, but with Hydra gone... Maybe there was actually a chance that the process of getting James—Bucky—back could start.

"No," he shook his head violently, pushing past me despite the impact it had with his injured arm.

My eyes began to prickle, my body too weak to fend off my emotions. I thought back to the mansion in Sokovia, the way I had just left and how he had let me. It was happening all over again, but in reverse.

But it didn't have to.

"Fine," I said as I hurried after him, meeting his pace when he didn't slow at my words. "I'm coming with you."

At that, he did stop, eyes steeling as he looked at me. "No," he said sternly.

"Has your vocabulary been reduced to like five words? Maybe that's why you're not understanding." I grit my teeth at the pounding in my temples. "I am coming with you." He opened his mouth, venomous eyes clearly indicating another retort, but I didn't give him the chance. "I left you once." A tear trickled out of my eye, and I hoped it just blended into the water cascading down my face. "I'm not sure if you remember that right now, but I did. And every day since, I've regretted it. Felt so guilty that I didn't force you to come with me. I'm not making the same mistake."

His rigid shoulders slumped, eyes softening for the first time. Part of me hoped he was remembering that night three years ago, but I knew he would never divulge if that was the case. I let him work through it, watching his inner mental gears process everything as his face twitched.

"This is going to be hard for you," I whispered, reaching out for his injured arm. Just a dislocated elbow it turned out, there was nothing broken. "You're going to need someone in your corner." With a quick snap, I realigned his arm. He let out a gasp of pain but he would feel normal in no time with the serum running through him.

After testing out his arm, twisting it around, he turned his gaze back on me. He left me waiting for a few more excruciating seconds and then, finally, nodded without another word.

"Good," I replied weakly, my hand going back to my abdomen. "You're welcome for fixing the arm, by the way... Though it serves me too, I suppose. Because there's a high probability that I'll need some help with this." The blood soaked my hand when I pulled it away. "Thanks for that, by the way." It was my turn to glare. "Did you really have to use a gun? Steve got a knife."

"He also got a gun," I barely heard him whisper as he wrapped a supportive arm on my shoulder. He led us further into the forest as we heard the whirring of helicopters and jets.

With one last look back, I bid Captain America a silent goodbye. But I knew it wouldn't be the last time I saw him.