Steve

Steve physically cannot answer for a moment.

"I'm sorry?" he manages. In the backseat behind them, Bucky frowns.

"Bucky," The Winter Soldier says again. "What does Bucky mean?"

"You are Bucky," Steve says, firmly, but his heart is racing, pouring cold ice into his veins all over again. Bucky still doesn't remember. "It's a nickname. A shorter version of your full name, James Buc-"

"James Buchanan Barnes," Bucky says, losing for a moment his usual odd monotone. "Sergeant. 32557038. Best friends since childhood, Bucky Barnes and Steven Rogers were inseparable on both schoolyard and battlefield. Barnes is the only Howling Commando to give his life in service of his country."

"Did you just- Did he just remember that?" Sam says. "That's..."

Steve shakes his head, but grasps as much hope as he can from those straws. "That's the voiceover from the museum, from the exhibition. Buck, that means you went to the Smithsonian, right? What were you looking for?"

"Intel. Probable target movements." Bucky says.

"What did you find?" Sam asks. Bucky seems to struggle for a moment, and then spits out:

"Lügen," and then, "Американская пропаганда."

Steve doesn't need to glance at the translation on his phone to understand that. He keeps his eyes on Bucky, not daring to turn back. This feels like a critical moment. They have to convince Bucky of who he really is, or it's all going to be lost before it is begun. It's not the conversation to be having in a car with HYDRA on their tail, but there's no choice right now.

"Not all lies, Bucky," he says, firmly. "Okay, so I can't argue with you about the propaganda, and sure, they got your damn birthdate wrong. But the most important stuff - that is true. You and me - we have been friends our entire lives. Even when I had nothing, I had you. You must have seen the pictures, the recordings."

"Yes," says Bucky.

"Then you saw the proof there, proof of who you are. You are James Barnes. You are Bucky."

"No." Bucky pushes forward against his seatbelt as if he is trying to physically get away from the discussion. Steve can hear the metal plates in the arm click and scrape as they realign, servos whirring. The Soldier is nervous, ready to fight. "Er ist tot," Bucky says, through gritted teeth. "Er war ein schlechter Mensch und jetzt ist er tot."

"No, Bucky, that's not what happened. The museum got that wrong. We thought you were dead. Everyone did. For seventy years, they thought we were both dead. But instead we, both of us, survived, we came back. You're Bucky and you are alive."

"James Barnes ist tot." Bucky says again, and he sounds exhausted. Steve wants to cry.

Sam casts a warning eye at Steve. He's probably concerned that Steve is pushing Bucky into some kind of breakdown by pressuring him about the lies HYDRA had fed him. But Steve can't bear to hear those toxic words emerging from his friend's mouth. And what was that crap about James Barnes being a bad person?

"Hey, man," Sam says, from the driving seat. "Winter. How about instead you tell us what you know about who you are? What can you remember about where you come from?"

Bucky issues a long stream of Russian then, so fast that Steve's phone can't pick it up. But it's not just the speed; the intonation is all wrong too, and it sounds like Bucky is again just repeating something he has heard said, word for word.

"Bucky," Steve says, trying to catch his eye. "Buck. We don't understand. I'm sorry, I really want to know what you're saying. But you gotta try in English for us."

Bucky snaps his head to one side in something that looks like frustration. He opens his mouth to speak and nothing comes out. He raises a fist and smacks the side of his own head, sharply.

"Woah, dude, don't do that-" Sam starts, but then Bucky is speaking again.

"They kill him," he says, in the strongest Russian accent either of them have heard. "Take. Pull him out. Put Asset in."

Then Bucky clamps his jaw shut, burrows down into the hoodie and won't say another word.

Steve just sits in the passenger seat, and tries not to cry or throw up or generally to give any other externally observable sign of what feels like an imminent nervous breakdown. He'd wedged the shield into the footwell, just so it was close-by, and now he runs his fingers along the smooth rim like a talisman. It's not helping much.

He can feel Bucky's- no, definitely the Winter Soldier's- eyes on the back of his neck, peering from the shadowed space between the curl of the hood and the neckline he's burrowed into. It's like the first time Steve had seen Bucky in this century, on the rooftop outside his apartment. Steve had Nick Fury's blood on his hands, rage and grief in his throat, and there was the Winter Soldier. Face encased in dark hair and hard metal, and his eyes so full of pain and confusion that it was bleeding from him like black paint. Steve glances back again, and then wishes he hadn't. Bucky has the fabric of the hoodie pulled up over his nose again, like he's still wearing that damn mask. That muzzle . It hid his face, but Steve can't help but think concealment wasn't its main purpose. That had been to constrain and silence and control. Like a feral animal. Steve feels his fists creak, and then he is struck by an image. The last time the Winter Soldier had been sent to kill them at the Triskelion he hadn't been wearing a mask. Sure, Steve had torn it off during the fight in the overpass, but the HYDRA guys were always well equipped. They had to have multiples of all the Soldier's gear on hand. So why hadn't he been given a new mask?

Steve had seen the Winter Soldier's face. He had been identified as Bucky Barnes. Therefore there was no value in keeping him hidden any longer. Perhaps they hoped the sight of his friend's face would rattle Steve into doing something stupid (it had). Perhaps they knew how pointless it was now to hide Bucky any longer. They knew Steve would descend on them with a fury hotter than a thousand suns when he found out what they had done to-

No. That wasn't it. That was just hubris talking, blinding him to something else, something darker. Think. They had sent Bucky to the Triskelion to- to do what? To kill Steve and Nat, Bucky had told them as much himself. Not to protect HYDRA men, or the helicarriers. Sure, he had grabbed the control crystal from Steve in the fight, but that was more to get Steve's attention. He could have easily crushed it, even in his flesh hand, if his mission was to prevent Steve's sabotage and ensure the launch. He has always been separate from HYDRA's master plan. He was -

And then Steve sees the truth his thoughts have been skirting around for days.

"Oh," he breathes. And then, "Shit."

Sam turns to him. "Dude, anything that has you swearing has me worried. What the hell is it?"

"He wasn't masked on the helicarrier," Steve says, forcing strength into his voice. "Bucky wasn't masked. He was never meant to make it out of there."

"Wait, what? But they needed him. I thought the Winter Soldier was supposed to be their perfect asset, or whatever. Their greatest weapon."

"He was," Steve clarifies, trying not to feel a chill at Sam's phrasing. "But if HYDRA had gotten those helicarriers in the air...A thousand hostiles a minute, anywhere on the globe? They didn't need him anymore. It's like trading up a scalpel for an atom bomb."

Sam whistles. "They'd just leave him there to die? After all that...decades of training and everything?"

"Well, it's pretty clear he didn't make it back to HYDRA after he left me at the river, if only from the state of his arm. He keeps telling us he needs repairs. It's because no one did them for him."

"Hill raided a HYDRA base at some old bank in DC and a bunch of other safehouses while you were in the hospital," Sam says. "They were all cleaned out. Seemed like whatever was left of HYDRA just turned tail and ran."

"Perhaps they thought the Winter Soldier had been killed. Either way, they abandoned him." Steve concluded. "He had nowhere to go. Well, we heard what he said earlier; he went to the museum for intel. no one gave him new orders so he continued with the last he had – killing me - and just got information the best way he could."

"Wait, wait," Sam is shaking his head. "If they don't want him, what the hell was that invasion force back at the cabin? Just some really aggressive door-to-door missionaries?"

Steve hesitated, thinking. "Maybe HYDRA are trying to take him back now that Insight failed…?"

Sam is still disagreeing. "Think about it, man. His cover is blown. You've seen him, and so have Fury and Hill and most of SHIELD. It's a miracle no facial recognition software has picked his face out of the footage yet, or that shit'd be plastered all over the news. But we know now, who he is, what they did. Even if he were healthy, he's no use to HYDRA as a secret weapon anymore. And if Barnes ever gets his memory back, and if any of those HYDRA assholes end up in court, then who knows what damage he could do to them in the witness stand. We got it wrong, Steve. Those guys weren't extraction. They were execution . They just came in to tidy up their loose ends. Maybe they'd have taken his body to hide the evidence, or so they could keep the arm, but I don't think they want him alive. They especially won't now, not after what happened at the cabin. They know now they've lost too much control."

"So if HYDRA can't have him," Steve concludes, heart heavy with dull horror. "Then no one can."

There is silence for a moment, as both of them consider the implications of what they've just realised. Then Sam says:

"So if they don't want Barnes alive, and you and I are supposed to be dead anyway, why haven't they just killed us all already? If they're tracking the arm, they must have noticed us turn south; sooner or later they'll figure out that means we're taking him to New York. What is stopping them just wiping us all out?"

It is, of course, exactly at that moment that Steve hears a distant metallic click beneath the car. He draws a breath to yell "Grenade !" but before he can make a sound the road beneath them explodes. A wave of white noise and light and heat smashes into them, and there is a disconcerting weightlessness as the car is blasted up into the air. Then they are rolling and Steve is thrown hard against his seat belt and then his head strikes glass. Someone is yelling and everything is a daze of crushed and screeching metal as they impact over and over and it all goes black and white, in and out, until finally they are still. Steve gasps a breath, barely conscious. He is upside down, hanging from the seatbelt; there is smoke everywhere and he can't see, he can't breathe. His lungs are full of the stench of burnt fibres and scorched metal and fuel and blood . Steve drags his heavy head round, and through the smoke there is Sam, hanging beside him. He's not moving. Blood is pouring down his face and off his head; the wheel and the airbag are crushed up against his body and Steve can't see him breathing. Steve tries to yell for Bucky but nothing more than a gasp of air comes out. The space behind him is silent. Then, he hears an engine from across the field. Someone is coming.

Steve starts to struggle, trying to drag his legs free from under his shield. He can't get down and he can't get free, and the others aren't moving . He snatches at the seat belt buckle; it's mashed in the wreck of the door, but he tears at the strap and the belt snaps. He drops down onto the ceiling of the car, the weight of his body dragging his left leg free and shooting agony down his neck and legs.

"Bucky. Sam," he coughs, trying to drag his arms under him. Then, suddenly, there is a movement from the back, and Steve sees Bucky - alive, he's alive - scrambling forwards, sliding along the roof of the car. He looks like he could reach Sam. Steve gasps in relief and shoves a section of the dash away to drag the shield loose and free his leg. He twists, shoving the shield against the window to smash out the remaining glass. The engines are closer. Bucky is leaning over. They have to get out. Together, they can-

Metal fingers close over his throat. Steve freezes, ice to his core; he sees Bucky above him, tense, wild, utterly alien. "Bucky..." he tries to say, but no sound comes out. This isn't Bucky. They had thought he was making progress; talking, remembering, trusting them. It's all gone in the blink of an eye.

"Молчи!"The Winter Soldier viciously shoves the metal fingers hard under Steve's jaw, forcing him down onto the ceiling by the throat. He doesn't let go, pining Steve there as he turns to Sam, still hanging there unmoving, and runs his flesh hand through the blood pulsing from Sam's head. The Soldier brings the bloodied hand back and smears the gore in splashes all over its own face. He looks like a ghost. A nightmare.

"Buck, please." Steve pleads, but the Soldier just tightens his grip in warning, and then he scoops another handful of Sam's blood and slathers it over Steve's face too. It goes into his eyes and mouth.

The engines outside cut out and there are voices. The Soldier lets go of Steve's throat suddenly and dives across him, grabbing the strap of the shield where it's still wedged in the window space, and then the world erupts as gunfire strafes the car. The bullets shred through the metal of the chassis and glass shatters around them, and over it all is the familiar thud as bullets rebound off the shield and echo into the tiny sanctuary behind it that is keeping them all alive. The firing goes on and on before suddenly there is silence, almost as deafening. They have to get out. Steve shifts, about to do he doesn't even know what, but then the blade of the Ka-Bar knife they took off Bucky earlier is shoved under his chin.

"Bu-"

"Не шевелись," the Soldier hisses. "Shut the fuck up."

The Winter Soldier dunks the knife blade into another pool of Sam's blood and then he is scrambling back between the seats and kicking his way out through the rear door and out of the car. He's gone. He has left them.

Outside, Steve can hear yelling and the clatter of automatic rifles being cocked, and then the Soldier's voice, a cold, flat tone, speaking in Russian. Someone says "Hold your fire!" and another voice yells;

"It's the Asset!"

"Jesus fucking Christ, look at it..."

"Hold your fire!" the authoritative voice repeats, but now it sounds tense as a bow string. Steve tilts his head; the sunlight is blazing into his eyes, but beyond the rim of the shield he can just see the roadway and the field beyond. Three black vehicles, a dozen figures and the Winter Soldier, hand glinting in the sun.

"Soldat." One of the figures is standing before the Soldier. "I am an approved Incidence Handler, ident code "Жук-Пять-цапля-Четыре-Юрий". Confirm your recognition and compliance. In English."

"Ready to comply," says the Winter Soldier with Bucky Barnes' mouth.

"Mission report," says the Handler.

"Alpha target Captain Steven Rogers is eliminated," says the Winter Soldier, low. "Confirmed death exceeds permitted mission time limit by 302 hours."

"He in that car?"

"Yes. Sir."

"Soldat. Turn in your weapons." There is silence for a moment, and then; "That's it? One knife?"

"Yes. Sir."

"You and you. Search the Asset. Weber, check the wreckage."

Steve sees the shape of the Winter Soldier silhouetted against the streaming light. Sees the right arm, bent at the elbow, rise and fall once, twice. Could be mistaken as a tick, a nervous movement prompted by the approaching soldiers. But Steve knows what he saw and how to read the gesture. Get down. Take cover. An act. Everything Bucky is doing is an act.

Then he hears the sound of approaching feet. He has only seconds before the boots arrive and Bucky needs him to take cover. He holds a shallow breath, lets his eyes and mouth hang slightly open, and slumps still. He's dealt enough death to know how it looks. The blood on his face will hopefully do the rest. There is a scraping sound, and the shield is dragged clear of the window. Through his half-closed lashes, Steve sees a burst of shrouded daylight, black boots through the smoke, and then the shadow of a face peering into the wreck. As desperately as he wants Sam to make some sound or movement so that Steve can tell if he's alive, he also prays that Sam doesn't choose this exact moment.

"Christ," he hears the owner of the boots say. Then there's a sudden sharp jab in his ribs as the owner of the boots prods at the apparent corpse of Captain America with the barrel of his Colt M4A1. Steve lets the shove roll him slightly and then falls back.

"Fuckin' shame." Boots mutters. Then he stands up and turns away, calling. "He's dead. There's another one in here too."

Boots tosses the shield back towards the wreck. It rolls and lands against the window, partially obscuring the inside of the car. Steve can just see out, across the haze and smoke across the field; three vehicles and perhaps fifteen dark-clad figures. In the centre, the Winter Soldier's metal arm glints like a beacon. This is Steve's chance. To make the most of the time Bucky has won for them and get Sam out. But Boots is still standing only a few feet away, and Steve hears the click of a lighter, and then smells the waft of cigarette smoke. The moment Steve moves, the man will see. And Sam is still trapped.

The HYDRA Handler is talking again. "Captain Rogers termination is confirmed, Asset," he says. "Your mission is complete. You will return with us to base for processing. Indicate compliance."

"Incorrect," states the Winter Soldier, flatly.

"What?" The Handler says, clearly taken aback.

Boots shifts slightly, but just keeps smoking.

"Incorrect," repeats the Soldier. "The second target, Natalia Alianovna Romanova, remains alive. The mission is not complete."

There is a sharp crack that echoes across the clearing. Through the haze, Steve sees the Handler step back, lowering his hand.

"Forget her." The Handler snaps. "She is no longer of importance. You will comply."

"But," Winter sounds dazed. "The mission is not compl-"

There is another slap as the Handler strikes him again. Steve is tense as a coiled spring.

"Comply!"

"Harris," another man says, and Steve sees him jump down from one of the vehicles. "We don't have time for this. Blues will be inbound. Decommission it and we'll just hack the arm off here if we have to."

"Yes, you're right," agrees the Handler abruptly. He turns to Bucky. "Soldat," he says. "Turn around. Kneel down." Then he pulls a black object out of his coat.

"Weber!" The newer man shouts. "Torch that wreck. Squad, prepare to move out!"

Across the clearing, Steve sees the shadow that is Bucky kneel down in the mud. The Handler raises the thing in his hand, the gun, and just like that, they are suddenly out of time.

Boots steps away from the car, and then several things seem to happen all at the same time. Steve sees, across the field, the Handler lining the pistol up against the back of Bucky's head. He hears a click as Boots's cigarette lighter flares into life again, followed instantly by a whooom as the spilled fuel all around the car ignites in a rush. In that instant, Steve has an epiphany. He knows he has about ten seconds before the entire car goes up. He is no longer trapped; it is enough time for him to get to the shield, cross the clearing, and save Bucky. Or it's enough time for him to stay and rescue Sam. It is not enough time for him to do both.

One of them is going to die, and he has to choose.

As Steve wastes a second frozen in crippling, fatal inaction, the decision is made for him. There is the sharp crack of a gunshot and in the same instant, a flash of metal like lightning across the clearing. The Winter Soldier has snatched the gun from behind his head faster than thought, and one of the men falls back, his face blown away. Then the clearing explodes into gunfire.

Eight seconds before the car burns. Steve throws himself towards Sam, tearing the seatbelt out with his bare hands, even as his boots are kicking out the remaining glass. Sam's body drops like a stone and Steve grabs him, dragging and kicking the two of them out through the shattered windshield. He throws a hand to the side as he rolls them, and snatches up his shield, slinging it onto his back. There's a yell from somewhere and bullets start smacking into the dirt around them. Steve drops as low as he can, pulling Sam up and then half-staggers, half-runs back towards the road they rolled from, keeping the wreckage between him and the HYDRA guns. More bullets are impacting into the carcass of the car, some few ping off the shield. One hits him somewhere, but he can't stop; there's only four seconds left. He trips and Sam almost falls from his hands. Three seconds and he's hurling Sam's limp form into a ditch at the edge of the road, two seconds and he's throwing himself in too, one second, and-

The car doesn't just catch fire, it explodes like a fourth-of-July firework as the bag of ordnance the Winter Soldier stashed in the boot detonates, igniting bullets and shrapnel in every direction. Steve stays down, covering Sam as best he can until the noise stops and the smoke is billowing around them. Then he's up on his knees, rolling Sam over onto his back in pure terror, without even the breath to pray...But Sam is already moving, sluggishly. He coughs; clutches at his head with a moan.

"What the fuck..." Sam mumbles.

"Sam, stay down!" Steve tells him, staggering up. "We got trouble. I gotta get to Bucky. Don't move!"

He sprints back into the billowing smoke, following the shouts and groans and gunshots. A heavily armed strike team of fifteen against one? Those were bad odds, even for a fully healthy Winter Soldier. And now he's sick and half starved, with a busted arm and no weapons and no cover and no back-up... Steve hurls the shield at the first shape that moves, smashing the HYDRA soldier's face in. The guy drops with a groan and Steve snatches the Carbine from his hands as he falls, shooting another through the chest. Multiple voices are yelling indistinguishably. Then the smoke swells and clears, and he sees three more bodies on the ground, seven still standing firing wildly at one of the vehicles, and the Winter Soldier, bloody and ragged behind it, and still shooting, getting one of his assailants through the head. The HYDRA guy drops, even as Steve runs up, shooting another dead and launching his shield at a third. Four left. The gun is empty.

"Bucky!" He yells. Guns turn on him and he dives to the side, rolling with the shield. On the ground by the truck is the guy who identified himself as the Handler; he is crouched behind a boulder, yelling something over and over but there is too much noise to hear. Steve ducks behind another vehicle and tries to ricochet their bullets back at them, but the angle is bad and there's no goddamn cover. Two of them stop to reload at the same time, and on Steve's right, the Winter Soldier drops his own empty rifle, and hurls himself across the hood of the truck towards the soldiers, a knife in his hand. Steve doesn't waste a second this time, throwing himself against Bucky's back and bringing up the shield, even as bullets start to strike. No way out of this one though, they're in the middle of the clearing now, back to back. Sitting ducks.

Then, there's a crack from behind them, and a HYDRA guy falls screaming, his knee shot out. Sam Wilson, clutching his precious Glock, is staggering out of the smoke like the world's most overworked guardian angel, and it's enough of a distraction that Steve manages to knock two of the gunmen back with a shield throw while Bucky deflects a shot with his arm and then shoots a man through the eye. Three left. Sam wings another guy running for cover behind a car and Bucky adds a knife hurled straight through his neck. Two left. Someone is firing at them and Steve deflects the bullets straight back into the man's chest. He gasps and slumps to the floor. One left. The Handler.

The Winter Soldier is on him in seconds, slapping the pistol away and closing the metal hand around the man's throat. The man gasps and gurgles, and then chokes out a last string of something in Russian. Bucky jerks and his hand clenches shut. There is a sort of wet, crunching sound, like frozen meat, and the Handler twitches, gurgles again, and dies. There is silence.

Steve just stands and breathes. They're alive. The HYDRA soldiers are dead. They made it, somehow. Steve is turning back to Sam who has slumped back down into the grass, when something smashes into him with the force of a truck. His legs buckle and Steve hits the ground on his back, with all Bucky's weight on his chest. Muscle memory saves his life as his right arm comes up to block a devastating blow from the metal arm which would have cracked his skull.

"Bucky!" he chokes out, kicking hard and throwing himself to the side to dislodge the other man. "It's Steve, it's me, I-"

And then he catches a glimpse of the Winter Soldier's face. If he had thought the expression was blank before, back when he was just pretending to be the Soldier, that was nothing. Now he's like an effigy. A death mask. Bucky is gone . The Soldier's fists crack stone as Steve jerks his head aside at the last second, shooting pains run jagged down his neck, but there's no time for it. Steve tenses and then kicks forward, throwing the Soldier aside. He lunges to the left, arm outstretched for his shield as the Soldier goes the other way. The Asset reaches its target first, snatching up a discarded pistol. Steve, on his knees, stares as the barrel turns on him. Without hesitation the Soldier pulls the trigger. The gun clicks, empty. The Soldier drops the gun without ceremony and Steve scrambles the last few feet to his shield, snatching it up just as the next gun the Soldier finds fires. The bullets bounce harmlessly off the shield.

"Bucky!" Steve yells again, unable to comprehend that the Handler's dying words have undone everything they had been working for. One Russian phrase and it's all over, but he's not going to stop, will never stop fighting for his friend. "Bucky, please, it's Steve. You don't have to-"

The Soldier has dropped the second gun and rips the Ka-Bar out from a corpse's neck. He launches himself at Steve, and long gone are the finesse and skill of their first fight at the overpass. They are both injured and weak and desperate, and it will take only one mistake for this to end, brutally. Steve glances behind, but Sam has passed out face down and he's not moving. It will all be over before he comes round again. There is a rushing sound in his ears, and Steve prays he isn't about to pass out too.

Steve catches the first few strikes with the shield and then, when the next falls, he twists. The metal arm swings forward without the expected resistance and Steve spins, jamming the shield up beneath the Soldier's arm and wrenching it up. There is a crunching sound and the Soldier grunts in pain; the busted plates have buckled as Steve expected and the arm is frozen. But while Steve is busy watching the knife drop from the stiff metal fingers, the Soldier uses the distraction to plant two fast blows with his real arm; the first catches Steve's healing jaw and the next jabs hard into a fresh gunshot wound in Steve's belly that he hadn't even known was there. Steve falls back as the world goes grey around the edges. The rushing sound grows louder.

"Bucky," he chokes out again, struggling up. The Soldier is wrenching the metal arm back into position with a sharp tug on the left wrist and a screech of metal, and then he kicks the knife up into his hand. "Bucky, stop fighting, I don't want to-" but Bucky is on him again. Steve grits his teeth and kicks hard at the injured place on Bucky's side; the Winter Soldier lets out an animal cry of pain but doesn't falter, sending the knife blade skittering across Steve's ribs in a long slash. Steve stumbles and the Soldier launches blow after blow falling onto the shield until Steve's hands are numb and slippery with blood and he is losing his grip.

Steve knows he is going to die. Not because he couldn't win this fight, but because he won't. There is only one way to win this, and Steve has already tried living a life without Bucky. He won't do it again. Bucky won't hesitate to kill him, but at least he won't live a life remembering what he's done.

The Winter Soldier rips the shield free from Steve's grasp and hurls it away, and Steve is suddenly on one knee without remembering falling. He manages one last desperate roll, shoving the Soldier aside as he moves, so that the knife strike is thrown off, and the blade slices into Steve's trapezius rather than his throat. The rushing sound is more of a roar now, like a consuming ocean of black water.

"I'm so sorry, Bucky," Steve says, and the Winter Soldier covers the ground like frost, and the blade flashes forward for a killing blow.

The Soldier jerks back as an object smacks hard into his chest. It looks like an arrow. He looks down, dully, and then his whole body starts to convulse as sparks burst from the shaft.

The Winter Soldier slumps and then collapses to the floor. Steve twists around and finally notices the quinjet dropping into the clearing. Its engines roar in his ears. Through the heat haze of the engine and the coiling smoke of the burning wreck, he sees the lowered ramp and a figure holding a bow. The archer jumps down from the quinjet while it's still several metres from the ground. Behind, a second jet is circling to land.

Steve ignores them. He scrambles over to Bucky and shoves him onto his back, the electricity dancing up into his own arm. Bucky's still convulsing and the arrow is sending blue sparks into his chest; Steve rips the arrow out and throws it aside. He shakes Bucky's shoulders a little but there's no response. He's out cold. Steve checks his vitals; breathing normal, pulse fast and weak. He has to get to Sam.

There are voices across the clearing calling orders, and then steps approaching. Steve looks up as Clint Barton jogs over, taking in the scene at a glance. He has his bow out and an arrow to the string, two guns and a knife strapped on his legs, and his personalised earpiece radio. There are two agents at his back, rifles and handguns.

"Hey Cap. Long time, no-"

"What the hell is this?" Steve demands, bewildered and angry.

Barton crouches and collects his arrow. "You mean this?" he asks, waving it and then shoving it back into his quiver. "It's a taser-arrow. My own design, of course. Pretty neat, don'tcha think? Non-lethal. Or- do you mean what the hell is this ," he waves his arms expansively to take in the two quinjets and twenty-strong former-SHIELD armed response unit which are just establishing a perimeter around the clearing. "If you mean this , then it's called saving your ass. And you're welcome, by the way. Although, I'll admit, looks like you've done most of the hard work for us. What happened?"

Barton sounds casual, but he's staying back, and he is still holding his bow ready. The two agents haven't lowered their rifles. They're all watching Bucky.

"HYDRA," Steve spits out, still crouched at Bucky's side, holding his wrist to monitor that thready pulse. He is tired beyond words. "The car, they used a mag grenade...Sam was... Barton, there's a guy over there, Sam, you have to get to Sam. He's one of the good guys. He was hurt in the crash..."

"Someone's already on it," Barton says, nodding. Steve looks over and sees that yes, two of the SHIELD men crouched over Sam. There's a medic's pack and a spinal board beside them. Steve can see Sam's hands moving. He's conscious now at least.

Steve breathes out slowly. "How did you find us?" he asks, numbly.

"Tony hacked the HYDRA radios a few hours ago. So they followed you, and we followed them," Barton says. "Seems like we were almost too late; it looks like a goddamn war zone down here. His doing, I take it?"

"No," says Steve firmly, and then concedes; "Yes. A little."

The Winter Soldier seems to take that as his cue and groans. The metal arm twitches. The agents tense behind their gun barrels.

"Holy shit," Barton looks impressed. "He's coming round already? Those arrows pack enough punch to floor a rhino. He really is like you then? The Winter Soldier?"

Steve takes Bucky's hand and gently marks a circle onto the back with his thumb, round and round and round. Bucky goes quiet.

"This morning he was crying his eyes out because he thought he was going to be punished for throwing up," Steve says, his voice hollow and distant even in his own ears. "Now he just crushed a man's throat with his hands and didn't even look back. I don't know what he is anymore."

There is a burst of static through the agents' radios, and then Steve overhears a voice stating that all the enemy agents are dead and there is no sign of further activity in the area. Clint acknowledges, and then nods to the armed men behind him. One of them is carrying magnetic cuffs.

Steve had known this moment was coming. He had wanted to keep Bucky safe and free so much he'd ended up blinding himself to the fact that they weren't able to help him like this. They were always going to have to accept the cuffs and Stark Tower and goddamn SHIELD. There aren't any other choices. But Steve is still not ready.

"You know he wasn't going to hurt me," says Steve to Barton, and his voice cracks slightly because it's a lie, a goddamn lie. "He's been getting better. Then HYDRA...did something. It wasn't how it seemed."

"Yeah, him not hurting you. That's exactly what that didn't look like."

"He's my friend."

"He was your friend," Clint corrects and his tone is bleak but not cruel. "Now he's a weapon. And weapons kill people. That's how it is, Steve."

Steve shakes his head, but he can't argue. Clint Barton knows better than most.

"You agreed with Tony this morning that it was time for him to come in, for everyone's well-being," Barton reminds him. "He's not in his right mind right now, and frankly, neither are you."

Steve appreciates more than he can say that Barton stays back where he is and doesn't press. Makes this feel more like the choice that is isn't.

"All right. But I'll do it," Steve says, gesturing for the cuffs "He hates being touched." He takes them from the agent, and the cuffs snap together with a quiet click around Bucky's wrists. One of the men hands Steve a small device the size of a matchbook. Barton explains that it's a miniature dampening field that will temporarily block signals to and from the tracker and explosives in the prosthetic arm until Stark can have a better look at it. The agent instructs Steve how to fit it to the arm just below the red star and how to activate it.

Barton finally lowers his bow. Two more agents arrive with another stretcher, and Steve allows them to load Bucky onto it.

"What day is it?" he asks out loud.

"Uh, Wednesday," says Barton behind him. "November 3rd. Why?"

Steve starts to laugh then, and he laughs and laughs and can't stop, because on November 3rd 1943, Steve was in a HYDRA work camp in Nazi-controlled Austria, tearing the shackles off Bucky Barnes' wrists and looking into his face and swearing to him that he would be free of HYDRA forever. Exactly 70 years later to the day, he is closing those cuffs himself. Bucky is going back to be SHIELD's prisoner and Steve is letting them take him. It's tragic. It's hilarious.

They are carrying Bucky towards the quinjet now, and Steve is determined that he won't let Bucky out of his sight, not this time. But then all of a sudden, Steve's strength abandons him in a wave and instead of walking it's all he can do to stand up. Off to his right Barton's radio crackles and he asks something but Steve can't answer, and then Barton is coming over to Steve, looking at him strangely. "Hey, Cap, you oka- Shit , Cap, maybe you need to sit down before you fall down. In the meantime, I'm just going to put some pressure on that and get the medics over here. About time they started earning their keep. Hey, Morris, could use some help over here!"

Barton seems to be pressing hard onto a bloody hole in Steve's belly, but Steve barely feels it. He is thinking about the circle, the shield, he drew, round and round, on Bucky's palm. Rescue and capture; the two November 3rds, 2013 and 1943, pressed together side by side, giving and taking in equal measure. That circle, a closed loop of torment and captivity. Thrown out of their own time, they are to live the same days and the same history over and over, in a fight without an end. A futile war.

Steve falls.


End of Book One


Lügen - lies

Американская пропаганда - American propoganda

Er ist tot. Er war ein schlechter Mensch und jetzt ist er tot - He is dead. He was a bad man, and now he is dead

James Barnes ist tot - James Barnes is dead

Молчи! - Shut up

Не шевелись - Don't move