Washington. D.C. 2014.

I waited by the side of the car as Steve and Nat forced Sitwell to the top of the building I had recently been on the roof of. Sam was strapping himself into the mechanical gear we'd stolen from Fort Meade and he was clearly getting a confidence boost from it.

"They're cool, right?"

"They're…wings."

"Yeah. Iron Man can fly but he doesn't have actual wings."

"Well, no. Wings need a lot of space, their influenced by wind and storms whereas the Iron Man suit's flight is more that of a space rocket, very controlled and protected from outside influences." There was a moment of silence as Sam adjusted the goggles over his eyes as a scream from above caught our attention.

"You just love to steal a dude's thunder, don't you?" I shrugged as the scream got louder, the closer Sitwell fell to the ground.

"I'm good at it." I smirked as he took off, catching the falling agent in mid-air and escorting back to the roof of the building. Natasha had taken a walkie talkie up with her, so I could still listen in whilst Sitwell coughed up all the information we needed.

"So that's why Fury delayed Project Insight." I said as Sam sped up the highway.

"When he got the drive, he knew there was something odd going on with Project Insight." Natasha said. Sitwell was sandwiched between the two of us in the back of the car.

"HYDRA doesn't like leaks." Sitwell commented.

"Then why don't you try sticking a cork in it." Sam retorted.

"Insight is launching in 16 hours. We are cutting it a bit close guys." Natasha mentioned as she leant forward, resting her chin on the back of Steve's seat.

"I know. We'll use him to bypass the DNA scans and access the helicarrier's directly."

"Are you crazy?" Sitwell questioned, pushing forward between Nat and I causing her to sit back and roll her eyes to me.

"That is a terrible, terrible idea."

Suddenly there was a loud thud on the top of the car and moments later the rear window was smashed, Sitwell was thrown out and into the path of traffic coming the other way. Within seconds Nat was climbing into the front of the car, pushing Sam and Steve out of the way as two more bullets came through the roof, Steve suddenly forced the car into park and it flung the soldier off the car and into the road. I wasted no time in getting out of the vehicle and making sure my gun was to hand. Cars continued to speed past, but it was an additional engine that caught my attention and I ran forward as I spotted the large Jeep racing towards us with no signs of stopping. It crashed into the back of the car and a motorcyclist quickly stopped.

"Are you guys ok?" The rider asked as he got off his bike. I quickly jumped on and followed after our car that was now being forced along the road by the truck. The soldier was back on the roof and I watched as he reached through the windscreen and ripped the steering wheel from Sam's grip before jumping back on to the bonnet of the Jeep. I opened fire and then quickly applied the brakes of the bike as the Jeep clipped the back wing of the car, sending it into the central reservation and rolling back into the road. Luckily, the three passengers were skidding along the road behind it as the Jeep sped past them. Steve quickly got to his feet along with Nat and I dropped the bike as the soldier was handed a grenade launcher that he fired straight in our direction. Steve shoved Natasha out of the way as he took the full force of the grenade against his shield, sending him over the edge of the bridge.

Natasha and I remained crouched behind the overturned car as the four men who had been in the Jeep began to open fire at us. We were quickly pushed back and separated as another grenade was fired at Natasha. One of the men's attention was diverted and I used the opportunity to fire some more rounds and jump over the edge of the bridge onto the upturned bus that had collided with another when Steve had fallen through the windscreen.

Seconds later, another car exploded, and Natasha was on the ground as well, running under the bridge but heading directly for the line of fire of the soldier. I fired a dummy round at her feet to get her to stop and kept myself concealed behind wreckage before I fired a shot at the soldier and genuinely surprised when it caused him to fall back and out of my line of vision. It didn't take long however for him to reappear without his goggles and the anger was clear as he sprayed a magazine of bullets in our general direction, luckily most civilians had been running since the bus crash and so there weren't many in the area, but I could hear people groaning from within the bus. Natasha ran out from the bridge and kept herself hidden behind another abandoned car as she continued to fire rounds at the soldier.

"Steve?" I called as I took the opportunity to run around the front of the bus. Injured civilians were lying inside, and I crawled in trying to get as many out as I could, but I was most concerned by the fact that Steve was also still down. I looked out of the windscreen briefly and saw three of the men from the Jeep scaling over the edge of the bridge and down to the road. I fired at one and he fell the rest of the way, dead when he hit the floor. One however, landed on top of a car with a huge automatic weapon, Steve's shield was on the road just outside of the bus and I just reached it and threw it to him as he got up and ran through the vehicle that was gradually being turned into a piece of Swiss cheese. I fired on the two other men who were now all focused-on Steve, one was hit by his own bullet ricocheting off Steve's shield and the other got a bullet to the neck from me. Steve gradually worked towards the one on the car and when he flipped him over, I fired a bullet into his head for good measure.

"Where's Nat?" Steve shouted.

I quickly got to my feet and scanned the street for her, a police car exploding as it collided with another car caught my attention and I headed that way. The soldier was marching straight for her. Civilians were scattering in front of him, but he paid them no attention. Natasha was where I had been two days ago, though that felt like a whole other lifetime. I tried to predict Natasha's moves but spotted her concealed behind a car as he approached a different one. She didn't spot me coming and jumped when I squatted down next to her.

"Steve?" she asked.

"He's fine. Sam's covering him."

Within seconds the car across the street from us had exploded and Nat had jumped the car, hoisting herself up on his shoulders and she kicked the grenade launcher from his hand. I ran around and quickly picked it from the ground as he threw her over the roof of an adjacent car. His attention was momentarily turned back to me and I realised it was the first time I had seen his eyes since I'd been a child. They were just as calculating and cold as they had been then and as he rose his arm to strike me, I found myself glued to the spot. I only snapped back to attention as Natasha threw a small metal disc to his arm, rendering it useless.

"Leyna!" She shouted, and I wasted no time in following after her as we ran in the opposite direction from where he was.

"I did that on the roof." I gasped as we headed towards civilians. "It makes him even angrier."

"Yeah, well, I'm pretty pissed myself." She shouted back before quickly halting as a car window smashed. I skidded to a stop and looked down as she clutched her shoulder. Suddenly the soldier was on a car opposite us, I quickly pulled the trigger of the launcher, cursing when it simply made a popping sound without dispelling any ammunition as Steve suddenly appeared and the solider became preoccupied with fighting him.

I crouched down next to Natasha and tugged off her leather jacket examining the front and back of her shoulder.

"It's a through and through." I said as I applied as much pressure to the wound as I could whilst still listening to Steve and the solider fight.

"Leyna. The grenade launcher." She said between breaths. I looked down at it and spotted a round a few feet away. Quickly loading it up I got back to my feet and watched as Steve stood, no longer fighting the soldier but simply staring at him instead. The mask had fallen from his face, exposing someone who looked so much more confused than angry but that quickly passed as Sam came flying him, kicking him against an upturned car that I then fired the launcher to. By the time the settled burning vehicle settled back on the ground, the solider was gone and all we could hear was incoming sirens. We were quickly surrounded by five black SUV's and dozens of armed officers. I dropped the launcher and raised my hands only to have them yanked back down and confined to handcuffs. Steve, Sam, Nat and I were loaded into the back of a van and driven away from the scene.

"It was him." Steve said sombrely, his wrists shackled in thick steel handcuffs. "He looked right at me. Like he didn't even know me."

"How is that even possible? It was like, 70 years ago." Sam commented, Natasha and I shared a look, fearing we already knew the answer.

"Zola. Bucky's whole unit was captured in '43. Zola experimented on him. Whatever he did helped Bucky survive the fall. They must have found him and…"

"None of that's your fault Steve." Natasha said quietly, I couldn't help but notice the blood still dripping from her wound. Steve dropped his head.

"Even when I had nothing I had Bucky."

I found that there were no words of comfort I could offer Steve. I had tried to find the identity of the Winter Soldier for years, but never had I expected he would be someone from Steve's former life. I wanted to tell myself that it changed nothing, that I hadn't known who Bucky was so why should I care about the person he had been before I had met him? But I found that I did, even if it was only because he was the only piece of Steve's old life that he had left. It had been no secret that Steve had been struggling to adjust since New York and everything after. However, I couldn't shy away from the fact that who his friend was, and who he became are two totally different people.

I was pulled from my thoughts by Natasha resting her head against the wall of the truck.

"Hey." Sam turned to the armed guard who was sat with us. "We need a doctor. If we don't get pressure on that wound she's gonna bleed out here in the truck."

The guard held up an electrified stick to Sam before quickly pulling it back and stabbing it into the chest of their co-worker. They slumped to the floor before Maria Hill pulled off her helmet, examined each of our faces and turned back to Sam.

"Whose this guy?"