A blast went off that shook the building, faint traces of gas seeping in through the cracks in the walls, under the door. Zemo passed out immediately, his men covered their mouths fast enough, but they could only last for so long.

Sharon and the three men burst through the door and took down every HYDRA agent in sight.

He was dropped to the floor when Sharon and Clint shot the agents restraining him. He sat there, drowning out any other sounds with his own grief. I killed him. He made no move to defend himself from the onset of gunshots. Let them kill me. He had become everything he didn't want to be. It was his fault that his hands were caked with Steve's blood.

He cried.

He cried because he was supposed to protect the little guy from Brooklyn, and now he was gone.

He was always afraid in the old days that something terrible would happen to his "little brother," as his parents referred to Steve, who always happened to be around their house. He was always afraid that sometime when he peeked down an alleyway or fished the punk out of a dumpster he wouldn't be met by a teen the size of a twelve-year-old, his lip curled in stubborn rebellion, the devil in his eyes. Always afraid he wouldn't hear a stupid explanation of some honorable reason Steve had to get himself beaten to a bloody pulp, how he had almost won that time and that next time - next time was the time. Next fight he would win.

Bucky never understood it. Why he couldn't just let a sexist, racist, or disrespectful remark go. Yeah, it was wrong for them to say it, but how was giving them another target gonna help?

There was always that moment of suspended dread, when Bucky didn't know if he would be pulling a limp, broken frame out of the garbage or dusting off the dead body of a kid who hadn't really had the chance to live yet. He could never be sure what he would find.

But now he knew what he had found.

He had found that all his worry had been in vain. Because he was going to be the one to beat the spirit out of his best friend, the one to kill the last person left in his family.

And they had been brothers.

And he had promised to protect him.

And now he was gone.

This. This was the end of the line.

Sharon ran to Steve, knelt beside him, clenched his wrist and prayed, begged for him to be alive. It seemed like ages as tears dripped from her eyes onto his uniform and she waited, waited for something. Anything.

Then she felt it. A weak, almost faint beyond detection - thump. Thump.

"Oh, thank God," she breathed, kissing his swollen hand while carefully avoiding the raw places where handcuffs had been. "You need to stop doing this to me, Steve. I can't lose you." She gently touched his cheek and drew her hand away, warm and stained scarlet. Sharon turned to the men. "We have ten minutes tops before they recover enough to counterattack. We need to be in the air and on our way before then." She looked at Steve and swallowed, brushing away her tears with the back of her hand. "He's going to bleed out...I don't know how much longer he has."

"Not much, by the looks of it," said Clint, wincing at the unwelcome sight. "Ant-guy, get over here and give us a hand." Scott scrambled over in human size and the three managed to lift the super soldier to transport him to the helicarrier.

Sam was with Bucky.

As soon as he was on the floor Sam was too, right beside him, talking to him in a low voice. This was bad. Probably as bad as he had been when Riley died. He couldn't remember his reaction clearly, and honestly, he didn't want to.

"Hey, man," he whispered as soothingly as he could, slowly removing his handcuffs. "Hey, Bucky. Can you look at me?"

Sobs. No response. No indication he had heard or seen Sam sitting beside him.

"Hey, man, I know it's hard, but I just need you to look at me, okay?"

Nothing. As if he was blind and deaf. This had to be worse than Sam had been. Then again, he hadn't believed he had taken Riley out.

"Bucky." Sam put his hand on the man's shoulder. "Look at me."

The Falcon was met with bloodshot eyes that were hot with tears, a shattered expression captured in them that he could only feel, not describe. His expression spoke more than words could have and Sam understood it perfectly. There's nothing worse than losing someone as close to you as family. Nothing. Unless it was also your fault.

"Bucky, he's alive. You didn't kill him." A flicker of hope, then disbelief. "We're flyin' out of here. You need to come with us, okay? We're gonna save Steve."

Glassy eyes. Quieter sobs. No complaints when he was unarmed, raised to his feet, and led to the helicarrier.

It all felt like a nightmare.

"I killed him. I killed him!" Bucky kept repeating it over and over again, blocking out any attempts Sam made at comforting him.

"He's still with us. He's not gone."

"Steve's dead. Steve's dead! I killed him."

It went back and forth for the better part of the trip. Bucky had calmed down for the few minutes it took to walk to the helicarrier, but as soon as he saw Steve still bloodied up, Sharon doing the best she could to help him with what they had, he had gone into hysterics. Now he kept repeating his offense and Sam sat beside him, patiently trying to convince him he was wrong.

Finally, Clint joined them from his shift monitoring Steve. After they were into the air, Sharon was the only one who knew the way to the "safehouse," as she called it, so it was left to him and Scott to watch the Captain's vitals while Sam was occupied with his best friend. Steve's vitals weren't good, but they had managed to patch him up a bit and slow the flow from the knife wound. He wasn't gone yet, but he was getting there.

Clint sat across from Bucky and watched him for a couple minutes. He was unsteady, anyone could see that, but Clint could tell he wasn't a threat. To them at least. It would probably be best to keep him away from the weaponry at any rate. He looked at Sam, who was trying his best, but couldn't seem to get across.

"It wasn't your fault," Clint said, his voice firm.

Bucky lifted his eyes for a moment and the archer could see the extent of his vulnerability. He was terrified. He was frozen in time like a deer in the headlights, staring, unbelieving the car would stop, unreachable if it didn't.

"They got inside your mind. You couldn't have stopped it. It wasn't your fault." Clint knew what that meant. He knew how long it took to convince yourself of it, that everything bad you did had been out of your control.

"If I hadn't survived that fall, Steve would be safe."

"Steve would be dead." Sam turned to Bucky and locked his gaze. "You know as well as I do that if it hadn't been you, it would've been someone else whose memory was wiped who was put up against him. He would've done something stupid and gotten himself killed to save one of us whether or not you came into the picture." When he saw Bucky still didn't believe him, Sam sighed. "For pete's sake, he flew a plane into an iceberg when he thought you were dead. When he woke up, he didn't know what to do with himself." Sam shook his head. "Man, don't you realize you're the only one he has left who was with him growin' up? By his side through the war? You were with him on the front lines. I've been with him since he got back and has been fightin' battles in his mind. He needs both of us." Sam looked at him with the slightest grin. "Don't cut yourself too much slack, but I'm pretty dang sure he'd be worse off without you."

The veteran blinked, then stared down at the crusted blood that coated his metal hand.

"C'mon man, let's get you cleaned up."