"Kneel, soldier," Rogers said, the words flat and foreign on his tongue. He flinched as Barnes fell heavily to his knees, head down, shoulders slumped. The gun clattered from his slack grip onto the hardwood floor.

Rogers looked automatically to the doctor, unnerved. Jenkins didn't say— Barnes trembled. Rogers stared, revolted and transfixed as his right hand grasped convulsively for the gun, fingers sliding uselessly over the barrel even when he found it. Rogers opened his mouth to speak his friend's name but found his throat dry.

By degrees, Barnes lifted his head, struggling as if gravity was dragging it down. Strands of dark hair clung to Barnes' sweat-slick face. "What are you doing?" he hissed through locked teeth, eyes wide with horrified anticipation. Rogers blanched, and Barnes' face snapped down and away, overcome.

"Stay with us Cap."

"...extraction?"

Steve frowned, remembering the others. "Right, Rhodey, let's take, uh, Barnes out - I want one of you on backup and the rest of you make sure Jenkins gets out of here in one piece." He lifted the shield from the holster on his back and stepped forward with Rhodey to flank Barnes on either side.

Barnes' hand scrabbled against the hardwood floor.

Steve slid the gun aside with his foot and looked to Rhodey for support; the extraction team sidled up to Jenkins, surrounding him. Someone pried the apartment's door back open.

Barnes raised his head again, pained, but didn't seem to register anyone but Jenkins. "No."

"Get his arm, Rhodes."

"No."

"No! NO!"

"I can't—PLEASE—No!"

Barnes thrashed in Rhodey's mechanical grip and Jenkins was guided out.

"PLEASE—"

"Can you do anything Cap?"

As Jenkins escaped, the Soldier forced his way out. With gritted teeth he set his weight onto their metal arm and kicked backwards at War Machine's knees. Rhodey cursed and toppled, releasing the Soldier as he reached to break his fall. Rogers watched with detachment.

"Please," Steve finally tried, as Barnes and the Soldier made for the door. "Wake up."

Barnes stopped in the threshold, turned easily on his heels and grinned as sardonically as he used to. "Oh Steve, I have never been more awa-"

A burst of white light blasted Barnes in the chest and he crumpled to his knees, unconscious. War Machine retracted his helmet. "Probably would have been easier to do that in the first place, huh Steve?"

Rogers frowned in distraction. "Yeah." He walked over to Barnes, laying him flat on the floor and searching for weapons. He undid the holsters on Barnes' hip, removing a boxy black comm from one pouch. In the other was a narrow plastic tube with a tablet inside. He stared at it a moment, then slid it into his own pocket before Rhodey could notice. Rogers his his horror behind a carefully composed expression.

"Your honest opinion, Rhodey." Steve looked at Barnes' face. The corner of his mouth was still tweaked just slightly by the bitter grin he'd worn moments earlier. "Do you think it was him?"

Rhodey shrugged. "I've only seen those films, Cap. You'd know better than me."

Rogers said nothing, but he hadn't seen such easy confidence on Barnes' face since the war.