Old Friends Chapter 16

By: Cadet Deming

I don't own the rights to Captain America or The Avengers, Marvel and Disney do, so please don't sue. Rated T for violence, language, drug references, death, and implied child abuse and adult situations. Please read and review.

Victim. Assassin. HYDRA spy. HYDRA captive. It's justice to let him go free. It's justice to put him to death. Bucky listened to all of the words about him from both sides of his trial.

He knew it was being televised. Bernie had coached him to play to both the jury and the cameras.

She had gotten him a haircut. He missed the protection of his longer hair, but it had made him look too much like a wild man. His lawyer tried to make him seem like a boy next door who was caught up in a military conspiracy bigger than himself.

The trial was limited to American assassination victims of the Winter Soldier, which narrowed things down to 32 counts of First Degree Murder. Bucky listened to the testimony of witnesses and watched the expressions of the surviving family members. Whether he was found guilty or not guilty, he was still responsible for so many innocent lives lost. They were lives he could do nothing to restore.

He remembered Pierce's soothing words before he would send him out on missions, "We're making the word a better place…We're the good guys…This has to be done…You're my best soldier…No one can hit a target like you can…You're HYDRA's number one guy…We're counting on you."

Now the reality of those missions was biting into Bucky and hitting him hard. He questioned if deep down inside he wanted to get the death penalty, if his death could atone for all of the blood he'd shed.

Aside from his lawyer, there was one consistently friendly face in the crowd. Steve Rogers came and sat in the audience every day and gave him supportive smiles. He always carried a briefcase, but never opened it. Bucky noticed it was large enough to hide his shield.

Steve's girlfriend Natasha always stayed by his side. There was something hyper vigilant about her, as if she was studying everyone and everything in the courtroom. She stared at Bucky appraisingly, but her expression gave away no other emotions.

Judge Bendis called out, "We are going to break for lunch. Everyone return in one hour."

He banged his gavel. A woman approached the judge from the group of reporters. She had long black hair that covered the right side of her face. She wore a dark green pantsuit and what looked like combat boots. All of the other reporters wore high-heels or at least dressy flats.

She said, "Your Honor, may I have a quick interview with you? Just 5 minutes in front of the cameras."

She gestured for 3 men to come forward with large television cameras. Bucky noticed the men looked abnormally muscular for cameramen. They also had suspiciously long nails, almost claw-like. Bucky tensed.

He looked to Steve to see if he noticed anything amiss. Natasha was whispering something in Steve's ear. Steve looked alarmed, even more so after he locked eyes on Bucky. Bucky flashed back to when they had worked together in the Howling Commandos and could communicate with a simple look or body language. Bucky gave him the nod that used to symbolize "attack."

He grabbed Bernie and told her, "Duck, something is about to happen."

Steve stood up and shouted, "Be careful! It's a…."

An explosion shook the room. People were flung everywhere as a bomb went off near the doorway. People of all ages screamed. The cameramen pulled out machine guns from the cameras and started blasting away.

The police pulled out riot gear and returned fire. The civilians crawled under chairs, behind tables, anything they could take shelter in.

Bucky threw himself on top of Bernie, using his metal arm to protect them both. He smelled gunfire, blood and human fear. He heard an inhuman sound: that of hissing like a cat or snake.

The woman who had approached Judge Bendis pulled out a gun and shot him in the chest.

She screamed, "HYDRA did not die! It has evolved! I am Madame Hydra and you will all feel the wrath of my Serpent Squad! Your government cannot protect you! Even your courts are not safe! The entire United States will bow at my feet as we…."

She was interrupted by Steve's shield hitting her in the chest. She collapsed to the ground, twisted into a position no normal human could survive in.

The shield returned to his hand and Steve said, "The people of the United States bow to no one! Guards, take Bucky to safety! Natasha, check the perimeter. I heard explosions above us."

Natasha nodded and left, adjusting weapons on her wrists.

Bucky ached to have a weapon of his own in his hands. For once he wanted to use everything he had trained for to fight HYDRA instead of being their pawn. Even at his own trial, HYDRA was still using his presence to invite damage.

Bucky was jerked violently by his guards. They led him to another hallway.

Bernie protested, "I want to stay with my client."

One of the jailers said to her, "It's not safe for you to be around him."

Bernie said, "It's not safe for me to be away from him."

She made him feel like a hero again, something he hadn't felt since World War 2.

The guard said, "Sorry lady, you can't come with us."

Bernie squeezed his human hand as they were separated. Bucky was pulled down a stairway.

Bucky said, "Let me fight. I can help you if you'll just.."

The guard cut him off, "Shut up. You're the reason HYDRA is attacking us."

The building shook with another explosion. The lights in the stairwell flickered and turned off. One of the guards tripped on Bucky and they both fell downwards in the darkness. He heard a swishing sound above him and a thump on the stairs.

The emergency lights flickered on. They were much weaker than the normal lights. Bucky could make out two figures above him on the stairwell. One was the other guard, but it was just his body, the head was missing. Behind him stood a hooded man holding up a metal scythe.

The Grim Reaper said, "Remember me Bucky? It's time for a rematch."

The guard next to Bucky screamed and fired bullets upwards as the Reaper pushed the other guard's body down at them. The remaining living guard fired off several shots. Some hit him in the chest, but made the sounds of bullets hitting body armor. The Reaper deflected the bullet headed towards his head with his scythe. The bullets ricocheted off of the blade and back at the guard, killing him instantly.

Bucky tried to scramble backwards in handcuffs. The instinct to flee fought with the instinct to fight. Fighting won out. He grabbed a gun from the decapitated guard.

Reaper leapt down onto the next level of the stairwell. The platform shook as if he was weighted down with lead.

Bucky aimed the gun at his head. "Come closer to me and I will kill you."

Reaper said, "Do you think I'm afraid of death? I am death. Yours."

Bucky pulled the trigger. A bullet hit Reaper in the forehead, but bounced out, leaving a bloody, metallic hole. There was only one metal on Earth that could do that: Vibranium. His enemy had to be laced with Vibranium.

Reaper pulled his hood off and clucked his tongue. "I've gotta say, I'm disappointed in you Winter Soldier. You were supposed to be HYDRA's best assassin, its golden boy, its crown jewel. That title should be mine."

"I don't want the title. You can keep it. Why would anyone want to be a terrorist organization's best murderer?"

Reaper shrugged. "Well, it is kind of like bragging about being valedictorian of a reform school or girls who fight over "Smartest Woman in Porn." But come on, admit you like killing. Watching the light going out in someone's eyes, knowing you're the cause of it. The feeling of power. There's nothing else like it."

Reaper's smile looked eerie in the dim light. It looked like he had fangs. He actually did have fangs.

Bucky tried to count off how many bullets he had left in the gun, and if they were any use against a man laced through with Vibranium, a man turned into a killing machine, the same thing HYDRA had tried to turn Bucky into.

Bucky said, "I'm not a sick freak like you. I killed because I followed orders: nothing more. I'm not a common murderer."

He edged closer to the Reaper, trying to find a weakness. What weakness would someone laced with Vibranium have?

Reaper said, "But you are a murderer. I've been listening to your trial. It doesn't seem to be going well for you. Even if HYDRA or whatever we're calling ourselves these days hadn't have interrupted, you'd get the death penalty. And you are a freak of nature. You're 95 years old: it isn't natural for you to still be alive. You should have died back in 1945. You should have died in a blaze of glory on the battlefield. Just let me end it for you Bucky. Beheading is painless, it's why they invented the guillotine."

Bucky thought about it for a moment. It was tempting, but it wasn't in his nature to give up like this. If he went it would be in a blaze of glory. It would be in a blaze of…electricity.

Bucky smiled. "You love death so much? Try it for yourself you son of a bitch!"

He leapt at Reaper intentionally blocking him with his bionic arm. His enemy slashed at him with his scythe. It sliced through Bucky's metal arm. The wires and electricity went haywire. The Grim Reaper screamed as the electricity swarmed through his body, magnified by his Vibranium.

To Be Continued.