I've posted Chapters 20 and 21 together, so if you skipped straight to this one, please go back and read Ch 20 first.

DISCLAIMER: I don't own the Marvel Cinematic Universe or any of the characters contained therein.

WORD COUNT: 1696

As the Winter Soldier, Bucky Barnes was used to the frigid cold. It was a constant part of him, now; even in the summer, he could still feel the chill of cryo-freeze in his bones, no matter what he did to warm up. It must have all been in his head, however, because there was no way he could still be cold at midday in the middle of the fucking Sahara.

He'd been on a small-scale scouting mission with Steve, Sam, and Natalia, checking out a tip regarding a possible HYDRA base. That tip had more than paid off, as it turned out to be a base that Bucky had actually been to as the Winter Soldier; he'd been deployed from there during an assignment. What was even more disturbing, however, were the people.

Not the HYDRA agents, though. Their prisoners. Six people, all with powers, all kept in their own individual cages. Those cages were more like little transparent cells on wheels, really. And they were all being wheeled onto a small cargo plane, obviously being transferred elsewhere.

One of them was just a child, no older than twelve.

Natalia had wanted to simply tag the jet and track it to the new location – potentially giving them two bases at once – and bugging out of there, but Steve wouldn't hear of it. He wanted to rescue those people, and he was going to do it now.

The ensuing fight had been chaotic, and it had ended with Bucky being stuck on the jet as it flew off with the only prisoner they'd managed to load on board before the four Avengers went on the attack. He took out the other agents on board, and decided to free the prisoner before taking out the pilot.

It was the wrong call. The enhanced prisoner apparently had some sort of powers that allowed her to control metal, and upon being freed, she immediately began to dismantle the plane in mid-air. Bucky tried to stop her, only to be flung out the rear hatch by his metal arm.

He hit the sandy ground hard. Hard enough to stun him for a couple minutes. When he finally struggled to his feet, he could see a plume of smoke from the crashed aircraft.

Now he was faced with a dilemma. Should he keep going and check on the prisoner, and see if she survived? Or should he head back to the HYDRA base, where Steve and Natalia were? On the one hand, he didn't want to approach an apparently unstable powered person without backup. On the other, however, he could clearly see where the plane's wreckage was, and while he had been a bit distracted with fighting the agents on board, he'd gotten the distinct feeling that the pilot hadn't been flying in a straight line, so he wasn't sure which direction the base was in.

Deciding that heading towards a known destination was better than wandering aimlessly in the desert, Bucky opted to start staggering towards the smoke coming from the wrecked plane.

He realised he was in trouble less than ten minutes into his hike. His head was pounding, and despite the fact that he was walking at a fairly slow pace, he was drenched in sweat and couldn't catch his breath. He tugged off his armour, feeling like he was baking alive inside of it, and fashioned a makeshift head covering out of his undershirt. He needed to get out of the sun, and the best chance he had was getting to the plane and maybe using some of the debris as shelter, assuming it wasn't all on fire.

He kept going, struggling to walk as the sand constantly shifted beneath his feet, and the seemed to almost tilt back and forth, like the deck of a ship. It wasn't until his face crashed into the burning sand that he finally figured out that he was the one off-balance.

His arm burned. Many would expect the metal limb to be cooler than the rest of his body, but the mechanical components that ran pretty much twenty-four-seven ensured that it always stayed warm. In this climate, however, it was hot to the point of being painful. Distantly, Bucky recalled one instant during his days as HYDRA's tool, when the damn thing had actually overheated, although he couldn't bring to mind the exact circumstances. All he remembered was that some of the electronics had shorted out, screwing with both his ability to control the arm and the sensory input it gave him. He had a feeling that it was getting close to that point, now.

Even as he pushed himself to his feet, he wondered when or if anyone was going to find him. That sense of despair wasn't unfamiliar, either. When he'd first woken up in a HYDRA lab after falling off that damn train, he'd refused to believe them when they told him that the world all thought him dead, that there would never be a rescue mission for him. Or when they told him that Steve was dead. He'd refused to listen to anything they told him. But as the days had gone by, and no one came for him, his faith had slowly wavered and faded. The day he finally gave up and accepted that none of his friends or allies were even trying to come and save him was the day that HYDRA had broken him.

He knew better, now. He knew that Steve wouldn't rest until he'd searched every square inch of this godforsaken desert. And that he had means at his disposal that hadn't existed back in the forties. The real question was if Bucky would still be alive when he was found.

Where was the smoke? Bucky blinked, realising that he'd been focusing on the sand in front of him, in an effort to not fall over again, and not on the horizon, where the smoke from the downed HYDRA plane was supposed to be guiding him. He looked up, and saw nothing but sand dunes and sky. He spun around, even as it caused him to stumble dizzily and fight down the urge to throw up.

Nothing.

He saw no smoke, no point of reference, nothing to help him figure out where he was or where he needed to go.

With a choked sob, Bucky dropped to his knees in despair.

The five rescued superhumans were scared, and tired, and they wanted to go home. The young boy had fallen asleep in the lap of one of the women, apparently his aunt. But Steve, Sam, and Natasha weren't turning the Quinjet around until they found Bucky.

They'd already placed a call to the other Avengers and the new S.H.I.E.L.D., and plenty of aid had been offered and readily accepted. Tony and Coulson had devoted every Stark Industries and S.H.I.E.L.D. satellite in the area to scanning the desert surface, Thor had gone to Asgard to ask for Heimdall's aid, and pretty much the entire Avengers team – as well as a group Coulson called the 'Secret Warriors' – was en route to help cover more ground.

Meanwhile, Steve, Sam, and Natasha were searching the old-fashioned way, flying over the desert and scanning the sand with their own eyes (infra-red wasn't nearly as useful in this heat) in an attempt to spot him.

They found the wreckage of the HYDRA aircraft pretty quickly, but all the bodies on board and nearby were all confirmed to be the HYDRA agents and the prisoner Bucky had been attempting to rescue. There was no sign of him. So they started searching in a spiral pattern, hoping he hadn't gotten far.

That plan changed when Tony sent them satellite footage of the crash and the events leading up to it. Before the plane had even started falling out of the sky, something – make that someone – had fallen out of the back. Natasha punched in the corresponding coordinates and started flying that way.

They almost missed him. If Steve's eyesight hadn't been enhanced by the Serum, he likely would have dismissed the dark speck on the ground as maybe a spot of dirt on the Quinjet's windows. But it had been, so when he caught a glimpse of something on the desert surface, he yelled for Natasha to turn the goddamn plane around. They landed mere yards away from the speck, which they confirmed even from that distance to most definitely be a person.

Bucky was unconscious, his skin red and inflamed, his pulse rapid and weak. He'd lost the body armour off his upper body somewhere along the way, exposing his whole torso, but had his undershirt loosely wrapped around his head. His prosthetic arm was so hot, it actually scalded Sam's hand when he grabbed it while trying to drag Bucky back onto the Quinjet.

As soon as they got him on board, Natasha flew the Quinjet straight to the nearest medical centre they could remotely trust, radioing their friends to alert them of the change in plans. Steve stayed by Bucky's side, using ice packs from the many medical packs on board to try and bring his temperature down. Same helped him, along with one of the HYDRA prisoners they'd rescued, saying she'd been in training to become and EMT before she was snatched up.

Bucky woke up, for about a minute or so, just as they were approaching the hospital.

"Bucky!" Steve gasped in relief, "Thank God! It's okay, Buck. It's okay. We're getting you to a hospital now. You're gonna be fine."

At least half of him expected Bucky to react like he had at Azzano, to smile and just be glad that help was finally there. But instead, Bucky just stared at him, his eyes broken and disbelieving. A single tear escaped before those eyes shut again.

Next chapter: 'Friendly Fire'. That one's actually finished, so it will be coming on time tomorrow.