A/N: Three to go!
"I went to the Tower of London yesterday." Darcy's voice was far away and muffled by feedback. Jane thought she heard pots and pans clanking in the background. It was almost dinner time in England and Darcy must be cooking up a storm. "Did you know you can tour the prison? You can see where they executed people and everything."
"You don't say," Jane muttered, staring out the car window.
"So we were touring the White Tower, and we have this Yeoman Warder guy leading the way. Davey called him a beefeater, but I think that sounds awful. I told you about Davey, right? Kimber's boyfriend?"
"Uh-huh," Jane said. She had no idea who Kimber was.
"Yeah, well, he thinks he's a prankster. So while the Yeoman guy is talking about William the Conqueror or whatever, Davey starts making all these obnoxious noises. Burping, fake farting, coughing. He's really throwing the Yeoman guy off his game. Poor dude was the overly polite kind of British and he just kept talking while Davey was being an asshole. Well, I guess the tower ghosts didn't like that because all of a sudden, Davey's foot snags on a rug and he falls flat on his face."
Jane laughed, hoping that it sounded real. Thankfully no one was nearby to hear the creepy woman in the car making hyena noises. This parking lot was as devoid of people as it was full of cars. "Sounds like he had it coming."
"Definitely. Got way more laughs than any of his other BS, let me tell you. I just hope Kimber dumps him soon. He keeps trying to buy me drinks when she isn't around. Anyway, enough about me and my wacky misadventures. How are yours?"
For a moment, Jane closed her eyes and listened to her own breathing. It sounded normal. No one would ever suspect anything was wrong, not even Darcy. This was just a normal call from a not-so-normal friend. Nothing for her to give a second thought about until she turned on the news in a few days.
"I… I haven't been doing much," Jane said, her voice thick. "Just kind of hanging out."
"That sucks," Darcy said, followed by an oven beeping. "I guess I'll have to get into enough shenanigans for the both of us."
"I appreciate that," Jane said. "I really appreciate everything you've done for me, Darcy. You've been a good friend. One of the best I've ever had."
"Well, thanks," Darcy laughed. "What's with the love-in all of a sudden? You're not dying on me, are you?"
Jane's jaw flexed, her vision full of the Triskelion just beyond the fence. "I just wanted to say hi. I'm sorry I haven't called you more."
"Well, I'm going to a Nick Cave concert next Saturday and I'm bound to get some fun stories from that. So call me on Sunday, okay?"
"Sure thing," Jane said, managing to say goodbye and end the call before hitching a sob.
She dropped her newly purchased phone and put her head on the wheel of Peggy's emergency van, dry heaving and trembling. That was it. First her mom, then Erik, now Darcy. All the names in her address book were crossed off. Anyone else she might have called was long dead. They wouldn't even know her anyway.
Jane curled up in the driver's seat, hiding her face from prying eyes until the waves of panic ceded and the chill in her bones dulled to lukewarm. She stared at the floor through the steering wheel, counting the specks on the mat. By the time she reached fifty, her stomach had settled. She could take a breath without choking on air. She pressed her back flat against the seat, staring at the fence and the trees and the battery-shaped building floating in the fog.
A couple walked by, crossing her vision like a mirage. They were holding hands and talking. Just talking. They were completely inaudible and wholly insignificant. The kind of people Jane never would've noticed three years ago when she was still knee-deep in the same data every night (maybe this time she'd find something new). Now she watched them go until they were out of sight. It took forever, they walked so slow.
'No,' she told herself, 'they're not slow. They're just enjoying the moment.'
Jane sucked in a breath, holding it until her chest hurt. "Okay… okay… okay."
She started the car. Before backing up, she checked herself in the rearview mirror. The black pantsuit she'd pulled off the clearance rack at Macy's wasn't exactly her style and the shiny black flats that only mostly fit weren't much better. If it got her into the Triskelion without any trouble, it was worth it, but that was a very big if.
Jane checked the glove compartment of Peggy's emergency car one more time. Forty-eight out of fifty non-sequential bills remained, wrapped up tight in a rubber band. She'd nearly had a heart attack when Peggy removed the false bottom from her nightstand drawer and shoved the money into her hands.
"I can't take this," Jane had said.
"Yes, you can," Peggy said, removing a set of car keys from the same compartment.
"But, Peggy, I-"
"Jane, take it."
"But-"
"Now."
And that was the end of that.
Jane eased her way out of her parking spot, wedged between a Jeep and a minivan covered in bumper stickers. Checking the side mirror, a shape in the minivan window caught her eye. A crucifix hung from brown wooden beads over the mirror, though it looked black against the sun. Jane couldn't tell if it was plain or bore the visage of Christ, but it seemed to watch her either way.
"I still don't believe you're really there," she said, "but if I'm wrong, I hope you're with me on this."
Jane slowed to avoid hitting the Jeep, maneuvering herself away from the truck bed. It was hard to do when she couldn't stop staring at the shiny building as it rotted away from the inside out. There were people outside, going in and out. A typical day at work or the start of a new world war? How could anyone tell the difference?
She swallowed. "Oh God, I hope I'm wrong."
Getting into the building was the easy part. She had worried about not having a pass, but facial recognition software was enough to open the gates and even get her a prime parking space. After checking herself in the mirror one more time and palming the weight in her coat pocket, Jane marched through the doors into the lobby like she did this every day.
It was a busy day at SHIELD. Dozens if not hundreds of agents milled past her, carrying tablets and folders, talking on phones or together in hushed tones. Any one of them could be in the middle of the most important mission of their lives. At least half of them were about to have a very bad day. Jane just hoped she could help make the other half's day worse.
"Good morning," she said to a pretty redheaded woman manning one of the many chairs at the mile-long front desk. "Dr. Jane Foster. I have an important meeting with Deputy Director Brubaker."
The woman, who lacked a name tag or anything else to identify her, typed Jane's name into the computer. "I'm sorry, Doctor, I don't see anything on the schedule."
Jane put on as stern a look as she could manage. "Do you really think I'd be standing here right now asking for the co-head of research and development if I didn't have an appointment?"
The woman met her affronted stare with a barely visible ascent of her eyebrow. She reached for the phone. "Give me one second."
She dialed zero and requested the scheduling department. While she waited on hold, Jane slowly backed away. "So much for fake it 'til you make it…'"
When the woman spun her swivel chair around, Jane made a break for the emergency stairs. She bowled over two people, but managed to make it before the receptionist could manage a, "Hey!"
It was a strange reverse of her last visit to the Triskelion. One she might be able to laugh at someday. Jane ran up the emergency stairs as fast as she could, ignoring any calls from her body to stop. The fire in her legs burned hot and drove her forward. She slowed down only when she passed a door, ducking low to avoid being seen. After several minutes with no alarms, she started to slow her pace, giving herself time to think.
"Okay," she said between desperate pants at the top of the tenth stairwell. "You're going to find the main control room, tell whoever is in charge about HYDRA, expose Alexander Pierce and this is stupid. This is so stupid. What kind of plan is that?"
She slid down the wall, shivering as the icy concrete leaked through her clothes. An alarm buzzed and she stiffened, but then a door unbolted and closed behind a set of clacking heels. Jane let out a breath and lifted herself up. Just enough to pull her jacket out from under her leg and slip Rumlow's gun out of her pocket.
Ever since she'd failed to shoot that bastard in the face, she hadn't been able to look at it. She touched it only when she had to, keeping it deep in her pocket when she visited Peggy and in the glove compartment of the car. That no one had noticed it in all that time meant someone up in Asgard probably still liked her. If it were Thor, she might die laughing.
"Why don't you go in guns blazing?" Jane pantomimed shooting the wall. "Pierce is up there right now, probably sipping champagne. Go put a bullet in his head. That'll get their attention, won't it?"
With an empty chuckle, she dropped the gun. It was so much heavier than she remembered. That day in the snow with Bucky's hands cupping hers, forming them around his M1911, was no longer the warm memory it once was. Now that everything he told her in that circle of battle-scarred trees was coming true.
She eyed the stairs, half expecting to see his shadow stalking her. Like the last time she ran wild through the building. But no, they'd have another mission for him today. Something much more important than one little woman who thought she was big. She might as well just sit here and wait for them to find her.
Then the speakers turned on.
"Attention all SHIELD agents. This is Steve Rogers."
Jane went so still that she might've turned the stone. It couldn't be…
"You've heard a lot about me over the last few days. Some of you have been ordered to hunt me down. But now it's time you heard the truth."
It was. Steve's calm voice blasted over the speakers, for everyone who ever crossed SHIELD's threshold to hear. Jane stood, chancing a peek through the nearest window. Twelve agents had stopped to stare at the ceiling.
"SHIELD is not what we thought it was. HYDRA has taken it over. Alexander Pierce is their leader. The STRIKE team and Insight crew are also HYDRA."
Oh God, if she could only see Pierce's face right now.
"I don't know how many more, but I know they're in this building. They could be standing right next to you. They almost have what they-"
She couldn't hear the next part. A gunshot cut it off. Jane jumped back as if she was the one who'd been hit. When she checked the window, a man was on the floor, bleeding from a wound on his stomach. There was a pistol abandoned several inches from his limp hand. A dark-haired woman standing over him lowered her piece with a look of horror. As she processed why a fellow agent would suddenly pull a gun on her, another woman snuck up behind her with a knife.
Jane stepped back out of sight as the fight kicked off, toward the bottom step of the next stairwell. She grabbed her gun on the way, holding it like Bucky taught her. There were a hundred fights just like this happening all around her. She didn't need to see them, she just had to be ready.
"If you launch those helicarriers today," Steve said, "HYDRA will be able to kill anyone in their way. Unless we stop them first. I know I'm asking a lot, but the price of freedom is high and it's a price I'm willing to pay. I'm willing to bet I'm not the only one."
"Yes!" Jane jumped up the next set of stairs three at a time. All exhaustion overwhelmed by boundless energy. "Five more floors to the control room. You can make it!"
Despite Steve's speech firing her up, Jane still hadn't been to a gym in over a year. All the adrenaline in the world couldn't fix that. She made it to the control room a whole minute later, pushing through the pain to throw open the door and march inside.
Rows of computers were manned by men and women who had never looked more confused in their lives. A massive screen displayed the helicarriers, ready to launch. Nobody noticed the strange woman who'd just invaded their space. All eyes were on Brock Rumlow, standing over a curly-haired man.
"Preempt the launch sequence. Let's get those ships in the air."
A shout bubbled in Jane's throat, but it never came out. The curly-haired man dithered for several excruciating seconds, his lips moving soundlessly. He looked like a child facing down a hungry lion. Running away wasn't an option. All he could do was stand his ground.
"Is there a problem?" Rumlow asked, his veneer of calm barely hanging on. "Is there a problem?"
"Sorry sir," the curly-haired man stammered. "I-I'm not launching those ships. Captain's orders."
Jane cheered for him internally. She'd have to get his name when this was over. Tell Peggy all about him. Undeniable proof that she was right to have faith in people.
It was a beautiful moment, so of course, Rumlow had to ruin it. He pulled a gun on the man. "Move away from your station."
A blonde woman rushed across the room, pointing a gun at Rumlow. "Like he said, Captain's orders."
Suddenly everyone had guns. They aimed for whoever was closest to them, as though they all knew instinctively who was an enemy or a friend. Dozens of clicks as they thumbed the trigger. Everyone was shooting to kill. There was no better time to make her entrance.
Jane strode past ten or fifteen standoffs. Only Agent 13 bothered to look up, and her eyes went wide as Jane covered Rumlow's other side.
"Morning, Brock," she grinned viciously. "Remember me?"
Rumlow gawked at her, looking straight into the barrel of her gun. "Are you fucking kidding me?"
"Drop the gun," Agent 13 ordered. "Now."
"You heard her," Jane said.
Rumlow's head slammed back and forth between the two women, all but spinning off his neck. There was nothing to see but stony faces. No weaknesses to exploit. He finally settled on Agent 13. "You've picked the wrong side," he said.
"Not from where I'm standing."
Air puffed out of his nose like a bull. He rounded on Jane, shoving the curly-haired man aside. "We've been here before. You couldn't shoot me in that alley, what makes you think you can do it now?"
"I was scared then," Jane said. "Not anymore."
"Is that you talking or someone else?" He smiled coldly, and Jane hated the momentary crack in her resolve. She hated Rumlow for seeing it.
"Don't move," she snapped when his hand twitched. The curly-haired man whimpered. Agent 13 aimed for the base of his skull.
Rumlow laughed. "You're good, Doc. Real good. I wish it didn't have to end like this, but you're no soldier. You don't have it in you to pull that trigger and we both know it."
Jane shot him in the shoulder. The shot rang in her ears and she almost didn't hear his howl of pain. He dropped his gun, allowing the curly-haired man to leap out of his chair like it was on fire. The whole room was silent, too shocked to pick up the fight. She stared down at Rumlow's pitiful form, rolling the ring around her finger.
"You don't know the first thing about me," she said, "and it's Mrs. Barnes to you."
"You- you fucking bitch!"
Rumlow lunged at Jane with an animalistic roar. A second gunshot stopped him dead. The rage melted off his face into something like surprise. He never made it all the way. His eyes turned white and he collapsed to the ground, a single trail of blood dripping from the hole between his eyes.
Agent 13 lowered her gun, offering Jane a smile. There was no time for anything else. Another twelve guns went off, bullets flying in all directions. Everyone not fighting ducked for cover. Jane dropped her gun on her way down. It flew back into her hand a second later. She didn't realize it was Agent 13 until the other woman dragged her out of the fray, firing warning shots behind them.
"There's a back way out," she shouted. "Think you can get there?"
"What about the helicarriers?" Jane shouted back.
"They won't launch. Not without the… shit!"
She raced over to the console. A man in tactical gear was inputting a code into the system. Sharon kicked him aside, punching him in the face when he tried to get back up. Someone shot at her head, missing by an inch. Sharon returned fire. There was nothing else she could do as a large red 'OVERRIDE' notice took over the screen.
"Oh fuck," Jane said.
While the loyal agents took care of the traitors (at least Jane hoped they were the ones gaining the upper hand), Agent 13 wrenched Jane's arm out of its socket dragging her outside. They stepped over Rumlow's body. Agent 13 stepped in a puddle of blood and it trailed after her all the way out of the control room and into the hallway.
Lights were flashing everywhere. There was no one around, but Jane wasn't about to press her luck. She followed Agent 13, asking no questions until they were safely back on the stairs.
"Do you know where Steve is?" Sharon asked.
"No, I lost track of him after the arrest," Jane said. "Whatever he's doing, I'm not in on it."
"Then you came here on your own with no plan."
"I have a plan!" Jane snapped, though her indignation was short-lived. "I mean kind of… look, I'm no expert, but I can disable the comms so they can't talk to each other and create an alternate channel for anyone we know is loyal. That would at least keep them scattered, and if I could somehow connect to the helicarriers-"
"We can't. They have individual guidance systems."
"Well, shit. Guess I'm useless," Jane shrugged.
A smile crawled across Agent 13's face. One that was oddly familiar. "You really are just like my aunt said."
"Excuse me?" Jane asked.
Despite the entire world collapsing around them, Agent 13 stuck out a hand like they were old friends. "We never properly introduced ourselves, did we? I'm Sharon. Sharon Carter."
Jane's eyebrows shot up. "Did you say Carter?"
"Sure did," Sharon said, her smile becoming a smirk, "and do you prefer Foster or Cinderhouse?"
Jane smiled back. "I'll tell you later."
They rushed through a maze of doors and hallways, stopping every so often to avoid another showdown. People were screaming. They had no way of knowing who was calling for SHIELD and who for HYDRA. Sharon took down two nameless agents who tried to get in their way, while Jane pistol-whipped one who tried to grab her from behind.
In one empty office was a splatter of blood and a computer. Jane forced herself to ignore the former and rushed to the latter. It was logged in and on a page full of numbers and symbols. Things she probably wouldn't understand even with a guidebook, and any of it could've been crucial to their fight.
"You can get rid of that, it's just a loading screen," Sharon said.
She took the mouse and pulled up a series of video feeds. Jane counted twenty-six before she stopped caring. As Sharon backed away to let her work, Jane picked a random feed and found herself peering into a cafeteria. It was completely empty save for two lifeless bodies on the ground. Jane shivered and moved on to the next one. A group of men was raiding an armory. They ignored the smaller weapons up front, digging out machine guns and what looked like a rocket launcher.
"They supposed to be in there?" Jane asked.
"I'm thinking no," Sharon said.
Jane found the control panel and broke through the firewalls. She hit the emergency switch, causing a metal door to slam down and trap them inside. They banged on it fruitlessly as Jane moved on to the next one.
"Do you see him?" Sharon asked.
"I'm not sure," Jane said, scanning every screen from top to bottom. "Are we sure he's in the building?"
"Has to be. He used our comms to make that speech… wait, look there!"
Sharon pointed at a screen at the top left. It showed a hallway leading to the helicarriers. A man was running at impossible speeds towards the hanger. Occasionally, he'd have to smack someone out of the way with his shield but he never broke his stride.
"Bingo!" Jane said. "Is that a comm in his ear? Maybe we can break into the feed."
"Astrophysicist and master hacker, huh?" Sharon chuckled.
"Assuming I do this right," Jane replied.
She found a drawer and dug through it. Among the mess of paperclips and bullets was a small earpiece. Jane prayed it was working and shoved it into her ear, fiddling with the buttons to find the right channel.
The first one was a man on camera twenty-five trying to arrange an ambush on Steve. She locked him in his office and killed the lights. The next two were in Russian. The fourth was a female voice.
"Eight minutes, Cap."
"Working on it."
The second voice sounded strained like he was in the middle of a weight lifting session. Jane checked the video again and cursed. There were at least ten guys dogpiling Steve with more on the way. He made quick work of them, shield and fists flying. One man charged from behind while Steve was busy with another three.
"Steve, six o'clock!" Jane shouted.
He slammed two heads together and took the last one out with a punch. It gave him just enough time to whirl around and bean the would-be attacker in the face, sending him through a glass window.
"You know, Jane," Steve said as he ran through another wave of HYDRA canon fodder, "this is probably the part where I freak out, demand to know what you think you're doing, and tell you to get out before you get your stupid ass killed."
"Yup, but you don't have time for that. Have to stop those helicarriers." Jane slammed a few more doors and cut a few more power lines on traitorous agents happily revealing themselves on camera.
Steve sighed. "You're goddamn insane."
"You finally noticed," Jane said. "Work hard, Cap."
"Always."
He made it through the last line of defense and darted for the helicarrier. There was nothing more Jane could do for him now, but when this was over, she owed him lunch.
The madness went on, time vanishing from Jane's mind as she broke through the remaining firewalls and stopped all the elevators. One guy with a brain shot the camera out, but he was on the first floor and had an ungodly number of stairs ahead of him. Jane was thinking about asking Sharon if SHIELD was paranoid enough to install automatic locks and wire them into the system when her screen glitched out.
"What the-" Jane smacked it, the tried and true method. It came back on, and a new window popped up. It was a page from what looked like a top-secret dossier. Then another, and another. Then a thousand more. Jane looked at Sharon. "Any ideas?"
"A few," Sharon said, looking rather happy for someone who could very well die today. "Most of them insane, but I really hope they're right."
Jane didn't bother asking her to clarify. She skimmed the first few pages, confirming that they were indeed classified documents. Her phone erupted with beeping she could only ignore it for so long before ripping it out of her pocket and finding seven dozen notifications from her dusty old Twitter account.
Make that ten dozen.
And then a text from Darcy. 'DUDE DO YOU SEE THIS SHIT WTF?'
"Good plan," Jane said, opening Twitter and retweeting the documents. "Lunch and a drink."
She glanced back at the screen, choosing a random camera feed. It looked like the roof or maybe a helicopter pad. The fighting had made it outside and men were firing off camera. Some of them turned to run while others stood their ground. They were the first to go as a dark figure stepped into view and ripped through them like tissue paper.
Jane's heart seized.
"What's wrong?" Sharon asked, though her eyes were still on the screen. "Is there a problem?"
"I- I have to go." Jane bolted for the door.
"Wait, what? Jane!"
She ran so fast that Sharon never had a prayer of catching up. There were no numbers on this floor, but it had to be close to the top. Something crashed in a room up ahead but the door was locked and the curtains were drawn, so Jane didn't bother sticking around to listen for gunshots. The elevators were still stopped and too dangerous anyway. That left her with only one option.
"I am never climbing stairs again," Jane panted as pulled her screaming feet up the stairs. "Never again. Ever. Putting an elevator in the lab."
Light streamed from the top floor, which was getting closer, though every new flight of stairs she faced looked taller and steeper than the last. Eventually, she caught a glimpse of blue sky amid the endless gray. A window! The door was right there, completely unguarded. She stumbled on the last step, pouncing on the handle.
'For the love of God, open!'
It did. Jane was on the roof and she could've cheered!
Then three bullets flew over her head and she dropped to her stomach.
She crawled around the bulkhead, looking for something to hide behind. There wasn't much besides a line of choppers that had remained suspiciously absent from the fight. A pair of soldiers rush for one, only to be gunned down seconds before they reached the door. One of them flew off the roof from the force of the bullet. The other pitched forward, landing hard on his face and staring with lifeless eyes in Jane's direction. She looked away, trying to remember a time when the sight of death made her want to throw up. It had been decades.
Their killer wasn't in sight, but Jane knew he was close. The gunfire was focused on the southeast corner of the roof, just a few feet away from the choppers. She waited for a pause in the battle, one that never came. Voices carried in a hysterical swirl. It grew softer by the second as each voice disappeared with a gunshot. One by one. Adrenaline pushed Jane forward, shutting down any thoughts of going back. There was no back anymore. Only forward.
Towards him.
"Bucky," she shouted.
His back was to her. For all that he'd been trained to kill everything in sight, he didn't hear her coming. He shot at another man running for the choppers, getting him in the leg. The man grunted and fell. Bucky approached him, lining up his next shot. The remaining men, huddled together calling for backup, stared at her in shock. They had no time to scream before Jane was running.
"Stop!"
She jumped on the Winter Soldier's back. He gasped and dropped the gun, reaching for her hands and wrenching them free. The metal one was rough on her skin, pressing down on the bone and likely cracking it. Jane bit back the pain and kept her hold as long as she could, which wasn't more than a second, but it was enough for the man to get away.
He threw her to the ground, pulling a second gun from his belt and pointing it at her. Jane stumbled, staring into eyes that bore no recognition. Not like that confused sadness in the alley or even the curiosity of the bunker. There was nothing in those eyes but ice blue. He didn't even have the mask anymore, and she watched his mouth shape words she couldn't understand. At least two of them looked like 'no survivors.'
"Bucky," she said, raising her hands, "I'm here to take you home. It's over now, okay? No more fighting."
The soldier didn't blink. It was like she hadn't spoken at all. He walked her into a wall, every inch a predator stalking his helpless prey.
The barrel was cold on Jane's skin and she had to resist shivering. "Look, I don't know what they told you to do, if I'm a target or just in the way, but I'm not leaving here without you. Do you understand? I've already lost you twice and I'm not doing it again."
She grabbed the barrel and shoved it aside. It just seemed to happen, and then her hands were on his shoulders. He gasped as if she'd just smacked him across the face. He gritted his teeth and shoved her. Jane fell hard on her back and couldn't get up before he placed his foot on her chest. He pressed down, crushing her lungs. Jane sucked in as much air as she could, but it was less and less every second.
So this was it. After so many brushes with death, this would finally be what killed her. The man she loved more than anything in the world. She'd walked into Hell for him, and now he was going to keep her there. Strange how, in such a moment when the light was fading and her mind was slipping, there was no fear. Just a strange sort of peace blanketing her, like a gentle voice in her ear saying, 'It's going to be all right.'
"You won't do it," she said.
The soldier bared his teeth as if to say, 'You think so?'
Jane groaned as she maneuvered her hand out from under her back to touch his ankle. "You won't. I know you won't. If you were, you would've done it by now."
He sneered at her but didn't press down harder. The gun remained at his side, his finger far from the trigger. As Jane stared into his eyes, his cold expression started to waver. His smile vanished, his brow furrowed. The sheer presence of him shrunk from monstrous to something smaller, more human. Whatever it was, he didn't like it. Couldn't process it, and it was so overwhelming, that when Jane lifted herself up and slid out from under his foot, he didn't even try to stop her.
"When you proposed to me, you said you'd build me a house one day in the woods," she said, rising slowly. "Well, I'm going to do that for you now. I'm going to find us the biggest, most beautiful house somewhere far away from here, where you'll never have to go underground again. We're going to make it happen, Bucky. You and me. I'm not taking no for an answer."
His mouth hung open, anger and confusion and so many more things Jane would never know raging within his shaking head. He tried to grab her, but couldn't find his footing. Jane took his hand instead, lacing her fingers through him. He tried to pull back, but she wouldn't give. His boundless strength had failed him, and the sheer implausibility of her ever matching him physically drove Jane on. He was holding back.
"I love you, Bucky Barnes," she said. "I love you today. I love you seventy years ago. I love you always. And if I have to love the Winter Soldier, too, I'll do it. I'll love every part of you. So please, come home with me now. Please."
"Ah…" His voice cracked, filling with emotion he wasn't prepared to process. He was shaking all over, the flesh hand squeezing hers hard enough to break while the metal one met her skin with a gentle caress. He hunched over, dropping the gun. When he looked back up, his eyes were shiny. Alive.
The building shuddered and a gunshot cracked. His head whipped around. One of the choppers had lifted off the ground and was headed straight for them. His eyes hardened. He started to let go.
"No," Jane cried, and she grabbed his face and pulled him in.
It was not a gentle kiss, or even a particularly good one. Her lips were sloppy with saliva and tears, their teeth clacking together painfully. Jane snaked her arms around his neck, keeping him in place. Flesh and metal kept her steady, tentative at first, but then holding on to her like a lifeline.
Jane could imagine how this looked, on top of a building, war raging around and beneath them. She could still hear explosions. Gunfire. Helicopters circling. More engines were turning over and soon the noise would be deafening.
Even then, she barely heard it. There was nothing right now except a faint ringing under the ambiance, soundtracking the moment better than any bloated movie score ever could. They were outside the bar under the stars. On the grass. In the snow. In his bunk or hers. Slow at first and then all at once, until they were back on the roof, on top of this crumbling building, wrapped up in each other like there was nothing else in the world.
Jane let go, watching the soldier melt out of his face. It was tearstained, more youthful than even the first time they met. She wanted to hug him again, but he wouldn't let her. He held her away from him, taking in every inch of her like she was a holy relic. When he smiled, there was nothing of a killer to be found. He smiled like Bucky.
"Jane…" he whispered.
She nodded. "Yes."
Then a second chopper appeared over his shoulder.
"We're locked on target!"
"Wait a minute, you'll hit her, too-"
The roof split in half. While one chopper fired bullets, the other must have wanted extra special revenge for his lost friends. A rocket sailed through the concrete, hitting the bulkhead and blowing it to pieces. The force ripped their arms apart, Bucky falling backward on a piece of broken concrete and reaching futilely for Jane as she slid off the remains of the roof and plunged to the ground.