Chapter 13. Taking Back the Cities

Three weeks after Bucky left the Bunker he pulled in to the Avengers compound in upstate New York on his motorcycle. To him, it looked like all sorts of activity was happening meaning the other people were already there. Steve was waiting for him at the main doors as Bucky parked the bike, removed his gloves and helmet then looked at him.

"About time you got here," said Steve. "Three weeks since you took off."

"I ran into some trouble," replied Bucky. "Spent a few nights in jail. Had to work a few more days to earn some gas in trade. Told them how we came up with a solution to the Others. That helped grease the wheel a bit."

"She broke down crying, Buck," said Steve. "She didn't want you to leave for good, just to leave her alone a bit until you could both talk rationally. You hurt her, really bad."

"Yeah," replied Bucky, looking away. "I figured that out when I was in jail. Really fucked it up, didn't I? She's better off without me."

"No, she's not," said Steve, "and you're not better off without her. Why were you arrested? It's not like you can get drunk."

"I trashed a building," said Bucky. "Had a tantrum over how stupid I had been and destroyed what I thought was an abandoned building. It wasn't but it should have been condemned. The owner was just putting off the inevitable. I had to dig through the rubble to find his possessions to reduce my sentence. They gave me gas at least."

Steve shook his head, then put his hand on Bucky's shoulder. "Come on, I'll show you your room," he said. "We've got limited internet and telephone access already and we're planning the first attack on a small town. We'll need you on this. Have a shower first because you reek. I brought the rest of your stuff."

As the two friends entered the building Bucky's presence was noted with shouts and waves from the other Avengers. He nodded his head at the acknowledgements then once he got to his room stripped down and got into the shower, standing under the hot water for a good twenty minutes before he shampooed his hair and cleaned himself. After drying he looked in his drawers and took out clean clothes, smelling them deeply. The smell reminded him of Jade and for a moment he thought he would cry but he took another deep breath and pulled on the T-shirt, underwear, socks and jeans. He looked for his jean jacket in the closet, but it wasn't there, and a small smile crept over his face. She kept his jacket. If he wanted it back, he would have to go get it.

—-

Nobody said it was easy

Oh it's such a shame for us to part

Nobody said it was easy

No one ever said it would be so hard

The Scientist by Coldplay

—-

As Bucky walked out of his room he bumped into Sam, who gave him a pound hug. "Bucky, good to see you man," said Sam. "You okay?"

"Getting there," he said. "Steve told me we're planning an attack. Any idea what my role is?"

"You and Steve are both in the thick of it," said Sam, smiling. "Meeting is in ten minutes if you want to grab a bite to eat first."

Bucky nodded and found his way to the cafeteria, picking up a few sandwiches, some fruit and a bottle of juice. He took it to the conference room where others had done the same thing and sat down next to Peter, who nodded and said hi.

"How's your Aunt May?" asked Bucky. "Have you seen her yet?"

"Yeah, she's here now," said Peter. "Happy kept her safe. They got married, in fact. Not sure yet how I feel about that."

Bucky smirked then took a bite out of his sandwich. "Well, at least he didn't abandon her after his first big argument with her," he said sarcastically.

"Jade blamed herself," said Peter, in a low voice. "Ben told me that she was mad at herself for not accepting your apology. She cried for days. We're going to be setting up a direct link with them at their new place. You know that they're moving, don't you?"

"No, I don't," replied Bucky looking at him.

"Ma found a big gold nugget," said Peter. "They think it came from that quartz vein you and Jade found as that's where the Queen blew up. It was enough for them to buy their own place just outside Santa Fe. They're moving in a week and taking the horses with them. I'm going to tutor Ben once we set up the link. You could talk to her."

"I don't think that will be a good idea," said Bucky chewing. "But keep me informed about them, okay?"

Peter nodded and the two men kept eating without speaking. Steve came in and Bucky pulled a chair out for him which he declined.

"I'm leading the meetings now, Bucky," said Steve. "I'm running the show, Fury's job. I'll still go out on missions. In fact, you and I will be doing an exploratory mission very soon."

Thaddeus Ross walked in and met with Steve at the front of the room. "He's still alive?" asked Bucky. "I'm surprised he didn't take over."

"He was asked by the President," said Peter, "but he refused. Said we should be an independent organization governed from within. One of the lessons learned from the failure of the Sokovia Accords. He's changed a lot since you last saw him. His daughter died, the one who was in love with Bruce once."

The conference room was full, not just of Avengers but assorted military and scientific personnel. Ross patted Steve on the arm and sat in the empty chair next to Bucky, glancing at him.

"Glad to see you made it Barnes," he said. "We're going to need your skill set on this fight."

"I'm here to serve General," Bucky replied.

"I'm not military anymore, or Secretary of State," replied Ross. "Just a concerned citizen with some organizational skills."

Bucky glanced at Peter who raised his eyebrows before they both looked up at Steve as he began talking.

"I want to thank those of you who took care of the Others surrounding this facility so we could have a command post for the fight against them," said Steve. "If you don't already know me, I'm Steve Rogers. My friend Bucky Barnes came back through time to get me, figuring I was needed in the fight. I'm here for good now. Myself and eight other Avengers have been holed up in the Bunker facility in New Mexico. A woman by the name of Jade Chambers put her life in jeopardy to reach us after discovering she had a telepathic link with a queen in our area. From her information we learned the queen wanted to form a symbiotic relationship with humans that benefitted her more than us. We were able to devise a strategy of luring the queen to the surface which weakened her connection to her nests and ... well, let's watch the video of our first attempt at it and you can see what I mean. Can you run that footage?"

With Friday up and running there was full 3D video coverage courtesy of Red Wing showing the queen breaking through the ground, changing colour as her connection with the nests weakened. Then it showed Sam dropping the IEDs on the outermost nests to destroy them and further weaken the queen. The end result of the queen exploding and all the nests exploding on their own or just stopping drew gasps, and quite a few claps. The footage stopped and Rogers resumed talking.

"The military have used this tactic to clear their bases," he said. "It's worked very well in both dry and wet conditions in open spaces but now we have to devise a new plan to go after the Others still in the cities. We need IEDs that are strong enough to disrupt or destroy the nests but not too strong that they destroy the infrastructure they're hiding in. We still think we can lure the queens out but the city queens are more compact, not as diffuse and don't need as many nests to support it as the open country ones did. Cap?"

Sam Wilson came up and asked Friday for a display of the IEDs used in New Mexico, followed by adaptations used by the military in clearing their bases.

"As you can see the first IEDs that we used were quite small as they were distributed by one person, me," he said, "using my flight suit. They had to be small enough that I could carry an adequate supply but powerful enough to destroy the nests. The interesting thing we discovered is that I didn't have to deploy to all the nests. Just enough to weaken the queen so that she imploded...that's right imploded first, then exploded on the rebound. Once she died the rest of the nests stopped functioning. The military used drones to drop IEDs that could be bigger and stronger, and that was effective for them as well. The problem in the cities is that we want to maintain the infrastructure and buildings as much as possible. People need a place to live once we clear a city out and we want to be able to just flush out the remains of the Others and go back to using sewer and water as we did before. Power infrastructure will still have to be rebuilt for the most part."

"What have you got in mind, Cap?" asked Bucky loudly.

Sam smiled at Bucky. "I'm glad you asked that," he said. "Our friends in the military have devised a kind of flash bang IED that we can try by dropping them down an open manhole cover. We don't need to kill the Others nests so much as disable them so the queen gets weak enough to implode. Once she does that the nests stop functioning. We can clear them out, bury them, cremate them more likely and then we turn on the water again. What we need are people strong enough to lift the manhole cover quickly, drop the IED down and go off to the next cover before the drones figure out what you're doing and come after you. We'll set off the IEDs to go off at the same time as we are luring the queen out of the sewers with the recording of Jade's brain activity. Right now there are three people strong enough to do that, Rogers, Parker, and you."

"Can I suggest I use my webs to pull the manhole covers off and then Steve and Bucky can just run right by dropping the IEDs down into the open holes?" said Peter. "I think it would be more efficient. With some practice I can probably lift a cover every few seconds. We could test it in one of the small towns nearby."

Steve and Sam looked at each other smiling. "That's a very good idea, Peter," said Sam. "Anyone have any idea how much a manhole cover weighs?"

"Standard weight of a cast iron or concrete cover is about 250 lbs,"said a man in the back. "If they're made of composite materials like glass reinforced plastic, they'll be lighter, about 150 lbs."

"I can handle those weights easily," said Peter. "Just need to lift it completely off so that it leaves a completely open hole."

Sam sat down and Steve took control of the meeting again. "I think we should give Peter's idea a test run," he said. "Tomorrow morning okay with everyone? Peter, is that enough time to test your technique on a few manhole covers?"

Peter nodded and Steve called the meeting over. Peter ran to get his web shooters on then went outside with a small delegation of scientists, Steve and Bucky, to see how effective his web would be in lifting off the manhole covers. After a few tries he got the technique down to a point where he was satisfied. Then he looked at Steve.

"It would be better if I was doing this from the buildings," he said. "Any chance you'll let me go to one of the small towns and try it on the outskirts? I just need to figure out a rhythm and sequence for this. Don't want to be dropping a manhole cover on your heads as you're running by."

"I'll take you on my bike," said Bucky. "I've outrun a few Others on the way here. It will help me get a sense of the timing as well."

"Well then, I'm coming on my bike," said Steve, smiling. "Meet out here in ten minutes."

Ten minutes later Peter and Bucky were waiting beside his motorcycle. They heard the telltale sound of a Harley Davidson coming from the garage building. Bucky had a broad smile on his face when Steve pulled up.

"You went back and got it, didn't you?" he asked. "I knew you liked that one."

"Yeah, they were going to hang on to it until I took it so I put them out of their misery," said Steve. "Let's go."

Ten minutes later they were in the nearest small town. Peter pulled his clothes off revealing his Spider-Man gear underneath.

"It feels more natural to wear it when I'm slinging webs," he explained. "Give me five seconds head start then come through."

He leaped up to the first building then aimed at the first man-hole cover pulling it up. As he started progressing they counted to five and then followed him, keeping an eye on the speedometer and an eye on their environment.

"You have company," said Sam's voice and they looked up to see Red Wing hovering just behind them, covering their six. "There's a few drones peeking their heads out to see what's going on. The first ones are pulling the covers back on."

Peter yelled that he could go faster so they sped up and they soon got an idea of the speed they could go if they had a clear road. However, whenever they got to a road where there was an accident or abandoned cars they had to slow and soon the covers ahead of them were being replaced before they could get to them. Steve called an end to the exercise and sent Red Wing to tell Peter to withdraw which he did easily. Both Steve and Bucky got out okay but had to dodge cars blocking their path several times. They met well outside the town, where Peter had left his clothing. Sam landed next to them.

"Good idea in theory but there's a few kinks," he said.

"I was hoping to use the bikes," said Bucky, "but they're more of a hindrance than a help. We're going to have to run it. Not only that we need an exit strategy. I think we should start inside and work our way out. Otherwise we'll get trapped."

"We can jump from the quinjet," said Steve. "I'm good from a few hundred feet."

Bucky and Sam smiled. "Two hundred feet max for me," said Bucky. "Need time to recover after as well."

"Well, that was after you fell through the trees," said Sam, grinning. "And the plane was moving. If it's a hover you could probably handle it."

"You can go faster than what you started at, right Peter?" asked Bucky. "We just need to time it so that we're dropping the IED into the hole right after you uncover it. Then it doesn't matter if they put the cover back on after. I say tomorrow we keep trying until we get the timing right. Any chance we can broadcast the recording of Jade's brain activity while we're doing it? That distracts and weakens the queen and the drones. If we're lucky we can clear this town."

They rode back to Avengers HQ talking over the different strategies they could try. After dinner Bucky grabbed a couple of bottles of beer and sat outside looking at the sunset. Steve joined him, as did the others who had been in New Mexico.

"I miss the sunsets," said Bucky. "This is nice, but it was spectacular out there."

"Bruce is staying out there to do his research," said Steve. "Said he likes the quiet. I think we'll run a skeleton staff at the Bunker once we get fully operational again. Have a helicopter on site until we get another quinjet built. Could pick up Hope and Scott easily. You're rated on both, right?"

"Yup," said Bucky. "But Cap is only an hour away from just about anywhere in the country. It's too bad Wakanda is still down. We could use some of their technical expertise."

"I've proposed a couple of satellite facilities like the Bunker elsewhere," he said. "Alaska, Canada, Mexico, southeast U.S. We did good work there. Especially once Jade brought us that intel. Dr. Strange thinks we should be recruiting more telepaths. What do you think?"

"I think you should stop pushing the conversation back to New Mexico and Jade," said Bucky. "I'm focused on taking care of the Others in New York then I'll start thinking about whether I should go back to her. If she'll even have me."

"Fair enough," said Steve, draining his beer and standing up. "Just one more observation. She made you happy. That's hard to find."

Bucky didn't react and Steve went back inside. Once he drank his second beer Bucky took his empties in and dropped them in the recycle bin then went to his quarters. Friday had limited entertainment options and Bucky chose an old war movie with John Wayne and Donna Reed, called They Were Expendable. It came out after he fell in 1945. He found it entertaining but no matter what he kept thinking of Jade. The movie ended and he realized he hadn't paid attention for at least an hour. Sighing he asked Friday for some calming ocean sounds. Eventually he fell asleep.

The next day they tried Peter pulling the manhole covers off from the inside of the town going out, while Steve and Bucky jumped out of a hovering quinjet that took off as soon as they jumped. Torres, who had holed up with a military unit during the occupation, showed up with his Falcon flight suit. His Red Wing unit broadcasted Jade's brain activity while Sam and his Red Wing unit videoed the trial. As soon as Steve and Bucky landed they took off dropping the IEDs in the open manholes. They kept up to Peter as he pulled up two manhole covers at a time and ran all the way out of town. Sam set off the IEDs and they heard the bangs. They saw several manhole covers lift or get blown off several feet. Then Sam sent a video drone into the sewers using a street drain opening. A mobile army unit with computer screens linked to the drone showed inactive Other drones and several imploded queens. Steve ordered another run and they loaded up with more flash bangs, then the quinjet picked them up and dropped them at another part of town. This time they took fire from some of the Other drones who came out of the manhole cover. Sam sent several of his drones after them and found they were weakened enough to be destroyed by his drones' firepower. As soon as Bucky and Steve left town Sam activated the flash bangs and again they had a successful result. An hour later they had cleared the town of Other nests and queens. They sent several video drones throughout the entire sewer and water system of the town and saw no living queens or drones. Steve and Bucky walked into town with Sam covering them and lifted up a manhole cover. Both men went into the sewers and came up several blocks away at an open manhole cover.

"Confirmed destruction of queens and nests," said Steve as he pressed his comms. "We have a successful test. Can we get some army engineers in to see the extent of the damage to the infrastructure? We also need a crew to clear the drone carcasses out. It reeks down here so they'll have to wear hazmat suits."

That afternoon at the debriefing they looked at all the footage. There were more military types at the debriefing, and they proposed giving the tech people full reign to design all sorts of delivery systems reasoning that it was too much to ask of Peter, Steve and Bucky to do it all. The discovery that flash bang devices would achieve the disruption of the communication between the queens and the drones in the nests was crucial as it gave them more options in planning their attacks.

For the next month Peter, Steve, Bucky and Sam performed all sorts of combinations. Most worked, some didn't but each excursion gathered valuable information and the military began experimenting themselves with the small towns surrounding their bases that still had nests. People were able to begin returning to their homes and that went a long way to improving the morale of ordinary citizens. As more small towns were liberated the media began setting up in them and news organizations began reporting to the public the progress being made. After that month of non-stop excursions trying to fine tune an attack strategy Steve pulled all the Avengers back to their compound for a respite, knowing that they needed a break. A request was made by a television crew to film them at the base. Broadcast live on the existing television stations that signed on, and streamed live over the internet they were seen by a quarter of the population. Peter recorded it and sent a link to Ben. Bucky was not happy about either the filming or the broadcast, considering it an invasion of his privacy. He still ended up with a lot of fans on the returning social media channels, many of them female.

A week after the broadcast and live stream the Avengers were back on the road, clearing small towns, testing new delivery methods, and generally working 12-15 hour days, 7 days a week. They went two weeks on duty and would have one week off. Most of the crew chose to spend their week off at Avengers HQ, doing laundry, sleeping, and catching up on life in general. Bucky would jump on his motorcycle and disappear for four or five days, always returning in time to quickly do some laundry and get caught up on their next assignment. For two months he kept it up and told no one where he went or what he was doing until the decision was made to launch an all-out assault on New York City. At the briefing when they were debating how to use mechanical means to drop the flash bangs Bucky put his hand up.

"I have a suggestion," he said. "No doubt some of you have noticed on our weeks off I disappear for several days at a time. I haven't been lazy during those days. In fact I've been researching a way to get more people involved in delivering the flash bangs. Not by running but by horse back riding. I reached out to mounted police units, ceremonial cavalry units, any group that had horses that could be trained to run in obstacle filled areas. While I'm on duty for two weeks most of them have been practicing dropping tennis balls into small pots as they race by on their horse. Then I meet up with them on my week off and we clear a town by aiming into the street drains. So far we've cleared about two dozen small towns with no loss of rider or horse and without the recording of Jade's brain activity. They're ready to mobilize on a bigger target if you want to try them out."

Steve stood up at the front with a funny smile on his face as he looked at Bucky. "Two dozen small towns, cleared of Others using a mounted detachment?" he asked. "How many riders?"

"I currently have two detachments," said Bucky, "of about ten riders each. The horses need a breather after each run, so we alternate between the two detachments. There are another ten currently training and they're always on the lookout for more riders. One horse can run a maximum of 20 linear miles in a day, in about 2-mile maximum stretches before they need to rest. That's in optimal conditions. We usually average about 10-15 miles easily per horse, but it depends on the routes we take. We just have to plan their routes, a loop works best, so they're resting in a cleared area. You do the math."

"If I convert the linear miles using the minimum that Bucky gave us, we could average 100 square miles a day with one detachment," said Peter, who had been working it out with a pen and paper.

"New York is about 300 square miles of land mass. That's 3 days to clear it theoretically. Faster if we get more mounted detachments."

There were lots of surprised faces, along with coughs as everyone just looked at Bucky.

"Bucky Barnes," said Thaddeus Ross loudly then clapping him on the back, "you are a man of surprises. I call that thinking outside the box and that's exactly what we're going to need when we tackle New York City."

"Are your riders armed?" asked Sam. "Do you have anyone covering their six?"

"They're mostly armed with sidearms," said Bucky. "On occasion I've had to act as a sniper from a central location and take out drones as I see them come up. If we have sharp shooters in the buildings they can cover the riders. One more thing, if there isn't a street drain we have to resort to pulling the manhole cover up but so far we haven't had to do that in the small towns because the street drains have given us access to enough drones to cause the queen to implode and the other drones stop functioning."

"Do we have anyone here at this meeting representing the City of New York?" asked Steve, as several men stood up. "Can you find out if your mounted police detachments are still intact somewhere? They need to be in on this training. Plus, if you can get someone from your department of water, sewer, which ever department is responsible for those street drains we need a map of which streets have that type of access. We need sharpshooters as well. I want to implement this in two weeks people."

Steve ended the meeting, and a small crowd of people went up to Bucky asking him more questions. After about twenty minutes he had answered the last person's question and he stood up to Steve, Peter, and Sam standing there watching him.

"What?" he asked. "You know I can't sit around and do nothing when there's things to be done."

"What made you think of horses?" asked Steve.

"Well, when we originally got the three out at the Bunker to use to approach the Others and lure the one to study," said Bucky, "Clint speculated that the drones wouldn't be bothered by the horses. He was right. Even horses with horse shoes didn't interest them. It's like they know they aren't sentient and aren't a threat. When some of the drones clued in I took them out with a rifle. The people in the two detachments have been itching to hit a bigger city. I'll let them know we're going to New York. They'll need transport, a couple of cargo helicopters or airplanes should do it."

All three men shook their heads smiling at how Bucky had come up with a low-tech solution to their delivery methods. Each one shook his hand and patted his shoulder. Bucky went to do his laundry and walked around while he waited for the washing machines and dryers to clean his clothes. He walked past Peter's room and noticed the door was open. Peter was on his computer talking to Ben, Ma and Jade. Staying in the doorway he watched as the four of them visited and Peter filled them in on what had been happening. Peter's spider senses must have alerted him because he looked at Bucky and almost beckoned him to come over. Bucky shook his head and turned away. He wasn't ready, not yet, to talk to Jade.