We Were Soldiers
139. Snowflakes
General Grant straightened up from his desk and knuckled the small of his back. There was no denying it, he was getting old. Starting to feel the aches and pains that he'd been able to shrug off until now. This would be his last campaign. It was almost time to step aside, maybe look for that little house in the country that his wife had been asking about for years. Retirement had always seemed like a thing for old men, but now he was finally looking forward to putting his feet up and enjoying what the world had to offer.
"Dad!" Joe rushed in, not waiting to be announced, not even addressing him correctly. The white shade of his face spoke more than words, and the General felt his own blood run cold. Joe was not a man easily shocked. "Dad, I've just come from the communications tent, and it's tragic news."
"What's happened?"
"The plane… the one that was taking our injured servicemen back to London? It took flak from a German AA gun less than five minutes after take-off. The pilot tried to put it down, but…" he took a deep breath, steadying himself, "a fireball was seen in the sky. We've lost radio contact with them."
The General bowed his head. A dozen injured servicemen along with two nurses and Sergeant Wells had been aboard that plane. Innocents on their way back home for medical care. They hadn't deserved this end.
"I'm sorry, Joe," he said. "I know Sergeant Wells was your friend."
"He was on that plane because of me."
"It's not your fault. Remember that. You did not shoot that plane out of the sky." He stood, pushing aside the papers. Space would be needed for all the condolence letters he'd be writing tonight, but right now, he needed to give Joe something to do. Something to work on, to stop him from over-thinking and blaming himself. "I want you to send out a salvage team, in case any supplies can be recovered. Include a burial duty, for any bodies we can locate. And organise a service for tomorrow night. We need to honour the brave men and women who lost their lives today."
Joe saluted, his back a little straighter as he left.
General Grant sank back into his own seat and reached for his pen.
: - - - — — — - - - : - - - — — — - - - : - - - — — — - - - :
Steve jumped in front of him, blocking the shot from the exoskeleton with his shield. With his body. Bucky heard the high-pitched whine as the weapon charged, and then the blast of sound as it fired. The shield took the brunt, but the force of it pushed Steve back, into Bucky, and the two of them went sprawling. The shield slipped from Steve's arm as he was thrown against the side of the train, and the blast deflected off to the right, cutting a huge hole into the metal, which stripped away from the train car as if it was nothing but paper. Cold air was sucked in, and a flurry of icy flakes battered against his cheek
The shield lay in front of him, just within arm's reach. As Bucky looked up, he saw the man in the exoskeleton, its weaponised arm aimed at his friend lying prone on the ground, ready to open fire on the man who still hadn't recovered from the force of the blast. He needed to distract it. His best friend was on the ropes. He had to buy Steve some time.
He still had his sidearm. It still had a few bullets left. So he reached out and picked up the shield with his left hand, holding it in front of him. Strange. He'd held it in his hands a thousand times, but he'd never worn it to use it. Vibranium was the lightest metal on earth, but right now, the shield was heavy as a mountain.
Is this what Steve feels every time he wears it? Is this the weight of his responsibility?
No time to wonder. He raised the shield and his Colt together as Zola's nasally voice screamed down the intercom. "Fire again! Kill him, now!
He fired his gun once. Twice. Three times. And the man in the exoskeleton altered his aim, gunning instead for Bucky. The blast came, a bright flash of white-blue, hitting the shield at an angle. The force sent him flying backwards; the shield slid off his arm and he slammed into the side of the train. A moment of pain down his spine deadened his fingers and caused him to lose his grip on his Colt; it clattered to the floor and slid sideways, over the edge. Then he was sliding too, his boots giving way as the cold wind whipped around him. From the corner of his eye his saw a blur of white and grey below, and he threw his hands out, desperately seeking something, anything, to hold onto. His fingers found purchase on a hand rail, and there he hung, his shoulders being slowly wrenched as the bolts in the handrail slowly buckled under his weight.
"Bucky! Hang on!" Steve's face appeared above, an unrecognisable mask of fear painted over it.
Bucky squeezed his eyes shut. His hands hurt, his knuckles felt ready to burst, his shoulders were on fire from the impact, and the frigid air nipped at every inch of his skin. If only he hadn't reached for the shield, he might've dodged the energy burst.
Time slowed. Steve seemed to crawl at a snail's pace as he inched out through the gap blown into the side of the train car. Below, the landscape sped by at a crawl, a lethal portrait of icy ridges and bare, frost-shattered rock. His own knuckles on the door handle were as white as they'd been that time they'd rode the Cyclone at Coney Island. The time he'd tried to pretend that he hadn't been scared out of his mind.
Don't look down, he told himself. Look at Steve. Focus on holding on just a little bit longer.
He couldn't do it. His fingers were slipping. Millimetre by millimetre he felt his grasp loosen. Steve clung on to the rail with one hand, his other thrust before him, desperation in his eyes.
"Grab my hand!"
So Bucky reached out. Used every last fibre of his strength to stretch his arm towards his friend. Their fingers were close. So close. But the handrail continued to buckle, and in one final tiny scream of agony, the last bolt holding it in place gave way. This is it, he thought, as gravity gave one final tug on his body. End of the line.
The wind screamed past him as a cry escaped his lips, and then the world went dark.
: - - - — — — - - - : - - - — — — - - - : - - - — — — - - - :
"Give me your coordinates," said Peggy, her voice over the radio holding a twinge of fear. "I'll find you a safe landing site."
There was nothing but white for as far as the eye could see, the white of the clouds touched by the golden light of a new day. He'd seen clouds like this countless times before, but only now, when he was on the brink of losing it all, could he appreciate the true beauty of them.
He tried a few switches on the console. One of them had to be an engine switch. Surely one of them had to turn this thing off. Or at the very least, disarm the bombs that were currently all showing red on the console's display. Armed bombs. Golden clouds. And New York locked in as a target. He couldn't let it happen.
"There's not gonna be a safe landing," he replied. "But I can try and force it down."
"I—I'll get Howard on the line, he'll know what to do."
"There's not enough time," he told her. "This thing is moving too fast and it's heading for New York. I gotta put her in the water."
"Please, don't do this," she pleaded. "We have time. We can work it out."
"Right now I'm in the middle of nowhere. If I wait any longer, a lot of people are gonna die." Bucky's parents. The kids he'd grown up with, who had families of their own now. All the men, women and children who called the city home. This was Schmitt's revenge. He wasn't aiming for Washington. He didn't care about the President or America's military leaders. This was personal, because Steve had dared to stand against him. To say no. Schmidt wanted to hurt Captain America. To hit Steve in the place he was most vulnerable. Home.
"Peggy… this is my choice." He couldn't live, knowing that he'd allowed millions to die. Not when he had the power to stop it. From his pocket he took the compass Bucky had given him, the one that held Peggy's picture in the lid. He couldn't see her, but she was with him. Always. In his heart. Till the end of the line.
A thread of something appeared on the horizon. Land. It had to be now.
He put the compass on the console in front of him, took the controls with both hands, and forced it down. The clouds rose to meet him in one final embrace, and he passed through their fluffy whiteness, the rapid descent causing the plane to vibrate and the compass to move slightly. He'd never been afraid of the concept of dying, but now that he finally had something worth living for, he didn't want to be alone.
"Peggy?"
"I'm here."
"I'm gonna need a rain-check on that dance," he told her.
"Alright." Her voice was low. Quiet. Tears couldn't speak, but he heard them, and it made his heart ache to know he was the cause. That he'd let her down. "A week next Saturday at the Stork Club."
"You got it."
"Eight o'clock on the dot. Don't you dare be late. Understood?"
The sliver of land was much closer now, a white expanse of snow that mirrored the white of the clouds above. What was it? Canada? Greenland? Alaska? Hopefully somewhere far, far from any people. From any life at all. "You know I don't know how to dance."
"I'll show you how. Just be there."
This was it. Erskine had created him to save the world, and he'd done it. Now it was time to rest. "We'll have the band play something slow. I'd hate to step on your toes."
The snowy landscape opened its arms to embrace him. The image of Peggy smiled up at him, and the world ended in a violent storm of beautiful snowflakes.
- - - - - - - AN END - - - - - - -
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
— Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken
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Author's Note: Welcome to the end of what would be Book #2, if I was writing this as a trilogy. I hope you've enjoyed the ride as much as I have! Some readers have expressed a desire for a canon ending. For you people, this is the end of the line. You may disembark at this station and go no further with this story. Instead, head on over to my fic Running To You to continue with Bucky following the events of CA:TWS. Maybe one day I'll also dabble in some Falcon-And-Winter-Soldier stuff. Seems like a fun world, I have a few ideas there. Thanks for reading!
For everybody else, this chapter never happened. You didn't see it, it isn't real. Everybody who doesn't care about a canon ending may return tomorrow—yes, actual tomorrow!—for the first chapter of the final 'book' of this trilogy as we embark on the less traveled road.
Bring popcorn.