62.
?, Austria
February 1st, 1944
The train disappears around the side of a mountain, the men only a small dot on top of the carriage, and with it goes the sound of the wheels and the engine. The Commandos left atop the hill – Dugan, Morita, Dernier and Isabel – are left with only the sound of the wind once again. They're silent staring at the tracks the train disappeared down.
"So, you had the bad feeling, too?" Dugan asks, coming up to stand beside the brunette who frowns out at the view. It isn't so beautiful anymore.
Isabel jumps at his voice, turning to face him with wide eyes. She nods and gulps. "I ain't ever had that feeling before."
"That's 'cause you aren't a soldier," Dugan says easily. "I've had it a few times, now. Gut instinct, they call it. And you're supposed to listen to it."
"I know."
After a few more minutes of a solemn staring, the four of them pack up their gear and begin their descent back down the mountainside. It's easier going down than up, but they're loaded up with the other men's belongings, since they couldn't take their packs with them onto the train, and it weighs them down a lot. Dugan carries the bulk of it, since he's much larger in frame than the others, and he walks at the back of the pack. Isabel walks in the middle behind Dernier and Morita, her pistol in one hand, her pack on her back, and Bucky's pack slung over her shoulder.
They get part way down the mountain and the snow seems to continue to get heavier, the sky darkening and more clouds forming, blocking out the sunlight entirely and leaving them enveloped in a white-grey haze. It's almost eerie for the world to seem so dark in the middle of the morning, but to also be so white and fresh for all the snow.
The ground gets impossibly more slippery as they continue, and they know it isn't just because they're at higher altitudes anymore. A storm's rolling in, and they can see it coming far off on the horizon. Their boots just don't have any grip on them anymore. Isabel slips, Bucky's pack cushioning some of the fall when it gets caught behind her. She gets up and dusts herself off and keeps going, Morita slipping a minute or two later.
They come to the cliff they'd had to have a lift up to earlier and decide to go around it, not wanting to chance falling from such a height onto an icy surface. It takes a little while, but they find a smaller slope and slide down it before continuing undisturbed down the rest of the hill.
They reach the bottom and the ground levels out until they're walking on flat ground again. Dugan gets out the maps and consults it with help from Morita. There are two large crosses marked on the map – one for the hill they've just climbed down and another for the rendezvous point. It's a few miles away, somewhere between the mountain and where Steve had expected they'd be able to stop the train and get off with Zola in tow. Dugan gets out a compass, orients himself, and then leads the way across the open, snowy landscape toward the point.
After an hour or so of walking, they stop and take a breather, pulling out their canteens and taking a sip. It isn't hot, not at all – if anything they're colder than ever – but the walk down the mountain took a toll on them. Isabel opens her pack for her rations and pulls out a protein bar, wolfing it down quickly as they walk for some energy.
It takes a lot longer than they'd anticipated to wade through the thick layer of snow on the ground, but eventually, they make it to where Dugan thinks is the rendezvous point. He takes a long while to make sure, but as Isabel looks around, she realises they can see for miles in all directions. Two massive mountain ranges line each side of them, putting them in the valley, which they can see from one side to the other of. So long as they're in the right valley, they're all bound to run into each other, even if they get the position wrong.
Dugan looks up from the map and pulls out a pair of binoculars. He looks around the valley, scanning from one end to the other, and pauses as he's pointed off toward the other end of the valley. He can see the train sitting on the tracks very far away, still, no smoke coming from the engine. He scans from there, and stops again, this time at the sight of five figures standing and sitting beside the train track, not easy to see in front of the dark train. He focuses the binoculars, and then he can make them out – Zola in handcuffs in Falsworth's capable hands, Jones patrolling the area with his rifle in his hands. It throws Dugan a loop though, when he sees that Peggy's running a hand through her hair, looking stressed and terrified, and Steve's sitting on the snow with his head in his hands, looking utterly defeated. There's a figure missing.
Dugan lowers the binoculars, the reality of the situation slowly dawning on him. Morita and Dernier are looking at him questioningly, whilst Isabel is squinting in the direction Dugan had his binoculars pointed in, just able to make out the train in the distance and movement of a few small dots she thinks are people. She grabs up her and Bucky's packs and trudges through the snow toward them before Dugan can stop her, practically running toward them. The others hurry to gather up their belongings again and follow her and reunite the group.
As Isabel gets closer and the people she runs to get larger and clearer, her running slows. Silently she counts the people – Falsworth, Jones, Zola, Peggy, Steve – and something in her brain just doesn't allow her to register who the missing person is, because she knows someone is missing, but she just can't pinpoint who.
She keeps walking, getting closer, her boots making a squelching noise in the snow. Jones walks up to meet her in the middle, Falsworth keeps a watchful eye on her. Peggy takes one look at Isabel and then looks away, walks away with her back to her. Isabel pauses, stops dead in the snow, her eyes immediately flicking around again. And then it clicks.
"Where's Bucky?" She says, her voice barely above a whisper. No one hears her or responds.
Steve sits down in the middle of the group. He doesn't look up from where his head is dropped in his hands, sitting on the cold snow. Jones gets closer and then slows, watching her carefully as the lightbulb goes off, evident on her expression.
"Where's Bucky?" Isabel repeats, louder this time.
"Cap, come on. Where's Sarge?" Dugan asks, coming to a stop beside Isabel.
Steve looks up then, his eyes red-rimmed and utterly traumatised. He opens his mouth to reply, takes one look at Isabel, and his expression breaks. His eyes well again with tears and he shakes his head ferociously. He stands and walks off, getting a few hundred metres away before Jones manages to catch up to him, stopping him. Jones puts a hand on Steve's shoulder, tries to coax Steve into talking to Isabel. Steve just shakes his head, no words coming out - just shaking his head, pulling on his blonde hair, eyebrows furrowed, eyes red raw.
"Oh no," Isabel whispers, the realisation dawning on her slowly, like a slow burn. Her brain is struggling to process it all, to put the pieces of the puzzle together. But slowly, the pieces fall into place. "No, no, no," Isabel cries, a little louder. Her eyes well with tears, her throat getting thick.
"I–"
"No!" Isabel says, switching from heartbreak to outright denial within seconds. "No! No! Steve, where is he? This isn't funny!" She yells across the snowy gap between them, her voice echoing across the fathom.
"Isabel, please," Dugan tries, attempting to grab her shoulder.
"No, this isn't funny. Dugan, please. Tell me this is a joke. It can't be true," Isabel tries, grabbing handfuls of her hair and just staring at Steve in the distance as he wipes away at the tears falling down his cheeks, sniffles, takes a deep breath.
Isabel turns to Dugan for an answer, but Dugan's solemn expression, and the cold, heartbroken faces of the other Commandos, is enough to prove it's true.
It isn't a joke. It isn't a prank.
It's real.
Bucky's gone, and Steve can't wade in and save him this time.
He's gone.
Isabel stops denying it, can't even make any words come out anyway. She just stands there, covered in snow, sobbing. Her legs feel weak beneath her and her head spins. She feels her legs give way and then arms grab hers, holding her upright. Dugan tries to pull her into a hug or hold her up, she isn't sure what, but she pushes away from him, her legs still weak, and lands on her behind in the snow.
"Don't touch me," she grits out, barely audible through her sobs. "Just… don't."
Dugan heeds her warning, moving closer to Steve and Jones to hear Steve's explanation.
Isabel pulls her legs up to her chest and cries into her arm, barely able to hear what Steve's saying all those yards away. Something about Bucky being blasted from the train, Steve pulling him back inside only for him to lose an arm and fall into the ravine below–
Isabel is only part listening, but then she realises that there's only one man left who hasn't joined the mass around Steve listening to his story.
Doctor Zola sits in the snow, shivering with blue lips, looking worriedly at the group. He's got a massive bruise on his left cheek, giving him a black eye, and another red welt on his jaw on the other side where Steve no doubt gave him the what for.
Isabel's tears halt, replaced with an unchecked rage. Isabel's never wanted to hurt anyone before, has only ever wanted the exact opposite, but right now, in this moment, she wants nothing more than to torture Doctor Zola, to cut him and burn him and wipe his memories just like he did to Bucky before killing him. She can imagine it in her head, can see the way he writhes in pain under her cold stare. The thought almost makes the edges of her lips quirk upward in a smile.
She slowly untangles herself and stands on shaky legs, walking slowly over to the doctor. Zola turns as she approaches, and his eyes widen ever further at her expression. He watches her every step, cold and precise, and gulps down his fear. Never was he scared of the girl before, not on any of their encounters. But now, the expression on her face tells her she wouldn't hesitate to make him pay for what he's done.
Zola quickly stands and stumbles away from Isabel, struggling to run through the thick snow with his hands bound behind his back in restraints. Isabel catches him easily. There's a scrabble as she grabs his shoulders and whirls him around to face her, which catches the Commandos' attention. Zola's yelp echoes through the valley.
"What have you done?" Isabel hisses, grabbing his shoulders tight enough to bruise, glaring right into his soul with deranged grey eyes.
She shakes him hard, and Zola feels like his brain smacks around against his skull. He shouts out again, looking frantically to the other Commandos for help. Not that he thinks they'll help; maybe they'll leave him to the Barnes girl, let her be the one to do him in. But the Captain is only a few metres away, hurrying toward Isabel to stop her.
Isabel's fist flies up, almost of its own mind, and makes contact with Zola's cheekbone. Her face is contorted with rage, eyes dead and dark, and she fires her arm up again, pulling it backward to bring it down once again. "You'll pay for what you've done. I'll fucki–"
Whatever Isabel was going to threaten is cut off when she's grabbed from behind by strong arms that pull her away easily, prying her hands from Zola's shoulders. Zola falls backward to the ground with a thump, and immediately Jones grabs him up to ensure he won't run away. Steve half-carries, half-drags Isabel away from the scientist, easily holding her back as she struggles against him, attempting desperately to get back to the doctor and choke the life out of him. She kicks her legs and attempts to flail her arms, trying to break free from Steve's strong grip around her biceps.
"Belle, stop! Don't do this, this isn't you," Steve says into her ear, holding her tightly and facing her away from the doctor so she can't see him.
"Steve, let me go!" Isabel grits out, wiggling and thrashing in his grasp to try to break free. "Steve!"
"Don't do this, Isabel," Steve pleads, and he sounds utterly defeated.
"Steve, stop! Let me go!"
"He isn't worth it."
"Zola isn't, but Bucky is," Isabel argues. "I'll fuckin' kill him. I'll do to him what he's done to all of us," Isabel promises, her voice rising hysterically toward a scream that echoes across the mountain ranges.
Isabel just manages to get out of his grip, not by her own strength but because Steve lets her go just long enough to turn her around and pull her into his chest, enveloping her in a tight hug. He hides his own tears in her hair, pressing his mouth against her head to try to hold in the sob that threatens to escape.
"Please, Belle," Steve manages to get out around a sob.
Isabel's stopped trying to get away, instead breaking down into hysterical sobs. She grips the front of Steve's uniform, letting her heartbreak take over her. Her legs fail her again and she sinks down to the ground in a fit of tears, Steve following her. He sits on the ground in the snow, pulling her into his lap, cradling her against his chest.
She sits there for a moment, quiet, before she pulls back. All of that pent up rage she's feeling is still there, waiting to spill out. She can't take it out on Zola like her mind needs her too, but it channels itself toward Steve instead. He doesn't deserve it, she knows that, but her arms move without her permission. She pulls back and hits him hard on the chest with anger, over and over.
"I told you I had a bad feeling. I-I told you and y-you didn't listen," she manages through her tears. Thud. Thud. She hits him, and Steve doesn't even try to stop it.
Maybe he doesn't even feel it.
Maybe he thinks he deserves it.
"I'm sorry," Steve replies, utterly devastated, his throat clogged.
Isabel's hits slow and lose strength until her clenched fist just sits on Steve's chest and she falls forward, pressing her face into the crook of his neck. Her face moves as she sobs, her face pressed against his neck, making his neck wet with tears.
"I'm so sorry," Steve replies again, because he doesn't know what else to say.
"God, Stevie, I'm so sorry you had to see that," Isabel says, clutching him a bit tighter. "It's not your fault. I-I–" She can't even imagine it. Can't even find the words to describe it. She pulls back then, eyes wide and heartbroken. "We need to find him, Steve, please," Isabel pleads, pulling away and looking up at Steve with wide doe-eyes. "He-he needs to go home."
"I know," Steve agrees. "I'm going… Now," Steve decides suddenly, with certainty.
"How are you supposed to get down there?" Isabel asks with confusion, wiping away a thick tear and sitting up as Steve untangles himself and stands, pulling her up with him.
Steve marches them back over to the group with such determination. Monty is talking on the radio with Howard, giving them their coordinates and asking him to bring any free soldiers at the airfield he's waiting at to form a search party. As they approach, Monty tells Howard he has to go before putting the radio back in his pocket.
"Captain?" Monty asks, noting warily Steve's determined expression.
"I'm going down into the ravine to look," Steve tells them. "Anyone who wants to come is welcome. But I'm going right now. When Howard comes with that search party, lead them here," Steve says, taking a pencil from one of the pockets on his pants and drawing a circle on the map where Bucky fell into the ravine. "The rest of you, get on the plane Howard brings and head back to base. I'll meet you back there."
Dugan, Falsworth and Jones stand to follow Steve on his search mission, whilst Dernier and Morita stay to detain Zola. Peggy still hasn't moved from her spot a few hundred metres away, her face in her hands, only moving to let Morita pull her into a hug.
Steve turns away from Peggy, guilt covering his entire face, to set off on his rescue mission. As he passes Isabel, he pushes her hair back from her face, cups her cheek, and then presses a kiss to her forehead, a silent promise.
"Stay with the others," he says. "And don't follow me down there."
With that, he walks off with his team across the field toward the ravine.
Howard's arrival in the plane is heard from a mile away, and those left behind watch the plane coming toward them, starting as a dot in the sky until they can make out the plane.
Before it arrives, Isabel goes over to Peggy. They stare at each other for a second before Peggy grabs Isabel's arm and pulls her in for a tight hug, one hand around her shoulders and the other gripping the back of her head. They cry a while into each other's shoulders.
Peggy is the first to dry out, pulling herself together and wiping her eyes, but Isabel feels like she could keep crying forever if she let herself.
Instead, she tries to channel that heartbreak into anger. Her and Peggy take a seat in the snow, holding each other's hand comfortingly. Isabel spends the minutes until Howard arrives glaring across the field at Zola, who Dernier has led away from them so that they can't agitate each other. No amount of distance could calm Isabel's hatred for that man.
When the plane has landed and the cabin door opens, Howard emerges, followed by a small troop of volunteering soldiers. They hurry off in the direction of the canyon, told to find a way down where Captain America and some of the other Commandos are already looking.
Once they're going in the right direction, Dernier walks past with Zola, and Howard glares at him as he passes, pointing for Dernier to sit the Hydra scientist at the very end of the plane. Peggy and Morita climb aboard and sit near the front of the plane, Dernier joining them once Zola is settled, all of them ignoring the doctor. Isabel takes one more look toward the ravine where Steve and the others have disappeared down in search for Bucky. She only gets onto the plane when Howard grabs her arm and leads her aboard. He sits her in the co-pilot seat in the cockpit, making sure she doesn't lay eyes on the doctor, before securing the cabin and returning to start the plane down their runway.
Isabel stares out the window beside her as the ground disappears beneath them, melting into the white sky, the mountains growing smaller and smaller. The plane rattles, the wind howls, and snow batters the windshield, making it so that Howard can barely see where they're flying. He's attached little windshield wipers to the outside of the cabin's windows, and he employs them, the wipers sliding quietly across the glass.
Isabel turns then to face Howard. Her face is contemplative, thinking. Her eyes are red and puffy, and they're utterly cold, missing all of the light they always held within them. They've gone from blue-grey to just grey, dark and stormy like the sky around them.
"If Bucky was enhanced by some kind of serum, what's the chance that he would have been able to survive the fall?" She asks outright, red eyes staring coldly at Howard. "And tell me the truth. Don't pull your punches."
Howard sighs. "Remember, we worked out how far Steve could probably fall without dying?" Isabel nods. "We thought he could land safely about five times what the regular human could withstand, but he quickly proved us wrong. He can jump from a plane and survive the fall with little to no damage as long as he has the shield to break some of the fall. Without the shield, he'd survive but not without some injuries, broken bones, but nothing fatal. The average man would be dead."
"Bucky's serum wasn't as advanced or as complete as Steve's," Isabel says quietly so that Zola can't hear them. "We don't even know what went into it. I'm sure we could ask but I doubt he would be willing to tell us," she continues, not even able to say Zola's name, her words laced with venom as she speaks of him.
"Barnes had about thirty percent of the serum abilities that Steve developed. If it had been Steve that had fallen, he would've survived, with a lot of broken bones, but alive. Bucky, well…"
"A thirty percent chance?" Isabel asks, her voice slightly hopeful.
It hurts Howard to put her down. "No, not that high," Howard says solemnly. "Not with all the variables. It's not just the height of the fall. There're too many other variables, variables that even Steve might not have survived – there could've been any number of things to hit or catch himself on, he could've fallen into the river itself, the cold, internal bleeding. With that many injuries and waiting for that long to be found… it wouldn't be good."
Isabel nods, a small tear in the corner of her eye as she stares out at the white sky they fly through. "Of course, I want him to live, but I don't want him waiting around and in pain, or to be set up with a lifetime of recovery. It would be kinder if he did die, wouldn't it? If it was an instant thing."
Howard reaches over and puts a hand on Isabel's arm. "I think so."
They'd had to go all the way around to find the edges of the ravine to find a safe way down, a way that they could ensure they could come back up again. Originally, Dugan had stayed at the top of the canyon to direct the search party down to safety. Once they'd arrived and the plane carrying the other Commandos had flown away again, Dugan had met back up with Steve and the others, who had been searching for near an hour.
Steve and Jones veer off from Dugan and Monty, the rest of the search party scouring the rest of the area. They don't get too far away from each other, can still hear each other's footsteps and see each other through the sparse trees.
They find the spot where Steve is sure Bucky fell from the train, looking above them for the recognisable scenery. From there, they search outward in a large circle, looking for anything – the metal of the bar that Bucky's been holding and had fallen off the wall just before Steve had grabbed Bucky's arm, any of Bucky's gear that might have fallen from him, any blood, a hand, a foot, any part of Bucky they can find.
There's snow everywhere, on every surface, falling steadily from the sky above them which is growing blacker every minute.
Steve leaves no section unsearched, no stone unturned, no stretch of snow undisturbed. He pushes the snow off every lump in the snow expecting it to be Bucky but is left disappointed. He desperately wants to find his friend, no matter what state he is in, to bring him home.
Another part of him, however, is dreading the moment they find him. If he's deceased, it'll be just terrible. If he's injured, bleeding, terrified, it might even be worse. He'll have a long road of recovery ahead of him when they find him. If we find him. And that's only if they get him medical assistance in time.
Steve strains his ears to hear, but there's nothing except the wail of the wind, the crunching of other's boots, people breathing, and the rushing of the river in the distance. They scour what they think is the whole ravine, even searching in the river itself, but they find nothing. It's as though Bucky disappeared without a trace, just as his arm had when the beam hit it and it disappeared in Steve's hand.
Eventually, the snow falls so heavily they can barely see a foot in front of themselves, the wind so strong it threatens to knock them over. The plane won't be able to come back to get them now, they'll have to walk their way back to the nearest base or take cover in their tents until the blizzard passes.
Even after the rest of the soldiers start through the ravine toward an exit, Steve is intent to keep looking for Bucky, despite the snow and the cold and the fact even his lips have turned blue. He keeps looking, walking frantically through the ravine, and only stops when Dugan puts a hand on his shoulder.
"We've gotta go, Cap. We aren't supersoldiers, we can only take so much cold. We've been looking for hours." Steve is, unsurprisingly, about to argue for them to leave him there to look, but Dugan's pointed expression makes him shut his mouth, his brow furrowed solemnly. "I'm sorry, Cap, but I think Serge is gone," Dugan says quietly. "He'll be buried by snow now. We won't find him."
"I know," Steve says quietly. "But if I just–"
"You're a good friend, Captain. More like a brother, the best kind of friend," Dugan promises, cutting off Steve's rambling. "I'm sure wherever he is, Serge appreciates you, and I know that he always has. Before you came out to the front, all he used to talk about was you and Isabel. You two were his family and his life, his reason to get home. He gave that up to save you both, to make sure you'd both get home."
"He deserved better," Steve manages, the tears threatening to spill over again. "He deserved to go home."
"Yeah, he did. A lot of those men who've died around us, they all deserved better. Serge maybe the most of all of them. But these are the cards we're dealt. Obviously, wherever we go where we die needed Bucky more than we needed him here."
Steve looks up, and its maybe the first time he's ever heard Dugan call Bucky by his nickname, at least around him.
"I'm sure he loves you for the fact that you even tried looking for him. A lot of people wouldn't." Dugan slaps a hand on Steve's shoulder. "He's played his part. Let let him rest in peace, wherever that may be."
Steve eventually nods, after one more longing look at the ground at the bottom of the ravine, before he allows Dugan's hand on his shoulder to steer him away, toward the exit that eventually deposits them out of the ravine onto an area of flat ground that will be accessible by plane.
They set up their tents and spend the night amid the howling winds. Steve stays up the entire night and beneath the dim light of the moon through the dense clouds, he goes back to the ravine. He spends the entire night, whilst the others sleep in their tents, searching the snow covered landscape at the bottom of the fateful ravine. He shivers and freezes his way back over familiar and new territory, passed already overturned rocks and already passed trees, and goes a bit further searching for his friend.
When morning light begins to rise and he can no longer feel his fingers, Steve stops. He sits on a massive boulder and just stares at the white blanket of snow.
His fingertips have turned a light blue colour. If he wasn't enhanced, he'd have frostbite. The tip of his nose is completely numb. He can hardly see through the snowflakes stuck to his eyelashes, or breathe through the hardened snot in his nose. Every tear freezes to his cheek. Not many of them are falling now - he's cried them all.
He puts his head in his hands and just cries.
After another few hours, the tears again stop and he's left sitting, snuffling, eyes stinging.
"I'm sorry, Buck. I really am. I couldn't save you. I can't find you," he whispers to no one.
He sits there and just thinks, and when his thoughts get too much, he gets out a little diary from his pocket and a pencil. He forces his frozen fingers to move. He sketches a picture of Bucky in the small sketch book he brought with him in one of his many uniform pockets. The first picture Steve begins to draw is of the last time he saw Bucky – his terrified features as he clings desperately to Steve's hands, hair whipping in the harsh wind, eyes wide and panicked–
Steve quickly rips that page out, crumples it up in his fist and throws it forcefully across the snowy ground. It falls in the snow and quickly soaks with water, flattening to nothing.
The second picture Steve draws, through glassy eyes, is of the last time he saw Bucky smile – he's hugging Isabel, her face pressed into his shoulder, and he's reassuring he'll be fine as they stand on the edge of the mountain, ready to zipline off the edge.
How heartbreaking that Bucky should be smiling, a proper smile that was so rare for him now, as he embarked on the mission that would take his life.
"Please forgive me," Steve finally whispers, before forcing himself to walk away.