Hello gentle readers! A little gift for the winter holiday of your choice - a new, and rather sizeable, chapter! This chapter was loosely inspired by Ian Tregellis' "Bitter Seeds," a great alternate WW2 story.
Chapter 23 - November 3 - Western Poland
The canvas tent flapped in a chill wind - the harbinger of sunrise. The sky was just a shade lighter than black, but Peggy hadn't slept at all. Instead, she played the disastrous expedition over and over in her mind - the screams of German fighter planes diving out of the night, gunfire tearing the silence, and then a parachute, a white ghost in the darkness, plummeting toward the trees.
As soon as they landed in the frosted airfield, Peggy had snagged Dernier's arm and whispered in his ear in French.
"Meet me in my tent as soon as you can shake the Russians. Tell the others."
He had nodded and walked briskly away, murmuring the message to Jones in passing. The Russian pilot next to him didn't even turn around. That was when Peggy had realized that Bucky was missing.
Now, perched on her cot, its hard edge digging into her thighs, Peggy worried her lip in her teeth. The Commandos had lost their Captain and Sergeant Barnes in one stroke. Could she keep them all together? And what should they do next?
And how did the Germans know we were coming?
It couldn't be any of the Commandos. Peggy had trained herself to be suspicious, but she trusted the men more than her own family. It couldn't be one of them.
"Knock, knock." It was Dugan, speaking in the loudest whisper Peggy had ever heard, probably his version of being stealthy.
"Come in, Sergeant. I'm decent."
Dugan crowded his bulk into Peggy's cramped tent, the rest of the Commandos filing in after him. It took an awkward minute or two to arrange everyone, perched on the few items of furniture or sitting on the floor.
"So." It was Morita who broke the silence from his seat on Peggy's foot locker. "How screwed are we?"
"Well," Peggy said. "I imagine that depends on a few factors…"
"Like whether Barnes and the Captain are dead."
"You bite your tongue, Corporal," Dugan said, quiet but emphatic. "They are not dead."
Morita rolled his eyes, as if they'd had this conversation more than once on the way over. "They jumped into a firefight. I'm just being realistic…"
"Realistic! You're being disloyal is what you're being!"
The tension that had filled the tent burst into a full-blown argument, and there were a few moments of unintelligible cacophony before Peggy put two fingers into her mouth and let out a piercing whistle. Instantly every eye was on her.
"Thank you, gentlemen," she said. I have to give them something. Hope. Direction.
Jones was sitting on the floor in an easy, cross-legged pose.
"Is it true?" He asked. "Are they dead?"
Dernier was holding his medal tightly in his right hand. Falsworth slouched carefully in one corner, watching everyone with an inscrutable expression.
"As if a little thing like falling out of a plane could kill our Captain," Peggy said.
"Do you envision a rescue?" Falsworth asked, eyebrow raised.
"Certainly," Peggy said. "But what we have to keep in mind is that, somehow, Hydra knew we were coming."
"You think," Dernier said in his thickly accented English, "some of these Soviets are espions?"
"It's possible," Peggy said. Dugan growled.
"So we have to arrange a rescue when anyone in a two-mile radius could be trying to kill us," Morita said.
"Sounds like business as usual to me," Jones quipped.
Peggy was opening her mouth to respond when she heard footsteps outside. She hurriedly shushed the others, and stood just as Polkovnik Yakunin himself lifted the tent flap.
"Ah! Here you all are together." The Polkovnik's mouth smiled, but his sharp eyes did not.
Peggy smoothed her face into its most innocent and nonchalant expression, and could only hope that the Commandos were doing the same thing.
"Polkovnik," she said. "We were just regrouping. We've had a terrible shock."
He raised one pale eyebrow. "Then allow me to be the bearer of good news," he said. "Your Captain is alive."
Peggy's careful facade cracked for a moment. "How…"
"We received an encrypted transmission moments ago. Using the Captain's private code and personal transponder. She has infiltrated the base and requests immediate bombardment."
Immediate bombardment?
"So you and the Night Witches will be heading out again, tonight."
"Pardon me, sir," Peggy said. "But what about the fighter planes that intercepted us last night? They'll cut us to ribbons."
The Polkovnik's pale eyes were unreadable. "Your Captain said they have been taken care of."
Taken care of? A squadron, by herself? That would be a bit much, surely, even for her.
"We can't afford to lose this chance. The Night Witches leave within the hour - with or without you. We may still salvage this mess." The Polkovnik and his aides strode away through the camp. Peggy watched them go, brow furrowed.
"I don't like this at all," Morita said, as Peggy closed the flap.
"What do you like, laughing boy?" Dugan responded.
"It is suspicious," Falsworth said. "Do you think someone could have...gotten the Captain to divulge her codes?"
Tortured her, he meant.
"She's too stubborn for that, don't you think?" Peggy said, keeping her fear out of her voice. She didn't like the situation herself. But what choice did they have? Was it a gamble worth taking?
"Let's put our trust in our Captain," she said. "I'll meet you on the airfield in an hour."
If she was wrong, well...at least they might still be able to arrange that rescue.
Margot was pale as a ghost in the light of her lamp. Now that Stevie's eyes had adjusted, she could see Erik lurking behind the girl like a hunched, black crow.
So this is Weapon X. Stevie thought. Children turned into soldiers.
She remembered Doctor Ritter's smug, proprietary attitude, the children's obvious fear of him - and felt a surge of anger and revulsion so strong she could almost taste it. She wanted to find the Doctor - more than find him; she wanted to hurt him. Stevie took a deep breath and hoped it would keep the tremor from her voice.
"You're Margot, right?" She asked the girl, gently. "And...Erik?"
Erik looked surprised, but Margot's eyes were black pools in the lamplight. Deep and fathomless.
"How did you…?" Erik started, before Margot interrupted him.
"Because she was paying attention, Erik. That's the kind of person she is." Margot turned her inscrutable expression on Stevie, and her companions behind her. "But there isn't time for introductions. Captain, we need your help."
"Well," Stevie said, carefully. She was aware of treading into a situation she didn't fully understand. It felt like walking into a lake, unable to see when the bottom would drop off beneath her. Bucky was silent and still - the stillness of a trap with a hair trigger, something that could explode at any moment.
"I like to know who I'm helping," she continued. "Especially when one of them knocked out my friend here," she gestured towards Raisa, manacles clanking. "And, for that matter, hung me from the ceiling by my wrists."
"I had to," said Erik, with a scowl. "I didn't mean…" His expression turned to something else. Embarrassment. Shame. "Look," he started over. "We're on your side."
He spread out a hand toward Stevie, and her shield spun out from the shadows behind him. Raisa gave a sharp gasp and Bucky took a step forward, but the shield stopped a foot shy of them. Stevie's manacles unfastened themselves and clattered to the floor as the shield dropped into her hands lightly as a fallen leaf.
She swallowed to clear her throat. "Thanks," she said.
"Captain," Margot said. "I know we haven't given you much reason to trust us, but you know what kind of person Doctor Ritter is. You've heard him talk about how he 'awakens the power' inside us. When I arrived, he kept me in this dungeon for weeks at a time without light. I screamed myself hoarse; I beat my fists bloody on the walls. And I was one of the lucky ones. Believe me when I say you are our only hope. Please. Help us."
"And what is the power he awakened?" Stevie asked softly. "Do you see the future? Is that how the Doctor knew we were coming?"
"More or less."
She pointed at Erik. "And you move things with your mind, right?"
He nodded. "Only metal, but...yes."
"We punch things, shoot things and fly a bomber, respectively," Stevie said, indicating herself and her companions. "Why do people like you need our help?"
"Because we can't do what you can do," Margot replied. "I need you, all three of you. You can save them all, and I can't do that."
Stevie glanced back at Bucky, met his eyes. As rescues went, it was awfully strange.
Bucky shrugged. "Got any alternatives?"
"Sitting down here in the dark," Raisa said. "And waiting for deliverance."
"Good point," Stevie said. "All right. We're your men. Get us out of here."
Margot led them up a rough-hewn stair so narrow Stevie's shoulders brushed the walls on either side. A half-rotten wooden door let them out into what looked like an old guardroom with thick stone walls and a huge fireplace stained black from centuries of soot. To one side was a door, to the other a staircase leading up.
It was dark outside the narrow slit windows, and Stevie felt a moment of disorientation. Was it the same night, or the next? How long had she been out? Bucky was dirty and dishevelled, but, Stevie noticed with relief, uninjured. Raisa had a cut on her scalp that had bled down one side of her face and dried - probably from where the shield had hit her. She was limping slightly.
"Twisted my ankle a bit," she said, when she noticed Stevie looking. "It wasn't the softest of landings."
Stevie snorted a laugh.
"This is where we split up," Margot said. "Sergeant Barnes, you'll take Erik out to the mountainside overlooking the airfield. Captain, Lieutenant Gesheva, we'll go up to the radio tower."
"We're splitting up now?" Bucky said, frowning. "Captain, I don't like this."
"Even now, your Howling Commandos are returning," Margot said, face eerily calm. "The Hydra fighters will be waiting to slice them to ribbons. They were signaled with your own codes, Captain."
The girl's mouth twisted into a bitter smile.
"I know," she continued, "because I'm the one who called them. Erik can stop the planes and the anti-aircraft guns, but he needs to be able to see them. And we need to get to the radio tower so you can call your men and tell them in your own voice what awaits them."
She closed her eyes for a moment, a frown line appearing between her eyebrows.
"Right now, a guard is walking through the inner ward. In forty seconds it will be too late. Please, Captain. Trust me."
It felt like being being a piece in someone else's game, like walking on stage halfway through a show and not knowing who any of the characters were. Stevie didn't like it at all. And what she liked least was that she didn't have any other choice. She turned to Bucky, those forty seconds ticking away in the back of her mind.
"If you get hurt out there," she said. "I'll be very angry with you."
Bucky picked a stray twig out of her hair, and Stevie took his hand, holding it to the side of her face. His knuckles were scraped and bruised, sticky with drying blood from beating his fists on the walls.
"Wouldn't dream of it," He said. And then he was walking away, slipping through the door ahead of Erik without a sound.
The staircase spiralled up inside the old castle's thick walls. Bits of conversation, laughter, and snatches of song came through old servants' doors as they passed, but Margot didn't pause - didn't even slow down. She took them up two floors, until no more noise came through the walls, and led them out into a long, high-ceilinged room that had probably once been the castle's great hall.
Every cautious step they took echoed in the empty space. Tall windows along the left wall let in the pale moonlight, which slanted across a film projector and a row of desks facing a portable screen.
"Welcome to the Classroom," Margot said. She pointed to the projector.
"For languages," she continued. "English, French, German. We learn from cartoons, actually."
Other clusters of desks populated the room, facing pinned-up maps and anatomical charts, machine diagrams and floor plans - a chalkboard with what looked like an exercise in code-breaking written on it. There was a long table covered in what Stevie recognized as the parts of an explosive device, as well as one with strange, interlocking structures of wood and iron.
Raisa picked one up and turned it. The pieces shifted around each other. "Puzzles?" She asked.
"Tests," Margot corrected. "Some were like puzzles, and some were like games. But we don't know the rules, and we don't know if we've won until the end."
The next section of the room reminded Stevie of the boxing gym where Bucky worked out. Punching bags and marksman's dummies stood in rows. At the end, there was a wide, bare space. Margot stopped in the center.
"This is where he taught us to fight," she said. "Against each other. Against the guards. In teams. Alone. With weapons. With handicaps."
It took Stevie a moment to notice the black scorch marks on the walls, and she remembered the boy with the flame balanced over his hand.
"And this way," Margot opened a set of large double doors at the end of the room. "Is the Box."
The Box. Stevie had a fuzzy, half-formed memory - the blond boy, Stefan. I'm not afraid of the Box. She remembered his fear when Dr. Ritter chastised him.
Down the corridor, a heavy, steel door had been set into the wall, with a sliding hatch at eye level. The walls were thick, and so was the door, but Stevie could hear something on the other side - static and electronic squealing, blasts of noise like a malfunctioning radio.
"And what is the Box for?" Raisa asked, as if half-afraid to hear the answer.
In answer, Margot slid the viewing hatch open. Behind a thick pane of glass, a room - no windows, walls of bare stone. A girl in a white shift sat in one corner, hands curled protectively over her ears. The noise was louder now - alarms, buzzers, screeching and squawking. Lights in the room flashed at random, painfully bright. Raisa hissed a curse.
"This is how he triggers your power, isn't it?" Stevie said. "Stressors."
"Yes," the girl answered. "Different things, different combinations. But it doesn't work on everyone."
Stevie could guess what that meant.
Some don't change. Some die.
Anger twisted in her gut like sickness. She had already seized the door handle to rip it off, when the girl inside the room stood up and opened her mouth in a desperate scream. Stevie's head rang like a bell, more a sensation than a sound. The heavy steel door thrummed under her hand and the glass cracked into a spiderweb. Inside the room, every wire sparked and every bulb shattered.
"Shit!" Raisa said, covering her ears. Margot had already ducked around a corner. There were benefits to being psychic, it seemed.
The door came off its hinges easily enough with a few kicks. Inside the windowless room, the girl was slight, with high cheekbones, almond-shaped eyes and a tangle of black hair hanging down her back. She balled her hands into fists in front of her and said something incomprehensible but clearly defiant.
"Whoa, whoa," Stevie said. "It's okay. I'm American." She opened her jacket, pointed to the star on her chest. "American."
"Kto ty?" The girl asked.
Raisa responded, "все в порядке. мы ваши друзья."
So she's Russian. Now I see why Margot said she needed all of us. The girl had seen this, and lined them all up perfectly like pieces on a board. No luck. No accidents. Stevie gently took Margot's shoulder and steered her a little away from the others.
"There's something I've been losing sleep over in the past few months," she murmured. "How Hydra kept being one step ahead. Knowing where we'd strike. There was a prison camp in Belgium…"
"East of Mechelen," Margot interrupted. "Yes, I know. One-hundred and sixty-two men died there." The girl looked down at her shoes. "You're thinking now that I condemned those men to death. My success bought the Doctor's trust. And I needed him to trust me, or this would never work."
How old is this girl? Stevie wondered. Fourteen? Fifteen? Too young to have to make these kinds of choices.
"Margot," Stevie said, tipping the girl's chin up to look her in the eyes. "I promise, I will help you in any way I can. But if your plan involves any of my people dying, you have to tell me right now."
"None of your men will die tonight, I swear," Margot whispered.
They were interrupted by the sound of laughter. The Russian girl was hugging Raisa around the waist.
"All good?" Stevie asked.
Raisa smiled wolfishly. "I told Yana here that we are going to kill Germans."
"Well, first we have to avoid getting blown up ourselves."
"You are a real...how do you say it...joy-killer?"
"Close enough."
Erik walked ahead of Bucky up what was little more than a goat path, hidden from the castle by scrub and tumbled boulders. The boy had returned Bucky's pistol, which he held loosely, looking around for guards. Or wolves. Wolves lived in places like this, didn't they? There was a scrambling noise ahead of him - Erik cursed in German as he slipped on the scree, and Bucky caught him by one sharp elbow before he could roll away down the mountain.
"Careful, kid," Bucky said. "Don't want to break your head open."
The boy pushed away roughly, dusting off his too-large coat. "Thanks," he said with a glare that was anything but grateful.
"No good deed…" Bucky muttered under his breath. They continued to climb, Erik's rough breathing and the noise of their boots the only sounds. The boy stopped, shoulders heaving.
"I'm not a coward," he said suddenly, voice tight.
"Didn't say you were."
"I know what you must think," Erik still wasn't looking at him. Apparently not listening to him either. "Why didn't I fight him? Why not kill the guards myself? But the Doctor...he...gets in your head...he..."
Geez, don't cry. Bucky wished Stevie were here. She was better at this sort of thing. What could he say? I understand you - why, just last year I was strapped to a chair by crazy Hydra scientists. Wasn't exactly a rousing speech.
"Hey, kid" Bucky said. "I don't give a shit what happened with you and Doctor Ritter last month, last week or yesterday."
At the profanity, the kid turned suddenly, eyes wide.
"Right now, though, we have a job to do. So let's quit flapping our gums and do it."
"Right," Erik said, staring at Bucky.
"Right." Good job inspiring the kid, Barnes. I'm sure he's just bursting with confidence. "Are we in the right place? Are we high enough?"
Erik turned his hawkish profile out over the fortress. Floodlights illuminated what used to be the castle's outlying fields and pastures, now converted into an airfield. "Yes. I only need to see the guns."
Bucky could see the guns himself, barrels the size of a man's torso and as long as house was tall - rendered toy-like by distance. Erik braced his feet and shook out his hands, then held them out in front of himself, breathing deep.
What is he doing?
Bucky could feel a charge building in the air, pulling at the fillings in his teeth. It smelled like lightning. Muscles stood out on Erik's neck, and he breathed in ragged gasps, like a man trying to lift a boulder. Slowly, he clenched his fists, held them, trembling with effort, then slumped over, panting.
"Was that it?" Bucky asked. "What'd you do?"
There was a sound in the distance. Engines. The Night Witches were coming. Shit. And he was up here, without anything to hit or shoot, while his friends were flying into a bear trap and his Captain was in God-knew what kind of danger.
"I closed the barrels," Erik said between gasps.
"The barrels? Of the guns?"
There was a loud boom, quickly followed by three more. The guns - but they hadn't fired. They had exploded. Bucky could see the soldiers, scurrying around like ants on the airfield below him, trying to contain the damage.
"Yes," said Erik, with a smug little smirk.
I think I like this kid.
Down on the airfield, the little spots of pilots and crew swarmed to their planes.
"They're taking off." Damn. The Night Witches were some of the best pilots Bucky had ever seen, but against this many souped-up Hydra fighters they'd be toast.
Erik straightened up, rolled his shoulders. "I know. I'll take care of it."
"Have you...done anything like this before?" Bucky felt a stab of worry for the boy. If wrecking the guns had been like lifting a boulder, tackling a squad of planes would be like lifting a mountain.
Erik got back into his stance, hands up, jaw set. "I'm a quick study."
It was like last night, all over again. The stars, the stillness. The squadron of Messerschmitts coming out of the moonlight. I knew something was wrong. Peggy thought. I knew it.
"Agent Carter, should we retreat?" Her pilot's voice over the radio was brisk and steady.
"No. We're going to spring the trap. We have to assume the Captain's been...compromised." God, it hurt to say that. "Our mission remains the same. We have to destroy the facility."
"Got it." The pilot was radioing the other planes, when a blast of gunfire tore through the night right next to them. They dove and whirled away like a leaf in maelstrom, and when they came around there was a German fighter coming right at them.
No time to turn. Peggy thought, eerily calm. We're going to get shot down.
Then, as if struck by an unseen fist, the fighter spun sideways, tumbled uncontrollably, and hit the side of a mountain in a ball of flame.
"Shit!" Peggy shouted, as her pilot cursed in Russian. "Did we do that?"
"No!"
"Then what the hell just happened?"
Peggy craned her neck, saw another Messerschmitt trying to get Jones' plane in its sights - then its wings tore off. Another fireball bloomed from the valley floor.
"What on earth?"
Before they could turn the corner, Margot stopped Stevie with a small hand on her arm.
"Captain, wait," she said.
"Soldiers?" Stevie whispered.
The girl nodded. Raisa and Yana had flattened themselves against the wall.
"The timing will be very tight. I need you to trust me, Captain."
"Alright," Stevie said. "Give me the plan."
Margot nodded. "Erik has made his presence known by now, and the Doctor is responding. In twenty seconds, you, Lieutenant Gesheva and myself will run for the radio room. It's that door, right there."
She pointed at a new door in set into the old stone wall, soundproofed and tightly sealed.
"It isn't locked. We should get in just ahead of the squad. Yana will need to stay here and take care of them. Will you tell her, Lieutenant?"
Raisa gave a curt nod, and began whispering to the Russian girl. Margot continued.
"We have to be in the room with the door shut before she begins. Yana's...ability...can easily destroy all the equipment inside."
"Got it," said Stevie. "Where are we in the countdown?"
"Five seconds. Four. Three. Two. Now!"
Stevie lead the sprint up the hallway, shield in front of her. When they were three steps from the door, a half-dozen soldiers came around the bend ahead of her. She kicked the door open.
"In! In!" She shouted as bullets pinged off her shield.
Raisa was the last one in, giving Yana a quick pat on the arm before closing the door. A moment later, Yana's scream made the door shake in its frame.
"Well," Stevie said. "Sounds like she has everything under control out there."
"Captain…" Raisa said in a strangled voice.
Stevie turned. The Russian Lieutenant and Margot were backed against the wall, hands raised. At the other side of the room, in front of the radio equipment - the blond boy. Stefan.
"Stop where you are!" He said. "Don't come any closer!"
His hands were glowing with a nimbus of blue-white flame. Behind Stefan, a bank of windows overlooked the airfield. Something there was burning, sending up great gouts of smoke.
"All right, Stefan," Stevie said, trying to keep her voice calm. "We won't."
As Stevie watched, a plane fell from the sky, hitting the airfield in a ball of fire. A German plane. Stefan twitched at the sound, and Stevie took one cautious step forward.
"Back!"
"We aren't here to hurt you."
The boy laughed - a harsh, humorless bark. "The Doctor said you'd say that. He sent me to take care of you."
Amidst the fear, a burst of pride on the boy's face.
Oh, you poor kid. Stevie thought. That Doctor had him all tangled up inside.
"Stefan," She said. "You saw that plane go down. The Night Witches are coming to destroy this facility. If you don't let me use the radio to signal them...well...all of us will die."
One step closer.
"Don't!"
The corona of flame around the boy's hands flared up, making the air in the room ripple with heat. The situation could get very bad, very fast. Stefan was powerful, driven, but he wasn't disciplined. He was afraid. Unsure.
"If you come any closer," Stefan said. "I'll kill them."
The boy glared at Margot, who stared back impassively. "I'll start with you, gypsy bitch. The Doctor trusted you."
Stevie's skin felt dry and tight, like the beginning of a bad sunburn. She had to keep the boy's focus on her and away from the others.
"Stefan, I'm not here to fight," Stevie set her shield down beside her and raised her hands. "I don't even have a gun."
She took a step closer to him. Another. It wasn't a particularly large room.
"I...I'm warning you…" Stefan was trembling now.
"I'm just going to signal the bombers," Stevie said. "After that, you can do whatever you want. Just let me call my people out there. Let me tell them to stand down."
She reached past Stefan smoothly and calmly, like she had all the time in the world, and turned the radio on.
"Peggy? Peggy, you out there? This is the Captain, over."
A burst of static, and then a familiar voice. "Captain! You don't know how good it is to hear your voice. How are things on your end?"
"Same to you, Agent," Stevie replied. "And things here are just peachy. You?"
"We had help from an unexpected quarter."
"A mutual friend. Can't wait to introduce you."
"Then we'll be down in a jiff."
"There are still some soldiers around the place, so be careful."
"Understood. See you soon, Cap."
Stevie signed off, with a brief sigh of relief.
"There," she said. "Now that we aren't at risk of getting blown to kingdom come, let's talk."
"The Doctor sent me," Stefan repeated, but Stevie could tell that even the remnants of his desperate courage were deserting him. The aura of flame around him was guttering out to nothing. "I'm going to take you to him…"
"And where is he, Stefan?" Stevie asked gently. "He's running, isn't he?" The boy avoided her eyes, which was it's own answer. "How were you supposed to get out once you'd disposed of me, before the bombers took the whole building down around you?"
"It isn't...he…" The boy's voice faltered.
"Did the Doctor take any of you with him? Any of the children?"
He shook his head.
"You're a smart boy," Stevie said, bending down to look Stefan in the eyes. "I think you can guess why not." He shook his head mutely. Stevie continued. "He hoped the bombers would destroy everything. If no evidence survived, we couldn't try him as a war criminal."
"No, no."
But Stefan's face was crumpling in on itself. He began to cry, silently, and Stevie put her arm around his shoulder.
"He said...he said I was the son he never had," the boy sobbed. "He said he'd be proud of me."
"I know." She said, patting the boy's back. "I know. It's going to be ok."
Raisa breathed out a long sigh, as if she'd been holding her breath for the entire conversation. Margot nodded and smiled as if she'd expected this outcome all along.
Bucky picked his way down the slope, gun in his right hand, Erik slung over his left shoulder like a rolled-up carpet. Despite his angular height, the boy only weighed about as much as a large cat.
On the mountainside overlooking the airfield, Erik's face had been a twisted snarl, his body rigid with effort. His hands moved in choppy, vicious gestures - breaking, ripping, twisting. And the planes had fallen burning from the sky. Then the boy had collapsed, Bucky barely catching him before he could tumble down the slope.
Hydra wanted supersoldiers - hell, they had tried to make him into one. But this was real power.
We can't let Hydra have these kids. Bucky thought. But...should we get them either?
He was approaching the castle wall, wondering where he could stash the kid so he could get back to the fight, when he saw three figures emerge from the postern gate. Two Hydra guards and a man wearing glasses. Doctor Ritter.
Shit!
Bucky ducked into the shadow of the flanking tower. He could hear the Doctor giving orders, the content obscured by distance. But he remembered that voice.
He had woken up in the dark, and for a terrible moment he imagined that he was still in the chair, in Kreichsberg, that he had never left it, that the rescue and everything after had been a wishful dream. He had shouted until his throat was raw, flung himself uselessly at the walls, like a trapped animal. And then Doctor Ritter had opened the trapdoor.
"Ah, Sergeant Barnes." His voice was pleasant and agreeable. "You look well, although I must confess, I'm surprised to see you conscious so soon. Your Captain will be so glad to see you."
"Where is she?"
"On her way. You'll see her soon."
"If you've hurt her…"
But the Doctor had closed the door over him.
Bucky laid Erik carefully on the snowy ground and crept around the curve of the tower, back pressed against the cold stone, silent as a gentle breeze. He closed his eyes and listened to the footsteps growing closer. One breath. Two. He stepped out from behind the wall and shot the guards, one after the other, before they could draw their own guns. Doctor Ritter dropped his briefcase and pulled his own Luger, pointing it at Bucky's head.
"Your guns are scrap and your planes are smeared over ten different mountains," Bucky said. "Drop it, asshole."
The Doctor tilted his head to one side, looking at Bucky as if he were trying to read the other man's thoughts through his face. It didn't take Bucky much effort to let his hate burn in his eyes. Doctor Ritter frowned briefly, then, just as suddenly, smiled and tossed the pistol lightly aside. He held up his hands in surrender.
"Margot told me about you, Sergeant."
That fucking voice. So calm and cool. I know everything about you, the voice said. I'm always a step ahead.
"You are the Captain's man," the Doctor continued. "Her truest girlhood friend. A protector. You may not believe in her ideals, but you would never disappoint her."
The truth of the situation flashed into Bucky's mind. The briefcase, the guards. Ritter would have let the facility be bombed, the children killed - but he would have taken his notes and fled to the nearest friendly megalomaniac. And gotten away with every awful thing he'd done.
"And now you will turn me over to her for justice?" Ritter asked, a confident little smirk on his face.
"Guess again," said Bucky, and shot him right between the eyes.
The X-Men were my favorite childhood supergroup - and I wanted to give them a tip of the hat in this story. Hope you enjoyed it! As always, let me know what you thought. Next up - the aftermath of many things.