Chapter 31 - The Soldier

The Soldier woke up on the floor of the panopticon, cheek against the cold glass. He blinked for a moment, not quite comprehending what he saw, as the lights of the city below shrank smaller and smaller. It's going up, he thought muzzily, staring down at wispy streams of cloud. Then everything came back to him. The woman. The mission.

He lunged to his feet with a snarl, pain stabbing through his right shoulder, which the Captain had dislocated. She wasn't there, nowhere to be seen. Had she escaped with the target? Had he failed? At the thought, the soldier felt shame and fear bordering on physical pain. He could not fail. He never failed. He stumbled to the scaffolding and used its metal framework to force his shoulder back into its socket, then hauled himself up as fast as he could with one arm still grinding painfully. Pain was nothing. The mission was everything. Inside, a voice was screaming for him to stop. The Captain's words played in his memory.

Your name is James Buchanan Barnes…We have a daughter…Mary, for your mother…

No!

He pulled himself onto the catwalk and sprinted along it, through the narrow corridors of the craft, and out through the upper hatch. The wind was startlingly strong out on the hull, and the Soldier could feel how thin the air was. The craft was still rising, and rapidly.

And there was the Captain, across the length of the hull, facing away from him, watching a SHIELD quinjet as it lifted off. The target wasn't with her. She must be on the jet. She was gone. He had failed.

The Captain turned. The Soldier saw her eyes widen in surprise, and he shot her.

He heard the shot before he even realized he'd pulled the trigger. He hadn't even felt the gun in his hand.

He shot her, and she flinched. The Soldier felt sick with horror. Blood was spreading over the Captain's uniform in a dark stain. He couldn't hear her over the wind, but he could read her lips.

"Bucky," she said.

And suddenly, he remembered her saying it - hundreds of times, thousands of times, while laughing, in exasperation, with tears in her eyes, shouting. Whispering.

She took a step toward him, and stumbled, and the wind took her.

"No!"

Again, the Soldier's body leapt into action without his mind's intervention. He flung the gun to the side, sprinted to the edge of the hull, and jumped.

It took him thirteen seconds to hit the river, about three long, slow breaths. Before striking the water, he straightened his body into a dive that took him deep below the surface. He had lost sight of the Captain as he fell, the intense rush of air past his eyes had made it impossible to see anything in detail. The sun was low on the horizon, and the water was murky. The Soldier floated under water, holding his breath, letting his eyes adjust.

Finally, he saw her. She was facing upwards, sinking gently toward the riverbottom, bubbles rising from her mouth in a thin glinting stream. The Soldier swam to her in a few powerful strokes, and hauled her up behind him, lungs burning. He pushed the discomfort aside. He could function a long while without air.

Soon enough, he broke the surface, gasping, and pulled the Captain up beside him, holding her beside him as he swam for the bank. He couldn't tell yet if she was breathing or not. After a few minutes swimming diagonally to the current, he was able to drag her out onto the muddy riverbank.

The Captain lay on her back, face deathly pale in the waning winter light. He stared at that face, waiting for some motion, some sign of life. Suddenly, he remembered that face, looking up at him, blue eyes blinking myopically behind thick spectacles. Smaller, thinner, younger - but still the same face. More memories rose up, like pearls on a string, each one isolated, without context. Her laughing, face lit up by a movie screen. Feverish, lying on a sofa, his hand against her forehead. Weeping. Flushed with love. Screaming, and shrinking smaller and smaller as he fell away from her.

She had known him. Trusted him. Loved him. He had no doubt.

If Pierce and Hydra told him to kill her, they were wrong.

And that meant that everything was wrong.

The Captain gasped and coughed, and the Soldier startled, poised to run. Her eyes were still shut, but she started breathing again. He felt a relief so powerful that tears stung behind his eyes, which was absurd. Who'd ever heard of a gun crying?

She's alive. She's alive.

He wasn't sure how long he knelt on the shore, watching her breathe, before he heard the sound above him. Repulsor flight. The Iron Man was in the field. This location was no longer safe - for him. Stark was the Captain's ally. He would find her and care for her. She no longer needed his dubious help. The Soldier came to his feet and melted into the trees of the riverbank.

The sun sank rapidly, bringing a chill which the Soldier didn't feel. Streetlights came on as he cut through alleys behind trendy bars and gentrified apartments, heading for the nearest safehouse. There were signs of the disaster that had struck the city. A flipped car burned in the middle of the road, and a man sat on the curb, looking stunned, blood covering one side of his face. Sirens echoed from all directions, calling to each other like strange birds. On one street, all the windows had burst outward. Shards of glass glittered under the streetlights, crunched under his boots as he walked. The Soldier considered what he knew.

His handlers were wrong. And they had always been wrong.

Everything he had been told - that he was a hero, that his work was necessary, that all the deaths he'd caused were for the greater good - was all a lie.

Some of the faces of those kills flashed in his mind. Screams. Tears. Pleas for mercy. The Soldier felt his horror harden into a cold, cold anger.

The entrance to the safehouse was in an alley, a nondescript steel door next to a dumpster. On the other side of the alley, an old man sat with his back against the wall, dirty and tired, barely seeming to register the Soldier's metal arm.

The Soldier gave the coded knock, wondering if anyone was there to answer. If not, he thought he could probably force the door, if he had enough time.

Someone answered - a young man who seemed to have been interrupted on his day off, wearing a comfortable sweater and khakis.

"Oh, God," he breathed, staring at the Soldier for a few moments before pulling him inside. The Soldier didn't recognize him. He held a phone in one hand, and went back to talking as soon as he pulled the door shut behind them.

It looked like the safehouse used to be a stockroom. No windows. Walls of unpainted cinderblock. A bathroom and sink hastily added. Metal shelving along the walls, holding clothing, weapons, medical supplies, food, cash. Everything he needed.

"I said, the Soldier is here," the young man was saying. "I don't know, just standing there like some kind of robot. I'm freaking out man. My name and photo are on the fucking internet, I…"

He stopped talking as he noticed the Soldier had moved closer to him. "The fuck do you…"

The Soldier snapped the man's neck with one quick twist, catching the phone as it dropped from his nerveless fingers. He let the man himself fall with a boneless thump, still looking surprised. On the other end of the line, a voice squawked. The Soldier lifted the phone to his ear.

"Ryan? Ryan?" A woman's voice said, panic in her tone.

"Ryan can't come to the phone right now," The Soldier said, in perfect, unaccented English. "Tell the other Hydra bastards I'm coming for them. Catch me if you can, motherfuckers."

Then he crushed the phone in his metal hand. That had been stupid. The smart thing to do would have been to just disappear like the ghost he was. But it had felt so, so, good.

He made himself a duffel with a little bit of everything and a lot of cash, and covered his arm with a nondescript jacket. On the way out, he left the door open, giving a nod to the man sitting against the wall. He sure as hell wasn't to mention the body, and at last the clothes, food and cash could help somebody. He walked into the city, not knowing where he'd go first. In his mind were the locations of dozens of safehouses. He could hit them one by one, in any order he wished. He smiled. Freedom was going to be a beautiful, beautiful thing.

And, I'm back. Sorry - had to take a break and write a Black Adam fanfic because I have such a hard time ending stories, lol.

Anyway, for those of you still hanging on, and those of you just joining - thanks for reading.