⏳ 2016   

The quinjet tailgate lowered, and a gale of brisk, cold snow blew inside. The wind howled, ushering in the coldness from the outside.

I clenched my jaw as I gazed out into the white expanse. I looked into the snowy distance at the building rising from the ridge. The HYDRA base. That was where we were going. That was where that shrink was, prepping living weapons of mass destruction to unleash on the world.

Bucky stepped up next to me, checking the cache of his weapon before slapping it loaded. I sent him a sideward glance, him looking out into the frosty plains with distant eyes, an inscrutable yet fixed expression etched onto his face.

I fiddled with my gloves. "You remember that time we had to ride back from Rockaway Beach in the back of that freezer truck?"

Bucky looked to me with a remembering squint. A side smile beamed onto his face. "Was that the time we used our train money to buy hot dogs?"

"You blew three bucks trying to win that stuffed bear for a redhead," I recounted with a smirk.

"What was her name, again?"

"Dolores. You called her Dot."

Bucky shook his head in disbelief. "She's gotta be a hundred years old right now."

I clapped Bucky on the shoulder. "So are we, pal."

Brothers. He was my brother. He was everything to me. I'd given up so much for him. I'd lost friends for him. I...I'd given up Andi for him. And I would do it all again. I would do anything for him. I would die for him. Because he was my brother. We'd done everything together. We'd fought wars together. We'd survived the bonds and chains of time, now standing before destiny as old men with young bodies. Old souls and hearts.

And I was going to save him. I was going to rescue him. I was going to reverse what HYDRA had done to him. I was going to get the old Bucky back. My brother back. 

I knew Andi was coming. She always did in the end. I didn't know if she was going to help me or go against me. But whatever happened in the end, I was going to save Bucky. I just hoped that I didn't have to hurt her in the end, as much as I already had.

The snow crunched under our boots as we walked across the wintery plains. There was nothing but white as far as the eye could see. A rocky outcrop stood out in the ridge like a sore thumb, barely covered by the many layers of snow, just sprinkled on over the black. A snowplow machine was parked by the entrance of the base. The shrink was here. He'd beaten us.

"He can't have been here more than a few hours," I said.

"Long enough to wake them up," Bucky added.

We needed to stop him. And we needed to do it now. It was hard enough to leash one Winter Soldier. To try and snuff out more than one was going to be near impossible. The world would fall. And I wasn't about to let that happen.

The door was wide open. We walked into the darkness of the base, barely enough of the flickering industrial lighting to guide the way to the elevator. We rode it down into the deep belly of the base, far underground that the biting chill of the snow combined with the dark, stark coldness of being far below it.

The elevator rumbled to a stop and the doors slid open, revealing a corridor lit up by a line of bulbs, washing out the green and beige painted walls. I nodded at Bucky and he raised his weapon as I lifted the cage. He went first. I followed, shield raised. We hugged the wall, staying close to it as we slowly advanced into the hallway. We left no nook or cranny unchecked before I followed him up the steps leading to the treasure room of answers.

And then a bang shook us both, and we whipped about. I crouched before Bucky, shield up, and he perched his gun over me. We waited. Metal moaned, groaning under pressure.

"You ready?" I grumbled.

"Yeah."

A light peered from the darkness. Two more joined; eye lights. And I lowered my shield slightly as metal fingers crept through the gap between the elevator doors. Iron Man pushed them apart. He stepped through and they slammed behind him.

I held a hand back, and Bucky remained where he stood, his gun still trained on Stark. Stark advanced and so did I, his helmet folding back to reveal his bruised face. I kept my shield aloft. I didn't trust him. Not after everything that happened, I couldn't. That bridge had been burned the day he signed. There was only water now separating the two parallel cliffs we stood on. On separate sides.

"You seem a little defensive," he said nonchalantly.

I tightened my hold on the grips behind the shield. "It's been a long day."

Stark looked up to Bucky, who still had his gun firmly aimed at him. "At ease, Soldier. I'm not currently after you."

"Then why are you here?" I asked calmly.

Stark shrugged as he stepped closer to me, though far enough not for it to be a trusting space. "Could be your story's not so crazy."

I tipped my head curiously. An interesting statement considering our stance. After everything that had happened, what had happened on his end for him to come to that conclusion? From where I was standing, he didn't particularly seem to be seeing the light of the situation. That what had happened to Bucky wasn't his fault. But it did look like he'd found something out. Something important enough for him to wear an expression that was unlike the one he wore at the airport.

"Maybe," I said.

Stark circled me, watching me closely. I did the same. "Ross has no idea I'm here. I'd like to keep it that way." He leaned against the nearby concrete pillar. "Otherwise, I gotta arrest myself."

"Well, that sounds like a lot of paperwork," my tone completely devoid of the humor the remark was supposed to possess. And Tony scoffed at that with that all Stark smirk. I lowered my shield, and lowered my guard. "It's good to see you, Tony."

"You too, Cap."

He'd seen the light. He had to have. I could see it in his eyes. He'd figured it out. He'd finally figured it out that Bucky had been framed. Took him long enough.

I swallowed, clenching my jaw before asking the question that burned within me. "Andi?"

"She's fine," Tony replied. "Pissed as all Hell last time I saw her. But fine." He looked up to Bucky and sighed heavily. "Hey, Manchurian Candidate, you're killing me. There's a truce here."

I raised a steadying hand to him, and Bucky lowered his weapon, though hesitantly. I didn't blame him. But he had to trust me on this. Though trust was a fragile thing between Tony and I, a truce was as good as it was going to get right now.

We advanced together into the hallways, moving slowly and warily, Tony with a repulsor hand elevated, Bucky which his gun up, and my shield held aloft. We couldn't take any chances. The shrink hardly looked dangerous, but he was. He was armed with the words that had the power to control Bucky. Bucky was his weapon. And that made him dangerous.

"I got heat signatures," Tony announced.

"How many?" I asked.

He raised his metal hand higher. "Uh, one." He looked around as we turned into a new corridor. "No. Two."

I frowned. "Two?"

"Yeah," Tony replied after another pause.

How were there two heat signatures? There should only be one: the shrink's. Unless he'd already started awakening the Super Soldiers.

The corridor ended, and we passed into a cavernous room with towering walls opening up to the sky. The pods lit up as we crossed the threshold, six in total, one empty, no doubt that being Bucky's. Yellow light illuminated them, and frosty air plumed around them.

I went in first, looking around the room in mortification. It was a torture palace. This was where these soldiers grew up; became what they were. What Bucky was. A chair sat in the centre of the room. That must've been the machine used to wipe the minds of these soldiers after every mission, erasing links and unfinished business.

And I stopped when I saw her, her flaming her braided down her back, the red suit replacing the black, cementing a statement.

She turned. She looked at me with green eyes so cold it froze me inside out. She watched me like a predator would prey, like a cat watching a mouse struggle. Her gaze was stone cold enough to strike a warning chord in me. Nothing was forgotten, nothing was forgiven. What we were had frayed and crumbled away. What had happened between us stained us. What once was couldn't be repaired.

And that saddened me. It saddened me that I had to choose between my best friend—my brother—and the woman I loved with all my heart. It broke me that I had to choose my brother over my love. And it shattered me that I lost her because of it all.

The voice echoing around the cavern halted me in my tracks. "If it's any comfort, they died in their sleep."

The shrink. Zemo, Stark had called him. Of course. Not Baron Zemo. They didn't sound the same. They had the same accent. That Zemo and this one were related. How wasn't important.

Andi remained planted in her place, watching us with eagle-like, predatory eyes as we circled her, exploring and investigating the contents of the room. The soldiers had bullet holes, each to the centre of the forehead, killing them dead. They wouldn't have stood a chance in their comatose states.

"Did you really think I wanted more of you?" Zemo mused. "I'm grateful to them, though. They brought you here."

A light flicked on between the cells on the other side of a chamber's steel door, Zemo peering through a window. I hurled my shield at the door as soon as I saw his smug face, and Andi fired a bolt of gold energy simultaneously. The shield boomeranged back and I caught it, and the door absorbed Andi's blast. She blinked, just as surprised as I was that even her power couldn't defeat the door.

"Please, Captain," Zemo said. "The Soviets built this chamber to withstand the launch blast of UR-100 rockets."

All four of us walked around the torture chair towards the chamber, warily moving as if walking through a mind field.

"I'm betting I could beat that," Tony called.

"Oh, I'm sure you could, Mr. Stark. Given time," Zemo replied. "Though, if the Time Walker couldn't get through, I'd be curious to see how you would with such time restraints. No pun intended. But then you'd never know why you came."

"You killed innocent people in Vienna just to bring us here?" I growled, moving to the door, staring the man down through the glass.

"I've thought about nothing else for over a year. I studied you. I followed you. But now that you're standing here, I just realised...there's a bit of green in the blue of your eyes. How nice to find a flaw."

I recognised his accent. How I hadn't managed to decipher the Baron's to be of the same origin was confusing and concerning. It had never occurred to me before. It hadn't occurred to me that this kind of revenge spanned a year in the making. That this had all started with us.

"You're Sokovian," I said. "Is that what this is about?"

Zemo's eyes flicked from one of mine to the other before replying calmly. "Sokovia was a failed state long before you blew it to hell." He shook his head. "No. I'm here because I made a promise."

I could see it in his eyes. It was a look I'd seen many times before. I'd seen it in her eyes, she who stood close to me watching this standoff carefully. "You lost someone."

His eyes filled with angry tears as he clenched his jaw. "I lost everyone." I raised my chin at his next words. "And so will you."

I stepped back when he looked away to flick a button on a panel. The screen next to me flickered to life, detailing a date in Russian. December 16, 1991. 

I had a bad feeling about this. I could feel it in the air so tense it was suffocating. All attention moved to that screen, and I knew we were going to see something that would set fire to this tension.

"An empire toppled by its enemies can rise again," Zemo whispered. "But one which crumbles from within?" I turned to him, and he looked at me ominously. "That's dead. Forever."

Tony stepped next to me to the screen, keeping his eyes trained on me for the longest time before looking at the screen. I noticed Andi clench her fists in anticipation. She knew. She knew what was going on, what was going to appear on that screen. She knew because she recognised the date; recognised the date as I had. I could see it in her fixed expression, one that was trying to be inscrutable but failed. She knew a fight was coming. And she was powering up. It worried me. She was here for a reason; here for someone. If a fight was coming—and she and I both knew there was—I didn't know which side she would be on.

Tony frowned. "I know that road." He looked up at Zemo. "What is this?" he called.

The reel of a car ploughing into a tree played, totalling the hood and front. Tony stepped closer, squinting at the screen. A motorcycle pulled about. I glanced at Tony with wary eyes. They flicked to Bucky, who looked on with a deep frown. A frown ready for a fight. Andi wore the same one. They were both ready. Ready for what was going to happen. Ready for the truth to come out.

Tony turned to Bucky as the rider of the bike got off and advanced on Howard Stark who lay on the ground. Bucky's expression was one of torment. Haunted, but unshaken from it's frown.

The rider punched Howard Stark; again and again until he fell. Tony watched on, his expression fracturing from the calm irritation to welling eyes and building rage as the rider dragged Howard Stark back to the car and propped him back into the driver's seat. He walked around to the passenger side, and dealt with Maria Stark.

The tension in the air reached a brutal peak as the reel showed James Buchanan Barnes, as clear as day, shoot out the security camera recording everything.

I looked at Tony with sorrowful eyes, an expression of pity and one that was nothing but apologetic. Because I was sorry. I truly was. Bucky didn't know what he was doing that night. He couldn't have. But he'd done it. He'd killed Tony's parents. He'd done it brutally and unfeelingly.

I was hopeless at this point. The look on my face was clear of that. There was no bridges here. Just watery rapids. There was no coming back from this. No going back.

A fight was coming.

❈Author's Note: Hey, there! I am so, so sorry for the very late upload of this chapter. I've been trying to juggle all my other work as well as this book. Thank you for being patient. I'll try to be more on the ball with the last few chapters.

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