Dear Diary,

So, we're in Berlin. That's cool, you know.

Last time I was here... yikes, that had to have been the attack on New York 4 years ago, huh?

—————

They put Bucky in a cage with four armed men in a separate vehicle. God, he deserves better.

As for the rest of us, we were in a vehicle made for prisoners all night, seeing as I was responsible for starting the mission to get Bucky later in the day yesterday. It was now early morning in Germany and neither me, Sam nor T'Challa had said a word yet.

"So," Sam began, addressing the King, seated behind me. "You like cats?"

"Sam," I replied, leaning my head to the side.

"What? Dude shows up dressed like a cat, you don't wanna know more?" he came back defensively and genuinely confused. But, seriously? You don't simply ask a guy who was just in a black themed cat looking costume if he likes cats... it's kinda rude, isn't it?

"Your suit," I continued instead. "It's vibranium?"

He waited. "The Black Panther has been the protector of Wakanda for generations," he explained. "A mantle, passed from warrior to warrior. And now, because your friend murdered my father, I also wear the mantle of king... So, I ask you, as both warrior and king, how long do you think you can keep your friend safe from me?"

To that, I said nothing. I just waited for us to arrive wherever the Hell we were going. I didn't need to explain myself to him, but Hell, it really does make me so infuriated I could scream.

When we were finally parked and let out of the car, the first thing I looked for was him- and there he was. He was locked down on a chair and kept in a clear cage. He wasn't fighting, but I could see the misery written on his face.

To my left stood Sharon and her boss, I guess. I approached them with Sam at my tail.

"What's gonna happen to him?" I demanded to know.

"Same thing that ought to happen to you," the man replied slyly. "Psychological evaluation and extradition."

"This is Everett Ross, Deputy Task Force Commander," Sharon introduced him after he very rudely neglected to do so himself.

"What about a lawyer?" I asked.

"Lawyer," he chuckled. "That's funny. See their weapons are placed in lock up," he told the guards behind him. "We'll write you a receipt."

It's ok. I'm more than a shield, despite what most people think.

"I better not look out the window and see anybody flying around in that," Sam threatened, walking away to follow Everett as he led us somewhere else.

As I followed him, I looked back and made eye contact with Bucky. He didn't seem as scared as I expected him to, no. That look on his face certainly wasn't fear. It was more like disappointment or sorrow.

"You'll be provided with an office instead of a cell," he said. "Now, do me a favor, stay in it."

"I don't intend on going anywhere," T'Challa told him.

Natasha walked towards us. "For the record, this is what making things worse looks like."

"He's alive," I answered, meaning it wholeheartedly.

We all walked into a large room with a lot of people in it, including Tony. He was talking to someone. "No, Romania was not Accords-sanctioned," he was on the phone. "Colonel Rhodes is supervising cleanup."

"Try not to break anything while we fix this," Natasha said as she walked away from us.

"Consequences?" Tony went on. "You bet there'll be consequences... obviously you can quote me on that because I just said it. Anything else?... Thank you sir." He hung up and approached Sam and I.

"Consequences?" I challenged him.

"Secretary Ross wants you both prosecuted. Had to give him something," he replied, beginning to walk away.

"I'm not getting that shield back, am I?" I asked out into the open.

"Technically, it's the government's property," Natasha joined in. Like Hell it is, Howard gave it to me. "Wings, too."

"That's cold," Sam mumbled.

"Warmer than jail," Tony answered him.

We then headed towards some kind of tech panel to see what they were doing with Bucky. I needed to know that he would be okay.

"Hey, wanna see something cool?" Tony approached me like he was a literal 5-year-old. "I pulled something from Dad's archives," he held up a little box. "Felt timely... FDR signed the Lend-Lease bill with these in 1941." He placed it, now open, before me on the table before which I was seated. "Provided support to the Allies when they needed it most."

"Some would say it brought our country closer to war," I replied.

"See, if not for these, you wouldn't be here," he answered quickly. "I'm trying to... what do you call it? That's a, uh, an olive branch... is that what you call it?"

"Is Pepper here?" I ignored him. "I didn't see her."

"We're... kinda, well, not kinda bu-"

"Pregnant?" I jumped in.

"No - definitely not - we're taking a break," he finally spit out. "It's nobody's fault."

"I'm so sorry, Tony. I didn't know," I offered my condolences. 

"A few years ago I almost lost her, so I trashed all my suits," he began. "Then, we had to mop up HYDRA and then Ultron- my fault. And then, and then, and then... I never stopped. Because the truth is, I don't wanna stop. I don't wanna lose her. I thought maybe the Accords could split the difference." He stood. "In her defense, I'm a handful... Yet, Dad was a pain in the ass, but he and Mom always made it work."

"You know, I'm glad Howard got married," I finally answered. "I only knew him when he was young and single."

"Oh, really?" he turned around sarcastically. "You two knew each other? He never mentioned that. Maybe only a thousand times." He paused. Hell, maybe those few times I thought Howard was doing a little more than just looking at me, I was right about him, well... questioning his liking only women. "God, I hated you," Tony continued.

"I don't mean to make things difficult," I told him.

"I know, because you're a very polite person."

"If I see a situation pointed south... I can't ignore it," I admitted, thinking back to all those times in the alleyways of Brooklyn. "Sometimes I wish I could."

"No, you don't."

I looked down for a second. "No... I don't. Sometimes..."

"Sometimes I wanna punch you in your perfect teeth," he gritted almost angrily. "But, I don't wanna see you gone. We need you, Cap. So far, nothing's happened that can't be undone if you sign. We can make the last 24 hours legit. Barnes gets transferred to an American psych-center instead of a Wakandan prison."

I picked up one of the FDR pens and stood up, looking at it and thinking. "I'm not saying it's impossible, but there would have to be safeguards."

"Sure," Tony replied with a smile on his face. "Once we put out the PR fire, those documents can be amended. I'd file a motion to have you and Wanda reinstated-"

"Wanda? What about Wanda?" I questioned.

"She's fine. She's confined to the compound, currently," he relayed. "Vision's keeping her company."

"Oh, God, Tony!" I grunted. "Every time- Every time I think you see things the right way-"

"It's 108-acres with a lap pool. It's got a screening room. There's worse ways to protect people," he defends his decision.

"Protection? Is that how you see this? This is protection?" I dared. "It's interment, Tony."

"She's not a U.S. Citizen," he replied.

"Oh, Tony, come on-"

"And they don't grant visas to weapons of mass destruction," he finished.

"She's a kid," I pointed out.

"Gimme a break!" he yelled. "I'm doing what has to be done. To stave off something worse."

"You keep telling yourself that." I waited, then, I held up the pen and placed it back not he table. "I hate to break up the set."

I walked away and made my way to the televisions so I could see the questionings take place with Bucky- so I could be sure they were treating him right... as well as so I could hear his voice again.

"Hello, Mr. Barnes," the man interviewing him, whose name I later learned to be Helmut Zemo, started. "I've been sent by the United Nations to evaluate you. Do you mind if I sit?"

I watched his every move on that damn monitor. He stood at the desk that was before him, acting all nice. Who the Hell did he think he was kidding? Nothing about this should be permissible!

After a second of Bucky not having said anything, Zemo pulled out the desk chair and sat.

"Your first name is James?" he began.

That was all I heard before walking into the private room that was supposed to be my and Sam's 'office'. There was a TV, but it wasn't on. I was hoping to see more of it, but I guess that was all I was gonna get. 

Sharon walked in. "The receipt for your gear," she handed Sam a paper behind me, but I never looked away from the empty screen.

"'Bird costume'? Come on," Sam commented, probably after having read that disgrace of a document he had been handed.

"I didn't write it," She defended herself.

After a second, the screen turned on. She must have pressed something or pulled some strings to allow for that.

"I am not here to judge you," the man told Bucky. I looked back at her and she smiled. Thank God there are still good people in this world. "I just want to ask you a few questions... do you know where you are, James?" he waited a moment. "I can't help you if you don't talk to me, James."

"My name is Bucky," he corrected Zemo. Those words rung in my ears- I felt almost proud. I had given him that nickname and the fact that he'd remembered it makes me feel so... I can't even begin to explain it.

I started looking through some of the other files Sharon had brought in with her, including the supposed image of Bucky that had been taken at the crime scene.

"Why would the Task Force release this photo to begin with?" I questioned her.

"Get the word out, involve as many eyes as we can?" she assumed.

"Right," I nodded sarcastically. "It's a good way to flush a guy out of hiding. Set off a bomb, get your picture taken. Get seven billion people looking for the Winter Soldier."

"You're saying someone framed him to find him?" she gathered.

"Steve," Sam came in. "We looked for the guy for two years and found nothing."

"We didn't bomb the UN," I pointed out. "That turns a lot of heads."

"Yea, but that doesn't guarantee that whoever framed him would get him- It guarantees that we would," she interjected.

She stopped. I waited. We both looked at the TV. "Yeah," I agreed, zoning in on Zemo. It had to be him. The only question now is, what the Hell does he want? I continued listening.

"Tell me, Bucky," Zemo went on. "You've seen a great deal, haven't you?"

"I don't wanna talk about it," he replied groggily.

"You fear that, if you open your mouth, the horrors might never stop... Don't worry. We only have to talk about one," he said calmly.

Suddenly, the lights went out. Everything went black. The TVs turned off. We'd lost power and that means- whatever was underway and whatever Zemo was planning is happening right now.

I turned at looked at Sharon. She had to be more than an Agent now, she had to be my friend. I was hoping she might give me something - anything - on this.

"Sub-level five, East Wing," was all she said. That was his location.

Sam and I ran out of the room and I was scared to Hell that he was gone for good this time because I'm not ready to lose him again. Not like this. But that's what now makes me strong. Courage is not the absence of fear but, rather, the judgement that something is more important than that fear. And, right now? This horror that I feel is fueling me to do whatever it takes.

We made it there through all the dark and flashing red lights but were only met with hallways upon rooms upon rooms of knocked out people and guards.

"Help me," I heard a man mumble a ways back. It was Zemo. "Help," he cried from the floor. I went to him.

"Get up," I ordered, approaching him and bringing him to his feet. I pushed his body to the wall. "Who are you? What do you want?"

He hesitated. "To see an empire fall."

I heard concrete behind me break. I looked and saw that Sam had entered and Bucky was now... attacking him?

He threw Sam across the room, so I had to assume him hostile. I punched him in the face, but he kept at me; kicking me to the floor and pushing me into the elevator doors, nearly punching a hole straight through them.

That is, until he pushed me, myself, through them and I fell a few stories down on top of the elevator cart itself. So, I took off my jacket and started climbing.

Running through the main area, there wasn't a single person who wasn't running away in sight. I decided to think like him- what would he do? What was he habitually done in the past?

I took to the roof-access stairs and made my way up. If he wasn't there, at least I would be able to spot him from such a high vantage point.

Upon pushing the door open, I saw that he was there- though, he was inside the helicopter that had previously been there and he was starting it up and trying to fly away.

I ran at him and jumped up into the air to grab hold of it, seeing as he was already airborne. I started swinging myself and, eventually, regained contact with the ground. I was pulling the helicopter with all my might back to the surface. As we neared the edge, I started on my side and grabbed for anything I could reach- a bar, that would work!

And, so, I had the helicopter with Bucky in it at my right hand, and the base of the building at my left as I tried to pull the two back together.

Then, just as I was gaining on him and out of nothing, he spun the helicopter around and nearly hit me with it as he crashed it onto the landing ground sideways and destroyed it. He, then, proceeded to choke me and bring me down, into the water that was below us, with him and the broken helicopter.

I swam over to him, as he was unconscious, and pulled him from the water just as he had done with me. There was a mark on his head- he must have hit it on impact with the water.

I got us, and Sam, out of there.

We had brought him to a hiding area just out of that region, Sam and I. Sure, we were all fugitives and technically on the run from literally all 117 countries that signed the Accords, but to me, Bucky was undoubtedly worth every second of that torture and fear that I'm a dead man walking if someone were to find us.

"Hey, Cap," Sam yelled for me from across the way. I ran to him.

Bucky was awake.

When his eyes first flickered open, it was in that moment that I realized that I've survived so many fires having had to live without him all those years that I can no longer tell if I made it out and am alive or if I'm, quite simply, still burning.

It was that anticipation of not knowing if he remembered.

He looked around like he was confused on how he'd gotten there. He, then, noticed that his hand was stuck, quite literally, between a rock and a hard place- just as Sam and I placed it that way a little while ago.

He groaned in pain. "Steve-" he grumbled, starting to sit upright.

I couldn't fall into it too easily just yet, no. I had to be sure this was really real... that his kind, recognizable voice was truly that which I thought I knew. "Which Bucky am I talking to?" I confronted him.

He waited, looking down and away. And, suddenly, as if it all had just swarmed him, he looked up at me with his eyes full of light once again like I had always remembered them to be. He wasn't like this before, back in Romania. That was just his halfway point. And, this...?

"Your mom's name was Sarah," he told me with those blue irises never wavering from my own. Sarah, God, how she felt like forever ago. "You used to wear newspapers in your shoes," he chuckled, filling the air with something I thought I'd never feel again.

My eyes started to sting as a smile grew upon my face- the first genuine smile I'd forged since January, 1945. "Can't read that in a museum," I replied.

"Just like that, we're supposed to be cool?" Sam asked full of doubt.

We both ignored him, Bucky and I. We were in a world entirely our own now.

"What did I do?" Bucky questioned, a sorrowful look written across his face like he knew there was still a demon inside him.

"Enough," I told him.

He exhaled. "Oh, God, I knew this would happen," he lowered his head and shut his eyes. "Everything HYDRA put inside me is still there. All he had to do was say the goddamn words," he gritted with frustration.

"Who was he?" I returned.

"I don't know."

"People are dead," I relayed. "The bombing, the setup- the doctor did all that just to get 10 minutes with you. I need you to do better than 'I don't know'."

His eyebrows furrowed. "He wanted to know about Siberia," he answered, somewhat confused. "Where I was kept. He wanted to know exactly where."

"Why would he need to know that?" I went on. He waited.

"Because I'm not the only Winter Soldier."

"Who were they?" I wondered.

"Their most elite death squad," he informed me. "More kills than anyone in HYDRA history- And that was before the serum."

"They all turn out like you?" Sam jumped in.

"Worse."

"The doctor," I continued. "Could he control them?"

"Enough."

I could tell he really didn't wanna be talking abbot this- but there's no other way to get to the bottom of it all.

"Said he wanted to see an empire fall," I mentioned.

"With these guys, he could do it," Bucky explained. "They speak 30 languages, can hide in plain sight, infiltrate, assassinate, destabilize. They can take a whole country down in one night, you'd never see them coming."

Sam walked over to me. "This would have been a lot easier a week ago," he whispered.

"If we call Tony-"

"No, he won't believe us," Sam cut me off.

"Even if he did-"

"Who knows if the Accords would let him help," he finished my sentence.

"We're on our own," I surmised.

"Maybe not," he said. "I know a guy."

I motioned for him to get a move on it, so he left and went to the other end of our so called 'hiding place' to make a call on his burner phone. I watched him walk away and out of sight.

As soon as I could, I walked over to Bucky and kneeled in front of him.

"Buck," I started, taking his jaw into my hand and moving closer to his face. "I- I thought you wer-"

"Steve, I know, I..." he paused. "We can't talk about this now. As much as I want to, we just gotta get safe first."

I nodded and stood just in time for Sam to come back.

"I got him, he's on his way," He informed us. "And I kinda got us a car."

We got into the very, very small vehicle that almost definitely wasn't built to hold two super soldiers and made our way to meet Sharon.

"Where are we going," Bucky asked me shamelessly, just like he used to be with everything.

"To get my shield and his... bird costume."

"You wear a bird costume?" Bucky asked, laughing.

Sam looked at me like he wanted to kill me, but I just smiled and looked straight ahead at the road before me. "It's a wing-suit, damnit!"

"Yea, yea, sure it is," I replied.

"How are we even getting this stuff anyway?" Buck inquired.

"Sharon snuck it out of the headquarters for us," I answered.

Sam looked at me. "So, is she your girlfriend or what, man?"

I looked over at him telling him to shut the Hell up. "Wh-"

"Yea, Steve," Bucky added on almost angrily, placing his hand on my shoulder. I looked at him. "Is she?"

I looked back at Bucky again, but this time, instead of looking at me like it was funny, he looked like he wanted to kill me. Not kill me like, the Winter Soldier, kill me. More like, Steven Grant Rogers you'd best tell me the damn truth right now mister or I'll kick your ass, kill me- which, was way worse.

"Well, no... uh, she- she's not."

Finally, after the rest of the ride having been filled with utter silence, we arrived. She got out of her car and I, mine.

"I'm not sure you understand the concept of a getaway car," she joked.

"It's low profile," I made up, approaching her.

"Good, because this stuff tends to draw a crowd," she opened the trunk and, inside, was all of our stuff.

"I owe you again," I told her.

"Keeping a list," she returned, looking into my car. "You know, he kinda tried to kill me."

"Sorry," I apologized for him. "I'll put it on the list too." She chuckled. "They're gonna come looking for you."

"I know," she acknowledged.

I looked at her for a moment. "Thank you, Sharon."

"Of course," she smiled. "I should go."

"Okay," I concurred as she walked around me and back into the car. I looked back at Sam and Bucky. Sam was nodding and smiling like yea, boy, get it and Bucky was nodding like fucking one step closer to that bitch and I'll really kick your ass.

—————

I made a face at them before getting our stuff, closing the trunk and getting into our car to head for the airport where we'd be meeting Sam's mystery guy that's gonna help us.

Why do I feel like this really isn't gonna end well?

~ Steve R.