nerves_of_ice | [oom] see right through my walls

He nods.

"I killed them." Soft but clear. "Howard remembered me, he recognized me, but I didn't know him. I didn't--"

He closes his eyes for a long moment.

"I beat him to death while he called me by name, and then I killed Maria. And then I stole the real target of the mission from the trunk of the car, and took it back to Siberia."

Bucky opens his eyes and looks at her.

"He was carrying an experimental variant of the super soldier serum. Multiple packs. My handlers - they decided that if they couldn't make it, they could steal it."

She's pale but steady as she looks back at him.

"Did they use it?"

"Yes." Bitterness leaches into his voice. "They were an elite death squad. Volunteers. Everyone wanted to be like the Winter Soldier. They took the serum to make more of me. And it worked, at first."

He can't hold her gaze, and looks back out across the clearing.

"At first. Orders were to fight me, one at a time, to test operational parameters. One of them smashed me into a wall, and the adrenaline rush --"

He shakes his head.

"The serum poisoned them. They lost their minds and started trying to kill everyone; scientists, soldiers, you name it. Command ordered me to escort him safely out. I did, and locked them in. They froze them in cryostasis while the scientists tried to figure out how to get control of them. If Zemo could have controlled them like he did me..."

His voice fades into silence.

She looks away from him, too, out toward the calm water, and takes a second to center herself back here.

They're in Wakanda. They're safe. Zemo's plan didn't work. "I can see why you wanted back-up."

Clint Barton, sure. A good man in a pinch. And Wanda Maximoff, the telekinetic. And –

Her brow creases a little as she thinks back, and she gives him a faintly bewildered look. "Who the heck is Scott Lang?"

"A guy Wilson knew. Called him 'Tic-Tac.' Found out later he goes by Ant-Man." He shakes his head a little. "He can shrink himself down to almost nothing... and grow himself up to a giant."

"Ant-Man?"

What...the fuck?

"Because he can – no, you know what? I'll get the details later." She shakes her head clear and refocuses. "So you all met up in the airport? To go to Siberia?"

"That was the plan, but..."

Something suddenly strikes him, and he looks back at her with a small smile that's no less wry for all that it's rather drawn.

"I guess you didn't know Natasha cloned your phone."

There's no doubt at all in his voice.

Edited 2021-03-03 02:38 (UTC)

She turns her head sharply and stares at him.

"...Fuck." It's not angry so much as exasperated. "Of course she did. She probably cottoned on to me back when I was in the observation room with Steve and Sam."

Goddammit, Rome. "So they had the coordinates."

She sighs, annoyed at herself. "Sorry. I thought my phone was safe."

"I know. You wouldn't have risked it otherwise." He sounds a little fond for some reason, just for a moment. "She's very good at what she does."

He shakes his head, and that hint fades.

"She got a little more, too. Enough that they knew we were headed for the airport, and met us there to stop us. Every other Avenger, a kid that Stark picked up in New York... and T'Challa."

"I think I can guess at least some of what happened next. Big fight, right?"

Every other Avenger. So that means Tony, Nat, Rhodey, Vision...

"Did everyone make it out okay?"

"Big fight," he confirms. His eyes are haunted.

("What's gonna happen to your friends?"
"Whatever it is, I'll deal with it."
"I don't know if I'm worth all this, Steve.")

"We knew they were coming. Picked up chatter evacuating the airport, and since we were still in the window, we figured who it had to be. Stark and his team confronted us on the tarmac. Steve tried to talk him down."

("You're after the wrong guy."
"Your judgement is askew.")

"He wouldn't hear it. Wasn't willing to listen. Steve tried to explain what Zemo was - what we thought he was doing, that we had to stop him. Stark ordered him to turn me over and come with him. Steve refused. We fought."

He shakes his head, grim.

"Pretty close to a stalemate. We knew the clock was running out. Wilson came up with the play. He and the others volunteered to stay behind to fight a holding action so Steve and I could get away. We stole their Quinjet and took off for Siberia. Natasha kept T'Challa off of us at the last minute." Something flickers in his eyes, quick and rueful. "Guess she didn't want to see me dead."

"Rhodes and Stark tried to catch up in the air, but Wilson was on them. He's a hell of a flyer, agile, mobile... Vision tried to hit him with a blast and took out Rhodes instead. Natasha told us later he hit the ground hard. Broke his back. Not likely he'll be walking again. We got away."

His jaw clenches, hard.

"Stark's team brought the rest of them in. And they threw them in the Raft."

Edited 2021-03-03 05:00 (UTC)

She sighs out a quiet breath, leaning onto her knees with her chin on her hand, looking out at the lake.

Something like this was always going to happen, when the Accords split the Avengers in two. Maybe it would have happened anyway: Steve Rogers and Tony Stark, neither of them any good at backing down, both convinced they're in the right.

His whole focus is the Avengers, so anything that happens to them is personal...he's dangerous, especially if he thinks he has something to lose.

Poor Rhodes. She doesn't really know him, but he seems like a good man; he'd served the country honorably and well. "I'm sorry. That must have been awful."

Made all the worse for the fact that it was friends fighting friends. She knows how much Barton and Rome care about each other. "I suppose it's something that nobody died." Pretty amazing when considering the power level of the various combatants.

She shakes her head at the mention of the Raft, holding onto the knowledge that Steve got Sam and Natasha out, at least. "But you made it to Siberia."

She knows that already. What she doesn't know is what happened when they got there.

"We did." The acid of self-loathing washes through his words.

She hasn't asked, at least not yet, and so he doesn't tell her - about the long flight, the way the silence had lain heavy between them at first. How Steve had been the first to break it. To reach out -- and how Bucky had, finally, reached back.

How they'd started talking in fits and starts. D.C. What happened after. Where Bucky had gone and what he'd done in the intervening time. What Steve had been up to, all the things that hadn't made the news. How the Avengers had gone over the years from a bunch of misfit individuals to a close-knit team. What was likely to happen to that team now.

How they'd seen the vehicle outside the facility when they set down in Siberia and realized Zemo had gotten there first. How they'd gone in together anyway, side by side, knowing the odds if Zemo'd managed to wake the five sleepers from their stasis... and never hesitating.

"It was a trap. And we walked right into it."

She can hear that bitterness in his voice, but can't comment on it. Not yet, anyway.

What she can do is lean back against the tree and deliberately, carefully, reach to place her hand at the curve of his neck and gently squeeze the tense muscles there. It's about the only support she can offer.

"He'd woken them up?"

He startles just a little at the touch, the barest shiver under the skin, but doesn't move as he glances at her.

"No. He killed them. We were wrong about what he wanted. The whole time, he was after something else."

Why does it sound like what he actually wanted was so much worse? What could be worse?

Her hand tightens briefly, and relaxes again. "What did he want?"

"You know, I still don't know how Stark got the intel."

Now he just sounds weary. Defeated.

"Whether he went digging around after the airport, or someone sent it to him, or what."

He looks away again, back out at the water.

"Wilson told Steve about it later. Stark showed up at the Raft; pulled some strings to get in, struck a deal with someone, I don't know. He showed Wilson a report with Zemo's identity, the one that confirmed it wasn't me in Vienna. Asked him where to find Steve. Said he wanted to help. So Wilson told him."

Bucky keeps his voice steady through an effort of will. He doesn't blame Wilson. The guy made the best call he could.

"Stark caught up with us in Siberia. Cracking jokes, putting up a front - but you could tell. He was sorry. He was there to help Steve. His friend. And Steve was glad to see him. We went in together, the three of us. Zemo was waiting."

("If it's any comfort, they died in their sleep. I'm grateful to them, though. They brought you here.")

"He'd set himself up in a missile silo, so we couldn't get to him right away. Wanted to talk. Wanted us to know that the whole thing was to bring us there. Them there. He said he'd lost everyone in Sokovia, and we - they - would too."

Edited 2021-03-03 14:56 (UTC)

As soon as he says Stark, she knows where this is going.

One mission in particular. December 16, 1991.

"The Avengers."

Her voice is slow with shock, horror. "He used you to destroy the Avengers. The mission report he wanted –"

No wonder Steve is on the run. No wonder he's off the grid.

He jerks away from her and surges to his feet in a single motion with the controlled grace of a martial artist, and is halfway across the clearing in the next second before he turns to look at her.

"Yes." Flat as the blade of a knife, with an edge that's just as deadly... and directed at himself.

"There was a roadside surveillance camera. In 1991. I took it out and brought in the footage as part of the mission. Zemo had set up a screen. He played it for them, while Stark watched. While they both watched."

A single beat of silence falls. Just one.

"He used me as a hammer to shatter them apart."

There's that bitter edge of self-loathing again, and she doesn't know how to help. It's not his fault – but he knows that already and it doesn't help.

Steve doesn't blame him, clearly. But that doesn't mean he doesn't blame himself.

She's profiled Tony Stark. She knows what his reaction must have been. "So Zemo lured you all there so he could break Steve and Tony apart, get revenge for what happened in Sokovia."

She doesn't want to ask. She doesn't want to know. She doesn't want to hear how it happened, but he's taking her through this already, despite what it's doing to him. She needs to push through. "Bucky...what happened to your arm?"

"Stark blasted it off. In the fight."

He doesn't mean the fight at the airport, she's sure. He means the fight between Iron Man, Captain America, and him.

Softly: "What happened?"

Not...she doesn't need the details of the fight. What happened, in the end. What happened to bring him here and send Steve underground. "And...Shuri said T'Challa found Zemo in Siberia. He was there, too?"

No. Much though he might have wished it to be, that wasn't enough information, he supposes. It couldn't be. She knows Steve and Stark both. It's not fair to leave her wondering.

The breath sighs out of him in a long, slow slide.

"He tried to kill me. Stark. After he saw. After he realized Steve already knew."

Bucky hadn't known that himself, until that moment. It wasn't until later that he'd found out how; that Zola had taunted him with it, in D.C.

"He wouldn't stop. We couldn't get him to stop. Steve told me to run, to get out, while he held him back. Stark didn't want Steve dead. Just me. So I tried. But it got worse, and ..."

He shakes his head.

"One of the energy blasts got my arm. Dropped me flat. Steve threw himself between us. He would have died for me. Protecting me."

Pure agony is in every word now, but it doesn't stop him.

"Stark thought I was out of the fight. I got hold of him by the ankle; got him off balance. Steve was able to get through his defenses. Cracked the armor; cracked the energy source in the suit with the edge of his shield. Brought him down. It was over."

If he closes his eyes, he knows, he'll see the concrete ceiling of the bunker above him. He can still hear Steve's rasping breaths, Stark's too, as they'd lain there in the wreckage -- of everything.

He stares into the sky instead.

"Steve got me to my feet. We left Stark there - knew he'd be able to call in help, knew he'd be okay. Knew we had to be gone before he did. Left the shield Howard made with him."

"T'Challa was waiting for us outside."

Well. That's what she gets for not being specific.

So she listens, still pale, still steady, as he details the horrifying fight between him and Tony and Steve, and her heart breaks a little more every sentence for each of them.

She thinks of Tony in Berlin, how he looked like he was barely holding himself together, the strain of trying to keep his family together. And she thinks of Steve, tries to imagine him without the shield Howard Stark made for him so long ago.

But most of all, she feels each of Bucky's statements like a hit to her own body. His arm, ripped off his body. Down on the ground. The pain of knowing Steve would die for him.

Her throat works, but she stays calm even as her fingers twist together between her knees. "He stopped Zemo from getting away?"

He nods, still staring into the clear Wakandan sky.

"Turns out he'd tailed Stark. No one knew about the technology they have here, not then. Stark never knew he was there. He followed him all the way into the facility. He heard everything Zemo had to say -- then slipped back outside, and waited for him."

His lips twist, settling into something that's a bare excuse for an awful, thin wry line of what might be meant as a smile.

"He didn't appreciate being used, either."

Bucky draws a careful breath, and wipes the back of his hand across his forehead, then finally looks back at Sharon.

"He told us what he'd heard; that he knew everything. He apologized to me."

The disbelief is clear in his voice.

"He told us about what they could do here in Wakanda. Offered me sanctuary and help. Promised that if I'd -- that if we'd trust him, he and his sister would make sure no one could ever use me like that again."

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