nerves_of_ice | [Leipzig AU] a means to a necessary end

Drakov's formula works precisely as advertised. The mouthy and aggressive Sharon Carter spends their flight as quiet and meek as a lamb, aside from when he requires her to speak. She dons the winter coat and boots when he requests, and sits calmly by his side as the Snowcat trundles out to the facility.

Once inside, he orders her to assist him with first the search and then the set-up, once the appropriate video footage has been found. Afterwards, as he shoots each of the sleeping Soldiers in their chambers and sends them to an unknowing death, he considers eliminating her as well... but she has proven useful thus far, and if Captain Rogers turns out not to be the man she described, he may yet require her.

She leaves the winter coat and boots on the cold metal floor as ordered and climbs into the chamber when requested to do so, uncomplaining as the cryogenic mist descends and transforms her from a warm, living woman to a statue seemingly carved from incredibly lifelike marble.

Once the hiss of the gas subsides, the facility sinks back into frozen silence. His footsteps echo as he readies the final details and retreats to the silo, double- and triple-checking his way out before taking a seat to wait.

He believes it will not be long.

"It looks like a rock," Tony mutters, staring out from the Quinjet's ramp at where Bucky's told them all the entrance is. "Just another big rock in a series of them. Okay, let me see--" He runs a scan and frowns at the results. "Still looks like rock."

"It is rock," Natasha murmurs. She's pulling weapons from her rack, and has already offered Bucky his choice of those available. He accepts without hesitation, knowing he can trust that she's kept them all in good shape. "Rock, and concrete, and deep-down steel. It's supposed to look like that. How else do you think it stayed hidden all this time?"

"Well, it's in the middle of Siberia," Tony points out. "Not like a lot of people are just going to stumble across it out here. What would they be doing, taking a leisurely Sunday stroll through the trackless ice fields out here?"

He's jittery as hell, but the suit hides it, for the most part. FRIDAY's running the full suite of passing and active scans, but not much is getting through the concrete and steel and however many feet of dirt and rocks there are between them and the facility core.

"Nobody stumbled across it." Bucky puts in one earplug, then the other, and realizes that the model Tony was using must have been a scan of his own head. They fit like they're a part of him. He taps the earpiece and taps it again, enabling and disabling the sound block, and finds that it works perfectly. "For almost a century. So I guess making it look like rock worked."

"Unfortunately, that means we don't know how many we're facing," Steve points out. Bucky moves to Steve's left side at the top of the ramp. "We're going to have to be ready for anything."

They've talked about this. Natasha's on point to try to recover Sharon, with Sam providing aerial cover in a quieter way than Tony's repulsors offer - unless everything goes from stealth to force. Bucky, Steve, and Tony will go in together as the first line.

"Let's go."

Tony's faceplate drops with a clang of ringing metal, and his voice comes through the suit's speakers as the eyes glow and his HUD blinks into life.

"On your mark, Cap."

They proceed cautiously through the unlocked main entry. The first problem arises when it's clear the only way down is via a creaky, ancient elevator. It rumbles and shakes and as visions of Winter Soldiers lying in wait for them outside the doors dance through Tony's head, the suit queries him with a notification about his blood pressure.

He makes an annoyed sound and FRIDAY cancels the suggested treatment without comment.

But no one greets them as the elevator doors grind open. No Soldiers open fire, none lie in wait as they proceed from the elevator to a frozen stairwell. His scans still return nothing, even as he instructs FRIDAY to keep running them as the tension in their small group rises.

Bucky directs them through the corridors, past rooms with shattered windows and broken mirrors, past others filled with decades-old files and forgotten paperwork.

The heart of the facility lies ahead of them, where he was kept and reprogrammed time and again. He feels his heartbeat start to race. There's no sign of Sharon, no sign of Zemo, no sign of the other Soldiers.

Was he wrong?

They prowl down a corridor that at last opens up into an enormous cavern; the core of the facility.

At the same instant, his HUD blinks frantically. Boss, FRIDAY whispers. I've found –

"I've got heat signatures," Tony announces, as data begins streaming in.

"How many?" asks Cap, quickly, but it takes Tony a second, because... that can't be right.

"Uh, two," he reports.

Not five. Not seven. So whose math is wrong, here? He frowns at the data as FRIDAY feeds it through his HUD. "But one's pretty faint."

Edited 2022-02-28 00:05 (UTC)

He moves out further to the left and a little ahead of Steve as the room opens up around them, weapon leveled and ready. After all, he's the one who knows it best, which means he might have a second's advantage in response. He can see the faint metallic gleam of the chair in the center of the room--

--and then he can see much, much more, with excruciatingly painful clarity, as somewhere a switch is thrown with a loud chunk and the corridor lights come up around them. They're not the only sources of illumination, either. Ahead of them, six chambers gleam with a yellow light.

Six active chambers. Five for the other Winter Soldiers. One that used to be his, and which should be empty... except that it isn't.

Bucky breaks his silence without meaning to, a low, agonized cry torn from him as he stares at Sharon Carter's unconscious, frozen form.

Edited 2022-02-28 00:20 (UTC)

Tony's head jerks towards Bucky, and Steve begins to turn, too, before his attention is caught by one of the other chambers and the man inside it.

It looks wrong. It looks –

"If it's any comfort, they died in their sleep."

The voice that comes over the speakers and echoes through the enormous room is mild, almost conversational. Steve turns, searching out the source, and hears Tony muttering something to FRIDAY as Zemo continues. "Did you really think I wanted more of you?"

Edited 2022-02-28 00:22 (UTC)

He keeps himself from running across the room to her cryo chamber with a ragged effort of will, and promises himself that Zemo will pay for this. Bucky moves slowly into the room, looking for the man, scanning the other chambers and noting as he does that each Soldier's been executed with a single shot to the head.

"What the hell?" he mutters, fingers flexing on his gun as Zemo continues.

"But I'm grateful to them," the man offers, like that makes this horror any better. "They brought you here."

A second switch clicks, and another yellow light illuminates Zemo's face where he stands in blackness across the room.

He and Tony turn as one as the light flicks on; in another heartbeat, he's sent the shield winging its way directly at the man's face.

It ricochets off the thick wall of steel he's hiding behind, and as Steve catches it and slips it back onto his arm, Zemo smiles, a little indulgently. "Please, Captain," he says.

"The Soviets built this chamber to withstand the launch blast of UR-100 rockets."

"Bettin' I could beat that," calls Tony, as he and Steve flank the silo Zemo's hiding in, Bucky pacing slowly towards the other side.

"Oh, I'm sure you could, Mr. Stark," Zemo agrees. "Given time. But then you'd never know why you came."

"You killed innocent people in Vienna just to bring us here," Steve says. Bucky can hear the anger in his voice.

He himself holds his silence and continues circling across from Steve and Tony, moving down the line of cryo chambers and towards the one Sharon's in while Steve approaches the wall where Zemo's standing on the other side of the blast chamber window.

"I've thought about nothing else for over a year."

The need for vengeance rises through him again like righteous fire, giving each word a rage-fueled intensity. They're here. They're here, all three of them, after all his patience and grueling work. Below the sightline of the window, his hands are clenched into tight, bloodless fists.

"I studied you. I followed you. But now that you're standing here, I just realized... there's a bit of green in the blue of your eyes."

Zemo smiles, sharp as a blade. "How nice to find a flaw."

Steve moves, step by slow step, until he's finally face to face with the man who has done so much, killed so many and hurt so many more, just to have this moment.

Zemo watches him back through the shatterproofed glass, that small, triumphant smile still playing about his lips. There's nothing of the madman's haze in his eyes; they're as clear as water. "You're Sokovian," Steve says, ignoring the attempt at prodding him.

"Is that what this is about?"

"Sokovia was a failed state long before you blew it to hell. No."

His fingernails etch red half-moons into his palms, but he keeps his voice calm and quiet, even as the grief and rage spills cold through him, as his eyes, so steady, begin to gloss with the tears he won't shed.

("You should have seen his little face. Just try, okay? I'm going to bed. I love you.")

"I'm here because I made a promise."

Only a little more, he tells himself, tells her. A little more, and this will all be over.

Rogers considers him for a long moment, and he wants to sneer at it, the fabled Steve Rogers empathy. His compassion. "We know you lost someone," Rogers says, and there's a long moment as he struggles with himself, a battle that plays out in minute flickers across his face and in his flat stare.

"I lost... " Each word is ripped from him; each word is ruthlessly dragged down into his quiet, level tone. "Everyone. And so will you."

With that promise, he finally looks away, then flicks another switch.

Edited 2022-02-28 01:02 (UTC)

He's aware of Tony moving out slightly, covering space between himself and Steve as Steve tries to engage with Zemo. Bucky keeps a sharp awareness out for other threats as he reaches the base of Sharon's cryo chamber.

A quick glance across the console and readouts tells him that she's stable, and he has to fight the surge of relief that threatens to weaken his knees. Although everything in him screams for him to unlock the chamber, he holds off for now, bitterly aware that this isn't anywhere near over.

Zemo does something, and Bucky jerks his weapon toward a screen nearby as it flickers to life. "An empire toppled by its enemies can rise again," the man tells them, as Bucky stares in sick realization at the date stamp on the screen.

16 Декабрь 1991.

"But one which crumbles from within? That's dead. Forever."

Tony was right, Bucky realizes, numbly. All of this was to set them against each other, to set Steve and Tony against each other, using him as the weapon to shatter them apart.

A monitor flickers to life, and Tony slowly paces to see the screen, the stark white date already reflecting in Steve's wary eyes.

December 16, 1991.

"I know that road," he hears himself say, his eyes locked on the grainy security footage. He knows that road. He knows this date. He knows what comes next, and indeed a car comes hurtling off the road, out of control, and smashes so hard against a tree that it bounces back again, hood crumpled and engine steaming.

He feels it in his chest, but he can't stop watching. Not as the motorcycle pulls up nearby. Not as the uncaring tall figure in black comes around to the driver's side door, his metal left arm glimmering in the glow of the single streetlight.

Tony doesn't look away, his chest and shoulders rising and falling with his rapid, shallow breaths as the Winter Soldier drags his father from the car. He can hear his mother calling for him, hears Howard's confused voice saying Sergeant Barnes?

Each hit feels like it hits him. Slam. Slam. As if in a dream, he hears his mother weeping, sees the Soldier carefully put Howard's body back into the car before he comes around the car.

After another moment, there's no sound but that of his own harsh breathing, and the gunshot that ends the video.

They're standing on the edge of disaster. He watches Tony's face as Tony watches his parents die, sees the way he winds tighter and tighter.

"Tony," Steve says, low, and Tony glances at him, his eyes burning and furious, then lunges toward Bucky as Steve grabs him by the shoulders. "Tony, no!"

He can feel Tony trembling even through the alloy of the Iron Man suit, but the other man turns to face Steve once more, his face distraught, every line in it carved deep. For a long moment, they stare at each other.

"I know," Tony says, finally. It looks like it costs him. Steve's fingers relax, very slightly, as Tony breathes deep. "Watch your eyes, Cap," he says, low and intent, and his helmet and faceplate snap back into place as he wheels, lifting both palms to the silo window and firing both repulsers at their highest intensity.

Edited 2022-02-28 01:38 (UTC)

He watches himself on the monitor, although he doesn't need to. He can see it clear in his own mind's eye at any time, by just thinking about it, every detail, every nuance, and is horribly aware of the tension thrumming through Tony Stark as he watches his nightmare unfold in front of him.

Bucky jerks to the side away from Sharon as Tony spins to face him, his weapon half-rising by reflex before he gets himself under control. If Tony tries to kill him, at least the shock won't hit her, not if she's out of the direct line. He can draw the fire away from her. If Tony succeeds, Steve can get her out. If--

Steve grabs Tony by the shoulders and calls his name, and Bucky remains frozen still and silent as the two of them stare at each other in silent communication. He's dimly aware of Zemo edging closer to the window, watching.

And then Tony spins and fires at Zemo, lighting up the missile silo with the force of his repulsers as they whine with increasing intensity, and Bucky makes a break for the corridor that leads to the access door for the control chamber.

Zemo can't escape. He won't let it happen.

Edited 2022-02-28 01:49 (UTC)

No.

He steps back from the window, reflexive, even as his logical mind tells him the blast will not get through.

This shouldn't be possible. Everything he's learned about them both says his plan should have worked. Steve Rogers, faced with losing his best friend all over again, should be leaping to his defense. Tony Stark, emotional hotbed of anxiety and grief and strain, should be trying to kill Barnes for the murder of his parents.

But none of it is working as he thought it would, even with the girl. Steve Rogers, who so famously loved and lost Peggy Carter, ought to have run to his beloved to ensure her safety. Her presence should be pushing the strain of the situation even further, make them even easier to break.

Was he mistaken? Was he mistaken in all of this?

The light in the window dies down, and Zemo snarls at Tony Stark's implacable faceplate, then jams a finger on the intercom button once more.

This plan may not have succeeded, but he is by no means finished. "Zilánie," he shouts, the word echoing in the nearly empty cavern of the facility core.

"NO! DON'T!"

His scream is full-throated with agony and the bone-chilling terror that Tony's gift won't work, that Zemo will claim him and own him and turn the Winter Soldier against them.

He skids to a stop before leaving the chamber, his left hand throwing up sparks from the metal rail that he grabs on to in order to slow his momentum. Steve and Tony have to be able to see him, need to be able to stop him if -- if --

With a shaking hand, he slings his weapon from him and kicks it across the floor, just in case, then frantically scrabbles to tap the end of the earpiece and waits, breathless.

Edited 2022-02-28 02:12 (UTC)

"Bucky!"

But as he lunges for his best friend, Tony's armored hand slams against his chest. Steve looks at him, desperate, and sees the same horror in Tony's eyes. "Don't," Tony warns. "Don't get too close."

It means Steve's thrumming with tension, like a racehorse at the starting gate, every cell in him begging him to run, to get to Bucky now.

Zemo's voice echoes as he snarls each word into the air, and Steve can't take his eyes off Bucky, hoping desperately that Tony's earplugs will work.

They will, they have to, Tony's work is solid –

"Gruzavój vagón!" The words echo a moment, then everything dies into silence. Steve can't hear anything but the rasp of his breath and the thunder of his heart as he strains against himself. "Bucky?" he asks, unable to contain it.

"Soldat," says Zemo, grimly triumphant.

He can't hear anything. He can't hear anything, except for the panicked drumming of his own heart inside his ears. It worked. They're safe. Only--

He knows down to his bones how long it takes to go through the sequence, knows what he'd look like and feel if it did. The idea springs full-formed into his mind and he runs with it, slowly straightening to stand perfectly still. He sees his best friend's lips form a familiar word, his name, and knows what Zemo must be doing now.

Slowly, he turns to face the man behind the window, keeping his gaze expressionless and empty. As he does, he holds his hand low against his leg, slightly behind his thigh, out of Zemo's sight, and gives one of the hand signals the Howling Commandos had used all those years ago. Don't worry. Disregard.

"готовность к выполнению," he tells Zemo, and watches the man's lips carefully.

"Fuck – " hisses Tony, and Steve feels the repulser in the armored palm begin to vibrate, warming up.

"Wait," he says, immediate, his eyes locked on Bucky's hand, not his face. Don't worry. Disregard.

Tony slants a glance at him, but does as he's asked. "You better be right about this, Cap," he mutters, sotto voce.

He grips the edge of the desk nearby hard enough it feels as though his fingers will snap, but the triumphant wave that rushes through him when the Soldier straightens and replies, dead-eyed and still, is worth it all.

Every drop of blood. Every wound. Every sleepless night.

Zemo smiles. "Kill them," he orders.

Edited 2022-02-28 02:39 (UTC)

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