[Leipzig AU] a means to a necessary end

[nerves_of_ice]

It's a long flight from Berlin to Novosibirsk and the secret location far beyond it, even in a Quinjet. They spend the time planning and coordinating. Bucky describes the structure and security of the facility itself as best he remembers. Tony calls up plans and blueprints from god knows where and throws them into the middle of the plane for all to see. They're not the same as what Bucky remembers, they figure out fairly quickly, but they're better than nothing.

Tony also takes over the back of the plane and snaps at anyone who comes close, doing something that involves shifting screens and models of buildings and wave patterns and a human skull, and the eventually the low humming grind of a machine. Soon after, he stalks back up to the front of the plane and shoves a set of custom-fabricated earplugs at Bucky, who stares at them and then at Tony.

"Noise-cancelling all the way to total sound blackout. Tap the end of the earpiece to deafen yourself," Tony informs him. "Last thing we need's for you to be his puppet." Bucky starts to stammer a thanks, but Tony growls something under his breath and stalks back to the back of the plane again to work on something else. Steve catches Bucky's eye and shakes his head, and Bucky decides to leave well enough alone.

Sam advises everyone to rest in shifts; Bucky knows he's not wrong, but neither he nor Steve can do it, and after a while Sam stops trying to convince them. Natasha sits with him for a while, her eyes dark with concern. They don't say much, but there's no need to.

A Snowcat is parked outside the door of the facility when they land. Bucky's jaw sets in hard lines at the sight of it, and he trades a look with Steve.

They're already here.

Comments

[marvel_npc]

Tony had taken point on setting the explosions at the foundation, leaving Steve to set his around the machinery in the main room. He gazes for a long few moments at the murdered Soldiers, wondering who they might have been, if they'd been born into a different life, a different time.

He's on the far side of the chamber, carefully sticking plastic explosive to a load-bearing wall, when slow movement catches his attention. Turning, he sees Bucky staring at the chair in the middle of the room, the one he hasn't been able to look at or think about too closely.

Quietly he finishes his task and comes over until he's standing beside Bucky.

"This is where they put you?"

It's hardly more than a murmur, but in the silent, echoing chamber it's clear as a bell.

[nerves_of_ice]

He nods, still looking at the chair. "First I'd come out of cryo. The chamber he put Sharon in was mine," he thinks to explain. "Then to here."

It looks innocuous enough, except for the restraints, he supposes. "They'd clamp me in, then attach the crown - the headpiece. The current ran through that."

[marvel_npc]

Steve's chest and shoulders rise and fall with shallow, rapid breaths, much as Tony's had earlier.

The things they'd done in this place... it's unspeakable. Worse even than Schmidt had managed. He'll never get Bucky's scream when Zemo began saying the words out of his head, and he's all too horribly aware that it couldn't have been the first – or even the tenth, the twentieth time – Bucky's screams had echoed through this place.

He suppresses a shudder and looks away from the chair, to his best friend. "No more," he promises. "Let's take it apart."

[nerves_of_ice]

"No more," Bucky murmurs. He glances back at Steve, then steps forward and grips the crown with his left hand. With a shriek of metal, he rips it from the chair and shatters it on the floor.

[marvel_npc]

As Bucky rips the crown from the chair, Steve circles behind it, then lifts the shield high overhead before driving it down with a yell. The vibranium edge slices through steel and rubber and leather, shearing the chair into two sparking halves.

[nerves_of_ice]

He leaves the debris on the floor where it fell and comes around the chair to put his hand on Steve's shoulder, drawn by the anguish and fury in his cry. "It's over," he says, softly. "Hey. It's okay."

[marvel_npc]

"No," Steve says, staring at the ruined remains of the chair. "Not yet."

He's breathing hard, anguish twisting in his chest, before he looks back over at Bucky. "But it will be."

[nerves_of_ice]

He nods, keeping his hand in place. "It will be."

[marvel_npc]

It doesn't take long to set all the charges, but it takes a lot longer to make sure he's setting them right. Still, it's only about another hour later before Tony takes to the sky again through the open missile silo as Steve and Barnes come back up via the elevator.

"Okay, FRIDAY," he mutters. "Let me see what's happening down there."

Lifting his voice, he calls out to Steve and Barnes, emerging from the facility. "Better get aboard the Quinjet and airborne. Wouldn't want to be standing around here when this thing blows."

[nerves_of_ice]

Bucky makes sure Steve's next to board after Tony sweeps by and clomps up into the jet. He pauses at the foot of the ramp and looks around at the countryside, windswept, snow-covered, and bleak as it is.

If he's lucky, he'll never have to come back here. Bucky tries to decide how he feels about that, and only finds relief.

He goes inside and hits the switch to close the ramp, then heads up toward the front. He goes past the watching Zemo, now strapped into a jump seat and still under guard by Natasha and Sam, without so much as a second look, trying not to let the man see anything in him.

Bucky nods to Steve and Tony at the cockpit and ducks into Sharon's alcove. "Ready to fly, baby?" he murmurs.

[from_the_outside]

Trying to rest has mostly been an exercise in frustration, but at least she finally feels like she's warming up. Her head's still foggy, but she thinks that's more the result of the concussion than the after-effects of the cryo chamber.

Nat and Sam had both been in, one at a time, but the conversations had been brief. She'd tried to sleep, but found herself unable to keep her eyes closed, keeps flashing back to the moment the mist descended, to the scratching at her door.

When Bucky comes in to the screened-off alcove, she sits up on the makeshift bed, tired but determined. "Yeah," she says.

"Want to go watch it blow?"

[nerves_of_ice]

He nods, and holds out his right hand to help her up.

[from_the_outside]

Sharon lets him pull her up and onto her feet, then keeps her hand in his as they push past the partition and move up toward the cockpit, where Tony and Steve are seated in the pilot's and co-pilot's chairs.

She looks out through the glass to the snow-covered facility, and squeezes Bucky's hand, waiting.

[nerves_of_ice]

The quiet thrum of the Quinjet's engines is steady around them and beneath their feet as Steve takes hold of the controls and raises them skyward. He circles them around to a clear line of sight at a safe height and hovers there, waiting.

Tony mutters something to FRIDAY and taps a quick series of controls on his gauntlet, and for a moment or two the world seems to hold its breath.

The low rumble from beneath the ground is the first warning. It steadily intensifies as charge after charge explodes, becoming a roar as loud as that of a volcano. The side of the hollow cliff below caves in, and with a shuddering crash the ridge over the facility collapses deep into the shattered abyss that's opened beneath it.

He doesn't even realize that he's stopped breathing, or that his grip on Sharon's hand has tightened to just short of bruising. His eyes are fixed on the destruction below.

[from_the_outside]

There's a long moment where nobody says anything. Tony Stark looks grimly vindicated; Steve's as solemn as he had been at the funeral. Sharon, who had in a very short while grown to hate the place as fervently as any she's ever hated before, squeezes Bucky's hand back and looks at him, offering silent understanding and support.

She can only imagine how he must be feeling, seeing the earth swallow the place whole.

They wait until FRIDAY informs them that all explosives have deployed and the surrounding rock is stable, and Tony nods, punches in a flight plan for Berlin. "Okay," he says. "Ice cream's on me, guys."

[nerves_of_ice]

It's just as long of a flight back to Berlin as it was to Siberia in the first place, but it feels faster, somehow.

Natasha and Sam split shifts guarding Zemo, while Steve and Tony trade off piloting duties. Bucky quietly offers to help with either or both, only to be waved off. He doesn't fight it, and ignores any internal whispers that suggest he's an intruder in the Avengers' routine; he knows better. Instead, he busies himself watching over Sharon, making sure she rests, and thinking about what lies ahead of them all.

[from_the_outside]

She doesn't offer to spell Nat or Sam, even though she knows she should. She even wants to.

But Zemo beat her once already, when she had a home field advantage and no cracked skull or bruised muscles. If something were to happen, she's not sure she could manage him, and that hurts as much as any of the rest of it.

She doesn't offer to spell Steve or Tony, either, though she could. After all, she'd told Zemo she could fly the Quinjet.

Instead she subjects to Bucky's concerned wishes and tries to rest, even though it's almost impossible. She doesn't talk any more about what happened; she doesn't talk much at all, instead losing herself to long periods of disassociation where her mind goes mercifully blank.

Only once they start the descent into Berlin does she realize she has no idea where she'll be staying once they get in. Her apartment is likely still a mess; she's not even sure it's secure anymore. But where else is there to go?

It's a question that thankfully evaporates from her mind as the jet lands and the ramp descends onto a tarmac that is absolutely filled with Task Force personnel, Everett Ross at the forefront.

She huffs a small laugh. Of course he's here.

[nerves_of_ice]

"Steve, why don't you and Tony bring Zemo out together?" Natasha suggests. "I'll follow with Agent Carter." Bucky has to stifle a smile at how neatly she's orchestrated it, but he has to admit it's a good idea.

"Guess that leaves me and the Tin Man bringing up the rear," Sam teases, and Bucky rolls his eyes as Natasha mimes a slow punch at the other man, who pretends to cringe from her. "Didn't say it was a bad idea, did I?"

All joking's set aside, though, when the ramp lowers. Steve has a tight grip on Zemo's arm as he and Tony walk him down the ramp and into the custody of the waiting Task Force personnel. "I want him on Sublevel Five," Ross orders, with a bared-teeth grin at Zemo. "It'll be nice and familiar for him."

As his team takes Zemo away, he nods a cursory thanks to Steve and Tony, already looking past them to someone else. "Agent Carter."

[from_the_outside]

She's intensely grateful for the painkillers that let her stand up straight as she and Nat come down the ramp together. Steve and Tony move out of the way, flanking the Task Force team that puts Zemo into a waiting car, and Ross starts forward to meet her.

"Sir," she says, and gestures to the team: Steve, Tony, Nat, Sam... Bucky. "I can't begin to express my gratitude to everyone who came to get me. And to you, for coordinating the response so quickly."

[marvel_npc]

She's pale as a damn ghost, but holding herself at attention all the same, and Ross feels a rush of pride.

"Least we could do," he says, gruffly. "Welcome back, Agent Carter."

He turns to Rogers and Stark, with an acknowledging nod for Romanoff and Wilson, and hell, Barnes too - that's a problem to sort out another day, tomorrow, probably. "The Task Force sincerely appreciates your service," he says. "Let's reconvene tomorrow, my office, promptly at nine A.M., to debrief."

He shoots a sharp look at Carter. "You, too. Assuming you're out of the hospital by then."

[from_the_outside]

Sharon starts. "Sir – " she says, but stops as he shoots a glare at her.

"I don't want to hear it, Carter," he snaps. "Get yourself checked out. That's an order."

[marvel_npc]

"Why don't I take you by the clinic?" Nat suggests, lightly, but not without sympathy. "And we'll go from there."

She's perfectly well aware of James practically vibrating behind them, but at least he has the good sense to keep his mouth shut.

[from_the_outside]

"Suits me," says Ross, before Sharon can protest. "We've got a car waiting for you, right over here."

Sharon gives him a rueful look – her boss knows her too well – and turns to the others. "See you later," she says.

Bucky looks strained and worried; she gives him a small smile to ease his concern before turning and heading with Nat to the waiting car.

[nerves_of_ice]

It’s completely unreasonable of him to feel that he can’t let Sharon out of his sight or something bad will happen. He knows it. He knows it.

It doesn’t stop him from feeling it, but at least he can keep from acting on it. Bucky looks away from the car and finds himself met with a gimlet stare from Ross. “Will you be coming back to the Center tonight, Sergeant Barnes?”

[marvel_npc]

"Actually, I was thinking we'd all hang out at the hotel," Tony says, butting in without a hint of self-consciousness.

"I've got a floor reserved for us. All of us. Plenty of room. Nice beds. Continental breakfast. All the amenities. And we'll be able to travel together back to the Center tomorrow morning. Good enough for you, Deputy Commander?"