Chapter Text
1945 — The Austrian Alps
“Remember when I made you ride the Cyclone at Coney Island?”
“Yeah, and I threw up?”
Bucky didn’t look away from the snow dusted mountain far below him. The freezing wind whipped around his body like it was trying to push him off the cliffside to a gruesome death at the base of the cliff. The zipline Gabe and Jim had set up stretched over the craggy chasm below and over a snow-blown train-track that led further into the mountains.
“This isn’t payback, is it?”
Bucky felt more than saw Steve grin. “Now why would I do that?”
Bucky shook his head and was about to give a retort when Gabe’s voice interrupted the moment.
“We were right.” The Howling Commando knelt in the snow beside Jim and a mobile radio with half a headset pressed to his ear. “Dr. Zola’s on the train. Hydra just gave him permission to open up the throttle. Wherever he’s going, they must need him bad.”
Bucky’s expression sobered at the reminder of what they were here to do. He was not eager to see Zola again. His time locked in that HYDRA base before Steve had rescued him was a bit of a nightmarish blur, but Bucky could remember the cruel excitement in Zola’s eyes when the doctor had seen that Bucky had survived his experiments.
Steve cast a quick look at Bucky then turned away to face the train track– putting on his helmet as he did so. Bucky turned after him and silently took his zipline bar as Jacques passed them out.
“Let’s get going because they’re moving like the devil,” James called out from his lookout post.
Steve hooked his bar onto the zipline and gripped the handles– his boots only a couple feet from the cliff’s edge. “We only got about a ten-second window. You miss that window… we’re bugs on a windshield.”
“Mind the gap,” James said wryly.
“Better get moving, bugs!” Dum Dum’s voice was filled with energy just like it was before every fight. Bucky distantly wondered how the man’s bowler hat hadn’t flown off in the wind.
And then, Jacques motioned Steve off and Captain America was hurtling down a wire towards a speeding train high up in the Austrian Alps.
Bucky followed barely a second later.
Bucky’s landing on top of the train was hardly gentle, but he didn’t slip and fall to the ground rushing by beneath the tracks, so he wasn’t complaining. He saw Steve begin to crouch-walk forwards a car in front of him and a quick look back assured him that Gabe had made the landing safely as well. The trio began to cautiously make their way towards the front of the train while the cars vibrated beneath them and the wind whipped past their faces.
Bucky held his pistol ready at his side.
Steve stopped at a ladder near the engine car and climbed down to slip into an unlocked door on the side of the moving train. Bucky followed closely behind while Gabe took up position with his machine gun on the roof of the car.
Bucky moved into the train car after Steve and shut the door behind himself. The train car was relatively silent after the rushing wind and clacking wheels outside, and Bucky took a moment to scan the bleak metal shelves loaded with weapons and supplies.
Steve began to creep down the left side of the walkway and Bucky took the right side of the shelf with his rifle ready. They said nothing aloud, but they didn’t need to. The pair fell into lockstep without even a word needed.
Steve paused momentarily at the open door between their car and the next, but he continued through with his pistol readied for any surprise attack.
The moment Steve passed through the entryway, a metal door slid across the gap and separated the two cars– Steve trapped on one side and Bucky on the other.
Bucky heard a footstep behind himself and he turned and fired off a quick volley of shots at the HYDRA soldier at the other end of the car before he ducked behind a pile of crates for cover. The wall above his head sparked as several shells riddled the metal.
Bucky popped above the crates to return fire and narrowly dodged another spray of fire. He could hear the sounds of fighting from Steve’s car and he knew that he needed to move fast to back-up his friend.
The HYDRA soldier crept closer from behind the cover of the storage shelf and Bucky swapped out his rifle for his pistol and readied himself. He burst out of his covered position and crossed the breadth of the car– his pistol popping off shots steadily– and ducked behind another stack of crates across the walkway.
Bucky heard a rending crash of metal from the other car, but he didn’t dare allow himself the distraction of looking back.
He shot off another returning volley at the unfortunately-still-alive Hydra soldier, but on the last shot he felt his gun jam in his hand. He slammed back behind his cover barely an inch away from a bullet to the head and he felt a wave of desperation wash over him as he realized he was out of ammo.
He was pinned down, and without a weapon he was dead.
The door between the cars opened with a whoosh and Bucky looked to see Steve standing behind the cover of the doorway. Steve moved to toss his pistol and Bucky swiftly abandoned his old weapon in favor of Steve’s.
Steve hadn’t said a word, but Bucky knew exactly what to do next.
He stood as Steve charged into the room and slammed a heavy crate with his shield. The crate flew off the storage shelf and the soldier dove out of his shelter behind the shelf to avoid being crushed.
Bucky fired Steve’s pistol once and the HYDRA soldier went down with a bullet in his brain.
Bucky stepped up beside Steve, gun still raised in case the soldier got up again. “I had him on the ropes.”
Steve was facing the far end of the car, alert for any more combatants. “I know you did.”
A sharp whine came from behind them and suddenly Steve was diving to cover Bucky’s back with his shield with a frantic “Get down!”. Bucky barely had a chance to catch sight of another Hydra soldier before the energy cannons mounted on the soldier’s arms fired and the entire car was filled with a shocking wave of heat and light.
“Kill him now!” Dr. Zola’s voice ordered the soldier over an intercom.
Bucky blinked the stars out of his eyes and saw Steve grab his shield and raise it again just in time to block another shot of the cannon. Steve went flying back from the force of the blast and his shield dropped to the floor of the car.
Bucky dove for the shield, grabbed it, and threw it all in one motion (just like he had so many times before when he and the Commandos were screwing around on base). He hit the soldier dead in the chest with the edge of the shield and knocked the man back into the other train car.
Bucky whirled around to check on Steve and caught a glimpse of his friend clutching onto the damaged hand-rail of the slab of metal that used to be part of the train car’s wall and was now just a flap of steel barely hanging on to the side of a jagged hole in the wall.
Bucky leaned out the hole in the side of the car and held out a hand for Steve to take– doing his best to ignore how the ground rushed past far, far below. “Steve!”
Steve started to reach out a hand to grab Bucky’s arm, but the already-damaged railing he was hanging onto gave a sudden lurch under Steve’s weight. There was a moment where Steve looked up and Bucky saw his eyes widen in horror as the railing gave a dying screech and tore off the train completely.
“No!” Bucky gave a desperate lunge, but Steve’s gloved hand was just beyond his reach.
Steve let out a short scream as he fell, but the sound was swiftly stolen by the rushing wind. His limbs flailed as he hurtled towards the snowy ravine thousands of feet below the still-rushing train, and within moments his body was out of sight.
Within a single second, Steve– Captain America– was gone.
Bucky clutched at the jagged edge of the hole in the train-car and stared desperately into the ravine’s depths as if that would bring his best friend back to him.
“NO!” His scream was torn from his lips by the wind and Bucky had the wild vision of the sound falling after Steve. “No!”
The train rattled on, uncaring of the devastation it was leaving in its wake, and Bucky had already lost sight of the place Steve had fallen. The train’s wheels jolted over a bump in the track and Bucky was knocked back onto his ass into the train-car. The sight of the ravine was quickly replaced by the dark stone of a tunnel as the train continued, but Bucky still stared out the hole in the wall like Steve couldn’t truly be gone so long as he didn’t blink.
But it was too late.
Steve Rogers– that annoying punk from Brooklyn and Bucky Barnes’s best friend– was gone.
Gone.
****
“How about you?” Steved smiled. “You ready to follow ‘Captain America’ into the jaws of death?”
Bucky smirked. “Hell no. That little guy from Brooklyn that was too dumb not to run away from a fight.” He looked at Steve and a smile curled the corners of his mouth. “I’m following him.”
****
The Howling Commandos found Bucky in the bombed, crumbling remains of the British bar they had gone to the night after being rescued.
Bucky was sitting at what was left of the bar-counter with a mostly-empty bottle of whisky in his hand that he was taking swigs from like he was desperate to get drunk.
He was desperate to get drunk.
Alcohol didn’t seem to have the same effect on him ever since he had been Zola’s little lab mouse, but that fact hadn’t bothered him before. Steve never let him drink enough to get properly drunk anyways. Besides, why would he need to drink away his thoughts when he had his best friend and his war brothers fighting and living by his side every day?
Now….
Now, Bucky could only hope that finishing his second bottle would make the memory of the terror in Steve’s eyes as gravity caught up to him disappear.
“Colonol Phillips called a meeting. Seems like that pig, Zola, squealed and gave up HYDRA’s plans.”
Bucky refused to look at Dum Dum despite the man taking a seat right beside him in one of the few remaining intact chairs.
“Fuck off.” Bucky went to take another swig from his bottle, but a hand caught the bottle before it reached his lips.
“I think you’ve had enough, mate,” James said carefully.
Bucky snarled and tried to wrestle the bottle back, but he was stalled by a hand being placed on his shoulder.
“Come on, man,” Gabe’s voice was painfully sympathetic. “You know this isn’t helping anyone.”
“Why do you care?” Bucky’s words slurred a bit (far more from the utter lack of sleep he had been getting than the alcohol). “It doesn’t matter. Nothing fuckin’ matters anymore.”
Dum Dum slid the brim of his bowler’s hat a bit further down his forehead and sighed. “Look, Barnes, I know you and Cap were basically family. I understand not feeling like you have anything left to fight for, but do you think Steve would want you to give up just because he’s not here anymore?”
Bucky opened his mouth to reply but no words seemed to want to come out. But he did allow James to take the bottle out of his grasp.
“Il ne sera pas oublié.” Jacques said somberly. “Une vie honorable est une vie éternelle. Nous devons désormais forger notre propre honneur.”
“No one will forget Steve,” Gabe translated without being prompted. “He will be remembered as a hero forever, but our war isn’t done.”
“We’ve as good as lost,” Bucky mumbled. “Captain America was our greatest weapon.”
“Bullshit,” Jim said sharply. “It’s all of you that saved my ass just as many times as Rogers did. He may have brought us together, but we sure as hell aren’t the best fighting team just because of a costume.”
Dum Dum leaned into Bucky’s view and he was smiling in a way that made him look a bit feral. “This was HYDRA’s fault, and I for one want to give ‘em hell for it. Don’t you want to punch Schmidt in the face? For Steve?”
Bucky wiped a hand down his face and discreetly rubbed away a bit of liquid in his eye while he was at it. “You lot are going to a lot of trouble just to get your sniper on board for a suicide run.”
“About that….” James passed something large and circular into Bucky’s hands.
Bucky stared down at Steve’s shield and his hands trembled where he gripped the metal. “I can’t replace him.”
“We don’t want you to,” Gabe said gravely. “But we need someone to lead us, and we think that person should be you.”
Bucky’s eyes were blurring with unshed tears and he sniffed desperately to keep from breaking down then and there. “I’m no super-soldier.”
Dum Dum shrugged like it wasn’t important. “You’re the only one that knows how to use that thing properly. I was never a good pitcher.”
“Well?” Jim nudged Bucky’s shoulder. “What do you say?”
“Vous vous joindrez à nous ?”
Bucky scrubbed at his eyes and clutched the shield tighter in his hands. “What the hell. Steve promised to lead us to the jaws of death. Might as well burn the rest of HYDRA to the ground on our way.”
“We’re with you, Bucky,” Gabe promised. “We’ll follow your lead.”
Dum Dum, Jacques, Gabe, Jim, and James all placed a hand on Bucky’s shoulder in turn. Bucky wasn’t quite sure how to respond, so he simply held Steve’s shield close to his chest.
“One last run to cut off all the HYDRA heads,” Bucky said faintly. “For Steve.”
The Howling Commandos repeated the words in one voice. “For Steve.”
****
Bucky knew what Steve would have done.
Steve had been their main tactician long enough that Bucky knew exactly how he thought. Even before that, Bucky had bailed the man out of enough fights in alleys to know the drill.
Steve would have charged the HYDRA base head on. He would have made himself a target, knocked down the front door, and thoroughly distracted everyone from the rest of the team sneaking through the back.
Bucky had never been a fan of those plans. Logically, he knew that Steve didn’t need to be protected the same way he had before the serum. Hell, even when Steve had still been a 90 lb shrimp with asthma, he refused to be anything but bold. The logic that Steve could handle being on the front lines never eased the worry that thrummed in Bucky’s chest with every risky plan. He has always trusted Steve, but he didn’t trust him to be safe.
Bucky always knew Steve would end up dying protecting someone else.
Bucky wasn’t against the idea of doing the same, but he needed to keep himself and his team alive long enough to bring HYDRA down with them first.
After all, Bucky had always preferred the more subtle approach.
****
Agent Peggy Carter stood beside Colonel Phillips in the snowy forest outside of HYDRA’s largest base and watched a small mushroom cloud of smoke rise above the trees.
“Barnes said ‘subtle’?” Colonel Phillips said doubtfully.
Agent Carter tapped her nails on the sleeves of her jacket. “Perhaps the subtlety comes later?”
“Huh. And I thought Rogers was the theatrical one.”
Agent Carter’s mouth twitched like she was trying not to react to the name. “Brooklyn men, I suppose.”
The radio on Agent Carter’s belt crackled and the sound of gunfire and shouting could be heard through the static. “We’re in! Assault team, move out!”
“Alright men,” Colonel Phillips hollered to the waiting regiment of soldiers behind him. “That’s our signal. Move out!”
Agent Carter shifted her gun into a readied grip and Colonel Phillips did the same– smiling like an animal flashing its teeth. “Let’s do our boy proud, Ms. Carter.”
“I don’t know about you, Colonel,” Agent Carter moved to join the charging throng of soldiers and tossed her last words over her shoulder. “But I am much more concerned with giving HYDRA hell.”
****
Bucky raced into the plane hanger of the HYDRA base to find a chaotic pitched battle being waged between HYDRA soldiers and the Allied troops. More urgently, a large plane was getting ready to take off down the landing strip.
Bucky raced across the battlefield– gun in one hand and Steve’s shield strapped to the arm of the other– shooting and shoving enemies out of his way as he went. He almost caught up to the plane, but it was quickly picking up speed and soon it was beyond Bucky’s reach.
He slowed to a stop and he was looking around for another option when a shiny, very expensive-looking, black car screeched to a halt beside him with James at the wheel and Jim in the back seat.
“Get in!” James shouted. He revved the engine, and he slammed the car into gear barely a moment after Bucky hopped into the passenger seat.
“If we get close enough, you can grab onto one of the wheels,” Jim shouted past the wind whipping past from the burning jets of the plane they were chasing.
“That sounds like a plan Steve would make,” Bucky shouted back, grinning ferally.
“Absolutely mad,” James agreed– pushing the car even faster until the rear wheel of the jet that was beginning to lift into the air was almost in reach.
The end of the landing strip was quickly approaching, and Bucky stood in the front of the car and readied to jump. “Hey, let’s all get drinks after this,” he shouted out impulsively. “On me.”
“You’re on, Barnes,” Jim shouted back.
Bucky sent a final grin in the direction of his teammates and leapt out of the car.
For a moment, he was weightless with the ground flashing past below him.
And then, he collided with the plane’s tire and both arms clutched the massive wheel.
The plane had reached the end of the runway, and a moment later there was nothing but sky (and snow covered ground far far below) beneath Bucky’s feet. The landing gear began to retract, and Bucky scrambled to avoid being crushed as he climbed up into the belly of the plane.
He climbed out of the machinery and onto a metal walkway with only a little effort, but what he saw stored in the bomb bay stopped him in his tracks.
Dozens of missiles sat ready to drop. Each bomb had an American city’s name painted on its nose in jagged letters, and something in Bucky’s chest twisted at the sight of “New York” painted on a bomb powerful enough to wipe out a city.
The missiles all had a small cockpit to be piloted, and Bucky felt a sudden urgency tugging at him as he realized that as soon as the jet reached a high enough altitude the bombs would drop. He was on the clock.
A group of soldiers in pilot kit jogged into the bomb bay on a walkway above Bucky’s head and moved to load into the missiles.
Bucky swung himself onto the walkway above and he moved Steve’s shield to knock one soldier off the catwalk and threw it to take out another pilot like the shield was an extension of his own arm– like it wasn’t borrowed from a dead man.
He fell into the dance of the fight taking soldiers out with a mixture of fists, kicks, and the shield. There was a moment where he had to stop himself from moving to protect Steve’s dumb ass out of instinct. He was alone here. The only thing he had left to protect was the city he and Steve had been raised in.
One of the soldiers attempted to get away to slip into the pilot’s seat of one of the missiles, and Bucky had his pistol out and fired a bullet through the man’s heart before he could make it three steps.
Bucky knocked out the last soldier with a blow from the flat side of the shield that made the pilot’s bones snap like rotten wood. Bucky spent a moment assessing his work, then he turned with purpose and strode in the direction of the cockpit.
He had a bullet with Red Skull’s name on it ready and waiting.
The cockpit wasn’t hard to find, and Bucky crept inside with his gun and shield ready. Everything was far too quiet for a second, then Bucky heard the sound of an energy gun gearing up and he barely whirled around with the shield raised in time to block the vaporizing blast.
Red Skull held the gun in both hands with his gruesome face twisted in a sneer. “Captain America’s dog. You are outmatched.”
Bucky blocked another two shots of Schmidt’s gun and managed to fire off his own shot that knocked the other man’s weapon out of his grasp. “If you wanted to fight the better model, you wouldn’t have killed him.”
Skull leapt at him and Bucky got knocked down with that ghoulish face staring down at him. “Rogers is just the first. Soon the rest of the world will fall to HYDRA!”
“Not yet,” Bucky growled.
He shoved Skull off of him with the shield and quickly got lost in a flurry of returning blows. He lost the shield at some point (his arm cracking worrisomely when it was wrenched away) and Bucky could feel his chances of winning this fight grow smaller with every blow he took.
He didn’t stop fighting.
Steve had never stopped fighting, and Bucky could do nothing less.
Their wrestling ended with Skull slamming Bucky into the glowing energy housing unit just behind the plane’s controls. Bucky felt a couple ribs crack when Schmidt punched him, and Bucky’s flailing hand caught on a lever on the battery. A glowing cube slid out of its shell and when Bucky punched Skull again he jostled it and the cube tumbled onto the floor.
“What have you done?” Skull backed a step away in horror, staring at the blue cube.
Bucky took advantage of the space and pulled his pistol. His first shot caught Skull in the leg, and his second clipped the cube.
“No!” Skull screamed, diving away as the cube glowed painfully bright before letting off a wild bolt of energy that fried the ship’s controls and one of Skull’s arms.
The ship lurched, then began to nose-dive.
Skull was screaming.
The cube tumbled into a far corner.
Steve’s shield slid across the floor to Bucky’s feet.
Bucky grabbed the shield and reared it back above his head as he jumped. The plane shifted out from beneath his feet and Skull looked up just in time to see Bucky falling with the fury of an avenging devil.
He slammed the shield edge-first into Skull’s chest once, then again.
Skull stopped moving after the third hit.
Bucky landed the fourth on Skull’s neck and sliced through the man’s withered skin and through his throat.
Bucky fell back onto his heels and let the shield slip from his numb fingers. He stared at Skull’s body, breathing harshly, and nodded grimly in satisfaction.
“You shouldn’t have gotten Steve killed, you bastard,” Bucky spat.
The plane lurched again, and Bucky half-fell half-climbed towards the pilot seat. The controls were completely fried even if Bucky had been any sort of pilot, and he could tell that the plane was quickly headed for a watery crash landing in the freezing ocean below.
The bombs were still on board, so, Bucky figured the ocean was as good a place to die as any.
He spied the radio and he picked up the microphone with his one mostly-working arm. The arm Skull had broken seemed to be in worse shape than he had originally realized, but Bucky figured it wouldn’t matter much longer.
“This is Bucky Barnes. Does anyone read me?”
Jim Morita’s voice crackled over the radio almost as soon as Bucky’s finger lifted from the transmit button. “You actually did it, Barnes, you crazy bastard!”
Bucky smiled faintly even as he watched the endless expanse of grey water draw ever closer. “Yeah, about that…. The steering wheel on this thing seems to be broken. You might need to head out for that drink without me.”
Jim went silent for a moment. “You sure you can’t pilot that thing?”
Bucky glanced down at the smoking and sparking controls. “Pretty sure. Tell the other Howlies something sappy for me, will ya?”
“Did you get Skull?”
Bucky did smile at that, even just for himself. “Yeah.”
He could practically hear Jim’s answering grin. “You did Steve proud, Barnes.”
Bucky nodded to himself and had the flashing thought that maybe he’d find Steve again on the other side. “Make sure the Howlies go out for that drink. Put it on my tab.” The water was now the only thing in sight. “You know I’m good for it.”
“You got it, B—”
The plane hit the water, and Bucky Barnes met the flood of water that burst through the windshield with a content smile on his face.
End of the line.