Chapter Text
“Run, Steve!”
Steve would have rolled his eyes if he had the energy.
“I am, Bucky!”
Steve, despite the serum, is hard-pressed to keep up with the figure twenty feet in front of him, as Bucky is more familiar with the territory.
“Well then, run faster!” He yells back, and Steve has to hold back a groan.
“What the hell are these things, anyway?”
Up ahead, Bucky waves his hands around his head without missing a step.
“Beats me! Ask Stark when we get back!”
Steve pulls even with him and rolls his eyes.
“If Howard knew, I doubt we’d be out here.”
Bucky elbows him, glancing over.
“Yes we would. He’d want samples, for science.”
Steve huffs out a laugh.
“If you have breath for talking, run faster!”
They both run like hell, fleeing the distant screeching noises behind them. (Steve had wanted to stay and fight, but Bucky had dragged him off after the rest of their team died. Steve had finally gone because Bucky was still in danger. Peggy ordering them out over the car’s radio, before it had broken down, might have had something to do with it too.)
They both are nearly out of bullets. Steve has four shots left, and Bucky has one full one remaining, plus his rifle, which is almost useless in close-quarters.
As they near their pick-up point, Steve shoots a flare into the air, and they hear a plane’s engine start up ahead, warming up.
They’re nearly there when they turn a corner into an alley and have to skid to a halt because more than a dozen of the....things are standing in the alley, stumbling about aimlessly until they see (or smell) the newcomers.
“Ah, shit,” Bucky curses.
“Bucky,” Steve chides, and Bucky rolls his eyes, tossing him his gun and going for the rifle on his back, so at least they’re both armed.
They both get off a couple shots before a few of the things manage to separate them. A few more well-placed shots take them out, and then Steve and Bucky are running again.
“You got any ammo left?” Bucky asks while they run, huffing in air.
Steve waves Bucky’s gun in the air, then passes it to him.
“Still have this one,” he says, not gasping for air like Bucky is starting to.
Bucky nods as they make it clear of buildings and start sprinting across the small runway their ride was waiting at.
Except the plane is gone, and there are those things everywhere.
“Uh, Steve? How exactly are we getting out of here?” Bucky asks, worry finally showing on his face for the first time since the mission began.
They both flinch as the loudspeakers of the tiny airplane tower suddenly screech.
“Hello, boys!” Howard’s voice is suddenly able to be heard over the speakers.
They both stare at each other, identical looks of dread on their faces.
“Now, to get out of there, you’re both going to climb on top of the tower in front of you, and jump for the ropes we’re going to dangle out of the plane!”
Bucky’s look of dread changes to horror.
“Steve, your friend is insane.”
Steve’s face says quite clearly that he agrees with Bucky.
“And you have no choice, so jump to it, soldiers!” Howard’s voice sounds again, and Steve and Bucky exchange one more look and take off running for the entrance to the tower, while the things draw closer.
When they’re on the top, they both watch as a small plane flies by with several weighted-down ropes.
Bucky looks at Steve again. He doesn’t even have to say anything, Steve can read his face.
It very, very clearly says, Steve, if this doesn’t work, I’m going to kill him.
Steve doesn’t really blame him at this point.
“Hey, move your asses, people, they’re already sending in the cavalry!”
Steve flinches at Howard’s voice again, but gets ready to jump. Bucky also gets into position behind him.
“You first,” Bucky hears him grumble, “you can catch me if I miss.”
“Sure thing, Buck,” Steve says.
When the plane flies by again, Steve leaps for it and catches the ropes, turning to look at Bucky, getting ready for the plane’s next pass.
He can also see the things starting to climb the walls of the tower.
“Hurry, Bucky!” he screams.
Bucky runs and leaps for the ropes, and Steve.
Steve stretches as far as he can, and his fingers barely close around Bucky’s wrist. His weight drops onto Steve’s arm, and he grunts, but doesn’t let go.
“I got you,” he says.
Their eyes meet and Steve is rewarded by Bucky’s small adrenaline-driven smile.
Then one of the things which leapt after him latches onto Bucky’s leg, and Steve loses his grip.
“Bucky!” He screams.
He can just barely see Bucky land on several of the things, but he gets up and starts shooting at the things, trying to get back to the tower.
Steve is screaming at the pilot above him to turn around when he sees Bucky stop, about to be overrun, and he points the gun at his own head.
“Bucky!” He screams again.
But the gun doesn’t go off.
He can’t make out the look of horror on Bucky’s face when the things overrun him.
When the soldiers on the plane pull up the rope, they have to pry it out of Captain America’s fingers while he sits, unresponsive, on the floor for the rest of the ride back, tears leaking out of his eyes.
He reads the mission reports later, of how after the retrieval of Captain America, the army sent in planes to carpet-bomb the area to stop whatever virus turned the people into those things (the army refuses to use the word “zombie,” but the word is floating around the base) from spreading. He realizes, when the scene keeps playing over and over in his head, and in his dreams, that Bucky had been counting the bullets.
Counting on a full load, and a final bullet if he couldn’t make it. Better a bullet than those things.
But Steve had used a single shot from that gun before, and Bucky hadn’t known that.
So he’d condemned Bucky to the worse of two fates.
He couldn’t save his best friend.
It’s only a short time later that he flies a plane into the ocean.
Several weeks later, Sergeant James “Bucky” Buchanan Barnes, one of the famed Howling Commandos, is officially declared KIA, and Steve Rogers is declared MIA, presumed dead (although Howard Stark refuses to acknowledge this).
The truth is a little bit more complicated than that.
And considerably less pleasant for Sergeant Barnes.