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The fear is steeling. The Winter Soldier is trapped, and he’s in the most vulnerable position. Not only has he let Captain America disable the helicarrier, he has also failed his mission.
A sick feeling is pooling in his stomach, the adrenaline rushing through him not enough to free himself of the rubble. He watches the Captain’s every move with desperation, an urgency he’s never known settling deep in his bones.
Every mission he’s ever done before was carried out swiftly with manageable retaliation. This one is different. It isn’t like his targets haven’t put up fights before, it’s just that this specific target is playing with his mind, making him remember things he’s sure aren’t his own memories.
Never in his years of service has he lost the upper hand to his opponent, but here he is trapped against the glass floor of the helicarrier, weak and helpless. He tries to move his legs, his arms, anything to budge and inch and get out, to escape and make sure his target doesn’t kill him before he can finish his mission, but something in him tells him he’s already failed. There’s no way he can get out.
Even with this doubt, the Winter Soldier presses with all the force he can muster, ignoring any pain by habit, only grimacing as he pushes upwards, but it’s useless. He looks back over to the target, the fear renewed and ever-growing. Each second he wastes is a second that the target can get closer, can bring his life to an end.
The Captain drops from the platform and the urgency intensifies, his breathing going rapid. He has to get out of here. He has to get out.
He tries again, forces everything he has against the metal even as his target stumbles his way closer.
A memory seeps through, something of the last mission, from the last time he faced the Captain.
Bucky?
The Winter Soldier tries to shove the memory from his mind as the helicarrier jerks with another assault, but he notices the Captain making his way to the beam and figures something out. He tries again, one last time to see if he can escape and finish the mission. He can’t let this one slip through his fingers.
The target – Captain America, Steve, whoever – heaves the beam up, and all the Winter Soldier can think is foolish as he frees himself, the sick feeling of being helpless and scared dissipating as it’s replaced by his more accustomed rage.
Sentiment is foolish.
-
Steve can’t leave Bucky there even if he tries. He was shot, the wound caused by none other than Bucky himself, but he has to believe it wasn’t him. It wasn’t Bucky that shot him, but that doesn’t mean Bucky isn’t in there somewhere. So with everything he has, Steve forces himself to get up and off the platform.
The look in Bucky’s eyes as he struggles beneath the metal is like a knife being twisted in his gut. Bucky hardly ever had that fear in his eyes. He was always cool, collected, determined. He was never so afraid.
Except for when you couldn’t save him.
The reminder fuels him forward. He has this chance, he can save Bucky now. He has to.
He staggers and tries to grab a hold of the fallen framework, but the carrier is hit and Steve’s thrown back down.
He’s bleeding out and the pain is radiating from his abdomen, and it’s only the foolish fight in him – the one that didn’t know when to quit back in Brooklyn when Bucky had to save his ass – that drives Steve on. He has to save Bucky. Even if he can’t save himself, he would never be able to accept it if he let Bucky slip again, not after all this time.
Steve forces himself up at the sound of Bucky trying to free himself and grabs hold, lifting as well as he can and dropping the second he sees that Bucky is out. Exhaustion runs through his veins, so thick and weary that all he wants to do is give in.
He saw the fear in Bucky’s eyes; the fear when he realized he was trapped. It was as if Bucky was scared of Steve, vulnerable to the threat of being killed. The idea that Steve would want to hurt, or even kill Bucky… Every punch he threw to disable the helicarrier was pain inflicted on himself, but it had to be done.
That Bucky thought Steve was a threat enough to bring out that fear in his eyes makes this fight more than just Captain America vs. the Winter Soldier. This was a fight to bring Bucky back, to make him remember that Steve would never let go. So he said the only three words he could.
“You know me.”