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It was surreal to Steve these last couple of days. Being able to look Bucky in the eyes (the height difference was gone, which was strange both before and after Steve was given the serum), in person and know that it was actually him looking back. By how Bucky seemed to stare back on the ride down to the Winter Soldiers’ vault, Steve thinks he felt the same. There were so many things he wanted to say, so many feelings he couldn’t bring to words, but the thick silence wasn’t uncomfortable. Maybe he didn’t need to bring those feelings to words. Bucky knew, and he felt the same.
Once the elevator stopped it was like a spell broke, both men blinking back to themselves and, more importantly, the mission. If those soldiers were woken up, even Bucky wouldn’t be able to stop them.
It was both just like before and completely different, stealthing side by side again with weapons drawn. So much had happened, but they were still in sync. How Steve took so long to recognize the way the Winter Soldier moved before that mask came off, he’s not sure. Maybe because that wasn’t Bucky, not like this.
They hadn’t gone far, both just made their way up the small set of platform stairs when a sharp scraping sound from behind made them whip around, Cap’s shield raised and Bucky’s rifle to his shoulder. Anxiety raised as metal fingers pried the elevator doors open and Iron Man’s glowing eyes peered through at them as the doors were pushed open and the metal man stepped through. His faceplate and helmet folded back to reveal his face.
“...You seem a little defensive,” Tony snarked after a moment of sizing each other up.
“It’s been a long day,” Steve matched him, stepping off the stairs to meet him, his shield in front of his body. Bucky kept Tony in his gun sights, frozen like a statue.
Tony noticed, putting a metal hand up passively to the other. “At ease, soldier. I’m not currently after you.”
Bucky didn’t budge.
“Then why are you here?” Steve minutely lowered his shield. He was willing to hear his friend out, even after everything.
“Could be your story's not so crazy.” Tony crossed his arms as best as he could in his full suit, leaning casually against the nearby support beam. “Maybe. Ross has no idea I'm here, I'd like to keep it that way. Otherwise, I gotta arrest myself.”
“Well, that sounds like a lot of paperwork.” Steve took a silent breath and lowered his shield completely. “It's good to see you, Tony.”
“You too, Cap,” Tony gave him a little side smile. It felt like such a relief to not be at odds for once, at least for the moment. They still had discussions to face.
His attention shifted back to Bucky, still holding point over Steve’s head.
“Hey, Manchurian Candidate, you're killing me. There's a truce here. You can drop—” He waved his hand impatiently to lower the weapon.
Bucky gave Steve a glance out of the side of his vision to confirm. Steve nodded, and Bucky relented.
The three of them enter the main chamber, five large orange pods surrounding a strange setup in the middle. An experiment’s chair surrounded by broken screens and half a mask that seemed to be made to lower over the subject’s face. By the way Bucky tensed and focused on viewing the outer edges of the room rather than face the center, Steve had a sinking feeling he knew what it was for.
“If it’s any consultation, they died in their sleep,” Zemo spoke over the intercom, sounding rather nonchalant about the situation he put them all in.
A closer look at the pods holding the five other human weapons revealed bullet holes, one for each, right through the skull. They were actually dead, which was as relieving as it was confusing.
“Did you really think I wanted more of you?”
“What the hell…?” Bucky muttered under his breath as he looked around. If Steve hadn’t snapped him out of it earlier, would he have joined them to rot for dead in this room?
“I'm grateful to them, though. They brought you here.” A light turned on, revealing Helmut Zemo in a control room viewed by a single small window. Clearly HYDRA trusted the Winter Soldiers as little as anyone else.
Steve didn’t hesitate, throwing his shield directly at the window, unsurprised but disappointed as it bounced off back into his hand, not a scratch inflicted.
Zemo chuckled. He hadn’t flinched. “Please, Captain. The Soviets built this chamber to withstand the launch blast of UR-100 rockets.”
“I’m betting I can beat that,” Tony raised his hands, repulsors charging.
“Oh, I’m sure you could, Mr. Stark… Given time. But then you’d never know why you came.”
Steve stepped up to face the man directly through the window, eye to eye. “You killed innocent people in Vienna just to bring us here?”
“I thought about nothing else for over a year,” Zemo ignored the reason for his question. “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’s lips curled into a mean little smile. “How nice to find a flaw.”
“You're Sokovian.” Steve didn’t need to ask, recognizing the accent. “Is that what this is about?”
Zemo’s smile fell. “Sokovia was a failed state long before you blew it to hell. No, I'm here because I made a promise.”
Steve’s careful expression softened just a fraction. “You lost someone?”
He received a snarl in return, held back only barely. “I lost everyone. And so will you.” He reached off to the side, clicking a few buttons to cause a video to play on the screen to Steve’s right. “An empire toppled by its enemies can rise again. But one which crumples from within? That's dead. Forever.”
Tony stepped up closer, face paling as he immediately recognized the footage. “I know that road. What is this?”
Bucky looked away. That was the footage of him killing Howard and Maria Stark, and now their son gets to watch how he did it. How he ran them off the road, forcing them to crash. How he picked up Howard by the hair when he’d been thrown from the vehicle, bashing his head in with the metal arm, soaking it in blood. How he propped the body up in the driver’s seat to stage the crash. How he rounded the corner to the passenger seat, Maria crying for her husband but unable to move, probably paralyzed. His flesh hand had reached in and wrapped around her throat, choking the life from her eyes until she stopped struggling for breath.
The Winter Soldier had just stared on as he murdered them both without a word, without a twitch.
Bucky squeezed his eyes shut from that mechanical look on his own face. He already hated himself enough, he didn’t need to watch his sins from the outside as well. He and Howard had been friends, two of a kind and thick as thieves as Steve used to shake his head and say with a smile. Even through the concussion, the fear, and the pain of the crash, Howard had recognized him. He had called Bucky by name.
Tony had closed his eyes during the video, squeezed tightly in grief, but he could still hear it. He could still hear his mother’s cries until she was silenced.
When the Winter Soldier approached the recording security camera and shot it out, Tony couldn’t take it. Steve’s friend or not, he was going to kill him.
“Tony—” Steve was quick to get in between them as Tony made to lunge for Bucky.
Instead, Tony turned on him.
“Did you know?” Tony whispered, a storm of emotion behind his words.
Steve grasped for words, shifting anxiously as he stared into eyes full of rage. “I didn’t know it was him—”
“Don’t bullshit me, Rogers!” Tony hissed, glaring harder into those blue eyes. “Did you know?”
Steve couldn’t lie to him. Even about this. “Yes.”
Tony pushed off of him, exhaling his breath sharply. It only took a moment longer before Tony reengaged his helmet. He wouldn’t let him get away, not this time.
Steve had never taken a full hit from the Iron Man suit until now, but it made him, the perfect super soldier, see double once he realized he was on the floor after Tony put him there. He stumbled to his feet, spotting Iron Man on top of Bucky and pinning his arms.
Cap threw his shield, catching Iron Man off guard and giving him enough time to ram into him, pushing him off of Bucky. As much of a distraction that Steve was, Tony had eyes for Bucky and he wanted to see him bleed.
“It wasn’t him, Tony,” Steve put his hands up, trying to talk to his friend behind the mask, not unlike what he’d done with the Winter Soldier. “HYDRA had control of his mind.”
“Move,” Tony held up his palm repulsor cannon.
“I’m not going to let you do this,” Steve shook his head, reaching his hands out further.
Tony didn’t hesitate, taking the shot and throwing Steve out of the way.
Steve gasped for breath, having it knocked out of him. He was lucky Tony had mercy and wasn’t shooting to kill. “Get out of here!” He wheezed just loud enough for Bucky to hear, the man frozen with eyes locked on Tony. “He’s not going to stop!”
Steve could only watch as Bucky stayed rooted where he was, Iron Man rocketing into him and pinning him against the far wall.
“No!”
Tony’s mask retracted to look Bucky in the eyes, metal hands wrapped around his throat and squeezing, just like he did to his mother. “Do you even remember them?”
Bucky coughed weakly, releasing his own hold from Tony’s as he boldly met his gaze. “I remember all of them.”
Steve stumbled to his feet, unable to maintain his balance as he fell back over. Tony’s stun was keeping him dizzy. His shield was so close, if he could reach it, he could stop this.
Tony bared his teeth, the hydraulics in his arms creaking with the pressure he was forcing on them. He wanted to see the life leave his eyes.
…There was life there. Regret. Relief. Fear. Understanding.
The man in the video didn’t have that life in his eyes.
This wasn’t the man Tony wanted. This wasn’t HYDRA’s weapon, not anymore. This was as much a victim as Tony’s parents were, as much as Tony was. The real monsters were the ones pulling the strings, not the puppet that didn’t have a choice.
Tony pulled his hands away, dropping Bucky. The man heaved in a breath, gasping hard enough to cough with the effort.
Tony turned to find Steve standing behind him, his shield posed to strike. He was frozen, surprise in his eyes. “...I thought you were going to kill him.”
Tony swallowed hard, shaking his head to distract from the tears burning his eyes. “I’m going to kill HYDRA and everyone associated with them. Willingly.”
Slow clapping tore their attention away from each other, Zemo having moved to another window to better watch.
“Excellent performances,” He mocked, his sneer expressing his disappointment. “I admit I was hoping for more, though at least you will retain that annoyingly resilient friendship to your deaths.”
“You’ve lost,” Tony faced him as Steve helped Bucky to his feet. “You had a good hand, but couldn’t match the bet. Now, you, I would like to have a word with. Something tells me you don’t have a supersoldier’s fortification to stand up to it, though.”
“Perhaps not,” Zemo hummed, looking down at something in his hands, something Tony couldn’t see at this angle. “I suppose you have the strength and the gadgets that I do not. But what I do have,” Zemo looked up again, a peaceful expression on his face. He believed he already won. “Is a trump card you all keep forgetting about, surprisingly. I already got what I wanted, and when they find your bodies, they will make assumptions that will finish the job you so beautifully started.”
“What’s he talking about?” Tony threw back to Steve, not taking his eyes off of the threat.
The doors slammed shut behind them, large bolts locking into place.
“The difference between James Buchanan Barnes and the weapon codenamed The Winter Soldier is that the Soldat does not stop at pain. You learned this yourself firsthand, Captain, didn't you? When you snapped his arm and yet he did not relent.” Zemo held up a red book with a black star. “He will rip his body apart to achieve his mission. Can you say the same, Captain? Mr. Stark? Or will you be ripped apart instead?”
Bucky pushed off of Steve harshly, turning pale at the sight of that book. “No, no! Not again!”
“What is it? What does that do?!” Tony reengaged his faceplate, repulsors charging and aimed at that small reinforced window.
“Желание,” Zemo read in Russian. Longing .
Bucky shuttered unnaturally, looking up and around for a way out.
Steve took him by the shoulders, pulling his attention back to him. “Buck, talk to me, what’s he doing?!”
“Ржавый.” Rusted.
Bucky pushed him off, his breath coming fast and harsh. “He’s going to make me kill you. He locked us in here and he’s reading the words.”
Bucky had mentioned that before. When he woke up after his attack in Berlin and had no idea what happened or what he did. All he had to do was say the goddamn words.
“Семнадцать.” Seventeen.
“Tony, get that book away from him!” Steve yelled over his shoulder, a franticness in his eyes that was foreign on the usually unwavering soldier’s face.
“FRIDAY, scan for weak spots in that shielding,” Tony ordered as he redirected power towards his chest repulsor.
“Warning, low power detected. That flight over here wasn’t cheap, boss,” FRIDAY chimed in his ear.
“We’ll use what we got,” Tony responded as his eyes flew over the schematics, ratios, and percentages.
“Рассвет.” Daybreak.
Bucky screamed, his hands coming up over his ears as he tried to block it out. He couldn’t, it was in his head, buzzing like a parasite and forcing him to pay attention, to be a good little soldier.
Steve gripped him again, an arm around his and the other turning his face towards his own. He sank to the ground with him in his arms, taking all of his weight on him. “Hey, hey, eyes on me, James, just focus on me.”
“Печь.” Furnace.
Bucky heaved, turning his head and coughing up bile. Steve held his hair back, whispering soft words meant to be encouraging. They sounded hollow to both of them. Steve’s heart broke, unable to do anything but watch the greatest man he’d ever known suffer like this.
“Don’t let him put me under again,” Bucky hand gripped the side of Steve’s face like a lifeline. His nose began bleeding, a testament to how hard he was fighting it and losing. “I can’t do it again, I just woke up!”
“Easy, Buck, it’s okay. I’m right here,” Steve attempted to press his forehead against his, but his helmet was in the way. He reached up with his free hand, tearing it off and tossing it before cupping Bucky’s neck and tapped their heads together, staring into the eyes he’d known all his life. The only true comfort he’d found in this strange new world they’d both found each other in.
“Девять.” Nine.
“Tony, what’s your progress!?” Steve looked up at his friend.
“Well, you want it phrased like good news?” Tony gritted his teeth, pressing the palms of his hands against the lock on the far door leading into the control room. The weakest link was those hinges, but they had to be melted from the inside and his chest repulsor didn’t have the accuracy for that. “Starters, progress is progress. Also, this is nice craftsmanship that’s given me a few ideas for the tower if we ever make it back to it.”
Steve wouldn’t curse him out but he got pretty close to it. “What if I say my own words? Can I interrupt it?” Steve swallowed hard as all the Russian he’d ever learned suddenly left his head. “Выпускать? Водить машину? Unhöflich? Oh wait, damn, that one was German—”
“Добросердечный.” Benign.
Bucky screamed again, and Steve winced. “Alright, that didn’t work, then.”
“Please, please don’t let him do this. I don’t want to hurt you, I don’t want to hurt anyone—” Bucky begged. James Barnes didn’t beg, not as long as Steve had ever known him. Not from him, not from the army, not even in jest. Even when Steve found him in that HYDRA base so long ago, the start of all this, he didn’t beg or plead. HYDRA broke this man, put him back together as a husk and Zemo was reducing him back to that.
“I won’t let you, it’ll be okay,” Steve wiped the blood from his face. “You won’t hurt anyone. I’ll wake you up again, I’ll wake you up however many times it takes.”
“Возвращение на родину.” Homecoming.
“What helped you before?” Steve asked urgently. “You said I woke you up, what helped you?”
Bucky winced for a different reason, looking away but Steve pulled him back. “It was your eyes. I knew them, and I knew your voice. All those resets, all that brainwashing and torture but I never forgot your eyes.”
Steve remembered that. On the SHIELD helicarrier, when he and the Winter Soldier were face to face, he had looked terrified, like he saw a ghost.
He’d do it again. He had to.
“Один.” One.
Bucky tucked his face into Steve’s neck, hyperventilating. There was a horrible feeling in the pit of his stomach, like he was looking over the edge of a rollercoaster that had unfinished tracks and he had no seatbelt. “Steve—”
Steve pulled him back, looking him in the eyes. He braced both hands to cup his neck and cheeks. This man dripping blood with hysteria in his eyes meant too much to him to lose him. Not to Tony, not to Ross, and especially not to Zemo.
“I’m right here, Bucky. To the end of the line, I’m right here.”
“Грузовой вагон.” Freight car.
All at once, Bucky’s arms dropped, the death grip he had on Steve’s uniform falling slack even if he held stiff. It was like the living body Steve had been holding had suddenly turned into a mannequin.
“Bucky?” Steve whispered, his eyebrows pulling together.
Bucky’s eyes had faded, his frantic search for comfort in Steve died along with his fear. These eyes were dead, and suddenly Steve realized how he hadn't recognize the Soldier sooner, because this didn’t look like Bucky.
“Доброе утро, Солдат.” Zemo smirked audibly, pleased as punch. Good morning, Soldier.
A large boom echoed through the chamber, the vault door falling open from its melted hinges. Everyone in the room flinched at the sound, all except for Bucky. He just turned, eyes on his handler with the red book.
“Я готов отвечать.” Ready to comply.