Chapter 6
"Which war did you come back from?" Sam had been rolling the question over since she'd been past the worst of her gut wound. Finally asking was a relief.
"I'd been in the European theater when I boarded Schmidt's plane."
Wow. He'd expected that, but to have it confirmed, to know that he's fought with a veteran of World War Two... "How long have you been back?"
"Before the Battle for Manhattan? I was in a coma after they found me, but between those, about three weeks. I can still remember Dernier standing in a smoldering street, saying that he hoped I never had to look at--"
Sam had to restrain himself, not interrupt.
"Bucky was much worse than any brick or concrete. Standing in those ruined blocks, I could think of how much worse it would have been if Schmidt had succeeded. That's, when I saw the writing on the bombers, I thought of those French cities. If I'd thought Bucky could survive that fall..."
There was little about the real Captain America's end that was known. People were still trying to get around the images of the actors and think of Captain America as a woman. "What happened on the plane?"
"We fought. The plane was damaged, Schmidt was stupid and then I did what I could to stop the plane from completing its mission. Howard was on the radio, thinking he had all the answers. If I'd told him to go after Bucky, he would have."
She was probably correct. He'd already heard from Tony how much of Stark Industries' innovations between 1945 and 1992 stemmed from the Arctic exploration. Yeah, Howard could innovate from the grave.