You and your father stood inside the old, dusty Russian base, looking at a video on a screen. In the video, the Winter Soldier shot your grandparents. You didn't hurt for them, but you hurt for your father...
That was until another video played, and you recognised the pleading face on the side of the road.
“Mom...” You murmured. You hadn't taken off your helmet, and you thanked your past self for not doing so. The tears formed inside your eyes.
“Did you know?” Tony asked Steve, rage pouring out of him.
“I, I didn't know it was him—“
“Don't bullshit me, Steve,” your father replied. “Did you know?”
Steve sighed, and the answer that was coming you already knew, “...Yes.”
Tony stepped back, and the pain of his heart you saw reflected in his face. Your dad took two steps towards you and placed a hand on your shoulder over your suit. “(Y/N)...,” but he didn't know what to say. You'd just seen your mothers get shot. What was there to say?
You lifted your finger to stop him, and Barnes put up his weapon. “You gonna shoot me?” You inquired. “Wasn't my mother enough?”
He didn't put it down, but you could see his eyes water.
You didn't care.
You blasted him and Steve at the same time, tempted to do it until they lost consciousness.
But they knew how to put up a fight too.
“Cover me,” you told your father.
“(Y/N)!”
Tony would've loved to fight Steve and Bucky, and if he was there alone, he would've. But he had his daughter there, and she was showing a side of herself he hadn't seen before. A side that scared him.
A side that scared you too.
You flew towards Barnes, him on the ground. He got a hold of his gun and aimed it at you, charged.
Behind you, you could hear blasts and metallic crashes.
“I didn't mean to,” he justified. “I didn't mean to.”
It sounded like a cry, but his tears were difficult to pay attention to through your own. “I don't care,” you murmured.
The statement scared the shit out of you.
Bucky started shooting at you and your suit. You kicked the weapon out of his reach, leaving him on the ground defenseless.
In the background, the fight got stronger, knowing the issues your dad shared with the Captain had reached a breaking point. Years of issues in the making.
They all came down to this.
You got down in front of him. He didn't move. He knew what was coming... and he didn't care.
Your helmet retrieved.
“You'll pay for this.”
Bucky didn't expect anything less, and now, his chances of coming out alive (or even conscious) out of this fight were slim.
You punched him. And again. And again. With your right hand. With your left fist. With both at the same time.
“(Y/N), stop,” your AI demanded, but you didn't listen.
The rage and sadness ate you alive. The man you were punching had murdered your mother in cold blood.
And just before Bucky lost consciousness, a hit burned in your back for a split second.
You turned around, seeing how Steve Rogers wanted to approach you, but your father stopped him each time.
You saw Barnes again. “This isn't over.”
You grabbed him by the neck and flew away with him.
“(Y/N)!” Your father yelled out.
You didn't listen.
The Captain's shield stroke again, this time in your left foot. “Left boot compromised,” your AI informed.
“I'm about to end him,” you stated. “All force in propulsors!”
“I can't let you do that,” your AI replied, taking control of your suit.
“What the fuck?!”
Your AI dropped you in an earthy surface covered in snow, both of you falling on the ground. Barnes was in a corner, and your suit shut down.
“NO!”
“Safety insurance from your father.”
“Fuck this.”
That said, you punched a side of the suit. You hurt yourself in the process, but the part that powered the AI shut down. You didn't have propulsors. No blasts, no flying. Only brute strength.
And anger.
Barnes got up. You met him halfway, engaging again in the fight.
His strikes didn't aim at your face. Your abdomen burned. Your ribs cracked. Your chest hurt.
He stopped when he saw you cough up blood.
You spit, the blood branding the snow. A chuckle escaped your mouth. You threw a left hook on his face.
A body landed on the area. You recognised the Captain. He didn't care for your father approaching him. He made his way towards you, prepared to launch the shield at you.
Your suit restarted itself.
“Don't touch her!”
You blasted him. He stumbled. In your distraction, Barnes took a hit for your body. Your helmet slid back onto your face.
You grabbed Barnes by the neck. “This isn't going to change what happened!” Steve exclaimed.
“I don't care,” you answered, applying force on your grip against the veteran. “He killed my mom.”
Your father blasted him from a distance.
You threw Barnes to the other side. His back crashed against a wall, leaving cracks. Gathering the bit of strength he had within himself, he fought back. You kneeled him on the stomach.
You used an uppercut to knock him out and you blasted the rest of him to the ground.
His metallic arm had blown off.
You walked at him, ready to finish the job... but then, Bucky pronounced a word that hit too close to home.
“Dolphin,” he whispered with his last breaths of consciousness. “Dolphin. Dolphin.”
Dolphin.
The nickname took you back in time. Your mother used it as a way to call time out. When you were fighting, when you were too stressed to function, when you got mad when she had to leave.
It was your own language.
It was your own apology.
It was your own I love you.
In your father's fight, the Captain had him pinned down, ready to blow your dad's Arc Reactor with his shield.
You blasted him.
“Enough,” you said. Your seriousness spoke volumes, and as the minor in the fight, as the one who'd gone through enough bullshit and shouldn't have been there at all, they listened.
Steve crouched. He put his arm around Barnes' waist and got him up, deciding to walk away with him.
“That shield doesn't belong to you,” your father said. “You don't deserve it! My father built that shield!”
Steve stopped on his tracks... and he dropped the shield.
And you knew.
There was no coming back from this.
Two weeks later, you were at the Administration from your school since the office had called you through the speakers of Midtown.
“Someone sent you this,” the receptionist told you, handing you a large, yellow envelope.
You frowned. “Me?” You inquired. “Why?”
She shrugged. “No idea.”
You looked at the envelope and you read something on the back.
Cpt. SGR.
Captain Steven Grant Rogers.
“Thanks, M,” you thanked her.
The student body left their classes from the third period, and you took a seat on a bench outside of the school. You opened the envelope and pulled out a folder, and the first thing you saw was a photograph: James Barnes, frozen.
“What...?” You mumbled to yourself.
You read the vast information: details of how HYDRA tortured, manipulated, brainwashed and puppeteered him, turning him into the Winter Soldier and giving him the burden of murders he didn't consciously commit.
You didn't know how to feel about him.
You sighed and closed the folder, ready to put it back inside the envelope... when you realised there was something else.
A letter.
Dear (Y/N),
Hey, it's me: the guy you told about school drama and who you sparred with when you got angry at the world. I'm not disclosing my location in case this letter falls into the wrong hands or in case you decide you want revenge and your father isn’t there to stop you.
I'm not going to ask for your forgiveness. The wound is too fresh. But I do want to say that I’m sorry. I thought I was doing right by your father and by you... but I wasn't. I made everything worse by postponing your pain and keeping a secret that wasn't mine.
I am sorry.
Right now, Bucky is about to go back in the ice. He decided that, until we figure out how to free his mind from HYDRA' s pull, he should rest. I opposed, but it wasn't my decision to make. None of these were.
I'm sending you information about his past. I'm hoping that if you know the truth about what happened, it will help you heal.
I care about you, kid. You're like my little sister, like the niece I never had... and I know it's a forever kind of job, so I want you to know that if you need help, if you need to argue or fight or cry, or if you just need to get out of your head for a while, I'm here.
I'm always here.
Steve.
There was a number at the bottom.
You closed the letter. You cried, your forehead against your knee. You hugged your leg, seeking comfort in anything near...
You analysed the information. If your mother were there, she would've told you it wasn't his fault. She would've told you that what had happened wasn't okay, but that in this situation, it wasn't a choice he could've made.
Your father had relocated the AI for the Accords, knowing what the fight was leading to. He'd saved you from yourself, and you would forever be grateful to him for stopping you from making the biggest mistake of your life... But despite that, you didn't define yourself as merciful nor forgiving, and none of your parents would have either.
You wouldn't forgive him or Steve today, and certainly not tomorrow... but maybe one day.
Maybe one day.