Of Heroes and Myths

He came to after an indiscernible amount of time. Voices filtered in, and he tried to focus on them. He was moving, or rather his body was, his body encased in an upright position as someone wheeled him along. A cursory tensing of his wrists let him know that even with his advance strength he couldn’t bust through. The voices… were arguing about the Seven Dwarfs?

“I’m just saying, I’m the healer. I should be Doc.”

“Okay, but do you have four PhD’s? No? Then you’re not Doc.”

“In what world am I Bashful? Do I look like I’m some blushing virgin to you?”

“At least it’s better than Dopey. You guys are the worst.”

“You didn’t even argue about it.”

“Just because I’m self aware doesn’t mean that you have to point it out.”

“Well, what about Happy? You’re certainly not Grumpy.”

“Why are we even comparing ourselves to the Seven Dwarfs anyway? There ain’t seven of us.”

“There will be, apparently. We just gotta get our Snow White up there her Prince and break the spell!”

“Steve’s not under a spell though.”

He tuned them out, their conversation just drivel but it relieved him that his friends were still alive and still themselves. That meant he couldn’t have been out that long, in fact if his mental map was correct, they were still on their way to the Detainment Center. His view was limited, his head strapped to the upright stretcher, but he could tell their security detail was tight. Carol Danvers led the patrol up ahead. His chest ached from where Natasha hit him—

What happened in the office slammed into him and he jerked, his muscles straining against the straps. Where was Natasha? Where was… could it have really been…

“Is our Snow White finally awake? Good morning princess!”

“Bucky — where’s Bucky? Natasha? Danvers, you have to listen to me, SHIELD is not what we thought it was, it’s—”

Danvers was over in an instant, clamping a hand over Steve’s mouth. Her considerable strength was more than enough to hold him down just with one hand.

“Sorry Cap, but I’m under strict orders not to let you speak and you woke up early. Where’s the gag?”

His muffled protests meant nothing as Danvers shoved the gag in his mouth.

“Did he say Bucky? As in Bucky Barnes? As in the dead Howling Commando?” Tony’s voice asked.

“It can’t really be him, can it?” Sam asked. “Didn’t he die like seventy years ago?”

“Maybe he is under a spell,” Clint suggested.

“No,” that was Tony, “but I think we finally figured out the lock to his key.”

“That’s enough,” Danvers ordered. “You better be quiet, or the rest of you will get gagged as well.”

“Don’t know how you’ll get the gag through my faceplate.”

So, Tony was still in his suit, then.

“I will rip it off if necessary.”

The threat worked, since even Tony stayed quiet after that. The entourage continued on and Steve decided that he couldn’t dwell on what it meant that Bucky was alive right now, and shoved it all down. He needed to get Bucky and Natasha out of here. Bucky had to be under the same kind of control that the rest of them were, there’s no other way, Bucky would never work for someone like Pierce otherwise. And Natasha — a pang of guilt thudded through him — he should have noticed that she was under his control too. He had to save them both, along with the rest of his team. It was his fault that they were even here.

The agents flanking them wheeled them into a large chamber, with two reinforced doors on either side of the room and a large glass window on the other. He could finally catch a glimpse of the others as they were lined up side by side in front of the window. Sam and Clint were a little tousled and roughed up, but nothing too bad. Since Tony was still stuck in his suit, it must not be online yet. Steve couldn’t imagine the kind of device they’d need to knock that out and keep it knocked out. Of course, Tony could be faking and was just biding his time, but he couldn’t count on that. They’d taken his earpiece and his connection to JARVIS. They’d left Clint’s hearing aid in at least.

He looked around the first part of the prison system. They needed to be searched, cleaned, and made sure they weren’t carrying any other weapons. It must be the reason Colonel Danvers was still with them. There were few other people who’d win in a fight with Steve, and he’d be the first to admit she was stronger. In a battle of pure strength, he’d lose.

Pierce strode in the room adjacent, the one they could see through the glass, sans scotch, with the air of the cat that got the canary. Steve glowered, anger like he’d never known rushing through his chest, coursing through his veins.

He bit through the gag, the rubber crushing beneath his teeth. He spit it out.

“That’s enough. Thank you, Colonel, you are dismissed.”

She hesitated just slightly, glancing out of the corner of her eye at Steve and the broken gag on the floor. “Yes sir,” she said, before turning on heel and leaving.

Steve could only spare half a thought to wonder if she were under Pierce’s control as well, but he couldn’t focus beyond the rage building in his stomach. He had to get Natasha and Bucky out of here first.

Despite what many people think, Steve wasn’t a violent man. That usually surprised people. He’s a soldier, and he’s so quick with words and strong with his opinion. One of the first things the Smithsonian and so many history books list was that he was prone to getting into fights over what he thought was right. Because he fought the good fight. He fought the fair fight. Even now, when up against others, he pulled his punches and slowed his reflexes down to match theirs. He wasn’t cruel. He wouldn’t keep beating someone while they were down or hurt someone purely to hurt them. That wasn’t him. He never liked killing. He never liked really hurting anyone.

But when Pierce snapped his fingers and Bucky and Natasha appeared on either side of him, Steve thought he might just make an exception.

He thrashed against the restraints. “Bu—”

Pierce raised his hand and cut Steve off. The cool syrup of the magical gag slithered down his throat and froze his vocal cords. Steve jerked again, his stretcher rocking a little. If he rocked too much, he’d fall face first into the floor. He glared daggers through the glass window, willing it to shatter completely.

Steve didn’t have telekinesis, so the window stayed in tact. Pierce smiled, enjoying his struggle.

“I can’t have you speaking, you’ve already proved how treacherous that tongue of yours can be,” Pierce said, his voice playing through a speaker into their room. “I appreciate you bringing my soldiers back, however. No hard feelings, Captain.”

“Fuck me,” Clint whispered next to him.

“In fact, you’ve proven yourself to be an invaluable asset to my operation. It’s only natural at this point that you join me.” He put a hand on Bucky’s shoulder, right where his neck connected to his body. Steve wanted to throw up. “Seventy years is a long time to be apart. It’s about time you two reunited, what do you think, Captain? And become a matched set of supersoldiers for Hydra?”

Steve swallowed back the bile that crept up into his throat. He strained against the straps, twisting his wrists. He might be able to break his thumb and pull his wrist out, but he couldn’t think ahead from there. His mind buzzed and his chest ached and that was Bucky, Bucky was in pain and he couldn’t do anything about it.

Pierce snapped his fingers and a long staff appeared in his hand. It was almost as tall as he was, with a long, ornate, golden shaft. It curved upward, two blade-like pieces clutching a bright blue orb in the middle. He handed it to Bucky.

“Go on. Take this and carve his heart out. I want to add it to my collection.”

“Where’d you get that fancy scepter? Interesting power source, I might add, in fact, why don’t you just unbind me, I’ll come and study it. No charge! You don’t even need to take my heart or whatever. Actually, I’ll—”

Pierce snapped his fingers and Tony went silent. “All in good time.”

Bucky took scepter without hesitation, expression stone cold. Steve’s heart beat loudly in his ears like it could sense what was coming. He popped his left hand out of the restraint, breaking his thumb in the process, but he barely registered the pain. He could reach Clint’s restraints from where he was, he just needed the right moment where Pierce’s eye line was blocked.

The buzzer sounded and the reinforced door opened, allowing Bucky to walk through.

Steve couldn’t breathe properly. Bucky stepped up to Steve and Steve’s heart leapt to his throat, choking any sound he could have made if he could speak. Bucky stared impassively at him, not a spark of recognition in his eyes.

He lifted the scepter and pointed it straight at Steve’s heart, the blue orb glowing even brighter now that the power was being used. His ribs began to crack apart—

“Oh wait, I almost forgot!” Pierce said. Bucky pulled the scepter away and air rushed back into his lungs. “Widow, go grab the heirloom, would you? I don’t want it getting damaged in the process.”

Natasha stepped through the doors this time. Where Bucky was impassive, Natasha looked almost apologetic.

I know, Steve wanted to scream. I know this isn’t you. Bucky stepped back so Natasha could walk up to Steve.

She paused when she saw Steve’s hand was loose. Steve made himself relax and breathe evenly. He stared at her like he could bore the words into her mind.

I trust you.

I have faith in you.

I am loyal to you.

She reached her hand into his jacket pocket, taking out the half circle. It shined silver now. She glanced back down at his hand, still at his side, then up at his face.

He gave her a small nod.

I know.

Without you we never would have made it this far.

I trust you.

Her eyebrows pinched together just slightly.

“Romanoff,” Pierce said, becoming impatient.

She turned on her heel and walked back out. She didn’t glance back, but Steve kept his eyes on her, so sure that she would do the right thing. He had faith. He knew she didn’t want to work for Pierce. He knew.

Natasha handed the piece to Pierce who tsked before stepping up to the glass.

“Only half? And I thought you would have put a little more effort to find the pieces of your best friends soul. No matter, I’ll have you find the rest once you’re mine. Asset, if you please?”

Bucky turned back to Steve, but Steve focused on Natasha. When Pierce had moved, it had put her behind him. She locked eyes with him, the pinched in her eyebrows returning, before her eyes widened.

Just as the tip of the scepter pressed against Steve’s heart, something hit Natasha in the back throwing her forward and into Pierce, who then both hit the glass wall.

It distracted Bucky and the scepter pulled away again. Steve reached over and yanked the restraint around Clint’s right wrist off before quickly setting to take care of his own.

Natasha pulled back and punched Pierce as hard as she could in the face, yanking him up off the floor and throwing him against the glass. Bucky took off to the door, yanking it open with his metal arm to go to Pierce’s aid.

The distraction worked — Tony’s suit booted back up and he easily snapped the restraints holding him in place. With one hand he sliced through the rest of Steve’s straps and blasted through the glass window with the other. Tony rushed in to distract them both from Natasha, placing himself beside her. Steve launched over the shattered glass and moved behind Bucky, outmatched but not going to stand down.

The ground rumbled and the scepter reappeared in Pierce’s hand and pointed it at Natasha.

“You’re going to pay for that. Asset, subdue her.”

Natasha backed up a step, tense and a little wild like a caged animal. Steve could see the promise of death in her eyes as she lunged at Pierce.

The battle ended quickly — Natasha dove and weaved around the magical blasts from Pierce’s scepter with the help of Tony’s distraction. Steve engaged with Bucky, quick fists and brutal accuracy like before, Steve tried to impress just as he had with Natasha you have a choice I trust you I need you — but nothing worked. Bucky got a hold of Steve’s throat with his metal hand, pulling him close before hurtling him back through the window. Steve’s back hit the window frame and the broken glass sliced through his shirt and skin before he landed hard on ground.

Just as Sam and Clint freed themselves, Pierce turned, saw that they were outnumbered, and leveled a blast that threw those still standing against the walls, even Bucky. Iron Man dented the cinderblock wall, Sam and Clint slid to the floor, dazed but received only minor scrapes. Natasha crumpled the ground and didn’t move.

“Asset,” Pierce ordered and Bucky came to his side in an instant.

Steve’s body reacted before his mind could put it together and he dove back over the ledge, reaching out only to miss Bucky by mere inches before they both disappeared from the room.

His momentum carried him forward and he rolled once before coming to a stop, staring back at the spot where Bucky was just a moment before.

He pulled back and punched the ground, cracking the cement floor and his knuckles. Again, he was too slow, couldn’t reach out far enough, let Bucky slip through his fingers again, he punched the floor again, again, again.

The fifth time he pulled back Tony caught his arm. Sam slid next to him on his other side.

“Easy there, Cap. How about we save that for someone who deserves it?”

His hands were warm and gentle on his arm and his shoulder. Steve slumped, breathing irregular but his eyes dry. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the air glimmer and the door to the outside open, shutting quietly.

“Not that — I mean, I know this is traumatic and Cap’s bleeding everywhere, but we need to go. Like yesterday.”

Sam threw Steve’s arm over his shoulder and helped haul him off the ground, despite Steve’s legs being numb and uncooperative.

“Where’s Natasha?” Clint asked.

Steve turned his head towards the door and Clint swore, rubbing his hand down his face.

This lead to Tony gesticulating widely in some sort of sign language all his own, before he finally gave up and just blasted through the door. He pointed at his ear and then at the door. That was clear enough. Looks like JARVIS still functioned despite the owner being mute.

Steve didn’t remember much of their escape, afterwards. Sam stayed at his side, physically guiding him as he stumbled along, fingers and feet cold and head dizzy. Tony took point and Clint watched their six, but they met little resistance along the way, taking long, winding hallways and guiding them down the stairwell.

Tony led them to the 39th floor up to an open window. A sedan was parked up next to it, inside the hallway. The driver rolled down the car window.

“Heard you might need a ride,” Maria Hill said.

They climbed in, Tony finally stepping out of his suit to leave in the trunk with Steve’s shield, Sam’s wings, and Clint’s bow, and took the front seat. Sam and Steve got in the middle two seats and Clint climbed in the back. Sam pushed the seat down and made Steve lay face down so he could heal his wounds. Steve couldn’t even protest, but he also didn’t realize just how deep they were and how much blood he’d lost. Of course, he wasn’t aware of much at the moment.

Maria took off, because of course the car could fly. He didn’t know where they were going. He found it hard to care.

He wasn’t able to save Bucky again. What’s the point of anything if he couldn’t protect the one thing he cared about most?

~*~

The air in the car was tense; the magical gag long since worn off, but no one, even Tony, knew what to fill the silence with.

At first they explained that with JARVIS still running despite Tony being captured, he led Maria to where their weapons were kept, who then led Tony to Maria. Steve had questions to ask. He should have questions to ask. Instead, he stared out the window unseeingly; head lost to 1945.

“Who the hell is Bucky?”

“He looked right at me, and he didn’t even know me,” Steve said.

The rest of them glanced between each other.

“They must have found him, after he fell.” Steve’s stomach dropped out faster than the car descended through the air. “And I just… I just left him there. He must’ve survived the fall and I didn’t even look for him.”

“You couldn’t have known, Steve,” Sam said.

“I should’ve gone after him. Even just for his body, to bring him home to his family. But I didn’t. I good as let them carve out pieces of his soul and torture him into doing their bidding.”

The silence hung heavy in the car and no one spoke until they reached the ground, and then it was only Tony asking where they were going. They’d left the city, driving northwest towards Upstate New York. Morning broke, and the dawn was beautiful, casting pinks and oranges across the endless blue sky. Steve stared out and didn’t take in any of it.

Until the tree line shook. The trees themselves bent unnaturally outwards to form a gaping maw, the inside of the forest too dark and black for it to be anything ordinary.

“Stop!” Steve ordered and Maria slammed on the brakes.

It instantly put everyone on high alert.

“What’s going on?” Sam asked.

“Out there — you see? Clint, hand me my shield.”

“Out where? I don’t see anything.”

“JARVIS isn’t picking anything up. No heat signatures, no nothing.”

A dark shape, something huge, rustled the leaves and made the hairs on the back of Steve’s neck stand up and goosebumps crawl across his skin.

“You didn’t see that?” he asked, not breaking focus as he opened the door. He stepped lightly and slowly towards the opening in the trees, able to feel the bloodlust from the creature as soon as his feet touched the grass.

“There’s something in there,” he warned, knowing without seeing that his team was at his back.

The forest swallowed him whole, the air turning from crisp and dry to humid and grossly warm. He looked back and the road, the car, and his team were gone, replaced by endless forest. He had no idea where he was, or for that matter, where the beast was.

That answered itself as something lashed out and Steve hefted his shield, the blow sending him flying and he landed hard on the grass. The shield bounced off his arm—

His weak, skeletal thin arm. He looked down at his body, patting his skinny chest and stomach, completely devoid of his muscle. Somehow he was back in his body before the serum and a blind panic took over him.

The beast weaved between the trees but it was too dark for Steve to get a good look at him. He scrambled upwards and hefted his shield up onto his back, which dragged him backwards — he was barely able to lift the damn thing let alone throw it. It dug into his thin bony shoulders as he ran away from the beast.

Just a few steps and he was already exhausted, his thoughts racing and he was going to die here, wasn't he? With this beast prowling and ready to devour him piece by piece and he was never going to see daylight or his friends again, Natasha and Bucky were going to suffer long and painful deaths and it was going to be entirely his fault—

He rounded a tree and came face to face with a large man and nearly shrieked, jumping backwards. His shield overbalanced him and he fell down, the tip of the it hitting him in the head.

The other man had stumbled back as well, his eyes wide and frightened, shaking as he gripped the tree. He was large, very large, all muscle and thick limbs and probably would be taller than Steve even after the serum. His long blonde hair was a mess, falling out of the braids trying valiantly to hold it back.

“Please don't hurt me,” he begged, cowering behind the tree. Steve hauled himself up and the man flinched. Even with all his attempts to make himself small he was still much taller than Steve.

A cold sweat dripped down Steve's neck and armpits, his body shaking from exertion and fear, hardly able to draw a steady breath. Even after all this time he couldn't forget what an asthma attack felt like. He swallowed against his tight throat.

“I'm not gonna hurt you,” he said and held out his hand. “Captain Steve Rogers.”

The man ignored his proffered hand, taking a deep breath to steady his nerves.

“I am Thor the Thunderer, son of Odin the All-Knowing and Prince of the mighty Asgard.”

Steve's eyebrows flew to his head. He'd say that this might be the weirdest thing that happened to him today, but he didn't want to jinx himself.

“Hello Thor. I'm here to help.”

He snorted. “You cannot help! You are hardly bigger than a twig. Those Bilgesnipe would knock you down with nothing more than a sneeze.”

A tremor went down Steve's spine. “What's a — what’s a Bilgesnipe?”

An inhuman roar echoed through the forest and they both jumped. Thor pointed with a trembling hand over Steve's shoulder.

“T-that!”

Whatever it was, it was huge, scaly, and had giant antlers. Steve barely got a glance before Thor took off running and Steve had to sprint to catch up with him.

Thor ducked behind a large tree, something much larger than anything they had in Upstate New York, and cowered in the borrow. Steve had to lean against the tree to catch his breath, his shield offering him no favors.

“What is that?” he hissed. “Where did it come from?”

“Bilgesnipe come from Asgard, as I do. While on Asgard my brethren and I would hunt these vile creatures for fun, but now I have lost my power and Mjolnir! You Midgardians are so weak and breakable — I cannot do anything in this state,” he lamented.

Steve understood probably every third word of that.

“Well, how do we defeat it?”

“I need mine hammer, and you a proper weapon. And a proper body. But I cannot I — I—”

Another roar pierced the air and Thor ducked down with his head in his knees.

“Hammer? What are you talking about?”

Thor whimpered. “My Mjolnir. With it I could call my lightning and slay it!”

“Oh,” Steve breathed. From what little Steve knew about Norse mythology, he knew that this Thor was acting completely opposite of how he should. How many magically enchanted people had he come across today? He nearly smacked himself.

“Thor, you have to face your fear. We're trapped here with that Bilgesnipe until you do.”

“No, no, I cannot-”

Steve kneeled down in front of Thor and put his hands on his shoulders.

“Thor, you have to.”

“You cannot make me! I will—”

“You'll what, keep running and hiding? If you do that, they'll never let you stop. Not until you're dead.”

Thor swallowed, and then said in a hoarse voice, “I have to face the Bilgesnipe?”

“No,” Steve said. He didn't know the answer until he said it, but he knew Tales. “You said you used to hunt these things for fun. You have to face what you fear most.”

Thor covered his face with his hands and shook his head. The beast roared and Thor jumped and whimpered again.

“You will not do it alone! Whatever you fear, I will not let you face by yourself.”

“What I fear you wouldn't stand a chance against. None of you Midgardians would.”

“You won't know unless you give us a chance. We're hardier than you think.”

“It is the End of Days, with horrors you could not even imagine, creatures worse than the Bilgesnipe coming to pillage and destroy Midgard!”

“Then we will face it when it comes. We are brave. We will not go down without a fight.”

“You may be brave, Captain, however I am too afraid to be.”

“Being brave does not mean acting without fear. It means being afraid, so afraid that part of you believes that you cannot move a step forward, and then taking that step anyway. It’s acting despite that fear.”

Thor peeked through his fingers at Steve. What Steve said must have gone through, for the next moment everything changed.

Dark smoke plumed overhead, the sun completely blocked out. He could smell the fear, the rotting flesh and blood, the air thick with dust and ash. They were in what used to be a city, the buildings little more than ruins. He heard screams of anguish and fear, the cries of help from the helpless and the begging of death from the hopeless. The air froze into Steve’s skin and chilled his bones, making him shiver. Dark and sooty frost covered the ground and remaining structures, dampening any heat and killing anything still alive. There were bodies at their feet, two brunette women and another man, all too real and full of detail that Thor must know them personally, if his choked gasp was anything to go by.

This was no battle. This was a slaughter.

And Steve knew intrinsically that this terror had spread worldwide. It would be only a matter of time before every living creature on Earth was snuffed out.

“It was an ambush,” Thor said quietly, kneeling down next the smaller woman. “I fear that something will come for Midgard, and I will not be able to protect it and those that I love.”

“You alone, maybe,” Steve reminded. “If you call on us, we will help.”

“You cannot stop it.”

“No one could, not alone. But I know quite a lot of remarkable people that won’t go down without a fight. You’d be surprised at what we can do together.”

Thor shook his head a little in disbelief. “Midgardians,” he said, a smile growing on his face, “you continue to surprise me.”

“We’ll face it together.” Steve held out his hand again, and this time Thor took it.

“Together,” he agreed, and then leapt up. “You hear me, villain?! I will not let you take Midgard!” he shouted. “Midgard is under our protection, and we will not let you win!”

A span of a breath past before something hit Thor in his neck, making him stumble forward. The scene dispelled and they appeared in the darkened forest again.

“What matter of — what is this?”

Steve lunged forward, all six-foot-two and pounds of muscle again, and snatched the piece from Thor’s hand. He cradled it in his palm, his heart aching at the rusted fragment of Bucky’s soul.

“Oh!” Thor said, eyeing Steve up and down. “Is this your true form, then?”

“...Something like that.”

“Mjolnir!” he called. Thor looked around, his head held high and shoulders back and proud. “Where is Mjolnir?”

“Where’s what?”

“My hammer,” he said, narrowing his eyes at the landscape. “We are not safe yet. The curse we are under is still in effect.”

“You broke out of it, though.”

“Yes,” he agreed, “but you have not.”

Steve clenched his jaw, unable to stop his skin from turning to gooseflesh. He knew what Thor was about to say and yet he wished to clamp his hand over Thor’s mouth to stop his words.

“What do you fear most, Captain?”

A warm hand pressed on his elbow. “Steve?”

He turned and lost all breath at the sight of Peggy. He drank her in; her dark brown hair curled and pinned to her head, her dark burgundy dress and matching heels, her bright red lips and her sweet smile, her eyes young and bright again. In his peripheral vision, he saw the dance floor, the other dancers, and heard the laughter and the singer crooning gently into the microphone.

“Steve,” she said again, “there you are. We’ve been looking for you.”

All words choked in his throat as he reached for her, gently touching her face. It was warm in his hand.

“We did it Steve. We won the war. We can go home.”

They made it home. He couldn’t believe it.

She took his hand. “Come on, soldier, you owe me a dance.”

He couldn’t take his eyes off her, she was so lovely, not a hair out of place even as he spun her around, so solid and real in his arms. Yet something still drew his attention, perhaps it was the smell of smoke, perhaps it was just the niggling in the back of his mind, but he looked away and at the others in the ballroom. The noise rose, the band mixing with the loud laughter and conversation until nothing was discernable. The more he looked the more horrified he become — the people were dancing around with gunshots wounds, missing limbs or eyes, burns that engulfed their entire body, all still bleeding and pussing, the stench of it stinging his eyes.

He turned back to Peggy; he needed to get her out of here but froze on the spot.

The Peggy of 2014 stared back at him accusingly, wrinkled and frail and white-haired, dressed in her hospital gown.

“You were supposed to come back!” she lashed out, pushing him in the chest with far more strength than she should be able to. “We needed you! How could you abandon us?”

A bang sounded behind him and he reached for his shield that wasn’t there.

“Abandon her,” a voice sneered. “How could you abandon me?!”

Bucky stalked toward him, the Bucky from 1945 with his short hair and blue coat, how he looked just before he fell. He clutched the bleeding stump of his left arm.

“Weren’t we supposed to be best pals, Steve?”

Steve backed up as Bucky advanced.

“You left me to die!” he yelled.

Steve could only watch as Bucky transformed; the blue of his warm jacket slicked into black leather, his hair grew long and unruly, pieces of metal jutted out of his stump, making horrible grinding and screeching noises as the arm pieced itself together.

“I would have done anything for you!”

He leaned back and punched Steve right in the chest, throwing him across the floor. Steve scrambled up, but Bucky was too fast and kicked him back down.

“Is this how you treat your friends?! Does your new team know how you leave people for dead once they stop being useful to you?! How do you get to walk around like nothing happened when good men, men better than you, are left rotting in the mud?!”

Steve scooted back against the onslaught, but Bucky was unrelenting.

“It should have been you!”

Fear, Steve thought blindly, fight the fear.

“I know, Bucky,” he said, finally finding his voice.

“You don’t know anything!” Bucky grabbed him by the front of his uniform and threw him against a wall. “You don’t know anything about what I went through! How I believed for so long that you would come for me! And you never showed!”

“You’re right, I can’t know,” Steve said and hauled himself up off the floor. “And everything that happened to you — that’s on me. I never should have left you there. I should have gone back for your body. I have no excuse for anything that happened, and you have every right to hate me.”

He scoffed. “ ‘Hate’ doesn’t even to begin to describe it, pal.”

“I know,” Steve said. “And I accept full responsibility for what I did—”

Bucky pulled a gun out of his side clip and aimed it right between Steve’s eyes.

“—and any consequences that come from it.”

The safety clicked off. Steve held his gaze steady.

Another BANG and—

Bucky disappeared. The dance hall vanished, replaced with the lovely woods of Upstate New York, the sun high in the sky, the air warming his chilly bones.

“Mjolnir!” Thor called. This time his hammer came flying towards his outstretched hand. He lifted it to the sky, calling his lightning to the tip of his hammer. The tattered and dirty clothes were gone, replaced with sleek battle armor and a long red cape, his hair neat and tidy down his back. He laughed in glee.

“We did it! You broke us free, Captain, and for that I will be forever grateful.” He kneeled before Steve, placing his hammer on the ground. “You have mine power and mine hammer for whatever battle may come, we will fight for your good will.”

“Steve!” called from above. Sam flew into the clearing, followed closely by Tony. “Are you all right?! What the hell happened?!”

“Yeah, how about next time don’t run off into an obviously magically cursed forest, even if it is for Red Riding Hood, hm?”

Clint and Maria were seconds behind, charging into the scene, pausing at Thor kneeling in front of Steve. Maria gestured at him, before staring at Steve, beyond the ability to be surprised at anything anymore.

“Who’s this guy?”

~*~

It turned out that Steve had been gone for three hours, to which Steve it had felt like fifteen, maybe twenty minutes at most. Thor, to his calculations, had been gone just about a month.

They piled back into the car and let Sam bully him into reclosing the wounds he’d reopened. The car, which had felt small before, now was just comical with Clint and Thor squished into the back seat, which had Thor grumbling about unaccommodating and primitive Midgardian technology. They explained the basest details of what had happened, neither wanting to get into their own greatest fear, and unwilling to describe each other’s.

(Tony immediately wanted to get ahold of Thor’s hammer to study it, to which Thor just chuckled and said if you can lift it, it’s all yours. He couldn’t, much to the amusement of everyone in the car.)

They arrived at their destination about a half hour later, into a deep bunker that probably been abandoned in the 1950’s. Steve hated that he was surprised that Fury was alive and kicking in his hospital bed, the night of his death felt eons away.

“About damn time,” he said.

After explaining everything they’d been up to, he described what he knew, along with his numerous injuries.

“Project Insight was meant to predict threats before they happened. It would compose profiles of every human and non-human we know about and keep tabs on everything everyone did. It’s a virus that we’d release into the internet, phones, schools, any closed system we could get our hands on, and we’d monitor people.”

“And what happened when people met your profile?” Sam asked.

“We’d take care of it.”

“What happened to ‘innocent until proven guilty’?”

“We can’t afford to wait that long.”

“Who’s ‘we’?”

“The World Security Council and wow, that’s a lot of people on the United Nations. I wonder what would happened if the people found out about this,” Tony said. His Iron Man arm doubled as a computer, it seemed, propping open on his lap and allowing him to key through information. “Oh, I’m sorry, am I not supposed to know that? See, JARVIS is still running at SHIELD and was able to decrypt every nasty secret you guys have tried to hide. Especially Pierce. Care to explain what Phase 2 of the Tesseract is? Also, does anyone want to explain to me how a guy who’s marked as non-magical suddenly becomes a fucking powerful sorcerer, powerful enough to steal souls at will? And what the hell is that scepter of his? Has this not been bugging anyone else?”

“The Tesseract?” Steve asked, contributing to the conversation for the first time in an hour. “I thought that thing was lost in the ocean.”

“You have the Tesseract?” Thor asked. “No wonder your planet bodes such ill will from others.”

“Dear old daddy found that when looking for you,” Tony said. “You sound like you have information, Shakespeare-in-the-park, care to share it?”

“I fear that it is my brother Loki who desires the Tesseract.”

“Wait, Loki as in the Trickster God? That’s who we’re up against?” Clint asked. Sam eyed him questioningly. “What? I know things,” he said defensively.

“Yes. And it is with his scepter that he can wield the Tesseract. It is a magical endless power source that, when harnessed, could be malleable to the user’s will, if one could harness the power of the equivalent of a million stars. It can create portals to other dimensions, call upon endless energy—”

“And weapons,” Steve said, leveling a glare right at Fury. “You were going to create weapons just like Hydra.”

“We needed a quantum surge in threat analysis. Our planet is greatly unprepared compared to others like his.”

Thor’s eyebrows flew to his hairline. “So it is my fault you Midgardians are so weak and tiny?”

“So you were just going to create enormous weapons, capable of destroying entire worlds, and what, just promise that none of that power would leak out and destroy select people that SHIELD — and Hydra — deemed a threat before they even did anything?” Steve asked, swelling anger in his stomach. “Or would you hold that over people’s heads as a threat that if they acted wrong they would be targeted and killed without a trial and jury. I’m sorry, I guess I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around why you would allow yourself and SHIELD to become something you had sworn to protect the people from.”

“And how is that different than what governments and wars have been doing since the dawn of time? You know, I read those SSR files. The Greatest Generation? You guys did some nasty stuff.”

“Yeah, we compromised. Sometimes in ways that didn’t let us sleep so well at night. But we did it so people could be free. But this? This isn’t freedom. This is fear. Just because many people having done it doesn’t make it right.”

“ ‘Fraid I’m gonna have to agree with Cap here” Tony said, much to everyone’s surprise. “Nuclear deterrents aren’t exactly known for calming things down.”

“Did you know about the souls?” Steve asked.

“No,” Fury said. “And I didn’t know about Barnes, either. That is what I was trying to stop.”

“Would you have even told me if you did?”

“Why do you think I grabbed that heirloom from Pierce and handed it to you? I didn’t know what it was,” he added quickly when he saw the indignation on Steve’s face, “but I knew that it was apart of whatever Pierce was planning. A lot of things weren’t adding up, but I knew something was wrong when an old SSR base was raided back in Camp Lehigh. It took a lot of digging, but I found the reason — Arnim Zola.”

“Zola,” Steve repeated slowly. “What the hell was a German scientist who worked for the Red Skull doing in an SSR base?”

“Operation Paper Clip,” Maria explained. “SHIELD recruited German scientists with strategic value. Except we found out, perhaps too late, that he was doing some recruiting of his own.”

“My dad worked at that SSR base,” Tony said. “What the hell was he thinking? Especially since he made love to your picture every night.”

“I don’t know,” Steve sneered, “a scientist with a specialty in torture and creating terrible weapons seems to fit right in with SHIELD.”

A heavy and uncomfortable silence fell onto the group.

“Listen,” Fury finally said, “we need to do a major overall, I get that, but once we dig out all the moles, then maybe, just maybe we can salvage—”

“We’re not salvaging anything, Nick!” Steve snapped and stood up. “SHIELD — Hydra — it all goes.”

Steve and Fury stared at each other, the tension thick. Fury looked away first, around the room, but no one backed him up, not even Maria.

He sighed in defeat.

“Guess you’re giving the orders now, Cap.”

~*~

Steve had to leave the base after that, feeling too stifled and cramped within its walls. He sat beneath the bridge, alone and lost in his head. The rusted piece rested in his palm, just slightly less decayed than it had been when he found it. He heard the light footsteps and assumed Maria had drawn the short straw to come and get him.

“You found another already?”

He flinched slightly, glancing up.

“Natasha!”

She joined him at his perched, pale with deep bags under her eyes, and clutching her side.

“You look terrible,” he said, reaching for her.

She snorted. “You sure know how to charm a lady, Cap.”

“We both know you never found me charming.”

That drew a small smile from her, even if it dropped quickly. She licked her lips, her stare boring into him.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t,” he said, shaking his head, “that wasn’t you. I know. If anything, I should be apologizing. I should have recognized the signs.”

“I did — I did know, that what I was doing wasn’t right.”

“You knew?”

“After a while you… you become aware. You still can’t stop it, not really, but you know.”

“How long were you…?”

“About six months, as far as I can tell.”

Steve swore. “I’m so, so sorry, Natasha.”

“I stuck my nose where it didn’t belong,” she said and shrugged. “I found out about Project Insight. Pierce thought he’d rather have me under his control than have me killed. I helped do the same to other people, Steve. My hands are not clean in this.”

“Pierce’s hands are not clean,” he corrected. “You were a victim in this.”

Her eyes turned dark. “There are a lot of people in this world, a lot of bad people. A lot people that have had a hand in what I’ve become, for better and for worse. But there are few people that I hate more than him. Although,” and she grinned viciously, “few people probably have cause to hate him more than you.”

Steve clenched his jaw and looked away. “I will bring him to justice,” he said.

“Right. You just leave the dirty work to the rest of us.”

“I didn’t—”

“I know you didn’t,” she said. “You wouldn’t. You may not have much charm, Steve, but you sure make up for it with blind faith.”

“I knew you’d come back.”

“If only to give you this,” she said, and opened her palm. The fourth piece of Bucky’s soul joined the fifth.

“I knew you’d come back even without this,” he promised.

Her hand closed around his, her fingers icy to the touch. Her bright green eyes found his again.

“I owe you.”

Steve shook his head, but she didn’t let him protest.

“I do. You know, before I joined SHIELD, I was at the mercy of a lot of people. They manipulated me, distorted my memories, used me and my body for their gain. After I defected I promised myself that wouldn’t happen again. I would work for what was considered the good guys and keep my head on my shoulders. But I couldn’t even do that.”

“Well,” Steve said, leaning back a little against the rock, “I do know that without you I would have never made it this far. And you did that even under his control. That’s worth everything.”

She narrowed her eyes, and Steve thought she could see right through him.

“If it were down to me to save your life, and I mean this seriously, would you trust me to do it?”

“I would now,” he said. “I’m all about blind faith, don’t you know?”

Natasha tilted her head a little, like she couldn’t quite believe someone this stupid could exist.

“C’mon, you’re hurt. Let’s get you to Sam.”

She put her hand up when he reached for her. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Steve paused. “They all feel terrible they didn’t realize it. You’re apart of this team, Natasha, and we care about you.” He put his hand around her slim frame and helped her up.

“I won’t do that again.”

“I know, we all know.”

“I mean it. I’m — I acted differently. Did things I wouldn’t do. Even when Fury died.”

“Yeah,” Steve said. “About that.”

~*~

After catching Natasha up to speed, she resisted resting, even though she by far had worse aftershocks than the rest of them. (Thor boasted that he felt nothing more than a slight sting after his piece of soul returned, which earned him glares from everyone else.) Clint and Sam apologized profusely for how they acted, and Tony gave her a begrudging clean slate, which was about the best they could ask for. Sam and the other doctor looked Natasha over as she fielded endless questions.

Finally she cut them off. “I think it’s time I told you the true Tale behind the Winter Soldier.”

~*~

Once upon a time there was a very evil and vile man, who proclaimed himself a genius and a scientist. The scientist was fascinated by human life and what bound us together, what really made us human, and he found that the best test subjects were living things. He had no trouble causing endless strife in the pursuit of his research.

After being run out of Switzerland, he fled to Germany. There he was given an unprecedented opportunity under the rise of Hitler and the Nationalist Party.

A man called the Red Skull sought him out. He told the scientist, “what better for you than to do the good work of Hydra? Come and serve under me and we will give you endless test subjects for your research.”

It came with a stipulation, of course, he was to attempt to recreate the supersoldier serum that the good Doctor Erskine had created, and create weapons for Hydra using the power of the Tesseract. Fortunately both these projects fascinated the scientist, and he took to them with glee.

There was another unprecedented circumstance — their opposition. A man named Captain America and his Howling Commandos hounded the Red Skull and Hydra, threatening the scientist’s position. They burned Hydra base after Hydra base, and the scientist looked around at what he thought was the end of the war and the end of his experiments.

The war did end — he was captured by the Howling Commandos, the Red Skull burned alive, and Captain America was buried in the icy Arctic. Surely, this would be the end.

An end with new beginnings, perhaps, and he began working with his once-enemy. After a few years and planting the many new seeds of Hydra within, he retired and returned to his beloved Switzerland.

There he made a wonderful discovery. He was approached by a new friend of his, one of the many Russians who felt wronged by the war that ravaged the Motherland. There he led the scientist to a secret bunker and requested his knowledge and expertise left dormant since the end of the war.

The scientist could hardly believe his eyes. He’d heard that the Captain lost one of his Howling Commandos in capturing him, his good Sergeant, and there his body was, in what the Russian described as a cryochamber.

“We found his body,” the Russian explained. “He was there buried in the snow of the ravine, frozen solid, for seven days and seven nights. His body has been perfectly preserved and we have already revived him successfully. Since this is such a special subject, we only wanted the best to get him under control.”

The scientist couldn’t believe his good luck! And he agreed, and the Russian sent his workers to revive the Sergeant.

When he finally came to, the Sergeant looked ragged — too thin and tired, without much muscle.

“I should be able to do it, however I do not know how much use he will be to you.”

“Don’t let his current state fool you,” the Russian assured. “Even with just one arm he was able to kill three of my men when he woke last.”

“Yes, I will do it. He will be ours to control.”

That grabbed the Sergeant’s attention.

“I will never work for you,” he vowed. “I love my country, my men, and my Captain too much to ever do so.”

The Russian scoffed. “Your beloved Captain is dead.”

“Then I will join him gladly in the afterlife.”

The scientist grinned slowly, only excited by the Sergeant’s protests. “Then I will take your heart, and you shall forget all about your silly Captain, and you shall be mine.”

The scientist had done much work studying the souls of living creatures. It was what originally burned his curiosity, and when he hadn’t been attempting to duplicate the serum or create more weapons for the Red Skull, he had been taking prisoners and poking at their souls, seeing what made them tick.

The Sergeant paled at this, as he had been one of those prisoners, and he remembered his first encounter with the scientist. This was not the first time the scientist had taken a piece of his soul, but slicing souls was a touchy business. When he realized that his Captain still cared deeply for him and his friendship, it came back. But now his Captain was dead, and before long he was stripped and strapped to a cold metal table, bright lights in his eyes, with the scientist grinning above him.

The scientist discovered that if you took the entire soul at once, you came across the problem of the empty carcass it remained. Sure, it was technically still alive, but it couldn’t do anything by itself. The body needed someone to constantly control it so it could function. That was exhausting after a while, and used too much power, especially over a grand scale.

So the scientist proposed a new solution — only take a bit of the soul, just enough to control, and the rest would pilot the body and keep it alive. As long as no one showed the Sergeant any love, the body would be his to control.

He spent hours and days carving out the heart. He would come to learn that the heart was the most difficult and stubborn to control, especially that of the young Sergeant.

The scientist did succeed in every sense of the word. He triumphantly held the heart of the Sergeant, now in the shape of a bright red star, in his palm. The Sergeant could not remember anything about himself, nor of his beloved Captain.

The Russian was beside himself, and renamed the Sergeant. “Soldat,” he said. “The Winter Soldier. You will help me make the world a better place.”

“I am ready to comply,” the soldier answered.

He quickly built a new and better arm out of metal and attached it to the soldier’s left shoulder, giving him a deadly and defensible edge, and they put him to work.

And for a while, their plan went perfectly. Hearts, however, were tricky, as was only taking a piece of the soul. The rest of it remembered where the soldier’s heart did not, and he attempted to escape.

This enraged the scientist and the Russian.

“How dare you disobey me!” the Russian lashed out. “I have your heart! I have control!”

“I am not yours to control,” the soldier answered. “I do not belong here.”

The scientist, pride wounded but not ready to admit defeat, quickly thought of a plan.

“You have too much free will,” he said. “I think I will take that as well.”

So he carved the soldier’s free will out of his left ankle, and the soldier could never run away again.

And it worked. The soldier never desired to flee, and followed orders even better than before. The Russian was very pleased with this, but the scientist could not help but pick out the flaws in his work.

“What are you doing?” he asked the soldier. “What did you do to those children?”

“They were hungry,” the soldier replied. “They begged for mercy, so I gave them food and water.”

“Mercy?” the scientist sputtered. “You continue to surprise and disappoint me, soldier. I will have to make sure you will never do that again.”

So he carved the kindness out of the soldier’s right palm. When the soldier saw the children again, he swatted their filthy, greedy hands away.

He noticed several things after he did so that weren’t so obvious before. Not only did it change the personality of the soldier, but it also influenced how those reacted around him. Those who were indifferent now turned cruel. This fascinated the scientist.

That was until he noticed that despite any kindness gone, he still managed to befriend the other prisoners. Perhaps it was they recognized the deadness in each other’s eyes, or perhaps anything the soldier did was still kind compared to how others treated him, but still, the scientist could not stand it.

He had to have the perfect soldier. He couldn’t have him possibly forming alliances with others. What if he started a riot? What if he attempted to escape again? The scientist could not ignore this chance.

So he carved any desire for kinship out of the space just below his ribs, and felt satisfied when the prisoners sneered or turned away when he passed. The pieces took shape around the soldier’s heart, the red long since dulled.

“Oh, to see what they did to you,” the Russian would often say. “It would break your Captain's heart.”

Where the scientist tried to pass off that this was easy, splitting souls took much power out of him. His body was certainly failing with a sickness that science could not yet cure, and he needed to take time to rest.

To prevent the soldier from attempting to break control, they stuck him back in the cryochamber between missions. There the soldier would sleep frozen solid, and would be ready whenever his services was needed.

The scientist took a few years to rest and attempt to preserve his body, and the Russian used the soldier from time to time.

He could not stay away, not when this was his greatest work, and came back to observe the soldier. The soldier did not recognize him, as he could not retain any long-term memories, but it enraged the scientist when he seemed to prefer some of his Russian handlers to him. He was the soldier’s creator; he above all else should have that loyalty!

So the scientist carved the trust out of the soldier’s back, and felt satisfied when he could sense the innate faith that the soldier had in him.

In and out of the cryochamber the soldier went as the years passed, as the scientist’s body continued to fail him, as the seeds of Hydra he planted so long ago continued to grow and flourish inside the belly of his enemy.

As the scientist became weaker and frailer, he noticed the glances of those who worked with him. He saw their laughter and their doubt, and he became enraged. Not even the soldier seemed to fear him anymore.

So he carved the bravery out of the soldier’s neck. Now that the soldier feared the scientist, everyone else did as well.

The scientist’s body was dying, but his obsession with creating the perfect weapon would never. It finally occurred to him that while he knew the soldier was a monster, the soldier did not.

So he carved the humanity out of the soldier’s forehead. The last of the light left his eyes, and the scientist could not have been more satisfied.

Perfect, perfect, I have created the perfect weapon, he thought to himself. Even if his body failed him, his perfect weapon wouldn’t.

The scientist past away not a few months later and the soldier was lost for over two decades before he was recovered in an old Russian base. The seeds that the scientist had planted so long ago had spread like weeds into governments and businesses alike, and with the help of the soldier, they could finally push humanity over the edge into chaos.

They woke the soldier. It was time for him to be sent back to work.