onlyforthedream

There are, immediately, the smells of motor oil; mortar; gunsmoke and the sea. The North Atlantic. I would know where I am just from breathing in the air, though finding myself just here, on this bike, chasing this plane for the third time in what feels like moments removes any need for guesswork.

The words ever again are dying on my lips when I turn the bike, hard. I have a better sense this time of what I’m doing, of how far we have til the bike careens over the edge, of how fast we’re going. There’s a new smell, one of burning rubber, as the little German motorcycle scrapes along the battlement. I turn, grab Bucky across the chest, and throw us both to the ground as the bike loses its balances and goes skittering away, off into the ocean. We land, and skid a ways, on my back, where the shield is covered by my enlisted man’s shirt. When we’ve come to a stop I roll onto my side and start to rip off what’s left of the shredded khaki uniform.

“Buck,” I say, “you okay?”

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This is turning into a cluster%$*. We’ve been thrown back to this moment again for the third time in as many minutes, and I’m still at a loss at what to do. There’s no changing this day. Even if we could -- and Steve seems to think we can, if that little stunt was anything to go by -- the repercussions our actions would have on the future would prove catastrophic. And while I know this isn’t real... Know we’re just being screwed with... That nothing we’ll do here will have any effect on anyone but us...

Bucky’s already picking himself up from the ground, a bit sore from being manhandled off the bike, but otherwise in better shape than the last time. His mental state could claim otherwise, of course, mind still reeling from everything that’s happened, but that’s not what Steve’s asking about.

“Fine,” he grits out, anger drawn into every line of his face. “Are you?”

“No,” I reply honestly, one hand going to his arm, ostensibly to help him up, the other folding into a careful fist. I clip him across the jaw, just hard enough to turn his head just far enough to knock him out.

“I’m sorry,” I murmur, catching his dead weight and hauling him up onto my shoulder. Half crouched, I run for the dark mouth of the garage we took the bike from. I drop us both into the corner to the right of the door and slide Bucky against the wall, behind a crate that’s half covered with a large canvas drop cloth. I make sure he’s invisible from view before I start into the compound, wishing I didn’t know it half so well as I do.

Nazis. When was the last time I fought Nazis, men in uniforms and arm bands? There’s something disturbingly simple about it. When the first three come across me I mow them down- deflect the bullets with the shield and run straight for them, knocking one headfirst into a wall and the other two headfirst into each other. I leave them where they fall.

There’s got to be a long-range weapon on this rock, and I know just the person to tell me where it is.

If I hadn’t gone back with the Avengers, all those years ago, to see for my own eyes if Bucky had survived- Which he had, and I hadn’t seen it. Why hadn’t I seen it then? Or maybe I did, which is why I never accepted...- I wouldn’t know where to find Zemo now. But I do.

I know exactly where he is.

“ZEMO,” I shout at the purple hooded figure. He’s about two stories up from where I am, on an iron catwalk embedded into the ancient stone walls. I got pretty good at reading the expression under that mask, over the years, and he looks... surprised.

Well, he has no idea.

I throw the shield. It glances off the railing and knocks him in the back of the head, sending him to his knees even as it then lodges itself in whatever machine he’d been pouring over before I entered the room. I launch myself up the stairs, not taking them two or even three at a time so much as using the structure to propel myself upward in leaps and swings, before I flip over the edge of the catwalk and land in front of a Baron Zemo who’s still trying to stand. I stalk past him and pull the shield out of the wreck of machinery, and fit it to my arm again before I turn back to him.

“Get up.”

“Captain.” God, his voice. It’s been so long since I heard it. I feel sick.

“I did not expect to see you back here.”

“I know,” I tell him and take two steps forward. Enough to reach down and grab him by the front of his tunic and haul him up, and shove him back against the railing.

“Can you remote detonate the bomb on the plane from here?” I ask him, my voice low, smooth, steady. To my own ears, I sound calm. The Baron, however, seems to find something in my tone disturbing.

“N-nein. I do not know how you discovered it without setting it off, but it is no matter! Why would I destroy it? It was to serve as a trap, to end the lives of you and that insufferable brat of a-”

I pull him away from the railing and slam him back into it again. His foot slips over the edge as he tries to balance himself.

“Then I want whatever stupid ray or giant gun you’ve got hidden away here, Zemo, because I know there is one! There always is!”

“There is nothing,” he spits back at me, as best he can from behind the cowl permanently affixed to his face, “that can stop that plane now. You see I tired of the Skull’s failures, tired of watching you best the Furor's best, over and over! You could stop the plane and die trying or you could fail,” he practically crows.

“And now hundreds of thousands will die! So you see, Captain, it is what you Americans call a win-win, for me.”

I don’t really care that he’s laughing. Not at me. It doesn’t last long, anyway, because I grab him by the throat and jerk him forward to look him in the eye, to make sure he’s looking me in the eye.

“I’ll stop it, all right. I’ll stop it, Zemo, and you’ll have lost. But I will make damn sure you never get the chance to do this again.” Any of this. Any of this, ever again.

“Was-” I tighten my grip to cut off his question.

“Does it count as a war crime,” I ask him, “if I kill you now?” I can feel myself shaking, feel the pressure in my jaw from my molars grinding together.

“I never thought you could justify them, but maybe... I was wrong.”

There’s not a whisper of warning. A single shot announces Bucky’s presence, the bullet missing Steve’s head by a matter of inches, and lodging itself deep between Zemo’s eyes.

“No,” says Bucky, stepping out from behind the alcove he used for cover. “You weren’t.”

I’ve watched Baron Zemo die before. I took no satisfaction from it then, either. I almost let his body fall in my momentary shock, but I catch it by the shoulders and set it on the catwalk. Not especially ceremoniously, but I don’t just discard it, as much as, moments ago, I would have been happy to. I turn to where the shot rang out from, where Bucky’s standing, gun in hand.

“Bucky, why-”

He wants to toss the gun, but not knowing if he’ll need it again, practicality alone keeps the Walther P38 he lifted off one of Zemo’s goons held firmly in Bucky’s hand. His steps are heavy along the catwalk as he makes his way forward, deliberate and echoing against the stone walls. There’s no pleasure to be taken in the kill, no sense of fulfillment. The thrill and the glory of combat is what Bucky lives for, what he believes himself born to do, and even so, there is no joy in this, only the bitter certainty that comes from knowing something was necessary.

The beginnings of a bruise color shade his jaw a dull purple from where Steve struck him earlier, but the cold fury burning behind Bucky’s eyes has nothing to do with a bit of friendly fire. His heart’s sitting in his throat as he spares the briefest of glances down at Zemo, then looks back up to Steve.

“Because I had to,” he says, and isn’t that the same old refrain?

’It had to be done... So I did it. Simple as that.’

“Because that’s what I was trained to do. What Captain America-- What you couldn’t... Or shouldn’t do.”

I won’t justify what I was just doing. Could I have killed Zemo with my bare hands? Maybe. Honestly- Maybe. Did I intend to? I don’t think I did, but God help me it’s hard to say. What I do know is-

“There has to be another way.”

[III]

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