Phase Three: Marvel's Captain America: Civil War

by Alex Irvine

  CHAPTER 9

  After the funeral, Steve and Sharon went back to the hotel together and strolled through the lobby. He was enjoying the conversation, but he also wanted to know more about Sharon. She was a connection to Peggy he’d never known about. “My mom tried to talk me out of enlisting,” Sharon was saying, with a wistful smile at the memory. “But not Aunt Peggy. She bought me my first knife holster.”

  “Very practical,” Steve commented.

  “And stylish,” she added. They had reached the elevators and she pressed the UP button.

  “They have you stationed over here now?”

  She nodded. “In Berlin, Joint Terrorism Task Force.”

  “Right. Sounds fun.”

  She smiled. “I know, right?”

  Before she went into her room and he lost his nerve, Steve had one more thing he needed to know. “I’ve been meaning to ask you. When you were spying on me from across the hall…”

  “You mean when I was doing my job?” she said, gently correcting him.

  Fair enough, Steve thought. “Did Peggy know?”

  “She kept so many secrets. I didn’t want her to have one from you.” It was a hard thing for Steve to hear, but he understood. “Thanks for walking me back.”

  “Sure,” Steve said. He paused, and so did she, like they both might have had something else to say.

  But whatever it was, they didn’t get a chance. Sam Wilson showed up then from the lobby, his face anxious. “Steve. There’s something you got to see.”

  In Sharon’s hotel room, Steve and Sam watched the shocking news. The government building in Vienna, its facade blown away and fires burning inside, dominated the TV screen. A British voice reported that a bomb hidden in a news van had partially destroyed the building.

  Behind them, they heard Sharon talking with the Terrorism Task Force command center. “Who’s coordinating?” she asked, and paused.

  “More than seventy people have been injured,” the broadcaster said. “At least twelve are dead, including Wakanda’s King T’Chaka. Officials have released a video of a suspect, identified as James Buchanan Barnes, the Winter Soldier.”

  When Steve saw Bucky’s picture, his first thought was, No. That’s impossible.

  Then he realized just how possible it was. “The infamous Hydra agent, linked to numerous acts of terrorism and political assassinations…” the broadcaster droned on.

  How could Bucky have done this? Why would he do it? Why did Hydra care about Vienna?

  Or was this an attack aimed at T’Chaka? Would Hydra go after Wakanda’s Vibranium supply again?

  Too many questions, not enough information. But Steve knew he had to find Bucky.

  Sharon appeared between them, now off the phone. She watched with them for another moment and then said, “I have to go to work.”

  An emergency helicopter flew over Natasha as she found T’Challa sitting on a bench near the site of the explosion. Rescue and forensics personnel coordinated their response in a swirl of people around the devastated block.

  She sat at the next bench over, facing him at an angle. There was blood on his clothes and dust in his hair. He had a heavy ring in his fingers, turning it over and over. She could see a pattern on the ring but couldn’t quite tell what it was. “I’m very sorry,” she said.

  “In my culture, death is not the end. It’s more of a… stepping-off point. You reach out with both hands, and Bast and Sekhmet—they lead you into the green veld, where you can run forever.” He said it with a distant expression, his voice following the cadence of someone repeating a childhood story.

  “That sounds very peaceful.”

  “My father thought so.” He put the ring on and stood. “I am not my father.”

  Something about him seemed suddenly dangerous, and Natasha realized how little she knew about him. “T’Challa,” she said, in case he had any crazy ideas, “the task force will decide who brings in Barnes.”

  “Don’t bother, Miss Romanoff.” T’Challa flexed his fingers, settling his father’s ring into place. “I’ll kill him myself.”

  As the grieving prince—now king—walked away, Natasha thought he was getting himself in way over his head if he believed he could take on the Winter Soldier. Her phone rang. It was Steve. “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah, thanks. I got lucky.” She looked around. Was Steve in Vienna? He’d been in London for Peggy Carter’s funeral. “I know how much Barnes means to you. I really do,” she said. “Stay at home. You’ll only make this worse for all of us. Please.”

  “Are you saying you’ll arrest me?”

  “No. Someone will, if you interfere. That’s how it works now.”

  “If he’s this far gone, Nat… I should be the one to bring him in.”

  “Why?” This was no time for Steve Rogers to be working out his guilt, she thought. Things had gone way past that.

  “Because I’m the one least likely to die trying.”

  He hung up then, and Natasha had two notions. One, Steve was probably right.

  Two, a lot of other people would not agree.

  There was going to be trouble.

  CHAPTER 10

  Steve was trying to look like just another American tourist in a baseball cap and aviator sunglasses when he met Sam at the counter of a coffee shop across town from the blast site. “Did she tell you to stay out of it?” Sam asked. He was dressed the same way. Steve didn’t answer, so Sam added, “Might have a point.”

  “He’d do it for me,” Steve said.

  “In 1945, maybe. I just want to make sure we consider all our options. People who shoot at you usually wind up shooting at me.”

  Sharon joined them. “Tips have been pouring in since the footage went public. Everybody thinks the Winter Soldier goes to their gym. Most of it is noise, except for this.” She slid a folder over to Steve. “My boss expects a briefing, so… that’s all the answer you’re going to get.”

  “Thank you.”

  She dropped some money on the counter to cover their drinks. “And you’re going to have to hurry. We have orders to shoot on sight.”

  In a hotel room in Berlin, Zemo watched the news with the sound off. He had the red book open and was repeating the Winter Soldier command words. He wasn’t a native Russian speaker, so he wanted to make sure that when the time came, he got them right.

  There was a knock at the door. Quickly, Zemo hid the book and went to the door with one hand on his gun. “Herr Muller? Ich habe Ihr Frühstück.” I have your breakfast. It was room service.

  He answered in German as he cracked open the door with a smile. “I could smell it before opening the door. Thank you.”

  “Bacon and black coffee,” the hotel server said. “Again, I can fix you something different, if you like.”

  “It’s okay. This is wonderful.”

  She was trained to bring the tray into a guest’s room. “I’ll put this on your—”

  “No, no, no.” Zemo took the tray from her. “It’s okay. I can manage. Don’t worry.”

  He thanked her and shut the door, relieved that she hadn’t come in. There were things in this room that nobody could be permitted to see.

  A thousand miles away, in Bucharest, Romania, Bucky Barnes was buying lunch at an open-air market. He had been on the run for two years, staying one step ahead of anyone who tried to find him. Bucharest was a good place to hide: big enough to blend in, but enough out of the way that he wouldn’t accidentally run into someone he knew. Also, he spoke the language. He spoke a lot of languages. That had been part of his training. He remembered his training even though he didn’t remember a lot of other things. He knew he was dangerous. He knew he had done some terrible things because terrible people had made him. He knew he didn’t ever want to be controlled again.

  He ate while he walked, with no special place to go. Nobody in the street paid him any attention, which was just the way he liked it. Suddenly, he got the feeling he was being watched. He had long ago learned to trus
t that feeling. Looking around, he saw a man in a street-side stall selling candy and magazines looking at him. Recognizing him. When the man saw Bucky looking back, he hung up a phone and disappeared.

  Trying to keep his cool, Bucky walked up to the stall. There was a newspaper on the counter next to the cash register. He picked it up and saw his own picture under a headline claiming the Winter Soldier had set off a bomb at a huge government meeting in Vienna.

  I didn’t do that, Bucky thought. I wasn’t in Vienna.

  But someone thought he had. And that meant, sooner or later, they would track him to his apartment here in Bucharest.

  Probably sooner.

  Bucky got moving.

  CHAPTER 11

  Using the information from the file Sharon had given him, Steve found Bucky’s apartment. He got in with no trouble and moved quietly through it, in full Captain America uniform and gripping his shield close. So this was where Bucky lived now. An ordinary place. Small, but ordinary. Steve started to search it, looking for hints about Bucky. Who was he now? Still the Winter Soldier? Bucky Barnes again? Or something in between? Brainwashing like Bucky’s had long-term effects even after it was broken. He found a book on top of the refrigerator and opened it.

  Looking back at him was a photograph of himself.

  “Heads up, Cap,” Sam said in his ear. He was standing lookout on a nearby rooftop. “German special forces approaching from the south.”

  “Understood.” Steve felt a presence in the room with him and turned.

  Bucky Barnes moved into the room, staring at Steve.

  For a long moment, Steve wasn’t sure what to say. He had more questions than he would ever be able to ask. Finally, he settled on one. “Do you know me?”

  “You’re Steve,” Bucky said. “I read about you in a museum.”

  “They’ve set the perimeter,” Sam said.

  Steve put the book on the kitchen table. “I know you’re nervous. And you have plenty of reason to be. But you’re lying.” The picture told him that Bucky remembered him, and not just from the museum.

  “I wasn’t in Vienna. I don’t do that anymore.”

  Steve believed him, but he wanted to be sure. “They’re entering the building,” Sam warned. He was starting to sound tense.

  “Well, the people who think you did are coming here now,” Steve said to Bucky. “And they’re not planning on taking you alive.”

  Bucky’s voice was quiet. “That’s smart. Good strategy.”

  “They’re on the roof. I’m compromised.” Now Sam sounded really worried.

  “This doesn’t have to end in a fight, Buck.” Steve didn’t want anyone to get hurt. Not Bucky, not the cops. They might have been the best counterterrorism force in recent memory, but they wouldn’t be any match for the Winter Soldier.

  Bucky looked down at his metal hand. “It always ends in a fight,” he said sadly.

  “Five seconds,” Sam said.

  “You pulled me from the river,” Steve said. He could hear footsteps pounding on the building stairs. “Why?”

  “I don’t know,” Bucky said.

  “Three seconds!” Sam was shouting now.

  “Yes, you do,” Steve insisted. Bucky was scared—he could see that. He wasn’t scared of Steve or any special forces team. He was scared of himself, because he knew what he could do. But Steve needed Bucky to see himself as a human being, not just the Winter Soldier.

  Too late.

  “Breach! Breach!”

  As Sam called out that last warning, two flash-bang grenades crashed through the apartment’s windows. Steve batted one back out the window with his shield. The other landed at Bucky’s feet. He kicked it toward Steve, who slammed his shield down over it. The explosion jarred his arm, but the shield contained it.

  A split second later, the special forces team smashed in the front door. More of them swung in through the windows on rappelling lines, opening fire with submachine guns. Steve deflected the bullets and did his best to take the soldiers down without hurting them. Bucky went after them, too, hitting hard but not getting carried away just yet.

  Still, after he’d slammed one soldier into the wall hard enough to cave in the drywall, Steve grabbed him and shouted, “Buck, stop! You’re gonna kill someone.”

  Bucky pivoted and threw Steve to the floor. He drove his metal fist through the floor next to Steve’s head… but then instead of throwing another punch, he pulled a hidden duffel bag from under the floor.

  “I’m not gonna kill anyone,” Bucky said. He threw the bag out his balcony door. It sailed over the railing. Steve couldn’t see where it landed.

  Steve was glad to see Bucky was keeping control. Together, they fought out onto the stairwell, where more special forces sprayed gunfire. All by himself, with Steve holding his rear guard against soldiers in the apartment, Bucky took down the whole squad in the stairwell. Steve came out to find a bruised soldier shouting into his radio that the subject had broken containment. He took the radio away and crushed it in his hand.

  Bucky was a fighting machine, plowing through the soldiers as they tried to get up the stairs. Once, he got carried away and threw a soldier over the railing. Steve barely caught the man before he fell all the way down to the ground floor, fifteen levels down. “Come on,” he said, frustrated. Bucky had to keep it together.

  Bucky jumped over the railing, dropping several floors before catching himself on another railing with an impact that bent the metal into scrap. He swung up onto the landing and ran down the hall, building up speed. When he hit a balcony on that floor, he jumped all the way to the roof of a building across the street. He hit and rolled, scooping up his go bag in the same motion.

  Steve was still working his way through the special forces team. He got clear and raced to the balcony just in time to see a black-clad figure come out of nowhere and send Bucky sprawling. Bucky got up just in time to ward off a series of strikes and slashes. Whoever the guy in black was, he was good. Fast and polished. He also had claws that cut through the metal pipes and housings on top of the building like they were paper.

  Glancing up, Steve saw Sam vectoring in from his right. “Sam, southwest rooftop.”

  “Who’s the other guy?” Sam wanted to know.

  Steve backed up so he could build some speed to make the same jump Bucky had. “I’m about to find out.” Sprinting forward, he hurdled the fifty-foot gap between the two buildings and got to his feet. The man in black had both clawed hands inches from Bucky’s face. Bucky was barely holding him back with a heavy iron bar.

  Then things got even more complicated. An attack helicopter swung into view and strafed the rooftop. Machine-gun bullets ricocheted off the black-suited figure as he stood tall in open defiance to the attack. Steve couldn’t tell if anything had hit Bucky, but the shots had come awfully close to him.

  “Sam,” he said. He wasn’t going to be able to dodge those bullets forever. Also, he didn’t want Bucky to do anything drastic to the helicopter or the people in it.

  “Got it.” Sam vectored in behind the helicopter and knocked it off course the easiest way possible: by kicking its tail. It swung crazily away, its flight balance knocked off-kilter.

  Bucky jumped from the roof, hit a ledge halfway down, and then jumped the rest of the way. He hit the ground running. The man in the black suit swung over the edge and slid down the wall, controlling his speed by scraping his claws along the side of the building. Steve leaped after him. The helicopter pilot had gotten the vehicle under control and started firing at Bucky again as he ran through the open square.

  Weaving away from the gunfire, Bucky jumped down to a road cut below ground level, sprinting through traffic. The black suit followed him, with Steve hot on their trails.

  Romanian police cars, lights and sirens blaring, caught up to Steve as they entered a long tunnel. “Stand down! Stand down!” the officers inside shouted over a loudspeaker.

  Sorry, Steve thought. No can do. He jumped onto the hood of the clo
sest police SUV. It screeched to a halt. He threw the driver out and punched the cracked windshield out of its frame. Then he squealed away after Bucky and his black-suited pursuer.

  He passed the man in black, who made a flying leap and sank his claws into the back of the SUV. Steve sawed the wheel back and forth, trying to fling him off, but it didn’t work.

  “Sam, I can’t shake this guy,” he called out.

  Sam answered immediately. “Right behind you.”

  Ahead of them, Bucky burst out of the tunnel and veered into oncoming traffic. A motorcycle sped toward him. With one hand he knocked the driver off, and with the other he held the bike, hauling it around in midair so by the time it touched the ground again he was going back the same way he’d started. On the way, he leaned down to grab his bag again.

  The motorcycle roared into another tunnel, with Steve’s commandeered SUV getting closer to Bucky. Bucky looked over his shoulder and threw a grenade up in the air. It attached itself to the edge of the overpass as he came out of the second tunnel. The grenade went off, and concrete debris cascaded down from the tunnel ceiling. The man in black hurdled the SUV’s roof, braced himself on the hood, and leaped forward. Then, using passing traffic like a parkour artist, he jumped from car to car. With a final lunge, he caught Bucky and slashed the motorcycle’s back wheel in half, throwing Bucky clear of the bike. Behind them, Steve saw the buckling overpass. He jumped out of the SUV and it hit the debris, rolling over and crashing into the median.

  Steve was close enough to take on the man in black if he made another move at Bucky… but just like that, it seemed like every cop in Bucharest was surrounding them, guns leveled, shouting at them not to move. A moment later, War Machine dropped from the sky. He covered Cap and the man in black with repulsors at the ready. His shoulder-mounted cannon deployed and aimed at Bucky.