Phase Three: Marvel's Captain America: Civil War

by Alex Irvine

  Flaw? Steve wondered. Why is that a flaw? But he had recognized the accent. “You’re Sokovian. Is that what this is about?”

  Zemo shook his head. “Sokovia was a failed state long before you blew it up. No. I’m here because I made a promise.”

  Now Steve thought he was beginning to understand. “You lost someone.”

  “I’ve lost everyone. And so will you.” Zemo touched a button, and a grainy black-and-white surveillance video started to play on a terminal near the heroes. “An empire toppled by its enemies can rise again,” Zemo said. “But one that crumples from within? That’s dead… forever.”

  Cap had no idea what that was supposed to mean. The camera image stabilized on a stretch of road. There was nothing remarkable about it. Trees, a narrow strip of grass on either side. But Tony recognized it immediately, like something he might have conjured out of the system he’d demonstrated at MIT a few days ago. “I know that road,” he said. He glanced at the time stamp. 16 DECEMBER 1991.

  He knew that date, too.

  “What is this?” he asked—just as on the screen, a stylish town car crashed into a tree. A motorcycle curled into view. The rider parked it. “Help my wife. Please,” the driver, badly hurt, was saying. It was Howard Stark.

  But the man who had shot out the car’s tire and made it crash was not there to help. He was there to make sure there were no witnesses. Tony didn’t want to watch the rest, but he did, staring at the screen through his Iron Man armor. When it was done, the killer turned to the camera and nodded. It was Bucky Barnes.

  Tony stared at the video feed. He’d never felt anything like this combination of grief and rage. The video ended and Iron Man started to go after Bucky. But Steve caught his arm, saying his name. “Tony. Tony.”

  Tony turned to him, shifting his powerful armor. “Did you know?”

  “I didn’t know it was him,” Steve said.

  “Don’t lie to me, Rogers! Did you know?”

  Steve couldn’t lie. “Yes.”

  For a brief moment, Steve thought Tony might get control over his emotions. But then Iron Man raised his left hand and blew Cap across the room with a repulsor. He went after Bucky with everything he had. Bucky stayed close, trying to stop Iron Man from using his energy weapons. Just when Iron Man got the advantage, Cap knocked him off-balance with his shield.

  Iron Man whirled and fired out a device that magnetically locked Cap’s ankles together and pinned him to the floor. He spun back to Bucky, spreading one palm wide right in Bucky’s face. But he hadn’t counted on the strength of Bucky’s metal arm. Bucky caught the gauntlet and turned it away. He squeezed it, and the repulsor lens cracked and shorted out. He jerked free, and Iron Man shot a mini missile at him. It missed and set off a small chain reaction that led to a huge fireball in the pipes near the stasis vessels. The fire spread, echoing in the chamber.

  Cap finally broke the magnetic band with his shield. The rocket had destabilized the whole structure of huge pipes and girders. It started to lean in and collapse, pinning Iron Man for a moment. “Get out of here!” Cap shouted at Bucky.

  Bucky, who remembered the base systems from before, slapped a large button near the back of the room. Far above, a round hatch started to open. Bucky ran toward it and started to climb in a spiral around the outside of the shaft.

  Iron Man powered up his boot thrusters and started to follow, but Cap stood in his way. “It wasn’t him, Tony. Hydra had control of his mind!”

  He didn’t care. “Move!”

  When Captain America didn’t move, Iron Man rocketed past him—but Cap caught his leg. “It wasn’t him!” He pounded one boot thruster with his shield. Sparks shot out across the floor. Iron Man kicked free and tried to fly up after Barnes, who was climbing toward the surface.

  “Left boot-jet failing,” F.R.I.D.A.Y. said. “Flight systems compromised.”

  But even with his systems failing, Iron Man could fly faster than Bucky could run. He caught up to Bucky and charged his one working repulsor—but Cap came out of nowhere and deflected the blast right back at him. It knocked Tony out of the air, and he fell down to a lower level.

  “He’s not going to stop,” Steve said to Bucky. “Go.”

  Bucky jumped up to the next level. Iron Man came rocketing after him. As he passed, Cap caught him with a grappling line and jerked him out of the air. They fell together most of the way back down the shaft. Iron Man came up firing and knocked Cap’s shield out of his hand. It clanked away down into the darkness.

  Then Iron Man spun and sighted the fleeing Bucky Barnes. He had only one thing on his mind. Revenge.

  But the computer couldn’t lock in on Bucky’s form. “Targeting systems inaccurate, boss,” F.R.I.D.A.Y. said.

  Tony flipped up the Iron Man faceplate. “I’m eyeballing it.”

  He sighted down his arm and fired another missile—not at Bucky, but at the hinge holding the hatch open. The rocket blew the hinge apart, and the huge steel hatch fell back shut, barely missing Bucky. Now, with Bucky trapped at the top of the shaft, Tony could catch him. He shot upward and got a forearm around Barnes’s neck. “Do you even remember them?” he said, his voice trembling with anger.

  “I remember all of them,” Barnes said.

  Even in the midst of his fury, seeing the expression on Barnes’s face shocked Tony into a moment of sympathy… but only a moment. His thrusters couldn’t hold both their weights and they were sinking back down into the shaft. Then Cap jumped from a side platform, and all three of them tumbled down, landing hard on a stone platform. Ventilation slots were cut into the side of the wall here, and snow blew in.

  “This isn’t going to change what happened,” Cap said as he got to his feet.

  “I don’t care,” Tony said, his faceplate shifting back into place. It wasn’t about principles anymore, or Sokovia or Lagos or anything else. “He killed my mom.”

  And if Cap was going to defend Bucky, then Cap was his enemy now, too. Iron Man charged, battering him with heavy punches from his powered gauntlets. Cap might have been a Super-Soldier, but he couldn’t handle that kind of pounding forever.

  Bucky had been stunned by the fall. Now he got to his feet and saw Captain America’s shield lying nearby. He scooped it up and ran to help. He knocked Iron Man over with the shield and teamed up with Cap. Together, they hit the Iron Man armor with everything they had, but Tony’s anger and pain made him stronger than he’d ever been. He spun away from their team-up and blasted a repulsor right into Steve’s midsection, doubling him over. Then he nearly took Bucky out with an energy beam, but Bucky caught his arm and drove him back against the wall. They were both beyond words now, just straining with guttural rage. Bucky dug the fingers of his metal hand into the arc reactor, trying to crumple its housing.

  But Tony had one more trick Bucky didn’t know about. He unleashed the beam from the arc reactor itself. It had ten times the power of a repulsor blast, and he couldn’t do it often, but this was a desperate moment. The chest beam blew Bucky’s metal arm off just below the shoulder, leaving a glowing stump. Bucky reeled back and Iron Man hit him with another repulsor blast, overloading everything. Bucky went down and stayed down.

  Steve stepped in and just barely stopped Iron Man from killing Bucky, keeping his shield up against the furious repulsor blasts and rocking Tony with counterstrikes of his own. Neither of them was going to stop now.

  CHAPTER 26

  Outside, Zemo listened to a message on his phone. “You should’ve seen his little face. Just try, okay? I’m going to bed. I love you.” His wife’s voice. Talking about his tiny son. All of this was for you, he thought. All of it.

  He heard movement behind him and saw the so-called Black Panther, T’Challa, standing there. Helmetless even in the cold. “I almost killed the wrong man,” T’Challa said.

  Zemo absorbed this. “Hardly an innocent one.” He pressed the button to delete the voice message.

  So much destruction, T’Challa thought. And for what?
What would drive a man to this? “Is this what you wanted?” he asked. “To see them rip each other apart?”

  “My father lived outside the city,” Zemo said. He was calm. “I thought we would be safe there. My son was excited. He could see Iron Man from the car window. And I told my wife, ‘Don’t worry. They are fighting in the city. We are miles from harm.’ When the dust cleared, and the screaming stopped, it took me two days to find their bodies. My father… still holding my wife and son in his arms. And the Avengers… They went home. I knew I couldn’t kill them. More powerful men than me have tried. But if I could get them to kill each other?”

  Zemo paused. He didn’t consider himself a bad person. He had forced the people of the world to understand what it meant to have people like the Avengers among them. “I’m sorry about your father,” he said. “He seemed a good man. With a dutiful son.”

  T’Challa had no interest in Zemo’s sympathy. He had followed Tony Stark here and seen what he and Steve Rogers were now doing to each other. “Vengeance has consumed you,” he said. “It’s consuming them. I’m done letting it consume me.” He retracted his claws. “Justice will come soon enough.”

  “Tell that to the dead.” Zemo thought he could get his gun up before T’Challa reacted, but he was wrong. Black Panther turned the gun aside and held Zemo immobile in an armlock before Zemo had even seen him move.

  “The living,” he said, “are not done with you yet.”

  The fight went on between Iron Man and Captain America. Tony and Steve. Tony kept trying to get to Bucky, and Steve kept getting in the way. “You can’t beat him hand to hand,” F.R.I.D.A.Y said.

  Tony had figured that out himself. He needed some help. “Analyze his fighting pattern.”

  “Scanning!” He held on, defending, until she had what she needed. “Countermeasures ready.”

  If Steve was going to side with the man who had killed Tony’s parents… well, that was all he needed to know.

  F.R.I.D.A.Y. had analyzed Steve’s tendencies, and now she knew what Steve was going to do before Steve did. The fight turned fast after that, and barely a minute later, Steve was down on his hands and knees… but still blocking the way to Bucky.

  “Sorry, Tony,” Cap panted, his face bloody. “He’s my friend.”

  “So was I,” Tony said. Two more punches laid Steve flat and Tony tossed him out of the way. Bucky lay helpless in the corner.

  “Stay down. Final warning.”

  Steve got to his feet, going on sheer force of will. He remembered the fights when he was a kid and what he’d said then. “I can do this all day.”

  With incredible reserves, he took everything Tony could dish out—and then Cap got the shield in his hands again. Finally, he had a shot. He knocked Tony down and straddled him, moving fast before Tony could get his bearings. He battered Tony’s helmet with the edge, shorting out most of his sensor systems. Then he raised it high one more time, and Tony actually thought Steve was going to finish him off to save his friend.

  But instead he brought the edge of the shield down onto the arc reactor, destroying it. With the last of the suit’s power, Tony retracted the faceplate. Blood streaked his face, and with the arc reactor disabled, the Iron Man armor was reduced to several hundred pounds of dead weight. Tony could barely get up, let alone fight. Steve staggered to his feet and wrenched the shield free of Tony’s armor.

  “That shield does not belong to you,” Tony said. Steve helped Bucky to his feet and they started walking away. “You don’t deserve it! My father made that shield!”

  That last sentence got to Steve. He paused. Then, without looking back, he dropped the shield and kept walking. He and Bucky leaned on each other for support.

  CHAPTER 27

  Meals at eight and five,” Everett Ross said to Zemo later the next day at the Raft. He was letting Zemo know who was boss. Zemo was being held in one of the containment vessels similar to the one the Winter Soldier had bashed his way out of… but Zemo didn’t have a cybernetic arm. Or Super-Soldier serum in his veins. Ross thought he would stay where he was. “Toilet privileges twice a day. Raise your voice, zap. Touch the glass, zap. You step out of line, you deal with me. Please, step out of line.”

  Zemo hadn’t responded yet. Ross really wanted to get a rise out of him. “So how’s it feel?” he said, trying to needle Zemo. “Spending all that time, all that effort. And you see it fail so spectacularly.”

  Now Zemo had a slight smile on his face. He looked up at Ross.

  “Did it?” he asked.

  Across an ocean, in the Avengers compound, James Rhodes wobbled on the cybernetic leg supports Tony had built for him. They framed Rhodey from the hips down, receiving signals from his brain because his legs no longer could. “That’s just a first test,” Tony said, even though he knew Rhodey knew that.

  “Yeah,” Rhodey said. He was working hard, sweating as he tried to control the legs.

  “Give me some feedback,” Tony said, pacing Rhodey down the rehab track. “Anything you can think of. Shock absorption. Lateral movement. Cup holder?”

  “No, I’m thinking about some AC,” Rhodey joked. The cybernetic frames were tight around his legs. He slipped and fell as he reached the end of the track.

  Tony stooped to help him. “Let’s go. I’ll give you a hand.”

  “No,” Rhodey said. “Don’t. Don’t help me.” He got himself sitting up and paused before trying to stand again. “One hundred and thirty-eight combat missions. That’s how many I’ve flown, Tony. Every one of them could’ve been my last, but I flew ’em. The fight needed to be fought. It’s the same with these accords. I signed because it was the right thing to do. This is… this is a bad beat. But it hasn’t changed my mind.”

  That’s Rhodey right there, Tony thought. Never lets his feelings get in the way of what he believes is right. He reached out and helped Rhodey get to his feet.

  A delivery guy, wrinkled and wearing a mustache straight out of the 1970s, knocked on the glass door. “Are you Tony Stank?” he called out.

  Tony was about to correct him, but Rhodey burst out laughing. “Yes, this is… this is Tony Stank!” he chortled when he got his breath. “You’re in the right place. Thank you for that!” Glancing at Tony, he added, “I’m never dropping that, by the way.” All Tony could do was roll his eyes. Inside, he was glad to see Rhodey dealing with the paralysis so well.

  “Table for one, Mr. Stank.” Rhodey was whooping now. “Please, by the bathroom.”

  Tony ignored him. He had noticed that the package was addressed to him in Steve Rogers’s handwriting.

  When it was time for Rhodey to head back to his room and rest, Tony went to his lab and opened the box. It contained a letter and a prepaid, anonymous cell phone. Tony opened the letter.

  Tony,

  I’m glad you’re back at the compound. I don’t like the idea of you rattling around a mansion by yourself. We all need family. The Avengers are yours, maybe more so than mine.

  I’ve been on my own since I was eighteen… I never really fit in anywhere. Even in the army. My faith’s in… people, I guess. Individuals. And, I am happy to say, for the most part they haven’t let me down. Which is why I can’t let them down, either. Locks can be replaced, but maybe they shouldn’t.

  I know I hurt you, Tony. I guessed I thought by not telling you about your parents, I was sparing you. But… I can see now that I was really sparing myself. And I’m sorry. Hopefully one day you can understand. I wished we’d agree on the accords. I really do. I know you’re doing what you believe in.

  And that’s all any of us can do. That’s all any of us should. So, no matter what, I promise you: If you need us, if you need me, I’ll be there.

  “Priority call from Secretary Ross,” F.R.I.D.A.Y. said as Tony was rereading the last lines of the letter. “There’s been a breach at the Raft prison.”

  Ah, Tony thought. It wasn’t a coincidence he’d gotten the letter from Steve just now, was it? A breach at the Raft just when the r
enegade Captain America was sending him a letter that extended an olive branch? I’ll be there, Steve had written. So would the others, Tony thought. Clint and Lang and Wanda and the others Ross had jailed after the Leipzig fight.

  They would be there, all right… but “there” was not going to mean the Raft.

  That was fine by Tony. “Yeah,” he said to F.R.I.D.A.Y. “Put him through.”

  Ross’s voice burst from the speaker on Tony’s desk. “Tony, we have a problem.”

  “Uh, please hold,” Tony said. Just like he’d promised.

  “No. Don’t—”

  Tony put Ross on hold and watched the light blink. He watched it for a long time.

  EPILOGUE

  You sure about this?” asked Steve Rogers as Bucky sat on the edge of an examination table in a laboratory built deep in the remotest reaches of the Wakandan jungle. T’Challa stood a few steps off, letting them have their moment as old friends. He did not know either of them well enough to interrupt.

  “I can’t trust my own mind,” Bucky said. The stump of his cybernetic arm was carefully wrapped in a sealant, with tape over it. He leaned back into the stasis capsule, which T’Challa had built specifically for him. T’Challa was as skilled an engineer as Tony Stark. There were thousands of brilliant minds in Wakanda, mostly cut off from the rest of the world—though that would begin to change now. It would be a benefit to both Wakanda and the world. T’Challa only wished it had not taken the Lagos disaster and his father’s death to bring it about.

  “So,” Bucky went on, “until they figure out how to get this stuff out of my head, I think going back under is the best thing… for everybody.” The capsule closed and its interior frosted over instantly as he slipped into the frozen stasis.