[III]

[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

Comments

[onlyapassenger]

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?”

[onlyforthedream]

“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

[onlyforthedream]

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

[onlyapassenger]

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.”