Leipzig, Germany to a HYDRA Facility in Siberia, Russia, Friday FT

[shapethecentury]

It was godawful early in the morning, but that was fine. Wasn't like anyone had been getting any sleep anyway. They were crammed in a tiny Volkswagen: Steve and Sam in the front, Bucky and Jesse in the back. They'd already made a pit stop along the way, meeting up with Sharon under an overpass. She'd brought them Steve's shield and Sam's bird suit.

Then Steve had kissed her. Awkwardly.

And then they'd headed on towards their destination: an airport in Leipzig, where they were just now pulling into the parking garage. "Can't wait to get out of this sardine tin," Bucky muttered under his breath.

He had not been able to get Sam to move his goddamn seat up the entire way here.

	It was really immature. "Hope we're not going to regret that," Jesse said wrily. She'd been in her own head - with Polaris, but still - for a little while, at this point. It was making her antsy.
	"My knee won't," Bucky muttered. Stupid seat. Thankfully Steve was just pulling past a white van (inconspicuous and conspicuous at the same time, looking generic but parked all alone), and into a parking spot. "That's our guys," he said.
	"Old man," Jesse said softly, fondly, and with a little amusement. She raised her voice. "Great," she said. "So what's next?"
	Bucky didn't look over at her, but the corner of his lips twitched a little. "We get the team together," Steve said, and wrangled his way out of the car. It would've been hilarious in just about any other circumstances, but right now it was just... what it was. As Sam followed Steve's lead, Clint was already coming 'round the van, closely followed by Wanda. (It was weird. Bucky didn't let his gaze linger long on her.) Whatever Avengers and Avengers-adjacent people they'd been able to scrounge up, they would be taking with them to Siberia. "This should be fun," Bucky muttered, meaning exactly none of those words, as he tipped Sam's vacated seat forward so he could try and clamber out, too. "Goddamn clown car."
	"This isn't the most dignified way anyone has ever done a clandestine meet-up," Jesse agreed, as she clambered after him. "But not the least, either." She had read some files in her day.
	Bucky would've asked, but when he got out of the car he settled to watch everything play out, resting his good arm against the edge of the roof of the car. He really didn't know how anyone here would react to him, even when they were happy to help Steve. Though no one seemed to be paying him or Jesse much attention. Clint had just opened the van's side door, and out staggered -- Okay, Bucky didn't actually know who that was, although Jesse might have remembered Scott Lang from his island days.
	She had read his file, yes. But for now, Jesse was content to watch with James, choosing not to comment. She did sneak James a few glances, though. I wonder how he's doing right now.
	Resigned to his fate, mostly, which also showed a little bit on his face. He'd been on the run a couple of years, and just... He'd known this would all catch up to him sooner or later. He'd just hoped to keep it from involving people he cared about. Scott was shaking Steve's hand too long. ... And now he was touching Steve's chest. And so on, and so forth. Out of everyone, he was clearly the most new to this. Excited, nervous, so fresh that Bucky almost felt like he should tell the guy to go home. But if he was anything like most people present, well... "We should get moving," Bucky called.
	Jesse nodded. She had nothing to add, not really. Well, except for the hand she placed on James' shoulder, for just a moment. Gave it a little squeeze. Then she let it slide down, away from him.
	With the way Bucky had called attention to himself, it didn't escape many people's notice, the gesture. But least of all Bucky's own, and he darted her a look that was both weirdly soft and confused and, bless him, surprised. He almost missed Clint saying they had a chopper lined up. He did not miss the airport's PA system buzzing to life with an announcement in German. He looked up, and pushed away from the car. "They're evacuating the airport." "Stark?" Sam asked Steve. And Steve didn't even answer, just looked to the others. "Suit up."
	Jesse sucked in a deep breath. "Here we go, then," she said. She glanced at James, as she reached for the Service Weapon. "Ready?"
	Bucky shook his head, barely. "I don't have a choice." So all he could do was go and open the trunk of the car and grab the tactical jacket Sharon had scored for him. It'd do more than his shirt, at least.
	He probably didn't have more than one in there, huh. Jesse, perpetually condemned to glass cannon status, nearly let out a little sigh. Instead she kept her eyes on the group. Is this what we call a tactical appraisal? Maybe. She raised the weapon and cycled it through a few modes, before she settled on one. Quick, small hits, for now. Didn't want to kill anyone if she didn't have to.
	There seemed to be a lot of literal suiting up happening. Guess everyone had some sort of a gimmick, and a uniform to go with it. And Bucky? Was pulling on his jacket, then rummaging in the trunk until -- Yep, that was a vest far too small to be meant for him or Steve or Sam. He held it out. "Of course yours came sleeveless." His reason for saying that would become apparent in a second.
	Jesse blinked. "Huh," she said, but she reached to take it. "...Thanks. That'll be useful." Not that their combat arena to be would be lacking in concrete.
	Bucky nodded. And then unceremoniously ripped his own left sleeve off. The jacket and the shirt underneath both. So yes, in case she'd been wondering: the entire arm was shiny metal, all the way up to the shoulder cap that had a very unsubtle red star on it. Siberia was not a random thing.
	Well. Who knew? "Shiny," Jesse commented without thinking about it. Oh, shit. Is that offensive?
	Bucky made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a snort, if a quiet one. "Don't want it to rust." That had never actually been much of an issue, but, anyway.
	"You're doing a good job," Jesse said, a little light, a little wry. "...Can I touch it?" Just keep doubling down, Jesse...
	Bucky stuck the arm out without saying a word. He watched Steve and Sam, clearly hatching their strategy.
	So Jesse reached out and touched it. Gently, for all that it was metal, running her fingers along the top of his forearm. "I'm sorry you lost your arm," she said, quieter.
	"It was eighty years ago," Bucky replied, under his breath, "so..." So, it continued to be an unprocessed trauma, because he felt like he'd barely had time to breathe in said 80 years. He was almost glad to hear Steve raise his voice again. "Alright folks, listen up!"
	Jesse's gaze lingered on his face for just a moment longer. Then she looked to Steve, as she quietly shrugged on the vest.
	The plan was this: Steve was going to try and get to the helicopter. The assumption was that Stark and whoever he'd brought with him would intercept Steve - in fact, that was kind of the whole point. While everyone else stuck with Steve but hidden out of sight, Bucky and Jesse and Sam were going to try and find the Quinjet that Stark had undoubtedly flown in on. And once they put the plan into action, both parts worked. But that was about where the good news ended. 'Cause then it turned into superpower pandemonium, first in various one-on-one or two-on-one configurations, and then finally a big damn showdown between Stark's side (which included, among others, the cat guy from earlier) and theirs, where Bucky's main goal was just to get to the goddamned Quinjet. Scott turned giant, as a diversion. And there was as much concrete as Jesse's heart desired for her to pull up with her powers, to use as both shield and weapon, so that got her and Bucky and Steve through to the right hangar, even as part of it was collapsing behind them, blocking them in. But at least they were almost to the jet - just with one last hurdle to clear. Between them and the Quinjet, there was Natasha. "You're not gonna stop," she said, almost on a sigh.
	Jesse's gaze darted to Bucky. Then to Steve. Finally, to the woman. "I don't think that was in the cards, no."
	"Known him long enough," Natasha said. Looked at Steve, her fist held out, her bracelet at the ready, glowing blue. "I'm gonna regret this," she muttered. And she fired a burst of energy - through the space right between Bucky and Steve. Behind them, Cat Guy fell to the ground with a groan. "Go." Steve looked to Bucky, Bucky looked to Jesse. Then both broke off in a run for the jet.
	Jesse would ask questions later. She channeled every inch of speed her connection to the Merry-Go-Round Horse gave her and sped forward, dragging Bucky along with her by his arm. The regular one. She wasn't sure what'd happen if she grabbed the metal one.
	Well, he would've probably felt slightly less like a ragdoll? But he would take it. Natasha was still firing off energy to keep T'Challa down. Thankfully, it wasn't a long sprint to the Quinjet, and the hatch was open. (Natasha? Natasha.) "Everybody get in," Steve yelled.
	Jesse was already there, grabbing a seat, only remembering to let go of James's arm a moment early. Well. That's all my cardio for the month.
	While Bucky reoriented himself, Steve rushed into the pilot's seat at the front. They were rising into the air only a moment later, with Steve firing a few rounds into the top of the debris from the collapse, to create an opening for them to fly through and out of the hangar. Cat Guy attempted to jump up and grab the underside of the jet, but failed.
	Jesse leaned back in her seat and stared at the window. "So, is this just every Friday in your universe?"
	"Have to fight friends just to do the right thing?" Steve asked, tension in his voice even though he was probably trying to hold it back. (Bucky, for his part, had gone quiet and pensive.) "No." Below, the fighting had stopped, but Iron Man and War Machine took flight after the jet.
	"Well," Jesse said, and blew out a breath. "That sucks." Understatement.
	Steve nodded tersely. On the screens, there were three dots on the radar, until suddenly one began to rapidly fall away - and then the others did, too. No one was in pursuit anymore.
	And Jesse let out a breath full of tension. She looked towards James. "Hey," she called quietly.
	It looked like a delayed reaction, but eventually Bucky looked over at her. He didn't say anything.
	Should she say something? Do something? Jesse remained caught in indecision for what felt like-- a really long time. Then she held her hand out, as far as possible.
	Well. Bucky didn't know what to do with that. For the longest moment, anyway. Then, very slowly, he held out his own hand. Flesh and blood and bone one, this time.
	Jesse took it. Gave it a squeeze. She didn't know what to say. (She did know, sometimes. But not in a situation like this.) But at least she could-- let him know she was there. On his side. Even if he didn't want her there.
	Bucky didn't want anyone there. He wanted them to be somewhere much safer away from him, because all of this was his shit to carry. But they weren't letting him. Maybe there wasn't really anything to say. He left his hand in hers for a moment, then gave it a squeeze of his own before gently pulling his hand back. He looked forward, at what little he could see of Steve's profile at this angle. He didn't need to see much to clock the tension - they'd grown up together, fought in a war together, as hard as it was to remember sometimes. "What's gonna happen to your friends?" he asked. Steve was quiet for a moment. The reason, perhaps, became obvious once he did speak. "Whatever it is..." His voice cracked. The tiniest bit, enough that it broke Bucky's heart a little. "I'll deal with it."
	Jesse ran her now-useless hand through her bangs, until she hit her hair tie. She loosened it, then pulled it free completely. She didn't know what else to do with herself. Not in the middle of this, whatever it was. So she-- Focused on getting her hair all bunched up back together, in a ponytail.
	"I don't know if I'm worth all this, Steve," Bucky found himself saying, quiet and subdued, and dropping the name in there as if this didn't go for both of them. He saw it hit Steve, in... some kind of way. "What you did all those years..." Steve replied, just looking for the right words. "It wasn't you. You didn't have a choice." Yeah. "I know," Bucky replied, and did his best not to think about the shrink on the other side of the glass, with the notebook, with the words -- "But I did it." He glanced towards Jesse again. Maybe to acknowledge the echoes this conversation had from the one he'd already had with her, he didn't know.
	Jesse thought, suddenly and uncontrollably, of Dylan. "Did you?" she asked. Her voice was steady, like a piece of iron. It hid a strange tension underneath.
	"Yes." The body remembered. So did he.
	"I'm not so sure," Jesse said. But she didn't elaborate. I wonder if he's woken up. How he feels. Does he remember?
	Bucky shrugged, barely, and didn't ask. Just quieted down again.

	The flight to Siberia was a long one. Mostly quiet, too. It was also the longest time Bucky had spent in the same space with Steve since... before everything. Any version of Steve, too. God knows he'd spent enough time running away from the one on Fandom, because anything else would've been -- He was too tired to even know what, anymore. But the one on Fandom probably hated him now. Except no, he wouldn't. Because he was Steve, and if there was one thing Bucky knew, it was that Steve was both stubborn as shit and loyal to a point that went well beyond what was actually any good for him. And just thinking about it made Bucky feel both very old, and very young in the worst way possible. And the way to Siberia was long. And mostly quiet. But whenever it wasn't, it was usually because of Steve saying something, clearly trying to feel out the situation, where they stood, awkwardly groping at the shape of something they'd had eighty years ago. And Bucky found himself maybe just too damn tired to resist the pull, starting to relax into it, starting to find more than one or two words at a time in response. But he definitely wasn't looking too closely at how much closer he felt to... well, himself, with both Jesse and Steve here with him. And then the snowy wastes below finally gave way to particular snowy wastes, looking deceptively like yet more dark rock covered in snow and ice, only there was an abandoned vehicle near a particular ridge, with fresh tracks behind it through the snow. The shrink had beat them, but that was no surprise. Home sweet home, Bucky almost said. Instead, he opted for, simply, "We're here."
	"Great." Jesse's mind had skittered back and forth between James, James who needed her even if he wouldn't admit it, couldn't admit it, and Dylan, probably still in a bed at the Oldest House, the memory of the Hiss buzzing around him. It made her tired, too. And sad. But you wouldn't tell it by the way her voice held. Or her head lifted.
	Flurries of snow got kicked up into the air around the jet as Steve brought it down, slow and steady. "There's weapon caches on board," he said. "Nat's one should have something for you, Buck." Bucky got out of his seat, and stretched his back just a little as he looked over at Jesse. "You'll be good with what you got, right?"
	Jesse had gotten up a moment ago. Now, she lifted the Service Weapon. "It's a couple of different guns in one," she said, letting it shift around into a couple of its different constituent modes. "I'll be all right."
	"Figured," Bucky said, "but never hurts to check." For his own part, he stepped around to where he figured the weapons caches were: a bunch of tall panels with names on them. He almost called out to Steve to ask which one belonged to 'Nat', only to spot the one that said 'ROMANOFF', so he took a lucky guess. When it sprang open, it revealed a couple of AK-47s with a few other weapons, so clearly he had it right.
	Jesse walked over, Service Weapon in hand, to glance over his shoulder. "That's some serious gunny... gun."
	She startled a huff out of Bucky. Gold star. "Well, you saw them at the airport," he said, reaching out for one of the AKs. "They're not screwing around."
	"Well, some of them aren't," Jesse said wryly. That spider kid sure was something.
	The spider kid had been terrifying, in several and probably unintentional ways. "Fair," Bucky murmured, checking the gun. Finding it satisfactory. "You sure you've got everything you need?"
	"What I need doesn't tend to be far from me at any point," Jesse said, a little wry. "The joy of being a parautilitarian." Had she ever mentioned that term to him? Too late to unmention it, then.
	Yeah, Bucky... paused. Only to decide, "If we somehow make it through this, you can tell me what that means." He'd seen her in action. He had a hunch.
	Jesse smiled, just a little bit. "It's a deal," she said. "And we are going to make it."
	"You haven't seen the others yet," Bucky replied, softer. Not that he was really worried for her. Not in the sense that she wouldn't be able to handle anything the facility might throw at her, anyway. "No time like the present, huh?" Steve said, finally joining them, shield and helmet in hand. "We should get moving."
	Jesse nodded, squaring her shoulders. "Lead on, Steve," she said. Could she call him Steve? Too late now.
	Steve seemed to take it in stride, although Bucky clearly saw something that prompted him to say, "Yeah, Steve." Which in turn got a faint huff as Steve did in fact lead them to the hatch. As it slowly opened, they were immediately hit with a gust of cold Siberian air, and the whistling of the wind. Steve glanced at Bucky. "You remember that time we had to ride back from Rockaway Beach in the back of that freezer truck?" Bucky could've laughed (he didn't), because he hadn't been thinking about that, but immediately remembered it. (The cold, and the whooshing sound outside.) He hesitated, only for a second. "Was that the time we used our train money," he asked, unaware of the way his lips were curving, "to buy hot dogs?" Steve looked wry, but amused. Like there was about to be a scolding, but nothing actually bad: "You blew three bucks trying to win that stuffed bear for a redhead." Bless him, he tried to be subtle about glancing at Jesse. Got a type, Buck.
	Really subtle, Steve. Jesse let the cold air roll over her. Reminded her of the six months she'd spent in Wisconsin, once, but she had no one to share stories with. (Hadn't, for a long time. Until the Bureau.) "A redhead, huh," she said, trying not to linger on that thought.
	Bucky was just pretending not to notice the implication at all. Yes, despite the little nod in response to Jesse. "What was her name again?" he asked Steve. "Dolores," Steve replied, without any effort needed for remembering. "You called her Dot." Dot. Bucky remembered now, too. He shook his head. "She's gotta be a hundred years old by now." "So are we, pal," Steve returned, putting his hand on Bucky's shoulder. (For the first time in a long time.)
	Aw. That's sweet. "Well, neither of you look a day over sixty," Jesse said, mouth curving a little bit.
	It got a huff from Bucky. A wry look from Steve, who gave Bucky's shoulder a squeeze. "See, Buck," he said, as he let go, "you got nothing to worry about." Bucky allowed himself a quiet sigh, in response. "Except what we're gonna find in there." He wasn't looking forward to it. But Steve put on his helmet, finally, and led them out of the jet, into the cold and snow. The thick metal doors into the bunker-like structure in front of them were open. "No point pretending he didn't beat us here, huh," Bucky muttered. "We should expect he's... woken up the Soldiers."
	Jesse drew a deep breath. "Probably no point," she agreed. "Let's get ready for a fight, I guess. Anything we need to know?"
	"Expect them to be strong," Bucky said, as Steve turned to look at him. "Take what you saw after that guy triggered me, then think of an improved model." His jaw was tensing by the second. "If he's got 'em under his command, they're not gonna listen to any kind of reason. And if he hasn't... Well, then we probably won't need to worry about him, anymore."
	"Right," Jesse said. She looked thoughtful. (She was wondering how susceptible they might be to... other forms of mind control.) She reached for the Service Weapon. "This continues to be a theme around here..."
	"Welcome to Siberia," Bucky muttered, and nodded to Steve. They could go on ahead: this wasn't going to get any easier for him no matter how long they postponed the inevitable. So ahead they went, in through the door, through the room behind it, into the elevator. Everything looked like it had been here for a long time, but also like it hadn't been too many years since regular maintenance had stopped. Bucky hated every second, even before they were all standing in the elevator, taking them down, down, down. Quiet and tense.
	Jesse looked at his face, as she had done so many times over the past little while. It... sucked, that he had to go through this. It really did. (And yet this whole trip had been as close to her element as she'd been in some time. She'd feel guilty about that later.)
	He had that resigned look about him again. Only a little more tense this time, as he prepared for... Well. Anything? All of it. And then the elevator came to a stop. The doors opened on an empty, quiet corridor. They crept out, Bucky with his gun at the ready, Steve with his shield in a defensive position. Checking nooks and crannies as they went. They'd made it onto the stairs leading to an upper level when there was suddenly noise coming from the direction of the elevator, like metal screeching against metal.
	Jesse's gaze immediately whipped towards the elevator, her hand already extended to grab a chunk of... anything, if she needed to. "Shit."
	At least all of them were prepared when the doors got wrenched open again, revealing -- Iron Man. He stepped into the hallway, his helmet sliding open, folding itself away. "You seem a little defensive," Tony said, to all of them, but mostly Steve who'd already taken a couple of steps down from the stairs. "It's been a long day," Steve said. Tony didn't seem particularly taken with that, although perhaps it was because Bucky remained on the stairs, gun still trained on Tony: "At ease, soldier," Tony called to him, unimpressed, "I'm not currently after you." Bucky... did not lower the gun.
	"That's not particularly reassuring," Jesse said. Nothing was floating, at least. But her hand was firmly on the Service Weapon.
	"Neither is the fact that no one knows who you are, Miss Faden," Tony replied. "But that's not why I'm here, either." "So why are you?" Steve asked. "Maybe your story's not so crazy," Tony said. "Maybe. Ross has no idea I'm here, I'd like to keep it that way." He looked around, then leaned his shoulder against a convenient corner. Projecting more ease than he was feeling, Bucky was sure. "Otherwise I've got to arrest myself." "That sounds like a lot of paperwork," Steve replied - and with Tony's dry snort, finally lowered his shield. And nodded. "Good to see you, Tony." "You too, Cap." And then Tony looked up towards the stairs again, and just looked exasperated. "Meta for Manchurian Candidate, you're killing me," he complained, looking at Bucky, "there's a truce here, you can drop --" But it took a gesture of confirmation from Steve, and a look at Jesse, before Bucky actually lowered the gun. Saying nothing.
	"He's not very trusting," Jesse said mildly. "Don't know why."
	Tony gave another huff, then turned back to Steve. "So I assume your dream team knows which way to go." And Steve looked up to Bucky. "Yeah, we know." Bucky nodded. It was tense, like everything else.
	"Can we just go?"
	That was what you were here for, Jesse. Bucky was a little too tense right now for a grateful look, but she got... a look, anyway. And a nod. And then he turned to resume going up the stairs. They still had some ways ahead of them, into the belly of the facility. And he was not looking forward to it. (С возвращением, Солдат.)
	Jesse followed close behind, the Service Weapon back in her hands. She didn't care about anyone else's petty grievances. She was sticking close to him. Like a quiet protector. Whether he feels he needs one or not.

,

	The rest of the facility was much of the same: hallways, mild disrepair, terse signage in Russian on the walls. It was eerily quiet, no sound except the that of their footsteps. Most doors hung open, even as they got closer and closer to what clearly seemed to have been the most restricted parts of the operation. Well, it seemed that way to everyone else. Whereas Bucky knew it for a fact. He felt like something was slowly strangling him. And then they were almost there, to the heart of the facility. "This is it, where the tanks were," Bucky muttered, in a hushed tone, right as they were coming up to a familiar entryway. Not straight at it: it was along the hallway they were moving along. "Everybody stay careful." It was just as quiet as everywhere else.
	I've been careful for years. "Don't worry," Jesse said quietly, her eyes darting up briefly at the entryway.
	Bucky wished he'd had it in him to be wry right now, since worry was pretty high up on his list of emotions right now. But all he could really do was keep going, now. Tony had taken the lead, and was advancing into the entryway with one hand in front of him, weapons built into his suit primed. "We got heat signatures," he said. His suit said? Whichever. "How many?" Steve asked, looking up. They could see into the room, now, only it wasn't really a room but a great big hall, stretching up higher than they could see from here, just yet. The center was empty, but six big tanks were standing at the edges of the space. It was too dark to really make out much more than that they were connected to a lot of machinery. "Uh..." Tony said. "One." The lights in the tanks turned on, bathing the contents in a sickly yellow. Even from this far away, there was a human shape in each of them - except one, which was open and empty.
	"Right," Jesse breathed quietly. The weapon in her hands spun and shifted, until it folded into a configuration. She approached the tanks carefully.
	Bucky trailed after her, on instinct and reflex. It didn't take many steps for them to be just close enough to the closest tank to see there was a bullet hole in the glass. And another in the forehead of the man behind it, his body limp against the chair he'd been sitting in. No sign of a struggle - and he was a big guy, bigger than Bucky. He would've fought, given a chance. (Bucky recognized him. It was an odd feeling.) "If it's any comfort," a man's voice spoke over the intercom, suddenly, "they died in their sleep."
	And just like that, Jesse snapped out of her wandering thoughts (did the Bureau have a place like this? Or were there other agencies who--) and her gaze slid upwards, towards the ceiling. As if she could see the person speaking. "Not much of one, but thanks for trying."
	The ceiling was far, far, far away (the space stretched so high it went had to go the way up to the surface), and the voice seemed to be coming from all directions. "Did you really think I wanted more of you?" "What the hell," Bucky muttered, his gun still raised, looking from one tank to the next, a single bullet hole in each of them. It made no sense - if the Soldiers weren't what he was after, then what was? And almost as if the man could hear his thoughts, he spoke again, thoughtful, calm, almost soft: "I'm grateful to them, though. They brought you here." A light came on in the back of the room. Wait, no, not a light: it was a window, a small one, only big enough to show the face of the man who'd played the shrink back in Berlin. Tony's glove was immediately primed, and Steve threw his shield - which just bounced off the wall right back to him. (Bucky already knew it was useless before that.) "Please, Captain," the man said. "The Soviets built this chamber to withstand the launch blast of UR-100 rockets." That was why the room was so tall. "I'm betting I could beat that!" Tony called back.
	And Jesse whirled around, the Service Weapon up and pointed - it twisted itself into its Charge shape before she could even consciously will it to, long pieces floating in the air around the barrel. She fired, explosive round piercing through the air to strike that window dead in the middle. Just to check.
	Was that a scratch in the glass? Hard to say in this light. And the man didn't seem concerned. "I'm sure you could, Mr Stark, given time," he said, "but the miss here might beat you to it. And then you'd never know why you came." They were all advancing towards the window, now, towards the door it was in. Something in Bucky's spine felt like ice but he wasn't sure why. "You killed innocent people in Vienna just to bring us here?" Steve asked. He gestured for the others to stand back as he stepped up to the door, to be face to face with the man. Bucky looked around, to see what else was near the chamber, but there wasn't much. Equipment that made his stomach lurch uncomfortably with how familiar it was, and a monitor set-up that... didn't feel much better to him.
	Jesse was still holding on to the Service Weapon, but she let one hand fall away. She stretched it outward, instead. Reaching out with her power, to see if she could make the walls-- bend. Unobtrusively. Maybe we can get the villain monologue and a way out of here. It's worth a try, isn't it?
	Something creaked, faintly. Nothing visible, but it was just enough for Bucky concerned look Jesse's way. A barely audible breath of her name. There wasn't really a villain monologue. The man was speaking to Steve now, close enough despite the impenetrability of the chamber to not be using the intercom. Bucky only heard bits and pieces. Sokovia. Promise.
	Jesse looked back at him. Creak. She raised her eyebrows. (There was something heady about feeling metal and concrete yield to her will like that. Like she was in control.)
	And just as Bucky was about to say something -- The screen on the monitoring system blinked to life, pulling Steve's attention to it. And Tony's. And Bucky's. A black screen, white text: 16 Декабрь 1991. December 16th, 1991. (Mission report, an echo said in Bucky's head. December sixteen, nineteen ninety one --) "An empire toppled by its enemies can rise again," the man said, through the window. "But one which crumbles from within? That's dead. Forever."
	Jesse's gaze darted towards the screen. Then back to the window. She stopped pulling, but she didn't release. She held.
	The man glanced at her. He'd probably heard the strain she'd been putting on the wall, but he didn't seem concerned. His attention belonged to Steve and Tony, now standing right in front of the screen. Without realizing what he was doing, Bucky had taken a step back to where he couldn't really see it. (He didn't need to see it. Mission report, December --) The screen was old, and when whatever was being played flicked over from the date card to the footage, it wasn't much better. Black and white, and grainy, but it was easy enough to see it was high-angle shot of a road, next to some sort of... wall? At the left edge of the screen. "I know that road," Tony said, his helmet gone again. He looked towards the door, agitated. "What is this?" The man said nothing. In the footage, a car crashed head-on into the wall.
	"James," Jesse said quietly. She had clipped the Service Weapon back to her belt. She was reaching out to him with her free hand. She didn't like the mood in the room. She wanted him close.
	Bucky's eyes darted to Steve. To Tony. To the floor, as he took one step, one and a half, towards Jesse. Stilted, feeling it in his shoulders how he felt like trying to make himself small, like he was already bracing for an impact that was at least a minute away. On the screen, a motorcycle pulled up to the crash site. On the motorcycle, Bucky. An older man crawled out of the wreck. Bucky walked to him, grabbed him by the back of the neck, forced him to his knees. Bashed his face in with his metal fist. Dragged his now-limp body back into the car, made it look like he'd died in the crash. Walked around to the passenger seat. The footage didn't show the passenger, but it showed Bucky's arm reach in through the window. Do something. Then walk calmly -- no, expressionlessly to where he shot the security camera. The screen went black. There was no air in the room, now. Tony was staring at the screen like he was refusing to comprehend what he'd seen.
	And all the while, Jesse-- moved, too. Slowly, one step at a time. She wasn't watching. Not much. Just the odd glance at the screen, no reaction when she saw James. It didn't matter. She didn't stop moving until her hand was on his arm.
	Funny, she wasn't the only one who wanted to put their hands on Bucky right now. Tony started for him, but Steve grabbed him before he could do more than startle anyone. So Tony turned on Steve, instead. Grabbing his arm and demanding to know, in a broken voice, if he'd known. And once he got a yes out of him, Tony let go of his arm like it burned. And then he walloped Steve across the face. It made a sound that wasn't just metal striking flesh, and it sent Steve flying, so the powers of the suit were definitely involved. Bucky's AK-47 was up and taking aim in a second, after that.
	And there was tension. The metal trembling, but not quite bending. Not buckling. Tension. She held. Tension. "Shit." And then Steve Rogers went flying, and all bets were off. Jesse yanked, feeling steel come loose like it was tissue paper, a display of power she hadn't even been sure she was capable of, making her almost delirious with it, but-- she pushed past it. She pushed him. "James," she hissed. "Run." The creaking turned into cascade. Something heavy and loud came loose. It went tumbling down. Release.
	And not a single person paid any attention to the man behind the window stepping back and vanishing right as everything turned into full pandemonium. The room began to crumble. And Bucky bolted into a run, losing the gun when it got knocked out of his hands by something falling. Didn't matter. Instinct told him he needed to try and go up, to where there would be a mechanism to open the giant hatch onto the surface. (Instinct sounded a lot like Jesse.) (Running felt like not letting her down.) He lost track of everyone else, but at least that meant he had a brief headstart over Tony.
	Jesse had wanted to give him a shot. That headstart. And she'd succeeded. She watched him go for a second, relieved, started to move, and then-- looked up. At the metal bearing down on her. "Shit," she whispered. She shoved her hands up towards the ceiling. Instinct.
	Vaulting over debris and dodging what was still coming down, Bucky made it to where the big button for the hatch release was, and punched it. Above, metal creaked but in the way it was meant to: the giant metal cover was lifting open. As Bucky sprinted onward, and clambered upward, platform to platform, he could hear Steve shouting, and something that sounded like the thrusters on the Iron Man suit. He made it up half the way before Tony caught him. But Steve wasn't far behind, saving his ass. Pulling Tony down with him so Bucky could keep climbing. (Where was Jesse?) He could hear them down below, but he just needed to get past two more platforms -- The hinges on the cover exploded, sending the entire thing crashing closed, fast, and Bucky only narrowly saved himself from becoming a pancake. It was Tony, of course, and his suit. He was up there soon enough, and the steel pipe Bucky grabbed didn't do much to keep him away. He grabbed Bucky into a chokehold, entirely made of metal. And from the suit, "Do you even remember them?" What kind of question was that? "I remember all of them." Maybe it wasn't the right answer because Tony seemed to let them both hurtle down the shaft together in response, just falling - at least until Steve launched himself at them from out of nowhere, knocking Tony off his course and Bucky out of his grasp. Steve and Tony fell onto a platform off to the side of the main shaft, Bucky onto a ledge slightly higher - with Steve's shield landing only a few feet from him. He grabbed it and jumped down, using the shield like a blunt instrument to get Tony off of Steve. It was brutal, the fight that followed, and not something Bucky had wanted to end up doing. They seemed equally matched, for a moment (well, two against one kind of equal, anyway), but then Tony managed to blast Steve into the nearest wall, and it was just Bucky. (Where was Jesse?) And it took everything for Bucky to manage to shove Tony into the opposite wall, dodging a laser beam from one of the gloves. And it seemed to take even more to use his metal arm to try and grab the reactor in the middle of the chest of the suit, the thing powering Tony's attacks. He knew he needed to disable it, it was the only way to disarm Tony -- The blast tossed him several feet back, throwing him onto his knees. Something about the way it happened felt... oddly light. One hand was helping him up, the right one. He looked to the left, and saw only a stump of metal that stopped just past the shoulder cap. He had no time to process what he was seeing before another blast from Tony sent him back on the floor. (He was failing Jesse.)
	There had been debris. And for some brief, intesimal smidgen of time-- darkness. But she had heard Polaris call out for her, as Polaris always did, and Jesse's mind anchored itself anew to consciousness. Metal went flying everywhere. What now? James. No time. Up. Up, and... She burst through the entryway, hurtling the iron suit and the man in it across the room. "I can't believe you people get anything done like this," she said, feet touching down on the metal grate. "Who does this help? Huh?!"
	Tony went flying, although the trouble with his suit was that it was meant to fly, and so the thrusters turned on and righted him. "I don't care," he said, and even through the speakers on the suit, it sounded like a strained whisper. "He killed my mom." And he raised his hand with intention to blast Jesse with it, this time. "The chest!" Steve called at that exact moment, clambering to his feet. He could see Bucky down for the count on the floor, and while he grabbed his shield with intention to charge at Tony with it, Jesse was closer. "The light!"
	Chest was all she needed to hear. The Service Weapon practically flew into Jesse's hands. It was faster. It charged quicker, too; pierce, she thought, and pieces shifted around, and she pulled the trigger, and-- Crack. One single bullet. Smack dab in the middle of the arc reactor. (Am I going to have to apologize to Tony back home? Fuck.)
	At least she probably wasn't the only one? The arc reactor flickered on impact, weakened. The light didn't go all the way out, but from the way Tony suddenly crashed onto his knees, like his entire body had powered down on him? It didn't need to. This was over. Steve allowed himself a second to slump back against the wall. Bucky... blinked up at the ceiling and tried to reorient himself through the ringing in his ears.
	"James!" And that was Jesse, shoving the Service Weapon haphazardly back in its place, before rushing-- stumbling, almost-- to his side. "Are you all right?"
	There was some kind of a scrape or cut on his brow. Looked worse than it was, the blood on his face. "Jesse," Bucky breathed, his wits pulled back together just enough to know she wasn't a trick of his brain when she showed up in his wobbly field of vision. "Lost... the arm." Yeah, Buck, she could see that. The stump looked charred.
	"I know," Jesse said. She squatted down beside him. "But it's not the one that'll make you bleed out, so... could be worse."
	It was hard to say what the noise Bucky made in response to that was, really. Wry? Tired? There was a noise from where Tony was, too. Metal against the floor as he tried to get up, without much success. It made Steve frown hard anyway. "We gotta get him out of here, Jesse," he said.
	Jesse looked up. "I'm taking him home," she said. Her arm was already sliding around Bucky's body. "It's the safest place."
	"Home?" Steve didn't sound so sure about it. Bucky was trying to clamber to his feet, heavy against Jesse even without the metal arm, but he managed to look up at Steve - with a hasty glance towards Tony. Probably shouldn't speak Fandom's name out loud right here. "I'll let you know where it is," he said. "Promise." He wondered whether that meant anything after all these years.
	"We won't leave you in the dark," Jesse promised. He was heavy, a strain on her body as she helped him up, even with all the power within her. But she held, barely even let out a grunt. "Thank you, Steve." She was already turning towards the door. Already reaching for her phone with her one free hand.
	Bucky didn't know if that was enough, either. But he knew what might be: "End of the line, pal." He saw something like hope light up behind Steve's eyes. Good. Now he just had to try and live up to that. He let Jesse lead him away, doing his best to carry his own weight. Or more of it, anyway. And behind them, Tony's voice, all he had left to fight with: "That shield doesn't belong to you. You don't deserve it. My father made that shield!" The thunk of Steve's shield falling onto the floor.

[ooc: NFB, NFI, OOC a-okay, adapted from Captain America: Civil War, part 2 of 2! Preplayed with the absolutely wonderful weirderthanthou who also worked some really important coding magic, in addition to living with all the RL speed bumps and general 'this movie is a bad movie' vibes that made this preplay a way longer process than it should have been. BUT NOW IT'S DONE AND OVER AND BUCKY'S RETURN IS IMMINENT.]