Chapter 2: Machines of War
Summary: The Winter Soldier beat Captain America and ended him. H.Y.D.R.A. and the Project “Insight” worked. The remaining members of the Avengers were labelled enemies of the state and hunted. Now, to have a chance against the global domination of Alexander Pierce, Sam Wilson, Natasha Romanoff and Maria Hill go on a reckless mission to retrieve Steve’s legacy and some vital intel. H.Y.D.R.A. is, of course, waiting for them. But the encounter goes south for both sides because of an unexpected third party…
Link to the previous chapter: https://www.tumblr.com/arkhangelmos/790373557660172288/the-end-of-the-line
https://www.tumblr.com/arkhangelmos/790373557660172288/the-end-of-the-line
Chapter 2: Machines of War
The Winter Soldier was sitting in a limo, calm, silent, awaiting orders. Secretary Pierce, who sat in front of him, gave him a very simple mission “Защищать его в течение презентации в случае отсутствия иных приказов от него и только от него”. Bucky didn’t ask questions – he wasn’t even allowed to have questions. But behind his Winter Soldier programming James Barnes secretly hoped that something would happen. Not something extraordinary – like Pierce’s death – the Winter Soldier rendered any scenarios like that basically impossible – but something lengthy, time-consuming. Bucky was out of his cryochamber for several days already and even though he was under constant surveillance of Pierce, who needed the best bodyguard possible, even this couldn’t prevent some glimpses of Bucky himself resurfacing. Nothing significant, just small things like consciousness of his own senses. He wasn’t a mere spectator now, he could actually feel something, like fresh breeze playing with his long hair when he escorted Pierce to the car or the sound of the birds chirping and tree leaves rustling. Bucky remembered from experience of his numerous assignments that the longer he’s on the mission, the more senses he could regain. Of course, then came the sizzling cold of the cryochamber and then, after another eternity there several excruciating minutes of erasure and reprogramming. That agonising shock, burning his brain from the inside and then those words “Желание, ржавый, семнадцать, рассвет…” after which his programming fully took over and his lips without his consent spoke out “Я готов отвечать” and everything started all over again. So yes, long missions were Bucky’s favourites. One time he even gained some semblance of control over his body. It was the mission he failed and yet it was one of his best memories as the Winter Soldier. That time he was sent to apprehend a rouge soldier, a lab experiment much like himself. But that guy was no ordinary man, but the only survivor of the U.S. military early super-soldier programme. After Bucky finally tracked him down, they fought half an hour without break – the longest hand-to-hand fight in Bucky’s life. And when Bucky was close to victory, he caught this soldier’s eye. This was a seasoned fighter, not some novice, but a scarred warrior who probably could probably surpass every Bucky himself in terms of combat experience. In his eyes Bucky saw rage and desperation of an animal fighting for its life. But there was also something else – pride. The pride of a man, who would not just accept defeat, but who would do absolutely anything to beat his foe, and if he can’t, then he’d die taking his opponent with him. This sight awakened something in Bucky back then, a feeling that made him freeze for just a moment. A split second which was enough for his target to get an edge. He tore Bucky’s metal arm off and beat him with it. It didn’t take the Winter Soldier down of course, but it gave that guy enough time to vanish in the woods. To this day Bucky remembered the name of Isaiah Bradley, a man he was almost happy to lose to.
The limousine stopped and Bucky had to follow Pierce, escorting to a stage he stood on just yesterday. People were pointing giant cameras at them and Pierce, with his head held high, strolled onto the stage. The Triskelion building, battered by the friendly fire from the helicarriers a month ago, but still pretty intact and even functional towered in the distance across the bridge, which was right behind the stage. Bucky took his place to the right of Pierce and listened as his voice blared through two huge speakers.
“This day we finally liberate ourselves from a false symbol. We liberate ourselves not from a guiding star, but from a deceptive mirage that was leading us to chaos and destruction. We liberate ourselves from a dreadful fate that was being forced upon us by a group of supremacists. Those false idols who thought themselves superior to each one of us tried to take control over our great nation and every other nation of the world, but they were not allowed to succeed. Today we celebrate! We celebrate the future we managed to secure for ourselves. The greatness our nation managed to preserve. And we mourn the loss of all the people who fell to the hands of the terrorists trying to take this from us. Today the greatness supremacist symbol of all – the shield of the false hero Captain America will finally be destroyed!”
The people crowding behind the cameras and flashes cheered. Bucky was not moved by Pierce’s speech in the slightest. His job was to keep the old man safe, so he studied the environment from behind Pierce’s back, searching for potential threats.
Several operatives in full body gear wearing black helmets came onto the stage. They brought with them a a giant gun and very odd construction – large steel clamps welded to a platform. These clamps held the exact thing everyone came to see demolished — the star-spangled metal shield.
One of the operatives handed Bucky the gun. “Возьми оружие”, — spoke a voice in Bucky’s ear. He obeyed and the operatives rather hastily left the stage. Someone would say even too hastily. But Bucky had no time – or agency for that matter – to think about that. “По моей команде целься и стреляй в щит”, – the voice in Bucky’s ear ordered. He obeyed again and took aim at the red, white and blue disc. Pierce stared monologuing again.
“With this weapon, crafted after an Asgardian Destroyer technology, we finally-“
He stopped abruptly and looked somewhere into the distance behind the crowd. Bucky did the same thing. A whistling sound somewhat similar to one of a plane engine came from afar becoming increasingly louder every moment. In a split second Bucky spotted an object coming right at them with a speed of a missile, pushed Pierce aside and was instantly knocked away by a metal object of an unstoppable force that plowed the asphalt of the bridge with his body.
— It’s a bait, Wilson, and you know it! — Nick Fury was losing patience. — Pierce wants to get us to come to him instead of searching for us himself. He is waiting for us!
— Maybe, but do you really expect me to just leave the only symbol of Steve’s legacy to be destroyed by this old guy? Plus, it’s vibranium, it costs millions, we can’t just leave it, — countered Sam.
A strained silence filled the room. Sam and Fury gave each other displeased looks. Natasha stood next to them frowning.
— How do we even know it’s not a hoax? He could bring basically any shield, if there’s no way to prove it is really vibranium.
— I already thought about it, it must be the real one. If there was even a chance of it being real, he would not even consider such a bait to begin with.
— Really? How so? — asked Sam sarcastically.
— Pierce knows that I would immediately consider the possibility of the shield being fake and would not risk coming for nothing. By the looks of it he’s pretty confident that we will come to try such a brash strategy and risk losing his only piece of vibranium. Plus, if they really want to destroy the shield I with the whole country watching, this isn’t the shield that’s being displayed, but the weapons. With this announcement Pierce is telling us: “Maybe I have a technology to counter vibranium, maybe I don’t. Come here and get, it if you dare”. This is the real bait. He knows I would be reluctant to leave something this dangerous in his hands.
Silence fell on the four once more. Each of them was trying to decide the best course of action. Should they stay and watch Pierce publicly tarnish the only symbol of freedom they still had? Or should the improvise an operation with almost no resources and risk being taken out on sight?
Finally, Natasha spoke again:
— I still don’t get why he would do this. I mean, wouldn’t it be safer to just ship the shield away to some remote facility and study it there? Why did he need to use the shield to demonstrate his new weapon if he does have one?
— I suppose, — said Fury, — he did ship it away at some point before, while the helicarrires were still shooting away H.Y.D.R.A.’s potential enemies. Only that he didn’t manage to find any way of processing vibranium. After all, neither S.H.I.E.L.D., nor H.Y.D.R.A. had any brilliant minds like Howard Stark in their ranks. The last one who potentially could crack this up was Hank Pym, but he left S.H.I.E.L.D. in 1989. So unless there is someone this gifted working for H.Y.D.R.A. right now, I doubt they can really do something to the shield. But then again, why even try a bait like that knowing full well that I know all of this?
— I guess this is the zugzwang he was going for: stay and risk letting H.Y.D.R.A. develop a new weapon or go and steal it and risk being eliminated.
— Man, you said it yourself, we need intel. And we won’t know a thing unless we get relevant info on what H.Y.D.R.A. is planning. They’ll be keeping most of their attention on Pierce and his performance, so this is our chance to get in and actually know something. Plus, if it really is the real shield and there really is a new weapon, we need to act. We won’t have another shot like that.
— Alright, Wilson. What’s your plan?
Bucky scrambled back onto his feet. His head felt like got stuffed with cotton wool, it was heavy and he could barely think. The ringing in his ears drowned out every other sound. “What was that?” — he thought. Pierce expected some diversion attempts from targets he previously hunted, but he certainly never encountered anything like that. It was as if somebody shot a rocket at him. A really big one. But this was no ordinary missile — it grabbed him. Somehow this giant projectile held him, a super-soldier, in place while pommelling him into the ground.
Bucky felt vibration in the surface of the bridge, as if somebody was smashing it with a hammer. Boom… boom… boom… Bucky was quick regaining his senses – just in time, because the next he heard was a high pitched noise of a weapon charging. He ducked and the next moment a burning ray of energy pierced the air above his head. The dust started to settle and the Winter Soldier could a see his opponent at last – a human figure in a bulky black and silver armour that covered his entire body. This man had red eyes and a glowing rectangle on his chest. The huge gun on his shoulder was aiming right at Bucky. Being remade into the Winter Soldier, Bucky learned to think of himself as a perfect human-weapon. But this… this man in front of him was the ultimate War Machine.
Bucky charged at his armoured foe, but the War Machine immediately pointed both fists back at him and guns emerged from his metal forearms. Without a word or even a moment of hesitation the War Machine opened fire from three guns at ones and all of them aimed at Bucky. Protecting himself with his metal arm, Bucky leapt sideways, taking cover behind a totalled car. He took a grenade from his belt and threw it at the War Machine. It exploded, but the next second Bucky’s cover was punched away – the War Machine just hurled another car him. Left in the open, Bucky figured that playing defence won’t keep him alive and tried attacking the armoured guy again, but the War Machine had the same idea. This heavy metal dude just propelled himself at Bucky using his hand and feet repulsors and buried his armoured knee in Bucky’s gut mid-flight. Bucky got pushed against the edge of the bridge with air pushed out of him. The War Machine aimed his hand repulsor straight at Bucky’s face and shot. At the last second Bucky grabbed is foe’s hand with his own metal one and managed to push it out of the way. The railing next to Bucky’s head melted and dripped into the water below. Bucky pushed the guy in his metal mask, but it barely did anything. With his last effort Bucky pushed his feet into the metal ab area of the War Machine and threw him off into the water. This gave him several seconds of rest.
Bucky got back on his feet. The voice in his ear spoke: “Новое задание, солдат: избавься от бронированного. Любым способом”. Bucky took a gun from his back and readied himself. When the War Machine flew up, he opened fire, aiming at the mask to blind the opponent. Instantly he skidded to the side and threw two smoke grenades. Remembering, where the target stood, Bucky charged again. This time though he was smarter and ran in a zigzag instead of directly at the foe, which saved him. Turns out, that gun of the back had auto-aim. Bucky utilised all of his super-soldier speed to dodge its shots and finally punched the War Machine in the back with his metal fist. The guy felt that and lost balance for a second. Bucky took this advantage pulled his armoured leg. The War Machine fell forward, but immediately propelled himself back with the hand repulsors. But Bucky was not stopping. He kept pushing and hitting with both hands, trying to disorient the opponent. The weakness of such a heavy armour was that it hindered the movements and made the user slower in close combat. And Bucky used it to the fullest. In a minute the armour was pretty banged up, but still impenetrable. The War Machine caught up with Bucky’s tactics, flew back, increasing the distance, and threw all the ammo he had at him. Once more Bucky’s zigzagged his way closer to his target, but the War Machine pulled another move. Instead of using guns, he charged and fired a huge energy beam from the rectangle of his chest, sending Bucky flying backwards. The Winter Soldier got pushed into the bridge railing again. But the War Machine, instead of coming after him and finishing him off, turned away and flew back to the stage. Bucky pushed himself back into his feet and not noticing the pain across his whole body sprinted after him.
Pierce, who stood on the stage all this time watching Bucky struggling against the War Machine, got worried. For some reason, instead of the Destroyer gun he spent precious seconds on pulling Captain America’s shield out of the metal clasps. Once he managed to get it out, the War Machine instantly punched him right into this star-spangled target and Pierce fell of the stage still holding the shield. The War Machine flew down after him and stepped onto his chest, pinning Pierce down to the ground. The metal mask of the helmet slid up, opening the face of colonel James Rhodes and his eyes filled with vengeance and wrath. Rhodey pointed his hand repulsor at Pierce’s face and spoke just one phrase: “For Tony”. Pierce covered his head with the shield, but Rhodey’s blast came right through the metal disc, leaving two smoking holes: one in the shield, another in Pierce’s head.
Rhodey stepped back confused. Cap’s shield usually could take much more than a repulsor blast. And all this in general felt a bit too easy. What was going on?
Then a voice came through the speakers, the voice of Alexander Pierce: “You really thought you could just assault me like that, colonel? Or should I say, ex-colonel, since attacking the Secretary of State is a serious crime. Right now dozens of SH.I.E.L.D. squads are coming as backup to subdue you, Rhodes. And as for the ones, who replaced the shield, they’ll be found and executed. Good luck, you’ll need it”.
Rhodey looked at the body at his feet and touched the man’s face. Something was off. With his metal gauntlet he removed a face prosthesis of Alexander Pierce from the guy’s face and saw a completely different person. Pierce was never here.
Natasha was waiting for the convoy to arrive at the location. The easiest way was to get to the shield was while it was en route, so that’s what they were doing. In the morning Nat broke into a home of one of H.Y.D.R.A.’s officers and using some vile methods from her years in the Red Room got a full list of operatives entrusted with delivering the shield to the place of Pierce’s speech. Even better, she got a description of the route prepared for the convoy. So right now she was wearing a full-black equipment and more importantly “the veil”.
The convoy came right on cue, a truck along with two lighter vehicles, one in the front, another in the back. Once they were in position, Natasha dropped down on the roof of the truck from a tree she was hiding in and latched herself in place with her grappling hook. The convoy didn’t stop. She wasn’t spotted.
Natasha peeked into the rear view mirror from above, taking a look at the agent driving. “It’s Reyner, – she thought. – Great. I can be Reyner”. Natasha took out a small pult from her pocket at punched the button with the name “Reyner” on the screen. A hologram of another female face covered her own. Lying on her back to stay invisible from below Nat took out a wig of straight blond hair, put it on and waited. She had to let the convoy reach the rendezvous point.
In a few minutes Natasha crawled closer to the driver’s cabin and attached a device to the windshield. It emitted a shockwave that shattered the glass and took out both the driver and the agent next to her. Natasha quickly slid inside, shoved the woman’s body to the side and took over the car. The voice spoke through a walkie-talkie on woman’s chest:
— Reyner, what’s going on? Over.
Nat took the walkie-talkie and spoke:
— Nothing, ehh… — she glanced at the second agent’s body, noticing the name tag, — it’s just Roberts getting upset over a joke and pushing me, — said Nat with a modified voice.
Then she spoke again, but now into her own comm: “Phase 1 complete, start Phase 2”. In several minutes she heard two thumps above her head – Sam and Maria dropping onto the truck. Natasha took a grenade from her belt and threw it into the back of the truck, eliminating other two agents inside. Then she saw sparks inside of the truck, coming from above and after that a loud thud of a piece of metal falling – Sam and Maria got inside the truck through the roof. They wore the same black uniform as Natasha. Once again, nobody from the support groups noticed anything. Phase 2 of their plan was complete.
In an hour they arrived at the Triskelion bridge, stopping right behind the stage where Pierce and the Winter Soldier were standing. While Natasha was driving, Sam and Maria replaced the vibranium shield in the clasps with their own steel copy Sam spent 10 hours making. Now all the agents have left the vehicles and took the weird installation with the fake shield out of the truck along with the Destroyer gun. While the agents were pushing the installation onto the stage, Sam had to take the Destroyer gun and personally give it to the Winter Soldier. For a second Nat thought Sam would slip – after all he hasn’t been in active service for years – but he didn’t. He just handed away the gun and returned to the truck, simple as that. Nat couldn’t see his face through the helmet – they all put those on when they arrived – but she could bet his face looked stressed at the very least. They all got back into the truck and followed by the support groups drove to the Triskelion. The next part of the plan was very tricky.
Natasha drove all the way to the garage when she noticed something weird: too many vehicles were going out. The entire squads were being dispatched. But they weren’t coming to them, instead they went past and around the building to the bridge they just came from. Whatever alerted those, it weren’t them. But what was it then?
Nat couldn’t think about that right now. Coming out of the driver’s cabin she saw the support groups driving away the way they came. Whatever happened, it was making their life much easier. Nat saw Hill and Sam running in another direction, where the jets where kept. Natasha herself was going to get them all some intel.
She found the nearest bathroom and took off her heavy black uniform. Under it she wore a white blouse and black trousers like a regular agent from analytics’ department. Using the card pass she took from Reyner’s body she got inside the building and took an elevator up. Her goal was the server rooms. She came out on the thirteenth floor and got inside the server rooms using the same pass. She met nobody on her way, as if the building got suddenly abandoned. This emergency they were all driving to must be serious.
“I’m in”, — spoke Nat into her comm once she got to the computer. She typed in the username and the password and anxiously bit her lip. The system let her in. “Great, so they didn’t change the passwords I leaked, handy”, — she thought. However, her intuition was telling her it could not be this simple. H.Y.D.R.A. had an entire month to secure their system, but they still used old passwords? But the clock was ticking and she had to get them as much information as possible. She made her way through encrypted files with obscure names: Retribution, Swarm, Gemini… all were encrypted. Natasha inserted a flash drive and launched a virus that was supposed to decrypt any file she needed. But when it finished, she opened one file and it was… gibberish. Just a bag of random words without a glimpse of sense. Shivers ran through Nat’s body. They removed all the files and put hoaxes instead… was it just for them? If so…
“Hill! — yelled Natasha into her comm. — It’s a trap! They prepared for us! Pick me at the thirteenth floor!” She heard footsteps behind the server room door. With a grapple hook she pulled herself to the ceiling right above the entrance and watched as a squad of operatives ran inside. Once everyone was inside, Nat dropped down, locked them all in and ran through the hallway. She was looking for a window, any window. He ran through the maze of hallways and corridors, but when she finally saw a window next to an emergency staircase, a squad was already waiting for her there. She barely managed to to hide behind the corner when a hail of bullets shredded the wall next to her.
— Hill, I’m at the eastern staircase, I need backup, do you copy?!
— Copy that, Nat, — answered Sam instead, — we’re almost there.
In a couple of seconds another series of shots deafened Natasha. But this time she knew it wasn’t H.Y.D.R.A. She walked from behind the corner and saw every agent lying on the ground with holes in their bodies, a shattered window and a jet hovering in place outside the building with a ladder opened for her to get in. Hat ran, leaped out and landed inside the plane. Maria helped her get in while Sam was piloting the thing.
— Hill! The entire room was a hoax! They probably transferred all the data someplace else.
— I know. We must abort and return to the base.
— No! We won’t get another chance like this! I won’t go back empty-handed!
— Agreed, — spoke Sam from a pilot’s seat, — we’re almost there need to get something besides this, — he kicked a star-spangled shield next to him.
— But we don’t even know where to look, — countered Hill.
— I have an idea. Let’s break onto one of the helicarriers.
Rhodey stood on the stage with dozens of cameras pointed right at him. Pierce’s voice coming from the speakers said something about him being a threat to the society and world peace, but he wasn’t listening. He noticed this glorified bodyguard, the Winter Soldier coming at him again. So, if he could not get his revenge today, at least he could vent his rage on this one-armed freak. So Rhodey let him come closer, they fired the leg repulsors, grabbed the guy by the throat mid-flight and soared into the sky. If his bullets could not end this guy, gravity will. In a matter of seconds they were already way above Triskelion roof, but Rhodey was not going to stop there. He wanted to end this guy for good, so he flew even higher. When even the clouds were left below, Rhodey finally stopped and threw the Winter Soldier down. What Rhodey did not expect was the Winter Soldier shooting a grappling hook at his neck, trying to pull Rhodey down with him. But the suit was designed to lift tanks, so instead of pulling Rhodey down the Winter Soldier actually pulled himself back up. This time this guy wrapped his legs around Rhodey and attempted to tear out his arc reactor with his metal hand. Suddenly Rhodey didn’t feel so invisible anymore. At this height the fall would turn him into a smoothie of blood an bones inside a foil of his suit. So instead of trying to shake the Winter Soldier off Rhodey, breaking the sound barrier, flew down, before his suit would be torn apart by this metal-armed freak. But then another surprise found him. Rhodey saw that land was, for some reason, much closer, than it was when they left it and fired his repulsors at maximum level to slow down. Because of the clowns he didn’t notice the asphalt of the runway in time and smashed right into it despite of all his efforts to land safely. Luckily, the Winter Soldier wound up below him when they collided with the surface, so he took most of the impact and passed out. With this threat out of the way, Rhodey finally glanced at the display in his mask and saw that he somehow still was about four miles above the sea level.
— Where are we supposed to find those helicarriers right now? — asked Hill. — They’re probably hundreds of miles away at the moment.
— No-no-no, — said Nat, — for an event of this level Pierce would need all the protection he could have, so there is a huge chance that those helicarriers are somewhere close. Sam, find them in the display and calculate the course.
— Already done, Nat, — said Sam, — and Hill, you’ll have to eat your gun right now…
Natasha and Maria both looked at the display. The coordinates of the Alpha carrier were barely a mile away in upward direction.
— They used retro-reflective panels, of course, — said Hill, — but even when we get there, they’ll be prepared. There’s an army probably already prepared to shoot us down standing on the runway. We won’t land. And even if we did, what then? How’re we getting inside and out afterwards?
Hill looked at Natasha m but Sam spoke instead:
— This is why we won’t be landing on the runway. We won’t be landing at all.
Sam flew the plane higher and higher until they reached the necessary altitude. He followed the calculated trajectory of flight when finally he was able to distinguish the runway through grey clouds. At that moment he got lower and flew along the edge of the helicarrier which visually merged with the clouds thanks to the reflective panels.
— Where’s the bridge, Maria? — asked Sam.
— Ehh… between the first and second engines, you’re going in the right direction, why?
— Because I will drop you off right there.
Sam flew to the far end of the helicarrier, passed the flaming repulsor engine, switched on the turbines for vertical flight and started looking for the window of the captain’s bridge which could not be covered with the reflective panels. Once the black spot of toned windows caught Sam’s eye, he rapidly the plane, turned it moment before collision and as if drifting on the wind smashed the window with the plane’s wing. Maria and Natasha grabbed the guns and were ready to run out. Sam put the plane on autopilot to keep it steady in the air, took the shield and opened the plane. H.Y.D.R.A. agents in the bridge immediately started shooting, but Sam covered them three with the shield. The agents there had only handguns, wile Maria and Nat were shooting burst after burst. Many enemies simply ran away preferring not to get involved with an enemy who just flew a plane right into their window.
Natasha being covered by Sam grabbed one of the agents by the collar and pushed his face into the biometric recognition scanner on the screen unlocking the database. She then took a drive out of her pocket and started downloading every single file she could get her hands on as fast as possible. Sam warned her that reinforcements were coming, so Nat isolated the bridge from the rest of the carrier. Once she ran out of space on the drive, the three jumped back into the plane and flew away. But H.Y.D.R.A. wasn’t letting them go this easy. Three fighting jets followed them… only to be shot out of the sky. Sam and Nat looked at each other confused. The next moment Rhodey in a beaten, but still functioning War Machine armour flew to their window and waved at them. Nat with her eyes wide from shock waved back as Sam, just as confused, flew them back at the base. Now they had the shield. More than than, they had classified data from H.Y.D.R.A. As reckless as it was, this mission was worth it. Now they might actually have some edge over Pierce.
Author’s note: here’s the 2nd part, yay! As it is a “what if…?” kind of story set in a parallel timeline, I like to imagine the characters wearing the suits slightly different from the ones used in the movies, so for inspiration I like to look at unused concept arts. Here are the first two I chose to represent my universe, made by Ryan Meiderding and Rodney Fuentebella.
In the next chapters: Alexander Pierce dealing with the problems of his world expansion; two other serious players enter the world domination game; return of Thor and Hulk; the introduction to this universe Wanda and Pietro; Fury recruits a new team.
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Personal tags: @theghostrin @optics-anddesign2 @tony-stark-unofficial
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