Fire and Ice

•23•

He wakes as the other guy is climbing back up to the top. He fires, hits him, keeps firing, trying to stop him. But he can't follow. He's too injured to try, his head pounding, his body aching. The failure hits him first, and then the craft quakes and the beam hits him second, trapping him underneath. Blasts and booms sound, fire coming from all directions. Death stares him in the face once again.

And the other guy jumps down.

He starts pulling on the beam, helping him. Why? Are they not enemies? Isn't this victory for him? They were fighting ten minutes ago. He shot him. What reason does he have to help?

Whatever it is, he'll take it.

He wriggles free, crawling out from under the beam. It lands with a thud, and he catches his breath, wondering why he's alive. Why he can move, why his mission is sitting next to him, having just saved his life.

Why he sounds so familiar.

Something tugs in the back of his brain, a door locked in chains, the key thrown away a long time ago. It won't open, and he wants it open, wants to know what's in there. And he can't, no matter how hard he tries. It infuriates him.

"You know me," the other guy says.

Rage builds in him, and he swings. "No, I don't!"

"Bucky," he persists. Who is that? Why does that mean something? "You've known me your whole life."

He can't have. He can't. This is his mission, not his past. His past is...

His past isn't there. Everything is gone. The door is locked, though something on the other side is fighting to get out. He swings again. Confusion grips him, producing rage. He can't know him, he can't know his mission. How can he kill someone he's known his whole life? And how can he have a whole life that he doesn't remember?

"Your name is James Buchanan Barnes-"

"Shut up!" he swings again. The locked door splinters. But it stays locked. The chains grow tighter. Why won't it open? What's on the other side?

The other guy stands. "I'm not gonna fight you." He drops his shield, lets it fall to the water below. "You're my friend."

No, no, he doesn't have friends. He never has. Why does he keep insisting things are different? Why does that locked door want to know?

He tackles him, wanting the confusion to be over, hating that he's failed. At the very least he can get this part right.

"You're my mission," he insists, slamming him down, his head over the edge of the broken glass. He punches him, over and over. "You're my mission!" he screams. But when he stops, the other guy still doesn't fight back. Why? Why won't he fight back? Why does his face look familiar, even bruised and bloodied and swollen?

Why does he know him?

"Then finish it," he says. "'Cause I'm with you to the end of the line."

A chain unravels, and the words slip out. He can hear himself saying it, feel the words coming out of his mouth. He was with him. He knows him. His friend. He had a friend, he had a past. And all it consists of right now is that face, that string of words. And a name.

Something crashes into the glass beneath them, and they go falling. He grips onto a metal rod above him, but Steve falls into the water.

Without thinking, he lets go, dropping down. He grabs his friend, and he pulls him out, tugging, straining against his injuries and the rolling water, avoiding the debris. On the shore, Steve starts breathing, coughing up water.