I Never Told You What I Do For A Living | Bucky Barnes

10. Never Coming Home

Chapter 10
Never Coming Home

Today was the day. It was the day that we were going to get our hands on the information we'd been after for weeks – the exact location of the last HYRDA base. The one where Schmidt had been hiding for the past few months.

We'd been given information – and heard – that there was a possibility that Zola was going to be on a train, but it hadn't been confirmed yet. However, we were still ready to infiltrate the train at a moments notice and were listening in to every frequency for a hint that it was going to be our lucky day.

Monty had the binoculars out for the first glimpses of our target, Gabe and Jim were listening in on the transmissions, while the rest of us just lingered around on the mountainside, waiting for instructions on what to do next, while trying not to freeze to death in the late December air. Dugan got a bit too close to the edge for my liking, but he knew what he was doing, and if I yelled at him, he could easily fall.

While Jim fiddled with the frequency of our radio, Bucky stood next to Steve; the wind pushing their hair back, and turning their cheeks a slight pink colour.

"Remember when I made you ride the Cyclone at Coney Island?" He asked his best friend, looking over the edge of the cliff at the tracks below.

"Yeah, and I threw up?"

"This isn't payback, is it?"

Steve looked at where our zip line was anchored on the cliff face across from us. "Now why would I do that?" His voice asking the question a bit too innocently.

The joke conversation stopped when Gabe and Jim found the frequency they were after. "We were right. Doctor Zola is on the train." He told us, translating what was being said through the airwaves, "HYDRA dispatcher gave him permission to open up the throttle."

"Wherever he's going, they must need him bad," I commented, getting everything I needed for the trip across to the train. I couldn't take anything bulky or heavy, and anything I didn't need, was being left with the ones not coming with us to get Zola. No use taking anything I didn't need.

While Steve put on his helmet, Monty looked through the binoculars again. The train was on its way, and while it would have to slow down round the bends – unless it wanted to fall down the side of the mountains – it was still coming in pretty fast, and it was going to be a tight squeeze to get four of us onto the top of the train in our time limit.

"Let's get going because they're moving like the devil."

"We've only got about a ten-second window." Steve reminded us, hooking his pulley over the line, "You miss that window, we're bugs on a windshield."

"Mind the gap."

"Better get moving, bugs!"

I shook my head at the three of them, smiling as Bucky, Gabe and I hooked our pulleys over the line as well. It saved time, and we could get across quicker, which is something we definitely needed. We had to be faster than Jesse Owens at the thirty-six Olympic Games.

Jacques gave us the command to go and, one at a time, we took a metaphorical leap of faith off the ledge, and flew down the line towards the speeding train; letting go when we were at a safe height above the train roof, and we didn't have a lot of lines left to mess it up. Our plan worked though. The four of us ended up safely on the roof, just before it went round another bend.