Winter & Summer: A Marvel Story in an Alternate Universe!

Chapter 1

Swoosh.

The unmanned bullet train hummed over the metal tracks, quietly and steadily, transporting its precious cargo with no driver nor engineer nor any other life form in sight. The train was built that way, in typical Stark fashion, with the most advanced security and technological systems negating the need for any human presence.

Well, with the exception of the star-spangled character that hovered overhead.

Sam Wilson - or rather, Captain America - glided leisurely above the train, his red, white and blue wings majestically extended in the cloudless sky. Placing a hand to his ear, he radioed his partner.

Or rather, co-worker. Or friend.

It was never really clear.

"How's it going in there, Buck?"

Sparks flew within the train's control room as Bucky Barnes - the Winter Soldier - knelt beside an electric box, attempting to check the train's wiring for any signs of tampering.

"I'm not seeing anything suspicious," Bucky said, squinting as he analyzed the train's inner workings, all of which seemed to be functioning normally.

"No strange devices anywhere?"

"Not that I can see."

"Nothing frayed, missing or mismatched?"

"Nothing - ah!" Bucky exclaimed, as sparks flew before his face once again. "I'm okay!"

"You better not be in there breaking things," Sam jabbed. "Watch S.H.I.E.L.D. send us on a mission to stop a threat to this train carrying millions of dollars of Stark weaponry, only for the threat to be one of the Avengers who doesn't know what he's doing."

Bucky rolled his eyes. "Hey, man, I have a mechanical arm and literally helped get your family's precious boat back up and running, and you still don't trust my skills with machinery?"

"Well, after the motor broke down the other day, not really."

"That was not my fault!"

Bucky slipped the cover back over the electrical box and sat back. "I don't understand," he told Sam. "S.H.I.E.L.D. said the hijackers should already be here right now. But I don't see any tampering with the system, and there's not a single living being on this train, so..." Bucky shrugged. "How's it looking up there?"

Sam skimmed the train's perimeter once more. "Nothing," he replied. "The skies are all clear."

"You think our foes might be invisible?"

"Even if they were, they'd still show up in a heat reading," Sam explained. "And even there, I'm getting nothing. Frankly, I'm just as dumbfounded as you are."

Bucky sighed, his brain spinning through all the possibilities of what he could have possibly missed. The mission seemed straightforward enough - S.H.I.E.L.D. had been tipped off about some sort of unidentified threat that had intended to hijack the train and steal the weapons in transit. Supposedly, it was a formidable threat too. Formidable enough that it needed the services of both Captain America and the Winter Soldier.

And what was more frustrating - supposedly the threat had already arrived, but neither Sam nor Bucky could pinpoint what exactly it could be.

"Whatever it is, it's playing a really bad trick on us," Bucky remarked.

"If we don't see anything in the next half hour, I'm calling it off," Sam said.

Then, suddenly, in what seemed like perfect timing with Sam's words, the train jostled, as if it had been hit by something heavy.