The Archangel (Avengers Fanfic)

Chapter Thirty Eight

*Bucky POV*

He ran through the plane, no longer concerned with being stealthy as he followed the directions Angel had sent him. His heartbeat pounded in his ears, adrenaline rushing. He could feel Angel's increased heartbeat right next to his own, phantom pain flaring across their connection, sharp and piercing. She was definitely hurt and far more than before.

He was running at super soldier speeds when his comm crackled and Tony's voice came through. "News isn't good, guys, the system's set up to cause massive blackouts. If there's as many servers as you say there are, the whole continent could go dark, it'll only spread from there as countries try to redirect power to help."

"That bird needs to go down." Came Steve's voice, "we called in an air strike, you got maybe eight minutes before it gets there. Get the hell outta that plane."

"That might be a problem, Steve, we got a hostile on board."

"We can hold off the air strike but you are running out of rural land for this plane to crash in . . . do you understand what I'm saying?" He did. The longer it took for the plane to come down, the greater the risk for civilian casualties, and in greater numbers the closer they got to more populated areas.

Bucky paused, he knew what Angel would say, "if we're not off by then . . . bring it down."

It took a long few moments for Steve to respond with a solemn, "roger that."

Bucky continued on, knowing now that there was an ever looming clock over their heads and he still had to get to Angel and figure out what was going on. He hid behind the corner as he arrived, hoping to glean some intel before he went in guns blazing.

He surveyed the man in the doorway who was speaking, it was definitely Akinjide, there was no mistaking the man. He had a weapon—a semiautomatic with something off about it—in one hand and a file of some sort in the other. Bucky clicked the safety off his gun and crept forward silently, the Winter Soldier strong in his mind.

"Who cares?" He heard Angel exclaim back to him, she was definitely pissed off, "I don't need some goddamn file to tell me who I am!"

"No, but it can tell you who you were, I heard you'd been having trouble with that part." Akinjide taunted, playing with a setting on the gun that made a cocking noise.

Without waiting to see what would happen next, Bucky slid out of the shadows and put his gun to the back of Akinjide's neck. "Put the gun down." He growled his command.

"If you shoot me, I go down with my finger on the trigger, and these bullets won't bounce off."

The thought terrified him, but he couldn't show it. "Put the gun down." He commanded yet again, an air of brutal calm surrounding him. In that moment, he felt far more like the Winter Soldier than he did Bucky, especially with a gun to someone's head, it brought back too many memories, painful ones. But he didn't flinch—couldn't flinch—not with her life on the line.

Akinjide slowly put the file on the closest cabinet and straightened back up, shifting slightly. His gun hand moved as if to also put it down, but then he said something that made Bucky's blood run cold, "I . . . think . . . not." Bucky knew what was coming next, but still he felt the tug at what was left of his soul as he put a bullet in the man's brain.

Automatic bullets sprayed into the ceiling until the clip ran out—a few stray bullets catching Bucky's metal arm—then the body slumped. Bucky kept careful eyes on it as he moved into the room, testing out his arm. He had lost movement in two of his fingers and it was sparking where bullets had shot through it like butter. Inconvenient but better his arm than his chest. He called into the room as he stepped around the body, "Angel? You alright?"

"Peachy." She responded gruffly. He snorted, his expression dropping as he noticed the object Akinjide had in his other hand, a grenade. Searching for the pin, he noticed it on the floor, cursing as he kicked the grenade away. Moments later it went off, blasting a hole in the side of the fuselage and sucking a whole lot of loose objects into the open air.

Bucky grabbed onto the doorframe with his weakened metal arm to keep himself rooted to the spot. "You alright, Buck?" Angel called back as he made his way toward her.

"I'm good." He said as he dropped down next to her, "let's see what we got."

"It's mostly my wings, Buck," she waved him off, "nothing structural as far as I can tell but I'm not gonna be much help getting off this plane." She winced, pulling her hand from her side. He stiffed upon seeing that it was coated in gold tinged blood. "Then again, I probably won't make it that far anyway." He could see that she was trying to lighten the mood but it just made his heart sink faster.

He swore and smashed his metal fist into the nearest file cabinet, avoiding looking at her while he composed himself to report back to the others. "Angel's out of commission." He finally bit out.

"Do you have a parachute? ETA two minutes until . . ." Steve trailed off, clearing his throat, "we're coming in hot with serious firepower, we don't want any friendlies on board when we light 'em up. After two minutes . . . we won't have a choice." Bucky set his watch timer for two minutes, knowing that it was precious little time.

He took stock of everything around them, going over options in his head. There might be parachutes in the cockpit but it would take too long to get there, the plane was just too damn big. "James, do you remember what I said in the ancestral plain? About death not separating us? I think I have to break that promise."

"You can't think like that, Angel, there has to be a parachute around here somewhere." Bucky turned to look through the cabinets nearby.

"If we survive this, we should go on honeymoon. Somewhere tropical, Hawaii or maybe the Caribbean. I've always wanted to go to Hawaii." There was a sorrowful wistfulness to her voice that alarmed him.

He turned to give her his full attention, cupping her face, as he made a promise, "There's no if, Angel, when we survive this, I'll take you to Hawaii and you can finally try those fancy drinks with the little umbrellas." He knew what he was saying, when they survived this, they would be done, they would travel the world together just as they planned. When, not if.

She sighed, a resigned look crossing her face before her eyes filled with a determination that he was wary of, "I'm not going to survive this, James . . . but I'll be damned if you don't."

He turned to look back at her, "Angel, what are you—" She barreled into him and dove through the hole he had blasted into the fuselage, plummeting a thousand feet or more but managed to maintain an unbreakable hold. Her wings were broken, there was no parachute, there was no way to save them, but she could still save him. A shriek of pain erupting from her lips as she wrapped her wings around him in an armored cocoon.

"They're clear, fire at will." He heard over the comms, moments later he felt the heat of the explosion as the missile brought the plane down. "Do you see a 'chute?"

"Negative, sir, no 'chute." The distinctive sound of a jet flying overhead filled his ears, must've been the pilot.

"Goddamn it!" Steve cursed, unable to do anything as Bucky and Angel plummeted to earth, unable to slow their descent.

Bucky braced his metal arm around his head and closed his eyes as the ground rushed up to meet them. As they struck into the ground, he was thrown from Angel's grasp and knocked unconscious as his body tumbled several meters away and Angel upturned dirt as she plowed into the ground like an asteroid.