Ascendancy

Chapter 20

Hello everyone!! Wow. This is the last chapter. I have a lot to say, obviously, lots of thanks to give, but I will have an acknowledgment page coming very soon for that.  ;) Anyway, while this is the last chapter, don't worry! There will be an Epilogue! Enjoy!!

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        "Ok, Barnes, what's the gameplan?" Stark starts.

        Bucky looks startled for a minute. But this is his mission. To save Ella. Pointing at the map he drew, Bucky says, "As far as we know, all the soldiers Kurt has are the ones he had at the barn. So about a dozen Hydra agents."

        "What if he has some hiding on the base?" Steve questions, eyebrows a frown, hand over mouth, considering Bucky's scribbles.

        "It's a possibility, but a Hydra group that size would have attracted S.H.I.E.L.D.'s attention. If there are more of them, it could only be a few."

        "So a head on strike is probable. We could easily annihilate a dozen Hydra agents," Vision states.

        The breeze grips at the map, trying to snatch it from the hood of the car. Bucky grabs it quickly. "No."

        "The base is large. As soon as Kurt hears us slaughtering his team, he'll grab Ella, and either kill her, or use her to make us surrender. All before we can even reach her."

         "How do you know this base so well?" Sam cuts in.

         The sky is graying, like smoke is slowly coloring the sky, blanketing it in ashes. Somewhere far off, thunder crashes. Scott rocks back and forth on his heels, as Bucky's eyes turn the color of a sea before a storm.

        "Once... I broke their control. Hydra's. I was on a mission, and I saw a kid getting beat up in an alley. Something in me... snapped." Bucky looks at the sky.

         Steve moves closer to him. "They took me here. It took them weeks of torture, mental and physical, to get me back to being their mindless assassin. This was the base they did that. It was a Hydra prison. Different rooms have different torture machines."

        "I think I've heard of this base before," Natasha says softly. Her red hair stands out starkly in all the green. Wanda grabs her hand, clasping it in her own.

        "God only knows what they are doing to Ella in there now." Bucky's peaked, green to his core. "We need a back entrance. Ella can't be hurt anymore."

         Steve steps forward. He points a place on the map. "Whats this?"

        "The prisons."

        "I have a plan," Steve states grimly.

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         "Steve, come here." Tony gestures to his helicopter. He flies into the main compartment, then comes back out. In his metal hands is Steve's Shield.

        The Captain stops in front of the helicopter, startled to see an old piece of himself back from the grave.

        "I thought you might want your trusty hunk of metal back. I'm surprised you never gave it a name." Tony lifts it up to the light. "Looks like a Trump to me."

        As usual, Steve ignores Tony's joking and looks at his implications. His eyebrows frown. "You're giving it back?"

        "Well, I'm obviously not keeping it for myself." Stark huffs. "When your whole body is covered in metal, it's hard enough to stay sexy as it is. I don't need a giant American flag to cover me."