Fall of the Mighty ★ [4] ✔

Roar

⏳ 2016

His apartment was empty, dim with newspapers plastered across the windows. A single dodgy light fixture hanging from the ceiling and one over the oven were the only light sources bar the sunlight failing to filter through the cracks the newspaper offered. It was quiet. Too quiet, only the sounds of the floorboards creaking beneath my feet and the humming of the light could be heard.

He'd been here, but was no longer. There had to be something the dank apartment. Something that could lead me to him.

My eyes caught a notebook on top of the fridge, submerged under candy bars and crisps. I pulled it out and flipped through it, taking particular interest in the tabbed pages. But it was where the pulled binder that marked a particular page in the book that caught my interest. It was a photograph. It was a photograph of me. No, not a photograph. A hand-held propaganda poster, of Captain America saluting.

"Heads up, Cap," Sam said through my earpiece. "German Special Forces, approaching from the south."

"Understood," I replied.

I felt eyes burning holes in my back. I wasn't alone. I turned to see none other than him standing behind me. Bucky.

He didn't attack. He didn't move. He just stared at me, curious but cautious eyes under his hat examining me carefully.

"Do you know me?" I asked, hoping for the answer that I'd been looking for, hoping that he'd say 'yes'.

He thought about his answer before he replied. "You're Steve." Hope surged through me. "I read about you in a museum." And it dampened instantly.

"They've set the perimeter," Sam announced.

I needed more time. I needed to get through to him. He knew me, and I knew it. He knew it. I just needed a little more time.

I set the book down on the table next to me. "I know you're nervous." I warily moved forward towards him. "And you have plenty of reason to be. But you're lying."

"I wasn't in Vienna," he said. "I don't do that anymore."

"They're entering the building," Sam noted.