different » marvel ¹

twenty-six

   Lights flicker on as we move into the room, making the capsules that stand in the chamber visible.

   I'm the first to walk closer to them, making sure to keep my guard up as I investigate. My jaw slacks as I make out the hole of a bullet wound placed on one of the soldiers. "He's dead." I look around, seeing the same wound in the others. "They're all dead."

   "If it's any comfort, they died in their sleep." The sudden voice of Zemo fills a speaker in the room, but we're unfazed. "Did you really think I wanted more of you?" He announces.

   "What the hell?" Bucky remarks quietly, readjusting his grip on his gun. I could tell he was practically itching to kill this guy, but we had to be careful with this one. The things this guy's done in the past few days should at least tell us not to underestimate him. We had to take the possibility of him trying to trap us into consideration.

   "I'm grateful to them, though." Zemo continues. Lights turn on and make the room where he stands visible. Steve impulsively hurls his shield at the small window, only for it to bounce back. "Please, Captain. The Soviets built this chamber to withstand the launch blast of UR-100 rockets."

   "I bet I can beat that." Tony points a finger as he speaks.

   "I'm sure you could, Mr. Stark. Given time, but then you'd never know why you came." Zemo replies calmly as the four of us walk around the railing on the floor, making our way towards him.

   Bucky and I carefully scan our surroundings as we walk, making sure that we didn't run into any unwanted enemies. "You killed innocent people in Vienna just to bring us here?" Steve asks harshly, moving to be face-to-face with Zemo at the door he stands behind.

   "I thought about nothing else for over a year. I studied you. I followed you, but now that you're standing here, I just realized . . . there's a bit of green in the blue of your eyes. How nice to find a flaw." Zemo analyzes Steve's face, making me raise an eyebrow at the strange action.

   "That's not weird at all." I retort under my breath.

   "You're Sokovian." Steve realizes, his expression changing for a moment. "Is that what this is about?"

   "Sokovia was a failed state long before you blew it to hell. No. I'm here because I made a promise." I watch as his features fall for a split second.

   "You lost someone?" Cap asks, already knowing the answer.

   "I lost everyone." Zemo admits while he sends a glance to the rest of us. A feeling of uneasiness creeps over me when he does so. "And so will you."

   A monitor clicks on next to Steve, making the three of us walk over to join him. Tony's helmet crawls back down and reveals his face as he scrunches his eyebrows at the monitor.

   "An empire toppled by its enemies can rise again. But one which crumples from within? That's dead . . . forever."

   "December 16th, 1991." I translate the words on the screen before it changes to a video of a road.

   "I know that road." Stark declares lowly before raising his voice. "What is this?" With no response, he turns his attention back to the screen, watching as a man rams a car off the road on a motorcycle. The glint of a metal arm makes me realize who it was and I gulp, slowly backing away and towards Bucky who was shamefully looking down and not daring to glance to Tony. I see Steve's uneasiness, telling me that he knew what this was. The video continues and small pleads from the audio of the video echo out, making me uncomfortable. It isn't until a gunshot rings out that the footage cuts off.