Dead Memories

35

Chapter Thirty-Five

The damage in Detroit was severe. They've all seen worse, obviously, but it was still not a pretty sight to fly over, and it was going to look even worse in daylight. They had no accurate damage report, they didn't know how many people were affected. But there were a lot of abandoned buildings in the area, so everyone hoped that the number of casualties would be low. Still, as bad as it looked, normally it wouldn't have made them fly over. It was Barnes' call that changed that. This was not just some gas leak or faulty infrastructure. This was very much something they needed to be here for.

They found Barnes on ground zero, police and firemen keeping their distance from him, probably afraid to get close. Tony spotted some phones, so he knew that there would be pictures of him online. And what the pictures would show was a dirty, bloody, frayed looking man with a metal arm, digging into the rabble with his hands. Frantic, maybe even desperate, obviously not really knowing what he was doing.

'HELEN, try to keep the internet under control,' he said absently.

'Would you like me to make the sun rise a little sooner as well?' she asked in return.

'You know what I mean,' Tony said. 'I don't mind the blurry shots, but try to take down all pictures where his face is visible.'

'I will do my very best,' she answered.

'What's Wilson's ETA?' he asked next.

'Approximately 46 minutes,' HELEN responded after a moment.

Vision, Thor and the twins immediately ran closer to Barnes, but Tony hesitated for a moment when he saw that Natasha stopped after getting out of the Quintjet. He knew that Barnes was at the tower, he knew that Steve wanted to talk to Natasha the next morning, but he didn't make HELEN tell him what happened. It was hard to read a super-spy's face, but Tony saw Natasha was uneasy. Clint and Bruce waited for her to get going, Hawkeye even gave her a questioning look, but Natasha just shook her head and started walking closer. Yeah, it was time to figure out what the hell happened here.

Tony was so mad at Steve, so very mad. The way he left without a word, picking up his shield and following Barnes into this shady, secretive business. And not just Barnes, but Loki too. Stupid, so damn stupid. He didn't blame Vision for not standing in his way, because they all knew there was no stopping Steve Rogers once he made up his mind about something. But Tony was still mad. So he was going to find him, make sure he was fine, then kick his ass... or maybe just make him suffer through a very snarky, very angry lecture. Natasha will kick his ass.

'Sergeant Barnes,' Vision said to get Barnes' attention. The man whipped around to stare at them all. He didn't notice them approaching and that already said a lot about the current situation. A master assassin should really notice their entire group running up to him.

'We gotta...' he started as he climbed through some rubble to get closer to them. 'I don't know how to get down, but we need to get down. The tunnel's collapsed, the sewer's collapsed, the goddamn building is collapsed, and I can't get back down! We gotta get back down.'

'Sergeant Barnes,' Vision repeated, gripping his right upper arm to get his attention. 'Your vitals are erratic. I need you to take a breath.'

'He can't be in the basement, no way he stayed there,' Barnes kept going, not really looking at any of them. 'Maybe he didn't make it to the subway tunnel.'