We found him alive.

It took three days, digging through the rubble of two buildings that the initial blast had torn into and that had later collapsed into the pit that had been made in the bowels of the one.

The how would be debated hotly for months to come, but in the end, it didn't really matter.

He'd survived.

I had refused to leave, refused to be patient and let those better able to do so do their jobs. How could I... how could we when we quite literally had the power to assist. To move forward at faster than a snail's pace. Wanda's powers, my muscles, Scott's ability to get into places no full-sized human ever could hope to.

Then Hill had come through on her promise to help by getting any and all who wished to assist there in record time.

Even Iron Man made an appearance. Both suit and money to throw at the problem, though he seemed to do little more than speak to the media. Insisting that we, meaning me and my unofficial band of superheroes, were not to blame for the destruction. That the U.N. and Avengers had been involved for months in the effort to prevent exactly this from happening.

And while not a total lie, the statement also so exceedingly far from the truth.

I didn't much care. My focus on the ever so faint chance Bucky would be found.

And more, found alive.

I'd prepared myself for a goodbye. Certain that when we made it to the bottom that there would be nothing to find, for even though he had succeeded in setting the containment shield in place, he would have been inside it for the duration it remained functional.

With the singularity.

That inexorable hungry maw wanting no more than to gather everything within reach in and swallow it down whole.

Scott had crunched the numbers in one of those moments he'd taken the time to rest. His far more mortal than my body requiring rest every now and then. The likelihood of Bucky having survived an infinitesimally small number. Wanda had shushed him when realizing I had been within earshot, but the paltry chance of success didn't stop either of them from getting back up and continuing the exhausting work.

So when Wanda lifted that slab of concrete that hadn't shattered on the way down to reveal the battered body James Barnes, no one had been more shocked than me.

His left hand wrapped about the superstructure of the building. One, like that in most high rises in modern Japan, designed to withstand a major earthquake. The very foundation built to remain in place no matter the violence happening about it.

A saving grace of sorts.

In that fraction of an instant, between the bomb going off and setting the containment, he'd grasped onto a lifeline. A chance. A potential at seeing another sunrise. Somehow, he had withstood the initial explosion. Amazing in and of itself, but he'd also resisted the pull of a nearby gravity field.

Scott's numbers meaningless in the face of one man's built in survival instinct.

And they called me stubborn.

His clothes had been shredded. The armor designed to handle an RPG torn from his body. The skin broken and bruised from impacts that had occurred after the containment had collapsed. The weight of an entire building falling upon his fragile tissue.

Yet he had held on.

Ignoring those who warned me to stay in place, I jumped down next to my friend, still expecting to find little more than an empty husk. Nothing other than a body to bury.

Then his chest moved. Lungs expanding to take in the first fresh air he'd had in days.

Within seconds I'd been joined by a team whose only goal would be to rescue him from this pit and carry him to safety.

I remained nearby as they checked him. Gave him oxygen. Cut him free from the section of the building he'd clung to, unable to get his hand to open, the arm damaged and locked into its current position.

Stayed by his side as they lifted him out. Rode with him to the nearest hospital. Waited with impatience as they examined him. Listened to their words as they explained what their tests had revealed.

We found him alive.

He'd survived.

But no more than that.

His body just that.

A shell.

Whatever spark that had made him Bucky gone.

.

.

finis

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.

.

.

.

Songlist:

Heroes - Hans Zelmerlow

Wolves - Coasts

Demons - Imagine Dragons

Human - Manafest

Broken - Lifehouse

All Fall Down - OneRepublic

Bad News - Bastille

Ghost in the Crowd - Sister Hazel

Something Just Like This - The Chainsmokers & Coldplay

Burn - Ellie Goulding

running up that hill - placebo

Snowblind - Styx

Human - Christina Perri

Up All Night - Alex Clare

Save Me - Unwritten Law

Iris - The Goo Goo Dolls

What I've Done - Linkin Park