{6}

The reality of his choice to dare fate became apparitions ravaging through his mind. For the past twenty-four hours, Tony was stuck in an implacable limbo, haunted by vivid images of the car wreckage; the bloodied marred face of his father bashing against the car's door by vicious-merciless blows of the Winter Soldier's cybertronic fist. He wanted to obliterate each torturous, unforgivable strain of memory that resurfaced. Sipping a glass of ritualistic vodka, he sat in the middle of the dimly lit hotel room, staring intensity-painstakingly down at the dented alloy face plate of Iron Man that was balancing on his knee.

Imprints of Steve's knuckles were encased in the alloy, reminding him that he failed to rectify past demons. He had engaged the fight out of raw and heart-stricken emotion, destroying the solid ground of their friendship when ghosts emerged from the machine controlled by HYDRA. He was staring into the inescapable void again, standing on the edge and waiting to make the plunge. 'Why did Capiscle threw it all way for Barnes?'

With a rapid gush of bile rising to his throat, Tony forcefully slammed his palm against the carpeted floor. He felt intolerably sick, the memory of the Siberian missile silo wasn't expungable. Burying his face into a draped blanket that cascaded a lump mess over the floor, he composed heaves of breath, trying to regain balance as the agony he harbored wouldn't assail.

In seconds of collapsing further into an abysm of unrelenting grief, a gracing touch of a dainty hand caress over his quaking chest. "Tony," the feminine and gentle cadence beckoned him back.

Fighting against feverish shudders whacking through him, he fleetingly blinked his dark-hazel eyes, refocusing on the luxurious gleam of strawberry-blonde wavelets infused with flecks of copper. Pepper. She was there at his side, kneeling to his level in a stance of elegance, gripping onto a damp facecloth. He felt the droplets seeping into the material of his jeans."Tony, look at me..." Her lyrical tone grew firmly, imploring with a pinch of desperation. The glistening depth of her sea-green irises held lucid promise that was open for him to grasp onto."You're going to be okay..."

"Okay," Tony scoffed in a taut wince; begrudgingly waving her tentative hand away. Nothing would ease down the sickened calamity mounting in him. For too long he allowed grief to remain dormant ever since his father's retired butler Jarvis addressed the tragically agonizing news about the car crash. After that unforgivable December night, he obstructed the heartache, drowning his sorrows with bottles of whiskey, allowing the reckless consumption of alcohol to anesthetize him. Rage was increasingly revamping inside. He clutched his fist tighter against the bed sheet, heaving out pants of constricting breath. "I was lied to by a man who I thought was my friend, Cap chose to save the murderer of my parents, instead of...I don't know, putting a hand on my shoulder."

Pepper's stunned eyes widened against the disinterred truth blasting from Stark's grimacing mouth. Resistance suddenly felt distant, he willed to venture back into those brutal memories that replayed a sharper picture each time. A sense of panic raced through him, as he gripped over the bed sheets, his clenched hands' fisting with no avail. He wanted to scream."Barnes was the damn cold HYDRA terminator puppet who killed them, Pep, I viewed the documented reel footage, I listened to my mother's cries and Barnes just stood there crushing her throat with his bare hand, never turning away until the mission was over," he seethed irately.

"Tony, I had no idea," Pepper whispered softly, brushing her lithe fingers deftly over his pulsing knuckles, trying to ease down the influx of tension. She veered an incredulous glance at the nightstand, only to discover Captain America's shield propped against it, with claw marks sliced over the red and silver paint. A shimmer of unshed tears collected in her widening eyes."Are those claw marks?"

Suppressed back an accelerating pulse of short-wave nausea, Tony nodded tersely, sparing a hardened glance back at the shield with banking vehemence. His goatee swatched chin twitched as he vividly recalled the elusively cunning Black Panther viciously slashing his vibranium claws over Steve's raised shield in front of the airport hanger.

With a shrug of indifference, he averted his dark eyes unwaveringly back to the vodka bottle. There was no refuting that he still felt stokes of contempt venting in his chest. "I still can't buy it that Cap would side with Barnes... I guess Mr. Perfect Teeth does have a dark side in him after all," he remarked tartly.

Blood. A panic-inducing roil of nauseous dread careened through Bucky's unshakeable core at the damnable, torturous reality his eyes beheld. Even a fraction of pain grew consuming manifest of calamity to relent against. A tempest of smoldering rage was searing in his steel-aquamarine depths...he wouldn't accept the mounting thrall of undeniable anguish, even if it felt like hell. Steve was a stubborn-hearted Brooklyn kid -always had been. Nothing would conquer that spirited resilience.

The incessant whirrs of mechanical control raked against his measured forefront of resistance. He was conditioned to feeling anesthetized, all the brutal assemblage of sadistic methods of submersion electroshocks and flogged lashes from Pierce's hand and being isolated from the warmth of daylight hardened him to become unbreakable-unyielding like ice.

'Why the hell did I do this...'

Tolerance was imperative to exist as HYDRA's elite penetration agent and knife-wielding executioner, to fade into shadows when light revealed blood smears on walls. The extent of unwarranted pain that consumed Bucky at that present moment, was utterly heart-lancing in a tenfold as he forced his eyes to watch a crimson trek of blood oozing from the opened gash that his vicious knife infinitely created.

Glaring listlessly, Bucky drove the clarity of his vision on Steve's blood daubed over his hand. This was catastrophic to wage against his butchered soul. Nothing could be evaded. Once he reined up enough perseverant defiance to face his best friend; Bucky set his stubbled jaw into a bone rigid clench, gearing up fracturing swell of emotions and vestiges of hope, no matter how ineffective the assault of sentiment it seemed.

"Aw, hell, M' s'orry, Steve," Bucky uttered out an enraged mantra, brokenly in a slurring Brooklyn drawl, his lips shaky and his head tilting dismally with his unkempt tresses curtained wildly over the pudgy thickness of his raw, battered cheeks.

His steeled resolve of brotherly promise begun to presumed unforgiveness to divide them soon enough, either by Steve's own mouth or heaven bound eyes. He deserved a fate condemnation or being locked in a cell on the Raft. His pupils constricted with heated rage, as his hand swiftly lifted up the blade catching his stark ghostly reflection.

Emitting a silent roar, Bucky viciously whipped his knife into the darkness. Blood coated over his split lip, he felt numbness engulf the constant sting."Damn it," he seethed gravelly."S'it's because of me, that you're bleedin'..."

Freedom was a futile-unrealistic dream for his reach, and Bucky knew that was no way out for him-so why keep fightin' the inevitable? "You woulda been a helluva lot better without me draggin' ya down..." He despairingly whispered, feeling there was no denying that execrable-unrelenting truth. "Now, s'it's my own damn fault that you're bleedin' out of your gut..." He gnawed on the swell of his raw lip, swallowing down the brackish tang, as the blaze of reckless hope dimmed in his steel-aquamarine depths. He was inevitably on the knife edge."M' messed up in the head and sometimes I think maybe distance is all I can give to keep you safe." For the monster inside me.

"S-Stow that talk, Buck," Steve breathed out achingly, his pitch raspy. He was on the edge of falling unconscious, the pain generating in his side had increased to levels of unbridled anguish. He gritted his teeth, his paling lips folding into a taut grimace. Despite the extent of pain annulling his slacked body, he remained cognizant of the guilt Bucky doggedly tried to mask, in a strenuous effort, his large hand reached to clutch Bucky's tensed shoulder, delivering a firm grip of unassailed reassurance. His breath was rapidly laboring."I-I would keep on followin' you, no matter what, Buck."

"Hey, at least we went out full swinging, huh,?" Bucky shrugged nonchalantly, emitting a dry chuckle, his full lips quirked up, conveying a half-hearted smile at the dumb and stubborn punk who never gave up on him. Steve caught a glimpse of a tiny glint of inherent mischief in his steel-blue depths. "Gotta have some good words to finish off since nothin' else will matter anymore." He flashed a deadened glance down at the vivid smears of blood tainting the pure white contrast of snow.

Just another cold, unremitting glimpse of what murderous horrors his rabid mind was capable of unleashing if his unrepentant soul was compromised again. He pinched his eyebrows. For a fleeting second, he was grappled into a mindless torpor. The piercing glacial light of his aquamarine irises eclipsed with shadows of unrested ghosts. He was ruthlessly determined not to let those trigger words to lance through his hijacked mind again. He didn't want to become the autonomous and efficient weapon, to feel the electroshocks seizing him back into dormant oblivion. He didn't want to hurt Steve. The implanted synapses of HYDRA's control wouldn't relent. He was a dredge-nothing more than a reactivated drone charged to comply.

"I s'just don't wanna go in deep again...M' tryin' to fight this HYDRA stuff but it's still puttin' me on the ropes."

"Open the right pouch of my belt," Steve rasped, huskily, unshed tears were splotching the clarity of his vision. Bucky synched his brows with the sightless trace of confusion, his gaze heavily darting over the leather pouches as his fingerless-gloved hand deftly opened the one that was captured in his sight, but Steve's encompassing touch held his trembling palm steady, despite the moment of bordered agony whacking through his core; giving Bucky a piece of identity felt damn worth it.

In those subtle seconds of incipient trust, the former Winter Soldier slowly clutched two metal plates attached to a chain necklace. His GI dog tags. "I've been holdin' them ever since that day..." He choked out a heavy breath, unable to finish those gravitated words.

Furrowing his brows dismally into a taut pinch, Bucky intently stared at the metal tags clutched in Steve's hand blankly. His mind sidetracked him. He felt an awakened sense of attachment to those remnants of his disremembered past. Fringes of memory became clearer -his hand shakily reached to grasp the chain.

"I remember wearin' these before I fell off the train..." Bucky whispered ruefully, not accepting that piece of an honorable and unshackled name. Discarding that glimpse of restored truth was utterly agonizing, but he needed to find himself again-the real James "Buchanan Barnes, not a cybertronic hybrid of lost would now be a trial to face every day. The payload of lives he took, would always be an endless blood-song-a tortuous crescendo barraging against his damaged heart.

It was his inescapable and unrelenting scourge to fight. Sparing a frayed glance at the blood oozing out of Steve's padded mid-drift, Bucky fiercely tore his teary steel-blue eyes away; looking for an outlet in the forest cast of darkness enveloping their frozen stiff bodies. "S'orry, punk, but I can't wear em', not anymore..." He dipped his head low, downcastly, almost in silent reverence to that obliterated identity.

"Buck..."

Repressing a blur of tears, Bucky vehemently shook his head, gritting."Stop thinkin' that M' still a not a kid from Brooklyn," he rasped heavily, clutching the dangling chain into his straining fist. 'I don't know who the hell I am anymore," A raw snarl edged his low breaths, as he involuntarily dropped the dog tags in the snow, and quickly flipped onto his knees, grounding his bulked weight steady, before slotting his fleshed arm securely over the slender ridges of Steve's broad waist. His tactical jacket was becoming imbued with blood, he didn't care.

"If I can get carry your ass out of here, then it will be damn worth it." Winching Steve's heavy leaden form up against the hard planes of his chest with gentle ease, Bucky felt a sudden immersion of unbidden hope grappling him down as he intoned one unwavering promise that he knew to be unbreakable-everlasting in their Brooklyn spirit of hell bent defiance."You're my mission."

A wistful smirk quirked faintly over Steve's lips. His azure eyes held the serene light, despite the nauseous fever mounting in his blood. "Y'know that's the third time I've heard you sayin' that..." he drawled, raggedly.

Bucky grimaced, ruefully."Yeah, but that was when HYDRA had my damn mind rigged," he seethed back, taking a moment to orientate himself. Swiping a glance over the snow bank, the raw coolness of his steel-blue depths intensified as he calculated the distance of hauling Steve back into the clear in his scope of vision. A vacuous dread engulfed him. The hot slick wetness of blood dripped over his stiffened knuckles. He couldn't get his bearings against the frisson of pain overwhelming him.

Taking a staggering step against the faint moonglow, Bucky willed his body to remain grounded as he tactically advanced in wobbling stride. "Okay, we're gonna out of here," he breathed heavily, encircling his arm over the broad planes of Steve's drenched back. He wouldn't believe in the soul-crushing inevitable, that his best friend would become another causality of this endless war of his threadbare unbreakable brotherhood was thicker than blood and their Brooklyn spirit was a raging force that wouldn't be reckoned with. "S'just keep it together, Steve..." he urged.

Doing his utmost not to surrender to gravity, Steve hastily employed his unshakeable and unerring command, stubbornly grounding his weight firmly against the hard planes of Bucky's torso, as unbridled pulses of his enhanced strength ousted the constant and excruciating pulses of agony surmounting his body.

Suddenly a feverish clash of stifling nausea that overlapped his senses was spreading inexorably as he began to taste bile climbing up his raw, heaving throat."Buck-M' gonna be sick," he slurred hastily, feeling the intolerable urge to expel the acid contents of his bruised stomach.

Steve froze in a quaking heartbeat, nearly collapsing to his knees against precarious balance as Bucky's arm braced over his midsection, retched and choking gasps deafened his hearing. His eyes screwed tight in the rushing seconds he desperately complied to the reeling urge to vomit. Darkness ensnared his sight and the wafting, putrid redolence of stomach bile careened him on the verge of slipping away from consciousness. All he heard shouting back to him the frantic cadence of Bucky's urgent voice.

"Steve...You gotta hold on!"

Watching his best friend collapse into the snow bank, Bucky's lips parted shakily as pained sobs choked out of him while his heart raged a thunderous crescendo in his chest. He wanted to scream in livid anguish. His voice was subdued as more discarded tears made a painstaking trek down the bristles of stubborn over the chiseled knife-edged sharpness of his broad jaw. He felt his throat clogging up as the taste of salt coated his wet lips. Everything became soul-wrenching intolerable, as Bucky begun to realize he was on the verge of crying. It was the only harboring solace that kept him from falling into the void.

Hanging his head down with slackening motion, wetness collected over the material of his tactical jacket, drenching his lengthy mane as Bucky's vision swam into a feverish haze.

"You can't give up the fight, you're stronger than this, hell, you're strong than me," Bucky gritted out hitched sobs, the depth of his graveled timbre edged with a choking breath. He felt scraped raw on the inside. The resurgence of foolish hope was becoming a vacant thought as moments passed. His gloveless fingers clutched desperately over the blood soak Kevlar of Steve's uniform in the torturous second he felt an ebbing sense of immense defeat mounting to its apex.

He couldn't brave himself to face another day without Steve-his little stubborn Brooklyn brother. He made a soul promise to Sarah Rogers, and now he felt the utmost of crushing failure seizing over his distressed heart. Steve risked everything to save him in the crosshairs; blood, sweat, and tears. All he did in return was stab him in the back.

Right now, more than anything Bucky wanted to take Steve's place, feel the essence of Winter Soldier bleed out of him."S'it my damn fault…" he drawled in a pathetic slur, digging his clenching knuckles, he pinched his blurring eyes shut and held onto Steve, fiercely believing that somehow they would make it out of the fray.

Bucky needed to enforce his strength and will himself to carry onward. Fueled with a phantom resolve of hell-bent defiance, and with a wince of effort, Bucky righted himself back up and jerked Steve's padded shoulder. "C'mon, punk, on your feet," he whispered gravely, knowing that Steven Rogers never stays down.

Sure enough, Steve's eyelids slit momentary open to the awareness of his voice. A half-smile tugged crookedly at Bucky's blood smudged lips, as he mirrored Steve's fever bright azure eyes. A hot spear of unbridled emotion lanced through his chest."Grgh," he snarled under breath, stiffening his bristled jaw."Stop being a killjoy, Rogers, and help me haul your frozen ass out of here."

"S-so you do care about me, huh?" Steve slurred with a throated, raspy wince, grinning faintly.

"Yeah, but if you don't wipe that stupid grin off your face, M' gonna leave here," Bucky teasingly returned with mischief gleaming alight in his steel-blue irises, and settled his gloved palm deftly over the chrome star insignia of Captain America's ensemble. It was the only reachable memory of harboring unshakeable valor.

Looking back intently at the dog tags he discarded, Bucky chewed on his lip, indecisively, before he quickly grabbed the chain and shoved into a pocket of his black tactical pants. He didn't want to wear them, not until he felt honorable in spirit again. Maybe he needed to save Steve to redeem himself?