Warnings & Disclaimers from chapter one apply to this and all future chapters.

Chapter 4: The Wrong Guy Dies

They have an unbelievable stroke of luck: Zola is retreating, with the cube, to Hydra's last bastion in the alps, where his super weapons are nearing completion. He's going to be on a guarded train for thirty hours and part of it will be spent in unprotected territory—in other words, it's a chance to capture Zola and the cube and put an end to everything.

Except it's not.

Erik realizes something is wrong when Zola dos not show up to the heavily guarded Hydra controlled train station. Instead there are several dozen more soldiers than planned and a note from Zola. It's in the usual code Zola uses in his correspondence but with a small variation. Deciphering it is a distraction which costs Erik precious seconds, seconds in which the Hydra soldier surround him.

The note reads: Dearest Captain Schmidt, I regret to inform you that I have already departed with the Cube on a different train. I am very grateful to know, however, that with you aboard, this decoy will no doubt fulfill it's purpose perfectly. Give my regards to Captain America. Hail Hydra!

Erik crumples the note in his fist, and because he has the sense that his next words will probably be his last, he says two he's been saving up for a long time: Fuck Hydra."

Erik wakes up not dead in an extremely cold train car, bound tight and surrounded by half a squad of rather nervous Hydra soldiers. Their nervousness is probably due to the sounds of a firefight working its way up the train towards them. As devoted as they are, Hydra's rank and file gossip has inflated Captain America's abilities to a near god-like level and Erik has smugly refrained from disillusioning them. None of them is bright enough to think of holding Erik hostage, so Rogers is able to barrel in a like a cannonball while somebody slips in the back end of the car and covers him. Erik winces as a bullet zings close by his head and will himself to trust Barnes's aim. (It's gotta be Barnes with Rogers; he never pairs with anyone else.) After a minute or two the car is cleared and Erik lets out a breath of relief.

Rogers gives him a nod in greeting, as if they meet like this all the time. "Schmidt."

"It's a trap," Erik says flatly.

"We kind a noticed that, what with the ambush and all." The voice belongs to Barnes, whom Erik can feel behind him undoing the thick cords—meant to hold a superhuman—keeping him still.

"Which car are Zola and the cube in? We haven't found them yet," Rogers asks.

"No, no. The whole thing is a set up. Zola's and the cube are on a completely different train." Erik growls, unable to completely reign in his disgust with himself for somehow tipping off Zola and his frustration at his current helplessness.

Rogers frowns. "Then why put you on this one? Zola knows if he wants to take us out he needs more soldiers than this…"

"A bomb on the tracks, or train," Barnes volunteers. "Same way he got the 107th. The cannon fodder must be to keep us busy until the blast hits."

Rogers swears lightly and then immediately orders a retreat on the comms.

"Look on the bright side, Schmidt." Barnes grins at Erik as he works at the cords. "No more boot-licking for you! You can come out in the open and kick Zola's ass with us."

Erik will never admit it to anyone, but Barnes is his favorite out of all Rogers's entourage. Erik can count on his fingers the people who don't flinch when running into him unawares, and Barnes is one of them. Flashing the man a rare smile, he says: "Looking forward to it."

"Do you hear that?" Rogers says suddenly.

Erik shakes his head at the same time Barnes says, "No… We got someone sneaking up?"

Rogers gives a nod to Barnes that must speak volumes in best-friend code, because Barnes pauses momentarily with the last of Erik's knots to make sure his gun is primed and close. Rogers creeps toward the back of the car as Barnes works furiously to finish untying Erik. Keeping still, Erik strains to hear what could have tipped Rogers off. Theoretically Erik should have the same enhanced hearing Rogers does, but it turns out that not having outer ears significantly decreases hearing ability—Erik picks up the noise only a second or so before Barnes does: a low metallic whine paired with heavy footsteps.

Taking the last of the knots from Barnes with his newly freed hands, Erik gestures for him to back up Rogers. Working quickly, Erik frees himself and liberates a Hydra weapon from one of the dead soldiers. He turns in time to see the hind car door seize shut in Barnes's face, separating the both of them from Rogers in the back car.

"Steve!" Barnes shouts, giving the door an unsuccessful shove. The high-powered whine is clearly audible now, and from Rogers's car they can hear the thundering sounds of Hydra fire.

Instinct or paranoia makes Erik turn towards to check their six, the opposite end of the car—just in time to spot two soldiers in metal armor suits entering through the open door. Reacting with superhuman speed to preserve his split-second advantage, Erik raises his own weapon and fires at the control pad next to the door. It zings closed, locking one of the soldiers out, for now. Two of them against one of Hydra are the kind of odds Erik prefers; Rogers has got a monopoly on sportsmanship anyway.

As Erik dodges the remaining soldier's answering shot, his mind races. Where did they come from? Why has Erik never seen designs for those arm cannons they're wearing? How long and how much has Zola been hiding from him?

Barnes covers Erik as he retreats towards the back of the car. They have zero experience fighting with each other and almost none play-fighting against each other, but Barnes apparently has great intuition and better reflexes because they take out the armored soldier before it lands a scratch on either of them. Erik wonders briefly if watching Rogers's back has acclimatized Barnes to keeping up with superhumans. If Erskine wasn't—if Barnes had the serum, the pair of them would be nigh unstoppable. Maybe it would be worth it to let the eggheads try again with their endless needles and xrays, Erik mused, if it could get Rogers a team that could keep up with him. It wasn't like Erik had any other usefulness no that his cover was blown…

Except that just like every other time Erik has allowed himself to hope for something, the floor is suddenly ripped from under him. Because between Erik, Rogers and Barnes, it just has to be Barnes, the only one of them who can't shake off a point blank Hydra blast, who ends up facing down an arm cannon with nothing but a shield in front and a thousand foot drop behind. No matter how many time Erik replays the events in his head, he can't keep track of how things got from the Point A of him and Barnes forcing the door to the Point B of Rogers clinging to the side of the speeding train with wide eyes—eyes Erik has seen in a lot of folks who will never see the world the same way again. Maybe some part of Erik doesn't want risk remembering something that will prove it was all his fault. Surely Erik could have done something? Or was he destined to be always too late?

After a moment of shock, Erik staggers to his feet and to the ragged edge of the hole in the car; he hold out a hand to the precariously perched Rogers, but the young man doesn't respond. "Rogers. Rogers, come on. You have other soldiers to look after. We have to get of the train."

Captain America climbs back into the car without taking Erik's hand.

Col. Phillips is pissed. The Commandoes are in shock. Rogers is off somewhere trying to get drunk. Carter is running around trying to comfort everyone. Erik has been stuck in briefings explaining and justifying every minute action he's taken in the last six months that could have lead Zola to suspect him. The weirdness of being in HQ, surrounded by Allies day in and day out, very quickly turns into a kind of suffocation. Erik is not an independent operative anymore; nobody seems to be sure what purpose he serves now that his usefulness as a spy has expired. Captain America needs a new second for his strike team, but…

Everyone knows it's Erik's fault. Carter and Rogers are the only ones to deny it, and Rogers only because he has bizarrely decided to blame himself.

"There's nothing you could've done," Carter insists. "It could have been any of the three of you who fell."

It may be true, Erik thinks, but it doesn't change the fact that things would have been simpler all around if Erik had been the one to tumble out of the train and over a cliff.

When Erik finally decides he has had enough of all this grief and foolishness, he goes to find Rogers. He's drawing, with a level of talent Erik didn't know he had, but it's a healthier coping mechanism that wasting liquor and Erik has more pressing matters on his mind, so he doesn't comment.

"Zola wouldn't have set me up for execution unless he felt he had a very secure advantage," Erik says without preamble.

Rogers seems surprised to see Erik but doesn't take much prompting to jump to the right conclusion: "You think he's farther along with the super weapons than he's let on?"

Erik nods. "I think that the minute he hears that you and I are not dead, he's gonna take the most drastic measures he has. Zola may be a genius but he's also a coward who knows he's cornered."

"The Swiss base is the last one Hydra has with the capacity for a large scale attack." Rogers sets his pad and pencil down. "If he panics, that's where he'll do it."

They tale the idea to Phillips, who, after some persuasion, agrees with their assessment. He insists, however, that they need more time to plan an infiltration of the well-defended Hydra base—time they don't have.

"Then what do you suggest we do?" Col Phillips growls at the two of them, clearly pissed at being ganged up on by his two least obedient agents. "Just walk in there and bang down the front door?"

There's a beat—Rogers sends Erik a scheming look, and Erik gets just a faint taste of what Rogers's and Barnes's silent best-friend-language must have been like—then Rogers says: "Why not?"