Chapter 13

STRIKE van, Washington D.C.

"It was him. He looked right at me. And he didn't even know me."

Beaten, covered in dirt and aching from the fight, Steve stared at the floor of the van. Sitwell's death, the STRIKE team, the red-eyed Wyvern; none of it mattered – it was Bucky.

Sam spoke, still hyped up from the fight. "How's that even possible? It was like seventy years ago."

"Zola." The pieces came together too easily in his mind. "Bucky's whole unit was captured in '43, Zola experimented on him. Whatever he did helped Bucky survive the fall." He lifted his head. "They must have found him."

Natasha's eyes were drooping. "None of that's your fault, Steve," she slurred.

He looked down again and sighed. "Even when I had nothing, I had Bucky."

Who the hell is Bucky?

Sam shook his head. "Then who's his friend with the laser eyes?" Before anyone answered, though, Sam spotted the oozing hole in Natasha's shoulder. "We need to get a doctor here, we don't put pressure on that wound she's going to bleed out here in the truck-"

Maria Hill came to the rescue.

Ideal Federal Savings Bank, Washington D.C.

The targets had escaped.

That was what the Wyvern gleaned from the pissed-off expressions and angry mutterings around her. Dusk was beginning to fall over the city when she and the Soldier arrived back at the bank, silent and bruised from the fight.

Now he sat in the chair while a technician worked on his arm, repairing the damage that the male target's strange shield had done. The Wyvern had sat still while a scientist bandaged the puncture wound in her leg, and she was now hunched over her detached wings, repairing the damage.

But she wasn't truly concentrating on any of that. While seemingly peering at a bullet hole in the webbing of her wing, she watched the Soldier. His bare chest rose and fell steadily, but she could see the turmoil in his blue-grey eyes. She could almost feel the memories crowding at the front of his mind. They filled his eyes with pain.

Don't show it, she wanted to tell him. She didn't even know what it was she wanted him to hide, only that it was vital that he do so.

Thee man from the bridge had done this.

Bucky?

The Wyvern ran a finger over the dent in the Adamantium skeleton of her left wing. The man who had done that had put the roiling confusion in the Soldier's eyes.

Bucky?

The man had phrased it as a question, but his voice had been soft – so strange to hear in the midst of a battle. It had been soft with recognition.

The Wyvern brought her soldering iron to a gash in the carbon fibre, still eyeing the Soldier.

Bucky?

Could it be that the weapon had a name? Not just a name: a name that existed outside of a file, a name that could bring such softness to a target's voice.

The target was still alive – what would he say, if he saw the Soldier again?

The Soldier's head jerked to the side, and his fists clenched. The Wyvern tensed.

A second later the Soldier's face twisted in a snarl and he struck out, knocking the technician to the edge of the room. He straightened in his chair, chest heaving.

The Wyvern stood, dropping her soldering iron, as every agent in the vault cocked their guns and aimed them at the Soldier. The Soldier looked through his dark hair at the Wyvern, his grey-blue eyes sparking with anger. His whole body was tense, as if he was about to rip out of his restraints and attack every inhabitant of the vault.

She stared back, trying to somehow tell him to stand down. But he was beyond her reach now, eyes flicking around at the alert STRIKE team.

Rollins, the secondary STRIKE leader, put a finger to his earpiece. "Call the Director."

It was a tense wait for the Director, every gun in the bank trained on the Soldier while the Wyvern stood frozen in the corner. She wanted an order.

Finally, her enhanced ears picked up on an interruption to the harried conversation the handlers were having outside:

"Sir? He's-he's unstable… erratic…"

The vault door opened, revealing the Director and Rumlow. The Director made a motion for the STRIKE team to stand down and back away. The Wyvern's muscles loosened slightly.

"Mission report," said the Director.

The Soldier wasn't a weapon right now. His body was still tense, but he'd sat back down and his muscles weren't bunched in preparation for a fight. The Wyvern recognised the look on his face: shock.

"Mission report, now."

The Wyvern couldn't stand the Soldier's silence. She spoke up: "The targets were engaged on-"

"Not you," the Director snapped, not even glancing over his shoulder at her. She clenched her jaw.

In the silence that followed, the Director stepped up to the Soldier and leaned over. She couldn't see his face.

The Director struck the Soldier. The Wyvern dug her gauntlet's claws into her palm and felt blood ooze from her skin. She'd seen men killed today, why should a single blow affect her like this?

The Soldier's gaze focused, and he frowned. "The man on the bridge… who was he?"

"You met him earlier this week, on another assignment."

The Wyvern knew that this was true, but something inside her was shouting lie.

The Soldier's gaze slid to the back of the vault, to where the Wyvern was frozen in the corner. "I knew him," he said. His eyes were bright.

The Wyvern couldn't move, couldn't breathe. She tried to recall everything she knew about the man on the bridge, but all she remembered was where the man might go to hide, and his skill in a fight. How could the Soldier know him?

The Director took a seat in front of the Soldier and began placating him. The Wyvern didn't hear a word – her mind was racing, trying to find the connection between the Winter Soldier and the man on the bridge. She watched the Soldier's face move from confusion, to fear, and finally to resignation. Her stomach dropped.

"But I knew him," he murmured, and his face twisted with the knowledge of what was about to happen. The Wyvern pressed her claws deeper into her palm.

The Director stood and gave orders to their handlers to wipe the Soldier and start over. The Wyvern watched the Soldier's face fall, and she wanted to move towards him. She wanted to help. The instinct startled her – none of this was a part of her programming. She shouldn't care.

The handlers pushed the Soldier back into the chair. Bucky, she thought. Bucky, Bucky, Bucky. Her heart was pounding.

As they put the mouthguard in his mouth and clamped his limbs, she met his gaze.

You are my mission, she mouthed, not knowing how or why she said it. Recognition sparked in the Soldier's eyes. The machine whirred into life and he tensed, his chest rising and falling. He was shaking.

I'll remember for him.

The sparking metal plates connected with his face, and he screamed. The Wyvern didn't look away.

The Director turned and flicked a finger at the Wyvern. She tore her eyes away from the Soldier and fell into step behind him, matching Rumlow's strides as they walked out of the room. She felt small without her wings.

Once they'd left the vault, leaving the Soldier's screams behind them, Pierce turned to face the Wyvern. He scanned her blank face.

"Mission report."

She gave it. Her voice was blank, cold, a smooth undercurrent against the screams from the vault. She detailed the whole engagement, but didn't mention the name she'd heard.

Bucky?

Pierce nodded and turned to Rumlow. "Did the Wyvern malfunction?"

"No sir," Rumlow replied, his eyes dark. "She followed orders."

"Well that's a mercy," the Director said, his face terse and lined. "Wyvern, remain here. We'll call in the assets when it's time."

"Yes, sir." Her voice was cold like winter air, hollow like a dead tree.

She watched, rooted to the spot, as the Director and the STRIKE team left the facility. The Soldier's screams echoed through the bank, seeping into the Wyvern's lungs and settling there, a heavy weight in her chest.

I'll remember, she told herself. But she didn't know why. Her mind was a snowstorm.

S.H.I.E.L.D. Dam Facility, Undisclosed Location

Once they'd hashed out their plan, Steve left the room. Fury, Hill, Natasha and Sam settled back in their seats, contemplating the weight of what they had to do. Fury's one good eye was closed.

Natasha broke the silence. "You ever hear about the Wyvern, Hill?"

Hill shrugged. "Rumours, nothing concrete though. Why?"

"She's in play – one of HYDRA's operatives."

Sam huffed. "See, when you told me about a chick with red goggles carting around another wing pack, I don't think I really believed you. My pack's supposed to be the last one."

Natasha shook her head. "The Wyvern's been around longer than you, Sam. And her wings are a completely different design to yours."

"Yeah, I noticed," he shook his head. "I felt more like a pigeon up against her, I was lucky she was gunning for you two. Is she as old as the Winter Soldier? Could she be, I don't know, a World War Two nurse or something?"

Fury opened his eye. "I didn't think she really existed, but the stories I've heard only go back the last twenty years or so. If that."

Sam scoffed. "Oh, she's real alright."

"She could be anyone," Natasha said, answering Sam's original question. "A HYDRA agent who volunteered for enhancements, maybe."

"Whoever she is," Hill cut in, "she's on HYDRA's side, and she's going to try to stop us saving lives. You see her, you take her out."

Natasha nodded, and winced as the movement pulled her wound. "I get the feeling that taking down Barnes is going to be a little more complicated." She turned in her chair, eyeing Sam.

Sam nodded, and looked at the door Steve had just walked through. "I'll go talk to him."

"Whoever he used to be, the guy he is now – I don't think he's the kind you save. He's the kind you stop."

"I don't know if I can do that."

"He might not give you a choice… he doesn't know you."

"He will."

January 12th, 2014

Ideal Federal Savings Bank, Washington D.C.

"There's trouble with Insight, and the Director's called for all hands at the Triskelion. Bring the assets."

The Wyvern got to her feet. She'd been at the facility all night, repairing her wings and combing through the armoury. She hadn't seen the Soldier since she left him in the chair, but she had thought of little else throughout the night. She knew that he was her mission, and she knew the name: Bucky. But she didn't understand the fragments of her mind – why was the Soldier her mission? Why was it important that she remember?

"Wyvern! Let's go!"

The technician behind the Wyvern slotted her wings into her back, and then stepped aside. She got to her feet and followed the flood of agents from the facility, climbing into one of the strike vehicles. The mission. The mission is…

At the last moment before they left, the Winter Soldier climbed into the vehicle. He didn't have his goggles or his muzzle – she supposed they were among the debris on the causeway.

She watched him from behind her scarlet goggles as he took his seat. He was back in his combat suit, with a new range of weapons secured around his body. His hair was loose around his cheeks and his face was utterly, completely blank.

Bucky?

The vehicles peeled away from the bank, screeching through traffic toward the Triskelion. As they drove, the Wyvern watched the vacant Soldier and battered at the blurry limits of her thoughts.

"The mission is to protect Project Insight," Rollins barked, looking around at the agents in the vehicle. "Eliminate anyone acting against the Project."

Disturbed by the chaos of her mind, the Wyvern did the one thing that made sense. She complied.

The Triskelion, Washington D.C.

The vehicles screeched to a halt and flung their doors open just as the first Helicarrier rose into the sky. The roar of the engines washed over the Wyvern, and her eyes widened as she took in the enormous metal aircraft, prickling with guns and its turbines glowing blue. As she watched, two other Helicarriers launched from the subterranean hangars.

The HYDRA vans had arrived on the other side of the Triskelion, so the open hangars were concealed from view, but the newly arrived agents had a perfect view of the bloody and screaming S.H.I.E.L.D. employees fleeing from the building. Civilians and non-combatants looked over their shoulders as they streamed out of the glass doors. They either didn't notice or didn't care about the black vans crowding the entrance, as they didn't spare a glance for the agents or the assets while they ran for their lives.

Abruptly, the Wyvern's commpiece was connected to the HYDRA agents' channel and she took a second to adjust to the terse calls for assistance and reports from HYDRA dispatch. She climbed out of the van after the Winter Soldier, and they faced their handlers.

Rollins turned to the assets. "Rumlow's team has the situation in the Triskelion pretty much handled. Cripple any support that Captain America has on the ground or in the air, and make sure that-"

The dispatcher's voice came over the comms: "We've got engagement on IN-03."

Rollins paused, hand flying to his earpiece, and spun around. The Wyvern and the Soldier looked up at the third Helicarrier, already hundreds of feet off the ground. A faint plume of smoke erupted from its deck, and their enhanced ears caught the sound of gunfire and explosions over the roar of the engines. A winged silhouette rose above the line of the hangars and spun as the Helicarrier cannons fired at it.

The Falcon. He was an agile flyer, evading the cannon fire by swooping low to the Helicarrier and then rocketing upwards, a graceful bird amongst plumes of black smoke and orange flame.

Rollins cursed, his face darkening. He turned back to the assets. "Soldier, ground their air support. Wyvern – go after the flyer."

They complied. The Soldier stalked into the trees surrounding the building, and the Wyvern snapped her wings open and soared into the air. If she spared a glance down at the Soldier's black combat suit and metal arm, she told herself it was to ensure mission progression.

He is my mission.

She shook the thought away.

"Falcon, status?"

"Engaging!"

Sam plunged through the sky towards the Helicarrier, outstripping cannon fire and swerving around gun turrets. He swooped on a HYDRA agent, kicked him in the chest, and spun to fire at another agent. When they crumpled to the ground he hovered, checking the deck was clear.

"Alright, Cap, I'm in." He scanned the deck, searching for a way in.

Before he could make his next move, however, he heard a whine of jet engines and looked up to see a familiar pair of black wings rising from below the lip of the deck. The Wyvern's goggles glowed red, and Sam focused on the semi-automatic guns in her clawed hands.

"… Shit." He flipped over, gunning his wingpack to flee along the deck, weaving under the wings of the grounded Quinjets.

She was hot on his heels, raining down gunfire as she jetted after him. Sam swore under his breath, trying to get eyes on the Wyvern even as he desperately avoided her fire.

He'd never gone up against someone with wings like his before yesterday, and it was a nightmare. Planes and infantry he could predict and avoid, an assassin with metal wings and deadly aim was another matter. Her shots were inches from his exposed legs and chest, sparking against the deck.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw a shot hit the fuel tank of the last Quinjet, and it went up in flames. The shock wave kicked him in the back and he cried out, retracting his wings and tumbling to a halt on the edge of the carrier.

Sam rolled to his feet just in time to see the Wyvern bearing down on him, metal wings splayed and guns ablaze. Heart in his mouth, he threw himself backwards off the Helicarrier, firing back at the Wyvern as she rocketed over him. One of his shots connected with the gun in her left hand, which tumbled past his face as he fell.

Sam's wings snapped open and he soared under the hull of the Helicarrier, but he hadn't thrown the Wyvern off. Her engines roared like a hungry predator as she pursued him in the shadow of the Helicarrier, a new gun already in her hands.

As he flew, he was distantly aware of Romanoff verbally sparring with Alexander Pierce, and grinned breathlessly when Cap's voice announced: "Alpha lock!"

But then he heard a new engine sound, and looked over his shoulder to see a Quinjet joining the Wyvern in the sky. The Wyvern seamlessly adjusted to her new ally, careering to the side to try to cut Sam off. Shit.

"Falcon?" came Hill's voice over the comm. "Where are you now?"

Sam converted more power to his engines. "Had to take a detour!" he called, rolling away from the Wyvern when she tried to pin him against the hull of the Helicarrier, and then flipping to avoid the Quinjet's ceaseless fire. He cursed at the familiar sound of missiles launching. Well, at least those would keep the Wyvern off his ass for a little while. He banked his wings and shot toward the Helicarrier, the whine of the missiles filling his ears.

The manoeuvre worked – out of the corner of his eye he saw one of the redirected missiles catch the Quinjet's wing, sending it into a smoking downward spiral, and the Wyvern soared upwards and away to flee the other projectiles.

Sam retracted his wings, spinning into a ball, and the rest of the missiles collided with the huge glass dome at the bottom of the Helicarrier, opening the perfect doorway.

"Oh yeah," he crowed, as he twisted back into flight mode and soared into the Insight dome. He landed on the metal catwalk, heart pounding. I'm the boss. "I'm in."

Sam installed the chip as Hill had instructed – he could hardly forget, after having to prove five times to her that he knew how to do it – and called "Bravo lock!" as he leaped off the catwalk. He didn't have a second to react before the red-eyed Wyvern hurtled into the Helicarrier, caught him mid-leap, and slammed him down against the glass dome.

The Falcon didn't know what hit him until he was staring into the Wyvern's red goggles, his wings pinned by hers and her enhanced strength holding him against the glass.

The Wyvern was calm, despite the Falcon's skilful evasions and the ill-advised missile launch from the HYDRA Quinjet. She'd tracked her prey, and now she'd caught him.

The Falcon cried out at the force of her grip, his face creasing with pain.

Eliminate anyone acting against the Project. The Wyvern brought her clawed gauntlet over the man's face. He kicked and struggled, but the Wyvern had been made strong. She kept him where he was, and prepared to eliminate him.

But this man had been on the bridge with the male target who gave the Soldier a name. He fought for him, fled with him. This man knew about the other one. She considered him; his screwed up face, his desperate efforts to free himself from her powerful grip. Behind his head, the Triskelion and the wide river were visible through the glass. From here, it looked like nothing was wrong. Wind shrieked through the open crater in the Insight dome.

Her handlers hadn't said to immediately eliminate anyone acting against the Project. She shifted her grip, bringing her forearm to the Falcon's throat, and filled his vision with her red goggles and black cowl. She needed to know – about the man on the bridge, about the Soldier, about the mission.

"Do you-" she started to say, her voice muffled by her cowl, but then hesitated when the Winter Soldier's voice came over the commpiece.

"Wyvern, request airlift to IN-03."

The Wyvern froze, her forearm still pressing into the Falcon's throat. She barely felt the man's fist as it fought free and pummelled into her metal-reinforced ribs. The Soldier's voice was so cold.

It was the first time she'd heard him speak since his conversation with the Director last night, and the difference was… unsettling. Last night his voice had been low, almost broken, but now there was no hint of emotion. No hint of recognition. The background sounds from his commpiece were chaos: screams, gunfire, explosions. The Wyvern's breath caught in her chest.

Taking advantage of her distraction, the Falcon managed to free a backup pistol from his hip. Thunder reverberated between them and the Wyvern flinched back, blood spraying from the bullet hole in her side and splashing onto the Falcon's uniform.

He'd only skimmed her, but it was enough. The Falcon kicked her off, snapped open his wings and dove out of the Helicarrier, engines roaring.

The Wyvern didn't follow. She rose to her feet, balancing on the bottom of the glass dome with her hand pressed against her bleeding side, but she didn't even watch the Falcon as he fled her clutches.

Malfunction, came a voice in her mind, but it was distant. The Wyvern's thoughts were caught on the Soldier's cold voice. The sound of it brought the image of empty blue-grey eyes to her mind, flickering with a reflection of fire. But yesterday his eyes hadn't been empty. She'd seen the Soldier's turmoil, his pain, she'd seen him remember and she'd seen him pay the price for remembering.

Bucky? That man yesterday had belonged to a name. What did he have now?

The mission.

The Wyvern's wings drooped, hanging loose from her back. She stared at the river below, unseeing, as the snowstorm of her mind raged and undulated. The mission. The mission.

Bucky?

The comm crackled again, but this time it was HYDRA dispatch. "Wyvern, Soldier, the Falcon and Captain America are heading for IN-01, head them off."

The Wyvern's heart was pounding. With every second of inaction she was disobeying so many orders, disobeying her very programming. The sounds of screaming and gunshots over the comms echoed in her mind, and the Wyvern flinched at images she didn't remember: burning, pain, targets in their beds.

Malfunction.

The Wyvern stumbled and dropped to her knees, smearing the blood from her gunshot wound on the glass. Her breath was coming fast, and she couldn't seem to stop her mind from whirling and seething, flickering with long-past images and sounds. She couldn't stop her mind, couldn't catch onto a single thought and hold on. She was lost; her very self a helpless piece of debris in an uncontrollable ocean. Fire and blood filled her nostrils, making her reel.

Gasping, the Wyvern pressed her fingers into the stinging wound on her ribcage, clinging to the sharp pain that erupted. It helped to focus her thoughts somewhat, but that only brought back the renewed screaming of her programming to comply, and a deeper instinct that called to remember. There was a piercing pain behind her eyes, bringing spots to her vision. It felt like lightning, like the chair.

Suddenly, she heard a faint voice over the comms: "People are gonna die, Buck. I can't let that happen."

It was the Soldier's commpiece. The Wyvern sucked in a long breath, and slammed her fist into the glass below her. Spiderweb cracks erupted from her hand. She focused on breathing, and parsed what she'd just heard. It was the man from the bridge's voice.

So that's his mission, she thought, pressing her eyes shut. To keep people from dying.

It was such an unfamiliar mission to the Wyvern, but he found herself drawn to it.

"Please don't make me do this."

The Wyvern's eyes snapped open. Seconds later, she heard grunts, the clang of metal, and gunshots – the unmistakeable sound of the Soldier fighting.

The Wyvern got her feet under her and straightened, her mind racing. Her mind was still a raging storm, but she was focused now – she didn't let it overwhelm her.

Her programming called to her to comply with the mission. But there was more than one mission in the Wyvern's head. There was protect Project Insight, but there was also you are my mission. And now she knew the man on the bridge's mission. He'd recognised the Soldier, but if the noises over the comm were anything to go by, he would follow his mission above everything else. As she listened to the Soldier fight, the Wyvern's genius brain computed the situation.

There were two outcomes. The first was that Project Insight was protected, the man on the bridge's mission failed, and he was eliminated. The second was that Project Insight was not protected, the man on the bridge's mission succeeded, and the Soldier was eliminated.

He is my mission. The Wyvern stumbled again, and gripped her cowl in her fists. Protect Project Insight. The missions were clashing in her head, fuelled by half-remembered images of death and blood and flickering grey-blue eyes.

Her mind was reeling. She had analysed the situation, she knew the outcomes. She had her orders. If she didn't protect Project Insight, the man on the bridge might kill the Winter Soldier. She pictured the Soldier's grey-blue eyes empty of everything, including life, and her stomach churned.

It shouldn't matter, she told herself. The Soldier was an asset, a weapon. Weapons were disposable. But she remembered a warm hand on her back, rubbing soothing circles. She remembered his flickering eyes and their secrets, remembered the way she'd trusted him so implicitly, like an extension of her own self, and she remembered him saying but I knew him.

If she did protect Project Insight, then she would have to kill the man on the bridge. The man who knew the name. The man whose voice could go soft in the middle of a battle. Or she would have to let the Soldier kill him, kill the one person who might know him as more than a weapon. If she carried out that mission, then she would be left with unanswered questions, an empty-eyed Soldier, and then the chair. But that was her programming. She must comply.

She couldn't even remember where she'd gotten the other mission, but she couldn't push it away despite the sharp ache it brought to her chest. He is my mission. He is my mission. It was embedded in her psyche, deeper than memory and pain and programming.

Her missions were at odds. Her programming told her to ask a superior for clarification, but a deeper part of her asked: which is more important?

The Wyvern shivered, her sightless eyes fixed on the glimmering river hundreds of feet below. Blood oozed from the wound in her side, and her face was sweaty and flushed under her cowl. Her heart raced.

Important. Her programming said that the only thing of any importance was her orders, overriding herself and her victims and her fellow asset. But when she asked herself which mission to follow, she heard the name.

Bucky. Bucky. Bucky. It no longer sounded like the man on the bridge's soft voice. She heard her own voice now, low and shivering:

"Bucky," she murmured.

The utterance brought a new memory exploding to the front of her mind:

Your name is Margaret.

The Wyvern's head jerked up, and the world filtered back in. The pain in her side, the sounds of fighting in the distance and over her comms, the hum of her engines. In three strides she covered the distance to the crater in the glass dome, dove through it, and soared into the sky.