105: The Winter Soldier
The video began to play.
It was surveillance footage, showing a fixed view of a street under a streetlight.
The familiar scene made Tony feel uneasy. He glanced at the label on the videotape.
[December 16, 1991]
That was the date his parents had died in a car accident.
Realizing something, Tony's brow furrowed deeply. "This road... I remember it."
The tape continued playing.
A car suddenly appeared, out of control, speeding as it crashed into a large tree by the roadside.
The front of the car quickly caught fire.
A motorcycle then appeared in the frame, making a sharp turn before stopping next to the car.
The driver of the car weakly pushed open the door and began to crawl out.
It was the elderly Howard Stark, injured badly in the crash.
"Help, please... save my wife and child. I beg you, save them..."
Howard had heard the sound of a motorcycle and hoped the passerby who stopped would lend a hand, as he no longer had the strength to stand.
But instead, the man got off the motorcycle, walked straight over to Howard, and roughly grabbed him by the hair, pulling his upper body up.
Howard saw the man's face and immediately recognized him.
"S-Sergeant Barnes!?"
The motorcyclist was James Buchanan Barnes, a man supposed to have died during the war.
Howard's shock was undeniable when he recognized him.
It seemed that in that instant, a flood of realizations hit him.
Perhaps he understood perfectly well that with Bucky's appearance, there was no chance he or his family would survive.
So he gave up pleading; in his hopeless gaze, there was even a hint of peace, as if preparing to embrace death.
Outside the screen, anger had already begun to spread across Tony's face.
But the recording continued.
"Howard... Howard..." murmured Maria from the passenger seat, regaining consciousness and instinctively calling her husband's name.
But Bucky acted then.
He struck Howard's face repeatedly, knocking him unconscious before shoving him back into the driver's seat.
Then, he walked to the other side, reached through the window, and grabbed Maria by the neck.
Maria made choking sounds as she struggled to breathe, but she still raised a bundled infant in her arms, pleading, "Please... save... him..."
Ten seconds later, Maria's eyes gradually lost their light, her arms falling limp.
The baby in her arms, sensing the growing coldness of his mother's body, began to cry.
Bucky's expression remained as cold as a blade, an unfeeling tool meant only to strike and kill, devoid of any other purpose.
He grabbed the infant from Maria's lap, lifted him through the window, removed the cloth wrap, wound it twice around the small neck, and then pulled tight.
The baby's cries ceased abruptly, his face turning purple as his skin rapidly lost color.
After a few seconds, Bucky tossed the lifeless infant beside Maria outside the car window.
It was the perfect accident scene.
Howard and his wife died in the car crash explosion.
The only infant was thrown out of the car window at the last moment, yet strangled by the cloth wrap.
Even if the best forensic investigator examined it, it would appear as an accident.
Bucky, having staged the scene, walked over to the camera, fired a shot, and destroyed the surveillance equipment.
The footage at the scene would be handled by Hydra's people.
His only task was to kill.
The video ended.
Natasha shut off the screen, removed the tape, and looked over, lips pressed in concern.
The Stark brothers were now both furious—one breathing heavily, the other's eyes glowing red with intense, murderous intent.
Tony, having seen the murder of his parents, felt his mind taken over by rage, the fury all but searing through his eyes.
Lyon, though prepared for this and already set on avenging the Starks, felt the flames of his anger rise uncontrollably as he watched his mother and himself choked to death by the Winter Soldier.
His intense red eyes were burning the tears that were coming out of them.
"Where is he?" Tony snarled through gritted teeth.
Lyon floated up, pushing his super vision and super hearing to their limits.
Amidst the billions of external signals...
He precisely pinpointed Bucky's location!
"He's in Hydra's African base, protecting a man named Baron Strucker."
Lyon wasted no words.
He grabbed Tony's arm, the biofield naturally surrounding them.
In an instant, they disappeared from Siberia.
Half a minute later, outside Johannesburg, South Africa, in the Golden City.
Hydra's nuclear-safe base, with a 2.8-meter-thick main door, suddenly shattered.
The several-ton iron door flew apart in pieces, scattering through the base.
Lyon and the armored Tony entered through the main gate.
Their movements were uncannily synchronized—left foot first, then right.
A cape billowed through the dust, while the metallic clang of steel echoed in the hollow base.
Sunlight poured in behind them, casting them as two avenging angels pushing open the gates of heaven.
Hydra soldiers were now stricken with PTSD at the sight of Superman's white and gold suit.
At the first sight of Lyon, Hydra soldiers were terrified out of their wits, turning to flee.
But the Stark brothers had no intention of letting anyone escape. The one on the left swept the area with heat rays, while the one on the right mowed it down with twin repulsors, covering every inch like tilling a field.
They gave the Hydra agents no chance of survival.
It seemed that their theme for vengeance today was, indeed, "no survivors."
In minutes, they had torn through the once-impenetrable base.
Baron Strucker emerged with his hands raised, practically ready to drop to his knees in a desperate display of surrender.
He rushed out with a pleading cry: "I surrender! Superman, I surrender! And Iron Man, I'm switching sides, I swear! Unconditionally surrendering to the United Nations! Spare me, I—"
Strucker's speed in surrendering might have outpaced Tony's repulsors, but it couldn't outmatch Lyon's heat rays.
Mid-sentence, he was split clean in two.
As his body collapsed, Lyon and Tony walked right past him.
In the end, only three remained in the entire base.
One was Bucky Barnes, the Winter Soldier, sitting on the cold brainwashing machine, his eyes empty and hollow.
The other two were the Stark brothers, here to exact their revenge.
The Winter Soldier stared blankly at the ground, his lifeless eyes devoid of any thought.
Without a command from his handler, he wouldn't move an inch, even if the world were collapsing.
Tony raised his right hand, the repulsor charging directly in front of the Winter Soldier's head.
"It's him."
Tony voiced it as a statement rather than a question.
"It's him," Lyon confirmed, the heat in his eyes more intense than ever.
Tony looked at the Winter Soldier, his face full of fury, yet a trace of doubt flickered there. "But he's a brainwashed man, someone without self-awareness."
"Exactly," Lyon nodded. "Legally speaking, he bears no criminal responsibility. Even for murder, he could walk free in court."
Tony hesitated, his mouth tightening as the light from his repulsor dimmed, showing the struggle within him.
Szz! Spulch!
But just then, two searing red beams shot out from beside him, obliterating the Winter Soldier's head in an instant.
"But morally, he shares a bond of blood with us," Lyon said coldly, turning to leave without looking back.
Bucky Barnes was brainwashed by Hydra, well Lyon is killing Hydra. Bucky Barnes was brainwashed, go tell that to his dead parents. In the end, the morals can go fuck itself.
"It's personal. Nothing more."
Behind him, the headless body collapsed to the ground.
"..."
Tony Stark stood, staring silently at the lifeless remains.
Finally, he sighed, his repulsors charging before he blasted the corpse into pieces.
Tony knew this was vengeance, but he couldn't be sure if what he'd done was right.
The only thing he knew was that he had to stand by Lyon, even if it meant making the wrong choice together.
Because they would always be on the same side.
"When we get back, I'll start assembling the Avengers. You better join me!" he called, catching up to Lyon.
__________
Read 15 Chapters ahead:
Patreon.com/LiveLifeLove