Winter's Redemption [winter soldier//Bucky Barnes AU]

Chapter Seventeen

STEVE'S POV

The second the doors swung open, I was met with a hundred glances of confusion before Nat and Sarah opened fire behind me. At least seven soldiers dropped nearly instantaneously and I was quick to join, launching my shield at the closest soldier and jumping into the air to avoid oncoming bullets.

The doors opposite of us blasted open just seconds later, Tony's red suit flashing in the light and Falcon swooping in on his powerful set of wings. The Hydra soldiers were caught off guard and we were able to cut their numbers in half pretty quickly.

I punched and kicked my way through the crowd, dodging uppercuts and roundhouse kicks. I knocked a decent amount of them out but soon the men woke up, adding more bullets to the already lethal atmosphere by shooting at me out of revenge. I sensed the oncoming bullets and pushed off of my toes, throwing my arms forward and flipping over them. I landed with a loud thud, cracking the floor beneath me, and I brought my shield up to ricochet their bullets back at them.

I glanced towards the trap door once I was in the clear. It wasn't too far, but there were still a lot of seemingly random bullets flying around and we needed to redirect the fire.

Tony was blasting people left and right and Sam was using his expert marksmanship to take out the soldiers that were directly threatening the team. Natasha and Sarah were back to back; Sarah was shooting, Natasha was engaged in hand to hand combat.

We had the upper hand, and I realized quickly that we needed to finish the job, because there were even more agents downstairs, along with a monster that needed controlling. So I fought twice as fast as usual and soon enough, we were the only ones left standing. I took off for the trap door but noticed a small red light beside the latch- the door was armed. Good thing Bucky hadn't tried to escape earlier.

"Bucky! When we come down the trapdoor is gonna blow! Can you take cover?" I yelled into my earpiece. I heard gunshots and yelling on the other side of the door, signifying that the agents had realized that Bucky wasn't actually on their side and he probably wasn't in the best of situations.

"Probably not, Cap! They are trying to release the mutant!" He yelled back.

I cursed under my breath, racking my brain for ideas. Suddenly had an idea.

"Buck, Run! Let them release the tiger! If we can get set off the bombs it might blow him up!" I shouted into the earpiece.

"Got it!" Bucky replied.

Everyone bolted away from the trap door, huddling down behind an assembly line, and without a second thought Natasha shot a bullet at the lock on the door and the whole thing blew.

Some of the ground caved in around where the entrance to the basement was, a brief red fireball consuming the air before quickly dissipating. But it didn't cause enough damage to affect anyone at this distance and it didn't appear to have much of an effect on the people below it, because I could still hear guns going off.

I motioned for everyone to follow my lead and crept up carefully towards the ruins of the entrance to the basement, double checking for damage to the ground or any more possible explosives. Finding no cause for concern, I lifted a large chunk of concrete out of the way and hurried down the stairs to the lower level.

Immediately, I was met with an unpleasant scene. Bucky stood at the bottom of the stairs, machine gun blazing as it shot round after round at a group of seven Hydra soldiers. But that wasn't the worst part- the worst part was that while Bucky was preoccupied with shooting at the men, one of them was busy unlocking the cage to the giant mutant tiger.