Letting Go | Bucky Barnes

31 | Wednesday, July 7th

The plan hasn't changed.

We're just flying towards an old Hydra base at a speed that feels like a roller coaster on steroids, hoping to get to Colley before Atticus kills him.

No pressure.

"Your support crew has been re-routed and should be there just a little while after you land," Fury says from the speakers.

"F.R.I.D.A.Y., are those drones at the base yet?" I ask.

"Almost, they will be there in less than a minute."

"Any luck on getting into the base's security?"

"No... No we're still not in," Fury says. "I have a feeling that the drones are going to be our only insight to what's going on inside."

"Where do you think they'll be?" Wanda asks Ripley.

I think the message was the boost she needed. When she left the farmhouse, everyone could tell it was hard for her. It's obvious she hoped they would be there, that way she could get the others out. But finding out that they were gone, that we had no other ideas of where they could be... I think it really hurt her. Not to mention being in the childhood home of someone so close to her.

But now it's like she found a second wind.

"I'm not entirely sure. Maybe a training hall? He knew his way around that place better than we did, so it could be anywhere... Maybe in surveillance or a conference room," Ripley says, fingers drumming the console.

"Could you give us an idea of the lay out?" Tony asks.

"I can try," she nods. "Me and the others were only brought to a few different rooms when we were there, and I don't remember many details from when we escaped, but I'll try."

Tony nods and moves to the back of the jet, rummaging through drawers until he finds something. "Here, we don't have paper, so you'll have to just draw it on the cupboard."

I turn with a smirk and watch as Ripley walks over and takes the marker from Tony, a glare on her face as she steps towards the metal cupboard door. She presses the end of the marker to her chin, brows scrunched before she uncaps the marker and begins. She draws squares and rectangles, halls and rooms. After about a minute, she seems happy with the image.

"F.R.I.D.A.Y., get a picture of this and send it to the others," Tony says as Ripley takes a step back.

"That's what I can remember. And what I know. The cells were here," she says, pointing to a long hall at the top right corner. Her finger follows down a hall, to the boxes beneath the cells, "these are the training halls. Opposite of them is the medical wing. The other side of the base is where security is. We were never let into the main chamber, but there was a small room where we were brought for tech training. That's close to where Atticus went for strategy meetings—I don't know where exactly, but it was somewhere around there. And when we escaped, we went down this way," she says, trailing her finger to a second drawing below the first, connected by a rectangle that branches from the security wing. "Down the stairs. That's where the garage was. We stole the truck and got out."

"Drones have arrived, everyone," F.R.I.D.A.Y., announces.

We all turn our heads to the screens near the cock pit, eyes focused on the drones that drop towards a shallow valley between two steep hills. One end of the valley is thick with trees, but they dwindle to nothing about a quarter way through, the rest being baren except for rocks and small shrubs. My eyes search the screen until I finally realize the valley walls aren't natural but a man-made camouflage. The drones drop about thirty feet, revealing a worn path of tire tracks that turn into the rockface, and as the drones approach it, it's easy to tell it's a door. There's two, I realize. One is large; big enough to fit a few cars through at once, while the other is regular sized, for people.