When It Snowed

Chapter 23 - Something Tony Said

On the far end of the roof, the chopper sat untouched and cold. That was her way out of here, that's how she was going to get back to HYDRA.

They had it planted there for her. It was part of their plan to get her home all along.

Almost to the helicopter, the Winter Soldier was forced to turn around just as her instincts flared as a warning. With her arm raised, she blocked the gunfire that Tony Stark had sent her way using a weak pistol that he had picked off of a fallen SHIELD agent. The bullets echoed and sparked from her metal forearm sending each one in different directions. Tony remained standing on the other side the roof with what was now an empty clip and a look of fear on his face.

Silence echoed between the two, and with his iron hand now damaged from their fight before, Stark was left completely helpless before the master assassin.

He couldn't let her get away though, he wouldn't, not this time.

"You've got nowhere to go Reaser." Tony tried using his words to get out of the situation seeing as he was the only one on the roof. In response, the Winter Solder gave him an amused grin and started walking towards him. Then, as she got closer, she reached into her waist band pulling a pistol she had picked up from one of the guards below as well. "Think about what you're doing, on a SHIELD base, filled with SHIELD agents. There's backup coming at any second." Becoming now arm's distance, the barrel of her pistol was aimed right between the billionaires eyes.

Still, she hadn't used a word. Yet, she hadn't pulled the trigger either. The woman was toying with him, she would have killed him by now if she really wanted to. Instead, it seemed as though she only wanted to get a rise out of him.

She looked as locked down as before though. Tony needed to break through to her. So, he tried a different strategy. "I can help you." he finally croaked out while staring down the barrel of her trained grip.

At these words, the entire emotion on her face had changed. Inside her head, image after image of the man before her reeled inside her mind. He looked a little different, but their general features looked the same. It was him, him and Maria. A woman named Maria. At a convention, in a bar, driving a fancy car, standing in the rain with his hands in his pockets, working around levers, machines, and screens. He was a nerd, he was her nerd again.

From Tony's perspective, first she was stern, cold, and ready to kill. As soon as the words left his mouth though, the grip on her pistol loosened and her mouth fell slightly open. It was something he never expected to see; but in front of him, the Winter Soldier's eyes began to water, her bottom lip quivered, and he could hear her trying to breath. "How-" She croaked out as the tear slipped from her right eye and down her cheek. Then, as the pistol fell from her hand and collided against the ground, Tony could feel his heart stop at the cry she let out. "Howard?"

It was his father's name.

The Winter Soldier knew his father?

The door to the entrance of the roof flew open, and the sound of it seemed to frighten the woman before him.

Tony watched her back away towards the chopper, eyes still staring at him in shock. Then, as she turned her back to him and sprinted, Barnes was blowing past Tony's side as Steve tried talking to him.

"What did she say to you?" There was no response from the billionaire though. "Tony?" Steve grabbed his shoulders trying to break the man from the trance he had on the Winter Soldier.

Shaking his head, trying to search for the words, Tony coughed to clear his throat. "She called me Howard." This made Steve soften his stare. "That's my father's name. How does she know my father?"

In the background, she had lifted the helicopter off of the pad and began moving away from the building.

Bucky had lunged just in time, one arm locked around the landing gear of the chopper she was in and the other holding onto the landing pad she had just rose from. Steve pushed Tony from the roof, and into the exit behind them. With the momentum of the bird, Steve knew just how this chopper was going to land; and Stark didn't need to be in the presence of something so dangerous. Especially without his Iron Man suit.

Bucky held on, muscles straining as well as the vein in his neck as the chopper tried moving away. He wouldn't let her go, Bucky couldn't let her go. To resist, he gritted his teeth and screamed through the pain he was experiencing. It was inhuman, to hold a helicopter to a building; but Bucky wasn't human, not anymore, especially when it came to her. Inside of the helicopter, Finley looked through the window at him with the same amount of pain. Her eyes watered violently now, she had a hard time breathing. "Let me go..." She whispered to Bucky knowing that he couldn't hear her. "Please just let me go."

Pushing the joystick away from the building, Finley clung onto the seat feeling the tail end spin towards the ledge of the sky scrapper. Before she could do anything, the blades connected with the concrete and shrapnel started to fly. Bucky rolled from the scene dodging the blades coming towards him. Looking back to the cab of the chopper though, Bucky could see Finley trying to regain control over the bird. As soon as the main blades hit the roof though, the machine twisted violently and he watched as her head slammed against the control panel before her. Then, her body went limp and the stream of blood dripped down her forehead.

She was unconscious.

Slowly, achingly, the weight of the machine on the edge of the building made it creep further and further towards the edge.

He tried keeping it upright, but Bucky was no match for it.

It was sent over the side of the building and into the river below, Finley still strapped inside he submerging helicopter. Without a second thought, Barnes was leaping off of the side of the building that towered over the River and into the water below. Inch by inch the chopper sank towards the bottom of the river, and Bucky had reached the cab just before they hit the mud below. She was there, arms floating lifelessly and blood tinting the water around her.

She looked peaceful, the way that her eyes remained closed and still.

He moved her arms so he could get to the strap, in and in split second as the pressure of the water began building against his head, he had the strap around her chest free and her body began to float under his command. Pulling her from the wreck though, his heart pounded louder and louder the longer he held her. She was so lifeless, so limp, so gone in the water around them.

Surfacing with her in his arms, Bucky flipped them onto their backs and sucked in a large gasp of air.
He needed to keep her as far away from SHIELD as he could. She wasn't safe anywhere, anywhere that is but with him. They couldn't trust anything or anyone other than themselves. With all the publicity this little stunt was going to get though, Bucky doubted that that was even an option at this point in time.