White | B. BARNES

Chapter 26

📍 Bucharest, Romania | June 2016

"You knew all this time?"

"Steve, it wasn't him," Sapphire said as she discreetly placed her blade at her waistband.

Steve walked inside the apartment, finding a notebook on top of the fridge. He picked it up and opened it. There were tabs of varying colors sticking out from amongst the pages.

"Heads up, Cap. German Special Forces, approaching from the south," Sam spoke through the radio.

"Understood. He's with the Angel," he said as Bucky went inside the apartment, seeing Steve by the fridge and Sapphire standing near the bed.

"What?!" Sam exclaimed. "Not again," he groaned.

Steve slowly turned around to face him, "Do you know me?"

Bucky stared at him, "You're Steve. I read about you in a museum."

"They've set the perimeter," Sam informed Steve.

"I know you're nervous. And you have plenty of reason to be. But you're lying," Steve told Bucky.

"I wasn't in Vienna. I don't do that anymore," Bucky spoke gruffly.

Sam said, "They're entering the building."

"Well, the people who think you did are coming here now. And they're not planning on taking you alive," Steve replied to Bucky.

"That's smart. Good strategy," Bucky nodded slightly, looking at Sapphire.

"They're on the roof. I'm compromised," Sam spoke.

Sapphire could hear footsteps on the stairs getting louder.

"This doesn't have to end in a fight, Buck," Steve said.

Outside the door, a cop readied a battering ram.

Sapphire spoke lowly, remembering her talk with Bucky when she returned from New York, "It always ends in a fight."

"5 seconds," Sam said.

"You pulled me from the river. Why?" Steve asked Bucky.

"I don't know," Bucky replied in honesty.

"3 seconds!" Sam warned Steve.

"Yes, you do," Steve insisted.

"Breach! Breach! Breach!" Sam exclaimed as a grenade crashed through the window.

Sapphire kicked it to Steve, and he smothers it with his shield.

"Schieß die Tür auf! (German: Shoot the door!" was heard outside before the cop slammed the battering ram against the door.

Bucky shielded himself with the mattress against an attack from the window.

Sapphire blocked the door with a table as cops swing in on cables. Steve pulled the rug from under a policeman, sending him flying.

Bucky slammed another policeman into the wall.

"Buck, stop! You're gonna kill someone," Steve warned him.

Then, Bucky slammed Steve down and punched a hole on the floorboards, grabbing his backpag, "I'm not gonna kill anyone."

Sapphire could not use any of her illusions due to the masks the cops wore. 

Bucky and Steve get behind Steve's shield to avoid gunfire as Sapphire kicked the man who was shooting them. Bucky shoves Steve, and he knocked a cop over.