The slab came down fast.
Steve didn't think—he moved. A single reflex, decades of battle-honed instinct kicking in. He dove backward, shield raised above his head, just as the ceiling gave way with a thunderous crack that split the air like lightning.
The massive chunk of concrete and steel crashed down, slamming into the blast door with an earth-shaking roar. The impact sent out a shockwave of air and dust, knocking Steve onto his back. The lights above flickered violently. Sparks rained down from broken conduits. Part of the far wall caved in.
He coughed as he scrambled up, eyes stinging from the dust cloud. "Bucky!" he shouted, voice ragged.
No answer.
Steve stumbled to the wreckage, boots crunching over debris. He knelt at the edge, trying to find a gap. The doorway was buried beneath layers of twisted beams, fractured plating, and reinforced steel slabs. His hands dug into the rubble, fingers raw, desperate for even the faintest sign of movement.
"Bucky!" he called again, pounding the bent metal with both fists.
Still nothing.
Inside the sealed control room, Bucky stood completely still.
The world had gone silent save for the distant groan of metal straining to hold. The impact had thrown fine dust into the air. It hung like mist around him, falling in soft drifts.
He glanced up at the ceiling, where faint cracks still spread from the impact zone. Light filtered through, dim and unstable.
No voices. No comms. No Steve.
His chest tightened.
The console beside him sparked one last time and shorted out completely. The emergency lights dimmed, replaced by an eerie red glow.
He flexed his fingers.
The metal arm still pulsed faintly with residual energy from the system upgrade. Though the flickering shadow had dissipated, he could still feel the power in his bones—like his body was finally syncing with something it had never fully accepted until now.
Bucky moved toward the opposite end of the room, sweeping aside debris. A flicker of red emergency lighting revealed a maintenance hatch near the wall.
He yanked it open. Hinges screamed.
Inside was a maintenance tunnel—narrow, rusted, and covered in grime. It snaked downward into the bowels of the Triskelion's substructure.
He ducked in, crawling at first, then running as the ceiling above creaked again. Sparks spat from overhead pipes. The deeper he went, the more unstable everything felt.
Above, the second helicarrier—now without control, blind and destabilized—trembled in the sky. Its primary targeting system flickered and then went dark. Gun ports sealed. Navigation began to fail.
Inside the control cabin, the pilots shouted over one another.
"System failure—targeting offline!"
"Redirect manual control—engines compensating!"
"She's coming down too fast!"
The helicarrier tilted.
And then steadied.
Just barely.
Monroe's voice came through the comms. "The system's fried, but we're stable. You need to get out—now."
Steve, still kneeling at the edge of the rubble, pressed his hand to his earpiece. "Bucky's still inside."
"I know," Monroe replied. "So is half the tower. Collapse is imminent."
Steve looked up at the fractured ceiling. A long creak echoed through the structure.
He didn't move.
His jaw clenched. He couldn't leave. Not yet.
Then—a sound.
A low groan of shifting metal.
From beneath a pile of twisted scaffolding and rebar near the lower side of the rubble, something moved.
A hand emerged.
Not flesh.
Metal.
It curled into a fist.
Then forced itself upward, pulling the rest of the body with it.
Dust clung to Bucky's face as he pushed free, coughing. He looked up through the haze, blinking hard.
His eyes met Steve's.
Steve was already moving.
End of Chapter 110
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