Triskelion Headquarters, Alexander Pierce's office.
"Officer!"
The office door was slammed open, and Agent Sitwell stumbled in, his usual slick smile long gone, replaced by a face contorted with extreme horror. His glasses were crooked on the bridge of his nose, and he was breathing heavily as if he had just finished a marathon.
"Just now... in the hallway, I saw... I saw a man walk out of... your shadow!"
Pierce stood with his back to him in front of the massive floor-to-ceiling window, like a statue, overlooking the city lights of Washington submerged in the night. He did not turn around, his voice as calm and ripple-free as the cold night outside, yet even colder.
"You saw wrong, Sitwell."
"No, Officer, I couldn't possibly have seen wrong! He was wearing a very old-fashioned suit and holding a cane, he..."
"I said," Pierce slowly turned around, his cloudy eyes churning with a look Sitwell had never seen before.
"You saw wrong. Now, return to your post. Tonight, you saw nothing, understand?"
That gaze was like an ice pick, instantly piercing Sitwell's nerves. He straightened his body uncontrollably, and cold sweat soaked the back of his shirt in just a few seconds.
"Yes... yes, Officer."
He practically scrambled out of the office, as if invisible Demons were chasing him from behind.
The door closed, and Pierce turned his gaze back to the boundless Darkness outside the window.
He knew, of course, that Sitwell hadn't seen wrong.
Just a few minutes ago, the being calling himself Mephisto had appeared out of thin air in a way that challenged human cognition. Then, before Pierce could react, he grabbed his soul and dragged him into a grand palace filled with the smell of sulfur.
***
Pierce followed behind the mysterious old gentleman, his palms covered in sticky cold sweat.
As a Top Council Member of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the actual controller of HYDRA, he was long accustomed to the feeling of holding everything firmly in his hands. But now, he was being led toward a completely unknown fate by a non-human entity.
This feeling of total loss of control caused his heart to throb with spasms of pain.
But when he thought of the giant snake 'hydra' he had ordered to attack his own headquarters under the gaze of the entire World, when he thought of Lin Huai's mocking face, and when he thought of the President's hysterical screaming on the phone... his fear was quickly swallowed by a more intense sense of humiliation and rage.
He needed power, at any cost.
The two stopped before a massive Door that was ornate to the point of being grotesque. Without Mephisto even reaching out, the Door swung inward silently, revealing a vast, luxurious banquet hall behind it that exuded an eerie aesthetic at every turn.
"Welcome to my manor, Secretary Pierce. I am truly delighted to see you safe and sound."
Mephisto's voice was gentle and elegant, perfectly polite, but the temperature of the entire space seemed to drop several degrees because of it.
Pierce forced down the unease churning in his heart and spoke in as steady a voice as possible: "What exactly are you? What do you want?"
"Me?" Mephisto bowed slightly with grace, his movements like an opera singer taking a curtain call, "I am a businessman. A businessman who specializes in providing solutions for great men like yourself who find themselves in a predicament."
He lightly tapped the mirror-smooth floor with the tip of his cane.
"You long to regain control of everything, you long to make those 'heroes' who dared to humiliate you pay a price in blood, and you long to complete your 'great' Insight Project. Am I correct?"
Pierce's pupils constricted suddenly; this Monster knew his thoughts through and through.
"I can help you." Mephisto's mouth split into an exaggerated arc, revealing a row of fine, sharp teeth like a shark's. "I have a Hell Legion sufficient to sweep away all obstacles on your path. They will start with that burning skeleton riding a motorcycle... I really hate the smell on him, it's too... holy."
"What is the price?" Pierce was no fool to be easily bewitched; he knew that power beyond imagination could never be obtained for nothing.
"It's very simple." Mephisto's smile became increasingly playful. "Isn't your Insight Project preparing to 'purge' twenty million targets globally who pose a potential threat to HYDRA?"
"I want their souls."
Pierce was struck as if by lightning, his whole body jolting.
"Souls?"
"Don't look at me with that gaze, my dear Mr. Secretary." Mephisto paced unhurriedly. "To you, they are nothing more than strings of data in a database that need to be deleted. But to me, those are twenty million portions of unparalleled, delicious desserts. Isn't this a perfect trade? You get the new World you desire, and I get my dinner."
Pierce's brain whirred at an unprecedented speed, frantically weighing the pros and cons.
Selling the souls of twenty million people to a Demon? This sounded a hundred times more insane than hydra itself.
However, when the humiliating image of the giant snake 'HYDRA' frantically attacking the Triskelion Headquarters under the live cameras of the entire World resurfaced in his mind, all the hesitation and struggle in his heart instantly turned to dust.
The dignity and control he had lost, he had to take back with his own hands.
"Fine," Pierce squeezed the word out from between his teeth.
"Deal." The smile on Mephisto's face became brilliantly radiant. "A wise choice."
An ancient scroll, tanned from the dried skin of some unknown creature, unfurled out of thin air before him. A quill pen polished from bleached bone appeared out of nowhere and was handed to Pierce.
"Sign your name."
Pierce took the pen, and the sharp tip pricked his fingertip. A drop of dark red blood fell onto the scroll, making a slight sizzling sound and igniting a small cluster of pitch-black Fire, which finally wriggled and converged into his scrawled and twisted signature under his gaze.
The contract was established.
A nauseating stench of sulfur and burning instantly filled the space. Pierce felt a part of his body being stripped away forever, leaving behind an unfillable void.
"Very good." Mephisto watched with satisfaction as the scroll turned into a wisp of black smoke and entered his body. With a wave of his hand, an ancient piece of parchment floated into Pierce's hand. "This is the Summoning Contract. With it, you can summon my Gargoyle Legion, and they will flatten everything for you."
Before his voice had even faded, Mephisto's figure slowly merged into the surrounding shadows and disappeared without a trace.
Pierce was left alone, standing in the empty, deathly silent palace, his face a mix of manic excitement and bone-chilling cold... Washington, an unmarked safehouse.
The raindrops outside tirelessly beat against the glass, making a monotonous and dull sound.
No lights were on in the room; only the faint glimmer of distant streetlights through the gaps in the curtains barely outlined two silent figures.
James Barnes, once the fearsome Winter Soldier, was curled up in the darkest corner of the room.
He was awake. With the help of Lin Huai and Steve, he had broken free from that seventy-year nightmare woven from being frozen and brainwashed.
But being awake was sometimes more painful than the nightmare itself.
He kept his head low, staring at his arm which glinted with a cold metallic light in the gloom, his gaze like he was looking at a venomous snake that could strike at any moment.
"Don't touch me."
When Steve approached cautiously, holding a glass of hot milk, a raspy low growl escaped his throat, and his body involuntarily shrank back.
Steve's footsteps stopped. He gently placed the glass on the floor and then sat down against the wall a few steps away.
"Bucky, it's me."
"I know." Bucky's voice was filled with suppressed pain. "So... stay away from me. I... I'll hurt you."
"You won't." Steve's tone was incredibly firm.
Bucky looked up abruptly, his blue eyes that were once as clear as the Brooklyn sky now bloodshot and filled with bottomless self-loathing.
"How could I not?" He let out a nearly broken roar, "I remember! Steve, I damn well remember everything!"
"Those missions, those people... I killed their families, their friends right in front of them... I even... I killed Howard Stark and his wife, the people who helped both of us countless times!"
"This hand!" He suddenly raised his metal arm and slammed a fist into the adjacent wall with a heavy thud, causing the plaster to flake off.
"This hand is stained with blood that can never be washed clean! I'm just a Monster! A tool raised by HYDRA that only knows how to kill!"
Steve just watched him vent, his eyes full of sorrow.
"That wasn't you," he said softly. "That was a program they forced into you; they took away your right to choose."
"But I was the one who did the killing!" Bucky roared, tears falling uncontrollably. "Every time, I watched myself pull the trigger with full awareness! I just... I just couldn't control it!"
"But you can now."
Steve's voice wasn't loud, but it was like a thunderclap that brought Bucky's roaring to a sudden halt.
"You can control it now, Bucky. You are resisting it, and that is what matters most."
Steve pulled a photo from his pocket, one he had found in the files Fury gave him. The photo had yellowed, showing Sergeant Barnes during World War II, shielding a wounded comrade with his own body during a breakout, while his own arm was dripping with blood.
"Do you remember him? You saved him, you saved many people. You even saved me, more than once."
Bucky looked at the photo, his gaze dazed and his lips trembling slightly.
"That was... that was before I fell off the train." He whispered, his voice full of despair, "That person died a long time ago."
"He didn't die." Steve stood up, walked to Bucky step by step, and then crouched down, forcing himself to look directly into his eyes.
"He's still alive. He lives right here, in front of me. He's just been locked in the Darkness for too long and forgot who he really is."
Steve remembered what the consultant had said to him and Bucky before the mission, about that mysterious [Judgement] tarot card.
"The consultant once told me that everyone has their own meaning for existing. He said you are Judgement, representing inner awakening and reflection on life. He said that when you hear the call and evaluate the past, you can obtain absolution and liberation, welcoming the rebirth of the soul."
Steve's voice was gentle and firm: "Bucky, you have already heard my call. We cannot change the past, those sins... perhaps we can never truly repay them. But we can decide what to do in the future."
"You can choose to continue treating yourself as a killing tool and rot in remorse in this room. Or, you can choose to pick up your weapon again to protect others and make amends for what you can."
Steve reached out and covered Bucky's cold metal palm with his own warm palm.
"I won't give up on you."
"I'm with you 'til the end of the line."
Bucky jolted violently and looked up abruptly.
That oath, which he thought had been completely buried by ice, electric shocks, and endless Darkness, echoed clearly in his ears once again after seventy years.
He looked into Steve's eyes, which had never changed and were filled with trust and determination.
At this moment, Bucky finally completely broke down. He covered his face tightly with his good hand, turning seventy years of suppressed pain, grievance, and confusion into silent tears that surged from between his fingers, no longer able to be restrained.
Steve didn't speak again, just stayed with him quietly, holding his hand without ever letting go.
The rain outside seemed to finally let up a bit.
On these ruins of the mind, a broken soul finally touched a long-lost glimmer of light before the dawn arrived.