Bucky's electrocardiogram waveform on the monitor jumped violently three times before abruptly stabilizing.
Jessica's mental shield tightened sharply. Purple light poured from her right palm into the top of Bucky's head, blocking the final wave of memory fragments from reaching her consciousness barrier.
Her hand trembled.
She hadn't slept for three days and three nights. The mental output of the Soul-Soul Fruit was nearing its limit. But she didn't stop.
The final hour.
The metal light in the basement flickered twice. Bucky on the cot ceased all struggle. His metal left arm hung limply at the edge of the bed, the servo motors completely silent.
His breathing changed from rapid to long and even.
His heart rate dropped from 92 to 68.
Jessica stared at the numbers on the monitor, her lips cracked but not licked.
65.
62.
58.
Stable.
The system panel popped up in Ron's view from the main factory upstairs.
[Purification complete.] [The Hydra implant in Bucky Barnes' brain has been removed.]
[Sin Value reduced from 3700 to 280.]
[Willpower Strength restored: S-rank.]
[Purification byproduct: Hydra Brainwashing Technology - Complete Framework. Stored in the system database. Can be used to research anti-mind control defenses.] Ron stood up from the folding chair.
He held the heavy, dark gray fruit on the table in his hand. The spiral patterns on the fruit's surface slowly rotated under the light, emitting a faint gravitational fluctuation.
He walked towards the basement.
Each step of the metal staircase echoed dully under his feet.
Jessica leaned against the wall, her left leg numb and devoid of feeling. She heard footsteps and barely turned her head.
"It's over." That one word used her last strength.
Ron nodded.
On the cot.
Bucky Barnes' eyes opened.
Gray-blue irises. Clean, quiet, and bright.
Not the empty, lifeless look of the Winter Soldier. These were the eyes of a living person.
Bucky stared for five seconds at the swaying metal light bulb on the ceiling. Dust settled on it. The light was dim and yellowish.
He turned to look at his hands.
Conceptual Seastone handcuffs fastened to his wrists. An old scar ran across the skin of his right hand. His left hand was cold metal.
The red star emblem on his shoulder was glaringly obvious in the light.
Bucky's gaze shifted from the metal arms to Jessica standing by the bed.
"...Who are you?" Hoarse. Dry. Each syllable seemed to grind in his throat before being squeezed out.
But it was a person speaking.
Jessica straightened up, leaning against the wall, the rush of blood to her left leg making her grit her teeth.
"The person who guarded you for three days and three nights."
She rubbed her eyes, her nails scratching a red mark along the edge of her eye socket.
"You owe me three hundred cups of coffee." Bucky didn't reply. His attention shifted to Ron, who was descending the last step of the stairs.
Ron crouched beside the cot.
The two were less than half a meter apart.
"Bucky Barnes," Ron said.
"Do you know who you are?"
Bucky closed his eyes.
Not running away. Searching.
The scene surged up from the depths of darkness—no longer a fragmented nightmare, no longer the white noise of electric shocks and freezing temperatures.
Brooklyn.
A narrow alley. Three thugs, half a head taller than him, cornered a skinny, blond boy next to a trash can. The boy's nose was bleeding, but he clenched his fists and refused to crouch.
Bucky ran from the corner.
The first punch landed on the leader's chin.
The boy got up, wiping the blood from his nose with his sleeve.
"I can handle this."
"I know. But you don't have to do it alone."
Bucky opened his eyes.
"My name is Bucky." His Adam's apple bobbed.
"Steve—is he still alive?"
"Alive." Bucky's chest contracted sharply. Not from pain. It was as if something beneath seventy years of ice had shattered.
Ron reached out and unlocked the seastone handcuffs.
The metal buckles snapped open, landing with two crisp clicks on the iron frame of the cot.
"I've cleared the Hydra stuff from your head." Ron tossed the handcuffs to the floor.
"Those eleven Russian words—no one will use them to control you anymore." Bucky cracked his wrists. The bones in his right wrist popped. The servo motor in his metal left arm restarted, emitting a low hum—the crack in his shoulder joint was still there, but his fingers could clench into a fist.
Ron handed him what he held in his right hand.
A dark gray fruit. Spiral patterns. A faint gravitational fluctuation caused a visible distortion in the surrounding air.
"The Gravity Fruit. Eat it, and you can control gravity." Ron didn't add any embellishment.
"If you don't eat it, you can leave. Leave now. Go find Steve." Bucky stared at the fruit.
Ten seconds.
He didn't look at the fruit's patterns, nor did he assess its value.
He was looking at his metal left arm.
The Red Star. The Hydra symbol.
"They gave me this arm."
Bucky's voice was flat and even. But each word that came out of his throat carried a dull, tearing pain.
"They gave me the serum. They gave me reaction speed. They gave me seventy years of killing ability."
He looked up.
His grey-blue eyes met Ron's.
"Seventy years. I didn't choose anything." Bucky extended his right hand. Not the metal one.
It was his own hand.
He picked up the fruit.
"For the first time, I got to choose." He took a bite.
Nausea immediately rose from the bottom of his stomach. The taste in his mouth was indescribable—rotten rust mixed with a bitter, acrid juice. Bucky's features contorted, his throat tightened, and he nearly vomited the fruit.
He swallowed it down.
Dark gray energy exploded from his body.
Everything in the basement was simultaneously slammed to the ground.
The cot's iron legs buckled. The first-aid kit fell from its shelf and shattered on the concrete. Metal water pipes creaked and groaned. Jessica's legs suddenly bore three times her weight; she gritted her teeth, her left hand digging into the cracks in the wall, her knees bent but not giving way.
A muffled thud came from the stairwell.
Frank rushed down from the main building, landing on one knee on the third step under the force of three times gravity. The metal staircase dented where his knee had landed.
"What's going on—" Three seconds.
Gravity returned.
Frank stood up. Jessica released her fingers from the wall, two nails broken off.
Bucky sat on the cot.
He raised his right hand. Palm up.
The air distorted slightly above his palm.
A rusty screw flew from the shattered first-aid kit. It hovered ten centimeters above his hand. Slowly rotating.
Bucky's fingers closed an inch.
Twenty times gravity.
The screw stopped rotating. The metal squeaked under the invisible pressure. The threads were flattened. The shaft was crushed. In less than a second, the entire screw transformed into a thin, translucent sheet of metal foil.
The metal foil floated to the ground. Silently.
Bucky loosened his fist.
Frank stood at the top of the stairs, staring at the metal foil on the ground, speechless for a long time.
Ron took a white cloak from his system space.
The cloak unfolded. The back had the word "Justice" in black characters facing upwards.
He didn't say anything more. The cloak draped over Bucky's shoulders.
Bucky glanced down. The white cotton fabric pressed against his metal and fleshy shoulders, the weight the same.
Seventy years—he'd worn snow camouflage, Hydra's black tactical leather jacket, the vacuum insulation of a cryogenic chamber.
None of them were his own choice.
This one was.
[Bucky Barnes officially enlisted in the Navy. Rank: Navy Captain.] Jessica leaned against the wall, looking at the cloak on Bucky's shoulders, and rolled her eyes.
"Another one. This crappy factory is about to burst."
Frank came down the stairs, sizing up Bucky.
"Gravity?"
"Yeah."
"How heavy?"
"Twenty times." Frank was silent for three seconds.
"Last time I hit you, your metal arm almost broke my ribs." Frank touched his still-bandaged ribs. "A fist with twenty times the force of gravity—"
"I won't hit you." Bucky interrupted him.
Frank snorted and turned to go upstairs. He glanced back at the third step.
"Your first meal is on you."
Bucky didn't immediately follow.
He sat on the cot, his left hand—the metal one—turned over.
The red star insignia reflected quietly in the lamplight.
Bucky's right hand covered it. Dark gray gravitational fluctuations seeped from his right palm.
A faint cracking sound of metal.
He raised his right hand.
The paint on the red star crumbled into powder, peeling off the surface of the metal arm and scattering onto the gray sheets of the cot.
Revealing the silver-white metal beneath.
Clean. Unmarked.
Bucky stood up. The hem of his white cloak brushed against his calves.
He walked toward the stairs.
Ron stood at the top of the stairs, stepping aside.
Bucky paused as he passed him.
"Those seventeen Hydra safe houses." Ron tilted his head.
"I'm going myself."
Not a request. A notification.
Ron didn't answer. He pulled a communicator from his pocket and tossed it to Bucky.
Bucky caught it with one hand. His metal fingers gripped the communicator's casing tightly.
He climbed the stairs, step by step, into the light of the main factory building.
Jessica was the last to emerge from the basement. She staggered up the stairs and plopped down in a folding chair.
"Ron."
"Yeah."
"The first thing he asked when he woke up was if Steve was still alive." Jessica hissed as she tore a broken nail clipping from her finger.
"Are you sure he won't run back to Captain America?" Ron stood in front of the wall with the Navy flag. He didn't turn around.
"No."
"Why?"
"Because what he wants most right now isn't going back to the past." Ron turned and walked to the window. His Observation Haki extended southward. The spiritual energy fluctuation in Lower Manhattan was even stronger than yesterday. The frequency of the interference pulses had shortened to once every three seconds.
Parker Robbins' Abyss Cloak was accelerating its fusion with its host.
The window of opportunity was shrinking.
Ron withdrew his Observation Haki.
The communicator vibrated. Frank's channel.
"Ron. West 44th Street, Hell's Kitchen. Parker Robbins' men are tearing down a convenience store sign and replacing it with their own logo."
Frank's next sentence was hushed.
"The owner is a sixty-year-old Vietnamese woman. She's crying." Ron turned off the communicator.
He turned to look at Bucky, who had just reached the center of the main factory building.
Bucky was stretching his shoulder joints. The servo motors of his metal arm hummed. The dark gray gravitational fluctuations in his right palm flickered.
"Colonel." Bucky stopped.
"We'll have the welcome dinner another day." Ron picked up the white cloak from the back of the chair and slung it over his shoulder.
"Hell's Kitchen has guests to clean tonight." Bucky turned the channel knob on his communicator, Frank's breathing coming through the earpiece.
He walked towards the door.
The silver-white surface of his metal left arm, where the red star had disappeared, reflected the last rays of the setting sun over the East River outside.
Ron's Observation Haki silently swept over Bucky's back.
S-rank willpower. Stable. Clear-headed. No lingering Hydra fluctuations.
The day Bucky and Steve face each other again— Ron withdrew his Observation Haki and stepped out the door.
Outside the shipyard, three black SUVs were already parked on the side of the road. Jack sat in the driver's seat of the first car, his crosshair-like pupils fixed on the south in the rearview mirror.
Deep in the rearview mirror, the Manhattan skyline was being swallowed inch by inch by twilight.
Parker Robbins' territory lay in that darkness.