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[b]Washington D.C.
March 26th, 2005
17:12pm[/b]

Horns blared as Bucky’s bike came to a halt. Downtown Washington was gridlocked with traffic. On the horizon Bucky could see a row of patrol cars and a cordon around which a crowd of people were assembled. He took a glance at the brown leather-strapped watch around his wrist and sighed before pulling parking up and dismounting. He made his way towards the crowd and listened in for a while as they peppered the officers with questions. Each one was either batted away or ignored outright. Eventually Bucky turned to the elderly black man in the flat cap beside him and gestured towards the police cordon.

“What’s going on here?”

“One of those costumed freaks is holed up in a restaurant with a bunch of folks down there,” the man muttered with a shake of his head. “The police have cordoned off the entire block from the looks of things. What can you do, eh? As if traffic in this town isn’t bad enough already.”

Barnes grimaced. He’d promised Hill before he left that he wouldn’t do anything to bring attention to himself but the police looked far from capable of handling this situation. His thoughts drifted back to the woman at the museum and the “sadness” she had seen in his eyes. This was Bucky’s life now, the duty and the shield, and there was nothing else. What good was he if he walked away from situations like these? What would Steve have thought of him if he had done? He gritted his teeth as he thought about the torrent of abuse Maria Hill would hurl in his direction afterwards and headed back to his bike to get his uniform.

It was bitter cold as he slipped down an alleyway to pull on his uniform but once it was on Bucky could barely feel the cold at all. He took a couple of breaths to calm himself as he prepared to walk out in public in his uniform for the first time and then strode out. At first there was nothing. People walked past him with bemused looks until he drew close to the crowd near the police cordon. The old man Bucky had spoken to looked round first and took a brief glance at him before turning back to the cordon. He froze in place as what he’d seen began to sink in and he slowly looked back. His eyes widened as if he’d seen a ghost and he reached for those nearest him. One by one they turned and the crowd began murmuring.

Bucky stepped towards them and the crowd parted to let him walk through. The bemused Bucky had been met with at first had turned into stunned silence. He lifted up the police tape and slid underneath and began to approach the restaurant when a voice called out from behind him.

“Hey!” A police officer stood with his hand pressed against his radio as he readied to call for backup. “You can’t go in there.”

Suddenly his eyes widened as Bucky turned to face him and the sun deflected off of the red, white, and blue of Bucky’s uniform. The police officer’s hand slid from his radio and he gulped loudly and nodded in Bucky’s direction. With a small smile, Barnes turned back towards the restaurant and walked towards it without breaking stride. A bell clanged behind him as he stepped inside and he spotted a young beaten woman in the corner tied up with rope. She squealed with fear as Bucky locked eyes with her and he gestured to her to calm down.

Barnes took a glance around the corner into the restaurant and mumbled an expletive under his breath at the bodies dotted around the room. Many sat at tables with their ribcages torn open, a gaping hole where their hearts had once been, with lifeless eyes rolled back into their heads. Others lay on the ground with large portions of their skin missing. The floor was caked in blood and utensils were scattered across the floor atop broken glass. At some of the tables the living sat acting out some bloodless pantomime. They pretended to drink from empty glasses, scraped their knives and forks against empty plates, and mopped at their mouths with napkins.

Bucky glanced around the room for the “costumed freak” the man had spoken about earlier and found nothing of note. Finally in the corner of his eye he sensed movement as an elderly man stood up from one of the tables. His hair was a blonde faded by age and his face was wrinkled and aged. He wore a long-sleeved baby blue shirt and dark blue trousers. With a walking stick in hand he hobbled towards Bucky and shot him a fragile smile that wavered as if maintaining it took all of the man’s effort. 

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Finally the man moved to speak. “What do we have here? Please take a seat. I do so [i]love[/i] having company for dinner.”

Between the man’s teeth was human flesh but that was by no means the most shocking part. He’d been slow to notice it at first but now the man stood directly in front of him he realised he’d seen those eyes somewhere before. That voice too. Both had aged some, the voice more raspy and the eyes heavier, but there was no mistaking it. Stood before him was a man that was supposed to be dead. A man that Bucky Barnes had once considered a brother, a mentor, and a friend.

It was Steve Rogers.