Cap was able to keep a high base, making it extremely difficult for Winter Soldier to flip them around.  To slow him down some more Cap reared back and dropped a few punches and elbows.  Each one though only seeming to make the enemy soldier more vicious in his movements.  It really felt like he might be able to turn things around on her.  Something that wouldn’t have led to anything good, even with Black Widow’s help.

As Winter Soldier got space he started digging his knees into Cap’s stomach to get her off of him.  Cap tried to hang on, reaching out and grabbing the first thing her hand could, which happened to be his tactical mask.  Her fingers digging into the top of it Captain America finally got shoved off of the Winter Soldier, his tactical mask flying off as Cap had immediately let go.  

Cap quickly got back to her feet, holding a hand out to Widow to wait before leaping in.  Cap figured at this point she could easily get her shield, brain this soldier guy with it.  Then hopefully knock him out long enough to get cuffs on him.  Captain America pulled her shield off of its magnetic base on her right wrist.  Holding the edge in her left hand before she tossed it up in the air gently and catching its handle in the middle.  She started to turn back towards the Winter Soldier, not even thinking about the mask being gone, and seeing what he looked like.

Cap’s eyes locked onto Winter Soldier’s face.

She stopped.

Suddenly Cap felt like she lost all her breath, all the pain in her body was gone, her complexion turned almost ghost like in an instant.  She could only stand there again, motionless, but it wasn’t hesitation this time.  It was realization, it was something nothing in her life could’ve prepared her for.  

The scene played in her head again suddenly.  Bucky Barnes, one of the few people who ever believed in her, gave her a chance when no one else would even think too.  Clinging to the edge of the blown out side of the train.  Begging for help as Steph herself was fighting off a group of Nazis.  In a blink of an eye he was gone, his body flying away having lost his grip.  Slamming into jagged rocks against the cliff side as it quickly vanished from view.  Stephanie for the rest of that mission, until the fateful dive into the frozen waters, had never felt so alone in her life.

She lost Bucky was gone forever.

Bucky, was standing right in front of her.

Bucky... was the Winter Soldier.

Somehow though Bucky’s livlihood had been completely ripped from him.  His eyes, already hauntingly dead, now only made looking at him all the more jarring.  His complexion so cold, Bucky Barnes might as well be dead in front of her.

Black Widow was going to wait on Cap’s silent order but even she couldn’t help but be somewhat stunned by the revelation.  Captain America though?  She was simply stunned, already feeling tears well up in her eyes as the urge to hug him quickly had to be squashed with the realization that Bucky was now some kind of mindless killing machine.  Having already taken so many lives the day before, another pile to add to the mountain he had already claimed.

Finally all Captain America, all Stephanie Rogers, could say.  Which meekly slipped out of her lips, confused, devastated, hurt, and struggling to even understand anything.  Was simply “...B-Bucky?”