The abandoned HYDRA compound groaned around them.

Rust dripped from the ceiling pipes. Emergency lights flickered red across cracked concrete walls marked with the faded skull insignia of HYDRA. Dust coated abandoned weapons crates and shattered cryo chambers.

“Place gives me the creeps,” Sam Wilson muttered, stepping over a broken restraint chair.

“You and me both,” Tony Stark replied, helmet tucked beneath his arm. “Can’t believe these psychos actually lived like this.”

But Bucky Barnes had gone still.

His metal hand flexed at his side.

Something felt wrong.

Then—

FWOOOM.

A blazing fireball exploded from the rafters.

“MOVE!” Steve Rogers shouted.

The team scattered as flames detonated against the floor, molten heat cracking the concrete beneath their feet.

Slow.

Deliberate.

Clapping echoed from above.

“Well, well, well, well, well, well.” A woman’s voice curled through the darkness. “Lemme get a look at the menagerie.”

A figure dropped from the rafters in a burst of fire.

Boots slammed against the ground.

The flames around your body twisted like living things before fading just enough to reveal the black fireproof bodysuit HYDRA had designed for you. Glowing orange cracks pulsed along the material like magma beneath stone.

Your eyes landed on Sam first.

“You must be Sam.”

Then Tony.

“You must be Tony.”

Finally, you looked toward Steve, her expression sharpening.

“And the Winter Soldier’s best friend.” Your smile turned razor thin. “Well he took you with him, isn’t that swell?”

Bucky’s face drained of color.

“No…” he breathed. “It can’t be…”

Your gaze finally met his.

“Oh but it can be and it is.”

Fire exploded from your palm, twisting upward into the shape of a massive flaming scythe.

“I got a new style and a few new toys that’s gonna put an end to your happily ever after, once and for all.”

Tony immediately raised both hands. “Whoa, whoa, this gotta be a misunderstanding. In case you haven’t heard, we took down—”

“Yeah, yeah, I heard,” You snapped.

The flames around you surged violently.

“I’ve had your little message playing on loop.” Your voice cracked with fury. “I just love the part where the Winter Soldier spends the rest of his days in that nowhere town with a bunch of nobodies!”

Fire erupted from your fingertips.

You attack.

“That’s right, I heard the story over and over again.” You hurled a wave of flames toward them. “Gee it’s swell to finally meet his other friends!”

Steve barely got his shield up before you appeared in front of him.

BAM.

Your boot slammed into his chest hard enough to send him flying backward through a steel support beam.

“What did he say about me?!” You screamed. “What did he say?!”

Sam launched into the air, wings snapping open—

—but you swung the blazing scythe toward him, forcing him back as heat scorched the air around him.

“What did you do without me?!” You shouted. “What did you do?!”

Tony blasted upward.

“FRIDAY, little help—”

You caught him by the leg midair.

“What the—”

And slammed him into the ground hard enough to crater the concrete.

“Did you play games without me?” You hissed. “What did you play?!”

The compound shook with the force of your flames.

Then you turned back toward Bucky.

The fire around you dimmed slightly.

Not weaker.

More controlled.

More dangerous.

“Did you think all this time that I wouldn’t find out about you?” You asked quietly.

Bucky stared at you like he’d seen a ghost.

Because maybe he had.

He remembered the missions.

The blood.

The freezing chambers beside his own.

The girl they called Grim Reaper.

The only person in HYDRA who understood what they’d done to him.

And he left you there.

“Gee,” You whispered, flames beginning to coil around your entire body again, “it’s swell to finally meet his other friends.”