tired of having zero leads on Karli Morgenthau. Operating within the limits of the law had proven to be fruitless during the entirety of the mission. He was no closer to catching the Flag Smashers than he had been at the start. That was until Lamar Hoskins told him a prison break had been reported. Baron Zemo had escaped from the Berlin Correctional Facility. Bucky Barnes and Sam Wilson happened to be there that same day. Coincidence? John Walker thought not.

"You said that Sam and Bucky were here on the same day this happened?" Walker asked the head guard who had been showing American's new heroes the security footage.

"Correct," the man confirmed. "You don't think they had anything to do with him getting out?"

"Thank you," John called back to the guard, dismissing him with a wave of his hand. He had already started down the corridor.

Hoskins walked in sync with his partner, "What?" The man chuckled before continuing, "So, you seriously think Sam and Bucky would've broken a guy like Zemo out of prison?"

"That's exactly what I think they did," Walker confirmed with absolute certainty. "They were just as desperate for leads like we were."

Lemar shook his head in disbelief, "Come on, man. You know, damn well, we can't accuse 'em of something like that without evidence."

"Which is why you and I are just gonna run with this one for a minute."

Lemar scoffed, "Okay, so I take it what happens next isn't a strictly on-the-books type thing, is it Cap?"

"Lemar, if we get the job done, you really think they're gonna sweat us on the how?" He smirked with pleasure, "Besides, we have enough evidence. You saw the security footage. Iris Reign was seen leaving with Baron Zemo, clear as day."

"That's still not enough evidence to pin Bucky and Sam," Lemar argued.

"Trust me on this. She's the key. We pin her, we pin them."

steadily through the air, the night sky a canvas of stars beyond the windows. The Winter Soldier occupied the couch while the Falcon was slumped in one of the single seats on the jet. Both men were asleep. After Zemo announced to Oeznik that a change of course was being made, exhaustion had set in.

Iris' heard the hum of a motor as she slowly regained consciousness. Her mind felt shrouded, almost as if a haze of fog had settled over the ripples of her brain. She was able to form thoughts but her mind was slow in doing so. The neurons were firing but the communication between them was lagging.

She forced her eyes open and blinked harshly in an attempt to make them focus. In the corner, spotlighted by a dim light, sat the man she hadn't been able to save. He turned the page of the book he was reading with so much animation that he almost seemed alive. No dead person she had ever encountered moved in such a way.

The universe was playing a cruel joke on her. It was torturing her for the innocent lives she stole under Oblivion's instruction.

"I'm sorry I couldn't save you," she rasped, her throat aching from being used. "Have you come to haunt me, Helmut?"

He tore his eyes from the words on the page to the woman lying on the bed. In an instant, the book was snapped shut and long forgotten on the chair. He lowered himself to her eye level, his knees meeting the floor.

He moved with so much purpose and vigor that he almost seemed alive... almost. He should have been alive. She had been so close to saving him. So close.

"I'm so sorry," she mumbled, a single tear slipping down her cheek. "I'm sorry I couldn't save you."

The man reached out to touch her face, his thumb gently caressing her cheek, "Vöglein," he breathed shakily, his voice threatening to betray the desperation he had been forcing to stay at bay. He hadn't known when or if she would wake up. While Sam had previously confirmed her heartbeat was steady, none of the men understood her powers or the effects they had on her body.

His touch was warm on her face. She raised her trembling hand to meet his, her fingers intertwining with his.

He felt real. So real.

He felt alive. So alive.

"I am the harbinger of death but on the rare occasion, I have the ability to bring life too. I can raise the dead, breathe new life into their rotting lungs. It's the dying breath of the man whose life I stole," she was crying now, mourning her loss, grieving the soul before her. "Taking a life has always been so much easier than giving one. My magic demands that I have to trade a life for a life. I stole so many lives for you," she confessed, eyes glossed over with her insistent tears. "And I just couldn't reach you in time."

"Stop speaking such nonsense," he shook his head, grip on her hand tightening. "I'm very much alive. My lungs aren't rotted, not yet. They are still breathing the very same air as you. How lucky I am to be doing so. I feared you wouldn't wake up."

Iris reeled back from him, harshly snatching her hand from his grasp. She sat up now, eyes contempt with anger and pain. This truly was a cruel trick. Baron Helmut Zemo was dead. He had been turned to ash in Madripoor, his burnt corpse left to be found by bounty hunters. The figure before her was merely his soul being forced to taunt her or a complex illusion her grieving mind conjured.

"Enough!" She hissed, springing from the bed she had awoken on. She stood on the opposite side with her muscles flexing. The woman was on edge, her head spinning. "For as long as there is an unknown between life and death, you can't hurt me!"

His dark eyebrows furrowed, confusion written plainly on his features. He put his hands up in a sign of submission, a sign that he meant her no harm. He didn't know how many times the dead had followed her home nor how many times they had haunted her from beyond the grave. He only knew she was trying to make him disappear as she had made the others that tormented her.

The door opened and behind it stood Sam and Bucky: two people she knew with certainty to be alive. Their faces mirrored Zemo's, both having knitted brows and puzzled stares.

"Doll, you wanna tell me what's wrong?" Bucky questioned, hesitant to step towards her and embrace her heaving body.

"I couldn't save him and the universe it torturing me for it," she choked back more tears that threatened to slip from her eyes and down her cheeks. "He's going to haunt me to the grave."

"Is she seeing something we're not?" Sam uttered to Bucky, not knowing what to do. He had dealt with PTSD for the majority of his adulthood but the PTSD his friend was experience was something he couldn't fathom. The dead didn't follow him and if they did, he could see or hear them.

Bucky, having a deeper understanding of his best friend's ailments and powers, connected the dots before his counterpart. "Iris," he spoke softly, not wishing to startle her anymore. "He's alive. He escaped before the explosion."

Iris' heart stilled as she stared at him from across the room. The world around her fell away and all that was left was him. Perhaps that is how she would die one day, oblivious to everything around her except for him. She motionlessly watched him get to his feet and cautiously approach her. His right hand rested on her jaw and his left found her own hand, intertwining their fingers once more.

Wordlessly, his lips captured hers, igniting a flame inside her body. As a match lights a candle and a spark catalyzes an explosion, life enveloped her. The callus arms of death that had been holding her since she was a mere babe were ripped away and replaced by the much more tender hands of life.

Just as they had in Madripoor, his lips tasted of eternal life. And once again, had she been taken from Earth-616 at that moment, she had deemed it a glorious way to die.

Once more she was reminded as to why she had chosen to fight for this lifetime. She had chosen to fight for .

"Buck, I think we missed something."

"No shit."

through Riga to reach Zemo's safehouse was mostly quiet with the sounds of the city acting as background noise. The three Avengers used the time to take in the foreign city and memorize as much as possible. They had no idea what this portion of the mission would bring as they were closer to the Flag Smashers than ever before. As they were on the terrorist group's home turf, the team was already at a disadvantage.

It was a sharp comparison to both the slums and wealthy areas of Madripoor. Iris found the city ethereal, history built into the very foundation of it. The buildings they passed were built in an Art Nouveau style with once expensive stone being their foundation and the city line full of curving lines of sloped roofs. She could understand why Helmut would choose to have a home in such a place.

"I heard what became of Sokovia," the Sokovian stated, Latvia seemingly reminding him of his country that once was "Cannibalized by its neighbors before the land was cleared of rubble, erased from the map."

The knowledge that refugees were hunkering down in Latvian refugee camps because they had been displaced from their home countries hit a nerve for him. Sokovians had no time to take refuge as the world ate country whole, rubble and all.

"I don't suppose either of you bothered visiting the memorial?" He voiced, turning his head to glance at Bucky then Sam. Their silence answered his question. "Of course not. Why would you?"

"We are here." He dropped the topic once he stopped in front of their destination: a set of stairs leading to intricately designed iron cast doors.

The group hadn't stood before the doors for more than a second when Barnes declared he was going to go on a walk. This left the woman suspicious but she said nothing, only eyed him.

"You good?" Wilson questioned, genuine concern in his tone.

"Yeah. I'll see you guys in a bit." He ignored the woman's skeptical gaze and turned on his heel to start back the way they came. He was quite aware that she had known him long enough to understand the way his brain worked just as he understood hers. He knew she was suspicious and would most likely catch on eventually. For now, he would stop her from discovering the truth for as long as possible.

If Iris knew the truth, it would break her. If Iris knew the truth, she would choose death.

Sam grabbed ahold of the woman's arm after giving the man one last glance. He led her up the steps, following closely behind Zemo. "If bionic boy says he's okay, he is," Sam tried to reassure her.

"We both know that isn't true. Despite being part robot, bionic boy has a lot of pint up feelings," she retorted.

While Sam, Iris, and Zemo settled into the safehouse, Bucky followed the beeping that he had picked up on while walking through Latvia. The others hadn't noticed it but it was a sound he was well acquainted with after his extensive stay in Wakanda.

In the stone pathed alley between two old yellow buildings, Barnes finally found her. Before him stood Ayo, the woman who had helped him rid himself of the Winter Soldier. While she was his friend, Iris was his family.

"I was wondering when you were gonna show up," he spoke first.

Her response was in Wakandan. After spending so much time in the country, he had learned the Wakandan's native tongue. He perfectly understood what she said. Ayo was there for Zemo.

The woman stalked towards him like a predator approaching its prey. Her dark eyes hid the volatile storm that raged inside her mind. The Wakandan's had taken the White Wolf into their home and helped him become free. In return, he had released the man who killed their King. As far as she was concerned, the White Wolf was just as much an enemy as Baron Zemo.

"How could you free him?" She spat, the words almost poison on her tongue. She stood directly in front of Bucky now, where the white and brown stones of the alley met.

"We need his help," he told her truthfully.

She began to circle him, eyeing the man that had betrayed her, betrayed the Wakandans. "With time, will, and the resources, the Winter Soldier programming was removed from you like a rotten fur."

"And I'm grateful for that," he insisted, not daring to make eye contact as she stalked around him. "I'm grateful for everything you and Shuri have done-"

"Zemo murdered our King T'Chaka at the U.N." Ayo cut him off, his words cutting her deep, almost mocking her. "The man who chose us. Who chose me to protect him."

"I understand," the man replied, head hung remorsefully. He truly hadn't meant to cause harm to his allies, to those that had helped him.

"Very little, if anything, of our loss and our shame."

He finally looked at her and spoke in her native tongue, the tongue they had taught him.

He's a means to an end.

She nodded, processing his statement. They had a mutual understanding. "Eight hours, White Wolf. Then we come for him."

He dropped the two Kimoyo beads that had served as his guide back into their owner's hand. She tightly gripped the spherical technology, her gesture serving as the handshake to an agreement, a reminder that they would meet again. With that, they parted ways.

And so it begins... the end of their journey, the end of Sam's trust, the end of Bucky's friendship, the end of Zemo's freedom, the end of Iris' life.

For once Zemo was gone, she would surely choose death with a smile.

*✭˚･ﾟ✧*･ﾟ*✭˚･ﾟ✧*･ﾟ*