Chapter 376: Avengers 1: Splitting (Part 1)

"Bucky?? How could you be here?!" Steve asked loudly with a frown. Suddenly, he reacted, then rolled on the spot, dodging Bucky who rushed to attack him. Peter flew up again and said in mid-air: "He is controlled! Captain, stay away from him!"

"Wake up! Bucky Barnes, you are not Hydra!" Steve swung his arm fiercely, throwing the shield in his hand. The round shield flew past Bucky's ear with a breaking sound, but it didn't hit, just flew past the tips of his hair.

Stark, who was flying in the southeast of the battlefield, saw this scene. He made a "snort" of mockery and then said to Steve: "Do you still remember what you told me before about how you deal with those Hydra agents? How come when it comes to your friend, you forgot all those words?"

Steve revealed a very complicated expression, but finally said: "Cooperate with me to subdue him, we'll talk about other things later."

Stark snorted coldly, and two missiles flew toward Bucky's figure. The warheads spiraled in the air, leaving thick smoke behind. Steve reached out his hand again and shouted: "No! Wait! Don't use missiles! He... you will kill him like this!"

"He is a criminal, and he is Hydra. Look at his actions now, he wants to kill you, and all of us! Steve, you don't want me to go all out to deal with him, are you waiting to watch us be killed by him?" Stark said coldly.

"No, of course I don't..." Steve's arm began to tremble somewhat. He revealed a painful expression. Everything was too sudden for him.

Although he had learned from the computer in the Hydra base that Bucky had become a Hydra experiment, the kind of experiment he imagined in his mind was a victim who had suffered all kinds of torture, was incomparably weak, and was sealed up, not this strong, dancing with a dagger, and even able to jump up and hit him, a Hydra killer.

His reason told him that Stark was right. If he went soft at this time, everyone might be in danger.

Don't forget, there were two other suspected Hydra members on the field now. Once the three of them joined forces, the Avengers would have to spend a lot of effort to deal with them. If they didn't go all out, something might really happen.

Steve, who learned about this on the battlefield, didn't have much time to think. His Adam's apple trembled violently, bringing his whole upper body to tremble somewhat. He seemed to be still trying to persuade Bucky.

Seeing Steve's attitude, Stark's nameless fire rose. He used lethal weapons to attack Bucky on the ground with all his might. Smoke and the fire of explosions rose at the same time.

【Against the Gods】

Stark gave up tactics and was just venting his anger. Even without a machine army, just relying on the steel suit that Stark had updated many times, after firing at full power, he could still suppress everyone on the field. Even Strange had to use dodging magic to avoid Stark's bombardment, unable to shake him head-on.

Steve waved his arms in the air a few times, and the dust made him cough. Just when the smoke in front of him dissipated, he saw a huge crater appear in front of him. Bucky was running away on the edge of the crater to dodge, but was still caught up by a missile. Steve shouted: "No!!"

"No? You say 'no' to the death of Hydra, which you have spent your whole life fighting against?!!" Stark's voice became colder and colder. His emotions began to become unstable, and the human part of his voice began to become weaker and weaker, becoming more and more like a cold mechanical sound.

Peter stood on the side and shouted: "Stop arguing! We should join forces. The current situation is not something that arguing can solve!"

But no one paid attention to him at all. Matt and the mutants had been driven out of the center of the battlefield by Stark's bombing zone. Now, only Stark, Steve, Strange, Grant, Peter, and Bucky, who were relatively strong, remained on the battlefield.

Bucky, who was blown away by the missile, fell heavily to the ground. The intense pain seemed to make him recover a moment of sanity. He lay on the ground and coughed twice, spitting out blood.

Seeing Bucky's actions, the scenes that had appeared countless times on the battlefield kept floating in Steve's mind. In the scorched black trenches full of smoke, he and Bucky were both covered in wounds, dripping with blood, looking at each other's gray-headed and dirt-faced appearance, reaching out their arms to bump fists, celebrating that they had survived another fierce battle.

His chest began to heave non-stop, his arms trembled somewhat uncontrollably, and his senses began to become more sensitive. The granular feeling of the details on the handle of the shield he held in his hand was transmitted from his fingertips to his brain. Too much information occupied his brain, making him unable to escape from the nightmare.

Behind the red and gold machine armor in mid-air, it emitted dazzling light against the sun, like a sun. Steve felt for the first time that standing in the position of being judged was such a sad and unacceptable thing.

Stark in the battle suit also shook his head. He was trying to calm his emotions, but every time he saw Bucky, he felt a burst of anger rising in his heart. Regardless, it was impossible for him to just let the enemy who killed his parents live peacefully.

Just when both were stunned, Bucky had already recovered. That moment of sobriety was not enough to let him get rid of the control of brainwashing. He decisively seized the opportunity, a vigorous sprint, and rushed straight toward Steve.

The blade of the dagger flickered with cold light, and when the intense breaking sound rang out, the pain Steve expected didn't come. Instead, a painful scream rang in his ear: "Uh!!!"

Spider-Man's scream was like a thunderbolt, ringing in Stark and Steve's ears. Both widened their eyes, looking at Peter who was hit by the dagger in Bucky's hand.

That huge dagger pierced directly into his left shoulder, almost cutting off his left arm. The red mucus was trying hard to fill his body, but Peter arched his body like a boiled shrimp and screamed, covering his shoulder with his right hand, the veins on his hand bulging.

Steve looked straight at Peter who stood in front of him, blocking the attack from Bucky for him. Stark's roar came from mid-air: "Peter！！！！"

But he was flying in mid-air, very far from the ground, and Bucky, who missed a hit, directly turned his target to Peter. His dagger stained with blood had already approached Peter's neck, but Peter seemed unable to resist because of the pain.

Just at the moment Bucky's dagger was raised high, a figure roared and rushed over from the side, hugged his waist, knocked him to the ground, and the shield with the star-spangled banner pattern "banged" and smashed onto Bucky's neck. Bucky let out a scream and then passed out.

Steve panted heavily. Those messy pieces of information were finally cleared out of his brain by him. He stood up very tiredly and walked toward Peter. Before he could get close to Peter, Stark, who flew over, stopped him. The pitch-black muzzle was aimed at Steve. Stark said coldly: "Back off, stay away from him, you Hydra accomplice!"

"If it weren't for you shielding this damn Hydra killer, how could Peter be injured? You almost killed him!" Stark said angrily.

"I am not, I didn't expect..." When that heavy smell of blood reached Steve's nose, he couldn't say a word anymore. He slowly knelt down halfway, knocking the shield in his hand into the stone pile on the rubble beach.

He closed his eyes tightly. Countless nightmares from the past began to churn in his brain. He felt that the air around him was getting thinner and thinner, seemingly unable to supply his lungs to work.

Peter's falling figure overlapped with the comrades who had sacrificed before, and the person wielding the butcher's knife changed from the evil Hydra to his former good friend Bucky. Reality and illusion intertwined, and Steve could no longer distinguish all this.

"Always like this..." The voice sounded like it was squeezed out of his throat: "Every time it's like this, I couldn't save them, and they died in front of me... It's always like this, it will never have an end..."

Stark saw Steve's eyes were red. He took two deep breaths and finally calmed down. Looking around, seeing the rubble beach that had been bombed into pits by himself, he manipulated the machine armor to land slowly, looking at Steve from afar, his voice like the wind that hadn't changed for years on the rubble beach.

"... Captain America, do you know? The most ridiculous thing is that that group of generals who only wanted to make money in the war told you that you could save the world, you could save anyone..."

"They didn't even believe it themselves, but you believed it."

Looking at this strong man kneeling halfway on the ground, the shield in his hand was still brightly colored and shiny, seemingly never forgotten in these 70 years. 【37

Yet this old man, who had been asleep for 70 years, seemed forever trapped in that era of war, forever bound by the greatest and most ridiculous lie woven for him by a group of egoists.

What Stark found unbelievable was that, at this moment, he actually felt a sense of empathy and pity, because he too had once been kidnapped by those people shouting slogans of justice. But the only difference between him and Captain America was that he had room to resist; he had Pepper and Obadiah, but Steve had nothing.

He had only a heart full of passion, plunging headlong into this dark vortex whose true face he had never seen, becoming the dust on the edge of the ruts left behind as the wheels of history rolled forward, like a madman refusing to leave the stage, practicing a set of justice that was no longer recognized by others.

At this very moment, Stark suddenly understood why Steve cared so much about his last comrade-in-arms. Perhaps he always had to find something to prove that everything he pursued was not void, always hoping that his and that generation's sacrifices had another witness, rather than being a dream he had fabricated in his own mind.

He hoped someone else would tell him that they had once succeeded. Even if the beginning of this story was nothing but a hollow lie, countless people had paid with their lives for it, and it should not be forgotten just like that, swept into the pile of historical stories.

Stark flew to Peter's side to treat his wounds. When Peter's breathing stabilized, Stark did not fly up again, but instead walked to the seaside, stepping heavily and unevenly on the stones of the barren beach.

Noon had passed, the intense light began to fade, and the lighthouse in the distance emitted a heavy, low moan.

Stark thought that people who had walked out of that era all carried the same trait, as if they never felt tired of repeating their stories and legends ten thousand times; Howard was the same.

Perhaps they just didn't want the people and events in their stories to be forgotten, just as they didn't want themselves to be forgotten.

A noise came from behind. Stark turned his head and saw Steve standing up unsteadily, shaking his head continuously, as if he had not yet broken free from the hallucinations. Through hazy eyes, he looked at Stark's brightly colored armor, his expression still somewhat dazed.

"I'm sorry..." Steve shook his head again, opened his eyes, and said.

"You should go over and say that to him." Stark turned to look at Peter, who was lying on the ground with his back to him, blood soaking half of his suit.

"I'm saying it to you, too." Steve lowered his head and said, "As a team leader, I made a wrong tactical judgment and didn't subdue him at the first opportunity; otherwise, none of this would have happened..."

"It's good that you know." Stark turned back, looking at his gauntlet, the muzzle of which was charred from overheating.

He slowly curled his fingers and clenched them into a fist, saying to himself in his heart: "Those who blame the weapon are pathetic enough; those who defend the weapon are even more pathetic."