Steve Rogers's Arc

Chapter 3 of 3

After Zemo's fortress fell, Steve learned the enemy had a master above the Baron. Prisoners named him: the Red Skull. He had built a plane to carry a bomb across the ocean. Steve tracked him to a snowbound airfield. Logan came with him. So did the memory of the rifleman who had died holding a door. The Red Skull met them on the runway. His face was a red skull, bare bone and burning eyes above a black coat. He did not run. "You are the weak one they made strong," he said, calm as a man reading a report. "It does not matter. The strong take what they want." A snarl cut the air. Victor Creed dropped from the plane's ramp, teeth long, claws out. His torn Army uniform hung off him. "You," Logan said. Creed grinned at the men who had once worn his colors. He lunged at Logan, and the two beasts crashed into the snow, rolling, tearing. "Get the Skull!" Logan shouted. "Go!" Steve ran up the ramp. The plane's engines screamed. It lurched forward and lifted off the ice. Steve slammed the shield into the hull door and forced it shut behind him. He was inside now. There was no way off. The Red Skull turned from the controls. Steve threw the shield. It struck the Skull's chest and knocked him from the pilot seat. Steve was on him fast. He hit him twice. The Skull clawed at his throat and drove him back into a bank of instruments. They fought down the length of the cabin. Steve caught a fist meant to crush his windpipe. He drove the Red Skull against the bomb rack and pinned him there. "Kill me," the Skull said. "Another will take my place. I am the future." Steve looked past him. The bomb was armed. The plane pointed at open water and beyond it, home. He grabbed the controls and hauled them down. The nose dropped toward the white sea below. The Red Skull lunged one last time. Steve met him with the shield's edge and put him down hard. The Skull did not rise. The ice came up fast. Steve held the yoke and steered the plane away from the shipping lanes, toward the empty arctic. He thought of Logan in the snow. He thought of the front he had wanted so badly. The plane hit the ice at full speed. Metal tore. The hull split and the cold ocean poured in. Steve was thrown against the wall. Water climbed his chest, then his neck. It was colder than anything he had known. He did not fight it. The bomb was gone. The Skull was down. He had reached the war and ended this part of it. The water closed over him. It froze around his body and held him still. The plane sank into the dark, carrying Captain America down with it, sealed in ice where no one would find him.