The room was still, the tension thick enough to cut with a knife. The words of the masked figure echoed in my ears, and for a brief moment, everything in me froze. Hydra's stranglehold on my life, the years of being their weapon, it all boiled down to this. And this man—this twisted figure standing in front of us—was the source of much of it.
"You," I repeated, my voice strained, but the words were laced with anger. "I should've known. It was never over, was it?"
The man chuckled again, low and guttural. "You're so predictable, Bucky Barnes. All of you are. So quick to forget the ones who truly shaped your destiny. I'm the one who gave you purpose. I'm the one who made you... unstoppable."
Steve stood beside me, his shield raised slightly, his jaw clenched. "Who the hell are you?" he demanded. There was no mistaking the distrust and tension in his voice.
The man removed his hood slowly, revealing a face that I thought I'd never see again—a face that haunted my past, that taunted me in my nightmares. His features were older, more weathered, but the sharpness in his eyes was unmistakable.
"Zola," I said, the word slipping out as a venomous whisper. "You... you were dead."
Arnim Zola, the man who had been the architect of my transformation. The one who had turned me into the Winter Soldier. The one who had shaped my past in ways I'd never fully understood, and the one who had ultimately disappeared from my life—until now.
"You're wrong," Zola said, his voice almost amused, like he enjoyed seeing me struggle with the memories. "I never died, Bucky. You and your so-called 'friends' never bothered to truly finish the job. You killed the body, but not the mind. Hydra's roots go deeper than you could ever have imagined."
I could feel the blood rushing in my ears. My fists clenched involuntarily. I had killed so many under Zola's orders—countless innocents, entire generations of people—and now he was standing here, alive. How many more had died because of him? How many had fallen because of the twisted things Hydra had made me do?
"You," I growled, stepping forward, "you were the one who did this to me. The one who turned me into your tool, your monster."
Zola smiled coldly, as if he had no real concern for the anger bubbling inside of me. "You were never a monster, Bucky. You were a perfect soldier. A blank canvas. I merely gave you the tools to survive in a world that was too weak to understand you. Too fragile to know how to deal with your true power."
I could feel Steve's presence beside me, his hand tightening on the grip of his shield. "You manipulated him," he said, voice low but full of disgust. "You turned a human being into a weapon."
Zola looked at Steve for a moment, almost amused by the Captain's righteous anger. "You think I was the only one to do that? You think you were any different, Steve Rogers?" Zola's voice grew darker. "You were a weapon, too. The serum did for you what it did for Bucky. It made you stronger, faster, better. But unlike Bucky, you were never forced to live with the consequences. You were never turned against your own people."
Steve flinched, but he didn't back down. "You're insane."
Zola laughed, the sound echoing in the room. "Am I? Or is it the world that's insane? You think you can stop me now? You think that after all these years of careful planning, you can simply walk in and destroy everything I've built?"
I stepped forward, my mind racing. Hydra's plans were more than just the base we'd found. They weren't just isolated cells. They had been working in the shadows, infiltrating S.H.I.E.L.D., making alliances in secret. Zola's influence had spread far and wide. He was the mastermind behind it all.
But there was one thing I needed to know. "What do you want, Zola?" I asked, my voice laced with venom. "What is it that you want from all of this?"
Zola's eyes glinted with a cold, calculating look. "What do I want? Oh, Bucky, it's simple. Control. Power. The world is full of weak-minded fools, pretending to hold the reins. But it's all a lie. It always has been. Hydra was always the true power. We just needed the right moment to rise again."
Steve's grip on his shield tightened as he took a step forward. "You think you're still in control? You think this plan of yours is going to work?"
Zola smirked. "Oh, it's already in motion. Hydra has grown far too powerful to stop now. You think you're the heroes of this story, don't you? You think that because you wear the label of 'Avenger,' you can take down the people who control the world from behind the scenes. But you're too late. Hydra has already infiltrated every level of government. Every intelligence agency. You're just playing catch-up, Captain."
Steve's face darkened. "I won't let you do this. We'll stop you."
Zola's smirk only grew wider. "You still don't understand, do you? This was never about stopping Hydra. You can kill me, you can destroy every Hydra base, but Hydra is more than a few men in the shadows. Hydra is a system. It's a way of thinking. And as long as there are people like you, like Bucky, who refuse to see the world for what it really is, Hydra will never truly die."
I was seething with anger, every word Zola spoke digging deeper into the rage I had carried for so long. I had spent so much time running, trying to escape my past, trying to outrun the monster he had made me into. And now, here he was, standing in front of me, taunting me with his knowledge of how deep Hydra's roots really went.
"You think you can change me?" I asked, my voice cold. "You think you can make me into the Winter Soldier again?"
Zola's eyes narrowed. "Oh, Bucky. You were always the perfect soldier. But the world's idea of a hero has always been a lie. You'll see that soon enough."
Steve's voice cut through the air, firm and resolute. "You're wrong, Zola. You can manipulate people, you can twist their minds, but you can never truly control them. Not forever."
I glanced at Steve, feeling the bond between us grow stronger in this moment. He was right. Hydra's power came from their ability to break people, to use them as tools for their own purposes. But I wasn't a tool anymore. Not even Zola could take that from me.
"We'll stop you," I said, stepping forward. "We'll stop Hydra, once and for all."
Zola laughed, a bitter, cruel sound. "We'll see about that, Bucky. But remember, you can never truly escape your past."
I could feel the tension in the air, the weight of everything that had led us to this point. But this wasn't over. Not by a long shot.
"We'll make sure you never get the chance to destroy the world," Steve said, his voice unwavering.
And with that, we moved forward, prepared to take on whatever Hydra had left to throw at us.
But one thing was certain—Hydra's reign was coming to an end, and we were the ones who would end it.