“You want to rely solely on your computer,” Patton explains. “For someone so brilliant I thought you would have—”

Logan straightens his back, his eyes flashing with a challenge, “Have what?”

“The target is directly below,” The SHIELD provided pilot interrupts, reaching up to flick several switches.

Patton claps his hands together and then unbuckles his restraints. “Excellent! Then we can continue this conversation in just a moment!”

Logan’s head whips towards him, “Wait—!”

“War waits for no one,” Patton says in a light tone, offering a smile to the inventor as his hand hits the lever to drop the hanger door. And then before it’s even halfway open, he strolls towards it and flips himself through the opening into the empty air.

It feels like flying. Patton breathes in deep as the winds fight to tear him apart, the chill burning his cheeks in a way that the fire never had. He’s burned before; sometimes Patton feels like he’s still burning, but this cold is something so different he’d never confuse it for what being strapped to that table had been like. He locks his limbs together, holds his shield over his heart and dives through the air towards the battlefield below.

((Was this what the Soviet felt like? When he fell from that train?))

He flips at the last second, landing on the ground hard enough to break the cobblestone road under his feet, and holding his shield up to catch the glancing blow from the so-called god that definitely would have hit a citizen. The force of the blow knocked both of them back with a force that popped Patton’s eardrums.

“Hello!” Patton says with a smile, over his shield. “You must be Remus!”

Remus opens his mouth but before he can say anything there’s a loud screech that streaks through the air in a visible, physical wave and slams into him. Even Patton yelps as the man is knocked off his hit and goes flying into the stone wall of a nearby half crumbling building in a way that definitely should have broken all of his ribs. 

“Logan!” Patton shouts, glancing up to see the flying suit of armor, with the stern helmet in place to obscure exactly what Logan’s face looks like.

“Since you wanted to be here so badly, keep your eyes on him,” Logan’s voice comes out from it and gosh if that doesn’t feel like something out of a movie. Flying Robots, Gods, Siberia. 

Over the sound of screaming civilians, Patton distinctly hears some high pitched laughter— something that doesn’t sound humorous and definitely doesn’t sound happy. Remus staggers to his feet, swaying drunkenly from side to side, his horned crown slightly lopsided, and Logan lands on the ground next to Patton with his glowing palms at the ready.

“Remy, analyze,” the man says.

Remus of Vanir whistles, spinning his spear in his hand. “That eager to get in my pants? You could have just asked! X-rays take all the fun out of it!” He points the spear tip at them. “Tell me something… is your dick made of metal too?”

“Babes, his magic is off the charts. Literally.” Remy’s voice says. “I’m having trouble even locking in on him.” 

Patton smiles.

“Hmmm, then we have to do this with my outdated tactics,” Patton says, loosening his grip on his shield and spinning through his throw— which gosh if that didn’t feel great. After so long, the feeling of his shield leaving his hand, the muscle memory of his throws, the thumping of his blood in veins; it’s like excitement. It’s like being alive.

Remus shifts barely an inch to dodge the shield, letting it collide with the dented wall, bounce off the ground and ricochet back to Patton’s arm.

“Impressive,” Logan says, but Patton can’t tell with this robotic tone if he’s being made fun of or not.

“My, my, my,” Remus says, “Aren’t you two eager peepers! What happened to conversation, Mr. Blueskies, Mr. Hammer? You mortals still do that, right? Get to know each other before you try to kill each other?”

Logan’s palms glow brightly, and Patton feels his heart leap into his throat.

“How do you know that name?” Patton asks, feeling like his skin is a size too small. “That name…Tell me!”

“What? Blueskies?” Remus laughs. “Oh Captain, my Captain,” He grins, canines sharp and eyes ablaze, “Make me.”

Patton steps forward, shield front and center, and says, with every inch of calm rationality he does not feel, “Stand down and surrender,” He orders, and it sounds like a threat, a promise, “Or I will.” 

Remus twirls his spear in his hands, tapping the pointed part against his chin twice for emphasis. “Hmm…” He hums thoughtfully, as if he were actually taking Patton’s words seriously, as if Patton had not said them as a courtesy nothing more, as if Patton had not been through battle through bloody battle, had not fought half a war—as if he did not know men like Remus did not surrender until they were made to.

But Patton always asked. Fights might have been freeing, electrifying, but the blood staining his hands after were not, even if he always tried to pull his blows. Against Remus he would not have to, Patton doesn’t even think he could. 

He can’t quite comprehend how much that terrifies him. 

“Nah,” Remus decides, shooting his arm out and sending a piercing bolt of energy out of the spear’s gem with a fluid jab of his wrist. Patton plants his feet and raises his shield, but his knees buckle as the spell impacts with a bang—and suddenly he’s twenty feet back and half buried in a snowbank, blinking, “I’ve heard a lot about you, Mr. Blueskies,” He cackles, “But if you can’t even take a hit— well, I don’t think your whole ‘living legend’ schtick is gonna last much longer!”

Logan launches into the air sending another one of those shrieking blasts towards Remus, while Patton tries to remember how to breathe in. The snow is cold, a shock to his system, and arms feel a bit like pudding under his skin from the impact. He stumbles to his feet, trying to get his bearings again.

Across the square, Logan’s sonic repulsor thingy— what’s what he called it right? Patton shakes his head— tears through the cobblestone ground, as Remus dodges artfully around without being caught in a made up dance. Patton thinks he might even be singing some Asgardian drinking song, although he can’t hear the words. Then without warning, the demigod throws an empty hand up at Logan and winks. 

The subsequent green blast of magic is so bright it nearly blinds Patton to watch. Logan goes careening from the sky, crashing straight through the squares fountain. Remus jumps up after him, moving like a rabid squirrel over the unearthed and broken sections of concrete and piping and gripping his scepter with two hands to bring it down on Logan’s glowing chest.

Patton winds back to throw his shield again, but Logan is faster, rolling to the side just as the bladed tip of the spear lodges into the block where his repulser had been.

“He’s using his weapon as a morning star,” Logan’s voice says through the earpiece, ringing loud and clear through Patton’s head. 

“Got it,” Patton says and takes off after the target. He throws his shield as the demigod raises his spear again. 

“Swing, batter, batter! SWIIIIIING!!” Remus yells, knocking it out of the way and Patton dives low for his unguarded, unstable legs. They go skidding backwards, rolling over rocks and stone and each other’s limbs and gosh that crack sounded bad, but Remus’s laughter persists.

Like he thinks this is fun. Like he isn’t bleeding, like he hasn’t destroyed half a city, like he hasn’t ruined hundreds of lives today alone. He laughing like this is the most enjoyment he’s had all week and Patton’s blood is boiling inside him, burning through his skin and threatening to spill right out.

Patton lands with his hands pinning Remus down, and his head buzzing with so many thoughts that he can’t hear any of them.

“I’m actually a top,” Remus says, twisting his knees up and launching Patton off of him.

Patton hits the ground rolling, and sliding back to his feet like he’d done a million times back in the days of his Howling Commandos, his breath condensing in the air in front of him. He looks up just in time to see a flash of green light and he stumbles back—

“Patton!” His name twists mid-syllable, mutating from a shout to a gentle call, until a familiar, lilting accent is curling warm around the letters. He looks up, and the Brit grins brightly down at him, one hand clasping his shoulder, “You alright, Mr. Blueskies? You zoned out on us for a moment there?”

Patton looks at him, really looks at him, with his old round glasses cleaned roughly on his shirt. He’s not blurry, but bright, almost blindingly so, cheekbones sunken but blue eyes clear.

Wait, no—Patton blinks, feels like he’s stumbling, freefalling backward for a moment—Patton blinks and his eyes are venom green, still creased in concern, but it’s not right, not him, not—

Patton opens his mouth to protest, to question, to demand, but the Brit’s name slips backwards from his brain and he can’t quite grasp it between his fingers anymore. He blinks again, and the back of his eyelids are green and he can feel his pulse behind them, hard and fast.

The Brit’s eyes are hazel. Soft and concerned and bleeding, dripping messily from each duct like tears and staining his cheeks an ugly scarlet. He bleeds and he bleeds and he bleeds, from his eyes and nose and ears, a mottling purple bruise creeping up the side of his neck and curling painfully around his wrists and suddenly, suddenly, he’s stepping out of range, taking away his hand and his smile and his warmth and Patton—

Patton slams into the concrete beneath him. The back of his head snaps against his helmet and his eyes are spinning and there’s green smoke glowing around him—for a moment he feels like he’s drowning, and his head has just breached the waves as his lungs heaved, but then his body seizes again, once, twice, as his comm screams in his ears—

“Captain!—”

The explosion is as loud as it is violent, shredding through the room and ripping through the wall without any warning. Patton hits the ground, feeling the rumbling of the train under him, the winds of the Siberian winter mountain over him. He can hear his team scrambling through their radios as the signal screams, working around the curses in an amount of languages that outnumber the years this war had been going on for. 

“—just messed up,” a voice is saying. “You’re fighting off my creations with the power of denial? Deedee said your daddy fucked you over but I didn’t think it was that bad!”

“Patton!” the Soviet screams. Patton can’t breathe as he raises his head, as he clings to the broken railing, as he looks over and sees the Soviet just barely holding on himself. He’s outside the train car, finger wrapped around a piece of exposed metal that’s cutting through his gloves and spilling blood across his palms.

“Patton, these are just illusions,” another says far closer, almost right in his ears. Patton wants to scream. The wind is tearing through the gap in the train wall, strong enough that even his super soldier strength is barely keeping him holding on and the Soviet is staring at him with fear, with horror, with terror. His eyes are brown, brown like dark chocolate, unmistakable, unforgettable, un-illusionable. His face is half burned, half smashed, half collided with the wall and his left cheek marred by more blood than it should be possible.

“Patton, listen to me! Whatever you’re seeing it’s not—”

“Patton,” the Soviet’s lips move, and Patton can feel the infinity between his heartbeats. “Please I can’t—!”

Siberian winds are strong. Patton lunges forward, his fingers reaching, stretching, grasping and the Siberian winds drag the Soviet out into empty air, into a free fall, into the nothingness of wilderness and snow and a fall that no human, super serum or not, could survive.

Funny isn’t it? The Soviet survived the war of his homeland that ravaged the earth, survived a year in HYDRA prisoner camps that had killed more good men than the records would ever remember, survived joining the allies who never trusted him; he could have survived everything. But instead he had come in contact with Patton Hart, whose specialty has always been killing the things closest to him.

Patton is still screaming the Soviet’s name when there’s a sharp CLANG metal on stone and the train around him evaporates like fallen snow itself.

His chest is heaving, pulse rushing, and spots swimming at the edge. He throws himself to the side and heaves, spit dripping on the sidewalk. His stomach is churning with guilt and anger, running so hot he thinks his throat might burn if he actually hurls, so he presses one kevlar covered hand against his mouth to keep it down as salt burns in his eyes. 

After a moment, he hears the low hum of repulsors, and the solid clank of metal against cement. He looks up, folding back onto his knees, just as Logan places the cool metal frames of his glasses on the bridge of his nose. 

“Breathe in through your mouth,” Logan suggests, calmly, “And out through your nose. Slowly.” 

Patton sucks a breath in as Logan’s face, helmet folded back into the armor, swims into clarity before him. His stomach settles, some, and he swallows, feeling his lips curl into a familiar shape. 

“It appears there’s been a new development,” Logan informs him, once his breathing has been regulated into something resembling normal. He crouches down next to him as Patton viciously rubs his cheeks dry, more thankful than he can express at the moment. “Are you…?”

“I’m fine,” Patton says. “I’m fine.”

“You shouldn’t be,” Logan comments, removing his hands once Patton steadies, “It is expected to be disoriented after a mental attack of that severity. What I meant was—” 

“REMUS!”

Logan and Patton both whip towards the sound, Logan reaching up and tapping the side of his helmet at the sight before them: the roof of a building twenty feet away and a figure standing aloft the edge, red cape billowing in the wind, and a sword with a glowing golden hilt in his hand. Logan hisses at the sight of him, but from Patton’s very professional opinion, with moonlit glow at his back, the newcomer seems like something out of a fairytale, a dream come to life.

“Thomas, if you can hear me…” Logan says distastefully into his com, “It appears Prince Roman has, at last, arrived to take responsibility for his brother.”

End of Chapter Four