[It hadn’t been a long absence. Back home, Bucky woke in a cold, cold tent up in the Alps, the mountainside a beautiful sight if it hadn’t been for the mission waiting for them. Get to the train, get Zola, get out. It was—well, alright, it wasn’t an easy mission by any stretch of imagination, but it was their most important one. There was no margin for error, no room for mistakes.
Which is why it all goes to hell, of course. A heartbeat, and there’s Steve, knocked down. A beat, and there’s Bucky, picking up his shield. A beat. There’s the side of the train, the wind whistling in his ears, the burning of the muscles in his arms as he holds on, holds—
A beat. A crack of metal. A shout.
Nothing.
… that is, until whoever happens to wander to the river, not quite yet frozen over; lying on the riverbank, they'll find a figure clad in a dark blue jacket, with a bent rifle next to him, half-drenched in water and with a dangerously blue tint to his lips. Only the steady rise of his chest is indication enough that he’s alive.
Or perhaps you won’t meet him but after he’s regained consciousness, dragging himself up, cold, hurt and disoriented but still trying to find his way to the hotel – yes, the hotel, not the hospital, even though that is what Bucky would be in sore need of... perhaps strangely for someone who's returned here from death.]