After their battle with Iron Hand Hauptmann, Steve Rogers, the Falcon, and Black Widow are at a loss; they do not know where Baron Zemo has taken the kidnapped Bucky. Sharon Carter contacts Steve to tell him he has a call from the President; while trying to avoid the call, Steve suddenly realizes where Bucky is…
…On the North Sea island which was the first Baron Zemo’s base, Bucky Barnes has been stranded in the rain, without his Captain America mask and shield. He makes his way to the castle where he confronts his enemy. Zemo holds the shield and uniform but does not consider that they rightfully belong to Bucky. Suddenly, Zemo’s men pour into the courtyard and attack. Bucky fights them off but Zemo conks the hero with his own shield. The Nazi taunts Bucky, telling him he does not deserve to be Captain America, that he has not earned his redemption. Bucky pursues his foe into the castle and rips off his mask, exposing the burned flesh beneath. Zemo continues to insist that Bucky is a soldier, a killer, and not a hero—which made him the ideal assassin as Winter Soldier. Bucky recovers the shield only to be knocked out by a booby trap placed on it….
He awakens to find himself strapped to a drone plane as he was many years earlier. Zemo explains that Bucky is still battling his guilt and that from now on he will have to earn everything he has. Then the plane launches. Bucky struggles with the thought that perhaps he deserves to die because of all the blood on his hands, but at the last minute he ears himself free and plunges into the water as the plane explodes. He swims to shore to find his mask and shield waiting for him, now that he has made his first step in earning the right to be Captain America. An hour later his friends arrive to take him home—to the "whole other hell" waiting for him….