Falcon & Winter Soldier #1 (2020)

Bucky meditates with Alpine when armed men break into his house and shoot up the building. He fights off the assailants with ease and flees on his motorcycle with Alpine stuffed in his coat. Meanwhile in New York, Falcon and Redwing listen to a missed call while on a mission—from a man named Leo Garvin. He gives Sam a tip on some federal agents that were looking for his old friend, Sally Mckenzie, who disappeared earlier without a trace. He listens to another call from a man named Jason who researched the federal agents, and he reveals that while they claim they're a water management organization, they actually track terrorist training camps nationally and send specialists to 'clear out' the area. Using a machine, Redwing enhances his voice to break a door lock which leads to the office of the federal agents. When Sam gets inside, Bucky is already there and greets him—although Sam can't spare him an answer with all the dead agents scattered across the floor. He's appalled at first and asks Bucky if he killed them; Bucky denies involvement. Bucky asks Sam what he's doing at the office and Sam confides that he's looking for a missing friend—she's a regular with his veteran support group and she hasn't shown up to the recent meetings. Sam puts together what he heard from the calls earlier and realizes that Bucky is one of the specialists deployed to 'clear out' discovered camps. Bucky confirms this and then explains that his house was raided the day before, so he went to the office looking for answers—only for them to be dead when he arrived. He tells Sam that if Mckenzie has anything to do with the raiding of his house and the office, she's most likely being recruited by terrorists. Bucky sifts through a few files kept in a cabinet and finds a folder belonging to a woman named Veronica Eden—his holder, whom was missing from the scene at the time of the murder. In Brooklyn, Bucky and Sam track down Veronica's house and Bucky introduces her to Sam. They brief Veronica on what happened at the office and interrogate her on her absence. Veronica uses her laptop to research why her office was targeted the night before. She finds rumors of a power struggle in Hydra between Baron Zemo's protege and an unknown rival. Sam tells Bucky that Zemo's protege is leaving New York by train soon, and they make plans to intercept him at the station. On the way out the door, however, a random boy who broke into Veronica's home greets them and admits to killing all the agents at the office from before. He calls himself 'The Natural.' He catches Bucky off guard by punching him in the face, and when Sam tries to fend him off, he kicks him in the gut. Bucky tries to shoot the boy but Sam takes his gun, arguing that instead of violence, they should arrest him for his crimes. Bucky disagrees and charges at the boy with a knife. They both get beaten down again. 'The Natural' reveals himself to be a hydra affiliate, and while he was commanded to kill both heroes, he decides to give them a second chance. Taking Veronica Eden with him, he asks Bucky and Sam to come track him down so that they can have a real, proper fight, and he can kill them.