he who hesitates is toast

He watches as they disappear into the helicopter, and doesn't move until it flies off in the direction of the city and the nearest hospital - a good one, he hopes. Only then does Bucky pick up Sharon's forgotten phone and head into the underbrush, making his way across the north end of the island. Long before they'd built the Triskelion at the south end, Roosevelt Island had been a national park and preserve; due to a combination of political influence exerted by environmentalist groups and a good deal of public pressure, half of it is still. Right now, that suits his needs perfectly.

He avoids the established trails and circles around the memorial in the center of the island, moving through the trees like a ghost. It won't be long before more rescue crews start to arrive, and he's got to be gone before then. He stealthily makes his way into some bushes at the edge of the water on the west side, studying the pedestrian footbridge before he approaches it. For the most part, it's empty of people, save for a few foolish souls who are congregating on the far end, pointing at the smoke rising from the wreckage and trying to film it with their camera phones. Good enough.

It's a little hard to use his right arm still, but he hadn't lied to Sharon. He's healing already, he can tell. He unsnaps one of the ammo pouches at his belt and pulls out a tightly-wrapped fabric ring, which he slides over his left wrist and unrolls into a thin black nylon sleeve that he uses to cover his left arm. Once that's done, he steps out onto the trail and hurries out onto the bridge, darting glances over his shoulder every so often, just as though he's another one of SHIELD's escaping personnel. Nobody pays much attention to him; they're all looking at what's left of the south end of the island. Nobody notices when he moves past the bicycle racks at the end of the bridge and into the parking lot, stopping at the nearest motorcycle. It's the work of a moment to trigger the ignition; mere seconds after that, he roars off, accelerating up the George Washington Memorial Parkway and away from the ambulances and police cars that are screaming down the highway toward the devastation that he's left behind him.

He abandons the bike inside the mouth of a sewer tunnel and disappears into its darkness. It's not far to one of the emergency caches, where he can get what he needs.