#Ghost Protocol is yet another one that I can basically mute and say all the dialogue to

[whitewolfbumble]

The Fallout - Part Twenty-One (Bucky x Reader)

Summary: You had been a ghost for years, taking down the bad guys from the shadows that had once enslaved you. That is until the Avengers finally caught up with you and yet again your life changed. But your past won’t stay dead and everything starts to shift when a familiar face joins the ranks: Bucky Barnes. He may not remember you, but you certainly remember him.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Warnings: Slow burn, language, fighting, blood, heartbreak, call back to rape threat, pain, just all the things!

Word Count: About 4k

A/N: Couple things to know! We are throwing back to Part Fifteen and have a call back to Part Four because I’ve been playing the long game here people! Secondly, this is The Scene for me. This was the first scene I thought of six months ago that started this whole story. The story evolved over time (while in my mind this scene didn’t) so there’s this huge conflict in me between what this story is vs. how I had imagined this part to play out. I thought I would be able to write and post this chapter immediately because I’ve lived with it so long. Not at all the case. I ended up drastically changing this (after multiple rewrites) from the original idea and I would appreciate all the validation you can give lol!

MY MASTERLIST // THE FALLOUT MASTERLIST // PART TWENTY

There had been a protocol in place, long since established, aptly named the “Rogue Protocol”. It was an order implemented by the Team’s A.I. on command for protection, and today it would be the protocol that ended them.

Let’s say someone turned to the dark side. Let’s imagine they went full evil in the darkest timeline, hell bent on causing damage to the Avengers. It certainly was possible by say Loki’s sceptre, or perhaps Hydra’s triggering, or any number of evils that lurked and thrived in this world. But Jacosta was there just in case of this.

With a word from the Avengers the A.I. would completely erase all access a user had. They would not be allowed near the home base or any safe houses. They would be shut off from any and all Avenger intel or information. Security access would be stripped. Comm lines scrambled and changed. Even their face and name and details sent out to every government and secret security organization around the world in warning. A total and complete shut out.

Simple and efficient.

And clearly, as you had shown, necessary.

But on the eve of one Hydra-baiting party, there had been a change to this protocol. And it had gone rather unnoticed:

“Well not exactly.” Tony typed something into his tablet before tapping it on seemingly nothing in the air.

Immediately a hologram pulled up in the centre of the room in front of you. It looked like a ball of light and squiggles, all in a luminous purple glow. They moved and flowed in the space with an intricate pattern you saw but couldn’t predict. Again, this tech was too advanced for you, so you waited for him to continue.

“This is Jacosta, who’s been parading around as F.R.I.D.A.Y. since the whole Vier Gliedmaßen thing. There was a line in Fri’s programming that was altered. Corrupted. They got their hands on my tech somehow and got in. But’s that my mission to solve, not yours.”

He looked at you with a tight smile at that. You knew he had been wracked with guilt since the day The Black showed up. And then when he berated you for killing them, using his cutting remarks as some sick test. Then when the comms went down at Vier Gliedmaßen, causing you to dive in headlong after Bucky. So yeah, he had a little bit of a tough go lately.

You just hoped this party wasn’t going to add to that growing list…

“I don’t blame you for The Black or Hydra getting in.” you said, your heart too over-run with emotions to keep a grudge in there too anymore. “Tech or no, we relied on each other and we got out alive. Now we know more about what we’re dealing with.”

“Yeah, a suped-up Hydra. Gone are the days of rudimentary one-man subs and goofy lasers huh.”

“You’ll figure it out Tony,” you reassured, seeing through his muted free-falling self-esteem. He put on a good show but he wasn’t as haughty as others might think. Not always.

“Though I might just take a closer look at Jacosta sometime. Just in case.”

“Permission granted,” he said with a small smile. After those previous debacles, you doubted he would deny that request.

So later that day you waited, anxiety and vulnerablity setting into your bones. It drilled deeper into you with every minute, not having felt this way in half a century. Because yes, despite your glossing over it at the time, Tony’s tech and procedures had failed you. And yes, your mind had been wiped by your worst and most intimate enemy, ripping away your ability to fight and defend yourself. So now it felt like you were staring down a barrel of a gun.

The threat of Hydra, of torture, and worst of all becoming the Siren again had you more than rattled. It had you sick to your stomach you were so terrified. Not even the quarter drunk bottle of whiskey you had been working on quelled that feeling yet, though you had no intention of stopping until that bottle was completely empty.

That night you were being forced out into a situation you thought you couldn’t reasonably win, if it really came down to it.

And it wasn’t because you didn’t have the support and protection of your Team. You did, certainly, and knew they would go to any lengths to protect you. But without your fighting ability at full strength (you were basically as useful as a puppy in a fight) you just felt helpless, the feeling foreign and infuriating.

Last time Hydra came to the Tower they had done so by way of siccing The Black on you. You had been caught on the wrong side of a locked door, forced to pretend you weren’t fucking dying inside as they pinned you to the ground, outnumbered thirteen to one. You could only wait for your team members to show after a purposely devised pointless mission, desperately needing to know they hadn’t fallen into a trap themselves before making your move. 

In those hours you had to shut off every emotion, kneeling there on the floor as Steve and Bucky came into view, faces dropping in horror as the situation sunk in. You watched their anger and hidden panic as a glass wall and locked door kept you apart, listening to the threats of the leader and snake, Frenz. And worst of all you had to see the look of disgust in Bucky’s eyes as you killed every single one of the thirteen men that were there to rape and kill you. And you had to watch your revolted friends stand there numbly as you cleaned up after it.

And that night, of all decisions to make, Tony and the Team had practically invited Hydra back into your home. They had proved they had the means to enter and infiltrate before, why wouldn’t they do it now, when that you were weakened? Unable to put up much of a fight?

But with two simple words, Tony had given you permission to check into Jacosta’s programming. To alter it. Or override it if need be. You had complete and full admin access, rivalled only by Tony.

If the situation came down to it again, and they locked you away from your friends and protection- from your now only means of survival- you had to find another way to win.

So, you gave yourself permission to unlock any door.

Simple. Basic. Mostly used to calm the rattling inside you and give you enough courage to face that night.

In doing so, you had to completely removed any protocol restrictions or barriers blocking you, so no matter were you found yourself, you had a means of escape. It over-rid everything, permanently, unless specifically altered after the fact. Right down to the Rogue Protocol.

Now, Jacosta was new and learning, which was an advantage to you, the Siren. You bet your freedom that Tony wouldn’t go digging into the Rogue Protocal too deeply, trusting the system he had created without checking the alterations done at its base programming before starting it up once Hydra took you. It was buried and rooted behind walls of security, and only one soul had access it. 

Well, two at one point. But that was enough.

There was always a massive probability that the system would right itself or Tony would find it before you even got here. You knew this plan was a fucking longshot from the get go. A lot of oversight was needed for this to work.

But if it hadn’t, you would still found another way. You would’ve waited until a team member got to close to your little prison and snapped their neck. Or you would have slit your throat and held a doctor hostage. Maybe started a fire with sparks from your metal hand somehow. Or perhaps you would have slowly faked returning back to your original self, building trust and using that against them. Regardless, you would have found a way to cause pain and eventually figure another way to freedom.

But this was much better.

You had used this simple alteration for your own protection at one time. But now you were using it for escape.

And by some dark miracle, it fucking worked.

“Jacosta,” you said calmly. “Open the cell doors.”

No one outside your cell moved or made a sound, not actually believing that the A.I. would listen to your calmly stated command. Even as the door swung open on its hinges, everyone was still, not immediately believing what they were seeing.

The air seemed fresher, lights brighter, and vision clearer as you placed one foot in front of the other beyond the threshhold and into freedom.

“Now,” you said, arms out and eyes as black and cold as space, voice not much warmer. “Let’s play.”

Your immediate craving was Bucky, looking to him with hunger in your gaze, but the man was motionless, having stumbled back in confusion as you opened up your little prison. Even as horror turned to rage he stood there shocked still. You were loose in the world again- in his world- and you were going to burn it to the fucking ground. You could almost see flashes of the horrors you had committed in the past months in the blue of this eyes, of what burning fire you could reign down now that you were free again. On the world. On the Team. On him. And it would be his fault all over again.

So it wasn’t Bucky- who never had a love of fighting- that got this party started, but actually Sam.

He had come in at Bucky’s call just before your escape, hanging back as you commanded their precious A.I. to betray them. But now he bolted down the hall, emotions kicked aside and military training kicking into high gear. You were an enemy and you needed to go down, and, like the friend he was, wasn’t going to make your ex-love try it first.

You sized up your competition as the ex-vet sprinted towards you, muscles tense, thoughts of his own safety or odds abandoned, dark green shirt unstained with sweat or blood.

You would have to change that.

He knew he would have to come at you with some serious power and force, and the man did.

Always having favoured his fists, he ran right up to you trying to use his momentum to try and force you back into your cell, throwing punches with force and precision. You blocked one hit with your forearm, then the next in quick succession with your elbow, then the next with your arm again. All the while you watched him half-amused, easily tracking his movements. He was a military man with practiced movements and you had taken down thousands of those in your time.

A knee came up hard to your ribs to try and pushed you back, but your fist swung down hard on his knee before the other one swung up at his jaw. Throwing your metal fist with some serious might, you heard an audible crack as you made contact with the quick one-two punch. It sent him up in the air before smacking down on the ground, face in shock as his breath wouldn’t come but the pain certainly did.

Before he had even hit the ground you were running to him, foot raised to stomp down on his neck and the life out of him, when Bucky finally broke through his shock and made his decision to take you down.

He launched at you mid-stomp, his momentum crashing into yours, grabbing around your waist and sending you both flying to the side. Both his and your metal hands scrapped along the floor, shrieking and spraying sparks as you went careening into the wall with bone crushing speed.

The white lights above you cut out and turned to blue flashing lights lining the hall, signalling your breakout.

You ignored them easily as immediately after crashing against the wall you brought up your knees to the groin and stomach of the hulking wall of muscle pinning you, twisting your body to get loose of Bucky’s grip around your middle. You managed to end up with his hips between your thighs as he lay on briefly on his stomach, your hand grasping his neck and wrist. But his elbow cracked up and connected with your face with such force you were thrown clean off him, sent skidding back to the floor with a shower of blood exploding off your face.

You flipped back into a roll instantly to stand, ignoring your bloodied face as he came at you again.

Bucky, furious and far more unhinged than the Soldier had ever fought, did not pull his punches as he swung, forcing power behind his swinging arms and fists. It was wild and abandoned and full of pain, but you were prepared for this.

He was a tank, that much you knew from long years together. But you had power too. And speed. And ingenuity. Plus a drug-adrenalin combination that made you all but oblivious to the pain. He just had brute strength and a broken heart.

Swinging in broadly he tried to push you back, but you weren’t willing to lose ground. Dodging and blocking you grabbed his metal fist sharply with yours, and jumped straight up, twisting your leg around to kick him square in the chest.

It was his turn to go flying back, sparks flying again in the blue flashing room. You immediately dove on him to keep your upper hand in the fight, punching over and over, drawing blood and causing his body to thrash around under the force of your fists.

But he got hold of you, clutching your wrists hard threw his head into your face before flipping you over so you were on the ground and he was looming over you, you lungs sputtering with the blood you swallowed.

He pinned you, wrists held tightly in his hands: your metal hand to his metal hand, your flesh hand to his. His hair hung down, brushing your face, and it was unable to hide his burning eyes or anger curled lip. He hated this situation, hated fighting you, hated hurting you.

His body was hovering directly above you, and you would take any advantage where you could get it.

He expected you to keep fighting or to struggle as he held you fast underneath his body pinned to the floor, feet hooking yours in place to keep you from kicking free. But you didn’t even try.

Lifting off several inches from the floor, your hips ground into his hips, then followed the rest of your body in a smooth slow roll, pressing your abdomen, chest, shoulders, and face right against him.

You purred into his corner of his mouth, lips vibrating against the edges of his with the sound.

“I just knew you wanted to pin me down.” you teased seductively. “Knew you wanted to feel what it was like to have me pressed against you again.” 

At that Bucky threw himself off of you, releasing you as he tried to step back, face contorted. But before he could fully move off of you, your hands briefly freed, you twisted to the side so you could get your arm up around to the back of his neck. You slammed him down to the ground, his face hitting the floor with a crack.

For the first time in minutes, everything stilled as silence hung in the hall. 

Pushing him off, you got up and briefly looked down the man at your feet. You could have killed him, and if you were any other one of Hydra’s agent, you probably would have. But you weren’t a creature whose priority was merely efficiency like the Soldier had been. You had only barely begun torturing Bucky, and to kill him now would have been much too quick. Much better than he deserved.

This Bucky had been far too emotional. The Solider wouldn’t have made such a mistake. The man in front of you was far too human.

Quite unlike you at the moment.

Now, with no bodies between you and the door, you rolled your shoulders with a smile as a jolt of euphoria snaked through you, leaving the two poor things to bleed behind you.

Under the blue flashing light, you knew that someone else must have set them off as you set off down to the end of the hall. There was a small chance it was the A.I. but you doubted it. You could feel it in your bones, another presense lurking somewhere in this vast compound.

You sauntered up to the security panel on the wall by the door, absently wiping the blood still flowing from your face. It misted off your metal fist as it slammed into that panel, breaking it open. You ripped out the wires and sparks flew, igniting the little box into small flickers then full flames. You ripped off your hoodie and shoved it in there, fabric catching and beginning to smoke then be licked at by orange flames.

After a moment a loud siren rang out, repeating every few seconds and the lights dropped, the blue being replaced by a bright red flashing. You looked blood covered and it sent a thrill down your spine. Another buzz sounded nearby and immediately the door unlocked and spread open.

If there was someone still in the security room monitoring all this, they would have deleted your “open door policy” access by now most likely. Or at the very least Tony would have been notified of what was happening, and trying to man it from wherever he was in your little goose-chase.

So fire was your option. Starting one would unlock all hallway door checkpoints where any Avengers were to the safe zones: either exits or security rooms to monitor the situation. That had been the procedure in the Tower, and was clearly the same here too. Now all you had to do was follow the unlocked doors to your next destination. And you weren’t ready to leave just yet.

Turning down several silently deserted corridors, there was an eeriness in the air you brought with you, nothing but red flashing light as your company. As you walked closer into the compound (presumably), you began to slow down.

Your steps became leisurely, pace not as determinedly set. A smile cracked through the blood your face, black eyes wide and searching the long and wide corridor you found yourself in.

“Natasha...” you whispered tauntingly, cool and creepy voice drifting lightly down the hall as you walked. “Natasha... where are you…”

You could feel her, your senses keyed up and adrenalin absolutely flooding you. It reacted with the drugs still in your system and dialled everything inside of you beyond ten. Your eyes were wide and shimmering black, your hearing was picking up everything around you, and you could smell her telltale scent of mahogany, cinnamon, and something bitter lightly reaching your broken nose.

Quicker than most could move, a door to your left was thrown open and Natasha came running out, throwing her knee up to slam against your body, snapping up a wire at her wrist in preparation.

She would have slammed her knee against you, knocking you off balance and making you hunch down as you faltered. She would have taken her opportunity then to jump up and wrap her legs around your neck, perched on your shoulders. She would have tied that piano wire around your neck until you passed out.

Because unlike Bucky, she was stealth and speed and maneuvering. She had complete control over her body, able to fight and win along side superhumans, gods, and armoured suited geniuses. But she came into fights with just her skills, a small wire, and sometimes a gun or two. And time after time she would win it, because Natasha was just that fucking good.

But you would show her what real power looked like.

Your metal hand snapped out as Nat did from the shadows, forcing through the wire she was a second from trying to wrap around your neck. Instead, your grip clutched her throat as you planted your feet, stopping her short and sending her lower half jerking back at your immovability.

You could have crushed her windpipe and ended her right there. But she needed to feel the power you had over her. Reaching down you grabbed under her knee and hoisted her up, flipping her right over and slammed her onto the ground. 

Your grip didn’t let up as her eyes went wide, face red as you cut off the circulation to her head while you smiled widely down at her. She couldn’t even sputter. She tried to reach her legs up and wrap them around you, tried to hurt you with her fists and feet and body, expertly done, even if she was fast suffocating.

But you felt none of it. Instead you punched down over and over, seeing and feeling blood spout from her face. Her blood was hard earn and the spray that hit you felt like refreshing mist on your skin.

The feeling was short-lived though.

You didn’t hear it, the sound almost too loud for your brain to process, bursting through your ear drums. What felt like a concrete wall hit you, sending you flying back off Nat, airborne for a second before hitting and cracking against the wall.

You recovered as fast as you could- unnaturally so for a normal person- head knocked way too hard against the unyielding wall to snap back instantly though. You took uneasy but quick steps forward, turning to face the source of the explosion, but distrated briefly by someone else.

The first thing your mind seeing beside subtly flaming debris scattered around you was the beaten sight of Bucky running in, face bruised and covered in as much blood as your own.

The next was when you turned to where the source of the explosion was, and standing there on top of the pile of rumble was Iron Man.

You shocked yourself for a moment, feeling simultaneously relieved and furious at the sight before you. It added an undercurrent of confusion to your feelings, you not realizing why relief was in the mix at all. You certainly did not want him there. A couple normal humans and one ex-Hydra agent were easily handled. But it was harder to punch through an Iron Man suit. Though not impossible.

“Bucky,” came his voice, hands raised and threatening as he stood like a coward covered by his gleaming suit on top of a caved in ceiling, unlike your exposed and bleeding skin. “Back off. Just turn around, I will handle this.”

You looked to the man, calculations on your next moved briefly halted as you watched Bucky’s face flinch. Maybe from pain. Maybe from the anger and sadness there in him now. Something was off. Something information was missing.

“Don’t leave me to him,” you said, exasperated, trying to cause division. “You know how angry he was before when you caught me; he’s more likely to kill me than lock me up again!”

But looking at Iron Man you took in his cold metal exterior. You couldn’t sense his emotions, or discern his body language through it. But you could taste it in the air. You knew that taste.

He knew you would kill everyone. You almost had killed three of his team members in a matter of minutes today. And once securing this compound and letting Hydra have free reign of the system, you would have tortured them. And you wouldn’t stop. Ever. 

You smelt the need for blood on him.

You knew he would try and put you down before you put his entire Team down. Maybe Bucky or Steve wouldnt be able to ever stomach or consider that option, but Tony was not cut from the same cloth. 

You waited in the silence, only Bucky inching towards you, ignoring Tony completely. But your eyes were on the suited Iron Man in front of you, narrowed and waiting, because in that moment, you just knew.

Oh god, he really was going to try and kill you.

As that little speck of relief turned to sad understanding, your overwhelming anger turned to bitter rage.

“You’re going to try and kill me?!” you barked, harsh and spitting blood. “I’m your fucking friend you bastard! And you think you’re the one who gets to kill me?!”

“No,” Bucky said, confident and firm, eyes only on you as Tony watched him. “No one is going to kill you, Y/N. You’re safe. I’ve got you.”

It was like an electrical baton was shoved in the base of your head, connecting with your spine and sending the feel in a shockwave through your body and brain.

I’m safe. He’s got me.

The piece of you which had turned to understanding, shifted again back to relief.

The words blanked out your vision for a moment, blocking you from seeing Bucky relax at your sudden drop of tense muscles. You didn’t notice Tony turn away from you back to Bucky. You didn’t see him wordlessly raise his hand and blast Bucky in the stomach, sending him back down the hall in a flash of white. You didn’t catch any of it, numb and fuzzy to the world for a moment.

But you did see Tony flying at you, only a second from colliding with you when the fuzziness took a back seat in your mind. Your only course of action was using your hand, grabbing Tony’s as he reached for you in a blinding shine of red and gold. Using his momentum, you swung him around your body, crushing his hand in his suit with yours.

The momentum knocked you down too, scrambling up to get away, mind still moving too slow to do what you needed it too. But a flash of black passed you from behind, you eyes clicking into place that it was Bucky running up protectively to meet Tony, who was launching at you.

Again Bucky was full of reckless abandon, arms swingly with wild power as he pushed Tony back, the man no match for Bucky’s hand-to-hand combat skills. Furious groans and the unbearably loud sound of metal crushing metal rang out as the two clashed.

You always had back-ups and quick mind to calculate the next best possible move, but as more chaos entered into the mix here, your plan began to splinter at its seams.

You didn’t think, just started moving, the familiar face of Steve in your sightlines running down the hallway. You pushed out all thoughts of how the hell he was here and how the fuck both Cap and Iron Man got back so fast and not at your bomb sites half a world away.

Steve didn’t even seem to be running for you but looked like he was heading straight for Bucky, probably thinking he had gone Winter Soldier on him. You scrambled up to a half crouch before diving at his knees just before he reached his friend who was pummelling Tony.

The pair of you had barely landed when hands grabbed both your arms from behind and threw you off of Steve. You barrelled down the hall, rolling uncontrollably with your body smacking the floor as you went. Blood in your eyes and head spinning you looked out to see Iron Man come huddling towards you too, the force of a punch square to his chest from Bucky sending him flying back, before Steve and Nat- who you presumed threw you off of Cap- could catch him.

Tony whizzed passed you, hand catching and searing across your calves as he careened down one side of you. Bucky was immediately running your way, seeing you lying there with nothing between you and Tony now. Steve and Nat were running after him, but they weren’t the real threat here now.

With the space Tony had away from Bucky, he was able to stabilize himself mid air before crashing against a wall. A hand went up but it wasn’t his blaster that was aimed at Bucky, but a little launcher sprung out from his wrist.

Without thinking, you jumped up in front of Bucky as Tony fired, pushing Bucky down with all the strength you had and standing in his place.

Right after that moment, the chaos died down.

Everything went oddly quiet as you stood there, teetering ever so slightly. The sounds around you were instantly gone. Your mind stilled. Even your heartbeat and racing blood in your veins had disappeared for a moment.

Looking down slowly you saw your abdomen, once clothed in a smooth black fabric, was now torn and anything but smooth, chunks of your flesh spread across it, hanging limply and bloody.

It had only been one bullet, but it exploded like a buck shot of sorts. It had just done so inside of your body, spreading out organs and muscles and red liquid everywhere.

In a blink of an eye you were on your knees, catching yourself on Bucky’s open arms. You didn’t have the space inside you to feel shocked at suddenly being on the floor and him suddenly being there to catch you.

A hiss of air tried to escape your lungs as you turned to him, eyes wide and furious angry melting into something quite different.

Your spine seemed to quit as you collapsed back, Bucky catching you again and hovering above you on the ground, hands holding yours over your gaping wound. Blood poured like a waterfall, Hydra chemicals and drugs running out with it.

“Y/N,” Bucky said, voice sounding higher than usual though calm, but eyes beginning to brim with tears and panic and agony. “It’s okay, I have you. You’re okay. You’re safe, I’ve got you.”

I’m safe. He’s got me.

Your body settled, embracing the pain you began to feel, not fighting it. Your jaw unclenched. Your fist released their grip. Your whole body relaxed. The anger and walls that had been put up fading away and emptied out of you like the blood pooling on the floor.

I’m safe. He’s got me.

He’s safe. I’ve got him.

Slowly you reached a hand to his face, the slightest bit of colour returning to your irises.

You whispered one thing to him, voice small and cracked before you were ripped from him, Bucky instantly screaming out after you, eyes wide and body thrashing wildly to get you back.

“...Bucky?”

PART TWENTY-TWO

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[aion-rsa]

The First Mission: Impossible Still Has One of the Greatest Action Set Pieces

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It was a rare thing even back then. Inside movie houses across America, the silence was so acute you could hear a popcorn kernel drop—never mind pens. That was because on the big beautiful cinema screen, Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt was performing what 25 years and six Mission: Impossible movies later may still be his greatest stunt. And there weren’t any motorcycles revving up, nor was there a plane taking off. All we needed was an actor dangling from a wire over a glass floor. If you looked closely, too, out of the corner of his eye there suddenly would be a single drop of perspiration, which if it hit the floor meant game over. Trust us, Tom, you weren’t the only one sweating bullets that day.

This crackerjack sequence is the centerpiece of Brian De Palma’s first Mission: Impossible, and it remains a marvel today: an exercise in tension and a showcase of the benefits that come from letting a true master of his craft handle a summer blockbuster. It certainly became the calling card for Tom Cruise’s burgeoning reinvention of himself in the 1990s as an Übermensch action hero, and perhaps more importantly a movie producer. Indeed, Mission: Impossible was the first film Cruise produced with Paula Wagner via his new production company. It’s not a coincidence, then, that is where Cruise’s new clout began allowing him to work with auteurs who could rarely say no to his demands that he do his own stunts, sometimes at 25,000 feet.

Of course that more extravagant derring-do came later. In 1996, Mission: Impossible was all about the crafting of a sleek and wonderfully knotty thriller that tied itself up in circles while delivering perfectly calibrated thrills. Even for all the script’s high pedigree, with talent like Steven Ziallian (Schindler’s List), Robert Towne (Chinatown), and David Koepp at the peak of his post-Jurassic Park glow working on the screenplay, this movie only ever wanted to be a basic framework on which to hang one De Palma showstopper after another.

And the payoff of that approach is never clearer than in the buildup and execution of “the vault” sequence in the original movie. Narratively, there’s some mumbo jumbo reason for Mission: Impossible suddenly turning into a heist movie: Ethan Hunt (Cruise) has been burned by the CIA after a frame job suggests he killed his own team to steal half of the NOC List—a data file that comprises every undercover American agent operating in Europe. But for reasons that are never exactly clear, the list is worthless without its other half, which is stored in the belly of the CIA beast at Langley.

To clear his name, Cruise is basically going to have to double down by actually stealing the other half of the NOC list. If you’re wondering why, you’re asking the wrong question. The entire appeal of the Mission: Impossible movies is how. And the how is a wonder to behold here.

Five years before Steven Soderbergh got credit for reinventing the heist genre with his Ocean’s 11 remake, many of the conventions were implemented by De Palma first: a voiceover narration by the protagonist, listing the obstacles and worst case scenarios his team is about to face? Check. The film then cross-cutting the actual mechanics of the heist with the team still discussing how they’ll pull it off? Yep. And an emphasis on a mark whose life they’re about to ruin? Just look at that poor bastard played by Rolf Saxon, a nine-to-five schmuck who after letting himself be momentarily distracted by Emmanuelle Béart (it happens) spends the rest of his screen time vomiting in trash cans and being banished to the North Pole by superiors.

It’s all here, but most of all there is an almost giddy embrace of filmmaking craft and tension-building. For most of his career, De Palma has chased the long shadow of Alfred Hitchcock and his masterful cinematic games of suspense. While this particular Mission: Impossible scene doesn’t dabble in doppelgangers and murder—two other De Palma motifs taken from Hitch that recur elsewhere in M:I—he nonetheless achieves one of his greatest suspense sequences inside the CIA vault, and it feels wholly original.

As Saxon’s CIA analyst struggles with repeated emergencies in the bathroom, Cruise is forced to dangle from an air vent over a CIA vault with such high security that in addition to the floor being pressure sensitive, he must keep as still as possible or risk his body raising the overall temperature in the room. Meanwhile if a sound louder than a whisper is made, the computer Ethan is hoping to hack will be shut down, and all the exits in the building will be locked.

So Cruise dangles from the air for a grueling nine minutes, floating with graceful, willowy precision in a cold, sterile vacuum. With a binary color scheme of white walls offset by Cruise’s tight black shirt and silvery gray gloves, the visual palette is as intentionally muted as the characters’ lips. There is no score, almost no dialogue, and each time the decibel counter on Ethan’s wrist rises, or the temperature in the room increases by a fraction of a degree, the audience gasps.

In the same summer movie season that gave us aliens blowing up the White House in Independence Day, and a tornado roaring like it’s a goddamn lion in Twister, the restraint and intelligence of this Mission: Impossible showstopper was shocking. It still is, as the commercial side of the industry continues to go the other way—to the point where the idea of a blockbuster starring scientists chasing a tornado seems downright highbrow.

Similarly, action spectacle has leaned with an ever heavier hand on computer generated nonsense. Perhaps it’s a key reason that the Mission: Impossible movies remain a generally celebrated breath of fresh air in the Hollywood tentpole landscape. Twenty-five years since the original movie’s release, Cruise is still doing these Ethan Hunt adventures, and narratively they’ve only gotten better, with the most recent two written and directed by Christopher McQuarrie being the best in the series. Their commitment to in-camera stunts and sophisticated action set pieces that put the focus on Cruise doing dazzling feats, however, feels even more vital now than then, as action sequences costing tens of millions of dollars, with digitized superhero sprites fighting hordes of animated robots, has come to dominate multiplexes more than ever before.

By contrast, Cruise’s memories about the difficulties of shooting the vault scene in 1996 are illuminating.

“I wasn’t really balanced that well [in the air],” Cruise said in a junket interview at the time. “So there were a few times where you hit the ground and you’re holding that position. It was exhausting. Brian was ready to finally say, ‘Okay, I’m going to have to divide this into two different shots.’” Today, it’d be worse: they’d say they could do it all on a computer. Yet it was Cruise’s idea (at least by how he tells it) to turn his body into a proverbial scale, and use British currency coins as his counterweights.

“I had them hook me up, hang me, put a couple of pounds in each shoe to balance myself, because I kept falling and smacking my head on the floor,” Cruise said. “I couldn’t balance it, physically. Finally, when we did it and I got the balance right… it worked, and Brian just left me hanging there just to get all of it. We had three different cameras going.”

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Cruise and his director ended up skipping lunch that day so they could get every shot they needed of Ethan hanging over the pressure sensitive floor, operating the computer terminal, and even catching that lonely bead of sweat. The insistence by the star and director to get it in camera, to the point where Cruise was carrying a few quid in each boot, was a rarity then and is nearly unheard of now.

Here’s to hoping that Cruise work ethic, which carried him from that vault to genuinely scaling the world’s largest building in Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, never touches the floor.

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