Six

Steve moved stealthily through the small safe house.

“Guys, they’re here. And they brought the One-Thousand.” He heard Six whisper into her comm. He approached from behind her, where she stood to the side of the window in the back of the house. She was dressed all in black, weapons strapped to her lithe frame, head to toe. She had taken off her mask- Hydra knew who they were attacking; nevertheless all he could focus on were red lips with a  thin scar above them. He wondered what the scar was from. He wondered if she even knew. She didn’t have it in her pre-Hydra photographs. He stepped up close.

“Mayday can take care of the One-Thousand, no problem.” Bucky’s voice filled their ear.

“Just point me in his direction. I’ll drain the fucker.” Mayday stated.

“He’s hard to miss. He’s the big metal guy.” Bucky replied.

“How many are there?” Steve asked Six quietly, looking out the window over her shoulder.

“I can’t tell, it’s too dark outside.” She turned her face towards him. “A lot, though.”

A bullet flew through the window, inches from their heads. They had both thought they were out of the line of sight- they’d miscalculated. They both dove to the ground, Steve landing on top of Six, covering her with his body and throwing his atrocious purple shield above their heads. A couple more bullets came in, then they stopped.

Steve pulled himself off of Six, grabbing her hand and helping her up off of the floor. “Thanks.” She dusted herself off and drew her guns, readying herself for the onslaught that was inevitably coming.

“I’ve got your back, Six.” Steve repeated what he’d told her several times before, but the meaning was different now. It was more intense, more serious, more profound. It meant he cared, and he cared a lot.

She looked back at him with dark eyes and a racing heart. “I know.”

* * *

“Six…” Steve pulled his comm from his ear and enveloped it in his palm. He was covering it up to keep our conversation quiet. I did the same. “Be careful. Don’t go into this thinking you’re alone, because you aren’t. It matters to me that you make it through this.”

I looked up into his bright eyes. They looked worried. The laugh lines that were usually just faintly visible were deeper than usual. I put my hand on his arm. “I’ll be careful.” We both put our comms back in. I looked around. “Where the hell is Deadpool?”

“I don’t have any idea, but I hope he’s around because that is a lot of guys running towards us.” Natasha spoke. I could see her through the bathroom door, standing on the edge of the tub, leaning forward against the tile and peering out the small window above it.

“He’ll be here.” I assured them. “And he won’t shut up once he is.” I heard footsteps approaching the back door, and Steve and I retreated into the living room. “The One-Thousand is coming.”

“I’ve got him.” Mayday told us.

“Where are you two?” Steve asked. Bucky and Mayday weren’t in the house anymore.

* * *

“On the roof.” Bucky answered. “Mayday, take him out.” Bucky watched his girlfriend peer over the side of the roof, down at the approaching assassins. Nothing seemed to be happening. He could still hear the heavy footsteps of the One-Thousand continuing on their way. “Mayday?”

“I’m trying!” She whispered over her shoulder to him. She sounded exasperated.

“Focus on him. Don’t get distracted.” Bucky crawled up next to her and placed a steady hand on her back. “Block out everything else.”

“I am focusing on him!” Mayday was beginning to sound frantic. She shot Bucky a dirty look. “It’s not working!”

“Focus harder, babe. You can do this.” Bucky’s voice was soothing. Down in the house below, Six paused. She’d ever heard Bucky sound like that. She only knew him as sounding, well, hard.

Mayday was clearly not soothed. “I’m focusing as hard as I can!” There was another pause, and she frowned at Bucky. “It’s not working. I don’t know why. I can’t drain him.”

“I think he has a force field.” Bucky sounded pissed. He rolled over onto his back on the roof and let out a long, dejected sigh. “God damn it. Because of course he does.”

“Oh, fuck this guy!” Mayday finally growled into her mic. She stood, aiming both hands at the huge monster of a man down below, and shot two of her strongest blasts at him. The force field seemed to almost absorb most of the power; what wasn’t absorbed shot back at her. She screamed and fell onto the cold roof tiles, her comm going silent. The One-Thousand only glanced up towards the roof, and continued his measured footsteps towards the door.

* * *

“Mayday?!” Steve and Bucky yelled at the same time.

“Shit! Mayday’s down!” Bucky cried out into the comm.

“What happened?” Natasha asked him, a slight tinge of alarm in her voice. Natasha didn’t panic. This was as emotional as she got.

“She fired on him. She… caused a short or something. The force field blocked it. Shit guys, she’s down!”

“I’m not down. I’m fine. God damn it, give me a second. I’ll be fine.” A faint yet irritated voice spoke up. Mayday.

“Fuck. They’re surrounding the building.” Bucky said, before blowing a huge hole in the roof and dropping through the ceiling, Mayday in his arms. He landed easily on his feet. “Cut out the front to the barn. We have to get them away from the agents that I stashed in the closet.”

“Put me down, I’m fine!” Mayday scrambled out of his grasp, still slightly wobbly on her feet from tangentially blasting herself. Bucky steadied her. Steve kicked out the front door and we all hauled ass to the barn.

“I didn’t think there would be so many.” Steve said under his breath as we reached the shelter of the big red building.

“You never worked for Hydra.” Bucky and I said in unison. This time, instead of glaring at one another, we just shot each other a mildly irritated look.

“About time you all showed up. I thought you’d be late to the party.” A voice called from the hay loft above.  Everyone jumped and aimed their guns towards the voice.

“Hey, hey, don’t kill the messenger!” Deadpool dropped down, doing a flip on the way. He landed in a crouch and stood, drawing his blades from his back. “The One-Thousand is right outside. I suggest you all prepare yourselves.”

“Did Hydra really name him after a fucking Terminator?” Mayday asked, as we all dove behind hay bales, tractors, and empty horse stalls.

“Finally! Someone I can actually have a conversation with!” Deadpool sounded delighted. “And yes, they did.”

“Mayday was supposed to be able to take him out. I guess we have to implement Plan B.” Steve said glumly.

“I didn’t know we had a Plan B.” Natasha replied bluntly.

“We didn’t.” Steve sighed.

“You guys had no other plan?” Deadpool was incredulous.

“We really didn’t think we’d need one. Mayday can sap electrical energy.” Bucky explained. “Just, apparently not from him. He’s blocked.”

“Bummer. Ridiculously unprepared, but bummer.” Deadpool lamented from his hiding spot behind a ride on lawn mower.

“So we fight. Like we were going to anyway, except now we fight the big guy too. Nat, Bucky, Mayday, you three focus on the other agents. Mayday, don’t try to shoot the One-Thousand again.” Steve directed, taking charge of the team.

“Obviously.” Mayday muttered.

“The rest of us will take the One-Thousand.” He looked pointedly at me, where I was huddled beside him behind a stack of hay. “Together.”

The barn doors were blasted off of their hinges and flew into the large room, burning as they went. A hulking metal form stood in the now-empty space. He’d been repaired. The machine gun was fixed, and in place of the flamethrower was a new weapon.

“Does he have a grenade launcher on his shoulder?” Natasha questioned into her comm.

“That would be a yes.” Steve answered. He stood, stepping up the pile of hay bales and launching himself off of the top at the One-Thousand, his shield in front of him. Bucky was up and shooting from behind a tractor before Steve even landed, taking out the guys to the left and right of the large mechanical man. Steve hit the ground running, cutting quickly to the right and throwing his shield at the villain. It hit him in the face, bouncing back. Steve caught it, cutting back to the left, throwing it again. It bounced off of the man’s chest, leaving a dent. He uppercut him in the face, knocking him back.

I leapt up on the wall of a horse stall, and Deadpool boosted me into the rafters. An agent came in the back door of the barn- I threw a knife at him. It stuck in his neck and he fell. I reached a hand down, catching Natasha’s hand and swinging her up with me. We bounded around in the roof, shooting down at the agents and the One-Thousand.

The One-Thousand aimed a punch at Steve, while simultaneously directing the machine gun up into the rafters at Natasha and myself. Steve caught the man’s fist in his own had, causing a short standoff before bringing his shield up and ramming it into his arm. I heard a crunch; he’d broken the One-Thousand’s forearm. He kicked the metal man backwards out into the night with a well-placed foot to his chest.

Hydra agents were pouring in windows and all entrances. Bucky and Mayday were taking them down as fast as they were coming in. Natasha swung down from the rafters, landing on a guy and putting two bullets into him before disappearing into the shadows. She ran past the front door, lobbing a small EMP at the One-Thousand. It stuck to his metallic chest but did nothing; the force field had stopped it. “Damn!” She growled, heading back into the shadows.

“It must have some kind of blocking system in place so no one can hack his programming. I’m not sure what’s going on.” Steve spoke gruffly into his comm. This whole scenario was not going to plan, and Steve liked when things went according to plan.

I leapt down, shooting one agent while falling, and wrapping my legs around the neck of the one directly under me. I twisted to the side, throwing him on the ground and breaking his neck before landing on my feet. Another was on me in an instant; I bent to the side, throwing myself onto my left hand and my legs into the air, kicking the man in the face, landing again and bringing a knife up under his chin. I tossed my handgun and pulled another, bullets flying at three more agents before I launched myself out the window and around the side of the barn to help Steve.

He was no longer out front; the One-Thousand had trooped back into the barn as I had left though the side. I followed them back in, slinking through the door in time to see Deadpool fall from the rafters and land on the big man’s shoulders, much as he had done in the fight a few days before. Steve was fending off blows with his shield. He ducked and hid behind it as the One-Thousand rained gunfire onto him. Luckily, the One-Thousand wasn’t smart. He wasted all of his bullets trying to hit Steve. He then lobbed a grenade at him. Steve kicked it out the door and it exploded on the driveway. He began throwing punches at his large metal frame; he left dents in it from his knuckles. Deadpool whirled his swords around in the air and brought one down through the One-Thousand’s shoulder. He cried out in pain, reaching up for Deadpool a Steve continued to lay into him with fists and shield. He swung Wade around his head and tossed him into a pile of wood. Logs went flying everywhere, and Wade lay motionless.

* * *

Bucky had ducked out the back door. There were men out back of the barn; armored men with guns. He counted nine of them, with more running around the corners. He dove out the door, somersaulting across the grass and sliding towards a tractor. He picked off one man as he went with his rifle. He skidded to a stop behind the vehicle, bullets from the Hydra agent’s guns bouncing off of the metal. He leaned out and shot another two. One approached his hiding place. As the agent rounded the corner, he reached out with his metal arm and grabbed him by the front of his Kevlar vest. He threw him to the side. The man came back at him, throwing a punch. Bucky batted his fist away, clocking him in the side of the head with his gun and putting a bullet between his eyes once he was on the ground.  He knew Steve wouldn’t approve, but Hydra had instilled in him, and in Six, a brutality that really could never be tamed. They’d only decided what side they would use it for.

* * *

Mayday crept out the back door after her Winter Soldier. She didn’t know what kind of trouble he was going to get himself into, but she knew there would be trouble. And of course, there was. A whole slew of Hydra agents were outside, and they weren’t focused on the barn anymore. They were closing in on a tractor to the right, where Bucky was taking cover. She spun behind a tree and began shooting pulses of electricity at the agents.

Black Widow came out of nowhere, leaping from the roof of the barn into the middle of the cluster of Hydra men. She straddled one, her leg hitched around his neck. Natasha threw herself backwards, back hand-springing herself over and tossing the agent into his friends with her legs. She bounded to her feet, knocked a gun from one man’s hands, shot him, and tossed his body at another before slipping down and through the legs of a fourth. She propelled herself backwards, shooting him in the back before he even knew where she went.

* * *

Natasha, Bucky, and Mayday were still fighting agents, though their fight had moved out behind the barn by this point. I ran up to the One-Thousand, leaping into the air and kicking him in the head. He wobbled to one side, and righted himself. He began to turn towards me, but I was already on him. He launched a grenade at where I had previously been standing. I stayed behind him, grabbing hold of the worthless machine gun and using it to pull myself up, kneeling on his thick shoulders and gripping around the top of his head with my arm. With the other hand, I drew my combat knife. Steve looked up at me, as though questioning whether we really needed to kill this man. I nodded once, and in a single smooth motion, slid the blade across the One-Thousand’s throat. The big man fell, and I fell with him.

I landed on the ground and rolled back onto my feet. Steve was regarding the slain man sadly. “Steve, we didn’t have a choice. He wasn’t a man anymore. He had no conscious thoughts of his own.”

Steve looked at me. “All right.” He was choosing to believe me, and forgive all of us for what we were about to do.

Gunfire rang in our ears through the comms. “We’ve got most of them!” Bucky yelled to Steve. “Tell her to go!”

Steve looked at me. “If you’re going into hiding, now is the time. The world is going to know Hydra attacked you by morning. They’d have to be insane to go after your family now.” He looked unsure, as though he wasn’t sure if the plan would work and he didn’t want me to go. And that was the thing. I knew the plan, as I’d explained it, wouldn’t work.

“I’ll be back Steve. Before you even miss me.” I replied honestly. I sheathed my combat knife and he tossed me a set of keys. Then he seemed to rethink his strategy, covered the three long strides between us in no time, wrapped his arm around my waist, pulled me towards him, and kissed me.

“I already miss you.” He said under his breath.

“If you two are done acting like fucking teenagers, we could use some help out here, Steve.” Bucky’s voice was loud and clear in our ears.

“I fucking knew it!” Deadpool sat up from the destroyed pile of wood. “I knew something was going on with you two.” He rubbed his head, staring pointedly at Steve and myself.

Steve looked at me gravely. “Go.” He commanded, stepping away. I took the comm out of my ear, tossing it to Deadpool; I took one last look at Steve, committing his face to memory, and slipped out the front door.

* * *

Steve turned to Deadpool. “You alright?”

Deadpool nodded, reaching under his hood and sticking the comm in his ear. “Never better.” He peered down at the corpse of the One-Thousand. “You do that?” He asked Steve.

Steve shook his head. “No. Six did that.”

Wade shrugged. “She’s a bad bitch, that one.”

“Yeah. She is. You have no idea.” Steve picked up his shield and headed for the back door. “Let’s go.”

The duo ran out behind the barn, in time to take out the last remaining Hydra agents. Steve had just domed the last one with his shield when there was a huge explosion out front. He looked up as he saw a fire ball shoot into the sky, followed by a second loud bang.

“What the hell was that?” Bucky swung his assault rifle onto his back and looked at Steve questioningly. “Six is gone already, right?”

“Shit. I don’t know.” Steve didn’t even realize he had cursed; something he never did. He took off and raced around the side of the building, skidding to a halt as he rounded the corner. His eyes went wide in disbelief.

The spot where Deadpool’s motorcycle had been was now just a circle of scorched earth. But that’s not what Steve was looking at. He was looking at his car. Or what was left of his car. All it consisted of now were four rapidly melting tires, and the actual vehicle, the vehicle Six had been in, was now reduced to chunks of burning, twisted metal. Practically nothing was left of it, and no one could have survived that blast. His heart sank as realization hit him.

The car had been rigged, and it had exploded, taking Six with it.