Virginia Is For Lovers
Her ears were ringing from the sounds of gunshots. A little more than a dozen Hydra agents were left, holed up on the ground floor of the hidden base. Sam and Clint had come in through the roof, Ren had been brought to the sublevel when she’d got herself caught, and Nat had taken advantage of the chaos and walked right in the front door.
The four of them had worked their way through the majority of the enemy agents, now finding themselves in the middle of this final standoff. Despite the thin crowd, the team was having trouble finishing the mission.
The Hydra agents were crafty. They’d grabbed as many weapons as they could and barricaded themselves in the most secure room in the building - the lab.
“We could just blow the place up,” Sam suggested, out of breath as they faced the sole entrance to the room.
“No,” Nat rebutted, “We need whatever intel they have in there. Whatever they haven’t destroyed,”
Ren leaned herself against the concrete wall as she caught her breath, “Do you really think there’s more information in there? We already sent Bruce everything we found on the other computers, and Sam's little drone-thing took the paper copies,”
“Redwing,” He corrected.
“Yeah, Redwing,”
Clint's voice echoed over the comms from wherever in the building he was, “I can’t believe you named that thing,”
“Can we stay on task please?” Nat interrupted, “Those drives didn’t have anything on the test subjects that were supposed to be here. I know Hydra, those subjects have gotta be somewhere and I’ll bet the information we need is in that lab,”
“Yeah and it’s probably being destroyed as we chat,” Clint's voice crackled over the comms again.
Ok, back to work.
…
Sam was on the outside wall, Clint had found his way into a room above the lab, and Nat and Ren had stayed by the front door. The four of them placed a few small charges on the walls and floor. Nat had managed to put them together with what remained of the compound's arsenal - her training was far more extensive than Ren had realized.
At first, it was smoke and chaos. Followed quickly by more gunshots, on both sides. At least five agents fell immediately. Natasha and Clint were the first into the fray. Clint snapped his bow into a fighting staff and took on the two closest to him. Nat followed suit, wrestling a semi-automatic from the hands of a dark-haired agent and knocking him in the head with it, hard enough to make him crumple to the floor.
It was around that time Ren finally made it to the dance floor. No fancy fighting moves this time. Her hands were wreathed in fire, stopping right at those handy little cuffs. A blast hit an approaching agent right in the chest, knocking him into one of the still-standing walls.
Another didn’t bother with the foreplay, instead aiming for her head and pulling the trigger on their pistol. But Ren was faster. Well maybe not faster than the bullet itself, but her new assassin friends had been teaching her more than just basic footwork. Even while handling the other Hydra goon, she’d noticed the smaller woman rolling out of the main cluster of agents. At that point, Ren had tensed. When she pulled her gun and lined up the shot, the new hero raised her temperature, enough that the air between the two began to waver. By the time the trigger was pulled and the bullet left the chamber she’d turned and raised her hand.
It did hurt. It was mostly melted and significantly slowed down, but the bullet striking her palm still stung like hell. It was definitely gonna bruise.
The agent was still sitting there, perched on one knee, gun extended. Likely in shock that she’d just (basically) stopped a bullet. With no time to waste Ren took a few long strides and kicked out the leg supporting her. Before she could react, the enemy agent wrapped her legs around Ren's left leg and twisted, while at the same moment grabbing the back of her right knee and pulling. Her legs gave out beneath her. As soon as her arms hit the floor she pushed herself forward and climbed on top of the other woman. Her instinct was to go for the neck, but Barnes had told her it was smarter to go for the head. She didn’t have the benefit of a metal arm, so knocking someone out with brute force was easier than cutting off their airflow.
A few good blows to the head and she was out like a light.
By the time she climbed to her feet most of the others were taken care of. Three Hydra agents were still standing. Whether the rest were dead or unconscious she didn’t know nor care.
The problem was, those three agents weren’t standing for long. Within moments they were convulsing on the floor, even sooner and they stopped moving altogether. It shouldn’t have been too much of a surprise. Cyanide pills had been Hydra protocol since the 40s. Still, it was a pain in the ass.
One of Fury’s new teams was called in to take care of the remaining agents. Hopefully, a few of the unconscious ones would last long enough to give them some information. Hopefully, it would be more useful than what they found in the lab.
As predicted, most of whatever had been in there was destroyed. The remaining files on the sole computer were both corrupted and encrypted, they would likely take a while to crack.
In the meantime, the four of them were hungry, tired, and most certainly didn’t want to endure the flight back to Avengers Tower. So they walked to town.
…
It was pretty cute. Imagine a perfectly quaint town from the movies. Light colored storefronts, all occupied by local businesses with unique little signs. There was even Christmas decorations out. Clean sidewalks full of locals enjoying the unusually warm winter day.
That day might’ve been a little ruined by the sight of four bruised and bloody strangers walking down the street.
They walked into the first diner they saw. Guess two ex-assassins, a dude in a wingsuit, and a some fire-freak didn’t look like ideal customers. Obviously they didn’t get seated. Instead the cops showed up.