Mount Olympus
“Didn’t I tell you to stay at the safehouse?” Y/n chided as she piled in next to Malcolm into the booth. He shifted in his seat, balking at the intrusion. “Torres,” she said, nodding at the man sitting on the opposite side of the table. He sheepishly nodded back, scratching the back of his neck.
“Would you rather I die of starvation?” Malcolm threw back.
“Haven’t heard of take-out?” Bucky retorted as he slid in next to Torres, pushing him to the side. “Torres,” he greeted, nodding his head. His legs casually intertwined with hers under the table, an absentminded gesture as he gave the diner another cursory glance to check for exits along with anything else suspicious. A habit she knew he was probably never going to give up. She didn’t mind. She had it too.
The red light of the neon sign outside the window behind his head glistened upon his profile, making him look a sinful kinda handsome that Y/n found delectable. The barely-there light from the lamp atop their heads didn’t do more than cast a warm glow on the salt shakers sitting directly below it, on the table.
The diner was mostly empty, and pretty silent apart from hushed whispers among the two waiters behind the counter. There was also pattering on the window to her right. The rain, a sign of the oncoming storm that they were going to face the next day.
“I’ve been living on that utter shit for two weeks!” Malcolm protested.
“At least you’re living,” Steve chimed in, sliding in next to Bucky. “Torres,” he added, nodding in his direction. It was a tight fit. Poor Torres was almost pasted to the window next to him, with two hunky super soldiers taking up most of the space.
“Far better than the alternative, don’t you think?” Sam asked with a smug smile as he sat next to Y/n. He picked up a fry off Malcolm’s plate, eating it, ignoring the owner’s protests. “Since, the gang’s all here,” Sam looked at Torres then, “including Jaquine who I didn’t need to call at all.” Torres ran a hand over his face in embarrassment as the rest of them snickered. “Sharon got us the plans for The Orphanage’s headquarters.”
“Mount Olympus,” Y/n and Malcolm corrected him in unison.
“Yeah, I ain’t calling it that shit,” Sam replied, putting down his phone in the middle of the table and pulling up a hologram of the structure. “We enter here,” he pointed at an exit on the north side of the building, “once Y/n takes control of the system, shutting down the silent alarms.”
“No pressure then,” she said with a nervous chuckle because come on. What did she have to worry about? Taking down the evil organization that had haunted her for almost a century? Should be fairly easy work, right? Right. Yeah. Easy.
“Hey, look, if you can’t do it—” Sam was cut off.
“I can do it,” she said, seriously. Look, she had to do it, okay? No one was going to voice it but they didn’t really have a choice on the matter. It was her or it was almost certain death via a full-fledged assault.
“Are you sure?” Steve asked, brows furrowed.
“She can do it,” Bucky assured them with a smirk. His faith in her seemed unquestionable. He looked at her, his morphed into one of comfort. And she needed that cause—
Now here she is, looking at Mount Olympus while standing on the rooftop of a building right next to it.
The rain’s coming down heavy and harsh, unlike the drizzling of the night before. Madripoor seemed to always be clouded in darkness but tonight the storm was almost ferocious. None of the proverbial calm you’d expect for the proverbial storm.
“Y/n?” Sam urges hesitantly from behind her.
She clenches her jaw. “I heard you the first time, Cap,” she answers, annoyed.
“And I can still see you,” he states sarcastically.
“Will you give her a damn minute?” Bucky asks, incredulous. She can hear them bicker and shove each other while Steve steps in to stop them.
“We can just walk away, you know?” Malcolm asks, from next to her.
The man must be on drugs. She looks at him, incredulous.“Walk away? And what? You live out the rest of your life on the run? Hunted?”
“Worse ways to live,” he shrugs. He looks unnatural wearing a bulletproof vest and tactical gear. She’s so accustomed to seeing him in a suit, it’s jarring. He still carries it off like his Sunday bests, but he just looks… severe.
“Fuck off. We’re doing this, tonight,” she looks back in front, over to the towering building.
“Fine,” Malcolm relents. He runs a hand through his hair and adds, “Then we can just fight our way in.”
Yeah, he’s definitely on drugs.
“I know we all know this, but I wanna put this out there.” Sam said somberly, “Seeing as we can’t involve the government to go on an all-out war against the secret organization controlling the whole nation of Madripoor, we will have no backup. It’s just us… against a shit tonne of trained mercenaries.” He looked around the table, “So if you want an out, now’s the chance.”
The silence persisted for a few seconds until Malcolm broke it.
“You guys have become really fond of me, haven’t you?” He smiled as everyone except Torres groaned in response. “Come on! You’re all willing to fight terrifying odds to save my very perky ass.” he urged them.
She couldn’t help but laugh in response.
She turns to look at him in full, “Excuse me?” She cocks her head. “It’s called Mount Olympus for a reason, Mal,” she says, pointing at the headquarters. “Or did you just forget about that?”
“Eh,” he shrugs again, nonchalant. “We’ve got two Super Soldiers,” he points at Steve and Bucky, diagonally on his left. “A flying man with guns,” points at Sam, a few steps away on his left side, “a world-class assassin,” he points at her, “the most gorgeous man I have ever laid eyes on,” he points back at Torres, “and Me,” he says, spreading his arms with a smug smile. “We can fight our way in,” he adds with utter confidence.
“He’s right,” Sam chimes in. And is Brekker just selling whatever shit he’s taking? “I’ve seen you work really hard to get better, the past couple of months,” he adds, genuinely. “If this is going to screw that up—”
“It’s not worth it,” Malcolm finishes.
Now, you need to understand, Malcolm Brekker has been her friend for around four years. It’s not quite that long for someone who has lived for a century. But she cherishes this man. He seems like a crude, sly, self-congratulating asshole, but that’s only cause he gets a rush from ruffling people’s feathers. She wouldn’t go as far as to say it’s an act, because it isn’t. But it is far from his defining characteristic. No. His defining characteristic is his willingness to live out his entire life in fear of the people who made him do ghastly things, all to ensure his friend’s emotional well-being.
And Y/n will happily reciprocate that care tenfold.
“No,” she states. She waves her hand dismissing whatever argument he and Sam are going to come up with, turning back to look at the building. “You said it, I put in the work. I’m doing better.” She takes a few steps towards the parapet. “We’re doing this tonight,” she says with finality, clenching her fists, drops of water slipping through them.
“Y/n—” Sam tries.
“She’s got it, Sam,” Bucky assures him. There it is, that unquestionable faith again. Whatever will she do with this bewitching man?
Well, she can focus on that later. Right now, her target stands ahead.
It’s wild, she thinks, wearing this suit. Tony had designed it for her, after Siberia. They weren’t even talking then. But that never seemed to matter to him. He would look out for her, no matter what.
It was sleeveless, with a high neck. He’d made it out of the same nano-tech as his own suit. And while it fit her like a glove, almost like cotton on her skin, the armored nature of it was evident to the touch. There were enough holsters for her to carry as many guns as she desired with the addition of tiny gadgets that Y/n could’ve never thought up herself. It feels like he’s looking out for her still.
And with that thought, she clenched her fists again. “We’re doing this tonight,” she reiterates with intent and lets her powers flow.
Even after years and years of use, she can’t explain the feeling of it to anyone better than, ‘It feels like being hit by a current hard enough for the world to stop all its movement.’
Letting that current flow with a buzzing sound crackling through the wind, she opens a portal, jumping into it. It’s just fucking pink as she remembers, engulfed in just as much noise and grain as the last time. She doesn’t focus on it though. She’s got shit to do.
Running forward, following the layout she spent hours memorizing, she opens another portal. Jumping out, the first thing she sees are five guards who are fairly shocked at her sudden ingress from thin air. Which, fair, she did just teleport in from almost a 100 feet away.
Looking around she realizes she’s landed in the right spot; in the surveillance room. So she makes quick work of them, without much hesitation. Then proceeds to attach a drive to the main computer. “I’m in. Room secure,” she informs over the comms.
“Told you she could do it,” Bucky states smugly. She can hear his smile.
So she smiles too, as she makes her way over to the computer, plugging in the flash drive.
“Yeah, yeah. Shut up, lover boy,” Sam rebukes him. “Y/n, the alarms?”
“Flash drive in,” she states, typing in code to give the drive access to the system. “It’s up to you now, Junior.”
“If they are as secure as you say they are, can you disable the security system?” Torres asked fiddling with his hands.
She shook her head. “No, but I know someone who can.”
“My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings,” he recites over the comms. “Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
“You know that poem is about the irony of hubris, right?” Steve rebukes.
When there is no response, Y/n says with a snicker, “You didn’t, did you, Harley?”
“I heard it on Breaking Bad, alright? I’m not a fucking English major,” Harley grumbles, tying away.
She laughs. “Alright Ozy, whatever you say.” She picks up the lanyards off of the unconscious body of one of the guards. “We’re on a clock here though, and you’ve got 2 minutes to silence the alarms and then—”
“Do you ever see me telling you how to do your job?” Harley chides.
“All the time,” she answers, peeking her head out the door. She surveils the hallways. They’re dimly lit, covered in soft blue light from the guiding lights on the floor and ceiling.
Harley grumbles at the other end, “Only cause you’ve got the self-preservation of a squirrel on speed.”
She rolls her eyes, not justifying it with a response. Mostly because he isn’t that wrong and will rip her a new one if she tries to argue. Moving out of the room swiftly she says, “I’m headed down.”
“We’ll see you at the rendezvous point,” Sam confirms.
“Try not to make too much noise till we get there, sweetheart,” Bucky remarks, with a hint of a smile in the words.
She begins making her way through the corridors to the elevator. “I’ll try my best,” she smiles too.
“Even if we get in, the ground floor has to be guarded heavily as well as the entrance to the upper levels,” Steve stated, waving at the hologram.
“Most of the levels can be accessed by the lanyards of any given employee,” Malcolm said.
“We’d still be risking too much,” Steve replied, biting his lip from the inside. She recognized the action. He did it when he was worried, and right now she couldn’t blame him.
“Unless,” Torres chimed in, “we create a distraction.” He smiled at Y/n then who smiled back. She got why Malcolm liked him. They seem exact opposites, but at heart, they were both mischievous boys who were given too much training with access to firepower which should have been concerning.
“I’m really good at those,” Y/n replied only to be met with Bucky’s annoyed grumbling.
The moment the elevator doors open, she clenches her fists in preparation. “I’m here to kick ass and chew bubblegum,” she announces, getting the attention of all the guards and employees. “And I fucking hate bubblegum,” she adds with a smile.
The guards jump into action and so does she.
Glitching from one place to another taking down one guard after another, she flows almost smoothly. She dropkicks one of them, steals the machine gun off her hands, and shoots out as many light sources as she can in the room, plunging them into darkness. The next time she glitches, they are too focused on the flash of light to catch her glitch back in. Using her biceps around another guard’s neck from behind, she suffocates him till he falls. Their shock over her abilities along with the lack of any light for them to track her movements makes cleaning out the whole floor quite easy for her.
“There’s five floors in total. I make my way down from the fourth floor from the surveillance room. And then create enough of a commotion on the first floor, they should dispatch at least some of the guards from the entrance to deal with the intrusion,” she explained, as she tried to grab a fry off of Malcolm’s plate only for him to smack her hand away.
“And then we can split into groups of two. Steve and Torres,” Sam said and looked at them. Eyes moving from one to the other, “you check for any civilians or kids in the basement level.”
“There shouldn’t be far too many kids. Most of them are kept at facilities in Low Town, away from Mount Olympus in the High Town. But some of the ones who are considered… brighter are brought in for training or testing purposes. During their stay they are all housed here,” he said pointing at a large hall in the basement. “Inside cells,” he added with vexation.
“We get them out first,” Steve nodded.
“Then you move to the ground floor, secure it,” Sam commanded. “Y/n and I will take the first and second floor.” He turned to Bucky. “You and Malcolm take the third and fourth.” Bucky obviously grumbled at that too.
For a man who is feared by far too many people as a Ghost story, he’s awfully cute, Y/n thought.
“You couldn’t have waited for like two minutes?” Sam screams out. “You cleared the entire damn floor, didn’t you?” He asked rhetorically, as he got out of the elevator.
“That’s my girl,” Bucky exclaims with pride, poking his head out, throwing a wink her way.
“Is that a Glock in your pocket or are you just real happy to see me, Sarge?” She’s one smooth motherfucker, remember? But when the man fucking smirks at her something unholy, she forgets all about that. What the fuck is she supposed to do with this painfully charming man?
“God, that was naughty, Y/n,” Malcolm screams out from inside the elevator. At the same time as, “Quit flirting,” Sam scolds. Pushing Bucky back into the elevator he continues, “Up you go, Staring Machine. You can see your girl later.”
With that, Sam and Y/n take another look around the floor, ensuring it’s clear, and then make their way up to the second floor.
“You nervous?” Sam asks her, once they’re in the elevator.
“Why would I be nervous?” Y/n throws back.
“I don’t know. Are you?” He turns his head to look at her. “Cause you seem nervous. Which is new.”
Y/n pulls out a knife from her utility belt. She shrugs, no point lying to this perspective little shit. “I guess I am. They made me…” she looks down at her hands, “into this. They’re responsible almost as much as Hydra is. Monster makers, the lot of them.” She clicks her tongue in disappointment.
He nudges her to catch her eye. Once he does he says, “I don’t think they made you, Y/n. If they had, I’m pretty sure we would’ve been fighting you, not fighting with you… If anything, I think you made you.”
A good man with a very expensive frisbee dressed in red, white, and blue Captain America does make.
She smiles. “You’re getting good at those speeches, Cap.”
He chuckles in response, “I think you get the wisdom free with the shield.”
They’re both laughing when the elevator door opens. Sam charges forward, using the shield to cover Y/n as she begins unarming as many people as she can with her knives. With Sam in front, with her following close behind they make their way through the sea of assailants.
She is gut-punching a dude when Steve’s voice crackles in through the comms.
“Something’s wrong,” Steve says, panting. He sounds distressed. “The cells were completely empty.”
“What do you mean?” Malcolm asks.
“I mean, they were empty,” Steve answers, frustrated.
“The basement was guarded. I mean, like really, heavily guarded, with a very small battalion of men. But when we got in there—” Torres is cut off.
“—there was no one in there,” Steve finishes.
Sam and Y/n look at each other from across the room with a knowing look on their faces.
“It’s a trap, isn’t it?” Bucky chimes in. “We’re running headfirst into a fucking trap.”
“Now this—this is the part where you quote ‘Star Wars’ again, Mr. Rogers,” Malcolm adds.
“I do seem to have a bad feeling about this,” Steve replies.
“So do we stop, or do we keep going?” Torres asks.
There’s a silence, filled with nothing but hushed noises of kicks and punches being thrown filtering in through the comms.
Y/n breaks it, “Your call, Cap.”
Sam looks around for a second, thinking. She can tell his mind is running a mile a minute, trying to assess the situation the best he can. With a heavy sigh, he answers, “We keep going. We stick to the plan… But I suggest you all arm yourselves to the damn teeth.” He picks up the machine gun off of the man he just dropped, throwing it back to Y/n. She secures it over her shoulder.
Sam begins walking towards her. “We’re far from invincible, and the odds are startlingly against us. But we are angry, we’re loud and we’re very pissed off; that makes us motivated…” There is some movement behind him, but she doesn’t move. It’s his moment. “They consider themselves Gods, exempt from suffering the consequences of their actions.” He throws the shield, aiming for a man approaching him from behind. The shield flies back to him after hitting the man straight on the head. Placing it back on his arm he adds, “But unfortunately for them, we’re in the business of defeating so-called Gods.”
Y/n smiles.
Ah, their fearless fucking leader.
“You heard the Captain,” Bucky says after a pause, the smile on his face evident in his words. “We do this tonight.”
With that Sam and Y/n pile back into the elevator having secured the room.
“Alpha team, update,” Sam commands.
“Basement level and ground floor secure,” Torres replies.
“Charlie team?” Sam asks.
“Third floor secure, fourth—agh damn it!” A harsh punch. “Hold on.” A significant pause with muffled screams and sounds of bones cracking. “Ah, yeah. Where was I? Oh yeah. Fourth floor secure,” Bucky answers, panting.
“Alright, everyone, meet at the rendezvous point,” Sam states. “Then the real shit begins.”
“Roger that, Captain,” everyone replies in unison.
The elevator door dings and Y/n and Sam pile out of it. Opposite to them, they can see Steve and Torres do the same. Bucky and Malcolm come rushing into the corridor, having cleared the floor.
They take stalk of each other, they’re all somewhat banged up but no one has lost any major organs, so they decide to march on. Not like they have much of a choice.
Sam looks at Malcolm expectantly, “Lead the way, boytoy.”
Malcolm chortles at the nickname and begins leading. He walks opposite to wherever he had rushed in from. He takes a right and then a left, pacing down a barely lit corridor, they approach a giant metal gate.
“Here, you have it,” he waves at the twelve feet tall gate in front of him. “The Golden Gates,” he adds snidely. It’s looming over them with a presence that almost seems sinister. Flooding soft white artificial light comes off the edges while the gates themselves are distinctly not golden, but a steel jet black. So it’s terrifyingly fitting when Malcolm recites, “Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate.”
Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.
“What about the fifth floor?” Torres asked, taking a couple fries off Malcolm’s plate and the motherfucker just pushed his plate towards the younger man. She stared daggers at the gesture and the lovesick fool that he was, was far too lost in Torres’s eyes to even notice.
“Ever played a video game?” Malcolm asked. And though he was looking only at Torres, the question was obviously not aimed at him. Without caring for a response, intently gazing upon his beloved, the fucker continued, “The fifth floor is like the Boss level fight. It has everything; the files that we would need to prove the existence of The Orphanage as an organization exclusively dealing with espionage as well as the evil villain who controls it all. Hera—the commander in chief—sits upon her throne surrounded by guards while she does whatever it is that evil people do.”
“Planning ways to steal a 101 dalmations and make a damn coat,” Y/n suggested. Sam. Torres and Malcolm snickered in response, while Bucky and Steve just looked confused. When Bucky cocked an eyebrow at her, searching for an answer, “Morgan will make you watch it soon enough, don’t worry,” she replied.
“If it is the final boss fight, then we can’t just waltz in using key cards, we pick off the guards,” Sam chimed in.
Malcolm nodded, sitting up straighter. “Once we begin clearing up the floors they will initiate a silent lockdown, and the first thing they will do is call for backup. They’d run off behind the big angry doors of the fifth floor, and hide until backup arrives to take care of the intruders—”
“—which in this case is us,” Bucky finished with a frown.
“How long will the backup take?” Steve asked.
“About 20 minutes,” Malcolm replied.
“That is not enough time,” Bucky stated, seriousness overtaking his features.
Here’s the problem, they need a distraction to make it easier for the rest to get in. But if Y/n plays up the distraction—that’s severe enough to make them dispense the guards from the ground floor—it will cause enough commotion for them to sound the alarm, calling for backup. Unless—
“What if we just don’t let them call backup?” Y/n asked rhetorically, her mind still wondering.
“What are you thinking, sweetheart?” Bucky prompted her.
“What if we just cut off their communication to the outside world?” Y/n suggested.
“Can we do that?” Sam asked.
She wondered for a second, taking into account the security systems that were common in Madripoor and the usual preferences that were prevalent amongst that crowd. She hummed, “Harley might be able to pull it off.”
“We’re basing our lives on a ‘might be’, then?” Malcolm snarked.
“You’ve got anything better, Mal?” She threw back.
He shrugged, “You know better than anyone, I love experiments.” He winked at her.
Bucky cleared his throat and cocked his brow, with such a blank face, that Malcolm shrank back in his seat.
She snickered before saying, “Point is, it’s the best we got.”
Everyone seemed to agree with the statement made.
“Still doesn’t solve our problem with the doors,” Steve cut in. “If they are reliable enough for them to hide behind it, it can’t be easy to physically break them.”
“It’s huge and seems unmoving but with the right access codes and someone who’s already hacked into the system, we should be able to make it work,” Malcolm replied, easily. “But,” he added, his eyes now showing a hint of worry, “we’ll be on a very, very tight schedule.”
“Cause not only do we need to extract hostages, cut communications, we’ll also have to open an impenetrable door,” Torres surmised.
“And the backup will arrive eventually,” Y/n said. “Once they realize the communications are down, they will send someone to get the backup. We can’t keep count of everyone.”
A heavy silence fell over the table.
They were a fearless group, Y/n knew that. The men she sat next to were not just fearless, they were also fearsome. They were powerful, they’d been beaten and broken in battles time and again, only to rise up higher than before. But having power did not make you exempt from being fearful. And they were fearful too. Not for themselves but for each other.
But that was never a fucking weakness. She wouldn’t let it be a weakness. She’d suffered a life without having someone to be fearful over and it was nothing but reckless. But now—here with people to give a shit about, she had thrived. She had fought Gods and men and won. She did all of that while being fucking terrified. So she sure as shit could do this.
“I still think we can do it,” she said. “It’s risky, I know it is. But… if I am about to risk my life, I can’t think of a better cause,” and then she looked around the table. “And I definitely can’t think of better people to do it with.”
And slowly, all the men’s lips turned up at the edges.
With the fear coursing through their veins, here they stand now.
Sam stands in the middle with Malcolm and Torres to his right. Steve, Bucky, and Y/n stand off to his left in that order.
Taking a look at his team, Sam asks, “Harley? Can you open the doors?”