Bucharest, 2016
June 23rd, 2016
Bucharest, Romania.
The window was shattered inwards under the force of the stun grenade that was lobbed through, glass sprinkling through the air in a deadly arc. They moved reflexively, the Captain deflecting the grenade with force into the wall, and she leapt for the gun. As her fingers closed around the smooth grip, a second grenade came through the other window.
It landed at her partner’s feet, and smoothly, he kicked it from himself, sending it skidding across the floor. Rogers slammed his shield over it, and it went off harmlessly underneath the metal. Her partner was already moving, hefting their mattress over his head to deflect the third grenade. Their door shuddered with a loud bang, and she knew it wasn’t strong enough to withstand another blow from a battering ram. She could see a silhouette rapidly approaching the window; a man on a cable, and as the Captain turned at the sound of the door, she raised her weapon. Across the room, her partner threw their table at the narrow entranceway, pinning the door in place for just another moment.
As the first two men came crashing through the window, she fired at the one closest to her. It was a precise shot, not one to kill, but one to debilitate, and he went down with a cry, clutching at his shoulder.
“NO!” Rogers swiped at her, horrified, and she snarled at him wordlessly, ducking under his reaching arm to avoid him. Her partner was already engaged with the other, and she watched him throw the man across the room. The backdoor opened, and Rogers turned, shield up. Her partner crossed the room in three short strides. Rogers gripped the barrel of the first rifle through, and forced it up, and in the opening he had made, her partner kicked the man right back out of the door.
“Buck, stop!” Rogers grabbed his hand, but her partner was faster and reversed the grip. Rogers was panting, wild-eyed. “You’re going to kill someone!”
She had heard enough. She reached for Rogers, catching the hard edges of the shield support on the back of his uniform and pulled. He came crashing down with a stuttered gasp, and she loomed over him. His eyes went wide with a sudden fear. She could see herself reflected in his blown pupils, pale and savage looking. She reached through the wood beside his head and bared her teeth. “He won’t kill anyone.”
She pulled out her partner’s rucksack, and tossed it to him. He turned, and lobbed it from the building. Movement behind her made her spin, and she reflexively phased out, even as her partner reached for her, his hands going right through her uselessly. The bullets bounced sharply off the bulk of his metal bicep, tearing through his jacket, but before she could move to phase him out too, the Captain had risen to his feet and had thrown up his shield – over the both of them.
For one wild second, she met his blue eyes, gunfire pinging loudly off the impenetrable shield. There was no anger in his eyes, no resentment, just a determination she realised she had seen before. It was a look her partner often wore.
Then she grabbed at him again, hands solidifying against his chest, and she threw him from her. Her throw was true; he went careening, shield first, into another gunman. They went toppling out of the window, and she was freed to assist her partner.
He was advancing on another enemy; hand raised to deflect the spray of bullets the man was sending his way. As he made it close enough to grab him; lifting him in a show of strength with his flesh hand, one of the other men rose unsteadily from his sprawl across the floor. She pounced.
Head turned, gun trained on her partner, fingers on the trigger, his reaction to her approach was too slow. She kicked at the barrel of the weapon, sending the spray of bullets into the ceiling, and as he yelped in surprise, already trying to regain control of the weapon, she spun, throwing her whole weight into the air and behind her other foot. It was harder to gain traction in such a small space, but she was trained well, and she was better and stronger than all of them-
Her kick sent him flying back into the thin wooden door of their closet, and it crumpled inwards with the force of his impact.
Grunting from outside the flat told her the Captain was still occupied, and she reached for her partner who had turned to her. He stretched his hand out as well, and their fingertips brushed for a moment, before the heavy bang of a shotgun pierced the hinges of their front door. Something like a snarl marred his face, and in the beat of silence between the last shell firing and the men outside getting ready to storm the flat, he whirled and punched right through the door.
It gave way under the force of the blow, and as he kept moving, shaking the door from his wrist, she flitted into the space between his body and the stairwell, invisible.
The first man she sent tumbling down the stairs let out an aborted cry of surprise, and when she appeared suddenly to punch another, his eyes went wide with shock. It was an expression she knew well. Behind her, she could hear the thud of metal on flesh, as her partner engaged the two last men standing.
With a battle cry, one of the men still coming up the stairwell opened fire. She watched him empty his clip into the wall behind her coolly and tilted her head to consider him as he stared at her. The crash of glass above her spared him; it drew her attention up, up to where another man had come through the small sunroof, firing as he went. Her partner was quick, and grabbed him as he came, causing enough slack in his safety-rope to toss him into the wall like a doll. The cold part of her was laughing; who did they think they were?
They were not some petty criminals – they were fucking legends.
She made to climb the steps again, trying to get her hands on her partner; if she could phase them out then they could get out – but more gunfire, and feet behind her forced her to turn to the men approaching her from behind. What didn’t they get about her abilities? They were shooting at her with no rest, and she was pinned in the corner, unable to get close enough to disable them, unable to move up the stairs.
The creak and whip-snap of rope preceded her partner’s graceful leap from the story above, and he landed solidly on the man closest to her. It was all the break she needed, and she sprang forwards, passing right through her partner and the next man he was dispatching, and into the face of the next. She grabbed the ridge of his tactical goggles and used it as a handhold to bring his face into her knee, clambering over his unconscious body like an animal, forgoing grace for speed.
Ghost met the next man with a scowl, tugging the weapon out of his grip with a sharp pull, and as he took a step back, she advanced, reaching for his head, intending to slam it into the wall. A hand darted out as she reared back with him, stopping her dead. It was the Captain, with a face like thunder.
“Не надо!” Don’t! His Russian was sloppy, but the sound of it surprised her enough to let him go. Behind him, her partner was advancing, and she met his eyes. His own darted to the void of the stairwell meaningfully, and she nodded once. The Captain blinked, looked behind him to see what she was staring at, but it was too late. She phased through him, ignoring his grunt of surprise, and leapt into space.
Her partner caught her solidly around the middle with his flesh hand, and the momentum of her jump carried them diagonally over the railing of the next floor. He grunted as he landed, releasing her and the metal railing he’d torn out of the stairs to slow their descent. They were set upon again immediately, and she barely had time to phase out again as she was shot at. Her partner reached through her gauzy form, and pulled the man towards him, leaving her to face the next alone.
She dropped and spun, kicking the man’s legs out from under him and causing him to tumble down the stairs. She was still crouched as the sound of a rifle’s safety going off sounded, and she watched helplessly as one of the special-police aimed at her partner. She wasn’t close enough to-
With a hum preceding the speed of it’s passing, the Captain’s shield rocketed towards the gunman and knocked him over, resounding with enough force to lodge itself in the thin plaster of the opposite wall. She stared, breath catching in her throat, and looked from the Captain to her partner. They were looking at each other, caught in some memory, and she knew they were running out of time. That was too close.
“Солдат!” Soldier! She snapped at him, drawing his eyes to her. She stood, listening, waiting. More were approaching. She pointed to the ground beneath her feet. “На пять меньше.” Down by five. He swallowed and nodded and then hefted himself up on the railing. Ghost paused long enough to watch the Captain suck in a terrified breath at the sight of his old friend getting ready to jump, before she let herself sink through the man at her feet and the cement below her.
One, two, three, four, five-
She melted through the floors at a dizzying speed, and it was only years of experience that stopped her from crying out as she collided harshly with the floor, solidifying so quickly it hurt. Her partner let out an aborted sound as he caught the railing with his metal hand to stop his descent, and she imagined the way it must have pulled at the sensitive connected tissue at his shoulder. He hauled himself over the railing as she stood unsteadily. She had winded herself, and fought to take actual breaths as she turned to him.
He grabbed at her hand, and she curled her fingers around his and pulled them into the Grey and through the door of the closest apartment. Gunfire burst from behind them, but it didn’t matter, because there was a window ahead, and they were picking up speed, and they crested the balcony and jumped-
She released him at the peak of their leap, knowing they’d need the momentum of actual mass to carry them across the divide, and realised with a thrill of panic, that she wasn’t going to make it-
Her partner collided heavily with the cement lip of the building, and she stretched out her fingers, scrabbling at the cement for a breathless moment before his metal hand clamped around her wrist. They both cried out; him with the effort of catching and holding her weight, and her as the bones in her wrist were crushed painfully. She could feel that one had splintered, probably her scaphoid, and bit down on her tongue as he pulled her over the ledge with him, pain shooting up her arm.
He rolled over the side, arms coming around her to clutch at her as she fell on him. She panted briefly into his neck, digging her nails into the plates of his metal arm, before she released him to stand. She was growing exhausted; both with the efforts she had exerted, the constant phasing in and out, and the fallout of the close call.
Still, she ran as he did, and it was a mark of her growing tiredness that she didn’t notice the shadow above them until it was too late. A blur of black and silver collided with her partner, sending him tumbling to the ground, and causing her to trip up over him. They rolled in a brief, confusing tangle of limbs, both of them desperate to get their eyes on the new enemy.
She righted herself with a palm to the pavement in a half-crouch, and stared. It was a man; a man in a black suit, with claws and…and ears? As she watched, unable to keep her mouth from falling half-open, the man shifted into a ready stance, claws lengthening and shoulders tensing.
Her partner moved first, swinging at the man, only to be caught and shoved away in a surprising show of strength. The new opponent moved with a lethal kind of grace, oddly feline in his movements, and as she stood and caught her breath, she could tell he had been trained well.
He caught her partner with a solid kick to the chest, and she leapt for him, catching his attention with a roundhouse that caught him off balance. Her foot smarted; the suit was harder than it looked, somehow holding the feel of armour despite moving like a second skin. He whirled on her, faster than she expected, and was too slow to phase out, as he caught her by the collar and threw her. She went flying through the air, and straight through the metal of the power-units, and past her partner who was struggling to his feet. She rolled to a stop, phasing back into being and letting out a pained gasp. She touched at the torn collar of her shirt, and her fingers came away red where his claws had cut into her chest.
She righted herself, and turned at the loud whirring of a helicopter, in time to see the navy-suited figure of the Captain hurtling towards her. Heavy artillery fire from the helicopter forced her to stop and phase out, gritting her teeth as the concrete burst and shattered around her. It was growing painful now, the old ache of pushing herself too hard making her breathless again, straining her already bruised chest.
Her body screamed, and she cried out involuntarily with the effort of holding herself phased out. Her partner was on the ground, that black-suited freak trying to claw at him, clearly intent on slitting his throat. She had to get up, she had to get to him, they had to get out-
Like someone had heard her prayers, the helicopter’s engine let out a whine of protest, and the gunfire moved up and away from her in a crazy tilt. She looked up, in time to catch the flash of a familiar winged figure soaring gracefully away from the helicopter.
Sam Wilson.
She almost smiled.
Distracted by the gunfire, the man in the black-suit had diverted his attention just long enough for her partner to regain the upper hand, and she hauled herself to her feet as he looked to her. He was hesitating, and the black-suited cat-man was getting to his feet again. “Go!” she barked, and began to run, even though she knew she wouldn’t reach him in time. He didn’t look back a second time, scooping his abandoned rucksack from the ground mid-stride. The cat-man had started after him, and though she knew it was helpless, she kicked off after the pair of them, breath sawing in her chest.
They disappeared over the lip of the building, and she was forced to pause. She couldn’t make a drop like that, not like her partner could – she wasn’t as sturdy as he was. Feet behind her made her turn and lash out instinctively, teeth bared at whoever had tried to attack her.
The Captain ducked out of the way of her swing, eyes wide again. For a beat, they just looked at each other. They were getting away. “Get me down there.” She barked at him, and he blinked – and then charged her, forcing her off her feet – and over the edge of the building.
It felt wrong to fall without her partner, and her instincts screamed to escape his foreign grip as they fell, unable to trust the hold of a man she didn’t know. His grip was too loose – maybe he was suffering a similar aversion, and when they landed, the impact jolted her loose and she went skidding over the concrete, shirt doing little to protect her back. The distinct sound of metal against gravel grated on her ears as her spinal implants were dragged along the cement, and she forced herself to her feet shakily.
Her partner, the man in black, and the Captain had already gained ground away from her. Below her, she could feel the rumble of cars, and watched as the three men disappeared over the edge of the overpass they had landed on. She took a shuddering breath, and let herself fall again.
The light faded instantly as she fell into the middle of the three-lane underpass, and there was the loud squeal of tires as a car swerved to avoid hitting her. She reached out as it passed her, wobbling over the lanes, as the driver wrestled with the wheel. She clambered up the bumper to the roof, trying to keep her balance as the car picked up speed again.
Ahead of her, she watched her partner drop from the overpass, another car doing a similar manoeuvre to avoid him, and she rose to her full height to leap from the car she was on to the next, as he began to run, and the two forms of the cat-man and the Captain landed behind him. She wasn’t as close as them, but she leapfrogged cars until she was nearly on the Captain’s heels, and then jumped again.
Her ankles ached at the force of her collision with the concrete, but she ignored the pain and pushed herself into a sprint after the cat-man. He was too fast for a human, and she felt a dull sort of worry. What fresh creation was he? Was he HYDRA? Was he a Soldier like them?
The Captain was gaining on her, but she didn’t spare him a look, even as his rapid approach sent alarm through her system. He was not the target anymore, she reminded herself, he was not the current threat. She fixed her gaze on the black-suit chasing her partner, and pushed herself harder. They were moving faster than the cars, unbound by the speed limit of the underpass, but she was growing tired, and she wasn’t as fast as them.
Behind her, she could hear sirens approaching, and as the Captain out paced her, she skidded to a halt and turned.
“STAND DOWN!” A tinny, accented cry from the speaker of the police-car was her cue, as the black vehicle bore down on her. She could see the driver’s eyes going wide behind the tinted windshield as they realised she wasn’t going to move. “STAND-” She flipped up, at just the right moment, her own momentum making her tumble up the bonnet of the car and over the windshield, the force of her impact cracking the windshield in a spider’s web, and she just managed to jam her fingers into the lip of the roof over the glass, and held on.
The car was advancing on the Captain now, and she caught his eye as he turned to look at it. It was instinct to extend her hand to him as the car swerved towards him, and he jumped towards her, carried with unnatural, super-human grace. His fingers wrapped around her forearm, and she caught him by his stiff forearm bracers, and for a moment, held his full weight as he curled his legs up in a mid-air crunch – and kicked in the driver’s side window. She grunted with the effort, losing her grip on the roof as the car came to a screeching halt. The Captain dropped back to the ground and tugged open the door, hauling the unconscious driver from the wheel, and swinging himself into the seat.
She phased through the car, dropping into the empty passenger’s seat and making him startle. He looked away from her quickly, and pressed on the gas, squinting through the shattered window. With wince as the motion jarred her aching shoulder, she extended her leg awkwardly from under the dash, and kicked out the windshield to free his vision. It went flying off behind them, with a loud shattering noise as the glass went tinkling across the cement.
He drove recklessly fast, weaving through the traffic with a skill borne from enhanced reflexes. They passed the black-suited man, and were nearly at her partner, when a loud thud sounded from the back of the car. She whipped around and watched as the man hauled himself into a standing position on the bumper. Fuck. The Captain whipped the wheel around, trying to dislodge him, and she clutched at the door handle to stay still. It did nothing.
“Sam, I can’t shake this guy.” The Captain seemingly spoke to no-one, but this close to him, she could finally see the small comms unit in his ear, and hear Wilson's tinny response.
“Right behind you!”
More sirens filled the air, and the blue flash of German police lights reflected off the rear-view mirror and the smooth side of the Captain’s cowl. He was too busy keeping half an eye on the road ahead and half on the man still clinging to the car that he didn’t see how close the police were, so she clenched her jaw, and reached for the wheel.
He let out a wordless cry of surprise as she wrenched the wheel to the left, cutting off a police vehicle that threatened to overtake them, and as the momentum forced the cat-man to the other side, she jerked the wheel again. It made the cat-man nearly lose his grip, and she hissed in frustration, even as the motion had forced another car off the road. The Captain slammed a hand into her chest with a glare, forcing her to thud back over to her side of the car. She opened her mouth – to swear, to yell, she wasn’t sure – but then he suddenly twisted the wheel.
The car went flying through the barricade, sending chunks of heavy sand flying as barrels burst. Behind them, the rest of the cars screeched and skidded as they tried to avoid hitting each other; and she realised the Captain had followed her partner’s mad leap over the barricade. He was still running, directly at oncoming traffic, and she leant forwards in her seat, heart in her throat as she watched a motorcyclist flying towards him with no hope of stopping in time.
Her partner adjusted his stride, took a tiny step to the side, stooped – and picked up the motorcycle by a single handlebar. It flew into the air with its own momentum, the driver falling off and out of the way, and she had never been so in awe of her partner’s strength as she watched him manhandle the bike up and around. It flew in a full revolution, brought back down to earth with the force of his metal grip, and in tandem, he used the weight of it to assist an almost delicate jump; neatly swinging himself into the saddle as it thudded to the ground. The tires squealed as he kicked it off away from them.
Her mouth went dry, and as the Captain floored the car to keep up, and out of the corner of her eye she noticed his own wide-stare. Despite the madness, and the adrenaline and the fear, she couldn’t help but smile a little smugly. He was a fucking legend.
A thud from the roof alerted her to the movement of their unwanted passenger. “What is with this guy?” The Captain muttered, eyes darting between the roof and the road. She heaved herself forwards desperately, squirreling out of the space where the windshield had been and tried to grab the man as he jumped. Her fingers missed him by inches, and she had to watch as he soared towards her partner with lethal intent.
She shouldn’t have worried. Her partner turned, keeping the bike steady, and caught the man by the throat. She could hear his wet croak of surprise from here and felt a savage satisfaction. She knew exactly how that felt. The man flipped himself out of her partner’s grip using the wall as a resounding board, and the bike tilted crazily with the motion. Her partner’s metal sent sparks flying across the cement with the friction, as he kept the motorbike from totalling with his strength alone. With a savage kick, he finally sent the suited man flying and righted the bike.
He looked over his shoulder at her, arm outstretched, and though the Captain let out another cry, she rose to her feet on bonnet of the car, took two running steps and jumped.
It was messy; the motorbike almost tipped over again as she clung to the flesh of his bicep with all her might, and he hauled her close. They swerved and dipped, and she desperately swung a leg over his waist, pinning herself between him and the handlebars. They dug painfully into her back, but the sensation was drowned by the sight over his shoulder.
Wilson was flying towards them, heedless in his flightpath, too focussed on shaking the black-suited man, who was clinging to him, using him, and because Wilson wasn’t looking where he was going, they were gaining too quickly-
Her partner unclipped a small explosive from his belt and flung it up, just as they passed out of the roof of the underpass. The resulting explosion caused the cement roof to crumble and crack, and rubble exploded outwards.
A black blur came towards them, and she could do nothing but suck in a startled breath as the black suited man twisted unnaturally, righting himself with deadly purpose, and though he was falling – he managed to outstretch his arm and slash at the back of the bike.
The motorbike gave out, the wheel popped, and she locked her fingers around her partner and phased them out before they were carried into the wreckage. They tumbled and rolled with the black suited man, and her head cracked sharply on the cement, blurring her vision and making her stomach roil crazily.
By the time she had stopped skidding along the road, and her vision cleared, the black suited man had already regained his footing. He took a step towards her fallen partner and she shoved her scraped palms beneath her and heaved herself upright desperately-
The Captain appeared from seemingly nowhere, her head swimming as she watched him collide with the black suited man and knock him off his feet, away from her partner. She hurried towards him, gripping his shoulder – half to help him up, half to lean on him. More police cars poured from the underpass around them, the helicopter appearing above them, and she felt her stomach sink as she realised they were surrounded.
From the sky, a bolt of metal and grey descended, landing with a thud opposite them. It was one of Stark’s creations, she recognised the distinctive look, though the heavy artillery on the metal-suit’s shoulders were standard military grade. With an electronic whir, the metal-suit raised its arms, and pointed its blasters at the Captain, and at the black-suited man.
“Stand down. Now.” The voice was metallic but human, and she realised with a start that it was being operated. She didn’t know that Stark had loaned out his suits. Guns were cocked, men were shouting, and the suit’s weapons were focussed unerringly upon them. The Captain – who had angled himself between her partner and the cat-man – lowered his shield just slightly. She wanted to scream at him to keep his defences up. This couldn’t be it – it wasn’t over, they had to get away, had to run-
Her hand slid slowly down her partner’s arm, and she intertwined their fingers.
“Congratulations, Cap.” The suited man spoke again, and the Captain put his shield back onto it’s brace on his back. “You’re a criminal.” She squeezed her partner’s hand once in warning, and then, with the last of her energy reserves, pulled them into the Grey and out of sight.
For two steps, they were free again. For two steps, she felt hope fill her belly. For two steps, her partner was with her and were running-
Something hit her square in the back, and then her world went white.