May Hydra Fall
Three weeks later.
“Ticket, ma’am?”
The woman brushes her blonde hair out of her face as she searches for her ticket, swiftly and gracefully pulling it out of her black purse to hand it to the conductor.
“Thank you, ma’am,” he says, punching a hole into it and handing it back, moving up the aisle.
“Ticket, sir?”
The woman scans the other passengers, searching for any familiar heads.
There could be someone wearing a wig, but she watched their faces as she came down the aisle, and no one was from SHIELD.
Of course, there could be a mask.
Three train cars over, Ajara Agni is sipping on a cup of bitter coffee, staring ahead, her goons surrounding her.
Countdown.
Ten seconds.
Gretchen gets up.
Nine.
Slips past the conductor.
Eight.
Pushes her sunglasses back more to stay off her face, pushing it to stay on her hair like a headband, her blonde wig strands still hanging in her face.
Seven.
Feels the once cold of her non-lethal gun press against her equally warm skin.
Six.
Steps into the next train car.
Five.
Comes face-to-face with a man in a suit.
“I’m sorry,” she laughs out, covering, bringing the light into her eyes.
“Excuse me,” he says, passing.
“Ward, we have a problem,” a voice says in his com.
“What is it?” He asks once he thinks she’s out of earshot.
“The Black Widow is here.”
Gretchen does not falter as she hears that.
“Did she see you?” Ward asks.
“No.”
“What now?”
“Proceed with caution. I’ll send May to give you the device. Stand by for instructions.”
“What do I do if she spots me?”
“And recognizes you as an agent? Improvise. She doesn’t know you work with me.”
“Yeah, ‘cause she thinks you’re dead.”
“Let’s keep it that way for the time being. May’s almost to you.”
“Is the Black Widow here to neutralize the threat?”
“If she is, we have to act fast. We don’t know how she’ll do it.”
Gretchen hears it all before she’s in the next train car.
And then she sits next to Natasha, who’s looking completely at home.
“Do you know a Ward?”
“Ward? No.”
“I heard he is an agent, but an agent of what is the question. I heard him speaking to someone on the coms, and they know you are here. They are discussing a threat.”
“Ajara Agni?”
“Are you here for her?”
“I came here because Barnes found you, and he’s coming this way.”
“When?”
“About thirty seconds.”
Gretchen gets up and goes to the next train car, immediately seizing the woman.
She takes out the handcuffs that Romanoff kindly had waiting for her, along with a passport, IDs, and an icer, and she cuffs the woman to the train, taking out the guards as she does.
“Experiment 346,” Ajara Agni says coolly.
“My name is Gretchen.”
“Ah, I see you are remembering. Come with me. Ich kann das reparieren.”
I can fix that.
“May Hydra fall,” Gretchen says with a tone that is colder than the other woman’s.
Ward—the man in the suit—walks in, taking in the guards, Ajara Agni, and the woman no longer giggling, as she had done when they had bumped into each other.
And then Bucky comes in, looking like he’s been torn apart.
Bucky jumped on the train, but then some agents got in the way, and would not let him through.
They’re alive, but knocked out.
So, he doesn’t look that great, and his metal arm is showing.
So, when a guard comes in and sees the situation, the young woman shoots blindly, and Gretchen twists to protect her prisoner.
The bullet pierces her abdomen, and she falls to the floor, blood blossoming like a flower.