The Targets. Both of them. It is the blonde man, Captain America, that he focuses on. This one must die first. And now here is, as if he was personally delivering himself to the slaughter. The car is crushed easily, the traitor quickly dealt with. The Targets are trapped. Sometimes they make it so easy…
And then again, sometimes….
Heavy machine-gun fire has done little to slow down the Target. He is proving surprisingly resilient. Even a direct hit from a rocket-propelled grenade, which launches him off of an overpass and through a bus, has failed to yield a kill. The Winter Soldier re-evaluates his strategy. With the majority of his team turning out to be little more than cannon fodder, this is almost beginning to feel like a challenge. Rifle in hand, relentless as ever, he marches to the hunt.
The red-haired woman is what lures the prey into the open again. He wounds her, uses her as bait. She has been more trouble than expected, but her death is coming. For now, she is useful. He takes aim. One way or the other, he will have a kill today. The Target takes the bait.
The Soldier privately revels in the familiar thrill of hand-to-hand combat. So few Targets can disarm him, he rarely gets a chance to actually close with his prey. This is what he is meant for. This is his purpose. He surprises himself by actually showing off; twirling and tossing the hunting knife in his hands with each strike. He is in his element, a whirl of deadly steel and honed skill. They spar, blow for blow.
The blonde man is good. Surprisingly good. No wonder they want him dead.
It is just a matter of time, though. The Target is unarmed and outmatched. He has to tire out eventually. The Winter Soldier does not tire. He is a force of nature. The outcome is inevitable.
He takes his victim by the throat, flinging him into a car and letting him skid gracelessly to the ground, before lunging for the killing blow. The man manages to roll clear. They close again.
Unexpectedly the blonde man finds an opening, and launches him - hard - over his shoulder. The Winter Soldier slams into the pavement, rolling with the fall and neatly regaining his feet. His face mask has been torn from him somewhere in the scuffle, but it doesn't matter. He doesn't need it. He's almost impressed, in spite of himself.
The Target stares at him, and for a moment he's puzzled. This is not the usual face of a terrified victim, realizing the end is near. This is not the face of the outmatched accepting their fate. He knows those faces very well. This is something... different. What is he staring at?
"...Bucky?" The blonde man's face is strange. It's filled with things he isn't sure he can name. Hope. Surprise….. Grief?
"Who the hell is Bucky?"
He doesn't like the way his own confusion seeps into his voice. The Target crumples a bit, and for a moment - just a moment- there's a flicker of a dim and distant ache in his chest in response. Then it is gone, and there is only rage, fueled by confusion. He redoubles the attack.
Reinforcements have arrived.
