Grand Central Station was busy with people, as was the entire city. A red headed woman crossed through the crowds, a black coat wrapped around her. To onlookers this gorgeous woman could have been anything, modest shoes, and black trousers. Under the coat was anyone's guess but she had sunglasses on, hiding her no doubt deep big eyes. She paused as a newspaper kiosk and glanced over the titles. She picked up the latest edition of Gay Times, and flicked through the pages idly.
"'Ey!" A voice said, breaking her concentration, "This ain't no lie'berry, lady, you gonna buy that or not?" The Italian-American kiosk owner asked her rudely.
"No, thank you," the red headed woman replied, closing the magazine and placed it back down. She turned and walked towards a cafe nearby, set slightly up from the main floor, meaning she had a good view of the magazine. "The disk has been planted." She said into the Bluetooth piece on her ear

"Very nice, Tasha,"
"Thank you." She replied.
"So tell me again, Nick, what's the point in this plan?" Clint Barton's voice said.
"A.I.M. are sniffing close to us, our Intel says that they're planning something on a huge scale. We're moving some secure files to a base in the Nevada desert."
"What are the codes?"
"Lockdown and emergency launch codes." Fury replied.
"And why are we moving them this way?" Clint asked.
"We can't risk A.I.M. getting hold of them. If we used a secure convoy and a helicopter, A.I.M. would just blow it to smithereens." Fury stated.

Natasha sat up, "Heads up guys, we have trouble…" she said.
"What's going on?…Romanoff?" Fury barked into her ear.
"Someone's buying the magazine. The magazine with the disk in." she said, already moving through the crowd towards the kiosk.

"Damn, Nick, it's Basil Sandhurst." Clint replied.
Natasha Romanoff looked up towards his spot, watching over the main room of Grand Central, his sunglasses able to pick out faces. She followed his gaze and followed the man onto platform one with her eyes. "We're going to lose him," she said and moved through the crowd again, pushing people out of the way rudely.
"I won't be able to see him now!" Clint said.
"Stop whining!" General Fury's voice barked. "Widow, follow him and get that disk back, if we can get him, we'll have prevented a war." He said.
Clint moved quickly down the stairs and into the crowd after Natasha.
Sandhurst glanced over his shoulder and gritted his teeth as he wrenched the disk from the Vogue magazine and threw the magazine into the crowd.

Sandhurst grabbed a child and held her up with an arm around her neck, in his other hand he held a needle, pointed towards the girl's neck. The girl screamed and kicked her legs uselessly against his stomach.
"Shut up!" Basil snapped at her and she whimpered.
Natasha broke through the crowd of people and grabbed her handgun. "This is a SHIELD controlled issue, people," she said to the crowd around her.
"I can't get through this crowd, Natasha!" Clint said into her ear.
Natasha aimed her gun at Sandhurst.
"Miss Romanoff, if you shoot me, I will sink this needle into this little girl's neck, and you would not have made a difference." Sandhurst laughed. He began to back away, still holding the girl, towards the end of the platform.
Romanoff followed him slowly, aiming her gun steady.
Sandhurst smiled darkly, "Miss Romanoff, catch!" He said, and carelessly tossed the girl onto the tracks, just as the loud toot of a horn issued from the other end of the platform.

Natasha reacted on instinct and dived towards the girl, before a tall, blonde, well-built man in a dark blue suit jumped over her and down onto the track as well, lifting the girl up and heaving her easily onto the platform beside Natasha.
Romanoff quickly pulled the girl back from danger and checked her for injuries.
The blonde man then span and jumped, holding onto the front of the train as it hit him. He grunted but held tight as the train screeched to a halt. The man peered into the drivers cabin with piercing blue eyes as the driver stared in shock at the man before him as he fell onto the dirt, and quickly climbed up onto the platform and rolled slowly away from danger. He lay there, panting, before slowly standing, looking down at where his shirt had snagged on the rough metal, revealing his costume beneath.
"What's going on!" Fury barked through their ear pieces.

Natasha looked up, seeing Clint break his way through the crowd of onlookers, before her gaze shifted to Captain America.
"Sandhurst got away." He said grimly.

The sun set slowly over the New Mexico Highway as the black Camaro growled along towards the tollbooth into the America.
Frank Castle stopped the car in the shortest line; he gripped the steering wheel in one hand and his fake passport in the other. When the line moved forward Castle followed, his nerves getting the better of him as his Camaro growled to a halt in the inspection bay next to the office. He rolled the window down and handed his papers over to a very official woman who asked for them in English.
The passport had the name of one of Castle's latest victims, and the picture of Frank with his newly-grown beard, hoping he wouldn't be recognised from countless Wanted posters and news reports and urban legends.

The woman went to the office booth and a burly gentleman came back. "Excuse me, sir? Would you mind turning off the engine, and stepping from the vehicle?"
Frank hesitated, "What's this for?" He asked as he complied, keeping his hands visible as the man opened the car door.
As Frank stood, he could see into the office; a computer screen showed a frozen image of his face from the CCTV camera, blinking away above their heads, and another screen beside it showing his face in a mug shot, the name "Frank Castle" clearly written across the screen.
Shit!
He reacted fast, but so did the burly man, bringing his hand down onto Frank's wrist as he tried to pull a hidden knife from the car door, but Frank was quicker still, smashing his forehead into the guy's nose, knocking him away. Frank took off with men trailing behind him to apprehend him. He hopped the barrier, one, two, three feet inside American soil, when he realised his mistake. He could now be arrested. He turned, whipping twin Colt 1911s from holsters under his jacket, but before he could even spot a target, he felt a dart pierce his neck, and he hit the ground.

A woman with dark hair, in a black one-piece suit, stood over him, aiming a big hand-gun down on him. "Freeze, asshole," she spat.
Frank's eyes widened, clearing his vision long enough to see a name badge, "Hill" and a SHIELD patch on her shoulder.
Damn...