Lagos, Nigeria
Kim and Ron were on the patio of a restaurant in downtown Lagos, wearing their civilian clothes, with Ron shaking with excitement. He couldn't believe this was happening. He and his girlfriend on a mission with probably one of the best super hero teams around, the Avengers. A waiter approached them. Ron wanted to make his order, but Kim quickly covered his mouth.
"Sorry. No caffeine for you," Kim said. "Two decaf lattes please." The waiter then walked back inside. "I know you're excited, but you got to calm down."
"Calm down? Are you kidding me KP? We're working with the Avengers. This is the most exciting thing that's ever happened to us." Ron said with a big smile.
Kim smiled at her boyfriend. She knew he had a point. "Your boyfriend has every right to be excited." A woman wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap sitting next to Kim said. "I would." She poured some sugar into her coffee and took a sip.
"I get you." The woman next to Kim was Wanda Maximoff, better known to the Avengers as Scarlet Witch.
Kim acted casual as she listened to Captain America's voice through a hidden earpiece. He was the area from an upper floor window in a hotel down the block. "Alright, what do you see?" Steve asked through the comlink.
She looked around. The restaurant was across from the police station they were staking out. A pair of uniformed officers stood near the door. "Standard beat cops. Small station. Quiet street. It's a good target."
"There's a ATM on the south corner, which means?" Steve asked.
"Cameras." Wanda replied.
"I've already tapped into the link. Both cross streets are one way." Wade said through the comlink. He was still in his room back in Middleton. He is mostly cooped up in there, always standing by to help Kim and Ron. This didn't really bother the team.
"So, compromised escape routes." Wanda said.
"Means our guy doesn't care about being seen. He isn't afraid to make a mess on the way out. You see that Range Rover halfway up the block?" Kim asked.
"Yeah, the red one? Its cute." Wanda said.
"Its also bulletproof, which means private security...which means more guns...which means more headaches for somebody. Probably us." Natasha, better known as Black Widow, said through the comlink, as she is sitting at a table near Wanda, Ron, and Kim, and taking a sip of coffee. Like Kim, Ron, and Wanda, she was also in a civilian disguise. Kim sees her and offers a playful smile, which Natasha returns.
Wanda thought that maybe they were worrying too much. "You guys know I can move things with my mind, right?" Wanda asked.
"Yeah. I also have Mystical Monkey Powers." Ron boasted about his powers that he used to save Kim during Graduation.
Kim just smiled. "Looking over your shoulders needs to become second nature to you guys." Kim said. She had a good reason to be suspicious, and both Wanda and Natasha knew it.
"Good one, Kim." Natasha said.
From the top of a nearby office building, Sam Wilson, code-named Falcon, chimed in. "Kid, no offense, but did anyone tell you you're a little paranoid?"
"Not to my face. Why? Did you hear something?" Kim asked through the comlink.
"Eyes on target, folks. This is the best lead we had on Rumlow in six months. I don't want to lose him." Steve said.
"If he sees us coming, that won't be a problem. He kind of hates us." Sam said, knowing about Rumlow. After all, he fought him two years ago.
"He has yet to mess with the combined power of both the Avengers and Team Possible!" Ron exclaimed.
Natasha rolled her eyes at him. "I know he's your partner and he saved you, but really?"
"Let me deal with him. And don't worry Captain. We'll get him." Kim said with a smile.
Brock Rumlow was a HYDRA agent within S.H.I.E.L.D., and a former STRIKE Team commander, and he used to work with Steve and Natasha back in the past. He is a world-class hand-to-hand combatant, with extensive experience in various street fighting, martial arts, and military combat techniques. During the HYDRA Uprising back in 2014, Rumlow was ordered to lead the HYDRA team and assassinate Captain America, until Rumlow was nearly killed during the Battle of the Triskelion at Washington DC when a Project Insight Helicarrier crashed at the side of the Triskelion building, gaining horrific facial scars. Once he recovered, and hearing that HYDRA leader Alexander Pierce had died, Rumlow escaped from the hospital where he was staying and assumed the code name Crossbones, became an independent terrorist, setting out on a path to exact revenge and make anyone involved in his downfall suffer the same pain and loss he endured.
They had been looking for Brock Rumlow for almost 2 years, and they'd finally track him down here in Lagos. Captain America decided to get extra help with their mission, so they contacted Kim and Ron. They suspected he was about to attack the police station, but they weren't certain yet.
Cap scanned the area and saw a loaded garbage truck forcing it's way down a narrow side street, close to their stakeout location. As he watched, it crashed into a parked car, pushing it out of the way. Angry onlookers shouted at the driver who ignored them. "Wade...see that garbage truck? Tag it. Ron, have Rufus go recon, but make sure he's not seen." Steve ordered.
Rufus then scurried away from the cafe and towards the truck while surveying it. Wade types in a program to send a bird shaped robot to the Avengers and Team Possible's location-he affectionately called it Redwing. It soared over the buildings and swooped down to street level, hovering under the truck.
"Scanning for X-Ray." Wade said. Redwing returned a visual scan of the truck's interior directly to Wade's main computer, along with images of the driver and data about the truck's cargo. "That truck's loaded for max weight. And the driver's armed."
"Meaning?" Ron asked.
"It's a battering ram." Kim and Natasha said in unison.
Cap realized they were right. "Go now," he barked.
"Why?" Wanda asked.
Cap was already moving. "He's not hitting the police."
The Avengers and Team Possible swung into action as the garbage truck accelerated out of the narrow street and across an open square in front of a research facility. A sign near the fortified gate read, Institute for Infectious Diseases. The driver dove out and rolled along the pavement as the truck smashed into the gate, destroying it and crashing to a halt on the other side.
Two box trucks appeared from another side street, following the garbage truck's path. The institute's gate guards scrambled out of the way. A group of armed men in black body armor leaped from one of the trucks and shot their way from across the parking lot, taking out all the security guards in the area. Then two of them fired gas grenades through the windows of the institute's main building.
As the gas took effect, the institute's staff dropped to the floor and lay unmoving. Masked and heavily armored men from the truck entered the building while the first combat team stood guard outside.
But they weren't counting on Captain America. He dropped over the institute's wall from a nearby building and disabled three soldiers before the rest knew he was there. From the top of a truck, he briefed the rest of the team. "Body armor. AR-15s. I make seven hostiles."
Falcon swooped low over an upper balcony overlooking the courtyard, spinning into a double kick that laid out two of the gunmen. "I make five," he said as Scarlet Witch arrived.
A gunman took aim at her, but she cast a swirling shield of chaos energy that no projectile could hope to penetrate. Then she caught him and flung him into the air, calling out, "Sam!"
Right on time, he dove down and smashed the flying gunman across the courtyard with the leading edge of his wing.
"Four," he said, and landed next to Cap and Wanda as Wade's Redwing drone scanned the building's upper windows.
"Rumlow's on the third floor." Wade reported.
Kim and Ron were riding in Kim's high tech car, the Sloth, on their way to the institute. They were ready to provide back up. "We're on our way, Cap." Kim said.
"Wanda," Cap said immediately, "just like we practiced."
"What about the gas?"
"Get it out," he said. The move they had practiced involved her using her powers to throw Cap across distances too far for him to jump. It worked to perfection. Red energy reached out to him and catapulted him up and through a third floor window. He landed and knocked the nearest gunman sprawling, then ran farther into the building, looking for Rumlow, punching various gunmen and removing their mask on the way. Meanwhile, Rumlow busted through a glass door and yanked a technician before opening a vault containing some hazardous chemical.
"Pack it up," Rumlow ordered.
Outside, Falcon deflected the incoming fire from Rumlow's men while Wanda used her powers to draw the gas out of the building. She built it into a tornado that spun up into the open air, dissipating where it wouldn't hurt anyone else. Remote controlled mini missiles from shoulder mounts on Falcon's armor took care of the closer gunmen, but there was still a lot of them.
Meanwhile, Rumlow and his remaining men exited out of the facility when Rumlow spotted the gas tornado. "He's here."
Inside, Cap had reached the secure lab where Rumlow had been. Shattered doorways and windows were an easy trail to follow. At the back of the lab was the vault. It was open and empty. Bad news. Turning back, he called to the team. "Rumlow has a biological weapon."
"We're on it," Kim said as the Sloth approached the institute. She saw Rumlow in his battered metal mask, climbing up onto a armored truck to enter through it's top hatch, but there were at least half a dozen armed men standing against her and Ron. No big, she thought.
"Ready to teach these clowns who they're messing with?" Ron asked his girlfriend as they reached the courtyard.
"Let's do it," Kim said with a confident smile. They rolled out of the car as it crashed into the first man. A second went down when Kim shocked him with stingers from her wrist Kimmunicator. Ron took number three with Tai Shing Pek Kwar, better known as Monkey Kung Fu. Four, five, and six caught fists and boots to the face thanks to Kim's skills as a former cheerleader. All that was left was her and Rumlow.
But, he was a lot tougher than she thought. He grabbed her by the hair and dragged to the top of the AFV. Kim tried hitting him with almost everything she had, and he didn't stagger. "Let's see you get out of this," Kim boasted, jabbing a stinger straight into his neck.
Rumlow paused long enough to say, "I don't work like that no more!"
With that, he threw Kim down into the AFV...and dropped a grenade right after her. "Fire in the hole."
Ron slammed into the side of Rumlow, but all it did was cause some bruises to his arm. "OW! What the heck is your stuff made of?" Ron asked. Runlow replied by pushing Ron off the AFV.
Kim had only seconds to act, but that was all she needed. With two quick attacks, she knocked out the soldiers in the AFV with her. Then, she crouched down, holding on of them in front of her to shield her from the explosion.
When the grenade went off, the blast blew Kim through the AFV's back door. She hit the ground and rolled to a stop, dazed for a moment. Steve made it to the exit before Rumlow fires a shell at him. Steve uses his shield to shield himself from the blast. Rumlow continued to fire at his enemy until eventually he was able to shoot him out of the building where he fell several floors to the ground. "Sam, Nat. He's in an AFV heading north." Steve said as the AFV started ramming into cars.
Inside the truck, Brock Rumlow handed the crucial sample to one of his men. "Take this to the airstrip," he said. "We're not gonna outrun them. Lose the truck."
The truck rammed through cars and an outdoor market before Rumlow and his mercenaries bail out, causing panic among civilians. "Where are you going meet us?" one of the mercenaries asked.
Runlow's answer was grim. "I'm not."
Sam was in the air, soaring over the crowded streets. He used his goggles to spot the hostiles. Sam didn't see Rumlow. "I got four," he said. With the help of Wade, he found them using facial recognition software. "They're splitting up."
"I got the two on the left," Natasha said. She had borrowed Kim's Sloth and was swerving through traffic. She saw two men running ahead, but stalled cars blocked her path. Jumping out of the car, she ran across the hoods of other cars and wove through the crowd after them.
Cap, Kim, and Ron reached the crashed AFV a moment later and saw a vest and other equipment from Rumlow's men scattered around the street. "They ditched their gear," Steve said, scanning the area. Panic was spreading in the crowd, and they couldn't pick out the targets in the sea of people. "It's a shell game now. One of them has the payload."
Ron was holding his shoulder, still in pain. "I can see why they call him Crossbones," Ron groaned.
Before Cap could make a reply, Kim saw that a magnetic bomb landed on his shield. "Look out, Cap!" Kim yelled before doing a back flip and kicking it to the air as it explodes to prevent the blast from killing the bystanders before Crossbones punches and knocks Kim down to the side.
He then does the same to Ron, then Cap before closing in on him with his gauntlets. "There you are you son of a bitch! I've been waiting for this!" He charged towards Cap, and the fight was on.
Ron shook himself out of his daze. "Kim!" He ran towards his girlfriend's side, who was also coming out of her daze. "You OK?"
"Yeah. Come on," Kim said. "We're not done yet." She and Ron then ran towards the fight to help Cap.
Sam tracked the two gunmen until they came out into an open space at the back of the market square. He swooped down and slammed into the lead man, plowing him into the ground. Then, getting a little extra lift from his extended wings, he spun and laid out the other guy with a double kick. Quickly, he rifled through their pockets. Nothing. "He doesn't have it. I'm empty," he reported.
"Out of the way!" Natasha yelled to the bystanders as she chased the other two gunmen. She caught up with them in a side street lined with market stalls. One of them has the bio weapon. Jumping over the nearest stall, she scattered its wares on the ground as she tackled the closest gunman. He went for his gun, but she held his arm and knocked the breath out of him with a flurry of gut punches. Then she spun around toward the second man, closing in as she knocked the gun out of his hand with a heavy woven basket. She took him down hard, scissoring her legs around his neck and twisting him to the ground. His gun bounced free. Natasha went for it and came up, whirling around to see that the first man had his own weapon back. It was a standoff.
"Drop it," Rumlow's other man commanded from her left, holding the vial stolen from the lab. "Or I'll drop this."
Natasha didn't know what was in that vial, but she knew Rumlow wouldn't have shot his way into the institute for something unless it was very, very lethal. "Drop it!" The man holding the bio weapon shouted again.
His partner looked as nervous as Natasha felt. "He'll do it!"
Natasha hesitated. She couldn't let them escape with the vial. But before she could reluctantly comply, Wade's Redwing drone suddenly appeared and shot the mercenary carrying the bio weapon. Natasha shot the other man and dove forward in a desperate lung. That vial could not be allowed to hit the ground. At full stretch, he caught the vial inches before it hit the ground. With a sigh a relief, she got back up. "Payload secure," she said. "Thanks Wade."
"Don't thank me," Wade grinned, leaning back in his chair.
She shook her head. "I'm not thanking that thing."
"His name is Redwing," Wade commented.
"I'm still not thanking it."
"He's cute. Go ahead, Pet him." Wade pleaded. Natasha smiled a little.
Cap had forced Rumlow to turn and fight, but this wasn't the same Brock Rumlow he'd known before. Rumlow had pneumatic gauntlets that gave him the power to hit like a truck, and he barely flinched at punches that would put an ordinary man in the hospital. As Cap and Crossbone's exchanged punches, Kim and Ron both double kicked him to throw him off balance. "Come on!" Rumlow shouted.
Kim put her cheerleading skills to good use, avoiding his attacks, but he was able to land a hit on her and pin her against a wall. "This is for Cap dropping a building on my face," Rumlow said. A blade snapped out from one of the gauntlets. Kim gasped as Rumlow aimed to stab her head, but Ron came to her aid, ripping the gauntlet off as Kim dodged it. Rumlow raised his other hand, showing another blade. He swiped at Ron, but then Cap then kicked him, sending him flying across the street.
Cap then helped Ron to his feet. "Nice work," He said. "Both of you."
"No big." Kim replied with a smile. Cap and Kim had heard from Wade that the vial was secure with Natasha. "Now, let's see who he's been selling to." Kim, Ron, and Cap then approached Rumlow.
He got to his knees and took off his helmet, showing his heavily scarred face. As Ron got a closer look, he cringed with shock and fear. "OK. Now, I can see why they call you Crossbones."
"I think I look pretty good all things considered." Rumlow smirked.
Neither Cap nor Kim cared to chat with Rumlow. "Who's your buyer?" Cap asked.
Rumlow sighed with defeat. "Professor Dementor." Kim didn't look that surprised that one of Cap's enemies was hired by one of her enemies to steal a deadly virus. "He was building this machine to release the virus on a global scale really quick."
"I thought so." Kim said with a smile before reaching for her Kimmunicator. "Wade, could you tell Global Justice to pick up Dementor?"
"Already on it." Wade replied.
"Authorities will be here soon. So, I'd stay still if I were you." Steve said, turning to leave.
"You know, he knew you." Rumlow said. "Your pal, your buddy, your Bucky!"
Steve then turned back and faced Rumlow with intense emotion. "What did you say?"
"Bucky?" Kim asked confused.
"Oh, you don't know?" Rumlow asked Kim, sarcastically. "Steve's wartime friend from the 1940's. The one he thought who died. Well, he didn't. In fact, he worked for us. He killed JFK, caused 9/11, all the bad stuff in the last 70 years. Anyway, he remembered Steve. I was there. He got all weepy about it, till they put his brain back in a blender." He then turned back to Steve. "He wanted you to know something. He said to me, 'Please tell Rogers, when you gotta go, you gotta go.'" Rumlow's grin got bigger. "And you're all coming with me."
Kim gasped as she saw Rumlow reach for his detonator switch. She, Ron, and Cap started to flinch back from the explosion as Rumlow squeezed the switch, but then something incredible happened. Scarlet Witch used her powers to contain the blast. Then she lifted Rumlow and the fireball into the sky, meaning to let it go off harmlessly. But Rumlow's bomb was more powerful than she guessed. She unintentionally placed him next to a building filled with several Wakandan nationals. Wanda couldn't contain the blast and the explosion killed Rumlow and the Wakandan's. The people who had been running from the battle now turned their shocked faces to see what the Avengers and Team Possible had done.
Wanda and Kim both looked at the building and cover their mouths in horror. This terrified Kim, because usually, thing never got bad on a mission. And now, people had died.
"Oh, my..." Steve said in shock. "Sam...We need Fire and Rescue on the south side of the building. We gotta get up there."
As Steve rushed to find survivors, Ron walked over to Kim, who was now crying. "Kim? Are you OK?"
Kim, with tears in her eyes turned to Wanda, who was still in shock, looking up at the burning building.