Chapter 3
"I'm grounded. The suit's down." Sam stared up at the helicarrier where Cap was still fighting. Riley, his dead wingman, flashed through his head. Just like then, there was nothing he could do except watch. "Sorry, Cap."
"Don't worry, I got it." Rogers said. And the thing was, when Captain America said it like that, Sam believed he did, odds be damned.
He stripped off what was left of his harness and flight gear, trying to catch his breath. Barnes had kicked him right in the chest, and between that and the thin air atop the roof of the Triskelion—
"Falcon?" Maria's voice this time.
"Yeah?"
"Rumlow's heading for the Council."
Son of a bitch. Sam had lost both his guns in the crash landing, and he knew the STRIKE team leader's reputation. "I'm on it."
The Triskelion's roof had a service door with a little keypad on the side to get through. Sam stared at it for about three seconds, wondering if he could kick it down, before it buzzed. Maria thought of everything.
Fury had made them memorize the Triskelion's building plans last night. If Rumlow was taking the stairs—and Maria had shut down all the elevators, so it was a safe bet—he'd need to switch stairwells on the forty-first floor to reach the Council. Sam had to get down there first and ambush him. He raced down the stairs, past the floor with the Security Council, past a few last, terrified workers, throwing himself around the corners and counting every stairwell.
The forty-first floor was deserted, an open office space without anything to hide behind or turn into a weapon. Sam headed for the door Rumlow would come through when he heard Maria again.
"Captain, status."
There was a pause.
"Captain, monitors register a hit, and your blood pressure is dropping. Please give your status."
"Hill?" Fury barked over the noise of the chopper.
"Cap—Steve! Steve, come in. I'm losing your—"
Rumlow forgotten, Sam headed to the window, staring out at the nearest helicarrier. Something deep inside him felt like it had gone missing, the same way it had that horrible night in Afghanistan when Riley got shot. He didn't need Maria to say the next words to know the truth.
"I'm sorry, sir. Steve Rogers was injured and his vital signs bottomed out." She cleared her throat. "We've lost him. Three minutes left."
"Turn the bird around, I'm going in," Fury said. "If the chip's still there, I'll—"
Gunfire blared in Sam's earpiece and he heard Maria scream, just once, before static blared on her end.
"Hill? Hill do you copy? Hill!"
A boot collided with Sam's back. He crashed to the ground and twisted just enough to see Rumlow standing above him with a gun. There was something manic about his smile, something vital and alive and wrong. Sam pushed himself to his feet only to fall back with a blow to his head. He grabbed for Rumlow's knees, got kicked in the chest right where Barnes had done it, and next thing he knew he was down, gasping for air, a boot planted on his stomach, Rumlow's gun pointed at his face. In his ear, Fury demanded to know what was happening, and then something exploded on Fury's end, followed by static.
"Heard about your pal Rogers," Rumlow said. He glanced out the window and, in the corner of Sam's vision, he saw a helicopter careen towards the ground in a fireball. Nick Fury. "And Fury too it looks like. Let's make it a full set."
Gunfire blasted.
It took Sam a moment to realize he hadn't been hit, just sprayed with blood. In fact, it only sank in when Rumlow fell to the side, barely missing him.
A blonde woman stood over them, gun in one hand pointed at Rumlow's still-twitching body. She helped Sam up with the other.
"Is it true? Captain Rogers is dead?"
"Yeah," Sam panted. It hadn't sunk in yet—Steve Rogers, gone. For now, the adrenaline was too high, and all there was was the mission. Stop HYDRA. And they only had about two minutes to do it, with Fury and Hill down. "We need to get to the fiftieth floor. It's where the Security Council and Romanoff are."
The woman bent, picked up Rumlow's gun and passed it to Sam. "Follow me."
The door was secured and Maria wasn't there to help them this time, but the SHIELD agent with him pressed her hand on the scanner. It clicked open and they raced through, guns at the ready.
Dead guards and men in suits lay scattered on the floor. One, an older man with glasses and an expensive gray suit, was twitching. Pierce. Natasha was still standing, so intent on the computer she was working at that she didn't even notice them come in.
Before Sam could do anything, his companion raised her gun and opened fire on Pierce. He jerked as the bullets hit, then went still.
Nat looked up at the noise, and Sam lowered his gun. His watch beeped, reminding them that they had less than thirty seconds unless Natasha had managed to pull off a miracle. She must have. She was an Avenger. "What's the plan?"
Her eyes moved from him to the blonde at his side. For the first time since Sam had met her, the cool composure melted from her gaze—she looked stricken. "Sharon. I'm so sorry."
"What—?"
There was a sound of breaking glass, something whizzed by his ear, and the woman, Sharon, fell. Sam caught her on instinct.
She was dead.
They were out of time. HYDRA's helicarriers had fired, and Sharon was one of the targets. The bullet had gone right through her forehead. Shocked, Sam lowered her to the ground and looked up at Natasha. "She… HYDRA just…" he wrenched his eyes up from the dead woman. "Why are we alive? We should be the first on their list."
"I managed to hack the algorithm a little. Just enough to convince HYDRA we're not a threat. I didn't know Sharon would be here, or that she was on our side." Natasha shook her head and pulled on the weird electric mesh mask she had used before to infiltrate SHIELD. This time it gave her the appearance of a freckled twenty-something with round, innocent eyes—the type of person security wouldn't glance at twice. She handed another to Sam, who draped it on his face the way she'd showed him last night and activated it. "We have to get out of here."
Sam followed her down the stairs, focused on staying alive instead of what he had just seen. The truth didn't sink in until they reached the lobby. Dead workers lay everywhere while their former coworkers patrolled around the corpses, kicking one or two to make sure they were dead. The ones on the door looked up as Sam and Natasha came through and one raised his hand at them.
"Hail HYDRA."
The mass panic on the streets helped them get out of DC. Natasha was running on autopilot, Sam was pretty sure, just like he was, but autopilot for her consisted of successfully stealing a car, evading all traffic jams and checkpoints, and getting them to a deserted set of back roads out of the city, so it was hard to tell.
She finally pulled into a farmhouse somewhere around the middle of rural Virginia—a safehouse, Sam thought when he first looked at it. A good one, well disguised, with someone who must come around to provide cover; there were fresh tire tracks in the gravel drive and a freshly split woodpile.
"There might be some people here," Natasha said as she stopped the car. "They're friends, so don't get trigger happy on me."
But when they stepped inside, the farmhouse had the quiet, indefinable feel of an abandoned home. Sam looked at the action figures scattered on the floor of the entry, the crayon pictures stuck by magnets to the refrigerator, and the discolored patches on the wall, where framed photos had hung. "This isn't just a safehouse, is it?"
She shook her head. "A couple friends live here. I was going to evacuate them if they were still around. Come on, let's make a sweep and be sure there's nothing."
They moved through the house room by room, but Sam's first instinct had been right—whoever it was had packed in a hurry, but they'd cleared out. They headed back for the living room and Natasha hunted down the TV remote. Sam sprawled out on the couch to watch, while she perched at the edge of an armchair with a ballerina's good posture.
It was emergency broadcasts, of course, and HYDRA had taken over the airwaves. They started with footage of HYDRA agents running through Asia, Europe, America. Lists of governments that had surrendered, and the merciless destruction of those who hadn't. Texas had been nearly bombed into oblivion, as had Wakanda.
It was all real, Sam realized as he watched. For almost three years now, different enemies and aliens and monsters had tried to take over or destroy the world. And now one of them had finally done it. There was no putting the genie back in the bottle.
The propaganda switched over to something new. A live feed from one of the helicarriers. The moment Sam recognized it, he knew what it was going to be, but he couldn't look away.
Steve Rogers was dead. The Winter Soldier hoisted his body up by the collar like a kitten by the scruff of his neck. His helmet was gone, and he seemed so young now; vulnerable in a way that had never showed in life. Barnes's other, living hand had the red, white, and blue shield strapped to it. The camera was focused on the body and shield, but Sam caught a glimpse of the Soldier's eyes above his mask—ice blue and feral. He'd seen rabid animals with more control than that.
The only reason he didn't break down and cry right then and there was Natasha sitting next to him. She was still and calm, but the forced neutral on her face was just a little off. Instead, they sat through the lists of the dead. Iron Patriot. President Ellis. Nick Fury. Wakandan King T'Chaka, and Crown Prince T'Challa. Names he'd never heard of, but that made Natasha flinch: Ava Orlova, Bobbi Morse, Phil Coulson, Hank Pym. More that neither of them knew—Steven Strange, Trish Walker, and then he lost track—and he realized it was just the tip of the iceberg, the names "significant" enough for HYDRA to want them publicized. He watched, numb but accepting, until the last minutes of the broadcast came up.
"And we've just received word that we have another name to add to the list," the lead anchor said, her voice wobbling, the seat next to her empty. "Iron Man had been confirmed dead in his New York tower. Plans for the demolition of Tony Stark's—"
Natasha gasped like she had been punched in the stomach. That stricken look, the same one she'd given Sharon, was back on her face, and it didn't go away this time.
"Nat?"
"I could have saved him," she whispered. "I had time to erase him from HYDRA's kill list. But I thought he'd get into his suit in time, so I spent it covering our tracks instead of protecting him."
Sam looked over at the TV, which now showed a helicopter view of Stark's body hanging by a noose from the edge of the Tower, and switched it off.
"It's not your fault. You made the best call you could."
"I don't care whose fault it is. I care that he's dead."
"Natasha…" Sam had no idea what to say, so he went for the truth. "Don't do this. If you give up, I'm gonna go crazy, here."
She lowered her face almost to her knees, hands clutching her hair. The loss of control was, in its own way, a gut punch as bad as losing Iron Man. After a moment, her fingers loosened, although she kept her head down.
"Are you sure crazy is a bad thing?" Her voice was light, almost mocking. If it had been any other situation, he'd have thought she was joking.
"It is," Sam said. "We can't stop, Natasha. Steve wouldn't have wanted that. We have to do right by him."
She gave a short, bitter laugh. "Captain America. Still inspiring people from beyond the grave."
"It's not just for him. We failed, let the world down. And I think you and me, we're some of the only people left that have a chance of fixing it. We can't let our loss keep us from doing that."
"You mean that, don't you?"
"I wouldn't be here if I didn't."
He could almost see the moment Natasha changed. Tension slid out of her shoulders and she sat up. It was as if she had shed all emotion, all personal connections, in that one moment. Become the assassin again instead of his friend.
"You want to help me fight HYDRA?" she asked. "We do this my way. I'm no Steve Rogers, but I know something about surviving when people are trying to kill you."
"Yeah you do. What's the plan?"
The words flowed out of her, tactical and cold. "Find allies. HYDRA's eliminated Stark and Rogers, but they haven't taken out the rest of the Avengers or it would be all over the news. I don't have any way to contact Thor—he's in Asgard. If he comes swooping in to save the day, great, but we're not going to wait to be saved.
"Bruce Banner…" Emotion almost came back into her face, just a hint of wistfulness, before she locked it down again. "Fury tried to contact him before all this went down, recruit him to help stop HYDRA. But he's running experiments in the Arctic Circle with Jane Foster, we never made contact. I don't know how to reach him, and even if I could, there's no way HYDRA can capture or harm him. We'll count on him to fend for himself."
"Leaving Hawkeye."
"He's deep undercover in sub-Saharan Africa right now. So deep it was never on record, which is why he's still alive."
"But you know where?"
"He's my partner." She said it so simply. The way Sam had talked about Riley. The way Steve had talked about Barnes. Sam felt something twist in his gut.
"Let's bring him home."
"Where is he?" Natasha demanded. She spoke in Farsi this time, her voice nearly an octave deeper to disguise it, making it hard for Sam to understand.
She edged her knife under her victim's eye, cool and calm as he whimpered. A thin line of red ran down his cheek.
Sam had tried to stop her the first time they'd done this song and dance. He'd taken her to the side and tried to persuade her that she was better than that. Meanwhile, their mark managed to break free, attacked them, and by the end of it, Natasha had her hand buried in his intestines while he sang like a bird. Now, Sam didn't interfere, and the most these guys ended up with were a few paper cuts before they all but bared their souls to her.
"Please… my son."
"He threatened your son?" Two months ago, Sam wouldn't have noticed anything in Natasha's voice. But weeks of hiding in gutters, stitching each other up with dental floss, stowing away in the landing gear of airplanes had taught him to understand Natasha Romanoff. He heard the disbelief.
"No." Their mark started to shake his head, then stopped as the knife pressed against the crease of his nose. "He saved my son. He rescued him from a crossfire between drug lords and your agents. Please, he is a good man."
Natasha gave him a sweet smile and slowly bled the skin on his nose. "And do you want your son to stay safe?"
Typical Natasha. She wouldn't believe Barton could threaten a child, but she'd do it herself if it meant getting him back.
"I…"
Something sharp pressed against the back of Sam's neck.
"Let him go."
Sam gathered his muscles and spun to the side, the knife grazing his scalp. He brought his hand down on his attacker's arm, got the knife under control, but the man's other hand punched him in the face, then whipped something from behind his back and clobbered him in the head with it.
Stunned, vision blurry, Sam stumbled backward and got his foot up in front of him just in time—and smashed it into his attacker's stomach. He doubled over, but still swung the knife, and Sam raised his forearm to block, braced for the slash—
"Clint! Clint, stop!"
The knife stopped an inch from Sam's arm. "Natasha?"
"You can't recognize me when I disguise my voice? You're losing your touch."
"I thought you were dead." Clint Barton—Hawkeye, and it was his unstrung bow that he'd hit Sam with—turned back to Sam, who slowly lowered his fists. "Who's this guy?"
"Sam Wilson," Sam said, still watching Barton warily through his watering eyes. Barton returned the guarded look with interest until Natasha spoke up.
"We can trust him."
And that was all it took. Sam might as well have stopped existing as Barton turned to Natasha and threw his arms around her.
The cave was cool and dark after the desert heat, small enough to feel crowded with three of them inside, and decorated with Clint's sleeping bag, empty crates, and old radio equipment. Sam couldn't help but feel the irony. He'd once combed through places like these looking for terrorists; now, propaganda probably cast him in that role.
"Stings a little, doesn't it?" Clint asked, pulling the trapdoor above the entrance shut and leaving them in the dim light cast by a camp lantern. "HYDRA wiped out most of the troublemakers in the region, leaving these areas abandoned. Turns out all you have to do to have peace in the third world is carpet bomb until pretty much everyone is dead."
Sam didn't answer. He pressed a hand to his head, trying to make the dizziness go away.
"Sorry. About the concussion."
"Forget about it," Sam managed. "So. What's the plan?"
Natasha had stretched out on Clint's sleeping bag. At Sam's words, she sat back up, but looked at Hawkeye instead of him.
Some kind of wordless communication passed between them, a language Sam couldn't hope to interpret. Natasha shook her head, and Clint stiffened. Natasha grimaced. "I get it. We can drop you back off in the States if you want."
"Wait, what?" Sam asked. "He's not staying with us?"
Natasha shrugged. "That's up to him."
"I hate to say it, but it's not," Sam said. "Not really. Look, man, I'm sorry, I know the whole world's gone mad. But you're like me and Cap and Nat. A soldier. And we've still got a job to do. We can't—"
He paused, several bits of intuition falling into place at once. Hawkeye was the least famous of the Avengers, the only one who had never lived at the Tower at some point. Known as the goofball of the team but never answering any personal questions in press conferences, fading into the background while flashier personalities like Iron Man and Thor dominated. The most there had been was rampant dating speculation pairing him with Black Widow, but she said that was a front to keep their private lives private.
And the moment the world had ended, she had headed straight for a "friend's" farmhouse, a place with kids, to make sure they were still alive. Sam had thought they were friends of hers, but…
"I don't know who's waiting for you back home. But you've got to realize, we're in no position to protect anyone right now. If anyone we love is alive, the best chance they have is if we take down HYDRA and make the world safe for everyone."
Clint's eyes slid over to Natasha, who spread her hands innocently. "I didn't say anything. Rogers recruits smart people."
He nodded and sighed.
"You don't have to do this," she said. "I came here to get you free. If you want to go back to try and find them, I won't hold it against you."
"You're asking me to make an impossible choice," Barton said. "Both of you. Thing is, I don't think it's one that has to be made."
He pulled a recording device out of his pocket and set it on the ground. He grinned at the look on Sam's face. "What? You didn't think I was just sitting on my ass waiting to be rescued, did you? Listen to this."
Sam listened, but all he could hear was a bunch of static and the high pitched whine of interference. Natasha, however, sat forward and had a look of excitement on her face.
"Is that—"
"An arc reactor." Clint spotted Sam's look of confusion. "One of Stark's inventions. They powered his suits and his chest—kept his heart going for awhile. They also interfere with radio signals if your machine's not calibrated right. Nat and I nearly had a mission wrecked a couple years ago because of feedback just like that."
The recording went off and Clint played it again. Now that Sam was listening, he could hear something a little different about the interference, something more musical and less head-splitting in its tone, maybe. It faded in and out from the other white noise in some kind of pattern.
"Morse code?" Sam guessed.
"VIC cipher. Old Soviet spy stuff, way more complicated than Morse. It gave me coordinates to a place thirty-five miles out, just east of an abandoned village, and says to be there at 1200 in two days." Clint pulled a well-worn map from his pocket and pointed at the spot. Sam stared at it, trying not to get his hopes up too much.
"But Iron Man's supposed to be dead."
"So are you. And when Tony Stark 'died,' his arc reactor and all the suits in Stark Tower lost power for good. HYDRA's been trying to recreate them, but no luck. Which means that the only person this could be coming from…"
Natasha had joined Clint at the map. "You know there's a HYDRA base right between us and the rendezvous point?"
"I was on the way back from scouting it when you two made your grand entrance."
"And?"
"Doable with you two here. Biggest worries are that they'll follow us or call in the helicarriers to blast us out of the sky. I can take care of their vehicles and the main communications room, but there are satellite phones scattered all over the place."
"I can track those down," Natasha said. "And Sam's good at sabotage, he can lend you a hand."
"What's your plan for the radio room?" Sam asked.
Natasha snorted and answered before Clint could. "Clint's a one-hit wonder when it comes to mayhem. He's going to sneak into the ammunition storage and get supplies to blow it up."
"That hurts, Nat. I would do no such thing." Clint put his hand to his heart, and shook his head. "The ammo's too well guarded. I checked."
She raised one, delicate eyebrow at him. "So you've got a plan that doesn't involve explosions?"
"I didn't say that. Just have to get creative about where I get my explosives."
Clint was crazy.
That was the only explanation Sam could come up with. While Sam hopped from foot to foot, trying to keep warm, trying not to think about what they were about to do, Hawkeye selected an arrow, inspected it, and assessed the distance between them and the HYDRA camp, all while keeping up his steady monologue.
"I mean, the deep dish in Chicago is really good, but New York's the classic, you know? Pizza that you have to fold in half because the slice is so big. Lots of grease, and pepperoni. God, I miss good pepperoni."
Sam glanced over at Natasha, trying to gauge if this was normal for Clint before a mission, but she had the same unreadable expression as always. Didn't even look cold. Damn Russians.
"Never been big on the California style, though. They put pineapple and vegetables and all kinds of weird stuff. Nobody thinks 'gee, I really want to eat healthy tonight, guess I'll order pizza.'"
Nat cleared her throat, and Sam's ears pricked up, hoping for some sanity.
"Make the shot and I'll buy. Brick oven, meat lovers, thin crust, from that place in New Jersey."
"Done."
Sam threw his hands in the air and pretended to walk away. Clint gave him a confused look.
"Where are you going? We're about to start the good part."
"'The good part?'"
"Yeah. See that sentry over there?"
Sam looked over the boulder he was crouched behind. The vague silhouette of a person pacing the perimeter of the camp came into view. Ten steps one way, ten the other. Not too seasoned, Sam could see it in his overly-crisp walk; probably a new recruit, fresh out of basic. But as long as he had a pair of eyes, he could sound the alarm.
"You can get him in one shot? Seems like it'd be out of range of a bow."
Clint laughed. "This is why I love having new guys around. Come on, Wilson, I'm not hitting him. That's the amateur move. Full pizza, you said?"
"If I don't die of old age first."
Clint didn't hesitate. He nocked the arrow, and then drew and released in one smooth movement.
There was a split second of silence, and then a pop as the arrow hit a fuse box. The sentry turned to look as white sparks started flying, ruining the man's night vision. The arrow itself had somehow ricocheted after hitting, leaving only the hole in the fuse box as proof it had been there.
Sam realized Natasha and Clint had already moved, not waiting to see if Hawkeye hit the target, and caught up quickly. Clint stooped at a shadow no bigger than his arm and picked up the arrow.
"Good luck," Natasha murmured when they passed the first row of tents, and slipped away into the dark.
"Stay alive! You owe me a pizza!" Clint hissed after her. Sam had a glimpse of Natasha's silhouette flipping them the bird. He still had no idea how she planned to find all of the satellite phones in time, and she'd only given him a smile when he asked.
He and Clint followed the line of tents, now walking straight and tall, mimicking the assured stride of the HYDRA agents. In the dark, wearing their dusty clothes, they could pass as the enemy.
"Another sentry on the right," Clint muttered. "Back in a sec."
He split off to one side, and Sam could have sworn he heard him humming Mission Impossible as he went.
Sam shook his head and kept going. A weird rush filled him, different from the kind he got when fighting with Natasha—heady and more reckless. Maybe it was Hawkeye's crazy enthusiasm infecting him, but the crunch of gravel seemed louder in his ears, the night cold slid against his bare neck like a razor, and his fingers tingled with the itch, the need to do something. He was on a night mission in the middle of an enemy base, and for the first time since Cap died, it felt right. He realized he was singing the theme to Mission Impossible under his breath as he walked, too.
The line of Humvees loomed up in the dark like huddled beasts, but there was no guard; Clint must have taken care of them. Sam hopped into the passenger side of the first one and yanked the battery out from under the seat when there was a thunk at the engine. He drew his knife—a gunshot would make the whole camp come running—and slithered out the door, only to find Clint mauling the engine. He glanced up at Sam, weapon in hand, and gave him a grin.
"Stop fooling around; this is serious. You have the battery?"
"Yeah." Sam sheathed his knife and grabbed it.
"Good man. Siphon off the diesel and grab the other batteries while I sabotage."
Sam watched him tear back into the engine with an almost indecent enthusiasm and shook his head. "SHIELD should have made your codename Poltergeist."
Clint looked up, a quip already half off his lips, when his eyes caught on something to Sam's right. "Damn it."
"What's up?"
"Bird and two Humvees are missing. Must be running a night mission."
Sam turned and gave the field a closer look. Sure enough, one of the landing areas was suspiciously empty. "How screwed are we?"
"On a scale of one to Hulk smash? Four and a half. Maybe five. Communications aren't long range on any of them. Long as the rest of the job goes right, they won't signal the helicarriers. But they'll still be able to follow us."
"Nothing we can do about it, either way," Sam said. "Unless you want to abort?"
"Come on, Wilson, where's your sense of adventure?" There was an underlying seriousness to his tone, though; they both know they couldn't back out now. They had to make it to the signal, and this was their only chance.
And so they kept going, wrecking the vehicles and accumulating batteries and fuel. Clint dashed off every ten minutes or so to take out other guards, then started making some 'improvements' on the batteries, while Sam finished his work and carried their plunder to the side of the communications shack. It was one of the few real buildings, made of freshly poured concrete and cinderblocks. He dug a quick ditch along the back wall and sandwiched the modified batteries inside in a pattern that Clint had drawn up earlier. Hawkeye followed a couple of minutes later, finished with the last of the choppers, and drenched the whole thing in fuel. He turned to Sam with a devilish grin.
"Boom time."
The fumes made them both lightheaded, and they staggered back to take shelter behind the cars. Clint looked like a cross between a drunk and a child at Christmas. He attached something small, with a couple of wires sticking out of it, to the shaft of an arrow and looked over at the wall—Sam couldn't see the mound of batteries from here, but Clint seemed satisfied. "Bang."
He fired as he said it, but nothing happened. Sam frowned and glanced at Hawkeye. He was watching where the arrow had disappeared, and Sam saw him mouthing words: "Four… three… two… one—"
The explosion sent battery cases and bits of cinderblock flying. Hawkeye punched the air, and Sam was surprised he didn't shout with glee. HYDRA members poured out of the tents, rushing to the explosion like ants when the nest got kicked, only to stop when they reached the white smoke—not just smoke, but sulfuric acid fumes from the batteries. Fumes that, now that Sam thought about the wind, seemed to be drifting towards…
"Time to go," he muttered to Hawkeye.
"What?" Clint's mind seemed to catch up with him as he saw the smoke. "Oh, oh yeah."
Still riding the adrenaline high, they ran down the line of ruined cars to the one they had left that was still functioning. Clint hopped into the driver's seat, Sam piled into shotgun, and just as he was looking around, starting to worry, Natasha darted around and crammed into the seat with him.
"Let's go!" she said, and Hawkeye took off, zooming through the chaos, swerving as occasional soldiers tried to shoot at them.
They were almost to the perimeter when an officer lunged for their car. Clint tried to swerve, but the guy latched on and got one arm through the open window, gripping the frame tight to stay on. His sidearm was in his hand, and it discharged wildly. Nat all but slithered over Sam, ignoring the bullet that flew right past her cheek, and fired point blank into his elbow.
The man let go, screaming, and then they were in open desert. Clint hit the gas as the noise of the chaos faded. Nat picked herself up and folded herself almost primly into the back seat.
"And you boys thought it would be difficult."
Sam didn't know who laughed first. All he knew was that he was exhilarated, incredibly lucky, and half-out of his mind with exhaustion, and they were howling, Clint shouting about the explosion and Natasha doubled over in the back seat, and it didn't stop for a full five minutes.
"We headed in the right direction?" Sam asked when things had finally quieted again.
"Need to head a little more north now that you mention it," Clint slowed a bit to look around. "There's—gah!"
"What's wrong?" Natasha was all business again, sliding forward to look. There was a dark stain against the thigh of Clint's khaki pants. The ricocheting bullet had gone straight through his leg.
"I'm good."
"You're not—"
"I said I'm good! We don't have another option, Nat."
Just like that, the euphoria was gone. Natasha slithered up to take over driving, while Sam put pressure on the wound, trying to find something that would stanch the blood—he finally raided Natasha's pack and took her last tampon for the job—then tore strips off his spare shirt to tie it up.
He wiped the blood off his hands with the rest of the rag, and checked how much fuel they had left—they'd make it to maybe five miles from the coordinates. That had seemed like plenty when they were planning. Before there was a chopper after them and one person was shot.
But Clint was right: they didn't have another option. He looked at Nat and Clint and knew they were thinking the same thing.
"We get as close as we can," he said. "And then we run."