In Pursuit
London, England
August 3rd - 11:02 PM GMT
The week passed by relatively quickly, much to Peter's delight. He managed to get to know his new teammates pretty well; as well as one could in a week's time. Even Agent Brood opened up a little. Apparently the guys name was James. James Barnes. Huh; that name sounded really familiar. Like, really familiar. Where had he heard it before?
Well, anyway, it came time for briefing. He, Janet and James were to infiltrate a Hydra headquarters in London to recover some information on the Masters of Evil's location(s). That was the only thing, as was noted, that wasn't within the files that were available to Dr. Pym at the time of his rescue. He only had limited access, Madame Hydra had much more, so hacking into her credentials should have yielded more fruit.
It should have been an easy assignment. With his Spidey Sense, nothing could get the drop no them; Janet's ability to shrink was great for getting to locked rooms without wasting time picking the locks; and of course, Barnes was a spy, this was a cake walk for them.
Nighttime had fallen thickly over London like a wool blanket. The streets were empty, with the ever present exception of the seedy characters strutting about on the sidewalks, and the unsavory business exchanges happening in alleyway and abandon lots. In a way, it reminded him of Queens. He supposed for all the glitz and glam that London was portrayed to have on TV, it really was just like any other city.
The silent Quinjet landed on the roof of a building that was close to thirty stories taller than their target across the street. It was just like any other run of the mill office building. Very inconspicuous, which, in his mind, made it perfect for a Hydra cover. "Is this it?" he asked as he adjusted his ski mask.
"Yeah," Barnes replied with an annoyed grunt.
"Do you plan on robbing them, too?" Janet asked. When Peter cocked his head back in confusion, she tugged on his mask.
"Oh. I have a secret identity to maintain." Since this was a covert operation, his blue and red outfit would have stuck out like a sore thumb. Thus, he decided to don a simple black sweatshirt, black jeans and black shoes, as well as a black ski mask to hide his face.
"Like they know who Peter Parker is," she replied with an eye roll.
"Hey, they might! You never know, so I'm not taking any chances." Two quick, but almost silent gunshots prevented him from saying more. "What are you doing?"
Bucky walked back from the ledge of the building they were standing on and returned the sniper rifle to his duffle bag. "Roof is clear. We'll need to zipline down, Parker."
"Um, yeah, no problem." A webline shot from one of his web cartridges and attached to an air conditioner on the roof. As he attached it, Janet shrunk down and flew across the street to take out any cameras that may have been filming.
"When we get inside, we'll have to keep quiet and aware. I haven't had a chance to run surveillance on this place yet, so I don't know what's waiting for us." He zipped down the line and rolled tons stop just before hitting the air conditioner. Peter just webswung across and landed silently next to him.
"Cameras are out. Door is over here."
Peter watched Barnes slid a familiar red, white and blue shield onto his arm and run inside. So much for not sticking out like a sore thumb.
Spy work was somehow both boring and exciting. All of the sneaking around and silently taking out anyone they came across wasn't really his style. Then again, his style consisted of dropping down and beating everyone up before they could react. While that could have worked here, he decided to just do things Barnes' way. Besides, he really, really knew what he was doing.
"Does it matter where we're going?" Janet asked after blasting a guard in the face.
"No. This is just to clear this floor and make sure no one alerts anyone else." The floor was mostly empty, in comparison to the amount of rooms that were available to be occupied. It really did look like an office building.
"Any clue what they do here?" Peter shot a glob of webbing onto a guard's mouth, and then webbed him to the wall.
"Not sure. Probably handle the business side of Hydra." Barnes flung the shield against the wall and watched it ricochet and take out the three people down the final corridor on that hall. It returned to him promptly.
"Whoa. Pretty good with that shield."
"Yeah. Any one of these offices should do." Janet walked into one and immediately ignited her hands with bio-electricity. Barnes drew his handgun and pointed it at the lone man behind the desk. "Hands up."
"Don't shoot!"
"Who are you?"
"I'm… I'm the regional manager for this building. I oversee everything that goes in in the city," he replied shakily. He honestly looked like a desk clerk, not a hardened terrorist.
"Has Viper been here recently?" Barnes approached and pushed him to the floor. The man stood, hands still raised high.
He nodded. "Yes, this morning. She was here until this afternoon. She – ack!" Janet slammed him up against the window and pinned him there. For a woman who was only three inches tall, she was surprisingly strong.
"Where did she go?" she demanded.
"I-I-I don't know, she didn't say."
"You lying!" She blasted him in the mouth, drawing a stream of blood from his busted gum. "Where is she?!"
"I… wait." He stopped to think, and then realization dawned on him. "I remember now. She said something about –" He was abruptly cut short by his head exploding in a spray of gray matter and crimson blood. Janet screamed as she was covered in blood.
"Sniper!" Barnes yelled. Just then, Peter's Spidey Sense went off.
"Get down!" He pulled Barnes to the floor just a second before a bullet passed by where his head had been. "Parker to Quinjet, we have a sniper camping us!"
=This is the Quinjet; do we have a twenty on the shooter?=
"What the heck is a twenty?"
"Tell them I'm in pursuit," Barnes said. He stood and jumped out the window and crashed into the next building.
Peter raised his head to watch him crash through a window in the next building. "Whoa." He shared a glance with Janet, who was still gagging.
"Ew!"
"We need to back him up."
"No, we -ugh- need to find where Madame Hydra went."
"That can come after, he may need help."
Janet scoffed and flew out the door. "Are you coming?"
The woman was impossible. "Jeez." He sighed and followed her out.
Bucky stood in front of the desk, trying not to gawp in shock of the diminutive Van Dyne as she interrogated the manager. For as lighthearted, and cute, as she was, she had quite a mean streak. Not that there was anything wrong with that, but –
His thoughts and the manager's reply to the softcore interrogation were cut off by the man's head exploding. Bucky had seen wounds like that plenty of times. He had given out more than his fair share of headshots; it always meant one thing. "Sniper!" Van Dyne's screams prevented him from saying more.
"Get down!" Before he knew it, he was being tugged to the floor by Parker. A loud thud in the wall indicated that his life had just been saved.
"Parker to Quinjet, we have a sniper camping us!" He raised an eyebrow. Hadn't heard that lingo before, and he was pretty good at keeping up with it. His eyes glanced from the bloody Van Dyne to out the window, and he saw it. Or him; the sniper, dropping his rifle and turning to leave.
=This is Quinjet; do we have a twenty on the shooter?=
"What the heck is a twenty?"
"Tell them I'm in pursuit." Without any explanation or warning that he had seen the shooter, Bucky jumped to his feet and leaped out the window with enough momentum to carry him into the next building.
He crashed into a desk, flattening it completely. Shaking off the slight discomfort, he charged down the hall. The shooter already had a head start on him, but hopefully he was fast enough to catch, and surpass, them by going through the building, and then meeting them on the roof on the other side. He'd confront them then and figure out whether they were friendly or foe.
His eyes glanced upward and saw the shooter, blonde with a muscular build, zipping across the hall. He was easily as fast, if not faster than he was. "Shit," he cursed as he crashed through a door, shield first, and kept moving. He rounded a corner too quickly and sprinted briefly along the wall and hopped across a table to keep speed up.
He saw the shooter; in the back of his mind, he had a biting suspicion at who he was, but he pushed it further and further back. He had no desire or want for it to be true, no matter how much sense pointed toward it being so. Shield up, he crashed through a glass door and then a wooden door before vaulting cleanly over a conference table.
"Come on." So fast was he running that he couldn't stop before he crashed into and bounced off of a wall leaving a large dent from the bracing the impact. He grunted and burst through one more door before sprinting down the last hall before the roof. Just then, he could see the shooter drop down from the roof above him and roll to his feet.
With one more leap, Bucky crashed through the window, rolled to his feet and heaved his shield as hard as he could. The shooter stopped, turned around and caught it in his left hand. When he caught sight of who it was, Bucky's eyes grew to saucers. "Steve?"
Steve Rogers stared Bucky, the warmth of his blue eyes gone and replaced with a cold, dead stare. His face, normally filled with a smile, held only a stern, almost hateful grimace. Bucky didn't want to believe what Pym, Fury and Coulson tried to tell him. He just couldn't believe, refused to believe that Steve had turned. Reality was slapping him in the face.
Steve grunted as he hurled the shield back. Bucky mangled to catch it before it hit him in the stomach, but he was still pushed back almost ten feet. By the time he looked up, Steve was gone. He hurried to the ledge of the roof, but it was too late.
He was gone.
"He's in the wind," he reported. "It was Rogers."
=Crap,= Sam cursed sharply.
A sharp sigh bristled through his nose. "I'm heading back. Where are you guys?"
=The roof. You better hurry. Janet just dropped someone off the building,= Peter replied. His voice cracked and shook audible. Bucky sighed again.
So much for cute and lighthearted.