The agent placed their foot on Misty's chest and ground the roper heel of their boot into the center of her ribcage, right over where her heart drummed rapidly. She winced, released the lax grip she had managed on her baton, and held the agent's boot with both free hands. Misty wondered only briefly who the masked agent was and mumbled her apologies before twisting their foot until the ankle made a clean break. Before the agent could react, Steve bounded into view and shoulder-checked him into the wall (Misty determined that it was a man, being that the agent was kind of barrel-chested). With a balled fist, Steve punched the agent in the stomach. He grabbed the helmet on the agents head and, with a force barbarous and crude, slammed their head back into the wall. Unconscious, the agent slid down the length of the wall and slumped at the bottom.

Misty rolled onto her side, propped herself up on her elbow, and looked at Steve with a raised eyebrow.

"I had that, you know," she said flatly.

Steve opened his mouth to offer a reply, but snapped it shut with an audible 'click'. He shrugged his shoulders in response, and walked over to Misty. He extended his hand to her with a hesitant smile, and she took it gladly to pull herself to her feet. Misty bent down, grabbed her baton now with an unyielding grip, and unfolded it quickly at her side.

Without another moment of hesitation, she bolted forward, pushed off of Steve's shoulder for leverage, and scissor kicked the agent that had been approaching behind him—her feet, working jointly, swept the helmet off the agent's head and the firearm out of their hand. Misty spun out of the kick and swept the now unmasked male agent's legs out from beneath him. She slammed the length of her baton down on his chest and used the blunt end to jab into his forehead. A red blot formed almost immediately between two ungroomed, feral-looking brows and left him lying unconscious on the overlaid tile floor.

She turned around to face Steve, brushing a lock of hair from her eyes and tucking it loosely behind her ear.

"Thank you?" Steve said.

"Any time."

The floor shook slightly, and Misty fisted a wad of Steve's tee shirt to maintain her balance. A loud grumble resounded from beneath them, then a guttural roar.

Banner.

"That doesn't sound good," Steve said.

"Agreed," Misty replied, her eyes widened. She faced Steve, pressed her closed fist against his chest, and looked him straight in the eyes. "Listen to me, Cap. You're the first decent man I've met in a long time. I mean it. It also doesn't hurt that you're very attractive. Not the point. Don't tell my husband I said that."

"Husband?"

"Not the point. Make it out of here alive, would you? That's an order." With that, she bolted down the hallway with one hand holding the baton and the other grappling for the gun in her holster.

The floor beneath her feet felt sloped as Misty often found herself trudging upward down typically straight corridors. As she ran down the corridor, she kept one hand (the one holding the gun) braced and running along the wall to keep her balance. The Helicarrier was falling, and with it would fall every single person onboard. Misty swore quietly to herself and prayed that Tony and Steve would be able to fix the damaged engines and their rotors. If they couldn't… well… everyone would be taking a swim, and Misty wasn't in the mood for swimming.

Over the loud speaker, she heard a panicked voice say, "We've got a perimeter breech! Hostiles are in S.H.I.E.L.D. gear. Hold onto every junction."

As the message completed and Misty rounded a corner, she was met by two helmeted agents in chrome goggles holding automatic machine guns. With the first few shots, she whipped back around the corner she had skirted. Misty put her baton back in the double-strapped holder and held her gun with both hands. Quickly, she whipped back around the corner and fired four shots at both agents' legs—she couldn't bear to fatally wound them, they were still agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (and probably wore bullet-proof vests anyway). Her shots hit their targets, and both agents fell to the ground groaning. Misty ran by, kicking away one of the guns and picking up the other for her own use. They fired, too, before they went down, and one bullet tore clean through the outer edge of Misty's upper arm.

"Flesh wound! Flesh wound! Flesh wound!" she said frantically. "It could be worse!" Misty put her handgun back into the holster and held onto the automatic machine gun with both hands. She fired at the lower halves of other masked agents she stumbled across—although they were smaller, uncertain targets, there would be no killing of her fellow agents.

Misty dropped one hand from the gun, touched her earpiece and, in a voice gravelly and strained, shouted, "Talk to me, Agent Hill!" Misty heard gun fire as a response in the earpiece. "Damnit, Agent Hill! Talk to me!" She felt a rumble in the floor below that vibrated her entire body and sent a tremor through her spine; for a moment, she lost the balance she had managed to maintain.

The entire jet slanted to one side and, with her balance already lost, Misty fell to the floor on her side and slid to the wall adjacent. The machine gun landed hard with her and unloosed a flurry of bullets to the end of the corridor. Misty grabbed the gun with both hands and crawled on her elbows and knees along the wall, seeing as the Helicarrier tilted far enough to make the wall seem walkable. She fired at the agents in front of her who had been likewise tossed around by the uneven flight pattern of the Helicarrier.

Misty touched her earpiece again. "Hill? Hill, this is Agent Cox! Do you copy?"

Instead of Agent Hill, Misty received Director Fury's voice over the earpiece. "It's Barton. He took out our systems. He's headed for the detention level. Does anyone copy?" Fury's question crackled over the earpiece.

"This is Agent Romanoff," Natasha replied. "I copy."

"No you don't, Tasha! No you fucking don't! I copy, Fury! I copy! If anyone's gonna kick Barton's ass, it's gonna be me!" Misty shouted, her finger pressed hard against the earpiece.

Fury sighed deeply. "Take care, Agent Cox. He's all yours."

"Damn right he is," she grumbled.


In the lower equipment room, Misty treaded lightly on the creaky access bridge and cautiously watched the gates above for any movement. The catwalk below her screeched and Misty whipped her head around to look behind her. She approached the railing of the catwalk she treaded and looked over it gingerly, catching a fleeting glimpse of a bobbing head of brown hair. Misty turned her head fast enough to dodge the arrow that suddenly shot through the air from below and whizzed past her face. At the speed that the arrow moved upward towards her, the feathered fletching was quick enough to just nick her cheek. She gasped, held her face with one hand, and quickly moved away from the railing. A stripe of blood stained her palm and fingers when she drew her hand back from her cheek.

Misty's ears caught the sound of some light pacing and metal clinking. She figured that he was coming to meet her on the catwalk.

"Bitch move, Clint," she said aloud, looking around the upper catwalks for any sign of him.

When Misty turned around, she was met with a notched arrow. She grabbed both ends of the riser and turned the bow completely so that the arrow loosened on its notching point and fell to the ground. Clint was able to rip the bow away from her hands and notch another arrow. Misty spun her baton fast in circles to counter the arrow that Clint let fly, and the baton's length swatted the arrow away and onto the access bridge below. Misty whirled around and swung the baton at Clint's slide, but he countered the attack and caught the baton in the recurve of the bow. He pulled and yanked the baton from Misty's hands; it clattered on the floor behind him.

She turned away from him and ran the other way, dodging an arrow that whirred past her ear. Misty grabbed an upright banister with both hands and swung herself onto the catwalk beside the one she'd been on previously. Clint leapt onto the same catwalk and, as Misty charged him, he notched another arrow on his bow. With her running start, Misty jumped on the horizontal railing beside Clint only for a moment before propelling herself off of it and onto his shoulders. Her thighs locked onto the sides of his face and held tight. From her duty belt, she ripped a long piece of braided wire, wrapped it twice around his neck, and pulled tight.

Clint dropped the bow with the arrow attached and made a futile effort to try and rip the braided cord from his throat. Misty yanked hard and forced Clint to walk backward in the direction she pulled the wire.

"Sorry, honey," she muttered, tightening the wire. "It's just… until…" Misty tried to balance herself so that Clint wouldn't fall over and drop her. "…you go… to… sleep…"

Clint reached up and fisted wads of Misty's curls in his clenched hands. He wound his fingers into her hair and pulled hard, scraping her scalp with his blunt, rounded fingernails until she released her tight grip on the two ends of braided cord wrapped around his throat. His next few deep breaths were strained and audible. Misty attempted a forward flip off of Clint's shoulders, but he hadn't released her hair, so she ended up flipping halfway and falling onto her knees in front of him. Misty used one of her legs to sweep Clint's own out from beneath him, and he fell down hard beside her, his grasp on her hair finally freed.

As she tried to stand, he grabbed her ankle and pulled her back down. Her face met the floor with a loud bang and she groaned. Misty looked back at Clint and, with a frown, kicked her husband square in his face with the ripple-bottom sole of her boot. She stood up quickly and leapt onto the other catwalk where she was able to pick up her baton and ready it in front of her. Clint stood, his nose red and dribbling bloody residue, and likewise leapt back onto the catwalk where Misty stood poised. He had picked up his bow before making the leap, but also whipped a knife out from his duty belt.

Misty's eyes widened, and she sighed sadly. Her voice shook when she told Clint, "You really don't have to do that."

Clint charged Misty with both weapons in his hand and swung at her with the knife. It cut through the air, but missed Misty only by a finger's breadth. She hit him in the face with her elbow, smacked his side with the baton (where he doubled over slightly), and hit the curve of his spine with the length of the weapon. He recovered quickly, smacking her across the face with the upper limb of the bow and delivering a right hook on the other side of her face. She lost her grip on the baton and it rattled on the ground somewhere behind her.

Misty regained her composure just as quickly as she had lost it. She spun and prepared to deliver a harsh roundhouse kick to Clint's face, but he caught her ankle in the hand holding the knife and, with the other, slammed his bow into her back. She cried out in pain. Misty dropped to the ground on just her hands and brought her free leg into the air, setting it against Clint's neck. She twisted her other leg from his grasp, and wrapped both ankles around his neck in a crisscross fashion. She propelled her lower half forward and threw Clint to the ground. Misty's feet landed on the ground and she stood up fast, albeit carefully. The mid-section of her spine throbbed with a growing, almost molten pain that she couldn't shake, and it forced her back down onto the ground in a crouched position.

"Someone's really wants to sleep on the couch tonight," she mumbled, momentarily massaging the arc of her spine.

Clint grabbed her throat quickly and threw her to the ground on her back. She couldn't suppress the scream that worked its way out of her mouth. It felt like the entire length of her spine shattered like the brittle glass of a tumbler. Clint tightened his grip on her throat and forced her head down against the floor, readying the knife in his other hand. He looked menacing hovering over her with his pearly blue eyes and tautened grimace.

Misty couldn't manage even the smallest breath. Tears flooded her eyes and she kicked her legs about until Clint straddled her waist and sat down on her flailing limbs. Misty struggled to free herself from his grasp, but this time it was just too much for her. "Clint—" she choked out. "Clint… please." Her face began to discolor—at first to red, then to slight purple that tinted her cheeks. "It's… me." Misty expelled a small, squeaky breath that came out hot. With each small breath out, she dribbled saliva onto her face and Clint's hand. "Don't… let him…" Misty could feel her head getting lighter as each moment passed. She swatted pathetically at his face and clawed his hands in an attempt to get him to release her throat from his hand. "Clint…"

Clint's face seemed apathetic and unchanged at first, but softened. The synthetic blue in his eyes appeared to waver. "Misty?"

Misty's eyebrow twitched at the recognition. Was she getting through to him? Clint's grip loosened just a bit. Misty raised both of her hands up above her, clasped them together, and brought them down atop Clint's head. He let go of the knife, as the bow had been forgone long ago to hold her throat, and fell over onto his side. Clint groaned and rolled back a bit to make his next move. Before he could, Misty grabbed the back of his head and drove his face into the ground.

She fell onto her stomach, propped herself up on her elbows and knees, and coughed violently for two minutes without interruption.

"You—" She sputtered saliva onto the catwalk. "—are definitely sleeping on the couch."


I've never written action like that before, so I hope it was decent! I certainly did enjoy the writing process. I hope you enjoyed reading. A giant THANK YOU to everyone who has been leaving me reviews. I appreciate them immensely! Reviews are wonderful works of art!