For the next three hours, the four of them come up with a plan to not only clear their names but also stop the infiltration of S.H.I.E.L.D. They would have to be subtle about entering as agents and S.T.R.I.K.E. could be waiting at any and every corner of D.C. If the Winter Soldier was waiting, they would have to be ready. None of them were expecting the best outcome, but they prepared for the worst and hoped for the opposite. Anxiety over Elsie's safety still ate at Steve, but he believed in her despite his fears. He had made a promise to Stark, and he was not going to break that promise. Elsie was just as scared for Steve, but she was going to make sure he was cleared of everything, even if it meant giving up being an agent.
When it was time to go, they headed into the city in Sam's car. During that time, Natasha gave her a lesson on how to operate the laser gun safely so as to not fire it by accident. Elsie's head was spinning now that she fully understood what her former coworkers went through when on real deal missions. It was scary, but she knew her team had her back.
Soon, they get to an alleyway across the street from a restaurant where they knew Sitwell would exit within a half hour. Sam gets out and blends in by going to the deli right there and buying himself a drink. Meanwhile, the other three head inside the building and Elsie gets into position by the window. Nat pulls out her scanner and does her tech magic to disguise Sam's caller ID as Pierce's to trick Sitwell into answering his phone.
"Yes, sir?" Sitwell answers the phone once Sam calls him.
"Agent Sitwell," Sam greets, "how was lunch? I hear the crab cakes here are delicious."
A pause. "Who is this?"
"The good-looking guy in the sunglasses, your 10 o'clock."
Natasha rolls her eyes with a slight chuckle.
"What do you want?" Sitwell asks nervously.
"You're gonna go around the corner to your right," Sam instructs. "There's a gray car two spaces down. You and I are gonna take a ride."
"And why would I do that?"
Elsie points the laser at the center of his tie.
"Because that tie looks really expensive," Sam warns, "and I'd hate to mess it up."
"Tell me about Zola's algorithm," Steve demands after punching Sitwell through a wall, the officer landing on the roof of the building.
"Never heard of it," Siwell answers nervously as he quickly stands and puts his glasses back on. He was being backed up to the edge as Steve aggressively approached him, and the girls were marching towards him in the same fashion.
"What were you doing on the Lemurian Star?"
"I was throwing up. I get seasick."
He's about to fall over the edge, but Steve grabs him in time and angrily stares at him. Sitwell just smirks.
"Is this little display meant to insinuate that you're gonna throw me off the roof?" he taunts. "Because it's really not your style, Rogers."
Steve lets go and backs up. "You're right. It's not. It's hers."
He nods to Natasha, and she doesn't hesitate to kick him off of the roof.
"Just out of curiosity," she says to the couple as Sitwell is falling, "who made the first move?"
"Oh, he did," Elsie replies, a little taken back by the sudden question.
"Oh, cute! How did you do it?"
"Nothing fancy," Steve shrugs.
Elsie chuckles. "He just said, 'Can I treat you to dinner, Friday night?' I said yes."
"I need details on your first date soon," Natasha requests just before Sam flies up carrying Sitwell and dropping him back onto the roof.
Sam's metallic wings retreated back into the pack strapped onto his back, and the other three strutted back towards Sitwell.
"Zola's algorithm is a program," Sitwell confesses out of breath, "for choosing Insight's targets."
"What targets?" Steve asks.
"You. A TV anchor in Cairo, the Under Secretary of Defense, a high school valedictorian in Iowa City, Bruce Banner, Stephen Strange, anyone who's a threat to HYDRA. Now, or in the future."
"In the future? How could it know?"
Sitwell just laughed. "How could it not?" -he stands up- "The 21st century is a digital book. Zola taught HYDRA how to read it. Your bank records, medical histories, voting patterns, emails, phone calls, your damn SAT scores! Zola's algorithm evaluates people's past to predict their future."
"And what then?"
A look of horror shadows Sitwell's face. "Pierce is gonna kill me," he groans.
"What then?" Steve demands, Elsie keeping him from throwing punches too soon.
"Then," Sitwell continues, "the Insight helicarriers scratch people off the list. A few million at a time."
Mass genocide, Elsie realized, on people possibly as young as small children and as random as a construction worker on a regular Thursday afternoon. They had to act fast, and they needed to act now.
Sitwell was immediately brought along with the team as they headed to S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters. Sam drove, Steve sat shotgun, and Elsie sat in the backseat between Natasha and Sitwell. The two women kept an eye on Natasha's scanner on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Project Insight based on what he had confessed.
"HYDRA doesn't like leaks," he explains himself.
"Then why don't you try sticking a cork in it?" Sam replies in annoyance.
"Insight's launching in 16 hours," Elsie informed. "We're cutting it a little bit close here."
"I know," Steve nods. "We'll use him to bypass the DNA scans and access the helicarriers directly."
"What?" Sitwell sat up straighter, his eyes wide. "Are you crazy? That is a terrible, terrible idea."
A thud on the car's roof interrupted the conversation, and the left passenger's window was smashed. A metal arm then reaches in and throws Sitwell out of the vehicle.
Natasha sees a pair of boots and gunshots are fired. She then pushes Elsie onto Steve's lap to keep her out of the gunman's firing range while she takes cover behind Sam. Elsie ducks her head as more shots are fired. Steve puts the car gearshift in park, throwing the assailant off the vehicle as it's forced into a stop on the highway.
The assailant stops himself by using his metal arm as a break, sparks flying from metal on concrete. He slowly stands, his long, dark hair blowing in the wind. He's dressed in Soviet-style military wear, and a black mask covers most of his face with his forehead partially showing. The Winter Soldier.
Just as Elsie points her gun to take a shot at him, a larger car rear-ends them hard, making her drop the gun, and the back window's glass shatters. The other car pushes them toward the Soldier, and Sam tries to keep the car in control. The assailant then runs on top of their car, and Sam slams on the brakes, the tires giving an ear-splitting squeal.
"Elsie, get your gun!" Natasha orders as she pulls out her own.
Leaning down to find it, Elsie keeps a hold on Steve while she reaches for the said weapon on the floor and does her best not to cut herself on the broken glass again. Just as her fingers touched it, the Soldier smashed his arm through the windshield and ripped the driver's wheel out, Sam cursing at him. Elsie then gripped the gun and pulled the trigger in the man's direction but missed.
With no control over the car for Sam, they begin to swerve in and out of lanes. The other vehicle keeps smashing into them while the Soldier comes back to attack them. Steve had to make a split decision and went with it. Grabbing his shield and pressing it against the car door, he holds Elsie by the waist tightly.
"Hold on to me!" he orders.
Without another thought, everyone else in the car grabs onto Steve. Using his strength, he breaks off the car door as it acts as a second shield for them as they fly out of the car and onto the highway. The car is totaled as it flies over onto the road below. Sam rolls off, and the other three hang onto the door as it slides. The trio quickly gets up and prepares for whatever hell they're about to face.
What they weren't prepared for was the Winter Soldier receiving a large machine gun by the men in the other vehicle. He fires a missile in their direction, Steve pushing the girls out of the way. It hits his shield and sends him soaring over the highway bridge.
"STEVE!" Elsie screams as she watches him fall down to the Earth below and crash into a bus that causes a domino effect of a wreck.
Natasha pulls her behind some vehicles that people were already escaping from just before machine guns opened fire on the team.
"No time to cry now," she tells her as the men march closer to them. "Get your gun out and start firing."
Elsie nods quickly and whips out her weapon as Sam runs for safety. The women utilize their bullets as much as they can but have to jump onto the other highway just as another missile is fired and destroys a vehicle. The two dodge oncoming traffic halting to a stop as more people are heading for shelter from the rain of bullets. Another missile, and it hits a car right by them. The women jump together and Natasha uses a grappling device to swing them down to safety.
"They're gonna shoot the moment they spot us," Elsie warns as they head to where Steve had crashed.
"Just run when I tell you," Natasha encourages her as she keeps an eye on the Soldier's shadow.
The shadows weren't exactly underneath the bridge, so Natasha stops them both when they're right under the assailant's nose. Pulling her pistols out and pointing them up, she whispers to Elsie, "Run and find Rogers," and pulls the triggers.
Sprinting into a run, she hears Natasha fire five rounds, which buys her time to take shelter behind one of the buses that had landed on its side. Thankfully, the passengers had already escaped, but she still needed to find Steve.
More gunshots rang out as other people on the street ran for safety. Elsie ran to the other crashed bus and found the bus driver helping passengers out of the vehicle. She spots Steve's shield on the ground, but before she could try to reach for him, the Winter Soldier's team were now at ground level with them and firing in their direction. Elsie took a few shots at them, but her pistol was nothing compared to their machine guns and assault rifles. While the bus would act as a shield for now, it would be a matter of time before gasoline would spill and catch fire.
"Steve, get out of there!" Elsie cried.
As the bus begins to go up in flames, Steve bursts through the emergency door's window, grabs his shield and covers himself from the bullets. Sam returned to the action and stole a weapon from one of the men, which gave Elsie a window of time to dive behind Steve.
"You need to get out of here," Steve instructs her over the roaring firearms.
"I'm not leaving you," she refuses, holding onto his jacket and firing back at the Soldier's team.
The couple step closer to the assailants as Sam takes overhead shots at the men from the highway. As they get closer to the last man standing, Elsie ducks behind the car as Steve goes in for the attack. The man falls on top of the car, and the Soldier fires at Sam, Steve sliding beside Elsie.
"Go! I got this!" Sam shouts before firing at the Soldier again.
Grabbing Elsie's hand, Steve gets them both behind a car to take cover before all hell breaks loose again. They watch as police start to show up and the Soldier obliterates the first vehicle that arrives on scene. Natasha had created a diversion for him before she attacked in combat and used a device to electrocute his metal arm while she ran. However, before she could hide, she's shot in the shoulder.
Breaking free of Steve's grip, Elsie sprints towards Natasha, who took refuge behind another car.
"Elsie, no!" Steve wails, but the Soldier is not far behind.
She makes it to her injured friend, but Natasha just tells her, "Get out of here, and save yourself!"
The Soldier finds a place on top of a nearby car and points his missile at the girls. Before he has a chance to fire, Steve runs towards him and blocks a lethal punch with his shield.
"How bad is it?" Elsie asks, trying to help Natasha with her wound while the men battled.
"I don't think there's a bullet," Natasha groans. "But it does hurt like hell. Trust me when I say it's not fun."
Holding her burned fingers up, Elsie softly smiled. "I couldn't agree with you more."
Without any gauze or any medical treatment, Natasha would have to apply pressure to her wound until she was able to do so. Elsie kept watch and held her gun at the ready in case the Soldier would attack again, but he seemed so focused on eliminating Steve. Her teeth clenched each time Steve was punched or kicked, and her instincts were screaming at her to help him. However, the Soldier was too strong, and she would be dead if she tried to fight him.
At one point, Steve managed to unmask the Winter Soldier, and everything seemed to go in slow motion when he saw the face of the assassin.
"Bucky?"
"Who the hell is Bucky?" the Soldier replied.
The man was indeed Bucky, but Steve had no idea why he was now a murderous tyrant. More questions flooded his mind as he remembered that day on the mountain. He had witnessed his best friend fall to his death, but now he was alive and hadn't aged a day? How was this possible?
Bucky points a gun at Steve, but Sam flies in on his wings and knocks him over. He quickly stands and tries again, but Natasha picks up the missile rifle and fires a shot but misses. When the smoke cleared, he was gone, and the S.T.R.I.K.E. team arrived in multiple vehicles and a helicopter overhead.
Elsie rushes up to Steve, but he stops her. They had to surrender now no matter how much they would hate it. Rumlow and his team all surrounded the foursome.
"Drop the shield, Cap!" he ordered as guns were pointed at Steve's face. "Get on your knees!"
As Sam was arrested, officers ordered Elsie and Natasha to drop their weapons, and they complied before they were cuffed.