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Phase 3: Changing world I

=IS=

Part 1

=IS=

Hydra compound

Washington State

"The left flank is secure," May's voice came over the comm. "Three targets accounted for here."

"Scratch one in the barn," Ward noted.

"Two here," Romanoff reported.

"One target down in the basement. The Primary is safe behind an electronic lock. The key card's damaged."

"All targets accounted for. STRIKE, two of you hold the basement. The rest get up and take defensive positions. We've got potential hostiles on the way." Romanoff ordered. "Stark, you did your job. Now, get down to the basement and see your kid. We'll handle whoever is on the way."

I felt like arguing in indignation and had to force myself to nod and go find the stairs down. I was hungry for combat, to prove myself in a way Tony Stark had never experienced. The sensation was a familiar one. I was a warrior at heart who had to, again and again, hold himself back because of what was practical. Or the big picture. That was almost as frustrating as constantly tuning out the Dark Side's sweet nothings. These past few months were relief on that front for all the issues I had to deal with. The Dark Side was still here, it very much existed, yet it was silent. It fed from my many emotions, yet I didn't feel like drinking from a sweet, poisoned chalice when using it.

It didn't feed my anger and frustration in a vicious loop I had to handle when my temper ran high. It was inert, as shallow as the Force as a whole, perhaps even more, for it was merely one side of the coin.

I shook my head at the odd tangent. This wasn't the time or place for such philosophical thoughts. It wasn't like I could do anything about the nature of the Force over here. I could only be thankful I didn't have to constantly struggle with the Dark Side on one level or another. At the same time, I couldn't help but resent the lack of power at my fingertips.

I briefly submerged myself in the Force, feeling a distant happy song, which helped me focus on the here and now. I shook my head at the weird distraction.

An opened armored door lined with soundproofing material led to the basement. The same dark insulation covered the walls and ceiling. This place wasn't a bad setup to quietly hold prisoners down here.

Besides the insulation, the place was only bare concrete and steel bars. I nodded at the two SHIELD Agents with SMGs covering the entrance. The body of the man I took out at the start of the engagement lay in a pile at the far end of a long corridor lined up with small cells on both sides.

Not bad, I thought. My telekinesis had caused more damage than I anticipated, which was a good thing. The bastard never stood a chance. I could see parts of his torso and armor that my grip had crushed before slamming him into the ceiling had shattered his skull. A twisted key card was on the ground near the cell at the far left of the basement.

I walked past the Agents and looked inside. Hannah was there, curled on a simple dirty mattress. Her hands were zip-tied in front of her, and she had a half-empty water bottle on the concrete floor. That was all.

Just seeing her this way was enough to stoke my anger. I had to focus on sensing her emotions. Hannah had retreated deep within her mind, trying to escape and deny everything that had happened of late. All I could get from her was a mind-numbing terror that further pushed her away from the real world.

The Force rippled around me, answering my rising fury. I focused my rage on the electronic lock. Metal screamed as I crushed it with the Force and swung the door open.

I could barely hear the screech of tires outside and the crackle of suppressed weaponry. A pang of unease washed over me, and I glanced at the SHIELD agents, who looked uneasy between the opened cell door and me. I raised an eyebrow at them, and they promptly turned their attention to the stairway.

The Force rushed into me, slowly filling up the empty well of expended power I just used, soothing my temper. Whoever ordered this was going to die screaming.

I entered the cell and knelt beside Hannah. She didn't register my presence. For that matter, she didn't even twitch when I tore the cell door open. I've seen this happen on hundreds of worlds in the aftermath of combat. People's minds could shut down when witnessing or experiencing enough horror. Children's minds could be both surprisingly resilient yet incredibly fragile things.

My fury was of no use here. I spent long moments binding it and forcing myself to calm down. I focused on the Force and carefully applied pressure on the zip-ties until they snapped away, leaving red lines on Hannah's arms.

My comm cracked with short commands and warnings while the firefight upstairs intensified. I ignored it all.

=SI=

A moment after Natasha ducked away from the door, bullets tore into the reinforced wall of the house. She cursed viciously. That was a competent commando team outside, and they all had thick armor on their sides. A burst into the armored face mask of one of the bastards might have given him a concussion, but he just got back up after falling from surprise and shock.

Fortunately, the same was true for the STRIKE team. Two of its members got clean bursts to their chests. Their hard armor easily tanked the enemy's SMG rounds.

"This is pathetic!" May snapped.

"I am never leaving home again without a few magazines with armor-piercing bullets!" Ward vowed.

"Fuck this." Rumlow spat. "These bastards might have a proper armory in here. One of you, come with me! We are looking for better weapons!" He tapped one of the STRIKE Agents on the shoulder, and they pulled deeper into the house.

Natasha glanced through a cracked reinforced window. The enemy had the same idea. Half of them took turns using suppressive fire. The others had pulled back and were busy around the now open trunks of the SUVs. Romanoff ducked when she saw a commando lean around the vehicle with an M4 carbine. Loud cracks echoed over the forest clearing and the window above her head shattered. Soon more carbines laid down suppressive fire using single shots and three-round bursts.

"They're pushing towards us," May announced.

Of course, they were.

"Pull back from the door. They'll use grenades to breach." Natasha warned and followed her advice.

In close quarters, their armor wouldn't protect them from her. That said, engaging competent fire teams in hand-to-hand combat was a good way to get shot, enhancements or no enhancements.

"Over here! I found an armory! I need help to get the damn thing open!"

Natasha smiled viciously and dashed after Rumlow's voice.

=IS=

Part 2

=IS=

Hydra compound

Washington State

The armory was behind a shoved-aside bookshelf. Natasha could see the outlines of Carbines, SMGs, and a couple of shotguns nested behind a metal mesh. An electronic lock smugly shone red at her. She pulled her right arm back and twisted on the ball of her feet. Natasha pulled her whole weight into a palm strike aimed straight at the lock.

She wasn't a particularly tall or muscular woman. The strike should have hurt her arm more than the metal lock. Instead, enhanced flesh, driven by enhanced muscles, slapped against steel. The metal groaned and deformed, yielding to her flesh. A second strike short-circuited the lock. A third one broke it.

Natasha shoved the metal mesh covering the armory wide open and grabbed a Carbine. She threw it at the STRIKE Agent she heard approach, then handed him a couple of magazines. He wasted no time loading the weapon and heading back to the entrance. A pair of explosions shook the house. Ear-piercing cracks made Romanoff's ears ring even as brief, blinding light did its best to burn away the twilight. She ignored the distraction, took the second carbine, loaded it, and grabbed a spare magazine.

Loud gunfire echoed from the entrance. Natasha could hear heavy boots stomping over concrete. She shouldered the weapon and moved as fast as her enhanced body could.

She saw a commando stagger under a barrage of low-caliber bullets yet manage to clear the door before crashing into the wall—a second one charged through, firing precise bursts. A cry of pain came from the right at the same time Natasha shot the commando in the face. The rifle bullets shattered his armored mask. Blood and bone splashed under his helmet, and he went down without a sound.

Natasha saw two cylinders roll over the body and instinctively twisted her head to the side, closing her eyes. The flashbangs scream washed over her, and burning stars danced in front of her eyes. She dove to the ground, seeking cover.

Another explosion shook the house, then a third. A flashbang came through a shattered window just as Natasha's vision cleared. She had a heartbeat to slam her eyes shut before the grenade detonated, bathing her in light and deafening noise. She curled into a ball, hopefully turning herself into a smaller target, then tried to roll back towards the kitchen.

Moments like these highlighted the primary drawback of the enhancing serum the Red Room gave her. Better senses and flashbangs didn't mesh well, even if she was much more resilient than a woman her size had any right to be.

Natasha could sense bullets biting into the floor beside her even as she desperately rolled away while still blind and deaf. All she could see were burning spots, and all she could hear was piercing ringing. Fragments from shattered tiles and perforated wood bounced off her Kevlar suit. A near miss drew a burning stripe over her right thigh. Natasha didn't stop moving until she blindly hit something that vibrated against her back. She still had the carbine and blindly aimed it, cursing the huge bright spots in front of her eyes. Furious blinking did little to help. She saw a shape that might have been moving and pressed the trigger, sending three-round bursts downrange before rolling to the right. There was space between the cupboards in the corner and the counter in the middle of the kitchen. Natasha could feel cracked tiles shift under her weight. Relief flared through her at finding a piece of dubious cover.

Another explosion shook the building moments before Romanoff's eyesight recovered enough to be of use. She peered over the counter, then surged to her feet when she didn't see a target.

Rumlow was still alive but wounded. He sat on the ground on the other side of the counter, pressing his bloody fingers to his side. It was something to deal with only when there were no more commandos trying to kill them.

An armored body was lying in the large corridor between the entrance and the kitchen. A few more blinks cleared some of the white spots out of her sight, and Natasha briskly crept through the house. Her ears still rang, and she couldn't hear a damn thing.

A STRIKE Agent lay in a dark pool of blood, with his back against the wall beside the kitchen's door. An explosion had shredded his armor. Another Agent was dead in the corridor leading deeper into the house. He was the one Natasha gave the other carbine.

Smoke and dust came from a gaping armored door leading to the basement. Stark was there with his kid. If they died, this whole operation would be a complete clusterfuck. Natasha bit off a curse as she charged down the stairs. She had to jump over a few ravaged concrete steps where a grenade had detonated with enough force to shatter concrete.

She first saw two of the STRIKE Agents in the basement. One was down, covered in blood, while the other was busy offering first aid. Next, Natasha froze as her index finger began to close around the trigger. One of the commandos was right there, hanging nearly half a meter above the ground. His body shook, and even if he was with his back turned to her, he was holding his throat and choking. Her hearing returned just in time to hear the unpleasant sound of shattering bones. The commando went limp and then collapsed on the floor like a discarded toy. The next thing Natasha saw was Stark. He was at the far end of the basement. His eyes glowed like molten metal in the twilight, and he had his hand outstretched as if he was imitating Vader.

Natasha slowly lowered her weapon, and Stark dropped his hand to her relief. He gave her a nod and briskly walked towards the STRIKE Agents. Natasha whirled around and ran back upstairs. She found more corpses and, eventually, the rest of the team. They had retreated in the left wing of the house, behind a reinforced wall acting as a bunker with firing slits. She passed one more commando corpse and the body of another STRIKE Agent.

The rest of them were alive if in need of medical attention. May sat on the ground panting, holding her bleeding shoulder. A dead commando had collapsed beside her, leaving a blood trail over the wall.

A wounded STRIKE Agent was bleeding out on a nearby bed. Ward was on his knees, gasping for air over the corpse of the last commando. A glance told Natasha all she needed to know about that – the bastard's head was turned around, facing the ceiling while his body lay frozen in death on its front. Ward turned around to look at her and held his throat. There was no blood, yet his face was twisted in a pained grimace.

"Stark? The girl?" May demanded.

"Both are alive," Natasha reported.

"Good. Those fuckers were good. SHIELD good," May spat and slowly began dragging herself up.

Natasha nodded grimly. "I'll make sure they're all dead and grab first aid kits. Raven, this is Widow. Is the perimeter clear? We have casualties and need immediate medical evacuation."

"Widow, Raven. There's one warm spot in the second SUV to your left. I can see no one else alive outside. Local LEOs and ambulances are on the way. ETA twenty minutes."

Natasha went to the front of the house and used one of the shattered windows to shoot out the remaining lights of the SUVs. Darkness fell in front of the house, and she used its concealment to dash out, seeking targets.

Nothing moved, and no one shot at her. She carefully approached the SUVs and eventually saw a form simply sitting at the back to the one to the far left.

It was Obadiah Stane, and he was dead.

=SI=

Flashing lights bathed the clearing in blue and crimson. State Police troopers stood in small groups, warily looking at the battlefield. At the same time, paramedics did their best to stabilize the wounded for transport to the nearest hospital with a good trauma center.

A van with forensic specialists parked near the barn while CIS agents spoke quietly, waiting for authorization to do their job. Meanwhile, SHIELD was stretching its muscles and doing its best to take jurisdiction and keep the battle as quiet as possible. From what Natasha heard, there was some unexpected pushback on that front.

It wasn't often that SHIELD got exposed in such a way. First, a firefight in front of a school of all things, then the battle for this damn compound.

A flash of fire burned over her leg, and she glanced down at the paramedic disinfecting the graze. Her eyes shot back up and focused on the compound. Stark was at the door, gently carrying a small form bundled in a blanket. The girl looked limp and dead to the world.

Unwelcome memories of the Red Room, of concrete rooms and small cells, flashed through Natasha's mind. For all the bastards did to her and her "sisters," they did threaten them reasonably well, outside certain types of training, like the program to resist interrogation.

Recollections of small cells, freezing water, and electric shocks calibrated to be as painful as possible without causing permanent damage rose unbidden from the back of her mind. A shudder went through her body at the vivid memory. Natasha grimaced and shook her head. It was all in the past! The Red Room was gone, and the people who turned her into a weapon were dead, many by her own hands.

Natasha watched Stark put the girl on a gurney for paramedics to fuss over her.

"Just bandage it, please. My next stop is the hospital anyway." Natasha told the paramedic, still poking her thigh. It was just a flesh wound, one she should be able to heal without issue, even without any medical aid.

Among other things, her light enhancement kept infections and diseases at bay.

Ward walked with two cops to the driver of one of the ambulances, exchanging words. He held a pack of ice to the side of his neck, where one of the commandos had hit him, missing a strike aimed at Ward's throat.

The paramedic finally unpacked a bandage roll and quickly finished patching Natasha's leg. As soon as he finished, she promptly thanked him and jumped from the hood of the SUV she sat on. Without adrenaline rushing through her veins, she could feel the odd aching bruise and a thin line of fire on her leg; it was nothing a good night's sleep couldn't fix.

"Agent," Ward nodded at her and turned back to the ambulance driver and the cops. "As I said, Mr. Stark will need protection if someone else has been hired to go after him. The same goes for his daughter. I'm sure that he can arrange something practical given some time, but right now?" Ward shrugged and nodded at Stark, who hovered protectively near the girl.

"We'll get two units to escort him to the hospital and keep an eye on him. You can give a statement either at the hospital or on the way there." One of the cops offered. "The last thing anyone needs is a shootout in a hospital after everything else that happened today. We should make sure no one thinks it's a good idea."

Huh, that was surprisingly sensible.

"We'll ride with Mr. Stark until the end of the trail where our vehicles are, then follow you," Ward suggested.

It took some haggling, but soon they boarded the ambulance. Ward rode shotgun while Natasha joined Stark, the kid, and a paramedic in the back.

=SI=

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