As Bucky came to, he breathed a sigh of relief when he understood he was on the Quinjet, and on the last leg of the journey, thank God. Bruce was putting up medical supplies and gave him a quiet smile when their eyes met.

"How do you feel?" he asked quietly, his character now a total change from who he had been earlier.

"Just a little sore and-ow!" he twisted in pain as he tried to sit up, as shockwaves of pain exploded again in his core.

"Take it easy," Bruce deadpanned as he walked away.

Steve, seeing his friend awake, stepped-or, rather, limped-over to him. He had some bandages wrapped around his ribcage and his head, and he looked plain exhausted, but there was still that smile on his face, something Bucky had always found a wonder.

"Really, how do you feel?" he asked.

Bucky sighed. "I could be better...but it could always be worse." he suddenly realized something and looked around.

"What?" Steve asked.

"The others," Bucky said, "What happened with the others?"

"Thor and Tony were overpowered by a mass of cyborg-like people, and Clint noticed that the tower he was in was loaded with explosives, so he left that and went to the roof to help the others. Nat decided to see how close she could get to the scientists, and I think we were able to find out some more about the chip."

"What exactly?"

"They didn't have it; it was supposed to be delivered to them, but their agent was compromised, and so they decided to abandon office."

"Do we know who stopped it?"

"No, but it wasn't one of ours."

"Could it really have been a rival freak group?"

"I doubt it," Steve sighed and stood up. "We'll be landing soon, Buck."


Once at the Tower, Natasha went to work on trying to find a trace for the chip. Steve had found some files that were helping her to hack into their databases, but she was losing information as HYDRA was starting to delete entire sources and was forced to abandon that effort.

"Try finding something on the agent supposed to bring it to them," Clint suggested. It worked; to some degree at least.

"Agent Drozdov," she announced when she found it. "Caucasian male, forty-eight years, five foot nine. According to other records I found with the help of facial recognition, he is a member of the Russian crime ring 'Cherny Nozh', or 'the Black Knife'. From the way it sounds with their communications, the ring already had this information, and it was a trade."

"A trade for what?" Steve asked.

"I'm not sure, but if it was something that they were testing on, there's a good chance it escaped just like all the others did."

"Would you be able to find him and then we would find the location of the chip from there?" Tony asked.

"Maybe we won't be able to find him," Bruce commented, "Maybe he backtracked out of the deal."

"I don't think he would have done that," Nat mused, "Because, with the kinds of words they're using to describe the object of the trade, it sounds as if the Russians are getting the much better side of the deal."

"What words?" Steve asked, coming to look over her shoulder at the tablet.

"Well, any words that would be used to describe an efficient weapon of death."

"Is this all you're able to see?" Clint asked.

"FRIDAY is helping me to try and hack into one more file, so-and here we are!" She fell silent as she read this new information.

"What is it?" The others asked.

"It says 'Warning: Wiping processes did not work on subjects. Drugs are not efficient in that regard either. You must place yourself as Alpha and physically force them into submission."

"If it says 'wiping processes'," Bucky murmured, "then that means it wasn't guns or creatures that were part of the trade...it was people."

"What else does it say about them?" Steve asked.

"One of them was from the Red Room."

"Would you be able to find out who?"

"At the very most it would be an identification number."

"But, wouldn't they have trackers in them?"

"If they escaped, then they would have taken it out."

"Then trace it to the last location it was able to register."


The Quinjet landed in Terre Haute, Indiana, near the Wabash River. Tony took to the skies, beginning to look for signs of anything. Ten minutes down west of where they landed, he saw crime scene tape. When he walked up, he saw that it looked like a crash, but for the mutilated body spread over the ground, you would think otherwise. For a brief instant, he remembered watching the footage of his parent's murder, and his eyes began to burn, but he pushed it aside.

"I'm sorry, sir," an officer said, "but this isn't a costume party; it's official business, and I need you to step out of these boundaries."

Before Tony could snap back, Sam landed beside him. "It's okay officer," he said, "We're the Avengers, we might be investigating this case as well. What can you tell us about this?"

After the officer's shock and horror of mistaking an Avenger for a late trick-or-treater passed, he said, "We can't tell you much about what happened here, but there were at least two people in the car, and this person's tracks went down the road away from the car. Sometime later, another person came from the direction you did and they spent some time around the car and then, by the looks of the skid marks in the mud, they were also there when the car exploded. The person who left the car then came back, and they may have talked for a while as there is a collection of footprints here in the mud. Then the first person went back up the road and the second left into the woods."

"Were you able to recover anything from the car? Or the body?" Tony asked.

"Only this," the officer said, and handed over an evidence bag with some kind of badge in it. It was a square steel diamond, with a black and gray blade running down the middle.

"Well, we found Drozdov," Sam muttered.

"What is up ahead?" Tony asked, pointing up the road.

"Oh, there's a hospital."

"Anything else a...escapee...could use?" Sam fumbled, not quite sure what words to use.

"Well...about 12 miles thataways is the Terre Haute International Airport."

"And how long ago do you figure this happened?" Tony asked.

"If all the action from yesterday was connected, then it would be around ten o'clock."

"What action?"

"Well, traffic on that highway was stopped for several minutes. People later said that a semi had flipped and was lying across the road. Other witnesses said that two women abandoned their vehicle; one going to the river, and the other going up ahead. Shortly after the latter reached the front of the blockage, shots were fired, and the men around the truck went after both women."

"Could those men have been the same ones that caused this accident?" Sam asked.

"No, because all those men were killed within five minutes of the first shot, and all headshots belonged to a marksman."

"Or markswoman," Sam mumbled.

"Was anyone able to get a good look at the women?" Tony asked.

"It was raining hard yesterday, and they all wore dark clothing, and both women kept low, so...no."

"What about the men?" Sam asked. "Were you able to identify them?"

"We've only just now taken their bodies to the morgue, but we'll keep you updated about it."

Tony and Sam thanked the officer and stepped aside to talk.

"If the people who caused the roadblock were Russian..." Tony mused, "the woman who took to the river must have been intercepted and caught by this guy."

"And the other woman must have caught up with them."

"But if she was on foot, how could she have caught up with them?" Tony wondered.

"She could have powers," Sam responded.

"Then why would she have used a gun to fight? Wouldn't she just use her powers, if she had them? And, if they had powers, why would they run?"

Sam shrugged, "Who knows. They could just be scared."

"They fought like a team," Tony countered. "One took out those in the open, and the other took out those behind the scenes."

"Oh, sirs?" the officer ran back. "I've just gotten a call: two more bodies were found across the river, outside of a gas station."

"Would there be footage?" Sam asked.

"Yes, sir, I believe so."


Sam, Steve, Tony, and Nat stood behind the officer as he pulled up the footage. They watched as someone who appeared to be a woman sneaked out from behind the building, looked around as if to assess her situation, and then walked down the alleyway. Two men who had been slouching around suddenly perked up, and they blocked the woman's path on both sides. They had a short conversation, and then the woman pulled out a knife and lunged at them. In almost five seconds flat, both men were dead. The woman turned to run out of the alleyway and was attacked by yet another man, who knocked her out and threw her into the back of a work van, speeding off.

"We followed the vehicle's footage for as long as we could," the officer explained, "but it went into a blank zone."

"Is there any other footage of this woman before she came to the store?" Steve asked.

"No, but the store owner said that she came in soaked, and said she fell into the river."

"Did he give a description?"

"Yes; he said she had blonde hair, brown eyes, and was around five-foot-four, five-foot-five. He gave us an outfit description but said she left her jacket. So the search will be for a blonde female with a black T-shirt and ratty jeans."

"How old did the guy think she was?" Nat asked.

"Oh...about mid-thirties."

"Has he already looked through records to try and identify her?" Sam asked.

"Yes, but none of them matched."

"I don't think either of these women will be in your records," Natasha commented.


The team regrouped to discuss the turn of events.

"Tony," Steve began, "You, Nat, and I are going to see if we can track the one who took off into the woods. Buck, you, Clint, and Sam are going to the city, and try to track down the other girl."

"Who do we know we're looking for?" Sam asked.

"Keep your eyes open; you'll just have to guess."

"Which one do you think the girl from the store is?" Bucky asked. "The one who went to the city, or the one who went to the woods?"

"I don't know which way either one went," Natasha began, "But I think the one who was already at the car was the girl from the store, and then the second one came and, I guess, rescued her."

"But with how the markings are," Sam pointed out, "the explosion happened before the second person got there. Which means that, however she was contained, if at all, the girl in the car-if she was the one from the store-blew up the car by herself. Because she certainly wasn't asking Drozdov for help; she was trying to kill him."

"She must have made him crash," Steve mused. "Not only to get free, but possibly to reunite with the other because, with how she supposedly fell in the river, that would ruin most communication devices. The explosion and fire would work like a signal beacon."

"But would they really do something that big?" Bucky asked. "Because that's bound to attract other people's attention and not just their own-hey, we're here."

"If they had to regroup quickly, it would have been the quickest way."

"Okay," Sam said, "with that somewhat through, what do we do if we don't find them? We know for certain that one went in the direction of an airport, so they could already be on a flight to God knows where."

"Still," Steve sighed, "We're getting nowhere by standing here."