Author's note: Thanks to Princess of Words, I'mCalledHalt, ToaofWriting, PetalsnPosies, SJS3000, anonymous, SpeedReader, LeprechaunGirl, Captain Sammy, SilverLightning26, Nimrodel 101, Hidden Circumstance, Nevielle, Aquareese24, LadyMDSmalls and the various Guest reviewers. I don't always have time to respond to reviews personally, but know that I always read them and they mean a lot to me. I even like having continuity errors pointed out to me so that I can fix them! Thank you all for your time and your kind words.

Chapter 34

Sharon Carter shoved aside the remains of the barricade and let in the two men who strode into the operations room of Project Insight, stepping over the bodies of a couple STRIKE guys at the threshold.

One of them was Vietnamese, with inky black hair falling carelessly across his forehead, wearing a Stark Industries Security jacket over a bulletproof vest. The other was dressed in camouflage and had neatly parted blond hair and piercing blue eyes.

Her cousin Harrison... and her cousin Steven, too!

The relief Sharon felt was indescribable. Of all the people she could have asked for to show up at this moment in time...

But it hadn't even occurred to her to hope for it. Steven lived here in D.C., it was true, and it wasn't a stretch to assume he was in contact with their cousin Harrison, who had obviously been monitoring S.H.I.E.L.D. the last few days, ever since the night Fury was killed. But Steven's fighting days were behind him. Years ago he had given up his place of honor leading an elite squad for the Marines in favor of pursuing an ecclesiastical career and raising his young family.

"These guys okay?" Klein asked Sharon under his breath, looking at them askance. He was understandably tense.

"It's okay," she said quickly. "I know them. They're here to help." She wasn't about to explain that both of these men were Peggy Carter's grandsons, not to mention her own cousins, but he'd have to take her word for it that they could be trusted.

Steven's eyes swept across the room, taking in the dozen or so agents still sprawled around the edges of the room and the shaken technicians kneeling by them, pressing jackets and shirts against their gunshot wounds.

"Medic!" he called out to the corridor in his deep voice. Moments later a man in a white medical coat strode into the room with a bag slung over his shoulder: Steven's older brother Bram, a doctor who with his wife Aliyah ran one of his parents' many medical clinics around the globe. He had half a dozen medics with him, and without hesitation they fanned out and began performing triage on the wounded. Sharon glanced out into the corridor and saw that there were about a dozen men standing guard out there, fully armed and dressed in camouflage like Steven, albeit without any identifying patches.

"Who are these people? And what are you guys doing here?" Sharon asked Steven and Harrison in bewilderment.

"STRIKE team came to St. Patrick's looking to arrest Steve Rogers the other day," Steven told her, and Sharon squeezed her eyes shut for a moment.

"They came to your church?" she repeated, sickened by the thought. "I put that in my reports, that he went there..."

"Not your fault," Steven said flatly. "That's on STRIKE. But it was a good thing. We knew then that something pretty bad was going down. I called up some of my old friends from the Marines, and we've been keeping an eye on things. As soon as we saw those helicarriers going up, we moved in."

"Are they still shooting at each other out there?" Klein asked abruptly.

"Yeah. We gotta go." Already Bram and the other medics had enlisted some of the techs to help them carry the wounded out on stretchers, and the operations room was beginning to empty. "The rest of the building's already evacuated."

"We can't leave this room unattended," Sharon said quickly. "We think STRIKE was coming back here to regain control of the helicarriers before they disable each other."

"I think it might be too late for that," Harrison said, "but just in case..." He pulled a memory stick out of his breast pocket, leaned across Klein and plugged it into the hard drive. Sharon looked down to see that the memory stick was labeled "EDWIN," and just as she glanced back up at the computer monitor, it abruptly went black... and so did all the other computers in the room.

"There," Harrison said. "Edwin'll hold 'em off if anyone comes back. Let's get out of here."

"Okay, everyone, listen up!" Sharon called out loudly, and the remaining techs gave her their full attention. "Line up and file out! Move quick but stay calm. Let's go."

No one had to be told twice to leave. Within seconds the room was empty, and Sharon brought up the rear with the last two Marines. They all hustled out into the hallway, stepping over the bodies of dozens of STRIKE guys - Sharon was disappointed to find that Rumlow was not among them - and out the nearest exit into the sunshine.

A bus and five large vans were parked right on the plaza, each with a civilian driver standing by the open door waiting for passengers. Sharon recognized all the drivers as Carters; mostly in-laws, it looked like. There was Steven's wife, and his father, plus several of Sharon's cousin's spouses. She could already see some of the S.H.I.E.L.D. techs looking askance at the bus driver: her cousin Clint's wife, Karma, who was sporting a spiky blue fauxhawk and tattoos up and down her bare arms, looking wildly out of place compared to her more conservatively groomed relatives and the military men Steven had enlisted to help them.

"Everyone who can walk, on the bus!" Harrison called out. The stretchers were already being loaded into the vans. The techs started to head for the bus, and then suddenly one of them shouted, pointing up to where the trio of helicarriers were still blasting away at each other high in the sky.

Sharon looked up at where he was pointing, and felt a chill shoot down her whole body.

The highest helicarrier's last engine had just failed. Repulsors dark, it fell from the sky as heavily as a stone, spewing flame and smoke from every side... and yet it did not cease firing every single functional gun it still possessed at the helicarrier directly under it even as it hurtled downward with all the inevitability its enormous mass dictated.

The crippled helicarrier smashed through the one beneath it, splitting it in half with a deafening boom as enormous explosions blossomed in the sky. The techs cried out, instinctively ducking, even as Sharon's eyes darted down and up and down and up, frantically trying to calculate the trajectory of those flaming chunks of wreckage, far larger than any of the airliners that had brought down the Twin Towers.

"Don't stop, don't look, keep moving!" Steven shouted, his deep voice cutting through the cacophony above them, and his tone was so authoritative that the techs instinctively obeyed, scrambling toward the bus even if their heads still kept turning to watch the destruction in the sky. Sharon could see some of them were crying. One of the older techs in front of her stumbled and sprawled to the pavement, and instantly Sharon pulled him back up to his feet and fairly pushed him into the bus, doing her best to suppress her own rush of emotions.

She looked over just in time to see the more intact of the two crashing helicarriers hit the water end-first, sending enormous waves of river water spraying upwards.

It had just missed the vast launch bay doors that were still propped open, but then it ponderously began to tilt, until abruptly the upper half of it snapped off and tumbled down into the bay. Metal crunched and groaned, and finally the lower portion of the helicarrier tipped over and fell into the bay, too.

Sharon's heart constricted painfully as she stared at the enormous plumes of smoke billowing upward, obscuring the tangled wreckage. How many people had been stationed down in those bays? How many of them were Hydra, and how many of them were S.H.I.E.L.D. agents who had just spent their last breaths fighting an enemy that was supposed to be long gone?

She lifted her eyes back up to the sky. The other helicarrier, the one that had been smashed in half mid-air, was nowhere to be seen. Its pieces must have rained down into the water while she'd been looking elsewhere. The river was roiling angrily, the causeways cutting across it drenched from the impacts and dotted with burning debris. The third and final helicarrier was still aloft, all four of its repulsors still functional, but she could see that its exterior was rocked with explosions. It might be only a matter of time before it came down, too.

"Going?" Harrison asked, nudging Sharon toward the bus. Klein and all the other techs had been loaded up, and the vans carrying the wounded were already driving away, heading for the causeway that looked the clearest. But Steven and Harrison and all the Marines were making no move to load up themselves. Clearly their work here wasn't finished yet.

Sharon shook her head vehemently.

"I'm not going anywhere until I get my gun back from Rumlow," she said flatly. As if in response to her words, the knife score across her arm stung with renewed pain.

Harrison nodded, not bothering to argue with her. "We've been listening in on STRIKE's dispatch channel," he said, pulling a bandage roll out of his pocket and quickly wrapping up Sharon's bleeding arm. "Jack Rollins just summoned him to the Council chambers at the top of the north tower."

"Black Widow's up there now," Steven put in. "We need to buy her enough time to take down Alexander Pierce without Rumlow's interference." He handed Sharon an earpiece, and she put it in without hesitation. "Harrison, take the team up. You know what to do."

"Alpha team!" Harrison barked out authoritatively as he jogged toward the men still standing guard at the entrances. "After me!" With quiet efficiency they all filed back inside, where the emergency alert was still blaring, but when Harrison and the team headed to the northeast stairwell, putting on gas masks as they ran, Steven touched Sharon's arm and led her to the southwest stairwell instead.

"They'll be locking doors and dropping gas canisters in the hallways to block STRIKE team's path to the Council chambers," he explained quickly. "You and I are going straight up on the other side of the tower in case Rumlow gets through. If we cross paths with him, we just need to slow him down as long as we can."

"You know what would really slow him down?" Sharon said grimly, rounding the corner and dashing up the stairs with Steven by her side. "A bullet to the head."

"You're welcome to try," Steven said mildly.

Clint Barton swung himself up and out of the escape hatch, dropping into a ready crouch on the deck of the helicarrier in case Commander Castillo was standing there waiting to ambush any pursuers.

But she was already some distance away, barely visible in the predawn gloom thanks to her black uniform, surrounded by a small knot of Hydra operatives. They were clustered around the Quinjet Clint had piloted here, trying to break into it, but it was still sealed up tight. Presumably Agent 45 was still inside and disinclined to lower the ramp for them.

He couldn't help but notice that they weren't even bothering with the other Quinjets on the landing strip. No doubt they had already discovered that Sammy and her team had sabotaged them.

Moving decisively, Clint recovered his last arrow, the one he'd used to ascend to the deck, sliding off the grappling point and sheathing the shaft back into his quiver. Pressing the button to load an explosive point, he then nocked it once more, took confident aim, and let it fly.

It struck one of the Hydra operatives in the back and promptly exploded, sending the others flying to the deck. Most of them didn't get up again, but Clint was annoyed to see Castillo stagger back onto her feet, having been shielded from the worst of the explosion by the men surrounding her.

He charged toward her, snapping his bow into a staff once more, but she saw him coming and quickly stooped to snatch a semi-automatic rifle off the deck where one of her men had dropped it. Without hesitation she lifted it to her shoulder and opened fire.

Clint took a flying leap to the side and rolled behind a stack of sturdy storage crates just in time. A spray of bullets peppered the sides of the crates, but he was left unscathed. In the near distance he could hear men shouting, and the clatter of equipment. The barrage of bullets paused, and Clint risked a quick peek out and saw that a pair of men in mechanic's coveralls were jogging over to his Quinjet, carrying between them a bulky laser cutter that they obviously intended to use to breach the seal. Even worse, another half a dozen operatives nearby were rapidly setting up a large machine gun on a tripod. He ducked back behind the crates as Castillo let loose another barrage in his direction and heaved a sigh. Great. And not an arrow left to his name.

A movement in his peripheral vision caught his attention, and Clint turned just in time to see Natty scramble up out of the shaft he had ascended from a minute ago.

His eyebrows shot up in surprise. How had she come that way? She said she didn't have a grappling line, and he didn't see one in her hands now. He thought she would have to come up to the deck the long way.

She crouched there and took in the whole scene in a single glance: sparks flying as the mechanics began to carve into their Quinjet with a laser cutter, Castillo covering them with the rifle still at her shoulder, the group of men nearby who were setting up the machine gun, and finally, making eye contact with Clint himself.

Clint quickly beckoned to her to make a run for his shelter... but she ignored him, fixing her dark eyes on Castillo instead and drawing her eyebrows together into an expression of grim determination.

And then she began sprinting toward Castillo.

In seconds Castillo opened fire on her. But Natty didn't dodge for the safety of the crates like Clint had. Instead, she kept running right on past him... but not in a straight line. Instead, she was darting back and forth in a zigzag pattern, maintaining a surprising level of speed and control despite the hard pivots she was taking. And even as she raced and turned and ducked and raced again, she never once took her eyes off Castillo, who continued blasting away at her as fast as her finger could pull the trigger.

Clint's jaw dropped open. Was she completely insane? What, did she actually think she could dodge bullets that way? Okay, she might get lucky for a few seconds, but no operative worth their salt would bet their life on luck. That was a good way to die. Inevitably-

Castillo ran out of rounds.

Natty stopped zigzagging and charged directly at her.

The woman didn't even have time to drop her rifle before Natty launched herself into the air, both feet coming out in front as she double-kicked Castillo in the chest, sending her sprawling as the rifle clattered to the pavement. Natty landed neatly in a back bend and then flipped back to her feet in a single graceful movement.

Now there was no one covering the men who were setting up the machine gun. Without hesitation, Clint charged over and engaged them, snapping readily into the hyper focus of battle and losing himself in the familiar rhythm of blocks and blows as oaths and shouts burst out all around him. He could see in his peripheral vision that Natty was handling Castillo, but sparks were still flying up from the Quinjet's belly; the men with the laser cutter were continuing to work through the chaos.

"All team members, converge on my position!" he heard Agent 45's urgent voice in his earpiece, just as the laser sheared through the last of the seal and the Quinjet's ramp dropped to the deck with a loud clatter.

A trio of Hydra operatives immediately charged up the ramp and into the jet. Clint launched a vicious left cross at the man nearest him, trying to disentangle himself from the fray so he could give Agent 45 a hand.

But only seconds later, a Hydra goon went flying right back out of the Quinjet with a strangled scream, followed closely by a second guy and then the third, each one crashing into the last until they ended up in a tangled, groaning pile on the deck. Apparently 45 still had it, even at his age.

Another group of men charged up the ramp, but Clint had his hands a little full: the man he was currently trading blows with was not only larger but also better-trained than the others, and it was taking him some time to find an opening. Even worse, the man behind him was now threading ammunition into the machine gun. How long until the rest of 45's team made it up to the deck to help? Another minute and they'd only get gunned down when they arrived.

Clint tried a leg-sweep and managed to get his opponent on the ground. They wrestled around for a while, fighting desperately for dominance, but finally Clint managed to get his arm locked around the guy's neck. The man struggled fiercely, his weight heavy on top of him and his hands scrabbling at Clint's arm, but he couldn't get out of the hold. Clint clenched his jaw and squeezed as tight as he could, eyes locked on the last man standing... who had just finished loading the machine gun. The guy swiveled the gun in the direction of the Quinjet, where Agent 45 was now out of the cockpit and exposed, fighting off another wave of intruders. Clint's heart seemed to stop.

Just then he saw a motion out of the corner of his eye: 45's niece Amanda, rushing out onto the deck with a large golden disc clutched in one hand. Her ponytail had fallen out and her blond hair was tumbling loose over her shoulders, the red streak falling down across one eye.

She took in the situation in a split second, set her jaw, and then whirled in a tight circle, flinging the disc she held in the direction of the machine gun.

It seemed to soar in slow motion, a disc that glowed strangely with its own golden light as it spun through the air and struck the machine gun squarely, sheering off the thick barrel and sending it clattering to the pavement with a spray of sparks.

And then time suddenly snapped back into normality, and there was no chance to call out to Amanda, no chance for Clint to even open his mouth, before a Hydra operative darted up behind her and plunged a knife into her back before she had even recovered her stance.

Amanda crumpled to the ground. Only a second later, three gunshots rang out, and her attacker collapsed on top of her.

Another man emerged onto the deck, gun still drawn, stance wary: Amanda's husband, Rob.

The man Clint was holding down had finally gone still. He shoved the guy off and snapped back into action, launching himself at the last man - who was distracted, looking aghast at the remains of the machine gun - and taking him out in a few quick blows. Then he spun and ran to help subdue Castillo... but it wasn't necessary.

Natty had her pinned face down on the ground with a knee planted firmly on her back and her arms locked in a vice-like grip. Castillo squirmed underneath her uselessly, an expression of bitter defeat twisting her face.

Fighting to catch his breath, Clint knelt down beside them and pulled a zip tie out of one of his gear pouches. Working together efficiently, they bound her hands together behind her back and then quickly searched her for any hidden weapons, rolling her over onto her back to finish the job.

And then Natty worked her hand into Castillo's mouth, fished around for a few seconds, and made a quick jerking motion. Castillo grunted with muffled pain, eyes glistening.

"Whoa, whoa. What are you-?" Clint started, staring at Natty.

Natty pulled her hand out of the woman's mouth - there were indents in her skin where Castillo had bitten down on her - and held up a tooth for Clint to see. No, a fake tooth: there was some kind of capsule embedded in it.

Probably poison, Clint realized after a beat. From everything he'd heard about the Hydra cult, its followers were all too eager to kill themselves if they felt it would benefit the cause.

"Sorry," Natty told Castillo with a scowl, tossing it aside. "You don't get the easy way out."

Side by side, Steven and Sharon tore up the stairs of the Triskelion's north tower, taking them two at a time.

Steven's eyes kept dropping down to the cell phone in his hand as they rushed up. Sharon caught a glimpse of his screen and recognized the same tracking app S.H.I.E.L.D. used.

"You know where Rumlow is?" she asked breathlessly as they reached a landing and continued up without pause.

"Sixth floor and going up," he said. "Harrison and the others have the northeast route to the Council chamber blocked off. Now Rumlow's heading for the southwest stairs."

"Not the elevators?" Sharon asked.

"We disabled them. He's got a long climb ahead. Move your feet, we don't want to miss him."

They didn't talk after that, they just focused on racing up the stairs as fast as they could. Rumlow's gun was heavy in Sharon's hand, and she couldn't help but pat her pants pockets more than once, making sure she had enough ammo and to spare.

By the time they got to the sixth floor, Rumlow had reached the eighth floor. Then, according to the tracker, he left the stairwell and moved southeast.

"He's headed for the elevators," Steven said tersely, glancing down.

"I thought you said-"

For the first time, Steven looked uncertain. "Maybe his team got them running again. We gotta catch up."

The moment they reached the eighth floor, Sharon scanned her badge to open the door and they left the stairwell.

"He may not be alone," Steven warned her in a murmur as they drew closer to Rumlow's location. The dim corridor was lit by flashing red lights, and Sharon's heart was beating fast, as much from anticipation as from the exertion. Finally, they turned a corner and saw sunlight ahead. They slowed and moved stealthily until they stopped just around the corner from the glass elevator and drew their weapons silently.

They could hear a metallic clatter coming from around the corner, and men's voices.

"Come on, come on!" they heard Rumlow's voice rasp over the others, his impatience clear. "Get this going. What, you think Rollins can handle the Widow alone?"

Sharon got down on her belly and carefully peeked around the corner to evaluate the situation.

Rumlow and eight other guys. Elevator doors open, but no elevator. Toolboxes on the floor. They were setting up something. Big coils of cable. Grappling lines, maybe?

Sharon silently drew back into a crouch, looked up at Steven and held up nine fingers.

He unclipped a grenade from his belt and held it up to show her. She shrank back against the wall, putting her fingers in her ears.

Steven pulled out the pin, counted silently, and tossed it around the corner.

It exploded.

Men shouted wordlessly in pain. Sharon and Steven burst out around the corner, guns drawn. Sharon saw in a flash that some were motionless on the floor, while others were attempting to stagger back onto their feet.

She opened fire. Five shots, three men down. Steven took care of two more before she could, his aim as deadly as her own.

They both advanced, stepping over bodies, scanning the area rapidly. Everyone seemed to be down for the count. But Rumlow was nowhere in sight. Where could he have gone?

The explosion must have been knocked him into the open elevator shaft, Sharon realized. She locked eyes with Steven and together they moved in that direction, guns still drawn, looking down into the shaft cautiously.

There was a flash of motion, and suddenly Rumlow was swinging down from above them, his boots striking them both in the chest. Sharon stumbled backward, landing hard on her back but by some miracle managing to keep her grip on Rumlow's gun. Automatically she pointed it at Rumlow even as he regained his balance and trained a gun at Sharon. Her gun. He still had it.

"Don't!" Steven shouted sharply. He was still on his feet, gun pointed at Rumlow's head. Rumlow froze.

Sharon quickly got back on her feet, never once letting her weapon waver. She eased a little closer to Steven so that they were facing Rumlow together. But Rumlow wasn't looking at her, even though his weapon was still pointed at her. He was staring at Steven, and recognition was slowly dawning in his face.

"The priest," Rumlow spat out suddenly. "From the church."

"Deacon, actually," Steven said.

Rumlow looked him over for a good long while, his gaze lingering on Steven's sure grip on his gun, the comfortable fit of his bulletproof vest, the neatly slung ammunition.

"You ain't a priest," Rumlow said with contempt. "You're a soldier."

"You've got it exactly backwards," Steven said coolly.

"Look, I don't care what you are," Rumlow snapped, finger inching closer to the trigger. "Get out of my way, or I shoot her!"

"Did you know," Steven said in unhurried tones, almost as if he hadn't heard, "that my face was the last thing your father ever saw in this life?"

Rumlow froze, and then his brow creased, and then he blinked several times at Steven, completely nonplussed. "What?"

Sharon knew that Steven was only trying to distract Rumlow to slow him down, to keep him from getting to Pierce before Romanoff could take him out, but it was such a bizarre thing to say that she found herself staring at him too, just as confused as Rumlow was.

"You're full of it," Rumlow said shortly, jerking his chin up in a defiant way. "You ain't old enough to have fought my dad."

"I didn't say I fought him," Steven said calmly. "I was 12 years old when he put a gun to my head, trying to make my mother do something he wanted."

"You're a lousy liar." Rumlow looked him up and down with contempt. "Not that I'd expect any better from a priest."

"December 26, 1991," Steven said, "Bethesda, Maryland. Frank Rumlow and a whole team of operatives showed up at my house in the suburbs."

Rumlow was visibly startled. "What?" he hissed again, taking half a step forward, his muscles tensing. But this time he sounded more wary than bewildered. Sharon looked back and forth between them in confusion. Was that actually Rumlow's dad's name and date of death? How could Steven have possibly known? She didn't know. It wasn't in Rumlow's S.H.I.E.L.D. file. His birth parents weren't mentioned at all. He'd been adopted.

In that same time period, Sharon realized with an odd tingle creeping down her spine.

"They tried to steal my mother's research and force her to work for them," Steven continued quietly. "Shaking down a mother of five in her own home... pretty low, even for Hydra, but your dad seemed pretty pleased with his assignment. At first."

"You're making it up," Rumlow growled, but he didn't sound certain of that at all. There was a strange look in his eyes, a kind of hollowed-out look. She'd never seen that look on Rumlow's face before.

"Didn't Hydra ever tell you how he died?" Steven asked. "You know, my mother had never hurt anyone before in her life. She's not the kind. But he took me. So she had to do it."

Rumlow was breathing heavily, sweat beading on his brow as his grip on Sharon's gun tightened. "You... your mother..." he ground out, his voice rough.

"It took me a long time to forgive," Steven continued softly. "Him making my mother do that. She was a doctor. She was supposed to help people. I was kinda messed up for a while after that. I think you probably know how that goes. He wasn't a very good person, was he? Not exactly a loving dad either, I bet."

Sharon was staring at her cousin in horror. His calm words, his total earnestness, Rumlow's shocked reaction... every instinct told her he was actually telling the truth. But she had known nothing of anything like this in her family history. Aunt Sarah, a medical doctor and one of the most sweet-natured women Sharon had ever met, killing someone for holding one of her kids hostage? How on earth had that never come up in a conversation with Great-Aunt Peggy? Or, for that matter, in the news?

"Your mother's name!" Rumlow snapped out.

"It's no good thinking that way," Steven said. "I used to think like that too. I kinda thought if I fought you one day, it'd be... well, I was thinking justice, but my heart said revenge. I think I wanted to hurt his family the way he hurt mine. But it never made me feel any better. Took me years, but... I had to let it go. I'll kill you if I have to, but I didn't come for that. I'm just here to help Captain Rogers."

"Give it to me!" Rumlow shouted, spittle spraying from his mouth, his finger moving to the trigger, eyes moving to Sharon. "Your mother's name, or I shoot!" His finger tightened.

"She's faster than you," Steven said coolly from beside her. "Better aim, too. I really don't think you want to do that."

Sharon locked eyes with Rumlow, daring him to make a move, her own finger ready to pull. But she didn't feel as confident in her abilities as Steven sounded. Her arm still stung from Rumlow's knife, and it was all she could do to keep herself from trembling with exhaustion. Worse still, she had only one bullet left... and unlike her, Rumlow was wearing a bullet proof vest.

But she knew better than to show weakness to a guy like Rumlow; he was like a shark when he scented blood in the water. So she glared at him with a taut anger that she didn't have to fake and said, low and slow: "Give me back my gun."

Rumlow let out an amused scoff. "Over my dead body," he said.

"Sounds good."

It happened so quickly that she barely had a chance to process it: there was a sudden motion in her peripheral vision, and Sharon's eyes flicked over just in time to see another guy in STRIKE gear dart out from around the corner and level a gun at her.

There was no time to think, only react. In the blink of an eye, Sharon swiveled her gun and pulled the trigger.

Two gunshots rang out.

In the same instant, Steven jumped in front of her only to jerk suddenly and staggered back against her full-force. He was so solidly built, it was like being hit by a freight train. They both stumbled backwards, and Sharon slammed into something hard that abruptly shattered against her back.

Next moment, she was falling.

Desperately she flung her hands out to try to grab something, anything. Her right hand hit something solid and she grasped it with all her strength, crying out as her body's weight swung out and nearly jerked her arm out of its socket. Steven was no longer falling against her, he was rolling over her, his weight briefly crushing her head, arm and shoulder before he was suddenly gone.

Sharon's legs were dangling down freely in the air, wind whipping at her hair, and she realized in a flash that she had just fallen through the full-length window beside the elevator and was now clinging one-handed to the sill. Quickly she grabbed onto the ledge with her other hand, mercifully lessening the weight that was hanging from her aching right arm, and then, gasping for breath, craned her neck to look down to see what had happened to Steven.

To her horror, he was lying sprawled on the cement below. Eight stories down. Motionless.

A groan tore itself from her throat, from both disbelief and pain. With shaking arms, Sharon managed to haul herself back up and through the broken window, cutting her left hand badly on a shard of glass before collapsing onto the floor. Then with a grimace she dragged herself back up onto her feet.

Rumlow's STRIKE guy was lying spreadeagled on the floor, eyes open but glazed, with blood seeping from a bullet wound in his neck.

Rumlow was gone, and so was the cable that had been coiled on the floor.

Sick with fear, Sharon darted over and craned her neck up just in time to see him, barely visible at the very top of the elevator shaft, squeezing through the doors up on the 40th floor. He'd have to climb a few more flights now that he was in the high-security penthouse levels where there was no elevator access, but he could be in the Council chambers in minutes.

And he was hopelessly out of her reach.

Sharon stumbled back to look out the window, grabbing the edge for support and leaning out as far as she dared.

"Steven!" she screamed into the wind, praying with all her might that he would stir a little, lift up his head, anything to show some sign of life. He'd fallen so far, but maybe, maybe, if he had landed just right...

He didn't move. Worse, she could see blood beginning to pool beneath him. Was it from the fall, or had he taken a bullet that had been intended for her? She couldn't be sure. It had all happened so quickly. Was it Rumlow who had fired, or his STRIKE buddy? Steven had been wearing a bullet proof vest... but then again Rumlow might have reloaded Sharon's gun with armor-piercing bullets.

"Steven?" Harrison's voice said urgently in her ear. "Sharon? Report."

"Rumlow got past us," Sharon said hoarsely, suddenly afraid that Harrison would be the next victim. "He's on the 40th and going up. You'll have to-"

"Forget Rumlow," Harrison interrupted. "We're heading out. You two need to evacuate."

"No!" Sharon barked. "We can't let Rumlow get to Pierce!"

"It doesn't matter now," Harrison said firmly in her ear. "We just drove him into the arms of Sam Wilson. Rumlow's going nowhere." He was breathing loudly and rhythmically, as if he were running. "Steven, get her out of there. It's time."

"Steven's down!" she managed to get out.

Harrison let out an explosive breath, as if he'd been punched in the gut. "What?"

"I think he got shot." Sharon took a deep steadying breath, ashamed that she'd allowed herself to become rattled, and forced herself to adopt a matter-of-fact tone. "He fell out the window. He isn't moving."

"What- Wait- can you see him?" Harrison demanded breathlessly.

"Yes."

"Where is he? Exactly?"

"He's on the southeast side of the tower. Between the guard station and the covered entry to Entrance 2A."

"Bram, did you catch that?" Harrison asked curtly.

Bram's voice crackled onto the line. "Got it."

"You don't have much time."

Bram's voice was grim. "I know."

"Sharon, listen to me," Harrison said intently. "You need to evacuate, now. Take the stairs and use the north emergency exit on the ground floor. Don't go out the main doors or any of the exits south of there. Do you understand?"

"Yes, but-"

"You'll have to be fast. Edwin, give her the countdown."

A man with a British accent began counting in her ear with a preternatural calmness. "90... 89... 88..."

Spurred into motion, sensing this was no time to ask questions, Sharon darted down the stairs. Eight flights to descend in a minute and a half? Could she even do that?

Apparently she would have to.

One flight of stairs. Two flights. Three. She kept one hand sliding along the hand railing, praying that in her haste she wouldn't misstep and twist an ankle falling down the stairs. She could feel faint shudders in the floor beneath her feet, and she suspected there was weaponry exploding amid the flaming wreckage of those two downed helicarriers that had fallen into the launch bay. There was a very real chance some part of the complex was on fire. Probably why Harrison was in such a rush to get her out.

"51... 50... 49..."

"Is there any wiggle room to this countdown?" Sharon asked breathlessly as she raced down the stairs.

Harrison's voice was grim in her ear. "None."

Four flights. Five. Her lungs were burning with every gasp of air, but she pressed on valiantly. Six. And now seven. Her knees ached fiercely with the impact each time her foot struck a stair, but she kept churning her legs with determination. Down, down, down. Blood was dripping from her left hand where she had cut it on the broken glass, and her back stung badly where she had struck it falling through the window. The back of her shirt felt damp, but she couldn't tell if it was blood from a hundred tiny glass cuts, or only sweat. Either way, it was the least of her problems right now.

"19... 18... 17..."

Last flight. Breathing had become difficult, but the end was in sight now and she clenched her teeth as she put on an extra boost of speed.

First floor at last. The main entrance was right there, but Sharon ignored it as Harrison had instructed and sprinted down the hallway toward the north exit. The whole place was deserted. Everyone must have already fled.

Then she rounded a corner and tripped over several bodies sprawled across the floor, coming down hard on her hands and knees. No, not everyone made it out. Scrambling back to her feet, Sharon tore down the final corridor and then skidded to a halt, frantically waving her badge in front of the scanner to unlock the doors.

For some reason she could no longer hear Edwin's countdown, but she knew she had only seconds left.

The lock clicked open. Sharon's overworked knees nearly buckled beneath her, but she managed to stumble her way out the door and down the last few cement steps to the plaza outside. She wanted nothing more than to collapse in relief and try to catch her breath, but just then a deep shadow crossed the landscaping surrounding the entrance to the tower.

She looked up to see the third helicarrier blocking the sun overhead, belching flames as it coasted unerringly toward the building she had just escaped. She caught her breath, wildly hoping, but she knew in a flash that with the momentum built up there was no way to avoid what was going to happen next.

The helicarrier collided with the tower.

The ground violently rumbled underfoot, and on instinct Sharon backed further away as metal shrieked overhead and glass shattered. The helicarrier tore through the building, its starboard side swiping across a long row of windows near the 40th floor. Sharon could only watch, mouth open in horror, as the flaming helicarrier rammed through the building like it was made of tissue paper, shearing off enormous chunks of masonry that went hurtling downwards until they exploded in a cloud of dust, crushing the overhang over the main entrance she had run past only seconds before.

But just as the helicarrier completed its violent sweeping pass, she caught her breath again; there was suddenly a man in midair, falling out of a window only just ahead of the encroaching helicarrier... but he hadn't fallen far before a black helicopter swooped around the corner of the building, tilted abruptly to the side, and managed to catch him in a million-in-one maneuver.

The helicopter banked again and thump-thump-thumped its way away from the building at top speed. Within moments it had disappeared into the billowing cloud of dust and smoke pouring out of the windows of the Triskelion.

Her heart in her throat, Sharon watched the last, crippled helicarrier coast downward in a slow but inevitable descent, billowing smoke and dropping debris into the river as it went.

It came down at last on the far bank of the Potomac, crumpling into a tangled mess among the trees as an enormous fireball mushroomed up, setting the wooded strip there ablaze.

A deep rumbling drew her attention back toward the Triskelion, and she watched as the upper floors of the north tower abruptly collapsed, smashing multiple levels together with bone-shaking impact. She held her breath, hands up to her head, waiting to see if the whole thing would come down, but slowly a silence settled over the plaza.

Smoke drifted up to the sky. Sirens sounded faintly in the distance.

Sharon sighed heavily, shoulders sagging as the last of the adrenaline faded, leaving her feeling wrung out and hollow. She sank down onto her knees and lowered her head, finally permitting herself to rest.

It was over.

TO BE CONTINUED

As always, feedback is greatly appreciated!

Also, if anyone is curious about the history between Rumlow's dad and Sharon's cousin Steven, see my story "The Third Life of Steve Rogers" (Chapters 24-25, if you want to skip straight to it).