A/N: In case you missed it, our celebratory early chapter for reaching 800 Reviews went up on Tuesday!

So if this is the first time you've tuned in since last Friday, you definitely have to catch up on Part II: Chapter 13 first!

I also have to send out an especially big thank you to my intrepid reviewers! You all really do keep me going on this monster!

And now, here's Lagos, Part II!

Chapter 14

Lagos, Nigeria

Spring 2016

The instant she burst onto the roof of the hotel, Nadine was spinning, orienting herself in the direction of the market and forcing her pulse to calm after hurtling up the stairs from the room serving as their home base below.

Not only was the hotel they had set up their base in chosen because it was conveniently situated across the street from their originally presumed target, but they had also settled on it for another reason. It was one of the tallest buildings in the immediate area. And it had the best sightlines.

Perfect for Nadine's current task.

As she'd hurtled up the stairs, she was half listening in on the rest of the Team's chatter, taking note of Sam's warning that Rumlow's remaining men had split up and Steve's that they were looking to disappear into the crowd. She only faltered for a heartbeat at the sound of Rumlow engaging the Captain and when Sam relayed with a trace of alarm that the two mercenaries he'd been chasing were decoys.

The rest of her attention was focused wholly on the task ahead of her specifically; in a last minute check of her immaculately prepped rifle and a mental orientation of her position and her assignment as she burst out onto the roof.

She didn't even do more than spare a relieved breath as Natasha confirmed that she'd secured the payload.

Though, as she settled herself at the north face of the building, her rifle securely braced on the ledge as she positioned herself, she couldn't help but let her lip quirk in distant amusement as Sam teased her sister.

"I'm not thanking that thing," Natasha's voice sounded, rather unimpressed in her ear, as Nadine began to scan the market through her sight, searching…

"His name is Redwing," Sam was correcting, his amusement obvious at what Nadine could only imagine the nearly affronted expression her sister had to be wearing based on her tone looked like. Nadine let the relieved banter of the two teammates help relax her, knowing she needed to dispel the anxious tension flooding her body as each heartbeat passed without finding her target. She couldn't spoil her shot.

She might only get the one.

And she was running out of time. Beneath Sam and Nat's banter, she could hear each hit that landed between the Captain and his assailant.

"I'm still not thanking it," Natasha countered dubiously even as Sam laughed.

"He's cute," the former paratrooper all but cooed in reply. "Go ahead, pet him." And Nadine nearly groaned, huffing out a gusting breath instead.

"Flirt later, guys," Nadine cut in dryly, earning an indignant huff from her sister and a sound suspiciously like a suppressed chuckle from Sam, "I'm trying to—" and the words died on her lips, a smile breaking out instead. "Found you," she murmured.

There, directly between her crosshairs, was Steve and Crossbones.

Immediately, her smile died to be replaced by a grimace of concentration. She couldn't get a clean shot. Not only did they both keep ducking out of her line of sight, but they were moving too quickly, their fight much too involved for her to risk firing. Not unless she wanted to hit Steve. And given the rounds she was packing in preparation for the body armour they had been right to assume Crossbones would be wearing?

Enhanced or not, she could kill him.

That was not a risk she was willing to take. So she would bide her time, waiting for the perfect shot.

Because one always came. One just needed to be able to recognize it. And Nadine? There was a reason she was the best. She always recognized it.

She forced her breathing to slow, her heartbeat slowing with it as she willed her frame to loosen. Instinctively she paid attention to the breeze brushing through her hair and the similar faint movement of the flaps edging the umbrellas around where her target fought her friend. She was dimly aware of the movement of fleeing civilians around them, scrambling away from the brutal fight. But her focus was centred almost wholly on the two men fighting in the distance, narrowing on the scene she watched through her scope.

She was so intent that she didn't even react in relief beyond a lengthened blink when Steve sent Rumlow tumbling into the dust, the sense falling over her that the fight was over. But she didn't ease up, her crosshairs settling on Rumlow's head, ready to take the shot should he try something. It was undoubtedly over. Rumlow had nowhere else to go. So there was no point in taking him out now, she reminded herself; they wanted to take him alive.

But she still didn't remove her finger from where she'd laid it across the trigger.

Something didn't feel right, a faint sense that there was something off weighing against her chest. Still, she didn't take the shot, even as a faint, urgent whisper in the back of her head told her to.

As Steve approached Rumlow, the former HYDRA mercenary didn't even try to regain his feet. He just pulled himself up onto his knees, pushing his helmet from his head. The unsettled feeling deep in her chest deepened, and she frowned.

And waited for Steve to reach him. Nadine could almost feel Steve's hesitation when the Captain caught sight of Rumlow's face. Again, the urge to take the shot flared and she fought it back. No good would come from taking him out now, not when Rumlow had as good as surrendered; the optics on it would be horrific, a small part of her recognized. And given some of the scrutiny that had been following the Avengers after Sokovia? She couldn't just shoot him as he sat on his knees in front of Steve. No matter how loudly part of her was insisting she should. There were too many eyes. Too many that would condemn Steve for her shot.

"I think I look pretty good, all things considered," she distantly heard Rumlow say, the mic in Steve's earpiece only barely picking up his voice. Steve brushed off Rumlow's attempt to goad him, the consummate soldier.

"Who's your buyer?" But it was like Rumlow didn't even hear the question, peering up at the Captain, shifting minutely against Steve's firm hold on his breastplate. Nadine's eyes narrowed, her unease sinking to churn uncomfortably in her gut.

"You know, he knew you." Nadine froze as Rumlow spoke, her mouth going dry as her hand spasmed, nearly tightening fatally on the trigger. "Your pal, your buddy, your Bucky," Rumlow said scathingly. Nadine's breath caught, her focus flicking from Rumlow to Steve.

Steve stiffened, his shoulders tightening with tension as he pulled Rumlow closer. "What did you say?" There was no mistaking the hollow anger in the Captain's voice. Rumlow's soft, breathless laugh reached Nadine through the earpiece.

"When my guys went to pick up the girl," Crossbones continued, a thread of triumph in his voice, "I didn't know she was his daughter." Nadine's chest tightened and she could feel herself beginning to go cold. She could see Steve's jaw clench, the furious tension visible in every line of his body.

"They were your men?" he demanded lowly, "You were working with Strucker?" But he might not have even heard Steve's questions for all that Rumlow paid them any attention. His heavily scarred face twisted into a sneer. One that reminded Nadine unsettlingly of Katerina's all those months ago…

"Does Barnes even know about her?" the mercenary goaded, knowing full well he was digging deeper beneath Steve's skin. "The girl?" Cold rage simmered beneath Nadine's skin, acutely aware of the trigger that lay beneath her steady finger. How tempting it was…

"How do you know about her," Steve pressed softly, his fury clear…as was a thread of alarm. Rumlow barked out a laugh and Nadine felt her lips twist into a silent snarl.

"The same way Strucker did: I was told. Thanks to her, I had a good thing with him, you know." And then Rumlow's sneer twisted into a dark scowl. "Then that bitch had to go and kill Kat. She's going to pay for that." Nadine nearly started, deductions based on what she saw in the mercenary's features and body language, what she heard in the wounded rage punctuating his words suddenly assailing her.

Yet she felt no remorse. Not after what he and Katerina were responsible for. Not after the pain they had led her daughter to. Steve's fury wavered, the Captain growing wary even as his angry frown deepened.

"What do you mean?" Once more, Rumlow ignored Steve's question.

"Is she here?" he asked almost conversationally despite the near manic light that had appeared in his eyes. "Word is The Ghost hangs around with you now. Is she listening?" He chuckled darkly as Steve tensed further. Nadine's jaw clenched as dread clamped tight around her chest. Her finger twitched once more, her instincts hissing anxiously for her to take the shot. "She's going to lose you just as I lost Kat," he continued, "and it's going to be all her fault…just like what they did to Bucky after she bailed." Nadine's stomach twisted, her insides suddenly feeling like they were coated in ice as Rumlow spat out Barnes' name. Judging by the look suddenly flickering across Steve's face as her gaze darted briefly to him, he was just as unsettled.

Rumlow nodded, his eyes glinting cruelly as his lip twisted into a mocking grin of sympathy. Cold rage flared once again in Nadine's chest. On Rumlow's breastplate, she could see Steve's knuckles whiten, the metal beginning to warp beneath the strength of his grip.

"Yeah," the mercenary sneered, "kinda like what they did to him after he met up with you on the freeway." Nadine couldn't breathe, forcibly pushing back the malicious imaginings of what Barnes had likely endured, struggling to keep her focus. Steve's profile was nearly slack with horror, transfixed by Rumlow. "He remembered you, you know." Rumlow said cruelly, "I was there. He got all weepy about it. 'Til they put his brain back in a blender." Nadine flinched even as Steve tensed, restraining a similar reaction. "He wanted you to know something. He said to me, 'Please tell Rogers. When you gotta go, you gotta go.'" An ominous chill ran up Nadine's spine as Rumlow's face twisted grotesquely with grim triumph. "And you're coming with me." Nadine's mind went utterly blank and her finger squeezed tight over the trigger.

And everything happened at once.

Even as her shot reported in deep, reverberating echoes against the sides of the buildings around them, Rumlow's wrist twisted and Steve was leaping back in horror. As she watched her bullet hit home, Rumlow's head disappearing in a spray of crimson, her scope was filled with a blinding flash as the mercenary's vest detonated.

And it felt like her heart stopped. Nadine jerked back, her lids slamming shut as she was momentarily blinded from the intensity of the blast even as it crashed in on her what had just happened. At once her eye was all but slamming back tight to her scope, desperate to see—

All the air that was left in her chest was crushed free in an overwhelming wave of relief and dread. The force of the explosion strained and roiled against a barely visible wash of scarlet. In a blink, Nadine was leaning to the side, the view through her scope shifting until she found Wanda fighting to contain the blast a few meters away from a Steve, her slight frame rigid from the physical effort of restraining the surging flames.

Nadine could barely even think as, with a lifting motion obscured by the bright scarlet nimbus in her hands, Wanda sent the Rumlow rocketing skyward, the blonde assassin leaning back from her scope to watch in awe as her keen eye tracked the distant fireball as it rose higher and higher.

Only to jerk in horror as Wanda's hold broke and the explosion was unleashed in a violent billow of fire and black smoke.

Shattering the windows of the building next to it and engulfing the closest floors in a blazing wash of flame.

Five floors. The whole corner of the building closest to the market utterly devastated. Nadine looked toward the market and, before she could even think to do it, she was turning and descending from the roof, Steve's distant and equally horrified voice once more calling out instructions. Instructions to do what they could to help. Nadine barely heard, intent as she was to get down there. To do…something. She wasn't even sure what. She was too shaken. Shaken by what Rumlow had done, by what had happened when Wanda tried to minimize the damage...by the things Rumlow had said…

…by the way she had hesitated…

Oh God, this was all her fault…if she hadn't hesitated…

She forced herself to keep moving, to keep breathing against the horror threatening to crush in on her. There were more important things to do than replay the moments leading up to the explosion in her head, to berate herself for failing the Team. That all had to wait.

So she pushed it aside, locking it away and reverting to a coolly clinical detachment as she had long ago been trained to do.

It almost worked, too.

In moments she was hitting the street, collecting the dark SUV the Team had acquired for the mission.

Minutes later, she was tucking the vehicle in behind the mercenaries' abandoned AFV and heading toward the heart of the market.

The whole area swarmed with activity, rescue crews darting this way and that. Panicked and horrified civilians milled and flew about, some fleeing, others trying to get closer for a better look, some even rushing forward to help as best they could.

The first of the Team she found was Wanda. The young Sokovian had fallen to her knees as she stared up at the ruined building, her eyes bright and distraught and horrified beyond any description Nadine could've come up with. She jumped as Nadine's hand brushed lightly against her shoulder.

"Come on, alyy," she said firmly, nevertheless looking down to the younger woman in sympathy, "we need to clear out." At once Wanda's head was shaking, her eyes growing brighter yet as the first of her tears began to fall.

"I can't…" she said, her voice hoarse with emotion even as she let Nadine urge her to her feet, "…this is all my fault…" Biting back a heavy sigh, pushing her own urgently pressing distress back as she did so, Nadine took Wanda's face in her hands, forcing her to meet her eye.

"It isn't," Nadine said wearily, only barely keeping herself from snapping it out. But enough of an edge made it into her voice that Wanda's gaze darted to Nadine's in pained bewilderment followed closely by doubt. Nadine let out a slow exhale. It was her fault more than it was Wanda's, but there was no mistaking from the look in Wanda's eyes that insisting as much wasn't going to help right now. That had to wait. She stroked her thumb across Wanda's cheek, brushing away the tear that had fallen.

"Now is not the time," she said firmly instead. "Now? We need to get out of the way and let rescue do their jobs." She glanced off toward the building, where rescue workers where rushing in and out, fire personnel racing in as paramedics gathered up the injured as they were brought out to them. Not far away, Natasha stood watching Nadine and Wanda, her expression veiled and her normally bright eyes dulled by worry and wariness. Nadine met Wanda's eye again and nodded toward Natasha.

"Go with Nat," she instructed gently. "The truck's back at the market entry point." Wanda tensed, misery clouding her blue-green eyes.

"How can I—" she nearly sobbed, her face crumpling, "they're hurt because of me…" Nadine's chest cramped.

"We can't help right now," Nadine said firmly. "Even if we try to help shift the rubble, put out the flames… We wouldn't just get in the way, alyy, we'd be a distraction. We can't make the rescue crews' work harder than it already is. No matter how much we might feel the need to help." Wanda looked up and, after a long moment, her mouth set and a pained determination lit in her eyes. Mutely she nodded and ducked past Nadine.

Nadine met her sister's eye as Natasha laid a commiserating hand of her own on the Sokovian girl's shoulder as she walked by. Just as mutely as Wanda, Natasha nodded, agreement and approval flickering across her guarded features.

As the pair of younger women headed away from the destroyed building, Nadine watched with apprehension and remorse once more threatening to crush in on her chest. If only she had taken that damned shot…or noticed he was wearing a bomb vest…

She straightened then, steeling herself against the guilt. What was done was done. There was no going back, so what point was there in wallowing just now. She hadn't taken the shot in time and that was that. And she would have to live with it. Just as Wanda was going to have to learn to live with her role just as she had with what had happened in Sokovia.

Silently she cursed Rumlow. This was on him more than anyone else, she told herself as she looked up to the gaping hole a hundred feet above her head. Should she have taken her shot sooner? Even noticed his armour was hiding a bomb vest? Yes and probably. But at the end of the day, the true responsibility lay on Rumlow's shoulders.

Now it was just a matter of convincing herself of that.

God, things had been so much easier back when she hadn't let herself care…when none of it had been personal…

Inhaling deeply to stave off the dejected sigh that threatened deep in her chest, Nadine turned her attention back to the building, having yet to see the final member of their Team.

It was only another few moments before she picked out Steve amid the dust and smoke-clogged air. His jaw was tight and his expression veiled and grave as he let a pair of paramedics gingerly pull the second of two unconscious victims from his shoulders. She let out a low huff of relief. He seemed uninjured, but Nadine was well aware that not all injuries were physical.

He didn't even seem to notice her approach, his features guarded as he surveyed the efforts around him while pausing to rest for a short moment. He was covered in ash and grime, his helmet abandoned and his shield secured on his back, very clearly having already been inside the building to help with the rescue even if she hadn't seen him carrying the two injured civilians outside.

"Cap?" she called, half expecting him to start. But he didn't. He didn't even twitch in her direction. He just started talking, his voice faintly hoarse with strain and barely restrained guilt of his own.

"Ryker, I need you to round up the rest of the team. We need—"

"Rogers—" He wouldn't look at her, almost as if he hadn't heard her. But she knew he had. He'd reacted to the sound of her voice, his frame tensing further. Unease tightened in her chest. Did he blame her for not taking the shot? Was that why he wouldn't look at her? She pushed the sudden fear away—not important right now. He continued on as though she hadn't spoken.

"—to clear out before we distract from the rescue effort. And we need to get the MSRF on the ground ASAP—"

"Steve!" It was only then that he looked at her. She nearly flinched at his grim, carefully controlled expression. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," he said reflexively. She eyed him sceptically. Maybe physically…

"Are you?" she asked softly. He maintained the assured look for a heartbeat more before faltering, his broad shoulders sagging. Around the chaos of the rescue effort, the press was starting to congregate, cellphones and network cameras alike documenting the devastation. But she paid them little mind, her focus almost wholly on Steve. She recognized the emotions she could see swirling in his eyes intimately.

It was exactly the way she felt in that moment.

Helpless, disheartened, horrified, unsettled…guilty…responsible…

"I don't know," he admitted honestly. Nadine laid a comforting hand on his bicep. But she didn't have anything to say that would help.

Rumlow had shaken her too.

After a moment he looked up, meeting her gaze. She didn't even try to hide the similar emotions she was struggling against; the guilt, the regret, the self-reproach, the unease… And solemn understanding lit in the ocean-blue depths. He saw precisely what he felt mirrored in her eyes even if her face was still carefully blank. Sighing heavily, his eyes slid closed and he was leaning minutely into the hand she was resting on his arm.

And she was suddenly rather angry that Rumlow was dead.

In that moment she very much wished she could kill the disfigured bastard again.

A/N: Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed!

Don't forget to review! Reviews bring joy and happiness for everyone and loads of motivation for me! ;)

See you next time! It's one I know a lot of you have been waiting for...