Center of a Shit Storm, Berlin, German
Romanov and Stark were arguing at the top of the stairwell. Because of course they were.
"You're not—"
"I've got a little back up, give me some credit," Stark snapped. The lines of worry on his face made him look old and tired.
"Tony, you're not trained for this."
For the love of –
"Those are my people down there," Sharon snapped as sounds of a fight ricocheted up the echoing stairwell. "Romanov, you and I will go right, Stark, you take the left stairwell and distract him. I assume whatever back-up you have is ranged?"
"And who are you?" Stark snapped.
Romanov sighed. "She's right, Tony. If you distract him with one of your toys, Sharon and I can both hit him and slow him down until Steve gets here."
Stark started to object.
"Without your suit, we're all just folks, Tony," Romanov interrupted with a delicate snort. "Barnes isn't. We need Steve and I'm not letting your pissing fight with him get me killed. Go, now."
Sharon shot her a grateful glance as Stark ran down the left stair and she and Romanov sprinted down the right one.
"There?" Romanov pointed to a spot out of Barnes's field of vision.
"Perfect," Sharon nodded. By silent accord, they waited until Barnes was twisted away from them and slipped up next to the brutalist pillars that Sharon had always hated.
She glanced around the corner of the pillar and winced. The lobby was littered with downed bodies and broken tables and Barnes was bashing on two of the SWAT team grunts – Berger and Jacobs, she thought. She watched as he wrenched Berger's baton away from him and then backhanded the ex-SAS agent clear across the room. Romanov was right. They were all just folks compared to Barnes. Where the hell was Steve?
"We're in position," Romanov said into her wrist.
Stark stepped out from behind a different set of pillars and held up his hand. Sharon had a moment to register that he was wearing a glove-like object before there was a ripple in the air and a quiet thrum-skree and Barnes froze in place. Then another, brighter flare of white light and Sharon silently cheered as Barnes ducked, clearly stunned or hurt. Maybe stark could keep him pinned down?
Then Stark started closing on the Winter Soldier.
"What the hell is he doing?" Romanov muttered, without surprise or rancor.
Sharon gaped, first at Romanov then at Stark. He was fifty years old! He wasn't in his suit so he was a civilian!
"We've got to save him," Sharon said, sprinting into the fight.
Behind her, she heard Romanov mutter, "Damnit," and follow.
By the time Sharon had covered those ten yards, Stark was already on the ground, a crumpled heap of expensive suit in the wreckage of a table. Idiot.
She launched herself from the sprint into a left-side kick and then used the momentum of the backswing to power a right-side kick. The inertia of the blows staggered Barnes back five feet and Romanov flashed by her, taking advantage of the opening. She leapt up to plant her knee right in his gut, followed by a fist to his lower abdomen.
The sheer speed and force of the women's attack caught the super soldier by surprise and he kept falling backwards, his eyes blank and stunned. Sharon took advantage of the larger space to aim a roundhouse kick at his temple. The blow snapped his head hard to one side. Encouraged, she tried it again.
This time, though, Barnes was expecting it. His metal arm clamped around her thigh, vice strong, and he flipped her away from him like flinging away a rag doll. As the room cartwheeled around her, she had a moment of perfect mid-flight clarity – this is gonna hurt – before she hit a table with a teeth-jarring crunch. A bright burst of light exploded behind her eyes and she tumbled down a well of uneasy darkness.
