The end of the story fast approaches everyone. This is going to be an interesting chapter. It will switch viewpoints between the 'buddies', so you'll get most of the story down.
The team clipped their parachutes onto their backs and prepared to leap out of the plane. They all jumped in quick succession until Thor and Vision were left on the plane. The pilot nodded for them to jump out, and the two did, without their parachutes. They both could fly.
Steve watched them land a couple feet away from the rest of them. All of them were carrying their luggage, strapped to their parachutes. It was a new innovation of Tony's. Maria slung her backpack back onto her shoulders. He saw her grimace of pain, before she wiped it away with that mask she now constantly wore. Natasha had a small suitcase, and Steve brought a duffel bag.
"Okay. It's a mile to the bunker. Nat, you'll be hacking into the security system while we walk, so we'll walk slowly. All of you should stick to your buddy from now on. Only separate when necessary, and always have a rendezvous point. Maintain the communication unit at all times. Do not turn it off. If your name is asked for, you will respond, even if you're bleeding your guts out. Tell us your location if you need assistance. Nat and Steve, as soon as the target is dead, call it. Maria and I will keep the corridors clear. Thor and Vision, you make sure that no reinforcements come for us. Bruce and Clint- you're copying their data and then you'll destroy their computers. Wanda and Coulson- place the explosives. We're blowing this place clear. When Steve and Nat call the mission over, I want everyone out in five minutes. If you're still in the building, you must tell us. We're not exploding our team members here." Tony said while they started to walk. He tossed Natasha an iPod and she started to hack into the security.
"Remember, Stark, if you get that phone call..." Maria reminded him, her voice stern. "You're leaving. Immediately. Fly away in that suit of yours and go see your baby." Tony, in the suit, didn't answer.
"I don't have a choice, do I?" Tony asked finally. "It's a mission, no matter if my child is being born or not."
"No, you don't." Bruce chimed in. "Maria, if you need help, come find us." Maria rolled her eyes. Natasha's eyes were on the iPod. Steve guided her around the roots and they continued walking.
"Got it!" Natasha said triumphantly. Tony raised his hand for a halt.
"Okay, gang. Put your gear on. It's time to end this, once and for all." Natasha smashed the iPod with a boot and then opened her suitcase. She pulled out her Black Widow uniform and began to take her shirt off.
"The guys will leave." Steve said, his voice laced with command. The boys reluctantly went a distance away. Steve quickly stripped down so he could put his own suit on. Thor pulled his cape and armor on, Coulson his trademark suit, and Bruce his stretchy pants. Clint pulled his sleeveless jacket on and slung his bow on his shoulder. Steve extracted his shield.
"Everyone decent?" Clint called.
"Yes!"
The boys started back to where the girls had changed. They found Maria, Wanda, and Natasha already dressed and their suitcases neatly packed and zippered. Maria was wearing a dark suit with a colored button-down shirt underneath. Steve could see the pistols she wore hidden beneath her jacket. Wanda was in her red jacket and black undershirt.
"Ready?" Tony asked. They all nodded.
The door of the bunker opened smoothly upon Tony's command. The Avengers slipped inside and broke into their pairs. Maria and Tony set off down the hallway, not choosing a specific one. A group of guards came around the hallway. Maria's hand went to her guns. She drew quickly and fired, but not before one of the guards pressed a big red button on the wall of the bunker. An alarm went blaring. Tony swore.
He blasted the rest of the guards with his hand and continued. They were jogging, and at intervals more guards streamed out from hidden doors. Maria was accurate as ever, and Tony's suit quickly eliminated the guards that Maria didn't see.
"How many more, do you think?" Maria asked breathlessly. Tony shrugged.
"A lot, I'm guessing."
They continued down the halls, stopped by the troops that were seemingly endless. The bullets bounced off Tony's armor, but he did start to get concerned for the SHIELD agent beside him. But she remained seemingly unruffled, and no blood showed at all on her pale blue shirt.
"You alright?" Tony asked as they were undergoing a particularly bad barrage of bullets. Maria kept shooting.
"Fine!" she shouted back between shots. "Got that call yet?" Tony shook his head. Suddenly, inside the helmet, the phone rang.
"Sir, it's Miss Potts." JARVIS said, his voice oddly calm among the gunfire.
"Take the call!" Maria shouted at him, glancing over at Tony.
"Alright, JARVIS. Sent it through." Tony said, blasting two guards at once.
Natasha and Steve ducked in every doorway, searching for Alexei. A couple times they ran into the laundry rooms, and were forced to knock out most of the occupants in the room. They ran into some soldiers, but mostly they encountered none. They could tell where Maria and Tony had been. In some corridors the blood and bodies were terrible, and in others, there was only one or two fatalities.
"They definitely are keeping the corridors clean." Steve commented. "Look, Nat. A perfect shot to the heart. Maria's aim is perfect, as always." His partner didn't reply, but he heard her sigh of relief.
The pair kept walking. They ran into a man coming out from a room, and his eyes were shifty. Steve grabbed him by the collar and shook him violently.
"Where is Alexei?" he demanded. "Where is he?" The man made a choking sound and Steve relinquished his hold a fraction, but still retained his grip around the man's throat.
"South corridor. Second room on the right." the man gasped. "Mercy, please. Sir, please. My family is home waiting for me." Steve and Natasha exchanged looks. She nodded and Steve whacked the man on the head with the butt of a fallen gun.
"You're welcome." he growled, and then stalked down the corridor with Natasha at his heels.
Wanda and Coulson were placing explosives every corridor, linked together by some high-powered Stark technology. Coulson could tell that Wanda felt revulsion at this task, and knowing the girl's past, he understood why.
"You hate this, don't you." Coulson said as they placed yet another bomb in a niche. Wanda swallowed and nodded. "It's not the same. These are the people that tortured Natasha, and the ones who wanted to hurt the rest of your team."
"I know, but I still think of all those men who will be killed." Wanda said awkwardly. Coulson stood up and dusted his hands off.
"The men who are going to be killed are very bad people. Sometimes, they sign up knowing they deserve it. I think, deep down, they know what they are doing." Coulson tried to tell her. Wanda shrugged her shoulders.
"My parents were killed by bombs. They might have family back at home waiting for them to come home, and because of us, they never will."
"What do you suggest? Dragging all of those people outside so they can live to kill again? Letting Natasha's torturer loose to do that to someone else?" Coulson asked, his voice hard. "You can't always be the hero. Sometimes you've got to be the bad guy, or else you'll never be the hero."
"It's just hard." Wanda said softly. "How many of them were going to be someone great?"
"Not many of them, if they were working for Alexei."
Thor and Vision constantly had to incinerate approaching war tanks bearing the Red Room's flag, which Natasha had shown them. Reinforcements were apparently being summoned from all sides, and they were kept busy constantly. Sometimes the tanks fired back, but those shots were quickly dealt with with Thor's lightning power.
"A bit like target practice, I am thinking!" Thor shouted to Vision.
"Not quite, because these are moving!" Vision replied. "It is much harder to hit them accurately, especially without targeting lightning!"
"I suppose you are right, friend who speaks like the invisible butler!" Thor replied. "It is a little harder than those target circles."
"But still quite interesting as an experience."
"I suppose you can think like that." Thor said.
Bruce and Clint located the computer room quickly and copied the information onto a flash drive. Many of the files were restricted, but Clint managed to hack further into the system to withdraw a high-level officer's ID and password. From there they retrieved all of the files on the computers. Clint was double checking to make sure that he hadn't missed anything when he heard the crackle on the comm's unit-
"Guys, this is the end of the line. The hospital called and apparently there's been a complication with the baby. I'm aborting my part of the mission." Tony said, his voice loud.
"But Stark, you can't just abandon Maria." Clint protested."Your duty is here."
"But my heart will be there." Tony replied. "Please, Clint. Let me go to my family." The others were starting to pay attention now. Clint's ears were filled with their voices, either urging Tony to go or begging him to stay.
"Go. Just go." Clint said finally. "I respect you, Tony, and I fully expect you to take any responsibility if anything goes wrong here."
"Nothing is going to go wrong, Clint. We've got our location on the target. Are all the other teams ready?" Steve said over the line. Clint heard the affirmative from all the others. Maria's tone was a little breathless- maybe she was still clearing the halls.
Maria was working alone now. There were less guards, thankfully, but now she was covering her own back as well as trying to keep a look out for incoming soldiers. Her arm was burning, the pain an ever-constant reminder of what she was risking. Her left hand was growing tired, but still she kept firing. The flow of soldiers ceased for a brief period. Maria wasn't sure how long she had until more of them came, but she slumped along the wall and tried to take deep breaths.
"You're not alone, Maria." someone said into their comm. "We're keeping an eye out for soldiers. Wanda and I are moving out." Coulson. Maria felt a flash of relief run through her and she stood up. A soldier came around the corner but Maria shot at him almost instantly. The soldier's eyes were wide as he fell. In Maria's ear, she heard a gunshot, which echoed through the building, too, as well as her ear.
Coulson swore. "Wanda's been shot!" he announced, his voice growing more frantic.
"It's nothing." Maria heard Wanda say. "It's only grazed me. I'll be alright. I can walk."
Maria sighed as she heard more footsteps approaching. She reloaded her gun.
Steve and Natasha burst into the room that the man had said Alexei was. The room was dark, but Steve could feel the malice coming from somewhere in the room. Suddenly, the chamber was filled with gunfire and bullets were bouncing everywhere. Steve felt a hot, searing pain as a bullet grazed his upper arm, but he didn't cry out. He heard Natasha suck a breath in, and wondered if she was injured, too. He tapped the inside of her wrist, and she squeezed his hand lightly. In the dark, he saw her jerk her head toward the right wall. Steve's hand groped for the light switch.
He flicked it on. Alexei was illuminated for a brief second, but so was the ten soldiers lined up against all of the walls, waiting for them. Natasha's bullet zoomed toward Alexei, who slumped to the ground, a dark spot in the center of his forehead.
Then the room erupted in gunfire, and Steve threw his shield, angled at the corner. He saw Natasha's hand come up, wet with blood, before the shield flew back to his hand and the soldiers dropped to the ground.
"Nat." Steve said urgently. "Were you shot?" Natasha swallowed. There was one bullet wound in her stomach. It was oozing blood. Steve almost had a panic attack when he remembered what Maria's arm had looked like.
"No vital organs." Natasha said, clearly struggling to gain control of her voice.
"I'm calling the mission. Alexei is dead. Nat and I are moving out."
Wanda and Coulson were sitting two hundred yards away from the bunker, the trigger of the bombs in Coulson's hand. They were aware of their surroundings, and Wanda couldn't feel any minds around them.
"I'm calling the mission. Alexei is dead. Nat and I are moving out." Steve's voice said, the soldier's voice calm. Wanda and Coulson had heard Natasha and Steve talking. Wanda had been startled when they heard that Natasha was shot.
"Do you need help?" Coulson asked.
"No, we're close to the back door. We'll walk around and meet you there." Steve said.
"Alright. Don't let your guard down." Coulson warned. He could almost hear Steve roll his eyes.
Thor and Vision also heard the mission being called. They continued zapping the tanks that were approaching, now at a slower pace and with apparently more powerful guns to shoot them with. Luckily, Vision was quick enough with his crystal that they never needed to learn how much more powerful the guns were.
"We'll keep the ground clear for you, Steven!" Thor announced. "You and Natasha will have a clear field." Vision heard Steve laugh.
"We'll do just that, Mr Rogers." Vision said.
"Thanks, guys." Natasha said.
Bruce and Clint were also out of the bunker. They were traveling along the edge of the yawning gorge that was on the east side of the bunker. A river roared beneath them, and Clint shivered.
"That gorge is freaky." he commented. "It's like it's waiting for us." Bruce walked alongside Clint, and shrugged.
"It's not that freaky. It's a force of nature. Just look at the eroding along the sides. You can see the sedimentary rock in there, and all the layers that have built up over time." They reached where the rest of the team was just as Steve and Natasha did.
"We're waiting on Maria now." Clint announced.
Maria was sprinting down the west corridor, heading toward the window on the other side of the bunker. Ten soldiers were following her, not firing, for some reason. Maria couldn't shoot back, because she would either get shot and she was also out of bullets. She heard Clint say that they were waiting for her.
"Do it now!" she shouted.
"You're out!"
"Almost!" she replied. She was in the east corridor now. The window was twenty feet, fifteen feet, ten feet away.
"Alright. We're doing it."
Maria's shoulder burst through the window just as she heard the first bomb go off. She hurtled through the window and had a split second to register the hungry, roaring river beneath her.
Like I said, evil plans. Very, very evil plans. Sorry for the cliff. Both the cliffhanger and the one that Maria is now suspended, cartoon-like, in mid air. This was actually planned almost since I decided she would go to Russia with the rest of the Avengers.