My goodness, but our boys like to spend their time in the midst of clusterfucks.
Wherein Puente Antiguo fights back (sort of) and there are a few standoffs. (Drama. R.)
One of the Phase Two weapons, fueled by the harnessed power of an Infinity Stone and brought to Puente Antiguo for the express purpose of razing the town into the desert sand, is lifted by a member of HYDRA embedded within the S.H.I.E.L.D. S.T.R.I.K.E. team, aimed, and fired into the business directly across Main Street.
A blast of energy shatters a window and blows a hole the size of a bowling ball through a Slurpee machine.
Behind the counter, the 7-11 cashier narrows his eyes.
Moments later the HYDRA agent is ducking shotgun blasts.
When Isabella's goes up in flames, the screams of the trapped people inside echo through the nearby buildings.
Chester has never held a gun in his life. Wouldn't know what do to with one if he had it.
But goddamn if he isn't handy with a gas-powered chainsaw.
"You moron!" Cherry Beth shouts over yet another explosion, struggling to keep the lid on a box of ginger kittens (and one very confused chihuahua puppy). "They're not going to fit!"
Kyle doesn't pause as he stuffs another parakeet into a fluttering pillowcase. "It works on chickens!"
"These aren't chickens! And what do you care? You're not even supposed to be here today!"
"Are you going to help or not?"
Unconcerned with the chaos, a boa constrictor slides out the front door of the pet shop and winds serenely down the sidewalk.
Rumlow has a gift for making quick assessments, which is one of the primary reasons he is the leader of this S.T.R.I.K.E. team instead of someone else.
Coulson is crouched behind his sedan, shouting into a phone, no doubt trying to raise his now non-existent base out in the desert. He's not a priority for now.
The brothers are doing well against the team, considering they're armed respectively with a kitchen knife and a pipe ripped off a lawn chair; Rumlow can see why von Strucker wants them so badly. They need to be neutralized before they cause any more damage.
Barton's climbed up onto the roof of the laboratory and his damned arrows are wreaking havoc on the most distant agents. Rumlow has to take care of that ASAP.
The town is looking pretty FUBARed altogether.
Conclusion: the quickest way to regain control of the situation is the old-fashioned one.
The equipment in the lab is going off like they're in a penny arcade; ducking the confusion, Jane Foster runs from computer screen to computer screen, referencing a tattered notebook in her hands, typing commands and slamming switches, shouting nonsense at the machines like they can understand her.
Scientists.
Rumlow grabs Foster by the hair and yanks her away from the charts hard enough to feel her scalp pull, then uses the momentum to slam her to the concrete floor.
She screams in pain.
That is enough to get Loki's attention. He breaks off his fight, leaving Thor to deal with four agents alone (which he seems to be handling just fine). But before he can attack with that surprisingly effective kitchen knife, Rumlow presses the barrel of his gun to the base of Foster's skull.
The woman freezes in the act of trying to rise.
Loki pulls up short.
That interview with Hakim and Dion was definitely the right move.
"Tell Thor to stand down," Rumlow tells him, "and get in the car."
Loki's eyes are darting from Rumlow, to the gun, to Foster, and back again in quick succession; his voice is even and conversational as he says: "You speak as though one can pull the God of Thunder from battle as one calls off a hound. You've clearly not met my brother."
"If you come with us now, we'll go and we'll leave the people alone. This doesn't have to get any messier."
"Of course it does. You've come too far for anything else."
There's a rush of heat as the gas station bursts into flames three blocks away. Foster makes a choked noise of horror. "You son of a—"
Rumlow smacks the side of her temple with the gun — just hard enough to stun her half-unconscious. She falls to her side, dazed, and clutches her notebook to her chest for dear life. "Listen up," he says to Loki, whose placid expression hasn't wavered. "Your girlfriend here has a nice place waiting for her with all the science-y techno shit she could ask for. My superiors don't want me to blow her brains out all over the floor — but I'll take the write-up if I have to. Now drop the knife."
"I would not sacrifice my freedom for a mere Midgardian."
"I hear otherwise."
Loki scoffs. "She's shrewish, temperamental, and disloyal. Do you think that because she warmed my bed I would fall fit to such base sentimentality?"
A bunch of Vikings worshiped this guy as a trickster, but Rumlow's been living and breathing deception since his father would tuck him into bed, kiss his forehead, and whisper hail HYDRA in place of goodnight.
He cocks the gun. "I'm going to count to three. One—"
Loki's smirk remains in place.
"—two—"
Rumlow pulls Foster to her knees with another wrench of hair; she struggles feebly, eyes glassy. This is going to make a mess.
"—thr—"
The knife falls to the floor with a clatter.
Finally.
Rumlow keeps the Glock trained as Loki raises his hands slowly in the universal gesture of surrender. The calm mask is completely gone. "Lower your weapon," he growls, "and do not touch her again."
One of the agents fighting Thor flies through the air and slams into the glass window.
Rumlow lets go of Foster and shoves her forward. She catches herself on her hands and knees. "You and your brother get into the car," he says. "I'll take good care of your girlfriend, don't worry."
"You will die at my hand, mortal."
"Empty threat."
"I don't threaten. And if she is returned to me in anything but pristine condition, it is your screams that will rip open your throat in place of my dagger."
"Yeah, yeah." Rumlow thumbs the safety back into place. "Just get your—"
He feels a twinge on his neck, and everything goes black.
It takes a moment before Coulson has a clear enough line of sight to take out one of the agents — one of the agents he thought was his until eight minutes ago, when they started shooting at him — with a bullet to the head. He would have preferred an incapacitating hit to the leg (because if nothing else they need someone alive for questioning), but S.T.R.I.K.E. gets top-notch body armor. It wouldn't have done a thing.
Down to three opponents, Thor continues to fight with a broken lawn chair, roaring and bleeding from a half-dozen wounds. Coulson's never seen anything like it, not even when the guy broke into the compound.
Speaking of the compound, no one's answering his hails. Coulson's got a sinking feeling about that.
But one problem at a time. Puente Antiguo is going up in a series of detonations from weapons Coulson thought were still in R&D. "Barton?" he says into his earpiece. "How many are we talking about?"
"More than I've got arrows for. Since when did Rumlow get an army?"
"I intend to submit an inquiry about that."
An agent bold enough to walk down the sidewalk of Main Street, shooting blasts of blue energy in every direction, staggers from a buckshot blast to his back — then trips over a giant snake — then gets hit by a guy with a chainsaw who leaps from the alley like Rambo.
Well, that's one way to do it.
"Coulson, unless you've got an unlimited supply of ammo in your trunk, you'd better get out of here."
This has occurred to Coulson. At the moment he's more of a liability than anything else, in that he does not, in fact, have an unlimited supply of ammo in his trunk. "Base's communications are out," he says, hoping against hope that that's the only problem. "Clear my way, and I'll go get backup."
"Roger that."
"Don't get killed while I'm gone. That's an order."
"Oh, well, now that you've told me."
Coulson's in his car and praying the engine starts in spite of the bullet holes riddling the hood when, over the commotion, he hears more shouting to his side.
"This is where you say 'Thank you, Darcy Lewis, for saving my ungrateful Asgardian butt!'"
"On the contrary, you ought to be flogged for taking so long!"
"I only had one shot!"
"And it required you a millennium to take it!"
"Of course it did! I wasn't going to zap him while he was holding the gun to Jane's head! She'd be just as dead if he pulled the trigger with all the twitching and jerking!"
Loki opens the passenger side door and unceremoniously shoves the intern in so hard she almost sprawls across Coulson's lap. "If you don't live long enough for me to give you a proper tongue-lashing," he says spitefully, "I will be even angrier."
"You're welcome." Darcy looks up at Coulson as she adjusts her glasses. "Hey. What the fuck is going on?"
"If I knew," says Coulson, "I probably wouldn't tell you."
Jane Foster, blood running down her temple and held up by Loki's arm around her abdomen, gets much more gently deposited in the back seat. She's awake, but clearly out of it. "Loki," she mutters. "The bridge. The Rainbow Bridge. Loki, you promised—"
The theoretical god looks at Coulson in the rearview mirror. "Keep them alive," he says, "and I will tell you everything you want to know."
Coulson revs the engine. "You don't have to bribe me to save lives," he replies.
He's five miles out of town (which he covered in two minutes — his S.H.I.E.L.D.-issued transportation is no Lola, but it's not bad, either) when a bruised mess of swirling purple storm clouds forms from nowhere overhead.
"Okay," says Darcy, admirably attempting to steady the shake in her voice, "that? Is weird."
Wonderful.