Once again, thanks for all the glowing praise. Not all writers say it, but every writer loves getting feedback. Hope you enjoy.
As soon as Steve saw the fake policeman slip on a mask and pull out a submachine gun, he immediately got out and scooped up Wanda in his arms before the attacker could harm either of them. And he was on the right track: as soon as he got the half-awake Wanda out of the car, the front windshield disappeared in a hail of bullets. Civilians in other cars began getting out in a panic.
And that wasn't all. The armored car next to them was also hostile: its driver and two more men, all dressed like black ops guys, got out with MP7s and began spraying both the car windows and other cars around them for good measure, regardless of whether civilians were in them or not.
Steve was faced with a lot of hard choices. His shield was left behind in the trunk of his car, so going to retrieve it would be near suicide without lots of stealth. He had Wanda recovering from sleepiness in one corner, and dozens of panicked civilians in the other.
He decided on stabilizing Wanda first. He'd been working with her on situations like this, but who knew what would happen if things went to hell. "Wanda, can you hear me?"
She nodded timidly.
"Don't move. There are at least four of them trying to finish us off. I'm going to try and get my shield. Don't come out unless things get worse, okay?"
Another nod.
Steve looked at her one more time, then sprinted towards his own car, where two of the men were inspecting it for him and Wanda. The other two walked quickly down the rows of now abandoned cars, MP7s at the ready.
Steve was in the row to the most right, near where an exit ramp led to an intersection. He passed by each car, silently getting the civilians out and down the ramp, and making sure they didn't make too much noise. If they had, the attackers would have heard it and began firing in his general directions, and people could get hurt.
People weren't dying today because he was the target.
Creeping as low as ever, he took a moment to listen in on the conversation two of the assailants were having:
"Trouver la fille Maximoff. Tuez le super soldat."
Steve knew some French from his World War II days, but not enough that he could translate the whole thing in a few seconds. He did, however, have an idea of what they were after: they were her for Wanda, not him.
But who cared about some Sokovian girl? HYDRA? They'd be more concerned with taking out him first.
No matter. He had a job to do.
Seeing the two men talking, Steve took the opportunity to get closer to his car. The man who'd originally posed as a policeman was standing guard of it. Using stealth, Steve got as close as possible to him without making him aware of Steve's presence, then grabbed him from behind, clamping down on his mouth to keep him from yelling out to the others.
Once he was taken care of, Steve went to the trunk of his car and pulled out the vibranium shield. The straps on the back felt like an old friend.
"Arretez!"
Bullets peppered the car once again. That would be the others, having spotted Captain America and wanting to take him down. One of the shots ricocheted and hit him in the arm. Gritting his teeth, Steve switched the shield to the other arm and got down, bullets continuing to spray the area.
This wasn't the attack in DC, where he had Natasha and Sam to back him up. No, he'd have to do this by himself.
Keeping the pain locked up inside his arm, he slowly crept up to the two other men, one of whom was reloading his MP7. Steve took advantage of this to get close enough to get up to him and send him flying across the freeway with a jab from the shield. However, this meant that the other man, who was taken aback for a moment, was able to fire a few shots at Steve's thigh, sending him down again.
"You think you are mighty, super soldier?" mocked the lone attacker in an accent, his face covered by a tactical mask. "You think you and the others can do whatever they want, whenever?"
"What are you talking about?" asked Steve, strangely enough. This guy clearly wasn't the typical HYDRA runt, if he was even HYDRA to start with.
"You have no accountability," said the Frenchman, cocking his gun and ready to shoot. "You destroy lives and ruin cities, with no one caring the least bit-"
He was interrupted by a red hail of fireballs that hit him from the left. The man was sent reeling.
Steve turned his neck towards the direction of the blast to see Wanda standing up straight, a familiar red tint in her eyes. "You said not to come out unless things got worse."
"Wouldn't exactly put it that way, but good timing nevertheless."
Another barrage of bullets. The two men both had reloaded and were firing back. The man that had been thrown back by Wanda began to fire at her, attempting to aim for her arms and legs. If Steve remembered what he'd heard, they wanted her alive.
Unfortunately for them, it wasn't the same in reverse. Using some sort of psionic blast, Wanda reverse the course of several bullets and send them back at the attackers until the one she'd thrown originally wasn't standing anymore.
The other one, who'd seen how the course of events was about to go, began to fall back, collect the unconscious man that Steve had knocked out, and began shouting in French to the third surviving attacker, who'd gotten in the armored car and started up the engine. He dumped the unconscious man in the back and himself got in the shotgun seat, knowing it wasn't worth it to go after a dead body. The van broke off at well over 80 miles per hour, sideswiping several other vehicles in the process.
With the attackers fleeing, Steve turned to his arm, which had taken some more bullets throughout the attack. He put as much pressure on the arm as he could, but he could tell that he was going to need medical attention. He turned his attention to Wanda, who looked uneasy after killing the man.
"Was that your first kill?" asked Steve, careful to avoid the word murder.
She nodded, and said "I didn't mean for it to happen. Who was he?"
"It doesn't get any easier, defending yourself against those who wish you harm. And we'll find out who those men were, all right. Now, I need you to make some calls for me…"
Wanda was able to drive their car, damaged as it was, to the nearest emergency clinic. Holding Steve by his shoulder, she dragged him in and requested that he be treated as soon as possible. The woman at the front desk was skeptical at first, but when she saw who had just came in, she rushed to get a doctor right away.
Wanda was prepared to mind control the doctors if need be, but fortunately for all involved, she didn't need to. She wasn't going to let anything bad happen to Steve.
Her Steve.
He was taken to a room and his wounds all tended to. Wanda waited outside, telling Romanoff everything that had happened.
"You're going to need to slow down, honey," said Romanoff across the phone, trying to calm the younger woman down. "So you said they just attacked you out of the blue?"
"What?"
"Sorry, don't know if you knew that metaphor yet. So they just attacked you all of a sudden?"
Wanda gulped. "Yes, I think so. The roadblock was set up by one of them as a diversion."
"They must have known you two were going out for the afternoon," said Natasha. "We have a leak somewhere. Send us what you can of the dead man, and Maria or I will get you up to date on everything."
Steve and Wanda had taken the dead assailant's body and weapons (for a lack of anything better to do with them) and kept them in the car. In an hour or so, they'd know if this attack was done by HYDRA or some other entity. Wanda hung up and went back in the room to see Steve.
"He actually has a near broken forearm, but he's regenerating at a much better rate than a normal human being," said the doctor in the room. "A night's rest should have him back in shape."
Wanda thanked the doctor as she walked out, then went over to Steve and squeezed his hand. He smiled, as he'd squeezed her hand to keep her calm just a few hours ago. "Thank you."
"All in a day's work, ma'am." He found the strength to lean up and kiss her forehead. She still seemed a little unstable though, and he sought to change that. "You alright?"
"Killing a man is not the same as creating hallucinations or destroying robots. It's something that I can't just let go of very easily."
"I can't either. When I first signed up for getting a super soldier serum, the Dr. Eskerine asked me whether I wanted to kill Nazis. I told him what I thought: that I just didn't like bullies in general, and the Nazis and HYDRA were the bullies. Killing is never easy, but it has to be done at times. I've killed plenty of times, but I take no pleasure from it. Neither do you, and I'm glad. Many men take joy off suffering and death, you know."
Wanda was silent. Steve didn't know if his little talk was enough to comfort her regarding this difficult issue, but it was a start. He was going to talk more about it when his phone rang; it was Maria. "Yes?"
"Steve, its Maria. I had Sharon Carter over at the CIA run some facial scans from the man you killed. He's an ex-soldier, all right. But you'll never guess from where."
"France," said Steve. He'd heard the attackers speak French.
"Switzerland?" suggested Wanda.
"Neither. He was Canadian, like my father," replied Maria, who preferred not to discuss her past. "Name was Henri Morisset, and he was discharged from Joint Task Force 2 eight months ago." Joint Task Force 2 was a special operations force based in Canada. Largely classified, the unit specializes in counterterrorism and direct action.
"Was he part of HYDRA or what?" asked Steve.
"No. He actually joined Ares International, a private military company that's infamous for recruiting only the best and denying everything its employees are hired to do. They operate in cells, so the other men you were attacked by probably part of the same cell. I'll keep you posted. It's best you and Wanda get some rest; you both deserve it."
As the call ended, Wanda began to stretch on the couch in the hospital room and get some more sleep. Steve was inclined to let her get in her beauty nap, and somewhat lazily tossed a blanket over her.
He was slightly concerned he might be ambushed here, but he doubted it. Local police were watching the building.
Darcy Lewis, the secretary for the New Avengers facility, didn't particularly like her job. But it paid handsomely, and besides, she got to see an excess of masculinity, which she couldn't resist passing up. Her current object of attention was Sam Wilson, aka Falcon, who'd finally gotten the nerves to ask her out on a second date. Their first date hadn't gone so well, so she was hoping that this one would go better.
Still idling by in her front lobby office, she found Sam walking down from the elevators, dressed in what she would have described as business casual. "Well don't you look dressed up."
"Please," scoffed Sam, rolling his eyes. "Anything-"
The power in the entire building went out. The fact that it was nearly midnight didn't help matters. They were planning on going out to a nearby club, but apparently not.
"Well… that blows," replied Darcy in her usual sardonic tone of voice.
An ambulance appeared though the glass doors of the main building. Sam and Darcy went to check it out. "Okay," said Sam, surprised, "you guys aren't the electric people."
To be fair, they weren't. As soon as Sam finished his statement, a small metal canister popped out of the ambulance's window. It began emitting a green substance: tear gas.
Neither Sam nor Darcy could stand, much less do anything to stop several men with gas masks, submachine guns and assault rifles get out of the ambulance and begin making their way towards the facility. Sam saw that one of them had a yellow hazmat style suit on and that his name tag read "Andrew Forson" before he was knocked out by one of the other men.
What did you think? Tell me in a review!