Sam placed a cup of coffee in front of Chloe at the kitchen table. "I make mine really sweet, I don't know about you..." He spoke quietly as he moved around the table.
Chloe's eyes followed him until he saw down across her. "It's fine," she mumbled and grabbed the cup.
Sam watched her drink and let her take that moment that she needed for her own sake. He had only heard bits and pieces about what the last few days had been like and it all sounded like a true nightmare.
Chloe put down the cup on the table, licking her lips anxiously. The Hive Mind had not stopped buzzing and she was running out of strategies to ignore them. "They found me, Sam," she said abruptly.
Sam raised a brow at her. "They—?"
"The Ghost — Hydra, I guess, since that's what they've announced their name to be. And I guess they never 'lost' me, so they technically didn't have to find me either," Chloe continued, gaze glued on her cup. "They always knew about me. They were just waiting for me to finish cooking like a damn turkey. The oven dinged, and now I'm ready for the taking."
"Because they want that Hive Mind of yours," Sam said, recalling their last conversation just before things went haywire. Chloe nodded. "And you keeping everything a secret worked out well for you?"
Chloe finally lifted her gaze up, and it was only to deadpan Sam who couldn't be more proud of himself.
"Shut up—"
"Hey," Sam raised his hands in front of him. "Sometimes we learn the hard way, even when we're all grown up."
Chloe rolled her eyes. She really was not looking for a lecture right now. "My best friend landed in the hospital because I wasn't looking and now we're all being hunted like criminals. I know Steve is gonna go crazy trying to help me out while also mentally freaking out that he hasn't protected Seren well — even though that's bullshit — and Seren and Natasha are gonna do everything they can, including risking their lives, to help me out. It might be easier to just let HYDRA take me or kill myself."
"That's selfish, Winters," Natasha said on her way into the kitchen. Chloe and Sam looked over just as she stopped in the middle of the table and swiped an apple off the fruit basket. "Not everything is about you." She bit into the apple, raising an eyebrow at Chloe to challenge her to argue.
"Natasha, seriously," Chloe sounded like she was going to beg to be taken serious.
"You think this is all about you?" Natasha continued like nothing. "HYDRA existed before you and I were even born, before Seren was born. Steve's been dealing with them way before any of us. I'm sure HYDRA has a bit of resentment towards him that they would love to take out on him. Seren's abilities make her a valuable asset and you really think HYDRA doesn't know that? I'm sure they've been waiting for an opportunity and now is a good one as ever. So, you think this is all about you?"
Chloe resembled a child the way she ducked her face. Natasha smirked; the point had gotten through.
"Is that bacon?" Natasha asked Sam about the pan on the stove. He nodded and she went right to it.
When Chloe felt braver, which was a solid ten minutes later, she asked Natasha what she thought should be their next move. It was clear that she was way in over her head and the Hive Mind was just making her more of a liability at this point.
"Cover ourselves," Natasha said simply. "Right now, I'm sure me, Steve and Seren have become an outstanding problem and not just because we're in the way of your extraction." She grabbed the last piece of bacon on the pan and took a chunk of it into her mouth.
"So you think they're not going to kill her?" Sam looked at Chloe when he asked.
"No, I think think it's a high probability that they'll try," Natasha said simply, leading Chloe to glare at her for being so blunt. "They want the piece lodged in her body. What else are they going to do?"
"It's so comforting talking to you," Chloe muttered.
Natasha cracked a smile and pointed at Chloe with her half eaten bacon. "You want comfort, talk to mama-Seren. I'm the aunt who'll tell you your bullshit."
Chloe looked even less pleased, and it didn't help that Sam had laughed either. "Would you please get serious!?" she frowned. "HYDRA is on our ass. We need to do something!"
"And we will," Natasha said with an utmost certainty that it even got Chloe wondering if she had something up her sleeve.
A short while later, Seren and Steve joined them in the kitchen. Seren wore Steve's jacket again, zipped up like it swallowed her whole. She wanted to cover up her bruises until they completely healed.
"Hey," Natasha waved at them with her bacon, "Nice of you to join us, finally. Everything good now?"
"Yes," Steve said in a hard voice warning Natasha not to push it.
"Thank you for letting us stay here, Sam," Seren said. "I'm sorry about before, I..."
Sam held a hand up for her to stop. "I got it, trust me. I'd be a pretty different person if someone tried bombing me." Seren still thanked him again. "You guys hungry?" Sam got up and headed over to the drying rack for some fresh plates.
"Seren is." Steve ignored Seren's startled face and pulled out the chair Sam had left. He motioned her to sit down because she was going to eat one way or another.
Seren mouthed an 'I'm okay' to him and sat down nonetheless. Sam soon returned with clean plates for them and let them help themselves. Chloe tried getting up to give Steve the chair but he assured her that he was fine right where he was, which was standing right behind Seren's chair.
Seren grabbed some fruit, suddenly thirsty once she started serving herself. She offered Steve some of the fruit from her plate and was happy to see him accepting. He needed to eat as much as she did.
"Kay, now that we're all together…" Natasha straightened up in her seat, "We can get back to business." It was left unsaid that it would only be a matter of time until S.H.I.E.L.D. found them again.
"Back to business being how not to die," Seren remarked as she popped a grape into her mouth. "How to escape the organization you gave your life to." She smiled very dryly.
"I think we should start with the person who launched a domestic missile strike on us," Natasha said.
"Pierce," Steve said within the second. There was no doubt in his mind that it would be Pierce behind this. It was actually the only way things would make sense. Having someone so high up the ranks would be the perfect spot to oversee double-agents. It would also explain how S.H.I.E.L.D. would keep an easier tab on Chloe.
It seemed like Chloe had thought of the same thing because her head snapped up. "Sorry, isn't Pierce sitting on top of the most secure building in the world? This whole time I've been watching my back and it never even mattered because Pierce always knew everything!"
"He always knew where we all were," Natasha clarified again.
"If this guy has been keeping tabs on all of you, why'd he decide to strike now?" Sam asked the group and watched them exchange glances with each other.
"Fury," Seren was the one who answered in the end. She had another grape close to her lips. "It all started with Fury. Something Fury had to have done lately."
"The Lemurian Star," Chloe snapped her fingers at Natasha and Steve.
Steve agreed. "Zola's algorithm was on the Lemurian Star."
"So was Jasper Sitwell," Natasha realized.
"Ah, so that means I have your better question here," Seren brought a finger to her nose, "How do the four most wanted people in Washington kidnap a SHIELD officer in broad daylight?" Her powers weren't necessarily the quiet type and neither were Chloe's.
"Ah, what do you mean you?" Chloe pointed a finger at Seren. "You just got out of the hospital."
"Chloe, don't start—"
"I'm not" — Chloe raised her hands in front of her — "but you can't expect to go out and fight—"
"Chloe, you'll find that I can do pretty much whatever I want."
"Okay, okay, stop!" Steve cut in just as the tension grew stronger. For some reason, he was sure that some of Seren's powers were manifesting because he swore it felt like the temperature had risen around them. "We'll figure that stuff out but—"
"I may have an idea," Sam announced and then walked out of the kitchen, leaving the group rather puzzled until he returned with a folder in hand. He dropped it on the table for them to see.
"What's this?" asked Steve.
"Call it a resume."
Natasha grabbed the file from the table and went through it. "Is this Bakhmala? The Khalid Khandil mission, that was you." She glanced at Steve. "You didn't say he was a pararescue."
Steve took the file from her and saw a picture of Sam with another man. It wasn't that hard to make a conclusion. "Is this Riley?"
Sam nodded, his voice slightly strained when he answered, "Yeah."
Seren took a peek at the file herself. "Didn't they say they couldn't bring in the choppers because of the RPGs. What did you use, a stealth chute?"
"No," Sam reached for the file to pull out a specific paper from it. "These." He handed it back to them.
Steve's eyebrows raised once he saw the picture. "I thought you said you were a pilot…?"
Sam smiled in amusement. "I never said pilot."
"I can't ask you to do this, Sam. You got out for a good reason."
"Dude, Captain America needs my help. There's no better reason to get back in."
"I vote we let him in." Chloe reached with wiggling fingers for the picture in Steve's hand. Once she was able to see for herself what was on it, she wholeheartedly agreed they needed his help. "Where is this thing, Sam?"
"The last one is at Fort Meade, behind three guarded gates and a twelve-inch steel wall."
Chloe pursed her lips and swayed her head in her friends' direction, very much looking like a child waiting for the 'okay!'.
Steve looked directly at Natasha who gave him a simple shrug. Seren looked between them and immediately knew what was brewing in their heads.
"Nu-uh, you cannot—"
"Shouldn't be a problem, Sam," Steve said in the end.
~ 0 ~
"Steven Grant Rogers, you cannot leave me here!" Seren was livid with her boyfriend who, for the life of him, could not find a way to calm her down. The use of his full name coming out of her mouth stopped him instead.
"Since when do you know my whole name?" He stared at her, dumbfounded, until she snorted and reminded him that she had his entire folder before they met and history taught lessons about him in school.
"For the record, I hate using your full name in situations like this but I'm trying to make a point." Seren walked up to him, begging to be listened to. "I can help get Sam's little — those things! — with no problem! You can't continue to sideline me like this."
"Sweetheart," Steve slid his hands over her face, "I'm not sidelining you. How many times do I need to say it? I just want you to completely heal before you get back out there."
"But—"
"You said it yourself. You're healing which means if we give you a few more hours, you should be back to normal. Why rush the process?" It was a rhetorical question, of course. Steve knew how hard it was to just sit there and let others fight a fight you firmly believed was also yours.
If Bucky could look at him, he'd laugh in his face for the situation he was in. He went from being the one told to sit down to now being the one telling others to stand down. Fate had a funny way of doing things sometimes.
Seren heaved a sigh and went to pull Steve's hands off her, but he didn't budge. "You understand that I love you, right?" Steve said, forcing her head to stay still when she tried looking away. "Hey — Seren? I love you, okay? I love you."
"Yes, I heard you," Seren muttered.
"Would it be hard to say it back? Make me feel like when I come back you'll still be in this house and you'll still want to be my girlfriend?"
Seren rolled her eyes and let out one more sigh. "You're so stupid, Steven Grant Rogers."
Steve started chuckling. "Stop that."
At least Seren was smiling at him again. "I get to annoy you every time you annoy me and for the record," she jabbed her finger on his chest, "I am very annoyed right now. You want to leave me and Chloe in this house while you, Sam and Natasha go and retrieve the wings."
"I know it's hard, trust me, I do, but you gotta believe me here. I just want to protect you. I've been doing a miserable job lately—"
"I think you've been doing your very best and that means the world to me," Seren said, finally able to take one of Steve's hands off her face. She kissed his palm and offered him another smile.
"I am sorry for everything. I should have said this earlier but you and I...our relationship, it will never be a tactic to use against the enemy."
"What do you mean?"
"Back at the mall, when I kissed you to avoid being caught by Rumlow and his team, I felt awful—"
"It was awful?" Seren felt her heart hurt a bit. "The kiss was bad?"
"No, no, kissing you would never be awful," Steve said gently. "But you weren't completely free of the morphine's effect and it's just the whole idea of using our relationship like a strategy, it-it made me feel horrible. Like I was taking advantage of you."
"You weren't," Seren said loud and clear for him to understand. "Just like you want me to believe that you love me, I need you to believe me when I say that I trust you with my whole life. I would never think that you're taking advantage of me in any kind of way. I know I'm basically acting like the Grinch right now but you know that it has nothing to do with you. It's just...it's very hard being in this position. SHIELD just taught me that...you know...I'm the powerful one, I'm the one who can take the punch or even the bomb..."
Steve nodded with each of her words, silently growing even more resentful of SHIELD. "Look, I'm not going to lie to you — you know I would never. Yes, you can probably take on all of that stuff but just because you can, doesn't mean you always have to take it. I can take some of that weight off you, okay? That's the thing about being partners — whether it's on a team or...something else," he dipped down to give her a small kiss on the lips. "We said 50/50 so let me honor that. Let me help you learn what's taken me forever to learn: that not everything is on you."
"How do you do that?" Seren asked in a quiet whisper.
"Mm, with a lot of patience, mistakes, support, and time."
"Oh, so virtually nothing then..."
Steve laughed lightly. "Right. So, how about we do this. You stay here with Chloe, keep her company because I bet she is freaking out more than she is telling any of us. I think she still hasn't forgiven herself for what happened to you and she really needs to have you around. Talk to her, keep an eye on her, until we get back."
"You will come back here so we can plan together, right?"
"I promise you, sweetheart. I will come back."
Seren firmly believed in his word and that was the only reason she let him go.
~ 0 ~
Chloe had not actually eaten much since arriving to Sam's house and once it was just her and Seren, she felt like she needed to do something to occupy herself. Seren walked in on her eating avocado toast.
"Good, you're eating." Seren grabbed a seat at the table and left the cellphone Natasha had stolen on the table between them. "Steve said he would call when they were on their way back. All we gotta do is wait now."
Chloe nodded silently and continued to chew. Seren felt like before she said anything else, she had to make sure that she was capable of talking without getting angry. Lately, all she felt was anger and that was not the person she wanted to be. At the same time, though, a little voice in the back of her head told her that she was indeed allowed to be angry. She always restrained herself from feeling too much for the sake of identity and then later on because of her missions.
In all of Seren's thoughts, she missed the blue glow in Chloe's eyes. Chloe lowered her half eaten toast and swallowed what was in her mouth. "It's okay to be angry, Seren. I sure am."
Seren blinked out of her daze and immediately ducked her head. "I'm not angry with you, Chloe."
"You should be. I put everyone in danger. All because I thought I was the smart big girl in the team. Turns out I'm just the fucking baby."
"You're not," Seren said, "And that's exactly what SHIELD — HYDRA — wants you to believe. Makes for an easier target. I would know. I did take endless courses on strategies with them. I guess HYDRA was useful for something, right?"
Chloe stopped eating and stared at Seren until they both let out small, sour chuckles.
"Wow, we're one lucky duo," Chloe said in the end. Seren hummed. "If I had ever known that this is what SHIELD — HYDRA..." SHIELD was HYDRA and they had to get that through their heads now. The two were synonymous. "If I had ever known what they were planning, I would have...I would have—"
"You would have done anything to make sure this never happened." Seren reached for one of Chloe's hands on the table. "I know that, Chloe. I know my head's been all fuzzy these days but I do remember who you are. How could I not? I trained you for years. And so this should go without saying but you know that I could never hate you, right?"
Chloe looked down at her lap. "You honestly should."
"Chloe—"
"I should have told you what was going on from the start! I should have never listened to Fury. I-I should have — you were my mentor. I should've trusted you more and, who knows, maybe this really would have been avoided."
"We don't know that," Seren said. "I bet not even the Hive Mind knew it. As much as someone knows it all, there are always things that slip."
"Do you think Atria knew any of this?" Chloe asked. "She's always known about the Hive Mind but what about HYDRA?"
"I don't know," Seren shrugged lightly. "My grandmother is a seer, yeah, but she doesn't see everything and even when she does, it changes. She always tells me how much my own life has changed in her visions." She cleared her throat, squeezing Chloe's hand. "When I first talked to my grandmother about Steve — when I was being requested to help him adjust — I told her that I felt like trouble was coming. Not because of him, but just things that were going to come. And even then she told me that I was basically right but she had no idea what it was. That's the thing about seeing the future — it always changes. I can't tell you how many times I asked my grandmother growing up what my life would look like."
"Did she answer them?" Chloe knew that Atria was always vague with answers about someone's personal future. She figured it was because of some "seer rules" or whatever.
Seren sighed quietly. She pulled her hand off of Chloe's and leaned back in her chair. "She said that my future constantly changes. Sometimes she was nice enough to tell me that I survived—"
"Wow, wonderful," Chloe shook her head.
"Other times she would tell me that I got a new job away from SHIELD or that I would always work as an agent and sometimes she would say that I would get to have a family in this crazy world...course I didn't believe her on that one," Seren waved it off with a hand.
"Well, maybe she wasn't wrong about that one," Chloe flashed her a smile. "I know Natasha and I have been making a lot of jokes about it but we're happy about you and Steve. I'm very happy for you. You deserve to be with someone who knows how special you are."
Seren smiled as a faint blush crept over her cheeks. She felt silly talking about having a boyfriend, especially given the circumstances they were in.
"Hey," Chloe tapped Seren's hand until she got the ginger to look at her again, "You deserve it, alright? And when you're all nice and married and with super babies I" — she gestured to herself — "will be happy to remind you that you deserve all of it. And I will be the first godmother. Natasha can suck it."
"Chloe..." Seren laughed with her head thrown back.
~ 0 ~
As Steve promised, he returned to Sam's place with Natasha and Sam, along with a brand new pair of 'wings'. This time, the team got together to plan their next move. It was agreed, albeit reluctantly, that everyone would be moving out this time. With Sam's help, acquiring Sitwell wasn't difficult. Nobody was looking for him and so he was the right man to give a call to Sitwell, using the group's stolen cellphone, and lure him away from the crowds.
As soon as Sam got him to walk to the second street, Sitwell bumped into none other than Seren, who immediately grabbed him by his arm.
"If you even think about trying anything, I will blow you up," she warned him.
"Let's go," Sam pushed him forwards and together, they brought Sitwell to a more secluded building.
Steve was waiting for them right at the entrance and seized Sitwell much like Seren had. Chloe and Natasha were waiting for them at the rooftop, the former using the Hive Mind to ensure that they would be successful.
Steve didn't hesitate to shove Sitwell forwards as soon as they were on the rooftop. Now that they were close to answers, his patience had lowered dangerously.
"Tell us about Zola's algorithm!" he demanded.
Sitwell stumbled to pick himself up from the ground, but even then he managed to spit out an answer. "Never heard of it!"
Seren fired a star bolt directly beside his body. "Want to try that again?" She raised an eyebrow at him, her fist glowing again.
Sitwell swallowed hard. "I-I don't know! I don't—"
"What were you doing on the Lemurian Star?" Steve asked.
"I was throwing up, I get seasick!"
"Oh, wrong answer again," Seren readied her hands to fire again. Steve forced him to the edge of the rooftop. Chloe and Natasha came on either side of them.
Sitwell smiled at the group, but more specifically at Seren and Steve. "Okay, seriously, I know that you—" he gave a disdainful stare at Seren who narrowed her eyes at him in return, "—aren't going to fire anymore. And you're—" his eyes shifted towards Steve, "—not going to throw me off the roof. It's really not your styles."
The energy around Seren's hands died. She glanced at Steve with an innocent look on her face. He nodded with her. "Yeah, you're right. It's not ours."
"Not even mine," lamented Chloe before she smirked. "But it's definitely hers," she jerked a thumb at Natasha.
Sitwell barely had a second to blink before Natasha came forwards and kicked him off the roof. Chloe came to edge with the others to peer down. "You think Sam would let me take those things out for a drive?" It was like a domino chain the way Seren, Steve and Natasha looked at her. "What? I could do it!"
Sam flew up from the side of the building with Sitwell in his grip until he threw him back on the rooftop. Sam came to a much better, almost graceful, landing with his metal wings on his back.
Sitwell knew better than to antagonize the group again so now when they started for him, he raised his hands in defeat. " Zola's algorithm is a program...for choosing Insight's targets!"
"What targets?" demanded Steve.
"You! A TV anchor in Cairo, the Undersecretary of Defense, a high school valedictorian in Iowa city." Seeing none of them were understanding the point of the targets, Sitwell then added, "Bruce Banner, Stephen Strange, the Serpent—anyone who's a threat to HYDRA! Now, or in the future!"
"So basically all of us," Seren looked at the group.
"How could it know the future?" Chloe asked, leading Sitwell to laugh.
Sitwell laughed at her. "How could it not? The 21st century is a digital book. Zola taught HYDRA how to read it."
"Read what?" Natasha frowned. There was no way the future could be predicted by a machine.
"Your bank records, medical histories, voting patterns, e-mails, phone calls, your damn SAT scores. Zola's algorithm evaluates people's past to predict their future."
"And then what?" Steve's question flew right over Sitwell's head once the fear settled in him again.
"Oh, my God. Pierce is gonna kill me!"
"What then!?" Steve snapped.
"Then the Insight Helicarriers scratch people off the list. A few million at a time!"
It was then that Chloe felt another jab to her head. She saw a rush of images that, if she was seeing correctly, described exactly what Sitwell was talking about.
Run, run, run! You'll be there!
She swallowed hard. She couldn't be there...
~ 0 ~
Acquiring yet another stolen car was something to note for another day but this time neither Chloe nor Natasha had a comment in mind. Chloe had her mind yelling again and it wasn't anything to do with their cramped car ride. It was accompanied by a feeling of dread that no matter what she did, she couldn't shake it off.
Seren had noticed the expressions on Chloe's face and the obvious discomfort she was in. It didn't take rocket science to figure out what was going on. 'Chloe, what is the Hive Mind saying?"
"I don't know, I don't want to listen," Chloe screwed her eyes shut. She wished she could bury her head into something just to make it all quiet.
"I said it before Chloe that this might be the problem." Unlike before though, Seren was careful to be more gentle than the last time she talked about this. "You're so used to the silence that now that they want to say something useful, you don't trust them. If they're talking to you, it's for a reason."
"I don't mean to rush but Insight's launching in sixteen hours, we're cutting it a little bit close here," Natasha said from the front seat. "They wouldn't happen to be whispering something about that, would they?"
"Whispering?" Chloe snorted. "They're on a damn megaphone right now!"
"They said it would be active now." Sitwell had also been staring at her ever since she started making faces.
Steve could see the fascination in the man's eyes and as much as he wanted to shut it down, the chances of getting answers about the Hive Mind was much too big to let go. "What do you know about it? Was this your assignment too?"
"No..." Sitwell said, "Only the higher ranks knew all of the details."
"But let me guess, you've been climbing said ranks," Seren said tartly. "What do you know?"
"Hydra lost one of the pieces years ago," Sitwell answered out of sheer fear as Seren's eyes flamed orange. "The dormant piece can't be activated until they have the other."
"There's two of these things!?" Chloe let her head fall against Seren's shoulders. The fear multiplied instantly. "This whole time there's been two pieces out there?"
"What do you need two pieces for?" Steve found himself asking. If one piece allowed Chloe to connect to an alien hive mind, what would the second one allow her to do?
"Forget it!" Chloe exclaimed.
"Chloe—"
"I'm not letting another one of those come anywhere near me!"
"Chloe, shut up for a moment!" Seren wasn't the one to snap but in this case, she had to. "I get that it's not something you want to talk about but don't you see? There's way more to this than we know of and we need to know everything if we want to defeat it!"
Chloe still looked very unconvinced with the idea. Her worst nightmare was coming to life. It was—
A loud screeching noise pierced through her head like it was ripping her apart. Chloe screamed and clutched her head, squeezing her eyes shut.
"Chloe!" Seren panicked, along with the others who turned their heads towards Chloe. "What is it!? What's—"
Chloe could barely hear anything as the noise in her head got louder and louder. It was the Hive Mind yelling at her only this time it sounded like all of them were uniting to scream at her. The mixture of voices and words made it difficult to understand but she did get one word out of the whole thing: coming.
Sam could only crane his neck so much to see Chloe while he drove. "Alright, I'm gonna pull over!" He had only just turned the turn signal when something hard landed on top of the car. "What's—"
A silver metal hand plunged through Sitwell's window and pulled him out.
BULLETS ABOVE!
As painful as it was, Chloe threw her hands above her and summoned a blue shield just as a series of bullets struck down.
"SAM!" Steve yelled over the commotion. He had grabbed Seren on instinct but she wanted to do the same to Chloe. "BRAKE! PULL THE BRAKES!"
Sam was taken by surprise as was everyone else but his instincts kicked back in and pulled the brakes. With the sudden stop of the car, they knocked down whatever was on top of the car.
The blue shield disappeared as Chloe lowered her hands. "I heard them — they were t-telling me a-about the b..."
Steve looked ahead into the highway and recognized the shooter as the same man he chased down the night that Fury died. "Natasha...?" Because right now, only she would be able to confirm what he saw.
The redhead nodded fervently. "That's him. The Winter Soldier."
Chloe looked as well and gasped. "The Ghost," she whispered. She had never seen him face to face and even now when he was a decent distance ahead of them, he was a virtual stranger...and yet she knew that was not true. She could never prove it but she knew that he had been with her for a while. Her breath shuddered.
They're here, came the Hive Mind's final warning.
"They're here," Chloe repeated the warning on the verge of tears.
A car from behind smashed into theirs, pushing them all the way to the Winter Soldier and gave him the perfect opportunity to climb back on top of their car. Even as Sam took control again and drove as fast as he could, the Winter Soldier easily smashed through the windscreen and pulled out the steering wheel.
"Shit!" Sam threw his hands up in the air.
Natasha scrambled for her gun near her feet and started firing up above until the Winter Soldier jumped off.
"We need to get out of here!" Seren exclaimed. She glanced back as the same car came towards them, now with the Winter Soldier hanging onto it from the side.
It crashed into them again, forcing their car up against the side of the highway. The car was on its last because even as it managed to pull itself off the highway wall, it started tilting.
Chloe yelped with another jab in her head. "Not now! Go away!"
"No, listen to it, Chloe!" Seren yelled at her. "Just listen to it!"
"But—"
"I SAID DO IT!"
Chloe deliberated for another second before finally listening and given in. She screwed her eyes shut and tried her best to focus on the overlapping whispers. Edge of the road! Edge of the road! Sky and the shield!
Chloe's eyes snapped open. "Seren, FLY!" she yelled.
Seren had a second to frown. "What—" The car behind them took their own towards the edge of the road. If they did, they would plummet to their deaths.
"Seren, just fly! Steve, the shield!" Chloe was frantically shouting at the pair. "That's what they're saying!"
Steve wasn't a fan of letting Seren dive for the sky on her own but they weren't exactly getting further from the other edge. Seren nodded at him, they had to split for a few minutes.
"I'll go first, give you the space you need," she said, grabbing Chloe's closest arm.
"Be careful!" Steve started regretting all of his life choices knowing he would have to let Seren actually start fighting again.
Seren could practically read his mind at this point. She gave him a quick kiss on the lips. "We'll be okay." She then told Chloe to hold on and flew them through the rooftop of the car.
"I really don't like being this high up!" Chloe would've shut her eyes if the men down below weren't getting ready to shoot them down.
"Hang on!" Steve called to Natasha and Sam as he moved towards the middle and reached for both of them. He broke the door open and pulled them out with him, all landing over his shield but still on the highway.
Seren held Chloe tightly and dove down below the highway until they landed on a street. She let Chloe go to a safe spot then looked around for the others. They both flinched when they heard the start of bullets.
"They're going to kill us if they get the chance," Seren muttered.
Chloe was a breathing mess as she gazed up at the highway. "Seren, they're here for — they're going to—" She swallowed hard, biting down on her bottom lip enough to feel a slight taste of blood.
"Breathe, Chloe!" Seren gave her a shake. Chloe tried to listen, she really did. Seren was a strategist; for better or for worse SHIELD and HYDRA prepared her for the worst of situations. "Now you listen to me! The Hive Mind is on your" — Seren pointed at Chloe — "side! They're helping you so please, for the love of God, listen to them!"
Explosion!
"Explosion!" Chloe blurted and just as Seren reacted, they heard a huge explosion from above. A few seconds, Seren felt her heart in her throat watching Steve fall from the highway.
"NO!" Seren flew directly to him, which was an overturned bus.
Meanwhile, Natasha and Sam were still up on the highway avoiding the bullets. That's what Chloe heard, and knew what would happen if she didn't at least try to intervene.
She shook her hands, and her entire body for that matter. "I gotta...I gotta do it..." And so, before she chickened out, she shot her blue energy and flew through the air until she was on the highway again. With glowing blue eyes and blue streaks running through her skin, she fired at the shooters. It gave Sam the perfect cover to run.
Natasha had gone in the other direction and now had the Winter Soldier personally firing at her until one was so strong that it caused a car to explode and knock Natasha over the highway.
"NATASHA!" she cried but the redhead had already gone down. She set her eyes on the culprit— the Winter Soldier who prepared to shoot again. "GET AWAY FROM HER!" She thrust both her hands and shot the Winter Solider square in the chest, throwing him across the highway.
He landed next to their car and leaned his head back, revealing his cracked goggles. He ripped them off his eyes and pulled himself up. When he did, he saw a pair of agents taking aim at Chloe who jumped down the highway again. In one swift move, he de-armed the two and took one of the guns for himself. "Eliminate the others, the blonde girl is mine," he spoke to them in Russian. Those were the orders, after all.
He jumped off the highway, landing on top of an abandoned car in the street then strode off it.
Meanwhile, inside the bus, Seren was hurrying the civilians out. She kept glancing over her shoulder to make sure Steve was getting better. He was groggy from the harsh landing and try as he might, he couldn't quite get his legs working just yet.
"Go, go, go!" Seren yelled at the civilians. She had just peeked out the broken windshield and saw more HYDRA agents jumping down from the highway. She turned back to Steve, hollering for him to get up. "We gotta go! We gotta go!" she only made halfway to him when the bullets started.
She could have panicked — and she did — but the anger in her won over the concern and so she broke through the bus, flying into the air and started firing her own kind of bullets at the men. She took them down one by one with her star matter without a care for the kind of injury she was causing. She was done. If SHIELD — HYDRA — wanted to treat her and her friends like the enemy, then she would make herself a proper enemy and fight back accordingly.
Steve broke out through the other end of the bus and swiped his shield off the ground, using it to block the incoming bullets. He heard Seren above and looked up seconds before she flew past him and rammed her fist on a shooter's face.
Up above, Sam had managed to surprise the last agents about to go down from the highway. He knocked the agent over and kept the gun. He started taking aim on the other agents currently shooting at the others on the street.
"Go! I got this!" he yelled down at Steve who seemed reluctant to leave him up there.
"Steve!" called Seren. "Chloe and Natasha!?"
Steve spun around trying to find the two women and panicked when he couldn't spot them so easily. There were people still running around and overturned cars left lying about. Smoke billowed practically everywhere.
In truth, the Winter Soldier had followed Natasha's voice towards a car parked on the side. He knew Chloe was somewhere close to her and so to get to her, he had to get rid of the redhead. He rolled a bomb on the ground that went right under the car where Natasha was supposed to be. When it exploded, however, there was no body to be found. Then suddenly, Natasha jumped from behind onto his back. Her legs wrapped around his shoulders as she dropped a tight metal string in front of his neck and yanked it back. The momentum lasted only for a few seconds before he threw her over a car. He was about to shoot when she flung a small disk that fell on his metal arm. It sparked within the second, forcing him to stop and try to peel it off him. It gave Natasha the perfect chance to run. It took him a few minutes but he was able to get the device off him and go after her.
"Get out of the way!" Natasha shouted at the civilians still around them. "Stay out of the way—" She nearly fell face first when a bullet plummeted through her shoulder.
The Winter Soldier was ready to fire again when Chloe fell down behind and fired a psionic blast at his back. "RUN NATASHA!" she screamed and with glowing blue eyes continued to shoot more blasts.
Use the shield! Don't breathe!
"Huh?" Chloe abruptly stopped. In that same second, the Winter Soldier was back on his feet and threw a smaller sphere at Chloe's feet.
SHIELD YOURSELF!
Chloe didn't think twice and conjured a shield in front of her just as the sphere clicked open. It wasn't a bomb like the one thrown at Natasha, but instead sprayed something into the air.
Poison to make you sleep! Don't sleep! He'll take you!
Chloe's brows narrowed. So that was the plan, then? Make her sleep?
"Chloe!" she heard her name.
He's coming! Run! He's coming!
Chloe reacted and kicked the sphere to the side and made a run for it. She looked back and saw the Winter Solider chasing after her at an incredible speed. She wasn't going to outrun him.
Left, right, duck!
Not a second later, she heard a familiar blast and soon when she dove to the left, a star bolt swept past her. She dove to the right and another bolt narrowly missed her. She didn't think twice anymore about throwing herself on the ground to avoid the biggest star matter going over her head. Seren was right. I gotta listen to them. For whatever reason, the Hive Mind was helping her now and it was saving her life.
Up! Get up!
Chloe blinked again and looked back; the Winter Solider was still on his way.
Seren dropped down between them, her body glimmering with a hue of different colors. Chloe knew exactly what she was going to do when she saw Seren's star birthmarks glowing.
"Seren, don't—!" Chloe reached forwards, but it was too late.
Seren clapped her hands together and released her own version of a bomb — a star bomb. With more time, Seren developed a better grip on her biggest power and so she delivered it with flying colors (literally). The Winter Soldier barely had the moment to jump out of the way and even then, the explosion of the star bomb threw him across the street, straight into a car.
Chloe scrambled to her feet to help Seren stay on her feet now that the latter rocked. "You shouldn't have done that!"
Seren heard perfectly and waved Chloe off. She was too angry to be tired. Her eyes narrowed as they went in search of the Winter Soldier. She was not tired enough to stand down. The explosion left them with a thin cover of colorful smoke. Chloe used it to tug Seren towards a car to hide. The Hive Mind was buzzing that the Winter Soldier was coming back quick.
"C'mon, with Natasha, c'mon...he's going to...c'mon, Seren!"
Seren was pulling against Chloe; she wanted to keep fighting. The Winter Solider was emerging from the car now. He primed his gun, ready to take aim, when Steve threw his shield at him. Chloe now fully pulled Seren with her to find Natasha.
The Winter Soldier had enough strength to throw the shield back and very quickly Steve found that they were almost equal overall. He had a hard time keeping the shield up as the soldier pushed down. Eventually, the Winter Soldier rammed his foot into Steve's chest and sent him flying back. He forced Steve into hiding with never-ending bullets.
Chloe managed to get Seren with Natasha behind a car. It was the safest option they had right now.
"You both gotta stay here," she told them. Natasha's shoulder was bleeding profusely.
"I'm not staying down," frowned Seren. She winced at the sound of more glass shattering. Looking up from the car, she saw Steve and the soldier had turned each other over cars. Seren looked back and forth another minute or so. She winced again when Steve was thrown against a van. She almost lost it when the soldier struck the knife right at him. Steve had clasped his hands over the soldier's wrist and pushed against him as much as he could. The knife slid with him across the van and as Steve fell in the end, the soldier still went with him.
They went back hand-to-hand. It was the first moment in his life where Steve realized he was being matched and possibly out-matched. The soldier was incredibly strong and versatile. How was it possible? Steve had no idea and he didn't have the time to think. The knife came extremely close several times and as much as he fought, Steve just couldn't make it stop.
He managed to grab the soldier by his arm and threw him over. As he tumbled over, the last part of his mask hitting the ground with a crack and falling behind. When he stood and turned around, everything seemed to stop.
Panting, Steve forced himself to stay on his feet as he gazed up ahead at the Winter Soldier. "Bucky?" His mouth went dry as he began to consider it could be real.
Sam came in from above, with his wings, and landed down with Seren.
Seren and Chloe looked over the car to see the same thing.
"No fucking way," Chloe whispered with utter shock.
But even the soldier seemed frozen. And why wouldn't he be? Seventy years later and he was just now again hearing an actual name for him. More than that, his opponents seemed to know him. Nobody ever knew him. That was the whole point of his existence. He could never be caught because nobody knew him; nobody ever saw him coming. And yet that man, and even the two women by the car, looked at him with the same stupefied faces. His mind flashed with images that, as quickly as they came, slipped from him.
"Who the hell is Bucky?" He pulled out his last gun to shoot at Steve when a star bolt came his way.
Seren had climbed over the car, hands still glowing orange. Right or wrong, whoever it was, she wasn't going to let anybody shoot Steve.
Bucky took the bolt to his metal arm with a groan. At the same time, Sam came swooping in with his falcon wings and kicked Bucky further away from them.
Seren didn't hesitate to start firing more bolts from the top of the car. Cars exploded around Bucky, making it harder for him to try and retaliate. Only the sound of sirens broke through the chaos and even then Steve had to yell at Seren to stop completely.
"Go! Just go!" Steve was trying to get anyone — he would hope everyone — to flee before the rest of SHIELD (HYDRA) arrived for them. Knowing who was behind the mask, he couldn't dream of just running now.
Seren flatout ignored him and hopped off the car to where Chloe and Natasha were. "You need to get out of here, Chloe. Take Natasha too."
"What? No way!" Chloe frowned. "I'm not — no!"
Natasha clutched her injured shoulder and remained as adamant as Chloe. "I'm not going anywhere, Soul."
Several black cars sped into the area with Rumlow jumping out first. "Drop the shield, Cap! On your knees!" He came directly up to Steve. "Get on your knees! Now! Get down!"
"Seren — FLY!" Steve screamed at her as he put his hands up. She could easily fly before they got to her, and she could even take Chloe or Natasha. She could just fly—
Rumlow kicked one of Steve's legs, forcing him down on the ground. "Don't move!" Another agent neared them and kept Steve still under the threat of a gun to his head.
Up ahead, Sam was being put under the same position. Like Steve, he didn't fight anymore and put his hands up.
"Stand down, Soul!" Rumlow called and motioned to the helicopter up above them.
Steve looked back and saw Seren blocking the way to Chloe and Natasha, hands glowing and curled into fists with the threat of attack. More agents were swarming around them, each one taking aim on Seren.
"We're being watched," Rumlow warned. "One wrong move and you'll be in an even worse position than you already are."
Seren's eyes flickered up to the sky and sure enough, there was the newscast helicopter hovering above them. So they really don't want this public yet. That wasn't accidental; it was planned. What are they waiting for?
"NO! NO!" Chloe's scream broke through Seren's thoughts. Seren spun around, an agent had snuck up behind Chloe and Natasha, cuffing Chloe.
"Let her go!" Natasha went to fight but the same agent shoved her against the car.
"DON'T!" Seren drew back her fist only for someone to grab her from behind. "NO! LET GO!" With all her might, she thrashed against the agent and with her strength, it took several of them to bring her down.
Steve couldn't take the sight and tried to intervene. He felt the cool metal of the gun press even more against his skin.
The agents pinned Seren's wrists behind her back with familiar cuffs to keep her powerless. At the same time, Chloe was being dragged in the opposite direction from the group while Natasha was being pushed towards Seren.
"N-n-n-n-no, hold on!" Seren started struggling again. "Where are you taking her!? WHERE ARE YOU TAKING HER!? BRING HER BACK!"
Chloe fought against her captors and the Hive Mind screaming at her to make a run for it. She could barely hear anything besides them and she knew for a fact that Seren was screaming her name.
The Ghost is hurt. Prep. You'll be prepped too. Watch for the sedative!
Chloe's hands had just started to shine blue when an agent slammed a needle into her neck. Her mind slowed in seconds and with it, her limbs. She couldn't fight anymore and soon, she couldn't even keep her eyes open. As her eyes shut, she saw a streak of visions behind her eyelids. She only caught a few before she was gone.
A small silver tech piece, her showing Bucky her glowing blue hand, and then her palm burning.
~ 0 ~
Natasha and Sam were tied with regular bindings and forced on one side of the van while Seren and Steve, each uniquely restrained, were placed on the other side. Two agents joined them before the van would take off.
"It was him. He looked right at me like he didn't even know me." Steve had far too many thoughts about the encounter with Bucky to be able to explain everything word for word. He himself still couldn't believe it. Even now as he thought about it, every part of him wanted to think it was a lie. Bucky was alive? Couldn't be. Except that it was.
"How's that even possible?" Sam asked. "It was like seventy years ago."
That was the first thing that Steve wondered about too. Seventy years. Everyone he knew was dead, and the only way for that not to be possible is for some extraordinary thing to have happened. "Zola. Bucky's whole unit was captured in '43, Zola experimented on him. Whatever he did helped Bucky survive the fall. They must have found him and…"
"Don't even go there," Seren said quietly. She wore her own kind of somber face. "You couldn't have known anything." That may have been true but it didn't lessen the guilt Steve carried.
"Even when I had nothing, I had Bucky…"
"And you'll have him again," Seren said, turning her head in his direction. She wasn't at all exceptionally smart but she would do anything to help him get to Bucky again. There were countless times where Steve would tell her all about the crazy messes he and Bucky would get into before the war. Steve seemed so much happier just by talking about it. She had wished she could do more for him than just listen, and now she could. "I promise," she whispered to him.
Steve knew that she would too. "We're going to find Chloe," he promised her as well.
Seren nodded, albeit slowly. The thought that Chloe was in HYDRA's clutches was eating her up with guilt. She rested her head on Steve's shoulder and tried not to fall apart like she very much wanted to.
Sam glanced at Natasha who'd been quiet the whole way so far. She had her head leaning against the wall, her shoulders propped up. Her bullet wound was still untreated and, by the looks of it, blood was still oozing out. "We need to get a doctor here," he told the two silent agents, "We don't put pressure on that wound, she's gonna bleed out here in the truck.
There was a brief silence before one of the guards pulled out an electric rod, presumably to use against them, but then stuck it against the other agent's stomach. The others watched as the agent's body fell limp on the floor. The first agent then pulled their helmet off to reveal Maria Hill underneath.
"Ah. That thing was squeezing my brain," Maria shook her head and took the big breaths she'd been wanting for ages. She then noticed Sam's confused stare and promptly asked, "Who's this guy?"
Answers would be given later. The main priority for the moment was to escape there with their lives and figure out the rest later.
A/N:
If there is one thing I absolutely hate, it's writing fight scenes. You have no idea how long this chapter's been sitting in my drafts because I've been going back and re-editing what I've already edited. (and maybe some vacation delayed it too who knows lmao). I hope everything turned out well and I'm pretty happy that I was able to be sneaky and add in some seeds of the future here ;))
P.S. As always, I have an AO3/Wattpad account under "noblecrescent" and a tumblr account under "saiilorstars" if you'd like to follow :)