Chapter Thirty-Nine
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Holding Out For a Hero | Nothing But Thieves

The masked man raised his bow.

"Mia!" A fist closed around the front of my shirt, yanking me down and out of my seat. "Move! Now!"

Natasha practically dragged me out of the overturned car, heedless of the broken glass and metal all around. I was so dazed I didn't even feel any of it, still trying to make sense of what had just happened. The explosion, the crash, the freak attacking us — "W-what's going on? Who is that?"

My first thought was that, somehow, Ross had found us, and for whatever reason sent some kind of mercenary after us first. That, or Zemo, somehow finding influence beyond his cage.

"He's —" Natasha was interrupted by the arrow hitting its mark. The car exploded again, sending us reeling away. "Taskmaster! A hitman, I've encountered him before, with Barton —" She still had a grip on my shirt, I was nearly bent in half as she hauled me after her, behind the wreckage of the vehicle, and nearly threw me to the ground. "Stay here!"

"What?!" I gasped, grabbing Natasha's arm before she could just leave me there. "No way! I can help!"

"Absolutely not!" Natasha shook off my grip, or tried to. When that failed, she dropped down to one knee, meeting me at eye level. Her face already had a great ashen smear on one side and bleeding scraps on the other. Her hand snapped up to grab my chin, hard, so I couldn't look away. "You do not engage with this guy, understand?"

"What, is he enhanced? Got death vision?"

"As far as I know, he's only human," Natasha told me, her gaze unwavering, boring deep holes through my eyes and into my skull. She spoke with urgency, "But he can memorize every move-set, every fighting style and type of attack. Just by watching them, seeing it only once. He studies people for a living. He's a master of every form of martial arts, all modern weaponry — and some not-so-modern, thanks to Clint. There is nothing he can't learn. And he is not learning from you."

I gaped, baffled. "What's there to learn from me?"

Natasha glared back, as if I were stupid. "There are very few killers he hasn't managed to observe in action. The Winter Soldier is one of them. And until very recently, he never had a student."

With that, she tilted her head and raised an eyebrow, to emphasize the unsaid.

Finally, it hit me. My heart dropped into my stomach. Normal or no, there was no way I (or Dad) wanted anyone else to know how to do what we could do. How much deadlier Taskmaster could become.

My voice went very small. "Oh."

"'Oh' is right," Natasha's mouth set into a grim line, not even flinching as another arrow flew overhead and exploded some thirty feet down the bridge. Taskmaster, trying to scare us out of hiding. I could hear his footsteps getting closer. "You stay out of this fight. He nearly killed Clint the last time we met. I'm not taking that chance again."

"But who sent him?" I called after her. "Who wants us dead?"

"Let's be honest," Natasha said, her voice already getting fainter. "The list is long!"

The final word was punctuated by a grunt, then the sound of crunching metal. I flinched as what sounded like Natasha taking a heavy blow, the scuff of boots, a body hitting the ground — pulling further away, I realized after a moment, daring to peek out from my shelter to catch a glimpse of what was going on.

I watched, in stunned amazement, as Nat attempted to throw her legs around the Taskmaster's neck — a classic Black Widow move — only for him to throw her off and do the exact same to her, somehow managing the same grace and speed despite his larger body, all that thick Kevlar coating his body. She went down hard, hard enough that I almost jumped out of my hiding spot. But then Natasha was rolling, back on her feet again, whipping out a gun I didn't know she had.

The bullets hit dead on, but didn't pierce Taskmaster's chest. None of Natasha's hits seemed to do any good through all that protective padding. She had at least managed to disarm him of his bow, but the quiver full of trick arrows remained.

Taskmaster whipped one out, this one with a canister attached. He didn't need to fire it to activate the device, emitting a strange smoke that Natasha kicked out of his hand, away from us. But with the wind carrying it, I could even feel the stinging effect of the smoke, even when it dissipated.

Natasha was out of bullets, and if she had extra magazines they were probably still in the Jeep. Then it was just fists and knives and Taskmaster throwing her to the ground, again and again. He was so much bigger than her.

And I was bigger than him. Well, maybe only taller. But still.

"Long time no see," Natasha snarled, as she tried to snatch the mask off his face, only for Taskmaster to grab her wrist and swing her aside. "I didn't think this was Ross' jurisdiction!"

"Come on, now, Nat," The Taskmaster said, but in a voice I found horribly familiar. "You know me better than that — I'd never take Ross' money."

That was Clint's voice. So real and uncanny that for a moment, I wondered if it was actually Clint Barton himself behind that mask — but reason took hold, and I knew it wasn't. Taskmaster was bigger than Clint, and taller, with different proportions (broader shoulders, longer legs), enough that it couldn't be faked. Even if he could fire a bow with the exact same movements, it was still happening on a bigger body with a different frame.

Judging by the way Natasha reeled at that, she wasn't expecting it either. Not fooled, as she immediately went back on the attack, but her footing was slightly off, disoriented by the voice as Taskmaster grabbed her by the throat and slammed her to the ground. In a new voice — Steve's voice, exaggerated with the proud affect of a patriot — he said, "Where's your team, Widow? What happened to all your friends? Betray them again, so soon?"

"Cute party trick," she spat at him, with a wicked smile, while her legs kicked, trying to find purchase as she choked. "Is that a voice changer, or are you just happy to see me?"

"Coy little Natasha," Taskmaster said, still in Steve's voice, now with an edge of malice that didn't match the original at all. "Who in their right mind would call you a hero?"

Natasha's face had gone pale, before she finally stabbed something into the top of his hand, forcing him to release her.

I leaned forward, then stopped myself, gritting my teeth. If Taskmaster really could memorize anything he saw, then I'd be an open book. And I was nowhere near as good as Dad. It was not a comforting thought.

Somehow, Natasha kept getting back up, trying to carry him further away from the Jeep, from me. If only I could help her somehow.

I scanned the area, figuring maybe I could toss her something to help. With the two of them on the other side of the bridge, I could lean a little forward on this side of the vehicle to peer inside, but it was such a wreckage that I doubt I could find anything useful if it remained.

But my shield — it still had to be here. I vaguely remembered it busting through the windshield upon final impact. Man, I sure hope it didn't fly off the bridge —

There! My shield, still covered in its canvas, lay on the ground just a few feet beyond the passenger window. I was surprised no one had picked it up, but maybe Taskmaster hadn't realized what it was yet. And the longer it sat there, just out in the open, the more I feared he might notice it and try to take advantage of its presence.

He definitely didn't need a vibranium shield, either. How easy would it be to find footage of Captain America, and figure out how to use one like he did? Taskmaster probably already had Steve mentally downloaded or whatever.

Hoping Natasha had him sufficiently distracted, I laid forward on my stomach and started army crawling towards it, keeping as low a profile as possible. Broken glass and debris cut into my clothes and into my skin, but I ignored it, crossing that ten feet as quickly as I could, as silently as I could.

The shield wasn't the only thing that had fallen out from the car. From the passenger window had also spilled Natasha's various letters and packages. I hadn't gotten a good look at them all, and now most of it was charred and/or wet from the road. Except for one — a metal box that had burst from its packaging, now cracked open. It wasn't very big, only slightly smaller than a shoebox, and the kind of thing with foam padding inside, to store delicate equipment.

…Equipment with a freaky red glow inside?

"Mia!" Natasha's sudden shout jolted me.

Crack! A bullet landed in the ground a few inches from me, spitting concrete into my face. I yelped, suddenly remembered my task, and lunged for the shield.

I had it up just in time to block the following two bullets. Taskmaster, with his own gun, firing at me uselessly as I curled up behind the shield, fully protected. Memorize that, asshole.

"Mia!" Natasha's shout echoed again, both alarmed and reproachful. "I told you —" She struck Taskmaster across the face while he was still turned towards me. "— To stay —" punched him again, he stumbled back "—out of it!"

She punched him a third time, Taskmaster dropping to one knee, before finally facing her again as Natasha climbed onto his back.

She had the garrote around his throat, but it appeared he was armored literally up to the neck, and the metal wire couldn't cut past it. Still, Natasha pulled back as hard as she could, throwing both of them on their backs to the ground, wrestling against each other. Natasha whipped her head around to glare at me as I scrambled to my feet, snarling, "Get back there!"

Feeling like a bad dog that just got her nose swatted with a newspaper, I scowled and made to move back, and only saw the object Taskmaster lobbed at me at the last second.

It arced through the air, and I spotted the little red blinking light just in time.

Alarmed, I threw up my shield, swinging it up and away from me like I was trying to intercept a tennis throw. The little ball grenade bounced off the shield, away from me.

And exploded.

The shield protected me from the worst of the flames and heat, but not the concussive blast itself. It knocked me off my feet, slamming me backwards into the Jeep behind me.

I felt something cut into my side, the sharp edges of the broken side view mirror. I bounced off and hit the ground with barely the time to protect my face from the broken glass.

Ears ringing, I tried to recover quickly, but was disoriented and dizzy. Not knowing where my legs were, I accidentally kicked some of the debris as I tried to get back to my feet, and saw that box from before skidding across the road.

This time, its lid was open.

My initial impression was that maybe it was a camera or something that had been accidentally turned on in all the tumult. But as I crouched and dragged it back to myself, what I found was not any kind of camera or tech at all. Just a bundle of small vials, tied together with an elastic, the liquid inside the source of the glow.

Hm. Weird.

Then I heard rushing footsteps, coming straight towards me.

Kicking the box aside, I launched to my feet again, just in time to see Taskmaster, with a sword, slashing towards my neck.

I ducked just in time, then hopped away out of reach from the next swipe, feeling the air whistle as the edge of the blade tore a few threads from the front of my shirt. Holy shit that was close —

There was no time to think, not when Taskmaster wielded what appeared to be an actual katana, two feet long with a single edge, and very sharp.

He thrust forward and I spun sideways to avoid it, the following blow skimming across my shield, and the next went under and nearly severed my arm had I not pulled away fast enough.

A thin sheet of blood slipped down my wrist were the tip of the blade had grazed my skin.

He followed it up with a thrown fist, which I managed to block with my shield. I heard a nasty crack of bone; Taskmaster grunted and recoiled, injured fist to his chest.

Over the edge of my shield, I smirked, deciding he was probably more human than not after all.

That skull mask whipped back towards me, its black eyes empty and merciless. "You'll regret being here."

That didn't sound like anyone I recognized — his real voice, I realized.

"Hmm, no, I don't think so," I said, making a face; I could already think of several other places I'd hate to be in right now. This was not one of them.

Taskmaster tilted his head, appearing unamused. He raised his sword, pointing it at me. "This isn't about you. You could've run, girl."

His voice sounded low and gravelly, definitely male, definitely pissed. Mature, forties, maybe? Definitely American, or at least a convincing accent. But still not mimicking anyone. It took me a moment to roll that over in my head, coming to the conclusion that he had no one to mimic for me, because he had no idea who I was.

"What, didn't account for this variable?" I asked, daring to push the matter and wondering where the hell Natasha was. I couldn't see her from this angle, the Jeep was now behind Taskmaster in front of me, and I had no idea if she was hurt or dead or what. But I wasn't going to take my eyes off of him.

"No," He growled. "I just won't get paid extra for you."

"Bummer." Was all I could think to say before he swung at my head again.

It took everything I had not to fight back against him. To just keep dodging and weaving, either avoiding his blows or blocking them without any further handiwork. Every instinct screamed at me to pull the knife from my boot and just go to town, even against a katana I knew I could push an advantage — but Natasha's words kept coming back to me.

I earned more than a few cuts and bruises for my troubles. One across my cheek from where he got lucky and struck me in the face, and various tiny nicks and cuts from the sword when it got too close.

Taskmaster laughed without humor as I danced around his blade. "You got skills, girl. I can tell by your footwork!"

"Ew, stop looking at my feet, you weirdo!" My witty comebacks manifested in three different ways: lame, childish, or both.

He snarled in frustration, a surprising sound, almost entertaining, and his next slash came in hard and fast, the reckless move of a man who was sick and tired of hacking at a tree that wouldn't stand still. "Just fight back, dammit!"

"Make me!" I said, raising up the shield with both hands in a manner I've never used before to deflect a blow — anything I could do to throw off whatever observation skills he was using on me at this moment. Footwork? Really? Was that enough to screw me over?

"MIA! What are you doing?" Natasha looked utterly beside herself, furious as she ran straight towards us. "

"You said not to engage!" I shouted back, feeling very at a loss here with Taskmaster delivering alternating blows between my shield and my body. "What else am I supposed to do!"

Taskmaster laughed now, turning to face Natasha as she came in like a ballistic missile. Just like that, he reverted to Clint's voice and said, "Oh, 'Talia, so glad you could join us! Hope I didn't leave you hanging back there."

She came in hard with a metal rod that must have been from the wreckage, a blow Taskmaster deflected with a swipe of his hand. "And just when I thought I finally had the both of you out of the way…"

I backed away as fast as I could, trying to do my best to follow Nat's orders — as helpless as it made me feel, to watch him knock her down again and again. It was like he knew what she was going to do before she did it, each strike I saw coming he parried or intercepted, turning back on her in every worse way. A punch came back to her gut, another to her knee, nearly downing her.

"Natasha, let me help!" I said, and barely resisted the urge to throw my shield. He'd probably know that move, considering who I learned it from.

"No!" Natasha called, even as Taskmaster delivered a brutal kick to her side. Her lip and her nose were seeping blood, throat bruised, her jeans torn at the knees, knuckles broken and bleeding, and that's not counting whatever other injuries were hidden beneath her clothes. "You stay there, Mia!"

Taskmaster laughed again, clearly enjoying himself in another man's voice, as he sent Natasha flying back with a powerful backhanded fist across her face. She flew back and hit the ground in a hard roll, coming to a crumpled stop. She didn't even have her gauntlets, not that they might've helped much in this instance, not against him.

He stepped back, studying her for a moment, then me — before turning his back on both of us, and walking towards the burning Jeep.

I stood there, aghast.

Then I ran towards Natasha.

I didn't know why Taskmaster wasn't finishing the job on either of us; but he'd accurately judged I wouldn't go after him, and thus wasn't a threat. Not in the usual way, at least.

"Nat!" I gasped, kneeling down next to her. A hand on her shoulder, and Natasha rolled over, coughing and wheezing as she caught her breath. "Are you okay?"

"Not really," she rasped, her eyes squeezing shut for a moment. Then she looked over, frowning as Taskmaster approached the vehicle, ignoring both of us. "What is he…"

"I don't know," I said, though perhaps I had an inkling. "I have this, though."

With that, I held out my hand to her, opening it to reveal the grappling hook I had taken from the car. There wasn't much in there I could pocket, but this was one of them. Why she kept it in her car was beyond me.

Natasha's eyes widened, and she looked back up at me, just the tiniest flicker of approval in those green eyes. "Clever girl."

She pushed gently on my shoulder, a wordless order that I understood, and I scrambled away as she fiddled with the grappling hook. Still lying on the ground, she rolled over and once at Taskmaster, and then up towards the bridge's support beams.

Taskmaster still had his back towards us, had only just turned to see what had struck him, when the grappling hook activated and launched him back and up into the bridge's scaffolding.

"Go!" Natasha called, and I quickly overtook her as she ran back towards the Jeep and whatever it was he was interested in. A hitman called in for a job, where the priority wasn't killing either of us? Someone who wasn't Ross?

And she found what I had seen earlier, the strange metal box. But as I waited on the other side of the Jeep, eyeing the vehicle Taskmaster came in, wondering if we could steal that one instead — Natasha let out a sound of dismay as she upended the box and found nothing.

There was no time for her to look and scan the wreckage. Not when Taskmaster came swinging back, in a manner I found truly alarming, sword angled down to catch Natasha just as she was rising to her feet.

I dived in just in time to tackle Natasha to the ground. It didn't occur to me to shout at her instead, with the possibility it would only distract her and make things worse. Taskmaster's blade struck the Jeep instead, sheering off what was left the side view mirror in one superfine clean cut.

Yikes.

Taskmaster dropped to the ground, metal armor gleaming in the golden morning light, the sun just starting to peek from the horizon. It cast his mask in a ghoulish glow. "You just don't stay down, do you, Romanoff?"

Fury's voice, this time.

"You should know when you're beat."

The next few moments were quick — as I ducked around Taskmaster's first strike, which he seemed to anticipate, slipping past me straight for Natasha — she wound back and threw up my backpack from inside the vehicle, letting it swing wildly around the katana and using the strap to yank the whole thing out of Taskmaster's hand.

The blade went skittering against the Jeep, but Natasha's victory was short-lived. Even as she dropped the bag, Taskmaster quickly closed the remaining distance between them, pulling out a knife and striking in fast. Not in the way I had been taught, but one Natasha saw coming, her hands coming up around his wrist while his free hand went up around the back of her head, wrapping around her braid.

The dangerous tussle lasted a second at most, until Natasha found leverage, twisting the blade back until it fell out of Taskmaster's hand — who himself was distracted as I came in grabbing my backpack. He probably thought I was up to something, behind his back like that, and unintentionally I supposed I was — enough for Natasha to gain control of the dagger, use it to swipe the hand that had a hold of her hair and release her.

It lasted only moments.

Realizing I was only a distraction, Taskmaster grunted in anger and whipped around, grappling Natasha to slam her once, twice, three times into the side of the busted Jeep before pushing her back towards the edge of the bridge.

Natasha, dazed, could only stumble and try to keep her balance, unable to defend herself as Taskmaster came in and kicked her in the chest, sending her flying back —

And over the guardrail, disappearing off the side of the bridge.

"Natasha!" I called, horrified as she vanished with a cry. I ran to the edge, fast enough that when I looked over I just saw the splash of her impact, but no idea if she was still conscious. I didn't see her surface.

Heart pounding, I looked behind me, at Taskmaster who had gone back to retrieve his weapon. He turned to face me. His sword now hung at his side, splattered with blood.

"It's up to you how this next part goes, girl," He began. "We can make it easy or we can make it —"

I jumped off the bridge.

I hit the water hard. Having never mastered the dive and not being an especially experienced swimmer to begin with, water sports was still one of those things I had to work on — and a nicely maintained, temperature controlled chlorine community pool hardly compared to the deep water rapids of a Nordic fjord. The current was stronger than I realized, and it had already carried me a hundred feet before I finally managed to come up for air. Just once, quickly, hoping Taskmaster was too far away to see, before going under again.

I also never swam with my arms full of backpack and shield, which made things an awkward and fumbling affair, struggling to remain upright underwater as I tried to get both on my back so my arms could be free to direct myself towards shore.

I had to believe Natasha made it. There was no other option.

I scanned the shores quickly, but saw nothing. She wouldn't emerge this close to the bridge. So I pushed my head back under water, hoping to remain unseen and let the current take me further down the river, doing my best to ignore the bone-chilling coldness and the factual data of how long it took to be underwater before hypothermia set in — trying to calculate how that works with super soldier biology — before finally re-emerging when I caught a glimpse of movement beyond the waves in the growing morning light.

I popped my head out of the water, gasping and splashing around like a half-drowned animal, spotting a sopping wet head of red hair on the shore, on her hands and knees dragging herself out of the water.

With arms more powerful than I considered them to be, I managed to fight against the current and pull myself to shore, some fifty feet down from Natasha. Recovering faster from the cold and the cramping muscles, I stumbled through the muddy sand and rushed to her side. Natasha looked so much smaller somehow, as she used my body to stumble to her feet, her grip on my arm like cold steel.

"H-he wasn't after us," Natasha said through chattering teeth, as I helped her to dryer land. I might not have to worry about hypothermia, but Natasha definitely did. Russian or not. "It was something — something in that box. B-but it was empty! He's already got it!"

She was already cursing under her breath before I managed to say, "I don't think he did."

Natasha threw me a bewildered look, as I set her down on a large rock, letting her catch her breath as I withdrew the vials weighing down my jacket pocket. In the sunlight the glow wasn't as obvious, but the red was still bright and eerie, definitely nothing natural. Natasha stared as I handed it to her.

"I opened it first. That's what was inside. Figured it was, you know, too important to leave hanging around." I explained with a sheepish shrug.

"Damn right," Natasha murmured, studying the vials closer now. Then she pulled something from between the vials, something I hadn't noticed before during the fight. A piece of paper — no, film. Photos. Old photos, like the kind you get at a cheap mall booth. All the blood drained from her face.

"What is it?" Alarmed, I came around to look. Up close, I could make out the tiny grinning faces of two young girls. One blonde, maybe five years old, the other appeared to be a preteen with bluish dyed hair. Their heads pressed together as they made silly faces into the camera. Nothing as nefarious as I thought it to be, and yet Natasha looked like she'd just seen a ghost. I frowned at her, "Who are they?"

For a long moment, Natasha didn't answer me, to the point I wondered if she maybe hadn't heard. But then she folded the pictures and tucked them into her jacket. She let out a long breath, as if she'd been holding it.

"That's me," Natasha finally said, her eyes avoiding mine. "And my sister."