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Those thoughts flashed through Natasha's mind in an instant, but she didn't stop to think. She moved.
*BANG! BANG! BANG!*
A burst of gunfire thundered from downstairs, and Natasha's expression hardened at once. Her body tensed, instincts locking into place as she charged down the stairwell, boots pounding the concrete steps.
By the time she reached the third floor, the corridor ahead was already a war zone, lit by muzzle flashes and streaking tracer fire. Bullets tore through drywall, sparks sprayed from the railings, and the air reeked of smoke and hot metal.
Two groups were locked in a fierce firefight, and Natasha immediately saw the problem. It was not just the Winter Soldier. He had backup. Several men in tactical vests were moving in coordinated formation, laying down suppressive fire with submachine guns. They looked like mercenaries, well-equipped, disciplined, and carrying gear even more advanced than standard S.H.I.E.L.D. issue.
With the Winter Soldier tearing through the center while the mercenaries held the lanes, the few remaining S.H.I.E.L.D. agents were being cut down fast. Ivan Vanko was already in the Winter Soldier's hands.
Then another pounding of boots rose from below. Reinforcements from S.H.I.E.L.D.
*RAT-TAT-TAT! RAT-TAT-TAT!*
The stairwell entrance erupted as both sides opened fire at once, bullets shredding the walls and chewing through the hallway in a storm of sparks and debris. The Winter Soldier barely spared the chaos a glance. His left hand locked around Vanko's arm, and then he drove his metal fist backward into the wall behind him.
*BOOM!*
Cracks spiderwebbed through the reinforced concrete.
*BOOM!*
Rebar groaned inside the wall.
*BOOM!*
The wall caved in, leaving a jagged opening wide enough for a man to force his way through. Without a word, the Winter Soldier dragged Vanko through the hole and vanished into the adjoining space, leaving the mercenaries behind to pin S.H.I.E.L.D. down and buy him time.
"I'm going to regret this," Natasha muttered under her breath.
She drew a sharp breath, burst from cover, and opened fire. Her attack hit fast and hard, and the mercenaries were caught off guard because nobody expected someone to rush straight through their firing lane. That moment of surprise was all Natasha needed. Her shots were clean and ruthless. One mercenary dropped before he could even turn, another staggered backward with a cry, and a third dove for cover too late.
She kept moving the entire time, never staying in one place long enough to be pinned, cutting through their formation with brutal efficiency and forcing them to keep pace with her instead of the other way around.
By the time they adjusted, she had already broken through. Natasha slipped through the hole the Winter Soldier had made and vanished after him. She was not letting him get away.
One mercenary started to follow, but their leader barked, "No need to pursue. He'll deal with her in seconds."
To them, one S.H.I.E.L.D. agent meant nothing against the Winter Soldier.
Inside the adjoining room, Natasha moved low and fast through dust, broken concrete, and twisted shelving, her boots sliding over debris as she chased the sound of retreating steps. She caught up almost immediately.
"Stop!" she shouted, raising her gun and sighting straight down the line of the Winter Soldier's back.
He stopped.
Then he turned his head, slow and deliberate, like he had all the time in the world. His face was flat, cold, empty, and somehow even more dangerous because of it. There was no anger there, no effort, no emotion at all. Just the stare of a predator deciding whether to kill now or kill later.
He said nothing. He simply planted one foot and kicked a heavy metal cabinet straight at her.
The cabinet was bulky, almost half her height, and heavy enough to crush bone if it landed clean. In his hands, it might as well have been cardboard.
It flew at Natasha like a steel battering ram.
*BANG!*
She fired on instinct, but she had to dodge at the same time, and her shot went wide. She twisted aside as the cabinet slammed past, the edge clipping her shoulder and knocking her off balance for a split second.
That was all he needed.
The Winter Soldier moved with the cabinet, using it as cover as he advanced. One moment, he was ten feet away, and the next, he was already in front of her, a blur of dark combat gear and gleaming metal arm.
Natasha snapped her gun back up to fire again, but before she could pull the trigger, his metal hand clamped down on the barrel.
She squeezed.
Nothing.
The trigger would not move. His grip locked the weapon in place, so completely it felt welded shut.
With a brutal wrench, he tore the gun out of her hand and turned it on her in the same motion.
*BANG! BANG! BANG!*
Muzzle flashes exploded at point-blank range. Natasha dropped instantly, twisting into the narrow space between the wall and the overturned cabinet. Bullets ripped through the air above her and blasted chunks out of the concrete where her head had been a fraction of a second earlier.
But ducking gave him what he wanted.
The Winter Soldier stepped in and drove a savage punch at her with his metal arm. Natasha slipped the first strike by inches and countered on reflex, an elbow to the ribs, a palm strike toward the jaw, then a low sweep at his knee. It was fast, sharp, and clean, but he barely reacted. He caught her wrist, yanked her forward, and slammed her into the wall hard enough to make her vision flash white.
Natasha forced herself through the pain and came back swinging. Two body shots, a knee, then a spinning backfist aimed at his temple. The combination was crisp and lethal, the kind of sequence that would drop almost anyone.
He blocked nearly all of it.
His counters came like machine-pressed violence. Every strike from the metal arm hit with crushing force, and each time she parried, the shock slammed up her shoulder and into her spine. He gave her no room to reset, no space to breathe, no pause to exploit. Three exchanges in, she was already on the defensive. Five exchanges in, he had her moving backward whether she wanted to or not.
Then his metal forearm snapped around her throat.
Her feet left the ground.
Natasha clawed at his wrist as he lifted her one-handed, her whole body tightening in desperation. Her face flushed red, veins standing out at her temples as her airway collapsed. The edges of the room began to narrow and darken. Her pulse thundered in her ears, loud and heavy, drowning everything else out.
She had seconds.
Another heartbeat, and it felt like her neck might break.
*WHOOSH!*
A blur tore through the room.
*BOOM!*
The Winter Soldier was blasted sideways, ripped off Natasha, and hurled into the wall hard enough to dent the concrete.
Natasha dropped to one knee, coughing violently as she dragged air back into her lungs, one breath at a time.
A broad-shouldered figure landed beside her in a half-transformed state, radiating raw, animal force.
Hawkeye.
"Looks like I made it just in time, Natasha."
Natasha did not waste breath on a reply. She was still coughing, still dragging air back into her lungs, but she was already forcing herself upright. "Handle him," she rasped, voice raw. "I'm going after Vanko."
There was no time for pleasantries. Ivan Vanko was not stupid, and while she and the Winter Soldier were locked in that brutal exchange, he had already run.
The Winter Soldier moved at once, surging forward to cut Natasha off before she could get clear, but he did not even make it two steps.
Clint hit him like a storm.
The first blow crashed into the Winter Soldier's face with a violent burst of force, snapping his head sideways and sending sweat and dust spraying into the air. Clint was already in close before the impact even finished, his body half-transformed, broad-shouldered and dense with Zoan power, every movement sharp and explosive.
In that state, he did not fight like a man, throwing punches. He fought like a predatory beast wrapped in discipline, each strike carrying the kind of weight that could break through armor and bone alike.
For the first time, the Winter Soldier's expression changed. It was small, but Natasha saw it. He recognized the threat.
He brought both arms up to block.
*BAM!*
Clint's next punch drove straight through his guard anyway and launched him back into the wall. Plaster split, concrete cracked, and dust burst into the room in a gray cloud.
Even with the super-soldier serum, the Winter Soldier was clearly outmatched by Hawkeye in his Zoan-empowered state, and the difference was not just raw strength. Clint fought with the same precision that made him legendary with a bow. Perfect timing. Perfect angles. No wasted motion. Every step was placed to close off an escape route, every strike landed where it would do the most damage.
The Winter Soldier lunged low, trying to jam Clint's hips and drive through him with a takedown. Clint pivoted cleanly, stuffed the attempt, and dropped an elbow down across his back.
*THUD!*
The Winter Soldier grunted and spun hard, whipping a metal hook toward Clint's jaw. Clint slipped inside the swing and buried a brutal body shot into his ribs.
*BAM!*
The hit folded the Winter Soldier for a split second, and Clint gave him no time to recover. He slammed in with a shoulder check, then followed with a rising forearm that snapped the Winter Soldier's head back and sent him stumbling into a broken shelving unit.
*CRASH!*
The whole corridor seemed to shake from the violence of the clash. Gunfire still hammered in the hall outside where S.H.I.E.L.D. and the mercenaries were locked in a firefight, but in this room the fight already belonged to Clint. The Winter Soldier tried to reset his footing, tried to create space, attempted to throw a counter, and Clint shut him down every time. A knee slammed into his midsection. A hammering strike crushed into his shoulder. A driving palm strike to the chest sent him skidding backward over broken concrete.
Then Clint stepped in and delivered one final crushing blow to the side of his head.
*BOOM!*
The Winter Soldier's body went limp instantly. He dropped hard, crashed onto the floor, and did not get back up.
Outclassed. Completely.
"Natasha, where are you? Did you secure the target?" Clint demanded over comms, already turning toward the corridor.
"Barton, I need backup now!" Natasha shouted back, quickly giving her position as she moved after Vanko.
Clint reacted immediately and sprinted for the east stairwell on the third floor, where the mercenaries had regrouped and were pouring a relentless barrage toward Natasha and the surviving S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. Bullets chewed through shattered cover and punched chunks out of concrete columns, pinning everyone in place. There were too many of them, and they had good angles.
Clint did not slow down.
He drew and fired several arrows in rapid succession, the shots so fast they almost sounded like one motion.
*THWIP! THWIP! THWIP!*
The arrows burst midair and released thick white smoke, flooding the stairwell and swallowing the mercenaries in seconds. Shouts and curses erupted from inside the haze as their formation broke apart.
Using the smoke like a curtain, Clint slipped through the chaos and reached Natasha's side.
"Clint, take him and get out. Go!" she ordered at once, shoving Ivan Vanko toward him without a second of hesitation.
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Next Chapter: Fury's Miscalculation
Next Next Chapter: Iron Man's Former Flame
Next Next Next Chapter: Memory or Purification?
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