Silently Fierce

01

Wanda used her powers to lift Steve up and through the window. Steve grabbed a soldier and pulled off their gas mask.

Rumlow was inside. He punched down the door. He knocked aside a technician and entered a room with a container labeled "bio-hazard" before saying, "Pack it up."

In another area, Steve was behind a pillar. He threw his shield, and it bounced off the soldier and back to Steve. Meanwhile, Wanda was using her powers to remove the gas from the building. Sam was exchanging fire with several soldiers. Chris stood a distance back, shooting the soldiers. Rumlow walked outside onto a balcony and saw that Steve's team was there.

"He's here," Rumlow said.

Inside the building, Steve saw the vial missing.

"Rumlow has a biological weapon," Steve warned.

Natasha was riding in on a motorcycle and said over the radio, "I'm on it." She jumped off the motorcycle and it skidded towards a soldier. She took out soldiers through hand-to-hand combat. Rumlow came up behind her and grabbed her collar, dragging her onto an armored vehicle. She electrocuted him.

"I don't work like that no more," Rumlow said, throwing her through the roof hatch into an armored vehicle, dropped in a grenade, and shut the hatch. "Fire in the hole."

"No!" a mercenary cried.

Natasha took out the soldiers inside, then grabbed one to shield herself from the grenade. The doors blew open and she was thrown out.

Chris ran up to Natasha and pulled her up. 'You okay?'

She nodded. 'I'm fine.'

'You need to be more careful.'

'Says the guy who willingly puts himself in danger.'

'For you, any day.'

'You're too reckless for your own good.'

'Takes one to know one, Tasha.'

Steve ran out onto the balcony.

He was shot at and blasted back. He fell to the ground and groaned before saying, "Sam. He's in an AFV heading south."

Inside the AFV, Rumlow secured the biological weapon and handed it to a soldier before saying, "Take this to the airstrip. We're not gonna outrun them. Lose the truck." The truck crashed into a nearby structure and Rumlow and the soldiers emerged.

"Where are you going to meet us?" mercenary one asked.

"I'm not."

Sam landed on the roof of a structure. He scanned the area with his goggles and said, "I got four, they're splitting up."

Natasha rode through the crowd, back on her motorcycle. She abandoned it again and ran across the hoods of cars, followed by Chris, in pursuit before saying, "Chris and I got the two on the left." Steve was also running across cars. They spotted a vest in the middle of a crowd.

"They ditched their gear," Steve told the others. "It's a shell game now. One of them has the payload." Someone threw a bomb at Steve. It stuck on his shield. Steve threw it in the air and the bomb detonated safely away from citizens. Rumlow came up behind Steve and punched him in the back.

"There you are, you son of a bitch," Rumlow said. "I've been waiting for this!"

Meanwhile, Sam was still chasing the other mercenaries. Sam flew up and took out his two, then searched their bags for the payload before saying, "He doesn't have it. I'm empty."

Natasha and Chris were chasing the soldiers through the crowd.

"Out of the way!" Natasha ordered as she tackled one soldier and engaged him in combat. When the other soldier arrived, she hurled a basket at him to distract him. She used her skills to fight them and ended up face-to-face with one soldier. She silently told Chris to stay back and let her handle it. They pointed their guns at each other. A moment passed. Then, the other soldier produced the vial.

"Drop it," mercenary one demanded. "Or I'll drop this. Drop it!"

"He'll do it!" mercenary two cried. Redwing descended and fired at the soldier with the vial. He dropped, and in the moment of distraction, Natasha fired at the other soldier, then caught the falling vial.

"Payload secure," Natasha said. "Thanks, Sam."

"Don't thank me," Sam replied.

"I'm... not thanking that thing."

"His name is Redwing."

"I'm still not thanking it."

"He's cute. Go ahead, pet him."

Chris rolled his eyes at Redwing, but saluted.

Steve and Rumlow were still fighting, neither one seeming to have the upper hand.

"Come on!" Rumlow cried as he pinned Steve to a building and extended a blade from one of his gauntlets. "This is for dropping a building on my face."

Steve grabbed Rumlow's arm and pulled the gauntlet off, only for Rumlow to reveal another knife. Steve bested him. Defeated and on his knees, Rumlow removed his mask, revealing a scarred face.

"I think I look pretty good, all things considered," Rumlow said.

Steve asked, "Who's your buyer?"

"You know, they knew you. Your pal, your buddy, your Bucky."

"What did you say?"

"He remembered you. I was there. He got all weepy about it. Till they put his brain back in a blender. Hr wanted you to know something. He said to me, "Please tell Rogers. When you gotta go, you gotta go." And you're coming with me."

Rumlow activated his bomb vest and Steve flinched as Rumlow's armor ignited, but Wanda kept the blast contained around Rumlow who grimaced in agony. She lifted him into the air before she lost control, and the explosion finally blossomed, devastating entire floors of a nearby office building. Wanda saw what happened and was scarred by it.

"Oh my..." Steve began as he stared up. "Sam... We need... Fire and Rescue... on the south side of the building. We gotta get up there."