Spyder Bite

x) Zola's Algorithm

"You're right. It's not." Steve said and let Sitwell go and fixed the creases in his jacket. "It's theirs."

Steve stepped aside so Natasha and I could raise our legs and Sparta kick Sitwell off the roof.

As we watched him fall, Natasha and I bumped fists before she resumed her conversation with Steve about possible dates for him. 

"Wait. What about that girl from accounting... L-Laura... Lisa?" Natasha inquired, struggling to think of some girl's name. 

Steve jumped at the name by correcting Natasha. "Lillian! Lip piercing, right?"

"Yeah. She's cute." 

"Yeah. I'm not ready for that."

Sam ascended over us with Sitwell hanging by the back collar of his jacket and dropped him when Sam was behind us and landed by the door to the stairwell. The three of us approached Sitwell, who finally coughed up the goods. 

"Zola's algorithm is a program... for choosing Insight's targets." Sitwell confessed.

"What targets?" Steve asked. 

"You! A TV anchor in Cairo, the Under Secretary of Defense, a high school Valedictorian in Iowa City, Bruce Banner, Stephen Strange, Tony Stark, Michael O'Sullivan; anyone who's a threat to Hydra. Now, or in the future."

"How the hell can it know?!" I barked. 

Sitwell laughed nervously. "How could it not? The twenty-first century is a digital book. Zola taught Hydra how to read it. Your bank records, medical histories, voting patterns, emails, phone calls, your damn SAT scores! Zola's algorithm evaluates people's past to predict their future."

"An what then?" Steve asked softly. 

"Then the Insight Helicarriers scratch people off the list. A few million at a time," Sitwell said when he looked over at me. "Starting with you." 

(Natasha P.O.V)

Sam drove us from Charles South so we could formulate our assault by taking us to meet Hill for a place we could plot our assault on SHIELD and the Triskelion. 

"Hydra doesn't like me." Sitwell said shakily.

"So why don't you try sticking a cork in it?" Sam shot back.

"He said it's launching in sixteen hours. We're cutting it a little bit close." I said and stuck my head out in between Steve and Sam, looking at soldier boy mostly.

"I know. We're using him to bypass the DNA scans and access the Helicarrier's directly."

"What?!" Sitwell barked. "Are you crazy? That is a terrible, terrible idea--"

Something landed on the roof and grabbed Sitwell and threw him out the window to the opposite road in front of an oncoming truck. Sitwell's assassin - who I knew was the Winter Soldier - drew his gun, from where I climbed into the front and pulled Steve forward so the gunshot that the Soldier shot wouldn't kill him. Steve grabbed the joystick and forced the car to stop, which in turn, threw the Soldier off the car, who skidded along the ground, using his bionic arm to slow him down.

The Winter Soldier stood upright, staring directly at us through his goggles. I drew my pistol to shoot him when a vehicle rammed into us, causing me to lose grip on my gun and drive us towards the Winter Soldier. He jumped over us when Sam accelerated the car whilst I reached for my pistol. Once I found my pistol, I opened fire at the roof straight after the soldier tore the steering wheel out. Without a steering wheel, Sam just drove anyway until the vehicle behind us rammed us again, causing the car to shake before it flew in the air and crashed.

Steve grabbed his shield and pulled Sam and I to him whereas Michael remained in the back when the car crashed while we skidded on Steve's shield. Sam fell off, rolling before we stopped. Steve and I looked over at the Soldier, who held a grenade launcher in his hands and shot it at us. Steve pushed me out of the way and raised his shield to block the grenade which exploded, knocking him off the bridge. The Soldier's men opened fire on Sam and I - we both ran behind cars while I shot at them. The Soldier shot at me, blowing up the car I was just hiding behind after I jumped over the barrier and ran. A third explosion went off, in which I dived off the bridge and used a grappling hook to steady myself and ran underneath the bridge.

As I was approaching a car accident involving a bus being knocked on its side and Steve's shield which was blackened by the grenade explosion, I drew my other pistol when I saw the Soldier's shadow looking over the bridge and looked up to find my target. Once I saw him, I shot at him five times and ran for a truck to hide behind. I continued to draw the Soldier's fire onto me hiding behind cover when I ran out of ammo and continued to run.

(Michael P.O.V)

Sam grabbed a rifle and provided cover on the highway, Steve knocked out a good with a mini-gun chased after the Winter Soldier, who in turn, was chasing Natasha. I caught up with Steve and shouted at him, telling him to run ahead of me. We were now entering West Lakeside Avenue and West 3rd Street. Despite being a block behind Steve, I witnessed him charge towards the Soldier, who slammed his bionic fist on Steve's shield, releasing a loud bell-like vibration and kicked Steve away before the two clashed. Once I caught up, the Soldier had caught Steve in a choke-hold and threw him over the bonnet of a car when I came along and intercepted him.

"Remember me?" I sneered and clashed with him. 

The Soldier saw me coming and tried backhanding me. I too saw it coming and ducked under his arm and jumped up, grabbing the Soldier's bionic arm and threw him over me onto the ground. My opponent grabbed my left shin and squeezed, causing me to cry in pain when Steve intercepted him and fought with him for a while while I checked on Natasha, who was hiding behind a car, her right hand up to where her heart was.

"Hey. Hey. It's me. Where are you hit?" I reassured her and checked her wound to see where she'd been shot.

"I'm, I'm okay..." She panted, smacking her lips and breathed heavily out of her mouth.

"I've got an idea, but you're not gonna like it." I frowned at her. 

"I trust you." She smiled strongly at me and crashed her lips against mine.

I kissed back, embracing the kiss before we pulled so I could use my forbidden powers to tear the bullet out. Natasha squirmed and cried as I acted quickly to take the bullet out. Once the bullet was out, she and I sighed when she suddenly got up, limping towards the Soldier's rifle and shot the grenade launcher at the Soldier, scaring him off when SHIELD agents came along, surrounding us. 

The four of us were stowed into a truck - Steve was the most restrained on account of his superhuman abilities while Natasha and Sam were merely cuffed and I, with a power collar around my neck. 

"It was him." Steve announced. "He looked right at me, he didn't even know me."

"How's that even possible? It was, like, seventy years ago." Sam debated.

Steve looked down, still stunned to see his best friend alive. "Zola. Bucky's whole unit was captured in '43. Zola experimented on 'em. Whatever he did, helped Bucky survive the fall. They must've found him." 

"None of that's your fault, Steve." Natasha moaned.

"Even when I had nothing, I had Bucky."

I examined Natasha's wound and saw that she was bleeding through her jacket.

"We need a doc. She's bleeding! Help her, assholes!" I shouted at the two masked guards who were stationed with us in the truck.

The one on the left drew an electro-stick, threatening to torture me when they turned on their buddy and kicked them unconscious onto the floor of the truck.

They groaned and removed their helmet. "Agh... that thing was squeezing my brain." Maria Hill whined as she sighed and tidied her hair.

She and Sam made eye contact when she looked at Steve and asked who Sam was and if we could trust him. After Maria freed us, the convoy was passing through a back alley under a tunnel. From there, we were able to escape by using a laser-cutting device - which Fury used was called a Mouse Hole - to form a hole so we could escape from there unnoticed.