Dodge left, right. Strike.
The leader of the pirates who captured the ship was a good fighter, but against a super soldier that was very little.
Even with his shield removed to even the playing field between him and the pirate, Steve easily maintained his speed and strength to prevent him from landing any blows. After a few more punch-and-block sessions, the first supersoldier simply grabbed the pirate by his clothes and slammed him into the door at full speed, knocking the ship's door open with his body.
Looking at the pirate leader who was lying on the door, Steve saw his partner who had not been in touch for a couple of minutes and was now standing and manipulating the computer.
"You should be somewhere else!" the captain began to approach the archer to understand what he was doing.
"Don't worry, I'm almost done," Clint said, downloading all the information he could from the ship's database. "You're doing just fine without me."
A nod towards the motionless body.
Steve was about to read a few principles about military service, but was distracted by an arrow shot by Clint at a lying terrorist. It's a pity he managed to pull the pin from the grenade, which forced them both to hide in cover.
- You were wrong, work on your strike so they don't get up after them.
The office door opened and two beauties in business suits walked in.
If the blonde had a serious expression on her face, then the brunette had an insanely pleased one.
"I'm starting to even like it here," the brunette walked with a folder of documents and sat down in front of her boss. "It's heaven for me. If only I had my abilities."
"It doesn't hurt to dream, Lyuda," Anna said, carefully glancing at her interlocutor as she pronounced the name Loki had "given away."
"Why not? Your king wants to subjugate you, though he'll never admit it openly. Other petty kings want the same, or your death and the destruction of everything you've created. A bunch of enemies and competitors, with whom you're cooped up, and who dream of stealing all your secrets. Ahhh," she added dreamily, "so many enemies, and you can play with them all."
- Are you finished studying the data I gave you?
- Ugh - "Luda"'s face twisted - I glanced at the top, but didn't find anything interesting for myself.
- You seem to like using cunning, don't you? And not brute force?
- Of course! Only individuals like Thor can achieve anything by swinging a hammer.
"And yet. By wielding his hammer against a small handful of people, your brother was able to defeat you and your army when the planet wasn't ready for you." Her tone was mocking. "If the people had even a day's preparation, your army wouldn't have even made it through the portal due to the constant missile barrages that would have flown in."
- You don't know anything…
- It is enough for me to know that without your powers you won't even be able to convince me to do anything, much less deceive me while playing on my field.
Loki got tired of being insulted and stood up and put his hands on the table to look threatening.
- You're just a woman!
- You too!
Anna pointed her finger at her neckline, which was unbuttoned a few buttons, showing everyone the edges of two attractive areas.
- I often used a female form for a purpose - Loki finally sat down because he felt a stabbing pain in his stomach - so if your boss thought he was insulting me with this, he should disappoint him.
- He did this so that you wouldn't be considered my lover, whom I'm trying to push to the top.
- Ha. And who do they think I am then?
- A young fool whom my friends asked to show how business really works.
- How could they...
The tirade continued, which Anna didn't pay much attention to as she checked her email. When Lyuda finally calmed down, she began silently trying to glare at him, earning only a mocking smile.
- And so the great god of deception sits and, like a little child, tries to show his resentment - Anna stretched her arms out in different directions, showing how great her resentment was - for not being able to defeat pathetic humans on their own field. Whimper whine.
- Yes, if I wanted to...
"Your brother already proved that when he lost his hammer," Loki's feminine face twisted in memory of when he himself had been unable to lift Mjolnir, "and he didn't have Asgardian vitality with him."
- He's just a mountain of muscles who only knows how to fight.
- You've always used your head, but from the moment your brother arrived on earth you've been doing one idiotic thing after another.
- As if you know much.
- Alex and Thor communicate a lot and he wouldn't leave you alone with me without giving you a quick refresher.
- And what idiotic thing did I do?
He waved his hands dismissively.
- That's the problem. You yourself don't understand why you're sitting here now and not the current ruler.
- I don't rule because I am Jotun!
- As the saying goes: "The rabble doesn't care who rules them as long as they live well."
- It's as if I was left to rule.
- So think about this while you study everything I send you - Anna interrupted herself for a new letter - and in the meantime, get ready, we will go to the capital so that you can see how real negotiations are conducted, without the position of complete destruction in case of refusal.
Loki glared at the person who was clearly hinting at his attempt to destroy Jotunheim. After another staring contest, he stood up and went to do as he was told, but just before he left, a voice stopped him.
"And if you'll do my bidding with your body," Anna's carefully manicured finger pointed to her cleavage, visible to all the men, "then I'll send you to clean the toilets when they get clogged."
- Thanks for the information.
The grateful female voice of a SHIELD agent. That's what the covert Hydra agent heard before he was shot in the forehead and fell into a grave prepared for him in an uninhabited area of the forest.
The face that had smiled at her just six months ago now lay silently in the grave. Having filled the grave, the spy set off along the route she had prepared.
Natasha Romanoff had been on Fury's mission to clear out Hydra for almost a month now.
This wasn't the first murder in recent memory. But some information couldn't be obtained any other way.
If they found out about her, it would only make things worse, but given that she knew the shield protocols and understood how they would work, throwing off the trail of the mysterious killer who was stalking the agents was easier than leaving witnesses and hoping for the best.
Now is not the time to be sentimental about enemies, especially those who are just waiting for an opportunity to kill her, and perhaps something worse.
The further she dug into the agency, the worse things became. At first, she thought the organization had maybe a few dozen moles monitoring the shield, but it turned out to be much worse: the organization was literally half composed of hidden Hydra members.
"How could anyone not notice this?" – this question worried her more and more with each passing day. – "How could I not notice this? Or did I not want to notice this?"
Falling asleep each night, she longed to forget everything and return to Alex's house, where she'd spent one of the most peaceful nights in a long time. No tasks, just the chance to relax without fear of being taken away.
Natasha saw Alex as a healthy paranoid person trying to think through all the possible sources of attack. So if she couldn't feel safe in a house with full guards who would rather die than betray the man who was helping them or their families, while having the ability to fight alone against an army, then how could she ever feel safe?
She didn't blame Alex for not telling her everything he knew; it was simply a common sense approach. After all, in his mind, she herself could have been a Hydra agent or reporting to people who would have been involved in her mission to "spy" on Ledov.
Alex's motives for keeping her around now became clearer to her. He'd guessed what mission she'd be going on and made sure she could rest, and most importantly, he'd prepared a plan for her to escape from all this crap that Natasha sensed would soon come to light.
The feeling of loneliness began to haunt her more and more. While she'd been carrying out missions for the Shield, she'd thought she was doing the right thing, but now, if her mission required her to be at Shield headquarters, she'd eye everyone with suspicion.
The only person she could completely trust in the agency was Clint, and she told him about this as soon as she found a secure communication channel, and at least she was calm for him, knowing that he would be on guard.
The information she received gave her a lead on another target that needed to be identified.
After walking almost a kilometer, she got into a prepared, inconspicuous car and decided to catch her breath.
After sitting for a minute, she received a message that she did not want to receive.
- Crap.
Steve Rogers was accustomed to seeing people die. Having survived the war and numerous missions since being thawed, he had been forced to kill. Even though he didn't want to with all his heart.
Just as he didn't want Nick Fury to die, who was now lying on the operating table and the doctors were fighting for his life after several gunshot wounds.
Just a couple of hours ago, he'd spoken to him and told him there was a traitor in the shield, and now the man who knew a ton of secrets was dying. And all he could do was watch it, along with Clint and Maria, who were nearby.
At one point, Natasha burst into the operation observation room like a whirlwind, which surprised the captain, as he hadn't seen her for a long time.
"Will he survive?" The tension was clearly evident in her voice.
"I don't know," Steve said quietly, hoping for the best outcome.
She suddenly took out her phone and started calling.
"Who are you calling?" Clint, who had been standing quietly in the corner, asked his partner.
- To Alex. He can save him.
"He's in Russia," Hill, who was monitoring the operation, intervened in the conversation. "Even if he agrees, he won't make it in time."
"He just flew here to visit Stark." But Natasha just hung up the phone in disappointment, as the number wasn't answering. "The number is unavailable."
- How do you know he's here? - Steve didn't quite understand.
"Because my assignment is to keep an eye on him." Without going into details, she began dialing another number, but that one didn't answer either.
- Where the hell are they?
- Nat, who are you talking about?
- Alex flew to Stark and they both aren't answering - she looked at Clint - what are they both so busy with?
Steve saw how irritated she was and that she wanted to hit something, but there was only glass in front of her eyes and she did not want to scare the doctors with her outbursts of emotion.
"What do you know about the shooter?" the question was addressed to him while the professional killer monitored the doctors' actions.
"He's fast, he's strong," Steve recalled a short chase where he was able to see the shooter, but it gave him little, except for one bright identification mark – and with a metal arm.
"So he's here," Natasha said quietly, whispering something while looking at Fury.
Unfortunately, doctors were unable to save the shield's director, and they recorded the time of death.
Clint walked up to his friend and put his hand on her shoulder as a support, but this caused a new surge of emotions and she threw herself into her friend's arms.
Maria left to pick up the body, and Steve decided to leave the two of them to talk, but he was called out.
- What was Fury doing at your house?
" He said not to trust anyone " - but he couldn't say that, so he said the only thing that came to his mind - I don't know.
- Steve, - his partner, who wielded a bow, drew attention to himself, - the situation is strange now and we need to figure it out.
- Yes. I understand – the flash drive that Fury gave him became like a brick in his pocket – simple.
But then they were interrupted by Rumlow entering the room.
- Captain, there you are. You're being called to the shield.
- Yes, I'll be right there.
- Urgent - Ramlow clearly expressed his position.
"I heard you," the drummer didn't like something in the captain's tone and he left the office.
Steve looked at Clint, took a heavy sigh and silently handed over the flash drive that Fury gave him.
Steve decided to show trust and show that he could be trusted.
They'd become good friends lately, and, albeit by accident, Steve learned what Barton was hiding from everyone. His family, hidden from everyone and which Clint guarded like the apple of his eye. So if he couldn't trust him, then who could he trust?
Clint and Natasha looked at him suspiciously, but he didn't answer them and simply went into the shield.
Natasha and Clint left the hospital after Steve, and they could clearly feel the increased attention on them as they walked towards the exit.
Once in the car, they showed off their spy talents and got rid of all their tails and ended up in a small safe house.
While they were driving, Clint told her that he had gotten the flash drive from the ship on Fury's orders, and she told him what she had been able to find out herself.
"So, there are Hydra members in the upper echelons of Shield, too? Cool," Clint mused, checking the situation outside before sitting down on the small sofa. "But why did Fury tell you all this?"
"Because Alex sent him information about Hydra in Russia, and that's why we started looking for them here." Natasha sat nearby, holding her laptop. "Because I spent more time with him than Fury thought I knew about it."
"But you didn't know," she nodded affirmatively, "what were you doing there?"
Clint recognized the expression on his friend's face when she searched for an answer.
- You know a little bit of everything.
- Well, well.
They just smiled at each other knowingly.
- The flash drive is protected and as soon as we use it, it will track us.
The archer, realizing what would happen next, entrusted this matter to his partner, and he himself went to collect things and prepare for departure.
Within ten minutes, the shield squad arrived to apprehend their agents. Just one floor short of their target, the apartment they were looking for exploded, complicating their work.
Two members of the avenger team, already moving away from the safe house, watched all of this from a camera in the car.
Steve was now standing in an alley, trying to come to his senses. The people he considered his comrades had recently tried to capture him, and then kill him. Having narrowly escaped both, he now stood in an alley, wondering what to do next.
Having thrown away his phone so that it could not be tracked, he had no idea how to contact Clint and Natasha.
The captain's thoughts were interrupted by the loud honk of a car parked across the alley. He peered cautiously toward the alley and was surprised to spot those he'd been wondering about. Grabbing his shield, he headed to the car and climbed into the back seat.
- How did you find me?
"There's a bug in your shield," Clint replied, sitting behind the wheel and starting to move as soon as he sat down. "I put it in your car so I could find you if anything happened."
- Then everyone knows...
- No, it's just my bug. I put it there on purpose so no one would know about it.
Steve didn't like it, of course, but now he was grateful for the caution.
- Did you manage to find anything?
"No," Natasha joined the conversation. "I could only find out where the file was created."
- And where?
- Camp Lehigh in New Jersey.
The name of the camp stirred the soldier's memories. After all, it was there that he had undergone training before being injected with the serum.
As they moved, Steve told them what had happened to him in the center of the shield. The two operatives didn't like it.
- It's much worse, Steve. The Hydra members are in the shield.
- What?
Without holding back, she told him everything she knew. About how Alex had handed over the data and Fury had begun digging in every direction. During that time, she'd managed to find several dozen Hydra members and learned that there were far more of them than she could have imagined.
"It's impossible," Captain America couldn't come to his senses after hearing this. "How can this be?"
"Looks like we'll have to assemble the Avengers again," Clint said as he drove, smiling contentedly that he wouldn't have to save the world alone.
This phrase prompted Natasha to try calling Alex or Tony again, but she was only able to contact Jarvis, whom she asked to say that they could use some help and who did not answer where Stark was.
"Yeah, Thor, Ledov, and Stark are unavailable, and Bruce is a very bright target." Clint's smile disappeared. "Looks like we'll have to do it ourselves."
"How did Alex even know about the Hydra cell?" Steve was haunted by this question—and in such detail.
The question was reasonable and Clint and Steve looked closely at the only woman in the car.
"At your age, everyone sits in front of the TV all day, watching the news." She smiled at the captain's puzzled expression. "There's been a war going on all over the former Soviet Union lately between two factions, one of which is Hydra. I didn't notice it at first because I was busy, but recently I realized that Alex himself started this war between them so he could quietly build up his strength while they squabbled among themselves."
Even Clint, who keeps track of what's going on in the world anyway as part of his job, was surprised by this information, and even the captain was shocked.
- But this does not explain the sources of his information.
"Clint, if I knew where he got his information from?" Natasha sighed heavily. "When I first came to him, he had a folder on his desk with so much information about me that even you don't know everything."
This really worried the archer, because they had been through a lot together and knew each other's secrets.
-And how did he react to this?
The smile on the spy's face did not pass by the driver.
- We seem to get along pretty well. Recently we were sitting watching a movie while eating a sweet pie.
Of course, she definitely won't tell everything that happened that day.
And while the two agents were exchanging phrases and joking, the captain, sitting in the back, was discussing how many lives Ledov had ruined with his games.
Upon arrival, Steve immediately began to have nostalgic memories of how he underwent military training before receiving Dr. Erskine's serum.
"Nothing," Natasha said, searching for the source of the signal. "No heat signature, no waves. Looks like this place was used to confuse the team."
But Steve's attention was drawn to a bunker that had not been there before.
Hoping for the best, the three of them forced the door open and entered. It turned out to be the first shield base built after World War II.
After examining the bunker, they were unable to find anything useful until they found an elevator hidden from prying eyes.
Using the device on the phone, they found out the password and went downstairs.
Exiting the elevator, they found themselves in a spacious room filled with mid-20th-century recording equipment and a control desk with multiple monitors.
- And what could have been done here anyway?
Clint looked around the room, holding the rifle in his hands.
- We'll find out now.
Approaching the table, the Russian spy inserted a flash drive into the router, which clearly stood out among the existing equipment.
As soon as the flash drive was in the slot, the light came on, and with it all the equipment.
Green symbols began to appear on the large screen, forming a human face.
- Rogers Stephen – the voice from the speaker spoke – was born in 1918.
The camera on the screen turned.
"Natalia Alianovana Romanoff was born in 1984," the camera panned to the third member of the group. "Barton Clint was born in 1971."
- What is this? - More for himself than because of danger, Clint pointed the rifle at the screen.
- Not what, but who? Although I'm not who I used to be. Don't you recognize me, Captain Rogers?
Steve tensed up as he looked at the screen that was talking to him.
- You took over my body in 1945, and now you see my mind.
And for clarity, a photograph of the scientist appeared on the nearby monitor.
- Do you know him?
"Yes," the captain replied to his partner. "Arnim Zola worked with the Red Skull during the war. But you should be long dead."
- Yes and no. My body is long dead, but to save my precious mind, I had to record it into multiple data banks, allowing me to continue my activities. Everything you see around you is my brain.
"This is Operation Paperclip," Steve looked closely at Natasha, "the shield was recruiting scientists who were of strategic value."
"Thanks to the fact that I helped them," Zola continued, "I also helped myself."
- You helped the hydra penetrate the shield.
- It's nice to know that you are at least a little competent and were able to figure out what was really going on.
At that moment, a common thought flashed through people's minds that if it weren't for an outside helper, none of them would know anything about the hydra.
The Hydra exists far more than you might imagine. Its body was simply assembled by someone you know as the great Johann Schmidt.
"Who died a long time ago," Clint nodded to Cap, expressing gratitude.
"Cut off one head and two will arise in its place. No matter what you fight, the Hydra will win."
- I stopped you once, I'll stop you again.
- You won't be able to, because the plan is already in progress.
And then Zola launched a video about freedom, truth, and how the people themselves will give up their freedom if they are properly pushed through murders, terrorist attacks, and collapses.
Zola also happily spoke about his Hydra cell's plan to seize power over the world by eliminating all dissenters, which would be determined by the program he created.
Listening to all this, Steve couldn't stand it and smashed the monitor, but it didn't help.
- You worry about this too much, Captain Rogers. You don't need it, because soon you'll be dead.
Immediately the door to the bunker through which they passed closed.
- Damn - Natasha looked at the phone where a rocket appeared flying in their direction - a rocket is flying towards us.
There was no exit from the bunker, so having found a small hole, they hid and began to wait for the missile.
- Have a good death... who are you?... that you are here...
And Zola's voice broke off. Hidden from the missile's blast, the heroes heard an explosion somewhere in the distance that didn't even hit the bunker.
The heroes sat silently and waited for something to go wrong until, a couple of minutes later, the locked doors of the bunker began to be cut by hot welding.
Realizing that these could be enemies, the avengers took up convenient positions for firing.
When the welding had completed a full rotation, the door was simply knocked down, which made everyone tense.
- Hi all.
The young girl's cheerful voice attracted everyone's attention and together they saw it.
It was a regular Stark suit, complete with weaponry, but painted bright pink with anime character designs.
- Why are you looking at me like that?
- "Stark?" was the only thing America's national hero could say.