"Cap's engaged in a fight inside the elevator. Jack Monroe, execute as planned!"
In a suburban area of Washington, two kilometers away from an ordinary-looking building that secretly handled non-classified S.H.I.E.L.D. affairs—
Inside Jack Monroe's truck, Hawkeye observed the skirmish inside the glass elevator through his binoculars and spoke immediately.
Jack Monroe nodded, reaching out to pull open the door to head down, but Black Widow grabbed his arm instantly:
"Wait, I'm coming with you."
Seeing Hawkeye cast a questioning glance her way, Black Widow furrowed her brows:
"Clint, you're losing your edge."
Hawkeye shook his head, signaling that he didn't grasp Natasha's meaning.
Click!
Black Widow pulled an assault rifle from beneath the truck seat and slung it across her back, then retrieved two handguns and several spare magazines from the glove box, clipping them to her waist.
Clad in a skin-tight tactical suit, Black Widow possessed an enviable figure, yet neither Jack Monroe nor Hawkeye were in the mood to appreciate the view.
As Black Widow rapidly prepped her armaments, she spoke to Hawkeye:
"It's obvious Cap's talks with S.H.I.E.L.D. collapsed—or rather, there's no S.H.I.E.L.D. in that building at all, only Hydra agents.
"If they dared ambush Cap inside the elevator, do you really think they wouldn't lay ambushes—or even post a strike team—around the building's perimeter?"
Noticing a sudden realization dawn on Clint Hawkeye's face as she finished, Black Widow's brows knit tighter:
"Did your stint in the Cube dull your brain so much that you didn't even consider this?"
"Sorry, I had other things on my mind," Hawkeye offered apologetically, bending down to retrieve his quiver from under his seat. With a sharp snap, his folded longbow expanded into shape. "Change of plans—"
Before he could finish, he noticed Black Widow, facing him, suddenly undergo a dramatic shift in expression!
Instinctively, Hawkeye spun around at blinding speed, drawing an arrow and nocking it against his bowstring in a split second, aiming behind them.
Roughly two kilometers away from their truck—directly in front of the S.H.I.E.L.D. building—an entire squad of heavily armed soldiers clad in black tactical gear was forming up into combat rank!
Without a doubt, this was an ambushing force set up to execute Captain America; even if Steve Rogers managed to break free from the elevator, he couldn't possibly survive a concentrated volley of gunfire from an entire squad!
Most notably, in the center of the formation, Hawkeye spotted a familiar figure.
Clad in black tactical gear, shoulder-length short hair, with a single arm glinting silver beneath the sun—
It was the very same guy who had ambushed Black Widow in Manhattan!
The trio exchanged glances, holding back from firing prematurely.
The distance was simply too great. At a two-kilometer range, Black Widow had only caught sight of him due to the glare off his silver cybernetic arm. While Hawkeye possessed superior eyesight, even he could not accurately shoot an arrow over two kilometers without auxiliary guidance.
Hawkeye slowly eased his bowstring, placing the arrow back into his quiver.
"We definitely need a change of plans. Natasha, you and I will handle that strike force..." Hawkeye began.
Black Widow's expression remained composed, but Jack Monroe suddenly cut Hawkeye off:
"The two of you against an entire army? Every single one of them is armed!"
"Don't worry about us, Jack." Hawkeye placed a firm hand on Jack Monroe's shoulder. "Compared to us, your task is far more critical.
"Your job is to stall that metal-armed guy until Cap meets up with you—let Cap handle him!"
Jack Monroe nodded firmly.
"Remember, under no circumstances do you engage him in a fight to the death," Black Widow cautioned with a grave face. "You've picked up plenty of hand-to-hand techniques from us back at Avengers Manor recently, but aside from having exceptional strength, you're no match for him in an actual duel."
"I understand," Jack Monroe said.
"Once we get back from this, I'll ask Batman to forge a weapon for you. Going in empty-handed with limited combat experience is a recipe for getting hurt eventually," Hawkeye added.
With no time to lose, the three exchanged looks, nodded to one another, pulled open the truck doors, and stealthily made their way toward the S.H.I.E.L.D. building.
By the time they reached the building's perimeter and took cover behind a military truck, Captain America was already trading blows with a group of agents beside the structure.
Evidently, besides the unit led by the metal-armed man, other agents were tasked with intercepting Captain America—or killing him outright.
Hawkeye took a deep breath, drew his bow, and aimed straight at the back of the metal-armed man's head before releasing his fingers.
Shooh!
The arrow streaked through the air, drawing a razor-straight line.
Seeing the arrow rapidly close the distance, just a split second before it struck its target, the metal-armed man tilted his head as if sensing the threat, dodging the headshot by a hair's breadth.
"Sigh."
Hawkeye let out a silent sigh.
The metal-armed man cast a glance at the arrow streaking into the distance, then turned his gaze back toward the trio's hiding spot.
With a wave of his hand, he led several soldiers brandishing rifles as they began marching toward their location.
Having missed his shot, Hawkeye exchanged a glance with Black Widow. Staying low, the two retreated in opposite directions from their cover, leaving Jack Monroe alone on the spot.
This was the plan they had agreed upon: a direct hit from Hawkeye would have been ideal, but even a miss would draw the target over, allowing Jack Monroe to stall him.
Hawkeye and Black Widow, meanwhile, would handle the soldiers lying in wait with rifles to ambush Captain America.
As Hawkeye moved into position, arrow after arrow streaked through the air continuously, landing amidst the soldiers before detonating with sharp beep-BOOMs.
Smoke, firelight, toxic gas, electric currents...
An array of specialized arrowheads detonated in sequence. By the time his quiver was emptied, Hawkeye had successfully closed in on the flank of the strike team.
Black Widow struck first, pulling several miniaturized explosives from her waist and rolling them into the crowd to detonate, adding further chaos to the fray.
The commotion could not escape the metal-armed man as he strode forward. Just as his brows furrowed and he prepared to turn back, Jack Monroe abruptly leaped out from his cover.
Grabbing the door of the military truck he had used for cover, Jack Monroe ripped it off its hinges and hurled it with immense force. The door spun through the air, forcing the metal-armed man's advance to halt once more.
Bang!
Raising his hand, the metal-armed man struck the truck door with his metallic fist, sending it flying off to the side. By then, Jack Monroe had already closed the distance silently.
The two clashed immediately, fists and feet colliding as gales of air whistled around them. Every strike and kick carried power far exceeding what a champion boxer could exert at maximum effort.
Jack Monroe's hand-to-hand skills had been learned from Captain America, Hawkeye, and Black Widow; though his training duration was short, he had applied himself with utmost dedication.
Within a few exchanges, he actually managed to hold his ground against the metal-armed man—until his opponent drew a pitch-black combat knife from his lower back.
With blade in hand, the metal-armed man's assaults grew increasingly lethal; nearly every strike left a fresh wound on Jack Monroe's body.
Within a few breaths, more than a dozen bloody gashes had appeared across Jack Monroe's body.
Yet all he had accomplished in the fight was tearing off his opponent's black face mask.
The familiar face beneath caused Jack Monroe to freeze on the spot.
Calling himself the "second Bucky," Jack Monroe was naturally intimately familiar with the real Bucky from history—Captain America's original partner—and even regarded him as his idol.
When he saw how strikingly familiar the metal-armed man's face looked, a name escaped his lips as a knee-jerk reaction:
"Bucky?"
Jack Monroe knew he couldn't be mistaken. The brow, the demeanor, the eyes... every single feature was identical to the images and videos of Bucky handed down through history!
Watching the "second Bucky," Jack Monroe, stand frozen in place like an idiot, the real Bucky displayed zero emotion. Reversing his grip on the combat knife, he took a step forward and severed Jack Monroe's throat without a moment's hesitation.
Jack Monroe stood rooted to the spot, reaching up to touch his neck, feeling only a hot, wet sensation across his hand. When he raised his hand to look, his vision had already blurred, seeing only a palm covered in deep crimson.
"No! Damn it!" In the distance, Hawkeye—currently engaged with an entire squad while bullets grazed past his forehead—roared out in fury.
"Damn it! Damn it! Didn't we say to just stall him until Cap met up with you?!" Hawkeye's eyes turned blood-red. How could he have known the metal-armed man was Bucky—Jack Monroe's idol?
"Mom, don't go..." Jack Monroe murmured weakly before collapsing heavily to the ground.
His father died of illness, abandoned by his mother, left by his girlfriend for another man, with only a truck to keep him company—Jack Monroe, who held Bucky as his idol, died at the hands of the very idol he worshipped.
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