Steel Hearts

- 8 -

Steve had debriefed everyone and we had all decided on a plan. Storm the building that the energy surge had come from. After hours of flying, we were on the ground. Making some HYDRA agents not happy with us.

It didn't take long for them to start shooting back at us. My right foot hugging the back bumper of the vehicle Nat was driving while Barton shoots at anything and every hostile he sees. With one hand I grip the roll cage for dear life as we bounce around, the other I send force disks and energy blasts at every hostile I can see. One in a flying suit gets too close and I slam my free foot into its chest, sending them flying to the ground with a thud.

Another vehicle pulls up beside us, aiming at Nat with some kind of blaster, powering it up. I quickly dive over to the other vehicle, slamming my fist into his face before dropping him off the side. The people driving realize that it's not their guy that's on the top controlling the blaster anymore and they shake me off, sending me to the ground near Thor at the bottom of a patrol tower. Standing up and slamming several HYDRA agents together with force fields, I throw several out to run up and over a few before grabbing Steve's hand; landing on the motorcycle behind him. Letting my hand go after my arm is looped around him, he grabs a guy by the leg and drags him through the dirt before tossing him into another like a doll. I cling on to him with my left arm, sweeping a force field at the ankles of several men to knock them over and into each other like dominoes; ricocheting their blasts back at them.

"That thing does not obey the laws of physics," I mutter to myself as he catches his shield after it had bounced off of several trees and boomeranged back to him. Throwing a force field up to shield us from a blast coming from the right, he launches the motorcycle in the air. Cutting a hard left turn right in front of Thor who had taken out a tank that was shooting at us. We cut and weave through the rest of the HYDRA soldiers, taking as many out as we go. Steve jumps the motorcycle over a sandbag wall and I kick my feet off of the seat of the motorcycle, diving ahead and to the side; landing swift kicks to two HYDRA agents' chests before landing in a roll. Popping up to my knees, I slam my forearm cuffs together and create a sonic boom sending several soldiers flying backward into each other and toward the wall behind them just before Tony blasts it.

"Shit!"

"Language!" Steve calls, responding to Tony's cursing, "Jarvis, what's the view from upstairs?"

"The central building is protected by some kind of energy shield. Strucker's technology is well beyond any other HYDRA base we've taken."

I toss a few grenades behind the sandbag wall where gunners are shooting blasters at us before spinning on my heel and landing a kick to a soldier's head, slamming his two buddies with a force field wall just before Thor lands next to me; taking several soldiers out himself. Noticing he had summoned his hammer from behind me, I take a step to my left; swinging my arm hard, landing a right hook.

"Loki's scepter must be here. Strucker couldn't mount this defense without it. At long last."

The two of us fought back to back for several minutes as if we were dancing. Me dodging his hammer when he summons it and him dodging my force field sweeps.

"'At long last' is lasting a little long, boys," Nat chimes in. I launch two more grenades toward the heavy gunners, blowing them up and taking them out.

"Yeah. I think we lost the element of surprise," Barton says over comms right as I send another sonic boom out toward the several soldiers approaching me. Tossing a few force fields out, I jump from one to the other above their heads before diving down and taking one with me to the ground, slamming his helmeted head into the frozen dirt before moving further toward the HYDRA base as quickly as possible.