Chapter Text
0828 EST, January 9th, 2014
It should have been a straightforward op.
Relocate the Kartal family from their house in the Hamptons to a S.H.I.E.L.D. safe house. Simple. You had run the scenario a hundred times with other members of your team.
It should have been simple. That’s what you told yourself as you hid Mrs. Kartal and her son behind a rusted tractor, wiping Mr. Kartal’s blood out of your eyes and checking to see how much ammo was left in your P226. You had already run out of magazines for the Glock, spent in vain to try and stop the man who had attacked your convoy.
Not a squad. Not an enemy raid. Your entire team had been killed and the primary escort target had had his brains blown out inches away from your face.
All because of one man.
“Keep low and move fast,” you ordered them in a hushed whisper, the woman and boy huddled together. Mrs. Kartal gave you a quick nod of understanding. “Stay close.”
Your goal was an old wood-paneled station wagon you had spotted earlier in one of the storage sheds. The escort route was isolated and along back roads of rural New York, and it was fortunate the attack had occurred near a storage yard for farm equipment.
At least, you prayed it was fortuitous. Considering how effectively the assassin had exploded the front and back vehicles, wiped out your team, and murdered your mission objective, you doubted he left very much to chance.
You were proven correct when a single shot rang out, and something with the force of a truck slammed into your arm. You bit down a cry as you stumbled, and then shouted, “Keep going!” as you clasped your left hand down onto the blood spurting from the wound in your bicep. It wasn’t fatal, but it would make it a bitch to aim anything, which was probably the point.
Why doesn’t he just kill me? you wondered, the abandoned station wagon drawing nearer as you ran as fast as your legs would carry you. Heart hammering in your chest, you shouted at them to get inside while you opened the driver’s side door and searched for keys. There were none, but you could hotwire the old biddy without a problem. Your SO had taught you well.
Why am I not dead? you questioned again as your bloodstained fingers stripped and twisted the wires together. The assassin was clearly an expert marksman, so why hadn’t he gone for a kill shot?
A surge of adrenaline coursed through your chest as the car roared to life. Somehow the battery wasn’t dead, and there was enough gas to turn the engine. Feeling hopeful you might actually survive the day, you got into the driver’s seat—
—and immediately ducked when the windshield exploded. Bullets ricocheted off the metal chassis of the car, and you yelled for the surviving members of the Kartal family to lie down across the seats.
You looked over your shoulder and caught the sight of silver metal reflecting in the sunlight. You aimed your weapon on the reflection and fired several rounds, forcing the assassin to retreat into the nearby warehouse. You turned back to Mrs. Kartal, knowing there was only one chance for them to escape.
You looked her firm in the eye and ordered, “Take the car, and you keep driving down the road. S.H.I.E.L.D. will find you and take you to a safe house.”
But Mrs. Kartal was shaking her head, her eyes wide with fear. But not at what you had suspected.
“Not S.H.I.E.L.D.! I will not go to them!”
Another bullet bounced off the hull of the car. Either the assassin was going to hit the engine block or a tire, and that would really fuck your exit strategy.
“Missus Kartal, we are not the bad guys! We’re trying to help you!”
The woman shook her head again, somehow still arguing with you even though she was bleeding and covered with glass from the broken windshield. Her headscarf was flecked with blood, painting the orange fabric with a gruesome tapestry.
“You don’t understand!” she shouted back at you. “My husband is a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent!”
You took a moment to return fire on the assassin, blocking your body from his line of sight with the car door, which was beginning to be pockmarked with bullet holes.
“What are you talking about?” you shouted over your shoulder. “Ma’am, your husband isn’t one of ours! He works for the Russians!”
This woman was really starting to piss you off, but her next words brought you up short.
“Your superiors lied to you! S.H.I.E.L.D. is not what you think it is! Why do you think we contacted the FBI and not you?”
That had struck you as odd. Orders had come down to the STRIKE team to escort the Kartal family, but only after the feds had handed the Kartal case over to S.H.I.E.L.D. Some kind of jurisdictional dispute you didn’t understand. All you knew was Rumlow had been pretty pissed the FBI had been involved to begin with.
A bullet sparking off the edge of the door next to your head brought you back to reality, and you yelled to her, “Then drive to the White House for all I care, just get the hell out of here!”
And with that, you rolled from the protection of the car and fired what was left of your handgun at the assassin’s hiding place. You were relieved to hear the squeal of tires behind you, followed by a spray of gravel as Mrs. Kartal, hopefully, got her and her son to safety.
About fucking time, you thought as you crouched on one knee in the dirt, continuing to shoot at the opening where the assassin was hiding, your bullets knocking pieces out of the metal siding. You weren’t going to stop firing and let the assassin get his shot at the retreating vehicle.
You pulled the trigger, again and again, until there was no sound but an empty clicking. You tried a few more times simply out of habit, but you knew it was over. You were out of ammo, and most likely the bastard knew it. But you were determined to die on your feet, with what little dignity you had left, so you rose to a standing position.
As if mirroring your movements, the assassin did the same, stepping out of the shadows and into the bright afternoon light. He braced his rifle against his shoulder and strode toward you as if he didn’t have a goddamn care in the world. His stride, the broad set of his shoulders, the way he swaggered that was almost graceful—it was a powerful sort of confidence that shook you like nothing had before.
There had been fear, sure. You had put your life on the line dozens of times. But this… this was existential dread. This was watching your demise approaching in leather boots and a dark mask. His metal-plated left arm reflected the sunlight with a deadly sort of beauty, like the gleam of light on a knife.
He was Death personified. And you were frozen, helpless, with an empty gun.
The pistol dropped from your numb fingers, your hand going back up to staunch the wound in your upper arm. And still he approached, his dark goggles giving him the impression of some kind of insectoid alien bearing down on you, inhuman and merciless.
You shut your eyes. You couldn’t bear to look at him a moment longer. Nothing but the crunch of his boots and your breath, ragged, in your ears.
All of your years at the Academy, followed by countless hours of the most brutal training available for field agents. And yet, here you were, shutting your eyes like a child waiting for the monster under the bed to vanish.
But this monster was very real, and he would most definitely not vanish. Except… you could no longer hear his footsteps. And you were still alive.
Against your wishes, you slowly opened your eyes—and flinched. The assassin was standing right in front of you, so close that you were looking directly at the muzzle of his mask, a few inches from your nose. Your gaze involuntarily trailed upward, and your breathing stopped. Even with the black goggles obscuring his eyes, you knew he was staring at you with such overwhelming intensity that it literally made the blood rush from your head.
You half-wondered if you were going to faint.
Why aren’t you killing me? The question was distant, panicked in the back of your mind. Why am I not dead?
With one swift motion, the assassin swung the strap of the rifle across his shoulder and put it across his back. And then he grabbed you by the shoulder, spun you around and wrapped his metal arm around your neck as his other hand held your head immobile.
You couldn’t breathe, couldn’t even swallow with the hard plates against your neck. He wasn’t killing you; it was much worse than that. He was choking you out. He was trying to render you unconscious.
No! your mind screamed as you dug your fingers into his metal arm, scrabbling against the smooth bits of surface. No! No!
But your struggles were futile as soon as they began. He held you hard against his chest, pinning you with very little effort. Your heart was thunderous in your ears, greedy for oxygen that would not come.
The edges of your vision receded. And the world went quiet.