Re: log: steve rogers, tony stark, winter soldier
If he heard the voice behind him, he didn't respond. This person ran faster than the old Bucky Barnes, but there was a shared singularity of focus, an ability to come up with a plan and stick to it with the laser focus of a long-time sniper.
The facility's tunnels didn't wind much further. No more server rooms - this was a living area, with doors gaping into tiny, temporary bedrooms for the full-time staff. It was almost empty, here. Judging by the trail of moaning and unsconscious bodies at the front end of the complex, almost everyone had run to the bank side to defend against the breach.
But that did not mean that there was no one left, and the Soldier made a careless mistake. He was distracted by the presence behind him, chasing after, presenting a weak point that could drag him so deep into half-memories that he wouldn't be able to climb out in time to defend himself. His mind was so bent on avoiding that eventuality, on listening to where the footsteps fell behind him, on shaking the whining from his ears, on splitting his attention between his goal ahead and the man behind, that he misstepped.
There was no way to avoid the fact that his destination was a room with only one access point. He would be cornered there by the Captain unless he got in and out faster than the man caught up, and the chance of that was so minute it wasn't worth computing. He felt a flare of anger with old, unfamiliar words on it can't stick to a plan to save his and he kicked in the door to the room beyond without waiting to check for hostiles.
A shout rose up from two men crouched low beyond a set of metal tables, close to the wall. They had good cover, and he was wide open. There was another agent, too, surely confident she hadn't been spotted, neatly tucked behind a filing cabinet, but the air from the vent over her head caught her blonde hair and wisped it just enough beyond the metal corner that it caught the light. Three hostiles, and he was wide open. The room was a warren of tall metal filing cabinets. They contained some of the few remaining paper records of SHIELD and Hydra's intermarriage.
With the option of fatalities this would have been a non-issue, but blowing their heads off wasn't an option. The two men shouted in clear, unaccented English for the asset to halt.
There was a knife in the palm of his right hand. He did not move. One of the men met his eye, and there was a flash of fear. His mouth opened to say something, and his eyes clouded with distraction. The words that had been so clear to the agent moments before eluded him now. They had all learned the phrase that could calm him down, call to broken, swiftly rotting programming and dust it off. But the words were gone from the man's head. The Soldier knew. Whatever expression he made at the thought of the agent failing to remember something that he seemed natural moments ago was enough to make the man visibly blanch behind his weapon.
He used the momentary distraction to his advantage, diving for the floor, tossing out the knife to catch the man in his exposed shoulder as he lifted slightly on his heels to fire off the shot. His aim was true, but so was the agent's.
The Soldier hit the ground and knew that the bullet had passed through his upper right forearm. That could be dealt with later. He pulled the firearm from a carefully disguised shoulder holster - his current limitations were to not purposefully kill anyone, after all - and when the blonde leaned out to fire a few shots down the aisle, he caught her twice in the chest.
There were no armor-piercing rounds in the chamber this time, and the bullets caught her substantial bulletproof vest and knocked the breath from her, flattening her out. He grabbed her loose arm and yanked her up in time to use her body as a convenient shield, propped in the aisle against the wall, preventing the two men from coming any closer.
Rogers would be immediately behind, now, nothing for it. He began scanning filing cabinets, checking their numbered designations. One of the files he wanted was here, and he wasn't leaving this room without it, moving target in a flag leotard or not.