Chapter Text
The rotors of the helicopter thudded overhead, louder than her heartbeat but not loud enough to drown it out. Smoke slipped through the vents, the scent of scorched metal and ozone already filling the air. Stacey could taste it in the back of her throat.
Below them, Dublin burned.
From her seat near the door of the chopper, Stacey had an all too clear view of the chaos and destruction below: smoke billowing from shattered storefronts, buses lying on their sides, flames licking at brick facades along the banks of the River Liffey. She’d never been to Dublin, but she’d seen pictures in the book her dad used to keep on the coffee table. He’d always wanted to go, never had. She’d wanted to go, too, but not like this.
She peered closer, squinting against the wind. There, in the winding medieval-era streets, something was moving fast; many somethings, ripping through the alleys and narrow lanes like silver darts. Their intel didn’t have a name for them. All they knew was that they weren’t fully drones, but not fully alive. Whatever they were, they were fast. Fast, and strong. Stacey watched one slam into a blue-and-yellow bus and fling it into the side of a glass office building.
She shuddered and looked up, and noticed that the seat was starting to crumple where she was gripping it. She quickly let go. Breaking the chopper would be a rotten start to the mission.
Across from her, Alexei muttered under his breath in Russian as he adjusted his gloves. Yelena checked her guns and batons with near-clinical calm. Ava watched the city out the other side of the chopper, green eyes constantly moving as she surveyed the chaos. Beside her, John sat with his arms folded, helmet in his lap, face unreadable. He hadn’t said a word since takeoff. That didn’t surprise her. He was almost always that way before a mission.
The comms crackled, and Stacey jumped as Bucky’s voice suddenly sounded in her ear.
“All right, everyone, listen up.” Seated up front with the pilot, Bucky didn’t bother to turn to the team as he began the briefing. “I don’t have to tell you that it’s not good down there. We don’t know what those things are, but they’re strong, fast, and meaner than hell. Drone footage indicates cybernetics, origin unknown. Areas worst affected are the Liberties, Temple Bar, and College Green. Whole area’s crawling with hostiles, and they’re going after civilians.”
“God, what are those things?” Stacey grimaced, pulse pounding harder in her ears as she stared down at the smoky streets. Civilian involvement always made things more complicated, but more than that she felt awful for the people who had been going about their day only to be attacked by God only knew what. It wasn’t fair.
Bucky continued: “Local military and police are doing their best, but they’re struggling to keep the things contained. Our job is to get in there and take out as many as we can until the special forces mobilize. Save lives when you can. Don’t worry about where these things come from, just send them to whatever maker they’ve got.”
“We will crush them!” Alexei declared, cracking his knuckles and grinning like a madman. “These beasts are no match for the New Avengers!”
“Are we legally allowed to call ourselves that?” Ava muttered.
“I just want to know why ‘the New Avengers’ sounds worse than ‘the Thunderbolts,” said Yelena.
John groaned. “Jesus, not this argument again. Who cares what we’re called? We’re not a goddamn NFL team.”
Stacey could almost hear Bucky rolling his eyes as he spoke again: “I cannot think of anything that matters less right now. Focus, you guys.”
“ETA two minutes,” the pilot interrupted. “Coming in hot, get ready to drop.”
Bucky stifled a sigh and kept going. “Listen up: Stacey and John, you two are going in first. Straight up College Street to Temple Bar, punch through and keep moving. Yelena, Alexei, and I are second wave. Ava runs distraction. If you see local militia, let them do their thing and don’t get in the way.”
The helicopter rocked in a sudden gust of wind blowing off the Irish Sea, tilting the River Liffey into view. Below, the port of Dublin was on fire. People ran screaming, fleeing the silver monsters that moved like lightning. Cars and buses lay toppled on their sides, and trees burned. Sirens wailed. None of this was new.
Stacey had been part of the group since nearly the beginning. She’d missed the entire drama of the vault and the Void, but shortly after the formation of the New Avengers, her old friend Bucky Barnes—Congressman Barnes, seriously?—reached out and asked her to be a part of the new team. She wasn’t completely convinced at first, but Bucky had done her so many favors over the years that she figured she’d give it a try. Truth be told, she missed being part of a team.
And now here she was, three months later, still riding with the ragtag group of misfits, still living in the half-finished tower they called home. This wasn’t her first mission—that had been nearly eight years ago now, with Steve and Bucky and Sam, back when she was barely in her twenties and they were all still a team. It seemed so long ago. But despite all the missions she’d run, her nerves still crept up on her.
“Stacey! John!” Bucky’s voice snapped her from her thoughts again. She looked up quickly, and locked eyes with Bucky. He cast her a slightly exasperated look before continuing: “To the door, you two are up.”
Stacey took a deep breath and stood, walking to the open door of the chopper. Yelena gave her a smile and thumbs up, and Alexei patted her arm as she passed. She tried for a smile, but only managed a grimace.
John strode over, pulling his helmet on. He clipped himself into the rappel cord and slung his shield over his back. His blank face betrayed very little, but Stacey saw the hard set of his strong jaw, and laser focus in those blue eyes. He glanced at her. She nodded, and he nodded back.
“It’s go time.” Bucky’s voice crackled over the comm. “Good luck, you two.”
Stacey straightened her spine. She inhaled once, breathing in the acrid smell of smoke and fuel. Yelena always described the moment of a jump as zen, a moment when all thoughts left your head. That had never been Stacey’s experience, even though a fall couldn’t hurt her. Heights still made her nervous. But there were people down there who needed her help, and they were more scared of those things than she was of a fall.
She found her target, set her feet, and jumped.
The air hit like a slap to the face. Her eyes watered, her ears ached. She fell, the several hundred feet flying past in a heartbeat. It always seemed longer than it really was. She squinted against the wind, trying to keep her eyes open. Forgot your goggles again, Evans, she thought. Great work. You were a real Avenger once, you know. Maybe act like it?
She hit her target like a meteor. The cybernetic beast had no time to react as her steel-plated boots slammed into its head and drove it into the pavement, cratering the street. Concrete, sparks, and oil flew outward. The thing beneath her shrieked once before folding like a napkin. It jerked once, spasmed, then went still. Hydraulic fluid oozed across the street, dark and steaming. It stank.
Stacey brushed her hair out of her face, straightening up. Not much could stand up to her when she hit like that. She didn’t like jumping out of choppers, but over the years she’d concluded that it was a damn effective use of her abilities.
She looked around, instinctively taking stock of her surroundings. The street was chaos: fires blooming from brick storefronts, glass glittering across the pavement like spilled salt. Another of the cybernetic monsters ripped apart a bus stalled in front of a roughstone Georgian facade. This was her first close-up look at one of the things, and she didn’t like it.
It moved strangely, too fluid to be natural. Its stance and gait reminded her of a video she’d once seen of a vampire bat running along the ground, but that was where the comparisons stopped. It was shaped like some kind of tail-less dog, with a long head and long limbs like those of a greyhound. Metal plating glinted across its back, half-exposed wiring snapping like tendrils. Its gray skin looked shiny or damp, like rubber or maybe the skin of an amphibian. It didn’t have eyes that she could see, but lights flashed from the glass visor on its head.
“Ugh,” she muttered. “What the crap are you?”
The thing turned its head 180 degrees toward her, neck clicking unnaturally. Stacey yelped. “Oh, no, nevermind!”
She jumped off the one she’d landed on. It wasn’t moving anymore. She genuinely couldn’t tell how much of it was organic—too much metal, too many sparking joints. But it was dead now. Or offline. Whatever passed for death for a thing like this.
The one ahead of her dropped the streetlamp it held in one metal hand and turned fully in her direction. It emitted a piercing whine, like the eerie hum of an electric car on startup. It sent chills down her spine, but she squared her shoulders and readied herself to charge.
Bang! A bullet glanced off its head, cracking the glass of its visor. She heard a muffled curse from behind her.
“Goddammit.” John Walker unclipped himself from the rope he’d slid down on and lowered his .45. “Figures these things are bulletproof.”
“They’re not punch-proof,” Stacey said. “Or kick-proof, I guess.”
“Works for me.” He holstered his pistol. “Hell of a landing,” he added, stepping up beside her. “I was going to go for a superhero pose, but I figure one dramatic entrance was enough.”
Stacey didn’t laugh. She was just glad to have some backup. Realistically, there probably wasn’t much these things could do to hurt her, but that didn’t mean she wanted to fight them alone. They reminded her a bit too much of those godawful Jerusalem crickets she used to see back on the farm as a kid.
John rolled his shoulders back and pulled his shield from the magnetic clip on his back. “Let’s go to work.”
The monster leapt, and they moved to meet it. Stacey rushed it, slamming into it mid-air and driving it through the front of a Bus Átha Cliath bus. Metal ripped, glass shattered. She felt the sharp edges glance off her face, painful but not penetrating. The creature’s armor plating buckled beneath the impact of her shoulder, denting it but not killing it.
John was already beside her, swinging his shield so hard that it snapped the thing’s neck backwards. It spasmed, spewing sparks from the impact site, and went still. He stepped back, breathing hard. “Jesus,” he muttered. “The hell are these things?”
“I dunno,” she said, brushing glass from her hair. “They’re like… bat-bug bots.”
He pulled a disgusted face. “Awful, thanks.”
“I don’t like ‘em either, trust me,” she said. She glanced down the street and spotted the gleam of metal, moving quickly toward them. “More coming.”
“Great.” His face twitched. “Let’s see how these bat-bug bastards like tangling with two super soldiers.”
The next wave of the bat-bug bots charged—three of them, maybe four, skittering over broken cobblestones and fallen lampposts like wire spiders. The screech of their limbs on the pavement made Stacey’s ears ring.
She sprinted toward them, steel-reinforced boots thudding on broken glass and cracked concrete. She sprang onto a toppled bus, dropping her shoulder and body-slamming the next cybernetic thing as hard as she could. The impact shook her like an earthquake, but she managed to stay standing. A strike like that would have broken a normal person, probably even killed them outright.
Another beast lunged at her, baring fangs that looked like hypodermic needles. It clamped down on her arm, hard enough to pierce through her suit, but its teeth shattered on her skin. The bite hurt like hell, but no blood flowed. It never did, not anymore, not since the injections.
Stacey braced herself against the impact, swinging her fist and dealing it a blow that would’ve sent a car flying. The thing’s metal jaw crumpled, spraying hydraulic fluid. Her vision suddenly blurred as adrenaline surged, the street around her spinning. She shook her head, gritting her teeth against the sudden and familiar nausea that flooded through her. It was nothing new, just a persistent reminder that Apex hadn’t bothered with caution when they did this to her. Project Warhead was ironically a good word for it: instead of the cruise missile they were aiming for, they ended up with a nuke.
Another beast charged, claws sparking on the asphalt. Stacey met it at a dead run, slamming her shoulder into its chest with all the force she could muster. The impact sent the creature skidding back, but too far and too fast: the momentum carried it straight into a parked Mazda, which flew backwards down the block like a runaway go kart. The car smashed through the front of a boutique. Glass, mannequins, and fancier clothes than Stacey could afford went flying. She winced. Dammit. Not again.
Beside her, John leaped lightly over a toppled bronze statue of a 19th-century politician, slamming his shield into another cybernetic beast with surgical precision. He didn’t waste energy. Stacey envied that calm control, wished she could be more controlled, as she used her power like a hammer swinging out of rhythm.
John glanced at her, raising an eyebrow, as if to say, maybe dial it back a notch.
She made a face at him, but forced her focus back to the fight. Another monster lunged, jaws snapping, and Stacey kicked it with bone-jarring force. It slammed into a storefront and bricks crumbled to the pavement. The building shuddered, and she cursed under her breath. Control yourself. Her strength was unmatched, but it was like trying to control an earthquake. Every strike could be too much.
Another creature came at her from the right. She swung hard and struck its midsection with her iron knuckles, felt it give beneath the plating, heard the crunch and screech of metal as it flew backward and didn’t get up again.
But the blow left her back open, exposed. One of them lunged, moving like lightning, hydraulic jaws open and aimed for her neck.
The strike never connected. Walker’s shield spun over her head and struck the monster dead in the neck, knocking it into a streetlight. The pole groaned in protest, bending under the force of the impact. Walker charged forward, catching the shield as it spun back. He finished the monster off with a kick to the head.
He glanced over his shoulder. “Watch your six, Evans.”
Stacey flushed a bit, embarrassed. “Thanks, John.”
A piercing whine sounded ahead, and they both looked up in time to see yet another creature tearing down the street toward them. It trampled a taxi like it was a tin can. She and Walker glanced at each other. He nodded. “Be my guest.”
Stacey charged. She ran at it full-tilt, grabbed the grill of a wrecked Peugeot, and lifted. She wrenched it up and over, bracing on one leg. She heard John mutter something behind her, but ignored it. She found her target, and hurled the vehicle as hard as she could.
The Peugeot smashed into the creature, and the one behind it. They crumpled, glass and metal and hydraulic fluid going everywhere.
Stacey exhaled shakily. Her arms ached, that kind of feat was tricky even for her. She was starting to lose count of how many of these things she’d taken out now. “Are we done yet?” she groaned, rubbing her knuckles.
Walker snorted dryly. “I wish.” He glanced at her sideways. “You fight like a goddamn wrecking ball.”
“But it worked, right?”
He looked around them. The street was still a mess, but it was quieter now—just flame, smoke, and shattered glass. “I think so.”
Stacey lifted her hand to her ear. “Bucky. We’ve cleared College Street. Where to now?”
“Head east,” came the reply. “Hostiles on Pearse Street, near the Garda Station.”
“The what?” John said.
“Garda,” Stacey said. “It’s Irish for ‘police.”
“Irish?” he repeated. “What, they got their own slang?”
“Their own language, John,” she said, trying to keep the amused smile from her face. “Look at the street signs.”
He peered behind her at a sign that read Ard-Mhúsaem na hÉireann - National Museum of Ireland. “Huh.”
“Hello?” Bucky said. “Hostiles? Get moving, you two!”
“Sorry.” Stacey cringed. “Right, hostiles.”
“Hostiles,” Bucky agreed. “Good luck, and don’t wreck Trinity College.”
The comm shut off. Stacey looked at John, and they both nodded again. They broke into a run, wrecking crunching underneath their feet.