Johannesburg, South Africa

Spring 2015

What was it about the dens of black market arms dealers? As Nadine took up her position, her rifle held at the ready in front of her, she couldn't help the thought as it crossed her mind.

She hadn't been in many—one or two at most—and certainly none quite like this, housed as it was in the slowly rusting innards of a colossal ship carcass. There was a certain intimidating quality to the choice of headquarters, at least.

But the atmosphere was the same, right down to the faintly oppressive ambiance to the oily, gritty feel of the air and the pervading scent of gun oil, metal filings and gunpowder.

At its core, Klaue's operation really was no different than any other...perhaps on a slightly larger scale, but that was a detail only.

And really, that was beside the point. They weren't there because Klaue was a black market arms dealer. They were there because they suspected Klaue had managed to get his hands on Vibranium and they were suspecting that the rare metal was high on Ultron's wish list.

Well, that was the theory. And considering that she now had a sightline on Ultron perusing what appeared to be specialized canisters containing what she imagined was Vibranium? Their theory was correct.

"Ready to engage," she heard Rogers murmur through the earpiece, "Romanoff, Ryker, Barton; you all in position?" Peering down the canyon-like belly of the ship to the forward section where she knew Barton and Natasha were headed, Nadine took stock of her surroundings before she responded.

"I'm set," she murmured back, pausing as Natasha and Barton checked in themselves before relaying what she saw through her scope; she was positioned on the highest interior level of the ship that ran along what she suspected had once been several of the ship's main cargo holds. "I have a visual on Ultron, the Twins and possibly Klaue. I don't see anyone else, though. And Ultron's got a big new body," she added warily.

"Upgrades...fun. Well, we know he's got some new robot friends, too," Stark added dryly, "he probably brought a few of them along."

"Then stay sharp," Rogers added, nearly causing Nadine to roll her eyes. That was obvious, she thought. "This could get messy real quick. Klaue and his men are still here too. We don't know what their stake is yet in all this. They could be working with Ultron." Okay, that was a fair point.

She frowned then as she lost sight of Klaue. Apparently the others noticed too.

"Moving to engage," the Captain warned as Ultron's voice began to rise, venting about Stark.

"Ahh, Junior," Stark crooned, choosing that moment to descend to the walkway across the hold from Ultron. Nadine groaned; he really couldn't help himself, could he. "You're gonna break your old man's heart." Ultron turned at the sound of the billionaire's voice, his oddly expressive face darkening. Behind Stark Thor and Rogers took up their positions on either side of him. Nadine shifted, settling her rifle more firmly against her shoulder. She could feel the air changing. It always did right before a fight broke out.

Ultron stepped forward, sizing up the three Avengers before him. "If I have to." Behind him the Twins were shifting themselves, edging up toward Ultron to taking up their own positions just behind their metal ally. It took every ounce of self-control Nadine had not to rush down there and take matters into her own hands.

Those two knew where Nina was. They had to. Nadine was nearly vibrating with fury and urgency, her hands tightening on her rifle until her knuckles whitened and ached with the pressure. She was so close to the answers she craved...

"Easy, Nadya," she heard Natasha murmur through the earpiece. Nadine's eyes slid shut for a split-second as she fought to rein her emotions back in. Of course Natasha would suspect what was going through her mind right at that moment.

"We don't have to break anything," Thor was declaring as Nadine fought her own internal battle.

"Clearly you've never made an omelette." Nadine nearly started at Ultron's rather Stark-like response. She obviously wasn't the only one. Off where he was positioned down and across the hold from her, Barton let out a poorly restrained snicker. Nadine could practically imagine the exasperated looks the billionaire was likely getting from his teammates on the walkway.

"He beat me by one second," Stark immediately defended.

"Ah, this is funny, Mr. Stark." Nadine was immediately tensing again, peering down the barrel of her rifle toward the Twins as the brother—Pietro, Nadine recalled—edged forward to stand next to Ultron, ready to act if she needed to.

Only to hesitate; there was no mistaking the hatred in their faces. The blame. What on earth had happened to these two to create that kind of enmity? They were barely older than Nina! And they had her daughter? A chill threatened to go up Nadine's spine at the thought. "It's what, comfortable? Like old times?" the boy taunted, glancing down to the weaponry arrayed prominently below them all, ready and waiting to be shipped out. Nadine could almost hear Stark tensing through the earpiece.

"This was never my life."

"You two can still walk away from this," Rogers broke in, earning a matching contemptuous glance from both Twins.

"Oh, we will," the girl—Wanda—drawled assuredly back. But the Captain wasn't deterred.

"I know you've suffered—" No, a small, sad voice in the back of Nadine's head answered, he has no idea. Trying to placate them like that was not going to work. Those two had to be holding in a great deal of pain to inspire expressions like the ones they wore on their young faces. That she recognized easily enough.

"Uuughh!" Ultron cut him off with a sound of disgust, his voice laden with contempt, "Captain America. God's righteous man, pretending you could live without a war. I can't physically throw up in my mouth, but..."

"If you believe in peace, then let us keep it," Thor interjected calmly. Ultron scoffed.

"I think you're confusing peace with quiet."

Tony was just as skeptical, brushing the comment aside. "Yuh-huh. What's the Vibranium for?" As Ultron answered Nadine's skin prickled with warning. And with good reason too.

"I'm glad you asked that, because I wanted to take this time to explain my evil plan!" And all hell broke loose.

In an instant Ultron had activated what looked like an anti-gravity device in his hand to yank Stark toward him before hitting the billionaire hard with some sort of concussive beam even as two more robots dropped to engage Rogers and Thor. Nadine didn't even think.

In quick succession, three bullets discharged from her rifle.

And in quick succession three bullets impacted on Ultron, two to the side of his head, one to his neck.

All three ricocheted off his hard exoskeleton. Nadine nearly gaped...those were her high-density armour-piercing rounds.

Instantly he was looking in her direction, a disconcerting smile on his cybernetic face.

"Oh, you brought The Ghost too. Replacement for Dr. Banner?" But even as Nadine's finger tightened on the trigger for another shot—aiming right for one of those disturbing human-like eyes—Iron Man slammed into Ultron's chest, spoiling her shot. An angry cry snarled out of her throat as she tried to track the giant robot, even going so far as to hop up to balance against the railing, but he and Stark were moving too quickly, weaving into and around each other.

As much as she wasn't terribly fond of him, she couldn't risk hitting Stark.

"Heads up, Ryker! We've got incoming!" Barton's shout immediately had her dragging her attention away from the duelling Ultron and Iron Man. Down below Thor and the Captain were still occupied with Ultron's minions. But there was no missing the men beginning to mobilize around them; behind her she could hear them approaching, shouts echoing through the rusting corridors as boots thudded and clanked over the walkways.

It seemed Klaue's men had joined the fight.

As gunshots began to peal through the ship, Nadine was spinning to return fire herself, joining Hawkeye in picking off the mercenaries on the decks below, taking full advantage of her improved range of movement now that she'd abandoned her cover.

It didn't last long, though, as moments later a collection of Klaue's men were storming her perch.

Despite herself, Nadine nearly grinned.

Without missing a beat she was swinging from the railing to slam her boots into the nearest the thug's chest as he lunged toward her. In a blink she was ducking as the man behind managed to fire off a pair of rounds before spinning in a set of powerful kicks to first slam the gun from his grip then send him slamming into the nearest bulkhead.

She was a precise and efficient blur of motion, making full use of her combat training yet again for the second time in less than a week. Not one of them could touch her.

One by one, the men trying to subdue her fell to her quick-thinking and her strong, decisive fighting form—complete with acrobatics—unable to stand so much as a chance as she leapt and spun around them, virtually defenceless against her honed close-combat experience.

Distantly she kept an ear on the Avengers' comm chatter, keeping tabs on the rest of the team even as she propelled herself around one of the attacking thugs, using his own bodyweight against him as she launched herself around him to send one of his comrades head-first over the railing she'd been perched on when the fighting started.

"Thor! Status?" Nadine was only half paying attention as Captain called to the Asgardian. Not surprising, considering that right then she was in the middle of slipping between and over a pair of Klaue's men before hooking a leg around the one's knee. The move sent him tumbling into the other as she used him as a springboard to leap onto the second's shoulders, using her own momentum to send him lurching over his friend. It was Thor's reply that had her suddenly paying full attention to the voices in her ear.

"The girl tried to warp my mind," the Asgardian relayed, sounding relatively unconcerned as he passed along his warning, "Take special care, I doubt a human could keep her at bay. Fortunately, I am mighty..." Nadine frowned in complete bewilderment as he trailed off. That sounded very odd. A feeling of dread started churning in her gut. Whatever it was certainly did not bode well.

But she couldn't linger on the thought as, at that moment, three more of Klaue's thugs were running toward her even as one of the ones at her feet began to recover. Gritting her teeth as she returned her full focus to the fight at hand, Nadine was slinging her rifle across her back before lunging forward, dropping down at the last second to send one of the oncoming men toppling over her back into the man trying to scramble back to his feet behind her.

With another spinning kick another thug was tumbling back the way he'd come, screeching as he nearly pitched down the stairs he'd just raced up. But Nadine had already moved on, launching herself onto the last man's shoulders, again using her momentum to off-balance him, swinging her legs around as he stumbled to aim a hard kick at the first man just as he regained his feet.

He fell to the grated walkway with a twitch, his body tangling the feet of the thug she was currently clinging to. With a frown of concentration, she swung her leg up to lever against the bulkhead the thug nearly slammed her into, the push sending him back toward the stairs. With a final swinging lunge, she managed to clamp her legs around the neck of the man she'd nearly tossed down the stairs and, with a sharp, twisting roll of her body, she had both men lurching off-balance, using their own weight against them to send them both staggering into each other as Nadine rolled free, landing in a deft crouch as they both hurtled toward the stairs, one collapsing down the rusted steps as the other was sent toppling over the railing.

With a crash and two matching screeches of panic, the two men were careening down to the level below. With a quick, final glance at the unconscious adversaries in her wake, Nadine was following. There was little point in remaining on the upper level at this point, anyway.

Besides...if the girl was after the Avengers, it meant she was on the same level as them...and since she'd heard Steve talking to the brother at one point, it meant he was down there too. And if they were on the lower levels, that was where she needed to be.

She reached the bottom of the stairs just in time to engage another trio of Klaue's men, just barely missing the shot one fired off as soon as he saw her coming toward them.

As she leapt around the second onto the third, grabbing at his neck to send him twisting into his companion, Barton's voice was the one all but yelling in her ear.

"Whoever's standing, we gotta move! Guys?" Distantly the worry Thor's comments inspired re-emerged, but she couldn't spare a moment to think on it, ducking to avoid the thick fist swinging toward her. With a snap motion she had latched on to the arm attached to it and was twisting, curling the limb around behind the mercenary and balancing on his back as she swung her leg around to kick the gun in his remaining companion's hand away with a sickening crunch. With a howl of pain, the thug lunged forward, right into Nadine's waiting range.

In an instant he was motionless on the ground and Nadine was rolling to her feet as the thug she'd been balanced on regained his equilibrium.

"C'mon, guys, report in; the Maximoff girl just tried to get me too—I got her first, though, so she shouldn't be coming after anyone else."

"Well, I'm still sane," Nadine responded, throwing a final spinning kick to put down the last of Klaue's thugs immediately on her radar. Satisfied, she unslung her rifle again and headed for the next set of stairs down to where she knew the rest of the team had been.

"Anyone else?" Barton's only answer was a string of muttered Russian curses from Nadine.

No sooner had she reached the top of the final set of stairs than she spotted Rogers several yards from the bottom, spread prone on the walkway with an almost vacant, distant look on his face. She took the steps two at a time, leaping down the last few, not pausing to examine the worry welling in her chest at the vulnerable state of the Captain.

"I take it that's a no," Barton commented dryly, though his unease was clearly evident as well. Another couple of curses fell from Nadine's lips as she slung her rifle across her back once more as she knelt next to the Captain. Taking his head in her hands she evaluated him quickly and efficiently, checking his pulse, his eyes, calling his name, even snapping her fingers before his face in an attempt to get some sort of response. He seemed perfectly alright—uninjured, at least, and still marginally responsive to her efforts, if sluggish—but it was as if...as if his mind wasn't there.

Fear prickled across Nadine's skin at the realization; she'd seen similar states before, during her training...when girls broke under torture...on another face...another soldier.

It was never good.

"That's a big no on the Captain," she confirmed as dispassionately as possible, though there was no hiding the faint waver to her voice. Luckily, it didn't seem to carry over the comm channel. Through her earpiece she heard Barton swear himself.

"I found Nat," he reported after a moment of indistinguishable murmurs, "she's a big no, too." And Nadine was swearing again, some English and German joining the Russian for good measure. It was either that or risk the worry and fear for her little sister thrumming in her chest taking over.

"And Thor?"

"Not looking good for him either," Barton answered, "I can see him from here. He looks a little better than Nat—a lot more mobile, at least—but I don't know where his head's at, so we should probably keep our distance for the moment. He wouldn't be a good one to spook." Nadine groaned.

This was not good.

"What about the Maximoffs?" Barton sighed heavily. It was answer enough. Nadine's chest clenched.

"I think they're long gone, Ryker. The brother cleared out his sister almost as soon as I hit her." Her entire body tensed, coiling like a wound spring, instantly ready to give chase...but next to her, the Captain groaned, his eyes blinking slowly in what looked startlingly like pain...and not the physical sort, either. It cut through her like a knife.

"Dammit!" She couldn't do it. She couldn't leave the team, not like this.

But that didn't stop the conflicting feelings from causing her bodily pain as her chest constricted yet again, feeling like it was crushing her lungs as a coil of distress tightened like an iron band.

Her hand rose to cradle her forehead as she looked down at Rogers, running through options on whether or not to try and move him...if he could even be moved...

She had a funny feeling that unless he started coming to, the only one who'd be able to help would be Thor.

And that wasn't exactly an option just now.

God, she hoped whatever the girl had done wasn't permanent...

And then she was fighting off that fear too.

Dimly she heard Stark saying something about the Hulk, but it wasn't until he directed his comments toward the rest of the team that she really heard what he said.

"Natasha, I could really use a Lullaby." Nadine's stomach dropped further. She might not have been with the team long, but Natasha had told her all about how the redhead and Banner had worked out a system for helping to aim, control and, perhaps most importantly, calm the Hulk during those couple days of down-time after Sokovia. If Stark was asking for a Lullaby?

It meant Hulk was loose.

This was a disaster.

"Well, that's not gonna happen," Barton replied grimly.

"Not for a while, at least," Nadine interjected just as bitterly, leaning in over Rogers again, her hand cupping his jaw gently as she eased his face around so she could see it. His only reaction was to weakly fight against her touch...he was still so far away.

"The whole team is down, you got no back up here," Barton finished with no small measure of worry in his voice. The comm fell silent for a moment, the tension palpable as Stark ran through his own options.

"Hey Ryker, you have a kid—how are you with lullabies?" Regardless of how the comment was far more desperate than joking, if Stark had been nearby, Nadine would have fixed him with a disbelieving glare. A grimy patch of bulkhead just beyond Steve's shoulder served as an acceptable surrogate.

"Nice assumption, Buckethead," she bit back, her voice thick with sarcasm before turning serious, " but even if I knew the Lullaby, what makes you think Hulk would listen to me? It's Natasha he trusts." Through her earpiece she heard Stark groan, unable to help the wave of sympathy she suddenly felt toward the man.

She would not want to go up against the Hulk alone in a million years, fancy suits or not. After another long, heavy moment Stark spoke again.

"I'm calling in VERONICA," he stated gravely. Barton couldn't quite manage to withhold his own sigh of dismay.

"Good luck, Stark," he murmured, "You're gonna to need it."

Nadine couldn't help but agree.

In the meantime, she and Barton had to somehow figure out how to get the rest of the team back to the Quinjet.

But when it was all said and done?

She'd rather that than face the Hulk.

"Let's get moving," she said tiredly.

In a tone that matched hers perfectly, Barton agreed.

A/N: Thanks for reading!

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