Bobbi Barton released her hold and let Mockingbird take over. Castle was an enemy right now, even if he had been a reluctant ally in the past—she couldn’t condone his methods…any more. She’d made a promise, to Clint, to Steve, to herself. She might sympathize with the stark simplicity of the trigger pull as a solution but it was as far from her as being named Princess of Asgard now.
Her suit, despite the white stripe down the middle, was heavily stealthed and would be hard for him to make out in the dappled, confused shadows of the warehouse. She kept moving, flitting from cover to cover, pillar to pillar, rusted out hulk of machinery to shadow. Motion was trackable but if she stopped and started again it would be really obvious.
She needed a plan and probably she should call the team. Or at least Black Widow. Nat and Castle had worked together in the past. Honestly, Mockingbird didn’t want to put her in that position. And they were all more than just their pasts, Bucky proved that.
Castle had moved out of the light but she had a good handle on his position, though she didn’t have X-Ray or anything like that. She had a wireframe schematic of the interior of the building, the relative positions of all the occupants, some minimal heat sensing and a few other tricks. The HUD in her tac goggles fed a steady, comforting stream of data: angles, distances, trajectories…
Gun shot.
Muzzle flare just before the sound, echoing hard in this enclosed space. She was moving sideways before the sound and the bullet snapped past her head, chilling her blood. Frank was apparently less reluctant to hurt her than the other way around.
There was a crash as he knocked over some equipment in a transparent attempt at distraction.
Without thought, her hands snapped out in two directions, sending her combat batons whipping through the air to ricochet off the ground, a metal beam and a chunk of drill press.
One of them was aimed at the place where the flash had come from. The other was aimed at where she knew Castle would move to.
There was a meaty sound of flesh and metal and she sprinted for it, hoping she’d hit him in the head.
Well, this is on now isn’t it? (Go to 5)