O n the bridge, the mercenary with Batroc looked at his  phone. “The line just went dead. I’ve lost contact with them....”

Captain America’s shield shattered through the window. Batroc dodged the shield with extraordinary reflexes and it knocked out the other mercenary instead and got lodged in the wall. Steve vaulted through the broken window into the bridge compartment.

While Cap was regaining his balance, Batroc kicked out from his hiding place behind a row of navigation terminals and ran. Cap pulled his shield out of the wall and followed, hurtling down a stairwell and coming out onto the main deck.

“Hostages en route to extraction. Romanoff missed the rendezvous point, Captain,” Rumlow said in his ear. “Hostiles are still in play.”

“Natasha, Batroc’s on the move,” Steve said into the wrist comm. “Circle back to Rumlow and protect the hostages.” She didn’t answer. “Natasha,” he said again.

Still no answer.

Batroc took advantage of Cap’s distraction, jumping out of the shadows and nailing him with a series of leaping and spinning kicks. Cap absorbed most of them with his shield, but Batroc seemed quicker than any normal man. He kept coming, and he dodged Cap’s counterattacks. After their first round, Batroc did a back handspring away, and in French said, “I thought you were more than just a shield.”

Okay , Steve thought. Fair enough.

He attached the shield to its magnetic clamp on his back. Then he took off his mask. “Let’s see,” he said, also in French.

The second round was close and short. Steve went after Batroc, knowing he’d have to take a punch to get in close without his shield. That was all right. He got into grappling distance with Batroc and pounded him to the ground. Batroc kicked loose and got up. Steve charged him. They crashed through a door and slammed to the floor inside a room full of computers. With one last punch, Steve knocked Batroc out cold.

“Well, this is awkward,” Natasha said.

Steve looked up. She was at one of the terminals. Had she been here the whole time, not answering his calls and missing the S.T.R.I.K.E. rendezvous? “What are you doing?” he asked.

“Backing up the hard drive. It’s a good habit to get into.”

“Rumlow needed your help. What are you doing here?” He looked at the computer screen and saw the names of the files she was downloading. “You’re saving S.H.I.E.L.D. intel.”

“Whatever I can get my hands on.”

She had gone completely off mission and Steve didn’t like it. “Our mission is to rescue hostages.”

“No, that’s your mission, and you’ve done it beautifully,” she said. She finished the download and popped a USB drive out of its socket.

Steve was starting to get angry, not just because she had gone missing in the middle of a mission but because she didn’t seem to care. “You just jeopardized this whole operation,” he said.

Natasha stuck the USB drive in her belt. “I think that’s overstating things.”

There was motion in the corner of the room. Steve and Natasha looked up to see Batroc throwing a grenade at them while he ran out the door. Apparently he wasn’t as unconscious as Steve had thought.

He grabbed Natasha and they dove out of the room onto the deck as the grenade blew out the windows behind them. Smoke and fire billowed over their heads. Both of them were stung by flying debris, but neither was seriously hurt.

“Okay,” Natasha said while the smoke started to clear. “That one’s on me.”

Steve was still angry, and he didn’t appreciate the way she wasn’t taking him seriously. “You’re right,” he said, and got up to look for Batroc—​but the mercenary was long gone. 6rP4qOxeW9VuQl2DUkOD2mabZy++73LNUeM+vDjBpJRdhsDvU3RAkRSkKRFtxTA6