Who the hell’s Brenda?

Sam swore as the steering wheel was torn from his grasp. Natasha shot frantically at the attacker, but she leapt off their car onto the army truck behind them. The truck then revved forward and smashed into the back of their car. With no way to steer, the vehicle scraped along the wall of the bridge, then cartwheeled into the air.

Steve only had a split second to think. He shoved Nat over and pulled Sam close in the same motion. He yelled "Hang on!" and pressed the shield against the passenger door. An instant later, the door broke from the car, and the trio fell out with it, as the car flipped and smashed away. They landed hard and slid along the concrete on the door; Sam let go and rolled painfully to a stop. Steve and Nat stood shakily, seeing the assassin pointing a huge gun at them. Steve shoved Nat away before the shot, and covered himself with the shield. The shield blocked the shot, but the force of it cartwheeled him back and off the bridge.

When he came to, he was lying in a bus. People were disappearing out the doors, and there was blood and glass everywhere. Then, the gunshots sounded. The last people dropped dead in the entryway. Steve leaped up and sprinted his way out of the bus, covering his face with his hands. Someone was ripping the vehicle apart with a military-grade machine gun. Someone really wanted Steve dead.

He dove out the back window, and landed on his shield. Thanking God, he crouched on one knee, covering his whole body with the shield as several enemies shot at him. Using a trick Peggy had taught him, way back in 1943, he angled the shield so that the bullets hitting it ricocheted into one of the shooters. He was hit, and fell down. Steve changed the shield angle to repeat the action, but another shooter had already fallen, and looking up he spied Sam on the bridge picking off the assailants. Steve sprinted at the guy with the huge repeating gun, flipped over him, and slammed his head into a car. "Only one guy left," Steve thought, but Sam interrupted him. "GO!" Sam yelled from the bridge. "I got this!"

"That's right, there's still the assassin lady," Steve thought, shaking his foggy head. "And where's Natasha?"

He followed the sound of an explosion, jogging cautiously to the fireball. Then there was a single shot, and his heart went cold. "Natasha," he whispered with dread. Then he caught sight of the assassin, with her short black hair and metal arm. He ran at her before she could shoot again. She saw him coming, and went to punch with her metal arm: Steve blocked with his shield, and a booming metallic sound erupted as steel met steel.

They fought on the street, among the cars. Steve quickly disarmed the assassin's firearms but took longer to rid her of the tiny knives she kept producing. She grabbed hold of his shield and threw it at him, but it missed and lodged itself in a van. They went to and fro with the knives, assassin slashing and stabbing, captain ducking and dodging. He finally got close enough and threw her over his shoulder, but she bounced up, kicked him in the ribs, and grabbed hold of his throat with her metal arm. She threw him to the ground and reared back her prosthetic limb to strike; Steve bared rolled over in time, and her fist broke a hole through the road. She pulled out another knife, and they were at it again: stab, twist, slash, duck, punch, kick. Steve grabbed his shield and knocked up her chin, then grabbed her face and flipped her over his shoulder. She hit the deck hard, and her mask fell off.

She stood up slowly, with her back to him. Steve, panting hard, was relieved he might finally be able to identify her, when she suddenly turned, and...

"Brenda?"

"Who the hell's Brenda?"

It was her. How...how could this be? She fell to her death 60 years ago: how could she be alive? And why the hell was she trying to kill him? Steve's mind was racing fast, and he felt a slow, seeping cold envelop him. She was pointing a gun at him, but he couldn't believe it. This was Brenda Barnes, he knew it was! His best pal...she would never point a gun at him! What's been done to her? What happened with the metal arm?

Steve barely noticed Sam swooping in to knock Brenda away. She came to her feet, eyes wide, hair ragged over her face. She stared at Steve hauntingly, but Natasha, having picked up Brenda's own gun, shot at her. When the dust had cleared, Brenda had disappeared.

Wailing sirens pierced Steve's consciousness, and he was ordered roughly to get to his knees; but he didn't care. All he cared about in that moment was that his friend, his best friend since childhood, Jaimee "Brenda" Barnes, was trying to kill him.