Weeks she had been waiting for an opportunity. Hours upon hours spent in front of a screen tracking the group with whatever resources she could get her hands on. All of the work wasted in a matter of moments by two men that clearly didn't know any better. 

She was back to the beginning of the search, back to square one, but now without her computer and any access she might still have to the S.H.I.E.L.D. database. It didn't help that she didn't even have her phone with her. 

Clara got to her feet, still staring down the road leading to the Flag Smashers base. 'Could have used that shield,' Barnes grumbled, Clara turning to glare across the small expanse of field separating them. 

'Get off me,' Sam winced, Barnes rolling off to lay in the weeds beside him. 

'Do you have any idea what you've done?' Clara yelled, throwing the door handle she still held to the ground as she stormed their way. Sam and Barnes both lifted their heads to see her approach, dropping back down when they saw who it was, and that there was no real danger. 'Why are you even here? Walker and Hoskins were the only ones tasked with dealing with them.'

'You finished?' Sam asked, groaning a little as he sat up. 

'God, if you had just let me get on with my mission, we'd know where they're hiding!' She continued, ignoring his words completely. ' "Don't have time to babysit," ' she muttered, shaking her head, looking down at the two of them both more battered and bruised than she was. 'You went in less prepared than me!'

'Look, Kid-'

'Not done,' she interrupted Barnes, holding up a finger to silence him. 'I had a plan, I knew exactly what I was doing, and then you show up and get yourselves into one hell of a mess, and for some stupid reason I decided to try and help you.'

'We didn't ask for your help - we didn't need your help,' Barnes told her.

Clara scoffed in response, folding her arms. 'You needed someone's help.'

'Enough,' Sam said, interrupting the two short-fused, super-powered individuals before the argument became any more heated. 'Listen; we're flying you back to the US, taking you straight back to where ever it was you came from, and we're finding out how you got out here in the first place.'

Clara narrowed her eyes at him, clenching her jaw and deciding exactly what she needed to do. 'Oh, seriously?' Barnes exclaimed as she vanished from view, raising his voice as if she had moved much further away. 'Great job convincing us you're mature enough for this!'

They both waited for her to reappear, but after a long stretch of her not doing so, Barnes turned to Sam. 'What next?' 

'Torres touched down at the airport,' Sam nodded back the way they came. 'We should start heading that way and then see what's next.' 

Clara looked between them, waiting for them to start back towards the road before walking in Barnes' footsteps, not wanting to make a third trail and give away the fact she had never walked away before. 

'Sorry about Redwing,' Barnes said after a little while of walking, having made it back down the main road and onto a narrow country lane. 

'No, you're not,' Sam snorted. 'What's going on in that big cyborg brain of yours?'

'It's computing,' he replied, finally looking up and around at their surrounding after having walked most of the way watching his own footsteps. 

Sam chuckled. 'You know what? I can actually see it - I can see the gears turning.' The amusement was evident in his tone, Clara looking between them as she began to understand more about their strange dynamic. 'Oh, they're malfunctioning, shutting down... Yep, they're on fire.'

Clara looked behind them as the soft sound of a car's engine reached her ears, seeing an army green rover a little ways down the road, headed their way. Habitually, she moved to the side of the road.

'We gotta figure out where the serum's coming from,' Barnes told Sam.

Sam agreed, adding to his statement. 'Yeah, and how in the hell after eighty years are there eight Super Soldiers runnin' loose.'

Two honks sounded as the driver of the green rover rolled past them, slowing down so the blue-eyed, blonde-haired man in the back could talk to Sam and Barnes. 'So that didn't go as planned, huh?' Walker asked, letting the back door swing open to let the two on foot climb in. 

Sam and Barnes continued past, Clara raising an eyebrow at the decision to do so. She wasn't aware of the animosity between them, or what had caused it, but she continued behind them, thinking it would be awfully nice to sneak onto their plane rather than having to sneak all the way through customs at an actual airport. 

'Look, at least we know what we're up against now, huh?' Walker offered, still in the rover driving beside them. 'And we're pretty sure it's one of the Big Three, so...'

'Aliens, androids, or wizards?' Sam asked, looking at Barnes as if proving a point over a previous argument the two had.

'Pretty sure,' Walker confirmed.

Barnes shook his head, looking back down to the road again. 'There's no such thing as wizards.' 

'All right, then it's aliens, or androids-'

'Or Super Soldiers,' Sam added, filling them in on his discovery. 

Hoskins raised an eyebrow at his statement. 'Super Soldiers for real?'

'Wow. All right, well, then we gotta work together,' Walker decided for them. 

Barnes, still not offering a glance their way, spoke up again. 'That's not happening.' 

'I think we stand a much better chance if we all just-'

'Just 'cause you carry that shield, it doesn't mean you're Captain America,' Barnes interrupted him. Sam didn't show any notion that he disagreed with Barnes' words, so Clara took that as the reason there was such a stiff atmosphere between the two duos. 

'Look, I've done the work, okay?' Walker pointed a finger at Barnes, clearly taking offense.

'You ever jump on top of a grenade?'

'Yeah, actually, I have. Four times. It's a thing I do with my helmet,' Walker began to explain. 'It's a reinforced helmet. It's a long story, but, anyway, look, it's twenty miles to the airport. You guys need a ride. Get in.'

The door swung open again, the topless rover coming to a complete stop, the brakes squeaking slightly as it did. Clara looked between the two men as they shared a glance. She didn't really want to walk twenty miles after being flung from a moving vehicle.

Barnes relented, Sam having given him one of his looks that, for whatever reason, made the man choose to listen. 'Fine.'

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