"'At long last' is lasting a little long, boys," Hunter hears Natasha call from both beside him and his earpiece and he turns his head towards the redhead. Their eyes meet for a split second until the moment gets ruined. A blast hits the three not far behind the two and the two duck down. From the corner of their eyes, they notice Clint getting up from behind the affected tree. The archer draws his bow and shoots one of his special arrows towards another bunker, the brick structure collapsing with a controlled explosion.

"Yeah," he hears Clint say in his ear, "I think we lost the element of surprise."

"Wait a second," Tony interjects, "no one else is gonna deal with the fact that Cap just said 'Language'?"

"I know," Steve answers, the rumbling of a motorcycle sounding through his speech, followed by the sound of a crashing vehicle. Only a second later, a panting voice speaks up, saying: "just slipped out."

"It sure did, old man," Hunter snorts as he gets back to his feet. He scans the area before he walks over to Natasha, offering his hand to help her up. She barely gets the time to get up from the ground when it starts raining bullets again, and her grasp on the other Avenger's hand tightens. 

"The city is taking fire," JARVIS announces to the group of heroes.

"Well, we know Strucker's not gonna worry about civilian casualties," Tony sighs, "send in the Iron Legion." Not long after his order, Hunter and Natasha look up to find a horde of iron suits zooming over the trees. 

"We should go," Hunter suggests. He looks back down at the woman in front of him, who nods in approval. 

"Yeah, stop swooning over each other, we are far from finished!" Natasha turns her eyes away from the black-haired agent to a figure behind him and Hunter follows her gaze to the archer that stands a couple of feet away from them. Narrowing her eyes at her best friend, she clenches her fist and a blue glow forms around her wrist. But then a projectile hits a tree not far away from the duo, screwing up Natasha's plan. And in a blink of an eye, literally, Clint has disappeared.

Hunter clears his throat, snapping her out of what she would call her Black-Widow-Mode. Natasha's eyes dart away from the spot where Clint was last seen to Hunter's face. He lowers his eyes and hers follow, detecting the drained color of Hunter's skin around where her hand is placed and she releases her firm grip. 

"Sorry." And then it starts raining bullets, and the two are forced to move. They start running in the direction of where the archer disappeared, and soon they spot his quiver between the trees. Clint vanishes behind a tree as the rain of bullets starts again, taking an arrow from his back and he aims his bow at the armed bunker in front of him. Hunter watches as he lets go of the string, the arrow flying towards its target. Before it can reach its destination, it disappears into a blurred streak. A frown appears on Clint's face, the man's brain running at full speed to try and process what just happened. In frustration, he snatches another arrow from his quiver and steps away from the tree to draw his bow again, but is knocked over by a speedy figure. Out of thin air, a man appears. From his point of view, Hunter can't get a clear image of his face, but the platinum blond hair stands out.

"You didn't see that coming?" the young man asks Clint with a grin before speeding away. The archer scrambles to his feet to pull his bow again, but lowers it in defeat when realizing his arrows aren't as fast as that man. And that's when a blue beam appears in the corner of Hunter's eye, zooming towards the male Avenger in front of him and hitting him right in his side.

"Clint!"

"We have an Enhanced in the field," Steve's voice buzzes in his ear.

"Clint's hit," Natasha calls, sprinting past Hunter who follows her to the fallen man. She falls to her knees, examining the exposed flesh wound. Pulling a bandage from one of her pockets, her eyes flash towards the underground shelter. "Somebody want to deal with that bunker?" Hunter reaches down, detaching a grenade from his belt. He wraps his finger around the safety pin, about to take it out when a loud roar makes his head raise. The Hulk bolts towards the concrete building and lets his body collide with its walls, making it crumble to the ground. And as fast as he appeared, he runs off again. "Thank you." Seeing the HYDRA soldiers firing after The Hulk, Hunter tightens his grip on the grenade as he takes out the safety pin. He pulls back his arm before swinging it forward, his fingers pushing off the safety lever before his hand lets go. The explosive zooms through the air, hitting the ground right in front of HYDRA's men and exploding not long after the impact.

"Stark, we really need to get inside."

"I'm closing in... Jarvis, am I closing in?" The man starts a conversation with his A.I. and Hunter lowers the volume on his earpiece. 

"What do you need?"

"Water to cool down the burn," Natasha orders, "grab some snow and try to melt it." 

He grabs a handful of snow and rolls it between his hands. "It's literally freezing, how am I supposed to melt this?"

"How about you use that fire you created?" she answers, nodding towards the burned-out bunker. Hunter grunts as he pushes himself to his feet, the temperature of his normally-insulate suit lowering as the raid continues. He walks over to the burning structure, watching the fire crisp in front of him as he tries to figure out a plan to get the melted ice back to Clint and Natasha. Hands burning from the cold, his eyes dart towards the trees around him and he lets the snow slip from between his fingers. As he strolls towards one of the many trees, he takes his knife from his pocket and cuts out a curved shape from the tree's bark. Filling up the middle part with snow, he walks back to the fire and holds the whole thing a few inches above the fire's highest flame. 

"The drawbridge is down people," Hunter hears Tony faintly call from his ear. 

"The Enhanced?" Thor questions.

"Is a blur," Steve tells, "all the new players we faced, I've never seen this... In fact, I still haven't."

"Clint's hurt pretty bad, guys," Natasha interrupts as Hunter gets back with his handcrafted bowl of slush, "we're gonna need evac."

"I can get Barton to the jet," the god suggests, "the sooner we're gone, the better. You and Stark secure the scepter." Steve answers with a 'Copy that', but Clint's groaning drowns him out almost completely and Natasha apologizes.

"You're okay," Hunter tries to assure the archer, but the face he makes at his exposed flesh says otherwise.

"Easy for you to say," he growls back, shutting the agent's mouth. The trio stays quiet, Hunter and Natasha keeping an eye on Clint until Thor gets to them. The blond god lands on the ground with a blow, followed by the iron suits of the iron legion. He pulls Clint's arm around his broad shoulders as the female avenger knots a piece of fabric around his leg. 

"Ready?"

"I don't think I'll ever be ready," Clint mutters, squeezing his eyes shut in preparation for his ride to the jet. Thor lets out a chuckle as he spins Mjølnir around in his hand and the other two avengers step away from the two while the snow comes off the ground. When winded up, the two take off.

"We're locked down out here," Natasha informs the others through the comms.

"Then get to Banner," Steve tells, "time for a lullaby." A roar sounds and Hunter and Natasha turn their heads to find the green giant disappearing between the trees.

"I got this," she tells the avenger beside her and walks through the snow into the direction where The Hulk vanished from. She leaves Hunter behind and he turns his head towards the small group of HYDRA soldiers as they get arrested by the Iron Legion. He keeps an eye on the iron armory as they contain and keeps watch until they take them out of the dense forest. And after that, he follows Natasha's trail of footprints and finds the two further down the hill. the woman knelt down as the Hulk towers over her. 

The female avenger is knelt down as the Hulk towers over her, a too familiar sight to Hunter. His instinct tells him to step in, to prevent what almost happened last time, while his guts tell him to stay out of it or he's the one that will get hurt. He decides to follow his guts and keeps his distance as he carefully steps closer to a tree, trying not to trigger the beast. He watches as Natasha slowly lifts her arm, holding out her hand, and as the Hulk steps closer. He raises his to her level, his hand making hers look extremely small. The woman slightly lowers her arm as she turns her palm upwards and the green beast carefully drops his hand on top of hers. He keeps his hand in the air, avoiding dropping all its weight on her, and Natasha withdraws her hand. She slowly moves her hand towards his arm, a little hesitant before she lets her fingertips touch him. The Hulk lets out a steady breath as he watches the woman pull her hand around his skin. She lets go of the touch, and it doesn't take long for the Hulk to stumble away. When he does, Natasha turns her head away and lowers it as her lips curl into a small smile.

And Hunter's stomach twists in a way it never twisted before...