Summary: After the failed mission and death of the Bons, the team searches for an explanation and discovers that this is a much larger game than they first thought it to be. What will this do to y/n?
Warnings: Some fluffy fluff to begin with. I tried to insert some humor here and there. Annnddd some angst. Expect the next chapter to much more angsty, tho. Also, I only proofread once, and my head is like a cotton ball due to being sick, so apologies for any mistakes.
Note: Hey everyone! I'm sorry this has been delayed. I've been down and out with the flu and haven't been able to think striaght enough to write this out. But the last couple of days, albeit still being pretty down with it, I've been able to piece this together. Tell me what you think!
The sun was beginning to shine through the compound windows, casting long golden lights across the floor.
Y/n was sitting on a stoll in the kitchen, trying to take deep breaths to steady herself.
Looking down at her hands, which, thanks to her little workout, were cut up, bloody, and bruised.
Steve slowly walked back into the kitchen, holding a little white box, which y/n assumed was a first aid kit. He pulled out the stoll next to hers and eased himself down.
"Hand," He said, holding out his own. Y/n swallowed, slowly placing her hand in his.
He furrowed his brow as he examined it, "Y'know, you're supposed to wrap your hands before you do stuff like this." He said, clicking his tongue.
Y/n didn't say anything but gasped and tried to pull her hand away. Only for Steve gently tightens his grip, glancing at her with an apologetic look. "I'm sorry - I know it stings." He whispered.
Y/n nodded, still flinching some ad he dabbed away at the cuts. Then he treated them with salve and bandaged them as best he could.
Looking down at her hands, y/n sighed. "I'm sorry." She mumbled, making him pause in his efforts to tidy away the materials. "Y/n..." She knew he was about to say something along the lines of "youwereupsetanddonthavetobesorryforanythingbecauseIcareaboutyou"
"No, Steve. You. . . You were trying to be there for me, and I was a jerk. Don't excuse it just to be nice." She said, dropping her head when her voice broke.
He sighed, staring at her a moment before she felt his calloused thumb and index finger tuck under her chin, and then gently tugging to make her look at him."You know, one of the things I think I like most about you is how sensitive you are to everyones feelings." He said quietly. "But, believe me when I say, my feelings weren't hurt. Do you know how many times you've stood by and saw through me to understand why I've said or done something? I can do the same. All I cared about was that my girl was hurting." He said, leaning down to peck her on the cheek and then pulling away.
So she sat sat frozen for a second. The ach from what had happened still sat on her chest, but Steve Rogers had managed to create a warm pool in her stomach. Never failing to make her feel loved, safe, and seen whenever she was with him. How did she end up so lucky to be the girl that caught his eye?
Suddenly, it occurred to her that he was cooking behind her. Twisting around, she asked, "What are you doing?" "You haven't eaten anything in ages." He replied, tossing some bacon into a hot pan and cracking eggs into a glass bowl. It felt good to just allow herself to be taken care of now.
By the time he finished, they had eggs, bacon, sourdough toast smuttered in butter and applebutter, with tall glasses of orange juice and coffee.
For the time being, she allowed herself to be distracted, pushing the heavy dark feeling to the back of her mind.
He sat with her and made her laugh with some stories he hadn't yet told her about some mischief Bucky had gotten him into in high school. Obviously, it was never his fault.
They had just finished eating when Nat walked into the room. Fixing herself a large mug of coffee, she said, "Steve, when you're done here, I need to talk to you." Natasha had a determined look in her eye that told Steve she had found something. "I'll be right there." He replied.
"We need to talk," Nat said, yanking Steve by the arm and into her office. "What is it?" He was used to Natasha's unorthodox methods, so he really wasn't too taken aback by this.
"I was looking into things like you asked. We already know the reason the doctor was taken - Hydra wanted him for his skillset. However, we still don't know what they want to use that skill set for. They have to have the formula and whatever else they need. Otherwise, he wouldn't be dead." She muttered along.
She never realized just how fast she spoke when talking about mission work. It was a brain workout to keep up with her.
"We better off finding out who exactly is in charge of this operation as that will give us an idea of their game plan. "So I reviewed things like call logs, internet searches, and swips on metro cards, three days before the kidnapping." "I'm going to take a guess and say you didn't actually get any legal permission to do any of this?" "Do you really wanna know? I don't really wanna think about the fact that you're breaking the law just to do some -" "Then I won't tell you how I got my information. " She interrupted before bringing up a few files on the TV screen mounted to her wall. She used this like a murder board in crime shows.
"All of the information proved helpful. . . Y/n really shouldn't feel bad - this Doctor's soul was pitch black. " "Nat" "Apologies, almost forgot I was talking to golden boy. Anyway, some of the most relevant information now is the call logs."
"Why?" "Well, Steve. . . ." She said hesitating as he sat down on her desk with a sigh. "The caller tried to mask where the signals came from. They did a decent job of it too, not good enough to trick my guy, but good." "Nat, stop avoiding the point and just tell me," Steve knew full well that Natasha's method of distracting someone from something was to confuse them with irrelevant facts.
She sighed and then clicked something on her keyboard, which brought up a map, a map of their city. . . It was focusing on the compound. Steve's jaw tightened, and his hands clinged into fists.
"Nat..." "The calls to the Doctor originated here, Steve. We have a mole."
He saw red. It took everything in him to keep himself from punching out the monitor.
"Steve. Steve!" Natasha said, bringing him back to reality. "Who?" He spat, turning back to face her. Steve could turn into cold stone when he got angry. A force to be reckoned with that none of the other Avengers wanted to mess with. But Natasha knew enough to know that he wasn't angry with her.
So with a deep breath and her most reassuring look she could muster, she said, "we don't know that yet. The fact that they haven't raised any red flags until now tells me they're pretty good at covering their tracks." "Well I won't just stand by idle while they have a free ride to do as they please." Steve said, strutting towards the door.
"You won't have to. Now that we know that they're here. They won't be able to hide." Natasha said all playfulness gone, her tone the sort that would make anyone's blood run cold.
"Call a meeting," He ordered. "I already did." She said, grabbing her tablet and exciting the office before he did. "I just figured I should clue you in first." She finished heading to the counsel room. That would mean he wouldn't have time to give y/n a heads up and that she'd hear it at the same time as everyone else. Knowing just how hard the last day or so had been for her, he wished he could somehow make things easier for her.
In the counsel room, the others were already deep in conversation. Debating how to go about rooting out the Mole.
"I say, we start tapping phone calls. Put something on their Starkcell that will give us what we need." Tony said, spinning his pen on the table. "You can't do that, and you know why." Sam protested, leaning back in his chair. "They're technically my phones." "Which you technically gave to them, so it's literally still against the law to riffle through their private information." Sam answered angrily.
"What about undercover work? Send someone in to kinda get a feel for things?" Wanda asked. "Send them in where? We have like a million departments." Bucky retorted.
"Ok!" Steve said singally for them to be silent. "We need a course of action. A legal course of action. " He finished as he took a seat. "Natasha. "
"Ok. The way to run out a mole is to make them think they're ahead of the game. Let them believe they're in control of the situation." She said, leaning back and propping her feet up on the table.
"Last time I checked, they are in control. Since, again, we have no idea who they are." Bucky retorted before smacking her foot to make her move.
"Yeah, sure, we don't have names. Yet. But may I remind you we're the same people that stopped a literal alien invasion. I think we can manage a spy ring or whatever this may be. We know they're here, and we're going to make their lives a living hell when we find them." Nat said, ignoring him.
Steve kept glancing at y/n. Who was sitting hunched over in her chair, hands clasped together, the same expressionless face she puts on any time she really wants to pretend to be fine.
"How is this any different from what I suggested? The way I see it is the only way to their life a living hell is to make everyone's life a living hell." Tony snarked, taking a bite out of an apple. Why did he always have to eat during important meetings?
"Tony." Steve warned, setting his jaw. Normally, Tony would continue to push the issue and see just how far he could push the Star Spangled Man (as he liked to call him), but given the situation, he backed down.
"Now. . . Before they just sorta came out of the woodwork when they wanted to get rid of me," Steve said, taking on his leadership voice. "What we gotta do is work backward. Our starting point is-" He glanced at y/n again before continuing, wishing she hadn't come to the meeting or that he could somehow leave the failed mission out of this, but he pressed on despite his feelings. "Our starting point is the doctor. Go back six months if you have to. Go over his coworkers, legally go over his finances and see if we can't trace anything back. They aren't stupid enough to leave such a glaring trail, so look for the less obvious stuff. See if he's gone on vacation. Possible visitors to his residence. I think they'd probably have someone do all of the in person stuff for them. Being seen could jeopardize their cover here. Check anything and everything you can think of. Call a meeting as soon as anything sticks out." He finished closing his tablet.
Everyone looked around and then pushed themselves back from the table, beginning to file out.
Steve just stood back watching them, y/n stopped in the doorway to give him a small smile of reassurance. Reassurance that she was ok with this.
He knew he couldn't just follow her around and make everything ok. They were both Avengers. She knew what she signed up for when she joined this team, and he wouldn't treat her like a child that needs constant supervision.
He gathered his things and headed into his office. Pulling up the file on the Doctor. This man had been in bad dealings his entire career. Before he figured out this "Foutain of Youth" as they called it, he worked for the mafia. Changing faces so they could leave the country unseen and avoid jail time. He had leaved in nearly every state at one point or another before finally settling in Hawaii two years ago. Steve knew that this all started six months ago with the creation of the serum... What made him decide to attempt this? Was it his own humanity wanting to cling onto life as long as possible, or was he put up to it?
He had to spread the word of it via the black market?
Hydra probably had buyers on the market to alert them of things like this... maybe they could somehow track that to their mole?
By the time Steve looked at the time, his vision blurry from staring at his screen for too long, he realized that nearly six hours had passed. Cracking his knuckles, he pushed himself away from the desk. He'd allow himself to check on y/n just to see how she was doing in her own research. Her office was at the end of the hallway, ramping on the door with his knuckles and he heard a small "in" before he pushed the door open.
She had documents splayed across her desk, a digital board with information crowding it, and a whiteboard filled with her own notes.
"Did you find anything?" She asked, drinking from what had to have been her fifth or sixth mug of coffee. "We already knew he worked for the mafia in his younger days... But what we didn't find in our cursory research on him before the mission was that he didn't only work sell on the black market. He ran an entire business on it." Steve answered, leaning against her doorframe. Y/n's eyes widened in surprise, "How did we miss that? We should have known that before the mission."
She responded, her voice frustrated and tired. "It's not like we had a lot of time before the drop. We got the most important information and didn't waste time before the attempted rescue. " He said, bitting his lip and instantly regretting the fact that he said "attempted".
Y/n dropped her head and stared down at her mug, "Yeah. I guess we could have gotten this information easier if we had them here to interrogate." "Y/n... I didn't mean -" "I found some information too," She said, deliberately cutting him off. "His wife would disappear every Monday and Friday. Over night. She'd go to an airport in the morning, fly out to LA, and be back by the next day."Where was she going?" "I don't know. She was picked by an SUV, and the plates were fake government plates that can't be tracked. But I know it has to be related." She said, pulling her hair into a frizzy messy bun. This was all beginning to sound much more organized than it had seemed in the beginning. Just what had they walked into?
"What do you know about the wife?" Steve asked, realizing that he knew little about her. Perhaps they had been foolish to assume that he was the only one involved here.
"So far, all I know is that her family had lots of secret political ties. Making backroom deals to get votes or lobbying for things that would benefit companies they had controlling stocks in. I'm going to dig into her personal life some more. Just give me time."I thought we were just going back six months." Steve commented, looking at the years posted on the board. "I think we need a total background to make any of this make sense." She replied, sitting back down to work. "Why don't we eat something and then get back to work?" Steve suggested. "I ate a protein bar, thanks." She answered dismissively.
Steve could see it in her eyes. She wasn't the cheerful and somewhat corky girl he loved to sing to the oldies with at the moment. She was slipping into the darkness with this and didn't want him by her side.
So he quietly slipped out of her office and made for the kitchen. He had to eat something before going back to the harsh glare of his screen. Why couldn't they do things like they did in his day? Radios, typewriters, maps, and chalkboards rarely gave people headaches.
In the kitchen, he found Bucky chowing down on what looked like canned spaghetti. That was one thing that never changed about his old friend. He was a terrible cook.
Bucky stopped, his fork halfway to his mouth, and looked at him, "What?" Steve didn't know why, but the expression and his ruffled appearance made him laugh. "Did you come down here just to laugh at me, or are you here for a reason?" Buck asked, giving his usual cocky grin. "I came down for food. Laughing at you is just a bonus." Steve replied, heading over to the fridge to grab the fixings for a sub sandwhich.
A moment later, he was settling in across from Bucky, sliding his friend a beer.
"I hate computers." Steve grunted. "I think the issue is that computers know that we're actually dinosaurs, and they hate us." Bucky scoffed jokingly.
After a moment of comfortable silence only broken by the sounds of them chewing and drinking, Steve asked, "Have you found anything?" "Well, my Forte isn't looking at papers and reports. You know this." "Is it because you can't read?" Steve asked with a smile. Buck looked at him, mouth agap and then said, "May I remind you what you thought fondue was?"
Bucky was seriously the only person on earth with whom Steve could make light of a serious situation. It helped with the stress and surprisingly made tough situations easier.
"*anways* I decided instead to review surveillance tapes. Before we only looked at the ones the day of at his office. I checked everything I could check. Home security footage, his office, found out his wife has an office down town don't know what for tho... A lot of it was just rich dolls coming in to make themselves look plumper." Bucky said allowing himself to become his old self again. "And?" Steve asked seriously hopping that six hours of Bucky's research hadn't resulted in how many women got "work" done. "And. I made note of repeated visitors. " "I may be a dinosaur but I do know that people get more than one thing done at these places. How do you know they weren't just coming in for different procedures?" "Because I couldn't tell that they were actually getting work done. Sure they'd come in with a different hairstyle or something else to make them look different but they were the same people. Lawyer types." "Suspicious but they could have been lawyers for former unhappy clients." "Then why did they repeated show up at his wife's office too?" "They did?" "And their home. Tho they only did that in the last three weeks before they vanished, and they'd only leave things in the backyard." "They didn't know the Bons had a camera back there?" "Oh the Bons didn't." "Then how -?" "Oh... Their neighbors might have a camera that might have been able to catch a few glimpses of them."That's not legal -" "technically. Going through the Von's cameras wasn't either, but I don't see you complaining about that." "We need to have a talk about ethics." "Fine. Fine. I guess you didn't want to know that I gave the footage to Natasha and that she's running it as we speak. " Steve sat back in his chair. This could be the break they needed, but he hated it when they allowed the line to become blury just to justify a means to an end.
Back in her office, y/n's head began to hurt with the familiar ach she got when she worked for too long. A five minute break. Just to make the rounds and find out what some of the others knew, then it would be back to work for the rest of the night.
Tony walked out of his office just as she did. "Y/n you look a little worse for wear." He commented in his usual slightly oblivious fashion. "Thanks... I guess. What have you found?" "Well. I found out our mister Von's business is on the dark web. We figured that. But he's not alone in this business. He had partners." "Partners?" "Yep. Which could mean that they're in the same spot he was in and might be next on the Hydra kidnap list. Or will simply be working with em'. Don't know that yet. Heck, I don't know what they are yet. My big wigs don't get that far into things... But I'm gonna keep digging. Right now a cold shower and a red bull are call my name." He said swaggering down the hall. How that man could be so chill about everything was beyond her.
As more information piled in, this was becoming a very tangled spider's web. Wanda had found out that Mrs Von had traveled to Russa three times in the last six months. Doctor Bon had gone to China twice. Again, privately owned companies that kept everything low-key. They only found out because, unfortunately, you couldn't keep a passport check secret due to 9/11. Someone was pulling a lot of strings to keep this all a secret. Which told them that there was a bigger end game involved.
Due to the nature of discovering the Mole is meant that they had to keep this low key. They couldn't just pass out the information and put all of their agents at SHEILD to work.
But there were some things that they couldn't do themselves without rasing suspicion.
"Friday," Steve said, he was hunched over, face resting in his hands in the counsel room. "Privatly request that agent Shannon Charter come up here please." He mumbled, fumbled for the handle of his 12th coffee cup. He didn't know why he was drinking it. Coffee had little to no affect on him. The others who had slowly found their way in here for the update meeting, were practically already asleep.
Nearly ten minutes later, Agent Charter stepped into the room. "Friday said you wanted me, Sir?" She asked. "Yes. Please sit down" He instructed.
"Is something wrong?" She asked, seeming puzzled by the fact that she was addressing all of the Avengers.
"Depends on how you look at it." Sam commented. He was the only one of them that wasn't half dead at the moment. He flourished in situations where most would be dead from exhaustion. And he wasn't even a super soldier.
Seeing as he was the one who was most with it at the present moment, he took lead on this meeting.
"Agent Charter, we have a situation." He said standing up and coming round the table to stand by the large monitor. "What sort of situation?" She asked. "There seems to be a mole here at shield." "A mole? How is that even possible? We have one of the highest security systems in the entire world." "We're not sure about the how yet. All we know is that there is. We don't want the good guys here to worry, we also don't want y'all to be completely in the dark. But at the moment, choosing who to entrust with this information is difficult. So it's boiled down to you and Colson. Obviously he's not here, so you'll be handling a sorta undercover investigation here within the ranks. We know it's a lot to ask." "No, no. To serve and protect is what I signed up for when I joined up. That applies to the organization that I serve." She said, her eyes quickly darting to Steve and then back. Most likely didn't even notice it.
Everyone had suspected that Shannon and Steve would end up together. Afterall, she was the great niece of the woman he was in love with back in the 40s. They all figured they'd just fall in sync with each other. But it turns out that having things in common, worked more to sway the Captain's heart far more than being related to Peggy.
Wanda, who was friends with Shannon, seemed to believe that the lady was fine with the fact that Golden Boy hadn't fallen for her. Sam and Bucky weren't so certain. Claiming that it was impossible for someone who had the "hots" for Steve Rogers to get over it so easily.
"Alright. Here is your file containing what we know so far. Read it and commit it to memory. We want a daily appraisal of anything you find. You will give these appraisals in person just to be safe." "Will do." She answered, grabbing the file and then excusing herself.
There would be no sleeping for the team tonight. At least no proper sleep. They all found themselves dozing at their desks or chosen perches for their work at one point or another. All of the rearsearch began melding together as they shared it onto their private starkspace (they had given up trying to make Tony not name all of his tech after himself a long time ago. Humble would never be one of his attributes.)
Finally, at 3:30 in the morning, Natasha came storming into Steve's office, making him jump. "With all of your abilities, how is it possible to startle you?" She asked striaghtfaced. "I'm imagining since you're being sarcastic you've found something?" Steve asked, stretching his back. "I did. Buck's videos paid off. I only got partial faces, which is why it took so long, but I was able to figure out who they are." She said, casting her tablet's screen onto his monitors. "They're a group out of Russia. They're for hire for the right people. Not you're typical hitmen. These people are total blackops. Just the sort you'd want if you're trying to keep your name out of things." "If they're so good, how'd you even find them?" "Rogers you should know by now that not all of my friends are nessiarly good people." "Right. Well. Go on." "I was only able to track them to their last known hideout, which is an abandoned school about four hours from here by jet. It's a long shot. We may or may not get anything out of these guys. But one thing is for sure, they're prepared. We're walking into one hell of a fight."
"Nat. Tell the team to assemble." Steve ordered, standing up and leaving his office before she had a chance to answer him.
Seeing the state y/n had fallen into earlier concerned him. The only time she had left her office was for the end of day meeting. Eyes glazed over and an expression that told him she was present in body only, her mind gone somewhere else.
Checking with Friday the few times he did (doing do at all made him feel terrible. Was he spying? Didn't he trust her? But his concern for her pushed such thoughts aside. Besides, he only checked once or twice) told him that she had only repeatedly refilled her coffee mug, refusing Friday's requests that she hydrate and only consuming protein bars.
Wanda had popped in to tell him that Y/n had also refused to eat dinner. Wanda had such a motherly nature even tho she was younger than everyone else here.
All of this told him that their little moment this morning or yesterday morning rather, was really just the calm before the storm.
This rabbit hole was consuming her. He had been told when she joined the Avengers that due to her powers, she had heightened emotions and felt things on a level that was different from your average person.
However, in his mind, it hadn't been an issue before (of anything it made her more endearing). Not until this short little rescue mission blew up into a James Bond level spy thriller. Now, as he made a very slow walk to her office, he had a hole burning in his stomach.
He had been mulling this over since he saw her in her office this morning and became certain it was the right thing to do during the meeting.
He'd have to act as Captain America and not as Steve Rogers.
Knocking on the door, all he got was a grunt, which he supposed meant "come in," so he went in. She sat in the middle of the floor, completely surrounded on all sides by papers.
It was like a fairy ring but with research papers instead of mushrooms.
Her laptop was in her lap, tablet laying next to her, and another smaller white board sat in front of her. He knew her method was to write everything out so she could "see her thoughts," but this seemed extreme.
How could she be in so deep after such a short amount of time?
"Y/n? We need to talk. Nat found something." "What?" She asked, not looking up from her own work. "A location. Seems that some Russian agents for hire were some sort of go-between or something. We're not really sure what their involvement is yet." "Where are they?" She gasped, standing up and dropping her laptop in the process.
This frantic behavior only cemented in Steve's mind that he was right in doing what he was about to do. She was in a very bad headspace at the moment.
"I can't tell you that." He said, dropping her gaze for a moment. " "What? Why can't you tell me?" She asked genuinely, confused. Steve sighed and then looked her in the eye, trying to convey his reasoning before answering. "Because you're not coming."
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