Can You Tell Me Where He’s Gone? // Sam, Sharon, and Steve
Sharon and Sam all but carried Steve into the darkened studio apartment, dropping him on the couch almost as soon as they cleared the threshold. Sam had his trauma kit open on the coffee table by the time Sharon locked the door and turned on the lights, and then they fell into silent but tandem lockstep to get Steve to drink some water while Sam checked his vitals. Steve looked like he was either concussed, dehydrated, or in shock; he either couldn’t or wouldn’t focus on Sam even as he flashed a light directly into his eyes or manhandled his leaden limbs to check his pulse.
“How does he look?” Sharon asked from the kitchenette window.
“He’d look better if he could answer you himself,” Sam said, and just as he’d hoped, Steve’s brow furrowed in response. Sharon entered just as Sam cracked a smile.
“What’s so funny?” she snapped. Steve tried to turn around on the couch to follow her voice, and within seconds, she was on the couch next to Steve.
“Hey,” she said softly. “You’re okay. You’re safe.”
Steve dropped back on the couch and squinted at her, then up at Sam, then closed his eyes and nodded.
It had been a long day. Just one more in a series of days that felt as if they were never-ending. The minutes lasted far too long and the hours bled into the next. The days felt as if they would never come to an end, though they were over too soon.
This push-and-pull of too much and not enough. Time, energy. You name it.
She was stressed. For a moment, she felt weak. Stress wasn’t foreign to her. It had kept her alive; had compelled her to keep going, to move forward. She shouldn’t feel like this. Debilitated.
What would her handlers say if they saw her now, like this?
A spider spins webs and entraps her prey, and Natasha was very good at spinning webs, as well as entrapping prey. She relied on those skills, skills she had learned the hard way, and they had served her well, that is, until now.
She felt off-kilter, though she couldn’t voice that. No, that would be most unwise. All of this was new to her, and though she didn’t like being out of her comfort zone, it had been a long time since she found herself in an uncomfortable situation. Though, if she were honest - with herself, and with the others - she would have to agree with the proceedings, even if she didn’t like them.
She needn’t have to like them. They were necessarily, and thus, the right course of action.
Though a spider that’s trapped, held captive, and sequestered can escape, confining a spider does her no favors. She wouldn’t voice it to anyone, for she seldom voiced this thoughts, but finding herself at the mercy of others left her uneasy.
It was then, she was pulled from her reverie by a simple text.
13: Hey. Are you up to anything? I could use a girl’s night if you’re up for it.
Natasha smiled. Yes, a girl’s night out would be great.
I’m up for whatever you’re up for.
Sharon smiled at Natasha’s return text. Thank God. She and Natasha didn’t often have time to sit down and talk when seas were calm, and now everyone around her was losing their goddamn minds. Possibly including herself after the day she’d just had.
Want to meet at my place for pizza, beer and bitching? Or there’s a decent bar a few streets over. I can be ready in an hour either way.
First, she needed a long, hot shower in her own bathroom and a strong cup of coffee.
Just For Me the Church Bells Rang // Natasha & Sharon
It hit her, fully and bodily and wholly unexpectedly, as her train entered a tunnel on her way home: she didn’t want to be alone. Rachel had offered her company as they’d been leaving the CIA office, but Rachel was also pretty well removed with the SHRA bullshit that had been haunting all of Sharon’s closest friends, and so Sharon had declined. If she could keep one person in her life out of this mess, she’d call it a small victory.
She wanted to commiserate, not argue, like Sam was probably still doing with Rhodes and Stark. And maybe -- damn her for it, but maybe -- she wanted to watch a movie and eat some garbage and not think about how tired and heavy and harried she was, or find some catharsis with a good ol’-fashioned fist fight, or...something. Anything that got her out of her head for just a little while.
So, as soon as her train emerged from the tunnel, she texted Natasha.
Hey. Are you up to anything? I could use a girl’s night if you’re up for it.
Jim couldn’t do much more than watch as Tony was escorted to the hanger, though he already knew he was going to be talking to Tony as soon as he got his clearance to go –
“Colonel Rhodes.”
Jim stopped walking and saluted Ross as he entered the hallway.
“I’m arranging a twelve-man SWAT team to pursue Rogers and Rumlow. I need you to debrief them ASAP.”
Jim didn’t bother trying to mask his disbelief.
“Sir, I’m more than prepared to – ”
“Consider it a favor that I’m not sending you,” Ross interjected. “This is a dead-or-alive retrieval, and far be it from me to ask you to put your job before your vigilante buddies.”
Ross was giving Jim his best steely-eyed, stone-jawed I fucking dare you to fucking fuck with me glare.
Jim didn’t even blink.
“Unless that’s twelve SWAT for Rogers and Rumlow each, Sir, that’s not enough – and, unless you know exactly where they’re headed, we don’t have time to drag that many people around for the search. I’ll have a team ready and up in the time it takes you to prep the fifty men you’d need just to find the door.”
Jim really, truly did get a kick out of the particular shade of red Ross turned when his bluff had been called. Ross stepped in close; Jim held his ground.
“To be clear: Stark has just been relieved of duty. So. If all of you don’t want to end up on trial for collusion, then you will retrieve every last one of those sons of bitches, and you will not hesitate to bring them back in body bags if you have to. Understood?”
Jim indulged in a few seconds of staring-off before he answered.
“Yes. Sir.”
Keep reading
It turned out that there weren’t many people Sharon trusted with this particular mission, but there was one, and she’d hardly even had to talk him into it. He had filled out the preliminary paperwork while Sharon had arranged for transportation, and by the time they were in the air, Sam Wilson was as good as a probationary government enforcer. Now he was silent in the pilot’s seat, Sharon to his left in the copilot’s.
“You okay?”
Sam’s hands flexed around the yoke of the plane.
“We’ll find out when we get there.”
“Steve will be fine. He always is. I’m asking about you.”
Sam shrugged sharply with one shoulder. Behind them, Sharon’s field partner, Rachel Leighton, pretending not to be eavesdropping as she double-checked her gear, though Sharon knew damn well Rachel was listening in.
“This isn’t the first time I’ve been dragged out of retirement. Didn’t regret it the first time.”
Sam hadn’t turned to look at her, so she likewise returned to gaze to the windscreen.
“I should have gone with him.”
Sam sighed and dropped his shoulders.
“Me, too.”
Sharon looked to Sam again. This time, he returned the gesture.
“But like you said, he’ll be fine. Always is.”
Steve was the farthest thing from fine when Sharon, Sam, and Rachel found him, Stark, and Rhodes versus six armed and vicious fighters. He’d taken a blow to the face that looked like it had broken his nose; between the blood coating his face and the amount of weight he’d lost, Sharon might not have recognized him at all if he hadn’t been brandishing a version of his shield.
“Falcon!” Jim said, his voice sounding strained even through the modulation of the suit. Now that he was caught up in close combat, he also looked worse for wear; the M-134 Minigun was missing from his shoulder, and the right side of his armor was scarred with what might have been a fucking hole. “We have a sniper on your two o’clock --”
“On it,” Sam said. The Redwing drone deployed in tandem with Sam’s own takeoff, leaving Sharon and Rachel to aid in the ground fight.
Sharon gestured for Rachel to stick with her as she pushed through the brawl toward Steve, who didn’t have a comm and looked to be rapidly losing ground. Gun in hand, she leaped onto the shoulders of the nearest fighter and pistol-whipped him as hard as she could -- but instead of dropping, he grabbed her around the waist, bent over, and threw her to the floor. Her breath left her in a painful rush, but she got her gun up and fired once, twice, three times, four --
This time, the soldier went down, and Sharon rolled to her feet to see Rachel dispatching the other soldier who had been wailing on Steve. Sharon’s and Rachel’s eyes met, and in unspoken agreement, Rachel peeled off to help Jim and Tony with their three opponents while Sharon wrapped her arms around Steve.
"Rumlow" Steve said, his breathing harsh and his voice thick. His nose was definitely broken, and the back of his head was caked with blood as well. “He’s here with a woman...Schmidt...gotta find them...”
“We’ll find them, Steve,” she said. “You need to get out of here -- ”
In her ear, Sam suddenly swore so loudly the comm squealed from the feedback. She looked up and saw Sam -- minus one wing -- hit the ground from almost thirty feet up, then a flash from the scaffolding near the ceiling, and then the scene turned a luminescent red as Steve lifted the holographic shield. The round glanced off the plane of light, but Sharon could also see that Steve’s hand was shaking.
“I can do this,” he said, hoisting himself laboriously to his feet, but the comm in Sharon’s ear clicked to life again before she could protest.
“Sharon, sniper’s headed your way!” said Sam.
The man on the scaffolding was circumventing the room with a far larger weapon than a rifle pointed at Sharon and Steve -- a grenade launcher, it appeared to Sharon -- and she braced herself behind Steve in anticipation of the blow. Just as he raised the launcher, a column of golden light from one of the two armored men behind her lanced through the scaffolding, and the man fell to the floor amid a hail of debris.
“I got this,” Steve said, almost in a wheeze. “You and Sam find Schmidt and Rumlow.”
“We’ll cover him,” Jim added, hands already up and ready to fire whatever he had left. The remaining three soldiers lay prone on the floor, putting the odds pretty squarely in Jim, Tony, and Steve’s favor against one man.
But she couldn’t leave him. She had gotten him into this mess by giving him the lead in the first place knowing damn well he would pursue it...
No. That wasn’t true. He’d made his choice to ask her for intel, to run off into the night alone. He was making his choice now to stay on the front line and see this through, and far be it from her to let something as futile as self-pity stop her from finishing the mission.
She nodded to Jim, then waved to Sam and Rachel to follow her as they bolted across the room toward the main hanger.
Sam: I'd say Hi, but every time I hear from you, it's because the government has done something stupid.
Sharon: [sighs harshly] I think I got Steve arrested.
Sam: ...come again?
Sharon: I had a lead on someone he's been looking for, a SHIELD agent that turned out to be HYDRA --
Sam: Yeah, Brock Rumlow, I know.
Sharon: I didn't think he'd run off by himself! I thought he'd at least tell /you/.
Sam: He might have if I hadn't retired.
Sharon: Sam. Please. The only reason I know he got arrested in the first place is because Rhodes just called --
Sam: And how would Jim have known?
[tense silence]
Sharon: He conducted the arrest.
Sam: Uh-huh. Did he happen to tell you where Steve is?
Sharon: No. The Raft is the only superhuman detainment center that's been announced to the public, but there are at least two more that Jim is "contractually obligated" to keep under wraps. Depending on how dangerous Ross thinks Steve is, he could be at any of them.
Sam: Okay. Great. Thanks for letting me know.
Sharon: Sam --
Sam: This isn't your fault, okay? Steve did Steve. We'll get him out.
Sharon: Sam. You need to stay out of this or you could end up in there with him.
Sam: That's hilarious.
Sharon: ...
Sam: I'm just going to talk to Jim. I don't do the guns a-blazing thing anymore.
Sharon: [laughs sadly] Only because you don't have guns to set ablaze.
Sam: Uh, better believe I'm still packing heat. Not enough to take on Jim, though.
