Locked, Loaded, Loved ✔️ COMPLETE | UNDER EDITS

Chapter 10--Steve | EDITED

"What the hell happened in there?!" Tony asked as he helped me put Natasha in the backseat. Once I'd alerted him to the severity of the situation, he'd pulled the car around in a very conspicuous location.

But that didn't matter so long as we got Natasha to safety soon.

"No idea. This guy just came out of nowhere, claiming to be Emery's date and Natasha...Nat somehow knew him." I'd never been privy to Natasha's past missions before the Avengers or that Fury assigned to her without the rest of us. But there was something about this guy. He seemed amused. Like he was ready to blow her cover right there.

Natasha coughed and groaned against me.

"Tony, she's burning up. We need to get her out of here," I said.

"On it." He got back into the driver's seat and started the engine. "That guy looked like bad news when he entered the place. And then something—or someone—was messing with the comms frequency, so I missed a majority of what happened with Nat."

"He shot her in the ankle with something," I said. "There was a crack, and I don't know. She just kind of collapsed. But Tony, there was something weird about it. Why would she start showing flu symptoms from a broken ankle?"

Tony shook his head. "No good reason. Let's get her to headquarters. She needs the hospital and they might have more answers for us."

"No hospital," Natasha croaked from next to me.

I brushed the hair out of her face. "No hospital, right. You're gonna be ok, I promise."

"Well, if you don't want her to kill you for taking away her ability to go on missions, we need to get her somewhere safe that can take care of her ankle and keep whatever else is going on under control."

"I know that." I watched Natasha's breath rise and fall in shallow bursts. "Drive, Stark."

Tony stepped on the gas pedal and we sped off. We arrived at the secure medical compound a few minutes later. I lifted Natasha into my arms and carefully carried her into the facility where she was immediately surrounded by doctors who instructed me to put her on a bed before rolling her away to surgery.

Behind them, I saw Nick Fury talking to someone. He spotted me and walked over.

"Fury, is she going to be ok?" I asked.

"We'll call you when we know more, but for now the best thing you can do is rest." He looked pointedly between us. "You did the right thing bringing her here."

"Well, she didn't exactly want us to," I said.

Nick laughed. "That sure sounds like Romanoff. I'll call when we know more, but for now you and Tony should go home. Agent Romanoff is in good hands here and we'll take care of her, I promise."

"Thank you, sir."

Nick nodded his acknowledgement. "This case the two of you are working on—that Natasha has been working on for months—you've stumbled onto something very dangerous."

"I thought it was just a simple embezzlement case until that guy showed up at the bar," I said.

"There's nothing simple about Russian technology or their intelligence," a voice said from behind us. "And those keys that Stark sent a sample of? Icing on the cake."

I turned to find the woman from the bar, dressed in SHIELD black. "Emery? What are you doing here? Did you follow us?"

"I see you've met Agent 31," Fury said.

"You're an agent?" I asked.

Emery nodded. "I am. I've been working double undercover to protect Nat and uncover the secrets that Alexei—-that would be the guy from the bar—has been selling. From our surveillance, we think he's working with Devon—Natasha's target—in an illegal trade."