Even After Everything | Steve Rogers

Chapter 12

We left the office, and got into the elevator.

"Operations control," I ordered.

"Confirmed." As the elevator doors were about to close, Rumlow and two STRIKE agents walked in.

"Keep all STRIKE personnel on site," Rumlow said.

"Understood."

"Yes, sir," the agents responded.

"Forensics."

"Confirmed," the AI responded to Rumlow.

"Cap, Wilder," Rumlow nodded.

"Rumlow."

"Evidence Response found some fibres on the roof they want us to see. You two want me to get the tac-team ready?"

"No, lets wait and see what it is first," Steve said.

"Right," I noticed one agent reaching for his weapon, and began to get suspicious. The elevator stopped and yet again more STRIKE agents walked in.

"What's the status so far?" One of them asked.

"Administrations level."

"Confirmed."

Rumlow looked at me, "I'm sorry about what happened with Fury. Messed up, what happened to him."

"Thank you," I nodded my head. I noticed another agent was sweating, and I looked at Steve through the corner of my eye. He noticed something was off too.

"Records," another agent said.

"Confirmed."

We then realized we had just been surrounded by agents.

"Before we get started, does anyone want to get out?" Steve asked. I prepared to form my falcatas. Two agents turned to Steve and I, giving each of us an electric shock that hurt. The rest of them grabbed us and and tried to put magnetic cuffs over our wrists. Steve managed to knock some of them down, and I kicked an agent in front of me in the stomach. Rumlow shocked Steve and I again and I crumpled to the floor, this time the shock being 100 times more painful. I could see through my blurry vision Steve releasing himself from the cuffs. Apparently, he didn't get as bad of a shock, him being able to bring all the agents to the ground. He then turned to Rumlow.

"Whoa, big guy. I just want you to know, Cap, this ain't personal," he tried to shock Steve again, but he dodged it and knocked him to the ground. Rumlow landed next to me and used the rest of his strength to get me one more time with the stick. Steve hit him hard again and knocked him out.

"It kind of feels personal," he muttered and then immediately rushed to me, a worried look written over his face, "hey, come on we gotta go."

I tried to say something, but I couldn't, and felt like my brain was fried. Steve picked me up and put me over his shoulder. I was hanging on by a thread, feeling ready to pass out. All of a sudden I felt us dropping in the elevator, Steve then trying to open the doors. I heard yelling and soon after I felt us falling again, this time in midair. As we fell, Steve wrapped himself around me and took the fall from underneath. I looked down at him, my hair all over his face. He waved his hand and brushed the hair away, my eyes widening as I realized I was laying on top of him. He realized this at the same time, and I quickly got up.

"Hi," I said. I could feel my cheeks start to heat up, "I'm so sorry,"

"No, no it's okay," he said, flustered, "Hey, hey you alright?" He asked as he got up.

"Well, besides being electrocuted three times, and then falling out of a building, I'm doing fine," I groaned. Once Steve felt I was okay enough to walk, he practically dragged me over to his motorcycle. We both got on, me behind him, and he started driving, me hanging on with all the strength I had left. Thankfully, I was gaining my strength back every second. A Quinjet began to land in front of us on the bridge, making a huge obstacle.

"Stand down, Agent Wilder and Captain Rogers. Stand down," the jet lowered its machine guns, "Repeat, stand down." Steve didn't stop and we started to get fired at. Steve threw his shield at the propellers to jam it, and the wing erupted into flames.

"Here, you drive," he moved to the side so I could grab the handles.

"What?" I yelled. I had never driven a motorcycle before.

He jumped off, and I scooted forward to take control of the motorcycle.

I started off tentative at first, but then got the hang of it, "Hey this is fun!" I yelled, pushing the engine faster. I drove passed the jet while Steve got on and did more damage. I stopped the motorcycle and waited for Steve to jump on, gunning it with Steve now sitting behind me.

"Okay, we need to look at that flash drive," I yelled over the engine, "where is it?"

"At the hospital!"

"The hospital-why the hell is it at the hospital?"

* * *

"You hid it- in the vending machine?" I half yelled, "What the hell?"

"I don't know, at the time it seemed like a good place to hide it," he continued to look for something that wasn't there.

"Well obviously it wasn't, because it's gone!" We looked at the machine where Steve said he hid the flash drive, dressed to blend in. All of a sudden we heard a pop of bubblegum behind us. We turned around to see Natasha Romanoff, smirking at us. Steve angrily pushed her into a room, and I closed the door behind us.

"Where is it?" Steve asked, anger in his eyes.

"Safe," she retorted.

"Do better!"

"Where did you get it?"

"Why would we tell you?" I stepped in.

"Fury gave it to you. Why?" Natasha looked at me.

"What's on it?" Steve pressed.

"I don't know."

"Stop lying!"

"I only act like I know everything, Rogers," she rolled her eyes.

"I bet you knew Fury hired the pirates, didn't you?" Steve asked.

"Well, it makes sense. The ship was dirty, Fury needed a way in, so do you."

"I'm not gonna ask you again."

"I know who killed Fury. Most of the intelligence community doesn't believe he exists, the ones who do call him the Winter Soldier," Natasha said, "He's credited with over two dozen assassinations in the last fifty years."

"So he's a ghost story," I said.

"Five years ago I was escorting a nuclear engineer out of Iran, somebody shot out my tires near Odessa. We lost control, went straight over a cliff, I pulled us out, but the Winter Soldier was there. I was covering my engineer, so he shot him straight through me," she pulled up part of her shirt to show us a scar on her stomach, "Soviet slug, no rifling. Bye-bye bikinis.

"Yeah, I bet you look terrible in them now," Steve said.

"Going after him is a dead end. I know, I've tried," Natasha held up the flash drive, "Like you said, he's a ghost story."

I took it from her hand, "I think I have an idea," I said, looking to Steve.

"Well, let's find out what the ghost wants." Steve and I left the hospital, Natasha going who knows where.

We got on Steve's motorcycle and drove to the mall, our plan to put the flash drive in a computer there.

"Steve," I started after we left the parking lot, "I want to say I'm sorry. I feel like I've been a jerk lately, I've just been stressed with this whole fugitive thing, and I know that's not an excuse but-"

"Hey it's okay, I get it, I feel stressed too. And after what happened in the elevator, you didn't look great. How are you now?"

"I'm doing better, thanks." I said, smiling.

"How are you okay? You got hit pretty bad with those sticks," he glanced behind him.

"Perks of being a goddess I guess," I shrugged. Steve rolled his eyes, and laughed.