Chapter 3 – Not Together Yet. Are We?

Events in this chapter span from before the beginning of Season 1 episode 3, to the middle of season 1 episode 7.

"You lucky bastard, Brock," Rollins fell into step beside his commanding officer as they walked away from the big plane. His tone was decidedly envious. "Finding your soulmate, and she's damn gorgeous too."

Rumlow said nothing, but his mouth curved in a small, private smile. Rollins never knew when to leave a subject the hell alone, so he pressed on.

"I've always envied those of you with soulmarks. The rest of us poor suckers have to work for it, and then you get a girl like that just dropped in your lap…"

Rumlow gave him a disgusted look. "Don't have to work for it? What, you think I'm that fucking lazy? She deserves a lot better than some Neanderthal asshole just telling her that the fates have decreed that she's mine, end of story. Maybe there's a reason you don't have a soulmark, Jack."

"Not all of us are worthy of having soulmarks, Rollins," to Rumlow's surprise, Cap spoke up from his other side. He turned his head, saw Rogers' grin. "Jack is right though. You're lucky. She's beautiful."

Rumlow couldn't keep the foolishly pleased smile off his face as he walked onwards, between the sulking Rollins and a grinning Cap.

"I'll treat her right, Cap," Rumlow answered, still smiling. "Show her that you don't need a guy from the 40s to have a good man." Rollins snickered and slapped Rumlow on the shoulder.

Rogers just laughed and nodded, his eyes bright. "You do that. I'm sure she's worth it; they generally are."

Rumlow regarded Cap, taking in the genuine respect in the man's expression - not just for him, but for his soulmate too. And for the first time in a long time, he wondered if he'd taken the right path through life. The road had still brought him to his soulmate, sure, but Rumlow suddenly wasn't sure if when push came to shove she'd choose his side.

Which might mean that he shouldn't ask her to make that choice. Or he might have to be prepared to lose her; but no, that was unthinkable. Now that he'd found her, he sure as hell wasn't going to let her go without a fight. He might have to think seriously about his priorities, after all.

Rumlow shook himself, banishing 'what if' questions to the back of his mind. No point in dwelling on a situation that might never come up.

One day, a week or so after meeting Skye, Rumlow's phone beeped his text alert. Glancing at it, he saw that the message was from Skye. Any suggestions for a hacker about to crash a party so the team can bust in afterwards? it read.

He found himself grinning foolishly again - why did he turn into a dumb teenager every time he even thought of her? His thumbs danced quickly as he sent a message back.

No, but a girl as beautiful as you can buy a lot of time if you flirt your way up to the big boss. What are you going to wear?

His phone beeped again a moment later and he almost choked as an image of Skye in a stunning fuchsia pink dress popped up.

May picked it out for me. What do you think?

I'm thinking that you won't have any trouble being a distraction. You sure as hell just distracted me.

The next message that came through was a grinning emoji. Followed immediately by, Sorry, wasn't intending to be a distraction. I figured if you were busy, you wouldn't answer.

Nah, no worries. Nothing critical happening today. You on an op?

Yeah. The team was trying to find a way into a closed, private event. So I got myself an invite. E-vite. Whatever.

Rumlow whistled under his breath, impressed despite himself. Nice work. Be careful though, yeah?

It was several hours later, and he was contemplating getting in touch with Coulson, when his phone beeped again.

Whew. Big day. SHIELD gets crazier by the minute.

He couldn't help but laugh. Oh, sweetheart. You have no idea.

It was a few weeks later when he got a text that first alerted him that Coulson's team were fishing in dangerous waters. Quinn was one thing, but this…

Do you know anything about people being fitted with cyborg eyes?

He sat staring at his phone for a long, long time in silence.

What makes you ask? he typed finally, though he wasn't sure he wanted to know.

Hacked a signal from a camera while on a mission. Turned out to be coming from a person and not a surveillance camera like I thought. Was her eventual answer.

Rumlow considered his response long and hard before beginning to type. I've never met anyone with a functional cybernetic eye. Which was true; he'd never come into contact with anyone from that particular operation. Their only contact with anyone was through their handlers sending to the implant.

Okay. Thanks anyway. We'll have to see what else we can find.

He chewed on his lip for a moment before sending Be careful, Skye. This sounds dangerous.

He should report this. He knew it. But with a quick swipe of his thumb, he deleted the conversation. If he reported it, Whitehall would order all of Coulson's team eliminated immediately. Rumlow might even be ordered to do it. His fingers clenched convulsively around the phone.

"I'm not going to let anyone hurt you, Skye," he whispered quietly to the empty room.

The next series of messages from Skye were cheerful, chatty, everyday. And then she dropped off the radar for a solid week. He'd done exactly the same when on a mission, but it was different when Skye went AWOL on him. Rumlow found himself damn near climbing the walls, on the verge of calling Coulson half a dozen times. He even went and used his security clearance to try and pull details on what the team were up to, but there was nothing there that explained why Skye wasn't responding to his messages.

Until he received a very primly worded text from an unfamiliar number.

This is Jemma Simmons. We met on the Bus. Skye asked me to let you know that she's in trouble and banned from electronics for a while.

He stared at the screen in disbelief before throwing his head back and letting out a roar of laughter. Tell her I'll put her over my knee for it next time I see her.

There was no response, and he realised he'd probably shocked the prim scientist silly.

When a message did come through, the wording was different and he wondered if someone else had taken the phone from Simmons. Not gonna think about that one. Skye promises to be in touch as soon as she's allowed and reminds you of your promise to stay safe.

Rumlow snorted and typed back a quick reply. Remind her she promised to do the same. I'll be in touch.

There was no answer to his last message, and he figured her friends had done all they intended to do for one day.

Unfortunately, knowing that she couldn't be contacted didn't keep him from missing her over the next several days. More than once he started to send her a message, only to realize that she wouldn't get it. He considered sending them anyway, but he didn't want to seem clingy or - God forbid - make her think he had some sort of obsession or control-freak need to keep tabs on her.

Finally, he decided to call Coulson. It wasn't the easiest process - he had to go through Victoria Hand to get permission, the stroppy bitch - but in the end he was permitted to put through a call from one of the secure communications rooms at the Triskelion.

"Wondered how long it would be before you cracked," Coulson's grin was darkly amused when he appeared on the screen.

Rumlow blinked. And then realised he'd done exactly that. "It's a particularly cruel punishment for Skye," he said after a moment, keeping it vague, "but it punishes me as well."

"In that case, I have some good news for you. We're inbound to the Hub right now. Not sure how long we'll be there, but if you can get permission…" Coulson shrugged. "You could spend some time with Skye."

Rumlow grinned. "Fancy that. I have a meeting there tomorrow. Perhaps I'll hop an earlier transport; the brass can hardly call me to task for arriving early."

Coulson chuckled. "One would think. Well, Skye won't be allowed anywhere restricted, so I can't imagine she'll be too hard to find. Even without her phone."

"I'm sure I'll manage," Rumlow answered dryly. He nodded his thanks to Coulson and ended the call. Better to keep it short, in case he needed to try something like this again.

Getting transport from the Triskelion to the Hub wasn't terribly difficult. He had his meeting to cite as reason enough to be there, and the kid organizing transport that day had enough brains to not ask stupid questions about why Rumlow was going early. When he checked, he learned that the Bus had indeed arrived before him. So all he needed to do was find his girl.

That wasn't terribly difficult, either. She was sitting on a bench, people-watching, when he dropped into a seat beside her.

"Brock!" Her eyes lit up excitedly as she recognized him.

"Hey, beautiful. You look like you could use some company?" He grinned, happy to see her and pleased that she was so excited to see him. She looked beautiful, her dark hair flowing around her shoulders - and he thought she looked a little thinner, as well. Maybe more toned? He didn't comment - he'd lived long enough to know that remarking on a woman's weight was generally a suicidal move - except to say;

"I'd forgotten how stunning you are."

"Oh!" it was a shy blush that appeared on her cheeks, but she didn't resist when he reached to take her hand.

"Want to come get a coffee with me?"

"I would love to," she said enthusiastically, and then looked uncertain, as though thinking perhaps she'd sounded too eager. It reminded him, once again, of how very young she was.

"Come on, then."

"I'm not supposed to go anywhere unescorted by a senior agent…"

"Level 8, remember? Doesn't get all that much more senior." He tugged on her hand gently and she stood to follow him, a happy smile on her face. "So," he said as they walked along, "you going to tell me what got you into trouble?"

He knew, of course. He'd looked it up and read the mission reports as soon as Coulson uploaded them. Knew about Miles Lydon. He'd had to restrain himself from going straight out and killing the bastard for daring to lay a hand on his soulmate.

Skye sighed. "We were chasing down an old friend-slash-ex-boyfriend-ish of mine. I was worried, not sure what was going on, and I sent him a warning to knock it off. Met up with him, read him the riot act... and wound up in one of our old patterns, we yell and then we fuck." She couldn't look at him, as if afraid of what she'd might see in his eyes. "I was still there when May showed up. Turns out my ex was selling information hacked from SHIELD to Centipede. Long story short, we were able to get the information from him that we needed... but I lost the trust of my team. So I get to wear this," she held up her braceleted wrist, "until C... the boss says otherwise."

They were in a deserted corridor, so he stopped walking, turned her to face him. Put his finger under her chin and made her meet his eyes. "Thank you," he said quietly, "for being honest with me about it."

Tears welled and she blinked them away fiercely. "I'm sorry," she choked out, and he couldn't help but put his arms around her, give her the hug he suspected she needed very badly right then. She clung tightly, pressing her face against his shoulder.

"It's all right," Rumlow told her. "It's all right, Skye, I'm not gonna be mad with you. Shit happens, life in SHIELD can be pretty emotionally intense. Sometimes we take comfort wherever we can find it."

"It still felt like I cheated on you," she mumbled into his chest.

"We ain't actually together, are we? I haven't even kissed you yet."

She went very still in his arms, and he glanced both ways along the corridor. Still deserted.

"We could fix that now, though. If you wanted."

Tipping her head back to look up at him, she gave him a watery smile. "I... think I'd like that," she murmured. She opened her mouth to say something else, but he didn't let her speak. He covered her lips with his, taking it slowly. He pulled back for a moment, then kissed her again; this time he waited until she relaxed in his arms and then deepened it. Felt her respond to him and couldn't stop himself from holding her just a little tighter for a moment. He hoped it was the kind of first kiss she wanted. It was hard to resist pressing her up against a wall, the way he almost kissed her the first time. But he restrained himself.

"Wow," she whispered when he finally allowed her to speak again. He grinned in reply and allowed her to pull out of his arms. Instead he took her hand and urged her down the hallway again.

"Come on. Coffee awaits."

She followed along easily enough, and they walked quietly for a few minutes. "If it helps any, it never even occurred to me to try to lie to you," she said quietly. "Aside from the fact that I'm pretty sure you could tell if I tried, I just... I figured you'd be less angry with me if I just told you I fucked up. Lies and secrets just screw things up worse."

"That they do," his smile was tight, twisted. "That they certainly fucking well do."

They had a coffee and he walked her back, found Coulson with his knickers in a twist about something. He almost looked on the verge of asking Rumlow for help - and wouldn't that have created a sticky problem - but eventually seemed to dismiss the idea.

"I have to go," Rumlow checked his watch, saw that he only had a few more minutes to get to his meeting. "See you soon, I hope?"

"I hope so too," Skye smiled at him shyly, stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. Absurdly pleased that she'd chosen to make the gesture in front of Coulson, he smiled all the way to his meeting.

Note: It's part of our headcanon for this story that Rumlow is not working directly for Alexander Pierce. He doesn't even know Pierce is HYDRA at this point. He gets his orders directly from Whitehall, who's head of HYDRA's North American operations, and Bakshi is Whitehall's second in command.