Chapter 3
Water.
The water was falling.
Everywhere.
Darkness.
The darkness was everywhere.
She sprinted at full speed down the street, ignoring each and every puddle she stepped in.
"Go faster!" she screamed to herself as her legs started to slow and her muscles burnt in protest.
They could not take anymore.
The shoes on her feet were lost some way back; the wet concrete strangely comfortable.
"Jack!" she shrieked. A figure appeared about twenty feet in front of her, making her stop dead still in her tracks. Their back faced her.
Was that Jack? She wondered.
Slowly the figure's head turned to face her. Jack's expression was so full of misery and shame, that it horrified her.
"Jack? What's wrong? What did I do?" His eyes were crimson, as if he had been crying, or as if he was crying. The pouring rain made it impossible to know.
It became harder and harder for her to see him, the water from the rain, or perhaps her own tears, made her vision hazy.
She stepped towards him. "Jack?" In response to this, he himself took a step back, making the darkness consume him.
"Jack!" She hastily approached him, but the distance never got smaller. Jack kept moving away from her, until he faded into the night.
Now he was only a shadow.
She tried her best to follow him, picking up her pace each moment. Flickers of his image kept appearing in front of her, she chased them helplessly, trying to stop him, trying to ask him what was wrong. But it was pointless. She could not catch him.
"Jack!" her screams were only falling upon deaf ears, the only sound apart from the falling element. How could she ever give up? She could never do that to him. The mere thought felt like such a treacherous betrayal, a thing she could never be capable of.
I won't give up. I'll never give up.
Her pointless chase of the shadows continued. The rain fell heavier than before as if to prevent her from reaching him.
"JACK!"
.
.
.
.
"Steph!"
She woke up suddenly, the nightmare still fresh in her memory, as fresh as the pouring rain that she could still hear.
"Steph?" Jack thought he heard her gasp slightly, now he called her name after hearing her call his again and again.
She smiled hearing Jack's voice, but failed to respond.
"Steph, are you awake?" Again, she didn't answer, just enjoying the sound of his voice. It was completely comforting after such vivid nightmare.
He sighed and spoke a little louder, assuming she was still sleeping. "Rise and shine sleepy head. You've got a busy morning and we're already behind schedule."
Finally Steph answered him with a yawn. "I'm awake," she stated slipping out of Tony's bed.
"Sleep well?"
"Uh huh."
"Liar." She didn't know why he bothered asking. She never slept well.
Tony Stark or not.
She soon begun the recovery effort in retrieving her strewn clothes. They were scattered everywhere on the floor.
"Ready to go?" Jack asked her. She was glad he hadn't asked about her nightmare. That would have been a little too awkward.
As for him, he didn't dare ask why she was screaming his name over and over, it would have been equally awkward.
"I'm not dressed, Jack," she replied, pushing aside Tony's shirt looking for the remaining items of clothing.
"You don't need to get dressed, Steph. Let's just get this over and done with."
"I'm not walking around Tony Stark's house naked, there are cameras."
"Cameras?"
"Yeah, everywhere except the bathroom and the bedroom I hope. That would be a little too perverted for my liking."
"Hurry up then."
She sighed, he was right, there wasn't time for this. She put on Tony's shirt. She could dress later.
"Don't forget your medicine, Steph."
She rolled her eyes. "Mmmhmm."
"Don't mmmhmm me Steph. Go take it now."
She didn't know where she'd put her bag, which contained the medicine and frankly she really didn't care. A silence ensued as she didn't say anything for a while.
"Steph?"
"Yep."
"You take it?"
"Yes." The medicine was to help with post traumatic stress apparently; something she could thank the M16 for. She had always been positive that they were ineffective. She still had nightmares every night.
Every single night.
But Jack insisted she take them. At home he'd make sure she did, but he couldn't check if she wasn't there.
Not taking the medicine was pointless, but Steph being the defiant stubborn type she was, simply couldn't help it.
She lay on her front on the floor in Tony's room preparing for her morning work out.
"Steph?"
"Give me five minutes, Jack." She began doing press ups, twenty five of them, followed by another twenty five sit ups, then twenty five press ups and then a further fifty sit ups, and that was the shortened version.
"What are you doing?" Jack asked, despairing a little. They were already under more a time pressure than he'd anticipated.
"Five minutes, Jack" she said, "Just. Five."
"Please do not tell me you are doing your little exercise routine." He received no response.
"Is it really necessary for you to do this now?"
She'd moved onto sit ups by now.
"Yes. Jack. It. Is," she said a word after each sit up.
"Don't worry Steph, carry on. If you get caught, we can always try it again, you know, after you get released from prison."
She stopped, less than half way through her routine. It'd just have to wait.
"Okay," she said, catching her breath, "Let's go."
.
.
.
.
As with most things, the first part was the most difficult; getting into Stark's workshop. The lock on the door was code activated; nothing too difficult, process of elimination would get you through that one, simple trial and error, unless of course, there was the 'three strikes then you're out' policy.
'Out' meaning either completely locked out so that even if you did manage to get the right code after the third time, you wouldn't be able to unlock the door. Or 'out' meaning that the third unsuccessful attempt would set off an alarm. Naturally Stark had something better, much better.
"Sorry miss, you are not authorised to access that area," she was shocked to hear the strong British accent.
Automatically, she reached for her gun, but she wasn't carrying one.
"Fuck," she muttered helplessly. Another thing she hated was being unarmed.
"Good morning, Miss Sexton," said the voice that had addressed her before. Scanning the room, there was definitely no one around.
She wondered for a second why Jack wasn't offering any assistance. He was always trying to reassure her when she didn't want to be, but now when she was started to become unsettled, he said nothing.
Then, as she listened more intently, she heard the sound of fingers hitting a keyboard.
"Damn it. We're going to have to get into the main circuitry from outside the work shop," his words meshed together slightly as he spoke too quickly.
"Jack, didn't you hear that?"
"Yes. I did," he said slowly, the typing started to get more and more furious.
"Oh, I forgot to mention he has an AI system that runs the house, name's Jarvis."
"Gee, thanks for telling me."
"Anytime."
"Nearly gave me flipping heart attack!" Jack ignored her. She could hear him typing again.
"Okay," he said after a while, "Go back upstairs, you need to find a room with a camera but you can't been seen. Clear?"
"Like the Thames." Her sarcasm was more blunt than usual, less up-beat.
She comprehended what she had to do; find part of the main circuit system and connect her phone into it without being seen by any of the cameras.
"This," she said as she strolled up the stairs, "is going to take forever Jack." Now she was walking through the spacious living room, her back stuck to the wall, avoiding the camera on the west side.
"That's why we should have done it last night." He was still irritated about that, it laced through his words.
Silence consumed them both as she set to work.
It was almost impossible to find a part of the main circuitry that wasn't in view of the cameras. She wondered if Tony had positioned them like that for exactly this reason. It seemed too smart an idea for an American; but then again he was supposed to be a 'genius'.
Eventually she managed to find a place, and after that it was all plain sailing. Her speciality was micro electronics, so there was no problem integrating her phone into the circuit, and from there she was able to temporarily override security.
Hacking into the mainframe was piss easy. Obviously Stark relied more on external security. That wasn't to say that he didn't have internal security measures in place.
He did.
More than any normal person would have, but still, for someone who was supposedly intelligent, it seemed kind of basic.
Via Steph's mobile, Jack was able to temporarily disable Jarvis, the security cameras and allow Steph access into Stark's workshop.
In the workshop there was a variety of cars including a 1932 Ford Flathead Roadster, an orange Saleen S7, a convertible blue Shelby Cobra, a silver Tesla Roadster and two Harley Davidson Rockers.
She inspected the two silver choppers, one to be Tony to choose style over performance. It was interesting that he had bikes, perhaps like the piano it was just for show.
Taking a seat near one of the computers, she quickly gained access and began roaming through the contents.
"Well, well, well, would you look at this," she said to herself as she peered through some of Stark's designs for the Ironman armour.
"Pfft, bodyguard, pretty lame don't you think?"
"Have you found it yet?" Jack asked her, conscious that they were under an increasing time pressure.
"Getting there." She was only just managing to understand some of the applications Stark had incorporated into the armour. It wasn't her area of expertise, but still it fascinated her.
"Taking his nationality into account, this isn't bad." That was an understatement. This, is nothing else, proved that Stark was a technological genius, but there was no way in hell she was ever going to admit that. It would mean she'd have to respect him and Americans did not deserve that kind of respect.
She closed the files and began searching for the one she'd hacked in for.
They weren't there.
"I did try and tell you that it would be unlikely-"
"I know, but it was worth a try."
"Was it?" He knew this was more like a game to Steph. It always was. She liked the time pressure, the fact that she could get caught at any moment.
She got a kick out of it.
Jack on the other hand hated it. The fact that she'd slept with Tony made it worse, and the fact that he'd just had to overhear them going at it.
Part of him wondered if this mission had really just been a smoke screen, an excuse for her to sleep with Stark.
These thoughts made him angry and not just because he'd been put under an unnecessary time pressure.
Steph went back upstairs, retrieved her phone and reconnected the circuit in a matter of seconds. She'd removed any evidence of her intrusion while she was down in the workshop. Everything was back to normal now, with no sign that anything happened at all.
"I suppose that there really is no reason that he'd have access to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s files," she said, "I mean, why would he?"
Jack had already said this to her many times before, but she'd remained adamant that the mission go ahead. It was good practice anyway.
The next mission would be much harder.
"You know, I'm sure I told you that."
"You have."
"Really? Hmm."
"What do you mean hmm?"
"Just hmm."
"Hmm as in hmm? Or hmm as in hmmmm. . ."
"Just a hmm."
"You can't just have a hmm."
"Hmm?"
"Can we stop this now?"
"Mmmhmm."
There was a second of silence before they both erupted into laughter. It took at least a minute for them to calm down. Both of them quiet now, the conversation resumed after they had recovered.
"Oh god, I wanna go home! I miss our conversations."
"We are having a conversation."
"You know what I mean, Jack. I miss the busy streets and grey skies of London already."
"It was your decision to-"
"I know."
"I did tell you-"
"Okay, fine you win."
"It's not about winning Steph, it's about-"
"Listening. I know, I know Jack." She'd heard it all before. Every time she didn't take his advice and it backfired on her, she got the same little speech.
"You know, but you don't care," Jack murmured to himself, but Steph heard what he said. It wasn't like him to act like this. Maybe he was still annoyed about what had happened last night. She smiled.
"Are you sulking, Jack?" she asked playfully, the up-beat tone flooded back to her voice.
"Why would I be sulking?"
"I don't know, you tell me." He could hear the amusement in her voice and knew exactly what she was thinking. It wasn't that which was getting to him, but it was good enough to play along with. What was really bothering him was something that he couldn't tell her.
Some things even best friends have to keep things from each other.
"I want to claim compensation for that," he said, lightening his tone slightly.
She laughed, "Compensation?"
"Yeah. What I heard last night, well, that was damaging Steph." He could hear Steph giggling. "Okay, we'll sort out the compensation when I get back."
"And a pay rise."
"A pay rise?" She shook her head, he was just playing games with her. She already paid him a ridiculous amount. "Oh come on. You've got more money than you know what to do with."
"And you've got even more than that."
"Hey, what's mine is yours." Jack didn't reply, just smiled. He knew she mean well, but he didn't care about the money. What he wanted, really wanted, was something he was fairly sure he would never get. Still, the meaning of the gesture was one that touched him.
Steph broke the momentary silence. "I guess I better go check on sleeping beauty."
She meant Tony. "Yeah."
"Wouldn't want him waking up lonely, now would we?"
"Uh huh." The thought of Steph going back to Tony was one that made Jack feel ill. He tried to block the thought from his mind.
Steph made her way back to Tony's bedroom. She climbed back onto the bed and checked to see if Tony was conscious. As she saw his eyes still rolled into his head, she was absolutely certain that he wasn't going to wake up any time soon.
She looked down at him sleeping, snoring gently. It was kind of cute. She smiled.
"He looks so innocent when he's sleeping," It was funny because Tony Stark was not a man usually associated with the word innocence. She laughed, picking up her phone. This was just too good to keep to herself.
"Well so do you," Jack told her. He'd seen her asleep many times before and it was the only time he could really describe her as looking innocent, at peace, or even better, vulnerable. Steph was naturally a very closed person; she didn't open up to people, didn't trust people, except Jack, and even with him there was a barrier sometimes, but when she was sleeping, all of that melted away.
"I don't do innocent, Jack," Steph stated, taking a picture of Tony sound asleep, and smiling to herself.
Jack smiled, "If you say so, Steph."
"By the way, who's that black guy that hangs around with Tony?"
"What?"
"That black guy, one in uniform, who's friends with Tony. Who is he?"
"Why do you think I know that?"
"I don't, it was your cue to find out for me," Jack rolled his eyes and a few seconds later came back with an answer.
"Colonel James Rhodes. He's-"
"What's his number?"
"Why do you want to know that?"
"I'll tell you after you give me the number."
"Steph. I'll have you know that I am not an idiot."
She sighed. "You hate Tony, right?"
"No," he answered a little too quickly, "Why would I hate him? I've never met him."
Steph laughed. "Oh come on, after last night. . ."
She was perfectly right, for more reasons than she knew.
"Hate is more a passionate word and I do not have passion for that man."
"Strongly dislike?" she suggested, but received no reply from Jack. "You want a bit of payback, don't you?"
"What were you thinking?" asked Jack, smiling, hoping she couldn't hear it in his voice.
He wouldn't normally agree to assist in any of Steph's little revenge schemes, in fact usually he'd be trying to deter her, but she was right; he did want a little payback.
"Got your phone on?" Steph asked.
"Do I ever switch it off?"
"This is good, trust me, you'll laugh." She sent the picture of 'innocent' Tony to him. She knew that he'd received it by his response - an attempt to suppress a laugh.
"I told you it was good," she said, feeling somewhat satisfied.
"Not that good."
"You laughed."
"Not really."
"Not really? What the hell are you talking about, Jack? You laughed. I heard you."
"Well, I was preparing to laugh, anticipating something funny, and then you sent me that, which really wasn't." The smile was evident in his voice; he was just trying to wind her up. "So you want me to send this to Rhodes?"
"You'd do that? For me?"
Jack smiled, "Just for you, Steph," he said, forwarding the message.
"Just because you don't trust me with his number."
"Correct," replied Jack, making sure his number would be untraceable when Rhodes received it.
Steph laughed. "What do you think I'm going to do? Try to get him to sleep with me?"
Jack didn't reply and an awkward silence lingered between them. Steph's sex life, although a very prominent point of her life, was not something she and Jack talked about. It was a subject they'd always avoided, well he'd always avoided.
Eventually Steph broke the silence.
"He snores as well." She was talking about Tony again. "And don't even think about saying I snore. I know for a fact I don't,"
"No, but you do this really cute thing where you-"
Steph interrupted him, "Cute? Innocent? Next you'll be calling me sweet!"
It was exactly what Jack had expected. She was uncomfortable with him seeing her as anything other than a strong, capable, independent female, who could take care of herself.
She was more vulnerable than she even realised.
.
.
.
.
Thanks for your support guys!
Can't wait to hear what you think!