Chapter 10 - Words from the Past

Steph's POV

For the first two weeks of living in The Tower, I'd flat out refused to sign a contract and take a job with the Avengers because in my mind the offer was the world's worst case of nepotism. Plus, like Clint said, we didn't need the money, and I was perfectly willing to help the team without getting paid to do so. They were all so important to me and becoming more so by the day, so of course I wanted them to be as safe as possible when they worked. Because they were such a small operation with SHIELD gone, no one had really filled out many of their recent files once the cases were resolved. That left a lot of gaps, especially with things like known associates, for me to fill in just in case something more happened down the road.

After the first week of helping the team out, a large chunk of money was deposited in my account, causing the bank to call me to verify that it wasn't an accident and that I actually knew Tony Stark. How embarrassing is it that after the last couple years, my bank was so used to me not having money, that they had to call and make sure everything was okay when I did. When the exact same amount of money hit my bank the next Friday, I had a feeling I knew what was going on.

"Tony!" I hollered when I walked into the common floor at dinnertime. "I don't need an allowance!"

"Well, since you won't sign a contract, Stark Industries can't pay you officially. So I had to find a way to unofficially pay you."

Steve's head whipped around, "we're not paying you?"

Everyone looked surprised except for Clint because he and I had already had the conversation. And Pepper, of course, since she had been the one continually trying to get me to sign the contract. Clint leaned back in his chair, a smile on his face, clearly waiting for the show. I knew he legitimately didn't care one way or the other, but he'd warned me that this exact argument would happen at some point and that it probably wouldn't go my way.

"Why would you pay me for helping you?"

"Because you're working with us?" Steve asked, clearly not understanding.

I snorted and rolled my eyes at the same time, a feat I was proud of myself for accomplishing but one that Steve didn't really enjoy. "And I know exactly why I got the job."

"Because you're good at it," Bucky replied steadily.

"No because I'm everyone's soulmate."

"What you do is very important to our safety, Lastochka. We wouldn't let anyone do it who wasn't qualified and capable," Natasha reasoned.

We'd gone a few more rounds, which included me saying some things about my supposed skills that made everyone angry and Bruce more than a little green before I'd given up and signed the contract Pepper had put in front of me. After that, the paychecks kept coming, but from a more official source, and were accompanied by the most generous benefits package I'd ever seen.

The job had also come with an extremely flexible schedule and a "work whenever and how much you feel like it" clause that I appreciated a lot because that had been what I liked the most about bounty hunting. Although I had an office, I could work from almost anywhere in the Tower, especially as I got to know JARVIS better and was given a whole host of proprietary tech Stark had created, tablet included. That meant that most days, I worked from our apartment, the common floor, Tony or Bruce's labs, the gym, or really anywhere someone from the team was who didn't mind company at the moment.

I'd been pleasantly surprised by my friendship with Pepper because I'd assumed there would be weirdness with her not being my soulmate. Pepper, however, was very nice about it, even admitting one day that she felt kind of bad for me to have such a crazy bunch attached to me. Because I was more than a little crazy myself, I figured it made sense. Still, I enjoyed the time I spent with Pepper because it came with less pressure and more normalcy.

Some days, when we both could manage, we'd sneak out for a long lunch and do some shopping around town. Those days were some of my favorites because, well, I loved shopping. Whenever we went out, we took Happy Hogan, a man who it seemed had been head of security, before Stark Industries went global with that particular branch, but was perfectly content providing security for Pepper now. Sometimes I felt a burn or a slight tingle on the back of my neck that made me think Clint or someone on the team was out there watching over us as well, but it wasn't every time and I chose to let it go. I'd been working on my self defense moves with everyone on the team, but they'd also filled me with enough horror stories about their enemies that I was willing to let them fuss.

On one particular Monday, things had been extra frustrating, so Pepper and I decided to go out. Sometimes we shopped high end boutiques, but that day we were walking in some of the more touristy areas when a couple of men dressed way down caught my eye. I turned to get a better look, but when I blinked they were gone.

"Steph?" I could hear Pepper in the corner of my mind as I stared at the spot the men had been, "are you feeling alright. You look pale and like you're going to pass out or something."

Shaking myself both mentally and physically, I turned to Pepper and pasted on a smile, "yeah, I'm fine. Sorry, I thought I saw… but there's no way. Just my imagination. Sorry about that. Hey, would you mind if I headed back early? You can keep Happy with you, I'll just hail a cab."

I walked to the street and stuck my arm out, satisfied when a cab stopped immediately. Without waiting for a response from Pepper or Happy, I climbed in and told the driver to take me to Avengers Tower. Not more than a few minutes later, I was walking into the lobby, waving at the security guards as I made my way to the back, private elevator. It started moving as soon as I stepped in without JARVIS saying a word, but I didn't think too much of it until he opened the door and I found myself facing down the entire team and Pepper.

"What the hell were you thinking? Do you have any idea how worried I was? Are you okay?" Pepper screamed.

"How did you even get back here before me?"

"Happy drives fast when he's motivated."

"Huh, good to know."

I walked past everyone into the kitchen and poked around until I found some doughnuts and grabbed a couple with a glass of milk.

"Steph, what happened? Pepper said you were scared, and I could feel you." Clint said squatting down next to me when I sat to eat my doughnuts.

"Honestly, it was nothing. I thought I saw someone I knew, and I was surprised. It threw me off; that's all. I'm sorry I worried you, Pepper. I swear, I'm fine."

No one quite looked like they believed me, but it was Natasha who finally said, "Fine, Lastochka. But you should be able to trust us by now."

If I didn't know any better, I'd think she was hurt. "Look, Nat, it's just something that's over and done and I really don't like talking about. And there's no way it was who I thought it was; it was just my mind playing mean tricks on me."

"Are you sure?" Bucky asked, arm whirring menacingly.

"I'll run a check later just to verify if it would make you happy, but yes, I'm sure. And it isn't a matter of trust. I know all of you have things in your pasts you'd rather not talk about, and I respect that. Please respect this."

There were soft murmurs of assent around the room, and everyone backed off a little after that. Though none of them seemed willing to let me out of their sight for the rest of the day, so I worked on my tablet from the common room for a few more hours before giving up and starting a game of Cards Against Humanity with everyone. I'd kept them stashed away for just the right moment, and this seemed like a good time. Plus, the looks on Steve's face and the way he blushed when someone, usually Natasha, would explain some of the cards to him were even better than I'd had any right to hope they would be.

For the next couple of days, life went back to normal. I stayed in for the most part, but that wasn't abnormal for weekdays anyway. If I took my training a little extra seriously, no one seemed to mind, though I think they all correctly figured out that it was related. Thursday morning, when I went to breakfast, no one was there. I asked JARVIS, and he said they were in the War Room, but they weren't Assembling, so I could join them if I wanted. Grabbing a whole wheat bagel and some orange juice, I started munching as I stepped in the elevator. Because I was hungry, I'd managed to polish off the whole thing before I stepped out into the room. Seeing everyone gathered in front of some screens, I wandered over, sliding an arm around Clint's waist as I did so. I heard someone say something about kitties and was kind of excited for half a moment.

"Hey guys, what's…" I trailed off as I took in the images in front of me. Starting to shake, I got out, "is that here? That's the Tower, isn't it. How? No, seriously, what the fuck?"

Everyone immediately turned to watch as Clint lowered me into a chair. Suddenly I knew I was going to be sick, and I looked around in panic grateful when Natasha shoved a trash can in front of me. I promptly lost my breakfast then hyperventilated until Clint took the can, pressed my head between my knees, and rubbed a hand on my back while whispering reassurances in my ear.

"That's what I get for eating a healthy breakfast," I muttered, causing Sam to laugh and everyone else to look at him incredulously. I gave him a smile of thanks and he nodded. "JARVIS, I need Ranger on the phone like yesterday. If he's not available, Tank will do, but I'm really hoping Ranger isn't in the wind right now."

I felt Clint bristle a little, so I ran a soothing hand down his arm and whispered, "he has contacts in Trenton and people who can be on the streets where we'll need them within moments. People who can go places and blend in where none of us easily can."

JARVIS connected the audio to the room. "Yo," I let out a small sigh of relief.

"Hey, Ranger."

"What's up, Babe?"

"Anton Ward and Eugene Brown, heard anything about them getting out of jail early?"

Tony and Natasha moved over to interface consoles and started working with JARVIS to pull whatever information they could find.

I heard a muffled curse and some talking in the background, and assumed Ranger had his hand over the phone. When he came back he said, "Tank's on the phone with Corrections and Hector's on the street. I really don't want to know, but why are you asking?"

"I thought I saw them when I was out Monday, but since they're supposed to have another 10-15 years each in maximum security, I assumed I was imagining things. But now I'm staring at graffiti on the side of Avengers Tower. Kitty paws with the letters 'CSS' and 'GKC'. Seriously, how is this happening again? I thought they'd all been scared off and this was over."

My eyes were a little unfocused as I saw pictures of the two men in question go up on the blank wall to the right of the pictures of the Tower. Following the pictures were newspaper clippings and crime scene photos. There were pictures of me with the hell beat out of me and my clothing pretty much ripped off me that I didn't even remember anyone from the police department taking. I had a hand over my mouth and had curled into myself a little, rocking in my chair. I could hear talking going on around me, but it was all just an unintelligible roar in my ears.

Clint knelt on the ground in front of me, pulled my hands away from my mouth and stomach and held them with a firm grip until I looked up at him.

"Steph, you're okay. I'm here." I heard Natasha clear her throat and Clint corrected himself, "we're here and we're not going to let anything happen to you. But right now, we really need you to focus, okay?"

Taking a steadying breath, I nodded my head slowly. "Yeah, okay."

Steve held out a handkerchief, and Clint grabbed it and wiped the tears I hadn't even realized I'd been crying off my face.

"Babe?" I heard Ranger's voice and I rolled my shoulders back.

"I'm here, Ranger."

"Looks like the Slayers' lawyer was able to push through some ridiculous appeals on some of the charges. And I've got a court transcript here where Ward tries to bring you down for kidnapping, but don't worry, that went nowhere. They don't have any proof and no one believes him. Anyway, their sentences were reduced and, you're not going to believe this, but they were released early for good behavior."

"Kidnapping?" Natasha asked, her lips quirked on one side.

"Okay, it went like this. Anton Ward was going around and robbing places, dressed in a Red Devil mask. One day, completely by my freakin' bad luck, I came across him as he was coming out from one of his robberies and caught a glimpse of him without his mask on. While I was trying to figure out who he was so I could ID him for the cops, I rode into the territory of a local gang, the Comstock Street Slayers, in a powder blue car. That was a bad move because it was the color of their rivals, and they didn't like it. Eugene Brown was there and when they started threatening Lula and I with guns, rape, you know, the works, I sped off with Eugene on the hood of my car. He flew off a few blocks later and took the whole thing very personally.

"Because I could ID Ward, had pissed off Eugene, and had brought in several Slayers in my time as a bounty hunter and it's 'not good to get collected by snatch', I got put on the gang's hit list when a new leader got sent over from LA for them and he needed to impress the bangers before he could take over power. While we were trying to figure out who this guy, Junkman, was and why he was after me, I captured Ward. He couldn't make bail, so I convinced Connie to bond him out on the condition that he wore a tracking bracelet. Then we staged him breaking out of our custody, and kidnapped him."

Sam had this look of sick fascination on his face as he asked, "what was the point of that?"

"We were planning to beat the information out of him."

Bucky, Natasha, and Clint were nodding along, which I expected. What took me by surprise was that Steve also seemed totally on board with the plan. Thor actually looked the most apprehensive. Everyone looked up when Ranger started full on laughing over the phone.

I sighed, "it turned out none of us could beat it out of him when we tried, but thankfully Ranger got back into town that night. He went the next day and threatened the information out of Ward. I don't know if you know this, but apparently Ranger is more intimidating than me. Then we pretended that we captured Ward, revoked his bond for refusing to wear the tracker, and took him back to jail."

"Nice," Bucky said.

"Very, but also probably not the most legal thing I've done." Everyone, Thor included, kind of shrugged that off, and I guess that made sense for a group that called themselves The Avengers. Avenging wasn't about the law.

"Then Steph slipped her protective guard and got kidnapped by the Slayers," Ranger said, still sounding annoyed over the whole thing which had me wincing. It figured that was what got me Steve's disappointed face, not the kidnapping.

"They took me to that playground, and Junkman beat me inside the circle until I got too close to the edge and the gang members pulled me into the crowd of them. The plan was for as many of them who wanted to rape me to do so before Junkman killed me. Eugene Brown wanted to be first, but I kicked him as hard as I could in the junk. I figured if I was going to get raped, it wasn't going to be by him." Clint's hands tightened on my knees, so I took a breath and continued. "Before they could, my friend Sally Sweet, a big cross-dressing dude, plowed into a bunch of them with the school bus he drove, and took out most of the rest with an Uzi. Unfortunately, Eugene was still on the ground from my kick, so he didn't get hit. At least the Junkman got pinned under the bus Wicked Witch style and later died from his injuries. Eugene went to jail, and I thought he and Anton were still there."

"They got released two weeks ago, Babe. I have no idea how they found you or why I didn't know they were out."

"Lady Stephanie," Sif, who had remained silent thus far started. When I looked up and met her eyes, she fingered her sword and said, "they will not get to you again."

A/N: I will do what I can, but updates next week are somewhat questionable as I'll be traveling.