AN: Steve's Guardian Angel has to go take a drinking break and Teli picks up where it left off. Also action sequences are strange to write.

"Peter? ...Peter."

"What? What do you want Ne- woah you're not Nezha." Peter looked up from his homework at the warframe now standing in his room. It wasn't Rain. It was the other one from the alley and it could not have been more physically different. Broad shoulders seemed to fill the room and a blank visage stared back at his surprised face. The shocked silence prompted the warframe to continue.

"I'm here on his request. He- we, wanted to make sure you were safe."

Peter just glanced at his homework with wide eyes. "I- uh, I'm fine, thanks. Where is he then?"

"On the moon."

"What."

"Doesn't matter. The point is, you need to stay down for the next few days. We've taken steps to erase your presence but if you do anything hero related now we won't be able to stop them from coming after you, and, by extension, I won't be able to stop our mutual friend from doing something stupid."

"I can't just stop helping people, if they get hurt it's my fault if I don't do anything." Peter said, a bit indignant.

"Irrelevant, I will keep you down myself if I have to. Stark nearly has enough evidence to figure you out for himself. He is already plenty aware of Spiderman the hero and he has files on all promising up-and-coming minds, including yours. If he sees those two files at the same time he will figure it out and we won't be able to stop him. The best we can do now is distract him. Which we can't do if you're active. I-" The warframe tilted its head, massive neck muscles visibly contracting. "I must go. The ball is about to start rolling and we will have to be prepared for the fallout."

"But. What? I-"

Peter's eyes crossed looking at the finger an inch from his face. "Stay. Down."

"Understood. On my way." Matariel said, and closed the void channel. Teli returned to her spot by the window of the apartment, listening to the music Fury was playing. It sounded pleasant enough, but not her speed. She looked at Fury where he was seated in the chair. He had refused any tenno healing because it would have fixed his eye, which for some reason he needed to keep the way it was. So there he sat, bleeding into the fabric, and here she sat, waiting for Rogers to show up. With a thought she contacted her ship cephalon.

"Extracted data?" Teli asked.

"When it entered our system it rewrote itself into oblivion. The coding can't last outside of its intended habitat. Which right now is only in the device in Fury's possession, STUPID THING.

Teli looked up when Steve came in through the window. Odd. And paranoid. Poor humans without enemy sense. Steve walked right past her, unable to see through her prowl. He peeked around the corner, saw it was Nick, and relaxed against the wall in exasperation.

"I don't recall giving you a key."

"Do you really think I'd need one?... My wife kicked me out." Teli tossed her head instead of snorting at Fury's line. She got up and slowly approached the Captain from behind.

"A lot of things you don't know about me." Fury continued. Steve went to turn on the lights, but Teli stopped his hand and put hers on his mouth. Before Steve could make a sound Fury showed him his phone's screen.

EARS EVERYWHERE.

IVARA IN THE ROOM.

Steve glanced down at the invisible hands on his mouth and wrist. Fury continued talking. "Sorry to have to do this but I had no place else to crash."

SHIELD COMPROMISED.

Steve's eyes widened in understanding. "Who else knows about your wife?" He asked.

"Just, my friends."

YOU, ME, AND THE TENNO

PUH-TOOM. PUH-TOOM PUH-TOOM. Bullets pierced the wall and went straight through Nick's chest. Flooring him instantly. Steve lurched forward, soldiering instincts telling him to get Fury out of the line of fire. He dragged the director around the corner, trying to put as many walls between them and the shooter as possible. Before he could chase after the shooter, Fury grabbed his arm, the grip was weak, but Steve still felt the irregular shape in Fury's hand. He looked down and saw it was the drive the Natasha had had on the Lemurian Star.

Teli decided now was the time to exit, if that agent next door saw her, she would be obligated to report it, not knowing any better.

Fury coughed up blood. "Trust. No one." And he was gone. Steve looked up and saw the window close sharply, but the sound was masked by the sound of the apartment door opening.

Teli climbed around the building, on alert for any more gunfire. The sound of glass shattering told her Steve had busted through a window and was in pursuit.

Steve ran across the roof, busting through a door, off the wall, through another door, denting another wall, through another door, and finally through a window and onto the roof of the adjacent building. He rolled to disperse the impact and transferred his weight into throwing his shield. The metal disk flew and record speed, and slammed straight into the shooter's metal arm. A whirr of gears and the shield came flying back at him.

SLAM.

Something dropped out of the sky and landed on the shield, pinning it to the ground.

A warframe, but not the Ivara. This was the grey and orange one. It drew an strange rounded pistol and fired four quick shots in the shooter's direction, but the enemy was already gone. The warframe bounced the shield into its hand with its foot and tossed it the Steve.

"We thought Fury thought he would be safe with you nearby. I guess he was wrong." The alien warrior said without an ounce of remorse.

Steve caught the shield and asked. "Who was that?"

"Don't know." The warframe shrugged. "He came after Fury this morning but we beat him off before he could get to him. Come on, we should accompany him to the hospital." The warframe stepped past Steve, who blinked. The thing was a few inches taller than him, and Steve hadn't been shorter than someone else for a long time. Suppressing nostalgia, he followed.

Steve considered his words carefully before speaking as they walked. "So… SHIELD is compromised."

"Fury said to trust no one. Ears everywhere."

"Were you there for that part? I don't remember you being there." They approached the door to the stairs, but the warframe walked past it and to the edge of the roof. Steve raised an eyebrow. "What? Too good for stairs?"

"Too fast for stairs, Fury's life is in danger, in case you hadn't noticed." As if to punctuate, Steve heard the blaring sound of an ambulance.

Steve waved his hands in surrender. "There's nothing I can do about it. Whether I get there in five minutes or ten the doctors will be working just as hard. Besides," A sad look crossed his face. "I'm not too eager to see my neighbor right now."

"Mm. To answer your earlier question, telling one of us something is the same as telling all of us. That doesn't mean we can't keep secrets from each other, just by default we don't."

"Fury also said you knew about SHIELD."

"Before even he did."

Steve rounded on the other warrior. "What?! You knew and you didn't do anything?"

The response was cold. "Think. If we had done something about it, how would it have looked from the outside? A small group of alien warriors suddenly kills of hundreds of innocent humans? Didn't you say that punishment comes after the crime? We cut down the weeds once they show their heads, not before."

"But why didn't you at least say something?"

"What could we have said? The only proof we could have given you you wouldn't be able to understand or trust. Now come on, you should be there for him, regardless of your disagreements." With that the warframe disappeared into the air on a pair of wings.

Steve turned and began jogging back down to his motorcycle, the flash drive heavy in his pocket.

When Natasha entered the room, the warframe turned to see who it was, but Steve didn't. She spared the tenno, who was now clad in the Vauban warframe once again, a glance while hurrying toward the glass pane between them and the operating room.

As they talked, Matariel studied the operation with quiet attention. This kind of medicine was foreign to him and he was curious about how it worked. Back in his somatic pod, he began pulling up information about the tools and techniques being used, the info played itself rapidly over his HUD, too fast for a normal human and many tenno, but it was fine for him.

They started shocking the body. Matariel looked at the others in the room, who were all in various states of shock. The doctors went to inject something into his neck, which the HUD identifies as… oh.

Oh.

Matariel tapped into Hill's earpiece. "That was well played. I don't think anyone could have survived being shot like that." He told her. She turned to search his face, only to be met by a blank metallic orange visage. The doctors had given up. Steve quietly left the room, Natasha seemed to recover from the verge of tears and stared blankly through the glass. Nick's body was taken from the operating room to be prepared. Matariel removed himself from Hill's earpiece and spoke to Teli. "Ivara, I want you to follow Rogers and company. Any further action is up to your judgement." He felt more than heard her acknowledgment as she switched her attention to Rogers.

They all went to see Nick's body. The only thing not strange about it to the tenno was the sterility. Keeping him under a sheet was odd. Matariel caught Teli staring intently at the body.

"You see it too?"

"Yes."

Natasha blew past them, unable stand the sight any longer. Steve went after her and Teli prowled after him. She made it outside in time for Steve to get called in to SHIELD for questioning, and quietly made her exit. Matariel had explicitly mentioned Steve, so she chose to follow him, leaving Black Widow to her own devices.

"Captain."

"Neighbor." Steve addressed the agent curtly. Seriously. All this time…

"Oh. Captain. I'm Alexander Pierce."

Steve shook the man's hand. "Sir. It's an honor."

"The honor's mine. My father served in the 101st." Together they entered the room. The rooms was in the process of being cleared out for whoever would take over Fury's position. Steve listened as Pierce told a story of Fury going against direct orders to rescue dozens of people.

"So you gave him a promotion?" Regardless of right or wrong, Fury was promoted for disobedience, which left a bad taste in Steve's mouth.

"I've never had any cause to regret it. Captain, why was Fury in your apartment last night?"

That question again. Steve tried harder this time. "I don't know."

"Did you know it was bugged?" Steve nodded.

"Did you know he was the one who bugged it?" Steve didn't have a response for that. Pierce continued. "I want you to see something." He pressed a button on a remote. "Your warframe pals tracked him down in a safehouse and brought him in last night." The screen showed Batroc strapped to a chair in the presence of three agents and a brown and green female warframe with a huge head crest arching back and away over her head. The warframe nodded at the camera, somewhere off to Steve's right. Steve froze. There's a warframe in the room. He immediately tried to play it off.

"You think he's a suspect? Assassination isn't Batroc's line."

Pierce didn't seem to notice his slip. "No, no. It's more complicated than that. Batroc was hired anonymously to attack the Lemurian Star through 17 fictitious accounts, the last of which was registered under a Jacob Veech, who died six years ago."

"Am I supposed to know who he was?"

"No, but his last address was 1435 Elmhurst Drive, Fury's mother lived in 1437 when I first met him."

Steve's eyebrows shot up and he pointed at the screen. "You think Fury hired him? Why?"

"The prevailing theory was it was a cover for the sale of classified intelligence, but he deal went south and that resulted in his death."

It took a second for that to sink in. "If you knew Fury, you'd know that's false."

Pierce's eyes lit up. "Why do you think we're talking? I took a seat on the council because Nick asked me to -I didn't want to, but I did it anyway. We were both realists, we both knew that there was a point, no matter how far off, where diplomacy, words, fail. It's then that you must get your hands in the dirt and build something new. The idea that those who have the nerve to call you dirty when you do could be happy today, makes me very, very angry." He sighed. "Captain you were the last person to see Nick alive. I don't think either you or I think that's a coincidence. So I'll ask you again: Why was he there?"

Steve steeled himself. "He told me not to trust anyone. I'm sorry, but those were his last words."

Pierce didn't seem resigned. "I wonder if that included him."

"Excuse me." Steve walk toward the door, grabbing his shield on the way.

"Captain. Somebody murdered my friend and I'm going to find out who. If anyone gets in my way they're going to regret it." Pierce's eye narrowed. "Anyone." Steve left without another word.

Entering the elevator Steve made sure to take slightly longer to walk through the door than normal to give the warframe time to enter as well. He didn't even feel it brush past. He told the computer to head to operations control so he could read some reports on other possible missions.

Just before the door closed a hand swept through, revealing Rumlow and a couple other STRIKE team members. They told the elevator their destination and settled in for the awkwardly quiet elevator ride.

"They found something in Evidence Response, should I ready a team? Or...?" Rumlow broke the silence.

"Let's wait and see what it is first." Steve told him. "Don't want to get riled up over nothing." Suddenly he felt an invisible hand on his wrist. Slowly, deliberately, it slid upwards, past his elbow and up to his shoulder, where it disappeared toward the ceiling. Steve idly wondered what it was supposed to mean. I guess they're on the ceiling now?

Several people in white coats entered the elevator.

"Alright. Hey, I'm sorry about what happened to Fury. It's messed up is what it is."

Steve gave a noncommittal grunt.

A couple of huge guys, including Rollins, in combat getups entered the elevator. Steve eyed them. The white coats gripped their briefcases tighter.

Some other members of STRIKE team entered the elevator. Steve looked around at the now packed elevator. He noticed that there was a gap between him and everyone else present. He let out a quiet sigh and briefly looked up to where he thought the warframe was hanging.

"Before we get started. Does anyone want to get out?"

A beat of silence, then Rollins activated his electric baton and went for the stab. Steve kicked him back, suddenly everyone on the elevator was shoving him against the wall. Steve struggled, but one of them detached their briefcase handles and wrapped it around his wrist. It magnetized, pulling his arm toward the wall as he tried to get out of their grips.

A twang vibrated through the elevator and everyone dropped to the floor, unconscious.

Another twang and Steve could see the pale green outline of Ivara standing in the middle of the elevator. Looking down at his hands revealed he was covered in the same green outline but was otherwise invisible. "Can't they see this?" He asked, picking up his shield and breaking the magnetic band on his arm with it.

The outline shoot its head. "Allies only."

"Allies?..."

"Whitelist."

Steve nodded. He opened the door to the elevator, only to be greeted by two dozen marines with their guns pointed at the door. "Drop your shield! Put your hands in the air!" Steve tensed, ready for a fight, but the soldiers just looked confused. The one who'd shouted looked slightly embarrassed.

"The window." The warframe said, exceedingly quiet.

"I can't jump. It's too high, even for me." Steve told it, just as quiet.

"I have a zipline."

"They'll notice."

"I have a distraction." The warframe almost sounded annoyed at having to speak this much. The marines were approaching to investigate the apparently empty elevator, however, so he needed to act fast.

Steve counted down. "Three… two… one… now." He swung his shield, just as an incredibly distracting noise sounded off down the hall. All the marines turned to look but Steve did his best to ignore it and saw an arrow fire out into the distance, attaching to the roof of the building below. The line was rather steep, but not unbearably so. So he grabbed one of the briefcase handles and hooked it around the zipline before jumping out.

As he slid, Steve barely had enough time to think about how strong the line was, despite being only as thick as heavy grade fishing line before he let go and crashed through the glass ceiling of the building below, he ignored the screams of people around him and used his shield to take the fall. He sprinted full speed through the building toward the garage. The warframe didn't seem to be nearby, and he didn't have an earpiece to contact them with, so he pushed thoughts of them from his mind and focused on getting to his motorcycle.

After barely making it through the garage door and fighting his way past a quinjet it was a miracle that he was able to vanish as well as he had.

He was beginning to realize that that sort of thing was commonplace when warframes were involved.

What was not a miracle, however, was the lack of USB in the vending machine, or Black Widow showing up, chewing on some bubblegum.

"Where is it?"

"Safe."

"Do better."

"Where did you get it?"

"Why would I tell you?"

"Fury gave it to you. Why?"

"What's on it?"

"I don't know."

"Stop lying."

"I only act like I know everything Rogers."

They both stopped when the room's temperature dropped several degrees. They both looked over to see the poison green and purple Ivara standing out of sight of the door.

"Later." The command left no room for argument. The warframe vanished again and the two humans left the building.

As they walked, Natasha elaborated. "Most of the intelligence community doesn't think he exists, the ones that do call him the winter soldier. He's credited with over a hundred assassinations in the last fifty years."

Steve had to remind himself to keep walking. "So he's a ghost story?" he asked.

"A few years ago I was tasked to protect an engineer in Iran. Someone shot out my tires and we went straight off a cliff. He was there waiting for us. I was covering the target so he shot him through me. Soviet made, no rifling, just like what went through Fury. No more bikinis." Was that hint of disappointment in her voice?

"That must be real hard for you."

"Take it from my experience, going after him is a dead end. He's a ghost story." They continued walking. Natasha seemed to know where they were going so Steve just followed her.

After a moment of silence Steve asked. "Where do you think she is?"

The super spy didn't even have to ask who he meant. "I'd wager she's up high. She had a bow and arrow strapped to her back and a very prominent optical… whatever it is they have. Likely she's made for ranged combat support. I have to applaud them sending her. She's a perfect complement to our MO."

"Yeah well something tells me she's here to watch, not help." Steve looked up at the approaching mall. "Why are we here?"

"Open computer access. Don't want to plug this thing into anything important." She said, waving the USB in front of his face, and letting him take it when he went to snatch it from her.

Once inside the nearest Apple store she immediately got to work. "There's a serious homing program on this, some they'll know where we are in about…" She plugged it in. "Nine minutes."

"Fury thought someone was trying to hide something using the ship- ah, the drive is protected by an AI. It keeps rewriting itself. It's almost like… nope, I've got nothing. Let me try something else. If I can't find out what, then I can find out…"

"Hey, can I help you with anything?" Oh god an employee.

"Actually sir, I have a couple of questions." A quiet British voice from across the table distracted the employee. He glanced back, but Steve waved him toward the girl. Steve looked over long enough to catch a glimpse of bright green hair and earrings before turning back to the computer.

"Got it. Wheaton. You know it?"

"I used to, come on."

"Where did Captain America learn to steal a car?"

"Nazi Germany - take your feet off the dash- and we're borrowing it."

"...Alright. I have a question for you, which you do not have to answer, but not answering kind of answers it anyway-"

"What is it?!"

"Was that your first kiss since 1945?"

"That bad, huh?"

"I didn't say that."

"It sounds like that's what you're saying."

"No, no. I was just wondering how much practice you've had. Everybody needs practice."

"It was not my first kiss since 1945. I'm ninety five, not dead."

"Nobody special though? I find it hard to imagine Captain America not being able to find anyone." Black Widow looked over with a wry smile.

"Well when you're this old shared life experiences are hard to come by."

"Well you could make something up."

"Like you?" It wasn't meant to be biting, but there it was.

"The truth isn't all things to all people all the time Steve. Neither am I."

"Difficult way to live."

"Easy way to not die."

"It's hard to trust someone when you don't know who they are."

"Well. Who do you want me to be?"

Steve took his eyes off the road. "How about a friend?"

She gave a light chuckle. "You might be in the wrong-"

BLAM

They both started as the truck rocked slightly back on its wheels. They desperately looked around, trying to find the source, and it took them a moment to spot the shadow of a handprint on the back windshield. It was no more defined than the shadow of a cloud, but it was there.

The two heroes looked at each other. Natasha was the first to recover.

"Speaking of friends…"

AN: And so my attempts at regularity in uploading continues to... well not quite fail per se, but anyway. College is back on, so keep that in mind if for some reason I go a bit without uploading.

Ugh how the hell are you supposed to balance the power of a warframe against the Winter Soldier? Like, any one of them could put him down with minimal effort. Can you imagine what would happen if Bucky took an opticor round? No more Bucky. I mean maybe vibranium could deflect it, but blocking with an arm is kind of null when you can just aim down at the last second.

Anyone else really confused about how Captain America managed to disappear after fleeing the Triskelion? Like damn, they have cameras everywhere and Steve would have had to stop somewhere to change clothes right? I didn't notice until I wrote this and now it's irritating me.

Don't forget to review!