Hide & Seek – Twenty-Eight
Steve was still holding onto Sharon so she wouldn't launch herself back at Natasha. And Natasha was scrambling to her feet. Neither one of the women that stood there, bruised and bloodied, looked like the women he had come to know and respect.
"I don't know what you thought were accomplishing here, ladies, but I can totally assure you that fighting one another won't get you there."
Neither woman said anything. Both of them were still trying to catch her breath and Sharon was holding her side.
"I'm sorry, I couldn't catch up," Sam trailed off as he approached them from the bottom of the stairs. He stopped talking immediately when he saw the stern look on Steve's face.
"Maybe you could explain what the hell is going on here?" Steve asked of Sam.
Sam looked at the two women and back to Steve.
"I tried to catch up," he told Steve.
"Catch up to what?"
Sam looked at Natasha and she was almost sulking and not making eye contact.
"No, please. Let me," Sharon spoke up. "Agent Romanoff's half-sister is the daughter of the Red Skull and she has very kindly decided to keep that bit of information to herself."
Steve's eyes went wide and he looked to Natasha for an answer. Any answer at all.
"And she says he's back," she spat.
It was hard to determine exactly what Steve was feeling at the moment. He still was holding onto Sharon, but it was a much more friendly hold that it had started. But his face was hard and his gaze was steely.
"She – they took her. The Red Skull needs her and they came and took her," Natasha finally spoke. "He needs her so he can return to full strength. She doesn't know that she is his daughter. And I – I was supposed to protect her."
"Where is he?"
"They're heading to Germany," Clint called down to them. "And GPS tracker confirms this."
Steve shook his head. Hawkeye had let the two women fight, too.
"How do you know this?" Steve asked.
"Is the audio device working?" Natasha asked in an excited tone.
"Like a charm. And I was able to hit the back end of that damn flying car with an arrow with GPS embedded in the tip. We'll know the exact location at all times."
"Unless they pull the arrow out," Sam said. "They might see that."
"It'll still leave the GPS in the body of the vehicle. The tip is designed to break from the rest of the arrow."
Steve nodded. He was still trying to process it all when he realized that Sharon had gone to Natasha and the both of them were shaking hands. Was this really happening?
"Let's go figure out a plan to rescue your sister," Sharon said.
Natasha nodded and began to help Sharon up the stairs.
Steve was dumbfounded. "I will never understand women," he said to Sam.
…
Brock Rumlow pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes closed. He had one helluva headache and the crazy woman he'd had to kidnap had only just stopped screaming her head off. That was mostly due to the fact that he'd given her a nice dose of some medications to make her drowsy.
They were within ten minutes of the location of their jet. Once to the jet, they'd head straight to the skull. And they would figure out how to turn her back into Sin.
He looked her over as she slept. She'd be pretty hot if she wasn't dressed like an 85 year old librarian, or well, how he thought librarians dressed. Thankfully, she looked nothing like her dad.
He'd been shocked that she had answered her dorm room door. And she had actually smiled at him for half a second before she started shrieking. Crossbones had hauled her away quickly and they'd sped off into the night. And he'd had no idea that the Wilson guy had been watching her until he'd jumped from the bell tower behind them. But the car was just too fast.
He knew he'd done a good job, though. And it would be even better when they made Danielle realize she was Sin – daughter of the Red Skull himself.
… …
"We can't waste time," Natasha said. "We need to get to Germany and…"
"And what? Have them waiting for us when we get there?" Sam told her.
It had only been 15 minutes, but they only had been arguing. A plan had not been formulated.
Natasha growled in anger. She was always a risk-taker. And she had to save Danielle. She was once the trained fighter, but now she was, well, normal. Natasha had made sure that none of the memories or abilities that were implanted into Danielle were of any violence. She didn't want her younger sister to know anything about that life whatsoever.
But now she was thinking that wasn't totally a good idea. If only she'd done things…
"Natasha!" Clint shouted. He'd been trying to get her attention for the last two minutes, but her mind was clearly elsewhere.
She was alone with Sam and Clint in the top of the bell tower.
"Where are Carter and Rogers?" she asked.
"They went to call Stark."
"I…" she started. She was not an emotional person. She didn't want to be. But when she thought of her mother and now her sister, well…she almost couldn't contain the tears brimming in her eyes.
"She's the only family I have left," Natasha said before getting up and walking from the room.
…
"Um, Steve…" Sharon started. "I, uh…"
Cap stared at her and waited for her explanation.
"I really thought splitting all of us up and getting it all done at once was going to be the best way," Sharon said.
"And you felt that you couldn't tell me that?"
"I knew you wouldn't let me go," Sharon told him.
"No. I wouldn't have," Steve agreed with her in a flat tone. "You-you could have been killed. And now the Red Skull…"
He was beyond words. And it wasn't really her fault.
"This-this isn't your fault, Sharon. And it's not your cross to bear. You didn't need to do this on your own Sharon."
In the darkness at the bottom of the tower, the two of them were nose to nose.
"I'm sorry, Steve," Sharon told him sincerely.
"I'm glad you're okay," Steve told her.
He could tell that she blushed in the dim moonlight from his words.
"Steve, I…"
The phone in Steve's pocket began to ring. Stark was finally returning his call.
"Hello, this is Rogers."
"Put her on the phone," Tony's voice yelled.
Sharon shook her head. It was enough that she'd been scolded like a child by Steve, she didn't want to hear a replay from Tony. Tony continued to shout until she took the phone from Steve.
"Hello, Tony," she said flatly.
"I am going to spare you the yelling and the shouting, little girl," Tony said evenly. "But you know you can't do that. You're an adult and jumping out a window and well, you're okay?"
"I'm fine," Sharon said. "The wings worked great. Even on such a long flight."
"Good. Put Rogers back on the phone," he told her.
She did as she was told and handed the device back to Steve. She couldn't hear Tony now – he was no longer shouting.
"Headed to Germany. We're taking your jet," Steve told him. "The Red Skull is there. And he and I have some apparently unfinished business."
"Just so you know, someone reported you dead, too," Tony mentioned off-handedly.
"What?"
"Said you died in a building collapse in Seattle. Who else knew you were there?"
"Rumlow," Steve growled.
He said goodbye to Tony and disconnected the call. He then planted an enormous kiss on Sharon's unsuspecting lips.
"What was that for?"
"We have the element of surprise on our side,' he said. "Everyone thinks I'm dead….again."
…
"What do you mean they're going to Germany?" Bucky shouted.
"Just that," Tony replied. He was trying to keep himself calm, he wasn't sure he had the patience to help someone else, too.
"And you're just letting them go?"
"Do you really think that I can control Captain America from the other side of the planet? I can't even get him to listen to me when he's standing next to me," Stark said.
"We have to go," Bucky told him.
Tony shook his head. "No. You're too unstable. I don't mean that in an insulting way. I've been running every test under the sun and I still can't figure out what they did to your memory. And one knock to the old noggin there could send you back into the Winter Soldier and then you're back to killing my friends, so…"
Bucky sat back down in the chair. He needed to go help them. He needed to make amends for his past. But Stark was right; if something so simple had made him remember being Bucky Barnes again, something could just as easily take that away from him again.
"All right, JARVIS; let's get started on the next three tests," Tony told him.
…
At the end of another round of tests that lasted well into the night, Bucky had fallen into an uneasy sleep. He'd been thinking of Steve, and Sharon, and the war and mostly the Red Skull.
It was four in the morning when he'd woken up sweating and shaking. He had just choked someone to death with his metal hand on their windpipe. The image of the life leaving their eyes was etched in his memory. And that's what it was: a memory, not a dream.
…
Author's note: we're getting to the end of here line here. Hopefully you'll all stick with me til the end...
let me know what you're thinking!
