7:00am, Sunday, March 9, 2014
Steve just wishes that Rumlow could shut his mouth for one minute, it would save everyone the trouble of having to take an aspirin in preparation for every day of work. He walks down the hallway, passing Sharon. He almost felt bad that she would have to move out of her apartment, but at least she doesn't have to deal with having a new wall built. Let's just say that their landlord was less than happy with what happened.
A blonde man on the shorter side offers his hand out to Steve, "Captain. I'm Alexander Pierce."
"Sir, it's an honor." Steve tells him as they shake hands.
"The honor is mine, Captain. My father served in the 101st. Come on in." Pierce opens his door wider so that him and Steve can go sit on one of his far too expensive couches. Pierce goes over to what looks like a memory box and takes out a photo. Steve knows who it looks like, but might as well play the dumb blonde for as long as he can. "That photo was taken five years after Nick and I met. When I was at the State Department in Bogota. ELN rebels took the embassy, and security got me out, but the rebels took hostages. Nick was deputy chief for the SHIELD station there. And he comes to me with a plan. He wants to storm the building through the sewers. I said, "No, we'll negotiate." Turned out the ELN didn't negotiate, so they put out a kill order. They stormed the basement, and what did they find? They find it empty. Nick had ignored my direct order and carried out an unauthorized military operation on foreign soil. He saved the lives of a dozen political officers, including my daughter."
"So you gave him a promotion." Steve figures, not knowing or particularly caring where this is going.
Pierce nods "And so far, I've never had any cause to regret it. Captain, why was Nick in your apartment last night?"
"I don't know." He tries to make it as true as possible. "You know Fury though, he speaks in code."
Pierce scoffs. "Well, you know it was bugged?
"I did, because Nick told me." So there goes that. Whatever this is knows about him and Natasha, the triplets, and a series of other things that they shouldn't have access to.
"Did he tell you he was the one who bugged it?" Steve doesn't reply, not knowing what to say. Fury never did anything without reason. If Fury would make a feed to his apartment, it was obviously edited because Fury would never do anything to hurt his grandkids. Maybe Steve and Natasha, but never the triplets. "I want you to see something."
Pierce presses a button on one of his remotes and a live feed of Batroc's interrogation. Steve furrows his eyebrows. Why does that house look so familiar?
"Is that live?" Steve asks him, still trying to place the safe house.
"Yeah, they picked him up last night in a not-so-safe house in Algiers."
Algiers, there it goes in Steve's mind. The triplets had set up a safehouse there with Laura in case they ever needed it. They set it up about a year ago and he can remember thinking about how it didn't seem like the safest place but it could get the job done. So they are in as deep as he feared.
"Are you saying he's a suspect? Assassination isn't Batroc's line." Steve says once he collects his thoughts, only a few seconds but enough for Pierce to raise an eyebrow.
"No, it's more complicated than that. Batroc was hired anonymously to attack the Lemurian Star and he was contacted by e-mail and paid by wire transfer. And then the money was run through seventeen fictitious accounts, the last one going to a holding company that was registered to a Jacob Veech."
Steve looks at the file that Pierce holds out to him "Am I supposed to know who that is?"
"Not likely. Veech died six years ago. His last address was 14-35 Elmhurst Drive. When I first met Nick his mother lived at 14-37."
"Are you saying Fury hired the pirates? Why?"
Pierce's hands presses into his thighs, staring daggers at Steve "The prevailing theory was that the hijacking was a cover for the acquisition and sale of classified intelligence. The sale went sour and that led to Nick's death."
Steve almost smirks at his next sentence. "If you really knew Nick Fury you'd know that's not true." Fury would never sell intelligence, not if it meant it would but Natasha or the triplets would be in danger. It probably has something to do with that loophole. Is Pierce part of this? He's being particularly nosey but that just might be an occupational hazard.
"Why do you think we're talking? See, I took a seat on the Council not because I wanted to but because Nick asked me to, because we were both realists. We knew that despite all the diplomacy and the handshaking and the rhetoric, that to build a really better world sometimes means having to tear the old one down. And that makes enemies. Those people that call you dirty because you got the guts to stick your hands in the mud and try to build something better. And the idea that those people could be happy today, makes me really, really angry." He pauses for another moment "Captain, you were the last one to see Nick alive. I don't think that's an accident, and I don't think you do either. So I'm gonna ask again, why was he there?"
Steve nods, "he told me not to trust anyone. I know that it's in everyone's best interest to do what he says. So i'm not trusting anyone."
"I wonder if all that mistrust included him."
Steve picks up his shield "I'm sorry. Those were his last words. Excuse me." He had to go grab his wife and get the hell out of here.
"Captain. somebody murdered my friend and I'm gonna find out why. Anyone gets in my way, they're gonna regret it. Anyone."
Steve stops in his tracks, he won't give Pierce the satisfaction of watching his frustration "Understood." Steve turns and leaves.
Pierce takes out his phone. "Do it, get the asset prepped for later"
Steve walks into the elevator at the end of the hall, devising a plan. He needs to get Natasha and the drive, find Hill and Fury, make sure the triplets are safe and as far away from this as they can, and last, possibly become jailbirds for fraud. "Operations control." He needs to pick something up before that though.
"Confirmed." The computer replies. The computer system had switched over about a year and a half ago. Designed by Ronnie, Henry, and Xander Rogers. He did wonder how SHIELD would feel if they found out that three kids when they were twelve designed the security for one of the most well guarded buildings in the world.
The elevator door was about to close when the calloused hand of Rumlow sticks in between them. "Keep all STRIKE personnel on site." He tells the team. "Forensics," he growls to the computer. "Cap" he acknowledges.
"Rumlow"
"Evidence Response found some fibres on the roof they want us to see. You want me to get the tac-team ready?" Rumlow asks, almost enthusiastically. This raises several red flags in Steve. Rumlow never did anything eagerly that didn't have to do with a woman taking off their clothes.
"No, let's wait and see what it is first." Steve instructs as the elevator stops again. Ok, what? There was a lot of idle chatter and Steve tries to closer to the door. He secretly looks next to him, a man had some sweat dripping down his face. In the middle of March.
Rumlow turns his head back to Steve. "I'm sorry about what happened with Fury. Messed up, what happened to him."
Steve almosts rolls his eyes, Rumlow has never been less convincing than he was saying that sentence "Thank you." Pause for dramatic effect, "before we get started, does anyone want to get out?"
A few seconds of silence before Rollins takes out an electric stick and stabs Steve in the stomach with it. Four large men come up behind him, forcing him with them over to the wall. Steve uses what little movement he has to hit the emergency stop button on the elevator. A few more of the sticks start hitting him. Well, at least they hurt less than a widow's bite. One of them detaches the handle on his briefcase, it's an extra strength handcuff. Two of the agents try to force his hands up to the metal but Steve kicks one of them in the stomach, sending the two backwards. He fights off the rest as best he can with the largest man having his arms around Steve's neck. He flips him over onto the floor, adding to the piles of unconscious agents.
Rumlow kicks Steve's hand up and it catches onto the metal strip. He deflects Rumlow's punch to the best of his ability but Rumlow just uses his other hand to hit Steve's back with the stick. He elbows Rumlow in the chest, giving him a few seconds of relief. He crashes another agent into the elevator camera. Steve grabs one of their sticks and uses it to get another away. He uses his wrist to jump up to take both out with a kick at the same time. He jumps up to try and get his hand off of the metal. This is the only time he has resented how smart his daughter is with her designs.
He's finally able to force it away and he takes all of his frustration out on the two remaining agents. Rumlow decides that this is a good time for him to test his mortality. "Whoa, big guy. I just want you to know, Cap, this ain't personal." He yells as he attacks Steve with two sticks. He dodges two of Rumlow's attacks but he gets hit in the shoulder with one. No matter how many times he gets hit with them, they always hurt. He picks up Rumlow by his waist and throws him at the ceiling.
"It feels pretty damn personal." This is the last thing that he wants to deal with at seven in the morning on a Sunday. He presses the button to open the elevator door. There stood an entire taac team with their guns pointed at him. "Drop the shield! Put your hands in the air!"
Steve panics and hits the door with his shield, making it fall down to another floor. The elevator screeches to a stop between floors. Steve tries to open the door but he closes it back up at the sound of many footsteps. The banging against the doors shows how close they are. "Give it up, Rogers! Get that door open! You have nowhere to go!"
Steve can almost imagine his wife replying to that with "Is that a dare?" Steve steps back and takes a very deep breath. Throwing all sense of caution out the window, he slams his shield against the glass wall of the elevator. He falls down nineteen stories and through a glass ceiling. He groans as he tries to stand up, the public's going to love this. He runs to the garage to get his motorcycle, thanks to Natasha knowing her husband well enough to know that he would need it in the middle of this mess. Luckily nobody had come down yet so he was able to get on it with ease. He turns the key and speeds off to the bridge.
The gate was closing, but thanks to the advancements that Ronnie had put on his bike, he was able to jump through them safely. Then he notices a quinjet flying in front of him, barricading him from the main roads. "Stand down, Captain Rogers. Stand down. Repeat, stand down." The gun spins out in front.
Steve makes his bike go faster than before, using pressure on the front wheel to support him as they shoot at him. He tosses his shield like a frisbee into the engine of the quinjet. He skids on the front tire to flip himself up. He grabs his shield to toss in between the thrusters, effectively taking the quinjet out of the sky. He lands on the ground crouched. Ok, that really hurt. He doesn't dwell though, and goes to be on the run from SHiELD.