Hey guys! Let's keep on rolling along! Just here to throw out that same old disclaimer that I have no rights to anything Marvel before sending you along! Alright, Enjoy! Xoxo-NickyLynn
Tessa and Steve walked down the hall after they left Pierce's office and Tessa's senses were on high alert. It felt like at any minute, someone would come jumping out at them, ready for a fight. When they got to the elevator shaft Tessa pressed the call button before swinging around to face Steve. "They're going to be coming after us." She spoke quietly, trying to remain as calm as possible to keep her mind clear.
"Yep." Steve said in agreement, looking over at her. "So, what's the move here?" he asked her, having no idea what they were supposed to do from here.
"Let's just get the hell out of here first. I can feel my skin crawling." She said as the elevator doors slid open and they stepped into the lift, which was made up of four walls of clear glass, that overlooked outside. Just before the doors slid shut however, a hand stuck into the closing doors, causing them to pull back open.
Agent Rumlow and two other S.T.R.I.K.E. agents walked in, looking over at Tessa and Steve before calling out for the computerized system to bring them to Forensics. The group of men turned and took up the entire front of the elevator, blocking Steve and Tessa in against the glass wall. Tessa looked over at Steve for a moment before her eyes fell on the back of Rumlow's head as the doors slid shut again. As the elevator began bringing them down, Rumlow turned around towards them with his arms crossed. "Evidence Response found some fibers from the roof they want us to see." He told them. "You want me to get the tac team ready?" he asked Steve.
"No, let's wait and see what they find first." Steve said, trying to act like nothing was amiss.
"Right." Rumlow responded, looking back forward. Tessa's eyes dropped down to the men's hands and noticed them hovering dangerously close to their weapons. And by the way the muscles in their backs and arms were tensed up, Tessa knew they weren't just on their way down to Forensics. The elevator came to a stop again and as the doors slide open, even more men came filing in. They pushed into the small room, forcing themselves around Tessa and Steve. One of the men called out a floor destination and the elevator began moving again.
"I'm sorry about Fury." Rumlow said, leaning back towards them again, still trying to keep up with the ruse. "Messed up what happened to him."
"Thanks." Steve muttered back to him, looking around at the men surrounding them, his senses telling him something was wrong same as Tessa. The elevator stopped again at the next floor and Tessa nearly let out a scoff as three more men came pushing into the shaft, and the obscenity of it was baffling.
Tessa let out a sigh as she let her powers begin to stir inside her. "You boys sure you want to do this?" she asked them with all with a raised brow, finding it kind of amusing that they honestly thought they'd be able to take on one of them, let alone both Steve and Tessa. When the man directly in front of her dropped down a taser, she got her answer. Everyone sprung into action at once, and before the men had a chance to do anything, Tessa drew on her power and let out a blast that sent the bodies around them slamming into the glass walls that shattered under the force. Glass went raining down outside as bodies flew through the air to the ground below. The men who had been standing in front of them went slamming into the doors, causing the whole elevator to shake violently. They slumped to the ground as the power in the shaft flickered and the emergency brakes jerked them to a stop. "Idiots." Tessa scoffed out, looking over at Steve who was staring down at her with wide eyes as the last shards of glass fell down around them.
"Holy sh-" he began to say before Tessa cut him off with gasp.
"Language, Captain!" she told him in amusement. Their attention was suddenly pulled over to the door as it was forced open, and when they took in the hall full of armed agents, Tessa grabbed hold of Steve by the arm and transported them out of the destroyed elevator and down onto the ground outside, landing in the pile of glass that had once been part of the elevator walls. Tessa looked around at the crowd of screaming people, who had gathered at the sight of the several men, who had been thrown through the air and now lay unmoving on the ground, before taking a breath and transporting them again, this time directly into the garage of the facility.
"Come on!" Tessa shouted to Steve as she took off running once their feet were back on ground. We've got to find something that'll-" she began, before she came to a sudden halt, having seen the perfect vehicle. She looked over at the motorcycle before looking over at Steve with a smirk.
"What are we gonna do hotwire it?!" Steve asked her, knowing they didn't have the time for it.
"Something like that." Tessa told him, jogging over to it with him. Once they made it to the bike, Tessa swung her leg over the seat and as she brought her foot down on the starter, she let out a small blast of energy that seeped into the machine's engine and as she pulled back on the throttle, it sputtered into life. She looked over at Steve who was looking down at her with raised eyebrows. "Yeah, it's a relatively new discovery." She told him, rolling her eyes. "Now get on, or I'm leaving your ass." She told him.
"Fine, scoot back!" he told her, stepping up to the bike.
"Oh my God, really?" she asked him in disbelief, finding it a terrible time to start with some misogynistic bullshit. "Just get on the damn bike Steve!" she yelled up at him.
Steve let out a sigh of frustration before swinging his leg over the back of the bike. Before he could even latch onto Tessa properly, she took off, the rubber of the tires squealing and leaving a trail behind them as she pulled back on the throttle. "You know, if you're going to be the one doing all the fighting, the least you could do would be let me drive." Steve called over her shoulder as she sped them through the garage.
"Fine, you know what, I promise to let you drive the getaway car next time." she yelled back at him. "Will that make you happy?"
As Tessa drifted them around the last corner, she found the bridge connecting the garage to the outside closing down on them, trying to keep them from leaving. "You're not going to make it!" Steve shouted at her, seeing the doors narrowing down too quickly.
"Hold on!" Tessa shouted back to him, getting an idea. She pulled back on the throttle, pushing them faster towards the closing door. Steve shouted her name in fear, seeing them head straight for the thin opening, but before they could crash into it, Tessa wrapped her powers around herself, Steve, and the bike, transporting them beyond the doors. They came out in the air outside of the garage and as the tires hit the ground again, Tessa kept a tight grip on the handles, keeping the tires straight as they came back in contact with the road. Once they were balanced again, Tessa pulled back on the throttle again and went speeding out of there as fast as she could. Tessa felt Steve let out a breath of relief behind her and she turned her head back over her shoulder to give him a smirk. "I'd like to see you do that getaway move!" she told him.
Suddenly, a quinjet went soaring over them, and Tessa swung her head back around as she watched the craft spin around and face off with them, blocking their path. "STAND DOWN!" they heard a voice yell over its P.A. system. "I REPEAT STAND DOWN!" When Tessa refused to stop, the jet began firing bullets down on them. Tessa brought up a hand and created a shield in front of them that kept the bullets from hitting them.
"I can't hold this shield and take that jet down!" she yelled at Steve, knowing between keeping control of the bike and holding the shield, she was stretched to her limits.
"Don't worry, I've got it!" Steve called to her, pulling his shield off his back. He swung it arm back and sent the metal disk flying up at the plane, smashing into one of its engine turbines. The wing of the jet exploded, sending the craft tipping sideways. "I could use a boost up there!" he called to her then and Tessa took the hint to slam on the front brakes, bringing up the back of the bike and sending Steve flying up into the air onto the top of the ship.
Tessa dropped her shield and slid to a stop as the bullets ceased and watched as Steve ran along the top of the jet. He had pulled his shield back out of the turbine, but the jet went careening sideways and he went tumbling across the surface and would have fallen to the ground had he not stuck his shield into the wing of the jet last second. He pulled himself back up onto the jet with a flip, pulling the shield back out and sending it flying out at the back engines. It hit the first one sending it into a ball of flames, before it bounced over to the second and took that engine blew out as well. The jet began spinning out of control, but before it could hit ground, Steve leaped from the roof, slamming down onto the ground near Tessa. The craft dropped on the ground in a burning heap of wreckage behind them and Steve looked from it, over to Tessa. He pushed himself from the ground, jogging over to where she was waiting on the bike. "I'd like to see you do that getaway move." He shot back at her with a smirk.
Tessa rolled her eyes at him before revving up the engine again. "Why don't we get to the actual getting away part, shall we James Bond?" she told him, nodding her head back towards the opposite of end of bridge.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah." Steve said, snapping his shield back into place on his back and swinging his leg over the seat again. Tessa pulled back on the throttle again, and this time, there were no more barriers keeping them from making their actual get away.
As soon as they were a good distance away, Tessa pulled off the streets and brought them into an alley, knowing they had to ditch the motorcycle and change as soon as possible as S.H.I.E.L.D. would be pulling out all the stops in trying to locate them. They ditched the bike behind a dumpster, making sure it was out of sigh as much as possible before they both looked at each other, neither one very thrilled with the whole situation. "Well, what now?" Steve asked rubbing his head.
"Well, first we get a change of clothes." Tessa said, knowing that was the easy part. "That star-spangled suit is a damn S.H.I.E.L.D. beacon."
"What then? We've got no resources…no leads…" he began before Tessa cut him off.
"Actually, we do." She told him, eliciting a confused look from him. "While you were off chasing the gunman, Fury gave me something. A hard drive. Something tells me we'll find our answers on that."
"What?" Steve said, surprised she hadn't said anything before. "Well, where is it now?" he asked her.
"Well, funny story….it's currently in a vending machine." She told him.
"What?" Steve asked, sure he had misheard her somehow. "What do you mean it's in a vending machine!?"
"Well, it's not like I was going to bring it with me into S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters Steven!" she told him, putting her hands on her hips.
His eyebrows furrowed together before they shot up and then instantly back down. "It's back at the hospital." He said in realization.
"Yeah, like I said, I wasn't going to be dumb enough to hand deliver the one thing Fury gave his life for." She told him.
"Great, so now we have to get all the way back over there." He said, realizing they had to back track nearly an hour back across town.
"Well, on the plus side, I doubt they would be expecting us to turn up there." She told him with a shrug. "Look, just stay here for a minute. I'll get us a change of clothes and a car."
"Fine. Ten minutes." He told her.
"Roger that, Captain." She said, giving him a mock salute before disappearing out of the alley in a blue burst of energy. Tessa transported herself into one of the shops down the street, grabbed some clothes for her and Steve and was about to leave to go searching for a new getaway vehicle when something caught her eye outside of the shop's window and she froze. There, standing across the street, was a familiar form with a mop of sleek black hair that made the breath catch in the back of her throat. A bus drove past then, blocking her view, and by the time it pulled passed, the man was gone. She quickly transported herself across the street, looking up and down the sidewalk frantically, trying to find the man she was sure she had seen. When she found nothing, her heart rate began to plummet again. She shook her head as she realized it had just been her imagination playing tricks on her. She let out a breath, pushing the thought from her mind, knowing she had more important things to focus on, other than the ghosts that seemed to be haunting her. Her eyes caught a red glint up the street then and her lips pulled up in a grin.
No more than eight minutes later, Tessa pulled up to the alley in the cherry red corvette, rolling down the tinted window to where she knew Steve was hiding in the shadows. "Hello?" she called out the window, loud enough for her voice to carry down the alley. "Any senior citizens down there who need assistance crossing the street?"
Steve's unamused face peeked out around the corner and when he seen the car she had chosen, his brow fell. He ran over to the car and pulled the door open, sliding in quickly. "We're supposed to be staying inconspicuous Rose! This is literally the opposite of inconspicuous!" he told her, gesturing around the flamboyant car.
"Yes, well that's what makes it so genius." She told him with a grin. "It's so obvious, that it makes it not obvious." She told him, pulling off the curb and driving back down the street, heading for the highway. "Besides, tinted windows." She said, knocking on the dark glass next to her. "S.H.I.E.L.D. will be pulling every traffic cam they can get ahold of. We needed something with some privacy." She told him with a shrug.
He let out a sigh, but knew that when she put it like that, he supposed it did make some sense. "Did you get us matching neon track suits too?" he asked her with a roll of his eyes.
"Ha ha." She said in fake humor at his joke before she jabbed her thumb into the backseat where the piles of jeans and plain hoodies were sitting. Steve turned in his seat, looking into the small interior of the car with a sigh. "What? Did you want me to steal you a whole dressing room too?" she asked him with a raised eyebrow as she pulled them onto the ramp that led up the highway, pressing down on the gas and speeding out onto the open stretch of road that would bring them back towards the hospital.
"No. I got it." He said with another sigh, turning and trying to squeeze through the two front seats into the back. However, it wasn't exactly easy to get his large body through the small area and Tessa ended up with a boot in her face more than once.
"Ugh, Steve." She scoffed, helping push his leg over the seat as she kept her eyes on the road. He fell into the back with a grunt and began the daunting task of changing out of his uniform and into the street clothes. By the amount of grunting and straining she heard coming from the back seat, she had to assume the task was more difficult that it sounded.
By the time Tessa pulled them into the parking garage of the hospital, Steve was fully dressed and back in the passenger seat. She pulled them into parking space before looking over at Steve. "Look, it will be easier if I just run in and get it. I'll grab it and be right out, I promise." She told him, knowing it was much easier to transport herself in and out, rather than moving around the both of them. "You keep the getaway car running." She told him, reaching into the back seat and pulling out the large hoodie she had gotten for herself, quickly pulling it over her head.
"Fine, but if you're not back out here in five minutes, I'm coming in after you." He warned her. Tessa gave him a nod before transporting herself out of the car. She pulled the hood of her sweater down around her as she made her way into the hospital, tying to keep her head low and away from cameras. She made her way back up to the floor they had been on earlier and Tessa just about ran over to the vending machine when it came into view. Her heart plummeted though, when she looked inside the glowing machine and found that the flash drive was no longer where she was sure she had left it behind the row of gum.
Suddenly, a familiar face reflected back at her out of the glass of the machine, and she made eye contact with Natasha, who stood blowing a bubble, obviously enjoying the snack that Tessa had hidden the device behind. Tessa spun around and latched onto her before transporting her into the empty room behind them. She used her powers to hold Natasha back against the wall. "Where is it Nat?!" she seethed over to her.
"Safe." Natasha told her, narrowing her eyes over at her.
"I'm going to need a little more than that!" Tessa bit back to her.
"Where did you get it?" Natasha said instead, her angry eyes boring into Tessa's.
"Do you really think I'd tell you that?" Tessa asked her.
"Fury gave it to you, didn't he?" she guessed, her eyes going wide in realization. "Why?"
"Why does Fury do anything he does?" Tessa challenged with a raised brow, letting her powers pull off of Natasha, hoping she was right in believing she could trust her. "What's on it?" she asked her.
"I don't know!" Natasha threw at her.
"Bullshit!" Tessa scoffed, taking a step closer to her.
"I only act like I know everything Tessa." Natasha said, crossing her arms. "I just as in the dark in this as you."
Tessa let out a frustrated sigh, not knowing what to do. She drug her fingers through her hair in frustration. "I wish I could trust you Nat. I really do." She said, shaking her head. "But you gotta be honest with me here. What was one the flash drive?" she asked again.
"I swear I don't know." Natasha told her, shaking her head too. "But I know who killed Fury." She said then, causing Tessa's eyebrows to shoot up in surprise.
"What?" Tessa breathed out. "Who?"
"Most of the intelligence community doesn't believe he exists. The ones who do call him the Winter Soldier. He's credited with over two dozen assassinations in the last fifty years." Natasha told her.
"So, he's a ghost story." Tessa said with a scoff, finding the story sounding more like an urban legend than actual fact.
"Five years ago, I was escorting a nuclear engineer out of Iran. Somebody shot out my tires near Odessa. We lost control, went straight over a cliff. I pulled us out, but the Winter Soldier was there. I was covering my engineer, so he shot him…straight through me." She said, pulling up her shirt and revealing a white scar on her lower abdomen where the bullet had torn through. "Soviet slug. No rifling. Bye-bye, bikinis." Tessa's eyes dropped down to the white patch of flesh before Natasha dropped the fabric of her shirt again and she brought her eyes back up to her face.
"Is he Hydra?" Tessa asked with furrowed brows, trying to make sense of the connection.
"I don't know. Going after him is a dead-end. Believe me, I tried." Natasha said. "It's like you said, he's just a ghost story." She told her, pulling out and holding up the flash drive in between them, holding it out like a peace offering.
Tessa looked down at the drive before looking up at Natasha, searching her eyes for any signs of treachery. She let out a sigh as she pulled the flash drive out of her grip. "Well, how about we pull out the Ouija board and figure out what the ghost wants." She said with a raised brow.
"Sound like fun." Nat said back to her with a smirk.