Title: Gold Rush

Pairing: CaptainAmerica-WinterSoldier-FemaleOC (poly)

First language isn't English, so please point out spelling or grammer mistakes. Be specific when pointing them out so I can correct them.

Feedback is always welcome.


Chapter 7

"So any news on that mystery girl I wasn't allowed to hook you up with?" I heard Wanda ask me while she walked in the gym. I had come here to unwind after, another, meeting with Stark regarding the Sokovia-accords. He was still trying to get me to sign it, even after all these years. Every meeting we have about ends in with me storming out and unwinding in the gym. The conversations usually ends when he brings Bucky to the conversation.

Two ripped punching bags were lying next to me, while I was getting rid of Tony's voice in my head, when Wanda interrupted my downward spiral. I looked surprised up at her because I knew very well she had a huge dislike for working out and the gym.

'I'm a witch, I don't need to work on my physique.'

"Wanda? What are you doing here?" I asked and watched her walk up to me. She was practically skipping and there was a merriment in her eyes. She was in very high spirits for some reason: "Just checking up on my good friend Steve. What's ya doing."

"Why don't I like the sound of this?" I sigh and turn back to the punching bag and continue my last set of exercise. I tried to ignore Wanda as she circled me like a hawk. Ever since she joined the team I have been looking out for her and when she returned, after losing Vision, I worried greatly for her. She left after the battle and it took me a year to track her down. In all these years I have never been uncomfortable around her, but seeing her eye me like some piece of meat, sent a chill down my spine. What is she up to?

"Because you are a naturally guarded person," Wanda pointed out in the same teasing tone and I didn't look at her as she passed in front of me again, continuing circling me: "What makes you say that?"

"Because you are trying to dodge my previous question," Wanda pointed out again and she stopped in front of me. She didn't react as I kept punching the bag between us and it flew backwards towards her. A slight red glow came around the bag whenever it came near her body.

"That obvious?" I asked and our eyes met. She raised one eyebrow slowly: "Spill…Captain."

My last punch had more force then I had intended to use and she used her powers to push the bag aside, all the while not breaking eye contact with me. I did not like the way she called me Captain. I walked to the bench and grabbed a towel: "There isn't much to tell Wanda, I'm just being friendly."

"Oh so you always blush when you are being friendly to women? I feel insulted somehow," Wanda said and I wanted to defend myself but she continued: "And I didn't know you liked Chinese."

"What is it that you think you know Wanda?" I asked and whipped the sweat from my face and neck. She lifted her shoulders, acting casual but I knew her better: "Nothing much, just that you went out late with one of miss Pots' assistance, the very one we ran into that club a week ago."

"And how would you know that?" I asked and sat down on the bench. After the break-in I had given her a ride home, but we stopped at a Chine place to get some take-out because she and I were both hungry. She hadn't let me in her apartment saying she didn't invite strange men into her place with a very teasing tone. So we ended up eating the take-out on the steps in front of her brownstone. We sat there for two hours talking about nothing and everything like opinions and dreams and worst movie ever seen or your greatest regret spending money on. The first five minutes sitting on those steps were strange and I didn't know what to think or what to even say, but she quickly started asking questions about what my experience was adjusting to the modern world and suddenly we were two hours later when I checked my watch.

"Aren't you glad I brought you that hot chocolate earlier," I told her teasingly when we noticed the time. The food was long gone and even the drinks we had bought had been empty for half an hour.

"Seems like good things happen when you are around Captain," she told me and tilted her head at me with a smile. I ignored my stomach doing a summer sault because of that smile and avoided eye contact for it had made me blush more than once this evening. Talking like this had boasted my confidence and I managed to get the words out of my mouth to ask her out this weekend. This time I made her blush and she chuckled but declined: "I'm afraid I already have plans this weekend Captain. Maybe some other time."

"They are doing an evening opening of the art museum in two weeks," I tried again and was rather surprised by my own eagerness to ask her out. Even with Sharon I never asked her out. It was always her asking and planning and me just going with it because it was easy I guess. Being alone started to get to me and she was just there. She offered and I followed. Until Bucky came back.

"I know, I heard about that actually. I really want to go, but I'll be working that night at my bosses gala," she declined my offer again and I couldn't help but wonder if she was turning me down personally or if it was just bad timing. She didn't need to give me a reason to say no, yet she offered one anyway.

"I'm afraid I will already be dancing that night away Captain," she told me and we both stood up. My mouth seemed to start having a life of its own, because it would not let this go: "Maybe you should reserve a dance for me then?"

"I don't remember seeing your name on the guest list and I know it from memory by now," she said and raised an eyebrow at me. She opened her purse and searched for her keys while I leaned casually against the railing, with my hands in my pockets: "I'm pretty sure last minute invites get sent out all the time."

"They do but we're never happy about sending them out," she admitted and I noticed she was avoiding looking at my face and if there was more street lighting I would have been able to see the blush covering her cheeks more clearly.

"Well maybe I'll get lucky and receive a late invitation," I said hoping she would give me an answer that gave me an idea on what she was thinking right now. Yes he turned me down technically but with reasons not because she wasn't interested. Or is that how women play it these days? When she found her keys, she looked up at me and I realized she had been stalling to figure out how to respond to me. the blush on her cheeks was gone and it was replaced by a slight smirk hanging on her lips. It reminded me a lot of Bucky when he turned his game on: "You should only be so lucky Captain."

"It's Steve," I grinned at her and she rolled her eyes at me with rather a dramatic sigh as she opened the door: "Oh shut up Captain."

"Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?" I asked her as she walks inside and I leaned my arm against the doorframe and smirked at her, but she wasn't impressed by it. She walked back to me and leaned in with a smirk: "No, just very fortunate men. Goodnight Captain."

I hesitated for a second and cursed myself when I missed my change and she pulled back and closed the door, smirk still in place. I met her eyes and she tilted her head to me and there was something daring about her look. Like she was wanted to see if I would continue or walk away.

"I should have kissed you, shouldn't I?" I asked and her smirk grew: "Couda wouda shouda, Captain."

She didn't open the door and went upstairs and I probably drove to fast home.

"A little birdie told me, now spill or do I really need to resort to my own devices to find out more about what is going on between you and miss Taylor," Wanda threated me with a cocky attitude. I don't think I have seen her in this good of a mood since we lost Vision. I didn't want to get into this because I knew things tended to always leak among the team members. I knew that Clint had been having problems with his wife for the last couple of months thanks to Natasha, who has been getting together with Bruce. I didn't need to know that. Parker has a major crush on one of classmates and Tony naturally invited the girl to one of our private parties. The kid was mortified and everyone kept their eyes on the two until the kids took off after an hour. I felt bad for the kids. Nothing is more annoying when others bud in when you are trying to get to know someone. There is also a rumor going around about Hope being pregnant and that's why we don't see her anymore at the compound. After Thanos she visited the compound very regularly. She was very interested in Bruce his work and I had a feeling she was curious about Tony's work as well, but apparently there's bad blood between her father and his family, so she kept her distance. And Sam has been having a dry spell apparently. I really didn't need to know that.

"What do you want Wanda?" I accepted the water bottle she handed me and looked at her. I really didn't want to have people know about this too much, but she seemed so…happy, bullying me into telling her about miss Taylor. She looked relaxed and it made her look her actual age. I even noticed she was standing much straighter and her shoulders weren't slouching as they tended to do lately.

"Just tell me about her. I promise I won't tell anyone else, not even Nat," Wanda practically begged me and she dropped down next to me. She leaned against me and looked at me with big eyes and wrapped her arm around mine: "Don't make me resort to my own devices to get information on her."

"I thought we had a rule about slipping into people's minds?" I told her with a threatening look but she rolled her eyes at me with the same dramatic flair as Alex and Tony tended to do. She leaned back and muttered under her breath 'don't insult me old man' and pulled out her phone and opened some app I didn't know. She didn't pull her arm back that was wrapped around mine so I stayed put and watched over her shoulder as she moved her fingers fast. She looked at pictures and closed them and I didn't really understand what she was doing: "Eum Wanda..?"

"Ssht, you left me no choice Steve," Wanda silenced me and tightened her hold on my arm. I took another sip from my water bottle and after two minutes Wanda called out: "Found her!"

"What?" I ask and look down at her phone and saw a picture of miss Taylor at some beach in shorts and a lose t-shirt. She was looking up at the sky, smiling, her arms outstretched next to her. Her feet were covered in sand so I guessed she wasn't wearing any shoes and she wore a long necklace with a funny looking robot hanging at the end of it. She had much longer hair in the picture but it was pulled together in a messy bun at the top of her head and you could see there was some kind of mark behind her ear with the way her head was tilted. I shouldn't be taking in this much detail from one picture: "Where did you get that?"

"This my good friend is called Instagram and it's a social media app. People use it to share pictures with each other and get in contact with people all around the world," she explained and continued looking at pictures on her phone of the woman: pictures of vacations, friends, views that I think would be from her apartment etc.

"Why would people share pictures with strangers like that? And that seems rather invasive what you're doing," I tried to get Wanda to stop but at the same time I am curious to what more pictures are on this Instagram. The woman we met in that club was in a few of her pictures. Maybe she's a close friend? I also noticed two guys were in a lot of the pictures too. Nothing about the picture told me if they were romantically involved or just friend.

"That's what it's for dumb ass. Oh looks like she is going away for the weekend," Wanda said after ignoring me for like thirty seconds and opening one picture after another. Her fingers moved so fast and she changed pictures to fast for me to properly look at them. I wonder if she's doing it on purpose: "How do you know that?"

"She posted a picture yesterday of a hiking bag and a tent and added the hashtag uniweekend, high school and camping. Oh I'm guessing she went to university. Smart girl, although I'm wondering what she's doing as a personal assistant if she's got a university degree?" Wanda muttered that last part and I wanted to tell her to stop looking at those pictures, but she beat me to it: "Oh she just got tagged in a live video by someone."

She opened a video and my own curiosity won so I sighed and I looked over Wanda's shoulder to the video. She looked far too pleased to see me giving in. It was difficult to understand what was going on because the person filming was moving around a lot with the camera. It seemed they were in a car and miss Taylor was driving. The camera got flipped and I recognized the woman from the club: "Hey ills, just showing you what you are missing out on!"

The screen got flipped again and the music from the radio got turned up by miss Taylor. The video showed the people in the backseat: one woman and two guy's. I recognized the two men from other pictures. For some reason my stomach turned when I saw the man sitting behind miss Taylor lean closer to her and say something that made her smirk at him.

"They must be on their way to go camping," Wanda said and the women started singing along with the song. I didn't know it, but they got excited as it started playing and immediately sang to it. They didn't really stay on key but they seemed to be having fun and the two men joined them.

"Oh here comes the rap! Tess you take the first part," the woman in the background shouted and it must be the woman holding the camera for she began to sing or well speak at a fast pass: "Gotta blame it on the, blame it on the, blame it on the juice…"

The woman in the back came back in view and she continued: "Looking at my booty like you don't know what to do…"

The two woman took turns in saying the lines really fast and one of the men shouted to turn the camera to miss Taylor. The woman from the bar took the camera back and aimed it at the other women. She had a beautiful smile on her lips as she continued the lines: "…I'ma give you one chance to fall in love, give you one chance, don't fuck it up!"

"They seem to be having fun," Wanda said and I realized this must be the plans she mentioned when I asked her out. I wondered again if she turned me down personally or if it was just bad timing. She seemed to really have plans this weekend. I wondered how I could get my hands on this Instagram without Wanda finding out. But she somehow read my thoughts without using her powers: "I thought you said this was invasive?"

"Well I should be getting with the times," I replied and she laughed at my joke. She pulled my phone from my gym bag and installed the app that was called Instagram. I was disappointed in myself for giving in to Wanda's app so easily, but I didn't stop her none the less.

"Here, I logged you in under my account," she said and handed me back my phone. She only had one picture on it and it was of the skyline. I looked at her curiously: "Why yours?"

"It's an empty page but I use it to follow people," Wanda explained but I had a feeling there was more to it than that, so I raised an eyebrow at her and after a few seconds she caved: "Fine I was being polite, I actually mean stalk people."

"You are not making me feel good about myself," I sighed and she chuckled as I put away from my phone. The woman stood back up and straightened out her dress: "Oh I don't know, look at you embracing social media. Besides I don't think it would be wise if Captain America had his own Instagram page. What would you even put on it? Pictures of the fourth of July and baseball games and for some reason I see you as someone who take those stupid pictures of his food."

"Watch it kid or I'll make you start working out again in here," I teased her and she rolled her eyes again. She said her goodbyes and started walking out but stopped when she reached the door: "You know I can always get her number for you so you can call her or text her."

"Goodbye Wanda!"

()

My weekend had been exhausting! It always is when I go camping with my friends from high school and university. Brooklyn had entertained us all weekend long and he had stayed by my side most of the time like he always does. Our camping trips are planned around the day I lost my family. My therapist was the one who came up with the idea. Instead of crying about it and being sad these days, I would have a sort of good time and this dark day would one day become less dark thanks to my friends. Brooklyn and Michael went to my high school and they were friends with Kai and Yuri. And Tessa got invited to certain family parties. They did their best and I did look forward to the trip every year. We got back late on Sunday evening and I ended up staying the night at Brooklyn's. We had shared a couple of nights together after…well after but it never meant more than just providing comfort for each other. Last night had been one of those nights. I had to hurry the next morning to get at work on time because I had nothing to wear that was appropriate.

Luckily Mister Stark texted me to come to the Avengers compound for the day and assist him in his lab. Since it was on the other side of town I had some extra time on getting there. He didn't make a fuss about it. He needed me to take notes while he worked and talked away about stuff that I didn't really understand. He was working on his suit and apparently it was malfunctioning and he couldn't figure out why. It's always very entertaining to watch him take his frustrations out on Dummy and see him get hurt because his suit does something unpredictable.

"Son of a bitch!" he yells when he gets shocked by electricity for the tenth time.

"Friday, can you keep an extra close eye on mister Starks heart," I asked the A.I. and do my best to keep myself from bursting out laughing.

"You are enjoying this far too much Taylor," mister Stark tells me without looking up from his suit.

"I'm sure I have no idea what you are talking about boss," I lied and I could practically hear him roll his eyes. I asked questions about what he was doing and he would explain, but I never understood much about it. I just pretended that I did because it stimulated him to think outside of the box and find a solution for his problem.

"I'm just a blond monkey to you, aren't I?" I would joke and he would say something along the lines of 'you said it' or 'always knew you died your hair'.

"Did you and Miss Pots make any anniversary plans?" I asked during one of our breaks. We were both sitting on top of his workbench, his suit lying next to us and Dummy riding around us, cleaning up mister Starks mess. My boss didn't even bother emptying his mouth before speaking: "I brought it up, but we didn't get around to making any final plans."

"Charming, "I said as I saw his food go round in in his mouth: "Remind me again what miss Pots sees in you?"

"My charming personality," mister Stark teased but got back at me: "Inform me what the capstickle sees in you?"

"Excuse me?" I asked and my hand froze midway, my dumpling falling back into my container. I didn't like the sound of this. I didn't need or want my boss to ask questions about things I didn't even fully understand yet. Scratch that, I don't ever want my boss asking questions about people who might be…well…whatever the Captain is doing with me. The night of the break-in had been kind of great. In the five years that I have 'known' the man I never thought he would agree to eating take-out on the steps of a brownstone. I debated with myself to ask him up, but I wasn't ready to invite him into my home. I needed to know more about whatever this was or what he was after. I mean he had to have a reason right? Why else accept eating take-out on the street?

"He's been coming more often to the office and I hear he's been visiting my girlfriends office late at night even. Now I know she has her hands full with me so it's not her he's visiting," mister Stark pointed out. I felt a bit uncomfortable seeing the glee in his eyes. I really didn't like him asking questions. How did he even know Captain Rogers visited me that night? Right, Friday sees all. I liked my job a lot but the surveillance by the A.I. was my least favorite part that came with it. I rather put up with the evil hyena's then being monitored while I work.

"Spill Taylor, do I need to kick the righteous ass out of my building? You know I would love to do it," my boss pushed me, but I wasn't that easily pushed into a corner: "I'm sure you would, but whatever you think that might be going on, it's none of your business."

"You know I will find out eventually," mister Stark tried again, but his phone went off. I was pleased for the distraction and I prepared myself to end our break when he gets of his phone. But the call lasted for an hour and it was something serious because mister Stark took his call to the meeting room next to his lab. But he like using glass walls instead of brick walls, so I could still see him pacing about and running his hands threw his hair, a sign that he was stressing out. I made him an Irish coffee and placed it at the door, knocking to signal him it was there. He didn't say anything to me but I could see appreciation on his face.

"I need you to fetch me Rogers," mister Stark interrupted me working on my laptop when he was done with his phone call. His hair was sticking out in odd angles and it reminded me of a toddler who threw a tantrum. His t-shirt was also disheveled for some reason.

"Okay…" I said and was surprised by his request. In all the years I have worked for him he's never asked me to get one of his fellow Avengers, let alone Captain Rogers.

"I'm calling in a meeting," he said and was busy graphing some stuff, clearly done for the day with his suit. I asked Friday to make sure all equipment's were turned off and that the lab was save once mister Stark left it. It wouldn't be the first time he forgot to turn something that lead to a small fire.

"I'll get Natasha and Rhody is flying in…" my boss started rambling to himself and I'm sure I heard him say something about the Sokovia Accords. Most be really important. I had picked up on the tension between him and the Captain when it came to this subject.

"Wait boss!" I stopped him when he wanted to leave the lab. I always carried certain beauty products and items in my bag for when my bosses where in a state of panic or needed to be fixed up quickly. I pulled out a comb and pointed to the mirror at the wall: "Can't have you walk out looking like you just threw a tantrum."

My boss took the comb with gratitude on his face and fixed himself up, while I grabbed a fresh dress shirt out of his office. Years of experience taught me to have back-up clothing for the man in his offices. He tends to spill his food more then he should and not to mention how messy he gets when he starts doing stuff in his lab.

"Any idea where I can find Captain Rogers?" I asked when he handed me the comb back and pulled his t-shirt over his head in front of me. He eyed me for a reaction, he was trying to bait me, get back at me for not telling him anything about the Captain. I simply raised one eyebrow at him and he chuckled as he pulled on the dress shirt and rolled up the sleeves.

"Check the gym downstairs, you'll most likely find him there. And I need him at the conference room upstairs quickly, so make sure to bate your eyes a lot and sweet talk him. Apparently he likes what you have to say," mister Stark teased me and I rolled my eyes at him: "I love it when you tell me to basically use whatever female charm I have to bring someone in. Makes me feel so good about myself."

"Hey, I said bate your eyes and sweet talk him, not sleep with him," mister Stark said and I collected my things. I looked up surprised up at him when he added: "Besides you can better than the Capstickle."

"Funny, I tell miss Pots the same thing on almost a weekly basis," I call after my boss and stuff all my papers and laptop in my bag and make my way to the gym. Whatever was going on was serious because not a lot could make the Tony Stark run like that. I followed him out and headed to the gym. I've been there before, with Happy and the bosses.

Always entertaining to see mister Stark and Happy go at it with each other.