Suspicions
The mission had changed. It wasn't even the same mission any longer, as they'd been informed when Natasha had brought them to a SHIELD base and they'd been hurried to a jet, given moments to don their uniforms and rejoin the rest of their team. One of the other agents, Brock Rumlow, was the one tasked with briefing them for their new objective.
"The target is a mobile satellite launch platform: The Lemurian Star," Rumlow explained, "They were sending up their last payload when pirates took them, 93 minutes ago."
Olivia frowned, reading over the extra information they'd been given and glancing up at Rumlow, "Have they made any demands?"
"A billion and a half."
Steve let out a whistle, "Why so steep?"
"Because it SHIELD's."
"So it's not off-course, it's trespassing."
"I'm sure they have a good reason," Natasha spoke up from nearby, hearing the caution and vague suspicion in Steve's voice.
Steve scoffed, tossing the small packet onto the small table between him and Olivia, "You know, I'm getting a little tired of being Fury's janitor."
Olivia had to nod at that. She was getting a bit cross with how Fury didn't seem to really tell them anything until the very last second. This felt too much like what happened in New York, the HYDRA-like weapons SHIELD had been hiding from them. They hadn't had the best record for being forthcoming with information in the past. She could understand this mission had come out of nowhere, but she and Steve had had no idea SHIELD had any mobile satellite others might want to steal in such a manner. And even looking at the information they had been given, it was clear there were parts missing.
"Relax," Natasha rolled her eyes, "It's not that complicated."
Steve glanced at Olivia, seeing an unease in that response and lack of actual answer too. But he sighed, right now their priority had to be stopping the pirates, and looked back over at Rumlow, "How many pirates?"
"Twenty five, top mercs," he replied, "Led by this guy. Georges Batroc," he pressed a button, bringing up a photo of Batroc on the monitor for them to view, "Ex-DGSE, Action Division. He's at the top of Interpol's Red Notice. Before the French demobilized him, he had thirty-six kill missions. This guy's got a rep for maximum casualties."
"If he's got that many kill missions, he won't hesitate to use any advantage," Olivia remarked, "He's taken hostages, hasn't he?"
Rumlow nodded, "Mostly techs…"
"Still people," Olivia stated firmly, "How many?"
"We're not sure," Rumlow sighed, "We do have confirmation of at least one officer, Jasper Sitwell," he pushed another button and brought up a second image of Sitwell.
"Do we at least know where they're being held?"
"In the galley."
Olivia nodded, happy they'd at least gotten some sort of solid information.
"What's Sitwell doing on a launch ship?" Steve asked, but neither Rumlow nor Natasha answered, though they both looked at each other first. Steve scoffed under his breath and glanced at Olivia who could only give him a minute shrug. There wasn't much they could do about getting information now. He sighed, shaking his head and getting back to the plan of attack, "Alright, I'm gonna sweep the deck and find Batroc. Nat, you'll kill the engines and wait for instructions. Liv, you take Rumlow and the other men and sweep aft, find the hostages, get them checked and to the life-pods, get 'em out. Sound like a plan?"
Rumlow had only made the mistake once of scoffing at the fact that Captain America always turned to a woman for confirmation of his plan. It hadn't even been the fearsome look Rogers had given him, like he was about to punch the man for his remark, but the real kicker had been Olivia merely reminding him, more politely than he had probably deserved, that she technically outranked not just Captain America but himself as well and could bench him if he gave her reason to.
That and Natasha had then remarked to him that Olivia was also their medic and she could either make treating his wounds painless or excruciating.
A large part of him knew that the girl would never intentionally inflict pain on someone, but another part of him also knew Natasha would insist on assisting and she would certainly make it hell.
"Agreed," Olivia's response pulled the man from his thoughts.
Steve nodded, turning back to Rumlow, "Let's move."
"STRIKE!" he called out to the men, "You heard 'em. Gear up."
Steve stood, holding out a hand to Olivia to help her up, the two of them moving closer to the ramp of the jet, checking each other for preparedness.
"Secure channel seven," Steve called into a wrist comm., looking at Olivia as she touched her ear, where a connection to the channel was, nodding her head in confirmation.
"Seven secure," Natasha reported, glancing back at the men as they geared up. She moved over to the two super soldiers as Steve secured Olivia's parachute, "Did you two do anything fun Saturday night?"
"Not the best time to make conversation, Tasha," Olivia remarked with a small smile.
"We got time," she shrugged.
"Well, all the guys from my barbershop quartet are dead, so..." Steve deadpanned, "No, not really."
"Coming up by the drop zone," the pilot reported to them.
"You know," Natasha continued, "Saturday would have been a great day for a wedding. When ARE you two tying the knot?"
Olivia gave a small laugh, "We're quite old-fashioned, Tasha."
"We're not in the 1940s anymore guys," she replied, "You're not getting any younger. Give me 48 hours and I can have one ready to go."
Steve shook his head, "If anyone's planning a wedding for us, it would be us."
"So you ARE planning one then?"
Steve just gave her a salute in response, sending a wink at Olivia as he let himself fall out of the jet.
"Was he wearing a parachute?!" one of the agents called.
"No," Rumlow replied with a grin, "No, he wasn't."
"He never does," Olivia murmured, moving to jump out after him.
"All I'm seeing is he's more than ready to take the plunge!" Natasha called after her as Olivia made her move, followed closely by the other agents.
Olivia maneuvered her parachute to keep Steve in sight. He'd dived down into the ocean, using it to break his fall and swimming to the ship and climbing up. She could see him quickly taking care of the active soldiers on the deck before the alarm could sound, until one managed to sneak up behind him, aiming a gun at him.
She could hear him shouting at Steve in French, telling him not to move, and she quickly disengaged her parachute, now at a good position to drop onto the deck, aiming her fall so she knocked the man to the side, out cold.
"Nice landing," Steve smiled at her.
"One less fatality," she nodded over to the other members of the STRIKE team as they neared the ship with their own parachutes, able to see Rumlow had pulled a gun, clearly ready to shoot the pirate than knock him out.
He nodded at that, waiting just a few more seconds for the rest of the team and Natasha to land on deck with them.
"What about a honeymoon?" was the first thing that Natasha asked once she was down and secure, "Hawaii's overrated if you ask me. But I hear Disney is some good old-fashioned fun."
Steve shook his head at her, "Secure the engine room, then pick our brains about honeymooning."
"I'm multitasking," she defended, following them across the deck, but jumping over a side railing to a lower level and beginning her part of the mission.
Steve looked over at the rest of the team and Olivia, "You ready for this?" he asked her, "Need to use the loo?" he added, getting one final tease in before they would both have to be serious.
"Always," she joked back, their own little thing, a reminder of how they'd felt before the experiments that changed their lives, "But we've got the hostages, you take care of Batroc."
Steve gave her a small salute and moved through the ship in search of the man while Olivia led the rest of the men to find the hostages.
Olivia wasn't sure about the other men, but the lower they went into the ship, the more she could hear someone shouting in French. She quickly led the team in that direction, now able to make out the actual words being shouted.
Someone was giving the order to look for Batroc, stating that if they didn't hear from him in two minutes, he would start to kill them.
By them, she assumed, it was the hostages.
She made a hand gesture to the men, signaling for them to follow her. She led them to a corner, where she could hear another pirate replying in an affirmative and gestured for Rumlow to take lead, but making sure to gesture that this attack was to be silent and non-lethal.
Rumlow nodded and peeked around the corner, before hastily going down the corridor, seeing an opening. The pirate had his back turned while he spoke to someone through a door. He hurried to get behind the man, a stun gun at the ready, waiting till the pirate turned around, clearing the door, before he fired.
The man began to go down and was about to hit the ground, when Olivia caught him, having followed Rumlow close behind, keeping the noise of the thump from reaching the room beyond the door and alerting anyone within that something was wrong. She shot Rumlow a pointed look and he held up his hands in innocence. She shook her head at that, she was going to need to speak to the STRIKE team about treating their targets still as human beings. Whether they were pirates or not, take them out, don't cause even more undue pain just out of spite.
She gently moved the fallen pirate off to the side, making room for another member of the team to secure the man's hands while another seized his weapons. She stood and moved back, allowing the team to go forward with their part of the mission, getting the door open to the hostages. Rumlow and another agent began to work on placing a small bomb on the door the pirate had been guarding and speaking through…
~8~
Steve was silent as he watched the control room from the deck, catching one of the pirates calling out to another man, Batroc.
"Targets acquired," Steve heard over the comm..
~8~
"STRIKE in position," Rumlow added, aiming his gun at the bomb that would lead them to the hostages, when Olivia reached out to put a hand on his arm to still him.
"Tasha, what's your status?" Olivia called into her comm., but there was no response.
"Status, Natasha?" Steve repeated.
"Hang on!" Natasha huffed, the two of them waiting another moment or two before she was back, "Engine room secure."
Olivia looked over to the door, hearing one of the pirates shouting from within, how their time was up, asking who wanted to die first, and ordering another to take the girl.
"Situation's escalated," Olivia reported to Steve.
"On my mark," he responded across all channels, "Three. Two. One."
Olivia stepped aside as the team readied their weapons, blowing the bomb and rushing through the door, Rumlow quickly taking down the first pirate that turned to retaliate.
"I told you," one of the hostages, Sitwell, called out, "SHIELD doesn't negotiate!"
"Clear!" Rumlow shouted back once the pirates were down.
Olivia moved in, going right to the hostages, "Is anyone injured?" she began to check them over quickly.
~8~
Steve smirked, watching as one of the pirates in the control room tried to call out something through the comms., but no one was answering. He moved back and raised his shield, taking a running start and smashing through the window. He began to hurl his shield around, taking down any pirates still there, but he could see Batroc managing to make it through a door, about to escape and rushed after him.
"Hostages en route to extraction," Rumlow reported.
"No fatal injuries sustained," Olivia added, "But Tasha's missed the rendezvous point."
"Hostiles are still in play."
Steve grit his teeth, calling out to Natasha over the comm., "Natasha, Batroc's on the move. Circle back to Rumlow and protect the hostages," but, like before, there was no reply, "Natasha!"
While he was distracted by the lack of response, Batroc got the jump on him just as he reached the deck of the ship, forcing him to engage in combat. He managed to knock the man down, but Batroc quickly got up again.
He shouted something at Steve in French, which he understood to mean something about him being more than a shield and moved to put his shield on his back, raising his fists as he took off his mask, "On va voir," he replied: Let's see.
That was all Batroc needed to engage in combat once more, the two of them fighting hard, though he held back his strength. They needed Batroc alive and he wasn't about to injure the man too badly. However the fight was getting nowhere and they didn't have time to waste. So he used a bit more force than normal, tackling the man after he got up from another blow, sending them both smashing through a door and into another room of the base…
Steve looked over when he heard Natasha speak, "Well, this is awkward," to see she was there, downloading something from a computer.
"What are you doing?" he demanded.
"Backing up the hard drive. It's a good habit to get into."
"Liv and Rumlow needed your help! What the hell are you doing here?" he strode over to see what, exactly, she was backing up that was so much more important than seeing the mission completed, "You're saving SHIELD Intel?"
"Whatever I can get my hands on," she didn't deny it.
"Our mission is to rescue hostages."
"No," she said simply, "That's your mission," before she pulled the flashdrive out, "And you've done it beautifully."
Steve reached out and grabbed her arm as she moved to just walk out, "You just jeopardized this whole operation."
She scoffed, "I think that's overstating things."
There was a sudden cry that drew their attention over to where Batroc had gotten his breath back and jumped up, throwing a grenade at them before running off. Steve reacted quickly, using his shield to bat the grenade away, grabbing Natasha and running through the room towards a window at the end into another lab, the two of them crashing through the glass moments before the explosion went off, covering them with his shield.
"Ok," Natasha panted once it was over, "That one's on me."
"You're damn right!" Steve nearly growled, getting up and stalking away.
~8~
Olivia could tell Steve was not pleased when he strode into Fury's office, the two of them back at the Triskelion, SHIELD's headquarters. And if she was being honest, she was not pleased either. Batroc had escaped, Steve and Natasha had sustained minor injuries from the grenade he'd used, and they'd been late in departing with the hostages. She had had to pull rank on Rumlow to keep the rest of the STRIKE team from leaving Steve and Natasha behind.
For how angry Steve had clearly been at something Natasha had done, he'd still insisted she treat the woman first for the minor scrapes she'd gotten jumping through a window. Once that was done, she set her sights on Steve and spoke with him quietly over what had happened that delayed them. She had been initially startled, but not ultimately surprised that Fury had apparently given Natasha a mission within the mission. She didn't understand what the point was of not informing her or Steve. If it was part of the mission, it wasn't like they would forbid Natasha to do it. They would have been more likely to help give her more time or keep the pirates away from her location to keep her safer. There was no reason for Fury to have lied to them or not told them about Natasha's own mission other than that he just didn't trust them or didn't want them to know.
And the last time he hadn't wanted them to know something, it didn't end well for anyone when the airbase nearly went down and Phil Coulson nearly died. They had been lucky then. But she and Steve, their faith in SHIELD had been shaken with how blatantly Fury had tried to hide the fact that SHIELD was making HYDRA-like weapons. Fury not telling them this wasn't helping renew their faith.
"You just can't stop yourself from lying, can you?" Steve demanded as soon as they were in the room.
Fury didn't seem affected at all, "I didn't lie. Agent Romanoff had a different mission than yours."
"Which was something you didn't bother to tell us," Olivia reminded him, "Why?"
"I'm not obligated to tell either of you anything."
"Those hostages could've died, Nick!" Steve shouted.
Fury just rolled his eyes, "I sent the greatest soldier and the best medic in history to make sure that didn't happen."
Olivia shook her head at him, "And there's not much even we can do if we don't trust the team you send with us. Did you not learn from your Avengers initiative? We can and will do our best, but if our team is operating on their own best interests, it means little."
"Soldiers trust each other," Steve agreed, "That's what makes it an army. Not a bunch of guys running around and shooting guns."
"The last time I trusted someone, I lost an eye," Fury scoffed.
Steve shook his head at that and looked over at Olivia as though asking her if she believed this guy. The last time either of them had trusted someone, it was each other. Every second of every day, and it had worked out for them.
"Look," Fury sighed, seeming to start to realize that he might have gone about it the wrong way, that what he had issues with, they didn't, and what they had issues with, he didn't, "I didn't want either of you doing anything you weren't comfortable with. Agent Romanoff is comfortable with everything."
"We can't lead a mission when the people we're leading have missions of their own," Steve countered.
"It's called compartmentalization. Nobody spills the secrets because nobody knows them all."
"And if we had chosen not to apprehend pirates that might have gone after the same intel, because we didn't know it existed?" Olivia offered, "What then? Natasha could have died in a shootout and you'd have lost an assassin and all your bloody information. If we'd known, we could have given her more time, sent someone else to secure the engine rooms."
"You can't be the only one to know all the secrets," Steve added, "We're not asking you to tell us everything SHIELD is up to. But when it comes to a mission, we need to know what everyone else is doing or should be doing."
Fury stared them down, considering their words, before he sighed, "You're wrong about me. I do share. I'm nice like that," he pushed himself up from his desk and moved across the office to an elevator, stepping inside and allowing Steve and Olivia to follow, "Insight Bay," he called out.
"Major Williams and Captain Rogers do not have clearance for Project Insight," a computerized voice stated.
"Director override, Fury, Nicholas J."
"Confirmed."
Olivia glanced down as the elevator began to lower in silence.
"You know, they used to play music," Steve remarked, if just for something to say.
"Yeah," Fury agreed, "My grandfather operated one of these things for forty years. My granddad worked in a nice building, he got good tips. He'd walk home every night, roll of ones stuffed in his lunch bag. He'd say 'hi,' people would say hi back. Time went on, neighborhood got rougher. He'd say 'Hi,' they'd say, 'Keep on steppin'.' Granddad got to grippin' that lunch bag a little tighter."
"Did he ever get mugged?"
"Every week some punk would say, 'What's in the bag?'"
"What did he say?" Olivia asked.
"Didn't say much," Fury shrugged, "He'd just show 'em. Bunch of crumpled ones and loaded .22 Magnum," he smiled at the memory, "Granddad loved people. But he didn't trust them very much."
"Helicarriers?" Olivia nodded out the glass of the elevator, seeing enormous helicarriers on other levels.
"Yeah, I know. They're a little bit bigger than a .22," he stepped off the elevator and into the bay for the carriers, "This is Project Insight. Three next generation Helicarriers synced to a network of targeting satellites."
"Launched from the Lemurian Star," Steve realized.
Fury nodded, "Once we get them in the air they never need to come down. Continuous suborbital flight courtesy of our new repulsor engines."
"Tony?" Olivia guessed.
"Well, he had a few suggestions once he got an up close look at our old turbines. These new long range precision guns can eliminate a thousand hostiles a minute. The satellites can read a terrorist's DNA before he steps outside his spider hole. We gonna neutralize a lot of threats before they even happen."
Steve tensed at that, a quick look at Olivia and the deep frown of concern on her face telling him she wasn't pleased to hear that either, "I thought the punishment usually came after the crime."
"Innocent until proven guilty," Olivia reminded.
"We can't afford to wait that long," Fury shrugged far too easily.
"Who's 'we?'" Steve frowned.
"After New York, I convinced the World Security Council we needed a quantum surge in threat analysis. For once we're way ahead of the curve."
"By holding a gun at everyone on Earth and calling it protection?"
"You know, I read those SSR files," Fury glanced at them, "Greatest generation? You guys did some nasty stuff."
"We compromised where we could," Olivia reminded him, "Where we couldn't, we didn't. But when we knew something was wrong, we stood against it, even if everyone else was telling us it was right."
"Yeah, we compromised," Steve agreed, "Sometimes in ways that made us not sleep so well. But we did it so the people could be free. This isn't freedom, this is fear."
"SHIELD takes the world as it is, not as we'd like it to be," Fury told them, "It's getting damn near past time for you two to get with that program."
Steve scoffed, shaking his head, reaching out to take Olivia's hand as she joined him, the two standing against Fury's words in solidarity, "Don't hold your breath," he warned Fury before turning to leave with Olivia.
"How is SHIELD taking the world as it is, when their entire program with those carriers is meant to force it to be how they want it to be?" Olivia asked him quietly, not understanding.
"I have no idea," Steve sighed, the two of them reaching the elevator to head back up, not wanting to be in the base longer than they needed to be now.
They were silent as they took the elevator back, not speaking a word even as they left Fury's office and departed the SHIELD headquarters. It wasn't safe to speak there, as Olivia had mentioned earlier in the gym, someone was always watching. They both had some true concerns with what SHIELD was doing, but they couldn't talk abut it while in a SHIELD facility.
Once they were far enough away though, Olivia turned to him, "This reminds me too much of HYDRA," she remarked, "Does it you?"
He nodded, letting out a sigh as he ran a hand through his hair, "Leading by fear under the guise of protection," he shook his head, "This isn't what we fought for. This isn't what we signed up for with Erskine's experiment either."
"I know," Olivia sighed, "I don't understand it though, how could SHIELD have come to this? This was exactly what the SSR fought against."
Steve let out a little scoff, "I asked myself the same thing when they tried to build weapons powered by the Tesseract. Something isn't right here."
"I agree," Olivia nodded, "I just…I can't imagine Peggy would have ever agreed to anything like this."
"That's probably why they waited till she retired to do anything that walked the line."
And it was true, the small things they did know about SHIELD, it seemed like a lot of it happened once the founders of it had retired. New blood meant new rules, new lessons, new procedures. It was worrying how much SHIELD had changed once Peggy had retired, almost like it was intentional.
"We're going to have to be very careful, aren't we?" Olivia looked at him.
He nodded, sighing, "If they think we're on to something, I don't doubt they'd find a way to shut us up."
It was hard to think that Fury would go so far as to have someone take them out, like Natasha or another STRIKE team member, but the man seemed to be back and forth with the role they played in his organization. One the one hand, he wanted the two super soldiers with SHIELD, but only if they did as he said and didn't disobey orders. Once they started to, it was like he had no qualms threatening them to keep them in line. That was not an organization they wanted to be a part of. He gave in, but only if he thought it would pacify them and even then he probably hadn't told them everything.
In one sense, they could understand his logic abut no one person knowing everything going on, that was how HYDRA had fallen. They had captured Zola and he had revealed everything about HYDRA's plans, because he knew all of them. But what did it matter in the larger scale? If anyone was going to be trying to get information out of anyone, it wouldn't be a grunt on the ground, but someone much higher up, like Fury himself, who did know everything.
"Whatever happens," Steve reached out to her, taking her hand, "I've got your back, Liv, always."
She smiled up at him, nodding, "As I have yours. No one is going to harm Captain America when his medic is nearby."
He chuckled at that, deciding to try and turn the conversation to a lighter topic, "Thanks for those French lessons though," he added.
When they had settled down a little more, they had gotten to talking about the languages she knew. Lying in hospital and reading books, she had more than enough time to learn new things. Some of the nurses who tended to her had not been native to England and she had gotten a chance to become quite fluent in one or two other languages. French had been one, and then Italian, with a passing knowledge of Spanish.
They'd played a small game during the war, where she would teach him some words and phrases in them to pass the time or distract him or get his mind off something. Now that the war was over, he'd been taking those lessons a bit more seriously, starting with French. From what he heard of it, it was the 'language of love' and he really did love Olivia with everything he had.
"You were quite good," she remarked, having heard him speak a few words briefly through the comm..
"Well I had a great teacher," he smiled, reaching out to tug her to him, winding his arms around her.
"Did you now?"
"Mhmm," he nodded, "She's a real special gal, my best girl. Really got me motivated to learn."
"I'm sure she's happy to know that."
"Oh yeah. In fact I even tried to learn a few things on my own, to surprise her."
"Did you?" she raised an eyebrow, smiling as she draped her arms around his shoulders, "And what, pray tell, have you learned?"
"Well…a couple new words and phrases."
"Such as?"
"Votre sourire est magnifique," he began, smiling at her blush at his compliment, "Tu as de beaux yeux. Je ne peux pas vivre sans toi. Tu es l'amour de ma vie, and one more."
"Which is?"
"It was apparently a really popular song a few years ago," he grinned, "Voulez vous coucher avec moi?"
"Steve!" Olivia lightly hit him on the shoulder for that, hiding her face in her hands and blushing.
"It's a song!" he laughed, "It's part of a song, I swear."
"Still, that doesn't mean it's a song that should be sung," she huffed playfully.
"So?"
"So what?"
"Song or not, it IS a question?" he chuckled, waggling his eyebrows in a jest.
She peaked at him from between her fingers, not giving him a full answer beyond taking his hand and leading him off as he laughed.
A/N: From what google translate tells me: Votre sourire est magnifique-Your smile is beautiful, Tu as de beaux yeux-You have beautiful eyes, Je ne peux pas vivre sans toi-I cannot live without you, Tu es l'amour de ma vie-You are the love of my life. And, I think most of us probably know Voulez vous coucher avec moi-Do you want to sleep with me?
Oh Steve, you charmer, you eager beaver you, Bucky would be so proud ;) I hope you all liked that little nod to Peggy's advice to Sharon that we see in Civil War, she had to get it from somewhere, and I feel like she learned it during the war and seeing what her best friend (and herself) were dealing with :)
But lol, Natasha, she's a bit too invested in their relationship, asking about weddings and all that jazz, I can't see her letting it go till they set a date though lol :) Though it DOES bring up a question, they are both a bit old-fashioned, so how are they as together as they appear to be? :/ Sharing an apartment, a bed, that's quite modern of them... ;)
Some notes on reviews...
There's something very nice about Olivia being faster, and perhaps even stronger, than Steve. He really is the face of the experiment, the one most notice and remember and fawn over. So I wanted Olivia to have just that extra bit to her since she was more 'in the background' of people's notice :) And it's so her personality too, she IS faster than him, but she doesn't flaunt it or make a big thing of it or brag about it, she'll tease Steve in playful ways, but not upstage him. It's also a bit of a parallel to Steve's beginning, he now has someone who can keep up with him where most can't, yet he has to work a bit more to keep up with Olivia like with his old training group :)
Congrats on your final year! :D My last year of high school was my favorite, I hope you have a great one too! :D
I really can't wait for the Kona stories either :) It's something I really enjoy about Kona and Athena, the portrayal of Loki, in one he's the true villain but in the other he's the misunderstood character, it's great to be able to look at both sides of his story and what having someone who loves and believes in him can do to him :) I'll be posting Kona's Ragnarok shortly after this story is over ;)
It's definitely going to be very had on Liv, the moments with Peggy. We're really going to see the full brunt of it in Civil War though, I think we all know which scene I mean :'( But we'll see glimpses here, small changes that come about due to her friendship with Peggy, and even how her story with Peggy has small parallels to Steve's with Bucky-Winter Soldier :(