Chapter 7

"Yes," Captain Rogers emphatically replied to my offer to tell them my story.

"Wait, how did you know to come here?" I asked, but before any of them could respond, I just waved it off. "Never mind. I'll ask my questions after. Basically I got kidnapped, and Bucky saved me. He gave me a sedative hoping that I wouldn't remember the rescue, but I do. It's my time being kidnapped that I don't remember. He dropped me off at the hospital anonymously and left."

"How do you know he wasn't your kidnapper?" Natasha cut in. "If you don't remember."

My eyes drifted over to Captain Rogers once more. I'd expected him to be upset at the implication, but instead he seemed genuinely interested in my answer and like he had the same concern.

"I mean, I guess I don't know know, but I am sure of it. I have these vague memories of people in lab coats. Doctors or scientists, I don't know. Not Bucky. I was in some weird warehouse or something like it, not a hospital or a proper lab. And then there were explosions. And a LOT of gunfire. And then silence. I started to get a little worried that maybe everyone was dead on both sides and I was just going to die strapped to a table surrounded by other dead bodies or something. Then he just kinda appeared. He injected me with something then he picked me up to carry me out. Next thing I knew I was waking up in the hospital."

"Are you sure it was him?" Captain Rogers asked, focused on me and unblinking.

"I wasn't all that sure, actually. Until I came home from the hospital two days later and found him in my apartment," I shrugged. "He was of the impression I wouldn't be returning to my apartment— at least not anytime soon. And he needed a place to crash, so he was using it."

"We can't leave her here alone," Captain Rogers said. "HYDRA could know he's been staying here."

Sam opened his mouth, then inexplicably cut off, face turning red. If I hadn't known any better, I would have thought he had been injured, but I hadn't seen anyone move.

Natasha jumped into the silence saying, "of course we can't. We'll rotate through as a guard. Take shifts."

"Wait a minute," I started to protest. Then I shut my mouth as I heard my front door open.

Nobody at the table moved, and I let out a sigh of relief when I saw that it was just Ranger.

Except unlike with Bucky, Ranger didn't seem surprised to find Captain America, Black Widow, and Sam… I didn't know if Sam was an Avenger, but there were at the very least two Avengers in my apartment and Ranger didn't so much as bat an eyelash.

"Babe," Ranger said to me. Then he offered everyone else a brief nod.

"You ratted Bucky out," I accused. "It wasn't to the police at least, but you knew he didn't want to be found yet!"

Ranger looked at me briefly. Then he looked to be having some sort of silent conversation with both Natasha AND Captain America.

Suddenly it clicked.

"You son of a bitch!" I jumped up. Ranger turned to me, and I knew I'd startled him, even if his facial expression remained unchanged.

"Babe?" Ranger wanted to know what was wrong.

I smacked my hands on the table and said, "I figured it out!"

"Figured what out?" Sam asked, making no effort to conceal how entertaining he was finding the proceedings. At least he sounded fascinated. But my eyes were locked with Ranger's, and I wasn't looking away. So I couldn't be sure.

"The first time you told me about your other Rangeman offices. Boston, Atlanta, Miami, you said. And you told me you had silent partners. And I guessed the Justice League! You smiled for like half a second, but I saw it. I thought at the time it was because it was a continuation of my Batman joke! But that wasn't it. It was because you had fucking AVENGERS as your partners!"

"Technically the Avengers Initiative had been back-burnered and didn't exist yet when I invested," Natasha said sounding bored. "I was just a regular old spy looking for investment opportunities for some funds I'd… liberated… and I thought of an old special forces friend of a friend."

I was studying Captain America as well, and when I scowled at him, he put his hands up defensively and said, "I had all this back pay from the time I was frozen, and then I was getting a good salary at SHIELD that I wasn't spending. Nat convinced me that I needed to invest some of it, and she spoke highly of Ranger and Rangeman."

"He's a mercenary," I chastised. "And you're Captain America!"

"Babe!" Ranger said. "I'm hurt."

"Oh shut up," I shot back. "You are not."

"Natasha said he could be trusted. And there was that whole thing in… well… never mind."

"Damn it!" I turned a beady eye on Ranger. "The copy of the SHIELD file dump I read was from Rangeman. You already scrubbed yourself out, didn't you?"

"If I told you, I'd have to kill you," Ranger deadpanned.

"Oh screw you," I retorted.

"Not with an audience, Babe," Ranger replied steadily.

I flushed bright red, and I may have stuttered a little. I did not know what to say to that.

"I kissed Cap once," Natasha shared. "To keep our cover while SHIELD, or as it turned out, HYDRA, was hunting us."

Captain Rogers was now the one who was bright red, and he was muttering something that sounded like, "forced yourself on me," and I had to clap a hand over my mouth to keep from laughing when Natasha winked at me.

"You didn't tell me that, Man," Sam complained. "How was it?"

I snorted. Like Captain Rogers would answer that in front of Natasha.

Natasha, it seemed, was shameless though because she made a contemplative face and did the universal hand gesture for something being so-so, and said, "it was alright for an old man. Probably his first kiss since 1945; he's a little rusty. Needs practice."

Captain Rogers just sounded put upon as he said, "it was not my first kiss since 1945! Remember, I told you: I'm 95. I'm not dead. And I don't need practice! It was just you! You're Natasha. I don't think of you that way."

"Mmmmm," Natasha said, sounding like she didn't believe it. But her smirk told me that she was really enjoying making Captain Rogers uncomfortable either way.

"So if you're all secretly invested in Rangeman," I started.

"I'm not!" Sam cut in, raising his hand. "I'm feeling kinda left out, now that you mention it."

"Well, you're the new kid, right?" I reasoned. "Are you an actual Avenger? Do you have a superhero name?"

"Yes!" He said excitedly. "It's Falcon."

"Right, cuz of the wings," I agreed bringing my hands up and making a little flapping motion as I said it.

"It is not this," Sam said using a girly voice repeating the gesture with his hands up by his shoulders like I had done. "It's this!" He used a big, deep voice that time and stretched his arms out as wide as he could and looked more like someone imitating an airplane than a bird.

Captain Rogers huffed out an impatient breath and said, "can we please get back to the matter at hand?"

"Where were we?" I asked having gotten totally sidetracked.

"Tell me about Bucky," Captain Rogers urged. He held up the notebook and asked, "how did he seem?"

"I obviously didn't know him before, but he seemed good. He was friendly when he didn't have a gun pointed at him," I glared at Ranger as I said it. "He was pretty quiet, and I didn't think he'd come back after his confrontation with Ranger, but he did. He wanted to make sure I was safe."

"He eats a lot," I added as an afterthought. "And I have no idea if he slept at all last night either on my couch or out there somewhere."

Captain Rogers seemed to be studying me carefully, trying to tell if what I was saying was the truth and desperately wanting it to be. He held up the notebook and said, "this seems like he was remembering."

I nodded my head in agreement, "I think he does remember. I didn't read all of that, but he talked a little about it. I think he had a difficult time in the beginning figuring out what was real and what wasn't. And then what happened when relative to each other, but he seemed fully in the here and now, and he remembered you. Called you 'Stevie' even."

Sam guffawed in response to that, and Natasha broke out into a wide grin as Captain Rogers just shook his head. But not even that could take the smile off his face as he realized he might really be getting his best friend back.

I studied Captain Rogers and Natasha, mind still puzzling over their involvement with Rangeman.

"Did you know who I was before you came to Trenton?" I asked. "Because of Rangeman?"

Captain Rogers seemed startled by the question, unsure of how to answer, which was probably answer enough. But I turned to Natasha and raised a brow.

Well, I tried. Probably I raised them both, but I figured she got the point anyway.

"Part of my agreement with Ranger involved being able to review the files of new hires, as well as current employees periodically. I don't care about criminal or questionable pasts, but I care about what people I am currently associated with are doing," Natasha told me. "I also maintain an advisory position and review the budget."

My eyes narrowed at the mention of the Rangeman budget, remembering what Ranger had once told me.

"Am I really listed as a line item under entertainment?" I couldn't help but ask the question. I had to know.

Captain Rogers turned his gaze up to the ceiling and refused to make eye contact.

Natasha's lips quirked and she said, "we didn't require him to justify the expenses at all; he just put it in there that way."

I eyed Ranger angrily, but he didn't care one little bit.

"Pompous ass," I thought to myself.

"Babe," Ranger chastised. "Such language."

I almost stuck my tongue out again, but at the last minute, I remembered what had happened the last time. As I was searching my mind for another retort, I heard my front locks tumble.

My eyes went wide, and I looked around my living room at the gathered Avengers with panic. Ranger had pulled a gun, so I was pretty sure they weren't expecting anyone else to join us.

The door swung open, and I heard the chain catch. I let out a small sigh of relief that Ranger had set the chain when he came in.

"Cupcake?" A voice called out.

Morelli.

I stomped over to the door and yelled, "what are you doing here? What do you want?!"

"I brought pizza and beer," he told me.

When Morelli screwed up and wanted to make up, he didn't buy me flowers or jewelry. He brought pizza and beer and bartered his way into make up sex.

"It's not even 10 in the morning," I shouted incredulously.

"I have the day off," Morelli said as though that explained everything. When I made no move to let him in, he added, "I thought we could put the pizza in the oven to stay warm and the beer in the fridge. Maybe work up an appetite and have it for lunch in a couple hours."

"A couple hours my ass," I thought. Though a soft snort behind me told me maybe I hadn't actually kept that inside my head.

I refused to turn my head and see who the laugh had come from. First there was the Black Widow T-shirt thing. Then there was the sexual innuendo with Ranger thing. Finding out that at least two Avengers knew about me and my various exploits had been the icing on the cake.

I'd thought the day couldn't possibly get any more embarrassing, but I was wrong. There was always a way for things to get more embarrassing. I should have known that.

Apparently I'd been silent too long because Morelli started trying to reach his hand up to free the chain or something, so I strode the rest of the way over to glare at him through the opening in the door.

"No!" I told him. "No pizza! No beer! None of the other thing either!"

"Cupcake—" Morelli started, but I cut him off.

"No Cupcake! Do NOT 'Cupcake' me!" I shouted. "We're done! Over! Through! I've already made that perfectly clear."

"I saw Ranger's Porsche outside," Morelli changed tactics. "I know he's in there. The man's a loose cannon, Cupcake! And you just jump right out of my bed and into his?"

"Hey!" I yelled. "Ranger just wanted to check up on me and see if I was okay! In case you forgot, I've been through a bit of an ordeal!"

"Well, what did you expect?" Morelli asked.

"What's that supposed to mean?" I shrieked.

"Come on, you're an absolute disaster. You have a horrible job, and you're terrible at it. You need a new job."

I started thunking my head lightly on the wall next to the door, "we've already had this argument," I groaned. "Remember? You told me to just become a housewife. I said I couldn't be a housewife because we weren't married. Also I don't want to. I pressed on why we weren't engaged when you told me months ago that we were engaged to be engaged, and you said we didn't need to be engaged or married!"

"And then I came to the hospital and told you we could get married!" Joe argued.

"Oh my god!" I let out a scream at the end of that. "You need to leave before I kill you."

"You can't say that; I'm a cop," Morelli said.

"Ranger would probably help me hide the body," I thought to myself, but thankfully I didn't say that out loud.

Morelli continued, unaware of the dark turn my thoughts had taken, saying, "and besides. You couldn't do it. You're such a Cupcake. And I bet your gun doesn't even have bullets in it."

Okay, to be honest, I wasn't actually sure of the state of my gun. I thought it had bullets. Probably.

"I'm sure, Ranger would lend me his," I argued.

"Way to go, Stephanie," I thought. "That'll calm

Things right down."

"So he is in there with you!" Morelli accused.

I rolled my eyes and replied, "so what if he is? We're over! You get no say whatsoever in who I see or what I do!"

"Come on, Cupcake, let me in," Morelli prodded. "Let's talk about this some more."

His tone had gone gentle and almost seductive as he seemed to decide that yelling wasn't getting him anywhere.

"We've talked," I told him flatly. "I'm not letting you in, just go away."

His hand was still on the inside of the door, and I realized it still had his keys in it, so I pried them loose. I took my apartment key off his key ring and handed them back with finality.

"Don't come back," I said. "I won't let you in. When we see each other in the police station, just treat me like you would any other BEA or walk the other way."

Morelli had dropped his hand in shock when I'd taken away my key, so I took advantage of him being clear and shut the door in his face. I twisted the deadbolt locked again, knowing he would hear it. Then I did up the extra locks and slid home the bolt in the floor for good measure.

I stayed there, looking out the peephole and holding my breath. I watched as he looked around then smacked the wall in frustration. Finally he stormed off, and I listened until I heard the elevator open and shut down the hallway before I let out a sigh of relief.

It was short lived however, and I felt a flush building once more as I remembered the guests in my apartment who had borne witness to that ugliness.

My eyes were closed as I turned around, not really wanting to face the embarrassment of the situation. Finally I peeked open an eye.

"Huh," I said.

Everyone but Captain Rogers had disappeared, and he was sitting on the couch, pretending like he hadn't heard anything, flipping through channels on the TV.

I stood there for a couple minutes, then walked through the rest of the apartment to verify that I really was alone with Captain America.

With a shrug, I walked over to my newly stocked cupboards (it appeared the grocery fairy didn't only dabble in refrigerated goods, so it probably wasn't Ranger or his housekeeper, Ella, after all) and looked through until I found an Entenmann's coffee cake. It was the one with the cream cheese, Grandma Mazur would be jealous.

I grabbed two forks and carted them over to the couch. Captain Rogers seemed to have settled on Jurassic Park, which was playing on some channel I didn't realize I had access to. Maybe the Winter Soldier stole cable in addition to procuring nice couches and groceries.

I sat down on the other end of the couch, leaving one cushion between us. Onto that cushion, I plopped the cake. Then I opened it up and handed over a fork saying, "Captain."

Captain Rogers took the fork without a word, and after he saw me dig in, he shrugged and did the same. Good man. At least he didn't get on my case about what I ate, unlike a certain security expert I knew.

Speaking of, I opened my mouth to ask where Ranger had gone. But before the words left my mouth, Captain Rogers said, "Ranger thought it would be best if his car was gone when Morelli left the building."

"And…" I trailed off, figuring the question was obvious.

"Nat and Sam are off to talk to the Pennsylvania state cops again," he correctly guessed where I was going. "They want to get access to the site where we are pretty sure you were kept and see if they can find anything of use."

"And you?" I asked, not wanting to be rude, but I really wasn't sure why he was still in my apartment.

"Making sure HYDRA doesn't come here looking for Bucky," he told me.

"And hoping he might come check on me himself?" I asked.

"There is that," he agreed.

"I think Bucky got this couch," I added conversationally after a few minutes of silence and several bites of cake had passed. Captain Rogers cut me a glance from the corner of his eye but didn't say anything, just stayed focused on the movie.

"I got back, and I had a new couch," I elaborated. "The old one was handed down from someone who got it second hand themself after my last apartment fire. It was lumpy and uncomfortable as all hell. Near as I can tell, he didn't sleep on my bed while I was gone or anything, so he either didn't sleep or did so on the couch. And I guess he didn't like the old one."

Steve chuckled a little, and I thought it should be illegal how he did so because it sent tingles through my whole body.

"Bad Stephanie! No tingles! You just got out of a relationship, and he's way too good for you anyway!" I mentally lectured myself. "Plus, he'll leave soon and then where will you be?"

We sat watching the movie a little longer, and I wished I could eat more of the cake, but I was pretty sure my pants would explode if I tried. And that would be embarrassing because Captain Rogers didn't have so much as an ounce of fat anywhere on his body.

But still, the cake had been keeping me from stewing, and without it, I was just pissed off again.

"That man is an asshole," Captain Rogers said, finally addressing the elephant in the room.

"Yeah," I agreed.

"Still angry?" He asked.

I made an inelegant snorting noise in agreement that I immediately regretted, and Captain Rogers stood. He took the cake back into the kitchen with the forks. I heard the sink run briefly, then when he came back in, he moved my coffee table to the side creating an open space in the middle of the room.

"Come on," he said, gesturing me to stand. "Let's put that anger to good use."

"Okayyyy," I agreed, cautiously moving to where he indicated.

"What do you know about boxing?" he asked me, putting his hands up.

"I'm terrible at it, and you should probably have pads," I answered.

"I'll be fine," he reassured me. "I heal fast, and I bet you're not that bad. Plus, it'll feel good to hit something."

Well, he wasn't wrong about that.