Chapter 23

Contrary to what the others likely believed, Steve and I were capable of more than just staying in the bedroom. I mean, we did have some fun in there immediately after my training session because we were both plenty amped up, but after that we decided to go out for some dinner.

"Are you sure we can just… go out?" I asked Steve for probably the third time.

To his credit, Steve managed to hide any exasperation he was feeling with me well as he grabbed my hands in his and squeezed reassuringly.

"Yes. We're going to go to a restaurant that Tony owns in a hotel just a few blocks away. We'll have a driver take us in one of Tony's cars with the tinted windows so nobody can see who it is leaving. They won't follow because plenty of these cars come in and out every day for Stark Industries business alone and it isn't one of the Avengers vehicles. When we get to the hotel, we'll go in through the back, and this is a place we go to regularly. The hotel and restaurant staff have signed all manner of NDAs and agreements, and they won't talk. Nobody knows to look for you in New York, but even if they did, I feel confident that they wouldn't find you out at the restaurant."

"Okay," I agreed nervously. And really I wasn't too hard to convince because it didn't take long for me to go stir crazy, and a night out would hopefully ease that feeling which was already taking over. "And it'll be safe?"

Steve let out one small sigh as he said, "yes, I will keep you safe."

I opened my mouth to correct him because that wasn't my concern, but I stopped when he held up a hand and said, "you'll be fine. And if not, I'll get you out of there quickly. Everyone else at the restaurant will be safe too. I won't let anything happen to you or the public, Steph. I wouldn't take you out if I was worried you'd lose control and burn down any buildings. Alright?"

By way of answer, I stretched myself up and wrapped my arms around his neck to pull him the rest of the way down to my level. I pressed a quick kiss to his lips and then I spun around to walk to his dresser and grab up the light jacket that had been left there with more, regular clothes for me to wear over the bodysuit that Tony had made for me.

Half an hour later we were seated at a table and our drink and first course orders taken without more than a blink of recognition when the hostess first laid eyes on Steve.

"So when you said that 'this is a place we go to regularly,' you didn't really mean yourself, did you?" I asked with a teasing tone.

"What makes you say that?" Steve asked in response.

"Well," I set my hands on the table and looked at him mock-seriously. "First, the hostess seemed genuinely surprised to see you here but like it made sense. Which makes me think she's seen at least some of your teammates plenty and knew it was possible that you'd show up one day, but she didn't actually expect it to ever happen."

"She could just be new," Steve argued.

"She could," I conceded, "but then her coworkers would have mentioned you among the list of people they see regularly. Because if they're not allowed to discuss it outside of the restaurant, you know they're gossiping about it while they're here and they can."

Steve frowned at that, brow furrowed in thought as he said, "you don't really think—"

I cut him off with a laugh, "you can bet your ass they do. It's entertaining, but in a job like this that relies so heavily on tips it's also just the smart thing to do. Which brings me to the second thing, if you were a regular, she would have known your drink order and suggested it or something similar then asked what I wanted. It would make you feel welcome and important, and that's a good tone for her to set."

I could see Steve bristle at that, and he opened his mouth to no doubt tell me he didn't need to be made to feel important. Holding up my hand, I said, "I know you and your ego aren't that fragile, but bottom line is that most people probably tip better at places where they feel… cared for, I guess is one way to put it… by the staff."

After a couple moments to think about that, Steve finally nodded. Then he prodded me with, "anything else?"

"You answered my question with a question which pretty much always means 'yes' or 'guilty'. If you were a skip of mine, and I walked up to you and said, 'are you Steve Rogers?' and you said, 'who, me?' That would be a big fat, 'yes' in my book. It's an evasive, defensive response."

"I was not being defensive!" Steve protested. When I snorted a laugh at that reaction, Steve cracked a grin of his own. "Okay. That kind of was, but earlier I was not. I was just curious to know your thought process. To know how you knew. With someone like Natasha, I assume-"

"That she spied on you?" I filled in with a laugh. "That she knows everything you do before you do it?"

"Maybe not everything," Steve countered. Then he paused and thought about it for a second and said, "well, come to think of it. She does always seem to know everything. Anyway, I guess I'm just curious about you."

The end was said with an adorably self-deprecating smile and a shrug of his shoulders that I had a feeling had been around a lot longer than his muscular physique.

"I don't know," I hedged a bit, nervous for how it would be taken. "I've just observed a lot of different types of people over the last couple of years, both with bounty hunting and with pitching in at Rangeman from time to time. That and there are some places in Trenton at which I'm a bit of a regular- like Pinos and the bakery. I know this is New York, but I'd expect there to still be a certain radius of where people live or work that they have their usual places they go and where they get that 'regular' status. And while you're clearly familiar with the layout of this location and know where you're going, for instance. And you knew the menu as well. But you don't have actual familiarity with the staff from what I can tell, so I'm guessing that was more a case of you having done your research on the location before we came rather than you having been here many times."

"It's what makes you good at your job," Steve said matter-of-factly. I was pretty sure I was gaping because Steve just grinned as he said, "It never really made sense how you were so good at it, even with someone like Ranger training you. Not in as little time as you've been on the job. It's amazing really what you've accomplished as a bond enforcement agent. You can write it off as experience from the job if you'd like, but it's just who you are. Some people are just naturals at reading other people, and it's a quality I've always envied. Especially since waking up and the time I spent being a part of SHIELD."

"I'm really not-" I started to protest.

Steve shrugged again and insisted, "you are. And it must be part of what makes you so good at finding people."

"It's just luck," I told him.

"Maybe, maybe not," he replied in a way that easily told me which he thought was true. "It would make you one hell of a spy. That and the lying."

"Lying?" I knew I sounded indignant, and I let out a frustrated huff as we had to stop our conversation to receive our drinks and food then make our selections for the rest of the meal. When the waitress left, I hissed out quietly, "I am not a liar! I'm a… fibber…"

At that, Steve flat out laughed. I could feel my nose wrinkle up as I made a face of displeasure, but before I could say anything more, Steve reached over and playfully tapped me on the nose teasing me, "you're forgetting something."

"Oh yeah, what's that?" I asked, chin tilted up in defiance and ready for some verbal sparring.

"I've seen you work," he said simply.

I'd opened my mouth ready to counter before he'd even spoken, and I snapped it shut with a clack of the teeth.

"Well," I said slowly, pausing to run my tongue along my teeth as I tried to figure out what to say.

Steve was smirking at me, and I narrowed my eyes at him. The look on his face plainly said, "I'm waiting. Show me what you've got," but I honestly couldn't think of a retort. After a few more beats of silence, Steve made a pointed look at the plate in front of me clearly indicating that I should eat as he picked up his own fork and took a few bites of his food.

"It's not an insult. You're good at lying, and on the fly too. From what I can tell you've never lied about anything major to me," he finally told me. "And I'd say it's a useful skill to have especially in your line of work, as well as mine. Natasha always laments the fact that I can't lie worth a damn."

"Yeah, but you're Mr, Trust-Me-I'm-Always-Honest! So-" I was cut off from continuing by what sounded like an explosion nearby. My eyes went wide even as they met Steve's for a moment before we both turned to look at the door to the kitchen when the fire alarm started going off and the door burst open with a cacophony of noise and a stream of employees piling out.

"Stay here," Steve told me, gesturing to the room, "as long as you feel it is safe to do so, to get people to evacuate. I'll be right back as soon as I make sure the situation is under control and nobody needs help getting out."

I gave a quick nod and turned to assess the room, hearing Steve rush off behind me. I started with the tables nearest me, urging people toward the exit furthest away from the kitchen just in case. Knowing that people sometimes hide instead of flee in such situations, I checked under them as well as I moved through the room.

When the room was almost empty, I turned a slow circle looking for stragglers and froze when I saw one of the busboys with a gun pressed to the head of another patron.

"You're coming with me," he said with a gravelly voice, "or I kill her."

Slowly so as not to appear a threat, I raised my hands and nodded my head in understanding willing my voice not to shake as I said, "okay. You got it. You don't need two of us though, right? That's overkill. Plus it's difficult to manage, which just means you'll be slowed down."

"You were here with The Captain," he told me. "I don't know who you are, but that also means I don't know what your skills are. I think I'll keep the hostage to ensure your compliance."

Alright, I couldn't fault his logic there. I wasn't anyone special, and I didn't have any kind of elite SHIELD training, but if he really didn't know who I was, then I could understand him treating me as though I was dangerous, just in case.

"You're leading the way," he told me, thrusting his chin toward the door. "Don't tip anyone off or-"

"You kill the hostage," I said mildly. "I get it. You're the boss."

As I followed his directions and moved out of the restaurant and through the hotel lobby to the elevators, I tried to come up with a plan.

The customers and staff in the restaurant had cleared out surprisingly quickly, and I figured that was because there had been so many attacks in New York since the Avengers had moved into town that people were honing their reaction times. Steve would probably be out of the kitchen shortly after we left, but he would likely just assume that I had evacuated- not necessarily realize something was wrong.

When the elevator doors opened, we stepped inside and I cursed my luck that nobody had been waiting with us who might realize something was wrong. Then again, getting more innocent bystanders involved probably wouldn't be great either.

The man shoved his hostage at me so she crashed into me and we both fell backwards into the corner of the elevator as the doors started to shut. From his pocket, he pulled a key that he stuck into the key lock on the elevator panel and selected floor 17.

This just kept getting weirder and weirder.

Once we reached the seventeenth floor, the man handed me a key card, grabbed his hostage once more, trained his gun on her, and gestured for me to exit first.

"To the left," he told me. "Seventeen ten."

My hands started to shake and palms started to sweat as I approached the indicated door. Generally speaking, I didn't feel like being in a relatively private space with this guy was going to be good for either the other woman or I. Because of the nerves, it took a couple attempts before I was able to use the key card to unlock the door. It appeared to be some sort of suite, and at the hostage-taker's insistence, I walked through the sitting area to a door and beyond to a bedroom that had obviously undergone a makeover.

The bed was missing, and what remained reminded me almost of a movie set. The curtains were drawn making the room dark. Over the expensive hotel carpet in the middle of the room was a faux scuffed up hardwood floor. Sitting in the middle of it was a metal chair with shackles on it.

"Pick up the cuffs and sit," the man told me, indicating a pair of heavy duty metal handcuffs that I hadn't noticed at first. "Put your hands behind your back and cuff them."

I looked at the other woman once I had, fear for her clouding my vision. Surely the fact that there was only one chair was extremely ominous.

Except that when I struggled to close the second cuff in the awkward position, the woman let out an impatient snort and strode over to do it herself. As soon as that cuff was on, the woman moved around to my front and put on the ankle shackles.

"Hurry up," the man told her, setting down his gun.

"What?" I started to ask, trailing off as the woman slipped on some brass knuckles. She wound up, and I protested, "wait wait wait-"

Her fist made contact with my chin, and it was lights out.

I awoke an unknown amount of time later with a groan. After a few seconds, I began to remember what had happened, a bit like waking up the morning after a wild night spent at the bar, headache and all. Things came back in flashes, and by the end I perked up and felt adrenaline rushing through my body.

I was still in the hotel room. Before I'd lost consciousness, the light from outside had been beginning to fade, and was almost entirely blocked out by the fabric they'd put over the windows. It seemed a little darker, but not enough so for me to think it was actually night time.

So not that much time had passed.

In fact, I thought I could still hear sirens arriving to the scene outside. If I was lucky, it hadn't been more than 10 or 15 minutes max. Steve would have figured out that I was missing, and he was probably still onsite beginning to search.

For a couple minutes, I'll admit, I struggled with my bindings. Panic began to creep into my brain when I couldn't get them to budge because they were metal, and I didn't know any cool ways to break out of handcuffs.

Except.

"Duh, Stephanie," I muttered to myself. "They're made of metal. And if these people don't know who you are or what you are now, then it's probably just regular old metal, and that means. YES!"

I hopped to my feet and did a little happy dance as I turned around and looked at the destroyed cuffs and shackles I'd left behind, having heated up my hands and feet enough to melt them off of me.

Beyond the bedroom door, I could make out what sounded like conversation. The voices grew steadily louder, and I knew I didn't have much time before the bad guy or his freaking non-hostage accomplice came into the room. I needed to find a way out, but I also wanted to alert Steve and hotel security to my location so they could capture these people.

With a flash of realization, I decided that if I could faintly hear sirens outside, that meant that the hotel fire alarms weren't going off- the blaring would have blocked out the street sounds. And that meant.

Squeezing my eyes shut in hopes that I had enough control despite my current stress level not to go thermonuclear, I let the flames engulf my body. Then two things happened simultaneously- the hotel fire alarm started going off, and the bedroom door opened.

"What the fuck?" The guy from earlier asked. He gaped for a second, but then his hand started reaching behind him. Figuring it was a gun, I decided I didn't really want to stick around.

"It's been fun, but I think I'm just gonna," I gave a little finger wave then pointed to the window.

His hand started coming forward and I saw the glint of metal confirming my suspicion that he was going for a weapon, so I concentrated more flames into my feet and flew… into the ceiling.

"Mother fu-" I began to curse at myself angrily before being cut off by the woosh of my flames as I shook it off and tried again.

It was kind of embarrassing. I bounced around the room like a pinball a few times before I finally managed to shoot out the window… and across the street slamming into the brick of the building across from me.

I heard a few screams and gasps from the street below and shook my head trying to orient myself and figure out what to do.

And was that the sound of AC/DC I heard?

Yes, that was definitely "Hell's Bells". Looking around in confusion I saw Iron Man below me as the music abruptly cut off and a tinny version of Tony's voice called up to me, "alright there Steph?"

"My head hurts," I yelled down, still a little stunned and having a hard time tracking thoughts in a way I knew meant I had a concussion.

"Alright, I got you," Tony called. "I'll catch you."

I started to decrease the fire at the bottom of my feet only to panic and shoot back up when I saw Tony move out of the way from under me. I leaned my head sideways to look beyond my feet and yell, "I thought you were going to get me?"

Unfortunately for me, I wasn't paying enough attention and I accidentally sent myself flying off at an angle. I hit the outside of the hotel, barely getting my hands up to cushion the blow a little and heard Tony cursing up a blue streak as he flew after me.

I vaguely realized he was saying something about melting, and a single thought crossed my mind through the fog of the concussion.

"Ohhhh, FLAME OFF!" I yelled to Tony, letting him know I understood.

Thinking it and saying it was apparently enough for my body and powers to cooperate because I had a couple seconds that felt like minutes as the mental haze cleared enough for me to realize I was in freefall before Iron Man swooped in and grabbed me.

I was having a difficult time focusing, so I couldn't decipher what, if anything, he was saying over the sounds of his suit and the rushing of the air.

Seconds later I was on the ground, blinking up in surprise at Steve who was somehow already in his Captain America uniform.

"Hi," I said dumbly, only vaguely aware of the silence that was settling in around us. "I left you some bad guys upstairs."

"Are you alright?" Steve asked, looking me over for injuries.

"Sure," I told him, voice trying to project a confidence I didn't really feel at the moment. "I just wanted to make sure you didn't get bored dating me."

On all sides, a bunch of chatter picked up at that, but I failed to notice at the time. Instead I added, "I could have done without the concussion though because I had much higher hopes for how the night would end than this."

So saying I let unconsciousness take over once more.

A/N: This chapter was inspired by an episode of the show Flashpoint. So if you're a fan of that and some of the hotel scene seems familiar, there you go!