South Dakota Safe House
Just Over A Month After Arriving

With nothing interesting on television, the three of them had decided to enjoy the nice weather of the day and congregated on the front porch. There was just enough of a breeze to make the warmer weather comfortable. Steve was reading a real paper book while he and Teagan were both staring at their electronic tablets. He had used an account that Nat had set up so that Teagan could purchase all the books and games she wanted. Earlier this month they had taken a day and spent it giving her a long crash course on purchasing apps, accessing videos, playing games, and of course, downloading books.

Sam had noticed how some nights, even if he and Steve were watching a show, there was a good chance that Teagan would be sitting nearby reading. She had her own favorite shows to watch, mostly cooking ones, but if they wanted to watch sports, she would stay in the den with them using her tablet. He had noticed every so often that she would sometimes move closer to them when they finally settled down somewhere, like she just wanted to be near another person. And if he and Steve were in separate rooms, she would end up near him more often than not.

Sam had no problem with accompanying her silent request.

It was only a few hours after lunch when they heard the sound of an approaching motorcycle. The house was situated at the end of a very long, empty dirt road before reaching the actual rock driveway. If someone was nearby, it could only mean that they were headed to the safe house on purpose. He and Steve were up and moving almost immediately.

"Teagan, inside," he firmly requested while taking her hand to pull her up from the chair.

Seeing them move into action caused a panicked look to cross her face, but she followed his instructions.

Heading into the house with her hand locked in his, he instructed her as he headed to retrieve one of his guns, "Go into your bedroom until we know who it is."

There was a jerking backwards motion on his body as she suddenly came to a halt halfway up the stairs, "Is it Hydra?"

Sam turned around finding her expression brimming with a new fear. Seeing her like that gave him a sharp quick pain in his chest.

"I'm pretty sure it's not Hydra," Steve told her from the first floor. He had taken a defensive stance inside near the window to see who was approaching. "They would not give us enough time to get prepared."

Sam couldn't believe how blunt, but yet accurate, Steve had been.

"We have got to work on how you try to comfort people," Sam called down to him while scoldingly shaking his head. "But he's right. Whoever it is, it's not Hydra."

Teagan glanced to the front of the house before his pull got her moving into her room, the sound of the motorcycle was now much closer. She shut the door behind her as he made for the gun resting in his nightstand. Skipping every other step down, he made it into position.

Steve's body was tense as he glanced outside. Sam could see his left arm bent across his chest, his instinct of protecting himself with the missing shield still evident in his stance. He wondered if Steve even noticed what he was doing?

Now the sound was practically right outside, then it dropped off entirely. Their visitor had arrived.

"Who is it?" he quietly asked hoping to not get into a fight. They were not prepared to get out of here too quickly.

Long moments passed before Steve's shoulders dropped as he shook his head, moving to the door, saying, "I'll give you one red-headed guess, and Teagan would be the wrong answer."

Sam took a heavy sigh as the tension left, a little irritated now that they knew who was here while Steve opened the front door.

"You couldn't at least give us a heads-up?" Steve asked from the front porch as Natasha walked towards them with a large backpack over her shoulder.

"You are supposed to be thrilled at a surprise house guest arriving," she smirked. "But really, since it's my safe house, no, I didn't think to call ahead. Besides, it looks like my showing up kept you on your toes."

Sam nodded to her before he went upstairs to put his gun away and tell Teagan that everything was fine.

Opening her bedroom door, he found the room empty.

"Teagan?"

A moment later, the folding closet door opened, revealing where she had been hiding. Her breathing was in short, quick breaths and her face was flushed. The light inside had not been turned on to expose her location. He knew how hard it was for her to be inside of such a small, dark place, but her fear of Hydra was greater.

"It's only Natasha," he told her.

"Great, now I feel like a fool," she told him, running her hands over her face.

"No, you did exactly what we needed you to. If it had been trouble, you would have heard a fight and been able to prepare yourself."

"I don't think the few boxing moves ya've shown me are going to help me get free if something happened to all of ya," she sadly stated standing next to him.

Putting a finger under her dropped chin, he lifted her head so that she was looking him in the eyes.

"Nothing is going to happen to us. We are the ones prepared for a fight. Nobody knows that you are with us, so even if someone comes after us, they don't know to search for you. The worst would be that we got taken and you ended up alone," he told her, feeling a coldness come over him as he spoke the words.

Teagan must have seen a change in his since she then asked, "What's wrong?"

"I think that the four of us need to sit down and have a discussion. We need to come up with some kind of an escape plan for you…just in case something like that did happen to us," he told her. "If we were captured, I'd worry more about having you out here on your own with no idea what to do or where to go for help than what Ross or the U.N. would do to us. Luckily, the best person to help solve that problem just arrived in a very annoying fashion."

They headed downstairs and the three of them chatted with Nat about Clint and how his family was doing. Wanda had decided to stay with them a bit longer. She also agreed to stay in contact with them if and when she finally decided to leave the farm, Nat having helped to set her up with her own safe house overseas.

After dinner, Sam brought up his concern to them for Teagan needing to know what to do in the case of an emergency, hoping that Nat would indeed have an answer.

"The first item for this location would be a bug-out bag, loaded with funds, travel rations, and a bit of clothing to get through a few days," she informed them. "From here, if you couldn't get to a car it would take a few hours to walk to a large public area so you need to also have some device to help you locate nearby towns. We're staying here for a while longer, and you know a general idea of which way to head, but that might not always be the case with future locations."

"So we are leaving here?" Teagan asked her.

"Not immediately," Steve told her. "But in a few months, it might be a good idea to move to another safe house. It gets pretty cold and snowy here during winter. We're talking below zero multiple days in a row."

"Where would we go?" she asked.

"Anywhere we want," Nat told her. "I have at least two safe houses on each continent, but only one in Antarctica."

Teagan's eyes were probably as wide as his own.

"Really?" she asked.

The smirk that Nat gave told him the truth.

"No, she's messing with us," Sam told Teagan while leaning back in his chair.

"Am I?" Nat's expression turned deadly serious.

Looking at her for a moment, his confidence dropped and he answered, "Now I'm not too sure."

That got him a smile from her.

"Well, I vote that if it's real, that we stay far away from that one," Steve supplied.

"Don't feel like turning back into a frozen push-pop of justice?" Nat asked him.

"Not funny, Nat," Steve groaned at her. "I think you might have hung around with Clint for too long."

"What about if we get separated?" Sam tried to get them back on track of watching out for Teagan.

"A simple encrypted cell phone," Nat told him. "I'll program one in with a couple of numbers from other disposable smart phones that we are using, as well as Clint and Wanda. If you find yourself without any of us, call them. I can also program in directions to the closest safe house to us now. And when we leave here, I'll do the same as we move around, but only one at a time. That way all of them wouldn't be compromised if the phone gets lost."

"Alright," Teagan sounded a bit better now that they had a plan in place.

"Nat, could you also put the number of the cell phone I sent to Tony into it? In case of a real emergency?" Steve asked, getting a raised eyebrow from Nat.

"Yes, but he might not answer it being an unknown number," she pointed out.

"Can you have the name show up at something like 'Natasha's new friend'?" Sam asked her. "I don't think he answer if it showed mine or Steve's names."

"Actually, yes, I can," she told him then turning to Teagan. "If you can't get anyone else, call Tony Stark. You'll have to explain who you are and that Steve and I said he'd help you."

"Tony Stark? The one from the videos you showed me of New York?" she asked turning to look at him.

"Yeah, that's him," Sam told her. "He was part of the team before the…incident with Bucky."

Teagan nodded her head, recalling the stories he'd told her over the past month or so.

"It also wouldn't hurt for all of us to memorize at least one emergency phone number just in case something happens to the phone you have. That way you can still get in touch with me," Nat pointed out. "I'll use one of my burner phones and have it always nearby."

"That sounds like a good idea," Steve agreed and everyone nodded.

"What did you do about sleeping arrangements?" Nat then asked.

"We let Teagan have the master so she could have a bath to herself," he told her. His and Steve's rooms only had small single beds but the master had a double.

"Nat, you can have my room and I'll take the couch downstairs," Steve offered. "I've had a few good naps on it so I'll be fine."

"Don't expect me to argue with you," she grinned at him. "Since we're going to be here for a while, I'll head into one of the nearby towns over the next day or so and purchase another single bed. You two guys can shack up together."

"Great," Sam sarcastically answered, rolling his eyes.

"What?" Steve innocently asked.

"You snore."

Steve look actually shocked by the comment.

"I do not," he defended himself. Turning to Teagan, he asked, "Do I snore?"

Sam was sitting so Steve couldn't see him now that he was turned away from him, so Sam began to profusely nod his head, trying to get Teagan to go along with his taunt. He saw a sparkle in her eye as she did.

"Like a banshee with a head cold," she managed to say.

But seeing the sorrowful look appear on Steve's face, she couldn't hold the lie and started laughing at him.

Steve turned to Sam and pointed a finger right at him, "You're a bad influence on her."

Now he had to join in the laughing.

Once the two of them had died down, Nat got Teagan's attention and commented, "By the way, I like what you've done with your hair. A bit funky and different."

Running her hand up the back of the smooth, shaved lower part, "Thanks, but all I did was tell Antoinette at the salon in town that she could do anything that she thought she could with it. But I do like it."

Nat then ran her fingers through her own hair, pulling a bit of the long, straight, familiar red strands into view. He didn't know why but for some reason he preferred Teagan's red to Nat's. Maybe it had to do with the accompanying freckles and stunning green eyes.

"Maybe I need to consider getting something a bit less noticeable," she stated.

"Wouldn't that be breaking some kind of superhero code?" Sam joked with her.

"If there is anything like that, wouldn't Steve be in trouble too?" she asked, flippantly pointing a finger at Steve.

"What do you mean?" Steve then asked her.

"You look like you haven't shaved in a week. I didn't even know that you could grow facial hair," she smirked at him.

Steve ran his hand over the barely there stubble.

"Maybe I need to consider a disguise too," he told them. "I might consider going for the same look that Bucky has. It worked for two years for him."

"How about you?" Teagan then asked Sam. "Thinking about more of a beard or haircut?"

Sitting up a bit straighter, he boastfully remarked with a smile, "And ruin these good looks…I don't think so."

"I'll make a decision on the change before I go into town," Nat told them as her fingers twirled a strand of red hair.

Sam looked over at Teagan smiling as he told her, "Looks like you started a trend."

"How has Teagan been doing?" Nat asked him once the two of them were alone later that night out on the front porch.

"Compared to how she was when we got here, she'd doing better," Steve told her. "But don't get too shocked or startled if you're woken up by the sounds of screams."

Nat's head dropped a bit at hearing that.

"They're not as often as they used to be, practically every night, but when she does have them, it will curdle your blood sometimes."

"There's a chance that every time we have to move around that being in a new location might bring them out again," Nat told him, making him give her a curious look. "It was not as bad as hers sound, but I had a hard time for a while right after I first left with Clint. It would take a while to get comfortable being somewhere new and just when I did, it was time to move again."

Steve was surprised that Nat had even admitted that much to him. She liked to keep to herself but maybe hearing that Teagan was in a similar position as she had once be in had softened her some...not that he would ever tell Nat as much. He'd like to keep all of his fingers and toes.

"We expected you to join us a bit sooner. Were you enjoying your vacation?"

"Yes, but I was also keeping track of some stuff going on," she told him. "Scott eventually got picked up by the authorities."

Steve spun his head quickly towards her at hearing that.

"Is he back on the Raft?"

"No," she shook her head. "He ended up making a deal for two-years being on house arrest and then probation. So right now, he's got an ankle monitor on that tracks his movements."

With that, Nat pulled out her cellphone and after clicking a few times, turned it for him to see. There was a small red dot listing him as standing in the kitchen of a house. Somehow he was not surprised that Nat was tracking him, and that she probably had better monitoring than the authorities.

"He's still in San Francisco, and he's working with his friends who started up a security firm. His family visits him often. Casey is even allowed overnight visitation on the weekends. It seems that they don't hold any grudge against him."

"That's good," Steve relaxed back. "I know from listening to him during the flight that his daughter means a lot to him. What about Clint?"

"He ended up putting in the official paperwork necessary under the Accords to list himself as retired. We managed to keep his farm's location a secret, using an older safe-house of his from years ago as his official address."

Steve nodded knowing that with his family, that was probably the best.

"I'm going to miss him," he told her, then decided to ask. "And what about you?"

Nat gave a coy smile and turned to look out at the moonlit covered yard before answering.

"Wanted for being an accomplice in allowing Captain America and the Winter Soldier to escape at the Leipzig airport."

"I'm sorry for that," he told her. "I just wish that I had been able to talk with Tony and you before it escalated the way that it did."

"It's not like I haven't been wanted by the authorities before," she slightly grinned at him. "And I'm sure that if T'Challa had found out the truth about Bucky before he informed Ross of my actions, that he never would have told them about my involvement."

"I'm sure you're right."

Hearing laughter from inside of the house, he turned just enough to see Sam and Teagan through the window sitting on the couch together. Sam's arms were very animated, Steve figuring that he was probably telling her another Falcon story.

"Don't they look very comfortable together," Nat commented, something smirky in her voice.

"Yes. Sam's been helping Teagan a lot with adjusting back into the world. They'll sit together for an hour or two almost every day just talking, almost like in a therapy session. He's learning a lot more about what she went through, none of it good. I've tried to just be there as a friend. But the two of them, they've formed a special bond."

"How special?"

Steve looked back over a her, asking, "What do you mean?"

Nat began to shake her head, as if disappointed in him for some reason.

"My poor, naive super soldier."

"You do realize that Steve can't go to bed until we go upstairs?" she asked Sam who looked to almost be falling asleep on the other side of the couch.

"Serves him right, making me do an extra fifty push-up this morning," Sam then yawned, making her do the same.

"You didn't actually have to do them, you know," she pointed out.

"I couldn't give him the satisfaction of having more ammo to taunt me with later on."

Standing up, she reached over and took Sam's hand, pulling him up from where he was stretched out with his feet on the coffee table. With a groan, he rose giving a look to where Steve and Nat were still talking on the front porch.

"What do you think they are talking about?" she asked, hoping that it didn't have to do with her.

"Probably the Accords and what's going on because of them," Sam told her as she led him up the stairs.

It wasn't until they were at her bedroom door that she realized that Sam had never let go of her hand. Seeing her looking at them, Sam cleared his throat before slowly letting go. She kind of missed the feeling of his warmth. Since the incident and talk under the tree, she'd always made sure to not panic when she realized that a touch had lingered too long. There had only been a few times like that and none had scared her like that first time in the bathroom. She had grown to trust Sam enough to be able to hold it together without freaking out on him again.

"You don't think that she found out anything about Keeling, do you?"

"No," Sam told her, looking a bit more awake now. "If she had any type of news, good or bad, she would have told us. She's not going to keep that kind of secret from you."

"What type will she keep from me?"

"Nat's got a Grand Canyon of secrets that nobody probably knows about," Sam told her. "But if you're that worried about Keeling, we'll talk with her and Steve in the morning and let them know that they shouldn't be worried to keep anything from you. Good or bad news."

"Thanks. I would appreciate it," she told him, feeling a bit better.

"If Nat was serious about changing her hair, how about we ride into town with her and grab some more groceries since we have another mouth to feed. We can also play a couple of games of checkers over at the hardware store while we wait for her."

"Sounds good to me," she told him with a smile, stepping into her room. "Goodnight, Sam."

"Night, Teagan," he said walking into his own room.

Unknown Hydra Base
Roughly Two Months After The Escape

"No! And until I have some type of actual evidence that Teagan is with Captain America, I will not reassign a team to search for her," Henry Bradshaw told him from across the conference table. "I'll not have useful resources wasted on a damn hunch."

Their latest weekly meeting had ended not long ago, and after his third appeal for a private team to be assigned under him to work, he had requested to speak with Henry alone. Marcus knew that it had been a few months since the escape from the Raft, and that during that entire time there had been zero sign of the Captain, Black Widow, and by default, Teagan.

But that didn't mean that his anxiousness for getting her back under his control was any less. If anything, he was even more determined to find his runaway tool.

"But you've seen the weekly supply reports from the Raft. You know..."

"Don't tell me what I know!" Henry's voice boomed authoritatively. "For all we do know, Ross could have just had her secretly moved to a new secure location due to the Raft being compromised."

Marcus sat there seething, wishing now that at some previous time when he'd had Teagan here under his control that he'd thought about having her give Henry a simple command of obeying him. That way, in a case like this, he would have any resources he needed at his disposal. Instead, they were in the same argument as the last two times.

Once she was brought back here, having Henry ordered to obey him would be one of her very first instructions.

"If I had a team actively searching for them, then maybe I could get you that evidence."

"Thanks to our informant close to Secretary Ross, we know he has plenty of resources already actively hunting for that little band of miscreants, and so far, months later, they have turned up nothing," Henry pointed out...again. "And even if they do turn up somewhere, there is no guarantee that Teagan would be with them. Especially if you assumption of her being locked away by them for being too much to deal with is correct."

Marcus sat back in his chair and began to stew with the reasoning. He almost wished that he'd never even told that thought to Henry as a possibility. Now it was coming back to haunt him. The only thing he was sure of is that Teagan had not shown back up in Ireland at her family's home. Henry had at least allowed one agent to do a bit of quiet recon to learn that.

"But..." Henry's voice caught his attention. "Once I can get actual confirmation on Teagan's status or whereabouts, I will authorize you that team to work on her recapture."

Marcus couldn't help but smile at hearing that. Henry gave him a final nod before walking out of the conference room.

At least that was better than nothing, he considered. Now he just wondered how long he would have to wait...