Hey, there! I was aboard the hype train for Endgame and couldn't really focus on the story, but now we're back to it. Speaking of Endgame, what'd you thought of it? I personally loved Steve's arc conclusion, it felt true to the character. Not to mention he was AMAZING in the final fight.

Anyway… here's the new chapter. Hope you guys like it!

Chapter 13

Sharon struggled to speak even as water invaded her throat, the cloth around her face growing tighter by the second. If she just had a second of relief, she'd be able to answer his questions, any question at all he had. Even if Gilbert asked all of Peggy's secrets, she'd be willing to spill them. They were going at it for hours, it seemed, and not even once did he give her the chance to speak. It didn't look like an interrogation, just a slow execution, even though he didn't stop screaming questions the whole time.

She spent the few seconds it took for them to grab another bucket to vomit as much water as she could. The agony of waterboarding didn't return, however, and she blindly looked around the room to try and see what was happening. The cloth instantly came off, and so did the pain on her throat. The sight that greeted her was worse than anything that'd happened before.

Directly across from her and in the same predicament she was in, was Steve. Her brain didn't understand how simple cuffs could hold him in place, but it didn't linger on the issue much longer as Gilbert wrapped a cloth around his head and started waterboarding him. She screamed at him to stop, and that she'd answer any questions he might have, but despite her throat burning from the effort, her voice wasn't working.

The strategy of torturing a loved one was inhumane to say the least but being incapable of ending it was even worse. Watching Steve struggling in pain and knowing exactly what he felt was more painful than everything they'd done to her before.

Sharon woke up from her nightmare barely holding a scream, the echo of Steve's struggles still in her ears. She desperately looked around the room, and found him sleeping peacefully beside her, the moonlight reflecting his hair and making it look white. She pressed her hand to her chest and panted with her eyes closed for a second, focused on controlling her breath to not wake him up. She could only imagine how worried Steve would be.

Slowly getting out of bed, she found her way to the hallway and to the kitchen, in terrible need of some water. That was the worst nightmare she'd had in months. Never had she dreamt about Steve getting tortured, and she suspected her recent involvement with him would make him vulnerable to her messed-up head.

As she got into the kitchen and poured herself some water from the sink, Sharon noticed she wasn't alone. Wanda was sitting at the dining table with a glass of milk in hand. "Bad dreams?" Wanda asked without looking up.

"Couldn't really sleep," Sharon lied, sitting next to her. They could hear Sam snoring on the couch next to the table, and she figured he wouldn't wake up anytime soon.

"I've always had a problem with nightmares," Wanda started. "After Sokovia, I couldn't sleep for six months. I kept seeing Pietro every time I closed my eyes, and in every dream, it was my fault he was shot."

"But it wasn't," Sharon murmured sympathetically. She'd read the reports on Sokovia and it was clear from all of them Pietro had died defending the Avengers. He'd been a hero at the end, even after what happened with Ultron. Wanda had to carry so much on her shoulders, Sharon noticed all at once. Her brother's death and everyone who was killed by Ultron, then the accident in Lagos. There would already be plenty of her to handle without all that tragedy, and Sharon could understand how it'd be difficult for her to sleep.

"Then, after Lagos… it took a while to stop seeing all those people blasted to bits because of the bomb," Wanda continued as if she hadn't heard Sharon. "It's better now, but after a mission it's almost impossible to sleep well."

Sharon drank some water as they sat comfortably next to each other. She wished to be as forthcoming about her nightmares as Wanda was. "Thank you for telling me all of this," she said, and then took a shot by asking, "Did… talking help?"

Sharon thought she saw Wanda smiling knowingly. "I never talked to anyone. Vis was there after a while, but I just wanted him to hold me, not talk. He didn't really have much advice. But not being alone helped, and eventually I opened up to him. I wish I'd done it from the start, though."

From the way she spoke, Wanda had noticed the question hadn't been innocent. If anything, Sharon stumbling into the kitchen at 4am and rushing to get some water was a clear indication things weren't all right. "I wish I could do that," Sharon quietly said, and found herself unable to meet Wanda's eyes.

"Try it. You'd be surprised at how easy it is when you start."

Wanda stood up and walked over to the sink without looking at Sharon again, but it didn't feel disrespectful. Sharon was left alone with her thoughts and Sam's snoring for almost half an hour, during which she debated whether it was brave or stupid to keep it all to herself. She had a real family here, and a man who cared for her – to say the least – and would help her in any way he could. It wasn't fair for Sharon to keep it all in at the fear of being kicked out of the team and not disclose her concern with others. Wanda had never been kicked out and she had plenty of issues of her own.

She eventually went back to bed, but only found sleep when the sun started rising. She pressed her cheek against Steve's arm and tried to find comfort in their closeness, his breath a soft noise beside her.

When she woke up again, the windows were closed and Steve was no longer next to her. She could hear soft voices from the living room, and after quickly checking whether her face was presentable, left their room and found everyone getting ready for the day. Steve was already fully dressed on the couch but with a mug of coffee in hand, Wanda was cooking something in the kitchen, and Sam and Natasha were checking something on the computer.

"Good morning," Steve called out with a soft smile. "Didn't want to wake you."

"Thanks," she yawned and took a seat at the other end of the couch, putting her feet up to Steve's lap. She thankfully accepted his mug and drank some of the coffee while Steve started massaging her sore foot. She nearly moaned at the sensation but decided to focus on the matter at hand. "Did you find anything?"

"Analyzing the data from Wakanda right now and looking for connections between the mobsters," Nat explained. "Wait… there. Go back, Wilson."

Sharon watched as Nat and Sam worked through the data Shuri had sent them. She found Steve stealing glances at her every now and then. "Did you sleep well?" he asked after a while.

"Not really. I never mastered the art of sleeping anywhere like soldiers."

"Touché," he joked, and she smiled.

"Holy shit," Nat murmured to herself, and both Steve and Sharon's attention were drawn to her. "Looks like we've found our connection. These guys received a transfer of half a million rubles three weeks ago, from the same source."

"He can't be that stupid," Sharon noted.

"He wasn't. The money got through twelve fake accounts and all the transactions were encrypted. He's actually good at covering his tracks. I'm just better," Nat concluded, and Steve rolled his eyes.

Twelve different accounts? Sharon thought to herself. They weren't dealing with an amateur, then. This guy had enough resources to hire Bratva outside their jurisdiction and cover his tracks when shit went wrong. She wondered what he had in mind for all this trouble to be justifiable.

Nothing good, she suspected.

"Could you get a lead on where he might be?" Steve asked beside her.

Sam leaned his head for a second. "Kinda. We've triangulated his location to north London, from the bread crumbs he left all over the internet, but it looks like an old address. Not sure we're finding anything there, if his paranoia is any indication."

Steve thought about it. "Still worth checking it out, though. It'd be safer for us to go in daylight, take a look at the surroundings."

"It's an apartment complex. No sense going at night, we'd have a lot more trouble faking our way in."

Sharon couldn't help but agree with Sam. Some missions were safer - for them and for civilians - under the cover of darkness, but not in this case. And it'd also give him - whoever he was - less chance to escape. The question of his identity was still a mystery, and it was a risk to the whole operation. Sam and Nat had gotten an address, complete with the apartment number, but they had no idea who they were in pursuit of. What if they broke in the complex and ran into him in the elevator? They'd have no idea who Serpent was, and that put them at a disadvantage.

So they decided to do things a bit more safely, and go under disguise. Serpent knew who all of them were, since the Avengers were public figures and his vendetta against them - or so they assumed - clearly made them recognizable. Sharon had never been in the spotlight before, though, and so she'd be going in along with someone else.

That decision turned out to be more difficult than expected. Steve, of course, wanted to do it himself, but his profile was too hard to disguise. Wanda was hurt, which left only Nat and Sam as options. Since their plan was to hack an apartment line and answer the phone when the doorman called to announce their arrival, Nat was the best one for the job since she'd be able to manage things if anything went south.

It would be Sam and Sharon breaking in the apartment. Despite being a solid plan, Steve was growing resistant to it by the second due to their lack of knowledge on Serpent. Sharon was a bit nervous herself. There'd be no super-soldier strength to help them, or Wanda's power to hold off bullets. If they broke in and something happened, they'd be on their own.

Still, it had to be done, and chances were they wouldn't see Serpent anywhere. No activity could be seen from that apartment on the security cameras despite the rent being paid every month, so Sharon guessed they'd be taking their chances. As everyone got ready for the assignment, though, she could feel Steve following her into their bedroom.

"You should wear your suit underneath," he advised, opening the closet to grab a jacket. "It doesn't look too out of place with this."

"Thanks," Sharon murmured as she headed to the bathroom to get changed.

Steve's hand on hers stopped her. "I wish I'd be the one with you," he said.

She smiled softly and something twitched in her chest at the regret in his eyes. "I know you do. It should be an easy mission, though."

He nodded, frowning. "It should. It just feels difficult to keep my head on the mission these days."

Her heartbeat picking up speed, she moved closer to him and slid her hands around his neck. "I wonder why," she mused. It felt so right to be able to hold him like this whenever she wanted. Their proximity was something she'd never noticed how much she wanted to have, and she despised this job more than everything, even if it was the right thing to do. She just wanted to be with Steve the whole day, consequences be damned.

His answering kiss told her he shared the same feeling.

Serpent's apartment was a couple of miles away from Camden Market and, being Saturday, the streets were full of Londoners going about their business. Steve and Natasha would sit at a nearby coffee taking care of the access to the complex, while also being close in case they needed backup. Sam and Sharon would act as a couple, visiting friends who lived there. Natasha had already hacked the complex mainframe and redirected any calls to her own cell phone.

As Sam and Sharon made their way to the entrance, Sam casually slipped a hand around her waist and laughed at something she said. "Good morning, we're here for 32C," he informed the doorman on duty. "It's William and Jane."

Sharon took a good look around as the doorman called the apartment – Nat's phone, as it were – and checked the surroundings. There was a well-kept fence surrounding the whole complex, and a trail from the front gate led to a floral garden. The door to the first building could be seen across the bushes to the left, so the whole thing had a vey natural look to it. If Sharon had money to spare and wasn't chased by intelligence agencies, this could be a good place to start over.

They were buzzed in after a few seconds and following the doorman's instructions, reached the third building – C as it was called. There were various paintings in the hall depicting the Amazonian forest. It briefly reminded Sharon of Wakanda, and she felt a pang of sadness at the thought of her home being so far away.

As they got into the elevator, Sharon heard Sam's voice on her comm and beside her. "We're in," he said. "Heading upstairs. Any activity?"

The answer came almost immediately. "None so far."

They got to the seventh floor without seeing anyone, an unexpected blessing. There were four doors down the corridor, Serpent's being the second on the right. Sam nodded at Sharon and she slowly walked over to it, picking her tools to break in. It took her less than a minute and they both had their guns out when the door slowly eased open. It looked like the windows were closed, and it was fairly dark inside. The entrance hall was small and consisted of a glass table – probably to set down keys and stuff – with a small hallway that led to the living room. The place looked absolutely deserted, as if nobody had set foot inside for months.

It was expected, if a bit disappointing, that they found nothing inside the cabinets, the closet, and the master suite. No paper trail, pen drives, not even a bottle of shampoo to show someone had been there.

"This doesn't make sense," Sharon whispered, taking another look around. "Why keep an empty apartment at all?"

"As a safe house, maybe?" Sam asked, lifting the sofa pillows and feeling them for anything inside. "Place's empty, Cap. Looks straight out of an IKEA store."

"I don't like this," Steve said. "Finish checking things out and then get out of there."

Steve's sudden urgency made Sam and Sharon exchange looks over the sofa.

They quickly looked over everything in the kitchen, from the stove, the sink, even the back of the refrigerator. Sam was trying to get a look inside the sink hole when Sharon noticed something strange. "Hey, Sam," she called. "Was the oven turned on when we arrived?"

He froze and looked back to her. "No, why?"

"It is now."

The blinking red light showing the time and baking options seemed out of place in an apartment provided of anything alive. Sharon's blood ran cold at Sam's answer, but before she could tell him to run, the light changed, and instead of 2:43 pm it only read 5. And then 4.

She didn't need to scream at Sam for him to understand what was happening. They both bolted out of the kitchen, their hearts bursting at their throats, and had just made to the front hall when an explosion knocked them over the door and straight to the wall of the hallway. Sam had tried to protect her from the blast with his own body but the sheer force of the impact threw them apart the moment the bomb went off.

Sharon could only hear a loud ringing in her ears, and then Steve's frantic voice on the other side. "Sam! Sharon! What happened?"

"A bomb. We're fine, I think." She shook her head and looked around the hallway. They'd been blasted on the wall, but thankfully neither had hit their heads. Thank God for military training, she thought as she crawled over to Sam, who was still a bit out of it. "Sam," she knelt next to him and supported his back as he sat up. "You okay?"

"Yeah," he murmured, shaking his head. "A bit dazed, actually. What was that?"

"One hell of an insurance policy," she answered.