{NOTE FOR READERS: So, I don't speak German. Or Polish. Or any language other than American English. My translations are the best I can muster with Google. If you do speak German and have suggestions, first, I deeply apologize for any mistakes and second, please feel free to drop me a note if you have the time and energy to fix my translations.}

On a stretcher in the back of an ambulance

"Frau Carter! Alles OK?"

Blue flashes strobed through the restless dark. Sharon squeezed her eyes against the unpleasant sensation but the motion sent a spike of pain through her skull.

Someone was speaking, urgently, loudly, near her face.

Her brain stumbled until it could identify the language as German. It took another few iterations to dredge the translation from her hindbrain. The effort pushed her awake.

"I'm… ow, I'm awake, I'm awake," she muttered, squinting against the glare of the ambulance. "Er… uh, ich bin wach."

The EMS snorted and leaned back on his heels, looking concerned.

Sharon ignored him, trying to piece herself back together. It wasn't the first time she'd woken up after a … fight… she'd fought the Winter Soldier…. That was dumb, Sharon. Why the hell did you do that? I had to save Tony Stark-

"Stark! Romanov!" she sat up abruptly. The motion made the interior of the ambulance wobble around her and she had to grip the sides of the gurney to keep from tipping over. "Are they OK?"

"Calm down, settle down," the EMS put his hands on Sharon's shoulders and pushed gently.

Her mind still scrambling, Sharon's body took over and grabbed the poor man's right thumb, twisting it in and up, forcing him to his knees to prevent the joint from popping right out. The EMS's strangled cry of "Halt! Bitte! Halt!" brought Sharon back to herself and she let go, holding her hands up.

"Sorry, sorry," she said, squeezing her eyes closed as she scrabbled around in her brain for the German words. "Es tut mir Leid. Sorry."

The EMS took a wary step back, as far out of Sharon's reach as he could get. Sharon took the respite to gather her thoughts.

"Where's Broussard?" she asked aloud and the EMS didn't answer at all. "I need to find Broussard."

"Not until you've been checked for concussion," Romanov's voice made Sharon snap her head around, sending a swirl of pain up her spinal column.

"Ow, oh, ow, I think Broussard was involved, where is he? Is Stark OK?" I didn't let Iron Man get killed on my watch, did I? "Did we get Barnes? Where's Steve?"

The EMS shot a beseeching look at Romanov.

"Go get a cup of coffee," Romanov offered, tipping her head to indicate he should leave.

The poor kid bolted out of the car.

"You scared him."

"Where is Broussard?"

"Ross sent all the guards after Barnes. No one locked down the sublevel."

"Fuck. He's gone, isn't he?"

"Yup. I didn't think to stop him," Romanov twisted her mouth into a wry smile. "Sorry."

"Not your fault," Sharon swung her feet over the side of the stretcher. "You assumed Ross was competent. Barnes?"

"Gone."

"Steve?"

"Gone."

"Wilson?"

"Gone."

"Stark?"

"Here," Romanov bobbled her head. "Broken arm, but here."

"Small blessing, I guess."

"If we'd lost Stark… Thank you for charging in to save him."

"Well, you can bet I won't do that again," Sharon said as she winced and stretched. Her back was sore. Her hip was sore. Her neck was sore. Her head throbbed.

Romanov stared at her for a heartbeat and then turned around to fish through the tidy clutter of the ambulance. She turned back with a bottle of water and three Advil.

Smiling gratefully, Sharon knocked them back. It wasn't until after she swallowed that she remembered she'd just taken three a few hours ago…. She thought.

"How long was I out?"

"About fifteen minutes."

"Shit."

"You need to get checked for concussion."

Sharon nodded, not at all reluctantly. She didn't feel like she had a concussion but she had been up for 36 hours. It had been longer than that since she'd eaten a meal that didn't come wrapped in cheap plastic. Her ability to make good decisions was deeply compromised and only an idiot like Stark (or Steve, her traitorous brain added) insisted on forging ahead in those circumstances.

She blinked a few times and then asked, "Natasha, have you been checked for concussion?"

The Widow twisted her lips into her famous smile. "Not yet."

"You've got bruises on your neck."

"He choked me."

"Steve's bestie is kind of an asshole."

"He's brainwashed."

"There's always some damned excuse."

"Yes. Yes, there is."

Sharon shot Romanov a sour look and she shrugged. Sharon thought about it and shrugged back. Even before secret serums and gamma-ray explosions, men had always had some damned excuse for being assholes. Super powers or super suits didn't do anything to change that.

A thought popped into Sharon's still rattled brain.

"T'Challa?"

"Pissed that we've lost Barnes, but otherwise OK," Romanov said, offering a wry smile. "He saved my ass."

"I'm glad."

Romanov cocked her head and smiled.

"Should I let the medic back in to check you for concussion?"

"Yes. You going to get checked out?"

"Now, yes."

Romanov turned to go but Sharon called out, "Natasha?"

She twisted to look back over her shoulder. "Yes?"

"Thank you."

Romanov nodded.

The white-faced EMS came back in and Sharon apologized, sincerely, before submitting to the minor indignities of the concussion test. She knew the year and the chancellor and how many fingers. Her pupils contracted, she wasn't nauseated or dizzy. She could recite back a string of five numbers right away and after ten minutes.

After a few minutes the EMS said, "You don't seem to have a concussion but I want to take you to the hospital anyway for a scan. You were out for longer than I'm comfortable with."

The idea of a leisurely ride to the hospital and a quiet rest in an MRI sounded seductively appealing to Sharon. Especially if she got to nap afterwards.

"We have on-site doctors here," she said, instead. "I promise I'll have them check me every hour."

The EMS nodded reluctantly and helped Sharon to her feet.

She emerged from the back of the ambulance into a scene of chaos. Medical personnel were still tending to the injured. Sharon hoped everyone was alive. Polizeiautos and krankenwagen were still arriving, heralded by spinning lights and grating sirens. Some civilians were standing, filming on their phones, and others were sitting, weeping quietly. Black-clad guards clustered in tight knots around the doors, bristling with guns and keyed up on unspent adrenaline.

"Horse, barn," she muttered, limping up to the nearest group.

"Guten abend, Agent Carter. I.D., please?"

"Good evening, Captain Schmidt," she smiled and handed over her I.D. The entire group maintained their deadpan expressions as Schmidt carefully checked her I.D., ostentatiously looking at the photo and her face three times before letting her past. Everyone exchanged carefully polite nods as she limped past and back into the building.

Frustration made her grind her teeth as she thought of the twelve separate memos she'd written about how, in this brave new world of gods and monsters and near-magical tech, visual I.D. checks were simply not reliable. Loki has proven that he could change faces. So had Romanov. Her superiors had agreed every time and yet the damned procedures never changed.

"Pani Cater, I'm glad you're well!" Novak caught sight of her from across the wrecked lobby and picked his way through the broken chairs towards her.

"Thank you. Did you make it out alright?"

"Tak, dziękuję," he nodded. "I was in the łazienka when everything happened. Zastępca Ross is upstairs, in C&C, trying to take control after the birds. You probably want to get up there before he stuff flies up everyone's nose."

"Thank you, Novak," she said. With her head still pounding like an oompah band, she couldn't remember her scraps of Polish, but she got his meaning from context. He must be rattled, though. She'd never heard him slip into his native language so often.

"I'm to go check on the Iron Man, make sure he is well."

"Romanov said he had a broken arm, so check with the medical personnel. I'll go save everyone from Ross."

He patted her on the shoulder with one heavy hand and she had to restrain a wince.

She made her way slowly towards the elevator bank, staring at the dead lights over the doors for at least ten steps before she realized that the EMP must have taken those down, too. Veering slightly, she headed for the enormous and hideous concrete stairs. Cursing every architect who thought brutalism was a good idea, she walked slowly and carefully up the stairs, keeping her face carefully set against the twangs running through the muscles in her lower back and right hip.

Three floors up and she was sweating with pain by the time she got to the C&C. She could hear Ross shouting before she crested the third story.

He'd gathered the staff in a dark room, lit by a few small windows and emergency lanterns. The computers were still down, of course, but a few of the staff had their tablets, laptops, and smart phones out, the blue glow of the screens underlighting their determined faces. They were trying, because they were the best damned staff in the world.

Strategizing her approach, she let herself limp more as she made her way to the C&C room.

"—but where I'm from, we don't let… what are you all- ?"

Ross turned around, mouth set in a grim line.

"Agent Carter, welcome!" he said, dripping sarcasm. "Where have you been?"

"Getting my ass handed to me by the Winter Soldier…. Sir," she eased herself down into a chair. "What were you doing during the fight?"

She waited until he opened his mouth before interrupting.

"Why are you all up in here in the dark?"

Ross stared at her, blinking, for a long moment before he answered. "I need to coordinate—"

"There's natural light and better cell reception in the lobby. Has anyone checked with facilities as to why the back-up generator didn't kick in? Marconi?"

"Not yet, ma'am," he said.

"Go on and do that. When you find out, report back to us in the lobby, please. Thank you. Dubois, can you call your friend at dispatch and find out if anyone in the city has power? If facilities can't get us back up and running, we're going to need a temporary HQ."

"What about the incident trucks, ma'am?" Zaiatz suggested from her corner. "They are specifically shielded against EMPs."

"That's an excellent idea. Please go check on those and report back to us. Again, we'll be in the lobby. Dubois, you should still contact your friend and find out what the city looks like. We don't know if this was just a prison break or a larger attack and we're going to need to coordinate with the polizia. Speaking of police, Lulić, can you go talk to the incident commander and make sure we get copies of the video from those civilian idiots out there with their smart phones? Thank you. Alright, the rest of you, grab whatever works and let's relocate to the lobby. When we reassemble there, you're going to tell me what I forgot. Deputy Ross, I need to speak with you."

Sharon suspected that it was her last sentence, more than anything else, which helped them all clear out in record time.

Ross had the good sense to wait until everyone was down the stairs before he rounded on her.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" he said, leaning down into her face and using a low voice that was probably intended to be menacing.

"Ross, sit down," she sighed. "I just got tossed around like a rag doll by Bucky "the Winter Soldier" Barnes. You don't scare me, at all."

Ross blinked and straightened back up.

"Seriously, sit down. My neck hurts and the Advil hasn't kicked in yet."

He stood there and then slowly crossed his arms.

"Okay, fine," she scooted her chair back so she didn't need to tilt her head back up at him. "How did you get this job?"

"What?"

"Never mind," she scratched her forehead. "Ross, where's Broussard?"

"Who?"

"The 'doctor' that was examining Barnes. Where is he?"

"Probably in with the medical personnel," he said, bewildered.

"Ross, he's gone. He was clearly involved in the Barnes break out."

"What?"

"It's obvious. I see it. Romanov sees it. Stark sees it. And it's your fault."

"How is it my fault?"

"You were in charge of the team that vetted him. You personally authorized his request to be alone with Barnes, and you didn't detain him afterwards. You've got a PR nightmare on your hands, Ross."

"I didn't … but I just … I didn't have anything to do with vetting him," he spluttered.

"I know, I know," Sharon soothed. "But it's going to look bad."

His face got flushed then pale as he thought through all the implications.

"Did anyone die during his escape?" she asked.

"No, at least… not that I know of."

"Good. That's a small blessing," she leaned forward, suppressing a wince. Now was not the time to look weak. "Now, you've got a bunch of problems. We're going to have find Broussard but we don't want to make a big splash about it. You're the public face of the team, so you're going to have to be seen running the clean up. That's why I moved the team to the lobby, so you could be more visible. I can organize the search for Broussard, or whatever his name is, without anyone noticing. If we can get him in custody, quickly, we can paper this over."

"Why are you so interested in protecting me?" he squinted at her.

"I'm not," she leaned back. "I'm interested in protecting my team. This is just how I do it."

Was he buying this bullshit? Sharon wondered.

There was a long pause as he chewed it over. She could almost hear the smoke coming from his brain and fought the urge to hurry him along.

"I didn't design The Box," he said, slowly.

"Yes," Sharon managed to suppress a fist pump. He bit. "Stark did. No one is really thrilled with Stark right now."

"It's not my fault that he broke out of it."

"Not at all."

"I'm working hard to rectify themes left to me by these enhanced humans."

"And playboy billionaires."

"And Russian spies," Ross practically hissed the last word. Clearly he'd had some run in with Romanov while she was out. That could be useful later.

"So you are going to go downstairs and publicly clean up this mess that you inherited. And I will work quietly to see if we can catch Broussard and maybe even recover Barnes."

"Okay, yes," he nodded, eager to leave the real work to her.

"I'm gong to need some slightly higher authorizations if we want to keep this sub-rosa, though. Can you bump my clearance up a notch?"

"Yes, of course."

Sharon grabbed a tablet off the table and keyed in the necessary things, moving quickly while Ross ruminated, half out loud, about what he could do to make the clean-up more public.

"I need your thumb print here," she handed him the tablet, "and a retinal scan here…."

He nodded and accepted the tablet and Sharon barely managed not to smile.