In the Still of the Night

A/N: Whoa. Oh man, you guys. Writers block: it hit me hard. That's half of the reason I haven't updated in a while; the other half is I've been pretty busy with other stuff so I kind of forgot about updating...sorry guys! But here's this brand new chapter and I hope you guys like it.

Also, I wanted to add that I've officially run out of pre-written chapters, so I'll be updating as I write each chapter. That means less updates unfortunately...but fear not! I'll update as often as humanly possible.

Thanks to the AWESOME reviews I've gotten so far! (Special shout-out to mokonahapuuuuuu, your reviews have been great and you gave me the inspiration to keep writing!) All you guys rock! :)

-PenPaperParadise

Chapter Ten: More Than You Know

Vera was still thinking about Agent Rushman even after her shift ended that night. She was worried; that agent clearly believed that Vera was involved somehow with the file, and Vera had a feeling that the agent would find out for sure sooner or later. Although Vera wasn't necessarily guilty (it's not like she was the hacker or anything), she still lied to a government official and didn't report a security breach within the museum when it happened. If anyone found out for sure that she had been involved, she would be in a lot of trouble. She would, at the very least, lose her job, maybe even get arrested.

Still...as Vera got up from her desk and prepared to go out on her date with Steve, grabbing her jacket and keys, a thought suddenly struck her: she didn't regret what she did. Something in her gut was telling her that this file was something more than just a simple hacking job, and Vera was determined to solve the mystery herself. And speaking of that file...

...Why not go check on it to see if the agent did something with it?

It was tempting...The museum would be closing soon and if someone caught her in the archives at this time of night – especially someone from the FBI – then she'd have trouble explaining that. But...Vera's curiosity and determination to see this through won in the end.

After locking her office, she quietly snuck down to the archives, and stopped when she reached the door. My keycard...I'm going to have to use my keycard to get in here. And my keycard is linked to my ID. If the FBI sees I was in the archives at this time of night...

Despite her worries, Vera decided to throw caution to the wind and used her keycard to open the door. Once inside, Vera sat at the computer that she and Michael always used. She did the same steps that she observed Michael had done every time they looked at the file, and Vera brought up the file after a few clicks and keystrokes. She entered in her Smithsonian I.D. and password and got to the screen that required a SHIELD password. Vera leaned back in her chair, slowly placing her hand over her mouth as she considered something. I wonder...

No, that wouldn't work. SHIELD must have erased my password after I stopped working for them. But...it wouldn't hurt to try...

...Would it?

Thankful that she still remembered her password from her SHIELD days, she entered in the combination of letters. She hesitated before pressing "Enter"; this won't work...There's no way this will work...

Without giving herself another second to chicken out, Vera pressed "Enter."

It worked.

As soon as she pressed "Enter", a little dialogue box popped up that said "ACCESS GRANTED." Vera's heart was hammering. The dialogue box disappeared and a new one took its place, this one saying, "OPEN FILE?" with the option to choose 'yes' or 'no' underneath it. Checking over her shoulder for anyone behind her, and then breathing a sigh to calm her nerves, Vera clicked "yes."

The little dialogue box disappeared. Nothing happened for a second. Then, on the blank screen, only one word popped up. Vera stared at it. A few seconds later, the word disappeared and Vera was brought back to the home screen. The little icon of the folder where the file always appeared was gone.

Vera sat frozen in her chair, her head swimming with what had just happened. She had accessed the file using her old SHIELD password...and inside the file was only one word...and now it's gone? Vera clicked around and could not find the file. Did it delete itself? Where else would it be?

And that word...it looked more like a series of letters than an actual word. It must have been in a different language.

..."MJOLNIR"? What the heck kind of word is that? What language is that anyway? What does it mean? Mjolnir...And why on earth was that one word so heavily protected?

And my old password worked..., she thought, in disbelief. How, though? Vera remembered back to her days working at SHIELD. She had worked there in the archives department and, given her specific job, she had a password that gave her access to a lot of information so that she could search for things that needed to be archived. It was selective, though; she could not access files and things about classified missions, intel on current threats, etc., but she nearly had a Level Ten password when it came to historical SHIELD documents. Is that how I got access? Because my old password had high access to historical documents? That would make this a historical document, then...but it's just a word!

What on earth does this mean?

Suddenly, a loud alarm started blaring loudly in the room, making Vera jump. She panicked for a second, thinking someone had caught her, but she recognized the sound as a fire alarm. That's odd, Vera thought, there's hardly anyone here still. It's past closing so this can't be a drill...

She had a bad feeling about this, but she realized her work here in the archives was done so she shut down the computer and left the room. Remembering her fire drill training about leaving the building through specified doors, Vera started heading toward one of the exits. She had to pass through a few exhibits to get to the closest fire exit. Passing through the Captain America exhibit, Vera was startled by a sudden loud crash and the sound of breaking glass. Vera immediately got down and covered her head, thinking this was some sort of explosion, but when she looked up she saw two men dressed in all black lowering themselves to the ground via a rope that came out of the shattered skylight on the ceiling. They landed on the ground and each of them pulled out enormous guns. One of them, the taller of the two, stalked over to Vera.

"Where are the archive computers?" he shouted, pointing the gun right at Vera's face. She held her hands up, still kneeling on the floor. "Where are they?"

"I...I don't..." she stammered, stunned and in shock about what was happening. It all was happening so fast. The man looked like a common burglar; he was wearing all black clothes and had a black cap and a black gun. His eyes were hard and unforgiving.

"Tell me where they are," he growled, taking a step closer, "or I swear I'll shoot you."

The other man came closer too. Vera's raised hands shook. "I..."

Suddenly there was a blur of color that came whizzing past her and the sound of metal hitting metal, and the gun was knocked out of the man's hand. Vera and the two men whipped their heads around to see where that came from, and Vera nearly stopped breathing. That's...that's Steve, Vera thought slowly, incredulously. Sure enough, Steve was standing there, his chest heaving, looking angrily at the two men. Suddenly he charged at the men, knocking the one with the gun to the ground as the gun fired sporadically for a few seconds. The other man jumped on him and Steve easily knocked him to the ground.

Vera stayed frozen in place as she watched Steve take the men out so effortlessly. She looked at the ground and saw the object that had knocked the man's gun out of his hand: it was round, and painted red, white, and blue, and had a star in the center...it was a shield. Captain America's shield. So if Steve was the one who had thrown the shield...then...that would make him...

Like a bolt of lightning, the realization hit her.

So that's why he's so evasive about his work.

Vera watched Steve – or Captain America, I should say, Vera thought – as he took out both of the men, effortlessly hitting, kicking, and knocking them down with his bare hands. Once the two were on the ground, Steve stalked over to his shield and picked it up, securing it on his arm. He looked over at Vera, came over to her, and helped her up.

"Are you alright?" he asked in a rush.

"Yeah, I'm...I'm fine - "

"We need to get out of here," Steve said quickly, and without another word he started ushering Vera out of the exhibit room (which, Vera observed regretfully, was nearly shattered to pieces) and toward the front entrance. Two more men dressed in black came at them and Steve effortlessly took them out, throwing his shield at them and knocking both of them to the ground. Then he and Vera both ran outside and down the front steps of the museum, where many people in uniform and several cars were waiting out front. Red and blue flashing lights illuminated the dark façade of the museum building as policemen and women were barking orders to groups of listening officers. And as Vera and Steve approached the blockade of cars, a familiar face approached them, making Vera gasp in surprise.

"Agent Rushman?"

"It's actually Romanoff," the redhead corrected. "Natasha Romanoff. I lied. I do that a lot."

Vera gave Natasha an annoyed look and then turned to Steve. "Steve, what the hell is going on?"

"I can't tell you right now," he replied. "I have to go back inside, they need my help in there."

"But –"

He put a reassuring hand on her upper arm. "I'll see you later. I promise."

Before she could protest, Steve turned and ran back up the steps and into the museum, followed by several armed officers.

"Come on," urged Natasha, "you need to come with me."

"No, you need to tell me what's going on," Vera said angrily, standing her ground. "My museum was broken into, I was nearly killed tonight, and I just found out my boyfriend is Captain freaking America. I deserve to know what's happening."

Natasha sighed, gazing over at the museum for a moment. Vera looked her over and noticed that she wasn't wearing her nice suit and FBI badge anymore; she was wearing a tight, black bodysuit with a gun holster on her hip. She looked like an assassin much less an FBI agent. "Honestly," Natasha started slowly, "I don't really know. All I do know is that there's a group of people who broke into the museum and police were sent in to take them out." She paused for a moment and turned to look Vera right in the eyes. "But whoever these burglars are, they're good at what they do."

"Why do you say that?" Vera inquired.

Natasha turned back to the museum, staring up at it. "They beat me to it."

A/N: PS, if the computer/password/hacker stuff is getting confusing, don't worry: it'll become clearer fairly soon. Don't forget to review! :)