In the Still of the Night
Chapter 16: Get Your Gun and Come Along
Red-eyed and head still buzzing with questions, Steve was happy to be back in D.C. as he stepped off the Stark Industries plane onto the tarmac. He had no idea what time it was given the change in time zones, but he honestly didn't care. He was going to go straight home and start looking for more leads on Bucky until he fell asleep. He had a newfound determination ever since he had talked with Peggy and found out that Bucky was looking for answers just like Steve was searching for him.
As he started walking to toward the curbside to call a cab, Steve's pocket started vibrating and he groaned. He hadn't had service in England or on the plane so he knew a million people had probably called or texted him while he was gone for two days. A little jolt of hope surged through him as he thought, Maybe this person calling me right now is Vera...
But when he took it out of his pocket and read Natasha's name, he sighed.
"Natasha?" he said as he answered it. "This better be important."
"Vera's in trouble," she said immediately, sounding completely no-nonsense and catching Steve's attention. "HYDRA's planning on kidnapping her and me and a SHIELD team are headed over to her house right now to go get her."
"Whoa, whoa, what?" Steve stopped in his tracks. "Vera's about to get kidnapped?"
"Yes," replied Natasha impatiently. "She's innocent; she had nothing to do with the hacked computer. That timed file had important information in it that only she read, and now HYDRA's on their way to get her so they can extract the information from her."
Steve's heart started racing. He was terrified of something happening to her, especially if HYDRA got their hand on her. They could torture her, or worse..."Did anyone contact her and tell her to get out of there?"
"Can't; she's being watched. They've probably tapped her phone lines."
"I'll go to her house right now," Steve decided as he hurried off the tarmac. "Hopefully they haven't got her yet so I can take her to a safe house."
"Whoever gets to her first will make sure she's safe," Natasha said surely.
"Thank you," he said sincerely, knowing that Natasha now trusts that Vera is innocent. He hung up his phone and was just about to put it back into his pocket when he noticed he got a text from Vera a few hours ago. He brought it up and read it:
Hi Steve. I'd really like to talk to you and tried calling your cell, but it kept ringing and didn't let me leave a message. If you get this, please call me back. I'll be at my mom's place tonight so I might not get the best service, but I'll keep my phone with me in case you call. -Vera.
Steve breathed a sigh of relief. Hopefully HYDRA doesn't know she's at her mother's house tonight, he thought. Maybe I can save her in time.
Making sure his shield was secured on his back, Steve started running to save the one person in his life he was most afraid of losing.
Vera slipped in and out of a dreamless sleep, her body tired but her mind subliminally telling her to stay awake. All evening she had had an inexplicable feeling that something was wrong, and no matter how many times she checked to make sure the windows and doors were locked and saw nothing but couples and families strolling by on the sidewalk outside, she still had an ominous feeling that something bad was about to happen. She was almost unsurprised, then, when she awoke suddenly because she heard a sharp knocking on the door to her mother's house.
She sat up quickly and was about to flip on the lamp next to the bed, but stopped herself. What if someone is trying to break in? she thought. Or maybe it's SHIELD paying me another visit...
Vera quietly opened the drawer of the bedside table and pulled out a small handgun. Call her paranoid, but ever since her SHIELD days she always kept her firearm with her wherever she went. Especially at night, and especially on a night where she felt like she was being watched all evening.
Checking to see if it was loaded, which it was, she soundlessly slid off her bed and tiptoed through the living room to the front door. She approached the door carefully and listened, jumping when there was another loud knock on the door.
"Vera? Vera, are you there?" She thought she knew that voice, but was still too paranoid to let her guard down just in case. She slowly reached out and clutched the doorknob, then turned it suddenly and yanked the door open, pointing the handgun at the shadow standing behind the doorway.
"Whoa, Vera, it's me, Steve!" called out none other than Captain America himself, holding up his right hand and his shield in the other.
Vera let out a relieved sigh and lowered her gun. Despite herself, she couldn't deny she was happy to see him. "Sorry, Steve. It's the middle of the night, I wasn't expecting –"
Steve cut her off when he suddenly pushed her inside and closed the door behind them both and locked it. He listened at the door for a moment, then turned to her.
"What are you doing here?" asked Vera, becoming concerned as she saw something behind Steve's eyes - was it fear? "What's wrong?"
"HYDRA is coming for you," he explained quickly, going around the living room of her mother's house and making sure all the windows and curtains were shut. "They know you're the one who opened that file and they have your location. They're going to try to kidnap you and extract the information from you."
"Uh, 'extract the information?'" she asked carefully, shivering a little. "What does that mean?"
Steve stopped and swallowed, turning to look at her. "They'll probably torture you, and once they've got the information they need, they won't need you anymore, so..." He let the words trail off, the thought too gruesome to put into words. Vera nodded slowly, the gravity of the situation hitting her as suddenly as when she was jarred awake moments ago.
"Where's your mother?" Steve asked as he looked around the room.
"She's visiting my aunt in Virginia," explained Vera. "My aunt got sick so my mom left this morning to go be with her. I'm just here to water her plants."
"We need to get you out of here," Steve instructed. "HYDRA's probably at your place right now but once they figure out you're not here it shouldn't take them long to find you."
"Oh God..." Vera voiced as she thought of masked assassins ransacking her apartment.
"We're going to relocate you," Steve explained further. "You need to come with me so I can protect you in case HYDRA attacks while we're moving you."
"Okay, I need to grab my stuff - "
"No time," Steve said curtly. "C'mon, we have to get you to - "
He stopped mid-sentence and put his hand to his ear, listening to something. Vera guessed he had an earpiece and someone was talking to him. Steve's eyes grew wide as he listened. He looked over at Vera.
"Change of plans," he said in response to her questioning gaze. "We can't move you. HYDRA is right outside the house; they know I've come to get you and they're going to wait until the two of us try to leave the house."
Immediately Vera went over to the window and surreptitiously peeked out of the blinds. There were dark figures on the sidewalk outside the window, most of them standing still, like they were waiting for something. Waiting for me...she thought with a nervous swallow.
"I can't believe this..." she whispered to herself softly. "All of this is happening because I opened that stupid file..."
"No," Steve said gently, coming over to her and giving her a soft look that caused her heart rate to pick up a little. "It's not your fault. You didn't ask for this."
Vera looked back out the window. The shadows seemed to be multiplying because there were definitely more now than there had been a few seconds ago. She sighed almost inaudibly. "How are we going to get out of here?"
Steve paused for a moment before speaking. "We can't. We need to stay in here until more reinforcements arrive because I can't fight them all off while trying to get you out of here at the same time."
"I have a gun," Vera offered hopefully, waving the little handgun that she was still carrying. "I was trained at SHIELD how to use this thing. I might be a little rusty, though..."
Steve gave her a soft smile. "I don't think one little handgun is going to fight off HYDRA, but thanks for offering help."
Vera sighed and leaned against the back of the couch. "I don't like just sitting here and waiting around, though."
Steve shrugged. "Reinforcements will be here in a few minutes. Shouldn't be too long of a wait."
"Yeah," Vera nodded slowly, shivering a little as she looked around at her mother's place. It was very dark and she could barely make out Steve's determined expression on his face as he strained to look over at the windows. She suddenly realized that in the midst of this ordeal, they had both forgotten they had been in a fight and weren't speaking to each other. She wasn't going to bring it up, though; Honestly, Vera thought, there are more important things we need to be worried about right now. And, if I'm really being honest...it's nice to see him...
Despite their unspoken agreement, though, the silence between them was palpable and Vera felt the need to dissolve the tension. That, and her curiosity got the best of her.
"Steve?"
"Hm?"
"Do you...do you do things like this all the time? Rescue missions and fighting off bad guys?"
Steve chuckled a little. "Usually it's not as simple as that. But yeah, I do missions and stuff like this a lot. Gotta pay the bills somehow."
Vera nodded, and then swallowed. "Do you, uh...do you ever get scared when fighting off the bad guys?"
Steve looked at her. Vera felt like he was reading her like a book; his expression was focused solely on her and she could tell he knew exactly what she was thinking. "It's gonna be alright, Vera. They're not going to get to you."
"How do you know that?" Vera whispered, suddenly realizing that she had butterflies in her stomach from being afraid. But it wasn't just from fear...Steve was coming closer and closer...Yet she felt her legs moving...Maybe she was coming closer to him...
"Because I'll protect you," he responded softly, the space between them slowly getting thinner and thinner. "I promise."
Before she could stop herself, Vera breathed, "I've missed you..."
Steve blinked once, almost like he was surprised to hear her say that. But the intensity of his gaze made Vera think that he had been waiting for her to say that for a while.
And it had been so long since she had looked into his eyes that she forgot how captivating they were. Deep blue color...long eyelashes...She was so entranced by them that she was taken aback when she realized their lips were touching, ever-so-lightly. And then the kiss deepened, Vera feeling Steve put his right hand on her waist as she grabbed onto his shoulder. They kissed tenderly yet fiercely, soft and intense at the same time, and both felt a little out of breath when they pulled apart.
But their moment ended with the sudden sound of glass shattering loudly and bullets spraying inches past the two of them.
Steve, reflexes lightning-fast, threw Vera onto the ground and positioned them both behind the couch, raising his shield to protect them both. The bullets were tearing through the curtains that were in front of the shattered windows of the living room, causing loud sound and chaos to be thrown into the room. The pair stayed down behind the couch and Steve's shield until the barrage died down, indicating to Steve that the shooters were reloading their weapons.
"Go!" he shouted as he and Vera scrambled to their feet. Vera started heading for the front door but Steve grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her back, rushing them to the bathroom that adjoined her mother's bedroom as another barrage of bullets started to rain on them. Steve kicked the bathroom door shut and wrenched open the small window above the bathtub.
"Out this way," he indicated and he helped Vera up and out of the window. She landed on the ground in a narrow back alley between her mother's house and their neighbor's, and immediately she saw shadows advancing toward her from the open end of the alleyway. Before she could so much as gasp Steve appeared in a flash in front of her and shielded them both from the gunshots aimed at them. He fought off a number of HYDRA agents advancing toward them, refusing to let any of them get close to Vera, who stayed carefully behind him.
Vera looked around wildly, trying desperately to find them a way out of that alleyway as more HYDRA agents pushed them further back into the alley. Vera turned and saw the back wall behind them wasn't very high and she realized it probably led to a different street. She jumped up on top of a trash can and hoisted herself up to the top of the wall, straddling it and calling out, "Steve!"
Steve, still in the midst of fighting, briefly turned and saw Vera climbing over the back wall. Knocking down one more HYDRA agent with his shield, Steve turned and ran toward the wall, climbing up it with his bare hands and jumping down to the other side. He and Vera ended up on another street and they ran down it until they found a car.
"In here," Steve said as he broke the door handle and climbed into the driver's seat, the car alarm blaring loudly.
"Are you crazy?" hissed Vera. "That's not ours!"
Steve ignored her as he hotwired the car, starting it and silencing the alarm. Vera gave in and climbed into the passenger side just as HYDRA came around the corner and started shooting. Vera ducked down as Steve turned the car around quickly, causing the tires to screech into the night. He sped off as quickly as the midsize car would go, barreling down the grid-like neighborhood streets as bullets made holes in the back window. Then the sound of gunshots started to die down and, looking in the rearview mirror, Vera saw HYDRA slowly disappear into the darkness. She let out a sigh of relief.
"I'm not even gonna ask how you know how to hotwire a car," she stated, out of breath.
Steve cocked his head to the side noncommittally. "We're just borrowing it. I'll give it back."
"Hopefully we'll get far away from here first?"
"Yes," replied Steve. "I know a place we can go."
"What, like a safe house?"
Steve nodded enigmatically. "Exactly like a safe house."
Vera exhaled in annoyance as she leaned back against the headrest, closing her eyes and absentmindedly toying with the handgun in her lap.
"When did my life turn into an action movie?"