Chapter 32 - Stevie

January 13, 2014

Once again, Stevie woke up in a hospital.

The last time, she'd been disoriented and afraid - understandable, since she'd just come out of a 70-year ice nap, and was half-certain she'd been captured by Hydra.

At least this time, I know where and when I am…more or less.

She took stock of the soft, white room. No restraints, so she wasn't a Hydra captive this time either. Not even any tubes sticking out of her body. She supposed they must have someone familiar with how quickly she recovered. Tentatively, Stevie tried to sit up, remembering the white hot pain of the bullet searing through her gut, but there was nothing. Not even a twinge.

She remembered what had happened after she fell from the Insight carrier. She'd lost consciousness when she'd hit the water - from that height she may as well have fallen onto a parking lot. But, underwater, her enhanced body had already been trying to heal itself. Her consciousness had faded in and out - flashes of light coming and going, each time dimmer. Silver bubbles had floated up away from her; she had reached toward them, but could barely even move her hand. Everything had felt far away - the pain, her body. Even Maggie. Maggie…

And then she saw it. As everything grew dim, a shadow swam toward her. A shadow with a silver hand.

He had known her. He had come for her.

I knew it, Stevie thought, feeling a fierce joy rise in her chest. I knew it.

There was still so much to do. She didn't even know yet what effect her and Natasha's joint revelations were having on the world - but she knew one thing. Bucky remembered her. Wherever he was, he was free. She was certain of it.

Now all I have to do is find him, she thought. Piece of cake.

The door opened, and Stevie tensed reflexively.

"At ease, Captain," Dr. Rao said wryly.

"Doctor," Stevie said, somewhat surprised to see her. She thought of Kavita Rao as her 'personal' doctor - since the woman had helped revive her, and been studying her ever since - but she'd left the woman in New York and hadn't seen her since she'd moved to DC.

"Are we in Stark Tower?" Stevie asked. "This doesn't look like the medbay, unless Tony's been redecorating."

"No," the doctor replied briskly, moving to Stevie's bedside and checking her pupil dilation with a penlight. "I flew out when I heard what had happened. I'm not going to leave the care of my patient in the hands of amateurs, thank you very much."

The woman looked tired, normally bronze skin ashen and dark hair coming loose from her braid - but she was as sharp-eyed as ever.

"How are you feeling?" She asked, palpitating Stevie's abdomen with sure hands. "Any pain?"

"Tickles, actually," Stevie said.

"You can laugh," Dr. Rao said bitterly. "Do you know how hard it is to dig bullet fragments out of someone's intestines when they keep trying to heal around your instruments? And their body is burning through anesthetic five times faster than a normal person?"

"Um," Stevie replied. "No…No I don't. Thank you?"

"That's right," Dr. Rao said.

She pulled Stevie's hospital gown open to look at her stomach.

"No scarring at all. Your body's even absorbed the stitches." She shook her head. "No matter how often I see that, I can never get used to it."

"Doctor," Stevie began as Rao tucked her back in. "The twins, Pietro and Wanda Maximoff, have you seen them? How - "

"Patient privacy -" Rao started, lifting her hand as if to physically block the question.

Stevie cut her off. "They were my team, Doctor. I led them into battle. Please?"

Rao dropped her hand and sighed, then leaned close.

"The girl was still unconscious when I left the Tower," she said in a low voice, as if afraid of being overheard and disciplined by some medical board. "But her vital signs were completely normal. The boy…"

Dr. Rao frowned as she continued.

"Broken femur, plus a cerebral aneurysm. Fortunately, he heals almost as fast as you. He's next door."

Stevie felt a rush of relief. Both alive. She hadn't lost them.

The door opened again, and to Stevie's surprise Tony Stark walked in, carrying…

"Maggie!" Stevie called out for her daughter involuntarily.

"Mama!" The little girl said, reaching for her. "Mama! Mama!"

"Yup, there's mom." Tony said, struggling to hold both the squirming toddler and a bouquet of flowers, until finally the girl all but fell into her mother's arms.

Stevie's world contracted into a bubble containing only her daughter and herself. They clung to each other, Maggie sucking her thumb as her other hand clutched the fabric of her mother's hospital gown. Stevie held her daughter tight, feeling the solid weight of the little warm body, breathing in the smell of her hair.

"I'm sorry, baby," she whispered.

All the danger of the past few days hit her again. Escaping the Triskelion with Maggie strapped to her chest. Hiding in Rovshan's laundry truck. The car crash. Bucky. Her last, desperate gamble, staking her daughter's safety against the world's future. She felt a confused flood of guilt and relief that almost overwhelmed her.

"Let's never do that again, huh?" she said - but Maggie, finally safe in her mother's embrace, had fallen asleep.

Stevie wiped tears from her eyes and looked back up at Tony, who, along with Dr. Rao, was staring off into a corner of the room.

"Where's Natasha?" she asked.

Tony cleared his throat, eyes looking a little watery.

"She caught up with me on the way into the hospital. Passed Maggie over and gave me this." He handed Stevie the slightly crushed bouquet. "Said it was for you. I turned my back for a second and she disappeared."

Stevie took the bouquet. There was a small, white card clipped inside it.

A friend recently told me that the price of freedom is high, and it's time for me to pay my share. Love to kiska. See you soon.

Instead of a signature, the message was followed by the angular hourglass symbol of the Black Widow.

"When she released the joint SHIELD-slash-Hydra files online," Tony continued. "We found out she was in them. There's a lot of information there - a lot- but if you have a good data-mining algorithm, or a lot of time on your hands, you can find her. Her pre- and post-SHIELD work. A lot of powerful and dangerous people will be coming for her."

Stevie smiled wryly, setting the bouquet and card on the little table by her bed.

"Those fools," she said.

Tony smiled back. "I almost feel sorry for them."

"Almost," Stevie agreed. She reached out and took Tony's hand. He looked surprised for a moment, but squeezed her hand in return.

"How are you?" She asked. "How's New York?"

Tony sighed. He hooked one of the hard plastic chairs with his foot and sat beside her bed, still holding her hand. He looked worn out, worse even than he had on the call before this whole nightmare had begun. One of the carriers had been targeting New York - and he had been on the kill list. He rubbed his face with his free hand.

"It's okay," he said. "The Iron Legion and Rhodey took care of it, actually. I was flying here to try to keep you out of trouble."

"That worked well," Stevie said with a grin.

Tony gave a mirthless laugh.

"California, however…" He continued.

California. The third carrier.

"The only guy out there even remotely prepared to do anything was Justin Hammar."

"Oh." Stevie had never met the man, but whenever Tony mentioned him, an insult was sure to follow.

"Oh," Tony agreed. "To be fair, he wasn't horrible. Better than nothing. Marginally."

Stevie let go of Tony's hand so she could adjust her bed to a more upright position. Dr. Rao tutted disapprovingly as she helped Stevie adjust the blankets around Maggie, who grunted in complaint, but stayed asleep.

"Alright," Stevie finally said when she was situated. "Give me the sitrep. How bad is it?"

"SHIELD is in chaos," Tony said frankly. "The Hydra moles burned whatever they could before they ran, literally and figuratively."

Stevie nodded. It wasn't surprising. The fight to stop Insight, to unmask Hydra - that had only been half the battle, if that. The real work would be raising SHIELD from the ashes of this catastrophe.

"We need to bring everyone we can together, organize commando squads to get to Hydra strongholds before everything and everyone disappears. And Pepper should be in on this - she's a public relations genius…"

The door opened one more time. All three of the adults in the room looked around to see a stranger. A young, dark-skinned man with close cropped hair and beard, in an Air Force Sergeant's uniform. He saluted as he came in.

"Captain Rogers," he said with a smile. There was a small gap between his front teeth, giving him an endearing youthfulness. "It's an honor, ma'am. I'm Sergeant Sam Wilson, from the US Air Force."

"Good to meet you, Sergeant," she replied. "You'll have to forgive me for not standing up. How can I help you?"

"No problem, ma'am." He suddenly looked uncomfortable. "I'm here on behalf of the President. I'm afraid I need to take you into protective custody."

As one, three voices said the same word.

"What?!"


And, like four years later, it's complete!

I noticed a continuity error last chapter - I misread my timeline and thought it was evening when they went to the Insight carrier, when it was actually early morning. Sorry...I have a policy against editing posted chapters, since I think if I started I'd never stop, so...maybe the weird alien tech running the carrier skipped them twelve hours forward in time?

As for future plans, I definitely want to continue this series into Civil War. I have a lot of ideas...But I also want to take a weird left turn and write a more fantasy-style series inspired by Sleepy Hollow, where Stephanie was the Captain America of the Revolutionary War and is put in magical suspension until modern times. I'm not sure what I'll tackle first. Let me know if you have a preference.

As always - thank you very much for reading. Hope you enjoyed it. Catch you on the flip side.