Chapter 13 - Stevie

January 10, 2014, 6:30 a.m.

Stevie's hands were a mass of pain – she didn't want to look at them. After she had set the autopilot of the quinjet, she had known that she wouldn't have much time before they figured out no one was on board. Too bad she hadn't brought her gloves. At least, thanks to the super soldier serum, she knew the damage would heal. After sliding down the elevator cable, she fled down the fire stairs, to the loading bay, hoping to find a delivery truck. What she would do after that was a little nebulous.

Fortunately, there was one, and only one - white, with "Sterling Laundry" on the side in black lettering. She crept closer to it, trying to get a look at the driver. His hair was silvery gray, the sides of his head shaved, the top gelled up into little spikes. He had a neatly trimmed beard. He paced beside the truck, talking on his cell phone. His accent...Russian?

"Yeah, there's some kind of lockdown or something...That's the point. I don't know. That's why I'm calling you...No, do we? I….what do want me to do, break out of SHIELD? I'll be there when I can." He put the phone in one pocket of his padded jacket and pulled a cigarette out of the other. Stevie could see the barest bit of a tattoo poking out over his collar. "Asshole," he muttered as he tried to get his lighter to strike. Stevie was sure she could take him down if needed, even in her current state. Although, Maggie, still tied to her chest with her jacket, may get hurt.

Let's appeal to his better nature.

She walked around the back of the truck. The man looked up and both cigarette and lighter fell to the concrete floor.

"Holy shit! Are you okay? Is that a baby?"

She looked down. The blood from her hands had soaked through the jacket wrapping Maggie. The baby turned her head, trying to get a look at the stranger.

"I need to get out of here," Stevie said. "Help me, please."

The man looked at her for a moment, wide-eyed. His eyes were as silver as his hair, and unsettling combination. He looked around him, and then Stevie could see him steeling himself. His posture became straighter, his movements practiced. He opened the back of the truck.

"Come on," he said. He offered her his hand, but she hopped up into the bed of the truck without it. The back of the truck was filled with huge blue plastic tubs covered in neatly fitting black rubberized canvas. He pulled back a few of the canvas covers and rummaged around, questioning Stevie as he did so.

"Have you been shot? Is the baby alright?"

"She's fine. It's just my hands." They were trembling involuntarily. They felt like they were on fire, every beat of her heart made them throb with pain. She held them in front of herself, half curled, like injured animals. "I had to rappel down an elevator cable with no gloves."

He looked up at her, eyebrow raised.

"...Wait a second."

He hopped down from the bed of the truck and returned a few moments later with a plastic water bottle.

"Alright. Hey, sweetie," he addressed Maggie, jingling his key ring in front of her. A little bobble-headed doll hung at the end. "What's this? Huh? What is it? You want it?"

Maggie seized the keys in one chubby fist and shook them so vigorously that Stevie had to pull her head back for fear of losing an eye. Meanwhile, the driver guided Stevie's hands over a tub full of black STRIKE uniforms and started to rinse them with his water bottle. It felt like she was squeezing a double handfull of broken glass. She hissed and bit back a cry of pain so as not to scare the baby.

"Motherfucker," said the man. "Sorry."

"No problem," Stevie ground out through clenched teeth.

He had already pulled a white lab coat from another tub, and was cutting it into strips with a pocketknife.

"Sorry this isn't the clean laundry," he said wryly.

"Regular germs aren't strong enough to get to me."

"It's been a while since I've had to do this."

He deftly wrapped each hand from wrist to fingertips, tying off the ends snugly. A three-tone signal rang over the PA system, announcing the all clear.

"That's our cue," Stevie said. The driver nodded.

"If you don't mind." He pointed to one of the tubs, full of rumpled towels. "Nothing too bad in here, I promise." He shifted a pile aside and she climbed in awkwardly. Maggie had put the key ring in her mouth and was chewing them with an expression of deep concentration.

"I'm going to need those back, sweetie," the driver said. He gently extracted them from Maggie's grip and dried them on his pants. Stevie shuffled herself down into the tub, among the linens, long legs folded up.

"I'm going to cover you up, okay? This is the last stop before I go back to base. Should only take twenty, thirty minutes."

"Alright," Stevie said. "Wait. Hold on."

She unholstered her shield and wedged it about halfway down the tub, making a tent of sorts over herself and Maggie. The baby hated having anything over her face. "Go ahead."

The driver knocked twice on the shield, then Stevie heard the muffled "whump" of towels being replaced on top of it, the sound of the canvas cover being pulled back over the top of the tub. The door closed, and there was total darkness.

At first, Stevie expected a STRIKE team to burst in every time the truck stopped for any reason – but as time passed, she supposed her trick with the plane had worked. At least, for the moment. The tone of the wheels changed underneath her as they shifted from the concrete of Theodore Roosevelt Bridge to the asphalt of...whatever road they were taking. Maggie had squirmed and peeped against her chest, but the darkness and the wheels had a soporific effect, and now she was still, breathing deep and regular on Stevie's cheek. The towels around her smelled not unpleasantly of soap. Although the tub wall dug painfully into Stevie's back, and her hands felt swollen to the size of baseball gloves, she started to drift off herself. The sound of the door opening brought her awake with a start.

"It's only me."

The driver's voice, and the tromps of his heavy boots as he rapidly crossed to the tub here she was hidden. Stevie stood up, pushing the mass of towels off herself, like a bear shaking off snow. Maggie blinked and screwed up her face at the sudden brightness.

"How are the hands?" He asked.

She looked at the stiff, bandaged masses at the ends of her wrists. The bleeding had already stopped. Even the throbbing was better, if she wasn't imagining it.

"Better, I think." She tried an experimental flex, but stopped at a knife-like pain that shot all the way up her arms. "A little better."

"Hm. How fast do you heal?"

"I'm not sure." She'd recovered from a seventy-year deep freeze in under two weeks. "Pretty fast."

"Stretch them every now and then. Like this." He opened and closed his fists. "You don't want the new skin to grow in all tight."

Stevie regarded the man. His padded jacket, his jeans. Another tattoo emerged from his left sleeve and bled onto the back of his hand – an eight-pointed star.

"How do you know how to do...this?" She asked, holding up her bandaged hands.

He smiled wryly.

"I haven't always been a delivery boy."

The smile vanished. "Alright. You need something a little less...conspicuous. Hold on."

Again, he jumped down from the truck. Stevie crept to the edge of the door and looked out quickly, seeing a squat, blue building with a couple of other white trucks parked nearby. So he hadn't brought her to a police station or a SHIELD safehouse.

He came back with a gray stocking cap, a pair of gloves, a cup of vending machine coffee, and a set of blue padded coveralls stitched with the name "Bubba".

"Sorry. They didn't have a lot in your size."

She put Maggie back in the towel tub as she pulled on the coverall as best as she could without the use of ninety percent of her hands. It was baggy enough to fit over her lycra undershirt and her uniform trousers. Bubba was a big man, whoever he was. Her jacket-slash-sling was ruined, along with Maggie's pajamas, soaked red with blood.

"No problem," the driver said, and revealed a brown fleecy snowsuit for Maggie – complete with bear ears. Rather than try to take the stained clothes off a struggling toddler in the back of a truck, Stevie stuffed Maggie into the onesie clothes and all. The driver took the bloodstained jacket.

"I'll get rid of this," he said, as Stevie drank the coffee down in one long swallow, holding the cup between her wrists. He helped her pull the gloves on over her bandages, then produced a pack of half-squashed peanut butter crackers from his pocket.

"For the baby?" He said, making it a question.

At Stevie's nod, he opened the pack and handed one to Maggie. Stevie tucked the rest into her coveralls. It occurred to her that she had no money. Who knows when she'd be able to get food for Maggie again.

"Thank you," she said. "I cannot...cannot...thank you enough. What's your name?"

"Rovshan," he said. "But you can call me Robbie." He took a look outside the truck. "All clear."

"Time to go," Stevie said.

She climbed down carefully into the parking lot. The smell of detergent and dryer sheets wafted through the air. She could hear the sound of children playing, shrieks and laughter. There must be a school nearby. She pulled her cap down a little lower over her hair.

"Captain."

She turned. For all his surprising competence, Rovshan looked worried now. "What's happening?"

I wish I knew.

"Something bad," she said. "Get out of town, if you can. You have friends here? Family?"

He nodded.

"Get them out, too."

She squared her shoulders, preparing to walk around into the frantic atmosphere of a school drop-off, already feeling like she stuck out like a sore thumb. After two steps, she turned back again. Rovshan was watching with an expression of worry.

"Sorry to ask but...do you know where I can stash my shield?"

A wild OC emerges! Astute readers may have noticed that Rovshan is a former member of the Russian mafia - the hand tattoos are a sign of that. I went down the internet rabbit hole looking at Russian mafia tattoo symbolism, you guys. As always, thanks for reading.