Until I Found You

five

~ STEVE ~

"What do you mean he got away?"

Tony's voice echoed against the walls of the conference room. Nat, Sam and I were all sitting around the table. Bucky had his arms crossed as he leaned against the wall in the back corner. All of us are covered in dirt and scrapes from the fight. Nat is holding an ice pack to her forehead, and Sam's cleaning out a cut with some anti-septic. Tony stood at the front of the room and the head of the table. When nobody responds to his question he turns directly to me.

"Cap?"

I still can't find the words to respond, but one look at my face is apparently all he needs as an answer.

"Damn it Rogers!" Tony slams his hand on the table. "You said you had this under control! You said it was simple!"

Again I don't say anything. I know he's right. This was supposed to be simple. Go in, get Rumlow, take out his supplier. We'd had missions that expected much more of us before, missions with much greater risk involved. Instead, it ended up being one of the trickiest. I'd found the last thing I'd ever expected to find in that casino. I'd found something that made things incredibly and undeniably complicated.

"Anyone want to tell me what happened?" Tony demands, taking off his suit jacket and tossing the fabric onto his empty chair.

"Rumlow escaped and we couldn't find his supplier. There were at least thirty more people than we expected so clearly his operation is much bigger than we thought." Nat says. "What more is there to say?"

Tony scoffs, shaking his head in disbelief as he rolls up the sleeves of his button down.

"We'll find Rumlow." Bucky tries to reason. "We've got some of his men in custody. We'll be able to get information out of them some how."

"Rumlow's men are useless to us. They won't tell us anything because they know he'll kill them if they talk." Tony mutters. "It's going to be ten times more difficult to find him again now that he knows we're after him."

He sighs in frustration and the room falls quiet for a moment. It's the kind of silence that always follows after failure. It's a lingering quiet reminder of the disappointment that endures. It's a silence full of tremors begging to ask the question, what the hell are we supposed to do next? It's not broken until Tony's phone goes off, beeping twice.

"Bruce says he should probably take a look at the girl passed out in my interrogation room." He reads blankly, and then looks up from his screen. "Why is there a girl passed out in my interrogation room?"

It's common knowledge that Rumlow only employs men on his team, so the confusion surrounding the presence of a girl is understandable. The room is quiet again for a moment before Bucky finally answers.

"Sam shot her with a tranquilizer dart." He offers, tilting his head towards the culprit.

"I didn't know if she was dangerous or not." He shrugs, unapologetically. "She doesn't look it but if she was at the casino then maybe Rumlow's started employing women too. Steve was with her and I saw him freeze. Didn't want him to get hurt so I shot her."

All eyes turn back to me. I'm not even close to being ready to talk about this right now, but the group deserves an explanation. I was the one responsible for bringing Rumlow in and I had failed. The least I could do was tell them why. I take a deep and steadying breath. It sounds shakey and rattles in my throat as I force the words out.