Faint Heart [Steve Rogers]

10. Routes

Fury demanded the team to come to one of the conference rooms. Not in an angry, needing-to-find-out-who-he-was-going-to-squash-with-a-truck kind of mad, but a desperate and urgent demand. The drive was meant to be fifteen minutes but Natasha floored on the gas pedal and had them at the tower in eight minutes, of course, Steve and Reigna exchanged a fearful look and held on to the straps of their seatbelts as they watched the redhead go over the 45 mph limit on the highway.

Nonetheless, they made it and were met with every else who didn't just come from Natasha's fast & the furious remake.

Reigna stood at the end of the table opposite of where Fury stood. Steve and Natasha stood behind her and they all listened intently as Fury held a tablet. Fury examined the room and when he made sure that the whole team was present, he moved to the side and pointed to the screen.

"We've received word of a possible location for one of the last HYDRA bases. We don't know enough yet, but we don't think it'll be easy to take it down seeing as these bases have become more advanced." The satellite image Fury pulls up on the screen seems secluded, a forest around the building of where the base is believed to be.

"Well, why don't we go check it out?" Reigna asks, staring at everyone in the room. Fury shakes his head.

"Not yet. We want to check and see if the location matches a possible trail for the tesseract. If it does, then you go in." Reigna could feel her eyebrows knit together in confusion. What the hell was a tesseract?

"A tessewhat?" Fury chuckles at the lost puppy look on her face and remembers that he hadn't told her about the hunt they have been on to retrieve Loki's scepter.

"In short, we kind of almost but not really destroyed New York to get the scepter and we did. The scepter was passed to S.H.I.E.L.D for keeping but it ended up being that half S.H.I.E.L.D actually worked for HYDRA and now we are back to square one and have to find the damn thing." Reigna is speechless and shocked, mouth hung open and eyebrows raised. She nods even though she barely registered half of what Thor just said.

"Well, that's...not good... Guess I must have... slept in that day," her voice is low and she laughs nervously, hand scratching at the nape of her neck. Tony shakes his head, it was almost painful hearing her nervous and awkward response.

"Okay, how and, most importantly, when will you know?" Tony asks.

"Hopefully soon. Until then, I need you all to be ready to kick some ass when it comes to it."

"When aren't we," Natasha says, head cocked with pride to the side and a smirk playing on her lips. Fury lets them leave a few minutes after and Natasha is quick to pull her friend into the elevator. Natasha turns to Reigna with an eyebrow raised.

"So," she drags out teasingly and Reigna could already feel her cheeks heating up. "you want to tell me what happened during that jog?"

However, Reigna couldn't tell if she was blushing because of the intrusion into her personal life or if it was due to the small flashes of the date that ran through her mind. She didn't even realize she was smiling widely until she had to close her lips because she was certain a fly had whizzed past her teeth.

"It was a date," and it felt nice to say that, the small warmth spread through her stomach. "Well, not like an official date date, but kind of like an introductary date." Natasha doesn't fail to notice the way her eyes lit up.

"I'm happy for you, you know." Natasha says, right hand lifting and resting on Reigna's left shoulder, thumb subconsciously caressing the clothed skin. Reigna is a tad bit take aback at how genuine she sounds, not to say she isn't every genuine but Reigna had grown accustomed to the redhead's snarky and sassy comments and she loved them too.

Reigna mirrors Natasha's action and lifts her right hand to rest on her best friend's left shoulder, a smile playing on her lips. "Thank you," she says. "you're the Frodo to my Sam, you know that?"

Natasha chuckles, head shaking. "I really need to read these books to understand whatever you're saying."

The elevator finally dings and the doors slide open. "You do, sweetie. By the way, how are you and Bruce doing? Anything there?" Reigna asks as they walk down the corridor to Nat's room.

"I don't know," Nat sighs out. Reigna closes the door and joins her on the bed, laying down on her side to face her friend.

"What do you mean?" Reigna softly asks, speech a little mumbled due to her cheek being squashed onto the pillow.

Natasha plays with one of the ends of the pillow. "I want to run with it, but he has it stuck in his mind that he isn't good enough, or safe enough for me."

"He'll come around, you know that. I mean, granted I've only dated three guys in the entirety of my life and I can't tell when someone likes me, but I can tell he does have feelings for you." She says sincerely. It brings a small smile to Natasha's lips and she briefly turns to grab the remote from the nightstand next to her bed.

"Thank you. Now, let's watch a movie." Reigna is quick to grab the remote and turn the t.v on. She flips through the apps and clicks on Amazon Prime.

"Netflix is better." Natasha says bluntly and Reigna fails to contain the cackle that tumbles from her lips.

"It is, but it has some movies that you should watch."

"They have movies?" Natasha says. She's surprised but not too surprised to see The Lord of the Rings on her screen.

"Six, to be exact." Reigna say matter-of-factly and it causes Natasha to groan.

"These aren't even included with prime though. Oh my god... Did you..." Natasha looks from the screen that begins the intro for the Fellowship of the Ring to Reigna. "Did you buy them?"

"Yes, I did. All six of them and the extended editions." Reigna says with pride and a very self-satisfied smile.

"You're such a dork." Natasha chuckles out before she gets comfortable to watch the almost four hour long movie.