Sitwell
The three of us stood outside of a porch door. Steve knocked gently and the shutters opened to reveal a confused (and sweaty) looking Sam Wilson.
"Hey, man." He greeted Steve, frowning slightly at the sight of me beaten up, leaning against Steve, and Natasha's dirty face.
"I'm sorry about this," Steve apologised sincerely. "We need a place to lay low."
"Everyone we know is trying to kill us." Nat added.
"Which isn't unusual," I said and Sam suppressed a small smile.
He looked us up and down for a second. "Not everyone." He said, and moved aside to allow us inside of his home. "Feel free to freshen up," Sam told us before pointing at a door down a small corridor. "Bathroom's just inside that bedroom. Fresh towels in the cupboard."
"Thank you," I nodded at him as Nat headed straight for the bathroom.
Sam bowed his head and looked at me and then Steve, before back to me. "So how come you're limping and cut up and he still looks like a god?"
Steve brushed off a smile before leaning against the wall nearest the door and peering out of the window to check we weren't followed. I rolled my eyes and nudged Sam. "I see everyone's still keeping up with the tradition to call me out for looking bad. Thanks a bunch you guys. Remind me why I haven't hit you yet?" I joked.
Sam laughed. "Because I'm too devilishly charming?" He winked.
I snorted. "Oh sure. Yeah, you're right. That's it..." The sound of the tap ceasing to run made me turn around. "Now if you don't mind, I'm going to wash this face of mine and get it looking all pretty again," I called over my shoulder as I walked into one of Sam's bedrooms as Nat came out, a towel pressed to her face.
"Good luck with that!" Sam called back and I swiveled as I walked to throw him a rude gesture, earning yet another laugh.
"You two seem friendly," Nat commented as I pulled off my jacket and dropped it on the floor. It needed throwing away after being torn up by, well, everything.
"He's a nice guy," I said as I looked into Sam's bathroom mirror, leaving the door open to talk to Nat as I surveyed myself. Standing in a tank top, I could see the cuts and bruises littering my arms and shoulders, my neck still bruised from Rumlow. Dirt, dust and rubble lined my face and body and I quickly ran the hot tap before wasting any more time.
"So is Steve." Nat pulled me from my thoughts with a knowing smirk. I gave her a look through the mirror as I began to wash myself.
"I know what game you're playing, Romanoff," I told her.
"Game?"
"Getting me to kiss Steve, asking about the kiss afterwards, telling that guy we're getting married." I told her between splashing water on my face.
"That was purely for the mission!" she defended and I laughed.
"For a master liar, you suck at lying!" I flicked my head back up, body now dirt-free and scratched stinging. Just then Steve appeared at the doorway and looked awkward at our laughing.
"Uh-may I?" he asked me, indicating into the bathroom and I nodded, grabbing a towel from the open cupboard in the bathroom and joining Nat on the bed as we patted ourselves dry.
As Steve began to wash himself, Nat and I fell silent, realising how strange it was to be laughing after finding out HYDRA was basically S.H.I.E.L.D. and a computer robot had tried to kill us. Had successfully killed my parents, and Nick Fury. It was almost as if, in those few moments with Nat and Sam, everything was good again. But it wasn't.
Steve quickly finished and his head came back around into the doorway and he frowned at our now wistful silence. Nat quickly excused herself as I took my hair out of it's updo and began to finger-comb through it. "You okay?" he asked, always the concerned friend.
I glanced up briefly then back down. "Yeah. I think."
Steve sighed. He threw the towel aside and came closer, sitting down opposite me. He grabbed my hands gently to stop myself from fiddling with my hair and brought them down to our nearly touching knees. I had to bring myself to look into his clear blue eyes. "What's going on?"
I stared at him for a few moments, my heart hammering in my chest as he looked at me with concern flooded in his eyes, in his face. That damn face. I breathed in deeply. "When I first joined S.H.I.E.L.D. I did it because I wanted to make something of myself. Tony...Tony was off being Tony. You heard him; he was a genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist. And what was I? His kid sister? I was smart, really damn smart. I graduated college and then what? I stayed home, built stuff, hacked a few computers and that was it. S.H.I.E.L.D gave me an opportunity to do something with my life. To help people. To protect the world. And then becoming an Avenger? I felt like I'd finally done something right for once. I wasn't just a genius screw up going nowhere." I told him honestly, and he listened intently, hanging on to every word I said. "But now? Everything's changed. I thought my parents died in a car accident, and now I find it was murder? Nick Fury murdered, too? By a company I trusted, wanted to believe in. It was HYDRA. All the damn time. And I'm a part of that. I just feel...used. Like I'm HYDRA, too."
Steve moved to sit on the bed next to me and brushed a piece of damp hair from my face, his hand resting on the base of my neck. My eyes flickered shut a second before I opened them. "You are not HYDRA. You are Rosalie Stark."
And in that moment, I believed him. Instead of replying, I stared at him, this strange, beautiful man beside me. For a brief instant, he leaned forward but before I could close my eyes and reach up, too, Sam appeared in the doorway. "I made breakfast," he said and Steve and I quickly jumped apart, looking at Sam. "If you guys eat that sort of thing."
I flew up and coughed, about to say something, but deciding against it, instead walking past Sam and going back into the kitchen, Natasha smirking at me and my reddened cheeks.
~
We sat around Sam's coffee table. "So, the question is," Nat began. "Who at S.H.I.E.L.D. could launch a domestic missile strike?"
"There's only one man I know," I said grimly, looking to Steve as Sam finished making breakfast.
"Pierce." He realised.
"Who happens to be sitting on top of the most secure building in the world," Nat added.
"But he's not working alone," Steve thought aloud. "Zola's algorithm was on the Lemurian Star."
I bit my lip and looked to Nat and Steve. "So was Jasper Sitwell."
Steve looked shocked, before sighing and nodding his head. "So the real question is, how do the three most wanted people in Washington kidnap a S.H.I.E.L.D. officer in broad daylight?"
Sam walked around the table, a brown file in his hand. "The answer is, you don't." He said, dropping the file in front of Steve and I.
"What's this?" Steve asked, reaching for it.
"Call it a resume," Sam shrugged in reply.
Steve and I stood up as Nat took it from Steve's hands, eyeing up the images in the file. "Is this Bakhmala?" she asked. "The Khalid Khandil mission, that was you?"
Sam didn't reply, which was answer enough in itself. I breathed an impressed huff. "Well, shit, Wilson."
"You didn't say he was a Pararescue." Nat accused Steve, handing us a picture of Sam and another man in uniform in the desert.
"Is this Riley?" Steve asked with a smile.
"Yeah," Sam nodded sadly.
"I heard they couldn't bring in the choppers because of the RPGs," Nat continued. She looked to Sam. "What did you use? A stealth chute?"
"No," he replied. He handed us another folder. "These."
As Steve opened the file, the three of us peered inside, before raising our eyebrows. I looked at Sam. Steve looked at him, too. "I thought you said you were a pilot," Steve asked.
"I never said pilot." Sam shook his head with a knowing grin.
"No you did not," I said slowly, shaking my own head, impressed.
Steve then shook his head, too, only in a less positive way. "I can't ask you to do this, Sam. You got out for a good reason."
"Dude, Captain America needs my help. There's no better reason to get back in." He said fairly and I nodded.
I took the file from Steve and studied it. "Where can we get our hands on one of these?" I asked Sam. "I mean, I can make one, but it'll take a few days, tops."
"You don't need to," Sam replied. "The last one is at Fort Meade. Behind three guarded gates and a 12-inch steel wall."
Steve looked at Nat, who shrugged. "Is that all?" I grinned.
"Shouldn't be a problem." Steve said, dropping the file labeled EXO-7 FALCON on the table.
~
I sat next to Sam on the bench, watching the Senator and Sitwell talk. Sam and I had decided to dress inconspicuously. Which for us, meant matching leather jackets and sunglasses. "I can't believe you stole my aesthetic," I huffed at him and he rolled his eyes. "So, you ready to make the call?" I asked out of the corner of my mouth as I took a drink from my coffee cup.
"You bet your sweet ass I am." He grinned in response then called Sitwell as the Senator walked away. From across the street, we saw Sitwell call away his men, thinking he had a call from Pierce.
"Yes, sir?" Sitwell answered.
"Agent Sitwell," Sam greeted next to me. "How was lunch? I hear the crab cakes here are delicious."
"Who is this?" Sitwell demanded, instantly agitated.
"The good looking guy in the sunglasses sat next to the good looking girl in the sunglasses, your ten o'clock." Sam replied. Sitwell looked the opposite way. "Your other ten o'clock." Sitwell's gaze eventually fell upon us. "There you go." Steve and I raised a drink to him.
"What do you want?"
"You're gonna go around the corner to your right. There's a grey car two spaces down. You, I, and this pretty lady are gonna take a ride," he said firmly. I'd never found him so threatening before.
"And why would I do that?" Sitwell asked.
"Because that tie looks really expensive, and I'd hate to met it up." he said as Sitwell glanced down to see the red dot hovering over his chest.
~
Steve kicked him out of the door and on to the rooftop. Nat, Steve and I didn't blink as Sitwell stumbled. "Tell me about Zola's algorithm." Steve demanded.
Sitwell picked up his glasses, walking quickly backwards as the three of us charged forward. "Never heard of it."
"Bullshit," I dismissed him. "What were you doing on the Lemurian Star?"
"I was throwing up. I get seasick." Sitwell hit the ledge of the rooftop and began to fall back to Steve grabbed him roughly, pulling him up off his toe so he was Steve's height.
Sitwell began to smirk. "Is this little display meant to insinuate that you're gonna throw me off the roof?" he asked cockily. "Because it's really not your style, Rogers."
"You're right." Steve said, letting him go until he was resting on the ledge. He brushed down the sleeves of Sitwell's jacket. "It's not."
"It's hers." I nodded my head towards Nat. Steve and I stepped back, just in time for Nat to kick him off the ledge. He screamed.
"Oh, wait, what about that girl from accounting?" Nat began to talk about setting Steve up again, doing it to now annoy me. "Laura...? Lisa?"
"Lillian." Steve finished. "Lip piercing right?"
"Yeah, she's cute."
"Yeah..." Steve trailed off then glanced at me. I looked uninterested quickly. "I'm not ready for that."
Sitwell's screams grew louder again as Sam flew up in his Falcon suit, Sitwell dangling from his hand. He dropped Sitwell then landed a couple feet away, his mechanical wings folding in as he turned. We marched back towards Sitwell but he thrust a hand out before we could touch him. "Zola's algorithm is a program. For choosing insight's targets."
"What targets?" Steve questioned.
"You! A TV anchor in Cairo, the Under Secretary of Defence, a high school valedictorian in Iowa City, Bruce Banner, Stephen Strange, anyone who's a threat to HYDRA." Sitwell reeled off the names. "Now, or in the future."
"The future?" Steve frowned.
"How could it know?" I asked bluntly.
Sitwell began to laugh and I clenched my fist. "How could it not?" he leered at me. I made to move forward but both Nat and Steve grabbed my arms and held me. Sitwell began to stand. "The twenty-first century is a digital book. Zola taught HYDRA how to read it. Your bank records, medical histories, voting patterns, emails, phone calls, your damn SAT scores! Zola's algorithm evaluates people's past to predict their future."
"And what then?" Steve dared to ask.
Sitwell then looked down. "Oh my god. Pierce is gonna kill me."
Steve stepped closer. "What then?" he repeated. Sam gripped his jacket from behind to stop him moving.
"Then the Insight helicarries scratch people off the list," he said finally. "A few million at a time."