"OK, I'm going in," I said, my hand poised on the door handle. We were in a building that looked completely deserted, but if they were hiding what we thought, then they were bound to have hidden security measures.
"Chances are, this is another dead end," Katherine the Super Soldier, and eternal pessimist, said.
Wanda glared at her. "Don't do that. We're allowed to have hope, everything doesn't have to end badly."
"It always ends badly," Katherine argued. "We've been looking for this guy for a year and a half-"
"Tell me something I don't know," Jessica Jones, the newest member of the team, interrupted dryly. Unlike Katherine, Jess wasn't present on all of our missions, and she hated the idea of being part of our team. But for the big missions, like finding Captain America, she made an exception.
"Rogue," Stark prompted me, nodding towards the door. The calm tone of his voice instantly decreased my heart rate. After all, we'd broken into buildings a thousand times more secure for a lot less.
"Alarm system?" I thought aloud.
"None that I could see," Sam (Falcon) answered immediately. He'd done a quick survey of the building earlier in the day, making sure that we knew exactly what we were getting ourselves into.
I nodded to myself, opening the door before I could change my mind.
It wasn't the first time we'd gone looking for Steve. Actually, we'd spent over a year doing nothing but look for him – it was our biggest mission. And Katherine was right, usually they were dead ends; wasted opportunities that could have been spent doing something more productive. But this time... something felt different.
The room was shrouded in complete darkness, and it took a while before I could see anything at all. Eventually I was able to make out that the room we were standing in was completely empty – hardly what you'd expect from a creepy underground password-protected chamber.
"I'm trying really hard not to say 'I told you so' right now," Katherine said. Her eyes had already adjusted to the darkness.
I shook my head, dismissing her. "They kept this place off the radar so well that it took us a year and a half to find it," I reminded her. "They're hiding something."
Jessica walked into the middle of the room. "'Something' is a pretty ambiguous way of saying 'Captain America'."
Wanda shrugged. "We don't know that he's here. But if he is, then we need to find him and get him out of here before it's too late."
"If he's here, then he's been here for a long time... I'd say 'too late' has already left the building," Sam said.
A feeling of guilt crawled up my spine, and I shivered. If I hadn't pissed off Kilgrave... if I'd never asked Jessica to help find my mother, none of this would have happened. Steve would still be here. Nat, a best friend so close we were sisters, would still be here.
"Well, better late than never," Stark said, using his Stark Tech glasses to scan the room. "Why does it feel like we're about to make a huge mistake?" he asked under his breath, only to me.
We made eye contact.
"Because we're trying to wake the dead," I told him, a slight smile on my face at the prospect. After everything we'd gone through, and the people we'd lost, it took a long time to stop feeling like something was missing. Our team was an organ wounded so deeply it stopped us from having a beating heart.
But if there was a chance that we could repair the organ, we'd do whatever it took. And the first part of that was finding Steve Rogers.
When he died, we thought he was gone for good. But after discovering that his body had been taken, we hoped that someone had found a way to bring the leader of our team back to the land of the living.
"I found something," Stark said suddenly, taking tentative steps forward. We all followed, crowding around him, as he walked towards a wall marked with the number '3' and lay his hand gently upon it, pushing lightly. At his light touch, the door seemed to collapse in on itself, opening up to reveal the inside of a storage locker, with a man lying on a metal table, unconscious, in the far corner.
"Oh my God," Wanda breathed.
Katherine's mouth dropped open. "It's him, right?" she asked urgently, not able to take her eyes off the figure. "It has to be him."
Sam walked ahead of us, confirming what I could already see. "It's him."
I ran forward before I could stop myself, looking into the face of one of my best friends. Looking at him, completely uninjured, felt like I'd stepped into a magical DeLorean and erased the last 18 months of our lives.
I was so captivated by him that I didn't notice Stark standing beside me until I felt his hand graze mine.
"It's him alright," he confirmed, looking at me. "Wake him up."
I took a shaky breath, my hand hovering over his chest. This didn't feel real. Our mistakes were permanent, we weren't supposed to get do-overs.
"Before we die of old age?" Jessica pushed.
I concentrated my electricity into my hand and placed it on Steve's chest, sending a current through him that caused his eyes to open almost instantly.
We all stood still, holding our breaths collectively, waiting to see if the man in front of us was the superhero we'd been waiting for.
He looked at all of us in turn, with an expression that I couldn't place.
"Steve?" I broke the silence, my voice barely a whisper. He concentrated on me for a moment, before taking a step towards me. I stiffened, standing my ground, knowing my team had my back if I needed them.
"Rogue?"
A sigh of relief escaped my lips as the color flooded back into his face and he gave me a look of familiarity. Suddenly, he looked like Captain America again.
"It's really you," he continued breathlessly, looking around. "All of you."
I nodded my confirmation. "And it's you. You're... back."
He looked around, confused. "Where have I been?"
I smiled, pulling him into a hug that he gratefully reciprocated. "It's a long story."
Suddenly, the room began to glow a bloody shade of red, and a shrill alarm pierced our eardrums.
"We should get out of here," Sam warned, giving his formerly dead best friend a friendly clap on the back.
"Good idea," Jessica nodded, turning to leave. We all followed her lead apart from Wanda, who saw something that made her stop in her tracks. When I turned back, she was looking at a faded marking on the wall.
"What is it?" I asked, knowing that we were probably moments away from being caught.
"I remember this," she said softly, touching it. "This logo..."
I raised an eyebrow and walked towards it, moving her hand out of the way so that I could get a better look. After a few seconds, I could make out an eagle, a flag, some stars, and some letters that I didn't understand.
'S re a y f ta e'.
"Guys, we need to go!" Katherine urged.
"Wanda, it's gibberish," I told her slowly. "If we don't get out of here..."
I trailed off when I realized that she wasn't listening to me. Her face was screwed up in concentration, staring at the marking. Then she gasped and grabbed my arm.
"Eagles," she said quickly. "When I was growing up in Sokovia, eagles always made me think of America because they were on everything... including the government seals. You know, the CIA, the president..."
She trailed off, and I looked at the symbol again, trying to see it the way she did.
"So you're saying... you think this place is owned by the government?"
She looked from the symbol to me, her eyes wide. "Who else would have a vested interest in the survival of the world's first superhero?" she whispered.
I glanced at the gibberish letters again, and suddenly, something clicked.
"Shit," I said under my breath, taking her hand tightly and pulling her out of the locker as fast as I could.
"What's the problem?" Stark asked, catching the looks on both of our faces.
I sighed. "It doesn't matter what we do. The people who own this building will know that it was us... and we're all gonna end up in the Raft."
Jessica frowned. "What the hell are you talking about?"
I took a breath. "That storage locker... and probably the whole building, are owned by the Secretary of State." This meant nothing to Jessica or Katherine, but Wanda, Stark, Sam and Steve remembered what happened the first time we had to deal with the government, and they knew that I was right. Once Secretary Ross discovered Steve's disappearance, he'd know that no one else would have done it.
"So what do we do?" Sam asked.
"I'll go back in," Steve volunteered immediately. "If I'm still there, then they can't do anything to the rest of you."
"That's not an option," Stark said, drawing our attention to him. It was easy to tell that he still felt guilty for everything that had happened since he and Steve had last spoken. Or, to be precise, when they'd almost fought to the death. "I'll stay."
"Tony..." I said worriedly.
"It makes sense," he cut me off. "I'm the one they trust. I'll take the credit for breaking Rogers out of here, they'll let me go like they always do, and that'll be it."
I shook my head defiantly.
"Rogue, this is the only way that you guys will be safe," he told me gently.
"There's no way those government officials are just gonna believe that you did this of your own accord." I frowned. It would be naïve to assume that the government didn't know about Stark and Steve's last disagreement. "The first person that they'll look for is me, and once they find me, they'll find all of us... unless I stay too."
"What?!" Wanda asked, giving the hand that held hers a little shake.
I nodded. "They know how close I was to Steve, they'll know I'm still grieving Nat... that I'm the only one of us insane enough to break into a government facility, and they'll know that Stark wouldn't let me do it alone."
I let go of Wanda's hand and pushed her towards the door before any of them had time to protest.
"This is it, guys... from here we go our separate ways," I ordered. "Don't see each other, don't communicate, don't give them any reason to find you... and don't come back to New York."
Reluctantly, one by one, they turned towards the door. Wanda hugged me tightly, before leaving and using her powers to shut the door behind her.
"Think they're gonna kill me this time?" I asked, trying to keep my voice light even though I was freaking out inside.
"I won't let them touch you," Stark promised sincerely. "But I should probably kill you myself. Rogue, why the hell did you volunteer for this?"
I shrugged. "Because of everything I just said. And because... I couldn't let you stay here alone. I owe you that much."
He frowned. "None of this is your fault."
"All of this is my fault," I rebutted, looking around for a distraction. "Where the hell are they? You'd think they'd want to catch us in the act or something."
"Hey," Stark stopped me, taking my hand in his. "This isn't your fault, okay?"
Before I could respond, the room went completely dark and the alarm stopped, disorientating us in its unnerving silence.
Then a harsh light lit the room and we were surrounded. At the front of the group stood the Secretary of State – Thaddeus Ross.
"Well, well, well," he said, glaring at our entwined hands. Then he looked at me. "I found you."
****************************************
First chapter is finally up! Let me know what you think of it!
Please vote and comment if you liked it!