Steve gripped the wheel a little harder than necessary. Not hard enough to break, but hard enough for the metal within to faintly groan in protest. He loosened his grip a little and scratched his now full beard.
Last time he'd seen her, Natasha suggested he grow out his hair, and grow a beard so he wouldn't be so recognisable. She had a point, and he'd followed her suggestion, but it still felt strange and so not him. He'd never grown out a beard before. Or worn his hair this long before.
Nobody told him that there were so many downfalls of having a beard. Like food or sauce, constantly getting stuck in it and you don't know about it for a while cause your team finds it too funny to just let you walk around like that. Or constantly getting randomly checked at security checkpoints because he was a big guy with a beard. Or what about little Italian girls telling you that you look just like their grandfather. And then you meet the man, and you don't know what's scarier: The fact that he looks like you or that he's actually a grandfather.
He ran his hands through his dirty, blonde hair. He really needed a shower. He'd been driving for a couple days. He'd gotten as much information as he could gather up and after combining it with what he already knew, he figured Natasha must have been captured by the Red Room.
He knew that it was highly possible that if the Red Room had Nat, they might have already killed her. They weren't going to be interested in a ransom or a trade. They'd either take their revenge by torturing her and killing her, or they'd torture her by trying to get her to go back. But he knew. He didn't know how he knew, but he knew. She was still alive.
With the information he'd gathered, combined with what he'd learned from Nat about the Red Room, he figured the best place to look for her was in Kiev, Ukraine. The Red Room had an old base their, a lot of contacts, allies, and old KGB agents with aliases still in use.
He rolled his shoulders and set his jaw as he pressed the gas down and the car speeded up. She was still alive. And he was going to get his wife back.
_______________________________________
2 days later
Natasha was in her cell, wearing a long t-shirt and a pair of comfortable leggings they had supplied her with. She was wrapped in her heavy blankets, sitting on her bed, actually enjoying the first book of an American series called Divergent, translated in Russian.
Don't get her wrong, though. She hated this place, and she had a plan to get out. Well, half a plan...Quarter of a plan? Whatever, she was working on it. She was going to get out of this prison. But first, she'd been planning and hating all day, and now she was going to rest her swollen ankles, and hope Tris doesn't flinch when that knife gets thrown at her.
She'd just gotten to the part whereFour was aiming to to throw the knife at Tris when she jerked out of her trance by a muffled scream outside the steel door, and something that sounded like a couple bodies hitting the floor before the door started to creak and groan at the hinges and lock. She had to duck as the bolts from the hinges suddenly started to fly everywhere, making pinging sounds. But the door didn't fall down. No. Two hands appeared and started to turn the door. Steve's face appeared as he maneuvered the giant door into the room and set it down gently against the wall.
She smiled at him. "Only you," She said, "Would take the time to put the giant prison door off to the side."
He turned to her, but his eyebrows were knitted and he took in his breaths like the relief of seeing her ok was physically paining him. He wasted a moment running his eyes over her before he ran towards her, wrapping his arms around her shoulders and burying his face in her hair.
"How'd you find me?"
"Someone from Wakanda was visiting that small village in Niger the same time they got you. It eventually got to T'Challa and he called me. Took some time but we eventually found some likely places and this one was first on the list."
He pulled away to admire her face, his fingertips brushing against her cheekbones, before pulling her into a demanding kiss. Desperate, demanding, but gentle, and loving. Natasha didn't want to pull away, but eventually she needed to breathe.
"Did they hurt you?"
She shook her head as his eyes searched her for injuries. "Steve."
He cut her off, kissing her again.
"We have to go," he said pulling away. "I've already wasted too much time."
"Steve, wait. Please. I have to tell you something." He met her eyes, his brown furrowed in concern. She took a deep breath. "I'm pregnant."
Time seemed to freeze. Steve seemed to freeze. It took a moment for his eyes to even start blinking again.
His next sentence kind of surprised her. "I don't understand. What does that mean?" He mumbled softly.
Her eyes widened and her eyebrow arched. "Did they not teach you that in the forties?" She asked in a mixture of sarcasm and genuine concern.
That seemed to snap him back a little. "No. No, not that. I mean... We haven't seen each other in like five months."
She moved the blankets off of her so he could see her swollen belly. "Well I guess we only have four months to go."
She watched as the shock faded away, replaced by sheer elation, and then morphed into absolute horror as he realized why she'd been framed, chased, and captured. They were after the baby.
His head snapped to the entrance, where the two guards still lay unconscious. She could hear the faint sounds of an alarm and ruckus. She knew he could hear 5 times better than her and probably knew exactly where the alarm was located, and how far away the incoming guards were.
"We gotta go. Now." He pulled her into his arms and bolted out of the cell, carrying her as if her weight was barely noticeable. Natasha vaguely saw familiar hallways and doors as they moved, but Steve was running fast enough for it all to be blurry. Then he suddenly stopped and gently but hurriedly put her down on her own two feet.
"We're going to have to fight our way out of this one. I'm going to clear a path, and your going to get out of here." She opened her mouth to protest but he cut her off.
"Right, Left, Right, Right. Remember that. You'll come to a door, I already broke the lock and the two guards should be unconscious still. If they aren't just take them out. Don't stop running."
"Steve."
He pulled out a black flip phone and put it in her hand. "When you get to the forest, hit redial. I'll meet you there, if you don't see me in ten minutes after you make the phone call, keep going. I parked the car on the other side of the woods, northwest. Sam and Wanda are in Alytus, Lithuania, at your safe house."
"I'm not leaving you."
He met her eyes, blue crashing against green, before he leaned down and pressed his lips against hers. Her fist automatically reached for his shirt, keeping her from losing her balance as her head spun.
"I'm going to go first. Wait for my signal. Right, Left, Right, Right. "
And then he was gone. She pressed herself against the wall, listening to Steve run straight through a couple walls before the gunfire and screaming started. With her own serum providing her better than average hearing, she could hear the sounds of bones crunching and shattering. She could imagine all Steve's favorite fighting manuevers, ones she'd memorized and learned to anticipate in their years of "friendly" sparring.
"Nat! Go!" That sounded like a signal to her. She ran around the corner and through the two Steve shaped holes in the wall. The hallway she came into was littered with bodies. Unconscious or dead, she didn't know. Maybe a couple were dead. Most of them probably just had really bad concussions.
She saw another group of heavily armed guards running towards her. She braced herself, waiting for the perfect moment, then she struck. Spinning, leaping, dancing, breaking bones, and crushing esophaguses. It was a little awkward, fighting for the first time with a belly full of baby in the way, but hell, she'd taken out thirty mercenaries in a fat suit. This was nothing.
She took out five goons when she suddenly felt the baby kick. It was powerful enough to throw her off balance just as one of the HYDRA guards grabbed her. She was trying to regain her balance when his head suddenly snapped back. He dropped like a dead fly and Steve's bearded face appeared behind him.
"Nat! Go! Right, Left..."
"Right, Right. Yeah I heard you the first time." She squeezed his bicep in thanks before running down the corridor, leaving him to handle the rest of the guards that seemed to keep on coming. She looked back for a second and saw him surrounded, punching and kicking in abandon, and suddenly she was back in New York, Clint begging her to go, as Alexei towered above him, roaring at her. She shook the haunting memory from her head and burst through the door and into the first sunlight she'd seen in 2 weeks. It took her a moment for her eyes to adjust. She saw the two guards still knocked out the dirt just as Steve had said. She got her bearings, and started running once again.
When she made it to the woods and got deep enough among the trees, she leaned against a trunk and caught her breath. She didn't remember running being that difficult. When she finally got her breathing's to level out a bit, and she wasn't gasping for air and coughing any more, she pulled out the small black flip phone Steve had given her. She opened it up and pressed redial before pressing the phone against her ear. She watched the forest around her with wary eyes as she listened to the phone ring.
It rang three times before whoever was on the other side answered.
"I said no promises."
That was a voice she knew very well but only confused her more. "Tony?!"
"Red?! Is that you? Where are you?"
"I'm not telling you that."
"Where's Cap?"
"He's inside a building fighting the Red Room and Hydra."
"What?! Romanoff, I need you to tell me where you are!" She didn't answer. "Look, I know you didn't mean to hurt Clint, or Fine."
"What are you talking about? Clint knocked Fine out after he put a gun to our heads and confessed he'd been HYDRA all along.
And now Clint's dead because I listened to him and made a run for it. I left him to that monster, Tony."
"No, listen to me. Clint's alive. He's in really bad shape and he might not make it, but for now, his heart's still beating. Now I need you to tell me where you are."
"Kie..." And that's when the missle struck.