Echo

Chapter 4

Steve's POV

He wasn't amused at all by Tony or Quinn's antics this morning. Tricking him into working with her was going to be a disaster on several fronts. The first being that it was bad enough having to spend the next two weeks pretending to be in love with Natasha, something that had already felt awkward enough as she was like a sister to him. The second was he had no mental prep time to figure out how he was going to manage being around the woman who was like literal walking sex in a catsuit. Quinn is the kind of woman that has intimidated Steve his whole life. It didn't matter how much he had physically changed after the serum, mentally he was still that scrawny kid who had no clue how to talk to the opposite sex. He wasn't even going to mention the unrequited love he had for her. The third disaster which really should have been number one that he was so worried about was that she would play fast and loose like she usually does and the whole mission would go sideways.

After Quinn left the conference room Steve had tried to talk Tony out of sending her with him, but it was a no go. He firmly told him that having her unique ability to see the past and future would be crucial to being able to get a read on the seller. With her powers she just needed to be around the guy. Touch something he'd touched or listened in on his conversation and she'd see something that would hopefully give them a clue as to where he was hiding the item for sale and when the buy was going down. Not to mention if things did go sideways she could possibly see something in time to warn them so they could get away. Steve glanced down at her profile attached to the mission report that he knew by heart.

Avengers Personnel Report

Name: Harding, Quinn Little Bird
Code name: Echo
Hair: Black
Eyes: Green
Height: 5'8
Ethnicity: Native American, Caucasian
Status: Mutant

Abilities:
Seer; able to see into the past, partially the present and into the future. Able to gain others abilities through touch; the longer the contact the longer she is able to maintain whatever abilities the person has. Rapid healing.

Skills:
Mixed martial arts, advanced hand to hand combat, highly proficient with swords, knives and guns

Known associates outside the Avengers:
-Wade Wilson known as Deadpool
-Various X-men by way of Charles Xavier
-Blind Al
-Cable
-Jessica Jones
-Dare Devil (real name unknown)
-Frank Castle known as The Punisher

It went on to talk about her mercenary work and the types of missions she'd been on before she joined the Avengers and SHIELD in detail. Something that if were completely accurate then had he only read the file he'd be confident in her ability to pull this off, but having lived with the woman for two years he just.. couldn't. As much as her profile said that she was a good match for this mission it also listed every reason she'd be a bad match.

What it didn't list was that she's sarcastic, stubborn as a mule, has the mouth of a sailor and doesn't always play nice with others. Not to mention the ability to get under Steve's skin with just a flash of those green eyes and that damn smirk. That last one was purely on him though. Sighing quietly to himself he headed to the kitchen for something to drink and sat at the counter resting his chin in his fist. It hadn't always been like this between them.

When he'd first met her two years ago he had fallen in love with Quinn nearly from the moment he'd laid eyes on her. She was beautiful, but that wasn't what made him fall in love with her. The day they met she had made a beeline straight towards him, flung her arms around his neck, her fingers stroking the short hairs at the nape of his neck as if she had always done it. She had told him that the only reason she was joining the team, besides her friendship with Peter, was because of him. Steve Rogers. Not Captain America. Him.

She told them all that she'd had a vision the day before about Steve that she refused to tell him or anyone about. Quinn had explained that if she told him it might not happen and she very much wished for it to. It was because of that vision alone that she had packed up her entire life and came straight to the Compound after calling Peter to tell him she was taking Tony up on his offer to join the team. Once she was assured that they had room for her and the offer was still good she had been on her way and hadn't looked back.

Steve had never been very much of a ladies man making it so that he wasn't comfortable just casually asking her out. Plus she intimidated him like no other. Quinn Harding was gorgeous, outgoing and completely fearless in who she was and while that was perfectly wonderful; it made it so that whenever he was around her the ability to speak went totally out of the window. In the following months of her arrival Steve knew that what he was feeling for Quinn was more than he'd ever felt for Peggy or any other woman before. After very subtly asking advice from his friends on how he'd go about asking someone like her out he'd practiced over and over how he would ask.

Finally after six months of her living and working side by side with him he worked up the courage to just go for it. Steve had been nervous to say the least when he'd gone to her room unsure how she'd react to his asking her to dinner. He was hopeful that she'd be receptive since she seemed to really like him. It was kind of hard to tell because she was flirty with everyone, but that didn't deter him when the risk could be well worth the reward of her saying yes. Pacing outside her door he'd run his hands through his hair trying to make sure it wasn't a mess after his run and then dried his sweaty palms on his joggers before knocking. He winced a little when he knocked harder than he intended, but his nerves were getting to him. Shaking his head he pushed them down and smiled when he heard the doorknob turn. The absolute shocked expression that replaced that hopeful smile the moment Bucky opened her door dressed only in a towel and dripping wet from the shower had overwhelmed him into speechlessness.

His heart dropped to the floor when he had heard Quinn calling out to Bucky from the bathroom where the shower was still running. Indicating that his best friend had just exited it after sharing the space with her. "James, who is it?"

"It's Steve." He called back to her. "What's going on, pal?" Bucky asked expectantly. As if his being comfortably naked in Quinn's room was a normal occurrence as he glanced back toward the bathroom and then back to Steve waiting for his answer.

It wasn't his fault that he hadn't known how Steve felt about Quinn because he hadn't told his best friend. He'd been too afraid of being teased relentlessly like usual whenever he'd expressed an interest in someone if the others happened to overhear and as it was Buck had enough on his plate dealing with the aftermath of Hydra and trying to gain back his memories to worry about his romantic problems. Shaking himself back to the question he'd been asked, Steve played off his being there on wanting to see if Quinn wanted to train with him, but when Bucky had started to call back to her to ask Steve told him not to worry about it and quickly walked off. He had left definitely needing to hit something or someone now and since he couldn't take out how he was feeling on either of them he went to find a willing agent.

One night not long after that afternoon he, Bucky and Sam had been out at a bar grabbing some dinner when they'd seen Quinn out on a date. Thankfully Sam had pointed them out, saving Steve from having to do it. "Isn't that Quinn over there? Girl looks like she's gonna get lucky, especially wearing that dress!" They all checked her out and he had to admit that the skintight emerald satin dress had him glad he had been sitting down at the time.

Steve had worriedly glanced over at his best friend concerned about the scene he might cause, but Buck simply smiled as he wished her luck. Confused and completely bewildered by his laid back reaction Steve demanded to know what he was going to do about his girl stepping out on him. "Aren't you going to confront her? She's cheating on you?"

Confused, Sam sat there looking from one friend to the other clearly not knowing that Quinn and him had begun seeing each other. His questions only made Bucky laugh as he told them he knew all about her date. Steve had looked at him confused by what was happening because the Bucky he knew from back in the day wouldn't tolerate his girl getting too friendly with a strange guy let alone willingly sharing her with someone else. Buck explained that they were friends with benefits. Sam understood what this was as this was his generation's kind of thing, but Steve didn't get it. To him if you slept with someone, went on dates with someone you were dating, correct? Apparently not.