Echo

Chapter 16

Steve's POV the next morning

He and Quinn were silent on the plane ride home. There was so much to say about what happened between them last night, but neither is willing to be the first to break. Since Quinn had practically run from him after they slept together things had become tense. Steve knew she had wanted him. She never told him to stop, in fact she told him several times not to stop. So why had she run? Shaking his head he looks out the plane's small window frustrated that he was right back where he started when they were last on this plane. Only now he knew what she felt like, how she sounded as she came apart for him which made it worse than the last time.

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Yesterday afternoon

If Steve didn't know before that something had flipped between her and him, Quinn coming out of the bedroom fully dressed in normal clothes instead of one of the skimpy outfits she'd been wearing all week definitely told him. Needing to focus on the mission that was gonna take place in a couple of hours, Steve let Quinn take the lead of ignoring what just happened between them. FRIDAY had gotten them up to speed on who had popped up on the facial recognition software. There were five buyers, none had ties to Hydra, but they were the who's who of underworld scumbags.

Quinn had said that she had come up with a plan while she showered and got dressed. "I want to replace the wait staff with members of the STRIKE team. I think if we can situate them around the room we can capture all of them at once. Tony and Fury agree, what do you think?"

He was surprised she had talked to them before saying anything to him. Not knowing really what to say he agreed with her. "Yeah, if you guys think it'll work. You're lead on this mission. What will we be doing?" Quinn sat down in the chair next to the couch instead of next to him, sending a clear message that whatever this had been was now over between them. It gutted him, but if she wasn't ready then he'd give her the space she needed.

Roughly clearing her throat she nods glad that he was on the same page as her. "We'll be next door combing through his room for the item. Once we have it we give the team the signal to go after the buyers. We'll extract Blake when his team is trying to hustle their way out letting them think they're in the clear. We use the crowd and the arrests as cover to stay in the background. In the morning us and the item will be on the plane home. No need to raise suspicions or blow our cover just in case anyone else is watching." Steve nods once and they get to work on what they need to do, planning out every last detail and relay it to the team.

The plan went pretty flawlessly Steve couldn't say he was surprised after seeing Quinn in action all week. She let everyone around her think she was a useless trophy wife, using it to her advantage to get information and scope out Blake's security team's routine without arousing suspicion. They had gotten into Blake's room and after a quick search they found what they were looking for. They'd been a little surprised to not find the actual item, more like the location of several high target items that he'd planned to have more auctions for down the road.

What was it that Blake was selling?
A giant cash of tesseract and other classified SHIELD weapons. If any of the men here tonight got their hands on it the death toll of innocent lives would be untold. Making a clean sweep of the room to get back their cameras Steve and Quinn took the laptop and anything else they could find back to their room and secured it before heading down to check on Blake.

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For Steve this mission was an absolute success. They got the bad guys and the weapons with no loss of life or serious injuries. His opinion on Quinn had completely changed in a work capacity. He knew now what Bucky and everyone else saw in her. Not that he didn't think she wasn't worth being on the team before, but he saw what had made Tony want to recruit her so badly. Personally though, he was a hundred percent conflicted. For a short time he had everything he had wanted with her except for telling her what he really felt for her.