It's a promise

Chapter 4

Rylee's POV

I just woke up after a few hours of sleep and I still felt tired. The painkillers totally knocked me out but with a few broken ribs and shot wounds in my shoulder, my hip and my arm I would love to eat them like M&M's. It hurt more since I got transferred from the hospital in Moscow to D.C. because the flight was very bumpy. I spent thirteen days there after the operation that saved my life. Walker didn't hit any vital organs but I lost a lot of blood and also one of the broken ribs did some damage inside. I was happy to be back home even if this was just a hospital room. But at least it was in the right country and the right city.

Suddenly the door crashed open and I flinched before I recognized Nat who stormed into my room like a hurricane. I knew she would want to hug me but with all the bandages she stopped in next to my bed. I looked much better today than two weeks ago. At least the bruises in my face were nearly healed and the most stitches were removed. Nevertheless I still looked like I just came back from the dead.

'Nat? What are you doing here? I thought only family members were allowed to visit me.' I realized Steve also walked into the room and my heart started to beat a little bit faster. At least there was no heart monitor anymore where they could track my heartbeat. That would have been embarrassing. Then I realized that I was still looking like shit. Messy and greasy hair, because I wasn't allowed to shower with all the stitched wounds, pale skin, dark bags under my eyes, fading bruises and the hospital gown wasn't doing me any favor. Steve just looked handsome as ever and I asked myself if he ever did not look good.

'Rhodey called us and when anybody asks we are your siblings' I definitely saw Nat as an older sister but I definitely saw Steve not as a brother. 'What happened?'

Steve was standing at the foot end of my bed while Nat took a chair to sit next to me. I couldn't tell them much about the mission because they were not part of the FBI or the mission. With Walker on the run it was still an ongoing mission and so I wasn't allowed to talk about it. I just told them that we had a traitor and that a not-so-blipped-FBI agent shot me. I didn't care that even that was too much. If anybody would come for me because of that I would blame it on the painkillers.

'I fucked up' I was embarrassed that the biggest mission in my career was such a disaster and I didn't even tell them any important details.

'You didn't' I looked at Steve and for a moment I got lost in his blue eyes. 'I believe you did everything you could. How could you have known about the traitor or that FBI agent?'

'Steve is right. It was maybe messy but you are still alive and you stopped the weapon dealers' That was kinda true. I read some of the reports and my team managed to get the upper hand at the end. We had the weapons and the dealers but Walker was still on the run and I expected to see him again. I also talked to my supervisor McIntosh who was still in Russia and he said that without my observing they wouldn't have gotten so far. He would comeback in the next few days and wanted to talk to me again. I still felt like I made too many mistakes and that I should have known about the rat in our team.

'Stop it' Nat interrupted my thoughts. 'If the FBI wouldn't think you would be capable of such a mission, they would never have sent you. And there were always things you couldn't plan. None of you knew about the traitor. Stop blaming yourself'

I knew she was right but I was self-conscious about this whole thing and I was an overthinker. I was just an agent for over two years and I didn't have the experience like others. There were always these big What If's in my head.

'Okay. That's enough overthinking, Ryles. I just have a question. You got shot three times. Didn't you wear a vest?'

I smiled because of the nickname but then I stopped, thinking more about the moment when the bullets hit me.