Hello Captain (Steve Rogers)

Hurry up and wait

Location Classified
End of July, 2012
Steve's POV

This part of my job was always the most boring part, waiting for a spider to crawl out of its hole. I thought about Sarah while I waited, wondering what she was up to right now. I'd gotten a text from Nat saying that Sarah and Clint were heading to South America today to infiltrate a Ten Rings black market arms base there. I sighed mentally, knowing that meant I wouldn't get to see her for the rest of the week, even if we somehow managed to finish this mission ahead of schedule.

It'd been slow going, hunting down all these Hydra bases. They were scattered all over the world and it seemed like there were more popping up all the time. It was more than a little frustrating to me, knowing that when I'd went in the ice we'd just taken the last known Hydra base, only to wake up in this time to find it still operating - even more widespread than before.

My relief came by and took over my post, leaving me with a couple hours of downtime before my next watch. I walked over to the small clearing we were using as a camp and rolled myself in a blanket to get a little sleep while I could. Chances were nothing was going to happen yet today; someone would wake me if it did. I closed my eyes, willing myself to sleep.

I woke up to someone shaking me awake, telling me it was my watch again. It was the last hour before dawn and after getting a bite to eat, I walked over to take over for Jake.

"See anything interesting?"

"Nope, not a damn thing. It's making us all edgy, this waiting."

"I know, Jake. Go get some sleep while it's still dark. We might have to make the first move at this rate."

Jake clapped me on the shoulder as he passed, a token acknowledgment. I still didn't see any signs of movement, but we were going to have to slip our way in if nothing happened by dawn. It was too risky, staying in the open like we were right now. I was just glad that I hadn't been saddled with Rumlow on this assignment. If he made one more off color remark about Sarah, Maria or Natasha, I was going to kill him myself.

Instead, I'd been allowed to pick my own crew from the the Strike and Tactical teams currently at the Triskelion. I had worked with all of these guys before, so I knew who I wanted for this mission. Most of the men I picked were decent guys with excellent skills, most ex-Military of some kind.

Sarah had approved all of them after meeting them, so that made me feel better. She was a great judge of character and I knew by watching them interact with her and Nat if they were who I thought they were or not. None of them could beat her in hand to hand combat, and all of them had taken being beaten by a woman fairly well... other than most of them tried to ask her out - until they found out she was my girlfriend.

I signaled to the other guard that I was going to go scout ahead for a bit and he nodded, strolling between the two stations to cover both while I went to go check out the fortifications of the base we were supposed to be taking while it was still dark enough I wouldn't be seen.

This mission was a little harder because we needed to take the base without destroying it. Once we were in, we were supposed to do something with the computers. I didn't understand how it worked exactly, just that it would give us a way to remotely access Hydra's files. Sarah's hacker friend Skye had given me the piece just before I'd left the Triskelion.

A motion behind me had me turning and grabbing the unfamiliar figure, slamming the person to the ground, knocking the wind out of their lungs and pinning them down with my hand around their neck. I pulled off the person's hood to see that it was a woman that I knew well. I let go of her and she sat up, quietly getting her breath back.

"Agent May," I said quietly, "I could've seriously harmed you; you know better than to sneak up on me."

"Sorry Captain," she said, looking around. "I just got here and needed to talk to you alone."

"Not that I'm not always glad to see you, Agent May, but what're you doing here? I thought you were on standby for extraction?"

"We were," she explained with a slight grimace. "But there's been a slight complication. Do you trust your men, Captain?"

I looked at her evenly. "Yes, every man with me was handpicked and vetted by both Natasha and Sarah."

"Good," she said firmly. "They wouldn't have chosen anyone they didn't trust."

"No, they wouldn't," I agreed, my curiosity getting the best of me. "What's this all about, Agent May?"

The small Asian woman reached into her coat to pull out a tablet. She tapped at it a couple times and handed it to me to look at. I gestured for her to follow me and we headed back to camp, May staying by my side and talking quietly.

"Skye picked up some specific intel about this base and Director Fury sent me in to help you out."

I skimmed through the information quickly, realizing that this would change my objective radically. I raised my eyebrows at her; she knew I was capable of doing a lot on my own.

"Not like that, Rogers," she said with a slight curve of her lips that could almost be called a smile...almost. "While fighting with you can be quite entertaining, I'm only here as your tech expert. Romanoff's on a solo mission, Skye's not ready for this kind of field duty yet - and I needed to get off the bus for a while."

"That makes more sense. I have the piece Skye gave me, though."

"Get rid of it. Based off this information," she pointed at the tablet, "she now thinks it would have triggered a self destruct virus throughout the mainframe, making this place a waste of time."

"So they're either paranoid or this was a trap."

"My money's on trap. What was your plan, out of curiosity?"

"Basically, Fitzsimmons knockout gas in the ventilation system, roundup and contain until cleanup squad gets here, do Skye's errand."

"It was a good plan," May said, nodding decisively. "Their latest version of the gas would buy you at least an hour. What are you going to do now?"

I handed her back the tablet and she tucked it away. "Finish having a look around. You can come with if you like, Agent May. I wouldn't mind hearing your opinions on this place."

"I thought you'd never ask." May cracked her knuckles and followed me silently through the trees.