Unexpected

Goodbye, Hello, Goodbye

"So when were you going to tell me about your super-secret mission?" I asked collapsing onto Steve's sofa.

"Straight to the point then, huh?" Steve chuckled taking a seat as well. His expression was sheepish.

"I'm too tired to beat around the bush." I responded, "I've gotten too much bad news today."

"You're talking about Mistopolous right?"

I nodded, "Amongst other things. How do you know about him?"

"That's kind of what this mission's about. We lost track of the shipments in Egypt and we're going to have to do a lot of work to find those weapons again, but we've got a lead on another of the shipments. We tracked the shipment that headed to Kansas, found it, and inserted agents into the mix. Fury decided not to pull the weapons out straight away; instead we're going to follow them to the buyer. Hopefully we can track them down and take them out as well as getting the weapons back." Steve seemed a bit uncomfortable talking about such a confidential mission, but since he trusted me as much as I trusted him, he continued, "I'm going with the strike force to do just that. The alien weapons are on their way now to Mexico and we'll attack at the drop off location."

That sounded like a pretty dangerous plan. "When will you be heading out?" I asked finally after processing this information.

Steve lowered his eyes, a look of shame on his face, "Tonight."

I bolted up from my slouched position, "Tonight?" I could feel anger sparking through my veins. "You're leaving tonight on this dangerous sting operation and you didn't even bother to tell me 'til now?" I was incensed, but I tried to lower my voice again, it had gotten kind of shrill, "Oh, but that's right, you didn't even tell me, Agent Rumlow did!"

Why was I so mad? Maybe because over the last month or so, Steve and I had grown close, so close that I considered him to be my best friend here in my new life in D.C. Why would he keep this big mission secret from me?

Rogers looked thoroughly ashamed under my reprimand, but he wasn't one to let something like my little outburst go without an explanation, "I only learned about it today, Penny. I got called to Fury's office this morning and was debriefed. This whole operation is pretty last minute and I was going to tell you at lunch but Rumlow beat me to it."

I sighed, letting my frustration drain out of me, "Fine." I couldn't stay mad at the man, especially when he had a good explanation, "How long will you be gone?"

"Not too long probably, maybe a week?"

Not too long he says. A week on a dangerous mission with so many unknowns is a long time! I gave him a weak smile, "I guess we'll have to push back the Sixties until you get back then, huh?"

Steve returned my smile, though it had a hint of sadness in it, "Yeah, I suppose so."

"We'll try Ricki's Pizza Place." I put some chipperness into my voice. Now that I was no longer angry at Rogers, I tried to lighten the mood. I didn't want to part on angry terms.

"Yeah," Steve picked up on my change, "And someone told me that I needed to try frozen yogurt, we could track down a good place for it."

"Now you're speaking my language." I laughed.

I ended up doing dinner at Steve's house, determined that he should get a good home-cooked meal before heading off into the unknown dangers his mission had in store. Being a bachelor, Steve's pantry and fridge was a strange mixture of discombobulated foodstuffs that simply didn't go together, so I traveled back to my apartment to grab some things of my own and the pair of us threw together pork chops, cheesy bacon potatoes, and asparagus. As we ate, we had a good laugh as I helped him discover apps like Snapchat and Trivia Crack. Steve was still getting used to texting, so the concept of Snapchat made him shake his head in confused amusement. "Why not just make a call?" he'd ask and really, I didn't have much of an answer for him.