Sweet Digs
The next morning found Steve sparring with Bucky in one of the many fencing halls in the palace while Sam looked on. He let his frustration pour into every swing of the sword, every thrust and parry. Despite heavy interrogation, the AIM agent hadn’t been able to give them any information on his Agent. Steve didn’t even bother to pretend he wasn’t possessive or protective over his Agent anymore. Six months of receiving ‘gifts’ from them had made the stranger his. His to worry about, his to find, his to protect (he didn’t care what Natasha said about his use of possessive pronouns). And he would find them; he was determined.
Though his frustration made his blows fierce, it also shot his concentration, and before he knew it, Sam was calling ‘point’ as a stunned Steve Rogers stood with Bucky’s sword point against his chest. He pulled his fencing mask off with a frown and Bucky followed.
“Stevie, you alright?” Bucky asked with a raised brow, “You seem…intense.”
“You mean more than usual?” Sam shot off from his spot by the wall, pulling his own fencing gloves on to prepare for his round with Bucky. They had the standing tradition that the winner fought the one who’d had to sit out.
Bucky laughed and Steve gave Sam an unimpressed look before huffing out a breath and moving to lean against the wall as Sam and Bucky set up to spar. He clicked his teeth in irritation and shook his head.
“It’s just—how? How does this person keep slipping away like this? Everyone we interrogate has the same story! Agent swoops in, takes them out, questions them, and then they wake up on the palace steps or in a cell. And another thing! Why does Agent never take these people to the local authorities? They always end up at the palace. What are they playing at? And how come the perpetrators never remember the sound of Agent’s voice or what they looked like? Height, body type, gender, not even ethnicity?”
“Well, at least you know what Agent is questioning them about,” Bucky says with a smirk. He pulls his mask over his head and gets in position.
Even though the AIM agent didn’t know anything about Steve’s vigilante, he did remember what the interrogation was about. Apparently, Agent was following a lead on some Ten Rings’ Bandits that were getting hard to track down. He’d given Steve the same answer he’d given Agent; that the bandits were supposedly operating out of the forest on the Hydra border. That information didn’t make sense to Steve because all his informants had told him the same thing—Ten Rings usually operated in the Iron Kingdom, rarely in the Wolf Kingdom. Not even at the border with Hydra. He supposes it was possible but the probability was low. Very low.
Which is why he’d dispatched Natasha to investigate as discreetly as possible.
Steve watched Sam and Bucky spar as his frustration simmered under the surface, thoughts of Agent distracting him from actually paying attention. He wondered if Natasha had found anything, having been sent out last night. She did have a lot of border to cover, though, and for his part, Steve was unsure whether or not Agent had even acted on the information they’d received. After all, there’d been no bodies at his front door yet.
“Steve, you’re supposed to be calling this,” Sam reminds him and Steve’s head snaps up with a sheepish expression. Sam has his blade pointed at Bucky’s chest and they’ve both got their masks off, breathing heavy from the exertion.
“Um, point?” He says, rubbing the back of his neck and Sam shakes his head.
“I’m not counting it because it wasn’t witnessed,” Bucky complains, crossing his arms and turning his chin up childishly.
“What? I just said point!”
“But did you see it happen, Stevie?”
Steve blushed in an obvious answer.
“C’mon, man! You’re messing up my game,” Sam adds in mock outrage, earning a laugh from Bucky and a small smile from Steve. Steve’s about to reply when the door to the fencing hall bursts open to reveal Natasha looking urgently around the room at them. All three men stand at attention, eyes trained on Natasha and fencing forgotten. They wait silently for her to speak.
“There’s been a development.”
“You want to do what now?!”
Peggy sighs at Darcy’s outburst, leaning back in one of their two chairs in their kitchen/living room. Angie occupied the other as Darcy paced in front of them. The small cottage on the outskirts of the main city of Brook was old and held together by sheer force of will but it was home.
Peggy had bought the small, two-bedroom cottage when she’d come of age. Having lived all her life in an orphanage, sharing space with strangers, she was glad to have someplace to finally call her own. Well, hers and Darcy’s. The two lived off what they could sell from their garden (upkeep courtesy of Darcy’s magic) and what was left of Peggy’s soldier’s pension. All together it wasn’t much but it was enough for them.
“I want to sneak into the palace with Angie and confront the King in his chambers.”
Darcy stared at her in disbelief before bursting out laughing.
“Let me give you three reasons that’s not going to happen, even with my magic.” Darcy sneers and starts ticking off points on her fingers, “The Falcon, The Black Widow, and The fucking Winter Soldier! Do you know how protective they are of their king? They probably sleep in the room with him! There’s no way you’re going to be able to sneak in there, wake the king up, and explain the situation without dying first!”
“Then what do you suggest I do, Darcy? Write him a damn letter?” Peggy yells back, leaping to her feet in frustration. Everything she’s suggested, Darcy has shot down.
“Could you lure him out of the palace,” Angie suggests, trying to be a voice of calm for them both. Darcy shakes her head at that too.
“Even if we could, he’ll undoubtedly bring along the Black Widow—since she is his personal guard. Hell, the Soldier will probably follow too. He’s been known to leave his company to Sam in order to provide Lady Natasha with back-up.”
Peggy growled in frustration. There really was no way to do this was there?
“Look, I’m going to go into to town. See if the word has got out about last night yet and how people are taking it—the King in particular,” Darcy sighs, moving to the door and taking her enchanted cloak down from a peg next to it. She opens the door and looks back at the two women with a tired smile, “Don’t do anything stupid until I get back, okay?”
“How could we? You’re taking all the stupid with you,” Peggy smirks and Darcy laughs before heading off, closing the door firmly behind her. Now it’s Peggy’s turn to sigh. She collapses back into the chair and rests her head in her hands, elbows propped up on her knees.
“So,” Angie says from the chair beside her, drawing out the syllable. Before Peggy can answer that, Angie’s stomach rumbles so loud she’s sure Darcy could hear it from the road outside.
“I take it you’re hungry again,” Peggy laughs and stands to move towards the pantry and small stove in the ‘kitchen’ half of the room.
If there was one thing they’d learned about Angie, it was that she like food. A lot. And she was hungry often despite breakfast having been only an hour and a half ago. Peggy thinks it’s probably because she’s gotten so little food lately.
At the reminder of what those soldiers had done, Peggy frowns, troubled and standing dazed in the middle of the kitchen until Angie’s gentle touch on her hand makes her jump.
“Hey,” she says gently, “why don’t you go for a walk; take some time to think, hm? I can make my own snack.”
Peggy would very much like to go for a walk but she hesitates, unsure about leaving Angie alone despite her trust in the girl. Angie must see the hesitation in her face because she reassures her.
“Don’t worry. I won’t be leaving any time soon, I don’t think,” she tells Peggy with a grin.
Peggy grins back and leaves Angie to it, wandering off into the woods with no real direction in mind.