Chapter Text
PART I
His phone hasn’t even rung twice before he has it to his ear. The digital clock on his bedside table reads 01.52 but he’s been awake for hours, lying in the dark and listening to the rain lashing against his windows; trying and failing to dispel a vague feeling of unease through sheer force of will alone.
“Steve, you need to come to the Triskellion now.” No hello, or sorry to wake you. Natasha is almost always calm but he thinks he can hear an undercurrent of tension in her words.
He’s out of bed before she has even finished. “What’s happened?”
In the brief pause he can hear frantic activity in the room she’s in. “Rumlow’s escaped,” she says finally and then the line goes dead leaving Steve standing in the dark, his fists clenching at his thighs and his pulse roaring in his ears.
Later, Steve will think back to this call again and again and again. He’ll remember how he lay in bed, listening to the sounds of the storm outside and he’ll think that Natasha had been wrong all along. It wasn’t just strain from the upcoming one-year anniversary of Insight's failure in three days time. Not just unease and discomfort from arranging memorials for those who died and trying to find words to commemorate people he hadn’t really known.
He’ll think back and convince himself that somehow he knew, and he should have been able to do something.
- - -
New York is the city that never sleeps. Never did, Steve thinks; too much life to be lived to waste eight hours a day sleeping. He remembers sweltering summer nights, sketching the conversations that drifted up out of the darkness.
A woman’s skirts twisting about her as she danced (“-shoulda seen ‘er Paulie; legs like a racehorse-”).
Two men, bruised and bloody, circling each other amongst the detritus of a back alley (“-kicked ‘im in the teeth fer good measure, too-”).
Longshoremen hunched against the driving rain as they work the ropes (-”damn near didn’t see it comin’; eyes were stingin’ so bad-”).
Washington is nothing like New York. As the sun sets, 80% of its population streams out in trains, planes and automobiles, and the city holds its breath for ten hours until they swarm in again the next morning.
Steve passes only four other cars until he comes to within a couple of miles of the Triskelion; he’s obviously not the only one who’s been called in. The Triskelion is never entirely dark at night, but now lights are flicking on across all floors as he parks the bike and makes his way into the building.
He’s not surprised to see Natasha waiting for him when the elevator doors open on the 20th floor. Like him, she’s already dressed in her tactical gear.
“Nat-”
She holds up a small hand to forestall him. “Save them for three minutes, Steve. They’re waiting for us.” She takes his elbow and guides him quickly to the meeting rooms at the other end of the floor, through agents crowded around desks, phones cradled between their ears and shoulders.
It’s a relief when they step into the space Coulson has commandeered and shut the door behind them. Steve spares a moment to nod a greeting to the other occupants - Sharon, Maria, Sam - before he turns to Coulson and grits out a terse, “What happened?”
It’s Sharon that answers. “It’s probably easier if we show you,” she says, and taps at her keyboard to pull up a black and white video on the big screen. It’s the security feed from the inside of a prison transport van Steve realises, and there’s Rumlow sitting on the bench, hands shackled together, head bowed and his face obscured by hair grown long and unkempt in jail.
“Where were they going? The hospital?” he asks.
“No, coming back,” she says without looking at him. “Watch.”
And he does. Rumlow is sitting very still, moving only slightly as the van rolls over potholes in the road. Once. Twice. Then the van hits a particularly large hole and its occupants are jolted sharply to the right. It’s only a second but Rumlow is up on his feet immediately, a blur of limbs as he crashes into the guard on his left. A moment later the second guard staggers back as blood fountains from his nose, and Rumlow nails him in the throat with his elbow.
Steve realises he is holding his breath as he watches the man rifle through the guards’ pockets, and slip the keys into his cuffs. He picks up one of the guard’s batons, testing its weight in his hand. The van is slowing to a halt as the driver realises what is happening. Steve imagines both men slipping cautiously round the sides of the vehicle, one nodding to the other to pop open the latch on the doors-
The blow obviously breaks bones; Rumlow catches the gun as it falls in one slick move and then there are three sharp flashes of light, one after another. He jumps down from the back of the van, and Sharon closes the video.
The silence is broken by a low whistle. “Jesus Christ,” Sam says, mostly to himself. He’s shaking his head in disbelief.
It's a sentiment Steve could echo, although for different reasons. He runs a hand through his hair, rubs his palms against his thighs and tries not to glare at the men and women sitting around the table. “When did this happen?”
“01.20 this morning,” Sharon answers.
At least they informed me promptly, he thinks. “Why were they out so late?”
“There was an emergency at the hospital; some big pile-up on the highway,” Maria explains, and goes on quickly, anticipating Steve’s next question. “No, it’s not linked. We considered the possibility, but all it accomplished was a hospital delay. Doesn’t sound like Hydra to me.”
Steve’s jaw tightens painfully. “It made his guards tired and sloppy,” he points out. “Where was their backup anyway? And why wasn't he in leg cuffs? They’ve all got his file; they should have known what he’s capable of.”
Maria’s lips press into a thin angry line, but she manages to keep her tone neutral. “We needed the manpower elsewhere; he had second and third degree burns covering 65% of his body when he was pulled out of the rubble-”
“A year ago,” Steve interjects, and now Maria’s temper starts to boil over.
Her arms are crossed tightly over her chest, and she drops her head with a sharp sigh. “We’re not all enhanced like you are,’ she says to the floor before looking up again. “It wasn’t just the burns, Rogers. He had severe internal injuries, smoke inhalation…” she shakes her head. “The doctors were convinced he wouldn’t pull through. They called it a medical miracle; hell, they've even published accounts of it. You don’t know how hard we had to fight to assign him the detail he had; it was deemed so completely unnecessary for someone whose threat level was so minimal.”
Steve stares at her for a long minute. “Minimal,” he repeats. “Did we watch the same video?” He looks around the room but no-one will meet his eyes. “He incapacitated four guards in 4.2 seconds. But perhaps the meaning of the word ‘minimal’ has changed since I first learnt it.”
“Stop it, Steve.” Natasha pins him with firm look until Steve eventually looks down. “Yes, we underestimated his abilities. That doesn’t help us understand why he chose to act now, or where he might go next.”
Steve is still fuming. He knows Natasha’s right; pointing fingers won't help find Rumlow, and he knows as well that his anger would be better directed at the nameless higher ups who put them in this position. But damn if he isn’t done with cleaning up SHIELD’s messes.
Not for the first time he wonders why he allowed himself to be talked around into helping them rebuild the agency. “Alright,” he says eventually. “Alright. Do we have any leads on where he went?”
Coulson’s been quiet throughout this, but now he clears his throat. “No reports yet of stolen vehicles in the immediate area but we’re still checking local CCTV feeds. We have surveillance on all the old Hydra safehouses and facilities, thanks to our friends in the FBI and CIA,” he inclines his head in thanks to Sharon.
“The ones we know about,” Steve corrects him, frowning. Coulson’s expression hardens but he doesn’t reply, unwilling to get drawn into this argument again right now.
In retrospect they had been naive to think that all of Hydra’s secrets had been exposed in the data dump. Fury’s words come back to him from suddenly. It's called compartmentalization. Nobody spills the secrets, because nobody knows them all. They had foiled Insight, but as the days had turned into weeks more and more leads had ended in cyanide capsules and self-inflicted gunshot wounds.
“What if-” dread pools in his gut just thinking about it. “What if he’s going after Bucky?” Bucky, who Steve and Sam had tracked down in Mexico only to find him unstable and dangerous as his programming fractured. They’d been lucky to escape with their lives.
Sam huffs, “He finds Barnes, we won’t even need a box to bury him; a hose will do.” He doesn’t sound entirely convinced of his own words.
The few records they have that allude to “the Asset” don’t mention Rumlow or the STRIKE team, and the team they battled on the bridge had no known affiliation with SHIELD. Steve worked closely enough with Rumlow to know that he’s a tough and cunning soldier, but he’s not enhanced. Logically, Steve knows he wouldn't stand a chance but like so many others, Rumlow’s personnel file had turned out to be full of half-truths and outright fabrications. Rumlow spent ten years at SHIELD and yet no-one can be completely sure of who the man is, or what he is capable of. He thinks back to the video and he can’t stop the quiet voice at the back of his mind. What if?
“Look, Rogers, every law enforcement agency is going to have his name, photograph and details within the hour,” Coulson says, starting to sound impatient. “All his old connections are dead or in prison. He has nowhere to go.”
“Besides which,” Natasha adds, “he was a soldier, not a spy. He won’t be able to stay hidden for long - he doesn’t know how.”
Steve crosses his arms across his chest and quirks an eyebrow at her. “Oh I don’t know,” he says, “Remember the ten years he spent hiding in SHIELD?”
It’s a low blow, and one that really is beneath him because he knows how fresh the wounds still are; nearly everyone sitting around the table lost friends to Insight. The atmosphere in the room, which had been strained anyway, turns immediately frosty.
He sighs and holds up his hands in a conciliatory gesture. “I’m being unfair, I know,” he says, feeling the need to at least explain if not to apologise. “But the simple fact is, we’re losing Hydra. With Pierce dead, Rumlow’s the last chance we have to get justice for their crimes. You’ve spent a year pulling this case together; we can’t just let him get away. He has to be made to pay.”
Coulson busies himself with his files for a moment. When he looks up, his face is set in grim lines. “He will,” is all he says.
- - -
It’s three days later that a tired agent puts his head around the door and delivers the news they’ve all been waiting for. Three days of feeling strung out and anxious, terrified that if he left to go home, or take a shower, or sleep that he’d miss something important.
“I think we’ve found him.”
The CCTV footage from a gas station just outside Billings, Montana, is exceptionally grainy and the man keeps his face tilted down under his baseball cap but he’s the right height, the right build, and there’s just something about him that Steve swears he recognises. He walks slowly (scars?) and with a distinctive gait; his right arm barely swinging (weapon’s training?).
It could be something and it could be nothing.
They go back and forth between them, until the same agent knocks again an hour later to say they traced the truck. It was rented in Denver, Colorado, by a Joe Carillo. The name is fake, but the rental agent remembers a faint New York accent and scars on the back of the man’s hands. They are in the air seven minutes later.
- - -
At Mach 2.1 they’ll reach Billings Logan International Airport in just around two hours. It’s two hours too long as far as Steve is concerned, but it gives them time to prepare and plan. The surrounding county police departments have an APB out for the truck Rumlow rented and Natasha is quick to reassure him that they’ll locate him soon enough.
Steve respects the efforts of the Montana law enforcement officials; the men and women had sounded serious and professional on the phone, and he’s sure they’ll do their best. But they won’t be prepared for a man like Brock Rumlow, and Steve can’t quash his fears that they’re all underestimating the man again.
Sam and Natasha are hunched over tablets, sifting through all the SHIELD and Hydra information to see if they can understand what Rumlow’s doing in Montana. Out of the three of them, Sam’s the closest thing they have to an expert on that part of the country; he visited Yellowstone National Park (in neighbouring Wyoming) as a child and swears that there is nothing to the state but hunters, farmers and rednecks.
“Must be trying to cross the border,” Sam mutters, a scowl twisting his features as his fingers swipe across the screen. “He’s gotta be making a run for it." It’s not an unreasonable assumption based on Rumlow’s presumed movements so far.
Steve leans his head back against the cool metal of the jet and digs the fingers of his right hand into the stiff muscles of his left shoulder. “The US-Canada border is 3,987 miles long,” he recites dully, and wonders where the hell he learnt that particular fact and why the hell he can still remember it. “Why travel all the way to Montana to leave the country?”
“If he was planning to leave the country he’d have headed south,” Natasha adds, without looking up. “Canada is effectively a dead end. Mexico would be the obvious choice.”
There’s a loud crack as Steve twists his back, and he grunts quietly as some of the tension leaves his body. “Then there’s a Hydra base we don’t know about,” he says, and tries not to think about what horrors they’ll find in it. “Get in touch with headquarters and tell them to-”
“Steve,” Natasha snaps, and it’s so unexpected that he’s momentarily shocked into silence. Her face is all hard lines in the light from the tablet. “Just stop it. There are no secret Hydra dungeons hidden in rural Montana.”
“Hydra aren’t dead” he starts, but that’s all he manages before Natasha cuts him off again. This is an argument they’ve had many times already.
“No they aren’t,’ she agrees. “But they had very few of their own facilities in America. They didn’t need them; they had all of SHIELD's to choose from and no, there are no super-secret SHIELD bases in Montana either.”
She’s right of course, but if he acknowledges that then he risks having to also acknowledge just how flimsy this whole operation is. They’re currently travelling at twice the speed of sound to a small city in the middle of nowhere, based on little more than indistinct CCTV footage that’s a couple of hours old and the fact that a car rental agent remembers a customer with scarred hands.
Flimsy is probably generous, Steve decides grimly. But against all expectations, Brock Rumlow has managed to effectively disappear into thin air. These sightings are not just the best leads they have; they are their only leads.
“Then what is he doing in Montana?” he asks, and doesn’t care that he’s starting to sound desperate. He is desperate.
“I had a buddy used to rent a cabin up in Montana every year. He’d spend two weeks fishing, hiking, hunting... you name it,” Sam says slowly, still tapping and swiping at the screen in front of him. “Maybe he’s there for some R&R.”
The idea that Rumlow escaped simply to spend some quality time surrounded by the full force of nature’s majesty is a ridiculous notion; so ridiculous that Steve actually laughs. “Rumlow wasn’t exactly what you’d call a country person. None of them were,” he says, remembering the frankly excessive levels of bitching when the team had had to spend a week in Idaho as part of a training exercise and discovered their accommodation had no wifi, no cell signal, and no TV. Their utter rejection of clean, simple living had seemed real enough at the time, but then again so had their loyalty to SHIELD.
He’s distracted by these thoughts as Natasha stands up suddenly. “I have to make a call,” she says quietly, placing her tablet down on the bench beside her gently.
“Can I…?” he gestures at it vaguely.
“Why?”
Steve shrugs one shoulder but doesn't say anything. He just wants a way to pass the time; something to do with his hands. He’s never been good at waiting.
“Knock yourself out,” she says finally, passing it to him with an unreadable expression as she steps around him to make her way towards the back of the jet.
As a boy, Steve Rogers had longed for the future with an intensity that bordered on obsession. He had devoured dog-eared science fiction novels the way other boys did comics, reading and re-reading them until their spines broke and their pages disintegrated under his fingers. Steve Rogers had so desperately yearned for the future because in the future there would be no war, no disease, no suffering. No-one would be treated differently because of where their parents came from, or the colour of their skin, or who they loved, or any other number of things that were trivial or beyond their control. Everyone would spend their days pursuing what they loved, as opposed to being shackled to jobs that drained their energy and stole their happiness. The future would be perfect.
In idle hours, Steve had sometimes wondered what it would be like if he were to be suddenly transplanted into the future. He had always assumed that it would be the technology that would take the longest to get used to. As it turned out, he picked up the technology easily. The actual problem was figuring out the people.
Steve brings up a map of Montana, searches around for Billings. He heard Sam say it was the biggest city in the state but it's a tiny place of less than 200,000 people. The entire city’s population is just 8% of what Brooklyn’s was back when Steve was a teenager in the 1930s.
It leaves Steve frustrated; like him, Rumlow is a New Yorker, born and bred. As far as Steve can recall he never talked about Montana; has no family there; has no reason to be there unless he is trying to leave the country, but Steve agrees with Natasha that that’s unlikely.
Okay, so. Assume for the sake of argument that he’s not going to double-back south, or go east. He scrolls up; there’s really nothing north of Billings until you get to the border.
He finds Billings again and this time follows the I90 west through Columbus, Livingstone, Bozeman until he gets to Missoula. It's an even smaller city, surrounded on all sides by forests and mountains. He's not looking for anything in particular so he scrolls down, following the 93 until it winds its way down into Idaho.
Back to Missoula and this time he scrolls to the left, following the I90 as it crosses into Idaho again and then into Washington. But what is there for Rumlow in Seattle? Unless he means to get to Vancouver… but that just brings him back to the start again. There are better places to cross the border.
Missoula again. He jumps back onto the 93 and starts moving north. It’s no different to any of the other directions; small settlements strung along the highway or nestled into the landscape. He gets to Polson and traces the road around the Flathead Lake, remembers Sam’s joke about fishing with a chuckle-
-and stops.
Because once it gets to Big Arm, the 93 clings lovingly to the edge of the lake; Steve thinks it must be quite a beautiful drive at any time of the year. It passes through the Flathead Lake and Elmo State Parks; hugs the shoreline as it passes Cromwell Island, cuts through the centre of Dayton, and then follows the shore, passing Rollins and Lakeside before it reaches Somers on the north end of the lake, and continues onwards to Kalispell.
Rollins.
He closes his eyes tight and opens them again but it still says Rollins. He zooms in; it’s a tiny place, roads haphazardly fit into spurs of land jutting into the lake. Probably only a few hundred houses, he thinks, probably can’t even be called a town.
He feels Natasha brush past him as she returns to her seat and reaches out to catch her arm. “Where did Jack Rollins grow up?” he asks her.
“Los Angeles, I think. Why?”
He tips the screen up so she can see it. “Where was he buried?”
Her eyes widen slightly when she sees it, but she says nothing, and just reaches for her phone.
- - -
It’s nearly 6 in the evening when the Quinjet touches down at the tiny airstrip just outside Polson, 299 miles west of Billings as the crow flies. Steve jumps down from the back of the jet and takes in his surroundings. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen anything like it before, at least not in America. There’s no terminal building, no control tower; just a single strip of asphalt with aircraft parked off to one side. He looks up and sees a small seaplane coming in low on its final approach to the Flathead River.
There’s a police cruiser waiting for them, and a slightly rotund man who turns out to be the chief of the Polson police department. He’s striving to remain calm and professional, but Steve notes the way his jaw tenses and his fingers stray towards the gun on his hip.
“First terrorist we’ve had in Polson,” he says by way of explanation when he sees Steve studying him. He's aiming for nonchalant but misses it by a mile. Then they’re out of the airport and heading towards town. Steve flips down the sun visor as they turn onto the bridge; the sun is suspended just above the horizon and bathing everything in a golden-red light.
“We found the truck up in Boettcher Park little over an hour ago,” the man’s saying, glancing at Natasha and Sam in the rear-view mirror. “We pulled a few prints off it, but none matching your guy.”
Steve frowns. That's not what he would expect from Rumlow. It's possible the police have simply missed something; they're a tiny force after all, he reminds himself, and utterly out of their depth. He pushes the doubts aside with some effort and tries to focus instead on what comes next.
Natasha is leaning forward, her elbows on her knees. “Were you able to get a visual identification?” She asks.
Their driver shakes his head, and Steve realises he hasn't even caught the man’s name. “No ma’am,” he replies, “That part of the cemetery is almost empty, and if he's as dangerous as you say he is… Well, we didn't want to risk alerting him before you got here.”
“You did the right thing,” Steve says with more certainty than he feels. He thinks about the truck, and wonders what he’ll do if this isn't Rumlow, if it turns out they've been chasing after nothing after all.
He tunes out as Natasha confirms their instructions have been followed. Yes, they have unmarked cars posted at the exits; yes, plainclothes officers have been unobtrusively trying to guide civilians out; yes, all exits out of the town are blocked, there's nowhere he can go unless he jumps into the lake.
Steve feels sick to his stomach.
If this isn't Rumlow…
- - -
Lakeview cemetery is quiet but not empty.
Steve and Sam move through it slowly, trying to look as though they're searching for someone dead, not living. They borrowed jackets from the officers on the scene to hide their tactical gear but Steve is sure it's painfully obvious that they're not grieving relatives.
For a moment, he regrets leaving Natasha outside. This is her speciality, and she had not hesitated to remind him. Not that he needs reminding; he’s seen her blend almost seamlessly into any number of situations, always somehow knowing the right things to say and do to be accepted.
But he needs someone on the outside. If this is Rumlow, and if he somehow manages to get past Steve then he needs to know there's someone solid as backup. Sam, although he's more than competent as a soldier and ally, is just not as good as she is. At least, that’s the reason he gave her, and it's not a lie. It’s just the other thing, which he didn’t say, is that Natasha doesn’t hold back in a fight and has never really seemed to understand Steve’s insistence that Rumlow be brought to stand trial.
He turns a corner, and the sick feeling in his stomach is immediately replaced by a taut anticipation as adrenaline kicks up his heartbeat and makes the blood pound in his ears. The man standing perhaps thirty feet away, seemingly lost in thought as he studies two graves in front of him, is a far cry from the unkempt prisoner from the security footage. He is wearing a grey suit with a dark shirt, and at some point during the last three days he’s shaved and had a haircut.
‘Steve?’ Natasha’s soft question comes through his earpiece. She’s seeing what he’s seeing, courtesy of a small cam on his jacket.
‘Yeah, it’s him,’ he answers, just as softly. He looks over to where Sam is making his way slowly but purposefully across towards them from a separate entrance. Sam catches his eye and nods once.
‘Be careful; it’s safe to assume he’s armed.’
‘Copy that.’ Steve regrets for the thousandth time that he hasn't brought his shield. It would have been too conspicuous but damn if he doesn't feel naked without it.
Rumlow hasn't moved since Steve laid eyes on him. Steve takes a deep breath, and steps forward.
- - -
Rumlow doesn't appear to notice his approach at first. Steve is being careful not to make too much or too little noise, tries to keep his steps measured and casual.
He’s little more than 10 feet away when he sees the other man smile.
‘Can't say I'm not flattered by the personal attention Cap, but don't you have more important things to be doing?’ Rumlow's voice is testament to his injuries; huskiness replaced by rasp, but it has lost none of its mocking bite when directed at him.
“Nothing’s more important than bringing you to justice,” Steve replies, keeping an eye on Rumlow’s hands where they are tucked into his trouser pockets. Rumlow was always fast with a gun.
Rumlow laughs. “That so?” He finally looks up, first at Sam who has closed the distance and has his gun trained on Rumlow, then at Steve. “Not even finding the number one most wanted man on the planet? What's the bounty now? 5 million dead or alive? Can’t imagine too many trying to take him alive, and yet here you are with me in Montana.” He shakes his head in disbelief. “Your priorities man, they’re fucked up.”
Steve covers the distance between them in a matter of seconds, loathing and disgust propelling him forwards. Rumlow anticipates the first punch and rolls his head to the side to avoid it but the second connects solidly with his jaw and drops him to his knees. Steve vaguely registers Natasha’s voice shouting in his ear to stand down but ignores it. He reaches down and grabs hold of Rumlow’s shirt, and sends Sam staggering backwards when he tries to grab at his arm.
Rumlow’s grinning when Steve drags him to his feet, blood from his split lip staining his teeth and dripping down his chin. “Aw I missed you too, Cap,” he says. His hands are gripping Steve’s forearms lightly; if he has a gun he’s making no move to reach for it.
Steve has his fist is drawn back to punch that shit-eating grin right off of Rumlow’s face when he hears a woman’s sharp voice behind him.
“This is a cemetery, Mister Rogers. Did no-one ever teach you to have some respect for the dead?”
- - -
There's a long moment of silence, broken only by Steve’s harsh breathing. He shoves Rumlow backwards towards Sam and turns around, trying to force himself back to some sort of composure.
The woman standing behind him is dressed in a pristine dark blue uniform, a black jacket folded over one arm. Two silver bars on her collar and five service stripes on her left sleeve testify to a lifetime’s service in law enforcement.
“Anahera Rollins, known as Ann,” Natasha says quietly through his earpiece, unnecessarily. “Captain 3rd class LAPD, awarded the police star three times for bravery, numerous other commendations and citations.” Unnecessary because, although Ann Rollins is a good foot shorter than her son was and blonde, Jack had his mother’s green eyes.
“Ma’am, please stay back,” Steve says, holding his hands up in front of him. Behind him, he can hear Sam frisking Rumlow for hidden weapons. “This man is a dangerous fugitive.”
“I know who he is,” she says, nodding her head towards them.
“Ma’am, if you don’t-” he tries but she cuts him off.
“Everyone deserves the chance to pay their respects to those they have lost, wouldn’t you agree?
Actually no, Steve wants to say, when you join a cause that seeks to kill millions of innocents in the name of building a better future, you lose the right to mourn your fellow murderers and thugs.
He doesn’t say that though, and Ann Rollins meets his eyes steadily as she waits for his response. Steve is suddenly reminded of the elevator in the Triskelion, and Jack Rollins’ hard-eyed glare as he’d stepped in. He thinks that if Jack had never once backed down from a fight in his life, it was because his mother had never taught him how to.
“Steve?” Sam has Rumlow’s gun in one hand. He jerks his thumb to where Rumlow is sitting on a bench a short distance away, dabbing at the blood on his face with a tissue, apparently ignoring them. “We need to go.”
Ann takes a step closer. “Look, whatever else Jack was, he was also a son” she says, her voice softening as her eyes slide briefly towards Rumlow, “and a friend.”
Steve folds his arms and sighs, tipping his head back and glaring at the sky as though it holds the answer as to what he should do. She’s not armed; there’s no holster or baton on her hip. Nor is Rumlow, and he and Sam will be on hand if anything starts to look dodgy. He thinks of her service record, and the way Rumlow looked standing by the grave, before he noticed Steve. He thinks of Natasha and Polson’s police force waiting just outside.
“Alright,” he says slowly. “You have twenty minutes.”