3

I've never been in this position before. Any different situation and I'd class being tied up as kinky, but not this. Not when I'm bound within an inch of my life to make sure that I can't free myself, that and I'm literally dangling from the roof inside an abandoned warehouse, slowly spinning like some rotisserie chicken as my target is circling me.

Upon first glance, you wouldn't recognise Steve Rogers. He's now sporting a beard, usually coiffed hair a little dishevelled. He's not the man who he once was. In fact he looks like he's just tired of the world and its bullshit. Understandable. I note that where his star once adorned his chest, is now obviously gone. Suit sleeves rolled up. This man is really rocking the whole fugitive look.

I am a complete idiot for thinking that I could take on a super solider, especially him. Perhaps the whole idea of adding it to my assassin cv was the most tempting part. But I screwed up and now here I am as the prisoner.

He pulls the mask that obscures my face from recognition, and his expression falters slightly on seeing that I am indeed female, and not a guy. "You've gotta be shitting me" he mutters to himself and throws my mask to one side.

"Surpriiiiiiise." I say with no enthusiasm whatsoever.

He says nothing.

Looks like I'm the one who's going to have to make the small talk then. 

"Sooooo, you into tying women up like this often?" I ask smoothly as he ponders on what to do with me. "Oh wait...here I go...give me juuuuust a minute." I tell him as I keep rotating out of his view until finally coming back around to him again.

"Shut up." Comes his reply.

Woah. Smoulder alert.

"I'm just thinking that so many women would kill to be in my position right now."

"And you'd know all about killing wouldn't you?" He walks towards me and now stops me from spinning. Face close to my own. I can see the fire in his eyes as they pierce through mine. "I'm gonna ask you this once. Who sent you?"

"Does it matter? You kind of won the fight." I point out the obvious. 

"To you it will." He glares. "You tried to take a shot. You lost – now give me some answers or you're not gonna leave here alive. I'm not messing around."

Ok, Cap has really gone rogue.

"Better prepare my body bag then." I tell him, "I'm all about confidentiality in my line of work." He crosses his arms and takes a few steps back, looking me up and down. "Like what you see Captain?"

"Do you honestly find this whole thing funny?"

"I fucked up my assassination, I'm more annoyed at myself rather than anything. Years of great hits under my belt and now because of you my reputation is up in smoke, but I'm not going to cry about it." I pout. "Look, this is new for me – I haven't assassinated a super solider before, I think we can class this as teething problems on my part."

Steve's still looking at me. "You from an organisation?"

"Nope. Freelance. If you dabble in the black market you'll usually find my services are hired through there."

"So who hired you?"

"I already told you about confidentiality..." He grabs my face now. Not hard enough to do any damage but to prove a point that he could probably snap me. Soon enough he lets go. "I'll admit though, I'm still a little confused as to why the person who ordered your hit wants you dead rather than alive."

"Well perhaps if you enlightened me on who it is then I'd be able to tell you" Steve says through gritted teeth. "You said yourself that you're leaving in a body bag, so you may as well just come right out with it, otherwise I'll just leave you to hang here until you decide you wanna talk."

I say nothing and immediately he turns to walk away. "Wait." I huff and he turns back. "General Ross..." I say and curse inside my mind that its come to this. Ross is going to kill me for sure once he finds out about this. It's kinder to just let Cap kill me here and now. "There, happy?"

"General Ross?" he says and then runs a hand through his hair. "Last time I heard from him, he wanted me alive and in custody."

"Yes well it seems he's had a change of heart. He wants you dead as a doornail, why? I don't know, but apparently he has his reasons or so he told me." I say. "Now...can you just kill me? I mean, I've messed up and I know Ross is gonna get someone else to do it on my return. I'm not that stupid as to think he won't have some sort of backup plan if I fail."

Steve frowns, "You really wanna give up that easy?"

"Not particularly, but I don't exactly have a choice. Just make it quick."

He gets his phone from his pocket as I hear some vibrating and answers it. "Nat...yeah I'm a bit caught up with something...ok good, you heard from Sam?" he looks back at me and then away again. "No, but you'd best keep your eyes open. Ross has sent someone to try and kill me...yeah...no she has no idea why...yes she...no I don't think so..." he turns to me. "You a widow?" he asks.

"As in 'dead husband' widow?"

He turns away again. "No, clearly not. She works alone though – I'll fill you in later once I'm all done here..." he tells the person on the end of the line, who I guess is Natasha Romanoff from what he called her earlier, and shoves his phone back into his pocket. "I'll make you a deal, you help me find out why Ross wants me dead, and you can keep your life." He sees me contemplating this. "You know he's up to something, and you know it's not good – you can't seriously like what you do? Killing people for money."

"No but it helps pay the bills."

"So why not redeem yourself? Help me find out about Ross and in return I can offer you some protection, and so can my friends. You're not a killer, and you don't want to be - I can see it in your face even under all the humour you're trying to cover it up with."

It's a way out of sorts, but it just means I'll be like him. Running. Do I really want that? I don't have a choice really. It just means I'll have to spin some crap to Connor and send a resignation email to my job. Easy enough in my head, but will it be in reality?

"I guess I don't have any choice." I finally say. "Fine. I'll help you to uncover why Ross put out the hit..."

"Good choice."

"Is it really?" My eyes meet his. "Now can you get me down and untie me? I'm losing all feeling in my arms and legs." He cuts me down and I slam to the floor. "Ow!"

He shrugs at this and unties me. I rub at my wrists, the marks faint where they'd been rubbing against my skin. "What's your name?" he asks as I get to my feet, brushing myself off.

"Aster."

He holds out a large hand for me to shake. I look at it and then slowly grasp it, shaking it firmly. "Steve. But I guess you already knew that".

"I know everything about you Captain."

"Didn't know assassins did background checks."

"Nope... I'm a tour guide at your exhibition at the Smithsonian."

He makes a face. "How ironic...I'm surprised they haven't closed it because of what happened."

I shake my head. "Believe it or not, there are still people out there rooting for you." Kids still think he's a hero despite his current status, other people see him as the threat - General Ross being one of them. 

Steve gestures for me to follow him and I do so. "You're not one of them then..."

"I never said that..." I pause. "Anyway that doesn't matter."

Steve says nothing else as we cross the abandoned airbase and to a bunker. This had been a temporary headquarters from when SHIELD had set up over here. The place closed years ago and since then has stood empty. Not many people know of it unless they have access to files and stuff. I only acquired them from a contact who'd worked for the organisation before it had been destroyed. I'm curious to know just how Steve knew about it.

"How did you find this place?"

"I know a guy..."

"Nick Fury." I instantly know the 'guy' he means, and he now turns a little surprised. "Lucky guess." I smile sweetly. "So...how long have you been here for?"

He shuts the door behind us and disables the security system. "Not long." And leads me through what would have been a communal kitchen. "Weapons." He states and gestures for me to put them on the table.

"Oh come oooon." I stare at him.

"Now."

I huff and begin to unload the various weapons I have. Daggers, bullets, a gun. Chucking them all on the table in front of me. "And the other stuff." he presses. He's not stupid.

"For fuck sake." I mutter and dig down into my cleavage where my poison stash and my lock picks are concealed. "Killjoy."

"I need to know I can really trust you; you can have them back when I can." He tells me, but for now I'm locking them away."

"If I wanted to still kill you then I'd have tried again by now, perhaps I may have even succeeded second time around." I put my hands on my hips and stare at him.

His gaze on me is a hard one. "Would you really wanna risk that again?" It's a half question and half warning rolled into one.

I size up to him now, he's so damn tall in comparison to me and I look up at him from under my lashes. "We can always find out, can't we?"

He looks down at me for a few moments and then takes my weapons stash, putting them away where I can't get to them. "We could, but without your weapons? I'd say you'd lose again."  

I don't answer and sit down on one of the chairs at the table pointing to the other across from me.  He settles himself into it, " Well Cap, I think we're going to get along just fine." 

"You play your cards right, and we certainly will."