01  x  don't get caught

-----

PRESENT DAY.

Washington, D.C.

Etta Foster ran, like the chilly breeze distorting around crashing waves that came ashore. Like the vultures that soared into the violet skies when death was imminent and a herd of lionesses that had their hunt for the first meal. Her sable locks flung behind her shoulders, tears deluding her as she turned through alleys and the tips of her nails accumulating loam with her gradual scratches over the partitions. She had no clue the time, the day or the people behind who were chasing her. 

All she knew was to keep moving forward and not look behind. She didn't know where she was speeding, her poor heart drubbing inside her as she fled with the grief and fear rooted within her.

Not five minutes ago, Etta had stepped outside her two-day-old apartment settlement to revamp her food supplies. Moments later, here she was, speeding as far as she could from her residence. No one should know, she had reminded her panting self. If anything, it should not fall into the wrong hands.

With leaden feet, Etta approached an alleyway. She reached the corner, but a swift glance revealed that it was only an obstructed trip to the back of a different house. The brunette was partly grounded in apprehension; she had to hurriedly correct and speed beyond the linear avenue, back to the footpath. The road desisted at the neighbouring corner and an obtrusive red, stop sign looming down on her. She concentrated on the heavy treads behind her, deciding whether or not to run further. 

They verbalised distantly, though, and Etta knew they could pass her in any state. But she continued her sprint and venturing a tiny glance over her shoulder to glean more persistent calls of the men and instant relief flooding her. Maybe more people would be around her when she headed out of the deserted street. Was it two in the night, or three? There had to be some measly pedestrians in the corner.

The doctor skidded to a feared standstill.

The street was delineated on both sides by barren walls. Etta could see in the distance, two crossings down, the amber glow of lamps, vehicles, and more walkers, but all of them far away. Even if she tried, she could never get that distant. 

Because two stocky looking men had taken a little detour, herding from the opposite end and their excited gait slowing down with heavy pants. She immediately turned, knowing it was a petty attempt at escape, and darted. Once again, stopping, her heart sunk.

The terror was incapacitating. These men looked worse than henchmen behind Etta's asset, the sinking feeling in her coming aground for something more critical. She had little knowledge of self-defence — she was book smart rather than street smart — and tried to think through the frenzy.

"She's a sprinter, boys," a thickset, dark man laughed in a raucous manner and making her jump. The others followed and Etta couldn't count how many.

"Stay away," Etta warned, her voice raspy and wheezing. It was supposed to sound fearless but, she had gotten too debilitated.

"Damn, we chased you this far," he clucked his tongue, clutching his sides as he sucking in one, last lungful of air. "So tell me, baby girl, is it true what they say?"

He warily neared her and the doctor planted her feet, standing tall. She refused to budge forward with an answer. She had the right to deny him one.

"That they shot your man?"

Their cruel words did their job — Etta stayed frozen on the pavement, dumbfounded. She glowed reminiscences flood her system; charming laughs, sunny mornings and eager, green eyes that always seemed to smile when they were on hers. She was frightened just as soon, willing away the lovely memories. 

"Ah, they did," his head tilted to catch the earthward grimace on her face. "Emptied an entire revolver into him! Tsk, two straight to the heart."

The tears fell wildly down Etta's cheeks, her body running cold. The spitting image flew past her vision; her handsome husband bathed in a puddle of his blood and her body too late to catch the bullets as her own. Her light hair drenched crimson with a steady flow that oozed out of his wounds, his damp hands palming her cheek with a pained, peaceful smile. The day would haunt until her last breath, the very amicable face of her husband that had ebbed into oblivion. One final breath was all it took for her comfort to be stripped away.

"I'm sorry to be hitting below the belt," he apologized bleakly. "Kinda blue for a distinguished mind like you."

Etta swallowed down a sob, not preferring to go down without a battle. Just as she lunged for the dark man with a vengeful warcry, two pairs of hands started to tie her back away from him. She started to wail out as they grappled her nether regions on purpose, all while trying to wad off the fight in her. 

"What do you want from me?" She screamed, capitulating finally.

"You know what I want," he smirked, brushing off the nonexistent dust from his shoulder and straightening the collar to her threadbare overcoat. She dreaded his next words.

"The antigen."

Her familiar answer was low and black. "I don't have it."

A mere snap of his fingers brought down hellfire on Etta. A fist crashed down on her cheek and her head buzzing from the onslaught that came to her abdomen just as quick. The taste of salt and rust from the blood saturated her mouth, feeling her jaw bruise tortuously when her knees met the welting pavement. Amidst her gradual groan, the man continued to speak.

"Do you know the value of export like that?" He hissed down at her. 'One point six billion dollars for a starting bid. All this Stark tech and vibranium will be gone to dust.'

"I said," she breathed out, spitting out another mouthful of blood. "I don't have it."

The cocking of a gun. The nozzle of the pistol met the heated flesh on her neck, driving into her jawline. A cautious breath left her when the man graced a dangerous leer.

"You still don't have it, do you?" His voice was threatening.

Etta didn't yield, sternly replying, "No."

With his dismal eyes fixed on her face, his eyes took a slow rake across her body. As if he were mentally undressing her, he swiped the edge of his lips with a thoughtful smile. Tonguing his canines, he raised a brow at one of his men.

"Search her."

On the end of his sentence, Etta's blood ran cold. A cry of denial left her lips when she was yanked back up onto her legs and the fabric of her topcoat stretching with their jerks. She fought them off with grunts but went in vain when they had successfully stripped her two layers of her clothing. Her frail body trembled with the thin slip she wore under her sweatshirt, the only material other than her jeans that separated her skin from the cold winds.

"She doesn't have it on her, boss," one of the men put out of the ID she carried in her coat. She coiled her free arms around herself, stripped of her saneness and ready to bawl out into tears.

"Now, I think you know what comes next, Colette," the dark man said with a resigned sigh and looked to her spare clothes. "Either you tell me where you're hiding the antigen or it's brutal and more."

"I don't have it," she repeated breathily.

"I swear to god, you stupid little bitch—"

A flash of silver suddenly circumnavigated around the corner, the streak almost hitting a dark-haired one, urging him to jump back toward the windowless walls. The intensity of the atmosphere was damaged when Etta's fight of flight acted quickly, hunching into herself at the edge. A figure, tall and concealed by the darkness, caught the bolting silver streak which she realized was actually a shield and anchoring the men into a panic mode. They fled for their lives from the scene, a few limping away from the jabs delivered by her saviour. 

Etta would know that shield and that uniform anywhere. Except on that night, he was devoid of the helmet and his star-spangled frame moving gracefully as he seized a man in metal cuffs. An agent, dressed in all black, caught the cuffed guy safely.

The captain's name was plastered over papers, not a headline that missed his noble face and his sanctimonious quotes of justice. The golden boy of America and God's most righteous man. The very man who had inspired her to concoct the serum that would initially wreak havoc over her own life.

Cautious blue eyes made their way into her line of sight, a warm coat landing over her shoulders. She held it to her shivering body while her breaths came out in quick puffs of steam and his large hand stretching out for her to take. 

"Thank you," she whispered at him.

She studied his flawless features in the minimal lights, waiting for her speeding breaths to calm until it occurred to her that his expression was that of hesitance. It was awesome how the crippling fear had vanished, instantly her heart standing secure; something that she hadn't felt in a while.

"Are you okay, doctor?" He asked, his tone curt. His light gaze swept over the nasty bruise on her jaw, his own tightening. "We'll get that cleaned on the jet."

Etta's voice was uncomfortable and controlled when she nodded. "What jet?"

The captain exhaled sharply when a steady silver pair of links was produced by an agent. She felt cheated; reaped from one and transferred to another.

"We're taking you in, Miss Foster."

"No," her dark eyes flew open in horror. "No, you can't. Please, I'm not — "

"I'm sorry," his face was still rigid, composed. The cuffs attached to her own wrists, biting down tightly. "I have to."

∞

Avengers Compound,

Upstate New York.

With a single tick, Etta's eyes fluttered wide open; her heart racing, mind empty. She wondered how long she had been out, hoping it wasn't too long. When she moved to plot her escape, her hands were linked together and thin cable concatenating to the white-topped table. Around her were four flanks of glass, one opening to a living room and the others facing grey walls.

Every sense in her body was asking her to claw her way to safety. Wildly, she tugged on the chains and hoping to break free. Measly grunts left her as her efforts went in vain, three people interrupting her conscious struggles for release. Her mouth slackened in awe.

One was the captain, losing his uniform to simple slacks and a nylon shirt. His blue eyes were wary as he stared at Etta's desolate form and then shifting to the other man who stood beside him, rubbing his eyes in weariness. She would know that face and the facial hair anywhere — the billionaire, the genius, the man who had left fame behind for the sake of his family. Tony Stark was famed for his mentality and being in the presence of intellect was dazzling her.

There was a woman, too, an agent of some sort; wearing a dark blue catsuit and her brunette hair pinned to a bun behind her head. She was taller than the rest, a fibreglass panel clutched to her chest as she assessed Etta with leery, cat eyes.

"You've got to be shitting me."

The captain sighed at the grumbling philanthropist, agitated by the use of foul language and alienating a visitor.

"Am I under arrest?" Etta gathered the courage to mutter out. Three pairs of astonished eyes landed on her soon enough and she shrunk into herself at the vagueness of her question.

"I don't know, Doctor Foster, are you?" Tony dryly retorted, mildly condescending her. 'The bands and the pokey room tells me so.'

So Etta remained silent. Better not to speak and get in trouble because of loose lips.

"A semi-reproduced chemical solution that was aimed at enhancing metabolic, cellular, and chemical processes in the body," the woman spoke monotonously as if she had it learned it by rote. Her eyes turned squinty with confusion. "Were you even thinking when you synthesized it?"

"It was meant to boost the immunity of the human body," Etta replied quietly, to the best of her knowledge. 'I didn't know what I had created until it saturated into my chief analysis.'

"Well, emphatically reflecting, her composition is flawless," Tony input, shaking his head, "which is beyond Banner or I can even begin to comprehend. It's history being made."

"I don't think those are the words I would use," the captain mumbled softly. His stark blue eyes landed on her with an intensity that had her gulping. "How much of this serum did you make?"

"A vial," she replied as if she were drafted to provide the same answer. Tony wasn't satisfied with her response.

"Maria?"

"The one we seized from her last known residence," the woman, Maria, informed. "That was all we could locate. Her stationed lab burned down a few months ago taking all her statements with it. A man named Kabir Sinha, a CIA operative was found dead at her residence the consequent day."

"Ex Indian RAW attorney who trained under SHIELD," Steve added, shifting his eyes to Etta. "How is he related to you?"

"He is—uh, was my husband," was her curt reply.

The captain's eyes softened a fraction when she looked away. Etta couldn't bear to think about it again. Those smiling green eyes sifted behind her lids and the chains of her wrist chinked when she scrubbed a palm into her eyes. She heard his faraway laughter in her ears, a feeling of warmth and bite suspending into her when it cascaded into her.

"I'm sorry for your loss," he yielded.

"He was sick," the doctor refused the captain's condolence, looking down at her constricted palms. Tears swam in her vision and she sniffled under her breath. "I couldn't watch him suffer. I couldn't just let him die."

Maria questioned her sternly. "So you created a highly weaponizable antigen?"

"I sought to reengineer the product I created," she corrected with a whisper, hating to be put on the spot. "I tried to develop it on the recovery and healing aspects but the side-effects kept persisting."

"As in becoming another, more fortified Cap?"

She nodded dumbly.

"Jeezus," Tony muttered out, horrified. "When you say chief analysis, did you mean requisite trials?"

She nodded again. "I started off with diapsids of Testudines," she cast the soldier a glace, "uh, terrapins. They share a similar genome to that of humans. It relapsed after several analyses and then—"

"No," Tony shook his head, understanding what was coming. "You did not. You did not."

"I had to," her gaze turned pleading. "He was an associate and he volunteered. A black-ops agent with high, long-term ballistic wounds. Fortuitously, his cells started to regenerate and heal."

"Who is said he?"

"Frank Simpson," she sighed. "But, I had no idea he would — he — he had different intentions — "

"Let me guess, he turned rogue," the captain finished for her, his eyes stinging into her. "Because what's good becomes better; bad becomes worse."

∞

[ w/n: I dunno about you but I love, love this plot. it's going to be a small one but filled with twists you will never see coming - like when is it never? -  and action, LOVE and obviously, further surprises! all right, on with it! 

beautiful gif on top was done by the marvellous biIIieIourds  ❤]