They'd been inside the storage container for almost eight hours, waiting for the midnight to filter over the salvage yard. Only the incandescent glow of their skin were providing any light now that the sun was almost fully down.
"This formula stuff is still so weird," Steve admitted, feeling the heat wrapping around his chest, shifting and balancing. The Extremis serum had hurt like getting yanked out of the ice burg but his dosage had leveled out. He focused and moved the heat into his hands and back out again before he put it back in.
"We can leave you behind for this one gramps," Ward offered. They'd been going back and forth like this for a couple hours.
"Wouldn't be responsible to let you kids go out unchaperoned," Steve said, standing up and giving him a deliberately heavy clap on the shoulder. He liked Ward, he felt like they were starting to mesh well.
Natasha looked at Barton, "They do need women in their lives." Natasha had been off scene for a few months and then they'd all been out making sure they didn't blow up, so this was their first field mission together. She wasn't too chatty, but she clearly loved Barton. It made Steve happy to see two best friends getting ready to fight side by side. It reminded him of Bucky.
"Told you," Barton said, taking his bow off his back and leaning against the cargo container's door.
"For your information, I have a very active sex life," Ward said, pointing at his chest with his hand. Steve couldn't believe he was falling for that bait.
"Nobody cares buddy," Natasha said with a smirk, reassembling her guns for what must have been the tenth time. She knew her firearms. Once she'd put them together, she slid them into her side holsters.
"Team two, ready," Rumlow's voice said in Steve's ear.
"Team one, ready," Steve signaled back as he adjusted the straps on his shield.
They pushed open the door of the storage container and made their way to the edge of the junked ship they were sitting on, slid down the side of the ship on ropes and made their way across the muddy water as quickly as they could. It was so dark, Steve could barely see team two trudged across the mud.
Klaue's ship had been in this wrecking yard for who knew how long. They were here to capture him and return him to Wakanda for acts of terror in the process of the theft of a national resource. What little Steve knew about Wakanda, he didn't like. An honest-to-goodness absolute monarchy in the twenty first century and, according to information handed on by SWORD's resident super scientist while he was mind controlled, it didn't even have the excuse of poverty or a lack of education. Steve didn't like that, but they still hadn't deserved to get robbed and their people hadn't deserved to get killed for Klaue's profits.
They reached the other ship, threw their hooks up and scaled as quickly as possible. Barton had already dispatched the guard on their section of deck when Steve reached the top. He wasn't used to that - People getting anywhere ahead of him on a physical task. He'd spent years slowing down, letting other people catch up - Now he wasn't even exceptional on his own team. He gestured to them to move and the team spread out.
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Three popping noises in his ear meant three take-downs on Rumlow's end, Barton sent back one, and Steve kept moving, looking for Klaue. Steve came across a soldier, barely older than eighteen, basically a boy, asleep at his post. Steve covered his mouth, pinned him, and was in the process of using the boy's scarf to muffle him before he had any real resistance. He was a little faster than he had been before Extremis and he felt a little bad for holding the boy like this, but he'd signed on for this. "Shh," Steve said, "I don't want to give you head trauma, but I will."
The boy stopped resisting. Steve silently thanked God that he spoke enough English to understand.
"Now, I'm going to put you in handcuffs, don't panic." He took out the little zip ties that he'd spent an hour and a half figuring out and and tied up the kid's hands, found a pipe and tied him to it with a second zip tie. "Now look, I work for," SHIELD, technically, "SWORD. Do you know what that is?" A head nod. "I and the others are super-soldiers, there's nothing you can do to stop us, so stay right here and wait for someone to come get you. Do you understand?"
Another head nod and Steve was off. He sent a pop noise to the rest of the Defense Team, moving through the hallways smoothly. The occasional pop in his ear confirming that one of his teammates had taken someone else down. They were still looking for Klaue, nobody had sounded off. Nobody had set off any crew alarms. Finally, Steve spotted a room that could be a captain's chamber, guarded by one guy with a machine gun. This one may have been young, but he was not asleep, so Steve spared him the pity and just jumped out at him, landing a hit hard across his face. The guy tried to scramble get his gun up, but Steve smashed it aside with his shield and then hit the guy again across the face. Since Steve's other hand was holding both a gun muzzle, he went down with a thud and clatter.
"He definitely heard that, second level aft" Steve said over comm and tried to open the door. Locked. So Steve stuck his hand against the door lock mechanism and soon enough it rattled off. He yanked the door open to find Klaue lounging inside, pistol out.
"You don't think that's going to work do you?" Steve asked skeptically.
"I could try?" Klaue said, twisting his face as if considering it. "No, I reckon it won't. You win, Captain America, I surrender." Klaue dropped the gun and held up his hands.
Sometimes a reputation for honor came in handy. "Tell your men to stand down?"
Klaue gestured to a radio and Steve nodded. "Alright everybody, the jig is up, if they haven't put your lights out, escape if you can - No offense Captain America - But surrender instead of fighting."
Steve scowled at him, but he probably couldn't see it under the helmet. "Where's the vibranium?"
"Vibranium's third level, port side," Klaue said. "I can show you, if you like?"
"Let's do that."