As predicted, Fury had a laundry list of questions for them the second they stepped foot on the quinjet. He was already waiting in hologram form but when he opened his mouth to ask his first question, he faltered.

Limping up to Fury's holograph form, Natasha stopped in front of him while Steve prepared the quinjet for departure. The thick bandage around her thigh was clearly visible as Natasha had opted for running shorts instead of the jeans she'd packed before.

"What on earth happened?" was the first thing Fury asked.

"False intel," Natasha muttered, crossing her arms.

"It was some pretty shitty intel is what it was," Steve snapped, sitting down in the pilot's seat of the jet. "Do you have any idea how poorly this mission went?"

"Based on who I'm looking at and the injuries I can see," Fury said, eyeing Natasha warily, "I'd say I have some idea."

Steve scowled and Natasha braced herself as the quinjet jumped into the air shakily. Perhaps she should have taken the controls and left Steve to fight it out with Fury. 

"Hydra and the Red Room are so much bigger than we thought," Natasha said, swaying as the quinjet stuttered. "We were sniffed out within hours. Most of our time was spent as captives. How long has it even been? A week? Two weeks?"

"Two weeks," Fury admitted. "What happened, Romanoff?"

"What do you think?" Natasha retorted, motioning towards her thigh. "We were tortured, Nick. Stark's doctors are gonna have a stroke when they see my leg and Rogers looks like a goddamn human punching bag."

The quinjet steadied and Steve appeared at her side just as Fury asked, "Did you manage to get better intel?"

"No," Steve snapped, scowling at Fury through the hologram. "Believe it or not, intel was not our highest priority."

He was shaking and part of Natasha was worried he would try to attack Fury through the hologram. While it wouldn't hurt the Director, it certainly wouldn't win them any favours.

"I got a bit," Natasha admitted. 

Steve nearby combusted. "You were almost killed and you still tried to―"

"Send it to Stark," Fury interrupted. "While you two check into medical, he'll lead a further investigation―"

"Attack," Natasha argued. "He'll lead an attack. No more investigating, Nick. This needs to be taken down now."

"Our intel was wrong," Fury reminded her. "We need to know what we're going against before launching an attack."

"SHIELD doesn't exist anymore," Steve snapped. Fury raised an eyebrow at him but Steve didn't back down. "We were there for weeks and we're saying to launch an attack."

"Rogers―"

"We'll go through Stark without you," Steve told him, reaching to end the call. "While you focus on your intel, we'll take care of it."

He ended the call before Fury could protest and his shoulders dropped immediately.

"Go lie down," Natasha murmured. "We have eight hours before we land."

"Tony―"

"I'll contact him," Natasha promised. 

With a tired nod, Steve did as he was told and laid across the quinjet seats. Closing his eyes, he took several deep breaths and focused on the sound of Natasha moving around the jet. Despite the tension in the shoulders and the long night of sleep he'd gotten just a few hours earlier, he was fast asleep before Natasha ended her call with Tony.

* * * *

Steve woke up to Natasha patting his cheek. With a pained groan, he swatted her hand away and opened his eyes. As soon as he did so, he was met with the sight of the Compound medical staff stepping onto the quinjet. He'd slept through the whole flight, he realised, and they were finally back in New York.

"Captain Rogers?" a nurse asked, kneeling down beside him. "If you'll please come with me so we can look at your injuries, we can have some people take your things back to your rooms for you."

As Steve got to his feet, his body throbbed and groaned in protest. On the other side of the quinjet, Natasha was being helped up onto a gurney and wheeled into the Compound with a handful of doctors at her side. He followed her into the Compound but was directed towards a separate room.

Steve didn't have to wait for a doctor. Shortly after he was led inside, a doctor arrived to examine his injuries. Despite Natasha's help, his shoulder needed to be reset which left him in more pain than before. After being handed a strong prescription of painkillers, though, he was dismissed.

Rather than go up to the residential area of the Compound, Steve waited in the empty waiting area for Natasha.

"FRIDAY?" he asked, fiddling with the bottle of painkillers. "Where's the rest of the team?"

"They are currently on their way to a location shared by Miss Romanoff."

Good. That meant Natasha had gotten in contact with Tony before Fury could. 

"How long ago did they leave?" Steve asked.

"Approximately four hours and forty-two minutes ago," FRIDAY answered. Steve nodded and the waiting room was silent.

While Steve had known that Natasha would need much more extensive medical care, he hadn't been prepared to wait hours before seeing her. FRIDAY kept him well informed about both her condition and the team's location, but he was still jittery.

When a nurse walked into the waiting room, he all but jumped to his feet.

"She's not awake," she said, "but you can go back now."

"What happened?" Steve asked, hurrying to follow the nurse down the hall. 

"The marks on her back were healed enough all we did was clean and wrap them," the nurse explained. "The cut on her shoulder, however, needed stitches and―"

Steve had completely forgotten about her shoulder. It had been one of her first injuries, yet somehow it had slipped his mind. Unfortunately, before he had the time to worry more about that, the nurse moved on to say they had needed to operate on Natasha's leg.

"There was an infection and the muscles had been torn," she said. "She'd already begun healing incorrectly, so we had to correct the tissue before closing up."

"She'll be okay, though?" Steve asked worriedly as they came to a stop outside of Natasha's room. 

"Yes," the nurse promised, "she'll be fine."

She opened the door for Steve and he crossed the room in only three steps. Dropping into the chair beside Natasha's bed, he reached for her hand and looked down at her.

She was still fast asleep, but for the first time in many weeks, she was relaxed. Whether it was the drugs the doctors had given her or the fact that they were back in the Compound, Steve didn't care. As long as she was at peace, Steve would thank every deity he could think of.