Chapter Three
Soroya

Caden's living area hasn't changed, but his basement has. The basement of the tavern is used as Caden's office, his bedroom, his kitchen, and his storage space. There used to be doors that lead into each of these rooms, but apart from the storage room, everything is out in the open now. It looks a lot like a studio apartment, but three times the size. The expensive decorations and furniture is consistent to what I remember: a large leather chair is behind a great dark wood desk for his office, with large matching wooden bookshelves behind it lined with boxes filled with unknown items. His bedroom has zebra print blankets and pillows with a chandelier above it, and this bedroom now connects to the kitchen. The kitchen looks pretty normal other than the glass swan in the middle of the counter.

We are all in his office area now, staring down at a layout of the British Museum that he has spread out over his desk. Caden is sitting in his large chair, lounging in it as he explains to us: "Conner Quinn is a brilliant man, he'll be hard to capture. Even with more security added or traps set, he'll manage to sneak right through them. You're entering his territory now."

I nod to him, knowing all too well how skilled he is. "Quinn got onto HYDRA's radar because he became wanted for several accounts of thievery at only thirteen. He's been doing this a long time."

"How can a thirteen year old be such a high level thief that he gets an arrest warrant?" John asks incredulously.

Bucky is the one to answer. "HYDRA finds and seizes the outcasts in the world, that's how Quinn and a lot of other people became agents. They took them as children and programmed them to serve HYDRA's needs. It's easier to manipulate someone is they don't have a home or place in the world. Quinn was young and orphaned with a skill for thieving, he was perfect for HYDRA."

"That's sick." John mumbles to himself, more angry about it than I thought he would be.

"That's HYDRA." Bucky responds.

"It makes things harder that we don't know what he's trying to steal." Sam mumbles.

"Or what time he is going to steal it." I add on.

"But we know it's on Wednesday and we know where, so that's something," Bucky begins, pointing at the entrances on the layout. "I think we need to play this differently than we usually would. No extra security and no lockdowns."

"How are we supposed to catch him? He will escape if we don't lock everything down." John argues.

"Bucky's right," Sam says, glancing between the two men. "Quinn will see right through it and he'll ditch the plan. He needs to think that no one is on to him. Do you remember anything about his last heists, are there any consistencies?" He asks, turning to Caden.

"He always steals jewels. He never goes after art or artifacts. He never tells me what time he does a heist, but he often tells me how much he enjoys the quiet of a museum to the noise. So maybe he does his heists at night."

"We should be there all day Wednesday just to be sure, I don't want to take any chances." I say, staring at the layout.

"So we just hangout in the museum all day? Wait for something to happen?" John asks me.

"Yes. I think all of us should cover different sections of the museum, wherever the jewels are being displayed."

"There's no way any of us can go into a museum and not be noticed," Sam points out. "Soroya and I are Avengers, Bucky is a recently freed HYDRA terrorist...and Walker is the US Agent. If Quinn hears even a whisper about any of us being there he'll flee."

I look over to Caden. "I think he can help us with that. You still have your disguise closet?"

Caden grins at me excitedly. "I never thought you'd ask, Beasty."

"We'll have to have some extra security," John says with an arched brow. "Ross won't let us do this on our own."

"Fine, then have him send some agents to assist us, but they have to be discreet and disguised as well. We also need to be there at night as well as early in the morning. I want us to be inside the museum from twelve in the morning of Wednesday till twelve on Thursday."

"Agreed," Bucky says with a nod. "But we'll have to make ourselves scarce when the museum is vacant. Sweetheart, you should shift into a bird and be our eyes from up above. You may be able to spot him from up there."

"One of you should be in the control room and someone needs to keep an eye on the entrances and vents." Caden says, tapping his foot against the desk.

"I'll take the control room." Bucky says.

"Then I guess we're on vent duty." John sighs.

Sam doesn't look too pleased about being paired with John, but he doesn't vocalize it. Instead he says a little curtly: "The heist is in less than twenty hours, so we should get going."

"I'll call Ross and tell him the plan." John says pulling out his phone.

"Tell him to have the agents be in disguise, that's very important." I remind him.

He waves me off as the phone begins to ring, leaving the office to talk to Ross in the kitchen. With John gone, Caden bursts up in excitement and beckons us towards a closet in his bedroom. When he opens it up, I feel a smile creep onto my face. The disguise closet is huge, the size of a master bedroom. It's lined with shelves of wigs, prosthetics, ID's, clothes, and all manner of things. It's always been my favorite part of Caden's house. It's like the spy gadget rooms in cheesy spy movies.

"You weren't kidding when you said this guy could do anything." Bucky murmurs to me.

Sam whistles lowly, looking around the room. "He's like a sketchy, expensive fairy godmother."

Caden bears this comment and grins. "Thank you very much, I certainly think I have a skill of providing any service my business's partners need."

No one can argue with that. The three of us begin looking around the different items on display, with me heading straight towards the wigs. I pick up one that is blonde with long curls and highlights. Caden clearly takes good care of his wigs, because they look very realistic and beautiful. I go over to the mirror on the wall a few feet from me and put the wig on, trying to decide if I like it or not. Bucky appears from behind me and smirks, murmuring in my ear: "I used to have a thing for blondes."

I roll my eyes playfully and look over my shoulder to him. "Don't get used to it."

His smile grows into a grin as he wraps his arms around my waist from behind and kisses my cheek, making me giggle softly.

"You two are disgusting," John comments as he enters the closet, holding his phone up. "If you two are done, Ross wants to speak to you, Soroya."

Immature as it may be, I turn around and kiss my husband throughly on the mouth, refusing to break the kiss until the last moment possible. I leave Bucky standing there, a blush to his cheeks, while I stalk over to John and take the phone. He has an amused look on his face as he says: "I thought Alex was the immature one."

"I have my moments," I reply, bringing the phone up to my ear and saying with as much positivity as I can muster: "What can I do for you, sir?"

"You will have ten agents meet you in London. Each one of them has a disguise and your rendezvous with them will be at the Hilton London Euston hotel, suite forty three. I want to receive a call from you the second you have Conner Quinn in custody."

"Yes, sir."

"No funny business, Roberts."

"Wouldn't dream of it, sir."

Ross hangs up the phone, so I hand it back to John, saying with a shake of my head: "I wish he could be civil to me once. Just once."

"He doesn't know you." John says softly.

"I remember Alex telling you that once."

"Yes, I feel the irony of that statement, too."

I chuckle lightly before nodding towards the wall of wigs. "Take your pick. Maybe you should try being a red head, maybe a brunette."

He narrows his eyes. "Don't even think about touching my hair."

A mischievous grin goes over Sam's face, enjoying every moment of this. "Come on, try one on. After all, the less you look like yourself, the more it will help the mission."

John lets out an exhale through his nose as he glances between Sam and the wigs. He grabs onto one, a black wig, and places it on his head. He looks like Justin Bieber in the early 2000's if his hair had been black.

Sam bursts out laughing and I can't help but laugh also, watching him rip the wig off and toss it to Bucky, who is chuckling softly also.

"Please don't throw the wigs," Caden says with disgust towards John. "You have no idea how expensive those are. In fact, everything you touch you need to be careful with."

"You realize that you won't be able to buy expensive shit like this once we capture Quinn, right?" John points out spitefully.

Caden shakes his head, looking genuinely sad. "Don't remind me. My whole life I've dreamt of having all this and now it's being ripped away because I am having a moment of moral decency and common sense."

Surprisingly John doesn't say anything back, he just turns away and looks back at the wigs. I feel a small smile cross my lips, which I try to hide as I walk over to Caden and rub his shoulders, trying to give him some reassuring words. "For helping us, you won't go to jail, you'll just be put on probation. You'll have to move to the US, get a new place and you'll have to work for the government, but you can keep a lot of this stuff."

Caden still looks distressed. "They'll take all of my business items. All my ID's, my layouts, my prosthetics, my beautiful wigs."

"They'll probably give them to the CIA to use. So your things will be helping agents save people, that's good, right?"

Caden shakes his head, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Beasty, you're not very good at pep talks."

John lets out a laugh from where he stands near the prosthetic noses, shaking his head. "She is actually, you're just too shallow to appreciate it."

Caden glares my way. "Your friend is a jackass."

I don't think anyone will deny that. "He grows on you."

Caden lets out a curt laugh. "Yeah, like a rash," He says, making his way towards the door. "You four take whatever you want. Walker, if you're going to take a wig, I suggest the short red one with the bangs. It may distract people from the rest of your unfortunate features."

John doesn't even look Caden's way as he gives him a crude gesture. Sam rolls his eyes and lets out a sigh, grabbing onto random items on the shelves and stalking out of the room just as Caden did. John notices and stares after Sam, his jaw locking before he turns away and continues to look at the different items.

Bucky and I lock eyes at the same time, with Bucky being the one to say: "Your friend is certainly quite the character."

I glance back at John, knowing that underneath the stern expression on his face is a lot of different swirling emotions. For a long time, everyone saw Alex as a closed off, emotionless man, when in reality he felt more than anyone else, but was too scared to express it. John is the same. John just needs what Alex needed: to let go of the past that's plaguing his heart.