Dear Diary,

Romanoff and I made our way to The Ronald Reagan Washington International Airport, which was where we were met with S.H.I.E.L.D jets to make our way to the Indian Ocean.

I don't see why we couldn't have met in New York for this, seeing as John F. Kennedy International Airport is right there in Queens, NY and Newark Liberty International Airport is nearby in Newark, NJ.

Well, whatever, make Captain America fly all the way to Washington D.C. on a commercial airplane just to get on another aircraft to make his way all the way across the world.

No biggie, right?

—————

By the time we arrived at the Indian Ocean it was about 2am the next day, so that was... ridiculously fast. I still can't get over any of this technology stuff. I'm a simple guy, what do you expect?

Finally, on the way there, I was informed on what the Hell was going on, thankfully.

"Target is a mobile satellite launch platform, the Lemurian Star," a man I know as Brock Rumlow informed us all, though, I have no idea what a satellite is, but it doesn't really matter. "They were sending up their last payload when pirates took them- 93 minutes ago."

"Any demands?" I asked, seeing if maybe the pirates wanted something for what they'd 'taken'.

"Billion and a half," he replied, looking right at me like we both knew damn well that was ridiculous.

"Why so steep?" I asked again.

"Because it's S.H.I.E.L.D.'s," he informed me.

"So, it's not off course," I deduced, whispering to Nat. "It's trespassing."

"I'm sure they have a good reason," she replied.

"You know, I'm getting a little tired of being Fury's janitor," I told her quietly, referring to the fact that, for the past few months, all our missions have only ever been to clean up whatever Fury messed up on. Some Director he turned out to be.

"Relax," she murmured. "It's not that complicated."

"How many pirates?" I asked the man at the front of the crowd of us.

"25. Top mercs, led by this guy," he stated, playing with the screen before us all to show us a young enough looking man. "Georges Batroc. Ex-DGSE, Action Division. He's at the top of Interpol's Red Notice. Before the French demobilized him, he had 36 kill missions. This guy's got a rep for maximum casualties."

"Hostages?" I continued, trying to gather the most information possible before we got there.

"Uhmm, mostly techs. One officer. Jasper Sitwell," he pulled up the picture of this man. Dark skin, glasses, shaved head and young. "They're in the Galley."

"What's Sitwell doing on the launch ship?" I said quietly. "All right, I'm gonna sweep the deck and find Batroc. Nat, you kill the engines and wait for instructions. Rumlow, you sweep the aft, find the hostages, get them to the life-pods, get them out. Let's move," I instructed because, well, I'm the Captain.

"S.T.R.I.K.E., you heard the Cap. Gear up," Rumlow said to the rest of the men there.

We all made our way out in order to get prepped for the mission at hand. Any minute now, we'd be ready to leave from the ship. All we had to do now was wait.

"Secure channel seven," I said into my radio, making sure Nat could hear me on the other end.

"Seven secure," she replied. I waked up to her as she got ready. "Did you do anything fun Saturday night?"

"Well, all the guys from my barbershop quartet are dead, so, no, not really," I joked with her because, Hell, I really cannot sing for the life of me.

"Coming up on the drop zone, Cap," I heard come in on the radio.

"You know, if you ask Kristen out, from Statistics, she'd probably say yes," Natasha threw at me.

"That's why I don't ask," I called over to her from the opening hatch as I put my helmet on. I forgot how much it sucked not having someone there for me who I didn't have to explain myself to all the time.

"Too shy, or too scared?" She yelled over to me.

"Too busy!" I replied, wishing I could have just said too gay, though, that might've been a bit much. Then, I proceeded to jump from the craft without neither a parachute, nor a second thought.

As I approached the water, I made sure to make myself as much of a straight line as possible so that I wouldn't literally die... oh, and, Christ, was the water freezing. I then made my way, as fast as I could, to one of the anchor type chains that was holding the ship in place. I, then, climbed up it and onto the ship. Easy.

The first thing I did, upon making it onto the ship, was choke one of the guards, so that was pretty cool I guess. Next, I swiftly made my way to the other guards and threw my trusty shield straight at the next two I came into contact with... Um, and then I quite literally kicked a man directly off of the ship into the ocean, so, oops.

After fighting my way through a Hell of a lot of pirates on board, a man pulled a gun on me and started saying shit in some language I didn't understand. Rumlow shot him from the air as he parachuted down.

"Thanks," I said, turning to him.

"Yea, you seemed pretty helpless without me," he replied jokingly.

Natasha then landed next to me and started taking off her parachute gear as she walked and talked with me. "What about the nurse that lives across the hall from you? She seems kinda nice," she asked.

"Secure the engine room, then find me a date," I directed her.

"I'm multi-tasking," she called out to me as she jumped a barrier fence and made her way to the engine room.

I made my way to the control room, and, once it was in sight, I made my way around the corner and awaited the perfect moment to call it.

"Natasha, what's your status?" I spoke into my radio. "Status, Natasha."

"Hang on!" she yelled, clearly fighting someone off at the moment. "Engine room secure," she finally replied.

"On my mark," I spoke into the radio to our crew yet again. "Three... two... one."

I ran my way to the glass windows and threw my shield at it, breaking the barrier between us all and jumping in after it. Batroc kicked me out of the way and ran, so I grabbed my shield and ran out the door after him.

"Romanoff missed the rendezvous point, Cap," I was alerted through my radio. "Hostiles are still in play."

"Natasha," I spoke into my radio, "Batroc's on the move. Circle back to Rumlow and protect the hostages... Natasha-" I was attacked.

It was Batroc. We went back and forth for a while, and believe me, this guys was good... but not good enough. Eventually, though, we stopped and he just looked at me and I, him.

"Je pensais que tu serais plus qu'un simple bouclier (I thought you would be more than just a shield)," he said in French. To which, I put my shield at my back in it's holder and unclipped my helmet. I spent enough of time around my Howling Commandos, Jaques Dernier and Gabriel Jones, to understand this guy's mottled French.

"Voyons voir (let's see)," I replied in French as well, showing him that he couldn't hide behind his language.

We duked it out and he barely even got a punch in before I barrel kicked him, ran him though a door and got on top of him and knocked him out cold with one punch.

"Well, this is awkward," Natasha commented from within the room we had just busted into.

I stood from my place on top of Bartoc and approached her. "What're you doing?"

"Backing up the hard drive," she replied. "It's a good habit to get into."

I disregarded that because, frankly, I have no idea what any of it means. "Rumlow needed your help. What the Hell are you doing here?" I waited, read the screen before me and then realized- "You're saving S.H.I.E.L.D. intel."

"Whatever I can get my hands on," she responded.

"Our mission is to rescue hostages," I told her.

"No, that's your mission," she corrected me. "And you've done it beautifully," she walked past me.

I grabbed her arm. "You just jeopardized this whole operation."

"I think that's overstating things," she corrected me again, when Bartoc stood from the ground and threw a bomb at us, which, I deflected as we dove into a secondary room. "Okay. That one's on me."

"You're damn right," I said as I stood and walked out.

—————

I really don't get this whole idea sometimes. I mean, how can you have me in charge of an operation while the very people I'm commanding have agendas of their own? It's kind of a problem, right?

It just makes no sense.

I'm not mad at Nat about any of this, no... it's more like Nick Fury that I'm mad at. He's the one in charge, after all.

~ S. Rogers.