AN: Thanks for the follows!
In sweats and hoodies, Steve and I returned to the hospital where Nick Fury died, hoping to retrieve the thumb drive. But when we arrived at the vending machine where he had hidden the drive, the row of gum he hid it behind was gone. Someone popped a bubble right behind us and my gaze shot to the reflection of Natasha as she blew another bubble of pink gum. Steve spun and grabbed her shoulders before pushing her into an observation room.
"Where is it?" Steve growled at Natasha as he pushed her against a wall.
"Safe," was her simple response.
"I think you can do better than that," I snapped.
I wasn't in the trusting mood considering people had tried to kill me and Steve only an hour before. People we had trusted.
"Where did you get it?" Natasha countered.
"Why would I tell you?"
I rolled my eyes at their questioning match.
Natasha contemplated Steve for a moment, "Fury gave it to you. Why?"
"What's on it?" I asked instead of Steve, capturing both of their attention again. I gave him a pointed look to calm down.
"I don't know," Natasha replied.
"Stop lying," Steve hissed, turning back to her, shaking her arm.
"I only act like I know everything, Rogers," Natasha told him.
"She's not lying, Steve," I confirmed, as sensed no deception from Natasha.
Steve ignored me, "I bet you knew Fury hired the pirates, didn't you?"
She looked a bit surprised, but I couldn't tell. She was so good at acting, it was scary, "Well, it makes sense. The ship was dirty, Fury needed a way in, so do you," Natasha said simply.
"I'm not going to ask you again," Steve said harshly grabbing her jacket.
"I know who killed Fury," Natasha stated, and Steve put her down. "So does Amara. I think she knew who the assailant was the moment Fury was shot," Natasha said, and Steve whipped around to look at me in shock as I narrowed my eyes at Natasha.
"Way to throw me under the bus Natasha," I thought.
Steve moved his attention from Natasha to me. Steve gripped my arm, causing me to scowl as the distrust showed and the tension in the room from the previous conversation thickened.
"Amara is this true?" Steve asked, leveling me with a hard stare.
"Yes, I knew who it was," I replied honestly, returning Steve's stare.
"Now I see why you and Fury have become so close over the years, you're one in the same. You two like to keep people in the dark!" Steve exclaimed angrily.
I yanked my arm out of his grasp, "There was so many things happening at once. I couldn't find the right time," I explained, defending myself.
"I'm sure with the kind critical information you had, you could've made time," Steve snapped.
"And then what, Steve!" I snapped back. "What would have you done, hmm? Go after him, because it's almost impossible to do," I finished fustratedly.
Steve took another step towards me and pointed his finger accusingly at me, "How do you know him?" Steve asked darkly.
"He was my partner!" I shouted, avoiding everyone's eyes and staring directly at the door. Steve and Natasha beside me remained quiet as the information sunk in. "He's credited with over two dozen assassinations in the last fifty years, as you saw, he's fast and strong," I added, shifting my eyes between Steve and Natasha.
Natasha spoke again, clearly satisfied with the reaction and information she received, "Amara's right about him being hard to find. A lot of people in the intelligence community don't believe he's real, people that do call him The Winter Soldier," Natasha started.
"So people call him a ghost story," Steve stated flatly, glancing at the two of us.
"HYDRA taught us how to be a ghost. How to disappear without a trace. To exist only when needed to exist," I explained softly, crossing my arms together.
"Five years ago, I was escorting a nuclear engineer out of Iran. Somebody shot out my tires near Odessa. We lost control, went straight over a cliff. I pulled us out. But the Winter Soldier was there. I was covering my engineer, so he shot him, straight through me." Nat lifted her top so they could see a bullet wound in her stomach. "Soviet-slug, no rifling. Bye-bye bikinis."
"Yeah, I bet you look terrible I them now," Steve taunted.
We both knew that it was impossible for Natasha to look terrible in anything. She even made XXL Men's sweatshirts look like a fashion statement.
"Going after him is a dead end. I know, I've tried. Like you said he's a ghost story," Natasha held up the flash drive and Steve took it.
Steve glanced at me briefly before speaking to Natasha, "Well, let's find out what the ghost wants,"
~~~x~~~
An hour later, we were at the local mall in a different disguise. Natasha wore wedged sneakers, skinny jeans, a hoodie with the hood pulled up over her head and a jacket over that. Steve had on sneakers, jeans, a t-shirt, hoodie, jacket over that, fake glasses, and a baseball cap. Meanwhile, I wore a navy blue jacket, black t-shirt, and black sneakers.
"First rule of going on the run is don't run, walk," She said, trying to slow us down.
"This isn't my first time going on the run from a government agency," I reminded.
I won't lie this whole HYDRA situation was really getting to me, it was as if I was fourteen again, on the run and paranoid about any person I came into contact with. No sense of loyalty, only self-preservation, I shook my head to clear my thoughts.
"Besides, if I run in these shoes, they're gonna fall off," Steve complained, which caused both Natasha and I to smile slightly.
Natasha pulled on Steve's hand and directed him to the nearby Apple store to one of the MacBook Pros in the middle of the room.
"Shouldn't we move to the corner of the room?" Steve questioned, looking towards the secluded corners.
"Less obvious we're doing something bad," I explained shrugging.
"The drive has a level six homing program. "So as soon as we boot up, SHIELD will know exactly where we are," Natasha explained.
"How much time do we have?" I asked, as I took out the little USB that's brought us so much trouble from my pocket and handing it to Natasha.
"Uh...about nine minutes from..." She popped the flash drive into a MacBook Pro. "Now,"
Steve started to fiddle with his glasses and looked around nervously.
Natasha furiously typed on the keyboard, "Fury was right about that ship. Somebody's trying to hide something. This drive is protected by some sort of AI. It keeps rewriting itself to counter my commands,"
"Like JARVIS?" I asked curiously, Natasha only gave me half shrug and made a slight frown.
"Can you override it?" Steve asked. "The person who developed this is slightly smarter than me," Natasha admitted.
"Slightly?" I asked raising an eyebrow.
"Yes, slightly," I couldn't really imagine someone being smarter than Natasha.
She continued to tap away at the keys, eyes scanning the codes for any sort of break in the continuous streak of numbers.
"'I'm gonna try running a tracer. This is a program that S.H.I.E.L.D. developed to track hostile malware, so if we can't read the file, maybe we can find out where it came from," Natasha told us.
"Can I help you guys with anything?" A hippie guy came up to us and asked, the man had long blonde hair and a beard to match.
I smiled brightly, "Oh no. I'm just being an awesome friend and Maid of Honor to the bride here," I hugged Natasha free arm. "And looking up some honeymoon destinations for this beautiful couple," It was the first thing to come into my head.
"Right, we're getting married," Steve commented lamely, causing me to let out a slight cough.
"Congratulations," the Apple employee said sincerely. "Where do you guys thinking about going?" The man asked Steve, his eyes locked on the laptop.
Steve quickly moved to block the screen, staring down at it to find a location. "New Jersey," he told the man quickly.
"Oh," the man replied before cocking his head and staring intensely at Steve.
I inhaled deeply staring with wide eyes, hoping that he wouldn't recognize Steve.
"I have the exact same glasses," the man told Steve with a smile, and Steve self-consciously touched the black frames.
"Wow, you two are practically twins," Natasha droned, sounding bored as her fingers continued to move over the keys.
"Yeah, I wish," the man said before gesturing to Steve – particularly his body. "Specimen," the man commented.
I smiled, barely containing my laughter at Steve's uncomfortable expression and feelings. "If you guys need anything, I've been Aaron," the man said before kindly dismissing himself.
"Thank you," I told him with a smile before we turned back to Natasha.
"He was nice, don't you think?" I remarked.
Natasha looked back at me, "Remind me to pick a better Maid of Honor. I'm not remotely interested in honeymooning in New Jersey," Natasha joked, before she kept typing away on the laptop.
Steve looked at his watch, "Come on you said nine minutes." He said impatiently.
"Oh shh," Natasha silenced him. She smirked and stopped typing. "Got it," The screen flashed the words of a destination.
Steve leaned in closer and squinted at, "You know it?" Natasha asked as Steve eyed it.
"I used to," He answered yanking out the USB.
We exited the store in hurry. I kept on looking back seeing if we were being followed.
"Standard Tac Team," Steve noted, as he looked around the mall. "Two behind, two across and two coming straight at us," He informed us, keeping his voice low as we moved through the crowd of people. I noticed the two agents ahead of us that he was speaking of.
"If they make us, I'll engage, you hit the south escalator to the metro," Steve instructed us, I glanced up and saw two shady looking figures eyeing us.
"Shut up and put your arm around me. Laugh at something I said," Natasha ordered Steve.
"What?" Steve and I looked at her with a confused face.
She rolled her eyes and grabbed my arm, yanking me to her right side. She put and arm around me, "Do it," She growled at Steve as the figures were heading right towards the last minute he did what Natasha told him and forced laughed. The figure passed by us without even glancing at us. Steve looked back to see if it was clear.
We headed towards the escalators and got on one that was heading down. I was behind Steve and I glanced around the mall. My eyes landed on Rumlow. He was on top of an escalator that was heading up and would surely see us when we passed by one another. Before I could alert Steve, Natasha, turned around and faced Steve.
"Kiss me," She demanded looking up at Steve.
My eyebrows rose as did Steve's, "What?" He asked bewildered.
"Public displays of affection make people uncomfortable," Natasha explained quickly.
"Yes they do," Steve agreed, his face reddening.
Before Steve could protest Natasha grabbed his face and kissed him. My mouth dropped. Natasha just kissed Steve. Oh my god. I slightly moved my head to see that Rumlow is still coming. Before I could move I felt Steve grab me and pull me to his side so his body would block me from Rumlow's view. I glanced down at my shoes as I tried to avoid the awkward situation happening in front of me. Natasha and Steve just kissed and I had to be the one to witness it. The most awkward part was that I was the third wheel, even though they're not dating.
Rumlow passed by and Natasha pulled away and turned back around.
"Still uncomfortable?" She asked as she walked down the escalators stairs.
"That's not the word I would use," Steve said, his ears going pink.
I hurried down the escalators stairs and moved aside to avoid people, "Well that's the word I would use," I quipped, as I stepped off the stairs and ran after them.
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