Author: You guys should all be thanking my fiance for buying Civil War and having it playing when I came home from work. It was apparently the kick in the ass I needed to dive head first back into the MCU... for the moment. I solemnly swear that I will do my best not to abandon this story... and that I am up to no good. :) Anyways, my freaky darlings... enjoy.
Steve almost jumped when he saw Natasha's reflection appear in the glass over his shoulder.
He had spent two weeks at the Retreat and the past three practically living alongside Rain... who moved silently and quickly... like a good SHIELD agent should. At the Retreat, she had snuck up on him a lot before she began to intentionally make noise so he knew she was there. When she stayed with him at his apartment, she went back to her old habit of sneaking up on him. But since he trusted her now, it didn't catch him off guard as much.
Natasha watched Steve as he glared at her and allowed him to drag her into a room off the main hallway. She narrowed her eyes when he shoved her against the wall.
"Where is it?" he growled, shoving his hood back.
"Safe." she told him, trying to step out of his grip.
Steve shoved her back against the wall and demanded, "Do better."
"Where did you get it?" she asked.
She wasn't scared of Steve and she told him so with her eyes. More dangerous men than him had tried to terrify her and all had failed.
"Why should I tell you?" he hissed.
The answer hit Natasha like a punch in the stomach and she whispered, "Fury gave it to you. Why?"
Steve raised an eyebrow. If she knew that Fury had given him the flash drive... she might know other things too. "What's on it?" he asked.
"I don't know." she told him.
"Stop lying." he hissed, not believing her.
"I only act like I know everything, Rogers." she smirked. It was an act that kept people guessing about her and made her dangerous in the eyes of many people.
Steve narrowed his eyes at her smirk and growled, "I bet you knew Fury hired the pirates. Didn't you?"
It wasn't making sense to Steve.
Why would Fury send him and the rest of the team into harms way intentionally?
Natasha shrugged and said, "It makes sense. The ship was dirty. Fury needed a way in and so do you."
Steve stared at her and realized that was the difference between them.
Natasha was never surprised when people did the wrong thing... or the risky thing.
Did he actually know her at all?
Could he trust her?
As he far as he could tell, she was playing some game with him and he didn't like it.
He needed to know what she knew about Fury's death. And he needed to know it now.
"I'm not going to ask you again." he growled.
Natasha paused, staring into his eyes. He was pissed and rightfully so.
Fury was dead.
The identity of his shooter was a mystery... at least to him.
SHIELD itself seemed to be turning against him.
Neither Rain nor Clint were reachable, which bothered her a bit and was especially bothering Steve.
"I know who killed Fury. Most of the intelligence community doesn't believe he exists. The ones that do call him the Winter Soldier. He's credited with over two dozen assassinations in the last fifty years." Natasha admitted.
A fifty year career for an assassin was almost unheard of, unless the assassin was another Enhanced or there was some sort of life-extension technology involved... which Steve doubted.
Natasha knew that Clint had a twenty four year career under his belt with a few years of free-lance and the rest being one of SHIELD's top snipers. Put a weapon in the man's hands and he would figure out how to load it, use it, take it apart, clean it and then put it back together in a few minutes.
"So he's a ghost story." Steve muttered.
She sighed and said, "Five years ago, I was escorting a nuclear engineer out of Iran. Somebody shot out my tires near Odessa. We lost control and went straight over a cliff. I pulled us out... but the Winter Soldier was there. I was covering my engineer... so he shot him... through me."
She lifted her shirt to show him the scar just above her left hip and added, "Soviet slug. No rifling. Bye-bye bikinis."
"Yeah... I bet you look terrible in them now." Steve muttered.
Natasha ignored his comment and said, "Going after him is a dead end. I know. I've tried."
Steve raised an eyebrow as she held up the flash drive and added, "Like you said... he's a ghost story."
"Let's go see what the ghost wants." he said, taking the flash drive.
Natasha slipped out of his grip, looked him over and said, "You need a new wardrobe."
"What?" he asked, tucking the flash drive in his hoodie.
She rolled her eyes and asked, "Didn't Rain ever take you shopping?"
"For DVDs and books. And for boots... once. She dragged me into a place called Hot Topic but we didn't find anything." he told her.
"Hot Topic... of course. Rain only loves to shop for weapons, hunting gears, anything edgy or punkish and DVDS." Natasha sighed.
"Punkish?" Steve asked, feeling very confused.
She laughed and said, "Most of what Hot Topic sells is punkish."
"Oh..." he muttered.
Author: Yes I love Hot Topic. Sue me. And the idea of Steve getting dragged into one is cute.