9:00am, Sunday, March 9, 2014
Steve uses closed streets to get back to the hospital. Natasha said that she was still there and the triplets had texted him that they were safe. They also said that Tony was really worrying about him and asked to take as soon as they could. He had ditched his clothes at a high school, being recognized here would be awful for both of them.
He goes up to a vending machine that way he can see behind him. He stood there for a minute before feeling someone's hand holding his. He pushes both of them into the small room behind them. He takes a look at her, she's safe. "God Nat" he whispers. His lips slant over hers in a light kiss, relishing in knowing that she's here alone with him for the first time in days. She cups his face. It has a few cuts on it and she can see a few bruises forming along his neck and where his shirt exposes his chest.
"What happened?" She asks as she holds his head in her hands.
"Pierce, STRIKE, SHIELD. I'm on the run now, the kids are safe. I've just been so scared for you Nat." he touches her cheek lovingly, "is it safe?"
She hands him the drive. "Fury is alive, I'm sure you figured that out by now though. That's what the triplets meant by 'deep shallow conditions'. It's a code that Fury developed for a few people. I never thought we would need to use it but neither did Coulson and TAHITI. The man who shot him is called the Winter Soldier, the one person that has shot me and got away with it. He's a ghost story but fight now, we need to find out where the drive came from. Then find Fury, after that we can go after the soldier."
"All our surveilance devices are at the apartment, I'm pretty sure that at least two teams are there right now."
"That means that we have to use a public outlet. Like a computer store, they shut off all users after the first time they use it. What's that place in the mall that Ronnie and Shuri went through on Thanksgiving?"
Steve thinks for a minute, "Aaron's Electronics. The National Mall. We'd have to be careful, the kids weren't exactly subtle the last time we were there. Are we going undercover again?"
"Yes." She knows how much he dislikes going undercover, lying isn't his thing. It is fun when she has to go undercover at a bar and flirt. She always teases him about how jealous he can get. That's why he had Fury only assign them undercover ops together if they had to 'act' married. Rumlow made them so much worse but they could show hate to him now, he had tried to kill Steve after all.
She holds his head in her hands again, pulling him close to kiss him. They didn't have long so she pulls away. "Just for luck. Let's go." She takes his hand and helps sneak him out of the hospital. The walk to the mall is short, not many cameras in the smaller streets. She could see their friend Sam on his morning run. Steve would usually run with him whenever he is in DC without a mission. Nat sneaks into Target and grabs two hoodies, glasses, and a cap. "You look good in that Babe." Natasha kisses him on the cheek as they walk to the computer store. No need now to pretend that they're not in love. They ride up the escalator to the computer store.
Natasha takes a look all around, making sure that nobody unwanted is there. Eighteen people, rotating, three employees, twelve computers, at least one phone per person. "The drive has a Level Six homing program, so as soon as we boot up they'll know exactly where we are. Hopefully anyone else looking can as well." Yeah, she wants the kids to be able to track her, SHIELD not so much. She takes out the drive, hopefully she can remember the code that Ronnie taught her.
"How much time do we have?"
"Oh...about nine minutes from" she sticks the drive into the computer. "Now. They're definitely hiding something. This drive is protected by some sort of AI, it keeps rewriting itself to counter my commands. It's advanced, really wishing we brought one of them right now. Has the same code format."
"Well they did make most of the software. I'm pretty sure that they didn't use their own form of AI to do it. Can you override it?"
"The person who developed this is slightly smarter than me. I'm gonna try running a tracer. This is a program that the 'old' SHIELD system developed to track hostile malware, so if we can't read the file, maybe we can find out where it came from."
From behind her, Natasha can tell that they're is someone walking up to them. She pokes Steve in the arm so he can look up. "Can I help you guys with anything?" An overly cheerful employee for it being nine in the morning asks.
"Oh, no. Me and my husband are just looking at anniversary vacation locations." Natasha says happily, that gets Steve thinking, yeah their one year is coming up soon. But their wedding day is the day after their son's birthday so they wouldn't be able to celebrate it privately.
Steve smiles down at her as she continues hacking. "Yeah, we're excited to get away for the weekend."
"Congratulations. Where are you guys thinking about going?"
Steve peers over the screen, "New Jersey" the man smiles at him. He's about to go away when he realizes something, making Steve's stifen under his gaze.
"I have the exact same glasses. If you guys need anything, I've been Aaron." He holds out his name tag and walks away.
Steve turns back to Natasha, her hood is starting to come down, showing her straight red hair. "I don't like the way he's looking at you." She tells him.
"This you playing super spy or overprotective wife?"
She doesn't miss a beat with her reply, "both, mostly the second one." The computer boots up with the location. Wheaton, New Jersey. "Camp Leigh?" She asks at his surprised face. He hasn't heard that name in years.
"Let's go." Steve grabs the drive and walks out of the store hand in hand with his wife. He just hopes that STRIKE and SHIELD would be so unaccustomed to the Black Widow blowing kisses at Captain America. Natasha smirks a little as they walk past Victoria's Secret, the girls are never letting the boys live that down. It's their fault because they gave into their 'energetic male adolescent brains' according to Henry "Standard tac-team. Two behind, to across, two coming straight at us. If they make us, I'll engage, you hit the south escalator to the metro." He speaks quickly both to himself and Natasha
"Shut up and put your arm around me, laugh at something I said." He does it, knowing better than to question her methods. As he wraps his arm around her shoulders, she puts her hand in his back pocket. Steve, still not quite being used to people acting this way in public gives her a pouty look. One that sends both of them into laughter. It worked, the agents didn't spot them.
They have to get down to the garage. They get on the escalator. "Do you have the car keys?" Natasha asks, it being a code for they'll have to hotwire something. He holds her hand. Natasha spots something on the other side of the escalator. Rumlow. "Public displays of affection make people very uncomfortable." She tells Steve as she turns to him.
"Yes, they do."
"I love you" She mumbles and pulls his head down to kiss him. He is so much taller than her usually but now she is also a step lower than him. He places his hand on her waist in an effort to get closer as their lips move together. Moving together slightly as Steve tastes her strawberry chapstick, he could never get enough of her. Even though her eyes are closed, Natasha can see Rumlow get off at the top and she and Steve are pretty close to the bottom. She pulls away, biting her lip and turns around so she can grab his hand without taking off a limb. "You still uncomfortable?"
"I can't believe I married you."
He groans and she laughs, still his favorite sound. He wraps his other hand around her waist as they rush to the garage.
After all that, Steve was pretty happy. He just got to kiss his wife in public for the first time other than Wakanda. He had stolen a car from the lot and now they were driving to Wheaton. A pickup truck, nothing much. Sadly Natasha hadn't been able to have one of her friends save her corvette before going on the run.
"Where did Captain America learn how to steal a car?" She teases him, turning her head slightly.
"Ronnie's been teaching me some stuff. How are they by the way?"
Natasha looks down at her phone. "They're fine. At a safe house."
"Well apparently their safe houses are not so safe"
"WHAT?!" Natasha shouts, making Steve swerve.
"Nick, he asked them to set him up with a safehouse for Batroc. So they did, I have a feeling that they might not be telling the truth about anything right now. I talked with Xander before I left, he said that he misses being able to be a hero. And if one of the triplets feel something, they all know it."
Natasha is about to pull the head out of their hair. "I don't care what physical state Fury is in, I'm going to punch him. Anything else happen while I've been away?"
"Peter found out, took it pretty well. He won't tell anyone. I could tell that he's a little scared from what Ronnie told him, but he's just worried about their safety."
"After all this, I am as well." Natasha gives him a shy smile. He reaches over and places his hand on her thigh. She takes out her phone again. "Do you think that they're asleep?"
"They're probably pretending to be." Natasha dials her older son, he's usually up the earliest. Xander is part panther, so the nocturnal in him makes his sleep schedule a mess. Ronnie has what the press calls 'Stark Syndrome', when you do so much with tech that you don't sleep. Some believe it's aliens, others believe that it's obsessiveness. "Hey Henry"
"Mom?" another voice answers.
"Ronnie, where are you guys?"
"Safe, doing some hacking. We're all fine though." Natasha shares a look with Steve then they can hear static on the and what sounds like beeping from an EKG. A bunch of shouting comes over. "Shoot, one of the goats escaped, gotta go. "BTW, we should talk when we next see you guys."
Natasha raises an eyebrow at her phone. "Ok" she says slowly, "stay safe you you."
"BTW, we should talk when we next see you guys. Love you"
Ronnie hangs up. "The goats?" Steve asks. "They've used that excuse a few too many times."
"It's not their worst, but we can't get to them yet even if they are telling the truth. Even if they're not where they said they are. That's okay, right?" Natasha asks him. He shrugs his shoulders, meeting her eyes before turning back to the road. He knows firsthand how easy it is to get lost in her eyes. It was almost as easy for her to get lost in his, the abs are a close second though.
"I don't have any idea. On a change of topic, did you miss me?" He asks, playfulness taking over their conversation again.
"Yeah, it kinda scared me how much I did, but you're here now." She admits as she places her hand over his. "What was Leigh like?"
He turns his head strictly to the road. "It wasn't fun, but from experience not many military training facilities are. I was picked on a lot for my size. A few overheard Phillips calling me Erskine's gerbil, the name stuck. I had a few asthma attacks. Almost none of the clothes they had fit me. Peggy and Erskine were the only ones that believed in me. Even Bucky thought I would die before I even got out there. Look at me now though, I'm here with you. Despite what's going on, I'm happy. You and our kids make me happy, never forget that Nat.
"I love you" Natasha mumbles in Russian.
"I love you too"
This chapter and the next few will have some very subtle differences that end up mattering later in the series. I'm also trying some different formats for phone calls/texts to see which looks best, pls tell me if you have a preference.