As the three of them walked through the mall, Cassidy was on high alert. She wished that she and Nat had the time to grab wigs before they ventured out, both of them had hoods pulled up and Steve had a baseball cap on. They looked more like they were going to rob a store than blend in.

The went up to the Apple store and Nat worked on getting the flash drive decrypted.

"The drive has a level six homing program, so as soon as we boot up Shield will know exactly where we are." Nat told them. They would have to move fast; Shield would find them quick.\

"How much time will we have?" Steve asked.

"About nine minutes from…now." She said, plugging the drive in. "Fury was right about that ship. Somebody is trying to hide something." Nat told them, pulling up the files for the drive. "This drive is protected by some kind of A.I. It keeps rewriting itself to counter my demands."

"Can you override it?" Cassidy asked her. If anyone could, it would be her.

"The person who developed this is slightly smarter than me." Nat said.

"Only slightly?" Cassidy joked.

"Shut up."

Nat was trying to run a tracer, maybe figuring out where the files came from, when an Apple employee came up and asked them if they needed anything. Cassidy pulled Steve against her back, situating herself in front of the computer screen, smiling at the man.

"Oh, no. My sister was just helping me and my fiancé here with some honeymoon destinations." Cassidy said, throwing the man a flashing smile, linking her arms around Steve's middle.

"Right. We're getting married." Steve chuckled.

The man smiled at them. "Congratulations! Where are you guys thinking about going?" He asked, gesturing to the computer. Steve and Cassidy turned to the map Nat had pulled up.

"New Jersey." Steve told him. Wow. How lame would that honeymoon be?

The man stared at Steve for a second and Cassidy started getting nervous. What if he recognized Steve? "I have the exact same glasses." He said. Cassidy let out a breath of relief and chuckled softly.

"Wow, you two are practically twins." Nat snarked from behind them. The man laughed and pretended to bow to Steve.

"Yeah, I wish. Specimen." He told them. "If you guys need anything, I've been Aaron."

They turned back to the computer and Steve checked the time. "You said nine minutes."

"Relax." Nat told him. A small smile formed on her lips. "Got it."

Steve leaned in closer to look at the location. "You know it?" Nat asked.

Steve nodded. "I used to, let's go." Steve grabbed the flash drive and Cassidy's hand and they made their way out of the mall. Nat and Cassidy spotted the strike team at the same time Steve did.

"Standard tac team, Two behind, two across, and two coming straight at us." Steve told them.

Cassidy slid her arm around Steve's waist, pulling him close to her. "Put your arm around Nat and laugh at something I said." She told him. He hesitated for a minute before putting his arm around Nat's shoulders and dipping his head toward Cassidy, laughing, terribly, she might add, but it got them past the agents.

They got on the escalator and Cassidy glanced over to the opposite side and spotted Rumlow. She pulled Steve's hands on her waist. "Kiss my neck." She told him.

"What."

"Public displays of affection make people very uncomfortable." Nat said, catching on to what was happening.

"Yes, they do." Steve told her.

"Just do it." Cassidy ordered him before turning and pulling Nat's mouth to hers. It was a trick they had done on missions before, and it did make people turn a blind eye to what was going on. Once enough time had passed and Cassidy was sure Rumlow was out of their view, she pulled away from Nat, following her down to the floor.

"Still uncomfortable?" Cassidy asked him, smirking.

"That's not exactly the word I would use." Steve told her, and she had a feeling that he was trying to inconspicuously fix his pants behind her.

After Steve hotwired a car, they made their way to New Jersey. Cassidy was sitting in between them, fiddling with the radio, something she always did in the car when she was nervous.

"So where did Captain America learn to steal a car?" Nat asked.

"Nazi Germany." He told her. "And we're borrowing, take your feet off the dash." Nat smirked as Cassidy and slowly put her feet back onto the floorboard. Cassidy cracked a smile and found a station with some soft rock, and she leaned her head against Steve's arm.

"Alright I have a question for you, of which you do not have to answer." Nat said to Steve. "I feel like if you don't answer it though, you're kind of answering it, you know?"

"What?"

"How did it make you feel watching me kiss your girl?" She asked. Cassidy snapped her head in Nat's direction and smacked her on the leg.

"What? It's an honest question. I wanna know." Nat told her. Cassidy rolled her eyes and glanced over at Steve, who had his jaw clenched.

"Steve, you do not have to answer her." Cassidy told him.

"No, it's okay. While I don't like sharing my girl, it wasn't bad to look at." Cassidy's jaw dropped open and Nat busted out laughing.

"Have you guys done that before?" He asked. Cassidy nodded.

"Once or twice on missions, to make distractions and one time it was our cover to be a couple. That was fun." She told him, nudging her shoulder against Nat's.

"Nobody I'd rather pretend to suck face with than Cass here." Nat sad wryly. Steve laughed and shook his head as they pulled up to an old army base. They piled out of the truck and walked up to the gate.

"This is it." Steve told them.

"The file came from these coordinates." Nat added.

"So did I." Steve said, Both women looked at him. Cassidy guess she never knew exactly where Captain America started out, back when he was just regular Steve Rogers. It was kinda surreal, being in this place with him. They squeezed through the gate and began looking for the source of the file.

It started to get dark and they hadn't found anything yet. "This is where I was trained." Steve told them.

"Change much?" Nat asked. Steve stopped in front of a pole with a flag at the top and stared at t for a second. "A little." He said. Cassidy stepped up next to him and slid her hand in his.

"You okay?" She asked softly. He looked down at her and smiled, nodding.

"Yeah, just thinking. A lot of memories, you know?" She nodded and they continued through the base.

"This a dead end." Nat said, waving her detection device around the air. "Zero heat signatures, zero waves, not even radio. Whoever wrote the file must have used the router to throw people off."

Steve looked around for a moment, then stilled, his sight zeroing in on a building a couple hundred feet in front of them.

"What is it/" Cassidy asked him.

"Army regulations forbid storing munitions withing five hundred yards of the barracks." He told them, heading in the direction of the building. "This building is in the wrong place."

Steve broke the lock with his shield and they entered, taking stairs down to a room with dozens of computers, the Shield emblem on the wall.

"This is Shield." Nat commented.

"Maybe where it started." Steve replied. Cassidy wandered over to a wall with several pictures hanging from it. There was one of Howard Stark, one of Peggy Carter, and then there was a smaller one of her parents. Cassidy let out a small gasp and Steve was by her side in an instant.

"What's wrong?" He asked. She reached her hand out and brushed some dust from the frame.

"'I've been here before. It's hazy, but I remember running around down here. These are my parents." She told him, her voice quivering. "Howard and Peggy recruited them. I'm sorry I didn't tell you" She hadn't brought it up before because she didn't want tony to know she had known his father, and she didn't know that she had called Peggy her 'Aunt'.

Steve pulled her to his side, rubbing his hand down her arm. "It's okay, I know it's not a subject you like to talk about, but maybe sometime you could? With me?" Cassidy nodded and smiled up at him, grateful that he understood.

Steve left her to give her a minute and walked over to the other side of the room, inspecting a bookshelf. "If you're already working in a secret office." He said, pulling and pushing at the shelf until it revealed an elevator. "Why do you need to hide the elevator?"

Cassidy joined them and Nat used her phone to figure out the code pattern for the elevator. It took them deep underground and when they stepped out into the dark room. She heard the faint hum of a computer and when they walked further in, the lights came on to show very outdated computers and equipment.

"This can't be the data point; This technology is ancient." Nat said, walking up to the main desk. Cassidy followed, looking around for anything that could have been used to make the drive. Then she found it.

"Except this." Cassidy told her, holding out her hand for the drive. Nat handed it to her and she plugged it in, and the machines all whirred on. The center screen on the desk had a question appear on it, asking if they wanted the system initiated. Nat walked over and typed in 'yes'.

"Shall we play a game?" She joked. "It's from a movie-"

"I know, I've seen it." Steve told her. Cassidy rolled her eyes and focused on the screen where a face was now appearing. The face looked so familiar to her, like she'd seen it in Shield archives somewhere.

"Rogers, Steven." A voice said. "Born 1918. Romanoff, Natalia Alianovna. Born 1984. Forbes, Cassidy Elizabeth. Born 1981."

'It's some kind of recording." Nat said softly.

"I am not a recording Fraeulein. I may not be the man I was when the captain took me prisoner in 1945. But I am."

"You know this thing?" Nat asked.

"Arnim Zola was a German scientist who worked for the Red Skull." Steve told them. That's where she had seen him before. He was right hand to the Red Skull until Steve took him hostage. Then he worked for Shield in exchange for not being killed or thrown in prison. But Cassidy thought he had died a long time ago.

"He's been dead for years."

"First correction, I am Swiss." Zola said. "Second, look around you. I have never been more alive. In 1972 I received a terminal diagnosis. Science could not save my body. My mind however, that was worth saving. You are standing in my brain."

This was starting to creep Cassidy out. She had a bad feeling about being here. Why would Shield want to keep Zola's brain like this?

"This was Operation Paperclip after World War II. Shield recruited German scientists with strategic value." Nat told them.

"They thought I could help their cause." Zola added, "I also helped my own."

"Hydra died with Red Skull." Steve said.

"Cut off one head, two more shall take it's place."

"You guys, I think we should get out of here. I have a bad feeling about all this. It doesn't seem right." Cassidy said softly. Both Nat and Steve looked at her, but then looked back at the computer when videos and pictures started popping up.

Zola started talking about what Hydra stood for, why they created it in the first place, She saw videos of Red Skull, Hydra agents, there were even some of Steve fighting said agents. Videos from the war.

"For 70 years, Hydra has been secretly feeding crisis, reaping war, and when history did not cooperate, history was changed."

"That's impossible, Shield would have stopped you." Nat said, her voice unsure.

"Accidents will happen." Zola told them, a newspaper article of Howard and Maria Stark's death. Cassidy's hand went to cover her mouth. She knew Howard, he had been kind to her, always showing her whatever new invention he had been working on. Nick's file came to the screen next, the words DECEASED stamped in ink. Cassidy let out a strangled gasp, she felt nauseous.

Everything was fitting together. Why Nick told them not to trust anyone, why he was murdered, everything that Zola was saying now. Pictures and blueprints of the Helicarriers popped up. Project Insight. Cassidy jumped when Steve punched the center screen, but Zola's face just appeared on others.

Shield was Hydra, and it had been all along. The elevator doors closed locking them in and Cassidy couldn't stop her hands from shaking.

"Steve, we got a bogey. Short range ballistic. Thirty seconds tops." Nat told them.

"Who fired it?" he asked.

"Shield."

"Oh god." Cassidy whispered. Zola's voce echoed in the background as Nat grabbed the flash drive and Steve yanked up a grate in the floor for them to jump into. Cassidy went first, Nat on top of her, and Steve threw his shield up above them as the bomb hit and the building collapsed on them.

Cassidy tried to hold herself up, but the pressure was too much and she faintly remembered Steve trying to keep her pulled against them as she passed out.