Chapter 13:
[Steve Rogers POV]
[Hospital, Washington DC]
Now wearing civilian clothing over my uniform, I sneak my way through the hospital, stopping at the vending machines. The USB drive I hid in it is gone. Natasha's reflection appears over my shoulder, popping a chewing gum. I grab her arm, drag her into an empty room, and put her up against the wall. "Where is it?" I demand, knowing she must've taken it. There is no other reason to stage an appearance like that. "Safe," Natasha states. Keeping her pin, "Do better," I growl. A pinch of fear crosses her feature. It's gone as quickly as it came.
"Where did you get it?" she queries. "Why would I tell you?" I ask. "Fury gave it to you. Why?" Natasha pushes. 'So, she knew. She played me from the start.' I turn the question back on her. If she knew Fury gave me the drive, then maybe she knows other things too. "What's on it?" I demand. "I don't know," Natasha tells me. I didn't believe her, "Stop lying." She snaps, "I only act like I know everything, Rogers." And that's the problem. The act. It's hard to tell which is a performance and which isn't. I was getting tired of this cloak-&-dagger tactic.
"Bet you knew that Fury hired the mercs," I say. Still trying to put that one together. Why would Fury do that? Natasha didn't seem too surprised. "Well, it makes sense. The ship was dirty. Fury needed a way in, and that was his ticket, and yours," she tells me. That was the difference between us. Natasha, Spartan, and Karai were never surprised when someone did the wrong or risky thing. Their world is the land of the gray. Nothing is so simple as black and white. For now, the question is, can I trust her. Far as I could tell, Natasha is playing a game with me, and I didn't like it.
I needed to know what she knew about Fury's death. "I'm not going to ask again," I growl, squeezing her arm. There's a pause. "I know who killed Fury," she says, "Most of the Intelligence community don't believe they exist. The ones that do calls them CERBERUS. A mercenary unit credited for a dozen black ops. Assassination, terrorism, you name it, they did it. Their most lethal asset is known as the Winter Soldier. Been active for the last 50 years."
A 50-year career as an assassin? That shouldn't be possible. Unless he's a SUPER or using some crazy life extension technology. At this point, I shouldn't be surprised if that's the case after everything I experienced. "They're ghosts," I say. Natasha nods, "Five years ago, I was escorting a nuclear engineer out of Iran. Someone shot out my vehicle near Odessa. Lost control and went straight over a cliff. I pulled us out. But the Winter Soldier was there. I covered my VIP, so he shot him through me," she pulls up her shirt to reveal a nasty-looking scar, "Soviet Slug. No rifling. Bye, bikini." "Yeah, I'm sure you look terrible in those now," I say more coldly than intended. The red-headed spy ignores that. "Going after them is a dead end. I know, I'd tried. As you said, they're ghosts," she says, holding up the USB drive. I take the device, "Then let's find out what the ghosts want."
[Spartan POV]
[Excalibur]
From a distance, I can see the carrier-ship is heavily damaged. It's a miracle that it's still above water. Rhodey taps his comlink, "This is James Rhodes; what's the situation?" Silent. "Again, this is James Rhodes, calling the Excalibur. Does anyone copy?" Nothing. A pinch of panic settles in. Once the quinjet is right over the carrier, Rhodey opens the rear doors and soars out the aircraft with Karai and me right behind him. Landing, the three of us dart straight inside, weapon at the aim.
Running the hall, my eyes glance at the crew members' dead bodies sprawled across the floor. A terrifying scream pierces the hallway. We run toward the source. Coming around a corner, the three of us run into a squad of armed soldiers. Karai and I quickly get into a combat stance while Rhodey charges up an energy blast. "Hold! Friendlies!" a female voice calls out. A female soldier steps out from the crowd. "Danvers!" Rhodey calls out, taking the woman in a tight hug, happy to see she's still alive. "Rhodey. I'm happy you're alright," the woman says and peers over to Karai and me, "PARAGADES." We give her a slight nod in acknowledgment. Rhodey pulls back from the hug, "Danvers, what the hell is going on?!"
"No idea. Everything blew up into a complete clusterfuck. We were caught off-guard. The STRIKE unit turned on us and started killing everyone," Danvers tells me. Rhodey snaps his head up, shocked, "STRIKE? But they're SHIELD?" Fury's messages reverberate in the back of my thought, 'SHIELD compromised.' "Where's the other survivors?" I ask. "Mac and the other engineers are held-up in the command center. I lost track of everyone else," Danvers tells me. Something behind the squad catches my eyes. A shimmer. One of the soldiers cries out in pain as an energy blade pierces out his chest from his back. The lifeless soldier is dropped without care to the floor.
Rhodey quickly pulls Danvers behind him protectively. The shadow grabs another agent, uses him as a shield, fires on the other two, then snaps the last one's neck. The stealth-camo switches off, revealing a woman in a black-clad combat-suit. The assassin peers at us in amusement, "Oh, look at what we have here? More little piggies for the grinder." From around the corner, a squad of armed mercs comes running. The lead merc size-up each of us, "Kill them all." The troopers began to rain down bullets, forcing us back. Karai, Rhodey, Danvers, and I start to open fire, dropping six of them. We make a break for the hanger-bay.
[Hanger-bay.] The four of us engage the mercs in combat. I punch a merc in the face, knocking him out with one blow. Another I drop dead with a double-tap-shot to the chest and head. Tackle merc#3 to the ground. Getting into a dominant position, I jam my pistol under his jaw and pull the trigger. Merc#4 tries to come at me with a combat machete. I deflect the swing, slam an elbow across his jaw, hip-throw him to the ground, then shoot him in the head. Sprinting, I draw my combat knife, sink the blade into merc#5's arm, drag it down, slicing the arm from shoulder to hand.
The man howls. I finish the merc off by sliding the blade across his throat. The merc leader beelines straight to Rhodey. Making the first move, Rhodey fires a blast. The merc dashes to the side, moves in close, and punches him in the gut, enhances the strike by charging the blow with her powers, sending Rhodey crashing to the wall. The merc hits him with a powerful jump-knee attack to the chest. Conjuring energy around her fist, the assassin turns the aura into a sword-like energy blade, jamming it into Rhodey's shoulder. He shrieks out in anguish. The merc grips him by the throat. "Well, that's disappointing and unsatisfying. And here I did all this work to set the mood for a real fight," the merc says. Rhodey starts to charge a blast. Acting fast, the merc throws the armored hero onto his back and rams the energy blade through Rhodey's right hand.
"AAARRRGGHH!" Rhodey cries. He nearly lost consciousness due to the pain. The merc bends down over Rhodey, smacks him across the face. "No. Can't let you pass out now. Before I put an end to your miserable existence, I'm going to make an example out of you, a message to all the masked vigilantes and wannabe heroes. Those who oppose NEO-HYDRA will suffer. Their torture will be legendary," she hisses, raising her energy blade for the killing blow. From out of nowhere, multiple shots hit the assassin in the chest, dropping her. Karai, gun aimed, rushes toward Rhodey, grabs him, and drags him to a safe distance. An energy blast nearly takes their heads off. We all wheel around to see it's the merc, back on her feet, glaring hatefully at Karai and Rhodey. "I wasn't done playing with that," the mercenary snarls. Karai readies herself for a fight.
[Karai POV]
"Judging by your getup, you must be with the mercs," I say. The masked woman tilts her head in amusement, "Code-name's Skeith." The dead soldiers' image flashes in my mind, "You're going to pay for what you did." She laughs callously under her mask, "Don't talk shit if you can't back it up, cur." I rush forward, throwing a punch. Skeith blocks the attack and counters with an energy blast. My armor manages to shield me from some of the damage, but it still sends me sliding back.
Skeith attacks with a high hook-punch. I drop low under the attacking arm. Moving fast, Skeith takes hold of me and body-slams me onto the ground. The crazed-bitch tries to cave my head in by stump down on it, but I roll out the way. Just as we're about to go back at it, the door blows open, and a team of marines and army soldiers rush in, gun train on Skeith. "You got lucky, cur. Next time you won't be," Skeith growls hatefully. She transforms her body into neon light and disappears. I turn to the cavalry. Behind them, step out their captain. Jacob Picard.
[Steve Rogers POV]
[Mall, Washington DC, USA]
"First rule about going on the run. Don't run. Walk," Nat tells as we stride through one of DC's many large shopping malls. We were both dressed in civilian clothing. Nat added a hat and a pair of fake glasses to my disguise. The clothing style is of a modern-day hipster. I wasn't a fan of it, but it's only temporary. We wander into a computer store and boot up a free-to-use laptop in the back. "The drive has a level six homing program. Soon as we plug it in, they'll know exactly where we are," Nat says. A mall acted as a double-edged sword if you are trying to avoid pursuit. In one scenario, you can blend in with the crowd to avoid the pursuers, but if the situation goes wrong, your one advantage turns to your biggest optical.
"How long do we have?" I ask. "9 minutes," Nat inserts the flash drive, "From now." Nat starts to type away at the computer, "Fury was right about the ship. Somebody's trying to hide something." I scan the store for potential threats. So far, so good. Glance down at the screen over Nat's shoulder. "The drive is protected by some AI. It keeps rewriting itself to counter my commands." "Can you override it?" I question. "Yeah. The person who wrote this is slightly smarter than me," she says, working, "I'm going to try one of Karai's hacking tactics." Nat spawns a new program that starts to probe the drive's security, "Running a tracer. It's a program she wrote to track hostile malware. So, if we can't read the file, we could at least find out where it came from."
One of the store's employees walks up to greet us, "Can I help you with anything?" Nat smiles at him, "No. My fiancé and I are browsing some honeymoon destinations." Nat pushes me forward to block the employee's view. "Right. We're getting married," I tell the man, nod, and smile. The man smiles back, "Congratulations. Where are you guys thinking about going?" For some odd reason, I thought about telling him Jersey, but there was no way in hell he was going to believe that. "I'm debating between London or France," I say.
The men nod, accepting the answer. For a moment, the man looks at me a bit more closely. A flash of panic. Did he recognize me? Has SHIELD already set a WANTED notice? "I have the same glasses," the man says. I breathe a breath of release. "Wow, you're practically twins," Nat says sarcastically. "Yeah, I wish," the man says, pointing at me admiringly, "Your man is a specimen. Well, if you need anything, just let me know." The individual leaves. Blush a bit at the last comment the man said. I'm starting to get anxious. The clock is ticking. "You said it'll take 9 minutes," I state, looking at my watch. Cutting it close. "Relax. I got it," Nat says. The waypoint is Wheaton, New Jersey. Nat notices my knowing expression, "You know the place?" "Yeah. It's where I was trained. Let's go," I tell her.
Exiting the store, we make our way through the mall toward the exit. I spot the strike team hunting us. So far, they hadn't noticed Nat and me. "Standard tac team. Two behind, two across, and two coming straight toward us," I say, planning out a scenario, "If they make us, I'll engage; you hit the south escalator to the metro." "Shut up and put your arm around me. Laugh at something I said," she says. Despite being a little perplexed, I did as instructed and laugh.
The laugh was fake and forced, but the STRIKE commandos go by without a second glance. As we hit the escalator, Rumlow is coming up to us. 'Shit.' Nat wheels around to face me, "Kiss me." "What?" I ask, shocked. "Public displays of affection make people very uncomfortable," she tells me. "Yeah, they do," I say. She rolls her eyes, places a very memorable kiss on my lips. It lasted the whole escalator ride down. I quickly become aware that I'm rocking a hard-on. "Still uncomfortable?" Nat teases with a little gleam in her eyes. "Not the word I would use," I say, following behind her.
[Car.] We drive in a pick-up truck to Wheaton, New Jersey. "When did Captain America learn to steal a car," Nat asks for the first time since we started the drive. "Nazi Germany," I tell her. She nods. "And we're borrowing it," I say in defense, "Take your feet off the dashboard." "Boy Scout," Nat murmurs under her breath, taking her feet down. Her brow raises, "I got a question to wish you don't need to answer. But I feel if you don't answer, it's answering it." I roll my eyes, "What?" "Was that your first kiss since 1945?"
I glance at her then back at the road, embarrassed, "That bad, huh." "I didn't say that," Nat tries. "Kind of sound like you are," I say. "No. I just wondered how much practice you had," she tells me. Now she was fooling with me. "You don't need practice," I say. "Everyone needs practice," Nat argues. "It wasn't my first kiss since 1945. I'm 95. Not dead," I say. Technically speaking, Natasha was my second kiss since waking up in the modern world. My first kiss was with a woman in a celebration party, Post-Battle Of New York. I wasn't into it. Honestly, I felt a little disgusted with myself. It felt like I was cheating. My heart still belongs to a woman that moved on a long time ago. Found a new lover, got married, had children, had a life.
"Nobody special then?" Nat asks. 'Peggy…' "It's hard to find someone with shared life experiences," I tell the spy. "That's okay. Make something up," she says. Then the whole relationship is built on a lie. Nothing's real. I can't do that with a potential partner. Won't. "Like you?" I ask. "Truth is a matter of circumstance. It's not all things to all people, all the time. Neither am I," Nat says. 'Maybe to you.' "That's a hard way to live," I tell her.
A part of me wondered what happened in her life that made her so cynical. "It's a good way not to die, though," Nat speaks, a distant look in her eyes. I sympathize, but I needed to know who I could count on, and Nat's evasion makes me a little nervous. "It hard to trust someone when you don't know who that person is," I voice. "Yeah," she looks at me and asks, "Who do you want me to be?" 'That not how it works.' I sigh, "How about a friend?" Nat smiles, but it didn't reach her eyes, "If you want friends, there's a chance you're in the wrong line of work."
[Karai POV]
[Excalibur]
We finish up gathering the last of the dead, taking better care of the fallen soldiers than the mercs. Spartan kneels by one of the dead mercs and searches through the man's gear. I didn't like the face he's giving off. Getting to his feet, he strolls to me, handing me the pack. "They're using SHIELD tech," he whispers. When he told me that, I quickly look into the bag. It was true they were using SHIELD tech. Not just standard-issue equipment. High-end-gear. Things SHIELD use to hunt down rogue SUPERS.
This whole situation was getting more and more out of control by the minute. 'NEO-HYDRA. Got to be fucking kidding me.' We need to get in contact with Coulson, Hill, or Cap. Danvers walks to us, "Thanks for the backup. If you guys hadn't shown up when you did, we would all be dead right now." I nod at her words. Over my shoulder, I glance at Picard. He calls Spartan and me over and drills us for info on what was going on. "It's an attack from inside SHIELD," I tell him, "By HYDRA or NEO-HYDRA as they're calling themselves."
"Of course, they're calling themselves something with 'NEO' in the title. We got Neo-Nazis. Why not NEO-HYDRA?" Rhodey says sarcastically. As expected, Picard is having a hard time believing what was being told to him, but given what transpired, he didn't argue. Suddenly, EPYON tags two POIs. Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanov. Spartan and I beeline to the quinjet. "Where are you two going?" Rhodey calls out. I turn back, "Cap and Nat are in trouble. We need to get to them." Sure, there's no doubt they could handle themselves, but we didn't want to take the risk. We lost too much already. Rhodey follows on our heels, "Well, you're not going without me."