Chapter Twenty One

"So what do you think?"

Nat starred at the blonde man on their break from training, "its a bit old fashioned, don't you think?"

Steve rolled his eyes, "she's not exactly a rock'n' roll kind of gal now is she?"

Nat nodded, "well, it seems you have it picked out then."

"What about dinner, I have no clue," he said.

"What about Sushi," she said.

He paused, "sushi, Nat?"

"Is that you, that's speaking?"

He nodded.

"There's lots of great places that have cooked dishes. If you're squeemish, then do that."

"Nat, in my time, if you didn't cook your meat til it was burned, it was gonna kill you."

"That's back before it was genetically modified."

"You aren't making me feel better."

She looked at her phone and quickly googled a restaurant, "Sushi Yasuda. You want to seal the deal that's the place."

"Seal the deal," Sam said as he came into the break room with a grin. "Way to go man..."

"It's not like that," Steve hissed.

"Eh, I always knew it would be a spy, just didn't know it would be one from another dimension."

Nat scowled at him but then smiled, "they're going to Swing 46 then Sushi Yasuda."

"Fancy," Sam said with a grin. "I hope it all goes well man."

Steve sighed heavily as Sam left and Nat smiled evilly, "even he thinks there's action going on."

Steve rubbed his head, "why is this a priority to you?"

"Why shouldn't be? You're my friend, I want to make sure you're happy."

He leaned back, "I love her a lot, Nat."

"Such a romantic," she squealed. "Too bad that's not the case between Stark and Nakano."

"Yeah, I have no idea about that one," he said as he stood up. "Other than no one likes it."

Nat said, "Miss Nakano might be a problem."

"I'm sure she doesn't want any of them to be compromised."

"Then why does it seem like Kayura is more concerned about it?"

"Kay says she's dying."

"What's that," Nat asked.

"The armor that she bears is a double edge sword," he said, "the more she uses it, the more her body degenerates. Tony is working on a solution."

"Tony messing with old mystical things is not a good idea."

"It seems like he really likes her, Nat, maybe that'll keep him on our side," Steve said as he leaned over on her knees.

"I highly doubt that," Maria said as she walked in.

"Is there no privacy here," Steve lightly teased.

Maria was holding a large folder, "guess what I found in archive."

Natasha raised an eyebrow and sarcastically asked, "files?"

Maria placed them on the table and snickered as she opened, "old files for sure but look on who."

Steve picked up the file she held out and flipped it open, to see a military photo of Miss Nakano. She looked rather young back when the photo was taken. Small with big eyes and a smile as sweet as sugar. He flipped through and saw case files of patients, but nothing seemed more than a bullet wound. Nat looked over his shoulder, "god, she looks like she's twelve. Holy... her IQ! Why didn't Stark Industries pluck her out of high school?"

Maria replied, "honestly, I think they tried but she really wanted to be a surgeon but that's nothing she couldn't have told you but this might be important."

Maria handed them a photograph from another folder, "it was called 'Hide and Seek'. It was her final mission before she was redacted."

Steve looked at the photo it was definitely a young woman he had never met. She was small and frail with eyes that were the same viciousness of the tiger who stayed with him. Her face was waxy on one side and she looked like she could take on Nat. Standing with her was a tall man with blonde hair and blue eyes who wore all black. He stood next to her with a smile on his face, not intimidated by the woman. "Who's this?"

"Black Cat," she said, "Hoshi always said that she came back to Japan because she was looking through some files. I never really believed her. This man is the world's best known thief. He could steal just about anything. This mission was to rescue him from a Hydra splinter cell at the time but he was going to have stay with us. We managed to keep him through our destruction."

Nat asked, "why is he so important?"

"Fury said there should have been no reason for Hoshi to quit, unlike a lot of the other participants she never had a lot of the side affects," Maria said. "Something upset her when she found the file on the Snow Events, which I couldn't find at all. I'm guessing Black Cat told her about them and I'm guessing there was a lot more in them than just descriptions."

"So he knows a lot of secrets," Nat said. "That's more dangerous than stealing items."

Steve saw a picture of one of the items. A silver shard on a bracelet, "these were his? Can we talk to this man?"

Maria shrugged, "maybe. He's notorious for not talking. To anyone or anything. He even has intolerance to truth serums."

Nat asked, "it could be very helpful."

"Fine, but you give the information to Kay," she paused, "I don't want any of you getting involved in this more than you have to. I did that once and it ended up bad. Even being her for twenty years didn't keep them away."

"Then why bring any of this up," asked Steve.

Maria looked at him, "I want you to be happy, so I want this to be over as soon as possible and quietly as possible before something happens that I think is going to happen."

Steve asked, "and that is?"

Maria said, "we were here in New York once and made a lot of noise. Enough that if someone from Hydra or otherwise went to look for details there would have been evidence of who and what the ronins were. Someone has waited a long time to start pushing on shadows and manipulating them and the things around them. They want to make a mess."

"That's a long time manipulating things," Nat said. "Who's that patient?"

Maria shrugged, "I just now that when I came to New York there was a scientist who was experimenting on Sage. Back then, I thought nothing of it but...now that I think of it...it could have been Hydra but I'm not certain."

Nat looked at Steve, "be careful tonight, slugger."

Maria looked at Steve, "why?"

"No reason, me and Kay are going out," he said and he saw his boss grin ridiculously.

"You and Kay are good together," she smiled closing the files. "You make sure she doesn't do anything stupid like she did in Africa. She's a Warlord with a heart of gold like Anubis and look where that got him."