Chapter Four: Putting the Pieces Together
"Not that I mind being at a hospital because I'm pretty sure several things are broken," Rebecca murmured to the Captain as they walked, well she limped, down a bustling hallway full of doctors, nurses and reeking of disinfectant. "But why are we here?"
They were both incognito, changing into stolen clothes. She'd tossed out her S.H.I.E.L.D. jacket in favor of an oversized black hoodie and had done her best to wipe off the blood and clean up in a McDonald's restroom. The Captain, or Steve as he insisted she call him now since they were on the run together, also wore a hoodie and jeans instead of his conspicuous uniform.
"I left something here. Something Fury gave to me before he died. I didn't trust them not to confiscate it. Turns out I was right to hide it." He kept his voice low, lest they were overheard. "Hopefully it'll explain what all this is about."
"Like why S.H.I.E.L.D. tried to kill us?" She remarked, a tad bitterly. The reality was beginning to set in. The organization she'd pledged a decade of her life to had turned on her today. It was a hard pill to swallow, especially since she wasn't even sure why.
Both she and the Captain had done nothing but follow orders for S.H.I.E.L.D. and one conversation with Secretary Pierce had the entire STRIKE team on them within minutes. She should be dead already or being tortured for information in an interrogation room somewhere, she realized, risking a sideways glance at the living legend walking beside her. He was the reason she wasn't. Despite her physical pains, which would heal, she didn't regret jumping out of the building with him. Though it was not an experience she cared to repeat, ever.
"Yeah, it's some kind of computer thing." He stopped outside a nurse's station. "Here, get some ice and whatever you might need." He told her, nodding in the direction of a supply closet. "I'll get it, meet you here in two minutes. Save me some ice too."
"Thought you'd have had your fill of ice, Captain." She couldn't help but tease. He had spent seventy years frozen in ice after all.
"Very funny." He rolled his eyes. "Two minutes." He promised and she nodded in affirmation.
She waited for him to disappear around the corner before she discreetly slipped into the supply room. She shoved two ready made ice packs into the front pouch of her hoodie, and after deliberation, pocketed a bottle of vicodin. She just fell ten stories with only a super soldier to break her fall, she was sore and knew at a least a couple of her ribs were cracked. She was lucky she wasn't dead. She swiped a roll of medical tape for them as well. Satisfied with her finds, she slipped back out and pretended to be interested in a medical magazine while she waited, counting the seconds down in her head.
When three minutes passed and he hadn't returned, Rebecca started to get nervous so she set down her magazine to go look for him. She was about to go into a full blown panic thinking STRIKE had found them already when he emerged from a room down another hallway with Agent Romanoff at his heels.
She breathed a sigh of relief, but was more than a little stunned to see the Black Widow.
"Callahan." Romanoff's expression remained impassive but her tone suggested surprise.
"Romanoff." Rebecca merely lifted her brows, waiting for an explanation.
"Rebecca was with me in Pierce's office and when I escaped the Triskelion." Steve told Romanoff. "Fury had her tracking Batroc."
"Yeah I know, she's been in Algeria for a month." Natasha shrugged. She had level eight security clearance there wasn't much kept secret from her. "And she got pulled into this too. Makes sense, Nick was always kind of impressed with her."
"Not as impressed as he was with you." Rebecca ran a hand through her messy ponytail. "I'm sorry." She told the other woman sincerely who'd had a closer relationship with Fury than most of the Agents in his employ had.
"Not as sorry as the bastard who killed him is going to be." The Black Widow smiled in a sinister way that gave Rebecca a clear impression of how she'd gotten her namesake.
"Not here," Steve told them both. "Let's get someplace quiet and we'll talk, figure this all out. Natasha knows who killed Nick." He said the last part to Rebecca as if that explained everything, but it only had Rebecca looking at Natasha expectantly.
"Callahan will too. She'll know the Ghost story. If not from S.H.I.E.L.D. then from before," The Black Widow looked her straight in the eye. "The Winter Soldier."
Almost unwittingly, Rebecca's spine straightened in recognition of the name. Suddenly she was fifteen, in her father's study, listening to him carry on about the greatest assassin the world had ever seen and how he wished he could get him on the RIRA payroll. He'd just taken out Finnbar Hennesy, the Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland, which had been a surprise victory for RIRA that year, even if they hadn't been behind the assassination.
Then she was nineteen at the Academy, reading old unsolved cases with descriptions of the shooter sounding remarkably like the man her father had once described. Though the cases had spanned decades apart and she'd been dubious that it could be the same man. The Winter Soldier became a Ghost story passed around to aspiring agents as the ultimate feather in the cap if he was ever caught. Rebecca had begun to believe he didn't actually exist.
"Is that even possible?" Rebecca shook her head in denial. "He'd have to be like ninety years old."
"So's he." Natasha jabbed her thumb in Steve's direction and he rolled his eyes, while Rebecca couldn't help the short laugh that escaped.
"Come on, not here." He repeated himself and starting walking towards the exit.
Rebecca limped alongside the other woman as they followed. "You really think it's him?"
"Yeah, I do." The redhead nodded, her expression pinching with anger for the briefest of seconds. "Now we just have to see what's on that flashdrive, find out what he wants."
"Simple enough." Rebecca shrugged. Though she knew this would be anything but.
"Sorry, you're caught up in all of this." The other woman told her. Her tone of voice more genuine than it had been before. "I know this isn't your usual speed."
"Technically Fury brought me into this when he sent me after Batroc. The ultimate question though, is why." Rebecca shrugged. She blamed neither Steve nor Natasha. They were just as much victims as she was. "Besides, my gut tells me I'm better off trusting Captain America than I would have been surrendering to the STRIKE team."
"Can't fault your logic."
Once they were clear of the hospital and focusing on blending in with the crowd did Steve seem to relax some. He let Natasha and Rebecca take point since they both had some experience being on the run. The Black Widow suggested the apple store at the Chevy Chase Pavillion to open up the flash drive. The mall crowd would make it impossible for the STRIKE to come in full force and there would be plenty of escape routes with its multiple entrance points.
"First rule of being on the run," Natasha told Steve as the three of them entered the mall, walking side by side. Rebecca's limp had evened out after she'd dry swallowed a vicodin. "Walk, don't run."
"Appear casual and unhurried." Rebecca added, remembering her own experiences on the run with her family as a teenager. "Don't look around a lot, don't power walk, don't be shifty. The key is to not draw attention to yourself. That way if they question any witnesses later on, they won't remember you."
"If I run in these shoes they're going to fall off." Steve groused, frowning down at the modern kicks he wore on his feet. The sneakers were designed more for fashion than purpose.
"Callahan, you cool to play lookout?" Natasha asked in a quiet voice as they approached the Apple store.
"I suck at hacking of any kind, so yeah I can do lookout." Rebecca nodded in agreement with her request, unashamed of her lack of computer skills. She knew the basics and that had always gotten her by in the past. "How much time have we got?"
"The drive has a level six homing program, so as soon as we boot up S.H.I.E.L.D. will know exactly where we are." Black Widow explained, a thoughtful expression on her face as she calculated the distance between the Triskelion and the mall. "So about nine minutes as soon as I plug in the drive."
"Roger that." Rebecca turned, breaking off from the pair as they headed inside. She opted to lean against one of the concrete posts outside the store, appearing casual, as though she were waiting for someone when she was in fact people watching. Getting in was easy, getting out would be much more difficult.
Nearly ten minutes had gone by when Steve and Natasha emerged from the store, walking fast. Rebecca had to jog a couple steps before falling in beside them.
"Standard tac team. Two behind, two across, two coming straight at us." Steve glanced around, summarizing their situation. "If they make us, I'll engage, you two hit the south escalator to the metro."
Natasha shot Rebecca a look, who almost snorted and dropped back to stroll behind them, head down, hands shoved in the front pouch of her hoodie.
"Don't look at her. Shut up and put your arm around me, laugh like I just said something funny." Natasha ordered, Steve when he turned to say something to Rebecca.
"What?" "Do it!" Steve didn't argue and followed her instructions so they passed the two tac team members without incident. Rebecca lifted her head, met Steve's concerned gaze and gave him a reassuring nod.
They made it to the South escalator and began their descent. Natasha suddenly stiffened and turned around. "Beck, angle yourself behind him. Steve, kiss me."
"What?" She heard the shock in his voice but Rebecca had spotted Rumlow on the opposite escalator and shifted so Steve's back would hide her from view, while pretending to look at the stores on the opposite side of the mall.
"Public displays of affection make people uncomfortable." Natasha explained to Steve in a hurried whisper.
"Yes, they do." He agreed, but the Black Widow was already on her toes, looping a hand behind his head and pulling his mouth down to hers.
Rumlow's gaze barely brushed over them before darting away from the kissing couple and looking beyond them. Once he was out of view, Natasha pulled back.
"Still uncomfortable?"
"Not the word I would use." Steve muttered, causing Rebecca to snort in amusement.
"Beck, how good are you at hotwiring?" Natasha asked, picking up her pace once they hit the ground floor.
"I've done it a time or two." She admitted as they headed towards the parking garage. "I can probably get that pick up running in two minutes, tops." She gestured to the blue pickup truck parked closest to them. "It's American made."
"Have at it." Natasha spied the Chevy she meant and nodded in agreement.
"Or less." Rebecca whooped, noticing the small box attached to the undercarriage that contained a spare key. "Gotta love the naive."
"Bout time something went our way." Natasha couldn't help but grin as Rebecca used the spare key to unlock the truck. "You know where we are going Cap, you drive."
"Right." He clambered up into the driver's seat, with Black Widow taking the passenger seat beside him. Rebecca chose to stretch out in the back of the extended cab. The vicodin had worked a miracle but her body still carried a dull ache due to the nature of their escape from the Triskelion.
"So where are we going?" Rebecca asked, wincing as she managed to stretch her legs out. She wouldn't be surprised if her hip had a nasty bone bruise. Remembering the tape she'd swiped, she pulled it out of the hoodie pouch before jerking the garment over her head and letting it drop to the floor of the truck. "Don't mind me, I need to tape my ribs."
Steve made a strangled noise in his throat when he glanced in the rearview mirror and he saw her pull the hem of her henley up so the underside of her bra was in view. He immediately averted his gaze on the road ahead and Rebecca shared a look of amusement with Natasha.
While Rebecca began to wind the tape around her torso, Natasha explained what she'd found on the flashdrive Fury had given Steve.
"The drive was encrypted with an AI that kept rewriting over my commands." The redhead said, a hint of annoyance in her voice. "So I managed to get the location of where this drive came from instead. New Jersey."
"Right to the source then." Rebecca mused, tearing off the end of the tape when she'd reached the base of her ribcage, then lowered her shirt back into place. "Hopefully we can finally get some real answers. Like why we're all on the government hit list because Fury dragged us into something without explanation."
"Whatever it is," Natasha twisted back to look at her as Steve steered the truck out onto the main road and headed for the highway. "It's something big if the Winter Soldier is involved. Things might get worse before they get better Callahan, fair warning."
"As long as I'm not jumping out of buildings again, I can manage. I don't really have much of a choice. I was in that elevator too when STRIKE came for him." She jutted her chin in the direction of Steve's seat. "You really think it was the Winter Soldier that killed Fury? I'm just having a hard time wrapping my head around him actually existing."
"Steve's description and the bullets they took from Nick, leave little doubt it's anyone else." Natasha replied. "I've dealt with him before, he's real."
"But are we sure he's not a copycat. Present company excluded, if the Winter Soldier is human, he'd age and how could a ninety year old make that kind of shot." Rebecca let down her hair, finger combing it, wincing when dried flakes of blood fell into her lap and then redid her ponytail. "Age eventually catches up with you and his sight would have lessened by now."
"Your theory could be correct, or somehow it's the same guy." Natasha looked thoughtful. "We'll get our answers one way or another."