Rewritten 2018

Make You Feel My Love ~Book II~

Disclaimer: I do not own The Winter Soldier movie! All rights go to Marvel. All I own is my own characters and their stories.

~Chapter 15~
Jealousy

"'To make a better world, you need to tear the old one down'? He actually said that?" asked Maria. Steve was walking in front of her, his longer legs making him walk faster than her. They had changed into their civilian clothes by now to ensure nobody recognized them anywhere, and they were currently rushing through hallways of the hospital where Fury had died.

They were going to get the USB stick back before, somehow, finding a way to help SHIELD, or at least what was left of it. The only person Steve and Maria trusted right now, was Fury. And with his dying breath he had asked Maria to keep that thing safe, and so they were going to keep it safe. They were sure it held something important Fury hadn't wanted Hydra to find out about.

At the moment, Steve was telling Maria exactly what had happened during the meeting he had gone to and although Maria now felt happy that she hadn't been allowed in, both because it had been quite dangerous and because she now had intel of her own, she still felt a little angered by the fact that Steve hadn't allowed her to come with him. Though she kept it to herself for now, knowing both needed to focus on the mission at hand and not their relationship.

"Yes, he did," said Steve, looking back at Maria.

"The worst part is that he actually tried to make you believe that Fury was the bad guy," said Maria, shaking her head softly as they rounded the corner that led them to the hallway with the vending machine.

"The worst part is that he thought he could fool me," replied Steve, earning a smirk from Maria.

"Actually, I have some info too." She hadn't told Steve about what she had done yet. She hadn't told Steve about the fact that Hydra was what had infiltrated SHIELD yet either. Though she also knew that if she had said it earlier, he would've been distracted and they wouldn't have gotten to the vending machine as quickly as they did now. After all, Steve did have quite a horrible history with Hydra and she was unsure of how he was going to react.

"What?" he asked softly as they stopped in front of the vending machine, his eyes gazing at her.

She swallowed once and was about to tell him everything, when Steve's eyes looked over at the vending machine and his face darkened.

"What?" she asked.

As she looked inside of the vending machine, she saw that the USB stick was gone along with all the gum that they had left in front of it. They hadn't been gone for longer than three hours yet still, people had bought enough of the bad-tasting gum for someone to see and steal the USB.

She was about to curse, when she saw the reflection of a woman standing behind Steve and Maria, chewing bubble gum. Maria immediately recognized the woman as Natasha and relief flooded through her veins, knowing that she had been the one to take the USB stick which meant it was safe and not gone.

However, as Maria turned around with a smirk on her lips, Steve grabbed Natasha's arms and pushed her backwards inside of the small office that Maria and Steve had been in earlier that day, trying to come up with a plan of action.

Maria gasped at his response, looking around to see if anyone had noticed it, before following the two of them inside, closing the door behind her. She watched carefully as Steve held Natasha in place against the wall, the captain himself standing dangerously close to her.

As she stood there, a few feet away from them, watching Steve and Natasha stand that close to each other, she couldn't help but feel a tinge of jealousy rise in her chest. Fashbacks of how she had found Artur and the only other woman that was a part of their group standing that close to each other before finding them together in bed flashed before her eyes. After her last heartbreak, she felt more alert on any kind of signals that indicated that Steve was losing interest in her...

But no, this was not such an occasion, right? Steve was just... trying to get her to talk. Granted he didn't have to keep his face that close to hers... Granted he didn't have to stand that close...

"Where is it?" asked Steve darkly.

"Safe," she replied.

Steve would never...

"It better be," said Maria, taking a step forwards.

"Where did you get it?" asked Natasha, her eyes staying only at Steve.

"Why would we tell you?" asked Steve.

"Fury gave it to you, why?" asked Natasha, having deduced this only by looking at Steve's face.

The fact that Natasha could see exactly when Steve was lying and Maria still struggled with this, only meant that they had been around each other more than Maria and Steve had. It once again hurt her though she stayed focused, knowing they were on a mission.

"What's on it?" he asked.

"I don't know!"

"Don't lie," pressed Maria, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Really, I don't know. I only act like I know everything," said Natasha back, her eyes still lingering on Steve.

"Did Fury hire those pirates?" asked Steve.

"Well, it would make sense. Fury needed a way in and so did you-"

"I'm not going to ask you again," said Steve harshly, Natasha's eyes finally flickering over to Maria as well.

"I know who killed Fury," said Natasha suddenly, causing Maria to widen her eyes, taking another step forwards, placing her hand on Steve's arm to make him let go of Natasha.

"Who?" asked Maria.

"Most of the intelligence community doesn't believe he exists, the ones who do call him the Winter Soldier. He's credited with over two dozen assassinations in the last fifty years," said Natasha.

"So, he's a ghost story," said Steve, more like a question than a statement.

"Five years ago I was escorting a nuclear engineer out of Iran. Somebody shot out my tyres near Odessa, we lost control; went straight over a cliff. I pulled us out but the Winter Soldier was there. I was covering my engineer so he shot him, straight through me. Soviet slug, no rifling. Bye-bye bikinis."

"Yeah, I bet you look terrible in them now," said Steve, striking a nerve inside of Maria. Before she could even control the impuls, she had pushed Steve to the side, taking his place in front of Natasha, her brows furrowed in anger and a dark look in her eyes.

Natasha lifted an eyebrow at her actions, and the look in Maria's eyes, before smirking, licking her lips.

"How do we find him?" hissed Maria, her hands grasping Natasha's collar harshly.

"The Winter Soldier?" asked Natasha with a scoff, seemingly unfazed by Maria's actions. "You can't. Going after him is a dead-end. I know because I've tried."

Although Maria didn't look over at Steve, she knew he'd given her a puzzled look over the way she had acted. She didn't care though. All she cared about was keeping Steve by her side. She wasn't losing the one thing in her life that was actually good. Not now that she had lost SHIELD.

"Like Steve said, he's a ghost story," continued Natasha, pulling out the USB stick from her pocket and holding it out in front of Maria's face.

Slowly, Maria grabbed it from her, placing it in her bra to which Natasha rose an eyebrow at her, smirking slightly as if she enjoyed what she had just seen. Maria simply rolled her eyes, suddenly realizing that Natasha was simply a flirt by nature. Though Steve did not have that excuse. At times when Maria kissed him out of the blue, he'd still blush.

"Let's find out what the ghost wants," said Steve, Maria looking over at him and seeing him standing next to her with a serious look on his face.

"Wait," said Maria, taking a step away from Natasha and pinching the bridge of her nose in frustration. "It doesn't make sense. If the Winter Soldier was the man on the roof that Steve tried to catch and if Hydra is the ones who have infiltrated SHIELD-"

"What now?" asked Steve, causing Maria to look at him, suddenly realizing she still hadn't told him.

"Shit... I never told you," she said, her eyes widening slightly. "I-I went down to Artur-"

"You did what?" asked Steve, his voice harsh, causing Maria to flinch.

It reminded her of the scene before Maria had gone away on the mission to capture Artur, where Steve hadn't wanted her to tag along. There was something in his voice that reminded her of that moment and she didn't like it.

"He told me that he was Hydra... and that they were the ones who were corrupting SHIELD. The ones that already have corrupted SHIELD. They came after me, hence why I met you after your little, uh, fall," said Maria, forcing herself to continue looking into his eyes even though she saw the hurt in his eyes; hurt from having not listened to his orders and hurt by her having gotten herself in danger. Though there was something else as well, something that was causing a different kind of emotion and she didn't like it, whatever it was. "This means the Winter Soldier works for Hydra as well."

"Hydra... you worked for Hydra."

The sentence made Maria finally look away from Steve, her heart hurting. She didn't work for Hydra anymore, yet he still had to point it out. Not only had he done that, but his voice had almost sounded disgusted.

"How come you didn't tell me that earlier?" asked Steve, taking a step forwards.

"I was going to, but then Nat turned up-"

"Oi, don't drag me into this," said Natasha, holding up her hands in the air and leaning back against the wall.

"You know what, never mind," said Steve, waving his hand as if trying to dismiss the conversation with it.

She knew that Steve didn't like when people lied to him. Although she hadn't completely lied to him, she knew that there was no way he was going to listen to her now since he most certainly was in shock about the fact that Hydra still existed even after he had dealt with the Red Skull. Therefore, she let it be, trying her best to ignore the pain in her heart when Steve looked away from her and back at Natasha.

"We need to know what's on that USB," pressed Steve, earning a nod from Natasha.

"Meaning we need a computer," deduced Natasha.

"Meaning we'll give away our location," dismissed Maria, crossing her arms over her chest, remembering what Martin had said about SHIELD listening in on her phone. If they could do that, then she was sure that they could listen in on every single active phone, computer and more.

"But we'll have a minute or two to look at the contents," said Natasha, earning a nod from Maria.

"All we need is a place where we can quickly get away," said Steve, still not looking at Maria.

"What, like the library? They have computers there," said Maria, earning a shake of Natasha's head.

"We need a place with more people. Somewhere where one can blend in with the crowd afterwards," replied Natasha.

"The mall," said Steve.

"The Apple store," finished Maria with a nod of her head before the three of them turned towards the door and walked out.

With their civilian clothes on and serious looks plastered on their faces, Natasha, Steve and Maria walked through the mall. It was crowded inside, just like they had wanted, and they didn't stick out of the crowd either due to their civilian clothes which was exactly according to their plan.

Maria found herself walking behind Steve and Natasha, the two of them walking much faster than her. When she tried to quicken her pace so that she could walk beside Steve, she found that he deliberately moved away from her which only made her heart sink. She had known that Steve's reaction to the truth of who she had worked for would be unpleasant, though she hadn't thought it would affect him as much as it apparently did. After all, she hadn't known she had worked for Hydra, and he knew that... What happened to him accepting her dark past?

They entered the shop quickly and she let herself simply follow behind Steve and Natasha, feeling as though she wasn't welcomed into the group anymore. As they walked up to a laptop, she found herself standing there, not doing much and simply thinking about those who she cared about, wondering what they were doing.

Matt was probably not affected by this, simply working at his office, waiting for a client. Martin and Clint were the ones Maria felt worried about. She knew Clint had left for some time off from SHIELD, though she didn't know where or if Hydra knew where. If they did, then Clint would be in trouble and there was no way for her to find out if he was. Martin knew of it and was probably busy going underground. She wondered briefly where he was though realized it was better that she didn't know since Hydra was following her and Steve – Natasha probably too by now – and she would risk Martin's safety if she knew where he was.

"The drive has a level 6 homing program, so as soon as we boot up, SHIELD will know exactly where we are," said Natasha as they stood in front of one of the computers that were there for usage.

Maria watched with curious eyes as Natasha lifted her hand over to Maria, looking at her with expectant eyes. Quickly realizing what Natasha meant, Maria took out the USB from her bra and handed it to her, leaning forwards slightly as she did and accidentally brushing her arm against Steve's. He didn't react to it, though she could see his jaw clench and so, she moved so that she was standing next to Natasha instead.

"How much time will we have?" asked Steve as Natasha prepared to put the USB into the computer.

"About nine minutes from now," said Natasha as she inserted the USB stick into the computer, a program immediately starting.

A stern look was plastered on Artur's face as he drove the black jeep towards the location of the signal. The moment SHIELD had registered the fact that someone was using the USB, Artur and his new team had taken off, weapons in their hands and a determined aura around them. They were ready to do whatever it would take to stop those three fugitives and if that meant shooting at them or killing them, then Artur would just have to okay with that...

His heart was thumping harshly in his chest, a nervous sweat starting to break out on his forehead. Everything was going wrong. His boss was going to be mad at him the moment he realized what he was doing. If target B became neutralized, Artur might gain the trust of this part of Hydra. But he'd lose the trust of the side of Hydra he was on. Not to mention that he'd lose Maria.

He shifted slightly in his seat, realizing that his hands were leaving traces of sweat on the steering wheel. He hoped no one would notice his nervousness.

"If you're lucky, target B won't have to be neutralized. And if you're even more lucky, someone else will take the shot for you," said Rumlow from where he was sitting next to Artur, his gaze staring out through the window though it was evident he had picked up on Artur's distress.

Artur didn't reply, but simply continued driving, putting his foot down even harder on the gas and speeding up. He wasn't going to die. He wasn't going to fail Hydra. But he also wasn't going to fail his boss.

"Fury was right about that ship. Somebody's trying to hide something," said Natasha, earning a furrowed brow from Maria even though she had figured out that their recent mission, the one on which Steve had become angry with Natasha and Fury for having lied to him, had to do with some sort of a hijacked ship. "This drive is protected by some sort of AI. It keeps rewriting itself to counter my commands."

"Can you override it?" asked Maria, suddenly wishing they had Martin with them.

"The person who developed this is slightly smarter than me," said Natasha before smirking, glancing over at Maria; "Slightly. I'm gonna try running a tracer. This is a program that SHIELD developed to track hostile malware, so if we can't read the file, maybe we can find out where it came from."

"Can I help you guys with anything?" asked a man who suddenly appeared next to Steve.

He was a funny looking guy with a blue shirt on, long hair and a beard. He looked kind and Maria was just about to say that they didn't need any help in an as polite way as possible, when Natasha suddenly placed her arm around Steve's shoulders, smiling widely at the man.

"Oh, no, my fiancé was just helping me with some honeymoon destinations," said Natasha, Maria's kind smile dropping and her heart nearly breaking in two.

"Right, we're getting married," said Steve awkwardly, seeming not to know what to do.

Maria's eyes widened, not believing her ears and although she knew it was just for show, it hurt badly. She felt like falling to the ground and cry, though composed herself, telling herself that it wasn't the right time to become emotional. Besides... she was probably overreacting.

When the laptop beeped, she blinked a couple of times before realizing the program Natasha had started had tracked down the location of the file.

"Congratulations. Where are you guys thinking about going?" asked the man, looking over at the screen and seeing the location, his smile fading slightly.

"Um, New Jersey," said Steve, seeing the location on the screen as well and almost frowning since it didn't add up with their story that they had just made up.

Maria wanted to laugh, though she felt too nervous to do so. If they stood out too much or if the guy kept them for too long, they'd be exposed and SHIELD would be able to find them. After all, five out of nine minutes had already passed.

"Oh," said the man before the smile returned as he looked at Steve. "I have the exact same glasses."

"Wow, you two are practically twins," said Natasha sarcastically, turning back to the laptop.

"Yeah, I wish. Specimen," said the man, gesturing towards Steve's body.

Steve licked his lips nervously, seeming to even slightly blush at the man's words and although she hated it, Maria felt her heart warm up at the familiar, innocent look on his face.

"Well, if you guys need anything, I've been Aaron," said the man, pointing towards his name tag before leaving the three of them alone, his eyes staying on Maria a little longer than necessary.

While Natasha continued to fiddle with the laptop, Steve and Maria's eyes met. She could see a pang of jealousy in his eyes at the way Aaron had looked at her, though she was sure he could see the hurt in her eyes caused by his actions.

Both just looked away from each other.

"Nine minutes are almost over," urged Maria.

"Relax," said Natasha before smiling widely. "I've got it."

The map zoomed in one one pair of coordinates. It seemed to be out in the middle of nowhere...

As Maria took a mental note of the coordinates, she glanced back at her friends, seeing the haunting look on Steve's face. She recognized it from times he had a déjà vu or when he remembered something from his time.

"You know it?" asked Natasha, having noticed Steve's look as well.

"I used to. Let's go," ordered Steve, Maria quickly grabbing the USB and unplugging it from the laptop before placing it back in her bra.

"Standard Tac team... Rumlow's with them," deduced Steve quietly as they walked through the mall towards the exit. They had already noticed the SHIELD agents walking amongst the crowd and Maria felt just as nervous as Steve looked. "If they make us, I'll engage, you two hit the south escalator to the metro."

"Shut up and put your arm around me," said Natasha, linking her arm with Maria's, pushing her closer. Maria realized what Natasha had seen and she quickly put on a fake smile. Rumlow was walking towards them and they had to act naturally in order to blend in with the crowd. "Laugh at something I said."

"What?" asked Steve.

"Do it," hissed Maria.

Right as Rumlow walked past, his eyes looking over at them, Steve did as he was told, letting out a dry yet reasonably normal laugh.

"Negative on source," said a voice through Artur's earpiece.

He stopped walking, leaning his elbows on the railing of the second floor, his eyes looking down at the first floor like a hawk. They had to be there somewhere...

"Give me a floor rundown," ordered Rumlow's voice.

"Negative on three."

Artur placed his finger on the earpiece; "Negative on two."

Although he hadn't been searching thoroughly, he also hadn't seen them. He was quite sure that they were long gone already.

At least, he was until he saw Maria's familiar face on the escalator leading down to the first floor. Both stared at each other with wide eyes. Artur could see an agent riding the escalator the opposite way. With one word he could end this mission, tell the agents where Maria and the other two were and... survive.

But he didn't.

Instead, he placed his finger over his lips before gesturing to her to keep going. She softly nodded her head, though Artur could see her tense up as she looked back at the two people whom she was with.

There, standing before her on the escalator, were Natasha Romanoff and Steve Rogers.

And they were kissing each other.