Chapter 14 - Stevie

January 10, 2014, 10 a.m.

Stevie walked to Georgetown University Hospital through a mist of freezing rain that prickled her face like tiny needles. Fog obscured everything more than a block away, making the brick apartments and parks strange and otherworldy. About halfway there, while extricating the last of Rovshan's peanut butter crackers for Maggie, Stevie discovered that the man had stuffed the pocket of her stolen jumpsuit with rumpled five-dollar bills. After the nightmarish flight from the Triskelion, that little kindness almost brought her to tears. She stopped by a grocery store to buy some diapers and a real-ish breakfast.

It was hard to be on the run with a baby – and without the use of her hands. Stevie barely managed a diaper change in the grocery store bathroom and had to open an applesauce pouch for Maggie with her teeth. But at least her hands no longer felt like they were on fire every time she stretched them. By the time she and Maggie came out of the store, the fog had burned away and the sun was shining, if a bit anemically.

Stevie had learned through experience that the best way to convince someone you belonged somewhere was to walk with confidence. She smiled vaguely at passing nurses and fielded some compliments about Maggie's bear suit, retracing her steps to the vending machine where she'd stowed Fury's flash drive behind five packs of Juicy Fruit.

The entire row was empty. Stevie felt her heart seize, her hands prickle painfully. Who had seen her put it there? She stared at her own wide-eyed reflection - and behind her, Natasha stepped into view, blowing a bubble. Wearing the same goddamned smirk she had in the computer room.

Stevie's incipient panic shifted instantly to anger. She took Natasha by the elbow and shoved her into an empty exam room, ignoring the sudden stab in her palm as she slammed the door behind them.

I can't fight the Black Widow like this. She'd have to try to scare her. Again, hard to do when you're carrying a baby.

"Where is it?" Stevie asked in a soft yet furious voice, using her body to block the shorter woman from the door, holding Maggie at the hip facing away from Natasha in case the woman tried something.

"Safe. Where did you get it?" Natasha sounded just as soft, just as furious.

"Why would I tell you?"

Awareness dawned in Natasha's eyes. "Fury gave it to you. Why?"

Because even Fury didn't trust you. Natasha may have had the same thought, because, for a second she looked almost hurt.

"What's on it?" Stevie retorted.

"I don't know."

Stevie stepped toward the other woman and was surprised when she backed away, bumping into the wall behind her.

"Stop lying!" Stevie growled.

"I only act like I know everything, Rogers."

A cart rattled by outside. Both women turned to watch the door until the sound faded.

"You knew Fury hired the pirates, didn't you?" Stevie said, more quietly.

Natasha blinked. Surprised?

"That makes sense. The ship was dirty, Fury needed a way in so..." She seemed to realize that she was wandering from the point. She shook her head. "I know who killed Fury."

Her eyes were darting all over the place. The door, the windows, Stevie – as if she expected an attack from any side. Stevie had never seen her like this. She looked...cornered. Stevie stepped backward to give her some space.

"Most of the intelligence community don't believe he exists," Natasha said in a low voice. "Those that do call him the Winter Soldier. He's credited with over two dozen assassinations in the last fifty years."

Fifty years? He'd be a septuagenarian.

"Sounds like a ghost story," Stevie said.

"Five years ago I was escorting a nuclear engineer out of Iran," Natasha continued. "Somebody shot out my tires 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."

The other woman lifted her black shirt, revealing a shiny scar the size of a quarter above her left hip.

"Soviet slug. Untraceable." She smiled wryly. "Bye bye bikinis."

Stevie rolled her eyes. "Yeah, I'm sure you look just terrible in them now."

"Going after him's a dead end. I know. I've tried." She held up her right hand. In it was, suddenly, the flash drive. "Like you said, he's a ghost story."

Stevie took the drive. A peace offering? Could she trust the woman? "Let's find out what the ghost wants."

"The first rule of being on the run," Natasha said. "Don't run. Walk."

"Even I know that," Stevie replied.

Natasha was following her own advice, sauntering through the Gallery Place Mall as though there was nothing on her mind except some light window shopping. Stevie knew her nonchalance was only skin-deep – on the way here Natasha had led them on and off four different buses, going in totally different directions. Once she had even given the driver a very convincing sob story about her friend's "poor, sick baby" to get the bus driver to pull over and let them off between stops.

An ornate red and gold archway tipped the hat to mall's location in old Chinatown. Inside, the foyer was two stories tall, cream tilework and ivory columns leading up to a lacy arch of white and gold and glass. Even though it was Friday – and barely noon – the building was bustling with people.

"Shame that I missed the heyday of the mall," Stevie mused, as Natasha consulted the kiosk. "I wake up and they're already dying. Did they have malls in your part of the world?"

"They had one in Moscow," Natasha replied. "The State Universal Store. The lines would stretch across the Red Square." She smiled wryly. "Not that I got a lot of time for shopping in my misspent youth. Ah, there it is. The Apple Store."

Natasha pointed at a square among other squares on the blocky, backlit kiosk map.

"We can access the drive there. Completely anonymous."

They walked across the foyer, and Stevie lost herself for a second in the hum of their conversations all around her, refreshingly normal.

"Shit," Natasha whispered, breaking the illusion. "Second floor."

Stevie adjusted her cap and shifted Maggie on her hip to have an excuse to look up. Pacing around the second floor, definitely not following Natasha's advice about being nonchalant, were two STRIKE agents. They weren't wearing their black uniforms, but they were no less obvious – vigilant, beefy men in too-neat khakis and plaid shirts. Stevie could see the comms in their ears from where she was. She looked away, heart hammering.

"How did they follow us here?" She hissed urgently to the other woman.

"I don't know," Natasha whispered back. "Act casual. Maybe they haven't seen us."

Out of the corner of her eye, Stevie caught movement. One of the two men was saying something into his wristwatch. He signaled his companion and they both started to half-run to the escalator.

"I think they've seen us."

"Follow me."

Natasha immediately took a hard left to the movie theater, where an uninterested teenager stood behind the counter with a faraway look.

"How can I..."

"Two tickets for Return to Nuke 'Em High," Natasha interrupted, slapping a handful of bills on the counter. "The twelve-o-clock showing please."

"Return to Nuke 'em High, coming right..." The boy cut himself off at the sight of Maggie in her bear suit. "Um. Coming right up."

Natasha snatched the tickets from his hand and tore them off herself.

"Keep the change!"

Natasha walked briskly past their assigned theater, opening the door of one that was completely empty. She proceeded to the staff door down by the screen.

"Locked of course." She pulled two small, flat pieces of metal out of her pocket and jimmied them in the lock. The door popped open, leading into the staff hallway. Natasha closed the door gently behind them. They ran through the halls, almost running into a short, gray-haired woman as they exited.

"Hey! You're not supposed to be back here!" She shouted after them, but it was already too late.

They emerged into a secluded hallway – unfreqented by customers, the back entrances to several stores lined up in a row.

"We have no idea how many agents there are, or where they are," Natasha said. She looked at the doors and chose one, pulling her lockpicks from her pocket again. "We need to change our look."

They didn't run into anybody in the staff rooms here, fortunately, and slipped into the store as naturally as if they had walked through the front door. The store was intentionally understated – earth tones, brushed concrete floor, a set of unpainted wood stairs leading to a second floor.

Even in her previous life, before the serum, Stevie had never been adept at shopping – or even liked it much – so she was happy to let Natasha take the lead. The smaller woman led her on a circuitous route around the store, handing her items seemingly at random. Stevie tried her best to balance Maggie and the growing pile of clothes.

A smiling girl walked over to them, and Natasha quickly intercepted her, bubbling over with happy chatter about her "girlfriend" that Stevie only realized referred to herself as she was walking into the fitting room. Natasha joined her a moment later.

"Sorry. Took me forever to get away."

She shut the door behind herself barely fast enough to stop Maggie from toddling out of the stall. Stevie had removed her gloves to more easily do up the buttons on a large men's flannel shirt. Natasha stared at her bandaged hands.

"Whoa, Karloff. What happened to you?"

"I understood that reference," Stevie said with a smile. "Escaping from the Triskelion was about as easy as you'd expect."

Natasha gave a low whistle. "Be mysterious. I'll get it out of you later."

She shed her own clothing with the fluidity of a quick-change artist, switching out her jeans and hoodie for tight black pants and a huge, patterned sweater. Stevie kept her navy fatigue pants and boots, but switched out her hat for a black baseball cap, and pulled on a rumpled looking green jacket over the red-checkered shirt. She checked the price tag out of curiosity.

"This costs what ?!" She sputtered. "It looks like it was made from a flour sack! I've seen better clothes made from flour sacks!"

"Alright, grandma, keep your teeth in," Natasha said with a smile. "Anyway, it's not like we'll be paying for them."

It was easy to fall into old habits with Natasha – too easy to joke and banter. Stevie couldn't let herself forget. The server room. Fury bleeding. Don't. Trust. Anyone. Natasha was studying the plastic security tag on her sweater.

"We're in luck. These aren't ink tags. Just need some leverage..."

Stevie leaned over and squeezed the tag with both hands, wrenching it apart with a pop. She made short work of the others.

"And now, your turn kiska," Natasha said, turning to where Maggie was standing at the bench, banging a hanger against it with singleminded determination. "Too bad they don't have a children's department. Can we take off the bear suit?"

Stevie unzipped the front to reveal the bloodstains from this morning, dried and brown, but still extremely obvious.

"Okay," Natasha said slowly. "That's a no. We'll have to pull a True Lies on this outfit. Hold her still." As if by magic, she produced a pocketknife.

Stevie had swept Maggie into her arms before she knew what she was doing, clenching her hand into a fist so hard she felt a stab in her newly healing flesh. Natasha's face was a mask. Then she sighed.

"I'm not going to hold your daughter hostage in Urban Outfitters, Rogers," she said. "But if it makes you feel better, you can hand me the suit and hold onto the baby."

Natasha quickly cut the hood and sleeves off the bear suit, and Stevie stuffed a squirming Maggie back into it. At least it would look different at a glance.

"Time to go," Natasha said, tucking her red hair under Stevie's gray cap. "Front door, this time."

"And how are we going to get out while wearing hundreds of dollars in actual inventory?"

"You'd be amazed what people don't notice when you move with confidence."

They were close to getting out. STRIKE agents were not-so-discreetly watching the exits, but a group of German women had emerged from a clothing store and were heading down the stairs, laden with bags and chatting about where to eat. Stevie and Natasha let themselves be swept along in the group, hidden like zebras in a herd. They were going to get out, right under STRIKE's nose.

And then, Maggie exploded.

The girl had clearly had enough of being toted around across the city with no access to her toys, or her books, or her comfortable crib. She'd been squirming and fussing for a while, but now she howled and threw her body backwards so suddenly Stevie was afraid she'd lose her grip. A man on the first floor looked up immediately, hand to the wire in his ear. Stevie saw his eyes. She'd been made.

"Fuck," she breathed. Natasha looked shocked – then saw the agent herself.

"Oh, shit."

The women turned and tried to walk back into the store, but two more agents were converging on them. Herding them. We have to put this fight on our terms. Now.

"Follow me," Stevie said. She squeezed Maggie tight, eliciting a piercing wail from the angry toddler, and leaped over the railing.

She landed in the middle of the food court, diners looking up in surprise. A moment later, Natasha landed behind her with a grunt. The STRIKE agent who'd been moving to block the base of the stairs was running to intercept, but Stevie didn't wait for him to arrive. She hooked a chair with her foot and kicked it directly at him, catching him the chest. Stevie fled through the maze of tables, vaulting any in her way, mall-goers scattering before her with screams or curses, Maggie howling into her ear.

Did the jump hurt her? Can't worry about it now.

There was a Chinese restaurant directly ahead of her, white-hatted workers staring open-mouthed as Stevie barreled down upon them like a charging fullback, her howling baby in her arms.

"Out of the way!" She shouted. "Go!"

At the last minute, they did, scattering like pigeons in front of a bus.

Stevie jumped over the counter in one leap. Someone snatched at her jacket and she elbowed him in the face, feeling the bone crunch under the impact. She ran through the cramped front of house into the prep kitchen and kicked open the back door. Glancing behind her, she saw Natasha vault the counter with easy grace and fling a pan full of oil directly at an agent's eyes. As he howled, she turned the pan in her hand and smashed the gas line with it, tossed her lighter into the kitchen over her shoulder as she ran to Stevie. The gas ignited with a whump, and the back door slammed behind them over a red-orange burst of flame.

Hi all! Sorry for the delay...I have intermittent bouts of depression, and some family issues have made it flare up again. Anyway - here's some fun spy stuff! Note: plaid is commonly worn by agents in civilian clothing. It's called "urban camouflage" and it's supposed to break up your outline and make it harder to draw a bead on you. Anyway - hope you enjoy and I'll try to keep the schedule moving in the future.