so bad guys can't see me bleed

•tape seven•

"First rule of going on the run is walk, don't run," Nat says as the three of us walk through a mall.

"If I run in these shoes, they're gonna fall off," Cap says. "Now, where is this store?"

"Three o'clock," I say.

"My three o'clock or your three o'clock?" he asks me.

"We have the same three o'clock."

"Oh."

—

"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," Nat says while the three of us look down at the laptop a the Apple store.

Cap glances around nervously. "Do they know what I look like?" I ask her.

She shrugs. "Some of them might. My guess is that they tried to hack into Fury's files to find you since you've been with us. So, yeah, they probably do."

"Damn," I mumble, cracking my knuckles. I was hoping I'd have a safe shot at making a run for it if these two got caught. But I don't, apparently.

"How much time do we have?" Cap asks, looking back at the laptop.

"Uh, about nine minutes from," Nat plugs the hard drive into the laptop, "now."

"Hey, Cap, about how long do you think it will take for them to get from S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters to here?" I ask him as Nat starts to go through the drive.

"Hopefully long enough," he says, glancing around again.

"Fury was right about that ship," Nat says. "Somebody's trying to hide something. This drive is protected by some sort of AI. It keeps rewriting itself to counter my commands."

Cap puts his hand down next to her and leans over her shoulder, looking at the screen. "Can you override it?"

She nods her head to the side. "The person who developed this is slightly smarter than me. Slightly."

Nat types for a couple more minutes while Cap glances around nervously.

"I'm gonna try running a tracer," she says after a moment. "This is a program that S.H.I.E.L.D. 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?"

The three of us turn to the worker as he steps onto my other side. Nat smiles and grabs Cap's shoulders, putting her head on one of them. "Oh, no," she says. "My fiancé was just helping me with some honeymoon destinations."

"Right," Cap says as Nat puts on the fakest giggle I've ever heard and goes back to the laptop. "We're getting married."

"Congratulations," the worker says. "Where are you guys thinking about going?"

I glance at the screen. "New Jersey," I say, nodding to the screen. "Beautiful scenery."

"Oh," the worker says, and Cap nods while putting a hand on my shoulder. I put on a fake smile and try not to glare at him. "And who might you be?"

"Ah, it's her niece," Cap says, nodding to Nat.

Nat smiles and nods. "Yeah, I took her in after my sister passed. But she's like our kid."

Cap nods. "Little Faith will always have a special place in our hearts," he says, chuckling. I give him a weird look.

The worker looks at Cap like he's realizing something. I take a breath in and turn around. Here we go.