Something To Marvel At :||: Steve Rogers

3.6 'Unless That's Something You're Into'

ft. Isabelle Stark

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Having ditched the car a million blocks away, doubled back and stole some clothes off unsuspecting people's clotheslines. Steve and I felt pretty safe returning to the hospital Director Fury had died. It was easy to remember the chair I'd stashed it under and with probs of my powers, I discovered it wasn't there. I halted, Steve turning to me to see what was wrong and I glanced at the chair, shaking my head. It wasn't there.

His eyes widened in alarm before a redheaded figure appeared behind him. Nat narrowed her eyes suspiciously and Steve lunged, backing her into a thankfully empty patient room. Closing the door behind me, I turned to them as Steve shoved her up against a wall. "Where is it?"

"Safe. How do you have it?"

"Why should we tell you?"

"We? You two are a 'we' now?"

"Isabelle is the only person I trust," Steve snapped. "Can't say the same for you. What's on it?"

"I don't know!" She shrugged. "I only act like I know everything."

It was clear Steve didn't trust her and even though I had a past with Nat, I didn't know whether to let that cloud my judgement. "Did you know Fury hired the pirates?" I asked.

Nat's brows furrowed even further. "Well, it makes sense. The ship was dirty, Fury needed a way in, so do you."

Steve grabbed her roughly, his aggression towards someone, other than in a fight, was something I'd never seen before. "I'm not going to ask you again."

"I know who killed Fury," Nat spat out, glancing between the two of us.

I stepped away from guarding the door, walking over to stand beside Steve. "Spit it out."

"Most of the intelligence community doesn't believe he exists," She rushed out, Steve's grip on her easing significantly. "The ones who do call him the Winter Soldier."

"The Winter Soldier?" I murmured. "I've heard that name before."

"He's credited with over two dozen assassinations in the last fifty years. Five years ago, I was escorting a nuclear engineer out of Iran, somebody shot out my tires near Odessa, lost control and 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."

Nat lifted up her shirt, revealing the nasty scar of a bullet wound. "Let me guess," I looked back at her. "Soviet slug, no rifling."

She nodded and I sighed, glancing at Steve. "Going after him is a dead end. I've tried. He's a ghost story."

Pulling out the hard drive from her pocket, she handed it over to me. "Let's find out what the ghost wants."

"Do you have a secure location?"

"Do I have a secure location?" I mocked back at her. "Jesus Christ, do people keep forgetting I'm Isabelle Stark? But it doesn't matter, we need to go to a very populated place to view what's on this drive. It has a level six homing program, the second we open it SHIELD will know exactly where we are."

...

The three of us moved through the mall, the place teeming with people, little kids and other activities. "First rule of going on the run, don't run, walk."

I lead us into the computer tech store, heading over to where they were displaying their newest devices. Nat took the drive and plugged it into a computer, typing and clicking away to get into the drive. Steve and I were on the lookout.