Black baseball cap and dark sunglasses paired with a pair of jeans and a hoodie were the disguises that both Lottie and Steve had assumed in order to sneak back into the hospital, needing to retrieve the flash-drive that Steve had hidden not that long ago.
Lottie hung back as Steve approached the vending machine. Her eyes trailed to the door behind Steve's back, Natasha emerging from it. She shot Lottie a wink, which was met with an eyeroll, as she chewed the gum in her mouth and caught Steve's attention.
The man grabbed onto Natasha, shoving her back into the room that she had just come out of. Lottie sighed, entering the room behind them and shutting the door behind them, keeping an eye out for any of the STRIKE team.
"Where is it?"
"Safe,"
"Do better!"
Lottie approached Steve, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder as she pulled him back from Natasha. She shot him a warning glance, telling him to calm down as he let out the breath he was holding as Lottie turned back to her friend.
"Why'd Fury give it to you?" she questioned the two soldiers, already having put together that he must've been the one to give it to them. Lottie only shrugged.
"Don't know. You know what's on it?"
"Not sure,"
"Stop lying," Steve told her, voice and gaze cold. Lottie's hand found his, giving it a squeeze. He was definitely on edge after being attacked by his own team not long before, of course he was skeptical of Natasha, a spy.
"I only act like I know everything, Rogers,"
"Did you know that Fury hired the pirates?" Lottie's comment made Natasha freeze for a second, before she regained her composure.
"Well, it makes sense. The ship was dirty, Fury needed a way in, so do you,"
"This is ridiculous," Steve mumbled, turning to leave. Lottie tried to tug him back.
"I know who killed Fury," the comment gained the two soldiers attention, both turning back to face Natasha. She sighed, chewing on her gum again. "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," Lottie finished, off, realizing why the man had looked so familiar. She looked up at Natasha as she nodded.
"So he's a ghost story," Steve finished off, but Natasha shook her head.
"Five years ago I was escorting a nuclear engineer out of Iran, 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. Soviet slug, no rifling. Bye-bye bikinis."
"He's the same one from the Cairo mission," Lottie chimed in, earning a nod of affirmation from Nat. She looked to Steve, who was waiting for explanation. "I was wondering why I recognized him when he blew up the van Fury and I were in. The Cairo mission was during my training, few months before the Battle of New York. Nat and I were sent to investigate some undercover operation when I found him about to kill her, so I shot him and he took off. Even back in Cairo, he looked so familiar..."
"Tried to kill our entire team, but didn't touch her once," Natasha added in, motioning to Lottie with her head. "Took one look at her and left, didn't touch a hair on her head. Going after him is a dead end. I know, I tried after Odessa and tried again before New York. Like you said, he's a ghost story."
Natasha held out her hand, dropping the flash drive into Lottie's outstretched hand. She looked back to Steve, who looked between the two women for a second.
"Well let's find out what the ghost wants,"
◼ ◼ ◼
Arm wound through Steve's as if they were just a normal 21st century couple, Lottie moved through the D.C. mall with Natasha and Steve at her sides. Nat and Lottie were cool and collected, focused on just getting to their destination while Steve looked around at the mall goers, completely on edge.
"First rule of going on the run is walk, don't run,"
"If I run in these shoes, they're gonna fall off," Natasha laughed at Steve's comment as he looked down at Lottie. "Where'd you learn to be a spy? You're a soldier, Lieutenant."
"You of all people should know that this," Natasha reached up and tapped on Lottie's head with a grin as the woman swatted her hand away. "Allows her to be whoever she wants. Plus, she trained with me, she picked up the art of being a spy in less than three minutes."
The conversation was quickly dropped as they entered the Apple store. Natasha took a quick look around before grabbing one of the laptops on display .
"The drive has a Level Six homing program, so as soon as we boot up SHIELD will know exactly where we are," Natasha explained to mainly Steve, knowing that Lottie already knew how it worked.
"How long do we have?"
"About nine minutes from the second that she plugs in the flash drive," Lottie told him, the second that Natasha did exactly as she said. "See? Nine minutes."
"Fury was right about that ship, somebody's trying to hide something. This drive is protected by some sort of AI, it keeps rewriting itself to counter my commands," Natasha explained as Lottie watched the AI program from over her shoulder.
"Can you override it?" Steve questioned as Lottie turned back to him with a grin.
"Honey, I taught her everything she knows. Of course she can,"
"You did no such thing,"
"Honestly, the entire Cairo mission negates that-"
"I'm gonna try running a tracer," Natasha cut her off, sending her a playful glare before looking back to the laptop. "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?"
Lottie whipped around, seeing one of the workers standing at Steve's side. She blocked Natasha from view, her spy/acting skills kicking into gear as she slipped her arm back into Steve's, a wonderful smile lightly up her face as she rested her head on his shoulder.
"Oh! No, my fiance and I were just looking at some honeymoon destinations!" she told the man happily as Steve stood their dumbfounded. "My best friend had a couple she wanted to show us."
"Right! We're getting married," Steve tried to play along, even though Lottie internally sighed over his skills. The worker bought it anyways, grinning back at them.
"Congratulations. Where do you guys thinking about going?"
"New Jersey,"
Lottie tried to cover the shock on her face, realizing that Steve had said that because Natasha's tracer system had pulled up a location in New Jersey. She smiled at the worker, letting Steve finish off the conversation as she turned back to help Natasha.
"Wow, the world is really trying to tell you two to get engaged," Natasha joked with a grin as the worker, Aaron, finally left. Lottie rolled her eyes with a smile, seeing Steve's cheeks burn red as he shook his head at her.
"Again, plan an engagement later. You said nine minutes, come on,"
"Shh, relax. Got it," the marker on the map pulled up Wheaton, New Jersey, and Lottie felt her breath catch in her throat, knowing that both her and Steve recognized it: it was the same camp that Steve was trained at. Natasha raised an eyebrow at their expressions. "You know it?"
"We used to, let's go,"
Natasha pocketed the flash drive, the trio exiting the store immediately and moving through the mall as fast as they could. Steve stood in between the two woman, easily catching on to the STRIKE agents that were in front of them and behind them.
"Standard tac-team. Two behind, to across, two coming straight at us," Steve explained to the pair, keeping his head down. "If they make us, I'll engage, you hit the south escalator to the metro."
"Shut up and put your arms around us, laugh at something we said," Natasha told him.
Steve raised an eyebrow at her comment, until Lottie nudged him in the ribs. He quickly did as Natasha had said, placing his arms around them as the three pretended to laugh at something that Steve hadn't even said.
Perplexed, Steve looked up afterwards when he realized that the STRIKE agents had gone right past them without even realizing it.
The trio got onto the escalator, heading toward the ground floor. Natasha stood in front of Steve and Lottie, who stood together. Lottie surveyed their surroundings, eyes going wide when she saw Rumlow heading up the escalator beside them. She turned to Steve, who looked absolutely confused.
"Kiss me,"
"You don't have to tell me twice,"
Natasha snorted, turning and hiding her face from Rumlow as Lottie pulled Steve into a kiss, her hands resting on the back of his neck as his rested on her hips. She pulled away once they had gotten past Rumlow, sending her boyfriend a smirk as she turned back around.
"You a little hot back there, Rogers?"
"Romanoff, just don't,"
◼ ◼ ◼
So if any of you remember, the Cairo Mission was mentioned very briefly as a joke back in Part Two during The Avengers, kinda like how Budapest was mentioned in a joking manner. But yes, The Winter Soldier had shown up in Cairo, but for some strange reason he didn't hurt Lottie, hm.........