Work This Out

Chapter 9 ~ On the run

"First rule of going on the run is, don't run, walk," Natasha says to us.

We are at the mall, blending in with a lot of civilians. Steve changed his outfit and disguise so now he is wearing a baseball cap and some dorky glasses. Nat is wearing a hood over her head and I'm still wearing Steve's oversized hoodie.

"Yeah and also don't make it obvious that we're on the run either," I say as I elbow Steve in the side because he kept looking around, being paranoid.

"If I run in these shoes, they're gonna fall off," Steve says as we continue to walk.

We walk into an Apple store to use one of their computers.

"The drive has a level six homing program, so as soon as we boot up SHIELD will know exactly where we are," Nat explains to us.

"How much time will we have?" I ask.

"Uh... about nine minutes... from..." She pops the flash drive into the computer. "Now."

Natasha types quickly on the computer. I look over her shoulder to see what she's doing.

"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." Nat says.

"Can you override it?" Steve asks.

"The person who developed this is slightly smarter than me. Slightly."

"I can help if you want. Stark's been teaching me how to hack through things, it's pretty easy." I offer.

"Why did you need to learn how to hack?" Steve asks.

"How else was I gonna get into your phone and change the ringtone to annoy you," I smirk at him.

"That was you?! I always yelled at Stark for that."

"I know. That's what made it funny."

"No I got it," Nat answers as she stays focused on the computer screen. She looks back at me and Steve standing there kind of awkwardly. She shakes her head, "God Rogers, put her on your back. At least try to fit in."

Steve bends down so I can climb onto his back. He is so freaking tall though. I peek over his shoulder so I can continue to look at the computer screen.

"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?" An employee asks us.

"Oh, no. My husband was just helping me with some anniversary destinations." Nat is really good at lying and acting that's for sure.

"Right! We're married." Steve puts on a fake smile. I hug him tighter and he looks back at me, smiling.

"Congratulations. Where you guys thinking about going?" The employee asks.

Steve looks at the monitor and sees the signal traced to somewhere in New Jersey.

"New Jersey." He answers.

"Oh." The guy then looks at Steve. He's gonna blow our cover if he figures us out. I pull my hood down more to hide my face better. "I have the exact same glasses."

I sigh in relief, letting out a breath I didn't know I was holding.

"Wow you two are practically twins," Nat says without looking up from the monitor.

"Yeah I wish. Specimen." He gestures to Steve's body figure. "Uh... if you guys need anything, I've been Aaron." And with that the guy walks away.

"Thank you," Steve says to him.