The Blood Phoenix 6: A Captain America: The Winter Soldier Fanfiction

Chapter 9: Old Memories

It was a lot to take in. We were on the run from SHIELD, the three of us. Myself, Natasha Romanoff and Steve Rogers. Steve and I had grown closer since Fury's death. Natasha had continued to encourage me to share my feelings for Steve to him, but I was reluctant. I loved him a lot and Nat was a discerning woman. But that still didn't make me fond of explaining the truth to Steve: that I loved him deeply. Thinking of my former relationship with the Winter Soldier made me, again, reluctant to explain my feelings for Steve.

Little did we know that things were about to get a whole lot more hectic.

At SHIELD Headquarters...

'Nick Fury was murdered in cold blood,' one of the councilmen stated. 'To any reasonable person, that would make him a martyr, not a traitor.'

'You know what makes him a traitor? Hiring a mercenary to jack his own ship,' another of the councilmen snapped back. 'Nick Fury used your friendship to coerce this council into delaying Project INSIGHT. A project he knew would expose his own illegal operations. At best, he lied to you. At worst...'

'Are you calling for my resignation?' Alexander Pierce spoke. 'I've got a pen and paper right here.'

'That discussion can be tabled for a later time,' the female councilwoman spoke.

'But do you want to have a discussion?' Pierce replied.

'We've already had it, Mr. Secretary. This council moves to immediately reactivate Project INSIGHT. You want say something snappy, now would be a good time.' Alexander stood there, a defeated look on his face.

At a mall in Washington D.C...

'First rule of going on the run, don't run, walk,' Natasha spoke to Steve.

'If I run in these shoes, they're gonna fall off,' Steve replied. I chuckled at their playful banter. We went into an Apple store and began to look for a computer. Once Natasha had come to a computer, she began to hack into the computer. A couple times she had my assistance, but for most of the time, mine and Steve's heads were constantly on a swivel, looking for the agents that were coming any minute to hunt us down.

'The drive has a Level 6 homing program, so as we boot up, SHIELD will know exactly where we are.'

'How much time will we have?'

'Relax, Lehnsherr. About nine minutes from now.' She plugged in the drive and my anxiety grew. I knew that SHIELD was tracking us and they would not stop until they had Natasha, Steve and I captured or dead. 'Fury was right about that ship. Someone's trying to hide something. This drive is protected by some sort of A.I. It keeps rewriting itself to counter my commands.'

'Can you override it?' Steve asked. I could tell he was just as anxious as I was.

'The person who developed this is slightly smarter than me,' she remarked. 'Slightly. 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.' I reached for Steve's hand and squeezed it. He did likewise. Just then there was a voice that stunned the two of us.

'Can I help you guys with anything?' I narrowed my eyes at him dangerously. He looked a little nervous under my stare. But upon reading his mind, he was just a normal Apple techie. I breathed a sigh of relief, only just now realising that I was holding my breath.

'No,' I spoke, 'my friend was just helping my fiance and I with our honeymoon destination.'

'Right, we're getting married.' I smiled and looped my arm through Steve's to make the act more believable. He was giving off a smile too, but I could tell that the fiance facade was getting a little annoying. Truth be told, it was growing on me too. As much as I liked Steve, I couldn't tell him properly how I felt about him.