Unexpected

XI

Nina and Steve entered the elevator. "Operations control," Steve told the machine.

"Understood," the computer answered. A few floors down, Agent Rumlow got inside with them.

"Forensics," he said.

"Understood."

"Cap, Jones," he awknowlodged.

"Rumlow," Steve answered. Steve took out his phone. He still had trouble using it, and didn't completely understand it, but he was able to send a text to Nina through it.

Get out, take the stairs. Meet me downstairs.

Nina didn't even hesitate. On the next stop, a couple more guys entered the elevator and Nina got out. She didn't know what was happening, but Steve didn't want her to be a part of it.

It took her long enough to take the stairs and go all the way down, but she did it. It took her about seven minutes, and she walked outside and waited for Steve, who appeared the way she least expected; from above her. He had jumped out of the elevator and fell on his left side, his shield absorbing the impact with the ground. Nina jumped in fear, but as soon as he got up, she knew they had to run. Something was definetly wrong. Steve lead Nina to the garage, where they both hopped on his motorcycle and ran out of the facility just in time before the concrete doors closed behind them.

As they gor further and further away from the doors, a quinjet approached them and threatened to shoot if they didn't stop. Obviously, they didn't. The quinjet started to shoot, luckily not hitting them. Nina decided to fight back, taking Steve's shield from his shoulders and throwing it on the quinjet. It hit one of the repulsers, making it lower it's altitude. Nina saw this as an opportunity to stand up and jump on the quinjet, who wasn't that far away from them anymore. She took Steve's shield and hit the quinjet a few times, damaging it a bit more before jumping down and getting on Steve's motorcycle again.

"Nice work," Steve said, clearly impressed as the two of them drove to Nina's house. "Where's the USB thing?"

"Nat's got it."

"You trust her with that? She used to be a Russian spy, ya know?"

"And I'm not human," Nina pointed out. "Don't you trust me?"

"This is different," Steve told her. "I've known you for years."

"And I've known her for years," Nina retorted. "I do trust her."

"Then we're good," Steve said.

Steve, dressed in a civilian in a hoodie, a baseball cap and some fake glasses, and Nina, with her black skinny jeans, her white converses and green t-shirt, a black jacket thrown over her shoulders, walked into Nina's apartment, only to find Natasha, who was making some pop corn.

"Where did you find pop corn?" Nina asked as she took off her jacket.

" The cabinet?" Natasha answered. Nina frowned. She didn't know she had pop corn. Steve wasn't so amused.

"Where is it?" He asked her, quite harshly.

"Safe." Steve took her by the shoulders and shoved her into the wall.

"Do better!" Steve was really angry. He had lost Nick and he didn't quite know what was going on.

"Its Safe!"

"What's in it?" He asked her.

"I don't know!"

"Stop lying!"

"I only act like I know everything, Rogers!" Nat yelled at him. Meanwhile, Nina ate her pop corn.

"I bet you knew Fury hired the pirates, didn't you?" Steve asked. Nina had to defend her, because she knew Nat had no idea of Fury's plans.

"The ship was dirty," Nina told him. "He needed a way in."

"I'm not gonna ask you again," Steve warned.

"I don't know who killed Fury," Natasha said. Nina felt bad for making Nat lie. The two of them knew very well who had killed Nick, but Nat allowed Nina her time to gather courage to actually tell Steve.

"I do," Nina revealed. Steve released Natasha and stared at Nina, a look of betrayal on his face. "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." Nina told her.

"So he's a ghost story," Steve said, obviously annoyed by the information Nina had given him.

"Five years ago we were escorting a nuclear engineer out of Iran, somebody shot out the tires near Odessa," Nina told Steve. "We lost control, went straight over a cliff, I pulled us out, but the Winter Soldier was there. Nat was covering her engineer, so he shot him straight through her," Nina said. Steve looked at Natasha, who was lifting her shirt to let him see the bullet scar on the left side of her stomach.

"Soviet slug, no rifling," Nat said. "Bye-bye bikinis."

"Yeah, I bet you look terrible in them now," Nina said sarcasticly. There was a hint of a smile on Natasha's face, but it soon desapeared.

"Going after him is a dead end," Natasha told Steve. "I know, I've tried." She took the flash drive form her pocket. "Like you said, he's a ghost story."

"We don't need to go looking for him," Nina said. "After killing Fury, the actual director of SHIELD, his mission will probably be to kill you, Captain America. End when that's done, he'll come after us," she said.

"So we just wait for him to come."