Whilst disguised as a civilian dressed in a hoodie, Steve went back to the hospital to retrieve the flash drive from the vending machine but saw it was gone. Natasha and Elliot appeared behind him, the former chewing some gum.
In anger, Steve pushed her into a room, pulling Elliot as well, and he demanded, "Where is it?"
"Safe," Natasha and Elliot replied.
"Do better!"
"Where did you get it?" Natasha asked.
"Why would I tell either of you?"
"Fury gave it to you," Elliot realized. "Why?"
"What's on it?"
"I don't know," Natasha said.
"Stop lying!"
"I only act like I know everything, Rogers."
"I bet you two knew Fury hired the pirates, didn't you?"
Elliot shrugged lightly. "Well, it makes sense. The ship was dirty, Fury needed a way in, so do you."
"I'm not gonna ask you again."
"Elliot and I know who killed Fury," Natasha told him. "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."
"So he's a ghost story."
"Five years ago Elliot and I were escorting a nuclear engineer out of Iran, somebody shot out our tires near Odessa. We lost control, went straight over a cliff, Elliot and I pulled us out, but the Winter Soldier was there. I was covering my engineer, so he shot him straight through me. Elliot shot him with an arrow, but he got away." She pulled up her shirt to show him the scar on the side of her stomach. "Soviet slug, no rifling. Bye-bye bikinis."
"Yeah, I bet you look terrible in them now," Steve shot back, earning a hint of a smile from Natasha.
"Going after him is a dead end," Elliot said. "Nat and I know, we've tried."
Natasha held up the flash drive. "Like you said, he's a ghost story."
Steve took the flash drive from her. "Well, let's find out what the ghost wants."
---
Steve and Natasha went to the mall disguised as a civilian couple with their friend. Elliot wasn't thrilled to be the third wheel. He'd been one enough around his brother and sister-in-law.
"First rule of going on the run is, don't run, walk," Natasha instructed.
"If I run in these shoes, they're gonna fall off," Steve said as they went to a Mac store to use one of their computers.
"The drive has a Level Six homing program, so as soon as we boot up S.H.I.E.L.D. will know exactly where we are," Elliot informed.
"How much time do we have?"
"Uh... about nine minutes from..." she popped the flash drive into a MacBook Pro, "Now." Several S.H.I.E.L.D. vehicles headed their way. "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."
"Can you override it?"
"The person who developed this is slightly smarter than me. Slightly."
Elliot smirked lightly and nodded. "She's not lying."
Rumlow and his team pulled up outside the mall and headed inside.
---
Back at the Mac store, Steve, Elliot and Natasha continued to try to find out what was on the flash drive. Natasha said, "I'm gonna try running a tracer. This is a program that S.H.I.E.L.D. 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 Apple employee asked.
"Oh, no," Natasha replied. "My fiancé and best friend were just helping me with some honeymoon destinations."
"Right! We're getting married," Steve said.
"Congratulations," the Apple employee said. "Where do you guys thinking about going?" Steve looked at the monitor and saw the signal traced to somewhere in New Jersey.
"New Jersey," Steve answered.
"Oh." The employee looked at Steve for a moment. "I have the exact same glasses."
"Wow, you two are practically twins," Natasha and Elliot commented sarcastically.
"Yeah, I wish. Specimen. Uh... if you guys need anything, I've been Aaron."
"Thank you," Steve said as Rumlow and his team were in the mall looking for Steve, Elliot and Natasha. "You said nine minutes, come on."
"Shh, relax," Natasha told him. "Got it." They found the signal was coming from Wheaton, NJ. "You know it?"
"I used to. Let's go."
Steve pulled the flash drive from the computer and they walked out of the store before Steve said, "Standard tac-team. Two behind, to across, two coming straight at us. If they make us, I'll engage, you hit the south escalator to the metro." Two agents were coming straight towards them.
"Shut up and put your arm around me, laugh at something I said," Natasha instructed. "Elliot, look away when he does it."
"What?"
"Do it!" Steve quickly put his arm around Natasha and laughed while Elliot looked away.
Inside the Mac store, one of the agents looked around.
"Negative at the source," Jack Rollins said.
"Give me a floor rundown," Rumlow ordered.
S.H.I.E.L.D. agent two stated, "Negative on three."
S.H.I.E.L.D. agent three replied, "Negative on two."
Brock said, "Snake the upper levels, work down to me." As they were going down the escalator, Natasha spotted Rumlow on the escalator next to them going up.
Natasha turned to Steve. "Kiss me." She glanced at Elliot. "Look away at the kiss."
"What?" Steve asked.
"Public displays of affection make people very uncomfortable."
"Yes, they do."
Natasha quickly pulled down Steve's head and kissed him, while Elliot looked away with slightly narrowed eyes, making Rumlow look away as he went past them on the escalator.
"You still uncomfortable?" Natasha asked.
"It's not exactly the word I would use," Steve replied.
Elliot's jaw clenched ever so slightly and he shook his head once, trying to brush his thoughts away.
---
As they drove to New Jersey, Natasha asked, "Where did Captain America learn how to steal a car?"
"Nazi Germany," Steve answered.
"Mm."
"And we're borrowing. Take your feet off the dash." Natasha took her feet off the dash.
"All right, I have a question for you, oh, which you do not have to answer. I feel like if you don't answer it though, you're kind of answering it, you know?"
"What?"
"Was that your first kiss since 1945?"
"That bad, huh?"
"I didn't say that."
"Well, it kind of sounds like that's what you're saying."
"No, I didn't. I just wondered how much practice you've had."
"You don't need practice."
"Everybody needs practice."
"It was not my first kiss since 1945. I'm ninety-five, I'm not dead."
"Nobody special, though?" Natasha and Elliot asked.
Steve chuckled and said, "Believe it or not, it's kind of hard to find someone with shared life experience."
"Well, that's all right, you just make something up," Natasha told him.
"What, like you?"
"I don't know. The truth is a matter of circumstances, it's not all things to all people all the time. And neither am I."
"That's a tough way to live."
"It's a good way not to die, though."
"You know, it's kind of hard to trust someone when you don't know who that someone really is."
"Yeah. Who do you want me to be?"
"How about a friend?"
Natasha laughed softly before saying, "Well, there's a chance you might be in the wrong business, Rogers." She glanced back at Elliot. "What was that at the mall?"
"What was what?" Elliot asked, feigning innocence.
"Your clenched jaw and narrowed eyes. You didn't seem mad, but jealous."
"Maybe I was."
Natasha considered his words, then said, "What about you? Anyone special?"
"Yeah. But I don't know if she sees it."
Natasha smiled lightly as she answered softly, "She does."