"Natasha! Eleanor!", Steve called after them as they began their journey through the hallways of the hospital, their destination unknown.
Natasha spun around to face him, whereas Eleanor slowly turned. "Why was Fury in your apartment?", Natasha got straight to the point, and well, Eleanor wasn't going to stop her, she wanted to know too.
Steve sighed and lifted his arms up slightly as he shrugged, "I don't know". Bullshit.
Eleanor scoffed, "You can do better than that, Steve", she dryly responded. She didn't want to be lied to about Fury's death.
"Cap, they want you back at SHIELD", Rumlow interrupted the group. Eleanor looked over to him, but Natasha kept her gaze on Steve, wanting to know why the hell he was lying.
"Yeah, give me a second".
"They want you now".
"Okay", Steve sounded fed up with being ordered around.
"You're a terrible liar", Nat smirked when Steve turned around, his face almost turned into one of pity.
"Are you coming back to SHIELD?", Nat immediately shook her head, but Eleanor looked more hesitant, maybe she could find some answers at Headquarters.
Steve looked slightly hopeful at Eleanor's reaction, he was still a bit angry with the two but would be nice to have some familiar faces around during this. But Nat turned to her and gave her an almost pleading look, so of course, she immediately shut down the idea of going back. "Sorry, Steve". They both then turned to walk away, leaving the Captain standing on his own.
Eleanor did feel a bit guilty, but he was lying to them, and she needed to focus on her girlfriend right now. She wasn't exactly known for having the healthiest emotional range. In private, at home, she would allow herself to feel and cry with Eleanor. But, the beginning of their grieving had been in a public hospital, and Nat was clearly holding back letting any semblance of emotion out. Eleanor just had to make sure that she wasn't going to do anything stupid like yell at a nurse if they bumped into her.
Eleanor checked her phone and saw that it was 4 am, and sighed knowing that there wasn't a chance of any sleep until the night most probably, it was going to be a long, horrible day.
"El, you okay?", Nat grabbed her hand again after hearing her sigh.
"Yeah, it's just late is all". Eleanor wasn't the best at showing her negative emotions healthily when in a public place either.
Nat nodded as they carried on walking, they still didn't really know where they were going, so Eleanor abruptly stopped, which of course forced Natasha to stop as well. "Where are we going, Nat?", she almost winced as it came across way more defensively than she had meant. They were both tired.
Natasha's face dropped slightly and she looked around, she felt a bit lost. "I don't know".
"Do you want to leave?", Eleanor made sure to lay out her question a lot more delicately this time.
"No... I don't know. I don't want to go home, and I don't want to go to work". Eleanor nodded, she didn't really feel ready to leave yet either for some reason, she would have thought that staying in the hospital would have been the last thing that she would have wanted, but for some reason the idea of leaving seemed to solidify the events of the last three hours.
"Let's just sit", Eleanor smiled and guided Natasha over to a few chairs that were randomly placed in the hall. They weren't extremely comfy, so she wrapped her arm around Natasha and guided her to lean on her so that she could hopefully be a bit more comfortable.
"Are you hungry?", Eleanor asked after she gave Nat a quick peck on the crown of her head.
"Not really, maybe in a bit though".
"Okay, well there was that vending machine down the hall where we last saw Steve, that guy was stocking it up so there'll be plenty of snacks", she laughed.
Nat nodded along half-heartedly. Eleanor knew that she couldn't make her feel better, but she desperately wanted to, even though she was hurting too. She just squeezed Natasha that little bit tighter, "Do you need anything".
"Can you just talk to me?".
"Yeah", Eleanor frowned slightly not knowing what to talk about, "Anything in particular?".
"No, I just love it when you ramble on about things".
Eleanor couldn't help but blush at that, as usually half the time she thought that Natasha was just acting like she listened along, as that's what most people did. She didn't know that Natasha actually enjoyed hearing her rambly monologues about different theories.
The next few hours were spent with Natasha curled up into Eleanor, listening to her thoughts on multiple universe theory, aliens, space, why Cathy from reception needs to learn how to park properly, how to make your cheese sauce smooth and not lumpy, and a lot more. To anyone else, this would have been a mind-numbing few hours. But Natasha clung to every word. She loved hearing her voice, and how passionately she would talk about the most mundane things, it was her best medicine.
Soon though, they got a bit peckish, so decided to venture down to the vending machine, and just as predicted it was nicely stocked, making Eleanor rub her hands together in victory.
Natasha chuckled and got a snickers, Eleanor was taking a lot longer, analysing every item on show. Starting from the top, chocolate bars, M&Ms, snack packs, gum, a SHIELD USB stick, more snack packs- "Wait", Eleanor mumbled, training her eyes back to 510, the pink sticks of bubblegum.
"Will you just hurry up El, I was comfy back there", Natasha complained, but she soon moved back to the vending machine when she saw Eleanor frantically ordering a bubblegum stick, "What are you-".
"That ain't bubblegum".
Nat looked to the back of the row and saw that there was something in there that was indeed not bubblegum, "Right, quick, quick".
"I'm trying these things are slow as fu- no! Don't get stuck you piece of shit", Eleanor started shaking the machine and banging on the window, making people look at the pair with judgey glances.
Nat turned to give them awkward smiles and nods before turning back to Eleanor, "Hurry up!", she whisper shouted.
"Got it!", the last stick of actual bubblegum was unstuck, so now she could pay for the USB stick. It fell to the bottom, so she quickly grabbed it and handed it to Nat who hid it in her pocket.
"Steve", they both said when they looked at each other. He was the only person who could have done this, and he was being very secretive as is.
"We'll wait for him at the end of the hall, he'll come back for it if he has half a brain", Eleanor suggested as they slowly moved to the end of the hall. "Gum?", she offered Nat as she stuffed a piece in her own mouth, she shrugged and took one.
It was about an hour before Steve showed up again, and they were cursing him for being so careless with intel. It was a pretty good hiding spot, but leaving it there from 4 am until later in the morning? Not a smart move.
He did eventually show, but he was wearing sweats and a hoodie, with the hood up. Both Agents frowned slightly, it looked obvious that he was hiding from someone, the only question was who?
They walked forward to confront him anyway, Nat walked past him and looked into her reflection in the vending machine, seeing that Steve was also looking at it, and she blew a bubble.
Steve turned around to face her and waited for a nearby Doctor to leave before grabbing Natasha from under the arms and pushing her into a room, then shoving her against a wall.
Eleanor's eyes widened in shock at the sudden aggression, and she quickly followed the pair, shutting the door behind her.
"Let her go", Eleanor tried but was blatantly ignored by the other two in the room.
"Where is it?".
"Steve-".
"Do better".
"Where did you get it?".
"Why would I tell you?".
Eleanor rolled her eyes at the back and forth happening between the both of them and slowly made her way to the left side of Nat, "Just tell us the truth, Steve".
"Oh yeah? Like you did?". Eleanor's jaw went tight and she narrowed her eyes at him, that was a low blow at this point in time.
"Fury gave it to you. Why?", Nat deducted during the few seconds that Steve's attention had been off of her.
"What's on it?", Steve deflected.
"I don't know".
"Stop lying", Steve seethed as he tightened his grip on Nat, making Eleanor push his arm to get him to cut it out, but he still didn't let go.
"We only act like we know everything, Rogers".
"I bet you knew Fury hired the pirates, didn't you?", he looked between them both. They didn't, but now that they do know, it made sense. If Fury desperately wanted that intel he would have gone to unimaginable lengths to get to it.
Nat didn't speak for a few seconds, but the way that her eyes darted around was the equivalent of tripping up on her words. "Well, it makes sense. The ship was dirty, Fury needed a way in, so do you".
Steve once again harshly increased the grip on Nat's arms, "I'm not gonna ask you again".
"I'm not gonna ask you again either. Let. Her. Go", her glare was terrifying, so Steve dropped his arms but made no attempt at moving backwards, making sure that Nat was still trapped.
Nat sent her a quick look of thanks, his grip was painful, then she turned her attention back to Steve, "We know who killed Fury". Steve backed off a step, his entire demeanour slumping slightly.
"Most of the intelligence community doesn't believe he exists. The ones that do call him The Winter Soldier. He's credited with two dozen assassinations in the last fifty years".
"So, he's a ghost story". No, this was no ghost.
"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 through me", Nat then lifted her shirt to show the scar that was left from that mission. "Soviet slug, no rifling. Bye-bye bikinis".
"Yeah, she looks God awful in them now", Eleanor joked causing Nat to scoff at her. "We tried going after him for years Steve, it's a dead-end".
Nat nodded and lifted up the USB from her pocket, "Like you said, he's a ghost story".
Steve carefully took it from her and looked between the two women again, "Well, let's find out what the ghost wants".
"First things first, who are you hiding from?", Eleanor interjected.
"SHIELD", Steve deadpanned. Both Agents were not expecting that. "They sent teams after me whilst at base, just managed to escape, they'll be on the lookout for me now".
"We'll need covers", Nat joined in.
"We can go home first, pick up some clothes, I'm sure Dan downstairs will have some spare clothes for Steve", Nat nodded at Eleanor's suggestion, but Steve just looked like they were crazy.
"Your home is probably on the list of places that they'll look, we can't go there".
"They don't know it exists, it's off the books, other than us the only people that know our apartment is Fury, Maria, and Barton", Nat explained.
"And Maria won't tell them?".
Eleanor frowned, "I trust Maria with my life, she'd never tell anyone".
---
Natasha and Steve waited around the corner at the end of the hall whilst Eleanor knocked on an apartment door, "Hi Dan!", she enthusiastically spoke as it opened.
"Oh, hey Olivia, what can I do for you?". Dan was of a similar build to Steve somehow, he was slightly shorter, but he too had a large muscle mass.
"I was just wondering if I'd be able to borrow an outfit from you if possible? My brother is in town and the airport lost his suitcase, we can't get more clothes until tomorrow but we're going out to dinner with my parents tonight and all he's got is his scruffy clothes", she smiled hoping that he'd say yes.
"Yeah, that's no problem! Come on in and take your pick".
"Great, thank you Dan I owe you one!", was the last thing that Nat and Steve heard before Eleanor went inside. She selected some regular denim trousers, a shirt, a brown jacket, and some blue and grey shoes. She once again thanked her neighbour and left to go to her own place.
"Olivia?", Steve questioned as she turned the corner.
"Mhm, and she's Chloe".
It didn't take long for Nat and Eleanor to pick out some clothes that would help people not recognise them as themselves, they just had to wear some of each other's clothes. Nat grabbed Eleanor's grey striped hoodie and placed her own grey jacket over the top, and paired this with some of Eleanor's black and purple shoes. Eleanor put on Nat's leather jacket and black boots and put Nat's black beanie on.
Steve put Dan's clothes on, with his own blue hoodie underneath the jacket, and paired it with a cap that the pair had lying around, and a pair of glasses that they had in their "undercover box", because of course they had a box like that.
"Where are we off to then?", Steve asked as they were about to leave.
"The Apple Store", Eleanor smiled before opening the door.