Steve hugs his hoodie tight as he walks, keeping his head down and hopefully out of sight of anyone who might alert SHIELD. He glances up to navigate the complicated hospital halls, looking for that one specific vending machine...
There it is.
He steps in front of it, eyes scanning the top row for the gum he knows to look for. It's all gone – and with it, the flash drive he'd hastily concealed behind them.
There's movement behind him, though it takes a few seconds for him to focus on the reflection in the vending machine glass. Standing over his shoulder is Natasha Romanoff, chewing some very familiar-looking bubble gum.
Steve turns around, and, after briefly weighing the pros and cons of attempted kidnapping in the midst of a hospital, grabs her arms and pushes her through the door behind her. The way her brows shoot up makes him think it wasn't entirely expected, though her calm demeanor seems to imply otherwise. He shoves her into the wall, his eyes narrowed in a glare.
Don't trust anybody, Fury had warned him.
He really meant it, didn't he?
"Where is it?" Steve demands.
"Safe."
"Do better," he growls. Safe doesn't mean a damn thing. Safe is with him and only him.
"Where did you get it?"
"Why would I tell you?" he hisses. After she stole it from him? After she lied to him on their last mission, completely indifferent to the jeopardy it put them in? Yeah, she's not the most trustworthy person on the planet right now. Not with Fury's words ringing in the back of his mind.
It only takes her a moment to figure it out. "Fury gave it to you. Why?"
"What's on it?" he demands.
"I don't know," she says.
Steve grips her tighter, squeezing her arms together. "Stop lying!"
"I only act like I know everything, Rogers," she tells him.
"Will you two just kiss so we can move on?"
Steve jumps, accidentally dropping her arms in the process. He looks around, eyes frantically darting across the room. "Loki?"
Natasha hits her head against the wall, exasperated. "I thought you went home, Loki," she deadpans.
"I lied," he says simply. "My options were to spend the time with Stark or spend the time here. You can't be surprised that this was the more appealing option."
Steve furrows his brows and looks at Natasha. "What is he...?"
She just shakes her head. "I have no idea. He just showed up when I was stealing the flash drive."
Steve sighs and crosses his arms over his chest. "Go home, Loki."
"I am home," Loki says, adding as an afterthought, "though I am rather reluctant to call this a home. It's not very... homely."
Steve ignores that. "You shouldn't be here," he says. "This is SHIELD business."
"Am I not also SHIELD business?" Loki asks. "I would say that qualifies me to be here."
"You'd be wrong," Natasha says. "Get lost."
"Look, Loki," Steve says, "none of this has anything to do with you, okay? So there's no reason for you to be here."
"And there would be no reason for me to be anywhere but here," Loki says. "Now, what is this little USB drive you're both trying to hide from each other?"
Natasha scoffs. "How do you know what a USB drive is?"
"I've been trapped on this planet nearly a year and a half," Loki reminds her. "Between Banner and Stark, I've encountered most basic Midgardian technology."
Steve shakes his head to himself. That's really not what's important right now. "We're not hiding anything. We're just having a civilized discussion about an important piece of SHIELD property."
"A piece of SHIELD property that you're hiding from each other," Loki surmises.
"No, it's not–" Steve runs a hand down his face. God, this is exhausting. "No. We're not hiding anything."
"Then what are you doing?" Loki asks. "Because as of now, it just looks like you two are trying to hide things from each other, and doing a spectacularly poor job at it."
Steve clenches his jaw. This is exhausting. He knows Loki has nothing better to do, but he does. And it's not something he can do with Loki breathing down his neck, either. Loki may not be a threat, but he still shouldn't be involved in any of this. SHIELD work is confidential for a reason.
Natasha is more flippant in her response. "No, I think we're done hiding things." She pulls out the flash drive and looks up at him, a small smirk on her lips. "Now we're going to hunt a ghost."
Loki scoffs. "I beg your pardon?"
Steve furrows his brows. "What are you talking about?"
"I know who killed Fury," she says.
Steve's eyes go wide. "What? Who?"
"Come on." She gestures for him to follow. "I'll tell you on the way."
"On the way to where?" Steve asks.
She holds up the USB drive. "To take a look at what's on this."
Steve presses his lips into a firm line. He gets the feeling he doesn't have much of a choice about whether he splits this job with her. He just has to hope that she's not one of the people Fury warned him against. He'd like to think she's not, but after that last mission... She's in it much deeper than he is at SHIELD, and that may not be such a good thing.
"And Loki, you are not coming with us," Natasha adds.
"I beg to differ," Loki says. "If you know who killed Director Fury, I would like to know." There's a pause, then he adds, "And you are the only distraction I have from the fact that I am locked in a building with only Banner and Stark, and it is as miserable as it sounds."
Ordinarily, that would get a smile from him, and maybe even a laugh on a good day. It's not quite so endearing right now.
Natasha sighs. "If I tell you what I know, will you go back home before we get out of the car?"
Steve frowns. "Nat, I don't know if that's—"
"I accept," Loki says, and Steve can practically hear his cocky grin. "Please, lead the way."
Steve pinches the bridge of his nose. He usually likes hanging out with Loki, but right now really doesn't feel like the time for this. Unfortunately, he's not quite sure he has a choice.
~~~
"Most of the intelligence community doesn't believe he exists," Natasha says. "The ones that do call him the Winter Soldier. He's credited with over two dozen assassinations in the last 50 years."
Steve frowns. "So he's a ghost story." He's a rumor. He could be anyone. He could be no one. That doesn't help them.
Natasha gives a small shake of her head. "Five years ago, I was escorting a nuclear engineer out of Iran," she says. "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, straight through me." She pulls up the side of her shirt, revealing a nasty scar. "Soviet slug. No rifling."
"I have a question," Loki says, earning an eye roll from both Steve and Natasha. He materializes in the back seat and leans forward, arms resting on the seatbacks in front of him. "You said he's been doing this for 50 years. I'm no expert on human biology, but even if he began doing this as a decently young child, shouldn't he be fairly old by now? Too old, I would assume, to assassinate somebody of Nicholas Fury's standing."
"Apparently not," Natasha says.
"If this Winter Soldier is no more than a rumor, how can you be certain that it is only one person?" Loki asks. "Could it be a group? Like the Widows: a group that operates as a whole; can span multiple generations."
Natasha looks back at him. "What do you know about the Widows?"
"Enough," Loki says simply. "Do we know that this is one person? Logic seems to indicate otherwise."
Steve furrows his brows. He glances at Loki in the rearview mirror. That's an interesting thought.
Natasha has to think about it. "I guess we don't," she says finally. "But I don't see some secret organization amputating dozens of people's arms and replacing them with a vibranium prosthetic just to maintain the facade."
Loki raises his brows. "Now this, I did not know," he says. He hums thoughtfully. "I look forward to meeting our suspect."
"He's not your suspect and you're not meeting anybody," Natasha tells him. "Once we get to the mall, you're gone, got it?"
"Alright, alright." Loki rolls his eyes. "So, what is your plan?"
"Nothing you need to know," Natasha tells him.
Steve purses his lips. She's right, but... "Can we actually talk about the plan? Do we have a plan?"
Natasha sighs dramatically. "We're taking the flash drive to the mall to use their computers to see what's on it, and then we're running before they find us."
Steve blinks at that. "That's it?"
Natasha scoffs. "What do you mean, 'that's it'?"
"That's the whole plan?" Steve asks. "What happens after that?"
Natasha shrugs. "I don't know. It'll depend on what we find on the drive."
"And if it's a dead end?" Steve asks. Even they can't outrun SHIELD forever.
She looks over at him, a small smile on her lips. "Then we make it up as we go along."