Disguised as civilians, Steve and Nova Sadie went back to the hospital to retrieve the flash drive. She had hidden it in the vending machine behind a pack of gums, but when they arrived in front of it, it was gone.
"Damn it! I put it here." the Rogers girl whispered, nervously.
Suddenly, Natasha appeared behind them chewing some gum, they turned to her, in anger Steve pushed her into a room. Nova looked around and closed the door.
"Where is it?" Steve asked.
"Safe." Natasha replied.
"Do better!"
"Where did you get it?"
"Why would I tell you?"
"Fury gave it to you. Why?"
"What's on it?"
"I don't know."
"Stop lying!"
"I only act like I know everything, Rogers."
There was a moment of silence then Steve spoke, "I bet you knew Fury hired the pirates, didn't you?"
"Well, it makes sense. The ship was dirty, Fury needed a way in, so do you."
"I'm not gonna ask you again."
"I know who killed Fury. 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." Steve affirmed.
"No, Dad." Nova intervened for the first time, "Actually, I know him... not personally."
The two Avengers looked at her, curious to learn more.
"When I was at Hydra our cells were in the same hallway... and when they came for him, they would take him to a room... and from there always came heartbreaking screams, which continued for a long time until they stopped for a few minutes and then started again..." she paused for a moment, catching her breath, her eyes were shining, "When the HYDRA agents arrived in front of the cell, something terrible was going to happen."
Steve was a bit puzzled by that statement and laid a hand on his daughter's shoulder as a sign of support.
Natasha interrupted the moment, saying, "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 straight through me."
She pulled up her shirt to show them the scar on the side of her stomach, "Soviet slug, no rifling. Bye-bye bikinis."
"Yeah, I bet you look terrible in them now."
"Going after him is a dead end. I know, I'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."
⍟ⴵ
Steve, Nova and Natasha went to the mall, disguised as a civilian family.
"First rule of going on the run is, don't run, walk." Natasha said.
"If I run in these shoes, they're gonna fall off." Steve added.
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 SHIELD will know exactly where we are." Natasha informed.
"How much time do we have?" Nova asked.
"Uh... about nine minutes from... Now."
She popped the flash drive into a MacBook Pro.
"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?" Steve asked.
"The person who developed this is slightly smarter than me. Slightly."
Rumlow and his team pulled up outside the mall and headed inside.
Steve, Nova and Natasha continued to try and find out what was on the flash drive.
"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."
The Mac store clerk approached the three, "Can I help you guys with anything?"
"Oh, no. We are looking for a destination for a family trip." Natasha replied, with a fake smile.
"Where do you guys thinking about going?"
Steve looked at the monitor and saw the signal traced to somewhere in New Jersey.
"New Jersey."
The clerk stopped for a moment, looking strangely at Steve, then said, "Oh. I have the exact same glasses."
"Wow, you two are practically twins." Natasha added.
Nova chuckled and said, "Dad, I didn't know you had a twin."
"Yeah, I wish. Specimen. Uh... if you guys need anything, I've been Aaron."
"Thank you."
As Rumlow and his team were in the mall looking for Steve, Nova and Natasha.
"You said nine minutes, come on." Nova said.
"Shh, relax. Got it."
They found the signal was coming from Wheaton, NJ.
"You know it?" Natasha said to Steve who was looking at the monitor.
"I used to. Let's go."
Steve pulled the flash drive from the computer and they walked out of the store.
"Standard tac-team. Two behind, two across, two coming straight at us. If they make us, I'll engage, you two hit the south escalator to the metro." Steve said.
As two agents were coming straight towards them.
"Shut up and put your arm around me, laugh at something I said. Nova, turn your face to the side."
"What?" Steve said.
"Do it!"
Steve quickly put his arm around Natasha and laughed as Nova turned to the side.
As they were going down the escalator Natasha spotted Rumlow on the escalator next to them going up, she turned to Steve.
"Kiss me."
"What?"
"Public displays of affection make people very uncomfortable."
"Yes, they do."
She quickly pulled down Steve's head and kissed him as Nova turned to her side. Rumlow looked away as he went past them on the escalator.
"You still uncomfortable?"
"It's not exactly the word I would use."
"I don't comment." Nova added.
⍟ⴵ
The three took a car and were driving to New Jersey.
"Where did Captain America learn how to steal a car?" Natasha asked.
"Nazi Germany."
"Mm."
"And we're borrowing. Take your feet off the dash."
"Alright, 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?" Natasha asked.
"Oh my God..." Nova chuckled.
"That bad, huh?" Steve replied.
"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 95, I'm not dead."
"Really, Dad?! That's not fair that I have not yet given my first kiss." Nova added.
"Miss, you're still too young." Steve said.
"Young? I'm 75 years old."
"For me, you'll always be my little girl."
Natasha chuckled, making Nova red out of embarrassment, "Dad, you're embarrassing me."
"But that's not true."
There was some silence then Natasha asked, "Nobody special, though?"
With her seat belt still on, Nova approached the front seats, leaning her head against Natasha's headrest. Interested in the conversation that was about to take place.
"Nope." Nova said.
"Believe it or not, it's kind of hard to find someone with shared life experience." Steve replied.
"Well, that's alright, you just make something up."
"What, like you?" Steve added.
"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." the two women answered simultaneously and Natasha continued, "Who do you want me to be?"
"How about a friend?" Steve replied.
"Well, there's a chance you might be in the wrong business, Rogers."
More minutes passed and Nova spoke, "I know this thing I'm about to say is gonna upset you, but... am I the only one who thinks Loki's cute?"
Natasha turned to Nova and said, "I hope you're kidding."
Steve looked at her through the rearview mirror, "Nova Sadie Rogers... get out of this car."
"Come on, Dad..."
Steve turned to Natasha, "You won't believe what she said before... that Rumlow was cute... just thinking about it makes me sick."
Natasha laughed, "Captain America's daughter likes the bad guys."
"I didn't say I liked them, I said they are- okay... I shut up."
"It's better." Steve concluded.
⍟ⴵ
The three pulled up to outside an abandoned military base where the signal led them to.
"This is it." Steve said.
"The file came from these coordinates." Natasha replied.
"So did I."
Later that night as they walked around the base trying to pinpoint where the signal came from.
"This camp is where I was trained." Steve added.
"Changed much?"
"A little."
Steve had a brief vision of his former, smaller self, running past him as he was getting trained with other soldiers.
"This is a dead end. Zero heat signature, zero waves, not even radio. Whoever wrote the file must have used a router to throw people off." Natasha declared.
Steve noticed a building ahead of them.
"What is it?" Nova asked.
"Army regulations forbid storing ammunition within five hundred yards of the barracks. This building is in the wrong place."
Steve opened the lock with his shield and they entered inside, when they turned on the lights, they noticed it was a SHIELD office.
"This is SHIELD." Natasha affirmed.
"Maybe where it started."
They entered a room where they found old framed portraits of Howard Stark, Peggy Carter and Col. Chester Phillips.
"There's Stark's father." Natasha said.
"Howard." Steve added.
"Who's the girl?" Natasha asked but Steve turned away to walk further down the room.
Nova Sadie looked at the portraits of Howard and Peggy and felt so nostalgic. The last time she saw them was in 1946, before she was kidnapped and taken to the Red Room.
After nearly 70 years, she had managed to reunite with Peggy but not yet with Howard and she still hoped to see him one day. She approached the two portraits and touched their faces.
After everyone believed that Steve was gone forever, she was entrusted to them and they became like a family to her, and they treated her like their daughter. She not only spent time with them but also with Edwin Jarvis and his wife Ana.
She turned away and approached Steve and Natasha who stopped by a massive book shelf.
"If you're already working in a secret office..." he pushed the book shelf and slid open to reveal an elevator behind it, "Why do you need to hide the elevator?"
They went down the elevator which took them to a room with old looking computers.
"This can't be the data-point, this technology is ancient."
Suddenly Natasha noticed a small flash drive port, she placed the flash drive in it which then activated the ancient computer in the room.
"Initiate system?"
"Y-E-S."
Natasha smiled as the old computer started to cranks up, "Shall we play a game? It's from a movie that..."
"Yeah, we saw it."
They saw an old camera moving above them as it analysed them and suddenly they heard an accented voice speaking, "Rogers Steven Grant. Born 1918.
Rogers Nova Sadie. Born 1939.
Romanoff Natalia Alianovna. Born 1984."
"It's some kind of a recording." Natasha declared.
"I am not a recording, Fräulein. I may not be the man I was when the Captain took me prisoner in 1945, but I am."
The computer screen showed an old photo of Dr. Arnim Zola as the camera was pointing at Nova and Natasha, "Hello, Black Mage, my creation."
"No... it's impossible..." Nova said, shocked, while she took steps backwards.
"Do you know this thing?" asked Natasha.
"Yes, unfortunately." Nova replied, with a despising tone, looking at the computer screen.
"That's no way to greet your creator, Black Mage."
"You're nothing to me!"
"Too bad. Once you were among the best. You were an excellent Black Widow, trained from an early age to be a killing machine. Over the years you have been perfected and you became what you are now... I have to say I'm proud of what I've created."
Nova was in a rage, from her hands began to appear small electric shocks. She wanted to throw them at that damn computer to shut him up. Natasha noticed it and gently took her arm to calm her, Nova turned to her and began to calm down.
"Arnim Zola was a German scientist who worked for the Red Skull. He's been dead for years." Steve added.
"First correction, I am Swiss. Second, look around you. I have never been more alive. In 1972 I received a terminal diagnosis. Science could not save my body, my mind, however, that was worth saving on two hundred thousand feet of data banks. You are standing in my brain."
"How did you get here?" Steve asked.
"Invited."
"It was Operation Paperclip after World War II. SHIELD recruited German scientists with strategic value." Natasha explained.
"They thought I could help their cause. I also helped my own."
"HYDRA died with the Red Skull." Steve added.
"Cut off one head, two more shall take its place."
"Prove it."
"Accessing archive."
The computer screen showed them old footage of Johann Schmidt/Red Skull, of the how the original SHIELD founders.
"HYDRA was founded on the belief that humanity could not be trusted with its own freedom. What we did not realize, was that if you try to take that freedom, they resist. The war taught us much. Humanity needed to surrender its freedom willingly." Zola continued, "After the war, SHIELD was founded and I was recruited. The new HYDRA grew. A beautiful parasite inside SHIELD. For seventy years HYDRA has been secretly feeding crisis, reaping war. And when history did not cooperate, history was changed."
"That's impossible, SHIELD would have stopped you." Natasha added.
"Accidents will happen."
The computer screen showed them HYDRA had killed Howard and Maria Stark making it look like a car accident along with the recent death of Fury.
"Uncle Howard..." Nova whispered in a broken voice as she watched with tears in her eyes at the article about the death of Howard and Maria Stark.
Even if there was a small hope of seeing him again, one day, it was now shattered like her heart.
"HYDRA created a world so chaotic that humanity is finally ready to sacrifice its freedom to gain its security. Once the purification process is complete, HYDRA's new world order will arise. We won, Captain. Your death amounts to the same as your Life; a zero sum."
In anger Steve suddenly smashed the computer screen.
"As I was saying..."
"What's on this drive?" Steve said.
"Project Insight requires insight. So I wrote an algorithm."
"What kind of algorithm? What does it do?" Natasha asked.
"The answer to your question is fascinating. Unfortunately, you shall be too dead to hear it."
Suddenly the doors started to close, Steve tried stop it by throwing his shield in between it but he was too late.
"Bastard!" Nova exclaimed, angrily.
"Steve, we got a bogey. Short range ballistic. 30 seconds tops." Natasha said.
"Who fired it?" Steve asked.
"S.H.I.E.L.D."
"I am afraid I have been stalling, Captain. Admit it, it's better this way. We're both of us... out of time... and goodbye, Black Mage."
Steve noticed a small opening on the ground, he threw the metal door aside and just as the place exploded, he threw himself, Nova and Natasha into the hole and protected them with his shield.
He managed to get them out from under the building rubble just as STRIKE agents arrived to roam the area for them.