"What the hell was she talking about, Raven?" Steve turns to me, "No, you know what? We're gonna talk about this later, I — we don't have time for this now."
We meet up with Natasha outside of the mall, all of us wearing our disguises. "Who decided we'd wear the most obvious disguises in the entire universe?" I asked. Natasha pointed a finger to Steve.
He rolled his eyes as we begin walking through the building. I keep my hoodie pulled up around my head, making sure it doesn't slip off.
"First rule of going on the run, don't run, walk." Natasha pointed out how fast we were walking. Steve slows down a little, "If I run in these shoes, they're gonna fall off."
I lead them into a Mac store, immediately moving to one of their computers. "Does it have a homing program?"
Nat nods, "Level six. So, as soon as we boot it up, SHIELD will know exactly where we are."
"What does that give us? Like, ten minutes?" I look to the small clock on the screen.
"Nine, actually from right . . ." Natasha plugs in the flash drive, "Now." She begins typing in code to break through the security protocols.
"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." She complains as she continues working.
"Can you override it?" Steve leans against the counter.
"The person who developed this is slightly smarter than me. Slightly." She responds as Steve continues to nervously look around. I nudge his shoulder, "Stop looking around so much. You're making it seem like we're doing something we aren't supposed to."
"We are doing something we aren't supposed to." He sighs. I turn my attention back to Natasha, "Still can't get in?" She shakes her head. "Then run a tracer. This is a program that SHIELD developed to track hostile malware, right? So, if we can't read the file, maybe we can find out where it came from."
"You do it." She moves out of the way, letting me take over. I begin writing a code that brings in a tracer, my fingers dancing over the keys quickly as Nat moves over to the entrance of the store, checking to see if anyone has found us.
"Can I help you guys with anything?" An employee approaches us and I tap the enter button, letting my tracer do its thing as I lace my hand with Steve's, "Oh, no thank you. We were just looking at some possible honeymoon destinations." I fake excitement.
"Yeah, we're getting married!" Steve goes along with it. I move back behind him, checking the status of the tracer. I zoom in on the map, narrowing it down to New Jersey.
"Congratulations. Where do you guys think you're going?" The employee asks, trying to get closer to the screen, but Steve leans against the counter and blocks him.
"New Jersey." Steve looks at him and the screen.
The employee nods, "Oh." He pauses for a second, "I have the exact same glasses."
"Wow," I turn to them, a smile on my face, "You two are practically twins."
The employee scoffs, "I wish." He gestures out to Steve with his hands, "Specimen. Uh, look if you guys need anything," He holds up his name card. "I've been Aaron."
Steve nods to him, "Thank you." I let out a sigh as the guy walks away.
Steve turns back to me, bending down with his watch near our faces, "She said nine minutes, come on."
"Sh, relax, Steve. Just think about how we're going to New Jersey soon." I tease. I look back to the screen, finishing narrowing down the location. "Got it." The screen flashed, Wheaton, NJ.
Steve pulls the flash drive from the computer and I grab Nat's arm as we walk out of the store. "Standard tac-team. Two behind, two across, two coming straight at us. If they make us, I'll engage, you guys hit the south escalator to the metro." Steve orders, but Nat ignores him.
"You guys go that way. I'll meet you outside." She falls behind without another word, easily and seamlessly blending into the crowd of people.
We walk calmly as two agents begin to get closer, "Hold my hand and laugh at something I just said." Steve looks confused, but does what I said anyway.
The agents walk past us, not recognizing our presence. We quicken our pace until we reach the escalators, stepping onto one with Steve behind me.
Steve notices Brock first, grabbing my shoulders and turning me to face him. "Rumlow's there." I try to think of something to make Rumlow look around us.
"Public displays of affection make people uncomfortable." I think, bringing my arms around Steve's neck, "I need you to kiss me, he'll look away if you do."
"What?" His eyes widen at my statement.
"Just do it, Steve." Steve leans down to me, hesitating for a second before I pull him down to my lips. I kiss him, making sure to bring my hands up to his hair. His hands move to my waist, settling there and we don't stop kissing until we're sure Rumlow is gone.
I grin up at him as he made a weird expression, "You uncomfortable?" I grab his hand, pulling him down the rest of the escalator.
"Not exactly the word I would use." He mutters, making my grin widen.
• • •
I sat in the passengers seat as Steve drove and Nat sat in the back. "God, this is a nice truck." I comment, stretching a little in my seat.
"Where did Captain America learn how to steal a car?" Natasha asks, amused. Steve keeps looking forward, "Nazi Germany." He pauses looking back at her feet propped up on the back of my seat, "And we're borrowing. Get your feet off the seat."
"Okay, I have a question." I turn in my seat slightly, facing the two a little better, "Nat, you're gonna like this, and Steve, sorry to put you on the spot, but was that your first kiss since 1945?"
Steve sighs, "That bad, huh?" I shake my head, "I didn't say that. I actually kind of liked it, Rogers."
"It sounds like that's what you're saying." He fires back. I shake my head again, "No, I didn't."
"Wait," Natasha interrupts, "You two kissed? Awe, this is great." She grins slightly, leaning between the two from seats, "What'd you think, Steve? Was it good?" She put him on the spot.
"Nat!" I scold. Steve rolls his eyes, "Of course it was good, it's Raven, and I think we can both agree that it was for lifesaving purposes."
I nod in agreement, "Yeah, we're friends. Lifesaving purposes, so calm down, Nat."
"Whatever," She rolls her eyes playfully, "I'm gonna take a nap. Wake me up when we're there." She lays down across the backseats, and a few minutes later, Steve and I were met with the sound of her snoring.
"Raven," Steve began. "We need to talk about earlier." I turn to him, a confused expression on my face, "What? The kiss? Steve —"
"No, not the kiss." He held up a hand to stop me. "It's about what Natasha said earlier. About you and the Winter Soldier. I saw you when we were on that roof, you froze up. In all the time that I've known you, that's never happened. You gotta tell me, Raven, please. You're part of my team, you're my friend. I'd like it if you didn't keep things from me, especially something that seems this serious."
I look down to my lap, my fingers twirling the string from my jacket. "Do you really want to know?" I ask, my voice sounding so small and vulnerable. It was something I never wanted to be heard aloud.
"Yeah, I would." Steve's voice is lowered a little, trying to be as cautious as possible and match mine.
"Okay." I nod, straightening in my seat a little. "It all started when I was little. My parents were starting to notice my powers developing, and I guess they didn't know what it was, so they took me to a lab for testing. For years, scientists and doctors didn't know what the hell was wrong with me. I kept getting stronger, better at controlling my powers, I was getting dangerous. SHIELD knew about some of this when they recruited me, but they . . . they never got the whole story." At the memories that resurface in my mind, my chest tightens, but I continue.
"One day, my parents took me to the lab for testing, they were supposed to pick me up later on, but they never did. They left me. It wasn't too long after that when they brought in this organization. At the time, I thought it was the military, but now . . ." I shake my head slightly, "Now when I think about it, the military doesn't dress like that. After I got out, I did research and found out it was this organization called HYDRA. Anyway . . ."
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Steve's jaw lock, but he doesn't make any move to address it, so I continue. "After the organization showed up, they transferred me to a new facility. They brought in these new scientists and soldiers to train me and — and experiment on me. At the time, they thought that was how I got the super strength and stuff. I don't know what they did to my head . . . there was these words they would say and then all of a sudden it's — it's like I'm a passenger in my own head." I forced my hands to stop fiddling with the string on my hoodie, and looked up and outside the window, "Anyway, I wasn't the only one. When I was training, there were others, but I was the only girl there. No matter how strong they were, how big they were compared to me, they would make us fight, and I had to be able to beat them."
The tightness in my chest moved to my throat, causing my voice to crack, "I hurt so many people, Steve, and I didn't even care." My eyes watered, I tried to force the tears back, but failed. "I trained for years while they experimented on me. Then, about four years before I got out, he showed up." I grab the tags at my neck, "They brought the Winter Soldier in to train us. I didn't know why, I never asked. I only did what I was told."
"We would all line up in the training room next to the mats, waiting our turn to fight against him. He would shout at us while we did, telling us to 'move faster', or 'hit there instead of here'. One time, they ordered for him and I to stay longer and to train more," I shrugged. "I guess they thought I wasn't good enough or something, but we did. I didn't know why, but when we fought, he — he would ease up when they weren't looking, as if to give me a second to breathe, and I was thankful for it. So, when he trained me on my own, he was really . . . easygoing? I guess?" I tried to find the word. "Anyway, I went for a kick to his leg and something fell out of his pocket when I made contact." I pulled the dog tags off my neck while Steve was watching the road. "I picked it up."
The Winter Soldier eases up a bit, giving me the chance to deliver a kick to the outside of his leg. I knocked him down to his knees, but I stopped as the shine of something bright hit my eyes. I made sure he was still on the ground for a second as I reached to pick up the item that caused my distraction. Two silver dog tags were what I found. "Sergeant, James B. Barnes, 32557038. 107th infantry." I look over to him, "Is this you?"
My only response was a grunt as he got to his feet. "J — James Barnes? Is that you're name?"
He froze as I said the name more clearly, "What?" His voice was rough and jagged, confusion was clear, as if he hadn't heard the name in years. His eyebrows furrowed, he looked down, as if trying to remember something. "James . . ." He repeated, "James . . . Buchanan?" He looked up to me, pausing for a moment, "I'm James Buchanan Barnes." He muttered, "T — That's me." His eyes widened like he had won the lottery.
It made me only more confused, "Yeah," I looked back down to the tag, "Of the 107th infantry?"
He walked over to me, his steps stocky, making me back up slightly, "I — It's okay. I'm not gonna fight you. Let me see the tags." I held them out, he took them, scanning them over quickly, "I remember . . ."
"After that, we got close — well, as close as you can get in a place like that. Sometimes he'd remember, other times he wouldn't. When they put him in the chamber, I could hear him scream sometimes. God, even when I wasn't the one in there, it hurt just as bad to hear him." I sigh, shuffling the tags in my hand, "I let my guard down, I let him matter to me, I let myself begin to care about him. Then, they called us in for a meeting with this guy that was in charge."
An officer walks into the room, a file in his grasp. Project Vixen, was stamped on the front of the paper, visible as he sat down and slid it across the desk to Strucker. "Project Vixen." He slides the file onto the table. "There's her information."
Strucker grabs the file, reading over it before setting it back on the table. "You want her to work with the Soldier?"
"Yes. They'd make an amazing team." He tries to convince, "Just think of how much he's shaped the century already, with her and him together, the results could be extraordinary."
"No need for convincing. I've seen her training, I agree, it's time to put her in the field." He reaches for a radio on his desk, speaking into it, "Bring in the asset and Raven Nix."
"I walked into the room, they told me they wanted me to work in the field with him." I looked over to Steve, "That's why that name is on my file, as my code name. They called me The Vixen."