❨ 𝑴𝑴𝑶𝑻𝑩                 . . .                   𝑏𝘰𝘰𝑘 𝑖 ❩
﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌
━━━ 𝙱. 𝙱𝙰𝚁𝙽𝙴𝚂 / ❛ i will 𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙛𝙖𝙡𝙡,
𝙨𝙝𝙚'𝙨 𝙞𝙣 𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙩𝙧𝙤𝙡 of 𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙮𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜 ❜

━━━━━━━━━━━━ ∘༄⋅°
𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐄𝐍,                         𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒖𝒎𝒆

𝙲𝙷𝙰𝙿𝚃𝙴𝚁 𝚃𝙷𝙸𝚁𝚃𝙴𝙴𝙽 !

STEVE, DIANA, AND Natasha are all tired and dirty as they reach the home of Sam Wilson, the man Steve had met at the park a few days before. The dark-skinned man was home from his morning run, trying to drink some orange juice when his door is knocked on. He puts down the carton and walks over, opening it to see the trio he saw the other day. "Hey, man," he said, looking down at the three of them, seeing that the redheaded woman had looked like she went through Hell and the dark-haired woman looked abashed. "I'm sorry about this," Steve gets straight to the point. "We need a place to lay low."

"Everyone we know is trying to kill us," Diana adds, Sam pausing before replying to her sentence. "Not everyone," he moves to the side, eyes looking over the street, and lets the trio enter into his home, letting them clean up. Later, after the three are washed and Natasha sitting on the guest bed, Diana watching a child chase after a puppy and Steve dried his hands with a white towel. "You okay?" He asks Natasha, leaning against the doorway as he watched her dry the tips of her hair. "Yeah," she nods, making Steve throw the towel in the dirty clothes basket inside the bathroom, walking over to his friend.

"What's going on?" He asks her, wanting to know all of her problems and set them right; it was what friends did, right?

Natasha sighs a little before answering, dropping the towel to her lap. "When I first joined S.H.I.E.L.D, I thought I was going straight. But I guess I just traded in the KGB for HYDRA. I thought I knew whose lies I was telling, but. . . I guess I can't tell the difference anymore."

"There's a chance you might be in the wrong business," Steve replies with Natasha's line, making both of them smile softly, Diana walking out of the room to help Sam in any way possible. "I owe you," Natasha states, Steve shaking his head. "It's okay," he didn't want anything; he just wanted the people of the planet he was born and raised in to be safe, healthy, prominent people.

"If it was the other way around," Natasha begins, "and it was down to me to save your life, and you be honest with me, would you trust me to do it?"

"I would now," Steve returns, "and I'm always honest." Natasha smiles up at him, "Well, you seem pretty chipper for someone who just found out they died for nothing."

"Well," Steve sighs and leans back, crossing his arms over his stomach, "I guess I just like to know who I'm fighting." Sam walks in, placing his arm on the wall next to him. "I made breakfast," he says. "If you guys eat that sort of thing." They all walked out and followed him to his kitchen, Natasha leaning back on her palms in her chair, blue eyes scanning the two people before her. Sam was standing by his counter, applying some cream cheese to a toasted bagel. "So, the question is: who in S.H.I.E.L.D could launch a domestic missile strike?" She asks, Sam's eyes coming up in interest, Diana and Steve knowing the answer to it already. "Pierce," they both say, Steve looking out the window. "Who happens to be sitting on top of the most secure building in the world," Diana adds, shaking her head slowly.

"But he's not working alone, Zola's algorithm was on the Lemurian Star."

"So was Jasper Sitwell," the Amazon princess rests her head on her fist, sighing deeply as Sam walks out of the kitchen without them noticing, going to grab something from a box in the other room. "So, the real question is: How do the two most wanted people in Washington kidnap a S.H.I.E.L.D officer in broad daylight?" Steve asks just as his new friend saunters into the room, carrying a manila portfolio in his hands. "The answer is you don't," he drops it on the table, a photo of him standing among a group of men wearing what seemed to be large backpacks, an aeroplane behind them. "What's this?" 

"Call it a resume," Sam shrugs, Steve standing up whilst Natasha picks it up, eyeing the photo on the cover.

"Is this Bakhmala? The Khalid Khandil mission, that was you," Natasha asks, Sam nodding as she turned her head to Steve. "You didn't say he was a para-rescue." She looks back at the photo, handing it to Steve. "Is this Riley?" Sam nods again, replying with a soft yeah. Diana looks at the man, "I heard that they couldn't bring in the choppers because of the RPGs. Did you use a stealth chute?"

"No," Sam kick off from his counter, picking up the manila to show them the suit photos, outlines, and information. "These." Steve flips it open and reads through the information quickly. "I thought you said you were a pilot."

Sam smirks as he answers, "I never said pilot." The blonde shakes his head, replaying the conversation between him and the man before him, the fact that Sam had retired from the military and he was going back into a fight. "I can't ask you to do this, Sam," he replies. "You got out for a good reason." Sam doesn't take no for an answer, though. "Dude, Captain America needs my help," he argues. "There's no better reason to get back in." 

"Where can we get out hands on one of these?"

"The last one is at Fort Meade," Sam says, "behind three guarded gates and a twelve-inch steel wall." Steve looks at the two women, seeing them shrug their shoulders, "Shouldn't be a problem." He throws down the folder in large block letters, the words 𝐄𝐗𝐎-𝟕 𝐅𝐀𝐋𝐂𝐎𝐍, 𝐂𝐋𝐀𝐒𝐒𝐈𝐅𝐈𝐄𝐃 ― handed out by the Air National Guard ― facing the ceiling.

DIANA THROWS SITWELL across a rooftop,  ― on a giant skyscraper, in fact ― the man rolling across the asphalt, Steve and Natasha following her. "What is Zola's Algorithm?" She asks him ferociously, Jasper shaking his head repeatedly, panicked out of his mind. His clean-shaven head gleamed in the sunlight, the afternoon sun beating down on them, "Never heard of it." Steve knows he's lying, and Diana knows it too, able to comprehend the signs of a liar. "What were you doing on the Lemurian Star?" Steve questions, forcing Jasper onto the edge of the building. "I was throwing up," Jasper lies again, "I get seasick." He just smiles as he looks at the three angry S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. "Is this little display meant to insinuate that you're gonna throw me off the roof? Because it's really not your style, Rogers."

"You're right, it's not," Steve agrees, nodding his head. "It's hers." He steps aside, Natasha kicking Jasper's chest, the officer pummeling towards the ground, screaming. "Oh, wait," Natasha seems to have an ADD moment. "What about that girl from accounting? Laura. . . ?"

"Lillian," Steve answers. "Lip piercing, right? And I don't need you to find me a girlfriend, I still have Liayae." Natasha nodding, shrugging her shoulders as well, Sam flying up with Jasper, throwing him down on the roof. Jasper was getting beat up by a group of soldiers. When they all walk towards him, he holds his hands up in fear. "Zola's algorithm is a program. . ." he gasps out, "for choosing Insight's targets!" Diana furrows her dark eyebrows, "What targets?"

"You!" Jasper begins naming off some of the people. "Rogers. A TV anchor in Cairo, the Undersecretary of Defense, a high school valedictorian in Iowa City. Bruce Banner, Stephen Strange, anyone who's a threat to HYDRA! Now, or in the future."

"The future?" Steve asks. "How could it know?" Jasper lets out a cold laugh, "How could it not?"He rises to his feet. "The 21st century is a digital book. Zola taught HYDRA how to read it." When the four soldiers that stood in front of him gave him confused glances, he begins to go on, giving off the things they learned to read. "Your bank records, medical histories, voting patterns, e-mails, phone calls, your damn SAT scores. Zola's algorithm evaluates people's past to predict their future." Steve presses on, wanting more than that, "And what then?"

"Oh my god," Jasper shakes his head, obviously scared. "Pierce is going to kill me."

"What then?"

"Then the Insight Helicarriers scratch people off the list. A few million at a time."