Steve's view
I stood in front of the snack vending machine, with the hood pulled deep into my face, and couldn't believe my eyes. The section where I had hidden the stick was empty. Suddenly I heard the pop of a piece of gum behind me and could make out Nat in the jar. I grabbed her, perhaps a little too tightly by the arm, and pulled her into an empty room.
"Where is it!"
"Safe, where did you get him?"
I kept silent, I didn't know if I could trust Nat. I wanted to but right now I couldn't trust anyone.
"Fury gave him to you, didn't he?" Nat seemed to read the answers from my face.
I let her go "What's on it?"
"I don't know."
I was getting fed up with the lies "Stop lying!" I snapped at her.
"I don't know Steve I just pretend to know everything."
"And why should I believe you?"
She seemed to consider "I know who killed Fury. In intelligence circles most don't believe he really exists, those who do call him the Winter Soldier. He's been credited with over two dozen assassinations in the last 50 years."
"So he's a ghost," I stated.
Nat pulled her T-shirt up a little "A ghost who never misses his target. Five years ago I had a protection order, he shot it through me. No straps, bye bye bikini"
I saw the circular scar. "Yeah that must look horrible" I said grinning.
"You can't find him, believe me I've tried. Like you said, he's a ghost." Nat held out the USB stick to me.
I took the stick and decided to trust her, if not her, then who else "Let's find out what the ghost wants." We left the hospital and rode on my motorbike to the nearest shopping centre where there were public laptops. I kept looking around, paranoid all of SHILD was looking for us.
Nat grinned slightly "First rule of running away, don't run but walk."
I looked down at my sneakers "If I run in these shoes they will burn up."We walked over to the computers "If I plug in the flash drive SHILD will know exactly where we are. Nine minutes to the max." Nat plugged in the flash drive.
To me, what was going on only made sense, but Nat seemed to be making sense of it all. "The encryption keeps rewriting itself so I can't crack it." she let her fingers hover over the keyboard "But I can apply this program, then we can't read the file but we can find its origin."
The program got going, it had better hurry, we were running out of time.
"Hi guys, you need any help?" a man with extremely long hair approached us.
Nat, spontaneous as she was, immediately came up with something "No thanks my fiancé and I are just looking at destinations for our honeymoon."
"Yes we are getting married soon," I added.
"Oh how nice, where are we going?" the man inquired.
I took a quick look at the laptop and couldn't believe what I was seeing "Um New Jersey."
The man nodded, "If you need me, just give me a shout." he trailed off again.
I stared transfixed at the laptop, the signal was coming from a place I knew all too well.
"Do you know this?" asked Nat, pulling out the flash drive.
I nodded "From before." we walked so fast it wasn't noticeable in the direction of the garage. I looked around unobtrusively "Standard strike team, two on each floor, two coming towards us." I was already starting to think of a battle strategy.
But Nat had other plans "Put your arm around me and laugh at something I said."
"Huh?" I did as she said and the Agends just walked past us. We continued to the escalator and that's when I thought it was over because Rommlow came towards us from below.
"Kiss me!" Nat looked at me seriously.
Now it was enough "What Nat you know perfectly well that I....."
"People find that sort of thing uncomfortable." she didn't wait and kissed me.
As was to be expected, I felt nothing. But it served its purpose.
Nat grinned "See it worked."
I just rolled my eyes and followed her into the garage where I cracked a car and hotwired it. I got behind the wheel and we drove off.
For the first two hours neither of us said anything, I think we both had a bit too much on our minds.
Then Nat interrupted the silence "Where did Captian America learn to steal a car."
"I had to borrow cars sometimes in the war and get your feet down," I asked her.
Sighing, she did as I said. "What was it like?" she asked.
I knew exactly what she meant, but how do you explain what war is like to someone who hasn't been to war themselves. Besides, I didn't want to talk about it, it would only bring up memories. As if on command, Nat's tracking device started beeping. "We're here." I said instead of an answer and stopped in front of a large metal gate.
Nat looked at her tracking device "The signal came from this place."
I had to smile slightly "So did I." for this was the training camp where I trained to be a soldier. Now seventy years later it was half disintegrated but I still saw images flash before my mind's eye.
"The signal can't possibly have come from here, the transmitter must have covered its tracks," Nat stated.
But I didn't think so, because my eyes fell on a building that was in the wrong place. I pointed to the building "Army regulations require ammunition to be stored 450 metres from the barracks, this building is in the wrong place." I smashed the lock with my shield and we crept down the stairs into an old SSR facility. Empty bookshelves stood around and the walls were bare except for three photos. One was Peggy Cater, one was Cornel Phillips and one showed Howard Stark.
"That's Tony's father he died two years ago," Nat explained.
I nodded sadly " Yeah Howard, I knew him."
Nat let her eyes wander around the room "I don't see anything here at all."
I grinned, there was a bookshelf against one wall that still looked fairly intact. "If you're already working in a secret base, why are you still hiding the lift?" I pushed the shelf aside. A lift appeared and we descended.
When we reached the bottom, the door opened to reveal a large room, presented with servers from the last century.
Nat looked around suspiciously "This can't possibly be the signal. I mean this technology is ancient." she held up her meter to the room.
But I wasn't really listening to her because my eyes fell on a US adapter face "Nat!?"
She came over to me and looked at the device. She frowned for a moment and then inserted the USB stick into its device. Lights turned on automatically and a question appeared on the screen in front of us "Imitate programme?"
Nat bent to the keyboard and typed YES and Enter.
Suddenly a camera moved to our right and a distorted face appeared on the screen "Rogers Steven, born 1918." a distorted voice sounded.
Then the camera panned to Nat "Romanoff Natalia Alinovna, born 1984."
Nat eyed the screen with a furrowed brow "A recording?"
I meanwhile searched my brain, for I was sure I knew that voice and if only the face were a little sharper I would recognise it.
"I am by no way a recording young lady." the computer rebuked Nat. "I am not the man I was when the Captian captured me, but I survived!" his eyes flitted to another screen where a photo was displayed.
I widened my eyes because the thing inside the computer was none other than Arnim Zola.
Nat looked at me in horror, "Do you know this thing?"
I glared at the screen with hatred. If it wasn't just a computer I would beat it to a pulp. For this was the man who had experimented on Bucky. "From back in the old days, he was a German scientist and worked for Red Skull, he's long dead." i walked around the facility looking for a plug to pull.
The image on the computer smiled cruelly "First correction I am Swiss and as for my death, you are not the only one here who has cheated death. Take a look around, I am more alive than ever."
I looked around, thousands and thousands of computers were working to keep the doctor's mind alive.
"Science couldn't save my body, but my mind was worth saving, now it lives on in a huge database. They are in my brain!"
"How did you get here?" asked Nat.
"By invitation, after the war I was recruited by SHILD but I only benefited my own cause and saved Hydra from extinction."
My breath caught "Hydra died with Red Skull!" I snapped at the computer.
Zola just laughed "You cut off one head, you grow two back, have you forgotten that?"
I didn't want to believe that, I didn't want to believe that I had died in vain, that all the soldiers who fell by my side had died without purpose "Prove it!"
"After the war SHILD was formed." images appeared on the screen " And I was recruited. The new Hydra grew, a beautiful little parasite, within SHILD. For decades Hydra created crises, started wars and created a world so chaotic that people are willing to give up their freedom for their safety." the Doctor paused for a moment "And when history didn't cooperate it was rewritten" an image of the Winter Soldier faded in "Accidents happen."
"Fury" it flashed through my mind. He had been too close to the truth, so they had killed him.
But the Zola wasn't finished "Once the purge is complete, Hydra's new world order begins. We have won Captian, you must realise that your death was and will be meaningless!"
I punched the computer in frustration and shattered the glass.
Zola immediately appeared on another screen "What's on the stick?" I snapped at him.
He smiled "Project Insight, unfortunately you will both be too dead to tell anyone about it."
Suddenly the steel door slammed shut, I flung my shield but it was too late.
Nat's meter beeped off "Steve there's something coming, short range weapon no more than 30 seconds away."
"Who fired it?"
She looked at me in horror "SHILD"
I looked around hastily and spotted a depression covered by a grate. I plucked the grate away and grabbed Nat. I could still feel the blast in my back, I held my shield protectively over Nat and myself. Debris buried us, rubble shattered against my shield. My arm shook with effort, I screamed with exertion. Or maybe I was just screaming the frustration off my chest. When the flood of debris finally stopped, I hurled away a large stone that was lying on top of my shield. I carefully picked up the unconscious Nat bridal style and ran as fast as I could to our car. For I could already hear a Quinjet in the distance, Hydra I'm sure, pulling our dead bodies out of the rubble. "Well I'm sorry to disappoint you, I'm not dead yet," I thought bitterly.
I carefully put Nat in the passenger seat and strapped her in, then got behind the wheel and floored the accelerator. I knew exactly where I was going. Nat and I needed help and the only person I trusted at the moment, apart from Nat, was Sam Wilson.