WASHINGTON D.C.
2014

STEVE and June moved briskly through the second level of the nearest galleria they were able to find, fingers laced tightly together as they kept up the persona of a newly-engaged couple, pretending to be conversing happily in their own adoration-consumed world while in actuality the two agents were frantically passing tactical ideas between each other. They were hidden amid the drifting crowd of shoppers, retail workers, businessmen and women, but June knew despairingly that they would not remain invisible for long; they had to do better.

"What did Natasha mean when she said everyone has their eyes on you?" she hissed through a forced grin that could have belonged to a young woman thrilled to begin her domestic life with the love of her life, but was instead possessed by an FBI asset who had her shoulder pressed against that of a man she hardly knew, feeling as if she had a dozen sniper scopes zeroed in on her back. Steve feigned a lazy smile as well, yet when he spoke his voice was low and unnerved, and June knew he was out of his element. They both were.

"Shield's after me," he explained hastily, blue eyes alert and wearisome, "for resisting arrest and withholding information."

"Are you guilty?"

Steve's jaw tightened. "Maybe."

Incensed, June shook her head as if in laughter, though on the contrary she was far from it. "This way," she slipped an arm about Steve's waist and guided them to the right through an area spotted with kiosks. Steve had ditched Captain America's uniform and opted for something a little more casual, but his face was a hard one to miss, and Natasha's grave instructions had convinced June they could not afford any slip-ups. She stopped before a kiosk that sold accessories that in any other circumstance she would have deemed utterly ridiculous, but in that moment could not have been any more grateful for. She plucked a pair of glasses with simple glass in place of lenses and, inspired by Natasha, a navy baseball cap with "World War II Veteran" stitched across it in yellow thread. The vender barely looked in their direction as June thrust him a ten dollar bill and hurried Steve away, still acting as if they were simply sharing a lighthearted afternoon at the mall. Meanwhile, tensions could not be more high.

"You've still got the flash drive?" June asked him.

"Yes," Steve replied with a nod, slipping the metal piece out of his hoodie pocket and passing it to her.

"Do you happen to know where the Mac store is?"

"Commandeering pirated ships kind of takes away from my mall-ratting  . . ."

"Never mind. It's up here."

The two slipped into the store, hundreds of sleek electronics and gadgets (that neither Steve or June could consider to be very high-tech at all) displayed for the inquisitive eyes of the public. As negligently as she could, June wandered over to the rows of laptops and lazily halted before one, looking like a mindless customer looking to spend a few thousand dollars.

"If I remember Shield's style correctly, and I do, this drive should have a level six homing program," she plugged the drive into the computer, fingers beginning to fly rapidly about the keyboard, "which means as soon as we start this us, your friends will know exactly where to find you."

"Not how I would describe them," Steve mumbled. "Do you know what you're doing?"

"Oh, ye of little faith . . ." June narrowed her eyes at the screen, scowling at the green coding. "I got my degree in computer sciences. This is pretty similar to my final exam."

"How much time do we have?"

"Nine minutes from when I first began. So about eight-and-a-half, now . . . ah, damn."

Steve tensed. "What's wrong?"

"The thing is backed by something—like an AI, it keeps rewriting itself."

"Well, can you override it?" He asked shortly. June bit her lip.

"I think so. Okay, okay . . . " she muttered to herself beneath her breath, a knee beginning to bounce with jumpiness. "Maybe if I run a tracer . . . . Then we'll be able to see where exactly the file comes from. But if—"

Her mutterings were interjected. "Can I help you guys with anything?" A lighthearted and comical voice asked brightly, and June looked up long enough to see a wide-set young man with hair as long as her own and a burly beard concealing half his face. Natasha's orders echoed through June's head.

"Oh," she laughed shakily, squeezing Steve's arm. "No, thank you. My . . . fiancé was just helping me scope out some . . . elopement courthouses. Messy family matters and the like."

"Right," Steve chuckled awkwardly. "We're getting married."

"Wow," the employee's eyes widened with an unfazed grin. "Congratulations. There any place nearby that'll officiate you two?"

"Uh, there's one in . . ." Steve craned his neck to see the laptop screen. June's handiwork had come through: the signal was picking up in— "New Jersey."

"Oh. Fun. Hey, you know what . . ." The man suddenly brought a hand to his chin and began to scrutinize Steve with squinting eyes, and both he and June felt their hearts kick in their chests, panic wrapping around their throats. Don't recognize him don't recognize him don't—

"I have the exact same glasses!" the employee exclaimed in amazement. "Pretty weird, huh?"

June suppressed a chuckle as her fingers continued to fly over the keys. "I can hardly tell you two apart."

The store employee scoffed. "Yeah, I wish." He gestured vaguely at Steve, who, even in the most unflattering clothing, was still enviably sculpted. "Specimen." He clasped his hands together. "Uh . . . if you guys need anything, I've been Aaron."

"Thank you," Steve dipped his head briskly and turned back to June, glaring down at her hands as if his scrutiny would spur their speed. "C'mon, you said nine minutes, let's go."

"Slow down, Captain. Don't you trust me?"

"I don't know if I've had enough time to determine that yet."

June's eyebrows raised to her hairline. A triumphant smile curved her lips. "Well, you might want to start making time, because I got our signal," she pointed to the screen. "Wheaton, New Jersey. Sound familiar?"

"Yeah," a grim look passed over Steve's face, unpleasant memories flickering just behind his eyes. "Let's go."

He grabbed the drive, then June's hand, and steered them out of the store. They marched through the mall with heads bent low, for wolves were among them.

"Brock Rumlow's team," Steve said under his breath. "We didn't end on the best of terms."

June set her jaw, clutching his hand a bit tighter. "Do you ever end on good terms with anyone?"

Steve suddenly went very quiet, his soft blue eyes filling with something like guilt as they turned from June, staring stonily ahead. "No."

June's lips parted slightly. She wanted to pry, but could not find the words. She murmured instead, "There are two behind us, two across, two coming at us."

"And I suppose you're gonna tell me to act natural?"

"No, by all means," she slipped her arm back about his waist and flashed a beaming smile as two of Rumlow's assets strode past them, oblivious to their identities, "be yourself, Captain."

Steve did not reply.

They stepped upon an escalator crowded with shoppers, and, to Steve and June's dismay, hidden among the crowd was Rumlow himself. His black eyes sifted through those around him, an angry hawk-like gaze that set June's teeth on edge. He rode the escalator parallel to them, inching upward as they were lowered to the first level, and every second they grew closer and closer to each other. June's thoughts spiraled wildly, and for a few brief moments, she wondered desperately what Natasha would do. If you run into a fix, you're covering as a couple . . .

"Steve, can I ask you something?" she said quickly.

"What?"

"When you see two people kissing in public, does it make you uncomfortable?"

Steve was baffled. "Yes . . ."

"Me too."

And without forethought, June took his face in her hands, and drew him down to kiss her. For a panicked second, she feared Steve would pull away from her out of surprise and jeopardize their façade, but he kept his mouth pressed to hers, his hands upon her hips, and did not pull away. When gunfire did not ring throughout the mall, when bullets did not embed themselves in her back, when life commenced as it should, June broke the embrace. Rumlow was gone, and they were in the clear.

She met Steve's eyes and regarded him with suppressed smugness and apparent gratitude. "Do you trust me now?"

He gaped at her. "I think we're getting there."

• • •

THE world sped by in a gentle blur of pale blues and forest greens, pinpricks of road signs blending together in what June's gaze could comprehend as she stared quietly out of the passengers' window. She drew one leg beneath her as the truck bounced over the roughly-defined road, grateful for the long drive to New Jersey that would hopefully hold few to no aggressive encounters. She turned to Steve.

"I didn't think you could hijack a car," she said, a ghostly smile playing at the corners of her lips. "You don't seem the type."

Steve kept his eyes on the road ahead. "You learn a thing or two in Nazi Germany. And we're borrowing, Ivanski."

"Right," June shook her head. "And how do you plan on finding out who this belongs to?"

"Would've thought you'd have some ideas for that, considering your quick thinking. Nice improvising back there."

June winced, suddenly embarrassed. "I'm sorry about that. We needed a diversion. Are you upset? I'm sorry."

To her relief, Steve only chuckled at her fluster. "Despite what Natasha may have told you, I know it's not nineteen-forty-five anymore. I don't exactly have a problem with pretty women spontaneously kissing me."

"You think I'm pretty, huh?"

"I'm thinking I don't know you very well," Steve corrected her with a quick, smirking glance. "And I'm sure you have me at a disadvantage. So tell me . . . who are you?"

At his calm query, June was overtaken by the same agonizing hollowness she had experienced with Natasha when the woman had asked her why she was alone in the world, when she had used June's given name the first time they ever spoke. And now Steve was asking her to explain herself when she hardly knew who it was she was left staring at in the mirror, seeing always the face of a phantom poser and not that of a young woman. How could she share with him the interiors of her life when so much of it had been stolen away from her? How could she bear to look back on the nights she and the others had spent freezing to death in the damp corner of a basement with blood from the day's exposures pooling about them? How could she show him June Ivanski while Jekaterina Antonella Ivanov lingered just behind that mask, jeering at her feeble attempts to rebuild a world free of the damnation that hunted her when night fell?

Oh, but he sounded like a friend. Like someone who wanted to listen. No one had ever listened . . .

"Like I told you," June shrugged with forced ease. "I work with the FBI—linguistics, profiling, behavioral analysis. I'm helping you and Natasha hunt down the Winter Soldier and find out what's happened to Shield. Simple."

Steve eyed her suspiciously. "Simple," he repeated lowly.

"Yes."

"Alright," he dismissed the topic. They were silent for a stretch, nothing but the humming of the truck's engine to fill the silence. At last, Steve sighed in resignation.

"As long as we're apologizing for things," he said. "I'm sorry for the way I reacted back at the hospital. That wasn't fair."

"It's okay. I think we can call it even."

"You sure?"

June nodded. "I am."

New Jersey was blooming around them, the countryside smooth and viridescent and thick with forest. The sky mimicked the likeness of Steve's eyes, the sun flickering against his pupils as the light slowly set hid itself behind rolling green fields.

"So, what does Wheaton mean to you?" June asked Steve curiously, brushing a piece of her soft brown hair from her face. Cap drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, neglecting to answer her for many moments.

He said at last, "What my world used to be."

• • •

aw, guys . . .
if you wanna ship June and Steve until Bucky comes in, I think I'd be okay with that