09. | BUBBLEGUM KISSES

A MAN IN A HOODIE and sweatpants made his way through the hospital. He reached the vending machine and stopped, pulling off his hood. Steve Rogers looked at himself in the reflection of the glass. He had to find out who this mystery-masked man was. Why Nick Fury was attacked. And what was on that hard drive, which was not where he had put it.

Then Steve noticed someone standing behind him in the reflection of the vending machine, watching him and popping bright pink gum: Christina Sitma. With lightning-fast speed, Steve whirled around and grabbed her, pinned her arms to her side and propelling them both through a door into the next room, where he slammed her against the wall. Christina's back arched at the impact and let out a small grunt.

"Where is it?" he hissed.

"Safe."

"Do better—"

But before Steve could finish, Christina reversed the hold, slammed him against the wall and pressed the length of her body against his. Christina smirked as Steve's breath got caught in the back of his throat.

"Is that better?" she asked with wit, before her tone became serious. "Where did you get it?"

"Why would I tell you?" Steve asked.

"Fury gave it to you. Why?"

"What's on it?"

"I don't know." Christina replied.

Steve dipped his head dangerously close to Christina's. "Stop lying."

Christina felt Steve's warm breath fan over her face. "I only act like I know everything, Spangles."

"I bet you knew Fury hired the pirates, didn't you?" Steve asked suspiciously.

Christina cocked her head to the side. "Well, it makes sense. The ship was dirty, Fury needed a way in, so do you."

Steve scoffed and reversed the hold once again and did as she did to—he pressed his body harshly against her as he tightened his grip on her arms and Christina let out a gasp of pain at the strength of his hold. "I'm not gonna ask you again."

Christina's lethal purple-blue eyes searched Steve's face before she spoke. "I know who killed Fury." Steve slowly let go of Christina's arm, and remained silent, allowing her to continue. "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 said referring to the time span.

They took a moment to let that information sink in. Then she continued: "Five years ago, Natasha and I were escorting a nuclear engineer out of Iran. Somebody shot out our tires near Odessa. We lost control, went straight over a cliff. I pulled us out, but"—Christina looked down, deep in thought—"the Winter Soldier was there. I was covering Natasha and the engineer so he shot him—straight through me. Soviet slug. No rifling." She raised her shirt and showed Steve a scar that marred her abdomen, mirroring the katana scar on the opposite side.

"You told me that was a childhood accident," Steve said, feeling slightly betrayed.

"That I got shot by a friend while playing Russian Roulette. I said a lot of things before you knew about my affiliation with S.H.I.E.L.D., like the letters RC that are branded on my shoulder were from another accident." Christina explained, heaved a heavy sigh and continued. "Now you know the truth about this scar. But, bye-bye bikinis."

Steve gently rubbed the pad of his thumb along the length of the katana scar, Christina shuddered under his touch. "Yeah, I bet you look terrible in them now."

Christina continued, a shadow of a smile on her lips, pulling down her shirt. "Going after him is a dead end. I know, Natasha and I've tried." She said. Then she pulled out the data drive. "Like you said, he's a ghost story."

Steve gingerly took the data drive out of Christina's hand. "Well, let's find out what the ghost wants."

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Steve was wearing fake, thick-framed, black glasses. In addition to that, he was wearing a dark baseball cap, a dark blue hoodie and high-top sneakers. On his right, Christina was wearing a gray and black striped hoodie with the hood pulled over her recognizable golden waves, tight jeans and high-top sneaker wedges.

"First rule about going on the run is don't run, walk." Christina said nonchalantly beneath her breath as her and Steve strolled through the mall towards the Apple store.

"If I run in these shoes, they're gonna fall off."

Christina grinned and chuckled softly. "You're such an old man."

Steve kept glancing around the mall frantically, even though he knew he shouldn't - because it would only draw more attention to themselves, he couldn't shake the paranoia he was feeling. Christina was used to being undercover, hell, it was in her job description—and she looked so at ease walking through the mall, so he tried to emulate her stature.

As soon as they entered the Apple store, Christina instantly picked a random laptop and began working. "The drive has a Level Six homing program, so as soon as we boot up, S.H.I.E.L.D. will know exactly where we are."

"How much time will we have?"

"About nine minutes from..." Christina trailed off into a whisper and plugged in the data drive, "now." Christina began to furiously type on the keyboard. "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."

Steve stood closely behind Christina, peering over her shoulder as her fingers moved swiftly across the keyboard. "Can you override it?"

"The person who developed this is slightly smarter than me." Christina admitted reluctantly, before glancing as Steve from the corner of her eye, "slightly. I'm going to try running a tracer." Christina started typing even more furiously than before. "This is a program that S.H.I.E.L.D. developed to track hostile malware, so if we can't read the file, maybe we can find out where it came from."

"Can I help you guys with anything?" a salesman with long light brown hair suddenly popped up out of nowhere. Steve moved protectively in front of Christina. Christina smiled widely as slung her arm around Steve, her face became bright and cheerful.

"Oh, no, my fiancé was just helping me with some honeymoon destinations," Christina said with a slight giggle at the end. That's why she's an undercover agent, Steve thought.

Steve awkwardly smiled as Christina unlatched her arms from his neck and began typing again. "Right," Steve tried to play it off. "We're getting married."

"Congratulations, where are you guys thinking about going?"

Steve looked down at the screen to see what Christina was doing, desperately trying to find any kind of hint, and then he caught the name of a state flashing across the screen.

"New Jersey."

"Huh?" the salesman chuckled. He stared at Steve and squinted his eyes, attempting to get a better look. The Super-Soldier's body became tense and rigid as fear washed over him.

"You know, I have the exact same glasses."

"Wow, you two are practically twins," Christina said, not removing her eyes from the screen as she continued to locate the origin of the data drive.

The man laughed louder than necessary. "Yeah, I wish." He held his hands up and moved them down slowly—palms facing Steve—referring to Steve's incredible physique. "Specimen. Uh, if you guys need anything," he lifted up the name card that was handing around his neck from a chain, "I've been Aaron." He said before he turned and walked off.

"I think he just called you hot, Super Hero." Christina chuckled.

Steve bent down to whisper in her ear, "That was not funny." He shook his head before he became for serious as he looked down at his ticking watch. "You said nine minutes. Come on."

"Shh, relax," Christina lulled soothingly as she calmly kept typing into the computer. Then her calm expression was broken with a cheeky smile, "got it."

Steve leaned in closer to the computer and stared at the place that the program had honed in on. Christina's eyes studied his expression. "You know it?"

"I used to," Steve said before removing the data drive. "Let's go."

Christina walked to the right of Steve as they hurriedly exited the Apple store. "Standard tac team. Two behind, two across, two comings straight at us." Steve listed off as he looked around them. "If make us, I'll engage, you hit the south escalator to the metro."

"Shut up and put your arm around me, laugh at something I said," Christina ordered in monotone deadpan.

"What?"

"Do it," Christina snapped, and she quickly wrapped her arm around Steve's toned torso and ducked her head into his shoulder.

Steve didn't have to time to comprehend what he was doing; he just let his body move on its own. Steve draped a muscular arm across Christina's shoulders and tilted his head towards her and they both let out the most fake laugh anyone has ever heard, but the S.T.R.I.K.E. team members passed them without a seconds glance.

Neither, Steve nor Christina changed from their positions as they walked toward the downward escalator. Christina removed her arm from his torso and stepped onto the escalator with Steve right behind her. Steve suddenly felt Christina tense in front of him as she caught sight of Rumlow on the escalator next to them; heading up to the second story of the mall.

Christina turned towards Steve, looking up at him with a serious face. "Kiss me."

"What?"

"Public displays of affection make people very uncomfortable."

"Yes, they do."

Christina snaked her hand up and grabbed the back of Steve's neck, planting a kiss on his mouth. Steve kept his head tilted down so no one could see his face, his eyes fluttered shut and he gripped Christina's waist.

Steve hadn't realized how much he missed kissing Christina until her lips were placed upon his. Christina slowly pulled away from him and smirked.

"You still uncomfortable?" Christina asked as she turned to face forward.

"It's not exactly the word I would use."

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