Music is "Smoke and Mirrors" by Ivy & Gold.

Picture is Natasha and Steve in Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

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CHAPTER FOURTEEN: The Kiss

Steve, Natasha, and I quickly make our way on foot to the nearest place we can access the hard drive without SHIELD being able to easily find us. This just so happens to be at the Capital City Mall a few blocks away, and inside it, an Apple store.

When we're inside, the three of us walk briskly inside the building, passing lots of people and a large fountain. Natasha gave a brief look at the directory at the entrance to the Mall, telling us that the Apple store is in the center of the Mall, on the second floor. She even created a distraction long enough to grab a cap and glasses for Steve so that any facial recognition software in the mall security cameras will be thrown off.

Despite being in a crowded area, undercover, with no way for SHIELD to track us, Steve still glances over his shoulder anxiously. Whenever he starts to speed up, moving faster than a brisk walk, I grab his sleeve and slow him back down with Natasha and I.

"Slow down, Stevie," I mumble to him, letting go of his sleeve. "One of those mall cops might just tackle you if you start running."

"She's right. First rule of going on the run is don't run, walk," Natasha tells him once again.

Steve looks over his left shoulder, eyeing a couple as they walk past us. "If I run in these shoes, they're gonna fall off."

We take the escalator up to the second floor. Steve and I both agree that we'd prefer to avoid the lift for a little while. Once inside the Apple store, Natasha makes a bee-line for the line of sample MacBook Pros.

"The drive has a Level Six homing program," she mumbles to Steve and I as we stand on either side of her. "So as soon as we boot up, SHIELD will know exactly where we are."

"We'll need to find a different route out of the building," I state. "Maybe an employee or truck entrance through the back. SHIELD will be covering the obvious exits."

"I'll leave the exit strategy to you," Natasha states, and I move to the computer next to her. I pull up a schematic of the shopping mall, memorizing the entrances, exits, and employee areas that are restricted to patrons.

Steve's eyes scan the store casually as Natasha works on the drive and I work on a way out of the mall. "How much time will we have?"

"About nine minutes from..." She plugs in the drive, "now."

Steve waits in silence as Natasha works her magic on the drive. When I look over from my screen to hers, I see encrypted text and code scrolling by as she tries to get inside.

"Fury was right about that ship," she tells us. "Somebody's trying to hide something. This drive is protected by some sort of AI. It keeps rewriting itself to counter my commands."

Steve looks down at the screen from over her shoulder. "Can you override it?"

Natasha sighs in frustration. "The person who developed this is slightly smarter than me. Slightly." She stops typing on one of the coded screens and moves to another window. "I'm gonna try running a tracer. This is a program that SHIELD developed to track hostile malware. So, if we can't read the file, maybe we can find out where it came from."

Natasha's screen turns to a geographical map of the Northeastern United States. I see lines forming from SHIELD satellites that cross over a small area in New Jersey.

I turn my eyes back to my screen as an Apple store employee walks up to Natasha and Steve. "Can I help you guys with anything?" he asks in a voice that tells us he's just doing his job.

I relax, and from the corner of my eye, I see Natasha grab hold of Steve in a loving way. "Oh, no. My fiance was just helping me with some honeymoon destinations." She chuckles like a bubbly girl about to get married and turns back to her computer.

"Right," Steve chuckles uncomfortably. "We're getting married."

The Apple employee smiles. "Congratulations. Where are you guys thinking about going?" He peaks over at Natasha's screen.

"New Jersey," Steve replies, and he gives me a look that I can only describe as the pain a New Yorker feels when talking about actually wanting to go to New Jersey.

"Oh!" The Apple store employee makes a surprised sound, then looks Steve in the eye for a few seconds. Steve stiffs, uncomfortable, then the employee says, "I have the exact same glasses."

Natasha chimes in sarcastically, her eyes never leaving the screen. "Wow, you two are practically twins."

I continue to look at the maps of the interior of the mall, trying to busy myself so I don't let out a laugh at Natasha's comment.

The employee laughs, stepping back. "Yeah, I wish." He motions to all of Steve. "Specimen." Steve adjusts his glasses awkwardly. "If you guys need anything, I've been Aaron."

Steve thanks the employee, and then turns back to Natasha, standing closer as the timer ticks down. "You said nine minutes, c'mon."

"Relax," Natasha says to him in a calm, monotone voice.

I pull up the security camera footage from the mall, looking at every angle for a possible STRIKE team. I see the all too familiar face of Brock Rumlow enter the mall, and he doesn't look happy.

"Uh, guys?" I say, waving Steve over to my screen. "Rumlow's here, and he's got company."

"We need to move. Natasha?"

"Got it." She smirks, and we both look at the location on the screen. It reads "Wheaton, New Jersey." Steve and I look at each other, knowing what the other is thinking. Natasha notices this and asks, "You know it?"

"We used to," Steve replies. "Let's go."

I close down the security feeds and schematics, hoping that my memory of the mall will suffice. Steve takes the drive from the MacBook Pro, and we hurry out of the store.

I stop before we leave, telling them, "You two stay together. Get to the first floor via the escalator. Meet by the popcorn machine in the food court. From there, we go to the alley to get Steve's shield and then get to the Metro."

"And you?" Steve asks, worry in his voice.

"I'll meet you there, just go a different way. I'll see if there are any other tac teams in the mall."

Steve nods, and he and Natasha hurry off to the right while I take the left towards the stairs. My eyes widen when I see two members of STRIKE head in my general direction, sweeping the second floor for us. I duck into the nearest store, a jewelry boutique with a very friendly shopkeeper.

"Can I help you find anyth--Oh, my!" he exclaims, looking at the wedding ring that hangs around my neck. "Now that is a beautiful piece of vintage jewelry. Where on earth did you get it?"

I glance over my shoulder, seeing the two STRIKE members walk by without spotting me. "My husband gave it to me in 1943." I get a very surprised look from the shopkeeper. "Excuse me."

Once outside the jewelry store, I see Natasha and Steve walking towards the escalator. Steve has his arm around her shoulders, and he's laughing. At first I think the scene odd, but then I see two STRIKE members passing them without a single passing glance. It was part of the cover.

I hurry through the crowds to the staircase that leads from the second floor to the first. I hurry down it, looking over a few moments later to see where Steve and Natasha are. I see them on the top of the escalator, but I also see Rumlow heading up the other side. He hasn't spotted them yet, but he will.

I grasp nervously at my dark hair under my baseball cap, praying for a miracle. To my surprise, Natasha turns around and pulls Steve in for a kiss. Rumlow's eyes dodge the couple, and they pass him without an incident. Natasha pulls back from Steve a moment later, then the two exit the escalator.

We meet up at the popcorn machine in the food court. From there, we make our way out the back entrance, through locked doors that only employees should be using, and out onto the street. We use back-alleys to get to the Metro--first getting Steve's large shield--slipping easily into the crowds of people going to and fro.

When we get onto the Metro train, once it starts flying down the tracks to who cares where, we can finally collapse into the seats. Steve and I sit side-by-side, Natasha stretching out on the bench across from us. We stay that way for the next few minutes as the buildings and underground passages pass by.

After a few minutes, after I finally let myself realize that I can relax, I slouch in my seat. My head lolls against the back of the bench, leaning against Steve's shoulder. Natasha folds up her jacket, creating a makeshift pillow. She curls into a small ball on the bench, crossing her arms and closing her eyes. It isn't until just now that I realize how tired I really am. I'm almost certain that Steve and Natasha feel the same way.

When we get to the station nearest New Jersey, we exit and find a truck to hot-wire. It's a four-seater, blue Chevrolet Silverado. Steve drives, and Natasha takes the passenger's side. I gladly give it to her, wanting nothing more than to curl up in the back row and try to catch a few minutes of rest. Steve gave me his hoodie to use as a blanket, for that I was very glad, but it should really be him sleeping back here. He's gotten a whole three hours in the last thirty-six hours.

Thanks, SHIELD.

As we pass over the boarder into New Jersey, I hear Natasha and Steve have a soft conversation.

"Where did Captain America learn how to steal a car?" Natasha asks, a playful tone in her voice.

"Nazi Germany," Steve replies. "And we're borrowing. Take your feet off the dash."

Natasha pauses before she asks her next question; I assume she takes her feet off the dash because Steve doesn't ask again. "All right, I have a question for you, which you do not have to answer. I feel like, if you don't answer though, you're kind of answering it, you know?"

"What?" Steve asks, exasperated.

"Was that your first kiss since 1945?" I can hear the grin in her voice.

Steve sighs. "That bad, huh?"

"I didn't say that."

"Well, it kinda sounds like that's what you're saying."

"No, I didn't," Natasha defends. "I just wondered how much practice you've had."

"You don't need practice--"

"--Everybody needs practice--"

"--It was not my first kiss since 1945." The way they're bickering back and forth about something so trivial makes them sound like siblings. "I'm ninety-five, I'm not dead."

"Nobody special, though?" Natasha's inquiry almost seems genuine.

Steve chuckles dryly. "Believe it or not, it's kinda hard to find someone with shared life experience."

"What about Emma?" The mention of my name from the redheaded assassin's lips makes my eye peak open a bit. I barely see her looking at Steve, but his eyes are glued to the road.

"What about Emma?" he asks.

"You two never...?" Natasha trails off, her obvious question hanging over them both.

Steve shakes his head. "Emma's like my big sister. We've always been there for each other, but we knew from the very beginning that we were that and nothing more."

"You never even considered it?" Natasha presses, almost surprised. "Even after coming out of the ice? I mean, you two were the only ones from each other's pasts, besides Rose and Carter. You never thought about it? Not even once?"

Steve hesitates to answer this question because we both know that there was a single moment where we both considered it. It was right before we left to fight Loki and his Chitauri armies. We were having a moment, and Steve leaned in...You get the rest. I wanted him to kiss me, but I felt nothing from it. Nothing at all. It was just a kiss, and it never happened again.

"We kissed once," he admits in a low voice. "Once and only once. We both felt nothing. I love Emma, but kissing her was more like when my Ma kissed me when I was a kid."

"And what about our kiss?" she asks with a grin. "What did you feel then?"

Steve turns to look at her for a second, then turns his eyes back to the road. "Let's just say it wasn't like Emma."

"Better or worse?"

"What do you think?"

END CHAPTER FORTEEN: The Kiss.