Untrustworthy | N. Romanoff

| twenty |

Lexi walked casually behind Natasha and Steve, her head in her phone as she weaved through the crowd behind the two, occasionally glancing up to keep an eye on where they were going. Unlike the other two Avengers - well, mainly Steve - Lexi wasn't really running as a fugitive from SHIELD. At the minute, SHIELD didn't know she was working with the other two, thinking that the Stark had left the hospital swiftly following Fury's death.

She also had Maria to thank for the lack of surveillance on her. After Steve told her and Natasha that SHIELD had been compromised, it was clear to them that there was only a limited amount of people they could trust within SHIELD and Lexi knew Maria was one of them. That was why she made a quick phone call, asking Maria to order her on a 'mission', just so as other members in SHIELD would think she was busy and not with Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff.

"First rule of going on the run is don't run, walk," Natasha muttered to the two, though Lexi was barely paying attention, only letting out a hum of agreement in response.

"If I run in these shoes, they're gonna fall off," Steve mumbled as he peered over his shoulder, clearly anxious about being spotted in the crowd of people.

"Steve, if you keep looking, it makes you look suspicious," Lexi glanced up at him, putting her phone away as she moved to walk at Steve's side instead of behind him and Natasha. "You two look so tense, relax a little. Look like you're actually going shopping and not shoplifting."

The three walked into the Apple store, Natasha heading straight to one of the computers at the back of the shop with Steve close on her heels, while Lexi took her time walking there, browsing through the various products as she did so.

"The drive has a Level Six homing program, so as soon as we boot it up SHIELD will know exactly where we are," Natasha began explaining once Lexi had joined them at the laptop.

"How much time will we have?" Steve asked as he glanced around the store, clearly still on edge.

"Uhh, about nine minutes from..." Natasha dragged out, placing the USB into the port in the laptop, "now."

"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."

"Can you override it?"

"No, she can't," Lexi teased from her spot next to Steve, leaning casually against the table while she sucked on a lolly she swiped from a stall outside. Natasha shook her head in annoyance as she continued to type on the keyboard, her fingers moving fast to try and beat the AI.

"The person who developed this is slightly smarter than me. Slightly," she emphasised, looking up to Lexi, who gave a cheeky grin in response, before putting her focus back on the laptop. "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."