They had been able to find a more decent selection of clothes in the lost in found at the mall. They all had jeans and neutral colored shirts that Natasha instructed them to pick so that they would blend in more. Natasha's shirt was a gray and black striped long sleeve with a hood paired with a gray jacket over top. Steve had a gray graphic t-shirt, a blue hoodie, a muddy green coat, and a black baseball cap with a pair of glasses finishing the disguise. Annabelle had a light gray tank top, a red flannel, and a black leather jacket with a black beanie.
"First rule of going on the run is don't run, walk," she instructed them as they made their way through the mall.
"If I run in these shoes, they're gonna fall off," Steve told her as they made their way into one of the computer stores.
"The drive has a level six homing program, so as soon as we boot up, SHIELD will know exactly where we are."
"How much time will we have?"
"Uh, about nine minutes from..." she plugged in the drive, "now." She started working on it, Steve and Annabelle keeping an eye out around them as covertly as possible. "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?"
"The person who developed this is slightly smarter than me. Slightly."
"Tony's been working with me on coding. Maybe I could have a go."
"Your go better be fast," Natasha warned her as Annabelle took over.
"I'm gonna try running a tracer."
"It's a program that SHIELD developed to track hostile malware," Natasha filled Steve in. "Something Stark shouldn't know about."
"Have you ever met him?" she asked without looking up from the screen. "If we can't read the file, it might be able to tell us where it came from."
"And then we can get the file from there?" Steve asked.
"Theoretically," the girls let out.
"Can I help you guys with anything?" a voice asked, making them turn to see an employee.
"Oh, no," Natasha smiled. "My fiance was just helping me with some honeymoon destinations," she put her hands on Steve's shoulders. "And our niece is trying to get him on my side," she glanced over at Annabelle who smiled at the man.
"Right. We're getting married. Not me and my niece, obviously. My- My fiance," Steve put his hand on Natasha's. "She's my fiance." Annabelle rolled her eyes subtly, glancing back over at the computer.
"Congratulations. Where are you guys thinking about going?"
"New Jersey," Steve said as he glanced at the screen where the file location had popped up.
"Oh." He looked at him for a second, making Steve start to panic. "I have the exact same glasses." Steve let out a subtle sigh of relief.
"Wow, you two are practically twins," Natasha said as she took over the computer.
"Yeah, I wish," he chuckled, holding his hands out in front of Steve's frame. "Specimen. Uh, if you guys need anything, I've been Erin," he showed them his name tag.
"Thank you," Steve told Erin before walking over to another customer.
"We need to work on your lying skills," Annabelle said as soon as Steve turned back to them.
"Maybe later," he said, looking at his watch. "You said nine minutes. Come on."
"Relax. Got it." The computer zoomed in.
YOU ARE READING
For Better or For Worse - Book 3 (The Winter Soldier)
Fanfiction"I need to see what I think of the world first. It may be a new world, but in some ways it's still the same." Annabelle woke up in the twenty first century after spending almost seventy years in ice. Not only is she thrust into a new world, she also...
