Her shoulder throbbed as Katya did her best to hold on to Steve, who raced to make the bridge on his motorcycle before SHIELD closed it down. ''Hold on!'' he yelled over the wind. Katya couldn't see over his broad shoulders why she would have to hold on, but didn't second guess his orders. And it was a good thing she didn't, because next thing she knew, the motorcycle flew through the air. 

It jumped between two closing doors, which crashed together with a loud blow right after they made it through. This was going to be the most dangerous ride she will ever be on, by far. And that says a lot when you've been in cars and on motorcycles with Natasha.

Steve didn't slow down as they headed for the next obstacle on the bridge. Nasty spikes rose from the ground to puncture even the thickest tires. Behind it, steel gates not even a fully loaded truck could break. It was no option to jump the spikes. The gate would catch them. 

To make matters worse, a Quinjet flew in from behind them, turning to face the two fleeing agents. ''Stand down, Captain Rogers. Stand down,'' the voice of a pilot spoke over the speakers. They even went so far as loading and aiming the large guns the jet had on board, ready to blow them to bits if Steve didn't stop this vehicle right now. 

Were they really ready to kill him? They would kill her without a second thought, but him? Captain America? Surely they had to come up with some kind of explanation to the world. How the hell were you going to tell people that the organization Rogers worked for, had to kill him themselves? 

Pierce had made it clear in his office that he was ready to kill Steve if he stood in the way of the investigation regarding Fury's death, but they hadn't even done anything yet. They didn't know anything. Well, Rogers didn't know anything. Katya had figured out immediately who killed her boss, but Pierce didn't know that. Why were they killing them?

Steve didn't slow down at the threat of getting blown to pieces, he just kept racing. ''Repeat, stand down.'' Final warning, but he still didn't slow down. Katya had more and more trouble ignoring the screaming pain in her left shoulder. Her right hand held on to Rogers for dear life, because her left hand kept slipping away. There was no strength in it at all.

At that moment, the Quinjet started firing. Steve swayed from left to right to avoid the spray of bullets coming in their direction. Speed was their only friend at the moment. Because of the heaviness and power of the gun, it was slow and couldn't track quick movements. All the bullets hit the pavement around the wheels, pieces breaking off and flying everywhere.

How where they going to make it off this bridge alive? It was just like the elevator: only a risky and stupid move could get them out. And Steve seemed to have such a move prepared. Grabbing his shield, he threw it with one fluid move straight into the left propeller of the jet. It got stuck, causing the hyper modern engine to stop moving. 

''Jump!'' Katya heard Rogers yell over his shoulder to her. Not having any better ideas, she did as he asked, rolling her body as she hit the ground to slow herself down. No time to see where the Captain had gone, no time to figure out if the jet was taken care off, but the explosions above her head told her enough. 

Katya ran the last few feet to the spikes and gate on the bridge. While they might be insurmountable when driving a vehicle, on your feet, they were easy to cross. Keeping a close eye on the wobbling and crashing jet above her - she didn't want it coming down on her head - Katya zigzagged through the spikes and crawled under the gate. 

Steve landed in front of her, falling from the air for the second time today. He looked back satisfied as the jet crashed on the other side of the gate before he took off again. 

Katya was in pain and panted from the running and jumping they had done, but ran after the Captain anyway. Apparently, he knew where he was going. And because she had no idea where to go, she followed him.

But as soon as she saw a familiar part of the city come closer and closer, she called out to him. Because he was faster, even faster now with the pain influencing Katya's ability to use her body normally. He ran in front of her the whole way. ''We can't go to your apartment! It's the first place they'll look!'' She hissed at him in the quiet neighborhood.

''We need new clothes,'' Steve replied, not looking at her. He was right, Katya had already seen the few people they had passed stare at his Captain America suit. He stood out like a sore thumb and it would be the reason they got caught before they could get to the hospital, which was undoubtedly their next stop.

''We can steal some!'' But that was the wrong thing to say. This was Captain America who she was talking to, after all. And the disapproving look on his face told her what he was thinking. ''In and out, make it quick,'' Katya finally gave in when they reached his apartment building. She stopped to wait in front of the building, staying on lookout in case they found them that quickly.

''Hand me your jacket,'' Steve said before stepping through the door. 

Katya looked down at the black leather jacket she threw on last night and still wore. ''It's Nat's,'' she refused, shaking her head. It wasn't hers to give away.

Steve held in his sigh. He would never understand those two. ''I'm sure she'll understand. Now hand it over, we don't have time for this.''

Reluctantly, she slipped the jacket from her shoulders. Steve took it before disappearing inside the building. Katya would have preferred to change her pants and shoes too, but Steve obviously didn't have any clothes that would fit her. Unless he had had some secret dates she didn't know about. Although that was very unlikely, Rogers was an old-fashioned man.

Katya disappeared into the shadows of the building, keeping her head low and scanning every person and vehicle entering the street. The quiet of the neighborhood put her more on edge than if it were busy. There was no way to blend in with the crowd or disappear in traffic. 

Nothing suspicious came her way though. Just a woman talking on the phone loudly and a man with a child on his arm. They were both too busy with themselves to notice her.

The door next to her opened just enough for Steve to slip through. He pushed a grey bundle of fabric in her hands and walked past her without another word. Her feet followed him on their own while her hands unfolded the piece of clothing he brought her. It was a hoodie, a simple, plain, grey hoodie. It was too big on her, but not as big as she had expected. 

His smell hit her and she couldn't exactly say she was happy with that. Not that he smelled bad, she just rather had Natasha's perfume in her nose the whole day. She pulled up the hood to cover her blonde hair and face from some angles. 

Steve was full of surprises today. He stopped next to a big truck parked along the road. Katya saw why. It wasn't locked. The pins on the inside of the window were up, signaling an easy steal. His blue eyes shot back and forth through the empty street and when he was sure nobody saw anything, he nonchalantly opened the driver's seat door and got in. Katya wasted no time following him into the car, dropping into the seat next to him. 

''Do you even know how to hotwire a car?'' she asked with amusement in her voice as she saw him fiddle with the wires under the steering wheel. Katya had become a master in hotwiring any piece of transport. A car, a motorcycle, a truck, you name it. They all worked the same if you knew which wires to cut and which to connect.

''I did,'' he mumbled, concentrated more on the wires than her question.

''You did? You're telling me you're trying to hotwire this twenty-first century car with forties' knowledge?''

He didn't answer, which told her enough. Katya wanted to reach out and push his hands away to do it herself, but a stab of pain ran down her arm as she moved it. Right, left shoulder still hurt. Steve saw her flinch from the corner of his eye and his face turned a little softer. Ugh, pity. She hated pity. ''I got this,'' he reassured her. And he was right as the engine came to life at the third attempt.

Natasha would have thrown her an 'I-told-you-so'-look and raise her eyebrows, but Steve wasn't one to do that. He liked proving people wrong, but didn't brag when he indeed did.

He put on his seatbelt and told Katya to do that too when he saw she didn't already. But he shook his head in disappointment when she told him she might need to get out quickly and therefore wouldn't wear one. She knew it was possible with Steve's driving. She wouldn't be thrown around in her seat. With Natasha, she needed the seatbelt sometimes to not get thrown out. Not that it wasn't the same the other way around. Katya was a really bad driver.

Steve drove torturously slow through the city, keeping under the speed limit and stopping at every little thing. At first, Katya kept her irritations to herself, knowing this was who the Captain was. But after a while, the pressure of being on the run and getting to the hospital as quick as possible opened her mouth anyway. ''If you keep driving like a grandma, they'll catch us before you can make the hospital.''

One eyebrow raised on the face of the man sitting next to her. ''How did you know we were going there?''

''Eh, first, I'm not blind. I can read the signs you've been following for the last ten minutes. Second, you probably left something there or know that's where we have to start, because you've been hiding something since last night. Third, it's probably where Nat will be, who figured out the same thing I have, and we need her.''

''You got all that in ten minutes?'' He sounded really impressed, which once again proved how much he underestimated her. 

She scoffed. ''I got all that as soon as we left Pierce's office.''

That ended the conversation. Steve getting lost in his thoughts and Katya scanning the traffic around them to make sure they were still good. She knew what to look for. Which vehicles belonged to SHIELD, even the undercover ones. But they made it to the hospital without any trouble, Steve parking the car neatly between two other trucks to hide it as best he could.

Katya climbed out, checking to make sure the hoodie still covered her head and waited for her colleague to lead her where he wanted them. She wasn't surprised when they ended up on the same floor Fury had died on. 

She hated hospitals. The smell, the blinding whiteness, the faint smell of death. Could be her but she felt the dead all around her when entering here. The same as if you were walking into a haunted house or cemetery. You could feel you were not alone.

Her body almost bumped into Steve's when he stopped in front of a vending machine. She was so busy making sure nobody noticed them, that she hadn't paid attention to him. 

He looked for something, a specific product in the machine, and his eyes widened in shock when he didn't find what he was looking for. But Katya almost didn't see that, she was way too occupied with the person suddenly appearing behind them, as out of thin air. 

Unable to suppress the smirk on her face, she took in the reflection of Natasha chewing some gum and blowing a bell before popping it. All while having the most nonchalant and bored expression on her face. 

While Katya was pissed at her for pushing her away, how could she stay mad at her for long? Natasha didn't mean to push her away, it was an automatic response to being in pain. Besides, look at that face. She looked like an adorable child blowing those bubbles. Her heart made that same stupid jump it always did when she saw her girlfriend. 

Steve stared at the woman behind him in the glass, putting two and two together. When he finally did, he turned around so quickly he was a blur and angrily pushed Natasha backwards into an empty room. Katya followed after making sure nobody in the hallway had seen it and closed the door, looking up just in time to see Steve push Natasha into the wall.

He was so angry, his back muscles displayed it visibly as he towered over Natasha, wanting to intimidate her. But Natasha was not easily intimidated, especially by Steve. She had a ghost of an amused smile on her lips as he pushed her back to the wall roughly, a small grunt escaping her lips.

While this was all very beautiful to see, Katya didn't like how he handled her so roughly. His hands held her upper arms so tightly that Katya could see from afar that it hurt Natasha.

''Where is it?'' Steve demanded, getting close to her face.

''Safe,'' Natasha replied immediately. What was this about?

''Do better!''

''Where did you get it?''

''Why would I tell you?'' Rogers would never win this fight. Natasha was an expert in dodging questions she didn't want to answer and could set a questioning to her hand easily. That's exactly what she was doing now.

Even though she knew Natasha could handle herself, Katya stepped in anyway, squeezing her body between the two bickering agents and pushing Steve away with her only usable arm. ''As much as I like this, I'm the only one who gets to push Nat against a wall.''

In other circumstances, Natasha would have chuckled or at least smiled, but she was too occupied with Steve, who had a disgusted look on his face at the image he just received because of Katya's comment. 

With Steve now being an acceptable distance away, Katya stepped back too so she could look at the both of them. ''Will anyone please clue me in as to what's going on here?''

Natasha spoke without looking at her, still staring at the man's blue eyes like they held every secret he was hiding. ''Steve had the stick with the intel we stole from the boat. Tried to hide it here in the machine to keep it out of SHIELD hands.''

Katya's eyes flickered from her to Steve. ''What? Where did you get that USB?''

He kept quiet just like before, when Natasha had questioned him. That was when she finally put it together. ''Fury gave it to you,'' the realization dawned on her. ''Why?''

That didn't make any sense. Why would Fury give this to Steve? Why was Fury in Steve's apartment last night anyway? It didn't get any clearer when Steve dodged the question fired at him and countered with his own. ''What's on it?''

''I don't know,'' Natasha denied.

''Stop lying!'' Steve hissed angrily, taking a step forward again. Apparently, he believed that everything coming out of her mouth were lies. 

Trough gritted teeth, Katya stepped in front of him again. ''Back off, Rogers. We only act like we know everything.'' You couldn't get Katya angry quickly, and there weren't many ways to get under her skin, but threatening her girlfriend was one of the things that could.

He finally realized he talked to the two of them and not just Natasha. Whatever Natasha knew about this, Katya knew too. So he stepped back and turned his head from left to right to look at the both of them. ''I bet you knew Fury hired the pirates, didn't you?''

This was the first time Katya really thought about this. Pierce had suggested it, but because it came out of his mouth, she hadn't believed him. But now... It was very convenient that Fury needed intel and suddenly a mission popped up that gave them that opportunity. Maybe it was true, but then what intel would be worth taking such a big risk?

Natasha's wide eyes revealed she had figured out the same. ''Well, it makes sense. The ship was dirty, Fury needed a way in, so do you.''

''I'm not gonna ask you again.''

Steve grew impatient so Katya finally said the words she had been wanting to say all night. ''I know who killed Fury.''

That was enough to shut them up. They looked at her while she continued. Steve interested in her story and maybe a little shocked she had known for so long. Natasha staring at her knowingly. Just like Katya had suspected, she knew too. 

''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.'' 

Steve scanned her face to determine if she spoke the truth. ''So he's a ghost story,'' he concluded. 

Katya shook her head, stuffing her hands into the pockets of her hoodie. ''It's one hell of a story, but he's definitely not a ghost. He is HYDRA, that's how I know him. Went on a mission with the guy once. He's reckless, even more than Nat, incredibly strong and fast and has no value of human life. He kills because it's easy and doesn't have a stop-button. When I tell you the guy's dangerous, he's dangerous.''

They both listened in silence and with interest. Katya had never told Natasha this story, because the man had never come up. So this was new for her, too. Although she had probably guessed they worked together, since they had both worked for HYDRA.

Steve wasn't convinced by Katya's story and looked to Natasha for confirmation or anything that would tell him it was all true. ''She's not lying,'' she confirmed. ''Five years ago I was escorting a nuclear engineer out of Iran, somebody shot out my tires near Odessa. We lost control, went straight over a cliff, I pulled us out, but the Winter Soldier was there. I was covering my engineer, so he shot him straight through me.'' Natasha pulled up her shirt to show him the scar on her stomach. ''Soviet slug, no rifling. Bye-bye bikinis,'' she smirked.

Katya remembered that mission in great detail. Even though she hadn't been there, the stress and worry of seeing her in so much pain and covered in so much blood sat fresh in her mind. It had been a solo mission for Natasha, which Katya didn't like. Nobody there to watch her back. And she had come back early with a nasty gunshot wound in her stomach. It was shot straight through, and penetrated a couple organs. It was a miracle she didn't bleed to death. 

''Yeah, I bet you look terrible in them now,'' Steve retorted sarcastically, staring a little too long at the scar for Katya to be comfortable. 

''She doesn't,'' Katya interrupted. ''She looks very hot in them.''

Natasha rolled her eyes and a hint of a smile played on her lips as she dropped the shirt down. ''Going after him is a dead end. I know, I've tried.'' She held up the flash drive for Steve to see. Where did she get that thing from? ''Like you said, he's a ghost story.''

Steve grabbed the drive quickly, before she could take it away again. ''Well, let's find out what the ghost wants.''