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With a thunderous crash, Steve raised his vibranium shield and dropped from the sky, smashing straight through the curtain of rain in front of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s main entrance. He landed, got up immediately, and sprinted toward the underground parking garage.
Steve knew that if he ran around aimlessly, he'd be intercepted before even seeing an exit. If he wanted to get out, he needed a vehicleâpreferably a motorcycle, fast and convenient.
His reason for fleeing S.H.I.E.L.D. traced back to what happened the night before.
Because of Peggy Carter, Steve had gradually developed a somewhat unusual friendship with her niece, Sharon Carter. That part wasn't important. What mattered was that, with Sharon's company, Steve had spent the past two days catching up on the modern world.
That night, when Steve returned home, he found S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Nick Fury lying in his living room, covered in blood. Thenâlike something straight out of a movieâthe Winter Soldier, Bucky Barnes, shot Nick Fury dead right in front of him.
Before dying, Fury handed Steve a USB drive. It was because of this drive that Fury realized something was wrong with Project Insight. Someone had secretly encrypted the project using Fury's own authorityâand even he couldn't decrypt it.
Fury knew there was a problem and intended to delay, or even temporarily cancel, Project Insight until he could fix the loophole and uncover the truth. What he never expected was to be ambushed on his way to a safe house after reporting his findings to the World Security Council.
Severely wounded and with his fate uncertain, Fury still managed to find Steveâand he firmly believed Steve was not part of HYDRA. In fact, Fury's original target had been Clark.
But Fury didn't dare use a phone, and he didn't know whether Clark was even home. Since the Avengers base on Skull Island was completed, Clark and Diana seemed to spend most of their time there.
After careful consideration, Clark and Diana were ruled out, as were Tony and Banner. That left only Steve and Natasha in New York. But Natasha essentially lived inside S.H.I.E.L.D., and the gravely injured Fury didn't dare return there. Steve became his last option.
What Fury didn't anticipate was that HYDRA's assassins would appear shortly after Steve got home. With no other choice, Fury entrusted all his clues to Steve. He believed that as long as the information survived, Steve could uncover what was wrong with Project Insight and stop it.
After all, standing behind Steve were Clark and Tonyâand the New Avengers they had formed.
Although Steve received the USB drive from Fury, he had no time to check its contents before being forced to flee by HYDRA agents within S.H.I.E.L.D.
Fortunately, as a soldier from World War II with peak human abilities, Steve escaped the base using his vibranium shield.
"Looking for this?"
As Steve handed over the USB drive Fury gave him, he encountered Natasha, dressed in civilian clothes.
In fact, after Fury was attacked, the ever-cautious Natasha immediately sensed something was wrong. Fury was extremely careful by nature. As S.H.I.E.L.D. Director, he had faced countless dangersâand even allies found it hard to track his whereabouts.
An ambush outside S.H.I.E.L.D. was almost unimaginable. Yet it happened. To Natasha, that meant only one thing: someone had been monitoring Fury when he left the building.
Soon after, Natasha noticed that Steve seemed to be hiding something nearby. Knowing that Fury had sought Steve out in the end, she suspected whatever he hid was extremely important.
So after Steve left, Natasha quickly took the hidden itemâfearing someone else might find it. She understood her position clearly. No matter what others did, she was still S.H.I.E.L.D.
"Give it back."
Steve reached for the USB drive in Natasha's hand.
She didn't dodge. She let him take it. Natasha remembered the drive clearlyâit contained the data she had copied from the Lemurian Star two days earlier.
She hadn't looked at the contents yet, but she knew it likely held the reason behind Fury's assassination.
"I'm sure you know Nick Fury hired those pirates, right? And what exactly is on this USB drive?"
Holding the drive, Steve looked straight into Natasha's eyes. To be honest, he was still reeling. He had never imagined that S.H.I.E.L.D.âthe organization he wanted to protectâwould suddenly put a bounty on him.
From what he'd learned, the internal conflict within S.H.I.E.L.D. ran deep. Simply put, Fury had hired people to hijack the Lemurian Star, then sent another team to rescue it.
Steve suspected it was all for the USB driveâbut causing such chaos, even getting himself assassinated over it, seemed strange.
"I don't know what's on the drive," Natasha said, "but I know who killed Nick Fury. The Winter Soldierâa ghost assassin who's been active for over fifty years. I suggest you don't power up that drive. It has an auto-navigation system. The moment it's activated, S.H.I.E.L.D. will be able to pinpoint our location."
Steve frowned and looked down at the USB drive in his hand. If he couldn't open it, it was useless.
"I think you're forgetting something," Natasha added. "Besides being S.H.I.E.L.D. agents⊠we also have our own identities."
Hearing her reminder, Steve smiled.
He knew exactly how to handle the USB drive now.