WHEN RAEVANNA WALKED UP TO HER APARTMENT, SHE WAS SURPRISED TO SEE THAT THE DOOR WAS UNLOCKED AND SLIGHTLY AJAR. Instantly on full alert, she created a ball of black fire in her hand and pushed open the door with the other, stepping into the apartment with her defenses raised. The lights were off, but music was playing softly in the background from Raevanna's speaker. Raevanna couldn't help but be worried, since she remembered Steve telling her that Fury had been in his apartment in this exact same scenario before he was killed.

As Raevanna stepped into her kitchen, she saw the silhouette of a woman beside the counter. There was the smell of coffee in the air, which told Raevanna that the intruder had made herself some coffee. However, Raevanna didn't drink coffee, and there was only one person she knew who did.

So Raevanna turned on the light, blinking in surprise and lowering her defenses when she saw the familiar short, dark brown hair. "Blake?" Raevanna asked in disbelief.

Blake turned around with a grin, and Raevanna gasped. Her friend looked absolutely horrible. Her right eye was blackened and swollen shut, her nose and forehead were bruised and bloodied, and her bottom lip had been split and was covered with dried blood. Her clothes were bloody and torn, and Raevanna could see bleeding gashes on Blake's side and on her leg, as well as bleeding bulletholes on her leg and a puncture wound on her shoulder.

"Holy shit," Raevanna said, rushing over to Blake. "What the hell happened to you?!"

"It's not as bad as it looks," Blake wheezed, hissing in pain when Raevanna put her hands on Blake's ribs.

"Not as bad my ass," Raevanna retorted. Looking up at her friend, she guided her over to the couch as she said, "Come over here and lay down." When Blake started to protest Raevanna held up a hand to stop her. "Nuh-uh. Don't fight me on it, we both know I'll win. Now lay down."

Blake stretched out on the couch, wincing again when her back hit the fabric, and Raevanna gingerly touched one of the wounds, retracting her hand when Blake hissed in pain.

"When did you get these?" Raevanna asked.

"Couple hours ago," Blake replied.

Raevanna's eyes went wide. "And they haven't healed yet?"

"Nope." Blake shook her head. "These guys obviously did their research. They used Bloodstone on me, you know that's my one weakness."

Raevanna's jaw clenched in anger, but she said nothing about it. Instead she nodded and said, "I'll make you some tea, it'll help with those injuries."

She returned to her kitchen, taking down a mug and filling it with water. Then she looked up at Blake, who had pushed herself up to an upright position. "Who did this to you?" Raevanna asked as she stuck the mug in the microwave.

"Rumlow," Blake managed to say.

Raevanna whipped her head up. "Rumlow?!"

"And a couple other agents," Blake went on, then added with a dry laugh, "I was horribly outnumbered, I still don't know how I made it out of there alive."

Raevanna took the now finished mug of water out of the microwave, then dropped a teabag into it before opening her cabinet and taking down a few of the herbs she'd brought over from Elyon. "Why did he hurt you? What'd you do?"

"Despite what they think, nothing," Blake answered. When Raevanna frowned in confusion, Blake told her, "They... they blame me for Fury's death."

Raevanna gasped. "What?! You can't be serious!"

Blake rolled her eyes. "Rave, would I be here on your couch in the dark and recovering from being used as a human game of Whack-A-Mole if I wasn't serious?"

Raevanna sighed, dropping in the herbs before adding a little honey and walking over to Blake. "Alright, that's fair." She handed her friend the mug before taking a seat in the chair beside her. "But why would they think it's you, you were with Fury when he was shot."

"That's what I said," Blake said, taking the mug. "But no one listened to me." She took a sip of her drink, then gasped and muttered, "Holy shit, that's good tea. What the fuck did you put in this?"

Raevanna smiled. "Honey, lemon, and chamomile, as well as some ember mallow, ushe nut, rinnagon and puppigella leaves."

Blake frowned at her. "What are those last four? I've never heard of them."

"That's cause they're from Elyon." Raevanna returned to her kitchen, taking out a vial of the rinnagon before walking back to Blake and showing them to her. "They're healing herbs, they help with external and internal injuries."

"Huh." Blake turned over the vial in her hand. "What makes them healing..." She stopped, her eyes going wide when she saw the cuts and bruises on her arms and hands magically and rapidly healing themselves, and Raevanna smiled when she saw her face was healing as well.

"That's why," Raevanna said.

"Damn." Blake handed Raevanna the vial back and flipped over her hand to examine it. "I can see why you guys don't want to be found, there are so many people who would kill for this stuff."

"I know." Raevanna put the vial back before sitting down next to Blake. "Do Steve or Nat know about this?"

Blake shook her head. "I didn't know if SHIELD bugged my phone. I didn't want to risk it."

"Good point," Raevanna said. She nodded at her friend. "But they have to know. Look, earlier today I saw Nat by the vending machine, and she looked like she was up to something. I'm thinking that we can meet her there and ask her if she knows anything."

"Okay, but what makes you think she'll tell us?" Blake asked.

"She knows you didn't kill Fury, too," Raevanna said. "And she's smart, she'll know something's up when we tell her."

"Alright, fine." Blake nodded. "But I don't think we should go back right now, I'm not exactly the most popular person there."

"We're not." Raevanna got up and grabbed a few blankets, then handed them to Blake. "You can crash here for the night. I'll call Natasha, and in the morning we'll meet her."

"Raevanna," Blake said, grabbing Raevanna's hand as she started to leave. "You know if you help me, you'll be a fugitive too. You won't be able to come back."

Raevanna nodded. "I know. But there's something going on with SHIELD and its threatening my friends. So I have to find out what it is, no matter what it takes."

She turned and walked into her room, taking an encrypted phone out of her bag by the door and typing in the number. Then, she raised it to her ear and waited.

"Raven?" came Natasha's voice after a moment.

"Yeah, it's me," Raevanna said. "Listen, meet me and Blake at the hospital tomorrow morning, we have to talk."

"I was actually gonna call you myself," Natasha replied. "I was gonna say the exact same thing."

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The next day, Raevanna and Blake returned to the hospital. Both were disguised as regular civilians, but only Blake had large sunglasses on and her hair tucked under a baseball cap under her hoodie.

"This is really weird," Blake said as they walked. "I feel like someone's gonna see us."

"Trust me, they won't," Raevanna assured her. "I put a spell in that hat, as long as you're wearing it the only people who will recognize you are the people you trust."

"Oh, so you're the Genie now," Blake muttered jokingly.

Raevanna scoffed in amusement. "Don't be disrespectful."

Natasha had told Raevanna that she had found the flashdrive she had given to Fury inside the vending machine the night before — shortly after Steve had left. The redhead knew that it wasn't a coincidence that it was there, and so she thought that Fury had given it to Steve before he was killed. Though why, Natasha wasn't certain, but she did figure that Steve would come back for it, which was why she asked to meet at the hospital.

As Raevanna and Blake walked around the corner, they looked up just in time to see Steve angrily pushing Natasha into a room. Raevanna blinked in shock, then she and Blake rushed after him.

"Where is it?" Steve was demanding, gripping Natasha's hoodie as he forced her back against a wall.

Raevanna knew he was talking about the flashdrive, so she stepped forward and said, "Safe."

Steve whipped his head around to face her before turning back to Natasha. "What, are they in on this too?"

"No, of course not," Natasha said. "But she's right, it's safe."

"Do better!" Steve snapped.

"Where did you get it?" Natasha asked.

"Why would I tell you?" Steve retorted.

Natasha frowned. "Fury gave it to you. Why?"

"What's on it?" Steve asked.

"I don't know," Natasha replied.

"Stop lying!" Steve snapped.

"I only act like I know everything, Rogers."

Steve was quiet for a moment, relaxing slightly. "I bet you knew Fury hired the pirates, didn't you?"

"Well, it makes sense," Natasha said. "The ship was dirty, Fury needed a way in, so do you."

Steve shoved her back against the wall. "I'm not gonna ask you again," he hissed.

"I know who killed Fury," Natasha said. Steve fell silent, letting go of her, and she took it as a sign to continue. "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."

"So he's a ghost story," Steve said.

Natasha nodded. "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." She pulled up her shirt to show him the scar on the side of her stomach. "Soviet slug, no rifling. Bye-bye bikinis."

"Yeah, I bet you look terrible in them now," Steve said sarcastically.

There was a hit of a smile from Natasha before she went on. "Going after him is a dead end. I know, I've tried." She held up the flash drive. "Like you said, he's a ghost story."

Steve met her eyes, then took the flash drive from her. "Well, let's find out what the ghost wants."

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A few hours later the four of them were at the mall, with Steve and Natasha disguised as a civilian couple, and Raevanna and Blake by their side. Blake had suggested that they go there to open up the flashdrive instead of their apartments, and none of them had dared to argue, knowing that it was a good idea.

The four of them strolled through the mall. But only Steve was rushing, which caused Natasha to give him a look.

"First rule of going on the run is, don't run, walk," Natasha told him.

Steve huffed. "If I run in these shoes, they're gonna fall off."

They walked into to a Mac store to use one of their computers, then stood by one of the devices. Natasha took out the flashdrive, while Steve watched, and Raevanna and Blake stood guard a couple paces away.

"The drive has a Level Six homing program," Natasha told them, "so as soon as we boot up SHIELD will know exactly where we are."

"How much time do we have?" Steve asked.

"Uh... about nine minutes from..." Natasha popped the flash drive into a MacBook Pro. "Now."

Raevanna bit her lip, winding a lock of her hair around her finger. She couldn't deny that she was worried; for most of her life, she'd fought on the side of good, and for what she believed was right. However, now, with SHIELD becoming more and more complicated as time went on, she wasn't so sure what constituted as good anymore. Which meant that she might lose part of who she was.

"Fury was right about that ship, somebody's trying to hide something," Natasha said, snapping Raevanna out of her thoughts. "This drive is protected by some sort of AI, it keeps rewriting itself to counter my commands."

"Can you override it?" Blake asked.

"The person who developed this is slightly smarter than me," Natasha said, then winced and added when her friends gave her a look, "Slightly."

Raevanna couldn't help but smile. "Just slightly, huh? You sure about that?"

Natasha scoffed quietly. "Oh, stop."

Blake and Steve smiled at her words, and Raevanna chuckled to herself.

"I'm gonna try running a tracer," Natasha said after a moment. "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."

Suddenly an Apple Employee with long hair and a scruffy beard walked up to them. "Can I help you guys with anything?"

Before anyone could answer, Raevanna turned around, smiling brightly and grabbing Steve's arm as she said in an upbeat, bubbly voice, "Oh, no. My fiancé and his friends were just helping me with some honeymoon destinations."

Steve nodded cluelessly in agreement. "Right! We're getting married."

"Congratulations," the employee said. "Where are you guys thinking about going?"

Steve glanced at the monitor, seeing that the signal traced to somewhere in New Jersey. "New Jersey."

The employee nodded. "Oh." He then frowned at Steve, studying him intently as Steve grew nervous and became worried that he was being recognized. But then, the employee grinned and pointed at Steve's face. "I have the exact same glasses."

"Wow, you two are practically twins," Natasha said sarcastically as she worked on the computer.

The employee scoffed. "Yeah, I wish." He made a downward gesture to Steve with his hands, referring to the soldier's physique. "Specimen." Clearing his throat, the man then lifted up his lanyard and went on, "Uh... if you guys need anything, I've been Aaron."

Steve nodded gratefully. "Thank you."

"Specimen?" Blake whispered to Raevanna as the man, Aaron, walked off. "Of all the words he could've used, the one he chose was specimen?"

Raevanna snorted, lightly slapping Blake's arm. "Hush. It's not that serious."

Steve turned to Natasha, clearly worried about the time as he said, "You said nine minutes, come on."

"Shh, relax," the redhead told him. Then, after a moment, the signal popped up, and she said, "Got it."

The three crowded around her, looking at the laptop. Raevanna was surprised to see the signal was coming from their old army base in Wheaton — the place where it all began.

"You guys know it?" Blake asked when she saw the looks of recognition on Steve and Raevanna's faces.

"We used to," Steve replied. "Let's go." Then, he pulled the flash drive from the computer, and together they walked out of the store.

As they left however, he noticed several SHIELD agents — including Rumlow — coming at them from all directions. So he stepped closer to the others, whispering to them, "Standard tac-team. Two behind, two across, two coming straight at us. If they make us, I'll engage, you hit the south escalator to the metro."

"Shut up and put your arm around us, laugh at something I said," Natasha said sharply as two agents came straight towards them.

Steve frowned. "What?"

"Do it!" Natasha hissed.

Steve quickly put his arm around Natasha and Raevanna, burying his face in Raevanna's neck and laughing as Blake slowed down to make it seem like she wasn't following them. Once they passed the two unsuspecting agents, Steve looked back and removed his arms, and then the four stepped onto the escalator to make their way down. However, as they went down, Raevanna spotted Rumlow going up on the escalator next to them, so she nudged Natasha with her elbow before gesturing to the agent with her head. Then, she spun around to face Steve. "Kiss me," Raevanna said.

Steve blinked, shocked by her abruptness. "What?"

"Public displays of affection make people very uncomfortable," Natasha spoke up from her spot beside him.

"Yes, they do," Steve protested.

Knowing they didn't have time to argue, Raevanna didn't hesitate as she quickly pulled down Steve's head and kissed him, and Natasha and Blake quickly took out their phones and began pointlessly scrolling through them, making it appear as if they weren't doing anything. When Rumlow saw Raevanna and Steve, he looked away uncomfortably as he went past them on the escalator, and as soon as he was gone Raevanna pulled away.

"You still uncomfortable?" she asked, smirking as they stepped off the escalator.

Steve huffed to himself. "It's not exactly the word I would use."

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A/N: i 👏🏿 am 👏🏿 loving 👏🏿 this 👏🏿 book 👏🏿so 👏🏿 much 👏🏿 PERIODT 👏🏿

love y'all ❤️