A/N: A story told in four parts. Enjoy.


Part One | To the Emergency Exit Door


You're a fool, James.

His father's favourite words. Ever since he was a young boy, truly too foolish to know any better, his father made it his mission to let his only child know how much of a disappointment he was. He says them now, standing before James—nobody calls him James; his father really is so very clueless. You're a fool, James, he says.

He holds up a magazine from Europe. A tabloid. Grainy, dimly lit photos decorate the front cover. The words "President Barnes' Son Having Wild, Wild Fun" are written in bold, gigantic, yellow type beneath a picture of somebody who could only be James. Naked, a bottle of expensive scotch in one hand, a model's breast in the other.

"Well, what do you have to say for yourself?" His father's face has grown red. James—you're Bucky, no matter what the old fuck says—is more than used to this reaction. He hardly cowers in fear anymore. "Well?"

Bucky takes the magazine from his father. Behind the president, a man in a black suit stands rigid. Bucky sees his hand twitch. He raises an eyebrow at the secret serviceman. "Really? You think I'm gonna beat my dad to death with a rolled up magazine, Agent Smith?" he says, glancing at the cover one more time. It truly was a wild, wild night. There was a yacht, he thinks. Maybe it was a hotel room. Either way, the model hanging on his arm had been an amazing companion. "Look, Mr. President"—

—"How many times have I told you not to address me as such when we're in private?" his father spits.

Bucky wipes a spot of saliva from his cheek with the magazine. Could he murder his father with this thing?

"We aren't in private, though. We're never in private," Bucky points out, staring down the agent behind his father. "And you interrupted me. Mr. President," he continues, watching his father's skin turn redder than the blood moon, "I'm an adult. I can do whatever I want. I don't have to protect your image anymore."

Wrong thing to say. His father's ears are steaming. His eyes are bulging, about to burst forth from their sockets.

"An adult!" the president booms. The Oval Office shakes. Bucky awaits his verbal punishment. "Surely you understand the repercussions of such a debauched lifestyle! You're almost thirty! I could deal with these situations a little more when you were younger, but I'd have thought you'd be a little more mature"—

Bucky cuts him off with a bewildered laugh. "I am thirty. That's what I was doing in Europe. Celebrating my thirtieth birthday. Thanks for the card, Mr. President. Should have known your play thing of a secretary sent it to me."

Bucky sees it coming. His father lurches, hand raised. He braces for impact.

Someone in the room clears their throat loudly. Agent Smith, here to save the day. Bucky opens his eyes, not having realised he had closed them.

"Sir, the gala is going to be starting soon. We should get you to the celebration."

The president's colour magically goes from boiled tomato to bleached parchment in a split second. Smoothing his blinding, cerulean blue suit, he ignores Bucky and follows Agent Smith out of the room. Another agent, tall and dark and stone-faced, enters the room. His very own babysitter for the evening.

Gripping his own suit—black to match the other members of the Secret Service, a small act of rebellion as the invites called for any colour other than white and black—by the lapels, Bucky gathers the remnants of his sanity as best as he can before being led away from the Oval Office.

Last week was his birthday, today is his father's. Sixty years old. What a milestone. The man has been serving this country as its leader for nearly eight years. Despite being widely hated by about half of the population, he still manages to snag hundreds of celebrities and public figures for his birthday bashes. Bucky will never understand the hypocrisy of most people.

Usually, he does his best to stay away from these events. He hasn't lived in the White House since his father's first year in office. When he left, he had made an unspoken vow to never return. Of course, he has broken that vow several times. It's a difficult promise to keep when one's father is the President of the United States of America. Parties, Christmas celebrations, Easter celebrations, inaugurations, funerals . . . they all require Bucky's presence.

The secret serviceman, a new guy by the looks of him, walks ahead of Bucky through the extravagant building until they reach two large doors. Inside, Bucky can hear a rising chatter blending with some Beethoven. He smiles at the agent, who stares at him blankly.

"Cheer up, old sport," Bucky says, nudging the taller man with a closed fist. He could be imagining it, but he thinks he sees the agent's lip pull up briefly in a snarl. "Life's too short to be so serious."

"Enjoy your dinner, Mr. Barnes," the agent says calmly, opening the double doors.

Bucky stands at the entrance to a grand ballroom. It is dressed to the nines in blues and golds, the colours of his father's alma mater. Typical of him to hold on to his school days. Even the president had managed to peak at eighteen. Scattered around the room, either at tables or standing in huddled groups, are hundreds of specially-selected guests invited so as to not cause any trouble. There are people from the right—his father's dearest friends and advisors—and people from the left known to have a fairly open mind about his father's decisions.

Circular tables surround the ballroom. Expensive, glittering chandeliers are poised to drop down on everyone. A band is at the far end of the room, plucking on strings, blowing air into long tubes. Several older people dance to the music on the small stretch of space in front of the musicians. It looks like any of his father's parties. There are smiles on faces, but he can see the dread and hatred in their glassy eyes. All of these old, rich bastards have been so angry for so long, they've just gotten really good at shoving their feelings down. Because that's what men do.

Unless you're a Barnes. Then you wear that hatred on your sleeve.

Once enough eyes are on him—several pairs slip to the fly of his slacks, proving that the European tabloids really do circulate Stateside nowadays—Bucky wanders through the doorway, knowing his bodyguard is not too far behind. He winks at several of the women sitting nearest the doors. They bow their heads and cover their wrinkled smiles with gloved hands.

"You are sitting up front, Mr. Barnes," his guard says, low, as they make their way through the bustling crowd.

Bucky nods, his eyes catching on a woman sitting by the band to the left of the room. She is young—no more than 25. Dressed in a long, black gown, her skin glows in the golden light of the room. Dark waves of her hair flood her shoulders and her red lips are pursed as her glimmering blue eyes survey the room. She looks bored. He stops walking, ignoring the agent behind him telling him to keep moving. He waves the man off and veers off course, heading right for the woman in black.

His shadow follows close—Bucky can almost feel his breath on the back of his neck—but he ignores the agent, as he always does when he's at these events, and snags a free chair at the empty table where the woman sits. She doesn't startle. Her eyes, which really are blue, like the Grecian oceans he is so fond of, slink in his direction, but she doesn't seem put off by his presence in the least. It is as if she was expecting him to come over to her. As if this chair was turned outward by her for the sole purpose of getting him to abandon his original path.

Or, perhaps she doesn't know who he is. Yes, that must be it.

"Are you lost, Mr. Barnes?"

Bucky's head cocks slightly to the right as her sultry, uninterested voice caresses his ears. His name pours out of her mouth like a magic spell. He is hypnotised for a moment as their eyes meet. He feels himself blinking like a fool, his jaw slack and his neck bent.

She knows who he is, then.

Behind him, he hears his babysitter cover a laugh with a small coughing fit. It is enough to jerk him out of his trance.

"I'm right where I need to be," he says, recovering quickly.

The woman doesn't smile. She doesn't bat her pretty eyes and laugh coyly. Her full mouth remains in a line.

Bucky is not shallow enough to think every woman must fall at his feet. Many do, of course. He has been on magazine covers and tabloid covers since his father's presidency began. Before that, in their home state of New York, he was known as Senator Barnes' son and he was constantly approached by women young and old trying to get their very special fifteen minutes. But he knows his acts of rebellion are not for everybody. He has been called various names by feminist organisations, even though, despite his womanising ways, he does identify as a feminist. He has been bashed by news anchors and Instagram commenters for what they call Extreme Daddy Issues and White Privilege Asshattery.

But she did call him over here, of that he is certain. Why, then, is she acting as if he has horrendously invaded her personal space?

"Don't you need to be up there," she says. She points a silvery blue-tipped finger to where his father's table is at the front of the room.

Bucky looks over to a group of old, white men sit huddled in conversation. His father's advisors and closest friends. The Puppeteers, as Bucky likes to call them. They are the ones whispering in the President's ear, coercing him into signing all of those laws and bills and other various documents that tiptoe on infringing on the rights of the American people.

He hates all of them. Has done since he first met them. They are the devil's henchmen. Peel back their wrinkly, liver-spotted skin and you'll see only fire.

Returning his focus to the nameless woman beside him, Bucky grabs the glass of red wine at the place setting and takes a large sip. The sweet, dry alcohol burns his throat. He has always hated the taste of wine.

"I am right where I need to be," he says easily, turning up the left half of his mouth.

"Actually, Sir, I do need to get you up there," the agent pipes in his monotonous voice.

Bucky doesn't bother looking at the man. He keeps his focus on the woman in black. "I'm fine where I am, old sport. Run along."

"Oh, I think you should listen to the nice Serviceman, Mr. Barnes," she says, glancing to the side at his babysitter.

"And why is that?"

A slow, dangerous smile glides across her face. "You might regret your decision to stay."

He likes this game. "Is that a threat?"

"Does it sound like a threat?" She leans her elbow on the table and holds her chin against her knuckles. That smile glimmers. Sparse red sparkles from her lipstick blind him.

"I believe it was meant to be interpreted as a threat, yes." He holds her gaze, struggling against the desire to lure her away from the table. She wouldn't agree to it. Not yet, at least. He has to bide his time. "That begs the question, though. . .what, exactly, are you threatening?"

Seconds tick by with no answer from the woman. The Woman—he feels like Sherlock Holmes. Finally he has met his match in female form. The obnoxious voices of the other people in the room invade Bucky's mind as he waits for her to speak. He is aware of the slither of fear steadily making itself a home in his gut. Her eyes have taken on a mischievous tint, the way his do when he is about to pounce on unsuspecting prey.

"You look frightened, Mr. Barnes," she observes coolly.

She sees right through him. This unnerves him even more. "I'm not frightened."

"Fantastic," she says, reaching inside her black, square purse that hangs on her chair.

She pulls out a recording device and a notepad. Flipping to a fresh page, she clicks a pen and presses a button on the device.

Shit.

The bodyguard has stepped away from the table. If he is not there, he is not obligated to tell Bucky to shut the hell up. Clever bastard.

Bucky needs to find an escape, but The Woman is speaking before he can make a run for it.

"So, you wouldn't mind answering some questions, right, Mr. Barnes? My name is Darcy Lewis and I am with the online political journal Women for Women. Could you comment on your father's recently proposed bill that, should it pass—which won't be difficult with how many republicans have seats in our government at the moment—would work tirelessly to shut down the remaining abortion clinics in the United States?"

Fucking hell.

Bucky's eyes slip closed. His head pulses and he pinches the bridge of his nose in an attempt to lessen the pain. This is not happening, he tells himself. The beautiful woman in front of you is not a journalist on the hunt for blood. But she is, and there is no way out of this one.

He opens his eyes to find the recorder level with his mouth. Darcy Lewis's expression is expectant with a hint of gotcha. Single raised eyebrow, smirk, slight tilt of the head. She is good, he'll give her that.

"We're waiting, Mr. Barnes," she says, waving the device like a magic wand.

"Come on." He grins, though the movement is awkward and painful. "It's a party. Let your hair down. Relax. Let's not talk politics."

"This is a party being held at the White House to celebrate your father, the President of the United States of America," the reporter says, her smirk flatlining. She raises an eyebrow just as the doors to the room open. Claps abound. The President has arrived. "Is this not the perfect place to talk about politics?"

Bucky drops his uncomfortable grin.

His whole life, ever since his father started up his political career, Bucky has been told to keep his mouth shut whenever someone asks him a question about his father's policies. It's been easy so far. The folks he hangs around with are more interested in his bank account and body than his brain. They couldn't care less that his father is the reason they have to pay so much in taxes while the rich get massive breaks. The reason they struggle to make minimum wage at good jobs. The reason universities have racked up costs because the government is giving them less and less money to fund worth-while projects. Those people don't give a damn. Mostly because they are in the boat with the wealthy son of the President. Touching on those subjects would be a bad idea, or so they think.

The truth is, Bucky is against his father's policies. He has been since he was a child. It doesn't stem from his hatred of his father—it is part of the reason he hates his father in the first place. The man is a reverse Robin Hood. He steals from the poor and gives to the wealthy. As much as Bucky enjoys a party and a night with an actress or a model, he knows the cruelty of his father and despises the thought of Mr. President treating the United States the way he treats his son.

He can sense Darcy Lewis thinks either he will remain silent or speak out in support of the President. There is no other option in her book—the situation is black and white. Due to the way he is portrayed by the media plus the way he portrays himself to the media, he is not surprised. And this is dangerous. He could spill all of his secrets and his thoughts on this proposed bill. Prove Miss Lewis—he doesn't see a ring—and the world wrong about him. After all, he did graduate from UVA with a degree in economics and a minor in politics. Everyone seems to forget about that part because it came before his father's election.

Thirty years of his life have been spent being controlled by his father. Maybe now is the time to stand up for himself.

"You look like you're thinking real hard about something, Mr. Barnes," Darcy Lewis says, pulling him from his own head.

Bucky looks up from his clenched fists. He has made a decision.

"You want my thoughts on this bill?" he checks. Darcy Lewis nods, surprised. A tremor of excitement runs through him. That rebellious spark he has been searching for since he was a kid and he used to steal the good chocolate from the top of the pantry ignites within him. "Okay, then. We live"—

—"Sir, I would strongly advice against this. The President is seated. You should be at his table."

Bucky turns his head. His babysitter has moved closer. His cold eyes are like fiery steel. There is an evident threat in his advisement.

Bucky will not back down. Not tonight.

"Thanks for the suggestion, old sport," he says, twisting away and readying himself to fully answer Darcy Lewis's question. She looks expectantly at him as she holds the recorder a couple of inches from his mouth. "As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted"—

But before he can get another word out he is interrupted again. Only it is not the agent assigned to watch over him that cuts Bucky off. It is instead an earsplitting blast that comes from the front of the ballroom. He watches the chandelier above the table in front of him crash to the ground. Glass flies at him as a burning blow of air rushes over his body, sending him backwards. He shields his face with his arms and hits the floor, just managing to avoid smacking his head. Darcy Lewis flies on top of him. Instinctively, his body turns them over so she is beneath him. He drags them both under the circular table, his ears ringing.

Smoke stings his eyes. He shuts them as another boom shakes the table above them. He can hear bloodcurdling screams muffled against his deafened ears. They are the shrieks of dying people. Of people whose flesh is sizzling with burns. Whose lungs are filling with debris and fumes.

He has to open eyes. He has to. Counting down from five, Bucky braces himself and springs open his eyelids. Instantly they are bombarded with dust and smoke. Everything around him pulses as his heart beats erratically against his chest—it hurts it is pounding so hard. Blinking away the wetness forming at his lashes, he tries to shake away the sirens blaring in his ears. He has to focus.

Bucky glances down. The journalist coughs underneath him. Her face bunches in what he can only assume is pain. Black and grey shadows cover her face, but there are streaks where tears have broken through the grime. He assumes he looks something similar.

The ballroom has gone dark. Emergency protocols have shut off the lights, but there are no sprinklers. There should be sprinklers. Through the sheer white tablecloth he is blinded every other second by the fire alarm, and if he concentrates hard enough he can hear the bell trumpeting above the howling partygoers.

"We have to get out of here!" he says when he manages to find his voice. He can hardly hear himself. His laboured breaths fill his nose and throat with smoke. The scent is acrid and burns his tongue. Enough to make him want to shut his mouth for good.

Darcy Lewis must not have lost her hearing, or maybe she can read lips. Either way, she nods hurriedly and mouths, how.

As Bucky deconstructs the movements of her lips, as the ringing in his ears dies down, there is a new threat added to the mix. Gunshots. They splinter and crackle through the air. Screams erupt again, louder and more pained than before. It is not a single attack, then. It is a full blown ambush.

If he wants to get them out safely, he has to know where the bullets are coming from. Moving through his paralysis, he reaches out and grips the end of the tablecloth. He lifts it very slightly. There are two gunmen at the front of the room holding large guns. Black masks cover their faces, but there is righteous anger rolling off of them. Looking to his left, he sees the emergency exit that will lead him and Darcy to the nearest safe room.

Bucky drops the tablecloth and ducks over Darcy again. Pressing his mouth to her ear, he says, "They're over by the stage. I can get us to the closest bunker. It's just out the door to the left. They won't be able to get to us there."

"But how?" she says, the words muffled. "How will we get past them?"

He can only tell the truth. "I don't know. Either we escape or we don't," he says.

Darcy nods again, fear in her blue eyes. He mimics the jerk of her head and gives himself no time to think of the consequences before crouching and grabbing ahold of Darcy Lewis' arm. He slips out from under the table, the tablecloth acting as a smoke screen for a moment, dragging a staggering Darcy behind him. More gunshots ricochet around the room. He swears he can feel them zipping past his ears. His hands and knees fall on splintered glass, but he doesn't stop until he reaches the emergency exit. Reaching up, he claps the bar on the door. It swings open. Getting to his feet, he lifts Darcy to a standing position and, his hand still glued to her forearm, bursts out of the room.

Halfway down the blue-carpeted, narrow hall, a man looms with his own weapon strapped to his chest. His face is also covered by a mask which crumples when he spots Bucky and Darcy escaping the ballroom.

Bucky's heart is in his throat, but, being the son of the President, he has been trained for these horrific situations. With blood dancing on his tongue, coating his tastebuds in a metallic tang, he lets go of Darcy.

"Stay back!" he warns loudly, startling the burly, gunslinging man.

Bucky picks up his feet and charges at the intruder. He slams into him. The large butt of the gun strikes Bucky's chest, knocking the wind from his charred lungs. He ignores the pain and shoves the man against the wall, using a closed fist to strike at the man's jaw three times before he hears a crack that strikes his battered eardrums. The masked terrorist squawks. His knees buckle. Bucky takes a step back and allows him to drop to the ground. He bends, tearing the weapon free. He uses the sharp butt to club the side of the man's head.

He is out cold. Still holding the massive gun, Bucky twists his head to find Darcy staring at him, her hand covering her mouth, her eyes bulging.

"We have to keep moving," he says, his throat constricting every time he hears a scream from inside the ballroom.

Darcy shrugs off her apparent shock and races to him. "Lead the way," she says.