The Soldier breaks into the house out of desperation, ducking below the countertops and hoping Hydra doesn't spot the shards of glass still hanging in the window. He takes a moment to pluck out the barbed tranquilizer darts and wraps a stolen kitchen towel around his flesh arm above where the sniper's bullet grazed him. Flashlights sweep across the back yard, illuminating the gaps in the window blinds.
The broken window is on another side of the house concealed by bushes. The Soldier tenses anyway, snaking a hand over to the knife block and grabbing the one with the biggest handle. He sits there for long minutes while the Hydra agents slowly sweep across the yard. They pass by without alarm and it could be a false flag but the Soldier exhales quietly with relief anyway.
The butcher's knife in his grasp, already shaking from the drugs and blood loss and adrenaline, dips lower even when the lights flare back towards the house once or twice as Hydra moves through the neighborhood. The Soldier lets his head thump back against the cabinets for minute.
That's when something cannonball sized yells a garbled mix of sounds and slams into his injured side, sending the Soldier tumbling towards the exterior wall off the kitchen. The knife is slammed out of his grasp and a small clawed hand briefly pushes against his face before the thing attacking him recalibrates and grabs at his body armor instead, pulling it to keep the Soldier off balance. He's shaken like a dog until he gets his metal hand a grip on the edge of a countertop, braces his legs, and bucks the creature off.
He gets an impression of blue fur and too many limbs, something thin and whippy smacking the Soldier across his eyes.
The Soldier flails his legs in front of him while he tries to blink through the stinging tears and sudden head rush as his already-tender skull protests another blow, trying to ward off whatever attacked him from leaping again. It's snarling in front of him, gibberish that would sound like words except it doesn't sound like any language the Soldier's ever heard. He hears the skitter of claws on tile a second before it yells again, a fierce gurgling noise. The Soldier uses the noise to guess at its location and swings blindly.
He hits and it goes tumbling away again, howling indignantly.
"Hey!" Something - someone, human, female - yells as the Soldier's attacker crashes through a table. The Soldier's vision is clearing of white spots and he tries to scramble to his feet quickly but his boot slips against slick tile and he crashes down again, head swimming.
"Stitch!" the female calls again. The creature stops fighting with the pile of debris it landed in and its howls quiet to angry grumbles.
The Soldier breathes heavily, tries to pull himself up again and fails to overcome the drugs once more. Something rustles in front of him. "Is that blood?" The girl asks. The creature inhales noisily and says something.
The Soldier's back slowly slips further down the countertops. His metal hand clutching the edge of the countertop is the only thing holding him halfway vertical and even that he has to release before he wrenches his shoulder out of place. He lands with a thud and a slide through the blood. His ears are ringing.
"Mister, are you okay?"
He knew this was coming – it was why he had broken into this house in the first place instead of escaping the neighborhood – and he can't fight it any longer. He feels his head slip to the side before his eyes flutter and roll back. White oblivion sweeps over him. He hopes Hydra didn't hear the scuffle.
"Mister?"
The Soldier wakes up in the kitchen with something soft propping up his head. He breathes in, exhales slowly. Then he flinches back at the sound of skittering claws quickly approaching. The drugs are still keeping him too weak to fight so he can't do much else than clench his fist as a blue-furred snout sticks itself in his field of vision, sniffing deeply. Its notched ears flick up to an alert position when it makes eye contact with the Soldier before it narrows into what's clearly a warning glare. It darts out of the Soldier's eyeline as fast as it appeared.
"Oh, good," says the voice from before. "You're awake! I called Jumba and he said we shouldn't move you while you were unconscious." The Soldier rolls his head to the side and cranes his neck to look at the girl.
She doesn't look old enough to own her own place but she's the only one in his field of vision. He wonders if Jumba is her father, and if so where he is if not at home. Her hair is tangled and she's wearing a pink fleece robe, so he guesses she woke up when he smashed the window downstairs. She's got a strange red radio in one hand and a glass of water in the other.
Unperturbed by his scrutiny the girl continues, "Stitch bandaged up what he could see without moving you, though. Those darts looked really painful. And you were shot with normal bullets, too." She frowns sympathetically. "Do you want some water?"
His mouth is so dry it hurts to swallow but he's not sure he trusts her. He glances down at his body to see indeed that various kitchen towels have been haphazardly duct taped to him. The scrape on his flesh hand he sustained while climbing through the window is instead covered by six band-aids chaotically layered on top of each other until they covered the whole wound.
"Sorry," the girl says. "Stitch likes tearing the tape off the roll more than he does doing first aid. We're still working on a couple impulse issues, but I think he did a good job." The blue creature – Stitch? – purrs from his crouch on the countertop halfway between the Soldier and the girl.
"I don't think you're going to die from them," the girl tells him. "You're the one people call the Winter Soldier, right? You fought against Captain America a year ago."
The Soldier can't help the way his body tenses. If she knows who he is, she's probably already called the cops – which means Hydra, monitoring communications looking for him – know where he is. A sniper could be setting up outside right now, preparing to shoot down the only witness before they whisk him away.
The adrenaline gives him enough energy and determination to push past his weakness and lurch into a sitting position. "Woah!" the girl tells him, sloshing the glass of water as she jumps at his sudden motion. In an instant Stitch is on the floor between them, crouching low and growling dangerously.
"I need to go," he says, teeth gritting against the agony of speaking past his parched throat. "Whoever's coming – it's not safe for you to be near me."
Stitch inches closer to the girl in a protective demonstration but the girl sets the glass of water down and puts both of her hands out calmingly. She advances a step despite the annoyed ear-flick of her companion. "I didn't call anybody to get you. Just – just a doctor friend so I knew how to help you."
He fights the relief as much as he fights to stay upright. He shouldn't trust her. "I'm the Soldier," he says. He doesn't understand; she should have called somebody.
"Soldier isn't a name," the girl tells him. "And everyone needs to have a name."
A name comes to the Soldier's mind but it is not one he knows – it's one someone else told him, whispered disbelievingly across a battlefield. He had seen another name written on a museum plaque but he still wasn't sure whether than one would fit him either. He remains silent.
"Hm," the girl says. "I think I'll call you Frank."
The Soldier chokes on his own tongue in his hurry to reject the name. He's feeling lightheaded again, like he's a spectator in his own skull. "No – uh. James. Is fine."
The girl cocks her head to the side and considers it. "James," she says slowly, trying it out. She seems to think it's a good match because she smiles. "Hello, James. I'm Lilo." Lilo gestures to the blue cannon ball still crouched defensively in front of her. "And this is Stitch."
Stitch's front legs remain braced against the ground but his back ones walk forwards until his rear end thumps into a sitting position on the ground. He cocks his head not dissimilarly to Lilo. Then he rears up on his hind legs, and hocks a loogie directly onto James' boots.
"Gross, Stitch!" Lilo cries. The blue cannonball creature mutters in that strange language James had heard earlier and circles away, always facing James while he climbs up a cabinet and pulls out a package of cookies.
Meanwhile Lilo explains, "You'll have to forgive Stitch, he's just protective of me." She props her fists on her hips in a motherly sort of way. "I think you'll be okay," she repeats, "though you should lie back on that pillow before you pass out."
He does so begrudgingly, feeling lost. Why is this girl helping him if she knows what he's done? She's right that he's going to pass out again, and soon. He has no other option than to trust her word that she's told no one about him.
Lilo smiles at him right before his eyes close. The image stays in his mind as her voice trickles through the last seconds of his awareness. "When you're awake again we'll see if we can get you to the couch. Don't worry about the blood. When we first got Stitch he ruined all the cushions in the house."