Chapter 2: Shadow Footsteps
RING!RING!RING!
Annaliese shock her eyes open in awake of her phone going off. She groaned and turned to her side to see the time on her clock. 5:30 AM. Who was calling her?! She snatched her phone off of her bed frame above her to see the caller ID. Steve Rogers.
"Hey!" His voice chirped.
"Do you know what time it is?"
"Yes."
The women rolled her eyes and slammed her body back onto the bed, she is defiantly not a morning person. "What do you want Steve?"
"Oh, I was wondering if you would like to go on a morning run with me?" She could hear the small excitement in his voice, "I'm going around memorial park."
"Fine, but this doesn't mean I'm gonna do this every morning." She declared as she sigh in defeat after 30 seconds of awkward silence. Annaliese could hear the small victory dance that Steve did in his apartment.
"Okay see in 30 minutes." He said and ending the call. Annaliese put her phone back up on the ledge of the bed frame and laid back down on her bed watching her ceiling fan turn clockwise in a slow hypnotic tune. Something was off. Like an giant elephant in the room knocking over all breakable things in her temporary apartment. It sounded quite, but the feeling was defiantly not quite at all. She close her eyes tightly in hopes the feeling would go away.
'James Buchanan Barnes!'
Annaliese sprang up from her bed, the feeling disappeared but she was even more scared than she was before. She quickly got of bed and began to pace her self next to her bed.
"I'm not going crazy." She whispered to herself through her anxious pace back and forth. "Just get dress and go running with Steve."
She scurried to her drawers in search of exercise cloths and socks, once she got changed she ran to her bathroom to brush her teeth and than ran to her door where all of her shoes were sitting in a color coordinated order. She slipped on the black pair of nikes at the end of the line closet to the door, and frantically ran out of the apartment. Every step felt like it was watched closely and analyzed to its maximum until she reached a lone taxi cab, and ordered the driver to drive to the main park of the city. Annaliese looked up at the window of her apartment when the car drove off, there was a dark figure looking out. She wasn't alone in her apartment. In the taxi she gave out a sigh of relief and safety once the cab drove away from the building and the deadly air was no longer in her personal space. At that moment she vowed not to come back to until the next following day. With all that's been going on with Annaliese, it felt like she was going crazy. The voices in her head, and the dreams of familiar faces. She didn't get it. Why was this happening in a short period of time? And why is it happening now? It felt like her entire world was slowly crowding in all at once and she felt like she was losing control.
"Ms.!" A deep Russian accent interrupted her train of thought. "We are here, 20 dollars."
"Right." She reached into her active pants pockets and pulled out a debit card, and slide it into the card machine. "Thank you."
Annaliese quickly got out of the cab, and put the plastic card back into her pocket. It was still dark and no one was in sight, Annaliese felt the need to call the taxi back and take her to work but it was too late. Suddenly she heard the sound of running footsteps, but she saw no one in sight. The city lights were slowly dimming out as the sun began to rise, than she finally found the source.
"On your left, Anna." Steve simply spoke running pass her walking form.
"Already running?" She yelled back in response.
"Catch up!" He stated.
All the woman did was laugh and begin to jog at her own pace, unlike Steve, whose pace was to sprint as fast as you can until you can no longer feel your legs. She than caught up to a man, he was frustrated and drenching in sweat.
"Hey." Annaliese greeted herself
"Oh Jesus, I thought you were that big blonde guy for a second." He stated while trying to catch his breath.
"On your left." Steve whispered to them as he zoomed by. Annaliese laughed that Steve was antagonizing the poor man who was trying to exercise in peace and keep his body in shape. The man just gave a glare to the super soldier as he sprinted into the distance.
"I'm Annaliese."She panted, "Xavier."
"Sam Wilson." They exchanged looks and shortly extended their hands to meet for a handshake as the continued to jog around the park. From there they ran at each others pace, and occasionally Sam grunted and begged for Steve not to repeat 'On your left' when he passed by. Annaliese only laughed and told Sam not to feed Steve of annoying him, and the fact that Steve was doing it for entertainment. Sam would only reply back and 'I know' and slowly return back to his own pace next to her, until it when the sun was fully out and people started to walk around the lake of Memorial Park, Steve finally took the final straw for Sam. Once came around the first corner of the lake, Sam took off sprinting.
"Hey Anna." Steve smiled passing Annaliese at her normal pace jog. She smiled and shook her head.
"NoNONONONO!" Sam started to yell as he heard Steve's footsteps coming up from behind him.
"On your left."
"AH! COME ON MAN!" Sam yelled out as Steve caught up to him and ran right pass him. All Annaliese could do was laugh, Sam put up a fight challenging himself Captain America. As both Annaliese and Sam reached for a stopping point next to a tree, Steve came to a stop.
"Tired?" Steve raised a brow as Sam crashed himself at the bottom the tree.
"How can't you be tired? You ran like 15 laps."
"I don't know, it doesn't feel like an enough."
"You should be ashamed of yourself, take another 15." Steve laughed at the man and looked up at Annaliese. She was stretching her legs and was being entertained by the conversation between Sam and Steve.
"I see you meet Lena." The soldier smiled.
"Lena? I thought her name was Annaliese." Sam remarked quickly.
"It is, who is Lena?" Annaliese smiled thinking it was some girl he had met not to long ago. "Is it your girlfriend?" Steve blushed.
"No, no. I meant to say Annaliese, but Lena just slipped out." He stuttered his words and turned red out of embarrassment. He felt like he was back to his normal self. The blushing, scrawny, puny Steve Rogers from Brooklyn, but it wasn't because of her teasing that made him feel that way. It was the fact Annaliese, looked exactly like someone he knew from his past. But he would never confess to her or anyone it.
"Yeah, sure." Sam teased him. "But yeah I have met Anna,maybe I can get your number at least." Annaliese laughed at Sam who was apparently hitting on her .
"Nice try there buddy, but your not my type." She turned him down while he gave her a confident brush off his shoulders.
"Alright, I tried. It's good enough that I got to ask a beautiful women for her number." Annaliese smiled down at the man than grabbed her phone out of her pocket to read the time. 8:54am.
"I need to get going, I need to be at work in 45 minutes." She lied. Work for her started in two hours, but the morning scare that happened she just wanted to buy some cloths and rent out a hotel room for a couple nights.
"So soon? Are you trying to get away from me?" Sam joked. Annaliese laughed and than looked up at Steve who was studying her. He felt that something was off, but never spoke out to her.
"Nice to meet you Sam," She patted Sam's shoulder, " see you later, Steve."
"Bye Anna." He spoke softly and gave her a quick hug before she called for a taxi and went to the nearest clothing shop in town.
It has been three weeks since Annaliese left the Stark Tower to Washington D.C. to help with Fury and Steve at SHIELD's headquarters. Fury offered her to take control of the medical bay at the facility since she was highly qualified for the job, and she would be running her own research for her genetic mutation. She denied the opportunity from Fury and instead applied at a local children hospital near SHEILD's main facility. Everyone seemed so surprise that she would rather work with sick children than the Avengers, or better yet Captain America. Though she didn't care. On a personal note it made her feel more human to work a normal civilian job than working with around the clock super hero's. Also having the title 'hero', didn't make her feel like one. Annaliese had that title for quite sometime due to her super human abilities, but she grown tired of it quickly and hated it after the San Francisco, Angel Island incident in 2006 when she 17 years old. It became quite clear to her at that moment in time; the world was never going to be ready to accept the oddities in life.
As the taxi began to stop when reaching her first destination, an expensive clothing store that somehow was open really early in the morning. All professional clothes and heels, and not a flat or sweatpants in sight. It reeked of stereotypical stuck up staff. Since Annaliese didn't want to talk, she immediately avoided the staff and look for clothes for work for a couple days. Several sheer blouses in different colors, two pencil skirts, slacks, three wedges, two nice tank tops. After the hesitation of paying $579 dollars, she went back inside the taxi and headed towards the nearest hotel. From there she was still able to make it the the complementary breakfast, go up to her room to take a shower, get dress and went to work.
Though nothing was moving at work other than regular check ups on patients, but she did pass time.
"Pleaseeee! Read me one more story Dr. Anna!" A little girl whined while hold up a book. "Or-or play a game with me?"
"That's enough Nina, you need to settle down. Dr. Anna has to work." Her parents ordered.
"Oh, I don't mind. It's been slow today, let's play some chess." Annaliese smiled pulling out a chess set out from the hospital room cupboard, "Black or white?"
"White! I wanna go first." The little girl happily answered while setting up her side of the board. "My favorite piece is the Knights."
"Why the Knights?"
"I don't know, I just like them." Nina giggled, " What's yours favorite piece?"
Annaliese smiled and study the board. "I don't know they all have so many purposes, knights can go unique places, bishops can only go diagonal, and towers can go so far but only left and right."
"And the Queen? Where can she go?"
"Anywhere she likes."
"Dr. Xavier, please report to the front office you have a visitor." A sour old lady voice rang out over the intercom grabbing Annaliese attention. Her and her child patient groaned on the fact she needed to leave.
"I'm sorry Nina," Annaliese got up from her comfortable position on the bed, "I have to go, it's good to see you too Mr and Mrs. Gomez."
Annaliese waved her goodbyes to one of her regular and favorite patient's, and slowly dragged her feet to the hospital elevator pressing the down button waiting for the doors to open.
'Lena, I love you. I always have.'
'Bucky.'
Suddenly Annaliese felt a strong pain spike through her brain, she quickly grabbed on to the metal bar in hallway to help patients with balance to regain her own. She than clenched her teeth and started to grind them together. For her it was the equivalent of being shot in the leg multiple times. Hearing the voices and images in her dreams quickly became normal, but this voice was more powerful than ever before. Quickly the pain in her head died down into a headache, and the elevator doors opened. Annaliese stumbled into the elevator alone, pressing the main floor button. It felt like hours for Annaliese before reaching the final floor with a killer headache getting worse. Finally she reached the final floor with only a person in her way.
"Annaliese."
A tall, tan, muscular man with dark brown hair approached the doctor with a cocky smile plastered on his face.
"Rumlow?"
"Annaliese, it's nice to see you again." He winked. "Anyway, your needed in the lab, I'm here to escort you to SHIELD."
She knew that he was lying.
"Oh no, I can go by myself, plus I need to clock out." Annaliese tried to shew off the agent.
"You don't have to worry about that, come on." His voice become more frustrated.
"No."
Rumlow towered over Annaliese backing her up back to the elevator and pressed the top button and forced the doors to close. She than acted quickly and kicked his knee cap in, than kneed him in the face. She than ripped her wedges off her feet and turned them into her only weapon. Rumlow got back up and with full force put her up against the wall, knocking the wind out of her. Regain her sight back for a split second, she was able to raise her arm fully and bring it down with speed and elbowed him in the face. The double crossed agent let her go, from there with all her strength. Annaliese prepped herself againist the flat handle bars and used both of her legs to kick Rumlow into the elevator wall.
DING!
The elevator opened to reveal the top floor with heavily armed gun men pointing their guns towards her, ready to fire. Annaliese exited the elevator leaving the unconscious agent in there.
"Annaliese Xavier." An elderly voice echoed throughout the level. "I must say I underestimated you. I thought I was gonna be in and out quickly."
Annaliese stared at the man who came out from all the heavy suited guards, he was small and looked like he was in his mid sixties.
"My name is Alexander Perice." He walked closer to her and stopped to the point where he was four feet away from her.
"What do you want from me?" She immediately questioned.
"You."
A gun fired from behind her, hitting her hamstring. She looked down expecting a bullet wound, but only to see a animal feathered tranquilizer dart. Annaliese pulled the dart out of her leg and looked up back at Perice. Then she fell into the deep dark abyss of her mind where she laid there not hearing a voice or a mind on earth.
Hey everyone!
Again sorry for the delay, but hey I'm finally a high school graduate with no money or job so im free until College starts. Also I do apologize for the spelling and grammar mistakes, I wrote this chapter from my phone and well aware that it needs to be edited. However, I did make sure that a friend of mine to get rid some of mistakes for me since I have no wifi and my laptop doesn't work.
Up next will be chapter three, and it will have brain washed Bucky in it. Please follow, favorite, and review. I do enjoy getting feedback, wether if it is positive or negative I'm still learning. Enjoy!
Love,
Rain.
