Author's note:
As always comments, critiques and reviews are welcome and wanted. Also if you spot any mistakes or potential triggers let me know. Thank you.
Present Day- Montmartre, Paris, France.
Steve's knuckles bloom red. The skin is broken, raw and inflamed. Although he doesn't bleed from them, the moist welts shine. His hands clutch the steering wheel with unnecessary force, except the third and fourth fingers on his left which he leaves limp. I suspect he's sustained a fracture.
"You should get that cleaned up." I say.
Steve takes his eyes off the road to examine the damage; "I'm fine. It'll heal in no time."
I drop the subject immediately, feeling the awkwardness descend again on us. In the back, the Russian clicks away on a smartphone; biting the inside of her cheek. Every now and then Steve checks his mirror but not for cars. He waits expectantly for her to say what she's been chewing on from the moment we left the warehouse.
"I'm sorry." Steve sighs, glancing once again to the reflection of the back seat.
Black Widow raises a single eye brow still tapping the smartphones screen, "You shouldn't have lost it like that Steve."
Steve's gaze returns to the road, his nostrils flare.
"I mean, what were you thinking?" Black Widow continues, "You were playing right into his hands."
"I wasn't thinking."
"No you weren't." she lowers the smartphone, the screen's glow, casts white light onto her features from below, making her face a storm; a nightmare. "Greggory lied, Steve. He knew all he needed to do was mention Barnes' name to make you believe him. And it looks like he was right."
"Nat, he called me Stevie. There are only two people who would have- should - have known that. And one of them is me." There it is again, that exposed nerve ending, the hitch in his breath.
"It's like I don't even know you anymore. You've been acting so crazy over this whole situation." She says, her volume beginning to rise. "What? Throwing people off buildings is not really your style but beating someone to death is?"
Suddenly Steve slams both fists on the steering wheel. "And what was I supposed to do? Sit around and let him gloat about torturing Bucky?" He yells. "I'm not doing it anymore, Nat. We tried doing this SHIELD's way, and now we're trying it my way."
"Right, teaming up with a has-been Hydra agent. Who, by the way, we know nothing about except that she threatens people to get what she wants, is that your way Rogers? Is it really? Because it's not what I signed up for." She shouts back.
"And what did you sign up for?"
"I signed up-" but she can't find the right words to diffuse the situation. "I don't know. But I sure as hell didn't sign up for this."
"No, tell me, what did you sign up for Romanoff? Because I thought that this was your specialty? You're a spy, this is your God damn job description."
"Oh, come on, this is different and you know it is."
"Why? Because you're not working for SHIELD anymore? Because you're not selling people out to the KGB anymore? Suddenly you're not okay with doing the dirty work because you aren't doing it for corrupt organisations anymore?"
"Yes, I'm a spy that is my job description. But it's my job description. This is different because I'm not okay with you going dark-side on me. You scared me back there, Steve. And you know that I don't exactly scare easily."
Silence.
I don't know what to say. There is nothing for me to say. Although I think maybe this argument is my fault in some way or another.
Steve's grip on the steering wheel slackens his whole body appears to deflate as he lets out a heavy sigh. "I'm sorry Nat. It's just, Bucky made me a promise. And I made one to him too." Steve says, "This isn't just about finding him anymore, this about saving him."
The Russian is about to respond but she's cut off by a police car coming to meet us in a narrow street lined with vehicles. We duck into a gap between a sports car and a moped as the silent police car creeps past Steve's window. By fear, or more likely habit, I slide down the leather seat and turn my chin away. I watch the car disappear in the side mirror and only when it's gone do I sit up straight again. My heart hammering my ribcage.
The Captain asks, glancing over his shoulder as we pull out into the road again, "Are we nearly there?" For the first time I wonder what power he has now that we're far from American soil and SHIELD belongs to the past.
"We're close, take the next right." I reply but Steve cuts me off with a wave of his hand.
I follow his gaze to the corner of a street where the snow is piled high against the sloping curb. A figure stands in the doorway of a closed café with its shutters pulled down tight. The figure drops a clump of burning ash, a lit cigarette, onto the steps where he stands. He emerges from the cloaked doorway arch, stomping on the cigarette in an exaggerated manner like an actor on a stage. There is something deliberate about him, his movements and presence appear calculated. Was he waiting for us? How did he know we would be here?
He glides to the edge of the curb, hangs there like he's going to step out in front of the car to cause a collision, watching the car arch around the corner. His shrouded eyes it seems are boring into me. Like he knows me.
Though I don't know him.
I watch the stranger, like the police car, growing smaller and smaller in the mirror. He remains motionless on the edge of the curb.
"What the hell just happened?" Black Widow asks.
"I have no idea." Steve says, and after a pause adds "Let's keep moving."
We cross the courtyard of the old building quickly. It might be the early hours of the morning but lights stream from open windows above, aggressive rap music thumps like a heartbeat from an unknown source. No one sees us approach the main door.
"Watch where you're putting your hands and feet." I say, nodding to some cheap outdoor furniture, needles discarded under and atop the garden table.
Inside, the main reception desk is empty. Behind the counter are a few glossy magazines, a nail file and blood red polish. Without a word, I vault the counter top, catching the stack of magazines as they slip from the desk. Disappearing through a stiff door with its frosted window pane into an office overflowing with paper files in enormous filing cabinets. The keys are hung on haphazard hooks along the back wall. Most hooks are empty, others are smothered in dust. I pocket the key for room 19 and leave everything else in its usual state of disarray.
When I step out from the office again, Steve stands with hands on hips and head bent towards Agent Romanoff. When they see me, the conversation is cut off mid-sentence.
I nod, an indication that they should follow me.
"This is an interesting choice of hotel." Romanoff says.
"No police tape?" Steve asks.
"Bad for business to have the cops knocking on doors. A lot of drug dealers, gang members and prostitutes are based here, but the owner turns a blind eye to it. Bad money is still money." I murmur over my shoulder.
Down the corridor where the doors all look the same. Here, the rap music is muffled by walls and doors and carpets, and I remember with a sharp pang of sadness how on the first night here I couldn't sleep because of the noise. And how Bucky had stormed down the corridor, banged on the door and threatened some skinny stoner kid to turn down the god damn music. One flash of a metal fist and the music was clicked off, no force necessary. And not a single reminder followed. Apparently the kid had figured out the room we'd occupied was now empty.
Room 19. I slide the key into the lock but I'm stopped by Steve's hand on my wrist.
"I go first." He says.
I wonder if this is because he doesn't trust me or because he thinks someone might still be in there.
"Wait here." He orders and enters the room.
Black Widow follows him. There's a few moments of emptiness, and then some mutterings from inside the room. Finally, Captain Rogers says, "You can come in now."
Steve stands over a blood stain on the carpet, it looks like someone has been furiously scrubbing at it since I was last here. There's a strong smell of bleach throughout the whole room. The furniture has been put back in place, or pushed aside in the cleaning process, making the blood stain the epicentre and the furniture the rippling water.
The few belongings Bucky and I have between us have been packed into cardboard boxes. I begin to paw through them. The trash bags it seems are full of clothes, whilst the boxes include bulky items, such as my laptop. Poor old thing.
"The hotel owners must have cleared it out, there's nothing here that could point us to where someone might have taken Barnes." The Russian says stepping out from the bathroom.
I shake Bucky's bomber jacket free from one of the bags and pull is on, my hand instinctively going to the top pocket where he always keeps the rental car keys. This time though, there is no rental car, just a few used metro tickets and a hard candy I recognise as one from Bouchard's stash.
"Steve, what is it?" Romanoff asks.
Steve stands in the window, peaking past the curtains into the courtyard below. His eyebrows pull together, eyes fixed on a single point.
"The stranger." Steve says, "He followed us."
"What's he doing?" I ask, although I go to the window to see for myself. Down in the courtyard the stranger stands, like a soldier at ease, observing us with a bored expression.
"Natasha, see if you can get a good look at our tag-along." Steve mutters, his gaze unwavering.
She nods curtly leaving the room with a swish of her tattered satin dress. There's a moment of silence in her absence in which we watch from the window and the sentry stares back at us.
"He won't come up." I breathe and somehow I'm sure of this. "He's not here to hurt us, I think he's here to threaten us. Someone wants us to know that they're watching us."
"The question is, who is someone?" Steve frowns.
We're interrupted.
In the corner of the room, something clatters to life.
The printer shakes the entire chest of draws as it stirs itself from sleep. I move to it. Shifting a stack of paper so that I can see the control panel. A rainbow ribbon of colour scrolls across the screen, telling me that something is loading, loading…
"What does it say?" Steve asks.
Loaded.
"It needs paper," I reply. Gathering the sheets together into what resembles a neat pile, I slot the paper into place and press okay. A moment's pause and I think for a second that the printer's stopped working. But then it chews up the first leaf of paper hungrily and begins to print.
"What is it?" Steve asks as the first page is spat out, the ink still wet.
At first glance it looks like a page of advertisements, but then as more pages slide home into the tray I see that a news article is forming. Soon, the last piece of paper is chewed up and spat out, the article is complete. I take the whole wedge of paper holding it up under the dim halogen bulb.
The first page of the article is plastered with a photograph. An image of the paparazzi hounding a man in a pinstriped suit. A tattered baseball cap pulled low over his eyes. In the foreground a police officer attempts to shield him from the camera with an outstretched hand. A blurred palm facing the lens, so that we view the man in the pinstriped suit though the unfocused fingers of the police woman.
I hand the freshly inked paper to Steve. "It's a newspaper article."
He reads the headline out loud. "'MUSA Millionaire Boss Walks from Court a Free Man."
He skim reads the first few lines, his eyebrows pulling tighter as his eyes flit across the page. "Antoine Caillier. Know him?"
"Caillier?"
"That's what it says." He asks, flipping through the pages. "You ever work for him?"
"I don't think so," I frown, "But the name sounds familiar."
We're silent for a moment as Steve flips back to the first page and stares at the picture for some time. "Can't say I've ever heard of him either."
Agent Romanoff returns, she pauses in in the doorway, blocking out the hallway light, her shadow is cast long and low on the blood stained carpet. She asks, "Heard of who?"
"I thought you were watching our shadow?" Steve says.
"I was." She jerks her chin at the window, "but he left. He'll be long gone now. But there's something strange about him. We shouldn't stay here any longer than we have to."
"No we shouldn't." Steve replies, handing over the article he adds, "Ever come across someone called Antoine Caillier?"
Black Widow takes the file, shaking her head before she's even looked at the photograph. I get the feeling she's not the kind of person who would ever forget a name. Even still, her eyes dart across the page and linger on the picture a touch longer than necessary. "He's never come up on my radar. Do you think Barnes left you this?" her cat eyes fall on me.
"I don't know." Which is not a lie.
Was a clue likely? I think back to all the vague statements Bucky made about not being around and about finding Steve if I ever found myself alone. I thought that meant he'd done something…stupid, but perhaps he knew that someone was following us. Perhaps he had an inkling that someone had bad intentions. And, what, didn't tell me to keep me safe?
Or maybe he was just printing something out when suddenly he was ambushed. He was always going to the library in the dead of night; bringing back files full of faces in photos he thought he recognised. Maybe he's stopped looking in the library and turned his attention to online archives. Trawled through them all morning the day he went missing, thought he'd found something of interest, but was interrupted.
Or he might have even pulled the supply of paper from the machine intentionally so the printing would be delayed until someone refilled it, until I did. To leave me a clue perhaps. But if that was true, why would he leave me a vague message? I've never even heard of Antoine Caillier. Why lead me on a treasure hunt? With what aim?
It just seems...unlikely. Unlike him.
Although being rescued is much easier when someone is looking for you in the right place. And by that I mean, if someone was hunting us and only got hold of Bucky, then that means I was left abandoned, but free to find Steve. Becoming the messenger and means of bringing the two back together. So was this part of a plan? A grand gesture to Steve?
Again, it's unlikely. But still possible.
That's the problem. There are a thousand possibilities and without being the one inside Bucky's head, how could I possibly know? He's certainly clever enough to leave a clue. But just because he can doesn't mean he would.
It doesn't makes sense.
"Well, he obviously wants us to look at this." Steve says, taking the article from the Russian's outstretched hand and pocketing it. "So we will. Until then we go home and get some rest."
Home. A lovely thought. My home is lost where Bucky is, and where I'm not.
I can't stay here.
"You should go." I say, mulling over my options.
"You're right, we shouldn't stay here any longer." Steve nods, picking up a box full of belongings. "Make sure you have everything you need, don't leave anything behind."
"I'll be fine on my own." I shrug.
Steve's voice is matter of fact confirming what I already thought, "You can't stay here."
"Don't worry about… I can… I don't-" I start to say, but something in Steve's expression tells me that what's he's said is final. So instead I say, "Let me find my boots first, these heels are killing me."
We leave with the intention of never coming back, thank God. But I can't help thinking as I turn out the light that no one has mentioned the blood stain on the carpet.