Author's Note: hey everyone! Due to illness, my beta couldn't get this back to me in time for it to go up on Monday but it's going up now! She finally managed to get through it, poor thing. Anyway, hope you guys enjoy this chapter and let me know what you think.

And for those of you who don't remember what happened last time, I decided I'm going to do a recap blurb at the beginning of each chap. Sort of like what they do when the narrator says "Last time on Power Rangers..." At least they used to do that when I was a kid. Don't know if they still do. Anyway, so this way your memory will get jogged and you'll understand what's happening. Okay? So let me know what you think of the chapter and I hope you have an awesome November!

Last Time on Once in the Winter's Tide: Tracked down by mysterious soldiers after trying and failing to make contact with Steve, a badly-wounded Bucky shows up on Sally's doorstep in need of medical attention. Before she can escort him inside, they are attacked by a man Sally calls "Westenra." Sally shoots him with a silver nitrate-filled bullet and then brings Bucky inside to stitch him up. The next morning Sally asks Bucky to stay around for a while. At first he is reluctant, until she reveals that Westenra is a member of a cult-like group she belonged to in her younger years who is after her and her children because of the way an unnamed illness Westenra infected Sally with in the past has combined with her biological children's mutant genetics. Bucky agrees to stay until the threat is eliminated.

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Chapter Ten

A Simple Life

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7 1/2 months earlier...

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It was beyond strange—like the world was spinning in a cyclone around him while he stood still, frozen in time. There had never been a time that he could remember clearly when he hadn't been on the move, sprinting from place to place after a target or back to his handlers, shuffled around like a ticking time bomb. And now here he was, trapped in this small town with the self-proclaimed Cake Boss of Whistle-Stop...because she and her kids were in some kind of trouble, and somehow, he'd fallen into the pitiless quicksand trap of caring.

Late summer on the east coast promised a punch of heat but only ever delivered misty chill in the early mornings, warm breezes in the middle of the day, and cool evenings after splashy, fiery gold sunsets. The Winter Soldier had endured vicious heat in the past—the Sahara and Mojave weren't exactly walks in the park when decked out in eighty pounds of body armor and incendiary gear—and he despised the cold with bone-deep loathing, but the weather was perfect for him to wear a jacket. He needed the long sleeves to hide his vibranium arm. Sally seemed to get it without having to be reminded; she never asked him to take the jacket off except once, to inspect the faint scars left from the wounds that had brought him to her.

Of course, Jack was never alone upstairs with her again except that one instance, either. He had no idea what would happen if he let himself be alone with her. He had now idea how she did it, but whenever they'd been alone before he'd taken off the first time, Sally had always managed to get his jacket off.

Now the assassin lay on a wheeled board Sally had provided and twisted a wrench to tighten up a leaky pipe under one of the sinks and wondered just what he was doing here. Playing Mr. Fix-It. A heater, two ovens, a faulty pipe in the basement, a busted garbage disposal and a dishwasher that wouldn't drain: all repaired thanks to the local hitman-turned-handyman. And now the kids kept singing this song whenever he picked up their mom's toolbox.

A high, lisping voice pierced his focus. Jack recognized the words to that song as Will slid in his sock-feet into the kitchen.

"..don't you worry, I'll jutht thhow you my amazing technique!
Now let me glue dat, glue dat and thcrew dat, thcrew dat!
Any random chore you got, well I can do dat, do dat!
Or maybe I'll just rewire your houthe for fun!
I got ninety-nine problemth but a thwitch ain't one!"

The singing abruptly stopped. There was a giggle, a rustling noise, and then the immediate warmth of a small presence hovering by the Winter Soldier's upraised knees. He didn't look away from the task overhead.

"Hi, Jack."

The corner of his mouth twitched. "Hi, Will."

"Whatcha doooing?"

"Last time I checked, you had eyes. What do you think I'm doing?"

"Helping Mommy and making it tho the think doethn't thpit on uth anymore."

"Good guess," he said with a final turn of the wrench. He thrust the tool out towards the kid. "Put that in the tool box and give me the duct tape." He just needed to touch up a couple things and then he'd be finished.

Will pushed the roll of tape into his hands after dropping the wrench in the box. "How long will the think thtay fixthed?"

He tore off a piece of tape with his teeth and put it in place, smoothing it down. "A while."

"What if it breakth again?"

"Then someone will have to fix it." Last piece of tape.

"You?"

Jack noticed an odd hitch in the kid's voice and tried to push away how it niggled at him. He knew what the kid was angling for; Will was smart. He liked having someone around, even if it was just on the periphery of his life. A not-really-but-close-enough-when-you're-four dad figure, the assassin supposed.

But no way was he raising Will's hopes. Once he managed to track down the men after Sally's kids and took care of them, got her out of the trouble she was in, he was out of there. He couldn't have a normal life. A simple life. HYDRA had made sure of that.

He offered a toneless, non-commital "maybe" and slid out from under the sink. "It's Saturday; go play baseball or something."

Will rocked back on his heels. "You wanna come?"

Jack got to his feet and hoisted the toolbox. "Uh...not today, bud, okay?"

He paused as the word echoed in his head and seemed to pulse in his throat. Bud. It had popped out of his mouth without conscious thought. Three letters. One syllable. A thousand ghosts of memory whispering like music, so soft he couldn't make out the words even though the melody hummed familiar and haunting under his skin. Flashes and phantoms...

The thump of a baseball impacting the thick rawhide of a catcher's mitt. The sweet smell of wet grass freshly cut and earth damp with the last traces of rain. Puffs of dust from a thick canvas sack and sunlight warm on the back of his neck and the thwack of a wooden bat. Bud. Here it comes, bud. Eye on the ball, bud. Good swing, bud.

That voice...rich and warm...so much pride in the words. Who...?

But he knew. His father. No, no, not his father. The Winter Soldier had no family. HYDRA was mother and father, both. No, the man whose voice punched him in the pit of his stomach was James Barnes' father. Another ghost in a sea of half-remembered faces.

The Winter Soldier shook his head to clear it and focused on Will, who still gazed up at him with a sparkle of hope in his dark eyes. Had the kid tried his oft-used "please oh please" tactic while the assassin had been distracted?

"Maybe later, all right?" A Herculean effort squeezed the feeble words from his throat. Will sighed and nodded before trudging out of the kitchen. Jack ignored the pang in his chest as he headed for the utility closet where Sally wanted him to dump the toolbox. The kid needed to learn. He wasn't Will's dad. He wasn't Sally's...whatever. He was only there to protect them and help out with some of the maintenance, since the local handyman had a death-wish and seemed to think Jack wouldn't break his arm for insulting Sally's mutant-genetics.

Of course he wouldn't. He couldn't. Jack knew he had to keep a low profile. But when Mr. Quintana came into the bakery with his snide comments and condescension, Jack had to wonder what the guy would've done if he'd known just who was staying in Sally's guest house.

But no one could know, or they could all end up dead. HYDRA was still out there and so was SHIELD. He couldn't take anymore risks. Not if he could help it.

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The problem with being on the run from not one but two—technically three, counting AIM—incredibly dangerous, highly competent, multi-national military-esque agencies was that the sticky tendrils of their spy-webs ran through the entirety of the internet, including the dark net. Which made it more than a little difficult for the average Joe to do a search if they were trying to stay off any intelligence agency's rader.

Bucky Barnes, the Winter Soldier, wasn't anything close to the average Joe, but he was still having some problems. He'd scoured the net, delving into government databases, eviscerated what websites he could without tripping alarms...but he hadn't found a single byte of data about Luke Westenra or any known associates.

That guy...he was lucky Sally had shot him a few weeks ago, or Jack would've been hard pressed to keep himself from indulging in a little retribution. Westenra had come after Jack's landlady and her innocent kids, probably to experiment on them, and that was after he'd infected Sally with...

Actually, Jack thought, setting his laptop on the kitchen counter in the guest house, he didn't know what Sally had. Not one-hundred-percent. A muscle in his jaw flexed as he filled a glass with hot water and knocked it back like a vodka shot. She'd started to say H-something, and he'd gotten a pretty good idea. HIV. What kind of sick person deliberately infected their lover with HIV? And didn't that mean Will and Lori had it, too? Jamie and Becky weren't Sally's biological kids, but the little ones...Westenra had probably made them sick too. Sally...little Lori...Will...

The glass shattered in the assassin's grip. Jagged pieces tinkled against the marble countertop and the tile floor. He stared at his hand, at the slivers embedded in his fingertips and palm drawing tiny drops of scarlet blood. He hadn't even realized what he was doing until the glass had crumbled in his grip.

"Jack?" The front door swung open soundlessly. The doorknob knocked against the opposite wall. Sally's voice echoed off the tiles, concern softened by uncertainty. "You in here?"

He slammed the laptop closed with his uninjured hand. She couldn't guess what he was up to. It wouldn't...it wouldn't be right to burden her with the knowledge of what he meant to do if he could manage it.

Westenra's associates posed a danger to Sally and her family. Obviously that danger had to be eradicated. But even though she'd shot Westenra without flinching, Jack hesitated to test whether his landlady would look at him the same way if she knew he'd methodically researched and stalked the targets hovering just outside her orbit. Killing when someone had a gun on you was one thing. Premeditated assassination was something else.

"In here," he called, and grabbed a paper towel to blot the blood. Didn't want her to start fussing over him. Eventually he'd have to kill Westenra's cohorts—the one Sally called Danica and her nameless brother—out of self-preservation; Sally's kindness was making him soft.

She trudged into the kitchen, a wraith in the dimness from the single low-watt bulb over the stove. A slouchy, black sweater dulled her usually warm skin to dust-and-ashes, and her eyes held exhausted shadows.

Dark brows drew together at the sight of her. "You all right, Sally?"

"I was going to ask you the same thing, actually. I stopped by to talk to you and then I thought I..." The words died away into shadow as her gaze zeroed in on the blood seeping into the wadded-up paper towel from the cuts on his palm and fingers. Her nostrils flared. "You're hurt."

He shook his head. "I broke a glass; it's nothing. I'll replace it or work it off—"

"You're bleeding." She took a single step toward him. Hovered, hesitation tugging her back so that she wavered a little. Her eyes stayed fixed on his injured hand as she rubbed her knuckles along her jaw, almost as if it ached. "You need to...to get the glass out."

A negligent shrug. "Haven't had time to find the first-aid kit—"

"I'll get it," she mumbled, spinning on her heel and hurrying down the hall. Jack leaned a hip against the counter and listened to the sound of plastic rattling inside a container and a slamming door. Sally shuffled back into the kitchen and clunked the large, plastic box of first-aid supplies on the counter. Fine tremors shivered through her hands as she opened the box and withdrew tweezers, disinfectant, gauze, and medical tape.

"Sally," he said sharply. Her gaze darted to his face. "I'm serious. Are you all right? You look a little..."

"Under the weather?" One shoulder came up in a half-shrug as set his hand palm up on a paper towel on the counter. "I'm not feeling well today. I'm okay, though. Thanks for getting the sink last week, too. I really appreciate all the work you do around here." She stopped to lean hard against the counter, pressing her fist to her forehead just above the bridge of her nose. Her lashes made dark copper crescents against the freckles on her cheeks in the dim stove light. "Ohhh, boy." She blew out a long, slow breath. "Sorry. I can get this."

"Don't you need better light?" He asked as she picked up the tweezers and carefully plucked a sliver of glass from the fleshy pad of his thumb.

Sally shook her head and snagged another bit of glass from the heel of his palm. "I can see."

A nervous flick of pink tongue poked between her lips at the corner of her mouth. She was breathing through her mouth, he realized. Shallow breaths that seemed to clutch in her throat. Her hands shook when she dropped the glass bits on the paper towel, but they held steady when the tweezers touched his skin.

"You take that medicine you need yet?" Jack asked after several long moments of silence broken only by her breathing. She shook her head and blew a stray lock of frizz out of her face. Her coke-bottle glasses had slid down the bridge of her nose, but she managed to push them back up with her wrist. "Is that why you're not feeling well right now?"

Irritation sighed from between barely parted lips as she narrowed her eyes. They looked odd, washed out in the dimness. The last slice of glass plucked free from his skin with a deft flick of Sally's wrist. A small smile tugged at her mouth.

"Gotcha. You should run that under cold water."

He didn't raise an eyebrow, bu the instructions felt off. Hot water was ideal for disinfecting wounds. Cold water didn't do anything for injuries; its only use was cleaning blood out of clothes.

She'd probably mispoken.

Silver steam drifted up from the gushing stream of hot water when he turned on the faucet. Sally froze in the act of cleaning and putting away the medical tools she'd used on him. A feverish light gleamed in her eyes and she braced her hands against the counter, leaning hard as if her legs might suddenly mutiny and fold beneath her at any moment. Her breath came shallow and quick.

"Sally?"

She bent nearly in half at the waist, pressing her forehead to the cool marble countertop. Her ponytail bobbled and poofed against the back of her neck and wisps of curly auburn hair stuck to her temples, plastered by a sudden sheen of sweat. "It's just...the steam. Makes it hard for me to breathe. I'm okay, I just...I just need some air. Excuse me."

Shoving away from the counter, she wobbled out into the hall. The door slammed against the wall but didn't shut behind her. Only with his serum-enhanced senses did he catch the chirping of bluejays and the muffled thump of Sally's body slumping to the porch.

Jack quickly washed the tiny wounds out; they'd already stopped bleeding and begun to scap over by the time he washed his hands, thanks to the super-soldier serum in his veins. He moved quickly and silently down the hall to the door out of habit; the carelessness of making stray sounds had been drilled out of him by Pierce and his predecessors over more than a decade of training and even more decades of brutal reinforcement. The assassin swore he moved as silent as a shadow, and yet Sally's head was up, eyes on the doorway when he stepped into view through the doorframe.

She'd heard him. Somehow.

"You all right?" Her color looked better; less ash-gray and more warmth and life. Her eyes didn't gleam as sick as they had in the shadows and the breath moved more easily in her chest. She'd yanked out her scrunchy so her curls fell in diaphanous, coppery-bronze waves around her shoulders. "You looked like you were about to faint."

She shook her head. The smell of chocolate and baking sugar tickled his nose. "No. I'm okay. Sorry about that. I just need to take my medicine. I normally do it when I get up but I got distracted, had to pull a nickel out of Lori's nose."

A small laugh escaped him. "Why did she have...?"

"Because she's two," Sally replied, smiling. "And then Jamie needed my help figuring out how to make his cereal-box harmonica work—cheap piece of junk, but he thinks it's amazing—which took me a century and somehow the toothpaste got put up on the high shelf so Will couldn't reach it and he tried to brush his teeth with the cake frosting in the fridge...Mom stuff," she concluded, shaking her head again. "Ay yai yai. Mixed with work because the show must go on. I was about to deal with it when Jamie reminded me that I needed to ask you a question and I knew I'd forget—I've been forgetting all week—so I figured I'd talk to you first and then take my meds. Bad idea."

He leaned against the doorframe, forcing some of the tension out of his body. She was okay, and the sooner he dealt with whatever she wanted, the faster he could get off the front porch and back into the guest house—and out of sight of the main road, just visible beyond the bakery.

But the idea Sally had a question for him prickled along the back of his neck, an uneasy knowledge. Even her most innocuous questions tended to be problematic.

"What did you need?"

She propped her arms on her updrawn knees and leaned against the porch railing. "We were planning on going on a picnic tomorrow. Not really a picnic because it's just at the grassy lot over there," she brushed long, careless fingers in the direction of the empty, grassy space where the kids liked to play Frisbee with the dogs.

At the moment, Will romped with their clumsy Golden Retriever, Dug, and Chance, the white and brown bulldog. Every few minutes he yelled, "Dug, squirrel!" And the big yellow dog would bound off across the lot after nothing. Becky sat underneath the single, skinny willow tree, plucking leaves off one of the vines and placing them carefully in a pile next to a white puddle of something Jack knew was probably Starbright, their cat. Jamie was most likely inside keeping an eye on Lori.

"So it's more like a cheap, life-hack picnic," Sally continued. "But we sometimes have lunch out there when the weather's good, now that it's getting warm enough. Jamie thought we should invite you. I wasn't sure you'd be okay with it, I know you like your privacy. And you're in no way obligated to come. I can explain it to the kids. But...well, honestly? It's depressing, imagining you eating out here all alone like an ugly old hermit, talking to the lamp."

His lips twitched. "I promise I don't talk to the lamp."

"Or your rifle," she said with a quirked brow and a small smile. "Yeah," she added when his eyebrows shot up. "I know you have a rifle in there. I can smell the gunpowder."

"You know I carry a handgun."

"Different powder. Synthetic, high-quality, finely ground—I'm assuming ground by hand for extra kick. Smells like Pyrodex RS. That's used for rifles and shotguns. Grinding it ultra-fine, usually used to give extra mileage to a hunting rifle. Since, you know, military-issue sniper rifles are illegal for civilians to own."

Tension whipped across the Winter Soldier's shoulders and ice spilled like cold blood down his spine. He stared at the woman lounging on the porch in front of him, all laziness and relaxation now that her little pseudo-fainting spell had passed. Her gaze never wavered from his as frenetic energy crackled in his veins and the hair prickled at the nape of his neck.

Enemy, his training screamed. Danger. Too much, she knew too much. How did she know these things? How did a twenty-something baker, a widowed mom of three who spent all her time frosting cupcakes and baking pies, know about gunpowder?

He didn't run his fingers through his hair because that would show he was nervous, uncertain, and uncertainty was punished. Phantom electricity bit into the flesh over his ribs and he had to clench his jaw and fix his gaze a thousand yards away, emptying his face of any emotion. He could still taste the bitterness of plastic in his mouth as the shock jolted through his blood, snapping his teeth together, locking his muscles in taut agony.

"Why do you do that?" He managed to bite out from between gritted teeth. Sally's brows twisted together and she shook her head, baffled. "Why do you say things like that? You give everything away—"

"Why would I hide it from you?" The soft, puzzled question pierced the haze of foundless resentment and worry-mixed-with-rage sizzling under his skin. He stared at her. "Why does it bother you that I trust you?"

Was that what it was? A sign of her trust? Not her way of needling him that she knew things about him he didn't want her to know, but letting him know things about her that were secret, special...The difference, the assassin realized, between flashing a glimpse of a weapon to let an enemy know you were armed and and dangerous, and giving your new partner your clutch piece.

He let himself rub the back of his neck. "I didn't..."

"Think about it like that," she finished. He sighed. "It's okay. When your brain's been working a certain way for a long time, it takes awhile to rewire it. Trust me, I know. After getting away from Westenra, Dani, and them...if it hadn't been for Dex and King and their friends, I'd still be messed up. But I trust my powers, and they say I can trust you." She shrugged. "So...invitation's on the table. You wanna come eat with us tomorrow? And can you help me off the ground? I'm stuck."

Without thinking he offered his vibranium hand, sheathed in its customary black glove. A thin line of silvery metal peeked between the bottom of the glove and the hem of his jacket sleeve. He hesitated, briefly considered pulling it back. Decided it would draw more attention to the thing than he wanted. So he just pulled her slowly to her feet. Put a hand on her shoulder when she wavered a little.

"You going to be all right?" He asked. She nodded. Eyes the color of aged honey flicked to his face before dropping to settle at his jaw. Sally's expression softened. A quiet dreaminess filled her gaze. "Sally?"

She didn't say anything. Only stepped closer, a single shuffle closing the handful of inches between them. The scent of her, sunlight and sugar, whispered through the air between them. Slowly, as if in a dream, one hand drifted up and the very tips of her fingers alighted as soft as butterfly wings on the edge of his jaw. A spark jumped and snarled across his skin. Heat radiated out from her touch, thawing some of the ice that always chilled his veins. Nothing cruel about this. Nothing dangerous, even though every instinct clamored at him. HYDRA thinking, HYDRA lies. Sally wouldn't hurt him.

But why was she touching him like this? The blood pulsed in her fingertips, he could feel the steady drum of her heartbeat through the two small pinpoints of heat searing his skin. Why was her heart pounding? His own seemed almost unnaturally slow, the rhythmic percussion eerily similar to that moment of odd stillness when he stared down a sniper scope just before he squeezed the trigger.

Her skin was so warm. Almost feverish. He didn't remember her feeling this hot that time they'd slow-danced in the bakery to Ella Fitzgerald. A mistake, one he'd shoved far off into the furthest reaches of his mind because it did no one any good to think about the way her head had drifted down to his shoulder and his jaw had settled against her temple, the warmth of her breath on his neck and the weight of her hand in his.

Why was he thinking about this? Why was she doing this?

A shadow shifted in Sally's eyes and her gaze sharpened. A strange wanting glinted in the depths of her eyes. Her teeth sank into her bottom lip as she came just a touch closer. Too close. The air hummed between them. Instinct roared for him to back up, reach for a weapon. Someone wanting things from him was dangerous. Potentially deadly. But the scents of baking and simplicity kept him rooted in place.

Her breath shushed softly against his chin. Wisps of her hair, tugged by the wind, caught in the rough stubble on his face. The aroma of vanilla and warm chocolate surrounded him.

He didn't know where the insanity behind the words came from—they filled his mind, crawled up his throat, tripped off his tongue—but some half-crazy impulse choked him into mumbling, "I can go with you tomorrow. Sure."

Sally jerked back from him like he'd jabbed her with a needle. Her eyes widened, darting between his face and his jaw and back again. She ran a hand through her hair and took three jerky steps backward.

"You have a little bit of..." She gestured spastically at his face. "In your...scruff."

Surprised, he smoothed a hand over his cheeks and chin. The stubble he used as a partial disguise scraped against his palm. A single bit of glass hit the shoulder of his jacket with a soft thp! noise. He swiped at it and it fell to the porch. When he looked up from where it had fallen, Sally was already halfway down the porch steps. She hurried toward the bakery on unsteady legs, mumbling a hasty goodbye as she walked away.

Jack watched Sally leave, ignoring the prickle of unease because he was standing out in the open. He didn't go back inside until the bakery door jingled shut after her. He'd thought...well, he'd thought she was about to kiss him. Which would've been a mistake of phenomenal proportions. Sally getting that attached to him put them both at risk. He couldn't allow it. He couldn't allow any sort of softness or attachment to develop between them.

Which begged the question why he'd agreed to go on this picnic in the first place. But he couldn't back out. She'd probably already told the kids. If he canceled, they'd be all over him, wanting to know why. In the last three weeks, he'd remembered how the four of them managed to work in tandem to get their way.

He was stuck—for now. But this would be the last time. Then he'd go back to being Sally's handyman and solitary boarder. He'd keep them at a distance, like he'd always planned to. Like he should've been doing this whole time. He'd find Danica—whoever she was—and her associates, eliminate them, and make sure Sally and the kids were safe. Then he was gone again. Lost in the wind. A ghost.

She'd been about to kiss him. Only at the last second had she pulled back, looking almost...ashamed. Why?

Unfortunately he couldn't ask. Asking would acknowledge what had happened between them just now, and he couldn't afford to do that. Better to pretend nothing had happened. Keep things as they were—just friendly.

But he could still feel the soft warmth of her fingertips against the line of his jaw.

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The present...

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Sally Gardner hunched her shoulders at the needles driving deep into her eyes even through the heavily-tinted sunshades. Jack had picked the perfect pair. They couldn't control the symptoms of her disease completely, but he knew what she needed. He knew her so well...

But it had taken months of second-guessing, misinterpretation. Like that day on the porch when she'd invited him to a picnic with her and the kids. Later he'd confessed he thought she'd been about to try and kiss him. It had taken several weeks before she'd admitted what she'd really wanted to do in that moment, or what she'd done afterward when he'd snapped her out of whatever half-trance she'd fallen into looking at him.

Jack had watched her walk back into the bakery and assumed she'd gone about her usual business after dosing herself with her medicine. He hadn't learned until later how her hands had shook so badly when she'd filled the syringe she'd shattered the glass tubing twice, wasting two precious doses, or how she'd had to unscrew the bottle of ammonia cleaner from under the bathroom sink and take several long, burning whiffs to clear her head and maintain enough self-control to keep herself in the main house upstairs in her room where it was safest. Only after that and splashing her face with water so cold it almost burned had she been able to slip the needle into the vein at the bend of her arm and inject the translucent blue fluid into her blood.

After that, she should've backed off. Should've rescinded the invitation. Jack probably hadn't wanted to accept it, anyway. For all she knew, she could've been influencing him with her stronger powers since she'd been unmedicated at the time. But she hadn't. Being around him, seeing him look at her without judgment or fear or contempt...it had made her feel a little less lonely.

And she'd actually managed to get him to loosen up during the picnic, too, even with the setbacks...

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7 1/2 months ago...

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You didn't need serum-enhanced senses to pick up the thunderous drum of the rain attempting to beat the roof into submission. The Winter Soldier studied the display on his laptop, ignoring the solitary drip-drip of a leak just in front of the back door; a lonely, scuffed pot caught each drip as it plummeted from the ceiling. He'd have to fix that at some point. In the meantime, looked like the picnic was canceled. Even Sally's hellions wouldn't want to eat in the pouring rain. Which gave the assassin the chance for further research into Luke Westenra. This time he was exploring a new avenue—Hannibal King.

The guy had a rap sheet a mile long and not one but two death certificates—one buried under miles of red tape in Scotland Yard's oldest computer files, dating almost fiften years ago, and another in the New York City Coroner's database dating five years ago—as well as a private investigator's license. Counted among his known associates were names he vaguely recognized—Frank Drake, Stephen Strange, Eric Brooks, and (the only big shocker on the list) a former CIA agent, Tatjana Stiles.

Eric Brooks and Frank Drake were names he'd heard Sally drop before, but Stephen Strange had been on the Insight-Helicarrier's hitlist. He also served as a guest lecturer at Xavier's Institute for Gifted Youngsters, where Sally had attended high school. Tatjana Stiles had been dead for nearly six years. And the name Stephen Strange linked up in New York to three guys and a young woman, all in their early twenties: Daniel Rand, Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, and Peter Parker.

Peter Parker. That had been the name of the nosy kid with the camera Sally had recently hired the last time Jack was here, the kid behind the counter. The one Jamie and Will liked to play with. Sally had said he'd taken off, gone back to New York for school. New York, the residence of Stephen Strange, Daniel Rand, Luke Cage, and Jessica Jones. Jessica Jones had been on the Helicarrier's hitlist, as well, but the assassin had never been able to determine why. A sophomore in college, she had some background in researching gamma rays and the byproducts of gamma energy fusion. Interestingly enough, Peter Parker was her lab partner in Advanced Bio-Chem IV, and Daniel Rand was a member of her yoga class. All three of them appeared in a number of social media photos near 177A Bleecker Street, the address listed for Stephen Strange, MD and PhD.

How do you know Strange, Sally? The Winter Soldier wondered silently, clicking through various articles about the doctor. A former neurosurgeon who no longer practiced medicine after a car accident, Jack had never understood just why he was on HYDRA's list. The same with Jessica Jones. She'd barely bumped twenty when HYDRA had made their move to take control with the three target-locking Helicarriers. Did you know Peter? Is that why you hired him?

The doorbell chimed, breaking his concentration. His vibranium hand checked to make sure his Bowie knife was still strapped to his thigh while his other hand went to the pistol on the kitchen table next to him. Doubtful a HYDRA grunt or SHIELD moron would ring the doorbell, but better safe than sorry. Probably just some incredibly intrepid, possibly psychotic Girl Scout on the hunt for a hot score of pity-sales; who wouldn't feel sorry for a little girl standing drenched in sheeting rain?

He angled the small mirror he'd set up at the door to look through the peephole—a safety precaution in order to avoid a shotgun blast through the door and his torso.

Sally stood in a slouchy sweater, damp speckles sprinkled across her shoulders. She held a box of frosted plastic under one arm and a gallon-thermos in one hand. Jamie, Becky, Will, and Lori all ambled around on the porch, soaked with rain. The soaking didn't really matter, though, since they all wore swimsuits. Rivulets of water dripped over Becky and Jamie's arms and shoulders from their hair. Tucking the mirror aside where it wouldn't be obvious and resheathing/reholstering his knife and gun, he opened the door and raised an eyebrow at Sally.

"You do know it is pouring rain right now?" He asked as the kids scampered over to crowd close to the door. "What are you doing out here?"

"Well," Sally said, hefting the box, "it's raining like Armageddon out here, so obviously there's no picnic on the grass. So we thought we'd bring the picnic to you and have it inside. If you don't mind." She shot a look at her kids. Jerking her chin at them, she mouthed, They made me do it. Help me. Jack's mouth twitched. Aloud she added, "Didn't want to waste the food."

At that moment his stomach rumbled ever so softly. Quiet enough most people wouldn't have been able to hear it, but Sally's gaze sharpened and she shot him an expectant look. Indicated the box in her arms with a quick glance.

"And they're in swimsuits because...?"

"In case you haven't noticed," she said with a smile, "it's pouring out. And the secret tunnel connecting the guest house and the bakery is for emergencies only."

"Uh-huh." Was she joking about a secret tunnel? He'd found nothing during his original search of the premises. "And you managed to stay dry how?"

She grinned, flashing very white teeth. "I'm epic. Duh. Now you want this box of gloriousness or not?"

"I'll take the box," he said.

Her eyebrows quirked. "Of gloriousness?"

"Do I really have to say that?" He asked. Her smile didn't falter. "I'll take the box...of gloriousness."

"Awesome! See, that wasn't as painful as you thought it would be. Alright, my minions," she added in a high-pitched, cackly voice. A nudge of one hip sent the three taller kids scurrying into the guest house. Jamie clutched a large, rectangular object wrapped in a black trashbag. "Inside, out of the rain, I'm melting here. Melting, melting, oh what a world, what a world.

"Beep-beep, Lolo," she said, and Lori scuttled inside after her siblings. The toddler stopped right beside Jack's boot and stared up at him. Her tiny hands hooked into the lowest pocket of his black cargo pants.

Jack shut the door after them. "What is she doing?"

Saly snorted. "Trying to guilt-trip you. Lolo, use your words. Tell Jack what you want."

Lori gave a little bounce and smiled. "Up!"

"Up, what?" Sally asked, seemingly oblivious to the dread coiling in Jack's stomach at the thought of what up could possibly mean. The only option he could think of was...

Lori wrapped her chubby arms around his knee, propped her chin on his leg, and beamed, showing her little, white teeth. The last few surviving raindrops pit-patted off her thick, black braids to splat Jack's combat boots. "Up, peas. Jack! Up, peas!"

He tried to keep the slight tinge of panic out of his face when he looked at Sally for guidance. "What does she want?"

For the first time, Sally's soft laugh reminded him of something vaguely sinister, though he couldn't quite put his finger on what it was.

Maybe Satan.

"For you to pick her up," Sally said.

"Why? She can walk."

Lori's grip on his leg constricted until it felt like the joint was being crushed by a hungry python. She bumped her cheek against his leg and sighed. "Jack-Jack." Somehow she managed to infuse the nickname with the closest thing he'd ever heard to unconditional love mixed with utter contentment.

A few child-inappropriate phrases drifted through his mind as he leaned down and lifted the toddler up. She squealed and waved her arms, shooting nerves down his spine like shards of ice. He adjusted his grip on the bundle of squirming, wet two-year-old. Lori immediately twined her arms around his neck and dropped her sopping head to his shoulder.

"Jack-Jack."

Uh-huh. "Just curious, do your minions have towels?"

"Yeah, in my backpack." She hefted her shoulders and he realized she carried a canvas pack the same hunter green as her sweater. "Got a blanket, too. You wanna set up in the living room? The food's still hot thanks to my insulated packaging and technical genius, by the way."

It took only a few minutes for the thick patchwork quilt to be laid on the living room floor, for the kids to get wrapped in their towels and sit down with paper plates and plastic cups of raspberry lemonade, and for Sally to unwrap the thing Jamie had been carrying and set it against the wall—a boom box.

"In case we want music or something," Sally explained. She popped the lid off the large plastic box. "You know, if the sound of the heavens trying to drown us mere mortals eventually gets boring. Now, cupcake time!"

He stared at the box she'd opened. A tray of cupcakes rested near the top, their tops frosted in different colors.

"Is that entire box full of cupcakes?"

"I have various types of both sweet and savory cupcakes. Basically, dessert cupcakes and actual 'you could eat this for dinner' cupcakes."

"Mommy made othean-caketh!" Will said, scooting closer to the box.

"Ooh," Becky mumbled. "Little shrimps."

Sally—in the middle of lifting out a cupcake tray from what Jack realized was the layered display case she called "the pastry stack-rack"—shot her four-year-old what the assassin could only describe as a Mom-look and the kid scootched back to his spot.

"Ocean cakes?" Jack echoed.

Sally shoved a cupcake at him. The top sported white frosting—vanilla?—flecked with pink stuff on top of what he realized was a cupcake-shaped crabcake. A de-shelled shrimp tail stuck out of the frosting. "Savory cupcake. Crab cake breaded in sourdough, crab salad 'frosting,' baked salmon filling, garnished with a lemon-juiced jumbo shrimp. Eat it. And congratulations on graduating from Will's Lisp One-oh-One."

As weird as the idea of shrimp and crab in a cupcake was...what she'd said sounded pretty good. Hesitantly, he took a bite.

The look on his face at the taste of the so-called "cupcake" made Sally's grin widen, which in turn made him smile around the mouthful of crabcake. "Ha. Gotcha. I knew I'd hook you. Okay, okay, time to plate. Will, do not try to stick the shrimp up your nose. That's gross. Jamie, do not pretend to swordfight with your sister using a shrimp. If you wanna fence, use a plastic fork. No stabbing. Becky, here's the ones I made just for you, with the Miracle Whip.

"She hates mayonaise," Sally added without looking up. She shuffled paper plates, plasticware, and cupcakes around with the finesse of a general commanding an army. She even managed to catch the glob of "frosting" Will had balanced on the tip of his tongue that took an unexpected plunge toward the quilt. "And Lori, here's yours with no frosting. She doesn't like the way it feels," Sally said. "Look."

Sure enough, the toddler eyed Will's crabcake before leaning over and sticking her finger in the crab salad frosting as if checking the consistency. Her little face screwed up in an expression of abject disgust and she wiped the frosting on her brother's arm. "Yucky!"

"Hey, don't poke my cuppycake!"

Lori stuck her tongue out. Sally cleared her throat and the toddler stuck her lip out instead. "Sowwy." Will patted her on the head, then licked the smear of frosting off his arm.

The Winter Soldier leaned back against the threadbare living room couch as Sally set a plate for him, too, with one of each kind of the savory cupcake. He'd never even heard of savory cupcakes before. Well, if the rest of them were as good as the one he'd just bitten into, he figured there were worse ways to spend a rainy Sunday afternoon.

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Author's Note: so savory cupcakes are actually a thing. Google them and drool over the pictures. They look pretty delicious. I'm a huge fan of Cupcake Wars, that's how I know about them. Maybe even try making your own! :)