Disclaimer: I got 99 problems, but this fic ain't one.
.10.
Six hours, one apple, and a few dozen blank stares later, Hal found herself on a busy street corner, staring up at a traffic camera, a ripped cardboard sign in her hands.
Captain Rogers, it read, SHIELD's Compendium needs a lift.
When she was six, her parents took her to a small zoo with a large reptile house. The owners fed the snakes live mice, and one tank held a literal nest of vipers – Gaboon, to be precise. While Mommy and Daddy argued about whether or not it was appropriate to give the poor mice such a brutal – public – execution (and whether it was okay to have their daughters watch), Hal stared, transfixed, as the snakes each picked off their meals. For a while they didn't move at all, and the mice scampered, trying to find an escape. When they found none, they hunkered down, shivering. Only once the mice had gone still did the snakes made their move. The first strike was so fast Hal didn't even see it. One second, a snake rested with his head on a rock. Half a heartbeat later, he had his mouth around a little brown mouse's head. The mouse kicked and bounced, trying to fight free, but the viper just held on until, eventually, even the weakest twitches ceased, and the mouse hung limp from its fangs. Gradually, almost lazily, the snake worked the mouse down its gullet. It took the snake five minutes to swallow.
The other snakes took their meals with similar decorum.
But the handlers had miscounted.
All the snakes curled up, fat and happy with great bumps in their stomachs. One mouse, however, remained, panting in the middle of the cage. His very ears trembled, and Hal watched, sad and afraid, until her parents finally agreed the whole thing wasn't PG rated, and dragged their girls to go look at some iguanas. She left the mouse alone, surrounded by predators, to meet its fate. Maybe it waited for hours. Maybe days. But, in the end, Hal knew the snakes would decide they had room for dessert.
She had a lot of empathy for that mouse at present.
After twenty minutes in the public eye the only response she'd gotten were some very confused looks. But she knew the threat she couldn't see was the greater danger. She could see nothing but civilians. Her heart fluttered. Her palms left damp prints on the sign.
What burned most was this was partially her fault.
Sort of.
She'd said she'd help.
It wasn't a secret that Captain Rogers had more answers for the Soldier than anyone else alive, but, honestly, the Soldier wasn't ready to face him yet. He needed to figure some things out before he attended any class reunions. Lucky for him, he didn't need to get his information face-to-face. He had Hal.
In order to talk with Rogers, though, she needed to go back to SHIELD.
The Soldier would have to return his stolen library book, but he didn't want to pay the fine.
The trick was getting Hal to the right people while simultaneously ensuring the wrong people didn't get to her first and giving the Soldier sufficient opportunity to put some distance between himself and Captain America. A messy affair. Hal wanted to just call the Captain again – the Soldier was a master assassin, pick pocketing some change shouldn't be an issue. But, of course, that would be too easy. Without a proper diversion, the Captain and his friends would sweep in, pick her up, and hop right on the Soldier's trail.
This was the Soldier's solution: stick her in a public place with a sign guaranteed to trigger any searches SHIELD still had running while luring any surviving Hydra cells into making a play for her, too.
She thought it was a shitty plan.
He didn't care what she thought this time.
So much could go wrong. Yeah, the Soldier was watching, keeping an eye on her until the cavalry arrived, but the whole scheme hinged on both SHIELD and Hydra getting her message. The battle over the Potomac hurt both sides, crippling regular surveillance and destroying plenty of operating systems. Hal didn't know who had better back ups. She didn't even know if SHIELD had any scans left running in the public sector. What if civilian police decided she was a freaky loiterer and tried sticking her in a cell? The Soldier wouldn't let that fly.
More casualties.
What if there wasn't enough left of Hydra to send out a team? If SHIELD found the Soldier, would he use lethal force to defend his autonomy? Probably. No, no. Definitely.
Even if everything went according to plan, SHIELD and Hydra would open fire in a civilian environment.
Hal could not, in good conscience, allow that to happen.
But she wasn't sure how to stop it.
No, that wasn't true. If she ran, there was a chance she could move the fight away from the main streets. She could minimize collateral damage, even if she couldn't prevent it.
She scanned the rooftops. She wouldn't find him, but she couldn't repress the instinct to look.
She couldn't let this happen.
Well.
No time like the present.
"Hey!" She flagged down a passing businessman. He looked at her like a stray dog he wasn't sure was safe and kept his phone to his ear. But he didn't completely ignore her. Hal widened her eyes as far as they would go. Innocent or insane, whatever she looked like, she figured it would trigger a response. "Can I have a pen?"
The man pulled one from a pocket inside his suit jacket and tossed it to her. "Keep it."
"Thanks!" She waved as he walked off, then dropped her sign and took a knee over it. Because the tip was designed for close reading on paper and not a miniature billboard, Hal had to doodle thick, scratchy bubble letters over the back. It took more time than she'd hoped.
When her new message was ready, she flipped up the reverse side and made a slow turn, making sure the Soldier, wherever he was, had a chance to read it.
I want to help.
Clear divergence from the plan. And while her message was friendly, it was also a warning. She was going to run.
And she did.
The cardboard dropped even as she turned, knee bent, and sprang that first step out of the plan.
She didn't want anyone tracking to lose her in the crowd – because hopefully they were from SHIELD – so she kept to the busier streets for a few blocks, ducking and dodging around civilians. Her shoulder caught on several more business folk, who shouted some exceptionally unprofessional words after her during her progress down the boulevard. A branching street of small, seldom-frequented shops opened on her left, and she turned away from the crowds.
She was giving the Soldier a choice. He could follow her, make sure she landed safely in SHIELD's hands, or he could take this window to move out before Rogers appeared on the scene. If he trusted her, he'd probably leave. The sign wasn't a lie. She did want to help. The Winter Soldier needed answers, needed the framework for his new identity, or he could become the most dangerous rouge asset in history.
If he could trust her, she could help him. As she jogged down the weave of back streets, she recalled her offer, the final piece of the plan.
Once she was inside SHIELD, she would need some means of communication with the Soldier. And he would need a safe house. Ideally, they would find a way to combine the two.
An idea had struck her, and she'd had to hurry to share it before she lost her nerve.
"You can use my place."
Staring.
Flushing.
"I just mean – SHIELD will drag me off into some dark rat hole somewhere to debrief, and I'll probably be gone for a good while. You don't have a place to stay, I have enough food in the pantry to last a month or two, and going to soup kitchens on your own might be risky…"
The Soldier's lips puckered in a frown. "You want to take me home?"
An incredible wave of heat washed Hal's face, and she tried to hide it behind her hands. "No – I mean yes – I mean… I'm not taking you home. I won't be there. It's like a sublease."
"What's a sublease?"
The fact that his sentences were getting longer was lost on her. She groaned into her palms.
"Never mind." She took a deep breath, gathering her courage, and straightened up, miraculously managing to hold his eye as she spoke. "My laptop should still be there. I can send any information I gather to my email. I'll give you the password."
Carefully, he nodded. Hal accepted that as a 'Yes,' and went back to scratching her sign with the handful of old pens the Soldier had gathered. She almost missed the quiet words that came next.
"Thank… you."
She hoped he understood. The Soldier was sharp, but he was severely unbalanced, and she couldn't predict what he'd do now.
Her legs began to burn, and she wondered how much longer she could keep this up.
And then a bullet struck the display window she was passing. The glass didn't shatter, but it made a delicate ring, like wind chimes, as the bullet punched through. A chip found her cheek as she whirled to find the source of the noise, slicing across her cheek. Her hand immediately flew to the wound – shallow, thank god – and she almost stumbled over her own feet, discombobulated.
For a second, she thought it was the Soldier giving her a warning shot. He'd never miss. But before she could regain her momentum, a body slammed her into the adjacent wall, a body much too tall and lean to be the Soldier's. Hot breath hit the side of her face.
"Hail Hydra."
He balled a fist in her hair and used the grip to slam her temple against the bricks. She screamed and kicked for his knees. One heel caught him on the shin, but nowhere near hard enough to break bone. She got another meeting with the wall for her efforts.
Somewhere above them, a man screamed, and Hal saw something big tumble down behind the agent holding her to the wall. The body landed against the pavement with a crack, and Hal tried to pull back, squeezing her eyes shut.
What was she supposed to do?
A second shadow, far more controlled and graceful than the first, dropped down, and Hal caught a flash of silver before the blade sank into her attacker with the full force of the fall. The hand in her hair took her down with the Soldier's victim, and she scrabbled frantically with the dead fingers, tearing out chunks of her own hair in the process.
The Soldier took her by the arm and jerked her upright.
His face was absolutely frigid.
She raised her hands, palms out, hoping he'd let her get the words out before he strangled her. "I'm going to help. I swear I'm going to help you."
He glanced pointed at the bodies of the two Hydra agents. "This isn't helping."
She had to make him understand. This was a tipping point; she could feel it. The future would take shape in this little street, and it could very well be a future she wouldn't participate in.
"I know collateral damage isn't a big part of your calculations now, but someday it might be, and if I can prevent one of your first steps toward self determination being the provocation of mass killing, then I'll take the risk."
"It wasn't your call." Still cold. Not even patronizing.
Desperate – and a little angry – she exploded. "It was my call! I'm not your mission. I'm not your assignment. I'm just as human as you are. My name is Hal. I don't like ice in my drinks, my favorite color is red, and I hate it when people stare."
He watched her, eyes blank, as he tried to reconcile the list of random information she'd dumped in his ears. Gradually, so slowly it barely happened at all, the chill left his face. Hal didn't know what out of everything she'd said had gotten to him, but she knew, for the moment, she'd live.
And maybe he could, too.
He opened his mouth to speak, and a familiar voice echoed down the street.
"Miss Renold? This is Captain Rogers. We're here to extract you. Miss Renold? Please respond!"
He wasn't in sight, but the Soldier turned to the voice, transfixed. Hal imagined she could see the echoes of memories gaining flesh behind his eyes.
"Does he know you're here?" she whispered.
The Soldier grunted. "No cameras back here. They're coming in blind."
"Then you can still leave." She reached out and set her palm over the star on his bionic arm. It was the first time she'd voluntarily reached for him, and it jolted him enough to win her his full attention. "Please. Trust me."
There was so much in his face when he looked at her. She could draw it over and over again, fill an entire sketchbook, and still not capture it all. But she'd remember. She hoped he would.
When Captain Rogers burst around the corner, Hal stood alone with her back to the wall, staring at the two bodies left at her feet. He rushed up to her, setting his hands on her shoulders as he sought her eyes.
"Ma'am? Are you alright?"
Hal sighed, tilting her head back until it touched the wall. It was the only way she could look in the man's face. She'd always been petite, but the world suddenly seemed full of unusually tall men.
"Captain Rogers?"
"Yes."
"I called you two days ago. You'd make a shit-awful cabbie."
A/N: Oh my WORD. Sorry for the delay. You know what I said the other day about lord willin', car runnin', and the creek don't rise? Well, this afternoon the sister-in-law went into the hospital for a chronic - but unscheduled - issue. I got to baby-sit the two-year-old nephew. Then my mom, who went to the hospital with the seesta, got sick. Turns out she needs minor surgery. Joy. At least it's not major, but still. Seriously? The crap, karma. The crap.
So, long story short, there were problems. But now we're all safe and well and ready to move on with life.
*I'm not sure I replied to all the regular reviews from chapter 8, and I'm sorry if I missed you, but if it's alright with you all, I'm just gonna call it even for this round. I. Am. Wiped.
Tomorrow begins Camp NaNo, which means updates will probably roll around on a weekly rather than bi-weekly basis.
But...
REVIEWS FEED THE VAMPIRIC TREE FROG THAT IS MY MUSE.
That is all. Carry on, my good people. Carry on.
Replies to Anons:
heroherondaletotherecuse: Thanks for the review! Ha! Glad you like the tie-in! It was a bit hit or miss, so I'm happy it works. Thanks again!
Guest: Thank you! Yes! The fluff! IT'S SO FLUFFY I'MMA DIE! Thanks again!
Sah: Thanks! You are fantastic with a side of awesome. Your reviews are always so encouraging, and they've done a lot to keep me going over the past few days. Thanks again!