A/N: Life's fun when everyone is out to get you.

Chapter Eleven

Carly struggled for breath under a blossoming cherry tree, hands on her kness. They crouched in the middle of some park in the outskirts of D.C. "Did we gasp lose them gasp?"

"For the moment." Bucky knelt behind a rock formation, studying the choppers that floated in the distance, piercing the morning light with search beams. Blue and red lights flickered in every direction.

Carly's gut curled and she almost puked. Her lungs burned. The festive trees seemed to mock her. Blood dripped down her arm and leg where shrapnel from a grenade had slashed her. Even Bucky held his human arm, nearly amputated from a blast. He couldn't hold anything in that hand.

"You gasp alright?" she asked.

Bucky looked down at his shattered wrist. "I've had worse." He lifted his mechanical arm. Yeah, he'd seen some things.

"May I see it?" Her breathing calmed.

Bucky hesitated, but then offered his arm while scanning the area, park benches and garden paths, an urban oasis near the heart of America. Their weapons were spent, and only a blind run had led them out of the enemy's clutches…for the moment.

Carly examined the injury, an impact wound that had crushed the bones. He winced and gasped. "Sorry." She gently stroked the inflamed area. Tingles came from her fingertips. "Is this helping?" She rubbed her fingers over shattered bones and severed veins and snapped nerves, and willed them together, a warmth expanding from her fingertips.

"You…you can heal others?"

Carly shrugged. "I guess. I'd thought it just worked on myself. Do you want me to stop?"

"No, it makes the pain go away." Not that he had shown a heck of a lot of pain. His eyes were active, scanning the area.

Carly stroked his wrist while stealing occasional peeks at his face. It was strong, handsome, but without a trace of evil. She should hate the man, but she couldn't.

She knew what she had to do. She had to bring him in, somehow, but the men out there were trying to kill him, not capture him. Maybe that's what she should be doing, instead of healing him. She should use his injury to subdue him. There would be some seriously impressed higher-ups if she could accomplish that.

Carly sighed and looked up at the man. "If you want, I'll help you get away."

"Oh?"

"But you have to make it look like I didn't help you, that I was your prisoner. Break my arm or something. Then I'll lead them the wrong way."

"What about your Cause? Your loyalty to Hydra?"

Yeah. Carly looked down. This would be a betrayal, no matter how it looked. "What if you were to promise not to go after us? We're a family, you know. Strike one of us down, two may take their place, but it still hurts."

"I will not hurt you, Miss Carly. If you need some alibi, do it yourself. However, if you buy me freedom, I'll leave Hydra be if they don't bother me anymore. Can you do that?"

Carly nodded. "Yeah. I'll tell them you were desperate to return to us, but S.H.I.E.L.D. got you first. Then instead of focusing on destroying you, we'll focus on destroying S.H.I.E.L.D. It might work." Or something.

Bucky took his hand from her, flexed it, used it to pull the hair from his face. "Thank you. It's much better. You know you're crazy, kid. You got a nickname? A super name?"

"I'm toying with 'Wild Flower.'"

"Well, Wild Flower, what do you have in mind? How are you getting me out of here?"

Carly looked around at all the flowering trees.