Disclaimer: In an alternate dimension where I have a mustache - I totally own this. In this one - no, not rocking that vibe. The Bearded Lady was never my gig.
.20.
She was with the soldier. The world smeared along the glass, and she thought they were running, but she was too comfortable to be bouncing over his shoulder. A soft bench beneath her, a reclined support to rest against. Blankets. Heat.
Her memories unfolded sluggishly.
A black void stretched between her scream and waking. She remembered the scream. It gave her hope. They had not taken her to the chair. She could feel the soft light of that hope beneath layers of confusion. The soldier came from the world without borders. He came to her in the snow. Even in the world with borders, she felt him clearly. She was open to him as she hadn't been with the suits or the books with faces. Even now, resting warm and dizzy in a box the world slipped around, she could feel his thoughts.
Turmoil.
Failure. Basic reconnaissance would have… No longer safe. Shouldn't have brought… Ought to have…
Unhappy. Hurt? But he was so comforting, so close, physically near. She couldn't remember being happy about someone sitting nearby before. She thought that made him special. It wasn't like she had a wide range of experience, but…
That couldn't be right. Not much experience. The suits and books with faces had all seen things she hadn't. Knew things she didn't. But this felt different. Like reaching into a dark corner, groping for something she dropped.
Something she couldn't find.
She could only vaguely understand the loss.
Holding the idea steady made her head ache, and she rubbed her face into the blankets, groaning as she tried to force the thoughts away.
A whirr. Close to the chair's noise. But different. Different from the rumbling purr she could hear in the background, too. Rolling her face free of the blankets, she saw the soldier's hand gleaming on the steering wheel.
Steering wheel.
Steering.
A car.
The soldier was driving a car.
His fingers contracted around the wheel, creating another whirr.
She relaxed back into her cocoon. The noise, she decided, reassured her.
Soon she went to sleep, and as the drugs faded, she found herself in a field of ashes.
Alone.
She could bear that. Because when she woke up, she wouldn't be.
.O.O.O.
He found the shack on the third day, having driven as far north as was wise, and as far west as he dared. Canada's topography provided convenient obstacles for search parties. SHIELD could find them anywhere, he knew, but remaining in American territory would only make their job easier. Weakened as they were, SHIELD would think twice before launching any kind of serious search on foreign soil. So long as he moved carefully, he should be able to avoid them. So he headed toward the Canadian Rockies.
As he guided the stolen truck ever deeper into the foothills' labyrinth of back roads, he kept the heat on high. He'd stolen gas from the cities they skirted, raiding garages for lawn mower fuel and ATV juice. He took bagfuls of canned foods as well. Since he wasn't sure where they'd end up, he had no way of knowing where they would find their next meal. The back of the truck rattled with plastic gas cans and food tins. He didn't like it; as Hal pointed out to him, once upon a time, theft drew attention. However, he feared if he allowed the heat to fail, Hal wouldn't make it to the end of the journey, and he knew she'd need food when she woke.
He didn't know how long the average female took to recover from hypothermia.
He didn't know if her ribs had been further compromised by all the jostling she'd received during their escape.
He didn't know how best to treat her.
For the hypothermia. For the damage to her rib cage. For the loss of her memory.
He knew how to find a good safe house. He knew how to keep SHIELD and its endless double agents, nestled like Matryoshka dolls, away.
So he would do that. He would not fail his mission.
The cabin came as an unexpected boon, even though 'cabin' was a generous name for the ruin. He was twenty minutes out from a forgotten tourist town, half abandoned, one souvenir shop still standing. Once upon a time, this had been a camper's paradise. Now it was a rickety patch of dead dreams.
Lucky for him.
When the campground sign appeared by the side of the road, he knew he'd found a good place to recuperate.
Not stay. Never stay. A prolonged pit stop. Nothing more.
Although once upon a time the sign sported electric lights – proven by the shattered bulbs ringing the faded lettering –the power company had stopped sending bills a long time ago. The Soldier passed no other cars as he followed the gravel road into the woods. Little wonder. Most of the cabins had fallen to varying degrees of decay under the winter weather's abuse. A few still provided reasonable shelter, though, and it was to these the Soldier turned.
He didn't bother hiding the car. He parked beneath trees dense enough to block the vehicle from aerial surveillance, but if anyone investigated the campsite in person, the Soldier's priority would be to leave as quickly as possible. The cabin offered no secure place to hide Hal in case of attack, and he knew – from experience – that it was best to keep his means of escape close.
Hal remained in the vehicle, dozing in her cocoon of blankets, as he hauled their gear into the shelter and sought a means to heat the back room, which still had unbroken windows. An end table and a bed frame provided fuel for the room's dusty fireplace. He only hoped the chimney would not catch on fire. That would attract attention. The locals might not expect trouble, but a conflagration in a deserted campground would set tongues wagging – open eyes a little wider. The Soldier had enough people looking for him already. He didn't need local authorities trying to hunt down an arsonist.
Once he'd thawed the room – literally – he returned for Hal. He imagined the engine gave a sigh of relief as he turned the key, giving it the first real rest since he'd lifted it. As the warm breath from the vents stilled, Hal twitched and groaned. The Soldier wanted to get her inside before she woke. He had no idea what to expect. She could be violent. She could scream. Better to contain the inevitable scene. He hurried around to the other side of the vehicle in a few quick strides, all efficiency. Hal winced away from the cold when he opened the door, and he told himself he didn't care. This was for the best. She didn't have to like him. She just had to survive. With a click, the seatbelt released and went whizzing back into its reel. The Soldier scooped the girl, cocoon and all, out of the car and cradled her to his chest. She groaned in her sleep.
Had he broken her? Aggravated her injuries? Quickly as he could, he marched into the cabin and deposited his burden on the only moldy bed he'd spared from the fireplace. The warm light turned the shack into something almost homey. The squalor felt familiar, and he knew why. When he lived in Brooklyn with Steve most of their money had gone to medicine and medical bills. Though clean, their place had never been the Ritz.
He'd need to check the bandages he'd bound her ribs with. It was the best he could do, given the circumstances. But first, he wanted to heat some water for her to drink. He understood he had a high tolerance for the cold, and he wasn't sure if Hal's body temperature had returned to normal. With his tolerance, he might not realize the room was dangerously cold until it was too late. Better safe than sorry. And, besides, he had to keep her hydrated.
As he crouched by the fire with an aluminum can full of snow, he heard Hal stir. He allowed her time to adjust, focusing on his task until the rustling behind him quieted.
He didn't know what to expect when he turned around, but it wasn't a vacant stare fixed somewhere over his shoulder. She murmured his thoughts as they materialized in his mind, and he set the water down carefully, priorities shifting.
When handlers slapped him for asking questions. When he prepared to undergo a session in the chair. She wore that look. Huddled under the mobile home, freezing to death in the snow, she'd trusted him. She'd reached for him in her dreams. This was not the same girl.
This was a shield.
She held perfectly still, like an empty-eyed doll. He brought his hands to her arms, gently clasping the boney flesh like it was china. So very easy to break. This was not his skill set. He was a soldier. He knew how to break things and patch up the worst of his damage, but he'd never learned to fix things, to heal.
Hal did not need a soldier. She needed a man like Sam Wilson, Steve's winged shadow. A good man with kind words and tender hands.
But Sam didn't dream with her.
And Hal didn't choose a healer.
She continued to mouth along with his thoughts, voice fading in and out as she battled fatigue. A frown weighed down his mouth, and he brought his hands to the side of her head, narrowing her field of view. The mechanisms in his arm rattled, and he caught the glance that escaped from the corner of her eye. Recognition. So she did remember him. That was good. Now he just needed to help her focus.
He schooled his thoughts into a simple mantra.
You are here. I am here. You are safe. You are here. I am here. You are safe.
The mantra played over her lips on an endless loop, and he began to fear that his method had failed when the barest flicker of emotion passed across her face. He shifted his grip on her skull, and she blinked. Fingers brushed across the indented joints of his bionic arm. He didn't move.
Hal fell silent, and Bucky wished he could wrest her scattered mind into focus the way he could hold her physical body steady. Her tongue darted across her lips, tasting freedom, and in a voice so frail he could barely hear it, she said, "Safe?"
"Yes." He nodded, but she trained her eyes on his arm, and his extra affirmation went unnoticed.
The fingers returned to his arm, ghost over his elbow, creeping into the gaps with clipped nails.
"This… In the car. I was… a dream." She frowned suddenly, and the sudden glower came off as nearly comical. But he didn't dare laugh.
"Took me back."
"No, you aren't going back. You never have to go back."
"Did." Her eyes swiveled to his and the humor drained away. "Back to the chair."
She remembered, alright. She remembered enough to be pissed at him. Typical dame.
Carefully, still holding her, he said, "I made a mistake. We're safe now. We're far away."
She didn't speak for several minutes.
Bucky gave her the time she needed. He could see the next question coming together behind her eyes, but he understood this was a long distance conversation.
Finally, she whispered, her breath fluttering over his nose, "You won't send me to the chair?"
He closed his eyes as his jaw clenched, teeth grinding, arching his neck to alleviate a ghostly shock of sparks and blue fire. He dragged himself closer to Hal, pressing his forehead to hers as he wrestled the open wound in his mind shut. Excruciating. Unbearable. How had he lived through that? How did he live now? He brought Hal closer, cheek to temple, in a desperate embrace that might have been amorous had he been another man and she another woman. If they were normal. But he held her tight for fear he would break her. They sat in a room full of monsters, and he couldn't be sure he wasn't one of them.
"No." His breath trembled in her hair. "You'll never go back."
Shit, he was shaking. How the hell was he supposed to help this girl when he could barely hold himself together?
A/N: Week and a half from hell. And I will leave it at that. Sorry for the delay, but don't worry about the brevity of this chapter - I have another in the works for this weekend (provided more shit doesn't come screaming from the fan).
A bit of housekeeping: We're approaching the Break Point, and by that I mean The Point I Originally Intended to Start a Sequel. Question: Should I follow my original plan and make a sequel, or should I just continue this and turn it into a forty/fifty chapter monstrosity? If there is a sequel, I might put out a challenge for cover art design. Sound interesting? Let me know in the Comments.
Replies to Anons:
Adriana: Yay! Thank you for the review! I love sending readers for a loop. And, yeah, poor Simmons. I just loved the idea of her careful, quiet nature trapped in the same five-by-five space with the Soldier. I think she could've made a very good physician if she'd chosen that path. Thanks again, and I hope you enjoyed the latest chapter!
Guest/Ashley: Thank you for the review! I'm so pleased you enjoyed the plot twists! Thanks again, and I hope you liked this chapter, too.
Inkwriter: Inky! Thanks so much, as always, for your review! You are very encouraging, and I hope you continue to enjoy the ride.