I'm alive! And I know you are all frustrated with me for taking so long but I had major writers block and then everything that could possible happen to me did ( yes I became a mutant... I wish) anyway here it is, you are now reading the work of a uni student, aren't you classy? Enjoy!
Chapter 28
"Where is he?!" Steve shouted with a harsh expression that did not suit him.
His grip on the beaten HYDRA agent tightening as the bloodied man scrambled, "I-I don't know! No one d-does. The asset has been missing for month. I swear!"
"Steve!" the husky voice of Natasha Romanoff rang through the now out of function HYDRA bunker. Her voice laced with authority and concern.
Steve dropped his head and soon after the agent in his hands. The man's armour clattering on the ground as his passed out from his injuries. Steve stubbornly turned to face the cold exterior of Black Widow now joined by his new partner Sam Wilson/ Falcon.
"We need to talk Cap," Sam stated, his worry more evident in his face than the red head's.
"You're out of control," Natasha announced boldly, her arms steely crossed.
Falcon approached, each step revealing his empathetic pain, "Man I know it's been hard since you lost Annie but this isn't you. You're violent, aggressive and obsessed with his dead end missing persons case."
"He's right, HYDRA has a lot more resources than we do and they can't find him," the assassin added a dose of reality.
His constant furrow deepened, the right side of his face twitching as he muttered, "Yeah well I think I know him better than HYDRA."
Natasha's voice softened, "I don't think you do. Not the guy we're looking for." She exhaled tiredly, raising a gloved hand to her forehead, "Even if we do find the Winter Soldier, are you sure he wants to remember? He has done unmentionable things under HYDRA's control including shooting Annie, maybe it's better if he doesn't remember."
It still hurt Steve to hear or recall the event, this pain fuelling his outburst. "No! You both agreed to help me but fine back out! I'll find Bucky without you," his words were chaotic with a dangerous sting. His bubbling anger a chain reaction to his loss.
The two friends could see this sharing a troubled glance. "Steve," Falcon soothed placing a reassuring hand on the enhanced human's broad shoulders. "I know you miss Annie and want to save Bucky but they wouldn't want you to act like this. All we know is that Bucky is safe away from HYDRA so I think we should take a break from searching."
Steve's eyes were enveloped in a stinging sensation as salty liquid consumed them but did not escape. Steve since the fall of SHIELD had strongly felt his sister's absence. He had quickly realized that she had been his anchor in this new time, SHIELD and the Avengers. She had provided him with familiarity, common understanding and purpose. Things he now found outside of his reach. This is why he had grown so obsessed with finding his lost best friend, hoping he could restore what Steve had lost along with Annie. But he had only hurt his team with crazy missions and non-stop HYDRA raids.
The frantic need to search was lifted as Steve deeply exhaled. He then began to realise how tried he was, physically and mentally, bags seeming to spontaneously appear under his cyan eyes. He offered a weak smile to his loyal teammates, glad they still had his best interests in kind even when he had failed as their leader. "You're right, We're stretching ourselves thin and getting nowhere," Steve admitted.
A compact smirk flattered Romanoff's pale features, "Good, if you had gotten anymore crazy I would have had to beat you into line for her." Steve returned the facial expression, all knowing "her" would have approved of such an action.
With the reveal, "I'm Laura, Clint's wife" a silence hung in the air. Annie trying to imagine relaxed Clint with a wife and a home in the country. The enormity of the reveal was lost on Bucky though as he simply waited and watched her reaction.
Annie tugged her hand through her tangled curls stopping as she reached a knot that did not give way to her fingers as she queried, "okay, so Clint has had a secret wife and a secret house, which is lovely by the way. And he didn't tell anyone to keep you safe due to his line of work?"
"Clint was right, you are clever. Yes, Director Fury agreed to look after us when Clint joined. It was very kind of him, though I'm not sure it was entirely selfless seeing Clint demanded it," Laura answered quickly adding her insight.
"I'm so sorry but we just waltzed in here and- Here, I'm Annie and this is Bucky. We are in a problematic situation and need somewhere safe –"
"and hidden" Bucky added.
"To stay for a while. Clint gave this address and-" Annie explained nervously understanding that this woman could turn them away and had every right to.
Laura chuckled, her smile wrinkling her freckled face, "Of course you two can stay, Clint wouldn't have given you the address if he didn't trust you, and I trust him."
Annie exhaled, relieved that they could finally relax. "So are there anymore secrets I should know," Annie joked lightly.
Laura smiled guiltily as she moved to the sectioned staircase of matching greens and creamy yellows calling, "Lila, Cooper, come down for a minute!"
Bucky almost chuckled at Annie's shocked expression as she murmured, "No…" her wide eyes anticipantly watching the stairs.
The floor boards above them rattled with the weight of growing humans, the sound distant and then growing sharper as they came down the angled steps. Both children had the deep oak colour of their mother's hair. The older boy was no older than 10 and the younger girl with two matching braids seemed to be around 7. The puffed skirt of the girl named Lila bobbed as she excitedly hoped down the stairs while Cooper slowly slouched down, a curious glint in his eye not well hidden.
They children swarmed to their mother, suddenly shy in the presence of guests. Laura wrapped her arms proudly around her offspring introducing, "This is Cooper and Lila our children. Kids this is Annie, Captain America's sister."
"Daddy's friend in the funny suit?" Lila clarified with a smile that was absent a few teeth. Annie attempted to snuffle the laugh at the young girl's depiction of her brother, one that she at times mirrored.
"And that is Bucky," Laura recited the nickname. Lila's eyes that mimicked those of Hawkeye dashed to Bucky as her crooked grin grew, "He's wearing a funny suit too." At this Bucky's brows lowered as he examined the black leather that tightly wrapped around his form. High pitched, squeaky laughter burst out from Lila soon followed by Annie was she watched Bucky silently fret over his appearance.
"Okay time for you to go back up to your room. You too Coop," Laura dismissed with a bubble of laughter at her child's comments. But now that Lila had mentioned it Laura turned to scan the clothing worn by the two.
"You are going to need a change of clothes," Laura noted examining the dirtied, ripped and slightly shredded clothes that Annie had remained in for far too long. "annnd you will definitely need some clothes," She added as she took in Bucky's excessive leather suit.
With a "follow me," Laura began strolling up the staircase behind her surprisingly lightly for a woman of her process into pregnancy. Annie gave Bucky a reassuring smile as she followed the woman up the narrow oak staircase. Bucky heavily marched up them, the planks creaking as most of the house seemed to do under his thick boot. But he didn't focus on the painfully loud noises of the stair that contrasted his usual assassin ability of silent movement. But instead dedicated most of his attention to ensuring Annie did not leave his sight in this foreign environment.
Laura comfortably weaved through a hallway with rooms she had long ago memorised. She strode through a wide open door into a pleasantly sized master bedroom that adorned windows on every side that allowed the warm light to circulate the space.
By the time Annie had taken in the homely room Laura had already swung open the dainty door of a small roomed closet and had begun shuffling through the multi-coloured and patterned clothes that hung from each side in a cluttered but somehow organised manner. Annie concluded that Laura was a woman that thrived in chaos, chaos that she had manipulated into an undecipherable management.
The clothing in her hand slowing increased in number until she retreated to lay the mixture of shirts and pants on the bed rabbling with a smile, "it's a good thing that I'm at the point of only fitting into my maternity clothes so you have your choice of these." And with stretched frown she added, "They should fit," after examining Annie once more. Annie was quite pleased with the situation she had stumbled on. She would have felt guilty forcing Laura to share her clothes that she also needed but those clothes were to lay dormant for months. And the clothes from where she was appeared quite pleasant.
The woman's whose skin had been freckled and bronzed from many days in the potent sun then turned to Bucky who narrowly scanned the room, organising escape routes, possible weapons if he should lose the gun that was tucked into his pants, threats and annoyingly the clothing set out for Annie. She grinned at the tense man, reminiscing how his actions mimicked the alert Natasha when she had first arrived in confusion. She thought it was odd that agents and assassins became even more alert when they entered a normal domestic environment. She later adapted her conclusion to it being sad fact.
Her eyes trailed up the man's tall, broad form as her lips pressed together contemplating what clothes Clint had that would fit this much larger man. She suddenly wished she had access to Captain America's wardrobe knowing he would have clothes large enough. Her eyes lit up as she recalled the clothing sent by her mother for Clint, a woman who had always had a horrible misjudgement of sizes. She hadn't thrown them out or given them away knowing they would not fit anyone in the nearby town. As she turned to collect the box she noted with a smile Annie's unconscious distasteful expression at her focus on Bucky.
She struggled with grasping a firm enough hold of the cardboard to hull it from it's shelf in the closet. She twisted to the couple and asked, "do you mind?" with a slanted grin. The dark haired man easily reaching and nursing the box with any recognition of her request.
Bucky lowered the dusty box to Laura's level for her to take. She simply pulled open to loose flaps and checked the contents quickly. She didn't take it but instead instructed, "There is a spare bedroom right at the end of the hall on the right with a bathroom. Feel free to clean up."
Bucky refused to move and just turned to Annie with a stubborn but unsure crinkle in his eyebrow and downturn of his mouth. In answer the blonde women smiled at Bucky's decline to leave her in their uncertain situation. Annie suspected as protective as Bucky had been, since her capture by HYDRA he was going to get worse. She offered the most reassuring smile she could muster and encouraged, "Bucky I'll be fine, go and get cleaned up. We're both starting to smell."
He paused for another moment looking at Laura and then turned to walk down the hall having decided that a pregnant women would not be a huge threat against Annie. A part of him still disliked leaving her, the action leaving a distasteful pang.
Annie smiled wistfully watching the leather clad man march down the homely hallway completely out of place.
"So are you two a couple?" Laura suddenly broke into Annie's thoughts.
"What?! No, no it's not like that," Annie defended hysterically.
Laura nodded with a knowing smile that every well suited the clever woman. "so you won't be sharing a room then?"
It seemed the brightening pink of Annie's cheeks and the tensing of Bucky's frame were her desired reactions to the question as she moved on, "so there is the shower and there's one downstairs as well as the one Bucky's using." Laying a sun kissed hand on the pile of clothes that balanced on the bed Laura stated, "an these are my clothes at I am pretty sure will fit you. I'll leave some out for you to change into and put the rest in your room."
Too deprived of hot showers due to current events Annie did not bother with her usual tirade of questions starting with 'where is her room?' and travelled straight to the open door of the bathroom where the rose coloured tiles that drifted across the limited floor space and scaled the walls up to her waist. From there clean off-white wooden panels layer up to the same coloured ceiling. The pastel colour of the tiles mingled with the light that streamed evenly through the high window, beaconing to her weary soul.
It had taken mere moments for Annie, a woman who believed getting a tad dirty was never an issue if you could clean up afterward, to dissolve under the scolding liquid that the aging faucet released at varying pressures. Annie did not care about the less than 5 star shower as she focused on the past month of stress, worry and toil wash away in the physical form of sweat and dirty running from her pale skin with the irresistible current of the heated water.
Without the layers of grind her skin felt raw and her lengthy hair gained its old lightness that oil had taken. Her head tilted back as her eyes slid shut to direct all attention to the sensation of cleanliness. Her mind as it habitually did wondered to Bucky. He was a man that had spent decade in a mindless loop of cryogenic freezing and ordered assassinations and Annie could not picture him faring well in a domestic environment with children. In the past be was annoyingly good with all kids, grinning smugly at her as children of family members and friends crowded around him for their dose of the fun.
In her time they had a very limited knowledge on the effects of war on an individual with the term shell shock used. In her growing ability with technology and Clint's demonstration of the 'search engine' under her belt Annie had taken it upon herself to research the better understanding of the effects of the more appropriately named Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. She had done so out of fear for Steve's health, noticing the super soldier continuing to act like a soldier despite the ending of the war. With her knowledge of the effects she could see some hidden by her brother as well as clear and openly displayed in Bucky.
Her thought was lost as her pruned hands made to cautiously scrub at the dried blood that marred her upper arm. The clotted blood mingling with the transparent liquid to form a muted pink. But her attention was not on the water but examining the condition of the reasonably deep cut. At least she remembered it being deep as she struggled to stop the continuous flow of thick blood. When she did not feel the expected pain that comes with meddling with wounds Annie hurriedly scratched at the now clumping blood until it had all it had all broken down until it was a mere tint in the running water, gone at it ran into the drain.
Annie rubbed her soaked hand over the smooth, unbroken skin while her furrowing brows weighed at her head. She had been cut less than a week ago, there was no possible way that a cut that deep could have healed to the point of not even a hint of its existence in that time. Annie's logical mind ran through the possible reasons for it, maybe she had exaggerated the size of the cut in her mind?
Now that she became more conscious of her body, a thing she had not wanted to focus on previously as it would have alerted her to the amount of days she had been without a proper shower for, but she did not feel any pain whatsoever. Which was odd for the ordeal she had gone through as HYDRA's captive. There was no bump on her head, no bruising and no cuts. Don't get her wrong, she was glad for the relief from the complaining of her joints and head but the unclear origin was vexing and with no immediate answers Annie had to store these disappearing of injuries away for consideration at a later date.
Exiting the shower after tightly twisting the water from her hair, leaving it in a damp mess of tangles Annie manoeuvred the towel securely around her body grateful that it was long enough to comfortably cover what needed to be covered. She peeked out the bathroom door before entering the bedroom that held her clothes making sure it was empty. On the bed lay some muted pants and a sleeved line shirt that's white tone in a house full of children was proof of Laura's advanced knowledge of stain remover. Contributing to the pile was the rest of the necessities that Annie quickly threw on anxious to check on Bucky. She tugged on her boots weaving the laces securely as she stood to find her tall survival partner.
Annie knew that Bucky would rush his shower, uncomfortable with being vulnerable in an unknown environment no matter how lovely the home was. A small flare of hope rose in her hoping he would have hastened because he disliked being separated from her. She swallowed a scream as his form suddenly appeared when she flung open the door.
"Bucky! jeez", Annie muttered, her hand running through her damp hair as she calmed her nerves. She shouldn't have been surprised at his guarding of the door. Annie suspected that his protectiveness would only increase after her incident with HYDRA. Though he had still waited outside the bedroom door. Annie wondered if he subconsciously obeyed the morals of their time. 'At least he was starting now', Annie added to herself, recalling his dating history. But that was a different man to the stoney faced one that scanned the room for threats.
"Are you ok?" Bucky uttered his first full sentence since arriving. His trained eyes searching her for signs of injury or pain.
Annie wondered if she should inform him of her miraculous recovery but decided against it as she had no real proof that it even was miraculous and not just a pathetic overreaction to pain. "Yes I'm fine." Her face merged to worry as she scanned his now casually clothed body for blood, "What about you? You didn't get shot did you?" Annie wouldn't put it past him hiding a bullet wound as if it was of no importance.
His face lifted it's frown though not enough to be a smile but close enough for Bucky, "They tried but those guards are horrible shots."
Her face broke out into a grin at Bucky's odd sense of humour, "Not everyone is an enhanced sniper."
With her mind set at ease her eyelids started to weigh down. Something that did not pass unnoticed by the sharp soldier. His frown returned but with a concerned furrow of his brow to partner it and stated, "you need some sleep."
Annie frowned at his version of babying her but her sluggish brain and heavy eyelids agreed. Annie stubborn as she was refused to listen crossing her arms over her chest, "I'm fine Bucky, I'm a grown woman for goodness sake! You're worse than Steve."
The super soldier lightly shook is head at the small woman arguing with him as she continued to fight to keep her eyes open and for a moment he forgot about the chance of an incoming threat. If there was one thing he knew about this woman whom he had been thrown together with through a series of unlikely events it was that she was stubborn. Her stubbornness the one thing that could cloud her judgement. Needing to conserve his energy Bucky decided to effortlessly scoop the determined woman up before she passed out mid-way through an argument about how she was not tired.
He almost chuckled at the squeaky noise she made as he lifted her up and rested her on his broad shoulder.
"Bucky! what are-? Put me down I'm fine!" Annie struggled before realising it made absolutely no difference in her easy hold.
Bucky remained silent as he traveled to the room Laura allocated to her. He placed her down in her room in which every surface seemed to be covered in a push material ranging from cushions to quitted blankets. A tired Annie sluggishly wandered to the Queen size bed that stood tall in the centre of the room, the headboard against a mint coloured wall. Bucky braced an arm out as Annie tilted unnervingly to the side before climbing under the numerous layers of blankets that spread across the bed.
Bucky realised she must have been exhausted from the constant running he had forced her into and it had all seemed to catch up with her now. He did not trust these people but she seemed to trust this Clint and deemed his home safe.
So this will embark on a more softer segment of the story so it might be a bit before any huge action sequences. I have be decided to not follow AOU and instead make up my own story line, Its going to get wild.
Again sorry for the huge break I took but it was actually your reviews that motivated me to writing this chapter so PLEASE REVIEW because it powers my writing.
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