By the end of the third day wearing the sling, Ximena was quite over the whole thing, and didn't hesitate to let Crow Man know.

"I'm not wearing this to sleep tonight," she announced, and he arched a brow at her in a so you say kinda way. He still sat near her, though not as close as he had the first day and night she had been hurt. She knew, and was a little irked, that he was keeping an eye on her. Staying close in case she managed to mess her arm up again, as though he was worried she'd end up ripping it off just as his had been.

To be honest, she was rather proud that she had not.

"You could hurt your shoulder again if you take it off too early," he said knowingly, and that was another thing Ximena had noticed, though was less irked about. He spoke more, starting to use more complete sentences than one worded answers. Which was great, it was, Crow Man was finding his voice, and Ximena would absolutely be taking credit for that. But the thing about Crow Man finding his voice was that the jerk was downright sassy when he wanted to be.

She made a face and mimicked him under her breath. He heard it, he must have, because Ximena felt a flush of begrudging amusement from him.

"Well how long is it supposed to stay on anyway?"

"Depends." She narrowed her eyes at him. "Few days," he amended.

"It's been a few days!"

"Few more."

She inhaled sharply and clenched her hands into fists. As much as she wanted to throw herself back and flail in her annoyance, she didn't. Because then she might actually mess up her shoulder again and just prove him right.

Still, she was free to whine and complain all she wanted. He couldn't stop that.

"But I'm so tired of it! And I'm so bored!" She threw her head back and closed her eyes. When he didn't say anything, she peaked one open to look at him, and scowled at what a crap job he was doing from hiding his grin. "Rude," she muttered, and pushed herself up. He watched with disapproval, but she was tired of sitting around. She was getting antsy. She needed to do something. Needed to go out. Needed to feel something other than Crow Man's muted emotions.

"What's today?" she asked, not really expecting him to answer. But Crow Man was, despite saying he was not, obviously part robot.

"Thursday. The twenty-fourth," he added when Ximena gave him an incredulous look. Still, she took the information he offered and considered it, ignoring the reminder that her birthday was just over a week away.

Thursday, thursday, what's so great about thursday…

"Nico works today!" she exclaimed, remembering the importance of Thursdays, and she whirled around to grab her bag off the ground near her nest of blankets.

She felt Crow Man's confusion as freely as she would have felt her own, and a part of her was proud of him for not trying to hide it - even if he didn't know she could feel it. "Who is Nico?" he asked, and there was just a tint of suspicion in his voice that caught Ximena by surprise.

"He works at the YMCA over in the next neighborhood," she said, holding the bag with her sling hand - And really, why was Crow Man being so naggy about the thing? - and used her free arm to rummage through her cabinets. "If you ask real nice he lets you in for free to use the showers."

Ximena liked Nico, if only because he didn't really pay her any mind. He was older than her, and had a pierced eyebrow. He worked on Thursdays, so if she remembered, Thursdays were her days to go wash her hair. With the addition of Crow Man, she kinda missed the last couple weeks.

Grabbing a couple travel size bottles of soaps she had snuck out of a nearby Wal-Greens, she dropped them into her bag, as well as the wide tooth comb she rarely used. No point in trying to comb out her tangles with dry hair. There were clothes too, tucked in the back of the cabinet. They were her clean pair, and she stuck them into her bag on top of the other things.

"YMCA?"

Ximena blinked slowly, not wanting to believe her ears. "Crow Man. Buddy." She turned to face him, letting her bag hang from her hand as she looked at him. "Please. I am begging you. Do not tell me you don't know what a YMCA is." He had the decency to look ashamed, his face falling just enough to make Ximena know she should feel bad for teasing him, but not enough to actually make her feel bad. "Not… not even from the song?" she tried, and he gave a small shake of his head. Still, she was not one to give up. "Ya know, it's fun to stay at the Y-M-C-A!" She tried to do the motions with it, but then realized exactly why Crow Man was nagging about her keeping the sling on. Turns out, just because it's fixed doesn't mean it isn't gonna hurt.

He shook his head again, though there was a shadow of a smile on his face, and Ximena could feel amusement and an inkling of… well something like affection.

She crinkled her nose at him. "Ugh, I can't with you," she said. "It's a community center," she told him. "There's, like, a gym and a pool and they have these classes for bored moms that wanna lose weight." She shrugged. "The foster lady I lived with last summer used to dump us there for the day all the time."

The foster lady had been called Kathleen, and she probably would have been better at the whole foster thing if her husband hadn't left her a week after school let out.

"Anyway," Ximena went on, "they have showers, and you're technically supposed to pay for a membership, but Nico doesn't care about anything and hates working there, so he lets me go in for free."

"To shower." There's something about the way he said it that had Ximena looking at him hard and reaching. He felt… on edge, almost suspicious. Over a shower?

"Yeah? I think he does it with a few people though, so I'm not the only one breaking the rules." She looked at him, noting how his hair was starting to get stringy and tangled, and at how his face was half covered with a full beard. "You should… if you wanted to, you know, clean up, he'd probably let you in too."

He blinked, as though he hadn't considered it. "Why?"

"Because you're probably stinky," she said bluntly. "I know I am." She pulled at her shirt and was about to sniff it before thinking better of it. "And if you're stinky, people won't want you in stores and then you can't get food. There are rules about this thing, Crow Man."

Not that she considered herself very well versed in the rules - she was sure anyone that had been on their own for longer than two months were smarter than her about them.

She looked down at her clothes, noting the stains and how they were limp from overwear. A trip to the laundromat was needed too. She looked back up at Crow Man, who was now standing—how was he so big but so quick and quiet?

"I will go." He looked away when he said it, and scratched absentmindedly at his beard. But the kind of absentminded that was more thought out that he wanted it to seem.

"You ain't got any clean clothes to change into," Ximena said, and scowled down at the sling he made her.

"I have pants-"

"Those aren't clean, Crow Man, you won't be as comfortable." She shook her head and tried to sort out a plan in her head. He needed clothes. And a shower. She needed to wash her clothes and take a shower. "Alright, we go to the YMCA, then the thrift store to get you some clothes, and then the laundromat to wash the dirty stuff." She nodded. It would take most of the afternoon, and what was left of her money stash, but well, Crow Man had fixed her arm, and gotten her food and water. She could do him this favor. "Cool beans?" she asked, and he blinked at the term.

"Cool beans?"

"The coolest," she affirmed, and added, "bring your gross pants so we can wash them too. Also," she went on, picking at the sling at the back of her neck, trying to figure out how to take it off without jarring her arm, "I'm not wearing this."

"Nena." He used a tone that reminded Ximena too much of how her dad used to sound like when he caught her staying up too late on school nights. She scowled and didn't look up at him as she continued to fiddle with it.

"If I keep it on, people are gonna think something is up," she said, and definitely does not pout. She looked up at him, narrowing her eyes at him. "If we pass Marty and Helen, they're gonna think you hit me."

His face went blank at the possible accusation, but Ximena could feel the shock, and a hint of disappointment. She swallowed hard, feeling ashamed for even bringing it up.

"I'd tell them you didn't," she added quickly. "But people are weird with hurt kids. They either wanna go on and beat someone else up or they ignore it 'cause it's not their problem. Depends on who notices." She picked at the sling. "I can keep it on."

"No." She looked up at him. His expression was a bit softer. "No, we will take it off. But you need to be careful."

The tense feeling from before dissipated and Ximena snorted. "I'm always careful." He eyed her sling and gave an unconvinced hum.


Crow Man stayed to the girl's left, guarding her compromised side and keeping her on the inside of the sidewalk. There was something right and comfortable about having the smaller body to his right, and just having her there instigated a sense of protectiveness. He wasn't quite sure if it was his attachment to the girl herself or the remnants of who he had been. Perhaps it was a mixture of both.

They stayed in the alleys for as long as they could, Crow Man staying by her side as they passed the homeless couple from before. Just as she had the last time she saw them, the girl greeted them easily, but there was no pause for small talk of "bad men." He could feel them eyeing him, as though looking for the Soldier. He had placed himself between the girl and the couple as they passed; a part of him was sure they would reach out and snatch her away the moment they could. They didn't trust him with her.

He did not trust them either.

When they stepped out of the alleys into the streets, the girl glanced around nervously, and drew herself in, making herself seem smaller. He did not blame her for this, considering what had happened when she last ventured into the city, and he himself felt his jaw clenching and muscles tensing in an uncharacteristic sense of paranoia. He shook it off, but kept an eye out and his guard up.

"Lookit, Crow Man," the girl said, pointing to a nearby building. "That's where we're going. Nico should be working the front desk." She paused. "Unless he got fired…" She shrugged. "Anyway, just let me do the talking, okay?"

He didn't like the idea of it, but she looked up at him with that authority he was coming to recognize would be a regular thing, and couldn't bring himself to undermine her. In any case, he had yet to see anything to set him on edge.

The girl rushed forward to pull the door open, but had reached with her injured arm. Before she could tug it open, he reached passed her and opened it.

"Heyo, Nico," the girl greeted as she walked in. The boy at the counter - older than the girl, shaggy hair pulled back with a headband, pierced brow and a persistently bored expression on his face - raised a dismissive hand, glancing up from his phone before doing a double take.

"Yo, wait, who's he?" the boy, Nico, demanded, straightening when he saw Crow Man. The girl looked back at him as though only just noticing him. He met the boy's accusing gaze, and Nico swallowed hard, visibly wilting, but did not look away.

The boy didn't present as a threat, and no matter how hard he looked at him, there was nothing to reveal any ulterior motive when it came to letting the girl come in for free. But there must have been something - people did not offer favors for nothing.

"This is Crow Man," the girl said, reaching out and grabbing his jacket. He blinked down at the contact, stomping down the urge to tear away. She tugged him forward, and he let her. "He's my muscle." Her tone was teasing, and Nico scoffed, only to choke on air when Crow Man straightened up, squaring his shoulders and narrowing his eyes at the boy. He was still mostly behind the girl, and she did not see.

The boy cleared his throat and waved them through. "What-whatever. Move it before the camera catches you."

The girl tugged him into the building, and he kept his head down at the mention of cameras. She pointed out the gym equipment, the hall that led to a pool, doors that were classes. Finally, they reached a door marked MEN.

"This is the guy's locker room. You can go shower in there. Here," she said, pulling her bag down and sticking her hand into it. She pulled out a small bottle. "Soap!" She dropped it into his hand. "Wash behind your ears," she said, and laughed. "When you're done, just go to the front with Nico, and I'll meet you, okay?"

He nodded once. "Okay."

He waited until she disappeared down the hall before entering the room.

He knew he needed to wash - he hadn't the entire time he had been with the girl, and he could still smell the river in his hair. If he left it, the hair would mat soon enough. He could feel the grime of sweat sticking to him, and knew his beard was fuller than it had ever been allowed to be when he was the Soldier. It was a proper beard now, not the shadowed stubble he often wore. He would leave it - Barnes, as far as Crow Man had noticed at the museum, had been clean shaven. Steve Rogers and his allies had seen him as that. Facial recognition devices would falter.

He had no clothes to change into, and it seemed that the girl had a point to her frustration when he had torn his shirt for her sling. Still, wearing what he currently had on would suit him well enough. At least it did not smell like the river.

The locker room was empty, and he made his way to the shower stalls at the end of the room. As he passed the mirrors, he made a point to not look at them. He did not want to search for a man that was not there. He did not want to see him if he was.

He would dig for his memories, had already started with the journal the girl had given him, but now was not the time. For now, he just needed to wash his hair.


When Ximena lived with a woman named Sandra, she had a strict routine for her hair. Sandra also had curly hair, and thought it was worth it to share her secrets with Ximena. After three months with Sandra, her hair was the best it had been since she entered foster care.

Ximena liked Sandra. She thought - hoped - that maybe she would keep her. She hadn't, and Ximena didn't particularly like to think about her anymore, but she did think about that hair routine.

Not that she could pull it off in the locker room of the YMCA but she liked to think that one day she would again.

She didn't have anything to plop her hair, and she didn't have conditioner, but at least her scalp wasn't dirty, and she had worked most of the tangles out. The change of clothes also did wonders in making Ximena feel better. She had pulled her arm funky while lathering her hair, and again when putting her shirt on, but she wasn't about to tell Crow Man.

She found him waiting for her right where she had told him to, at the front desk with a visibly unnerved Nico. He wore the same clothes, but she saw that his hair was damp beneath his hat, and his face seemed cleaner. His beard still hid half of it, but she hadn't expected him to shave it off.

"Crow Man, you dope, you gotta let your hair dry before you put your hat on," she told him as soon as she was in his hearing range, and he frowned, only just. "Your hair is just gonna get gross again real quick." When he didn't reach to take it off, Ximena just huffed and shook her head. Let him have his greasy hair then. She glanced at the clock behind Nico and tsked. She had no idea what kinda shopper Crow Man was, and while the laundromat she planned on going to was open late, she didn't want to be out when it was dark.

"See ya, Village Person," she said to Nico as she passed him, reaching out and giving Crow Man's jacket a little tug to get him to follow her out.

"Fuck off, brat," he replied, with no real malice in him, but it was followed by a sharp spike of fear. When Ximena looked back, she saw him leaning back, eyes wide, and Crow Man looking down at her with manufactured innocence.

"Don't be rude," she snapped at him, pushing the door open. "We need him to like us so we can shower!"

Crow Man let the door shut behind him, and she scowled at his answering noncommittal shrug.

As they walked to the thrift store Ximena meant to take Crow Man to, she would roll her shoulder, wincing at how the muscle pulled beneath her skin. Having changed out of her overalls, she didn't have the extra pressure from her strap to make it ache, but the dull pain persisted.

Crow Man noticed, because of course he did. Ximena could feel him looking down at her, and it was only when she looked back up at him that he spoke.

"Okay?"

She didn't want to admit that maybe he had been right, and that she should have brought the sling with them. "I'm fine," she said with a little more heat that she planned, and to prove it, she slipped on the second strap of her backpack over her hurt shoulder. It fell against the bruise, but she was rather proud of herself for not reacting to it. Crow Man's expression was searching, and he must have found something she hadn't thought to hide.

"Did you bring medicine?" he asked quietly, and it wasn't lost on Ximena how he all but herded her away from a couple that was coming the opposite direction past them. She scowled, both at his actions and his question.

"I forgot it," she admitted. "But it's fine." She paused, looking down at her shoulder. "How long do you think I'm gonna have this?" she asked, pulling the neck of her shirt to the side and revealing a spattering of purples and greens.

To his credit, Crow Man did not react as he studied the bruising, and Ximena felt a detached sort of clinical interest from him.

"Few days," he said decisively. Ximena groaned.

"Everything is a few days with you."

"Healing takes time." He paused, considering his next words before speaking. "At least it did not break."

She gasped in alarm and looked up at him, grabbing at her shoulder as she did. It proved to be a mistake to add pressure to it, and she dropped her hand as though it had been burned. "You mean this could have been broken?"

The idea scared Ximena. Truth be told, these were things she hadn't quite thought out when she ran away. She had figured, childishly, that she would be immune to these sort of injuries, what with the super strength and all. If a building falling on her hadn't killed her when she was eleven, she had every reason to believe that falling off a ladder wouldn't have done anything to her.

Crow Man's eyes went humorously wide and there was a flare of regret when he realized what he had done. "It didn't-"

"But it could have! What if it is! And we just don't know!" She had never broken a bone before - none of her own, that is - so what did she know about them being broken or not.

Before she could spiral downward in panic, Crow Man reached out toward her, aiming for her hair. Before he could reach her, her hand shot out - the hand attached to her possibly broken shoulder - and she smacked him away.

"Not broken," he declared, and Ximena realized she had been had.

"Rude," she muttered, and then, remembering how he had acted at the YMCA, reached out to tug on his jacket sleeve - he tensed at her sudden movement toward him, and she thought it was weird that he hadn't when she had hit him just seconds before. He probably knew I was gonna hit him before, she realized. He didn't pull out of her grasp, however, and let her keep a hold of him as they walked.

"Speaking of rude, why were you being so mean to Nico?" she demanded, not releasing his sleeve. When he did not answer immediately, she gave it an impatient tug. "Crow Man."

He hesitated, seeming to gather his thoughts before answering. "You say he does you this favor," he started, and nodded to her damp hair. "People… do not do these… nice things just to be nice," he concluded, voice quiet and solemn in such a way that Ximena wondered what had happened to him to make him say that. Her brows furrowed as she took in his words, and figured he did have a point - her own two years in foster care had taught her that, but well:

"Some people do nice things just to be nice," she said, motivated by equal parts spite and her own belief to argue. "I mean, not a lot, but some." She grinned up at him and gestured to herself. "Lookit, I got you food and clothes just to be nice!"

There it was again, that two for one combo of amusement and maybe affection. "Yes, but you were mean first." She opened her mouth to argue, only to realize that yes, he was right. She puffed her cheeks with air and let it out a melodramatic sigh. "Okay, but…" she floundered, trying to think of a counter argument. "You fixed my arm! That was nice." Next to her, Crow Man's steps faltered, and she knew she had him by the funky expression he got on his face. "AND, before that, you gave me money for a hot dog. That was very nice of you, Crow Man."

Ximena wondered if maybe that was the wrong thing to say, as she felt him go still next to her, his emotions stalling like a frozen video game. His face went blank, not hard, but he lost the softness in his eyes as he looked away, as though deep in thought. He opened his mouth to speak, but must have decided against it when he looked back down at her.

She met his gaze, curious – he was having a moment, she knew it. Maybe he was remembering something. Maybe Crow Man before he was Crow Man was more of a jerk.

Before he could hurt himself with overthinking, Ximena stopped in front of the thrift shop, turned to Crow Man, and dutifully asked, "You ready to pop some tags?"

He blinked down at her, and she could practically see the reference go over his head.

"Only got twenty dollars in my pocket?" she tried, and there was a twinge of concern in his expression.

"I brought money-" he started, reaching into his pocket. Ximena stuck out her tongue and blew out a distressed raspberry.

"I can't bring you anywhere," she said, and gestured to the door for him to pull open.