"What about this shirt?" the girl asked, and Crow Man's gaze snapped away from the woman standing by the purses rack—she had been eyeing them with distaste since they entered the store, and if the girl was not going to be aware of these things while she was still physically compromised, then he would. As it was, the girl was holding up a long sleeved shirt for him to see. It wasn't so different in design as the shirt he wore now, though it looked lighter, not as thick.

He went still as she pressed the shirt up to his chest, pinning it against him at his shoulders. She tilted her head to the side, wrinkling her nose as she examined him.

"I think it'll work. What do you think?"

He swallowed as she pulled it away. "It will work," he agreed, not caring so long as it fit and covered his arm.

"Okay, now pants!" She turned on her heels and tossing the shirt over her shoulder. He followed after her, and noted that the woman by the purses wrinkled her nose—disdainful, different than how the girl just had. His little companion must have been paying more attention than he gave her credit for as her head snapped up toward the woman, and the set of her shoulders squared off.

Crow Man could practically feel her offense bubbling up, and before she could call out - for she no doubt would have - he reached out and placed his hand on her shoulder.

"Nena," he said, voice low in warning. It would not do for them to get anymore unwanted attention.

He had prepared for the girl to lash out at him for stopping her, but instead she went still beneath his touch, and then deflated, though her shoulders remained tense.

"I wasn't gonna do nothing," she muttered, shrugging him off. Her voice was off, downtrodden, and something in his chest tightened. As they walked to the rack with pants, Crow Man caught the woman's eye. She did a double take at the glare he sent her, and swallowed hard before turning her attention back to what she was doing.

He hardly paid mind as the girl poked through the rack, instead keeping his head down and angled away from the cameras situated in the corners of the store, and monitoring the storefront for new arrivals.

"Do you remember what size I got you last?" the girl asked, and his brow furrowed at the question. Her face pulled the way it often did when he revealed he didn't know what she spoke of. "Did you even look at it before you tried them on?" Should he have? Of course. Nothing will be tailor made by HYDRA anymore. "Crow Man!" she snapped, and shook her head when he looked down at her. "Here," she said, holding out a pair of pants to him. "See if these might fit around your waist."

He frowned down at the pants - faded jeans, not too worn - and then back up at her. Did she mean for him to change into them? He looked around for a changing room.

"No, you dope, just like-" she floundered before snatching the pants out of his hand. "Like this." She held them to her hips. "They won't…" She glanced past him at the employee, and then the purse woman, who had moved on to the women's blouses. "They won't let you try it on," she said quietly.

"Why?"

She didn't answer immediately, and instead took a moment to look at him. It was probably the first time she had stopped to think of what she would say next. That did not make it anymore tactful.

"You still look super homeless, Crow Man. Just see if the seam meets the side seam of the pants you're already wearing, and if it don't then get one that does," she instructed him, handing the pants back off to him. "I'm gonna go look at the books," she told him, and he went still.

The bookshelf she wanted to go to rested against the left wall in a little area that was down a step. Approximately thirteen feet away from where he stood, twenty away from the woman by the purses. Seventeen feet away from the front entrance and ten away from the cashier who had registered as less as a threat than the boy Nico.

He nodded once, certain that he could reach her before anything else in and out of the store barring a bullet. "Okay."

He knew the girl was not asking for permission, and that he was not someone she should seek it from, but it was not until he spoke that she moved away. He watched, ensuring she made it to the shelf. Even when he looked back to what he was meant to be doing, he found himself keeping her in his peripheral vision.

She is still physically compromised, he reasoned with himself when he felt a twinge of confusion at his actions. Still, it did not answer why he cared. He looked down at the pants she had given him and tried to puzzle it out. Despite the lack of threat, despite the fact he would still be able to reach her, could just call out and call her back, he felt uncomfortable with the distance she had put between them. Just as he had when the heat wave hit and she had grown lethargic. Just as he had when she had joked about sleeping in his cryostasis chamber—though he would admit that he should not have mentioned it to begin with.

She's useful, he thought. Resourceful. Offered a camouflage in the city. It would not do to lose the advantage she offered.

Still, despite what she offered, he did not need her; he was, after all, a skilled asset of HYDRA. There was not a city he could not maneuver, given time. He could fall beneath detection just as well without the smaller body next to him, perhaps even better so. Truth be told, the girl was a distraction. Still…

He looked up at her, and felt a soft, foreign warmth in his chest. She rocked back on her heels, head craned up as she read the titles of the books on the higher levels of the shelf. Her hair had mostly dried in the heat outside on their walk to the shop, and was now more frizz than curls.

No, he did not need her. Still, he would stay with her for now. Until he could leave the city.

The pants she had given him were too short, and so he had to replace them with another pair. By the time he had hunted one down in the disorganized rack, the girl was rushing back to him. He had heard her exclaim in excitement, and had prepared to stop her before she crashed into either him or the nearby clothes, but she managed to stop herself just before either could happen. She clutched a book to her chest, and her eyes were bright as she looked up at him and shoved it out to him.

"Crow Man, lookit what I found!"

He drew back to avoid being hit by the book in the nose, and then carefully extracted it from the girl's hand. He glanced down at her with an arched brow at her actions, and she drew her arm back, having the decency to look reprimanded. Her nose was peeling, he noted, and her face was less red and more brown now.

"Did you know it was a book before it was a movie?" she asked as he turned his attention back to the book. The cover was old and worn, and the gold detailing had gone dull and was fading. Still, he could make out the words, and the four small figures engraved on the front.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

"I'm gonna take it," the girl went on as he flipped it open. The pages had gone yellow, and smelled of mildew and dust. He wondered if it would survive the warehouse. Not likely. But as he held it back to the girl, he could not find it in himself to bring up the thought at the sight of her pleased smile.

"Are you done?" she asked, and he nodded. But as he did, he noticed a small stand near the back corner, and noted how the clothing items there were rather out of season. Winter caps, scarves, gloves-

He looked down at his metal hand. It would not do for someone to see it and recognize it. The long sleeves shirts only did so much. Decision made, he went to the stand, the girl following close behind. He picked up a pair of large black gloves, worn and the fabric pilling, but still intact. They would do.

"Now I am ready."


The laundromat Ximena brought Crow Man was more run down than some of the others in the city, but the old man who ran it stayed in the back office and didn't lock the bathroom. The bathroom itself wasn't very clean as a result, but the machines worked well enough, and there were chairs to sit in, and an old vending machine with individual packets of detergent, so Ximena thought it was good enough.

"Go change," Ximena ordered Crow Man, pushing him to the restroom in the back, and he shot her a look. "Just go," she urged. "Hurry up before someone comes in and takes the good washer!"

He glanced around, and Ximena huffed in annoyance at the confusion he felt. Before she could get on to him again, he was off, and she made her way to the soap vending machine. Digging her change out of her pocket, she stuck a bill in and selected the cheapest option.

Crow Man returned with his clothes folded in his hands just as Ximena was throwing her own clothes into the washer in the back corner. He stopped next to her, and eyed the machine critically. Ximena couldn't find it in herself to blame him. The thing might have been older than her for all she knew, and soap residue ran down the front in a trail of stains. It was lopsided, one of the feet at the bottom having gone missing long before Ximena first found the place, and would rock dangerously if not weighed down. She had taken to sitting on top of it despite the signs claiming the prohibition of the action.

"It does not look like the good washer," Crow Man said after a beat of silence, and Ximena rolled her eyes, snatching the clothes from his hands and dropping them in. She had already poured in the soap, and slammed the door shut with more force than necessary.

"It's one-ah the better ones," she told him, setting the dials and hopping on top of it before it could start its dance. "Go get a chair or something; we're gonna be here for a while."

As Crow Man dragged a chair back next to the machine she sat on, Ximena pulled her bag into her lap and retrieved the book she had just bought. It felt fragile in her hands, and she reminded herself to take care with it if she wanted it to last. She had forgotten herself once, and had accidentally ripped a library book right down the middle. She didn't need to feel it to know just how pissed the librarian on duty had been.

Before he went to sit, Crow Man once again eyed the machine. Ximena looked up at him expectantly, swaying atop the machine as it rocked.

"What?" she demanded, and he frowned, only just, and took his hat off. The ends of his hair had started to poof with frizz, but what had been under the hat had been plastered to his head until he ran a hand through it, airing it out.

"Is that safe?" he asked, and she looked down at the machine as he went on. "It doesn't hurt your shoulder?"

She dropped her head back and rolled her eyes. "It's fine." She righted herself and grinned, giving the side of the machine a loving pat. "'Oh, the pioneers used to ride these babies for miles,'" she quoted, and lamented on how the reference was lost on Crow Man. But for what it's worth, despite his confusion, he only hummed in uncertain acknowledgment before finally sitting next to her.

They sat in relative silence, the creaking and sloshing of the machine aside.

"Hey, Crow Man," Ximena started after a few minutes passed. He was jotting away at the sloth journal she had given him, and she wanted to laugh at how much it did not fit with his rugged appearance. Before she could be a snoop, he clicked his pen and snapped the book shut.

"Hey, nena," he said in return, looking back up at her. There he was, using that name like it was actually hers. She wondered how long it would take him to realize that wasn't actually her name. I'll allow it, she figured, if he lets me keep calling him Crow Man.

"Did you know Dorothy's shoes were actually silver in the book?"

He hummed in a noncommittal you don't say kinda way. "They were red in the movie," he said, almost absentmindedly.

"I know! I wonder why they changed it. Silver would have looked cooler." She paused and glanced down at his left hand, only to see that he had hidden it within one of the gloves he had bought at the thrift store. He noticed her looking at it, and clenched it into a fist, but did not hide it away.

"Why are you hiding your arm?" It wasn't her business, and she had no right to ask him that question. Judging by how he tightened his grip, eyes narrowing at the gloved arm, he thought so too. Ximena felt a flash of resentment from him - sharp and almost painful in comparison to his usually muted emotions, but not directed at her. She thought she heard a mechanical whirl from his arm.

"You don't have to answer that," she said, backpedaling, not meaning to have made him uncomfortable. But he opened his hand, and his eyes softened in a sad sort of way when he looked to her again.

"I do not like my arm," he said, and Ximena blinked at how freely he gave that, at the tired sincerity and resignation she felt pulling her down.

"Can I say a thing?" she asked after a beat, and a shadow of a smile played at his lips. He gestured for her to go on. "I think it's kinda cool. Like, really cool," she told him. He stared at her before looking back down at it. "But that's just me."

He hummed. "Just you then."

Well, she hadn't expected to completely change his mind about the thing. He was more relaxed after she said that thought, the hard set of his shoulders easing away.

He began to go back to his journal, only to still when Ximena - not known for her tact - leaned over to snoop. She drew back at the arched brow he directed at her.

"Yes?"

"Whatcha writing?" she asked, propping her elbow on her knee and her chin in her hand. "Is it helping you remember?" Her eyes went wide and she leaned toward him precariously. "Do you know your name now?!"

He didn't immediately reply, and when he did, he gave a shrug. She didn't think she'd get anything from him, but still felt a twinge of disappointment. And really, just as with his arm, it wasn't any of her business.

"That sucks." She huffed, blowing a barely formed curl out of her face. "Well, you'd still be Crow Man to me even if you remembered your name." When she looked back down at him, she blinked at how intently he was staring at her. "What?" she demanded, straightening and on the defense.

He opened his mouth to speak, and then snapped it shut and looked away. She reached, and pushed through a heavy yet somehow diluted cloud of emotions she knew all too well. They swirled among each other, making it hard, but not impossible, to pick out the most prominent. Grief, guilt, and buried within those, longing.

"Crow Man." She got his attention, and just like a puff of smoke waved away, the emotions were gone. Muted completely. "You don't gotta-" She stopped herself, unsure of what she wanted to say. "You don't gotta hurry in figuring yourself out, you know,"she said, looking away from him. "'S not like I'm gonna kick you out or nothing."

Her face felt sunburned all over again. Next to her, Crow Man seemed to sort of settle.

"I will take my time then, if you won't kick me out."

She huffed. "Just don't get too comfortable." She didn't mean it, but she didn't need him thinking she went soft on him. Still, when she glanced back at him, he was looking away, hiding a barely there grin.

By the time both the washer and dryer finally finished with their clothes, the sun had gone down behind the city's buildings, and the street lights had kicked on. Ximena usually preferred to be back at the warehouse by the time it started to go dark. People she'd rather not meet liked to come out at night. The "bad men" Helen was so worried about. And while she loved the alleys during the day, they weren't exactly ideal at night.

"Ready?" Crow Man asked as she put her now clean and folded clothes in her backpack. She nodded as she slung it on her back.

"Ready."

Crow Man led the way out, and held the door for her after himself. She figured, as they walked down the sidewalk, that he was enough to scare away any bad men.

Not that she needed the protection - she could take care of any problem on her own just fine - but not having to was nice too. In any case, she didn't think they'd have trouble on a weeknight.

Still, Crow Man stayed close by her side, keeping her away from the passing cars on the street and herding her away from other pedestrians. It was ridiculous, honestly, and she wondered how he'd react if he found out she was stronger than him.

Whatever. He'll probably be gone before that.

Ximena frowned at the thought, and then scowled at herself for being upset. What did she care that Crow Man would leave? People left all the time, or sent her away. It's what they did.

"Okay?" She looked up at him, pulled from her thoughts, and noted how despite his expression remained rather neutral, there was an air of concern about him. She huffed and tugged at the straps of her bag, and the left pulled uncomfortably against her shoulder.

"Nothin'. Just-"

They were at the mouth of the alley she used to get to their warehouse when she stopped cold. Her hands, still gripping the straps, shook and began to slip with sweat. Her back went rigid, and she felt as though cold fingers ran up her spine.

She was scared, and it wasn't her fear that made her shake. She hadn't reacted to an emotion like that since she had been in New York, and she knew that whatever was happening, it must be bad.

"Nena-"

She ignored Crow Man, looking around. There was no one on the sidewalk around them that gave away such a fear. She turned back to face the alley; it had gone dark, the light from the lamps barely reaching within. It was coming from there. Who-

Helen and Marty.

Crow Man was saying something, but Ximena didn't hear him as she tore into the alley, into the darkness.