the world (or my corner of it at least) might still be a trash fire but hey i got an update for you. also made minor edits to previous chs so if they're outta order or there's repeats, pls let me know
Pitch darkness surrounded her, and everything hurt (head pounding, shoulder throbbing, stomach gnawing itself inside out). Ximena tried to open her eyes, wanted to see, but found that they were already open wide, and her breath caught in her throat. Acute panic made her heart slam against her rib cage so hard that her stuttering heartbeat was all she could hear.
The rubble pressing down, screams, screams-
She can't move, she can't move, she can't move
Ximena pushed herself up, not waiting for her eyes to adjust to the darkness - even if she did, she couldn't see, tears blurring her vision. She tried to stand, but her legs gave out, and she cut herself off before she could cry out, biting her tongue. The ground was hard, and cold against her palms. She reached out blindly, hands searching and grabbing into the darkness.
Move, Ximena, move, mija, mo-
A faraway voice called - chittering and crackling - and she jumped away from it, scrambling back wildly. It followed, and must have been closer than she realized. A hand grabbed at her, hard, too hard for her to pull away.
Despite the darkness, Ximena could see her as clear as the last moment she had seen her. Bloody and broken, hair plastered to her face. She moved now, broken fingers clawing at Ximena, gripping at her to hold her in place. Her mother's last attempt to protect her daughter twisted, and Ximena knew, she knew, her mom would drag her down to death with her.
Ximena screamed. Her vision flooded with blinding gold. She threw her hands out, but a vice grip caught both of her wrists.
"-na!"
Chittering and crumbling and screaming and
"Nena!"
Ximena froze. She knew that voice. She knew - she was lurched from her waking nightmare. The gold faded from her vision, and while the dark was still as oppressive as ever, she found her vision adjusted just enough to make out the figure in front of her, holding her still.
The building did not collapse around her. It was not her mother's death grip holding her in place. There were no Chitauri waiting for them outside.
"Crow Man?" Her voice, already hoarse, cracked. The grip loosened on her wrists.
"Nena." He spoke carefully. Ximena felt the tightly coiled panic in her chest unwind only just. He began to release her wrists, and she knew that once he did she'd stumble back into the dark, back to the attack, back into her mother's dead arms. She lurched at him, clinging to him, not bothering to try and hide her tears of panic.
Just like in the alley, he went still, seemed unsure of what to do. She felt his arms wrap around her, gently, and then pull her close. He was speaking.
"I got you, nena," he said.
For seventy years he had killed on command. He didn't exist, and when he did, it was to strike fear in those that stood against him. Against HYDRA.
He had never been meant to comfort someone before, much less a child.
Crow Man found himself rocking her - children like being rocked, don't they? - and spoke what he hoped were reassurances. He had expected some sort of reaction from the girl when she woke, but the full blown panic, the terror in her eyes, her scream… that was something he saw of grown men surviving wars, not little girls.
Perhaps the dock warehouse had not been the best place to bring her, he thought. But it was safe. Felt familiar. And it was not as though leaving her had ever been an option. A mission had been triggered by the Hounds' appearance.
The girl was his to protect.
His charge wept now, almost silently. He had next to no experience with children, but he was certain that they weren't quiet when they cried. Hell, most adults were blubbering messes when they shed tears.
He felt her slip back into unconsciousness. She had already slept for hours - slept through the backroad drive from DC to New York (he had stopped once at a gas station that had no camera and stolen a pair of jackets, a hat for the girl), and slept for several hours longer after he found the abandoned dock warehouse to hide away in for the night. Had even stayed asleep as he bandaged her arm. But he did not know how her enhancements impacted her.
She must have been enhanced, to have the power she did. He narrowed his eyes at the darkness. Had someone done this to her, as they had with him?
No, now was not the time to think about that.
He tried to lay her back down, but she let out a strangled whimper, and dug her fingers into his shirt. Ah. Alright then. He shifted - he could hold an uncomfortable position for hours, but it would be better for the girl, he decided, if he wasn't kneeling so awkwardly. She settled against him, and as he looked down at her, enhanced vision cutting through the darkness, he was struck once again by how painfully young she was.
Something in him twisted anxiously. Nerves. He wasn't used to those - he couldn't afford to have them before missions. HYDRA hadn't allowed him to, had programmed those emotions out of him. And now that he was shaking free from that programming…
He was nervous. Uncertain.
What the hell was he supposed to do with the girl.
Objective: Protect The Girl
He shook the voice out of his head; yes he knew that. He was more certain of this particular mission than any he had had before. Perhaps even Rogers. But he didn't - he was an assassin, a killer. He couldn't care for a child, not long term.
No matter how attached he had gotten.
She had a living grandmother, he remembered. One she had been convinced she could run away to, one that would care for her. Perhaps he could escort her. She'd be safe, out of the Hounds' sights then. And he could disappear. Leave Crow Man behind. Return to the shadows.
The idea made him ache. But it would see his mission completed.
The girl began to whimper, and he held her closer. "I got you," he said softly, and she eased.
He was, to put it bluntly, fucked.
When Ximena woke the second time, she still hurt, probably hurt even more than before, but there was light. Dim, soft light. And she was being held, cradled even, in a pair of arms. She might have fallen back asleep, but a voice above her head spoke.
"Nena."
Her eyes snapped back open. She looked up slowly, and saw Crow Man looking down at her. He arched a brow at her. She felt his amusement, light and soft. Embarrassment flooded her, and she swatted at his arms as she scrambled away. She wasn't some baby that needed to be held.
"What the hell?" she snapped, turning back to face him. He was leaning back, holding his hands up in a placating manner. She noticed how his right sleeve was torn, and a white bandage was wrapped around his forearm.
"You…" he searched for the right word. "Panicked when you woke la-"
Ximena threw up her hands. She didn't want to hear about that. There were vague flashes - bloody hands, chittering - but the nightmare was fading from her memory. She looked around, frowning. Unease filled her when she didn't recognize her surroundings. They were in a warehouse, but not their warehouse. It was just as abandoned though, and early morning light streamed in through the dirty windows. She heard water outside. She looked to Crow Man. He seemed… apologetic.
"We couldn't have stayed," he told her. "It wasn't safe."
"Why - Oh." She remembered then. The woman and the man and how they didn't feel like anything. Voids. She remembered throwing the woman - throwing Crow Man, and throwing up on him. She remembered that she had pushed her emotions.
She swallowed hard, and looked away. She felt her hands begin to shake, and she balled them into fists to try and get them to stop.
Ximena was young, but she wasn't stupid. She knew what people thought of mutants. Freaks. She wasn't perfect at keeping her secret, but she tried, for the most part, to never put a name to it. She didn't show off. There was only one person in the whole world she had told, and that had been because the nerd had found out on his own.
"Are you okay?" Crow Man asked. Ximena looked at him, and didn't see the disgust or rage or even mild annoyance she had prepared herself for if anyone ever really found out about her. There was just concern. She reached, an unconscious habit. He was muted, but not completely, less than he usually was except for when that Other had been around. Concern to match his expression, but she also caught an undercurrent of guilt.
"You're not… mad?" His brow furrowed in confusion. "That I-I threw you…" It was easier, only just, for her to say it that way. His eyes lit up with understanding, and there was a shift in him. Ximena felt him shove everything down, the way he always did.
"That you're enhanced."
She wasn't sure what that meant. "I-" She swallowed hard against the sudden flare of fear she felt. Her own. She didn't think she had reason to worry - Crow Man hadn't left her after she had thrown him, and just now he hadn't been mad. She forced herself to speak. "I'm a mutant."
The realization hit her that she had never actually spoken those words aloud. It felt surreal to do so now. She picked at the back of her hand as she went on.
"I'm-I'm strong and I can feel what people feel. My eyes glow if I really gotta try."
She didn't reach, she didn't think she wanted to know how he felt about it. But when she finally looked up at him, she drew back in shock, and maybe a little fear. The muscle in his jaw jumped, and his eyes narrowed, backlit with cold, white rage.
"Someone did this to you?"
His voice was halting and barely contained, and Ximena realized that it was not her he was upset at, but at whoever he thought had made her this way. Had someone done something to him to make him more?
She shook her head in a rush. "I was born like this, I think. They don't really go over it in science class. People don't like to talk about us." She wrapped her arms around her middle, and her shoulder twinged at the movement. Crow Man had relaxed, and she saw the relief in his eyes. "It doesn't weird you out?" she asked.
He arched a brow at her. "A little girl throwing me across an alley is not the strangest thing I've seen, nena."
Ximena felt a stir of annoyance. She wanted to argue that she wasn't little, but she thought that maybe there were more important things to bring up.
"Who were those people?" Crow Man went still. She didn't have to feel it to know that he hadn't wanted to talk about it. But if she had to let him in on her secret, he should let her in on his. "They knew you."
Crow Man looked like he didn't want to answer. He looked away, and she began to wonder if she would get her answers.
"Yes," he said finally.
"How?"
He closed his eyes, and Ximena could practically feel his mind churning, searching for the answer. Did he know? Or was it something from before he scrambled his head? "We worked together," he said, and when he opened his eyes, he seemed to have gone hollow. "For a very long time."
Ximena narrowed her eyes at him. Yeah, she didn't know much about Crow Man, and yeah he was an adult, but he didn't look old enough to work with anyone for a "very long time." Even with his whole homeless man beard.
"You don't look very old though," she accused, and he gave a slight smile, barely there, almost bitter. "You look kinda like my cousin Sal, and he was only like, twenty something, I think."
"I'm older than I look," was the only explanation he gave. Ximena remembered his comment about the freezer for seventy years. Maybe… if Captain America… she shook her head. Crow Man wasn't that cool.
"Why'd they wanna hurt you?" she asked.
"I left," he said.
Ximena hesitated. "Why?" she asked finally.
He looked at her; he hadn't anticipated that question. His brow furrowed, as though he was trying to puzzle out his answer. And Ximena felt those thin whisps of emotion again, the ones she had felt from him in the laundromat. The guilt, the resentment, and the longing.
He opened his mouth to answer, closed it. Searched for the words that she would understand.
"I did not want to be a bad man anymore."
Ximena didn't know what Crow Man had done before he was Crow Man - maybe that was who that Other was - but she had never gotten the sense that he was bad. She didn't think a bad man would stand up for her against that stupid security guard at the museum, or beat up a bunch of mean drunks that threatened her. A bad man, she was certain, wouldn't have cared if the Void Lady had taken her away at the store.
"I don't think you're a bad man," she offered. He looked like he wanted to argue, but she went on. "You didn't leave me, didja?" she asked. "You didn't have to go lookin' for me after I… ya know. Pushed you."
His expression warped, and he looked almost offended. "Yes, I did."
"A bad man wouldn'ta done that," she told him knowingly. He huffed, and it sounded like a choked off laugh. She knew he thought she was being childish. Maybe she was. But Crow Man wasn't bad. Even that other wasn't really bad, just. Hollow and angry. And never angry at her.
They sat in silence for a moment. Ximena looked around and saw her bag resting next to Crow Man. She reached for it, and he handed it over.
Without looking up at him, she asked, "So. What now?"
"Can't stay here."
She frowned at him, pausing her search through her bag - she had found her bear, but her journal… "Where is here?"
"Brooklyn."
She blinked. "New-New York?!" He had the decency to look apologetic. "Why are we in New York?" How badly she had wanted to get out of the city, and now she was right back to square one.
"It felt safe." Ximena huffed at that answer. Safe for who? She wanted to demand. Certainly not her - not after losing her parents in it, after being abandoned by the rest of her family and denied the one person that had wanted her. And certainly not after two years of being shuffled around every two to three months like an unwanted toy. No, New York had never felt safe for her.
But before she could unleash her thoughts on him, Crow Man spoke again.
"We're not staying," he reiterated, but Ximena was caught on the use of we, and tried to shove down the flurry of relief she felt at that. He wasn't going to leave her? "It's not safe."
She blinked, and then scowled up at him. "But you just said-"
"Felt," he said, cutting her off, and there was a contemplative sort of expression on his face, like there was something he wanted to puzzle out, only he couldn't. But then he shook his head and went on. "Not that it was." He scowled, face darkening, and muttered something in that harsh tone and language she couldn't understand, but was pretty sure was what he had spoken to the Voids. "They'll be moving by now."
Ximena was fairly certain she wasn't supposed to hear that, judging by how Crow Man looked at her when an involuntary noise of fear made its way out of her.
"Those people?" she asked, and try as she might, she couldn't keep her voice from shaking. "They're coming again?"
She didn't think she could handle another meeting like before.
Crow Man, for what it was worth, didn't try to lie to her the way she knew other adults would. When he spoke, his voice was firm, but gentle.
"They will try," he told her, "but not for you, nena. You are not theirs to take." There was such a strong undercurrent of conviction in his voice, a hint of the Other shining through, and Ximena knew better than to doubt his word. He had spoken a promise, and she knew he intended to keep it.
"Yeah, but neither are you," she blurted, and he blinked away all traces of the Other. "Why can't they leave you alone?"
His expression softened. "There is a lot of history there," he said gently, and left it at that. "Are you ready to move?"
She nodded and he stood, holding a hand out for Ximena. When she reached up, he shook his head.
"Other hand," he told her, and she scowled before realizing that she had held out her left arm, with her busted shoulder. She huffed, and reached with her other. He pulled her up easily, and righted her when she stumbled a bit.
She looked at him, and then down at herself. Both of them had blood on their clothes. He had a bruise at his temple.
"People are gonna call the cops on us for looking like serial killers," she told him. "Or at least you." She looked down, saw a stain and tear on his pants, just above his knee. She pointed at it, wanting to know what had happened there.
He had gotten it fighting the Voids, she thought, he must have. She wondered about that fight - how had it been going before she interrupted?
"It's fine," he assured her, grabbing his bag from the floor and opening it. "Here," he told her, pulling out a… ah, that was a jacket. He handed it to her. She held it up in front of her. It was grey, and too big by at least two sizes. She slipped it on, zipped it up, and pulled the hood up. It fell half over her face, and she felt the sleeves fall over her hands.
It was comfy though.
She heard a huff, and her hood was pulled back. A hat attacked her head, and she squawked as it flattened her curls against her head.
"Less like a serial killer," Crow Man said, and she pulled up the brim of the hat to see him shrug on his own jacket - oh, isn't that convenient that his actually fit him - and pull a cap over his own head. The hat she had gotten him in DC, she noticed.
She crinkled her nose at him. "Only a little bit." She shook her sleeve down to free her hand and held her pointer finger and thumb about an inch apart. She grabbed her bag, zipping it up and trying to push down the unease she felt at the fact that she still hadn't found her journal.
"Crow Man?" she started before he could start for the door. He hummed in acknowledgement as he picked up his bag and slung it over his shoulders. She hesitated, only for a second, before reminding herself that she had a right to ask this particular question. "Where are we going?"
He went still, and then nodded. "Out of the city first," he said, and he spoke in a slow, careful way, like he was still trying to sort out what he meant to say next. "And then, if you would like, I can take you to your grandmother."
Ximena looked up at him, blinking as his words sunk in. Her… her abuelita? He'd help her get to her?
"Real - really?' she asked, her voice catching in her throat with emotion. The thought of seeing her abuela after so long, of being able to check on her after she had stopped writing back, made her vision blur with unshed eyes.
Crow Man nodded. "Of course," he said, and Ximena reached, because she wanted to believe him, but this wasn't something he wanted to take a chance on. All she could feel was his sincerity, and she knew he had spoken a promise.
She threw herself at him, her arms wrapping around his middle for the second time since they had been in the warehouse, though she had no memory of the first incident. Crow Man made a noise of surprise as the brim of her cap thumped against his chest, but he made no move to push her away. Instead, he brought his own arms around her, holding her to him.
Blinking back tears, Ximena looked up at him. "Thanks, Crow Man," she said, and he offered a small smile, resting a hand on top of her head. There was an undercurrent of melancholy from him that she didn't really understand, but wouldn't question.
"Okay?" he asked, and she nodded enthusiastically.
"Yes!" she said, and bounced on her toes, excitement building into a burst of energy. "Let's blow this popsicle stand, Crow Man," she said, and he blinked in confusion. But she wasn't about to let that bring her down - they were going to find her abuelita. "Let's go!"
He seemed to fight back a smile. Crow Man led the way to the warehouse door - a normal door, not the slidey kind she was used to. He pushed it open, poked his head out. Once he deemed it safe, he stepped out, and she followed him.
She blinked at the light. She heard birds, loud and obnoxious, and water. Docks, she realized. They were on docks. She swallowed hard, despite the fact that they weren't near the water, and inched closer to Crow Man.
She couldn't swim, and large bodies of water kinda freaked her out.
Crow Man noticed the movement, and looked down at her. She made a point to ignore him. She wasn't a baby. She was just. Cautious.
He held out a hand to her, and she stared at it in surprise, then up at him. He offered a smile, soft and barely there, and Ximena felt her chest go warm with affection that wasn't hers. Not originally, at least. But she had a reputation to uphold.
"Baby," Ximena said, taking his hand. It was warm, and callused, and Ximena noticed how his knuckles were bruised and busted, scabbed from the fight. She looked away. "Don't gotta be scared, Crow Man, if anyone tries to beat you up again, you got me to throw another dumpster."
He made a noise that might have been a laugh. "Yes," he agreed. "I got you, nena."
Nena - there it was again, and she didn't mind it but… she would like him to know her actual name. Just because he couldn't give his name didn't mean she couldn't share hers.
She opened her mouth to speak, snapped it close again, hesitating. Crow Man noticed.
"Wha-"
"Ximena," she blurted, and he looked down at her in confusion. She cleared her throat. "My, uh. My name. He-Mehn-Ah," she said, pronouncing it slow and loud because she knew sometimes people tripped over it, never mind how easy she thought it was. "Santiago," she added, almost an afterthought.
Crow Man was looking at her, as though it hadn't even crossed his mind that this was information he should have asked for. Ximena didn't hold it against him - obviously he had other things on his mind.
"Ximena," he repeated, and he pronounced it perfectly. His brow furrowed. "You never told me."
"You never asked," she said with a shrug. " You can still, ya know, call me nena if you want. But now you know."
He hummed. "Now I know."
And it only took Bucky a whole month (a year for us though huh) for him to find out what her name actually is. Let's see how long it takes for Ximena to learn his.
stay schway y'all
