A/N: My apologies for the delay. I was participating in a national speech competition for the past couple weeks (got first place, nbd ;P). Hopefully, my lateness hasn't caused you all to give up on me! On the bright side, the chapters seem to be getting longer and longer. So there's that. Please enjoy, and thank you all for the consistently wonderful reviews! Be sure to check out this week's promo pic on my tumblr!
"I find the best way to love someone is not to change them, but instead, help them reveal the greatest version of themselves."
~Steve Maraboli
Her words hung suspended in the air as the rainwater dripped off them, puddling on the carpet.
The question had definitely managed to distract him, but his eyes flashed with a totally different kind of pain. He inhaled once more, his glare taking on the weight of a silent burden, the shadows under his eyes growing darker with what he was about to say.
"What do you know about me?" he asked in a cautious, subdued tone.
She shifted and sat back on her heels.
"Well... I know you're some kind of assassin." She paused, waiting for him to refute it. He said nothing.
She finished lamely, "That's about it."
He watched her for a heartbeat. Carefully, he leaned forward and braced himself on the armrest.
With a measured voice, he told her, "You're right."
Avery fidgeted.
"I need to level with you," he went on, the heat of his breath brushing her face. "A lot of things are still fuzzy, but I know this: there's innocent blood on my hands. There are people looking for me right now that want me to spill more. If they find me-" he looked like he was suppressing a shudder- "I'll do what they say. And if I stay here, I can't guarantee that your blood won't be part of the deal. So if you want me to leave, tell me right now."
Hearing him affirm her suspicions gave her a kind of grim satisfaction. It seemed that her recent paranoia about getting kidnapped or murdered wasn't all that far off.
Her first instinct was to tell him to go. This was all escalating way too quickly for her taste, and she wasn't sure when she had boarded the train going one hundred miles an hour toward an early demise, but all she wanted was for it to stop. She wasn't ready for this- any of it.
But then her eyes flicked back down to his battered, beaten form, and his metal bicep, which she could now see was dented and missing some plates. Their conversation on the roof reverberated in her head, and she remembered his solitude. Remembered the friendship she had promised him.
She met that cold stare again.
"No," she said with the faint feeling that she was signing her own death warrant. "You can stay."
He leaned back and eyed her, more with vague distrust than with anything else. Finally, he unclenched his jaw, deciding something.
"James Buchanan Barnes."
She watched him and waited for him to elaborate.
He winced again, like there was a bad taste in his mouth, and looked at the ground. "Bucky, for short, apparently."
"That's your name?"
He didn't nod or speak, but his face said enough.
Avery's lips twisted in an ironic smile. "It's nice to meet you, James Buchanan Barnes. Bucky."
The intense frown on his face softened- just slightly- into an expression of neutrality.
She noted that the wound on his forehead had already scabbed over in the short time they had been sitting there. Many of the bruises on his arms and torso were fading and turning a pale, sickly green. The bruise on his ribcage was still fresh. Something told her that, even with all his healing abilities, it would be a while before he recovered from that one.
"Not that I'm upset you came here for help, but-what in the world-?" she gestured to him and trailed off.
His mouth pressed into firm white line. "I was ordered to protect a device from Captain America. As it turns out, he knew me."
"He did this to you?!" Her thoughts flew back to seeing Steve Rogers in McDonald's. She knew then and there he was capable of some serious damage, but this?
The Soldier looked down at himself, absentmindedly surveying his injuries. "Partially. The Helicarrier collapsed and pinned me before it crashed into the Triskelion."
Avery threw her hands up. "Wait, what?"
He frowned at her, going tense when she moved suddenly. "I said, the Helicarrier collapsed and-"
"No, no, I heard you. Just- give me a minute." She cradled her forehead with one hand.
The Triskelion? As in, S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters? Avery had only ever seen it from a couple miles' distance- it was on the outskirts of the city, and security was so heavy around its perimeter that you would get shot before you could near the door without permission. Even birds avoided flying directly over it, like the whole thing was enclosed in an invisible bubble (which it probably was, if any of the conspiracy theories Avery heard about the place were true). That building had more armed agents crawling around than the White House- and here he was telling her that he had just crashed a hovercraft into it.
A thought struck Avery like lightning. A building that big and a Helicarrier? Had the tremors she felt at work been because of the collapsing Triskelion?
He watched her silently, not quite comprehending the situation's outrageousness, as she tried to absorb everything.
"Now, what exactly- I mean- who the heck do you work for?"
A wall instantly went up. Like it was second nature, he said with finality, "Classified."
She huffed. "Okay...understandable. But what did Captain America want with this 'device?'"
He eyeballed her with suspicion again.
"Look. You can't just show up here bloody and beaten half to death and not expect me to ask any questions. Considering that you're the assassin here, I've put an awful lot of trust in you already. Work with me."
She immediately regretted snapping at him. He straightened in the wicker chair at her tone, eyes narrowing.
It slowly dawned on her that, when she spoke to him like that on the roof, she had the comfort of knowing that other people could have heard her screaming for help. Now, she was totally alone with him. No one could hear anything over this rain if he decided to shut her up for good.
She silenced these thoughts, almost ashamed of herself. Hadn't he just told her the other day that he wouldn't hurt her? Hadn't he held her hand with the most dangerous tool available to him and reassured her, not intimidated her?
His open admission of being a loose-canon assassin wasn't much of a comfort, but still.
She breathed in, her own eyes dropping in embarrassment- not at her temper, but at her own invisible hypocrisy.
"I'm sorry. This is all a lot to take in. I'm just trying to tell you that you can talk to me." She risked a look up at him. "Probably not doing a good job of that, huh?"
"No. Not really."
When she saw his deadpan face, she couldn't help herself. She snickered.
His eyes widened and his frown deepened, whether in perplexity or discomfort, she didn't know. She cleared her throat, regaining seriousness.
"You said he knew you." It was clearly a touchy subject, but Avery's burning curiosity bid her not to stay silent. "Did you know him?"
His eyes rolled shut and he said, "No. Yes..." His head twitched to the side. "I get blurs. Snippets. But they're all..." He took a breath. "...painful. Most likely a side effect of the memory wipes."
Something sharp was poking Avery's heart. She shoved the feeling aside. He eased up out of the chair, a picture of lethal grace despite being wounded. The chiseled muscles of his core were pulled tight.
"What are you gonna do now?"
"I need to keep my head down for a while. I need to find out how Captain America knew me. Plus, a failed mission always has...repercussions. I can't go back."
Avery almost had to sit on her hands to keep from asking him what his mission had been, how he would look into the Captain's past, what his organization did to him when he didn't accomplish a task. However, she noticed his glassy expression and thought better of it. He needed time before he opened up about anything else.
At the same time, she flashed back to Captain Rogers' visit in McDonald's. She knew the famed hero was in the area. Could telling the Soldier about that help him to answer some of his questions?
Something stopped her from disclosing the information to him. She wasn't sure why, but she had the vague feeling that he wasn't quite...ready. Ready to know that the Captain was so nearby. To face him again. To remember whatever was locked away in his subconscious.
The rain had dissolved into a light trickle outside, and he was drifting toward the window. She settled on asking him one last question.
"Where'll you go?"
His back was facing her. The vertebrae of his spine were all visibly bruised and stood out from his well-muscled back. "I don't know."
He inhaled like he was about to say something else, but his damaged arm spasmed again, throwing off sparks like a mockery of the Fourth of July.
"Chert poberi," he cursed under his breath in Russian, trying to flex the arm and regain control.
"You can't go out there like that," she stood up, but maintained her distance. "People will notice."
He turned slightly back to her, his hand and arm curling slowly in toward his chest.
"Do you have tools?" he answered, obviously agreeing with her.
She nodded. "Stay right there." She hurried from the room, pausing with one hand on the doorframe. "If you're gone again when I get back, I will be seriously pissed."
Her eye caught his silhouette standing stock-still in the window as she left the room. She trotted down the dark stairway, rounded the corner, and opened the white door near the kitchen.
Once in the washroom, her hand reached up and blindly felt for the chain that would switch the light on. The room was illuminated. A washer was seated on top of a dryer in the corner, and a couple piles of freshly folded clothes had been left on the counter. Avery opened the cupboard at the bottom left, rifled through some packs of batteries, and finally found a black chest about the size of a brief case.
When she made it back to the doorway of her bedroom, her pace slowed.
The Soldier was standing in front of her dresser. His back was still toward her. Had he not been in front of a mirror, she wouldn't have been able to see what he had picked up- a picture of her with her parents in Times Square. Her hair had looked horrible that day, her dad was making a stupid face, and her mom was wearing this weird frilly sweater that Avery detested, but it was still one of her favorite family pictures.
The mirror only reflected him from his neck down, so she couldn't see his face.
"Bucky?" she said softly, the carefree name sounding close to laughable for a turbulent enigma like him.
The picture was back down on the dresser quicker than lightning, but he didn't turn around.
"I, uh, brought the tools. I'm not sure how much they'll help, but..."
She started forward, faltered, waited. He wasn't moving from his spot.
It had to be a full minute before he finally turned. In the dimly lit room, his vibrant eyes stood out like two sapphires, reflecting things Avery couldn't quite read.
She was rooted to her spot by the door. He began treading a silent path to her. She didn't say anything about the picture.
He neared her, and only looked away from her face once to survey the box she held. Avery's heart was twittering a little at his closeness- that made no sense; she wasn't really afraid of him anymore. It suddenly occurred to her that there was a very attractive, very shirtless man in her bedroom. A little flustered, she told herself to stop being such a hormonal teenager.
When he reached for the box, his arm popped and twitched again. He recoiled with a grunt and pinned it down at his side.
It was clear he wouldn't be doing much in his state. "Maybe I can help if you tell me what to do," Avery suggested.
He nodded. She led him back to the wicker chair, where he sat again. The toolbox was set on the side table.
She got down on her knees and shuffled to his left, pulling the table toward her so the tools were within reach.
"You have to pry open this part first," he said, pointing to the shoulder plate with the star.
"...Will it hurt?"
He stared straight ahead. "I'm used to it."
She was torn between apologizing and arguing. Instead, she opted to open the box, grab the thickest screwdriver, and go to her job.
The plate was already hanging at a weird angle. The bottom part was bent upwards, leaving a gaping crevasse between the meeting point of the shoulder and upper arm.
"Tell me to stop if I'm hurting you, okay?"
"Why should that matter?"
"Because I don't want to hurt you! Duh!"
He opened his mouth. She inserted the screwdriver in the gap before he could say anything back. With all her might, she pushed up, using the damage for her own convenience. It didn't budge at all. She tried again, still to no avail.
"What is this made of?!" she muttered, half to herself.
"Vibranium."
She pushed again, using her shoulder this time. "Never heard of it." Her hands were getting sweaty, making it hart to grip the screwdriver.
"It's a very strong-" she interrupted him with a frustrated growl and pushed again, "-extremely rare metal," he finished.
She re-adjusted herself so she could pull the screwdriver up, rather than push it. She stood, knees sore from the kneeling.
In the split second before it happened, she realized her mistake. Her grip on the handle slipped from the tool. Her hand kept going, the sharp edge of the arm's corrupted metal slicing a bone-deep gash in her palm.
"Agh!" she hissed, tripping backwards. She held the hand out in front of her, but seeing the amount of blood that was rushing to the surface, she looked away. It started gushing almost immediately, falling hot and fast onto the carpet.
"Okay," she said with a high voice verging on hysterical, "That was a bad idea."
His head had snapped toward her as soon as she cried out. He was out of the chair in a second, and grabbed her hand to inspect it as she consciously looked anywhere but there. She may have been fine with other peoples' blood, but hers was a different story.
He briefly forced the wound open to check its severity. She gasped and felt tears gathering in her eyes.
"You need stitches," he said with an artificial detachment that scared her. "Where's the nearest hospital?"
"No, no! We can't go to the hospital. My mom works there."
He must not have seen the point in arguing with her. "Do you have a needle and polymer thread?"
The burning pain in her palm was escalating. "There might be some in my parents' room, on the shelf in the closet."
His demeanor had sharpened, his gaze blazing with the objective of his new mission, but he was uncharacteristically noisy as he ran next door and rummaged through the closet.
Being alone, even for a brief minute, added to her distress. When the edges of her vision started to blacken, she had to remind herself to take slow breaths.
"Bucky..." she called anxiously.
He instantly reappeared in the room. His good hand found her elbow and pulled her insistently over to the bathroom sink. Out of habit, he went for the faucet with his bionic arm. It groaned and sputtered again. He switched back to his good arm, taking her palm and holding it under the running water, which turned dark pink as it washed off her hand.
She let herself be guided back into her room. She sat on the first thing she saw- the bed- and he took his turn to kneel down. Everything was wobbling a little bit.
She screwed her eyes shut as soon as she saw him take the needle out of the first-aid kit. Tensing up when he grabbed her hand, she prepared for the pain.
He braced her with his malfunctioning arm. The needle entered her hand with about as much comfort as a white-hot iron. He went quickly and efficiently about his business, mending the skin with one stitch at a time. Her tears were flowing in earnest now. After the first or second stitch, she whimpered and swayed back and forth on the bed.
"Breathe," he commanded softly.
Thankfully, the wound was not so much wide as it was deep, so he was done after six or seven stitches. He tied off the thread, careful to not pull it, and raised her hand to bite off the excess string.
She took another minute or so before she opened her eyes. The pain from the needle was fading, leaving a throbbing ache in its absence. She hesitantly looked down at her hand. It wasn't bleeding as freely now, but she knew she would have a pretty good-sized scar.
His attention was trained on her like he still expected her to faint, and his lips were parted like he wanted to say something. Some sweat had reappeared on his brow. She gave a watery laugh and brushed away a few tears. "We're a mess."
Maybe she was hallucinating, or maybe she had actually fainted and she was dreaming, but the corners of his mouth twitched up in a smirk as he sat before her.
She was conscious of how her eyes widened, but she tried valiantly to mask her surprise with another gentle grin. They sat contentedly still.
"You know," she began, "no one ever goes up on the roof but me. If you need a place to lie low for a while, I could find you a sleeping bag. Besides, you can't really be out in public until we fix you," she nodded to his arm.
He looked toward the window, which showed that the rain had stopped outside, and pondered the offer before answering with a stiff nod.
She stood very slowly so as not to risk passing out. After a quick trip to her closet, she found what she needed—the sleeping bag—and brought it back over to him.
He had stood up when she did. With notable gentleness, he took the sleeping bag from her hands.
"You need to sleep," he told her rigidly. "I'll leave you alone." He turned to go. There was very little pain left in his stride. He briefly bent to pick up his shirt and jacket before slinging them over his shoulder, scaling the ladder with the sleeping bag under one arm, and disappearing from view.
"Thank you," she said too late. She doubted he had heard her.
She gave her room a cursory glance. There was broken glass by the windowsill, and there was blood—her blood—on the carpet by the nearest bedpost.
She had the good sense to shut her door so her mom wouldn't see anything when she got home in the morning. Exhaustion hit Avery so fast that she swooned on her way to the bed. As she drifted off, she wondered whether the hardware store near work would have something that could help fix the Soldier's limb.
Her final thought before losing consciousness was that Google might have an answer for getting the blood out of the carpet.