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Chapter Two

A chill ran the length of Lily's spine and the air seemed stagnant, leaving her breathless and numb. His cap toppled from her grasp to the car floor and she stumbled, backpedalling out of the space between her Buick and the minivan. Dread rushed at her from all sides and made her cheeks warm, her chest seized by an invisible weight. She was shaking for real now, her whole body wracking as she tried in vain to take even breaths and force down the nausea that caused both her stomach and head to spin. It was a monumental effort for her to keep upright.

Lily pressed a hand to her mouth before kneading her fingers through gentle waves of long, honey brown hair. She wanted to look again, to make sure she had in fact seen what she thought she did, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. Her legs wobbled, and she had yet to succeed in getting the swell of confusion and shock to pass. She paced the small section of asphalt between cars, then paused at the edge of the parking spaces, her face buried in her palms. Lily felt the familiar prickling of unshed tears at the corners of her eyes, the burning at the back of her throat, but she sniffled to tame them.

She'd made a grave mistake bringing him here. She should have stuck with Plan A.

Go, her mind screamed, Go, get out now. You can still—

She fumbled to retrieve the keys from her bag.

"Lily?"

It was too late.

Lily pivoted on her heel and was greeted by Mia, who toted a wheelchair and had brought a male nurse along with her. Mia's pastel pink scrubs stood out against her olive skin, and her hair was done in its usual neat ponytail. The nurse beside her walked with a somewhat hunched gait, likely due to the late September night. There was a colorful tattoo wrapped around his forearm.

"Thought a wheelchair would draw less attention than a gurney," she explained. Her eyebrows were gathered in a stern, questioning line. "What's going on? Are you all right? You look like you've just seen a ghost."

Somewhere in the recesses of her mind, she was laughing. But the sound that came out of her mouth was a choked whine of panic that made Mia's already wilting patience thin.

"Lily?" she repeated.

She was in a daze. "He might have been shot or stabbed, I'm not sure," Lily answered.

She stepped aside so Mia could brush past her, towing the wheelchair as far as it would go. Mia's gasp was Lily's clue that she had seen the same thing—except in a different light. She knew Mia would only recognize one side of him.

There was a thud as Mia backtracked into the side door of the minivan, her arms thrown up in front of her. At first, Lily thought he'd woken up and accosted her, but the wide-eyed fear on Mia's face told her otherwise.

"Lily," she said, slowly, "you better start telling me what's going on. I thought I'd be stitching up one of your Smithsonian buddies, not…not…do you know who that is?"

"Of course I—"

Mia interrupted with a cynical laugh. "Oh, okay, so why isn't the FBI, CIA, Homeland Security, whatever—the police here to take him away? What the hell are you doing? Didn't you think 911 was a good idea?"

"We're not calling anyone," Lily told her. Her voice was quiet. She was surprised by her own steely resolve. It was like a light switch had been flicked on. "You need to keep your voice down so I can explain."

"Forget it. No explaining is going to make any sense out of this." Mia gave her a sidelong scowl.

"Mia, I need your help," Lily said. "He's hurt, and you're the only one who can give him proper medical care and keep it quiet." Mia was about to continue, but Lily cut her off. "We can't make a scene, we can't call the police. Just…trust me, all right?"

Mia shook her head. "Hell no. I didn't sign up to be your accomplice harboring a fugitive inside a goddamn hospital."

Her nurse friend remained at his post toward the end of the space, arms folded, watching the two of them argue. Lily didn't like him being there, listening to all of this.

"I know how bad it looks," Lily said. "But—"

Mia crossed her arms. Her tone was urgent, in complete disbelief. "No, I don't think you do. You could go to prison for this, Lily. I could get fired! I'm obligated to call the police, I can't just let this go."

Lily dared a glance behind her and saw him slumped in the passenger seat, remembered the pungent smell of his blood. "Please, help him. If this goes south, I'll keep you out of it, I promise." Mia didn't look convinced. "I promise, Mia, please. He'll die if he loses any more blood."

"Then let him. He's not my problem. He's not yours, either." Her gaze turned cold.

"He's not who you think," Lily replied. "He is, but…he isn't."

She wasn't sure how she could reason with the new information and relay it to her roommate. Lily was still attempting to process it herself, and she wasn't doing a very good job. The face she knew, the man who was wanted for atrocities, how could they be one in the same? It felt as though the rug had been violently ripped out from under her feet. Her mind sprinted at a break-neck pace, running in circles around what she knew about him and everything that had turned him into someone even he couldn't recognize.

"You have to start making sense."

"I'll try to explain later—there's no time now. Trust me. I wouldn't lie about this. We have to get him inside."

Mia's scowl hadn't faded. "I better be alive by the time we get through this," she muttered. "I hope you understand how much of a risk I'm taking. You owe me." Mia scoffed. "Better yet, you owe me for the next three months."

"Yeah, I know."


It took the three of them to get him from the car to the wheelchair. He was all dead weight and muscle, no help to any of them whatsoever. Lily had a feeling the artificial arm added to the burden, but everyone had elected to ignore it. She tugged his hood up to conceal his face; his chin had dropped forward to his chest, shielding him from view. Mia led them through the parking lot, her nurse friend carting the wheelchair and Lily on his right flank. The wheels squeaked obnoxiously over potholes and divots in the pavement. It was slick from a light misting of rain that had begun to fall, reflecting the overhead lights.

Lily felt terrible for Mia's chosen assistant. He looked pale, like he would rather be anywhere on the planet than dragged into this mess she'd unwittingly created. He had a white-knuckled grip on the handles and avoided eye contact with the patient in question. Lily couldn't find it in her to trust this guy—people like him were flighty, able to crack under pressure. She knew he was summoning all his willpower not to bolt and flag down the nearest police officer.

She tugged on his sleeve, directing his line of vision to her. He was taller, and had to blink down at her. "Not a word."

His expression was trance-like. He didn't answer.

"Did you hear me?" Lily asked. "Not one word to anyone while we're here, or it won't end well for you."

He gulped. Lily didn't know if her threat was empty or not. She wasn't in a position to do anything to him if he alerted the authorities, but she had a strong feeling their patient would be none too happy once he finally regained consciousness. Getting him arrested on top of it would not be the best course of action. The surge of protective instinct was new to her, and she hadn't expected this kind of about-face so quickly.

Mia navigated through the back doors and they simultaneously disregarded every person they walked past, dissolving into the ebb and flow of traffic. She had explained to Lily that she had a room ready on the fourth level at the very end of an often abandoned corridor, since the exam rooms downstairs would leave them out in the open, easily discovered. Mia had never done a thing like this—and Lily wasn't exactly known for escorting Most Wanted assassins—so she had to make sure the corridor was fairly secure and they could slip past the important people who would ask questions.

While Mia distracted the admittance desk, Lily and Mia's nurse friend—whose name she'd gathered was Isaac, from his ID badge—headed for the elevators. Lily waited for the most scarcely populated one, and they spent the short ride awkwardly avoiding the side-eye glances from an elderly couple and a mother with a sleeping child cradled against her hip.

Lily let out a breath she'd been holding when they crossed the threshold out of the elevator.

"This way," Isaac said. He made a series of left and right turns, guiding them through the hallways by memory.

The foot traffic was minimal compared to the lower floor, but Lily decided to remain several paces behind them. She kept her strides brisk and her chin up as though she had the confidence to be there. As if she couldn't feel her pulse hammering away and the persistent nausea threatening to make her throw up.

Lily offered friendly smiles and maintained a nonchalant attitude to anyone clad in scrubs or a lab coat that she encountered. It didn't do much to quell the feeling that she once again had a target on her back but it was enough to keep up the façade that she knew what the hell she was doing. Isaac didn't have trouble accompanying an unconscious patient without being interrogated—no one knew if he was sleeping or passed out by a mere glance, and Mia had tossed a blanket over him from Lily's trunk to hide the fact that his clothes and hands were bloodstained.

Isaac disappeared behind the last door at the end of a hallway across from an alcove. Lily slowed her pace and waited another minute before she went inside and shut the door behind her. It was a standard hospital room equipped with two beds separated by a curtain and a tiny bathroom, all business and drab in that sterile way that was commonplace for a hospital. Her first instinct was to launch herself at the windows and close the blinds, afraid of lurkers or trained rifles or a military grade helicopter.

Lily disposed of her bag and blazer on the armchair opposite the bed that Isaac had parked the wheelchair next to. She desperately hoped no one would need this room in the time they were occupying it. They'd missed the influx of chaos from the attacks over the Potomac and SHIELD headquarters by a couple weeks, but the dangers of being stumbled upon were many. She wasn't sure how long they would be able to stay, much less if she'd be able to convince him stick around. All Lily knew was that she wanted to get him out of here as fast as humanly possible and without incident.

Transferring him to the bed wasn't the chore it had been at the car. The hospital bed was a lot more accommodating, and soon Isaac and Lily had his head propped up on a couple of pillows. Lily prayed he would stay unconscious for the majority of this. It was easier for everyone.

Lily stole a glimpse of his face. He looked awful in the harsh fluorescent lighting, which seemed only to help drain any traces of color he had left. His hair was tangled and matted, much longer than she'd ever seen it. The planes of his face were gaunt and his eyes were rimmed and underlined in purple and red—traces, she guessed, of a lack of sleep and nutrition. She remembered a few pictures of him—rare, incredibly so—right after he'd been liberated from HYDRA forces. His eyes had held the same appearance then.

She tore her gaze away from him, sorrow coiling in the pit of her stomach.

Isaac had stripped the blankets and sheets, piling them on the unused bed behind the curtain. They were waiting for Mia to show up with supplies, but Lily grew impatient while every dire minute passed. She made a move to unzip the hooded sweatshirt, but Isaac grabbed her hand with his gloved one.

"I can't let you do that."

"I think it's a little late for that now," Lily countered.

Isaac gave her a sheepish and faint smirk. "We'll take the sweatshirt off and get the shirt underneath to use as a bandage to stop the blood while we wait for Mia."

Mia's delayed arrival started to worry her, but she nodded.

Lily folded the sweatshirt and dropped it to the floor. She heard the fabric rip, Isaac tearing up the dingy gray t-shirt splattered crimson. A secondary shirt had been wrapped and notched around his torso over the wound, acting like a bandage.

"Looks like he beat you to it."

Isaac was preoccupied, his eyes focused on something else. Lily saw the handle of a gun in the waistband of his jeans at the small of back, and a belt at his hips laden with extra ammunition. Isaac regarded both anxiously before he stared at her. His stare was less of a request and more of a, please take care of this before I quit, change my name, and leave the country kind of look.

"Right."

The belt unhooked effortlessly, though Lily wasn't comfortable with the weight in her hands. She stowed it in the bottom of her bag before she could even consider retrieving the gun. Isaac turned him on his side the slightest bit, and Lily's fingers trembled as they reached for the handle.

Please stay unconscious.

The millisecond contact of his skin against hers felt too dangerous for her.

Once the gun was free, she made sure the safety was on, and tucked the weapon into her bag alongside his ammunition. Lily knew he wouldn't be pleased when he figured out she'd forced him to surrender his weapon, but allowing him to be armed inside a hospital was the worst idea of all the bad ideas she'd had tonight.

"Jesus," Isaac whispered.

His gloved hands paused above the makeshift bandage. The soldier—what was she supposed to call him?—sported patchwork bruises in ugly purples, grays, and greens, more heavily in some areas of his chest and abdomen than others. Lily was drawn to his arm, made of plated metal, glinting in the light. The place where skin fused with weapon bore raised and chaotic lines of scars. Isaac waded up the already bloody t-shirt and kept additional pressure on the wound.

Lily didn't even realize he had regained consciousness until she felt his hand curl around her wrist.


Muffled voices hummed somewhere far off, and blurry scraps of images played like an old film reel behind his eyelids. Metal screeched and grated on his nerves, and he caught a second of red, white, and blue. A face, scrawnier than he remembered, a shock of blond hair and determined blue eyes. But soon the ice crept in and filled up the hollow spaces and the rhythm of tracks under train wheels pounded into his skull. He felt like he'd been pushed—or maybe he'd fallen—and gasped awake, throwing out his arms. He latched onto a wrist with his right hand and bright, pale blue eyes—different from the ones he'd seen in his unconscious mind—floated in front of his returning vision.

Her hand made a fist in his grip and she glared at him, wild-eyed and frightened. He heard his breaths coming in shallow pieces.

"Let go," she demanded. He searched her face—unfamiliar; where was he?—and worked to even out his breathing. Tried to remember. "Hey! I said, let go. Calm down. You're all right."

He released her wrist, watching as she rubbed the welts in the shape of fingerprints that had already shown up on her skin. She had turned away from him but remained at his side while his short-term memories flooded back.

There was a voice ringing in his ear, repeating his name. Bucky. It ran like a mantra to the tune of train tracks and he couldn't figure out why. Bucky. Bucky. His name. Maybe if he held onto it long enough, it would stick. He hadn't gone by anything more than Asset, Soldier, Weapon, for as long as his memory reached. Which wasn't far.

You're all right. You're all right…

No, he wasn't. His senses regained their strength upon stirring, and the antiseptic smell that assaulted his nose threw his stomach into an upheaval. He bristled, conjuring up images of things he would have rather forgotten. The haze lingered in his mind, and he grasped onto everything he did not wish to see as though it had all succeeded in collapsing on him at once. The muted tones of the room. The sterile tiled floor and starched sheets. Clinical. Institutional. Full of people with needles and cryo-chambers and white lab coats and beeping machines and devices that sent lightning strikes through his brain and—

The sight of the man in scrubs sent him staggering on the edge.

No, his mind wailed, I don't want to go back. Don't take me back…

He leveled the young woman standing at his bedside—Lily, her name was Lily, she'd mentioned it in the car—with a scathing glare.

He grit out his words through his teeth. "You lied to me."

"I'm sorry," she replied, but it meant nothing to his ears. "I know we don't trust each other right now. I screwed up. I get it. I promise I'll get you out of here as soon as I can."

You can't get out of places like this.


His look of absolute betrayal threatened to burn a hole right through her.

The guilt clawed its way in real fast. "Nothing's going to happen to—"

He sat up, grabbing at the sheet on the mattress, causing Isaac to relinquish the pressure he had been applying to staunch the blood flow, which seemed to be less now. Glancing around frantically, the anger and hurt on his face deepened.

"Where's my gun?"

Lily stepped backward. "I took it," she told him. "It would've made the nurses uncomfortable. I'll give it back once you're treated, but you have to lie down. You don't have enough strength to fight."

He attempted to disprove that, but Isaac held him. Or, rather, he did before receiving a nasty backhand to the nose that left him reeling. The soldier turned on Lily, who put her hands up in defense, but he didn't strike. Somehow, the wounded and lost expression that filled up his steel blue eyes made Lily feel as though she had been slapped right across the face.

His voice, stern yet broken, was like a second punch to the gut. "You lied to me." Lily couldn't avert his gaze. "I gave you my word, I wouldn't hurt you. And you…" The shudder of a breath he let out was ragged and managed to tear at every fiber of Lily's being. She swore his eyes were wet with unshed tears.

Whatever he wanted to say next was drowned out by two things that happened at once—the door opened and Mia walked in, her arms loaded with supplies, just in time to see Isaac lunge at their patient.

"Isaac, don't," Lily pleaded.

Isaac pinned down one of the soldier's shoulders, his nose dripping blood. Protocol had flown right out the window in favor of Isaac's own aggression. The soldier shoved into Isaac's chest, and he went careening a few feet backward, nearly slamming into Mia. Isaac rolled onto his back with a pained groan and Mia side-stepped him, dumping medical supplies onto the spare bed. She flew at the soldier's bedside, immediately grappling for the restraints. Letting out a small yelp, Mia tried forcing the soldier's metal fist into the mattress so she could wind the strap around it. He fought her every step of the way, thrashing, until something like cold terror seized his movements and he tensed up.

Lily watched him search her out, since she was the only person left in the room who hadn't physically attacked him.

Mia blew strands of hair out her face. "Lily, help me!"

Those haunted eyes cut into her soul.

"Please," he begged. He was tired, exhausted of fighting—she could see it. "Don't do this…" He wouldn't let her look away, and she couldn't if she tried. "Not again. I don't want to go back. Make them stop. Please. Please…"

"Mia," Lily snapped, louder than she'd intended. "Stop."

Mia's brown eyes narrowed. "Are you kidding me?"

Isaac picked himself off the floor, his thumb and forefinger pinching the bridge of his nose. He was starting for the door.

"Don't even think about it, Isaac," Lily said, once again surprised at her resolute control. Isaac stiffened at the threshold.

"He'll kill us if I don't get him into these restraints," Mia argued. "I'm two seconds away from calling the cops."

"He'll kill you if you touch those restraints again," Lily corrected. "Just, stop, okay?" She peered down at the soldier, who'd eased himself back against the pillows. "She'll suture you up and I'll get you out of here. Promise."

She wondered if trust could ever be established between them.


"There's not much I can do about the blood loss, since technically the two of you don't exist in this place," Mia stated. Lily heard a metallic sound as a chunk of bullet dropped into a container. "But, it looks like the bullet didn't get very far. The damage isn't too bad…missed everything critical. He should be all right in a week or so once I get this stitched up."

Mia sutured his gunshot wound with a degree of animosity that she didn't do well to conceal, not that Lily could blame her. Lily was cautious about revealing certain information, especially in front of him. It was easy to see that his mental state was in a worse condition than his physical well-being, and the last thing she wanted to do was overwhelm him or set him off. She thought it might be better this way, to allow him some time before she confronted him about what he did and didn't know. And, she was positive he didn't know a lot—otherwise, he wouldn't have acted like he was now.

He wasn't the man in the black and white film reels and photographs. He wasn't the same person she'd heard spoken about in stories.

That person was supposed to be dead. A fact she was continuing to come to terms with. Sergeant James Barnes—alive. Ever since Steve Rogers returned, she figured anything was possible, but this… It was beyond her. Beyond anything she could handle or deal with. But what choice was there, really? She couldn't very well abandon him. Not him, of all people. Especially considering the complete turnaround he'd taken in last seventy-plus years. Lily felt a certain amount of responsibility to find out what had happened, to help him in any way she could.

Of course, that responsibility might have been better suited to the Captain himself.

Maybe that was a conversation for later.

Lily rubbed at her neck, a tension headache weaseling its way in. Mia was just finishing up her sutures. She watched his taut muscles flutter at Mia's touch while she bandaged the wound, like he wished to sink into the mattress as far away from her as possible. His distress at the gentlest of touches bothered Lily. Something about it hinted at something much worse, and she wasn't sure if she wanted to know.

Isaac sat sullenly on the spare bed, extra scraps of bandage wadded up his nostril. Mia made a gesture for him to stay put and tugged Lily out of the room on her way out to dispose of the bloodied clothing and other unsanitary items. She'd left a hospital gown for the soldier, but Lily doubted he would wear it.

They slipped into the alcove outfitted with a couple of vending machines. The hum that engulfed the space irritated Lily's pounding head.

"You're going to turn him in, aren't you?"

Lily avoided Mia's accusatory and expectant look. "It's…complicated."

"I don't care who you think he is, he's dangerous. I don't want him spending the night."

"So, what do you want me to do, throw him out on the street?"

"A simple 911 call would be great. I'll even do it for you."

Lily exhaled. She had to appease her roommate. "I'll call first thing in the morning. Let him rest a while."

"You better be alive in the morning," Mia protested. "I'll tell them there's a maintenance issue with the room, should hold off questions for the time being. I've got to go, I'm still on shift." She sighed. "Just to let you know, I hate—hate—this. You watch yourself, Lily. Promise me, too."

"I promise."

She followed Mia's retreating form down the hallway until she disappeared around a corner.

Lily leaned her head against the wall. Right. Complicated. That's one way to put it.

When she returned to the room, Lily dropped the blankets at the foot of the soldier's bed, but he had already been claimed by sleep.