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Chapter Three
Lily wanted to sleep. And she needed it—her headache had begun to disperse, but she had worked a full day at the museum and the added drama of the evening had left her drained. It was difficult to stop her thoughts from wandering in the dark. She was finally alone in the quiet—Isaac had left with a stern warning, and the soldier's sleeping form in the bed didn't provide much company. The events of the evening had a way of catching up. Lily wondered what kind of cosmic forces had conspired for this to happen, for him to land on her doorstep.
She had the strangest feeling that she already knew the answer.
Another part of her couldn't let go of what Mia had said. Lily may have known who he was, but it didn't change the fact that he was dangerous. He was capable of and trained for things she couldn't comprehend. Lily had basic self-defense training—a couple of college campus seminars she and Mia had taken while in undergrad—but none of that would suffice despite him not having a weapon. He had been made into one. There was nothing stopping him from ripping this room to pieces and killing her while she slept. Trust was a nonexistent entity, though she might have seen a very thin and frayed thread of it when he had asked her to tell Mia to lay off with the restraints.
Lily had hurt him by bringing him here. Whatever trust he had been willing to give in the car had dissolved the moment he regained consciousness. She regret it, deeply, but her fear had outweighed everything else. He had to understand that. If she had known who he was sooner, she wouldn't have considered it. That side of him—the Soldier—unnerved her, but that brutal look of a troubled man had to belong to Sergeant Barnes. The guilt would plague her the entire night if she closed her eyes.
She wondered if he had the capacity to forgive, after everything he appeared to have gone through.
The sheets of the bed rustled. From her spot in the armchair opposite the end of the bed, she watched his careful movements. They had kept the lights off to give the impression that the room was unoccupied, and in the dark Lily could only see his silhouette. She had no way of knowing how long he had been awake, or if he had noticed she had yet to catch an ounce of sleep.
The Soldier—no, it didn't seem right to call him that. Lily decided to mentally address him as Sergeant Barnes instead, as she had in every exhibit tour she'd given. The title was a show of respect. Lily wasn't familiar enough with him at this point to use his nickname, though it was primarily what she'd known him by.
Sgt. Barnes eased himself off the bed, stifling a grunt, and paced over to the window. He drew back the blinds, partially, and stood there in silence, staring out into the night. Slats of artificial light from the parking lot illuminated him, picking up all the edges and angles of his face and chest. There was something about the shadow across his face that made his gaze distant rather than intimidating.
A thought struck her then. She had been quietly mulling it over ever since she remembered the flyer in his hands. If he had no hope of receiving help, if things had been worse, had he meant to take his last breaths at the Smithsonian?
He knew she was awake. Her breathing gave her away. Every sound in the room magnified in the night, though he kept his own deep-seated fear at bay knowing it wasn't HYDRA threatening to burst through the walls. Yet. He had been internally cataloging each and every sound his ears attuned to for the past half hour, though the anxiety of being surrounded by a large population of people made it a bothersome task. Every squeak of a wheel. Every footstep. Every mechanical whir and beep of a machine up and down the hall. The waves of voices that swelled and dispersed, each different in tone and pitch. He couldn't help but collect every last microscopic detail. The thought of hiding in what was essentially plain sight had him falling back on his heightened senses and training to protect him. He felt too vulnerable here.
Unable to relinquish himself to a fitful sleep, he went to the window and peered through the blinds at the bird's eye view of the parking lot and surrounding buildings. Escape was the top priority on his mind. He'd thought of stealing back his weapon. Several times. He couldn't bring himself to do it and couldn't understand why.
He was acutely aware of the pain that radiated from the bandage. Lily's friend—Mia, he recalled—had given him something for the pain but it was beginning to wear off. It didn't matter to him. Soldier had been trained to ignore pain, to fight through it until the Mission was complete.
It did matter. It had to—pain was a human experience. He wasn't Soldier. Not Soldier, not a Weapon, not an Asset. Human.
Bucky. Rogers had called him that. It had to mean something. It had to be important.
But he wasn't that man anymore. How could he ever be again?
"You should sleep."
He turned his head to see Lily sitting at the edge of the armchair, one leg crossed over the other. The light from outside barely reached her, but he could see her face. That voice in the distance of his mind, the one that was sometimes and sometimes not connected to his foremost thoughts, pondered about how old she was. She appeared very young—but then again, he felt very old. Not necessarily in his bones, but what could pass for his soul. Whatever of it was left.
"I'm sorry," she said, when he didn't speak. "But I was scared, and I thought about what was best for me. For my safety. I didn't…" Lily paused. "Things are a bit different now. I didn't realize what it would do to you, to be here. My promise still stands, if you're willing to forgive."
A great deal of time passed. He looked at her. "You should have left me there."
"And you would've bled to death. You got in my car."
He returned his gaze to the window.
Lily's voice was closer the next time she spoke. "Why did you?"
He stared at her. She had stood up, her arms folded over her chest. "Why did you offer?"
"I wouldn't have been able to stop thinking about it if I didn't," she said. "But you still didn't have to get in my car."
"I shouldn't have."
He closed the blinds and crawled back into the bed, ending the conversation. Lily sighed and returned to the armchair, allowing them to have their own silences.
The words had left his mouth, but he wasn't sure if he could believe them. He wondered if she would.
Her offer had been his best option—even when he wasn't sure where it would lead. What she didn't know—what he couldn't get himself to tell her—was that he'd planned to take the car instead. It was useful, valuable. But what would he have done then? Bleed to death in it?
Desperation was new to him. He didn't take kindly to it. Soldier considered the emotion weak.
He couldn't leave, not yet. Not when he had an unexpected variable to account for. HYDRA could have had its sights set on them—Lily and her friend. If he left too soon, he would be marking them for death. He had to be absolutely sure it was safe.
That's not your concern, the warring voice reminded him. Who cares, as long as you get out intact? Survival is imperative. What's a couple more casualties? You owe them nothing.
No. No more casualties. The only lives he was determined to take were HYDRA's. He wasn't their Weapon anymore. He didn't take their Orders. He made his own. He wasn't theirs to claim.
Yes, you are. You always will be.
No matter how fast you try to run.
No matter how hard you fight.
He squeezed his eyes shut and recited his internal mantra against the kill order Soldier was yelling at him. He focused on the voice that may have been his in another time.
My name is Bucky.
Sirens droned in the background of Lily's half-coherent dreams. Her eyebrows knit together while she slept, and let her head loll to the other side in an attempt to shake the sound. Instead, it crept in closer, high-pitched, whining, like it was—
She jolted awake, disoriented, and took a moment to blink the grogginess away. Her muscles were stiff and her neck hurt from falling asleep in an uncomfortable position. She didn't even remember drifting off, but apparently she had used her blazer as a pillow and hadn't thought to settle herself into the spare bed. Lily was paying for the decision now, as she worked her fingertips in circles at the base of her neck and shoulders. Her back gave a few ugly sounding pops when she stretched, pushing herself out of the offending armchair.
A streak of alarmed realization sent her stomach fluttering. She rooted through her bag, fingers halting as they skirted the gun at the bottom. Lily recovered her cell phone and the screen lit up in her palm. Her battery was on its last legs, but what she'd really been searching for was the time. 7:00 AM.
The night had been a blur of endless stretches of time and Lily had no recollection of exactly how long they'd been here. What she did know at this moment was that she wouldn't be making it to work on schedule, so it would probably serve her better to take the day off. She couldn't remember when she'd last taken a day, but after everything she'd been through, she might have deserved it.
Lily slid into her blazer and tucked her phone into a pocket. She began digging around in her bag yet again for her wallet, but paused once she felt eyes on her. Turning her head to the side, she saw Sgt. Barnes sitting up against the pillows, awake, as though maybe he hadn't slept at all. His hollow eyes looked much the same as they did last night as they did now in the dull gray morning. Dry blood had pooled beneath the bandage near his ribs. His skin still clung to that sickly pallor of blood loss and malnutrition, but at least he didn't look like he was on the brink of death. Lily wondered for a moment what exactly was keeping him alive. It would be best for him, she knew, if he were able to stay here for a week. That wasn't in the realm of possibility.
She was surprised to find him there, surprised he hadn't ditched her the minute she fell asleep.
Lily shoved her wallet in the inside pocket of her blazer, not wanting to carry around a bag that happened to house a loaded gun and extra rounds of ammunition.
"I'm going to grab a coffee," she announced. "Do you want anything?"
He didn't speak to her. It wasn't a shock, but she figured she would try nevertheless.
"We'll duck out of here in an hour," Lily assured. "Try to get some rest."
Leaving him alone probably wasn't the best idea, but she comforted herself with the fact that she would only be gone for ten minutes, if that. She waited until the amount of people on their end of the hallway thinned out before she eased out of the door. The alcove did not have a coffee machine in its arsenal, though Lily thought about getting a snack. Her stomach rumbled at the idea, sorry she would be missing her routine breakfast date this morning. The thought of consuming a bag of chips at this hour wasn't appealing. She contemplated whether or not a trip to the cafeteria would be feasible, but ultimately decided to make breakfast when they got home.
They. Lily groaned, smoothing a hand through her tangled hair while she made a vague attempt at navigating the winding hallways. She'd promised two separate things to two different people. If she broke the word she'd given to Mia and he ended up at their apartment—because where else would he go?—she would be in a lot of trouble. Assuming, of course, that he agreed to follow her and hadn't in fact ditched her at this very moment.
She didn't envision this going well either way.
Several more random turns, and the coffee machine was within view. The uniformed bodies she walked past were bleary-eyed, shuffling zombie-like beside their colleagues. It was exceptionally difficult to tell between those who were just starting their shift and those who were free to sleep or eat breakfast. Lily supposed she didn't appear much different, all wrinkled clothes and long bedhead hair that had once been gently curled.
The odor of disinfectant was beginning to bother her. Lily wasn't fond of hospitals, either, so she could sort of see why Sgt. Barnes had been vehemently against it. They had always left her feeling morose.
She placed a call to her boss to inform him that she wouldn't be making an appearance at work today, which he responded to with a laugh of disbelief and a note to feel better but enjoy her free time. It was only after she had hung up that she noticed there were three missed calls from Mia. She'd left a voicemail, but Lily didn't want to hear it—she didn't have to.
Replacing her phone, Lily singled out a couple of dollar bills from her wallet and guided them into the machine. Her hand traced over the buttons in deliberation—she didn't remember any hospital coffee machines having quite this many choices—and she hesitated there as an influx of noise reached her ears.
Lily tensed, frozen to the spot. She faked preoccupation and turned her head to the side to peer down the hallway. Garbled, static laced commands interspersed with an increase in the volume of chatter. Lily saw them, a small group of navy clad police officers infiltrating the pastel, blue-green, and white crowd. Some spoke off to the side into their radios while others stopped to question nurses and doctors with confusion written into their faces. They wove through the traffic at the end of the corridor like a virus, so much darker than their surroundings.
Lily's nausea returned.
Her coffee became an afterthought as she kept her head down and took brusque strides away from the growing scene. Cold sweat gripped her, terror coursing its way through her veins faster than coffee ever could. Her adrenaline began to pick up double-time.
There was only one person they would be searching for.
He detected the sudden shift in the atmosphere outside the room the second it happened.
The subdued calm and melancholy that tucked itself away into the corners had been traded for urgency, a faster pace that interrupted the routine order of the day. He knew something was off. He was used to places like this, places that kept every hour in line and did not deviate from its intended purpose.
There was a new presence encroaching—he heard their footsteps, uniformed and heavy.
They were under attack.
He hopped out of the bed, ignoring the jolt of pain it sent through his stitches. A frustrated noise left him when he scooped to pick up the sweatshirt that had been left at his feet. Pain was an inconvenience. He could deal with it. He had no other choice.
Escape was priority. HYDRA or not, they wouldn't take Lily if they had never seen the two of them together.
His limbs gave the impression that they wanted to move on their own accord, rooting through Lily's bag. A laminated ID badge caught his wrist, the lanyard looped around his artificial plating. His eyes traced the Smithsonian logo that had been on the flyer he no longer possessed. The sight of red, white, and blue threw off his focus.
But it wasn't enough.
The beat of his pulse thrummed in his ears. Rage burned through every fiber of his being—he could feel it underneath his skin. Changing him, taking hold. That voice belonging to the man he had supposedly been before the turn was silent, replaced by blind fury and Soldier's chant of war. He tried to summon that voice back—Bucky, Bucky, Bucky?—but instinct had already taken over.
No, not instinct.
This was worse. Weapons had no instinct—this was what he had been programmed for. This was his primary function. His purpose.
Soldier incited his rage. They are the enemy. Kill them. It would be easy. Nothing. So fast…
It would be. He couldn't deny that. He saw it, in his mind's eye—approaching them as soon as they opened the door, snapping several necks, getting a few shots off before he made his escape. Easy. Not even lack of sleep or the healing wound would slow him once adrenaline took over.
But his mind didn't stop there—he saw himself with his hands curled around Lily's throat, horror in her eyes before he took the life out of them. If he started with the officers, he wouldn't be able to stop. He didn't trust himself to end it there. Soldier would kill Lily, too. He would demand it.
You already got what you needed. Kill them.
"No," he whispered. It was a broken, pathetic noise. A headache was beginning to announce its presence behind his eyelids.
The doorknob twisted.
He fought against the swell of Soldier's wrath. My name is Bucky.
You can never be human again.
Lily shut the door behind her. "We have to go. Now."
The statement seemed redundant once she saw Sgt. Barnes had stolen his gun and was working to hook the belt around his waist. He had retreated into his hooded sweatshirt, marred with a dark stain near the middle and smaller splotches by one of the sleeves. He pulled up the hood when he had the belt and drew the zipper to conceal his wounds. The glove, she realized, had been lost somewhere in the commotion of the night, so he stuffed his hand into his pocket.
The other was clutched around the gun handle.
Lily approached him as he clicked a bullet into place. "You're not going to need that." She kept her voice in a harsh whisper.
The look he gave her was vacant, with barely-contained fury brewing in his expression. It was not Sgt. Barnes she was now speaking to.
"You can't trust anyone," he said.
"They're police."
"They could be HYDRA," he remarked.
HYDRA. The name hit her with a wave of dread, prickling along her limbs. The reports said it was connected to what had happened over the Potomac, as well as SHIELD, but she didn't know much. She hadn't had an opportunity to update herself on the latest developments beyond what she caught in newscasts. Lily had thought, like everyone else, that the organization had collapsed.
He stepped forward, but Lily pushed a hand into his chest. She was sure he could feel her trembling. It was like trying to move a brick wall. She was sure he would tackle her to the ground and strangle her for it, but he didn't do anything except cringe at the contact. Lily regretted the abrupt reaction and made a mental note not to repeat it.
"But if they're not," she said, carefully, trying not to be intimidated by his murderous stare. "They see you with that—if they see you at all, this will go from bad to beyond worse."
His stare did not cease, but Lily heard the click of the safety. He hid the gun in his waistband. "Let's go."
Lily found herself stunned by the offer. Shouldering her bag, she trailed him to the door. He flattened his side against the surface, peeking through the thin, vertical window. He held up his hand to her, keeping her back.
Every second that passed made Lily's pulse quicken, her breath caught in her throat.
There was a very real and frightening possibility of them being caught. Both of them. Lily would go to prison just as fast as he would.
She wasn't sure if she trusted him enough to get her out of here unnoticed.
He didn't know what had possessed him to help her. Despite that dark whisper assaulting his thoughts and the necessity of his own escape, he had the thought to get her out of here. If they arrested Lily, it would be easier for HYDRA to find her. Which meant they would locate him in a heartbeat and drag him back to them no matter how hard he managed to fight.
His cheek pressed to the door, he had a clear view of the hallway out the tiny window. Two officers surfaced several doors down, but there was another corridor that branched off from this one two feet away. He waited. The officers disappeared into another hospital room. He turned the handle and leaned his weight into the door, opening it just enough for Lily to get through.
"Go," he ordered. "The hallway on your right. Don't look at them."
Lily nodded and he watched her exit, taking a diagonal path to the other corridor. He followed her after a moment's hesitation, covering the distance in less strides than her demure stature allowed. He hadn't realized the eight to nine inch height discrepancy between them, but it helped to train his eyes while they kept several paces separating them down the whitewashed hallways.
You can take them all down. Even her.
He squeezed his eyes shut, and the noise of voices and machinery covered up his pitiful whimper.
Being out here wasn't good for him.
He covered the distance between them as he heard pieces of sounds that told him the officers were gaining. Her back collided with his chest when she stepped to move out of the way of a passing gurney, and she halted.
"Keep going."
They turned down a narrower passage, stacks of medical supplies piled up on top of each other, crowding the space. A discarded gurney with its sheets stripped blocked their path, and Lily nudged it out of the way to press forward into the main corridor.
He heard it as they reached the intersection—radio chatter mixed up in static, the rhythm of boots against tile. A tremor worked its way down his spine. His head ached, a sensation of electrical pain prodding at his memory. They paused at the crossroads, Lily staring wide-eyed at an officer who appeared to be walking in their direction.
His hands around the officer's neck. The officer's body sliding to the floor.
Easy.
"Shut up," he hissed. He hadn't meant to say it aloud, but that, too, was lost to the dull roar surrounding them.
Lily gave a yelp as he seized a fistful of her jacket and wrenched her backward into the narrow space. He shoved them both behind a rack of supplies, his head bowed out of sight. He still had one arm splayed off to the side, pinning Lily's body against the wall to keep her hidden behind his larger frame. His eyes found an opening to get a view of the hallway, anticipating the officer to walk past. Lily's shoulder dug into his back, but he was vaguely aware of it, senses concentrated to the training that was still second nature.
"Wait," he told her.
He nudged her into the space he left vacant after the officer's footsteps receded. The opposite wall crashed into his spine, jarring the wound again. Inching his way to the corner of the passage, he leaned his head against the wall before turning to scour the corridor. Another officer, female, her hand at her hip, approached. Breathing out an expletive, he pushed off the wall and ducked behind the gurney.
"There's a stairwell to the left," Lily told him. "I saw it. It should go all the way to the parking lot."
She saw his microscopic nod.
He put up his hand behind him to tell her to wait. Lily studied him from where she was crammed next to the supply shelf. In a low crouch, he used the gurney to go forward to the intersection again. If another officer decided to make an appearance, he wouldn't be left without cover. After several prolonged seconds of waiting, in which Lily tried to hush the sound of her ragged breaths, he rose from his crouch and beckoned her toward him with a tiny flick of his fingers.
"Move fast."
They darted across the wide hallway and made for the door that led to the stairwell. Lily got to it first, slamming her weight into it. The rush of cool air that greeted her was welcomed, drying the beads of sweat that had collected at her temples and in the crevices of her neck. They left the sterile hallways for the gray stairwells that descended to boxy landings all the way down to the ground level. The unmistakable hospital smell was less overpowering here, but there was still a faint musty odor.
Lily ran down, careful not to trip in her heels. The clatter they made was painful to both her ears and her toes. She heard Sgt. Barnes' heavy footfalls behind her, and then at her side, taking a couple of stairs at a time. The nausea from before was replaced by a dizzying amount of adrenaline. Lily barreled past a young nurse on her approach to the ground level, leaving the poor girl stuttering and groping for the handrail to balance herself in their wake.
She slowed at the door, forcing herself to quick walk before she emerged into the overcast morning. A gust of wind toyed with her hair, blowing strands over her face as she stalked across the concrete pathway to what she now guessed was the side parking lot. The distant wail of sirens caused her stomach to lurch, and she shrunk into her blazer out of instinct. She maintained a confident, practiced stride, willing her body to stop quaking. She told herself it was the late September wind.
Her heels clacked on the asphalt—but they were the only footsteps she heard.
Lily turned and found herself completely and utterly alone.
But he had been right there…
She jogged around the corner toward the rear lot, thinking that he might have somehow beat her to it. Lily swore he had been trailing her. He had followed her out of the door, she was sure of it. She hadn't even gotten that far to be able to lose track of him. The notion seemed impossible.
He was nowhere in sight.
Lily knew he couldn't have been grabbed, otherwise she would have been alerted to the ensuing uproar that would have caused.
But he was gone. He had, in fact, ditched her.
He really is a ghost.
