Chapter Two – Escape Plans
Despite Pietro's reservations, he participated enthusiastically in the 'cleaning up' of the HYDRA facility, using his superspeed to whiz round and disarm guards before they even saw the three coming half the time. And nor did he show any squeamishness about pulling the trigger, though he refused to give Wanda a gun. She sighed and rolled her eyes at him, and turned to Bucky, holding her hand out.
"You know how to use one?"
"Point, go bang."
"In that case, no. Don't want you shooting me or your brother by accident, doll." He grinned down at her, raising the gun in his left hand almost absently and shooting a guard who came running around the corner.
"I don't do anything by accident! Probability powers, remember? A hex on the bullet and I won't miss…"
"I don't miss either. Save your power, doll. We might need it for somethin'."
"He's right, Wanda," Pietro whizzed back over to them for a moment.
"Men!" she groused. They grinned at each other over her head, briefly united – ganging up on her, she realised with disgust – and then Pietro gave Bucky another doubtful look and whizzed off again.
She stomped after Bucky irritably – filched a gun from a dead guard when his back was turned – only to have Bucky turn and remove it from her hand a moment later.
"I said no, doll."
"I wasn't planning to shoot," she lied. "I just don't like being defenceless."
Blue eyes bored down into hers for a moment, and then he smiled, slowly, and Wanda's heart turned over in her chest.
"Don't use those big pretty eyes on me, doll. You're never defenceless."
Damn it, he's immune to my wide-eyed innocent expression!
She kicked the guard's dead body in irritation, and Bucky's expression slowly changed. "Did he hurt you, baby?"
"What?" Puzzled, Wanda looked back up at him. Saw the tic at the corner of his mouth, the way his eyes narrowed menacingly. She couldn't see into his mind, but from his expression she guessed well enough what he was thinking. "No! Bucky, no. They used Pietro to do missions as well, needed him compliant when I was threatened. If they'd ever hurt me like that he'd have gone berserk."
He stared for a moment, head tilted down so he could look in her eyes. Long black hair falling around his stubbled cheeks. And then he nodded. "Okay. But if you want anyone to suffer? You just say the word."
Wanda couldn't help but shiver at the calm way he said it. She'd seen a little of Bucky's memories when she kissed him, gave them back to him. He'd been dangerous as a 'mere' American soldier, but HYDRA had made him into a terrible weapon, and while she could tell he wasn't exactly delighted about that fact, he was also not going to deny it.
He saw the fear in her face, fear of him, and ached inside. But right now, she needed the killer, the Winter Soldier, and so that was who he must be, at least until he had her and her brother safely away from here. With a light touch to her pale cheek he tucked the gun she'd picked up into the waistband of his pants and led her onwards.
It was well after midnight when they emerged from the burning facility into the sultry Italian night. Both Wanda and Pietro looked to Bucky for guidance, and he led them swiftly away, taking them off into the darkness, away from the sound of the approaching sirens.
Once she'd accepted that he wouldn't allow her a weapon, Wanda had switched from picking up guns to wallets. She'd amassed quite a collection of euros and a handful of identity papers; none of the images matched their faces all that well but they'd get them through a cursory inspection if required.
Bucky selected an Italian drivers' licence with an image of a tall, black-haired, blue-eyed man and checked them into a scruffy dive of a hotel in the outskirts of the city, the kind of place that rented rooms by the hour and didn't bother actually entering details into a computer. The clerk didn't turn a hair at two men and one woman renting just one room.
"Don't sit on it, Wanda," Pietro said when they entered the room and she sighed and made to sit on the bed. "It's probably extremely unhygienic."
"Get over yourself," she rolled her eyes at him and flopped down. "I'm tired."
"Would you two mind speaking in a language I understand?" Bucky asked in English, heading to the window and checking outside, drawing the stained curtains more tightly closed.
Pietro hesitated and then switched to English. "I'm sorry. That was rude. I'm Pietro Maximoff. Thanks for helping us."
"Bucky Barnes, and you're welcome." He smiled down at Wanda, lying at her ease on the bed. "Anything for Wanda." She smiled back at him softly.
"Ugh, help, I'm trapped with two cooing lovebirds," Pietro groused as the two of them lost themselves staring into each other's eyes. Wanda threw a pillow at him without looking. He dodged it easily. "Seriously, is there any chance you two could just save it for later? Because we really need to figure out what the hell we're going to do. Where we're going to go."
The smile slipped from Wanda's face at that and she sat up, hugging her knees. "We can't go home."
"There is no home," Pietro agreed quietly, sitting down and putting his arm around her thin shoulders. She leaned into him.
"Where was home?" Bucky leaned against the wall, folding his arms.
They both smiled sadly. "Not a place," Wanda replied. "A people. We're Gypsies, Bucky. Romany. Our tribe travelled in what you'd call Hungary and Romania. But they're gone. All of them. Von Strucker butchered every last one of them when he took us."
Pietro hugged her tighter. "He's dead, Wanda. Gone."
"It doesn't bring them back." A single tear slid down her cheek, and Bucky found himself on his knees at her feet, reaching for her hand.
"Baby, please don't. Please don't cry. We'll make a new home for us – all of us."
"But where?" Pietro said despairingly. "HYDRA will be hunting for us. There's nowhere safe."
"I might know somewhere," Bucky said slowly. "Or rather – someone. Someone who could help. He's my tribe, I guess you could say. All that's left of it."
Wanda looked at him curiously. "He must be very old?"
Pietro looked at her, and then at Bucky. "Why – how old are you?"
"I don't precisely know," he admitted, "because I've spent a lot of time over the years frozen. They put me in cold storage, in between missions. In terms of years lived I guess I'm in my thirties somewhere?"
Pietro sucked in a disapproving breath. And then looked even more horrified as Bucky completed his confession.
"But I was born in 1917."
"Bloody hell fire!" Pietro was on his feet instantly, moving too fast to see, shoving between him and Wanda. "Bad enough if you were more than a decade older than her, but that…"
"How old are you two?" Bucky asked curiously. Wanda was getting up too, tugging at Pietro's arm and telling him not to be ridiculous.
"Twenty-two," Wanda answered.
"Are we?" Pietro blinked at her, surprised.
"Yes, I saw the date when I was out today. Which means I'm legally of age in pretty much any culture, Pietro, even ours."
"I'm our tribal elder, now…"
"Don't even start. Just because you're ten minutes older…"
Bucky found himself grinning as they degenerated into sibling bickering. He even understood Pietro's upset. The thought of an older guy turning out to be soulmated to his sister… the smile slid from his face as he thought of Rebecca. Little Becca. Was she even still alive? She'd be an old lady, now, if so.
"Enough," he said finally. "Enough!" when they carried on bickering. "I daresay you'll both agree that I'm the eldest, here? And since we're all each other has, that makes me the tribal elder. That means I make the decisions."
They both gave him resentful looks for that, and he smiled to soften the impact. "With input from both of you. So, since it seems that I'm the only one who might, possibly, know someone who can help us, are you two okay with me trying to track him down?"
They looked at each other. Pietro shrugged eventually, and Wanda smiled. "I trust you, Bucky. If you think this old friend of yours can help us, then I'm good with that."
"Okay. Well, I'm going to need to do some research, to find him. So I guess maybe we go find a library or something?"
Wanda smirked. "You have been out of the loop for a while, haven't you? Leave it to me."
"Oh no, you're not going out alone!" Pietro said when she headed for the door.
"Oh yes I am. Because you two are both way too distinctive-looking. Me, I'm just a dark-haired, dark-eyed girl on the streets of Rome, one of millions. Nobody will notice me. I'll make sure of it." She smirked again and was gone, leaving both of them clenching their fists in impotent fury because she was quite correct.
She returned less than half an hour later with a tablet and a phone, both of which she'd caused to be 'absent-mindedly' left behind when their owners finished their early morning coffee. Dawn was breaking outside and the streets were beginning to come alive.
Bucky muttered over the Italian setup of the tablet, frustratedly tapping at icons. He did speak a fair bit of Italian, but not well enough to look up what he needed to know. Wanda slipped it out of his hand.
"Let me. Who are you looking for?"
"Captain America."
They both stared at him open-mouthed.