*** Enjoy! I OWN NOTHING – except Hannah and Alex ***
Hannah switched the TV off when she'd had enough, a few hours after it first went on. She bathed Alex and put him to bed and then went back to the couch, listening to the soft, faint sound of his mobile's lullaby feature playing. She closed her eyes and wished that hearing Clair de Lune would settle her nerves and send her off to sleep as well as it seemed to do for the baby.
She wasn't sure if people thinking she was squirreling Steve away up here would keep her and Alex safer or less safe, if anyone was intent on doing her harm. There was a knock at her door then, loud and authoritative, and she jumped, but hunched her shoulders to ignore it. She heard a muffled shout from the other side of the door. "MPDC! Open up!" Hannah shot to her feet, feeling an odd combination of relief and fear that the police had arrived.
She jogged to her door and peered out, noting in relief that two fully uniformed officers stood without. She remembered something she had seen on TV and called through the door, "Show me your badges!" The officers looked at one another, but complied. Hannah looked at each badge, deeming that they were indeed very real, or at least they appeared real.
"Ma'am, we are here for your own safety, we have multiple conflicting reports that you may have a fugitive up here, or may be in danger yourself," the taller of the two officers said. Hannah had fumbled out her phone, and was quickly Google searching the phone number for the nearest DC police detachment. "One moment please," she called back, "I'm verifying that you are who you say you are!" She remembered the one self defense class she took in college, how the instructor said that when in doubt, get the badge numbers and call the station to verify they were the real deal.
"I can assure you we are," the stockier officer called back, but they dutifully held up their badges again when she asked them to. The person who answered at the station seemed bemused, but went about searching the numbers, confirming their names and that they were indeed real officers. "Thanks," she said, relief in her tone, "I'm just a little nervous-nelly."
"Better to be safe than sorry," the per son at the police station told her. She opened her door then and the officers nodded at her. She stammered through an apology for making them wait but the taller one shook his head and laid a hand on her shoulder.
"You have a circus of people down there and your life spilled all over the internet, I'm not surprised that you're being cautious," he told her in a deep voice, "Can we take a look around?"
She led them down the hallway and nodded at them. "Only, my son is sleeping, so please be quiet," she urged them. They nodded and looked around, before splitting up into different directions. Hannah followed the taller one into her bedroom, unwilling to let anyone be alone around her son just now. She stood in front of Alex's crib, one hand braced on the edge of the crib, the other hanging inside, just touching his back as he lay peacefully sleeping.
Hannah felt nervous, twitchy, and tingly, and wished she could call Clint Barton and tell him what was happening, see what he had to say. The tall officer looked in and around every inch of her bedroom, before brushing by her to go out into the hall. There was plenty of space for him to pass without touching her, so it made her feel very tense, putting her further on edge. She felt it was a deliberate move, made to make her very aware of the fact that he was in charge. Why would a cop do that? Unless he thinks I've done something wrong?
She felt uncomfortable in her flannel sleep pants and the tank top that she'd been lounging around the house in all day, so she stepped lightly away from the crib, once the tall officer had left the room, to her closet. She opened the doors and grabbed a chunky cardigan, wrapping the soft cream-colored garment around herself, tying the belt hastily around her waist. She felt better, armored, not having so much skin showing.
She heard the officers muttering to each other out in the hall and moved swiftly back to the crib, peering in at her son, who had one little pink hand laying against the side of his chubby cheek, his skin flushed with sleep, his golden curls spilled across his forehead. She felt her chest constrict with love for him, and turned to the officers when they entered the bedroom together. The stockier one's eyes dropped down to her feet and back up again, taking in the obvious wardrobe change, and he smirked a little bit, shaking his head. Again she felt that unpleasant tingle run up and down her spine, as he leered at her; this assertion of dominance felt unnecessary and somewhat cruel.
"So?" She asked, leaning her back against the crib and crossing her arms over her chest, "He wasn't up here, obviously, are you satisfied?" The taller one touched a little plug in one of his ears and turned his eyes to hers, obviously listening to words coming from the device. She suddenly didn't like what she was seeing there. Hannah stood up straight, pressing the small of her back flat against the crib, spreading her arms a little bit.
"We didn't find him here," the stockier one said, "You're right about that." Hannah nodded with him, a deep feeling of unease unfurling in her stomach at the mocking tone in his voice.
"Well I guess you'll be going then," she said, forced cheeriness in her voice. The tall one was still listening to the little device in his ear and when he pulled his gun on her, it happened so quickly, and so smoothly, that it took Hannah a long moment to understand what had just occurred.
"Where is he?" The tall man said in a flat hard voice. Hannah was shaking her head, her eyes locked on the barrel of the gun, her hands clutched so tightly to the edge of the crib that the wooden edge of it was hurting her palms.
"I haven't seen him in two years," Hannah was amazed at the firm tone in her own voice, even though her body was shaking just the slightest bit, "You have to believe me, we broke up because I didn't think it was safe." The stocky officer chuckled at that and then darted forward, grabbing her upper arm in a vice-like grip and yanking her towards him. The crib lurched forward as her tight grip on it pulled it with her for a moment, before she released it, making it come up on two legs before thumping heavily back down onto all four again.
Hannah let out a cry when he grabbed her and then the stocky man gripped both her wrists behind her back in one hand, turning her so she was facing the crib. She could hear Alex cry out and then begin to wail at the sharp and sudden movement of his crib, calling out wordlessly for her. The tall officer turned to press the gun against her forehead.
"Tell us what you know, or we kill you, in front of your son," he warned her, his voice almost bored sounding.
"Please, please don't hurt him, please don't hurt my baby," she began to cry, pulling uselessly against the grip on her arms, "I don't know anything, I swear, please don't hurt him!" The tall cop pushed the gun harder into her forehead and the one behind jerked her sharply in his grip.
"We won't hurt him," he soothed her, false, mocking comfort in his voice, "We'll take him with us, one way or the other, because if he is Cap's kid, there are some people who would be very interested in what might be running through his little veins."
Hannah wanted to puke, she got the impression that either way, they were going to kill her, and either way, they were going to take Alex – she had no value to them alive. Alex climbed to his feet in his crib and goggled in almost comedic surprise at the strangers in his room, his cries lowering to an almost immediate whisper. He doesn't understand, he can't, she thought desperately, not wanting him traumatized, look away baby, look away.
He recognized her tears and the upset on her face though, and reacted the only way a child his age could – he began to cry and scream, huge, red-faced, gusting sobs and shrieks. The tall cop's face twisted in disgust and he turned back to glare at Alex before redirecting the ferocious look to her.
"Tell me now! Where is he? Where is Steve Rogers?!" He yelled at her and she felt her knees go limp in utter fear, and opened her mouth to again yell back that she had no idea. She never made a sound though, because the tall cop's eyes suddenly locked on something behind her and the stocky man. Something, or rather, someone, out in the hallway. His gun lowered from her head as his face twisted in mild confusion.
"What are you doing here?" He asked, his tone exasperated, as if inconvenienced, "You failed your mission, get your ass back to the vault."
"No," the low-voiced word came from the hall, spoken flatly and without emotion, and there was a strange spitting sound to the air. Suddenly the tall cop was growing a round, wet, red wound in his forehead. Hannah let out a shriek of surprise as two things happened at once, Alex's wails feeding the background the whole time: the tall man slumped to the floor, a look of surprise on his face, and the man wrenching her arms behind her back suddenly released her, shoving her away from himself as he turned to the hall.
Hannah tripped over the freshly fallen tall cop and face planted onto the soft surface of her bed. She heard the spitting noise again followed by a thud; the sound of a body hitting the floor. She immediately rolled to her side and off the bed, crawling quickly along the floor to Alex's crib. Her only thought was to grab her son and go. Just get Alex. Just get Alex. Be quiet and he won't see you. She rounded the bed and crawled directly into a set of heavy, black boots. She looked up and was greeted with more black, and leather straps and weapons and – is that a metal arm? Hannah leapt to her feet and stumbled back a step, her eyes taking in the bizarre sight of the man in front of her.
He was glaring at her, but the gun he'd killed the two cops with hung at his side. Alex's crib was just past him. "Please," she murmured, "Please I won't tell anyone, I promise, just don't hurt my baby." She brought her eyes to his glaring ones. The intensity she saw in that piercing gaze made her stomach throb painfully. They were each silent for a moment and then he gave her a barely perceptible curt nod and turned to the side, giving her leave to pass him.
As afraid as she was to walk by him, she still launched forward, nearly tripping and falling again in her haste to get Alex. She grabbed the baby up swiftly, and his little panicked arms immediately gripped about her neck. He clung to her like an over-heated, trembling squirrel, burying his face in her neck, under the curtain-fall of her blonde hair. His sobs were somewhat muffled against her neck and Hannah gripped both arms around him and immediately made to run for the door to the hallway.
She heard the man move before she felt him, the whirring of his arm was so loud in the sudden quiet of the bedroom. He grabbed her upper arm and stopped her forward motion, whirling her around to face him. She managed to keep her natural instinct to shriek down to a smaller squeak, but Alex let out a loud enough cry for the both of them.
Those eyes were on her again, though his sweep of chin length dark brown hair obscured a full view. He looked unhappy to be required to talk. "You can't leave alone," he said, as if he was fighting the urge to growl at her. She shook her head rapidly back and forth. "No, I can, please, let me go," she replied, her words nearly a whisper. She was painfully cognizant of how upset Alex was and she was filled with an urgent need to calm him down. And escape, don't forget escape.
"You'll be killed within 30 minutes of leaving this building," he told her flatly, still not releasing her arm. "Why?" She asked plaintively, "Why kill me? I don't even know you! I didn't know them!" She gestured at the two dead men on the floor, trying not to look at them for fear she might throw-up. Hannah swallowed hard before continuing, "I swear to god, I have no idea where Steve is, I haven't seen him in two years! Please, you have to believe me!"
He released her arm abruptly. "I'm not looking for him," he told her brusquely, "They were Hydra," he pointed at the bodies, "They were sent for you and the boy. I came to stop them." Hannah blinked at him, edging one step backwards until his eyebrows came together at the movement and she froze in place. Alex was calmer now, no longer crying, just whining in a low-pitched way against her neck; she absent-mindedly kissed the side of his head. The man watching her followed her movements and holstered his gun immediately afterwards.
"Why?" She asked him, absolute confusion preventing her from asking anything further, "You don't want Steve, they did, so why bother coming here?"
"I failed my mission," he muttered, still studying her from behind his hair. "What mission?" She asked quietly.
"To kill Captain Steven Rogers," he replied. Hannah swallowed. "So he's alive?" She managed to say. The man nodded and she felt a peculiar sense of relief flow through her. "I remembered," the man continued, looking at her in narrow-eyed confusion for a second, his whole face contorting with the emotion. It was painful to watch, he looked afraid of the memory.
"I'm a monster," he said in a softer voice. Hannah's stomach roiled; his words were not comforting. "I went back, I was damaged. I went back to Retrieval, to be prepped, to be repaired, but the Retrieval team was not there, only the tech team and ground force," his voice was low and steady, but she felt her eyes drawn reflexively to his arm. It was fully metallic, likely robotic, completely amazing and completely terrifying all at once, and he was currently clenching and unclenching his metal fist.
"I remembered," he said again, his tone of voice drawing her eyes to his again, "Who I was before, who I am now, who I've been."
"I don't understand," she whispered and he shook his head. "They were beginning my repairs, and I heard, I heard them: they had located Captain Rogers' wife and child," he told her, looking at her expectantly, as if she held long-sought-after secrets, "I knew their orders. I couldn't allow it."
She felt her breath coming in and out in little fits and jags and swallowed hard at the lump in her throat. She wanted to correct him, tell him that she was not Steve's wife, and lie and tell him that Alex was not his child, but she didn't dare.
"They wanted to kill me, take Alex," she managed, a hard tone entering her voice. He nodded, his eyes drawn down from hers, to the side of Alex's little head, his golden blonde hair mixing in with pieces of her own similarly colored locks.
"I couldn't allow it," he repeated, his eyes moving back up to hers, "I remembered. He was my mission. But I was his friend."
Heavy silence hung in the room for a long moment. "Who are you?" She asked him, licking her lips nervously. He gave her a rather dead-eyed look. "I was no one, but before that, I was his friend," he told her, and then looked away. She realized he was saying something else in a voice so quiet it fell below a whisper, but she couldn't make it all out, something about "end of the line".
"What happens now?" She asked tentatively, terrified by this man's capability for swift violence and vulnerable fragility all wrapped into one.
"You need to leave," he said, his voice growing firmer, more certain. His eyes drifted down to the bags stacked on the floor, the ones she'd packed earlier. "We need to go, now," he looked back at her, an order in his voice. Hannah wanted to argue, but didn't, afraid of what he might do.
She simply nodded and immediately put Alex back in his crib. He was dozing and half asleep at this point and hardly protested. She turned back to the man, who was staring down at the dead men on the floor again, facing away from her. She reached a tentative hand out and touched the back of his metallic arm. His whole body stiffened before he rounded on her. Hannah stumbled back a step, nearly swallowing her tongue in her fright. I should've known better, that was my fault, oh god why'd you surprise the guy built like the Terminator?
"I-I'm sorry," she stammered out, "I just, I need to know who are you are – you said you're Steve's friend, please, tell me your name."
"James Buchanan Barnes, he called me," he muttered, his eyes looking away like he was embarrassed. Hannah's mind went completely blank for almost an entire minute. She stood there staring at him, her regular-person's brain scrambling to provide her with things to say, or ways to look, or methods of reaction. His eyes eventually moved back to her and he narrowed them slightly at the look he saw on hers.
"What?" He said roughly, and that startled her out of her shock. "Bucky," she blurted out, "Bucky Barnes." He nodded hesitantly at her. "You died a long time ago, my history teacher told me, everyone said so, it's just how it is," she babbled on and he gave her a look like she might be disgustingly stupid. "I am not dead," he responded, "I did not die."
"Obviously," she muttered, "I'm never dating anyone again – this is too much." He shot her a strange look but didn't speak. Somehow, hearing who he was made her feel slightly more at ease, and she began to move about the room quickly, avoiding looking at the bodies on the floor. She cracked her bedroom window open, for the cat – he would use the fire escape to go upstairs to the fifth floor. A woman lived up there, someone who was used to his visits whenever he managed to escape, and Hannah felt sure he'd find a home for now, until she was home again.
She had to believe that there was a normal life at the end of all this, it kept her moving when she might otherwise want to grab Alex and hide under the bed. Instead, she removed her cardigan and put on a t-shirt over her tank top, and then applied the baby Bjorn, before putting the cardigan back on. Absent-mindedly, she raked her hair up into a bun on top of her head and then put on the knapsack she'd packed earlier. She picked up her son and put him in the carrier, facing inwards, so his face pillowed against her sternum, and then she wrapped the cardigan closed over top of him.
Bucky Barnes, the man, whatever he called himself, stood watching her blankly the entire time. She bent at the knee and scooped up the diaper bag before walking down the hallway to the living room. She grabbed her phone and charger and stuffed them into her purse, and then grabbed the scrap of paper she'd written Clint Barton's phone number down on. The man grabbed her arm then and she looked up at him, eyes wide. His eyes were cutting around the room intensely.
"There are more coming, they are outside now," he told her shortly. She just stared at him, not certain what to do, and he turned and began to pull her away. She followed obediently. Outside her unit's door, he led her up the stairs instead of down them and that gave her a small tingle of fear; up felt far less safe than down. On the very top floor, he pushed open the door to the roof and dragged her onto it. It was dark out, and windy, and he pulled her along the gravelled roof top until they got near the far side of it.
"No!" She cried in a whisper, "Are you crazy? This is a roof! I have a baby!" He turned back to her, but she was spared the intensity of his gaze due to the darkness.
"You will not have to jump," he told her in flat tones. She felt relief flood her very bones, before he released her arm and instead spun around and scooped her up in his arms, bags, baby Bjorn'd baby, and all, and sprinted for the ledge of the roof, his muscles coiling and springing loose again as he jumped. She couldn't even scream she was so terrified, just made a whistling whining noise, clutching Alex to her chest uselessly. The man's feet thudded down quickly though and he was running again. She realized that he hadn't jumped off the roof – he jumped from her roof to the building next door; the buildings on her block were all relatively close together.
He jumped once more and then set her down abruptly on the third roof, not wasting a moment before he began to drag her towards the stairwell of that roof. Her legs were like jelly and she nearly collapsed. "Please," she panted, "I need a moment." He turned to her and then reached out and grabbed her shoulders and steered her to lean up against the stairwell's wall.
"Breathe," he demanded, "In through the nose, out through the mouth." She met his eyes in the dim light of the stairwell and nodded, breathing as he said. She looked away, down at Alex and was unsurprised to see him awake. His eyes were gigantic, but he didn't seem fearful, just a little shocked. She dug into a pocket of the diaper bag and retrieved his pacifier, tucking it into his mouth. He took it eagerly and lay his head against her chest, turning slightly so he could eye the large, dark man standing a foot in front of them.
"We have to keep going," he said, and she looked up from Alex to him, and saw that he was studying the baby as if he couldn't figure out what a baby was.
So she got moving and ran with James Buchanan Barnes into the night.