*** Enjoy! I OWN NOTHING – except Hannah and Alex ***

It didn't take her long to find the courtesy phones, there was a long bank of them by the fairly plush restroom section, which came equipped with a small 'quiet room' for mothers to breastfeed and change their babies. There was also a little play area for kids outside the quiet room, not to mention a separate section containing a full array of actual restroom stalls. Hannah dug out Clint's phone number and dialed. It seemed to ring forever, and just when she was about to cry in frustration and slam the handset back into the cradle, he picked up.

"What?" He snapped, angrily, and Hannah almost cried out in relief. "Oh god, thank you for picking up, Clint it's me, it's Hannah –" she began.

"Where the hell are you?" His voice came loud and worried over the phone, "Jesus Christ, everyone thinks you're dead!"

"What? No, Clint listen, they came for me, Hydra –"

"I know that, they killed those cops, right?"

"No! The cops were Hydra, they came looking for Steve, then they were going to kill me and take Alex, and then James showed up and killed them –"

"James?"

"Yeah, um, Bucky? Bucky Barnes? He has a metal arm? He worked for Hydra before and was supposed to kill Steve, but he didn't and now he's a good guy sort of, but he's really messed up. Anyway, he heard them planning and he saved us and now I'm in Virginia and he freaked out and he left us –"

"Hannah, Hannah, calm down, slow down," Clint's voice immediately turned from worried to soothing and Hannah tried to focus, "Where are you? Where in Virginia?"

"Alexandria," she managed, feeling tears of relief pushing at the back of her eyes. Clint was obviously covering the phone, and she could hear faint muffled sounds of him speaking to someone. "We're coming," he said, when he returned to the line, "I want you to meet me somewhere, alright? Can you write something down?"

Hannah looked around and saw a crayon on a table next to her and snatched it up, before tearing a page out the phone book beneath the phone and writing out the instructions from Clint on it. "Are you sure? Are you really coming?" She pleaded, her heartbeat fluttering fast.

"I am, we are, please stay calm," he told her, his voice comforting and sturdy. Hannah hung up and breathed in relief, before looking down at Alex who was smiling at her. "We're gonna be ok, buddy," she told him quietly and he burbled happily and then farted. She rolled her eyes as he giggled in pleasure at the sound.

"Need a diaper change, hey?" She asked him and he giggled again. She pushed the stroller into the quiet room, which consisted of a large change table and two stalls, plus a rocking chair for feeding, she guessed. Hannah made short work of changing his diaper, and then used the washroom herself, keeping the door of the stall propped open so she could see Alex in his stroller, not caring if anyone walked into the mother's quiet room or not.

As Hannah was washing her hands at the sink she heard the door to the family restroom creak open behind her. She was just drying her hands with some paper towel from the dispenser near the sink when she looked into the mirror, and saw behind her the person who had entered the room.

It was a strange man, much bigger than her, definitely not a mother, and definitely without a child. For a moment their eyes caught in the reflection of the mirror and Hannah knew her gaze was wide and shiney with fear. For his part the mans gaze had a hard blankness to it that struck a deep shard of fear straight down her spine.

She whirled around to face him, her mind disjointedly throwing out a half-formed thought of evasion and escape. Instead, she turned just in time as he charged her, shoving her backwards over the sink and into the mirror. The back of Hannah's head cracked against the mirror brutally, splintering it into little pieces behind her; she could hear the harsh music of it as it pattered down onto the counter. She cried out, but his collision with her knocked most of the wind out of her lungs and her cry came out more like a grunt than anything else.

"No," she managed to croak, before he wrapped his hands around her throat. Her eyes couldn't see past him, but she knew Alex was behind him, in the stroller, and her son was beginning to cry in dismay again. The man's grip was tight and punishing but he didn't look like he was enjoying himself very much, more like it was a piece of necessary dirty work. "Please," she managed before he squeezed tighter and all her air was cut off.

"Sorry lady," he muttered, his breath stinking of stale coffee, "Nothin' personal, hail Hydra and all that." He grimaced and looked away, like he didn't enjoy having to strangle the pretty blonde woman struggling beneath his hands. Her own hands scrambled at the counter and closed around a chunk of mirror, slicing her fingers. She was seeing dark spots now and her chest was constricted abominably.

With her last bit of energy, she swung the shard of mirror up and slammed it into the side of his throat, which was open and fully exposed as he looked away from her. He let out a "Gurk" of surprise and looked back down at her, his eyes opened wide. His hands finally released her and she began to immediately gasp and cough, the blessed air flowing into her lungs. She was sitting in the sink, her legs up and hanging off the counter, and he staggered back a step from her, allowing her to pull her legs up to her chest and then force them out at him. Both of her feet connected solidly in the center of his chest and he stumbled backwards, narrowly missing Alex's stroller.

The man careened backward through one of the bathroom stalls, his hands still working uselessly at trying to pull out the jagged shard. She had gotten it in deep though, and when he fell to his behind in the stall, the flow of blood from the wound was growing, and also coming out of his mouth. He looked up at her wonderingly, and then limply reached into his jacket, grabbing his gun. She had half a moment of utter panic, before she dove off the sink, her legs wobbling slightly as she threw herself at the stroller and Alex, covering him.

Her body tensed up, expecting a shot to follow and tear into her, but instead she heard only a gurgling sigh and the metallic thud as the gun fell to the floor. She turned over and saw the man was dead. Alex was crying, which finally broke through her adrenaline-laced fog, and she reached for him, but he screamed louder, cringing away from her. She touched her face and realized her attacker's blood was coating her skin there, likely having spurted out onto her without her even being aware of it.

The next few minutes felt like a dream. Hannah managed to lock the quiet room's door, preventing anyone else from entering. She proceeded to clean herself off and eventually had to yank her top off and grab a clean sweatshirt from her bag because her previously worn shirt was now covered with blood. She made Alex a bottle and he took it alright, but he seemed a little jumpy. Please don't remember this, she pleaded with him silently, stroking his hair, please don't let this affect you.

She would have done anything to shield him from all of this, but it was well out of her hands at this point. All she could do now was keep her son alive, and herself along with him. She went to the second sink and saw the ugly bruising starting on her throat. Her neck hurt like she had whiplash, and her throat hurt like she had a violent case of Strep, but she knew she was beyond lucky.

When she touched a hand to the back of her head, she was pleased there was no bleeding, although there was a goose egg forming from where he'd slammed her head back into the mirror. She dug through her bag for her toiletries and immediately pinned back her bangs, tied her hair back in a low ponytail, and then stuck on one of her thick yoga headbands, which covered up the front portion of her hair. When she pulled the hood up on her sweatshirt, you couldn't even tell she was blonde, which was what she wanted.

She moved back to the stroller and put the baby Bjorn back on, loaded a now full and sleepy Alex into it, and pulled a little knit cap over his head, to hide the blonde curls. She loaded on all their gear and made for the door, but then paused, looking back at the dead man on the floor of one of the stalls. His handgun lay next to him. Almost without thought, she bent, grabbed the gun, flicked the safety on, silently thanked her father for taking her to the gun range as a teenager, and then tucked the weapon into the back of her pants, layering her shirt and the bags back on top.

Out in the hallway, she moved quickly, not even bothering to go back into the mall, wondering if she had been caught on a camera in the mall and that was how they found her, or somehow through James, or the stolen car. It could have been something as simple as a traffic camera.

She took an exit door at the back of the restroom wing and wandered through back hallways of the mall, coming out in a loading bay. Hannah moved quietly and swiftly, not wanting to be caught, but wanting to get the hell away from the mall, and eventually she was out on the street. She pulled out the instructions Clint had given her and then started to jog, wanting to get some distance between herself and the place that had changed her from a normal mom to a murderer.

A couple blocks away, panting, she hailed a cab and managed to load everything in. "Where to, Miss?" The driver asked her disinterestedly. Hannah settled Alex on the seat next to her and glanced up at the driver. "The Alexandria Grand Hotel, please," she responded, trying very hard to sound like a regular mother traveling with her baby, and not a frantic woman who had just killed someone in self-defence. The cab began to move and Hannah lay back against the seat, Alex slumped into her side. This was all very out of routine for him, and she knew that the constant frights and shock couldn't be good for him, either.

She ran her fingers down the side of his capped head and he grew heavy against her as he napped. Hannah herself was growing tired and had to fight to keep from falling asleep. When the cab stopped, the driver had to tell her twice they had arrived.

"Oh, yes, of course, thank you," she murmured, handing him cash. She told him to keep the change and began to load everything back up again before climbing out to the street. The hotel entrance was just steps away, and the doorman held the door open for her, an understanding smile on his face. "Long flight, ma'am?" He asked her sympathetically, and she smiled wanly at him, nodding. Of course, this is an airport hotel, she thought to herself.

Clint had told her to go to the front desk and tell them her husband had already checked them in over the phone and that she was there for a room key. He assured her that she wouldn't be asked for ID. "And for godssake, no matter what, don't actually give them your real ID," Clint had urged her over the phone.

The attendant behind the counter tapped away at his screen and then made a little tsking noise. Hannah's eyes darted to his in a panic, but he only shot her yet another sympathetic smile.

"Oh my, I'm sorry Mrs. Jones, the notes here say that you lost your luggage and got mugged outside the airport? What a day! Do you need me to call the police?" He seemed to have genuine concern for her and she had to force herself to smile wearily back at him. He's not a bad guy, to him you're a young wife and mother who has had a terrible, frightening travel experience, she warned herself.

"No please, we just need a room to rest until my husband arrives – I dealt with the police at the airport," she lied glibly and felt no guilt about it whatsoever. The attendant nodded and handed her a key. She signed the waiver he handed to her, a messy scribble where just the name 'Jones' was slightly visible, and then made her way to the elevator.

Clint assured her she'd be safe here, that he'd taken measures, that he knew how to do this, that he would be there by the following morning. She went up the elevator silently, listening as Alex snored lightly on her chest, the canned elevator music managing to lend a heavy dose of normal to the moment. When she reached the room, she was ready to collapse, but somehow managed to put everything down and lay Alex in a bed on the floor, made from pillows and a comforter. He never woke up, which told her more about how wrung out he was than anything else could have.

She locked all the locks on the door, and pulled the drapes tightly, before dragging the desk in the room to sit in front of the door, her neck twanging angrily the entire time. Afterwards, she stripped off all her clothing and stepped into the bathroom, leaving the door wide open. She ran a hot bath and dumped in lots of soap, before climbing in. She relaxed, letting the hot water massage her neck and throat, listening carefully for Alex.

She must have fallen asleep because when she found herself opening her eyes, the water was chilly. The soap she'd put in the water had dried like a film to her skin, and she climbed from the tub and took a long, steamy shower. This was a nice hotel, a very nice hotel, and she was treated to lovely shampoos and conditioner, soft delightful soaps, thick towels, and smooth lotions, fragrant face washes, plentiful mouthwash, and even a tooth brush and tooth paste. When she was completely clean, Hannah felt human again. She kept her hair wrapped up in a towel and when she walked out into the main room, Alex was sitting up in his little pillow bed, playing with a diaper he'd pulled out of the diaper bag on the ground, ripping it to pieces.

She picked him up and showered him with kisses until he was giggling and shrieking with delight. "I love you, buddy," she told him, kissing his forehead and his nose, "Like a crazy person." He reached up and honked her nose, chortling in satisfaction. She was finally feeling safe and the next few hours passed easily. She bathed Alex, fed him, ordered room service, set her boy up with some toys on the bed and then sat next to him, watching the news and feeding him little bits of her dinner as she drank in the events of the past two days via the news.

Mystery surrounds the case of Hannah Baker and her young son Alex. Thought to be the secret wife and child of Captain America, aka Steve Rogers, the two have disappeared. Earlier this morning, police found signs of violence in her home, the small apartment unit within the building which she and the Captain first met in, two years ago. Her door was left hanging open, and there was blood in her bedroom. Police aren't releasing any information at this point about whether they think any acts of violence were committed against this young mother and her son, or if Baker herself is the perpetrator of said violence.

"What?" She spoke aloud at that, "Idiots." Alex looked over at her and she shook her head. "They're idiots, sweetheart," she told him and he laughed before grabbing at a couple more french fries from her plate. When her parents came on screen next, Hannah slid to the foot of the bed in shock, leaning towards the screen with her mouth hanging open. Her mother's tearful voice filled the room.

"We just want to know that our daughter and our grandson are safe," Mrs. Baker said, "Hannah if you're listening, we love you, and we want to help you, please call us."

"To the people who are holding our daughter, if someone is holding our daughter, please, she and Alex are innocents, wrapped up in a situation that they don't understand – we didn't even know about her situation with Steve Rogers, she can't have known what she was getting into," Mr. Baker's voice was gruff but emotional.

Hannah flicked the TV off then and put her head in her hands. After a moment, listening to Alex babble to his toys in the background, she finally climbed off the bed and walked towards the phone, picking it up and preparing to call her parents. She paused halfway through dialing and hung up. No, she thought, no I can't, of course their lines are being watched or listened to. Images of the bathroom attack began to assault her, and she shuddered. The phone hung up noisily, and Hannah returned to the bed to play with her son.

She felt awful for her parents' worry, but knew that she had to focus on Alex, and herself, on staying alive and waiting for Clint. At this point, waiting for Clint had become a nearly mythical event inside her head. She felt like she had always been waiting for him, and always would be waiting for him.

Later that night, as she lay in the dark, her body curled around Alex's, she thought about James, wondered where he was, if he was alright – she oddly missed his sullen silences and the heavy sense of security he offered. Hannah felt her heart going out to him; he was such a lonely, tragic figure.

She also thought about Steve, wondered if he'd heard about her, if he knew what was happening, if he cared. It was hard to actually miss Steve, it had been so long, and she'd really hardly known him to begin with, although she felt fairly certain, that they truly had a wonderful connection back then. Shame he turned out to be a superhero, she thought drowsily, drifting off to sleep.