Summary: Things are officially going to pot.

Notes: Alright, guys. Finally here with the update. This one is where things start to really go wonky. I know this has been bothering a few of you (oops...sorry?) so here is about half the reveal. I'll be honest, the official full reveal isn't until next chapter, but this one should really (assuming I've done this right) send a few of you off speculating. To some of you, it might even be seriously obvious. Sorry if that's a disappointment...lol Am I doing okay, here, guys? I've been getting less communication than I have in the past, and I just wanna check that I'm not totally turning some of you off...? Let me know if there's a question, or a complaint, or something unclear/if you have a suggestion. I'm very open to suggestions! Also, as I've stated previously, I'm very open to doing little one shots, too! Just shoot me a message in my inbox and we can chat! That includes the background characters! So, anyhoo, this chapter is considerably longer than I think any I've done previously (sorry, again?) for the simple reason that I just needed a natural stopping point, with this reveal, and unfortunately it really ended up stretching. Also, the flashbacks are really strong in this segment, see if you can spot them all ahead of time! I love you all, please let me know what you think? And if you've got an idea, shoot me that message! Sarah (MLC)
PS-Title from a previous playlist, it's a reference to a song by the British band, McFly. Go check them out, they're good! Also-I always forget this part-I DON'T OWN MARVEL. MARVEL OWNS MARVEL. Sad face. ((()))

Nowhere Left to Run:

((()))

Well, that question was answered.

Why it usually happened at night—when she was the most relaxed she could ever be—was beyond her.

Wincing, she tugged her tank top up and ripped the pain patch off her belly, tossing it aside with a scowl. It did absolutely nothing to keep the episodes at bay. She'd figured that would end up being the case, but she'd held out foolish, wasted hope.

It was just a good thing that when she'd woken up a half hour ago, she'd had the presence of mind to slip out of bed and settle instead on the couch.

She couldn't help her restless shifting around, and she would've woken Jamie in a matter of seconds, the pain twisting her up into a little ball of agony.

She missed the way her life—their life—had been before. Before she'd been jabbed and turned into a Mutant, before she'd become a total liability and a useless blob of pain.

She missed snuggling on the couch without having to worry about what might be coming.

She missed going for a walk and not being totally drained afterward.

She missed sleeping through the night.

She missed sex. God, she missed sex.

She missed the time when Bucky didn't look sallow with strain and worry.

This was supposed to be a fucking honeymoon, not a pity party.

If she could move—like move properly—she'd get up, go back in there, and climb on top of him and just have done with it.

In fact—

"Darcy…"

She groaned. "Kill me. Just take your left hand, wrap it around my throat, squeeze and kill me. Be quick about it. I'm a wuss, I don't wanna suffer," she grumbled from under her elbow. "Just put me out of my misery. Have pity on me. You can have all the money—oh, wait, the money's all yours to begin with. Never mind."

A sigh in the dark. "Darcy."

"Seriously. Just pretend you're still, you know, the creepy version of you, and just, you know, put me out of my misery."

"Nice try, with the hiding out here, thing."

"If this is my life, now, I don't wanna live it. No snuggling, no running around, no sex—"

"Hey, I never promised the 'no sex' thing and I have no intention of making good on that," he quipped. "This is just a…quiet window," he allowed.

"Kill. Me."

He sighed again.

"Jamie."

"Darcy." He came around the couch and bent over her. "C'mon, baby, back to bed, huh?"

"Jamiiieeeee…" she whined as he lifted her easily into his arms, finishing with a whimper of pain.

"Daaarcyyyyy," he answered. "Try to relax. Don't try to fight it."

"You tell me that every single God damn time. Aren't you getting tired of this script?"

He laid her down on the bed and tugged at the sheets. "No. Darcy. I took a vow."

"I remember," she groaned as she curled up again, pressing her face into her pillow. "Such a nice memory, you saying all those pretty words. Let's go back there. This sucks."

He gave a tender little laugh. "I'm sorry, love."

"I don't think 'in sickness and in health' includes clauses for Mutant spouses."

He huffed as he crawled back in beside her. "Darcy, how many times? You are not a Mutant. They're only in Stevie's comics."

"You and Steve are Mutants, too. And Bruce. Natasha—sort of. You know, the other day, when we were in town, the cover of this stupid paparazzi rag advertised rumors of a fling between those two! Bruce! And Nat! Can you imagine?"

"No. Not in the slightest."

A stab of pain stopped the laugh in her throat and she winced. "Me neither," she gasped.

He began running his wide circles on her back again. "Breathe. Also, those vows are probably open to interpretation, to a certain extent, and I interpret them to imply that I pull you through this. You were strong for both of us in the beginning when I couldn't be. It's my turn. Don't worry. I can carry us both."

She tried to laugh, but it just came out another groan. "God, how Catholic were you?"

He chuckled softly. "Pretty Catholic. Like, Roman Catholic. Don't get much more Catholic than that."

"Barnes," she murmured. "What is that, anyway? How have I never asked you these things?"

He snorted. "We've had plenty of more important things to talk about. You know, what with the fact that you're married to a mercenary, and all that."

She curled in on herself as another wave of pain rippled outward from her scar.

"British. Barnes is Old English. But mom was Italian."

She bit down on her lower lip. "Italians in Brooklyn. Really breaking the mold, there, huh, husband?"

He laughed.

"That's how you cook like a pro. I knew there had to be a reason. It's lodged up in that brain somewhere from your mother when you were a kid. That's what it is."

"Her lasagna was fantastic, it's true."

"You remember, huh?" She clutched at his metal hand, squeezing her eyes shut.

He switched it up, abandoning the circle to run his hand up her back, between her shoulder blades, then back down again. "I also remember her telling me that the old adage worked both ways and that the way to a woman's heart was food, too."

A laugh forced its way out of her, before the pain bit it back again. "Ah. Well, it didn't hurt that her son is really—fuckinggorgeous—oh, son of a bitch."

"Breathe."

"I'm-not-in-labor-Jamie!" she snapped. "Thank God."

He chuckled. "Yeah, let's not go down that road, eh?"

Her teeth chattered. "Hold me tighter."

He wound his arms around her harder.

"It feels like I'm shaking apart."

He squeezed.

She pressed her face against his belly, burrowing, nuzzling into him with her brow and groaning. "Ugh, God, when this is over, there's one favor I need from you."

He eyed the top of her head with trepidation. "Yeah?"

"Run me a bubble bath. Really hot, the way you do it."

His eyebrow rose, already sure there was a caveat. "And then?"

"Fuck all this. I'm done letting this control me. First, bubble bath. Then, I want you to make me scream your name so the next place over can fucking hear me. Got it?"

He smirked. "Yes, ma'am."

((()))

Sighing, Steve hurled the last little devil bot to the ground and finally straightened, scowling at the street around him, now littered with dozens and dozens of the things. Some techie wannabe had apparently sent Stark an email about testing his armor against his newest piece of genius and had endeavored to release them in some hive style joke.

Not that anyone was laughing. The little eel-shaped devils were designed to wrap themselves around the nearest heat-censored being and latch until they were destroyed, and had quickly filled New York's Upper East Side, causing the streets to empty in short order while the local cops called them in a panic in hopes they'd sort it out. Now here he was, armor ripped and singed from the little beasts, cuts along his throat and ears, decidedly grumpy.

What did it say about him that he wasn't grumpy so much because of their very rude interruption and more because he was doing this without having had the warm benefit of waking up with his naked wife wrapped around him?

Tony flew up—his armor annoyingly undamaged—and lowered his repulsors, dropping to his feet with a clank on the pavement. "Well. That was fun," he said, his voice tinny through the helmet. The faceplate slid back with a soft whir and Steve saw the frustration in his eyes. "We should do this more often."

"Thought you'd appreciate the…distraction."

Tony scowled as he looked around at the littered pavement. "Yeah, well, that makes two of us."

Steve sighed. "I thought I was done with the whole 'jumping outta my skin' thing."

Tony gave him a dry look and bent to kick at one small creature with his metal foot. "Roger's, I haven't been this bored in years. I had no idea the kid kept me that entertained."

Steve had to bite his tongue, guilt licking at him as he kept Natasha's true whereabouts a secret.

"Where'd you say Romanoff went again?"

Wincing, he looked away and tried to harden his voice from giving him away. "Some informant of hers had intel on some…guy from the Red Room. You'd imagine she wanted to take off after him."

Tony snorted. "Oh, yeah. I would."

He tried not to breathe a sigh of relief. Well. Half a sigh, anyway. He was so unbelievably worried, he could barely stand up straight. What was worse was the fact that he knew he really had no right. How many times had she hung back while he went into the trenches, digging for intel while she stayed in the Tower with Darcy, going to bars to distract themselves? They hated bars—both of them—and only went when they were feeling claustrophobic.

He remembered hearing about one story he still wasn't entirely sure he believed, revolving around Natasha chasing down a purse snatcher all the way through Central Park only for Darcy to have skipped around the short way and tasered him on the other side, jumping out from behind a park bench just as Natasha tackled him. The two of them had apparently wrestled him around, retrieved the expensive Prada and then used the small tip the woman was able to spare—apparently the bag had been a gift—to go get half drunk around the corner.

It was true, though, that Steve had come back to find Darcy nursing a headache in Stark's lab, Bucky shaking his head as he squeezed her shoulders before joining him for their debrief.

So worrying about her now felt like a double standard.

And worrying about Darcy.

And Bucky.

He could remember the first time they came up as a duo in the same paragraph. He'd been over at Darcy's tiny apartment one wintry Friday night, and they'd been struggling to decide on what he should watch next in his All Media, All the Time Catch-Up.

"You've had one too many beers, haven't you?"

She snorted a laugh. "Jane had me out all day, slogging through that gray shit out there, tracking down a thingamabob for her whatchamacallit machine. So, yes. I'm cold. In fact, I don't think my toes will ever come unstuck from each other. I'm exhausted. I could probably sleep for a goddamn week. And—to top it all off—I haven't been good and laid in far, far too long. So yes. I got started as soon as I came in the damn door, Steve." She held up her Corona Light, the lime bouncing against the glass bottle. "This is my fourth. Don't judge me."

He held up his hands in surrender, even as he tried not to blush at the frankness of her sexual confession. He was no choir boy, but he was still getting used to people throwing out things like that without care in this new day and age, and he tried not to blush. "Hey. No judgment here. Just a statement."

She laughed, taking a pull off the beer.

"Besides…" He cleared his throat. "What about, uh…Ian, right?"

She snorted again, rolling her eyes. "Oh, God, we split last week."

"You did?"

"And besides, we were nowhere near the sex stage. Even if we were, it probably wouldn't have happened. The few times we made out, I noticed absolutely zero, uh…" She gestured, raising her eyebrows. "Well, you know—excitement."

He raised his own. "None?"

She shook her head. "None." Then she grinned, turning to face him where she sat on her carpeted floor, between his place on the couch and the TV. "You know, this is nice. I never thought I'd be having girl talk with Captain America, but sure as hell—here I am."

He laughed, shaking his head. "Maybe Ian was just…nervous?"

She raised a single brow and eyed him. "That should get—if anything—the reverse effect, shouldn't it?" The look had drifted into sly territory, and she slapped his shin with her hand. "C'mon, Steve-O. We both know you're no virginal superhero. Spill."

He laughed. "No, I'm not. But no, I won't."

She rolled her eyes. "Ugh, you're no fun." She held up a DVD case. "How about Sherlock?"

"Is that the new one everyone's talking about? With that Cumbernauld guy?"

She giggled, opening the case. "Cumberbatch. Okay. Sherlock it is." She popped in the disc and settled on the couch next to him, passing him his own beer and throwing her legs across his lap. This, too, he was getting used to—snuggling casually, with people you weren't physically or romantically involved with. And Darcy…she was…she reminded him of Becca, not that he'd ever tell Bucky that. Like the little sister he'd never had. She was quickly becoming very warm and special in a way he thought he'd lost.

He forced himself to set his hands on her shins, understood that there was nothing romantic about the casual gesture. They were just two friends, right? "Well. I'm sorry it didn't work out."

"Eh." She shrugged. "Don't worry—it's not like I'm torn up about it. It was just one of those 'heat of the moment' things, you know?" She took another sip of her beer. "We were running from Dark Elves in Greenwich and Jane almost died, and then we thought Thor died, and blah blah. He stopped a car from squishing me, so I kissed him. We had nothing in common. Actually, after I hired him to help me out with Jane, I sort of thought he was an annoying little twerp."

He smirked. "The heat of danger, right?"

She laughed softly. "There is something sort of…seductive about it, isn't there? That you almost died, you felt your mortality breathing down your neck, right?"

He nodded. "So there was no spark?"

She rolled her eyes, picking up the DVD remote and hitting a button. "Ugh, no. None, whatsoever. Died a quick death." She shrugged again. "Of course, now I get to suffer through the indignity of going stag to Tony and Pepper's wedding…"

He opened his mouth to suggest they go together, but Natasha's face flitted through his mind, and his jaw snapped audibly shut.

She snorted, not noticing his internal struggle. "Maybe I should ask your buddy."

He felt his face change, falling in sheer surprise. "Buck?"

She let out what he knew was an embarrassed laugh. "Not that he'd go with me."

He blinked, the thought slipping from his mouth before he'd had a chance to think about whether it was a good idea and might make her uncomfortable. After all, the Winter Soldier made just about everyone uncomfortable. "He might surprise you."

Now it was her turn to blink. "Steve. I was joking."

He cocked his head. "Were you?"

She slumped, blushing. "Alright, you caught me. I was half joking."

He watched the DVD menu play on the TV. "So…?"

She sighed. "Oh, I wasn't being serious. He just looks…"

Scary?

Deadly?

Creepy?

"Lonely."

Again, he caught himself blinking stupidly in surprise at her unexpected choice of word. "Wait—what?"

She shrugged again, deliberately not looking at him. "Well. He's…been through Hell, you know? And he looks lonely. Like he needs a hug—or ten. Not that he'd let anyone get that close." Another blush, brighter than the last. "If I'm being honest, he's about ten times better looking in person than I thought he would be when I circled his face in my history textbook in middle school."

He couldn't stop the smile from splitting his face. "Oh, yeah?"

A sheepish shrug. "Not that he's in any place to notice the people around him right now. And not that I'd blame him. I don't know how he's functioning at all, let alone upright."

He rubbed a hand down her shin, then back up, not sure if he was comforting her or himself. "He's tough, Buck. He didn't get Sergeant for nothing. Pretty fast rising too. Spent a long time in the trenches while I was back in Brooklyn, trying to reenlist, over and over."

She looked up at him finally, sober. "Yeah?"

He nodded. "He'll be fine. He just needs time. He always did bounce back better than me. All he needs is time."

She nodded too, in agreement.

"And maybe an ear, maybe from someone who doesn't know him, you know?"

Another shrug.

"You're his type, you know." He bit the inside of his cheek as soon as it left his mouth and he could've slapped himself.

She jerked, a bright, cynical laugh darting from her throat. "Hah! Steve. Please."

Oh, well. Might as well. What the heck. "You are."

She snorted. "What? Loud-mouthed, outspoken, totally lacking in a filter, and incapable of taking much of anything seriously?"

"That's not what I meant. And we both know you're not really like that. Are you?"

Again, her expression sobered, and she looked away, down at her bottle, to pick at the Corona label.

"You're small and curvy, and brunette. And your eyes are huge. And you're full of…well, we used to call it moxie. You're like a pixie, or a sprite." He smirked. "He was always drawn to that type."

Her face was pink and she was chewing on her lip and laughing, shaking her head as she started the DVD. "Steve. Seriously, shut up."

"I'm serious. Don't be so quick."

She fixed him with a glare. "And don't you dare tell him I said any of that!"

He held his hands up in surrender. "I won't. Not much to tell." Unable to resist, though, he'd shrugged. "You'd be good for him, though. I mean it. You'd be good together."

She snorted again, dropping the remote to the couch cushion. "Next you'll have us getting married…"

—"Rogers!"

He jumped, yanking himself out of the thick memory, and nearly reached up to wipe it from in front of his face. "Sorry."

Tony was looking at him with just a pinch of wariness. "You okay, there, Cap?"

He cleared his throat. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm good. Just worried…"

Tony resumed his pace up the deserted street, slinging an eel-like machine over one shoulder and snatching up another in his other hand.

But, God, if Nat was going in with these guys…

"What's got you so uptight, Captain Romanoff?" Tony needled as gently as Tony was capable of, crouching as best he could in his suit to flip one of the mechanized eels over on the pavement and study it.

He turned back to him, schooling his features. "Just worried about her, that's all." There. Not a total lie. Actually, it was all truth.

Tony nodded as he poked at the exposed wiring, clucking his tongue. "Loses charge awful quick, ya amateur." He sighed. "She'll be fine, Cap. She's scary when she's relaxing. Woman's an Amazon. Don't worry. Here." He straightened, tossing the machine at him and Steve's enhanced reflexes kept him from dropping it. "Take one. I'll take a few more. We'll start the clean-up and then get these back to the lab. Wanna check these out a little more, make sure we're not dealing with anything under the surface."

Steve followed him up the street, gingerly cradling the bot on his shield. "Do you think that's likely?"

"Nah. Just looking for something to stave off the boredom until Short Stack gets back. I'll kill somebody pretty soon…Or Pepper will kill me. One of them is bound to come first."

((()))

"Oh, God…" she whimpered, clutching the sheets tight in her hands before restlessly giving up to clutch at Bucky's shoulders. "Oh, God…Jamie…"

He set his mouth to hers in an electric kiss, something she still marveled at after countless times with him now. She'd never been kissed before the way he did.

Either way, it was enough to tip her over the edge and the orgasm yanked her under and turned her inside out, everything in her pulling tight and shivering to a shuddering finish.

He followed close behind her, triggered by her cathartic release, his teeth closing around her clavicle, his heart absolutely hammering against her sternum, creating a strange echo of her own.

They stayed like that for a long time, Bucky's mouth pressed tenderly to her shoulder, their bodies warm and snug, tight and seamless.

Darcy let her fingertips run lazily up his back, then back down, then back up, as she listened to her slowing heart pounding in her ears. The finish flooded her synapses and muffled the energy in the room, softening the constant crash of the ocean waves out the open windows. "I love you," she murmured.

He shifted, nuzzling his face against the soft underside of her jaw. "Even though I didn't make you scream my name?"

She sighed out a laugh, adjusting as he slipped away and stretched out beside her. "I've never been much of a screamer. I should've told you that you were fighting a losing battle."

He smirked, his metal arm slipping around her waist. "Yeah, well, even if you had, you wouldn't have dissuaded me. I spent weeks in French trenches thinking I was gonna die for nothing."

She pulled her fingers through her hair. "It looked pretty grim at the beginning, if I remember my history lessons correctly."

"That's because it was." He swept her hair back, lifting it off her neck. Finally, he sighed, long and soft in the quiet of the room. "Listen…" he murmured, his palm running up her back, his big hand spanning the entire width, nearly both her shoulder blades. "I'm sorry."

She blinked, looking up at him. "For what?"

"I've been overbearing the past few days. And I'm sorry. I swore I wouldn't be that kind of guy, and here I am."

She shook her head. "You weren't."

"I was."

She sighed. "You know my complaining is just teasing you, right?"

He nodded. "I was controlling."

"You were worried. That's not a bad thing."

He rolled over onto his back and stared up at the ceiling. "I want to go back in time and warn myself that the attack on the Tower is just a ruse. Then we wouldn't be here and you wouldn't be miserable."

She swallowed, setting her chin on his shoulder. "You can't. Grandfather Paradox."

He grunted irritably.

"Besides, I'm not miserable."

His eyes tightened. "You lie for shit."

She smirked.

He swallowed, his voice softening further. "I just don't want anything to happen to you."

She nestled closer.

"I wouldn't know what to do with myself. I don't know what I would do."

She ran her hand down his front, her fingertip along the line separating his hard abdominals. "Jamie…"

He reached up blindly to halt her progress, his hand stilling hers before it could dip lower. "Darcy…"

"What's going to happen to me? I'm with you. No one gets the jump on the Winter Soldier."

His jaw clenched. "They already have. That's what got us into this mess in the first place."

"Don't tell me you're blaming yourself." It wasn't a question. It was a command.

He flinched. "No. It's just…" He sighed, deflating. "You're the most important thing in my life. I have to protect that. And I can't protect you if I don't know what's happening to you."

Her heart throbbed at this pronouncement. "You'll figure it out. You and Tony and Bruce. You'll figure it out. There's no rush. I'll survive. There's no pressure."

He threw up his other hand. "Of course there's pressure, Darce! I can't—I won't—keep watching you do this. Do you have any idea how helpless it makes me feel?"

"Yes."

He looked at her in surprise and she watched realization dawn on his features. His mouth snapped shut.

They shared a long look.

He sighed, slumping further. "Of course you do."

She recalled all the nights she'd woken to find him pacing, pacing, endlessly, until the tails of his memories swung back around and he was able to catch them, one by one, oftentimes not happy with what he found. The countless nights he ended up with his head in her lap, clutching her to him. The lump in her throat at his despairing expression, his haggard sleeplessness, his desperation. Quiet words of comfort that did little, she knew, to balm his hurt, even as they left her mouth. The hollow, suctioning worry in her chest, the ever-present ache in her throat each time he told her what the memory had revealed, the burning need to keep from crying in reaction, not in front of him, never in front of him.

"I'm very familiar with the feeling. He and I are old friends now."

He shut his eyes for a moment, his profile dim in the low light. "Sorry. Again," he whispered.

She smiled, reaching up to brush a strand of hair behind an ear. "It's okay, baby."

He let out a heavy rush of air.

"I made a promise to myself about it, actually, just after…sharing a bed on a regular basis became a thing. When you'd wake up in the middle of the night, your brain all relaxed, and you'd remember something new. I made myself a promise."

He didn't turn to look at her. "What?"

She sighed. "That no matter how helpless I felt, no matter how much watching you hurt, hurt me, I would never let you see me cry over you."

Looking sad, he let his eyes drift shut again with a soft frown. "Damn it."

"That I would be strong for you. You'd made it through, on your own, and you didn't have to do that anymore, not alone. And I thought, long and hard, about it. After you kissed me, that day, in the lab, I thought about it. What it would mean to fall for you. What it could do to me. I thought, long and hard, over whether or not I wanted that, what I did want. The risks. The knowledge that I could lose myself in you. Just what it would mean to tangle with a man without an identity."

His frown deepened.

"You spent a long time clutching at empty air, Jamie, a long time trying to reach the identity you'd had and trying to determine if it was still the one you wanted. But, in the end, I didn't care. I knew it was too late. I knew I was already in, too deep to get out, I probably lost the minute I sat down on that lab stool. And I was okay with that. I was ready for it."

She sighed again. "You know, it's funny. I didn't think I believed in that sort of thing."

The frown eased, just a little. "And now you do?"

She shrugged. "I dunno. I just know that I made a choice that day, to stick it out, and see you through, even if that was all I did. And then…"

He finally turned his head to look at her. "And then?"
She pressed her palm to his sternum. "Guess I made the right one, huh?"

((()))

The heavy cloak of midnight was at its deepest just a few hours before dawn, and it never seemed more true to Natasha as it did when she was on a deep cover mission. On top of that, she had to be doubly sure to mask all emotions with this group. She had no doubt that, where some of her enemies would delight in playing with her, this group would merely do away, set a muzzle to her brow and leave a bullet lodged between her eyes, dump her at the side of the highway and be miles away before someone mistakenly stumbled across her rapidly stiffening body.

The only difference now was the responsibility she had to Darcy, to Bucky.

To Steve.

She couldn't be reckless like she'd been in the past.

She had to keep her focus clean and clear.

She was beyond exhausted fresh from their flight. Where usually they would've been on the road two hours ago, thanks to a mechanical and safety delay, she'd had an extra two hours to endure not only yet another obnoxious kid in the seat behind her, but two hours less of sleep, two hours less of focus, two hours of more stress than she felt she'd dealt with much in years.

This was her job. She did it well. But she had no illusions. She'd been leery of getting involved with Steve—let alone Darcy and her other friends—because she knew what it meant.

Something to lose.

Someone to fail.

Someone to answer to, something to come home to, someone to leave behind.

"Does it ever scare you?" Darcy had asked not long ago, sitting out on the balcony on Memorial Day, nursing a Corona while the guys finished watching the Dodgers slam—was it the Yankees? Whatever. Let them enjoy guy time for a few minutes.

"What?"

She gestured with the neck of the bottle through the balcony door, where Steve and Bucky were laughing and gesturing as they talked. "The way you feel about him."

Natasha watched them with a small smile. Such a warm and rare enough thing, the two guys in some form of harmony.

The way they used to be.

For some reason, where she'd been closed off before—and still was with most people—she found Darcy easy to talk to. "Yeah. It does. I avoided it for a long time because it's…it's a vulnerability. It's something to lose. It's leverage. I've…never gone into the job before carrying leverage for the bad guys." She smirked. "You?"

Darcy looked down at her beer bottle, idly picking at the label, now damp and softened in the afternoon sun. "Sometimes I feel like one word from him could shatter me."

Natasha nodded, her eyes following Steve's progress as he crossed their friends' suite toward the fridge, still talking, and reached in for another beer, tossing one clear across the room to his friend. "Mm."

Darcy shook her head and snorted humorlessly. "Y'know, when they took him—Lukin and his goons—I was terrified. But it took me a while to realize that I wasn't terrified of them killing him so much as them snapping him again. Making him into their puppet." She looked out over the city view around them, the skyscrapers glinting in the high sun. "He'd rather die than be their tool. I think what scared me the most was the possibility that when I'd meet him again, he wouldn't be…him. He'd be someone else. He wouldn't be mine anymore." She set the beer down. "I was scared they'd steal him away from me and I wouldn't know the magic spell to restore him."

Natasha nodded. "Seems like you had their number this time."

Another humorless snort and she watched them for a few moments. "Didn't really do anything. Talked his ear off for a few minutes, ran off to get back to Jane, and then…" She shrugged. "Then, I dunno. We talked for five minutes at Stark's wedding, and then he was asking me to lunch."

"How'd you do that, anyway? I think you're driving Foster up a wall, like it should be a simple math equation."

This drew a small smile from Darcy. "Yeah, Jane doesn't like him much." The smile fell and she returned to her beer bottle, the label loosening around the tempered glass. "She doesn't understand him. He just needed someone to understand him. A little careful patience. Someone who wouldn't flinch when he walked into a room."

Natasha threw back the rest of her own beer and set the bottle aside. "And now?"

Darcy chuckled. "Now I'm the one that needs the careful patience." She frowned, rolling her shoulders and wincing in what was obviously pain and stiffness from a recent episode.

Natasha nodded, watching Bucky where he sat on the couch, saying something to Steve. Steve laughed and said something in return, but right on cue, Bucky twisted to find them on the balcony, ever watchful. "He's got patience in abundance. I think you're good."

Darcy was clearly meeting his gaze, signaling to him silently with her eyes. "Doesn't always feel that way."

Natasha frowned, confused and unsure about where her friend was going with this. There were parts of her that were still feeling out precisely what sort of man Bucky Barnes was, but she trusted him, trusted his morality and honor, and she knew—in that sharply honed way she'd trained herself to use—that he was a kind soul, the last sort you'd suspect of anything untoward. He'd never lay a hand on his girl. "What do you mean?"

Darcy shook her head, realizing her words. "No, nothing like that. I just…I don't like that he has to…take care of me, now." She bit her lip. "I just want this to be over. He's been through so much—too much for one lifetime—and worrying over me isn't something he should have to do."

She shrugged, searching for the right words. Darcy was always a tricky value to quantify. "He doesn't have to; he just does it."

Darcy eyed her shrewdly. "Really, Romanoff? You're getting philosophical on me? You?"

Natasha smirked, looking away. "Yeah. I know. Shut up."

"Roger's is rubbing off on you."

She snorted. "Yeah, no kidding." She shrugged. "Steve would say it's the same thing you do for him every day. It's just about reciprocation." She laughed. "He'd say 'shut up, it's just love'."

Darcy laughed, clearly feeling self-conscious, but her eyes drifted shut. "I'm just so fucking tired, Natasha. And it's nothing compared to him. How am I supposed to handle that?"

"Hey."

They both looked up to find Bucky, half his body hanging out the sliding balcony door, leveraged by his metal hand, wrapped around the frame.

"You okay?" He didn't even glance at Natasha.

Darcy grinned at him, squinting in the sunlight. "Yeah, you dork."

An eyebrow went up. "You sure?"

Darcy rolled her eyes, laughing thinly. "Just bring me another beer, husband."

His eyes narrowed like he wanted to argue, but he let her obvious lie slide for the time being. "Hold on." He disappeared back inside.

Natasha gave her her own shrewd look. "Liar, liar."

Darcy rolled her eyes. "Not really. He can see through me like I'm not even there. He'll hen peck me later about it. Don't worry."

Somewhere below, a siren started up. A dog on the balcony of the next building over saw them and barked, his tail wagging.

"I guess I just…" Darcy blushed. "Sometimes it's…too much…what I feel for him. And that scares me. Because even though it feels like too much…when push comes to shove, in our line of work, if it all falls apart and the bad guys come calling…is it enough? Will it be enough?" She shrugged. "I mean, it's not like it's a physical tether. And if it snaps, what…what am I supposed to do? You know?"

Natasha nodded, sobered by the thought.

"I don't like…feeling like I'm at my own mercy. Do you?"

She shook her head.

"I'm not even sure how much of me even belongs to me anymore. And that's okay. I'm fine with that. But I was so…closed up, for so long, I was all walled up. But then he…scaled it all. And, now I'm exposed. Now—"

"What do you do if he's ripped away and leaves a gaping hole in you?" she finally spoke up, filling the feeling in for her.

Darcy finally snapped to, looking up and meeting her eyes. "Exactly."

They stared at each other.

"I know the feeling," Natasha murmured.

"One Corona, with a lime."

They both jumped slightly at the sound of Bucky's return.

"You're so quiet, you're like a ninja, Winter Soldier," Darcy recovered, watching him cross to them, barefoot and quite silent.

But it wasn't quite enough; it was never going to be. His smirk was thin. "It's rude to kiss and tell. You two swapping notes?"

Natasha cocked her head and gave him a coquettish tilt of her mouth. "Wouldn't you like to know…?"

He chuckled, handing the beer down to Darcy. He was crafty; he held it just aloft enough for her to reach up high for it and upset her balance. When her hand closed around the barrel, he slid his metal hand around her wrist and set his middle finger against her pulse, holding her stunned gaze for just a moment longer than necessary.

"I'm fine," Darcy insisted, tugging on her arm, of course, to no avail.

He didn't budge. "Why don't you come in? The sun's coming down pretty hot."

Darcy sighed. "Jamie."

"And your pulse is uneven."

She challenged him with a raised eyebrow. "Uneven or just fast, because I thought that was the new normal?"

He finally released her wrist. "Uneven. Erratic. And you're pale."

"You are," Natasha added.

Darcy gave her an uncharacteristically sharp look.

But Natasha shrugged, unperturbed. "Sorry."

She glared up at Bucky. "Are you trying to be funny?"

He winked down at her. "No. Just concerned. Gotta watch out for my girl."

She wilted at his likely unintentional sweetness. "Fine."

He offered his good hand.

But she waved him off, rolling to her knees before bouncing easily to her feet. "I'm perfectly capable of getting up, Jamie."

He smiled softly. "I know. The game's over. We can put on a movie. Didn't you want to show us Jurassic Park?"

Darcy brightened somewhat. "Oh, yeah! I forgot…"

Natasha followed them inside, eyeing the way he pressed his metal palm against the valley between her shoulder blades, no doubt feeling her heartbeat.

"Jurassic Park first, then we skip two and three, because, ew, then Jurassic World. You're gonna love Jurassic World…" She was already babbling excitedly. "You love your science and history, you're gonna love this. You're like a sponge, you geek. It's got their creepiest dinosaur yet! T-Rex, plus major creep factor—it actually has arms! Like, real ones, not the goofy, transitional ones that are useless. Seriously, the Indominous Rex gives me the willies…"

Natasha had been sure, that afternoon, watching Darcy curl herself naturally into the Winter Soldier's side, that that wasn't the entirety of it. Steve would chuckle and say that the SHIELD shrinks would call it 'dependency' and he'd probably say that they were hovering in that vicinity too. Natasha knew she was, as much as she denied it. Was that natural, or dangerous? Was being so heavily wrapped up in your mate that you lost sight of where they ended and you began normal, an act of fate? Contrary to popular belief, Natasha had come to accept the idea of it—fate. The alternative hadn't worked out so well for her, after all, and as far as she remembered it, Clint's showing up had felt like too much of a coincidence to reconcile in her head, even at the time. So far, it seemed like a side-effect of their line of work.

When you could be uprooted at a moment's notice, when the next job could have the ground pulled out from under you…you clung—hard—to any bit of home you could find. You relied on it to feel some semblance of…whole.

The way the past year had been, Darcy was hanging on with everything she had.

Just like her digging had brought her to here—and now. In the dark interior of an expensive car, every nerve in her body screaming that hell was about to break loose.

Again.

God, would it ever end? Hadn't they all collectively earned at least a small piece of happily ever after? No, she didn't want a minivan and a white picket fence, she didn't want soccer practice and two-and-a-half kids—not that she was capable of producing them anyway—but she'd like just a little peace and quiet. She wanted just a small section of life with Steve without a world-ending threat getting in the way.

And she suspected Darcy of the same.

—"You ready for this?"

It was all she could do to hide her readiness to jump out of her skin as she was returned to the present, and turned to face the voice in the dark Jaguar. "Are you?"

Her new boss turned his mouth up in a shark-like grin. "I sure hope so."

Natasha looked away again, out the window, and swallowed thickly, wishing that sending a warning ahead would've been possible. All she could offer was the next best thing—herself. She hoped Bucky was ready, too. And she hoped Darcy was as close to one-hundred percent as she could manage. Her friend had turned out to be right after all.

There was blood in the water.

And the sharks were coming.

((()))

Darcy woke to a hazy, warm feeling hanging in her subconscious mind and blinked herself awake, tucked against Bucky's shoulder in a puddle of sunlight.

He shifted, his arm tightening around her waist to pull her more securely against him, his mouth finding her temple, then her ear, then her cheek.

She sighed out a sleepy laugh, grasping at alertness with clumsy fingers while he rained his affection on her. "Jamie…" she groaned.

His only answer was a soft laugh and another kiss pressed to her jaw line, his mouth lingering on the soft underside of her chin and trailing down her throat, distracted by the hollow shape between her collar bones.

"You're up early," she murmured, struggling to catch up.

"Mm," he hummed, mouth trailing up again to land on her opposite cheek. "I'm gonna get in a quick swim. 'Kay?"

Frowning, she paused his retreat with a hand around his good wrist. "No way, mister." Yanking, she was rewarded when he acquiesced and pressed his weight down, covering one half of her, his heavy left arm thrown across her pillow.

"Yes." He pressed his mouth to her jaw.

"Nope." She slid her hands up his naked back and traced the mass of scar tissue around his left shoulder. "You're supposed to stay here and ravish me." She finally found his mouth and they shared a sweet kiss.

His smile shortened the affection. "Oh?"

She nodded, leaning to expose her throat to his mouth, and she shivered as he pressed a line of tender little kisses down to her pulse and back up. "Mm-hmm."

He pressed his lips back to hers, punctuating the action with words, covering her face in tiny little pecks as she squirmed and laughed, his hair tickling her cheeks. "It's just—a quick—early morning—swim. I'll—be—right back." And he broke free of her weak grip, slipping away with a smile and a wink as he grabbed his trunks and t-shirt from the bathroom, totally naked and totally delicious. "Then I'm all yours. Promise."

She harrumphed her lost battle, slumping back on the bed and calling out grumpily to him. "You have a fantastic ass!"

"I know!" The deck door slid shut and he was gone.

She grumbled again, rolling her eyes as she hauled herself up. "Stupid super soldier serum." She pulled on her robe and cinched the tie over her naked skin. "He gets the good stuff and I get the half-assed crap. Thanks, HYDRA." She shuffled out to the kitchen, running her fingers through her hair and yawning as she finally reached the coffee maker. She flicked the switch and wandered around the counter, spying her Starkphone's flashing indicator where she'd left the device on the laminate the previous night. Missed call. Tony's number.

Smiling, she swiped, tapped, and held it up to her ear, waiting as the tone sounded.

"Hey, Short Stack!" he answered quickly, decidedly cheerful at taking her call.

"Hey, Boss Man!" she returned, finally catching sight of her significant other, his long, lean form lapping a hundred meters, only to turn around and do it again. Her mouth dropped open at his perfectly executed underwater turn. Who was he—Michael Phelps?!

"How's my favorite hacker-slash-Super-Soldier-wrangler?"

She rolled her eyes—both at Bucky's ridiculous acrobatics and Tony's words—and sighed. "I don't wrangle him, Tony."

Something clanked in the background. "Eeeehhh…you kinda do."

She sighed, smirking as she turned back to the kitchen, going back around the counter and checking the coffee. Almost done. "Well, then I'm an epic fail. He just ditched for a morning swim. He's more stubborn than I am."

Tony chuckled. "Yeah, he is. That's saying something."

She laughed, opening the fridge and pulling out her creamer. "True." She bumped it shut with her hip and went about her morning routine. "How are things? Doesn't sound like you made anything go 'boom' yet."

Tony sighed. "Boring. When you coming back?"

She snorted. "You shoved us out the door, Stark. You've still got a week to get things done before I'm in your hair again."

He grumbled under his breath. "You mother…" Another clank. "Yeah, well, I was so bored, I finally decided to take no quarter with The Drone. He is no more."

She stirred her coffee, replaced the creamer and went back to the window. "Should I play Taps?"

"This little bastard is the one that's keeping all the others from working properly. He's gonna give up the ghost if I die trying…"

Bucky made another turn, his body moving effortlessly. He truly was a machine. He'd been tailor-made, and that was on top of the physical shape he'd been in when he'd enlisted. He'd been frozen. Molded. Pressed into obedience. He moved like it. No matter how free he was, it was too late to change that. He moved like the perfect, effortlessly efficient tool he'd been forged into. Her own serum had done things to her, things she couldn't attribute to stress or her training schedule. She was tighter in areas that had been just a little soft before. She was glad to be rid of her glasses, especially at night in the dark, and he was sleeping beside her, so peaceful and still. Everything in her seemed to be rushing along, efficient and easy. Or, at least, easier than before.

But the Winter Soldier.

He was beautiful. He was stunning. He truly was flawless.

And still so broken.

Stubbornly defiant.

"How does someone have that much will?" she murmured, not even realizing she spoke out loud. "I'd fall apart."

"I dunno, kiddo. That's what makes him such an anomaly. I barely got outta that desert with my sanity—and that was a fraction of the time he spent with HYDRA. Be worse if he knew what was happening every time they woke him up."

They'd talked about this, once or twice. She couldn't bear to ask him. Not yet. It still felt too fresh. He was so very close to being a normal guy now, she didn't dare shatter it with too many questions, all the time. It still felt too tenuous.

"He did."

Silence. The silence on the other end of the line was long and deafening.

Blinking, she caught herself up. "Sorry. Didn't mean to…crash the party."

For another long moment, Tony was silent. "…I thought…he said it had been like waking up from a…long nightmare?"
"In the end, it was. But he said there were times he was a passenger in his own head. Other times, they'd burn him out so thoroughly, he'd come to and wonder what he'd done this time. Blank space. Lost time. Before they put him back under." The look on his face—first mournful and fearful, then resigned—flashed through her mind again, the stolen footage she'd hacked of him daring to question Pierce nearly two years ago in that bank vault.

She'd regretting all her hacking skills instantly. The copy of Karpov's notes she'd saved on her drive, his neat scribbles, the list of trigger words she'd memorized, just in case his past came back to bite them in the ass, so she'd know what they were about to get into.

Longing.

Rusted.

Seventeen.

Daybreak.

Furnace.

Nine.

Benign.

Homecoming.

One.

Freight car.

She listed them off in her head, unseeing as she watched him, something in her chest seizing even now, a chill down her spine as she stood in the sunlight at the not-rightness of it. She'd spent hours, lying beside him those first few nights together, going over and over them in her head, trying to find reason in the cryptic code, maybe something to unspool his captive memories and retool his ability to cope with what he'd done.

Been made to do.

"Jesus…" Tony murmured.

He'd been born in 1917, that one was obvious. Daybreak. They'd found him at dawn. He said he had hazy memories of pale dawn light tangled somewhere amongst the bloody snow and the garbled Russian.

Perhaps homecoming referred to the end of the War? The homecoming he wouldn't get.

One. Well. Regardless of HYDRA's other…experiments…he'd been alone. Had there been nine others? She didn't know the exact number.

Freight car.

'Freight car' turned the blood in her veins to ice. Invoking the reminder of what had happened to him, what had put him in their path and damned his fate and had bound him to them with fear and residual shock.

It curled her lip even now.

She shook her head loose and took a breath, swallowing back her anger yet again, pushing it—hard—from her mind. "Anyway. How's everyone?"

It took him a moment to turn it around. "Uh…um, fine. Everyone's fine. Pepper's about ready to kill me. Steve's chewing all his fingernails off because Romanoff took off, Hill and Wilson are ready to murder each other in cold blood. Put down a swarm of eel bots the other day—some joke from some young punk techie, wanted to test his product on my suit. Other than that—we're all good here."

She stared unseeingly out the window for a moment more, unsure where to even start with his paragraph of near-nonsense. It took her a moment of assuredness that her lack of understanding was less due to her muddled thoughts and more to his rambled list of crazy. "Uh. Okay."

"So, yeah. That's that."

Squinting in thought, she rubbed a hand over her tired eyes. After their interlude the night before, she'd had a hard time falling asleep—again—instead, laying there, listening to the way the sound of Bucky's peaceful, even breathing accompanied the crashing of low tide. She hadn't minded so much; it had relaxed her.

She minded more now as she sifted through and ultimately picked a single question from her growing pile. "Why, exactly, did Natasha take off?"

Another clanking noise, followed by the rapid clicking of a socket wrench. "Something about a Red Room operative. You can imagine she wanted to get the jump on him."

The monkey on her friend's back. "Yeah. Uh, definitely."

"How's the coast?"

Taking a sip of coffee, she nodded, breathing deeply as her eyes found Bucky again, moving fluidly through the water. Wanda had been right—he was like a touchstone. "Nice. Good." She was relieved to have seemingly gotten back to their former rhythm, in tune with each other and nothing between.

"Better than the last time we talked?"

She sighed, pretty sure he didn't want a rundown of the previous night's activities. "Yeah."

"Any more episodes?"

"Why you wanna know, Stark? So you can go tattle on me to Bruce?"

"Mmmmaybe."

"You're shameless."

"That's me. Totally without pride."

"A couple, yeah."

A short pause. "Bad?"

"Same."

"Not worse?"

She snorted. "Not so far."

"The pain patches didn't work?"

"Only with the after effects. Not with the actual episode."

"And you're not being a stubborn pain in the ass, right?"

"Love you, too, Tony," she drawled, rolling her eyes and sipping again from her mug, letting the hot hazelnut sweet slither down her throat.

"You're letting him take the reins?"

She rolled her eyes again. "Ugh."

He sighed. "Listen, I know this sounds stupid, and un-Me-ish, and I know you're more than capable. I just have to tell you how it's looked to me. And it's looked like your resistance is wearing you down. That's the only reason I said anything. You think I always like letting Pep take over? No. I hate it, but sometimes it's necessary. That's not who I am. But it feels better, later, if I do. Make sense?"

She sighed again. "Yeah. I know."

"Listen, I'm gonna go, okay? I've gotta eat or Pep will seriously kill me. Talk to you later?"

Warmth bloomed in her chest, and she didn't think it was just the coffee. "Sure."

"See ya, kiddo."

"Bye, Boss Man." She tapped her screen and set the phone back on the counter, taking her coffee back to the sliding screen door.

((()))

He was worried about Darcy.

He was also worried about worrying about Darcy, because Darcy would tell him to shut up—likely with lots of gesturing and colorful vocabulary.

But she still wasn't herself—that was to say, she wasn't anywhere near the bubbling, silly, vivacious thing that had planted herself across from him at a lab table over a year ago looking like a pinup that had managed to peel herself off the nose of a fighter plane.

Which wasn't a bad thing, of course. It did nothing to alter his attraction or his affections. Nothing could do that.

But it…worried him.

It seemed plain to him now that her serum was slowly leaching all the color out of her. True, it had been clear quite early that it was having more negative effects on her body than positive ones. But he was hoping, then, that the tide would turn.

And he was becoming more and more suspicious that it wouldn't. Ever.

And it broke his heart that she would have to live this way for the rest of her life—the rest of her strangely iron-clad life. Her serum still made her invulnerable to mortal harms—illness and disease—and while that also caused relief, it also meant that she had a longer lifespan with which to deal with these awful side-effects.

But his anger with HYDRA was old and stale, and so all he could do was push himself, swim a little harder, breathe a little deeper, and hope it would go away.

There was nothing he could do.

The helplessness was slowly breaking him apart.

It was only fair, he supposed.

Darcy had said on more than one occasion that watching him suffer through the worst of it all last year had broken her into tiny little pieces.

But she'd still managed to pick up, every single time he called, even at two AM, and listen while he breathed.

And even without all that, without the idea of reciprocation, he would deal with it—because that was what you did. He'd made her a promise, a vow. A vow was stronger than a promise, right?

You stood by each other. Where he came from, that was what a man did.

You held each other together.

Even when it hurt you almost as much as it hurt them.

He loved her.

He still marveled at the fact that he had the ability left in him.

But he loved her, with everything he had.

Watching her—feeling her—suffer was an aching, yearning sort of pain that he was still trying to reconcile.

The agony evident in her face when her serum reared its ugly head made him want to claw at his own chest, if only to pull out his heart and toss it away. Maybe that would relieve the awful ache of her suffering.

And he could do absolutely nothing—nothing but wrap his arms around her and hold her while she cried.

God, a pain so bad you couldn't help but cry, he hadn't felt anything like that in so long he could barely remember it anymore. The fact that Darcy—tough as nails, full of moxie, and strong enough to hide her pain and fear from most people around her—was brought to tears told him just how bad it was.

It was engrained in him—deep—to take care of the people around him. It always had been. The need to take care of Steve, of Becca, had been a desperate pull for decades, and his inability to do so now, for Darcy—when it seriously counted—was making him itch.

He was a fixer; always had been.

At the diner, he'd constantly helped out the gals at the counter if they were having a rough time of things lately. He'd gotten Stevie out of scrape after scrape, gone to the chemist at all hours for medicine so often he'd gotten to know the fellow quite well (he may or may not have romanced the bloke's daughter for a very short time). He'd looked after Becca like she was his own. He'd worked on countless cars at the shop down the street to get them running right again, coming home late with his hands full of grease to find Stevie in an asthma attack or a crying Becca on their doorstep. Sometimes both.

He'd fixed it all.

Only to break it all over again—only this time he used ammunition more than anything else.

Only now he couldn't fix Darcy. He couldn't fix this. He was powerless, his hands were empty, and he was floundering around, trying to do what he could to reassure her that it would be okay even as he knew it was likely a total fucking, bald-faced lie.

Tony had called that a strength, the ability to lie like that to someone you loved, just to provide a moment's hollow comfort.

So many men, he'd said, nowadays, would just throw in the towel and ditch, deem it not worth the effort and allow the pressure to snap them in half.

He'd endured worse. A lot worse. He could endure this.

But it hurt.

More than anything he'd ever felt before.

((()))

There was a perfect breeze coming in now, and she slid the door open, stepping outside onto the deck and sighing as it washed over her.

Maybe she'd really been tense and worried over nothing. After all, it was only a matter of time until her episodes set her back. Her body didn't care where they were; it was going to react according to its own convoluted schedule, much as they'd failed to figure out exactly what that was.

And Tony was right. She could only hold out for so long. Not only was her need to keep from stressing him unduly stressing her out further, but it likely wasn't helping him any more than her condition in general was.

She would just have to do something she'd been told a few times but—given her unconventional upbringing—she found herself loath to do.

She supposed she just had to have faith.

Faith in what, she wasn't sure.

Faith in Jamie.

There.

She could do that.

Easy.

A thump drew her out of her head and she looked around, through the sliding door. Nothing seemed amiss, she noted with a quizzical frown. She glanced around to find Bucky still doing laps, likely working off that pent-up energy the serum provided—at least for him and Steve. She yawned, noting the lack of such an effect in her so far. In fact, it seemed just the opposite.

Another thump caused her to turn and give the interior of the house an even more thorough look, and she stepped closer to the sliding screen upon a third such noise, then slid it open and stepped through on a fourth. "Deb?" she called out, looking for the sixty-something blond that Tony employed to keep the property tidy. "You're a little early…" She usually didn't show up until after lunch, and she always rang the bell twice before she unlocked the door with her own key.

Another odd noise, this one sharper and more succinct—a car door slamming, rapidly followed by another, then a third, and a forth.

Scowling at the interruption on their private drive, she drew her robe tighter around her and moved toward the front door.

Tires on gravel, the sound softening as what appeared to be a second car—a sleek, black, expensive Jaguar F-Type Coupe that's she'd drooled over in TV spots—pulled up the drive and parked beside the first, a slightly more demure, but no less expensive BMW M3.

She flicked the lock on the screen door, acutely aware that she was naked under her robe and recalled her cooling coffee, left on the deck. "Hey! This is private property, people! What the fuck do you think you're doing? You lost?" she snapped, her hackles rising automatically as she sifted through all SHIELD's active enemies, bile rising up the back of her throat.

A familiar figure unfurled from the back of the Jag, a smile on his narrow, calculating face. "Oh, I'm very aware, Ms. Lewis." He frowned mockingly as he strode up to the door and set his hand to the handle. "May I call you that, or is it officially something else, now?"

She stared at his face, her mind sticking on all the filing she'd done for Tony, placing him and matching him to his name.

But that…that didn't make any sense, no matter how ridiculous their past experiences had been, what they'd taught her.

That wasn't…possible

She swallowed, stepping back from the door automatically, her heart breaking into a rapid gallop. "You…" She took a breath, her eyes narrowing. "You do know who owns this place, right? I mean, since you're supposed to be some sort of fucking genius, right, buddy? One call, and he's out here in his latest suit—and it's a doozy."

He merely smiled—that same, sharp look—and yanked the door open, stepping inside as it hung off a hinge. "Oh, sweetie. I'm counting on that. That's part of the reason I'm here." He shrugged as he approached her, his face set and eerily intent. "That, and of course, to retrieve my little unfinished experiment."

"What…?"

But the rest of her query was lost as she rapidly stepped backward in the foolish hopes she could delay him while she screamed for Bucky, fully aware that even her experienced level of training would not be enough to defend herself—even if he was alone, which he clearly wasn't.

She didn't get a chance, anyway.

With a smile, he drew a long, vicious looking needle from his Ralph Lauren coat pocket and—grabbing her roughly by the shoulder and yanking her close—emptied it into her neck.

She dug her nails into her consciousness, desperate to stay upright. But it was no use. She went limp.

Everything clouded over until the gray was so thick it turned to black.

((()))

"Sir, I'm getting an alarm at the Honolulu property," JARVIS said in his calm voice, momentarily interrupting the blaring Foo Fighters in Tony's lab.

He didn't even look up from Drone 13. "There a black car?"

JARVIS paused. "Affirmative."

He waved a hand over his shoulder, dismissing the AI. "That's just Deb. She stops by to clean. She probably forgot to turn off the silent alarm. The kids must be out. I'll check the cameras later."

The digital butler restored Dave Grohl's growling voice. "Of course, Sir."