Summary: High speed car chases ensue.
Notes: Whew! You guys! I've been writing up a storm! I've managed to considerably widen the gap from where I'm posting to where I'm actually writing in terms of the overall plot line! So relieved! This one isn't much happier than the last one, but things always get worse before they get better, right? Never fear! This one is full of action and angst, both, a little less talk-y but a lot more boom-crash! I'll admit, I struggled with this but a great friend-looking at you, Kat!-helped me puzzle out the remaining few kinks I had that were in the way of me knowing precisely where this was going and how it was getting there. So thanks, lady! You're awesome. Chapter title taken from the song of the same name by Mumford and Sons. GREAT song, hopelessly appropriate, here. Go give it a listen! Anyhoo, we're getting close enough now (don't worry, we're really nowhere near the end of this, hope that's okay...) that I'm starting to jostle ideas around in my head for further stories. I've got a couple Sherlock ideas floating around for my Dog and His Detective Series. I've got a couple Bucky/Darcy oneshots hovering. I think I'd like to go back and revisit some Steve/Natasha, since that's where all this started, and maybe even dip my toe in with Tony and Pepper. Anyone have any ideas or thoughts? Any oneshots you'd like to see? Let me know in the comments if you have any that are eating away at you-or to let me know if you loved this or hated it, either way! lol Love y'all! Sarah PS-Did you guys happen to catch that interview with Seb about that motorcycle stunt in Civil War? I'll admit, I should've Googled it long, long ago, but I was busting a gut at my desk today when he mentioned falling off the damn thing a couple times. That poor guy...is hopelessly adorable.
((()))
They kept moving. In fact, they barely stopped. He drove and drove and no matter how many times she offered to take over, he refused, telling her it helped focus his mind.
She found this statement suspicious in and of itself, but said nothing of it. Who was she to throw stones? She was lost in a mire of confusion and discomfort enough herself. The dreams intensified, deeper and darker than before, but she somehow managed to keep herself from jolting awake and disturbing him. She took to cat napping in the car and reading at night, lying down long enough that Bucky at least thought she was trying until he passed out and she pulled out her book, a copy of the fifth Harry Potter that had mysteriously appeared in her bag.
They didn't speak of her confession again.
Just as well. Darcy didn't even want to think about it. The nightmares were enough to deal with, the sound of Killian's laughter and the endless piercings in her arms, over and over, blackness, an inescapable blackness that squeezed at her and threatened to swallow her whole, a strange sensation not unlike claustrophobia.
He was to the point where he didn't even ask how she was. He just did things without any exchange of words.
In fact, they didn't do much speaking in general as they wound their way around and finally hopped old Route 66.
Not that that seemed to matter, really.
He drove with his left and held one of her hands captive in his right.
He curled close to her while they sat in any number of nearly identical motel rooms, on the bed, flicking television channels and usually landing on old reruns of Magnum PI, or Remington Steele, or The Love Boat.
He'd press against her in bed, his hand over her scar, his brow pressed comfortingly against the back of her neck. Darcy pondered how so many found a habit like this obnoxious when, for her, it was a source of warm security, his breathing steady against her shoulder.
She half expected him to start asking her questions. Any reasonable man would, after all. She'd been hopelessly clammed up for long enough that the average husband would want forward movement, would expect a plea for support, something, anything.
He knew her, though. He'd learned her like the back of his hand. She wasn't always about words. She processed things rather like he did—in silence—needing nothing more than a hand at her back. He knew she wouldn't want to hash it all out verbally, that confessing in a flood of tears would make it worse and cause her to take two steps back again.
So he let her have her space when he thought she needed it, and wrapped himself around her when her body language told him she was close to falling apart. And he pressed around her so tightly, he slotted all her pieces back together again, at least temporarily, keeping everything from shaking loose.
How he knew, what his signal was, she'd never know.
Never in her life had she met a man so quietly supportive. For claiming he was all in little broken pieces, he sure seemed like a pillar to her. She couldn't ask for anything more than the implication that she could come to him when, and only when, she was ready.
She expected him to back off, but, if anything, their sex life became more active, it seemed, in direct correlation with their circumstances.
She followed him into the shower.
They barely made it in the motel door.
She realized if he trapped her against the foot of the bed, she had an easier time allowing him to reach that extra little spot that made her vision blur.
And all the while, they barely spoke to each other.
She wondered if he was rubbing off on her, his tendency to go quiet—like the Soldier—in times of turmoil and stress.
Finally, during an ancient rerun of Wheel of Fortune a few nights in, she felt it—a wave, a torrential downpour, and she held her breath for a moment, trying to smooth the cramp in her throat, tried to keep the collapse at bay. "I'm sorry," she whispered, her voice breaking.
He sat up, cool and prepared, and pulled her into his lap. "For what?"
She took a deep breath, or she tried; instead she gasped, her voice strained as she curled against his chest, totally surrendering to him. "I don't even know."
A gentle laugh that she felt in his chest as well as heard. "Then don't be sorry."
She opened her mouth to say it again, though she wasn't sure what her reasoning would be, but she couldn't speak. She couldn't even breathe.
"Deep breath," he murmured, his hand running soothing circles on her back. "Take a deep breath for me, okay?"
She hiccupped, and lost, spectacularly, tears starting to stream mercilessly down her face. "I-I can't."
She hadn't cried like this in almost a year, the need tightening her throat and suffocating her, everything seizing helplessly.
"It's alright," he murmured. "It's alright."
"No, it's n-not."
"But it is what it is, solnishka," he whispered. "And you don't have to be strong all the time."
She gestured, frustrated, toward the TV, where the third contestant spun the wheel yet again, though there were only a few empty squares left on Before And After. "And for God's sake, someone tell that idiot its 'Peppermint Stick Shift'!"
He smiled. "I got that ten minutes ago." But he turned it down and tossed the remote on the bed.
"Is it ever going to-to end?!" she gasped, pressing her face against his t-shirt.
He sighed, trying to stem his own flow of grief. He'd been unable to stop thinking about her confession three days prior, her suspicion that she'd spent at least a moment or two dead. "I don't know, solnishka. I'm afraid you're asking the wrong guy."
"I mean, for fuck's sake, can't they just leave us be?! Is that so much to ask?!"
He bit his lip, tightening his grip on her. "I know, baby. I know."
She fell completely apart in a strange motel room, on a lumpy bed, with Wheel of Fortune on the TV, gasping to keep from sobbing, tears streaming down her face, apologizing over and over as she tucked herself more and more tightly into his lap.
Bucky stopped telling her to quit saying she was sorry. He gave up telling her to breathe. He started murmuring to her in Russian, his arms tight around her in the only form of surrender he knew.
He wasn't certain just how his heart could break, only to break again, and again, over and over, and still remain whole, but it seemed somehow possible.
When she finally slowed, then sniffled, and passed out, he sat there, unable to move, for a long time, watching her sleep, all the what-ifs driving him in circles in his mind.
What if he'd acquiesced to her teasing that morning and not gone out for a swim.
What if they'd rejected Tony's offer and gone to the Hamptons anyway.
What if he'd looked a third and fourth time to make sure that the person she'd claimed to see again and again on the property was or wasn't there.
What if they'd just locked themselves in the house and had done with it, found some other, more creative means of entertainment.
After all, they hadn't reached that plateau yet, the one that couples talked about, where the sex became every-day and vanilla, the novelty wore off, and the patina of newness faded to boring day-to-day life.
Part of him was terrified that they could ever reach a place where they're only concession was a casual peck goodnight and turning around to sleep with their backs to each other, the space between them on the bed icy cold.
He didn't know what to do.
Well. He did know what to do.
They were at least in the clear enough for a burner phone.
He'd go out and nab one tomorrow, try and get in contact with Tony.
Ditch the car for a different one. It had been three days in this one and they'd cross state lines soon. It was time for another model.
Beyond that…he didn't know what to do.
He supposed he could do nothing more than keep an eye on Darcy's health and hand her over to Bruce as soon as they got back. Waiting for her to break had only been a matter of time, and hopefully she'd gone through the harshest of it now, at least until they got home.
He didn't want to know what they'd done to her. It was strange. He'd grown so used to her episodes that her lack of them now made him horribly nervous. What had they done to her and why was she suddenly perfectly fine? What was coming? What was looming?
He could feel it.
The shadow bore down on them faster and faster, and no matter how far they got…
Sighing, he settled her gently on the bed, covered her and went to shut the drapes and turn the volume down on the episode of Jeopardy that was on. He pulled off his jeans and crawled in beside her in his t-shirt and boxer-briefs.
She murmured in her sleep and settled her face against his metal shoulder.
He answered the entire section on German names of the Second World War and fell asleep while they were battling their way through Final Jeopardy, the stupid theme song the last thing he heard.
But the answer was totally 'The White Star Line'.
((()))
"Tasha?" Steve answered in the second ring, his voice sharp with worry.
"Steve," Natasha sighed as the satellite connected her to her husband.
"You okay? Where are you?" He was coming through loud and clear and she could tell he was less than happy with things at the current moment.
She let her eyes slide shut and bit her lip against the sting of tears. "I'm fine. I'm fine."
A deep sigh blew in her ear as Steve forgot to move the phone away. "Thank God."
Her throat was cramping and she clenched her jaw shut. The Black Widow did not cry, damn it. "I'm fine." Her voice wobbled. She didn't cry, she didn't cry, damn it, damn it, damn it.
"Where are you?"
"I just touched down at LAX," she murmured. "I'm okay."
There was a long pause.
"Did Tony punch you?" she finally asked.
"…Maybe."
The damp laugh felt good in her chest, effervescent, making a nice contrast to the dreary dread she'd been mired in. Standing in line at the check-out counter, it had threatened to drown her and she'd ditched her resolve to call him from the rental car and pulled out her Starkphone. To hell with being tracked by Killian's men. She'd seen neither hide nor hair of them since she'd slipped their tail on the highway and her only plan now was to track down Bucky and Darcy.
It was just lucky that the rental place took cash. She took her information from the airline assistant and hiked her backpack higher up her shoulder, edging between two gossiping women in the complaints line.
He filled her in while she waited for a car, and she apologized to the girl with the paperwork for being that person on the phone while being served.
Tony had punched him, after all, yes, and it had been one hell of a punch.
But Steve wasn't mad; in fact, he still felt guilty and awful about the whole thing.
Tony was beside himself, but was largely quiet and in his own head, and his thoughts were clearly spinning and spinning as the inventor worked out the problem. Once in a while, he'd open his mouth to reply to a comment with snark and a sharp scolding, but Steve tried to take it in stride.
She filled him in on the details of that morning, and their escape, and the three days since that she'd spent leading Aldrich's team on a merry chase around The Big Island, finally ending with dropping her tail and screaming into the airport, grasping desperately at any flight straight to LAX that had an opening.
Finally, she slammed the door on the Toyota Camry and stuck the key in the ignition. "Steve…" she said, trying to interrupt him, the dam on her emotions starting to crumble, now that she was in the car and safe from prying eyes. If the Black Widow had to crack and disintegrate, she could only do it on safe ground.
"…and Tony is making this about twice as difficult as he otherwise could, but it feels like that's my fault so…"
"Steve…"
"…if you have any ideas, I mean, we can start there, and maybe we can meet up…" he was still talking.
She tried to force a deep breath, but that only hastened the flood that was rushing that dam, pressing at the concrete barriers of her mind, the tight, death-grip she kept on that Widow persona she'd built up around her all those years ago, when a persona for all the things she'd done had been her only way to cope. She still had trouble letting it go. Only Steve had ever succeeded at getting through it. "Steve…"
He finally stopped, the wobble in her voice a dead giveaway. "…Sorry."
"I just really needed to hear your voice," she gasped.
He was silent.
"I thought I was done watching people be tortured. But I was right back there again. I was back with…with them. And it was Darcy…" A tear slipped down her cheek.
"I'm sorry, Tasha…" Steve whispered.
"I really needed to hear your voice," she said again, her throat cramping so hard it hurt to swallow.
"I'm here. I'm right here. I'm right here with you."
The warmth in his voice eased the ache a little, but it felt like a superficial balm when what she really wanted was for him to completely coat her and form a cocoon within which she could hide away.
He'd stripped her armor the moment he'd admitted that he loved her, just over a year ago.
At first, she'd resented that.
But then she'd realized the obvious.
He'd become her armor.
She shivered, though the car was sweltering from being parked in the beating sun of the lot for who knew how long. "I don't know where they are. But I've got a car. I'll be on their trail."
Steve's voice was low and soothing. "How? You know Buck—they're in the wind."
She took a deep breath, wiping at her eyes. "If you know him well enough, and if you've been doing what he has for a fraction of the time, though, you can take a random stab in the dark and maybe come up with something to work with."
He sighed. "I guess. Tash…just…meet up with us. We'll do this together," he pleaded.
She shut her eyes against the temptation. "I have to see this through, Rogers."
He was quiet for a moment, but she knew he was thinking through the determination at the back of her tone. "…Killian isn't...The Red Room, sweetheart. And if he's perfected the serum the way you think he has, I…I don't…"
"I'll be fine. I'll be careful. You know I will."
He was quiet.
"It's been days. Buck's led them in circles—if they were ever on their trail at all, rather than mine—and he's likely already gotten them back to the Mainland. That means they hopped the most direct route, with as many opportunities to lose a tail as possible. He's in a dark, nondescript car with good gas mileage, he's using cash, and he's lying low. That should fool the nasties, and he knows that, but it doesn't fool me, Rogers. That only eliminates the bad ideas and illuminates his path for me. He knows what he's doing."
"Sometimes I feel like everyone knows my own best friend better than I do," Steve grumbled.
In a surprise move, she smiled. "Yeah, well. Time doesn't always heal all wounds—sometimes it's responsible for them."
"…Sometimes I don't even recognize him." He sounded so very sad.
Natasha palmed the keys in her hand and set her elbow to the window ledge. "You're not really supposed to. People change—even when it's not because they were made to be someone…something…else. People change, Steve. He's still Bucky. He's just…got more facets now, that's all."
Steve sighed again, long and deep. "…What did they do to our Darcy?"
She flinched at the unexpected question, her mind supplying her with a ringing echo not unlike a flat-lining heart monitor.
No reason to worry Steve just yet. And anyway, she didn't really have an answer for him. "I don't know. One minute she was unconscious, the next she was going toe-to-toe with Killian like a…like…"
"Like a what?"
She scowled at the thought of Steve's reaction to her next words. "Kind of like Bucky."
A very, very long moment of silence.
Then… "…that Romanoff?" said Tony in the background.
Steve was clearly lost in his own head. "Um…uh, yeah. It's Tasha."
The speaker was covered and muffled, there was the distant sound of voices conversing, and she heard what she knew was Steve's protective voice.
"Put him on, Steve. It's okay," she tried to call.
With a loud sigh, Steve came back on. "Are you sure?"
She watched a couple walk by in the rearview mirror, laughing, holding hands. "…Yeah."
When he spoke again, his voice was low, soft and intimate. "I love you."
"Love you, too."
"Come home to me."
Her chest tightened, but she swallowed back the cloying urge to cry again. "Soon."
And he was gone.
"You alright, Romanoff?" Tony suddenly said, his voice loud and clear.
"Fine, Stark."
"All in one piece?"
She couldn't stop the rueful smile on her mouth. Tony was always very direct. And his armor was so thick he pretended not to care—the more he pretended not to care, the more he really cared. Steve oftentimes missed that little nuance. She suppose she figured people were maybe less complicated, socially, back when he'd grown up. No speed dating. No social media. No texting rules. Just people being people together.
Darcy had laughed, just a few weeks ago, the last time they'd met up, that he still didn't totally get tone and had completely missed a joke she'd made about Thor being a beast—in bed, something he'd failed to put together. Jane's red face had apparently been his tip-off.
"What did they do to my girl, Romanoff?"
"I think she's mostly Bucky's girl, Tony," Steve could be heard saying in the background.
Tony ignored him.
She glanced at her reflection in the rearview mirror. "You don't want to know, Stark." She looked gaunt and deep-eyed, pale and drawn. She sighed. She looked like she hadn't been laid in weeks.
Certainly felt that way.
"You going after them?"
"Keep you posted?"
"Better do."
"Wait, that's it?!" Steve grumbled as the two of them hung up.
She smirked and inserted the key in the steering column. Sometimes Steve forgot she and Stark had known each other longer than the two of them. They communicated on a rushed level, minimal effort to get the point across, much like they'd done during the whole Justin Hammer fiasco. Just get it out and get it done, no screwing around.
Being from the military, Steve should've understood that rather well.
She turned the engine over, smiling when it caught and she slotted it into gear. If Bucky could keep moving tiles around the board, this might even be fun. He could inadvertently make her tracking of them a little game.
"Your move, Buck."
((()))
Tony set Steve's Starkphone back to its home screen and tossed it back to him. "And that's how it's done."
Steve stared at him, mouth agape. "That was it?"
Tony shrugged. "What more was there supposed to be?"
He gestured. "And you just figured she'd be going after them? Just like that?"
Tony eyed him skeptically. "She is your wife, right?"
Steve sighed, bristling. "That doesn't mean I'm okay with it."
"Well, no shit, Sherlock." He winked. "But it's what she does. Femme Fatale and all that. Let her do her thing. It's not like you were gonna talk her out of it."
Steve grumbled under his breath, shoving his hands in the pockets of his jeans.
Tony smiled thinly. "I think the phrase you're looking for here is, 'Fucked up'."
Steve rolled his eyes. "So, what's she got to tell us, hm?" He knelt over the body of the blond woman and frowned. "Pretty banged up."
Tony crouched, then craned his neck to peer up at the broken window of the garage. "Yeah, she said her name was Erwin?"
"Clytemnestra. Weird name."
"Greek myth."
Abruptly, he began away, toward the beach.
Steve, mouth open in surprise once again, scurried after him. "Stark, what—what are you doing?!" He swatted a bush branch out of his way and finally stopped next to his colleague, who was busy staring down at a small pile of rocks. He glanced down at it. "See one you need for your collection, or what?"
But Tony was silent as he crouched over it in the sand, picked one up and examined it. "Why make a pile of rocks on the beach?" He glanced down the strip of sand, finding two more, at the very least. "And why more than one?"
Steve, growing impatient, sighed, and pulled a hand down his face. "I dunno, Tony, but I'm sure you'll tell me."
Tony stood and, no surprise, moved back toward the house, pausing halfway.
Steve hurried after him again. "Stark, for God's sake—"
"Romanoff said they had two devices, right? Something to generate a constant EMP, and something else for—"
"A TMS, yeah. Whatever that is."
Tony pulled a hand through his shorn hair. "Focuses electrical activity in the brain. Wouldn't really affect anyone with normal activity without some sort of driving agent, but for someone whose brain chemistry has already been altered…"
Steve frowned. "You mean Bucky."
Tony started chewing on the inside of his cheek. "An EMP could take his arm out of service for a short time, give them a window."
"He can use the arm without power, though, Stark, it's just more difficult."
"Right, but it didn't have to be something that would necessarily take it down for a long period. But the TMS…"
"What are you getting at, exactly?"
He glanced back at the stones. "He mapped out the barrier."
Steve followed his gaze. "What barrier?"
"He drew a line in the sand where the signals ended, so he'd know how close he could get. Romanoff takes out any tech that's been controlling the equipment. She turns it off, allowing Bucky to infiltrate, her and Erwin have it out, she dumps the girl out the window as a signal."
Again, Steve's mouth dropped open and he stared for a moment. "Tony, that's…that's genius."
The inventor turned to give him a sardonic look. "Seriously, Rogers?"
Steve rolled his eyes. "That still doesn't tell us where they went."
((()))
Bucky was woken in deep darkness by a soft rumbling sound from out on the road. He groaned softly, adjusting, pressing his face into Darcy's torso, his mouth into the warmth of her belly. "Not now…" He squeezed his eyes shut, burrowing deeper against her and snaking his arm down her leg.
She sighed in her sleep, curling around him.
Then it stopped.
Then it started up again, a little louder.
"Son of a bitch," he murmured, edging his eyes clear and cutting a glance at the digital clock on the bedside table. 4:23am. Just before sunrise, the blinds keeping out the pre-dawn light starting to blush on the horizon.
Apparently their pursuers didn't think the Winter Soldier was fond of cuddling with a warm bed partner. Needless to say, after spending so long being told when to wake and when to sleep, after so long being physically and mentally manipulated, he was not a morning person, let alone those mornings he wanted to spend extra time pressed against Darcy's warmth. And her t-shirt was so soft…
Hissing, he sat up, listening. Definitely a car.
It stopped.
He cut his eyes over to the window, narrowing his gaze.
Then it started up again, slightly louder, and around the back of the building.
His mind turning it over, and highly annoyed at being woken when he'd finally gotten to sleep, he slid out of the bed and into his shorts, securing the button as he stepped into the bathroom. The tiny window near the ceiling was right at his eye level and he didn't need to stretch to see the black SUV creeping slowly around the back parking lot.
Range Rover Sport. 2015.
"Shit," he muttered under his breath, already moving. "Can't have any warm domesticity. Nope, sorry. Not for Bucky Barnes." He slid on a t-shirt. "Darcy," he said, not trying for quiet anymore, trying to pitch his voice so she'd snap to.
She jerked, her eyes snapping open.
"Darcy, c'mon. Gotta get up, babe." He tossed her tiny shorts onto the bed. He wasn't sure she was up for it just now, after her meltdown just a few hours earlier. But they didn't have a choice. The fates had chosen this moment—this fucking moment. Of course, it was always when you were feeling the safest, the warmest, the most comfortable, always when hope was just beginning to seep back into your bones.
She frowned, groggy, and rubbed her red eyes. "Mm, what?"
He snatched up the backpack he'd been carrying around and pulled it open. "We got company, dollface. Time to move." Good thing he hadn't gotten that burner phone yet.
But then…how had they found them…?
Swallowing that pointless direction for now, he pulled out the ammo he'd stashed in the bottom of the bag and lined it up on the bed.
Darcy jerked upright. "Wait, what?"
"Look alive, Darce—we gotta move."
((()))
Understanding filtering slowly into her sluggish brain, Darcy lurched up out of the bed and snatched at her shorts, stumbling clumsily in her haste, but she managed to get dressed in the darkness. He didn't need to tell her twice. He was wearing his Winter Soldier voice. "When the hell did you get ammo? Ammo implies—"
He pulled out three nasty looking guns, a gorgeous sawed-off, a small pistol, and a smallish looking submachine that looked vaguely familiar.
"Guns! Your scary guns. When did you—"
"Focus, Darce. C'mon."
She shut right up at the strain in his voice. "Fucking hell," she muttered as she slid on her sandals and stuffed her toiletries into the outer pocket of the backpack, taking up the space the guns and ammo had relieved. He must've been stocking up on those mysterious trips he'd taken, leaving her locked in the room for a couple hours at a time. Why did the small automatic look familiar, though?
He settled the weapons on top and yanked the zipper closed, glancing quickly around the room. They'd left it pretty spare, ready to go at a moment's notice and there was nothing lying out. He held out his hand, palming the keys to the Lincoln. "'Kay?" He tried to convey the urgency, disappointment, and support in once glance and wasn't sure he managed it.
But she nodded, putting her hand in his.
He wove their fingers together and tugged, and they moved for the door. He peered out a tiny gap in the blinds and then unlocked the door and hustled her out behind him for cover, slamming the door shut behind them. Unfortunately this room didn't have the added advantage of a back way out and so he'd had to park in front.
"Well, this sucks," she declared. "So, what, you're gonna fight our way out of the parking lot like Bruce Willis?"
Bucky was already sweeping along. "I prefer to think of myself more like Daniel Craig in that opening sequence of Spectre," he said. "You know, the bit where the building falls out from under him and he just sorta rides it down without a scratch?"
"Gee, look at that—your alter ego has a sense of humor. I'm not showing you anymore Bond."
He threw her the keys and ran around to the passenger side. "You're driving," he told her.
"What?!" she gasped, shocked.
"I said, 'you're driving'! I need my hands free. Get in!"
Sighing, she hauled herself into the driver's seat and turned the engine over as Bucky opened his weapons bag on the floor at his feet. "Seriously?!"
His eyes were on the side mirror. "Just drive, doll."
So, holding her breath, she peeled it out of the lot. "God damn it, it was nice and warm back there. And cuddly," she whined, not really expecting any response. "Maybe if we go back and lock ourselves in, they'll go away." Or, better yet, they wouldn't be followed…
But, of course—they were. "Shit," she muttered, watching them in the rearview mirror as she revved it up to eighty, the state highway dead around them as the black SUV bounced out of the motel lot behind them. "Where the fuck are we, master sergeant?"
"Just go straight," he ordered her, the crack of his shotgun an eerie accompaniment as he loaded it, snapping it shut and swinging it around.
He reached over and lowered the window.
"What are you doing?!"
"Just drive, babe." His voice was low and subdued, somewhere between Jamie and Winter Soldier, and it sent a foreboding chill up her spine. "And if it makes you feel any better, the reply to your complaint is no—there isn't anywhere I'd rather be than tucked in bed with you. That's pretty much the only place I want to be, just about all the time."
She sighed.
There was a bang behind them, rapidly followed by a clank as a bullet struck the backend of the truck.
She jumped, gasping.
He hauled himself half out the window and fired off a round.
She jumped again, higher, at the deeper report. "Oh, God."
"Keep it together, Darce."
"Oh, shut up, Barnes." She accelerated, watching the SUV swerve around behind them, trying to come up on their side and still keep a good angle as they evaded his shots. "Seriously—this was supposed to be a honeymoon, like, swimming, making out on the beach, lots of sex—I had every intention of having lots of sex! How did it turn into a firefight?!"
Another bullet clanked against their rear and her husband fired off another round, cursing when the truck swerved behind them and he missed.
"Oh, right," she continued, bitter. "I'm a freak now, so we're a matched set—we're like those collectible action figures they make of superheroes! I could be the Wonder Woman chick and you can be the broody Batman—like in that crappy movie they did last spring!"
He curled himself back into the cab. "Bad angle."
"Oh, of course. Gotta have the right angle." They swerved behind them again, and she put her foot to the floor, gassing it. "Damn it."
"Use the whole road, babe," he instructed.
So she lurched while he reloaded, this time with that smallish automatic that looked really creepy—and really familiar. "Did you have that when you tried to kill Steve?" she asked offhandedly. She'd looked it up once. A Czech machine gun. Skorpion—with a 'K'. Because what could make it creepier?
"I did—thanks for the reminder," he said sardonically.
"Anytime," she answered as she lurched back again, gassing it up to one hundred. "Holy shit, I don't think I've ever gone this fast before!"
"Just keep it on the road, okay? You've got this," he said as he flicked the button for the sunroof. Good thing they hadn't swapped cars yet, either. How convenient that this one had a giant hole in the roof that he could take advantage of.
"This is fucking insane, Jamie! Insane! We're in an action movie! I married an action movie star! Fuck my life!" she yelled over the wind as he disappeared out of the roof. "You're lucky you're mind blowing in bed, you jack ass," she continued, muttering under her breath.
He reached down and ruffled her hair in a sign that he'd heard her perfectly well, and she swatted at his hand.
More ammo hit their back and she gasped, clutching at his knee. The car lurched again, and she gasped again, switching her grip back to the wheel, white-knuckling it. And just then it happened—her hands started to itch and burn against the steering wheel.
He fired off another shot, but the SUV lurched again and he missed.
"Fuck," she breathed, trying to will her heart to slow as she stared, wide-eyed, at her hands as they started to flicker and tingle.
"Darce?" he called.
"Nothing. Nothing, I'm fine. Just do your soldier-y thing," she replied, trying to speak past the thin rasp of her voice. "We're good." Under her breath, "What the fuck is this?!"
They fired off more rounds and his knee twisted as he ducked.
"Don't you dare die!" she cried, her heart lurching in time with the truck as she turned the wheel. "If you get shot, I'm too young to be a widow!"
He fired off another shot and ducked back in. "Their driver is good with evasive maneuvers."
"Of course he is," she muttered.
"You're doing great, babe."
She glanced in the mirror. "Not so much."
He turned.
The truck was gaining on them now, foot by foot, and yard by yard, and she didn't know how much more she could squeeze out of the MKZ. She wasn't a stunt driver, after all, she had no idea how to execute cool maneuvers like power slides and controlled skids. "Jamie—you gotta think of something, okay?" She swallowed hard against the blind panic.
His hand settled around her knee. "Focus on my voice, okay? My voice and your breathing—it's just like the meditation technique I walked you through last week."
"Right."
He'd taught her one of his techniques just a week prior on the beach, during the sunset, had walked her through the activity of focusing on her breathing.
"Mindfulness. Right," she repeated, drawing her focus to her heartbeat.
She lost all that, though, when they were rammed from behind, hard, and the momentum threw her against the steering column. She gasped out a shout of protest, but the impact hurt less than she'd expected.
"Keep it together," he coached again as he rose back out the sunroof, using their closer position to his advantage.
Sure enough, a moment later, he fired off a deafening round and she glanced back to see a spray of blood hit the inside of the windshield behind them.
The truck swerved, careening left and losing speed.
"Get him?" she yelled over the wind noise.
"Passenger!" he called back as it righted itself and continued its pursuit, rapidly regaining their lost momentum to ram them again, harder, before lurching left and managing to eek out enough room to come up on their left.
"Fuck," she muttered as he dropped back down into the cab, switching out the gun for a handheld, his beloved SIG.
"Lean back, keep breathing," he instructed, his voice even and stabilizing. "I'm here." The clip on the gun made a sexy, slick clacking noise as he pulled it back and checked the magazine, then did it again as he slammed it back in place. Then he lowered her window, firing as soon as it was halfway down, dodging return fire as she plastered herself against her seat, trying not to pass out, her hands growing hot on the wheel.
One shot.
Two shots.
Return fire.
Three shots.
A raw shout, then the truck fell rapidly back.
"Gotcha," he muttered, throwing himself back out of the roof to fire again, and she glanced back to find the truck careening on two wheels, the front passenger tire blown out.
It rolled in her rearview mirror, then rolled again and disappeared into the ditch.
She was gasping, staring in horror at her glowing, red hands. The air rippled with heat and the leather of the steering wheel was scarring beneath her grip, the singed smell of it filling the interior. Her grip white-knuckled on the wheel, her mind a tussle of rapid panic that was spiraling so hard she couldn't get a grip on it. What the fuck had they done to her?!
Slowly, his voice broke through. "Darce…Darcy, babe, ease off. You can ease off. They're gone for now…"
Her foot eased off, and they slowed, and slowed, until finally, she'd thrown it in park and scrambled out of the driver's seat, shivering and shaking, her hands a terrifying shade of neon orange-yellow. "Oh, God, I'm gonna throw up—"
She tumbled clumsily to the ground, catching herself up against the car, her hand slithering along a ragged bullet scar in the paint job. She stumbled into the ditch and threw herself to all fours, her whole body one huge shiver, her skin crawling so hard she wasn't in physical control.
But nothing happened. Her skin was clammy and cold. But nothing happened.
She was alone. Her hands faded until they were just her hands again.
It felt like forever that she was alone, though she was sure in some distant corner of her mind that it was only a matter of a moment or two while he let her get her bearings.
When a palm settled—warm and heavy—over her tailbone, she jumped, gasping out a pathetic mewl that she couldn't stop, no matter how much she hated it.
He didn't speak for a long few moments, letting her drift in the buzzing silence ringing in her head.
She swallowed against her dry throat, her arms trembling just in the effort of holding herself up.
But he was there, offering a hand, ever vigilant, but never stifling, a solid, steadying expression on his face. "You're okay."
She set her hand in his and let him pull her up, limp and unable to help him no matter how she wished again, that she could close the damnable gap between her brain and her body. "Shit…"
"You're alright. It's just the adrenaline," he murmured, and somehow she heard him over the ringing in her head, the blood rushing in her ears. "Focus on my voice."
She nodded, panting for air and trying to swallow again past her dry throat. "I've been in stuff like that before. I could handle an Asgardian Destroyer."
He cupped her face, tipping his forehead forward until it rested on hers. "A high-speed chase while under fire is a little different, Darce. You did well."
"Oh, don't be sweet. The Hell I did."
"Have I ever lied to you?" He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her against him, holding her for a moment that was too short. "We can't stay here. They won't stay down for long." He broke away, but wrapped an arm around her waist, helping her around the truck to the passenger side. "That really was a kick-ass job you did back there."
But she was on autopilot.
He settled her in the car, secured her in, and went around, slid the key in the ignition and pulled back out onto the road.
And she was out.
