A/N: Thanks also to the guest reviewer who's been following all of these :) It's really great getting several emails a day of people following or favoriting my stories. Thanks so much!
7. Don't Look Away
The drive takes a while. She tells him where they are going: Middletown. It isn't far, only a couple of hours drive, depending on traffic. He doesn't remember it from … before, and had no reason to know any American geography after. She is silent during the drive and he dozes off. When he wakes, he is surprised to have had no memories return, to have awoken quietly, and to have slept before a mission. He looks at her quizzically, wondering if she had something to do with it.
It had been forty-seven hours since he was sent out. His men were alternating the watch, sleeping when they could. He didn't sleep; he hadn't slept on the trip here and he wouldn't sleep now. He watched the house across the street intently, poised and ready.
"Almost there, Barnes. Enjoy your nap?" she asks, a smile tugging at her lips.
He doesn't reply, sitting up in his seat to get a better look outside. Forest lines the road on both sides. The road has two lanes and comparatively few other vehicles. The sun is still high overhead; it is a little after four in the afternoon. He frowns. Why are they here? Who is she, again? Natasha. They are looking for HYDRA agents. She didn't say why, but he can guess. She likely has similar reasons for wanting them destroyed.
"Do you remember me?" she asks suddenly.
He frowns. What does she mean? "Yes."
"What do you remember?" she pressed.
"We fought. You tried to strangle me, and short circuited my arm. I shot you before Steve came," he says slowly, concentrating. "Then… you fired a grenade at me."
She glances at him. "Anything else?"
Some vague feelings pass through him, the memory of a car, a motorbike, an empty road, and a cliff. No other memories come. "Nope," he replies.
"You've shot me more than once," she says calmly.
"Sorry," he mumbles, staring at his hands, shoulders hunched.
"It was the job," she replies. "We've all done things we're not proud of."
He doesn't know what to say to that. He doesn't know her history, or even his own. He doubts hers can compare with his, though. He's been doing things he'd rather not think about for seventy years, apparently. How much of those decades he was awake he doesn't know. Maybe no one knows. It feels like something that should matter to him, but it doesn't. He stretches his legs out in front of him, wishing he was asleep again.
"You with me, Barnes?" she asks, clearing her throat.
"Probably," he replies.
"You're not going to go all catatonic if seeing this guy brings back memories, right?" They have slowed and she is parking on the street. She turns around to back up, and pauses, meeting his eye, as she asks the question. He shrugs, meeting her mocking gaze with his own, emotionless one. "Well, I guess we'll do our best," she says, looking away quickly, and turns the vehicle off.
His fingers wrap around the fractured metal of the door, fitting easily between it and the body of the vehicle. He shifts his weight only slightly before ripping it off its hinges.
He slowly follows her out of the car and down the street. They are downtown, and shops line either side of the road. She ducks down an alley. There are people around, but none seem to notice him. If they do, they look away quickly. No one pays any attention when he slips down the alley after her. She strides forward, clearly knowing where she is going, her footsteps barely making a sound. His boots are more noticeable, but he doesn't care.
She stops at a doorway, partially hidden by some dumpsters. She turns and looks back at him, acting casual, but he can see the way she tenses, ready for a fight. "I don't know what we're going to find in here," she says softly when he stops a few feet away. "Ready?"
Steve looks at him, not speaking, waiting. He nods in answer to the unspoken question.
He gives her a withering look and she smiles grimly. She pulls on the door, but it is, unsurprisingly, locked. It opens outward and would be difficult to kick down. She reaches for her lock picking tools, but he steps around her and wrenches it open easily with his left hand, careful not to rip it free of the frame entirely.
"And they say chivalry is dead," she says sardonically.
He doesn't answer. Inside the door is a dark hallway, with paint peeling and the sound of water dripping echoing off the walls. He listens, but can hear no other sound. He glances at her. She shrugs. He stoops, pulls his knife out of his boot, rises, and starts forward in one fluid motion. He can feel her following, and must remind himself that this should not cause him stress, even though he has only one weapon besides his arm. She is not a threat. This may be a trap, but he has never been caught before. And it has been a while since his last fight; he doesn't like being idle.
The hallway turns out to be about thirty feet long. There are only three doors, two on the left and one on the right, in its length. Natasha does not indicate that they should stop at any of them. At the end of the corridor is another door. It looks normal enough in the darkness, but has a more solid quality about it than the others. He touches it and is not surprised to find that it is metal, not wood, and is set in an air-tight seal.
"Dead end?" she asks, teasing, maybe.
"I can break it down," he replies, cocking his head as he assesses it.
"I knew I brought you along for some reason."
He steps back, turning away from the door, then swings back with his left arm, striking close to the locking mechanism. A significant dent is made. The sound is briefly deafening. He swings again, with similar results. He backs up several paces, then kicks the weakened area with some momentum behind him. The door flies open. He presses himself back against the wall behind him as shots ring out from inside the room. She does the same after a beat.
"No more grenades?" she asks.
He shakes his head, leaning forward to look through the door carefully. He throws his knife expertly and the shooting stops. He resists smiling when he sees the shocked admiration that flashes, briefly, on her face, and enters the room. It is larger than he expected, fifty feet by sixty, with rows of computers and other technological apparatuses every few feet. There is only one man inside, the one with sandy hair who was vaguely familiar. He isn't dead; the knife is through his arm, pinning it to the concrete wall behind him. It's bleeding quite a bit, but would take hours to bleed out.
He walks over to him, kicking his gun away. He had been trying to reach it with his left hand, just slightly beyond his fingertips. He pulls his knife out of the wall, and the arm, and wipes it placidly on the man's sleeve, above where the blood stains it. The man looks up at him, panic clearly written on his face, then at Natasha, who stands a few feet back, hands on her hips.
"Hello," she says, her voice gentle.
"Are you here to kill me?" the man gasps out.
"I'm not," she replies.
The man scrambles backwards, though there isn't anywhere to go, and looks up at the soldier in terror. "He is?" he breathes.
"Not if you play nice," she informs him.
"Wh-what do you want?"
She motions to the room at large. "Everything you've got. Stand up."
The man does as he's told, holding his wounded arm close to his chest, back pressed against the wall. "Then they'll kill me," he says, resolution tinging the fear in his voice.
He doesn't know or care what all of this is. But something about the man is familiar. Something… Vague recollections pass through is mind, but are hard to pin down. Something painful, something unpleasant. Something with this man. He reaches out with his left arm and grasps the man's throat, pushing him upward until his feet were no longer on the ground. "I will kill you," he corrects calmly as his fingers tighten and the man's gasps become less productive.
"Barnes," she says, a warning in her tone. She's stays out of his reach, though. He turns to look at her and she holds her ground, but he can see her grow tense. A musical noise suddenly echoes through the room. He releases his grip slightly, to delay the impending unconsciousness, as she pulls a device out of her pocket, pressing it to her ear. "Hey, Rogers. What's up?" She smiles as she listens to what sounds like a tirade coming on the other end. "Look, we're a little busy. Can we talk later?" The sounds Steve is making continue unabated. "Fine, fine, chew me out then." She hangs up, smiles at him sweetly. "So, Steve noticed you were gone. We should go." He glances from her to the nearly-unconscious man he is choking. "Bring him. He'll be useful."
He releases his grip entirely and the man drops to the floor with a thud. She winces, then walks over to the nearest computer, inserting something into it. He waits patiently while she types something on the keyboard, then removes the device after a few minutes. "Need any help?" she asks, motioning toward the other man, lying in a heap. He reaches down and grabs him by his collar, and starts dragging him toward the hallway they came down. "I'll take that as a no," she teases, following them.