I woke up early the next morning. The sun had barely started to peak above the hills in the distance. I sighed and rolled over. I had fallen asleep in my jeans, so my legs had gone numb at some point during the night.
Emma stood up in her crib, looking at me expectantly. I gave a groan as I stood up and walked over to her, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. She cooed and I stretched. I leaned down and picked her up, taking her to the changing table. Once she had a fresh diaper, she whimpered a little.
"Ok, baby girl. Food it is." I said, sleepily as we headed down stairs. I was as quiet as I could be. Emma made a noise here and there, but the house was silent and we made it into the kitchen without waking anyone up.
So when I saw Steve sitting at the breakfast nook, I froze solid. He turned to me, coffee in hand and smiled. "Hungry?" He asked, nodding towards the infant in my hand. "Uh, yeah. I didn't wake you up, did I?" I asked. Will had given me a tour of the house yesterday, but I hadn't been shown Steve and Josie's room, so I didn't know if it was upstairs or on the main level.
He smiled again, shaking his head as I set Emma in her car seat on the counter so I could watch her as I got her food. I buckled her in and Steve stood up, coming to touch her cheek. Emma smiled, giving a little bit of a laugh, before she quieted and looked at me. "She's really smart." Steve commented as I brought the box of cheerios over from the cupboard.
I smiled at the little girl. "Yeah, she is. She'll probably be building computers by the time she's ten." I poured some of the cereal on her little tray and she grinned as she started eating them. I headed for the coffee pot, pouring the brown liquid into a cup and coloring it with sugar and cream.
"Ya know, for the record. When I first met Warren, I didn't like him at all. I thought he was going to be just like his dad. But he's a spitting image of his mother." Steve said, watching Emma eat her cereal. "I think of anyone you could've picked to help you take care of a child, Warren's a pretty good choice." He said with a smile, looking up at me.
I smiled. I was glad he was approving, even though I didn't need it. I heard a noise and Josie wondered in, dressed and smiling at us. She began making breakfast and I moved Emma's car seat to the floor so I could watch her as I sat at the breakfast nook.
Half an hour later, Will was up and we were eating chocolate chip pancakes and bacon. After breakfast, Layla came over, walking with Will to the bus stop for school. Steve left for the office and Josie told me she'd hang out with me today, because she didn't want me to be alone. I thanked her and we just sat in a nice silence for a while.
"Is super school fun?" I asked Josie.
She looked slightly caught off guard by my question, but she recovered quickly. "Yeah, I thought it was pretty fun. I mean, I wasn't the bottom of the food chain either, so that might have had something to do with it." She said, then watched me for a moment. "Why do you ask?"
"Well, I haven't been to school since before Emma was born. And when Will and everybody talks about school, that gives them all something in common, ya know? I just kind of feel left out." I said, making me feel stupid as I turned to Emma. I had much more important things to think about than school, but what I told Josie was true.
"Well, I think it's only natural for you to feel a little left out. Especially if you haven't been to school in two or three years. Will told me last night about your power. Do you want me to see if we can get you into Sky High?" Josie asked, taking a sip of her coffee.
I definitely had mixed feeling about Will telling his parents about my 'power.' I didn't think it was anything special. I thought about it for a minute. "No. Because then I'd have to get a babysitter for Emma, and I don't want her raised by a stranger, ya know?" I said, looking down at the infant who had fallen asleep in the car seat.
"Maybe I could just go through Will's homework with him. So I could learn something like what he's learning." I said, turning to Josie.
She just smiled at me. "I think that sounds like a great idea." She said, returning to her coffee cup.
After a while, I ended up in the living room. Emma had woken up and we were watching The Little Mermaid. She sat on my lap, happily watching the girl on the screen swimming in the ocean. "This used to be my favorite movie when I was your age." I told her quietly. She looked up at me happily, returning her attention to the screen.
I was much deeper into the movie than Emma was, because when I looked down next, she was crashed out again on my lap. I smiled down at her and gently picked her up, moving her into the car seat. She stayed asleep and I turned my attention back to the television.
Josie came in and stood next to the love seat for a moment, watching the movie before she turned to me, seeming to remember what she had come in here for. "As soon as Will gets back from school, I have to run into town. I just wanted to let you know." She said with a smile before leaving the room again.
An hour later, Will called to say that some guy named Ron had tried to 'improve the speed of the bus,' whatever that meant, and that he was going to be late coming home because he had to fly people home.
"Josie, go. I'll be fine for what, twenty minutes while you run in and sign papers." I said, laughing at her 'mom' behavior. I was still freaked out about yesterday, but I hadn't had any chest tingling since the guys threw stuff at me last night, and she needed to go do work stuff.
"No, no I can't. Steve would be upset. And he's meeting with the mayor today, so he can't come home until later." She said, pacing in a five foot line.
"Josie, honest." I said, but she didn't bother looking over at me. "Just leave me with a baseball bat or a pick axe, or something." I had originally intended this as a joke.
This made her look over, still looking skeptical. She took a long moment before she said anything. "Fine. Will's got a baseball bat in his room from junior high. I'll go get it for you." And away she went, up the stairs and out of sight.
Emma made a cooing noise, making me look down at her. She smiled up at me, which made me smile and pick her up. "Hey baby girl. How are you?" I asked her and she giggled in response.
Josie came back down the stairs, holding a baseball bat that was probably too long for me, but Will was at least four or five inches taller than me now. "Ok, only use this if you need to. Lock all the doors after I leave. I'll be gone maybe fifteen minutes if even that. I'll be back as soon as I can." She said with a smile.
I just smiled at her. "Nothing's gonna happen to me. We're gonna laugh about this when you get back in twenty minutes." I said, going over to the DVD player and putting The Little Mermaid disk in its rightful case.
"Probably." Josie smiled. "Be back soon." She said and left out the front door. I stood to lock the door after her and returned to the entertainment center.
"You ever seen so many movies in a house before, Emma? Me neither." I said, looking over at her smiling face. I turned back to the TV, popping in the movie. I returned to the couch to see her reaching for me.
I smiled, picking her up and putting her on my lap. "See baby girl. We're fine on our own. We always have been." I said and she smiled back at me, intently watching the intro to Mulan.
We were just to the part where Mulan stops singing in the tomb of her ancestors when Emma started squirming. As soon as I set her back in the car seat, she went still and watched the movie. That wasn't weird at all. I thought to myself, but turned back to the movie.
That's when I heard a noise. I stood up, instinctively grabbing the bat. Emma made a whimpering noise and pointed with her little hand. I looked back up and there, at the base of the stairs, stood the Man in Black. He looked at ease in the house, not as if he was breaking and entering.
"What do you want?" I asked, stepping in front of Emma and holding the bat up.
He watched me intently, but when I spoke, his covered mouth twitched and I could picture him smiling. Between his hat and the bandana covering his face, all I could see of his skin was around his eyes, which were a startling crystal blue in contrast to the black of his outfit.
I was having mixed emotions about him. He looked and made me feel like he was the sheriff of an old west town and he was coming to my rescue. But something about him made me want to swing the bat in his direction.
He pulled the bandana down to around his neck and sure enough, he was smirking at me. "You don't need to be afraid of me."
I gave a little mad laugh. "You're covered in black, which I'll be honest, gives me this Grim Reaper vibe, and I'm the only one that can see you. Forgive me if I'm concerned letting you near my kid."
His smile never wavered as he took a step towards me. "She's beautiful."
I tensed. "Don't even think about it, or I'll bust your head with this bat."
"I'm not here to harm you, nor you daughter. I wish to warn you." He said, smile lowering itself to a simple sideways mouth quirk.
"About what?" I asked, still holding the bat defensively.
His smile returned and he looked down at the floor. "There are people that wish to hurt you. They are unaware of your daughter, but if they were to find out about her, it would be most grieved."
I swallowed the lump that formed in my throat. "H-how do you know somebody's after me? Who is it?"
His smile was gone and his look was so serious, compared to the smile, that I was decently scared now. "I do not know their names, only that they bring automatic weapons and death. They call you Jade."
My breath caught in my throat and my grip on the bat loosened. No. No way. How had they found me? How could they be coming?! "Who are you?" I asked, looking over at him.
The corner of his mouth quirked up for only a second. "Some call me Erebus."
"What… what is that? Greek?" I asked, becoming shaky.
He took a step towards me and looked me in the eyes. The feeling I had earlier of wanting to hit him had completely abandoned me. "Yes ma'am."
And he was gone.
It wasn't like he vanished in a puff of smoke, no shower of light as he left. He was just gone. Like, I'd imagined him. I turned around in a circle twice before looking down at Emma. She was smiling, like she was trying to hold back a giggle.
I did a very quick run through of the bottom level, never leaving Emma for more than two or three seconds. There was literally no sign of the black magic man. "Who's Greek around here? Besides, Erebus is a stupid name anyway." I said, holding Emma close to me.
I didn't even realize I was staring into space until a hand touched my shoulder and I jumped. Josie and Will looked concerned at me as I looked up at them. "Oh, hey guys. Didn't hear you come in. How was the office?" I said, holding Emma closer to me.
"Oh, Cora honey. Why are you crying?" Josie asked, sitting on the couch next to me.
"What?" I asked, wiping my face that had somehow become wet. "Oh, um yeah. I was watching Mulan. I know Disney movies always end well, but I was seriously scared for China." I said, wiping my face on my shirt.
Josie just smiled and hugged my shoulders. "I'm going to go start dinner."
When she left, Will took her place, concern covering his features. "What happened?" He asked quietly.
I looked over at him and hesitated, giving away any notion that something was wrong. "The man in black came back." I said, hugging Emma tighter. "Which is the lamest thing I've said all week."
Will gave a brief smile, but then watched me carefully. "What happened?" He asked, glancing me over, probably for any kind of war wounds.
"He said he was here to warn me. The people from the Agency are after me. He said they didn't know about Emma, but it would be bad if they did." I told him, keeping my eyes trained on the wall across from us.
"That doesn't make any sense." Will said, looking at the floor as he thought.
I just laughed a little. "No, really. Which part?"
He frowned at me. "The fact they don't know about Emma. We were all in that room when Zach put you under that 'trance.'" He said, using his fingers as air quotes. I thought about it for a moment before Will stood up. "Warren will be here soon. I'm gonna go help mom with dinner." He said as he left the room.
I thought I had only been sitting on the couch for a few minutes, but next thing I knew there was a knock on the door. I stood to answer it, checking the peep hole before I did. "Hey Warren." I said, letting him in.
He frowned at me. "Your life would be really exciting if it was a book."
I had gone numb quite a while ago, so honestly, I barely heard him. I walked back to the couch and set Emma in her carrier. She smiled happily at Warren as he sat next to me and close to her. "It would be really exciting if it wasn't happening to me."
He nodded and pulled my against his chest, hugging me. "Will told me you saw the guy again."
"Will needs to learn to stop calling you with my issues." I said, trying to sit up away from him. But he took hold of my shoulders and pulled me back towards him.
"Your issues are my issues now, remember? We're in this together." He told me.
I just sat there for a minute. "I thought we were in the 'parenting of my child' thing together. I didn't know we were in the 'my life's a soap opera on crack' thing together."
He gave a little chuckle, making his heart speed up a bit. "Isn't it kind of the same thing at this point?"
I sighed, knowing he was right. "It shouldn't be. It should just be you helping with Emma and me taking care of everything else, because none of its really intertwined." I just laid my head there on his chest and he was quiet, giving Emma his finger to play with for a moment.
"But it is. So we'll work through it together. Which means if you see some weird dude dressed in black, telling you your daughter is in grave danger, you call me. No matter when, where, if it's three in the morning. You got it?" He asked, pulling my face away from his chest so he could look in my eyes.
I sighed, looking down at my lap. "Yes."
"I didn't mean it to sound like that." He said, letting go of me. He looked down at Emma, who smiled and cooed at him. He gently picked her up from the carrier. I just watched him.
"I don't know what I'm doing anymore, Warren." I said, quietly.
He looked over at me, but I couldn't take my eyes off my baby girl. "What do you mean?" He asked, just as quietly.
"I mean, here. With you. With Emma. If I had just told Dean 'no', none of this would've ever happened. I wouldn't have gotten pregnant. I wouldn't have gotten mixed up with the agency trying to protect her. I wouldn't have met you or any of the Captain America Crew. I wouldn't be in mortal peril and we would never be having this discussion." I said, standing to pace.
Warren was quiet for a minute, holding Emma, who was more than happy to be around him. "Are you really saying you'd want to change it if you could?" His question was quiet, full of seriousness.
"I don't know, Warren. I'm thankful every day that I have her. But if I had just said no. I'd still be in school if I wasn't dead. Aunt Rose would actually be proud of me. I wouldn't be living with Captain America Junior." I said, just standing there for a moment, feeling helpless.
"I never asked for easy, ya know. Even when I was little and my parents started fighting really bad, I never asked for it to be easy. But I asked for possible. This… this whole thing isn't possible. This is never going to end well." I hadn't meant to say it, but there it was, out in the open of Will's living room.
His eyes narrowed a little at me. "What do you mean, this is never going to end well?" I started pacing, hoping somehow the subject would just be dropped. "No, you started this. You're going to tell me what you're talking about." He said, sternly.
"Why are you even doing this? Huh? Giving all your pity to the poor single mother? I never asked for you to help me." Now I felt angry. I didn't think I was angry at him, per say. I was angry at the situation. I was mad that I was here by myself, no matter how many times Warren said he was there for me.
He looked flabbergasted. "I'm not taking pity on you. I was helping because I wanted to." He said, putting Emma in her car carrier and coming to stand in front of me.
"Oh, right. I forgot. Sense of duty and all that crap." I said, continuing my pacing despite how close he stood to me.
"You think I'm just going to help out and then vanish, don't you? That I'll go out and get myself shot?" Warren asked and I could feel the heat simmering under his skin.
"Don't you dare flame up near my daughter. And yes, actually. I'm scared you're going to vanish and leave, just like everybody else. Because you know what? You're a guy. And guys are all the same." I said loudly.
"Who told you to try them all? You know what? If you really don't want me to be around, then fine. I won't be." He glared at me. He walked around me and slammed the front door as he left.
I just stood there, staring at the couch. Maybe I had made it up in my mind? Maybe I had fallen asleep on the couch and this was just a really bad dream.
But it wasn't. Because Warren didn't come back and I didn't wake up. Will set his hand on my shoulder and I turned to look at him. "He'll be back." Will said quietly. "It's time for dinner."
I picked up Emma's carrier and followed Will into the dining room. Josie and Steve just looked at me, but nobody brought it up at dinner. After I had helped Josie clean up, I ended up back in my bedroom.
Emma watched me as she clapped her hands. "How did we end up here, Emma baby?" I asked her.
There was a knock on my door but I ignored it. I just sat there, watching Emma try to grab a loose string from the edge of the comforter. The door opened and closed and I figured it was just Will or Josie. They came to sit on the bed behind me and I continued watching Emma.
"I don't want to talk about it, Will." I said.
Will didn't say anything. He just sat there.
"Fine. Maybe I do want to talk about it." I sighed, rubbing my forehead. "I just hate him. Not in the way that I hope he dies, never like that. I just hate how he makes me feel. I hate how whenever I see him, I just want to hug him and forget about everything. I hate how he makes Emma smile." I told him, still not looking at him.
"I hate that the most. I hate how Emma loves to be around him and how useless I feel when he is around. He makes me think of Dean, when he was nice, when he didn't hurt me. Dean… Dean wasn't perfect. I know that. But I sure as hell don't deserve to be around someone like Warren." I said, talking into my hands.
Will shifted on the bed behind me.
"Warren… I don't even know. I feel like I should leave him alone before he finds somebody else and leaves me here with these damn butterflies in my stomach and this buzzing in my head." I said, moving Emma closer to me.
Emma turned and reached for Will. If she wanted to be held by Will, he could hold her. But when I shifted to hand Emma to Will, I froze. Will wasn't sitting on the bed behind me. Neither was Josie.
Warren watched me. "I really give you butterflies?" He asked quietly as he took Emma from my arms.
I just shook my head. "N-n-no. I just said that because I knew Will would want to hear something like that."
Warren ran his finger over Emma's cheek, making her laugh. "So I don't leave this buzzing in your head?" He asked, still softly.
I didn't know what he wanted me to say. I felt like if I said either yes or no, I'd give him a reason to leave, so I just sat there. I opened my mouth to try to make some kind of excuse, when his lips pressed gently against mine. I kissed him back for a moment before pulling away. He looked confused and I sighed, resting my forehead against his.
I stood up, taking Emma out of his hands. I walked over and set her in the crib. I kissed her cheek until she started giggling. I heard Warren stand up and come to stand next to me. He kissed her check, saying goodnight.
"Didn't you have work?" I asked, watching Emma stand against the crib wall.
"I got out of it." He said, gently setting his hand on my back.
I turned to him, watching him carefully. "Where… where do we go from here?"
He took my hand and leaned down towards me. I closed my eyes when our lips met. My arms wound around his neck as his rested on my hips. He pulled away and smiled at me. "Slow. We go slow."
I nodded, trying to remember how to breathe. "Slow is good."
He smiled and squeezed my hand, leading me back to the bed. "I don't want to hurt you. So we go slow and see where it goes from there." He whispered to me as I leaned against his shoulder.
"Emma's gonna be heartbroken if I end up driving you away." I whispered back, watching my daughter lay there restlessly.
Warren chuckled softly. "You couldn't drive me away if you tried."
I rolled my eyes. "Oh, I so could. If I didn't want you around, you wouldn't last ten minutes."
He shook his head, just staring at me. "Not even if you didn't want me." I turned to look at him, his eyes locked on me. "I couldn't stay away from you two if you took out a restraining order."
The butterflies fluttered in my stomach. "Slow… Slow is good…" I whispered, kissing him softly.