Cleaning up post-mission was a lot more of an ordeal without SHIELD there to take care of it. Where Natasha was used to slipping in and slipping out without having to give much thought to the bodies and wreckage that would result, this time she had to linger with the rest of her "team" and help see to such slightly mundane matters. What made it possible at all was Stark's money and some helpful connections with the CIA. Otherwise, she would likely be riding a tractor with Clint rather than hunting down what was left of HYDRA. Though that option seemed slightly more attractive currently due to the black eye she was sporting courtesy of the man she had warned Steve about his lack of readiness, to no avail.
Steve was pacing the lab floor, calling Bucky's phone every few minutes, and Natasha could only watch for so long before rolling her eyes and pointing out, "I think he made it clear that he wants to be left alone."
"And now is the worst time for him to be alone," Steve muttered, continuing to pace.
She sighed. "I know you mean well, Steve, but trust me - sometimes, being alone is the best thing in a situation like this."
Steve finally came to a halt, letting out a breath and staring down at his phone as he fell silent for a few moments. "I wonder if he went to Summer's house." Then he was calling her cellphone, and Natasha was trying not to roll her eyes again. Steve would be an absolute wreck if he ever had a teenage daughter someday.
A moment later, he frowned and lowered his phone. "She's not answering either."
Biting back a remark about the possibility of Bucky seeking unconventional means of therapy following a traumatic event, she pulled out her own phone and decided to check something as more of an afterthought than anything. She didn't expect to find anything actually concerning, but she did.
She looked up at Steve with furrowed brows and said, "Her tracker's dead."
Steve mirrored her confused look. "Who's tracker?"
"Summer's."
"What tracker?"
"A hair clip I gave her."
Steve looked like he had to physically restrain himself from asking why on earth Natasha would find it necessary to put a tracker on the woman, but his expression quickly grew worried. "It's dead?"
She nodded. "Lost the signal ten minutes ago."
Steve only took a few seconds before he muttered a quiet curse and headed straight out of the lab. Natasha stayed behind with Sam, preferring to stay behind with that mess rather than whatever sort Steve was about to run into.
Bucky was almost glad that Summer and her boy had instantly lost consciousness following the blast. It made it easier for him to carry them as he ran through the trees as fast as he could, cutting through the forest with dizzying speed as his mind reeled in the wake of what had happened. She was limp in his arms, her hair a nearly-black curtain whipping around her face with each of his steps, but her own arms somehow managed to stay secured around her son despite it all.
Nobody saw the Winter Soldier, dressed much like the weapon he'd once been, metal arm occasionally gleaming in the moonlight when it caught him, running with the utmost determination and speed in order to save two lives rather than take them. The instincts and the skill that had been drilled into him for years for very different reasons now came to life to save and protect, but his mind was racing too fast to grasp the difference of it all.
Somehow, somebody in HYDRA had followed him to her house. As he ran, surely they were scouring the wreckage, and they would find nothing but the remains of her home. They would know that all three of them had escaped alive, and they would simply continue their hunt to either snuff out a loose end or reclaim a lost weapon. It didn't matter why they were hunting him, really, especially not now.
He couldn't run forever, both literally and figuratively. David was wrapped up in a blanket but Summer was not - she was in just a camisole and thin pajama pants, and the temperatures were below freezing. To make matters worse, he had no idea where to go or which direction to run in to get her somewhere safe.
In fact, the very idea was laughable. He was the reason why she wasn't safe in the first place, the reason why everything she owned was now smoke and ash.
But he had to get her somewhere safe. Once she was safe, then she could wake up and hate him, and he wouldn't fault her in the least.
He ran until he reached a dirt road. He stuck to the tree line that ran parallel and eventually happened upon a paved road that led to a gas station and a couple of closed shops. He made a beeline for the first motel that came into view, slipping into the darkness of night and breaking into a room with almost no effort.
By the time he laid both mother and child down on the single bed afforded by the tiny, dim room, he was exhausted, but not so much due to the exertion of running what he guessed to be about fifteen miles while carrying them. His mind was still in a fog and there was a splitting ache in his head that had first appeared back at the HYDRA lab and had only grown exponentially worse following the unexpected destruction.
But he ignored the pain and the fog as he leaned over Summer's limp body, cringing at the dust and the ash that lightly covered her face and hair as he quickly brought the covers up to warm her chilled skin. Then he brought his right hand to her cheek and spoke her name, trying to rouse her. When his efforts yielded no faults, he pulled her into his arms, favoring the flesh one rather than the cold other one, and held her tight against him to help warm her as he continued to try to wake her.
As he gently tried to wipe some of the dirt from her face with his hand, she began to stir slightly. His stomach clenched unpleasantly and he dreaded the moment that he had to watch realization dawn within her eyes and hatred cloud the affection he was used to seeing there.
He held his breath as her eyes fluttered open, looking up confusedly at the ceiling before settling on him and focusing as much they could.
"Bucky..."
His jaw clenched but he couldn't get any words out. She blinked rapidly and furrowed her brows and asked with a gravelly voice, "Where am I?"
"A motel," he replied softly. "I'm not sure where. Fifteen miles or so from your house."
She stared at him for a moment in pure confusion. Then her eyes widened suddenly and she shot up and out of his arms, far too fast for her own head, half-gasping, "David - David - where is he, is he -"
"Right next to you," Bucky quickly assured her, making her lay back down before she made herself faint. She looked to her side and closed her eyes in relief at the sight of her boy, but he knew the relief would fade in a matter of minutes.
And it did. Her eyes opened and then widened, turning and meeting his as she muttered, "... My house."
He nodded, bracing himself for whatever would come next.
Her head hurt, her eyes hurt, and she was fairly sure that she couldn't hear anything out of her left ear, but all of that paled in comparison to the horror slowly dawning on her lagging mind.
The last thing she remembered was flying towards the ground as explosions rocked her house.
"Is it gone?" she asked in a tiny voice, though she didn't really have to ask. Bucky's face gave it away.
He nodded. "Yeah."
Gone. Just like that. The home that her grandmother had worked three jobs to buy decades ago and held everything that Summer owned, and a great many things that both her mother and grandmother had owned. All of it gone. She couldn't go back. Her shelter, her routine, her home, was gone.
She was vaguely aware of Bucky making her sit up and slightly more aware of the short, heaving breaths that burned as she tried to force them into unwilling lungs. He was holding her by her forearms, saying a bunch of words that she really couldn't hear, though she did catch "hyperventilate" amid the indistinct blur of sounds.
Just as she felt herself losing consciousness, Bucky gave her a firm, almost painful shake, and the force of it made her gasp and stop hyperventilating just long enough to keep from fainting.
"Summer, look at me. Breathe. Slowly."
She stared at him, some part of her brain noticing the desperation behind his eyes, and she followed his instructions. After awhile, her head started to feel less like it was about to separate and float away from her shoulders like a helium balloon, and she was able to focus on wrestling her panic into something more manageable.
It was okay. She was alive, David was alive, and Bucky was all right. In the end, that was all that mattered.
And if that wasn't exactly true, she didn't have to think about it right then.
When her breathing slowed down and Bucky seemed satisfied that she wasn't going to lose it, she felt his hands fall slowly from her arms and saw his eyes become pained as he muttered, "I'm sorry."
She shook her head. "You pulled us out, you saved us -"
"I led them to you," he grumbled. "Again."
"Bucky -"
"I'm sorry."
This time his apology came out as a self-loathing half-whisper. She felt tears prickling in her eyes at the sheer guilt she saw in his. She gulped down her racing emotions and said shakily, "I chose this, Bucky. You have nothing to be sorry for."
It was true. She'd never been forced into anything. What she gained, what she lost - it all ultimately fell back on her and her choices. And she knew that things like this were a distinct possibility when dating a very hunted man.
Bucky's vehement disagreement with her words took a backseat to David stirring next to her. She quickly turned her attention from Bucky to her son, shifting in the bed so that she was hovering slightly over him as he rolled from his side to his back and began opening his eyes. He was still wrapped up in his blanket, and the thought occurred to her that the blanket might be the only material thing that had survived her house.
"David? Sweetie," she called softly, knowing full well what the poor boy's reaction would be to waking up in a strange place in the middle of the night. He seemed to ignore her words, sitting up and looking around in confusion before starting to whimper slightly. She pulled him into a tight hug before he could start crying.
As she held him, she started to realize a few things. She would have to tell her brother what happened. She would need a new place to live. A new routine. Stability for the sake of David and his delicate mind. But now she wouldn't have a house that she owned, and her savings didn't have much life left in them. She would need to pay rent. She would need a job. Having a job meant needing childcare while she worked. Having that meant having a job that actually paid somewhat well.
Did she even have a truck to get to a job anymore?
She started crying long before she noticed the tears falling down her cheeks. It was all too much to process, too much to make sense of, and just the thought of telling her brother was enough on its own to make her freak out.
But the worst part of it all, the deepest, darkest feeling that settled beyond her ability to reach and ignore was the guilt. All of this had been her choice, and in the course of the six months since she had met Bucky, she had watched her son have a gun shoved at his temple and now, the only home that he had ever known was gone. It would have been hard enough for any kid to handle, but it was going to be an incredible challenge for a kid who needed routine and expectability and sameness to function at his highest potential. It could take him months to adjust to a new place, and if he had to adjust to daycare on top of that, it could very well end up being a nightmare.
And it was her fault. It was her fault for opening her home to a dangerous stranger, and her fault for getting attached to that stranger and giving him an enormous place in both of their lives. She had made the decision, for the first time since David's birth, to do something for her own sake and try to make her own existence a little less lonely and monotonous. And now David had to pay the price for that sliver of happiness she had tried to grasp.
As she nearly drowned in her own pit of self-loathing and convinced herself that she was the worst mother who had ever walked the earth, she distantly heard Bucky mumbling into his phone across the small room. She reached up a hand to wipe away her errant tears and sent a glance his way, only to feel new tears form at the helpless and distressed way that he was looking at her.
It wasn't easy, but she forced herself to stop crying. Perspective was key. All was not lost. Everyone was alive and well. They'd get through this one way or another. If there was anything she knew how to do, it was how to pick up and move on.
After she had willed the tears to end, a shuffling at her side drew her attention. She turned to find Bucky off the phone, kneeling at her side and looking at her with a gaze as tired as it was guilty as he said, "You two need to go to the hospital and get checked out. Just in case."
She nodded. "Okay."
"Steve said Sam would take you. He's the least... conspicuous."
She almost protested, much preferring Bucky to take her rather than a guy she'd only met once and hadn't really liked much when she had, but she guessed that there was logic in the choice. "Okay."
"They'll be here in a few minutes."
She nodded again. A part of her kind of desperately needed him to hug her, but she stuffed the need down and didn't say a word.
Then his gaze suddenly became more serious, even fierce, and he looked deep into her eyes as he said, "It's my fault this happened. And I hate it. I hate it. But I'm not gonna let it happen again. You're coming back to New York with me. You can argue and fight me but I don't care. You'll be safe there."
Though a part of her had warmed slightly at his heartfelt proclamation, she couldn't help but ask, "Will I?"
He nodded. "You're gonna live with us. I'm gonna keep you safe. I promise."
He sounded almost desperate to believe what he was saying, and as much as she wanted to believe too, she quietly replied, "Please don't make promises like that."
"But I mean it," he answered just as quietly.
She couldn't say anything back to that. She closed her eyes after he rose up to kiss her forehead, one arm wrapping around her to give her the hug that she wouldn't admit that she needed. She leaned into his embrace and took a deep breath, glad that at least he wasn't letting his obvious guilt drive himself away from her.
He might have been the catalyst to her loss, the choice she made that led her here, but despite that and her own tidal wave of guilt threatening to break over her head, she knew that she needed him now more than she ever had before.
Time passed by in a mildly sickening blur that left her more and more tired and yet no closer to rest as it dragged on. The trip to the hospital took about two hours, and Sam was nice enough as he helped Summer through the process of lying to the doctors and nurses about why she was there. She told them that there had been a house fire, which was apparently a story that Steve had suggested, and both she and David were cleared of any concussions or other injuries. David handled being examined as well as he ever did, which was very poorly, and no amount of pleading or bribing made him any calmer or more compliant.
When they were done, it was a relief. Once they were back in Sam's car, or whatever he was claiming was his car, David fell asleep nearly instantly and Summer slumped in the front passenger seat and let her mind run wild with questions that had been on the tip of her tongue for the last several hours.
"How am I gonna explain what happened to the police?" she wondered out loud. "I mean, my house blew up. I'm not that far into the sticks that nobody will notice."
"Steve's got a contact in the CIA who's taking care of it," Sam replied, eyes on the road. "Don't worry about dealing with the police."
She sighed and leaned her head back against the headrest, glancing at the driver and asking, "Are you used to this sort of thing?"
"Me?" He raised his eyebrows and chuckled. "Hell no. I'm just a regular soldier who ran into Captain America on my morning run and ended up doing stuff I never dreamed I would."
"Oh," she replied, a little surprised by that. She appreciated his lack of super-spy HYDRA/SHIELD experience, but she was no soldier and his being one made him infinitely more prepared to deal with this crap than she was. She was just a writer who barely wrote and a mother whose entire life was built around her son. A soldier was way more useful and a lot less clueless.
"Sucks that this happened to you," Sam added. "But on the bright side, now you get to live with all us cool kids."
She paused for a moment before furrowing her brows and asking, "... All of you? You mean... all of the Avengers or something?"
Sam glanced at her and asked, "He didn't tell you? Right now we're all at Tony Stark's tower. Well, not that I'm an Avenger, and they're not all there, but -"
Her eyes nearly popped out of her head. "Stark Tower? Stark Tower. That's where Bucky's taking me."
"I thought you knew," Sam half-grinned.
She shook her head and then closed her eyes, slumping back against the seat again. She'd been expecting some apartment like the one Steve and Bucky had occupied during her visit, not a freaking skyscraper crawling with tons and tons of people every single day, including a bunch of superheroes. She was starting to feel dizzy again.
Obviously Bucky was either too angry or too oblivious to have realized that this was something worth mentioning.
She made herself stop thinking about it to save her sanity, and by the time she had halfway successfully cleared her head, she looked around and realized they were in the middle of nowhere. "Where are we?"
"Almost to the airfield," Sam replied.
"Airfield?"
"Hell yeah," he grinned. "You're flying with Cap now. On Stark's dime."
Stifling a groan and wishing this was half as cool as it would be under any non-horrible circumstance, she stared out the window and tried not to feel a bit miffed that she wasn't getting the chance to say goodbye to her home, even if it was just rubble now. She'd gotten a text from Steve at the hospital - her phone had been in her pocket and therefore survived the blast - explaining that grounds would be searched throughly for fibers and other such things, and that if anything was found that had survived it would be sent to her. That was also when she'd found out that her truck had, in fact, not quite survived.
The safest thing to do, apparently, was get out of dodge as quickly as possible, and due to the nature of the attack, she wouldn't exactly be allowed to go traipsing through the wreckage anyway. There was nothing to be done about it, really, but she was still unhappy about it.
Then her thoughts turned to how she was going to keep David occupied on a plane - or anywhere - without his tablet or any of his toys. All of his beloved possessions were gone, and how could she expect him to understand that at his age?
Before she could work herself up into another crying fit, however, Sam brought the car to a stop in the midst of an open field. An unmarked private jet awaited them, and as he turned off the ignition, Sam explained, "Everyone's already onboard."
She nodded, glancing back at her sleeping son and hoping that he'd remain asleep during the jostling it would take to get him from the car to the jet. Thankfully, he did.
Walking up into the jet was an odd experience. It was stepping from one world into another, one that came with bottles of champagne and seats that looked way too comfortable to be on an aircraft. It definitely felt like a billionaire's private jet, not that she had any prior experience with one.
While she had been staring in a slight daze, Bucky had caught sight of her and suddenly filled her line of vision. She blinked at the change and realized he was speaking to her, but she missed nearly all what he said and just nodded as he led her towards the back of the jet. Clearly, her brain was not clear enough to function in much of a helpful way.
On the way back, she passed Steve and Natasha as they spoke in hushed tones and stood next to one another. Steve gave her a gentle nod and Natasha didn't look at her quite as coldly as she was used to, but Summer didn't have much to think on the matter. She was suddenly realizing how horribly tired she was, and she only managed the barest of nods back.
Wordlessly, Bucky helped her settle David into a reclined seat near the tail of the plane. She covered him up with his blanket and thanked the heavens that he had stayed asleep before straightening and turned her tired eyes on the man before her. He looked even worse than she felt, possibly.
They sat in two seats opposite David's, buckled themselves in, and waited for the short flight to begin. She immediately closed her eyes and laid her head on his shoulder, feeling sleep beg for her surrender as she muttered softly, "You didn't tell me you live with Tony Stark now."
She felt him lean his head on hers, and she relished the comfort of the simple touch as he asked, "... Is that all right?"
She gave a light shrug. "I guess. I don't know. I can't think."
"Try to sleep," he murmured, and she felt him place a gentle kiss in her hair.
She couldn't help but comply. There was a lot to think about, a lot to take on, and a lot to do in the coming days, but for now, all she could do was take the small comfort offered by the presence of the man beside her and let sleep take her.
Bucky stared forward, not moving an inch from Summer's side and not letting his eyes close any longer than was necessary to blink. He was exhausted and everything within him screamed for sleep, but after being so physically close to the essence of his nightmares earlier that night, he found himself fighting sleep with every last ounce of strength left in him. It was a far cry from his rare peaceful slumber from the night before.
He remained deep within the swirling fog of his mind until movement in front of him got his attention. He looked up to find Steve sitting down across from him, keeping quiet for the sake of the sleeping passengers. Bucky immediately looked away, opting to stare holes into the floor of the jet, rather than face the man he inexplicably felt like he had disappointed earlier.
He'd done a good job of avoiding his "team" until now. He remained silent and didn't look up when he heard Steve ask quietly, "You okay?"
Steve could ask some really dumb questions sometimes. He'd point it out if he weren't so dead-set on not speaking.
"Look... I hope you don't beat yourself up too much."
Now Bucky glanced up at the other man, a bit incredulously.
"That particular facility... was a very bad first mission for you to take on. I take the responsibility for that. If you want to blame someone, blame me."
Bucky nearly laughed bitterly. Steve knew he wouldn't blame him. Who honestly would?
"But we did get some useful information. It'll take some time to comb through it all, but..."
As Steve trailed off, Bucky looked away. He supposed that he should be glad that the mission hadn't been entirely useless, but he couldn't take much comfort in that fact. If the info led to new leads and new missions, he doubted that he would be invited along again. What good was he?
"How's she doing?" Steve asked quietly, motioning to the sleeping woman curled at Bucky's side.
Bucky gave a very slight shrug and muttered, "Not that great." It was true. He could tell how devastated she was, and how much she didn't want him to know. Even in her exhausted, still-shocked state, she didn't want to worsen his guilt. And that somehow worsened it more than open bitterness and hostility would have.
Steve nodded and then said, "I'm sorry this happened. We'll get her to the tower and... figure things out from there. I'll make sure she has whatever help she needs."
Bucky clung to his silence, afraid he'd snap and start railing at Steve for no coherent reason if he spoke. Thankfully, Steve seemed to sense his need for solitude, and in another moment, Steve got up and left with a parting pat to his shoulder.
When he sensed movement in his peripheral vision a few moments later, he opened his mouth to tell Steve to take the hint and leave, but then a swish of black and red appeared instead and settled down in the same seat Steve had sat in. He stared at Natasha blankly, his insides twisting a little bit more when his eyes flickered to the damage he'd inflicted on her face.
She simply leaned back, nonplussed, and said, "Guilt's a bitch, isn't it."
His eyes darkened and he prepared a diatribe in his head that would surely make her leave her alone, but she spoke again before he could get a word out.
"You're not the only one with guilt. One time I watched Steve literally cry because of the guilt he has for not looking for you after you fell. We all have guilt. Some of us more than others."
His hostility waned rather quickly as he processed her words. A slight furrow came upon his brows as he listened to the next set of words that she spoke.
"I warned her to think twice before she dove in. She knew the risks that come with you being... you. She chose to take them anyway. I don't expect you to listen to a word I say, but you should take it from someone who knows - save your guilt for your own choices."
"They wouldn't have gone to her house if I hadn't led them there," he muttered.
"Were you in your right mind when you went there?" she asked knowingly.
Of course he wasn't. He had barely realized where he was until Summer had found him in a ball against her door and roused him from his confused and troubled state.
"Guilt will eat you alive if you let it," she added, saying the words in a way that left little doubt in his mind that she knew very intimately what she was speaking of. "And the risks she's taken won't be worth much if you do."
A few seconds later, she stood up and began to make her way back to the middle of the jet. Before she left, he muttered a quiet, "Sorry about the eye."
She paused in the corner of his vision and replied, "Not the worst I've taken from you."
She said it lightly, almost as if she found some kind of dark humor in that fact. Then she was gone, leaving him to sit there and contemplate her words.
He barely moved for the rest of the flight, trying to reconcile what she said with what he felt and finding no real balance between the two. But one thing that was becoming increasingly clear was how utterly sick and tired he was of guilt.
Maybe Natasha was right. But maybe it didn't truly matter one way or the other if she was.
She awoke with a start, and for nearly five full minutes, she had no idea where she was.
She was in a large bedroom that made her old one look like it was from the Stone Age. It was minimalist and had the feel of a hotel room in its lack of personal touch, but the bed was gigantic and everything was too sleek to be any kind of normal room. Heart slightly racing, she whipped her head from side to side as she tried to make sense of her surroundings, only fractionally calming down when she spotted David burrowed under the covers on the opposite side of the bed.
Scrambling to remember, she muttered to herself, "Where the hell am I..."
"You are on the thirty-sixth floor of Stark Tower in New York City, Ms. McAdams."
To her later shame, she squeaked and fell out of the bed at the first word spoken by the disembodied, bizarrely British, voice that seemed to flow from the ceiling. "What the actual f-"
"My apologies, Miss. I am JARVIS and I run many of the tower's operations. It is just shy of ten-thirty AM and you have been here for approximately four hours."
As she calmed down from her initial AI-induced meltdown, memories from the day prior finally came flooding back in full. She sighed, the heaviness of it all returning as she got up to her feet and ran a hand through her hair. She could already feel a headache coming on.
"Okay... well," she said, feeling ridiculous speaking to the ceiling, "can you maybe stay quiet because my son won't sleep for a month if he hears you and freaks out the way I just did."
"Absolutely, Ms. McAdams."
Blinking at the oddness of it all, Summer looked down at her slightly grimy pajamas and wondered if she'd find a bunch of generic clothes in the dresser that sat against the wall opposite the bed. It turned out to be empty, but she did find a new outfit sitting folded on top of the dresser, jeans and a black tank top. She grabbed it and then wandered cautiously to the bathroom adjoined to the room, halfway expecting some weird sci-fi bathroom with a golden toilet and a shower she'd have to poke at for an hour before she figured out how to turn it on. But, it turned out to be a pretty standard bathroom, to her relief, and she took the fastest shower of her life before putting on the borrowed clothes. The jeans were a bit short, so she assumed that they were on loan from Natasha.
David was stirring awake by the time she made it back out to the bedroom, and that ended the moderately peaceful portion of her morning. As soon as he got one look around the room, he was clinging to her side and fidgeting with unease that she wasn't sure how to manage without her usual tools. She flipped on the television mounted on the wall, searched for the remote for nearly ten full minutes, then gave up with a huff and scooped the boy up into her arms as she decided that she was way too hungry to deal with that crap.
And so, with wet hair, too-short jeans, and an anxious five year old attached to her front, she walked out of the room and down a surprisingly long hallway only to step out into a large living room area and immediately come face to face with Steve, Tony Stark, and Pepper Potts. They were standing near the kitchen area talking when she stepped into view and immediately brought a brief silence upon the room.
"Summer!" Steve chirped with intentional cheeriness. "You're up."
She nodded, eyes darting between Steve and the tower's owner. Her first thought was that he was a lot shorter in person than he looked on TV. "Uh..."
"And not a moment too soon," Tony said, leaning against the island. "You're just in time for the grand tour of Tony Stark's Orphanage for Lost and Confused Ex-Assassins and Their Mentally Questionable Girlfriends."
She stared at him for a moment, not offended but simply not at full enough brain capacity for a retort. Steve sighed heavily and grumbled, "Can you show some sensitivity for five seconds, Stark? I told you what happened to her."
"Yeah, house blown up. Been there." He glanced back at Summer and added, "Sucks, doesn't it?"
"Yeah," she replied, moving towards the closest thing to a dining room table and trying to deposit David on it, but he was stuck to her like glue. She sighed and decided to stand there somewhat awkwardly. "Um... thanks for letting me come here. I don't want to be an... imposition, or..."
"Don't worry about it," Pepper quickly assured her, shutting Tony up before he could think about responding. She stepped closer, clad in a smart white suit with her strawberry hair back in a low ponytail, smiling in a way that seemed genuinely friendly as she said, "We have plenty of room here and it's no problem at all."
Summer nodded, a little surprised by how friendly she was being. "Thank you."
Pepper then looked at David as he still clung to his mother. "Is there anything we can do to help?"
"He's autistic," Summer explained, "and this is about the worst thing that could have happened to his routine. Usually he'd have at least his toys and his tablet to focus on, but..."
"I'm sure that I can find a tablet to lend you while you're here," Pepper assured her. "And on the twenty fifth floor there's a childcare center for our parent employees, so if you wanted, you could let him spend some time there. There's even a special needs room."
Before Summer could stutter out a thank you, Tony stepped closer and interrupted. "Speaking of that, I hear you need a job."
Summer turned her gaze to the billionaire, again struck by his stature (he had two inches on her tops), and she answered, "Uh... yeah, I guess I do, but -"
"Skills?"
She blinked. "I'm a writer, but -"
"Sweet, what have you written?"
"... Not much," she admitted with a slight cringe.
"Work history?"
Was this an interview? "Service industry."
"Burger flipping. Okay, and -"
" - Actually, I never flipped -"
"- Level of college reached?"
"Working on my bachelor's in creative writing," she replied, almost dizzy.
"What school?"
"The online University of -"
Tony outwardly cringed and grimaced. "I was afraid of that. Are you insane?"
She faltered at the unexpected query, and Pepper quickly interjected, "He doesn't mean that, he's just asking if -"
"No, I do mean it. You're dating the Winter Soldier. If you're a psychopath, I'd prefer to know before I hire you."
Oh God, she thought, it is an interview.
Before she could answer, Steve said, "I already told you, Stark, she's -"
"Let the potentially crazy lady answer for herself!" Tony said over his shoulder without taking his eyes off said potential crazy lady.
"I'm not crazy," she replied. "You both know the story from when I called you asking for you to give a message to him," she gestured to Steve. Then she grew a spark of courage and pointed out, "I mean, I get that I probably seem crazy to the average person, but you're letting him live here with you, so..."
"Yeah, not really happy about it though," Tony replied. "I don't usually let assassins who killed my parents stay under my roof."
She wasn't sure what to say for a moment. "... But you are."
"Still not happy about it."
Now wholly without a reply, Summer stood there awkwardly while Tony stared at her and Pepper focused on her hands clasped in front of her. Then, after the silence had gone on so long that it had surpassed awkward and entered into physically painful territory, Tony suddenly turned to Pepper and said, "So, does your assistant need their own assistant?"
"She already has one," Pepper replied.
"How about a second one?"
"I'm not sure she needs -"
"Great!" he smiled, turning back to Summer. "You can start Monday."
He then turned around and walked away, leaving Summer to gape at his retreating form and wonder if he was actually serious. Thankfully, Pepper quickly gave an exasperated chuckle and said, "Let me take a look at what we have open and make a few calls. I'll let you know by the end of the day."
No big deal, just the CEO of one of the biggest corporations in the world personally looking for a job to squeeze you into. "Okay. Wow. Thank you."
Pepper nodded. "And I'll see about the tablet, too. If you need help finding anything, just ask JARVIS."
Too dumbfounded to do anything but nod back, Summer then watched as Pepper told Steve goodbye and then left, leaving them alone. Suddenly feeling tired all over again, Summer plopped down at the table with David still stuck to her, looking up when Steve sat across from her. "Well, that was weird."
He grinned a little and replied, "Yeah, he takes some getting used to. How are you?"
She shrugged. "I don't really know yet. Okay, I guess. Things could obviously be a heck of a lot worse," she said, gesturing to her surroundings. "Where's Bucky?"
"Therapy," he replied. "Down in the basement."
"Oh," she nodded, hoping he wasn't in too bad of mental shape. "What exactly happened yesterday? Before the thing with me."
Steve frowned before giving her a brief overview of what happened, and at the mention of the cryo-tube and Bucky's subsequent meltdown, everything suddenly made a lot more sense.
"We must have missed somebody who saw him leave and had him followed. I can tell how hard he's taking it."
She sighed, hoping that Bucky wouldn't let this add to his already-crushing guilt issues, but he undoubtedly would. As she contemplated it all, her stomach suddenly growled very loudly, and she glanced up at Steve while cringing inside. He just smiled, and she looked down at her son's head on her shoulder and asked, "Hey, kiddo - you want to hang out with Captain America so I can get us some food?"
David replied by hugging her tighter. Not even Cap would do the trick, apparently. She sighed, then looked up at Steve and leaned her head back in resignation. She'd just have to figure out how to navigate a kitchen with a five year old clinging on to her.
"You know what, I'll fix you something."
Her eyes widened and she quickly began protesting. "Oh, no, no, you don't have to do that, really, I can -"
He waved her off and stood up. "Believe it or not, I'm pretty good at omelets. Not much else, really, but I've got those down."
And suddenly, Captain America was making her breakfast. She had a feeling that getting used to whatever this new, highly unexpected phase of her life would entail, it would involve accepting bizarre things such as this and just getting used to it.
Meanwhile, down in the basement, Bucky was glaring at his elderly therapist and preparing to fully take out all of his anger and frustration on him.
"So, how did the mission go?"
Bucky didn't hesitate to snap as planned. "You're a quack."
The doctor didn't so much as blink. "All right. Explain."
"You shouldn't have let me go," Bucky muttered.
"I've explained to you several times that I am not here to 'let' you do anything or control your decisions. My purpose here is to -"
"What good are you if you know I'm not ready for something and you let me go do it anyway?" he interrupted angrily.
The doctor paused. "I suppose that answers my question as to how it went."
"The place was a lab. I remembered it. They used to keep me there. And I recognized a man we captured. I lost it and I killed him. And then I left, I didn't know where I was going, but I went to Summer's house, and they followed me there and they blew up her damn house."
It all came out in a rush through gritted teeth, and the doctor's expression quickly grew concerned. "Is she all right?"
"She wasn't hurt, but she's not all right. And it's my fault."
The doctor looked down at his notes, folded his hands and leaned forward slightly before beginning, "Mr. Barnes..."
"I've already heard why I shouldn't feel guilty. I know what you're going to say and I don't care. I only came here to tell you that you're useless and doing this is pointless."
Dr. Connor scribbled a few notes nonchalantly. "I see. But tell me, if I had urged you to avoid the mission at all costs and tried to force you to sit it out, would you have?" When Bucky said nothing and continued to merely glower, the doctor added, "Did I not advise caution? Did I not express my concerns that you needed more time to prepare yourself? I wanted you to wait because this is exactly what I feared - that you would disappoint yourself and cause a significant setback in your progress."
"What progress?" Bucky scoffed. "How am I getting any better when I still can't remember anything but HYDRA and I lose it this easily?"
"You do yourself no favors selling yourself short. I've watched you progress with each passing week, and frankly, this outburst you're in the middle of is a sort of progress as well. You are expressing your emotions rather than trying to mask them and bottle them up. This is much healthier."
Thinking the old man was absolutely nuts, Bucky gave a humorless laugh and crossed his arms.
"Did you sleep the night before the mission?"
Bucky paused before muttering, "Yes."
Dr. Connor looked up. "You did?"
"Yes," he answered through gritted teeth.
"How many hours?"
"Six."
"Very good. You took the meds?"
"No."
"Then what helped? That's more than double your typical nightly average."
"None of your business," Bucky grumbled.
The doctor didn't push the issue, scribbling a bit more before speaking again. "Well, I have a few suggestions. First, remember what we talked about before the mission. It was really a trial run. I tried to prepare you for possible failure or a non-ideal outcome. It is a setback, yes, but keep it in perspective. Don't let it derail the whole of your progress. No setback is worth it. Secondly, I believe that you need a hobby."
Bucky furrowed his brows. "A hobby?"
"Yes. Since you believe that you are not ready for fieldwork yet - and I would agree - you need something productive to fill your time. Sitting around idly will do nothing but hamper your recovery. Your hobby could be anything - it could be building things, art, dancing, even farming - that's been working very well for one of my other patients. Anything that holds your interest and gives you a clear goal to work towards, do it."
Bucky was torn for a moment between the urge to tell the man once again that he was a quack, and the unsettling feeling that accompanied the realization that he really didn't know what interested him. "I don't... really know what I would want to do."
"Then find out," the doctor suggested. "Go out, see the city. Go to an art museum. Go to a movie. Go fishing. Try different things, see what you enjoy."
Bucky stared for a moment, trying to mentally poke holes in the suggestion, but eventually he merely ended up muttering, "The one thing that I know I'm good at, I can't do."
The doctor nodded understandingly. "But I don't believe that will be true forever. It was only six months ago that you were still under HYDRA's control. These things take time. I've seen men subjected to far less torture and mind control than you take years to return to their jobs. It's not easy, but you must try to be patient. And ask Steve in the meantime if you can utilize your skills in other ways that would be helpful to your cause - training others, perhaps?"
Bucky shrugged noncommittally, letting his gaze hit the floor as he thought. He wasn't sure how much time had passed before the doctor spoke up again.
"The girl, how is she holding up?"
Bucky looked up at the mention of her and said, "She was sleeping when I came down here. I don't know yet."
"She's here?"
He nodded. "She's not safe anywhere else."
"I see. Unless you're still convinced of my uselessness, I would be willing to see her as well, if she feels like she could use the extra help."
Bucky nodded, only half-listening. He was too busy clinging to his fear that this whole mess would turn her against him.
"Would you care to share the memories you gained from the lab?"
Bucky sighed. He didn't care to do it, but he told the useless quack anyway.
Later on, Summer built a quasi-picnic on the floor of her new bedroom. The TV was on cartoons and David had a new tablet to tinker with courtesy of the apparently very nice Pepper Potts, and she had an array of food spread out before him in the hopes that he would at least nibble on some of it, but so far, no such luck, just as she'd feared.
He wanted his toys and his home, and her gentle explanations for why he could have neither had so far only served to make him cry and her feel worse. Steve's presence hadn't even been enough to make him crack a smile. The tablet was the only reason why he was somewhat calm at the moment, but she could not say the same for herself.
She needed to go out and buy them both clothes. She had no idea if she was supposed to buy her own food or if it was fine to just take whatever was already in the kitchen. She still hadn't called her brother to break the news that their grandmother's house was now smithereens. She also had not yet called her college to ask for a leave of absence due to narrowly escaping death - again - at the hands of neo-Nazis, but she really needed to, because there was no way she could focus on school in the middle of all of this.
But instead of doing any of that, she sat on the floor with her back to the floorboard of the bed, watching David not eat, and thinking about all the ways in which her current situation could end in further disaster. She jumped in surprise when she heard her door click open, then sighed in relief when it was Bucky who walked in. She half-expected it to be a robotic housekeeper like from the Jetsons.
He was quiet as he made his way to her, and she kept her eyes on the dark-screened phone in her hands as he slid down to sit next to her. For awhile, neither of them said anything, and the silence was comfortable. It only ended when her phone buzzed and made her jump again.
It was a text from her blissfully ignorant brother, probably quoting a Harry Potter line or making a new guess on the identity of her secret lover. She didn't slide the screen to find out. "I need to be an adult."
"What?"
She hadn't meant to say that out loud. Now she had to explain. "I need to tell my brother what happened. I need to call my school. I need to go shopping. I need to get my mail forwarded. I think my cell phone bill is even due too. I need to do all this crap and be an adult and instead I'm sitting here doing nothing except praying for him to just take a bite of food."
She glanced at Bucky to find him eyeing her slightly curiously, and she explained, "The times before when he's had big changes happen or his routine gets majorly thrown off, he refuses to eat. I've had to put him in the hospital before, when he went a week not eating and barely drinking. It was horrible. And he doesn't understand where his toys are and where his house is. I don't know what to do. And I really want to tell my brother because I need him right now, like a lot, but how do I even begin to explain it to him without telling him about you? And if I do tell him about you, he'll just blame you and hate you before he even meets you."
She knew she was rambling, but Bucky didn't try to stop her, so she kept right on going. "And on top of all that, I'm really freakin' pissed off at those Nazi dickheads right now. Do you know how pissed my grandma would be if she knew that Nazis - the same evil people who killed her husband - blew up her house?! She would go get her shotgun and hunt them down herself! And that's another thing - all my pictures of her and my parents were in that house. David's baby pictures too. The material stuff is just whatever, because I can get it all back eventually, but I can't get those pictures back. And the memories." Then she paused and looked up at Bucky with slight shame in her eyes and muttered, "And I'm sitting here complaining about memories to someone who doesn't even have most of theirs. I'm stupid and selfish and... stupid."
Then she was being pulled into a warm embrace, and she instantly melted into the hug as she continued to inwardly berate herself. She sighed and closed her eyes, hoping that her rant didn't make his guilt any worse.
"You're not," she heard him eventually reply.
They sat there like that, her head on his shoulder and their arms wrapped loosely around one another for awhile, to the soundtrack of Spongebob on the TV and various noises from David's borrowed tablet. As simple as it was, his presence and touch helped to center her focus enough to finally gather her wits enough to take on the day and everything she had to do in it.
Except call her brother. That one she would save for some undetermined time when she had the slightest clue how to break the news to him in a way that wouldn't result in him having a heart attack and calling the FBI.
Just when she was ready to peel herself away from her rather comfortable position, a semi-creepy automated British voice once again made her jump out of her skin.
"Miss McAdams, Miss Potts has asked me to inform you that a position is available in her office that you may be interested in."
David instantly came scrambling into her arms at the first word from JARVIS, looking around wildly for the source of the voice. After trying to explain to him what it was, she looked up at the ceiling and said, "Uh... Okay."
"If you are interested, her assistant would like to interview you at nine AM next Thursday. Shall I confirm the appointment?"
She'd never been an assistant before, but how hard could it be? It was simple stuff, she was pretty sure, and if it was just an elevator ride away, then that was as close to ideal as she was going to get. "Yeah... confirm, I guess."
"Right away, Miss."
Drawing a breath, she glanced at Bucky and muttered, "Now I really have to go shopping."
He answered her by placing a gentle kiss on her lips, which earned him a half-hearted glare from David before he scooted off of her lap and back to the floor. Summer let herself smile at that for a moment before stealing another kiss and then asking, "Want to come with me?"
His hesitation was instant. "I don't know if I should..."
"Well, I don't know if you should really sit around here all day after what happened yesterday," she replied. "And, it's, you know, a boyfriend requirement. Suffering through boring shopping trips." She smiled weakly, trying to convince him and pretty sure she wasn't doing a very good job of it.
"... Maybe," he finally muttered. She smiled and kissed him again before getting up to take a bathroom detour before heading out for her first and wholly unexciting shopping trip in NYC.
She left her phone on the floor next to Bucky, and after she re-emerged, she remained ignorant of how he stared at it for a moment before picking it up and pressing a few buttons before putting it back down where she'd left it.
He was fairly sure that his idea was either very stupid or very necessary - there was no in between. But the idea began forming the moment that Summer had told him how much she needed her brother and then expressed how the main reason why she wouldn't reach out to him was due to how he may react to Bucky. And that was not acceptable.
He was the reason her house blew up. The least he could do was make sure she had her only living family apart from David with her while she came to terms with the dramatically different new direction of her life.
And that was how he ended up looking up her brother's number on her phone and then punching it into his own phone before typing out a message addressed to it.
You don't know me, but I know your sister and she needs you. She's safe and her son is safe but something happened and she's afraid to tell you. Then he typed the address of Stark Tower, not mentioning the tower itself, and added that it was where she was staying. Then he hit send before he could change his mind.
Technically, he knew that he was probably not allowed to invite random doctors from California to a tower currently housing superheroes and ex-spies. He also knew, however, that he didn't particularly care what he was or wasn't allowed to do, particularly when it came to doing something for the welfare of the woman whose life he seemed to keep inadvertently making worse.
Maybe she could be his hobby while he figured out a different one. And the clear, obtainable goal would be to fix what he hadn't meant to break and see her happy and back on her feet. Hopefully, this was step one.
A/N: And thus begins the New York/Avengers tower phase of the story :) and it just wouldn't have been right to have it happen in a pleasant, non-angsty, non-house blowing up way, so here we are :p Expect to see more Avengers in the future but nothing too crazy, since the focus of course will still be on our two main characters and large group scenes can get kind of tedious after awhile, but they'll all be around and it'll be fun. Sorry (but not really) for last week's cliffhanger, and my huge thanks to all of you readers and reviewers as always, I love you all tons and tons and bunches and bunches :D and midnightwings96, who helped point out several things in this chapter that would have made me look like an idiot had I not fixed them (seriously, my brain sometimes) and is just always awesome. I shall see you guys next week! :D