Author's Note:

I has got a new beta!! Aereul's schedule has gotten too busy and a new player has stepped in. YAY!

For the moment, she wishes to stay anonymous. (I'll be calling her Anonymouse second beta. ^^)

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I'm always trying to improve my ability to pull a person into a character's headspace or feel their emotions, and your feedback will help me know if what I'm trying for is working or not. Even an emoticon or button smashing tells me something useful and can influence what I write more or less of.

I respond to all comments and it's always fun to hear your thoughts ^^

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No movements. None coming from the road towards the motel.

No familiar faces. None that I could catch on the way here.

No reason to keep the COP .357 clutched between my fingers. But I found myself unable to let go. Still too wound up to leave my perch by the window for more than a minute. Maybe two if I had to.

I had to be ready for them.

They're searching for me.

And they will find me.

Only a matter of time....

Only a matter of time before she would wake.

I could feel this coming to an end. The rather peaceful days of the safehouse now long gone.

Even if this little motel room was likely set up by one of the A.I. ghost's assets. The sheets too clean for the peeling wallpapers. The pile of boxes in the corner sported the same logo that was on the purple toolbox and all her tools.

Likely meant that she had cameras all over this place as well.

No reason for me to keep an eye on the surroundings. She could see far more than I could. Unless it involved Hydra.

A sharp intake of air sounded behind me and then a muffled scream caught behind clenched teeth. Before the young woman could wake the other motel guests, I turned on the lamp on the night table. Moved there for this very reason. To efficiently clear the darkness in half a second.

But it wasn't the blood curdling screams in the darkness.

It was pain.

So clear in those gray eyes. In her body language.

"You can feel?" I asked in confusion.

A two second pause before I scrambled out of the chair and through the first aid kit for painkillers.

"No," she breathed out. Didn't even have enough strength to tug on my arm. Unable to move it. "No meds."

"You're in pain."

"I'll be okay," she assured. "Eve? What happened to the tingly thing?"

"Might want to wear a certain piece of jewelry so I don't end up electrocuting you," the A.I. ghost said, her voice coming from the phone I left on the table. "Unless you're into that sort of thing. No judgment here.... Mr. Barnes, the current's mild and not... whatever you think it is."

'Nothing's attached to her head. Not going to scramble her brain,' I tried to reason. Struggling with the idea. Watching her trying to crawl down the bed.

I lifted her hand.

I had the bracelet. The A.I. ghost had been getting me to lend it to her. For a minute at a time. To check her status at random intervals.

This time I knew I wasn't getting it back for some time. I shouldn't need it. Didn't need waking from a nightmare. Not if I was awake. Just had to keep my head on my shoulders. I should be able to do that much.

With practiced ease I fought the need to keep the bracelet, I slipped it from my wrist to hers.

Almost immediately her muscles began twitching. Her right arm collapsing under her.

"Relax Bucky," she almost laughed out,. Sounding so exhausted. Her right hand landed on the metal arm. The hand wrapped up in a thin metal cast. "Now our hands kind of match."

Both were involuntarily twitching.

"...'Kay. Cutting back on the jokes... and you can stop worrying. The pain's at a more manageable level. It's mostly pins and needles, so kind of ticklish? What about you? Injuries?"

I shook my head, backing away from her fingers ghosting over my cheek. "I-I'm functional."

"...." Her hand went for her glasses, which I plucked out of her fingers. Before she could wear them.

Unable to handle those pale gray eyes staring up at me, I moved to the chair by the window.

"...Did you at least treat them...?"

'No movements.' Not even a passing car.

"...Bucky...?"

"...What do you last remember?"

"Uhh... freaking the fuck out in the dark? What's that got to do with you treating your wounds or not?"

"I should be the least of your concerns. You should be scared of me."

"What would I –...I'm so lost, Bucky."

"I attacked you!" I snapped.

"Oh.... That.... Eh," she shrugged off with a wince. "Probably easier to have just shot me a couple of times with the knockout darts? Pretty sure most these injuries were from me fucking around before the crash...?"

"Can you take this seriously for once?!" I demanded. My eyes finding hers.

Not even a flinch as she stared right back. But her body language changed. Shifting to rest her head against a propped up arm. Fingers threading through those long locks. Ignoring the strands of hair caught in the joints of the metal cast. The carefree mask gone.

"Was I scared? Yeah. The dark kind of does that to me.... Being pinned down did nothing to help. But I know that screaming isn't always the best hiding tactic and that Hydra really fucking terrifies you. In that situation, probably wouldn't even blame you if you snapped my neck. Would kind of suck though."

I could only hope that it'd never come to that point. That her blood wouldn't be added to the already long list.

"I wasn't kidding about believing that you don't want to hurt people, Bucky. I see how hard you're trying. Saw it that night a month ago. Even saw it with the Hydra agents earlier. Of all the people you'd give your mercy to... you try with them. You're a better person than I ever could be. Have a little faith in yourself. The only person I've seen you try to hurt is yourse – Oh shit. Did you...?"

"No," I sighed, glancing back out the window. Avoiding the panicked gaze and then the relieved grin.

The ingrained need somehow gnawed away by her words spoken 19 days ago. So that the shocks from using the arm was enough.

"There has to be some line," I mumbled.

'Before you stop forgiving....'

Easy enough to spot her soft smile in the reflection.

"Hmmm.... Hurt me knowingly of your own free will? That'd be my line. Not just physical pain. If you make fun of my sixth toe, I'm going to be so heartbroken."

My eyes fell shut at the rush of relief. The tension falling away from my shoulders. I hadn't destroyed this, somehow. I hadn't managed to destroy what we had with my own hand.

'But I'm bound to kil – Is she...?'

The COP .357 muzzle found its way back into its holster. My hands found their way to my face, covering my eyes. My forehead leaned against the cool window frame.

"Hey, Bucky?"

"I don't see anything," I sputtered out. Trying to curl into myself.

"How did you get the cast around my ribs?"

"I didn't see anything. She said to tuck it under your shirt and she'd take care of the rest."

"Oh.... Thanks." I could almost see her shrugging off the topic without my eyes. "Mind lending me a hand?"

"...Are you finished changing?"

Her light laughter echoed to my ears. "I can change without flashing people, but yeah, I'm done."

A sigh escaped me and my eyes wandered back over to her. "Rest. You need it, Valeriy."

"Rest is for the dead," she waved off my words, crawling for the boxes again. The bloody gray clothing changed in favor of her usual big T-shirt and much too short shorts.

With a few steps, I blocked her way. A hand itching to reach out to her. To stop her movements. Bundle her back under the blankets. But I could just as easily break what's left of her bones. "Rest."

Her nose wrinkled in distaste at the notion of staying tucked in bed. "Got better things to do. Like removing a G.P.S. from another bracelet. There should be one or two in one of the boxes."

"Inside the smallest one."

With a frown, I plucked the box off the pile and settled on the foot of the bed. The Gerber twirled between my fingers, before slicing through the tape.

Inside were four of the same bracelets and a very familiar purple toolbox with a dented corner.

Things from the house were sitting in the motel room. Before we arrived....

I almost jumped when Valeriy's arm brushed past me, tossing a bracelet over her shoulder before digging around in the toolbox.

"So..." she started, "I'd prefer it if you held the bracelet for me? My right hand's a little too dumb for steady work at the moment. Really don't want to waste time crawling on that stained ass carpet looking for a screw or some shit."

With a nod, I picked up the bracelet, holding it at the height she usually liked to work at. 17.8 centimeters from her face. Eyes squinting. Her knee popped up to support my hand and I couldn't help but shrink away.

"Relax, Bucky." Her fingers closed around mine, pulling to rest my hand on her knee again. "My head's screwed on my shoulders well enough not to bite you."

"That's not – I don't.... I...."

A little bite was nothing to be afraid of. Not in comparison to what I could do to her. What I've done. A little bite had nothing on the torture.

Valeriy merely smiled. Getting right down to using the tweezers as a screwdriver. Fingers spinning the tool with ease.

"They'll never stop..." I tried when she handed me a tiny little chip, two millimeters long, to crush between metal fingers.

"Probably?"

"It's not only Hydra."

"Everybody who's anybody is looking for the man with the metal arm, Mr. Barnes."

The works made my hair stand on end. They were all closing in. Everything was closing in on me... and they'd go through her to get to –

"It'll be okay," Valeriy assured lightly with a smile. "Getting people out of shit storms is one of the things we do, and we do a damn good job of it."

"You would have been captured tonight," I shot back. "By them."

"Ehhh," she shrugged off, struggling to keep the screw in its hole long enough to turn it into place. "Hydra would be unsavory to deal with.... Though, I'm pretty sure I'd be okay if Coulson had gotten a hold of me."

"SHIELD is Hydra."

"Not all of it? Auntie Peggy oversaw SHIELD for a long time... and I worked with Coulson? No, that's not right.... Helped out with something? Nothing was out of place with him. Did what he could to keep the world a little safer from crazy shit. Still was post death. Showed up out of nowhere looking for Am –.... We used to get along. Even if I didn't help how he wanted back then, I should be able to talk my way out if he caught me?"

"That may be the case before you went and decided that poisoning his team was a good idea."

"How would you have done it then?"

"Simple. Make them not a problem."

"...."

"What the hell does she mean by that?" I demanded.

"...If it's what I'm thinking," Valeriy started, "yeah, you don't want to know what I'm thinking.... Yeah...."

"...."

"And have you forgotten Director Fury?"

"Aww, fuck. Yeah, 'kay. Maybe I wouldn't be able to talk my way out if he popped up."

"Director... Fury?" The name so familiar. "He had a... an eyepatch? I think... I think I killed him."

A huffing laugh fell from her lips as her head bounced in a nod. "Yeah, eyepatch man. If you did kill him, I doubt he'd stay dead dead? At least not for long."

"I shot him. Three times. Through his chest. With a real bullet. From a Barrett M82A1M. He's dead."

"Still pretty sure he's alive somehow. Especially with Coulson being rather spry for a dead guy."

"What does that even mean?"

"A couple years ago, Coulson was stabbed through the... uhh.... It's the torso area...?" she tried, right hand gesturing to where a lung should be.

"File you... you found says the scepter grazed his heart."

"Not something one just shrugs off, so the guy had to be straight up dead at one point or another. I highly doubt they could get him medical attention right away either. Not with whole shitstorm Loki, the Norse...."

'...They can bring people back to life...?'

"...know what? There's probably files with how they voodoo magicked him to life somewhere. Has to be with that bastard F...."

'...There's no escaping, is there...?'

"...deleted when Hydra decided to reveal themselves. I hate to admit this, but his little hacker girl's rather talented. I didn't manage to gather as much as I'd like off their servers with our little intera...."

'...I can't even die....'

"...son got a hold of you, not sure where you'd end up. He's obsessed with a certain blond icon but Fury is? Was? His director. That bastard would probably hole you up at some black site beyond Eve's reach, and I wouldn't doubt that he would tor...."

'...They'll bring me back....'

"...levels are making me uneasy...."

'...Have I...?'

"...Oh shit shit shitshitshit...."

'...I should....'

"...ky, nothing's going to happen to you. You've got us...."

'...I should...?'

"...I got you, Bu...."

'....I need to go back to – Is that the carpet?!'

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Author's Note:

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