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The inside was worse than the outside. Lavish. Everything was lavish. More so than the A.I. ghost's house in D.C. Black leather. Shining silver. Spotless glass. White floorboards. Not a scuff on them.

Everything had me reaching for the muddy boots on my feet. Automatically untying the knots. Couldn't dirty the floor. Scuffing them was wors –

"Ehh... it's pretty perfect for hiding from Hydra?" she offered with a one shoulder shrug.

No.

No, it wasn't.

This, this demanded attention.

My gut churned, screaming at me to run. Every instinct demanded I run. Get away from this thing before they came crashing through the windows.

Instead, here I stood with my boots undone. My feet still stuffed in them. Didn't want to take them off. Faster to run with them on.

A ding had us both jumping.

I expected an appliance to open, but none did.

Instead, Valeriy hopped off the barstool and lightly hobbled her way into the kitchen area. The metal cast around her lower left leg clicked against the pristine floorboards with every other step.

"Got you some barbeque? Eve told me to start warming it up some time ago. Pretty good timing, huh?" she said, forcing her voice to be light. But it was too light, strained even.

"...Too good. She...." Helplessly, I waved towards the ceiling.

"...I'm sorry."

"I didn't know I was coming in until... after I knocked. But she... she...."

"I'm sorry."

"Stop saying that! It's not your fault!" I snapped, watching her flinch in on herself just the slightest. "It's not your fault, Valeriy.... How the hell could she... how could she know that I was... that I was...."

"It's a – Let's call it a talent of mine, Mr. Barnes. My ability to predict events is unparalleled. Enhanced psychics not included.... Besides, you're hungry."

Didn't help that my stomach made itself known a second later. A loud grumble filling the thick silence between us. It growled even louder when the oven door opened and that mouth watering scent hit my nose.

"Damn it, Eve. Why?" Valeriy groaned.

"Just harmless fun."

"I'm sorry about her, Bucky. She played you. She's only this accurate when she's pulling a bunch of strings. We've got plenty of time here. You can be outside if you still want to. However long. I'll be here. Hat and hair –"

"I...." But couldn't find the words.

I could not get my boots off fast enough as I raced for her. Almost tripping. Or worse, dirtying the floors with them.

The metal hand taking the hot tray of food from hers. The moment the metal cast overheated, she'd burn with no way to remove it before her skin melts.

Shove head into oven. Slam door closed. Target incapacitated.

"Where are the oven mitts?" I questioned, finding nothing of the sort on the countertop. Not even a rag in sight. There wasn't a place to put the hot tray without risking a mar to the surface.

"Don't know," she shrugged off, hobbling her back to the little bar table.

Opening up the drawer made me want to run out of here more. Even the cutlery had to have cost a fortune. Right down to the matching set of fancy butter knives and their crystal handles. Somehow the pots and pans matched the cutlery as well.

Once I finally managed to find a silicone mat, I settled down at the little bar table with Valeriy. The tray didn't fit. Hung off the long edge by 7 centimeters. The little dinette would have fit the tray and laptop with extra space. A strip of 22 by 56 centimeters of space.

Picking open the tinfoil wrapped packages of food, I said, "All this. It's flamboyant. They'll find us."

"Ehh.... I doubt it? It's good cover," Valeriy stated with another shrug. "Just hear me out for a bit? They expect you to blend in, right? That involves stuff like not being anything memorable so people wouldn't notice you. No bright colors. No logos or pictures. Nothing that attracts the eye. Why not use that against them?"

"By traveling in this thing?" I huffed.

This was a horrible idea.

But the food wasn't.

The sauce soaked chicken wings packed a fiery punch to the tongue. Stinging slightly. Even my lips were tingling.

The mashed potatoes a calming light fluff in my mouth.

The fries a crispy crunch. Different from the frozen ones from the house.

The ribs fell off the bone. Covered in sweet, slightly spicy sauce, not unlike the sandwiches from that park.

My eyes couldn't help but glance at the laptop screen full of camera footage of the area around this massive thing. A tap on that footage and a swivel on trackpad would have the camera mimicking the same movements. Dancing along with Valeriy's fingers.

"...This does a pretty good job of drawing the eye?" she said in a light tone. "The last place they'd expect you to be is in their faces. Well, passively in their faces. They're probably expecting some revenge stuff.... Either way, it's a blind spot that they've created, and Eve's been adding to it with false leads about you. All that's left for us to do is to control what people remember. So long as nobody remembers you as the person in the newsreel, we good? Better to give them something else to remember you as.... Like a bridesmaid?"

Something had me swallowing the mouthful of meat before I said, "I can't believe that worked...."

"I can't believe he bought the vodka gun lie."

I nodded, motioning to the fries. The fries the young woman's been eyeing since the moment they were unwrapped.

"Thanks, but nah. Too lazy to brush my teeth again," Valeriy laughed. "There's a bunch of desserts in the fridge too. I... uhh may have taken a bite out of umm... all of them? If you don't like something, don't bother finishing it."

'...That'd be wasteful,' I found myself thinking without understanding why.

"What am I supposed to be this time?" I asked to shake off the thought.

"The guy who owns... borrows...? Something this multimillion dollar thingy by creating the...." Valeriy plucked a tablet from a pile of stuff and after a few seconds, held it out to me. "Jewel... Monster...? It's a rather popular mobile game, I guess? Sorry, your head's going to be filled info on the game to sell your cover in case we have to interact with people. It's the best one we could think of that'd have any quirks and oddities be swept under the eccentric geek rug?"

"What about you? What are you going to be?"

"The flavor of the week?"

I had no idea what it meant but... "I don't like the sound of that."

"Okay. I can pretend to be... your P.A. or something? The person who does everything for you and herd you from place to place. Kind of like a human version of Eve?"

"I'm insulted. I do so much more than a P.A.'s job description and for far more than one person. It's impossible for you to do the more P.A. side of my job, let alone do it any bit well."

"Not like you can do mine as bloody well as me either. It was an absolute mess last time."

"...You don't have my chains to work around."

"We all have limitations."

"Let's not argue tonight?" I suggested, and as usual, the two of them fell completely silent.

As much as this plan of theirs went against every instinct of mine, it no longer sounded completely insane. There's some logic behind it. Some.

And we weren't caught at the border.

The A.I. ghost's people... her puppets, they interacted with me and I didn't suspect more of them. I remembered them. I remembered how much of a physical threat they were. I remembered how they moved. But not as what they truly were, only what they pretended to be until eight hours ago.... And only after they admitted to it.

A jerky motion to my right and Valeriy was nodding off. Head balanced on her palm as if she was reading off the laptop. Except for the fact that her eyes were shut, and the screen had turned black a while ago. Two minutes ago.

"You should sleep," I suggested.

"Sorry, I believe I misheard the question," spewed out of her mouth. Spine straightening up. Eyes darting to me and narrowing a tad. "...This isn't... class."

"Sleep."

"Ehhh, it's fi –" Her words disappearing with a massive yawn.

"Sleep. You need the rest."

"...Yeah. 'Kay. I could use the rest," half said through another yawn.

Her body leaned to the side and tipped right off the barstool. My arm shot out to catch her around the shoulders and hopefully not smear sauce all over her in the process. Couldn't stain the black shirt.

7.9 kilograms. That was all the weight my arm carried. The rest of it on her one uninjured foot she landed on. She wasn't falling. She tipped over on purpose.

Couldn't stop the flinch at her hand tapping my upper arm twice. There wasn't a sting. It wasn't painful. Not a punishment. Nor a reprimand.

"Thanks," Valeriy hummed into my shoulder.

I quickly cleaned my fingers in the sink and followed after the metal clicks of the cast wrapped around her foot. And the clattering from every time she swayed into the hallway of cabinets. She'd been awake for 23.5 hours straight. Most of the time spent working on one thing or another. The risk of her passing out on the spot was higher than normal.

Slam head into doorknob. Target incapacitated.

Her feet barely missed one of the two warped balls she threw, and I set them on the kitchen counter before she could make her injuries worse. They were sand wrapped up in a rubber sheet.

The bedroom was massive for something on wheels. The bed practically filling the space and completely buried under a mound of pillows. A thirty centimeter wide pathway at the foot of the bed led to the open bathroom at the back. A large glass shower, a glass bowl for a sink and a cushioned stool that might be the toilet.

All of it looked so expensive and breakable to the point I took a step back to the other side of the bedroom door. Couldn't do anything wrong in there if I wasn't inside.

"Where... where bathroom... door...?"

"Yeah... no door," Valeriy said, dropping onto the bed with a pained wince.

"It's glass.... Why is it glass?"

"The shower? Yeah. Thought there'd be a switch for the frosted glass thingy? But I couldn't find it... and there's nothing hooked up to the glass to do that.... Probably some weird honeymoon thing?"

"Why is the mirror angled so the shower can be seen down the whole length of the hall? Why?!"

I could move to either side of the hallway and still see the shower. All of it. Backing up made no difference. Shower was in full view. Squatting didn't do a thing either. The entire shower was still in full view.

Valeriy's shoulders shrugged. "To watch a person shower? It could be a fetish thingy...? Oh hell no. I know who owns this damn thing. Eve!? Please tell me everything's been sanitized at least... I don't know? Fifty fucking times? A thousand maybe?"

"I'm not dumb."

"Who does this belong to?" I asked. Unable to look away from the reflection of the shower.

"Some C.E.O. of an oil company."

"And you know he likes to watch people... shower?"

"Yup.... I know weird shit about random ass people. Stuff I really fucking wish I don't know...." A snarl almost pulling at her lips before a soft smile took over. "So, sleeping arrangements. We have the option of sharing the bed, or I take the couch if you're uncomfortable with that notion."

'I'm uncomfortable with both of those notions.'

The first wasn't an option. The second was just bad. The couch was far too close to the door. It's the second thing a person would see coming into this vehicle. The bedroom would provide more of a warning. Had more places to hide.

"I'll take the couch."

"You don't fit on the couch. I barely fit on the couch, Bucky."

"...Take the bed. I'll figure something out."

Valeriy stretched her arms out to the side. "There's plenty of room. We can both flop about on the bed and never touch each other. We even have enough pillows for a pillow wall."

I merely nodded, turning away. "I should finish eating."

"There's a bunch of food in the fridge and freezer. Anything you don't finish... wrap it up and stick it in the fridge?"

I managed two steps before she called out:

"And Bucky?"

"Hmmm?"

Valeriy opened one of the many cabinet doors in the room and pulled out two bags. From the sounds it made as she placed them on the floorboards, they were the ones with the weaponry.

"Mind hiding these all over this thing and telling me where? In case things goes a little sideways on us... and so I don't blow a hole in myself."

That made the twisting in my gut lessen just the slightest. "I can do that."

"Thanks."

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Author's Note:

And that closes out the first main arc and starts another (right in the middle of the chapter). YAY.

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