It was where he’d left it. Stasis did many things, had perks and pitfalls, but above all else, under ice, despite claims otherwise, memories had the tendency to creep back towards the surface. In particular, the one, then, of laying a file of unmarked contents beneath aged floorboards in a worn townhouse at the edge of a neighborhood that, now, looked so much… bigger than he remembered it. More cars. More lights. A headache blossoming behind his eyes for the noticing of it all before the cracked window was utilized and the excavation began.
The Winter Soldier didn’t have an imagination… which meant the absence of documents didn’t stem from their not existing. Which meant that someone’d already happened across them and, albeit a fuzzy enough memory to lack specifics, a nagging feeling told him it was necessary to find them. To tear the living room to rubble and pull up the majority of the flooring until he sat panting amongst the wreckage. Splinters stinging his palm and eyes unfocused as they scanned more of the same desolate and empty shadowspace below. Dust and baubles that’d fallen into the makeshift chasm, mind wandering——
The door was opening.
He needed to stop.
Having only just sought shelter at the sound of keys tossed atop a counter, breathing steady in contrast to his eyes, it was a wonder he’d not heard her coming sooner. Stern voice and a threat he might have believed, but harbored no fear for; what use would a dozen police be against HIM? Superiority marketed in the destruction around him but… boast would never come. Words caught in his throat and hands tempering fists at his sides—it would have been easy enough to do. Slink back through the hall and catch her while she was distracted. Wrap arm around her neck and squeeze until she stopped thrashing. It would have been easy, but… the path he’d chosen called for consequences, not ease.
“I’m not armed.” Bucky’d confront the irony in that statement sometime later, hands raised to show himself in an honest light before mustering a will to step forward. Bathed in the glow of a capsized lamp and looking every bit the culprit he was. “… you have something of mine———
To say she didn’t believe the strange man who’d broken into her home was an understatement. He was much taller than her, which didn’t take much, but it took a lot to make Angelica feel small. The man had predator written all over him and she was smart enough not to antagonise him further. There was a big difference between standing up for yourself and getting yourself killed.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Half a step back as she kept her eyes focused on him. Gaze kept flicking to his left hand upon which he seemed to be wearing some kind of metal gauntlet. He might not be armed in the traditional sense, but if he hit her with that thing on then that’s at best a cracked cheekbone. At worst a broken jaw.
“I barely have time to have my own things let alone anyone else’s.”
Another step back. Right hand twitching a little with the want to take her phone from her jacket pocket. Call the police. Call Mr Helmsley and Mrs McMahon. Hell, she’d call Randy fucking Orton if she thought it would save her.
“What are you looking for? You may have the wrong house. Not that I condone breaking and entering other people’s homes, I’m just not thrilled with the concept of having a strange man in mine.”
Angelica took a shaky breath and allowed herself a split second to move her gaze from the man and skitter around the hall and into the room behind him. Wrecked. Looked like a tornado had been through there. But no. Just this one man who looked like he’d shoot first and ask questions later.
“I won’t tell anyone you were here. I just want you to leave.”
romaincrisis
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