Midnight Shadows

The car had been an older model grey hatchback Honda, but it had been equipped with a navigation system, guiding them towards the building where Val was hiding out at the moment. So far, the ride was going without a hitch, but tension coiled inside of her. Her eyes flashing back and forth, trying to make sure that no cop cars were following them or would notice them.

It was a good thing that the drive was just a short one, or she would have broken the steering wheel at some point.

That tension disappeared once she drove into the underground garage that belonged to the building, pressing in the passcode for the lever to make it go up. She went down two levels, and parked it in the slot that belonged to the apartment.

Turning of the car, she sat there for a moment. Unclenching her hands from the wheel. “Val isn’t going to be very happy with me.” She told him. And that was putting it mildly. If she showed up with Bucky in tow, Valeria would have a lot to say. Probably yell even. But they couldn’t go anywhere else. People would recognise them, call the cops and it would all be over.

“There’s probably going to be some yelling too.” She surmised. It felt like she was trying to talk herself into getting out of the car and going up to the apartment.

She let out a sigh, why was she more afraid to face off with Val than the prospect of running into more cops? It’s because Val meant the world to her, she was like her best friend?

“We should go up.” Undoing her seatbelt, she reached for the door handle and stepped out. She walked to the trunk, opening it to and started to collect the bags.

She didn’t want to move, not when half of her face was warm against his chest. There was little in the need to look at either of their phones to discern the time. The first time she had woken up was just after dawn, when the pink sorbet sky had cut a line through the miniscule gap left between the block out shade curtains. It had been thin but placed just right to slip across her face. She had tossed a pillow across the room and managed to land it just right to flatten against the curtain ends to fold them completely shut. Then she had used Peter when the return to sleep had eluded her. He hadn’t complained.

Somewhere in the frame of time between the first moment she had opened her eyes and the current one, the sun had risen somewhat considerably, enough to give the dark curtains a subtle glow. Whether or not he had gone back to sleep, or currently was, eluded her. All she knew for the moment was that he was lying still while his lungs were expanding and retracting in a slow rhythmic cycle. Though, she was learning that meant very little with him. He had likely woken when she had when the Sentinel in her room had called to her, he had only seemed to continue to sleep. His rapid removal of them form her bed was more than rapidly waking at the drop of a hat.

Turning, she pressed her nose against his skin and breathed him in a few times, before she turned and climbed out of the bed. She reached for a stray t-shirt on the floor and pulled it over her head, long enough to brush the tops of her thighs, then made her way out through the French doors between the bedroom and the rest of the living space towards the kitchen.

She immediately flipped the coffee pot on, sorely missing the holy Keurig that was left behind, and padded quietly to the fridge. She took out the half carton of eggs and set them on the countertop beside the stove then moved onto the bread drawer, lifting out the partial loaf of sourdough. They needed groceries, but her anxiety kept nipping at her thoughts about leaving. It would be easy enough if she could keep them shielded, but they couldn’t shop while invisible. People would notice floating fruit.

A flat iron pan was set on the stove and she turned the little dial until the burner kicked on, letting the item heat up. She reached up for mugs, and for the hundredth time realized how bare she had stocked the place, though she had only ever planned it really for herself. Two people was different. And the apartment was smaller than her usual one, which put them almost constantly in the same room. Not that there was much to complain about in that regard as she looked towards the other end of the counter, and then the little table.

Right, breakfast.

She cracked four eggs, and pressed four slices of bread down in the toaster before she quietly tiptoed back into the bedroom to retrieve the new phone she had picked up two days prior. Scrolling through, there was still nothing from Carol, nothing forwarded form the old numbers or addresses. She sighed but returned to the kitchen and set the little item down on the counter. Then she glared at the coffee maker as though she could turn it into a Keurig if she stared long enough. But no, that ability had been gifted to a different Richards.

Bucky listened, nodded and took in all the information Carol provided. He found himself hardly worried by the idea of an unhappy Valerie Richards. That woman always looked like she was about to explode. There would be yelling, too. Yelling was no problem. It was usually the quiet ones one had to look out for.

“We should”, he agreed when she finally unbuckled her seatbelt and then stepped out. Bucky did the same, meeting her at the trunk where he gently pried the bags out of her hand.

Carol look at him for a moment too long. Bucky stepped back, motioning for her to shut the trunk. “Now stop wasting time”, he said once she had done so. Carol set her jaw into a determined line and walked on ahead. Bucky followed, setting the large black go bag down when they eventually reached a door that was apparently their destination.

Eventually, he just moved around her, gave the door a quick rap with the knuckles of his right hand.

“She might try to take your head off, but she won’t,” Bucky said as he stepped back behind Carol. He just did not have a good feeling standing on the floor out in the open like this.

He told her to stop wasting time when she looked at him and all she wanted to do was get back in that car and drive them somewhere else. “Fine.” She muttered, shutting the trunk and grabbing the smaller backpack as she headed for the elevator. Bucky followed with the bags and she let out another sigh.

Why on Earth was she dreading to see Val? Because she had been a sucky friend to the other woman. Carol pressed the twelve and they rode the lift in silence up to the right floor. She got off first, him following her until she reached the right door.

She hesitated just for a second, Bucky moving around her and knocking on the door instead.

“I know, but still. I haven’t been a good friend to her lately.” Carol told him, because they might have been known as boss and employee to others, it all had been more of an act. They were friends. Good friends. Hell, Carol thought at times that Val was her best friend.

The door opened, a man with auburn coloured hair and only wearing sweatpants was standing there. “Uuuuhhh…” He looked at her, looked behind her and back at Carol.

“Can we come in?” She asked, figuring that this must be the famous Peter Parker her friend tried to be vague about.

“Yeah, not sure you standing there for too long is smart anyway.” He stepped back to let them in and closed the door behind Bucky. Peter then stepped back around them and was still looking from her to Bucky and back. Like he couldn’t believe who was standing there. “Babe! We have visitors!” He shouted towards the kitchen, running his hands through his hair like he was still trying to make sense out of it. She watched him snatch a shirt from the couch, and put it on as he went back to watching them.

“Peter, right?” Carol just finally asked to break the awkward silence.

“Yeah, that’s me.” But he didn’t stop watching them and it started to make her feel a bit uncomfortable.

Peter knew the moment she left the bed, felt it dip slightly as she moved and got out. His eyes half open he watched how she pulled on a shirt, wondering if he could convince her to just go naked for the day. No hassle with clothing that needed to be discarded in the heat of the moment, although there was something to say about peeling those fabrics from her body. Dilemma. He had one.

Stretching after she left the room, he decided that he should get up as well. This leave thing wouldn’t last long. Nate had given him the time to stay hidden but at some point, he had to get out there again. Do his job.

But for now, shower first. He got out, took a quick shower thought back about how she had woken him up in the middle of the night to help her get back to sleep and a grin spread on his face.

He could get used to that. Getting out of the shower stall, he dried himself and pulled on a pair of sweatpants. He followed the scent of breakfast, eggs and coffee and his stomach growled. Val was standing at the stove as he walked in, stepping behind her and wrapping his arms around her waist. He let his chin rest on her shoulder as he looked at what she was making. “That smells good.” He told her.

There was a knock on the apartment door and he stood tall, his head turned towards it. He frowned, but his senses didn’t detect danger. “Were you expecting someone?” Nobody knew where they were besides Nathan and he wouldn’t have told anybody.

Stepping away from her, he went to the front door and opened it. His mind didn’t fully register who he was seeing there. “Uuuuhhh…” It was Carol and there was the man they knew as James Barnes. The Winter Soldier. He gazed back at Carol who prompted him if they could come in.

“Yeah, not sure you standing there for too long is smart anyway.” Stepping back, he let them in and closed the door behind Barnes, before stepping around them again. Positioning himself between the kitchen and the visitors. “Babe! We have visitors!” He shouted. His eyes on Carol and the tag along. He wondered why his senses weren’t activated, were they broken?

Carol asked if his name was Peter and he nodded. “Yeah, that’s me.” His eyes still going from Carol to the threat that apparently wasn’t a threat. It didn’t make sense but in all those years his senses weren’t off, so that meant the man currently standing in his living room wasn’t a threat …

A warm arm slid around her midsection and she momentarily allowed her eyes to slip shut, appreciating the presence all the more when he stepped closer as set his chin on her shoulder, engulfing her in his body heat. The pepper and salt were easy enough to reach for without having to move much in the way of separating herself from the body at her back. A knock against the front door had her hand pausing through half a shake of the pepper across all four eggs. She shook her head when he asked if she had been expecting anyone. The toaster popped. There was no reason for anyone to be at her door that early.

Peter stepped away from her and her first reaction was to reach for him to keep him in place. Once again, though, she reminded herself that he didn’t need her to perpetually shield him.

She turned the stove knob off and drew the pan away form the hot burner as Peter stepped around the dividing wall between the kitchen and the front foyer nook. Her eyes swept towards the knife block for a moment and she considered drawing one into her hand. The building was occupied by about a dozen other tenants, and likely showing up to the door with a knife in hand would raise questions. If it was someone not as friendly as an annoying neighbor, she didn’t really need a knife.

Turning back at the sound of the door opening and an exchange she strained to make out, Valeria followed the path Peter had taken when he called for her.

The moment she locked onto the other woman, she was assaulted by an onslaught of emotions that seemed to list between relief, anger, and curiosity all rolled into a neat little packaging with a glittery bow on top. The moment she looked beyond Carol, her motion to lift a shield between the pair and Peter was reflex. It took little thought or effort to erect the barely visible field as she immediately put herself just behind his right shoulder, and the same energy snapped in wait across the fingers of her right hand.

Carol looked decent enough.

“Carol,” she fixed on the woman, “there’s an assassin standing behind you.”