James Buchanan Barnes isn't a killer. He isn't merciless, or cunning, or evil.
But something in him is.
*****
A wrapper crinkles, fabric shifts, and a small, open hand jerks in front of my face. The smell of powdery chocolate and oats meets my nos...
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Two and a half days later, I was sent out on my first official scout as an Avenger.
True to his earlier promise, Steve agreed to let Mila and I outside the compound, so long as we had a third party eyeing the perimeter from above.
That third party just happened to be Sam Wilson.
"Get off in three stations, yours should be called Bolton Station." The Falcon says. I tip a hand up to the small, black bead hung from the roof of my ear. With each word Wilson says through his own end of the device, mine sends a small buzz through my neck.
"Bolton. Got it." Mila says from my side, a hand on an identical device to the right of her cheek. Her other hand is curled over a large, red handle in the wall of the subway car. Her body swings slightly every time the train makes a turn.
I plant my feet sturdily to the floor, and tip the beak of my hat lower over my eyes.
On an earlier flight, Wilson reported what he thought could be Loki's hiding place. As soon as he brought back the intel, Natasha had been insistent someone be sent to scout it out, worried Loki might have already dashed at the sight of the winged soldier.
Now, while the Falcon soars somewhere above ground, Mila and I make our way in a subway car to the meeting point, bunched up in the heavy midday crowd. I throw out a gloved hand to catch a bright red pole as the car lurches suddenly to the side. Mila's hip bumps mine briskly before she too catches herself on a handle.
She looks to her right.
I look down.
An automated female voice announces the name of the approaching station, and the car slows to a stop. A new rush of passengers enters through a set of greying, metal doors. Men with briefcases, women in suits, children clutched tightly in the arms of their parents. I even spot a small, coffee brown dog trail in on padded feet.
The voice speaks again to signal the doors' closing, and the train rolls forward. To my right I notice Mila pull a phone from the pocket of her jeans and push it to her ear.
"Sam, how far are you?" She says into it, as if in a call.
Wilson's response meets both of our ears through the comms and wind roars from his end of the line. "Two minutes, tops."
Mila presses further in an almost hushed whisper. "We're two stations away, five minutes."
He offers a muffled copy and the line falls silent. My arm clicks beneath a heavy brown sleeve. I look out of the train window, and my eyes meet the empty black walls of the subway tunnel. Every few seconds, a flash of something white blazes past the glass. A maintenance light, I assume.
Across me in the train car, a small, elderly woman sits, mumbling something to a younger lady beside her. A mix of jangling beads and pearls rests atop the old woman's clothes and wreathes her from head to toe. A pair of thin, purple glasses is perched over the bridge of her nose.
