Cherry || b.barnes

17 || Syncing

With no other choice left, I snatch my badge and my gun, hustling after Barnes. He stalks along the corridor, his longer legs gaining him an advantage causing me to barely sprint behind him, although he is not even a head taller than me. »What the fuck?«

»That's a little unprecise for a question« the brunette grunts, his hair waving back with his fast pace. Despite his words obviously meaning to mock me, there's nothing charming in his voice.

However, he doesn't continue an explanation, or even starts one. We turn left where I would turn right for the elevator, and I wonder where exactly he is leading us. I've never been here before, although the white walls and panorama side is as familiar as every other hallway in this building.

My heart beats fast, faster than it would be healthy while adrenaline captures every cell of my body. Rogers gave the order? Why? Did he see some of the footage? Recognize me despite the fact he only ever saw me as a baby? With me looking like my mother and yet not entirely, I think he'd be able to put two and two together without any problems. But wouldn't he then come confront me himself, and not send his hellhound? Did Sam talk? Barnes himself, perhaps? Lord, these questions already threaten to squeeze my brain. »Why would Captain Rogers order you to be my mentor?«

The man seeming to run in my front opens one of the two glass doors, the left one, after scanning his own badge on a small black screen on the wall. With the sun reflecting on his silver arm, I have to glance away, the bright light disturbing my sight unpleasantly, dazzling me. »He didn't. He'd just have my back when someone comes asking him, and since no one questions his decisions,« he shrugs, as if to say he didn't really care about lying. »Plus, he's already gone anyways and no one mails him at this time of the year, so« he stretches the vocal at the end, probably preventing himself from shrugging another time.

Furrowing my thin, dark eyebrows, I still follow his step. We turn corner for corner, and I wonder again where he is leading me. But I don't ask, because there are more important questions burning on my tongue. »Why would you become my mentor instead of Romanoff?«

»Why not?« He sounds irritated by my questions, but I couldn't care less.

»Eh, because they saw her fitting for me and you obviously don't.«

»Obviously?« I swear he's cocking an eyebrow right now, his mouth pressed to a straight line.

»I don't think a mentor is supposed to be overthrown by their student. Thrice.«

»That«, he turns his head, glancing over his shoulder just so his bluish grey eyes come crashing down on me with an intensity I am not prepared for, »was pure luck.«

Raising my eyebrows in disbelief, I watch him open a metallic door to our right with his badge again, making me stop perhaps one meter behind his tall frame. One more time, whiskey and sandalwood invade my nose, and I swear, if I had a knife, I would ram it into my stupid heart just for it beating a little quicker. »Did seem more like a poor skillset to me than luck.«

Now, he turns half-way, his left hand already clenching around the door's silvery handle. His voice is the same baritone as I am used to, but not even closely filled with the sweet lullaby engulfing me I heard mostly. He's still pissed, and I don't exactly lighten his mood. The wide, wild ocean meeting the colorless sky, I am intoxicated by the depth of his gaze, and just catch the wall before stumbling right into the wave's maze again. »I was-« Barnes seems to stop himself from saying something, his eyes shortly wandering down on my face, before speeding up again like it never happened. I don't know where exactly he looked at, if at all, because he's ignorant about the motion, and I wonder if I may have a crumb left of the cereal on my chin from breakfast this morning. »... distracted.«