Can't Catch Me - Bucky Barnes

Chapter 20

Erika was free falling. A horrible fear inducing fall that seemed only possible in dreams.

The air hit her body forcing her hair to fly upwards and her dress to fly to the side.

She had only seen a glimpse of Bucky's face as she fell off the balcony. Shock had overcome most the people on the balcony when she fell. Bucky was one of them. He'd reached out to her and was staring at her falling body from the balcony his arm still outstretched as she fell.

The first three seconds went so slow she felt like she could hear and see all the events that had happened in the past few months.

Erika threw out her arms searching for the vibrations of metal. It was hard to catch onto anything while falling through the air.

Whatever bullet wound she had seemed nonexistent, healing before she could feel the pain.

When she looked up at the Balcony again she watched someone leap from it.

They dove toward her. Something materialized over their body mechanically.

She watched them sail through the air and move towards her at an accelerating speed.

Iron Man? was Erika's first thought but upon a further inspection, or more as they approached rapidly. When she could finally see the figure it did resemble the iron man suit but wasn't exactly the Tony Stark suit.

It was Red and White and had an open head piece, as if it had been broken off the actual suit.

When the face of the approaching person came into view she was surprised.

They caught her more than halfway down the tower. Holding her with one hand and using the other to direct them away from the tower as they flew.

"Jae?!" Erika yelled.

He grinned as they flew.

"Hey Erika. I think I kinda just exposed myself to everyone on that balcony." His smile faltered a little.

"How did you do this?" She exclaimed.

"It was my special little Project. It was labeled Mark V in the stuff we stole from the tech run."

Erika shook her head, she was surprised Jae had done anything like this. Jae was close to Tony smart and it was easy when he was able to steal the template but just redesign it.

"STILES directions to Nina's residence." Jae directed his suit.

"STILES?" Erika asked.

"It's an acronym for Sorry Tony I Literally Exceed Smart."

"You got a fat Ego."

"STILES sounded cool and I'm not good at naming things, just making them." Jae defended himself.

They'd flown a good ways away from the tower and were headed closer to the ground. Erika wasn't surprised the Avengers hadn't tried to follow them.

Jae and Erika landed safely in an alley. By now Erika despised alleys.

"Shit!" Erika cursed as she leveled herself on the ground.

Jae looked over at her. He hit a button and said some command to STILES and the suit seemed to retreat and dematerialize. Jae would later explain that he'd found a way to make the suit descend from nano technology in bands on his wrists. He explained to her how the suit was had started out as a suit that would compact into a suitcase but with remodeling and edits he turned it into chunky long bands of metal on his arms.

"Natasha just screwed up everything." Erika leaned back against a wall.

"Doesn't matter Erika. We have everything we need. Information about Money. We never needed the Avengers to like us." Jae adjusted the suit he was wearing. He took off the coat and threw it onto the alley floor.