Broken

Nine

I walk into Captain Americas exhibit. I walk around and see a wall dedicated to me. I haven't been here much and never noticed it. It was titled Agent Phantom. It shows my picture for the Rebirth project and a photo of me in combat, masked and wearing that stupid hat. It read about my life and my work. How the surviving half of the Howling Commandos commended me for my bravery (for a woman) and how they never saw a woman with so much fire.
I look to the ground and see a paper conveniently place on the corner of my wall. I pick it up and see more coordinates.
Come alone.
Well lucky for whoever wrote this I was alone, probably was going to stay like this for a while. I look around and all the families and workers just looked like life was going on normally.
"Is that you?" I look to see a small child with Steve's shield on his shirt. "You woke up a while ago.." He says almost disappointed that I wasn't more public with what I've been up to. I crouch down. "Yea. I'm actually on a mission. But you can't break my cover." I lie. But his eyes gleamed with this information. He nods before running back to his parent and I quickly make my way out of there.

I made my way to an abandoned warehouse on the edge of DC. I pull out my gun and make my way inside. I look around to see an empty dark warehouse, nobody in view. "Hello?" I call out walking through, no response. "I'm alone like you said." I call out still walking.
"Thanks for that." My hairs stand and I turn to see Bucky in front of me. My heart sinks as I kept my gun up, he noticed and had raised his hands up. I feel my heart going a thousand miles a minute. "What do you want?" I ask him. He slowly lowered his hands to start to talk but I panic, "Keep them up!" I shout and he does so. We don't break eye contact and it's taking every ounce of my being to not give in. "These last few weeks I did research. Rogers kept telling me things about my life how I knew him... I had to find out, especially since I'm unemployed." He jokes but my guard doesn't let down. "Is that why you sent me on a goose chase to the Smithsonian?" I ask.
"Imagine my surprise finding my face on multiple walls and exhibits." He shrugs. I don't say anything else so he keeps explaining. "I don't have much memory of anything..." He moves closer but I was stuck. "But you shouted for me and I had an instinct to want to get to you.."He walks closer until he's 3 feet away from my gun. "You're Alice. I know that after hearing your voice..Why?" He asks me. But I'm stuck and was conflicted. I couldn't trust him but he didn't have that dead look in his eyes anymore. Hearing him say my name made me fall apart. "Damnit.." I say under my breath, dropping my gun. I feel tears well up in my eyes as I turn away, putting my gun back in my holster.
"I have this small memory. It's faded but became clearer when I saw your face at the museum..You were drinking a glass. French 75. At a bar." I turn back around and see sincerity in his eyes.  "You had an old fashioned when you came up to me." I smile as a tear runs down my face.
"Why could your voice pull me out?" He asks. I wipe my eyes and cross my arms for a moment. "Because you're my fiancé." I tell him and he looks taken aback. "That memory was the first time we really met. We thought it was after Steve had become Captain America but drew some conclusions that our real first time meeting was at a bar at some base when you had first joined." I chuckle reliving the memories. "You walked me to your barracks... I stayed the night and we woke up and went out separate ways not remembering the silly one night stand when we re met thanks to Steve." I re made eye contact with him.
"I also would see you when I was tortured.. with Hydra." He changes the subject. "They saved and took you after your fall. Your death from what we thought.." I say making him uncomfortable. "I guess they thought that wasn't enough so stole me from my tent, healing from a shot to the leg." I felt lightheaded from the wave of emotions consuming me and I lean myself on a work bench nearby. He quickly held my arm and gave me stability. I looked at him shocked that he helped and I see from his facial expressions he was too. "I don't remember much..but maybe you can help me out. Something like this doesn't happen for no reason." He says softly to me.
I could feel my James in there. A part of me wanted to jump on top of him. "I missed you." I say breaking down.
"I know." He says quietly to me making me stand up fully and hug him.

He takes me to an empty cheap apartment he'd been staying in. "I've had to lay low since being wanted after that day." He explains walking me into his living room. I was speechless about how this all went down. "Do you want some water?" He asks and I only nod. He walks to a faucet and fills a paper cup. "He's gonna come looking for you, ya know." I say making him freeze for a moment. "You two were inseparable way before I came along." I explain.
"Not unless I can help it." He says walking towards me handing me the cup. "You don't want to see him." I say and he only nods. "Why?"
"His memories are a lot fuzzier than yours. I don't want to give him that false sense of hope that I'm all better now." He shrugs.
"But you were fine with reaching out to me." I say with an eyebrow raised. He just keeps a monotone facial expression. "What are you planning to get out of me being here?"
"I don't know." He replied immediately after. "Sitting here talking to you has brought more memories to light."
"Like what?" He looks to me. "My proposal."
I couldn't help but feel some sort of relief with that sentence. "What about it?" I ask nonchalantly while taking a sip of my water. "We planned on it after we took Hydra down, or thought we would.." He trailed off. "I thought you were insane." I laugh at the memory.
I feel my phone buzz and open to see Tony texted.
Your belongings are out of that apartment and on their way here.
"You're leaving?" James asks as I notice him looking at my phone. "Just to New York. The old Stark tower is now an avengers tower open for us to stay at.." I explain as he looks more and more upset. "My time in DC is done right now. SHIELD doesn't exist anymore and my apartment with Steve is no longer payed for or of use." I shrug.
"I want to keep seeing you." He confessed making me melt. "New York isn't too far away." I say. I pull out my phone and clear everything and factory reset it, also blocking all my contacts. I hand it over to him and he looks confused. "No tracking. Secure and hidden IP. This is probably the highest end burner phones you can ever have."
"I can't.."
"You wanna keep talking to me don't ya?" I ask as I wave the phone a bit for him to take it. He reluctantly grabbed the phone and put it in his pocket. "What if people call you?" He asks.
"Cant. I have it set up to a factory reset changes the number too. That's why nobody can track this phone now. It's all yours since you're off the grid." I say to him. "Will you come see me?"
"As much as I can." I reassure him making me look more comfortable. "I'm only a call away once I buy a new phone in New York and you find me the way you did before."

+++

"So I just didn't let anyone come near you?" Buck says over the phone as I sat in my room, making furniture and my belongings move to where I wanted them without lifting a finger. "We were secret but unless it was work related, any man that made a point to get to me, you stopped them in their tracks. I thought I was just being ignored for the longest time." I say laughing. "I think I remember something like that.." I finished up and move to sit by the windows. "What do you think you remember?" I ask. "I saw a specialist..it's fuzzy but I do remember stopping him and turning him around." He chuckles. It's quiet between us as I looked out the windows. "You'd love this view, Buck." I say to him. "Yea..I bet I would." He says softly. Part of me thought he was really talking about me and not the city but I push it aside. I hear a knock at my door. "Gotta run." I say quickly before hanging up. I walk over to my door and see Stark standing there. "Hey Tony. Just put all my things away. Thanks for the space, also." I say while letting him in.
"Well it was built for everyone. A place to come together for missions, a place to stay." He says nonchalantly. "Who was on the phone?" He asks as he walks to sit in my living area. "Oh, just a pal from DC. Always good to keep in touch with non supers once in a while." I shrug as I sit across from him. "Wow," he says looking out the windows, "I gave you a killer view." He says proud of himself. "Yep, I've been staring at it all week."
"Is that why it took you so long to unpack?" He asks. "Oh, and what's that I saw of footage from DC?"
"Asking the hard questions, I see.."
"Well I knew it was going to be sooner than later you'd use them." He shrugs.
"Steve and I got into an altercation and it slipped so I used them more and only felt like my world split in half when I found out Hydra was apart of it in the first place."
"Okay.." He leans on his legs, "But that's booster jump thing. What the hell."
"I can manipulate energy. I knew that but I didn't know to what extent. It's definitely not going to be used for your regular terrorist who only has a gun to work with."
"Yeah, but you're sure of a help with how many threats there are out there.."
He looked at the sky out the window as he said that, reminding me of 2012.
"If that ever happens again, I promise I'll be more of a help than last time." I joke. "Hey, you putting your neck on the line, shifting to me, saved my life." He says making me feel better.