Familiarity

Chapter 24

Emilia raced out of the building running down the busy streets headed straight for SHIELD headquarters. She pulled her phone out, dialling Amanda Hill's number as she sprinted as fast her black Sketchers would carry her, thankful the workday had just started and did not have to worry about dodging to many people.
      "This is Hill."
      "Agent Hill!" Emilia exclaimed trying to catch her breath as she approached the building. "Do you know where Steve is? Or Fury?"
      "As far as I know Steve is out, somewhere with Barnes probably, and Fury is in his office working on some reports. What's going on Emilia?" she asked, keeping her voice professionally calm.
"It's HYDRA, I need to talk to Fury now! Call Steve and make sure him and Bucky are okay, I'll meet you later," the doctor explained cruising through security.
      Emilia was quick to get from the front door of the headquarters to Fury's office. She opened his door plowing into his office to find Amanda sitting in front of him already. She stood up when she heard Emilia enter, turning around to meet the woman's panicked eyes. "Director, we have to get a team together now, HYDRA is in the city and they are getting to business."
      "Ms. Hate, HYDRA is everywhere if you haven't noticed yet I'm not sure what you are talking about."
      "They murdered an innocent boy, one of my patients. I was helping him with his amnesia, he remembered something they didn't want anyone to find out, something in his genetic memory. It must have been pretty damn important, and I want to know what it is. I require SHIELD's help to do so."
      "Go home, don't answer the door for anyone, send Captain Rogers to see me. I'll let you know when we find something."
"Thank you," she nodded turning to exit the office and head home.
Emilia called Madi telling her to gather her things following protocol 577 and to meet her outside the lab. She jogged lightly from SHIELD to the labs she worked at, every now and again checking behind her shoulder as paranoia set her nerves on edge. As she approached the building she smiled at her friend standing with her purse clutched against her chest, ready to hand it off.
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah, just have to go home for a few days," she nodded, pulling Madi into a hug, whispering, "whatever you do, do not let anybody in my office. Thanks so much," she smiled grabbing her things. "I'll see you soon." Emilia turned, walking in the direction of her apartment hoping this wasn't going to be too long of an inconvenience.
      She slung her purse over her shoulder as she started her walk to the apartment building she lived in. A cool breeze whipped the hairs that had fallen out of her bun around, frustrating her to the brink of tears. It wasn't the fact that her hair was falling out though, everything that has happened since the night she had gone out to have pizza with Madi and Max; the day she had first tested serum three point seven, on that poor girl, had lead to this emotional break down. She forced herself to hold it in as she walked the streets, attempting to keep any attention off of her.
      Memories of the first time she saw Bucky leaping on roofs, and breaking into her apartment played back in her head, as she remembered the fear she once had of him. She remembered the first time she realized she loved him more than she thought she ever could love anyone, and the time he saved her life when HYRDA found her twice before. She thought about living in France with him and Natasha, how happy she was to see him after that was all over, and all the dates they've gone on. As happy as most thoughts of Bucky made her, there were moments when her mind went dark.
Her first encounter with the Winter Soldier, HYDRA braking into her home and killing her father, kidnapping her in Europe. There was a lot of things that went wrong. Missing him for two months while he was brainwashed, coming home programmed to kill her, Eric was dead, and now an innocent boy has died because of her involvement. Maybe this all would have happened if she had left with Madi that night they had pizza, it's impossible to tell, but now she knows she has to get home before she completely loses it in the middle of the street.
She wasn't far from her building, and was quick to get up those flights of stairs and into her apartment. She wasn't sure where Bucky was but she was distracted by the emotions that clouded her mind. She tossed her purse under the coffee table as she passed, scrambling in the kitchen in search of the bottle of vodka she kept above the fridge. She took a swig of the alcohol faster than she was breathing in that moment.
It wasn't long before she had drank enough to tap into her stoic reserve, hiding most of the emotions she was feeling. The only action that betrayed her was the tears that fell from her cheeks as her eyes started to swell from crying. She could feel her throat going raw as she fought to remain silent, not letting a sob escape her lips.
"Em?" Bucky called, bringing Emilia back, as she started to bring herself back into reality. She blinked away a glaze that covered her eyes as she listened to Bucky exit her bedroom. "Emilia?" he asked again. When he rounded the corner into the kitchen, he let out a ragged breath.
"Napping?" she asked coldly, "at a time like this?"
"You shouldn't be drinking that, you know your history," he said slowly taking a step toward her.
"How could you have been sleeping, after so many people have died?" she whispered, her throat too tight to scream. Tears still fell, but she was able to keep the ugly sounds of her crying inside her.
"You shot me, I was resting, trying to heal," he finally explained, aware that that was the only way to make her happy. "Who died?" he asked, taking another step toward her, pulling the seat across from her out, to sit down.
"Tyler Dan, subject zero zero three," she said coldly, taking a quick shot from the bottle clutched tightly in her fist.
"Emilia," he started, reaching out to grab her free hand with his right hand, hoping to soothe her away from the alcohol.
"Eric, he was my friend Bucky, he chose not to kill me," she swallowed a lump in her throat, tightening her jaw as she thought. "My father, who just wanted to eat Chinese food. I'm the worst daughter ever, I made him come here. I was being selfish God, I'm despicable."
"Emilia, think about what you're working on at the labs, that does not make you evil, it makes you a good person."
"Yeah?" she scoffed staring down the neck of the bottle she still held. "If I'm so good, whose life has I made better? Who did I help to be so good?"
Bucky locked eyes with her, hoping to get through to sober Emilia, past the drunken facade she had built up. "You helped me."
"You tried to kill me! Most people don't kill people that have helped them!" she exclaimed still staring into his eyes.
He clenched his teeth, reminding himself that she was just drunk and didn't understand. "You know that wasn't me," he muttered reaching his left hand out ripping the bottle from her hand. Emilia didn't fight, she let go the minute she saw his bionic arm.
"It was your body," she raised an eyebrow.
"When was the last time you were this drunk?" he questioned trying to change the subject.
"It's been awhile," she sighed, yawning as the anger inside her subsided and the excitement of the morning exhausted her. Bucky went to respond to her when her phone started to buzz from the living area. She pointed to the room staring at the man sitting across from her. "My phone James."
He rolled his eyes standing up to find her phone. Following the sound of the ring, he bent over to pull her purse out from under a table. As he rummaged through her purse, he found her phone and an entire stack of papers from her labs. He answered the phone first, before pulling the papers out of the bag.
"Dr. Hate?"
"Steve?"
"Buck, where's Emilia?
"Uh," he paused pulling himself up onto a couch, looking over the back of it into the kitchen. "She went for a nap, the morning was very stressful."
"Understandable. Bucky do not leave her alone. We managed to find an abandoned HYDRA camp, they are going after her, and they aren't going to fail this time. Not after two already failed attempts."
Bucky's blood went cold as his stomach dropped, he couldn't let them get to her. "I won't let her out of my sight, thanks Steve." He hung up the phone looking back over at the woman who had her fallen over onto the table, knocked out. He looked down at the papers in his lap, reading them quickly.
Upon realizing that she had the recipe for serum three point seven with her, he started to rummage through her bag again, looking for a vial with the serum in it she should've had with her as she had fled her base, if whoever packed this bag followed protocol. He dug around the mess of papers and mint wrappers before finding the vile, empty. He looked back up at her to see that she was stirring, as if she had heard his heart start to beat faster. She looked at him questioning what he was doing.
"What?"
"You have to call Madi."