Return | Bucky Barnes x OC | (4)

Chapter 21- Assassin

1946- New York

Clara practically jumped out of her skin as she heard the key turn in the lock. Dottie was back.

Clara hovered at the top of the stairs, watching from the shadows as Dottie crossed the threshold and entered the house. She knew she couldn't hide away upstairs all day, she would have to face Dottie at some point. Clara had no proof to support her suspicions.

She would have to push aside her ridiculous belief that Dottie was somehow dangerous and just get on with her life. It wasn't as if she was going to be here long. As soon as the Howard Stark situation was cleared up, Clara could go back home.

"Oh," Dottie exclaimed, smiling in apparent nervousness as Clara silent descended the stairs and approached her in the kitchen, "I didn't see you there." She laughed under her breath.

"Nice shop?" Clara asked, her face was fixed in a stern, interrogative manner.

"Yes." Dottie answered bluntly, holding up a brown paper bag, "I brought a loaf of bread."

Clara smiled and nodded, resisting the urge to ask why she was gone for over an hour if she only needed to buy bread. What was even stranger was that she had returned wearing a different shade of lipstick to the one she was wearing when she left...

"Clara?" Dottie asked, peering at her, leaning in close to read her jumbled expression. "You look tired." Dottie said bluntly. Clara nodded absentmindedly, staggering backwards, subconsciously getting further away from the threat that Dottie posed.

"Perhaps you should go to bed?" Dottie suggested, "Perhaps I should too. It is getting late."

Clara nodded again. It was only just gone eight o'clock. It definitely wasn't late. What was she up to?

"Yes." Clara said at last, no hint of tiredness in her defiant voice. "I think I will go to sleep."

*

Clara lay awake in her bed, staring silently at the ceiling, not daring to move in case Dottie heard her. She knew her suspicions were probably nothing but she couldn't shake the feeling that Dottie was somehow dangerous.

Clara waited in her room long after the sun went down. Looking at the clock on the bedside table that read five minutes past one in the morning, she knew that it would be safe now. Dottie would surely be asleep.

It was icily cold as Clara tip-toed down the hall. Her heart pounded ceaselessly in her chest. The overwhelming thumping of her heart rang in her ears so loud she couldn't tell whether her footsteps were too heavy. Had they woken Dottie?

Clara waited motionless in the hallway, just outside Dottie's door. She waited for her heart to settle and her nerves to calm before she entered the room.

The door swung inwards silently. She was half expecting the door to creak open ominously and alert Dottie to her presence. Perhaps she was waiting for an excuse to go back to bed and forget the whole thing. But as her hand enclosed around the door handle, Clara knew it was now or never.

At once, she got to work. The floor was mostly kept clean but a few stray clothes and bags littered the floor. Clara bent down slowly and as silently as she could to search Dottie's belongings. She unturned pockets but found nothing. She emptied bags but found nothing. As the adrenaline left her body, Clara began to have more and more doubts. What on earth was she doing rooting through another woman's belongings?

Clara rose to her feet with half the mind of leaving the room and actually getting some sleep. As she stood up, she noticed, out of the corner of her eye, that, where everything in the room had been untouched, the wardrobe door lay slightly ajar. Something was tugging on her nerves. Something was telling her to investigate. She was suddenly overcome with the irresistible urge to find something incriminating. It was as if she wanted Dottie to be a spy, or something equally outrageous.

This time, as Clara opened the wardrobe door, it did creak. It creaked open painfully loudly that she was sure Dottie would wake up. She didn't dare turn around to face the sleeping Dottie. Clara's muscles tensed and she winced, waiting for her to wake. But nothing happened.

Clara sighed and let out a few shaking breaths before continuing to search the room. The wardrobe was mostly filled with a few dresses and skirts, at the bottom were boxes of old shoes that she presumed belonged to Howard. It amazed her how quickly Dottie had moved in...almost as if she had planned to.

Clara shook that thought from her mind. One step at a time, she thought. First, she would find something to confirm her suspicions. She crouched to sift through the boxes. But it was just shoes. What was she expecting to find in shoe boxes other than shoes? As she got to the last box she sighed, carelessly holding up a heel in frustration. In her carelessness, she flicked the shoe upwards before placing it back in the box. As she did something rolled out from inside the shoe and clattered to the floor, rolling underneath the wardrobe. Clara shuffled backwards, waiting for a second to hear if Dottie had woken but the room remained silent. Then she darted forward, extending a slim arm underneath the wardrobe and enclosing her fingers around whatever it was that Dottie had hidden away inside a shoe.

It was long and thin and cold to the touch. Clara ran her fingers along the length of it as she pulled it back out from underneath the wardrobe. Her fingers ran across a stopper. It was a vial. A glass vial filled with...blood?

Clara gasped at the sight of the crimson fluid. It couldn't be? There was no way it could be! Peggy had assured her the vial of Steve's blood was safe. And how would Dottie have known?

This was all the proof she needed. Dottie was dangerous.

A sudden wave of panic coursed through Clara's body. She was in terrible danger. Clara darted to her feet, in her panic she staggered backwards into a chest of draws, sending the various bottles of perfume and makeup bags toppling to the floor. In all the clattered surely Dottie would have awoken. She would have darted to her feet and found her. But nothing happened. Clara, for the first time since she entered the room, turned to face the bed.

The blood drained from Clara's face. She had to clamp both hands over her face to stop her from screaming. Dottie lay motionless, stiffly on her back. Her right hand was extended above her head and was fastened to the bedpost with a pair of rusting metal handcuffs. It dug into her pale skin. Her wrist was scared and inflamed but she lay still on the pillow in blissful peace.

In her terror, the vial of Steve's blood fell to the floor. Clara dove down to fetch it but found herself unable to tear her eyes away from the bed. What if she woke up? Blindly, she felt for the vial on the floor, frantically patting the carpet. Her fingers enclosed around a tube and as she raised it to her face she sighed in frustration. It was only a tube of lipstick. Wait a minute- this was Peggy's lipstick. Clara glanced at the floor in confusion. Her eyes immediately landed on a gleaming, bronze key. That must be Peggy's too! At least that offered an explanation of how Dottie got her hands on the vial of blood. But explanations could wait.

Clara snatched up the vial of blood and fled from the room. She ran straight into the room she was staying in and hastily threw a change of clothes into a case. She had to get out of here. If the SSR were lurking outside, so be it. At least in their custody she would be safely away from Dottie.

She had to get away and there was only one place now where she knew she would be safe: Peggy's.