salvation ; 𝐛. 𝐛𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐞𝐬 , 𝟐

007. a bad rom-com

WE'D BEEN IN the car for less than fifteen minutes before the silence began to pound in my ears. The space between the two of us was so dead that I was afraid my breathing would be considered disruptive in the charged air. "So, um..." I tried to start a conversation, but each time I backed out, unsure of where to even begin. I was in my car, sitting in the passenger seat with a stranger who claimed to know Steve and Sam. It was so ridiculous that I tried not to laugh.

"You know, I thought you'd be a little more talkative," Cara offered up a conversation, though her eyes never left the road. "But I suppose that's why you and Bucky hooked up, huh? You're both quiet."

I blushed as I heard the loosely thrown term "hooked up." We most definitely had not done that, but of course, it wasn't like I'd never thought about it. When things were different, though. When I was under the false impression that everything would stay the same, that no one would find us there. What a fool I'd been, acting like a lovesick teenager with no troubles in the world. What an absolute fool.

"I'm not usually this quiet," I defended myself to the stranger that was slowly becoming something like an acquaintance. "I'm just...thinking."

Cara scrunched her nose up in disgust. "Sounds boring."

"Actually, I don't think I quite understand everything that you told me," I told the driver, who turned out to be just three years younger than me.

"Ask me anything," she shrugged, "I guess we'll have to get to know each other sometime."

I swallowed before inquiring, "So you...you were an Avenger?"

Shrugging again, Cara made a lane change before answering, "I mean, I never really liked being a part of that group, but I guess you could say so."

"Do you have, like, superpowers or something?" The girl looked perfectly normal, but I still peered at her as if she would start glowing if I stared long and hard enough.

She snorted. "No, I'm not that lucky. I'm just wicked with a gun."

"Are you like...what's her name...oh! Are you like Black Widow, then?"

Cara lifted her eyebrows and smiled, as if reflecting on a fond memory. "Oh, she hated me. For the first little bit, at least. I'd tried my hand at pick-pocketing when I first moved out on my own, and she happened to be the lucky winner. Of course, she never lets anyone get away with anything, so she beat me into shape before allowing herself to see that we had a similar set of skills."

I couldn't imagine being hated so strongly by an Avenger, but I supposed that even the Earth's Mightiest Heroes had their misgivings about other people. "Okay. And you said you rescued Bucky before?"

"Uh-huh. He's got a penchant for getting captured, don't you think?" This was the only time she took her eyes off the road in front of her to glance at me with a teasing glint in the brown depths, but she frowned quickly as she saw the deep glare I was giving her. "Okay," she chuckled nervously, "you're not going to think those jokes are funny yet, are you?"

Scowling, I retorted, "Those jokes are never gonna be funny, Cara."

"Sheesh." Reaching out for one of the knobs in the car, she turned on the radio. "It's like a bad rom-com in here."

A few minutes went by in silence again before Cara complained, "Jesus, how far away is this damn hotel? I thought you said it was close by!"

"Close to the headquarters, yeah, but it's not right by the bar!"

We finally spotted the hotel in their sights and Cara pulled into the parking lot. "Okay, you've gotta make this quick, we don't have much time until your agent comes back to the hotel."