Outlaws

Chapter Five

James sits beside me, his eyes buried in the contents of a notebook he is scribbling into. I watch him nervously in my peripheral vision, trying to gauge the state of mind he is in. Without moving my head I scan around the room to find nobody else in here but James and myself. Glancing back over at him I take in his mostly relaxed posture, he is resting the notebook on his knees that balance on a chair in front of him. He no longer seems to radiate cold hearted hate, but in the past few hours he has shown himself to be prone to unpredictable shifts in mood. My throat feels a little hoarse as I try to swallow quietly, still not ready to test his mood.

Entranced in his own thoughts he doesn't realise that I am awake and though I want to keep it that way I slowly move my head to look at him properly. He doesn't  notice the way I am shifting myself to the furthest side of the bed, further away from him. I study him, taking note that his posture is slumped and his face shows traces of remorse, his eyes are too fixated on the notebook in front of him to notice her movements; I almost don't want to risk taking his focus away. I sit in still silence, watching him, assessing him, he doesn't seem like a threat to me right now, but I know nothing about him and he has just tried to attack me after everything that happened at the cafe. I don't feel as though I am exactly unsafe and I know I could handle herself if I need to, but the events of last night have made me hesitant towards him. I know I can't play dead forever though, so with a silent breath I steel myself and brace for what might happen as I finally get his attention.

"Hello James," I test quietly as Barnes instantly looks up from his notebook over to me, "are you alright?"

He can tell the question is more phrased around the concept of if he going to attack me again or not. Though not at all unjustified of me to test I can see the implications behind my words sting him.

"I am..." he clears his throat, "how is your arm?"

"Better I think." I rotates her shoulder around and sure enough the arm moves smoother than I was expecting it to, smoother than it has moved in years, whatever is in the magic vial of Stark's needs to be made available on the market.

The air between us is tense and awkward, neither myself or Barnes quite ready to talk about what has happened. Neither of us really even seeming to know what to say. I try to get a read on Barnes, in his comfortable habitat he is more composed, no longer leaking traces of his thoughts that allow me to plan my words. I have a barrage of questions to fire at him but unsure of how I can go about asking them without triggering a reaction from him like the one from last night.

"Steve showed me your file-"

"Can you please explain what happened last night?" Both of us speak at the same time.

Silence fills the air as Barnes leans back in his chair, knowing he would have to explain what had happened to her and why he acted how he did. I remind myself that part of him had to think I had nothing to do with it, he had stopped and taken her to help when he could have easily left her in the gutter to take the blame for the the whole event that transpired. Instead he stopped undoubtedly anticipating some sort of backlash. It is a shred of optimism that there might still be enough trust in me that we can rebuild what little trust we have found in each other.

"I don't know where to start Ayla." He admits to me sadly.

"How about from the beginning. Who are you, what is Hydra, when were you going to tell me you are friends with the damn Avengers, where am I, why was a waitress trying to assassinate you?"

There is a deafening silence in the room as he processes my questions and decides on how to answer each of them.

"My name is James Buchanan Barnes but I have been known by many names including the Winter Soldier," his words peak my interest, my friend Mackenzie in the intelligence branch often talked about the myth of the Winter Solider which included less than savoury reports, "which is where Hydra comes in, they had captured me after I fell from a train during the war back in 1945 and that in itself is a long story, Steve, Captain America, and I were friends back then and are still friends now, again long story. You are in the hospital wing at the Avengers compound and as for why a waitress was trying to kill me, my best guess is that Hydra have found me again and are after me."