SLEEPWALKING

CHAPTER SIX: THREATENING CAPABILITIES

THE girl was out like a light before Steve pushed through the double doors ahead of him- which made his job slightly easier and slightly harder- and within moments he had her laid out in his backseat while he slid into the drivers to start the engine.

Hitting the gas, he wasted no time in putting distance between them and the hospital, he could only assume that it would be swarmed with doctors and SHIELD agents alike trying to locate the missing girl.

He had no clue where he was going to be able to take them, where he could hide her, hell, he wasn't even sure he could protect her.

Not on his own at least.

Without giving it much thought, he picked up his phone and dialed one of the few numbers he had, the line rang a few times before a click came from the other end and a man cleared his throat.

"Sam?" he questioned glancing into his rearview mirror to check on the girl, "where are you?"

"Same place I was before Tony called you, what's up?" Steve shook his head- despite the fact Sam couldn't see it- "they have a new project, Tony's niece..." he trailed off glancing to the rearview mirror once more.

"Hold on. You mean to tell me Tony's got a niece?" Steve let out an exaggerated sigh, "he's got two, but that's beside the point. Nick cannot find her, no one can. I'm bringing her to you, okay?"

"Aye aye, cap, I'll be waiting on you." he replied the sound of the dial tone becoming apparent to Steve as Sam had hung up seconds prior.

At least he had Sam on his side.

After a half-hour or so of driving, Audie began to stir, not enough to wake up, but enough to let Steve know she was getting close to it.

Luckily for him, they were almost at their intended destination.

He'd been paying attention to the road behind him more than half of the time- trying his best to make sure they hadn't been followed- while following the set of instructions he'd written on his forearm before leaving the small building upon Nick's call.

Pulling into the garage ahead of him, he turned off the engine and waited for the garage door behind him to be pulled down so they were out of sight.

Within a few seconds, Sam had slammed the metal door shut and walked around the side of the car to the backseat window to peek in at the girl, "I thought she'd be younger." he stated looking up from the girl to where Steve now stood.

"She's old enough to make her own choices, Tony doesn't seem to think that though." he replied popping open the door to pull Audie from where she laid across the seat, Sam frowned at the sight of her.

Not because he didn't like her- he didn't even know her- but because she looked completely normal.

Nothing like any of the projects he'd seen before.

"So- um... what exactly did they do with her?" he questioned, Steve simply shrugged scooting her up in his arms for a better grip, "all I know is that she survived an explosion that should've killed her."

The man softly nodded his head watching as the blonde super soldier toted the girl down the hall and into another room, he wondered what it was they'd done to the girl.

What they'd turned her into.

But as Steve left the room and returned to the main part of the garage he found the question slipping from his mind and his attention returning to their current predicament.

They were on the run with two possible projects that SHIELD would stop at nothing to get their hands on.

"I don't know, but we have to find somewhere else to stay, it's not safe here." 

"Well, then where do we take her? I don't know about you but this is the only abandoned place I could find." 

Steve shook his head, "I don't know, I've got an apartment but I'm pretty sure that's one of the first places they would look." 

"I don't know either..."

"I say we just get a car and drive, we've got enough cash between the two of us that we won't have to use a card for a while." 

"No, no." Steve began, "we can hunker down here for a few days, ride it out until the searching loosens up a bit and then we can drive out of here." 

Sam let a sigh fall from his lips, "if that's what you think will work." 

"I'm still not sure how we're going to get out of this unscathed. We've got a super-soldier with anger issues, a blacked-out teenager, an ignorant super-soldier, and not to mention, Nick Fury and Ms. Romanass probably already on their way to arrest us because you didn't ditch your phone." he exclaimed throwing his hands up into the air.

Steve held out a hand in the man's direction, "it's fine, we just have to wait it out for a bit." 

Raising an eyebrow, Sam brushed past the man and into the room behind Steve where they'd clamped Bucky down on a car lift. He could only hope that the super soldier was unable to break free from it.

"Where'd you go?" the brunette questioned his tired eyes flicking up to meet those of his former friends, "I went to get another runaway." he paused watching as Bucky's eyes widened and he looked up at Steve.

"She's not like you though."

The man visibly calmed and he glanced to where his arm had been pinned, if he could break free he would.

But he wouldn't be able to, not without tearing his arm in two.

"Then why is she here?"

Steve and Sam exchanged a look, they couldn't answer what they didn't know. So how were they supposed to learn more about her?

At the sound of a small creak, all three of them turned their heads to check the doorway. There, stood Audie.

She watched them with half-lidded eyes and she looked somewhat childish walking around in a pair of combat-style boots and a hospital gown.

Steve held back a laugh, one he shouldn't have even had the urge to hide.

It would've been highly inappropriate for him to laugh at a time like this.

"What's going on?" she questioned, she looked even smaller than before as she stood in the doorway- her hospital gown flicking about in the small breeze that had passed through a broken window. Steve glanced in Bucky's direction before returning his gaze to Audie.

"We're talking about what to do with you."

The girl visibly tensed and he felt obligated to offer her a reassuring smile, "we're not going to hurt you." he began.

"Who's he?" Audie questioned softly pointing in the direction of the super-soldier next to Steve, "that's Buck, the Winter Soldier." He watched as she took a small step back, just as Bucky looked up at her too.

She was small, not as small as girls were back in his day, but she was something to look at, he felt something begin to itch deep inside his head, something that made him want to claw his brains out. Something he couldn't stop.

Sam glanced down at his watch before looking up at Steve, "think it's time we get some dinner, smash your phone before I get back." 

And with that, Sam climbed into the same car Steve had driven into the garage and left.

Audie found herself awkwardly staring at the brunette super-soldier, and she wasn't the least bit surprised to find him staring back at her, it was uncomfortable, to say the least, but there was something that was keeping her from looking away.

Maybe it was the steely look of his eyes, or maybe it was the way his hair was longer than most men nowadays let it get, it draped over his face like a short set of curtains, just barely covering his eyes when he moved his head a certain way.

"So what did they do to her?" Bucky questioned, Steve sighed, "we're still not sure, all they said was that she survived an explosion that should've killed her, an explosion that you and I would've survived."

Bucky frowned, "she can't be a super-soldier." he looked up at his friend from his spot on the cold garage floor, "they stopped producing serum for the studies back in the nineties, at least in Russia."

"They've expanded since you went on ice Buck, they're everywhere now, they've got bases everywhere too." 

The man leaned his head back and gently shook it to remove the hair from his eyes before resettling them on Audie, "so then why are we worrying about it? She can't be a super soldier, and she's obviously not one." 

Steve cocked his head in his friend's direction, "we're worried about it because they're going to hear about SHIELD losing a project, and when they do, they're going to want to find it before them."

He cast Audie a quick look, "they'll want her for themselves." 

"Why does everyone want me so badly? What's so special about me?"

The blonde offered her a small upturn of his lips, "we're still trying to work that part out."

She crossed her arms over her chest and glanced down at her feet before looking back at Steve, "I think I'm gonna go to bed."

He frowned, "what about dinner? Surely you've gotta be starving?"

She shook her head, "I'll eat it in the morning."

Steve didn't bother trying to convince her to wait for Sam to get back, but instead leaned against the wall behind him, "there's nowhere for you to sleep unless you wanna sleep in a chair like Sam and I."

Audie stopped walking and her shoulders sagged, "you'll have to wait till Sam gets back, then you can sleep in the car."

So, Audie returned to the room in which the two men sat and seated herself on the floor. While she waited for Sam's return, Bucky found himself staring at her from behind his curtain of hair, her skin was like tanned porcelain, untouched and glass-like, and then he got to her face and all of that disappeared.

She bore marks that made her as human as the next, a bruise on her cheek, stitches along her eyebrow, and a cut running over her eyelid that ran down her cheek and stopped just across from the end of her nose from where it seemed glass had almost blinded her. 

She was lucky.

He watched as she shifted and her hair fell forward- covering the cut- he let his eyes run across her face a final time before he lifted his head and shifted the hair out of his eyes again. A loud groaning came from the main room of the garage and they listened as the door was lifted and then the car slipped inside moments later.

None of them made a show of moving until the garage door slammed closed and Sam walked into the room. He frowned at the sight of them all sitting "y'all are that sad without me around?

Steve pursed his lips and shifted his attention to Audie as she stood and made her way out to where the car was parked, he wondered what they had done to her, it was beginning to bother him, not knowing and all.

"She not eating dinner?" Sam questioned as he cast a glance over his shoulder, Steve shook his head, "she claims she's not hungry."

Sam rolled his eyes, "sounds like b.s."

"Well, we can't exactly force her to eat, that defeats the entire purpose of her coming with us of her own free will."

SLEEPWALKING

CHAPTER SIX: THREATENING CAPABILITIES