The Soldier of Summer: Book 1

Chapter 14

                         Bucky's P.O.V
Auriana didn't show me the picture she had deleted off the phone, but I could tell it rattled her a bit.
When she put her gloves back on in the attic with no need to, I knew. She was just as ashamed as I was. She didn't want to be the way that she made to be. I knew that she didn't want to double cross us, or was going to leave us alone. She was going to get this team to New York.

  
   Steve arrived later that day around 2:00. We met him outside the house because the owners hadn't come home yet. He came driving down the road in some run down Chevrolet truck. He parked along the road across the street and slammed the door when he got out.
   "Hey punk," I greeted him.
    "Hey jerk," he gave me a hug. He didn't know what to do about greeting Auriana, so he just gave her a curt nod.
   "Auriana."
   "Captain," she gave him a nod as well. She adjusted her gloves and walked back inside the house.
   "How's she doing?" Steve asked. I looked back at the open door.
   "I don't know. One of the owners caught us last night and took a photo."
   "Did you delete it?"
   "Yeah she did, but she seemed really shaken up after it. I think it was because she saw her arm the way everyone else sees it, ya know? I think she feels the way I did when I first came out of HYDRA. She feels it's a reminder of all the things she's done."
   "Buck," Steve started. "There's something I need to tell you about this girl." He looked around, scanning the street for cars, and windows for peepers.
   "Her parents are alive. Her mother is trying to rescue her, and her father doesn't exactly know that he's her father."
   He put his hand on my shoulder, deadly serious.
   "But she doesn't know about this."
   I again looked back towards the house that Auriana had disappeared into.
   "Okay what does this have to do with us? We can find her parents when we get her to New York."
   "Bucky, we've already found her parents."
   I widened my eyes. "Who are they?"
   Steve looked down preparing himself for a reaction from me. This was getting really confusing.
   "Her mother is Natasha."
   "Oh, wow! That actually makes a lot of sense." I rubbed by jaw. She did have Natasha's figure, and her brains. And Natasha was acting weird. She was quieter than usual.
   "Well who's her dad?"
   Steve grimaced. "That's the part I'm nervous about."
   "Oh my god she's yours!"
   "What? No, Buck."
   "Then why are you nervous, just tell me!"
   "She's yours!" He blurted. He gave me those furrowed eyebrows so that I knew he wasn't joking.
   I froze. Steve patted my shoulder and gave me a concerned look.
   "Buck I know this is a lot to take in, but Auriana can't know about this."
   "How long have you known?" I asked breathily. He looked down.
   "That was our mission. You were told that we had to rescue a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent from a HYDRA base, but Natasha and I were given the real details. This was a mission to rescue your child."
   "So Natasha knows? And I can't tell Auriana?"
   "Yes."
   Steve watched me as I stood silent. I stood there looking at the ground trying to digest this. I could have been standing there for hours if Steve hadn't heard a car coming up the road. It was the owners' car.
   Steve had to practically drag me inside the house and up the stairs. He asked me where we were hidden and I pointed up to indicate the attic. I could barely move let alone talk.
   "Auriana! The owners are home!" Steve screamed. She poked her head into view above us, and waved him up.
   "Buck, you gotta work with me here. Remember, no one knows."
   That snapped me out of it. I scrambled up the ladder as the garage door opened, Steve followed suit.  Steve pulled up the ladder and closed the hatch before the children got upstairs.
   Auriana held a finger to her mouth. I couldn't speak even if I wanted to. That girl is my daughter. My child. That girl with the metal arm is my daughter.
   But she's also Natasha's daughter. How? I mean, I think I would remember hooking up with her, even in my HYDRA days. I remember almost everything from HYDRA now.
   I remember when I shot her, how could I not remember hooking up with her? And when did she have time to have the baby? And why would HYDRA even have it? The Black Widow can defend her baby or die trying. Something wasn't adding up.
   Jessie started playing some really loud song and her brother started playing video games, but we still couldn't talk because Jessie might hear, and now she had her parents to get to her.
Auriana stayed across the room, looking out of the small window at the front of the attic. Steve and I stood in the middle of the room. I was staring at the ground while Steve stared at me, trying to comfort me with his eyes.
It wasn't working.
We stayed that way for a long time, until that night, and into the morning. We didn't need to go downstairs, because we had the granola bars that Auriana had gotten from the pantry.
Natasha got here in the morning probably around six or seven. But we didn't even know it until she knocked on the attic hatch. We all froze because we didn't know it was her.
"It's me," she said in a sing song voice. I don't know how she got in, because the owners hadn't left for school yet. Steve opened it and pulled her up. It seemed that her voice did not emulate her mood. She was obviously tired and annoyed.
"What happened?" Steve asked. Natasha smiled and shook her head.
"Nothing," she said. "When's Wilson supposed to get here?"
As if on cue, all of our phones lit up with a message from Sam.
I'm close, but you guys have to be ready I'm in a ton of trouble. I'll be there in 5, get ready to jump in.
"How are we going to get past the owners?" Steve asked.
"How'd you get past them before?" Auriana chimes in. Natasha opened the hatch and waved us down. She led us into the bathroom, locked the door, and pointed towards the window.
"I don't know Nat," Steve said, grimacing. "That's a small window and Bucky and I are pretty big." The window was probably big enough to fit a small woman or a child, but definitely not me or Steve.
"We'll just have to wait and head out a window," I said. That's the first thing I'd said since yesterday.
"Well you guys better get out fast, Sam's gonna be here in 3 minutes," Auriana said, glancing at her phone for the time.
Suddenly, a door opened. We all waited in terror as someone walked down towards the bathroom. They tried to open it, but they found it locked.
"Okay dude, you gotta get out soon, I woke up late," came Jessie's voice from the other side of the door.
Natasha quickly opened the window and shoved Auriana through it.
"Hey!" She yelled.
When she was through, Natasha turned to me and Steve.
"Nat, I told Bucky what was up. He knows now," Steve told her. She nodded, and I breathed out a shaky breath.
"How are you doing?" She asked me.
"It's just a lot. We'll talk about it when we get back to New York." I didn't look at her.
"Dude!" Jessie yelled through the door.
"What?" Came her brother's voice from his side of the hallway.
"Why is the door locked?"
Natasha jumped through the window. She was down on the lawn when the door jiggled again.
"DAD! THE BATHROOM DOOR IS LOCKED!"
"Buck, we don't have a choice, get through the window."
I rolled my eyes. I went legs first and it was good until I got to my ribs. My pecs were too big, and it was harder when I started laughing about how my pecs were too big.
"Bucky go!" Steve started trying to push me through as Jessie's dad came up to check the door.
Eventually I squeezed through and Steve came along with me. As Steve struggled to get through, I heard the sound of screeching tires, and I don't know why, but I knew it was Sam. HYDRA was chasing him, and soon, they would be chasing all of us. If Steve got through.
Steve had gotten out, but was now trying to pull his shield out. But it was longer than the window was. The door inside was trying to be opened and the cars outside were getting closer.
"Steve just pull it through! These people will never know we were here in a sec," I yelled.
At that point, he just jerked it out, leaving a giant hole on the right side of the window. He almost tumbled off the roof with the momentum, but I caught his shield, and he was holding on to the other end.
I lowered him down just as a van with Sam in the drivers seat came hurtling down the road. He screeched to a stop in front of the house.
"Get in quick!" He screamed.
I jumped down from the roof and sprinted towards the van with Steve. Auriana and Nat had gotten in, and I grabbed Auriana's metal arm with mine just as Sam pressed the gas again.
She pulled me in and she and Nat closed the door. Steve, Nat, and I all sat down on the floor, and Auriana was moving to sit down as well, but before she could, the van swerved to the left and she jerked and hit the side of the van.
"Ow."
She was obviously not hurt.
The door to the was already dented with a couple bullets, but it was quickly filling up with more. It was only a matter of time until one of the bullets broke through. I stood up.
"I'll go slow them down."
"Bucky no!" Steve said. "You'll be killed, or worse, taken."
"I don't care, I've had my fair share of high speed chases. I can handle myself."
I opened the door and got ready to jump out, but Sam opened a little door towards the front to talk to us.
"Are you crazy? You kill us all!"
I yelled back, "Don't worry pigeon! I got this!"
I jumped onto the sleek black car behind us as a bullet sailed past my head. I punched my metal arm through the roof of the car and grabbed the steering wheel.
I turned them to the side of the road. I jumped down and knocked out the guy in the drivers seat and grabbed the gun in his hand, shooting the man in the passenger seat. There was no one in the back, so I got in and drove back on the road towards the van and gunshots.
It took all the speed in this car and a couple minutes to catch up to them. But when I did, I saw Auriana on top of a car. She had taken off her jacket, exposing her arms. She was hunched over the drivers seat, dodging bullets. She grabbed the top of the car and smashed the window with her feet. Glass exploded everywhere and hit my car.
I suddenly felt very worried for her, that she could be killed. I cursed the car for not going any faster. She could fall off the car.
Finally I caught up to the car she was in. She and the driver were caught in a death grip, her metal hand on his throat, and his gun at her head.
Well I pulled out my own gun and shot the man myself. She saw me and climbed over him to jump out of the car over to mine.
"What are you doing?" I yelled at her.
   "I'm helping you! You were taking too long," she yelled, her hair flying in her face because of  the open window.
   "Go back to the van!"
   "No! I'm helping you!"
   "Oh no you're not!"
   She didn't argue anymore, but jumped out of the window and into the next one. Glass flew into the car, and it cut my face. I could see Steve and Natasha watching from the van, Natasha watching Auriana intently, ready to jump and help if she needed to.
   A couple gun shots rang out again, followed by Auriana yelping in pain. That was when I had enough.
   By now we were on a ramp to the highway. I ripped off the steering wheel and shoved it on the gas pedal. I climbed over and jumped out of the car and onto the other one.
   "Steve shoot the man!"I screamed.
   "I can't I might hit Auri!" He shouted. That's when Natasha shoved him back and pulled out a pistol. With careful aim, a gun went off and the car slowed down.
   "Sam pull over!" Steve yelled behind him.
   I was on top of the car when it finally slowed to a stop, and I guess Auriana took the wheel because it was pulling over as well.
   Steve, Natasha, and Sam ran over to us as I climbed down. I opened the drivers door, practically pulling it off the hinges to get to Auriana.
   She was clutching her flesh arm with her metal one, trying to stop the blood flow. She had a few cuts on her face that were bleeding pretty badly, probably from the glass, but that's probably not why she was in pain.
   "What happened? Are you okay?" I asked, panicked.
   She nodded. "Yeah, I'm okay. It's nothing really."
   "No it's not. You were shot, weren't you?" Steve asked.
   She nodded again. This time, she took her metal arm off of her flesh one to reveal a bullet lodged in her skin. It was the same place that she had cut to remove the tracker back in the cemetery where I buried her friend. It had pretty much scabbed over at that point, but now it had reopened, and with the bullet wound, she was losing blood fast.
   "Sam, tell me you have bandages in that van," I pleaded. He shook his head.
   "Sorry man. I have an undershirt I can give her, but that's pretty much all I have."
   "GIVE IT TO HER!" I snapped. Steve put a hand on my shoulder.
   "It's gonna be alright, Buck. Worst case scenario, we go to a drug store and we patch her up in the van."
   I looked back at her. Blood was pouring out of her arm, and her face had become plain and painless. She was trying to push back the pain, but she was losing consciousness, because I could see her eyes going distant. I turned her to face me.
   "Auri, look at me. I'm here. Natasha's here. You're going to be okay alright?" She nodded, looking at something behind my shoulder. "Look at me Auri!"
   Blood was pooling at my feet now.
   "Sam where's the damn shirt?"
   Natasha ducked under me and tied Sam's shirt around Auriana's arm. She held pressure to it and closed her eyes.
   "We have to go," she said. "People will start to stare."
   I carefully picked my daughter up bridal style and carried her to the van. I got in, followed by Natasha and Steve. Sam closed the door and ran back to the front. The car slowly started moving as I sat in the floor again with Auriana in my arms.
    I laid her head down in Natasha's lap and put pressure on her arm to try and slow the bleeding. She was barely awake now. Her eyes were open, but she wasn't moving. Nat stroked the poor girl's hair.
   "What are we gonna do, Steve?" I asked frantically.
   He sighed. "I don't know. But whatever we do, she isn't going to die. I promise you that."
   I silently vowed to never let HYDRA lay a hand on my daughter again. But in that moment, I had no idea how many times that I was going to break that promise.

Hey, sorry for the really long chapter. Hope you enjoyed it.