"Philophobia (n.) The fear of falling in love or developing an emotional attachment."
"Well I'm not sure whether to celebrate or complain, but either way I'm having a drink." Sam said reaching into the liquor cabinet.
"It's 7:00 in the morning," Wanda said sitting on a chair next to the kitchen island.
"So?" Sam said setting down a glass and a bottle of scotch on the counter, "It's happy hour somewhere."
"Amen, brother," Scott chimed in, leaning against the counter.
"Thought you'd seen the last of me?" Bucky said sitting at the table next to Steve, his broad arms crossed over his chest.
Sam plastered on a fake smile and gestured openly with his hands, "One can only dream."
"You're both too cute, really." Natasha said sitting at the table on the opposite side of Steve.
Erin had spent most of the morning in the piano room playing her new gift. Around 6 o'clock, she decided to wake everyone up and tell them the news. Steve and Bucky didn't come out of the lab until 6:30.
Erin took a sip of coffee from her mug. Over the rim of her cup she kept an eye on the Winter Soldier, examining his body language and what kind of mannerisms he had.
He mostly kept quiet, but stayed close to Steve's side. After his banter with Sam he returned his gaze to the table, as if studying its design. Erin looked for any signs of fidgeting like bobbing his knee up and down, playing with his fingers, or casting nervous glances around the room, but he was still as lion, waiting for his prey. For a moment his eyes flashed up and over to Erin. She quickly looked away feeling her cheeks turn slightly hot, but she could still feel his gaze on her for a few moments.
"So what now?" Bucky asked, finally taking his eyes off of Erin. "What's our strategy?"
"For now, we wait," Steve, said.
"What exactly did Tony ask you when he reached out to you last week?" Sam asked.
"Wait, you've been in contact with Tony?" Natasha asked surprised, "Does he know where we are?"
Steve turned to look at her, "Yes, I've spoken with Tony, but he doesn't know our current location."
"And does he know you've woken him up?" Natasha asked nodding towards Bucky.
Steve took a breath, "No."
"Damn it." Erin heard Natasha mutter under her breath.
"He does know that we're willing to help fight, which is why we need to train." Steve turned to Erin, "Erin, how long until Bucky's arm can function normally?"
Erin met Bucky's eyes. He cocked his head slightly to one side, like he was curious as well. "It'll take a few more tests and repairs. I'll need some time with James's arm-"
"My name is Bucky!" He suddenly snapped.
The room went quiet. Steve closed his eyes and dropped his head in disappointment.
Erin was surprised that the venom in his voice made her jump back slightly. She normally would have replied with a rebuttal that matched his anger, but something about the way he spoke made her shrink into herself. It was a type of anger she wasn't prepared for, "I-I'm sorry." She said quietly.
The anger went out of Bucky's eyes when he realized how harshly he had spoken to her. He looked around the room at the stunned faces. He shoved his chair back from the table and bolted out of the kitchen.
Erin didn't watch him go.
The awkward silence in the room was still thick after Bucky disappeared down the hall.
"Well that was..." Scott coughed awkwardly, "Something."
Erin looked up to see them all looking at her like a puppy that had just been kicked. This sent more resentment and anger through her. She had to get out of here.
"Erin-" Steve tried to say as she turned to walk away.
"Don't." She cut him off, spinning around. "I didn't get much sleep last night," She looked around the room, "I'm going to bed." She didn't look at anyone on her way out of the kitchen.
"Erin!" Steve yelled after her down the hall.
"I don't want to hear it." She said not looking back at him.
"Hey," Steve said grabbing her shoulder and forcing her to look at him. Damn his long legs. "I'm sorry about Bucky. It's just going to take him some time to get back into the team-"
Erin scoffed, "Team? Is that what you all are, a bunch of runaway Avengers?"
"Yes, we are a team," Steve said, "That includes you now too in case you forgot."
Erin laughed again, "Me? I'm not an Avenger or a hero. I'm not even sure if I want to be one."
"I'm not asking you to." Steve towered over her crossing his arms over his massive chest, "All I'm asking is that you act like you belong to this team-"
"You don't get it do you? What happened to your other team, huh? You ripped each other apart! What makes you think they are not one argument away from doing the same thing?" She said pointing back to the kitchen.
"This is different than the Accords-"
"Please, I think the Avengers were in disagreement long before the Accords," Erin said pouring anger into her words. "It was just the event that tipped the scale." She knew she was taking her frustration out on Steve, but for the moment she didn't care.
"At least I tried to pick up the pieces. You think when we were trying to find information about you that I didn't notice you disappeared shortly after your mom died? That was your tipping point. You just dropped your entire life without even a second thought. You didn't even think about how you could have used what you know to help other people."
More rage coursed through Erin. She hadn't talked about her mom since she died and she sure as hell didn't have a desire to talk about her with Steve. "I was barely 21-"
"And I was barely 18!" Steve yelled. Erin didn't say anything, "Yeah I know what it feels like to be an orphan. Just because you lost everything doesn't give you the right to disappear."
"Oh and who was going to help me? You think Nick Fury gave a damn about me after my father's division fell? What would you have had me do Steve? Sign up for some crazy experiment and get myself trapped in the ice for 70 years like you?" It was a low blow, but Erin was hoping it would strike home and end the conversation.
Steve stared hard at her. "At least I made a difference instead of acting like what I do didn't effect anyone else."
"So you mean to tell me that when you got injected with magic serum all those years ago you felt like you didn't have anything to prove?"
Steve let out a frustrated sigh and looked away from her for a moment, "Look," He said calming his voice, "We're on the same side here."
For some reason the calm in his voice only fueled her anger further. "There are no sides, Steve that's the thing you can't get into that thick head of yours. The line between good and bad doesn't exist anymore. There's only destruction and survival. How you achieve either is up to you."
The expression on Steve's face was somewhere between sorrow and... pity. Pity was something Erin never wanted. "That makes me sad that you think that."
"It's not what I think," She spat back, "It's what I know." Erin turned on her heals and walked away from Steve. This time he didn't try and stop her.
****
"I'm truly sorry for you loss, Elizabeth," The Secretary of Defense said as he stood at the door of their house. Elizabeth was her mother's name, but Erin's father, Matthew, had always called her Liz.
"Thank you, Mr. Secretary," Erin's mother said without emotion. After hours of guests and a jam-packed funeral for her father and James, Erin was unsure if she ever wanted to see a black dress ever again.
The Secretary squeezed her shoulder before walking out the door.
"That's the last of them," Erin's mother said closing the door behind her.
"Is Cara gone too?" Cara Smith was in charge their family affairs like property and money management. Erin didn't know exactly what that entailed, but Cara had always been a constant figure and solid presence in her life. She was essentially part of the family.
"Yes, I've given her the rest of the day off." Her mother told her.
Erin just nodded her head numbly sitting down on the couch rubbing her own shoulders protectively.
Her mother sat down beside her but didn't touch Erin. Her mother had never been a physically affectionate person. Her father was the opposite in that way. He was the warmth to her mother's coldness and together they balanced each other out perfectly. Or at least they had.
Now sitting next to her mother, all Erin could feel was the cold, "What do we do now?" Erin asked quietly, hoping her mother would have a cure for the numbness Erin felt in every inch of her body.
"We move on," Elizabeth said a little too bluntly, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
The words did nothing to help cloak Erin's pain. "How?" Her voice was so small, she wasn't even sure it was her own.
"We hold our chins high and pick up the pieces." Elizabeth said. Her mother looked down for a moment, then straightened herself and looked Erin dead in the eye. Erin's stomach lurched, her mother only had this look when she was about to yell at James or tell Erin she needed to get a 99% on her test next time instead of a 96%. "There is something I want to ask you." Her mother said.
"What is it?" Erin shifted nervously on the sofa.
"I've talked with Mr. Stark, and he needs more interns at his branch in London this summer. He thinks you would be the perfect fit. I thought since you were going to study abroad at Oxford next semester anyways this would be a good opportunity to get settled and used to the country."
Erin wasn't sure what to say. Her mother wanted to ship her across the sea? Now? At a time like this? Resentment started to rise in her. Was her mother really this heartless? "I... I don't know mom. We... we just lost a huge part of our family, are you sure putting distance between us is going to help?"
"I have... some things I need to take care of here. There are contacts I have to go see, I won't be around much anyways. I don't want you to feel like I'm leaving you all alone in an empty house all summer."
She wasn't sure what her mother meant by "contacts" but she didn't like the sound of it. Her mother had been acting strange the past few days. She wasn't acting in the way a woman who just lost her husband and eldest son should be. It slightly unsettled Erin that her mother hadn't even cried at the funeral or when they were both first told what had truly happened to S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters. She had always been cold, but now her whole persona felt like an ice glacier and it terrified Erin to the core. She suddenly liked the prospect of spending the summer away from her mother and she felt a pain of guilt for feeling that way. "Will you be okay without me?"
Her mother smiled, "Yes, I'll be fine. Staying busy keeps my mind off of things and I want you to be safe and away from all of this."
Erin hesitated, but her selfishness won in the end. "Okay. I'll go." Erin said.
And then the strangest thing happened. Her mother hugged her. For a moment as Erin clung to her. She allowed herself to believe her mother was telling the truth.
*****
Erin bolted from her sleep. It was still dark outside her window, but the three lamps in her room started to flicker.
She put her head in her hands trying to calm her breathing. "London," She said to herself, "Le Harve. Bruxelles. Berlin. Prague. Bratislava. Budapest. Bucharest." She let out a shaky breath, "Birnin Zana." She repeated the nine cities in her head, adding the capital city of Wakanda for the first time. It was a reminder to herself of where she was and how she got there. Sometimes the nightmares were so bad, she had to repeat the cities several times before she could remember. She also reminded herself that she was with Steve Rogers and his team of Avengers. She was in a safe house in Wakanda. Her family was gone. S.H.I.E.L.D. was destroyed.
She lifted her head from her hands to see the lights had stopped flickering and her room was dark again. She took a few more breaths to make sure she was in check then looked at the clock next to her bed. It was 3:04 in the morning.
A sound came from the hallway outside of Erin's room. Her head jerked towards the door. Someone was outside.
By light of the moon, she slowly removed the covers off of her and got out of bed. Her bare feet felt wobbly on the soft carpet, but she managed to make her way towards the door. She grabbed the gun that sat on her nightstand and checked for ammo. She had a full round. She turned the nob slowly. As soon as the door opened she aimed her weapon.
Her eyes landed on a half asleep, half shocked face.
"Bucky?" She whispered bringing her weapon down.
Bucky's eyes shot open when he saw the gun and he put his hands up, "Whoa there."
"What are you doing here?" She put the gun down but not away, "It's 3 in the morning." She whispered so she wouldn't wake Wanda in the next room.
"I..." Bucky seemed to lose his words. He put his hands down and stood up.
Erin narrowed her eyes at him, "Is something the matter with your arm?"
"Umm, no I just... I walk the halls some nights... when I can't sleep. Or I used to... before." He cleared his throat awkwardly, "It clears my head."
"But you were asleep. That spot looked particularly comfy?" She questioned. "I could have killed you!"
Bucky let out a chuckle, like he was amused at the thought. "Takes a lot more than that tiny thing to put me down."
"I think you underestimate me." She said sticking the gun in the back of the waist band of her pajama pants and crossed her arms over her chest.
"You're probably right," Bucky let out a soft chuckle and looked down at the floor. "Listen, Erin I'm.... I'm sorry about today," He looked up, "I just... I haven't hear my name for a while and..."
"I get it," Erin said. She looked to the floor then back at Bucky. "I'm... my brother, his name was James."
Bucky let out a breath and closed his eyes. "Now I really feel like an asshole," Bucky rubbed the back of his neck. "I never said thank you either, for my arm. I don't know how you did it but..." He looked his metal arm up and down like he was still trying to decide if it was real or not.
"Don't thank me yet, we have a long way to go before it feels normal again, but we'll get there... in the morning," Erin hinted.
"Right, in the morning." Bucky repeated backing away from her door, "I'll let you sleep. And put that thing away," He gestured to the gun hidden in the waistband of her pants, "Before you really hurt someone."
Erin chuckled softly, "Goodnight," She said.
He gave her a short nod then turned his back. He didn't give her a second glance as he hurried around the corner of her hallway.
"Your soulmate is not someone who comes into your life peacefully. It is who comes to make you question things, who changes your reality, somebody that's a before and after in your life. It is not the human being everyone idealized but an ordinary person who manages to revolutionize your world in one second."
-Unknown