Unravel

Elizabeth didn’t know what she had expected would happen when she offered her guest room to Barnes. However she was not surprised to hardly ever come face to face with him.

It had been almost a week since she had been suspended, attacked and had made the deal with him. Not all that much had changed except for the fact that she couldn’t go to work. At least not yet.

She had talked to Ewan the day after her suspension and apparently the search for possible Hydra spies had been extended. The whole floor was in the process of being questioned and searched but Elizabeth was still not allowed back since she was the only one who had been reported (although she knew it was bullshit), which made her the main subject.

She was glad that she hadn’t been arrested. The anonymous claims hadn’t been enough to lock her away yet. However if they actually did find something on her, god knows what might happen.

Barnes didn’t seem all too concerned with anything, if he ever even was around at all. She had been right that he wouldn’t need a key; he came and left without a sound through the window in her kitchen. The only way she usually could tell whether or not he used the room she had offered him was when the door was shut and Vito was lying in front of it.

She trusted her dog and his knowledge of human nature. She didn’t view Barnes as a threat to herself anymore either. To others standing in his way? Absolutely. But as he had said before, he had no reason to hurt or kill her and she believed his reasoning, at least enough to let him stay in her apartment.
Sometimes, when she went on her morning runs with Vito, she would spot movement out of the corner of her eye and even though it was a long way to mutual trust, it seemed to her that they had truly formed an alliance.
She knew that he acted like a shadow whenever she went out but it would’ve been foolish of her to think that he would be around 24/7.
So since her apartment was most of the time just as silent as before, Elizabeth kept jumping at every creak of her floorboards, hoping that he had finally come out of that literal cave he had retreated into.

She guessed that he was a very private person after trying to stay out of everyone’s sight for decades but she believed that the way he was acting right now probably wasn’t going to help him in the future either, whatever future was awaiting him - she couldn’t really tell yet. This was a whole other set of problems she didn’t want to think about just now. However this would turn out later on, she had made her bed and now she needed to lie in it. At least Vito seemed to trust him.

Getting him to her apartment had been a whole other story. He wouldn’t go with her at the same time, saying that it would draw too much attention to both of them and she had to admit that he was right. But she couldn’t for the life of her get used to him just suddenly standing in the middle of her living room, which he had done yet again.

By now, it had been almost a full week since he had taken her deal and even though she had offered several times he still only took small portions of food from her fridge, and then sporadically. She guessed that he probably hadn’t eaten regularly while out and about in New York either but as long as he didn’t have some super-human feature that enabled him to survive on oxygen only, he probably needed to eat normally, too.

////

“I don’t know your name.” It came as a surprise while she was sitting in her living room and racking her brain on who of her colleagues could have been the one to frame her when it dawned on Elizabeth that she had never even introduced herself to him. She had assumed that he knew, after tracking her down. Maybe he actually did and just waited for her to tell him how to address her. Anyway it was, it took her off guard and all she could do for a moment was to gape at him as he was kneeling on the floor next to Vito. She hadn’t even heard him come in.

She slowly sat up, shocked that he had been the one to actually start somewhat of a conversation, until she remembered that she probably should reply.

“Right, um,” she started. “Elizabeth Moore. But… you can call me Liz if you want to?”
He only nodded in reply, as he usually did. Elizabeth had given up on trying to make him talk. He would within time and if there was something important he would, or he would write a note. It seemed he had taken a liking to leaving her notes instead of asking or just talking in general. But she could deal with that.

“Are you okay with me calling you Barnes?” She suddenly asked. With him not being around all too much she had never even thought about the way she addressed him. Maybe it was too impersonal and distanced. Maybe he wanted to be called by a name that didn’t have anything to do with the person he used to be and probably couldn’t remember.

“James,” he told her, not more and not less and kept petting Vito. Elizabeth nodded, thankful that he had even given her anything at all. Sometimes it seemed that he was more willing to talk, on other days someone might as well have sewn his mouth shut.

“Right, James,” she repeated and took the chance to look at him a little more closely. He seemed to favour the dark since it was easier to hide, even in her apartment. Daylight made him seem less intimidating which she was grateful for. Not that she was afraid of him but there was a feeling of comfort to it - seeing not only a vague dark shape but the face of an actual human being. Realizing that she had started to stare, she made herself snap out of it. “Sorry, it’s just… I know you probably don’t want to hear it but.. Most of my childhood you were just that amazing war hero to me and now you’re standing in my living room with hardly an inkling to who you are and it’s just..” He froze and the look on his face grew from stoic to distracted with a hint of distraught. Elizabeth smacked her hands to her face in realization. “Oh god, I’m so sorry.”

She shouldn’t have let herself ramble. It was something she always did and that she could hardly ever stop herself from. But this time it was different. This time she wasn’t trying to get herself out of a sticky situation. It was an uncomfortable and awkward situation but she hardly knew what he had gone through, what any knowledge of his life before Hydra would do to him and his mental state. The look on his face was exactly what she wanted to avoid. Holding her face in her hands, she grumbled out another apology, somehow hoping that he wouldn’t be bothered by it. But he started talking before Elizabeth could think of another apology.

“I know who I am.”

“What?” Elizabeth shot out before she could think of an appropriate answer. “You do? I thought-”

“You think you know an awful lot.” James shot her a look and Elizabeth gaped at him, slightly offended but too dumbfounded to say anything. “I’ve been away from Hydra for a while. It was bound to happen. I always did after a while.”

Elizabeth sat up slowly, trying to digest all of that new information. The amnesiac assassin she thought she had been harbouring turned out to be a not-so-much-amnesiac smart ass.

“So what? You know and still keep hiding from the people that want to help you? That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.”
When Steve Rogers had been found in the ice, the world had gone mad trying to pick apart every part of his life back in the day. Their friendship had been the most favourite part for a lot of people. If someone was willing to help him, it would’ve been that man. But instead he was sitting on her living room floor with her dog lying almost on his lap. A lot of things didn’t make sense to her anymore.

He slowly stood up and turned back towards her kitchen. Apparently that had been enough conversation for a day to him.

“I know who I am, who I was. I just don't know how all of that connects,” he told her, before turning to face her again. “But that doesn’t mean I’m still the same person used to be.”

He disappeared in the doorway to her kitchen and with a soft creak of her floorboards she knew he was gone yet again.