Possibility of Tomorrow - 10

 

Cont...

Darling was like a sponge. Soaking up all that they had to offer. 

Sam had her hooked on his eccentric music taste within two days. Wanda had found a cooking buddy that was getting ever closer to perfectly replicating her family recipes. Nat saw herself in the girl so much it hurt. Darling could choke someone out with her thighs pretty soon after training started. Steve took to teaching her strategy and planning. She read like there was no tomorrow and was surprisingly good at math. Bucky was the one she seemed to like most. They would sit and do things together in silence, and nine times out of ten, she could be found with him. 

With good food and healthy habits, Darling became a pretty young girl. Her dark hair floated at her shoulders, and her skin had tanned into a nice olive. Her body had also been able to grow, putting her just shorter than Nat. She loved music and literature and could give Sam a run for his money. 

She stayed with them six months before they had to split again, running from Ross. The night before they left, she slipped away. There was a note on the table when they woke up to leave. 

Thank you for saving me. I'm not sure when we'll meet again, but I know we will. There are some things I need to take care of. I need to find out who I am. I'll see you soon. -Darling.

"She pulled a Houdini." Sam laughed, reading the note. 

"The girl's a natural-born spy. Saw trouble and ran." Nat nodded. 

"Like we need to be doing if we want to stay ahead of Ross." Steve got down the business. They were

In Lisbon, Portugal, by the end of the day.

 They didn't meet Darling again till Tehran two months later. By 'meet', it was more like got rescued from a radical jihadist group shooting at them. Very picturesque. 

"Why in the world did we take this job?" Sam yelled into his comm unit, diving behind what was left of a pickup truck.

 "Fast cash Wilson. Fast cash." Bucky ground out from his soon-to-be useless nest.

 "Yeah, well, that cash ain't gonna do squat if we're dead!" Sam hollered back, returning fire from the general direction of the insurgents, "This was just a plain bad idea without Wanda." 

"He's got a point, Rogers. This was a steep job with Wanda, and you just went why in the world, not on us, and said yes. Would it have been so hard to have said no?" Nat pointed out barley diving behind cover before where she had been standing was riddled with bullets. 

"We have two people that eat more than the rest of you combined and then doubled. Not to mention the fact we need medical supplies. We can't afford not to take this job." Steve ground out bashing in two turbaned men. 

"May I remind you the main reason we need medical stuff is because you insist on doing stuff like this?" Sam snapped back.

 "You make it sound like it's all my fault!" Steve scoffed.

 "It is!" They all chorused back.

 "Well, this sounds like fun." Darling's voice joined them. 

"Darling? How- never mind, I'm not gonna ask." Bucky muttered.

 "Good choice. Everyone pullback. I'm gonna blow up the electricity and boiler in a sec." Darling ordered, clearing a path for them away from the building.

 "I'm kinda stuck if you didn't notice!" Sam pointed out from his spot pinned behind the overturned truck. 

"Of course you are," Darling muttered. There was an explosion, and then Darling was hauling Sam up by his collar, "Let's go bird brain!" 

They made a mad dash across the courtyard, and Sam got thrown into Bucky as they all took cover behind the same wall. The whole ground seemed to roll as an explosion rocked the villa they were in. 

"That was not a boiler." Nat looked at Darling with huge eyes. 

"That would be the electricity." Darling nodded sagely, "And the generator." There was a loud crash, and the lights died. "That would be the boiler." 

"Get off me!" Bucky hissed, shoving Sam off him, "The backup generator will kick in in thirty seconds, so what's the plan?" 

Darling frowned at him, "Ye of little faith. You really think I would have forgotten the backup generator?" On cue, the lights flickered on.

 "Yeah, you're doing really good so far." Bucky pointed at the lights. 

Darling held up her hand and ticked down the seconds. Three, two, one. A bang. The lights went back out. "See?" Darling's smug grin could be heard.

 "Brat." You could hear Bucky's grin too. 

That night they bought street vendor food and lounged on the floor of the cramped safe house of the week. 

"So, where you been?" Sam asked, finishing his kabob. 

"I went back to Istanbul. See if I could find anything left there. Found my old safe house. And a starting place." Darling nodded, munching on her gyro, "I'm fifteen and a half, and my birthday is sometime in March. I'm headed to Berlin next. I think there's more there." 

"Stay away from the Terrorism Taskforce Building. Their headquarters is always swarming with cops and Feds." Nat warned, tossing her trash into the trash can across the room basketball style. 

"You got the money to get there?" Steve checked.

 "Safe houses have a lot of money in them. I'm covered, thanks for asking." Darling mimicked Nat in basketball, throwing her trash towards the trash can. She missed.

 "Looks like you ain't going out for the basketball team." Sam teased, tossing her trash into the can along with his. 

"I'm too short anyway." Darling shrugged. 

"Hey, short people can play basketball. I've seen my share of short kids kick butt at basketball." Steve pointed out. 

"Literally. Those Jewish kids played dirty. Bruised shins galore." Bucky shook his head, downing the last of his beverage, "I can still hear my Ma getting all in a huffy over my banged up shins."

 Steve laughed, "Yours was worse than mine."

 "Yours would have skinned me alive if I would have let you play. You ain't seen worse cause you were too unconscious or sick to see it!" Bucky retorted. 

Sam snorted, "Man, I'd love to meet the woman who put the fear of God into James Buchanan Barnes AND Steve Rogers."

 "Careful what you wish for. For all you know, you would get it worse." Nat smirked. 

"Darn right, he would, with his mouth," Bucky muttered, getting up. Sam scoffed, making Darling laugh. 

"What about you? You gonna go looking for your family?" Nat asked quietly, leaning closer to Darling so the others couldn't readily hear. 

"I don't know if I even have any. Don't know if it's worth it." Darling shrugged.

 "I get that. But if you do, it is worth it." Nat sipped her own drink, a faraway look in her eyes. 

"Did you?" Darling twisted around to see Nat, "Go looking?"

 "I did. Two little tombstones by a chainlink fence. We have what we have when we have it." Natasha nodded, "Don't waste your chance on the best thing you'll ever have just because you're scared." 

Darling nodded, looking back at the men who were still arguing, oblivious to them, "Did it help?" 

Natasha paused a long moment before answering, "My mother's name was Vera. I never knew that." Natasha paused again, "I like to think it helps. Maybe it will." 

Darling wasn't sure if Natasha was talking about herself or Darling. Maybe both.

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