Don't Trust Anyone.
Warren has absolutely no idea whose apartment Fury has led him into. He would ask, but Fury said to be absolutely silent, and now that Fury saved Warren's life, he has no excuse, whatsoever, not to listen to him and trust his instructions. So, the only thing Warren really can do in this apartment is listen to the music Fury put on, lay on the floor, and try not to touch the still-burning cuts he has from earlier.
What Warren assumes is happening is that they are hiding out from HYDRA. The Winter Soldier is after them, now. Or, he's at least after Fury. Warren doesn't know for sure if HYDRA is looking for him or not, but he's not taking any chances.
Overcome with boredom, Warren sits up and looks around the room. There are shelves on practically every wall, stacked full of all sorts of books that Warren would pick up and try to read if he knew how. They're even piling up in corners, too. Whoever lives here must be an avid reader, or at least an aspiring one. Next to one of the stacks of books, an old record player sits in the corner, where Fury is sitting, blasting old music Warren's never heard before, but still quite enjoys. If Warren twists his head at the right angle, he can see the moon up in the sky out the window, but he doesn't feel very tired. His heart is still beating a bit faster than usual. He couldn't sleep if he tried.
Sighing, Warren flops back down onto the carpet. It isn't really the soft kind. It's kind of scratchy, to be honest, but that doesn't bother him. What's really bothering Warren is the headache he has. Not the normal kind. The one that happens after ten different cop cars ram into yours and your neck gets whiplash. It's debilitating and it won't go away.
If he didn't have to be quiet, Warren would groan in discomfort. Instead, he chews on his cheek and closes his eyes. Maybe if he leaves them shut for a little while, his head will stop hurting so badly.
With his eyes closed, Warren counts to ten in his head. When he's done, he opens his eyes again. Instead of the normal dimmed lighting, he sees a shadow. Not Fury's shadow, though, because Fury is still in that chair in the corner. This is someone else's shadow.
Warren lets out a quiet gasp, instantly sitting up and looking over at the source of the shadow. In the living room, with his shield in his hands, is Steve Rogers. Captain America. The man Papa was smiling with at the museum. He's standing right there, looking right back at Warren the same way that Warren is looking at him; shocked and confused.
Steve is shocked and confused because why is there a random little boy in his apartment? And Warren is shocked and confused because why is he in Captain America's apartment? Only Fury would know the answer to that, so Warren shifts his gaze over to him, and Steve does, too, only a second later.
Sighing, Steve leans against the doorframe and shakes his head. "I don't remember giving you a key."
It's so weird seeing and hearing Captain America speak in real life. So weird that it makes Warren squirm and shrink in on himself, trying to work out what the strange feeling brewing inside him is.
Fury sits up with a grunt. "You really think I'd need one?" he asks. Warren can't tell if it's a joke, but Steve doesn't laugh or smile like he did with Papa, so he assumes it's not. "My wife kicked me out," Fury says.
Well, that's not even a little bit funny. It's just simply not true. Warren's not against lying, though, so he doesn't say anything. Not that he's allowed to right now, anyway.
"I didn't know you were married," Steve says, narrowing his eyes a little. He's still lingering in the doorway, like he's unsure about entering his own living room. He glances over at Warren and his eyebrows pinch together. "Or that you had a kid."
"A lot of things you don't know about me," Fury replies.
Warren isn't Fury's kid and he doesn't like Captain America thinking so. He doesn't correct him, though, because he's not supposed to talk. Maybe he'll be able to clarify later.
"I know, Nick. That's the problem," Steve says exhaustedly. His guard drops with his shield as he enters the room and flips the light on, but just as quickly as it's let down, it's brought back up again when he sees Fury's messed-up face. Fury holds up his hand and tugs the lamp off again. Warren watches as Fury types something on his phone and holds it out for Steve to see, but he's not sure what exactly it says. Whatever it says, it has a lot of E's in it.
"I'm sorry to have to do this, but we had no place else to crash." Fury types something else and holds the phone out again. The message begins with an S this time.
Steve's face turns hard, his brows furrowing and his jaw stiffening. Whatever the phone says, it's serious, which makes Warren pretty confident in his assumption that they're at Captain America's apartment because Fury is asking for his help. Discreetly, too, which probably means that HYDRA is everywhere. Even when they're not somewhere, they're there, and they're listening. That must be why Fury is writing these messages instead of saying them out loud and why Warren isn't allowed to speak.
Carefully and in code, Steve asks Fury, "Who else knows about your wife?"
"Just..." Fury stands up and hobbles closer to Steve, "my friends."
"Is that what we are?"
"That's up to you."
The quiet, but tense atmosphere of the apartment is suddenly interrupted when three bullets shoot straight through the wall and right into Fury's back. For a quick second, Warren vanishes without his control—sort of like a survival instinct, but it doesn't last. He becomes visible again within a matter of seconds. In the way most people flinch, Warren becomes invisible. He knows how to control it in the sense that he can do it at any moment he wants, but he hasn't quite figured out how to stop himself from doing it when he's really, really scared.
And right now, Warren is terrified. His heart drops to his stomach as Fury drops straight to the floor. His legs made of jelly and his eyes full of fear, Warren scrambles up to his feet and rushes to Fury's side. Steve grabs Warren's arm and pushes him gently into the other room before dragging Fury in after him.
Panic in Steve Rogers looks a lot different from panic in most people. From what Warren has seen on the news and in movies his foster families have put on, when most people panic, they start running, screaming, and losing their breath. Steve doesn't do that, though. He stays calm, no matter how fast his heart is beating, and does what needs to be done.
Fury is the same way. Laying bleeding on Steve's kitchen floor, he reaches up and holds out his hand. Inside it is a USB—silver, shiny, and important. "Don't trust anyone," Fury heaves.
Three loud bangs hit the front door until it's open, and with each bang, Fury's words are pounded further into Warren's brain. Don't trust anyone. Don't trust anyone. Don't. Trust. Anyone.
"No. No, no, Mister Fury," Warren says in a weak whisper. His voice cracks like he's going to cry, but no tears slip from his eyes. He runs his hands through his short, brown hair, pressing down on his still-aching skull. "Miss Alice said you were safe. She- she only leaves me with safe people! You have to stay and keep me safe! I don't want to go back to them. I don't wanna-"
"You'll be safe," Fury coughs out, "with him."
Him? As in Steve? Captain America? Warren is supposed to stay with Captain America now? But Steve hates HYDRA. Warren saw it in the museum. Captain America fought against HYDRA in war. How is Warren supposed to know that Steve won't hurt him when he finds out he was once with HYDRA? Especially because-
Don't trust anyone.
Does that count Steve? Can Warren trust him? Could Warren ever even fully trust Fury? It's all so confusing and conflicting, and it makes Warren feel like scrambled eggs. He just wants to be safe and free. Only two things. Why can't he just have that? Why does it have to be so difficult? And why, why, why does HYDRA seem to follow him like a shadow? He ran away. His papa said he would be free. But he's not because HYDRA is back. Is there no such thing as free? Has Warren been misunderstanding it the whole time?
"I need you out of the way! I'm sorry," a woman's voice says, breaking right through the trance Warren is in.
Warren is pulled away by the blonde woman, and he settles against the cabinets with his knees tucked up and his hands keeping firm pressure on his head. All he wants is for everything to just stop hurting so much, inside and out, at least for a little while. But it doesn't seem like that's happening any time soon.
☁︎
Hospitals are like the cafeteria at the SHIELD facility: much too bright for Warren's liking. The lighting is particularly worse in a place like a hospital, though, because when you're in a hospital, nothing feels bright. In fact, Warren feels quite dark at the moment. The lights should match, he thinks. The outside should be just as dark as the inside, and this hospital is doing a very poor job at that.
This is why, rather than watching the surgery, Warren stares directly at the wall opposite of him. Behind him, Fury is being cut open and picked through on the other side of a glass window. Steve says they're operating on him, whatever that means. Warren doesn't care what it is they're doing; he just doesn't want to watch. It makes him feel sick in the same way missions used to, and besides, the lighting is much better and easier to bear when he faces the other way. The steady beeping isn't helping, either. Warren doesn't see how the doctors can even stand to be in the room on the other side of the glass.
Steve, on the other hand, hasn't torn his eyes away since they arrived fifteen minutes ago. He's not even sure if he's been remembering to blink. His heart hasn't stopped pounding and his mind hasn't stopped racing.
He should have, but couldn't catch who it was that took the shots at Fury. All he caught was that whoever did it is good at what he does and has a metal arm. He doesn't know where to even begin a search, either. And he especially doesn't know what to do with the kid he is suddenly responsible for. He's never had a kid and he's not equipped to have one, either. But he'll make do. He doesn't have any other choice, after all. It's not like he can just leave Warren on his own.
The door to the observation room is pushed open roughly and Warren watches a red-haired woman rush inside. He catches her eyes, just for a moment, but the woman is focused enough to walk right past Warren and stand on the other side of Steve, staring through the glass.
Warren twists to the side a little bit to look up at the woman. Her throat is wobbling, which means she's almost crying, but won't let herself. That's what strong people do, Warren is pretty sure.
"Is he gonna make it?" the woman asks in a hushed voice.
"I don't know," Steve replies.
Warren doesn't like to think about it. If Fury does die on that table in the bright room, Warren never ever wants to think about it or him again. His papa used to say that. Don't think about it, Ren. It's easier to ignore things like death and dying than it is to address them, in Warren's experience.
The red-haired woman takes a deep breath and nods her head. "Tell me about the shooter," she says. The longer Warren looks at her, the more familiar she seems. He's probably seen her on the news sometime or another, especially if she's friends with Nick Fury and Captain America.
"He's fast. Strong. Had a metal arm," is the answer Steve gives.
Warren knows who the shooter is. He just doesn't know what will happen if he tells them.
The door opens again and Warren's head snaps away from the redhead to see who has entered, and who he sees is a relief. Brown hair with a hard look on her face. Miss Maria. Hill. That's what Fury called her in the car. Maria Hill. Warren, who is suddenly feeling very left out, gets up off the ground and weaves himself between Steve and the redhead. He keeps his head down, though, looking at his shoes instead of into the other room.
"Ballistics?" the redhead asks.
"Three slugs, no rifling. Completely untraceable," Maria answers.
"Soviet-made."
"Yeah."
Out of nowhere, the steady beeping that's been coming from inside the operating room morphs into a steady hum. The other SHIELD workers in the room, who have been standing off to the side until now, break from the wall and step closer to the window.
Only now does Warren notice that one of those SHIELD workers sticks out from the others. A man dressed in black, probably a soldier or an agent, with short, brown hair and strong-looking features. His eyes lock onto Warren's, and he winks. Warren suddenly feels so incredibly sick that he almost throws up right there in the observation room, but instead, he disappears into thin air—though it's quite a useless defense mechanism when he isn't wearing the proper material HYDRA created to vanish with him—and runs right out of the room.
The hallways are bright, too, and it doesn't help the overwhelm Warren is already feeling. He rushes through them until he spots a vending machine. He presses himself into the corner between the wall and the machine and pulls his knees in tight.
It's still impossible for Warren to know what exactly HYDRA is after. He doesn't know if they're after him and want to take him back, or if they're after someone else. Warren doesn't even know if he's worth taking back. He wasn't ever necessarily great at what he did. He did as he was told, sure, but that doesn't mean he was good at it. Maybe HYDRA doesn't even want him. Maybe Warren is misremembering things and feeling false familiarity with that man, and maybe that wink was friendly, and maybe Warren is panicking over nothing. But maybe he's not. Maybe he is in danger and he does need to hide. He is not taking any chances.
Warren has to be very, very careful. Don't trust anyone. That's what Fury said. Fury. Torn open on the table in the operating room. What did that sound mean? The beeping, the ringing. What happened?
"Warren?" Steve's voice echoes loudly into the hall. He walks down to the left and doesn't see anything, so then goes the opposite way around, until finally, he spots the boy, hidden up against the vending machine. "Warren. You can't run off like that, buddy."
Buddy. Sometimes Papa would call Warren "buddy". He had a lot of words like that that he used when he was awake for long enough.
"I know you're sad. I'm sad, too. But we have to be brave and-"
"Sad?" Warren thinks aloud. He's not sad; he's afraid. Why would he be sad?
"About Fury," Steve says, a bit confused as to why the boy doesn't understand.
That's when the realization hits Warren. The noise in the operating room. He's heard it sometimes on TV shows and in movies. When the beeping turns into ringing, something bad has happened.
"Is he... is he dead?" Warren asks, his eyebrows pinching together.
Burning hot tears prickle at the brims of Steve's eyes and he swallows. "Yes. He passed," he answers softly.
For a moment, Warren only tries to process the words. Passed is an awful nice way of putting it. Almost too awful. It doesn't sound like what it is. It almost feels like a lie. He didn't pass, he died. He's dead. Warren knows what that means and he doesn't need a fake word like passed to tell him it.
His eyes stay focused on the floor and he bites down on his lip. Then, he nods. His papa shot and killed Nick Fury. His papa. He can't tell Steve that. Not Maria or the redhead, either. They cared about Fury. Gosh, what can Warren tell them? What is it safe to tell them?
"Here," Steve says, taking Warren's arm and gently pulling him up off the floor. He leads him over to a chair around the corner and Warren sits in it obediently. "I'll be right back. Don't go anywhere." And just like that, Steve leaves him alone around the corner and Warren watches him go.
Just in case HYDRA is after him, Warren keeps his head up and his eyes open, and he stays as vigilant as he possibly can be.
Luckily, no one but Steve and the redhead come back to him in that chair. Only Steve isn't back to stay.
☁︎
It's not half an hour later that Warren finds himself in the backseat of the redhead woman's car without Steve or Maria there because Steve apparently had to go back to SHIELD and Maria had to deal with what happened to Fury. As it turns out, the redhead is actually Natasha Romanoff, who Warren has heard about before because she is the Black Widow. She's an Avenger, just like Captain America, which means that she is very powerful, very important, and very confusing to Warren.
So far, she seems alright. Warren's not positive, though. He doesn't know much of anything aside from the fact that he doesn't know much of anything. He's aware of what he is and isn't wise about, and that's why he relies so much on other people's judgment of things. It's hard, though, when the people he's seeking opinions from are the same people he's trying to form opinions on.
He trusted HYDRA's opinions on HYDRA, and that got him nowhere. He could ask a piece of broccoli if it tastes good or not, but the broccoli is always going to tell him it tastes good so that he'll eat it. The only way of knowing the truth is to test it out himself. That's only if broccoli could talk, though.
Anyway, regardless of whether Natasha is a good or bad person, she has a lot of questions to ask, such as, "Why were you with Nick?"
"'Cause I turn invisible," Warren answers. A half-truth. He's not telling Natasha about his past with HYDRA just yet. "He was gonna find me people to stay with. Then, he made us leave that place super fast, and then the car crash, and then we went to Steve Rogers' apartment. And then the hospital."
Natasha hums, pursing her lips in thought. "Let's see it, then. Turn invisible," she says, taking her eyes off the road just for a moment to look at Warren in the rearview mirror. "Go on."
At first, Warren just furrows his eyebrows, but then Natasha raises hers, and he realizes he is going to have to prove it. Fury didn't make him prove it. He just believed him. Whatever, though, he guesses. No harm in proving what he's already told her.
Oddly enough, though, when Warren shows off his talent, Natasha doesn't even seem the least bit shocked or impressed.
"It's cool?" Warren asks with a hopeful twinge in his voice.
"I guess," Natasha answers with a shrug. With her focus back solely on the road, she adds one more comment. "You talk funny. Where are you from?"
Warren chooses not to be offended by her comment and gives an ambiguous, but somewhat true answer. Another half-truth. "Everywhere. No families like me." He doesn't wait for any sort of reply from Natasha and instead moves on to ask his own question. This is an answer-for-answer exchange. "Was Nick Fury good?" he asks.
"Depends on your definition of 'good'," Natasha answers. She knows that isn't the answer Warren is looking for, though. "In my opinion, sure. He was good."
"Is Steve Rogers good?"
Natasha looks over at him again, a look of suspicion on her face. "Is this your first day on Earth, Warren?" she asks somewhat teasingly. Because what kid, especially out of all the kids in America, questions whether or not Captain America is a good person? She's already sure that Warren is from out of the country due to the way he speaks, but how out of touch is he really? Almost everyone around the world knows about Captain America. He's practically the definition of the word hero.
"No," Warren says. He crosses his arms like he's offended by the question. He's very much from Earth, thank you very much. "Fury said not to trust anyone. I don't know who is 'anyone'."
"Well, if you trusted Fury, then you can trust me."
Warren nods because that's what he's supposed to do, but he doesn't know if he can believe her. Broccoli will always say that it's tasty, after all.