Shelter
"So you're saying that he still wasn't training properly?" Sam sighed as he helped Allie and Bucky clean up the training rooms.
"That is in fact what I'm saying," Allie frowned. "He was putting more effort in after I came back, but I could still sense that he was pulling his punches."
"John Walker: not afraid to kill an innocent kid, but afraid of a woman that asks him for help," Bucky scoffed. "Granted, everyone knows you could flatten him without even batting an eye."
"Thanks?" Allie frowned over at him. "The problem is that I just need him to realize how serious this entire ordeal is."
"Well, you did ask for John's help out of everyone that exists," Sam shrugged. "Why did you want him on this team, anyway? You hate him."
"A couple of reasons," Allie shrugged.
"A couple? The reason you told me was that he was an 'unexpected candidate'," Bucky narrowed his eyes slightly over at here.
"Which is true," she nodded. "I thought that that was an interesting and worth it description from Howard's journal. The other thing is that he has the super soldier serum. It's foolish of us to not consider that he does."
"There have been plenty of other super soldiers though," Sam furrowed his brow. "That still doesn't explain why you chose him."
"Sam, we don't know where my brother is. The other super soldiers that you confronted in the Flag Smashers? We all remember hearing the news that they'd been killed. Bucky is already on the team, so why not explore more options? I don't have to like the man to acknowledge that he did end up doing the right thing at the GRC convention that night.
"I just don't want to pull in anyone that has no proper way of defending themselves, okay? I don't want to involve the government any more than I already have to."
"I see," Sam frowned.
"All of this is my fault," she frowned at the ground. "If I'd never have followed that woman from the bar, then I'd never have been experimented on at that lab. I'd never have found out I'd been there for seventy years. I never would have blindly burnt down an entire building and killed innocent people. I wouldn't have hurt Annika."
"Don't blame yourself for how she's reacting," Sam's voice was soft.
"I'll blame myself if anything happens to anyone," Allie met his eye before letting her gaze shift to Bucky's. "If anything happens to Steve out there. If anything already has happened to Steve out there."
"Don't talk like that," Bucky sighed. "Steve's stubborn and always has been. It'd take a hell of a lot more than a pissed off woman to take him down."
"He's still out there," she argued. "And what's even worse? All of us have families. I trust everyone on this team and I trust them to help us take down this threat faster than if we were on our own, but I'm terrified of what she'll try and do.
"That's why I have people like John on the team. People who have some way to defend themselves. Training. Powers. Enhanced abilities. John is like us. He's not just some random soldier I asked to have pulled in for this. He's just an asshole."
Sam and Bucky exchanged a glance before both sighed silently and helped finish cleaning up the area with Allie. Sam gave the two a halfhearted smile as he walked up and placed a hand on Allie's shoulder.
"I'm choosing to trust you on this," he tried to say in the most comforting way that he could. "I'm just worried that he won't be willing to give the help that you need."
"Then we just have to keep trying," Allie shrugged.
"Right," Sam nodded softly. "Well, I'm going to go get some rest and sleep. I'll see you two for the next round of training?"
"Yes," Bucky nodded. "Goodnight."
"Goodnight," Sam called back as he walked away from the two.
Allie dropped her eyes back to the ground and bit her lip as she realized what they'd just been talking about just a moment prior. Bucky looked over and took note of the way she wasn't looking up at him as she often did. Turning to face her, he gently place his hand full of warmth against her cheek, allowing his thumb to softly trace her cheekbone.
"Nothing's going to happen," he promised. "She's attacked us plenty of times and no one has been injured or killed."
"But I can't stop thinking about how Steve is out there somewhere. What if he's been killed? What if she found him and caught him by surprise?"
"I told you," he sighed. "Steve is way too stubborn to let someone like Annika catch him by surprise and kill him. Maybe give him a black eye, sure. But that comes with the territory of fighting the bad guys. The bullies."
"And I wouldn't have to be worrying about him if I would have just been a better sister," Allie sighed. "If something happens, it's my fault."
"Allison! Would you stop with that bullshit?" Bucky sighed. "You're starting this cycle of blame when we don't even know if there's something to be blaming yourself for. For all we know, he's found Sharon and they're just hiding out. Okay? We have got to just focus on one thing at a time."
Allie went silent for a moment as she just looked at him. He rarely called her Allison. She was always called Allie, or my love. He was always either worried or upset if he said Allison. Taking in a sliver of a breath, she swallowed hard. Blinking, she nodded softly at him.
"Alright," she continued to nod. "Let's just go home for the night."
Rubbing her temples, she walked through the florescent lit hallways, Bucky following closely behind her. He watched the tension in her shoulders as she continued on, frowning to himself as he realized that he was looking at the same Allie he had known as a teenager. The one that focused so heavily on taking care of her brother that she would never let herself take a deep breath or a day off. This time, however, she was ready to blame herself for seemingly everything bad that could connect to her powers.
"Love?" he whispered as he caught up with her.
"Yes?" her voice was soft, but still short. As if she didn't know if he was going to scold her again.
"Why don't we go home, order a pizza, and watch a movie with the kids?" he suggested.
"What?" she raised a brow.
"You heard me," his smile was soft. "It'll be a nice night. We haven't had a family night like that in a while."
"No," she agreed. "We haven't. But I still have to have things ready for the team."
"And that can wait until tomorrow. Right?" he smiled.
"But-" she began.
"Allie, it is safe to have days off. Remember the Commandos? We had days off back then, too," Bucky took her hand in his. "A night off isn't going to kill anyone."
"I won't be completely stress free," she warned him.
"I know," he nodded. "You weren't when we were teenagers either. It'll be fine. Okay? We'll pick the kids up and get some pizza."
Not sure of how she felt about taking a day off, she looked at him with furrowed brows. His expression was that same expression he had given her years before when telling her that she should take a day off before he took her to the movies. It was a genuine, soft expression. Sighing, she nodded.
"Alright, we'll have a night off," she nodded.
"That's more like it," he smiled. "Nothing bad is going to happen tonight."
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The kids had enjoyed having pizza for dinner while watching a movie. It was rare that the Barnes family would find themselves eating a meal in the living room, but when they did, the kids liked to have blankets out on the ground and to have a very casual sitting arrangement. Allie and Bucky both decided to sit together on the couch, letting the kids have the ground to lie on their stomach.
As the movie wrapped up, Allie cleaned up the plates as Bucky took care of the kids and cleaned them up from the pizza messes that they had managed to make on themselves. As Allie finished her part of cleaning up, she eyed Howard's journal on the entertainment center and decided to sit and read it.
Allie sat at the kitchen table flipping through the pages of Howard's journal for the first time since she had brought John on the team. Part of her simply wanted to read more of his writings about the Howling Commandos and their missions during the war. Part of her wanted to be completely distracted from anything and everything that was currently taking place in her life.
As she read through one particular Christmas entry, she remembered that it was once again December. Neither she nor Bucky had paid much attention to the calendar other than glancing at it to remember the upcoming date for Steven's kindergarten Christmas concert. The moment they'd received that announcement slip from Steven's teacher, Sam had seen it on the fridge, held by a magnet that Sarah had insisted the refrigerator had needed on one of their journeys to the grocery store. He'd made sure to tell her that one way or another, she and Bucky weren't going to miss their son's first concert.
She knew that Christmas would be coming before she could blink and T.J.'s birthday itself coming a few days before the holiday. Sighing to herself, she almost felt like she couldn't enjoy the time of year they were in. Despite all of her pleasant memories that she shared with Bucky during that time of year, she just couldn't allow herself to relax in that moment.
Written across the page was descriptions of memories of how Allie and Bucky had been the ones to decorate the safe house they had been in shortly after they'd been married. The entries had skipped by decades before a Christmas entry about one of Tony's first Christmases was discussed. Allie smiled as she read through them before looking over to the living room where Bucky was trying to convince T.J. to sit still while wiping his mouth free of pizza sauce.
"Hey James?" she looked over.
"Hmm?" he hummed as he finished wiping off the last smear of sauce from T.J.'s cheek. "See? All clean. Go chase your brother and sister."
"What if we go and grab the tree from downstairs? We could at least get things started tonight since we're already taking the evening off."
"The tree?" Steven and Sarah chorused as they seemingly popped from nowhere.
"Yes," Allie laughed with a shake of her head. "But you two would have to go in and clean up your toys from the living room."
"Deal!" Steven yelled and raced Sarah to go and clean up.
"Alright, then," Bucky laughed. "I guess we're taking a trip down to the basement then."
As Steven and Sarah collected their toys and put them away, Bucky and Allie took turns going down to the basement, pulling boxes of their Christmas tree and decorations and setting them in the living room, ready to be unpacked and placed in their respective spaces.
A buzzing in her pocket caught Allie's attention as they finished pulling the tubs of Christmas decorations from the basement. Taking out her phone, Peter's cheerful contact picture flooded the screen as the it rang. Answering the call, she placed the box in her hands down.
"Hey Peter," she smiled. "Is everything okay? You left in a rush earlier today."
"Uh, yeah, well," his voice stammered on the other end. "It's not."
"It's not? Peter, what's wrong?" Allie felt the hammering in her chest.
Time seemed to slow for the moment that she waited for him to tell her what was going on. One part of her brain didn't know if she was able to take another piece of bad news or yet another situation that was not going to go her way or her team's way. Another part of her brain tried to imagine that it was nothing more than him needing help for an outside stress. Then there was the part of her brain that simply worried because she cared about him.
If there had been a clock nearby her, she swore she would have been able to hear the tick tick tick of the hands as they moved. The sound of Bucky shooing the kids to their rooms upstairs and promising that they could help with decorations the next day was muffled as Allie listened close for any words from Peter.
"Peter?" she asked once more.
"It's Annika," his voice dropped off, almost clipped in its state of worry. "She was at the shelter and..."
"Peter, where is May?" Allie asked, suddenly feeling very sick to her stomach. "She's not back in New York yet, is she? She's still helping set up more shelters, right?"
"That's the thing," a sniff could be heard on Peter's side. "She made it back a few days back. She'd heard about the whole team and Steve situation and wanted to come visit you soon."
"Why do I feel a 'but' coming up?" Allie's voice was thin, a fear traced somewhere within the brave front she attempted to put up.
"Because there is," Peter admitted.
"What happened?"
"The shelter. It-," Peter had to pause for a breath. "Annika burned it down."
"And May?" Allie's heart seemed to plummet into her stomach and her stomach seemed to plummet to the floor beneath her.
"She was inside."