Bonnie and Clyde
“Have you ever heard of Bonnie and Clyde?”
Your heart was thudding out of your chest as gunfire echoed around you in the warehouse. Helmut was at your side, sharing the small metal shipping container that you were using as a cover against the oncoming bullets. He didn’t take the time to look down at you, too busy unloading his clip into one of the Power Broker’s men. You had to grab his sleeve to get him to break focus. He gasped for air at your side.
“I’m sorry, Schatz, but I don’t believe I heard what you said,”
“I asked if you’d heard of Bonnie and Clyde,”
He shook his head quickly, “I’m sorry, but this isn’t the time-”
You cut him off. “They were American criminals in the 1930s, and they were in love!” Your voice seemed so small in the cacophony of bangs that surrounded you. As you spoke, a small tear slipped past your defenses and made its way down your cheek. “They robbed banks together, killed a few people… the point is that at the end of their crime spree they were both injured and- and they drove into their certain death together,”
Helmut’s voice shuddered, even through its low, accented timbre. “Is that so?”
“Yeah,” you whispered. It was hard to speak without crying. From your place on the ground, nursing your shattered knee, the man you loved seemed so powerful, strong and stoic as he rose to shoot a few more men before ducking down at your side again while he reloaded. “They died in a yellow ‘34 Ford Deluxe V-8. You would have loved the car,” A shuddered sob passed your lips.
“Y/N…”
Helmut rarely called you by your name. It was always a term of endearment. Schatz, Liebling, Kätzchen; if he chose to use your name instead it meant something serious was going on. You had to admit that it made your chest tighten up to hear him saying it now.
“Bucky and Sam aren’t coming back,” you said softly, reaching out with a trembling hand. He took into his own warm and calloused digits without hesitation. “And I can’t walk out of here. Helmut… I- I don’t think we’re making it out of this one,”
“Don’t say th-”
“Shhh,” You were both crying freely now as he dropped to his knees beside you, “It’s okay, Helmut,”
“You don’t even want to try?” He murmured, holstering his gun and wrapping you in his arms, lips just inches from your ear.
“How would we make it,”
He smiled softly, pulling back to wipe away a few of your tears. “I’ll carry you out if here. I don’t care what it takes, I’ll simply carry you back to safety and grab a car from outside. We’ll be at a safe house in an hour at most. Can you hold on till then?” When he spoke to you then, you could almost believe him. The mental image was clear. He would rush past the hoards of bounty hunters and simply deliver you back into the world of the living, far from this dingy warehouse. Then you heard the shouting and the gunfire, let it consume you again. It was an impossible feat.
You nodded. “I can try,”
“That’s my girl, my beautiful Schatz,” His praise was genuine. It made your bleeding heart feel just a little more hopeful. When he tried to lift you, though, you stopped him. “What is it?”
“Can I…” Your voice suddenly felt as if it had disappeared from your throat. It took everything in you just to eke out the last of your sentence. “Can I kiss you? One last time?”
Helmut’s whole demeanor seemed to melt. He came close to your face, eyes still running over with tears he had hoped never to shed, and smiled. “Where you go, I go. This is not goodbye, Y/N, not for good. It’s just…”
“Just in case,” you whimpered weakly.
“Yes. Just in case,”
Then, he was kissing you. It was a sweet thing at first, a barely-there brushing of lips on lips, but as the sounds of the enemy grew nearer it deepened. You could feel every single emotion that ran through Helmut’s mind as you buried a hand in his hair and held him close to you. His far, his frustration, his anger, his anguish; his heart was a cocktail of misery and hope and pain all wrapped up and delivered to you in a kiss that tasted of mint and blood and gunpowder. It took all of your power to pull away.
“Are you ready?” You whispered, clinging to his shoulders as he prepared to lift you up.
He nodded, stoic once again. “Bring your face to my chest, Schatz,” his instruction was clear as he cradled your body with one arm and readied his gun with another, “Close your eyes, take a breath and count to ten,”
You knew exactly what he was preparing you for. He didn’t want you to see what was coming. Something in you didn’t seem to care.
“Like Bonnie and Clyde, right?” You whispered. His turtleneck was now wet with your tears, and his coat seemed to billow around the two of you like a protective shield. Was it to be your very own yellow Ford, bearing you both to your doom?
He nodded. “Like Bonnie and Clyde,”
And then you were off into the great unknown, eyes squeezed shut and yet wide open to your fate.
You wouldn’t have wanted to go any other way.