Avengers One's

Drifter Part 2

After leaving the building I head back to the park, climb the tree that I had jumped out of hours before and stay there allowing my head to run wild.

As night falls, the belt that was once around my hips secures me to the tree and keeps me from falling when I drift to sleep.

'Mamma!'
'No (Y/N), I'm Nattie. Okay?'
'Mamma!'
'No sweetie, I'm not Mamma. Your mamma is, away right now.' There's a small edge to a certain red heads voice as she says this.
'You know she's just going to keep calling you mamma no matter what you try and tell her right?' My father had been watching the entire time, laughing to himself over his two loves. His daughter and his soon to be fiancée. That is if she says yes of course.
'Well if you could help me get her out of the habit that would be nice.'
'Nat my love, she is very stubborn. Just like you might I add.'
'Fine, but I need to put her to bed okay?'
'Okay my love.' Even at age five I could see a minor amount of panic behind her eyes when she picked me up as father said those two words.
'Goodbye (Y/N). I hope to see you again one day.' A child didn't know what that meant. She assumed it meant see you in the morning.

My ass is numb when I wake up and my chest hurts or at least has a speeding heart trapped within it, but you'd expect that considering I slept in a damn tree. It's barely even past dawn, but there's a runner on the one path that I can see. America gets up early to run apparently, and Bird Man Wilson is trailing behind him not keeping up very well. I watch them for two loops around a skating rink that isn't in use and then watch as they start to head my way.

There's rustling in the bushes off to my right that I ignore until America calls out "Bucky! What are you doing?"

The man mutters 'shit' under his breath and steps out to where I can see him and he can see me. "Hi."
"Don't spy on me, and don't you have a run to get to?"

He looks hurt but I don't care, not until he's running with his friends and is just moving over a hill do I start to feel bad. But only because he looked back. It's not like he could see me. Not thinking of much I jump from my branch, leaving the park from the entrance opposite of the one they were headed towards. Let's go to Queens, bet I could piss off some people over there.

On my way out of the park I spot someone tailing me. A red headed Russian. Muttering a few cusses to myself I turn a corner and stand up in a shops entrance waiting for the red head to walk past. As soon as she turns the corner and starts walking in my direction I tense. Once she's in front of me my legs start moving, even if I don't want them to. She doesn't react to me being beside her all of a sudden, but slows her pace now that she can see her tail.

We walk a few blocks without saying anything, glancing at each other when the other isn't looking. After leaving the park blocks behind us, I take a leap and start talking "My father looked for you. Hired a PI even." She just glances my way. Not even opening her mouth. "When he couldn't find you, after four years he found the next best thing. A woman that had similarities to you, her name is Ana. They are married and she's the reason I left."
"Why?"
"I refuse to call her mother, or any form of that."
"(Y/N), I was never you mom."
"No, you were my mamma." We pause before the rush of traffic slows and we with the others around us can cross the street. "There's a difference between a mom and a momma."

She sighs and puts her arm out, moving me towards a coffee place.

We sit down at a table, and I watch out the window until the barista comes over and takes our order. By the time they have come she has yet to say anything about my 'momma' comment.

"You were so small when I first saw you. It was your fathers and my third date, and he said that he wanted me to meet someone special. Of course I knew about you, from your fathers files that S.H.E.I.L.D. gave me. As soon as I laid eyes on you I knew that my mission got a whole lot harder. Your father and I, we got along great. I thought about him often, but you more than him."
"I was constantly on your hip, if not there either asleep or a few feet from you."
"You remember?"
"No. There were days when Ana was away shopping and I had the guts to ask my dad about you."

Her eyes flit around the shop, to her coffee and finally to my waiting ones.

"What did he tell you?"
"That your favourite colour is red, like your hair. Your favourite animal is not a Black Widow but a Mocking Bird, and that you are fierce but gentle. You prefer Vodka over any girly drink out there. That," taking a breath that lasts longer than a second I continue. "you used to sing me a lullaby in Russian and that I would be asleep by the third line." I watch her as she watches me.

There a few minutes between us speaking, I'm watching her using her reflection that's in the window. As she shifts her cup in her hands her lips start to move.

"When you were eight you broke your left arm falling off a horse, at ten you were the top of your class. Eleven you got first in jumping with a horse named Juke Box. Fifteen years old you finished high school three full years early."
"Yah, I am kinda spiteful. How do you know all of that?"
"Sorry about that, even ask your- right. Well, when you were about two I started messing around with you. The end result was that you ended up being ridiculously spiteful for being two years of age."
"That, explains a lot but you never answered my question."
"It may seem weird but, I loved you. Or I think I did. You were practically my baby even if I didn't give birth to you, I started raising you made sure you knew you were loved."

My cup is empty, hers as well. "You know, I can remember you and my dad fighting over something. You kept pointing at me and yelling, dad looked shameful."
"I thought he wasn't spending enough time with you, I got upset when he started saying that his company was more important that his family."
"How long was that before you had to leave us?"

She waits for the waiter to clear our cups before answering. "Only a few days. I knew I was being pulled out of the mission, I had to make sure he would be able to take care of you before I left."
"I see."

She excuses herself to use the bathroom, and I stand to pay the tab. By the time she's out of the bathroom I'm long gone, blocks away continuing my way to Queens.