Joy ride (part1): Stealing

cup of water

He stays in the shadows, pressed between a wall and a bush as the Dora guards above him exchange confused words. A moment later one of the pair abandons her post, running inside to sound the alarm. With one left, her panicked breaths telling him which way she is facing, running the three steps to the closest garden wall when her back is turned is easy.

The fault over the wall is a little less perfect; he pushes off into the air like a high-jump athlete, turning his back and going over head and shoulder first, nicking the top. Good so far; a minimum break in the silhouettes. When cleared he tucks in, faults over to get his feet under him. But the far side is lower by a good few feet and he overreaches in the dark, landing hard on gnarled bush roots. James is lucky he is wearing his boots today, saving him from twisting an ankle before he's even on his way.

Counting the few scratches on his arm already nearly-gone as blessings, James pauses, evaluates for one moment. His pants are a dark umber that should provide the perfect camouflage. The shirt, however, is almost white. And though the arm is perfect black, it reflects too much, and the seams glow golden in the dark. Luckily the ground beneath him is still moist and loose. James takes off the shirt and uses it as a rag to dull the vibranium arm, darken the other. Finally he rubs his face for good measure and puts the dirtied item back on.

Then, he listens, for a moment, to the sounds of panic on the other side of the wall, people already moving around, looking for him. He takes stock of their positions; the chance anyone is looking his way right now, judges it nil, and sets off into the forest at a loping giant.

Two steps into the jungle shrubbery James lets out a shocked breath, and speeds up. Two steps more; all the time he needs to get his bearings and remember the way towards the Jabari mountain; something he'd only known in passing: info caught on his retina when stepping through a room with the map of Wakanda on a wall. Another thumble, and he starts hitting a decent stride. Then, shocked, James speeds up a third time. He.. He'd...

He'd forgotten.

Forgotten what it's like to run.

Well, who can blame him? The last time he went all out T'Challa -the Black Panther-, had been hot on his trail. When he'd been framed for the bombing that had taken the previous king's; T'Chaka life; when he had been flushed out of hiding by the combined efforts of the Accords. Back when he'd still had the old, metal arm; iron and steel except that one, stolen piece. The vibranium join-socket he still had connected to his spine. An arm that had kept the Soviet's stamp, but was all Hydra's: their sick little joke. When subterfuge and the lie that Hydra was gone had made it impossible for them to claim him. Running with that arm had not been the same.

Running with the old arm had been hard, ungainly work. Like getting nailed to a draft car, but only on one side. The weight of it followed, but always two steps behind; always took a monumental effort to displace at all. The result had been something ungracious, despite the Widow Mother's best efforts. Never balanced; pulling at clamps nails and staples with every pounding, jarring step. As a result the Winter Soldier never ran; not if given any other option.

Even later, when James had lost that old arm, freed from it by Stark's repulsors -had James even thanked him for that? Well, regardless, James hadn't really had much of a chance run. Not beyond scaling a fence or making a sprint across an airport runway. At the time, the loss of weight had still been more of a hindrance more than a help, throwing off his weight in a whole, new, bothersome way.

Perhaps that is why James had never understood Steve's obsession with running. Getting up before dawn just to torture himself and put himself through steps he hardly needed to stay in shape. Not if Steve was anything like him; and James was supposed to be the knock-off. No, if anything James suspected Steve would not be able to lose muscle if he tried. And with Steve the bigger, heavier supersoldier, his running regime had to be an exercise in self-flaggeration if James had ever seen one.