Calling Captain America

At Tony's response, Cora's jaw clenches and her neutral expression falters for just a moment. She had to remind herself that his response was to be expected. She had to remind herself that it couldn't - and didn't - bother her. Momentarily, her feelings had gotten the best of her and she needed a brief moment to redirect her thoughts. She wasn't here to buddy up with the Avengers. She was here to be a soldier. Her allies were different but her situation was the same. She wasn't a hero. She was a weapon.

Regardless, she was glad there was no need to retaliate as Steve cleared the room. She shoots her gaze downward as the rest of the team walks past. She couldn't help but feel slightly defensive at Steve's seemingly protective nature. Did he think her incapable of defending herself? Not too long ago, she had him on the other side of her pistol with his life in her hands. Given the situation, his kindness was unnatural. And a little unwelcome.

"You act if anything he just said was untrue. You don't have to worry about hurting him my feelings, Captain. I've been through worse. " The last statement was accompanied by its own little flinch, some of the memories floating around in her head being the source of it - serving alongside Goodman hadn't exactly been a high point in her life. However, it was the distinct lack of memories that was the main source of her discomfort. In her past with HYDRA, she hadn't had the opportunity to dwell on the thought. They would be able to see it in her and promptly stomp it out before it became a problem.

But now things were blurry-edged and hazy, faces faded and voices airy. Things were distant and indistinct in her mind but slowly coming back to her. The color red was too prominent in her mind. Project Crimson, they had called her a long time ago. Red was the color of HYDRA, the color of blood. Her memories were stained with the color and her mind was branded with the skull. Still, it forced her not to dwell too long. She tears away from the spot in which she had stood still for too long.

"Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm certain there's someone who wants to run some sort of personality test or blood test or something along the lines."
 
"You act as if anything he said was untrue. You don't have to worry about hurting my feelings, Captain. I've been through worse."

Like Barton beforehand, Steve had to fight to keep himself from visibly cringing when Cora addressed him so formally, feeling perturbed by the sudden change in her usual demeanor. It wasn't like her to be this stiff, and this respectful when she spoke to any of the team members. Especially when she was already showing certain signs of emotional distress, it really didn't bode well to also have to witness her alter her own behaviour just for the sake of not stirring up too much tension, after being brought back here to the Avengers' headquarters shortly after having almost helped a sect of HYDRA do what they pleased with it after making an infiltration to retrieve their 'stolen asset'. The Captain's own display of endurance was important for the sake of not revealing too much to her about what he was feeling. That could end up being dangerous for him.

He certainly couldn't deny that everything Tony had said was factual, but it wasn't like he could just stand by and let him keep railing on her like that, either. As Goodman had served to prove during that abhorrent exchange earlier on, Cora's actions were not entirely her fault. She was a puppet, another- albeit more vocal- Winter Soldier standing right in front of him. Steve could literally almost be able to slightly mold her image in his head to make her appear to him as Bucky with that grisly muzzle, unkempt hair and unfeeling eyes with a gaze that could bore into the soul of almost anyone who dared to look back into the abyss formed in them. That was almost enough to be able to shake his integrity, but he managed to keep strong and held his look firmly on her. There was a particularly long silence between the two of them for a few seconds, as though they were soundlessly testing each other to see who would break first. But neither of them fell, and it was Cora who finally put a stop to the silence.

"Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm certain there's someone who wants to run some sort of personality test or blood test or something along those lines."

"Not tonight," Steve replied with a shake of his head, his voice still quiet but now holding more of its signature tautness to compensate for his lowered volume. "... Maybe tomorrow. But not tonight. It's been a long day, and everyone- including you- needs rest." He paused for a while, thinking to himself, then released a breath through his nose and gave Cora a parting nod before turning back around and moving toward the mini-bar. "Have a good night, Miss Matthews."
 
Last edited by a moderator:
The concept of rest - among a list of other things that now seemed boundless - was entirely foreign to her. She never had a moment of rest under HYDRA's reign. And she could see why. Because now that she had a moment to breathe, she started to think. That was HYDRA's biggest fear. As soon as she started thinking, the lost their grip on her. That was how she had gotten where she was now, by thinking about what she was going to do, about thinking about how she couldn't put a bullet in that pretty blonde head, even if she had wanted to. And she hadn't wanted to, which was a peculiar thought on its own. She was so entirely certain that up until that very moment she had wanted to. She finds herself ringing her hands, grabbing for an object that no longer seemed to be there.

No more thinking. She had grown to hate it. It made her feel insecure and unsure. It made her question too many things that didn't seem to have answers. Her wonderful world of black and white had become gray and, though everything she had previously known told it that it was the worst thing that could happen to her, she was certain to prove it to herself to be a good thing. Part of her wanted desperately to return to the way things had been. It was insane, she knew that. She couldn't truly want that, but she did. She wanted to isolate herself, train until the aches became too much to handle. She wanted to be given an order that she was unable to refuse so that she didn't have to think, to wonder, to feel.

She had never felt so completely torn. As strong as her desire to return was, another part of her was absolutely sick at the thought of degrading herself like that again. HYDRA had ripped in her half and beaten it into her mind. Her freedom had only been a half-hearted dream not long ago and still it felt farther than her grasp. She needed something tangible to anchor her to the new reality. She needed to fight those thoughts with her last dying breath. She couldn't let HYDRA win again.

Slowly and uncertainly, she approaches Steve with her hand hovering near his shoulder for a moment before deciding to silently take a seat. Tracing a small circle on the minibar with her hand shaking slightly, she lets out a soft sigh. She couldn't trust herself to make the right decisions anymore. She would explode if she continued to bottle everything up. Surely, Steve would be empathetic. He seemed the most receptive to her woes. Her voice was quiet and gentle and her words were genuine and came to her slowly. She was so entirely terrified of being locked away again. She feared that admission of her feelings would be admission to prison. Still, the situation felt familiar. She could trust him. He would support her.

"I feel... I feel like I want to go back..."
 
  • Love
Reactions: grey987
After pouring himself a glass of brandy, Steve took a seat by the minibar, taking a sip of the drink then setting it down on the counter to look absentmindedly at it. He understood that there was going to be unease amongst the team about their newest member, seeing as how not long ago she was fighting against them and was an individual whose capabilities they were not yet aware of; besides himself, all the others knew about her right now was that she was important enough to HYDRA that they had the gall to storm their headquarters and subdue them when they were vulnerable. The "correct" course of action would have been to contain her somehow, to keep her from causing any further harm. But after having learned what Goodman did to her, after knowing now that she had been conditioned into making the Avengers her enemy, it felt like it would be unjust to not let her have a chance to fight alongside the actual good guys. He couldn't deny letting her make things right, and apparently Fury thought so too, otherwise Cora wouldn't have been brought back here to be with them. He just hoped she wouldn't somehow end up proving his judgement to be misplaced.

Noticing her take a seat beside him, Steve glanced over at her before refocusing his gaze on his drink, wondering what he should say to her if anything at all. In retrospect, he shouldn't have expected her to go get sleep right away; that couldn't be something that would easily come to her either. He heard her say, "I feel... I feel like I want to go back." It was terrible, the way her words were spoken with such trueness to them. It was hard to believe she could mean that. But deep down, it made sense; that was the only life she had ever known. If there was one which existed before it, she didn't remember it. Even if she hadn't been completely erased, turned into something else, there was little solace to be found in that.

"I know." Those two words alone were hard for him to force out. "But that's not your home anymore," Steve told her with a gentle tone, lifting his head to look over at Cora. "You can't let it be. Or HYDRA will take advantage of that and continue to make you do whatever they want. Maybe the situation feels the same here. It feels like you're a... prisoner of war, leverage to help the other side get what they want... but we want what's in the best interest of everyone. The people who had you, they tried changing you. They tried making you into something that you shouldn't be, so that they could gain from it. Here, you can find yourself again. You can decide what you want. What's best for yourself." He hoped she would get what he was telling her, regardless of how foreign the concept of free will was to her. He couldn't let her keep believing that HYDRA was doing her any sort of favor. Even if progress was slow, he would take progress. Pausing for a moment, a small smirk appeared on the corner of his lips as he said, "And maybe, what's best for yourself right now is a drink." It was a way of presenting an offer to her while also lightening up the mood a bit. He hoped Cora would find it in good taste.
 
Cora stared blankly ahead with a crooked smile pinned on her lips as Steve spoke. It was a scornful smile, one directed at herself. How many times had she heard the same things? How many different ways? Wasn't this how things were at the beginning? She was almost cursing herself for thinking it was any different. It was fuzzy in her memory at first but the harder she focused, the more should could hear Goodman's voice reassuring her. Stupid, stupid, stupid. The thought rang out in her head. She was acting out of line. She wasn't supposed to have thoughts or feelings or to be anything other than a soldier. She wasn't supposed to then so why would she think she was supposed to now?

Just moments ago, she had been fearful because she thought she was going to have to convince the Avengers that they were allies. No. That they were friends, something that she was not familiar with and that she believed there was great potential to fail at. She had given them the benefit of the doubt, if only briefly. But, they were not different. Steve was not different. The warm, nauseating feeling that bubbled up inside her was not special. It was a delusion. A delusion of Steve and of herself, a romanticization of her life. She only had to convince them that she was useful - tight-lipped and compliant.

She offered only a small nod at Steve's final statement, which he took as cue to make her a drink. She watched his hands with a careful attentiveness, trying to isolate the sight from any wandering thoughts. Her gaze trailed along his arms slowly, taking the time to examine them in detail. Finally, her gaze arrived at its destination and she studied his nose, his eyes, his lips - in that order. The nameless feeling begin to make its way from her stomach up into her chest then her throat. So she grabbed the drink and swallowed it down, taking the feeling with it.

"I will never be able to trust you," She remarked with a small chuckle as if it were a joke. There was a moment of silence where she waited for his reaction, whether or not he would try to comfort her and reassure her they were different. He was different but not in the way he wanted to be.

She didn't let him jump into a monologue, interrupting before he got too far ahead, "Do you have somewhere I can train? I don't like wasting time."
 
"I will never be able to trust you."

Steve took the comment in stride, a small smile appearing on his lips even though the words were a little biting. "Well, people these days say 'never say never'. I'd like to believe they're right." He downed the rest of his drink, exhaling afterwards as he set the glass back down. He knew it wouldn't be that easy. It couldn't be. He didn't expect it to be, because nothing in his life was, but he hoped her words wouldn't be the reality of this situation. He didn't want her to keep living a life of doubt, of distrust. She didn't deserve that. She was a part of something bigger- something better, and he hoped he could help her realize that.

Before he could say anything more, Cora asked him if there was a place she could train, to which he gave a nod. "It's a couple of floors down, I'll show it to you." Getting up from his seat, Steve walked towards the elevator and let her follow behind, waiting until she got inside before tapping the button for the practice area's floor. It was a place that he, Clint and Natasha in particular liked to use in their spare time, and it also had a shooting range, though that was something only the latter two of the trio used. There was no need for concern about Cora taking any weaponry- which consisted solely of various pistols- from it with her, as JARVIS would be sure to notify the team immediately on the off-chance that happened.

"Just remember to come out every once in a while to talk to the rest of the team," Steve told her with a brief smirk, partially joking but also getting the feeling that, especially with what she had just said about not liking to waste time, she would be spending a great deal of time in the training room more than anything else. He didn't want her to be on her lonesome for too long. He didn't want her to leave him on his lonesome for too long. It was a sudden thought, and one which brought mild anxiety to him. Why did it make him feel like that? Thankfully, he didn't have to think about it long as the elevator doors opened, and he stepped out with her into a room with a large sparring mat, three punching bags over on the other end, kicking and boxing pads placed in a rack to the right of those and the shooting range off to the left behind clear glass window dividers, with an open entrance to it at the far left. Off on the far right on the room were several other things like treadmills and weightlifting equipment for further exercising.

"You need a sparring partner?"
 
Last edited by a moderator:
"I think you're the only one who wants to talk to me," she answered flatly. It was hardly a secret that she wasn't a fan favorite. She couldn't even be certain that Steve had motives other than to ensure she didn't do anything HYDRA-like. Her gaze shot to him only briefly before she forced herself to train her eyes straight ahead. It was reminiscent of the situation just a few hours ago, the moment she had decided she was going to free herself of HYDRA's chains. Well, free in a comparative sense. She had thought the decision occurred when Steve was staring down the barrel of a pistol. But, no. It had been in the elevator when he had asked for her name. That had been the moment.

The air had that same heavy feeling. Her was similarly shrouded in confusion and doubt. Her teeth bared down on her bottom lip in an effort to provide some sort of comfort. Finally, the elevator doors opened and she let herself breathe again. She hadn't realized she hadn't been breathing.

The training room wasn't exactly lacking but she'd be lying if she didn't say she was disappointed. Perhaps HYDRA had spoiled her in that regard. They invested in her physique and instilled in her a sense of pride surrounding her superior athleticism. It made her want to keep training. It was the only time they ever said anything to her that could even remotely be considered kind.

"You need a sparring partner?" The question, thankfully, broke her out of her memories. Her gaze bounced back to him as she scoffed, her smirk dropping when she realized it was a serious question.

"I have spent all of my time with HYDRA studying your every move. I can see the muscles in your arm flex when you clench your fists. I know what leg you're going to lead with by the position of your hips. I know what you think the most important thing is in a room because you always have your chest facing it. Put simply, it wouldn't be a fair fight. I don't want to hurt you," The last statement slipped out in her nonchalant, matter-of-fact tone, but she looked always surprised by how easily the words came out. More so, she was surprised by the fact that it was entirely true. Despite her dedication to training to kill Steve Rogers, there was not a bone in her body that wanted to bring harm to him.

Her gaze flitted to his face once again and, in one crashing wave, it all suddenly became too much for her. The suspicion and doubt and confusion and anxiety snowballed into one terrible feeling. Frustration began to build inside of it. She just couldn't figure him out. How easily she could read everyone else! But, he was different. Something made him different and she just couldn't tell how he wanted her to act. She felt like she was going to explode and so she did.

"What angle are you playing at? I just don't understand. Are they trying to get you to coax intel out of me? Well, big surprise! I don't know anything. All I know is they've stuck some needles in me and now I can't die. And, boy, did they try to kill me. They tried just about everything short of dropping a nuclear bomb. And, boy, did I pray that one day they'd finally do it. Worse than that? That name you were so adamant about finding out about is all I know about me as a person. I don't know if I have any family or friends. Hell, I don't even know how long they had me locked up."

"But, let me tell you something I do know: I am sick and tired of being a pawn in this giant bullshit game of chess. So if one more person acts like I'm an idiot and that I don't recognize the game they're playing at, I swear, I will jump off a bridge until I don't get back up."
 
"I appreciate the thought. But I like a good challenge," Steve replied with a nod, offering her another good-natured smile. It made sense for Cora to be so intimately acquainted with his physical ticks and it was nice of her to not want to injure him because of it, but he figured the least he could do for her at the moment was give her something to really focus on while she was down here. Not to mention it would keep him occupied for the time being as well. He'd be able to test his ability with her, and see how well she used her knowledge of his exact fighting style. A sparring match would be good for them both.

Then, Cora suddenly burst and his smile faded away, as she vented out her agitation about not knowing what he wanted from her and opened up about what HYDRA did to her. Her tone was filled with bottled up fury, and Steve let himself absorb the information she was revealing in its midst; she didn't know how long they had her in their custody, either. Goodman had told him that he was the one "overseeing the bulk of her training in recent years", which meant that they at least had been doing so for quite some time. But how far back did that date? Bucky had been under their control since he crashed in the Arctic over seven decades ago; was it possible that she was also their prisoner for around that long?

The thing was, she just said she couldn't die and he knew that for a fact because he watched her instantly heal from a bullet wound in her abdomen earlier that day. That made him unsure if she was even in the same program as Bucky. He was also a super soldier, but like Steve, he was still mortal. He could still be killed. Cora even had a specific designation for herself. The thought that they had spent that long devising ways to try and kill her- just to validate that the task couldn't be done- almost made him sick to his stomach.

He swallowed thickly when she told him she was tired of being played, that she would "jump off a bridge until she didn't get back up" if she met one more person who treated her as though she couldn't see that she was. It spoke volumes about the control that HYDRA still had over Cora, which made her paranoid and unsure of others when she had the freedom to actually think for herself. It brought more truth to her earlier remark about never being able to trust him. Somehow, he had to overcome this. He didn't want to think about the possibility that he couldn't.

"There's no angle I'm playing at. There's no agenda I have with you," Steve told her earnestly. "I want you to feel comfortable. Like you can be yourself." As he said this, he slipped off his shoes, taking a few steps out onto the mat before turning back to face Cora.

"Now let's fight."
 
Last edited by a moderator:
"You're so full of it!" She chuckled spitefully with a roll of her eyes. "What difference is there between you and them, really? And it's always a them, isn't it? You're not them because you so terribly different from each other. But, it was like this, too, at first. We'd have tea and listen to the radio and have talks and I'd write letters in perfect little handwriting saying how absolutely perfect everything was. And they'd tell me I had a choice. Everything was a choice. I chose it."

By this point, Cora had kicked off her shoes and began to slowly circle Steve. If he wanted to spar, fine. But she was going to go easy on him. He'd be done in a matter of minutes as soon as she got started due to a combination of her skill and his reluctance. He didn't exactly look ready to harm her in any way.

"I could've left. Even when it started to change, I could've left. For the longest time, I could've left. But, I didn't. I didn't want to. I never even tried to. Even when I knew things weren't right, when I would lay awake at night and wonder how I had gotten to where I was, when I realized that if I stayed, I'd never leave. And, they had done nothing to me. To my brain, at least. I can't even remember why I wanted to stay, but I did." She paused momentarily as if swallowing the fact that she couldn't remember before continuing.

"Then, he came. I suppose he was something of a friend, if I remember correctly. He told me terrible stories. They were risking lives at the potential for advancement. They were changing people. Voluntarily, of course. Everything was voluntary. He, of course, was talking about S.H.I.E.L.D. He and I both hated S.H.I.E.L.D. for the longest time. They had taken something very important from us both," She shook her head slightly, deciding not to dwell on the fact. Trying to remember only made her frustrated and cause a sharp pain in her head. She continued with a small smug grin, "Surprised? That's the point of my little anecdote. The only difference between you and them is that you're on the other side."

"Do you think that S.H.I.E.L.D. will ever stop? They won't. Because this isn't about HYDRA or morals. It's about control. The world is quite simply divided into two groups: those that give control to others and those that take it, the selfless and the selfish. And, those that want control are never satisfied. It doesn't matter what side of the line they're on."

Cora feinted a punch to Steve's left and landed an actual one when he dodged right. Caught off guard by the sudden attack, Steve stumbled slightly but quickly regained his balance. He stepped forward slightly to throw his own punch but Cora dodged by ducking and knocked him to the floor with a sweeping kick.

"And thinking the best of someone is only an underestimation of their capabilities." She stated this as if it were something pounded into her head tirelessly and it would be regurgitated on command.
 
Getting back to his feet, Steve threw his left fist forward only for Cora to grab his wrist, plant her elbow harshly into his arm then slam her free fist into his stomach while simultaneously releasing her grip. Right front kick, side counter-kick to the shin to reset the position of his leg. String of jabs, swatted away by palms and forearms. Every move he had to deliver was never one she couldn't answer, always finding away to move out of their way or shut them down before they could reach their destination.

"S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn't fight for the kind of control that HYDRA wants," he breathed, knocking down an incoming fist only to be sent stumbling back by a knee planted against his chest. "They don't want the power to get what they want from things. From people." He launched a front side kick at her and she caught his ankle, rotating the other way around and throwing Steve across the mat. The wind was knocked out of him as his back met with it, but he made a quick recovery and was standing up again in no time.

"They want control over the war so it stops. So it never has to happen." In a particularly aggressive move reminiscent of the Widow, Cora leapt up and crushed his neck between her thighs, hurling him to the ground an instant later with a forceful rotation of her hips. He gasped out again, and this time his body was rattled enough by the impact that it took him a while longer to stand back up. "You said it yourself... HYDRA doesn't care what they have to do for that power. They'll kill innocent people without thinking twice just so they can rule over the rest." He lifted his left palm to block a quick right jab at his face, moving back a few steps. He could feel that killing intent was absent from Cora's blows, but he'd be damned if they didn't still hurt.

"We don't want that for people. People like you." He received swift and immediate punishment for the last part of his sentence, once again having his wrist caught after throwing his right fist out and getting three consecutive hits delivered to his gut, with another to his cheek. Then she turned and hurled him over his shoulder, dropping to one knee and once again slamming her fist into his right cheek. He grunted, slipping away from her and getting up a little shakily. He wasn't going to be surprised if that side of his face was bruising later.

"You can... be better." His breaths were labored, standing in place with his guard lifted up. "You might not believe it, but I do. You're more than what you were set up to be." He paused, wondering if his words could even truly reach her. If they could ever reach her. Maybe they couldn't. Maybe the only way for her to understand was to let her discover herself, on her own. But for now, he'd still give it his best shot.

"You can help give people hope, now... not something to fear."
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Cora had her fists raised, ready to start swinging once again, to drown out Steve's words with combat and heavy breathes and adrenaline. She considered continuing the fight a moment as her gaze ran up and down Steve's figure. He was, by no means, in a dire condition, but it was evident that he had underestimated Cora's ability. She could almost hear him justifying his poor performance by swearing his was 'going easy' on her.

"Do you really believe all that?" She scoffed, dropping her fists to her sides and turning away from Cap. It was clearly a rhetorical question, though she gave ample time for a response as she paced away from the sparring mat and ran a hand through her hair.

"It's amazing, absolutely shocking how similar you sound. Do you even realize it?" Again, a rhetorical question. But she turned to him, letting the silence linger a moment before continuing.

"What makes you so absolutely sure they're any different? Do you know how far you'd go for them? Because you'll give and give and give and they'll take and take and take until you have nothing left. They'll use your idealism against you, turn your confidence into delusion, feed into your ridiculous psyche. And that's the sort of thing you don't realize until it's too late."

"I am telling you, Steve. I know the signs. How long have I lived it? I don't even know. The second I walk in here, they tag me, file me away, assign me a number," She held out her wrist to showcase her tracker.

"This is a war of information and assets. Both of which I am and that is my only value to them. I don't think they believe so heartily in redemption as you do. I don't think anyone does," Her voice trailed off at hearing the backhanded compliment slip from her lips. She shot him a sideways glance, the question of whether or not he truly believed in her capability for good briefly crossed her mind.

"When would the risk of keeping you around outweigh the value? How quickly would they turn on you if they think you've crossed a line? Have you thought about that? How quickly your allies become enemies because of blind trust? The same blind trust you are regurgitating to me right now? Are you so certain you haven't been indoctrinated? Those are the things an asset should be concerned about."

She inhaled sharply and her eyes darted to her tracker then back up to Steve. Her expression changed as if a thought crossed her mind and she opened her mouth to share it but clamped it back shut as she ultimately decided against it.

"Now, if you'll excuse me, I should probably get some rest before attempting to prove my worth to everyone else."
 
Steve lowered his guard as Cora spoke again and turned away from him, striding slowly across the mat to close some of the distance between them. With her next words, he realized now that she wasn't just telling him that his outlook on S.H.I.E.L.D. was naïve; she was taking her turn to convince him that it was. To get him really thinking about it, and see the situation the way she did. It also wasn't lost on him that she addressed him by his first name while doing so, getting him to further believe that she did want him as an ally, but not through the way he was trying to make it happen. She didn't see S.H.I.E.L.D. as being any different than HYDRA, and presumed that like the latter did to her, the former would only hold onto him for as long as they felt it was necessary for. It didn't help getting a look at the tracking bracelet attached to Cora's wrist.

The Captain allowed himself to smirk slightly for a moment at her indirect compliment, genuinely flattered by her acknowledgement of his confidence in redemption. At least she saw how much he wanted her to have faith in being better. It wasn't a moment that lasted long, but it was one he'd take regardless. He could understand where she was coming from, when he looked back on what S.H.I.E.L.D. had once been; it was all about protocols, about things being on a need-to-know basis and accordingly only providing certain amounts of information to people. They'd been hiding their work on the Tesseract, a powerful alien artifact that they were intending to weaponize. Who knew what other secrets they'd been hiding then? But he firmly believed that the S.H.I.E.L.D. now- the one being rebuilt from the ruins HYDRA wrought in their wake- was not the same one of the past. Cora thought otherwise. And that was where their ideals met a divide.

Steve said nothing more. He knew he couldn't say anything more. What could he do to convince her that S.H.I.E.L.D. was not the way she viewed it? Like she told him, she had spent most of the waking days she could even remember going through HYDRA's routine. A routine where she was used for their benefit. The moment she was brought before S.H.I.E.L.D. she had been tagged. She was being monitored to ensure that she wasn't going to do anything they didn't want her to do. She was still fighting an uphill battle where she felt she had to convince the new people around her than she was more than an asset. That only served to make her argument stronger, and his defense weaker. He didn't have anything to show for his claims.

So when she walked away, he let her walk away.

--

"I'm gonna need a raincheck on that dance."
"-on the dot, don't you dare be late. Understood?"
"You've been asleep, Cap."
"-my God. This guy's still-"
"For almost seventy years."
"-with you, to the end of the line."
"-means something to me-"
"-ry me?"

With a small jolt, Steve awoke in his bed, blinking away the rest he got and slowly sitting up. This was to be expected. Mostly, during the times when he actually managed to fall asleep, it didn't last long. The memories he had didn't let him. Interestingly enough, there seemed to be a few new ones added to the mix. One of which he swore for some reason had the word "marry" in it, but he didn't make anything of that. He stared at the floor for a long while, letting the last vestiges of his memories fade away into the back of his mind, then stood up, deciding to visit the training floor. He wondered if he'd find Cora there; it'd been a couple of days since their sparring match and discussion about the difference between S.H.I.E.L.D. and HYDRA- or lack thereof- and since then, they'd only exchanged a bit of small talk with one another. Not much beyond that. He wondered how open she was to talking to him in the first place.

Arriving at the lower floor minutes later, he did hear the sound of a punching bag being hit and feminine grunts to go along with it. But it wasn't Cora who was down there.

"Feeling restless, Rogers?" Romanoff asked, after turning to face him.
"Yeah. Did Matthews happen to be around here recently?"
"You just missed her, actually. Left not too long ago. Why? Looking for the company of more old folk?"
Steve smirked. "Well, you know how crazy youngsters can make us."
Romanoff smiled back at him. "She seems to be doing alright. But I'm sure she won't mind the same."

"Thanks, Nat." Steve turned to step back into the elevator, but stopped for a moment when Romanoff called out, "Hey. Take things slow with her, alright? I know how eager you are to get her settled into the 'family' and whatnot, but... she's still working on the transition. Don't try rushing the process, or it'll make her uncomfortable." Steve gave her a nod of acknowledgement, then went back into the elevator and pressed the button for the floor that Tony had told him days earlier Cora was staying on.

He too had made an "old people hanging out together" joke when he did.

Stepping out of the elevator and making a slow approach toward the door to Cora's room, he lifted his fist toward it, then hesitated. Was it even a good idea to visit her at this hour? Would she be awake? Would his presence be welcome if she happened to be?

Soon, he decided he shouldn't think too much about it, and went ahead and knocked.
 
Cora's routine didn't change too drastically as she transitioned from life with HYDRA to life with S.H.I.E.L.D. The main difference was that there was less experimentation, which meant more free time which Cora utilized to opt for more training time. In fact, there was next to no official S.H.I.E.L.D. communication over the few days they allowed her to settle in. So when she received the order that she was to report for a psychological evaluation, she was almost relieved to take another step toward the familiar routine of her past life.

Her past few days had been the most uncomfortable ones in her memory. She spent the majority of her free time either training in silence or actively avoiding interaction with any of the Avengers. They all had this infuriating habit of focusing all of their attention, positive or negative, on her whenever she walked into a room and she hated it. Stark and Barton watched her like she might snap at any moment. Banner just tried to generally stay out of her way while hovering around her to ensure she behaved herself. Thor tried to make conversation but about all the wrong things. She and Romanoff, at least, could operate in a respectful silence, though Cora was certain the Romanoff always had her in her peripheral. Lastly, Steve was trying all too hard to help her settle in and she was convinced it was only a ploy to keep a closer watch on her.

So when the comfortable silence of her room was interrupted by a knock at the door, she was hardly surprised to find Steve as the source of it. She swept wet strands of hair from her face and swung open the door to greet the blond with a lopsided smile.

"What? Are you my S.H.I.E.L.D. sanctioned escort to the lab?" Cora half-chuckled, leaning against the door frame of her room. The interior of the room was pristine as if it hadn't been touched for years, let alone been occupied for the past few days. It was another one of her lingering habits, drilled into her through decades of unexpected searches. Anything that was important was hidden. Anything that was unimportant was just a waste of space.

Though she wanted nothing more than to be left in peace and sink back into all of her old habits, she tried to play nice with Steve. There was no need for any more emotional outbursts. The last thing she needed was for him to go running back to S.H.I.E.L.D. and tell them she was unfit for the outside world. She hoped the change in behavior was seen as coping rather than a facade, another report that would hurt her chances of... Of what exactly?

She had grown so accustomed to this way of life that she had forgotten there was supposed to be an end goal. Right now, the only advantage in sight was freedom. But, what difference did that make? She was living the same way as she would in a cell. Still, she couldn't bring herself to believe a word that came out of anyone's mouth. Despite knowing all this and occasionally acknowledging her warped perception of reality, she couldn't bring herself to change, to be genuine, to be vulnerable. Perhaps she was too far gone.

"I'll stay out of trouble on my way up. Scout's honor," She remarked, holding up her hand in a gesture that signaled as much. Steve hated this faux coyness, the feigned innocence. She could tell by the way his jaw clenched before he spoke. Maybe he thought that she did it to frustrate him just when he thought he was making progress with her. But, it was more of a defense mechanism, a reflex. This was not Cora. This was HYDRA's little monster.
 
"I'm not here to escort you." Steve wondered for a moment if Cora's inquiry was just part of her sarcasm, or made because S.H.I.E.L.D. wanted her in the lab to run some tests, making her assume that he was present at her room to bring her there. In any case, especially if they had limited time, he didn't want to make that the focus of the subject. "I just thought we could... talk. About things," he told her with a shrug. "About where you want to go, what you're interested in doing... what you might be thinking about... I want to hear you out. I know between us, I've been doing a lot of talking, and I haven't really let you weigh in with your thoughts. The way you did when we sparred."

It wasn't an easy task, attempting not to come on to her too strong while inviting her to talk about anything having less to do with her place on the team. He knew that she didn't fancy conversation, let alone with him, and generally had a difficult time with winding down. That was made even more apparent by the pinpoint tidiness of her quarters, with not a thing even slightly out of place. He grew to learn from her frequent disappearances from the penthouse after he showed her the training floor that she was accustomed to following a routine, one which involved staying out of the path of others. She let herself be frequented by solitude, effectively maintaining a gap between her and the rest of the Avengers. It was hard to do anything about that, but Steve didn't believe it was impossible to.

"I could talk about who I was before I took up the suit and shield, but I'm sure I'm saying enough as it is," he remarked with a small, momentary smile. Of all the things Cora knew about him, he was sure HYDRA didn't bother spending any time talking about the Steve Rogers who existed before he took the serum. That wouldn't be something that mattered to them. "If you've got something going on up in the lab and you want to get on with that, it's fine. We don't have to talk now. But, you know... in the future, if you happen to be interested... we can do that. And you can drop by my room if you want so we can, if not yours."
 
"Maybe you didn't realize, but I'm not much of a talker," She remarked absentmindedly, shifting in front of the doorway to shut her door slightly so Steve would stop peering into her room. She wondered briefly what the state of Steve's room was, what the organization, or lack thereof, of a room said about a person's personality traits. How many similarities between them would she be surprised by? How many differences?

Sometimes, she wished she could shut it off. The analysis was constantly running through her head - escape routes, consequences of actions, verbal ticks and physical cues. Her brain ran like a computer, trying to calculate the best outcome, the worst outcome, the most likely, the least likely. The echoes of her memories with HYDRA bounced around in her head, scolding her for missing an opportunity. The rest of Avengers couldn't see any of that. Or perhaps they didn't want to.

Steve was different. Whether it was an active desire to understand or an innate ability to empathize, Steve could see it in her. She hated that, too. It made it far more difficult to decide where to walk the line between blatancy and secrecy. Somehow, he knew all her ticks and tells. Yet she still lied through her teeth. What else was she to do?

"Your room?" She sounded almost startled by the proposition. She glanced down the hall to make sure no one was within earshot to mistake her intentions. "I, uh, I don't think that much privacy is necessary. In any case."
 
A stutter kicked in for Steve immediately after Cora's response to his invitation, and he swore he could feel his face turning a crimson shade of red. "I- no, that's not what I meant," he told her, shaking his head and his hands to emphasize his defense. Of all things, he hadn't expected her to interpret his words that way. "I'm wasn't- I'm not looking to... 'fondue', with you." He took a moment to clear his throat, but it didn't do much to help with regaining his composure.

"I just meant that if you don't want me to, uh, come into your room..." He was trying to be polite, and had noticed a few moments earlier how she moved the door to keep him from looking into her quarters. "... then you could come to mine so we can talk, since I don't mind that. I was thinking that it could just be..." He hesitated for a moment, realizing that he wouldn't be heading any closer towards the right direction with that sentence. "I don't want us to be interrupted, while we're talking. It's different from if we were in an open place like the penthouse, it's... a person-to-person thing."

Steve hoped he fixed things up then. He was still embarrassed beyond belief that his initial proposition came out the way it did.
 
"Fondue?" Cora chuckled at Steve's choice of euphemism. She didn't know what fonduing was, but she felt fairly certain that it wasn't what Steve was implying. She scratched the back of her hand with a glance to the floor and a mutter, "Right, yeah..."

"What is it with you and person connection? The rest of them out there couldn't care less whether or not I was 'comfortable' or 'happy' or whatever else you're concerned about. Is there some special reward if you get me to spill the beans? Because you won't get it. Because there's nothing to spill that you don't already know. I just... I can't even pretend to believe you're doing this with sincerity. I just want to know what's in it for you. I think that's all that's bothering me. I can't see what you have to gain from getting all chummy with me."

It was more on the track of thinking out loud, rather than trying to elicit an actual response from Steve. Not too long ago, she had little she had to keep to herself. There was no issue with her talking things out because no one around her cared to listen. No one since... So, when she realized that she had actually said those things and Steve had actually listened, there was a brief moment of panic where she could only hope one of those two things had failed to occur. Steve opened his mouth to respond and Cora made her move.

"I have an evaluation to attend to," She interrupted quickly and calmly, shutting the door to her room as she stepped away from the door frame. Her steps were quick but not hurried as she started down the hallway. Steve was sure to follow and ramble on about friendship and heroism and the like but there would reach a point where her silence would be just outputting enough to turn him away or he would be forced to leave her be, at least for the duration of her evaluation.
 
Last edited:
Unsurprisingly, Cora's precognition of Steve's physical ticks included the movement of his lips, so when he opened his mouth to respond to her confusion about his approach with her, it was expected that she made a point to stop him from following through before briskly leaving for the lab upstairs. He heaved a deep exhale through his nose as he watched her depart, feeling yet again like he wasn't getting anywhere with her. It wasn't that she couldn't be moved, but she was making an effort to keep him from budging her.

Yet he couldn't keep himself from pressing. It somehow felt wrong not to, and he wasn't sure why. Perhaps it was a compulsion to take on a responsibility, knowing how long she'd gone without saving? The will to right a wrong? He remembered the doctor- Goodman- telling him how she'd been "cursing him left and right" at a point. How she expected her "knight in shining armor" to come rescue her. He had to be that knight in shining armor, whether Cora remembered that now or not, because it wouldn't make sense for her to eventually curse him specifically. She had to have been someone who held him to a high respect during the war, and he failed to keep her away from danger. To possibly bring her back home to a family. There couldn't have been any other reason why he would try so hard to be the one to make her feel like she wasn't just a weapon. And thinking that he was the reason that she was the way she was now...

Hurt.

--

"Hello Ms. Matthews, good to see you made it," Banner greeted calmly, his voice devoid of any empathy or contempt. For obvious reasons, being calm was kind of his thing. Key words being "kind of". Out of his peripheral, he gauged her movements carefully as Cora moved to take a seat in front of him, typing away on a touch pad held in his left hand. He still wanted to be cautious of her, unsure of what her next move would be.

"I'm aware S.H.I.E.L.D. gave you the memo about what you're doing here, so you should know you don't have to expect any needles or anything like that. They just want me asking you a couple of questions, and then you'll be free to continue stalking the halls in your usual sullen silence." He stopped typing on his pad and lowered it, looking directly up at her as he went on. "Honestly, I wasn't really up for this- I've tried this myself before with Tony, and it didn't end very well- but they insisted I was the best one to do this... and to be fair, they aren't wrong about that."
 
"The best one to do this? Why? Because of your temperament?" She scoffed as she gingerly took a seat. Her gaze bounced around the room, seemingly hesitant to fall on Banner as she spoke, "I'll bet that's the answer you'd give me. I imagine it's because you'd be best suited to handle me if I went rogue, no?"

There was a slight pause, a breath and her gaze finally settled on Banner. She tilted her head slightly with a small pout as she studied him momentarily before continuing.

"What is the point of all this, Dr. Banner? You already know what there is to know - however much they cared to disclose it to, how I'm getting along and 'adjusting', my temperament. We both know how this evaluation will go. You will ask me questions, I will lie through my teeth and tell you what I think you want to hear, and I will sooner be dead than an Avenger. And then, how long will that go on? How long will I be side-eyed and monitored and checked in on before I become what everyone seems so certain about me being?"

Her voice was abnormally level while she spoke about what was an admittedly touchy subject. Perhaps her chats with Steve had helped her become more versed in restraint as she delved into an emotional area. Surely, Banner wasn't the only one listening in on her monologue. Maybe her control would earn her some brownie points in the future.

"This is a prison sentence," She stated, showcasing her tracker bracelet. "And I am waiting to be moved to solitary for bad behavior."

There was a pause as if she were going to allow Banner to weigh in, but, when he began to speak, she interrupted him. COra continued speaking as if answering a question she hadn't been asked yet.

"It's like a cancer, something along those lines. Non-transferrable, non-replicable. At least, in it's current state. The way I understand it there is a threshold my body wants to be at - blood cells, tissue, all that. When it dips below that threshold, it rapidly regenerates. Taking organs, blood, tissues samples and grafting them onto another person doesn't work because the cells don't know when they've reached that threshold. They just keep multiplying and out growing any of the carrier's natural tissue. They might be fine for days or weeks or even months, but eventually something grows somewhere it shouldn't. The body shuts down. They die."

"Took them about a dozen or so trials before they realized. The deaths were varying time periods after the operation, how quickly they died depended on a variety of things. After that first dozen, there was another. And another. And another. All dead. They were trying new phases, trying to make it work to build an army. Then there was another dozen. One survived. Her name was Ashley or Amanda or Amber, something with an A."

"She managed to tough it out, demonstrated the similar regenerative properties to me. They had frozen something or other and then heated it, something about stalling regeneration and reactivating it. She seemed like she was doing fine. We became friends, patient zero and patient one. But, she was too much trouble for them. She tried to escape too often, talked back too often, stepped out of line too often. They told me to kill her. I did, sliced her head right off. Apparently, that's one way to kill someone who can't be killed. I didn't think twice about it. I didn't even need any external motivation to do it."

Cora demonstrated no outward signs of remorse. Of course, this was no good memory but it felt like it was something she had come to terms with. In fact, despite all of the horrible things she had done at HYDRA's command and despite the realization there were some actions met with less resistance from her, she had come to terms with a lot of her past. Perhaps that was where a fundamental dilemma between her and the Avengers lied. She had plenty of time to grief and regret her past actions. But, her past was a fresh wound for the Avengers.

"I remembered this all only recently. Maybe in a dream or maybe it just came to me at some point. A lot of things just pop back into my mind and I can't remember when they got there. It feels like they have always just been there. Some memories are more troubling than others. For example, I can't sleep at night because every time I close my eyes I go back to one experiment. They were testing to see how long I could go without food or water. I was in a room built from big cement blocks mortared together with no windows, just one heavy duty metal door. I was fading in and out of consciousness, really I was dying and coming back. I couldn't focus when I was conscious, slowly going more and more insane. I was prying at the walls, trying to - I don't know - dig myself to some water, even a drop. I would pry and dig and scratch until my fingers bled. I would pound on the door until my fists bruised and the bones in my hands were riddled with mircofractures. They would bleed and bruise for longer because my body just didn't have to resources to repair as quickly."

"I had no one to talk to, no comfort or support. Not even a bed. Just a cold, empty room. When I got out, they told me I had been in there for 23 days. They would have gone longer, they said to me after, but they wanted to move on to something more productive. Unsurprisingly, the whole experiment was Goodman's idea."

She leaned forward as if she were about to deliver the whole moral of her lengthy exposition. In a half-whisper she remarked, "Needless to say, I'm not fearful of needles, Dr. Banner."
 
"... Right."

That was the only response Bruce could conjure up after absorbing the massive onset of information Cora had just delivered to him. She began by telling him how her blood worked, something he wasn't even going to ask about seeing as he was not tasked with assessing her physicality, and that led into more personal things. The memory of a girl she befriended, then went on to brutally murder when she wouldn't submit to their higher-ups. Then the memory of her being locked in a room for weeks without food or water, literally prying at the walls to get herself out. And the whole time, she spoke with an unnatural calmness in her voice; even when a lifetime of experiences like that did that to a person, it didn't stop it from being so unnerving. And she concluded it all as though it had all been a long response to his assumption that needles made her squirm.

"Well, I think that in itself kind of tells me what I'm supposed to be getting out of this evaluation, doesn't it?" he asked aloud, gesturing out to Cora with his free hand before beginning to type away on his touch pad again with it. While doing so, he alternated between looking between her and the pad. "You've experienced excessive, excessive psychological trauma-" Bruce made sure to stress the extent of it, "that seems to have caused a near-complete if not total repression of your emotions. You've been carrying these things with you for a long time, and I'm guessing that they've worn away at you so much to the point where your mind's instinct is to stop feeling, as a defense mechanism." He paused for a moment, and only for a moment. He knew Cora was definitely going to interrupt him and shut him down early if his silence took a millisecond too long.

"Now maybe you're thinking this means I'm going to refer you to a S.H.I.E.L.D. psychologist, and I should, but on the contrary, I'm not. I haven't really talked to you at all these past couple of days, but I'm sure it's a notion you've already inwardly scoffed at, and that you'll get nowhere by working with a psychologist. There's no way you'd ever let yourself work with one. Regardless, I am still going to tell you that you do need help. That maybe I'm not even talking to the real Cora. I'd like to think that you were once a much different person, whoever you were before... HYDRA happened. Gradually rediscovering that person might be a good thought to stew on, but again, I'm not going to force you into doing anything." Putting an end to his typing, Bruce fully looked up at Cora before providing his closing words. "In any case, if there's anything you want to say to me, shoot. Otherwise, you can go."
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom
Back