Flawed Minds

Chapter Twenty One

"And only surveillance at first," Steve insisted. "She's inexperienced."

"I'll leave you to it," Fury spoke as he began to walk to the door. "I have some business to attend to. Keep me updated as usual, and I'll send over any intel on our new Hydra friend that I find." With that he left, leaving the rest of the team to mull over his visit.

"I need to go see Nova, I won't be long." Steve stood and walked to the door. "Then we can continue the search for the enhanced member of Hydra." As he walked he pulled up the grainy photo of their target in the flames, thinking it would be best to show Nova who exactly is after her. It didn't take long for him to reach the medical bay, and he noticed that the door to her room was slightly open so he entered quietly. She seemed to be sleeping; the white room and bed sheets made the only bright color stand out as the emerald necklace rose and fell with her steady breathing. Steve debated with himself whether he should wake her or not, preferring to let her rest some more.

"You're allowed to sit down, Steve." She spoke suddenly, making him jump.

"Oh, I'm sorry I thought you were asleep," He murmured as he sat himself down.

"I was, but I could feel you there," She responded, then her violet eyes opened, already twinkling with amusement. "Woke me up."

"In that case I'm sorry my presence disturbed you," That made her chuckle and he smiled. "What I really wanted to apologize for was chewing you out over the newspaper and dropping that information about Hydra on you out of nowhere," He looked down at his hands and continued. "I never intended to cause so much stress for you, we should have been honest with you from the start we just didn't want to breach security and break those rules- We're all truly sorry, and we understand if you struggle to trust us again." He looked up at her again to find her watching him with a small smile on her face.

"Well if I didn't need to get some air I wouldn't have gone to the roof- and if I didn't go to the roof then there would have been a giant hole in Tony's tower and more injuries than just mine- so it was a good thing that you did after all." She mused, watching Steve's confused reaction for a few seconds before letting out a laugh. "Honestly Steve it's fine, I'm not angry, I forgive you. Anyway, Fury explained everything- again- and as much as he made me angry when he said I could've been a spy, I sort of understand where he was coming from." Steve felt relieved at that, even though the feeling of guilt still lingered.

"So, you're an Avenger now," He said, automatically putting a smile on Nova's face. "You're not gonna have to deal with any secrets anymore, you can get info on all the missions." Nova's face lit up then, the cogs in her head already turning.

"Does that mean you can tell me more about the mission you were being so secretive about?" She asked. "Can you tell me anything else about the person who's looking for me?" Steve let out a sigh and adjusted his position before responding.

"I think so yes," He pulled out his phone and opened it to see the photo again. "So you know he's Hydra, you know he has powers and that he's looking for you. We have no name for him, we think he might have been sent by someone but he is relentless. I myself only have this photo," He turned the phone around so that she could see. "This is the guy who's after you now." Nova studied the grainy picture for a moment; she couldn't make out exactly what he looked like, but for some reason he felt familiar and her stomach twisted uncomfortably.

"That's really strange," She murmured, causing Steve to watch her closely.

"What is?"

"I don't know- I can't really see his face but this person looks familiar..." She frowned. "I just can't be sure but I think I've seen him before."

"Well that's a start, he might have been another person they experimented on who you've met when you were with them," Steve suggested, but Nova couldn't remember actually seeing any others, she had only heard their screams.

"Maybe," She sighed. "Whoever they are, I look forward to defeating them on a mission with you guys," Steve chuckled.

"I'll bet you are, for now though the first couple of missions you go on will be simple, mainly surveillance." He ignored Nova's groan. "Just to give you some experience out in the field before you get thrown in at the deep end! And not before you've fully recovered- and no lying because Bruce will know." Nova frowned, her plans of pretending to feel better foiled because after the amount of time she'd spent with Bruce, he would immediately know if she was faking.

"Fine, you got me, I'll be patient," She rolled her eyes but smiled all the same. "I'll just have to get plenty of rest and feel better faster."

"That's not quite being patient Nova," Steve laughed.

...

Clint and Natasha had decided to train, practicing techniques competitively in the gym, while Tony was working in the lab with Bruce, searching for signs of the enhanced.

"Well he's definitely made an appearance now," Tony muttered, sending a few new articles to Bruce's screen so he could see. "He's burning more things, surprise surprise, but doesn't it seem a little odd to you?" Bruce took a moment, looking over the images and their locations.

"No, you're right. There's no pattern and he's making it a lot more noticeable," He frowned, deep in thought. "But the places he has been burning aren't near any people, he's avoiding putting anyone in danger. Is he trying to get our attention?'

"I don't think so, he'd be hurting people if he wanted to do that," Tony responded, and the two contemplated the situation in silence for a few minutes.

"Actually," Bruce muttered, realizing something at the same time as Tony. "I think he is trying to get our attention, because surely he knows we're watching." Tony nodded.

"Exactly what I was thinking. He's trying to keep our attention," He looked up at Bruce. "In fact, I think he's trying to distract us from something." The lightbulb pinged on in Bruce's mind and they searched other locations that Hydra might want to hide from the team. After half an hour of searching Bruce spoke.

"What about the location of the last Hydra base? Who would suspect somewhere they've already been?"

"I didn't even think of that," Tony exclaimed. "I left a small camera in a tree that looks over the site where the base exploded- I can't believe I forgot about this- It should still be running, the power source is very efficient, solar powered too just in case. I meant to watch and see who came back to sift through the wreckage, but Sparks was a huge new distraction," Bruce became irritated that Tony could forget something like this, but decided to stay silent about it as he walked over to his screen. Seconds later, the screen popped up showing the live footage of what was once the destroyed Hydra base- But now there was another smaller building being erected there, very obviously in secret and no doubt an experimental lab, as the camera could just make out the labels of medical equipment being carted inside.

"How did we miss this?!" Bruce hissed, staring at the screen in shock.

"You look away from a bombsite for a little while and they build a lab over it," Tony murmured. "Well now we know what he's trying to divert our attention from, I wonder why he's going to such lengths for this."

"I don't know, but he thinks we don't know about it so we must have some sort of advantage," Bruce muttered, scrambling to find a positive. Tony had sent a message to Steve, Clint and Nat, explaining the situation to them as soon as they had got to the lab, and was now forming an idea for Nova's first surveillance mission with Steve.