• Blinded or Silenced • {B. Barnes} •

• 16 •

"Fine. If you must know, I chose to do this because—well, I guess I saw how similar Steve and I were. I had Tony to show me the world when I was introduced to it. He's the reason I had such a positive outlook on it, why I wanted to join SHIELD to protect it in the first place." Raynor smiled, quickly jotting down her admission she was able to get with minimal pushback.

"And you wanted to be that person for Mr. Rogers?" She softly asked, the sound of her lightning fast pen moving through the air temporarily distracted Lydia.

"Yeah, I guess I did." She admitted to the doctor, and herself. What should've been a bright smile caused by the endearing realization was not what it seemed. Lydia's face was contorted with the undeniable signature look of grief.

"Tell me, Lydia, have you taken other missions just to ease your conscience before, or is this your first time?" Obviously she was caught off guard by the borderline accusatory tone in Raynor's new line of questioning.

"What? I—it's not that. Helping people, going on missions is just my job. It's what I do for a living."

"Oh, please. You're Tony Stark's kid, the last thing you need is to earn a living." Lydia ticked her head to the side, unable to argue with that specific point.

"You've been so focused on what you do, you've never stopped to ask yourself why you do it?"

"I don't know. Cause I'm an awesome person?" Raynor chuckled, not directly disagreeing either that, even though her theory was a tad more exact.

"Over the years I've seen the crazy things you've done for SHIELD. Even when at times you thought you went too far, you still did it. You still went to that dark place because you knew it had to be done. But all this time, you've pushed down the feelings that going to those dark places gave you."

"Well, yeah. Isn't that what you're supposed to do?" Raynor sat there and stared at her for what felt like an eternity to Lydia. She was trying to tell if Lydia was actually being genuine or sarcastic, for once hoping she was trying to be funny about it. Sadly, Raynor found no hint of humor present.

"Uh, no." Was her blunt answer. Lydia frowned, sitting back in her seat.

"You may believe it isn't natural, or morally right to talk about what you do in the field, believe me, I know. But the reality is everyone needs to talk about it sometime or another." Lydia sighed, smiling to herself as she thought about when Coulson told her something eerily similar. If Philly Cheesesteak said it, then she trusted his judgement above all else.

"Okay, so you think I'm a SHIELD agent with pent up emotions who got into the field because it was some—I don't know—method, maybe? To avoid processing my grief of the things I've done to people, because someone has to do them? If nobody had the guts to do what had to be done to save me, I'd still be a prisoner in my own home!" Lydia took a breath as it her last one was forcibly sucked out of her as it finally dawned on her. Raynor sat there in utter shock, her pen completely still for once.

"I was just gonna say you've observed your father's habit of holding things in, so that's what you carry with you now. But sure, your explanation works too." Lydia cleared her throat, reclining back into the chair after seeing how far forward she inched when she shouted.

"It is a great, and noble thing that what you want to do with your life is help people, Lydia. But you can't spend your whole life focusing on them exclusively and not yourself." Lydia, for the first time in a ridiculously long time, had felt seen. This was the true reason she took the mission to help Steve Rogers, why she started taking on all of her missions in the first place.