After the lab debacle, Eden was in no mood to socialize, not even with her pal in arms who walked behind her with a respectably comfortable distance. The angelic girl wasn't moping, nor was she glowering, she was simply just tired, and would prefer the calm of her own company for once.
To break the silence, Steve spoke from behind Eden as they walked back, in separate strides, to her quarters.
"Nat and Clint are going to go on a small extraction mission before Thor's send off party- until then, would you like to do anything?" Steve prodded softly, not necessarily expecting Eden to go ballistic or serve him any attitude. She'd just had a rather interesting and rather emotional experience, Steve could tell she was just in her head.
Eden shook her head just enough for Steve to notice, pausing at the entrance to her room with a tender hand to the door jamb. She was so graceful, her touches always featherlight, her gait almost appeared as if she'd never touched the ground at all. A true divine creature, pure, porcelain, vulnerable, fragile.
She didn't want to be fragile.
"No, thank you. I want to be by myself for a while, if thats okay. Catch up on some rest perhaps."
Cap nodded, albeit hesitantly, and offered a small smile in return to Eden's request.
"Alright, get some rest. If you need anything, give me a holler and I'll be right here." Eden gave Steve one last tired look and then entered her room, shutting the door softly behind her.
The last thing she remembered before catapulting herself onto her bed and drifting off into a fitful spell of slumber, was the silent trickle of tears running down the flushed apples of her cheeks.
__
"What is your name?" I couldn't answer him even if I tried, my mouth felt glued shut, my eyes could hardly focus on the outline of his face.
But I could feel him, feel his warm arms surrounding me like a protective cradle. I didn't want him to let me go, for fear of never feeling warm ever again without him.
"Please, tell me, I can help you. We can help you. What is your name?" The young man urged me persistently, my head lolling back and forth on the base of my neck, the world a spinning circus of blurry colors and shapes that danced discordantly before my eyes.
I could feel myself slipping away, oh how I wanted to answer him so badly. But I couldn't. I couldn't move, I couldn't speak.
"She's incapacitated, they did something to her." The man spoke once more, his voice strained as his grip on me grew tighter, pulling me closer to his form.
"I can't read her, her mind, it's blocked, or vacant. I hope its the former." A woman chimed in, the blurriness in my vision slowly shifting to just pure white, my hearing suddenly beginning to distort. Was I traveling through a tunnel?
"I won't let them get to her again. She's alone, defenseless. Look at her, she's barely alive." The man said worriedly, I could feel the rapid thunder of his heart in his chest against my arm.
Ba-boom.
Ba-boom.
Ba-boom.
Eden awoke with a choked gasp, startled that she had been ripped away from such a telling dream. She didn't know if it were some mental fabrication or a distant memory, all she knew was that she knew the identities of the man and the woman speaking in her dream at one point in her life.
And that gave her hope.
But the newly found hope that rested at the base of her heart didn't ease the feelings of dread and anxiety that were left behind by the unsettling dream she had. Eden grasped at her fingers, pulling them and lacing them together in an attempt to rid herself of the nervous energy that was growing in her belly. She turned her head to read the clock and sighed in disappointment. It was only 8:34 pm. The room was dark save for the soft LED glow of the clock, so she thought it might've been early next morning and she could have a whole day of exploration to distract her from her own mind.
Eden sighed as the anxiety festered within her, thinking of only possible solution to soothe her electrified nerves and the feeling of doom creeping into her very soul.
With soft feet, Eden crept out of her room and peered out from the hallway into the common room. Her bright eyes tentative, searching and darting around the common room in hopes of finding Steve. And much to her relief, there he was, perched comfortably on the couch with a book in his hands.
To Kill A Mockingbird. The title rang a familiar bell inside of Eden's head; she'd read that book before. Not that she could remember doing so necessarily, but the phantom of the memory wisped before her, nearly taking the breath out of her lungs.
Steve sensed Eden traipse into the common room of the floor gracefully, but he waited for her to initiate the conversation whenever she felt comfortable to do so. The captain saw the wear and tear reflect in those beautifully expressive eyes of hers- she has been through more than anyone would be able to discern.
Steve continued to read To Kill A Mockingbird, actually quite invested and amused by the story. It was one of the novels on the list of "catch-up" material Steve had compiled with Sam and Nat. He hadn't this much free time usually to sit down and read a book, it had been door-busting Hydra facilities and recon since the Battle of New York.
Although he'd never admit it, Steve knew that he was glad that it was non-stop action since he'd been defrosted. It's been four years, and every night he dreams of frostbitten fingers and images of his best friend falling from the train in Switzerland. Although coming face to face with Bucky, now the Winter Solider, has lifted a heavy weight off of Steve's heart, it doesn't exactly make him feel less out of sorts nowadays.
Busyness was the cure to stagnation, and as long as there were bad guys and damsels in distress, Captain America was more than happy to continue jumping into the fray.
After a few moments of internal deliberation, Eden decided to speak up and make herself known to Cap.
"Hey Steve. How's the book?"
Steve turned his head to the side with a soft and comforting look on his face, quickly glancing down at his small paper back and then back up at an expectant Eden.
"It's pretty good, I'm enjoying it so far. Nat said it's a nationwide classic, I can clearly see why." Eden grinned, instantly feeling less anxious and melted into a comfortable swagger as she leapt further into the common room towards her friend.
"Could you possibly read some to me? That way I can see if you're telling the truth or not." Eden said with her tongue caught in between her teeth in a quirky smile, feeling her feelings of dread pack themselves away into the back of her mind.
Distraction was good, distraction was okay.
Steve nodded, growing suddenly excited at the proposition and beckoned Eden to join him on the couch. Eden settled a comfortable distance away from her friend, nuzzling her small frame into the soft white linen of the large couch and settling down to listen.
Steve glanced over at his petite friend with an amused expression, shaking his head slightly as she looked at him with an unexplainable glint in her eyes. She was growing on him, more so than he cared to admit. He can't remember the last time since Bucky that he'd ever let anyone under his skin.
"You ready?"
"Oh I'm ready, bring it Cap."
~~
Steve stopped reading at around 12ish, nearly finishing the book, save a few pages. We talked for a little bit about what to expect at Thor's send off gathering which was right around the corner. After that, Steve had fell asleep after claiming he just needed to 'rest his eyes, like old men do sometimes'. I didn't argue with him on the old man part, but I heckled him for not just saying he was tired. I smiled at his peaceful resting features from my side of the couch, tucked under a softly tufted blanket I'd grabbed a bit ago when it got chilly in the common room.
Suddenly, as I was preparing to nod off on the couch like Steve, I heard the hushed voice of Jarvis call out to me from my room.
"Miss Eden."
Jarvis!
"Yes?" I responded quietly, not wanting to disturb Steve in his much needed slumber. I crept off the couch and moved towards my room where I could speak more loudly without waking my friend up.
"I have found a slight match to your identity, and I have secured it in a highly protected cache inside my hardware. Would you like me to review the data I have found with you?"
"How?"
"There is a tablet on your nightstand in your room. I have the data prepared for you on the screen."
I slowly crept into my room and darted towards the night table, and reached over to the picked up the glowing piece of glass and it began to speak as Jarvis began to go over his findings.
"It was quite difficult finding any information on you, and that is because your new DNA is only a half match to your original DNA. Which had made it quite the challenge to sort through potential matches to find the right one. I found a 50% crossmatch for DNA in the international data bank for DNA samples. You were known as Charlotte Eloise Grey, daughter to Ethan and Eliza Grey. You were the recipient of the September Foundation Scholarship Mr. Stark awards to the highest performing student of California."
Jarvis spoke, images of a girl with thick brown locks and vibrant green eyes that shone with something I couldn't quite pin point. I twiddled my white as snow hair in between my fingers, and Jarvis continued.
"Your parents had abandoned you at a young age at the New York's Orphanage for Girls, where you were adopted by Violet Stirling. At the age of 10, you had reached college level in quantum physics and astrophysics. At the age of 13, you won the NASA contest for space experiments for the idea of cell reproduction and biology of a venomous snake in microgravity. At the age of 17, you had met Mr. Stark at his banquet for your scholarship."
Pictures of me, but with long flowing brunette hair and youthful eyes, next to Tony flashed on the screen and my heart thudded in my chest with a dull aching pain. Sure, this was me. For all intents and purposes- I was her. Physically I am Charlotte Eloise Grey- mentally, emotionally, I truly had no idea who I really was.
This was exactly like watching myself grow up throughout someone else's eyes, a stranger watching me blossom into a successful, bright, and driven young woman. It was practically an out of body experience - I looked at myself, knowing that was me at one point, but now it wasn't. I'm a stranger to that girl. Hot tears collected at the corners of my eyes, and I promptly wiped them away hastily.
"You had attended Harvard, but in 2014, you had disappeared off of the grid. There is a search party for you being lead by your adoptive mother, Violet."
All of the new information rang in my ears like a million different bells all chiming at the same time, loud and clear, spotlighting me, revealing my position. I felt so exposed and so buried at the same time, frighted and empowered by the new information that I had. It was overwhelming- and the feelings of creeping dread and my trembling anxiety began to return back into me.
"I think I've heard enough for right now, Jarvis. Thank you." I whispered, feeling the sensation of hot tears running in torrents, down my cheeks.
"You're very welcome, Miss Eden."
EDITED 03/14/21