(Winter's P.O.V.)
"I killed, tortured and spilt the blood of so many people. It was my turn to shed blood."
When Silver said these words she looked at the floor while my heart shattered. She had shed blood while in HYDRA. The scars on her neck from the The Hulk prove it. If she needs reminding I will be the one to remind her.
"You shed blood while in our hell. You shed blood during missions, training, and when you were being tortured. What scars did you have when you started doing this to yourself?"
She looks at me and scrunched her eyebrows together in thought. Her hand taps her legs a few times and once against her side.
"Six. Two gun shot. Three from HYDRA and one from Banner."
"And how many are you neglecting to tell us?"
Barely in a whisper Silver replies "a few."
"You had four bullets hit you in a single mission. You took them and prevented them from hitting me. You had a throwing knife lodge itself on the inside of your left thigh, it didn't stop you from fighting to protect a president taking a second knife to your back." I pause trying to think of other things she has done to earn herself scars. "Hell you even took a bullet to the back of your neck. You might heal faster than Steve here but you almost died, you took that bullet to save a little girl. She was maybe six, and she was wearing a little pink dress just like the one that you came to me in. You have shed enough blood. So I will ask you again. Why did you do this?"
Steve looks at her in disbelief, I know that even though he has been through so much, that he was put through so much pain. Pain that is both physical and mental she has been through so much more. More than anyone should have to go through.
"James. I don't want to talk about it."
"I don't care. Why did you do it?"
She looks at the ground and Sam walks in. Good, we might need a therapist.
She changes the subject to get the attention off of her, something she has always been good at "Falcon how did you find us?"
"Came looking for you three, saw them practically dragging you over here so I figured I'd come see what's so important. And this is pretty cool."
Steve buts in before I can say anything, "Silver used this room as something that can't really be described as cool."
Sam raises an eyebrow and looks at the wall where the two knives are still stuck. He notices the blood and he knows what happened. "There's blood on those. Did you kill someone?"
"No."
"Then whose blood is it?"
"My own."
"Why?"
"Reasons."
"What are those reasons?"
"My own reasons."
"Okay, but I want to know what they are."
"I left someone I care about to get hurt and probably tortured because of me."
"Who?"
She starts yelling "WHO DO YOU THINK SAM?! WHO WAS THE ONLY ONE THAT WAS STUCK THERE WITH ME?"
I don't get it, but I do once Silver looks to the ground and the others look to -oh. She means me.
"They didn't hurt me when you left. They thought you were dead so they didn't even bother looking for you."
"You were still sent on missions. You were sent to kill your best friend, sent to kill people that you might of known. If I was still there I could and would have done all that instead of you. So you wouldn't have to live with the fact that you tried to kill your friends."
"If I wouldn't have been on that mission to DC, Steve wouldn't have known that I was still alive. When you 'died' I was happy that you got away from our hell but I was broken because you were 'dead'. Because I couldn't protect you even after all the times you protected me."
She walks to the wall and pulls out one of the knives. It was bent and unfixable. Same with the second knife that she pulled from the wall. "You kept me safe. And I left you. I left you there alone with no one on your side. I found you after DC and I let you get away from me again. I left you alone twice. Once in HYDRA and once in DC. I should have came back for you. But I didn't."
Her voice cracks as she finishes what she was saying.
"You weren't at fault for that Silver. You new that I would panic if I saw you in DC. You did what was best for me. You have always done what was best for other people, you rarely ever came back from a dangerous mission without the worst wounds. And the others stories were the same. You did what had to be done but kept your team as safe as possible."
This obviously doesn't help her blame herself for anything.
"I'm going inside. I want to make sure that the kids aren't hungry."
"So you going to ditch this conversation Silver?"
"Yes Steve. I'm ditching or avoiding this conversation if you prefer calling it that and I don't want to continue it later."
She leaves the room and we watch her form climb up the ladder.
"Well. That sounds like it was a bad ending point in a conversation. Wouldn't you agree?" Steve and I stare at Sam. "What? It was. But on the bright side she called us by our first names."
When Sam says this I realize that it's true. "Yah I suppose thats good."
"But can I ask what that was started by?"
"Well I found this room, and there was blood everywhere. Even leading up the ladder. If you stand in that corner you can see one thing that she calls herself."
As Sam walks to the corner and turns around he reads the dashes and dots. His shoulders sag and he shakes his head. "Do you think that its worse for her because she wasn't wiped?"
I had forgotten that she didn't get wiped often. Maybe three times total in her life? "Could be, but she was wiped maybe three times?"
We leave and find Silver playing with Cooper, Lila and Thor in the front yard.
She's chasing Cooper while making grabber hands and saying "The tickle monster is gonna get you!" They make almost two full laps before Silver gets bored of this and actually catches him. She ends up crouched in a back catcher position leaning over top of Cooper tickling him, with her front side facing the house so that anyone inside can see them. Thor is throwing Lila up into the air, catching her and before throwing her up again he was spinning around with her in his arms.
We make it half way across the yard before anyone notices us. Cooper yells for help when he sees us.
"Help! The tickle monster is getting me!"
Sam and Steve laugh while I am confused. I thought he was enjoying this? Dam makes his way over to them and pulls Silver onto her bum by her shoulders. "Run Cooper! The tickle monster is down! Run!" He giggles and runs towards me and Steve. "You gotta help me! Keep me safe from the tickle monster! Please!"
I assume that he's talking to The Captain America so I look back to Silver and Sam who are laughing and tackling each other. When I get rammed into I start to topple but regain balance and grab hold of what ever hit me. Cooper is now dangling from the armpits in front of me. "Uh. Think you ran into the wrong guy."
"No way! Jessica said that you protected her! You can protect me too!"
I glance over to where Jess is pining Sam and trying to make him say 'uncle'. Soon hearing it she releases him and runs towards me. "She's coming! Protect me!"
Setting Cooper down behind me I crouch getting ready for Silver to come at me, she rams Steve to the ground and yells "I missed! The tickle monster never misses!" Cooper laughs and runs away towards Thor "gggrrrrr the tickle monster is going to get you!" Silver gets up and runs after him. As she nears Thor he throws Lila up and lands in his arms, he spins her around; hitting Silver in the side of her head.
She flies a few feet and lands on her back staring at the sky.
Laura and Clint come through the front door heading towards Silver, Thor and Lila. The rest of us all run towards them. Sitting up Silver looks and points at Lila and says "You have an amazing kick. But I would appreciate it if you don't use it on me a second time."
We have all reached the trio by the time Silver has finished telling Lila this earning a huge smile. Silver reaches up and grabs hold of my hand, trying to pull herself up. "You good J?"
"Peachy. Little headache but other wise peachy."
Laughing I pull her up and every one is staring at the side of Silvers head that I cannot see. The side that was kicked.
When Silver notices them looking at her head she touched her face. Her hand comes away with blood on it.
"Once again Lila you have an amazing kick. Cooper bud, can we play later?"
He nods. "Okay. I will be back soon."
Grabbing hold of my hand Silv walks away towards the shed.
Now able to see her whole face I see a huge cut from the girls shoe.
"Whoops. Guess I got a cut."
"Yah. Where we going?"
"Shed bathroom. Has a better first aid kit in it."
Getting to the bathroom she pulls out a first aid kit that is a lot bigger than most people's. "Why such a big kit?"
"Just in case I needed it coming back from somewhere."
"Like where?"
"Fix me up and I will explain."
I nod and clean the side of her face. "You being you will probably be fine in about an hour."
"Gotta love healing fast"
Putting a bandage over the cut she sorts on the counter and says "I like tracking down the people who made us like this. Sometimes they see me sometimes they don't. Only gone out twice. Killed the one of them. I recognized him as key master. I was amazed he was still alive. He got a shot off before I got away. He was living in the woods of Russia. Nice little place. Shame he died."
I laugh a Silver. She has only killed once in the 3 years since she got away from HYDRA. I'm proud, yet sad that she did kill.
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