Steve drives, drives until he finds a bridge. "We went fishing here. Do you remember?"
"Kinda. Scarlet was fishing."
"Yah. Do you remember the cave?"
"No. Can you show me?"
He nods and gets out, waiting until I've started to follow him before walking down the small trail. He stops at the edge of the water, pulling off his sweater and shoes. I pull off my sweater, shoes and gloves. He looks at my hands but doesn't say anything. "Common." He dives into the water. Are my arms going to drown me?
I jump in too. Catching a glimpse of Steve in the light shining through the water. He's swimming down, I'm being weighted down, but follow him into a small tunnel. Just as I'm not able to see anything from no light, my head breaches the surface. "Steve?"
"I'm here."
Lightning my hair on fire I can see him, one hand stretched out to me waiting for my own hand to grasp it. "I'm good, I can do it myself." Since the entrance is straight up there's no floor for me to stand on, even with kicking my feet and treading water I'm slowly sinking. Steve moves forward, wraps his arms around me to lift just as I find a place to put my feet and push up.
With our combined strength we tumble, limbs trying to break our fall only to end up on our backs my arm under his back. I wench it out from under him, making him flip over and press my back against the wall furthest from him. "Jess it's fine."
"Steve I'm going to hurt you, stay back."
He rolls his eyes and shuffles closer, "no you're not. You're obviously worried about hurting someone so you won't." He sits down beside me, back to the wall, shoulder pressing mine. "You won't hurt me."
Oddly I feel like I can trust him, maybe as much as I trust Winter. I allow my fire to be put out. "Steve?"
"Hmm?"
"I'm scared."
"Of?"
"What are the others going to think of me? What's Aly going to think of me?"
"We know you, we won't have any other judgments other than the ones we had before. We didn't have any. Aly isn't going to care, she only ever holds Bucks left hand. His metal hand."
"But I have two."
"And that's fine. She's going to love you."
I look in his direction "Love?"
"Yah, meaning she cares about you, a lot."
My head starts hurting and I know that either a memory is coming back or I just have a headache. Allowing my neck to bend and my ear to press onto his shoulder I brace myself whispering "give me a minute. Memories suck."
It's hazy and the colours are washed out but I can safely say that I'm in a bedroom. There's a little girl looking at me, her lips are moving but I don't here any words. Her head tilts downwards snapping back up when my voice says 'I love you my child.' And slides under the bed. I face a door with a dresser in front of it, once swung open reveals Steve and a few others 'I am Silver Death. Prepare for a fight' I rush them.
I'm back in the cave, head in Steve's lap, hands clutching chunks of my hair. "I left her with you?"
"Who?"
"I said 'I love you my child' and the opened a door and attacked you and Winter, Natalia and Falcon and the Asgardian." A second though comes to mind "I didn't hurt anyone right?"
"No. You weren't under control, you didn't hurt anyone. You just helped."
"Okay. But what about the girl? Is she okay?"
"Yah. She is, and she's still in New York with Pepper, Tony's girlfriend. Aly tends to spend most of her day with Pepper and then find Buck when she's ready to go to bed."
"Winter, he's not mad about having her right?" Since it's dark I can't see his reaction.
"Jess look at me." Moving to sit up I light my hair up again and stare into his eyes. "Buck isn't mad about having a kid. Why would you think that?"
"No reason. Just wanted to make sure." Before he can say anything a head pops up into the cave. "Is that a beaver?"
"I think so, what's it doing?"
"Good question." With a slap of its tail is disappears down he tunnel it came up in. "Weird."
"Did Buck say something that made you think that he's mad?"
"Don't worry about it." My fire dissipates leaving us in the dark. A hand touches my leg. "Steve let go of me."
"Uh, I'm not touching you."
"I swear that if you don't move it I will."
"I'm not touching you!"
Pissed off my hair lights up white, Falcon is sitting with his hand on my leg trying not to laugh. Once he sees my face he backs away. "Hey."
"Hello Falcon."
"Sam. My name is Sam."
I glance at Steve "where is everyone else?"
"Wanda and Vision are in there way here. Tony is going back to he house where everyone else is."
"Out."
"Huh?"
"May as well not get Wanda's hair wet. So let's get out of here."
Since Sam doesn't have his wings on he shrugs and dives head first down the tunnel. Steve gestures for me to go second, I do. As we leave the tunnel is lit up with red energy, giving it a nightmare like feel.
It feels like a nightmare when I realize that I can't make it to the surface because my arms are dragging me down. Steve's head is above water and Scarlett pulls me up, just as I take a breath in. I cough, expelling water from my lungs, and then puke. "Remind me, to, never go swimming." Flopping into my back a bright red person comes into view. "Who are you?"
"My name is Vision. I assume you are Silver Death?"
"Yah, that's me. Scarlet?" Deep breath.
She comes into view "yes?"
"How are you?"
"I'm fine, are you?"
"Peachy. Make sure to stay out of my head. That goes for you too mind stone. It's messed up, and could hurt y'all."
"You have a very strong accent for only being in Russia for several months."
Groaning I sit up, "I was in a ice cube for six of them, I was raised in Russia the accent comes naturally." My head starts to swim and I flop back down into my back, Steve hauls me to my feet.
"You can nap later. I'm sure everyone else wants to see you." I glare at him. "Okay, so I'm sure Buck wants to talk with you."
In stead of responding I turn away from him and look at the river. "It would be really easy to kill me now. All you'd have to do is push me in some deep water." Not thinking I move a foot for a better stance, it moves towards the water. Red energy and arms wrap around me, pulling me away from the water.
"Jessica, why don't we go to the house now." They don't give me time to respond before shuffling me towards the path leading to the truck.
Steve makes sure I get in before him, Wanda jumps in the back while Vision flys off towards home. Home, will this place feel like home or like a house hat I will have to get used to being in?
Trees fly past and so does a metal face. "Iron man. Repulsers in hands and guns in shoulders, parents killed by Winter Soldier. Abducted in Afghanistan by people work partner hired. Escaped with metal suit and help from army."
By now he's far ahead of us, rising above trees and disappearing into them. Steve turns on the blinker.
Wanda pipes up from behind me "everybody is in the shed."
Steve parks by the shed and we go in, no one is in here and when Steve lifts the metal grate for a drainage pipe it confuses me. Taking a step forward I can see a ladder, Wanda gestures me to go down first.
Halfway down I turn invisible and slide instead of stepping all the way down. There's a small thud at the other end of the white space. There's also three doors on the opposite wall. There's also a quinjet, probably the one that the Avengers brought here.
Since I am not able to see anyone in the shed with me-other than the two people coming down the ladder I assume that the thud I heard was someone else. Time to face the music of yelling.
(THIRD PERSON P.O.V.)
Steve and Wanda make it to the bottom of thew ladder just as a invisable soldier gets halfway accross the shed, making sure to take notice of her soroundings and preparing incase a fight arrises. She sees scuff marks on a wall panel and kicks it once Wanda and Steve reach her, turning visible long enough to say "shall we?" and enter the dark hallway. The other two follow her, and watch as she disappears from sight before being seen by anyone in the room they are about to enter.
Silver Death is blinded by the bright light but recovers quickly, taking in what is happening in the room, the gym.
Tony, Natalia, Thor and Vision are near one wall talking, Sam is beating on a punching bag, Clint is running on a treadmill, Bruce is emerging from a second hidden room. Her gaze sticks to one person, the person she kicked out of her truck is on the weight bench lifting. She silently moves towards him, Wanda follows where she should be with her eyes and stands with the gossipers while Steve goes to talk with Sam. Every one notices the two footprints in the mat beside James but he doesn't notice the silence that falls. He's to busy thinking about what he should have said in the vehicle, something nicer and if he should talk with Aly about her mother and her condition. It's been half a minute but he finally notices the lack of noise and puts the weight on it's holder. "do I have something on my face?"
Jess becomes visible, slowly but she's there. "You have a nose, and eyebrows." James doesn't respond, he just stares at her so she walks away from him, glancing at Bruce before making her way to the bunch on the wall. She whispers to Natalia "why didn't he say anything?" A metal hand wraps around her shoulder, turning her.
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that."
"Well you do have something on your face. Plus it's a good way to get someone to respond and say something about why they're looking at you."
He shakes his head and she takes a step out of arms reach. "I mean what I said in the truck in the way back. I shouldn't have said that you should have remembered Aly instead of whatever we were talking about."
Her jaw sets and she mutters "Files."
"What?"
"We were talking about files. Thinking about them," she turns to Nat "where are they?"
"Follow me." As Nat starts Walking Jess sticks close behind her, leaving James standing watching them leave. When the girls get into the file room Bruce comes down anxious to speak with Jessica, when she notices him she moves to the opposite side of the room, maintaining the distance . "Jess?"
"Yes?" Natasha leaves them alone.
"I wanted to talk to you about your arms."
"Okay."
"And I also wanted to say that I'm sure you don't remember but we have already had a discussion about our fight. We came to an agreement that it's fine and that we don't have to worry about any hard feelings." She visibly relaxes
"Okay. What did you want to say about my um, contraptions?"
"Well, I wanted to know if they are causing you any pain or discomfort."
"Just the weight is odd. I don't notice it much anymore."
Bruce grabs a random file, and finds a page that's mostly blank before ripping it out and grabbing a pen, "I want to run some tests. No needles unless absolutely necessary, and weirdness. Okay?"
"Okay. I think I should trust you."
"Okay. Here's my dilemma; I don't have the proper equipment to run the tests here. We have to go back to New York for them."
Jess stills completely, barely breathing or blinking. She stares at Bruce as if he's grown a second head.
Sam walks into the file room, "what's wrong with her?"
"I just told her the news."
"Okay, well her stuff is already in the jet. Plus some other clothes." He walks back out.
"So, you coming with us or staying here?"
She walks past him, grabbing a few files from the cabinet marked HYDRA and nods at Bruce, signalling him to lead her out to the jet. She turns all the lights off on her way through.