Brewing
It was nice to have someone to come home to again. It was even nicer since you found that you actually quite liked him. In your mind, you regarded him as a friend. And your roommate was slowly becoming talkative, you noted with delight. The two of you settled into a comfortable rhythm, you going to work and feeling somewhat less bad about leaving him alone all day, him doing all sorts of menial chores, insisting that he owed you and it helped him to stay busy and focus his mind. And in any case, when he ran out of things to dust or wash he set to binge-watching (mostly) Star Trek and petting Becky cat. You had him hooked. And when that all that failed to satisfy he set to your own, private, two-shelf library. He went through it all in a month flat, ironically taking a special liking to your collection of Cold War spy novels, so you carefully breached the subject of getting him a library card for the nearby community library, which was well-stocked and within walking distance. The first volume he brought home from there was an original language edition of Dumas’ ‘The Count of Monte Christo’.
“Didn’t know you knew French.” You remarked, mentally filing away the fact.
“Neither did I.” he answered with a non-committal shrug, engrossed in the novel. “They have quite a large foreign language section. Who knows what else comes to light.” He sounded almost cheerful. He discerned that he was also fluent in Russian and German, which fit with what you’d been able to find out about the Winter Soldier from the leaked files online, as well as Latin (of all things) and got along passably in Italian.
Over dinner, you’d talk – you about work, he – when not about the latest episodes he’d watched or book he’d read – about the meagre things he thought he remembered. It was never much to go on, and most of that was pretty gruesome, but at least he was opening up some now, not bottling it all up inside like before. You counted that as a success. All in all, you found he was doing really well.
Of course it wasn’t all sunshine and progress. Nightmares plagued him more often than not. He still flinched at every sudden movement or loud noise. He was in some amount of pain pretty much constantly - his head mostly, sometimes phantom pain in the arm he had lost (he would end up picking absently at the scar tissue as soon as the feeling passed) - and absolutely adamant about not taking anything to lessen it. He claimed it was no use and that he’d been drugged more often than anyone would care to count. You thought it was also a way of self-castigating for you could tell he blamed himself for the things he’d been made to do as the Winter Soldier. Above all there was little to no sign of remembering his name or indeed any clue to his true identity, before HYDRA had taken him and made him a weapon. You still thought that there must be someone out there looking for him, someone whose aim wasn’t to tie up loose ends (HYDRA, what use could they still have for him? You reasoned with a shudder) or make him stand trial for crimes he wasn’t truly guilty of as far as you were concerned (if not SHIELD then certainly some or other government person, in fact there were politicians all around calling for the elusive Winter Soldier to be brought to justice). You put the SHIELD question to him, but he was understandably loath to deliver himself into someone else’s hands when he’d only just escaped HYDRA’s clutches. You promised to try and find out what you could from Skye when the two of you next spoke.
Though he was opening up more he was still mostly withdrawn. You were only just scratching the tip of the iceberg of that man’s mental issues but you did your best to reason him out of it whenever he fell too far into the darkness. Like when this happened:
“I am not a good person!” he spoke quietly, but hotly. A long-suffering sigh wrung itself from your throat. How often did you have to go over this? You hated those HYDRA people more with every word of self-loathing that left his mouth.
“You did the laundry.” You deadpanned, unsure of what your argument was here. Apparently he didn’t see the connection either, judging by the befuddled look he gave you.
“I mean, something tells me bad people don’t do laundry,” you began to elaborate, gaining some small idea of where you were going with this, “Not that evil people don’t wear clothes; I mean …I just don’t think that someone who was not a decent person deep down would bother to go through the hassle, especially for someone else. Same with the dishes; and also I mean the cat adores you, obviously, and they say animals are good judges of character, so…” you forced yourself to stop babbling as you felt your cheeks heat up. What an inspiring speech, truly riveting, how could this not convince him, how had the high school debate team not come clamoring for you, you thought sarcastically.
To your surprise he had a bemused expression on his face. Bold onlookers might even have described it as something akin to a smile.
“Still odd?” you huffed, running a hand through your hair absentmindedly.
“Kinda.” He replied, definitely smiling now. You should probably be grateful for that, it’s not like that was something that came easily to him, or happened a lot, not that he had plentiful reasons to go about his life smiling - which was a terrible pity because, one, everyone deserved to have as much reason as possible to smile as far as you were concerned, and two, his smile was nothing if not lovely, even as small and restrained as it was now, and …you quickly excused yourself before the barrier between your thoughts and mouth had a chance to break down.
His eyes followed you until the bathroom door clicked shut behind you, the bemused ghost of a smile still in place. He wasn’t quite sure about your words yet; he supposed they made sense in a way, though he had only meant to repay you in some way for all the help you were giving him. It had really been quite self-serving actually, as doing those menial chores helped him focus his mind and feel at least somewhat useful. He was interrupted in his train of thoughts when you re-emerged from the bathroom with an alarmed expression.
“If you’re truly so dangerous maybe you could rain down some metaphorical fire and destruction upon the gigantic spider I just found in the bathtub.”
“… Spider?” he deadpanned, taking in your wide-eyed terror while you held the bathroom door closed as if the beast might jump and devour you if you let up.
“Sorry for the lack of originality.” You scoffed irritably, quickly lunging away from the door when he padded over and opened it, casting a discerning glance inside.
“It’s not even that big.” He stated bemusedly, a small smirk playing around his lips. You crossed your arms defiantly.
“Fire and destruction, if you would, please. And it’s absolutely gigantic, it probably transported here directly from Australia.”
“How would it have accomplished that?” he asked, clearly amused, his voice echoing ever so slightly inside the tiled room.
“Wormholes.” You declared in a tone that suggested that this was of course the next logical assumption.
It was almost two weeks before you heard from Skye again, but since that was a definite improvement to before you were pleased. She reached you at work, just as you were about to head out for your lunch break. Deciding you could just this once forego your midday workout, you picked up.
Skye and you had still so much to talk about. She told you about the disastrous turn of events involving someone named Grant Ward, immediately making you want to hit the man with a shovel. In the family jewels. How dare that piece of HYDRA scum treat your Skye that way! You also probed her about SHIELD, trying to glean what you could about how they would deal with the Winter Soldier should he decide to give himself up to them.
Shortly before you would normally return from your stint in the gym, Pam poked her head in your office with the message that there were two men who wanted to speak with you.
“I have nothing scheduled for today.” You insisted dourly, checking your calendar to make sure. You really didn’t.
“Say their names are Finley and Sternberg. They’re not business partners or anything.” Pam informed you, which didn’t exactly serve to make you more inclined to admit them.
“Well, what do they want?” Finley and Sternberg, huh? You caught on at once and knew immediately that those were fake names. Fake names reeked of intelligence services or the like. Hell, they could even be HYDRA (in which case you especially prayed they wouldn’t stick around to abduct you from the parking lot or something). You didn’t know how they could have possibly found you, but held fast to your decision to protect your nameless roommate as best as you could.
“They didn’t really say, only that they’d like to speak with you.” You sighed irritably, looking at the huge pile of work waiting to be done that lay precariously on your desk. You still had ten minutes of your lunch break left and you were in an important conversation with your closest friend on top of your little Winter Soldier situation. You didn’t need this.
“Send them away.” You ordered curtly.
“Um …are you sure?” Pam asked hesitantly. You crossed one arm over your chest, since the other was still holding the phone to your ear, but she got the general idea.
“They don’t have an appointment, we don’t know who they are and they can’t even be bothered to say what this is about. I have better things to do with my time. If it’s that important they can make an appointment.” You said with finality, knowing full well your calendar was full for the next two months. “If they really want to make an appointment, push it as far out as humanly possible. If they refuse to leave, call security.” You added, also saying to Pam that unless there was a Code Red (fire), Code Black (bomb warning) or Code Gold (surprise visit from CEO and/or owner of the company) she wasn’t to bother you again for the rest of the day.
---
Once they were off the premises of Stark Medical’s Washington branch, Steve let his frustrations break free with every curse he had ever learnt.
“I don’t suppose there’s a way to hack into Stark’s personnel files?” Sam theorized, “I mean, all we need to confirm whether or not it’s her is a photo.” They had wisely decided not to draw more attention than necessary to themselves by asking around who liked to use fake names and shelter wanted fugitives, instead opting for a subtle reference with the names they used for cover. They’d counted on the person they were looking for to make the connection and reveal themselves by some or other telling reaction. Sam took out the list they had compiled and made a note next to your name. They still had around two more narrowly printed pages to go through.
“We can try again another time, maybe call ahead. Maybe ask Sharon to hack her calendar, only as a last resort of course.” He suggested since really, the person they were looking for might just as well be any other on those two pages. Seeing as the alternative would be hanging around here for hours until you got off work, Steve sighed deeply, relenting to the fact that continuing to check out the other names might be a more productive way to pass their time. Unless that yielded any results, they would get back to you, he promised himself.
---
To your great relief, no one was waiting for you with chloroform (did people actually still use that?) or any other means of subduing and you made your way home undisturbed. Dinner was uneventful, and after a quick shower you joined your co-habitants on the couch for a relaxed evening of half-hearted attention to the TV and, at least in your case, full-hearted attention to pampering yourself a little.
You were halfway through with doing your nails when you noticed how uncharacteristically absorbed your non-feline roommate was in the TV program. You glanced up to see that it was a report about the recent events here in DC and heavily focusing on Captain America’s involvement. Something about this must be triggering something in his brain, you deduced. Something beyond the fact that he’d been made to fight Captain America, you hoped.
“You know, there’s an exhibit at the Smithsonian, the Air and Space to be exact.” You remarked as soon as the commercial break started, “I’ve been meaning to go for ages; just never got around to it.”
“When can we go?” he asked at once, his eyes more hopeful and eager than you’d ever seen them. You told him that you’d get off work early the next day, since it was a Friday, and then you’d go right after lunch.