Learning Social Conventions
The Avengers got back to the Tower shortly, Natasha, Bucky, and Steve heading for the woman’s room to find out if she’s okay.
She opens the door almost as soon as Cap knocks, a bloody rag in her hand.
“Are you okay?” Bucky asks, staring at the rag that is literally dripping all over the carpeted floor.
“The Exp-” She says, and then corrects herself. “I rolled over onto some glass, and it’s stuck in my shoulder.”
“I’ve got it,” Nat says, asking the woman to turn so she can see. “Ooh, that’s all from that shard?”
“I have already removed six pieces,” she responds with little emotion.
“Bucky, get me some bandages and the scissors. Cap, I need a needle, the stitching thread, tweezers, and the antiseptic.”
Natasha leads her to the bathroom, the sink covered in drying blood, the floor dotted with it.
“Did you try to dig it out with your fingers?”
“Yes,” she answers. “It kept on scabbing over.”
Sighing, Natasha turns just as Bucky and Cap return.
“Thanks. I’m going to have to take off her shirt to see it, so get out of here.”
The men nod, closing the door as Natasha turns back to see the woman waiting patiently for her to assist her in the bandaging process.
~
It’s odd how she didn’t move throughout the whole thing unless it was to do something important. The woman let Natasha cut off her shirt, leaving her in her bra, and dig out the glass without even a wince. She barely blinked, kept on breathing with no trouble, and had no difficulty in keeping silent.
“If you want to take a shower, you can wash the dried blood off,” Nat says. “Your wounds scabbed over before I had to stitch anything, so just be careful.”
“Thank you,” she says, surprising Nat.
“You’re welcome.”
Natasha turns to go, closing the door behind her.
In the shower, the bloody woman rinses off, feeling how her head is still covered in fuzz—her last mission had been an undercover one, posing as a patient—her skin covered in little scabs.
Her healing is over double a normal person’s, so her scabs are not of concern. The wounds will be healed by tomorrow, except for the biggest, which will take a few days max.
Her biggest concern is her name.
She always was a complicated, difficult soldier. When she was younger, the other children—they were still alive at first, until the serums started to destroy them—would beg her not to anger the wardens, even going so far as to sit on her as she lashed out at them, the creaky bed with no mattress digging in her back as she fought, scratching to get free. She hated being controlled, determined to break her way to the open streets again.
Funny how she was the one to live.
The chip—installed when she was sixteen, when she refused to take a mission that involved a nearby orphanage—took away that ability to think for herself during missions. And when she was not on missions, she was training, or asleep.
Frozen. Imprisoned.
Now that she is not supposed to call herself Experiment 346, what does she call herself? The reporter had asked what her name was, so why should she stay calling herself she? Isn’t there something more than this? A thought itches at the back of her mind, but it’s tiny, fuzzy, like a piece of lint in a jacket pocket.
Why grab it? Who knows?
She makes up her mind—ha, that’s funny, she thinks—to read that list of names again. It looked promising. She thought that maybe she had found it when she saw the first name, until she saw the next, and the next. They all seemed to jump out at her, like her name is there, but the single name that is correct is hiding in the confusion.
~
When she comes out of the bathroom, she heads straight for the closet, pulling out fresh clothes from the rack and the dresser drawers, dressing quickly. She hangs the towel on the shower rack, spotting the red streaks on the towel, not to mention the ones staining the carpet throughout her apartment.
“Jarvis, is there bleach nearby?”
“The laundry room is a few floors away, and it has bleach, washing and drying machines, detergent, and laundry booster. You can wash your clothes at any time.”
“Thank you.”
She’s been reading up on social conventions, studying how to act, how to react, and how to follow orders.
Saying thank you, you’re welcome, please, and bless you, are very important, and it seems that the idea of asking to be excused or dismissed is usually not said in a typical household. At least unless it’s to a parent or other guardian.
“You’re very welcome,” Jarvis answers.
Before she leaves, she washes the blood out—and it comes out without bleach, but she’ll do laundry later, and she’ll have to scrub the carpets when she can—and hangs the towel up, opening her bedroom door five minutes later to see Bucky sitting on the desk chair that she left in the sitting room.
“James,” she says.
His mouth quirks up at that, but he doesn’t comment on the name.
She remembers Bucky’s file, noting that the scientists downloaded it when it was installed, as if her missions would involve him someday, and she supposes that maybe it could be of some use. Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, now one-hundred years old, born in Brooklyn, best friend of Captain Steve Rogers. Growing up with Rogers, the two fought together, until he went to war, and the rest is a puddle of information that mixes with another puddle.
It’s fascinating, the woman able to stand in front of the Winter Soldier calmly, both of them free.
“Are you okay?”
“Fine,” she answers. “I am already healing satisfactorily.”
“I, uh, was worried when we saw how much blood was on the counter and-”
“Thank you for your concern,” she says, forcing herself to smile.
It’s odd, how people smile. She used to only smile for missions, and that was easier. This, with actual, human emotion, is harder. It almost feels like a vulnerability.
Learning social conventions is hard, but Bucky smiles, too, so it must be accepted.
“You’re welcome. You destroyed that metal boar before I even got there.”
“I saw it land. A cloud held it.”
“A cloud was holding it?”
She nods, working on her non-verbal communication.
“I’ll tell Cap,” he says. “Unless you want to.”
“You can do it, James.”
Bucky smiles a little again, and then asks if she’s okay again.
“I am okay,” she says. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he says, and then shakes his head, as if to clear it. “We’re going to watch a picture in a few hours. It’s Stevie’s turn to pick, so...”
“That sounds enjoyable,” she says. “What time?”
“Eight. In the living room.”
“I will be there.”