A Taste of Vengeance

I squeezed the trigger over and over, feeling the kick of the pistol every time I pulled. Every time I shot the dummy in front of me, I pictured I was killing every memory that The Black Bane carried, every ounce of guilt being shipped away with the fabric of the dummy.

It was the middle of the night and I knew no would be down here, save a few guards on duty. They didn’t mind me coming in but none of them offered to train with me either. They knew a stressed agent when they saw one, and the best way to deal with stressed agent’s was to leave them alone.

“You have outstanding aim,” a voice came behind me. I whirled around, gun raised. No one could sneak up on me. It seemed I had been so caught up in my self angst that I had let my guard down. “If only half the people in the war could shoot like you do.”
“Oh look.” My tone was bitter as I turned away from him, trying to fight the need to be nice to him. “I must not be a girl today.”

I heard him sigh behind me. “Ash I’m sor-‘’ I drowned out his words by firing into the dummy again, gritting my teeth in anger. I kept telling myself I didn’t care what he said, but the truth was simple: The need to let Steve in was incredible, and I was becoming quite frazzled as I relentlessly rebuilt the wall he seemed to be kicking down.

Before I knew what he was doing, Steve was pulling my gun arm, causing me to drop it. I snaked under my arm, twisting so that my back faced him and used my super strength, throwing him over me and onto the floor. His face was filled with shock as he let me go. I turned to walk away but found my ankle slipping out from underneath me, falling flat on my face. I rolled and kicked at him as he came towards me but he suspected it, dodging my foot. I shoved mentally then, knocking him back several feet away.

I stood up, brushing myself off. I was pissed off now, but he seemed… amused as he stood up from the ground, taking his stance and beckoning me. I narrowed my eyes and charged him ducking under his swing. He grabbed my waist and I kicked up my leg, flexible enough to catch him behind the neck, pulling us both down in grunts but I was already moving again, rolling over his back and bringing his arm behind his body, jerking it painfully while my knee dug into his back, his face in the ground. I also added a telekentic wall, pressing down on him so he wouldn’t overpower me.

“Not fair,” he grunted, voice muffled by the mat. “I don’t have magic tricks.”
I let him up, still angry. “Then don’t insult people who do.”
He chuckled. “Is that what you think I did? Insulted you. I didn’t mean that you didn’t look or act like a girl, Ash.”
I wiped my face off with a towel. “Whatever. Bye.”
“I swear if you would stop the frozen act for five seconds people would actually like you.” His tone was exasperated and caused me to hesitate, back facing him. He took this as a sign to continue. “You act like you don’t want to make friends and that we’re all just other teammates to you, but you’re little ‘I-don’t-need-anyone-act is getting old.”
“What does this have to do with anything?” I snapped, throwing down the towel and facing him. “So what, I don’t make friends because I think life is easier that way. You don’t go out into the world because it’s new and confusing, and it’s easier that way for you, yet I’m not criticizing you!”
He brought his hands up to his face, pinching his sinuses in annoyance. “When I said that sometimes I didn’t see you as a girl, it was because I saw you as a friend and a comrade. It’s easier to talk to you when you’re being a…”
“Bitch,” I deadpanned for him. “You can call me a bitch, Captain.”
“When you’re not being cold and distant, it’s difficult to see past the kind, beautiful woman you are. Maybe you don’t know you’re pretty, but you are. You have to realize I’ve grown up as a kid who was never able to talk to girls never able to even dance with one.”

I stared at him for a long time, my heart quivering lightly in my chest. No one had called me beautiful before. My family had of course, but they didn’t count. Family had to call me beautiful, and if they didn’t they would be pretty bad family. So to hear someone else say it, and say it so casually as if it was a common and well-known fact, was strange and it brought blush to my cheeks.

“Why didn’t you ever talk to girls?” I asked, digging my boot into the mat.
“I was a loser, I was nothing. No woman likes a loser.”
“I don’t think you were a loser,” I heard myself say. “I think you were misunderstood.”

He approached me slowly then, looking down at me. it was then I realized how much taller he was than my slight height. He was in one of his trademark t-shirts and jeans, blonde hair brushed frustratingly perfect. He looked at me through his blonde lashes and cobalt eyes, but I couldn’t meet them. The warmth radiating off of him was enough to unhinge my mind, and his eyes would have certainly done me in.

“I think you’re misunderstood.” His breath was warm against my forehead and smelling of mint. The feeling was a reminder of just how close he was standing to me.
“That’s just a nice way of calling me a bitch,” I muttered, biting my lip. His presence was making it difficult for me to focus, something I had never experienced.
“No,” he insisted. “It’s the nice way of saying I see that you’re broken, like the rest of us. But maybe that’s why we’ll make a good team. You can’t make something great out of things that are already to their full potential… but you can make something great with things that working together, improve each other.”
I snorted. “Because Tony improves us all so much.”
He laughed. “In a weird way I think he does.”

He brushed a strand of lose hair from my face, his touch lingering for a moment. His fingers burned my skin where they touched and I looked up at him through my lashes. He was painstakingly good-looking, in that moment. “Will you tell me about it?” he asked me, looking at me earnestly. “I told you what broke me, what haunts me, and I’ve felt… lighter since. Maybe it’ll be the same for you?”

Looking at him, I knew I could not say no. Something about the warmth in his face, the way his being made me react differently. My mind could never be controlled around him, doing and saying what it wanted. It was like the moment Steve walked into a room, an auto pilot button was flipped on, and I could only watched from afar as I turned into a girl who didn’t know how to be friends with someone, a girl who was so desperately trying to understand the way Captain America made her feel.

Looking into his blue eyes made me realize that I could never and probably would never say no to anything he wanted.