Such Sweet Nothing

“You aren’t trying hard enough.” The sing-song voice was taunting me and I was getting pissed.

“You have to concentrate.” My hands were gripping the chair arms with such force I was surprised my fingers didn’t start bleeding.

“Really? All I have to do is concentrate?” I spat the words out of my mouth as I felt the familiar rush of blood from my nose.

“Stop it.” I heard Steve’s voice in my ear and almost started crying from relief.

“No, she has to learn.” I shut my eyes and tried to shut out the feelings radiating over me. Horrible, horrible feelings.

“She is bleeding again, stop it.” Steve’s voice was rising but he wasn’t yelling yet.

“You can’t come in here-“ I managed to shut the overwhelming emotions down and found myself blowing anger back at the woman in my ear.

“Shut it down!” Steve snapped feeling my own anger inside of his head. The room was lit and the simulation was over. I felt my legs shake as I stood up from the chair I had been confined to for the past two hours. I was three days into my training and I was drained. I wiped my nose with the back of my hand.

“Here.” Steve came into the room with a handkerchief and placed it on my nose, I pinched my nostrils shut and rested my chin on my chest.

“I would have been here sooner, I was just held up-“ I nodded my head and waved it off.

“It’s okay. I just want to go to sleep now.” He wrapped his arm around my shoulder and steered me from the hell I had been in all day.

“I told Fury I didn’t like how he is training you.” He opened the door to the control room and led me through.

“You have to stop babying her.” I looked into the icy grey eyes of my trainer, Aria.

“You really think this is how she is going to learn? A simulation of people’s last moments before they died.” Steve scoffed and shook his head.

“C’mon.” He muttered and gently pushed me through the door that led to the main hall.

“If Bruce knew how they were,” He pushed the button for the elevator to get down to the rooms in the compound. “Training you he wouldn’t be too happy.”

“I’m not too happy at the moment, Cap.” I pulled the cloth away from my face and saw it was pretty wet with my blood. We stepped into the elevator as Steve got a serious expression on his face and folded his arms across his chest.

“But, I feel it becoming stronger, I can shut it off now. It just takes me a while to be able to do it.” He looked down at me as I wiped the remaining blood off of my face and the elevator stopped at our floor.

“Have you talked to Bruce since we got here?” I shook my head at his question.

“Fury thought it would be best if I didn’t have contact with anyone outside of the compound until I can control myself. Something about if it’s too much my brain will turn to mush and bleed out of my ears.” I shrugged my shoulders as I said the last part as Steve gaped at me.

“What?” We came up to my room and stopped walking as I put the bloodied cloth into my back pocket.

“Yeah, so I guess if Bruce were to have an ‘incident’ and I felt it, my mind not be strong enough to handle it and I could be kaput.” He opened my door for me and let me go inside. I turned to look at him with a ghost of a smile.

“I’ll be okay Steve.” He tried to return the smile but it was lost in his worried expression.

“I’ll come by tomorrow morning and we’ll go get breakfast together.” I nodded and saluted at him as I finally saw a smile light up his face.

“Thanks, Cap.” He returned the salute, but more proper than I had done to him.
“You’re welcome, Doc. Just hang in there and we’ll have you home before you know it.” He placed his hand on my shoulder and then pulled me in for a hug.

“Yeah, I hope so.” He released me and did a little wave and he walked off towards his own room as I shut my door and locked it. I ran my hand down my face and sighed heavily as I kicked off my boots. This was a lot harder than I had expected it to be. The training was intense and all the emotions they were training me with were negative and terrifying. I was placed in a simulation room and life-like holograms would appear and they triggered my power, as if they were real people. I just wanted it to end and to go home but I knew that wasn’t going to happen until they felt like I was more than capable of controlling myself.

---------------------------------

“Have you heard from her?” Bruce shook his head as Tony came out onto the balcony behind him and then stood on his right side.

“I don’t like this, at all.” He added on as he leaned forward on his forearms against the rail.

“I don’t either, but Fury said if something happened with me she could die.” He scoffed as Bruce said this and looked down at the city below him.

“Yeah, like you would hulk out when you talk with her. She’s smart enough to end a fucking video call before something happens, if she can even feel something with the person not present.” At that moment Tony’s phone rang in his pocket, he pulled it out to see a picture of Steve as it continued to ring.

“Hey Capsicle, how’s our girl?” Bruce gripped the railing as Tony put the phone in front of both of them so Bruce could see.

“Hey Bruce, Tony. I’m just a little worried is all and I am not sure how to go about handling it with Fury. They are training her in a way I don’t agree with, and I’m sure you wouldn’t either. She says it’s working but she isn’t looking at what I am looking at when I go into the control room.” Bruce grabbed the phone from Tony and felt anger and fear grip at him. He almost lost her once and he wasn’t going to let it happen again.

“What are they doing to her?” Tony placed a hand on Bruce’s shoulder, trying to get him to come back down off that ledge. He looked over at his friend for a moment and realized he had to pull it back.

“They are training her with people that aren’t really there, like they’re ghosts, but really believable ghosts.”

“Holograms?” Tony spoke up as he went behind Bruce’s shoulder to look at the man in the screen.

“Right, holograms. Anyways, they are training her with holograms of people as they are dying, so she is feeling everything they are feeling and I don’t know if she is strong enough.” Bruce handed the phone back to Tony and concentrated on anything but the anger dwelling inside of him at the news. He was thinking about Kylie and when they met, and how for once in his life he felt at home. He quickly flipped back to the fear he felt when he awoke from the Hulk to find himself with only the vague memory of her dying.

“Bruce, buddy, you gotta come back man.” Tony’s voice snapped him out of it and he found himself under control of his own mind.

“We have to go there, we have to-“ Bruce stopped talking, unsure of what it was they needed to do. Hit Fury? Make them train her nicely?

“Yeah, we do. Cap if you could just hang on so I can scan and get a reading of your coordinates.” Steve looked as if a heavy weight had been lifted off of his shoulders, he was glad he made the call.

“Bruce?” He looked at the small screen as Tony was directing JARVIS to find his location.

“She’s doing okay.” Bruce nodded as JARVIS gave Tony some numbers.

“They’re in New Mexico.” Tony turned to look at Bruce as he brought up a map screen.

“My old hunting grounds.” He smiled slightly at the phrase he adopted from her so long ago.

“Well Cap, we’ll see you soon.” Bruce did a small wave at Steve before Tony could end the call and they both headed inside, to where Pepper was sitting trying to concentrate on paperwork but finding it extremely difficult.

“We’re going to see Kylie because Steve has some concerns.” Pepper stood up as if she had been waiting to hear something like this all night.

“What kind of concerns?” Tony hesitated and Bruce could see he was battling with protecting her and telling her the truth. Bruce knew what had happened, how Tony almost lost her and how he didn’t think she was fragile, but he still wanted to protect her.

“Just the way they are training her isn’t very,” He rolled his hands in the air searching for a word.
“Nice?” He finished as he turned to look at Bruce.

“They are using holograms of someone’s last moment of life right before they die.” Tony finally decided to tell her the whole truth as Pepper got an angry expression on her face.

“They what?!” She exploded; Tony and Bruce took a tiny step back from the woman who Bruce no longer thought of as fragile.

“Honey, we’re going to fix it, just anger is not a great thing right now.” Tony’s voice was even and calm as he grabbed Pepper by both of her shoulders.

“That sonofa-“ She glared up at the ceiling as Tony pulled her into him and wrapped his arms around he tightly. Bruce let his gaze fall to the floor as he kicked at it quietly. He was thinking of good memories and trying to make sure he didn’t explode like Pepper just did. No one would be able to just call him honey and calm him down.

“Pep, we’re leaving right now and we’re either staying until she feels like she has it under control or we’re bringing her home and I’ll find some way of training her.” Pepper could only nod at Tony’s words as he let her go and turned to look at Bruce.

“I’ll have the jet ready in twenty, you might want to grab some stuff.” Bruce nodded as he made his way to his bedroom to throw some stuff into his duffle bag.