Unravel

A few days later, the room to her guest room was closed and Vito lied in front of it, the way he had done the few other times. So when dinner time rolled around she wanted to try something else, to get him out of his shell. After he had revealed that he actually remembered at least a few things, Elizabeth had been thrown off balance. It was something she definitely hadn’t thought about - although it made sense. Whatever had made him into this advanced human being probably also had an effect on the longevity of the brainwashing he had been subjected to.

She could only wonder about the things he had been through, not only the brainwashing. Hydra had never been known for acting gentle with any assets. She wished he would tell her at least some things; to be honest she also kind of missed talking to her co-workers.
So she decided to try something a little bit different. Elizabeth could at least try, even if nothing came of it.

She opted for take-out since she didn’t want to subject him to her cooking. It wasn’t bad but it wasn’t chef quality either and she lived off of take-out most of the week anyway.
Grabbing the notepad from her kitchen, she wrote a note, giving him the options for dinner: Chinese, Pizza or Something Else.
He had responded to several notes before. Not the way she had wanted him to but he had anyway. So if he wasn’t going to come out to talk to her, they needed to communicate in some other way. She wasn’t worried that he would starve. He had survived for decades, he wouldn’t die now because of starvation. But it still unsettled her that he was so distant. Although, the more she thought about it and what had happened to him, the less she could blame him. She didn’t want to know how she would act had she been through the same ordeal as him.

Shaking herself out of her thoughts, she ripped the note from the notepad and headed towards the guest room. Vito lifted his head when he saw her walking his way but let her slip the note under the door without moving an inch. Then she knocked for good measure although it probably wouldn’t have been necessary.

Not being able to do anything but wait for any kind of reply, she decided to spend the rest of her evening on her sofa with a book. Her book case wasn’t as full as it once had been but it still had a big enough collection to satisfy her needs. This time however she knew exactly which book she wanted. Grabbing the book that had given her the last bit of information she had needed, she settled onto her sofa and started reading. In her opinion, the more she knew about the man in her apartment, the greater her chances of actually being able to talk to him. If he ever really would have a full conversation with her that didn’t consist of snarky or half-assed replies.

It only took him half an hour, far shorter than she had thought, until he emerged from the guest room, the note in hand and Vito trotting alongside. Elizabeth looked up from her book, pushing her reading glasses out of the way and expectantly waited for him to speak up.

Even with everything he had gone through, the scruff on his face and the dark circles underneath his eyes, in this lighting he still had a boyish semblance to him and she couldn’t help but notice that it was at its strongest when he unsure of what to do or say. Hydra evidently hadn’t put him into too many situations (if any at all) that required actually talking about what he wanted.

“Did you decide yet?” Elizabeth asked him, finally.

He looked at the note for a short moment and laid it onto the table beside the sofa. “I’ve never had Chinese. I think.”

Elizabeth sat up and put her book down onto the table, too, before smiling contently. This was one step further towards the right direction.

“Chinese it is.”