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𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐅𝐎𝐔𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐄𝐍 || 𝘕𝘶𝘮𝘣𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘗𝘢𝘪𝘯
SLEEP DIDN'T COME AS EASY AS NOVA HAD WISHED. Natasha had passed out around 3 hours into the drive with Nova and Steve sitting in comfortable silence. Nova's fingers had tirelessly fiddled with the metal band around her wrist. The tips of her nails glided across the smooth surface and gently caught the seam between the metal and plastic inside. Ever so often clenching her jaw with the faint sting of the hundred needles piercing her skin. A constant reminder that her life was on a very real time limit. And it could stop if the circumstances stacked against her. Not that she would've regretted ever deciding to have calibrated and made the way it'd been.
"You've been staring at that thing for hours." Steve's statement made the girl lift her gaze. Meeting his in the rearview mirror. "That bracelet. Does it have any importance?"
Nova nearly laughed at the irony of the question. Of course, it held importance but unveiling the truths of it only made the importance of it sound fruitless and almost idiotic.
"Uh, yea'. I guess you could say that," she snickered, lifting her wrist and scanning the device closely.
"Mind me asking what that is?" Steve prodded further.
"Tony and Martin managed to make it suppress my powers. Almost suffocating the power in my veins and applying power to the bracelet," Nova explained. "Pretty nifty if you think about it."
"Applying power to what exactly?"
"A miniature tomahawk warhead. A self-destruct system is built into the device if it is forcefully removed. The needles in my wrist not only absorb my powers but monitor my heartbeat. If they are pulled from my wrist, the thing goes boom." The pure look of horror on the supersoldier's expression made Nova laugh softly. "Don't worry. Tony and Martin were heavily against it. I was the one to decide on the self-destruct system."
Still, he wore a clueless and incredulous look on his face. "But w-why?"
Nova didn't expect Steve to know or anyone for that fact. There were multiple reasons for the understandably outlandish and stupid decision. But she believed the decision was one of the only ones plausible if she became POW. Or if anyone tried to use her against her country and friends. At least then she was less of a risk and took a few fuckers with her to the grave.
She sighed, propping her head on her hand and said, "Because I don't know what I am capable of and I won't be tested on like a lab rat."
It's a simple explanation but Steve didn't buy it one bit. Sure, it may be one of the few core reasons and he wouldn't discredit them. Except, he'd like to think he got to know Nova well enough from their countless missions and could say there was more beneath the surface level of the explanation.
