Old Soul (Captain America/Steve Rogers)

35

Narrator's Pov

"Tell me what you know."

Steve paced the small area, looking upon who he was interrogating.

The convict just smirked. "Where's my lawyer?"

"You think this is funny?" Steve asks, turning towards the table she sat at. "Let me remind you who is in handcuffs."

"And let me remind you that I don't care," she sneered, baring her teeth in a little growl.

Steve places his palms on the table surface, leaning against it as he tried to remain calm. He came here after he talked with Avalie, going to the first person he thought of that would have the information that he needed. But the prisoner wasn't making it too easy on him. "What if I guess it?"

Her expression remained amused. "You never will."

"There are only so many possibilities," Steve snarled, beginning to get angry. "Does it have something to do with Hydra?"

She was unfazed, just grinning to herself. "You have no idea."

"Hydra's past?" Steve tried to press, but she just shakes her head.

"Look, pal," she spit. "I was under the impression that you were holding something of ours. And harboring Hydra property...oh, you're in for it."

She begins to chuckle lightly, darkly. Steve narrows his eyes at her, "What's your game?"

"Nothing that you play," she replied, looking Steve in the eye, studying him.

"Name it," he says, not missing a beat.

Suddenly, nearly catching Steve off-guard, she jerks forward in her seat as far as her cuffs would let her, her nose inches from Steve's.

"I don't believe it goes by a name," she breathes, looking him straight in the eye.

"What does it compare to?" Steve says back, unflinching.

The corners of her mouth quirk up. "This isn't a game," she says. "It's war. And I didn't realize that until you took a prisoner."

With that, she slowly leans back into her seat, taking the pungent aroma of green apples and rusted metal with her.

Steve straightened, looking at the prisoner, studying her for any hint or clue to the solution to all of this. But she kept her poker face, so Steve eventually gave up. However, not entirely, for a thought occurred to him.

He turned his back to walk towards the door, calling as he went, "she wasn't a prisoner. She was liberated."

And with that, he left her cell, purposefully striding down the hallway with an idea that just might lead him to a cure for Avalie.

•••

Natasha hurries to meet Steve out on in the parking garage, dressed in her work clothes. She got his call, wondering what could be so urgent.

Steve waited for her by a company car, twirling the keys (taken with Agent Hill's permission) around his finger.

"I got your call," Natasha says as she walks up to him.

"I need your help," Steve says. "Can you keep a secret?"

Natasha smirked. "Only if you can tell one."