Burn

Chapter five: Esoteric

I'm seriously neglecting my studies because this story is taking over my life. Early update because I will not be writing anything this weekend. I have assignments and essays to prepare and finish, so I won't be around. I will definitely update sometime next week.

More Bucky in this chapter as promised.

Training with Nat proved to be wrecking in all the senses of the word. She pushed Addie until the latter was completely and utterly demolished. Every morning, Addison woke up with a new onset of the day. She tried to think positively of all the sore and bruised parts of her body; it meant she was getting stronger. Six weeks of constant and brusque training would surely have toughened her up. She ate a balanced breakfast and decided caffeine should be replaced by water. A balanced and healthy diet was as good as a robust training program, according to Nat. After her breakfast, she spent two hours with Clint and Steve on the computers, researching and discussing ever variable that they knew about HYDRA. She was incredibly immersed in all aspects of HYDRA; just how long it had been around, who it had targeted, the weird situations it had dabbled in, and so much more horrible circumstances they had taken part in. With Clint and Steve, she deciphered, learned, and planned what they must have been thinking or trying to do now. The return of Loki with a HYDRA insignia on his sleeve had raised many questions.

"If he wanted me, wouldn't he have found us here?" she asked one morning, her head bent over a package of papers. Her eyes were tired from a restless sleep plagued by nightmares of a certain Soldier strangling her.

"Loki had one intention in this world, Bird," Clint started, his voice dismissive as he spun around on the rolling chair to face the brunette. "He wanted to conquer. He wanted all the power from the Tesseract and to rule as a dictator. We cast him out with a warning that if he ever return, his head would be on a pike."

"I don't believe we went to those lengths of threatening," Steve said with a paternal tone. "But Barton is right. He wanted to conquer. If he had targeted you, he would have you by now."

A shiver sliced through Addie's spine as she returned slowly to her papers.

Her mornings were always like that. Steve and his patronizing, protective attitude, and Clint with his seriousness and intellect. They mingled well together; a perfect brain team. She loved to sit with them, listen and observe how the professionals did the work. She learned more by watching and listening to their conversations than she did by trying to find information on HYDRA by herself.

Once Nat was up and about, she came to find Addie and brought her to the gym. There, she was broken and mangled and thrown to the ground.

"Come on, Bird, we've done this countless of times," Nat said, looking at the brunette from under thick black lashes. Sweat coated her red hairline, her damp hair sticking to the sides of her pale face. She was wearing black yoga pants that accentuated the curve of her hips and a dark red Under Armor sweatshirt. Nat looked good in whatever she was wearing, doing anything.

"And you've done this since 1984," Addie answered, breathless, her pony tail damp, her face red from the strain.

They had been scuffling since ten in the morning, going through different take downs and self defense techniques. Nat taught the brunette how to use her fingers, her elbows, her knees. She taught her how to counter any attack and how to get out of compromising, lethal positions. One thing that stuck to Addie was how to counter a strangling, especially because her nights had been plagued with epidemic nightmares of a metal hand wrapping around her throat.

The gym was almost full that morning. Wanda and Sam were scuffling on their own, trying out techniques they had seen from a Japanese fight video on YouTube. Scott and Clint were on the treadmill after having spent a considerable amount of time on the weights. And Steve was at the punching bag; his usual destination for rough mornings.