The Girl with Wings and a Metal Arm || Avengers Fan Fic

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

"What's this?" Tony Stark asked, looking over at Steve.

"Ultron killed Stryker." 

"And he did a Banksy at the crime scene."

At that moment, Cosima decided to join them. She was enjoying being able to run freely at her pleasure. She wanted to check up on where Ultron may have gone. "Morning," she called out cheerfully, wondering if anyone would reply cheerfully as well. They did not.

"Were you close to Stryker at Hydra?" Tony asked.

"Wow. What a question," Cosima said. "Sort of. In a weird understanding that we weren't to mess with each other kind of way." Cosima paused. "Why? Do you want answers? I ain't giving them."

"Stryker was killed by Ultron," Natasha said bluntly. Tony held up the tablet, showing Stryker's lifeless body on a bed. Above him read the word, 'Peace'. Cosima felt a pain in her heart. Not the one of when something went through her skin, but when something bad happened. 

"Well, he always thought he would die young," she said, trying to lift the mood in the room, but really she was trying to figure out where to go when she was free of all of this. She had always thought she would go back to Stryker and work with him again, but she realised that he hurt her. Maybe it was a good thing he was dead, but he had taught her so much about herself and what she was capable of that his death had to mean something. His death had to mean something to her.

"So you're not ... sad that he died?" Tony asked.

Cosima sighed. "He's not the first to die watching over me."

Natasha didn't look at Cosima. "This is a smoke screen. Why send a message when you've just given a speech?"

"Stryker knew something that Ultron wanted us to miss."

"Yeah. I bet ... yep. Everything we have on Stryker has been erased."

"Not everything," Steve said, looking over at Cosima.

"I said I would work with you. Not give away secrets."

"Anything at this point would be helpful," Tony said. "Give us something before we have to claw it out of you."

"No. I'm not giving away Hydra's secrets." Cosima was firm, but she was still deciding whether she needed Hydra in her life or not. There was a part of her that longed and yearned for it. She knew who she was there. She had a place. Outside, she was what most called an assassin. No-one would understand her. No-one would listen to her. No-one would care for her because she was beyond repair. Giving up secrets might be the way to secure a place with these people. And maybe if the Avengers were as big as Hydra said they were, maybe they would show her in a good light. Maybe she could live a good life.

"You coming?" Steve asked her. She lost her train of thought. 

"What?" she asked harshly. Steve could see why people were so feared of her. She showed no emotion. She was like a broken doll having only one emotion - masking what they really felt.

"Archives. To find out anything about Stryker."

"Why are you so nice to me?" Cosima asked suddenly. It caught Steve off guard. "Nobody here cares about me. You act like you want to get to know me. Why? I can't offer anything to you."

Steve looked at the ground. "It may come back like a bad memory, but we met once. I said I would protect you, and I didn't. I let Hydra get to you. I let all this-"

"Don't say anything else." Cosima could feel something inside her tingle. Was it a memory? She thought she had seen this man's face before, but because he was an Avenger, maybe he had posters stuck up of him so his face wasn't uncommon.

"Do you remember?" Steve urged.

"It was probably just a look-a-like." 

Cosima started walking out of the room when Steve questioned, "I haven't seen someone with wings as black as yours. Come to think of it, I haven't seen anyone with wings. I didn't think it was possible."

Cosima stopped in her footsteps. "As I said. It was probably just a look-a-like." Cosima looked at Steve, wishing he would stop asking these stupid questions. She didn't want to go digging up her past. Partly because she didn't care, and partly because she was scared of what dark memories would haunt her.

Steve lifted his shirt up a little to reveal a pristine bandage. He began to unwrap it. When he took it off, a dark scarlet line spread from the middle of his torso to his left side. It looked like something recognisable to Cosima: her talon. "It doesn't hurt. It's your talon mark. I was falling down from one of the helicarriers, and I saw you fall down. Your talon was out and hit my torso before you got hit by debris. Don't you remember?" 

Cosima tried so hard not to, but she tried to remember back to this man. Hydra had memory-wiped her, and it was hard to retain anything after the machine did it's work, but sometimes little fragments stayed. 

Suddenly, a flash of a memory appeared before her eyes. She was dodging something, weaving in and out of objects just like Stryker had taught her to do. But something hit her side. There was real, physical pain, not the kind of dreams. She touched her stomach. The memory vanished. Was that real? Was she only dreaming?

"I have never met you Steve. I am here to help bring down Ultron, and then I am gone. That was the arrangement. End of." Cosima walked on down the hall, dismissing Steve's shouting in her mind. She didn't need a memory jogger.