Radioactive: I Will Always Return

5~ Moments

*Steve's P.O.V*

The next morning, Jodie and I still made an effort to avoid each other. I entered the small training room Maria had shown me yesterday before breakfast, and I found Jodie hanging upside down from a set of metal bars, headphones plugged into her ears. She must've heard the door open because she opened her eyes and looked at me. Those blue-grey eyes of hers never fail to send shivers down my spine, and in that moment I also felt my gut clench because of the look of pain and confusion in them.

Before I could say anything, she righted herself and hurriedly made an exit through a window near the ceiling. I have no idea where that leads, but I doubt I would be able to follow her, not without smashing the entire window. It's times like this I envy her small size and agility.

So I removed the situation from my mind and strapped my hands before stepping over to the large punching bag in the corner. This reminds me of the time Fury came to me about the problem with the Tesseract, mere hours before I met Jodie for the first time. Things were so different back then, and now we're stuck in a worse predicament than I ever could've imagined.

Each time my fists hit the bag, a memory sprang to my mind. The majority were of my life in the war with Bucky, the time I truly became Captain America, and then there were a few of Jodie and I before New York happened. I remember my first proper conversation with her in the locker room, how she had shown me a picture from her 16th birthday, then her confessing that she felt comfortable around me, like she could lower her walls for - How had she put it? - the first time in 7 years.

I was pulled from my thoughts by the sound of the door opening, followed by Natasha's voice as she appeared in the corner of my vision. "You can't ignore each other forever," she said. "You're gonna have to talk to her at some point."

I sighed and stopped hitting the bag to look at her. "What am I supposed to say after six months of believing she was dead? It was hard enough to have her appear out of the blue, but after what we had... I don't know if I can talk to her."

Natasha said nothing for a moment, and I was about to go back to the punching bag when she finally spoke. "Steve... do you remember when you first met Jodie?"

I raised an eyebrow. "Of course. SHe was a prisoner - helpless, confused and angry, locked in a room by herself, and when I visited on your instruction she knocked me out and tried to escape." I Smiled slightly at the memory. "You then cornered her on the asphalt."

"And what happened then?"

"She escaped again and fell into Dr. Banner's lab. My first conversation with her wasn't until 24 hours later in the locker room."

Natasha was silent again for another moment, and she stepped closer, folding her arms over her chest. "What did you think of Jodie when you first met her?"

THat took a moment, for I had to think back several months to that day. Yet somehow, the conversation had always stayed crystal clear in my memory. "Just with that first impression, I thought she was a troublemaker, and I honestly didn't know if any good was gonna come out of her being there." I sighed. "But under all of that... I saw a lonely child who'd had everything torn away from her. She was trying to fix it, but she needed help, and didn't want it because everyone who had tried to help her before had turned their backs."

THere was another silence, in which I unstrapped my hands and ran a hand over my eyes tiredly. I'd been up half the night thinking of a plan to get us successfully into HYDRA - preferably without blowing up absolutely everything in sight - and contemplating my make-up talk with Jodie. It hadn't done me any favors except for losing sleep.

"And that is why Jodie refused to leave you in the warehouse," Natasha said, pulling me back to reality. "You were the only one who helped her and didn't turn your back, no matter how difficult and argumentative she got. You became the first solid thing in her life since she left the orphanage and went on the run. She didn't want to throw that away and she certainly didn't want to abandon you." She took a step closer to me. "Look, her death was tragic and yes, Fury kept her survival a secret, it maybe it was for the best. Think about it, but don't ignore her forever."