The Valentin Series, Book 1: The Valkyrie (Captain America fanfiction)

Chapter 5: Promises

Valkyrie made her way back to Tony's sitting room on the top floor. According to Barton, it was where the Hulk beat the crap out of Loki. She found an abandoned guitar lying on one of the sofas, she picked it up, a small smile forming on her face. She brought it with her as she stepped out onto the balcony and the early morning twilight. Gritting her teeth, she let her wings rip out of her back again. It wasn't as painful this time, and she had decided it was time they got a bit of sun. She sat down on the still cold floor and let her wings relax behind her, the bottom half laying on the floor as they draped down. Val concentrated as she let the feathers stand, making her jet black wings look fluffy, so that each feather would be able to feel the breeze and the sun at the top of the tower. Then she got the guitar, put it on her lap and started strumming. Playing "I Can Feel a Hot One" by Manchester Orchestra, she started making herself a game plan.

"I can feel a hot one taking me down for a moment I could feel the force," she sang quietly, her voice getting lost in the wind, she knew she had to disappear, if she wanted her life back, she had to disappear.

"Mana is a hell of a drug, I need a little more I think," this was the last mission, hell, the one before this was supposed to be the last mission. HYDRA would know she went active to find James, and they would know where to find her.

"I haven't heard a thing you've said in at least a couple hundred days," one day, it was all she could give herself, just one day with James, and she'll go back to her farmhouse in the outskirts of the city and make a new identity, maybe head to a different country.

"I was asking if you felt alright, I never want to hear the truth, I just want to hear your voice," she watched as the sun began to rise higher in the sky, it's warmth reaching her wings and it felt like her feathers were rejoicing having felt the sun's heat again, Valkyrie smiled, she shook her wings out some more.

"So I prayed for what I thought were angels ended up being ambulances," she was going to miss James, the same way she missed him for the past two years, but knowing he was with people who wouldn't treat him the way HYDRA did, took the sting out of that wound.

Val sighed, she felt Tony's presence by the balcony door as she finished the song and strummed random chords on the guitar, she looked up to the sky, wondering at the pastel yellows and oranges of the sunrise that started to bleed into the blue. She needed to go, and she needed to do it as quick as possible. Pay the last bit of rent on the apartment, pack up her things and go, she should go now. Drop the guitar, jump off the tower, fly into the clouds and land on her apartment building. But she couldn't do it, not until she said goodbye to the soldier, she owed him that much. Camilla Valentin frowned, there was something else she couldn't put her finger on, a nagging feeling at the back of her mind, maybe even her heart. But that was impossible, she didn't have a heart, she wasn't born with one, the same way she wasn't born with a conscience.

"Do all winged tracker-slash-assassins play the guitar and sit at the top of towers at dawn, or is that just you?" Tony asked from the balcony entrance.

"I was wondering when you'd say something," Valkyrie laughed, not taking her eyes off the sky, "and to answer your question, no, they don't usually play the guitar... Some of us play the piano."

Tony chuckled, "What's up, kid?" He asked as he joined her on the concrete floor, carefully avoiding her large wings.

"I need to disappear, Ironman," Val whispered, fingers still plucking the guitar strings, "I can't do this anymore."

"I thought you didn't have a conscience, or that's what Red said about you," Tony pointed out, now looking at her, "Why start now?"

She looked sadly at him, a small sad smile playing on her lips, "The Winter Soldier got to me," she took a deep breath, "When I would bring him in, I would see him in the 'Soldier Zone' and I didn't like it. No remorse, no feelings, no conscience, no humanity. Just cold, hard, math." She paused and looked down at her fingers dancing across the guitar chords, "I realized... I realized that was me, too. I was a machine; I chose to be a machine. I chose to be used, to not feel... Then I decided to start feeling. Because that metal-armed man in there, he made me... Different." She looked back at Tony and saw that he understood, not everything, but some of it, and she smiled gratefully at him.