An Unlikely Romance - The Avengers (Part 1)

Wary, Weary, Worn.

"Why?"

"Because I said so."

"That doesn't work anymore."

"Last I checked, you were the one who tried to break out, but all of a sudden we're the bad guys here?"

"Yes, how dare your captive try to free themselves? That's so immoral," you practically shouted, despite being right up in Fury's face. Though your spirits had been dampened by your failed escape, since then you had become more energetic if anything, more hostile and firm in your resistance to their efforts.

"You tried to assault one of my agents, and destroyed my property on your way out."

"I didn't want to hurt her. If I did, I'd have shot her."

"If you wanted to hurt her, you'd be dead."

The icy stare-down between you two felt almost invigorating. As much as Fury used to scare you, having nothing to lose – not even memories – made someone pretty bold. The worst thing he could do was kill you, and that was not as frightening of an outcome as it used to be.

"We are holding you here because the work that we're doing could save lives," Fury said simply, abandoning his anger, or at least doing a damn good job of hiding it. The sudden shift put you on edge.

"What about my life? What about-"

"But," Fury interrupted, holding up his hand, "we're doing extra work – slowing down our progress on life-saving matters, I might add – to do what we can to help you. This isn't black-and-white morality stuff here, it's about more than means and ends."

"Then tell me what you learned so far," you said, eyeing the nurses behind Fury with a cold glare. "Because I may not remember much, but I don't need to know much to understand that you wouldn't need this much blood if you weren't looking for something. Or trying to understand something you already found."

"That's on a need-to-know basis, and you-"

"And I sure as shit need to know. Or I can bite my tongue off when I go back to my room tonight and you can hope whatever blood you suck up off the floor is enough to figure it out."

"..."

Fury was silent for a long moment. Natasha and Clint, both standing in the corners of the room, shifted just enough to eye each other.

"You two, out, now."

The nurses vanished in an instant, apparently quite grateful to be out of the room. You'd have thought all of Fury's employees were used to this kind of thing, but apparently not. Maybe nobody else stood up to him... but you doubted that.

"We still don't have anything concrete on what HYDRA did to you."

"Bullshit," you replied with no hesitation.

"I said concrete. Now you can let me talk, or we can walk out of here until you're done with this little fit you're having today," Fury said, with a look that was a mixture between a father ready to pull the car off the road and a soldier ready to pull the trigger.

When you didn't speak, Fury began to pace back and forth, his eyes never leaving you as he started to speak again.

"Your cells have been altered; there's evidence of genetic modification, and some trace elements we haven't identified yet. We haven't determined the point, but given the source of the modification, it seems likely to be some kind of combat adaptation."

"So, what, you're keeping me locked up in here because you think I'm some kind of weapon?"

"At first, yes. Now we just want to know what they did to you, so we can figure out how to reverse engineer it, create a cure if need-be."

"You think a cure could give me my memories back?" Suddenly, there was a slim thread of hope. But the look in Fury's eyes dashed it quickly.

"Although we don't know exactly what was done to you, it seems unlikely that the components we've isolated so far would've affected your memory. It's possible, but unlikely. We're focusing our efforts on searching through the data files at the base. Most of it was set to wipe when the base came under attack, but our techs are recovering as much as they can. So far, all we know is that the treatment was based off another subject, though only in theory."

"What subject is that?" You asked, looking around.

"You think you'll remember them?" Fury asked, raising an eyebrow to match his impressive amounts of sarcasm.

"Point taken."

"Steve Rogers, Captain America. The information isn't exactly classified, there's no harm in sharing it, though I imagine that it won't do you much good. All you need to know is that if HYDRA was able to perfect it, they could create an elite strike force that could take out an entire army."

"Well, I hate to break it to you, but it seems like they're a long ways off," you said, glancing at yourself. You were fit, but superhuman? Didn't seem likely. "If this is the best they can do, you must have been feeding your agents back there steroids from birth. I couldn't even take one of them down."

"You might be right. But I don't take chances," Fury replied. "Which is why we need another sample."

"...go ahead, bring them back in."

Fury nodded and marched to the door. As the nurses set up around you, you were lost in thought for a long while. Trying to figure out what you were going to do from here. You had no way of knowing if Fury was serious about letting you go free, much less about giving you a job, and if none of that was true, you had nothing to lose, but also nothing to gain.

A lifetime of this? Just thinking about that had you gnawing on your tongue already.