10 : Specimen

"So, uh, can I get your name?" Steve said as he, Tony, and the stranger traveled from the communal kitchen down to the lab. They just finished discussing what had happened in the tunnels and the girl had taken the news with mild horror as she ate her first sandwich. After a few platitudes, vague clarifications, and awkward apologies, their animosity began to settle.

She smiled around a bite of her second turkey sandwich, "Sid."

"Sid," Steve nodded, "that's a new one for me."

"Written word is new to you." Tony grumbled through a bite into a candy bar.

Sid chuckled at that, going to talk through another hulking bite of her sandwich but groaning in pleasure which caused both Tony and Steve to stare at her. When she opened her eyes and saw them looking at her in confusion, she swallowed one of those perfect bites with no shame, "It's amazing, all right? I don't often get to feast like this. Gimme a break." She shrugged them off and went back to her sandwich.

"It's a turkey sandwich —,"

"It's the turkey sandwich dear Steve-o." She shook it at him and he stared at her with a curiously raised eyebrow. "Look at these deli slices! It's thin like tissue paper and practically melts on your tongue!" She rolled her eyes at his apathy and shrugged, nonplussed as she continued, "Yes, I know who you are. Both of you, obviously," she took another bite and spoke around it, "just cause I kicked your ass and forgot about it doesn't mean I've been living under a rock."

"So are you, uh," Tony started with a small chuckle, pulling a face, "from around here?"

She chuckled softly at the odd question, answering it with confusion, "Born and raised in New York, but I've been around a time or two."

They wound around a corner and Tony added, "Around where precisely? Just Earth? Or you take a spin around Saturn too?"

She stopped in her tracks, shocked. "What?" Staring back at the both of them, a laugh bubbled up through her lips and she only calmed herself when she noticed their hesitance and it caused her to panic, "What do you think I am? An alien!? That's ridic…" Her speech halted abruptly, caught sharply on the fact that aliens did in fact exist. She took a deep breath and leveled a quick glance to both Steve and Tony and exhaled, "Ok, I see how this could be confusing. But right now, I'm like, eighty percent sure I'm human, but I'm ninety-five to ninety-eight percent sure this is all actually a dream."

They looked her up and down and she followed their gaze and she huffed. "Of course I'm human!" She shouted, a jab of existentialism asking what she really knew about herself, "I mean, okay, maybe I'm an orphan and that adds to the mystery, but other people do weird stuff too! I mean, is there like a human test you take after a certain point? I don't exactly get to the doctors all that much since I'm kinda, you know, residence impaired." She rambled nervously.

Steve frowned utterly confused, "Huh?"

Tony's almost always smirking face turned down in concern, "Homeless."

She nodded and shrugged, "Yeah, I have been pretty much all my life." She recognized their gazes of pity and grew stern. "I'm good at what I do, so I help others like me, all right?"

"Oh." Steve replied, unsure of what else to say.

She just turned away from them and started walking, taking a few steps forward and then stopping when she realized she wasn't the one leading. She looked back over her shoulder with little patience, "Could we maybe not make this weird?" She added with false bravado. "Homeless alien or not, I'm perfectly happy with my life. Now show me where I'm going."

Steve and Tony glanced at each other with a shrug and stepped forward, bringing her around a few more turns and into the lab. It was surely a sight to see for Sid. The entire room glistened like morning dew on the Emerald City. It was a pretty vast in size, filled and modified to something like a research lab and hospital from a space station.

They directed her towards the center, where an exam table sat and she climbed up, second guessing her decision to go with them now that she noticed some of the machinery. She stuffed the last bit of her sandwich in her mouth which was probably too much, but she couldn't stop now. Especially with Steve Rogers, AKA Captain America, staring at her so intently that it was becoming completely unnerving.

She eventually finished her last bite as Tony flitted on around her, pressing buttons that appeared out of thin air. Steve leaned on a desk top a few feet away from her just watching, his brow wrinkled in concentration.

Sid smiled at him, timidly, but he just continued on with his frown and didn't react. She recoiled a little at that, desperately wishing to burrow deeper into her own skin until she vanished completely. She turned to face Tony who was yapping on about something to his mystical disembodied voice. Sid had heard about his AI of course, how it ran his house, but she didn't expect it to be so — sentient. They way they conversed was wild: affectionate, sarcastic, biting, and brutally honest; it just was such a whirlwind to experience how wonderfully human it all was.

"Jarvis, send for Bruce." Tony muttered while he reached for Sid's arm and stopped himself before he touched her. She caught his eye and he smiled sincerely, "May I?"

"Just promise you won't turn me into a science experiment." She chuckled and put her arm in his hand.

He scanned her quickly with something and grinned, "I don't really do the whole promise thing."

She rolled her eyes, "Just treat me like a person, please?"

He nodded, "Yeah, a fascinating one." He stalked around her again, scanning here and there and each time giving her a quick look to make sure she was okay with him touching that specific place.

It eased Sid with how thoughtful that really was. She didn't know if she'd met many people who would be so considerate and gentle with someone like her. After what happened last night, she was surprised she wasn't in a prison cell or dead. Instead, they had left her to rest, got her some clothes, and even after she had a little bit of a melt down and tried to hit him, Captain America made her a damn delicious sandwich. Despite her initial reaction, she had to believe there was something to them worth trusting. At least, the rest of the entire universe thought so.

She cleared her throat to dispel the unease she felt. For a long time, she'd curtailed doctor's visits deliberately, but she had a feeling no one said no to Tony Stark, "Still, I'll tell you what I know, I just… I don't want to become a spectacle."

Tony nodded, "Well you're definitely in the wrong house if you don't like a spectacle." He chuckled, "But trust me, I think out of any random group you could have been abducted by, all of us understand the necessity of a little bit of privacy in our lives."

She smiled softly while he poked and prodded a bit more, "I figured you might." She glanced up at Steve, still gazing at her in his thoughtful way. His eyes were intense as he stared at her and it was like fingers were dragging softly up her spine. A sensation that proved to be unsettling and definitely unwelcome to say the least. "What's up with him?" She whispered.

Tony smirked, "What, you don't know all of Cap's dirty laundry? Just about everyone in the free world knows pretty much everything SHIELD had known — not to mention the comics, movies, franchises, toys… I'll never forget the Captain Americar…Burnt that sucker to a crisp."

She chuckled through her frown, "I like to be informed, but some things I can't dig into. That whole debacle? I want to stay as emotionally distant from that as I possibly can. I knew this world was dark, but I didn't realize it was Hydra dark, you know what I mean? Like who thought Nazis and Magic were a good combination?"

He chuckled sadly, "Yeah, yeah you can say that again."

She sighed as she glanced at Steve and he was still just starting at her or through her and she wasn't sure what felt worse. She leaned into Tony again, "His friend, James, I've only known him for a handful of weeks. He's a really good guy, but he's — he's hurting." She glanced back at Steve whose eyes had trailed to the floor in thought. "Do you honestly think that he'd help him?"

A breathy laugh shot out of Tony, "Uh, yeah. They're pretty much the biggest bromance of the century."

She snorted out a laugh, "I'm serious."

He blipped something in her face and she had to blink a few times to get the fuzzies out of her vision. Once she refocused, she settled on Tony, who actually looked pretty serious, "I know you are and so am I. Trust me, if there is anyone who can help Bucky, it's Steve Rogers."

She nodded and then turned to Steve, watching as his arms uncrossed and he settled his hands on his hips, flipping the sides of his jacket out of the way.

She huffed out some air to push away childish thoughts and turned to Tony, "Am I almost done?"

He nodded, "Last one, I promise." He did something else magical with his fingers and it brought up a display menu and he clicked on a few things. She nodded and continued to just breathe, hoping that maybe this was her only way to really help James in the long run: get them to trust her, figure out if it's worth it. At least if it didn't work out, James wouldn't be at risk of exposure.

Tony waved her away, "All right Cap, your turn. When Bruce and I get some results we can actually read, we'll come and get you."

Steve came to attention and nodded, clearing his throat and trying to brush his heavy thoughts aside. "Ma'am?" He gestured to one of the spare offices on the side, mostly used when Tony or Bruce needed utter isolation or just a separate environment for a specific project. She nodded and gave him a sly half smile at the word ma'am and he felt a slight blush rise from his chest. He quashed it quickly enough and guided her to the space where he opened the door for her.

Sid walked in with a mumbled thanks and sat on one of the couches, sort of splaying out a little bit, her legs folded into one another in an odd way. Steve shut the door and followed her, pulling one of the chairs out and bringing it over to the couch, sitting himself directly in front of her and it caused her to squirm. He sat back in the chair immediately when he saw her shift, feeling like a massive idiot for not realizing his usual direct approach may be a little too aggressive considering what they had gone through the night before.

"Sorry," Steve muttered and scooted himself back a bit.

She smiled softly, chewing on her thumbnail, "Nah, it's interesting. You're so intense, I'm sure you sort of need to be."

He nodded, relaxing back against the wood of the chair, hearing it creak gently, "I do. Especially right now."

She nodded nervously, "I get that, there's a lot of distrust in the world. People are scared."

He agreed, "We just want to help."

"That's all I want to do too." She stopped chewing on her nail and pulled her legs close to her, "I don't tend to trust a lot of people." She narrowed her eyes at him, as if she were inspecting him, "I got a lot of friends, a lot of people who have gone through terrible shit their whole lives, some of them just in the last few years, and I just want to help them. Jame — Bucky," she corrected, "he's one of those people who seem to have more than a lifetime of darkness in their past. I don't know much about him because I never asked and I honestly didn't make the connection to you. I found him and I helped him. We became friends, I guess." She shrugged and leaned back, "I mean he don't talk much, he just likes to listen, but when he does talk, it's always interesting."

Steve let out a soft laugh, "Yeah," sadness pulled at him again, "yeah he's always been good with words."

"I see that in him sometimes, I think when he's really relaxed, it sort of leaks out." She admitted and Steve's eyes darted to her face. She felt the intensity of his look like a slap on her cheek and she continued, hoping to see something in those sad eyes shift, "I mean, a few times it's happened, he'll say something and he'll have a different tone of voice, even his eyes soften up and it's like they suddenly gain some warmth."

Steve nodded hope crackling deep in his bones, "He's been through a lot."

"I get that." She picked at her nails absently.

"We both have." He swallowed heavily and stared down at his clasped hands, "I understand you don't want to trust us, that you want to protect him," he sighed, "and I have to admit it is an amazing thing to see, someone protecting him like that. I was so scared —," he paused and took another deep breath to quell his pained insanity, "I was concerned that he would be alone. And I'm honestly glad he wasn't."

Sid nodded, smiling, "He's a good guy, he helped me out more than once and he always acted decent. Never gave anyone much to be concerned about other than his look, but, just cause he looks tough don't mean he's a jerk, you know? I got a guy who outweighs you by about a hundred pounds and he basically cries puppies he's so sweet."

Steve chuckled softly at the depiction, "I do. Did he tell you anything about where he'd been or what has happened to him?"

She sat forward a bit, her eyes focusing on something other than Steve for a moment as she thought back, "He'd talk about things sometimes, but most of it was nothing of importance. In serious moments, it'd be like he'd have something initiate a picture reel in his head and then he'd get mad about it. He didn't always make a lot of sense during those moments, if he spoke at all." She looked at Steve and continued, "Getting through more than a just a sentence always appeared to be a struggle for him. Like he couldn't find the words or he was stuck on something or missing something. He'd get a bit frustrated."

She paused and nibbled on her nail again, "I see a lot of bad things in what I do, but I meet a lot of good people too. So believe me when I say I'm not just making assumptions, I'm actually applying some logic from what I've experienced and what people have taught me." She looked at Steve to denote how serious she was and he sat back and nodded, "When and if he ever slept, he'd usually have nightmares. He doesn't like to be touched by anyone unless he initiates it, which is just about never. He's jumpy and restless and loud noises tend to bother him. I got him a service dog to help with, well, everything, cause he never talked and refused to try." She inhaled tightly. "I've met a lot of vets over the years. I've seen soldiers, men and women, the bravest of the brave, with pits in their eyes darker and deeper than fault lines." She shook her head slowly on her exhale before glancing back up to Steve, "He's worse."

Steve nodded slowly, a heavy burden on his chest at the cost of his friend. When he looked back at Sid, she was watching him carefully. She appeared guarded but intrigued. He cleared his throat, realizing he was probably letting a little too much seep through his resolve. "A service dog?" Steve questioned, he would have sounded much more official if it weren't for the jagged edge to his voice.

"Yeah, they have support dogs, for veterans," She started, "I got a friend that runs a program and she had a dog that was in need of a foster and I had a broken heart in need of a dog, so I traded her."

"Traded?" Steve frowned.

"That doesn't have anything to do with you or Bucky, so you don't need to know about it." She insisted, her voice serious, "But he named her Dolly, I think she was a flower or something before that, but he called her doll once and it stuck."

Steve chuckled and couldn't help but smile, "How was he health wise?"

She shrugged, "He appeared fine other than when I first found him, but he'd had an altercation with some of the Morlocks —,"

"Morlocks?" Steve questioned and Sid cringed at her loose tongue.

"Yeah, that's what the people who live in those tunnels call themselves." She smiled weakly, "I'm telling you this in confidence — this stuff can't leave this room."

Steve nodded solemnly, "I understand that and I promise, the location of the tunnels will be purged from our system." Sid nodded her thanks and sat back slowly, mulling over some thought that stole her words.

Steve watched her for a few minutes. She was heavily focused, completely pulled inside of herself for a good few minutes. He cleared his throat softly and she looked up as he spoke, "H.G. Wells, I was a fan." He chuckled, "I have to admit, that takes me back." He sat forward again, a warmth in his gut he hadn't felt in a while along with a pleasant memory of him and Bucky reading the fantastical stories together. Never in all of his years would he believe that he would be living in that kind of mystical future.

"Yeah, well, Bucky was sneaking around in the tunnels and they don't take too kindly to that. They're a pretty gentle set of people now — I mean fights and stuff break out but they deal with things on a one on one basis with mediation if necessary. There's no politics, there's just survival. They respect each other enough most of the time to get along great, but they would, each and every one, kill and be killed to protect what they have down there." She paused and chewed on her cheek in thought, "They're happy and they have no qualms with the outside world anymore. They just want to live in peace."

He understood, "Don't worry about that, we have no need to disrupt them or spread word about them if they aren't a threat."

Sid bit down on her lower lip in frustration. That was precisely why the Morlocks lived beneath ground in the first place. They were all possible threats and not one of them deserved to be treated like a war criminal. She steeled herself towards the Captain and spoke with some finality, "All of them have been shit on by society or the government or the military — for some, all three. Their only allegiance is to themselves, but trust me," she implored, "I cannot stress how important it is that you leave them alone."

Steve frowned heavily at the implication in her tone. His interest was piqued at what kind of world was evolving in the tunnels, "But you go down there?"

She nodded, shifting back into nonchalance as she scratched at her knee and shrugged, "I do, I know the person in charge so they give me a free pass for helping them get necessities."

"Go on."

She shot him a side-eyed glare and decided to distract him with James, "All right, so when I met Bucky he got in a tiff with a few of the residents down below. I barged in and separated them before they could kill each other —,"

"Thought that was the law of the land down there?"

She shook her head in acute disgust, "Doesn't mean I have to like it." Her features softened as she insisted, "He looked so scared. I didn't think he wanted to hurt anyone, so I got them to knock it off and healed everyone —,"

"Y-you heal people too?" Steve was shocked.

"It — it's not an exact science, okay?" Sid replied nervously, cursing her stupid mouth, "My powers or gifts or whatever the hell they are, they aren't always predictable, but we'll talk about that later." She shot him down but he nodded and looked ready to continue, "So basically we worked it out, he'd stick by me and show me he was trustworthy enough for the Alley —," before Steve could interrupt, she put up a hand to stop him, "that's what they call the tunnels. So he was hanging out with me until I could decide if he was cool or not."

"And?" Steve prodded.

"Well, he saved my life from a real dirt bag, helped a woman and child escape abuse, and honestly, we'd been spending so much time together, I just got a feel for him. When you found us, we had been in the tunnels just a few days after the incident and he had been accepted by the Morlocks. I was just getting ready to transition out and move on for a while until the heat died down." She wrapped her arms around herself, "I don't know if he'll stick around."

Steve thought on that and he felt a sharp terror in his gut. He realized by taking Sid away from Bucky, he trigged one of two drastic responses: either Bucky would tear himself and the world apart to get back to her or he'd be completely in the wind. Nodding slowly, he insisted, "Well, you aren't being kept prisoner. We aren't going to lock you away in Stark Tower. Once you have given us any information you can on him, you're free to go. Hopefully he will contact you."

She frowned and said, "Sure." But she didn't sound it.

"What?" Steve asked, noticing her hesitation.

She sighed, "I just feel like I'm betraying him."

"You aren't." Steve insisted, with every moral fiber in his being. He knew this was right, she had to be the way to Bucky. He needed this.

"It'd be much nicer hearing that from him." She gave him a rueful smile.

Steve chuckled sadly in response, "I know. I just need to talk to him, just to try. If he'll hear me out once, just one time…" He swallowed heavily, clearing his throat of the emotion that coated it, "I won't lose him again." He managed to get it out through the tightness in his throat.

She nodded softly, trying to keep her heart from breaking. Captain America was either the best manipulator in the universe or the most sincere person she'd ever met. She cleared her throat of her own issues and replied, "If I see him, I'll tell him," she adjusted in her seat, "but you have to understand that if he doesn't want me to tell you about him, I just can't."

Steve sighed softly as he eyed her carefully. He hadn't realized her devotion to Bucky would come with this much paranoia. However, if he was in her place, he probably would have burned this place to the ground to escape and protect Bucky. But he had to get through to her, he had to make her understand that the safest place Bucky could be was by his side. "What if he's in danger?" Steve insisted a little too desperately.

Sid blanched at that, "In that much danger?"

Steve sighed heavily with incredulity, "Have you seen his arm?"

Sid frowned and huffed, "The metal one? Yeah, the first night we met, I healed him, his jacket had gotten burned away." She muttered like it was nothing, "What, is it dangerous?"

Steve almost laughed, "Yeah, it's dangerous. He's —," he started but bit back the words. His entire drive was to save Bucky, but he felt an obligation to hold back the information that he was the Winter Soldier. There was limited video footage of their battle on the bridge and on the helicarrier, so not many people had been able to identify the man with the metal arm. Mysteries about him had faded to the wayside, much like everything did eventually. The world was so panicked over the establishments all crumbling, they didn't have much time to focus on the intricate aspects of the first fallen piece.

Steve took a breath and continued, "He has been hurt in a horrible way. He doesn't look like the same man that I used to know, but I know he's in there. I know I can reach him."

Sid nodded, a frown furrowing on her brow, "What if he doesn't wanna be reached?" When the words left her lips, she immediately regretted it. Steve had somehow transformed from one of the most impressive and daunting visages of the male form into something so meek and pitiful, it made his words that much harder to hear.

"Then I'll need to hear it from him myself." Steve replied with a horrible stillness in his tone.

Sid opened her mouth to apologize, but the door burst open and Tony entered, practically gleaming with joy while another man with a buzzed head of salt and pepper hair and a stubbly chin followed him in. The second man pushed up the glasses on his nose and smiled at Steve.

"Yes?" Steve asked, sounding annoyed.

"We've got to talk." Tony sounded ecstatic as he jumped over a chair or two to plop next to Steve on the coffee table.

"About?" Steve grit through a tense jaw.

Sid just watched them go back and forth, like tennis match of boyish bantering.

"Her." Tony pointed firmly at Sid who sat back, eyes wide and suddenly much more nervous.

"Me?" Sid sounded indignant and she looked around, her eyes finally meeting the new face, "Why me?"

The new guy took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes for a moment, refocusing on her with a quizzical look in his eyes. He blinked again and put on his glasses, frowning at her and then at Tony.

"Because you my dear, are one unique specimen." Tony grinned at her with his full charm and Sid just chuckled nervously, desperately trying to quell the nausea in her gut.