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10. We're unprepared, we are deficient
"From time to time," she answers his question after considering it. Does she feel safe in Avenger's Tower? More so than she has anywhere else. But she doesn't think she will ever feel completely at ease; that was trained out of her at a very young age.
"I hope," he begins, staring intently at his hands, then pauses. She waits patiently for him to finish the question, taking care not to startle him by moving suddenly. "I hope you aren't … feeling unsafe … because of me," he says slowly, very quietly.
"No, James," she assures him, hiding how the statement makes her heart ache. "I know you'd never hurt me on purpose," she says sincerely. He glances at her, almost shyly, and she bites her tongue. "Now, I think this conversation has gotten far too maudlin, so how would you like to come downstairs and do some training with me?"
The vulnerability in his face disappears immediately, and he cocks his head, clearly assessing her. "I'll be fine up here," he answers.
She gets to her feet and holds out her hand to help him up. "That may be true, but I find that exercise really helps in keeping nightmares at bay."
He frowns a little, but places his right hand in hers and allows himself to be pulled to his feet. She leads the way down the hallway to the elevator, which is hasn't moved since she arrived on the floor. As they descend, he stands in the center of the little room and seems tense. She supposes he would be on edge in scenarios that remind him of falling. Steve has told her that he remembers the train mission that supposedly killed him in action. When she asked, Steve was unable to tell her how much his friend remembered of the past, but knew it was largely upsetting memories. To calm James down, he tells him stories about when they were kids together, or about fun times back at base after a mission with the Howling Commandos. Steve was unsure if James has any flashbacks of those kinds of things. Of anything pleasant.
The elevator pings as they reach their floor, and the doors slide open. She walks out into the training floor. To the left, there is a shooting range, enclosed to keep the sound from disturbing everyone else. Ahead, there is ample space on mats for physical training, with some weights and machines at the far end in front of a wall of mirrors. To the right, an interactive obstacle course. She had been practicing there when JARVIS had alerted her to James' distress.
"What would you like to start with?" she asks, looking in his direction.
He is silently surveying the room, and she supposes he hasn't been here before. "Target practice," he suggests, a hint of uncertainty in his voice.
"Good plan," she tells him, and leads the way. The door is encoded, but she knows the code. Inside, there is a small armory, which is also locked up tight. She knows how to get into this, too. "Any preferences?" She motions to the array of weapons choices inside the metal locker.
He raises an eyebrow at her in carefully conveyed surprise. "I don't know," he says after a moment.
"Well, take your time. I'm sure you've trained on most of them." He doesn't reply to this suggestion, just stares at the cache of weapons silently. After a moment, she grabs her favorite pistol and walks out to the range as she loads it. Without waiting to see if he will be joining her, she takes her stance and fires expertly at the targets, which move to evade her shots.
"Very nice," his voice behind her comes as a slight surprise.
She finishes her clip before turning to look at him, smiling a little. "Thanks." She doesn't think about how pleased she is with his approval.
He is holding a pistol, too, though of a larger caliber than her own. She steps back and watches him fire his weapon and hit each target easily. His stance is loose and not as rigid as is usual in training areas. It is impressive that he can be so precise without having to hold his body still as he fires. He is a better shot than her, perhaps better than any of them. Clint wouldn't like to hear that, but James is using his real hand and she can't help but imagine his cybernetic one would be even more accurate.
When he's shot all of his rounds, he turns to look at her, a smile tugging at his lips likely as a result of the impressed look on her face. She smiles. "I don't think you really need practice," she states.
He allows his smile to grow at the compliment. "No? You don't see any room for improvement?"
"I don't," she admits. "I'm sure all those targets would have been neutralized." His jaw clenches and she kicks herself mentally for the phrasing. His eyes quickly glance toward the range, assessing. She's losing him. "Do you shoot better with your right or your left?" she asks.
His eyes flicker back toward her briefly, and she waits while he does a visual perimeter check. She remembers doing those a lot when she first came out of the field. "It doesn't matter," he replies quietly, finishing and looking down at his hands.
"Really? I was thinking your left might be more precise," she explains, keeping her voice casual, conversational.
"It was," he answers shortly, setting his pistol down on the table nearby.
She clears her throat and he looks up at her. "You trained your human arm to be as capable as your robotic one?"
"Yes."
There is no pride in the statement, no confidence. Just a statement of fact. She thinks painfully that he was unlikely to have much choice in the matter. "Well, maybe you could give me some pointers," she suggests graciously. When he doesn't respond, she moves forward and reloads both pistols, then stands with one in each hand. Taking a deep breath to calm herself, not that it is the shooting that distresses her, she steps forward and fires. The targets spin and weave around, behind other objects that she must not hit, and she concentrates on eliminating as many as possible. When her clips are empty, she sets the weapons down and turns to look at him.
His eyes were on her throughout, his face unreadable. "Any advice?" she asks.
It is unsettling to have his blue eyes focus on hers, especially when she cannot tell what he is thinking. "It's more accurate to only shoot one at a time," he says at last.
She smiles. "Sometimes I don't have that luxury."
"Stand again like you were," he murmurs, brow furrowing in concentration. She does as asked, wondering if he is remembering something. He circles her and she holds very still, waiting. "Fatigue would be less if you didn't stand so rigidly," he says. He lifts his hands as though he will touch her, correct her stance, but then he drops them back to his sides.
"You're right," she agrees gently. He seems troubled, whether memories are returning or not. "Would you like to do something else now?" He nods. She picks up the weapons and returns everything to where she found it, turning off the targets and locking the doors. He waits outside, near the mats, for her to be finished.
"What's that?" he asks, pointing.
"An obstacle course. It's pretty tough," she admits. "I was having a hard time with it before I came up to check on you." She suspects he'd rather not be made aware that his screaming nightmares are a matter of public knowledge.
"It's for one person?" He is staring at it intently, flexing his metal fingers slowly.
"I'm not sure. You want to give it a try?"
"Yeah."
She leads the way over to it, and opens the door for him. "Be careful. It will shut down if you're in any real danger, so try not to break anything," she teases, tapping his metal bicep.
He smiles slightly. "I'll try."
She doesn't know how Tony, or maybe JARVIS, designed the obstacle course, but it has been different every time she's gone through. Different things pop up, the floor disappears, sometimes there are electrical currents. She bites her lip considering of the last one, and how using electricity on his arm managed to short it out long enough for her to run away. It's too late now, he's already started. She watches silently, thinking of how Steve first described the Winter Soldier: fast, strong, has a metal arm. She can't recall seeing him run before, and he is very fast. He outran Steve, essentially, she reminds herself. It is surprising the course can keep up, though she supposes Tony might want it to be useable when he's in one of his suits.
When he reaches the other side, he is panting, but looks pleased with himself. He pushes his hair out of his face, and walks around to where she is waiting. "Everything is intact," he tells her with a smirk.
She returns the expression. "I can see that. Good job."
"Do you want to go?"
"Not after your performance, no. Maybe when there's an easier act to follow," she jokes.
"Sorry," he says, but looks almost happy.
Letting him be by himself all day is probably not ideal. He should have more things to do, especially things he might be good at, she thinks. She knows what helped her. Even if Steve is here, they don't really do anything, though she'd believe it would be more comforting to have Steve there than keeping himself busy. That kind of thing was never an option for her.
"Now what?" he asks, interrupting her thoughts.
She turns around to face the rest of the room. "Sparring?" she suggests.
He frowns slightly, looking her up and down. "You think that's a good idea?" he says tentatively.
She doesn't, but the idea is tempting. It would be most likely to bring back some memories she has been wishing he had. Of course, he could also kill her pretty easily. She meets his eye. He looks concerned. That's a good sign. "We'll go slow," she replies, walking over to the mats and stretching.
Going slow is not an option, she soon realizes. He's fast, inhumanly so; she knows that. Still, she is able to hold her own for a while. He is concerned about hurting her and holds himself back, and she knocks him to the mat a few times since he isn't using his left arm if he can help it. At one point, she jumps and wraps her legs around his shoulders. She can feel that something is different as he uses his left hand to throw her violently from him.
"Predatel," he hisses, glaring down at her. And she decides this was definitely a bad idea.