The first thing Nora was aware of when she regained consciousness was the nauseating smell of hospitals and an obnoxiously loud snorer. She tried to sit up, but the searing pain that was...everywhere really, prevented her from doing so. Even her face was throbbing painfully. It took her a few minutes to gather the strength to open her eyes, and when she did she quickly closed them again due to nearly being blinded to death.
"Good morning, sleeping beauty" Sam said quietly, and Nora opened her eyes again and blinked furiously to avoid repeating her earlier mistake. She tilted her head in the direction of the voice and saw Sam slouched in the chair next to her bed with a grin on his face.
"Steve. Where's Steve...is he?" Nora mumbled, fighting through the pain to sit up. She pulled back the covers in an attempt to get out of bed but Sam pushed her back down again.
"Make a wild guess. You didn't really think it was me doing all that snoring did you?" Sam nodded his head to the opposite end of the large room and Steve was laid in bed, and sure enough, he was snoring louder than a bullhorn.
"He looks in bad shape. What happened to him?" Nora asked, smiling gratefully as Sam handed her a glass of water.
"He got the crap beaten out of him, then he fell Lord knows how many feet into the water, and some joggers found him on the riverbank" Sam explained and Nora nodded, satisfied with the story until a thought struck her.
"How did I get here?" she asked and Sam shuffled nervously.
"That's the weird part. You were still on the helicarrier when it crashed but someone went back to pull you out. You were personally dropped off at the hospital by a, and I quote, 'huge, angry look guy wearing a fully black suit'" Sam said and Nora furrowed her eyebrows.
"Why would he take me to the hospital? Why not take Steve instead?" it was obvious to her that the winter soldier was the one who pulled Steve out of the river as well as taking her to safety.
"I don't know. Apparently he even stayed to make sure you lived through your surgery" Sam explained. It didn't make sense to her, why go to such great lengths to keep her alive when you're the one who put her in the hospital in the first place? Was it out of duty to Steve? Did he owe her brothers one?
Among all the possibilities running through her mind, Sam left the room and returned with a bar of chocolate.
"I know it's small but it's better than nothing" Sam handed the chocolate bar and Nora couldn't fight the smirk slipping onto her face.
"Is that something you say to girls often?" Nora grinned and Sam didn't glare like she knew Steve would, he just laughed alongside her. He glanced at the clock on the opposite wall and groaned.
"I'm gonna have to leave soon. My mom is going out of her mind and actually flew out to Washington to make sure I'm okay" Sam complained and Nora felt her grin slipping. She couldn't help but find herself wishing that she had a mother to coddle her when she was in danger.
"It's fine. I'm sure I'll cope if you leave my side for a day, Wilson" Nora said, all but pushing him out of the door.
"Wouldn't want to risk it" Sam joked before grabbing his jacket and making his way to the door.
"Do you want me to smother him with a pillow so you can get some more sleep?" Sam chuckled and Nora shook her head with a forced smile.
"I think I'll manage" Nora said and Sam nodded before leaving, but not without turning on the television for her first. Nora closed her eyes and tried to block out the sounds.
It was times like this when she was alone and in pain that she wished she had died alongside her brothers. Maybe this was her punishment for what she did. For everything she has done. And some may say that yes, she is alive and she should be grateful. But how many people have died so that she could live? Her heart felt heavy in her chest and she tried to calm herself down before she broke the heart monitor.
Nora's head snapped in Steve's direction when he started to shuffle in bed and began to wake up. Wow he looked like shit, she daren't think of what she must look like. Her healing abilities were faster than your average human, but no where near as fast as his.
"Hey" Steve grumbled in a sleep voice and Nora couldn't help but smile, it sounded adorable.
"You just missed Sam. He left around a half hour ago" Nora said and Steve didn't reply, he just rubbed his eyes to let them adjust to the brightness of the hospital.
"You look terrible" Steve said when he got a good look at her, her face was almost unrecognisable.
"You sure do know how to sweet talk a girl Rogers, lucky for you Nastasha isn't into all that romance crap" Nora teased and Steve rolled his eyes.
"Has she visited?" Steve asked, trying to sound nonchalant about it.
"Not while I have been conscious, no" Nora replied, hissing at a stinging sensation that shot up her leg. There was an empty silence for a few minutes.
"I uh...you fought really good on the helicarrier and you don't have to tell me, but just exactly how did you get so good?" Steve was almost nervous to ask, Nora doesn't like questions. That is something he was quickly adapting to.
"I wasn't captured and trained in the way that Natasha and the wint- and the way Bucky were" Nora corrected herself when Steve shot her a harsh glare.
"I was born and raised to be a killer. It's the only thing I've ever known" Nora said, fidgeting with her hands. She didn't like talking about it. It was hard enough to talk about her mother, but talking about what happened to her brothers was impossible for her.
"One more question...Why do you always need to be better than everyone else?" Steve finally asked after days of curiosity building inside of him.
"It's what my brothers died for. I don't really like talking about it so I'm not going into full detail but they locked us all up in the training room. The doors were completely blocked off and the one that wasn't was locked tight. They told us that whoever won their little game would be promoted. They wanted to see who the best killer was out of the perfect team. Killing Ivan and Nikolai was hard enough but I saw the look in Aleksander's eyes. He was ashamed, disgusted at my actions despite the fact that Nikolai attacked me first" Nora was quieter than Steve had ever heard her be. She looked the complete opposite of how he saw her. She looked like a scared child.
"He could have beaten me. I know he could have, he was always better than us. I know that hydra were expecting him to win. Even I thought he was going to win. We fought, and he beat the hell out of me but he let me win. He had me pinned, and he just nodded at me. I didn't understand until he flipped our positions, making it look like I had gotten the upper hand. I kept hitting him, and hitting him, and hitting him until he stopped breathing but I was so angry at him because he died willingly. I didn't feel guilty about my other brothers because they were trying to kill me but Aleksander didn't" Steve felt sick to his stomach in a similar way that he did when she told him about her mother.
"Needless to say I murdered everyone down to the last agent in the entire base, and then I activated the self destruct and got the hell out of there. I need to be the best because if I'm not, my brothers died for no reason" Steve politely looked away when Nora wiped her eyes. He didn't think she'd want him to see her cry.
"I think I know how you feel. Maybe not to the same degree but when I found out that hydra still existed, I couldn't help but think of Bucky. I mean, at least before he died for a reason. He always used to say 'It doesn't matter if I die so long as my momma and my little sisters get to live' but now...now Bucky, the old Bucky, died for no good reason" Steve said, trying to distract Nora from the memories of the past. He knew how badly they could haunt someone.
"You put the plane in the water on purpose, didn't you?" Nora asked, her raw blue eyes boring into his.
"Yeah, it was the only way that it would've stopped the bombs from-"
"No. No, you put the plane in the water because Bucky was dead. Didn't you?" Steve didn't need to give her an answer for Nora to know that she was right.
"Bucky was my best friend, he was my brother. He's been in my life for as long as I can remember and the thought of me living in a house somewhere with a pretty dame and kids and a bunch of medals on my chest whilst he rots somewhere, alone and forgotten...I- I couldn't handle it" Steve said and it felt good to finally admit it to someone. As great as a life with Peggy would have been, it wouldn't have been Steve's life without Bucky in it.
"I'm not judging you, I've tried before too. It was my twenty first birthday, and when each of my brothers turned twenty one we'd steal some of hydra's oldest and most expensive alcohol, go out into the woods and camp out. Just us four. Well, I didn't drink on Aleksander's birthday because I was ten but we'd get back in the morning, hung over but smiling, and we'd be punished for our insolence. I was alone when it was my turn, but I bought the oldest bottle of whiskey I could find in Europe. And by bought I mean stole from some pretentious millionaires house, and I went into the woods, drank the whole bottle" Nora had a distant look in her eye and Steve couldn't decipher it.
"I wanted it to be painful, I thought I deserved to die in pain. I stabbed myself in the leg and waited to bleed out, but that was taking too long so I limped through the woods until I found a cliff nearby that was a solid two hundred feet drop into the ocean. I jumped. I don't remember how I survived but I remember a whole team of people pulling me out of the water and I remember someone specifically saying that if I died, their boss would have their head. To this day I never figured out who saved me" Nora told the story and the pair were silent for a while.
"Maybe it was hydra?" Steve suggested.
"Maybe it was" Nora shrugged, which resulted in searing pain shooting through her arm.
"So what's the plan?" Nora asked, trying to change the subject.
"The plan?"
"To find Bucky. It'll be hard but I think we'll be able to track him down" Nora said and Steve couldn't help but grin.
"We?" he questioned and Nora rolled her eyes at his dopey grin.
"What can I say, Rogers. You're growing on me" Nora grumbled, "Kind of like a parasite or a type of fungus"
"You're the expert" Steve shrugged. It was now that Nora noticed that Steve had an array of flowers, chocolates and even a giant teddy bear wearing a Captain America outfit. Presumably that gift was from Tony Stark.
"Why the hell do you have flowers and cards and the most I have is the half complete crossword puzzle that Sam left behind" Nora said, holding up the offending piece of paper and Steve's grin shifted into a teasing smirk.
"I'm Captain America, I come first" Steve said.
"Most men always do" Nora replied with a shit eating grin and she didn't see Steve's pillow coming until it hit her in the face.
She also didn't see the figure clad in black clothes and a baseball cap watching them from down the hall.