It took about an hour for Winter to calm down enough that anyone dared approach him. Pierce had wandered out and I felt a lot less nervous without him hovering over me.
I warily stepped toward Winter before Dr. Chambers did. The silence was oppressive as I walked up to him, everyone seemed to be ready for him to lash out, but I was too curious to stay away.
"My name is Stella Martin," I told Winter, looking steadily into his wide blue eyes, remembering cautiously approaching a horse at a state fair a long time ago. "I'm a robotics engineer. I'm here to help fix up your arm."
Winter's eyes darted all over me, deciding what he thought of me. I stepped a bit closer.
"May I take a look at your arm?" I asked.
A laugh barked through the silence. "You don't need permission," the pointy faced scientist who always sat by himself said. "He doesn't even know what that means."
No wonder you sit by yourself every day. I thought, irritated.
I ignored him and looked patiently at Winter.
After a few seconds, he nodded stiffly and I gave him a small smile.
I walked up to his arm, craning my neck to inspect it. It was bright silver plated metal with ridges and crevices etched into it. I'd love to see it in action.
"Do you have feeling in this arm?" I asked him.
"No, he doesn't," snapped the pointy faced guy. "Didn't anyone debrief you at all, lady?"
I straightened up and rolled my head over to face him.
"I didn't go through eight years of classes to be called lady," I scolded. "It's doctor. Martin. And I didn't ask for your input."
The scientist looked taken aback and was about to open his mouth to retort when I heard laughter from the door.
Pierce had entered, smirking at the man I was talking to.
"She sure knows her place around here, doesn't she?" he laughed.
"I – I didn't mean –" the man stammered.
"Don't worry about it, doc," he said, still laughing, but I caught the force in his voice. "Just do your job and let her do hers."
The man stammered out an "of course, sir," and tried to look busy with his paperwork.
I turned back to Winter and let myself smirk in satisfaction. He wasn't paying attention, his gaze was fixed on Dr. Chambers, but he quickly dropped his eyes to the floor.
There was a smear of dirt on the bicep of the metal arm so I rubbed it off with my thumb. The metal was smooth and cold and Winter jerked his head slightly to look at me.
I glanced up at him and paused. Now that I was closer to him and I was actually seeing him I realized that he looked unwell.
Pallid skin, bruises under eyes that looked like they didn't blink often enough. He looked like a drug addict or a caged animal.
I felt eyes on my back so I bent my face down to focus on his arm.
I had him move his fingers and push up and down against my hands on his arm; basic tests to see how well his arm worked. His trigger finger seemed a bit slow, that was the only issue besides the wiring Pierce had mentioned.
"What do you see Dr. Martin?" Dr. Chambers asked, suddenly beside me.
"His index finger is lagging along with the eroded wiring," I told him.
He nodded. "To open up the arm you need to press that little button there," he pointed tensely to an indent on the arm's deltoid "and turn it clockwise."
I did and the metal panels slid back to reveal the inner workings of the arm.
"I will leave you to tinker, Doctor, but show me before you do anything drastic," Dr. Chambers instructed.
I noticed Winter was staring at Dr. Chambers out of the corner of his eye again. His metal hand was clenched into a fist.
"Of course," I nodded.
Dr. Chambers left with Director Pierce, but the guards and two other scientists remained.
I inspected the insides of the arm, mesmerized. Wires replaced nerves, some metal that I didn't recognize replaced muscle. He did have sensors in his arm, but instead of giving him the ability to feel pain or touch they allowed him to feel weight.
There was damage to some of the innermost wires; the coating had eroded away. A simple thing to replace.
I walked away from him to shed my lab coat and put it on a peg. I grabbed a chair that was nearby and pulled it up beside Winter so that I could get a more stable look at his arm.
"Aren't you going to get him some food?" I asked casually, not looking up from the arm.
No one answered me. I noticed that I was being ignored.
I cleared my throat loudly.
One of them glanced at me, irritated.
"That's not a major priority right now," he told me. "We have to make sure that his body is in working order before we do anything else."
"Bodies need food to function properly," I said, frowning.
"Just worry about his arm," the other one said, not looking up from his paperwork.
I turned back to Winter. He was scowling at me.
I bit my bottom lip in exasperation, but I looked back down at his arm.
I replaced all of the eroded wires and bits that looked weak, which took about an hour and a half. Winter didn't move the entire time and his body stayed rigid like he was ready to start throwing punches any second, making it impossible to relax.
Dr. Chambers came back in and I told him what I was going to do to rewire the circuit to his index finger and he nodded, throwing distrusting glances at Winter.
Director Pierce came back after I had finished with Winter's arm and said that they were going to give him some targets to shoot at now that his arm was up to par.
I noticed that no one gave him anything to eat.
The next day he was sent off on a mission that I didn't need to know about. I waited with Winter and several others as we did last minute checks of him.
His arm was in perfect condition now, so there wasn't much for me to do. I waited on the other side of the room to stay out of the way.
Winter was watching me. He looked, if anything, sicker than he had last night.
He didn't seem at all worried now, he was fully awake and he understood what was going on, but he still looked hungry…
I huffed to myself and marched out of the room. I left the high security area and went back to the breakroom that I had squirreled away food in. A turkey sandwich, a peach, and a water bottle. Not enough, but better than nothing.
I brought it back to the room and skirted around the other scientists.
"Here," I told him, giving him the food. "It's better than nothing."
Winter glanced at the sandwich bag and back up to me. I frowned.
"You're wasting your time, Doctor," Pierce said from the doorway, with his usual half smirk. "He won't eat anything anyone gives him. He can find his own food, don't worry about it."
I lowered the food and backed away to avoid being bumped into. Winter was still staring at me. I had never seen anyone with such intense, wide eyes.
I was quiet the rest of the day, working beside a silent Dr. Chambers until it was time to leave.
I returned to my apartment and curled up on the couch. Papers, books, and sketches littered every surface with half empty coffee cups stacked on top of them. Jaeger rolled up to me as I lay on the couch, his camera eyes focusing on me.
"Stella Martin," Jaeger chirped. "How are you?"
"I'm fine," I mumbled.
"Me too," it replied. "You don't look fine."
I regretted programming him to be curious.
"Hush Jaeger, my head hurts."
Jaeger was programmed to stop talking if I said 'hush' so he wheeled away into my bedroom. Since I was no longer in a lab with Jaeger all of the time, I had programmed him to do minimal care-taking activities. He reminded me to eat and drink if I was too busy with my work to remember, and he dusted the book shelves and watered the plants.
Jaeger's structure was very loosely based off of a Disney movie I had seen when I was nineteen; its camera eyes were most of the face that it had, shaped a bit droopy to make it look endearing. Its feet were like that of a tank, made of a belt that could take it over rough terrain and even stairs. It had complex hands that looked like ball jointed human hands that it kept tucked close to its body most of the time. Jaeger had blocky shoulders and a screen on its stomach so that it could show me things that it learned and remembered. Jaeger was shorter than me, about four and a half feet tall, but it could reach up to six feet if it felt like it. Jaeger made a better roommate than my college roommate had and ate a lot less ramen.
Jaeger came back into the living room after a while and rolled up to me where I lay on the couch.
I looked up at its eyes. "What, Jaeger?" I mumbled.
The screen on his middle flickered to life, showing a real time image of me. I looked at myself on the screen and smiled. I had short, choppy blonde hair and dark brown eyes and eyebrows. I had freckles all over my round face and a nose that pointed upward. People liked to tell me how much of a plump little house fairy I looked like, and it generally seemed intended as a compliment. I was only about 5', and I was chunky for lack of a better word.
"Stella Martin looks ill or sad," Appeared words on Jaeger's screen. "Stella Martin should get some sleep."
I sighed. "Yeah you're right, Jaeger."
I got up and stretched and patted Jaeger's head. I retreated into my room and made myself cozy in a nest of blankets and promptly fell asleep.
The next two weeks I spent working with no big difficulties. Dr. Chambers was acting strangely; like he was ill or worried, but he just clipped that he was fine when I asked him about it.
A rather large drone built to defuse bombs was brought into the lab; it was called I-557 and it had extensive damage done to it. Dr. Chambers wanted to just scrap it, but I insisted otherwise. I ended up fixing it in such a way that I received praise from our higher ups, which made me glow with happiness.
I was starting to worry that something had gone wrong with Winter's mission, but I couldn't confide in any of my coworkers about something so personal. Winter's mere existence was a level nine secret, and most of my coworkers seemed like they didn't care for Winter anyway.
"Winter is due back from his mission in the next few days," Dr. Chambers informed me one day. "I have informed you once, but I feel as if I must again; do not let your guard down around him."
I didn't look up from the bot, Norby, which I was fixing. "Don't worry Doctor, I won't."
"You say that, but your guard was lower than the average IQ score of a common turkey last you were with him," Dr. Chambers snapped at me.
I looked up from the drone I was working on and it took that as a chance to get away. Norby screeched and whirled away from me, running full speed into a wall where it stayed, shrieking.
I huffed and marched over to haul the bot away from the wall.
"It's not like I put a knife in his hand and blindfolded myself," I said, irritated. "Norby, HOLD STILL!"
Norby was still screaming and waving its crude arms around and I had to hold it down and wretch out its control panel in order to turn it off.
Dr. Chambers was still squinting at me. "You had his arm in your lap as if he were an injured dog. Doctor, I've seen him break the limbs of people twice your size by accident, he could easily kill you."
"That's what the guards are there for; to detain him if he gets violent," I retorted, screwing one of Norby's broken antenna back onto it.
Dr. Chambers fell silent and I focused on my work.
"His violence is something that cannot be detained," Dr. Chambers rasped after several minutes.
He strode out before I could reply and I watched him go in confusion.
That evening I was pouring over layouts of the robots that were going to be brought into the lab the next day, curled up in my papasan chair while Jaeger carefully watered the plants that were crowded around the sliding glass doors that lead out onto a small balcony.
A knock came at the door and I turned my music off.
"Jaeger, will you get the door?" I asked and Jaeger turned its head to me.
"Stella Martin," it replied, setting the watering can down on the ground and wheeling to the door.
I was surprised to see Dr. Chambers standing in the doorway, tight lipped and stiff.
"Oh, Dr. Chambers, I- uh - come in," I said in surprise. How did he know that I lived here?
Dr. Chambers strode past Jaeger and glanced around my apartment. I felt color rush to my face as his steely eyes swept over the discarded cups and haphazardly stacked books.
"I'm sorry the place is such a mess, I don't usually have anyone over," I said, scrambling out of the chair and striding to the dining room table. I hastily cleared off a chair for him and half of the table, stuffing drawings and notes where I'd hopefully be able to find them later.
Dr. Chambers didn't respond and he sat down at the table and stared down at his hands.
There was a moment of silence where I didn't know what to say.
"Can… I get you something to drink?"
"Brandy or Scotch if you have it," he said thickly.
I blinked. Was he drunk?
I poured him some Jim Bean and set it in front of him and settled into the chair opposite him.
He downed it all in one swig and sighed heavily.
Dr. Chambers looked up at me and I could see that he was undoubtedly drunk and his eyes were watery and bloodshot like he had been crying.
"Do you know… why you got a job with… us?" he said slowly.
"Well… I mean… SHIELD put me through school in order to work for them –" I started.
Dr. Chambers barked out a humorless laugh. "Yes, yes, and they were going to hide you away to be a minimally-paid intern, but they didn't. They stuck you with me."
I blinked. I had never been told anything like that…
Dr. Chambers poured another glass of brandy for himself and took a sip.
"You were put with me because of a… job opening," Dr. Chambers said, raising his eyebrows at me.
He fell silent and stared into his drink.
"…What happened to your partner before me?" I asked after a minute, not so sure that I wanted to know the answer.
"Killed," Dr. Chambers said, lightly. "By that metal-armed abomination."
I blinked several times, dread clutching my stomach. "W-what?"
"Dr. Keaton was a large man," Dr. Chambers went on. "A bit shorter than me, but he was burly. He could lift one hundred pounds like it was nothing."
Dr. Chambers looked up at me and gave a short, bitter laugh. "He looked like a damn – ragdoll – in that bastard's hands."
Dr. Chambers kept laughing, his whole body shaking, and his false laughs gave way into sobs.
"My best friend… and that savage twisted his head around in a complete circle. Because he felt jittery," he sobbed.
I swallowed. "I'm… I'm so sorry."
Dr. Chambers downed the rest of the brandy and coughed.
"He's a monster, Dr. Martin. You'll do well to remember that," Dr. Chambers slurred gravely.
Dr. Chambers got to his feet and gripped the back of his chair for support.
"We'll not speak of this again," Dr. Chambers told me and stumbled toward the door.
"Doctor, where are you going?" I stammered after a minute.
"Every bar in DC," he shouted and slammed the door behind him.