Disclaimer: If you guys are still reading this at the top of each chapter I am honestly impressed with your dedication to copyright law. Anyway, I own nothing you recognize as belonging to someone else. And I am in no way being paid for any of this. No one sue me. It would most definitely not be worth your time to try it, and definitely wouldn't be worth the legal fees you would have to pay to get the job done.
Over the course of the next few month or so, the level of busy life in the Tower is increases steadily before flattening out at a point that should reach a decline, but doesn't seem to be doing it in any kind of hurry. Of course, it's well within the parameters of familiar life for Cassie to have sudden peaks of frantic business. These peaks do come with crashing downtime, but it's the kind of downtime that everyone knows will be short-lived which makes it less than relaxing.
The reason behind these sudden spikes of activity is part Cassie's doing, part Bucky's contribution, and a very large part the fault of HYDRA and the scattered fractions that represent all that is left of SHIELD. Even Cassie thinks it's a very strange metaphysical recipe, and her presence has played a key role in multiple prophecies determining the fate of the world. She also spent nearly a full year living in close quarters with Luke Castellan and that boy managed to make Greek Fire locked in an abandoned house using an unstable internet connection and limited physical resources. Talk about a weird recipe.
Anyway, after a frankly exhaustive amount of research in to the fields of medical biochemistry, psychology, psychiatry, brain chemistry, memory recovery, PTSD treatment, and electroshock therapy Cassie sends herself ready to try helping Bucky. She also gets JARVIS to find her each and every file on Bucky and the medical treatments HYDRA had put him through from off of the internet, or more accurately Tony's private encrypted servers which is where all of the information actually ended up.
Cassie had thought learning the in depth aspects of the advanced biochemistry of the brain as it applied to long term memory recovery had been unpleasant. Then she had read the first six HYDRA files and reassessed that opinion. Of course, most things that seemed bad could always be put in to perspective by finding something worse. Contrast had a way of shifting the human perspective.
After about two weeks of intensive study and planning, several fluorescent yellow highlighter stains, multiple headaches, an unhealthy amount of Tylenol, and an uncountable number of paper cuts Cassie takes her ideas to Bucky. After all, it's his brain, or more accurately his mind, that she's proposing they poke around with. After seventy years of HYDRA experimenting on him and taking his memories by force, Cassie is absolutely resolute in not doing anything else without his say so. Being manipulated sucked.
Steve is the first person to speak after she lays out her plan. "I think it's your decision Buck," he says seriously. Then he turns back to Cassie with a worried expression on his face. "Either way, I think the fact that you figured this out at all means you're officially allowed to sleep again."
Cassie blinked at him. "I sleep."
"Not lately," Steve returns, still looking worried.
She shrugs and waves a hand dismissively. "I'd say that I'll sleep when I'm dead, but I've met dead people, and they don't sleep so I'm not going to." It's true. She's met ghosts both Greek and Roman, ancient and new, and though they did many things including heavy military combat and creepy warning from beyond delivery, none of them slept or ate at all.
The furrow in Steve's brow creases. "You're on my team," he points out. "I can order you."
"I've known you for long enough to know that you enjoy the undermining of authority," Cassie points out. "It also happens to be very well historically documented and your oldest friend in existence is here to agree with me." At this Bucky gives a small nod in confirmation to back up her point. "Besides," Cassie continues. "As a firm disbeliever in the power of the unquestioned patriarchy, you don't actually get to order me to do anything unless we are A. in a dangerous combat dynamic wherein you are acting solely as my commanding officer or strategist in charge, or B. we're alone together and you as my boyfriend would like to explore a new kink which we can talk about later if you really want to."
Maybe she is tired because otherwise that last thought probably wouldn't have been vocalized. However, she can't deny that she experiences a particular sense of enjoyment at the shade of red Steve's face turns and the way he nearly chokes on his coffee. Bucky manages a slightly crooked grin at the reaction as well and calmly reaches around to smack Steve between the shoulder blades to help with the temporary choking.
"I'll let you two explore your sexy-times preferences later," Bucky says casually. Steve coughs harder and and Bucky smacks him on the back again. It's probably actually a good thing Cassie is as tired as she is because if she were more able to focus on two things at once right now she'd be able to recognize the bizarreness of openly chatting about the physical aspects of her relationship with her boyfriend Steve Rogers A.K.A living national icon Captain America in front of his best friend Bucky Barnes the former Howling Commando and current Winter Soldier. As it is, at the moment she doesn't have the mental energy to consider it much.
This seems to be about when they should try to get back on topic so Cassie gives Steve a moment to get back to a physical condition that lets him actually breath and then sits forwards. "Anyway, you brain forms memories through something called synaptic plasticity which is the connection between your brain cells. Long term memories are formed and become stronger when the synaptic connection is accessed frequently. What matters in your case," Cassie says, gesturing to Bucky. "Is that as far as your brain is concerned, memory is physical. HYDRA was blocking it off with unstable drugs and electroshock therapy to repress the synapses and scar them over."
Bucky is giving her his full attention now, ice colored eyes locked on her face. "What exactly does that mean in terms of my memories?" he asks tightly. He's trying very hard to control the emotions that want to bleed through in to his words and it isn't completely working. Cassie forges quickly ahead.
"The biggest problem HYDRA would have had was isolating the levels they were using to avoid frying out the training they were giving you right along with the personal memories. The best I can figure out is that they were relying on your healing factor from the serum along with your muscle memory to lock that in. But what it does mean is that they could never wipe you completely or they'd be pretty much back to square one with your training which would have been both expensive and time consuming." Bucky doesn't contradict her assumption.
Cassie almost wishes he could be able to. She can't even feel any grim satisfaction over having been right in her assessment from a medically professional perspective. She'd had to stop a few times in her research and file excavation to punch things in the gym. Bucky has become her friend and she can't help being furious on his behalf. A corner of her brain hopes fervently that Steve doesn't ever see the full details of the files. She's honestly worried about what he might do.
Steve is tapping the knuckles of one hand absently against the arm of his chair. "So if the damage is physical," he says slowly as he fully grasps what she's saying. "Does that mean that you can fix it? And if you can would it be magic? Or would it be something else?"
"I wouldn't be able to fix everything," Cassie warns. It's a little on the blunt side but this is something she knows she has to be explicitly clear on. She meets Bucky's eyes. "I would use an active MRI or CAT scan and very carefully controlled power to identify and heal the most physically scarred parts of your brain, operating with the theory that this is the part that was shocked the most often to repress your memories of being someone other than the Soldier. I might also be able to get you back some of the memories of your time with HYDRA. On the other hand some things are almost definitely gone forever because the memories were never allowed to create synaptic pathways and some will be too heavily effected by what HYDRA did."
There's a bit of a gap in the conversation as Bucky and Steve process the information. "I'm guessing that none of that," Bucky says with a broad hand motion that makes light flash off of his metallic fingers. "Would be exactly risk free. What kind of problems would I be looking at."
Cassie's fingers twist together and untwist in her lap as she organizes that particular doozy of a list. "Well for one thing, there's the content of the memories themselves," she says. "Neither of us would have any control over what you would actually get back, and I'm guessing a lot of it wouldn't be good."
Bucky lets out a harsh unfeeling laugh. "Yeah. Well you're not wrong."
"Also," Cassie says, forging ahead. "What I'm talking about isn't something anybody has ever tried to do before. I have no way of knowing if it will work. It's possible that exactly nothing will happen, it's possible that I'll erase memories permanently by accident, and it's possible that I'll accidentally fry everything and slip you back to being the Soldier or turn you in to a useless drooling vegetable. Which, thanks to your healing, is a state you would probably be stuck in for approximately seventy years. You also, could die."
Cassie has heard that delicacy is a wonderful thing to use in conversation. She'll try it sometime when she's not discussing highly dangerous and hitherto untested semi-magical memory retrieval.
And once she's had a few days back on a normalized sleeping schedule.
Steve may have had a point there.
There's an understandably longer silence after this potential outcome is vocalized. There's a distinct feeling in the room of held breath and strained expectancy. Things are balanced on a knife edge here, and as Cassie is someone who has in fact balanced things on the edge of a knife, she feels empowered to correctly make that assessment. Actually, most of her friends are probably equally empowered in this area.
The silence is broken by Bucky. "Alright," he says. Cassie's head jerks up to look at him and she can hear the sharp inhale of Steve's breath fro, where he sits beside her on the sofa. "HYDRA took who I was," Bucky says. "If there's a chance to get it back, then I want it." Cassie nods and stands up. The others stand with her. "I just have one condition," Bucky says as he makes his way to the door. "Get some sleep first okay? Steve's pores are leaking anxiety and the skin under your eyes isn't a color human skin is supposed to be able to turn."
"Told you," Steve mutters. Apparently Captain America isn't above regressing to playground dialogue in the right situations.
Cassie glares a bit at both of them and mutters a few uncomplimentary words in Greek, but she lets Steve towards their bedroom and is curling up under the covers to go to sleep about ten minutes later. She's up again ten hours later, and giving Bucky the first round of their agreed upon treatment an hour after that. Bucky leaves the session with no visible signs of being any worse off mentally than he had been when he came in, so they continue for the rest of the week, one day and one tiny spark of Cassie's magic at a time.
On the second day of April, they start getting results.
Bucky gets back several years worth of previously blocked childhood memories. He and Steve have some fun talking through those and Cassie enjoys getting to listen in. Steve is friends with Sam and Tony and the other Avengers and having them around makes him happy, but talking over the past with Bucky animates him in a different way. The conversations are different, like the kind siblings have, the products of shared childhood, and they prompt Cassie to share some of her own stories from Camp about her siblings and her friends.
He also gets quite a lot of memories about HYDRA. He gets locations of bases and names of handlers. And he picks up a lot of extra motivation to share around to their reactionary, easily angered, superpowered friends.
Hence the Avengers being rather highly busy, the kind of busy that requires Banner accessing the Other Guy with more regularity.
This also adds to Cassie's level of business because she happens to be the girl who's been working on figuring out containment methods for the other guy. In some ways Cassie wishes her friends and coworkers could learn to stagger their crises more. Reyna's an organized kind of person and she's been around the tower more lately. Maybe she could work out a schedule.
In a somewhat ironic twist, Cassie ends up taking her idea from an adapted version of Bucky's trigger phrases.
"From what I've worked out from the files HYDRA kept on Bucky," Cassie starts as she talks things over with Banner. "It looks like they used a varying selection of trigger words and phrases which, when said in the right order, caused different psychological responses. The main one they used was a twelve word compliance trigger in Russian. They made him malleable and ready to follow any orders to the level. I'm guessing the only reason they didn't use it all the time was that it doesn't allow for much freedom of thought which he would have needed for any in mission improvising."
Banner frowns slightly and Cassie knows it isn't because he doesn't understand. The man is one of the most scientifically literal and psychologically invested people she knows. "So you're saying that we should give me a trigger phrase?"
"Not you," Cassie clarifies hurriedly. "I don't believe that people should have triggers. I'm talking about the Other Guy. I think we should find a way to build a pathway you can use to transition between the two that other people can help you with in the field. I want to give you a way to be further in control."
"And for other people to have some control over the Other Guy," Banner surmises. Cassie feels uncomfortable for a moment but Bruce hold up a hand to forestall her. "It's smart," he says. "Tony's already designing a suite he can use to take the Other Guy on if the worst comes to the worst." He steeples his fingers and looks up at the ceiling and Cassie sits back to give him his time to think. "Ideally," Banner says, still looking at the ceiling. "I'd like it not to get that far," he looks back down at her. "What do you suggest?"
Cassie gives him a smile that she tries very hard to make not mischievous and as reassuring as possible. "First thing first," she says. "Who on the team would you say the Other Guy finds the least threatening?"
That's how Cassie ends up spending several weeks teaching the Black Widow A.K.A Natasha Romanov the ins and outs of calming and controlling a radiation fueled gigantic green rage monster. The only thing more surprising than the situation is the fact that it yields good results. On the next mission Banner participates in, Natasha is able to talk him back in to being Bruce before they get on the plane back home. Cassie's able to witness this phenomenon first hand because she's been going on the missions with them to serve in a medical capacity which is necessary given their newly increased engagement level with hostile forces.
She's also been working with Dr. Cho to perfect the skin replacement cradle. Perhaps unsurprisingly, their first and most frequent patient is Clint Barton. The man doesn't often get cold and refuses to wear sleeves, even kevlar protective ones unless he absolutely has to. He's also one of two completely human members of the Avengers team and lacks the benefit of super healing. As a result, he spends some significant time getting stitched, stapled, taped, glued, media-cradled, sutured, and magicked back in to one human piece.
Natasha brings him in each time with a patient sigh and roll of the eyes. The red head also places herself in charge of receiving his post-injury care instructions and medications, and when she's not in the field she wears a tiny gold arrow charm on a delicate chain around her neck. No one ever brings it up or asks them to define their relationship, probably because Barton and Natasha can probably be voted the two people in the group most likely to commit murder or severe bodily harm in the name of maintaining privacy with the exception of Bucky.
Speaking of relationships Cassie doesn't ever plant to inquire in to if she's not deliberately invited in to, people who might be willing to commit murder in the name or personal privacy, and metal armed super soldiers born in Brooklyn in World War II and not named Steve Rogers, Cassie comes back around to the fact that Reyna is in the tower pretty often now.
In fact, one morning in early May, Cassie runs in to her friend suspiciously early in the morning. Well, "finds" might not be the right word given that Reyna knocks on her door and Cassie opens it. When Cassie can get on a natural sleep cycle she wakes up with the sun and this is one rare morning where she's managed to wake up before Steve and role out of bed without disturbing him. This is actually quite a feat given that Steve tends to sleep wrapped around her like a warm, living, comfortable steel trap, inescapable until he wakes up and moves of his own volition. A sleeping dead weight Steve Rogers is a heavy Steve Rogers.
Still, Cassie feels motivates to get up. She's had a night of disturbingly vivid dreams. They don't really have images, just sounds like clanging metal, crackling fire, breaking glass, crashing rock, and terrified screams. The only image she gets is of words flashing behind her eyes. Prosochi skin ilikia tou Rchalyva kai prosexte tin ilikia ton thavmaton. Erchontai. Erchontai. Erchontai. Beware the Age of Steel, and Beware the Age of Miracles.They are coming. They are coming. They are coming.
It's her father's warning from the card he gave her at her graduation and as she starts her morning it's flashing behind her eyes and making Cassie absolutely determined to think about something else for a little while and stick this on the back burner for a while until she can work out what it means.
Cassie lets Reyna in without comment and serves her some coffee. "So..." she says, drawing out the vowel sound. "You're here early." Then she waits.
"Late," Reyna corrects, draining her coffee. "From my perspective."
Cassie merely raises an eyebrow at her in response and Reyna shrugs. Part of the reason the two of them have always gotten along so well is that both of them generally understand when no words are necessary and no questions have to be asked. Cassie would say that it's a Roman sensibility, but Hazel blushes constantly, Frank stutters in uncomfortable situations, and Jason tends to push for information he doesn't actually have the right to in the name of team cohesion and working together.
Instead of dong any of those things Cassie finishes her own drink and regards her friend. "Well we're both up," she says. "Want to go spar in the super gym?"
"Super gym?" Reyna inquires skeptically.
Cassie lifts a shoulder. "That's what I'm calling it. Stark has it all decked out and reinforced so that Thor, Steve, and Bucky can actually use it. I do too but no one seems to want to ask me about that just yet. There's a nice archery range too you could probably do javelin practice on if you wanted."
Reyna agrees and after a ten minute interval so that they can both change in to work out clothes and gather their assorted weapons, the two girls meet in the hallway and Cassie leads the way to the gym. Once there the two of them stop and Reyna regards Cassie and the padded sparring area. "Will Stark's reinforcements hold up to our kind of weapons?" she asks doubtfully.
Cassie dips her head. The skepticism in Reyna's question is hardly unfounded given that they've both seen Imperial Gold and Celestial bronze slice through reinforced steel and concrete like so much rice paper. "Hard to say," she says. "It seems to stand up to Thor, but I've never seen him take the magic hammer to anything in here, so maybe not." She reaches up and adjusts her braid so that it's a little more secure. "We'd better keep it hand to hand."
Reyna smiles and makes her way in to small equipment rack along one side of the padded combat space. She holds up a roll of tape. "Exactly who using this gym needs to worry about taping their knuckles for boxing?"
"Steve does sometimes," Cassie says, shrugging. "I think he just does it for the sake of going through the process. He likes to be methodical." She flexes her fingers and bends her wrists back and forth, then alternates tipping her head to both sides to stretch out her neck. "Stark practices here sometimes too," she notes. "So does Rhodes when he isn't working or with his family, and I think Sam, Natasha, and Barton work out here too. At least," she adds fairly. "When they aren't out on missions. None of them has super healing of an kind."
Reyna accepts the information easily enough. "Well why not I suppose," she muses aloud. Then she begins taping her own fingers with easy, practiced, motions before throwing the tape roll over to Cassie when she's done. Reyna is nothing if not practical. She'll do something to the utmost of her ability as long as she can see a point of doing it. Reyna has the same durability level as any other demigod, but she doesn't have healing powers the way that Cassie does.
Still, Cassie tapes up her own fingers with the same efficiency as Reyna. She doesn't really feel like handling micro fractures, sprains, or jams at the moment. Besides, the weather today is dim and cloudy and healing without any sunlight will only drain her magic. Given that all of the missions the team has been sent on lately have been short notice and dangerous, that's not a position anyone on the team can actually afford for her to be in.
"Ready?" Reyna asks when she's done, retreating to one side of the ring.
Cassie grins and tosses the roll of tape casually to the side. It lands perfectly back in the spot Reyna had originally picked it up from. Then she backs up to the opposite side of the ring from Reyna, her temporary enemy. "When you are."
Reyna mutters something under her breath which Cassie thinks sounds a lot like "show off." Cassie just grins wider and spreads her feet, bending her knees very slightly to equally distribute her weight. Then she waits for Reyna to move first.
One of the peculiarities of her abilities is that she's surprisingly good at close quarters combat when she has to be for the child of the god of striking from a distance. When she gets in to a hand-to-hand battle, she finds herself aware of the fighting rhythm and is able to work with or against it to best suite her purposes. However, this particular ability only happened to kick in after the other party had attacked and combat had actually begun.
The fingers of Reyna's left hand twitch once, and in the next moment the other girl has lunged forward. Cassie meets her momentum and converts the force of the movement by leveraging her friend in a judo throw that has her crashing towards the floor. Reyna recovers quickly and immediately tucks in to a roll before springing upright a few feet away. Cassie darts after her, launching a strike towards Reyna's head which she dodges by dropping downwards and kicking out at Cassie's feet.
This time it's Cassie's turn to get acquainted with the blue crash mats that make up the floor. She regains her feet by rocking backwards on to her hands and using her core to launch back upwards like she's participating in a choreographed fight in a kung fu movie. The unnecessarily dramatic movement makes Reyna crack a smile and the fight continues.
As the sparring session progresses, it becomes infinitely more clear that the eventual result will be a draw. Cassie and Reyna know each other too well, and have received too much of the same training for either of them to ever truly manage to gain a substantive advantage. They're fighting styles are different to be sure, Reyna is Roman organized and brutally utilitarian, and Cassie fights like a Greek devil, relying on unpredictability and unusual choices in the methods she uses and openings she takes advantage of, but they still come out even in the end. Maybe if they were actually motivated to try to hurt one another things would be different, but as things are, the fight stays balanced with both of them tiring at the same rate and no one making any progress towards winning.
Cassie is exactly two seconds from calling an end when Reyna takes a deliberate step back and holds up both of her hands in the shape of a T. "Okay," she says around a breathless, panting laugh. "Okay. I call it. We're done! Draw!"
With a huff of relief Cassie freezes mid-motion and drops down on to the map, stretching her legs out in front of her and leaning back on her hands. "Thank the gods," she says as Reyna flops down next to her. "We should do that more often."
"Definitely," Reyna agrees. Then she flops back so that she's lying flat on her back staring up at the ceiling. She shifts her neck to the side and most roll on to a bruise because she mutters a hushed "ouch" and winces. "Just maybe not too often."
With another exhausted laugh Cassie falls on to her own back and feels her own face twist in to a wince as she puts pressure on a forming bruise curtsy of Reyna's elbow. "Oh... Agreed." They lay back together for several minutes as they regain their breath and feel the pleasant soreness in their muscles and the steady healing of fresh bruises. Cassie's braid isn't as tidy as it was when the fight had started and Reyna's bun has completely dissolved, leaving their hair to tangle together in a mess of rich brown and bright gold on the matts.
Then the door opens and they both sit up straight to look at the newcomer. It turns out to be Pepper, dressed as ever in neat business clothes and managing to look both immaculately well put together and busily frazzled at the same time. Frankly, Cassie finds the duality to be thoroughly impressive. "Oh, hello," she greets from the door."
"Hey Pepper," Cassie says, climbing to her feet. Reyna climbs up behind her and looks quizzically from Cassie to Pepper. Cassie remembers then that the two of them haven't actually been introduced to each other yet and moves to remedy that. "Oh, Pepper this is my friend Reyna, former proctor of the 12th legion of Rome and combat extraordinaire. Reyna, this is Pepper. She's the CEO of the company, at least sixty percent of the reason Stark hasn't ended the world yet, and my personal ally in keeping Steve and Tony from getting annoyed and murdering each other by accident."
Pepper tips her head like she might argue the description, but then thinks better of it. "That's... accurate actually." She crosses the room and offers her hand for Reyna to shake. "It's nice to meet you."
Reyna shakes he extended hand. "Ditto. And likewise."
At that Pepper manages a small smile and runs a hand over her already immaculately smooth hair. "Well, I wish I could stay longer since this has been, and will probably continue to be the least stressful part of my day, but I now have to go meet the grim fate that is the free press in a conglomerated organized mass."
"Like crows," Cassie muses, tipping her head to the side. "That's called a murder. Seems appropriate."
"Oh god you're right," Pepper groans. "I hadn't even thought about it like that before but it is so, so, incredibly true." She sighs. "And now I have to go face them and that's going to be in my head the whole time."
At that Reyna frowns and shifts her weight forwards a fraction. Cassie shifts herself to the side in response to let her forwards. She's known Reyna long enough to know when the gears in her mind are churning up a solution to a problem. "Is there a possible way in which a hoard of assembled press could be considered a large group of individuals in need of being marshaled towards a common end selected and monitored by a singular leading force?"
Peppers brow furrows slightly but she leans forward in interest over where this question might be leading. "It probably could," she acknowledges. Then her eyes widen as she seems to grasp what Reyna means. "Is that something you might be able to handle?"
An almost maniacal grin spreads slowly across Reyna's face. It's an expression Cassie has seen before, mostly during war games or the planning of actually military sieges against hostile forces. It's a look that says that the daughter of Bellona has a plan to crush her enemies and expects whole heartedly that it will work. "Can you buy me ten minutes to shower and change?"
Approximately twelve minutes later, Cassie is standing next to Pepper at the back of the Tower lobby watching Reyna mold the will of the press like warm play-dough in her hands. She's wearing a blouse and pencil skirt cobbled together from a combination of clothes borrowed from Pepper and Natasha, and her hair is still a little damp, but the press is too occupied with being ruthlessly handled and corralled in to writing notes based on the information Pepper wants to give and that they actually have a legal right to too notice that.
The conference is over twenty minutes after it starts and the press clears out as ordered. Then Reyna makes her way back over to them with a happily satisfied expression. Her heels were Natasha's main contribution to the outfit and they click steadily over the tiled floor. "Problem solved," she declares, handing Pepper back the clipboard of information Pepper had given her to make the press announcements.
"You're hired," Pepper declares without preamble. "Full time and starting now. Non-negotiable. Someone from legal will be seeing you with a contract, a pay package, and the insurance paperwork. I'll talk to Tony today about getting you housing. Talking to the press is a twenty-four hour job in this building. Here and the White House. You'll need to be on site as much as possible."
Cassie grins slyly. "Somehow I don't think housing is going to be a problem. If we're out of apartments she can move in to the apartment near mine and Steve's."
Pepper frowns. "Doesn't Barnes live in that apartment?"
"Yup," Cassie responds, popping the 'P' with an expression she's sure mirrors the cheshire cat or possibly the Grinch, greatly enjoying the fact that Reyna, who just fearlessly stared down an entire legion of reporters is feeling uncomfortable talking about her dating life in front of Pepper Potts.
From Pepper's expression she seems to be enjoying the moment too and she point two fingers from Cassie to Reyna. "I have a feeling I'm really going to enjoy having you two, Darcy, Jane, and Natasha Romanov living in the same building as me. It makes it much easier to drag you all out to randomly scheduled Girl's Nights and drinking when the guys are off pummeling mountains or whatever it is they do when no one is there to stop them."
Then Peppers phone rings and she vanishes off to whatever she has to do next so quickly Cassie would almost swear Shadow Travel, Sun Flashing, or other teleportation is involved. "Well," Reyna says after a moment of protracted silence. "I guess this answers the question of what I was going to do with my life now that I've retired from leading the Legion... and of where I was going to live now."
Cassie leans up to pat her friend on the shoulder. She has to do this because Reyna is taller than her when they're both in flats. With the other girl in heels, their height differential is probably almost comical to the outside eye. "The world moves fast," she says. "Especially with Pepper. If she wasn't efficient enough for several people besides herself Stark's whole company and entire life probably would have imploded about twenty years ago."
"I suppose the insurance plan is probably fantastic," Reyna muses out loud.
"Very true," Cassie agrees. "Besides I'm the main medical staff so I can handle any incidental monster damage you run in to. Plus, your rent is now free, the pay scale here is frankly astronomical, and you'd have very convenient access to your new boyfriend."
Reyna grins and flicks her braid back over her shoulder with a toss of her head. "You're points are excellent Cassandra Morgenstern," she declares. "Now I think you should go shower and then show me the pile of paperwork I have to fill out."
"It's less mountainous than it could be," Cassie says bracingly. "After all, half of the issues for the people I deal with either don't have trackable medical histories or have complications so extensive that the standard paperwork doesn't even apply to them."
"Excellent."
Even though what Cassie says about the state of the paperwork and the rest of the Avengers floor occupancy is true, getting Reyna's paperwork sorted out still takes the entire remainder of the morning. She's still got about an inch of paperwork left in the stack Pepper sends for her when Cassie's phone buzzes with a text message from Steve.
I'm not sure where you are, but I've got lunch ready up at the apartment if you're hungry.
"Mind if I duck out?" Cassie asks Reyna. She waves her phone vaguely as her friend looks up from signing her name for what has to be the fortieth time in the last two hours. "Steve made lunch," she offers by way of explanation.
The look Reyna gives her is somewhere between a smile and a smirk. "Like actually lunch? Or 'lunch' with little finger quotes around it?"
Given the fact that she teased and poked at Reyna plenty that morning Cassie resists the urge to make any kind of snappy comeback. After all, when it comes to teasing turnabout is generally considered fair play. Instead, she raises a singular eyebrow. "I guess I won't know until I show up will I?"
Reyna shared her head with a smile and twirls her pen over her knuckles before going back to her paperwork. "Go. Enjoy your lunch. Whatever meaning you may assign to the word. I probably have at least another hour to go with all of this."
Cassie stands up and stretches. A few of her joints pop and click after so long sitting still in an office chair and she wonders vaguely if that's a sign she's getting old. Though, to be fair she had probably caused herself enough premature joint damage before turning sixteen to give anybody the hallmarks of early on set injury related arthritis. The fact that the condition isn't technically diagnosable in her yet is almost definitely a good sign.
"You know I think most people sign without actually reading all of the fine print," she points out on her way around the table towards the door.
Reyna signs another page and moves it to the completed pile with a flourish. "That is how people end up fired without severance packages, getting less pay and fewer promotions than they deserve, unfair child care policies, and no hopes of reaching a timely retirement. Besides," she turns over a new page. "If there's one thing leading New Rome has taught me, it is that proper bureaucratic practices are important. Though," she adds. "You'd think a man as technologically competent as Stark would have more of this computerized."
"The problem is his competence," Cassie explains. "He knows how things can be hacked." Reyna nods and Cassie leaves without further comment.
She makes her way back up to the apartment. Steve is in the kitchen overseeing what looks to be nearly completed preparations for tacos. The smell of cooking meat, peppers, and onions makes Cassie realize that she's suddenly starving. She didn't have much in the way of breakfast and then worked through a complete training session and now her stomach has decided that food needs to become available immediately.
Once she's through the door she hitches herself up on to the counter beside the stove and leans up to kiss Steve. "Hey-o boyfriend."
Steve lifts his left hand to cup her cheek. "Hello Beautiful."
He deepens the kiss for a moment while he uses his other hand to shut of the stove. Cassie slips her tongue along his lower lip with a gentle hum and Steve's hand slips on the stove controls as the hand that had been on her cheek drops as his arm curls around her hips. She grins broadly against his mouth. "Wasn't superior coordination a part of the biological engineering in those experiments? How are those reflexes treating you Soldier?"
The sound he makes in response to that is less words and more of a low rumbling noise that resonates wonderfully in his chest as it travels up his throat. "I'd say they're working out fine," he manages in a voice several octaves lower than normal. His body shifts so that it's within the circle of her legs. " I'll let you judge," he murmurs.
"Hmmm..." Cassie says, locking her arms around his neck. "Good idea. I am the doctor after all."
In the next seconds Cassie's line of sight goes blurry and all she gets is a short series of disconnected images. All she really knows for certain is that the stove gets turned off and that Steve's hands have found the hem of her shirt and slid below it to curve over her skin. One palm slides up the ridges of her spine, warm and ladened with calluses from his shield and the sensation makes Cassie shiver, squirming further in to his chest as she burrows her fingers in to his hair. Her nails scrape over the skin at the base of his neck and this time it's Steve's turn to shudder.
A shrill beeping noise interrupts them, breaking through the fog of their kisses. "Shit," Steve mutters. He runs his hands through his hair in agitation, taking deep breathes in and out through his nose. Cassie can only sit their blinking, trying to wait for her mind and body to catch back up with each other. "Damn smoke alarm," Steve says on an exhale, taking a step backwards and reaching up to turn off the device in question. "Pepper made JARVIS upgrade them last time Tony blew something up."
"Too bad," Cassie agrees, shifting to lean back against the kitchen cupboards as she forces her muscles to relax, trying to open up a little bit of space between the two of them. She also takes the step of shutting her eyes. Her boyfriend is incredibly attractive and favors tight shirts which is visually fantastic but not great for self-control. "Reyna and I were just debating other uses for lunch time."
A tiny cracking sound makes Cassie open her eyes which she does just in time to see Steve standing in front of her holding a handful of splintered wire and plastic. A quick glance upwards reveals an empty space on the ceiling where the smoke detector used to be. Well, it's definitely stopped beeping now. "Permanent obliteration seems like a harsh fate," she comments. "What did that meaningless hunk of plastic ever do to you."
"It interrupted the start of a very promising lunch date with my girl," Steve says with absolute zero remorse or embarrassment in his voice despite the pink-red flush spreading out over the tops of his ears and neck. "It deserved to die." He throws out the remains and dusts off his palms before gripping Cassie's waist and lifting her bodily off of the counter. Cassie's spent her life around people who are stronger than a normal human, but it would be a bald faced lie to say that the fact that her boyfriend can move her like that with such little effort isn't something she finds hot.
She tips her head back to look up at him. "So does this mean actual lunch or not? Cuz I have to admit I'm starving and that smells incredible."
Steve exhales a laugh like he's surprised he's making the sound. Then he leans down and presses his lips against her forehead, and then her nose, and then each cheek. "Yes," he confirms. "Actual lunch. Go sit at the counter and I'll bring the food. You can tell me what you got up to this morning while we eat."
Cassie sits and Steve presents her with a large plate of taco salad as he takes a seat across from her and begins to eat as she details the events of the day around mouthfuls of taco meat, lettuce, salsa, and nacho chips. "So basically I got up, figured out the relationship status of two of our collective best friends, did combat training, saved Pepper from the press, and got Reyna a job in the building including housing, benefits, and close contact with her boyfriend which should improve the moods of at least two people we know for the immediate future." She takes a new bight of her lunch. "It's been a productive morning."
This gets her a bright grin from across the counter. Steve finished his meal in half the time it's taken her to eat hers which isn't all that surprising given his metabolism and the fact that she's done the majority of the talking for the last twenty minutes. "I happen to think efficiency and organization are very attractive traits."
Cassie squints at him as she brandishes a pepper at him. "I have always suspected that about you." She chomps down on the pepper. "I'm on to you Rogers."
Before Steve can answer his phone buzzes on the counter. It isn't the standard buzz either. This is the urgent emergency buzz Cassie programmed in for him to signal mission texts. Steve did a lot of work to become technologically literate immediately after coming out of the ice and isn't bad at trouble shooting pamphlet typical issues but doesn't really poke at tech farther than he has to to use the basic functions.
Steve frowns down at the screen readout and sighs. "Mission in Sokovia," he reads. "It looks like Hill and Fury's people have managed to find the facility HYDRA is using to store Loki's scepter from the battle of Manhattan. Of course it only took them two years to track it down in time to interrupt lunch."
"Well don't break the phone for telling you," Cassie says, trying to affect a light and breezy attitude. Going in to missions from a place of at least casualness was normally helpful until the actual fighting got started and it was time to be serious. "As a grandchild of the patron god of the original postal service, I feel compelled to tell you not to kill the nice innocent messenger."
"How about breaking Nazis?" Steve offers as an alternative.
Cassie props herself forwards and pecks his mouth quickly. "That is a course of action that I think is rational, just, valid, proportional as a response, and well within your extensive capabilities as a Super Soldier," she says fairly. "Let's go get packed. I'll call up the medical bay and tell them to stand by. If we're bringing Barton and Natasha I'll call Dr. Cho to bring the cradle here in case anyone gets shot. Or stabbed. Or set on fire. Or electrocuted."
Steve dips his head in acknowledgement and grabs Cassie's medical kit to hand to her. "Sadly, I'm pretty sure all of those outcomes are possible."
They're most of the way through gathering up their respective sets of gear when there's a knock on the door and Steve leaves to go and answer it. The tone and registers of the voice of whoever it is makes Cassie thinks it's Bucky. The assumption is proven correct when she finishes changing and leaves the room to find the two of them talking in the doorway. Steve has all of the base layers of his gear on and Bucky is dressed in what looks like at least two of his usual layers of combat armor.
Bucky leans around Steve when he hears her footsteps. "You're in on this one?" he asks. If there's one thing Cassie has learned to be undoubtedly true about James Buchanan Barnes, it's that in this century he rarely uses syllables he doesn't think are necessary.
"Yup," she replies. "But obviously if you guys could avoid needing me that would be great for everyone."
"We're heading up to the roof to catch the jet," Steve says. "Stark says he's got the arsenal on board so we'll be able to finish suiting up before we land. If you haven't eaten lunch yet I recommend grabbing something now. I don't know what kind of provisions he's got and we're going in to this without a timeline. We'll take care of the official briefing in the air."
Bucky nods succinctly and looks over at Cassie. "Any chance you've got one of those bar things?"
Cassie's response is to chuck a protein bar from the pocket of her bag in his direction. He catches it out of the air with ease and reads the label before making a small face. "Are there any others?" the look she levels at him must convey her nonverbal are you fucking kidding me with perfect clarity because Bucky raises and drops one shoulder. "The mint ones taste odd."
"Oh for the love of," Cassie says throwing up her hands before rummaging in her bag for a moment before extracting a chocolate flavored protein bar and chucking it at his head with slightly more force than is strictly necessary. Bucky catches it, looking thoroughly unperturbed as he opens the package and takes a bight. Cassie just shakes her head at the sheer ridiculousness of the former Winter Soldier having a granola bar flavor preference and casts a look at Steve to share her thoughts only to find her boyfriend looking at her with an expression that's half hopeful and half sheepish. "Seriously?" she asks with a raised eyebrow. He gives her an uneven, slightly goofy smile and Cassie fishes out another bar and hands it to him with a sigh. "Fine. Eat up. Let's go find you boys some Nazis to punch."
"History and several newsreels would seem to suggest it's a successful leisure activity for us."
They've been walking the whole time and have just made their way on to the roof. The wind whips Cassie's braid up in to her face. Moments later they're on board, joining Natasha and Banner in the surprisingly comfortable seats for take off. Barton is in the pilots chair and Stark seems to have claimed copilots status for himself which Cassie supposes is his prerogative given that the jet technically belongs to him. Thor is planning to meet them somewhere in European airspace as he had been with Jane at a conference overseas when the mission alert went out.
Bucky and Barton seem to be discussing the merits of different kinds of riffle scopes with Tony chiming in for the occasional snarky comment interspersed with a valid opinion. Cassie chips in a few moments but she can't say much given that her vision and aim make using a scope fairly superfluous. Soon Banner engages her in a combination about the exact workings of Dr. Cho's cradle and in the background Cassie can hear Natasha teaching Steve higher level Russian.
The whole atmosphere is friendly and relaxed despite the potentially dangerous combat situation they're going in to and it makes Cassie feel... just...safe.
As it turns out, she probably should have doubted that feeling a little bit more than she does.
She should have doubted it a lot in fact.
Her father had been wrong in his note and so had her dream that morning.
Because the ages of steel and miracles aren't coming.
Aftoi einai edo.
They are here.
A/N: So there we have it guys. We're firmly on the springboard to Age of Ultron and the next chapter will see us diving right on in to it. Did you guys like the job I figured out for Reyna? I wanted a way to integrate her in to the Tower which meant getting her a job with the rest of them and I felt like managing and focusing a large group of people was right up her alley. I also wanted to take a bit more of an exploration in to what Cassie and Steve might be like in a more teasing way now that they're relationship has been established for a little while. Besides, all of the characters are grown up. They're in their late twenties and at least early thirties and after re-reading some of the story I wasn't sure that was clear in some of the interactions so I'm trying to adjust a little and still keep things lined up with what I've already established. Wow, anyway that's a lot. But did it come across for you guys? Obviously it's all a work in progress. Anyway, happy Easter/April Fools Day/Birthday if you are like me and were born on April 1st. Review for me! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo