1918 HOURS | NOVEMBER 14, 2014 | THESSALONIKI, GREECE
There was a knock on the door.
A fairly loud knock, but not in any way inherently aggressive or threatening, which would've put her on alert. Rhiannon knew exactly who was there. She'd gotten a text message just over half an hour ago to let her know that they were on their way. But the day, that very important and momentous day, had been a bit of a train wreck of the unexpected and she was woefully unprepared for everything now.
"Be there in a minute!" she called out, tending to the sizzling contents of the stovetop to try and get it all to point where she could turn the heat down and leave it all to simmer without constant supervision. She got it to that point after dousing the contents of her pan with some more sauce and a sprinkle of seasonings before she called it good enough.
Why had she ever even suggested on making them all dinner?
It would've been far easier to just order a ridiculous amount of take-out.
But no! She had to offer to cook!
Rhiannon made her way to the door, tugging the sleeves of her shirt back down, before peering through the peep-hole just in case her assumptions proved to be false. They weren't. She saw four people just on the other side of her door, standing calmly in the hall. Exactly the quartet that she had been expecting.
Apparently, Bruce Banner and Tony Stark had elected to not come on the retrieval mission, claiming that they were far too busy with other things, and Thor had been recalled to his homeworld of Asgard.
The door swung open and she met her guests with a cordial smile. It was actually a bit amusing to see Captain America, Hawkeye, the Black Widow and the Falcon standing all clustered together in the hallway of a moderately rundown apartment complex. They seemed so out of place that it was almost funny, but she restrained herself from openly laughing at the sight.
"Come on in. Food's cooking," she said, stepping off to the side to wave them all in. "And, just so you all know right off the bat, there have been some unanticipated delays to our timeline."
"What do you mean?" Romanoff asked, already on guard due to the abrupt change of plan.
"Food?" Wilson looked confused. Had they not told him that she was making them dinner? He turned his head to look into the kitchen where the large pan filled with seared strips of lamb and sautéed vegetables was sedately bubbling along in a rich, fragrant sauce.
"Whatever it is it smells pretty good," Barton commented as he took an appreciative sniff of the air.
"Where's Bucky?" Rogers was quick to ask after she had watched him look around the apartment with a wary and investigative stare. He had obviously come to realize that she was the only one present within the fairly small living space.
"I was getting to that," Rhiannon said, looking down at her phone as another text message appeared with a soft ding. Good, he was on his way back. Five minutes out. "Barnes is doing a bit of last-minute grocery shopping and walking the dog."
"Dog?" Sam asked again with a wholly puzzled expression.
The Widow raised one perfectly groomed brow and had a faint quirk to her lips. "Grocery shopping?"
Rhiannon hummed. "I didn't have enough to feed all of you and I estimated that Rogers would at least put away as much as Barnes does," she said, looking over at the blond super-soldier who had the decency to flush lightly under her scrutiny. "And the dog belongs to a neighbor. They asked us if we would be able to pet-sit this morning and there was no good explanation I could make to get out of it without raising suspicions. Oddy's a good boy, though, and having a dog around seems to do Barnes a world of wonder. And his owners will be back pretty early in the morning to pick him up and then we'll be ready to leave."
"Canine therapy?" Clint asked with what seemed like sincere curiosity. "It helps him?"
"Yeah," she agreed with a nod of her head, wandering over to stand next to the stove to babysit her creation. "This is only the second time I've had Oddy over since Barnes started staying here. The first time was less than a week into him living here and he was an absolute mess. Malnourished, suffering from frequent dissociative episodes, not sleeping more than an hour every other night and barely even speaking." A soft smile formed as she thought back. "But that bundle of fur came charging in and it was like Barnes became an entirely different person. He laughed, smiled and played with that dog until they both fell asleep on the couch."
"Bucky always did like dogs," Steve commented with a similarly warm look on his own face.
"So," the ex-Soviet super-spy inquired as she wandered into the kitchen to peer into the pan. "What're you making for dinner?"
"Stir fry. It's a family recipe. Can cook this and breakfast food, but that's about it. Everything else tends to go wrong," she explained, shrugging her shoulders in regards to her limited cooking repertoire. It wasn't like there was a lot of time for her to practicing her cooking skills while fighting from one end of the Frontier to the other almost non-stop. "So… There's beer and water in the fridge if you want it, but not much else since we've been clearing out all the food in preparation for the move. Barnes should be back in a couple minutes and the food will done about fifteen after that."
Rhiannon turned back to mind the meat and vegetables as the four began to spread out around the apartment, but she kept an eye on all of them in her periphery.
The Widow was obvious about her investigations around the living quarters. The red-head prowled from room to room with unabashed curiosity mingled with professional wariness. She made rounds of the living room first before disappearing down the short hall to look into both the bathroom and the single bedroom. Rhiannon was unconcerned. She had nothing to hide. Even if the spy was on the hunt for some clue as to her history; the few things Rhiannon had in the apartment wouldn't tell her much.
She had her Pilot Helmet, of course. Didn't go anywhere without it, even though it was currently packed away in her backpack. The data knife was in the bag as well, which was the second most unusual thing she currently possessed. But Rhiannon doubted that the Black Widow could decern much information from just a fancy knife that she didn't know how to operate. And she had her Hammond P2016, which was currently nestled in the waistband of her jeans because offense was the best defense. There were some spare mags in the backpack, but those were just 11.43x23 millimeter bullets. Which – by absolute coincidence – looked nearly identical to this world's .45 ACP rounds, so there nothing too strange to be found by seeing those.
The majority of her clothes she had bought on this planet, having made the trip with very little in the way of civilian clothes. Only a handful of her shirts had come from back home, like the one she was wearing right at that very moment. A long-sleeve in olive green with the Lastimosa Armory brand logo printed across the back in black: Three five-point stars over a rising sun and set above the rippling surface of an ocean.
Perks of having a few surviving connections to the family business, right?
Thoughts of family drew her attention to the last pair of things, beyond those few articles of clothing. The two sets of dog-tags that hung around her neck, tucked away beneath the collar of her shirt to hang just between her breasts. Right over her heart.
There was her personal set, as issued by the Frontier Militia, with all of her pertinent identification information. Name, serial number, generation, blood type, unit, Titan's name if applicable, rank, etcetera. The first tag was stamped on the back with the Frontier Militia's one-eyed skull and the second with the curling prowler of the Special Recon Squadron.
And then there was the second pair, which was by far her most valuable possession.
Her father's tags.
Cooper had collected them on Typhon and had handed them over when their paths had crossed elsewhere on the planet. She was so glad that he had done so, even if in the moment she had nearly broken Jack's nose. It was only because of BT and Rome that she hadn't ended up beating him senseless in her grief-fueled rage. An act she definitely would've later regretted.
Rogers and Wilson had moved off into the living room, seating themselves on the couch and the matching chair respectively, but far from actually relaxing. They were keeping watch. Scanning the room, watching the Widow's search, and every so often they would whisper something to one another.
It was only Clint Barton – codename Hawkeye – who actually took a seat at the breakfast bar after taking her up on her offer of a free beer. He apparently was interested in talking to her, or rather interrogating her. But at least he was being polite about it.
"So, what's your actual name? Lastimosa's your last name, right?"
"Yeah," she said. "First name's Rhiannon."
"But you prefer Rhia?" he asked. "That's what Cap said Barnes was calling you."
"Mhmm," she hummed in confirmation.
"And how long has he been here living with you?"
"Since early September. So, it's been about eleven weeks as of today," she answered. "He had managed to smuggle himself onboard a container ship from Argentina."
"That makes sense. Last place we saw him was in southern Bolivia before we lost him again."
She nodded before continuing, "There was a tracker in his arm and HYDRA ambushed him at the Port. I had been working there as a mechanic and happened to be in the right place at the right time."
"And you just jumped right in and helped?" Romanoff asked incredulously as she slipped back into the living room and kitchen area after completing her inspection of the other rooms.
"Yes," she admitted bluntly.
Wilson spoke up from his seat in the living room, "That's crazy! You know that, right?"
"Oh, yeah. Whole time I was driving his unconscious ass back here I was questioning myself, but I couldn't find it in myself to actually regret it. Not with the way those bastards were talking about him. Like he was their property. It – uh – resonated with something rather personal for me. And then he woke up, we got to talking and the rest is history."
"Well, thank you," Rogers said from the living room and she met his heartfelt blue-eyed stare. "Thank you for being there for him when he needed someone."
She opened her mouth to reply but there came a gentler series of knocks on the door and the faintest scrabble of blunted claws against on the worn wood.
It seemed that Barnes and Oddy were finally back.
Rhiannon went to the door, noticing that all of the room's inhabitants had immediately transitioned into some level of alertness, and pulled it open. She was greeted not by an astoundingly good-looking man with a metal arm, but instead received an overly excited missile of golden-brown and white fur to the chest. She held the panting and wriggling bundle of fluff out at arm's length and looked around the dog at a the quietly amused face of Barnes.
"What's got him so riled up?" she asked.
"Dunno. We hit the hall and he went nuts," he said. "Almost pulled the leash right out of my hand."
"Maybe he smelt all the new people in the apartment and wanted to meet them?"
"Possibly." He shifted his metal arm slightly, laden as it was with a pair of plastic grocery bags, before looking past her and the dog to the inhabitants of the room with an assessing eye. "How's it been?" he asked, seemingly unconcerned by the four pairs of ears who were all too obviously eavesdropping.
"Fine. Now get in here so I can finish cooking," she urged, turning around with the small dog in her arms, though he had calmed enough for Rhiannon to cuddle him close. As Barnes entered behind her and shut the door, she proffered the Kokoni Mix to the crowd to make an introduction. "This is Odysseus. Oddy for short. So, before I put him down, do any of you have a problem with dogs or are allergic?"
The quartet shook their heads in the negative and Rhiannon was quick to let the little monster free. As the dog scurried around the living room, providing ample distraction for the four superheroes, she and Barnes retreated into the kitchen. She began cooking the second half of the meal, which was going to be a hefty serving of noodles to top with her sautéing lamb and vegetables, while Barnes put away the few things they would need for a quick, but filling, breakfast in the morning.
In the following minutes she turned the cooking of the noodles over to Barnes, because he was at least capable of doing that much and it would give him something to keep his mind somewhat occupied. In the meantime, Rhiannon finished up the rest and began assembling the pasta bowls and the cutlery that they would soon need. There had initially not been nearly enough of each to feed six people, but Oddy's owners had generously allowed them to borrow some for the night after hearing that they would be having guests over for dinner.
An apparent benefit to being kind to your neighbors and babysitting their dog on occasion.
In the fifteen minutes it took for the noodles to be done there was little to no conversations of great consequence. Just bit brief moments of inconsequential small-talk. Barnes remained silent the entire time, stirring the pasta while keeping a weather eye on the living room, as if waiting for the other shoe to drop. Rhiannon couldn't blame him, but the four Avengers had been behaving themselves so far. Oddy was doing well to keep their attentions split between occupying the friendly dog and examining every movement that happened inside of the kitchen.
Oddy, as Rhiannon began to notice all too well, seemed to be as equally in love with the Captain as he was with Barnes. The dog was all over the blond like a cheap suit; begging for attention, performing his limited range of tricks in an attempt to impress the super-soldier in exchange for more pets and trying to bathe the man's face with his tongue in relentless affection.
And then dinner was done.
She combined the pasta, meat, vegetables and the whole pan's worth of sauce into a large serving bowl, tossing it all with a pair of tongs, and deposited it onto the surface of the breakfast bar.
"Alright, folks," she announced. "All done. Grab it and growl."
They all served themselves – Barnes and Rogers piling their bowls high at her insistence – and Rhiannon made certain to give all of them the beverage of their choice from the two options. With the dog settled back down on the floor, instead of in Rogers' lap, the gathering of six quieted and began to eat. Natasha, Clint and Sam had squeezed themselves onto the sofa, Steve had taken a seat in the couch's matching chair while Barnes and Rhiannon chose to sit at the tall stools that accompanied the breakfast bar.
"This is really good," Barton commented after a couple of minutes dedicated to the serenity of eating. There was a chorus of hummed agreement from the others, all which were otherwise occupied in some stage of either chewing, swallowing or drinking beer.
"Tastes almost exactly like that Pancit we got when we were in Manila. Only really thing different is the lamb," Romanoff said, looking down at her bowl thoughtfully before glancing up at Rhiannon with an assessing expression. "Are you Filipino at all? I mean, you sound Australian, but…"
"What are those?" Rhiannon asked. Her head was slightly tilted off to the side in her confusion as she took a sip from her beer, completely unphased but the sudden clink of everyone – except for Barnes – setting down their forks.
"What?" Wilson and Rogers both asked with widened eyes and slackened jaws.
"I don't know what those are," Rhiannon said simply, unaware that she had said something telling.
"Filipino? Like a person who is from the Philippines?" Barton clarified. "And Australian? As in a person from Australia?"
"Yeah… I still don't know what you're talking about."
"Really? You've really got no clue?" Sam blustered. "What? Are you from another planet or something?"
A brief moment of pause before…
"Yes," she and Barnes answered simultaneously.
Wilson clearly meant it as a joke and had most definitely not been expecting that answer if the utterly flabbergasted expression on his face was anything to go by. The others appeared equally surprised, except for Romanoff who had the slightest of victorious smirks on her face. Keen emerald green eyes slid over toward her fellow spy with an expectant sort of glee.
"Looks like you just lost that bet with Stark, Clint," she all but purred.
"Oh, he's never gunna let me hear the end of this," Clint lamented dramatically while reclining his sandy-brown haired head against the back cushions of the couch.
"What bet?" Barnes asked after the last mouthful of his food, his voice pitched low and threatening. Rhiannon looked at him from the corner of her eyes and saw that he had gone tense in the barstool and had quite a fearsome expression beginning to form on his face. Like a storm cloud rolling in. He didn't appear to appreciate the fact that the Avengers had been talking about them behind their backs. She had expected them to, actually, but Barnes' protective reaction came as a bit of a shock.
Saving someone from a bullet was one thing, but defending their honor? That was new.
However, she wouldn't deny that seeing the big man with his hackles up on her behalf was charming.
Captain Rogers, noticing the distinct change in tone, was quick to try and defuse the situation.
"Based on the footage Tony had compiled of your gear, and the fact that a high-powered rifle round didn't go straight through you, had him trying to think of possible explanations," he began to explain. "One of them was that you might not be human." He paused and seemed to realize that he might've accidentally caused offense. "Not that there is anything wrong with that. I mean, Thor's an alien."
"And you all decided to place bets on which one of Stark's explanations would turn out to be correct?" she asked, not offended at all by their false assumptions, but rather entertained. Rhiannon wouldn't consider herself an alien in the usual sense, but she was technically an extraterrestrial by the actual definition of the word.
"Yup. They did," Wilson chimed. "Only twenty bucks, though."
"Only twenty? I would've thought I'd at least be worth more," she said. "Well… I'm not an alien. I am human. I just wasn't born on Earth, which is why I didn't know that stuff from before. A lot of culture that originated from the Core Worlds has been forgotten; either accidentally… Or on purpose."
"But humanity hasn't even begun colonizing into space yet," the Widow protested as all of her previous confidence waned away with the latest revelations of Rhiannon's origins. "We've only been to the Moon and just got rovers onto Mars within the last decade."
The blonde woman opened her mouth to speak, but was stopped short with a warm hand closing gently around her left wrist. She looked over to Barnes, who had been the one to grab her, with a raised brow.
"You sure you want to get into this now?" he asked, glancing around the room almost nervously.
"They deserve at least some sort of explanation," she said. "Or what's going to happen tomorrow is really going to throw them for a loop." He looked at her, but saw that she could not be dissuaded and backed down. Rhiannon looked back towards her audience, who looked to be waiting with bated breath.
"So, as I said," she began. "I am human, but was born on a planet called Harmony in the year 2586…"
"But…" Rogers began to say but Barnes head snapped in his direction.
"Better to just wait until she's done before you ask questions," he suggested with an edge of sternness and the blond's mouth snapped shut and he nodded sharply.
Rhiannon took that as the sign for her to continue with her brief overview.
"So, I'm a Titan Pilot for the Frontier Militia's Special Recon Squadron. The best of the best," she said with a very quick, but overwhelmingly proud, smile. Being in the SRS was one of the highest honors and an absolutely privilege. After the events on Demeter, Rhiannon had been entirely stunned when Briggs had approached her with the invitation to join up with the newly formed unit. Once she had recovered from her injuries, of course.
But she was getting off-track. Again.
"RA-5172, my Titan, and I were on a mission when we were ordered to acquire a piece of unidentified technology that had been unearthed by our enemy. It ended up reacting badly with the jump drive of our dropship and we got blitzed across the galaxy, through time and space, to crash here. On Earth." She paused, not for dramatic effect, but rather because she was mustering the strength to admit the toughest to swallow of her discoveries. "But according to Rome this isn't even our version of Earth. A lot of the history doesn't match up and the apparent existence of superpowered individuals is never mentioned in any of our records."
"So, you're not just from another planet and the future, but from an alternate reality or dimension or something!" Sam exclaimed and all of the occupants of the room turned to hiss and glare at the dark-skinned man for raising his voice beyond a normal speaking level. They couldn't be sure who might've been listening in on the conversation. "Oh, shit. Sorry," he apologized in a near whisper, realizing his error almost immediately. "Just… This is fuckin' unbelievable."
"You're telling me," Rhiannon mumbled under her breath. January and February had been a very rough couple of months. Coming to terms with being on Earth had been bad enough, but following that up with being nearly six hundred years in the past and not even being on the same Earth she'd known of?
It had been nearly impossible to comprehend.
"And that's what you need help with?" Barton asked, cutting straight to the heart. "Getting that tech to replicate what happened and send you back to where and when you came from?"
"Exactly. I'm hoping that Stark and Doctor Banner will be willing to help," she said. "Give me mechanical or electrical engineering any day. But calculating jumps between dimensions and with alien technology? That's so far above my paygrade it's not even funny."
For a minute no one spoke and Rhiannon watched as the four digested her story, taking a moment to glance over at Barnes to gauge his mood. He was watching them as well. His shoulders were still tense and his face was being kept carefully blank, but the rapid flickering of his eyes between the others gave away his apprehension. Even the presence of Oddy – who was now sitting by his feet and staring up with twinkling brown eyes filled with nothing but adoration – seemed to have no effect in calming him.
Was he afraid that they would react poorly to the information she had shared? Rhiannon thought that was rather unlikely. After all, if they could tolerate the presence of a Norse God that was in actually an alien from another planet, then they could certainly deal with her particular variant of strange.
Right?
"Well that… Wasn't something we were expecting to hear," Steve admitted, looking rather stunned.
"It definitely wasn't one of the options for the bet," Clint half-heartedly joked. "But at least that means I get to keep my money."
"Sorry to have dropped all that on you," Rhiannon said. "But given what you'll be seeing tomorrow, it was better to at least lay a bit of groundwork before you see all the stuff that's in the ship. It can be a bit much for those who haven't been given fair warning. Even Barnes had a bit of a moment."
Romanoff took a final swig of her beer and nodded her head as she swallowed. "Considerate of you."
"Do you have any questions you want answered right now?" Rhiannon asked. "I know it's getting late and we have an early morning but…"
There was an eager expression on Wilson's face, but the Captain cleared his throat to cut him short. She turned to look at her fellow blond and noticed that he looked slightly uncomfortable, or maybe anxious. There was a faint twitch in the muscles of his jaw, like he was gritting or grinding his teeth, and she wondered what was bothering him or what he was thinking about that had gotten him so agitated.
"There isn't anything for now and anything else we can always ask at a later time," he said. "I think, instead, you both ought to be told what to expect tomorrow and for the foreseeable future."
"Cap…" Barton murmured warningly.
"No. They deserve to know. They're both asking for help and putting their trust in us to give it to them. I won't hold back the reality of what they should expect just because it's inconvenient," Steve argued, sweeping his blue eyes around the room with as much authority as he could muster to quell the other three into silence. Lastimosa and Bucky needed to know what to expect and he wasn't going to keep quiet and make it seem like a betrayal, rather than a mere precaution. He turned back to face the two seated on the stools, face as apologetic as he could make it, and meeting their wary stares. "Tomorrow we'll be flying both of you to a facility in upstate New York that Stark has been renovating into another base for the Avengers. That is where – for the time being – you'll be staying."
"Not the Tower?" she asked.
Rogers shook his head. "No. It was decided – Stark thought it would be too dangerous to have any of you in the city. The place upstate is remote and sparsely populated. Less of a risk of civilian casualties should something…"
Rhiannon and Barnes as they listened became almost mirrors of each other. An assortment of emotions appearing on each of their faces: anger and disappointment primary amongst them. But in the end, they both became nearly identical images of a resigned sort of acceptance.
"Ah," the blonde woman sighed in realization. "This is a matter of containment. Smart of you to keep us out of the city in case we decide to go on a murderous rampage, right?"
Steve opened his mouth to protest, feeling sick to his stomach at the pain he could see on Bucky's face. The faintest flickers of betrayal, muted by the formation of an all too familiar emotionless veil, reflected back at him from those steely blue-gray eyes. Even the resigned look on Lastimosa's face set the bitter sensation of guilt and regret churning in his gut, but the Widow spoke before he could.
"Yes," the red-head admitted bluntly. "It is containment, both for the public's safety and your own. Barnes is dangerous and in a fragile state of mind." Her eyes flickered towards the former HYDRA assassin knowingly, as if speaking from personal experience. "And I would imagine that he knows that better than anyone." Romanoff's attention switched over to Rhiannon with an equally weighty stare. "And you're an anomaly. We know nothing of your history beyond what you've just told us and based on what we saw at the HYDRA Facility you're just as lethal as any of us. Perhaps even more so… We're willing to believe you're telling us the truth and offer our help, but that doesn't mean we can trust you."
"Yet," Barton clarified, setting his dish down on the coffee table and leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. He appeared to be sympathetic. "This is only temporary. Eventually, after its been decided that you're not active threats, you'll be able to do whatever you'd like and go wherever you want."
The fact that their containment would only be for a limited period of time was far from a comfort. Who knew how long it would take them to determine that she and Barnes weren't actively trying to kill them in some nefarious plot? Would it take only weeks? Or months? Or even years?
She just wanted to go home and make sure that Barnes received the help and support that he needed. Rhiannon had high hopes that Rogers would be more than willing to fill her shoes when she eventually left. The longing looks that the blond super-soldier was covertly giving her dark-haired companion were a good indicator that her judgement was more than sound on that front.
"What other restrictions will there be?" she finally ended up asking. "I'd prefer to know now."
"All your ammunition – bullets, grenades, rockets, whatever – will be confiscated upon arrival. You can keep the guns themselves, but we're rendering them as useless as possible. We'll also be taking any other sorts of weapons, though. Like the knives we know you both like to carry," Natasha explained. "Stark has designed a bracelet that will allow passive surveillance and location tracking on each of you, as well as keeping you within the marked perimeter for the Facility. If either of you step outside of the perimeter, an alarm will sound to alert those onsite and you'll receive a shock strong enough to most likely render both of you unconscious."
"What about the dropship and my Titan?" Rhiannon asked. "Will you be confiscating those as well?"
"Not unless you give us a reason to," Rogers said. "But if all that you've said is true and you really mean it then there shouldn't be any problems. Obviously, you won't be allowed to fly the ship anywhere, but you can have access to it as much as you'd like. And as long as the Titan doesn't hurt anyone it can stay operational."
It was a relief, small as it was, to hear that she would be able to talk with Rome as much as she'd like.
"Is there anything else?" she asked, hoping that was no more.
"Banner wants to perform a medical examination on the both of you, as well," Barton added. "Despite his continued insistence that he's not that sort of doctor. But he's also the only one who is even close to qualified and already knows about all of this. We're not going to risk bringing in someone from outside. But it's entirely optional. We're not going to force you to get looked at if you really don't want to be."
"And we'd also appreciate it if you handed over any intelligence you've collected on HYDRA as well as the data you managed to pull from the Facility in the mountains," Romanoff added. "We're hunting them too and anything you have to offer could help us a lot."
Rhiannon took a moment to think, checking on Barnes as she did so to make sure that he was still with them. The last thing she needed was for him to have an episode right then and there, but she wouldn't hold it against him even if he did. Even she was struggling to remain outwardly calm – How could they even think that an honest plea for help should be responded to with imprisonment? – but knew that an outburst would only make it that much harder to earn their trust. Regardless, she was going to have to talk with Barnes about all of this, just to make sure that he was actually comfortable with it all.
If he wasn't… Well, she would cross the bridge when she got there.
The metal armed man was looking towards the floor, barely paying any attention to the rest of the room, but at least he hadn't sunken into the depth of his troubled mind yet. He was petting Oddy, instead. That brilliant little dog, who had undoubtedly sensed the rising distress, had stood on his hind legs and put his front paws in Barnes' lap. Long strokes over the top of the dog's head and gentle scritches and rubs behind those pair of floppy ears, with his fluffy tail wagging sedately back and forth.
It was a good sign – an indicator of progress – that he had sensed that he was heading towards a bad headspace and was actively trying to distract himself and keep himself calm instead of just plunging headfirst into an episode. But it was also a sign that she needed wrap this dinner meeting up and send the Avengers on their way.
This had been more than enough for one night.
"Well, thank you for letting us know all of that ahead of time," she announced, looking up to meet the earnest and remorseful gaze of Rogers. "I won't lie and say that I hadn't been hoping for something a bit more lenient than all of that, but if that's what it takes… I can only speak for myself, of course, but I do appreciate that you were at least honest. But with that said, I think it would be best if you all left now."
They were slow to rise, perhaps fearful that the night was ending on a bad note, but Rhiannon knew that Barnes was at his limit for the day. She stood as well, going around to collect their dishes and piled them all up in the sink. Barton and Wilson were the first to walk out, exchanging polite goodbyes and see you in the mornings with the both she and Barnes. Romanoff lingered slightly longer as the two women ended up meeting each other's eyes and maintained the eye contact for several seconds. For what purpose, she couldn't be one hundred percent sure, but the red-headed super spy seemed to be studying her. In the end the much shorter, but no less deadly, woman gave her a sharp nod of what Rhiannon could only hope was approval before walking out into the hall to join her companions.
It was Rogers, of course, who dragged his heels the longest.
"Thank you for dinner. It really was delicious," he said, unable to help himself from looking at Barnes one last time. The dark-haired man had picked his head up when the four had started to leave, watching them all with piercing scrutiny. She imagined that he was looking for the slightest signs that this all had been some sort of trick to lull them into a false sense of security. "It was good to see you again, Buck."
Barnes only nodded once before turning his attention back to Odysseus, who had yet to leave his side even as the others had left. The handsome blond's face fell from the lack of response and Rhiannon could not help but reach out and lay one a comforting hand on the poor man's thick arm.
"Don't take it too personally, Steve. It's been a tough night for him," she soothed, urging the super-soldier to start walking down the short hall towards the front door. "He'll be better in the morning."
"I know. I know. I just – It's so hard," he explained in barely more than a whisper. "I keep expecting him to break into this huge grin and bust out some witty line like he used to back in the day. It's tough to see him so…"
"Broken?"
"Yeah."
"Mmm," she hummed, before trying to explain something that she was almost certain the Captain had not yet been able to wrap his head around. "It's incredibly difficult to come back from something like what he's gone through. I – I've had an experience that is similar enough to his own," she admitted, keeping it vague because she didn't like to talk about it. "That's most of the reason why I can relate to him and help him in the way that I do. As someone who doesn't understand what he's gone through on a personal level like that, it's going to be very challenging for you to connect with him like you used to."
"I…" he began, but she cut him off.
"I'm not saying that it's going to be impossible and that you shouldn't try your hardest," she said. "I just mean that it's going to be a painful process, for both you and him. I know it was for me when I came back. Having to get to know all of the people I had once loved but had completely forgotten."
"I – Thank you," he said as they came to the door and she ushered him out into the hall, closing the door partially behind her. She had heard the other three going down the stairs shortly beforehand and she wanted a moment alone with the Captain, even though she knew that Barnes could still hear them plain as day. "It's nice to hear you say that."
"You're welcome. And don't forget, just because something is broken doesn't mean that it can't be fixed and more often than not it ends up being even stronger than before."
"That's… really beautiful. Where'd you hear that?" he asked.
A smile curled on her lips, tinged with sadness, but nonetheless from the heart and true. "My father told me that once when I was in a real bad place."
"He sounds like a good man and a better father."
"He really was."
Rhiannon spent a moment in reflection while Rogers seemed to be gathering his thoughts.
"I'm really sorry about the whole bracelet and protective custody thing. I didn't want it at all, but Stark insisted and won over the rest of them," he began to explain with a mild tinge of panic in his voice.
"I understand, Steve. It's the smart thing to do, even if it hurt our feelings in the process," she said. "I just hope it doesn't last for too long."
"It shouldn't. Just don't cause any trouble and after a couple weeks I'm sure Tony will see sense."
"With any luck," she commented, having a hard time believing in her ability to change Stark's mind about anything, much less his choice to keep them under lock and key like criminals.
"So," Rogers began awkwardly, as if just remembering. "Um… The Quinjet is at the airport in one of the private hangars. Just – uh – let us know when you're on your way and one of us will meet you."
"Okay," she agreed before deciding to try and lighten the mood. "But you better get a move on now, Captain, before Romanoff decides to leave you here. There's no room in the apartment for a third super-soldier, so I'd have to make you sleep in the hall."
"Ha! Funny…" he trailed off as his eyes widened ever so slightly. "But I wouldn't put it past Nat to actually leave me here as a joke. She gets like that sometimes. So, yeah, I should go. Um, have a good night. I'll see you both in the morning."
Rhiannon watched him as he walked away, allowing herself a moment to enjoy the view of the man's fabulously shaped rear, before retreating back into the apartment to check in with Barnes.