i can still hear you saying

you would never break the chain

And then, when he looks over, she is still staring at him.

Tony isn't one to blush at the attention of a pretty woman, but he is one to squirm at a pretty woman dissecting him with her weird night-bright green eyes. They dart from his gloved fists, to his uncovered face, to the arc reactor glowing steadily at the centre of his chest. She's looked around at the interior of the jet, sometimes, but for the most part, she only has eyes for him.

He'd feel flattered if she wasn't working with the green reindeer dude.

"I don't like it," Steve whispers, breaking his train of thought.

"Yeah, yeah, me too. Feel like she's undressing me with her eyes or something, yikes, I don't know if I've seen her blink—" A sharp look from the star-spangled man beside him cuts Tony's distracted rambling short. "Oh, you mean- what? Rock of Ages giving up so easily?"

"I don't remember it being ever that easy. This guy packs a wallop," Steve continues, turning to peer over his shoulder at the two captured individuals.

Loki had remained silent, staring straight forward the moment he was placed in his seat. Tony had a niggling feeling that fell along the same lines of Cap's words - guys like Loki go down with flashing lights and fireworks, not with hands raised submissively.

"And she," said with a nod of the head to the pink-haired woman, "Could snap those cuffs in a second."

"Still, you are pretty spry, for an older fellow. What's your thing? Pilates?" The Captain looks confused at this quip, but Tony can tell he's hit a nerve when he refers to the older man's time spent as a glorified freezer pop.

Their banter is cut short as two things happen simultaneously:

Lightning and thunder, arriving out of nowhere, storms overhead, and the pink girl is clutching her head tightly and holding back grunts of pain.

"Hey, hey, Slytherin," Tony says, taking a single step towards the seated pair. "What's with her? Why's she-" He cuts himself off, noticing the trepidation in Loki's gaze as it darts from the window to the roof of the jet.

Steve notices this too, and asks near-smugly, "What's the matter? Scared of a little lightning?"

Loki only responds grimly, "I'm not overly fond of what follows."

Things happen quickly, then - there is a massive thump from the roof, lightning crackling loudly, and Tony is putting his helmet on and opening the back of the jet, not expecting some tall, muscled beach-blonde to land and knock him straight into Captain. With some weird hammer-thing. Great.

Then the Ken doll with extensions is grabbing Loki and flying off with him. Double great.

He ignores the original Ken doll's insistence that they develop some sort of plan, and boosts off into the dark, storming sky.

Tony Stark doesn't really do "plans."

Sakura feels as if fire is burning in her head, licking out of her ears and down her spine.

She shuts her eyes so tightly that they begin to water, but the pain is still there and flashes of light and visions and images dash across her closed eyelids.

Black and red and birds and swords and silver and lightning and fire and blue and gold and—

"Hey!"

Someone places their hand on her knee and then she is back in the flying metal thing, hands chained and the fiery pain reduced to smouldering. The red-haired woman is in front of her, face stern and hands clenched by her side. Everyone else - Loki, the man in blue, and the man-machine hybrid - is gone.

"Where… where is…" Sakura's throat feels dry and her bones feel sore. It's reminiscent of the way she felt when she first met Loki, and she really hopes she doesn't end up fainting this time.

The woman stares at her silently for a moment, before she sighs and drops to a crouch in front of Sakura.

"Your partner? Off with the other boys to play fight and waste my time," she says, maintaining eye contact, "But that gives us time to talk. Just you and me."

Sakura says nothing, but hesitates for only a moment before nodding slightly. The woman in front of her radiates power, but in a way different to the silver-tongued Loki or the man in blue that looked like he was made of marble. She is a subtle, meticulous strength.

"Mind telling me your name?"

Again, a slight pause. But she still responds, "…Sakura."

"Ok, Sakura. I'm Agent Romanoff, and I work for an organization known as S.H.I.E.L.D. Ever heard of it?" Sakura shakes her head. Agent Romanoff smirks, "Good. I'm telling you this now, because the man you are associated with, Loki, is acting with intentions that directly oppose that of S.H.I.E.L.D. And, though you just fought alongside him, I want to ask you, directly - what are your intentions?"

Sakura feels overwhelmed, once more. She is stuck in an environment that is throwing off her balance, stuck without any semblance of memories, stuck between knowing who the good guys and bad guys are. She has no standards, no set of expectations to base her thoughts and actions on.

She worked with Loki out of necessity, and she isn't too proud to do the same with these people.

"I… don't have any." It is a half-assed response, and Agent Romanoff's raised eyebrow conveys the message that she needs to say more than that.

"When I… arrived, I didn't… I-I don't-" The words are hard to say, because they make the reality of her situation that much more realistic and unavoidable. But with Loki… out of commission and him apparently being one of the bad guys - again, Sakura doesn't have much of a choice. She has to place her trust in these strangers and it makes her stomach twist uncomfortably.

"…I don't remember anything." Agent Romanoff tilts her head minutely. It's an answer she still doesn't think is good enough.

"My name. And fighting. That I can fight, I'm a fighter. That's all. Honestly," Sakura feels like she is on the verge of pleading for understanding, but she persists in a way that she hopes the other woman can understand. It comes out in a near-whisper.

"He said he would help me, if I helped him. I didn't have any other options." Romanoff stands to her full height, suddenly, and Sakura worries for a moment that the other woman is done listening to her.

But then, she sends Sakura a small half-smile and says,

"Ok. I believe you."

"I'm not sure if I believe her."

Steve looks back, watching Natasha approach the two-way mirror he is standing at, arms crossed across his chest. Her gaze is as observant and critical as ever, directed to the pink-haired woman sitting in the room ahead of them. Sakura, she told Natasha. Her name was Sakura.

"To get caught after working with that megalomaniac, then claim you have retrograde amnesia? It's convenient - not entirely convincing."

Steve would be inclined to agree wholeheartedly with the Black Widow, had he not seen the footage when Sakura first appeared. He knows the look on her face and in her eyes - lost, overwhelmed. Completely and utterly out of her element. He knows because he has been in her position.

"I don't know, ma'am." Natasha chuckles under her breath at his politeness, but Steve continues. "If you watch that footage-"

Agent Romanoff cuts him off with a careless wave of her hand, "Yeah, I know. You keep referencing that. I'm more inclined to reference the footage of her holding that man down while Loki takes his damn eye out."

Steve sighs, saying nothing for a moment and returning his gaze to the woman in the empty, steel room. There is a set of chairs and a single, rectangular table. Sakura sits quietly, her cuffed hands connected to the centre of the table with an electrically-charged chain. She looks nervous.

"Can I talk to her?" He feels the need to get a more solid understanding of the girl in front of them. One not based on footage or fighting. Determine whether or not she can be considered an ally.

He feels Natasha's stare on the side of his face, but chooses not to acknowledge the scrutinizing look. Steve holds his ground until the spy beside him exhales briefly and says, "You're entirely too trusting, Cap."

Steve can only smile grimly as he makes his way around and into the interrogation (for lack of a better term) room.

Sakura looks up at him as he enters, opening her mouth to say something before shutting it quickly. He is probably the last person she'd expect as a visitor, considering the scuffle they were just in. Her eyes stay glued on him as he pulls out the chair across from her and sits, considering for a moment before holding out his hand for her to shake.

Her eyes dart to it instantly, and she tilts her head in a silent question. Steve says nothing, only waits patiently. It is the most simple, literal way of attempting to reach out and make a connection, but he also thinks it's probably the first common courtesy she's seen in the last couple days.

"…Very diplomatic of you," Natasha's voice crackles to life in his earpiece, but he ignores it as Sakura reaches out to grasp his hand. Steve's large palm dwarfs her smaller one, but he has seen the damager her fists can do. Her grip isn't nearly as strong as her punches, luckily.

"Steve Rogers," Natasha mumbles something about codenames and confidentiality, but he continues, "Sakura, right? How are you holding up?" Her eyes narrow, ever-so-slightly, and he can tell she's thrown off by his overt politeness. He doesn't look away or falter in the eye contact they are holding.

She has a sharp gaze that reminds him of the red-headed woman observing them, but her eyes are less guarded, cold, and a very, very bright shade of green. Sakura breaks the contact to look down at her chained wrists, and bite the corner of her lip unconsciously. Steve's gaze is drawn to this for a moment before he looks back to her downturned stare.

"I'm… alright." Her eyelashes flutter, the shadows of them dancing across cheekbones as she takes a breath. "I don't know what's going on. Who anyone is, what's happening. So that's great. Uh, I don't remember anything before two days ago. Also great." Sakura lets out a dry huff of laughter, but the forced attempt at lightening the mood is lost quickly.

"Alright. We'll go back to two days ago, then. What is the earliest thing you can remember?" Steve leans back in his chair slightly, ensuring she doesn't feel crowded or pressured. Her eyes meet his again, and he can tell she is working through a response in her head.

"…The more honest you are, the less complicated things will be," He says, sincerely. His empathetic side wants to help this woman that seems so lost, but his soldier side needs to know she isn't a threat. Trust is built upon honesty and that is a door she needs to open herself.

"Falling. From the… thing. The blue energy mass. Everything around me felt… off. I didn't recognize anything, anyone. The fact I didn't have any memory, of anything, hit me then. I fainted. Woke up, and… Loki was there. Told me about his plan of… enlightening the world. Or something."

Steve's curiosity at this point must show on his face, because Sakura pauses before shaking her head briefly. "He never went into specifics. Just talked about… bringing purpose. Never said how, or why."

"Then why did you help him? Follow him without questioning the how and why?" He can't help but interrupt. This is the question that's been eating at him, the one that he needs to have answered.

Sakura bites her lip again. It's a nervous habit, he thinks. She clenches her fists slightly, almost out of frustration.

"I didn't… I didn't have much of a choice. I wake up and nothing is familiar and this man says he will help me. I help him, he helps me," The next words seem almost painful for her to say, and they come out in a near-whisper as she looks at him directly.

"…I was desperate. And scared."

Steve says nothing for a moment, taking in her answer and tossing it around in his mind. Her tone and gaze haven't wavered once, unless out of a moment of nervousness. Her spine is stiff-straight and he can tell she is exhausted from the occasional trembling of a muscle or two.

He doesn't think himself quick to trust, despite the words of the red-headed agent. Too many years, too many people have gone by for him to be able to trust blindly.

Steve doesn't consider himself quick to trust, but he likes to consider himself quick to understand.

He understands the woman in front of him. He went through the same thing, waking after 70 years under ice and knowing nothing of the changed world around him.

Steve believes her.

"…I will do my very best to help you get your memory back, ma'am. I want to help you, and I want to trust you. I only ask that you do the same. Trust me," He says, rising to a stand. She watches him carefully, before a small, bitter smile grows on her face.

"He said that, too. And then had me help him rip some guys eye out." Sakura quips dryly, but Steve smiles slightly in response.

"With all due respect, ma'am – Loki and I are very different men."

Sakura's smile shifts, softer around the corners.

He can feel his shift a bit, too.

/an/

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