Always You {Steve Rogers}

forty three

Aliza's PoV

I was just finishing making my sandwich when a hand came out of nowhere. Suddenly I was left with only half a sandwich.

"Hey!" I called out to Tony who had taken a seat on the stool opposite me. Whilst eating the food I made, he shrugged his shoulders.

"What sandwich?" He spoke while chewing. I shot a glare his way before sitting down myself.

"So, I heard you hulked out yesterday." He started off.

I chuckled at his choice of words. "Steve tell you that?"

"Actually, it's going around at S.H.I.E.L.D. Something about you attacking some agent?"

"What bullshit." I scoffed while taking a swig from my water bottle. "First of all, she is the devil. And secondly, she started it. She was talking all this shit and, well, I punched her." I winced as I hesitantly told Tony the story. He gave me a look as if it wasn't the full story and he wasn't wrong.

"Alright fine. Like 4 times."

This time Tony was the one to send me the amused but disbelieving look. I dropped my shoulders and played with the label on my water bottle. I told him the full story of me trying to spar with her, her trying to play dirty and then me ultimately having to be dragged away.

"I don't know Tony. Saying I hulked out was probably right. I just get so angry and I can't stop myself. Like that time in the HYDRA base. I don't feel like I'm myself anymore and all I can think about is hurting the other person. And then my fingers will start twitching and sparking."

"I don't blame you. I heard about some of the things she said." I looked up at Tony with tired eyes. "You've just got to know that you're a good person, and that violence inside of you, that's from HYDRA and that's what they want you to succumb to. Maybe next time think of that, and it might just calm itself down." He placed a peck on my head before grabbing his phone off the counter and leaving. I propped my chin on my hand and thought about what he just said.

He was right. HYDRA said it from the start. They wanted me to have darkness inside of me and use that as a weapon. I'll be damned if I let myself do what they wanted all along. Like Bucky said, I just need to focus on what grounds me and hopefully from there, I can try and make rational decisions. It was fun to pound her face in though.

Not feeling hungry anymore, I threw the rest of my sandwich away and decided to go shopping. Nothing like retail therapy to lift a mood. I hadn't seen Steve since the morning when he said that he was needed at S.H.I.E.L.D. I wouldn't be surprised if it was about what happened yesterday which means he's getting lectured by Fury which means I'm getting lectured by him. If I was going to make that as painless as possible for me, I was going to need some new clothes to get me through it.

~

"Thanks for coming with me. I don't know how much longer I could handle being stuck at home." I pulled out of the driveway and sped off in one of the cars Tony was 'letting' me borrow.

Natasha swept her hair to the side and buckled herself in. "After the day you had yesterday, I can understand why you need this."

I facepalmed on the wheel as we stopped at a red light. "Oh god. Not you too?"

"Honey, everyone knows. Even Clint, and he's on vacation."

"The tramp deserved it." I mumbled while peering out to the road.

"So I hear. Something about you sleeping your way to the top?" She rested one elbow out the window and whipped her sunglasses on.