TBC in comments Who: Maria Hill and Steve Rogers What: Maria gives the grand tour of Building A When: Day 16 afternoon Where: Building A Rating: Low
Meeting up with Rogers was a practice in the surreal. Maria remembered quite vividly working with him to get everyone out of the building the bugs chewed apart. She remembered them working in tandem as they ushered the group of refugees across the big park to the university.
But he didn’t remember any of that. He looked at her as if seeing her for the first time in his life. Maria couldn’t help but wonder if everyone who came back would be that way, and her thoughts went to Valeria. Not that she’d want the little girl back in this god forsaken place. But as bad as it was when Valeria went missing, if she came back and didn’t remember Maria?
She shoved those thoughts out of her mind as soon as she and Rogers started across the park. An hour or so later she was pulling the doors to the foyer of Building A open. “Ready to have your noodle baked?”
There was still so much about this place that Steve felt like he needed to sort out. He’d asked questions from anyone nearby that was willing to answer them, and had heard the horrific tales of the first night there and the battles with the bugs afterwards. He knew that they were difficult to defeat and that guns alone couldn’t pierce through their thick shells. The most worrisome part about that last bit was that there were so many there that had no offensive “powers” and they solely relied on guns. Or they didn’t know how to handle guns at all, which was another problem altogether, but from what he’d gathered they had already planned to start training groups for things like that soon.
While he couldn’t remember Maria specifically, her company did not feel out of place and the conversation was easy as they made their way to the building she had told him about. His enthusiasm for helping had only been increased by the training session earlier that day with his team, where he’d learned out of the blue that he’d been selected as leader. Some of his teammates had skill enough to defend themselves and others would solely be relying on whatever these fancy guns were that Stark was working on, but regardless of all of that he’d felt like they’d come together as a team and that the morale was high. He was convinced that they could get through this if they all worked together, both as teams and as a whole group, and he hadn’t been shy to share that thought with them.
Immediately taking the weight of the doors out of her hands, Steve’s blue eyes scanned the foyer as they entered the building they’d been working their way to throughout the early afternoon. It was safe to say he didn’t recognize the building, but something did feel eerily familiar about it and there was a sense of deja vu that he couldn’t shake as soon as he stepped inside with his comrade. Taking in the sight around him, Steve gave a slow nod before glancing over at Maria as his hands raised to rest on his hips.
“Oddly enough, that’s exactly how I’m feeling.” His brow furrowed ever so slightly and he offered a small smirk as his attention shifted back to the room. “I can’t remember being here, but it’s almost like… like my body does.”
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“Trust that,” Maria said as she led the way. “It’s how I found my way around in here, and found...well, you’ll see.” She wasn’t trying to be cryptic, but it would be easier to show him than tell him. Even though she’d been here often enough by now, it was still a little overwhelming to keep having that sense of knowing this place. It had never settled into something more familiar so she understood what Rogers was feeling.
“But before I let you follow your nose there’s something I want you to see.” She glanced back at Rogers then strode through the large foyer, past the elevator bays and into the large open area with all the displays. Some were broken too much to know what was in there, but the item that was her destination seemed to be impervious. Maria stopped them right in front of the large photograph of Rogers, Stark, Banner, Barton, Romanoff and others she didn’t recognize. All of them were wearing almost outlandish costumes. “I’m not in this one, but I found ones in my office where I am. I thought you’d want to see this one, though.” She turned to watch his reaction.
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He wasn’t going to try and get more out of her when she left it at that, mostly because he could tell that she wasn’t just leaving him hanging, but rather really was just going to show him rather than let him wonder. Without hesitation he followed her through the foyer, taking in the sight of the elevator bays before his gaze fell on the displays.
Steve’s step faltered for a moment, his heart skipping a beat in his chest as he stood there in the center of the display room, frozen for a moment as he took in what was around him. Many cases were too broken to identify much, but what he could see was like seeing a timeline of a life that he didn’t know. Giving a little shake of his head to press that feeling to the back of his mind for the moment, Steve picked up the pace again to catch up to Maria, stepping up beside her.
His eyes were wide as he took in the photo, easily identifying Stark and Romanoff, and himself of course, but not the others - and yet he knew that he knew them. How? He had no idea. Not just because of this picture and all of their colorful uniforms, but because he just knew. A sense of pride swelled in his chest and Steve had to inhale softly so that it wouldn’t overwhelm him.
A hand rose from his side, his fingers stretching out to touch the picture and dragging until they inevitably stopped on the shield he was holding in the picture. “Kind of gives you the Heebie-Jeebies, doesn’t it?” Another breath was taken in before he gently tapped two fingers - his index and middle - against the shield. “I’ve been looking for that.” Steve shook his head and glanced down and over at Maria before back at the picture. “Like instinctively reaching for it.”
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She imagined she looked much the way Rogers did now when she first began wandering around this place. It was that board to the back of the head feeling, like something or someone was trying to get your attention, but it just wasn’t quite connecting. The sense of wonder had soon become frustration, however, as nothing really provided any real answers for her. Still, she was glad to have found this place and figured the others represented here deserved to know about it.
“Heebie-jeebies?” A smile curled the corners of her lips some as she crossed her arms. “I went with willies myself, but yeah. It’s like the remnants of our lives, but...here we are.” The surrealness of it was enough to give her nightmares if she thought about it too much. Obviously, this place was devastated which meant not so good things for them...or the past versions of them...but the paradox was that they were here. Now. Headache city.
Her brows lifted as she took notice of the shield Rogers was indicating. Maria stepped a little closer to get a good look at it. “Huh. Doesn’t look special, but it certainly matches your outfit.”
He’d noticed that there were some things that he said that other people didn’t seem to get or just found amusing, but Steve had left it to the fact that he likely was from a different place than some of the others - likely the same story with Torunn - but now, with these pictures, maybe he was wrong. He reckoned they could still be from different places and had just met each other and formed… a team? That seemed like what they were.
That swell of pride was still in his chest, no matter how outlandish their outfits seemed to be compared to what they’d arrived in here, and Steve couldn’t fight the soft smile that reached the corners of his eyes and lit them up. “It’s a swell outfit, isn’t it?” Chuckling softly, Steve took a step back before stooping down and taking his pack off of his back so that he could retrieve his communicator from it - a sudden idea coming to mind. Standing back up, he opened the camera application on the device - something that someone else had had to show him how to do - and snapped a quick picture of the display they were looking at. He might want it later when he wasn’t at this building.
Once it was placed securely back in his bag, Cap returned it to his back and took a moment to look around at some of the other displays, approaching one with the same people in the picture and noticing a phrase at the bottom - covered in dust and distorted slightly from the cracked glass over it. Still, his curiosity had been peaked and Steve brushed away the dust and dirt that he could so that he could get a better view of it.
“The Avengers?” Eyebrows rose as he stared at it for a moment longer before his blue gaze shifted up to him and his teammates in the photo and then over to Maria. “That what the A is for?”
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It wasn’t difficult to see that pride show through in Rogers. The weird thing was, it wasn’t ego. More like a job well done. Did the right thing. That kind of pride. It kind of sparked that shame inside Maria that she felt from pushing Peter away, from failing Valeria, making the mistakes with the people on campus. It would be nice to feel Pride the way Rogers obviously did, but she didn’t kid herself into thinking that would happen any time soon.
A master of hiding her feelings, however, none of that showed beyond a firming of her jaw, a step back into a professional role. It was a shield of her own to hide behind. Safe. Untouched. It helped her get the job done, whatever it was at the moment. Right now that meant trailing after Rogers, letting him take the lead.
She stepped up next to him and looked at the faded plate. “Guess so. That would make sense. But what exactly did you avenge?” And ultimately lost to judging by the state of the world right now.
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His gaze fell back to the name of the team as she spoke, the corners of his mouth falling down into a soft frown. Steve’s thoughts were on the same line as Maria’s, wondering what they were supposed to avenge and whether or not they failed and that’s’ why it was like this. Rogers was no genius, but the state of the city they were in indicated that it had been left like this for a long period of time, and seeing as none of them were significantly aged, he felt as though there might be a whole other story to why they were here.
“I’m not sure, but I know what we can fight for now.” Taking a few steps back, Steve looked around the room for a few moments in silence, just taking in the pictures, noticing in a few that there were others present as well, though many of them were masked. His own uniform in the pictures, slightly altered in some was clearly geared toward something, and while that sense of pride for whatever it was was still within him, he couldn’t figure out what it was. The color scheme had to mean something, but he didn’t remember standing for something - just felt like he did.
“Captain America,” he said softly, a hint of pride in the way he said it but also confusion. “That’s the only other thing I remember than my actual name.” A hand rose so that he could brush his fingers back through his hair, not changing much and it softly falling back onto his forehead after he did.
“I don’t know what The Avengers were, or why we’re all dressed up like that -- or even why that shield sticks out so much to me, but I know that it all must’ve been darned important to me.”
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Maria noticed the hair thing and sighed inwardly. No one should be allowed to to maintain looking like that in a place like this. She was going to be really grateful for Stark’s shower later, but right now she felt like something the bugs dragged through eight inches of grime. But even after the shower she doubted she’d come anywhere close to looking like Rogers did so effortlessly. Jerk.
“It’s a code name,” she offered in a tone almost as if this just occurred to her. It seemed right, like another piece of the puzzle sliding in place. Her own blue eyes looked back to the people in the photo as if seeing them in a different light. She had a sense of needing to be available, to be there for them. A responsibility that meshed with how she felt toward the people on campus. “Anonymity in communications in case it was intercepted. Makes sense. The costumes are probably for the same reason.”
Maria looked at Rogers to see what he thought of that with a shrug of her shoulder, then smirked. “I mean, you kind of stand out no matter what, but the masks, the get up, makes you icons. Heroes, I guess. People would see the bright colors and what the costumes suggest more than faces. It would allow you to walk around in plain clothes without being mobbed or attacked.”