nightcathedral | Put one foot wrong and I'm gonna fall...

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Put one foot wrong and I'm gonna fall...

It's nearly three in the morning when Olivia slips out of her room and heads down to the lab where Tony Stark had a sensory deprivation tank set up for her. She moves quickly and quietly, and doesn't bother switching on the lights when she enters the lab, leaving the blue glow of the monitors around the room to light her way - she's hoping that the less she does, the less JARVIS will take notice of her, and maybe he won't wake anyone to tell them what she's doing before it's too late. There are letters on her bed to Steve, to Jane, to Tony and Bruce, and between that and her absence, and whatever security cameras she's sure are monitoring this room, that'll have to do to explain where she's gone.

She eases the door quietly shut behind her, and crosses the room to the bright steel table where the syringes full of Cortexiphan Dr. Banner managed to synthesize are already laid out. Olivia picks one up, grimaces a little, and slides the needle into the big veins just below her wrist. Maybe this is what went wrong the last time. Maybe she needs a dose of the drug to get her to the right place. She's praying that's what it is, because otherwise, she's running out of ideas or other plans.

The empty syringe makes a soft ringing sound as she tosses it back into the tray. Olivia's already all but running up the stairs to access the tank. There's a breathing apparatus dangling over the top, just like in Walternate's lab. She grabs it, fits it into her mouth and takes a breath, and slides into the water with hardly a ripple.

For a minute, nothing happens. Olivia floats in the tank, eyes closed, just breathing and thinking of letting the universe pass through her, just like Walter told her the first time. Thinking of home.

Between one breath and the next, she vanishes, with only a swirling disturbance in the water of the tank to mark that she was there at all. The room stays silent, the tank empty, for another minute or two.

Then the tank explodes in a roar of heat and light, a ring of fire spreading outward and taking hold anywhere it can, blackening what it can't. Olivia tumbles out of the tank along with the water and lands with a crunch in the shattered glass from the tank, choking and gasping while the fire that wasn't put out by the flood dances up the walls.

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Olivia settles back onto her bed with a frustrated sigh after Jane leaves, staring at the ceiling and trying to figure out what she's supposed to do next. Trying again seems too much like bashing her head against the same brick wall - she could try that until it kills her and probably still never get anywhere. She's not exactly coming up with any other brilliant ideas, but she doubts she'll be sleeping any time soon, so turning the problem over in her head seems like the only option.

She's more than a little relieved when she hears Steve waking up, both for the confirmation that he's more or less alright and the fact that it gives her something else to focus on. She shifts to sit up and turns to face him, legs folded underneath her under her sheets.

"Hey," she says, soft and low like she's trying not to startle him. "How're you feeling?"

He moves again and pain rips down his back, so he stops.

"Crispy," he says, then winces. "Sorry - I'm not... I know it wasn't your fault, I wasn't trying to make you feel guilty."

Steve sighs, deciding to try just turning his head and seeing how that goes. No excruciating pain, which is good, and at least now he can see her. "What about you?"

For some reason his focus skitters away from her when he says, "I'm sorry. That is didn't work the way you wanted."

Olivia winces a little at his first response too - he might not have been trying to make her feel guilty, but he didn't really need to. Olivia's pretty talented at finding reasons to blame herself all on her own, but she doesn't think Steve's going to agree with any of those reasons, so it doesn't seem worth pointing them out.

"I'm fine. Tired. A few cuts and bruises, a little bit scorched... nothing to worry about." Nothing she doesn't deserve - and painkillers work on her, so she's got nothing to complain about.

She huffs a soft sigh, ducks her head and closes her eyes at his apology, silent until she's sure her voice won't waver when she answers. She manages a smile when she looks up again, though it's forced and doesn't really do anything to hide her disappointment.

"It's..." She can't say it's fine. It's not. "Thank you. I'm sorry I didn't say anything to you before. I've just... never been good at..." She sighs and shakes her head. "It was a mistake." In so many ways, apparently.

He closes his eyes, hearing Peggy's voice with perfect clarity. Don't you dare be late. "Me either."

Steve clears his throat and opens one eye. "Could you help me sit up? Well, wait, don't move if you're not up to it- I just..."

He doesn't like feeling helpless. Specifically, he doesn't like feeling he can't move. It's one of the few things that can really get under his skin, really and truly scare him. The idea of being trapped. Steve shivers and wishes the sheets were warmer. "It wasn't a mistake," he says, in part to distract himself. "It was a choice. It didn't work the way you thought it would, but that doesn't mean it was the wrong choice."

Olivia unfolds her legs and slides off the bed before he even gets to 'if you're not up to it'. She's never been fond of sitting still either, especially in hospital rooms - her time in that cell on Liberty Island and the knowledge that she's actually locked in this room certainly isn't helping the feeling, and she'll take any excuse to move around even a little.

"I'm not so sure about that," she answers as she reaches the side of his bed and offers him a hand to pull himself up with. "I think when a plan literally explodes in your face, that's kind of an indication that it was a bad idea."

Steve grits his teeth and forces himself upright, trying to put as little weight on her as possible and ignoring the way his vision goes slightly white around the edges from pain.

"Maybe," he says, and it comes out strained. He holds onto her until his vision starts going back to normal and he's sure he's not going to fall over or pass out. "Or maybe you just don't know what you learned from it yet."

Even though he's not using her for support, he doesn't let go of her hand. "Say goodbye next time," he says. "Maybe you need to. For luck."

Olivia has to brace herself a little, drawing a slow, hissing breath between her teeth, as he pulls himself up. Even with the painkillers, she's pretty sure putting a lot of pressure on her hands isn't a good idea, the way they've been sliced up, but it's only for a moment, and then the pain goes back to a dull throb she can shove to the back of her mind.

She tries for a moment to find a way to argue with him, and finds she can't. Finally, she just smiles faintly and nods. "Well, if I figure it out, I promise I'll let you know." Olivia kind of thinks the lesson might be 'figure out how to not set the room on fire before attempting any other Cortexiphan-fueled stunts', but she's not sure how well she's going to manage that.

She blinks, and looks up to meet his eyes. She'd squeeze his hand if she weren't conscious of how much that would hurt. "Maybe I do. Next time I will. I promise."

He feels a little pinch of relief and sadness, and is immediately distracted by the bandages on her palms. "You are hurt."

Steve turns her hand over in his, worry clear. "Actually hurt, not just scraped up. I wonder..."

He looks at the floor. Steve knows full well how much it would hurt to try and put weight on his feet right now. They'll be well on their way to healed by morning, if he just keeps still, but... "If we can track Thor down, he might have these... There are these stones, I guess, that can heal people. I don't know that Odin let him take any when he left Asgard. We can ask at least."

"It's not as bad as it looks," she protests, though she's getting the feeling by now that she's not going to be winning any arguments here, at least not tonight. She still feels like she has to try. He can barely sit up and he's worried about her.

"And that's... going to have to wait, at least for a little while. They locked us in when they left - I assume that's more about me than you."

He startles at that, and then scowls. "If they really thought you could hurt anything, they wouldn't have left you here with me. If they really didn't trust you."

Or they knew how badly he'd react to finding out they actually locked her up. That thought is extremely discomfiting.

It's about then that he realizes he's still holding her hand and he lets go like it suddenly caught fire itself. "Sorry."

"It's fine."

It's difficult to tell if she means the hand holding or the fact that they're locked in. She pulls her hand back and folds both arms around herself - carefully, to avoid pulling on the bandages on her hands and arms - and glances to the door before she says anything more.

"I can't blame them. In their situation, I'd lock the door too." That's the least she'd do - far less than what they did with every case of someone with abilities they couldn't control. How is she any different, any less dangerous than Nick or James or Sally or any of the others?

"You're my guest," he says. "And it was an accident. Agent Dunham-" He hesitates. "Olivia. You think anyone on the Avengers Initiative would have done differently, in your situation? Hey."

Steve reaches out to touch her arm gently, both because he wants to and because she looks like she needs comforting. He's not sure how much he's allowed to give. "They'll calm down. And when they do, they'll see you were just trying to do what you thought was the right thing."

The touch takes her off guard, and she looks up at him with a flicker of momentary surprise that leaves her expression unguarded, all her careful neutrality vanishing for just an instant. The defenses all go back up a moment later, but not entirely, and she doesn't pull away from the contact.

"Maybe. You'd know better than I would. I'm just not sure that..." She stops, and glances away again, lips pressed together while she wrestles with how to say this - or whether to say it at all. He did save her life, and she knows he's ready to defend her to the others - specifically Stark - as soon as he gets a chance. He probably deserves a little honesty right now.

"The others from the Cortexiphan trial," she says finally. "We only found them because their abilities were... out of their control. No one had ever explained to them what happened, or why these things were happening to them, and... They killed people. All of them, horribly, and mostly by accident. The last time I saw them..."

Olivia pauses and grimaces a little. Before they died. Because she asked them to risk their lives for her, and for the man who'd ruined all their lives in the first place. She sighs and pushes on.

"They'd learned to control it. I never could. I've tried, but it's all tied into feeling and emotion, and I'm..."

Her throat closes for a second, choking off whatever she'd been about to say. She swallows hard, staring at the floor. If she looks at Steve now, he's going to see how scared she is of herself, of what she could do, that she might never go back...

Olivia shakes her head and repeats simply, "I can't control it. And it was one thing when I was just seeing things, or crossing over, because at least then I couldn't hurt anyone but myself. But this..."

He shifts around very slowly, so he's sitting with his feet dangling just off the floor and can take her elbows very gently in his hands as she hugs herself, if only so she knows he's not afraid of her.

"You can," he says. "If they could, you can. I don't doubt it for a second."

More hesitation. Steve finally lets go, his tone gently amused. "Besides, even if you couldn't - which you will - everyone here has been through a much worse than a little fire. We hold up pretty well."

Edited 2011-10-19 21:43 (UTC)

Olivia feels like she might have had this talk before. Peter, Walter, Bell, even Jones... They had faith in her, like Steve does now. She only wishes she could share it.

That last comment gets a soft laugh out of her, though, and she glances up again with a slow smile. "Are you always this optimistic, or is it just for my benefit?"

He has to think about that one. Is he optimistic? If she's mentioning it, he must be. "I don't... give up. I'm not sure I even know how any more."

Steve shrugs, flashing that crooked little grin. "So I guess always."

Olivia takes a deep breath and manages to release some of the tension knotted up in her neck and shoulders, unfolding her arms from around herself as she takes a step back to perch on the edge of her own bed.

"Well, I hope you realize you're making it difficult for me to be the cynic here." She looks slightly bemused by it, but she doesn't seem to actually mind all that much.

"I'd apologize, but I don't think I'm sorry." He grins, shifting to inspect a small burn on his arm. "And I mean it when I say I'll be all right. I heal quickly. It's part of... everything."

Steve lays back down on his side, very carefully, his expression briefly straining at each pang. "Sorry," he says. "I'm not trying to be rude. Even if I do heal fast, it still hurts - and painkillers don't work for long. It's also why I can't get drunk. And why... Why I didn't... Why I was still alive when they found me."

Edited 2011-10-20 02:44 (UTC)

"You don't have to apologize," Olivia answers gently, with a little shake of her head and a smile. "It's late, and no matter how fast you heal, you'll probably do it faster if you get some rest. If you can manage it."

"I've had worse," he says again, the smile coming back. He can't help it. Telling her things, having her not poke him or prod him or give him sad looks or even act like it's strange - it's like being able to breathe after having his head forced under water for a very long time. "I wish we could have known each other some other way."

Olivia pauses for a second or two, and then shifts around on the bed until she's lying on her side too, facing Steve. She's been fighting exhaustion basically since she tried crossing over; for a while adrenaline and worry and guilt helped keep that at bay, but now that those are starting to fade, she can feel that she's about to crash pretty hard. Might as well be lying down when she does.

"So do I," she says quietly. "But if I had to come here... I'm glad it was you I ran into. I'm glad that I met you at all."

He half-ducks his head at that, going from Captain America to a super-sized order of French fried awkward. It's clear though that he's happy to hear it. "Me too."

Steve clears his throat, searching for something else to say, but all he comes up with is, "JARVIS, can you get the lights?"

The room goes dark, eventually Steve falls into a kind of doze once he's sure Olivia is asleep and sure he's in a position where sudden movement won't be too excruciating, and when he stirs it's with the dawning realization that something in the air has changed. The smell. The feel. He jerks awake, everything stinging but vastly improved, and finds himself on the floor in what looks like a basement lab in an old industrial area. "Olivia? Olivia!"

Olivia wakes with a start at the sound of Steve's voice, rolling to her feet the instant she realizes she's not where she fell asleep. But even just having woken up, with the room dark except for the light filtering in from the streetlights outside, she knows exactly where she is. The cold concrete under her bare feet, the reflections and silhouettes of lab equipment, the smell of chemicals and hay and cow, the soft sound of Gene breathing over in her corner...

"Steve?" she says quietly, without turning to look at him. "I don't know what I did or how, but... I'm sorry."

Because that's not alarming or anything.

He simultaneously calms and tenses at her words, reassured by her presence and suddenly a lot more concerned about where they are than he was even a moment ago.

"I don't understand," he says. But he does. That's the part that's making him feel sick. That's the part making some strange and distant piece of himself scream in building panic not again, not again, please not again.

"This is the lab at Harvard. This is where I was trying to go."

But she wasn't doing anything.

She takes a few cautious steps toward the stairs, listening carefully for any sign that there's someone here. Maybe Walter and the others were trying to pull her back too, but the lab's empty. Olivia has a feeling none of this is going to start making sense any time soon.

"Hello?" she calls softly, her voice echoing off the ceiling. The cow answers, but somehow that's not helping anything.

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