Chapter Fifteen : Trained to Kill

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     Ever since she started staying at the Avengers Tower, Valencia rarely left her room. Natasha would knock on the door just to check on her and make sure she didn't sneak out again and occasionally Steve would check on her as well. And every time they checked, she was still there just minding her own business and most likely avoiding the others. The only time she did leave her room was to go get food but she always went when nobody else was in the kitchen. Until she nearly bumped into the man who tried to strike her with his hammer. They called him Thor so naturally, she assumed that was his name.

     "I'll just come back later," she said as she turned around but the blonde man stopped her.

     "We haven't seen much of you for the last few days," he said and Valencia just shrugged her shoulders.

     "I didn't think any of you guys would wanna be around me," she replied.

     "Your victims may be a little cautious," Thor said and Valencia raised her eyebrows.

     "My 'victims?'" she asked, repeating the word he had chosen while he opened and closed his mouth like a fish out of water, not sure on what to say next. "No, no, it's fine. I would personally use the word 'targets' but 'victims' also gets the point across so who really cares?"

     "I do apologize if I offended you but I won't apologize for being honest," Thor said and Valencia just nodded.

     "It's fine. Completely understandable. Anyway, I'm gonna go get something to eat, which is why I came down here in the first place," she said as she walked away and headed to the kitchen.

     Steve, Natasha, even Tony told her that she could get food from the kitchen whenever she wanted but she still tried to avoid them. When she got to the kitchen, she looked through the fridge and the cupboards until she finally had her mind set on a box of Triscuits that happened to be on the top shelf. She had been stuck at five foot two since she was twelve years old and it was moments like this where she wished she was at least two inches taller. She grabbed a chair and stood up on it and was able to grab the box from the shelf. She got down and put the chair back and opened the box on her way back to her room. Once she was inside, she sat on the bed and chewed on two Triscuits at a time. As she was eating, she heard JARVIS in her room loud and clear and paused all movement.

     "Sorry to bother you, Miss Parrish, but Captain Rogers would like to talk to you in the conference room," he said and Valencia put the box down on the nightstand.

     "There's a conference room?" she asked as she stood up.

     "Of course. Would you like some help to find the room?" JARVIS asked and since Valencia didn't even know there was a conference room, she accepted the offer.

     Once she had the directions, she finally left the room. "Thanks, JARVIS," she said as she got up and left the room to head down to the conference room where Steve was probably already waiting for her.

     To pass the time while in the elevator, she quietly hummed the tune to one of her favourite songs that she hadn't heard in years. After a while, the elevator reached the floor where the conference room was and she immediately stopped humming when the doors opened. She headed down the direction that led to the room and when she saw Steve standing in a room with glass doors, she assumed she found the conference room but she didn't walk in. She stood right outside the doors and tried to think of why Steve would wanna talk to her in a room alone. Did he want to ask her more questions about Bucky Barnes? She already told him everything she knew. Could it be the fact that she was avoiding everybody like the plague? She had her reasons for that one. Before she could think of another reason, the door was pushed open and Steve stood there in regular clothing while Valencia tried to make it not seem like she was just standing right outside the doors while being lost in her thoughts.

     "You didn't get lost on the way here, did you?" he asked and Valencia shook her head.

     "So, what exactly did you wanna talk to me about?" she asked as she walked into the room and shoved her clammy hands into her pockets. 

     "I was thinking that maybe you could start training so we can send you out on a mission," Steve said and Valencia chuckled.

     "I did train," she said.

     "With HYDRA," Steve specified and Valencia simply scoffed.

     "What's your point, pretty boy?" she questioned with her arms crossed.

     "HYDRA trained you to kill," Steve said, putting emphasis on the last word.

     "Maybe that century old brain of yours needs a quick reminder that I am trained in hand to hand combat, I can assemble a rifle in thirteen seconds, I know where on the body to hit a person and make them bleed, I am skilled in using knives and I can do all of that with my bare hands alone. I don't need to use my powers, they are mainly used for defence purposes," Valencia said as she looked at Steve with a stone cold glare. "There is nothing you or your soldiers can teach me that I don't already know."

     "The difference between us and HYDRA is that our goal isn't to kill," Steve said and Valencia laughed humourlessly as she tossed her head back.

     "If there's one thing I learned, Cap, is that you can't save everyone no matter what you do or how hard you try. Yeah, HYDRA trained me to kill people and I did kill people for them and it was all to save my family. But guess what? I did all those things and I still lost someone. Shit happens and when the day comes where you have to kill someone to save the people you love, what are you gonna do?" she asked and Steve's shoulders dropped. "Even if the goal isn't to kill anyone, someone always ends up dead whether it's you, your colleague, your target or even just an innocent bystander."

     "So, if I send you out on a mission with a goal to locate something, will you just kill everyone in your path just like HYDRA trained you to do?" Steve questioned.

     Valencia simply shrugged her shoulders. "Why don't you send me out there and see for yourself, Captain?"

     Steve sighed, mentally cursing at her stubbornness but kept his cool as he told her what was going to happen. "There's a HYDRA research base in Sokovia so that's where we're heading. If you really think you can handle this mission with your past training, meet us at the Quinjet tomorrow morning at eight o'clock sharp," he instructed.

     "What happens if I don't?" Valencia asked.

     "You start training with Natasha as soon as we get back. And trust me, she will not go easy on you," Steve said and Valencia sighed slowly as his blue eyes burned right though her before he turned around and looked over his shoulder as he left the conference room. "I'll let you sleep on it."

     Valencia stood in the conference room alone with Steve's words running through her mind. One thing that stood out to her was that there was still an operating HYDRA research base even after they were exposed to the public. She could go there and help the Avengers shut them down, or she could stay behind and start training with Natasha when they returned. It wasn't like the second option was a bad idea but there was pretty much nothing they could teach her that HYDRA didn't already teach her. And she would rather not deal with it all over again.

     When she got back to her room, there was a folded piece of red clothing on the bed with a sticky note attached to it. She picked up the piece of paper and read the note that was written with a black Sharpie.

     Suit up.

     Valencia sighed as she crumpled the note in her hand and tossed it into the small metal garbage bin. She picked up the clothing and decided there was no harm in trying it on. All of the fabric was a dark shade of red and different from the suit she wore as a HYDRA soldier. She went into the bathroom to try it on and bit the inside of her cheek as she looked at her reflection in the mirror. There was even a holster to go around her waist and a pair of black boots and gloves. She looked back at her reflection and turned herself invisible and just like that, her reflection was gone. She turned herself visible again and changed back out of the suit and into her regular clothing. From that moment, her mind was officially made up. In the morning, she would be going on a mission to Sokovia with Earth's mightiest heroes.

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     The first thing Valencia did when she woke up was take a shower. Not like she slept very well to begin with since the nightmares still haunted her in the night. She sighed as she turned off the pipe and wiped the excess water from her face and grabbed the towel she left folded on the closed toilet seat. Once her skin was dry, she put on a pair of undergarments and looked at the tactical suit and gear just sitting on her bed. She swallowed thickly as she grabbed the red and black fabric and zipped it up to her neck. The suit was tight on her body just like the one she wore when she was an assassin. She pushed those thoughts out of her head as she put on the black boots and gloves that came with the suit. She pulled her hair back with her hand to see if she should put her hair in a ponytail like she always did when she was sent on a mission but decided against it and just let her dark hair fall against her back. She checked the time on the digital clock sitting on the nightstand and she had fifteen minutes to meet the Avengers at the Quinjet.

     "JARVIS?" she called out and the A.I. quickly responded.

     "Yes, Miss Parrish?" he asked.

     "You can just call me Valencia. But can you please tell me how to get to the Quinjet?" Valencia asked.

     "Of course," JARVIS replied and gave her the directions.

     "Thanks, JARVIS," she said before leaving the room to follow the directions he gave her.

     By the time she got to the Quinjet, Steve was standing there in his Captain America uniform and smirked when he saw her walking towards the aircraft. "You're three minutes early. I guess this means you made up your mind?" he asked and Valencia simply shrugged her shoulders.

     "Yeah," she said with a subtle nod.

     "I see the suit fits you perfectly," Tony said with his arms crossed.

     "Do I really need the gloves?" Valencia asked and Tony just nodded.

     "It's cold in Sokovia right now. You're gonna need them," he replied as he walked onto the Quinjet.

     Valencia sighed as she followed Steve onto the aircraft and observed all the equipment while the others got ready to take off. Once everything was ready, Tony got the Quinjet up in the air and Valencia watched the ground become farther and farther away. It was no different than being on a plane, except for the fact that regular planes didn't have all the equipment the Quinjet did. Maybe she could take this time to get to know all of them but there was still that part of her brain telling her that it was most likely not the time for a game of twenty questions. But as she was sitting against the wall, Natasha walked over to her and gently nudged her arm. It was a little hard to believe this woman could be deadly one moment and then very friendly the next, but Valencia wasn't that different herself.

     "I figured I should give you a quick rundown of who everybody is," the redhead said.

     "I already know who Steve, Tony, Sam and Thor are," Valencia replied.

     "Sam is one of the newer Avengers. We're the original ones, you could say since we were the ones who won the Battle of New York three years ago," Natasha said and Valencia simply nodded.

     "I remember that. Me and my family weren't affected but we could see it from our house," she said.

     "Well, the man with the archery equipment is Clint. He's deaf so don't be surprised if you try to tell him something and he doesn't hear you. He does use hearing aids so don't stress," Natasha explained while Valencia looked at the man standing with his arms crossed while looking at a screen Tony was showing him.

     "Got it," she said and Natasha continued.

     "Thor is supposed to be the God of Thunder. That hammer of his can summon lightning and it can also transport him to any of the Nine Realms," she said and Valencia nodded. "The realm he comes from is called Asgard and so did his brother Loki, the one who almost destroyed New York."

     "At this point, the simple fact that there are eight other realms doesn't surprise me," Valencia said as she shrugged her shoulders and rested her head against the wall.

     "Anyway, there's Bruce. He and Tony work on a lot of stuff together since they're both all science and math and all that mind melting stuff," Natasha laughed as she pointed to the man with the glasses.

     "He definitely fits the character," Valencia chuckled.

     "You wouldn't be saying that if you saw him as the Hulk."

     "Scientist in his free time, a big green monster when he's angry."

     "Bruce Banner in a nutshell."

     Valencia nodded as she watched everybody do their thing as Tony put the Quinjet on autopilot. Natasha stood up and pulled the dark haired woman up as well and they joined the others. Steve explained the plan on what they were going to do when they found the research base and how they were going to take HYDRA down. Valencia honestly thought they all got caught when their secrets were dumped on the internet yet they still had another location all the way in another country.

     "And Valencia, please don't kill anyone while we're down there," Steve said and Valencia scoffed.

     "I'm not gonna kill anyone. Maybe just a coma," she said as she shrugged her shoulders and everybody looked at her. "What? They're HYDRA!"

     "We're not killers, so no killing," Steve instructed.

     Valencia slightly tilted her head as she bit her bottom lip. "A little late for that, Captain Rogers."

     "Jesus Christ, Nat. She's starting to remind me of you," Tony said and the redhead laughed as she looked at the shorter girl standing next to her.

     "I don't see it," she replied and the others just laughed and Valencia stood there, not understanding why they thought it was funny. Natasha smiled as she tapped Valencia's shoulder. "Give it some time and you'll be laughing at dumb things like the rest of us."

     Valencia tried to smile back but it only came out as an awkward and lopsided one that the others couldn't even see unless they looked close enough. She ended up thinking about what Steve said, instructing her not to kill anyone. Even though they were HYDRA, she was going to have to do anything but kill them. It was kind of ironic. For the first time, she wanted to kill someone but she couldn't. Maybe she could just "accidently" shoot one of them in a major artery and let them bleed out. She almost smiled at the thought but frowned when she realized that even if it was an accident, they would all know that she did it and she would get lectured by Captain America. She was just going to have to suck it up and restrain herself from killing any HYDRA members, even though their whole organization ruined her life.