#steve rogers x hydrokinetic reader

Evil is Subjective Part 9 (Avengers x Villain!Reader)

Author’s Note: Hey guys! So as it turns out, I don’t do very well with quarantines! Sorry I haven’t posted in so long. I feel kinda bad I just let this story sit for so long. To those who asked to be on the tag list, first: thank you! Second: I’m not sure if it accurately tagged all of you. I tried my best but I’m not very good with technology so I might’ve made a mistake. Anyways, I hope you all like it.

Description: You wake up on the riverbank and have to decide what you’re going to do with a certain injured super soldier.

Part 1Part 2Part 3Part 4Part 5Part 6Part 7 Part 8

Everything felt fuzzy. You know, like when you’re channel surfing and there’s no connection, so the screen is just that fuzzy grey and black stuff while the speakers make that buzzing noise? Ugh, I hate that buzzing noise.

Slowly, I took a breath, just allowing myself a minute to let my lungs fill with air, and it felt simply amazing — like ecstasy but without the glow sticks. Unfortunately, though, it couldn’t last forever. I needed to actually do something, instead of just sitting there until the end of time. So, I very painfully forced my eyelids to open, taking in all of the blurry details around me. God, it’s like coming down from ecstasy, too.

Ok, so I was on the shore of some body of water, judging by the sound of water nearby, plus my drenched clothes and the pebbles digging into my back. Now just to figure out how the hell I got here. The last thing I remembered was the evil helicarrier going down. I shook my head and pushed away the memory, my stomach churning as I remembered James’s face.

I groaned and urged my aching muscles to work so I could sit up. The headache was absolutely splitting. I blinked the sleep from my eyes and glanced around to take in a better account of my surroundings, though there wasn’t much there.

Pebbles, river, trees, Steve…

I could feel a jolt spark through my chest as I saw him lying there, motionless. With shaky breaths, I crawled my way over to him, ignoring the sting in my knees and palms from all the pebbles.

“Hey, Rogers? C’mon, buddy, it’s time to wake up,” I said, my hands going to his shoulders to try and shake him awake. Oh god, this is all my fault. He must’ve been the one to pull me out. I’m the only reason he went into the water in the first place, and now I might’ve killed him. I almost threw up just at the thought. Quickly, my fingers ghosted over his neck, pressing down for a second just to make sure he still had a pulse. It was weak, but it was enough to send relief flowing through me the second I found it. “Come on, Rogers, wake up! Steve!” I was starting to get more desperate, my heart in my throat as I continued to shake him. I didn’t care how loud I was being, I just needed him to be ok. “C’mon, Steve, please just open those baby blues for me; say some stupid, righteous comment, anything! Just wake the hell up! Please!”

“Steve!” I froze. That wasn’t my voice.

I glanced at the line of trees, my entire body shaking. He was so close, he could easily find me. Instantly, every nerve in my body kicked into high gear, my instincts screaming that I had to run, quickly.

My eyes landed on Steve again. He needed help and fast. I gritted my teeth together and squeezed my eyes shut. I’d probably get arrested if I simply stayed there, let alone if I did something colossally stupid. Still, I just… I couldn’t bring myself to run. Well, I guess I always was pretty good at the insane and stupid side of things. 

I knelt beside Steve’s sleeping form and reached my hand out towards him, but I paused as I caught sight of how badly my fingers were shaking. The idea of what I was about to do made me sick to my stomach. I hated this. I felt like I was about to betray everything I believed in. Why did I even care so much? What had this righteous jerk ever done for me? You know, besides help me at every turn.

I groaned and shook my head, squeezing my eyes shut for just a moment in an effort to collect myself. I had to do this. There was simply no other choice. Once again, I reached out and gently wrapped my fingers around Steve’s neck. “God dammit, won’t you just die already?!” I screamed loudly. Apparently it was loud enough, because I could hear footsteps immediately start running towards us, and I quickly braved myself for what was to come.

I gasped as the man from earlier – the one with the mechanical wings – came into view.  His eyes sharpened as they met my own, and he immediately fell into a defensive stance. What was he doing here? Who even was he? I’d never seen him before, that’s for damn sure. He was exmilitary, that much was written all over his stance, and he clearly didn’t trust me. Maybe he’d seen the news recently. Of course, it could’ve just been the fact that it looked like I was choking his friend. Really, it’s a toss up if you ask me.

“Who the hell are you?  Get away from him!” he snapped.  His words shook me from my daze and sent my brain into overdrive. He wasn’t an avenger or a cop, so overall, this was a good thing. He’d be more hesitant to kill me if he was just a citizen. Of course, his obvious training wasn’t gonna help very much, but if I played my cards right, it wouldn’t have to come down to physical fighting.

I forced myself to stand, cursing softly under my breath at how badly my legs were shaking.  The fight against James – no, against the Winter Soldier – had completely drained me.  I had absolutely no energy left in my body.  Silently, I thanked my lucky stars that my obvious fatigue could actually work in my favor this time.

I smirked and lowered my chin slightly, letting a shadow fall over my eyes.  “Well, aren’t you a troublesome little pest?” I chuckled lowly.  I turned to face the blonde man with a sigh.  “It took forever and almost all my energy, but finally knocking you out meant I had a chance to kill the great Captain America.  What a pity your friend had to come and ruin the fun,” I pouted before dropping into a low crouch and placing a hand over his heart to reassure myself one last time that he was still breathing.  I sent him a quick, sincere smile before swinging my head back around to meet the now more than hostile glare of Robot Chicken, forcing my smile to drop into what I hoped was a sinister looking smirk.  Of course, whenever I used to practice my evil face in the mirror I always just ended up looking constipated, so it probably wasn’t all too menacing.  Still, it can’t hurt to try, right?

“Uncle Sam here-“ I paused a moment, my eyes immediately catching sight of how his muscles tensed just a fraction further. Was that his name, Sam? I’ll think about it later and just use a different nickname. “The Ultimate Frisbee Champ is still alive, but only just, so you may wanna get him to a hospital.”  I stood and stretched, trying to ignore the searing pain in my muscles.  “Whelp, I don’t wanna get arrested, so I think I’m gonna head out.  I’ll kill you guys next time, though, ok?”  I grinned and winked at him. The poor man was speechless, only able to stare as I skipped forward.  Our shoulders just barely brushed against each other while I passed.  “Fix him up for me, will you?  It’s no fun killing someone who can’t put up a good fight.”

I slipped into the cover of the trees nearby and watched as Birdman picked Steve up and carried him towards the nearby search party.  As soon as they were out of sight, I bowed my head.  

I didn’t have any other choice.  He would have questioned why Steve was with me.  Steve would have been in danger of being caught helping America’s current public enemy number one.

That’s when I finally realized what I just did. I really just played the villain. Sure, I’m sarcastic and a bit of an ass, but I usually don’t lie, especially about hurting people. I don’t consciously make people believe that I’m evil or that I want to kill them, with the exception of murderers and other scumbags. I shook my head in shock.  Since when did I care enough about him to worry about him being caught? And more importantly, why the hell did I care about him?  He’s just some schmuck I tricked into working with me!

Wait, that must be it!  If he was caught, I’d lose my connection inside the Avengers.  Of course I didn’t care what happened to him. That would be insane. All I cared about was helping myself against his teammates. That’s why I helped him, and that’s why I’m following his ambulance on a stolen bike — to make sure my tool didn’t die before he stopped being useful to me. That’s why I sat outside of his second story hospital room window for hours, barely balanced on a branch as I waited for him to wake up. That’s why I felt so terrified right now.

“On your left.”

My head snapped up, and I almost fell straight off the branch at the sudden noise. I felt like a severely uncoordinated squirrel as I crawled forward, but I quickly forgot about how stupid I must have looked when the hospital room became visible through the leaves. I couldn’t help the small smile that crept onto my face at the cheesy line, despite desperately trying to keep it off.

It took a while, but thankfully, the overprotective mama hen eventually left the room with the excuse of finding some coffee, giving me the precious few minutes I was waiting for.

Carefully, I stood up on the branch. The whole thing shook, which didn’t do much to help my overactive imagination that was currently working on picturing the sound my body would make when it hit the ground — I couldn’t decide between the sickening heavy thump and the more cartoonish splat. Carefully, I focused my powers on the latch to the window, gently unlocking it and pushing it open, all the while trying to ignore the burning in my lungs from overusing my gift. Then I took one last deep breath and jumped.

“(Y/N)?!” I quickly shushed the super soldier, gesturing wildly at the many, many soldiers stationed outside his hospital door. Steve glanced at the door before returning to staring forward, trying to act completely natural as the wanted woman squirmed through his window. “What are you doing here?” He hissed, doing his best to keep his eyes forward.

“I’m the stripper-gram you ordered,” I rolled my eyes, savoring the bright pink that spread across his face for just a moment as I plopped down on the cold hospital floor, gently shutting the window behind me, and shimmied my way over to the wall. Will messing with him ever get old? I highly doubt it. “I’m here to make sure you survived, dumbass.”

“Since when did you care what happened to me?” Steve scoffed.

“Oh, I am begging you not to flatter yourself right now, Miss America,” I leaned my head back against the wall from my seat on the floor that was just barely not visible to the guard stationed outside his door, doing my best to control my labored breathing. “I’m just here to make sure I haven’t lost an asset.”

Steve glanced at where I was seated with furrowed brows. “Are you ok? You seem a little out of it.” His voice was layered in concern.

“Of course I’m fine,” I snapped, my nails digging into my palms. Why was I acting angry? I didn’t feel angry. Granted, I’m not quite sure what exactly this feeling was, but I’d felt anger more than enough times to know that this wasn’t it. “Why should you care anyway? Why drag me out of that river? I’m just the girl who’s blackmailing you.”

“I didn’t drag you out; I thought you dragged me out,—“ wait, what? “—and besides, aren’t I’m just the guy you tried to strangle to death? So why exactly are you here checking up on me?” Steve snapped back. It was silent for a moment.

I chucked dryly and let my head fall back. “I’m guessing Mother Goose told you?” He nodded slowly, and I let out a big sigh. “And you didn’t even question how you were still alive, why I would give up my position like and idiot by screaming, or why I would even try to kill you in the first place.” It was more of a statement than a question, but his silence still answered everything. “I’m such an idiot,” I muttered softly. For some reason, it actually hurt. Seriously, what the hell was up with my emotions today? I still have at least another 2 weeks before I was supposed to start having these stupid mood swings. “Have fun recovering. I’ll call you when I need you,” I muttered, barely even believing the half-hearted promise to contact him myself as I wormed my way back over to the window.

“You know him don’t you?” Steve called before I could reach it. Images of the Winter Soldier both now and from all those years ago flashed painfully behind my eyelids, and slowly, I nodded my head.  “And he doesn’t know you?” I winced at the thought and let my fingers dance over my swollen, freshly bruised neck.  My free hand clenched so tightly my fingernails almost drew blood from my palm.  I couldn’t shake the image of him on top of me, his hand wrapped around my throat with his head turned away, refusing to meet my eyes. I nodded once more. I still remembered how Hydra worked — the process they put their most valuable weapon through. The taunt that soldier had jabbed at her long ago about ‘putting him back on ice.’ How many times have they wiped him?  How many times have they stolen his memories?

I grit my teeth and opened the window. I didn’t want to think about this. About how my only friend in that horrible place — the one who had protected me from them and who I left behind to just save my own sorry ass — was suffering because of me. Didn’t even know who he was because of me. Was being forced to kill people he once loved because of me.

“You’re wrong.” I frowned and stopped, my fingertips grazing over the window ledge. “He recognized you; I saw it. He looked away and let go for a moment. It’s the only reason I was able to get him off you.” My head snapped up, and I stared at the Steve.

He recognized me?

So then the person who dragged us out of the water must have been…

“James…” My own voice broke the silence that had surrounded us like a heavy blanket.

“He’s still in there. We can still save him.” I stared at Steve fully now. Maybe he was right. Maybe we could do this.

I let out a short, clipped laugh and shook my head.  “You really do get off on all that inspirational crap, huh, Rogers?”  I smiled ever so slightly and let my eyes meet his once more. “Alright.  Let’s bring him back.”

My Teddy.  I’ll find you.  I promise.

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