No strings on me (Steve x Reader) - Part 1

Footsteps echoed through the building while you were rocking yourself back and forward – eyes closed – feeling the cold nesting itself into your bones. A feeling you knew all too well. A sighed hum welled from your throat while a smile curled your lips.

    “I've got no strings to hold me down,” you sang, the words flowing from your lips without you even realizing it. As the footsteps grew louder you felt a soft laugh escape your throat. “To make me fret or make me frown.”

    “Shut it, witch!” an angry voice told you.

    Your eyes shot open when the guard hit the side of your cell with his gun, sending a clinging echo through the room you had spent several years in. You pushed yourself from the ground, slowly dancing on a melody only you seemed to hear.

    “I had strings, but now I'm free. There are no strings on me...”

    “I said shut it! Don't make me come in there.” The guard appeared in front of the glass wall separating you and bit down his teeth hard, showing you the gun he was carrying.

    You hadn’t seen him before, which could only mean he was new; untested. A smile curled your lips as you played with the seam of your nearly see-through white gown. In this untrained reaction he let his eyes go over your body. Yes, he was definitely new. You could see it in his hungry, brown orbs.

    “Oh, please do,” you whispered, your voice sending shivers down his spine.

    You joined him against the wall, teleporting yourself from the dark side of the room, towards the faint light coming through the glass. You could see the man swallow hard; a hint of fear in his eyes.

    “I will make you rip your own throat out...” you smiled in a hiss, seeing a shocked expression creeping onto the man's face.

    “Good to see you haven't changed,” a different voice called out to you.

    “Captain,” you spoke, keeping your eyes on the guard for a few seconds longer, before turning to the man you knew better than he knew himself and who had been coming here every month for the past few years. “I've missed you... You rarely visit me anymore,” you continued in a sweet tone. “What is it? Have you found another?”

    The handsome blonde appeared before your cell and smiled at you. The same smile he gave you every time he came to visit you. A smile of sorrow, regret and pain – pain you had caused. It was almost as if he was telling you, you had become everything you had never wanted to be... But you couldn’t change who you had become and neither could he. As best friend to Loki and sister to Amora and Lorelei, you had been burdened with their 'glorious purpose’.

    During Loki’s attempt to claim Earth as his own and plunge it into chaos, you had been there by his side. You were a powerful enchantress, just like your two sisters. You could play with the minds of men, teleport and cast spells. Unlike them, though, you had the power of visions as well. Powers you had used to wreak havoc for as long as you had had them. You had once tried to be like the Captain – good – but you had learned long ago that trying never made things so.

    “I haven’t come in a while, because you refuse to do what you promised,” Steve replied.

    “Hmm,” you mumbled, turning away from him as you started dancing again, waving your arms gracefully in the air, twirling your fingers and turning your wrists slowly. Like you used to do to cast your spells. Only now, inside the Odinforce barrier, most of your magic was taken from you. Punishment for what you had done on Earth together with Loki.

    “I don’t have time for games, [Name], and neither do you.”

    “Time?” you laughed, teleporting yourself towards him, back into the light. “Steve, darling, we have all the time in the world. You and I could do so many great things together… Don’t you remember?”

    The super soldier swallowed hard, indeed remembering how you had played his mind and tricked him into thinking he loved you. Love you could sometimes still see in his eyes. Love that had tricked him into telling you everything. He had almost given you exactly what Loki wanted: Earth.

    “No,” he lied, clearing his throat. “If Thor had taken you back to Asgard together with Loki, you’d be dead right now. You know the Asgardian laws. Odin would have given you a traitor’s death. 'Don’t you remember'?” he said in your tone of voice, countering the uneasy feeling you were trying to bestow upon him. “You agreed to stay here to give us information we needed to prevent being attacked again,” he continued seriously, “but you’ve giving us nothing but riddles.”

    “Do you dream, Captain?” you asked, locking your eyes with his and looking into his deep-blue orbs.

    “What?” he frowned, crossing his arms and quickly evading his eyes from yours. You could only guess at what was going through his mind. “What does that have to do with anything?”

    “Do you ever wonder how your dreams start and how they end? Or how you always seem to forget the most important parts? My visions are like that. I cannot see what you ask of me, simply because you wish me to,” you continued more seriously. “A vision only shows me a glimpse of what might be, not what is or will be. I can control the future as much as any other, Captain. I have done what you and your Avengers asked of me. I am not to blame if you don’t wish to listen, or simply cannot see.”

    “Then make us see,” Steve replied almost desperately, laying his hand against the thick glass separating you.

    “I cannot make those who choose to be blind see,” you sighed, shaking your head, seeing the sorrow and pain return in his eyes. “You of all people should know that.”

    He nodded, seeming disappointed. “I came here to help you, but I–”

    “Help me?’ you interrupted him with a laugh, breaking the one serious moment you had allowed yourself to have for the past few years. “The time has long since passed for anyone to help me.”

    “I also came to say goodbye,” Steve continued.

    “Goodbyes are so final,” you shrugged, laying your hand against the glass right on the other side of his. Tapping the surface with your fingers, staring at the space between you, you tried to hide your disappointment. “You never know what might happen in the future.”

    “Maybe, but if you're not willing to tell me what that is, there is no point in me coming here. They assigned someone else to come visit you. You won’t be seeing me again,” he stated, turning away from you and walking back into the hallway.

    “Oh, but I will,” you smiled, calling after him as you seated yourself on the cold floor, back in the shadows. “I always do…” A foreign laugh welled from your throat and you closed your eyes, humming along to a melody that was only in your head. It echoed through the room even though you knew it wasn’t real.

    “I've got no strings to hold me down. To make me fret or make me frown. I had strings, but now I'm free...” you sang slowly in a voice that wasn't your own. A merged voice so old and heavy it made Steve turn his head as he walked out of the highly secured and hidden facility in Norway.

   “There are no strings on me...”