*I do not own the Avengers!*

This is a Captain America fan fiction set after The Avengers. Description: Florence Schneider has a bone to pick with Captain America, but S.H.I.E.L.D. has other plans for her.

CHAPTER 1: INVOLVEMENT

The young woman sitting across the table from Steve Rodgers was staring at him. It was unsettling that she was maintaining eye contact so long. Tony had told him eye contact for longer than six seconds meant that a woman either wanted to sleep with you or kill you. Steve was guessing the latter. To be honest, Steve didn't doubt that she might try to kill him. She oozed aggression. Her aura of toughness was backed up by the multitude of scars she had. Some of those scars were deliberate. Each of her cheekbones we decorated by a long white scar. He wondered if she did it to herself, or if someone did it to her.

She finally looked away from him, sneering. Then the door opened. It was Fury. Steve's eyebrows jumped at a realization. She heard Fury coming. "Rodgers, outside."

Steve stood and followed Fury into the room outside the interview room where they watched interrogations from a two way mirror. He wondered if it was actually cooler in there or if the girl was radiating heat. "Has she said anything?"

"No, I was told not to talk to her. Just to sit with her." He explained.

"That doesn't mean she didn't say anything, Rodgers," Fury rolled his eye. Steve felt a prick of annoyance. Why did everyone think he was slow? So it took him fifteen minutes to send a text. That didn't mean he was stupid.

"So, do you want me to talk to her?" Steve sighed. Really, he wanted to stop talking to Fury. Even the angry girl was a better option. 'Damn, I miss Coulson.'

"Yes," he said, stopping there, but it seemed like there was more to say. "She's been snooping around our computer files. Your files specifically. I want to know why."

"And I'm the guy to figure it out?" He didn't understand. He wasn't an interrogator.

"She's interested in your files. She's interested in you. Talk to her," he finished nicely. Steve sighed again. This was the last thing he wanted to do with his Wednesday afternoon. This girl probably wouldn't talk, that would upset Fury and he would pay for it later through Tony's teasing.

"Fine, but if she doesn't say anything, don't get pissed." Steve said, walking back toward the tiny interrogation room.

"I wouldn't dream of it Mr. Rodgers." Fury said over his shoulder as he walked away.

The girl was staring at the door, watching him as he came in and sat down. This time he smiled at her. She made an even worse face at that. 'Well, I'm not going to charm this one,' Steve thought.

"Hi, there. I'm Steve." He said evenly. Her light blue eyes, narrowed. She stayed silent. "And, your name is?" She glared at him. "They're not going to let you go until you tell me why you were playing in our computer files. So just fess up, and I'll see what I can do."

She didn't say anything. She just kept staring.

"Why were you digging in my files?" He asked. He seemed genuinely concerned. She noticed his body stiffened as she sat forward, beginning to speak.

"I wanted to know if you were involved in, well, let's say a certain… project. I didn't find the answer before SHIELD knocked down my door." Her scowl grew deeper.

"Well, I'm sorry about that. SHIELD tends to overreact. Now, what project are you talking about?" Since she said something, he was feeling far more comfortable. The conversation would start now. Maybe they could even come to some conclusion that left her smiling.

"The Manhattan Project."

Steve felt like he had swallowed his tongue. He had seen plans for The Manhattan Project in Stark's office once. Not sure what he was looking at, he asked Stark. Stark told him that they were plans for a bomb, a super bomb. Stark expressed his hope that there would end up being no use for them, but Steve knew intuitively that wouldn't be the case. Even if it wasn't used this war, it would be used in the next. This girl knew about the super bomb, and seemed to be extremely bitter about it.

"I wasn't involved in The Manhattan Project. Sorry. Why does it matter?" He asked cautiously.

She looked at him for a long time. A long time. Could he really not know? Could they have kept it from him? And why? Did they just want him to figure it out on his own?

"Do you not know?" She asked, feeling the edge of her anger wearing off. If he didn't know, how could she be mad? She waited for a response. "They utilized The Manhattan Project to end the war with Japan." She explained.

"What?" He asked, eyebrows knitting together, frowning deeply. "What are you saying?"

"August 6, 1945 at eight fifteen in the morning, the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan. It killed over one hundred thousand instantly and another one hundred thousand in the days following. There's a book written by a journalist named John Hersey. You should read it."

"Rodgers," someone was in his ear. It sounded like Natasha. "You okay?" Steve just nodded. "Do you mind if I join your interview? I have this wild idea."

"Can you take over?" He asked, voice cracking. He cleared his throat. The girl looked at him quizzically.

Natasha came in, passing by Steve she just barely whispered. "You should watch."

"Hi, I'm Natasha." She said warmly, sitting down.

"I remember you from my strip search." She growled. "What do you want?"

"I was listening to your interview with Steve and I realized why you're here," she said softly. The girl leaned back and smiled.

"Go ahead," she smirked. "Guess." There was no way this red headed stick figure would guess where she was from.

"You were in Hiroshima in 1945, weren't you?"

Every time someone said it, it made her heart race. There were so many sounds, scents, images that set her off. Her heart pounding, her vision swimming she'd remembered the noise, the smell, the fire, the panic grass and feverfew. Every time she saw smoke, caught a whiff of iodine or saw the flash of lightning she would fall into a spell that lasted for days. She had been on the edge of one since Captain America resurfaced. Seeing his face, seeing that stars and stripes outfit, made her stomach turn. She had become aware of Captain America just days before the bomb. He was all the West was talking about, and the Japanese were just discovering the super soldier's abilities.

"I saw your flash burns," she said. "I didn't recognize them at first, but when you mentioned Hiroshima…" Natasha's eyes were soft, but the girl couldn't say anything. "Why were you there?"

"I was part of a Catholic mission from Germany. That bomb ruined my whole life," she admitted. Steve couldn't believe it. Why was she so young? Was she like him? Was she a super soldier? "I watched my friends die around me that whole first year. Then I did it the rest of my life. The explosion… Changed me," she said in a breathy voice. "My burned skin hardened, scabbed over and then turned into a scar just after three days. I was twenty-two at the time. I still seem to be."

Natasha nodded. Neither she nor Steve doubted any of this. "Did anybody ever notice your special abilities?"

"I came to the Emperor's attention. He had me kidnapped and tortured me to find out my secret. I didn't know my secret. They thought I was lying. In frustration, they cut off my hands and feet. Obviously, they grew back. It took time, but they did. Growing them back was actually just as painful as losing them."

"How did you escape?" Natasha asked darkly.

"One of them let me go. He was surely killed for his actions, but he thought I was a god and didn't want to suffer my wrath. He let me out of my cell, gave me clothes, took me outside, pointed the way to Tokyo and bowed to me."

"Where did you go?"

"I went to South Korea. The hibakusha were thrown to many parts of the world, and I followed some others there. We were-"

"Sorry, hibakusha?" She said.

"Victims of the bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki."

'Jesus Christ, there was more than one!' Steve thought. He felt his chest tightening, tears flooding his eyes. 'Why Stark?' He couldn't imagine why. There was not a single reason for this. What were the Japanese going to do that was so bad?

The girl continued on about life in Korea and watching her friends age around her. Around 1980 she moved to Vancouver, then to England, and then finally Green Bay, Wisconsin in 2006. Then all the way up to Steve's resurfacing. "I haven't been able to breathe since I saw his face in the paper."

"It's funny how things get related in your mind," Natasha said sweetly.

"I was looking at his picture in the paper when I saw the flash, and then the nunnery collapsed on me, pinning my face against the paper. When the debris above me moved, the light fell on his face, and I saw it instantly as the enemy's face." She swallowed hard and looked down at the table.

"Nunnery?" Natasha put her hand on the girl's hand. The girl choked out an amused sound.

"I said the bomb ruined my whole life. Getting to South Korea wasn't free. I had to ask a wealthy man to pay for my trip. He wanted something in return…" Her voice fell off.

"Hey, it's okay. We don't have to talk about it, but I don't think Fury brought you here for a security breach in our computer system. In fact, he might have let you through the firewall as an excuse to bring you here. I think you're here because of your ability." Natasha explained. "Steve thinks so too, don't you Steve?"

He flicked on the light switch in the other room and nodded. Her whole body stiffened at the sight of him, but she nodded back. "I'm Florence Schneider. It's nice to meet you. It's nice to meet you both."

A/N: So, yeah, this. Please review. Tell me what you think!