When everyone else finished their lunch and began to stack up the dishwasher, I followed them, staying quiet and keeping to myself with my thoughts still swimming through my head.

"What do you plan on doing now Emily?" Asked Tony as I moved towards the stairs. I paused, biting my lip nervously before I slowly looked up at him. Immediately, his words from the conversation in the frosted glass room filled my head and I struggled to push them away.

"Probably just read." I softly said and Tony's eyebrows furrowed slightly, causing my heart to jump nervously.

"We haven't shown you the library." He reminded me and I blinked before smiling softly.

"Then I'll probably just keep unpacking." I quickly corrected, giving him a quick smile before I darted back up to the stairs, hurrying away before they could question me about anything else. I was normally quite a good liar, more than once my life had depended on it, but it felt like Tony saw straight through my lies.

When I reached my room, I quickly opened my door and darted inside, shutting it behind me before I let out a heavy breath, resting my head against the door. After a couple of seconds, once my heart had calmed down a little, I stepped away from the door and walked over to my bed, sitting down on it heavily. I looked down at the bracelets on my hands and fiddled with them.

"JARVIS?" I said quietly after a couple of seconds, still looking down at my hands.

"Yes Miss Emily?" Came the AI's reply and I took a deep breath. I knew that what I was about to do was probably... not the best thing I could do in my situation, but I didn't have many other choices. I just couldn't be caught because if I was, goodness knows what would happen to me.

"What files do you have on me?" I said softly, trying to swallow back my nerves. I knew there would have to be files on me somewhere, HYDRA had a massive data base so surely the Avengers would too.

"I had many Miss Emily." The AI replied after a couple of moments of silence. "Would you like me to bring them all up?"

"Yes please." I nodded and a couple of seconds later, projections filled the air, similar to the ones in the Med Bay, but this time I could actually read them. The one closest to me had a bunch of different folders on it, all labeled different things. My eyes quickly scanned over them all, several titles jumping out at me until I found the one I wanted. I hesitantly reached out and tapped on the folder of the projection that said 'Project Aim', half expecting my finger to just go straight through the projection. However, to my relief, the folder flashed blue and another projection appeared next to it, causing my eyes to immediately dart to it.

Проект: Б12 (Эмили)

Пол: Женский

Возраст: Неизвестно

Рост: 152 см (5 футов 9 футов)

Вес: 40 кг

Клиент: Сафак (фамилия неизвестна)

Статус: одобрен

Цена: 2,400,000.00 ₽

Оплата: завершен

Передача: 2 года 7 месяцев 5 дней 29 минут 15 секунд

I blinked, rubbing my eyes as I tried to get my brain to process the Russian letters, which wasn't hard since I had spent my whole life surrounded by the Russian alphabet. As I looked back at the projection, I managed to translate it all.

Project: B12 (Emily)

Sex: Female

Age: Unknown

Height: 152cm (4'9ft)

Weight: 40kg

Client: Safak (Last name unknown)

Status: Approved

Price: ₽ 2,400,000.00

Payment: Complete

Transfer: 2 years, 7 months, 5 weeks, 29 minutes, 15 seconds

The countdown at the end of the file kept loosing seconds and for a moment, I watched them slowly tick away before I slowly dragged my eyes back up the file, immediately sticking to one spot. Safak, who ever that was, had paid 2,400,000.00 rubles for me. I wasn't particularly good at maths, despite the fiddling the HYDRA scientists had done with my brain, and they punished me for it. But I knew that it was at above at least 30,000 US dollars. Whoever the hell Safak was, he must be rich, and I must be something specials for him to want to pay that much for me.

"JARVIS?" I spoke up after several minutes of silence. "Do you have anything on Safak?" The name was foreign on my tongue, whatever weird stuff HYDRA had implanted into my brain couldn't recognize it as any language, meaning that he... he was from somewhere other than Earth.

"Not much unfortunately Miss Emily." The AI replied. "I am unable to find any computer records, newspaper or journal articles on him anywhere, even on the HYDRA data base. However, I have found that he is from a planet called Titan." That didn't mean anything to me but I nodded, staring at the projection in front of me before I stood up.

"JARVIS, can you go back to all of the files?" I asked, the projection with all of the information about me flicked back to the other files. I looked through them again before clicking on a file laybelled 'Testing'. Several new projections branched off from the main one and I was suddenly surrounded with all different projections of notes written in Russian, hovering mid-air next to videos.

All of the videos started to play at once, and I realized after a couple of seconds, all of them had me in them. In the horrid white tiled room, chained to the floor instead of the hooked up to the machines. In every video, there were scientists surrounding me, most of them with clipboard. In some videos, the chillingly familiar figure of Strucker or Zola would approach me, speak or yell at me in Russian before injecting me with different liquids. It was horrible to watch myself suffer, I would thrash around in the chains, screaming at the top of my lungs as all of the scientists watched on.

Other videos had me being kicked or beaten by other agents, blood pouring out of my mouth, nose, anywhere they kicked. I could hear the snaps of my bone through the videos.

Everywhere I spun around, there were videos of me being tortured and beaten. My screams and the thuds of boot hitting my skin echoed in my ears, drowning out every other sound around me. My eyes blurred with tears and all of the videos became unfocused as I spun around, trying to find a way to escape. To escape my screams, to escape the torture, to escape my past.

"Emily." A voice called out, sounding far away and disorientated. I wasn't even aware I was falling until I felt myself hit my bed, my shoulder knocking hard against the frame as I fell to the ground. My heartbeat was pounding loud in my ear, creating a tempo for my pained screams in the videos.

Or were the screams real? Was I screaming now? I couldn't tell.

My throat was tight, so tight it hurt. It hurt to breathe. My lungs begged for air but I couldn't breathe. Something grabbed me and I pulled away sharply, feeling Zola's rubbed gloves on my arm and Strucker's nails digging into my skin. My head hit the bedpost hard, filling my vision with stars.

Or was it a wall? Was it the white wall of my cell? The one that had been splattered with my own blood too many times to count?

Strucker's hand grabbed my arm again, pulling me towards his warm body and I thrashed to get away. My hair fell across my face, sticking to my tear-stained cheeks. Something warm trickled down the side of my head. I could smell the blood, the metallic scent too familiar. My throat tightened even more and Strucker gripped me tighter, just causing me to thrash around. My vision was still covered by tears, I couldn't make sense of anything. I couldn't tell where the door was, I couldn't even really tell where Strucker was. As I thrashed around, my hand hit something solid, causing me to cry out in pain as I felt the bone snap. Strucker's hand grabbed my arms and pinned them to my side, limiting my movement. I decided to try and kick out with my legs instead, writhing around as I tried to get my foot to hit Strucker anywhere, but I wasn't successful. My head was beginning to pound and my heartbeat was still pounding in my ears. The screams had long faded away, but I could still hear them ringing in my ears.

My bare feet kicked something else solid, quite hard, and I screamed out as the pain rippled through my whole foot. Strucker pulled me even closer to him, his chest against my back with his arms wrapped around my chest as he pinned my arms. He wrapped his own legs around mine, further limiting my movement. I tried to thrash around, but he was too strong and I was too weak. Knowing that if I continued to resist him, I would end up with a horrible punishment. Instead, I fell against him, falling still. My chest was heaving, my heart pounding so hard it felt like it wanted to escape. Tears were still rolling down my cheeks, my hair sticking to the side of my face, and the left-hand side of my forehead still dribbling blood.

"Я уступаю." I whispered, my throat sore. I must have been screaming. "Я уступаю." Strucker still didn't let go of me.

"I yield." I repeated, this time in English, barely able to speak without choking on my words. "I yield." Strucker finally let go of me and I scrambled away from him, rubbing the tears from my eyes before I turned back to look at him.

Only it wasn't Strucker, but Loki.

And I wasn't in my cell, I was in my bedroom.

Back at the compound.

"Loki?" I sniffled, wiping my nose with the back of my hand. "What... I thought... what happened?"

"You... you had a panic attack." Loki replied, sitting up a little from where he was leaning against the bed. "JARVIS called me in." He nodded up to the projections still hovering in mid-air. "That doesn't look like unpacking." My eyes darted up to the projections and I immediately looked away again, rubbing the tears from my cheeks. There was a flash of green next to me and I looked over to see a box of tissues hovering in mid-air.

"Thanks." I looked at Loki before pulling out one of the tissues, wiping away the tears on my face and blowing my nose. Once I was finished with them, they disappeared into thin air again.

"Are you okay?" He asked softly and I swallowed the lump in my throat, trying to calm my pounding heart and trembling hands. I took in a deep, shuddering breath and nodded, clenching my hands tightly.

"What were you doing Emily?" Loki asked quietly.

"I..." I hesitated, looking down at my bracelets and wiping a stray tear that leaked out of my eye. "I heard you guys before, downstairs before lunch." His body stiffened slightly out of the corner of my eye and he sat up a little straighter.

"How much of that did you hear?" He asked slowly.

"From the part where Tony said I wasn't a danger." I replied quietly. "That HYDRA is ." Loki sighed heavily and looked away, I couldn't tell if he was angry at me or just worried.

"Emily-". Loki began after a long pause, but I cut across him.

"Don't." I said softly, shaking my head, and looked up at him as he looked at me. "I already know. I am the danger."

"No, you're not." Loki shook his head immediately, shuffling closer to me, probably to comfort me but I turned away from him, causing him to stop.

"Yes I am." I sighed, looking down at my bracelets with hunched shoulders. "I thought I was only being used by HYDRA, just as an experiment, but... they created me for someone else, someone probably more dangerous. Someone who is going to turn me into a monster."

"Emily." Loki said sternly. "You are not a monster."

"Yes I am." Tears began to prick in my eyes again. "I can control fire, fire that can turn a complete human into ash in barely a second. Fire that can tear down whole houses cried. Fire that is clearly going to be used for a bigger purpose, and I doubt it will be for something good." Tears rolled down my cheeks again and I turned away from him more to hide them from him

"Emily, listen to me." He said in a gentle but firm voice, shuffling closer to me until he was sitting next to me. "You are not a monster. If anything, I am the monster, you have no idea what I have done. What HYDRA did to you is not your fault. People are only monsters because of things they have chosen to do, you didn't get a say in what they made you. So don't you dare think for a second that you are a monster, because you aren't. Okay?" I nodded slowly, still facing away. Something white appeared out of the corner of my eye and I moved my head a little to see another tissue floating in midair. I sniffled and reached out for the tissue, wiping away my tears before it disappeared into thin air. I took a deep breath and looked over my shoulder at Loki, keeping my eyes down.

"Thank you." My voice cracked slightly and I swallowed before trying again. "Thank you, for coming up."

"It's okay." He smiled softly, pausing before he spoke up again, his voice becoming serious. "Look at me Emily." I slowly looked up at him as he spoke again. "I am serious. Don't go around thinking like that, it will only lead you to dark places. You are not a monster. Forget about everything you have seen on the files, okay? At least try to. We are sorting everything out." As he spoke, the projections disappeared from the air.

"But what about Safak?" I asked quietly. "Who is he? Will he come looking for me too?"

"That's not anything you need to know right now." Loki sighed. "And to be honest, we don't know much about him either. But please Emily, don't stress youself over this. We are sorting it out." I nodded, but I knew I would be stressing over it for a little while, at least.