paralyzed

"Welcome to the birthplace of hope."

Hydra Facility - January 12th, 2016

"STOP! Please--go get Pepper! Restart her heart! Please! I--I'll do anything--ANYTHING!"

Christa was kicking and screaming as hard as she could muster. When her already fiery, bullet-wounded shoulder violently hit one of her captors, she screamed out even louder. The image of Pepper lying there in that room in the darkness, red hair scattered around her head, was ingrained in her head like an ultraviolet light.

Left behind, supposed to be saved in Christa's place after a desperate attempt at escape. Only there because they had wanted Christa, and the only way to get to her was through someone close to her.

Someone close to her.

She strained against the HYDRA agents whose grips would not loosen, managing at moments to throw them off balance only for a moment at a time. They pulled her down the dark, narrow, dimly-lit hallway, the gloved woman less than a foot ahead of them, eyes ahead of herself but ears everpresent on the commotion.

"Take out the hearing devices," came the woman's voice from completely out of nowhere, catching Christa's attention more than most sentences would right now.

Panic shot through her as though she had swallowed a cube of ice. "NO!" she screamed, and went to hit the man whose arm was now reaching out to remove the hearing enhancers from her ears, but a rock-like hand closed around her wrist, making it impossible to move it even a centimeter. Mind going a million miles a minute, Christa lowered her head as the hand came closer to it and sank her teeth into it. She'd already been separated from Pepper in this hell hole--she wasn't losing her hearing again too.

In a moment not even Christa could have seen coming, as the man howled in pain, the gloved woman flipped around, pulled Christa's now freed arm into a locked and rather painful position, and ripped the hearing enhancers straight out of the girl's ears. It felt like a knife had just sliced through them, and she wanted to scream but the pain was so much that she couldn't. She tried, but, unable to breathe in that horrid moment, she couldn't scream.

And, like the day of the explosion--the day that everything went wrong-- the world went silent.

The woman pulled her hand back and stuffed the hearing enhancers in her pockets, not looking at Christa's figure, which was now hunched over, the only things preventing her from falling on the ground being the two HYDRA agents who now had much firmer grips on her. Then, face still frozen in a surprisingly inexpressive way, she ripped off one of her gloves and shoved it in a pocket with the hearing enhancers. In one swift movement, she grabbed Christa's face in the palm of her hand and held it there, cradled it almost.

The fire that started on Christa's cheek was indescribable.

It was searing. It was like dry ice. It was like a puddle of acid had just been thrown at her face and was being pressed into it by coals who had been home to a fire no more than a second ago.

And that wasn't the only thing.

Because now something very similar was washing over her.

Just like she had with Nathaniel, she was thinking someone else's thoughts.

Just like she had with Nathaniel, she was feeling someone else's emotions.

And just like she had with Tony Stark on the very day that they had met--the day that would lead her to the Avengers Facility and a faulty paternity test proven wrong, the day that would lead to an attack on a family who didn't need to be attacked, the day that would lead her back to him and the mysteries and pain that laid with the tragedy of the genius's life--she was hearing and seeing and feeling someone else's memories.

A dimly lit hallway. Yellow lights illuminating a black door labeled "Training Room A113." A gloved hand reaching out in front of her to open it, revealing a boxing ring and several punching bags hanging from the ceiling nearby.

The unsettling feeling of walking with no weight to her body, and seeing the training room become larger and larger. Taking a pair of boxing gloves from a locker buried within a row of lockers along the wall the door sat in the middle of. Stepping towards a punching bag, exchanging the gloves on her hands for the boxing ones.

Gathering her fists together as though about to punch.

And then a voice.

"Hey--ready for that rematch?"

It was Christa's mother's voice.

Like shooting up out of the depths of deep water after swimming under it for far too long, Christa came back to reality. She felt the pain come back to her like a knife, and thought she saw through the burning tears a hand leaving her face--and another face looking at her very, very strangely.

It seemed that all this had occurred in just a second, but... it had felt like so much longer.

And then, vision blurred as more movement came around her face, and more sharp pain could be felt going through her eardrums--inwards this time as her hearing enhancers were shoved back inside by the woman--she could hear again.

"Don't worry. Pepper will be fine. We still need her."

Christa could only gasp. It was like she'd been drowning but could finally breathe again--only to encounter the problem of water in her lungs to take the place of the breath she was trying to fill them with.

"I--f--for wha--" she managed to choke out.

"She will be fine."

Christa wanted to scream.

"She will not--can--she--not fine!" she spluttered, choking for breath. "If her heart's--heart's be--been stopped for this long, she'll be dead!"

She paused, breath nearly exhausted, heaving. She shook, and as she fully accepted what she'd been denying during this entire desperate struggle, her eyes screamed death itself.

"She's dead!"

The woman's eyes narrowed. "Know a thing or two about cardiac arrest, do we?" She straightened. The matter-of-fact tone of voice was jarring. "Fine. Her heart did not stop. She is merely unconscious. We lied to get you to get out of that vent and down to us.

"She will be fine."

And Christa fell quiet. She stopped struggling. Her muscles loosened. The tension had fallen.

She was suddenly so, so tired.

"Finally. I thought she'd never shut up," she heard come from one of the HYDRA agents. She could hear the smirk in his voice.

Lightning fast, before anybody could react, the woman's now gloved fist collided like an missile with his jaw.

The man stumbled backward, howling in pain, as the woman took a gentler grip on Christa. They started walking once again, lights beginning to flicker at their heels as they went.

- - -

Images of a sunlit barn amidst a field of green flashed across Christa's mind. In her mind, she reached out towards it. She craved the warmth that was there--the warm smiles of Clint and Cooper, the warm hand of Lila's in hers as the little girl showed her around the house, the warm arms of Laura as she wrapped her in a pain-drowning embrace.

Visions of Clint and Laura lying helpless in their hospital beds flashed in Christa's head.

And then, lying in a room Christa had never wanted to see the likes of again, came a flash of her mother.

And the world was cold.

"I'm glad you've finally stopped struggling. It would have hurt a lot more if you'd kept it up." As the door Christa had a feeling they were going towards came into sight, the matter-of-fact tone of voice of the woman entered her ears.

Christa was still dazed from her recent interactions with the HYDRA agents and the woman herself. And she had no idea what this woman was about to do to her. She had little energy to expend upon thinking about the possibilities. They were going to be too stressful to want to think about in the first place, anyway.

"What--"

The woman interrupted her. "Though, of course, it might go by more quickly if your heart rate is so elevated--so by all means, if you feel so inclined, begin struggling again. It'll only make things more efficient once we get there."

"Get wher--"

But Christa didn't even have to finish her question before it was answered. The four suddenly turned a corner, and she was shoved head-first after the gloved woman into a room whose door had just been slammed open. She let out a cry of pain as she was pulled back from hitting the ground head-on. She fell limp. She spat out, head hanging loosely down towards the ground and matted hair curtaining it. It took several painful moments to gather the effort to lift her head up and look around the place.

And that was only after the gloved woman spoke.

"Welcome to the birthplace of hope."

It was a room just as dark and dismal as the rest of the building--evidently the funding going into whatever the hell this place was up to wasn't that good, Christa thought with an echo of sarcasm--but there was something different about the place. It was like a laboratory of an evil villain in a movie, except a lot more realistic, and albeit a lot cooler. There was a lineup of equipment you'd only find in an evil scientist's laboratory, a few metal tables filled with the stuff, and of course an evil torture device. If Christa was being honest with herself, it looked really cool. The dark blue lighting may have looked a little eerie, but it was still cool.

And that was what made it even scarier.

"Fascinating what a mind can create, isn't it?"

The gloved woman had been staring at Christa curiously. The girl looked up at her, too tired to shoot back a clever comment.

The gloved woman started walking around the room, stroking the torture-looking device gently. "From the simplest of snares to the most complex of protective suits...." She looked up. There'd been a lilt of something Christa couldn't quite identify in her voice when she'd said the word "protective." "And yet, when needed most, nothing even close to what one truly needs. Even when a life is on the line."

Christa stared at her, mind trying to figure out exactly what she was talking about, as the gloved woman slowly walked away from the device.

"But brooding will get us nowhere. Lock her in."

Before the order had even finished, Christa could feel her heart rate skyrocket. It palpitated far faster than she'd like, especially considering the surprising calm that had begun to gently trickle into her body as the woman had spoken. She barely had time to register the two HYDRA members starting to pull her towards the torture device. She pulled against them, nearly started screaming again, but it was no use; she was strapped into the thing before she could say a word of protest.

As she laid down--diagonally--in the device, Christa felt a wave of panic go through her as her arms were strapped down so firmly she couldn't move them half a centimeter. Her brown eyes opened wide, and she wanted to scream. She tried. But something inside her stopped her. Her throat stopped up.

Even her vocal cords seemed to be paralyzed.

The HYDRA agents backed away, and the gloved woman stepped closer to the girl. "I am very sorry about all the restraints," she said, and the tone was oddly matter-of-fact--sympathetic, even. "We had to take some precautions, though, as I'm sure you'd understand. You've been quite prone to struggling. Though, of course, I can't blame you for that."

Christa stared at her. The woman was so... understanding, almost. As understanding as an evil child-abductor who'd stolen the identity of Pepper Potts could be, of course. Though maybe that was just to get the girl to calm down a bit. To get her to trust her. Christa had never encountered a real-life supervillain (and whoa), of course, but she wouldn't be surprised if this attempt at showing a sort of weird empathy was just a trick. She'd have to be on her guard.

"Oh, really? I'm shocked," she said sarcastically, voice low and weak. She gave a small cough.

The gloved woman gave a small smile, but otherwise offered no response. She began attaching what appeared to be a heart monitor to Christa. The girl shivered and winced as the woman pulled back her shirt slightly to attach the thing to her chest.

"Oh, dear, we'll have to give you something for that bullet wound, won't we? How badly does it hurt?"

Christa stared at her for a moment. "On a scale of one to ten? A shit-ton--thanks for asking."

The gloved woman just nodded slightly. "We have a bit of ibuprofen. I don't know why nobody has given any to you until now. I swear, no one in this place has any common sense." She paused for a moment. "I just can't give you any until we're finished with the procedure, of course. I apologize for that, my dear."

The woman finished attaching the heart monitor onto the girl, along with a few other attachments tracking something Christa wasn't sure of. Or maybe they were supposed to generate electricity. This thing did have the heavy air of a torture device, after all.

And then, the woman started hooking up a tube to the girl's arm. The panic started to grow just a little bit further--and the pain of the tube going into Christa's arm didn't help.

"Did you know that blood is a connective tissue?" the woman said absentmindedly as she did so.

"Actually, I didn't," Christa snipped back, reminded uncannily (and randomly) of Angus and his unwavering obsession with all things science. "Do tell me more."

"Funny--the irony, of course."

"You mean the irony of the iron in human blood?"

"How the connective properties of blood go beyond the biological and into the societal." The woman seemed to be ignoring what the girl was saying, still somewhat absently hooking her up to whatever system she was about to use on the girl. "'Blood runs thicker than water.' Of course it does. But how does one interpret that? As the extended version of the saying--'the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb'? Or what the shorter version says itself?"

The woman finally lifted her gloved hands from the tools she had just connected to Christa. Suddenly, her face scrunched up in agony, she leaned over, one hand to her mouth and one on her stomach, and began coughing horribly--hacking. Christa felt herself cringe a little inside. After several moments of this, the woman stood up straighter. She wiped the gloved hand she'd just coughed into on her top before wiping it on her mouth. There were specks of red there.

"Looks like you've got a little more than a societal blood problem, ma'am," Christa said, slightly shocked at the sudden coughing fit.

The woman stood up a little straighter, gathering herself together.

"That, my dear, is what I need you for."

Christa's eyes fell on a bag in front of her--the kind you'd find in a hospital, hooked up to a patient lying in a clean white bed. But instead of being filled with the clear saline solution, it was empty. And she was pretty damn sure it wasn't going to be empty much longer.

Because, as she'd finally noticed--having been distracted by the woman's words and sudden, desperate coughing fit up until now--thick red blood had started to creep from Christa's veins and into the tube she was hooked up to.

And, with a feeling of immense sickness in her stomach, Christa saw the first drop fall like dark rain into the bag.

"How much are you going to take?" she asked. Her voice trembled slightly.

There was a pause.

"As much as necessary."

Like a snake coming from a frozen river, Christa felt ice cold fear slither down her spine.

"Who the hell are you?" she said.

The gloved woman's eyes had fallen onto the bag with Christa--and now they moved to meet hers. A small smile crept up her face.

"Why thank you for asking, my dear. I apologize for not telling you earlier.

"My name is Jinina Kosakura. Some people call me Nightshade. But please, don't call me that--that's too formal.

"Call me Jin."