Title: Right Through Me
Summary: When most of your life is spent living in the background, it can be a bit intimidating to be thrust to the forefronts of a dramatic narrative. Luckily, Tamika Maihi is a self insert, so you can trust her to always recover from a tragic backstory. — SI, gen.
Rating: M
Words: A lot.
Warnings: Really graphic torture stuff, hooboy.
Disclaimer: Disclaimed.
It is a thundering summer night in Whakatane when Tamika Maihi is born. She has her father's green eyes and nose and her grandfather's dark hair, but her brown skin is a trait that reaches far back into her mother's side, is apart of a tree whose roots run deep.
(Her dad cries when he holds her in his arms. Her two older brothers scramble to meet their new younger sister. Her eldest brother, she is told, falls in love with her instantly. Her second older brother, she finds out for herself, never quite outgrows the sharp spike of jealousy he feels looking at her baby face.)
For a short moment, she is the family's pride and joy. Their sweetheart, the only girl, the smartest and most well-behaved child yet. It's a point of celebration. There's no doubt in their minds that she'll go somewhere in life.
Three years later, her little brother is born.
Tamika loves him the minute she lays her eyes on him; remembers the rise of rapture in her chest vividly when he grabs her finger in his tight grip, the swell of protectiveness as he garbled and spoke to her.
Her two older brother's were thicker than thieves; there was no room for her in their camaraderie, but for the first time, three-year-old Tamika, with her hand on his chest feeling the rapid thump-thump-thump of baby Erik's heartbeat, doesn't care.
Let them share their clothes and their jokes and their private smiles. She has Erik now.
Her mum is on maternity leave but she never seems to have enough time on her hands, between babysitting her nieces and nephews and raising her own kids, so Tamika does her best to ease the load. She babbles with Erik, teaches him his family roots, rubs his back when he's tired and sits dutifully whenever the bubba falls asleep on her. She's a good older sister. She's the best there ever could be.
Of course, while bubba Erik's first word is "what," his first name is hers.
Tamika is a Good Kid™. She likes to learn, and never complains when her dad gives her a book and asks her to be quiet; he works all day and she figures he could use the peace and quiet. She is well-written and polite. She's athletic, always in the Top Three during cross-country and is exceptional at high jump. Her parents never need to scold her. This gives them more energy to focus on the fact that her eldest brother is failing all his classes except physical education.
Tamika's family is… complicated.
Her eldest brother is Willmarr, named after her father's grandfather, who fought and died in the second world war. Tamika has seen pictures of him. She privately thinks that great-granddad Willmarr looks like her maths teacher, Mr Blake. who is stern and mean and gross. She doesn't much like her great-granddad, but her dad maintains a strong hero worship of the dead man, so she keeps her opinion to herself.
(When doesn't she?)
Willmarr—her brother Willmarr, not the war hero from 1945—is born colorblind, which is and always will be a shame because he is a very good artist, and he often sketched Tamika's face for her when she asked. Tall and stoutly built, he hands out smiles like candy. He enjoys laughing — has a high pitched giggle that charmed all the teachers at school — and does anything for a quick buck. He isn't academically gifted or particularly athletic, but everyone agrees that he's a sweet kid.
And for the longest time, Willmarr's dream is to be a pilot.
(He wasn't aware that he was incapable of this. The adults knew about it, whispered about it behind his back, but no one actually wanted to say it to his face. When she found out herself, she thought keeping the truth from him was the cruellest thing in the world.
His hopes have surpassed the sky by the time Tamika gathers the courage to tell him that pilots can't be colour-blind. He stares at her blankly for what feels like an eternity before he stoically turns and disappears into his room. By the next hour, all his model planes and helmets are dumped unceremoniously in the trash. He doesn't speak to her for weeks. To her, the world has ended and she is cowed into a guilty silence by the disapproving glares everyone gives her.)
The older one of the middle children is named Liam, and he's always been the tallest, the most handsome, of all of them. When he's young, he has a horrific stutter that's worsened with his habit for mumbling. Willmarr is the only one who can understand what he's saying, and acts as a translator for the rest of the family. It isn't until Liam is eight that they all realize that he is deaf in one ear.
Unlike Tamika, he doesn't have the brain for grammar and punctuation. Also unlike Tamika, he is a wizard with numbers. This is an aspect of himself that is shoved aside by something supposedly even better.
You see, Liam is also a natural in rugby league.
He's actually so good at it that everyone tells him that he'll have no trouble going pro if he keeps at it; and because rugby players don't need to know algebra, Liam forgets his interest in mathematics to dedicate his time training in his chosen sport.
(Nothing has ever expected anything of Liam, so no one is surprised when he barely graduates from high school. The only thing he has going for him is his rugby — never mind that his natural skill for maths was never nurtured because of the same people ridiculing him for it now.
Tamika sees it early—the damage that they have done to her brother, his resentment over the fact that they were so sure that he was dumb that they fooled him into believing it—and so, she can't get mad when he mocks her for getting straight A's.
Let him vent, she thinks as he balls up her report card and throws it in the bin, who am I to stop him?
She stays quiet; disappears into the wall and pretends she isn't there.)
When she is ten years old, she is sitting between her parents in the car. Her dad is driving. He's arguing with her mum, but ten year old Tamika is used to it by now, so apart from the instinctive response of fear that came with having people yell around her, she's hardly worried.
Until things veer sharply off course. Her mum says something to get a reaction, her dad descends into furious German ramblings, and then he lashes out to punch her.
But he forgets that Tamika is sitting between him. He has forgotten that she is there entirely. He hits her instead.
Until that point, she'd never been so much as touched in a way she didn't like—it's a jarring change, and she exists in shell-shock as her mum bundles her up and carries her away. She has an ice pack pressed to her bruising cheekbone and her little brother Erik clinging to her side, crying silently. Tamika's body doesn't even feel solid at this point, she feels as if she may sink through the floor.
Her mum is frothing at the mouth. She keeps on saying, I should have left him years ago.
This is a pivotal moment of Tamika's life.
After that incident, Erik grows attached to their mum's side like he's trying to become her fifth limb. Their dad never hits Tamika again, but Erik still grows wary in the presence of him regardless. His eyes grow wide in fear whenever Tamika and their dad are alone in the room together. He's scared of violence, and he always has been, so when he leaves Tamika to her (—always, even though he never hits her again, it is always—) uncertain fate, Tamika wishes she could be surprised. She isn't.
(Her dad never apologises for hitting her. He's too proud for that. Instead, he gifts her a bulky computer, some new clothes and the book that she asked for a year ago as an apology, and goes around saying that she is his "favorite child." He tells her about his rocky marriage with her mum, whispers about how horrible a person she is until Tamika is firmly on his side. Erik, who has been getting the same treatment from her mum about her dad, steadily grows distant from her. They have chosen their sides. It is not with each other.)
Tamika is the one who never needed for attention when she was younger, who was presumed to never want for it. She was smart, you see, and athletic, and she could take care of herself. She didn't need someone breathing over her neck, so she never had one to do it. She is the grey areas, just another piece of the wallpaper, a perfectly empty doll. Only ever the center of attention when she's the butt of the joke, which is coincidentally the only time they remember she's there.
The girl who is nothing more than a ghost until her parents need to gossip about each other to her, and then she's suddenly their favorite child. So while it may look like she's the kid who's loved the most, truth be told, she's probably liked the least.
When her parents finally divorce, it is 2011, and her dad has been promoted. His work wants him to move to Eastern Europe. The pay is so good that he'd be a fool to let the opportunity pass by, so he takes it, gets a quickie divorce, and buys two tickets to Sokovia.
Tamika is thirteen and skipping school by the weeks when he offers her the second ticket. Her mum watches the exchange with tears running down her face, sobbing into her hands, while Liam shakes her head in the background and whispers, don't go with him.
But Tamika is thirteen, see, and she's started high school and it isn't nearly as great as she was told. She has two friends who like each other more than they like her, three brothers closer with each other than they are to her, and parents who never see her until it's too late.
See, Tamika is thirteen and tired.
And as her mum sobs but does not tell her to stay, as her brothers cry and sniffle and glare at their shoes but do not speak up, Tamika makes the decision to put herself first. She grabs the ticket and packs her bags.
(Liam helps her with her suitcase as her dad gets into the truck. It's 2am and freezing cold, so he gives her his over-sized flannel coat and doesn't say a word about it. The others wait at the doorstep, silent like they're in mourning.
She closes the trunk and refuses to meet his eyes, but despite her best efforts, she can't pretend that he isn't crying. He's being quiet about it but he can't stop sniffing.
When he speaks, his voice is small and thin. It isn't a tone she's ever heard on him before. "Don't leave." He mutters, just like he used to do when he was a kid. He meets her eyes for a fraction of a second before he looks at his shoes. "It isn't too late to change your mind."
Tamika has never been encouraged to speak her mind at the expense of others. There is something in her body blending her insides, and it's odd, because her stomach is turning and her throat is clogged but her blood runs cold and her bones are like steel. She is heavy with the grief of leaving her family behind but her heart feels hollow. She is both the chaos and the calm. The feelings conflict and turn her brain to mush. She doesn't have it in her to be self-conscious about her words at this point.
She hunches in on herself. "What's keeping me here?"
Liam looks hurt. He keeps his eyes on the ground. "We are," He says in a strained voice. "Us. Your family."
"And if I stay? What then?" She knows that after the novelty of her remaining wears off, things will go right back to the way they were. Perhaps with more animosity, at best. If she leaves, she will not be able to feel their resentment with the oceans between them. If she turns back and lets that plane take off without her, she will forever be the pariah.
"Don't worry, Li," She rubs her nose and steps away, eyes burning but face stony. She wants to cry but her body won't let her. "You won't miss me much."
And the only way she could say that without breaking down was because it was true. He was good at ignoring her when she was there; it would be the easiest thing in the world to do it when she wasn't.
And so, in a few short hours, Tamika and her father board a plane to Sokovia.)
Tamika is introduced to her father's new boss a month after they settle down on a Tuesday.
His name is Baron Von Strucker, and he is in the business of miracles.
He tells her that she will do her father proud. He tells her that she will become a superhero. He tells her that her sacrifice will mean her father's rise to glory, and as a dutiful daughter, she should be honored that he volunteered her for the program. She would become his prized possession if the experiments succeeded.
She doesn't know how to say no to a man who lies so easily to her (and she knows he's lying, she has spent her entire life watching and observing so she knows a liar when she sees one) so she simply
doesn't.
Tamika looks over her shoulder as two men march her by her elbows into the next room and sees her dad staring at her with a proud, slightly anxious smile. He gives her a thumbs up all the way until she disappears behind the corner.
The men escorting her don't speak or look at her, and Tamika's never been the type to act unprovoked, so the trip is taken in silence. They take her to a shower block and push her under one of the shower heads. They cross their arms and stare.
Tamika knows what they are waiting for, and her entire being shies away from it. She curls in on herself, feeling sick and cold, but they don't move a muscle.
"Strip." One says when the silence stretches on too long. "And shower."
No. It's her first thought, small and weedy. If she said it out loud, the guards might laugh at her.
"Hurry up," Says the other, looking annoyed with her. "We don't have all day."
It suddenly sinks in that they're speaking German. It's an odd thing to notice but Tamika latches onto it, the oddity of the workers speaking German in Eastern Europe, where the languages are Slavic in nature, and focuses her mind onto it with an intensity she usually reserved for reading.
"Now!" The first one shouts impatiently and Tamika, trembling and embarrassed and crying, jumps to it. She strips and washes off under the warm spray for two minutes before the shower turns off without her consent, and her watchers shove pajamas into her arms. Shaking, she puts on the plain grey pajamas, which stick awkwardly to her wet skin.
She's ushered into another room where there is a medical team waiting. All of the doctors are occupied with patients dressed in the same pajamas as Tamika, trembling and looking out of their depths, when it sinks in.
This isn't an honor at all, thinks Tamika with a lump in her throat. We're going to die here.
One of the handlers behind her pushes her shoulder and points at a doctor whose patient has left. "There. Go."
Tamika doesn't want to at all, would rather stay in this spot forever and melt into the walls until they forget she's there, but she catches a glimpse of a gun on one of the men standing next to the doors and she moves.
She walks over and sits stiffly in front of the doctor, who immediately takes some of her blood. "Name?" The doctor asks, and they sound like a she, which is for some reason very jarring. The medical mask covers most of their face but looking closely, yes, those are feminine eyes.
Tamika barely manages to choke out her name loud enough.
"Age?"
"T-thirteen…"
"Any medical conditions?"
"Uh… i-irregular heart b-beat."
The questions continue until the doctor writes down a complete medical record for her. Tamika has stopped trembling by the end of it, but that doesn't mean she's calmed down. If anything, she's even worse. Her muscles are locked together and she's sitting in this chair in front of a normal doctor under fluorescent lights, and there isn't a single weapon or a pair of hostile eyes on her, but she is so certain that she's going to die that she can hardly breathe.
Did her dad know? She wonders as the doctor dismisses her and a handler approaches her to herd her into another room. Did he have any idea what he was doing when he volunteered her? Was this the company he'd really been working for for the past thirteen years?
It feels like someone has thrust a knife into her stomach and twisted it. The betrayal is hot and ugly and so overwhelming that the tears are an angry, abrupt thing.
She is taken to a large cell filled with people all dressed like her. No one looks up at her when the cell door is unlocked. When she doesn't immediately enter, she is pushed in by the guards. She stumbles awkwardly over her own feet as the door slams shut behind her.
Someone looks up at her, sees her red eyes and chubby cheeks, and smiles sardonically. "Not what you were expecting when you volunteered, huh, kid?" She speaks in stilted English.
"I… I didn't volunteer…" She replies. She manages not to sob. It's a weak victory, when her chest starts to concave. "I don't want to be here."
The person winces emphatically. "That's rough." She says, shrugging, and offers no words of comfort. Tamika stares at the lady in horror, but the lady is no longer concerned with her. She's tipped her head back and is tapping her hands against her thighs in a beat.
Tamika inhales sharply and picks a spot to sit and curl in on herself. She buries her face in her knees and prays for for someone to get her out of here. There is no way this is good. She wants to leave. It was a mistake to leave New Zealand. She couldn't have ever imagined this is what awaited her in Sokovia.
It wasn't supposed to be like this.
She clamps both hands over her mouth as her body is racked with sobs that she feels in her bones.
Sokovia was supposed to be their big break. It wasn't supposed to be—
An arm drapes around her shoulders, startling her. Tamika looks up and meets the brown eyes on someone who can't be older than sixteen. She has curly brown hair and smudged makeup running down her face, likely from the quick shower she was forced to take. She looks concerned, and speaks to Tamika is a language she knows enough about to recognize as Romanian.
"I don't… I don't speak that… English? Do you speak English?"
The teenager tilts her head and frowns, shaking her head. She says something in Romanian again, before blinking and switching gears. She speaks in another language that's either Spanish or Italian, Tamika doesn't know a thing about those languages, before sighing when Tamika continues staring blankly.
Tamika wipes her nose and asks in German. "Do you speak German?"
The girl jumps and nods. "Ja!" She grins, pleased, and try as she might, Tamika can't return it. "Are you okay? Why are you crying?"
Tamika hesitates. The reception she received from the last lady was less than encouraging, and the teenager beside her seemed much too happy to be unwilling. Tamika had the impression that most if not all of the people in this cell volunteered for this opportunity. How horrifying.
But the teenager stares at her in open concern, not through her or around her, and her arm is solid around Tamika's shoulders. Her body is solid. She is real. She is awake and this is happening.
God, what did she do to deserve this?
"I did not volunteer for this." She whispers. "My dad brought me here. I do not know what is happening. I am afraid. I shouldn't be here."
"You are unwilling?" The teenager looks owlish. "How did your father force you into this? You are clearly a foreigner." She gestures to Tamika's dark skin and shrugs. "How are you here?"
"We moved from the south for his job. He took me to work saying that his boss wanted to meet me, and then I was forced into participating."
The teenager scowled. "He deceived you. Manipulated you. That is disgusting. He is your father, you said?"
"Yeah…"
"Where is your mother?"
"In our home country with my brothers."
"Will they not look for you?" She asks. "You are their family. If you do not contact them, they will worry."
"I don't think so…" Tamika clenches her eyes shut and sighs. "We didn't leave on the best terms, my family and I. They will resent me for not contacting them but they will not stretch their necks out for me."
"Truly?" She seems appalled. Tamika shrugs. The teenager purses her lips. "That is unacceptable! And they call themselves your family? Bullshit! If you do not want to be here then you should not be here!"
"I can't leave now that I'm here." Tamika says as the cell door opens and another brunette girl enters. She is here of her own volition, Tamika realizes, it's obvious in the confidence of her walk. "I asked. I'm here to stay." She lies, but as far as she's concerned, it's the truth.
Gut instincts tells her to keep quiet. Pleading to be let out will not help her case.
The teenager looks like she wants to yell about that. Tamika can't imagine that's a good idea. She asks quickly, "You volunteered?"
"Yes." The teen answers. "I am to be apart of an experiment to restore Sokovia to glory and assist in the war effort against the Americans anyway I can." She grits her teeth together and spits something out in Romanian. "The Americans took my family away from me. Hydra promised a way to avenge them. My little sister…"
"Hydra?"
"That is the name of the agency we are trusting with our lives." She says succinctly, nodding. "Hydra. They are — "
"I know who they are." Tamika cuts off before descending into mute horror. She is a well-read young lady, passed history with flying colours. She knows exactly what Hydra is.
Her dad is a Nazi?
She thinks of great-granddad Willmarr who died a "war hero" in 1945. Of her dad's hero worship. Of the portrait of her Nazi great-grandfather sitting on their living room wall.
She feels sick.
"I'm going to die here…" She whispers for the first time out loud. The teenager frowns, not understanding her English. Tamika feels all sense of her body disappear as she succumbs to the numb horror. "I'm going to die here."
"What?" The teen shakes her head and huffs. "Oh, did I not tell you? I am called Helena. What is your name?"
She offers a half-hearted response as the severity of the situation begins to process in her mind. "… Tamika."
"It is nice to be introduced to you, Tamika, even though your unwillingness makes it less than ideal."
Tamika isn't listening. Because for the first time in her life, she has realized…
… that she hates her father.
She will go to her grave hating him.
(She doesn't know, but as soon as Tamika is taken out of sight, her dad is taken behind the chemical shed and shot in the back of the head. He was emotionally compromised. They couldn't trust him to remain loyal to them after he found out the true experiment, so they didn't risk a leak and put a stop to it before it could even begin.
Truth is, years later, Tamika isn't the type of person to even care.)
Helena dies in the first phase of testing.
Tamika writhes and pulls at her leather straps as liquid fire tears through her body and loses track of time after the third day of pain.
Baron Von Strucker visits her personally, smiling proudly. "The first time is always the worst." He tells her, stroking her arm.
She twitches like she's been electrocuted. There is a mouth guard stopping her from talking, put there to stop her from biting off her tongue. She can't stop making pathetic wounded animal sounds. Her sheets are soaked with sweat and she can't feel her body.
Helena died, but Tamika is not so lucky.
She gets her second injection. Her howls scrape her throat with its ferocity, and she swallows blood until she's choking on it.
The injections don't do anything to alter her cells the way Strucker wanted. 68% of the subjects had died, and the remaining 32% wish they had been so lucky. He moves onto another batch and experiments with another way of achieving his desired results.
Tamika huddles into the corner of her cell, covering her ears as tortured screams ring out from all around her. Her palms are flat against her head but the screams don't get any quieter.
It takes her a while to realize it's because the screams are just as loud in her head.
She can't escape them at all.
Tamika is starved while another group is fed heartily with nutritious meals to see if the sceptre's approach towards human biology differs from its usual attack, possess, commit suicide based on diet.
Tamika is one of the few who survives the experiment. She is bedridden with night terrors so vivid that she wakes with blood on her neck from where she scratched at her invisible captor.
They feed her porridge with strawberries and peaches.
Because of their experiment, she can't keep it down. It's a small thing in the bigger picture of it, but as she struggles to choke down oats and fruit, it is the thing she cries the most for.
Intense grief is theorized to open the mind to greater, darker influences. Tamika watches as starved, haunted prisoners are escorted into a lab one-by-one, followed by a gun shot, followed by screams of grief, and then screams of anger. Sometimes they're carried out of the room, empty-eyed and unable to support their own weight.
If they're lucky, they don't come out at all, and die with the loved one Strucker executed in front of them.
77% die.
Electrotherapy is employed on the older members.
48.22% die.
The children are next.
89%.
Women are 73.8% more likely to survive exposure to the sceptre than men.
Over fifty people die. Tamika wonders where Strucker gets all these people—if all of them are volunteers, or if they're ignorant children who trusted that their parents wouldn't ever hurt them.
She wonders if it matters anymore.
Mental disabilities are tested for their malleability.
10% die.
He cuts off a few limbs.
50%.
Physical illnesses. 25%.
Strucker thinks that the sceptre needs to be in direct contact with a mortal wound.
100%.
Physical fitness. No results.
Which basically means no one dies.
Tamika is escorted back to her cell and lives to see tomorrow. She cries when she wakes up, and doesn't notice until her pillowcase is already half-soaked.
She hopes Liam still plays rugby.
Resolution is tested. 100% of the adults die, as do all of the children.
The experiment is not without results. Results show that people between the ages of 16-25, particularly women but with a few odd men, are most likely to survive. Strucker theorizes that it is because their resolve is still strong. The older are tired and old; they're spineless after a bit of isolation. Once the children are disillusioned, they lose hope quickly.
But the young adults have lived a life often split down the middle with good and bad experiences. The battles they fight to win are still fresh in their minds. They are spry and realists, cautious in their hope but young enough to still aspire for dreams.
The sceptre likes the ones who struggle.
(…you have heart…)
The first success is a blind twenty-two year old girl named Elle with one leg. She'd joined the program with both, but Strucker had seen to that early on.
The sceptre gives her the ability to change her hair color. It's worthless, and she's executed on a disappointed Strucker's orders. Her death isn't in vain for the scientists however. Elle is their first scientific success after all.
A young physically disabled woman survived.
The doctors change a variable and bring in a variety of young mentally disabled women.
All of them die sans one, and unlike Elle, the abilities granted to her by the sceptre aren't party tricks. She can manipulate energy in an ability similar to telekinesis, as evident by the explosion that happened in the lab when the sceptre took to her mind. She destroys the workshop in an instant, screaming all the way, before she's knocked out cold.
Out of courtesy, they test her twin, a boy with ADHD, and are overjoyed when he survives. He suffers a seizure on the table that turns out isn't a seizure and is just him moving around too fast for the human eye to catch smoothly. They tranq him and set him up in a cell beside his twin sisters' and move onto the rest of their subjects, optimistic about the results.
They're widely disappointed. Even with their subject pool narrowed down to the most compatible humans, all of them are rejected by the sceptre. Tamika hears them scream for days before she's picked up herself.
The walk to the lab is a familiar one. She doesn't make it easy either, forcing the guards to carry her by her arms as she refuses to walk, no matter how much they threatened to kick in her ribs. Escaping and resisting is futile, but she can't let them beat her mind into submission. They won't take that from her.
She's strapped down onto a table that reeks of fear and blood. It's almost definitely inside her head because the room is cleaned thoroughly after every death. Or maybe she has superhuman smell and can sense that sorta thing. What does she know? After this hellish two years, anything could happen.
The scientists murmur between each other as they set up the equipment and carefully manoeuvre the sceptre, presented on a glass stand, in front of Tamika's table. They leave her to go into the observation room with the one-way mirror. There is a short silence before there's a hiss of air and the airtight case containing the sceptre slides away.
The sceptre's blue gas lights up like firing neurons. It sways in the still room as if a gust of wind has rippled through it before it goes still. Tamika watches it and flares her nostrils, swallowing nervously. Like a predator spotting its prey, the gas crawls towards her. It approaches tortuously slow. Tamika wonders what it will show her this time.
When it is not causing her unimaginable sensations that are purely psychosomatic but no less painful for it, the sceptre shows her her worst nightmares.
Sometimes it makes her dream of an empty void that swallows her whole and dances under her skin, whispering and cackling and singing a dark song. She feels the sensation of that dream for days afterwards, and the rest of her nights until her next interaction with the sceptre are of the same sequence, over and over and over. It is so unsettling that she's eager to return to the sceptre and get a new nightmare.
Anything is better than that dream.
The gas engulfs her lower body and crawls up her chest, heavy like skeleton fingers dancing across her skin. The gas quickly flattens out across her body and covers her from head to toe. For a moment, it hovers gently on top of her skin, lingering like an intrusive thought that won't go away.
Tamika takes a deep breath. Give it your best shot, you piece of shit, she thinks vindictively, staring straight ahead at the ceiling. I'm strong. I won't let you bully me.
As always, she thinks of her father, and a flare of hate makes her blood reach boiling point.
At that moment, the gas abruptly groups together above her heart, twists around itself like a bad storm, and sinks into her.
Tamika screams with all that she is worth. The pain is intense and white hot, and it's a continuous type of torture that Strucker himself struggles to achieve. The sceptre's magic claws itself under her skin and breaks her ribs squeezing itself around her heart, and it's like she's been poisoned, like there is fire in her veins, and her body fights its restraints in a futile attempt to throw her enemy off of her. However, the magic is inside of her, and her nose bleeds as her body flickers between a pain it hasn't ever experienced before and complete numbness.
Fuck you, she thinks hazily as she howls her grief to the empty room. The sceptre is insulating itself into every individual cell and godfuckfuckpleasestop
it's
aGoNY
too much too much too much
get out of m e
sTOp loOkINg AT M E
im tired are you listening anymore im tired let me go just let me die
death would be a relief let me die
aGoNY
fUCK YOU i WILL see my bROtHers aGaiN JUST TRY AND FUCKING STOP ME
A ND T HEN—
…. nothing.
Tamika opens her eyes to see the world washed in a muted grey. She pulls at her restraints and meets no resistance. She feels disconnected from the world around her as she looks around the room. She's still in the lab, she can tell that much even if it looks like an old black and white picture. She dreams of that chair. She would recognise it anywhere.
The room is suddenly flooded with frantic scientists, bewildered and stunned as they search the chair she had just freed herself from. The leather straps that restrained her were still intact but looking down at her raw wrists, she knows that she broke out of them somehow. If not by tearing them apart, then how…?
And that's the exact moment Baron Von Strucker walks into the room and right through her.
She gasps, eyes bulging as Strucker shivers and barks orders, demands answers from his team.
No one can see her. Everyone is looking straight through her, like she isn't even there.
It's like she's a…
Oh, god.
She's dead, isn't she? A ghost?
Tamika puts a hand over her mouth and sobs in joy.
"Thank you," She whispers to whoever had listened and freed her. "Thank you, thank you, I'm finally dead, thank you—"
And then she is reintroduced to the devil's sense of humor, for the abnormal monochrome bleeds out the world and the scientists in the room gasp.
They're staring straight at her.
The normal washed out whites and the muted grey vision flicker in front of Tamika's eyes fast enough to give her a headache. She groans and strains her raw throat, raising a hand to her throbbing head. Her stomach flips and rolls.
Baron Von Strucker stands in front of her, a glint in his eyes as he reaches out to put his hand on her shoulder. It flickers in and out of tangibility right under his fingertips. He gasps softly in wonderment and whispers, "Amazing."
God, the reverence with which he says it could make her sick.
"You have invisibility," He notes as her body flickers between smoky, opaque and not-there-at-all. His hand nearly falls through the empty space her shoulder used to be before it quickly solidifies again. "And intangibility. Another success, another miracle, this is… the possibilities are endless. The opportunities in espionage alone are remarkable!"
"Herr Strucker? Is she stable?"
"She will be." Strucker replies confidently. "Prepare the cell beside the twins. Bring in the next subject. We, my friends," He inhaled deeply and exhaled in breathless satisfaction. The headache throbbing behind Tamika's eyes is clawing its way into migraine territory fast. "are going to create an army of miracles in no time."
Four guards flank her and reach to manhandle them between her. Their hands fail to find purchase.
Strucker tilts his head. "Will we have to make a collar for you, I think."
The next few months are from the eighth circle of hell itself.
It is 2015. It's been 4 years since she moved to Sokovia. She has either turned sixteen or is about to. After her, Strucker doesn't succeed in creating more enhanced individuals.
It is 2015, and she wears a collar like a dog to keep her powers from acting out without the permission of her owners.
Despite it all, Tamika refuses to work under Strucker. She won't kill anyone for him, and she spits in his face every damn time he asks.
"Go to hell." She gasps as soon as her head is out of the bucket. She struggles for air and she's so dizzy she feels like one foot is already in the grave, but dammit, this is something she will not budge on.
He has taken everything from her except this—the freedom and right to think and choose and continue to maintain vigilant with what few principals she has left. He can cut into her body and destroy her mind but she won't give him her soul.
"Last chance." Strucker snaps impatiently. "Take this assignment."
People will die. She can't be apart of that and they can't make her; their collar grounds her to their dimension, but it can't activate her powers. That ability remains hers.
She plants herself like a tree, looks him in the eye and says. "No."
Strucker sighs, and her head is dunked again.
"Why are you here?" Asks Wanda Maximoff. "You aren't Sokovian. You are not here to fight for your country or get revenge. What do you fight for?"
Tamika fiddles with her nightgown. "Myself."
Wanda raises her eyebrows. She stands on the outside of Tamika's glass cell, voice coming through the intercom. She's likely here in an attempt to manipulate Tamika into being Strucker's puppet, but she hasn't made a move to do anything of the sort. For the past hour, she has been asking questions, trying to discover what motivates Tamika.
"You fight for yourself?" The idea seems to unsettle Wanda. Understandable. As a twin, the only time she'd been alone was that twelve minute time lapse it took for her to join her brother outside their shared womb. "Why?"
Tamika shrugs and smiles without humor, says tightly, "Well, no one else is going to do it."
"It is a certain worry of theirs," Wanda says once, "that you will slip your collar and escape the facility."
"Yeah?"
Wanda nods. "You're capable of it, I know you are. Your abilities make you uniquely suited for it, in fact. They're waiting for you to make an attempt. They believe it will happen any day now."
"Who is 'they'?" Tamika asks, staring blankly at the wall. Wanda's silence is unimpressed with the question. Both of them know who they are. "The answer to your question isn't anything special. I'm not planning an epic escape or whatever. I'm not leaving."
"Why?" She frowns. "If you do not want to be here, why won't you run?"
"Got nowhere to run to." Tamika confesses, before pausing and adding. "The people I left behind are better off without me. It's that simple."
"You're young, yes?" Tamika nods. "You are too young for your eyes to look so old, I think. You are a husk. You need purpose." Wanda steps forward and places her hand gently on the glass of the cell. "We can give you something to fight for, Tamika. Something bigger than yourself. If you let us…"
"No thank you." Tamika tilts her head back to stare at the cracks in the ceiling. She taps her fingers on her thighs in a random beat. "I don't want to work for bullies. My mum raised me better than that."
Wanda huffs and dismisses Tamika with a shake of her head. "You're too stubborn." She lectures Tamika heatedly. "You are not seeing the truth as it is. Hydra, Sokovia, Strucker, we are not the enemy. We are the victims of the Americans, fighting for our right to live. There is meaning to it; more than there is sitting in an empty cell in a dirty nightgown, reading the same book for the rest of eternity!"
When Tamika sullenly keeps her silence, Wanda purses her lips and tries again. "You should take action—" she stresses before Tamika opens her mouth and cuts her off.
"I don't want to fight any wars. I'm fine reading the same Vaclav Havel book until I die." She smiles tightly in Wanda's direction. Wanda does not look impressed. "It's a pretty good book."
"Strucker will leave you to rot, Maihi. He would rather have you die slowly and painfully than risk you falling into enemy hands."
"… Uh, how did that one phrase go again? Umm… 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend'? Whatever it is, that's what I'm banking on." Tamika wrinkles her nose and brings her knees up to her chest. She rests her chin on her knees and stares at the wall again. Her desire to continue talking is disappearing. She wants to go back to sleep. "…'m not fighting for Strucker, Wanda. You can't make me."
"I could." Wanda disagrees. Tamika goes tense in preparation for a mind-whammy. She doesn't know how she'd hold up against an attack like that. Wanda hasn't ever made an enemy of Tamika before, and her powers are so unpredictable that Tamika might not get out of trouble by phasing through it.
"I could make you, but I will not. I need not. You will come to see reason on your own, and be a more reliable ally for it. I'm sure of it."
Tamika sighs and purses her lips. "Don't hold your breath."
"You just don't know when to give up, do you, Miss Maihi? God's righteous woman?"
"I j…just don't l-like… bu…bullies…"
"Cute. Reach capacity voltage. I don't want to hear anything like that from her again."
Your name is Tamika Maihi. You are in a Hydra base located in Sokovia. It is the year 2015. You are sixteen years old. You will not kill anyone.
Your name is Tamika Maihi. You are in a Hydra base located in Sokovia. It is the year 2015. You are sixteen years old. You will not kill anyone.
Your name is Tamika Maihi. You are in a Hydra base located in Sokovia. It is the year 2015. You are sixteen years old. You will not kill anyone.
"Why do you resist? What drives you to deny me?"
"Don't touch me!"
Your name is Tamika Maihi…
"You must get very lonely…" Wanda mutters as she watches Tamika scratch another knots-and-crosses game into the wall. Her wall is full of tiny games just the same. "I cannot imagine how you are staying sane."
"I'm not." Tamika answers shortly, drawing a circle. She connects three. At least sixty other games have been won the same way. There are only so many ways to win. "Are you going to try and recruit me again?"
"… No." Wanda sends a surreptitious glance over her shoulder. "I want to get to know you."
"It's been months and suddenly you're interested?"
"Pietro asked me yesterday if your birthday has passed or if you are still waiting to celebrate. It occurred to me that I don't know when your birthday is. Truthfully, I do not know much about you at all. I intend to fix that."
"That's nice of you," Tamika remarks as she draws another game into the wall. "My birthday is on the thirty-first of May."
"Then you are still fifteen years old." Says Wanda, looking unsettled as she speaks it aloud. I know, Tamika wants to say, it is a rather young age, isn't it? "It is only April."
"April?" That was the month of her mother's birthday. "Past the twenty-second?"
"No, it's only the seventh. Why do you ask? Is that date special to you?"
"Not really. Not in here, at least." Tamika glances at Wanda and sees the young adult watching her curiously. Her eyes look softer than usual. She really is here to learn about Tamika, it isn't an elaborate recruitment tactic at all. How… unusual. What changed? "When is your birthday?"
"Pietro and I were born on the tenth of May." She smiles surprisingly warmly. "Same month as you."
"Who's older?"
"With me and Pietro?" Wanda tilts her head.
"Mmm." Tamika nods.
Wanda frowns. "Does it matter? We're twins."
Maybe so. "Will you tell me about Pietro?"
"I thought we were going to talk about you today."
"Talking about anything is great, but my life was boring. You and Pietro are different, I think."
Wanda's eyes go sad again and she nods. She's wearing that same outfit that she always does; the skirt, the thigh high socks, the red cotton shirt and black cardigan. Tamika wonders if she simply likes the style, or if those are the only clothes she has.
"Pietro is my best friend." Wanda tells her, eyes glazing over in thought. Tamika settles in to listen. "Me and him, we share a soul. Even before Strucker's experiment amplified it, I could always feel his presence in the back of my mind. It buzzes. When he is sad, I am sad. When he is angry, I am angry. We know each other intrinsically. Me and my brother are two halves of the same whole. This has always been the case. It used to… to drive my mother insane because we would…"
Tamika thinks that she would like Pietro if she were to ever meet him.
"What about your family?"
"I think they forgot about me. I've been here for four years. I'm glad they don't know me now."
"Pietro would like to meet you. He says that you would make a nicer little sister than me, the blockhead." Chuckle, rolled eyes, she isn't upset at him at all.
"Yeah? Tell him that he sounds like a good older brother. I wouldn't mind having him… and you." Surreptitious glance. Nervous. Why did you say that, idiot?
Surprise. Flushed cheeks, bashful smile. "As an older sister?" Am I projecting the hope on her face?
Shrug. "Never had one before. 'D be cool." Look away, look away, don't let her see how much it'd mean to you.
Look anyway.
She is at her prettiest when she smiles with her teeth. "I'd love to have you." Is she kidding?
Oh.
Oh.
Stop crying, she doesn't want to see that.
Your name is Tamika Maihi. You are in a Hydra base located in Sokovia. It is the year 2015. You are sixteen years old. You will not kill anyone.
Your name is Tamika Maihi. You are in a Hydra base located in Sokovia. It is the year 2015. You are sixteen years old. You will not kill anyone.
Your name is—
"I'd rather die!"
"Careful, girl. You may tempt me too much for me to control myself next time. You, over there, pass me that—yes, that. It's been a while since I've used a whip. It's a bit of a medieval punishment, no originality to it at all, but you've worn me down."
—Tamika Maihi. You are in a Hydra base located in Sokovia. It is the year 2015. You are sixteen years old.
"Last chance…"
You will not
"… work for me."
not
"No."
"Very well. You, tie her up on that pole. I need to see her back for this."
k…kill… kill anyone. You will not kill anyone.
Your name is Tamika Maihi and you will never stop fighting him.
Truth is, you will die first.
.
Crackle of intercom. Wanda is here? She is late. Glance over. Apologetic face. Blink, surprise, betrayal, fury. Schools it quickly but you caught it. Tight smile. "Pietro told me what happened. Ten lashes?"
How long will it take to heal? Your body regenerates faster than average but still…
"… mmm…"
"I—I'm sorry, that should have never…" Swallows something down, clears her throat, flattens her hands down her skirt. Her face is red with... anger? "How do you feel?"
You are tired.
"Like I just got whipped."
You want to sleep through the entire day. Let time pass without you. That would be kind.
"How about… mentally?"
"I'm tired, Wanda." Will she understand how deep of a statement it is? "I want to sleep."
"Yes, of course. Well," Swallows. "I'll let you rest. I will come and check on you when I can."
Ah, she didn't get it. You want to feel upset about it. You don't have the energy. Say hello to Pietro for me, you think. You don't say it aloud.
She leaves and you sleep sleep sleep.
(You keep on waking up.)
You miss your birthday. You don't realise until Wanda apologizes for not giving you a gift.
"Oh. It's okay."
"The doctors would not allow me to visit you. They still believe that I am trying to recruit you and they did not believe I was doing a good job, so they wanted to stop the visits. I convinced them to let me stay."
"Good…"
Furrowed eyebrows. "Are you okay, Tamika? Your back has healed, hasn't it?"
Your back…? Oh. Yeah. "It has."
Confusion. "Then what is the matter?"
What is the matter?
"Are they not feeding you properly?"
Sigh. Don't look at her, she might see something she isn't ready to know. She looks healthy. They take care of their compliant asset.
Good.
"Just tired."
"But… you're always tired."
"… I know…"
Too bad, huh?
"лапочка!" You jerk. Open your eyes. Is that Wanda already? "Tamika, wake up, hurry!"
Roll out of bed, catch yourself low on the floor. Look at the glass. Who is the one with the silver hair?
"The base is under siege, this is your chance to leave!"
Leave? "But you don't want to leave. What will you do?"
"I will fight." Sternly. "But you can leave. With us."
You will have to follow this line of thought afterwards. Now, there isn't time.
How will you get out?
Touch the collar. Silver hair raises his eyebrows cheekily. "Got that covered, little sestra." Clear throat. Says clearly, "отбрасывать." Russian?
Click.
OH GOD
The world goes grey. Inhale freedom. Captivity no longer compresses your skeleton.
Walk through the cell, you are a ghost, wash the grey away, color between the lines. Wanda's red shirt is brighter on the other side of the cell.
The silver haired boy is tall. You are two centimeters taller.
He scowls. It looks like Wanda's.
He has her chin.
They are so warm.
"Pietro?" It must be. He nods. "You are shorter than I was expecting."
"And you are taller than Wanda told me." Raised eyebrow. Small smile. He isn't upset. "Nice to finally meet you."
"Is it?"
"Wanda never shuts up about you, so yeah, I'd say so." Claps his hand on your shoulder. Jump, flinch back, his eyes go wide, then narrow, then dark. "I knew they were not kind to you. This is why we refuse to stand with them."
Them?
"Later, Pietro." Wanda. Telegraphs movement: let her take your hand. "Distract the invaders. I'll clear an escape path for us. Don't come back until you're sure we won't be tailed, not before."
"Bossy little sister." Rolled eyes. Their hands touch each other's arm. "Tamika is already my favorite."
You? "Thank you."
Blink and he is gone. Blue gas remains where he used to be, energy that is quickly dispelling. He is fast.
"Yes, he is." Agrees Wanda. Hand tightens around yours. Look down at her. For someone so big, she is so small. "Let's go."
The stone is the same in every hallway. Recognize them, even though they are unfamiliar. Wanda knows which turn leads where. Under, over, up and down, around and around and now we are in a cellar. There are no wine bottles in here, but the floors are still washed red.
A door is on the other side. Wanda pulls you over, tells you to wait, opens the door.
Pauses.
There is conversation. She is tense. Climbs the stairs like a cat. Red energy gaseous like Pietro's cling to her hands before she throws it. It knocks into someone and floors them like it is something tangible. She walks back and slams the door behind her. Frantic, whips around, eyes wide.
"We need to go, this route is compromised. Oh, god, I think that was Captain America." Wrinkles her nose, eyes bright but disappointed. "We read about him. He is supposed to be a good man. Good men do not work with Stark."
Spit the name. Stark is not a good man?
Who is Stark?
"We have to run before he comes looking, quick Tamika—"
Hand in yours. Pulled to the right, why are you running? The doors open and a big blond man enters.
Step into the grey world and be greeted gladly.
Wanda gasps. You look at her and she is not monotone at all, she is red and black and pale-skinned, brown hair. Your hands are touching. She is a ghost like you.
Captain looks in your direction and stares straight through the both of you. Bring your finger to your lips, keep quiet please, and pull her to the stairs. Climb them, walk through the closed door, continue walking until you are outside.
Coast is clear.
The grey drips.
Wanda gasps like she hasn't taken a breath of air since you went under. "That was your power?" She asks breathlessly. "You… you see the world so differently, I didn't think it was like that!"
"The fabric of reality has small, thin gaps. Invisibility is achievable by half-stepping into those gaps and allowing light to pass through me. Phasing happens when I fully occupy the space in between."
"Strucker said that you didn't understand how your powers worked the way they did. That they were not entirely scientific in nature."
Shrug. Snow is cold. Your feet are bare and you wear a dirty nightgown.
"Lead the way. I will follow, I promise."
"Oh, of course." Apologetic smile. "Do you feel the temperature when you are invisible?"
Shake your head.
"Then stick close to me."
Close your eyes.
Open your arms.
Embrace it.
Greygreygrey.
The house that they take refuge in is a one-room apartment, small and barely inhabitable. There is a king sized mattress on the floor with a single quilt thrown over it, a small rusted kitchen and a dinner table big enough for four. The fridge does not have a handle. The water pressure is like honey. The warm water lasts ten minutes.
It is the best thing Tamika has ever seen.
Wanda gives her clothes to wear. Black socks much the same as hers, a dress with mesh sleeves, and Pietro's flannel-lined coat. It is blue, plaid, and reminds Tamika keenly of the coat Liam gave her four years ago.
She is still cold but it is manageable, after those winter nights in the cell. Wanda is sitting at the table with a bowl of broth from the pot on the gas stove, blowing and sipping the meal. Her leg is jumping anxiously under the table. She keeps shooting glances at the door.
Tamika wonders how to ask, if she even should. She remembers where her old house is but there's no telling if it's a safe space, if her father still lives there or if he's moved by now. It could be a bust.
Wanda glances at her face, catches on some expression she must find, and smiles. "I wasn't expecting you to be so tall. You are only sixteen. I was a lot smaller than you at that age."
"You aren't from New Zealand. I am māori on my mother's side. We aren't always tall, but my father is German, and everyone in my family is tall because of it. Sokovians are very tiny in comparison."
Wanda makes an awed sound. "Or you are very big." She says before shaking her head in exasperation. "My little sister is twenty centimetres taller than me. It isn't right."
"Little sister?"
Wanda blinks, suddenly nervous. "Yes…? I — well, we agreed that we could… that I could be your older sister, remember? And Pietro could be… unless you not serious?" She seems vulnerable as she asks, uncertain of where to step.
Tamika's eyes widen. Her voice is shaky. "I thought you were humoring me. You consider me family?"
"Yes." Says Wanda instantly. "Do not doubt it."
Tamika doesn't know to do anything else.
Pietro enters at that moment. "Stark was there." He says shortly, face thunderous. An age old wound is gaping, open and vulnerable. Tamika worries, slightly. "Stark was there and he—"
"I know, Pietro." Wanda says, voice soft but not soothing. The conversation between her and Tamika is supposedly finished. "I saw him before we left."
"You and Tamika ran into him? Are you okay?"
Wanda raises her eyebrows and looks pointedly at Tamika. Pietro does a double take at her outfit, tilting his head. "He did not see us." Wanda says like it's obvious. It kind of is. "But I did not leave him unscathed."
Ah, yes. Wanda had hit 'Stark' with a big dose of mind-fuck before they'd truly left the facility. Tamika had watched in silence as a great big wolfy grin ate up the kindness on Wanda's face when Stark picked up the sceptre.
("You're going to let him take it?" Tamika knows the chaos the sceptre will wrought. She is not comfortable with any human harnessing its power; humans are fallible. The sceptre is not.
"Shh," Wanda whispers, excited in an uncomfortable way. "Trust me.")
"Tell me." Demands Pietro, sitting across Wanda on the table. He drags her bowl to him and takes three big gulps of the broth. Wanda watches him in thinly veiled irritation. "What did you do?"
"Stark will destroy himself with the sceptre." Wanda shares, satisfied. "His biggest fear is war. He will ruin the lives of everyone he loves trying to create a shortcut to world peace. I saw it. He believes the sceptre is the way to do it."
Pietro rolls his eyes, scoffing. "Arrogant fool."
"We would hardly need to do a thing. His empire will crumble from within."
"He created that empire on the foundation of the innocents he murdered. It's blood money. That empire should have never rose in the first place!"
Oh, boy. Tamika shrinks backwards, not entirely sure she is welcome anymore. This seems personal. Whatever Stark did, he is the reason the twins volunteered for the program.
"Peace, Pietro." Wanda whispers, quickly switching into her native tongue. Ukrainian, perhaps? She talks Pietro down from his rage efficiently, looking just as upset as Pietro. She channels it a different way. Where Pietro is explosive and physical in his grief, she appears to mould it into a desperate need for revenge, slow and poisonous.
Tamika gulps.
Hydra was proud of Wanda and Pietro. They were glad to be of service and trained in controlling their powers for two years. They were active agents for the agency, sent out on missions to secure strongholds or eliminate traitors. No matter how closely monitored or controlled the conditions were, the twins has been fighting. Hydra had given them everything they asked for.
So if they'd betrayed Hydra, that meant a better opportunity had been presented to them. That meant they were now able to achieve their true desire. Not fighting for Sokovia, but getting revenge against this Stark character. Which meant fighting. Which meant blood. Which meant death.
Tamika closes her eyes and breathes in deep. The twins are still talking to each other in Ukrainian. She interjects. "I will not fight."
The world stops.
Pietro turns to her. "What do you mean, you will not fight? Who has asked you to?"
No one, but that doesn't mean they won't. It doesn't mean they'll be satisfied with her pacifism. She's clearing the air, isn't she? Wanda's eyes widen. She and Pietro share furtive glances before she slowly stands up. She takes a step forward. Tamika flinches. She stops.
Tamika says, "If you two want revenge, if you two want to go to war, then that is your choice. I will respect it. But I will not fight with you. I won't go to war."
Wanda takes a moment to gather her thoughts. "I — yes, we had considered asking for your assistance with this, but we would not have forced you. Why would you think —"
Pietro finishes her sentence, eyes closed as if in pain. "Tamika…" He begins, meeting her gaze. "We are not Hydra. We won't force you to fight for a personal cause that you don't believe in."
Tamika is hesitant to trust him.
"This fight is personal for me and Pietro and we would be honored if you chose to take it as your own," Wanda takes a few steps forward. She smiles when Tamika doesn't move away. "But if you chose to sit it out, we will protect you from it."
They descend into silence as Tamika processes this. Wanda looks anxious. Pietro looks a bit pissed off, but not at Tamika. More like Hydra for giving her the instinct to assume anyone who helps her up from the ground wants to knock her back down again.
Tamika hesitantly decides something. "I… sorry, then. I didn't mean to make you seem like the villain, but I… I don't want to fight anymore, I'm tired, and when I thought you would ask that of me… I got scared." She finishes lamely, wondering if they would resent her for turning invisible and hiding out of embarrassment.
"Hydra wasn't kind to you. Don't apologize for what they did. Instead, hold them accountable." Pietro stands and walks over at normal person speed. He puts his big hand on Tamika's shoulder and looks her in the eye. "We will be better for you in every way we can be."
Right.
Her disbelief must show on her face because it gives Wanda the confidence to step up beside her brother. She grabs Tamika's hands in hers. "If you cannot trust us, then trust that me and my brother will do everything in our power to keep what remains of our family safe. Trust that."
"What's the word on Strucker?"
"NATO's got him."
"The two enhanced?"
"Wanda and Pietro Maximoff. Twins. Orphaned at ten when a shell collapsed their apartment building. Sokovia's had a rough history. It's nowhere special but it's on the way to everywhere special."
"Abilities?"
"He's got increased metabolism and improved thermal homeostasis. Her thing is neural electric interfacing, telekinesis, mental manipulation. … He's fast and she's weird."
"They'll show up again."
"Agreed. Now, Strucker's file says that there was a third success; a sixteen year old girl by the name of Tamika Maihi. I know, she's young, but her father was Mateo Ackerman."
"Am I supposed to know who that is?"
"Unlikely. He was a high-ranking member of Hydra though, promoted to level 6 clearance in 2011, moved to Sokovia and brought his daughter with him. Ackerman volunteered her for the program and was executed so he wouldn't be able to speak about it. She was thirteen when the testing started."
"And her abilities?"
"She has improved regeneration, can manipulate light to pass through her and render herself unseen and can quantum tunnel through solid matter. Basically, she can turn invisible and run through walls. … Cap, what's up?"
"I can't help wondering why we didn't run into her."
"That's easy. Files say that she refuses to work under Strucker and they've been trying to convince her to change her mind for a year and a half. She won't budge. Guess the reason you didn't encounter her is because she took the chance to escape. We don't know where she is but we're working on it."
"She's sixteen?"
"Yeah. It's nuts. But unlike the twins, she didn't volunteer for the program. Doesn't like fighting Hydra's good fight. She's quoted saying that she 'doesn't like bullies'. Figured you'd like that. But the twins? They asked for it. Can't imagine why."
"Right. Because what kind of monster lets a German scientist experiment on them to protect their country?"
"We're not at war, Cap."
"They are."
"If I may ask," Pietro says from above her. He is braiding Tamika's thick curly hair. "Why are you so afraid of fighting?"
"I'm not scared of it." Tamika mumbles, wrinkling her nose. Pietro gives off a palpable aura of disbelief. "Seriously, I'm not. I guess I'm just… sick of pain. That seems like all there is to fighting. I don't want it. I'm better off without it."
"Ah." Hums Pietro, a smile in his voice. "You are a pacifist. So was my father. Perhaps you are related to me after all."
Tamika snorts, thinking of her brown skin and his milky white skin. "I don't think so." New Zealand and Sokovia are nowhere close to each other. But speaking of relatives. "Pietro?"
"Yeah?"
"I was wondering…"
The next day, she wears Liam's big green flannel shirt. Her black boots have fur lined on the insides, and Pietro gives her gloves and a scarf to keep her warm.
"You're seriously going out because someone sent you a cryptic message telling you to? Isn't that obviously a trap?" She grumbles as Pietro forced a cup of watery, but hot, tea into her hands. Wanda is giving her sympathetic looks as she is subjected to Pietro's doting. "Where are we even going—Pietro, no."
Pietro gets his earmuffs shoved into his chest. "You need to be warm otherwise you'll catch a cold. We don't have the resources to look after you if you get sick."
"I won't get sick! I can handle the weather."
"You were not raised here, you—"
"Wanda gets to go out in just a cardigan!"
"Please do not bring me into this." Wanda backs off, a small smile on her face. She looks like she knows something no one else does. Viable, given that she can read auras and skim primary thoughts from a person's mind.
"I don't need a hat!"
"Better to be safe than sorry, right? Take the damn hat, Tamika."
"No."
"Why not?!"
"It's ugly."
"It's ugly—fine! Get sick! See if I care!" Pietro scoffs and throws the earmuffs across the room. Tamika somehow does not feel like she's won. Pietro smoothly picks her up and says to Wanda. "Be right back."
Being transported by Pietro, Tamika notes, is not a fun experience. Her eyes hurt from he fast moving world around them and she feels like her stomach has migrated to her throat. Pietro sits her down, laughs at her, and disappears to bring his sister. It doesn't take long at all.
Wanda giggles softly at the sight of Tamika hunched over and trying to keep her lunch inside of her. "You get used to it." She says dryly, glancing at the doors of the church. "Wait outside. If we need you, we'll call you."
Tamika frowns. "I'm not going in?"
"Whoever is in there could be interested in picking a fight." Explains Pietro. "Until we can be sure we won't be in trouble, you stay out here."
Well.
"Okay." Tamika settles against the outside wall. No fighting? Sounds good to her. "Be careful."
The twins smile quickly as if she has said something funny before they slowly enter the church, cautious and prepared for an ambush. The big doors close behind them, and Tamika settles in to wait for the sound of her name.
She covers her cold ears with her hands and sighs.
Tamika doesn't like Ultron. Which is well and good, because he doesn't much appreciate her either. When the twins told him that she wouldn't be fighting, he'd thought they were joking and had laughed. When he realized they were being serious, he'd exploded in short-lived rage.
("You humans are so WASTEFUL. You're given the ability to FIGHT for a change and WHAT DO YOU DO? YOU DO NOTHING. Ah, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to yell. My temper gets away from me sometimes. It's just so FRUSTRATING.")
He'd tried to get rid of her since she was useless to him but Wanda had put a stop to that. Now he just ignored her. Tamika was happy for it. Ultron unsettled her.
Pietro finishes brushing and tying Wanda's hair into a high ponytail. Tamika asks, "We're really going to Wakanda?"
"Do you want to stay and look after the house?" He returns, grabbing a new pair of sneakers for himself and swapping them with the worn shoes he wore now.
"Not really."
"Then yeah," Pietro nods. "We're going to Wakanda."
"That's in Africa? Isn't it really hot there?"
"I'm sure we'll hardly notice it." Wanda was putting on eyeliner. Tamika does not know why, but it suits her, so she doesn't ask. "Besides, you have an effective way of remaining unaffected by the temperature. It shouldn't bother you too much."
Point. Tamika screws her lips to the side and sighs. "But why Wakanda? What's there?"
"Metal." Pietro shrugs, throwing a pair of denim short shorts at her. "Dress appropriately. It'll be hot there." He tells her absently. Tamika suspects he's been ignoring her complaints since the moment she started.
Tamika rolls her eyes emphatically but takes the shorts and white tank top. "I'm keeping the socks on." She tells Pietro, standing up.
He cringes, but Wanda looks smug. "They look good, no? Pietro thinks they are trashy."
"They are trashy."
"They're only socks, Pietro."
"How is it that both of my little sisters are pains in the ass? It seems unfair."
Tamika snorts, and Wanda grins. "It must be you." Says the younger twin. "You inspire the worst in people."
Tamika leaves to change into her new outfit and feels the chill of the weather instantly. As the twins argue, Tamika steps back and lets the monochrome world embrace her. There is no temperature when she is in this form, and hardly any emotions.
She loses things that remind her that she's human. Touch and smell disappear completely, while sight is muted greys and the twins sound like they're speaking underwater. Her emotions quieten. She can phase through objects and ignore the laws of physics. Therefore, she is more human and also less.
A ghost.
"Tamika? лапочка, where have you—" Wanda calls. "I cannot talk to you if I cannot see you!"
Tamika sees the blue of Pietro's eyes. "Sorry. Hi." Her senses are assaulted immediately. "Anyway, Wakanda?"
Wakanda is hot.
But, as fate would have it, Tamika deals with it the best.
Wanda sculls back the rest of her water and licks her lips tiredly as Ultron makes a deal with Klaue. Pietro surreptitiously swipes a hand across his forehead, wrinkling his nose at the sweat he collects. Tamika stands between them, smiling to herself as she barely glistens.
Likely feeling the smugness of her emotions, Wanda sends her a warning look. Tamika is the picture of innocence. Pietro checks to make sure the "adults" are preoccupied with their serious business deal before he sniffs, wipes his forehead with the hem of his shirt, and throws his arm around Tamika's shoulder.
The smell is so pungent that in order to escape it, she retreats into her grey world.
Pietro's arm falls through empty air, his eyes wide in surprise at her quick actions. His arm is technically going through her torso. It doesn't feel awkward so much as it looks awkward, so she walks to stand on Wanda's empty side.
Wanda glances in her direction immediately. "I can sense you," She says under her breath, looking quite thrilled with this. "You are beside me? Here?" And then she reaches out and touches Tamika's cheek.
Tamika solidifies under her hand instead of answering.
Wanda looks thrilled.
"That is not fair." Says Pietro, face scrunched up. "That's cheating."
"All is fair in love and war." Quips Wanda, "If I can sense you then I won't lose you. This is convenient, yes? I like it."
"And now she will be even more bossy." Pietro sounds long-suffering. "How will we survive—"
From the "I-only-deal-with-the-boss" corner, someone yells. The trio come to attention immediately as Klaue's arm falls to the floor. His wound is cauterized from Ultron's white hot blade but it does nothing to soothe the pain.
Uh oh.
"I'm sorry. I am sor… Ooh, I'm sure that's going to be okay. I'm sorry, it's just I don't understand." Ultron's robotic face twists in fury. Tamika shrinks back. "Don't compare me with Stark!" And then he kicks the white man down the stairs. Wanda's eyes widen. Ultron continues yelling, "It's a thing with me. Stark is, he's a sickness!"
And then—a strange sound, like a mini jet. Wanda's face turns into something stony and unforgiving, and by some unspoken signal, Pietro's body language turns hostile. Just as Tamika's about to as what's wrong, a red robot that anyone would recognize landed on the bridge.
Oh boy.
"Ahh, Junior." Hammer man and Captain are behind him. "You're gonna break your old man's heart."
He sounds just like Ultron, is Tamika's first thought.
"If I have to." Says Ultron, coming down from his rage so quickly that it is anything but comforting. Sociopath.
The hammer man steps forward. "We don't have to break anything."
"Clearly," Ultron says without missing a beat. "You've never made an omelet."
"He beat me by one second." Iron Man quips, and his easy-going nature must burst something within the tightly-wound Pietro, because then Pietro is stepping out from his cover.
"Ah, this is funny, Mr. Stark." Calls Pietro in a tone that implies this is anything but. He gestures to the nukes sleeping around them, a sardonic look on his face. "It's what, comfortable? Like old times?"
"That was never my life." Replies Stark. The dude Pietro and Wanda want dead so damn bad is Tony Stark.
Tamika swallows nervously.
She looks around for a place to hide when she feels eyes on her. Captain looks at her beseechingly. "You're young, you don't have to do this. I read your file. I know that this is the last thing you want to do." Tamika takes a shuddering breath. Pietro steps half in front of her protectively. To the twins, the Captain says, "You two can still walk away from this."
Wanda pouts sarcastically. "Oh, we will." She assures them..
"I know you've suffered—"
Ultron cuts the Captain off, impatient. "Uuughh!" He snarls. "Captain America! God's righteous man, pretending you could live without a war." His condescending tone is dialed down slightly. "I can't physically throw up in my mouth, but…"
Hammer man swings his hammer in caution. He looks at Ultron with the eyes of a man secure in his morals. It is the look of a man who will gladly fight for what he believes in. Tamika steps back. "If you believe in peace, then let us keep it."
"I think you're confusing peace with quiet."
"Yuh-huh. What's the vibranium for?"
"I'm glad you asked that, because I wanted to take this time to explain my evil plan." Suddenly, the Iron Legions attack Stark, Captain and Hammer man. Ultron jumps in the fight, colliding with Stark mid-air, while Pietro blurs into action and Wanda throws Captain back.
Tamika fades into obscurity.
"I've done the whole mind control thing. Not a fan." Pietro speeds in, knocks down Arrow Guy, picks up Wanda and speeds off. "Yeah, you better run!" Tamika watches him get up curiously. "Whoever's standing, we gotta move! Guys?"
Tamika makes a curious sound, and Arrow Guy looks in her direction immediately. "Where are you even hiding?" He asks.
He knows she's there?
Tamika sees the purple of his uniform. He has an arrow armed and pointed at her with a speed she could only credit Pietro with. He squints at her, and Tamika tries not to stare too intently at the unrecognizable arrowhead. "You a friendly, kid? How old are you?"
"S-sixteen…"
"Young." He nods. "Wait, are you the Maihi girl? Asshole Hydra dad, moved from New Zealand four years ago and took residence in the Hydra shit party?"
"My name is Tamika."
"Yeah, I know. Cap told the team about you, said we could possibly recruit you to our side." He did? Her surprise must have been really obvious or he was good at reading people, because he responded. "I know, sounds nuts, doesn't it? But Cap's the leader, and whatever he thinks he sees in you, he thinks it'll be useful on this team, and I'm not one to doubt him. Interested?"
Tamika makes a pained noise. "I can't…"
"Don't tell me you like working under Ultron?"
"He does not like me much, no, but…" Tamika shakes her head emphatically. "I cannot leave Wanda and Pietro."
Arrow Guy seems to understand what she's saying. "They're your family?" He asks, and she nods. "I understand loyalty to family, kid, but you have to consider yourself and what's best for you."
Tamika shrugs.
"Look, that guy you're working under, he's not going to be satisfied with keeping the peace. He'll get too big for his breeches. Ultron won't be able to keep his nose out of wars, because Tony couldn't, and they're really similar. And you're a pacifist, aren't you?"
Tamika nods.
"Your abilities have too many applications in warfare for him to be comfortable leaving you on the sidelines." As if she didn't know that. "But we're the good guys, you know? Or—we try to be and most of the time we do a good job of it. If you want to find your mom again, settle down and be normal, we'll set it up. If you want to get a desk job, we'll find you a tutor to catch you up on your math. Whatever you want to do, Cap and I—we'll figure it out."
That easy, is it?
It's so insane that Tamika can only cover her face with her hands and cry.
"What can I do?"
"Ah," Wanda whimpers, holding her head in pain. Pietro watches her struggle to wrestle down the pain with growing rage. "It hurts!"
Pietro seems to come to a sudden decision, eyes dark as he stands and turns back to the factor. "I'm going to kill him," He snarls. "I'll be right back."
"No." Wanda snaps, hand darting to catch his. She tightens her grip until it is vice-like until the pain is something she can shove aside. "I'm over it. I want…" She inhales a breath. Holds it. Looks towards the Quinjet. "I want to finish the plan."
A mild-mannered scientist cautiously exits the plane, fiddling with the sleeves of his jumper. Wanda is reminded starkly of Tamika, who plays with the hem of her shirt when she thinks no one is looking.
"I want the big one." She breathes. "You check on Tamika. I don't like the idea of her alone in there with them."
Pietro nods in agreement. "I'll be right back."
Pietro enters the factory to the scene of a baton going through Tamika's body. He speeds over and clocks the archer across the chin, appearing at Tamika's side before his opponent even hits the floor. He grabs her bicep. "Are you alright?"
"Yes." She answers, though her eyes are red and there are tear tracts not yet dried on her cheeks. She sniffles and wipes at her face. "Are we… can we go now, Pietro?"
"Yes." Says Pietro, smiling smugly. "The plan is—"
Her eyes widen at the sight of something over his shoulder and she grabs him by his arms, drags him forwards as she trips backwards. There's a sharp whistle of air as a baton narrowly misses his head. Pietro is begrudgingly impressed by the archer's recovery time and turns around to punch him in the nose.
It breaks easily under his fist. The man moves in slow motion compared to him, so he gets in three punches to the torso. The archer is efficient. Normally, Pietro would respect that in a person, but seeing as it has only caused trouble for his sisters, it's nothing more than an annoyance.
Before he can vent his frustrations on the agent, chains sail through his body, followed shortly by Tamika herself. Pietro steps back in surprise. What does she intend to do with them, he wonders?
The ends of the chain are held in Tamika's fists, and while herself and her chains phased completely through Pietro's body, the same cannot be said for the winded agent. The chains solidify around his body and behind him, Tamika twists and goes around him again, turning herself and select areas of her chains intangible when and where it suits her. She weaves in and around the archer like an intricate braid, and phases the ends of the chain together with a flourish.
The archer, who has recovered from Pietro's combo, looks down at the quick work at restraints with something like begrudging impress. He shifts his nose and blows blood out of it. "Nice work kid." He says to Tamika. "Could have made it tighter. I'll get out of it soon."
"I know." The tall, dark skinned girl shrugs and smiles at Pietro like she isn't sure she's allowed to. "But he's pretty fast."
Taking that as his queue, Pietro sweeps her into his arms and runs to the last place he saw Wanda. She is waiting for him with Ultron by the Quinjet, eyes anxiously scanning over him and Tamika for injuries as soon as he stops before them. In the distance, he hears an angry roar. The mission was completed then.
"Alright?" Wanda presses.
"Yeah. You?"
"Fine." She looks at Tamika, who Pietro puts on the ground. "What happened?"
"They tried to recruit me." Tamika confesses without hesitation. Pietro pauses, lets the implication sinks in, and is suddenly so angry he could go back and murder them all. "And then I said no, so he told me he'd get his ass reamed if he didn't at least try to bring me in, so I tied him up in chains. Sorry. I didn't have a choice."
Wanda opens her mouth. Closes it. Tilts her head. "I don't think you should be apologizing for that."
Ultron intercepts, robotic head on Tamika in interest. "Strucker said you weren't trained. You took him down?" Uncomfortable, she nods. "Incredible. And you want to waste you natural talent on crocheting and tree hugging." He scoffs. "Humans. I'll never understand your kind. Well, whatever, you can't please everyone. We can continue this overly sappy and diabetic reunion when we aren't in the middle of a war zone, how about that?"
An army of his Iron Legion robots fly and land close to a crate. Their own little plane, hidden from the Avengers, is loaded until its weight limit reaches its max.
"In the meantime, help me with this?" He pats a crate of vibranium like one would pat a good dog. "Victory, as it turns out, is kind of a strain on the shoulders."
"Safe house?"
"Let's hope. Honey, I'm home! Hi. Sorry, company. Couldn't call ahead."
"Don't worry about it, it's not like you ever do. You're a mess, Clint."
"…This is an agent of some kind."
"Yeah, yeah. Company, meet my sister, Laura."
"Uh, hey. I… know all your names."
"Ooh, incoming!"
"Uncle Clint!"
"I see you! Ugh, god, you're so heavy. How are you little troublemakers? Taking care of Lucky for me?"
"Pizza Dog is the best, Uncle Clint, we love him."
"Did you bring Auntie Nat?"
"Well, why don't you hug her and find out?"
"Auntie Nat!"
"These are… slightly smaller agents? Okay, I'm gonna call it. What the hell is going on here?"
Wanda enters her room with a look of complete horror on her face. "Ultron intends to annihilate the human race." She declares.
Tamika, speechless, looks up from her book and squints. Wanda doesn't look like she's kidding. Slowly, Tamika dog-ears her book and stands up, " That is a very strange way to say hello."
Wanda relaxes minimally. "Not the time. Come, we have to go."
"Go where?"
"The Avengers are here. We have to warn them of Ultron's intentions." She makes a face. "I don't like them but they're the only people that stand a chance against Ultron. They have to stop him before it's too late."
"Where's Pietro?"
"Looking around."
"Cho?"
"Ultron shot her."
"So she's…?"
"Maybe. Maybe not. Pietro and I did not stick around to find out."
Tamika stops, pulling against the hand that's pulling her towards the door. Wanda, quite harried, looks at her with impatience written in every line of her face. Normally that would be enough to tie Tamika's tongue out, but given the circumstances… "Ah, then before we go, could I check in on her?"
Wanda is a second away from gaping.
"What?"
"If there's the smallest chance that she's alive, I can't leave her behind." Wanda doesn't appear to like the idea at all but between the two of them, she isn't the stubborn one. Tamika lets go of her hand and puts a couple of inches between them. "Tell you what: you go ahead, I'll catch up with you. You don't need me to figure out where he is. Just follow the explosions."
"I'm not leaving you behind."
"You won't be leaving me behind. Seriously, go on without me. I won't leave this building until I've taken care of everybody."
Wanda makes a few token protests, as she is wont to do, but ends up leaving Tamika behind all the same. The tall teenager is relieved that Wanda's left her to her own devices; until the weight of what she's doing finally comprehends. What if there are survivors? It will be her responsibility to ensure that they continue surviving until help comes around. Is she capable of that? Will help even come? Tamika knows nothing about first aid.
But she has to try. If someone has the power to do something and doesn't, and bad things happen, it's on them.
And so, Tamika finds a couple of green boxes that look like first aid kits and storms the lab. Immediately, she zeroes in on the groans of a survivor. As she makes her way over to them she sees that the deceased all have smoking holes in their heads or through their throats. It makes her nervous to think of the wound the survivor might have, and if she can do anything to help.
She finds the groaning victim under a table, curled in on themselves. Tamika slides over to the woman and turns her onto her back.
She swallows back bile at the gory mess of their shoulder. Their right arm has been blown clean off.
Tamika gags at that smell of scorched flesh and turns her head away, taking deep breaths through her mouth before turning back. The Korean woman looks young, either an intern or just very smart, and doesn't respond to Tamika's presence at all. Shock, then? Tamika props the Intern against one of the legs of the table and tears off the sleeve of the lab coat that wasn't obliterated. She waves her hand in front of her face. There is no response.
"Hey? Hi, can you hear me? Uh, what's the Korean words for—당신이 나를 확인을들을 수 있습니까?"
Nothing.
"Alright—no, it's cool. Calm down, don't panic, Tamika. You can handle this." No, she really couldn't. "What do you have to do first? Look at the situation, idiot. Prioritize. What's most important—" She stands up so suddenly that she bangs her head on the underside of the table. Ouch. "Bleeding!"
Scrambling to her feet, she searches for latex gloves or something, and is surprised to find none. For lack of gloves, Tamika tears apart the lab looking for—
"Aha!" She opens a cabinet and finds pristine white towels folded neatly. She grabs all of them and hightails it over to the Intern. She elevates what remains of her arm and wraps the wound in a couple of towels, putting pressure on the wound, which was about as much as she knew to do.
It probably wasn't a good idea for her to leave the Intern but the need to check for other survivors won out, and Tamika apologizes to the amputated lady before she abandons her to check on the other bodies.
Tamika ends up doing two rounds of the lab when she remembers that you could pass out from shock and that sound of the prone bodies on the floor might not have been dead ones. She drags all the survivors to her side of the room and attends to them with her mediocre medical knowledge. After she's sorted them out and had collected six now-physically-disabled scientists, she calls emergency services.
It takes her a while to figure out the number and explain what she'd done to help when she's also bustling around, pressing her limited amount of white towels against the blood soaked ones wrapped around bleeding limbs, but it's worth it, she figures, if people survive. Her treatment isn't perfect. Due to the fact that she doesn't have six arms, she can't put pressure on everyone's wounds at the same time and she fears that would be enough to tip them over the edge.
But she doesn't stop trying.
She's done her best to organize the injured in a line where she can try and divide her attention between them without having to stretch her shoulders out of their sockets. It's when she gets up to find more towels that the lab entry door opens. Tamika jumps and wipes her forehead with the back of a bloody hand.
"You're here! Quick, they're over—" She stops when she turns to her visitors and finds they aren't from the hospital at all. The Captain stares at her warily, eyes on her bloodied hands. Before she can explain that it isn't hers but the victims (which, in hindsight, wouldn't have gone down well) his eyes have taken in the entire room and processed what it implies quickly. Ultron told them that he was a tactician, but Tamika hadn't realized what that meant until now.
"You're helping them?" He asks, sounding quite compassionate.
Tamika swallows nervously and nods. She wrestles with the urge to salute. Isn't he supposed to be a big deal? "Yes."
He nods, flashes her a wholesome smile, before his face settles into a stern frown. "Is Helen Cho still alive?"
"I—" Oh, no. Tamika makes a pathetic noise. "I haven't checked on her yet! She's supposed to be in her lab, I was supposed to see if she was alright but I got, er, distracted!"
Captain shakes his head and marches towards Helen Cho's lab. "It's alright, you're doing good work here." He tells her, clapping her shoulder as he walks by. "Good job."
Tamika wants to dwell on how strangely proud she feels to have received praise from a complete stranger, but now isn't the time. She rifles through cupboards for more towels and returns to her makeshift infirmary. There are people looking more and more pale from the blood loss that she can't do everything to stop, which is worrying, but Tamika trusts that the emergency services will be here soon.
The door to Cho's lab opens and Captain comes towards Tamika with the biologist herself in his arms. He places her on the floor with a delicacy that's surprising for a man of his size. Helen Cho, Tamika notes immediately, has all her limbs intact. Which might prove to be more trouble than it's worth, because that puts her wound too close to her heart. Tamika has no idea what to do with that, so she falls back on her default and piles the towels on top of the wound, pressing down hard.
"You'll be okay holding this place down?" Captain asks her. "I can't stay but—"
"No, go. Ultron needs to be stopped." Tamika meets his eyes and nods to reassure herself. His presence is a calming, stable one. The building stress and tears she was threatened by before he entered the building have gone. She feels… she feels like she can do this. "I can handle it."
Captain gives her a considering, pleased look. "I'm sure you can." He smiles and then sweeps out of the room. Thankfully, the calm that settled over her doesn't go with him.
True to her promise to Captain, she holds down her fort. The emergency services show up a few minutes after he leaves and take over. Tamika is glad to relinquish control of the situation onto professionals. She sticks around until all of the injured parties are carted out of the building and the only people left in the room are the paramedics checking the deceased and herself.
When the paramedics confirm what she already knows, she pushes her sleeves up and wrinkles her nose at the blood sticky on her hands.
But it doesn't disgust her to see her hands stained with blood. It doesn't scare her or worry her at all. Because she's just finished saving lives and it feels… it feels wonderful.
That was her. No superpowers were necessary for her to save six lives. She didn't have to sacrifice anyone to do it, not innocent bystanders, not herself, no one.
"Were you the one who made the call?" A paramedic approaches her. His English is accented but otherwise flawless. Tamika nods. The paramedic smiles approving and hands her a warm towel. "Then good job. You kept them alive and kept your cool, that's not an easy thing to do. You saved their lives."
Tamika smiles for the first time in four years with all her teeth. She accepts the towel and scrubs off as much blood from her hands as it will let her. "Thank you," She flushes in pride. But she isn't done yet. Until an end has been put to Ultron, she can't be finished.
There is still much for her to do. And maybe that didn't have to be such a bad thing.
