As the fog of unconsciousness began to lift from the girl she noticed a few things. Firstly; she was no longer hanging from her wrists, but appeared to be lying down. Secondly, she felt better, a lot better. She didn't feel as if her body would simply give in at any moment, but rather a newfound energy flowed through her veins.
Taking this into account, as the last remnants of her unconscious state faded away, she opened her eyes.
"Oh! Hello there, welcome back!" Said a young woman, popping her head into the girls field of vision.
The girl, not understanding a word that was said, only recognized the lab coat she wore. A pristine white lab coat, which looked near identical to those the assistants in the lab where she was used wore.
Springing up from her lying position she leapt off the medical bed she had been resting on, and onto the large glass desk in the centre of the room. Her sudden movements startled the other woman into letting out a small scream. The girl stood atop the desk, legs apart and knees bent ready for any sudden movements from the woman. Other people ran into the room at the sound of the commotion, frightening the girl further.
She jumped off the desk expecting to hover in the air like she usually would. Instead though, she came crashing to the ground, bring down all sorts of instruments around her and landing in a jumbled and very unladylike heap.
Shocked at this revelation she looked to her hands, opening them up and thrusting her palms in front of her; expecting the beams of light to come shooting forth. Unfortunately, much to her dismay, this did not happen either.
She looked up from her daze at the people around her, taking a quick catalogue. There were five other people in the room. Closest to her were two men, one younger than the other with a dark complexion and formidable build. The other was slightly older, but still clearly able to subdue her given close enough proximity. A little behind them was a woman with long brown hair. And then, furthest away from her was the lab coat woman she had woken up to and...the man! The man who had rescued her!
She thought quickly as the first two men continued to close in, constantly saying to her things she couldn't understand. She desperately wanted to get to the man at the back of the room, as he was sure to get her out of there, but there were just too many people in the way. Her second option was to run, spying the door to her left.
Not wasting a second she jumped up, rushing past the men at a speed that was only facilitated by the adrenaline running through her veins. She made it past only by a millisecond. Dashing out the door she spotted a spiralled staircase to her left and didn't hesitate in scrambling up it, the two men sure to be hot on her tail. Once up the top she continued on her frantic sprint with no particular direction in mind.
Though, as she dashed past the windows she suddenly stopped dead in her tracks. She didn't know much, but she felt quite sure that clouds and blue sky were supposed to be above her and certainly not next to her.
She was so absorbed in the worrisome fact that she didn't notice as someone slipped in behind her and administered a tiny dose of dendrotoxin to the back of her neck, knocking her out instantly.
The second time she woke was not nearly as comfortable. She found she was in a sitting position, and her head had been lying on the cool table in front of her whilst she slept. She looked around the dark grey room; apart from the objects she had woken up on there was nothing else in the room. She attempted to get up in order to investigate further, but found herself restrained by strange shiny cuffs around each of her wrists. Although, thankfully, someone had been kind enough to treat and bandage her wrists so the discomfort was minimal. The feeling of being captive, though, was anything but minimal.
Immediately her heartbeat began to speed up as she desperately pulled at the cuffs in attempt to rid herself of them. Before she could try any further though, a section of the room swung inward. The older man from before strode in with the younger one behind him. Fearful of them, she instantly shrunk back into the seat trying to make herself as small as possible.
The older man approached her, taking the seat across from her while the other man casually leaned on the wall to her right. The older man then began speaking, she sensed her was not trying to be hostile but never the less she didn't take her guarded gaze off of him as he continued to speak. She analysed his speech pattern, cataloguing the words he was saying and even deciphering the meaning quite a few of them. At the rate she was going, the girl felt she may be able to communicate, somewhat, with her new captors if the man were to continue talking in this way.
He paused once more, as he had at several points during his monologue, again earning only a cautious and fearful glare from the girl across from him. The man sighed resignedly, looking down at the desk before talking to the younger man.
"Watch her for a minute, I'll be right back." The girl heard before the older man left the room.
Once the wall-opening was shut again, the younger man stepped forward. Unlike the older man, he was quite intimidating. He began talking to her, in short, sharp and efficient sentences, his hulking frame towering over her considerably smaller one.
The girl felt her pulse skyrocket as her fear levels rose and she sunk further into the chair. This man seemed dangerous, and she was utterly defenceless now that her abilities were no longer available to her.
As fear clouded her senses she couldn't process his speech properly, making it impossible for her to reply despite her previous progress. Clearly frustrated by her lack of response, the man only got louder. He leaned on the table staring directly at her while the girl tugged at the cuffs in a desperate attempt to put some distance between the two of them.
All of a sudden the wall-opening slammed open revealing the curly-haired man.
"Triplett stop, that's not helping! She doesn't know what you're saying!" He shouted
"What do you mean she doesn't know what I'm saying, I know seven languages, there's no way she can't understand a word of any of them!" He retorted at curly-haired man, frustration and confusion laced through his voice.
"Triplett." came the voice of the older man who had appeared back in the room at the disturbance. "Why don't you come with me? Fitz, you continue the interrogation."
"What?" Asked both of the younger men, looking to the other with shock.
"Me?" questioned the curly-haired man.
"Yeah," the older man confirmed "She seems to like you." he said gesturing towards the girl who was staring unashamedly at the younger man, far more relaxed and even allowing a slight smile to grace her features.
"Fine." the dark skinned man said somewhat sullenly before following the other out of the room and shutting the door behind them.
The curly haired man hovered near the doorway for a moment, his previous burst of confidence clearly dissipated. The girl didn't take her eyes off him as he closes the wall and hesitantly took the seat across from her before beginning speaking.
"Ahh, okay. Hello. My name's Leo. But uhh most people call me Fitz." The girl listened intently as he spoke, paying attention to each word and filing them away in her brain.
"Umm I work for S.H.I.E.L.D, actually we all do. I mostly work with Simmons though." the man continued to ramble, "I'm engineering, she's Bio-Chem. And um- Oh wait no, I'm supposed to be interrogating you. Right." He paused and chuckled nervously. "Um okay so, what's your name?"
The girl thought quickly before speaking for the first time "Ahh, okay. Hello. My name's Leo." She said, repeating what she figured was a greeting.
"Ha ha!" Leo exclaimed triumphantly, being the first to get the strange girl to talk. "Well actually, I'm Leo, not you. But good start." He pointed to himself to emphasise his point, "Leo" he repeated with emphasis.
The girl, having caught on, also pointed to him repeating whilst nodding "Leo."
"Yes! That's right!" Fitz said excitedly.
The girl then pointed to herself, looking back at Fitz with wide, questioning eyes.
"Oh." Fitz said more calmly "You don't know your name?"
The girl shook her head, finding it easier and easier to understand the talking around her.
"Is there anything you remember?" Fitz asked
The girl paused, there was one thing she remembered, a small fragment of what she assumed was her past self. But didn't know how to express herself so instead settled on a small shrug as she had seen the lab assistants do before.
"Oh well never mind, lets see what else you do know." Fitz said before starting up into excited conversation again. They continued the exchange for another forty-five minutes, the girl becoming more and more comfortable around the eccentric engineer.
"Well" said Fitz entering the debriefing room where everyone else was gathered "She's not going to be able to help us with much, she can't seem to remember anything plus communication is a bit of an issue. But, she was learning, and actually quite quickly as well."
"Yes, I was watching and she really is remarkable." Simmons continued "She appears to analyse speech patterns whilst simultaneously storing words that are said for later use. Her brain would be amazing to look at!"
"So the more we talk to her, the faster she'll learn." Fitz said.
"And the more we'll know!" Simmons finished.
"What did you guys find out?" Fitz asked curiously.
"I ran facial recognition and she didn't turn up in the S.H.I.E.L.D database." Coulson said
"Well that's unusual" Fitz replied
"Very," Coulson confirmed "But we were able to pull this picture from a street cam" He continued, indicating to a picture that came up on the holo-desk in front of them all.
"She was entering the Stark Industries building, so I dug into their personnel records and found this." Skye continued pulling up another file.
"Isabella Blunt, Intern for Stark Industries in Research and Development" Fitz read aloud, impressed.
"Yeah, but I did a little more digging and 'Isabella Blunt' definitely doesn't exist." continued Skye "It's just an alias, she seems to have been using it occasionally. I guess Stark Industries doesn't do background checks 'cuz it wasn't that hard to figure out."
"But she hasn't turned up to work in three months, and I'm guessing it's because she's been in that facility." Skye concluded.
"So what's the plan?" asked Agent Triplett, turning his attention to Coulson.
Colson paused for a moment, digesting the information before divulging the plan. "We let her out. To avoid another freak-out, you're to babysit her Fitz, she seems most comfortable around you. Skye, you keep digging and FitzSimmons, I'm going to need you to analyse the information the seven dwarves got from the site. But, at the first sign she might be a danger, I want her knocked out and back in the cage. Understood?"
A chorus of yes's sounded from the room's occupants before they dispersed to go about their respective tasks.