Scarlett
Part 2
by Rondabunny
Agent Romanoff was standing with a tray at the door.
"Whoever gave you the name had a vivid imagination," she said sarcastically in Latin.
"Why?" asked the girl confused by the remark.
"Because it is obvious that your hair is red," she turned to look at the girl.
"Red is a color, isn't it?"
"Yes, of course."
"I don't appreciate colors," the kid confessed.
"What? How? What is the color of my hair?"
"Dark grey?" the child pronounced not sure why the woman asked her this stupid question.
"And your gown?" It was light blue.
"Light grey?" Girl shrugged her shoulders.
"Yes, that's right," Natasha spoke with a lump forming in her throat. "Sleep tight, Scarlett," she mumbled and left the cell.
She spent an hour with this strange girl but she was already far from being objective. Her first intention was to ask Fury to give this mission to someone else. Natasha thought of the Red Room, of continuous tortures and training, nevertheless, she had her times, as a young girl she sneaked through guards to see the stars at night or how she enjoyed early morning lazy rays of the sun that lit up their dirty window of the common bedroom. The world was still bright with beautiful, fresh colors. This little creature didn't even have this opportunity. This seemed extremely sad and unfair. Agent collected her thoughts and headed to the research department.
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"Any scientific information on our new hostage?" she shot the question without saying hello to the guy in a laboratory coat who even jumped at this sudden intrusion.
"Miss Romanoff, good afternoon. It's such a pleasure…"
She didn't give him time to finish.
"Leo," agent Romanoff read at his badge, "a nine year old girl was brought here two days ago. She attacked the medical staff and a nurse died. Does it ring a bell?"
"Yes, the girl who grows claws and fangs! It's amazing! Her cellular metabolism is four times faster than of an ordinary human. It means if she has a fractured bone it would heal in a week or so. Besides, we found a great anomaly in DNA. The girl has a DNA of a human and partially of a cat family. We haven't found the exact specimen yet. We'll need some more samples of her tissues. The whole phenomenon of the successful experiment to criss cross the two DNA is astonishing! " the guy described everything with such exaggeration that Natasha wanted to punch him in the face to stop the avalanche of words coming from his mouth.
"Oh, really?!" If the look could kill, he'll already be dead.
"Of course," the guy pronounced not so sure anymore but still continued proving his theory, "the girl must be extremely flexible. The X-Ray showed that she can draw in claws and fangs just like a cat. I assume she has the same abilities as cats like jumping high or climbing up trees. I'm working right now on the tissue taken from her claw. It is better than the cat's because it is much stronger. It doesn't mean that she can cut metal like Wolverine but she is definitely able to cut flesh, bones, wood and maybe stone, I'm not sure about that, though."
"You sound as if you like to have the same abilities," stated Romanoff.
"Who wouldn't?!" exclaimed the book worm.
"She doesn't know anything about real world, was raised underground in a male cloister. She goes mad when given sedatives and she can't appreciate colors. Would you really like to be like this child?"
"Cat's also can't differ between colors," he said surprised by the newest discovery.
"Leo, do you even listen to me?" the woman started getting angry with this prodigy doctor of nobody knows what sciences.
"Yes, yes, I'm sorry to hear how she was grown up but now she's with us. Are you going to recruit her?"
The feeling of smacking him in the face became harder and harder to avoid for agent Romanoff.
"Ok, she said that she ate some kind of white substance every day. It was one and the same, without much taste or flavor but it had all the necessary vitamins and minerals she needed. Any ideas of what it might be?" She tried to ignore the guy's last comment.
"Maybe some kind of a protein drinks? You know, you may do it at home out of natural ingredients but there are pure synthetic drinks with more elements in them. Without synthetic flavors they could be quite disgusting to drink," said Leo.
"Yeah, right, that's it! Can you do one for a 9 year old?"
"Yes, sure!"
"Fine, Leo, I'll need it later for lunch," she stated and left the lab leaving the young man totally happy.
"Agent Romanoff, I think you have to return to the subject. We turned out the light as you ordered. She went crazy again and is trying to rip off a camera in the cell," the guard seemed quite concerned when he contacted her on the phone. She turned off the intercom the minute she came into the lab.
"Ok, I'm coming!" Natasha rushed to the prison level of the S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters.
Until the woman got to the prison level the child managed to disconnect one camera. The second Agent Romanoff opened the door to the cell, the girl, who was standing on the metal table in the corner of the room, made a flip back sending the table to fall down on one side and landed hard on her injured leg, so hard that Natasha heard a small yelp coming from the girl's mouth and cracking sound of the plaster. Scarlett made a limping step towards the table and hid behind its lid.
"Scarlett, are you alright?" Agent Romanoff asked cautiously entering the room.
"Don't come closer or I slice you into pieces!" roared the girl in Latin.
"What's wrong, little one? I won't hurt you. How's your leg?" Natasha put her hands up to show the child that she is safe with her.
"You switched of the light to strike me with the lightening you hide in your sleeves. After that others will come to torture me. The thing is, I can see in the darkness better than you!" the child pronounced gasping at each sentence with pain.
"Scarlett, nobody is going to torture you. We switched of the light for you to sleep. Isn't it better to sleep when there's no light?" She made a step to the table.
"Don't come closer! I'll tear you to pieces, I promise!" roared the girl.
"Fine, look," she took of the leather bracelets with electric devices and threw them away at the door.
"I don't have lightening anymore, can I approach you?" She said 'lightening' because there was no word for stun gun in Latin.
"No!" was the answer.
"Scarlett, can you stand up for me to see that you didn't hurt your leg too much? Please, we are here alone just you and me, there's nothing to be afraid of."
The woman heard an unpleasant sound of claws scratching on metal and saw the top of the girl's head appearing from behind of the table. The child stared at her for some time to analyze the chances she had against this strong woman.
"Please, let me have a look at your leg," she made a suggestion to the red-head creature with sharp fangs.
The child nodded with hesitation. Natasha went to the girl who was gripping tight one of the table's legs to stand upright. She noticed the plaster crashed to pieces and only the band on it was holding it together.
"Scarlett, I need to see how badly it is damaged," she looked at the girl who was definitely in pain because her yellow eyes seemed too watery. "Sit on the floor. Slowly." She helped the girl to sit down.
"Can you cut off the bandages or I'll get my knife?"
The girl bent, dug three fingers into the plaster and made a deep cut. Natasha cautiously removed the plaster. Intramedullary pin broke down and ripped the stitches open. The wound was bleeding again. She could only imagine how it hurts.
"Listen, we need to take you to the emergency room. I'll inform the guards to get the medics here. I promise you'll be safe. I'll stay with you the whole time there is nothing to be scared of. Can you, please, turn back to normal? I'll appreciate it very much."
The agent saw claws drawing into girl's thin fingers as well as fangs getting into her jaws.
"Thank you."
Natasha escorted the girl on the stretchers to the emergency department. She prevented the medical staff from giving the child any sedatives. They buckled her up to the bed, injected a painkiller right into the leg, fixed the bone again and put plaster on it. While surgeons where performing magic agent Romanoff distracted the girl by asking about her life with the monks if she could name them so. Then they put Scarlett into a special single medical ward for prisoners the similar she stayed before but all the surveillance system was working here perfectly well.
"Will you sleep now?" she asked the girl tucking up the blanket around her small body.
"Tell them not to switch off the light."
"Sure, sleep tight. If you want to go somewhere use crunches," She put the crunches near the bed for the girl to grab them easily.
"Inform me when she wakes up and don't turn off the light. She doesn't like it." She said to the guards.
Agent Romanoff spent this day reading reports about the place where the girl was found. The more she read the more she hated the place and the monks. Pantelleria Island was Hydra's research center. The monks were really religious people a bit crazy about life's origin, history of Catholicism, Jesus Christ personality and many other theories that were connected with ancient artifacts. They tried to find such things as the Holy Grail, the Scala Sancta, or the Shroud of Turin. These wasn't just one field of their research, others were ancient Greek and Roman legends, historical artifacts of Ancient Egypt which they eagerly searched for. Knowledge gathered from their finding they implemented in reality using modern technologies and achievements in science.
A not so big cloister on the ground became a huge monstrous building of ten floors underground that expanded to the whole area of the island. All the facilities were research labs. Here they carried out biological, chemical, medical and many different experiments including cloning, gene mutation, etc. Natasha read a report of approximately thousand people including pregnant women and a bunch of new born babies dying after the S.H.I.E.L.D.'s attack. It seemed as if the explosion happened underground. They blew themselves up. Everything was burnt or destroyed except that little girl, who was now sleeping in the medical ward for prisoners.
"Agent Romanoff, the subject is awake," she heard the information on the phone.
"Her name is Scarlett, Tom. Please, don't call her 'subject'," she replied tiredly. Only now she realized that it was eight o'clock in the evening.
"Yes, ma'am."
"I'll be in five minutes."
Natasha took a protein drink that was earlier prepared by Dr. Fitz, took a small sip of it and gritted her teeth because it tasted like meshed paper. "Semolina was better," she thought to herself.
"Good evening, Scarlett." Natasha greeted the girl entering the room.
"Hello, have 24 hours passed yet?" the child asked puzzled.
"No, not yet."
"How do you understand that it is evening then?"
"Have you ever been outside?" Agent asked back.
"Children can't go outside after the Apocalypse, especially female children. Only adult brave men can stand the wrath of the God," stated Scarlett.
"How many children have you seen when you were on that island?"
"None."
"And women?"
"I saw female specimen only here and in picture of some books that I read at the cloister," confessed the girl.
"That's a pity."
"Why?" asked the child in confusion.
"You'll understand later when your leg gets better. Now eat this."
The child gulped from a big cup that Natasha put before her on the table.
"It seems like the one I ate in the cloister," she said satisfied with the drink.
"I'm glad that you like it."
"No, the previous was better. Can I have that one sometimes, please?" the child pleaded.
"No, willing or not, tomorrow you are going to eat 'poisoned food' because it will help you to get outside, if you're not scared, of course," Natasha said as a matter of fact.
"Have you been outside?" girl's eyes turned into two round plates in astonishment.
"Yes, because I ate poisoned food, learned the language that everyone speaks and was a very good girl." She tried not to laugh while pronouncing all this bullshit.
"Outside is very dangerous and there's no air to breathe. You should be very strong to survive. You don't look like a strong human being. Maybe your lightening can help for a while, but I wouldn't rely on it. There are a lot of monstrous creatures out there."
"Oh, don't underestimate me, child, because you've never seen me angry."
"What language should I speak? I know Latin, Greek, Egyptian, Sumerian and Celtic," the girl enumerated.
"All ancient languages except maybe Greek," Natalie thought to herself, "What did you do when you were in the cloister?"
"I made a research on different relics and ancient objects of great importance. I read scrolls, manuscripts and stone or clay tablets, analyzed them and sometimes even found places where they might be. When I read something I remember it forever. I can cite it word for word."
"You've got an enormous range of skills and abilities," thought Natsha but didn't pronounce it.
To be continued…
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