Chapter 3
I had been awake for hours before my alarm clock finally sounded. Not bothering to move, I let it ring. The irritating sound gradually brought me out of my dream-state. This was all so weird. The sceptre, the avengers, I was struggling to cope. I tried to pretend none if it was real, that it was all a strange but terrifying dream, but alas, the faint blue glow of my arm brought me back to reality. Fed up of listening to my alarm clock, I slapped my hand down on it, silencing it.
Usually, I wasn't really bothered about my looks, but today I had to admit, I looked particularly horrendous. I first noticed the bruising in the reflection of the Stark Tower door. A mess of purple black and yellow stains covered parts of my face and arms. I silently chastised myself for a wearing a t-shirt today. Rolling my eyes and groaning, I pushed through the revolving door and into the workplace. The stares I received were so obvious despite people's 'best efforts' to conceal them. Thankfully, some of the bruising had hidden the glow in my arm, which I was hugging to my chest so no one could see. It was a relief when I finally got into the lift and out of the spotlight. I rocked back and forth on my heels as I finally got to the floor where the labs were situated. Yet again, stares were directed at me as I headed to my lab. "Come on, come on, nearly there. The door's just there..." I encouraged myself under my breath as I walked, feigning carelessness. The last few steps towards the lab I practically sprinted to get out of sight. Loki's sceptre was still on the table, where I'd left it. Shame, I thought a tragic accident may befall it and it would have been lost forever. ..What started out to be an exciting assignment with a remarkable artefact, had turned into absolute hell for me. "Yay. Just another regular day at the office." I muttered.
"Stop talking to yourself. It's irritating."
"So are you." I didn't even have to look up to know who was sitting lazily in the corner. A snort could be heard from Loki's direction. "I see you're in a happy mood this morning."
"Ecstatic." I shot back sarcastically. Finally looking up at him, I sighed. "Why can't you just go to another room, and annoy somebody else?" I was seriously not in the mood to deal with him today. He chuckled and gracefully rose from his chair, slowly approaching me. "You think I'm annoying?" He pouted like a child and faked innocence. "I'm hurt."
"Fascinating." I replied bluntly. "You're clearly mixing me up with someone who really cares, Loki."
"You don't care about me?" He smirked. "Oh I think you do. You care about the fact that if you're not careful I could snap you like a twig..." He took another threatening step with every breath. "You care that one mistake, could end very slowly, and very painfully." I stood my ground even though he was standing inches from me, towering over my small-ish frame. "I think you care very much."
"Have you quite finished? I have work to do."
"Well, by all means, don't let me stop you." He took a step back and bowed dramatically. He was enjoying this way too much. "Does it give you satisfaction to see other people hurt, knowing you've caused it? Because if yes, you are seriously sick."
"I-"
"I don't wanna hear it! I don't care about your stupid remarks or insults. If you really have that big a problem with me that you have to threaten me when I'm not even bothering you, then just leave. Or at the very least do something useful. Yes, you may be stronger than most of us, good for you, but that doesn't mean you have to get in our way. Just...leave me alone." Without hesitation, I stormed out and headed straight for the lift, grateful for the safety it provided.
I eventually settled on heading to the Stark Suite after inventing an excuse as to why I'm dodging work. I figured 'Loki is scaring the hell out of me', wouldn't be very acceptable so I settled for 'I'm bored'. "Yes, this is totally going to work." The doors slid open with a ping as the suite was revealed. Stark and Doctor Banner were chatting over the bar whilst Thor and Captain America were playing cards on a far table. Once again faking confidence I walked over to Stark and leant on the bar. "Sir, please can I move onto another Assignment? There is nothing more to find and I'm really fed up with this now."
"No." He immediately returned to his conversation with Doctor Banner as if I wasn't even present. "Sir, please. This is ridiculous. You're leaving me down there with absolutely nothing to do."
"Don't be ridiculous, there's always more to find. Besides, the more information we scrape to find about that...thing, the better our chances of getting closer to the organisation."
"Yes! Why don't you let me help with that? I can do a bit of digging, try and find where they'll come up next! Obviously I'd have to run some background and then use the systems but that's no worries, right?" To my confusion, Stark and Dr Banner exchanged nervous looks. Stark gulped before continuing. "Nope. We're good. Just carry on what you're doing and we'll handle the rest."
"But-"
"Go. Right now." Frustrated I turned and headed back towards the lift with a new purpose. Do some digging.
I was completely fine and happy with myself, up until the point where I remembered how I'd exited the lab before...and how I'd left Loki. Nervous, but still determined, I creeped up to the lab entrance and peeked my head through the glass door. Loki was standing on the opposite side of the room this time, gazing out of a window overlooking the city. I tiptoed in and delicately placed the headset back on my head. Loki threw a glance over his shoulder and I but my lip expecting him to yell, threaten do something, but he just looked me in the eye before returning to his city watching. I blinked. Did that just happen? Blown away by Loki's newfound...silence, I hastily grabbed an electronic tablet from the corner of the room. I brought it back to the centre table and fired it up. It didn't take long to log in to Stark's systems, but this was where the real challenge began. I had to hack into the main frame, access the protected files interpret them and then get out again without being noticed by the owner and the rest of the building. Yay. I guess Loki got bored of watching the city because I was aware of him taking a seat at a nearby table, but I was too focused to look or care. Accessing the main frame took the longest, but once I was in, it was easy as pie. I was at the stage when I was about to open the protected files when Loki finally decided to speak up. "You're not supposed to be doing that, are you?"
"Nope." Was my short answer. He came and stood beside me as I worked furiously to try and break the firewalls and pass codes. Loki seemed to be amused by the fact I was going behind my boss' back and doing something I really shouldn't be. But hey, that's what you get when you're left out of the loop. "Why are you finding this funny?"
"Because you didn't exactly strike me as someone who would break the rules." Stunned, I turned around to face him. "You have absolutely NO idea." He shrugged and sat down beside me, inspecting the tablet with a frown. "How do you know how to hack into all this? It just looks like a load of numbers to me."
"...I just do. In all honesty, I don't know how I do this, it just happens!" The God of Mischief laughed, and it seemed genuine, happy. "That must be the worst explanation I have ever heard." Understanding why he was laughing and mulling over what I had said, I joined in. We laughed for a moment before a red alert was displayed on the screen, a warning telling me not to access these files. "Screw that." I murmured, dismissing the caution. A folder named HYDRA opened. "What?" I asked no one in particular, confused. The HYDRA file contained many more folders with information concerning weaponry, ideas of strike locations, S.H.I.E.L.D's history and encounters, but last of all there was another, separate, very large folder...with my name on it
A wave of ice-cold dread swept over me. I shivered and my hand shook as I went to open the file. In my moment of shock, I hadn't realised Loki had steadily come to stand next to me, hovering over my shoulder. I reached out to touch the screen, but his icy hand grasped my wrist. "Don't. I have a feeling that's not a good idea."
"Why? If it's about me I have a right to see it, don't I?"
"Yes, but there's probably a very good reason they're keeping it from you, don't you think? If they did keep it from you, it was probably because you wouldn't have wanted to know." Came his frustratingly understandable sensible reply.
"If someone you thought you trusted kept something from you, for probably a long while, you would want to know, wouldn't you? Want to know what it was? Even if you knew it was probably bad...?" I could tell by Loki's reaction that he understood where I was coming from. A look of sheer pain could be seen on his face, as he seemed to be troubled by past memories. Seizing the opportunity while he was distracted, I opened the file...but just like he said, I regretted it almost instantaneously. Files upon files of medical records, from no hospital, or anywhere recognisable for that matter, were displayed. Pictures upon pictures of me lying helpless on a hospital bed/operation table appeared, chilling me to the bone, if I wasn't cold enough. But worst of all, right at the end, was an overall report, signed by Tony Stark and Director Fury. It didn't take long to scan through it, and I got the gist of the document. Biting back the tears that were threatening to spill, I threw the tablet off the table in a fit of fury, letting out a ferocious shriek. I clutched my head in my hands as I leant on the table, trying to calm down. I wasn't even remotely human anymore, the records proved that. I was a HYDRA experiment, patient zero. They were trying to develop super soldiers, which was an un-surprisingly popular thing amongst these sort of organisations at the moment, and they succeeded...with me at least. But they got caught, and were stopped...but as a last ditch effort they wiped all memory of my HYDRA encounters so I couldn't tell S.H.I.E.L.D anything. There was no way to tell what memories were real and what weren't. My whole life could be a lie for all I knew...and they didn't tell me. They lied to me! Stark, Director Fury, probably everyone in this whole building! I felt a reassuring hand on my back, attempting to comfort me, and I was amazed to learn that it was Loki trying to soothe the pains that were so obviously affecting me. "I don't know who I am anymore..." I sobbed, all traces of confidence gone. Loki removed his hand, and began to wrap his strong arms around my waist, tenderly coaxing me to stand. Then, to my utter astonishment, he pulled me towards him in a kind embrace. His attitude frequently stunned me, as more and more he revealed a more tender side to the man I had previously assumed a monster. But no matter how hard I could see he was making an attempt to support me, I was still utterly distraught at this revelation. Finally, I gave up on holding back the tears and cried into Loki's muscular body as he continued to hold me. His head rested on mine as my sobs were muffled by his armour. I felt a hand lay on the back of my head, caressing my hair softly. Tears kept falling down my face despite my efforts to stop them, but Loki showed no signs of discomfort or opposition to the situation we were in. Questions aroused in my mind, to which I had no intention of asking politely for answers. I knew exactly who to ask and there was no way this information was being kept from me any longer.
I don't know exactly how long I stood there in Loki's arms, but it felt like an eternity. When I had finally calmed down, he let me go but we said nothing. I retrieved the many pieces of the tablet that had been smashed in my anger. The pieces were scattered beneath a nearby table in a desolate heap. "Oops." Mumbling to myself I placed the sharp-edged pieces back on a table. Still trying to get over all the information I had taken in, I headed for the lift, ignoring every single person as ambled towards it. Loki snuck in beside me just before the doors snapped shut. "Try not to break anything." He murmured as we ascended. His comment almost made me laugh, almost. My breathing was shaky as I watched the floor numbers gradually increase. "Stop worrying. There's nothing to be scared of."
"Apart from losing my head as well as my job."
"Well then don't lose it. It's not hard." He looked down at me with a small, but pleasant, smile.
"Says you." I finished. This time I couldn't hold back a small giggle before I returned my attention to the lift numbers. I heard a small chuckle from Loki as well, but didn't mention it. I doubt he would want to have his attention brought to the fact that he was laughing alongside a mere mortal. A quiet bell sounded as once again the famous suite was revealed. Stark was standing with his arms crossed by the centre table, shaking his head at a monitor. "Why couldn't you just leave things alone, Sophie?" He remarked, acknowledging me as I walked in. I noticed The Avengers along with Coulson and Director Fury were crowded around a seperate monitor, in a very heated discussion over something. But I was too enraged to care. "Why didn't you tell me?" Loki took a seat by the others and smirked. "What? About HYDRA? Because it wasn't your concern! Thanks to you, I now have to re-establish new fire walls and all sorts!" He thought I was ill-tempered over the fact that the organisation was HYDRA. How naive. "ABOUT THE FACT THAT I'M NOT REALLY HUMAN?! YOU KNOW, THAT MINUTE DETAIL YOU JUST HAPPENED TO OVERLOOK?!" Silence overcame the huge room. It seemed like no one was daring to even breathe. It was Director Fury who finally broke the awkward silence. "We thought it was best that you didn't know."
"Why? What gave you the right to keep something like that from me?" I was so close to yelling again, so close. "That sort of information could be life destroying. We weren't sure how you'd react." Director Fury was trying his best to keep everyone calm, and I was slightly concerned that his efforts weren't exactly paying off. "YOU THINK?!" I took a deep breath to contain myself before continuing. "I think...I would've preferred to have been told."
"Well in the situation that we were in, we decided to make a different call. I'm sorry." I frowned, puzzled. "What situation?" He didn't respond. "Sir, what situation?" With a sigh, and a glance at Stark, Fury reluctantly obliged. "At the time, when we found you, it was just after they'd wiped your memory...we decided not to tell you about what they did, how they changed you because..."
"Because?" I urged. I'd learnt too much already for him to stop now.
"Because...because HYDRA had found some way to control what you were doing, even after the memory loss you experienced..."
"AND...?" I prompted.
"...You murdered 38 people before you were knocked out and had your injuries treated." The air was sucked out of me as I struggled to breathe. My eyes widened as I stumbled back slightly before regaining myself. It felt like I'd been hit in the stomach with a brick. I tried choking out words but all that came out was muffled squeaks. I'd...killed people. Murdered actual people. My eyes seared with the pain of tears that were threatening to spill once again. I stared down at my hands as if they weren't my own. "What...I...I...how..." I was aware of someone beside me, and someone else trying to talk to me but all I could focus on was the fact that there were 38 people lying dead...because of me. I couldn't cope anymore. My hands were clutched to my head as my knees buckled underneath me. Somebody caught me and lowered me down slowly, and once again people tried to speak to me but I just couldn't concentrate properly. I hugged my knees to my chest and screamed into them, rocking back and forth. The tears came forward in a rush whilst others shuffled about me. A pair of arms came round my shoulders, shaking me in an attempt to bring me back to my senses. "Sophie! Sophie! It wasn't your fault! You didn't know what you were doing!"
"But I still did it! I still killed them!" I screeched.
"Shhh! It wasn't you, it was this HYDRA, ok? Just, calm down Sophie. It wasn't you." I concluded the voice belonged to Loki, and I assumed it was his arms around me as he was clearly in such a close proximity. Suddenly it was Tony beside me. "Sophie, listen to me. Just calm down ok, we can talk about this explain it to you when you're not in such a state. Loki's right, it wasn't your fault, not at all. Just calm down."
It took quite a while for me to stop crying long enough for Stark and the others to get me out of the state I was in. They sat me down at the table in the suite. Stark gave me a drink, tea I presumed but I didn't really care, and started to explain. Some of the avengers left to give us some privacy, but a few stayed for comfort. Loki, surprisingly, was among the ones who stayed, along with Romanoff and Dr Banner. After Pepper was notified of the situation, she too came and sat with me while Stark tried to break down the story in a way so that I wouldn't get so worked up again. He explained that I was injured in a freak accident, but they weren't certain of the details, and poor before they changed me. That I went to HYDRA as a last ditch effort to get money, and also to try and get full use of my body again. They completely removed the skeleton from my body, and replaced it with some sort of metal one. How they managed to pull of a procedure like that was un-fathomable, but clearly they succeeded. However the metal they used wasn't from earth, which explains the traces of Tesseract energy inside me. They also placed some sort of chip in part of my brain, which allowed them to access and control every movement, so it really wasn't my fault that those people had died...but then again, there was no way I was going to be able to come to terms with that. Nobody knows how HYDRA obtained the technology they did, as it appeared to be of Chitauri origin which was why Stark needed Loki. It became clear to me as Stark told the story, that no-one really knew every detail, and many factors were still unclear. This also explained their sense of urgency when it came to finding HYDRA. Because if the experiment on me was successful, what was to stop them doing it again? "But how come I have a faster metabolism than everyone else? Surely my skeleton wouldn't effect that as well!?" I asked, sniffing.
"We believe it's because they replaced your blood too, so that your body wouldn't reject the technology. It's also possible that some of your vital organs have been replaced in addition to everything else." He let that sink in as I mulled that over. I managed a small smile and a chuckle. "You should've just let me study all my...changes. I would've had so much fun. Experimenting on myself, potential hazard, loads to find, what more could I want?" Pepper and Stark laughed as well, however the moment of happiness was fleeting. It was a lot to take in, and even more questions arose, but there was no way I was going to ask them now. Too much had happened today for me to enquire further. Loki had sat beside me the whole way through. Unbeknown to the others, he had held my arm under the table as a sign of support, which was greatly appreciated on my part. "Why don't you go home and get some rest? Take the day off tomorrow." Pepper finished with a smile. I always thought she had one of those really understanding smiles which just made everything feel better. "No. I'm not going home. Not after this. Please can I just stay here tonight? In med bay or something? I'll just complain about side effects from previous antibiotics or something and-"
"You don't have to make excuses to Doctor Harris, Sophie. She knows everything. Who do you think was the one who removed the chip from your brain? Did it not register in your mind that somebody must've removed it to stop you being a thoughtless zombie?" I made an 'o' shape with my mouth. Funnily enough that thought hadn't even crossed my mind! "Who else knows about my...condition?" Pepper cleared her throat. "The doctors in the medical bay, some of the lab workers and the avengers."
"...what? That's it? I thought everyone would've known!"
"No no no no no! That would be a serious violation of privacy, and really mean." Pepper joked. I wasn't amused. "Anyway, so can I just stay tonight and then tomorrow please can I stop studying the STUPID sceptre? It's really grotesque and a massive pain in the arse to study because it just doesn't react to anything and with misery guts hanging around all the time it's a wonder I've found anything!" Pepper pursed her lips, struggling to contain a laugh as I just blabbed the thoughts that I'd been wanting to spill for ages. I could tell Loki wasn't impressed as his hand tensed under the table before he removed it completely. Even Romanoff couldn't suppress a giggle. I was beginning to feel like myself again, once I overlooked the killing part. "What?" I asked, looking at Loki. Now even I was struggling to cover up a laugh. "Oh come on! You have to admit that was pretty funny." He definitely wasn't impressed. "Okayyyy...sheesh tough crowd."
"I'll tell Doctor Harris you're coming down." Pepper curtly remarked before saying goodbye and exiting the suite, giving Stark a quick kiss before she went. Being reminded of the current situation killed my laughter instantly as I started to get up. "I'll see you later then sir." He nodded as he and Loki began to escort me to the lift. "Hang on a second..." I started, stopping them in their tracks. "Does this mean I get super powers now?"
"What." A blunt response was all I received from Stark.
"Like captain America! Because of the skeleton replacement they would've had to replace some major muscles to compensate from the increased strength of the bone structure, so, does that mean I have super strength now?"
"Just get in the elevator." Stark shook his head, lightly pushing me towards the doors.
"OMG IT DOES, DOESN'T IT? YESSS! Ok I totally need a name! Like a really cool one!"
"No, you really don't!" Stark urged, pushing me even further towards the lift doors.
"And a costume! But not one like Captain America's 'cause that's just cheesey..."
"OK! Get in the elevator right now!" With one last forceful shove, Tony pushed me into the lift before turning on his heel and walking off, shaking his head. "AND IT'S LIFT NOT ELEVATOR!" I called back before the doors locked me inside. "WHATEVER." I just heard him yell back. Loki and I just looked at each other before bursting out laughing as we began to descend.
