A/N: So I am pretty happy with this chapter, only because there's a little more insight into "Anna".
Disclaimer: I do not own Marvel or Avengers in any way, shape or form.
Chapter Four: I Fear Endlessness
She was so tired of seeing straight. No matter how tight her eyes clenched and her breathing quickened, she could not get the patterns of the ceiling lights and their perfect straightness from her minds eyes.
Why did it bother her so? Her memories of the days leading up her to waking in Stark Tower were a wreckage of scattered words and images. She would see the reflection of the night sky in the window glass and would think she hadn't seen daylight in so long because she'd cried at seeing the sunrise. She enjoyed it too much that she had stood outside on the balcony almost all night in the autumn cold and hadn't been freezing.
She could stare, unblinking, for five minutes and still her eyes would not itch or tear up from the constant exposure to air.
There was something fundamentally wrong, she knew, and feared if she closed her eyes, the endless black of sleep would claim her for its own and scrounge up her worst nightmares.
It scared her that the only nightmare she remembers having in her entire life was the one from the night previous. She couldn't remember dreaming anything beyond that.
Had it been a dream?
She knew she couldn't fend off sleep for an eternity as much as she wished for that ability.
"Miss. Anna?"
"Yeah, weird automated voice?" weird automated voice she was a little fond of. In some ways she wished to sound as emotionless as JARVIS, the Stark personal assistant and keeper.
She wished she had a keeper. She wished she remembered more than the essential bits and pieces of her life.
"Ms. Potts wonders if you would allow her entry."
I remember and know everything they seem to ask… but do not know the answers to my own questions. "JARVIS?"
"Yes?"
"Ms. Potts can come in."
She didn't know why she was being given a choice who to let into her room, and who she dared risk sending away. Why was Stark giving her that power of choice?
The door swooshed open, reminding her again of air being pushed in a sigh between clenched teeth, or the sound of a hydraulic hose disengaging.
Now that was an odd connection to make.
"… hope these are alright. I guessed your size. Just essentials and things that might make your stay more enjoyable. The girl at the department store was very helpful, and I had to guess what colours you'd prefer so I played it safe with pastels. If none of it fits-"
"Ms. Potts?"
"Please, call me Pepper."
"Pepper… everything's fine. Thank you."
Her appreciation stopped Pepper in her tracks, between pulling out a sweater and opening the drawers beneath the vanity against one wall.
"You're very welcome. I know how intimidating those guys can be. I remember meeting them for the first time, but, then again I had the advantage of already knowing Tony and Natasha and-"
"You speak a lot when you're nervous, huh?"
Pepper didn't expect Anna to be smiling at her through the mirrors reflection. "Is it too noticeable?" she chuckled lightly, softly, as if being any louder than her quiet rant had been would disrupt the air of cordiality.
Anna stood, helping Pepper remove the clothes from the bags and thin wrapping material that crinkled sweetly beneath her touch. "These are nice. I don't think I've ever had such nice clothes."
She was naked, exposed like raw wires without the rubber casing, lying there on the table fearing that he'd be so angry at her escape.
"Anna?"
She was gripping the dresser, and coming back to herself released her death-grip and gave a cursory smile to the purchases littering the bed and dresser.
"I'm sorry; I'm still a little weak." She sat beside a box, and on opening the lid –a distraction for herself and so the older woman didn't notice her hand shaking- took out a pair of flat black shoes not too extravagant but nice, simple.
"Please don't apologize." Pepper stressed, sitting so the shoe box lay between them on the soft sheets. "Why don't I come back later with dinner?" her hands rested in her lap, and Anna found her eyes drawn to them briefly before meeting the woman's kind eyes.
"Actually… if it's okay, I thought I'd go find Dr. Banner. He offered to do some tests and I was rude to brush him off earlier." She hoped the shake and lilt in her voice went unnoticed. Why was she suddenly dizzy? Nothing felt off, perhaps it wasn't a lie when she said she was still weak. Shed meant it to be one, just to get pepper to stop appraising her like a poor urchin in need of a home.
She had a home as far as she was concerned, and it was a long way from Ney York.
"Would you like me to show you the way?"
Unlike her unsure attitude about this woman of a few moments before, Anna did not try and hide her gratitude as she whispered guiltily, "That'd be nice, thank you Pepper."
Bruce calibrated the sensors for differences in body heat so that no matter how minimal the changes, JARVIS would be able to detect anomalies from each of the eight essential pinpoints on Anna's body. Tony stood beside him, both ignoring the blaring rock music that Stark insisted helped the intellectual and creative processes need for all projects he undertook.
Bruce had learned the year before to get used to it. He suspected at first it was to shock him into having the Other Guy personally sign Starks lab's floor with dents, but it hadn't worked.
As the song switched over, Tony and Bruce decided to also scan Anna for gamma radiation and traces similar to the waves Loki used to give off when his magic would flare.
"Want to go all out and add specific brainwave activity?"
Bruce knew Tony was just messing around now, but it technically wouldn't hurt…
"So, everyone has an opinion on who this Anna is. You've been uncharacteristically silent." Bruce raised voice over the music drowned out his typing as he coded for specific brainwaves. Tony gave a knowing smirk to what his "science buddy" was doing but it went without comment.
"I dunno. Everything just seems wrong, you know? Why would SHIELD drop her off to us? Why even bother? There's no news reports of a huge fight or of Doom or any of the other nasty's we've tangled with, so… I just don't see the point and I don't think Anna does either."
"It is weird she looked like shed been in some stand-off and there haven't been reports of it by the press of SHIELD for that matter."
The music cut off and Bruce realized he'd been shouting, lowering his voice a few decibels, added, "Maybe it was a classified mission gone wrong?"
"Don't you think the spy twins would know about it, then?"
"Sir, I am sorry to interrupt, but Ms. Potts and Miss. Anna are on their way to the medical wing to see you, Dr. Banner."
A quick glance at his screen showed no physical distress for either pepper or Ana, so Bruce shut off the screens and grabbed his tablet from the nearby workbench. "See ya Tony, I have a patient."
"Yeah."
Bruce exited, Tony turned back to his workbench where a new prototype for his suit laid, all open wires and exposed circuits.
The machine whirred to life, sounds blending together round her encased body like in a barrel falling deep within the booming waters of Niagara Falls.
Over the speaker came a voice. Dr. Banner. "Anna? How are you doing?"
"Oh, great. I finally know what claustrophobia feels like. Can't say I'm liking it, doc."
A chuckle hung light on his voice, "I know how you feel. Two more minutes. How about I ask you some questions to pass the time?"
"Well, I'm strapped down and in a tube, so, I'm not in a position decline."
"You can say no if you like."
Not sure if they were alone or not, but not like it mattered. Dr. banner would tell the rest what she'd say anyways. They're all so curious.
"Oh. Okay. I won't deny you this opportunity."
The plastic table she was on moved. Bruce made no comment. She took a deep breathe, she was freaking out for no reason. It was fine. The bed hadn't moved. Get a grip you baby.
She blew out a breath as Banner asked his first question. "What was the last thing you remember before waking up here?"
Exhaust, metallic shavings embedded into her skin but no blood. The blood came later, once her scream settled in her belly and her lungs began operating once more. The black dots encircled her vision, tunneling until the grass; dewy beneath her, limbs weighed her down under the night sky.
The blackness and endless nausea never subsided even in unconsciousness. The faraway clicking sounds of gears lulled her into sleep. Darkness. Black. Nothing.
"I… I don't know. I was dizzy. I was seeing… grass."
"What do you remember doing for your last birthday?"
"Uh… I didn't do anything."
"You were created for my purposes."
She bit her lip and held back the gasp behind her quickly bruising lips. Whose voice was that? Bruce was still speaking, asking more questions. It hadn't been the doctor.
Suddenly the world tilted, no, it was the bed of plastic she laid on, caving to the left.
"What?" Anna panicked, it wasn't as if the support beneath her left side was caving… she was strapped to it, and the right side was raising, floating in the middle of the machine like attracted to something.
The weight of the table, scraping against the smooth concave curves of the inner tube, pressed the straps into her side so hard she winced and then began screaming.
Something inside her was tearing, right arm and leg was being torn clean off of her body, falling into the sky like a balloon happily making its way to freedom.
"…they will not think twice about dismembering you."
"NO!" her cry of pain turned into screams of protest, her hands blindly working at the restraints and buckles at the end of the canvas straps holding her into this torture.
As soon as Bruce had heard the first confused infliction, and sensors started beeping at an alarming rate, the red alarms filling the MRI chamber eerily as he and Natasha scrambled out of the viewing gallery where they'd been scanning and reading the computers and towards the MRI barrel.
The bed was tilted, so much so that it had broken off its supports, and her body was now supporting it, like a cement block attached to her entire body, which had begun to float in mid-air.
"Turn it off!" Bruce yelped not waiting to unstrap Anna as Natasha ran back into the control room, hitting the large green button and blew a sigh of relief when Ana's screams morphed into whimpers.
Even as Bruce half dragged Anna from inside the machines drum, Natasha could see the spreading bruises the straps had made against the girl's body, angry and dark like poison. Too dark… they were black, with crimson edges like sick looking flower petals etched along her joints
"Banner?" she crouched closer where Bruce had gently deposited the shaking girl to the floor.
The alarms had gone off in the entire medical wing, and both he and Natasha could hear heavy footsteps of at least Tony and a few of the other personnel.
Because it was an MRI, Bruce's first instinct was ro run his hands along Anna's collarbone, checking for a pacemaker. It qualified as a ferromagnetic, and was the most likely culprit of how Anna had screamed in so much pain and was lifted into the air.
Something metallic was on her body.
In her body.
As Bruce checked for any signs of reinforced metal plated bones, his hand paused at Anna's ankle.
"Shit."
The door opened, but Bruce was halfway to the viewing gallery when Tony came in and demanded to know what had happened and if everyone was still breathing.
He crouched next to Natasha, and then eyes zeroed in on the upended table in the middle of the MRI and broken gears poking out from the sides where the table had been split open down the middle from its base. "Jesus." Tony breathed.
"Guys! We need to have a talk, immediately."
The graveness of Bruce's voice struck a note with Tony.
Natasha even let her mask of composure slide.
Tony Stark was not one to wait for the rest of their team, especially when it sounded like Bruce had run over several puppies and was facing the carnage. Or he was facing one of Dooms bots and had no ability to morph into his counterpart, a current nightmare of Bruce's.
One quick glance at the incomplete scan on Anna's body, and Tony's eyes couldn't look away.
"That's impossible." Tony peered over the computer screen and through the glass to the prone girl on the floor. The black bruising across her entire right side conflicted with what Tony wanted to believe and what was on the scans.
Bruce whispered low enough so Natasha and Anna were deaf to their hurried conversation.
"She is… entirely…"
"Robotic," Tony cursed in every language he knew bad words for. "Well this puts a new spin on our lives." He rubbed vigorously at his face with one hand, the other scrolling through the scans Bruce had managed to take before Anna's entire physical body (not skeleton, because one would need bones for that) lifted into the air before the local magnetic field had changed.
"Tony," Bruce lowered his voice to a hushed breath of air, "I don't think she knows."
A/N: So, yes/no? it's a small little cliff at the end there, not too much! Review!
Next Chapter: the Avengers decide what to do with this new information and what it could mean.