Chapter 9 A World Without Vision

When I woke up, I was able to make out very faint outlines of objects and walls.

Slowly I sat up, but a gentle hand was placed on my shoulder to keep me down.

"Careful, Rosalina," Ororo said. "Don't do anything too fast. How's your vision?"

"Hardly better," I replied, looking over at her but only seeing her outline, no features or colors. "I can see outlines but nothing else. How long have I been out?"

"Long enough to force T'Challa to contact the Avengers to tell them that you're taking a long time to recover," Ororo answered. "Almost twelve hours."

Usually, hearing that would make me jump up right away, but this time, it just caused me to sigh. "Is anyone coming?" I asked.

"Clint and Vision are already here," Ororo said. "They came-"

She was cut off when I heard Clint exclaim, "Rose!" Before I could react, he had came to me and hugged me tightly.

"Clint," I said, returning the hug. Faintly, I made out Ororo stepping back to let us have a sibling-bonding moment. "Mind letting me breath?"

Clint chuckled and let me go. "At least you still have your personality," he said.

"At least," I repeated, wishing that I could actually see him instead of just seeing his figure. "Where's Vision?"

"He's with T'Challa trying to figure out what happened to you and how to fix it," Clint replied. "I left to check on you."

"Any progress?" I questioned.

"No," Clint answered. "It would be easier if we knew what was sprayed on you."

"There could still be some left on my face and hair after I was sprayed," I said. "An analysis of the substances on my face could do that."

"We were waiting until you were awake before doing that," Clint said. "Vision and I had insisted you not be disturbed."

I nodded. "Do you need me to get up?" I said.

"No we can perform the scan here," Clint started, but he saw the look on my face and added quickly, "unless you want to get up, that is."

"Please?" I said. "That'll also not make Vision worry so much if he sees that I'm walking on my own and under my own strength, even if I need you to guide me."

"We can do that, if that's alright with Ororo, that is," Clint added, turning to where she was still by the wall.

"As long as she doesn't overexert herself, then I see no problems," Ororo said.

With that, Clint helped me to my feet and guided me to where T'Challa and Vision were, Ororo on my other side.

When we got to the room, immediately I was brought into a hug by Vision.

"Rosalina, thank goodness you're awake," Vision murmured in my ear.

"I'm just shaken up, Vision," I said as he pulled away from me, looking up at where I know his face was. "You can go ahead and do an analysis, see if you can pick up anything that the spray could've left behind."

Vision nodded and brought me to a chair, sitting me down.

"Rose, remain still for a few moments while the scan is being performed," T'Challa said, typing some stuff into the computer.

I kept from moving as I heard the buzz of a scanner in front of my face. It did a full circle before stopping in front of my face again. I relaxed when it beeped, signalling that it was done.

"The results are in," T'Challa said, bringing up a hologram of what was found.

"Remove the sweat and natural oils that the skin produces and we have the substance," Vision said, getting rid of both of those things from the hologram.

"Now we just need to pinpoint the chemicals in this and what they do to harm the body, or in this case, the eyes," T'Challa said, zooming in to get the chemical breakdown.

"It looks like it's bleach," Clint commented, frowning. "Rose, was the rest of your skin burning where you were sprayed?"

"I don't remember," I said. "I just remember a lot of pain, and darkness because I couldn't see."

"Now that you say that, her skin did look irritated when I came back into the room," Ororo commented, looking at T'Challa.

"So how do we fix this?" Clint asked.

"We have to scan to see if there's an bleach left and if there is, wash it out to start with and wait to see if there's any significant changes," Vision said, walking to me and placing a hand on my arm. "Rose, somehow, we're going to get your sight back."

I smiled slightly, reaching up and covering his hand with mine. "Thank you, Vision," I said.

They performed a test on my eyes to see if I had any leftover bleach, and even though I didn't, they had me wash it out just in case.

"Are her self repairs helping her vision?" Ororo said.

"Yes, slowly but surely," T'Challa said. "Hopefully it will speed up as it gets closer to a full recovery."

"Usually, my self repairs do exactly that," I said. "In fact, for the past hour I've been here, your outlines have gotten a little bit clearer. Not a lot, but enough for me to notice the change."

"My scanners show that by the weekend, you should have your eyesight back," Vision said. "So you'll be returning when you were going to before."

"But Vision and I are staying here to watch over you," Clint added.

I only nodded, knowing better than to argue.

XXX

The rest of the week progressed slowly for me.

I was able to persuade Vision, T'Challa, and Ororo to help me in training, since I took my lack of eyesight as an advantage to help me in combat, but it took Clint more effort to allow him to agree.

"Clint, think about it," I said as the two of us walked down the hall to the training room. He was going to practice archery and had said that it wouldn't be best if I did any training until my eyesight was back. "Yes, I can't see well, but that helps my other senses! I can hear better, detect movement by a gentle swish of clothing or the whisper of something cutting through the wind! Let me get better at this, and I'll certainly have an advantage over the others, especially when we're in a dark location that has even Vision and I struggle to see!"

"Rose," Clint said, turning to me. "I don't want to see you hurt. You've been through enough pain in your life. You shouldn't have any more!"

"I've gotten bumps and bruises all over my body, but it doesn't stop my fighting spirit," I replied. "I'm not ready to hang up my cape yet and retire, call it quits. There's too much fight left in me to do that, too much danger out there to allow me to. I know what I'm doing, Clint. Please, don't you trust your sister?"

"I do trust you, with my life, but you can't see," Clint said. "And you can only do so much without sight. You can't even use your scanners to use thermal or infrared to see."

"You see that as a weakness, but I see it as an opportunity," I countered. "My whole life, I've had weaknesses. You know that. For once, I don't want to see the dark side of things. I want to see the bright! I want to be able to look up and say 'I can do this! I can use this!', not 'Everything is horrible and I'm just going to wait until it passes through, suffering the whole time.' Clinton, please." I take his hands in mine. "You're Hawkeye and I'm Magemancer. Use your wings to give me a lift, and my magic will be the wind underneath. I can't do this without you."

Clint was silent for a long time. Just when I thought he wasn't going to say anything and I began to turn to walk away, he said, "I'll be your wings, Magemancer."

I looked back at him as he pulled me into a hug. "Thank you, Hawkeye," I said with a smile.

Clint also smiled and kiss my forehead. "Come on, even if you're going to be training, you still can't do a lot," he said.

I nodded as the two of us continued our walk to the training room.

When we got there, the other three were already there, T'Challa and Ororo teaming up against Vision. We walked in just in time to see Vision phase into the ground as Ororo had sent a lightning bolt and T'Challa had sent a vibranium dagger, the two colliding where he had been moments before.

"Well, that was a close one," Clint commented as Vision phased up behind me, giving me a quick hug.

"You got Clint to agree, then?" T'Challa asked as he grabbed his dagger.

"Took a little bit of work, but I did," I answered.

"Then we start slow and easy," Ororo said.

I went to the center of the room, the others circling me, waiting for my cue to begin. I took a deep breath, calming myself down and allowing my mind to clear so I could focus easier. When I was ready, I nodded. "Go," I said.

I heard a bowstring from behind me on my left and the sound of an arrow from Clint cutting through the air. I stepped back, feeling the feathers brush against my arm as it zoomed by, hitting a wall and clattering to the ground.

Immediately after the arrow fell, I heard a rustle of cloth in front of me and to my right and ducked as one of T'Challa's daggers came at me, also hitting a wall and falling to the ground, this time a metallic ring as it fell.

A crackle of electricity next met my ears as a bolt of lightning, courtesy of Ororo, came at me from in front of me but to my left this time, but I sidestepped, feeling the heat coming off of the bolt as it flew by me and struck a wall.

Then I heard the sound of Vision phasing through the ground from behind me to my right. I listened closely for the sound of him coming back up and when it came in front of me, I quickly grabbed his arm before it had a chance to make contact with me and pushed him to the ground.

Before I had the chance to follow-through with an attack, I heard T'Challa and Clint both come at me and let Vision go, stepping away from him and doing a sweeping-kick in Clint's direction, the feeling of something hitting my leg followed by the sound of someone dropping to the ground, letting me know that it hit him and jumped to the side as T'Challa tried an attack, drawing my fan and knocking his wrist away before stepping in and imitating a hit to his temple. Had it been an actual hit, it would've knocked him out.

As T'Challa stepped out of the match, I heard Ororo fly into the air, me doing the same, along with Vision, who was behind me. It was harder for me to judge sound from here but I was confident that I could keep it going.

I first moved so that neither of them weren't behind me, knowing that in a real fight, that means I would lose real quick. I could make out the footsteps from Clint as he walked to by Ororo and Vision, hearing the tension as he pulled back his bowstring to shoot another arrow.

He was the first to send an attack. As his arrow came at me, I grabbed the shaft and threw it at Ororo, it catching her off guard and causing her to drop as it stunned her.

Vision shot an optic beam and while I did move out of the way, it still grazed my arm.

The blast of pain overwhelmed my senses for a couple seconds, just long enough to allow Vision to grab my arms and put them behind my back.

"Good first round, but you need work," he said as he released me and we went to the ground.

"How do you feel after that?" Clint asked as T'Challa gave Ororo a hand to get to her feet.

"It definitely gives me a new perspective when fighting," I said. "With more practice, then I definitely could use it in a fight."

"So, you ready for a round two?" Ororo questioned.

"Raise the challenge difficulty a little bit," I answered.

XXX

By the end of the week, I had made a huge improvement on training without sight, being able to make a huge mark on the four when they went their hardest, but I knew that in a real fight against real enemies, then I would definitely need help.

Also, every day I saw an improvement in my vision. By the time we boarded the train to head back to the college, my eyesight was almost back to normal, just a little bit of blurriness. I assumed that I would need glasses to be able to see without the blur, which I was fine with, since I didn't know if Tony would be able to fix it or not.

But even if he could, I would say not to unless it was absolutely necessary, since it was something that made me feel a little bit closer to human and not robot.

On the train ride back, I told that to Vision and Clint. Though they didn't fully understand my reasoning behind it, they didn't say anything in protest against it.

When we got to the Lake Forest station, Steve met us there.

"Anything change since last night?" Steve asked as we walked back to the school.

"Nope," Clint replied. "What have you done with the housing situation?"

"During the week, we moved everyone to Blackstone," Steve said. "You, Vision and the twins have moved a few rooms over. Nat and Rose are down the hall from the twins, Sam and I are on the second floor, and Tony and Rhodey are down the hall from you two. Close enough to keep in close contact with one-another."

"And classes?" Vision added.

"Unfortunately, there's not a lot we could do about that," Steve said. "We still all have the same classes as before."

"Even mine with Magicseer?" I asked.

"From what Nat and Wanda say, she's dropped out of that class," Steve said. "Or at least she hasn't been there for awhile. But we do know they're still here, planning something big."

"Well, at least we're all together," I commented.