Chapter 12
Salem knew from the moment he helped get her to her room, Mr Niver was the one to control her during her time at HYDRA.
He took her to her room where he brought her a change of clothes, a selection of underwear which included thongs, thank the gods because she had enough of the granny panties she was wearing, a set of black and another set of grey sweatpants and shirts along with fancier tops and trousers, and finally a pair of boots to wear.
They told her so many lies, so many falsehoods, so many fibs that she had to stop herself from rolling her eyes every time they commented on Tony, on Steve, on Natasha, and the other Avengers.
But they told her of her supposed origins.
November fourteenth, two thousand, there was a massive power outage in the USA, and the source came from a single hospital in New York City. The energy was strange, taking everything that could be converted into more energy before expelling everything useless.
It seemed like reality shifted on itself, taking and taking everything that could be used for energy and fuel before expelling a single life form, a little baby with a tiny note that simply said, Sabrina Andris.
It was the same place and date she was supposedly born. Tony had quickly found her within the time it took for the nurses to log her information into the system after it rebooted. He made sure that if he was ever named a father to anyone, he would be notified straight away and a DNA test be done.
Mr Niver told her that her parents were HYDRA agents, loyal ones that were killed off by the Avengers as soon as they caught sight of her. Salem nodded along and looked disgusted and sad at appropriate times.
He told her that her parents would have wanted her to be one of them, be a HYDRA agent and fight for them.
Salem agreed, though it was more so she could get information from him.
)()()(
Salem was introduced to a girl named Lily.
Lily was barely ten and had the ability of changing her appearance. She stayed the same age but she could change everything from her hair, eyes, skin, to her height, voice, and mannerisms. Lily could change everything about herself.
After letting both Lily and Salem talk to each other with the supervision of their handlers, Salem was asked to try and mimic Lily's ability.
Mr Niver gave her a little shock with a small taser, giving her energy.
She did as asked, changing, morphing her appearance to look like blonde, brown-eyed Lily but an older version of her. She then changed to look like a younger version of Mr Niver before becoming herself again.
Lily clapped and showed joy for sharing her gift, stopping in the middle of her clapping with a splutter of blood coming down from her right nostril. She lifted a hand to touch it, seeing the blood and suddenly lurching forward.
Salem shrieked.
"What the fuck! What the fuck!? What the fuck!" Salem stepped away, as she tried to catch her breath as she felt her heart rate completely skyrocket. She looked at Lily's small, vulnerable form as a gunshot wound pooled from her chest.
"Come on," Mr Niver said, grabbing her by the arm and dragging Salem along. "We need to go to the machine room."
"No," She ripped her arm out of his grip, taking a few steps away from him. "No. You're not trying to take my memories. You don't get to kill people willy nilly like that."
"Stop being hysterical," He said. "You'll forget soon enough. Now, come."
"I barely take suggestions, who do you think you are to order me around?" Salem scoffed, rubbing both hands down her face. She shook the image of Lily out of her head. "You killed her. Why don't you kill me now and get it out of the way?"
)()()(
Tony had to stay behind the one-way glass. Fury knew him too well because if he got close to Anna, Clare or Blair, regardless of their age or gender, he would be too tempted to put a blaster through their heads if that was what could get him his daughter back.
Natasha sat in the room with Anna, dressed in a smart outfit befitting a lawyer or attorney more than the international spy she was. Her hair was pulled out of her face, something she usually did when on a mission and beyond angry.
"So," Natasha began. "How did someone so young become a member of HYDRA?"
Anna stayed quiet, not even moving as she sat in the chair with her shackles around her wrists and ankles.
"Silent treatment? Fair," She smiled. "You won't get much out of this if you continue with the silent treatment. Might as well talk and get something."
"Get what?" Anna spoke. "What can I possibly get from this besides a longer sentence?"
"Better food, some accommodations such as books," Natasha said. "Not being imprisoned on the Raft perhaps. Depends on how much you tell me."
"What? What do you want to know?" She scoffed. "How HYDRA saved me before I could be killed by the robots? Or how they raised me better than my own parents?"
"You could start with that. But I don't care about that. I want to know where HYDRA took Salem."
"Why do you care for her? She's only a pawn in the scheme of things," Anna said clearly, looking completely serious. "She's what HYDRA calls a Darkling."
Tony furrowed his eyebrows, putting his thumb between his teeth and chewed on his nail for a split second before FRIDAY scolded him.
"FRI, scan SHIELD files and docs for anything pertaining to a Darkling, or anything similar," He ordered calmly.
It took FRIDAY a bit less than a minute.
"There are very few files pertaining to someone being a Darkling," FRIDAY said. "Most say to refer to a book that Doctor Strange would have."
)()()(
That was a very bad, really shitty idea, Salem quickly realised as she was dunked underwater for the eleventh time in as many minutes.
She hardly took suggestions, who were they to think she would follow orders?
Every time she was in pain, her snarkiness came back full-blown and Mr Niver realised she remembered everything, thus being forced to put her into the machine again.
When she was in pain, she couldn't keep her mouth shut long enough to pretend anymore. Not when she knew what HYDRA was willing to do to keep her compliant.
She would bring them hell!
"I hate WATER!" Salem snarled as they pulled her head from the ice bucket they were shoving her face into and letting her half drown. "Will you stop—"
The agent sighed, dunking her head into the water and holding it there as she struggled and screamed in anger into the water. It made the water bubble as she wiggled in her restraints, hands shackled behind her and ankles together as she kneeled on the ground before the bucket.
— "Dunking me in it! Goddamn it!" Her hair clung to her face, most of it in a ponytail but pieces flew out with each dunking. She shook her head like a dog to get the water out of her face. She swore in Italian as she was allowed to sit back on her hunches again.
"Cut her hair."
She looked shocked for only one second before it turned back to rage. "DON'T CUT THE HAIR!"
)()()(
"A Darkling, Mr Stark, is an entity or embodiment of Dark Matter Energy from the Dark Dimension also known as Hell," Doctor Strange said as he sat at a table with a large tome in front of him. "Much like the Loa, powerful entities that are the main religious figures of Haitian Vodou and Louisiana Voodoo, Darklings also reside in the Dark Dimension. They are one of the rarest entities we have knowledge of, so it's acceptable for me to not know what Miss Stark was without further, extreme testing."
"Okay," Tony nodded. "And for those of us that don't speak magician?"
Wong spoke up. "Your daughter is something close to impossible. Technology, for her to be your daughter, she would only be half Darkling, but for her to be full, it means she is not born of your seed."
"So she's not my daughter?"
"She's not this reality's Salem. I doubt this reality had a Salem in the first place," Wong said. "She is Tony Stark's daughter as her DNA states, but she is not yours. The Multiverse creates different versions of us depending on our actions. For her to be in this universe without being an actual part of it means higher powers are at work. The conception of a child with Human DNA and Darkling DNA means the Human parent has died and has been absorbed into the child."
"So she's a literal mini-me?"
"A little less you-you, and more a little bit of you and a bit of a Darkling. Think less clone and more like just a child."
"Right. So she is my daughter and is me at the same time. Not at all strange or difficult to understand at all."
Wong looked happy. "Good. It would explain Salem's abilities and why you had no idea of her limitations. We don't even know."
"From what you told us and what we observed," Doctor Strange began. "Miss Stark absorbed any type of energy to use as fuel for her abilities. Because she has Human DNA, if she does not have fuel, she is undoubtedly Human until she finds an energy source."
"And her abilities?"
"If she can imagine something, she can do it. Darklings are rare, they don't leave the Dark Dimension so something must have happened to make her come here," Strange said.
"What could have happened?" Steve asked. "She's been with Tony since she was located."
"I have no idea."
Tony scoffed, flicking his hands up in frustration. "No one seems to have any ideas recently."
"Because something like this hasn't happened before," Natasha said. "Even with the HYDRA, they've not taken one of us or our children who have abilities. Barnes is in Wakanda, Wanda is back at the compound with Vision, and we have no idea what Salem is capable of. I wish HYDRA good luck dealing with her."
)()()(
Salem prowled the edge of her cell, all four walls made of glass with no privacy since she was being put in the most secure area of the place. There was no toilet or shower in there, only a flimsy bed for her to sleep on. She walked the edge, glaring with purple eyes as that was all she could do as she healed.
Each time someone walked past the glass prison, she followed them along until they left her sight.
The damned HYDRA agents shaved her hair off, leaving barely a centimetre of it left and she was angry.
Mr Niver forced a pair of thick, fingerless gloves that covered almost all of her forearm like armour. It was thick with panels that she could sense had some sort of metal mechanism in it.
When she touched something she shouldn't have, done anything like hesitate, and she would be stabbed with thousands of little needles throughout her arms, palm and the back of her hands.
It hurt.
Mr Niver would activate it if she even so much as made a movement that was unnecessary or undesired, quickly conditioning her into staying still unless ordered.
Salem could imagine the trauma and therapy she would have to go through after this.
If she so much as looked at a plug socket, she would be stabbed with tiny needles throughout her skin, only going deep enough to hurt and injure her temporally as her body used up her available energy to heal.
She wasn't allowed out of her glass prison unless she was accompanied by Mr Niver and only him.
He introduced her to many more people, mostly people around her age or younger, forcing her to replicate their abilities or powers.
It took eleven people to be killed right in front of her before she stopped flinching and gasping every time they did it.
Mr Niver forced her into the machine that wanted to wipe her memory, but all it did, with the little energy she had left, was start to muffle her morals and enthusiasm.
Salem was calmer than ever, less anxious, less fidgety, less herself and she hated it.
If she wanted, she could heal the damage to her brain completely, but she was more concerned about keeping her mind rather than her mannerisms and habits at the moment.
Slowly, slowly, slowly, Mr Niver brought her out of her glass cage more often, patrolling behind her. It took months of this, acting right, playing the part as her mind was messed with each and every day. The more he began to trust or rather tolerate her, the more she was losing the grip on her morals.
Having people killed in front of you did that to a person, and to Salem, it just numbed her to the idea of death.
Being taught how to fight was another requirement, but she was good at that already. Combat and strategy were always some of her most prominent traits.
Once a week, for how many weeks she wasn't sure anymore, she would be brought out of the facility and into the bitter, snowy wilderness of somewhere.
The trees were thick and the roads were clean and maintained. She was put into a car, getting in without hesitation since she knew it would cause her pain. They drove for a while, thirty-eight minutes on average before the car stopped in the same place as always.
They shoved her out of the car in only a pair of sweatpants, hoodie and boots, driving away and leaving her alone.
She would be alone for an hour in the bitter cold in the middle of somewhere, a way to test her loyalty to them because she knew they could see her. She could feel the eyes on her, chills occupying space on her skin.
She went further into the snowy forest, further away from where they left her, further until she couldn't feel the stares of lifeless cameras. She stopped in a clearing that was almost hidden by the treetops, the ground cold but not completely covered in snow. She walked to the middle, standing there in the chilly cold as she felt her powers or whatever they were trying to keep her alive.
Salem screamed into the void of the clearing, screaming and yelling and hollering until she had her anger out and could refocus on her task.
She screamed until her lungs were out of air and her throat was raw.
She couldn't stand it anymore, staying at HYDRA. She saw so many death, felt so much pain as they tried to experiment on her but never got anywhere so they hurt her some more.
Salem couldn't be handed anything without fear of being hurt, hesitation was met with pain, questioning was met with pain, anything but following the orders was met with pain.
Pain
Pain
Pain
That's all she felt but she soon learnt that pain could be turned into power.
Delicious, dangerous power that didn't have its limits.
The car came back after an hour and thirty-nine minutes, the door opening and letting her in straight away.
She sat in the back with Mr Niver, another driver at the front.
He turned to her. "You're doing well."
He didn't expect an answer.
"There's only a little bit left before you're finished your training."
Salem turned to him, eyes blank of emotion and a little void of anything recognisably of humanity.
There was a sudden temptation to just knock his head into the front seat, grab him, take the gun from his belt, shoot the driver and get him into the front seat, get him to drive into the facility and make some mayhem before destroying the whole place.
She didn't touch her hair as she would have otherwise when she was creating and manipulating plans in her mind. Her hair was longer now. Long on top with short sides, she kept it slicked back and out of the way but she wished it would grow quickly. She missed the long hair she had but she had to admit this was easier.
Salem turned her gaze back to the seat in front of her, calm, steady heartbeat as she bit the inside of her lower lip.
She needed more information but she was already sick of this.
)()()(