CHAPTER 2

OF BROKEN PAGES

"Forests have secrets – he said gently.
It's practically what they're for.
To hide things.
To separate one world from another."

― Catherynne M. Valente

It was safe to say that Eris had completely taken possession of one of the bedroom not indicated by Friday. She had just chosen the one she liked more, not knowing to whom it belonged, and quite not caring about it, and had placed her bag there, ignoring the fact that the A.I. had said multiple times Stark wouldn't be happy.

She didn't care in the slightest.

Eris had gone without shame in the closet to rummage some clothes, finding they quite fitted her, even if they were a size more than hers. She didn't complain. If she had to stay here for a while, at least she could have some comforts.

At first, she had half expected the man to bargain one day and demand her to exit the room that clearly belonged to another woman. She also expected the man to be offended on her for using the clothes of said person.

However, Eris had barely seen the genius around. Even if she passed all her time attached to the window to draw, only going to the bedroom to take some showers or change, Stark remained, for the most part, a ghost.

She was perfectly fine in being left alone, plus the only times he would grace her with his presence were the ones in which he would come in the kitchen to grab something to eat or prepare some coffee. He would cast her a curious but blank glance, and then disappear once again into his cave, doing whatever was thankfully keeping him busy.

Stark looked worse day by day. It had been already a week since she had been brought there, and she thought that the definition of walking dead could be perfectly used to describe them. He had shaved his beard a little some days before, but now it was growing again, making him resemble almost a homeless man, completed with eyes of a drugged person with a touch of coffee craziness. His clothes at last changed every day, but always remained stained with new different spots of oil.

Like him, Eris could really use a little bit of sleep and a little less of jumpiness. Being thrown into a place she didn't know was not healthy for her broken and easy to fright mind. She always felt on edge, always ready to fight some unknown force, and the big in open spaces didn't really help her.

If Fury had expected them to benefit from each other company, or to talk, he was surely mistaken. They were both just wasting away in that place, and even if it was big, with a lot of space to go around, still felt, in a way, like a self-imposed prison.

As days passed Eris started almost to feel sorry for Stark. She had seen his empty eyes, she knew what had happened to him, everything that at last had been written in the S.H.I.E.L.D. report. She could see in his face that he had tried hard to do things better and learn from his mistakes, but nothing in the end had changed for him.

And in a way she could see herself a little into his brown eyes, because it didn't matter how much they both had tried, how much they had both had given and suffered, it had never really mattered. The world had been and always would be a cruel place, and not matter how much you fight, sometimes there is nothing else to do than crumble.

And Eris also envied him a little because at last he still had the chance to get up one day on his feet, to be a better version of himself. He could still continue to invent things and he could maybe save the world again in some of his heroic actions. In the end, for him, there was still a possibility of a better life if he wanted, if he decided to go out of his laboratory for more than coffee.

And Eris? Eris was just stuck with something that could never go away, no matter how much she wanted. She was stuck with something that felt like was slowly taking away her energies every single minute of her life, from the day she had lost everything.

It was always there, always lingering under her fingers, under every movement she did, in every breath she took. When she had been in her home, she had been thankfully able to control her powers almost all the time. And even if sometimes they slipped and something would break, no one had been hurt because no one had been there to witness them as she had always been alone for the last seven months, Fury the only person she saw.

So she couldn't really understand the intentions of the dark man.

It was dangerous, she was dangerous. He had put her into a place that made all her nerve frizzle every second and one day she would eventually snap and hurt an innocent, like Stark, or a multitude as the place swarmed with agents. It was like a ticking bomb where you don't know where the countdown is, but you certainly know it's gonna blow up in your face.

Eris knew deep down that, in a logical sense, putting her with Iron Man could buy some time for other people in case she would go ballistic, but her irrational didn't really understand. He knew she barely controlled them, and he still left her there the same.

Eris had always trusted Fury opinions for all the time she had known him, and she really couldn't comprehend his sudden disposal of her. The idea that she was someone to be used for something once more, hurt her already shattered heart more than she could think, more than she was willing to admit.

Her hand suddenly gripped tighter the pencil and made a movement with too much force, causing the paper to rip in two pieces with a loud noise.

Eris closed her eyes as she felt anger starting to build into her stomach, increasing her heartbeat for the injustice of all that had happened to her. But when life had ever treated her with fairness?

She clenched her hands more strongly and felt her nails dig into the flesh, almost breaking it. She had to calm down. There was no point in thinking of that. If she thought of Fury leaving than she had to think of the past, and she didn't want to go there and have a flashback, followed by a panic attack, and then some explosions.

Now it wasn't nor the time or the place, she couldn't burn down the entire facility just because her mind couldn't shut the hell up.

Eris took slowly breaths, eyes closed as she felt the power linger in her clutching fingers, begging to be left out, only for a little. She knew Friday was watching and monitoring her, and therefore also Stark. She really didn't want his curious eyes to land on her today, and she didn't want to hear his voice ask questions.

When finally the beats didn't resonate more in her ears, after what had to be minutes and when she felt that she wouldn't lose control soon and fry everything, she got up and hasty headed to the kitchen. She needed something cool to drink.

The fridge didn't have really much to offer, only some beverage and some sandwich already prepared by whoever refilled it.

She took out one and a cola, placed them on the table and headed to her temporary bedroom, hoping to find some more papers to distract her mind, the one she had broken was the last one she had.

The bedrooms weren't exactly near the kitchen, but a little away. They weren't big, but still held every comfort a person would need, with televisions and bathrooms in each, and closets that contained more dresses she could count.

Eris opened various drawers, finding some t-shirts and a curious amount of scarves, all in a different shade of the colour of blood. The girl really loved red. She personally hated it.

She ventured in a night-stand near the bed and finally found what she was searching. There were a few incomprehensible words in another language, but for the most part, the papers had been left untouched. Eris grabbed all of them and quickly pulled them out, adding some pencils and a rubber she saw in the back. There was always a need for a spare one.

When she got up however, something fell out the papers and landed in front of her feet, stopping her in her tracks. Curiously she kneeled down and picked it up, revealing an old photo of a couple of teenagers holding hands. They were staying near each other, almost as if afraid to be separate. They were dressed in rugged clothes and were watching at the camera with hateful deep brown eyes. She recognized the younger girl as Wanda Maximoff, having seen her multiple times in the news.

A painful pang shot into her heart as she saw the similarities between the two. They had to be brother and sister, maybe even twins, and they seemed close, just like she had been with hers.

As fast as lightning she rose from her positions and shoved the photo back where it belonged, making the wood almost crack for the force which it was close.

Eris closed her eyes as she felt pressure behind, heartbeat worrisomely increasing again. She needed to stay calm. She needed to focus on drawing and on nothing else.

She opened her eyes and with hurried steps left the bedroom and went back to her window, forgetting the sandwich and the drink. In that moment she knew she wouldn't get back soon in the room.

Eris definitely hated staying here now. She wanted to go back to her home where everything was quiet, there were too many things in this place. Everything was too much.

She just wanted to forget.

…

"Boss" said Friday as she closed the music, cutting off also his partially concentration for the second time in a short time.

"What?" he asked reluctantly, coming out from under the car he had been working for the last, well probably more than twelve hours. Walking on cars had always been his way of calming down, and he really needed to do something else except working his project, or he would go crazy in trying to find a solution. For now, he was stuck at the same point of a week ago.

"Miss Guerra heartbeat has increased again" replied Friday sounding a little worried "And her temperature has also slightly risen"

Stark frowned. It was the second time in about ten minutes. The first time it had just spiked for a few seconds before returning normal, and he didn't really think nothing of it when the A.I. told him, but again? He hoped she wasn't going bat-shit crazy right now.

He didn't really have the heart to poke her with one of the syringes Fury had given him. He had examined just a little drop and found that they contained such a high dose of various sedatives that could have sedated at least ten elephants each, and he was pretty sure that injecting a person with one would have given them a free ticket to the world of the dead.

"Where is she now?" he asked, wiping his hands clean with an old rag.

"Miss Guerra was on her room but now she has gone again at the window to draw" replied the A.I. and opened on a screen the video of the security camera.

The woman was there, blank face as always and sketching in her book. While her face betrayed nothing, her erratic hands made clear that she had something going on in the head that was disturbing her.

Tony looked at the papers and thought of the time he had caught a glimpse, in one of the few runs to grab something to eat and more coffee. She had been there like always, sat near the big window and was drawing a horrible representation on Fury doing something he never wanted to see the scary man do.

It was for sure not a piece of art and it had been childish, something he thought the woman wasn't capable of doing. He simply guessed that is had to be soothing for her, just like fixing cars was for him.

Tony was kind of relieved though. He thought she was going to be a problem, that she would have been curious and would have gone snooping around and poking things, but since the day the two had meet, she had barely moved from her station, never expressing emotions and always focusing on her book.

She always wore that expression that kind of made his skin crawl, always cold and untouched. The only trace of humanity he had ever sawn on it had been a flicker of irritation for the director when he had brought her to the facility, and a little trace of anger when she had stormed to her favourite position, ignoring him. Since then, nothing. Sometimes he wondered if had imagined them and if she was a robot. He hoped not, he didn't want another Ultron running around.

Still, he couldn't exactly blame her for being the way she was. He had read the report Fury had sent him just minutes after rending himself scarce, probably because he didn't want to handle her report in front of her face, and he felt some kind of pity for the way the world had treated her and for what it had taken away.

But she remained dangerous, probably more dangerous than everyone thought, because no one really knew the potentiality of her powers, not even the super spy and probably not even her.

And he had watched her a few times, curiosity almost getting the best of him and asking her questions, but he stopped himself just in time, just when the words were about to leave his mouth. The young woman didn't talk. He never heard even a sound exit from her lips.

Stark wasn't really sure if she couldn't physically do so, from the scan that had been done on her the moment she was under S.H.I.E.L.D. had showed no injury on her throat, so he deduced that she probably just didn't want to talk much.

Tony thought it was kind funny when Friday had told him, sounding a little indignant, that the woman had ignored the chosen guest bedroom for her.

He was kind of hoping she would have gone for Natasha's one, knowing the assassin would have gone crazy had she to found out that, but she had thankfully chosen the one of Wanda. He wasn't sure if Romanoff would have been lenient.

However, her not talking or communicating in any way could become a problem for him. Maybe she would need something, or he had to ask her some questions that really needed to be answered somehow.

If some catastrophe would happen, and at a certain point it will happen because it never passed much time between one and another, he needed to be able to know where she was, and what to do with her.

Tony rubbed his face in exhaustion with his hands and then ruffled his hair, grimacing when he felt grease. He needed a long shower, and then he needed to sleep. He had been up again for too much, he didn't even know how much this time, and didn't even want to ask Friday.

He snorted, yeah sleep. It was easier to calm down the Hulk than to have a peaceful night of sleep.

Thinking of Hulk, he really missed Bruce. He missed the calmness the man could bring everywhere he went, and how he could understand the way he thought. Tony knew he wasn't dead, there was few little chances in that, and he hoped he would resurface soon and talk to him. He could always somehow understand what he was feeling, probably more than anyone else, and right now he really needed someone to confess his sin to.

Rhodey was a good friend, always had been, but he was a soldier and lived a soldier life. Tony never had the mental training he had, and now that he had to see every time the consequences of his actions, he didn't feel like bother him with his problems.

"Call me if anything change again" he said to Friday as he headed to the door of the laboratory "And continue with the combinations, we will find something in the end"

"Sure thing, boss" replied immediately the A.I.

Tony took off then and headed straight ahead to his room, the bed was suddenly calling him. He was exhausted. He just hoped that this time there were no nightmares to torment him and that only sweet blackness was awaiting him.

Like always, a lie to himself.