It was eerily quiet in the makeshift operating room. Dr. Cho and her team were working nonstop, stabilizing Danielle, trying to figure out what had gone wrong to cause her heart to stop. Each time Steve, Wanda or any of the other Raft escapees glanced inside the room, Cho was always frowning at something. It wasn't a very good sign.
After a few more hours of work and tests and surgery to close up what was left of Danielle's neck injury, Cho dismissed most of her doctors and called the team back inside the room to debrief them.
"So," Sam was the first to speak in the group. "Did you figure out what went wrong?"
Cho glanced around the room at the group before her. It was safe to say they all looked like shit. They probably hadn't gotten any sleep the past few days, either because they were in prison or were busy worrying about the younger teammate lying on her operating table, she wasn't sure. But, she was sure that this had to have been some of the most complicated news she could ever deliver to anyone.
The doctor took a deep breath before answering, "Nothing."
Ever last one of the rogue Avengers scrunched their faces in complete and utter confusion. "'Nothing'," Clint repeated. "What do you mean 'nothing'. Something happened. She just woke up, screamed her head off, and-and... died for a good thirty seconds. Something had to happen, Doc."
Dr. Cho shook her head. "We ran every test we could under these... circumstances," she explained, gesturing to the fact that they were still in an old abandoned factory outside of Seoul's city limits. "We did everything we could, and we found nothing."
"How do you explain the whole... flat-lining thing, then?" Scott asked.
Cho – still confused as to who he was and what he was doing there – answered, "We can't. All we can conclude is that whatever caused her to... pass briefly was all inside of her head."
"You're saying her power did that?" Natasha asked, still a bit lost and trying to piece everything together. "She... The thing inside her head killed her with her own power?"
"No."
Everyone turned around to see Wanda standing aside with her head bowed, her hands nervously fiddling with the ends of her sleeves. She was still dressed in the ripped straight jacket and prison uniform she'd been force to wear back at the Raft. The skin around her neck was still red and tender from her own experience with the shock collar, her hair was a tangled mess, and her face was as pale as ever. Suffice to say, she didn't look too good. And the situation she was in definitely didn't help.
"The thing... Eris. She didn't kill Danielle," Wanda began to explain, her voice hoarse and raw with emotion. "Danielle killed herself to try and kill Eris."
Everyone in the room was silent, their expressions showing the array of emotions ranging from shock, anger, and confusion. Most of which were coming from Steve. "How... How do you know that?"
"I saw it," she answered. "When I was in her head, I saw her... She..." The girl's voice broke and a sob escaped from her throat. She moved a hand to clamp hand over her mouth as another sob shook her body. Sam took a step towards her to try and comfort the poor girl, but halted in his tracks when Wanda raised a hand and shook her head, signaling that she didn't need comforting. They let her continue. "Eris was going to take control of her mind... Danielle didn't see any other way to stop her other than taking her own life."
"How is that even possible?" Scott wondered aloud. "Killing yourself inside your own head? Is-is that possible? How is that possible?" No one bothered to answer him because no one knew the answer.
There was a pregnant pause before Steve spoke again. "Did she?" The soldier asked, unable to meet Wanda's teary gaze. When no one gave him an answer, he finally looked up at Wanda and clarified, "Did she kill Eris?"
Wanda wordlessly answered with a nod.
"Her healing."
Everyone turned back around to face Dr. Cho, her eyes fixated on the clipboard in her hands. "What about it?" Steve asked.
Cho blinked a few times, slowly looking up from her clipboard to turn back to the machines attached to Danielle. She didn't bother answering Steve as she quickly walked to Danielle's side and carefully removed the bandage around her neck. The stitches from the wound were still present and intact.
"Dr. Cho, what about her healing? Is it back to normal?"
"No," the doctor replied, finally turning back to face them. "Her healing. That was what was off on our tests. We factored it in, but... that's the thing. It-It's not there. It's just... gone," she explained. The group of prison breakers just stared blankly back at her, unsure of what she was talking about and how it affected Danielle's Eris situation.
Cho let out a frustrated sigh and turned back to Danielle. "I've been treating Danielle for almost a year. I've studied trends, patterns and cycles in Danielle's physical health. It took me months to even figure out and get used to the regenerating factor in her body's system — and even after all that time, I still hadn't figured out where it originated from in her," the doctor explained. "But, after running countless tests and treating her for all this time, I know for a fact that a couple of hours prior to giving her a regular dose of anesthetic and a few stitches, the dose would've worn off and the stitches would've been partially healed."
"They're not?" Natasha asked, perplexed.
"They haven't even healed a bit," she exclaimed, gesturing to the bandage over Danielle's neck. "And the anesthetic is still in her system according to a blood test we ran about half an hour ago."
"So, what, her healing power just... vanished?" Sam asked.
"Eris," Wanda exclaimed. "She got rid of Eris. But, maybe it came at a price."
"What do you mean?"
Wanda shrugged. "Remember when we watched the video of Eris back at Strucker's lab?"
"The one where she gave those goons of his instant seizures?" Sam recalled.
Scott and Clint turned to give him looks of shock and confusion. "What?" They asked in unison, not having been there for that previous meeting regarding the being living in Danielle's head.
"I'll explain later," Natasha muttered to Clint.
"Yes, we remember it," Steve answered. "What about it?"
"Eris had telepathic abilities. Danielle didn't," Wanda stated. "And I remember Danielle didn't really start teleporting until after her secondary experimentations back in Sokovia, after Eris had been introduced to us initially."
"This is way above my pay grade..." The group heard Scott mumble beneath his breath as he shook his head and took a few steps back still trying to process everything going on with his life currently. The fact that he fought against Iron Man, turned into a giant, had some weird Android guy FLY THROUGH HIM, then got thrown into jail (which, big deal, he'd done it before already), then got broken out of jail by Captain America, and now he was listening to the Avengers talk about the kid who lifted the meteor who had a super evil psycho living in her head and could teleport, read minds, and give people seizures? This was absolutely over his pay grade. Did he even get paid...?
"You think maybe the healing came from Eris, too?" Steve wondered, breaking Scott out of his conflicted thoughts.
"Maybe," Wanda shrugged.
"And now that she's... dead – sort of – all of the powers she had given Danielle are gone with her," Clint concluded. "You know, I kind of miss the days when the weirdest person I was friends with turned into a giant green monster when he got angry," the archer stated with an uneasy chuckle, scratching the back of his neck as he began to walk away from the situation a bit so he could pace. So much was going on.
After the archer had left, everyone else in the room fell into a suffocating a silence. The kind where everyone had something to say, but wasn't sure if it was the right thing to say. Eventually, Dr. Cho broke the silence with a heavy sigh. "I've dismissed most of my team. I didn't think you would mind since they've all been sworn to secrecy not to discuss the fact that you were here or who she is." The doctor rested a hand on the railing along Danielle's bed, her eyes scanning the face of the still unconscious teenager. She couldn't imagine what was happening inside her head. No one could.
The blonde soldier beside her nodded. "Thank you," he replied before adding, "for everything."
Finally forcing herself to turn away from Danielle, Dr. Cho turned to Steve with a somber expression as she stated, "I'll let you know if any of the test results reveal anything about her condition." And with that, she swiftly left the room.
The silence was quick to return. But, following Cho and Clint's exit, Scott muttered something about going to the restroom (if there even was one) before leaving the room as well, leaving behind Sam, Natasha, Wanda, and Steve. It wasn't long after Scott's departure that Natasha began to push herself off of the wall she had been leaning on.
Instead of leaving the room right off the bat, the red-headed ex-assassin made her way to Steve's side, placing a hand on his shoulder as both their eyes remained glued to the girl in the bed a few feet away. "I know what you're thinking," she began. "This isn't your fault, Steve. You have to remember that."
The blonde shook his head, reluctantly tearing his gaze away from Danielle and looking at the ground. "He played us, Nat. He played us all and we were dumb enough to fall right into his trap."
Natasha furrowed her eyebrows, confused as to what he was talking about. "Who?"
"The doctor," Steve replied, turning for the first time to look at her. "Zemo."
"The one that you said framed Barnes and showed Tony the video of..." She didn't need to go on, Steve's wince was enough of an answer for her. She sighed. "You couldn't have known what angle he was playing at – none of us could. We were all played, and we're all at fault."
Steve fell silent. Natasha thought he was just done with the conversations at first, but after a few moments of silence, Steve spoke again. "He killed Alice."
Natasha blinked. Once. Twice. Slowly trying to understand what she had just been told. "Alice?"
"Alisson Harper," Steve clarified. "Her Mom, he killed her. He told me before... everything happened."
"Did he tell you why?"
"To set off a chain of events. Get Danielle set on revenge, count on her and Wanda losing control in Lagos, then getting the Accords put into place before framing Bucky, ensuring we would all turn on each other one way or another," the soldier explained, a grim expression on his face. "All apart of his trap we fell right into."
Natasha tilted her head slightly, her eyes fixated on the machine beside Danielle keeping track of her heart rate. She watched as the little line went up and down and up and down. It reminded her of the time she had to watch her old Director lay on his own deathbed with a similar machine connected to him as he clung to life. The ex-assassin wondered if Danielle would pull through like he had in the end (despite faking his death to begin with).
"Are you going to tell her?" Natasha asked the Capain beside her.
Steve bowed his head. "I'm not sure," he replied.
"She has the right to know, Steve," Sam spoke up for the first time, making it aware to the pair that he had been listening in on their conversation.
"You saw Danielle's reaction at the hotel when she thought she had killed the wrong person. Imagine her reaction when we confirm what she already believes is true."
"Then add all of this on top of it," Natasha added, gesturing to the run down room they were in and the machines attached to the teen's unconscious body.
Sam began to nod, understanding their point. He knew the girl was strong, but these past few months he'd seen the Hell she'd been put through on a daily basis. He was surprised sometimes at the fact that she got up in the morning. But she wouldn't be for long if they told her that the man that killed her mom was still out there. Not that he felt any comfort in keeping something that big from the kid, either. But... what better choice was there?
"Didn't she say something about the fact that the doctor knew about her identity?" Sam abruptly asked.
Natasha's eyebrows raised at his question. The redhead and Wanda both turned fearfully to the soldier beside Danielle's bed. "Does he?" Wanda asked, her voice cracking from fear and worry.
Steve clenched his jaw and nodded. "We'll cross that bridge when we get to it."
"Even if he did tell the Task Force who she was, I doubt Ross or anyone else would let it get out," Natasha reasoned. "Jack told me that Ross was already scared her identity get out and it would be all our asses on the line if any one of his superiors found out. Something about a teenage girl being a national threat." She shrugged.
"I still don't like the idea of anyone knowing," Steve stated.
"It's not anything we can control," she told him truthfully. "It's the same with Leipzig and Siberia. We couldn't know what Zemo was planning. None of us."
Steve simply shook his head. It didn't really matter to him what Zemo had planned, they were blind enough to fall into his trap like mice following cheese in a maze. If they had just talked it out like the rational protectors of the world they were supposed to be, Zemo would've never gotten what he wanted. Tony and Bucky would've never gotten hurt, his team would've never became international fugitives, and Danielle wouldn't have ever been involved in a fight that wasn't her own.
None of them could've known what Zemo was planning, but it shouldn't have mattered. They were all in the wrong. And now, because of it, someone that he loved was paying for it.
Before anyone could respond to Natasha's statement, the soldier abruptly walked out of the room, passing a very confused looking Clint and an equally confused Scott on his way out.
Sam stood up from where he sat a few feet away from Danielle, read to go after him, when Natasha held up a hand. "Let him take a breather," she instructed him. "He just needs some time to think." Sam reluctantly plopped back into his chair, his eyes turning back to the unconscious teenager a few feet away.
Beside Danielle was Wanda. She hadn't left her sister's side since she was let back into the room after the surgery. It was nerve wracking just being near her after having to witness what had actually occurred in her mind to keep her in this comatose state, unsure of whether or not she would even wake up, and if she did, whether or not she'd wake up the same. But, one thing was certain for Wanda, Eris was dead and gone.
Wanda raised her hand like she did every few minutes and brushed a small lock of Danielle's hair with her fingers. It looked normal, something Wanda did whenever she was with Danielle. But, in reality, the telepath was using it as an excuse to press her fingers to Danielle's temple briefly, trying to find a trace of consciousness, power, or any small sign of life. And each time she did that, all she would find was the same empty darkness.
After yet another disappointing search inside her sister's head, Wanda dropped her hand back to her side and took a few steps away from the bed. The brunette glanced around the room. She hadn't realized just how long she had been standing vigil at Danielle's bedside, but it was already starting to grow light outside signaling the break of dawn and the start of a new day.
Nearly two days. That was how long Wanda had gone without sleep. It used to be a regular occupancy back at her time at the Sokovian Labs with Strucker and HYDRA, but it had been long since she'd left behind those habits. Now, she just felt drained and exhausted. She knew Danielle would want her to try and sleep. Sam didn't seem to have a problem with it from the way he was slumped in his chair across the room. And the rest of the team was outside; Scott was napping on the cold ground of the abandoned factory they were residing in, Clint was with Natasha talki quietly amongst each other in the far back of the open area outside the makeshift hospital room, Cho was unseen and so was Steve. Wanda stifled back a yawn before finally deciding to call it a night –or day, in this particular case – and try and get some much needed sleep.
Wanda decided to curl up in the free chair beside Sam. Using the torn remains of her straight jacket as a blanket and her folded arms as a pillow, the telepath fell into a deep and peaceful sleep for the first time in days.
But, it didn't last for very long.
After maybe a few minutes of sleep, a loud crashing sound sent Wanda scrambling up and out of her curled up fetal position she had on the chair. Her eyes snapped wide open and her fists were clenched at her sides as she searched for the source of the sound. Beside her, Sam seemed to be doing the same thing. But, as they both canvases the room, their eyes fell on not what was there, but who wasn't there: Danielle.
Both Rogue Avengers jumped to their feet, their eyes wide with fear and confusion at the sight of Danielle's empty bed. The chords and needles that had been attached to the teen were dangling off the edge of the bed and the machines were disconnected and the bed sheets seemed to have been torn off. Every terrible scenario played out in Wanda's head as she tried to figure out what could have possibly happened. But before she had much time to panic, Natasha and Clint came barreling into the room.
"Where the hell did she go?" Clint asked, flabbergasted.
"I-I don't know," Wanda replied, equally as confused and shocked. "She just vanished..."
"What happened? I heard a crash," their newest addition said in a groggy voice as he entered the room. His eyes were still half-lidded and he was clearly holding back a yawn as he tried to study the situation best he could while still half asleep.
Ignoring Scott's entrance completely, Natasha turned to Sam. "We need to find Steve and Cho. Danielle could be anywhere right now." Sam nodded before dashing out of the room.
It didn't take Wanda long to catch the edge in Natasha's tone. She recognized the same edge in Steve's voice whenever he would give orders about a mission or talk about a target. Was that what Danielle was now? A target? An enemy?
"Clint and I will canvas the rest of the building. She's injured and can't go too far," Natasha explained in a monotone voice. Wanda's breath caught in her throat when Natasha suddenly began to slip on her belt containing all her small weapons. This was a fight. "Wanda, Scott, stay here and watch over the room. She may come back and we need someone here if she does."
It hit the telepath then; Natasha still thought that Eris was still inside Danielle's head. She still saw Danielle as a threat. "What are you planning on doing to her if you find her?" Wanda asked in an accusatory tone. She wouldn't actually hurt Danielle. Right?
Natasha halted in her tracks for a moment, looking over her shoulder briefly to share a questioning glance with Clint who returned with a look that told her that Wanda wasn't the only person wondering what the redhead would do. The ex-assassin sighed before turning back to the brunette. "We don't know what mindset Danielle is in right now. I know you said Eris is long gone, but I'm not taking any chances."
"Wha– Are you serious?!" Scott spluttered, now officially and fully awake. "She's a kid!"
"I'm aware," Natasha merely replied as she continued to fasten her belt. "But, she's also a kid with a monster inside her head capable of killing all of us with a mere look. I don't want to hurt Danielle, but I've already lost too much family this week." The redhead cocked a pistol and shoved it into a holster on her hip. "I can't lose anyone else."
"What's going on?" All heads turned to the room entrance where Steve, Cho, and Sam were now standing, fully attentive to the tense situation they had just walked into. But, before anyone could respond, there was another crash from the side of the room that set everyone into high-alert.
Guns were drawn, fists were clenched, and all eyes were turned in the direction of the crash a few yards away. But what they found didn't seem to be a threat at all.
Leaning on the wall for support, slightly hunched over with a hand placed over her middle and her strands of hair covering her face like a curtain as she panted heavily, was Danielle. She was pale and looked small in her shrunk-in state. Her legs were shakin, her hands were shaking, her entire body was shaking and it seemed as though the wall she was leaning against was the only thing keeping her from collapsing on the ground. And when she finally looked up at the group through her wild locks of hair, her eyes were wide and blood shot.
Natasha, who had been holding her gun up, slowly loosened her grip on he trigger when she noticed the fact that her eyes were brown and not gold. No Eris. But, the ex-assassin still held the gun up, unsure of whether or not Danielle was a risk now. She didn't exactly look like herself this way.
The room was silent and still until Steve took a tentatie step forward towards the girl. But, this seemed to frighten her and she let out something of a whimper before she vanished again only to reappear seconds later falling and crashing into the wall on the opposite side of the wall with cry of pain.
Her shaking started up again and her eyes slammed shut as she tried to curl up into herself. She vanished once more, and then once again reappeared, crashing into the machines mere feet away from the group. Once she was on the ground, she stayed put. She sat herself on the cold, hard ground and pulled her knees up to her chin and hugged them to her chest as she broke out into soft, silent and broken sobs. Danielle drew a deep and jagged breath in before lifting her head to look up at all the group around her, her teary eyes landing on a certain soldier when she finally spoke in a soft whisper, "What did you do to me?"
—
Danielle sat on the edge of the makeshift hospital bed holding her arm straight out as Dr. Cho began to unwrap the pressure cuff from around it she had been using to take her blood pressure, like Cho would normally do during Danielle's monthly check-ups at the Compound. But, this wasn't a normal check-up and they weren't at the Compound. Instead, they were in some run down factory after Steve had broken her and everyone else from out of the Raft. She felt it was already too late, that the damage had been done.
Her eyes remained glued to the floor, her face void of expression as Cho jotted down something on a clipboard. When she finished, she turned back to Danielle and lifted her chin with her fingers. Danielle obediently raised her head so Cho could study he wounds around her neck she had remembered receiving while in the Raft. Flashes of blinding light from above, the feeling of a hard metal floor beneath her writhing body, and the echoes of her screams in the cement box they'd locked her in at the Raft came back to her in glimpses and short visions. She flinched slightly, but Cho must've passed it off as a reaction to moving her neck because she didn't bother to comment on it.
Cho then dropped Danielle's chin and took a step back. "Alright. Everything seems to be fine, physically. Though, your healing ability is no loner in the picture anymore. Meaning, those stitches on your neck will take a bit longer than normal for you to heal." Danielle could only nod in response, her tongue felt too numb to make any real words form in her mouth.
"If you didn't mind, I wanted to test what abilities you still possess," Cho stated tentatively. When Danielle didn't respond immediately, Dr. Cho leaned down to try and look Danielle in the eyes as she asked, "Is that okay?" The teenage girl shook herself out of her stoic state and nodded hesitantly.
The doctor pulled a pen from her pocket and set it on the small food tray Danielle had been fed on (nothing too fancy, just some odd Korean yogurt, pulled pork in a bag, and a sweet bread loaf all served wrapped inside some newspaper she couldn't read). Danielle stared blankly at the pen and took a deep breath before raising her hand, her palm facing the pen were it lied. She then concentrated, focusing on the pencil. But something was off. It didn't normally take this much concentration to move something, especially something as small as a pen. So, why wasn't it moving?
Danielle's forehead began to crease as her eyes narrowed. She was glaring at the pen now and her fingers were beginning to bend as her hand began to shake from the exerted force she was trying to apply to the pen that was still unmoving. Eventually, pain began to form in the front of her skull, but she didn't stop. She kept pushing, and pushing, and pushing, and pushing. Finally, Danielle let out a large gasp, releasing her pint up energy and dropping her hand. When she looked back at the pen, she realized it he only moved an inch. All of that for an inch? She couldn't believe it. A year ago, that much power and concentration could've lifted a meteor and now she was so damaged and stripped from power that she could barely move a pencil?
Dr. Cho refrained from letting out a disappointed sigh. Instead, she placed a soothing hand on her shoulder and rubbed Danielle's back for comfort. It didn't do anything. There was no comforting her. Her powers were gone, all of them. Danielle realized that when she killed the Entity, she was killing a piece of herself, but she didn't know it was this big of piece.
Where did this leave her? She had no powers, she wasn't 'Eris' anymore, she wasn't an Avenger. But, she also wasn't normal. She couldn't just go back to the way life used to be when her parents were still alive and they lived in a small city in Slovakia and she went to school, and had normal friends, did normal things, lived a normal life because she wasn't normal! There was no normal person that went through the things she had and just went right back to the way it was before they happened. So, once again she found herself asking: where did that leave her?
—
A/N: It took me a lot longer than usual to write this chapter due to the fact that I have officially one into a state of sadness. My favorite show, Supernatural, is ending after its fifteenth season. I'll admit, it's had it's ups and downs, but... I grew up watching the show. Jared Padalecki is one of my greatest role models not only because he's one of the only famous people I know to come out of the city I was born and raised in, but also because he speaks out on mental health, politics, and a lot of other issues I'm passionate about. He inspired me for most of my life since the show first came out when I was just a little kid. So, when I heard it was ending, I took it pretty hard and just couldn't find it in myself to write. So, I took a few days of mourning and came back and finished this chapter. Sorry if it's a bit sad or dull, I was in a bit of a funk while writing it, but I'll get my shit together soon.
Also, I finally got a Tumblr and watched Captai Marvel. Go check me out for my SPN and Marvel text posts/head canons/ incorrect quotes/ and me just generally fan girling about the MCU and SPN. My username is greattasteinmusic14.
Summary: Danielle is in some sort of coma and has lost all, if not, most of her powers after she killed the Entity in her head. Steve is guilty, Wanda is scared, Natasha is on edge, Sam is trying to process everything, Clint is upset, and Scott is just straight up confused. Also, I know what you're all probably wondering: WHERE THE FUCK IS QUINTIN? Well, Cho left him back at the Compound. It isn't mentioned, but I felt that I should because I doubt it will come up next chapter.
Song for the chapter: Alive by Sia.
Reviews:
Hyraeth: It is indeed. Lol, yeah, I put a lot into that chapter. I didn't want to get it that long and in depth, but honestly I just went with it. It's a thing, as soon as I latch onto the angst and emotion, I just ride it out until the end. Of course I couldn't kill Danielle, that would be pretty anti-climatic, not to mention merciful. I still have a lot more to put this girl through }:) mwhahaha. Poor Dani. I feel like I torture her for fun at this point. And THOSE are great questions. both I can't answer without giving away spoilers so you'll just have to wait for... well, I can't really tell you that either. MWHAHAHAHHAHAA.
KingPenguinJG: Thanks, I try to keep it do. And I can't really give that away, now can I? But I can tell you that I did base her off a Marvel character. I really like incorporating some of my favorite villains and heroes from the comics in my story, but without upsetting the MCU way of life too much. The Entity is in fact based off one of the Marvel comic villains, but I won't tell you which one. ;)
gossamermous101: Aw, thanks. I'm glad you're enjoying it.
amrawo: Well, she didn't wake up evil, but did she really win? -\_(:/)_/-
Twizzlee200: Aw, thanks. I wish I could update sooner, but I need all the time I can get for writing these chapters. I have a very busy life right now. And I will never not be amused by your profile image.
Incorrect Quote of the Chapter:
Wanda: Whoever has a problem with you can come straight to me. I will obliterate them, powers or no powers.
Dani: *slowly raises hand*
Dani: Just make it quick.
Wanda: LiStEn HeRe YoU sAd SaCk Of ShIt-!
