Tick… tock… tick… tock… clink… clink… clink

It was interesting, how being suspended upside down by chains could be so amusing. The sway of her body, a pendulum side to side. Much like a clock.

Three had accomplished her personal mission. She didn't smile when the training assignment was given.

New York had been successful. Time to move on.

Clink... clink… clink...

The chains, cold and stiff against her bare skin. Every link could be felt, counted if she wanted to, at half an inch thick each, wrapping from her ankles to her shoulders in layers. The air was dry, smelling of strong cleaning chemicals with that undertone of blood that can never truly be washed out. Why did they insist on it being so strong? By the echoes from the chains, she guessed she was in a sizable room with nothing much else in it. No sounds of life besides her own. For now.

How easy it would be to break the chains. Well, not extremely easy with all the layers but doable nonetheless. Yet that wasn't why she was here. Escape often took many forms. There may come a day that she finds chains that can hold her.

Clink… clink… clink

An hour. Not a sound beside her own. No one came. Another hour. She wasn't here. Ice cream on the docks of Monhegan Island beach. No. This isn't an endurance test. One more hour and her head won't be feeling right from the blood that's currently rushing to it. Slowly, Subject 3 wormed her fingers around, creating space and feeling her way towards her goal. Escape.

Soft steps sounded outside of the room. The door opened with a whisper. More steps. Breathing. She can smell it, cinnamon gum laced with faint scent of sardines. Lovely. The heartbeat wasn't calm but not spiked enough to imply panic.

"Have you escaped yet?" A young man's voice, her current handler. Ivan Maslovi. He had survived 5 months so far.

"I'm close." Close enough.

"Don't." His heartbeat was more erratic as more steps sounded in the distance and the smell of sweat came through his cologne. Nevertheless he still told her what he wanted.

--

The alert had come. They'd found the Hydra lab. Steve came into the common room and just said, "Suit up and get to the quinjet. Vision is sending the information now."

Everything went as usual, suiting up, leaving on the craft, and storming the base. That's where normal ended. Minimal effort had been required to get in. Each room and cell was searched as they went deeper into the depths of the lab, a seemingly humble affair moonlighting as a rural gas station with only pine trees and raccoons to watch the spectacle.

Below the gas station was an entirely other matter. The first level below the basement of the station was set up as a single floor house. Bedrooms decorated in themes, a kitchen, a couple bathrooms, all that was needed to make a family home. It was a bit dank, water damaged, and the strong scent of some form of cleaner filled the air. Farther down were the cells, obvious torture rooms, what looked like a gym, medical stations, and laboratories. Not one cell had yet to hold a living human - the entire base deserted after the team fought through the upper levels. Evidence of an evacuation was everywhere.

The smell of that cleaner, orange zest with a strength that felt like it was burning your sinuses every time you breathed, was thick in the air. It wasn't poison but it sure felt like it.

"Is it just me or is this place giving anybody else haunted castle vibes?" Tony's voice came over the intercom. Looking through the laboratories and seeing if he could resurrect any of the data that was destroyed before the flight. Vision and Friday were his second set of eyes as well as alerts against potential attacks. Not that it was expected. The Hydra scientists had vanished through a hangar that was well stocked with small, fast planes. A few had been shot down but there were still those that had escaped by putting up invisibility shields.

"More like a haunted asylum." Clint murmured back, opening doors and scanning the gym floor with Natasha.

Not over the coms, Nat breathed out a whisper, "This doesn't seem just like a lab to pump out mutants. Why would they have the gym?"

"Training?" Clint eyed a blood stain that couldn't quite be scrubbed out.

"We've found another cell level." Steve's voice cut in from their sets before a gag comes through on Wanda's end. He continued, even Tony can tell he was trying to keep it together, "They didn't just poison these ones."

Tony pulled out one of the computers from a room that had been filled with them, tuning out Cap, "What can you give me, Fri?"

"They're system has been close to completely destroyed but there may be a chance of a small data recovery."

"I'll take it."

Steve walked down the brightly lit, multicolored hallway, that cleaner could no longer mask the smell of human misery. Behind each door had held what once was a human that had been brutally murdered. The head of a young man in his own body's lap. Just pieces of flesh in another. Death at every turn. Wanda's face had gone blank after two doors and she was no longer looking into the doors, just preparing to fight if needed.

The last door, a bright red affair with a white handle, was finally in sight. Steve took a breath before regretting it, the air putrid from the doors being opened and closed. This was the last of it. Then to get the hell out of here. He swung the door open.

--

More steps came, slow this time as the pair made their way towards her. A tall, large one and a slight one. It must have been a hallway on the other side of her door, because as they went a door was opened then eventually shut before the sound came closer. Hesitation at her door. The click of the latch being turned.

Without fail, the blinding light from the hall brought out her weak, muffled groan. The blindfold had been moved from her eyes to her mouth.

"Oh my God." A young woman's voice, "He's alive."

Quick steps, the heavier ones, hands grabbed at the chains and lifted her off the hook from where she was hanging. "We need medical attention down here now!" The man must have been strong to be able to lift her so easily. He smelled like the outdoors, some blood, and fear sweat.

The sweet relief of being horizontal. Blood no longer succumbed to the pull of gravity towards her head. Subject 3 kept her eyes closed, loosening her body and letting herself nearly go unconscious. The chains were pulled away and unwrapped, before they abruptly stopped with only a few layers left to go. A man's voice, "Wanda, you finish helping her and I'll stand guard."

The light steps come, "Her? Oh." The chain once again began to be removed. Slower, with a more delicate touch. "Why would they do this to such a young girl? The monsters." Monsters? This had been training.

A stab of pain laced through subject 3, the base of her neck pulsed up into her skull when the last chain around her neck began to come loose. Her yell ripped from her throat and she let the depths of unconsciousness consume her.

A/N ~ Hey, everyone! The Avengers are about to be a bigger part of this story now. I'll do my best to keep them in character! Anyways, I hope everyone is enjoying this and has a great week. :D