The smell of stuffing and the soft whir of cameras. A soft surface beneath her with a sheet over her. No, a hospital gown or some such. Bandage on the back of her neck. Muffled talking. Whoever it was must not have been in the room. It was time to wake up.

The light in the room was bright and white. Why did people insist? Couldn't lights have a subtle purple? Or green? Or pink? Why always white or yellow? At least she didn't have pants.

Huh, it had been a while since she had been in a padded room. Especially one with no discernable doors.

What were they going to do with her? That all depended on what they knew. If they knew all she'd have been dead by now with all their morals and such demanding her death.

Stretching her hand to the bandage, subject three probed at it with her fingers and tried to remember. Damn. Whatever had been in her neck had been bad and it coming out was worse. What a wonder it was to not be able to notice when something is literally inside the flesh of your neck. Maybe that had been part of the test before things changed. Now, the bandage covered the back half of her neck with a shallow wound that was scabbed over. Good. Bandages were uncomfortable and restricting. She took it off before hunkering down with her knees to her chest against the wall with the bed. Without a doubt, she was being observed. Possibly even analyzed. Best not to give anything away. In the meantime, come up with a plan.

--

"What do we do with her?" Clint asked the question that was on everyone's mind as they watched the girl through the cameras in the room. She looked small, huddled there in the corner of the room. Even though, standing, she was roughly 6 feet. At least, she didn't seem to need the padding yet.

"It doesn't feel right." Bruce looked at the screen, "Handing such a young girl over to SHIELD. Sure they're decent enough people but who knows what will happen to her then?"

"It's like taking a street dog out of the streets and throwing it to a shelter that hosts the occasional dog fight."

"She'll be locked away. Or worse, more testing done after whatever hell she's been through!"

"While it doesn't negate those facts, we don't know anything about her. We can't just let her walk out of here."

"Well, we have the blood samples and the data Tony got from their system." Natasha offered, "We'll have some information on her soon. At least from the blood samples." The girl's blank stare seemed to look through the walls and directly into the briefing room. Had she found one of the cameras?

"How is it going with the data, Tony?" Steve looked to the billionaire, who was staring skeptically at the girl. She couldn't be more than 17 at the most.

"Friday is working on it." Tony answered briefly, before asking what was on his mind, "How do we know this isn't a trap?" He gestured at the screens, "I mean, she was the only one alive in the entire base! Why? There has to be something behind this."

"Whatever was in her neck nearly did kill her." Bruce was pulling up images on his tablet and had it projected beside the videos of the girl. Pictures of her wounded neck. Deep gashes and a lot of blood. "Whatever it was, seemed to be working it's way to decapitate her then reacted when the chain around her neck was removed. You guys got there in time. As it was, she almost died on the way to the medbay."

"Why did they kill all those people? What was the purpose? Why did they kill the ones in that creepy ass hallway so differently?" The questions came rapid fire, "Things aren't adding up."

"How about I go talk to her?" Nat stood. Too many questions without answers. Not to mention, just sitting here waiting was making her antsy. "See what she knows or at least get a read on her."

"I don't think that's a good idea." Steve shook his head, arms crossed. "Tony is right. We don't know anything about this except that they were definitely running some form of experimentation."

"Boss," Friday's voice sounded, "Part of the files have been salvaged from the database."

"Pull it up."

Bruce's images left and were replaced with what Friday found. A couple files popped up: Foreign Transfer Students, Stork Initiative Revoked, Evacuation Protocol.

"Evacuation Protocol." Tony and Steve said at once.

What came up were lists and lists of various ways to quickly kill a 'student'. The hallway turned out to be for an experiment who had misbehaved and was on a death sentence anyways.

"As the laboratory does not hold anything of high priority to the movement after the project Red Rabbit failure, the method of evacuation in the event of an invasion will be to neutralize the subjects and destroy as much information as possible." Bruce read a sentence aloud.

"The main method of neutralizing the subject will be through poisoning. However, in the disciplinary hallway, the execution will continue as planned." Bile rose in Steve's throat as he read it.

"That explains the hallway."

"Foreign exchange students?" Clint tried not to squirm, the callous way they spoke of murdering these people was beyond depravity.

What came up was just a list of numbers. Nothing more. A muttered curse came from a few on the team. Natasha sat back down, "Those are probably identification numbers. Unfortunately, we don't know what the face is behind the code."

"The Stork one then?" Wanda ventured, her scarlet magic looping between her fingers.

It turned out to be an essay explaining why breeding 'prime specimens' to reproduce soldiers was a waste of time and efficiency. The need to raise the children, that the survival rate was not optimal among test subjects like those in the Red Rabbit Project, and how it would take, at the least, 5 years to start training them made it an implausible venture. Counter options were given and at the bottom was a stamp saying the preposition was approved.

"What is Project: Red Rabbit?" Bruce tapped the pen on his chin, "It's been mentioned twice so far and as a failure at that."

"Friday," Tony called, "Make sure you set aside anything you can that mentions anything that says Red Rabbit."

"Yes, Boss."

"I could go in with you, Natasha." Wanda looked to the woman, "To talk to the girl, that is. I may be able to help?" She turned to Steve, waiting.

Steve thought for a moment, "Both of you going sounds good. Natasha takes point in the questioning. Wanda, be there to restrain if need be. Stay out of her head for now. We want her to trust us enough to talk." The unspoken words of how a person occasionally reacted to having a telepath in their head didn't need to be said.

Nods went around the room and the two women walked out the door.

A/N ~ Thanks to everyone reading! I hope y'all are enjoying it. :3