Well, the demands of higher education are upon me again, and I'm in the middle of two literature classes and a writing class that needs 50,000 words by the end of the semester. But I did find enough time to squeeze in this update!
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I thought it was going to be an improvement when Ryder's medication wore off. It isn't. When it becomes apparent that we're either going to have to listen to him jabber like a six-year-old or struggle for every breath and whimper whenever he moves, Nat rummages through a bag beside her and hands me a vial and a syringe, all with one hand on the wheel of the van which is the third vehicle we've stolen in a half-hour period and never taking her eyes off the road. "Try and give him enough to actually knock him out this time," she mutters.
When I try to get the needle into his arm, though, Ryder flinches away from me. "Please, don't give me anything else."
"I have to. It's just to stop the pain."
"I don't want anything else. I'm done." He's barely even looking at me, and I wonder if he's aware of where he is. Something tells me he's not. "Every time you people give me something else, it feels like I'm going to die." He must be remembering the Red Room-esque program. "I couldn't move and it felt like they set me on fire. And they did it over and over until I started changing." I thought Nat said he consented to it on his own, but this doesn't sound like willing participation. Maybe he tried to back out when he realized what he'd agreed to.
"This isn't what they were giving you." I feel like throwing up, and it isn't just the awkwardness of the van motion when I'm in the back and can't see out any windows. They convinced a naïve, idealistic kid that he could be part of a way to change things. And then they used him for their own ends and did whatever they thought they had to. The sheer terror and pain in his eyes is horrifying.
"I told you, I'm through!" Before I fully realize what he's doing, he wrenches the needle out of my hand and shatters it, then grabs my arm. I'm fully convinced he could break my arm as easily as that needle. I can see Clint has a stun arrow nocked, and I shake my head. I can handle this. It wouldn't be the first time I've gotten a broken bone taking care of someone who's not entirely lucid.
"Ryder…" His face goes stony at the use of his name, and I rack my brain for something more reassuring. What was the name on his file? Nicholas…Nick?
"Nick? It's okay, I won't give you anything if you don't want it." His grip relaxes.
"At least you listen. They wouldn't stop before." A horrible sneaking suspicion makes its way through my stomach. Ryder…Nick…basically was tortured by the people he'd trusted. And yet I saw him fully in control of himself, or so it seemed, on that tape. The two things don't add up. He wanted out, and yet he seemed to be loyally working for Karakoff.
Did he want revenge? Was he playing them all, pretending to be loyal, while planning to destroy them for what they did to him? I haven't known him long enough to know if he's the type, but it certainly isn't an unreasonable idea. What if he set up Karakoff, and his coming into the room was the signal to shoot? What if he did all this to expose the lies surrounding the program and show people the reality? I know what it is to be the naïve, optimistic person who joins something because they want to make a difference, to be a hero, and then discover that under all the shine is a lot of lies and blood and questionable morals. And I'm not the one who was basically turned into a weapon against my will.
Nat's knuckles on the steering wheel are white. I know she heard everything, and I can't tell if she's worried that we're just assisting a killer, or if she's remembering her own terrible past. Maybe both. Although at this point I doubt Nat would care if Nick had set Karakoff's murder up. I'm not sure if I care. Unless, of course, he decides we're part of the problem.
I'm also not sure if they decided he was too valuable to lose. I know Phil keeps trying to convince S.H.I.E.L.D. to back off on their aggressive microchipping policy for agents, arguing that if we're undercover and a scan detects one we're blown. I know it's more out of his concern that we're being treated like no more than government property. From the sound of what Nick is saying, I doubt the people working on him had any such scruples. "I need to know what they did, okay?"
"I can't tell you anything." He rests his head in his hands, and sitting like that he looks like a puppy someone has kicked to the curb. I want to believe he's not capable of planning a cold-blooded murder, even of someone who was a monster to him. But I of all people know looks don't mean a thing when it comes to what a person might do.
"Nick, I promise I'm not one of them."
"I can't remember. I only see them when you give me that stuff." He points to the vial.
So that explains a lot. Selective memory erasure. The drugs must break down the mental blocks. As awful as it sounds, that makes me feel better. Ryder's no killer. He just legitimately didn't know what Karakoff did to him, so he kept working for the man none the wiser. Now I want to shoot the Russian ambassador myself.
Nat brakes, and I stumble and barely catch myself before falling into the front seat. "We're here." She's parked us outside a Chinese carry-out restaurant with a sagging, torn red awning and fading Chinese characters painted on the window. We're in a pretty decrepit part of town, but I'm guessing that means a lot less potential security cameras. She gets out of the van and rings the doorbell in an odd cadence. After a few minutes a middle-aged man comes out of the shop, wiping his hands on an apron, and they exchange a few words in a dialect I haven't picked up yet. She walks back to the van and bangs on the side.
"George is fine with you coming." I'm a little surprised that his name is George, and also that once we're off the streets he has perfect, if slightly accented, English.
"Natasha says you are all in danger. And that the boy is being hunted for being like her. Is that true?" Clint nods. "I knew her, when she was still the Red Room's pawn. She hid here when she was injured trying to kill a member of Parliament. I tried to convince her she was better than that life, and when she came to me for help again, I could not refuse her."
"I'm sorry I just dove back into your life about as wildly as the last time, but it was sort of unavoidable. And now I'm saddling you with more of us."
"This is where you've been staying?" I hadn't really thought about where Nat was in London. She sort of always seems like a ghost to me, like something that doesn't have human needs like shelter or food or sleep.
"There will be enough room for us all, but it may be an uncomfortable squeeze," Nat says, pulling on a fringed rope that brings a ladder down from the ceiling. I clamber up and then help Clint with Nick, who is now basically dead weight, exhausted from the day's events and nearly asleep on his feet.
The room is small and crammed with boxes, but it's clean and quiet and best of all, secluded. There are no windows, only a bare lamp, and the walls are lined with boxes that will muffle any noise. It's a perfect place to hide.
I check Nick's wound as soon as he's laid down semi-comfortably on some old blankets. It's too soon to tell if there's any serious infection, but the wound seems much smaller and less raw than it did when I was trying to keep him from bleeding out in the street. At least the people who used him as a lab rat did something right.
Nat closes the door, and we sit there in silence. I watch Ryder sleeping fitfully, more than once shoving invisible hands away or making a small sound of pain or protest. He's surrounded by monsters. People who want to use him, and people who want to kill him. We're the only ones who honestly want to help him. And it makes me wonder what the real motives behind our rescue are. The people who modified him will want him back. Are we going to hand him over to them at the end of all this? I'd rather remain a fugitive the rest of my life than give him back to those people. Did S.H.I.E.L.D. know about all of this? Are we in the dark about something that's going to happen? I wonder if Bitch-face knows something we don't. She's the one with the authority now, the one pulling the strings. What is she planning? What does S.H.I.E.L.D. have hidden from us? And are we all going to be collateral damage?