So it goes with saying that only things I own with any connection to MARVEL I bought on Ebay or Etsy. MARVEL COMICS & MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE are their own creatures and I have nothing to do with either of them aside from the fact I enjoy reading or watching them, and am grateful for the ability to play in their world. I claim nothing, and I receive nothing for this, expect the pleasure of putting something out into the world.
This story is part of several prequels leading up to That Which Wanders is Unaware. The sequel to TWWiU will be updated every week, but the prequels will be updated is I get to them.
You can also find this story on ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN under the same title and pen name.
CHAPTER THREE
TUESDAY JUNE 16TH 2009
0900 HOURS
S.H.E.I.L.D FACILITY: THE SANBOX
(LOCATION CLASSIFIED)
CLINT
The sandbox isn't a hospital, but that doesn't mean it lacks one. When your dealing with dangerous objects, there's always the possibility of exposure to something, no matter how many safeguards we have in place. There's also the fact that we have a permanent staff living here, and humans get sick just being around other humans.
That being said, when they told me she was in room 325 I was already annoyed, again. I would like to stop firing people for stupid decisions eventually. That's the third floor, that's an isolation room, or as I like to call them, intimidation suites.
They have an observation room, which is nothing but a black door in a gray hall with a window for a wall at the end. Its furnished with a single chair bolted to the tile, and a computer screen attached to a swivel bar rising out of the floor.
On either side of this hall are decontamination shower rooms, and a pair of airlocks leading into and out of the showers. The airlocks closest to the patients room are also glass walls with a glass doors.
That means three of the six walls in the hexagon she's trapped in are glass and they're the three she can see the easiest because they're in front of her. All she can do is lay there and watch the 'threat' coming.
Then there's the room itself, which is practically an interrogator's wet dream. Especially with the way they told me they removed everything that wasn't nailed down. A decision that was made without my approval following the fact she broke that man's arm.
Her bed, which they assured me she is strapped to quite securely, yay, is sitting opposite the observation room, inside a yellow warning line on the floor, and has a concrete wall curving in over her head. If she isn't already claustrophobic on top of everything, that might make her eventually. When you're laying down it looks like the wall is caving in on you, I know. It also doesn't help that the bar of lights on that wall never go off. They dim considerably for when you sleep, if you can reach the light switch on the wall five feet away which I guarantee she can't.
So not only is she unlikely to sleep well anyways because of her fear, but there is going to be the permanent glow of a light filtering through her eyelids when she does. And when she is awake the room itself is shades of white that darken at most to gray, and stainless steel. Has nobody working this assignment taken basic psychology training. I know she was in a coma before so it didn't matter, but she's awake now, and they put her in a dystopian hamster ball!
It only takes me one step into the room to know every thought I had was right. I've seen less fear from beaten dogs.
TUESDAY JUNE 16TH 2009
0900 HOURS
S.H.E.I.L.D FACILITY: THE SANBOX
(LOCATION CLASSIFIED)
0-8-4
"Please, please, please, please, please, please..." This one is different then the others that who have engaged me so far. The others were wearing white, all their coats so devoid of color it reminded me of snow. This one though, his attire is dyed in black, from his jerkin to his trousers. Even the insignia on his over coat is black, its presence only known to me by the fact that its stitching reflects the light differently then the rest it the threads.
This one is different, and that terrifies me because I know not what that should mean. I only know that those men who wore white robes were not kind or sympathetic. I begged them for mercy and answers, and they gave me neither. They just tightened their hands on my limbs and drove more needles in my skin.
That is all I remember before the darkness swarmed in from the outer edges of my vision, and unconsciousness claimed me. Cruel men in the the cleanest clothes, their purity an illusion to hide there maliciousness. Then I woke up, and now the man they send to me is robed in black, but I do not know if those threads are honest representation of the person wearing them, when the others were such a lie. I just know the man inside them frightens me. "...please, please, I will obey, I swear to you, I will ask no more question, I will do no more wrong, just please have mercy, please, please please...!
TUESDAY JUNE 16TH 2009
0900 HOURS
S.H.E.I.L.D FACILITY: THE SANBOX
(LOCATION CLASSIFIED)
CLINT
She took one look at me, and I swear if there wasn't a magnet under that hospital bed locking it in place, I think her shaking might have moved it across the room! I haven't even reached the chair yet, Jesus Christ!
I spent a lot of last night looking at specimen numbers and photos of a 'human' test subjects, but while I didn't really give it much thought, I assumed the 'woman' I was supposed to meet would look better after a half century in decent hands, not the same.
Sure, she isn't covered in bruises and blood. Sure her skin is clean, not carved open, and has healthy color to it. Sure she doesn't look like a skeleton wearing padded leather from starvation but the woman strapped down on the other side of the glass looks no less like a lab rat.
Her heads been shaved, recently enough to that her hair looks more like a shadow on her scalp then a layer of strands. They did that so they could stick the sensors there. That is the biggest similarity to her life during the Holocaust, but it isn't the only one. There's I'Vs all over her. Disappearing into her flesh beneath semi transparent tape and pinkened skin. Some of which I know is smears of blood that's stained the bandages.
They have a feeding tube going down her nose, I'Vs in her arms, things stuck to her skin for god knows what reason, and heavy pleather restraints holding down her exposed limbs.
They dressed her in a stiff hospital gown, but even with her diagnosis they didn't give her a sheet before they sent a man to see her. I get the logic, really I do. She obviously isn't stable, and she has already injured the staff. They don't want her to have something she could choke someone, or attempt suicide with.
But the restraints look heavier then she does. She's got an I'V in her that will fill her with sedatives at the push of button. She's stuck in a room with doors that only open with a card! And if the worst happens, because this is an isolation room, they always just can initiate the decontamination procedure. I will never authorize that though! I am not killing a 'woman' with fire.
I'll have to find out what exactly my limits are on this assignment are quickly, but its clear I have a lot of cleaning up to do if I actually have a chance at accomplishing this mission. The sheet thing though is absolutely within my abilities, and that is happening as soon as I leave this room.
"I need you to relax miss. I'm agent Barton, an operative of S.H.I.E.L.D, and I've been assigned to take care of you." The least I can do is start treating the poor woman like a person, because she's been denied that for far too long already
They suggested going in impersonally at first and building a connection as we progressed. Those intentions were great, but it only took me a few seconds of listening to her to realize they were pointless too. She demonstrated a grasp of the English language, but as frightened as she was I might as well have been speaking Spanish to a fish. I needed to do something to push past that wall of terrified pleading, so I went with the only thing I could think of. I made her a person. "Agent Conway, take a breathe, its me."
TUESDAY JUNE 16TH 2009
0900 HOURS
S.H.E.I.L.D FACILITY: THE SANBOX
(LOCATION CLASSIFIED)
0-8-4
It is a word, it is a title, it is a name? The context and the sounds all feel foreign on my tongue, but it is what he directed at me. Is it my title? My name? Is it a lie? I hate the idea that it might be, that I must consider that, almost as much as I hate how much I do not care if it is. "A-ag-ent Con-conway?"
"Yes" he says after a pause, and before his first step, which falters at the sight of my reaction. "That is who are. Eleanor Conway" He continues, choosing words over motion. "and I am Agent Barton. Clint Barton. We know each other."
TUESDAY JUNE 16TH 2009
0900 HOURS
S.H.E.I.L.D FACILITY: THE SANBOX
(LOCATION CLASSIFIED)
CLINT
Her dispute to that comes quick and hard with a "N-No we do n-not" but that's okay, because that's what I was expecting and hoping for. It would be nice if she dropped everything and trusted me, but so would the existence of unicorns, and I'm not getting that either. Really all I actually wanted was to hook her attention and in that I succeeded.
"No. you're right." I concede, very slowly holding my hands up in what I'm assuming is a peaceful gesture to her, and take her lack of flinch is proof enough. "We don't, not anymore. But we did, and its okay that you don't remember me. They told me about your amnesia. We will help you get back there." Before I recognize my fuck-up.
Seeing her panic at the word 'we' I lift my hands higher, and school my feet against their initial reaction, backing up instead of approaching as I chant out a couple quick 'no's' before I form an actual sentence. "I will help you get back there." I stress the 'I' and 'you' as I gesture at each of us respectively. "I'm the person in charge. Unless its absolutely necessary, I'm the only person you're going to see."
"I do not want it to be necessary!" The lack of a stutter would have been an improvement if she didn't actually start that sentence with a goddamn whimper. Fury was right, the asshole. Abused women really are my damn kryptonite.
"I know." I offer, sounding more certain then I feel as I try to figure out what I'm doing without letting her see I don't know. "I don't want it to be necessary either, and I'm going to do everything I can to make sure its not, but to do that you have to deal with me, okay? Just me."
I was hoping for a yes, but instead I got I what I expected. "I do not want to be here! Let me go!"
"I can't let you go." I want her to like me, but that sentence makes it look like I'm becoming the villain to her, if her expression is anything to go by. So I try my best to change that "Its not safe for you out there, there are people, there are a lot more people then me out there, and if you can't handle just me, just one, you're not ready for that. Are you?"
TUESDAY JUNE 16TH 2009
0900 HOURS
S.H.E.I.L.D FACILITY: THE SANBOX
(LOCATION CLASSIFIED)
0-8-4
There's something I hate in those words, in that tone. There's highhanded superiority there, like I'm a child. I think I want to resist that, but I know I can't. He can be as high handed and superior, because he is. He is one of the people who are responsible for me being here, where-ever this place is, who are responsible for the straps holding me down, who will return and punish me with needles and darkness if I misbehave. The people who have, who might again if I do something wrong. That's why I didn't respond to the question, up until he repeated it and left me with no choice.
TUESDAY JUNE 16TH 2009
0900 HOURS
S.H.E.I.L.D FACILITY: THE SANBOX
(LOCATION CLASSIFIED)
CLINT
I'm not even in the room but there's something painful to look at in her expression, so much more then it should. It's making it hard to keep my own as passive as it is. She looks like she's expecting me to hit her as she stutters out those words, so soft a whisper that I actually have to adjust the volume to hear more then a hum. "H-how do I kn-know its sa-af-fe f-for me h-here?"
"You don't..." My answer scares her even more, but I push past that out of necessity. "and you shouldn't, at least not yet. That's my job. To convince you, to give you reasons to trust again. I intend to do my damnedest, that's why they sent me."
Silence, and confusion, the the sight of strain leaching the color out of her skin under those straps. God, I wish Nat was here, or Laura even if I would ever actually let Laura within sight of S.H.I.E.L.D. This woman's like a terrified kid, and sure I'm a dad, but I can think of so many people better at this then me. I hope I'm doing this right.
"Be-bec-cause we k-knew each ot-ther." Its the question I wanted, the question I was hoping for, a question that shows hope of belief, that shows interest in the hook. A question that has the agent and the man in me are at odds over. Its what she needs, its what we need, its what will keep her safe. Just a white lie, the size of a mountain, covered in snow. Covered in snow, covered in snow...
TUESDAY JUNE 16TH 2009
0900 HOURS
S.H.E.I.L.D FACILITY: THE SANBOX
(LOCATION CLASSIFIED)
0-8-4
"Yes." He confirms with a smile, letting his hands drift down, slowing their descent when he notices my eyes lock on them. "Because we knew each other." They maintain their pace even as they shift their direction a little, now instead of just lowering, they rest on the smooth arms of the white chair as he uses them to guide himself into its seat. "Because they think if you remembered anyone, it might be me."
My silence, and the doubt on my brow is taken as an invitation to continue. "You don't have to believe me. I don't want or expect that yet, if fact, I want you to stay suspicious of me, I want you to make me prove it. Anything less would be an insult to the woman you were, to the agent that I saved."
He... him? Saved? Me? I don't really understand. But I'm alive because of him? Is that true? Why don't I know if that's true? I really want to just hide my face in my hands and cry, but my hands stop against their own volition so all I can do is close my eyes and try to tuck my chin in against the resistance sitting over my chest.
"You mattered then" he continues, seemingly undisturbed to my ears by the sight of me in my distress. "more then my mission, or my orders, and you matter just is much now. I promise to keep you safe, to do everything I can to keep you from being scared, and help you figure all of this out, but you need to cooperate with me, just me, to do that. Can you do that?"
Given his last question demanded an answer I am assuming this one does as well, though I'm not sure why, since even he must be aware that he has offered me no choice, only the pretense of an option. Still my silent, blind nod puts a gentle note of gratitude in his tone. "That a girl."