When the scan is finished, Elsa shows me the images on the computer and I ask her if James and I can stay for awhile to look them over. She agrees and sees herself out after assuring me we will have privacy. What I'm really after is the calm atmosphere of the room now that the machine is shut down. The dim lights and silence are soothing and I think it will help James to calm down more. He's sitting on the sliding table, shirtless again after having stripped off the tech shirt once we'd let him out of the head coil. His body had been covered in sweat and he'd paced the room a couple times, running his hands through his hair and pressing his fingers to his temples.
That agitation I could deal with, but this quiet repose that's been going on for nearly forty-five minutes makes me nervous. I spend the time going over the scans and printing out certain ones to add to my file and to compare to his initial CT scans that were given to me. Every so often I glance up at him, trying to read his expression, but it doesn't change. He just keeps staring off into space.
"Do you want to talk about it?" I finally ask. James shakes his head slowly a couple times, but lets out a long sigh like he's resigning himself to the necessity of the task. I roll my chair closer to where he sits, moving easily over the tile floor.
"At first," he starts, "they would strap me down to a table, wrap my head with connectors, and then stick a rubber guard in my mouth. That's all there is now, the taste of rubber, pain in my whole body, and a smell like burning hair but not quite that. I know what that smells like." His words make me feel cold but I make an effort not to react.
"There was a cycle: cold, pain, a mission, and then back to cold. When she put that thing over my head, I could taste the rubber and feel myself being held down even though there wasn't anything keeping me down. I kept expecting the pain but it never came. My body just reacted on it's own, I couldn't control it and then suddenly it was like the room was spinning and I kept thinking that it would hurt, hurt, hurt like before. When I'd wake up, completely blank, not knowing where I was, Eli was always there. He'd tell me everything was ok, lean over where I lay and look me in the eye. His eyes were always the first thing I'd see and his voice to go along with them would calm me down.
"They got better at it," he says. "Mixed in there's flashes of blue light and restraints that work on their own, no need to fasten me down by hand, but every time I woke up blank and alone, still I'd be searching for Eli's voice and eyes, even though I didn't know exactly that's what was happening. I don't know when he died, but after he was gone I felt it wasn't worth holding on to anything anymore. They never told me what happened but I knew that he wasn't coming back. Being alone was worse than anything I'd felt before.
"When I felt your hand on my chest and looked up at you I thought I was looking back into his eyes, and then I could hear you, that everything was ok, and I felt pulled back to myself."
It's the most words he's strung together in our weeks in the Tower, and I am shocked to hear it come forth. It's as if confronting the deep fear of the wiping had broken through a wall inside him. Despite the assault on his mind, it had managed to put up walls around those things that would comfort him when the attacks came again.
"They used a perversion of electroshock therapy on you," I tell him. "It's a treatment for psychosis that causes you to lose memories before that trauma. It disrupts the flow of messages in your brain, the way the memories are communicated across the different parts of your brain that do different things. The amnesia effects don't tend to last that long, especially during it's heydey but yours seem to go much deeper, like they pushed the technology further into your mind than it ever had been before."
I let that settle down between the two of us, and I don't like that I've insinuated that he was a guinea pig to be experimented on and twisted into a new form, but I can't take it back now.
"Your brain needed the comfort you got from him," I murmur more to myself than him, but he picks up on it.
"The brain has an immense capacity to hang on to things that have been associated with strong emotional or traumatic events. Those are our deepest memories and connect to parts of ourselves that are part of our basic instincts for survival. They had to dig deeper and deeper to suppress parts of your past, but it bypassed the memories of my grandfather."
I push myself back to the computer and turn the screen so James can see clear image of his brain that I had been staring at. He locks on to it like I'm giving him a lifeline.
"See this?" I point to the image, "These are what I showed you that first day. The part of your brain where memory is stored is shriveled, beat up, after being bombarded all those times. But they're still there, they can come back. This gives me hope for you. You should have it, too."
And then he smiles at me. Not a big one, but just enough that I know that he believes me, that he trusts me.
"I want to start you on a series of injections of a medicine to help things get going up there," I continue. "It helps to strengthen the memory connections in your brain. I think it will help. There's an experimental synthetic version that they use at my hospital and if I can get permission I can get you a supply."
As it turns out, it's not difficult at all to get the permission I need. Steve was an easy sell, and I left it up to him to convince Natasha and whoever else they see fit to break me into the hospital. It feels very illegal, but that's only because it is, and I think that just a few weeks ago I wouldn't have pegged myself as someone who would be neck deep in this world. It makes me smile to think I am still full of surprises.
The logistics of what I'm asking turns out to be more complex than I had thought. There has to be a plan to get in, a plan to get out, and most important there have to be several of what they keep calling "options". I am grilled repeatedly about the layout of my unit, the labs where I'll find the medication, and about the security systems. Natasha and the man who had picked us up at my apartment, he introduces himself to me as Barton, tell me that it's all rudimentary stuff and that they will have no problem getting me in. I ask why Steve isn't going, he always seems to be more than willing to help if it's a project for James, but he is in the background this time.
When I tell them I want to bring James with me, that he knows the hospital as well, they balk at the suggestion. He's "too unpredictable" they insist. But I push back, not admitting that they might be right, but I remind myself and them that he stalked me in that building and knows how to keep himself hidden there. He has the experience, why not make use of him?
It's with great reluctance that they agree.
So a few days after the MRI, after we have gone over the plan several times and I've been made to promise to keep close and not stray from my escort, I find myself being driven across the city from the Tower towards the hospital that I had willingly given so much of my life to. James sits beside me in the back seat, he's sitting in the middle of the seat, as far from the windows as he can but watches the world go by intently. He's promised me that he can handle himself and that I don't have to worry about him being overcome by memories.
"There's no hidden traps there," he says in a flat voice. He's taken to calling emotional or memory laden places or topics "traps". We avoid them most of the time but other times we throw sticks into their jaws to see them snap and James will confront his memories that are trickling in. I'm glad now though that we won't be dealing with that tonight. This situation is part of his present, the place that he is most sure of himself since there is no haze that obscures the details. The present is clear.
"This is kind of exciting," I lean over and whisper to him, but when he turns to me his face is completely neutral and I realize what I'm saying. Stealth and it's accompanying adrenal rush were a part of his life before he came to this juncture. I must seem like a silly child to think it's fun.
"Sure," he answers and then goes back to watching the world slip by.
It's just after one in the morning when we turn into an alleyway that runs behind the hospital and we leave the car to travel on foot down the alley and to a doorway leading to the back stairwells. Natasha leads James and I, with Barton bringing up the rear. They still don't trust James but it's probably best for some of us to have a healthy dose of skepticism running through their veins.
Natasha picks the outer lock on the door and eases it open just enough for us to slip in sideways. The stairway is silent, and deserted. Just as it always is at this time of night. Most importantly, it's so far out of the way of normal patient traffic that the administration didn't feel the need to keep cameras going at all times, the middle of the night being one of those dark periods. Silently, the four of us ascend, moving only with hand signals and exchanged looks to guide us. We've been over the layout so many times that I'm sure we could accomplish this task in our sleep.
We climb to our floor, and when I open the door slightly my heart skips a little to see my hallways that will take us down to the offices and labs. It takes everything I have not to throw open the door and head out to my familiar territory. But instead I wait while Natasha messes with a small tablet, punching codes and grabbing at small display screens that fly up before her eyes. I have no clue what she's doing, but her eyes dart back forth so quickly over the scrolling figures that I'm sure her brain is working ten times faster than ours.
"Got it," she mouths whispers. She's taken the hallway security cameras hostage and is streaming more looped footage of deserted hallways down to the servers.
"It's scary sometimes how good you are at that," Barton says and elicits a smirk from Natasha. James doesn't say anything, just waits with a quiet calm and watches me looking out the small crack in the door.
We leave Natasha behind in the stairwell, she will monitor the cameras and keep track of our progress on a the feed that she's diverted through her filter of the loop. If at first I'd held reservation about her, I am in awe now. She commands respect with her quiet control and her lack of showboating over her skills. She's not just smart and capable, she's fucking smart and capable.
The carpeted hallways muffle our noise and we move quickly through the building towards my unit. When I lay eyes on it I feel like I'm coming home, and a sense of safety washes over me. This is my turf, more so than my apartment even, this is my place. I lead us to the lab where we stop at the door and wait for a few seconds until I hear a tiny *click* of the key card lock being disengaged. unlocked by Natasha's electronic hand.
Inside it's cool and supremely peaceful. This is where my colleagues do research for our department, searching for new treatments and potential cures for brain damage. There's a hallowed air to the place, mostly due to the understanding that most of our experiments are done on mice, little guys who have no say in our decision to shoot them up with different concoctions and then dissect their brains to look for any changes. When you're doing something like that you have to take your work seriously.
James hangs by the door while I move through the space with certainty, knowing exactly where to find the tiny vials of synthetics I'm keen on treating him with. I find them in the fridge, unopened packs of them stacked neatly in rows. I grab two packs, enough for months of treatment and pocket them. I don't need syringes, they have plenty in the Tower med unit, and head back towards where James waits for me. Barton seems on edge, and keeps swiveling his head around like he's trying to see in all directions at once. It reminds me of an owl and I smile a little at the thought. As we're passing the doors to neuro, I suddenly veer off towards them, intent on picking up a few books from my office.
"Hey," Barton hisses at me, "don't break protocol."
"It's fine, I'll be thirty seconds, tops," I throw over my shoulder and head down the short hall to my door. I leave the two of them behind and go into my office to the bookshelf and pull a couple volumes I'd been missing the last couple weeks. There's no sign that anything in the office has been disturbed, even my coffee mug still has the residue from the cup I'd had the night I'd been taken. Again I'm so sure that we're alone on the floor, that I don't think to close my door.
Apparently I am a slow learner.
My head hits the wall, squarely on my hairline above my right eye and I see stars fit to burst. I'm pushed again into my desk and someone grabs hold of my left wrist and slams it onto the hardwood, the sensation of snapping ricochets up my arm and I cry out from the sharp pain that accompanies what I suspect is breaking bone. I try to move but a hand on the back of my neck keeps me pinned down.
"Where is he," a smooth voice cuts through my pain. It's detached, almost as if it's bored in the face of the pain I'm being caused.
"I don't know," I manage to say.
"Where is the asset?"
"I don't know what you're talking about!" I try to scream but fingers lace around my throat and start to squeeze. I'm going to die and my friends, my friends, are just outside and don't know what's happening. I'm pulling at the air like a fish out of water and the edges of my vision are just starting to go black when I can suddenly breathe again. The hand is ripped away and I hear a crack and a thud and I push myself up to support on my one good arm, pulling my injured left wrist against my chest to protect it.
When I turn around, I see James standing over a man in the same black gear as the ones before, but his head is twisted at an unnatural angle. James is staring down at him, his breathing even, not even looking like he's done anything out of the ordinary. But I get a sick feeling in my stomach that the man on the floor won't be getting up anytime soon.
"Are you all right?" James asks me, but when he looks up he doesn't look me in the eyes, instead his gaze goes to the place just above them and I feel a warm slick spot with my fingertips. They pull away, covered in blood, and I feel the rush through my body and the faint comes quick. I fall, into the darkness that consumes me and give in to the internal scream that had been trapped in my throat.