For what seems like the one-hundredth time since I first woke up in the bare room, I wrench my hand-cuffed hands hard and fast from where they are forced to rest on the arms of the chair that I am currently in to try and break them. My feeble efforts are in vain, however, as the movement only causes pain to flare along my wrists where the metal digs into my skin. Cursing, a huff of annoyance seeps past my thin lips as I drop my hands in defeat, ignoring the pain that is left behind.

Prominent, throbbing, stinging pain.

Something that I have been forced to grow accustomed to in the past ten months.

Growing up in a family full of SHIELD agents greatly influenced my decision to become an agent myself. Once I was old enough and an attempted astrophysics degree didn't end up working out, I enrolled into the SHIELD academy and quickly worked my way through the vigorous training program. Every assignment, every drill, every single piece of hell that my tutors threw at me I completed with equal ferocity which led to promising and incredible results. I graduated from the academy at the age of nineteen and was awarded a level seven clearance. Though not unheard of for agents to reach this level at such a young age, it is uncommon. My ties with the founder of SHIELD and the Director at the time increased the chances of this happening, but I still worked hard to get where I had been. According to my uncle, Clint Barton, it is something that hasn't happened since my mother was my age. A gifted and skilled agent, she had been someone to quickly move up through the ranks of SHIELD and gain the reputation of being one of the best SHIELD agents of her generation.

Not that it had helped her in the long run. A bullet to the head in Russia during a mission had left me an orphan at twelve years old, with no father to take care of me.

The topic of who my father is has always been a touchy subject for Stacey Hathaway. Whenever I tried to discuss it with her, my mother would either blatantly tell me to drop the subject or she would avoid answering the question altogether. Her secretiveness on the matter and overall distant personality had effectively put a tight stain on our relationship, and even after her death, I have yet to truly forgive her for her lack of openness with me all those years. Perhaps if she had even let slip even the smallest titbit of information about his identity, then things could have been different.

With no knowledge as to who my father was, the only other person that could have taken me in was Clint. He and his then-pregnant wife Laura had been more than happy to do so, so I packed up my belongings and said goodbye to my friends and life in San Francisco before leaving it all behind to move into Clint's hidden farmhouse. Soon baby Cooper was born followed by Lila a couple of years later. I was finally getting the loving family that I had always been denied these years, and I was fast on my way to becoming one of SHIELD's best agents.

Every single mission that SHIELD sent my way, I completed with ease. Sometimes they would be solo, other times I would help Nat and Clint with theirs every now and again I would also complete tasks with my then-boyfriend Grant Ward. Whatever the case, and whether or not I did it with others or alone, I always succeeded. Never once failing.

It was because of this, that Alexander Pierce thought that I was best suited for a task in Greece. He had insisted that it was me who completed the mission and I hadn't fought him on the matter. I mean, the head of SHIELD insisting that you single-handedly complete a mission? You'd be idiotic to say no. So I gladly accepted, before heading off to Greece to do the job.

My assignment had been simple: find the target who had infiltrated SHIELD and had stolen valuable files, take the files back and arrest the target before calling Phil Coulson for extraction. It was certainly easier compared to some of my past missions, and I quickly completed it almost effortlessly. But the night that I was supposed to meet Coulson at the airport after I had handed over the target, I had been jumped. When I was walking out of the hotel and towards my car, eight men-eight trained men- appeared out of nowhere and attacked me. I tried my best to fight and I managed to injure two of them- but it wasn't enough. They easily overtook me and knocked me out cold, before dragging me into my own personal hell.

This absolute shithole. Where I've been held against my will for the past ten months.

Dangerous guards. Illegal experiments. Dozens if not hundreds of captives like me were stuck in this four-walled prison with too many locked doors to count. Harsh punishments. Cruel and vindictive guards that weren't afraid of using corporal punishment as a means to keep control of us prisoners. Agonising screams bouncing off the walls late into the night, resonating in my skull and resulting in unwanted nightmares. An unknown organisation behind this all. No way out.

This. This is hell.

The door to the small room suddenly creaks open, causing me to crane my neck towards it at the sound. I can't help but bare my teeth in anger when I see who it is that greets me on the other side. It's whom everyone in here knows as The Man simply because no one knows who he really is or where he comes from. He's the one in charge of this place and had been in my cell to greet me when I first woke up in this place.

After brief bickering between the two of us, he informed me that I was to become part of his human experiment program and that I had been chosen specifically due to a special set of genes that I have- he believes them to be valuable and important to his research. When I had asked for clarification he refused to elaborate, leading me to believe that he had been lying. If I really had a special set of genes, then wouldn't I be the first to know it?

He now says nothing to me as he shuts the door behind him, before crossing the room at a leisurely pace and settling into the chair on the opposite side of the table that I am forced to sit at. He's dressed in the same grey, pressed suit that he always wears, the colour almost matching his hair. His face is lined with age, and his thick lips are surprisingly tugged into an amused smirk as his gunmetal blue irises stare at me, framed by thick, gold-rimmed glasses that make him look older than he actually is.

He leans back into this chair, which groans under the weight of his plump body, and entwines his fat fingers together before placing them on the table between us. "Do you know why you're here, Lydia?" He asks in the soft tone he always speaks in, his voice as smooth as velvet as the words flow from his mouth.

I chew at the inside of my bottom lip, casting my eyes around the room that we are sitting in. There is nothing out of place within these four walls, and I can't think of something that I have done that would result in me being locked in this unfamiliar room with a Man that I have scarcely seen since our first meeting. I can't help but drum my fingers impatiently against the armrest at the thought.

"Haven't got a clue," I sneer. "So why don't you enlighten me with that piece of information?"

For a fleeting moment, I could have sworn that I could detect a hint of relief in the flecks of icy eyes, but he lets out a dry chuckle and ducks his head before I can be sure. "I see your temper has managed to stay with you after all this time-"

"Well, what did you expect? I've been kidnapped, held captive, repeatedly tortured for your own sick experiments and-" I cut off, wrenching my arm up from the chair to jingle the handcuffs for emphasis. "I've been handcuffed all this time. What, were you expecting me to be grateful?"

He clucks his tongue and shakes his head with disappointment. "Sick experiments? We've been trying to make you strong-"

"I am- was, a level seven agent of SHIELD." My lip curls into a snarl. Whoever these people are they know exactly who and what SHIELD is- they knew before they brought me here. How they know I have no clue despite the lengths that I have gone to try and discern the truth. "I was strong.

"You are in this room because you've been able to control the elements for two months now. Do you know what that means?"

It hadn't taken me long to figure out what it was that they were trying to achieve with their experiments on me. As well as injecting me with some sort of purple serum that to this day I still don't know what it is, they would place me in an electric chair where I was forced to endure multiple shocks that left my body a buzzing, trembling mess once I was finally released, the aftershocks lasting well into the night. They locked me in some form of chamber that would leave me desperately gasping as the oxygen levels were made to drop or shrieking in pain as the pressure increased. I was held down in water to the point where I almost drowned on multiple occasions, and locked in freezing cold rooms overnight. I had been buried alive and set on fire, scars littering the skin of my hands and arms where they had burned me while holding me down, ignoring my desperate and agonizing pleas for them to stop.

They were trying to teach me to control the elements. And only recently- after eight months of torture- I've been able to do just that.

Suddenly, I could control electricity and could produce some from my body, as well as feel the energy of it buzzing all around me in appliances, machines - and while I haven't seen the blue sky in almost over a year, I can always tell whenever there was a lightning storm, the electrical charges in the air too strong for me not to notice. I can control the oxygen pressure and create winds that send objects flying fast and high in the air, as well as create air bubbles around my head that provide me with fresh oxygen. I can create waves and breathe underwater, as well as draw moisture from the air to keep me cool on hot days and change the temperature of the usually freezing showers that us captives were subjected to here. Only recently I discovered that I am cryokinetic. My ability to manipulate water has also given me the ability to control its component of ice.

I can grow plants from the tips of my fingers, and I learned to dig myself out of my graves without needing to use my hands to do so. Fire no longer blisters my skin and I can create some out of thin air. But the best part had to be that I can use wind currents and the air to levitate myself off the ground, soaring as fast and as high into the sky as I wanted.

I. Can freaking. Fly.

Once my abilities strengthened I had planned on using them to overthrow my captors and escape. But the people that run this place are far cleverer than I give them credit for, as they had similar thoughts that I would try something like this. My guards were tripled. I was injected with a needle that would weaken my abilities to the point where they didn't exist once my training was done for the day and the number of guards ordered to watch me tripled overnight, their weapons stronger and more capable of killing me. Outnumbered, they had promised to put a bullet in my head if I even looked at them the wrong way, making escaping even harder than it had been before.

And the handcuffs. They were charged with electricity that would send a harsh jolt through my body every time I tried to break them off. With the inhibition drug coursing through my veins, my body couldn't withstand the strong electrical charge.

"That you've gone to all this trouble just because you wanted your own little Avatar?" I now say, voice dry of any emotion. "Someone's clearly been fanboying hard over The Last Airbender."

"Hilarious."

I shrug. "I like to think so. But in all honesty, I have no idea why you dragged me out of my cell in the middle of the night for this little chat. Though, I have my suspicions."

"Oh? Do tell then."

"When you've been stuck in here for over a year now, you tend to notice things. Every time someone in this place is able to master their abilities, they tend to disappear. You don't kill them, obviously- that would just be a waste of your time- but they don't stick around in this place. I guess you ship them off to a place where you have better use for them, making more room for more captives and more experiments."

"Clever girl."

"It's called being observant, not clever." I roll my eyes. "That, or you're little band of psychos have just decided to move on to some new place. It would explain why those other captives who haven't been able to complete the experiments are slowly being shipped out."

He raises a bushy brow. "Others?"

"Wanda and Pietro, for starters," I reply, my heart clenching like a tight vice at the thought of the twins. They had arrived a few months after I had, and the three of us had quickly gotten along even though they had willingly volunteered to come to this place. Why the hell anyone would do such a thing is beyond me, but they had been unwilling to share details on the matter. I had managed to gain snippets of information from them over the months though- something about wanting to be strong so that they could take down those responsible for the death of someone they loved.

"And… and the girl," I add, a small frown tugging at the corners of my lips. The girl. I know vaguely who it is that I'm talking about. But try as I might, I can't get my mind to conjure up a name for this mystery woman, whose face I can't even picture properly. I can see an outline; pale skin and blonde hair, but the more that I try to think of her features, the blurrier they become. It's like desperately trying to grasp at some smoke; no matter how hard I try, I can't get a firm grasp on it. She keeps slipping through my fingers before I can get a good look.

"The girl?" The Man demands.

I shake my head, squeezing my eyes shut and wincing as the back of it begins to throb.

The sound of a heavy sigh filling the momentary silence of the room causes me to open them once more, and I am surprised to see there is a look of disappointment on the Man's face. "Yes, this is all true, Miss Hathaway. But this won't be happening to you."

"And why's that?"

"Because we're going to kill you."

After all this torture, torment and pain, I sort of saw this one coming. Each day could have been my last- I had grown to accept that my death at the end of all this was inevitable. But that doesn't stop my heart from skipping a beat and my stomach from dropping to my feet at the six words callous words he had just spoken.

A death sentence at just twenty years old. My crime? Being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

He squints at me. "You don't seem surprised."

Not wanting him to see how badly his words have affected me, I do my best to swallow the fear and offer him a blank look, praying that my voice won't quaver when I reply. "Well, I wasn't brought here by choice. We both know that there was no way that you were going to let me go when all I would do is bring SHIELD back here to kick your ass."

"Not only that, but you haven't been the most cooperative," The Man says, a light hint of humour in his tone. "Mr Davis is still in the coma, by the way."

"Poor him," I deadpan, feeling no remorse for hurting that man. He had been a guard that had decided to get a little too hands-on one day. If I was being quite honest, then I'm glad he's in a coma. Not only does it keep him away from me, but also from the other young girls that are trapped here in this facility as well."

"Miss Henderson lost three teeth."

"She'll live."

"They managed to sew Johnson's finger back on."

"Good for him."

"And Mr Low is unable to have any kids in the near future."

"That moron had it coming. You don't try and handle a job that way, OK? Not my fault the idiot's groin got in the way of my foot."

He smiles tightly. "Either way Ms Hathaway. Tomorrow, we're evacuating all of the people in this facility to another, seeing as we have some unwanted parties on our tail. Everyone except you. You will remain here alone and will be blown up with the rest of the building. If anyone does find you...well. There won't exactly be much left for them to find."

I flinch at his words. Tomorrow? No! "I think you're being a little hasty," I try to reason shakily. "I mean, blowing up the building?"

"We wouldn't want to leave a scent for SHIELD to come and find us, now would we?" he explains calmly. "We don't need you any more Lydia. Now that we know that the experiments worked on you, we can apply them to someone more willing. We believe that we now have enough data to replicate what we have done to you, even if our test subjects don't have the same set of genes."

"How do you know the experiments will work on the others?"

"It will work. We have some of the best scientists in the world here. Try all you want, but nothing is going to change our minds. You're dying tomorrow."


Hushes whispers and frantic footsteps are what woke me from my slumber that the following morning. Dazed, I groggily pull myself upright on my pathetic excuse of a bed and rub the sleep from my eyes as I try to get my bearings. A quick glance at the light streaming from beneath the gap between the bottom of the floor and my cell door informs me that it is well and truly past the time that the guards usually come and drag us out of our cells for our training, so why hadn't anyone come for me?

You're dying tomorrow.

My eyes fly open as The Man's words ring and echo in my mind like the chime of a bell, and I bolt to my feet at the reminder of my pending death sentence.

If anyone does find you… well. There won't exactly be much left for them to find.

I dash towards the door at neck-breaking speed, and practically through myself against it as a sudden wave of desperation crashes over me. "Hey!" I scream with an angry thud against the door, praying that someone would hear my plea. "Hey! Let me out!"

But it's no use. If there is anyone left behind that can hear me, then they don't care enough to let me out of this cage. As it had been for the past year, I have been left terrified and alone, forced to rely only on myself to get out of this mess.

For several minutes, I continue to throw myself against the door in a desperate attempt to try and knock it down. When shoving it doesn't work, I try ramming against it with my shoulders, and even try backing up as much as I can in the small confines of my cell, hoping that a running start might increase my odds. But after dozens of failed attempts, it doesn't take me too long to figure out that brute force isn't going to work; the door is too thick. Letting out a scream of frustration, I slam my shackled hands against the door without even thinking of the electrical consequence that would follow.

But to my complete astonishment, it never comes. At least, not to the excruciating extent that it usually does. A slight electrical volt thrums through my wrists, but it isn't harsh enough to be considered painful. It's really nothing more than a dull and slightly uncomfortable annoyance.

Tilting my head down as I stare quizzically at the metal entrapment, I slam my hands against the door once more to ensure that this isn't just a trick of my imagination. I brace myself for the charge just in case, but it's just as it had been before; the volt was there, but it's not powerful. The only logical explanation could be that the power-inhibiting drug that the guards callously inject in my body on a daily basis has started to wear off. Which means…

I can use my powers.

Taking a deep breath, I click my fingers together, hoping that a spark of fire would ignite between them. I am met with nothing but disappointment, however, and I swear under my breath. Determined not to give up that easily though, I click my fingers once more and let out an excited gasp as the smallest of flames flickers between them for a brief moment, before then dancing out of existence.

Come on! Focus!

Inhaling deeply, I slowly count to five in an effort to calm my racing pulse, knowing that getting worked up won't help matters. With blood still rushing in my ears and my fingers shaking slightly, I give them one last click, pouring every ounce of power that I can muster into the small action. And like a flick of some invisible switch, I feel the familiar sense of my elemental powers surge through my veins. My whole body buzzes with the almost overwhelming energy, and sure enough, my hands are suddenly engulfed with bright, roaring flames of a powerful fire that takes my breath away.

Letting out a small noise of delight, I allow the fire to travel up towards the metal surrounding my wrists. It doesn't take long for the flames to melt the chain connecting the two pieces together, with small electrical sparks going off as the flames damage the circuits hidden beneath their surface, My powers allow me to walk away unscared by the burning heat, and I'm free seconds later, the broken pieces of metal landing on the ground with a clatter on the ground.

A small huff escapes past my lips as I step back from the door, wringing my hands by my side as I try to keep a strong grasp on the power flowing through my veins. I raise my hands, palms flat and facing forward as I draw them back, ready to thrust them forward-

I shriek with surprise as a piercing alarm suddenly echoes throughout the facility, both loud and shrill enough to cause a high-pitched ring in my ears that borderlines painful. I instinctively reach up to slam my hands over them in a fruitless effort to try and drown out the horrible noise, but I hear it all the same. My head starts to achingly throb with the force of it, and inside all I can think is one thing;

If an alarm has started to go off, then it means that this building is even closer to blowing up than it had been moments before.

I have to get out of this place. Now.

Grasping onto that power in the same manner that I had before, I draw my hands away from my ears and snap my palms forward. The huge gust of wind that follows is powerful enough to send the door flying off its hinges, landing with a heavy crash that gets drowned out by the sound of the alarm still going off.

"Six minutes to self-destruct."

The relief of finally having a way out of my cell is short-lived and is quickly replaced with a feeling of heart-clenching, stomach-dropping panic at the sound of the thick, German-accented voice that blares throughout the room and reveals that I have just under six minutes to work my way free from this building. Without a second thought or glance back at the room that I had been forced to call my own over the past twelve months, I tear through the now empty door frame and down the hall, going as fast as my legs can carry me.

The impending countdown continues to play from the speakers in the facility along with the alarm, which only causes my already racing heart to beat faster with an underlying fear of not making it out of this place alive. I can practically feel the adrenaline pumping through my veins as I weave up and down numerous corridors, feeling very much like a mouse trying to work its way through a maze. I don't dare slow down, knowing that every little second from this moment forward will count in so many ways; if I hesitate for even just one of these seconds in the remaining five and a half minutes that I have left to find a way out, then it could very much mean game over.

I have survived this long in this hell; I don't intend on dying after all this time.

"4 minutes until self-destruct."

Come on! Come on, come on COME ON!

"No sign of her anywhere, but we'll find her Sir!"

I stumble and almost fall head over heels at the eerily familiar, male voice that screams over the still shrieking alarm in the next hallway over. Not bothering to try to work out who the voice belonged to - it was most likely a guard- I clench my fists and try not to let his words scare me too much. If there was someone else in this building looking for me, then it means that it's someone who I wouldn't want to cross paths with. They must have left someone behind to ensure that I didn't escape.

I click my fingers and instantly feel electricity crack between my hands. I sure as hell am not letting them succeed. Resuming my fast and even pace, I raise my hands and turn around the corner.

A man just taller than me stands in the middle of the corridor with his back facing me. He hurries down the hall but I am quicker than him, and successfully sneak up behind him without alerting him to my presence with the alarm concealing my frantic footsteps against the ground. With a frustrated yell, I reach forward and place my hands on the back of his shoulders, sending a jolt of electricity that causes him to convulse where he stands. It isn't powerful enough to kill him, but it's enough to knock him down and keep him from attacking me.

He lets out pained groans as he continues to shake, and only once I draw my hands back from him does he drop to his knees, still shaking. Grabbing a fistful of his black shirt, I jerk him backwards with my fist raised, ready to slam it into his face as he lifts his head-

My hand drops in shock, and the electricity coursing through my hands fizzles out of existence immediately at the sight of none other than my uncle blinking his glassy blue orbs up at me in confusion, his lips parted and complete and utter shock written all over his face,

That and, well, pain.

"Three minutes and twenty- six seconds until self-destruct."

"Clint?" I whisper, my voice cracking with disbelief.

He tries to mumble something – he really does – but all that comes out is garbled nonsense. The remnants of the shock are still causing him pain, I see.

The alarm, the emotionless countdown – everything fades away as I stare down at my uncle, drinking in every detail in his features which haven't changed too drastically over the past twelve months. My now shaking hands reach out to gently grasp the side of his tired face to make sure that it's really him, and I sob slips from my throat when my fingers gently land on either side of his face. It's him. It's really him. This isn't a figment of my imagination. This isn't some cruel trick that my mind has decided to play on me; this is real. After all this torment, after all this pain and suffering for nearly a year now, thinking that I would never see any of my loved ones again, the person that I had missed the most kneels before me.

After almost a year, he's found me.

And I've just electrocuted the absolute crap out of him.

"I'm sorry," I choke out in between sobs, tasting salt in my mouth from the tears that freely roll down my face. His own wet my fingers and his as he reaches up to grasp at one of my hands. "I'm sorry, I didn't – I didn't know it was you-"

"It's ok," he finally wheezes, voice still strained. "It's ok, it's ok-"

"Clint-"

"I've got you, Kiddo," he promises, tugging me down to engulf me in a bone-crushing hug, clinging to me as if his life depends on it. I return the gesture with equal enthusiasm to the point where I almost struggle to breathe. It's the first kind, and loving gesture that I have received from another human since I was first brought to this horrid hell, and that thought alone is enough to make me cry even harder.

"I'm sorry – I'm sorry I didn't find you sooner," Clint mourns. "I tried-"

"It's alright. It's alright," I cry into the crook of his shoulder. "I've missed you. I've missed you so damn much."

"Two minutes and forty seconds until self-destruct."

And with those several words, our bittersweet reunion is brought to a screeching halt as reality comes crashing down once more. I want nothing more than to enjoy this moment with him, but doing so would sign our death warrants. So, forcing my turmoil of emotions down as best as I can, I urgently ask him in a thick voice, "Can you stand?"

He answers by trying to pull himself to his feet, and I am quick to help him. "This building is going to blow, so we need to get out of here now. Can you run?"

He nods his head, thankfully less shaky than he had been moments prior. Like me, he seems to have bottled his emotions temporarily to deal with the situation at hand, as the features of his face have schooled into a more serious mask. "Is there anyone else in the building?"

"They evacuated everyone but me-"

"One minute and fifty-five seconds until self-destruct."

I grip Clint's arm like a tight vice. "Run."

He doesn't need telling twice. Like a bullet firing from a gun, he takes off, and I am hot on his heels straight after.

My legs begin to feel as heavy as lead as I race after him, not used to all this exercise and stretch after all this time. Still, I push them harder in order to keep up with Clint, refusing to pause for even a second. Having no clue where the exit is, I follow him blindly but trusting him with every ounce of my being as I allow him to lead me down corridor after corridor. With my arms pumping by my side and my breath coming out short and ragged, I will myself to keep going further and further, practically tasting the freedom that I have agonisingly craved on the tip of my tongue.

"One minute until self-destruct."

I almost cry with relief when we turn around the last corner and I see the outside world awaiting us on the other side of the door. As we near the exit, I take in the snow-covered ground and the trees in the distance, though nothing can prepare me for my first breath of fresh air in over twelve months. I gasp at the feeling of it, but swear seconds later when my bare feet come into contact with the freezing snow, its iciness causing my feet to feel as if they are being stabbed with thousands of tiny needles. The sensation is enough to cause me to jump a mile in the air and I almost stop in my tracks, but Clint only grabs my arms and continues to drag me forward, yelling words of encouragement in my ear as we go.

We continue to run until the alarm and the countdown fade into nothingness, yet we still press on. There is no telling how far a minimum safe distance would be from the explosion.

Almost half a mile out, we feel it. The ground shakes beneath our feet so violently that it causes us to tumble to the ground with a string of curses flying from our mouths. Scrambling in the snow so that we put our weight on our backs, we finally look back in the direction from which we came. All I can see in the distance is flames and smoke which rises high into the sky and is all that is left of the facility, the remaining trees alight as the snow melts beneath the intense heat. It seems as if we are a safe enough distance, but with a quick wave of our hand, I create a protective air barrier just to be sure.

My head falls back onto the ground, and my hair is instantly drenched from the snow. Clint mirrors my actions and for several moments we lay there, our chests violently rising and falling as we try to catch our breath, processing the ordeal that we had just been through. My own mind is filled with nothing but jumbled thoughts about Clint rescuing me, the Man's callous threat, my death sentence and everything else that has happened to me since I was first kidnapped.

But the thought that swims to the surface of all the others, and ultimately stands out the most?

I'm free.

It is time to go home.


Please note that this is a rewritten version of my original book, The Seventh Avenger, that I published over eight years ago. I have since decided to go back and rewrite it, as I am nowhere near happy with the quality of the chapters and certain plot points that I once was. I will aim to update this every Sunday, but it will also depend on other projects that I am also working on.