Chapter 12
"Hi, Mikayla!" Katie ran over and hugged Mikayla, carefully avoiding Mikayla's hands. She turned around and motioned for her brother to come over. 'It's okay,' Katie signed. 'It's really her.'
Mikayla had never missed her fingers so much in her life. She knew if Katie was signing that Philip still didn't have hearing aids. "Clint?" Mikayla motioned toward him.
Clint nodded. 'Don't worry. You won't hurt her.'
'Will her hands be okay?'
'They will. She's having surgery next week. They'll be good as new. I'm sure she'd love a hug from you.'
Philip shyly nodded and walked over to Mikayla. Katie stepped out of the way to make room for him. As soon as he reached Mikayla, he climbed into her lap and laid his head on her shoulder, signing 'I missed you' into her chest.
"Tell him I missed him, too." Mikayla put her head on top of Philip's.
"I've got another surprise for you, Mrs. Legolas," Tony said. "Friday?"
"Mikayla, please look straight ahead."
Mikayla followed Friday's instructions, face scrunched up as she tried to figure out what was happening. "What am I looking at? Oh!" Mikayla's face lit up as a hologram displaying her words appeared before her.
"That's so cool!" Katie beamed as she watched words coming to life. Everyone else was watching.
"See that, Philip?" Mikayla nudged him and motioned to the display. "We can talk this way until I get my hands fixed, okay?" The little boy nodded, then turned back and nestled himself against her. She stroked his hair with her forearm.
"He's still shy," Katie said, jumping up on the couch to sit beside Mikayla.
"How have you been doing?"
"The place we've been staying is nice. Ms. Pepper brings Morgan over, and Mr. Steve, Mr. Thor, and Mr. Bucky sometimes visit." Katie looked up at her with her big eyes wide and innocent. "You and Mr. Clint haven't been? Is that because of your hands?"
Mikayla looked over at Clint. How do you tell a child you've been kidnapped and sold to an evil organization hell-bent on warping you into a weapon of mass destruction on their behalf? Clint eventually answered. "Mikayla was hurt, and I've been taking care of her." Katie nodded, seemingly accepting the simple answer. "Do you see the other kids?" Katie animatedly began telling them about the other kids and their activities.
Mikayla leaned back as she listened to Katie talk about her escapades with the other children. As she tried to pay attention, her thoughts began to spiral. 'How can they trust me with children? Yesterday, some ideas were planted in my brain to kill my friends and my own family. Now, today, I've got kids around me. How do they know I won't snap and murder them? How can I trust myself?' Mikayla couldn't catch her breath and started panting, then felt a tugging at her hospital gown sleeve. She looked down and found Philip frantically signing, 'Are you okay? What's wrong?'
Steve and Thor jumped up and hurried over to Mikayla. "Young ones," Thor said surprisingly softly, "allow us to take you for a piglet ride."
The siblings looked confused. Steve smiled as he clarified, "He means a piggyback ride."
"Yay!" Katie said as Philip smiled. They each gave Mikayla, who had grown stoic as she tried to catch her breath, a hug. The two Avengers took off with the kids, who giggled as the men began racing down the aisle.
As soon as the kids were away from Mikayla, Clint jumped into action. He leaned over and began rubbing circles on her temples. "Focus, babe. Pay attention to me. Pay attention to my breathing. You're in the tower, back with us. Wanda cleared your mind, and Shuri confirmed it. Come on, sweetheart. You've got this." Mikayla did her best to match her breathing to Clint's. After several minutes, her breathing slowed down to normal levels. "Good, that's my Mikayla." Clint cupped his face. "What do you see?"
Mikayla looked around. "You, Natasha, Bucky's arm."
"Hear?"
"Your voice, my heart pounding, fingers tapping."
"Smell?"
"Fireplace burning, your cologne, coffee."
"Taste?"
"Salt, blood, saliva."
"Feel?"
"Guilt, shame, awkwardness."
"Try again, sweetheart." Mikayla shook her head. "Okay, I think you've had enough socializing for a bit. Ready to go back?"
"If you say so." Mikayla seemed to shrink back into the couch. Clint was shocked at how quickly her personality seemed to change until he remembered what Bruce had said regarding the aftereffects of the Midazolam. The situation reminded him of how she was after being diagnosed with bipolar depression. One minute she'd be fine, something would happen, and she'd snap and do a 180-degree turn.
"Mikayla, can I help?" Bucky asked. "Will you let Clint and I take you back to your room?"
She sighed and nodded, suddenly feeling all the energy drain from her. "Sure." Clint helped Mikayla stand, then put an arm around her waist. Bucky placed a hand on one of her elbows, and the trio returned to the medical suites.
Once Mikayla got back into bed, Clint and Bucky stepped away to let the medical staff hook her back up to the monitors. Clint returned to Mikayla's side when the nurse left while Bucky stayed by the door. "What do you need me to do?"
"Nothing. I'm going to try and get some more sleep." Reluctantly, Clint kissed her forehead and sat back as Mikayla gave in to her exhaustion and went to sleep.
"I'd forgotten how quickly her mood can shift. It hasn't happened in a while, not since she was first attacked."
"This has happened to her before?" Bucky sat down.
Clint told him about Mikayla being abducted and raped by some of Barney's henchmen. "I swear about half the people in the Raft are there because of her or me." He looked over at Bucky. "Wanda helped her out then, too. She started going to therapy but stopped it when we got close to the wedding. I'll make some phone calls and get her an appointment scheduled." Clint watched Mikayla as she slept. Clint mumbled something that Bucky, even with his super soldier hearing, couldn't understand, so he elbowed Clint in the side. "Reminds me of how Nat said I was after Loki."
"The battle of New York, right? Alien invasion?" Clint nodded. "What happened? I was otherwise occupied." Translation – he was in cryo, in holding in case he was needed.
Clint sighed, never happy sharing his story, but he knew it helped him get over it the more he talked about it. "I was keeping an eye on some scientists who were keeping an eye on the Tesseract. As we stood and watched, it started acting weird, then suddenly, Thor's brother Loki was there, holding a large staff. He started aiming it at people, shooting them with it, then throwing knives at others. The asshole tried to shoot Fury, but I shoved him out of the way. When I got up, Loki approached me, told me I had heart, and pointed the end of the staff at my heart." Clint was very clinical, very detached in his reciting of the facts. Now, he choked up, and his voice grew soft. "Suddenly, I didn't want to do anything but what Loki ordered me to do. It's like I'd changed allegiances from SHIELD to him." Clint started tapping his left thigh with his fingers.
"I told him everything I knew about the Avengers, helped him break into a building in Stuttgart, and tried to crash the helicarrier, taking out 44 of my fellow agents, not to mention the civilians that died during the battle." He swallowed before continuing. "Because of my actions, Phil Coulson, Mikayla's uncle, died at the hands of Loki, but ultimately it was my fault. I followed that up by almost killing Tasha. It took her smacking me in the head and tossing me into a railing to knock him out. I spent the next six months or so hibernating from the world, being put through the wringer by SHIELD to make sure he wasn't in my head anymore, then forced to seek therapy. After all that, I finally called Mikayla, and the rest is history." Clint took a deep breath and exhaled. "All this to say, I know what she's going through. Now that she can sleep without seeing the damn visions HYDRA gave her, she will use sleep to avoid seeing the horrors while she's awake."
"Another member of the BSC, then."
"The what?"
"Brainwashed Superheroes Club, now made up of four members – me, you, Natasha, and now Mikayla. Stark came up with that out in California. I think he thought he was being funny."
Clint snorted. "That sounds like him." Clint looked over at Mikayla, who was peacefully sleeping. "At least she'll have support."
"Hell, yes, she will." The two men sat by Mikayla's bedside for the next few hours, watching her sleep and ready to be there when needed.
Mikayla stirred and blinked her eyes, trying to focus them. She looked and saw two figures sitting next to her bed. She gasped, swearing it was her HYDRA captors again until she felt a hand carding through her hair and a brief touch of metal on her forearm. "Hey."
"Hey, babe." Her husband leaned in and kissed her cheek. "Peaceful sleep?"
She nodded. "Are the kids okay?"
"They're fine," Clint answered. "Steve and Thor took them for piggyback rides around the main floor, then back to their house. They're staying with a family named Parker. There's an older boy there, some whiz kid interning at SI. Tony brings Philip in so he can work on getting him set up with a set of Stark hearing aids. He's been a little preoccupied lately." Clint stared at Mikayla. "You know you'll have to talk about it, don't you, before it tears you up?"
"Nothing like ripping the bandage off without warning, Clint," Mikayla said, bitterness filling her tone.
"It's either that or you stuff it and deal with it never, which is not a good idea. Take it from someone who's had personal experience with that."
Bucky spoke up. "It pains me to say this, but I agree with Clint." He shook his head. "Damn, my therapist would be proud of me." Mikayla chuckled at that. "Glad you could get a laugh at my expense, Mikayla," Bucky smirked. "In all honesty, looking back, it did help."
Mikayla sighed. "I know. I swear I should have a therapist on speed dial." Clint pulled out his phone. "Please don't tell me you do."
"I did, but I deleted her number after SHIELD fell. Didn't want to take the chance she was HYDRA."
"I can get you my therapist's number. She's moved back here. Hold on a sec." Bucky pulled out his phone and scrolled through the contacts. "Here she is. Dr. Christina Raynor."
"Doc Raynor wasn't HYDRA? Damn, I'm glad to hear that. I can't imagine what HYDRA would've done with all the shit I told her." While Clint and Bucky were talking, Mikayla sat up with a vacant stare. "Did you want her number, Mikayla?" Mikayla continued staring at nothing for about twenty seconds. "Mikayla?"
Mikayla turned her head to look at Bucky and Clint. "Hmm?"
"Did you want to set up an appointment with Dr. Raynor?" Clint asked as he noticed Mikayla seemed to be chewing something but knew she was still on a liquid diet.
"Yeah, that'll be fine, thanks." After answering, Mikayla went back to staring straight ahead.
Clint looked at Bucky, who nodded and left to make the call. "Flashbacks?"
Mikayla stared at the wall for another twenty seconds or so, then answered Clint. "No, thankfully. I slept like a baby. It seems like whatever Wanda did is sticking."
"Good. I think you help her as much as she helps you."
"How so?"
"You show her she can do good things with her powers, that she can help people. Trust me, that means more than you'll ever know."
"Takes away some red from the ledger, you mean?"
Clint nodded. "Exactly."
"How is my favorite patient?" Clint and Mikayla turned toward the voice and smiled as they saw Shuri.
"In my right mind, and always happy to see you," Mikayla said.
"As am I you, my friend. I understand Miss Wanda helped you out. I am glad we didn't need the cryo chamber."
"Me, too." Mikayla shivered thinking about it.
"I have, however, brought something new we've developed. I know Doctor Cho has a device that will help regenerate tissue, so I took the technology back to Wakanda and created one that works the same way on bones after conferring with our scientists. I'd like to use it on your hands with your permission."
Clint noticed Mikayla had that blank stare again, but she answered Shuri after about ten to twenty seconds. "I trust you, Shuri. You helped me heal in Wakanda, and I know the cradle helped Clint. I'm all for anything that will help me get back to being me quicker."
Shuri smiled. "Allow me to talk it over with Doctors Cho and Banner." She patted Mikayla's arm. "We shall have you closer to yourself in no time."
Clint stood. "Hold on a sec, Shuri." He looked toward Mikayla. "I'm going to tag along and get the details for you. Be right back, babe." Clint leaned in and kissed Mikayla's forehead, then he and Shuri left to consult with the other doctors.