Prelude
2012. Three months before the events of Avengers: Age of Ultron.
I had been along for so long.
In the dark.
In this metal cell- the tang of electricity hot on my tongue, it's currently silencing the beasts that roared under my skin.
I could feel them still, those titanic forces, burning me and freezing my veins- scratching for an escape. One they would not get until I was pulled from the four walls that held me, and unleashed upon whatever my keepers saw fit.
Whoever my keepers saw fit.
There was only the long, ageless dark. Sometimes the red of blood spatter through my memories. My blood. When I tried to resist those who dragged me out screaming to try and extract out the magic writhing within my marrow.
It shook still, set me rattling from toe to tooth, begging to be released.
I had not always been like this. But the before I remember had been lost to the dark long ago.
The ageless dark I was prisoner too now.
The only thing I remembered from the before was green. A colour. A feeling. A piece of me, though I could not remember what it was used for.
My eyes wandered the walls, although I knew I could not see anything. The door that should be to my right, or was it my left? Was blind to me, but still I stared to where I thought it might be, watching the grate which food was pushed through.
A familiar rasp of metal had me snapping my head left. Yes, the door was meant to be on my left.
I expected to see the grate slide open, but instead, the door was ripped from it's hinges.
And then, in the ageless dark. There was light.
Cringing back from it, I scrambled, nail-less fingers dragging me back as I shook my head.
"GET OUT. I'M NOT DOING IT. I'D RATHER DIE THAN KILL FOR YOU PEOPLE AGAIN" I screamed, desperately shielding my eyes from the light. So bright. So unnatural.
My body found the corner of my cell as I pushed into it, grabbing with nail less fingers I know would not fine purchase.
I waited for them to grab me and drag me out, still blinking against the ferocious light that burned the delicate tissue of my eyes.
But no hands came, only a soft dimming to the light. A voice appeared too. Soft, thick with something I couldn't place and muffled with a metallic tone.
"... kid I'm not of the scientists. But we have to go now before the sixteen agents who are, batter down the elevator doors at the end of the hall."
I dared to glance up, still squinting against the dim light that may have been the sun- I could not remember what colour it had been. Some part of me said yellow, but the orange and blue lights that lined the laboratories seemed much more appropriate.
There, barely visible with my sensitive eyes- was a robot, cherry red and a golden yellow colour plating it.
Nothing like the men in black shadowy clothes who usually came for me.
The colours felt familiar, and I could almost imagine the hum of the electric metal under my skin if I were to reach out and touch it.
A memory, perhaps.
"Why. Who are you." My voice did not shake. I would not let it. I had not come to fear death. It was the only thing left for me to turn to. And I would not be scared of my last ally in the dark.
"Because you shouldn't be here in this cell. There are some people who've been looking for you-" A mans voice I realised. Exasperated but also, lined with another emotion.
Emotion. Such a funny concept.
A large crash came from down the hall, and shouts filled with the peppering of gunfire- pinging off the metal walls. I recalled the sound from when I tried to escape the first time.
Bullets sound a lot different hitting metal than they do flesh.
His voice was more desperate now. "Kid lets go home. I promise you'll be safe. And nobody from where we will go will ever hurt you."
The shouts were getting closer, and I tried to look past the bright light into the corridor.
Where there more men out there?
Maybe this all was another mind game. Maybe they were finally killing me. Either way. It wouldn't change anything. I could still die today or tomorrow or never wherever I went. Nodding I held out my hand, not daring to try stand.
I hadn't stood in so long. Didn't know if I still could.
"I don't care. Just take me."
My voice was empty as the machine man swept me up, the metal was warm, and hummed with electricity like I had imagined. The beasts inside of me hissed, but remained still. Perhaps they could sense some honesty in this man that I could not.
I was held in one arm, tiny against the chest of the machine, and watched as it lifted it's other arm, sending a blast of hot height into the ceiling.
Crying out I buried my eyes in it's shoulder, trying to escape the painful light.
I did not notice it when we were flying- but when I managed to open my eyes, I felt the bite of wind on my bare calves, and I noticed we were in the sky.
Just another mind game.
Closing my eyes again I did not stir, even when I was handed into somebody else's arms, a woman by the bulge on their chest, or when I had something wrapped around me, an unfamiliar heat that was soft.
Just another mind game. I repeated. Praying that my escape from this all would come soon. I didn't care anymore.
I didn't care.