Fated Marks

“Is the coast clear?” I asked.

“We’re good to go.” Steve said opening the door the rest of the way as we walked out of our room and went to check out.

“There’s our two love birds.” Aggie greeted.

“Busted.” I said as everyone passing by gave us a look.

“You two whipped up quite the storm last night. People kept coming down here to complain. Ran out of complementary ear plugs.” She said.

“We’re here to check out.” Steve said.

“Alrighty, just need the key and you’re good to go.” She said. Steve quickly handed her the key and after a quick goodbye we got out of there.

“This was a great idea.” Steve said.

“It was, next time lets make reservations though so we can avoid almost freezing to death in two separate twin beds.” I said.

“Or next time I could just be braver and sneak into your bed.” Steve said hugging me from behind and kissing my cheek. “If its okay with you that is?”

“My fingers and toes that will be saved from amputation will thank you.” I said kissing him.

We got back to London late in the afternoon. We were going to go out for dinner but we got into bed and decided to order a pizza instead.

The next morning Steve got a call from Nat and Clint saying they were waiting in the airfield for him and he had to go. I made him a breakfast sandwich and some snacks for Nat and Clint who would probably kill for them after back to back missions.

Monday was the start of school and let me tell you taking thirty units worth of upper division computer programming courses along with managing all of my soulmates, helping Rebekah deal with her growing feelings for John, Helping Kol win back Davina, and searching for my psychopath of an older brother’s wife was hard.

Things started slipping through the cracks, I forgot to check in with Tony, I always answered Bruce’s emails three days late and accidentally sent him my midterm essay instead of my professor, (Though in hindsight I probably shouldn’t have Bruce’s contact info under Professor Cutie/HULK. Never update your contacts when you haven’t slept in four days and are taking espresso shots like they’re tequila shots.) I was flying everywhere with Kol and Rebekah to check out leads and that one weekend for Oktoberfest.

I looked through the data but I was so distracted and exhausted I missed a pretty giant hint that was staring me right in the face.

Which brings me to where I am now currently passed out on the couch. I woke up to the best smell in the world… freshly ground coffee beans.

“Mhm.” I hummed.

“Okay I think she’s coming around.” I heard someone say.

“Coffee.” I said sitting up.

“Hey honey, you feeling okay?” Tony asked.

“Tony? When’d you get here?” I asked.

“Uh Hayley where are we?” Bruce asked.

“What do you mean? We’re at the penthouse… London…. England.” I said in between sips of coffee. Tony and Bruce looked at each other concerned. “What?”

“Hales look around.” Tony said. I looked at him before doing as he said and realized why he and Bruce were concerned.

“Shit.” I said. We were in Avengers Tower in New York. Then I realized something even scarier, I had no idea how I got there.

“Hayley what’s today’s date?” Bruce asked.

“October…uh… Eleventh?” I asked and they both looked really worried.

“Hales its October Twenty Seventh.” Tony said.

“What?” I asked. “That’s impossible I just took my first midterm on the ninth.”

“What’s the last thing you remember?” Tony asked.

“Uh I was in the penthouse working on an essay, I remember emailing it to my professor and then I switched to my other laptop and started looking through data streams. You called said something about throwing Rhodey a party and then nothing.” I said.

“Hales that was over two weeks ago.” Tony said.

“That’s impossible.” I said.

“It wouldn’t be the first time you blacked out.” Bruce said. “Back in May during finals week when you didn’t sleep and didn’t even remember showing up to take your finals.”

“That was exhaustion, I’ve been sleeping.” I said.

“Have you?” Tony asked.

“Three or four hours a night, more than I got that finals week.” I said.

“Hayley, you’re over doing it. Normally when someone blacks out its your mind trying to protect you from yourself but in your case it trying to get you to slow down but your body isn’t listening.” Bruce said.

“I’m doing what I always do. I’m taking eight classes, I’m following up on leads every weekend, I’m constantly checking any new intel any intelligence agencies may have collected, cross referencing any rumor Kol and Rebekah get with the ledgers, keeping tabs on the sociopath I got stuck with for an older brother to make sure he isn’t in town and… and I’m tired and want to come home.” I said crying at the end.

“It’s okay Hales.” Tony murmured as he put an arm around my shoulder and Bruce rubbed circles on my back. We stayed like that for a while until my phone started ringing. I pulled it out of my pocket and saw that it was Rebekah.

“Becks not a good time.” I said.

“I’m just returning your call I can’t believe you did it!” She said.

“What are you talking about?” I said.

“You called me yesterday while I was at a business meeting. You just said you finally figured it out, you knew where to find Delilah, what is it.” She said.

“I said what?” I said.

“You found something in the flash drive Natasha gave you. You said you figured it out and then started crying.” Rebekah said.

“Yeah I’m gonna have to call you back.” I said hanging up and getting up.

“Hayley?” Tony said.

“My bags? Are they downstairs?” I asked.

“Hayley, what’s going on?” Bruce asked.

“Apparently sometime during my black out I found something from the intel Natasha gathered to find Delilah. Judging by how happy Rebekah was on the phone I must’ve been really happy when I called her which means I found something really big.” I said.

“Jarvis did Hayley say anything last night?” Tony asked.

“Miss Adams was not in the penthouse all of yesterday.” Jarvis answered.

“Then where the hell was I?” I asked.

“The diner on your street.” Jarvis said.

“You’ve got to be kidding me, the one time I decided to get some air is when I figure this out.” I groaned.

“Hayley, calm down, you still have all the intel you just need to look through it again.” Bruce said.

“Okay I need my laptop.” I said.

“How about we have breakfast first?” Tony suggested.

“No time.” I said.

“Hayley you didn’t show up with any luggage, just your purse and passport.” Bruce said.

“What?” I asked.

“You showed up in the middle of the night walked in here and literally crashed on the couch.” Tony said.

“How did I even get through Airport security?” I asked.

“My guess is you flew private.” He said.

“I need to get back.” I said.

“Hayley stop.” Bruce said. “You blacked out and don’t remember anything from the last two weeks. You need to get checked out.”

“I feel fine.” I said.

“You’re getting checked out.” Tony said.

“But…” I started.

“You blacked out, you don’t even remember how you got here. You were an ocean away and ended up here with nothing but what you had on you. You’re not okay and you don’t get a say, you’re going.” Tony said leading me to the elevator

“Guys we don’t have time for this.” I said.

“She’s been in hiding for over a year she can keep hiding for a few hours.” Bruce said.

“What do you mean hours?” I said as we got to the infirmary.

“Helen, we need you to give Hayley a full work up. Blood, scans, MRI the works.” Tony said.

“I think a physical will be enough.” She said chuckling a bit.

“She blacked out for two weeks.” Bruce said.

“Let’s start with the MRI,” Helen said leading me further in.

Third Person’s POV-

“That oughta keep her busy for a few hours.” Tony said.

“It’s not going to stop her, the instant she get’s cleared she going back.” Bruce said.

“We don’t need to stop her, we just need to find something that can lead us to her brother or his wife, either works.” Tony said.

“How are you going to do that? All of her tech is back in London.” Bruce said.

“Not all of it.” Tony said taking Hayley’s phone out of his pocket.

“No.” Bruce said. “This is a complete invasion of privacy, I’m fairly sure it’s also illegal, if she finds out…”

“Bruce she blacked out for two weeks. We tried giving her space, we’ve tried waiting for her to come to us, and even when she did let us help she was holding back and the stress of this is killing her. I don’t care if she gets mad, as long as she’s okay that’s all that matters.” Tony said.

Bruce sighed. “I’ll go buy you some time, but you’re going to have to hurry.” Bruce said.

“I will.” Tony said rushing off to the lab.

Tony started trying to put in the passcode to unlock Hayley’s phone but failed at it. He tried inputting her birthday, then everyone else’s before the phone blocked itself entirely. Okay then, if he couldn’t do it directly then he would just have to hack into it. He designed the phone it wouldn’t be that hard.

Half an hour later he finally managed to get through the additional layers of security firewalls Hayley put up. Normally Tony would be impressed but considering he was pressed for time he was a bit annoyed.

“Okay Hales let’s see what you’ve got.” Tony said looking through her browser history. She looked up the news, random facts, fashion blogs, recipes or restaurant ratings but nothing interesting. He started going through her emails and besides emailing some questions to a TA there wasn’t anything strange.

“Jarvis what are the chances Hayley uploaded all her data to the cloud?” Tony asked.

“I would say highly unlikely sir seeing as Miss Adams has hacked the cloud before.” Jarvis said.

“Wouldn’t hurt to check anyway.” Tony said accessing Hayley’s cloud but was halted when asked for an answer to a security question. “What’s the psycho’s name? Damn it Hayley.”

“The cloud’s where she’d put the safe stuff, photos or videos. If I were trying to hide something I didn’t want anyone else to see… external drives, uh.” Tony groaned. He started closing up before he stopped at the call and message logs.

He opened the calls and noticed there was an unknown number that had been answered and the call lasted several minutes. He looked through the messages and saw a conversation with an unknown number.

“There it is.” Tony said. “Jarvis give me whatever you can from this number.”

“Sir the number is untraceable.” Jarvis said.

“There’s got to be something.” Tony asked.

“The signal from the phone which the call was made from bounces of its signal from multiple cell phone towers making it impossible to trace.” Jarvis said.

“This guy’s good.” Tony said. “Did Hayley sync her phone to her laptop?”

“No sir.” Jarvis said.

“Any ideas?” Tony asked.

“I’m afraid not sir. Doctor Banner has asked me to alert you that Miss Adam’s physical is almost complete.” Jarvis said.

“Great. Out of time and options.” Tony groaned before shutting everything down and resetting Hayley’s phone back to the way it was. He grabbed it and headed to the infirmary.

Bruce was sitting next to Hayley’s bed while they waited for Helen.

Hayley’s POV-

“I still think the full work up was a bit much.” I said. “The MRI I get but the CT was a waste of time.”

“Let the doctors be the judge of that besides we have all of this here and hardly get to use it.” Tony said as Helen walked in.

“You’re all here, I have your results.” She said with a grimace.

“That bad huh?” I asked.

“Since the last time you went in for a physical you’ve lost about twenty pounds. Normally I’d just suggest you change your eating habits but with the blackouts there’s obviously something else going on. The first thing I noticed is that your iron levels are low and you’re anemic.” She said. “That’s an easy fix with some vitamins and change in diet you’ll be back in shape in no time what concerns me are your cortisol levels. They are extremely high.”

“Can I?” Bruce asked.

“Sure.” Helen said handing him the charts.

“That is high. It’s like your fight or flight response got switched on and hasn’t been turned off.” Bruce said.

“I’m guessing that’s not a good thing.” I said.

“Cortisol’s is the hormone secreted by the adrenal glands when you’re stressed. It increases glucose breakdown, increases your heart rate… essentially makes your body work overtime.” Helen explained.

“Okay?” I said still not seeing why this was as bad as they were making it seem.

“Normally this only happens when you’re under a lot of stress or in danger. The response only happens for a short period of time but with you it’s been happening a lot longer which is why you’re blacking out, you’re body can’t take the strain and is starting to shut down.” Bruce said.

“I’m guessing it gets worse?” I said.

“You keep this up you’re looking at potential kidney and liver failure, risk of a stroke or even a risk of going into cardiac arrest.” Helen said.

“So what do I do?” I asked.

“Take some supplements for the anemia and take it easy. Eat a balanced diet, sleep eight hours a day, keep your stress levels down. I’m sure Bruce can give you a few tips on how to do that.” Helen said.

“And my memories from the blackouts is there any way to remember what happened during that time?” I asked.

“Give it time you may remember or you may not.” Helen said.

“Thanks Helen.” Tony said before she walked out.

“Can one of you hand me back my pants?” I said sitting up ready to get out of bed.

“Hayley.” Bruce said.

“This gown has like not back so…” I started.

“Hayley you’re not going anywhere. Didn’t you just hear what Helen told you?” Tony said.

“I heard, that doesn’t change the fact that I have to go back since I have class tomorrow morning.” I said.

“You’re taking a sick day.” Tony said.

“Uh no I can take a sick day when I find her and I don’t have to keep looking over my shoulder.” I said as I grabbed the bag from the bedside drawer where all my things were and started getting dressed, “Have you seen my phone?”

“Here.” Tony said handing it to me.

“Thanks.” I said checking it, there was a flight leaving to London in two hours I quickly booked it before getting dressed and putting my shoes on.

“Hayley stop.” Bruce said.

“I have a flight to catch.” I said.

“I have a private jet you’re staying.” Tony said.

“Guys I love you but I wasn’t asking.” I said.

“Jarvis lock down the room.” Tony said and suddenly the doors bolted shut and the metal shutters covered the windows.

“Jarvis override.” I said.

“Override disabled.” Jarvis said.

“What?” I said.

“You’re out of control.” Tony said.

“I know what I’m doing. This isn’t any different then when you two pull all nighters in the lab. I’ll cut down on the coffee get a few more hours of sleep and eat something other than coffee and granola bars. I got it.” I said.

“Hayley you promised us not to put yourself in any danger, that included from you too. You’re hurting yourself. You’re body’s shutting down.” Bruce said. “You can die.”

“I can also be killed by him except he won’t make it quick and painless.” I said as my phone started ringing.

“Kol not a good time.” I said.

“Holy fuck where the hell are you?!” He exclaimed.

“New York, I really can’t…” I started.

“You’re in New York!” He shouted.

“Yeah hence why I can’t really talk right now.” I said.

“What the fuck Hayley, you had me worried sick.” He said.

“Wait I was with you last night?” I asked.

“No shit, we were in Amsterdam.” Kol said.

“Okay I’m putting you on speaker, Tony and Bruce are here. What were we doing in Amsterdam?” I asked.

“You were craving crepes from a place you saw on instagram and considering you were still shaken up from your run in with him I thought it would do you some good to get away from…” Kol started.

“Kol I haven’t run into him in months, since I was kidnapped.” I said.

“What the hell are you talking about? You ran into him two weeks ago, in that diner you always go to.” He said.

“What?!” Tony and Bruce shouted.

“You haven’t told them?” Kol asked.

“I don’t remember anything that happened in the last two weeks.” I said.

“Then you also don’t remember that he injected you with who knows what so he could speed up the process.” Kol said.

“What?!” We shouted.

“You really don’t remember?” Kol asked. “You were hyper focused, didn’t sleep for days, any of this ringing a bell?”

“None.” I said.

“So you’re not stressed…” Bruce started.

“Well not more than usual.” Tony corrected.

“You’ve been drugged.” Bruce said.

“I’m not sure that’s any better.” I said. “Drug induced blackouts never lead to anything good.”

“It means the problem isn’t with you.” Tony said.

“Probably a good a time as any to tell you that you figured out something pretty big to find Delilah.” Kol said.

“I know I did I just don’t remember what. Any chance I told you?” I asked.

“No just left me a very happy voicemail.” He said,

“Uh.” I groaned.

“I’ll see you when you get back.” Kol said before hanging up.

“Jarvis lift the lockdown and call someone to get the jet ready to head to London.” Tony said.

“Yes sir.” Jarvis answered.

“This is bad.” I said.

“If he dosed you over two weeks ago it must’ve either been a big dose or something really strong.

“A dose big enough that would have metabolized slowly and over time.” Bruce corrected.

“Think the worst of it’s over?” I asked.

“Without knowing what it was I wouldn’t know for sure but you’re conscious and lucid so that’s a good sign.” Bruce said.

“I should get going.” I said, “Tony can you let me out now?”

“Not yet.” He said.

“Tony I just want to get all of this over with so I can come back permanently, can we not do this right now?” I said.

“Hayley you can’t keep this up.” Tony said.

“It’s two more months, I’m close, It’s almost over.” I said.

“What happens then? You really think he’s just going to leave you alone?” Tony said.

“I don’t know Tony I’m taking this one step at a time and right now that’s finding Delilah comes first.” I said.

“And you think she’s just going to sit around and wait for her husband to come pick her up?” Tony asked.

“Which is why she won’t know he’s coming. I just have to find out where she’s staying, send a photo as proof and her location and its done.” I said.

“You don’t really think it’ll be that easy.” Tony said.

“What part of any of this has been easy? I’ve been kidnapped, tortured, I stood on a freaking landmine and I got drugged with who knows what. I don’t know what comes after this but I know it can’t be worse than the past six months.” I said.

“Or he could finish what he started.” Tony said.

“That’s a problem for another day. Can I go now?” I asked.

He stared at me and shook his head disapprovingly but unlocked the room. I grabbed my coat and hugged Bruce goodbye before doing the same with Tony even though he didn’t hug me back. I walked out of the building and took a taxi to the airport. I was led to the hanger and took the jet to London without delay. I looked through my phone and tried to piece together anything I could from the photos and messages on my phones to figure out what I had done in the past two weeks. Besides a few short phone calls and multiple K texts there wasn’t much.

By the time I got back to London I was exhausted. I made it to the penthouse and went straight to bed. I threw myself onto the bed and noticed it was lumpy.

“If you’re a thief my purse is in the living room and all my jewelry is fake help yourself.” I said with a groan.

“Ow Hales that hurt.” Clint whines as he sat up.

“Hayley you’re crushing me.” Natasha said.

“hm.” I said moving to the side before falling asleep.

The Next Morning-

I was woken up by the sound of my phone alarm telling me it was time to get ready for class. I rolled out of bed before bumping into someone.

“Ow.” I heard someone whine.

“Sorry.” I whispered before crawling out of bed and jumping in the shower. I quickly put on a blue denim dress and an oversized tan coat with some knee high dark brown boots.

I grabbed my school bag and laptop before quickly running to the kitchen to grab a bagel. I really hoped I grabbed some at some point during my black out.

“Morning.” Clint greeted.

“Clint?” I said.

“Yeah, you know your soulmate? Guy you elbowed in bed last night when you landed on him?” He said.

“Oh shit sorry.” I said kissing him.

“Hey Nat.” I said hugging her before grabbing a bagel. “Gotta go, I have class I should be back around lunch time.”

With that I ran downstairs to the car and drove to school. Normally I’d take the bus but considering I was running late I’d just have to deal with it and pay for parking.

I got to class just as the lecture started and I was a bit lost but quickly figured out what was being discussed. Then we had a pop quiz half of which I understood and the other half… well I was lucky the lowest two quizzes got dropped.

After class was over I stopped by for a few groceries and some lunch before heading back to the penthouse.

“I’m back.” I called out when I walked in.

“Oh, let me take those.” Clint said.

“Thanks.” I said.

“How was class?” Natasha asked.

“It was okay.” I said starting to put things away.

“How are you?” Clint asked.

“I’m guessing Tony or Bruce called?” I said.

“They may have mentioned some of their concerns.” Natasha said.

“You blacked out for two weeks.” Clint said.

“Which was not on me, I didn’t even remember being drugged and Kol texted me to tell me it wasn’t a planned meeting he just showed up.” I said.

“Why didn’t you call?” Natasha asked.

“Again I don’t know, I blacked out.” I said. “Which sucks because apparently I found something in the data you got from Berlin and I have no idea what it is.”

“Have you looked through it again?” She asked.

“Haven’t had a chance to, I kind crashed as soon as I got back. Sorry about that by the way.” I said rubbing Clint’s ribs through his shirt.

“It’s okay Hales, you were dead tired.” He said hugging me and kissing the top of my head. “Still are by the looks of it.”

“Picking up the pieces from the past two weeks and all the traveling is exhausting.” I said opening up the pizza box and biting into a slice. “You guys on leave?”

“Just passing through. Finished a mission early and decided to check in before heading back.” Natasha said.

“How’s Steve?” I asked. I hadn’t seen him since the day after we got back from Scotland.

“Working. Missing you.” Natasha said with a smirk.

“You should take a nap and get some rest.” Clint said.

“Can’t have schoolwork and research to catch up on.” I said opening my laptop up.

“It can wait.” He said closing my laptop and taking my hand.

“Clint…” I whined.

“Nope, no arguments.” He said leading me back to bed. The three of us ended up cuddling on the bed watching some movie. I ended up falling asleep again and waking up a few hours later Clint and Natasha were still knocked out so I decided to go get some work done while they got some rest.

I plugged in the flash drive with all the intel Natasha gathered and started running algorithm and pattern recognitions softwares to see if they could find anything I missed. While those programs were running I got started on studying all the course materials I missed during the blackout. The silence was annoying me so I turned on the news in the background.

That’s how Clint and Natasha found me when they woke up from their naps.

“How long have you been up krasivaya?” Natasha asked.

“About two hours.” I said taking a sip of some tea.

“What are you doing?” Clint asked.

“Running pattern recognitions softwares, testing facial analysis recognition algorithms, homework and watching the news.” I said.

“You want to take a break and grab some dinner?” Natasha asked as my computer made a weird sound.

“What was that?” Clint asked.

“Software’s done running.” I said grabbing my laptop and checking what was on the screen. “Programs found… nothing. Great.”

“Then I guess we go back to the field and look for more.” Natasha said.

“No, there’s something here. I found it I just can’t remember what it is.” I said. “Stupid drug induced black out.”

“You’re taking drugs?!” Clint exclaimed.

“Not by choice, I apparently ran into my brother and he drugged me with something that made me super focused and made me go into non stop fight or flight mode, I blacked out for two weeks woke up on the couch of avengers tower yesterday and apparently the night before I found something big I just can’t remember.” I said.

“You ran into your brother again?!” Natasha exclaimed.

“That’s what I was told.” I said. “Uh, why is this so hard!?”

“Hales I’ve tried to stay as calm as I possibly can the past few months but this is the last straw….” Clint started ranting off but I kind of zoned out and it was like background noise.

I started reading the listing of packages sent.

Nadia Romancek…. Bors, Romania… 26 ounces… received.

Sarah Wayne…. Oradea, Romania…. 4 ounces…. Received.

That name sounded oddly American. I’m sure my mom used that as an alias once. Maybe it was just some international student or stranded tourist. Then I found another oddly American name in a small town near a border.

Penelope Harris… Berehove, Ukraine… eight ounces… Received

Okay two of our old aliases, that’s just a coincidence but then again it’s better to be safe than sorry. I highlighted it all and pasted it to a word document. Let’s see if any of my old ones came up.

Cassie Langston

One match…

Cassie Langston… Parndorf, Austria… seven ounces… Received.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” I said.

“Are you listening to me?” Clint asked.

“Clint I think she figured it out.” Natasha said.

April Benson…. Subotica, Serbia…. Ten ounces… Received.

“She’s using all of our old aliases.” I said. “Jarvis bring up any American names on the list of package or money order recipients from the list.”

“There are over fifty matches.” Jarvis said.

“Can you bring up a map showing where each of them were sent to?” I asked.

Within seconds Jarvis projected a globe with red dots all over.

“Okay removing all the outliars, Nothing in North America. Australia’s out. Any islands are to isolated out.” I said and the map focused on Europe. “See if any of these names match?”

“April…Molly… Sally…Maggie…Cassie…Penelope… Alison… Alex…. Liz… Ellie… Annie… ” I said as I typed it out.

“You did it.” Clint said.

I looked up at the map and every name I had inputted had a match. They were all sent and received in towns close to Hungarian borders.

“Hungary. Shares a border with Romania, close to the Balkans where her family did most of their business and she probably still has a friend or two in the area.” I said.

“It’s going to be hard but I’ll see what my contacts can dig up.” Natasha said.

“I’ll let Rebekah and Kol know.” I said.

Holy shit, I was actually going to do it… I was going to find Delilah... The nightmare’s finally going to be over!!!