Good Night, Doll
The movie Steve picked was something that Barnes did not expect. What is a marshmallow-looking man doing with a bunch of children? It looks almost like the man is a robot—his eyes blink, and they’re connected by a black line—but he’s so cushy-looking…
So far, Big Hero 6 looks capable of holding his attention for a few hours.
That is, until she walks in, her steps long and filled with a mission. Her eyes scan the room as she stands in the space between the living room and kitchen.
“Sit down wherever,” Stark says.
“Except for the unoccupied seat with popcorn on it,” Clint adds. “That’s Scott’s.”
“Scott,” she says, asking without letting it sound like a question.
“Scott Lang. The guy beat Sam’s butt once. It was hilarious to watch on tape.”
“Sam lost in a fight with this Scott? Shall I engage?”
“No, he’s fine,” Nat says casually. “Scott’s a good guy.”
“Plus, who here hasn’t attacked someone in this room? Natasha hacked at my throat yesterday for trying to eat her cupcake, Sam tried to beat Cap at jogging again, and Tony once tried to get Banner to Hulk Out by zapping him. You tried to kill Cap recently.”
“Understood,” she says, and walks over to where Barnes is in the corner, standing in front of the empty seat beside him.
“Permission to sit?”
“Of course,” he says, a little gruff, ticked that she asked for permission, even though it’s polite to ask.
She nods, sitting, looking straight at the screen as she waits for the movie to start. Her posture is almost rigid, her back straight even as it is pressed into the chair, alert at a time that is meant to be for enjoyment, the threat of an enemy always on her mind.
Unfortunately, Bucky is in a similar position—both physically and mentally.
Less than ten seconds later, with Stark and Steve bickering over what hurts worse—being tortured by Nazis or being injected with the super soldier serum, which is pretty specific—the woman sitting next to Bucky knowing which hurts worse, since she has had both done to her, a man springs up from the polished floor, wearing a red and dull-gray silver suit.
The woman has him pinned to the floor before he can squeak in protest.
“No, that’s Lang!” Cap yells.
“Don’t kill him!”
“Stand down, soldier.”
She lets him go, standing at attention as he coughs.
“Ow,” he hacks out. “My fault. I should’ve known better than to sneak up on anyone in the Tower.”
“Yes, you should’ve,” Natasha says calmly.
“I’m Scott,” he says, extending a hand, but then changes his mind and picks up his shaken bottle of soda.
“Sir,” she says, ignoring the way her still-healing injuries are feeling.
“I’m not ‘Sir,’” he says, laughing, standing up, his face still red from almost being choked with a knee. “You took down that shiny pig today! My little girl saw it, and she screamed. She’s so cute. She loved it. That was so cool!”
She turns to Natasha for help, trying to figure out what “cool” means. She doubts it was cold.
Great job, Natasha mouths.
She nods at Scott, thankful, not sure how to react.
Is this how movie nights go? Always with another Avenger appearing? The chip’s information is slowly leaving, so she has to rely on her training and own memory to keep track of all of the members.
She had realized that the chip was no longer feeding her information when she was struggling to access her files. The chip should have given her them within seconds, and with her free will, she would be able to open them, but with the chip gone, it was useless. She had to use an actual computer to even look up names on the internet.
“Movie starting in three, two, one,” Stark says, and Lang plops into his seat as soon as he grabs his popcorn container off it, smiling when Clint gives him a look.
The man almost sat on him, and that would end up with him moving closer to Nat, and Natasha would probably gut him for sitting on her, and he wants to keep his organs inside.
But then the movie starts, and all thoughts of gutting or being flayed alive flee as a small boy with the fluffiest hair Bucky has ever seen uses his robot to decapitate another.
The movie continues, most everyone eating their favorite snacks.
The woman sat down, sitting up straight, filing away everyone’s food and drink preferences.
Natasha: Vodka—Russian—and Oreos.
Clint: “Nutter Butters.”
Sam: Pretzels dipped in Nutella.
Steve: Apple slices with cream cheese, and a container of popcorn.
Scott Lang: Popcorn with extra butter and salt, Raisinettes, and his orange soda—apparently, he didn’t want vodka, root beer, grape Nehi, Sprite, Ginger Ale, or any of the other alcoholic drinks in the room.
Wanda: Chex Mix.
Vision: Whatever Wanda doesn’t want from her bag of chosen food.
Dr. Banner: Trail Mix.
Stark: Dried blueberries, and peanuts.
Bucky: Nothing.
Her thoughts wander from the movie, something she has been doing more lately, since she has the choice, finding them in a rather dark place.
What’s her favorite snack? Does she like fast food—Stark mentioned that he loves hamburgers, Banner muttering that his heart condition should get a break—or does she like healthy options, like apple slices, or even blueberries and strawberries mixed together to make a fruit salad? Maybe something minty, or tart, or plain sugar.
All she knows about her taste so far is that she likes it plain, but can eat what she has been fed.
The saddest part to her is that she doesn’t remember what happened during her childhood, before the war.
An explosion shakes the air, and she bolts up, but sits back down when she realizes that it was just on the screen. She stays rigid, Bucky notices, staring at the screen with a look that can only be described as blank.
Bucky finds himself ignoring the movie more than he has been—it’s cute, but the only thing he wants to do involving the movie is go help Tadashi, punch Krei, and pet that chubby cat, and what he does want to do that doesn’t involve the movie is ignore the people around him that he can’t help, and focus on the one person he can.
She reminds him too much of himself to be healthy.
She has barely blinked since she retook her seat.
That is, until the boy—Hiro—starts to tell the robot—marshmallow man—to destroy someone.
After a moment or two, she stands up, and walks briskly out of the room.
~
“Baymax, destroy him!” The little boy commands, and she watches Baymax try to murder the man whose identity had been revealed moments before. “Destroy him!”
The voice of Hiro morphs into one of Dr. Kühn, telling a child to murder a man who is shivering in the muck that goes up to his ankles in the cell.
“Töte ihn,” the doctor repeated.
‘Kill him.’
“Ich kann nicht!” She cried.
‘I can’t!’
“Töte ihn!”
‘Kill him!’
“I can’t!” She sobbed, and his eyes lit up with madness.
Not anger. Insanity.
“Nein Englisch! Töte ihn!”
‘No English! Kill him!’
“Ich will nach Hause gehen!”
‘I want to go home!’
She screamed those words, and with them, her head yelled at her for it, her nose starting to bleed as she takes in the damage to her body.
The injections started a week ago, the kidnapping only three weeks before. She was kept in a cage for two days at a time, only coming out to be examined by doctors in lab coats. She was kept in the cage, the others around her disappearing every once in a while, sometimes coming back within a few days, sometimes disappearing forever.
She was fed every three days, one hunk of stale bread and a slab of what smelled like horse meat, and she was watered every other day. The only way out of the cage was with the giant locks and keys, the latter being carried by the head doctor of the time—Dr. Kühn —and her only hope of getting those were destroyed when she ended up alerting him to her stealing.
The wait was over. She was taken to be experimented on next.
Injections, flash floods to test her breath-holding, her limbs feeling like they were glued to the table when she was given a drug that made her see stars. The lights that were shined into her eyes as they were turned into a different color than before, but that wore off by the time she got back to her cell.
Electric currents pulsing through her flesh, flogging, training.
The training was almost as bad as the experiments.
Then again, she was called Experiment 346, so maybe it would be easier to call them tests.
The tests were usually injections, sometimes leaving her frozen as her muscles were in shock, sometimes leaving her to scream. Of course, the training involved using those muscles to do things that were wrong.
Murder, steal, cheat, torture, and memorize every little line of a movie. The movies changed every time, and it always hurt, since her fear almost always made her trip up and say the line wrong. An eight-year-old shouldn't be able to recite Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs after watching it once. So, why did she? Finally, she memorized it, but the doctor didn't seem happy for her. Dr. Kühn was happy, giddy, for the test.
She kept on testing, being forced to obey commands, until she was forced to murder.
"Experiment 346 wird wie bestellt tun!”
‘Experiment 346 will do as ordered!’
“Der Mann ist unschuldig!”
‘The man is innocent!’
And then she was pinned against the wall by her throat, the gun falling into the doctor's free hand as he crushed her throat.
“Unschuld ist für die Schwachen.”
‘Innocence is for the weak.’
And then Kühn dragged her to the man, leaving her inches from his bleeding face as she coughed out blood. And then, without warning, he shot him in the head as she screamed.
In the Avengers Tower, when she gets up, no one moves, watching her go. It only lasts about two seconds before Bucky gets up, along with the rest of the team members.
The image in her mind morphs into another, one that happened two days after she was taken to be tested on.
“Experiment 346 contained,” a guard said to Kühn.
“Sedate it,” he commanded.
“I am not an it!” She had screeched, pounding her small fists on the bulletproof glass that separated her from the doctor. “My name is Gretchen, my birthday is June eighth, and I am a human! Let me go, please!”
The doctor sneered at her, and then turned and walked away as a dart pierced her neck.
~
Bucky finds her slipping into her room, the rest of the Avengers waiting around the corner—eavesdropping, but held back by Natasha and Steve, who already knew that Bucky was planning on coaching her through what he has already gone through.
Bucky is still recovering, but he’s past where she is. Of course, he knows that once he came back to the surface, his PTSD kicked in, and that is its own battle.
“Are you okay?” The tired, war-worn solider asks the other.
She turns, suddenly at attention.
“Experiment 346 ist bereit zu gehorchen.”
‘Experiment 346 is ready to obey.’
“You’re not at the program.”
“Experiment 346 ist bereit zu gehorchen,” she repeats.
“Doll, you’re not at the Program. You’re at Avengers Tower.”
“’Avengers.’ Was ist das gewünschte Opfer?”
‘’Avengers.’ What is the desired victim?’
“Du hast kein Opfer.”
‘You have no victim.’
When she doesn’t understand, he sighs.
“Du bist nicht verlobt,” he tells her. “You’re off duty.”
‘You are not engaged.’
“Wo ist die Cryosleep Kammer?”
“Where is the cryosleep chamber?” She asks.
“Irh Bett ist da drin,” he says, gesturing to her room. “Du kannst schlafen, aber du must hier nicht zu Cryo gehen.”
‘Your bed is in there. You can sleep, but you do not have to go into Cryo here.’
“You’re safe,” he adds in English.
“Ist das Experiment entlassen?”
‘Is the Experiment dismissed?’
A sick feeling washing over him, Bucky nods, and she turns and goes into her room, closing the door behind her.
“Good night, Doll.”