Summers' Purpose

Chapter 1 (2013, flashback)

Various sorts of machines and equipment beep and buzz as y/n stirred in her slumber. She was regaining consciousness and tried to move, but found that her movements were restricted.

She opened her eyes slowly, noticing a blurry white figure standing to her side; seemingly checking monitors and mumbling something she couldn't quite catch. When her eyes and ears adjusted, y/n realized that she was restrained on a metal examination table in the middle of a room that she hasn't seen before. She started to panic, tugging her arms and legs weakly, feeling the restraints cut into her skin the more she struggled.

"Ah, she's awake! I was wondering when you would come to," an older man's voice spoke from beside her.

Y/n looked towards the voice and it slowly gained a face as her eyes adjusted to the bright lights behind him. "Where... where am I?" y/n managed to croak, her throat dry. She desperately wanted a drink.

"What use is that information to you, my girl? Do you have somewhere else to be?" the man laughed, clearly tickled by his own joke. "Now lie still and behave. The more you cooperate, the easier this will be for you. It won't hurt. At least not too much, I hope," he said as he turned to take a small item from a metal table behind him.

"No please, where am I? Who are you?" y/n asked desperately, panicking when she realized what he might be insinuating.

"You've got the wrong person, I'm nobody, just let me go!" Y/n struggled harder, this time pulling on the restraints and ignoring the pain it was causing her.

The man turned and tutted at her, holding a vial with a bluish liquid in his hand. "Now that is where you are terribly wrong. You are not a 'nobody'. You are Derek's daughter, are you not?" he asked, smiling at her as he filled a syringe completely with the liquid in the vial. It glimmered dangerously as it swirled around. From his expression, y/n could see that his question was rhetorical. Her blood ran cold at the realization.

"How did you... who are you? Who's Derek?" y/n asked, not wanting to disclose who Derek was to her to see if she could call the man's bluff.

"Goodness child, do you not know your own father?" the man asked, feigning shock. "Then again, I don't blame you. You were young back then. Your mother might have kept a lot from you, which is understandably so. Raising two gifted children alone is difficult enough without the secrets," the man added, with a half-genuine look of concern on his face.

"Don't you dare speak about my mother!" y/n shouted at the man, wondering how did this man know that much about her family. She felt the familiar warmth of anger radiating and spreading throughout her body. The machines beeped multiple times, seemingly taking note of the changes in her emotions. The man checked the machines and was noticeably pleased for some reason.

She tried to calm down and bargain with the stranger. "Look, I don't know who you are and what you want. But I can help you if you'd just let me go. I'll tell you anything you want to know. I promise. I won't tell the cops what- "

"See, you couldn't give me anything else that I'd want, because you're already here!" the man cut her off, tapping the tip of the syringe gently. "Everything is perfect, as it should be. All that's left is for you to take your 'medicine'. The one your father unknowingly left behind," he said, moving the syringe closer to y/n's arm.

Y/n struggled to move away from the syringe but she was too weak and the restraints were already biting down on her skin, drawing blood from her previous struggles. She felt the man swab her arm, smelling the alcohol before she felt the prick on her skin.

Y/n could only watch in horror as the man injected the blue liquid into her arm, draining the syringe completely. She pleaded for her life to the man, only to have him smile down at her.

"This is your legacy y/n. This is your intended path. Are you not proud to be able to continue what your father wasn't able to? To help prove that his work was, in the end, successful?" he said as he injected another syringeful of the liquid into her arm.

"No please, I don't know anything!" y/n pleaded, starting to feel her body weaken in reaction to the liquid. It was warm, travelling through her veins and body. She felt feverish as soon as the man removed the second syringe from her arm.

"Your father was a smart man, but too smart for his own good. If only he played his cards better, he might still be here today, working alongside me. It would've been an honor to have him here, truly," the man said, gently brushing y/n's hair from her now sweaty face.

Y/n tried to say something in reply, to move from the man's hand. However, her body felt heavy, as if she was feeling terribly ill. She could only lay still on the examination table, the cold metal not even noticeable to her at this point.

"We tried the same thing when Derek was around you know? However back then, nothing worked. But it was only because we didn't know how to trigger the serum. We thought it would just, work, I guess," he laughed, collecting a bunch of wires from the same table the syringes came from.

"But now, after years of observation, we know better. We know that you have it in you, and your brother too. It's unfortunate for the boy though, we really wished he had pulled through so he could've shared this experience with you. But alas," he said starting to attach the wires to y/n's temples. Y/n could only tear up at the mention of her brother, remembering vaguely what had happened to him. It wasn't clear now, but she knows that it was something painful.

"Now, if our observations and tests were right, this will trigger the serum. You will get the chance to see what your father and brother would've been able to access, if only they had let us help them the way we are helping you now," the man said, attaching a few more wires to some of y/n's vital points. He switched on a machine above y/n's head, the machine buzzing loudly as y/n's memories of her family start to flood her mind.

"Bite onto this," the man said, inserting a thick leather piece into y/n's mouth. Y/n could only let the leather rest in her mouth, slowly feeling herself lose consciousness.

"Unfortunately, any pain medications will hinder the serum activation. You are on your own, kid. Hang in there. We'll see you on the bright side soon enough. Be proud, remember that this is your legacy," he smiled as he patted her head gently before flicking the switches on the buzzing machine.

The next thing y/n knew was a world of pain. Her body struggled involuntarily as the electricity ran its course through her body again and again, while the serum burned through her veins. There was no respite from the horror. She wished that she could have died, in fact it felt like she did a few times. But somehow the pain just continued.

Her heart kept beating, whether it was for her or the memory of her family, it kept going. The more it beats, the more the serum seared through her. The world around her ceased to exist as the agony was all she knew of for now.

The man stepped aside, glancing down and smiling proudly at the sight before him.

"It has begun. Hail Hydra."