The Monster Within - Avengers

Chapter 12

    I stood in the bathroom that for a short while, I could call my own. I lifted my shirt and brushed my fingers across the stitches that ended just below the bottom of my sports bra. Long, jagged lines closed the hole where a knife had once plunged through my chest, and I was told it would leave a prominent and ugly scar. But, I had hoped for more than that.
    I had no idea what the Avengers had done to pull me out of Tahiti, as Fury was a very stubborn man, but I couldn't decide which I preferred; being locked up in a cell in a lab or in a room in a compound for heroes, which I most certainly was not.
    My stomach decided that this moment was the perfect time to tell me it was hungry. I groaned. Picking up a brush from the counter, I ran it through the tangled knots of dull silver hair on my head and pinned the front pieces back with a pin. The brown had faded out a few days ago. I changed into a long tank top and leggings, being careful around the stitching and cuts and bruised that mauled my body. Without makeup, my black eye shone a dark purple and the red cut that stretched across my lip. Walking into the bedroom, a jacket lay along the edge of the bed, waiting for me. It wasn't mine.
    I picked up the yellow sticky note that was stuck to the hood.
Hey Echo,
    I went into the city yesterday and found this.
    It suits you.
    El.
    I slipped the leather over my shoulders and popped the collar, giving a small smile to the girl in the mirror. I walked through my room and over to the door, slipping special-made gloves onto my hands. I tightened them around the wrists and picked up a picture from the desk. With the paper in my hand I stepped out the door.
    "Tony!" I called, looking around the lab. He sat at a table in the corner with an array of tools around him, fiddling with a machine that I couldn't possibly recognize.
    "Yes, Echo?" Tony looked up for a split second before returning to his work. "I swear if you said you ripped another set of stitches I'm gonna lose it."
    I sat down on a stool next to him as he muttered a string of curses, no doubt about to through the device across the room. "I need a favor. Information on someone."
    Tony looked up at me, eyes scanning for traces of a lie. He couldn't find any. "Depends on who."
    I sat down on the table, staring at the screen in front of me. It was transparent, coming out of who knows where. "Do you expect me to know how to work this or...."
   Tony chuckled. "Give me a name."
   I stared at the screen. "Search foster care. Blair Velussi."
   He hesitated, but typed in the name on the screen. "Same last name. Sibling?"
   I shook my head. "Daughter."
   Tony almost passed out. "You have a daughter?"
   I was fifteen at the time. I had gotten attacked on the way home, and six weeks later, I found out I was pregnant. I immediately wanted to get an abortion, but after going to the doctor at five months, and looking at her beautiful little face, I couldn't.
   I gave her up three hours after she was born.
   "Yeah, I do."