VITALITY ↝ B. BARNES [1]

[7]

"You have access to the entire building." Tony informed her. "Don't make me take it away from you. You're especially going to need it once you start working with the Valentes, where you should be now. They got in from Queens this morning, they're up in the labs getting everything ready. Go get dressed, and I'll meet you there with Tin Man in twenty."

"Yes, Dad," Elysia said with a sigh, turning on her heel to head back in the direction of the living quarters.

"Don't make me ground you, young lady!" Tony exclaimed as Elysia neared the stairs, and she couldn't fight the smirk that crossed her face as she began to climb.

As she reached the top of the stairs, Steve came into view before her, his eyebrows creased together in confusion at Tony's words. "What was all that about?" Steve asked, no doubt on his way down the stairs to go visit Bucky, a cup of coffee in one hand.

Elysia shrugged nonchalantly. "When isn't Tony Stark mad at me?" she asked with a smirk, bidding Steve goodbye as she reached the apartments, ducking into her own and heading straight for the closet.

As Elysia pulled the tank top over her head, she winced slightly at the pain in her ribs, and her gaze fell to the mirror before her, at the wrap that covered the bruised section of her body from the fall. She reached for a plain gray long sleeve shirt hanging up in the closet, pulling it on before swapping the cupcake pajama pants for a pair of jeans. She pulled her pink strands of hair up into a ponytail before dumping her pajamas into the laundry chute, and returning to the mirror to give herself a final once over. While she felt stiff and sore from sleeping on the hard ground after the fight, she'd also felt well rested, to her surprise, as if the extra electricity from the generator had finally left her body, and she was back to her normal self.

Rotating her shoulders in an attempt to loosen up, Elysia left the apartment, the arrows on the floor once again illuminating to lead her up to the laboratories, on the top floor of the Avengers Compound. As she walked in the room, she found Bucky already seated, a woman Elysia didn't recognize attaching wires to his head while Tony conversed with another man.

"Here she is," Tony announced as she entered the room, changing his conversation with the dark-haired man. "Sparky, I'd like you to meet Carlos and Fernanda Valente. This is Elysia Sparks, a computer genius I managed to steal away from Arizona."

"It's a pleasure to meet you." Fernanda greeted, extending a hand for Elysia to shake. "We have a lot of work to do, and not a moment to waste."

"Carlos is a born telepath," Tony explained as Elysia moved to shake hands with the man now standing in front of her, her eyes widening at the newfound piece of information. "He and his wife have spent years studying his abilities, and most of their research has covered the human mind. If anyone's qualified for this, it's them. As for Sparky here, she's a grad student at Arizona State, studying computer science. She used to hack into systems for me years back before her move. Once we figure out whatever's in Barnes's head, she'll be able to crack it."

Elysia turned to the computer screen in front of them as Fernanda finished attaching the final wire to Bucky's temple, a near map of his brain now showing up in front of Elysia as Carlos began to tap at the keyboard. With a swipe of his hand, a hologram now appeared in front of the five of them, showing the scan as it began to rotate in the air.

While Elysia admittedly didn't know much about anatomy aside from a class she'd taken her junior year of high school, she still studied the image in front of her with a watchful eye, trying to take note of anything that might be out of the ordinary. If they could just find whatever it was that might be embedded in Bucky's brain, whatever was set off by the chain of words the team had been briefed on before the recovery mission, then she could deactivate it before the words would ever have a chance to be said, and she could finally be on the next plane home. However, she tried her best to hide her frustration at the realization that, to her, anyways, it looked perfectly normal, as if she were simply looking at an image of a brain from one of her old textbooks.

"I don't see anything," Elysia admitted softly, her voice low as she looked back at the three scientists around her, who also looked at the scan with the same puzzled expressions.

Carlos stepped forward, reaching for the scan and rotating it further, attempting to study the other side. "Everything appears normal." he spoke in a level-headed tone, Elysia's eyebrows furrowing together in confusion at his words.

"You're saying there's nothing wrong with his brain?" Elysia asked.

"We're saying whatever it is, is hidden deeper below the surface." Fernanda explained. "The rest of our tech is coming up from Queens later this week, and once that gets here, we can run a more intensive scan, one that can pick up on waves emitted from a much deeper recess of the brain. For the time being, we'll keep testing where we can, see if there are other ways of getting our answers before we move forward onto the next step."

"What does that mean for Bucky then?" Elysia asked, catching the super soldier's attention as he looked away from the map of his mind to look back at her. "He just stays under the metal crusher until we figure out what to do with him, then? There has to be a more comfortable option."

Tony eyed Bucky for a minute before turning back to Elysia. "We see how much progress he makes over the next couple days, and we re-evaluate. If he hasn't tried to kill us all by then, then maybe he's earned a spot up in the living quarters."

"I can hear you," Bucky murmured quietly, though Tony didn't seem to take any notice that he had spoken.

"On that note, I believe it's time for lunch." Tony announced, clapping his hands together. "Walk with me."