Retrospect『 avengers au 』

Chapter III: Uncaged

When the girl made it to the end of the hallway, she turned to her left to be met with a terrifyingly familiar face right before her. Her chest tightened with fear and her stomach dropped anxiously. His grip was dangerously tight as he locked each of his hands over the girl's biceps and slammed her back against the wall. She coughed, the wind being knocked out of her and she gasped for breath in a panic.

"What are you doing out of your cage?" He spat angrily, his eyes crazed as he watched her writhe in pain as his fingers tightened their hold on her. "You're a failed experiment. Therefore useless to this organization," he added lowly, a threat lacing his vile words.

The man threw the girl onto the ground viciously and her eyes blurred with tears of panic as she struggled to hold herself up. She lifted her head and saw one of his fists clenched with rage, ready to be thrown towards her when a sudden instinctual feeling kicked in. Anger began to boil inside her veins like a hungry fire as she felt an unfamiliar feeling overtake her, her gaze locked on the man's clenched fists. His body suddenly flew back against the wall, the material crumbling behind him like clay. The girl's knees shook slightly as she began to stand to her feet, nonetheless, her gaze never wavered from the now fearful man tacked to the wall. She tasted blood in her mouth as her mind strained harder, all of her mental energy going into showing this man the kind of pain he showed her for years. With a swift tilt of her head, she dropped him to the ground.

The young woman's eyes shot open and she was once again lying in the hospital bed where Dr. Bruce Banner was treating her. She caught her breath as she glanced around the room wildly, finding everything to be as it was before she fell asleep, only now Dr. Banner was gone and there was a tray of food and a few water bottles sitting at the end of her bed. Once she had calmed down from the horrid memory, she leaned forward to collect a water bottle, unscrewed the lid and pressed the bottle to her dry lips. Relief rushed through her like a breath of fresh air as the icy cold liquid slid down her throat. She finished the bottle in less than a minute and she went on to her second. After finishing that one off, she grabbed for the food on the tray and ate with an animal-like ferocity, not caring in the slightest how ridiculous she must have looked to those who may have noticed from the opposite side of the tinted window to her left.

Just as she was finishing off her given food, the door opened again and both Natasha Romanoff and Dr. Banner entered.

"Hey, kid, how are you feeling?" Bruce asked the girl as he made his way over to the monitor and screens to the right of her bed.

The girl simply nodded her head to imply that her discomfort had lessened and the doctor smiled with what seemed to be a feeling of relief.

"You should be good to go soon. You're actually looking pretty healthy, and it's good you ate all your food and you're drinking plenty of water," Bruce commented as he opened a drawer, collecting square patches of gauze and a roll of medical tape.

Natasha came and sat at the edge of the bed, taking note of the girl's confused expression at the term 'good to go.' The redhead met the girl's gaze and smiled comfortingly. "The man who found you on that beach and brought you here is handling where you'll be staying," she explained and the girl stared at her with slightly furrowed eyebrows. "His name is Tony Stark. He owns the building you're in. The team that we are all apart of lives here. There's a spare bedroom that Tony is making more comfortable for you to stay in once your health is completely back to normal."

The girl's brown eyes dropped to the bedsheets as she pondered over the woman's words. She was grateful and very relieved to learn that the man who found her was generous and caring enough to give her a temporary home. But there were still so many unanswered questions. Why does she need to stay here? Where are her parents? Does she even have any? What is going to happen to her? She didn't want to admit it, but she was completely and truly terrified.

Natasha waited patiently as the girl processed the information. The girl then turned her head and reached over to the bedside table for a notebook and pencil that had been brought for her especially. She flipped open to the first blank page and wrote carefully, her little hand still unused to writing, When will I meet Tony Stark? She handed the notebook to Natasha and watched as she read it.

Lifting her head with a smile, Natasha stood to her feet and handed the girl the notebook. "I'll go get him for you now," she told her and the younger woman nodded in gratitude as she watched her exit the room again.

Dr. Banner came over to the side of the bed and lifted up the gauze and medical tape for the girl to see better. "I can take out your IV now, but you may bleed a little bit so I'll just need to tape some gauze over the area where I take the needle out, okay?" He explained to her and she nodded. She watched in fascination as Bruce carefully pulled the needle from her arm, the skin around it tugging out slightly until the needle was fully removed. Blood began to slowly trickle down her arm but Bruce wiped it away with an alcoholic wipe and wrapped the gauze and medical tape around her arm.

She nodded in thanks and Bruce smiled in return.

"Can I ask you something?" The doctor suddenly asked her as he began to dispose of the trash and cut up gauze he didn't use. She simply watched him with an expectant gaze and he met her eyes. "Are you not able to talk or do you just not want to?" He asked her carefully.

The young woman pondered this for a moment. She hadn't really thought much of it. She was exhausted and didn't want to put any effort into speaking, but she hadn't actually tried yet. Something in her felt as though she was used to this like she didn't speak before either. Trust was something these people would have to work to gain from her, and not just from treating her medically. Perhaps her body was telling her she was not yet prepared to speak to them. Nonetheless, she swallowed and cleared her throat, focusing on what she wanted to say. Bruce watched her with an expression of concern as she struggled to make words come out. Her lips were parted, words begging to be released from the back of her throat but only a cough left her lips.

"Don't push yourself," Dr. Banner urged her, holding out his hands in front of him with a slightly panicked look. "If you're struggling from a mental block, you need speech therapy. You shouldn't force yourself to speak."

The girl coughed again, her throat feeling scratchy and dry, which in turn caused Dr. Banner to hand her another bottle of water. She unscrewed the lid and gulped down the liquid urgently, relief meeting the irritated skin of her throat from the icy temperature. She laid back against the pillows, feeling defeated.

Why can I not speak?

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A/N: Thank you for reading! Please comment and vote if you're enjoying my story. I really appreciate it.♡

–Blys♡