CARSON WOKE UP STRAPPED DOWN to a chair in a familiar dark room with padded walls and one singular light hanging in the middle of the ceiling. "Oh you've got to be shitting me." Carson muttered under his breath. He tried as hard as he could to break his arms out of the restraints but they wouldn't budge. Carson looked to his right and saw a table with a metal tray on it, he sat up a little more so that he could get a better view. Once he was sat upright, he noticed all the different sized syringes and scalpels neatly placed on the tray. His eyes widened at the sight and his breathing became rapid as he knew what was about to happen.
The door swung open and two men in lab coats came walking towards him. "No no no, get away from me!" Carson yelled at the two men, but they ignored him and proceeded to make their way over to him. He tried to break free from the restraints once more, but still, they wouldn't budge "I swear, if you lay a hand on me, I'll kill you." One of the men stood in front of Carson and laughed at his words. "You know you can't do that Mr. Swan." the man responded while pointing to the cuffs around Carson's hands which blocked his powers.
The man to his right picked up a syringe that had some sort of purple fluid in it and harshly injected it into Carson's arm. As the fluid ran through his body, Carson's veins visibly turned black, causing the two scientists to grow huge grins on their faces and look at each other triumphantly. He tried his best to hide his pain from the two men but once another set of fluids was injected into his other arm, it became unbearable causing him to yell and grip the arms of the chair and thrash around. Every inch of his body felt like it was burning.
After a while the pain slowly began to fade. Carson could barely lift his head up, whatever they had injected him with had drained him of any energy that he had left. "You're.. going to be.. so sorry when I.. get out of here." he muttered managing to form a small laugh. The two men glanced at Carson then gave each other a slightly worried look, before continuing their experiments.
Carson opened his eyes and saw a figure looking over him. Without hesitating, he shot up and grabbed the person by the neck and began to tighten his grip, causing them to desperately pull at his hand for him to leg go, but he didn't budge. He was still dazed so he didn't realise who it was until he heard a familiar voice of Tony call out to him "Hey hey! Carson stop!" He snapped out of it and as soon as he realised that it was in fact Nat that he had grabbed, he instantly let go. Nat put her hands on her neck and gasped for air while Carson looked around to see that he was back on the jet with the rest of the team.
Carson turned his attention back to Nat who seemed to have caught her breath "Jesus, I'm sorry Nat.. I thought you was-" Nat shook her head at him and interrupted "It's fine don't worry, I shouldn't of crowded you. I just wanted to make sure you was okay." He stood up and offered his hand to Nat, who accepted.
Tony walked over to them both and put his hand on Carson's shoulder, giving it a small squeeze "You really scared me back there kid, what happened?"
Carson stayed quiet for a few seconds as he thought back to the events that had occurred. He began to clench his jaw in anger as the memory of the girl warping his mind slowly came back to him. "It was that damn enhanced girl, she messed with my mind." Carson said letting out an annoyed huff.
"The Maximoff twins." Steve said while walking over to the trio, with a file in his hand. They all looked at him confused
"What?" Carson replied, while taking a seat next to Nat.
"We managed to find some information on the two enhanced." Steve continued. Carson reached out his hand for the file and Steve passed it over.
He opened the file and his attention instantly turned to the picture of the familiar girl who he had his encounter with. Natasha scooted closer to Carson to get a better view of the file and they both began scanning over the information.
He began analysing the girl's section of the file, his curiosity about her growing more and more. "Wanda Maximoff." He quietly mumbled to himself.
----
As soon as they had arrived back at the compound, Steve and Carson helped Clint make his way to Helen Cho in Bruce's lab so that she could begin to treat his injury. Natasha, Tony and Bruce followed behind.
Once they had got Clint into the lab, Carson, Natasha and Bruce stayed to keep an eye on him while he was going through his treatment. Carson was stood with his back leaning on the wall and his arms folded, he could hear people in the room talking but he didn't pay attention as all he could think about was the things that Wanda had made him see. What the rest of the team didn't know was that Carson had been having nightmares pretty often about his time with HYDRA. They had gradually began to occur less over the past few months, but after today Carson had a feeling they would come back.
Natasha noticed the lack of sarcastic comments filling the room, so she walked over and stood next to him. "You're awfully quiet, what's wrong?" Natasha said while giving him a slight nudge.
Carson shrugged and carried on looking ahead. "Nothing's wrong, I just don't have anything to say." Natasha furrowed her brows at him, instantly knowing he was lying and that there was something that was bothering him. She already had a pretty good theory as to what it was about.
"You always have something to say." She chuckled in response. Carson didn't say anything back he just shot her a fake smile and scratched the back of his head. "Is this about what the girl made you see back there?" Natasha questioned, but after seeing the slight clench of Carson's jaw she instantly knew she pushed him too much. He quickly brushed it off and decided to participate in what was happening to take his mind of it.
"So, is this idiot gonna be alright? Pretending to need this guy really brings the team together." Carson smirked while asking Bruce, ignoring Natasha's question. Bruce looked over at him and nodded.
"There's no possibility of deterioration. The Nano-molecular functionality is instantaneous. His cells don't know they're bonding with simulacra." Helen responded while pressing a few buttons on the machine.
"Uh.. could you maybe say that again, but in English this time?" He replied while giving Bruce a confused look.
"She's creating tissue." Bruce responded in admiration of the whole process happening.
"Oh that's.. cool." He said faking his interest in what was happening, making Natasha giggle.
"If you brought him to my lab, the Regeneration Cradle could do this in 20 minutes." Helen boasted.
"Oh, he's flat-lining. Call it. Time?" Tony joked, while setting some drinks down on one of the desks. Carson laughed and grabbed two drinks, passing one to Natasha.
"No, no, no, I'm gonna live forever. I'm gonna be made of plastic." Clint chuckled while taking the drink that Tony handed him.
"You'll be made of you, Mr. Barton. Your own girlfriend won't be able to tell the difference." Helen added, while checking the stats on the machine.
Clint took a sip of his drink "I don't have a girlfriend."
"That I can't fix." Helen told him. "This is the next thing, Tony. Your clunky metal suits are gonna be left in the dust."
"That is exactly the plan. And Helen, I expect to see you at the party later on." Tony replied.
"Unlike you, I don't have time for parties." Helen paused for a moment before speaking again "Will Thor be there?"
"Hey, maybe he'll bring some of his 'special' alcohol. I didn't get to try it last time." Carson responded with an excited look on his face.
Tony pointed at Carson and shook his head. "No, absolutely not. I'm restricting you to two drinks only at this party." Carson sat down on one of the stools in the room, folding his arms and rolling his eyes at Tony's comment.
"Oh come on, two drinks? That's not-" Carson said while letting out an annoyed huff.
Tony was quick to interrupt "Nope, I don't wanna hear it. In fact, I don't know why I'm letting you drink in the first place you're underage."
Carson lifted up his hands, pretending to surrender. "Okay, okay fine. Two drinks it is then..." He looked over at Natasha and held up 3 fingers... then 4... then 5, causing them to both laugh.
Tony looked over at the two and tried to be serious, even though he wanted to laugh along with them. "Hey I mean it Carson! Two. Drinks. Only." He held up two fingers making sure Carson could see.
"I'm kidding! I'm kidding!" He said while standing up and making his way over to the door. "Alright, I'm going to go eat and then get ready so I'll see you all later." Carson gave Clint a pat on the shoulder before leaving the room and making his way to the kitchen.
"I did a good job with that, didn't I? He's going to listen to me.. right?" Tony asked Natasha.
Natasha simply smirked at him and left the room while taking a sip of her drink.
"Nat what's that supposed to mean? Was that a yes or a no?" Tony called out to her but she just chuckled and carried on walking.
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