"Do you see anything eagle eyes?" Tony said, coming up to stand besides the sharp-eyed agent who was staring out of the helicarriers window, watching the sand pass below.
The blonde shook his head, "No, not yet. Where's the kid?"
"Artie?" Tony asked, "He's with the Doc helping him prep for whatever we find."
"If we find anything." Corrected Agent Barton.
"Yeah, if" Tony sighed, "If, you ask me, this whole mission is just a waste of time. There's no way anyone else could've survived this long without water in the desert since the supposed incident that allowed Kelsey and Artie to escape."
Tony sat down in one of the chairs that were along the side of the helicarrier. The heli itself was one of SHIELD's smaller ones. At the front was the pilots cabin, computers lined the walls and two other agents were flying, while Tony and Clint watched the ground below out of the large round windows on the side of the carrier. From the pilots cabin in the front, the carrier opened up into a large room, with maxi-glass walls separating the room into two, a med-room, and a waiting room, or more actually a get-out-of-my-way room the doctors liked to use. From there another door opened up into the back of the jet, the room was were Tony and Clint were at the moment. It was a wide room, the ramp that led outside was at the end, two large windows were installed, one of each side. Throughout the room, tables and chairs were nailed down to keep them from moving.
"Yeah, I don't know. I supposed we just humor h-" Clint stopped talking, and whipped out his radio, "There's movement, just below our position, land 5 kilometers away."
"It could be nothing." Tony said, leaning back in his chair.
"Yeah, but it could be somthing." Clint responded, walking towards the pilots cabin.
Fifteen minutes later, Tony, Clint, and Artie were using the specialized sand-rovers to check out what Clint had saw before.
The agent pointed ahead, "Just past this sand dune."
The trio stopped their bikes at the top of the sand dune, and sure enough just below them a person was lying on their side in the sand.
The two avengers and the newbie parked their bikes and ran over to the body. It was a woman, dark brown hair, tied into a bun but was coming unraveled, the beginning of blisters were starting to cover her face, she looked about mid-thirties.
"Artie do you who she is?" Tony asked, as CLint bent over her to see if she still had a pulse or was breathing.
Artie shook his head, "I've never seen her before. Unless -"
"She's got a pulse! We've got to get her into the heli-carrier. Now." Clint said, picking her up under her arms and legs. He carried her over to the sand-rovers, "Let's go."
Once the trio and their unexpected find were back on the heli-carrier and Banner and deemed her in "stable condition" the four Avengers sat in the waiting room across from the med-room.
"Well she's dehydrated, but not a severely as you and Kelsey." Banner said, looking at Artie, "She also isn't as starved as you two were, and she looks like she had only been in the sun maybe four, five hours, she had signs of the beginning of sunburn."
"I don't get it. I've never seen her before so she can't be one of us." Artie began, talking to no one in particular, "She looks to old to be an experiment too, she has to be one of the whitecoats."
"Too old? What classifies as too old?" Tony questioned.
Artie shrugged, "Kelsey was the first one to make it to twenty. I'm nineteen so I'm the second oldest. There was another twenty year old, a few years ago, his name was Barry. He would help calm us down after a rough day, he'd always make sure we had enough to eat, even if it meant starving himself, he would take care of himself. But then one day he just disappeared, never to be seen again."
"Well maybe they let him go?" Tony said, attempting optimism.
Artie rolled his eyes, "Yeah, and I'm alive for my powers."
"What do you mean by that?" Bruce asked.
"No one ever makes it as far as Kels and I have. And I think the only reason she has, is because of her abilities. But so what I can turn invisible, sometimes, and usually not even my entire body just parts of it. That's a failure in their eyes. I should've died years ago, but I think it's because I'm so close with Kelsey that they let me live. They couldn't have their star experiment lose her will to live."
"You know Artie, in order to beat this HIDE group, we're going to need you guys to tell us everything. And I mean everything." Clint Barton replied after a moment.
Artie nodded, his dark eyes cast down, "I know. Let's wait until the woman wakes up and find out who she is, and Kelsey and I will tell you all that we know."
*****
"Artie you're back!" Kelsey squealed, jumping into his arms for a hug.
"I was only gone a couple of days." Artie replied, squeezing his friend back.
"Did you find anyone? And were they alive? Anyone that we know?" Kelsey spouted out.
"Yes, we found someone but she's in medical right now, she hasn't woken up yet." Artie explained.
The two were sitting in the commons room, discussing the recent events, Kelsey nodded, "Ok but Artie, listen, New York is amazing, Ok? Peter and I went to all the sights, the Statue of Liberty, Central Park, the Met, which is an art museum, saw a Broadway play, ate New York pizza...."
"Dang, and to think I was flying over a desert this whole time."
"Oh, and you have to come see the Empire State building, it's amazing! You take this elevator all the way up to the top, which is like a hundred some floors, and then you can go outside and see everything!"
"Sounds amazing Kels." Artie replied. Suddenly the door opened, and Peter himself walked in, he was wearing dark jeans and a ironman t-shirt. Artie looked at him, "Really?"
Peter looked down, noticing his t-shirt, "It's all Tony will allow me to wear, he thinks that he's my favorite, just because we spent some cell time together last year..."
"Cell time?" Kelsey asked.
"Yeah well last year my friend Harry --" Peter began but was interrupted by Jarvis.
"Excuse my interruption, but Master Stark wishes for all of you to come down to the patient's room. She's woken up."
"Thanks Jarvis." Peter said, "Let's go."
Minutes later they were standing in front of the door to the patient's room, "Artie you said you didn't know the person right?"
Artie nodded and Kelsey continued, brushing her short brown hair out of her face, "Maybe she's not from HIDE at all, just a lost tourist."
Artie shook his head, "Bruce said she had only been in the sun five-ish hours. That wouldn't make sense."
Peter looked at Kelsey and Artie, "You guys ready?" They nodded in response. Peter opened the door and stepped in, Artie followed, last Kelsey entered the door.
The woman was sitting up in her bed, talking to the rest of the Avenger's, her gaze met Kelsey's and she smiled, sickly sweet.
Kelsey felt her heart drop and her stomach flip in fear, "Artie" she whispered pulling him closer, "What did you do?"
"What do you mean? Do you know who she is?" Artie asked, concerned.
Kelsey nodded and the woman smiled brighter, "Kelsey, my darling! Thank goodness I've found you I was so worried!"
Kelsey stumbled back, "No no no no no, you can't be here."
"Of course I can sweetheart! I am your mother after all."
Kelsey went pale, and sudden realization dawned on Artie's face, "Kels- Is that."
Kelsey shook, and reached behind her for the door, "She can't be here."
She put a hand to her head, remembering the device she still had implanted there, she looked at Tony, "You need to get this out of my head, now Tony."
The woman smiled, "I'm afraid that that's just not possible sweetie, see we placed it in a spot of your brain, that if it's removed you'll die. How else would I be able to find you?"
"I don't care. Get it OUT!" Kelsey yelled, beginning to lose her cool.
Artie wrapped his arm around her shoulders and dragged her outside of the hospital room, "Kelsey I'm so sorry. I didn't know."
"No one did, Artie." Kelsey replied, sliding down the side of the wall holding her head, "No one knew who she was. Except me."
A/N: So here's the next chapter, no school today so I was able to write the next one! YAY! Granted it's a little shorter because I'm lazy and thought it was a good stopping point, but yeah the next few chapters will have more action and stuff, but I really want this story to have a better plot than the first one did so I'm trying to incorporate the background info slowly rather than all at once in a giant paragraph. Thanks for the continued reads!!! And thanks for voting and commenting!!! Love you guys!!