Eden
The rest of the day followed in a very terse manner from the moment the confrontation between the team and I ended this morning. More so Tony and I if anything.
Tony disbanded the team with a visibly stressed flick of his wrist and told me in a low murmur that he was watching me but also he was going to make an effort to learn to trust me. Then Bruce approached me for a quick moment to tell me about how he's analyzing the results of my laboratory tests and I should have the results of them soon. Both Tony and Bruce made me feel a little less on edge, just enough to get me to finally feel the effects of flying for several hours. I was exhausted.
Steve stealthily ducked out with Natasha before I could ask him to walk with me to our shared floor, to which I did feel a degree of jealousy. I wasn't sure why I was jealous, as I harbored no romantic feelings towards the captain but it made me feel special that he was mostly spending his time with me, even if he was my babysitter.
With a sleepy, yet light prance, I walked back to my room and collapsed onto my soft grey sheeted bed with a soft sigh and a flutter of my eyes. My muscles and sinew ached with a dull rumble as they finally were able to relax after being tensed for such an extended period of time. Drowsiness tugged at the corners of my eyes as I released a pent-up yawn, my body clearly indicated it required rest.
After attempting to fight off sleep by figuring out how to turn on the television and operate the device called a remote, I finally gave into the irresistible urge to glide into a restful slumber. I couldn't remember when I started to drift off into the land of the unconscious but I remember hearing the ding of the elevator from the inside of the floor's common area. I drifted off to sleep to the sound of Steve softly calling my name.
_
"What is your name love?" He asked me softly, holding my hands in his own warm large ones. I felt a rush of warmth surge through me as if I knew I'd always be perfectly safe in his hold. Nothing else in the world could reach me, as long as I was with him. I felt childish almost when I identified the feeling of sudden possessiveness over this man as he held me. Like there was no other individual in this world that I'd ever allow to come near him such as I was.
"Ch-Charlotte." I heard myself stammer, even though I wasn't really sure if that was my name exactly. It sounded foreign rolling off my tongue. In fact, all of the details of my life that I attempted to pull from my brain seemed fake, distorted and scrambled. What was happening to me?
"Ah, beautiful name for a beautiful girl, no?" The handsome young man attempted to flirt with me, to bring a smile to my face despite the burning sensation I felt that gnarled at my limbs slowly. Like a slow-crawling wildfire, it spread throughout my body with increasing intensity. Each nerve is more burnt and fried than the last. It was almost impossible to ignore, but the feeling of the white-haired man's hands holding mine made it almost bearable.
I tried to smile but the feeling in my mouth had gone away considerably, so I was left with a nod, hoping he'd understand from the simple gesture that I appreciated his kindness.
"I understand, lovely girl. I felt that way too for a long time- but I got better, and faster. Where are you from?" He asked me as I gritted my teeth together suddenly as the pain began to reach a fever pitch.
I was trying to prevent myself from screaming. Whoever is watching me all the time- I don't want to give them the satisfaction of knowing that I was in pain. I'm stronger than those cowards, and I'll prove it to them. Even if it meant chewing through my lip to do it.
To continue to distract myself I focused on the man and tried to respond to him, my vision was a bit blurry so I couldn't make out his exact features but I could tell he was rugged but softly and distinctively handsome. Almost a beautiful roguishness about him, nothing like the men who tried to win me over back home. Everything about him was different.
"Bos-t-ton." I struggled to get past my lips, my voice cracking horribly. I didn't even sound like myself- what did they do to me? What did they inject into me? What was going on? Why was I here?
The man's hands began to stroke the insides of my arms soothingly, not moving his seated body closer to me out of precaution, I assumed. I wish he would. Maybe pressure on my sympathetic nervous system is what I needed to feel better. Anything, at this point, would feel better than this hellfire coursing through the very fabric of my being.
"An American! I already knew that when I listened to you speak for the first time. My sister and I couldn't figure out where in America. You have an accent, you know. Just like how I probably do to you." His sugarcoated voice was the best distraction I could've ever hoped for. His voice combined with the simple touch of his fingers against my flaming skin was a godsend.
But the incendiary flames of whatever was inside of me began to consume me, dragging me down into the endlessly burning pit of coal and ash quicker than I could have anticipated.
"It hurts." Was all I managed to whimper before my body unwillingly surrendered to violent convulsions, and the world become nonsensical before my eyes and the sound of bells and the pained yelling of the beautiful man rang in my ears as the world faded to white.
__
I awoke without a single wisp of air in my lungs. Bolting upright I heaved and gasped for oxygen, feeling the phantom of the memory of the hellfire in my veins. I grasped at my arms where the man's fingers were in my dream, curious as to why I was suddenly desperate to feel them again right at this moment. I had no idea if that dream was a remembered memory or if it was all the product of an overactive imagination but he felt too real to be fake.
I knew him. Who was he? I thought to myself, finally beginning to regulate my breathing and my heart rate before I had a panic attack. He was there for me - he wanted to comfort me, why? He must've meant something to me - we must've been close.
He might even be looking for me. My influx of inquiries regarding the handsome yet faceless man in my dream began to overwhelm me, so I took a deep breath and glanced over at the clock to see how long I slept. I grimaced at the time. It was early evening. I'd been out for the entire day. It was 4:11 pm. I'm sure the team felt safer when I was unconscious and in a fitful sleep than conscious and flying about the city.
I crawled off of the comfortable cloud of a bed that I was sprawled out on and shifted onto my feet to look outside from the doors that lead to the balcony. It was still sunny out, golden rays showering the city in incandescent light. It was beautiful. Looking away from the light show I glanced back down at my tingling forearms, not fully able to shake the memory of him away. He had no name, no face, he was just him, or he until I figured out who he really was. If not a figment of my imagination.
I crossed my arms over my chest and walked away from the doors and towards my closet space which was laden with a few items that Natasha had been kind enough to lend to me. Tony mentioned he'd have someone gather me some more clothes- if I became a more permanent resident of the tower. Which had only served to me as a sobering reminder that my position amongst this privileged life that the avengers appeared to be living was only temporary for me.
Where I would go following the completion of lab tests, analysis, and examinations, was a mystery to me. I would have to sooner or later confront the reality that I was going to be turned out without a single dollar to my name, and without any skills to apply to the world that existed beyond this tower. Maybe they'd keep me in their back pocket, maybe they need more flying individuals to help out once in a while. I'd be more than happy to be kept on a retainer for the team.
I changed into a pair of loose black running pants that had a soft feeling to them, and they cinched around the waist and fit snugly under my belly button. I threw on a black top and some white sneakers and took a deep, contemplative breath before heading out to my floor's common room, not needing to check my appearance in the mirror before I left. I'll see a young, beautiful woman - who was never meant to be this. I felt like an imposter.
I wasn't sure where Steve was, but hopefully, I would run into him to talk to him for a moment. At this time of day, Steve could be anywhere but he was usually working out. He said that exercising kept his mind busy, and he preferred to be alone when he did it.
Maybe I'd find him in the tower's rec center. It wouldn't hurt to look. So with that resolve, I headed down to the rec center of the tower with purposeful strides, hearing voices float down the white hallway nearing the rec center as I moved closer. I slowed down my stride, quietly toeing closer to make out who was speaking.
It's not eavesdropping if you can hear people talking from a reasonable distance, right?
"Tony, you're fully aware now that the whole team has a bullseye pinned onto our backs. I'm not a betting man but I'm willing to wager that there are plenty of individuals who'd like to try their hand at taking our heads out to get to Eden." I heard Clint say in a rather annoyed tone of voice to who I assumed was Tony, as he addressed him by name. I crept even closer, neither of the two avengers expecting me to arrive, and I intended to keep it that way.
"You're being overdramatic, Katniss. If HYDRA or any of their alleged affiliates wanted Snow White, they would've already sent Speedy and Scary already to collect her. If anything, it would be good PR to show the public a kinder, more innocent figure on the team. Use HYDRA's intended tactics against them." Tony said, sounding amused as I heard his footsteps come closer to the hallway. So it was Tony, and he mentioned the Maximoff twins again. Who are they? I didn't understand his references but I gathered from context clues that Speedy and Scary were the twins.
I moved slightly further away to be out of sight and found a niche in the hallway that obscured me from Clint and Tony's view from the rec center and listened further to their riveting conversation.
"No, I'm not being overdramatic Tony. And let's not go there. She's clearly got a few bats in the belfry and too much of a flight risk to be considered for this team even if she were being considered, which she isn't. And besides- that's Cap's decision."
"Wow Barton, way to break the tin man's heart. Cap's lily-white ass has gone all papa-bear with his charge. He'd probably say yes in a heartbeat if it meant keeping her safe and giving her a second lease on life. I mean she deserves it, after all, she's been through. She was supposed to be a success story, Clint. I personally handed this young girl a scholarship not even two years ago. She was going to change the world, but instead, HYDRA saw her as an asset, and snatched her away just days after her first day at MIT and fried her brain. To Cap, she's Barnes. To me, she's my guilt." Tony admitted with pain tinged into his voice as he spoke, my own heart rattled in my chest at the apparent sincerity of Tony's words. A part of me wanted to deny them, and hold him in contempt, the same way he holds me.
But Tony's inherent distrust in me isn't all that meets the eye; it was fear, it was guilt, it was a shame. He knew who I was the second he was able to confirm my real identity.
"But how do you know this, Tony? You're saying you knew Eden?" Clint said in clear disbelief, him and Tony sounding like they'd stopped somewhere in between the entrance and the hallway of the rec center. I let out a small, held in breath and kept my ears keen, and ignored all emotions racing through me to keep my head clear,
"Jarvis has been running facial recognition, data sweeps, and various other searches on Eden since the moment she was loaded onto the quinjet. Jarvis pinged me as soon as the information was found and it was like a laser beam through my eyes, Clint. I remember this girl clear as day and her infectious smile. I personally handed her a certificate that was to serve as a reminder of her accomplishments and her scholarship," Tony ground out with a halting pause and sharp intake of breath.
Did talking about this hurt him this much? Was my complete and utter transformation in life by the hands of HYDRA such a source of pain to him? It wasn't Tony's fault that I was made this way, no matter how much he felt like it was. Sure, HYDRA abducted me because of the attention Tony drew to me but he didn't hand me to them on a silver platter.
If it weren't me, it would've been any other young individual who was on such an illuminated path as I used to be on. They needed someone intelligent, driven, and focused. And they found me, much to my own misfortune.
"Yeah, she may have pinned a target on all of our backs but I planted the bullseye on her first. Jarvis told me that she knows who she is, and she requested an info dump. It's a miracle she hasn't lost her mind throughout all of this. To think that my generosity cost her everything is almost too difficult for me to bear." Tony finished with a sigh, and then sounding like he suddenly spun on his heel, he walked away in the other direction. Leaving Clint behind in the dust.
My heart ran like the wind in my ribcage, blood roaring in my ears as I came to terms with what Tony just admitted to Clint. I wouldn't have guessed that the two were this close enough to be confidantes but I didn't know the team at all regardless of what I would have guessed or not. Tony felt this overwhelming amount of guilt because of me, and it churned my stomach up something awful. I could taste white-hot bile burning at the edge of my esophagus as I considered the complicated feelings of what Tony's words meant.
He knew that I knew who I was but yet didn't confront me personally about it. That has thrown me for a bit of a loop as Tony didn't seem like the man who let sleeping dogs lie in the slightest. It would've made more sense if he said something to me that day in the lab, as opposed to keeping mum.
"You can come out now, it's just me." I heard Clint say with an almost silent chuckle to his voice as I cringed outwardly at being caught. After a moment's hesitation, I turned to him with pursed lips as he stared at me with an indiscernible expression. Clint being unreadable was an understatement- I could hardly ever tell what he was possibly feeling or what was going through his mind whenever I looked at him.
"How did you know I was there?" I asked softly, genuinely wanting to hear the answer from the archer. Clint remained stoic in his spot down the hall as I gazed at him, his eyes ticking every so often around my face. He was studying me.
"It's my job to be the eyes and the ears of the team. I know when there's an intruder or a shift in the air. Do you not feel comfortable around Tony or I?" Clint countered bluntly to me, his question not anticipated by me in the slightest.
"No, I'm not. You're uncomfortable around me. After hearing what Tony had to say, it was all the more clear to me that he'd rather do anything else than be stuck in the same room with me." I frankly sputtered, still keenly watching for any flicker of discernible emotion to flicker across Clint's features.
Still nothing. I'd have to take a few notes from him sometime on the stone-cold poker face he consistently wore.
"He feels guilty, and guilt can make someone afraid to face the individual they inadvertently wronged. Listen, we don't have time to remark upon the emotional affairs of the team right now. Steve was supposed to collect you from your room anyway, we're having another team meeting on the common floor. So let's put a pin in this. We'll talk about this later, Eden." Clint finished with a rather stern look on his face and I nodded silently, feeling rather put out by Clint's sudden halt to our conversation.
"C'mon, they're waiting for us."
__
After an almost exceedingly awkward silent elevator trip to the common floor, Clint and I regrouped with the team who were all but excited to be there. Natasha, once again, looked less than amused by our late arrival, and Steve glanced at me with a small smile as I slowly approached the semi-huddle that everyone was gathered in.
A few moments of thick silence passed before Steve took the initiative to start the team meeting, and I held my breath as he spoke, fearing he'd reveal that he found out my identity through Tony before I had the chance to come clean to him about it. I wanted to tell him myself, feeling as if somehow that would make my less than honest request of Jarvis less egregious.
I knew that some part of me, deep inside, honored truth and honesty above many things in life. I could feel the core precepts of my very identity had once hinged on honesty, and for reasons, I could not necessarily remember. But to honor the dead part of me, I held onto her value of honesty, not knowing how else to preserve the girl that I once was.
"As you all know, Eden is our newest addition to the team. She is prized by HYDRA and their affiliates above all of us. They want her back, they'll stop at nothing to bring her back into HYDRA's custody. They put a bolo out for her, Nat spoke to some of her international contacts and they have all heard it across the wire. HYDRA is coming for her now, we're running out of time and excuses to not get Eden on board as a formal member of the team."
"What?" I suddenly heard myself exclaiming as I processed Steve's announcement. No way they decided that I was to become one of them. That wasn't what I was planning for. I would've believed Steve more if he'd said they were going to drop me off in a box in front of a fire station. Huh, where did I even remember that reference from?
"You can't be serious, Steve." I felt myself speaking before I could filter my words, but what he said was too shocking for me to register completely at a respectable pace. Just minutes before Tony was saying how the twins would have come to collect me already. Information changes fast, I suppose.
"It's safer for you to have you join the team. You are a person of interest number to HYDRA and their affiliates. They'll use us and any other nefarious resources they can against you to retrieve you." Bruce suddenly spoke up, proving a major point that I hadn't even considered yet.
I turned my head to face Steve in utter disbelief. This can't possibly be the right course of action. I don't want the team to suffer because of the sobering reality of who I was and what I meant to HYDRA. I don't want to be handed back to them, regardless if I can remember what they'd done to me or not. But I could implode their plans from the inside, and take them all down screaming with me if I had to.
"Why don't you give them what they want and hand me over? I honestly fear the consequences that lie in our imminent future if we don't cave to their demands." I asked truthfully, watching the collective horror that washed over everyone's faces.
Tony appeared to be more shocked than horrified, but I could see the pain that lingered behind the irises of his eyes. My gut wrenched painfully at the sight of it, and I quickly looked away as my heart fluttered in my chest at a rampant speed.
Steve looked the most troubled, his mouth parting slightly, yet no words had tumbled out quite yet.
"We don't trade lives, Eden." Steve said sternly in a deep voice, staring me down with charged authority. He shot down my idea with a viciousness I'd never seen him display ever before. Steve's dark side was just peeking from behind the wall of his fronting personality- and I don't think I cared to see what the darkness looked like up close.
"Steve, Eden has a point, I don't mean we should hand her over exactly. But we can use her as bait." Tony interjected, piercing through the unbelievably thick pall that had settled over the room.
Everyone shot their glances over him, Bruce looking the most baffled by Tony's dangerous suggestion. I contemplated it for a few moments myself and despite the obvious hazards that could present themselves in a plan such as this one, I decided it was our best shot to keep everyone safe.
"Tony, just to be sure, you're saying that we dangle her in front of Hydra like a carrot? Are you out of your mind?" Bruce asked Tony with a vein beginning to pop out of his forehead out of apparent stress, yet I continued to find myself increasing in agreement with the second in command.
"I think what Bruce is trying to explain, is maybe we can crawl in between the cracks and lead Hydra to believe that Eden is returning herself to their custody willingly. She'll be showing them the initiative, and they'll be eager to inform her of their imminent plans and how she is to participate. We can then blitz them and then use Eden's intel to our advantage." Natasha explained and I nodded, fully understanding what was being asked of me. It didn't take much convincing to get the assassin on board with the brewing plan.
Before Steve could undoubtedly shut down and scrap our forming plan, I spoke up and asserted my own opinion to cement what I was going to do for the team.
"I don't have any prior knowledge of Hydra or the number of evils they have done to tarnish the earth and us, but I can gather from your responses that they have impacted you all closely. That being said, I agree with Tony's idea, regardless of how hazardous it could potentially be. I'm not trading my life, I am simply doing what must be done to protect the best interests and safety of the team. Isn't that what an Avenger does?" I spoke confidently, without a single waver in my voice. I glanced around the room and measured the emotions running rampant between all of us.
It was an amalgamation of pride, fear, confusion, regret, and apprehension. But all I could feel in my heart was this new endowment of sheer unmitigated strength. I hadn't a clue where it was erupting from but I allowed it to wash over me in consuming waves. I could almost feel the screaming of pride from the ghost of my former self. I was avenging her- I was avenging her memory by committing myself to the destruction of those who viciously killed her.
I wasn't just Eden, I was now Eden Charlotte Grey. I was paradoxically always her, and yet never was her. As I have divorced myself from my past identity and now see Charlotte as a different and distinct entity, I shall honor her memory as such. A different young woman whose life was stolen from her too soon.
Steve glared at me with some type of anger and determination, his electric blue eyes storming as they darkened by the second. However, beneath that anger, I took the liberty to use my ability to gauge what he was feeling, and it was nostalgia and pain. I felt remorse for going above his head when he had been nothing short of my savior. But I must do it. Steve clearly really didn't want me to agree to Tony's outlandish plan, and I could absolutely understand and empathize with his reasoning.
"So no one aside from me, is going to argue the case over the absurdity of what is about to happen?" Steve asked dubiously, and the room was cast with uncomfortably charged silence as the evening sky began to shower us with its golden rays of the tiring sun.
"Cap- don't get all crotchety. It's our best bet, and Eden seems more than willing to enact this plan." Tony said in an attempt to dissolve the mounting tension. Yet, by the looks of Steve's rippling muscles in his clenched jaw, Tony had done little to make it better.
"No, it isn't. It's suicide. Eden, are full of hubris if you believe that this will actually work out favorably for the team." Steve ground out, and my heart was punctured by the glaringly obvious pain that was lingering in his voice. I was betraying him, and nothing could ever feel worse to me than betraying my closest confidante.
With nothing left to say, Steve suddenly and dramatically spun on his heel and stormed out with a brutal gait, and left behind nothing but the glowing embers of his disappointment in his wake. I felt my own gut twist painfully at the fact that he was less than pleased with me but he would see why this plan was necessary - for all of us.
I just hoped that I would be able to come out of it all in one piece to make it up to him.
EDITED 2/19/23