Becoming Avengers

Chapter 5: Science Experiment, Anyone?

{Scarlet's POV}
I'm regaining consciousness. There is a small pounding in my head but it is subsiding quickly. I start to raise my hand to massage my forehead but immediately realize that my arm is strapped down.

I look around at my surroundings. I am in a room about the size of a high school classroom. It's arranged kind of like an operating room with a very obvious two-way mirror. In the reflection, I can more easily assess my predicament. I can see the outline of double doors in the wall behind me. I lay on a metal table with metal restraints at my wrists and ankles and another restraint at my chest.

From what I can see, I would guess the table I'm on raises up into a pod-like machine. 'Well that doesn't look ominous at all. What is this place? Where's Iris?' My limbs are beginning to shake as panic starts to build in me so I focus on controlling my breathing.

That focus is broken from the sound of metal doors opening. I look in the reflection and I can see a man being escorted. He has shoulder length brown hair and, 'is that a metal arm,' it looks damaged. I just barely catch his face in the mirror; he looks sad and confused and for a moment I can't help but feel that my problems aren't as bad as his, then he is gone.

I bounce back to reality when six people enter; four men and two women. Three of the men and the two women wear white lab coats and the other wears a business-type suit, but all are wearing the same black and red armbands with a symbol that I've only ever seen in the S.H.I.E.L.D. history books. That's the symbol of Hydra.

{Iris's POV}
When I finally wake up I have a slight headache but luckily nothing too dire. I try to move but am immediately held back by metal restraints across my chest, ankles, and wrists against a cold...' is this one of those things that you wheel heavy boxes with?'

After a few moments of hopeless struggle I look around the room. It's fairly empty other than a two-way mirror in front of me, some tables, and an IV next to me. I don't know what it's for but I'm just glad it hasn't been put in me. I hate needles more than anything; I may be a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent but that doesn't mean I have to like needles.

I try to stay calm, though it's difficult to do when you're strapped to an upright table in a cold silent room with nothing but the air conditioner to speak to you. Suddenly, I hear doors opening somewhere.

I hear voices, then after a couple of minutes the mirror lightens up as two people walk in. I see Scarlet, in a similar situation to me, surrounded by men and women in lab coats. I was already nervous, but then terror strikes my heart as I see the symbol on their armbands.

It's Hydra! Who knows what terrible things are going to do to us?!

{Scarlet's POV}
"If everything is in order, I have to go debrief the asset," says the man in the suit. I can't see his face but he sounds familiar.

"We are good to go Director Pierce."

Ice sets in my veins as I hear the name. 'Did I hear that right?! Director Pierce, as in the guy that I work for, Director Pierce!!! What the heck is going on?!'

Pierce leaves and the scientists go to work.

One of the men and one of the women head towards a door that I apparently didn't notice and the two-way mirror lightens as they enter the other room and I can see Iris. I am relieved but only for a moment.

I expect we're about become Hydra's next science experiment.