PICKING UP THE PIECES.
❝You thought you could break me? honey, you aren't the first.❞
Isabel Stark has lost the memories of her past. They haunt her during her sleep. The Avengers, the only family she's ever known, has disbanded. Her childhood fri...
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Amy's head turned in excitement when I opened the door to her room, her wings folding up in excitement. She was already looking much healthier, but the shirt and sweatpants she had been given to wear hung baggily of of her frame, almost like she was swimming in it. I closed the door behind me, and her face fell when she realized the gravity of my visit.
"I'll... I'll start with what I should've told you the moment I found out," I told her slowly, rubbing my hands together and taking a few steps into the room. Amy nodded, her brows furrowed, ready for me to continue. "After Hawkes was done extracting my DNA, he got a status report on my abilities. It was... interesting, to say the least. During it, we both learned that I..." I swallowed, the familiar lump in my throat coming back. "Due to my powers and how much I've used them, I'm going to die in four years."
"Oh, my God," Amy said in shock, taken aback by how forward I was. "Isabel, I... I don't know what to say. Are you doing okay?"
"There's more," I stopped her, and she got quiet quickly. "The process we went through to get our powers- the experimentation, it affected all of us. I have four years at the most,; the rest of you have a little over ten." Amy's face paled, and her wings drooped slowly to the floor.
"Ten... ten years?" she repeated, and I nodded grimly. "Oh." Her hands were shaking, and I felt sick for telling her. She had to know, and from how Zane took it, this was information I couldn't keep to myself. "Who else..." Amy's lip quivered as she tried not to cry in front of me, biting down on it in hopes that it would stop the shake. "Who else knows?"
"Zane," I answered. "I told him a few hours ago. He's here in Wakanda, taking sanctuary. The issue is with Hawkes having all of our DNA is that he can bring Colin back. When we escaped, I was able to get a glimpse in his head, see what's brought him where he is now. Hawkes has nothing left to lose in his life, nothing to hold him back from falling into complete insanity."
"You think he isn't insane already?"
"I think I started sending him over the edge when I killed his son," I continued to explain. "He lost his job, his identity, his wife, and then found out Colin was next. Hawkes was spiraling during the program, trying to keep his son alive. I don't know how he made it to this summer." Amy sat down on her bed, thinking out loud.
"They always had our blood samples," she told me, glancing up as she realized. "During the experimentation, they'd always take blood from us to make sure we weren't having any unpredicted side effects. It wasn't blood given out of our free will, but it contained bits of what gave us our powers."
"Perfect enough to hold Colin until he could find a better solution," I nodded, following along. "That's why he wanted us to give consent. It was like... self-protection so no one could figure out what HYDRA was truly up to." Before, I always felt obligated to give blood for testing, but I never truly gave it away deep down.
