Project H.I.D.E (sequel to Newest Recruit)

Chapter 9 - Truth

Exactly seven minutes and forty-three seconds later Kelsey sat down in a large black desk chair at the head of a long grey table in one of Tony's conference rooms. To her right was Artie, who looked ashamed and sorry, and Thor was to her left, who was busy playing with his hammer. Spread out around the rest of the table were the other Avengers and Agent Coulson, who was standing Director of SHIELD.

The group of heroes looked out at each awkwardly, waiting for someone to start the conversation. Kelsey sighed and began to talk, "She needs to go."

"We can't just dump her out back in the desert. We don't know what happened to her before, she said that HIDE had kicked her out for not being cautious about the kids there." Coulson stated, picking up the notes that some agent had taken before the meeting.

Kelsey laughed, "And you believe her? Trust me she is still very much in control. She's been in control this whole time."

"What do you mean? Did you read her mind?" Clint asked.

Across from him, Nat shook her head, "No, Kelsey is right, I've seen her before I just didn't remember where. But Kelsey showed me, when she first came here. I had seen what HIDE has done to those kids and there is no 'being cautious' at that place. She has to go."

Coulson looked up from the notes, "I'm sorry but we just can't let her go now, not if she really is the head of HIDE, she can provide us with information to the facility."

Kelsey rolled her eyes and stood up, "What don't you understand about her being in charge? She's in charge! Right now she probably has crews coming to attack our base and bring her and me and Artie back into HIDE. She needs to go!"

"Kelsey, you said before that you were the only one who knew who she was, and Artie obviously didn't recognize her, how come you know who she is?" Steve interrupted.

Kelsey signed and scanned all the eager faces waiting for her story. She brushed her short brown hair out of her face, "She came to visit me, all the time. She was there ever since I can remember. Up until the age of seven I thought she loved me, you know the way your mother would, unconditionally. The testing up until then hadn't been terrible a few shots here or there, she would tell me that it was so I never got sick."

"Yeah but that's how it was for everyone. Except, you know we had nurses or doctors take care of us." Artie spoke up.

Kelsey nodded, "I think she already knew that I was going to be a 'success' as she liked to call it. At night, she would tuck me into bed, bring me slices of cakes, read me bedtime stories, stuff like that. And I grew to not care that I was trapped indoors surrounded by doctors and needles and white walls because I grew to love her."

Kelsey sat down and placed her head in her hands, "She needs to go because that was all just a test. She wanted to see how I would handle pain of the emotional kind, she couldn't have an insane psychic running around now could she? She cut me off, the testing got worse, the pain became almost unbearable, I wanted to die so many times but I couldn't the doctors wouldn't let me. Do you know how much pain it takes for a person to want to just give up? And it's not the casual or ironic 'I wanna give up this is hard' its the legitimate 'I hope I never wake up' kind." Kelsey wiped her eyes with her hands, her head was beginning to hurt from all her pent up emotion she was finally letting out.

Coulson sat solemnly at the other end of the table, "We'll make sure she's locked down, no one gets in or out without my permission and watch. But we can't just let her die."

"Why not? She doesn't care if you do." Kelsey said, her tone flat and dead, her eyes downcast. She pressed a hand to her head.

"Tony? Did they ever figure out how to get this thing out of my head?"

"Ummm the best engineers we have are working on it." Tony answered confused.

"Ok, well I need it now." Kelsey stammered, squinting her eyes shut, the wall she kept up between her and the voices was crumbling down and it wasn't her fault. The device in her head was giving off a high pitched squeal, sound waves to confuse her mind into taking down the wall whether she wanted to or not.

Kelsey slipped from the chair, Thor caught her arm before she hit the floor, "Stark, get the device now. This what happened before."

"It's not ready yet! It could kill her!" Tony yelled scrambling from his chair anyways to run down to engineering and retrieve the device.

Hundreds of voices began pouring into her head, it felt like it was going to explode Kelsey groaned and yanked at her hair, Thor set her down on the floor so she wouldn't hurt herself from falling.

One voice in particular stood out from the others, 'Kelsey my dear, are you ready to come home now?'

"It's her Artie! It's her! She's in my head!" Kelsey screamed, covering her eyes to try to block it all out.

Peter kneeled down beside her, "What do you mean? She's talking to you?"

Kelsey looked up at him, "It means we're too late."

Then an echo of an explosion sounded, the walls of Stark's tower began to crumble making the building shake. Coulson immediately began talking into his comms unit and ran out of the room to help defend the building, "Barton go find Stark and cover him!" Clint nodded at his commander and took off.

"We have to get out of here." Nat said picking Kelsey up to her feet.

"They're coming to get us Artie." Kelsey whispered.

Artie appeared at her side, helping Nat guide her through the chaotic hallways, "You don't know that Kels. We'll get out of here, just like we did before."

Kelsey shook her head and stopped walking, around her the remaining Avengers stopped in their tracks, "But I do Artie, she told me."

In front of them was a gaping hole in the wall, with hundreds of HIDE workers pouring into it, surrounding them.

A/N: AHHH I'M SO SORRY FOR BEING LATE ON THE UPDATE!!! I know i say this every week but I've been incredibly busy this week with work and school so i'm so sorry!! Also I know this chapter is pretty short and again I'm sorry about that but I hope you still enjoy it!! Thank you again for continually reading my story and don't worry fight scenes are coming up! Yay!! Please comment your opinions of the story and vote!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH!! :)