𝗀 𝗁 𝗈 𝗌 𝗍 | | 𝗌 𝗍 𝖾 𝗏 𝖾 𝗋 𝗈 𝗀 𝖾 𝗋 𝗌

𝗌 𝗂 𝗑 𝗍 𝗒 － 𝗍 𝗐 𝗈

𑁍 𝟤𝟢𝟣𝟩, 𝗎𝗉𝗌𝗍𝖺𝗍𝖾 𝗇𝖾𝗐 𝗒𝗈𝗋𝗄 𑁍

IT WAS FINALLY HAPPENING. MARTA laid on the table in Tony's lab, her bald head propped up with Tony's tech hovering above her head. Rhodey stood beside Tony, wanting to be there for Marta and stay out the way. Marta's eyes constantly looked up at the robots above her, nervous. She wished she hadn't thrown her phone against the wall and shattered it before checking if Steve had called her back.

"Okay, soldier. You ready?" Tony asked, powering up his tools. His first step was to remove the disk lodged in the frontal lobe of Marta's brain, and then manipulate her hippocampus to restore her lost memories.

Marta nodded. "Yeah." she said, closing her eyes and breathing deeply.

Tony could tell the buzzing of his technology was making her nervous, so he stuffed plugs into her ears so her advanced hearing wouldn't pick up on his work. Rhodey was assigned to keep Marta talking and distracted from the pain that was about to be inflicted upon her. "You had a little sister, right? What was her name?" Rhodey questioned, taking a seat on a stool beside the uncomfortable table Marta laid on.

Eyes squeezed shut, Marta's fists clenched and unclenched, her arms and legs restrained to the table in case something went wrong. "Rebecca. My mom was the only one who called her that. She was Becca to the rest of us." Marta said. Tony's tools started cutting into her head, making tiny incisions that were more painful than anything Marta had ever experienced, right on the line of her previous scar. Tony couldn't give her anything to subdue the pain, her metabolism would burn straight through it.

Rhodey went down the list of questions he had been given. "Tell me about your first flight mission." Rhodey said, watching Marta try to fight through the pain, Tony working as quickly as he could.

The white hot pain threatened to knock Marta unconscious, but she had to stay awake. She listened to the heart monitor she was hooked up to, and she remembered that she was alive. "I was eighteen. I wasn't supposed to go up, but I snuck my way in. I got us close to the rebel base. I was suspended when we landed." Marta explained, her hands gripping the sides of the table.

Tony's robots reached her skull flap and opened it. Tony laid eyes on the disk for the first time, and his eyes widened. It was really buried. Tony glanced at Rhodey before he made the delve into Marta's brain. It hurt. Really, really badly. "What was the toughest part about the war?" Rhodey asked, a permanent frown on his face from the pain Marta was experiencing.

Breathing heavily, Marta thought hard. "Killing the squirrels in the mountains. The Commandos always made me do it." Marta said, tears falling down her face. Tony was relieved. She could still make decisions.

"It wasn't the Nazis? Killing squirrels was the hardest thing about the war?" Rhodey asked with a light smile.

Marta sucked in a whiff of air. "Yeah. They didn't deserve to be eaten." she said. Marta was tough, and she didn't care about killing people who deserved it, like Nazis, and Hydra agents. Animals were a different story.

Tony's technology gripped the disk harshly, and if it weren't for the restraints across Marta's chest, she would've moved and ended up dead. She had to be perfectly still. But that didn't keep her from screaming. Rhodey placed a guard in her mouth and she appreciated it, clamping her teeth around it. Tony and Rhodey hated seeing her like this. "What's your favorite model of fighter jet?" Rhodey asked, needing to keep Marta talking.

With gritted teeth, Tony began to carefully extract the disk. "North American P-51 Mustang." Marta answered, her intense grip bending the steel the table was made of.