❝Just know that from this point on, whatever happens, I'll be with you. I'm not gonna leave your side until you tell me to.❞
. . .in which she helps him find his way back to himself.
[BOOK ONE]
[Highest ranking: #1 in MCU/fanfiction as of 5/26/18]
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★ ★ ★
Marlena's eyes flickered open, only to be met with a bright light. After adjusting her vision, she pulled herself into a sitting position. She looked around at her surroundings to find that she was in what looked to be a very expensive laboratory of some sort. Dozens of different machines—machines she was sure costed more than her entire life—surrounded her. She averted her attention towards the glass window and found that it had grown dark; this made her wonder just how long she had been unconscious, as well as where the hell everyone was.
She moved to hop off of the table she sat on, but stopped when a peculiar sensation swept its way through her body. In an instant, she was met with an agonizing pain, one very similar to the one she had experienced when she was first injected with Hydra's mentality serum. This pain, however, was roughly a hundred times worse. She felt as if someone had sliced her brain in half, dipped each half into a vat of sulfuric acid, lit each of them on fire, and proceeded to stick them back inside her head. She had never felt anything like it before in her life, and she hoped to God she would never have to again.
A shrill scream echoed throughout the living quarters of the tower, capturing the attention of Tony, Natasha, Bucky, Steve, Thor, Clint Barton, and Bruce Banner.
"Well," Tony said as he nonchalantly sipped away at his beer. "There it is."
Bucky and Steve jumped up from the enormous couch immediately and made their way towards Tony's lab, where Marlena was currently writhing in pain.
"What the hell did you two do to my mini-me, Stark?" Natasha exclaimed as she glanced back and forth between him and Bruce.
Tony chuckled and stood up, as did Bruce. "A lot of scientific shit."
"Does science normally inflict such agonizing pain on a human being?" Thor questioned.
"No, but the science of Stark does," Clint stated, taking a swig of his beverage. "She's a goner, that poor girl."
Bruce merely rolled his eyes at his colleagues and hurried down the hall and up the stairs to the lab. Bucky and Steve were both already inside, of course. Steve stood closely by the table with his arms crossed over his chest and his eyes on Marlena. Bucky sat with her on the table, cradling her small, crying body against his. He hated seeing her in pain, although he had been anticipating it.
"Marlena," Bruce said as he approached the side of the table on which she sat with Bucky.
She recognized the voice without even looking up. She didn't want to talk to Bruce yet; she wanted him to take away the pain he and Tony had inflicted on her. "Make it stop," she squeaked, squeezing Bucky tighter.
