Song: Blood on Your Bootheels (by Caroline Rose)

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Everything either aches or burns. My muscles scream at me whenever I even dare flinch from the pain that shoots through my body. My back holds onto so much tension and I can practically hear my muscles and bones creak with every slight movement. I feel the burns that cover my whole back pulling at my skin and stinging at the sensation of the cool open air against them. I feel the stitches pulling at my skin where I was impaled with shrapnel but leaving the burning and aching feeling from the hit to still linger. I feel my burned and damaged wings, which managed to take the brunt of the hit wrapped in bandages. I puff them up a bit to test out the extent of the damage, but I instantly regret that as I am met with a large burst of pain from my wings.

Wait... MY WINGS?!?!

I immediately shoot up to a sitting position but am instantly met with an overwhelming wave of dizziness and pain shooting throughout my whole body. I take a second to steady myself and then look behind me at my wings with wide fear-filled eyes. I had done so well at hiding, I remained undetected for centuries, but now, all that was thrown out the window. People have seen me, they have seen what I am. And it wasn't even just normal people, it was the freaking Avengers.

I shakily try to bring my hands up to touch my wings, hoping that this was all just a dream. However, everything just becomes even more real when my hands are not able to move far. I look down to find that my hands and legs are strapped down to the bed. My breathing starts to quicken and the heart monitor that had previously released a steady beat is now rapidly beeping, only causing me to panic more.

They are going to kill me. Especially with everything that Thor has probably already told them- oh gods, Thor... I need to get out of here, who knows what they are planning? Plus, I can not bare to face Thor again.

I cursed myself for sacrificing everything that I have worked for over the centuries, for revealing myself for a single moment, but I also could not bring myself to regret it in the slightest. I only hope that Thor is alright, and that would make it worth it. Even if he still despises me, I still and always will love and care for him and will do anything for him.

I tug at the restraints testing out their strength. I find that I can easily break through them and quickly pull up and snap the wrist straps freeing my hands. I then, still on the brink of hyperventilating, tug out the IV in my arm and pull off the heart monitor which causes the machine to let off an extremely aggravating continuous beep. I reach down and yank my legs out of the restraints as well and even though my body screams against it, I quickly stand up and scour the room for the best way to escape.

I find that the only way out is through the door, so I hastily grab surgical scissors off a cart and rush to the door but find that it is locked after trying the handle. Without a second thought, I instantly back up several feet and then slam into the door with all my force causing it to fly off of its' hinges. Enhanced strength really does come in handy at times.

I sprint through the halls trying my best not to limp but very painfully fail. I search for the stairs, an elevator, a window onto a roof, anything, all while my body is screaming at me to sit down. Then, I see an exit sign and quickly follow it, desperate to get out of here. However, just as I think that I am almost in the clear, I skid around a sharp corner and crash into a very surprised Steve Rogers, otherwise known as Captain America.

He quickly catches himself and snaps out of his daze, but I am quicker. I hold out the surgical scissors defensively while I expertly disarm and take the gun that he had on him. Within seconds I now have his own gun aimed at him and slowly back up slightly, still not wavering him from my sights.

"Hey hey- what are you doing? You need to be in bed resting." Steve says as he wearily puts his hands up.

I give him a glare in return and continue to creep my way walking backwards towards the stairs.

"Raven, you need to put the gun down. We are trying to help." He says, narrowing his eyes.

I breathlessly chuckle through my nose. They are not going to help. They either want to kill me or lock me away, that's all anyone has ever wanted to do.

I continue to gradually make my way towards the exit with the gun still aimed at Steve, and I am close, but then suddenly I am very quickly put into a very familiar headlock. The gun is kicked away from me and before I can even turn my head a syringe is shoved into my neck. I immediately start to wobble on my feet and my brain starts to go into a restless sleep. Just before my eyes fully close, I look to my side to see Natasha Romanoff finally taking the syringe out of my neck and staring at me calculatingly. Then I am unable to hold my eyes open anymore and feel my body collapse.

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I reluctantly pry my eyes open and groan at the light that instantly floods my vision. I roll onto my side trying to hide away from the light causing the stiff cot under me to creak. However, that doesn't last long since I then bolt to sitting up as I suddenly remember everything that happened.

I hold a hand to my head as the dizziness rushes to my head from the sudden movement. I take in my surroundings and find myself in a circular glass cell with nothing but the cot that I was laying on inside. I also notice Natasha Romanoff sitting in a chair looking through a folder on the other side of the glass while looking completely unbothered.

"Oh good, you are up." She shifts slightly in her seat and closes the folder, and stares at me without a single trace of any emotion that I can detect.

"So, are you actually going to talk to us this time instead of just trying to run away?" she asks coldly. "Are you even really mute, or is that just an alias as well?"

I glare at her angrily for even insinuating that. But then my expression changes to one of confusion. Hasn't Thor told them about me? They would know then that I am certainly not faking it.

"No, Thor did not tell us anything yet, he ran away soon after you passed out."

Can she read my mind?!?!??! I didn't read anything about that in her files!

"No, I can't read your mind," she said blankly.

I just looked at her even more confused than before.

"I am just really good at reading people, and very observant, Ellery," she smirks slightly. "Or is that even your name? Thor seems to think so. Or is it Raven Rose? Maybe it's Eva Danith, Rubin Kallin, Alex Dickins, Rune Osford, or is it Harley Hornich?" she listed off several of my many aliases with a sickening smirk.

I simply purse my lips and look away.

Natasha sighed and then smoothly stood up walking towards the control panel for the cell. "Alright then, get up"

She types some things into the panel and the door hisses open. She then walks over to me holding shackles and motions for my hands. I realize that I really don't have many options, even if I were to escape, they already know about me, and they would just eventually track me down again. So I decided to go along with this for now and reluctantly put my wrists forward.

She puts the cuffs on me, I notice that this time I am not able to break out of them and recognize that they are made out of vibranium. However, they still don't appear to know about my magic, and I plan to keep it that way, I can use that to my advantage.

She leads me out of the cell and down the halls, keeping a hand on my shoulder the entire time. Eventually, we get to a room that looks to be an interrogation room. She pushes me in and directs me to sit in the chair at one end of the table. Natasha then leaves the room leaving me to sit there alone for about 10 minutes, which I know is simply a tactic to try and purposely put me on edge.

After a while, Steve, Bucky, and Natasha all walk in. Steve sits across from me, Bucky leans against the wall behind him crossing his arms, and Natasha stands stiffly in the far corner, I'm guessing to mostly just look intimidating and translate my sign language. I don't let their intimidation tactics affect me, I have had a lot of practice in doing so.

"So, let's start out easy. What is your name? Your real one." Steve says, clearly playing the 'good cop' as the mortals say in this instance.

I keep my eyes trained directly on Steve as I continue to blankly stare at him refusing to respond. They think that they are a step ahead of me, they think that they have the control and can intimidate me; my goal is to prove them wrong. I know what these kinds of people think. They try to act like they are not scared of me in the slightest but they are actually terrified. They are terrified of anything that they don't understand, especially when they can't control it. They are trying to see if I am a threat, but I know that they will always see me as a threat no matter what I say. They can't or don't know how to control me and that petrifies them and will always cause them to see me as a threat.

Steve signs and takes out a folder setting it on the table and opening it showing several different pictures, IDs, and various information on me. "You have over 40 aliases, and those are only the ones we currently know about. Some of them even date back to the early 1900s. How old exactly are you?"

I only continue to emotionlessly glare at him in response, not wavering for even a second. It's no use working with them, they will only ever use anything I tell them against me.

"It is in your best interest to work with us here. We may be able to help you." Bucky says stepping forward and leaning on the table, deeply staring into my eyes.

I switch over my glare to him to return it. I need them to understand that I am not a person that they want to mess with and that they will not be able to break me. Still keeping the tense eye contact with Bucky, I casually lean back in the chair and relax my body. I don't dare be the first one to break away from the stare off me and Bucky are having and I grin very slightly when he eventually breaks away with a sigh.

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The questioning goes on for several more hours. More of just the same questions over and over with me refusing to do anything but emotionlessly stare at them the entire time. They have switched people several times, everyone on the team trying to get something out of me at least once. They even got Wanda to come in here and try to get in my mind to get some answers, but she obviously was not able to get past my blocks, which greatly surprised her and the others.

It was now the first original three, Steve, Bucky, and Natasha, inside the room once again. At this point I was just getting bored and simply wanted a nap, I didn't even care if it was in that fishbowl cell again at this point, I just wanted to get this over with. They were asking some questions about what exactly I am and why I have wings for the 16th time, which I was now just starting to block out. However, I am quickly snapped out of my daydream when the door is loudly slammed open and a very angry-looking Thor stomps in. My previously emotionless eyes instantly soften and grow sad, my shoulders slouch slightly, and for the first time, I break away from eye contact and look down at my hands.

Within seconds though he has crossed the room to stand directly in front of me and then harshly grabs me by my neck and lifts me up, shoving me against the wall. I gasp as he cuts off my air supply and place my shackled hands on his trying to relieve some of the pressure, but I don't put up too much of a fight and get out of the hold like I easily could, which Thor knows I am perfectly capable of doing as well. In some sense, I know that I perfectly deserve this, and I also let him release his anger.

As soon as he lifts me up against the wall several other of the avengers rush into the room all yelling at Thor to put me down, but he ignores them and continues to glare right into my eyes.

"Why are you here?!" he grits through his teeth.

My vision starts to go blurry as the pressure he holds on my neck increases and I start to quickly run out of air and start to gasp more desperately. Through my struggling vision I see a few people rush over to Thor and pull him off of me. I then fall to the floor holding my throat and regaining my breath. As I sit up to lean my back and head against the wall and continue to focus on my breathing, I hear several people trying to calm Thor down.

"Okay, Thor, what is going on? How do you know Raven?" Steve says after everyone has calmed down but the tensions are still high.

"I know Ellery because we grew up together," he says, spitting out my name as if it left a bitter taste in his mouth.

"So what happened?" Natasha speaks up for the first time from the corner of the room where she has been sitting simply observing everything.

"They killed my mother." Thor spits out.

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