Chapter Seven
Sam

I open up my eyes and the first thing I see is a bright light. Once my eyes adjust, I look around and find myself in what looks like a hospital room. But looks can be deceiving; the hospital bed I'm in has large metal cuffs attached it it, which are keeping me from getting up. The doctors walking around aren't tending to the other patients in the room, they're just observing them as they wither in pain, some of them screaming so loudly it's deafening to my ears, and they're not doing a damn thing to help them. That dart they hit me with must have had some powerful drugs in it, there's no way someone could sleep through the torture going on in this room otherwise.

On either side of me are Jade and John, who are both starting to come to as well. I see the panic in Jade's eyes when she sees that she's strapped down, and I hear her whisper to herself: "Not again, please not again."

"Honey," I say groggily. "We'll be fine, I promise we'll be fine."

One of the doctors notices us awake, and strides over towards us with a clipboard in hand, looking very collected and nonchalant. He's a man of Chinese decent in his thirties, with furrowed brows scanning over whatever is on his clipboard. When his dark eyes glance up at me, he forces a smile, saying disturbingly calmly: "Good afternoon, I'm sorry for the noise, we couldn't get you your own room since you blew up an entire wing of labs, so we had to shove you in here."

"How-how could you?" Jade asks, her voice strained and breathless, still in the process of waking up from the drugs. "Why is the government experimenting on people? You-you have to know this is wrong."

The doctor shakes his head. "You're not in a very good position to ask questions, Ms. Rosales, or judge us for the decisions we are making to protect our country."

"HYDRA took me and experimented on me, they gave me powers and used me in the name of defending what they believed in. You're no different."

"I doubt a HYDRA agent would understand a single thing we are doing here," He tells her, speaking to her like she's a child who just said something naive. "We are doing this to protect our people against threats like HYDRA and you."

The door to the room opens and a woman around the same age of the doctor enters. She looks like she might be a doctor as well. She's white, has long brown hair pulled up in a ponytail, glasses, and piercing blue grey eyes. She glances at the three of us and then to the male doctor, informing him: "The three subjects are nowhere to be found, Theo, and we didn't find the vehicle the Avengers used to get here. The subjects must have stolen it to escape."

This frustrates the male doctor, but he smiles at the woman. "Thank you, Lorelei, we'll deal with them later. Right now I need you to go get some memory serum for lab fifty nine. Three doses."

I glance at Jade and let out a laugh of relief, she does the same. The kids escaped, they got free. I don't even care that we got captured, I'm just happy it wasn't in vain. I hope those kids stay safely hidden away, because these guys won't stop until they find them. These people clearly don't want anyone finding out about this project, those kids are a security risk.

"Doctor Fai," A nurse says from the other side of the room. The screaming in the room has stopped and one of the patients the other doctors have been observing has passed out, his body covered in sweat, his body still shaking. He doesn't look any older than twenty. "He's ready to go to the containment room."

Doctor Fai nods. "Good, hopefully this one will actually develop something, if not, Ross won't be very happy. Take him away, I'll be there in a moment."

"So Ross is in on this," John says with a shaking chuckle, his body shivering from the effects of the drugs. "Why doesn't that surprise me."

"Secretary Ross has done nothing but fight for the lives of our nation and the world," Fai responds curtly. "You should show him some respect."

John shakes his head, his voice uneven as he says: "You and Ross can both jump up my ass, as well as everyone else in PROJECT ENHANCED."

That last part makes Fai pause, his voice quiet as he asks: "Where did you hear that name?"

"Does it matter? We know it, and we're going to get out of here and tell the other Avengers," John promises, pulling against the cuffs around his wrists and ankles. "You and your doctor buddies are going down."

"That's a heroic sentiment, Major Walker, but I'm afraid that's not going to happen," Fai argues, glancing over his shoulder as the woman named Lorelei returns, handing him two syringe needles while she holds onto another. "You're not going to remember any of this."

Fai approaches Jade and I, and no matter how hard we pull at our cuffs, no matter how hard we try to escape from the bed, we can't manage to move, our bonds are too tight. There's nothing we can do but watch as Fai injects both of our necks with the serum, while Lorelei does the same with John. Once the liquid has been injected, Fai brings out two pieces of cloth and holds them up to our faces, and that's the last thing I see before my eyes shut and the world goes black.

-

I jolt awake, letting out a moan as I settle back into the bed I'm lying down on. Every muscle in my body hurts, every breath I take feels like an effort. Even blinking hurts. I hear a similar moan from next to me, finding Jade laying down in a bed as well, beginning to wake up. Even though it hurts, I force myself to sit up, muffling a yell as I do so, and once I get a full view of the room, I begin feeling confused.

We're in a hospital room, with doctors and nurses bustling around, having so many different conversations I can hardly hear any of them. There are also CIA agents in the room, who are taking notes and snapping pictures of us in our beds. There's a person standing off to the side of our beds, and when I look to see who the looming figure is, I see that it's Ross. He looks pissed, more pissed than usual, but I don't really care why. All I care about is how the hell I got here. The last thing I remember is being on the plane with the three kids...and now I'm here.

"What happened?" I ask, not directing the question to any particular person.

"You were in a plane crash," Ross explains, his mustache furrowed and his eyes narrowed. "Those cuffs you took from Wakanda didn't work, the kids got free and killed the pilot, making the plane go down. You contacted us just before you hit the ground, you're lucky to be alive."

"And the kids? What happened to the kids?" I hear John's voice ask, he's on the other side of Jade's bed, looking just as disoriented as we do.

"Dead," Ross informs us, making my heart sink. "They didn't survive the crash."

I look over to Jade, finding tears brimming her eyes, her face so full of confusion and sadness, it makes me want to go over to her bed and comfort her, but I'm far too sore to do so, and too stunned. I'm feeling the same swirling emotions she is. I keep wondering how things could have gone so out of control so quickly, and why would they attack us after they were opening up? It just doesn't make any sense.

"Property is burned to the ground, people are injured, that pilot is dead, and you went to Wakanda without my permission. Agent Ross informed me of your little detour there. While you were there, more innocent people were hurt. You had a simple task, you were supposed to capture the children and bring them to me. But you couldn't follow orders, no, instead, you went behind my back and had the Wakandan princess make technology that didn't work, and now people are dead!" Ross yells.

Ross is never pleasant around us, he's actually pretty much constantly angry whenever we're around, but this is different. Ross looks livid, there is nothing but pure rage in his eyes and voice. I've never seen him like this before. This level of anger feels wrong for the situation we are in, he's acting like we just bombed the White House, not let a building burn down and lose three kids. His behavior feels oddly intense.

"We were just trying to protect them." Jade whispers, her voice thick with tears.

"Maybe next time you should focus more on protecting the innocent, not the guilty, Ms. Rosales, though I guess you wouldn't know the difference."

I see something snap in Jade. After facing Litvin, being in a plane crash, and learning those kids died, I think Jade isn't the mood to be pushed around by Ross. "Those children were in pain, they were angry at what they claimed your government did to them. They're kids, they had nothing, no one to guide them. Maybe we wouldn't have as many issues like this if we would try to help the people who need it instead of trying to imprison them."

"After what you pulled today you are on thin ice, Ms. Rosales."

Even though it clearly hurts her, Jade sits herself up on her bed, looking Ross dead in the eyes as she says as firmly as she can muster: "I am not a HYDRA agent, I am not some freak, and I am not a monster, Ross. I am sick of you treating me like the enemy. I am an Avenger, I help people and try to make their lives better, which is more than you ever do. You lack compassion and empathy, you always look for the worst in people and use their pain and insecurities to manipulate and control them. It won't work on me anymore. I will continue to be an Avenger because I want to continue to use my powers for good, but I will no longer let you bully me or my friends."

Ross looks stunned at Jade's speech and so do I. Ever since I've known Jade she's been very soft spoken and quiet, she's always had a difficulty talking with people, especially Ross. But I think confronting Litvin really benefited her. For the first time in her life, I think Jade no longer sees herself through Litvin and Ross's eyes. Every time they told her she was a monster or a murderer she believed them, but now she sees herself and knows who she truly is, and most importantly, understands that she's the victim. She finally sees what I've always seen: she sees a hero. I couldn't be more proud.

After a long pause, Ross says lowly: "Consider yourself, Wilson, and Walker suspended. You have a lot of cleaning up to do in Denmark, I expect you to stay there until it is all taken care of, I don't want you back in the US until it is."

Jade nods. "Until then, sir." She says, her voice still firm.

Ross stalks away from her, going over to speak with one of the many doctors scrambling around the room. While we have a few minutes alone, I keep trying to run through everything Ross told us. He said that the kids broke free from the cuffs and killed the pilot, which caused us to crash...but that doesn't make any sense. I know Shuri well enough to know that the cuffs she made wouldn't break, and from how the kids were acting and what they claimed their agenda was, I don't think they would have attacked the pilot or us. And the way Ross is acting...something just seems off. All of this feels off. But why?