SHE WAS GENUINELY EXPECTING THEM TO KILL HER. She stepped into the lab, expecting Steve or the other two to restrain her in some way, the others using some method to dispose of her, whether it be lethal injection, stabbing, or snapping her neck. She expected pain to some extent, something akin to the things she had done to others, and they once again, surprised her.

Bruce turned from where he and Tony were working in the lab, giving her and Steve a small smile, and Tony turned as well, though he only looked at Steve, pointedly keeping her out of his line of view, which was understandable.

"Hey, Cap," Tony greeted, and Steve, who had just finally gotten his face back to his usual hue, turned a bright red, looking down at his feet, and she didn't understand why he was reacting the way he was.

Tony, who finally acknowledged her presence, sighed slightly, giving Steve a small smile. "We needed someone to escort her, but I just wanted to say hi and to tell you to stop calling JARVIS, 'sir,' it's getting to his head."

She looked and found Bruce rolling his eyes and shaking his head at the back of Tony's head, turning to Steve who was still red, nodding quickly to Tony who was smirking down at him, and she had a feeling that there was absolutely no reason that Tony wanted him around other than to make him turn red.

With a sigh, Steve turned around and left the lab, casting one more glance over his shoulder, vaguely nodding towards her and Bruce, but his gaze was mainly trained on Tony. 

Once the doors closed, Bruce sighed, "That was just sad, Tony."

The younger man rolled his eyes, shaking his head. "Brucie, this is all about tact, you and your PhD's just wouldn't understand."

"Don't bring my PhD's into this," Bruce commanded, pointing a pen towards Tony who simply raised an eyebrow at it before plucking it out of his hand, Bruce sighing and turning away.

He sighed one last time, giving her a kind, yet tired smile. "How are you feeling? You've been asleep for two days, I hope you're not too disoriented."

She wished she could say she was surprised, but she wasn't, as she tended to sleep for long periods of time when she was finally allowed to after missions, and Bruce didn't seem to be surprised either, turning back towards the screen for a moment.

"Figuring that the serum has been completely flushed away, we're gonna run some tests and figure out what we're working with," Bruce explained, looking over to Tony who nodded solemnly, and she wondered what authority Tony Stark had in terms of medical care.

"So if you could just change into this gown..." Bruce said, searching around for the thin piece of clothing, Tony still fiddling with his equipment.

She nodded, reaching for her shorts and tugging them off, keeping her underwear on, setting it onto the table, reaching for the bottom of her sweater, tugging it over her head, freezing when she heard two shouts.

Tugging her sweater back down, she found Bruce and Tony covering their eyes, Bruce turned away towards one of the desks, Tony with one hand covering his eyes, peeking through his middle and forefinger, sighing and lowering his arm when he saw her sweater was still on.

"Bruce," he sighed, motioning to the older man who took off his glasses, using one hand to massage his temples before moving to pinch the bridge of his nose.

"Um, you-you're not supposed to just get undressed in front of people, it's not typically how you go about things," Bruce explained, waving a hand, not looking at her, "Was that not something that-that you did back where you're from?"

She shook her head, still struggling to find her voice. "I never bathed without another person to regulate the equipment and I never clothed myself without someone else there."

Bruce blinked. "So...so you don't know how to bathe yourself?"

She shook her head. "I would stand there and the shower would fill with water and it would do everything for me."

Bruce and Tony shared a look, their eyebrows furrowed with concern. She furrowed her eyebrows too, wondering exactly why they were so upset, and Tony turned to look at her, catching sight of her expression.

If she were under the effects of the serum, she would've been able to notice the shift, the way he masked his concern in order to make her feel more at ease. However, because it no longer had any hold, she only saw the face value reaction.

He raised an eyebrow, his lips twitching with amusement that, truthfully, wasn't as genuine as it seemed. "They not teach you how to wear a bra, either?"

"Tony," Bruce hissed, though one look at the man had him softening, nodding in understanding before turning back to her, "Though he has a point, do you not know how?"

She tilted her head at the word, trying to understand what they were referring to, and Tony cupped two hands on his chest, raising his eyebrows.

Nodding, she looked back to Bruce. "In my uniforms for training and on missions, there padding built in, if that is what you mean."

The two men turned back to each other, sharing a look, and she sighed, tugging off her sweater and grabbing the gown which Bruce had placed onto the table, putting it on before either of them could start shouting again.

"Bruce, why are all these pictures of the scans empty?" Tony asked, motioning to the array of photos that were slowly becoming less clouded, showing more and more.

"The serum affected the way the machines registered her body, it's extremely advanced and without anything to examine, there was no way of understanding what it was," Bruce explained, and the younger man looked offended on behalf of his machinery, but one look from Bruce quelled his building argument.

Sighing, he turned on his heel to look at her, splaying out his hands. "Jump into the tube, sweetheart, let's see what we're dealing with."

º º º

By the time all the tests were finished—she had brief flashes to the experiments that had been run on her so many years ago that she could hardly find the memories at all—the two men had full knowledge of what was wrong, though not exactly an understanding. Not yet, anyways.

"I'm really angry," Tony said, frowning at the charts in front of him, Bruce's expression no different, "We should've figured this out by now."

"We've just finished, Tony, don't beat yourself up on not being psychic," Bruce said, hardly looking at him, the two standing in front of the holographic, transparent screen.

She sat on the table, back in her shorts and sweater, her legs swinging idly as she sucked on a lollipop, watching the two work. Tony had handed it to her as a joke that only Bruce understood, she, however, was mostly enthralled with the treat, remembering the one time one of her masters had allowed her to have one, though that was too long ago to remember.

Bruce took a break from staring at the screen, taking off his glasses and rubbing his eyes, making his way over to her, giving her a small smile as he moved to lean against the table next to her, making him shorter in comparison as they weren't all that different in height while standing.

"Are you alright?" he asked, which he had been asking the entire way through the tests, and she nodded, same as usual.

"Are you okay with Tony calling you 'sweetheart?'" he asked, because he needed to get her to speak.

She looked at him and shrugged. "He can call me whatever he wants."

Bruce shook his head. "No, I mean, are you comfortable with it? Because you can say 'no' now, you realize that, right?"

She faltered, trying to wrap her head around the concept, staring down at her feet, her eyebrows furrowed. "I can say no?"

"You can say whatever you want," Bruce said, and he caught Tony watching them carefully, giving him an encouraging smile, "You're safe now. We don't control you and we don't need you to do anything. We're here to help you."

She nodded carefully. "Okay. I am fine with him calling me 'sweetheart," she said, wrinkling her nose as she tried to say the word, and Bruce smiled at her reaction.

She sighed, stretching to try and pop her back, feeling a sharp pain in her side, though it was gone as quickly as it came, not as strong as what she had experienced earlier that morning. "What is wrong with me?"

Bruce winced at her question, rubbing the back of his neck. "There's nothing wrong with you, there's just something hurting you. All we know is that your serum has implanted something that is slowly eating away at you, but you're stable save for that, which means it's something we haven't seen yet, not to mention that they've done a lot of...adjustments on your body as a whole."

"You can't have any babies, but at least you don't bleed every month," Tony called out, and Bruce frowned loudly at him.

She nodded in understanding, not fazed by that news; her masters had been the ones to explain it to her when she was older, and while she didn't have much of a say, she had already accepted it.

"Not only that, the serum did have long lasting effects, your endurance is similar to Steve's in that you can last for longer periods of time, it's just that it takes up more energy than it used to. We're still trying to understand what we can do to rectify the issue, but you yourself are not the problem," Bruce finished, and she wondered why he was so intent on making sure she understood there was nothing wrong with her.

There was much wrong with her and like it or not, she very much was the problem.

She shifted in her clothes, looking around before looking back at him, reminding herself that she was now allowed to ask for things, regardless of whether or not she deserved it. "Can I bathe?"

Bruce nodded, his eyes widening slightly, and she heard Tony begin to snicker as the older man cleared his throat. "Uh, yeah. Yeah, here, let's...let's go."

º º º

"We also have communal showers, but those are mainly used for after missions if we can't make it to our rooms," he explained, the two making their way back to her room, Bruce opening her door and stepping inside like it was his own room, which made sense as he had more right to her living space than she did; or so she believed.

He glanced towards her closet but didn't look inside, so she figured that she was meant to pick out her own clothes, reaching in and pulling out another large sweater and shorts, and he raised his eyebrows at her choice, seemingly filing that information away for future reference.

Clasping his hands together, he led her into the bathroom, and her eyes widened as she took in its space, then looking towards the shower that was lined with smoothened rocks to add a texture, the countertops made of marble.

"Okay, so you just need to press some buttons," Bruce explained, stepping into the bathroom with all his clothes on to show her, "This button turns on this shower head that comes from the ceiling. Pressing it again brings water out from this one that you can hold in your hand. Pressing it one last time turns on both. The left dial is for hot water and the right is for cold water, turn it left to make it warmer and to the right to make it colder."

He motioned towards the bottles that were set up on a small alcove in the wall. "This is your shampoo, this is your conditioner, and this is your body wash, Tony likes liquid rather than bars, so he bought some for you. You probably don't need conditioner since your hair is so short and it's not supposed to go into your scalp."

She raised her hands up to her hair which was styled to end where her ear ended, short and curved inward. She nodded as she memorized all he had said, looking at his still clothed form.

"And you take off your clothes, of course," he added, stepping out of the shower, making a motion towards it that, to him, meant that she was free to use it, but for her meant that he wanted her to use it at that very moment.

She placed the new set of clothes onto the marble counter top, tugging her sweater off, and Bruce shouted loudly, turning around and practically out of the room, shutting the door behind him, his words muffled through the wood.

"Rule of thumb, don't-don't take your clothes off in front of people. Please."

While she didn't understand why, she felt her lips tug upward in a smile.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

So this chapter was little bit of nothing, as we never really got an explanation as to what's wrong with her (or we did, just not as much as you would expect) but I think it was alright, it's a set-up to the upcoming chapters as we see more and more of what she doesn't understand.

I really wanna get this fic finished because, hell, I have a fic that starfragment is letting me write and I wanna write it but this one needs to be finished first, because the OC in this fic plays a huge role in that one, and we don't know her name in this yet, etc etc.

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed!