CHAPTER 8

    "Oof," I groaned as I fell into the metallic arms of the Iron Man suit. I winced in pain. We were on the ground, I wasn't dead. In fact, I was standing on my own two feet, well, swaying. Before I fell over, Tony had emerged from the suit and caught my falling body in his arms.

    "Lana," He breathed heavily. "Lana why."
   
    "I just don't want to be what I am." I trembled. My voice was a hoarse whisper, I clenched my eyes and hands. So close.

    "And what's that?" Tony asked gently, when I didn't respond, he asked again, this time a little harder. "What is that Lana?"

    "Alive." I managed, a strangled sound.

    My eyes were distant, a slight, lost frown upon my face. My mind was somewhere else.

    Dead. I thought. Dead, I'm supposed to be dead.

    "Lana why would you do this?" He asked, his voice strained.

    "Dead," I whispered, my lip trembling, muddling my words, tears falling from my eyes. "Please, please let me be dead."

    I pushed him away and fell to the ground in a heap. I landed on my side and began to cry. Weak, I'm so weak, I'm supposed to be dead. Isn't that what happens to the weak? Living is easy for those who've never died. Living is hard for those who are supposed to be dead. Dead dammit.

    I pushed myself up until I was sitting on my shins. I looked up to the stars, suddenly my shrill voice echoed into the frigid night. A human and animalist scream of hopelessness that echoed against the mountain ranges. "Kill me."

...

    For the next day or so, I was put in a drug-induced coma to prevent any more suicide attempts. But it was okay, because I didn't feel like committing suicide. On the other hand I didn't feel like living either but that was slightly irrelevant.

    The state of consciousness that they put me into wasn't exactly fully unconscious. It just made my limbs heavy and me nauseous enough not to want to open my eyes or move. It was a smart drug. An interesting one, I wondered if they would let me get addicted to it like some druggie.

    Funny. That would be fun.

    They slid needles and probes under my skin, I memorised the quiet murmur of the doctors to the nurses until I had a pretty good idea of which one was which. It took several hours for them to finish their work and for the people behind the screens to take their lunch break.

    The door closed with a click and my eyes shot open. The drug had been administered once and since it hadn't been given continuously it'd worn off. I sat upwards, with some pain, I yanked out all the test probes. Sorry scientists, but these results were for me and me only, to know.

    I ignored the screech of the monitor and I dizzingly stood on my own two feet and stormed for the door. I wasn't sure what I should do, I was wearing decent clothing which, luckily wasn't a hospital paper gown. I had enough rationality to keep my head down when passing by the doctors.

    It was a SHIELD base. It took some time for me to realise. Quite large, actually, it had taken me five minutes to find my way out of the Infirmary Ward. Not that I was incompetent, just that it was a very, large place. Alarms began to ring and doctors pushed past me to get to the direction in which I had come from. It probably had nothing to do with my sudden disappearance I'm sure.

    Suddenly Gale was in my path, his eyebrows drawn into a frown. His arms were crossed across his chest. I giggled at his stance and his expression faltered. Something filled up within me, the darkness that had been clouding my vision had disappeared. Now, I felt very, very happy.

    "Gale!" I cried, suddenly leaning up and planting a sloppy kiss on his cheek. "Now, I'd love to say for tea and chat, but I have to find out the answer to a very important question."

    Gale stumbled in shock and spun around as I passed. Too confused to ask me what was going on probably. That's okay, I could do this by myself.

    I felt dizzy, maybe it was the remnants of the drug. But I felt happy, and that was the only thing that really mattered at this point. I kept walking, to the centre of SHIELD. I think I'd been in this base before.

    I got to his office without much incident, weird, the security was low. Some of the guards were just sleeping on the ground. Slackers, they should get a pay rise for making this so easy.

    The door slid open and I stormed into Phil's office, slamming my hands down on the glass table. "How many times has Morgan Freeman or Samuel L. Jackson played the president of the United States, combined?" I cried into his face, Phil sat back in shock.

      "What?"

    "How many times," I said slower. "Has Morgan Freeman or Samuel L. Jackson played the president of the United States?"

    Phil picked up a phone and answered a call. "Yes, yes she's here, yes in my office, now please. There's definitely effects. Uh huh."

    "You didn't answer my question!" I cried as soon as he put down the phone. Phil was tight-lipped. Obviously he'd never been in this situation before. Well, as a SHIELD director, he needs to be prepared for all sort of situations.

    Gale came in behind me, I could tell because the temperature dropped. "Oooo, it's getting frisky in here." I grinned suggestively, before Gale started to pull me away.

      "Come on Lana, we're leaving."

      "Okay." I giggled as he dragged me away. Once we were outside the Director's office I turned to him. Leaning in close, I gazed deeply into his eyes, leaning close. A question formed on his lips and I leaned in so that my nose brushed his skin. I trailed my hands delicately up his neck, the other one down his back. The sexual tension suddenly went from 0 to 100 real quick. My right hand trailed up his cheekbone as he leaned in closer.

      "Just kidding!" I cried, pushing him back so that he went tumbling onto the floor. With a squeal, I made a run for it, running down hallways, crossing my fingers that I wouldn't hit a dead end.

      Behind me, I heard Gale's angry cry of. "Alana!"

      I burst into a fit of giggles as I took another corner, slamming into a girl. She was thrown back a couple of meters in shock. She was probably about twenty, her brunette hair suddenly lengthened and turned blonde, her skin became paler and her cheekbones, more defined. Her eyes went from green to blue and lost the hooded shape.

      "A shape-shifter!" I cried in happiness from the ground as she picked herself up and changed back. Her hair became curlier and darker, her face rounded slightly and her eye shape drew down. I shuffled forwards and crossed my legs. "Teach me your ways."

      "I'm... Not that much of a shape-shifter." The girl drew out slowly. "I have different aspects of myself, uh, alter-egos."

      "Kinda like the Hulk!" I interrupted over enthuastically."

      "Yeah... Exactly like that." The girl managed a short laugh and nodded, she stuck out her hand. "I'm Becky Banner-Lokidottir. My other half is the Lunar Castor."

      "That's a long last name." I commented, shaking her hand. "I'm-."

      "Alana Stark but you can call me Lana cause I like you." Becky interrupted, my chin dropped.

      "You're a mind reader." I gushed. "That's so cool. Why couldn't you do my pysc evaluation instead of X?"

      "X?" Becky laughed, thinking. "I've never thought of that name for him."

      "You've met him?" I asked curiously, maybe she was one of his.

      "Well duh," Becky laughed, "hasn't everyone?"

      I nodded in agreement. "True..."

      I heard thudded footsteps and turned to see Gale at the top of the hallway. "Lana!" He cried angrily. I turned to Becky.

      "Time to go!" I yelped, standing.

      "Take my hand!" She cried, I took it and suddenly, with a whoosh of air, we weren't in the hallway, rather, someone's room. The lights flickered slightly but stayed on.

      "Woah." I said, feeling slightly dizzy, something I wasn't accustomed to. I wasn't usually susceptible to nausea because of my enhancements. Something they'd embedded within us when we were test tube bubbies.

      Becky sat down on the bed and patted the spot next to her. "So what's your power? I can't figure it out."

      "Well I can control this weird sand, dust thing that is literally death." I said, holding a hand to my forehead as I fell onto the bed. "It's invisible to everyone except me and a few others. Um, when people are close to their destined death, I see like a slight, black glow around them and when I maintain contact through eyes or physically with someone, I can see their forecasted death. Um... what else..."

      "What else?" Becky laughed.

      "Yeah, there's a lot." I rolled my eyes exaggearatedly. "Uh, there's like the superhuman durability, superhuman enhancements, increased healing factor, immortality, small telekinesis, high intelligence, SHIELD power pool basically, blah, blah, blah.You?"

      Becky nodded in understanding. "Well, alone, I've got increased healing factor and mind reading capabilities. When I transform into Castor or anywhere inbetween, because we can be like half, half now that we sorted everything out, I can do telekinesis, teleportation, mind control telepathy, and I know how to bend illusions and small amounts of magic."

       "Well we know who won." I laughed and Becky joined in. Being around Becky, I'd sobered up a little, sure I still had the urge to run around the base in a Deadpool suit screeching that I was the one who killed Bruce Wayne's parents but now, not as much.

      "So what's your story?" She asked.

      "Is that a Fault in our Stars reference?" I laughed, Becky shrugged and joined in. Once we sobered up, I put a serious face on. "I was the product of a SHIELD experiment to create clones of the Avengers, just without their weaknesses. So we were raised as super soldiers but Tony Stark, my DNA parent."

      "So your dad is Tony Stark?" Becky gasped, I nodded. "We're like best bros."

      "No way," I gasped, Becky nodded.

      "Continue." She cried waving her hands around and I nodded.

      "So he interrupted, pissing off Patches and so all the kids were sent to live with undercover SHIELD parents without our memory. I was with Thor's daughter which I didn't know at that time and we grew up together, her the more fawned over, the more precious one. Which was actually conditioning to avoid Tony's impeccable sense of self-worth. Eventually, because I was so looked over, I began to get into engineering and hacking, that kind of stuff."

      "Me too!" Beck cried and we hi-fived.

      "Anyway," I started. "I got into SHIELD's database, played around etc. but I was also making an Iron Man suit and that sent SHIELD after me. Tony, for some random reason, got pick for the job, I think it was because they thought it might've been a rogue Iron Man suit or something. He found me, there was this big chase and stuff. I lost, but suffered major damage, so they brought me into SHIELD and I had an arc reactor for some time. Then they assembled the rest of the kids and after a while, our parents got abducted by Thanos a really big-."

      "I know who he is." Becky interrupted. "I've fought with him before."

      "You are so next for storytime." I narrowed my eyes at her. "Well, he likes my mum, literally Death, so he abducted me to use me to get to her, and then after that, saved the Avengers, big battle, I died. After nine months got bought back, and now my life sucks." I finished happily, an edge of sarcasm simmering in my voice.

      "Well... If it makes you feel any better, I was bought back from the dead too."

      "Do tell."

      "Well, when I was little, Thor killed my mother when he was supposed to get to me on orders from Odin because I was Loki's child and a mistake, non-Asgardian."

      "That dick." I swore under my breath. "I hate him."

      "Me too. Well, Odin..." Becky nodded. "Anyway, so I was sent to live with Bruce cause he's my cousin and I grew up with his very abusive father. Bruce had the accident which turned him into the Hulk and he sent me away. I had a run-in with SHIELD when they were transporting the Tesseract and the actual Tesseract linked itself to me, trying to take me over and forming the Lunar Castor, so after that, I stayed under SHIELD imprisonment until the base that I was in collapsed by Loki's arrival. During the whole battle of Manhattan thing, I found out that Loki was my dad and stuff. All that happened. A couple of months after the Chitauri thing, Loki came back and kidnapped me out to this really remote place. He found a release for Castor and helped me and I accepted him as my father. The Avengers, who were kind of like my family at that point, found me and saved me but Loki died in the battle. They dragged me back to SHIELD base and in vengeance, I tried to kill two SHIELD agents and I did. I was about to be executed but the enthuasia chemical they gave me was sending off explosive reactions and so I jumped off the helicarrier to save everyone. In my moment of freedom, I thought about Loki and managed to teleport to him who turned out he wasn't dead and he was suffering torture under Thanos' hand. Lots of torture for both of us etc. very painful. When we did escape I decided that being close to anyone was a weakness so I temporarily erased everyone's minds to try and live out a new life. I got a job at SHIELD. Close to them. Went to work each day, watched them carefully. At night, I'd use my skills to expose, illegal and under-the-table operations. Being a whitecap still puts a target on your back and so SHIELD sent the Avengers after me. After a couple of months, I was accepted back into the group. Got abducted and brainwashed by HYDRA. Massive final battle with Thanos."

      "At a portal in Beaudesert, Australia." I finished. "I was there I think, or at least watching from afar." The memories were murky.

      "Woah, coincidence... But I died. Then SHIELD brought me back to life to deal with all of these weird suerhumans."

      "Do you know anything about that?" I asked curiously. "I've been kept from the details because well, no one thinks I'm stable anymore."

      "Are they right though?" Becky asked looking at me, her head was tilted slightly and her eyes were sad. I had to remind myself that she went practically through the same thing.

      "I think they are. I haven't been the same, I've been hurting... I even tried to kill myself." I whispered, clenching my eyes shut. "I've been egged on by my mother to stay for-."

      "Wait. They're listening in." Becky paused and looked up, a blinking red dot could been slightly seen. "Shoot."

      "Shit." I echoed. The door opened and Gale stormed in, roughly grabbing me by my elbow and dragging me back to the Infirmary. I waved goodbye to Becky who copied the action. She was being lead away by two SHIELD agents. "Goodbye dead buddy!" I cried.

      "Goodbye!" She called back. I laughed until I saw the angry look on Gale's face.

      "You've screwed up." He growled.

      "Calm down Mr. Grumpy Pants." I giggled. "It could've been worse, I could've run around screeching that I killed Bruce Wayne's parents."

      "Then ARGUS would be storming in, wanting questions." Gale grumbled.

      "ARGUS is the same as SHIELD silly." I bubbled.

      "You're going to bed." Gale growled. "You've got the gala tomorrow."

      "Will you come with me?" I gave him my best puppy dog eyes and he sighed loudly. "Tuck me in?"

      "Fine." I cheered and he dragged me into my room and onto my bed, tucking me in. Gale laid on the bed next to me. I began to fall sleepy.

      "You know," I said tiredly. "I don't like us fighting."

      "Me neither." Gale agreed.

      "But sometimes you're a real jerk." I scowled sleepily.

      "I know." Gale whispered.

      "But you're kinda hot." I whispered, my words fading.

      "I better hope so." Gale rumbled.

      I giggled softly and began to doze off. I felt Gale slowly untangle my hair with his lean fingers. He began to hum a song, and I would've joined in if I weren't so far from consciousness.

I wanna be a billionaire... So freaking bad....

Flip, that was one, jam-packed chapter. For the Becky fans, I did change a bit of her backstory but that's for the new update on TDA. I think the GIF is Nina Dobrev from the Originals, she's my depressed Lana tbh. Any other characters that you'd think would be suitable for Gale, Becky, Castor or like, anyone else?

On another note, I'm going in for a job interview on Monday so if I get it, I'll be able to get internet, which means UPDATES EVERYDAY. YES. It's also my birthday in nine days and I get my Ls in ten days. I'm gonna be driving around on the Aussie roads *distant explosions and screaming* ehehe... But hopefully there'll be a birthday update for ya'll.

I'm also trying really hard to get a job on the set of Thor 3 so... *fingers crossed* pls...

QOTC: When's your birthday/ how old are you?

Agent out ;)