in deep water

"You're a special girl, Christa."

HYDRA Facility - January 2016

Like a storm falling as a dark curtain upon a black sea, silence fell. Silence that like before dripped fear.

Paranoia.

And unlike before... insanity.

In the room buried deep within the HYDRA facility in which Christa was trapped, Jin had turned away, steps light and mute. Christa's chest started to slow in its rising and falling, her breath becoming unheard in the silence.

Even her heartbeat was beginning to quiet.

And still those beads of scarlet continued to drip.

And drip.

And drip.

Until the bag was nearly full of Christa's blood.

And the girl's eyes began to fall.

A whisper in the darkness.

A flash of a face.

"My baby."

A tight smile, badly hidden tears.

But not on the woman's face, oh no. This face was blank, expressionless, unknowing. It was the one who held the woman's hand who was smiling, the one whose warm, soft one held the cold, pale one, the one whose eyes could only see blurs because of the rain that was about to fall from them.

The woman stared up at the ceiling, not seeing it. Her head was bare, smooth as water on a deathly still lake.

A gentle beeping sound was the only thing to be heard.

And then the woman in the bed started thrashing, agonizingly, bones able to be seen through the nearly transparent skin not covered by her gown and the bedsheets. The beeping began to skyrocket.

"My baby! No, they can't take my baby!"

She seemed like she wanted to scream. She was staring at something she couldn't see, something she couldn't reach.

Gentle hands reached out to her, trying to grapple onto and secure her, stop her from damaging herself without realizing it.

The woman still cried out with a throat raw and burned.

"I WON'T LET THEM TAKE MY BABY!"

Christa wanted so desperately to stop the woman, to stop her from hurting herself, to stop her from dying, because she was in so much pain and was screaming and she couldn't stand it, she couldn't stand it--she could never stand it--she could never stand her mother dying--

The woman was screaming, and then doctors began rushing into the room, and the sound of the beeping was skyrocketing, and it seemed like it was never going to stop--

Knives suddenly seemed to be pelting Christa's shoulder like bullets--

The woman was thrashing in her bed, and the doctors couldn't get her to lie still long enough for a needle to stop the pain for a moment--

A fire seemed to be burning Christa's face, but she seemed to be in someplace dark, someplace cold--

The woman's screams seemed like they were never going to end--

"CHRISTA, WAKE UP!"

And suddenly, Christa's eyes were wide open. In front of her was that face, Jin's face, the face of the one who'd stolen her from her home, who'd nearly killed Pepper, who'd brought them to this hell hole.

Christa wanted this woman to stop, to get out of the way. She tried to move her arm but couldn't and remembered the restraints she was held back by. She felt the fire on her cheek but then it started to fade.

"You're fine," the woman said. Her voice was soft and kind, a drastic contrast from the tone of what she'd done to Christa.

Christa stared at Jin's face for a moment before she noticed a strange warmth on her left cheek. She saw in her peripheral vision a flesh-colored something cupped around it, and jerked her head out of its reach, realizing through her slightly blurred vision that it had been Jin's hand. A shudder rushed through her.

"If I were fine, I'd be back home right now with my mother alive and not on death's door, eating a bowl of dry Cheerios together and watching Gilmore Girls," she spat back. "Also, it would be--" she coughed loudly "--freaking fantastic if you would stop grabbing my face, Joker."

A small, strange smile crawled up Jin's face. "Using fiction to cope with reality. Just like she would."

Christa raised an eyebrow, blinking rapidly to try and clear up her vision. "Are you referring to the Gilmore Girls bit or the Batman one?"

Jin appeared to escape her thoughts for a moment. "Why can't it be both?"

Christa snorted. Then she leaned her head back. Gosh, she was tired.

Jin began to walk away from the girl. "You're a special girl, Christa."

Christa didn't respond, just watched the woman step towards what appeared to be a smooth black laptop open in her hands.

"Genius level I.Q., swim record breaker, robotics team champion of three years in a row, human gifted with inhuman abilities," Jin continued, almost absently.

"How the hell do you know all that?"

Jin's eyes lifted from the laptop screen and met those of the girl. "Daughter of Tony Stark."

There was a sudden thudding in Christa's chest. She stared at the woman.

"Is being the daughter of Tony Stark what makes you so special? Tell me--do you think that to be the truth?"

Air scraping against vocal cords, words trying to escape Christa's mouth but stopping before they could come free.

Jin's lips tilted upwards ever so slightly.

"I know where you got the best of you from, Christa Amory. And it wasn't from a man with a metal suit."

Jin walked in front of Christa. "Of all the stories a person learns in their childhood, they never truly seem to include the histories of their parents. Of course, they might learn of where the parent grew up, whether or not they went to college... but the life of a parent always seems to be a bit of a mystery. Especially for you, Christa. And I don't think you quite realized that until now.

"Do you want to know your mother? To truly know her? None of the lies she told?"

Christa stared ahead of herself, not meeting Jin's eyes. Her face was set. She was trying not to let her emotions show. She couldn't.

"I think that's what she would have wanted, Christa."

Jin stepped closer to the girl, who was still looking away from her. Then she grabbed Christa's face in her gloved hand, roughly, less gentle than before.

"Listen to me."

Christa spat in her face.

Jin took a step back, seemingly disgusted. She wiped the stuff off on her arm, and then looked back at the girl.

The expression on the woman's face made Christa's stomach drop.

"Fine. I guess we'll have to do this the hard way."

- - -

Bound in cuffs. Arms held tightly by a HYDRA thug. Stumbling along the dark hallways once more.

Another room. This time a tad lighter, but not by much.

Another device to be strapped in--this time even more uncomfortable-looking than the previous one. It was tall, metal. There were arm and leg straps where one's limbs would have to be stretched out far to fit into.

And before this device--a screen. Black.

But probably not for much longer.

Christa felt herself get pulled towards the giant metal contraption. She felt her stomach twist with fear, and tried to pull away from her captors--but they were far too strong.

And then she was inside it.

The captors left, leaving just Jin and Christa in the room. Christa's chest was rising and falling rapidly.

"I'm sorry it had to come to this." Jin began securing the girl in more tightly. Christa gasped and winced as her left wrist strap was tightened, as the bullet wound in her left shoulder screamed in pain as that happened.

With a chill running through her stomach, kicking and screaming as she went, Christa felt Jin pull her eyelids up by metal clamps.

She couldn't blink.

Her breath was coming out sharply, roughly, as the woman stepped away from the girl.

"You'll thank me for it later."

Jin walked a little further back from Christa, out her line of sight.

There was a faint click of a button.

And then the screen lit up--all purples and blues and whites, so chaotic and graceful and beautiful and... hypnotizing.

And then a needle plunged into Christa's neck.

And then reality collapsed.