Flawed Minds

Chapter Four

Avengers - P.O.V

Steve paced up and down in the surveillance room, watched closely by Nat and Clint who were sat in chairs by the desks. Tony and Bruce had disappeared to one of the labs a little while before, studying the sample of blood in peace, even more intrigued and concerned after Steve had told them what Nova had been through.

"Cap, you do know it's not illegal to sit down for a minute, right?" Clint asked with a laugh. Steve sighed but stopped pacing, instead opting to lightly tap his foot.

"I know," He responded, then looked at the screens showing Thor lifting the unconscious Nova into her chair. "I just hate seeing people suffer, it's worse because there's nothing I can do about it." Natasha nodded slowly, highly aware of Steve's sympathetic nature. They didn't have too much longer to wait before Tony and Bruce entered the room with test results, also holding onto a microscope. After carefully placing it down on the desk they gestured to each of them to look into it as Bruce spoke.

"Well, the blood tests came back with nothing to suggest there's anything physically wrong with her apart from being malnourished and a bit anemic, and we still have no idea why her eyes aren't a normal color," He began. "But we did find some other interesting results."

"What's going on here?" Nat asked as she looked through the microscope, seeing normal red blood cells with unusual gold and blue particles floating around with them.

"That's where it gets interesting," Tony stated with a hint of excitement. "That was a shock to see in someone's blood that's for sure, but going down to a molecular level, we had FRIDAY compare their composition to our whole database and the one it was most similar to was what's in your super soldier serum, Capsicle." He tapped Steve on the arm, who raised his eyebrows.

"They're still trying to recreate it?" He asked, and Tony responded with a shrug.

"They must have had old incomplete data to work on from you and 'Manchurian Candidate'" He scoffed lightly at his clever nickname for Barnes, thinking he should come up with another. "It's not exactly the same, just similar. But that at least explains how she's survived this long." During the discussion, none of them had noticed Thor had left the cell and was standing right outside the door listening to them talk, focusing on the lack of physical causes for Nova's problem and thinking intently about something that had popped into his head not five minutes ago, slowly forming an idea in his head. He opened the door and they all turned to find him peeking through the doorway.

"I figured Lady Nova would be just fine on her own for a moment. And no need to start over, I heard all of that, very interesting!" He gave a thumbs up. "Rogers, a word?" Steve was confused at the unusual way Thor was acting, met Nat's eyes and she just raised her eyebrows. Pushing away from the desk he was leaning on he followed Thor out the door, shutting it behind him. They got halfway down the hallway when Thor stopped and turned to Steve, taking a breath and pausing, as though uncertain if he should speak, but then lowered his voice. "What are you going to do now that you know it is not a physical problem with the girl?"

"What do you mean?" Steve responded with a question of his own, curious about why he was acting strangely.

"I mean what if the problem with her abilities lies in her mind?" Thor asked, replacing Steve's puzzled expression with one of slow realization.

"You mean psychological?" He responded. "Actually I hadn't thought of that," Running a hand through his hair and exhaling, he thought for a moment. "We could try contacting Wanda again, but we still haven't heard from her or Vision for a few months now, so that's not a certain option." Thor shuffled his feet and Steve looked up at him, noticing his unusual demeanor. "What's wrong?"

"Well..." Thor began, making Steve suspicious. "I do know of another who has good knowledge of getting inside people's heads." The Captain thought for a moment before finally putting the pieces together.

"No," He snapped. "Not a chance." He turned and started to walk back to the surveillance room but Thor caught him by the arm.

"At least take a moment to hear what I have to say!" He exclaimed, Steve shook his head and swung round to face him again, yanking his arm out of his grip.

"Let me get this straight. You want to bring that maniac back to Earth?" Thor began to protest but he was ignored. "How do you expect us to trust him not to scramble her brain even more, or escape and wreak even more havoc in New York? Do you think the others would agree to that?" Silence. Steve sighed. "I don't think I can trust him, Thor." He began to walk away again.

"If this is a problem with her mind, he may be the only option Captain." Thor spoke at a normal volume, before returning to the cell to check on Nova. Steve did not want to admit it but he couldn't shake the feeling that the God of Thunder could be right. Loki could possibly get into Nova's head and fix or find out whatever is causing her to be so out of control, but the risks were too high; what if he hurt her more instead? What if he escaped? What if he decided on a whim to destroy New York again? The main thought in Steve's head as he walked back to the rest of the team was that you could never trust a trickster. But a smaller part of his mind was telling him that they might just have to. Pushing open the door, he realized he'd walked into another argument and sighed, a little exasperated; 'I'm too old for this,' he thought to himself.

"But if there's 'nothing physically wrong with her' what are we even doing here arguing?" Tony asked, throwing his hands in the air in annoyance. Clint was sitting looking from one to the other, nodding and murmuring as though he was agreeing with the scientist's points in an attempt to make Nat laugh, who was sitting with her head in her hand looking fed up with the whole situation. "We can't even see anything wrong with her with these results!"

"Yes but that doesn't mean there's nothing wrong with her- I mean look at her!" Bruce responded, gesturing wildly at the screens. "Those were just blood results- there must be something or she wouldn't be here, sparks everywhere, looking like Thor's cousin!" Nat, who noticed his anger rising, stood and placed a hand on Bruce's shoulder, calming him almost immediately. Taking a breath he continued. "We don't even have the full picture- we can't get anywhere near her to get any scans so we don't know for sure." Steve glanced over to the screens that showed Nova and Thor now sat side by side with their backs against the glass talking about something and let out a deep sigh, considering to himself that he may regret what he was planning to say.

"Have either of you considered that she could be affected this way because of something in her mind?" He stepped forward, interrupting Tony and Bruce's argument.

"Actually no," Bruce started after a long pause. "We didn't think of that." He looked at Tony who shrugged.

"You think there could be a psychological reason for this?" Nat interjected, intrigued. "Something like a mental block on her ability to control it- or even something she can't remember?" Steve nodded, then Clint spoke up.

"If I were her I wouldn't be able to focus on fixing my brain if I was getting fried every two minutes."

"Exactly what I was just thinking," Tony spoke up. "She could probably use a little help remembering anyway- If we had Wanda that would make things much easier but no one's heard from her for what? Two, three months?"

"We could try contacting her again, but..." Clint trailed off with a shrug, correct in thinking they probably wouldn't be able to get to her. Steve internally groaned, really not wanting to say the next sentence he had in mind.

"We do technically have another option." All eyes turned to Steve.

"Please, do enlighten us, Rogers," Tony scoffed.

"Wanda isn't the only person we know who is good at getting inside people's heads." Steve stared Tony straight in the eye, waiting for the pin to drop. Suddenly Tony's face changed.

"NO."