Flawed Minds

Chapter Ten

AVENGERS P.O.V

The next few days were interesting for the team; at some point during the day, often at multiple times, One of them would find Nova wandering around the building and would offer to show her the way back. She never stayed in one room on her own for long which they quickly found out, but it made sense to them; if you'd experienced what she had, you wouldn't like being in one room alone for very long either. Nova would often wear exclusively black (thanks to Natasha's choice for her wardrobe) and the only time the team saw her without the emerald necklace was when she was training, during which she would entrust Steve to look after it.

Quite a few times during her wanderings around the tower, to her curiosity, Nova would often see a man with a silvery looking arm, but he would always end up disappearing into a room or seemingly into thin air. That man on the other hand, was avoiding Nova, worried that his experiences with Hydra would make her even more uncomfortable, especially since Bucky was still uncertain that he had complete control over himself.

Early on in her adventures, Nova found herself outside Tony's lab, who himself was quite surprised to find her down there when he opened the door to leave.

"Hey Nova," He greeted, raising an eyebrow. "I have no idea how you got down here, but to be honest it suits me- saves me coming to find you. I wanted to talk to you about the device Hydra implanted into your neck." Nova stiffened at the name but agreed to come in and talk.

"Were you able to find out what it was..?" She asked distractedly, looking around at all the equipment in awe; Tony's ego grew a little more at her obvious interest in all of his tech, and didn't even complain when she delicately lifted things to look at them properly.

"Yes and no," He replied as he placed a small silver device on the table next to her. "We don't know what it's called, but we do know how it works and what it does, the mechanism should activate in a few seconds." She examined it with wide eyes; her purple irises had taken a little while to get used to, Clint had begun to affectionately refer to her as 'creep', and she was utterly delighted to be given her first nickname. A thin, needle-like piece of metal suddenly shot out of the device, causing Nova to jump slightly before looking up at Tony in confusion.

"That was in my neck?" She asked, concerned, and he lifted it up, turning it around in his hands as she watched.

"Yes, this piece of tech was actually infused to your spine- let me tell you it took ages to detach it without damaging you badly. You're welcome. Anyway, they were manipulating your nervous system every time this point shot out, causing your seizures." He set the device down and then lifted a pipette full of a familiar blue liquid and squeezed out a few drops onto the metal. A few moments later, the sharp point retracted back into the device. "When you were injected with this serum, sensors in this device detected it in your blood, removing that little needle and stopping your seizures. Simple." Nova scratched her head, a little overwhelmed.

"Maybe to you, you're all brains," She mumbled. "I had that in my body and I had no idea it was doing that to me..." She trailed off, a slightly horrified expression on her face, and Tony quickly tried to think of something else to talk about, not wanting her to feel uncomfortable.

"Well, I know you don't like talking about it but at some point we'd like to know everything you can remember about Hydra's plans," He picked up the small device and placed it in a metal case for further tests later. "For now though, all you need to worry about is seeing if your abilities have changed at all. And then, training should be pretty fun to witness," He gave her a wink, envisioning an electrical blast knocking Cap on his ass with a laugh, and Nova couldn't help but smile in return. They walked to the doors of Tony's lab and exited; He was about to ask if she could remember her way back, when Clint came bounding down the stairs.