ʟᴏꜱᴛ ᴄʜɪʟᴅʀᴇɴ || 𝟙

ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ 12

She looked at the glimmering rows of silver hoods, eyebrows knitted in confusion and apprehension as the rest were already seated, no one commenting over the fact that May was an unannounced guest.

"Are you going to get anything?" Peter pointed his fork at her empty plate while his was already stacked high with pancakes in a pool of syrup, scrambled eggs and three pieces of bacon.

"I...don't remember what any of that stuff tastes like." she whispered in realization. She could put a name to the food, like those flashcards they used in kindergarten.

A for Apple

B for Bee

C for Crow

She knew exactly what everything was supposed to look like but nothing about who taught her those words or when, how or where she had ever come into contact with them. It was like someone had rebooted with her the barest minimum of knowledge for she needed to function, but without any of its history.

Peter dipped slightly as he caught the plate that had slipped from between her fingertips, while the rest looked up at the commotion. Tearing her eyes away from the buffet, she stared out of the wall-high windows, blankly.

"I don't remember anything about who I am."

--

"What do you mean you don't remember who you are?" Peter asked over the speaker.

"I can remember who Nat and Steve were, that they were my guardians, but not how they adopted me or anything other than that. I don't remember my childhood. It's like everything else but them has been wiped clean."

This was the second time she was in this goddamned hospital gown that she vowed would never be forced upon her again. Her hands fidgeted at her side as she waited for the people on the other side of the glass to do their thing, although the smooth inner surface of the MRI machine was beginning to look a lot like the inside of a  coffin. 

"Demetria, you really need to stop moving or we aren't going to be able to get clear pictures." Bruce interrupted.

Grumbling, she forced her hands to be still. She hated this, being left as vulnerable as possible, helpless as the sensors seemed to take forever to scan her for any internal issues. 

Fifteen minutes later, she was dressed in her - well Peter's clothes - and waiting for the results while pacing the room nervously, anxiety reverberating from every cell in her body. 

"Well," Bruce finally returned, projecting a 3-D image of her brain in the center of the room. There was a certain out-of-body experience, literally, as she saw the glob of pink tissue that was supposed to be the organ that made up who she was rendered into a larger, holographic version of itself. It was, in a way humbling to come face to face with the one organ that kept her entire body in check. 

Heart beating. 

Lungs expanding. 

Nervous system firing. 

She glanced away from it, unnerved at the sense of vulnerability that suddenly overpowered her only looking back once Bruce began to speak. 

"This region of the brain- ," he zoomed into the hippocampus.  "- Is responsible for the creation of episodic, long-term memories and storing knowledge that we need to, well, survive. As you can see, it hasn't been damaged in any way, in fact the neurotransmitters are working perfectly." She watched the bizarre light show that was the inside of her skull as electric impulses passed between her neurons.

"The only thing that I can attribute to her amnesia is probably some sort of traumatic event that occurred prior to her waking up,"

"Is it temporary?" Peter asked, voicing her own concern. 

Was she going to be stuck this hollow, shadow of a person unable to remember any of her past? And what did that mean for who she was going to be in the future? 

"It depends. Some forms of amnesia can be permanent, others usually need a trigger for them to unlock the rest of the memories. I'm sorry," Bruce turned to her, his face a mask of regret that he didn't have any better news to deliver. "But moving on to questions that we can answer," he replaced the hologram with another 3-D rendition of her blood cells.

"I'm assuming they aren't supposed to look like that." she judged from Peter's expression as he manipulated the hologram, blowing up an individual cell until they could all see the faint tendrils of magenta electricity that was surrounding it.

"At first, I thought this explosion was something that she was born with but-," Bruce brought up another picture where the blood cells floated around lazily, no longer glowing faintly neon. "- I utilized Tony's quantum physics notes and with some help from Quill's space tech, I developed what I'd like to call the more scientific version of the Time Stone. I can't physically manipulate time per say, but I can take a sample of something, in this case her blood and make it "younger". You could say that I can basically see the history of her blood cells during different years of her life," Bruce's voice started to gain momentum, as he explained how it worked to Peter, who unlike her, was fascinated with this development.

"Well can you," she turned her hand like she was twisting a knob. "Find out when it's going to go back to normal?"

"Right," he adjusted his glasses. "I can't actually do that. You see the simulator is only able to see things that have already happened so there's no possible way for it to see what could happen because it hasn't happened yet."

The look of her face conveyed enough of her confusion and exasperation that he chose not to continue with the line of thought.

"That aside, this ability she has, you've actually had it since you were around ten but they were only activated," he fast-forwarded the simulation. "When you were around fifteen or sixteen depending on when your birthday is."

"Can't remember that either.," she mumbled, racking her brain for one of the most fundamental pieces of information of her identity. 

"What I'm saying is, that these powers you've acquired have recently only begun to manifest which explains why you can't control them. However, I still can't determine its source. The closest thing that I can think compare this to is Wanda's powers,"

Another sample. But this one was a bright vibrant red and instead of little crackles of electricity, these looked like waves of power that were embedded into the cell.

"Great. Infinity Stones again?" Peter threw his hands up in the air.

"I'm just saying that it's a possibility. But given the fact that they don't exist anymore, I just don't have enough data to confirm which Stone her powers could possibly originate from. I'm going out on a limb here and saying that these markings-," he pointed at both images. "-are unique to each Stone."

"So, basically the answers we got, lead us to more questions?" Peter groaned, while Bruce turned off the simulator. 

"That's science for you, kid." 

"Screw science. Let's get us some actual answers then," Clint walked in together with Bucky and Sam, Peter and Bruce turning to the trio in confusion at their sudden entrance. "Hey, it's a free country, not our fault that you guys up and left without telling us and that Tony installed cameras in every inch of this place."

"Where do we even start?" Demetria laughed bitterly. "I don't even know how I got turned into this," she stared at the palm of her hands wondering what other secrets they held.

"Like I said, the closest thing we've got is your fighting style. Seeing as you're Nat's daughter," his throat moved painfully, as if saying the name caused him unbearable pain. "It stands to reason that you must have learned it the same way she did. And there's only one organization I know of that makes people like her."

"I guess we're going to Russia then." Peter officially announced, clapping his hands together excitedly, the one only one who could possibly be enthusiastic about the idea of infiltrating the former training grounds of one of the most formidable spy training organizations in the word.