Operation Frostbite

*PART FIVE*

She remembered the room. It was painted white, but it was peeling. With an almost blue light in the ceiling. There was no window. There were never any windows. She was four. Or maybe five? Hair in twin braids, sat at the single table, booted feet swinging lightly as she stared at the puzzle. She didn't pay any attention to the electrodes stuck to her scalp, or to the three doctors sat behind her. They didn't hide behind glass; this was their domain so why would they need to hide? She knew she was always being watched. To pretend otherwise was insulting to the child.

She moved the final piece into place, and she heard several scribbles behind her.

"Well done, Anya." One doctor sat in front of her; a female doctor. She didn't see her often. She said she was a doctor of the mind, she'd once said. She did different tests, and got agitated when other doctors or scientists tried to interject. She was called Dr. Hahn.

"They told me you were asking questions earlier. When you had your lessons?" She said. Anya's small green eyes looked up from the puzzle since its completion. She slowly nodded. "Do you want to ask me those questions?"

Anya licked her lips, breathing heavily. She heard the scribbling behind her stop. But one look from Dr. Hahn and she could almost hear to the others start to perspire.

Anya titled her head slightly. "They were explaining families to me..." Anya started, watching Dr. Hahn warily. The doctor nodded, leaning back in seat. Her leg was jiggling lightly, as she craved a break to go and take a smoke.

"Family dynamics and sociological concepts, with Dr. Ludwig?" Anya nodded. Before she asked the question she really wanted to ask, she asked another.

"Do you have a mama?" The six year old said, and took the doctor by surprise.

"Well, yes...is that what you wanted to ask?" The doctor peered her eyes, her leg still jiggling for the need for nicotine.

"Do I have a mama?"

This was the first time Dr. Hahn actively acknowledged the other doctors present in the room. They'd expected the questions years earlier. She glanced over at them before back at the small child in front of her.

"Yes. You do, Anya."

"Where is she?" The small girl sat up straighter in her seat, her attention unbreakable. "Can I meet her?"

Dr. Hahn sighed through her nose. "You'll meet her one day, perhaps. She's not here. She was once with us, but left. She left you here with us when you were born and she then turned her back on us all."

Anya hadn't expected that answer. She half-expected to receive no answer and a hit with the shock stick to remind her not to ask again.

She felt she would have preferred the shock stick.

"Now, I want you to do this next exercise as quickly as you can," Dr. Hahn changed the puzzle over and watched as the girl resumed her work, a slightly dejected look on her face.

8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8

"What we want to know, is how the child came into existence if the regular method of human reproduction wasn't used," Vision always spoke in a clinical and scientific manner, that it was the only way of reminding the over Avengers that he wasn't human. Tony blinked as all he heard was the voice of his old friend.

"Is she a clone or something?" Sam suggested, but Tony shook his head.

"No, F.R.I.D.A.Y. picked up two individual sets of parent DNA. Kid isn't a clone, though we're still looking to find out who the Daddy is," Tony chucked one of the paper files back into the box, taking a sip of the amber liquid. Shirt sleeves rolled up and the start of a migraine forming, he fell into a leather seat in the communal area.