Ice Princess

7

The next morning, Bruce could tell something was off with Mina. Not Mina pretending for something to be off for everyone else. This was something was seriously off. By midday, he called her into his office.

"What's wrong?"

"What do you mean? 'What's wrong'". She asked back.

"Look, I think I can tell when you're playing Mina and when you, Meli is having a bad day." The use of her real name shocked her so much, she checked the door to make sure it was closed. Mina shook her head and placed it in her hands. "I almost blew my cover last night."

"What happened?"

"I was out on a date having a really great time...."

"You were on a date? Well, that's progress and explains Bucky's mood lately." She just gave him the eye.

"Do you want to hear the story or not?" She sighed. "A weirdo, for lack of a better term, assumed a little too much and decided to pick me up and put me on the table. My date tried to be a knight in shining armor, but being blind, it didn't work on the stranger. The stranger wouldn't back down or let me go. So I, ...."

"Let him have it?"

"A little."

"Mina."

"Bruce."

"You know you can't be doing stuff like that."

"I understand, it's just that he was manhandling me like Bill and I snapped." Bruce knew who Bill was and her problem with people like him. "Not only that, I didn't get any sleep last night because not only I was worried about my cover being blown, but also the PTSD from Bill."

"Maybe you should take a few days off."

"No! No. That will be like a death sentence, I'll just ruminate the entire time and I'll come back worse than before. If you don't want Bucky digging into my past, then you'll let me stay." She was adamant about staying. "He's already been past my work station twice this morning."

"Ok, just pull yourself together."

"I'm trying to as quickly and as quietly as possible."

"Well, if you need to crash for a few hours, just pick one of the open rooms in the living quarters."

"Thank you."

As she returned to her desk, her cell phone rang. It was Matt, she set it to silent. Too much was going on and she needed a clear head to prep information for the team. Her personal life could wait. She downed her morning thunder tea and went to work. A couple hours again, her phone went off again. Again, it was Matt. She set it to go to voicemail.

_________

For three days, she was avoiding Matt and his voicemails and texts. Later today, she'd contact him, true she was avoiding him. Eventually she'd need to put her big girl pants on and talk to him but first she needed to finish this briefing. Finally, when she was done, she handed it to Bruce to share with the team. The team would be gone at least a week on this, so at least she wouldn't have to worry about Bucky for that long. When she got home, Matt was waiting for her at her building. Well, the big girl pants needed to be put on sooner rather than later. She was hoping to at least wash off the work day before she'd call to ask to meet with him.

"You've been avoiding me." Mina wanted him to be mad at her but all she saw was concern and it truly was breaking her heart.

"I know and I'm sorry. Some things went down at work and I couldn't be distracted but they needed to be taken care of." He could hear the exhaustion in her voice.

"Are you ok? You don't sound so good."

"Yes and no. I can't talk about things at work due to the NDA I signed when I first started working there."

"Oh." He sounded disappointed.

"How about we go for a walk?" He was a little upset she wasn't going to invite him up, but she leaned into him as they walked. "Where to begin..."

"At the beginning."

"I know you were orphaned when your father died and went to a church orphanage. Your experience and my experience were extremely different."

"Wait, you were in a Catholic orphanage, too?"

"Yes. Only I was dropped off after a few moments of being born. Growing up there was really tough. Imagine all the rumors you ever heard about the Catholic Church and young people were true and concentrate them into one place. Only, if you ran away, you weren't looked for. I could read at the age of 2 and could understand college books by the time I was 5. A parishioner noticed it and enrolled me in college, the college paid for it.... Let's just say the nuns and priests were thrilled with it."

"They abused you?"

"Yes. Physically, mentally, psychologically. They called me a demon and a product of the devil. They made sure I was never available to be adopted, they would do things to my friends to keep me in line until I just stopped everything."

"What do you mean?"

"I went to my classes and lived, but I just stopped being friends with those I was friends with. I didn't talk to anyone. I put up a lot of walls and I know I was hurting the others but they weren't being abused as badly when I didn't interact with them."

"It hurt that you didn't stand up for them any more, didn't it?"

"Like you could never imagine. It still hurts. I was fifteen when I was working on my first doctorate. I was waiting for the results of my thesis to be heard. Bill, a classmate, abducted me and hid me in his basement." Mina leaned into Matt more as if trying to sap some strength from him. "The nuns and priests were saints compared to him. He.... I'm sorry, I'm just so tired. Anyway, that guy from the other night reminded me a lot of Bill."

"How did you get out?"

"I almost didn't. Bill would drug me sometimes. One time he did and he sealed me in a brick wall. I was chained behind the wall and I could smell death around me. I heard the police searching his house. I couldn't reach the bricks due to the chains. I dislocated my thumbs so I could get out and I pushed the bricks out, the cement was still wet. As the light streamed in, I saw women in various stages of decay around me also chained in the wall. The smell was awful. I was taken to the hospital. I had an atopic pregnancy and lost one ovary from that, the other from infection. When I was returned to the orphanage, I found out I was missing for almost a year. No one looked for me. The beatings were worse than from before I was taken because I let myself lose my virginity. When I was 18, I got out and I sued them."

"So what's been happening between now and then?"

"Tons of therapy, different kinds of therapy, lots of meds that don't work. On good days I can get about four hours of sleep."

"And on not so good days?"

"My brain won't shut off, night terrors, so I do things to keep myself busy."

"Like never choosing a color for your living room."

"Exactly. But I finally did pick a color. I'm so sorry to be dumping on you like this." He stopped her and hugged her. As she hugged him back, she started sobbing. "I'm so sorry."

"You have nothing to be sorry about. You survived some pretty awful things. And it explains so much."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you were polite and fun, but a lot of information you gave when we first met was vague." Mina wavered a little as she was standing there. "Whoa, whoa. Come on."

Numbly, she followed him to his place, not asking or expecting anything.