Played by the Enemy || Captain America || Book 2

Chapter 13: Once I Was Seven Years Old

          "One thing I didn't lie about was my mother passing in birth, and my father abandoning me in grief. Although, I'm not too sure if it was grief anymore. I feel like everything I've ever done, has been a part of some sick, twisted plan he lay out for me since I was brought into existence. I've never been a fan of prophecies and fate; I'm more of a free-will kinda gal.

          "He did leave though. Part of me thinks it's because I look too much like my mother, and nothing like him. And looking like my mother would've just pained him in all the years to come, a constant reminder of the mortal woman he had come to love so dearly. There's a reason I look nothing like him though, and it's because of him. With the power of Norse magic, he conjured some kind of strange glamour or spell while I was still in the womb. Its intentions were to create me in the physical likeness of my mother and only my mother, for he had – has – many people who wish him dead, and if they figured out my connection to him, I would merely be used as leverage. If I looked nothing like him, it only helped keep me hidden.

          "Being his daughter and apparently the daughter of a mutant – don't ask, I only found out when Addie told me – seemed to partially impair the spell however. The spell was created for mortal humans, not mortal mutants. That's why whenever I begin to act like my father, my hair begins to grow darker, my irises morph into hazel – a mix of my mother's brown and my father's green eyes – and my skin brightens paler and paler. I've never completely turned, but there have been... close moments.

          "Having had no known official relatives, when I was abandoned by my father it was protocol to send me to an orphanage. So that's where they sent me."

          "I thought you said you didn't go to an orphanage?" Stark intrudes pointedly, to which I respond by frustratedly swatting shoulder. "I'm getting to that Nosey Nancy."

          "There was this... bus of sorts. One of those mini buses that have a maximum of twenty seats. I didn't know about any of this until the people who raised me told me of my younger years, as well as Loki who eventually had the courtesy to frequent my dreams as a means of contact. The bus had all the newborn babies and any kids abandoned at the hospital on it, as well as a small handful of nurses. All was well I suppose, upsetting, but well. But everything changed when the fire nation attacked—"

          "Shady."

          "Right right, sorry. I don't know much about what transpired on the road there, but I do know that the bus was ambushed. The nurses were slain and the children and babies – me included – were taken. I'm unsure where in America I was born, but where I was taken was not even in America.

          "Japan. One of the numerous, unnamed destinations found in one of the countless mountain regions the country has to offer. The people who took me originally came from the mountainous regions of Iga and Kōga, but have since spread further across Japan and even further internationally. These people, I had come to learn, called themselves 'The Hand'.

          "From birth their children were trained; playing kid's games made to impart skills and utter expertise in swordplay, camouflage, evasion, hand-to-hand combat, escape, and weaponry. They were practically the Gods of espionage and assassination; no one could rival them in those two professions. They emboldened spiritual growth by pushing each and every one of us mentally and physically beyond the normal human capacity. Some people are introduced to pain from an early age; others meet it later in life. Some people think they know how to control it, and inflict it upon others. Think they adopted it, under their own care. I was born in pain. I was raised in pain. And like everyone in my industry, I will die in pain.