Not All Wounds Heal

Relocation

Working with the Avengers was never without risk, and you knew that from your very first day there when Clint came home from a mission with a knife stuck into his foot; even so, it didn't make you doubt joining them at all. You had been working with the team under Nick Fury's direction and supervision, having been a medic with SHIELD before it fell, using your powers to heal as a quick method of climbing the ranks to lead the department. When SHIELD was no longer, it made perfect sense to move into working with the group of people most likely in the world to need medical attention at any given moment.

It also made perfect sense to their enemies that you would be a wonderful target. You carried information that any adversary would want, and your powers would be of high value to anyone who could control it to keep their ranks at peak physical function. A few attempts had been made to get to you during missions that brought the team deep into Hydra territory, but they hadn't been successful in taking you yet; the team was fiercely protective of you and made sure that you had cover beyond the training that they had provided to you when you joined. The use of your powers on your new friends brought you close to each Avenger, and soon, you were just as much a part of their family as anyone. So when the attempt to take you finally found success, it created a panic within the team that reached Nick, who took the lead to find you without a second thought.

"How long has she been gone?" Fury asked in a near-panic, rushing to catch up to Maria as she made her way through the Avengers compound to reach Tony. "Any trace on where they took her?"

"She's been gone since this morning. No trace yet, but Tony's setting up a tracking algorithm from where she was last seen and any known Hydra activity in the area. He should have it up and running within the next thirty minutes."

Nick nodded along as she spoke as if he were barely listening to her, frantically typing on his phone as he kept pace at her side. "That's great, but I've got my own team on it too. I want to find her first, Hill. Make sure that happens."

"Yes, sir."

~~~

Three weeks after you had been taken, there was no sign of a rescue attempt from your team; you weren't about to give up hope, however, knowing in your heart that your friends wouldn't give up either. The Hydra goons who had been working on breaking you day after day were reaching their limits with you and growing increasingly impatient as their methods failed, and you worried now that if your Avengers didn't appear soon, your time would be short for this world. No matter what they did to you, and no matter what threats to your life they could conjure up to try to scare you, you would never give them what they wanted, even if that meant that it would be the end of your days once and for all.

The only time that you felt any chance at finding a little peace was at night, after they had confined you to your tiny cell of a room, it's walls grey and bare, their cold bricks leaving the cramped area freezing and without more than a sheet over your paper-thin mattress. You could ignore the chill away, soothing the constant shake and numbness in your muscles, but what you concentrated on instead left you more despondent with each day. You missed Nat and her taunting you into a spar that felt like a real life-or-death fight. You longed for a smartass comment from Tony, or Sam's whining for you to fix even the smallest scrape just to have a few minutes of fun away from work. Clint had promised to teach you archery, but this put a halt to that, and the meditation sessions with Bruce might not ever happen now. The more you thought about what you were missing, the deeper the pain in your chest felt and robbed you of the air around you.

"(Y/N)?" came a soft whisper from the doorway, convincing you immediately that you had finally reached the point of hallucinations. It was a voice that couldn't happen, not anymore, and you tried desperately to block it from your mind to hold on to yourself. You curled up and stayed facing away, terrified that if you looked towards what you thought you heard, it would only prove your insanity. "(Y/N), I'm here."