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"IT WAS HIM. He looked right at me like he didn't even know me." Mal could barely understand what Steve was saying, her mind a jumbled mess. She knew that Sam was talking, but she couldn't make out what was being said. Everything was so foggy, like a haze had draped over her mind. The bracelet around her wrist hummed against her skin with the energy she was desperately trying to disperse in her panic. She couldn't move her hands, the cuffs felt so heavy, weighing her down. Mal's head lolled to the side, looking at the masked soldiers, but their figures morphed into other people. Instead, they were faceless scientists, black holes instead of eyes staring at her.
"I gotta get out," Mal slurred urgently, her head suddenly whipping side to side, her eyes flashing green sporadically. Green sparks flew from her hands in an attempt to use her powers, but whatever they injected her with made her mind hazy and kept her just barely conscious, so she couldn't focus enough on what she wanted to do. They wanted to keep her docile and so out of it that she couldn't fight back. "I gotta get out!" Mal said again, louder, body jolting forward. She could barely make out the blurry image of Natasha in front of her, shoulder still bleeding. Mal could remember a man with a metal arm, a gunshot, and then Natasha falling to the ground.
Suddenly, Natasha's worried face shifted, morphing into something else, someone else. The new woman's blonde hair fell loosely over her shoulders, soft brown eyes staring directly back at Mal. Tears welled up in Mal's eyes, and she let out a quiet cry of confusion, before looking to her side. Instead of Steve, like she had thought would be looking back at her, it was another man. His curly dirty-blonde hair was messy on his head, a gentle smile on his face, looking lovingly at Mal. Snapping her head back to the new woman in front of her, Mal clenched her fists, nails digging harshly into the skin of her palms.
"Mom?" She whimpered out, causing the other people in the van to stop and look at her. Natasha looked confused, and a little heartbroken, not sure why Mal was looking directly at her and referring to her as mom.
"Mal?" Steve asked slowly, looking at her worriedly. Mal's gaze shifted towards him, frantic and wide as her eyes watered.
"Dad?" She whimpered out again, eyes scanning over the hallucination in Steve's place. Sam's eyes softened, looking at the broken version of the girl he knew. He glanced at Natasha's bleeding shoulder, and his eyes hardened again before turning his attention to the guards sitting in the back with them.
"We need to get a doctor here. We don't put pressure on that wound she's gonna bleed out here in the truck, and Mal isn't looking good either." He demanded, narrowing his eyes at the guard. Suddenly, one of the guards pulls out an electric rod, and neutralizes the other guard. With the second guard knocked out, the first guard removed their helmet to reveal Agent Hill.
"That thing was squeezing my brain." She said, shaking her head. Hill's words snapped Mal out of her trance, the hallucinations dissipating and leaving Natasha and Steve in their places. Quickly removing all of their cuffs, the metal devices dropping to the floor, Hill pulled a device from her utility belt. Using the small laser device to cut them an exit in the floor of the van, Mal felt Steve grab onto her and pull her along. She was hazy, and barely regaining full consciousness of everything, but she continued on.
–•–•–
The secret facility Hill had lead them to was buzzing with people. It reminded Mal of her job at the S.H.I.E.L.D. facility, working in the lab. Through her distracted and still-hazy mind, Mal's head snapped up when she heard a familiar voice calling her name.
"Mal!" Eve called out, rushing down the hall to her. Mal broke away from Steve, who was helping her walk, running as well as she could to meet Eve. The two crashed together in a hug, Mal's knee's buckling and sending them both toppling to the ground.
"You're safe," Mal exclaimed, the haze slowly lifting from her mind. "You're safe!" She shouted this time, a smile stretching across her lips. Eve laughed softly, nodding.
"You look like hell, M. Let's go get you cleaned up." Eve stated, standing and helping Mal to her feet.
"She'll want to see him first." Hill said before Eve could usher Mal away. The blonde furrowed her eyebrows in confusion, but didn't question anything as Hill began to lead them somewhere.
Hill takes them to a secured room, with a hospital bed in it. Pulling back the curtain, they can now see Fury, very much alive and lying in the bed.
"About damn time." Fury commented, and Natasha nodded her head slightly, relieved that he was alive. A doctor rushed to Natasha, sitting her down and beginning to treat her wound. Another doctor, a short woman with long black hair, guided Mal to an exam table next to where Fury's bed was stationed. Mal jumped up to sit on the end, wincing slightly as the doctor checked her over. "Lacerated spinal column, cracked sternum, shattered collarbone, perforated liver, one hell of a headache." Fury said, listing off his injuries.
"Don't forget your collapsed lung." The doctor who was checking on Mal added.
"Oh, let's not forget that. Otherwise, I'm good." Fury explained, and Mal tried to wrap her head around it all. She was there when he was shot, she saw him go down. She also saw him die in the operating room.
"They cut you open, your heart stopped." Mal spoke up, eyes staring over the doctors' shoulder and right at Fury.
"Tetrodotoxin B. Slows the pulse to one beat a minute. Banner developed it for stress. Didn't work so great for him, but we found a use for it." Fury explained again, and Mal almost didn't want to know who had to test that before them to see if it really worked.
"Why all the secrecy? Why not just tell us?" Steve asked, glancing from Fury, to Mal, and back again.
"Any attempt on the director's life had to look successful." Hill said, crossing her arms over her chest.
"Can't kill you if you're already dead. Besides, I wasn't sure who to trust." Fury said simply. Mal frowned, trying not to take his words to heart. After taking a sample of Mal's blood and telling her that she would be fine, if a bit drowsy, the doctor left. Hands gripping the edge of the exam table, Mal's mind raced, thinking everything over. But the one thing that kept coming back to her mind was the man on the bridge.
"Bucky," She whispered lowly to herself, the name easily fitting the image of the soldier in her mind. "His name is Bucky."
