Stolen Choices

Cindered Conscience

As you paced your penthouse apartment and took in all of the luxurious surroundings the only thing emotion that you could feel was disgust. While you never wanted this life and all of the things that came with it you still utilized everything and it made you sick. Every arrangement made to this point was made in your best interest, or so it was said. Your finishing school and all of your training to be the perfect subject. The perfect prize, the perfect specimen to walk hand in hand to every ball, auction, or meeting by his side.

You were orphaned at a young age and your cruel uncle found a lucrative interest in you and your beauty. While you thought you were just ordinary with all of your other attributes to the blue blood and your education you were the purebred partner. He protected you at great cost and kept you under lock and key to maintain every bit of pureness; then you were handed off to a finishing school and so on. At 18 you were auctioned off to the highest bidder, your current, and only husband. To you utter delight he was in hiding and you refused to follow but in your solitude, you found...secrets. Many many secrets. You knew that your time away from Henry would be short-lived and this was your chance to finally be free from him and his HYRDA affiliates. During his extended leave you had found a vast collection of information on the empire and while you knew he was into the life in the underworld you had no idea how deep it went. The images were burned into your brain and you were determined to help in whatever way that you could. There were too many innocent lives that had been murdered and killed. How could you stand by? You were ashamed that you had never tried to find out before but he was always there, lurking with a heavy hand.

You were ashamed to say that you were also hopeful that with everything that you were going to give them they would be more than willing to give you a new life. It was an easy decision, right? The problem was this was the first decision that was ever truly yours.

You paced your room even considering the risk of leaving the safety of the suite. Although you knew that whether you stayed in your fabricated fortress of solitude or left the walls, you husband Henry could gain access to you either way and then the abuse would begin again. For now, you served a purpose with the other wives and partners; to maintain appearances in the absence of those who were elsewhere working for the cause. You felt the bile rise up and knew.

You grabbed the hard drive and went down to the garage and took toward the Stark tower, praying that you had enough of a head start ahead of your bodyguards. With your nerves going haywire and your heart beating you knew you had to drive like the devil through the city to have any chance. You wove in and out of traffic knowing that you would never escape but clinging to the little bit of hope that this was your only chance and it just had to work.

The intercom in your car went off. "Mrs. Abbott, please stop. There is nowhere to go!" You cut off the coms and knew as you approached the tower that you would never be able to run inside. The benefit of Henry being a tyrant is that there was no way your guards had informed him that you were on the run if so they knew they would be dead before dawn. You began honking the horn and people scattered about as you crashed through the front glass wall. Stark employees came running over but you couldn't hear what they said before the abyss claimed you.

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You awoke to a soft-spoken man with dark hair who called for Tony and Fury to come in to see the new patient. From what he said his name was Dr. Banner and he was kind and timid and you felt at ease in his presence. That was swiftly exchanged for solid testosterone when Stark and Fury entered the room to your silent objection.