Unexpected

Extremis Experiments

Blinking into the sharp white light above me I groaned. Oh, augh, what happened? My head throbbed to a steady rhythm, like I was banging my head against whatever hard thing it was laying against. I'd... I'd gotten into the car, sliding in right after Pepper, and I- I'd apologized to her. Told her that I was sorry. That I was going to protect her and that we'd be fine. Then... then I couldn't remember... there was a prick in my neck and I thought Maya had just grazed me with her poison needle, but then I got tired real fast. Maya had said that I should already be asleep, and... I jolted as my last memories blazed through my head, but I found I couldn't move.

I'd been sedated! I remembered Killian snapping an order to Maya to give me another dose and she had argued saying that that amount of tranquilizer could be potentially dangerous and he rebuttled that he was even more dangerous, and... I had struggled against her, but I was already so sleepy and Pepper was already asleep, the tranquilizer Killian must have injected into her having already taken hold.

Squinting against the intense brightness of the light above me I tried to look around. Where was I? Why couldn't I move? I lay my hands flat against what I was laying on, a mixture of cool metal and plastic rubber, and as I tried to sit up I felt the pressure of straps around my legs and ankles, my arms, chest, and wrists and even one across my forehead. Forcing myself to relax I tried to focus on sounds, on voices. There was a pair of male voices, and as I listened a little longer I identified one as Killian's voice. They were talking about tests, about Pepper's progress whatever that meant, and about the next phase.

Suddenly the light was lifting up and away from me by a silhouetted hand that gave me a flash fear of the shadow men that haunted my subconscious, but then the face of Aldrich Killian came into view, sharply profiled by the contrasting light and shadows cast across his features. His expression was smug, thoughtful, intrigued as he looked down his nose at me. I glared, clenching my jaw as I focused on him trying to ignore the dark dot in the center of my vision caused by the brilliant light.

"Hi." He said almost laughingly, "How're you feeling?"

"Where's Pepper?"

"Ah, I see you have your priorities. That's good. My father once told me 'priorities are decided in the heart and are seen in action'. A bit flowery of a saying in my opinion, but that's not the point." Killian leaned over me a bit, his conversational tone and posture irritating as fear started kicking in as I felt wires being stuck to my skin. "Pepper may be a priority to you, but she is also a priority to me. No, don't worry, relax, she's fine. She might not think she is right now, but she is. She's strong, she'll survive Extremis and when she has been made perfect she'll thank me. Now, you on the other hand, you're fascinating. That little display with the little flashes of lighting over your skin was impressive. No wonder S.H.I.E.L.D. hired you. Don't look so surprised. Your badge and personal affects right over here gave you away, Agent Copper. You were ready to take me down and when it seems that it took practically half a horse tranquillizer to put you out, you might have actually been able to cause some damage. How do you do it? Huh?"

I kept my mouth shut, trying to block out his voice as I struggled to twist my head to watch out of my peripheral vision as the invisible scientists attached more wires over my major muscle groups, the familiar sticky feeling from previous lab experiments making my body freeze up instinctually.

"Your device delivers quite a shock. We tried it on one of my men and, well, apparently his heart couldn't quite take it. Unfortunate really, but that leaves me questioning what it is about you that allows you to absurd and use such energy? I run a think tank you know, we like poking at things to see how they work. Understanding how you function like this could be very useful to me." He tried to goad me into speaking, into revealing something before pausing for my response which didn't come. He continued, "Extremis is flawed you see. Bit of an overheating problem. Your DNA could just possibly be a final link in the chain to perfect it, but we're not quite sure yet, so we're going to run a few tests, okay? Nothing too major, just a few shocks to see how much you can take, how you react, all that jazz. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some other guests to attend to. You'll be in the good hands of my friend here." He waved to someone outside of my line of sight and then he was gone and the light was returned to its original position.