The Deadly Nightshade | { BOOK 1 of The Flower series }

[07] Nightshade

Jade sat at the long rectangular conference table at the far end towards the hanging see-through screen that the team used to inform about any missions. She was in long white and dark camouflage pants and a white bralette top. Since Tony had left for a week, he asked for Rhodey and Natasha to take Jade and Wanda shopping for clothes and toiletries.

When it came to Jade having her own quarters, Tony had left one open, but the rest of the team concluded (to be on the safe side) that Jade stayed in a glassed wall cell instead. Jade actually agreed with everyone else, and since she was willing to stay in a cell, Tony allowed it.

Wanda was sitting beside Jade as Tony went through everything he had brought to help spark some memory for Jade. Happy was standing beside the Italian man, gazing at Jade with a soft look in his blue eyes. Jade's and Happy's introduction wasn't the most comfortable; it was rather awkward. When Happy first saw Jade, he cried in joy and relief to see that she was okay. He immediately brought her into a hug, and Jade tensed up, keeping her arms at her side.

Tony pulled out an old letter, sliding it towards Jade. "Read that."

Jade looked down at the letter, reading the first two words written on the old piece of paper. The handwriting looked familiar to her, but it wasn't strong enough to spark any kind of memory in her hippocampus. As she continued to read, her eyebrows furrowed together, not in thought but rather in confusion. She couldn't believe that this man in front of her was claiming to have raised her when he was barely in her life.

When it got to the last sentence, that's when her head started hurting. A faded, traumatising memory flashed through her mind. Jade could faintly hear her own screams as she was roughly banged against the table, someone trying to get a good grip on her before she was hit across the head with a baseball bat.

The last thing she saw before she fell in unconsciousness was a black skeleton half-face mask and the man's eyes. They were something she never saw before. The left eye was lime green, while the right one was a crystal blue. If they didn't have that bright sparkle lingering within the irises, she'd consider the male as someone who wasn't a child abductor.

Jade cleared her throat, masking her fearful thoughts. She was starting to understand who she was, and Nightshade didn't like it. She still didn't believe that her name was Jade. Nightshade didn't want her to. Alarms were going off in her head, telling her to reject everything or else something bad was going to happen.

It always happened back in Manchester and Siberia. Nothing ever good happened in those two countries.

Nightshade took back control, slowly shifting her computerised purple eyes onto Tony and Happy as she let go of the letter.

Happy's eyes widened in surprise. "Is that supposed to happen?"

Tony vigorously shook his head, his dark eyes flickering onto Wanda. "Maximoff, now!"

Wanda's hands glowed red as she was about to deactivate Nightshade, but the bionic soldier was faster. She used her molecular kinesis to swipe Wanda across the conference room. Wanda went flying, colliding through the glass walls, shards falling around the brunette before she crashed down over the loveseat on the small little den. She landed on the coffee table, the legs breaking from the sudden force.

Tony shot out cuffs around her wrists as she turned to face him and Happy. She grunted, trying to pull them off, but Tony had invented them when he took a week off. He was preparing for this moment when Jade turned back into Nightshade unwillingly. He was ready for this. He invented these cuffs to cut off the signal to her bionic chip, meaning she couldn't use any of her abilities.