Akrasia

Chapter 24

    Lainey cracked open her eyes to a blinding light. Slowly, after multiple blinks, her eyes adjusted. Propping her elbows on the bed, she found herself in the infirmary. Bruce was working on a laptop in his own zone, so he never realized Lainey woke up. Lainey just watched him for a while before deciding to speak up.
    "You work too much." Bruce snapped around towards Lainey slightly startled. He then responded back,
    "What can I say. This is the only thing I'm good at." His arms spread out referencing to the technology and science around him.
    "Is not." Lainey said slightly sympathetic for Bruce. Although, he didn't carry on, so Lainey asked again, "How long was I out for?"
    "Ever since you fell asleep on the Quinjet. You were sleeping for about 3 hours until I gave you some anesthesia. Then you were out for about another hour." Bruce explained.
   "Why the anesthesia. My leg?"
    "Yes. Technically I could've waited till you were awake to do it, but I thought the sooner the better. Also, I didn't want you waking up and freaking out in case you woke up during the process."
   "What did you do?" Lainey questioned pulling the sheets back to examine her leg.
    "Not much. I cleaned it once more, and instead of stitches I used a different method. It's basically glueing the skin back together. Your cut wasn't horrible, so I though stitches were unnecessary."
  "Oh." Lainey responded quietly running her fingers over the cut.
   "By the way. The team wanted to talk to you. They're waiting in the living room I believe." Bruce added returning to his work.
   "Aren't you coming?" Lainey asked standing up slowly to test her legs limits. Which were conveniently high.
   "No. I'm fine down here." Bruce said already getting into his work.
   "Okay. Don't work too hard, Bruce." Lainey added walking out. She shut the door, but then opened it immediately again grabbing Bruce's attention. "Oh, thanks for patching me up!"
   "Anytime." Bruce nodded smiling genuinely at Lainey's actions.
Lainey walked into the living room and found Bucky, Steve, Natasha, Tony, Clint, and Wanda sitting on the couch. They all watch her as she walks in, specifically her leg. No one was saying anything, making Lainey very uncomfortable. As a result, she awkwardly voiced a "Hello."
"Lainey, why don't you sit down." Steve said.
As Lainey moved around the sofa to sit down she commented, "You know guys, you don't have to be so serious." A nervous laugh slipped out of her because they're normally not so serious.
"We know why you take to being funny, so you don't need to do it." Nat explained looking into Lainey's eyes with dead seriousness. Lainey simply nodded her head in understanding.
   "We need to talk about the mission." Steve continued. Lainey found a sarcastic comment easily, by decided against saying anything until she was needed. The avengers were very serious at the moment, and weren't in the mood for fun.
    "Where's Bruce?" Tony interjected bored as ever.
    "He said he didn't want to come." Lainey replied. After hearing what she said, tony spun around to the others exasperated and asked,
   "Bruce doesn't want to be here, I don't want to be here, so why do I have to be here? You know what, don't answer that." He stood up as he went on. "You'll come up with this logical, long explanation that I don't want to hear." He shrugged. Walking away. "I'm out." He finally announced moving closer to the elevator. 
   "Stark. Get back get here now." Natasha yelled. Tony walked passed the countertop and grabbed a bag of blueberries. He spun around and continued to walk backwards. A blueberry plopped into his mouth as he replied,
   "The thing is, Romanoff, I don't want to."
     "Tony, just come back." Steve said at a loss of how to make this man comply with anyone.
    Everyone sighed in some way as the elevator doors closed with Tony inside them.
   "That worked well." Clint murmured earning a side glare from Natasha. Clearly she wasn't in the mood for fun, Lainey noted.
   Carefully, Lainey spoke up, "So what exactly are we doing?" 
   "We're going over the mission, specifically what happened on your end." Bucky responded.
   "Okay." Lainey warily replied.
    "All you need to do is explain to us what happened, and then we'll ask you questions. It's for the mission report." Steve stated.
   "Well. I guess I made my way to the base and went inside. Then I slipped the bomb into a center fountain. When I was thirty seconds in walking distance away, the bomb went off. Mostly everyone flew to the scene, even more so when you guys showed up." Lainey pauses to take a breath. "By now the hallways were clear of anyone, so I ran to the control room. When I got to the room, there was seven people inside. I ended up killing all three guards and I guess the four agents are dead now too." Lainey just now realized that sparing those four people was pointless because they died anyways.
   The avengers were slightly concerned at her pause considering she was staring into space clearly thinking about something. Quickly she snapped back into her train of thought and carried on. "Anyways, I was waiting for the flash drive to finish when Coltain showed up. He put up a good fight, I mean he was able to scratch me, which shouldn't happen. Of course I beat him in the end and killed him, but still. Eventually the flash drives got all the information and I ran out of there. Then tony blew that place up and you guys picked me up." Lainey finished explaining.
   "Once again, who's Coltain." Bucky asked.
    "Oh, well." Lainey paused considering if she should tell them even though she said she would. She decided there was no way for them to do anything about it considering Coltain was already dead. "I later found out after I could piece together my memories," she took a deep breath and kept on going, "That Coltain was the man who would torture me if I did something wrong. Which happened a lot."
   "How did he torture you." Bucky commanded to know.
   "I'd rather not say." Lainey replied quietly.
    "Lainey, How?" Bucky pressed.
     "In many ways. I mainly remember him just using knives. Otherwise he'd punch me or inject me with weird stuff, I think." Lainey explained softly even though she knew it wouldn't do anything.
   "How did you never notice. When you were at your old house why didn't you question all of the marks. You have scars from that right?" Natasha questioned confused as how she hadn't figured him out since a while ago.
   "Yes, I have scars. I noticed them, trust me. But I blamed them on my dad, that was my only option."
   "That doesn't make sense though." Clint added rubbing his chin.
   "I know. I guess the only reason I blamed them on him was because he would beat me. I didn't tell anyone or say anything because I was confused. The injuries I had were to large to be my dads doing. It didn't make sense to me at all, but I couldn't figure it out.I thought I was crazy, I'm not though. Or at least I know that now. I think." Lainey explained this all while looking down at the floor shamefully.
   "Why don't we ask other questions." Bucky said. He wanted to know more about this Coltain guy terribly, but he could tell it wasn't easy for Lainey. All he wanted was for her to be okay.
   "How did all the agents respond to you?" Steve asked.
    "Not well. Everyone watched me like a hawk. I think they were told about me being with you guys. The only thing that kept them from going onto me was the fact that I was an assassin." Lainey explained.
   "Then how did you set the bomb as the distraction?" Clint questioned.
   "I talked to this young agent quickly. While I was doing that I was able to slip the bomb into the fountain."
   "Mhmm." Clint nodded his head.
    "That's enough for now. Thanks Lainey." Steve said while he gave Lainey a weak, pitiful smile.
"Okay." Lainey responded quietly standing up. As she made her way to her bedroom she heard footsteps behind her. She knew who it was.
"You know, for once I'm glad that you followed me." Lainey said sitting down on her bed. Bucky was in the doorway at the time and smiled to himself.
"Why's that?" He asked shutting the door.
"I want to talk to you."
"About what?" Bucky sat next to her.
"Me." Lainey replied looking out at the city below them.
"And what about you?" Bucky had an idea of where she was going considering his thoughts after finding himself, but he wanted to hear it from her.
Lainey spoke very timidly. "Well, on the mission I wanted to kill those people, most of them that is. And when I did, I sort of-liked it, savored it. Does that make me - a bad person?" The words stumbled out not quite piecing together, but Bucky understood.
"No, not at all Lainey. It's normal to feel that way. Or for our situation it is. Just, just don't ever think that you're a bad person because you're not." Bucky explained.
"Okay, thanks." Lainey said, but by the time of her voice Bucky could tell he would have to work with her. "What did you want?" Lainey asked.
"Nothing. It doesn't matter. How's your leg?"
"Good. Just find actually."
"You know, you're very strong. You did amazing on that mission." Bucky stated.
"Thanks." Lainey said in a yawn. "I might go to bed soon."
"It's 4 pm!" Bucky exclaimed.
"So! I'm tired. And I said soon." Lainey added smiling.
"Okay." Bucky grinned standing up. "See ya squirt."
"Squirt?" Lainey yelled confused. "Where did that come from?"
"I don't know. I just said it. Deal with it." Bucky joked leaving her room and shutting the door behind him. Lainey just smiled as she fell onto her bed with a sigh.