It's Magic, My Dear

The feeling of Loki’s lips over mine still weighed down upon me. I could still hear his voice and smell his scent. It was a glorious lustre…

My eyes snapped open. I sputtered and gasped. There was something forcing its way down my throat and quickly my hands fought to rip it out.

“Tygera!” I heard a man’s alarmed voice beside me.

Arms forced my hands away and a plastic tube covered in my own slobber hung to the side. I screamed and growled, flinging my body against the arms that sought to hold me down. There was an acute ache that ran like a slip stream through my body.
I was alive!
I was alive?

“No, put that away. She will be fine!”

What was the man talking about?

Finally the ache came to a grinding head and exploded before my eyes in a mushroom cloud of sparks. Orange. Red. Yellow. And lastly, black.
My lips opened in a groan and again my eyelids rose to reveal white walls and two people standing by my side.
I looked around to find I was lying face up in a wide bed encased in shiny metal rails. One of the men looking down at me I recognised as Barton, who’d been at the facility in New Mexico.
New Mexico!
Jane!
My hand shot out and grabbed his wrist as I attempted to sit up and move from the confines of the bleach scented room around me.

“Hey, you aren’t going anywhere, Ebony.” He chuckled and pushed me back down on the bed.

I looked at him with nothing but confusion. “Ebony? What are you talking about?”

“Tygera…”

I looked towards the second voice and was met with a face sporting an eye patch. “What…is…going…on?” I growled through clenched teeth. Why was I alive? I should have been dead and I knew it.

“My name is Nick Fury. I believe you made a deal with Agent Coulson.” His hands were clad in black leather gloves and folded over on another as they rested over his lap.

Slowly I nodded not knowing where any of this was going.

“He didn’t give her all the facts, Sir.” Barton interjected, his boots shuffled over the floor.

Fury nodded. “The deal you made placed you as a valuable member of our team. A member we weren’t ready to give up on before getting the chance to have you with us.”

“No. Just no. I don’t understand what is going on.” My head dipped and I thought I was about to cry, but as the feeling began to well I felt it dissipate just as quickly. Just as if my body were rejecting the emotion utterly and completely.

“Your tracking device lead us to you in New Mexico.” Barton rested a hand over my shoulder. “When we found you…you barely alive.”

“We are called S.H.I.E.L.D and you are now a key member of what we do. Your skills were what compelled us to offer you a spot. Now, well, let’s just say you’re going to be doing more than heading out I.T Department.” Fury’s tone was sharp and concluded with a smart-arse smile.

I looked up at Barton. “What did you do to me?”

He sighed and scraped up a mirror from beside the bed. “Before we tell you, you need to see it. Ebony.”

“My name isn’t Ebony!” I shouted. Utter rage filled my chest and heaved at my heart. “Where is Jane?!”

“Far away from here.” Shoving the mirror in my hand Barton took a tense step back.

My mouth gaped open. Jane was far away from the place I was in and I had no idea what place that was. Pursing my lips into a strong line I gripped the mirror and as I cast my glance down the first thing I caught were the thick and pink knotted scars over the backs of my hands.
My breath caught in my throat.
Dare I look in the mirror?
Of course I did.
But God I wish I hadn’t. For staring back at me was a stranger.
My fingers tightened around the mirror and I sat forward examining the face staring back at me with the same expression of shock.
There were criss-cross scars over the left corner of my lips, still pink like the ones of my hands. I stroked the side of my face with my fingers. The flesh was cold. Another scar ran through my right eye and the eye itself…it still sends a shiver down my spine. My eyes had been grey with a neat circle of yellow around the pupil, but now my right eye that had been claimed by the fire was black and shone with a menacing glint. No whites could be seen for its liquid darkness.
Still my hair was its old lustre of black but now it sat over my shoulders and past my waistline. As I stared into the reflection my hands jolted with a whizzing sound.
“What the hell was that?!”

“Just your body adjusting to the modifications we had to make to get your moving again.” Fury replied.

“Modifications?”

“Yes. Your body was broken and dying. We had to replace parts of you with new parts which you can thank Mister Tony Stark for.” With a shrug Fury took a step back and looked down at me. “You’re brand new.”

“Brand new?” The words were a bare whisper. I guided the mirror down past my neck and saw the flash of yet another scar, this one still had thick stitches poking around from where the skin had been joined together over my chest. “I…I don’t want to see anymore.” Tossing the mirror aside I buried my head in my hands.

“It’s going to be alright.” Again I heard Barton’s word trying to reassure me.

“Barton is correct. You may not think so now, but you’re going to be okay.”

I drew my hands away from my face. “Where am I?”

Fury and Barton moved to the space at the edge of my bed and both the men looked at each other before Fury answered me. “Miss Ebony Night, welcome aboard the Helicarrier.”