Chapter Text
???
Ugh. My head.
I sat up, taking in my surroundings. I was in some sort of hospital room, I think. It looked like it anyway. There were machines beeping around me, but I was alone.
What had happened? What the fudge happened to my head, and how did it happen?
I couldn’t remember… anything. Anything at all. Not even my own name.
Dang it, okay, that’s fine. No need to panic, there had to be a reasonable explanation for that, right? Maybe I hit my head too hard. My memories ought to come back any moment. Aaaany moment.
“Dr. Grace.”
The voice came from the doorway, where a red-haired woman stood. She looked… vaguely familiar.
“Who are you?” I asked, my voice slightly raspy from unuse. How long had I laid there, unconscious?
The woman’s eyebrows raised slightly. “My name is Eva Stratt.” The name felt familiar, too. I knew this woman, somehow. “I work for S.H.I.E.L.D.” Something told me she did something more like running the place. “And so do you.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Me?”
She nodded. “You. Your name is Ryland Grace.”
Ryland Grace. “You called me doctor before. I’m not, like, a surgeon, right?” I wouldn’t trust myself to do open-heart surgery, but that could’ve just been from my lack of memory.
She shook her head. “You’re a molecular biologist. And also,” she pulled out a remote from her pocket and pressed a button, and a large television slid down on the wall. “San Francisco’s only hero.”
Hero? “You don’t mean…”
“That’s exactly what I mean.” She pressed another button, and the TV flicked on, revealing a superhero. A superhero in a yellow raincoat and blue suit with white web designs. The said hero was swinging around on what appeared to be red string, though my gut said it was actually webbing.
“That’s not me.” I said, but I didn’t believe it. Something about the image felt familiar.
“It is.” Stratt confirmed.
Not anymore. If I was a hero before, I certainly wasn’t going to be now. No way. Absolutely not. “I value my life enough to insist that that is not me.”
“Dr. Grace-“
“That’s why I’m here, isn’t it?” I interrupted her. “Because I almost died in some fight?”
“Well, yes, but-“
“So why would I go back?”
Something in Stratt’s face told me she didn’t particularly enjoy being interrupted. “I’m not saying you have to permanently go back,” she said evenly. “But there is one matter we need you to take care of. And once you find out what he did, I’m sure you’ll be happy to oblige.”
I still wanted to say no, but you know what they say. Curiosity and cats. “What is this matter?”
She clicked another button on her remote, changing the screen. “The media has nicknamed him ‘The Butcher’.”