Chapter 9: The Unforeseen Side Effect
The first sensation was the absence of pain.
It was so profound it felt like a new kind of agony. Sage floated in a numb, weightless twilight, aware only of a soft hum and a clean, cool dryness against her skin. No ache in her joints.No raw, burning shame between her legs. No gnawing hollow in her gut.It was terrifying.Pain had been her anchor, her map. Without it, she was adrift.Sound seeped in next.A steady, rhythmic beep. The faint, whisper-quiet venting of air.A low, electronic thrum from somewhere beneath her.Then smell. Not mildew, sweat, or blood. Antiseptic, yes, but undercut with a scent like rain on hot pavement and… burnt almonds?It was artificial, engineered.Her eyes opened. The light was muted, indirect, glowing from seamless panels in a ceiling that curved like the inside of a spaceship. She was lying on a surface that conformed to her body, not a cot or a couch, but something that felt alive and responsive.A thin, silvery blanket covered her. She was wearing a simple gray medical gown, soft and unfamiliar.
Panic, her oldest companion, arrived right on schedule. She tried to sit up, her muscles responding with a shaky, weak protest.Monitors to her left chirped a gentle alert.“Whoa there. Easy.”
The voice was male, casual, coming from her right. She jerked her head toward it, too fast, making the room swim.Tony Stark leaned against a translucent console, arms crossed, watching her. He wasn’t in a lab coat. He wore dark jeans and a faded band t-shirt, looking like he’d wandered in from a garage sale. His eyes, however, were sharp, missing nothing.“Where am I?” Her voice was a rusted hinge.“My place. Well, the basement. The fancy medical basement.” He pushed off the console and came closer, but stopped at a respectful distance.“You’ve been out for about thirty-six hours. We pumped you full of enough electrolytes and vitamins to revive a fossil. How do you feel?”
She ignored the question, her eyes darting around the impossibly clean, high-tech room. “Where are they?”
“The grim reaper and the devil’s advocate?Lounge.I banned them. Figured you’d prefer a less… charged atmosphere for your wake-up call.”
Her breath came quicker. The beeping monitor kept pace.“They drugged me. He drugged me.”
“They did,” Tony said, his tone losing its flippant edge.“On my advice. You were shutting down, Sage.Your body was eating its own wiring. It wasn’t a suggestion.”
She remembered Frank’s hands, the cold swab, the pinch, the drowning sensation.The betrayal. She focused on that feeling.It was better than the numbness. “I want to leave.”
“Can’t do that.”
“You can’t stop me.”
“Actually, I really can.” He gestured vaguely at the room.“But I won’t. Because you can’t walk yet. Seriously, try standing up.”
She gritted her teeth and tried to swing her legs over the side of the bed.Her head spun violently, a black tide washing over her vision. She slumped back, panting.The monitor beeped faster.
“See?” Tony said, not unkindly.“The body has a vote. And right now, it’s voting for more fluids and maybe some organic, free-range kale slurry. My chef makes a terrifyingly good one.”
She closed her eyes, humiliation warming her cheeks.Trapped again. A nicer cage, but a cage.“Look,” Tony’s voice softened.“I get it. You’ve been handed from one set of controlling hands to another. Trust is a currency you’re fresh out of.I’m not asking for trust.I’m asking for a temporary truce. Let me get you back on your feet. Then you can storm out of here and curse my lineage, deal?”
She opened her eyes, studying him. His posture was relaxed, but his eyes held a focused intensity.He wasn’t looking at her with pity, or hunger, or clinical detachment. He looked… curious.And concerned, in a practical, problem-solving way.
“Why?” she whispered.“Couple reasons.One, I hate bullies.What happened to you? That’s bully behavior on a metaphysical level.Two, your bio-signatures are… fascinating. In a totally non-creepy, scientific appreciation way.” He saw her expression and held up his hands. “Kidding.Mostly. The main reason is you’re a person who got turned into a tool. I have a thing about that.”
Something in his tone, a vulnerability he covered too quickly, resonated in the hollow place inside her.She didn’t trust him. But she didn’t not trust him either.“The kale slurry sounds awful,” she said finally.
A grin spread across his face.“It’s an acquired taste. Like listening to Nickelback.”
The next few days passed in a strange, quiet rhythm.Tony was a constant, but never an oppressive, presence. He brought her the dreaded nutrient shakes, which were actually palatable, and cups of tea that seemed to subtly shift in blend based on her vitals. He explained the machines monitoring her in a rapid-fire, jargon-filled way that was somehow less intimidating than hushed solemnity.He also gave her space. When the nightmares came—not dreams, but full-body memories that seized her in the sterile quiet—the lights would gently brighten and a soft, orchestral piece she didn’t recognize would filter into the room, a sonic anchor to drag her back.
One afternoon, she was sitting propped up in the med-bed, tracing the pattern of circuits embedded in the wall, when he entered holding a sleek, matte-black tablet.
“So, your blood work is officially weirder than my weekend hobbies,” he announced, pulling up a floating holographic chart. “Those pharmacopoeia jerks pumped you full of a custom neuro-inhibitor. Designed to suppress executive function and heighten suggestibility. It also had a side effect of dampening your… let’s call it your extracurricular output.”
Her throat tightened.“My magic.”
“Right.That. The good news is it’s flushing out.The bad news is the flush is triggering some withdrawal symptoms. Night sweats, tremors, emotional volatility.” He swiped the chart away. “Also, your ‘extracurricular output’ is starting to… reboot. We’re registering elevated thermal pockets and minor EM field distortions around you. Mostly when you sleep.”
She looked down at her hands, resting on the silver blanket.They looked ordinary.Pale, thin, the nails chewed to the quick. She couldn’t feel anything simmering beneath the skin.Just emptiness. “I can’t feel it.”
“It might be scared,” Tony said, matter-of-factly. “You went through a trauma.It’s part of you. It probably hunkered down in the bunker.”
The metaphor was so absurd it almost made her smile.Almost. “You talk about it like it’s a pet.”
“I talk about everything like it’s a slightly malfunctioning AI. It helps.” He set the tablet down.“Want to try something?Not fireworks. Just… a pilot light.”
She was immediately wary. “What kind of something?”
He walked over to a cabinet and retrieved a simple, clear glass paperweight. He placed it on a rolling tray and pushed it toward her bed.“Warm it up.”
She stared at the orb. “I told you, I can’t feel anything.”
“Humor me. Don’t try to summon hellfire.Just… remember what warm feels like.The sun on your skin. A mug of tea in your hands. That feeling in your chest when you’re pissed off at a billionaire in a t-shirt.”
Despite herself, a faint, dry laugh escaped her.She looked at the paperweight. She thought of sunlight, real sunlight, not the clinical glow of the med-lab. She thought of the scalding heat of rage in the mill, the power that had surged not from peace, but from fury and survival.She didn’t try to call it.She just remembered its shape.
A faint wisp of vapor curled off the surface of the glass.Tony’s eyebrows shot up. “Well, look at that.Condensation. Baby steps are still steps.” He looked genuinely pleased, not like a scientist with a successful experiment, but like a coach seeing a player finally stretch a damaged muscle.That small, non-destructive act became a ritual. Each day, he’d bring something different.A leaf that slowly curled at the edges. A cup of water where a single bubble would rise from the bottom. Once, a small, dead battery that, after fifteen minutes of her silent, frustrated concentration, showed a one percent charge on a meter.It was exhausting. And it was the first thing that had felt like her in weeks.
One evening, after a session where she’d managed to make a dormant LED in a circuit board glow a faint, persistent red, she felt a different kind of exhaustion. Not the soul-deep fatigue of trauma, but the pleasant weariness of use.Tony was studying the readouts, a thoughtful frown on his face. “The pathways are reconnecting.But it’s chaotic.Unfocused. You’re running on instinct and emotion.That’s…” He paused.“That’s how people get hurt. Themselves or others.”
She knew he wasn’t threatening her.He was stating a fact. The memory of the mill’s burning sigils, the feedback scream of power, the uncontrollable surge—it was all tied to pain, to terror, to hate.To Frank.
“What’s your point?” she asked, her guard rising.“My point is you need a teacher. Not a prison warden, not a tactical commander.A teacher.”
She scoffed. “And you know a magic school? Drop me off at Platform Nine and Three-Quarters?”
“Funny,” he said, not smiling.“I know people.People who understand power that comes from within. Who’ve had to control it, direct it, live with it without letting it burn down their lives.” He met her gaze. “I think you should meet them.”
A cold dread pooled in her stomach.“The Avengers.” The word felt too big for the quiet room.“Some of them. Not a press conference.A quiet introduction.”
“No.” The answer was immediate, visceral. More handlers.More scrutiny.More people seeing the broken thing in the cage.
“Sage,” Tony’s voice was low, earnest.“You can’t stay here forever. And you can’t go back out there with Castle as your only reference point for humanity. You need to see there are other ways. That power doesn’t have to be a curse you wield in the dark.”
She thought of Matt Murdock’s quiet, principled resistance.He was different. But he was still tied to Frank, to that world of violence and moral compromise. The idea of other people, whole people with lives and clean hands, was terrifying.
“They’ll want to fix me,” she whispered.“Maybe.But they might also understand you.” He sighed, running a hand through his hair. “Let me talk to Castle and Murdock.It’s not just your call. You’re a team, however dysfunctional.They deserve to know the plan.”
The plan. The words sounded so final. She just nodded, the small flare of confidence from the glowing LED extinguished, replaced by the old, familiar fear of what came next.
Tony found them in the lounge, a room that felt less like a refuge and more like a holding cell. Frank was methodically cleaning a handgun, the smell of solvent sharp in the air. Matt was standing by the floor-to-ceiling window, his face turned toward the city’s hum, though his attention was fully in the room.
“She’s stabilizing,” Tony announced, closing the door behind him. “Physically, she’s about seventy percent.Magically, she’s… flickering back online.Uncontrolled. Inherently tied to her emotional state. Which, given recent events, is a bomb with a shaky trigger.”
Frank didn’t look up.“So she’s getting stronger. Good.”
“It’s not good, Castle.It’s volatile. She’s a trauma victim with a flamethrower attached to her nervous system. Right now, the only calibration she has is you.” Tony gestured at him with a screwdriver he’d been twirling. “And your calibration method involves becoming the monster she needs to fight. That’s not a sustainable ecosystem.”
Matt turned from the window.“What are you proposing, Tony?”
“I’m proposing we broaden her horizons. She needs to see that power can exist without constant punishment. That it can be channeled, not just unleashed.I want to introduce her to Steve.To Wanda. Maybe Banner, when he’s… green-adjacent.”
Frank set the gun down with a decisive click. “No.”
“It wasn’t a request.”
“She’s not a lab rat for your superhero club.She’s an asset in a war.”
Tony’s eyes flashed. “She’s a woman, Frank.Who you used as a fucking jumper cable. You don’t get to call the shots on her rehabilitation.”
The air grew thick.Matt stepped between the tension. “Tony has a point.She needs context beyond vengeance.But Frank’s right about the danger. Vance is still out there.Her face is known to them. Bringing her into the Avengers’ orbit paints a target on everyone.”
“Which is why it would be discreet,” Tony insisted.“A safe location. Limited personnel.It’s about giving her a choice she hasn’t had since before that auction. To be something other than a victim or a weapon.”
Frank stood, his shadow falling across the room.“You softhearted her.You show her a shiny, righteous world, she’ll hesitate. Hesitation gets you killed.Gets her killed. We’re not fighting robots or aliens.We’re fighting men who want to own her. You fight that with terror, not therapy.”
“And when the fighting’s done?” Matt asked quietly, his head tilted toward Frank. “What’s left of her then? Just the terror?”
Frank was silent, his jaw a granite line.Tony looked from one to the other.“I’m not asking you to abandon the mission. I’m asking to give her tools so she can survive it.And what comes after. I’m doing this. You can help make it secure, or you can get in the way.”
The ultimatum hung in the antiseptic air.Matt finally nodded, a slow, reluctant acceptance. Frank stared at Tony for a long, charged moment, then picked up his gun again, the dismissal clear.He wouldn’t help.But he wouldn’t stop it.
Tony left the lounge, the door sighing shut behind him. In the sterile silence, Frank looked at the weapon in his hands, then toward the door that led back to the med-lab. He saw not a woman recovering, but a weapon system recalibrating by a man who believed in silver linings. It made the coming conflict inevitable. And in the grim calculus of his war, inevitability was just another target to plan for.
And in the grim calculus of his war, inevitability was just another target to plan for.The move happened with sterile efficiency.Tony wasn't asking anymore. "You're all staying. Think of it as a witness protection program with better coffee and a bigger target on the roof." He'd said it to all three of them, gathered in the med-lab like a dysfunctional board meeting. Sage had stared at the floor, the weight of another decision being removed both a relief and a fresh confinement.Matt had acquiesced with a resigned nod, already calculating the security implications. Frank had just looked at Tony, his expression flat and unreadable, before turning and walking out to begin transferring his arsenal from the van.Consent was irrelevant. The battle lines were just being redrawn on a nicer map.
They were given rooms on the same secure residential level, a hollow luxury of privacy after the cramped safehouse. Sage's was all soft grays and muted blues, with a window that looked out over a different part of the city, a view of geometric rooftops and floating car lanes instead of crumbling brick and fire escapes.The door locked from the inside. She tested it three times the first night.The silence was absolute, a dense, manufactured quiet that pressed against her ears. She missed the creak of the old bakery sign, the muffled sirens, the palpable, breathing presence of Frank in the other room—a constant threat that had somehow become a perverse anchor.Days began to structure themselves around absence. Tony would arrive mid-morning, full of intrusive energy, to work with her. The sessions were less about parlor tricks now and more about grounding. "It's not about suppression," he'd say, pacing while she tried to keep a candle flame steady, not bright."It's about making the volume knob yours, not your adrenaline's." It was frustrating, arduous work. She’d finish drained, her head aching, and return to her room to find a tray of food left by a silent automated service. No Frank gruffly shoving a can across a table.No low, tense arguments with Matt filtering through a thin wall.
She saw Matt sometimes in the common kitchenette, a sleek space of brushed steel that felt like a museum exhibit.He moved through it with familiar ease, his hands knowing exactly where everything was. "Frank's mostly on the lower levels," he told her one evening as she hovered in the doorway, watching him brew tea."The armory, the gym.He's...planning." Matt’s voice was careful, neutral."He thinks Tony's creating a liability."
"A nicer one," Sage murmured, the bitterness surprising her.Matt paused, his head tilting."Maybe. But a person who can choose isn't a liability.She's an ally. That's scarier for people like Vance."She didn't answer. The Frank that lived in her head now was a collage: the brutal force in the mill, the cold practitioner on the couch, the relentless shadow in the safehouse. His actual, physical absence left those images unchallenged, calcifying into a skewed icon. She caught herself listening for the heavy, precise cadence of his boots in the hall. She never heard them.A week after the move, Tony clapped his hands together."Okay. Introductory vibe session.Cap and Maximoff.My quarters, one hour.No armor, no drama." He pointed at Sage."You're going.Not up for debate." He then looked at Matt, who leaned against a counter."You should be there.Moral support." Finally, he glanced at the door, as if expecting Frank to materialize."The other one can sit this one out. Probably for the best."
The common room in Tony's private suite was all soft leather and warm wood, a deliberate contrast to the tech-laden environments below. Steve Rogers stood with a quiet, solid posture that made the space feel smaller. Wanda Maximoff sat curled in an armchair, her gaze thoughtful and appraising. The air here smelled of lemon wood polish and, faintly, ozone of a different quality than Sage's—older, sadder, more controlled.
"Miss Blackwood," Steve said, extending a hand.His grip was firm, careful."Tony's told us a little. We're glad you're safe here."Sage shook his hand, her skin feeling too thin. "Safe is a relative term."
Wanda's lips quirked in something that wasn't quite a smile."It always is."Her accent softened the words. Her eyes held a deep understanding that felt uncomfortably penetrating, like she was seeing the ghost-lines of the mill's array etched inside Sage's ribs."The weight they put on you… it changes the bones."
The conversation was stiff, punctuated by Tony's nervous rambling.Steve asked gentle, logistical questions about her needs. Wanda remained mostly silent, but her presence was the most significant. It wasn't empathy Sage felt radiating from her, but a stark, weary recognition. This was a woman who knew what it was to be a weapon, to be hunted, to have her power feared and coveted in equal measure. She didn't offer platitudes or pity.She just sat, a quiet testament to surviving it.
Halfway through, the door hissed open.
Frank stood in the threshold, dressed in simple gray sweats, a sheen of sweat on his skin from the gym.He didn't enter. His eyes scanned the room—Steve, Wanda, Tony, Matt, Sage—landing on each like a targeting sensor. The casual, exploratory atmosphere curdled into something taut and still.
"Castle," Steve said, his tone carefully neutral.Frank's gaze finally settled on Sage. "They vetting you or recruiting you?"Neither," Tony snapped, rising."This is a social call. You're not invited."Just passing through."Frank's voice was a low rumble. He looked back at Steve."She's not a soldier.Don't treat her like one."The statement wasn't protective. It was a warning label.Then he was gone, the door closing behind him with a final sigh.
The room stayed quiet for a long moment. Wanda looked at the door, then at Sage, her expression unreadable.Steve cleared his throat."His concern is noted."
But it wasn't concern.It was a demarcation. He had seen her in a context he hadn't authorized, and his brief appearance was a brushback pitch, a reminder of his claim on the operational reality of her life.The strange knot in Sage's chest tightened. He had looked at her, and for a second, she’d felt seen again, not as a patient or a student, but as a factor in a war.It was the opposite of comforting.It was real.
Later, back in the sterile quiet of her room, the polite conversation felt like a dream. Steve Rogers’ principled kindness was a foreign language. Wanda’s silent understanding was a mirror she wasn't ready to look into.The only thing that felt concrete was the charged silence Frank had left in his wake. She paced the soft carpet, the emptiness of the tower pressing in. She had a door that locked, a bed that didn’t smell of fear, and teachers who wanted to show her a better way.
She stopped at the window, her forehead resting against the cool glass. Down in the city, somewhere in the grid of lights, were men who wanted to cage her again. And up here, in this beautiful prison, the only person who made her feel like she could face them—the only person who made her feel anything at all—was deliberately avoiding her.The anger that came with that realization was familiar. It was warm.It felt like her own.
She pushed away from the window and left her room.The hall lights brightened softly at her presence. She didn't head toward the common areas or the med-lab.She went to the elevator and pressed the button for the lower training levels. The doors opened on a concrete corridor smelling of gun oil, sweat, and charged particles. The distant, rhythmic thud of impacts on a heavy bag guided her.
She found him in a stark gym, bathed in unforgiving white light. He was focused on a dense striking pad, each blow a sharp, concussive crack that echoed off the walls.He wasn't wearing gloves. His knuckles were raw and split, a fresh crimson bloom on the vinyl with every hit. He didn't stop when she entered, didn't acknowledge her. The violence of his motion was a language unto itself, a sermon of pure, undirected fury.
Sage stood inside the doorway, the door sliding shut behind her, sealing them in the sound of his punishment. She waited, her own pulse loud in her ears, matching the tempo of his strikes.She finally understood his absence.It wasn't disregard. It was a furnacing. He was burning away the complication of the tower, of Tony's plans, of her recovery, reducing it all back to the simple calculus of the next mission, the next target. He was preparing for a version of the war where she would be a liability. And she had walked right into the heart of it.