Author's note: This is the first three chapters of my first Fanfiction story! :) Enjoy!

Chapter 1

I remember the day Mom left.

Mom was packing up her bags while Dad was passed out on the couch. I, 7, was coloring in a coloring book and noticed her packing. "Mommy," I asked. "Where are you going?"

She gave me a look. "Somewhere far away from this Alabama sinkhole, Val. Far away from you and your dad and this trailer park. Far away," she said with a dreamy look on her face.

All I heard was "Far away from you." "What do you mean 'far away from me'?" I asked her innocently.

"Sweet, sweet Valencia Renee," Mom cooed sarcastically. "You are just as dense as your son-of-a-bitch father. I am leaving this place." She kissed me on the cheek and patted my rump and said, "Now run along and play." I returned to my coloring table, but I watched my mother all the time.

My mother and I look (ed) nothing alike. She has stick straight, shiny, orange-brown hair and freckles galore. She was at one time a healthy size 4 and had pretty green eyes. But years of drugs and alcohol use made her eyes a dullish mud green and made her an unnatural size double 0.

I, on the other hand, have big blue eyes and curly poofs of blonde hair with a small splattering of freckles on my sometimes tan skin. I was never ever stick straight, no matter how hard I tried. I was always a big boned, but curvy and cute, girl with the biggest bust and butt in the class.

Mom packed up her bags and kissed my cheek.

She walked into the living room and smacked my father's rear end, getting him semi-awake.

"Hector," she said. "I'm leaving you and the kid. The papers are on the front table. Sign them. The lawyer will be here on Monday for them."

"Where you going, Daphne?" he asked, but really it sounded like this, "Wheah yooo goone Daf knee?"

"I'm getting a ride to Birmingham. From there, who knows? Maybe San Fran or Vegas or, hey, even NYC or Chicago. See the sights, you know what I mean," she said.

Mom then walked out the door. That was the last time I had ever seen her.

I thought she had left because I had… powers. I had this flame thing, like the Human Torch, where I could catch my whole body on fire. She was always scared of it, calling it unnatural. Every time she told me this, even though I was little, she took little bits of my self-confidence. But that wasn't the only thing she took when she left to become a prostitute in Las Vegas.

Mom had taken all of the money. Literally. She took $75,000 from the bank account that, at most, held about $85,000. At most, meaning that if Dad was trying to go sober, Mom was getting the most tips out of any… dancer at the Club of Dreams, I was begging for money in front of Winn Dixie a couple towns over, and Dad went into work at least 4 days a week instead of his usual 2. That was when we were rich.

After Mom left, Dad started drinking heavily. He was only sober once or twice a week. He had a drinking pal, Johnny Thompson, whose son always tried to get me to kiss him and stuff. I was given the shopping duty, cleaning duty, clothing duty, washer duty, and every other duty except drinking duty. I also had to do enough schoolwork to pass each grade. Most of my teachers knew my predicament, so they weren't as harsh when they graded.

I was 11 when Social Services came and saw that my dad was wasted on the couch with Mr. Thompson and I was doing the dishes.

Dad was sentenced to eight to twelve months of rehabilitation. My mom's parents wouldn't take me in as they had disowned my mother when she got pregnant and married at 18. My dad's parents were dead and his grandma was in a nursing home. My dad's brother was in Afghanistan. 5 of my mom's 6 siblings wouldn't take me in. But my youngest, 28-year-old aunt, Pepper Potts, took me in to her small apartment up in New York City.

I was excited to go up to the city, having grown up in the worst trailer of all the crappy trailers in Pink Flamingo RV and Trailer Park in Jenkins, Alabama. Aunt Pep, as she had me call her, was the only sibling of Mom's that didn't desert her when she got pregnant. Pep babysat me when I was little while Mom was at work or Dad was in jail.

Pep was like the big sister I never had. She took me to see the sights, took me up in Stark Tower where she worked, and was an amazing chef. She let me meet her boss, a young Tony Stark, and his girlfriend at the time, a beautiful and young Jennifer Garner.

The best part about Pepper was that my fire didn't bother her a bit.

I wanted them to convict Dad and make me live with Pep forever. Pep wanted that too. But, a year after I came to stay with Pepper, they called me back. Before I stepped on the plane, Pepper gave me the phone number of Stark Tower, a one-way bus ticket up to New York City, a bundle of cash, and a cell phone with her number programmed in it.

"This is for when you can't stand him anymore," she told me.

I lasted seven years with my dad.

It was the middle of summer and I was rereading Twilight when my dad, drunken as hell, staggered into my small room.

"I wan yooo ta cum inta ma carrr an drivv wid me too da store. I need ta buy sum mor beer," he drunkenly said.

I knew where this was going. He would be the one driving drunk, but I would be the one going into the store and getting caught if the cops pull us over.

"No, Dad," I said.

He did the unexpected. He reached over and popped me in the jaw.

"What the heck, Pop?" I yelled, grabbing my jaw.

"Now, Daf knee, yooo list n ta me hereee. I wull NOT have yooo tell me NO," he said. He then fell head over heels onto my bed.

I had had enough. I was already planning to leave soon. I took the opportunity and pulled out my already packed duffel, my money, my half broken cell phone, and the new bus ticket Pep had sent me for my birthday and walked out of the trailer.

Long bus story short, I got on the bus and rode up to New York City in two days. I got off in the city and traveled on the subways to Pep's new apartment that she had told me about in my birthday letter. I asked the doorman in the lobby if she was home. After seeing my license, he told me that she had been sleeping and living in the Stark Tower because her boss, Tony Stark, had been taken by terrorists.

I nodded, told him thank you, and took the nearest subway to Grand Central, which was right in front of Stark Tower. I went up the elevator, nervous as heck, and stepped out onto the top floor.

There, lying on the couch in front of me, was Aunt Pep, covered in a blanket, obviously sleeping. A couple of men were working rapidly on a holographic computer and only one noticed me.

"Why are you here?" He asked, looking me up and down. I knew what he was thinking. White trash.

"Uh, hello, sir, I'm Valencia Renee Summers, and, um, I'm looking for Aunt Pep- I mean, I'm looking for Pepper Potts. She's my aunt, sir," I stuttered nervously.

"You?" He laughed. "Pepper," he called.

Aunt Pep woke up with a start. "What happened?" she asked, looking around.

"Your, uh, niece showed up and was asking for you," he said. He obviously did not believe that I was in anyway related to her.

"Val?" she looked around. She stood up when she saw me.

"Val! Honey, what are you doing here?" she asked, hugging me.

"I… I couldn't live there anymore," I admitted.

From then on, it was a blur of months. Pepper took Dad to custody court and won. She adopted me. She got me to take some tests and pulled some strings, and suddenly I was a freshman from Alabama studying journalism at Harvard University.

The four years I was at Harvard, Tony came back, the Avengers happened, and Aunt Pep and Tony got engaged.

Then the really big bombshell dropped:

I fell in love.

Chapter 2

"Of course you can stay at our place," Pep said.

"But just until you get a job with a major newspaper," Tony said.

"Tony!" Pepper scolded. "You can stay as long as you need, sweetie," Pepper told me.

We were in the Stark Tower elevator, just after my college graduation. Tony wanted to buy me a big penthouse to live in, but I wouldn't take his money… yet. Living with Pepper and Tony was like living with two kids my age in a dorm. They were constantly bickering and kissing.

We stopped at the penthouse and –of course- a bunch of party guests popped out from behind Pepper and Tony's million dollar furniture, shouting, "Surprise!"

I smiled and waved as many people came up to me, giving me their congratulations.

I walked over to Tony's bar and told the bartender that I would love a martini. It wasn't like I could get drunk; the fire inside me burned it off in seconds.

Dr. Bruce Banner came up from behind me. Dr. Banner was one of Tony's best intellectual friends. The last couple of years, when I came over for Thanksgiving or Christmas, Dr. Banner would be there. He soon became like another uncle. "Surprise, college graduate!" he said, handing me a wrapped gift.

"Oh, Dr. Banner, you shouldn't have!" I said. I opened it and saw a beautiful amber necklace. The amber looked just like fire.

Bruce knew that I had fire powers, just like I knew that he turned into the Hulk. We respected each other and tried not to aggravate each other's powers. He definitely tried to aggravate mine more than I did his.

"Thank you so much!" I said, giving him a hug.

The emotion was too much for the antisocial doctor. "It was no big deal. I've got to use the men's room…I'll see you later," he said awkwardly, walking away.

I shrugged, left alone at the bar.

Another person slid in to the bar stool next to me. "One whiskey, please," he told the bartender.

He looked over at me. "Oh, happy college graduation, Val…is it?" he said. Although the words were sarcastic, I could tell in the guy's voice he meant it sincerely.

"Thanks. Um, yeah, um, I'm Val, Val Summers," I stuttered back to him. He had pretty blue eyes that a girl could get lost in and brownish-blonde hair that was perfectly parted. His arms were ripped with muscle; I could see that through his sports jacket.

He smiled. "I'm Steve Rogers. It's nice to meet the party girl," he said to me. Good God, his eyes looked pretty when he smiled. "What did you get your degree in?" he asked.

"My degree? Oh, uh, journalism," I said, blushing and looking away. What was I doing? I was never afraid to flirt before with guys. Poor Steve.

"What, um, did you get your degree in?" I asked stupidly.

He laughed. "The arts," he said. "It was… a little while ago."

Oh no! He is some forty year old married man looking for a little home wrecker! No!

I stole a glance at his left hand. No ring. But maybe he took it off?

He must have seen. "No, I'm not married. I'm just 26," he said.

I sighed. "Good," I said, "you had me worried there."

He laughed. "Where I'm from, I should already be married."

I sighed and rolled my eyes sarcastically. "Please, where I'm from I should already be the mom of three and married to my high school sweetheart," I said.

He laughed heartily. "Really? And you're what? 22?" he asked.

"Well…yes. But you aren't supposed to ask a lady her age!" I said, winking at him.

We hung out and talked for a while. I learned he was from Brooklyn and had worked with Tony on a few SHIELD missions.

We went out on the large balcony-patio that overlooked New York.

"You said you've worked with Tony? Are you an Avenger?" I asked him.

He had an uncomfortable look on his face. I learned later that he was thinking that he had lost me right then if he told me the truth. "Um…yes," he said.

I knew Clint (Hawkeye) and Thor and he was definitely not one of them.

He was Captain America, the cryogenically frozen super soldier from the 1940's.

"You're the captain, aren't you? The dude from the 40's?" I asked him, stunned. I was calculating his age. 90?!

"Yeah," he blushed. "I'm 90, if you were trying to figure it out."

I nodded, a little stunned. "Well, I've not been entirely honest either," I sighed.

His perfect eyebrows came together, confused. "What do you mean? Do you have a third ear or an eleventh toe?" he asked seriously.

I laughed. "No! I have a superpower, too," I said.

I lit my hand on fire.

"Woah!" he said, backing away.

I smiled. "It's inconvenient when I'm texting," I joked.

His face remained puzzled. "What's 'texting'?" he asked.

I mentally face palmed myself. "It's hard to explain," I said.

"Well, since you've showed your power, guess I should show you mine," he said.

He then picked me, a 5'8, 150 pound woman, up like I was nothing. He then put me back down. In my stilettos, it was a little hard to get my balance back after being put back down so abruptly. I wobbled around, trying to grab the railing for support. Instead, I flipped over the railing.

And I fell.

"CRRAAAPPPP!" I shouted.

Instincts kicked in.

My body caught on fire.

I instantly stopped falling….but I hadn't squashed into the pavement.

I was on fire, floating in the middle of the sky, right in front of the 20th floor of the Stark Tower.

I was also stark naked, but the fire covered what needed to be covered. I looked up at all the people on the penthouse level staring down to me.

"I'm okay!" I shouted up.

Pepper shouted back down, "Get up here right now!"

"Umm, tell everyone to go inside, and bring out a big blanket, please!" I said, blushing, but I don't think anyone could see it for the fire.

Tony, looking down, realized what the blanket was for, and started laughing really hard. Pepper smacked him. "Go get a blanket!" she yelled at him. "Everyone, go inside for a moment, please," Pepper said politely to the guests.

I thought to myself, Fly up! I flew up slowly to the penthouse patio. By the time I got there, no one was on the patio and the big curtains Pep had bought a few months ago were drawn. I turned to face New York as I turned off my flame. I pulled on the blanket as fast as I could. "All clear!" I shouted. The curtains moved to reveal only Dr. Banner, Tony, Pepper, Steve, Thor and Clint and Natasha Barton on Tony's holographic computer, and a newly arrived man I didn't know.

I walked over to the door and let myself in. Pepper instantly moved over to cover me. "You can borrow one of my dresses," Pepper muttered. She blocked me all the way over to her bedroom, even though the blanket did more than a good job of shielding the goods. I stole a glance at Steve through the bedroom doorway. He was blushing and looked away until I shut the door.

Pep pulled out a pair of her sweatpants, her Maui Nix t-shirt, and one of Tony's New York Giants sweatshirts and threw them on the fancy bed.

"Who's the guy with the eye patch?" I asked her as I dressed.

"He's Nick Fury, the leader of SHIELD. The Avengers are all here to vote if you should be in. You are valuable as they need flyers," she said, turned away from me.

"That Steve guy? That's really cute? Why didn't you tell me he was Captain America when you saw me flirting with him?" I whisper scolded her, pulling my hair up in a ponytail with a hair tie. Whenever my head caught on fire, my eyes turned red and my hair became pencil straight, sometimes with black tips when I was on fire for a long time.

"He deserves a girl. He's a really sweet kid that is just… lost," she said, with this motherly look in her eyes. "Now get out there. Nick doesn't like to wait."

Pepper and I walked out of her room swiftly.

"I'm Nick Fury, leader of SHIELD," the eye patch guy greeted me with a handshake.

"Hi, I'm Val," I said back.

I went over to the couch and took a seat between Tony and Steve.

"Nice sweatshirt," Tony whispered. I rolled my eyes.

Steve scooted away slightly from me. I looked over at him, confused. Did he not like me anymore after I showed my clumsiness and had caught on fire? That would really suck.

"It's your eyes, Val, that are unsettling to him," Nick said.

"What do you mean?" I asked. This was an uncomfortable topic as the man only had one eye. I guess I looked uncomfortable because Tony was trying to stifle a chuckle.

"Well… they're red," Nick said.

"Oh," I nodded, relieved. "They'll go back to blue in a sec."

Nick continued on to tell me all about the Avengers defeating Loki blah blah blah.

Then he got to the good stuff.

"Who votes that Val should be inducted into the special team of Avengers?" Nick asked us.

Bruce raised his hand.

Clint raised his hand.

Thor raised his hand.

Natasha raised her hand.

Steve slowly raised his hand.

Tony didn't raise his hand.

"And Tony? Why do you say Val shouldn't be an Avenger?" Nick asked sarcastically.

"Well, Nick, Pepper and I care too much about the kid to let her risk her life unnecessarily. Being the fiancée to the aunt who adopted her makes you change the way you think about the kid," Tony said, winking at me. "It's not that I don't think she'll be good at it, I just don't think she should be one," Tony said.

"Well, unfortunately, Tony, the board has already voted her to join, so your vote is irrelevant. She is an Avenger as of now," Nick said.

"Wait! What about training? Hand-to-hand combat? She can't take a gun, but she can't just flame the enemy!" Pepper pleaded.

There was silence.

"I'll train her combat if she'll teach me culture, sir," Steve said to Nick.

"Alright, then," Nick said. "Have her trained and ready by the end of August. Same with you, Val," He walked to the elevator and left.

Tony, Pepper, and Bruce were talking in hushed voices in the corner. Steve looked over at me.

"We'll start training tomorrow morning. Do you have a guest bed here?" he asked.

Chapter 3

The next morning, I came down into the chamber that held Tony's Iron Man suits.

There was Steve, in a white shirt and cargo pants, punching a bag. I knocked on the door to get his attention.

"Hey," I said.

"Hey," he said.

From then on, we spent the mornings training in karate and the afternoons training in Mariokarting.

I told him about different decades, starting with the rest of the 40's.

A few weeks went by and we became flirting more and more.

One afternoon, I was teaching him about dancing in the 1970's and he went over to the record player and took out the Beegees Hits record and put in one of his favorite Beatles records.

He turned on the record and I heard the song "Something" play.

He walked over to me and offered his hand. "Could I have this dance, miss?" he asked.

"Most certainly," I said.

I rested my hands on his neck and he rested his on my waist.

He leaned down to my ear and whispered along to the lyrics

"Somewhere in her smile she knows, that I don't need no other lover, something in her style that shows me…"

I kissed him right then, afraid he wouldn't kiss me back. That I was just a crazy, lovesick girl.

He did kiss me back though. It felt like electricity was shooting through my veins. This was nothing like kissing other guys. This was what kissing your soul mate was like.

I had kissed a couple of guys back in Jenkins. There were only two serious ones. My friend, Tag, had become my boyfriend when we were 14 and we would kiss in the backseat of his brother's car. I told myself it was sweet, and that I liked it, but really, it was more of a dare kiss than anything else. I broke up with him the summer we were 16, even though everyone thought we would get married one day.

Tag was so popular that everyone turned against me. So I got a job at a rock club that had ear bursting concerts and required full time staff. I fell in puppy love with a 17 year old senior named Spencer who loved rock and roll and was cute as heck. We kissed all the time, even though he told me repeatedly that, the day he turned 18, he was going to New York City to get a record deal. When he left that morning, he took with him my heart.

I dabbled in the boyfriend department once or twice in college, but nothing was serious. I had a few boys I would take to dances or parties, and we'd kiss good night, but that was it.

I was lost in the moment, kissing Steve. But then… Jarvis came over intercom and said, "Ahem. Mr. Rogers and Miss Summers, Master Tony is coming down here presently so I recommend you… put a stop to your… dancing before he sees as it may… embarrass Miss Summers."

I rolled my eyes and blushed, telling Jarvis that it was okay and thanks for telling us.

I walked over to the record player and turned off the Beatles track, putting it away just as Tony walked in.

"Hello, kids," he said to us. "Jailbait," he turned to me.

I rolled my eyes at the inaccurate nickname. When I came to live with Pepper, Tony thought I was a prostitute. When Pepper told him that I was, in fact, her seventeen year old niece, he laughed at his mistake and since then called me "Jailbait".

"What is it?" I snapped, frustrated that he had interrupted Chris and I's… dance to tease me.

"Hold it there, grumpy. All I wanted to tell you was that Pep and I are going to a gala tomorrow night and you should come because some famous editors should and will be there… editors looking for an already famous, young, pretty, and talented journalist to write in their papers. Editors looking for Tony Stark's money to fund his niece's work," Tony teased, wrapping his arm around my shoulders and squeezing them.

"I don't know," I said, squirming out of his arm.

Steve, who had been fiddling with something in the corner turned and faced me when he heard this. "You should go, Val. I…er, you know how much you want to work at a major newspaper. This could be a big chance for you," Steve encouraged.

I looked over Tony. "Do I have to have an escort?" I asked.

Tony looked up at Steve, back at me, winked, and said, "It's not required by the charity running it, but Pep's requiring it for you."

I gave him a death glare. "I'm gonna go, now, Val, but, um, may I remind you that, um, unfortunately, I am escorting your aunt, and, as much as I'd love to, I cannot take you too," Tony said, running for the stairs before I could give him a little burn.

Steve came over and put his hands on my shoulders. "I am dying to know who you will be asking to come with you!" he said in a feminine tone.

I laughed. "Steve, would you do me the honor…"

"Yes?" He asked, listening.

"Okay, smart alec. Would you do me the honor of dancing with me again?" I asked him.

He truly looked disappointed. He sighed and said, "I guess."

He walked sadly over to the record player and put on "Hey Jude" by the Beatles.

I laced my fingers around his neck and his laced around my hips.

"Hey Jude," I sang in his ear. "Don't make it bad. Take a sad song and make it better-er-er."

"Remember to let her into your heart, then you can start to make it better," Steve finished.

"Hey, Steve?" I whispered in his ear. I hoped it came across as sexy… not cheesy…when he heard it.

"Yeah, Val?" he whispered back.

"Will you go to the gala with me?" I whisper asked him.

"I guess," he whispered, obviously overjoyed.

"Nananananana hey Jude," he sang loudly and definitely not in harmony.

I laughed at him. "You're so crazy," I said.

"That's why you love me," he flirted, winking at me.