What constitutes a hero? What exactly is a hero?
People have different ideas of what makes a hero. Mariana Hadley had saved a lot of people in her time. She did not consider herself a hero. In a world where Tony Stark goes flying around in his Iron Man suit to save hundreds of people with his Stark Industries mini-missiles, 'hero' is a difficult title to live up to. People expect grandeur, skill, flashing lights, cool names and dorky outfits.
Mariana Hadley had none of that. Mariana Hadley had 36 bucks to her name, two outfits and no official place to call home. But damn was she determined to be remembered. Even by just a few.
Maybe someday by everyone.
. . .
This wasn't part of the plan.
This was most definitely not part of the plan. The well thought out, excellently executed plan. It was never part of the plan. She just wanted a free bed to sleep in for the night, maybe a shower before she moved on. It had never been part of the plan for three black SUVs to pull up outside the hotel at 3am.
Nor was it part of the plan for about a dozen men with tactical gear and guns to spill out into the deserted lobby, or for one of the doors down the hall to be kicked in, or for the single occupant to be dragged out in cuffs.
The man looked to be in his mid-forties, though Mariana didn't have a great vantage point from her position hiding behind the wall, watching him be dragged in the other direction. He was kicking and cursing out at the tactical team in a language she did not recognise.
Mariana had to get out of there, quickly. She knew that the minute she woke up to shouting from the hallway. But the second the man's hands began to glow with a bright flame and the team in tactical gear reacted like they saw it every day, tranquillising him and hefting him up over the shoulder in a fireman's carry was the second she knew what was going on.
She couldn't leave without her shoes though, which were back in her room. So she concentrated quickly and found herself back in the room. In her haste to put her shoes on though, she knocked over the lamp by the bed. Mariana froze as the hallway went silent. One foot in the air, left hand tugging the battered old converse on as slow footsteps approached her open hotel room door.
She should have gone right that second. She should have thought of the Bahamas, Paris, New Jersey, anywhere. Anywhere but that god-damn hotel room. Anywhere but her position of immediate danger. But like a stupid cliché, her panic and indecision kept Mariana frozen in her spot until the first black-clad gun-wielding tactical agent entered her room.
Then she was moving. Her shoe was finally on and her feet were planted on the ground at the same time as a shot was fired from the agent's gun. The tranquilliser dart stung like hell when it planted itself in her thigh and she knew she'd be out in seconds just like the other guy. So she finally thought of somewhere.
She thought of home.
Which explains why she woke up five hours later with a killer headache in a DC alleyway a few blocks from the park she played at as a kid.
It took the better part of ten minutes to convince her body it was in full working order and to make her legs co-operate so she could actually stand up. When, finally, on her feet Mariana knew just where to go for the throbbing pain in her skull. Marti's diner was about a block from her impromptu napping place and their milkshakes were the cure to every ailment.
So only after an hour, a tough walk, and an amazing milkshake could Mariana Hadley find it in herself to acknowledge her home city. Once she'd done that she wanted to be as far from there as possible.
But a dark skinned man with a leather coat and an eye-patch had other ideas.
He just had to get shot at.
Nick Fury was not the first person Mariana Hadley had used her abilities to save. He was just the first to try to arrest her for it. She came across him on a busy side-walk. He had one foot out of a black SUV - much like the ones from the hotel she would later realise - when the first shot rang out. It hit the door just inches from where his chest would have been had he not moved.
The people on the street scattered, running in all sorts of directions in the hope that they could escape a possible bullet. Mariana watched the black-clad man make a quick mental calculation and look up in the direction of the shot's origin. She followed his line of sight, the only one on the street rooted to the spot, just in time to see what she recognised as a muzzle flash. The man from the SUV was never going to dodge a third bullet after that one got even closer, grazing his arm as he tried to duck behind his vehicle.
Mariana acted on impulse and suddenly she was by his side, occupying the previously empty space. With a hand on his arm they were both gone, a slight 'whoosh' left behind as the air rushed to fill the gap. She took them to the middle of the desert, having been thinking of nowhere in particular other than 'not here'.
His reaction was instantaneous and the cuff was almost already on her right wrist before she was gone again. Mariana re-appeared behind him and he turned, drawing a gun at her exclamation of "What the hell dude?" But she was gone once again and he was spinning on his heel, gun ready for her to return.
And then she was there, disarming him with surprising efficiency – which he would later call a definite element of surprise for the sake of his dignity – before she and the gun were gone. The next time she re-appeared the gun was nowhere in sight and he wasn't quick enough to dodge the right hook aimed at his face.
"I saved your life and you try to arrest me? What the hell? Who are you?"
Fury stared at her, frantically trying to figure out where his gun was while maintaining a composed demeanour and scouring the map in his head to find out where the hell he was. "Who are you?"
"I asked first Mister."
"Well you're the one who seems to have transported us to the desert."
He took the chance to really look at her and assess her. She was really barely more than a teen. He'd be surprised if she were nineteen at the most. Her clothes were a little dirty and most definitely worn. Her converse seemed to be held together by duct tape alone.
The girl rolled her eyes and reached out. Fury pulled away from her and eyed her warily, reaching for his back-up weapon on instinct because Nick Fury trusted no one.
"Dude, chill. If you want me to leave you in the desert, I can like but I just thought you might want to be somewhere else. Like back at your creepy government SUV." Just like that her hand was on his arm again and they were in an alley from which he could see his vehicle, complete with the bullet hole in the door and his gun on the ground. "See?"
. . .
Mariana met Nick Fury three more times before he convinced her to come into SHIELD to be indexed. She didn't like it but considering the facts – she hadn't done anything wrong, Nick didn't seem so bad and she had nothing else to lose – she figured it would be alright, she could always teleport out if needed.
The indexing wasn't so bad, though after the intense 'consideration period' for which she spent seven hours in a room with coffee and doughnuts, Fury looked at her differently. Maybe with a little respect. It may well have been suspicion though.
Then he made his proposition.
"You want me to what?"
"You heard me."
"Why would I join SHIELD?"
"You wouldn't officially join. We'd give you some basic training but you'd work on more of a consultancy basis. We have a lot of agents here, Miss Hadley, and they go on some very dangerous missions. We can't always guarantee an extraction team for them to get back to us. In those instances, we'd call you."
"So you want me to use my abilities for your benefit as…an extraction plan?"
"You would be saving our agents' lives."
Mariana seemed to actually be considering it, tugging on her bottom lip with her teeth, posture relaxing from its previously defiant stance.
"We can provide you with a place to stay as well, like a proper recruit if you wish, just without the classes. You would have to wear a tracking anklet of course, we can't have you disappearing into trouble when we might need you, you could still be considered a threat by some."
"So I'd be on probation essentially? What, I work for you and in return you don't lock me up?"
In the end she still agreed though.