The sounds of explosions and falling debris were deafening. Dark purple flames were shooting around the air, scalding hot and leaving desolation in their wake. There was so much dust in the air even breathing became difficult, and a middle-aged man whose eyes glowed as purple as the fire was laughing above the commotion, sending pulses of energy in their direction.
So far, it was business as usual for the Avengers.
The building looked like it might collapse any second, but it wasn't much different before the fight broke out. Admittedly, none of it was burning before their arrival, but the quick looks Steve had time for before the enemy attacked showed quite a bit of fire damage to the walls and some of the supporting pillars, no doubt the results of the man's crazed rage. They still didn't know his name, which was quite inconvenient, but as Tony put it, he wouldn't need one where he's going.
The fire shooting out of his hands was interesting, though. Bruce seemed fascinated when Coulson debriefed them. An incident in a nuclear facility leading to a development of a natural genetic mutation, remaining dormant for decades before erupting about a year earlier, apparently. The guy laid low since, staying inside the abandoned three-stories building almost all the time, but eventually the rather violent sounds from within the building became noticed. That was where SHIELD stepped in, and the Avengers shortly after. Their instructions were simple enough: bring the man in, use force if necessary, but try not to kill him unless a member of the team or a civilian is in danger. It made sense; even in the 21st century, Steve didn't suppose people with an unknown type of energy flowing through their veins were a common occurrence.
The man's laughter was unnerving. "You will all burn!" he declared with a certainty. "This power inside of me – I can feel it! It is endless!" He grinned, and the smile twisted his face into something horrid. "I have been chosen," he whispered, and for a moment his eyes stopped glowing and he stopped shooting. He looked up, his eyes unfocused, like a man who sees the light of heaven, though Steve had a feeling this wasn't the case. "Chosen…" he muttered, "chosen to be the first of many. A new humanity!"
"Hey, smart guy!" called Tony, opening his helmet so that he's properly heard. "How are you planning to spread that thing across an entire race?"
The man's smile widened. "It is in my genes. Through me, evolution shall do its magic. The power shall breed and multiply until there is nothing, nothing in the whole universe left untouched!"
"Yeah, that makes no sense," persisted Tony. "Say you have tons of kids and they all get this frankly awesome purple thing – which I doubt – it's still not going to cover a whole planet, never mind the whole universe."
The man laughed again. "I never said everyone," he said. "My new humanity shall rain fire upon the old and useless – natural selection, if you like."
"And you expect us to just sit aside and watch that happen?" asked Steve.
"Not at all, my friend, not at all!" he assured him in a manner that promised he wasn't anywhere near considering him his friend. "In fact, I now give you a choice: you may be removed with the rest of the inferior men, or you may become a part of my new world! You have proven yourselves to be more than the worthless humans – you are like me."
"Now, that's where you're wrong," said Steve forcefully. "We aren't like you, and we never will be."
"Suit yourselves," said the man with an indifferent shrug. He swung his arm, ready to fire again, but it was grabbed unexpectedly. Before he could react or even see who it was, his feet were kicked from underneath him and he was on his back, Natasha holding him down.
"Do not touch me, you vile being!" yelled the man in rage.
"Oh, shut up," sighed Natasha exasperatedly, pulling a syringe out of her pocket and sinking it into his neck. He went still in seconds.
"Good job, Nat," said Steve, nodding in her direction. She rewarded him with a brief smile before switching on her comm and reporting to Fury.
"Well, that was tedious," commented Tony, observing the unconscious form on the floor, noting to himself he looked significantly less impressive now than he was just a minute before. He was unshaved and his dark hair was oily and unkempt, and his clothes looked ages old. His overall impression of the guy was that he could really use a bath.
"We're not done yet," Steve reminded him. "We need to make sure he didn't leave us any surprises. How are you holding up, Bruce?"
"Not too bad," replied the scientist, who was now back in his human form. "Pretty grateful for the new arrangement, though," he added, pulling on the shirt he kept in his pocket. SHIELD has design some ultra-stretching pants for him, with large pockets at his request.
"Yeah, we're all grateful for that," joked Tony. Bruce smiled sheepishly.
"Tony, focus," said Steve. "We need to look this place over. Bruce, Natasha and Clint – take this floor. Thor, Tony, the one above us. I'm going to take the basement."
"Aye, aye, Captain," said Tony sarcastically and only slightly bitterly.
"You will search the basement by yourself?" asked Thor uncertainly.
"I've looked over the blueprints of the building, it's pretty small. Shouldn't be anything out of the ordinary there, but just in case, keep your comms on. Report anything unusual, I don't want any incidents. If anything goes wrong because we missed something Fury will have all our heads."
"Yikes," said Tony before his helmet clicked shut and he flew up to the floor above them, creating a Tony shaped hole in the ceiling. Steve rolled his eyes before slowly and carefully taking the stairs down, shield in hand, alert and prepared to fight if anything attacks him.
The basement was… strange. Steve strongly doubted it looked like that when the building was first built. It must have been redesigned, though he wasn't sure for what purpose.
Half of the room was blocked with a row of metal bars, like of prison cells. Every ten feet or so, a white wall stretched from the bars to the far end of the room, creating separate cells. He couldn't see the furthest one, and the presence of the cells made him wonder if they were here when the maniac took residence in the abandoned building or if he added it himself. He honestly couldn't tell.
Hesitantly, he resumed his careful walking along the metal bars. The first cell was completely empty. So was the second one.
In the months to come he would find himself wondering how different things would have turned out had that last cell been empty as well, or if it was someone else to check the basement rather than him.
There were several things that differed in the third cell and made it unlike the others. For one, the two walls weren't just blank white; they were written on with what looked like a black crayon, but it wasn't nonsensical enough to be the work of the man they've just defeated. This writing made sense. There were whole, long and separate paragraphs, sometimes marked with headlines. Occasionally there were what seemed to be whole pages when the paragraphs didn't stop for quite long. On the third wall, the one right in front of him, was only one word, written in big, capital letters and looked like it was written again and again with many layers of the crayon:
PRISONER
The writer was inside that cell, too, and Steve felt his inside go cold when he saw her. She was sitting on a floor (which was also written on) littered with the remains of black crayons. She was wearing a dirty and crumpled sleeveless shirt that revealed bruised and burnt arms and a worn pair of jeans. All her clothes were torn in several places, and the tears in her shirt revealed a frightfully thin figure. She was barefoot. Her hair was brown and had an unhealthy look to it, and was shapelessly tangled. Her fingers were toying with a crayon in a way that was everything but absent-minded. It was as if her whole existence focused on that crayon in a fierce, violent way. None of that was the worst.
She was just a kid, no more than fifteen years old. And when that sunk in, the insane man's words became clear to Steve very suddenly.
"It is in my genes. Through me, evolution shall do its magic. The Power shall breed and multiply until there is nothing."
He's already started, realized Steve with horror. He's started years ago, probably without even knowing it.
Despite how shocking it was, the age of the girl was by no means the only thing that Steve noticed, though by far the most significant. Her eyes were something he thought he would never be able to forget. An ordinary hazel in color, drowned in dark circles, it was the expression in them that made him incapable of looking away. There was something very broken deep inside them, something there shouldn't be in the eyes of any teenage girl, but even deeper inside there was something more. The look she gave him wasn't one of anger or fear. It was a very clear questioning look. He could almost hear the questions in his head. Which one are you? the look asked him, somewhere deep within him. Are you one of the good or one of the bad? And will you hurt me? It unsettled him how fearless the look seemed.
"Is he dead?" she asked quietly. "The man upstairs, did you kill him?"
"He's alive," said Steve, unsure. "But he's unconscious. We're going to take him in."
"And then what?" she asked. "Would he go to prison? You know, don't you?"
"He's going to go to prison," confirmed Steve.
"You're Captain America, aren't you?"
"Er, yeah."
"So… are you here with all the Avengers, or is it just you?"
"The rest of the team is here, too, yes," said Steve.
"Huh," she said thoughtfully. "I had some friends who really liked you." Then she was silent again.
"What's your name?" asked Steve.
"Jess," said the girl.
"Nice to meet you, Jess," said Steve, forcing a smile.
Jess frowned. "Why are you smiling?" she asked, sounding honestly confused.
Steve's smile dropped. "Er…" he began.
"Sorry," said Jess quickly, seeing his embarrassment. "I just meant- you don't have to try to pretend the situation isn't really shitty. I know it is."
"Right," mumbled Steve, and chose a different tactic. He crouched down so that he was more or less at eye level with Jess (he really didn't enjoy talking down to her and had a feeling she didn't enjoy being talked down to). If she understood what he was doing, she didn't show it. "Jess, who's the man upstairs?" he asked seriously.
"His name is Lawrence Cory," replied Jess. "You probably noticed, but he's insane and can create and control purple energy, though it's probably not really energy, since energy can't be created and all that. I just call it energy because I don't have a better name for it."
"I mean, who is he to you?" asked Steve gently.
Jess's face drained of the little color that was in it. She swallowed, hard, before opening her mouth to reply, only to shut it so tight her lips became thin lines. She blinked several times and her grip on the crayon tightened before she could speak. "My name…" she whispered slowly, "is Jessica Cory. Lawrence Cory…" she hesitated and looked at Steve, as if begging him to tell her he knew what she was going to say and that she didn't have to say it. And Steve did know what she was going to say, but he needed to hear it before he could believe it. "He's my dad," she completed with difficulty. "Lawrence Cory is my father."
And the world stopped, just for a moment, before crashing down on Steve with all its force.
Steve was on his feet in an instant. "We've got a situation," he said urgently through his comm. "Get down here, now." He looked over at Jess, who looked back at him wide-eyed. "I'm going to break the lock of the door, okay?" he asked her with all the calmness he could muster. She nodded quickly and he smashed his shield against the lock. The door opened immediately with a loud creak and a painful lack of grace.
"Can you stand?" he asked Jess. She began to panic slightly at the question, her eyes shining and looking around frantically, her mouth opening and closing in silence. "Jess," said Steve hard yet gently. "Jess, look at me." She forced herself to look into his eyes. "Can you stand for me?"
"I –" she stuttered. "He burned my feet." Her eyes widened while Steve stared in shock, as if she only just realized it, like she didn't think much about it up until that moment. "He burned my feet so that I wouldn't run." She gripped the crayon even harder as tears threatened to fall out of her eyes and onto her cheeks.
"Steve, what's up?" asked Clint's voice. Steve looked over and saw the whole team quickly making their way over. "You sounded really freaked out on the- oh."
Jess tried to shrink away as much as possible as their eyes bore into her.
"Oh, f-" Tony nearly swore, cut short by a half-hearted kick from Natasha.
"Are you alright?" Bruce asked Jess in a concerned tone. She seemed just a tiny bit less tense after hearing him, but she couldn't find it in her to reply.
"I'll explain on the way," said Steve curtly. He just wanted to get Jess the hell out of there as soon as possible. He stored his shield on his back and approached Jess. He gave her an honest look that somehow momentarily convinced her not to back away from him and scooped her up in his arms, trying not to feel alarmed at how light she was or think about how she kept a firm hold of the crayon in one hand.
"Whoa, Steve, what are you doing?" demanded Tony.
"She's coming with us," said Steve harshly.
"Where, to SHIELD headquarters? Fury would go ballistic!"
"Natasha, call the jet," ordered Steve, ignoring Tony. He didn't particularly care about what Fury might say at the moment, and anyway he doubted anyone would say anything at all once everything is explained. "Tell them the guy's name is Lawrence Cory and that we're taking his kid."
Even though he didn't check, Steve could hear Tony's shocked expression in his tone when he let out a scandalized "What?" over Natasha's urgent speaking into the comm.
"Oh my god," muttered Bruce.
"He has kept his own daughter locked away in a cell like that?" Thor blurted, sounding furious. "That is insane!"
"Yeah, well, he didn't sound too sane just now, did he?" Clint pointed out.
"Shut up, Clint," snapped Natasha and turned to Jess. "What's your name?"
"Jess," she murmured.
"Jess, stay calm, alright? We're gonna get you somewhere safe, don't worry," Natasha assured her.
Jess just nodded, but something in her expressed at least partial trust.
In the rush to get to the jet, nobody noticed Tony didn't immediately follow. For just a few seconds he stood in his spot in front of Jess's cell and looked at the walls and the floor. He didn't read much, but he's read enough to know two things:
A. Jessica Cory was a genius.
B. She was more damaged than anyone Tony has ever met, which was saying something. He didn't know how much of that damage could still be repaired.
When they reached the jet, Jess went out of Steve's arms and onto a medic's care, leaving the Avengers free to discuss everything their latest mission has thrown in their faces.
"Look, I don't know how long she's been there!" said Steve, frustrated by the many questions that were fired at his direction.
"Just tell us, from the start, everything that's happened," said Clint warily.
Steve sighed. "She asked me if we killed Cory. I told her we didn't and that we were going to take him in and eventually lock him up. Then she asked if I was Captain America and whether I was on my own or with the rest of you, to which I answered. I asked her what her name was and about Cory, and she told me his name and that he's her father. When I asked if she could walk she said he's burned her feet so that she couldn't leave. At the moment, it was enough for me."
"He burned her feet?" repeated Bruce, shocked. "So the burns and bruises on her arms, that was him, too?"
"Maybe, I don't know!"
"Well, shit," murmured Clint. "I mean, I knew he was crazy before, but… Jesus!"
"Did you see the walls?" asked Tony. "There's no question about it, it's written right there. Prisoner. That's what she was. She was a prisoner of her own father." It really put his own daddy-issues in perspective.
"Do you think…" began Clint hesitantly, "that stuff he said about his powers being genetic… you don't think… she's got them, too?"
"She can't!" insisted Thor. "Would she not have fought back by now had she been able to?"
"Maybe she tried," Bruce speculated. "Maybe that's what earned her all these burns."
"She can't have them," said Natasha, but she didn't sound sure. "Not yet, anyway. It was dormant in Cory for what, twenty years?"
"But we don't know how is works," Tony pointed out. "Hell, we don't even know what it is. Maybe there is no permanent time of dormancy. For all we know… she might."
"I'm sure we'll find out when we get there," muttered Steve uncertainly.
"Unless Fury or the Council decide we shouldn't," Clint pointed out.
They fell into an uneasy silence, each deep in their own thoughts.
It was a short flight, but it felt longer than it actually was to everyone involved. Jess emerged from the jet on a stretcher with two SHIELD medics and was rolled away to a more efficient medical room (apparently all they could actually do on the jet was mostly diagnostic as the equipment there was meant for more dangerous injuries) almost instantly, and the Avengers were led to a room with a long table and many chairs in which Coulson and Fury were waiting, Fury looking like he was ready to shoot someone's head off.
"Does any of you feel like explaining to me why there is a teenage girl in my secret base?" demanded Fury.
"The power-hungry maniac we just brought it, Lawrence Cory, is her father," said Clint.
"Well, let me rephrase, then. Why is an insane criminal's teenage girl in my secret base?"
"He was keeping the kid locked up," snapped Tony. "He's been abusing her using his powers. She can't even walk because he burned her feet so that she wouldn't try to escape."
"We're supposed to be helping people," agreed Bruce. "That girl needed help."
"And you couldn't get her to a hospital, couldn't you?" Fury asked sarcastically. "Taking her on the jet with you was the only possible thing you could have done?"
"Look, Cory, he… he said something about his powers being genetic," explained Tony. "His plan was to change the definition of being human through some kind of quickened evolution. If what he said was correct, wouldn't SHIELD want to check her? See if her eyes can glow in the dark?"
Fury looked thoughtful for several moments before speaking again. "Do you know anything about the girl's mother?" he asked. "Any other family she might have?"
They all shook their heads, and Fury grumbled and turned to Coulson. "Get a team looking into it. Tell them to find records of Jessica Cory and find out if there's anyone we should be worried about. Now." Coulson nodded and exited the room.
Fury looked over the Avengers. "I'll need to send in some agents for the official cleanup," he informed them. "Anything else inside that building I should know about?"
"No, sir," said Steve. "The only thing out of the ordinary is Jess's cell."
"What about the cell?" asked Fury with a frown.
"Nothing, uh…" Steve hesitated, "she had this crayon- well, several, actually, and she wrote on the walls and floor. I imagine that was about the only thing she had to do when she was in that cell, and who knows how long that was."
"I'll let them know," said Fury. "You're free to leave, we will call you in when you're next needed."
"And what of the child?" asked Thor.
"She will be handled properly," said Fury. "No unnecessary harm will come to her, you have my word."
"Whoa, hang on, unnecessary?" Tony frowned. "You mean she might be necessarily hurt?"
Fury sighed. "Don't take my words too literally, Stark," he warned.
"With all due respect, sir, Tony has a point," said Steve. "Can you promise she will not be harmed at all?"
"I cannot," admitted Fury. "But that is only because I don't know just what kind of goddamn tests the lab's gonna run to check for powers we still don't understand, or how invasive they may be. With things we don't know anything about, it's usually more invasive than most people are comfortable with. But she will not be harmed unless it is needed."
"That's not good enough," said Steve calmly.
"Excuse me?" Fury raised an eyebrow. "And you suggest what, exactly? Let her walk around with the potential power to wipe out a frankly significant part of the world's population?"
"Look, she's been through a lot," said Steve. "She should at least be allowed to pick up the pieces before you people cut her open and start poking around to see if she pokes back."
"As is my intention," said Fury. "Despite what you may like to think, Captain, I don't tend to be cruel towards people I have no reason to be cruel to, and I doubt I was ever cruel to anyone who still can't legally get a driver's license. I'm told the kid's injuries are being looked to as we speak, and she will be allowed a few days before we question her. In the meantime, she will be given clean clothes and a decent place to stay in. Is that good enough for you, Captain Rogers?"
Steve didn't answer straight away, but his eyes never once waver and pierced right through Fury's. "I want to be present in her questioning," he declared.
"I'll second that," Tony piped up, raising a hand in the air.
"Me too, sir," said Natasha.
"Am I to understand that all of the Avengers are going to be present?" asked Fury, looking irritated.
They exchanged looks.
"We're the first people who don't want to hurt her she's seen in god knows how long," said Bruce tentatively. "I think it's best if we're there."
"And people think I run things here," sighed Fury. "Fine. I'll call you in when we're ready for her. Now if you all excuse me, I have to find somewhere for a possibly dangerous kid to reside."
"Actually, I think I might be able to save you the trouble," said Tony. "She can stay in the Tower for a few days, if that's alright by you."
Fury looked at him with disbelief. "Are you telling me you're willing to house a stranger kid just like that?" he asked.
"I did say philanthropist, didn't I?" Tony reminded him. "And Pepper would be cool with it. She'd be thrilled, she loves kids. And it's not like I'm short of space."
"Why is it every time you talk I find myself considering early retirement?" asked Fury.
"I'm serious."
"Well, if you're sure. But I ain't letting you back out on that one. If you decide it's too much for you, you're still stuck with her until it's time to bring her back in."
"Gotcha. I'll keep that in mind."
"Now get out, all of you," barked Fury. "I'll have her brought to the Tower when the medics are done. And anything suspicious, any new information you get, anything she might say – you report to me immediately. That goes for all of you." He gave them all a dark look, as if to say he mistrusted their abilities to keep tabs on Jess and that he'd have liked it much better had the whole Avengers Initiative thing never even happened.
"Yes, sir," said Tony with a mock salute on his way out of the room.
The Avengers Tower was obnoxiously prominent, Jess decided.
Not that it wasn't impressive. It was. But it was impossible to walk by it without at least sparing it a glance or, more commonly, staring at it and trying to get a glimpse of its top (which was virtually impossible as the Tower was ridiculously and unnecessarily tall). Jess always was an introvert, but circumstances have made her even less comfortable with attention, so it was difficult for her to adjust to the idea of staying in the Avengers Tower, even for just a week.
She couldn't tell how long she's been at the headquarters. It must have been hours, but she couldn't tell for sure. When she first arrived a female agent with a cold expression walked beside the stretcher, and when Jess was put into a wheelchair and wheeled forward by a medic the agent explained they were taking her somewhere she can wash and that she would be given clean clothes. Jess didn't know how long it's been since she took a shower.
It took her long to get herself clean, as she had to shower sitting down (she still couldn't stand) and she ached pretty much all over. When she was finally done and crawled out of the shower she found a white towel and clothes that turned out to be a blue T-shirt and a pair of jeans. She was alarmed to discover how much weight she'd lost, but tried not to think much about it.
When she was dressed she climbed back onto the wheelchair and knocked on the door, and two medics took her to a horribly white room that reeked of disinfection. The medics were very quiet and professional, and no one tried talking to her, which she didn't mind and was actually a bit grateful for, but she felt awkward nonetheless. She was unsure of what she was supposed to do or whether or not she was expected to speak while the medics took good looks at her burns making her incredibly uncomfortable and placed some unfamiliar, cool gel on them. Then they left her with an order not to move, and Jess thought she had no intention whatsoever to move and that the gel felt like heaven spilled over her feet. They must have been gone for only about fifteen minutes, yet still somehow when they returned most of her burns were completely gone. Her feet and some areas on her arms still hurt, but remarkably less, and it was pain she could handle. She wondered if she could have handled that amount of pain before the Incident. Apart from that there wasn't really anything to be done. The burns hurt, but they were superficial and not dangerous, and Lawrence only ever burned her, and when he hit her he made sure not to do it too hard so that there's no permanent damage. She tried not to think about that at the moment.
Jess was given socks and a pair of basic, comfortable sneakers, and another agent walked into the room. He's different, thought Jess when she saw him. Maybe it was his smile or something in his eyes, she couldn't tell, but he was much warmer than any agent or medic she's encountered so far, not counting the Avengers. She wasn't sure whether the Avengers counted as agents or not.
"Miss Cory," said the agent, "I'm Agent Coulson. Please come with me."
She didn't say anything as she followed the stranger across more corridors than she could be bothered to count (she counted. They passed eight), her feet protesting weakly and half-heartedly at each impact with the floor, and eventually into what looked like a conference room with a long glass table, twenty black revolving chairs, several green plants in pots and a massive black screen covering one of the white walls. The shade of the walls seemed much less intimidating and blinding than the walls in the medical room, she noted. It must've been a subtler white, or maybe just the general air of the room.
"Sit down," told her Agent Coulson in a kind yet not patronizing tone she found easy to trust. She obeyed, sitting in the closest black chair. He remained standing.
"Do you want me to tell you about my father?" asked Jess in a small voice, trying not to let the idea scare her, knowing full well it was a hopeless battle.
"Not yet," said Coulson, his smile unwavering. "I'm afraid you're going to have to come back in a week for an official questioning, though."
Jess tried suppressing the relief. She probably would be able to go through a questioning in a week, or at least go through it with more grace than she would have had she been forced to do so now.
"In the meantime we have arranged somewhere for you to stay."
"Who's 'we'?" asked Jess. "I mean, I've been dragged around this place for hours and I don't even know where I am."
"Don't worry," Coulson assured her. "We're the good guys, Miss Cory."
She gently laid a finger on the crayon in her pocket, willing herself to leave it there. "That's not good enough," she mumbled through gritted teeth. "I need to know who you are."
She could sense Coulson's hesitation in his pause before he made his decision. "This is one of the headquarters of an organization called SHIELD," he said. "That's Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement and Logistics Division. We were behind the Avengers Initiative."
Jess was quiet for several moments before saying, "The initials were picked before the words they stand for, weren't they?"
"Well, the organization started back in the 40's, Miss Cory. I wouldn't know."
"You don't have to keep calling me that. I'm fifteen. It's just Jess." Then she remembered what Coulson told her before she got distracted. "You said I'm staying somewhere?"
"Yes, I have. Apparently you'll be staying at the Avengers Tower for the next week. Tony Stark has offered one of his rooms."
"Tony Stark?" repeated Jess, frowning. "Why?"
"I wasn't told, but I wouldn't worry – he's prone to random acts of kindness once in a while."
Jess tried getting her head around it. The Avengers Tower, thought Jess. Why would Tony Stark offer to house me? Perhaps he took pity on me after seeing me in the cell. Maybe he thinks my mental condition is worse than it is. Maybe he's right and I've gone completely mad without realizing. "You know him, don't you?" Jess asked Coulson carefully. "What's he like?"
"Well, I can say with reasonable confidence you're more mature than him," said Coulson thoughtfully. "Apart from that mostly the same as the media makes him. He'll treat you well. There's a car waiting, if you're ready."
"Okay," mumbled Jess. Looking down, she realized she's been playing with her crayon again. She wondered when she took it out of her pocket and tried not to let the realization she didn't know paralyze her.
To be completely and perfectly honest, Tony wasn't entirely sure why he had offered the Avengers Tower as a temporary residence for Jess. He wanted to say it was to please Pepper, but he had a scary sort of feeling it had something to do with the kid's cell. Obviously it had something to do with the fact she even had a cell. That was what made him consider the idea in the first place, that and her mental and abusive father. But during the roughly five seconds in which he thought of it he was pretty sure it was when he remembered the writing that he has made his final decision. At the moment he decided it was best not to think about it until the next time he was drunk.
"Miss Cory is in the lobby, sir," informed him JARVIS. "Should I let her up?"
"Yeah," confirmed Tony. "You know what? Just tell her to get down here. Give her directions," he added as an afterthought.
Incidentally, down here was his workshop. Well, one of them. He had plenty in the Tower, but this one was his favorite due to its convenient proximity to the bar. For a moment he wondered about the likelihood of Jess having an unfortunate history with workshops. The odds were slim enough to risk, he decided.
It took her about five minutes to appear at the glass door of the workshop, looking hesitant and intimidated by the unfamiliar surroundings. She looked significantly better than she did just several hours ago. Her hair was clean and fell in gentle, subtle brown curls, and though there were still a few burns and yellow bruises on her arms, they were mostly gone. She was still alarmingly thin, but her general aura was much healthier. She was biting her lip nervously and had both her hands on each side of the doorway. He decided to break the ice for her.
"Hey, come in," he said looking up from his work. He didn't bother faking a smile. He never bothered much with fake smiles unless they had a purpose, and he strongly doubted Jess wanted him to fake one at all. "Walking again?" he asked casually as she walked in hesitantly.
"Yeah," she answered, looking down at her feet. "They, uh… they put some sort of gel on them. I don't think it was made for civilians; unless I missed some huge medical advancement. I mean, this stuff… most of my burns were gone in about fifteen minutes."
"Yeah, those guys know what they're doing," agreed Tony. He pushed one of the revolving chairs next to him in her direction. "Sit," he ordered. She obeyed. "Are you into robotics, Jess?" asked Tony nonchalantly, going back to his work.
"Er, not really," admitted Jess, only slightly surprised by his question. "I don't have much experience with it, though."
"How about science?"
"I was really bad at it at school," she replied. "I just didn't get it. I'm not really an exact sciences person," she added.
"I bet you just weren't properly introduced to exact sciences," said Tony, not looking up from his work. "Do you go by Jess or Jessica?" he asked, changing the subject abruptly.
"Jess," she answered. Quickly.
Tony chuckled. "Yeah? Is that disgust in your voice?"
"Jessica is horrible," said Jess definitively. "I mean, it's not necessarily horrible on its own accord, it's just horrible in reference to me. It's just one of those names that either fit you perfectly or are the worst thing that can happen to you unless you tinker with them a little."
"I see what you mean. Jessica is awful on you." He took a sip of his coffee and rolled away from the desk to look at his work.
"You're building another suit?" asked Jess, gazing at the inner skeleton of a metal arm.
"Yep."
"How many have you already got?" she asked. She sounded genuinely interested. "You've had four or five when I still had access to the internet. Which Mark is this one?"
"40," said Tony, mentally storing away what she said and promising himself to analyze the time frame later.
"Why do you need so many?"
"Well, one never knows when one might need forty Iron Man suits," mused Tony. "Besides, they're really fun to build."
"Are they all the same, though?"
"Never!" scoffed Tony, pretending to be offended.
Jess grinned. "Okay, well, how are they different?"
"Well, these can operate on their own," explained Tony. "I can still use them as suits, but they don't depend on me. And they all have different special abilities. And different names, that's very important."
"So basically you're making an army of Iron Men?" concluded Jess.
"Basically."
"That's intensely cool," she told him sincerely.
"Finally, someone who appreciates my brilliance," said Tony. "I need more like you. Are you for hire?"
Jess chuckled. "Oh, sure, go ahead and hire a fifteen year old. See what the press thinks about that."
Tony shrugged. "I did worse things than that."
"Yeah. I know. You did most of them publicly."
Tony rolled back forwards, leaned his elbow on the desk and gave her a serious look. "That's rude," he declared. "You're being rude."
"And I'm good at it, too."
"You cheeky little- that's it. I changed my mind. I'm not hiring you, I don't want you."
Jess laughed and tried not to wonder how long it's been since she last did.
"Am I interrupting?" asked a feminine voice from the doorway, her words mixing with the sound of heels on tiles.
"Not at all," said Tony, smiling up at Pepper, noticing Jess stopped smiling and was back in her previous tense, hesitant posture. He made a mental note about Jess's reaction to strangers and figured he should make sure she was exposed to as little of those the next week as he could.
"Hi, I'm Pepper Potts, but just call me Pepper," Pepper introduced herself to their guest, holding up a hand, smiling from ear to ear.
"Jess Cory," murmured Jess, shaking her hand. "Hi."
"I just wanted us to properly meet, so I'll be right out," explained Pepper. "If you need anything, anything at all, just ask JARVIS, he'll tell you where to find me."
"Sure, thanks," said Jess, smiling back at her.
"Great. Then I'll be off, and you –" she gestured at Tony – "can get right back to whatever you were doing."
Jess thought the clicking of her heels against the floor was a much more calming sound than they were a minute earlier. Probably because Pepper had the air of a comforting person about her, she decided.
"Mr. Stark –" Jess began.
"Tony," Tony interrupted. "I don't call you Jessica; you don't call me Mr. Stark."
"Alright, so, Tony," she started again, "why am I here?" she ran her fingers through her hair. "Not that I'm not grateful, I really am, but… why?"
And when Tony looked right into her eyes, those eyes that had a certain shining to them and a complexity he wasn't accustomed to seeing in teenagers, he knew he couldn't lie his way out of this one. He sighed. "Because of the stuff you wrote in that cell," he told her.
Jess blinked. "I- what does that have to do with anything?"
"I don't know," Tony admitted. "Maybe I'm wrong, maybe it's not about that. Maybe I just felt bad for you. Now, I don't know you. I don't know what happened to you, or how long you were in that cell, and I'm not asking. But I am going to ask you this one thing because I don't think anyone else will: what was the word 'Prisoner' about?"
Jess swallowed. Tony looked down at her hands and noticed she was playing with the crayon again, though in a much gentler way. "Nothing," she mumbled. "I just wrote it when he first put me in the cell. I was pretty upset."
Tony knew he should shut up. He really did. "It was written over and over again," he pointed out anyway.
Jess shrugged. "I wrote over it whenever things got really bad," she said in something that was barely more than a whisper, though her voice became gradually more confident as she spoke. "When I felt like I couldn't take it anymore. It doesn't look like it at first, but after a while the cell is… suffocating. He didn't care about what I wrote. He gave me new crayons when I asked. I thought he'd care, I thought it would make him angry, to know that I saw myself as a prisoner, but he didn't care, so that was when I first understood the whole point was to make me a prisoner. Until that I thought the point was to be my dad, because he didn't really get to before. So the first time it was more an attempt of some sort of defiance than anything, but after that it was just a way to take my anger out on something. Namely the wall."
Tony nodded. "And the other stuff? There was quite a lot written there."
"I didn't have much to do in there," explained Jess. "He wouldn't even get me books. So it was that or sleeping or not doing anything at all. Mostly I just sat there, but there were things inside my head I needed to get out and the only way I knew was to write them. Plus there was something familiar about it, you know? I used to write before, too, so it was kind of comforting."
Tony noted that she was unnervingly calm. Maybe that was how she coped, by distancing herself from the situation.
"I, uh…" Jess hesitated, "I have a weird question, and I have a feeling I may be judged for it, but it's actually really important, to me at least."
"Shoot," Tony told her.
"It's just, I've been, er, away, for a while, and I know I missed some stuff, and I know I should be asking about other stuff right now, but… do you by any chance follow Doctor Who?" There was a small embarrassed smile on her lips.
Tony just laughed.
He probably laughed longer than was considered tactful.
Jess's smile went from embarrassed to slightly exasperated. "I probably should have made you promise not to laugh first," she decided.
"Jess, I'd still have laughed," Tony told her honestly between laughs.
"Fine."
"Alright, alright, I'm sorry," Tony forced himself to stop laughing, though he still found it difficult to keep a straight face. "I'll have to say that no, I don't."
"Well, it's your loss, okay?" Jess grumbled. "Is there anywhere I can catch up on it? I just need something that connects to the internet."
"Yeah, yeah, uh… JARVIS, help Jess get somewhere she can watch Doctor Who, apparently that's what she missed most about the outside world. Oh, you know what? Just take her to one of the spare bedrooms so that she can settle, that makes much more sense."
"As you wish, Sir," said the AI.
"He'll tell you where to turn and what not," Tony told Jess. "And if you need anything, just ask him, he'll either answer or tell you where you can find, er, someone."
"Sure, I'll ask the robot that runs your freaking Tower," muttered Jess, getting up from the chair and walking away. "Just speak up and ask the air and the ceiling will reply, why not. Nothing unusual here." Behind her, she heard Tony start laughing again, presumably still over her question. "Shut up."
"I wouldn't get my hopes up," Tony called after her. In truth, despite how funny he found it, there was something serious about her wondering about a TV show. He had a feeling it meant she was going to be okay. There was no denying she's been through a lot, but Tony suspected it wasn't more than she was capable of handling. And no matter how he looked at it, that was an undeniably good thing. He just hoped he wasn't wrong.
Jess was in one of the spare bedrooms for hours. Tony made sure each of the bedrooms had a computer and a television, resulting in a large number of such in the Tower, so he didn't figure Jess would have any trouble in that specific field. He also figured having access to the internet would be good for her and allow her to see what she has missed, maybe even get back in touch with certain people. Unfortunately, that's wasn't all he has figured out.
The time frame. Jess said that before whatever happened has happened, she was aware of four or five suits. It had Tony seriously alarmed until he realized what she said probably didn't actually mean you had four or five suits and that a more accurate way to put it would have been when the media and public thought you had four or five suits, which although was still very bad, at least made some sort of sick and backwards sense, which was right about everything he dared hope for. Still, it was worse than he first assumed.
But there was something about the girl he couldn't explain. Not the type of thing Fury would be interested in, at least not officially, but this something made him believe she wasn't hopeless. He didn't know much about psychology, and most of what he did know was due to unfortunate firsthand experience, but the way she talked and acted in the workshop… for a minute he'd almost forgotten how broken she looked earlier. Still, he didn't try fooling himself into thinking it was going to be easy for her. Judging by her previous state, he doubted there was anyone to help her pick up the shattered remains of her life. He decided not to think about Jess's mother or where she might be.
Instead, he focused on the arm for Mark 40.
It didn't take long for everything else to feel distant and not-his. The accurate, complicated mechanics of the arm were his whole world, for now. His favorite part of working on the suits was always what it did to his brain; it calmed him down, made him forget his problems for a little while. Of course, it didn't make his problems disappear altogether, but when he couldn't do anything to solve said problems, working was the next best thing. As his mind sunk deeper and deeper into working, it was as if everything else was put behind a window and Tony was sealed off from the rest of the world.
Well, almost.
"Tony?" rang Pepper's voice.
"Yeah?" he called, distracted.
"We're thinking takeout tonight," she informed him. "Pizza?"
"Yeah, sure," agreed Tony. Then the meaning of her words sunk in. "Wait, takeout? What time is it?"
"Uh…" she paused to glance at her watch. "Eight thirty."
Tony stopped working and tried to remember when he started. Three? Four? "How's Jess doing?"
"She was in her bedroom for a few hours, but she's out now. She was with the rest of the team when I last saw her."
Tony nodded. "Good."
"Tony…" Pepper walked closer to him, making him look up at her from his chair. "What's this about?"
"What do you mean?" asked Tony innocently.
She glared at him. "You know what I mean. Why is Jess here? I mean, you know I'm entirely on board with it. I just want to know what you're thinking."
"I'm thinking…" Tony sighed, trying to find the right words. "I'm thinking this girl's been through hell, and I just… I don't know, I wanted to help. I don't know where Fury was gonna send her, but I know for a fact she'd be safe here, and she'd be with people I trust, people who would be good for her."
Pepper made a small smile. "Well, I think that's wonderful," she told him. Tony smiled back at her as she leaned in and pressed her lips to his. "You coming?"
"Yeah, in a sec. Let me just finish this up, I'm nearly done with this arm."
"Alright."
To the sound of her footsteps, Tony wondered just what he's done in his life to deserve Pepper Potts.
During the hours she spent in her temporary bedroom, Jess has learned several things:
A. She's missed an entire season of Doctor Who, and judging by the first two episodes, which she watched on a Stark Industries computer, it was one hell of a season, in her opinion at least.
B. The world hasn't changed much in her absence.
C. She's been gone for ten months.
D. She was presumed dead.
She tried not to dwell on the last two, knowing full well she'll have plenty of time for that, but despite her determined attempts, she found herself thinking about her friends.
She wanted to contact them. Call them, send them an email, anything. But she didn't know if she could. She didn't know how they would take it. She didn't know whether the assumptions of her death were official and whether they believed them, but she did know she couldn't just drop out of the skies and expect things to just get right back on track from where they left off. Even if they believed she was alive, she's been missing for ten months. They must have been at least beginning to give up hope by now. Then she thought about everything she's put them through and how hard it must have been for them, and knew she'd start crying unless she stopped thinking about it.
But her mind had a limited supply of distractions. She figured Tony wouldn't mind her taking an innocent stroll in the Tower, and JARVIS would probably tell her if she was about to unknowingly enter somewhere she wasn't supposed to go. She might even find some books.
However, as often seemed to be the case, the universe had other ideas in store.
Jess knew the Avengers all lived in the Avengers Tower. That happened before the Incident, and anyway the name did imply so. But she still didn't expect to meet any of them for reasons she couldn't really understand.
"Jess?"
Jess whirled around and her eyes locked with Steve's. Concern was written all over his face. "Hi," she blurted.
"You okay?" he asked, taking a few steps in her direction. "When did you get here?"
"Um, a few hours ago." She scratched her head nervously. "I was just online catching up. You know, checking what I missed, that sort of stuff."
"Been there," said the super soldier with a nod. "Found anything important?"
"Not really, no," she lied. "Nothing huge."
"Well, that's good, I guess," Steve said so kindly she felt like crying.
It really could have been nice, thought Jess mournfully. "Thank you for earlier, by the way," she said. "For getting me out and for stopping my dad, it's… I probably would've stayed there for much longer if it wasn't for you guys, so…"
"It's no problem," said Steve. "It's practically our day job." He paused. "Well, it really is our day job, more or less."
Jess smiled. "Still," she said. "Firemen still get thanked for saving people even though it's their job. Same goes for superheroes, I guess."
Steve chuckled. "I was just heading down to the living room," he told her. "The others should be there, too. Wanna join me?"
Jess wanted to say no. She couldn't help but trust each and every one of the Avengers, but she was scared, though she wasn't sure why. Ten months ago I'd never have admitted to being scared, not even to myself, thought Jess. But plenty changed, and she was too familiar with fear to keep pretending it was a sign of weakness.
Jess wanted to say no, and she was about to, until she caught the look in Steve's eyes. He was smiling, and his eyes had a hopeful glint in them. It didn't help that they were the most annoyingly adorable shade of blue either.
"Sure," she found herself saying, and Steve's smile widened and she followed him to the living room.
Jess was genuinely shocked at how easy it was for her to communicate. She was quiet and hesitant at first, but Thor's booming laughter had a way of forcing people to socialize. And despite everything, she enjoyed it more than she's enjoyed anything in months, and in an hour she laughed more than she has the whole time she spent captive. One thing Jess will never be able to forget, the one thing she will never find easy to believe, was just how quickly the Avengers accepted her and let her become involved in their lives for no reason at all.
Pepper and Tony walked in and out of the room, but Jess could hardly keep track. She didn't notice, but she hasn't reached for the crayon once during the time she spent just chatting and joking with seven superheroes (no one would ever convince her that Pepper's ability to be almost overwhelmingly kind to her didn't make her a superhero).
The following days, when Jess would try to remember what they talked about, she would discover it difficult. But she would remember the way the Avengers made her feel.
Safe.