Oh. Um… hi! Weeelllll, I am kind of sort of maybe slightly obsessed with the new Avenger movie that just came out. Yeah. I'd go with very obsessed, but whatever. This idea hit me the first time I saw the movie and, honestly, I can't keep away from writing it. Hopefully it'll work out!
Energy. It's a funny thing, really: that thrumming, willful vibration that travels through a medium causing God knows what kind of disturbances in its wake. Maybe that's why those who crave power are so enthralled by it, seduced even. Maybe that's why it's linked to power. Maybe that's why a certain god of mischief had his eyes set on it at that very moment. And maybe that was why I had been called in- well, captured was more fitting- to help with it.
My name is Ashley- Ash for short. My last name doesn't really matter anymore, but it's Wilson. I was a doctor in my third year of residency until SHIELD found out about my other… abilities. I can detect and manipulate electrical currents to my will - pretty handy when your main focus in medicine is the human brain and nervous system.
That's why he's after me, but we'll get to who he is later.
This is my story.
Ash turned on her side as the alarm clock blared loud and clear into the dark room. She reached over quickly to hit the snooze button. Five more minutes. That's all I need!
Sure enough, five minutes later the clock went off, sounding that it was seven a.m. In a fluid motion, Ashley Wilson slung the covers off of her body and turned on the light at her bedside table. She was able to detect her suite mate snoring lightly in the other room and she smiled.
Grabbing her text book on the human body- her Netter as she more fondly referred to it- she opened to somewhere in the middle in preparation for an early morning exam. She grabbed a bagel from her mini-fridge and spread a dollop of cream cheese over it. Coffee. I need coffee.
Walking out into the kitchen and living area that she and her roommate, Lauren, shared, she kept the book against her chest, bagel suspended in her mouth as she managed to pull a chair up to the dining room table. She snagged a paper towel from the roll and set the bagel down, and proceeded to glance over her notes as she went about making the coffee. She had already passed this exam in medical school, but she needed to retake it again to take the first step in gaining surgical qualifications. One of the many things she liked about hospitals was that they were very, very thorough. And, honestly, what could one expect from a building full of men and women with type-A personalities?
With a little sigh, she poured the now ready coffee, pushing back dark brown hair from her eyes. She half-expected her roommate to get up at the smell of coffee and she was not disappointed.
"Hey, Ash," Lauren said as she tossed long blonde hair over her shoulder. "That smells amazing."
Ashley looked up at her roommate. "Have some," she said as she went back to her work. She was notorious for not being able to carry on a conversation while she worked. She just couldn't do it. That was one of the many reasons that she had dreamed of being a doctor. No one messed with you or questioned you when you had an M.D. after your name. No one doubted you. You were in control.
Control.
Her thoughts flashed briefly back to a cold rainy day fifteen years ago, of a man that looked just like her lying flat on his back while the neighbors worked to resuscitate him… sirens everywhere… the rain coming down… she had been young then, though she could not remember exactly how old, and she had never felt more helpless. It had been a heart attack that had killed her father- and she had stood by while he had died. Never again would that helpless girl resurface, never again would she not know what to do in a situation like that.
That was what had driven her through her undergraduate degree, what had driven her to make close to a perfect score on the MCAT, and what had driven her to graduate medical school as one of the top ten students of her class.
"Ash?" Lauren's voice broke through Ashley's thoughts. "You're thinking about it again. I can tell."
Ashley shook her head. She had indeed sat back into a very thoughtful position, arms crossed and looking straight out the window. "Sorry."
Lauren smiled that movie-star smile that she always gave to her patients. Her specialty was Pediatrics and everyone knew her as the "Angel of the Children's Wing" down at the hospital. Kids loved her because they thought she looked like Cinderella. And honestly, Lauren was just as nice as Cinderella and just as pretty. But they didn't share anything beyond appearance in common, not really. Both of Lauren's parents were highly successful lawyers in Atlanta. They had never hurt for money and they had always taken care of her. Another thing: Both of Lauren's parents were still alive.
Ash had never known her mother. She had taken off when Ashley was three. To Ashley, that was the same as being dead.
"Big day in the world of neurosurgery?" Lauren asked as she added a sugar cube to the coffee in her hand. Ashley nodded, as she took off her reading glasses and sucked on the end of one of the ear pieces.
She looked at Ashley. "But I'm not finished in my ER rotation til next week sometime. I think they're just testing my patience."
Lauren let out a laugh. As a pediatrician, she didn't have as long a residency as Ashley did. She was very near finishing hers all together. Ashley, on the other hand, had a long way to go…
Lauren tugged her sleeve down to check the time on her watch. "Well, we'd better go in a few minutes if you want to get there a little early. Traffic's going to get bad soon if we don't watch it."
Ashley nodded. "Let me get this studying done and then we can go."
"Don't push yourself too hard, now. You are already one of the top doctors I know. Just take it easy on yourself."
Ashley nodded and waved her friend off. Lauren went back to her room and shut the door lightly. A few minutes later, Ashley could make out the sound of the shower starting up. Ashley pulled her hair back to keep it out of her face and delved back into the world of anatomy.
"Come on, Ash, we'll be late if we don't go now!" Ashley heard Lauren downstairs, calling up to her from the car, sunroof rolled out and her blonde head bobbing through it. In a rush, Ashley collected the rest of her charts, grabbed her bag, and slipped out the front door of the apartment.
The hospital that the two were working their residency at was twenty minutes away and Ashley knew from personal experience that they would not be late, but she had learned long ago to just accept Lauren's often overzealous attempts at moving her along.
As soon as her butt hit the passenger seat Lauren had taken off. "I figure we hit the interstate and we can catch up on time that way," she said almost spastically. "Yeah. That'll be fine."
The clock on the dashboard said it was only seven thirty and the official meeting for the interns started at eight. "Lauren, calm down. We'll be fine."
Lauren didn't calm down until the car hit the interstate. Ashley sat back a bit in her seat, finally convinced that she wasn't going to die.
The day passed with the usual car crash victims and trauma treatments in Ashley's branch of the ER. It always made Ashley feel at peace to be there, helping those that needed it. she held the proud record of never losing a patient while they were under her care. In the trauma unit, her abilities served to help locate the main sources of damage in the life forces and nerve impulses of trauma victims. She felt that this was where she belonged. Each time she saved a life, she felt like she was conquering death, taking back a bit of her father in the process.
No one else- not even Lauren- knew about her talent, and many chalked it up to her being naturally gifted.
Her shift ended at five and she walked out to the parking lot to see Lauren, leaning against the car and smoking a cigarette. Ashley rolled her eyes as she plucked the infernal thing from her friend's mouth and stamped it out with the toe of her sneaker. "You said you had quit."
Lauren crossed her arms, looking sadly at the cigarette. "Johny turned me down…" she mumbled.
Ashley just looked at her. "So you decide to start smoking again?" Ashley couldn't believe what she was hearing. Lauren had had the hots for one of the local doctors for forever, but must have actually acted on asking him out. Ashley couldn't imagine why any man would turn her down though.
She cut her eyes at Ashley. "Apparently he's engaged." She muttered.
"Oh." Ashley said it stupidly. "I'm sorry, Lauren."
She waved Ashley off. "Do you feel like driving?" she asked pathetically as she handed the car keys to Ashley.
"Sure," she replied as she slipped her jacket on over her hospital scrubs and got behind the wheel.
The two drove in silence for a while. Ashley scoured the road for any sign of trouble as clouds started forming overhead. Rain fell in big glops onto the windshield and lightning spiked in the distance.
Rain.
Rain always made her sad. But the lightning was enough to make her jump from her seat often times. It was energy that nothing else could be compared to and she always reveled in it. Another shot of lighting streaked across the sky…
"Ash! Look out!" Lauren's voice reached her ears just as the sight of a big pick-up truck swerving into their lane registered with her. There was a slight moment of weightlessness, Lauren's high-pitched screaming, and then the sound of metal twisting and crunching.
Ashley lost sight of anything tangible for the briefest moment before she found herself dangling upside down, her seatbelt the only thing keeping her from falling and breaking her neck on the roof of the overturned car.
"Lauren?" she mumbled, but it was little more than a croak. She blinked once. Twice. "Lauren…"
"Ash?" Lauren's voice was weak. "Where are you?"
Ashley looked over. Lauren was upside down too, but her arm… her arm was… crushed under her awkwardly. She winced as Ashley's eyesight came back into sharper focus. They needed to get out of there…
"Come on," Ashley said quietly, as she braced her hands against the ceiling of the car and undid her belt. It was an awkward feeling, purposefully landing on her head, but she did it anyway. She got out of her side of the car first before walking over to Lauren's side. She was unable to detect a continuous electrical current that typically pulsed from a living thing's heart. That worried her. To her right, as she staggered blindly around, she was able to see the blue pickup truck on the other side of the road, halfway in a ditch, but otherwise no serious damage. Lauren comes first.
She dialed 911 as she got down on her hands and knees to look at her friend. The blonde was now unconscious… and there was no current coming from her body. The feeling of utter helplessness threatened to consume her. No. Not today. She knew what to do this time. She was going to help Lauren!
By the time she had pulled her out of the car, though, her friend's body showed no signs of stirring. She felt no current. "Lauren!" she said quietly. She felt the hair on the backs of her arms stand up as rain came down harder and harder. She started CPR, but it was no use.
She was starting to feel the shock of the crash too as the adrenaline left her system. She looked up to notice thunder clouds, dark and gray, had formed right above her head. Lightning sparked as she got more upset. An ambulance rolled up… followed by a black suburban. Those weren't protocol for roadside wrecks…
She looked up again as the roadside team came running to help Lauren. They wouldn't help her at all. In a last ditch effort to save her friend, instinct took over and she placed two hands on Lauren's chest. She felt really dizzy as she channeled all her thoughts into helping her friend. She was not going to lose anyone like this. Not again.
The clouds opened up in a terrible clamor and Lauren opened her eyes as the team came up to the two doctors.
That was all Ash could make out before the feeling of a bee sting surfaced in her neck and she fell backwards unconscious.
Phil Coulson had seen some strange stuff during his time as a member of SHIELD. Hell, he had seen it all. Or at least he thought he had. If there had been one thing he had never expected on this job it would have been to see someone come back to life.
His team had been tracking atmosphere disturbances for a while now that the teseract had started acting up. It had been a job all the way from Fury. So, naturally when an atmospheric disruption had occurred so close to where they were researching that infernal cube he had been sent out to look around.
What he got instead was two doctors, one dead and the other working like mad to save her, under a cloud of sheer energy. Then he had seen the cloud give out and come back down to the dead girl… and she had opened her eyes.
Coulson had called it in to Fury. It had been the boss's call to bring the brown headed woman in. He had ordered his men to take her down.
So, like the good ol' special forces they were, they had sedated her and plopped her into the van after leaving a very detailed explanation to the highway patrol that was complete and total malarkey. Coulson had gotten good at that over the years. He had gotten very good.
He looked over his shoulder at the woman handcuffed in the backseat, passed out and leaning against the window. He highly doubted that she was going to be able to help with the teseract's malfunctions, but he turned back around in his seat anyways and called in the success of the mission.
Winces. Yeah… That didn't exactly go the way I had planned. I felt like it was too much OC and not enough Avengers. But, I promise, if I continue this will follow the storyline of the movie almost perfectly. Your thoughts on this spur of the moment character? :)