Chapter One
In Which We Meet Our Hero
She felt the crash deep in her gut, felt the airbag explode in her face, the agony of her nose breaking and her arm snapping and her skull being crushed—
Sonya King jerks up out of sound sleep, squinting in the red and blue lights flashing through her window, the sirens ringing in her ears. Three police cars. Two ambulances. Swinging her legs out of bed, she moves to the window and peers out. On the street, three stories below, a silver Honda Accord has crashed in to the telephone pole at the corner, its fender bent, hood crumpled up like a tin can. She can feel the agony of the driver. A man, middle-aged, drunk. A smashed nose, broken ribs, ruptured lungs, useless arm, skull smashed. He's dying.
Her suspicions are proven correct when the EMTs pull him out of the wreckage, scurrying around like ants, CPR, bandages, a defibrillator from the ambulance. Sonya can feel him fading. "He's gone." She whispers, shuddering at the sudden lack of feeling. The paramedics notice, too, heads bowing, one of them closes the man's eyes.
She falls back on her bed, feeling a swarm of irrational guilt. "Sorry." She whispers to her ceiling, knowing it wasn't her fault, knowing that there was nothing she could have done, but it still hurts. And it's not like it's anything NEW, feeling someone die, she's felt it all before, hell, she's in school to be a doctor, but it still hurts.
'Just relax.' She tells herself, closing her eyes and taking deep breaths.
Her alarm clock wakes her up at six with an extraordinarily rude blast of Fall Out Boy's Phoenix. She silences it with an equally rude punch in the off button, rolling out of bed like a zombie, trailing her way to the shower. The hot water wakes her up, and so does a hot coffee. She stands glaring at herself in the mirror, brushing her teeth vigorously, shaking purple-dyed hair out of her eyes, the result of a spontaneous idea, on her part. Oh, well, it's pretty, the purple.
"You're gonna be okay today." She tells her reflection, buttoning her blouse. "You can do this!" She declares, zipping her boots. "You're a big girl, now."
'I'm a fucking idiot.' Sonya thinks, glaring in her wallet. She forgot her bus money. Again. It's gonna have to be the subway, today. She hates the subway, hates the funky smells, the uneven lighting, the crush of people. The train's late, too. 'Isn't anxiety a lovely thing?' She thinks, trying to quell a racing heart and sweaty palms. 'Please don't let me have a panic attack.' Sonya isn't sure if it's a prayer or not, or if God's even listening, but it's worth a shot. Her week's been awful enough already. She focuses on her breathing.
An explosion rips the thoughts out of her mind and she's flying, landing with a thud. She sits up quickly, blinking spots out of her vision and trying to hear past the ringing in her ears. A masked person with a spooky skull/octopus thing embroidered on his shoulder is walking towards her, and there's a knife in they're hands. She throws up her hands, and the guy suddenly bounces back like he's hit a rubber mat. There's a purple bubble around Sonya. 'When did I learn to do this?' She wonders. The masked person is up on their feet again, but goes flying spectacularly when a streak of blue zooms past him. There's a different person standing in from of Sonya, now, shaking blondish-brown hair out of his eyes.
"How did you learn to do that?" He asks. He's got an accent, Russian maybe? She isn't sure.
"Hogwarts." She blurts out. The man grins.
"The magic school, yes? Very funny." He says it sarcastically, but his eyes are laughing. He doesn't seem to notice a second masked person emerge from the shadows, levelling a gun at his back. Sonya leaps forward and scoop her bubble around her new friend. He jumps in shock at the gunshot and they both whirl to see the person go flying from a red, white, and blue shield to the back of the head.
"Ah." The blond says. "Here is Steve."
Steve Rogers steps from the gloom, looking very heroic, an unconscious child in one arm. "Quicksilver." He says. "You're supposed to be getting the injured to safety, not flirting.
Quicksilver (THE Quicksilver) grins wider. "I was not flirting. I was making friends with-!" He turns just as Sonya falls to the ground, suddenly overwhelmed by the pain of all the injured around her. The pain of dozens of broken bones, of hundreds of bruises and cuts, and the inescapable fear of hundreds is assaulting her full force. She shudders as she feels a death quite close. Quicksilver is crouching in front of her, eyes concerned, lips moving, but she can hear him past the ringing in her ears, barely thinking past the pain, unable to function from the pain of hundreds pouring in to her mind. She's hyperventilating, shaking like a leaf, breaths coming quick and fast, there's blood on her lips and tears on her cheeks, and she's trying to focus on the man in front of her, but it's too much, too much! Oh, God, she wants to die, it hurts. It hurts so much! There's smoke in her nose and dust in her eyes, and her vision is just blackness, poked through with random pinholes of light, blinding and soothing all at once. She's screaming in her head. 'Make it go away! I want to go away! Make it stop! It hurts! I want to die! Please! Somebody! Anybody! Help me!" She can't move though, but she can feel arms beneath her knees and around her shoulders, and someone's carrying her, fast, and a voice beneath the ringing, quite close, is calling for someone named Wanda.
Reality fades out again and for a time there's nothing but pain, then there's a woman's voice, with Quicksilver's accent, saying something about pain, then the voice is in her head, and asking her what's wrong, and all she can do is scream, 'It hurts! It hurts! Make it stop! Please make it stop!'
'What hurts?' Says the voice. 'You need to tell me, so I can help you.'
'Everywhere! Everyone!' Then there's nothing.
"Who is she?" Pietro asks. The Maximoff twins are staring through the glass window at the girl, her dark skin and purple hair a riot of color against the whiteness of the hospital.
"Sofiya Elodie King." Natasha replies, looking at her StarkPad. "Goes by Sonya, Age 19, student at Cornell University, studying medical engineering. Never knew her parents, grew up in foster care her whole life. Suffers from an anxiety disorder, chronic depression, and is on the Autism Spectrum."
"She could feel everyone's pain." Wanda whispered. "I could feel it, too, when I was in her mind." She hugs her arms around herself, shuddering. "It… It was terrible. I can't imagine what that must be like, when you have no control over it. She can't make it stop." Her brother puts his arm around her.
'She really can't stop it?' He thinks at her.
'No. She can't. She could literally feel the pain and emotions of every single person caught in the explosion.'
'That's horrible. Was she experimented on… like… like us?'
'I'm not sure.'
"What are we going to do with her?" Steve speaks up. "She doesn't really know anyone in the city, and she can't really stay on her own. I mean, the trauma of what she just went through…" He trails off.
"Plus, she can, like, make a force field." Pietro adds. "You saw, right?"
Steve nods. "Yeah. I saw."
"Good news!" Tony Stark comes bounding in to the waiting room. "I pulled a few strings, and arranged that if she wants, she can come to the Avenger's Tower and live with us." He beams around the circle, flashing a thumb's up.
"How did you manage that?" Steve wonders.
"Like I said, I pulled a few strings!" Tony answers.
"You exploited people, again?" Cap sighs.
"I'm offended you would even think that, Steven." Ironman sniffs haughtily. "It was all very legal."
"I'm still suspicious."
"He's telling the truth." Pepper Potts enters the room.
Tony pointed at her. "Yes. Thank you, Pepper."
"It turns out the girl applied for a position as a psychiatrist at SHIELD, and it all just sort of fell in to place. If she wants it, she can live at the Tower, and maybe eventually become an Avenger." Pepper glanced at the girl. "She just has to wake up, first…"
A/N: Aaaaand, DONE! I hope you guys like this, it's been on my mind of awhile!