A/N: Hello all! I just wanted to give new readers a heads up that Lucifina's 'outer voice'-aka, how she physically speaks-is meant to be broken, imperfect English. I've based her speech off a Swedish Exchange student I knew back in high school. I'm aware that writing out accents is usually frowned upon, but in Luci's case, her accent is part of her identity, so I'm just rolling with it.
With that said, I hope you enjoy the story! If you do, feel free to leave a review! :)
Thursday, April 26th, 2012. Seattle. 9 days before the Attack on Manhattan
Lucifina hugged herself as she walked down the busy street. Despite the moments of sunshine poking out through the clouds, it was still spring in Seattle-the wind, blowing in from Puget Sound, was still quite a bit on the chilly side. And the fact that it had rained during the night didn't make things any warmer, either; her hoodie did little to chase away the cold.
'I've still got a few dollars left from that contest the other night,' she thought to herself, coming to a stop at a corner as she and a dozen other people waited for the crossing signal to change. 'I can probably get a burrito or something before heading to the library. Play my cards right, and I can get three meals out of it.'
Glancing up at the sky, she squinted her eyes slightly as the sun came out from behind a cloud. Against its dreary backdrop of clouds, it seemed to be brighter than normal. The silhouette of a helicopter passed in front of the sun and she sighed, wondering if it was one of the KOMO news-helicopters on its way to some scene of emergency.
The light changed and the small crowd began to make their way across the street. A quiet sigh left her mouth as she looked back at the path ahead, not wanting to trip over anything or run into anyone. Keeping an eye out for any restaurants, she felt her stomach beginning to grow angry at the lack of food in it.
It wasn't long until she found a restaurant, however. Ducking inside the warmth of a place called 'El Chupacabra', she lightly rubbed her arms as the warmth brought out a plethora of goosebumps. Being that quiet time of day between lunch and dinner, the restaurant was relatively quiet. A hostess looked up as Lucifina entered, putting on a pleasant smile.
Lucifina noticed that a bit of the pleasantness faded when the woman got a better look at her.
"Hello, just one today?"
"Ja, but am just placing to-go order," she replied, her voice a bit on the quiet side.
The woman nodded, the wariness still in her eyes. "What would you like to order, miss?" She pulled out her order pad and a pen.
"Ah…" Looking up at the menu, she found the burrito section. "Large vegetarian burrito, please. No sour cream or guacamole, please." As she spoke, she reached into her pocket and pulled out a small wad of cash.
Seeing that Lucifina had money and wasn't trying to steal someone else's to-go order, the hostess seemed to ease up a bit and the friendliness returned to her eyes. "That'll be seven fifty-seven," she said, tapping some numbers into the screen of the register.
As she counted out the money, Lucifina inwardly swore—she had exactly eight dollars. 'Doesn't make for a very big tip,' she thought, handing the money over. As she was handed the change, she slipped it into the little tip jar before searching her bag for any other loose change or small bills. Finding none, she felt a pang of guilt in her stomach. 'America really needs to do away with tipping and allow their servers to get a decent wage…'
Standing there, she glanced over at the main dining room, where a handful of diners were seated at random tables. There was what looked to be a young couple and their toddler, a group of four elderly persons heatedly discussing the latest Mariners game, and a group of (probably) college kids sharing a few large plates of food. The sight and smells of all the food made her stomach all the more demanding for food.
She couldn't remember the last time she had had a meal that large.
A sigh left her mouth and she shook her head before turning away from the sight. Not long after, the hostess returned with a small, plastic bag that held her piping-hot burrito. Thanking the woman, she took the bag and left.
'Now to find somewhere to eat…'
Making her way down the street once more, she started to head towards a nice park she had been frequenting: Lincoln Park. As she walked, she tucked her meal safely away in her bag; it would stay warm in there, surrounded by her spare shirt and pants. Glancing back up at the sky, she found the sun hidden by a cloud—and the small helicopter still circling the city.
'Must be a slow news day,' she thought, 'or it's one of those touring helicopters.'
Somewhere in the city, sirens began to blare; the sound was so common in cities of Seattle's size, however, she didn't give them a second thought. Instead, her mind wandered to how she had hoped her little brother had returned her email and that she could find somewhere decent to make shelter that night. And, of course, how she was going to enjoy the hell out of that burrito in her bag.
'Child, the sirens grow nearer.'
Pausing in mid-step, Lucifina tilted her head as she listened to the sirens. They were, indeed, getting closer—rapidly closer. Turning around, she could see about six police cruisers racing up the street. Nearly a block ahead of them were two people on a racing-style motorbike. The driver was weaving their way in and out of traffic while the passenger was reaching for something at their side.
Screams broke out and people started ducking for cover as the passenger lifted a semi-automatic shotgun. They turned, firing the gun at the police cars behind them, but taking no care to aim. Lucifina watched as bullets tore through the windshields and sides of civilian vehicles. Injured drivers rammed into other drivers as they slammed on the breaks.
A wall of cars now separated the police from the motorbike.
Lucifina's eyes narrowed. Darting in front of a parked car, she removed her bag and started to spin it like a bola. She looked through the windows of the car, watching as the motorcycle came closer and closer—
She let go of her bag, watching it soar through the air with perfect timing. As the motorbike zoomed by, her bag slammed into the driver's face. There hadn't been enough force to do any damage, but it worked to distract the driver enough to lose control of the bike and dump it in the middle of the road. Pinned between the bike and the asphalt, the two skid many yards down the street.
Lucifina ran into the street. Snatching up her bag, she squeaked as bullets started to whizz past her. She threw herself behind another parked car and peeked out from behind it. The driver and passenger had managed to unpin themselves.
The passenger, having seen Lucifina duck behind the car, started running towards her.
Crouching, she crept her way around to the side of the car just in time to miss a hail of bullets. She hid behind the tire as the windows above her shattered from the bullets and showering her with bits of glass.
"Come out, come out, wherever you are, you plucky bitch!" the shooter snarled, his voice a bit muffled by the full-face helmet he wore.
Lucifina threw her bag away from her yet again. The shooter instinctively fired his gun at it, thinking it to be the woman. Finding himself wrong, he growled and stormed around the car.
But there was no one there.
He swore, about to turn around when something slammed into the gun. He let go of it in surprise and watched as it went flying, landing yards away. Turning, he was in time to see the sole of Lucifina's boot slam into the visor of his helmet. The force had been enough to crack the plastic, but not shatter it. It did leave his vision badly obscured, though he was able to see well enough to catch Lucifina's foot as it came towards his helmet a second time.
She squeaked as he yanked on her leg, making her fall backwards. She caught herself on her palms, grunting as her head slightly bonked against the windshield.
"You are going to pay for this, bitch," the man snarled. Still having a hold of her leg, his free hand pulled the helmet from his face.
Lucifina quickly glanced at the sky as she heard the sound of helicopters approaching.
"Skit," she grunted.
She wriggled her caught let, managing to twist it around enough to hook her foot around his limb. With a sharp yank, she brought him towards her. As she did such, she slammed her other foot into his gut. He doubled over, wheezing in pain as Lucifina rolled off the car.
Snatching up his fallen helmet, she swung it against the back of his head. His face bashed into the hood of the car before he slumped sideways, unconscious.
As she stood upright, she found the motorbike's driver running for the gun. Swearing to herself again, she dropped the helmet and raced forward.
It had been a neck-and-neck race, but the driver reached it first.
Her eyes widened as she found the barrel of the gun aimed at her. As the trigger was pulled, she threw herself to the side, but she wasn't quite fast enough. Some of the bullets tore through her hoodie and jeans, grazing her skin. More pain filled her as her as she hit the ground, the sidewalk tearing open the skin of her palms and knees.
She laid there, prone and oozing blood from her right side. She could hear the sound of the driver's boots as they stormed over to her. A few seconds later, she shut her eyes as the driver slammed their boot into her side, forcing her to roll over. Despite the pain, she kept her body as limp as possible during the roll.
She knew full well she could end up dead if she didn't time things right.
As such, she allowed herself to be kicked in the gut a second time. Hearing the driver scoff as they started to walk away, she opened an eye. She saw the upside-down sight of their retreating form and, ignoring all the pain in her body, she slowly rolled over. Getting up, she stayed half-bent over as she hurried after the driver.
The moment she was within reached, she reached out and yanked the gun from the driver's hands. They hardly had a chance to turn around before Lucifina pointed the muzzle and pulled the trigger. A scream of pain filled the air as the driver fell to the ground, clutching at their shattered knee. They writhed in pain and started to cuss her out, but she didn't listen.
The news helicopters were starting to circle the area.
She needed to get out of there.
With the gun still in hand, Lucifina ran back down the street. While running, she tugged the magazine from the gun and flung it away from her. As she passed by the original shooter, she found him sitting up and holding his head in pain. Before he could get up, she used the gun like a bat and swung it against his head.
For the second time, he was knocked unconscious.
She dropped the gun on him before racing over to her bag. Large holes had been torn through it by bullets, but she couldn't care less about the bag itself. Kneeling beside it, she threw it open and dug around inside it. A small, victorious grin came to her lips.
Miraculously, her burrito was unscathed.
Shouts started to approach from the blockade up ahead. Looking up, she could see a group of police rushing towards her, their guns drawn. Behind her, police cruisers were rushing up the road. With police approaching on all sides, she frantically looked around for a place to run.
To her luck, halfway down the block, there was an alleyway.
Lucifina shoved her lunch into the pocket of her hoodie and, abandoning her bag, bolted down the block.
'I think it's time to disappear,' she thought, darting into the alley. She skidded to a halt as she saw a cop car racing down the narrow road.
'I couldn't agree more.'
Knowing she couldn't turn back, she continued running at the cruiser. With another bout of good timing, she jumped into the air and gracefully landed on the hood of the car. Inside, the cops started shouting at her as she ran up the windshield and along the roof.
A cop shoved herself out of the window, her gun drawn. But there was no one to aim at. No one above them, no one behind them—
Lucifina had completely vanished, the only sign of her presence being a set of dirty shoeprints on the hood and windshield.
Wednesday, May 2nd, 2012. Seattle. 3 days before the Attack on Manhattan
"One hotdog please."
"What would you like on it?"
"Um. Mustard and—ah, the little tiny pickle pieces? Forgot what are called…" Lucifina felt her cheeks burn as she watched the vendor use a pair of tongs to remove a hotdog from the rotisserie oven.
"Relish," the man said with a small chuckle. "Would you like sweet or hot mustard, miss?"
"Hot, please."
As she exchanged her money for the hotdog, she told the vendor to keep the change. She knew it was dumb of her—with how hard money was to come by, she really should be hoarding it. Once more cursing America's tipping system, she took a bite of her hotdog and went to go find a bench to sit on.
It was actually a bit hard to find a mostly-dry bench to sit on. It had rained the night before and, with most of the benches being under trees, they weren't able to dry out in the meager amounts of sunlight. While on her search for a spot to sit, she passed by joggers getting in their daily exercise, people walking their dogs, and some photographers taking pictures of the local scenery.
None of them gave her a second look.
When half her hotdog was gone, she finally found a bench that was mostly unoccupied. A man sat at one end, the Seattle Times spread open before him. She sat down on the other end of the bench and brought a knee to her chest, tucking it under her hoodie. A quiet sigh left her mouth before she made to take another bite of the hotdog.
"That was some stunt you pulled the other day."
She froze as she heard the man's voice. Glancing over at him, she watched as he folded the newspaper in half, revealing the face of a black man with an eyepatch over his left eye. She swallowed hard and started to get up, but he reached out and grabbed her forearm. Surprisingly, his grip wasn't tight.
"I'm not here to kidnap you, Aza," he said, his voice calm and even.
"Then why are being here?" she demanded, her voice shaking ever so slightly.
The man let go of her wrist and, against her better judgement, she stayed where she was. "I've been keeping tabs on you, Aza," he told her. "I gotta say, though: You don't make it very easy. You're very good at staying hidden when you want to."
"Evidently not being good enough."
His brow rose and a small chuckle left his mouth as he reached into his jacket. "I'm Nick Fury, director of an agency called S.H.I.E.L.D. Stands for—"
"Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division," she finished for him. "Have heard of you."
"Doesn't surprise me, since your mother was once a consultant of ours." He watched as she looked away, a mixture of sorrow and shame coming to her features. "She was a good woman. One of the smartest people out there when it came to astrophysics. Without her, I'm pretty sure we wouldn't have some of the technology that we do." He held out a small object to her; it looked like a smartphone, but its screen was transparent. "As it stands, I have an offer for you."
She frowned as she took the object from him. As she looked at it, it brought up a screen with her face on it, along with standard information like her full name, date of birth, and country of origin. She swiped to the left only to see news clips from various news outlets around the world play. All the clips had two things in common: Disasters that would have killed dozens of people and her, saving those dozens of people.
Some of the videos were from when she was still just a teenager.
"Really have been keeping the tabs on me," she sighed, swiping again. This time, it was information about a project labeled 'Avengers Initiative.' Her brows furrowed as she read through the document. There was a lot of information being presented, but she knew that she had to do her best to read between the lines—this was government information, after all, and governments loved to phrase things vaguely as possible.
After a few minutes of reading, she looked up at Fury, with a brow cocked. "Am reading this correctly? Are wanting to be making team of skilled peoples to protect planet?" she asked. "Not just US?"
"You did read that correctly," he told her. Reaching over, he swiped the screen twice more so that it displayed a picture of a glowing blue cube. "This is called the Tesseract. It's an item of immeasurable power and it was stolen from a S.H.I.E.L.D. facility last night by a being calling himself Loki." He swiped the screen again, showing her the security cam footage from last night's fight. "Because of him, a war has started between us and whatever army he's planning on unleashing with the help of that Tesseract."
"Are knowing where this Loki is coming from?"
"A place called Asgard. You may have heard of it, coming from Sweden and all." There was a bit of amused sarcasm to his tone. "A person with your unique abilities would be more than a little useful to our team."
"Even though information provided is saying that initiative was canceled in 2010. So, are either be lying to me or—"
"Electing to ignore a stupid-ass decision by people who think they know what's best for the world."
"Is being impossible to be knowing what is truly good for world," Lucifina murmured. Continuing to watch the security footage play out, she went quiet. She watched as Loki tapped a strange scepter to a man's chest and her eyes narrowed. Barely noticeable to the naked eye were little bolts of what looked like electricity running through the man's veins, running up to his brain.
'You're tempted,' she thought.
'As are you.'
'Then we should do this?'
'It is my duty to protect this world.'
'Our duty,' she corrected. 'Even if I wasn't your avatar, I would accept.'
'Which is one of many reasons why I chose you to be my avatar.'
A bit of a smile came to Lucifina's lips. She looked back to Fury, who had been patiently awaiting her answer. "When are wanting me to be starting?" She held the screen back to him, watching as it took it and tucked it away in one of his pockets.
"Today." He reached inside his jacket and pulled out a few devices. "This is your communications ear piece," he said, holding up what looked like a small, clip-on earring. "You'll be able to communicate with us and the other Avengers once they get theirs."
Nodding, she took the ear piece and placed it onto her ear. Her eyes shot open as she felt it suddenly double in length and tighten itself a bit so that it wouldn't fall off. "…Fanciest Bluetooth have ever seen," she murmured.
Fury then handed her a rather fancy looking cellphone—at least, she thought it was a cellphone. With the advancements in technology over the last decade, she knew it could be anything. "This a standard issue S.H.I.E.L.D. cellphone. It comes with everything a normal smartphone has and then some. On it, you'll find the coordinates to where you need to go and the identification you'll need when you get there." After handing the phone over to her, he stood up only to reach into his back pocket.
"Is very nice phone," she murmured. Having only ever used burner phones, Lucifina unlocked the phone with more than a little curiosity. The screen came to life with bright green letters demanding she place her thumb in the center of the screen. As she did so, her thumbprint was scanned and she was granted access to the phone which now looked like a normal cellphone. It had all the usual apps like weather, Google, email, and texting, but there were other apps, she noticed, that bore the S.H.I.E.L.D. logo.
Fury suddenly reached over, holding out some money to her.
She frowned, glancing between the bills and his face. "…Why are giving me money?" Hesitantly, she took it from him.
"To get yourself a proper meal and some new clothes," he told her, his brow rising. "You've been wearing the same clothes for damn near five years, Aza." He pointed a stern finger at her. "And you best be wearing your new clothes when you arrive, got that?" Before she could answer, he turned and started to walk away.
"Th-thanking you!" she called after him. Counting out the money, her eyes widened in shock—he had given her nearly five hundred dollars. "Skit…This is being far too much…" she mumbled.
The phone suddenly vibrated and a text appeared on the screen. It was from Fury.
Keep the change.