Author Notes: For purposes of this story, Hulk is still Bruce/Hulk and not Professor Hulk (i.e. the Hulk we see in Endgame).

Trigger warnings for this chapter:

Mentions/non graphic descriptions of rape

Mentions of victim blaming

Maureen sits back on her heels. She's used a pile of blankets to create a makeshift yoga mat on her floor in an attempt to find some peace and keep in shape. Sleep is fruitless at this point, but there are still at least two hours until anyone else will be up. She knows from only the last couple of weeks that Steve or Bucky will be up with the sun. Steve claimed it's an old habit from his time in the military. Bucky just shrugged and muttered something about actually getting some peace in a building filled with such loud people.

Maureen has never been a morning person. She despises mornings, truthfully. Her mom used to say that because she was born at night, her body kept telling her that meant it was the beginning of the day. As far as she's concerned, it's the truth.

The thought of her mom makes her body sigh, melt further into the blanket mat in search of some sense of serenity.

After several flowing movements – downward dog to plank to cobra, back into downward and through to warrior and onward – she gives up on the final meditations and makes her way towards the massive kitchen. It hasn't been long since she's been able to eat with the others, and she's certain her anxiety is making it harder for the heroes to be comfortable.

She hadn't expected for any of this to happen. If you'd asked her four weeks ago if she was ever going to even meet the Avengers, let alone live with any of them, she would've rolled her eyes and let out a huff of laughter.

Bucky was up earlier than usual, standing next to the toaster with the overpowering silence that Maureen now knew was his norm.

"Morning." His nod was polite, though quick, as he pulled a Poptart from each of the two slots.

"Morning." Her voice was still one with which she was unfamiliar. Maureen was never one to speak softly, nor with so few words. But now it felt like her former boisterous personality was too much for her, so she became a seemingly observant, and practically silent person.

After a small breakfast of scrambled eggs, Maureen found herself wandering towards the training room where Tony had taken her a week ago to see a demonstration of everything she could do.

It was there that she lost herself, conjuring fireball after fireball, aiming at the fireproofed dummies, enveloping herself in a bubble made of flames, and, best of all, using the energy from her fire to lift herself into the air, hover, and casually drift back to the floor.

She was so caught up, listlessly floating a couple of feet above the padded floor, that she didn't notice the thin young man who was standing in the now-open doorway until she turned to shoot off a fireball at one of the dummies that was set to move back and forth across the room.

"Oh, shit." Maureen lost her focus and dropped a full foot and a half before catching herself just shy of the floor. The fireball missed the dummy by a good couple of feet, instead leaving a slight charred mark on the wall behind it.

"I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to scare you! I just heard this sort of hum coming from in here, and well…I got curious." Peter stumbled apologetically. "I didn't mean to scare you."

Maureen shrugged. "No big deal. Less scare really, just… surprise." She settled herself back on the ground. "But how on earth did you hear the hum? I barely do and I'm creating it."

"Enhanced hearing. Sometimes it's a blessing. But when you're sharing a hotel room with Steve, who snores like crazy, it's a curse." He paused. "Um, please don't tell Steve I told you that by the way."

A chuckle bubbled out of Maureen's mouth before she could stop it. "I promise I won't say anything."

He smiled at her chuckle. "Thanks. So… is the hum caused by the energy? It didn't sound like normal fire crackling or anything."

"From what I can tell, yes. I honestly am not really certain why or how my powers work. I just know that they do."

Peter crossed further into the room, examining the dummy she had hit the most. Despite the fireproofing, it had taken quite a bit of damage. "So you can fly and shoot fireballs?"

"I wouldn't really say fly, exactly. More like levitate. I can just levitate pretty high up. I think at my highest I've been up about three stories before I chickened out and came back down."

Maureen boosted herself into the air for a demonstration and pushed herself to the ceiling. "Like, this is pretty easy, and I could stay up here for at least an hour or so before I really got tired."

"That's pretty awesome. I'm kind of jealous, to be honest."

"So… am I allowed to know if you have any powers?"

Peter hesitated. They still didn't know much about her, and as far as anyone else outside of the bunker was concerned, he was just Tony's ward.

Maureen interrupted his contemplation. "It's fine if you can't say anything. I understand you all still have no reason to trust me."

"But I also have no reason to not trust you." Peter grinned. His smile faded as he realized she wasn't returning the grin. "If you don't mind me asking… what happened that set you off so badly?"

Now it was Maureen's turn to hesitate. "I… let's just say I was protecting myself. My emotions got the best of me and I couldn't control my powers. It's never happened before, so I don't really understand if I could do it again or ever really control something so massive."

"Were you born with your powers? Did you develop them later?"

"Were you born with the habit of asking strangers personal questions?" Maureen smirked down at him from where she still hovered next to a steel beam.

"Oh, sorry. I.. uh, sometimes I get over excited and I start to just sort of ramble on about stuff. Tony used to hate it, but I think now he secretly likes it. But I know he'll never admit it." Peter hopped into the large windowsill and leaned against the wall parallel to the glass.

"But to answer your question, no I was not born with them. There was a fire when I was a kid. I came out of the fire with my powers."

"Wow. You survived the fire and developed powers? How old were you?"

"Seven. The powers didn't really start until a few months later, and back then it was just little stuff, like a spark here or there. I didn't realize I could levitate until a couple of years ago." She lessened the energy flow to allow herself to float closer to Peter. If she wanted to levitate too much longer she was going to need to go get more than just a couple of eggs to increase her energy.

Peter nodded. "Yeah it took me a while to-" He cut himself off, realizing he was about to talk about how some of his powers had developed after the bite. "Ya know, get to understand more accelerated concepts. Like I imagine the levitation is more accelerated to understand than like, throwing a fireball. Sort of like anime characters getting new powers as the series goes on."

Maureen smiled and didn't probe at his slip up. She'd already figured he was likely Spider-man, but respected that they didn't want her to know all of the secret identities yet.

"So," she said. "You like anime?"

Bruce and Tony called her down to a basement facility after lunch. She figured any facility located in the basement of a massive compound probably spelled bad news, but she didn't really have much room to refuse. They'd taken her in, fed her, and were making attempts to trust that she was good. Or at least, she hoped they were making attempts.

"We want to see if you can replicate the explosion from that day." Bruce's voice was calm, and it made Maureen wonder how this man was the Hulk.

"I…" Maureen swallowed the bile rising up her throat. "I don't know if I can do that."

"It's fine if you can't. Just want to see how close you can get." Bruce smiled kindly, but it didn't quite help to calm Maureen's breathing, or the erratic heartbeat that was thudding in her chest.

"But…how will I keep from burning down the compound?"

Tony gestured to what appeared to be a glass enclosure. "Fireproof and explosion proof."

She looked between Tony and the enclosure, contemplating whether they would kick her out if she refused. "Um, okay."

Bruce disappeared behind a desk covered in laptops and electrical equipment while Tony led her into the enclosure. The door swung closed behind her with a quiet hiss of air as it sealed shut. She could see Tony latching the door from the outside, causing her heart to thud even harder.

A speaker crackled on above her. Bruce sounded far away, "Okay, now try to see if you can tap into whatever it was that you did just before… ya know? Was there a certain energy or feeling that you think may have done it?"

Maureen shrugged, in part because she wasn't sure they could hear her, and in part because she wasn't sure she really had an answer.

"Well, try to picture what was going on if you can… how you felt? Can you recreate it?"

Her breath hitched in her throat. She didn't want to recreate it. But how could she explain that to Bruce and Tony? They'd been so nice to her.

Eyes closed, she pictured the inside of the barn of the inn where she worked… had worked… to save up for college. The horses had been let out to pasture, and she had just organized the tack room, which had been left a mess after a local company's 'bonding weekend' on the inn's property. Ezra was there suddenly, his leering gaze appearing from nowhere. She felt the surprise from his approach.

"I hear you've been seeing that girl from that heathen store."

"Just because the bookstore sells books that talk about religions other than Christianity does not mean that it's a 'heathen store.'"

The annoyance she'd felt in the moment flooded back into her. As the adult son of the owner, Ezra was rarely on the grounds, but when he was he just ended up being a thorn in her side. Maureen enjoyed how much the owner, Anna, teased Ezra. She often rolled her eyes at him and confided in Maureen that she was ashamed by who he'd become.

"So you don't deny your sinful lust?"

"The only thing that's sinful is that it took me this long to ask her out." Maureen was trying to remember what she was about to do. She just wanted away from Ezra and his archaic beliefs.

"You need to be purified of your sin, little girl."

Shaking too badly to stand, Maureen sunk to her knees in the enclosure. The image of Ezra leaning over her. Grabbing her wrist. Pulling at her clothes. His hands. It was too much.

Bruce glanced over at Tony. "Her heartrate is skyrocketing."

"Just give it another minute…"

"Tony, look at her."

Tears streamed down her cheeks, colliding with one another and leaping from her chin. Maureen fell from her knees and tucked into a tight ball, hugging her knees tightly to her chest. Her breaths lurched in her lungs, struggling to find a rhythm.

The air sparked around her, and tiny flames spouted off her body like fireworks careening through the night air.

"Tony."

Tony took in the state of the girl in front of them. Maureen rocked back and forth, pleading and clawing at the air in front of her while she sobbed.

"Okay, let's end it."

Bruce flipped a switch to unseal the room while Tony hurried to the door to unlock it.

Heat blasted at Tony as he tugged the door open.

"Bruce, I can't get close enough to snap her out of it!"

Maureen could hear yelling in the back of her mind, but it was flooded over by Ezra's words. His hands.

The twangy harshness of Ezra's voice was suddenly interrupted by… Will Smith?

Maureen blinked several times, realizing where she was. Her heart was still pounding, and her breathing still erratic, but she remembered now. She was doing an experiment. She was in the compound. And… Will Smith was singing "Summertime" on the loudspeaker?

Tony took the opportunity to rush in to the cooling enclosure.

"Hey, kid, you're alright. You're in New York, in the compound. I'm Tony. Bruce is the currently-not-green one over there just outside the tank. No one is going to hurt you."

Gasping breaths.

"Do you want me to hug you or touch you? Will that help?"

An emphatic headshake.

"Okay, that's good to know. Then instead I'm going to do some deep breathing. I want you to match your breathing to mine."

Tony exaggerated the sound of his breathing so she could hear him clearly. Bruce appeared at his side and began counting breaths.

"One." He drew the word out to match the pace of Tony's breathing. "Two."

She placed her hand on her chest and tried to count to match Bruce. With a great deal of effort, her breathing finally normalized, though her tears streamed as fast as ever.

"Maureen?" Bruce held a hand out to where she remained crouched on the floor.

A hesitant glance met his eyes, and then his hand. With a shove, Maureen was off the floor without the help of either of the two men.

"Sorry," she muttered.

Bruce wasn't quite sure if she meant for not accepting his offer of help, or for the breakdown in general. Regardless, he had the same answer. "It's okay."

They were back in the Med Bay, where Maureen was wondering how quickly it would be before they dumped her off on Fury and sent her packing.

"Are you hurt anywhere?" Bruce asked as she climbed back on to the now-familiar exam table.

She shook her head in response, not trusting herself to speak for fear of crying again.

"Okay, I just want to take your blood pressure." He reached up to wrap a cuff around her arm.

"No! Don't touch me!" She jerked backwards with such force that Tony had to catch her to keep her from falling off the exam table. Tony's hands on her back sent her leaping forwards off the table.

She stood in the center of the room, her breathing ragged, and tears slipping down her face again.

"Okay, no touching. Got it." Tony shared a look with Bruce, who nodded.

"Maureen…I know you didn't tell any of the police or SHIELD agents much about what exactly happened. All they could tell us was that you felt surprised? But… was that the truth?"

Bruce really did have a way of making her feel safe. She wasn't quite sure if it was that his voice was always so calm, or if she felt like they were very similar. Lately, Maureen had also begin feeling like she was two different people with wildly different personalities.

"I mean… kind of?" How much could she really tell them? No one had ever believed her when it came to Ezra.

"Maureen, I get that you don't like him, but don't be dramatic. He's just eccentric."

Her grandmother had never believed her. It probably didn't help that her grandmother shared many of Ezra's beliefs.

"Maureen?" Tony's voice was more hesitant and calmer than she'd heard it before. Usually his voice took on a vaguely sarcastic, often cocky tone.

"I swear I didn't mean to hurt him."

Bruce and Tony shared another glance.

"Do you want to sit down?" Bruce offered her the chair that normally sat next to the exam table.

She shook her head. "No."

When neither man spoke again, she continued. "I wasn't trying to hurt him. Really. He just… I'd been so good at holding it in. My powers, I mean. And my anger. And before it had just been little stuff, ya know? Nothing like… that bad. I'd always heard stories of really awful things that had happened to other girls, other women. So it never seemed like I could complain to anyone about Ezra. And Gran said I was being dramatic? I guess I figured it was like… a rite of passage?"

Bruce still look a bit confused, but it was clear that Tony understood. She could almost see the waves of ire radiating from his body.

"That was the first day that…" She hesitated, tears pooling in her eyes as she tried to blink them back. A part of her was sick of crying. She didn't want to cry over what Ezra had done to her anymore. "He said I was sinful for dating a girl. Said I needed to be purified. Because apparently you can rape the sin out of someone, right?"

Bruce's eyes grew wide as it clicked. Tony's eyes closed for a moment as his body seemed to tense, his hands clenching for a moment at his sides. Tony could only picture Morgan and how incensed he would be if anyone touched his daughter.

"I just lost it." Maureen sighed, her body sagging as the anger drained out of her and filled instead with the sadness and regret she'd felt since that moment. Regret for letting him near her. Regret for waiting until he'd finished. Regret for taking a man's life. She could only be thankful that the barn was on the edge of the property. That no other human or animal had been endangered by her lack of control.

"Given the circumstances, I don't think anyone would blame you, kid." Tony's voice was pure venom.

"But I killed him! Gran wouldn't even look at me." The expression on Gran's face had been at the forefront of her mind since she'd been taken home by the police. The horror, and the shock that her granddaughter, the one she'd raised since the fire, had killed someone. It had been only moments between the revelation and her Gran's order that she take her things and leave for good. Two suitcases and a trash bag. She'd had thirty minutes. How do you decide what to take in thirty minutes that will fit into two suitcases and a trash bag?

And now she was going to have to pack up again. At least this time she didn't have to decide what to bring. She just had to shove her belongings back in to the suitcases. She would need a new trash bag though… she'd thrown the old out. That had been a stupid move.

"How long do I have to pack?" She sighed.

Now it was Tony's turn to look confused. "For what? We're not going anywhere."

"You're…not telling Fury to pick me up?" Maureen's eyes flicked back and forth between the two men.

"Because you were assaulted? If anyone ever asks you to leave because you were assaulted, you don't need them. Because they're trash." Tony had started almost at a yell, but then forced himself to get quieter after seeing the expression on Bruce's face, and the slight shake of the head that Bruce had given him.

"But… my Gran…" She drifted off. Maureen had tried to explain. Had pulled Gran aside and confided in her what Ezra had done.

"You could've run away, Maureen. You could've smacked him and run away. There was no need to kill him. Did you do anything to provoke him? What could you have done differently that could've saved a man's life?"

The two men seemed to be waiting for her to finish her sentence. Instead, she just shook her head.

"Well, as far as I'm concerned, you're here to stay." Tony somehow seemed both angry and concerned all in one sentence.

If she weren't still struggling to keep breathing properly, Maureen would've marveled at it.

"We'll start your training tomorrow. You'll start with some absolute basics – hand to hand combat with Nat. In the meantime, you'll have therapy with our resident therapist."

Maureen stuttered, 'Th-therapy? But I-"

"Maureen, I get it. You don't want to talk about it. But you need to. I see her regularly. A lot of the team does, actually. It's something we have to do as superheroes, because we see a lot of shit that the rest of the population doesn't see. And it's important that you work on your emotions, because it's clear your powers are tied into your emotions. Once we get the okay from Dr. Calhoun, you'll start training with Bruce on utilizing your emotions for stronger attacks." Tony nodded towards the quiet man next to her.

Panic had settled into Maureen's chest, but she knew she had to tap it down. Tony just meant well, right?

"Are you okay to head upstairs, or do you want to stay down here for a while?" Bruce asked.

"I – is it okay if I go to the training room?"

Tony nodded. "Sure, no problem."

"Are you sure you're up for it?" Bruce added.

Maureen desperately needed to fire off some of the energy that had built up in the enclosure. And she needed to get rid of the panic that was quickly setting up residence in her mind. "Yeah, I'm okay."

At least… she would be. She had to be. Otherwise… how soon would Tony change his mind once they realized she was no good as a superhero? She needed to start her own training now. To prove she could do it, and that she deserved to be one of the team.