Chapter 2

Months of obnoxious training later

Avery dodged all the incoming attacks and opened portal after portal to avoid them. Stark's computer system was intense. It studied her moves and adapted, calculating when and where she would go. Her goal was to reach the computer at the end of the room and shut the program down, unfortunately Avery wasn't athletic and each time she got hit in the chest and sent back against the wall, she felt the urge to break everything.

"Ok that's enough…"

The lights went out and the simulated evil lair disappeared. Avery sat on her knees and caught her breath. Tony's face appeared on the screen that floated above her.

"You're sucking…like really bad, today."

Avery grabbed her hair out of frustration and looked up at Tony, "I'm not feeling it today."

"Come on out."

The door slid up and she limped up the stairs to the control booth.

"What's going on kid?" Tony asked as he swiveled around in his chair.

"I'm not on my game today, Boss." He tossed her a bottle of water and she slumped down on the floor. "My head's busy. I can't focus."

Tony waited for her to go on, but that it seemed she didn't feel the need to. Avery had been adapting to Avenger life pretty well. She sat sideline on missions and delivered reports about what she thought could have been improved upon. Her portals came in handy when she needed to get someone out of hot water and that hacking thing she had was very, very, convenient. Her birthday was drawing closer and she'd be 27. Not an age she should worry about, though if Tony was right, her being sloppy might have to do with it.

"Go meditate with, Strange." He said and then swiveled back to his computer. As soon as the door slid shut, he got on the comm, "Yo, Doc, sending Chay, your way."

"Good. Her aura's been off lately. She needs recalibrating." Stephen replied.

This interested Tony, "What do you mean?"

"I wouldn't put it past you to miss strange occurrences. You haven't noticed the small objects appearing and disappearing around you? It's been happening all over the tower."

Tony looked to his left and saw that his pens were gone, "Ok well now that you mention it…"

"She needs to clarify her mind. It's driving me insane, I can't find my medallion and I know where it's always sitting. Everyone's missing something."

"Friday. Scan all the rooms for the Docs precious little medal."

"It's not a—"

"Bored!"

Tony cut the feed and then opened up the security cameras. He watched Avery sulk down the halls. He needed to do more research on her.

"Clear your mind, Avery."

"Easier said than done."

"Avery…"

She sighed and then shut her eyes. She focused on the universe, the feeling of electricity and atoms around her. She thought about her body becoming lighter. That it would be nice to fly…Margo wanted to fly. Wanted to be an astronaut. To touch the stars.

"AVERY!"

She opened her eyes and looked around.

"Did you know you could fly?"

She was nearly touching the ceiling and began to panic, "How do I get down?!"

"Concentrate." Stephan closed his eyes and shared the image with Tony, "Stark, are you seeing this?" He thought. "Absolutely…did she know she could do that?" Tony responded. Stephan looked back up at her as Avery slowly descended, "Something in her has awakened."

"What the hell?" Avery was finally on the ground and she walked over to Stephen, "What was that?"

"You tell me," said Stephan, "Your powers are expanding."

"I've never been able to do that before." She ruffled her hair and tried to comprehend what just happened. "What do you mean expanding?"

"Whatever connection you have to the universe or whatever binds you to your magic."

She rolled her eyes, "Magic? Really?"

"Whatever you believe in, Miss Chay."

She was going to keep arguing but something in her made her stop and think. "I don't know why I have these abilities, Doc. To be perfectly honest with you…I was adopted. Had a good life until...well...until things got real bad. All I could do was scrape by on the streets. I got really good at stealing because of the portals. I don't know the limit of my powers. I don't know who I got them from or who gave them to me…I'd like to find out."

Stephen nodded and placed a hand on her shoulder, "I'll do whatever is in my power to help you, Miss Chay. But you'll have to be honest with me first." She met his soul searching, brown eyes. "What happened to your sister?"