Chapter 1

THE GIRL

One week ago:

"What the hell…"

Clint could not believe his eyes. He's seen gory murders, a half destroyed Manhattan, and aliens coming out of a portal that leads to another world, but he did not think a gigantic incubator with a small pale girl who looked just two centimeters away from anorexic inside would shake him. Her paleness was amplified by the white hospital gown she wore. Her absurdly long golden brown hair pooled above her head on the thing where she laid. He was afraid to touch her because he was just so sure she was going to break.

The room seemed so sterile despite the olive green walls and creepy dark ambience. The smell of various chemicals and the silent hum of the incubator thing just added to its creepiness. Clint shuddered, momentarily forgetting his agenda.

"Barton, status," the familiar voice of their leader ringing through the com in his ear. He snapped out of it and looked more closely at his surroundings.

He was just starting to open the main power source of the machine, just at its bottom left, when he answered, "The target's here, Cap. I know I'm supposed to pull the plug, but that's gonna fucki-"

"Keep it clean, son."

Clint scrunched up his face at the nickname. "The hell—anyway. She doesn't look like she's gonna hold up."

The silence that followed told Clint that the super soldier was having his bout of hesitation before Clint heard an explosion outside the sterile room. The captain must have heard it, too, because he said, albeit grimly, "Just do it anyway. Let's find a way out of here fast. She just needs to hold up. We're getting close. You hold on."

"Copy," he replied with finality before trying to find a switch. After finding nothing, he tried to yank at the wires and found that they were so hard; it just was not possible to be successful at that.

Another explosion. A little louder this time.

So, he took out his arrow and shot the power box. The lights in the incubator immediately flickered off and the locks holding her inside exploded to open the glass cover. He lifted the cover and examined the girl closer, only to find that she looked more vulnerable up close. So thin and so pale. They had to get out of there.

He pulled out the cables attached to her body and searched for a pulse and was relieved to find one. It was so even; it was just like she was sleeping. So, he gently picked her up and started running toward the exit away from the third explosion and sounds of a roaring monster robot. And as it got closer, with heavy footsteps and all, Clint was so sure he was not imagining that.

Then the wall on the other side exploded, throwing the both of them to the other side of the room. He looked everywhere for the girl he was holding just a while ago. When he found her laying on a rubble-free corner, her 10-foot long hair flying everywhere, he was just about to let out a sigh of relief when a big robotic arm grabbed him and threw him to the opposite side of the room where the girl was.

And when the bright spots went away from his sight, he quickly took note of how the monster looked. It looked like a freaking transformer.

As if on cue, the familiar bullets that came from the Ironman suit came flying towards the monster before it could succeed in getting to the unconscious girl.

A female voice startled him. "Clint, watch out!"

So, he looked up to see a chunk of the exploded wall flying towards him. He rolled away from it as fast as he can. And after that, he found himself still alive so he stood up and pointed his arrow at the upcoming goons. There were about 15 of them. So, Natasha did the same with her twin pistols.

"I'll take care of Big Cupcake here," Stark then flew high to shoot more at the monster. The monster roared and hundreds of guns sprung out from its body.

Steve threw his shield at one goon that pointed his rifle at Natasha. And not a second after the vibranium hit the goon; the rest of them pointed their rifles toward the Avengers. The four of them saw all of the bad guys fire, with the lights of the gunshots and all. But not a single bullet reached them.

There was an electrostatic-like moving transparent wall between the four of them and the goons. It took a second for them to realize what that was when one big soldier started to punch and kick at the wall. Then they heard the big transformer thing preparing to fire at them with all the hundred guns. And just as it fired, another wall appeared.

Clint looked behind the transformer to see the girl sitting up, with her hands in front of her… and her irises were white and only the pupils were showing, it made her eyes look almost completely white.

"Holy hell," he swore under his breath. He turned to Steve who was still trying to figure out another plan to fight or get out. "Cap! That's her." He pointed at the girl.

Steve turned to follow his sight to where Clint was pointing at. His mouth fell agape.

"They're about to run out of bullets," Natasha said, falling into a fighting stance.

And true enough, they did. One by one. The transformer stopped firing. It looked around as if to look for the source of the thing that is keeping its enemy unscathed. And when it looked at the girl, it immediately grabbed her by the shoulders using just one claw.

Right there, the transparent electrostatic wall disappeared. When Clint looked at her again, her eyes were still open with struggle as she nimbly tried to get away. Her eyes donned green irises now.

With the wall down, it was an all-out battle between the Avengers and goons now. Ironman was somehow pulled down, Natasha was fighting five men and two just recently jumped at him.

"Keep fighting! I'll get her," Steve ordered before he followed where the transformer ran off to, with the girl in its mechanical claw.

Heavy metal footsteps echoed through the windowless halls. Steve could vaguely hear the dame with the longest hair he had ever seen weakly try to yell, "Let me go!"

The halls went zigzag, zigzag, and zigzag. If that was a normal, untrained person, he/she would have been dizzy by the sixth turn, running that fast. And then a metal door emerged. The transformer just smashed through it like the hulk. And when Steve got past the rubble, he saw the transformer crouch down a little before releasing intense air flow through its feet, making it fly. He was about to throw his shield at it when he realized it was flying towards the lip of a gigantic pool with its green wall in front of him. The wall was about 15 feet tall. There was just no way Steve could jump that high. With nothing for him to jump onto.

So, he threw his shield at the monster instead. It let out a gun out of its arm and fired at Steve before the shield went back to him. But then that transparent wall came up again, acting as a ceiling for him and the bullet deflected.

The monster roared before it threw her into the deep pool.

The shield was back to him again. And as the machine monster started to fly down, he threw it at him again, hitting a seemingly sensitive spot that made it convulse and malfunction right there. It fell down about five feet from him. When it short circuited, a piece of metal flew and hit the transparent pool wall, creating a small crack.

The girl was sinking deeper and she was struggling to swim up and breathe. Steve racked his brain for something to do to save her. Climb up and swim? Not fast enough. So, really. His shield was his best friend right now. So, threw that as hard as he could at the pool wall. But the wall just cracked. His heart rate got quicker when the liquid around the girl started to bubble up. Her hair was also starting to fall off.

He retrieved the shield again, put a little more distance, and threw at the same spot on the wall again. A bigger crack. Bubbles were covering her now.

"Cap, the goons are out. I'm calling out for extraction. Stark and Natasha are comin' your way." He heard Clint again.

"Copy."

Just when he could not see the girl anymore, he did the same thing for the third time—throwing from the farthest side of the room this time—and the wall finally broke down, green liquid spilling out in waves. The pool wall was not green after all. The green came from the liquid itself.

With all his might, he smashed down a hole on the wall he was almost leaning on just in time when the liquid touched his shins. He hid behind the remaining part of that wall as the green liquid waves flow through the hole. He waited for it to spread down to a puddle of liquid and big shards of glass soaking his feet before he looked at the previous room he was in.

Puddle covered the ground—and the girl could not be seen anywhere. He worried about the shards of glass hurting her. But now he was worrying about her disappearing completely. But then a green-stained white bundle of cloth caught his eye. His super hearing caught the whimper of an infant.

Careful not to step on stray shards, he ran towards the cloth and peered down. True enough, there was an infant cradled by that soaking cloth. Her arms and shoulders had gashes and bruises around. She let out a giant cry that he normally heard from babies. So, immediately, he picked her up and cradled her in his arms. He cursed his spandex for not allowing him to rip of some of it to protect her from the dangers of the world as of the moment. He shushed her gently as he looked for the safest exit. But then Stark came flying through the destroyed metal door the transformer left. Then Natasha came running through as well.

"Well, congratulations, Captain Unvirgin! You finally knocked someone off." Stark's usual snide commenting erupted again. But they really did not have time for that right now.

"Shut up, Stark. Clint's giving us directions out. Help's already there." Natasha said calmly before the three of them bolted out the underground labs, Tony's comments and the baby's wails continuing all the way.

When they got inside the jet, Steve was just awkwardly rocking her to lull her to sleep—finding a clean, dry cloth this time—when Natasha gently grabbed her from his arms.

"Give her to me," she muttered. Natasha held the bundle close to her chest and gently rocked her—correctly—and shushed her quiet. The baby's screams slowly quieted down to whimpers until she fell asleep. Probably from exhaustion from screaming all that time.

He did not know why. But through the exhaustion he felt, he felt his heart swell at the sight.

A/N: Okay, obviously, this is a rushed chapter. But I hope—pray—that you understood it. Thanks for reading! :D