A/N: Well, the poll results are in, and it was a tie! So I chose the best option myself. Read on to find out what powers Lia has (and her full name is revealed in this chapter as well!). You guys are all so awesome, thanks for being patient and waiting for this chapter. You all deserve it! So enjoy!
The rest of the flight was spent in relative silence. Pietro kept a close eye on the slumbering girl. She had begun to move around in her sleep, trying to find a more comfortable position.
"This is a good sign," Bucky had said. "It means she's closer to waking up. Keep an eye on her."
Pietro noticed Bucky eyes lingering on her. If he didn't know any better, he'd say the former assassin looked almost wistful, like he was remembering something he'd forgotten long ago. He had seen that same look in the man's eyes back in the girl's cell. Pietro didn't know what to make of it, so he asked Steve.
Steve had watched Bucky observe the girl and smiled. "Bucky had a little sister once, back before Hydra got him," he explained. "Her name was Rebecca. Our mystery girl looks a lot like her. I'm willing to bet that seeing her has stirred up some old memories of him and his sister."
Pietro spent the rest of the flight watching Bucky.
ooOOoo
When the Quinjet touched down, the Avengers were surprised to see Nick Fury waiting for them outside the compound with a host of SHIELD agents.
Tony looked incredulous. "Alright, who told? Cause it sure as heck wasn't me."
He cast an incriminating glare around the Quinjet, raising an eyebrow when he wasn't able to detect any dishonesty. "None of you told?"
"Are you accusing us of tattling to Fury? Last I checked, we're all over the age of five." Sam stood his ground, arms crossed.
"At least most of us are…" Natasha muttered under her breath.
"Then why is Commander Sunshine waiting for us outside?"
The Quinjet's ramp lowered, allowing Fury to step aboard.
"Congratulations on a successful mission Avengers. I believe you have something of ours. I'm here to take it off your hands." he said calmly.
Natasha caught Pietro's eye and tilted her head toward the cot. He nodded and moved to stand in front of it. Clint and Wanda joined him.
"You mean the file folders? Yeah sure, take them. I was just gonna fold 'em into paper airplanes anyway." Tony replied nonchalantly.
"Give it up Stark. We know you have the girl."
Steve spoke up. "How do you know about her? None of us said anything."
Bucky scowled. "He knew she was at the base. That's why he sent us there." He stepped forward. "You said that base was abandoned, but there were hundreds of agents there waiting for us! You sent us there specifically to find her! How long have you known about her and not done anything?!" Bucky yelled.
"Easy, Buck." Steve put a hand on Bucky's shoulder. "I'm not too happy with the situation either, but getting angry isn't going to solve anything."
"You should listen to the Captain, Sergeant," Fury spoke. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have a package to pick up."
"How long?" Natasha's voice was laced with poison. She moved toward Fury until her face was inches from his. "How long have you known about her?"
Fury didn't even flinch. In the same cold, collected voice, he answered, "Experiment Thirteen has been on our radar since 2010. We have reason to believe she was a major driving force in the creation of the earthquake that ravaged Haiti that year. We've been keeping tabs on her ever since."
"You mean to tell me," Natasha said in a low voice, "that you've known about this girl for six years and you've done nothing?"
"Hold on, hold on," Clint interrupted. "What do you mean she helped cause an earthquake? She's just a kid!"
"She didn't help, Barton. She caused it all on her own. We have surveillance footage of her in Haiti at the epicenter of the quake," Fury corrected him. He turned toward the rest of the Avengers. "Experiment Thirteen possesses atmokinetic powers. She can control the weather, the tides, the tectonic plates beneath our feet. If she wanted to destroy the planet, all she'd have to do is raise her hand."
The Quinjet was silent for a moment. Fury continued. "We allowed her to stay in Hydra's custody because that gave us the ability to track their movements. We-"
"You know what Buck?" Steve interrupted. "I've changed my mind. Getting angry is definitely an appropriate response to this situation." He glared at Fury.
Everyone was far too preoccupied to hear the soft rustling noises coming from the cot.
"What are you going to do with her?" Wanda asked. Her eyes were glowing scarlet.
"That's classified information." Fury replied.
Bucky looked livid. "You're going to lock her up, aren't you? Because everyone knows that the best way to protect the planet is to incarcerate anything that could possibly be considered a threat." His voice was dripping with sarcasm.
"Experiment Thirteen is a danger to herself and others. We can't risk having her out in the world any longer. The world will be much safer with her in a secure location."
Tony stepped between Bucky and Fury. "Yeah, that's not happening," he said. "Sorry Fury, but she's coming with us."
Pietro felt something wet drip onto the back of his neck. He rubbed the area, glancing upward to try and find the source. He was alarmed to see that the entire ceiling was damp and dripping slightly. "Uh, guys…"
Fury ignored him. "I'm not asking nicely again. Release her to SHIELD custody or my agents will intervene."
"Guys! Seriously, this is important!" he said, louder than before.
"Fury, do you honestly think a couple dozen SHIELD agents are going to stop us?" Natasha asked, raising her eyebrows.
"GUYS!" Pietro yelled. "LOOK AT THE CEILING!"
That got their attention. Everybody turned toward Pietro, then looked upwards. The ceiling had gone from damp and slightly drippy to very wet and dripping everywhere. How nobody else had noticed until now, Pietro would never know. As they watched, the dripping grew heavier and heavier until there was water pouring from the ceiling, soaking them all where they stood.
Clint was the first one to realize what was happening. "It's raining…" he said, awestruck.
Bucky peered out the window of the Quinjet. The cement pad where they had landed was completely dry. "Guys, it's not raining outside at all. Only in here."
"But, how-" Steve cut off his own remark, looking in the direction of the medical cot. In all of the confusion, it seems they had neglected to notice that their precious cargo had awoken. She was hiding under her blanket (which, miraculously, was still dry), peering out at the motley crew.
Fury took a few broad strides toward her, still managing to look intimidating despite his drenched attire, but was startled back by a loud clap of thunder that sounded right above his head.
Despite the situation, Sam smirked. "I don't think she likes you very much, Fury."
Tony stepped in front of Fury, blocking his path toward the girl. His hair was plastered to his forehead, water running down it and into his face.
"So help me, Fury, if you take one more step I will sic Nat on you." There was not even a hint of humor in his voice. They continued to argue back and forth.
Bucky saw something familiar in the girl's eyes. It was a look he had seen all too often in his own. Behind the immediate alertness, he could detect fear. Not fear of what might happen to her. Fear of what she was doing at that moment. She wasn't aware that she was able to do this, and she didn't know how to make it stop. That's why she was cowering under her blanket. Not because she was afraid of Fury.
"She's been brainwashed…" he muttered darkly. His metal arm made a plinking sound each time it was hit by a raindrop.
Natasha turned to look at him through a curtain of dripping wet red hair. "How do you know?" she asked.
"She's not afraid of Fury. She's afraid of the fact that she's able to make it rain indoors. She doesn't have any memory of being able to do this and she doesn't know how to make it stop. Trust me. I'm rather intimately aware of what it looks like when a person has been brainwashed." He finished his explanation by crossing his arms over his chest, muffling the plinking noise somewhat.
While Nat and Bucky were talking, Pietro began very slowly creeping over toward the girl, his wet trainers squelching with every step he took. She watched him with wide eyes.
"Can I come closer?" He asked.
He smiled when she nodded, taking small steps to bring himself closer to her until he was standing at the edge of the cot. "My name is Pietro," he said.
He gestured toward Wanda, who was busy trying to telekinetically redirect the excess water around their feet down the exit ramp. "That's my sister, Wanda. We're twins. I'm the older one, though. Don't let her tell you otherwise."
He pointed at Bucky. "That's Bucky. He's sorta grumpy, but you get used to him after a while."
Bucky turned when he heard his name and scowled at Pietro's description of him. The girl smiled a little at that, and the rain's intensity began to lessen.
"That's Steve," he said, pointing at the super soldier who was using his shield as a makeshift umbrella. "He's friends with Bucky. They like to go running in the mornings. They're pretty fast, but I'm faster than both of them." he pointed at himself proudly. The rain lessened even more.
Pietro continued to introduce the girl to each Avenger by name (and Fury, who he described as 'a grumpy cat with an eyepatch'). With each Avenger she was introduced to, the rain would lessen by just a little. By the time she knew everybody's names, the rain had just about stopped.
"Now," Pietro said, leaning a little closer than before, "you know all our names, sestrichka. Are you ready to tell us yours?"
The girl was sitting up now, still wrapped in her blanket. She cast her gaze around the room at the many people who inhabited it, most of which were waiting expectantly for her response. She turned toward Pietro, leaning toward him and cupping her hands around his ear, before whispering one word.
"Lia."
ooOOoo
After a very long and winded argument (which finally came to end when Natasha threatened all parties involved with extensive "cognitive recalibration"), Tony managed to convince Fury to let Lia stay with them.
"This is a temporary thing," Fury explained. "It'll be easier to examine her and perform a med eval at the medical facilities here than to re-sedate her and take her elsewhere. Barring any serious medical issues, the eval should only last a couple of hours."
Seeing as the only one who had gained her trust so far was Pietro, he was chosen to accompany her. Natasha pulled Bucky aside before they left.
"Fury has something up his sleeve. There's no way he would give up that easily. Pietro is way too easily distracted to notice if anything fishy is going on, and you have a pretty intimate knowledge of what goes on in these med evals. I want you to go with them so you can keep an eye on things and make sure Fury doesn't try to find something that isn't actually there."
He nodded, understanding. Natasha thought Fury was going to try and fabricate a medical issue of some sort so he would have an excuse to take Lia away from the compound. He knew what normally went on in these exams, seeing as he'd had so many before. Natasha wanted him to keep an eye on the tests they were doing to make sure they weren't trying to make it seem like something was wrong, even though nothing really was.
Bucky watched as Pietro coaxed the young girl out from under her blanket (which she refused to leave behind) and took her hand. She was definitely in her early teens, though she certainly didn't act like it. If he didn't know any better, he'd say she was a ten or eleven-year-old trapped in a fourteen-year-old body. He supposed she hadn't gotten much in the way of social interaction, being trapped in a Hydra base for 10 straight years. And the multiple brainwashings he suspected she'd had probably didn't help, either.
They walked down the Quinjet's ramp and toward the compound. Lia's eyes widened in awe. After telling Pietro her name, she hadn't said another word, but her expression said it all. She hadn't been outdoors for quite a while; Bucky could tell.
The walk to the medical center was brief; it was designed to have the shortest distance from the landing pad in comparison to all other areas of the compound, to facilitate a faster response from medical personnel in the event of a post-mission emergency. They were met by at the entrance by a Korean woman with long black hair pinned back in a bun.
"Good morning, Doctor Cho," Fury greeted her. "This is the girl we told you about."
"Her name is Lia," Pietro added. He didn't want them referring to her as Experiment Thirteen anymore. It made his blood boil.
Doctor Cho smiled at Lia. "Hello, Lia. It's very nice to meet you." She turned toward the rest of them, a confused look making its way onto her face. "Why are you all dripping wet?"
Lia hung her head. Bucky spoke up. "It's a long story…"
She just shook her head. "Never mind, then. I'll have one of my assistants send some towels out to you all. In the meantime," she turned to Lia, "we'll get you into a hospital gown."
Lia looked up at Pietro, who nodded at her. "It's okay, we'll see you again in just a minute," he explained.
Lia looked frightened, but she complied nonetheless. They watched at Doctor Cho took her hand and led her away from them. One of the other doctors came out a few minutes later with towels for them all and instructed them to take off their shoes and carry them inside the facility. "That way," he explained, "you won't track wet footprints everywhere. It's not sanitary, and people could slip." He then led them to an examination room to wait for Lia.
Pietro looked mildly uncomfortable at the prospect of being in the exam room. Bucky understood. Years of forced medical exams had instilled a hatred of hospitals in both of them. But for both of them, the last time that had happened was years before. Bucky could only imagine what Lia was feeling right now, what with the terror of being in a hospital still so recent in her mind, even if she couldn't remember exactly what happened.
The door opened, revealing Doctor Cho with an absolutely terrified Lia in tow. She visibly relaxed when she saw Pietro.
"Hop up on the table for me, will you dear?" Doctor Cho asked kindly.
Lia did as she was told, scooting closer to where Pietro was sitting so that she could grab his hand. Bucky smiled a little at her happy-face hospital gown. Maybe Doctor Cho would be able to qualm Lia's fears a little.
"Now, let's take your vitals." Doctor Cho removed the stethoscope from around her neck and got to work.
Bucky observed her as she performed the examination. She took Lia's pulse, listened to her heart and lungs, and took her blood pressure. She checked her reflexes and looked into her eyes, ears, and throat.
"Alright, next up is the blood draw. Can I see your arm, Lia?" she asked.
All the color drained from Lia's face as she shook her head frantically. She pushed herself as far back as she could go on the exam table, strategically hiding the areas of her arms that blood was normally drawn from.
"It's perfectly normal to be afraid of needles, Lia. It only hurts for a minute or so, and it will be over before you know it," Doctor Cho explained.
Lia still shook her head, tears coming to her eyes. "Needles are bad," she whispered. "They make you hurt."
She briefly extended her arm to the doctor, revealing the many pockmarked scars she still held from her stay with Hydra, before curling it back toward herself again.
Bucky had a feeling that if she didn't calm down soon, it would start raining in the exam room. He pushed himself out of the uncomfortable plastic chair he was sitting in and hopped onto the exam table, pushing himself back until he was against the wall next to Lia. She stared up at him, still scared but curious as to what he was doing at the same time.
"Have you seen Pietro's arm?" He asked her.
She shook her head. Bucky turned to Pietro. "Show her," he said.
Pietro rolled up his arm to reveal little scars nearly identical to Lia's. Her eyes widened. "They hurt you, too?" she asked quietly.
Pietro nodded. Bucky turned back to Lia. "Doctor Cho isn't going to give you a shot, she just needs a blood sample to make sure you're healthy."
"Will it hurt?" she asked.
"Not in the way you're thinking," Pietro answered. "It will just pinch for a minute."
"Oh." Lia tentatively held her arm out to the doctor, trying hard not to shake. The doctor worked quickly, cleaning the area and tying a tourniquet around her upper arm before beginning the blood draw. Lia had to look away; she pressed her face into Bucky's arm so she wouldn't have to see. He stroked the back of her head with his flesh hand, trying to offer some form of comfort.
"There! All done," Doctor Cho stated, placing a happy-face band-aid on the girl's arm.
Pietro was indignant. "You have happy face bandages? How come you always give us the boring ones?"
Doctor Cho smirked. "Happy-face band-aids are for good patients. When was the last time you were a good patient, hmm?"
Pietro was silent after that.
ooOOoo
The rest of the exam went smoothly and without any further issues. Natasha had dropped by near the end with some clothes she that she said would fit the girl (how Natasha got so good at gauging other people's measurements Bucky would never know).
When Lia came back from changing out of her hospital gown, she was wearing a pair of jeans and a red and white striped t-shirt. She yawned, her stomach growling at almost the same time.
"I'm sensing two different issues here that need to be resolved. Which one is the most pressing? Food or sleep?" Bucky asked, a small smile gracing his features.
"Food," she said. "I'm starving."
"I think we can take care of that," he replied. He strode over to the elevator and pressed the button for the residential floor. "Steve may not look it, but he's a fantastic cook."
Pietro came walking out of the medical center after that, having stayed behind for a moment at Fury's insistence. He was holding another file folder.
"Fury gave me Lia's file," he explained. "There's more info in this one then there is in the one we found at the base. Maybe we'll be able to find out a little more about you, sestrichka." he smiled at Lia.
"You keep calling me that. What does it mean?" Lia was much more talkative now.
"It means 'little sister' in Sokovian. Because that is how I think of you. As my little sister."
Lia smiled. "How do you say big brother in Sokovian?" she asked.
"'Big brother' in Sokovian is bratishka."
"Then you are my bratishka," she replied. She turned to Bucky. "You too."
"Me? You sure you want me as a big brother, Rosie?" he was flipping through Lia's file.
"Rosie?" she asked, confused.
"It says here that your full name is Liana Rose Lewis. Your middle name is Rose. And if you're going to give me a cool nickname then I want to have one for you, too." he explained.
"Rosie…" she said, trying it out. "I like it."
Bucky didn't tell her the real reason why he wanted to call her Rosie. As it turns out, she looked very similar to his late sister, Rebecca. He had called her Rosie, too. Everybody else had called her Becky, but he wanted to call her something different, something special. Seeing Lia had brought quite a few memories of his sister back to the surface. Speaking of memories…
"What do you remember from before you woke up in the jet, Lia?" he asked her. The elevator doors opened, and the three of them stepped on.
Lia opened her mouth to speak, then shut it again. "I… can't remember. Why can't I remember?" Her eyes widened. "That stuff that happened in the jet, all the water. Was that me?" she asked.
"Yeah, that was you," Pietro answered. The elevator doors closed, and there was a small huff as the elevator began to rise.
She looked shocked. "I did that?" she asked quietly. "I didn't know I could do that. Am I in trouble?"
Bucky chuckled. "No, you're not in trouble. But you do need to try and keep it under control. Something tells me Tony wouldn't like it very much if it started snowing in the kitchen."
The elevator doors opened once more to reveal the residential area. As if on cue, Tony walked into the room. "Well if it isn't Elsa and Roadrunner, back from the med bay with… Waldo?"
He gestured to her red and white striped shirt. "Tell me you've at least heard of Where's Waldo." He was practically begging at this point.
She shook her head. Tony sighed audibly. "Don't worry kid, we're gonna work on that. We'll get you all caught up with popular culture. Then," he raised his voice so that everybody in the general vicinity could hear him, "at least someone will understand my references!"
Bucky just smiled and shook his head. The next few days were going to be interesting, to say the least.
"Now," Tony continued, "to start your initiation into the world of pop culture, we can start with the aforementioned cartoon marathon…"
