Shion eyed the rogue Avengers anxiously, not entirely certain about how well her presence would be received by them. The adults must have known this, or maybe they simply saw it in the nervous way that she shifted from foot to foot in an effort to resist the urge to fidget with her jacket sleeves or something.
The tall blond guy, Steve something or other, was the first to step forward and greet her. Extending his hand for her to shake as he watched her carefully reach out and take his hand. "Hello. My name is Steve. The guy to my right is my childhood friend, Bucky Barnes-" He narrowed his eyes at her a little bit as he said the man's name. Apparently wondering how she would react to hearing it. And was somewhat thrown off guard when she turned to Bucky and politely greeted him with a warm smile before turning her attention to everyone else.
She greeted everyone the same.
Politely. Kindly. With no change in her body language or her expression, which made it difficult for them to read her. At least until Scott stepped up to introduce himself and asked her some questions.
"Hey, my name is Scott. So... What are you doing way out here? How old are you? Where's is your family? Do they know that you're working for Stark? Did I already ask you how old you are yet?"
"Hi Scott, my name is Shion. I'm on a job- I'll explain a little more once we're inside. I'm fourteen. I have no clue where my family is. I haven't seen them in a year and three months due to work and my eight month long coma. And yes, you asked me my age already. I'm betting that you're a dad, aren't you?"
Scott opened his mouth to say something but abruptly shut it again when Clint asked, "You're fourteen? Like honest to god, fourteen? Or you're actually closer to eighteen and adopting the bad habit of lying about your age?"
"I'm actually fourteen," Shion said as she turned her head to look at him. "My birthday is in another six months. During the middle of the fall."
"A-And you're working for Stark?!" Sam demanded in a shocked tone.
She sighed and reached up to pinch the bridge of her nose as Steve finally spoke up again, "I think we should all go inside and maybe...talk about some stuff."
"Yes please. I'm literally dead on my feet here." She said pitifully.
"Yes, of course. Come, little one. Let us go find someplace private in which to speak and let you rest some." T'Challa said kindly as he started to reach out to take one of her bags when she stopped him with a light touch to his hand.
"I can carry my stuff, sir. There's no need for you to bother." She said gently as she quickly pulled her hand back with a small frown marring her features.
"Very well," T'Challa said after a heartbeat or two before motioning for her to walk ahead of him. "Please, ladies first."
"Um... O-Okay." Shion said awkwardly as she turned and started up the steps and paused in front of Natasha long enough to ask in a rush, "Will you walk with me? I feel weird with so many people walking behind me."
Nat blinked at her and seemed to mull over her words before slowly nodding her head. Accepting the teen's strange request and then moved to join her ahead of everyone else as everyone fell into step at a discreet distance away from them.
The first thing that everyone noticed as the teen walked ahead of them was that she made no noise as she moved. Everything from her footfalls, to her clothing- hell, even the weird keychain attached to her belt- none of it whatsoever made any kind of sound.
Whether this fact was deliberate or otherwise, raised all kinds of red flags with the group.
The second thing that they noticed about the girl, was that she was incredibly alert and watchful. Studying each of her surroundings with a critical, cautious eye that bespoke of her hyperawareness.
Such behavior was unusually similar of those who had just been to war and suffered from PTSD, paranoia and other side effects from suffering such trauma.
The fact that these things were manifesting in a mere child of fourteen years, was horrifying to them. Yet they held their silence as they finally reached one of T'Challa's meeting rooms and slowly filed into it as the girl was placing her bags down against one of the far walls out of the way before digging something out of one of them and then zipping it back up and then straightening herself back to her full height as she stuffed what looked like a cell phone into one of her jacket pockets before moving to grab a seat.
"Okay. Ask you're questions, and I'll answer them to the best of my ability." Shion said as everyone grabbed a chair and seated themselves.
"Alright. Let's start off with the multi million dollar question, why are you here?" Nat asked curiously from her seat next to Steve. Shion tiredly nodded her head before replying,
"I'm here because I'm part of a very specialized military unit that is practically unheard of. These people go way beyond special forces, seals, army rangers and the black berets. And before you ask why a mere kid is part of such a specialized military group, I will just say this- they tend to draft people with particular talents- regardless of their age. In fact, there are several other children between the ages of nine and sixteen, aside from myself, that are also part of the unit."
The shell shocked/stupefied/horrified expressions on their faces might have stopped Shion from speaking again on a normal day, however this was simply something that needed to be said.
"A majority of the people drafted into the unit, have very destructive abilities. So much so that some of us can take on entire armies with numbers in the thousands, alone, and walk away without a scratch. Each one of us is either an experiment of some kind- used to try and re create Mr. Roger's super soldier abilities- or we are simply born with the X-gene and grow into their abilities with time, age, and special training. Are you still with me so far?"
"Yes. Please, continue." T'Challa urged her in a gentle tone.
Shion nodded her head and continued speaking. "Because we are part of an unknown and unnamed military unit, we usually function as a mercenary group. What that means is that if a county in in conflict or breaks out into war- their government can hire us for specific jobs. Stopping the conflict, fighting their wars for them, treating the injured and dying. We can even be hired by people to act as bodyguards for specific individuals and VIP's."
"Mr. Stark came across me and some friends several weeks ago while on a rescue mission to save one of our own. S-She's a friend with the ability to bend the laws of time and space and physics to her whim. Some terrorists found out about her abilities and kidnapped her, wanting to weaponize her abilities on a global scale. If they had managed to go through with their plans, she would have been used to kill millions of innocent people."
"Our orders were clear. Either rescue her or destroy her. It took some doing, but we managed to get her back safe and sound. However we were kind of interrupted in the middle of our mission by an outsider. A particular irritating, armor wearing guy. He damn near blew our whole operation and almost got three of my team killed. But we managed to get our friend back and we did it with no loss of life. So that's...something at least."
"Anyways, he must have gotten curious or something because three days after I was finally told to go home, the bastard practically kidnapped me- and shipped me here after conning me into signing a contract with him. So...um... Here I am. Does anyone have any further questions?"
Scott raised his hand to indicate that he had one- or more questions for her.
"D-Does your family know that you were drafted by the military?"
"No."
"How is that even possible?"
"It's fairly simple to hide such things with the right kind of help."
"B-But what if you get hurt? Wouldn't someone find out something?"
Shion shrugged her shoulders, uncertain of how to respond to Scott's questions. "Most injuries and such are written off as 'accidents'." Scott opened his mouth to ask something else but she quickly cut him off, "You're forgetting, I only recently woke up from a coma. One that was caused by injuries sustained while on the job. And I can tell you this, they were written off as wounds sustained in a wrong place, wrong time kind of thing."
Everything seemed to be going well, when Scott suddenly asked out of the blue, "Wait! If you were on a job three days before you came here...were you...injured?"
"And just like that, conversation is over," Shion said in a rush as she turned to look at T'Challa and asked, "Can I go now?"
"I would rather you answer Scott's question," T'Challa said. Shion scowled at him and muttered something under her breath as she sank a little bit further down in her seat. Taking her actions as her reply to the question, T'Challa sighed and then slowly stood up as he said, "Come, little one. I will see you to the infirmary to be checked out before I take you to your room."
