Hey guys!

I know I know, I always cringe when an OC does something stupid too but I want to present Mariana as humanly as possible and human beings do stupid things very often.

Anyway, enjoy! And as always, reviews are appreciated, especially if you have questions or suggestions or spot a silly mistake.

Okay, happy reading! :)

. . .

Mariana knew she should have told them. She knew the other Avengers needed to know that the press conference had been a fluke, that her powers were on the frits still, that sometimes she'd be trying to teleport to the next room and end up on the roof. She continued to avoid conversations where any of them might ask her about the position of the HYDRA facility she had been kept in so they could take them out.

When that question did come up she had thus far been able to brush it off somehow because she would be lying if she said she hadn't tried. Goddammit had she tried. But they didn't need to know that she couldn't. Not because of bad memories but she just physically could not get back there.

If they knew, she wouldn't be able to stay on the team, she wouldn't be able to go into the field. They would think she was broken but she wasn't. So they didn't need to know.

. . .

Someone was pounding on her door.

For a moment she just froze and listened. HYDRA wouldn't knock she had to remind herself. Unless Markus just wants to psychologically torture you and wow wasn't her brain just an asshole. Now she was completely tense and the hot water beating down on her back did nothing to ease that.

Then a muffled voice rang out between knocks and over the rushing water.

"Mari!" Clint. Her shoulders relaxed. "Mari, come on, training." It did not last.

"J, let him know I'll meet them there please." With that she turned off the water and wrapped a towel around herself before heading into her bedroom for her clothes. She didn't hear the front door open or realise she wasn't alone until Clint was frozen in the doorway to her room.

"Hey, Mari you know I can always wa- "

Mariana spun around so quickly she was surprised she didn't fall over and stared at her brother with wide eyes. They both stood frozen for a few seconds as they stared at the other.

It had been a week since she had returned home and her injuries were healing well but she had managed to avoid being examined by Bruce or having any of the others see her when not fully dressed. She used to walk around the tower in her pajamas - usually shorts and a tank top – but since she had been back she had always been fully dressed when they saw her.

Now, with only the towel covering her and an outfit clutched to her chest she was hyper aware of Clint's eyes on her skin. On her scars. In particular, the one that ran from between her shoulder blades, over her right shoulder and down towards her armpit. Easy enough to cover with a shirt or jumper but not a towel. Then his eyes flicked down to the one on her thigh and she was thankful that he couldn't see anymore of her.

The second he actually looked in her eyes she squeaked and disappeared.

She had been thinking bathroom. She had ended up in Sam's temporary room until he had a full floor sorted like everyone else – except Bucky who shared with Steve. He wasn't there so she decided to just change quickly there, throwing on the underwear, sports bra, jogging pants, trainers and long sleeved under-armour shirt she had been clutching to her chest. She hadn't had socks with her but figured she could suffer a few blisters.

With that she made her way to the training floor, dropping her used towel in the communal bathroom on the floor. She got there just after Clint had arrived was speaking lowly to Natasha. Mariana cursed silently to herself just as Tony approached and threw an arm around her shoulders.

"So, we all know this is team training day and Thunder Bolt is back home at the minute but Captain Ice-pop here wants you to go through a full evaluation before he considers letting you come fight bad guys with us. Now in my opinion, it's where you belong, but I'd rather you not get hurt if you go out there and you're not ready so I'm on his side here. For once."

"Thanks Stark," Steve deadpanned from where he stood with Bucky, Sam and Bruce in the centre of the room. They were all wearing t-shirts and jogging pants except Bruce who never took part in team training. He usually insisted on staying in case anyone got hurt, even if he was adamant that he wasn't that kind of doctor.

Mariana chuckled at the two of them before realising Tony's words. "Wait, full evaluation?" Clint caught her eyes in a stern glance and she knew she would not be arguing with anything they told her to do.

Steve shrugged. "We want to make sure you are physically and mentally ready to get back in the field. Bruce also wants to examine your abilities again at some point to make sure nothing damaging was done when…" He looked down but he needn't have said more. Mariana swallowed thickly at the prospect.

Bruce had done a full eval of her abilities right after the Chitari invasion. He had all of the data he or Stark could have wanted regarding what she could do. He was a scientist. He would notice any differences immediately and then they would know.

Instead she nodded. "What do we start with?"

"A general workout," Natasha said. "Then sparring like usual."

Mariana spent five minutes stretching, ten minutes on the treadmill, fifteen on the punching bags and another ten minutes running through the most basic of the six obstacle courses Tony had created for them. By the time Natasha called her over to the mats she was already breathing heavier and a light sheen of sweat covered her forehead.

"Catch your breath Mari, you'll be with me first." The red-head tilted her head and studied Mariana closely for a few seconds as the girl's breathing calmed. "It's a little warm in here, you want to change your shirt before we get started.

Mariana knew what Nat was doing and knew that no matter what she did it would likely be a confirmation of whatever the woman suspected – which was probably true anyway. But the gesture told Mari all she needed to know. Nat wouldn't force her to tell the others and likely wouldn't let Clint tell them either.

So Mariana's only response was to take up a defensive stance.

Nat nodded to herself, as she herself took a subtle defensive stance. Mari remembered that Natasha would not make the first move. With anyone else she always did but because she had seen Mariana as a student she always made the younger girl make the first move.

So Mariana made a quick evaluation and found that there was no attack Natasha wouldn't see coming. She settled on attempting to fake her out. It had never worked before but it had been a year since they last sparred.

So she lunged forward with no warning, making it obvious that she was going for the assassin's right side but at the last second made a change in direction that Natasha had been expecting. She blocked the left hook coming towards her face and only briefly was surprised by the right going towards her abdomen. Both offensive moves were blocked with ease but it was a tactic she didn't remember her little sister ever having used.

They continued for a few more minutes and Natasha wasn't sure if she should be proud of Mariana for how few and far between the assassin found a way to fault and correct her tactics. Mariana had gotten better at fighting. Natasha knew it should have been expected with HYDRA making an effort to force their own training on her. But she was angry that whenever she got Mari on the ground the girl's first instinct was to protect her throat.

They finished sparring only for Sam and Tony to go on and on about how great she was until Tony started poking fun that Mariana had lasted longer than Sam had sparring against the Black Widow. That started a quick-fire banter session that Clint broke in on with a small smirk.

Natasha had pulled Mariana off the mat and approached Steve and Bruce for a quiet conversation, likely about Mariana's level of skill. Likely about whether or not she was physically fit enough for the field. Mariana felt a little too warm then, breathing was getting a little too difficult.

"Mariana?" Bucky's quiet voice sounded from her left and broke through the haze. "Want to step outside?" Mariana may have agreed just a little too quickly but Bucky only nodded in understanding and called out to Steve. "I want to see how Mariana is with firearms. We're going to head over to the range."

Steve nodded and told them they were both done for the day anyway so Bucky started towards the double doors leading into the sound-proofed firing range and activated the locking mechanism once she had followed him inside.

"Thanks," she breathed once they were inside. The air was cooler and she didn't feel like everyone was studying her.

"Don't thank me yet. I do want to see how good you are with a gun in your hand." Bucky started towards the cabinet that held a large selection of weapons and ammunition. Because it was Tony the cabinet stretched the length of the entire wall with a series of different compartments. Mariana blinked at the new addition.

"But I do want to talk as well," Bucky continued, "and right now the others can't hear us." He picked up two regular hand guns, it looked like a 9mm, standard issue for most New York cops these days.

"Okay. What about?"

"Your powers."

"Wh– what about them?"

"The fact that you didn't use them. Nat didn't tell you not to and I've heard Steve tell enough stories about you to know you previously would have used them at every opportunity. Or I could refer to Thor's tales of your 'excellent battle strategies', all of which involved the use of your powers. You almost had Natasha on her toes in there and could have easily distracted her enough to use your powers to take her by surprise."

Mariana swallowed and realised just how dry her throat was as she watched Bucky check the gun, load it and make sure the safety was on.

"So why didn't you?"

"I was never allowed to," was what came out of her mouth. "With HYDRA, my abilities were always suppressed or I could only go a very short distance if I could use them at all. Every time I did use them though it…didn't end well for me." She looked away, avoiding any eye contact. "I guess I just need to get used to being able to use them freely again."

"You seemed fine at the press conference."

Mariana sighed. "That was different. The press conference was a public setting but this…this is training. I've spent a year being forced to train without my abilities or else. It's different."

Her eyes met the floor as she considered her own words. They were true. She hadn't been thinking about hiding how screwed her powers were when she was sparring, she had just grown so accustomed to fighting without them that she hadn't even considered using them. She only looked up from the floor when Bucky's boots came into view.

He hesitated only a second before hugging her with his right arm as he had done in the elevator a week previously. It was the first of their few hugs that he had initiated but she reciprocated immediately. When he pulled back he changed the subject quickly, not wanting to watch her spiral any further into thoughts of the past.

"So how much do you know about firing a handgun?" Mariana visibly winced. Her mind flashed back to the agents chasing her through the woods that now no longer breathed the same air she did. "Too much I take it?"

Mariana nodded. "SHIELD gave me very basic firearms training that Clint kind of built on for a while and…HYDRA let me train a little with guns." Bucky raised an eyebrow. They were usually quite fond of using guns. Mariana shrugged. "Until I tried to shoot one of them during training. The only time I've actually shot someone was when…"

Bucky didn't interrupt her or try to change the subject again, now realising that no matter how much she had talked to Sam recently, she hadn't said a word about what she had been through. She needed to say it, he could see that. And he knew that she knew if anyone wasn't going to judge it would be him.

"When I was trying to escape."

"When you did escape," he corrected.

"When I did escape," she repeated after a moment.

"So," Bucky held out the gun to her, "You know how to fire one then but how good is your aim?"

. . .

Mariana had to wonder why there even was an analogue clock in the tower, I mean, it's Tony Stark's tower, one would assume something as simplistic as an analogue clock would be considered sinful. Yet there it was ticking away in the otherwise silent room, as though mocking her.

Fifty-eight minutes left.

The psychologist Pepper had vetted and Tony had hired sat across from her. She had been told they used to work at SHIELD. She sat with a pad of yellow paper, pen poised over it, unmoving for the last two and a half minutes. Mariana had spent the first minute staring the woman down and every second since then glaring at the goddamn clock on the glass coffee table between them.

Fifty-seven minutes left.

Finally, Mariana dragged her eyes back to the psychologist, Dr Smyth and made to kick her feet up onto the coffee table but the thud of her boots against the glass made her wince and she quickly put her feet back on the ground. She flashed an impish grin to the woman across from her who merely raised an eyebrow.

"So…" Mariana finally drawled. "What exactly is supposed to happen here?"

Dr Smyth smiled indulgently. "Well, we are supposed to talk."

"Well no shit. About what though?"

"You, what you experienced with HYDRA, the baseball game last night; anything you want really. Just talk. No obligations." Mariana stared at her blankly and Smyth sighed. "What do you want Miss Hadley?"

"I want back in the field," she replied without pause. Smyth scribbled something on her pad.

"Why?"

That time she did pause. She knew she had to be honest. If she lied, Smyth would likely know and the others would definitely find out and be disappointed.

"I want…" What did she want? "I want to protect them. I mean, they can protect themselves and I know that but I need to be there. I need to see for myself that HYDRA isn't going to follow through on their threat."

"And?" Mariana stared in confusion. And what? That was it. That was what she wanted. "And what about yourself Miss Hadley? You're telling me there isn't a part of you that wants to be in the field for more selfish reasons."

"Yes. That's what I'm telling you."

"We both know that isn't true."

"Fine," Mariana snapped, throwing herself to her feet and pacing. "I want to prove myself, I have to."

"To whom?"

"Them! The Avengers, my family, the public, HYDRA; I have to prove it to them. To myself, I have to prove to myself that I'm still good enough to be on this team, that I still belong here. That I can still be the hero everybody has always told me I was because I never believed them; I acted like I did but I was never that hero they saw me as, not to me but I want to be that now. And I need to prove to myself and everybody else that I'm good enough. I want to earn it. I have to."

Her voice got quieter as she came down from her frustrated bout of shouting until the last three words were said in a whisper that Dr Smyth could only hear because she was listening for it. After a quick scribble on her pad that couldn't have been more than a few words, Dr Smyth put the pad face-down on the coffee table and leant forward.

"Okay. Now if you want to be cleared for field work I'm going to need you to be honest with me over the next fifty minutes. I'm going to need you to talk to me, and you may not be comfortable but this isn't a therapy session. This is a psychological evaluation and you can't pass it unless you answer my questions. They will make you uncomfortable but your answers do not leave this room. I swear."

It took a few minutes of silent debate of pros and cons but eventually Mariana re-took her seat and indicated for Smyth to begin with a simple nod.

. . .

Mariana was making her way to Bruce's lab for her last and most important evaluation: her abilities. Bruce had informed her that he had prepared a series of non-invasive examinations and tests similar to those when she had first arrived.

She was worried because if she was lucky enough to be deemed physically and psychologically fit for the field there was still very little chance she would pass this particular evaluation. She considered skipping it or putting it off, maybe outright refusing. But all of the scenarios that played out ended up with her stuck in the tower indefinitely.

She briefly entertained the thought that maybe it was best that she wasn't in the field for now. Her powers were unreliable and the team didn't yet know that. Maybe it was that thought process that made her actually turn up to the stupid evaluation.

But the second she stepped foot in the lab, alarms started blaring. Familiar alarms. She and Bruce raced to the conference room on the communal floor only to find everyone but Tony there but that was always how things had been. Tony always had some last minute prep to do, be it with his suit, setting up comms, getting his under armour suit on or a combination of the three. He always had JARVIS fill him in though.

"What do we have?" Bruce asked the second they entered the room.

"Robots are attacking Hell's Kitchen. There are dozens of them and the authorities are struggling to contain the attack, we've been called in to take over as soon as possible," Steve replied without looking away from the holographic screen in front of him displaying a series of images. He did however look up at Mariana eventually. "I want you to stay here."

She shook her head. "Like hell. I'm coming with you."

"You haven't been cleared."

"Steve, we both know Daredevil operates in Hell's Kitchen and you know he will be out there, daylight or not. He's territorial as all hell – no pun intended – but you are going to need me if you want his co-operation on this."

"Mari-"

"She'll follow us anyway Cap, you know that," Clint stated.

"Trust me, Steve."

He sighed. "Suit up."

At that moment the left wall of the conference room opened up to reveal cases containing Hawkeye, Black Widow and Quantum's suits, teach and/or weapons. The right wall held the same for Captain America, The Winter Soldier and The Falcon. Mariana blinked because last she remembered their suits had always been their own responsibility and on the day of the press conference she had found hers laid out in her room for her by Pepper.

She shrugged and grabbed her suit like the rest of them. Looking around at everyone doing the same she was hoping she wouldn't have to change in front of everyone because no. Just, no. Then Nat grabbed her elbow and placed her hand on a random spot on the wall beside the opening she had grabbed her stuff from. The inner compartment slid to the right to reveal a small changing room, just big enough to change comfortably. She noticed everyone else stepping into their own one.

She watched Bruce retreat from the room after Steve announced The Hulk would not be needed for this one before she quickly shuffled into the opening and let the panel close over.

She just hoped she didn't screw this up.