AN: Hi, I don't know how fast updates will be for the next few days or weeks seeing as I started wiring this story in my time off school when I was sick, but now I'm back at school and new chapters may become a bit slower. Sorry about that but for now, here's chapter 3! It's a bit shorter than the last two but I promise the next one will be longer, I just didn't want to shove too much into one chapter. Enjoy :)
TW: This chapter contains mentions of guns, blood, death, abduction and injury details. Read with caution.
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Marvel or it's characters, I do not own the settings or names. They are owned by Marvel, not me.
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Out Of The Woods
Chapter 3
Icy fingers gripped her arm in the darkness. She felt herself being dragged under the bed by strong hands. There was a loud crash as the door fell, and she tried to muffle her sobs as she cowered. Voices started yelling in a different language, one that she couldn't understand.
"Just don't hurt her! Just don't hurt our daughter, don't hurt our little girl," a man begged, her father.
There was another crash and a grunt as her father was thrown to the floor, blood running down the side of his head. He cast a glance under the bed at his daughter as hands lifted him back up.
Tears stained the girl's face, making lines through the dirt and dust clinging to her cheeks. Suddenly a muffled clinking sound could be heard and a woman let out a scream. There was a thud, and her father's body dropped to the ground, blood soaking the carpet and turning it red.
The blood ran all the way to where the girl was hidden, making her hands wet.
"Please, please don't hurt the child, don't hurt my baby," her mother's voice rang out in the sudden silence following death.
Another shot sounded, causing the girl to cry out. There was a second thud and her mother's body hit the floor, a hole in the centre of her forehead leaked red liquid.
Hands grabbed her and pulled her out from under the bed. She tried to scream but a man put his hand over her mouth. She clawed at his arm, blood that was staining her hands was shining off the man's arm in tiny handprints as she struggled.
She kicked out and struggled, fighting to free herself from the man's grip, but more hands held her down. A sharp pain in her neck caused her to jerk, and she suddenly felt drowsy and weak. All the pain, all the suffering, all the death, all the blood, it was all fading away.
"Melinda?"
She tried to struggle but with every movement she felt weaker, still grabbing the man's hand and leaving red on him.
"Melinda, wake up!"
The world started to go dark, everything faded and the air turned to darkness. She was alone and scared. Everything was gone.
"Melinda!"
Melinda jerked awake with a start, sitting up and panting. Sweat clung to her forehead and her heart was pounding. It wasn't the first time she had dreamt about that day, but it was the first time someone had shouted her name like that.
"Are you okay?"
She tried to steady her breathing as she looked to the side. The Spider boy was standing there, wearing his suit and mask but his eyes were squinted in concern.
"I'm fine, just a bad dream," she told him, managing to speak without her voice wavering.
"Well, here's some water. I've come to collect you, the rest of the Avengers want to meet you. They have something they want to tell you."
She drank the water and stood up, planting her feet on the floor despite the aching feeling in them. She stretched out her wings so that one of them pushed up against the wall and the other almost went to the door.
"Woah! Your wings are huge! I didn't realise how big they were when you were in the bed," Spider boy said, staring at them.
Melinda folded them again, even when she didn't have them stretched they would touch the floor.
"Yeah, they can be a bit annoying though, I've knocked over a lot of people and things," she said, a bit embarrassed.
The two of them started walking down a hallway, she stared at everything from the huge windows that showed aircrafts and trucks parked outside, to the fancy rooms full of expensive furniture and decorations.
"This place is so much bigger than I thought it would be," she told Spider boy, who chuckled.
"Yeah, I'm still trying to get used to it. I've only been here for a few months, everyone's nice so you'll settle in fine though," he said.
Melinda frowned. "Settle in?"
Spider boy stopped walking and looked at her. "Oh, um I wasn't supposed to say that. Come on, the others are just through here."
She followed him into a huge room that looked like it would hold meetings. There was a large glass table in the centre that stretched from one wall to the other, seats lined it and the biggest tv that she had ever seen was mounted on the wall across from where she was stood.
A large group of people were stood next to the table, she recognised Shuri and Bruce but the rest she didn't know. There was a smart looking man wearing a nerdy shirt with a science joke on it and weird glasses, a tall blonde man wearing armour and holding a hammer-type thing, another blonde man with huge muscles and a kind smile, a shorter man with messy brown hair to his shoulders and a metal arm, a woman with brown hair and her arm in a sling, a flying red man with robot-like eyes, another woman with ginger-red hair and a black leather jacket on, a man who looked really normal but stared at Melinda with a mean look, and another man with a long coat and an eyepatch that covered his eye, scars running on his face.
They all turned to stare at her when she came in and Melinda shrank back a bit, rubbing her arm nervously.
"This is Melinda," Spider boy said, walking forward to stand with the rest of the group.
"H-Hi, it's nice to meet you all," she muttered quietly.
The man with the science shirt stepped forward and looked her up and down. "I'm Tony Stark, I'm sure you've heard of me."
"Well, I've studied a lot of your work, but not you specifically. I know loads about your arc reactor technology, but not why you investigated it. All I know about you is your name and that you're a billionaire narcissistic scientist with arc reactor tech," she told him.
Some of the others looked surprised and the kind-looking man sniggered with a hand over his mouth until the man with the metal arm kicked him.
"Oh, well I'm Iron-Man," he said, a weird expression on his face.
"Excuse Tony, he's so fond of himself that he forgets that not everyone knows who he is," the man who had laughed said. "I'm Steve Rogers, Captain America."
Tony looked mock offended and Melinda giggled. Tony turned to her when she giggled and a small smile spread across his face.
"It's a pleasure to meet you both," she responded.
Steve went to say something else when the man with the eyepatch interrupted. "The fact that you're all still introducing yourselves does not help your case, but I am willing to give her a shot."
"A shot at what?"
"Would you like to join the Avengers?"
Melinda froze and took a step backwards, her eyes wide. "W-What?" she stammered.
"It's up to you but we think it would be the safest option for you," the ginger lady said.
"B-But I was with HYDRA! I might be putting you all in danger being here, if they're looking for me then they might attack! And what if you fight them again and they put me under control again?!"
Her brow was creased and she looked ready to run out of the room.
"We've thought of all that and we're prepared to take on the responsibility of protecting you and keeping you safe. Only if you're up to it though, it's completely your choice," Tony said, surveying her nervously.
After a few seconds of silence, she exhaled and said, "Okay, I'll do it."
The eyepatch man walked forward and rested a hand on her shoulder as he passed and left the room. "Welcome to the Avengers Initiative, kid."
Everyone smiled at her and she blushed under their eyes.
"Why don't we all introduce ourselves for the girl," Steve suggested, turning to the others.
"Hey, I'm Natasha Romanoff but everyone calls me Nat. I'm the Black Widow," the red haired lady said, giving Melinda a small wave.
"I'm Wanda Maximoff, I don't have any names like the others though," the young lady with the sling announced.
"My name is Vision," the flying red guy with the golden cape said in an almost robotic sounding voice.
"I'm Sam and this is Rhodey," a man said who she hadn't seen before, who gestures at the man next to him who gave Melinda a little thumbs up.
The man with armour and a hammer stepped forward. "I am Thor Odinson! It is a pleasure to meet you mortal," he boomed.
"Oh I met your brother earlier, he's a bit freaky," Melinda said, glancing at the floor.
"Loki is problematic, he is a trickster and a liar. There was this time when he disguised himself as a snake and I like snakes so I picked him up and-"
"Thor, buddy, not the time, you can tell her later," Tony interrupted.
Melinda smiled at Thor, a bit disappointed that she didn't hear the rest of the story. Thor looked sad too but cheered up when the bird girl gave him a wink.
"Right, I'm Bucky Barnes, I'm the one who-"
"The one who helped me, thank you. Really, I would be back there doing god knows what if you hadn't saved me, I owe you big time," Melinda praised him, looking up at the tall man with tears in her eyes.
Bucky smiled and nodded.
"And I'm Clint Barton. Hawkeye. That man who left just now was Nick Fury, director of S.H.I.E.L.D," the last person said.
Melinda nodded, her hands gripping her sleeve and her breaths coming quickly.
"Are you alright?"
She smiled. "I'm fine, it's just a lot to take in. There's a lot of you, I'm sorry if I forget any of your names."
"This isn't even all of us, there's that ant guy but he doesn't stay here and the space team, and the guy who likes cats," Tony told her, getting a glare from Shuri.
"Wow."
Spider boy walked forward and took off his mask, he was a nerdy looking boy with fluffy hair, exactly what she'd expected. "And I'm Peter Parker, Spider-Man."
"Come on Underoos, let's show the new girl to her room," Tony called.
Melinda walked after the two boys, turning around to the others and calling, "It was nice meeting you all!" before following the two Avengers.
They led her all the way to the other side of the building in silence while she kept taking in all of her surroundings. Eventually they reached a corridor a bit like the medbay but nicer looking and a lot bigger, and with only six doors instead of ten.
"This one is yours, while you were asleep we set it up for you," Tony said, opening the door to the last room on the left.
Inside was a huge room, there were large windows that stretched from the floor to the ceiling where light shone through, and on one of the windows was what looked like a door. On her left was a few bookshelves lining a wall, and after that was two steps leading up to a circular bed on a platform, there was a window against where the bed was and the ceiling was lower and slanted across. There was a desk on the back wall near the right with a huge basket of spare parts and bits of tech that Melinda had only dreamed of. The rest of the room was empty apart from an ajar door that she could see a bathroom in.
"Obviously we only had about an hour and we also don't know what you like, so you can change anything you like if you just ask, but this is where you'll be staying," Tony told her.
"It's incredible! This is so much better than I'd thought," she praised.
"We also got you some hair dye, we couldn't find the exact colour but it was the closest we could find," Peter said.
Melinda frowned. "I don't dye my hair."
They stared at her. "Then how is your hair green?"
She picked up a strand of her hair and looked at it. "I don't know, it wasn't green before I went to HYDRA, I think it's something it do with the bird DNA. Thank you though."
"Well, we'll leave you to settle in, but if you have any questions then come to us, tomorrow we'll give you the full tour."
The two Avengers left and Melinda fell into the bed with a small thud, exhaustion taking over. She didn't want to sleep, the nightmares and the memories were too much, but she knew that she had to.
Eventually the world faded away and everything went quiet.
. . .
. . .
Thor stomped down the hallway towards his brother's room. Why would he visit the new girl? He slammed open the door to see Loki sitting on the bed reading a book calmly.
"Ah brother, to what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?"
Thor glared at Loki. "Why did you visit her?"
"I don't know what you're talking about, I've been locked in here the whole time," he said mischievously, a smirk growing on his face.
"You sent one of your clones, why would you do that? You scared her."
"Good. She should be scared. I've seen some of her past, the pain, the suffering. If she isn't scared then she's as weak as all the other mortals here!"
Thor growled as Loki stood up and threw his book down. The trickster put his hands up in surrender but there was a smile across his face.
"What do you have planned for her, brother? Never before have you taken such an interest in a mortal," Thor asked, holding his hammer up threateningly.
"I am not your brother! Nor are you mine!" Loki's eyes filled with tears.
"Regardless of blood you are still my brother, Loki. Now what do you plan to do with the girl?"
"I don't plan to do anything, it's her who has a plan. Be cautious around her, Thor. This isn't the first time you'll have been tricked," Loki chuckled.
Thor stayed silent, staring at Loki as he climbed back onto the bed and the book flew into his hand.
"Now, leave me in peace. You wouldn't want another battle of New York, now would you?"
Thor exhaled and left, slamming the door behind him. Whatever Loki was planning to do, Thor would be ready. Besides, he was just tricking him about the girl, she didn't really have a plan.
Did she?