*** This story was originally based off my one-shot, but due to some changed circumstances in later chapters, I made the decision to delete it. The one-shot was not something you had to read in order to understand this story but I felt like I should post this just in case anyone had any questions. ***
This story will be filled with humor, adventure, some tragedy and of course romance. I always like to include a little bit of everything.
Summary: This is the story of Adeline, a girl with remarkable abilities who was recruited by the Avengers. She thought joining the Avengers would be her greatest challenge yet, but that ends up being the least of her problems when she discovers a certain silver haired man trying to work his way into her heart. Pietro/OC.
*Story starts: March 2015*
Adeline Starling let out a frustrated sigh as she unlocked and twisted the front door knob to the entrance of her home. She had a long day running errands and all she wanted was to get away from the cold and take a nap under a massive pile of blankets. The 23-year-old brunette swung the front door open, only expecting to find her aunt and cousin, but instead she frowned at what she saw. Or rather who she saw. She definitely wouldn't be getting that nap any time soon.
Gathered in the living room was her aunt Chrissy, who looked beyond agitated, her 24-year-old cousin Kat, and to her surprise, two people she presumed dead - former director of SHIELD Nick Fury and Agent Phil Coulson. Adeline had been dragged into SHIELD at the age of only 17 when her powers were first discovered. It was Agent Coulson who had approached her and first recruited her. Adeline had accepted his offer at the time because she was desperate to control her powers but when she wasn't making significant progress, she was instead offered a position as a SHIELD Intel Specialist. She was only offered that specific decision due to her wit, IQ and further testing with SHIELD. Adeline had worked for SHIELD up until it's demise three years ago. She was hoping to put her SHIELD life behind her. But she didn't know how likely that would be with Nick Fury and Phil Coulson now standing in her living room.
"Agent Starling, it's been too long," Phil Coulson made his way over to greet her.
Heaving in a sigh, she reached out her hand to shake his. "I'm not an agent anymore. Haven't been for three years. I thought you were dead?"
"Right," Coulson let out a small chuckle. His case was of course classified so he would just have to keep that to himself and cut straight to the chase. "Well, I bet you're wondering why we're here."
"I'm wondering a lot of things, actually," Adeline admitted, still surprised at the sole fact that this man was alive. She turned to face the other man. "Um, Director Fury, I don't believe we've met but I know who you are," she walked over to him to shake his hand.
"Former director, he's the director now," Fury nodded over in Coulson's direction, "pleasure, Miss Starling."
"Listen, I don't mean to rain on your guys' parade, but she's not going to want to listen to what you guys have to say," her 37-year-old Aunt Chrissy cut in.
"Why don't you let her have her say first, Agent Steele?" Agent Coulson kindly but firmly asked.
But Adeline already knew. "If you're interested in recruiting me again, you can forget it. I'm not interested."
"Told you," Chrissy sneered.
"Listen, your abilities are unique-"
"I have the same ability," Chrissy rudely interrupted.
Coulson only smiled at her aunt's snarky-ness. "Yes, you do. But Adeline can also create force fields with gathered energy and levitate. Now that's something."
"None of which I've practiced in years," Adeline lied. Well, she really hadn't. But she'd be lying if she said she didn't use her powers a little from time to time.
"We can train you. In fact, we have the best damn team there is to train you."
"Adeline, if you let us, we can help you to control your powers. We can turn you into an Agent but this time we can put you in the field," Fury chimed in.
"Wait, wait. Who said I was even interested in becoming an agent again? Let alone a field agent?" Adeline exclaimed. Her head was starting to hurt. None of this was making sense to her. Why her? And why now? Wasn't SHIELD gone? "I don't know if you've seen me, but I'm not exactly what you would call fit," Adeline gestured to her thin body, "and isn't SHIELD gone?"
"To the rest of the world, SHIELD doesn't exist," he simply answered, "Miss Starling, we're asking because you are a special case. Agents come in all shapes, sizes and more recently, abilities and special powers. But Adeline, you have abilities that are unmatched and unparalleled. You just need to be trained. And I have a feeling once you master your abilities, you'll be unstoppable."
Adeline was never one to be purposely rude but she let herself scoff and cross her arms. "Who do you expect to train me? Do you know anyone who can fly, turn their entire body into a diamond-like substance or create force fields using energy?"
Nick Fury only smirked. Phil Coulson shared a look with the former director before returning his attention back to Adeline.
"I hear we are getting a new team member?" Pietro all of a sudden plopped down next to his twin sister on the couch, who was reading a book. He was the last to join the rest of the Avengers with the exception of Bruce, Thor and Vision. Bruce was still no where to be found, Thor was back in Asgard and Vision was at the Avengers Training Facility with Falcon and War Machine and was due to come back tomorrow.
Wanda was unfazed by his surprise appearance. She was used to him popping into the room out of no where. The younger twin didn't even bother to look up from her book when she answered, "Yes, Captain is escorting her here right now."
"Her? Another girl?" Pietro's curiosity perked up.
His twin sister rolled her eyes at him. It was no secret that Pietro was a ladies' man back in Sokovia. Not that he slept around with many women, but he definitely loved to flirt. "Yes. I'm interested to meet her. They haven't told us much but they say she is not well trained."
The male Sokovian raised his eyebrow. "Then why assign her to the Avengers? That is odd."
"She has abilities, Pietro. I don't know what kind of abilities but I'm excited to find out," Wanda told him and looked up from her book. In truth, when Wanda heard the new Avenger lacked combat training and only had special abilities, she admittedly got a little excited. Wanda knew she was the weak link on the team when it came to hand-to-hand combat, tactics or strategy. She knew having another member on the team who was just like her would be a perk for her. Not just so she wouldn't be the only one who lacked fighting techniques, but now she would have someone equal to train with.
"She's like us?" Pietro asked.
"Not quite," Clint interjected and took a seat on the couch in front of them. "She was born with her abilities but only discovered them six years ago. She never learned to control her abilities or really used them but from what I hear she'll be useful if she's able to perfect it."
Pietro's ears perked when he heard the elevator 'ding'. The elevator opened and out stepped Steve, who was dressed in civilian attire, and their newest addition to the team. Upon laying eyes on her, Pietro's lips slightly parted. He was not expecting the new addition to be...beautiful. Now, she probably wasn't the bombshell brunette that society would deem gorgeous, but her looks were certainly drawing his attention. The first thing he really noticed was her dark brown hair. It fell past her shoulders and flowed down her back in waves. The front was pulled back in loose side braids, revealing a heart-shaped face coupled with a small amount of scattered freckles, chocolate brown eyes and slightly pointed ears. Her skin was fair with the exception of a tinge of red that nicely complemented her cheeks.
"Close your mouth, Pietro," Wanda quietly told her brother while nudging in the arm.
"Guys, this is our newest Avenger in-training, Adeline Starling," Steve announced. "She'll be living with us, same floor as the Maximoff's. Adeline, meet the Avengers. Well, some of them."
Adeline shifted nervously and waved awkwardly at the team. She knew most of the team already."Hi," she greeted. "Great, way to be weird, Adeline," she mentally scolded herself.
Everyone warmly greeted her for the most part, except Tony, who had been unusually quiet this whole time.
"So, you're supposed to be the newest addition to the Avengers?" Tony questioned as he walked circles around her. He stopped in front of her and raised his eye brow. "You're...small."
"Agents come in all different shapes and sizes," Adeline defended calmly with a smile, remembering what Fury told her just days ago.
Pietro was less than amused from where he was sitting. Tony's attitude had always pissed him off and quite frankly, he still didn't like him even after working with him the past few months. "It is not nice to judge, Stark," he retorted.
Adeline's eyes traveled to the man with the accented voice who defended her. It took a moment for her to realize that the comment came from a man with silver-ish blonde hair and striking blue eyes. She knew his name...well, his call sign, thanks to the media. She knew she heard his name before but couldn't quite remember at the moment. But she knew he was wildly known as Quicksilver. And he was looking right at her. He didn't seem all too happy. She quickly averted her eyes to the floor.
"Just ignore him. That's what we all do," a female's voice spoke up. She looked up to see none other than the Black Widow walking up to her with Agent Barton following right behind her. She stopped in front of Adeline and crossed her arms. She smirked at the brunette. "I know you. I've seen your face before."
"I recognize your face, too. Both of you, actually," she nodded over at Clint, "you two would come into our department all the time for briefing and debriefing."
"That's right, you worked at SHIELD as an Intel Specialist. I remember because you were the talk of the town when you first got there."
Adeline gave her an incredulous look. "Really? Why?"
"You were only 17 when you started working at SHIELD. That doesn't happen every day," the red head told her.
"Oh, right," Adeline let out a short laugh.
"Well it's good to meet you, Adeline," Clint held out his hand. "Clint Barton," he introduced. "Glad to have you on the team. And congrats, you are now the baby of the team. You're just a year younger than the twins."
That's right. Quicksilver had a sister on the team. And she was sitting right next to him.
Wanda was more than anxious to know all about this new girl. She stood up and approached the new Avenger. "What kind of powers do you have?" She all too quickly asked.
Adeline smiled at the taller brunette. She knew her as the Scarlet Witch. She wondered if she even liked that call sign or if that was something the media gave her. The Scarlet Witch's whole demeanor screamed friendly and it seemed odd she would be called a 'witch'.
"Oh, I'm sorry, my name is Wanda Maximoff," she quickly apologized and held out her hand for her to shake. Wanda wasn't one to really shake hands but Americans seemed to do it all the time so she figured it was the socially acceptable thing to do.
"Nice to meet you Wanda," Adeline shook her hand. "I-"
"Adeline Grace Starling-Steele," Tony announced her name, cutting her off. Adeline looked in his direction and saw a rather...large holographic profile picture of her from her shoulders on up. It was her SHIELD file. She grimaced at the photo, as it was taken six years ago. Adeline almost looked like she had a baby face and her unruly hair was pulled back into a messy bun. Definitely not her best picture. "Born April 19th, 1991. Age 23. Brown hair, brown eyes, blah, blah, blah...ah, the good stuff," Tony read over her abilities and it looked like there was a lot of information on her. "So in short, you can fly, use your energy to create force fields...and turn into a diamond?"
Adeline caught a few of the facial expressions from the rest of the team. Only Steve and Natasha were briefed on her abilities prior to her arrival. The rest looked as if they were astonished by her unique abilities. But Adeline honestly didn't feel as if they were unique. It's not like she had a whole lot of control with her abilities. Maybe during her time with SHIELD, and that was only prior to her working intel. Now? Not so much.
"Uh, yes," she answered quietly.
"It says here that when you shift into diamond form, your body is indestructible," Tony raised an eyebrow at her. "Able to withstand fire, bullets, electricity-"
Adeline copied his expression. "I don't know about indestructible. I mean, I've undergone a lot of testing with SHIELD several years ago but I don't think enough testing was done to deem me indestructible," she admitted.
"Oh, stop being coy," Tony flicked his wrist mockingly at her before shooting his right hand in front of him. In an instant, metal adorned his hand and wrist and he opened his palm in her direction. "Indestructible? Let's put that to test, shall we?"
"Stark-" Steve protested, but it was too late.
Pietro watched the whole thing in what seemed to be slow motion. His enhanced gifts were somewhat like a switch. He didn't always see things in slow motion but when his senses were on the alert, that's when it kicked in. Pietro's ears picked up the sound of mechanical whirling coming from Stark's hand. He watched as Stark's infamous repulser ray emitted from his iron-clad palm, starting off as a small beam of light and slowly growing into a full on energy blast. The Sokovian looked over at Adeline for her reaction. He watched her whole reaction starting from when her chocolate brown eyes slowly grew wide with fear. Next was her lips. He watched her lips part, noting how full they were, and listened as a slow and elongated gasp escaped from them. Panic, fright and confusion graced her facial features. He saw her eyebrows shoot up only to come back down as she shut her eyes in anticipation of the blast.
Natasha shielded her eyes but other than that she didn't move. Clint was wide eyed with his arm already in front of Natasha. He looked as if he was about to push her to the floor to take cover. Wanda had one arm up shielding her eyes from the light as the beam just narrowly missed her. Her other hand had wisps of red energy lacing through her fingers. She was on the defense. Steve's body was in mid air just a few feet away from Stark. It looked as if he were about to tackle him in an attempt to deflect the attack. Well, too late for that.
Pietro, who was still sitting on the couch with his head resting in his hand, again waited for her to react. She had powers right? But the look on her face let him know that she was surprised and unprepared for Stark's attack. He watched as she slowly brought her arms up in front of her face. She wasn't moving. She wasn't changing into this diamond form of hers. Didn't Stark say she could create a force field? Couldn't she fly away from the blast? He waited a little bit more. Nothing.
Letting out a frustrated sigh at Stark's antics, he scooped her in his arms and relocated them several feet away. But what had been several moments for Pietro was only a split second for the rest of the team.
Adeline let out a shriek when she heard a loud explosion followed by what sounded like bricks crumbling. It took her a moment to realize that the blast never impacted her. It took her another moment to realize that her hands were desperately clinging onto...clothing? And her face was buried into something hard. She slowly opened her eyes and came face-to-face with black. She pried her face away and gasped when she was met with stunning blue eyes, looking right at her. That hard thing she buried her face in was his chest. The material she had her hands fisted into was his black jacket.
"Didn't see that coming?" he flashed a weak smile at her. He was far too much in a bad mood from Stark to give her any more than that.
"N-no," was all she managed to say. She blushed when she realized how close the Sokovian man was holding her. "T-thank you," she said as Pietro gently put her down.
"Adeline!" Wanda put a hand on her shoulder and looked for any injuries. "Are you okay?"
Adeline looked to where she was just a few seconds ago and went wide eyed when she saw that the elevator behind her was completely taken out and destroyed along with the wall surrounding it. Rays of sunshine and cold air made it's way into room. Just a few feet behind her was now nothing. And she was 15 floors up. "I...I'm fine. Well, thanks to him," Adeline gestured over to her savior, the handsome man with the odd silver-ish blonde hair. If she could only remember his name...
"Pietro," he told her, as if he was reading her mind. He offered her another smile. One that made her heart start to thump wildly.
"Stark! How could you be so foolish?" Wanda snapped, bringing Adeline out her thoughts and making her jump.
Stark let out a groan from Steve's heavy weight suppressing him to the deck. Steve quickly got up and held his forearm to his neck.
"Use your words, old man, come on!" he told the Captain.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" Steve gritted his teeth at the man. God, how he wanted to punch him so hard in the face. "You just put her life in danger!"
Tony rolled his eyes and let out an over-exaggerated sigh. "She's fine! Sonic got her before she could've even deflected it. Now, get off me," Stark forcefully pushed Steve off of him. The both of them got to her feet.
"I saw the whole thing, Stark. She was never going to dodge it or defend herself. I had to move her," informed Pietro.
"Way to go, Stark," Natasha rolled her eyes and walked away from the scene but not before turning her head back and saying, "Welcome to the team, Starling."
"Wanda, would you mind getting her settled?" Steve asked and started to rub his temples in frustration. "I'll deal with Stark."
"Okay, gramps," Tony muttered under his breath.
The Scarlet Witch nodded her head in response. "Come, I will show you to your room. I promise you will love it here, don't let him get to you."
Adeline let out another sigh and let Wanda guide her out of the room. She didn't even know what to say. She was almost blasted to smithereens by none other than Iron Man himself but thankfully Pietro came to her rescue. She turned back to look at him and saw he was watching her too. A burning sensation crept onto her cheeks and that's when she snapped her head back around, hoping he didn't see it.
But nothing was ever too fast for Pietro, who let himself smirk at her sudden embarrassment. He found himself wondering if she maybe found him attractive? She was definitely giving off that vibe. But he dismissed the thought as soon as it crossed his mind. He barely knew the girl and probably wasn't in his best interest to even think of her like that. She would for sure be a distraction to him.
"We're throwing a welcoming party for you tomorrow, Adeline!" Tony called out as she walked out of the room.
"I feel like the new kid at school," Adeline admitted with a heavy sigh, "and I have to try to impress all the cool kids."
Wanda let herself giggle at that and placed a comforting hand on her arm as they walked. "You have nothing to worry about, Adeline. It is crazy here...but at same time it is normal. I know, weird. But trust me, you will be just fine."
Adeline appreciated her words, she really did. But she was in too much of a gloomy mood from almost being obliterated and embarrassed from not being able to defend herself. She just wanted to take a long nap and forget that ever happened. "So...I guess there's no getting out of this party tomorrow?"
The taller brunette only smiled. "Sorry, I am afraid Stark will have this party and force you into it."
Adeline let out another sigh. "Yeah, thought so."
What did you guys think?
I know Adeline's aunt Chrissy and cousin Kat were mentioned in this chapter but I didn't really go into detail with their characters. I will go more into detail with them next chapter. They really don't play a significant part of this story but I did need to include that she lived with them. It'll of course tie into Adeline's story.
Pietro is obviously alive! We'll get into how he survived a little later. :)
You didn't get to know a whole lot about Adeline this chapter but I wanted you guys to get to know her as the Avengers got to know her. Does that makes sense?
I'm dying to know if I did these characters justice. I was so nervous to post this but I figured, what the hell? :p Please review and tell me what you guys think!