Chapter 5

Check Up

The car ride back to the Avenger's headquarters was awkward to say the least. Vision drove with Wanda in the front seat as Peter and Lily sat in the back. Lily was ashamed that she had caused trouble for her new friend. She wondered if he hated her now. Peter looked over at her, resting a hand over her's on the seat between them. He could sense that she was stressed from the attack. Navy orbs slowly looked down at his hand before looking over into his hazel eyes. All Peter did was offer a smile, which in turn caused Lily to smile a little. That should have been Peter's superpower: the ability to brighten anyone's mood no matter how horrible they were feeling. Vision took a quick glance into the rearview mirror, seeing the scene unfolding in the back. He merely quirked an eyebrow before returning his eyes to the road before him.

"I hope you don't think I'm angry with you Lily." Peter finally broke the silence. "I had a lot of fun before those crazy people tried to hurt you."

Lily smiled a bit at his adorably blunt statement.

'Thank you Peter.' She spoke to him telepathically, after she had gotten the ok from him earlier in the ride. 'I just feel bad that you and everyone else got dragged in.'

"We are a team Lily; it is what teammates do for one another." Wanda interrupted before the other teen could speak.

Vision pulled the car into the garage before dissolving his human disguise. As the four exited the car, they were immediately greeted by Tony and Steve. Peter stood a bit behind Wanda and Vision in fear that he was in trouble with his mentor. Lily merely averted her gaze to the floor. Tony was the first to break the silence hanging in the air.

"So Underoos," Tony began to speak, "You ok?"

"I'm fine Mr. Stark." Peter replied.

"And you Lily?" Tony directed his attention to the other teen.

Lily just nodded in response to his question. Tony and Steve let out a collective sigh as the soldier signaled for the two teens to leave the room. Wanda and Vision stood before the two senior Avengers.

"That was quick thinking you two." Steve smiled. "Good work."

"Thank you Captain Rogers." Vision cordially replied. "Though I wish to voice some concern I have over the incident."

"Concern?" Tony questioned.

"Lily has voiced a desire to join the Avengers. She believes that by becoming a member of the team that she will not be a burden upon us because she can then defend herself." The synthezoid explained.

"That will be out of the question for the next few weeks until I can remove her stitches." Strange stated as he appeared before the four through a portal of golden sparks. "Now where is my patient?"

Tony just sighed. Between Strange's portals and Vision's lack of use of doors, he was all too used to the sudden appearance of people now.

"She's in the living room with Peter right now." Tony pointed the way to the teens.

Strange nodded, collecting the medical bag he had dropped on the floor before heading up the stairs. He followed the simple hallway up a set of stairs to see. As the sorcerer arrived at the top of the stairs, he saw Lily and Peter talking. Well, Peter was talking and Lily was writing her response. A smile creeped onto the surgeon's lips as he fully emerged himself upstairs. He cleared his throat to gain the two teens attentions. Peter smiled when he saw who it was.

"Hey Dr. Strange!" Peter greeted enthusiastically as he waved.

"Hello Peter." Stephen greeted in reply before turning his attention to Lily. "Hello Lily. I'm here you're your checkup. Peter would you mind leaving us for a few?"

Peter nodded as he stood up and headed back downstairs. Strange took a seat next Lily, setting the medical bag on the table in front of them. He reached carefully to undo the bandages around her neck, wrapping them up as he removed them. A single finger was placed on her chin to tilt her head back as he closely examined the stitches that closed the incision down her throat. He moved away from her to find something in his bag, pulling out a brown bottle and a cotton ball. After the bottle was opened, Strange poured some liquid onto the cotton ball. Setting the bottle on the table, he tilted Lily's chin back so he could dab the damp cotton ball onto the stitches. The teen tried her best not to move, mainly because the liquid was very cold. Once he was done cleaning her wound, he took out some bandages and rebandaged her neck.

"It's healing very well." Strange commented as he packed the rest of his medical supplies back into his bag. "Though I would clean it a bit more often to ensure it heals properly."

Lily just nodded silently. She watched his hands as he packed everything into the black bag on the table. Her head tilted as she just now noticed the many scars that covered his hands.

"And I wouldn't be doing any sparring until your stitches are out." He smiled at her, before glancing down at his hands.

'I…I'm sorry. I didn't mean to stare.' Lily apologized quickly, diverting her eyes to the couch.

"It's ok Lily." He reassured her.

'May I ask how you got them?' She mustered the courage to return her gaze to the icy blue eyes of the sorcerer.

"I was in a car accident. A pretty nasty one. The roof crushed my hands in the impact and as a surgeon, it was pretty devastating. I tried everything humanly possible to try and restore the use of my hands." A chuckle escaped his lips. "Though, it seemed that humanly was the wrong way to go. The magic I gained becoming the sorcerer supreme healed me."

Strange looks down as he flexes his fingers. Lily watches as she raises a hand to her throat. The next thing the sorcerer knows, Lily his hugging him as tightly as she can with tears in her eyes. Her fingers clutch onto the back of his shirt.

'I…I can never thank you enough.' Lily sniffled.

Strange looked down at her before patting her on the head as she still clung to him. The sorcerer supreme was not really into physical contact, though he did make the occasional exception for Peter. Just then Peter, Wanda, and Vision appeared at the top of the stairs.

"How is she healing Dr. Strange?" Vision questioned as the girl released the doctor from her embrace.

"She should be able to spar and participate in exercises in about four to five weeks." Doctor Strange stood and grabbed his bag off of the table. He uses his sling ring to create a portal back to the Sanctum. Before he steps through, he turns back and looks at Lily and smiles at her. She smiles back at the doctor before he steps through his portal and the golden vortex disappeared. Peter returned to sitting by her on the couch as Vision sat in the arm chair across from them. Wanda took the open seat next to Lily on the couch.

"We talked to Stark and Steve about you joining the Avengers Lily," Wanda spoke, "They both agreed that once you are fully healed from your surgery that it would be beneficial for you to join the team."

Lily smiled as she hugged Wanda tightly. Her navy eyes turned to Vision, who sat there with his legs crossed and chin resting on his hand. She could sense that he was worried about her decision, but supported it. But there was something else in his mind… something he was keeping a secret from her.

"I would personally like for me and Wanda to oversee your training." Vision finally spoke as he glanced over at the trio on the couch.

'I wouldn't want it any other way.' Lily spoke to them all.

"Vizh, why don't we go ask the other's what they want for dinner." Wanda suggested as she stood up and walked over to the synthezoid.

Vision gave her a curious look, but didn't argue as he stood up from his chair. As the two left, Peter put a movie on for him and Lily to watch. Wanda and Vision walked hand in hand to the briefing room where all the other Avengers were gathered.

"What did Strange say?" Tony asked as he spun around in his office chair.

"Lily may begin training with us in four to five weeks once her stitches are out." Vision told the billionaire.

"Excellent. I'll get to design some equipment that will help her develop her abilities." Tony pulled out an iPad and a stylus.

"Vision and I want to… personally oversee Lily's training since she feels the most comfortable with us." Wanda explained. "Though I think for hand to hand combat, Natasha and Clint would be the better choices."

"We wouldn't mind helping her one bit." Clint smiled.

"Speaking of which, where is Lily?" Natasha asked.

"She is with Mr. Parker watching a movie on the television." Vision stated.

"We should keep an eye on those two." Tony coyly implied.

Everyone rolled their eyes in the room, except for Vision who was just too innocent to understand the billionaire's implication. Wanda chuckled as she gave the synthezoid's hand a gentle squeeze to draw his attention back from researching why they should watch the two teens.

"Did we ever decrypt the information from the HYDRA base?" Steve asked.

"We did and it was very interesting to say the least." Natasha tapped the table to allow the holographic projector in the middle to display most of the information. "Everything was about Lily. Clint and I made a few… disturbing discoveries."

"Disturbing in what way?" Tony asked, barely beating Vision to the question.

"Lily was right about a few things from her past. HYDRA came to her town with the intention to take her, but they didn't kill her parents." Clint tapped a video from the bodycam of a HYDRA agent. It showed a few agents trying to rip Lily from her parents, who were holding onto her for dear life and screaming at them to leave. Another agent got tired and used his gun to knock them both out as Lily was jerked out of their arms. Then the video focused on Lily who glowed with a golden energy as she fought to get back to her parents. A surge of golden energy went out and the feed ended with static. Clint tapped the next video from another bodycam of another agent. It showed them cautiously entering a charred field. As the video progressed, it soon showed Lily lying in the very middle of the char, completely unscathed. The video ended when the agent picked Lily's unconscious body up.

"That video means nothing." Wanda was the first to speak after the video ended. "She was a child. She still has no idea how powerful she is."

"We aren't saying it's her fault." Natasha corrected. "But we should be cautious. HYDRA had a full detail of her powers that we dug up and it's pretty impressive."

A few more clicks and some lab reports were projected onto the screen. Tony turned his head away from his iPad and to the projections.

"Telekinesis, telepathy, energy manipulation, destruction." Tony read out loud. "Destruction doesn't count as a power in my book."

"Destruction could refer to the use of her powers in the absorption of all energy surrounding her." Vision proposed. "If you noticed in the video, there was no ash or debris around her after the explosion. There was merely nothing. I theorize that along with manipulation, Lily can absorb the energy in objects and use it to fuel her powers."

"HYDRA mentions that power a lot in their reports." Clint said as he slid a few more onto the screen with that particular word highlighted.

"They wanted to use her as a weapon." Steve concluded as he read over the reports.

"Yeah but they never got the chance to." Natasha replied as she projected six pictures of destroyed HYDRA bases onto the screen. "That HYDRA base we rescued her from was the seventh she had been in. Apparently, all the other ones were destroyed."

"By Lily?" Wanda asked.

"That's what the reports imply. Three of them were lifted thirty feet into the air before plummeting to the ground. However, no one was hurt. Two were left structurally unsound after being pierced over hundreds of times by energy beams. And the first one she was ever in doesn't even exist anymore. They just found her passed out in the middle of where the compound should have been." Natasha explained as she showed them every picture. "The last one was the first time they had implemented the use of the electroshock to try and control her powers."

"How long was she there for?" Wanda managed to ask. All of this talk of HYDRA bases and experimentation made her stomach churn as she remembered her own time with HYDRA.

"The last one she was at for six years." Clint stated softly.

Vision rested a hand over Wanda's as he sensed her tense up. His thumb rubbed the top of her hand to soothe her but to also ground the new emotions surging through him. He had felt what he was assuming he could call anger only a couple of times in his short life. Wanda rested her other hand over his as she could sense his emotions. Everyone then fell silent. That poor girl had endured all of that torture just so she could one day be used as a weapon. Tony returned his attention to the screen before him. His eyes going wide as he took down the projections.

"Ok I hate to break up all this seriousness but you guys have got to see this. F.R.I.D.A.Y. project the footage from the living room." Tony asked as the footage from the living room was projected over the table.

The tension that was in the room was all of a sudden replaced with the adoration at the sight before the team. Peter and Lily were still on the couch. Apparently at some point, Peter had pulled a blanket over Lily and she had fallen asleep with her head on his shoulder. Peter had rested his head back, but the camera then zoomed in on the two teen's hands resting on top of one another.

"That was quick." Tony chuckled as he took the footage down. "It seems we have another person on team 'Protect Lily with Everything We've Got'."