Disclaimer: Do not own Marvel or The 100.

Warnings for child abuse, homelessness and implied possible dubious consent and rape.

Solace

It was easy for Clarke Griffin to sink into distractions, as long as she kept her headphones on, and listened to the music from the Walkman playing.

Clarke stayed sitting against the wall next to her bed, where the bed was pushed flush against, and listened to the music blaring away, the Walkman gripped in her right hand. One of her dad's favorite songs by Metallica, the Unforgiven made her more able to ignore the situation she was in-taking what solace she could in music, like she did with books.

She could more or less attempt to ignore that multiple vampires wanted to fuck her and would eventually turn her into a vampire given the first chance they got.

It was all the more reason why she would need to make her escape at some point.

She would escape, eventually. Hopefully. But for that to happen, the vampires would need to become laxed. Trusting. Unaware of what she was planning. And there was no way that that was going to happen anytime soon.

Not this soon, after they had just caught her.

No, she would need to wait, unfortunately. Which meant, most likely that she'd have to suck it up and bear being around them for a while. Probably even as long as a few months.

Clarke shuddered before she could help herself, then tried to listen in more closely to the music, wanting to distract herself.

She wasn't sure if she could do it. For months? Living with these…people, for months, before so much as one escape attempt was made?

She shook her head. No, she decided. It wouldn't be. She couldn't handle months. It would have to be weeks.

Especially, since….well, Clarke might not have wanted to have anything to do with the vampires, but the problem was, she could feel desire whenever she was around them. A sort of pull to them. And the things they said…more often than not, aroused her.

She didn't know if it was safe, for other reasons, for her to be here for months.

Alright, then, she decided. Weeks from now, not months from now.

Before she ended up in bed with one of them. She almost cursed at that thought. She better not think like that.

She just needed to focus on the music, and nothing else.

She lost herself in the music.

Lost herself so much that she also lost track of the time.

She had realized, when entering her "new room," following Pepper and Natasha, and had seen the sunlight coming in through the windows, that she had been here all night and it was already a new day.

She suspected that the vampires were getting her meals ready. But she was losing track of time, listening to her music. So, she didn't realize when it had become 1:15PM, which was around lunchtime.

And she didn't hear the footsteps coming down the hallway, closer to her room.

Clarke did, however, open her eyes, just when the door of her room opened up. She raised her head, glaring in defiance, when she saw both Steve and Bruce enter through the doorway.

"Clarke," Bruce said and Clarke decided to keep her headphones on, ignoring them, "It's time for lunch."

Clarke just gave them an innocent look, making it look like she didn't understand what Bruce was saying.

Bruce sighed, hands on his hips. Steve smiled, and reached to his ears and mimed for her to take the headphones off.

Clarke still gave them an innocent look, a far too innocent look, not appearing to understand.

Clarke wondered what they'd do. If they'd decide that they had enough with her antics and would just pull the headphones off of her head.

However, instead, they did something else.

Something that startled her. Both men left the room, closing the door behind them.

Clarke raised her eyebrows, confused. Why had they come here in the first place? She had recognized Bruce's lips saying, "Clarke," and maybe "lunch." But if they wanted her to come down, why'd they walk away.

But decided not to think too much about it and just kept listening to the music.

Then Steve and Bruce came into her room again, this time, they were carrying some plates with food on them.

Clarke was startled. Since she wasn't going downstairs to get the food they had been prepared for her, they decided to bring the food to her.

Bruce and Steve put each thing they were carrying, down along the tables and the shelves. There was one small bowl full of freshly washed raspberries, a plate full of ravioli. Bruce had carried in the bowl of raspberries and Steve had carried in the plate of ravioli.

Bruce also had carried in a bottle of water and placed it down onto the table next to the bowl and plate.

Bruce looked at Clarke, and even if he knew that she was listening to the music, just to ignore him and Steve, he said, smiling, "If you want other foods, there are different types of foods downstairs. And different drinks downstairs, if you want something besides water. All you need to do is say one of our names or say what you want, and we'll come up to bring you what you want, because we have very good hearing."

Clarke still gave Bruce that "what did you say, huh?" look and Bruce sighed, realizing that she wasn't going to take her headphones off and he walked out of the room.

Steve chuckled, smiling, affectionately, as he put a napkin and some silverware down next to the plate of ravioli.

He smirked at Clarke, before walking out of the room, closing the door behind him.

Clarke was glad that they had left. And she hadn't liked the look on Steve's face. That smile that said that he and the other vampires could wait. That they could wait out her indifference and anger. That it would not matter.

Clarke glared at the door for several seconds, rewinding the Metallica song, "The Unforgiven," and replaying it.

She was drawn to this particular Metallica song. Because it reminded her of her own life, except the only difference, was that she was a cynical young woman and the song was about a young boy growing into a bitter man.

And here, being kept against her will by people who outright admitted that they might just rape her, if they couldn't wait anymore, she honestly didn't see much difference between her pervious life and her new life. However, her old life, she had known a great deal of hunger and as she smelled the scent of that ravioli, and well, she found her self control evaporating, practically instantly.

Clarke got up from the bed, went to where there was a chair against the wall, pulled it over, in front of the shelf, sat down in the chair, and while she still listened to the music, grabbed a fork and began jamming it into the first ravioli piece.

Downstairs, the vampires all reconvened and Steve said, "She's being stubborn. She wouldn't even take her headphones off to hear what Bruce and I had to say."

Laura chuckled, "Such a stubborn woman. That's alright. We can give her time."

"I don't know how much time she'll need," Yelena said, "You smelled her arousal after some of the things we've said to her, right?"

Clint and Laura both chuckled.

"We did," Natasha said, smirking, "But she still needs time, and you know that."

"Yeah, yeah," Yelena said, rolling her eyes.

"We can get her to listen to us, to become reasonable to trying to understand us," Pepper said, "We just need to give her time."

"Time," Jessica chortled, "Well, good thing we have plenty of that."

Maria went to Wanda, who appeared put out.

"Wanda?" She asked the other woman, "Are you alright?"

Wanda nodded as she sat down on one of the sofa chairs and Maria seated herself down on the one next to Wanda. "I'm fine," she said, then winced, "Did you see how Clarke looked at me after I tried to read her mind and she realized it was me?"

Maria smiled sadly. "Wanda," she began, "We all love her. You're no different. Eventually, she'll see that we all would do anything for her. It might take her time, but she'll see. She might not trust you. But she doesn't trust any of us. In time, she'll love and trust you, like she love and trust all of us."

Wanda smiled, trying to conceal her pain. "I know," she confessed, and she did know, because as soon as Clarke was sired and turned into a vampire, she would feel the bond with them as they did for her, "But it doesn't change that I scared her. And she's disgusted by me."

Maria reached out and gently placed her left hand on Wanda's right, reassuringly.

As Maria was trying to reassure Wanda, Tony still was smarting from Clarke's rejection of him yesterday.

Pepper could read her first soulmate's expression easily enough. She said to him softly as she stepped up next to him, "Tony, don't take it so harshly. When she sees what we're willing to do for her? She won't be so guarded. Not even guarded against you."

Tony nodded, but said nothing. He didn't understand. Clarke had barely any possessions and when met with the prospect of having everything she could ever want at her fingertips, she snubbed her nose at it?

Seeing Tony's troubled expression, Pepper smiled sadly. She knew that look. "Clarke can't appreciate talk of how rich we are, Tony," she reasoned, "Exactly because she's had so few items of happiness, for so long. To her, a declaration of just how rich we are? Is like an insult to someone who has had to struggle all her life. And who has seen so many others struggle in the same way."

Tony looked away. He hated thinking about Clarke living like that, on the streets, alone, starving, with almost nothing to own.

Didn't she deserve everything in the world? All the food and drink she could ever want, all the books she could ever want and everything else she could possibly want?

Was it so, so wrong to wish to give Clarke everything?

Seeing Tony's wounded look still, Pepper sighed, "Just wait, Tony. That's all we can do right now."

Tony didn't say anything, just had a displeased look on his face.

The four children of Odin conversed for a while. Sylvie said, snickering, "Why do we need to wait? We can just seduce her now, and she'll want us even before we turn her."

Thor glared at his adoptive sister. "Patience, sister," he said, "If we push anything soon? It will frighten her into resisting us more. We don't want to scare her."

"She won't be scared of us," Hela chuckled, smirking at the possibilities that she and Sylvie thought of, "All she will be, will be desiring us."

Thor groaned, looking to Loki. "Brother…..," he had been looking at Loki for some backup, however, Loki was only smirking in agreement at their oldest sibling and at his twin, Sylvie.

Thor tried not throw his hands up in frustration. How was it, that when he always was the one ready to leap into a dangerous situation, he was the one with the most patience?

Clint, Laura and Natasha talked quietly, as the others talked.

Natasha said quietly, "I think I might know a way to get Clarke to tell us where the people are that have hurt her."

Clint and Laura listened, with absolute attention.

After all, they wall wanted to know who had thrown Clarke out onto the streets and where they were, so that these people could be killed.

As Natasha, Clint and Laura discussed this, Clarke, upstairs, had finished up her meal in almost seconds, burping a few times.

She needed to figure out a way out of here.

She glanced at the windows. And she had seen how Pepper and Natasha reacted to her talking about the windows. It wouldn't make a difference.

The only answer, as far as she could tell? Was a distraction. One that would catch their attentions and divert their attention.

But another possibility, was figuring out how to kill a vampire. Or rather, how to kill several.

She knew what she was thinking of doing was dangerous. Extremely dangerous. There was a possibility that the vampires came up with the whole "mate thing" just for a game. Living for centuries probably got pretty boring. Which meant that at some point, they'd kill her if she endangered them.

Or they might just decide that she wasn't worth their time after she did it and kill her.

But hey? She wasn't going to be kept prisoner. Under any circumstances.

She would have to get out of here. Even if she had to kill her captors.

And for her to do that, she realized, might not be as difficult as she thought. All she needed, technically, was some matches. Or a lighter. Or even, just a few sticks and some leaves. Either way, it involved fire. Lots of fire.

Author's note

I just figured I'd have Clarke listen to Metallica, because it's in WolfHowlRunner61 and Dinofuryjaws's stories.