1 Year Earlier...
Jack walked through the Avengers Tower with a sense of both amazement and uneasiness as he was led through the halls by the Black Widow, Thor the God of Thunder, and Captain America.
He had just met them a few hours prior and already they were off to a rough start after Jack's adopted sibling, Pietro Maximoff, decided to attack the Avenger's archer, Hawkeye, and get him a nasty gash in the side. This caused the team to put minimal trust in the electro-kinetic they now held in their 'custody'.
The only person on the team who actually treated him like a person, however, was Captain America – or as he introduced himself to Jack later on, Steve Rogers.
So, after the Black Widow went off to check on Hawkeye and Thor had gone to secure the Scepter they'd just regained after their battle at the HYDRA base against Strucker and his men, Steve had decided to hold up his end of the bargain he made with the enhanced nineteen year old to help find his sister.
"What did you say your name was again?" Steve asked the young man once they entered the smaller lab Tony had opened up for the soldier after notifying him of the deal he made with Jack.
Jack, preoccupied by the amazing view he had of the skyline of the city of New York down below out the large window, spun around at the sound of the Captain's voice. "I-uh – Statix."
Steve gave him a small lopsided grin. "Your real name," the soldier clarified.
"Oh, um, Jack. Jackson Harper," he answered, mentally cursing himself for being so stupid and giving Captain frickin' America his stupid code name HYDRA gave him instead of his actual name.
Steve raised an eyebrow at the young man's answer. "Harper? Where are you from?"
Jack shrugged. "A bit of everywhere, I guess. My Dad was Slovakian, as was most of his family. And my Mom was from America, she didn't know her family all too well. They met at a concert in France and got married a year and a half later. I was born a short time after that, then my sister six years after that," Jack recalled his life story, feeling a bit weird saying all this stuff like it was yesterday when in reality the last time he had seen his parents alive was neary four years ago.
"If you don't mind me asking," Steve began, breaking Jack from whatever shaken trance he was in from talking about his late family. "How did HYDRA get ahold of you?"
Jack dropped his gaze to his feet, trying his best not to look at the soldier as he began to recall the day his old life ended and his new one began. "Um... Well, I guess you're going to find out when you go through my files soon, but, uh... My father was a scientist for HYDRA," he admitted. "Dr. Henrik Harper – he took my Mom's last name, mostly because his was too hard to pronounce. He worked on theoretically hacking into the human genome and somehow... enhancing it using a power source from another world.
"I-I guess they were successful because when he refused to test his theory on actual human test subjects, they kidnapped my sister and I, killed my mother, and brought my father in before having him watch as they used that Magic Stick to torture and experiment on us." Jack was speaking in the present, but the soldier could tell from the way his eyes were glazed over and gazing down at the floor as if he were seeing the memories play out before him in that moment. "Then they killed him and continued to experiment on us," he finished, a tone of anguish, anger, and disgust costing his voice as he turned back to the Captain.
"My siblings aren't bad people. They're confused, lost, and in pain," he explained. "That's why I went to you. You and your team, you help people and you're enhanced. You can help us be free from HYDRA, start a new life."
Steve pursed his lips, the familiar rage that HYDRA always left in his gut at the mention of all the terrible things the parasitic organization caused filled his veins. The Captain always believed that HYDRA's little human experimentations always ended with Bucky, but he was mistaken, very mistaken. These children had been in Strucker's custody for four years, four years. Steve and the Team had been around for four years and not once had they even scratched the tip of the iceberg of what these children were going through even after they took out the source of HYDRA in D.C.
Sure, Steve didn't sign up for helping Jack lead his group of enhanced brothers and sisters to a better path, but he wasn't going to turn him down, not after how ignorant he felt he had been. They deserved better.
"What did you say your sisters name was, Jack?" Steve finally asked.
"Danielle," Jack replied. "Danielle Harper."
Steve nodded, taking one of Stark's tablets out as he typed in the name.
That day, Steve made a promise to himself. That no person HYDRA had hurt, kidnapped, orphaned, or experimented on would ever face what they had with the organization again.
He didn't realize it until a year later, but he later broke his promise with Alisson, Jack, and Danielle Harper.
Back at the Compound, Jack and Wanda stood beside the landing pad waiting anxiously for the arrival of their little sister. They hadn't seen Danielle since she made the decision to leave back to the apartment she had with Sharon before... everything. It made sense that she would try to get as far away as possible from something when it just brought her pain, the Compound, Jack, and Steve included.
Jack was nervously tugging at the ends of his sleeves of his leather jacket. He wasn't sure why he was so anxious, it was just Dani, his little sister, the little munchkin he'd loved since the moment she was born when he was only six. He passed it off as just nerves because of her absence the past week, but Wanda could knew the real reason why.
The psychic glanced down at her brother's foot as he continued to subconciously tap his heel on the cement ground. His thoughts were loud and scrambled and she was starting to get a headache from the movements, his loud mind, and her own nerves. "Jack," she finally spoke up. "Can you please stop worrying? You keep it up and I'm going to have a migraine before Dani even gets here."
Jack frowned, suddenly becoming aware of his nervous habits and holding himself back from continuing his tapping and tugging. "Sorry," he apologized sheepishly.
Wanda felt a small frown tug at her lips as she became guilty. It wasn't his fault he was so anxious. Ever since Danielle had left back to Queens, Jack had been so unfocused and scared. Really, all that fear and worry sparked after the incident with his mother. He was scared for the health of his little sister after she chopped all her hair off and burned most of her belongings, and it only progressed when she had gone back to school.
It was just a really stressful situation for him. Not many people saw it, but Wanda did. She knew that the death of his mother took a toll on him and that he was pushing it all down so he could have a clear enough mind to help Dani, but really all he was doing was setting everything aside and deciding not to deal with it in a healthy way like he should have been, throwing himself into training, exerting his powers more, testing his strengths, working on new fight combinations, anything to distract him and keep him busy. And when Danielle had still been around, he'd try and talk with her, sit down, relax. Then with her gone... it all seemed to fall apart for Jack.
Now, how would he react with her back? Would she still be the broken little girl that had left? Would she return worse? Better? No one knew.
Wanda slowly pulled her hand from her pocket and wrapped it around Jack's. He looked down at their intertwined hands and squeezed back in return, a small 'thank you' for the comfort. "It'll be fine," Wanda assured him. "It's still just Dani."
And as if on cue, the expected Quinjet had just entered airspace where the pair could see it as it made it's landing a few yards away on the landing pad. Wanda gave Jack's hand one final squeeze before the back hatch to the jet opened and a tiny, familiar figure made it's way out.
Danielle stepped out carrying a satchel over her shoulder and a cardboard box under her arm. She had a small lopsided grin stretching across her face as she approached the pair. It didn't take long for Jack and Wanda to meet her halfway across the distance to greet their little sister. "Hey," Jack said at the same time Danielle greeted, "hi."
"Welcome back, Dani," Wanda greeted, chuckling from the already awkward encounter the siblings were having. "Did you need help with your luggage?"
She shook her head, "No, I've got it."
"You sure?" Jack asked, his worried-brother instincts kicking in. Was she declining the help because she wanted an excuse not to talk to him and Wanda? Or maybe she was just feeling a lot better and didn't actually need help taking her luggage. Or maybe-
Jack's thoughts were cut off when Wanda reached across the small distance between them and pinched his side. He winced and glanced over at her questioningly. She responded with a small glare and he quickly remembered about what she had said earlier about his 'loud thoughts'.
He gave her an apologetic grin before turning back to Danielle who seemed oblivious to anything going on as she answered Jack's previous question, "Yeah, it's no problem."
"Plus, it gives us more time to catch up while we walk you to your room, huh?" Wanda suggested with a bright smile.
Danielle only nodded, getting a better grip on the box in her hands and satchel over her shoulder before the trio of enhanced kids started into the Compound.
After Wanda and Jack had helped Danielle unpack back in her room, the pair left her to her own devices to settle in a bit and get comfortable. She figured that they just wanted her to take a moment to readjust to the room because despite it having been a week since she'd last been there and a whole month since her Mom's death, it still felt like someone was rubbing salt into her open wound each time she glanced at her closet she'd emptied out, or the bare desk that used to have pictures of her mother on it, and even the messy restroom no one bothered to clean up after she had cut her hair, leaving small remnants of her locks on the ground.
She had finally had enough of the room and quickly dropped off her things, including Quintin, and rushed to the personal gym of the Compound.
Thankfully, it was completely empty, and Danielle was able to change in the locker room before peacefully being able to work on her kicks for soccer with the indoor half-field and goal net.
After her nasty fall she had a few days prior that twisted her ankle, Coach Wilson and Ashley benched her for a week enabling her to be sent to the Compound while Sharon worked on a CIA case in Brimingham. Though Danielle's wound was already partially healed due to her regeneration abilities, she had to reluctantly fake the injury for time being, meaning actually having to go the Compound and face everyone in it.
Wanda and Jack were a rough sell, but she managed to fake a smile and put some concealer over the bags under her eyes to pull off being alright. But anyone else, Sam, Natasha, Rhodey, Steve –oh, God, not Steve– would've easily looked past her lies and falsified contentment in an instant and forced her to come clean about all her imperfections at the time.
She was still seeing images of her Mom and having the awful nightmares that kept her up at night. But a rare upside to being an insomniac was that at least Danielle had time to get some of the thousands of school assignments she had missed over the weeks, not to mention getting free coffee from Peter each morning on the subway, and also staying up late teaching Quintin tricks. Who would've thought having nightmares of her dead assassin mother would have been a factor in getting Quintin to learn 'sit', 'speak', and the work in progress 'roll over'?
While Danielle was taking out all her jumbled emotions out on the many soccer balls she was kicking, she hadn't noticed Steve entering the gym silently as he stood t the side and just watched her.
The soldier knew within a few weeks of knowing Danielle that she was like him in many ways. Some good, some bad. She was strong, committed, focused, and determined. She had an artsy way to her and enjoyed to write and doodle. But she was also very stubborn at times, and pushed down her emotions which caused her to lash out. And as Steve watched Danielle forcefully kick ball after ball into the goal, he also noted how much she reminded him of himself, training and excercising whenever he was angry, sad, frustrated, or just needed to clear his mind.
Lately, he'd been doing that a lot and he was almost tempted to that day when he began to notice Danielle's absence. She had missed breakfast, lunch, training. She was missing from her room and the common area of the Compound – which were her usual go-to spots. And then it dawned on the Captain, she was avoiding people. And not just people – him.
As Steve slowly crossed the room, Danielle was becoming more aware of the presence in the room. She hadn't realized it yet, but the more her anger and grief burned to her core, her telepathic abilities and telekinetic powers became more sensitive. This allowed her to know Steve was in the room before he even made his presence known.
She let out a heavy sigh, stopping one of the soccer balls with her foot and taking a small pause from her rigorous training session to reflect for a moment and mentally prepare herself from a conversation both of them had been putting off for months.
The pair fell into a comfortable silence, both of them aware the other knew they were there but not knowing what to say.
Finallt, Steve broke the silence. "You've been avoiding me."
Danielle raised her head and peeked at him through her short strands of hair. "Sorry," she apologize.
The super soldier signed. "You don't have to apologize," he told her. "If anyone should apologize, it's me." Danielle raised an eyebrow in confusion, promoting him to continue.
Steve had to pause for a moment, recollecting himself before putting it all out there for the teenage girl. After all she'd been through, after everything that had happened, she at least deserved to hear what he had to say. "When I first met you, I saw a girl with potential. I had faith that one day she would open up from her hard shell and be set free to be the strong, independent woman I knew you could be.
"But something was always holding you back. Your powers, stress, irresponsibility, loss, grief, confusion. I wanted to do everything I could to help you," Steve continued to explain as Danielle could only stare at him with a blank expression and listen. "And when your mother came along... It was like I threw all my rules about protecting you out of the door because I thought she could be the solution, I thought she could help you and your brother. I was careless and put too much trust into her, and you were hurt because of my mistakes.
"I'm sorry. I am so sorry," he apologized, his eyes were becoming bloodshot but no tears were falling. They couldn't. "I've made many mistakes in my lifetime, but one of my biggest ones yet was letting you go. Because I can blame your mother for taking you away and tricking us and using us, but in reality, I was the one who let her. And I truly am sorry, you don't deserve what you've gone through."
Steve finished his emotional apology, and all Danielle could do was now her head and look away.
How was she supposed to feel? Guilty? Angry? Hurt? She felt a jumble of everything. Anger for the fact that her mother not only damaged her, but everyone else she had ever interacted with and tricked into trusting her. Hurt because she felt as though he was right in the sense that he had left her when she needed him most. And guilt because it wasn't his fault Danielle had gone with her mother, it was hers. It was all her fault.
Danielle was just a kid. A gullible, näive, impressionable kid who knew nothing about trust in a cruel world. A child who never questioned for a second the credibility of her newly resurrected mother who had become assassin in the four years they were separated. She should have never gone with her, she should have never let her back into her life so easily, she should have never trusted her.
While Danielle remained silent, Steve grew concerned. "Danielle, I know you're upset-"
"No, you don't," Danielle cut him off, her voice feeble and broken as her eyes were still downcast. "You can never imagine what it's like to feel the way I feel. To hate someone so much you're relieved that they're dead, but miss them so much you would trade anything just to see them one more time... To look at yourself in the mirror and see nothing but the person you lost... To want to grieve, but know that that person doesn't deserve it.
"I hate her," she sobbed. "I hate her... and I love her."
Steve took a step towards her as he spoke, "Your mother loved you and your brother, too, Danielle."
A broken, empty, and humorless laugh escaped Danielle's lips as she shook her head. "No, she didn't," she replied. "If she loved us, she wouldn't have left in the first place... If she loved us she wouldn't have used us... If she loved us, she wouldn't have chosen YOU over US!" She shouted at him, spinning around to look the super soldier in the eye for the first time, revealing the tears pouring down her cheeks, the bags under her eyes, the veins popping out of her temple, and the burning grief in her eyes. Steve got a good look at her before she vanished from the gym.
Steve was frozen for a moment, shocked by the way the small, timid girl had snapped at him. It hadn't been the first time, but it was the one that hit him the hardest. Even the time when she had shouted at him about not being her father. But that could never come close to how hurt Steve felt from the blow she had just delivered.
He couldn't even wrap the idea around his head; the fact that Alisson had chosen Steve over her kids. The soldier replayed her last moments in his mind.
Even when she was beating him relentlessly, he could tell Alisson felt nothing but regret. But that regret was overshadowed by her determination to keep her children safe. Steve could never imagine that she was choosing him over them, rather her sacrificing him for them.
"Alice, you have to stop. For Jack and Dani."
"Don't you get it? I'm doing this for them!"
Her voice rang through his mind. It was almost two months ago, but he could remember her face so clearly. She looked so scared, yet determined to do whatever it took to keep Jack and Danielle safe.
"Alice, out the detonator down!"
"I can't!"
"Yes, you can! Think of Jack. Think of Dani. What will happen to them if you die?" The unimaginable...
"They'll finally be safe! They'll be safe, for once in their life, if I die and if you die."
Steve physically winced from those words in real time. To think there was a split second where he had believed her for a moment. She was so lost...
"Rumlow won't ever lay a hand on Jack and Dani, I promise you."
"You can't promise me that!"
"I can! Because they may not be mine, but I care for them just the same..."
He cared for Jack and Danielle as if they were his own. He loved them like they were his kids... They were his kids, and he loved them.
Lying in her bed, silently crying after lashing out at Steve in the gym, Danielle awoke with a jolt when she heard the familiar sound of her mother's singing voice filling her ears. When she looked up, she saw her sitting at her desk in the far corner of the room, a pile of sheet music in front of her as she sang to a melody Danielle didn't recognize.
It was a dream, but it felt so real when her mother began to organize the papers and speak at the same time. "Do you know what I wanted most in my life?" She asked, Danielle to scared to answer. "For you and Jack to be happy."
"Me? I was never a happy child. I had a rough upbringing," she continued to explain as she crossed the room to set the set of sheet music on the stand where her keyboard used to be. "My parents kicked me out in high school and I spent most of my young adult life traveling the world living off a dollar a day. Believe me, I'm sure you and your brother had worse, but I never meant for it to turn out this way.
"We were supposed to be a happy family. You were supposed to grow up to be an amazing pianist. Tour the world with symphonies, play for sold out theaters, live a life I could only dream of. Your brother was going to be an engineer, top of his class. Maybe move to America, get married and have kids.
"And your father and I? I always imagined living out the rest of my days with that man. Don't get me wrong, he was just as stubborn and hard headed as you are sometimes, but he truly was the love of my life. It broke my heart when I realized he had betrayed us, thrown us to the hounds... Or in this case, HYDRA."
"But before... that, I always had this reoccurring dream where Henrik and I would is on our porch while you and your husband made dinner in the kitchen and your brother would play outside with his wife and my grandchildren. We would eat pasta for dinner, our favorite, and play instruments into the late hours of the night. And when it was all over, I'd go to sleep with a smile on my face because everything would be alright."
Her mother looked like she was staring off into space, remembering that dream, lost in her own trance when she snapped back out of it, turning back to face her as silent tears fell don her cheeks. She didn't seem to notice... or maybe she did and just didn't care.
"Imagine that... We would have that if it weren't for a single organization..."
"You're not real," Danielle finally spoke up, her voice cracking.
Her mother frowned slightly, but shrugged. "You're right, I'm not. But it doesn't change the fact that I'm right."
"No, you're not," Danielle shook her head, slowly moving to stand up from her bed to stand before her mother's ghostly figure. "We would never have that happy ending because no matter what, you would always find a way to ruin it because you cared too much about your actions and not the consequences that followed."
Her mother remained silent as she continued speaking. "You're not my mother, either. She's dead. And so are you."
The burning grief she and felt when the wound of her mother's death was new had faded, and now the after effects of the event were kicking in. It was time to put an end to her memory, lay her to rest once and for all. She should get to dictate her life, she shouldn't get to continue to haunt her at night or make her hate her own reflection.
This was her turning the page, finishing the chapter, and closing the book.
Before she knew it, the figure of her mother was gone in the blink of an eye. It was over.
When Danielle woke up the next morning, she let our a sigh of relief. It was just a dream, but it was the dream that set her free. She couldn't help but think of the words 'gone, but never forgotten' as she climbed out of bed with a sense of weightlessness as she glided across her room.
She was halfway to the door when she noticed something out of pace beside her drawer: a box.
Danielle approached with caution, and her heart stopped slightly when she read the little sticky note attached to it –
'You deserve to know.
-Steve'
Danielle set aside the note and peered into the box. Inside were files, about a couple dozen of them. She began to skim through the names labelled at the top and faltered slightly when she realized what they were. They were all the files the team had on her mother.
Alisson Alexis Harper, a.k.a the Silencer. 1983-2012 [Updated] 1983-2016
Danielle pursed her lips. As much as she wanted to read this file, to know everything there was to know about her mother and her reasons for most of the awful things she'd done, Danielle and already closed that door and figure there was no reason to reopen it.
Slowly, she closed the box and lifted it up as she carried out of her door, down the hall, and into Steve's office.
The soldier was seated at his desk when he saw her walk in with the box he she left in her room that night. He was surprised when she voluntarily walked into his office, even more surprised when she set down the box of files he had on her mother and set it down on his desk before looking him in the eye and speaking in an even tone. "Thank you... But I don't need it."
"Are you sure?" Steve questioned, very confused as to what had happened to this girl in the short timespan of only a few hours.
Danielle shocked him even more by nodding, smiling, and crossing the short distance between them to give him a tight hug around his torso.
Not sure what to do or how to react, Steve hugged her back.
"I'm sorry," she whispered.
"Me too," he replied.
A/N: Not one of my favorite chapters because I feel bad. So, here's the gist. I've been listening to a fuck ton of Hamilton like I normally do during the Fall for some unknown reason, and during this time the future literature-art major in me decided to go bat shit crazy and just out a fuck ton of hidden meanings into this chapter. So, I apologize if it makes no fucking sense in some cases. My weird fucking mind just said, let's pretend we're Lin-Manuel Miranda and out hidden meanings in this chapter because why not?!
In other news, GUESS WHO'S GOING TO A 'the 1975' CONCERT?! THIS BITCH! PIT SEATS, BOIII. I'm totally broke and this may be the only concert I can afford because it was literally $29.50 for normal seats and I said 'who needs to eat for week?' and went for it. IN OTHER RELATED MUSIC NEWS: GERARD WAY IS BACK WITH SME FUCKING BOPS! Find my wig, find my MCR t-shirt, find my angsty choker I wore in middle school, and where the fuck is my eyeliner? THE EMO DAYS ARE BACK AND I AM HERE FOR IT!
Chapter Song for this is Devil In Me by Halsey because why tf not?
ALSO, SHOUTOUT TO theamazingspoiderman. IT IS HER BIRTHDAY TODA AND SHE HAS HELPED ME SO MUCH WITH THIS STORY AND SHE IS SUCH AN AMAZING WRITER AND PERSON. SHE IS ONE OF MY BEST FRIENDS AND I LOVE HER SO MUCH. Go check out her stories and go wish her a happy birthday if you can. Love you, British Twin!
Incorrect Quote of the Chapter:
Jack: *walks into the kitchen and turns the light on*
Dani: *sitting at the table with a piece of toast in her mouth*
Jack: ...
Dani: ...
Jack: it's four in the morning.
Dani: Turn the light back off.
Jack: My god... *turns light off*
Dani: Thank you.
