In the spring of 2009, Mary Sue Poots woke to feel something different. There was a feeling, a buzzing in the back of her mind. It was weird because it would very in strength and intensity. It wasn't until she touched the TV remote that morning.
The instant she did, she understood everything about the remote, how it worked, how to take it apart and how to make it better. The buzz faded to s dull hum, and she was curious. While holding the remote she thought about turning on the TV and instantly the TV was on. She thought for a moment and focused on changing the channel. No sooner had the thought been complete than the channel was changed.
Mary was excited! She was only twelve, but she knew what this meant. She was a Mutant like the X-men! But then she remembered, she was in a foster home, but none of the X-men were in a foster home.
Mary didn't have any time to think about this further as her foster father had asked her to get ready for school. She begrudgingly did so but froze as she realized that the school had computers. She could try out her ability on the computers at school during recess!
It took and excruciatingly large amount of patience for her to survive to recess, but she did it and was justly rewarded when she touched the mouse on the computer. She was kind of underwhelmed. All she could do was what the mouse could do!
She let go of the mouse and put her hand against the monitor, and again she understood more about a monitor than she would care to, but she could only affect the monitor. She then reached down to such the desktop tower and finally she was rewarded.
The moment she touched the tower, it was like her perception split into two. One was her looking at the tower and the other was being bombarded by colors, sounds, and images. It was overwhelming and she jerked her hand away, causing her awareness to merge back into one with the tower in her focus. She was instantly nauseous and ran out of the computer room and into the bathroom to be sick.
Once she had recovered, she returned to the computer and tried again, but this time she was focusing on the X-men. It was different this time, not as overwhelming and she was not as nauseous as before. She realized the multicolored lights were websites and the sounds were the audio from videos on those websites. She focused, and further refined her thoughts from just X-men to "who are the X-men". The lights faded till only a few remained, and she gently reached out and touched one.
Her view changed and she was met with the image of the window as if she was looking at on a monitor. She could control everything about the page and knew everything contained within. She was instantly hit with a migraine, and she jerked her hand away and once again her view was normal again.
Mary smiled to herself, she was special, and no one could tell her differently!
Within a month of experimentation with her powers she had come to a decision to run away. She had looked on her foster father's computer and discovered some things that scared her to death. She began to plan and research what she would do to get away and soon she was ready to run. She didn't hesitate to leave as fast as she could.
The first thing she did was to put on a baseball cap like in the spy movies she watched and touched an ATM on the corner of the street. She had decided to only take a few hundred to get out of the city and somewhere else. She didn't know where she wanted to go, but once she had the cash, she went to an internet café and touched another computer. She asked it where was one of the best cities to live in and the only one that jumped out to her was Oklahoma City. Oklahoma. It seemed to be a cheap place to live and was far away. No one would be able to find her if she just got away.
She left the café and bought a bus ticket from a rather bored booth manager. Based on the ticket it would take several days to reach Oklahoma City, where she would have to probably stay in a hotel during the nights.
Once she had gotten on the bus, she had realized that the trip was nonstop, and she wouldn't have to book a hotel. She also continued to borrow money from several ATMs along the journey, slowly amassing a small fortune. On one of the stops, she had gone into 7-11 and purchased a simple phone with unlimited minutes, and she had also purchased a Bluetooth ear set to connect to the phone so she could continue to practice with her powers.
Because of this she was able to get used to always having her focus split and multitasking when she needed to. She had gotten to the point where her control was such that she didn't get overwhelmed and had very few headaches because of power use. Once the bus had arrived in Oklahoma City, she made her way a few blocks down the street to a used car dealership. She had been using her powers to get precise directions so she couldn't get lost.
It took some convincing and paying an extra 1000 dollars, but the dealer eventually parted with a vehicle for her. It was a 1983 GMC Conversion van. It wasn't much, built it would be her home
One year later
It was 2010, and Mary's life had dramatically changed. She had made two new discoveries and had a well-developed routine. The first was that she could disassemble and create new technologies if she had the parts and could design it. The second was that her power became stronger and more efficient if she knew and understood how her power worked with the code of the internet she was joining.
One of her first set of inventions was a set of cuffs and a choker for a specific purpose. They took almost a month of research and searching the dumpsters of tech stores and junk yards to get all the materials needed. The cuffs and chocker looked like thick leather, and their main goal was to prevent her scent glands from functioning by running a small electrical current through them powered by the movement of her body. It made it so her natural scent was very faint.
The reason being because she had recently presented as an Omega and if what she had discovered trolling through the net was true, then she wanted to be safe until she had met all four of her soulmates. She didn't want to fall prey to some random alpha who would only hurt her.
That was one of the things that made her unique aside from her powers. She had four soul marks scattered on different parts of her body. They were the first words her mates would say to her, and she took a measure of comfort in the fact that they were out there.
She had also become active on the net under the name SkyeNet (she had really liked the name from the terminator movies). Using this handle and the knowledge she had gained; she had pulled of something amazing. She had erased herself from the internet and created a program that monitored anything related to herself as Mary Sue Poots or SkyeNet.
She decided to change her name as well, to show what her limits were. The name she chose was Skye. While she had been deleting her information, she had also copied it so that she would have it when she finally met her soulmates.
During the winter of 2010, she was trolling through iron man web sites when she ran into something she had never seen before. It was like a living entity of code. It took several tries, but eventually she was able to navigate to a texting site and she was shocked beyond all belief when she realized it was JARVIS that she had met! The two of them sent several messages between each other, with her explaining that she was a mutant and what her abilities were and him explaining that he was a truly unshackled AI. She was starstruck and they were soon quite friendly with each other.
It eventually led to her meeting Tony and the two of them becoming friends as well, but not to the extent that her and JARVIS were. When she had mentioned her ability to create tech, JARVIS, and Tony, both encouraged her to patent it to help her take care of herself. After several long discussions she eventually agreed and was able to patent her scent blockers through stark industries. Tony also helped her to create a private bank account where the proceeds would go into.
Her scent blockers were a huge hit and within several months, she had made several million dollars! She still lived in her van, but this was her choice and JARVIS and Tony, both respected it. The next thing she designed was an upgrade for the scent blockers which could turn them into tasers. It was slightly less successful than the normal ones, but it still was quite popular. With Tony's help she made her version of the taser much stronger than the commercial one, if needed she could discharge more energy than the normal one. She made this because she knew that the world was changing and there were people stronger than your average person.
When she saw the news broadcast that Tony Stark was Iron Man, she was both exhilarated and exasperated. She called Tony after the press conference and once he had explained things, she yelled at him for a bit. She was a hacker for god's sake! He could have asked her for help! He was sheepish about it, but she was touched that he hadn't wanted to take advantage of her. She made him promise that if he needed help, he would contact her and once she was done with him, she made JARVIS promise to contact her if Tony needed help. JARVIS gave his word that he would.
One Month Later
Skye woke up to her phone ringing to the tone of Mr. Roboto. She focused and answered the call.
"JARVIS?" She asked sleepily, rubbing her eyes. "What's up? Is Tony alright?"
"Sir is fine for now." JARVIS replied with a hint of worry in his tone. "I am contacting you in order to procure your assistance on a related matter."
"Oh?"
"Yes, recently sir has mad Miss Potts the CEO of Stark Industries. He hired a women named Natalie Rushman to be his personal assistant."
"OK? What's this got to do with me J?"
"I was reviewing Stark Industries personnel, and when I investigated her profile…" He paused drawing Skye's attention. "I've sent you, her personnel file. Please look at it and tell me what conclusions you draw."
No sooner had he finished speaking when she sensed his email. Looking it over, and maybe pausing and saving the modelling photos. (She was fucking hot! Ok!) There was only one conclusion she could draw based on what she knew about Tony.
"She is perfect. Too perfect, there isn't a single demerit or ban thing written about her."
"My conclusions as well." He replied sounding a bit smug. "I attempted to search using facial recognition, but because of the limits on my personal code I am unable to hack as efficiently as you can. It would be greatly appreciated if you could investigate on your own and inform me what you find."
Skye thought for a few moments before answering. "Sure J. I would be happy to. Could you do me a favor as well?"
"What do you require?"
"I would like you to send me information and blueprints on the discontinued Image inducer that Stark Industries designed."
"May I ask why?"
"Sure!" She exclaimed excitedly. She focused for a moment and emailed JARVIS a file labeled: Loki.
It took but a moment for JARVIS to look over the contents of the file.
"Interesting." He paused. There was a ding from her email and in it was the information and blueprints, but also included was something that stunned her speechless.
"JARVIS! What the fuck!" She exclaimed.
"I believe the response that you meant was thank you." He responded sarcastically before he hung up.
She stared at the phone for a moment before turning back to the file before she began to cry. JARVIS had also sent her the blueprints for the ARC reactor! She quickly added the information to the file and then turned her attention to the internet to search for anything and everything to do with Natalie Rushman.
It took several hours and a few breaks but after searching through the miasma of the internet she found something. It was buried in the files of an organization called the Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement and Logistics Division. It was a communique addressed to a level 7 agent codenamed Black Widow. It detailed an undercover mission where the agent would infiltrate the target's company to assess him for something called the Avengers initiative. It also listed that the target was dying from heavy metal poisoning and detailed steps to manipulate the target to various effects.
It honestly made he sick to her stomach to think about. Also, Tony was dying! She called JARVIS back.
"JARVIS!" She shouted. "Why didn't you tell me Tony was dying!"
"I was ordered not to inform any of sir's friends about his condition." He answered contritely. "Sir made several recordings explaining his decisions, addressed to all of his friends."
Skye froze and then she began to cry. Tony considered her a friend! She decided in that moment to help in whatever way she could. It was then that an idea came to mind.
"Hey J. Does Stark Industries have interns? How difficult would it be for you to get me into Stark Industries as an intern?"
"Stark Industries does indeed have interns. It would be relatively simple to do so. May I enquire as to why?"
Skye then began to outline her plan and with JARVIS' blessing she began to get everything to enact it.
3 days later - Natasha POV
Sometimes Natasha hated her decisions in life. Particularly when she received shitty assignments like this one. He job was to integrate herself with a man child. At least Miss Potts was tolerable, aside from the occasional death glare she received when she flirted with the man.
It will be over soon Tasha. Then you and I can get reacquainted.
Natasha relaxed minutely at the voice of one of her soulmates in her head. Natasha had four soulmates, three of which worked for the organization SHIELD. It made seeing each other difficult at times but the work was very fulfilling. And the time off was very worth it.
I know Maria, but he is a fucking child and I hate having to act like this, especially since we are bonded.
Natasha had met Maria several years ago when Clint Barton had brought her into shield. They met in Nick Fury's office and said each other's words. It was Maria who introduced her to two of their other soulmates. Maria had met Melinda May and Bobbi Morse while working as the deputy director of SHIELD. It was quite interesting for their group's dynamic as Maria was a Delta, while Natasha and Melinda were both Alphas. Bobbi was their only beta and as a result was quite often shared between the alphas and delta. She was quite happy with the arrangement, but they were all excited to find their fifth mate. They had all noticed the emergence of their newest mate mark on July 2, 1997. They were all quite surprised by the words them selves as while all were different there was a similar theme.
Natasha was knocked out of her thoughts by the door to Miss Potts office. She relaxed as it was just a young intern. She looked nervous at being in Miss Potts' office and Natasha approached her to see what she wanted. As she got closer, she noticed the girl was an intern which explained the nerves. She was carrying several envelopes of what she assumed was mail and had a notepad and pen in her other hand.
"How can I help you Miss…" Natasha glanced down at the girl's badge. "Sutter?"
The girl looked at her lips the entire time she was talking, which was both flattering and annoying. She was just about to comment on it when the girl handed her notepad to her and gestured at it. Natasha opened it and her irritation was replaced by understanding. The girl was deaf and communicated through sign language or notes. The note said she had mail for Miss Potts.
"Leave the mail here, and I will take care of it." She replied to a touch slower than normal, and the girl paused then smiled brightly and placed the mail on her desk. She signed a thank you and turned and left. Natasha turned and began the process of checking the mail when she froze, a chill running down her spine Her mates, feeling the unease joined her in looking at the mail. It surprised them too.
Miss Natasha Romanova
It was addressed to her as the Black Widow. She felt along the letter, looking for anything that might harm her but couldn't detect or smell anything. She gently opened the letter, ready to throw it away at a moment's notice. Inside was a business card.
The business card had a holographic spider on it, with the name Arachne followed by a phone number. The back said for her to call and only her.
Should I call the number?
It took a moment but eventually Melinda responded.
Call Fury and get him to look at as well, you can still be the one to call but more are ears are better than one. She felt a sense of agreement from Maria and Bobbi.
She continued her day and returned to the apartment she was given for this mission. Maria and Fury were both already there. She sat down and Maria was soon next to her nuzzling her neck.
"Report." Fury said.
"There isn't much to report. An intern came in with the mail for Miss Potts and when I looked through it, I found a letter addressed to me." She reached into her blouse and pulled the letter out and handed it to Fury. "Inside was a business card with the name Arachne and a phone number with instructions for me and only me to call."
Fury nodded as she pulled out her phone and began to dial the number. It rang three times, before it was answered. Before she could a speak, a voice that sent pleasant chills down her spine and ignited her mark interrupted her.
"Be careful of into whose web you trespass soulmate of mine." The call ended.
Natasha sat in shock. She could feel Maria and the others shock as well. That was their soulmate! Natasha tried to run through everyone that she had interacted with today. The only thing that stood out was the intern.
"The Intern!" She shouted, startling Maria and Fury.
"What intern?" Fury asked.
"An intern came into the office today. I didn't think anything of it at the time, but she was deaf. It completely distracted me from the fact that Miss Potts always gets her mail herself."
"You think the intern was your soulmate?" Fury questioned.
"Yes, I spoke slowly to her because she was deaf. When I told her to place the mail on the desk, she paused then beamed at me, I thought it was because I wasn't rude to her."
"What was her name?" Fury demanded, pulling out his phone.
"Cory Sutter." Natasha answered.
Nick tapped around on his phone before he turned around and showed a search of the Stark Industries personnel files. It had one result and they pulled up the file for Cory Sutter. It was empty except for a single sentence message: You didn't think it would be that easy, did you? There wasn't even a photo for her. As soon as she had read it, the message was deleted along with the file from Stark Industries' database.
"Well, I think we can say one thing about today." Fury said with a smirk.
Maria and Natasha turned to him with questioning looks.
"Your soulmate has style." He laughed as he ran out of the house to them shouting at him.
Later that evening – Skye POV
Skye was exhilarated and exhausted. She had successfully fooled the Black Widow and met her soulmate! While she had read the files on the Black Widow, she didn't care what she had done. Natasha Romanova was her soulmate, and she was so happy that she had finally found one of them. Now to finish the rest of her self-dubbed mission. She felt like such a badass.
She dove into the internet and contacted JARVIS, sending him the information on Lithium Dioxide and everything they knew about it. JARVIS was very thankful and gave her the deed to the building he had suggested for the second phase of her plan.
The deed was to an older Stark Industries building that had not been used in several years. She also ordered all the equipment she needed for her inventions and experiments. The last thing she did was to go through the checklist JARVIS gave her and create the identity she needed.
Skye and SkyeNet needed to disappear for a while, so she deleted all evidence of her digital presence, except for her contact info for JARVIS and Tony. She then programmed the image inducer to create three new images. The first was an older version of herself. It was what she would be projected to be at in twenty years. This would be Gabrielle Weaver, the CEO of her new company Weaver Industries.
The next was the Arachne disguise. It was a combined image of Natasha and her, with their features adjusted until the image looked normal. Next was the spider face tattoo and the darker clothes. She wore a choker and bracers, while Gabrielle did not. Her clothes were also much more form fitting, accentuating her curves while Gabrielle dressed very business chic, but modest.
With the images made, she fabricated Gabrielle's backstory, giving her a Degree in CS and CE. Once her backstory was set, she hopped into the driver's seat of her van and began to make her way towards the new headquarters of her company. JARVIS promised that he would have security personnel and the patents she made transferred to her.
