Chapter 1: Waking Up in Smallville

"They said she was found in a field outside of LuthorCorp."

"Who found her?"

"Lex Luthor, the bigshot himself."

"You're kidding!"

Voices floated in and out of the darkness. Something felt different, and I couldn't quite tell what it was. It was familiar too, like déjà vu with a hint of stomach-turning nausea. I tried to focus in on it, but it was like looking at something with my contacts off: recognizable, but extremely fuzzy. As my mind rose more and more out of unconsciousness, I became aware of pain, a lot of it, and more excruciating than the chronic back pain I had endured since college. It was a burning pain, concentrated around my arms, legs, and chest. That, and I realized I wasn't really breathing.

I gasped and suddenly opened my eyes. I was blinded by a white light. I groaned and tried to life my hand to my eyes, to block out the worst of it, but my arm wouldn't move. It felt like lead, and I continued to gasp for air.

"She's awake!" One of the voices said. Whoever it belonged to rushed over and put a warm hand on my shoulder.

"Shh, it's okay!" The other voice said, and a damp cloth was draped over my forehead. "Go get the doctor, she may have ripped out the stitches."

Stitches? I blinked my eyes a few times to clear the blindness out of them. Slowly, but surely, my vision cleared and gazed at the room around me. It looked like some sort of hospital room. More confusion rose within me as I craned my neck to look around and really see around me.

The room was small, painted white, with a cheery country-side painting on one wall. A window to my left let in weak sunlight through the blinds, mixing with the fluorescent lights of the room. I was hooked up to a myriad of machines, and one of the nurses leaned over to put an oxygen mask over my face. I took deep breaths of the pure air, clearing my lungs and coughing roughly.

What was happening? Where was I? Fear and panic raced within me, plunging my body into cold chills. I tried to recall what had happened before this to land me in a hospital, but I kept drawing blanks.

"What did he say, about stitches?" I managed to ask when the nurse took the oxygen mask away. The nurse smiled sadly at me and looked down at my body. More panic built up inside me.

I craned my neck to look down my own body. My breath hitched at the various cuts and bruises decorating my arms, and a large white bandage the covered the length of my left arm. There were spots of blood peeking through the gauze. I jumped and tried to jerk my arm up to get a closer look, but more pain stabbed inside me, and I cried out.

"Whoa there!" A man, the doctor, came in, dropping a clipboard on a waiting chair and gently pushing me back into the bed.

"What happened to me?" I asked desperately, tears springing to my eyes.

"Miss, you were found badly beaten in a field outside of LuthorCorp." The doctor explained. "It was lucky that Lex Luthor found you and brought you in."

Lex Luthor? LuthorCorp? Those names sounded vaguely familiar, but I didn't know why. I pushed the names to the back of my mind. I couldn't focus on that now when my body was on fire with pain.

"Can you tell me your name?" The doctor asked once I was calm and laying back on the bed.

"Maddie," I answered. "Maddie Davis."

"Okay, good, that matches the ID we found."

I stared at the doctor. What ID? My ID? I wondered what in the world was going on, and I closed my eyes tightly to try and remember exactly what had happened to land me here in this unfamiliar place.

Images began to flash in my mind: my car, my house, my dogs. Then a strange looking being with a smallish body and large head. I instantly recognized that image, and when I focused on it more, everything started to come flooding back to me.

I had had a bad day at school. I was a teacher at a middle school, and even though I loved my job, it had been one tough day. My lesson did not go as planned, and it had thrown me off all day. Add in the fact there was a Covid-19 pandemic that forced me to teach not only in-class, but online at the same time, and I was doubly exhausted every day. Because of this, my diagnosed depression and anxiety was killing me. That day was the last straw, and I did the one thing that could bring me some sort of relief: call on Watt.

Watt was a cosmic being called a Watcher. Nine years ago, in college, I had lived with terrible roommates who had pushed me into almost taking my own life. When I had given thought to suicide, Watt had appeared, offering a way to heal me, and put me back on my "life's plan". What he did was throw me into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the one thing I absolutely loved. I joined Captain America, Thor, and Iron Man on various adventures. I fought Hydra, might gods, and different villains. And through it all I was reminded of who I truly was.

For nine years Watt had been taking care of me in that way. Stopping my normal life when things looked bleak, and giving me adventure in another reality. When the Pandemic started, Watt had offered more and more help, and all I had to do was call on him when I needed it. It had worked once already, when I had had a particularly bad day coping with the overall shut down of society. Teaching online and dealing with kids and parents had pushed me right to the edge. I called on Watt, and he transported me back to the MCU to reconnect with old friends, and loves.

So, there I was, back in the same dilemma. I had almost made it an entire school year, when behavior issues had just piled high onto everyone at the school. I had to practically drag myself through the day to make it home. I remembered standing in my room, feeling my heart and mind sinking lower and lower, and called on Watt.

But Watt didn't come. Zeed did.

"Maddie?" I blinked and shook my head, pulling myself out of my memories and back to the present. The doctor was looking into my eyes deeply, searching for any other ailments.

"I'm sorry?" My voice was barely a whisper.

"I said you were attacked," The doctor went on. "You had some pretty bad injuries that required major fixes. Your arm here needed nine stitches." He gently lifted my arm as he took the bandage off my arm. He showed me the gnarly line of stitches closing up the wound.

I must have paled a little because the doctor quickly cleaned it up and wrapped clean bandages around it. I gulped and breathed deeply, my breath catching at times.

"Are you having difficulty breathing again? Some of your ribs were cracked, but thankfully not fully broken." The doctor reached for the oxygen mask once more and put it over my face.

"I have asthma," I admitted as I took deep breaths once more from the mask.

"Ah, that explains it."

"Doctor," A new nurse poked her head into the doorway. "Mr. Luthor is here to see the patient."

"Okay, he's good to come in." The name Luthor struck a chord in me again, and more memories came flooding back to me.

Watt didn't come when I had called him, but another Watcher named Zeed did. I had been shocked and scared when he showed up, and demanded to know what was going on. Zeed said something about Watt being taken to a Tribunal, and me being punished for abusing the "powers of the universe". Zeed had told me he would place me somewhere Watt couldn't not find me or rescue me from. The last thing I remembered was Zeed smiling wickedly at me, snapping his fingers, and the floor falling away.

"I can't undo all of what Watt has created for you, but I have taken away enough of it. You will suffer."

The eerie voice made me shiver. I was in serious trouble! I couldn't even imagine what kind of trouble Watt was in. Remembering this made guilt pile up inside me, and my head began to spin.

"You're okay," A vaguely familiar voice said. Whoever it was sounded relieved, and I opened my eyes to see who it was.

A tall man stood in the doorway, looking at me in minor shock and disbelief. He had brilliant green eyes that stared right at me, and a smooth bald head. He was dressed in a gray business suit with a black tie, though there was dirt splotched along the bottom of his pants at the cuffs of his jacket. I stared at him for a solid minute before sudden recognition crushed me like a waterfall. This man was Lex Luthor, but a younger version than what I had seen before.

The strange Watcher, Zeed, had dropped me right into the worst possible reality I could ever think of. A reality with a superhero I found practically overused and extremely pretentious: Superman. I never really liked Superman, save for a few episodes of some TV shows, and Christopher Reeve, obviously. However, it was still a reality I would rather not have been in, and it made me wonder what exactly all Zeed had been able to change about this.

I told myself to think about it later as I zeroed in on Lex Luthor, and is entrance into the hospital room. He was young-looking, far younger than any movie or cartoon TV show adaptation I had seen of him. I tried to place where I had seen a younger version of him in my reality. A few beats ticked in my mind and then it hit me: Smallville.

"Maddie?" The doctor called out, making me shake my head and blink at him, and then back at Lex. "Perhaps it would be better if you came back later, Mr. Luthor."

Lex's face fell a little, but he nodded anyways. He gave me a small, awkward half-wave, and then exited the room. The doctor checked me over once more, and then he and the other nurses left as well. I was alone in the room then, and the silence of it was interrupted by a beep of the heart monitor hooked up to me.

"I adore the shocked look on your face," A new voice said, and I started, wincing at the pain that flared with it.

There was someone else in the room, and I already knew who it was. I looked over to my left and saw him, Zeed. He looked just like Watt: small delicate body wrapped in a toga-like suit and an overly large head. It was the trademark appearance of a Watcher. He also wore a long green and gold cape that draped around his shoulders, fastened at his neck with an ornate crest. His pale white eyes were narrow and darker than Watt's, and I could feel the sick malice coming from them as he sneered at me.

"What's going on?" I demanded through gritted teeth.

"I am simply righting the various wrongs you have incurred, miss." Zeed said, levitating closer to my bed. "You have been abusing the order of the universe, without knowing of course. Watt has let himself get entangled with you, thus destroying the harmony we have made."

"Where is Watt?" I interrupted him. Bitter anger was building inside of me, and it killed me that I couldn't reach up and shake the galactic being in frustration.

"He is facing his own judgement and punishment, until them, I hope you enjoy this reality." Zeed gave me a smug smile before it turned suddenly sour, and he scowled.

"Don't try and use those powers Watt has given you in times like this. I've diminished them greatly." My mouth dropped open at this, and he faded away, leaving me to an empty room.

In the MCU, Watt gave me powers to use. They were powers I had given to a character I had created named Anna Phin Teller. She was my Marvel character, a superhero who could see and control aura, the spiritual energy around a person's body. Watt had given me the ability to keep up with the rigors of the Marvel world, and I enjoyed it immensely. I got to really experience the same powers I had created, and it gave my writing for Anna more depth. It would make sense that these powers would transfer to any superhero type reality, but Zeed had said he had changed them. Diminished them.

It was all too much for me to think about at that moment. All I felt that I could deal with was the realization that I was in Smallville, Lex Luthor had apparently found me beaten up and unconscious, and a cosmic being had basically kidnapped me to be punished.

I slept on and off throughout the night. There were some minor interruptions for medications and checks, but other than that I was left undisturbed. When I finally woke up the next morning, I was surprised to see Lex Luthor sitting in one of the chairs in the room, flipping through a magazine. He looked casual today, wearing a dark long-sleeved shirt and jeans. I shifted in the hospital bed, and he looked up from whatever page he had been on.

"Good morning," He said cheerily, setting the magazine aside and standing up. "How are you feeling?"

"Fine," My lie was immediately countered when I winced from a jab of pain in my chest.

"I don't think you're quite sure about that." He chuckled softly and reaced for the call button to reach the doctor. With some difficulty, I reached out my right hand and grabbed his wrist, stopping him mid-reach. He looked back at me, surprised.

"I'm okay, really." I told him. "They said you found me?" I pulled my hand away and he stepped back, putting his hands in his pockets.

"Yes, I did," Lex answered. "In a field near my factory, just out of town a little. The cops thing you're the latest victim of a strange attacker plaguing Smallville."

Well, I thought to myself, Zeed has created a bit of a backstory, great.

"Do you remember anything?" Lex asked slowly. "About what happened or before that?" I sighed and shook my head.

"I'm sorry, but I don't." I dropped my head and looked at my hands gathered in my lap.

In truth, I remembered lots of things before the "attack", but they were things that Lex never needed to know about. He nodded and studied me for a moment longer before going back to the chair he had been sitting in.

The doctor came in just then, carrying a clipboard and a smile on his face. He greeted Lex, and then checked me over again, changing the bandage on my arm and inspecting the stitches.

"Nine stitches for nine fingers," He remarked, and I smiled and nodded.

"Yeah, that's funny." I looked at my uninjured right arm and at my hand where instead of five fingers, I had four. The doctor gave me a questioning look and I smiled. "Amniotic Band Syndrome." I said.

"Ah, I see! Affected the thumb and wrist growth, so they switched it up with the index finger." I nodded at the doctor as he spoke, and Lex stood up to look at it himself.

I held it up a little so they could both see it a little more clearly, twisting and turning it to show off a three-sixty view. It looked like a normal hand, minus the thumb, and a little bit smaller. My index finger had been pulled over and my wrist structure changed to accommodate it. My index finger became a makeshift thumb, and was surrounded by thirty-six visible stitches.

I loved my hand. I thought it was my best feature, though growing up with it had been hard. Teasing, bullying, and adapting to different situations were always a challenge. I made it through it all, though, and could even play the piano and guitar.

"That's amazing," Lex mused, and the doctor nodded.

"For being fourteen, and still looking good and functional, it's amazing." The doctor added, and I stared at him with wide eyes.

"Fourteen?" I mumbled and he nodded absently.

"Yes, how old you are, fourteen." The doctor moved onto rebandaging my left arm, and my mouth fell open just a little.

Fourteen?! Zeed had my age changed too?! My heart began to beat rapidly in my chest and my breathing constricted just a little. A million things went through my mind, a lot of it curses and swears, making me dizzy ever so slightly. Why in the hell would Zeed change my age? I was an adult in my reality!

"Maddie? Maddie." I blinked myself out of my thoughts and looked back at the doctor. "Everything okay?"

"Um, yeah, just a little sick to my stomach." I mumbled and he nodded, eyeing my a little closely as he finished wrapping up my arm.

"The stitches can come out later today, they're fast sealing." The doctor explained to Lex. "I'd like to keep her one more night for observation, and then we can release her to you, Mr. Luthor." He turned and looked at Lex who nodded confidently.

"To you?" I asked incredulously, and Lex nodded once more, looking a little sheepish this time.

I closed my eyes against the new wave of anxiety pummeling me. Zeed had intercepted me and Watt, basically kidnapping us. He beat the living crap out of me, took away any powers or help I could have, reduced my age, and now I was going to be released to Lex Luthor?

What in the hell was going on?