Audra and Bruce took the elevator to another floor in silence. She could tell she had rattled the man, but sometimes she just couldn't keep herself from running her mouth. She willed the man to understand that she hadn't meant to offend him but he continued to ignore her as they stepped out of the elevator. She walked into a room with people who she now knew as Romanoff, Stark, Barton, and 'Steve'. They were far less intimidating in civilian clothing but still Audra was overwhelmed. She realized this was the first time she had been in a room with this many people, not counting the quinjet of course but she was so rattled at the time she hardly noticed. Audra could feel curiosity and sympathy radiating off the people.
"Minor concussion and superficial wounds, she should be physically recovered in just a few weeks" Bruce stated.
"I'm glad." Stark responded, then directed his attention towards the woman. "Hey kid. How are you doing now?"
"As well as I can be I guess. Also, I'm 20, I'm not a kid."
"You can't drink yet. You're a kid."
Audra grumbled. Romanoff cleared her throat at Stark.
"Oh yeah. Listen. We need to know about your experience in the Hydra lab. Any information that could be useful to taking them down, after that we will help you find your family so you can start living your life again. SHEILD has a whole program for people like you."
People like her. People like her? The self-pity that Audra had been wallowing in for the past 3 years suddenly felt childish. Of course she wasn't the only one to experience the horrors of Hydra but that didn't make it any less painful. Who even was Stark to make light of this anyway?
"People like me? You act like this happens all the time. Do you often pick people "like me" up from Hydra just to drop them back into society expecting them to function?" she asked, intensity rising with every word.
"Of course that's not what he meant. But what happened to you doesn't disqualify you from a chance to go back to a normal life. We just want to help you." Natasha interrupted.
"I never had a chance at a normal life in the first place…" Audra said, quietly. "And now my family is dead, or they have been for years now I guess. I don't even know where you'd expect me to go back to. I could barely have a normal job before Hydra!"
Steve stood up and walked over to Audra. He reached his hand out to pat her shoulder, but she backed away. He simply took this into stride.
"Audra. Maybe you could tell us a little about yourself instead? I think we are moving too fast. What made it so hard before Hydra?"
Audra calmed herself and sat down in an empty chair across from everyone, bringing her knees to her chest, feeling the soft material of the Stark branded sweatpants she had put on earlier. Steve gave her an encouraging nod.
"I was at Hydra because they were trying to 'enhance' me. Give me abilities, make me a tool for their use. But I've always been weird. I'm… a mutant? I don't know but I've always had this...ability. I could always feel people emotions. As a kid teachers would watch who I hung out with to see who was having problems at home, in middle school I could always guess peoples crushes, and somehow I always knew when someone was lying to me. I started realizing I knew a lot more about people than I was supposed to. I'm an empath, and touching people makes the connection stronger. I get glimpses of their memories and lose track of where my feelings end and theirs begin." She paused and took in a shaky breath.
" I still don't know how they knew. All I know is they found me. Me and my family lived somewhere pretty remote. I'd be shocked if anyone even noticed we were missing. They- they- they killed my parents and took me. I was 17. Ever since I've been there. They stuck me with a bunch of stuff trying to give me new powers. I've developed… some strange abilities from the experiments but nothing useful. I think after their failure to turn me into a weapon they lost a lot of their funding." She scoffed. "At least I could do something to the bastards. But yeah." She trailed off with nothing much left to explain.
The room was quiet. Bruce was tense, curling his hands in and out of fists. He felt pain for the girl, and felt embarrassed that he had allowed himself to be offended by behavior that was clearly out of her control.
Tony for the first time lacked a witty comeback. Of course he had seen experiments happen. He grew up with Howard Stark as a father for fucks sake, but never a child, never in such a way like this. He also couldn't help but feel invaded. Like every thought he had and feeling he felt was no longer private. Just processing this wasn't safe from Audra's abilities.
Natasha, while unwilling to allow emotions to betray her face, was the first to make eye contact with Audra again. She gave a curt nod of understanding before excusing herself. As she made her exit Barton broke the silence.
"That's rough, kid"
Audra simply nodded and looked at her hands.
"I don't have anywhere to go." She whispered.
"Sure you do! You can… just stay here until we figure something out. I've always wanted to know how Nat really feels about me." Barton joked.
Natasha's voice echoed from the other room. "I feel that you are an idiot".
Audra's shoulders shook with quiet laughter.
"Anyway, I'm sure we are all hungry and tonight's my night to cook which means we will be ordering pizza!"
Those left in the room still let out a dramatic sigh before shouting over one another to get their specific order in. Barton made sure to write none of it down and promise them all the opposite of what they wanted. He left the room asking JARVIS to make a call to what Audra assumed was a local pizza place. Now, she was left with Stark, Bruce, and Steve.
Bruce began speaking.
"Audra, I want to apologize for earl-"
"-don't apologize. It was an invasion of privacy and you didn't know any better."
"Well, thanks I suppose just…I hope we didn't get off on the wrong foot."
"Of course not, Bruce."
Tony was becoming uncomfortable with the conversation going on without him directly in front of him. He waved at the pair to ask Audra a question.
"So youre a bit of a bleeding heart, huh?"
"I guess you could say that."
"Dare I ask what your other abilities are? Mind reading? Controlling flying polka dots? Always making the perfect number of pancakes?"
"Stark. Take this seriously" Steve interrupted.
"Dear old man I am taking this seriously. Have you ever made just the right amount of pancake batter to make just the right number of pancakes? It's magical… no weird cold pancake leftovers."
"I'm sorry about him" Bruce apologized.
"Nah its fine" Audra giggled. "But no. I can make… localized time fields. I don't know if that's the best name for it but it's what I can do. Hydra used it for a few interrogations, but I think they were looking for something flashier. Why use me when they have serums that make you feel like your blood is on fire?"
"Can you expand on that?" Steve said, looking a little lost.
"Um, yeah! Here uh…" she looked around "Stark! Can borrow your coffee"
He looked a little surprised but gave Audra the coffee he had been drinking. The coffee was overloaded with sugar and a splash of cream. The trio watched carefully as the woman set the cup down in front of her. With one hand she gestured around the cup and with the other she dragged her finger slowly to her right. Everyone watched as the cream in the coffee separated and floated to the top, growing mold. The cup stopped steaming and suddenly the coffee looked as though it had been sat out for weeks, half evaporated, half undrinkable, rotten milk
Bruce stared, trying to use his scientific mind to explain what was occurring before him while Steve watched in a mixture of awe and horror. Stark made no effort to cover his shock.
Audra brought moved her hand further to the left, making the coffee return to its original state.
"See? Time. Here's your coffee back, Stark."
"Yeah I think I'll pass on drinking that." He pushed the cup away from him with playful disgust. "That is absolutely insane, kid. Oh, and call me Tony. Mr. Stark was my dad."
Audra flinched with the complex emotions she felt rolling off of Tony when he thought of his father but was soon distracted by Steve who began asking her more about how her powers worked. She explained that she could move small areas forward and backwards in time independent of the world around it, bringing up lighter examples such as making plants grow and fires burn out. She explained that it took a lot out of her and she couldn't just do such a thing without careful consideration of her energy levels for later.
Bruce asked if she would mind doing some tests.
"Sure I can. Just not today. Please. If that's okay." She asked, a hint of desperation in her voice looking suddenly uncomfortable. Bruce realized he probably reminded her of her time at the Hydra lab.
Steve, the gentleman he was, said "Audra you never have to do anything you don't want to. This is a home to you until you are back on your feet. Why don't we figure out a room for you to stay in tonight. Tomorrow we can work on getting you some new clothes and anything else you need. Just ask Jarvis if you need anything."
Steve guided her up to a room and she practically crashed into bed and fell asleep.