He raised me. He called me daughter and I called him father. I was his first child, and his expectations were always the highest with me. He trained me and taught me everything I know. He taught me how to punch, kick, and defend myself. He also trained me in how to take down my enemy… he taught me how to kill. We would train everyday together. He raised me to be a warrior- a soldier and taught me obedience and how to follow his commands. As I grew older, I learned what would happen and the consequences if I disobeyed…
For the first hour, the questions came in rapid fire:
"Where were you born?"
"How did you get your powers?"
"When did you come to Earth?"
"Why did you help us?"
"I was born on a planet called G'mai… Everyone of my people have strength like I do, it's just how we are… I came to Earth with my parents long ago. Our planet was destroyed, and we wandered the galaxy until we found solace on earth… I helped because I could, because it was the right thing to do." Kara answered all the questions the avengers had. The questioning continued throughout the next few days, although sporadically and sprinkled through long breaks of eating and sleeping. After the initial questions, Tony felt his curiosity about Kara mostly satisfied, if not his trust in her. He suggested dinner, and the group heartily concurred. Before they left for the dining room, Kara added sincerely, sensing some of the group still had questions they didn't have answers to yet, "I've heard stories about you, about all of you. How you have helped the world when they needed you most. I want to do that, I want to help people. You know, give back to the world that has given me so much. I never thought I would actually get to meet you guys. But now that I have… if I can be of use to you again… I would really like to."
When their meal had finished, Tony offered for her to stay in the tower with the rest of the group over the next few days so they could get to know each other more. There was a lot to do for the avengers, post battle, including strategy meetings with S.H.I.E.L.D. to figure out what caused this alien attack and what they can do next time to prevent this. In this area, Kara was able to offer some help. She recounted seeing these machines once before and described the devastation they had caused then. She told them the planet the aliens came from. Most of the meetings, however, were classified, leaving Kara free to roam the floors of the Stark tower. Pepper even gave Kara a tour of the more interesting (and open to the public eye) parts of Stark Industries. Other than wandering around, Kara filled up her days getting caught up on the lectures and readings she had been missing these last three days. On the fourth day, the meetings started wrapping up and the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents were gone for good. The day before they left, they had also questioned-more of interrogated- Kara. She figured they were a little pissed about not being aware of a highly skilled and dangerous alien on Earth for the past few years.
Kara sat alone in the kitchen off of the living areas for a few of those staying in the tower.
"Good morning." Natasha said, causing Kara's head to spring up from her bowl of cereal, catching her breath. Kara made a mental note that Natasha walks super quietly. "Oh! Hi. Good morning! I didn't hear you walk in." Kara smiled, embarrassed having been caught off guard.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you." Nat gave a sweet smile and reached for a banana from the fruit bowl on the kitchen counter.
"Oh, that's ok," Kara waved off the apology as chewed another bit of cereal, "I heard you used to be a spy… I'm sure you're used to sneaking up on people." Nat threw her head back and laughed. "Yeah, you could say that," She answered.
"What's so funny?" just then Steve walked in the kitchen having just came back from a run. He got a bottle of water out of the fridge, still a little out of breath.
"I scared Kara," Nat said still grinning.
The captain let out a little snort, "Yeah, get used to that. It's a pretty common occurrence around here."
Kara smiled back at the captain, then, looking around, realized Natasha had left as stealthily as she had come. Steve set a pan on the stove and took out nearly a dozen eggs.
"So," Kara started between another bite, "You six all live here, like all the time?"
"HA!" Steve turned his head to reply from where he was cracking his breakfast, "No, can you imagine? No, I think that would get old real fast."
"Really?" Kara continued, "Cause I feel like it could be fun. Living together with your work buddies. They don't seem so bad."
"Yeah, no, we get along alright. But it's better to just keep our interactions work related a brief. Tony especially can get to be a bit much."
"You and Tony don't get along?"
"We just have very different ideas and ways of doing things. He likes living in his tower, I prefer my apartment in Brooklyn."
Kara nodded, Steve returned to his eggs. She took her bowl to the sink, and before leaving the kitchen she added, "I think… if I was a part of a group like this, if I had friends like you, I don't think I'd ever want to leave."
Steve looked down, dishing his eggs before going to sit at the table. He thought back to the day he met Kara…
"Who did you say took down those ships?" Steve asked in disbelief, mouth agape. He stood around an oval table in one of Stark's meeting rooms. His uniform was torn and frayed in a few places, and his muscles ached. He gave everything he had out there- left it all on the battle field. He was proud of his team that day. He remembered seeing and hearing the big ships go down and figuring it was Hulk or Stark, or maybe a combined effort from them, that defeated the giants.
"A girl," Tony replied, "A baby: early twenties."
"That's impossible." The cap replied, still in disbelief, "Who is she?"
"She said her name is S'kara. Goes by Kara." Tony used the tablet in his hands to pull up a digital profile and dragged it with two fingers to appear on a large screen in the room.
"She has been enrolled in the university for the past three years," Bruce continued, "She finished her undergrad in two years, and is almost done her masters. Biochem."
Steve looked up at her profile. It was short, containing very little information and a single photo from university ID. "This is pretty much all we have on her… JARVIS is running a few facial recognition programs to see if she pops up under other aliases." Tony added.
"That's her?" Steve said, pointing to the picture, "Wow… she is beautiful. Did she look like that during the whole fight?" A confused silence kind of fell on the group as they pondered the captains question. Natasha subtly rolled her eyes. "I mean," he continued, "she didn't like… hulk out?"
"No," Bruce answered, slight irritation in his voice, "She hasn't been experimenting with gamma rays as far as we are aware."
"Why are we just standing around talking about her? We need to go look for her, find her, and ask her these questions ourselves."
"Steve, she is here. She is right outside." Tony said, motioning to the living room.
"She's here?" Steve exclaimed.
"Don't worry," Tony said, "Thor and JARVIS are keeping an eye on her. If she moves, we'll know about it."
"I don't know if it's a good idea that she is here," Natasha started, worrying her brow, "she dangerous, she could be capable of a lot more than we realize."
Bruce smiled up at Nat, "I'm dangerous too, yet you seem to keep me around."
Nat rolled her eyes again, not so subtly this time.
"Yeah, sure, she is highly capable, but she is one of the good guys. She was on our side of the fight, right? So I'm not sure why we are so suspicious of her." Steve said, looking around the room for agreement.
"It's more complicated than that. There is a lot more than just the good guys and bad guys, there's also a whole lot of bastards in between. I think our goal is to find out her motives: why she helped us and what her next move is."
Steve glared at Tony. He hated being talked down to, and Tony seemed to do it the best of anyone he'd met so far, "Well, you guys keep talking about unknown, I'm going to actually go meet her and see if I can get some answers."