When I woke up, I found myself in an alleyway, not unlike the one I had 'fallen asleep' in. It was slightly cramped, a dumpster to my left and a noisy street to my right, packed with pedestrians. Nobody seemed to notice me.

Good.

I pushed myself up from my fetal position, slowly unfurling my limbs and flinching every time one of my joints popped.

My muscles ached as though they haven't been used in a long while, and from the slight buildup of snow falling off of my body, it seemed like they hadn't.

Wait a second- snow? In July?

Where am I?

When am I?

Standing proved to be a challenge, as my left leg had gone entirely numb and my right leg started to cramp as soon as I applied pressure to it.

So I stood against the wall, clinging a windowsill with all my might, the cold beginning to seep through my thin shirt and leggings.

It wasn't until the cramp finally passed that I allowed myself to stand on my own two legs alone, a little dizzy but stable nonetheless. I slowly began walking, putting one foot in front of the other toward the busy sidewalk, occasionally holding a hand against the brick wall to my right as a wave of dizziness passed over me.

Stepping out of the cover of the alley left my ears ringing; I had no idea how much the brick had shielded my suddenly-painfully-sensitive ears from the chaos of the street. I could hear every car within a half-mile radius of me, every conversation, every footstep- hell, I could even hear someone's phone go off in an apartment complex two blocks away.

It was disorienting, to say the least.

I pushed through it, turning toward the first thing I could find that would provide me with some warmth- or, at least, a bathroom.

Reaching my destination, I pushed the door open with fingers that looked a little too blue for my liking and stood in the doorway, relishing the sudden blast of heat coming from within.

"Hey, kid, get out of the doorway! You're lettin' all the cold in!"

I jumped at the man yelling at me in what was clearly a New York accent, saying a quick "Sorry!" and scrambling inside.

I walked to the counter of what I quickly discovered to be a coffee shop, and as I scanned the options I came to the conclusion that everything on the menu was either far too pompous or was named so strangely I couldn't even hope to guess what it was.

"You know what you want, kid?"

The same voice from earlier drew my gaze away from the menu and to a slightly paunchy man wearing a red apron that stretched tight over his shirt.

"Uhhh…"

"C'mon kid, I don't have all day."

My eyes scanned the menu, landing on the rich person equivalent of a dollar menu until I found what I was looking for. At that same moment, a chorus of whispers exploded behind me as the bell over the door rang. I looked toward the commotion for a moment, only seeing some guy in a suit with a goatee. He looked to be the kind of guy who belonged in this place, with its marble counters and gourmet cappuccino machine.

"Umm.. I'll have a hot chocolate, please. Plenty of whipped cream."

He stared at me after that, not yet making a move to begin making my drink.

"Are you gonna pay for that, or expect me to pity you in front of Tony Stark?"

I looked back to the man who had walked in, and realised that 1. There were an awful lot of people taking selfies with him in the background, and 2. I didn't have any money.

"I don't… I mean, I didn't…. Can you hold on for a second, please? I need to…"

I started searching the threadbare jacket frantically, money being the last thing I thought of after I woke up in a strange alleyway covered in snow.

I finally found a small wad of cash in my pocket, but not before I had a line of 3 or 4 angry upper-class people behind me.

I winced every time one of them tapped their foot on the tile, which didn't go unnoticed by both the barista and the man that was still actively being fawned over. He glanced in my direction, taking in my thin clothes and the small wad of ones I had a death grip on.

"If you don't pay I'm going to kick you out."

I started counting out my cash, inhaling shakily when I realized there were only $4 in what I had assumed was a lot more. My total was $7.31.

I started to put the money back in my pocket, folding it carefully and thinking of what I would tell the barista, although I was pretty sure he could easily figure out the situation from his standpoint (three feet away from me).

"I'm sorry, I can't-"

My half-hearted excuse was cut off from someone slapping a 20 on the counter in front of me, so loud and sudden that I jumped and landed on someone's foot.

"Sorry! Sorrysorrysorry-"

I was cut off again by the man from earlier pushing me out of the way, placing both hands down on the counter.

"I'll be paying for her. Make her drink a large."

I realized quickly that he was the person I stepped on, because he was leaning heavily on his right foot and had a wet spot on the chest of his suit where my hair, soaked from melted snow, had hit him.

I also realized, just as quickly, that he was paying for my drink.

What?

The barista looked just as confused, his gaze moving rapidly between me, the man, and the money on the counter. He finally shook himself out of his reverie, sliding the bill into the cash register and counting out change.

"Thank you."

The man looked down at me, as if finally realizing I was still there, and then looked back down to the money waiting in the barista's hand.

He folded the paper money around the coins, tucked the receipt into his pocket, and then held out the money to me while the barista started making my drink. I took it with slightly shaky hands, my fingers still stiff from cold.

He led me to where you were supposed to pick up your drinks by my elbow, standing tall the whole time, his sunglasses never leaving his face. I squinted, trying to figure out who this guy was. People kept whispering behind us, and I could barely make out what they were saying over the sound of the machines behind me.

"-Is that his daughter? I heard he's slept around a lot-"

"-Does she even know who he is? She's not freaking out at all-"

"-What a loser, that girl's probably homeless-"

I stopped listening after the last one, instead turning my attention to where the barista was just finishing my hot chocolate. He held it out to the man who still hadn't moved first, but the man only shook his head and pointed at me.

"The drink's hers. I only come here because Nat likes those chocolate croissant things."

I took the drink from the bartender and walked over to a table, sitting down and stirring the whipped cream into the hot chocolate in a kind of trance.

I was almost immediately snapped out of it when the man (wow, I really need to get a name from this guy) sat down next to me, now equipped with a small paper bag and another wad of change, which he handed to me.

I slid it back to him, shaking my head.

"Thank you, but I can't take your money. You already bought me a drink and gave me the change from that."

He seemed perplexed, like maybe he's never been turned down before. He had opened his mouth as if he was about to speak, but at that second a bright flash went off to my right.

It startled me, bad, and an instinct I didn't even know was there stirred within me, pushing to the surface.

Another flash went off, and that seemed to start a flood of bright bursts of light.

I wanted it to stop.

"Stop it-"

Nobody heard me. Or, if they did, nobody cared.

"Guys, stop! Please!"

The instinct continued to push itself up as the neverending storm of flashes berated me. A more logical part of me knew that it was cameras, but whatever had just woken up inside of me was feral, primal.

It wanted them to stop, to.

"I said stop it!"

They kept coming, seeming to grow more intense seeing my distress. I guess a crying teenager made a good headline.

I couldn't see, couldn't hear anything, could barely think-

That's when I snapped.

I held my hand up to the crowd of reporters, realizing only then that I had begun to hyperventilate. I felt a hand on my shoulder, but it seemed like it was miles away from me.

"I said, STOP!"

My world went white, and I felt the same energy that had begun in my chest travel to my fingertips before breaking free, flooding my senses with a burning smell and rendering my body completely numb.

When my vision finally returned, I was standing in the middle of a crater. Time was moving at half the speed it usually did; my arm was still extended and covered with what looked like tiny bolts of violet lightning.

My veins were purple, my eyes burned, and I suddenly became aware of the fact that I wasn't on the ground anymore.

At that revelation, I felt the world crashing back down on me, time seeming to speed back up to normal as the sound of screams hit my ears like bricks.

I sank back to the ground, my arm slowly going back to normal and the burning in my eyes receding. I took a second to look around, finally seeing a group of reporters cowering behind a red-and-gold shield.

The shield folded down into the size of a pocket knife as I watched, revealing a man who seemed to be made of the same material as the shield was. He stood up from where he was crouched defensively and started striding toward me, lifting a hand where the palm was aimed directly at my chest.

"I don't- who are you? I mean, I didn't- what are you doing?"

I stammered out what was originally supposed to be a sentence, but a mixture of nerves and adrenaline turned it into anxiety-ridden rambling.

The man's faceplate slid up into the helmet, giving me a full view of the man who had, not 5 minutes ago, bought me a large hot chocolate.

"I am Iron Man, and you just blew up a store full of Natasha's favorite croissants."

I realized then that the red palm facing me was lighting up with blue energy, and something told me it probably wasn't good.

So, I did the only thing any self-respecting teenager who had just woken up in what they were pretty sure was an alternate reality would do:

I ran.