Chapter 2- Informed
I was very quickly sitting on a squishy black bench. It was comfortable, but I couldn't relax in it. Instead tears ran freely down my reddened cheeks. My mental state was not healthy; it was filled with turmoil and pain.
Not only was I being taken to my death, but I was also insane. I somehow thought I made a tree sprout and rapidly grow from the ground. That was stupid, just like I had always been.
The helicopter was claustrophobic for me, someone that always needed open spaces to feel comfortable. A weird throbbing passed through my skull every now and then that made me want to hurl. Black Widow and Hawkeye were in the front, piloting and copiloting. They seemed to have forgotten me and just talked amongst themselves. At least they left me my backpack so I could read my book.
My fear was overtaken by the images of two kids happily skipping, giddy with joy. It almost made me smile.
I don't know how long I read in the cold, cramped helicopter. Long enough for my head to spazz out several times. The entire time I yearned for a meadow or a forest to lay down in. It must have been a few hours at least. When I felt us dropping, the fear shot back into me with so much force I started hyperventilating. To my embarrassment, I started crying again. Questions buzzed at the edges of my lips, but I didn't have the courage to ask them.
Hawkeye sauntered over to a hole on whatever rook we landed on. Black Widow helped me out, her hands strong and capable. I mentally compared my own self to her, the way I helpless clutched to my backpack like it was the last thing I had. Maybe it was. With Black Widow's hand on my back, I went over to the hole as well. She lowered me down the short ladder and then it was stairs and Hawkeye.
Everything looked expensive and tasteful. How I noticed that while panicking is beyond me. Hawkeye's blue eyes seemed to bore holes into me as he led me somewhere. To my death, I assumed. I didn't know what I did. Maybe it was some sort of sacrifice.
My arms were crossed tightly over my torso, my hands clutching at the knit blue cardigan. All of my muscles were tensed. I was ready, they insisted. My muscles were very wrong, however. I wasn't ready to do anything except go home. This place was foreign to me and held no traces of anything like home. Home was always just a little bit too warm, with old fashioned wallpaper and slightly ruined couches. Framed pictures of lemurs and monkeys always lined the hallways of home. It was almost cold in this place, the walls were painted, and though I hadn't seen furniture yet, I figured it would be immaculate. I was positive I wouldn't see any lemurs.
Would I ever see my parents again? Probably not until we met again in whatever afterlife awaited us. With that ever-so-happy thought, we got to a floor of some kind. The walls were glass and provided a spectacular view of a city. New York City. I was very far away from home.
I was right about the furniture. It was even polished. Black Widow met us on the floor.
"Sit anywhere you want. We'll see what happens from here," Black Widow said softly before stepping into an elevator with Hawkeye. I was suddenly alone. There was no background noise whatsoever. Only my ears ringing provided noise.
So I went for my default. Reading. Once again, I immersed myself to the point where I had any possibility of outside noise blocked. And once again, someone snuck up on me. Just when I reached a good part too.
Once you saw this man once, even on TV, you didn't forget him. He didn't let you forget him. Suddenly, I had a good idea of where I was and who's helicopter I rode in.
Tony Stark sat on the couch across from me and loudly cleared his throat. My head rocketed back into an upright position and my eyes widened when I saw the Man of Iron without his suit lounging no more than 10 feet away from me. He looked a bit smug, as if he were satisfied that he surprised me.
"You're Tony Stark," I squeaked pathetically. He smirked at me superiorly.
"That is correct. Smartest man in the city, at your service," Stark sounded as smug and superior as he looked. His eyes were looking somewhere I wasn't entirely comfortable with. My arms crossed over my chest, but he didn't look away. "How old are you?"
"17," I mumbled shyly. He sighed and pursed his lips.
"Too bad."
The next moment passed in silence, but Tony Stark was too full of himself to let me panic in peace. "I assume you like StarkTower?"
Knowing he adored the tower with his name emblazoned on it, I said in a very feeble voice, "Sure, but it doesn't feel like home."
He rolled his eyes. "My home, not yours. No one ever said it would be an exact replica of whatever hole you grew up in that stopped SHIELD from finding you for so long."
"SHEILD? Why am I here? I was just trying to read and two superheroes randomly start dragging me away, and now I'm here. And nobody told me anything!" I started softly but ended up screaming. Mr. Stark raised his eyebrows and looked at me, the same superior look in his eyes.
Frustration coursed through me after a few hours of not knowing. A soft ding interrupted my silent anger. The elevator door slid open and several people stepped out. It was a good thing the elevator was so big.
Black Widow and Hawkeye were back with their ever present stoic expressions. But they brought friends. There was a clean shaven blond man who wore a blue polo and jeans, a less than clean shaven blond man whose hair reached his back and he wore very odd clothes, and a darker skinned man who looked much more observant than the rest of them. Behind all of them was a woman with a red ponytail and a business like expression until she saw Mr. Stark. Then she lit up.
Tony Stark scooted over, making enough space for the woman to sit half on his lap. She curled up with him, a smile bright on her face. I'm sure I looked disgusted and confused. One of my hands went for my hair, reassuringly twirling and untwirling it. The other hand lightly stroked the smooth cover of my book, tracing the golden lettering.
"Hello, Zoe," The woman said with a pleasant smile.
"Hello," I whispered back. Her smile softened even more. It felt almost welcoming, almost motherly. It was a very welcome feeling.
It was interrupted by the clean shaven blond man stepping into the light. His identity hit me. Steve Rodgers, Captain America, the soldier out of time. I knew his face, everyone did. Girls at school swooned over this man. Now he was walking towards me, a hand outstretched.
"I am Steve Rodgers," He said, a slight smile turning up his lips. "It's a pleasure to meet you." Very hesitantly, I lifted my hand to meet his. He had a very strong handshake. That combined with the fact he was probably a foot taller than me when I was standing up and his biceps flexed when he shook my hand made him terribly intimidating.
"Thank you," I mumbled. I couldn't think of anything else to say, anything else to do but sit there and look at him like a cowardly dog. My face screamed 'don't hurt me'. It was a heroic look.
The darker skinned man also stepped up. "Dr. Banner," He introduced himself. I nodded slightly to acknowledge him.
The bearded blond one also introduced himself. "I am Thor, son of Odin."
Thor? The Norse God? That was…ridiculous. I'd heard something about him in the Avengers, but dismissed it as a rumor. Then again, it had been his brother Loki that destroyed half of New York City.
They all just looked at me. "I'm Zoe…Dryad. Can someone please tell me why I'm here?" I asked so quietly I was surprised they heard me. I cursed myself for not being the witty one, or the loud one, or the one that told good jokes.
Dr. Banner looked over at Hawkeye and Black Widow. "You didn't tell her?" He asked incredulously. When they shook their heads, he sighed and took a deep breath. "Zoe, you have a certain…arrangement of your brain cells that isn't quite regular, and it affects the way your neurotransmitters fire and signal each other, but also your physical self."
I was very lost. Nothing he said made sense other than that my brain was weird. Tony Stark saw my confusion and jumped in. "You're a mutant."
Shocked, my mouth fell open. A mutant? I really was a freak? Something unnatural and wrong? Dr. Banner shook his head. "No, you're not a mutant. You have a slight mutation and it has a big impact. It was catalogued when you were young, but something caused you to blip on SHEILDs radar. So Agent Romanoff and Agent Barton went to retrieve you so that they could talk to you."
"Why, though?" I asked frantically, tears starting to well up in my eyes.
"You know what happened." Black Widow said, seriousness radiating from her. "When we tried to bring you back, and you didn't want to go. You saw what your resistance did."
"That was me? I was hoping…I was hoping…"I trailed off, not sure what I'd been hoping.
"That was you," Black Widow said, a hint of sadness spoiling her serious façade. Why was she pretending? It was so obvious that she was miserable, or at the very least, upset. No one else seemed to care.
"If you were to exercise the part of your mind that allowed you to spontaneously grow something from the ground, you could control it and do it at will. It wouldn't be something triggered by strong emotion or resistance." Dr. Banner told me. I didn't like that idea, one bit.
"No," I said quietly. "I don't want to do it again. I want to go back home and never to that again."
"That's not an option," Black Widow said softly. "You've done it once. It's there forever now. The helicopter had a few screen measuring your brain activity with a few scans, and the information was sent to Dr. Banner. Something changed in your brain chemistry."
So that was it. I was some freak of nature mixed with a tree hugger. At school, I would be mocked forever. Suddenly at the front of everyone's mind, they would taunt me constantly. Maybe it was better that I was gone.
"Now what?" I asked, scared of the answer.
"Now, you stay here until we hear from SHIELD " Black Widow informed me, the misery still pulling at her features. Hawkeye look both saddened and positively lovestruck. Again, no one seemed to care.
I wanted to scream about my frustration at how she had nothing else to tell me, but I couldn't. I could only sit and wait until they told me what to do next. The woman sitting half on Mr. Stark stood up and took a step in my direction. "Come with me, Ms. Dryad. We have a room set up for you."
They did, surprisingly enough. It was larger than my living room at home. The floor was lush carpeting and the walls were a beautiful shade of green. The bed was white with a gauzy canopy and the closet had clothes in it very close to my size. There was a window with a little shelf. On the shelf, a few pots of baby flowers sat.
I gently touched one of the little green stems, and felt a little jolt. It didn't spontaneously turn into Jack's beanstalk, which I took as a very good sign. Tired and exhausted, I fell into the bed and almost immediately fell asleep.