Thank you for the response this story is getting! It might not be a lot, but it means the world to me as I try to push past my writer fears and write this story!

Disclaimer: I do not own any rights to Marvel and Annie or it's characters. The girls in the foster home and Ceri are based on the orphans from the musical Annie.

Chapter 7

Lessa felt uncomfortable during the silence in the truck on the way to the S.H.I.E.L.D. base. She kept glancing at the agent next to her. He was nice, compared to their leader who did not sit in the same car as her, much to her delight. Studying him, Lessa deemed the young agent trustworthy.

The world outside grew dark enough that Lessa couldn't figure out where they were. Fear instilled itself onto Lessa as she thought of her mother running free somewhere, digging deeper into S.H.I.E.L.D.'s database. S.H.I.E.L. Superhumans. Superheros. Lessa wondered what Tony was up to. She wondered what kind of new suits he could be making in his tower and how many of them were there.

She thought of the girls and even Ceri. What if they thought she was dead? The thought terrorized Lessa. Sure she was jumping to hefty conclusions, but it comes to mind first. Death comes to mind when children go missing.

Her eyes were awake and alert the whole time, just in case anything happened. Counting to herself the number of signs they passed to keep occupied, her eyes threatened to close every so often, but she would widen them anymore and pinch herself. That kept on for several more minutes.

The truck rumbled to a stop and Lessa was lifted down from the truck and ushered into a garage. What could be millions of armoured vehicles sat in rows under the bright lights. Other agents moved around them as they either started the vehicles or turned them off. Four agents escorted Lessa along a row that felt endless until they reached heavy doors. An ID badge was held up to the scanner and they slid open, revealing a long hallway.

Lessa swallowed and entered.

"Are you saying that you think that an eleven-year-old girl was behind the hacks?" Inside the conference room, Tony shook his head. It was the middle of the day when Tony came to the S.H.I.E.L.D. base in the mountains of Virginia. He sat in his workshop pondering on whether or not he should go long after the others left. Scenarios came and passed on who it was and what happened. He thought it was a joke when he was informed that Lessa hacked into the systems.

Nick Fury nodded. "Agent Sessions reported that she confessed at the house when they caught her."

"She is a foster kid. How could she have learned to do any of that in the matter of three weeks? I don't believe it."

"Well believe it," Fury snapped. "We were supposed to capture her mother, but we ended up bringing her daughter in instead. She can give us answers"

Tony snorted and poured himself a glass of water that sat in the middle of the table that separeted Tony and Fury. "Good luck with that."

"You weren't invited for this show, Stark," Fury reminded him. "I could easily have you thrown out."

"But you won't because you could use me as leverage to get answers out of her. I did bring her back home, didn't I? Does she know that the police are searching for her in New York?" Tony wasn't pleased with how S.H.I.E.L.D. ran investigations sometimes. Yet if he didn't know Lessa beforehand, would he have felt the same now?

"No." Fury crossed his arms. "She knows nothing and the poilic investigation was put on hold."

Tony almost choked. "There is a foster mom looking for a child she was supposed to take care of and you called the investigation off?"

"She will return back home once we are finished," Fury reasurred. "Alessandra Perez's mother, Jennifer, was a S.H.I.E.L.D. who went rogue ten years ago. She went into a mission and came out with abnormal abilites that couldn't be controlled because she nor the other agent who was with her would disclose what happened. So-"

"So you locked her up and relocated her family," Tony finished, rubbing his temples. "I saw Jennifer in the street next to the tower and searched her up, or well at least tried to. Natasha told me the rest."

Fury didn't look too pleased with Tony's interruption. His lips were pressed into a thin line. "Did she tell you Jennifer Perez escaped from confinment two years ago?"

"That was implied from my findings of her beside my tower stalking Alessandra. But one thing that still baffles me is this: how did Alessandra manage to hack into S.H.I.E.L.D.? Jennifer must have did that, not her."

"No, Miss Perez confessed that she did the hacking herself. Her mother just guided her along."

"Willingly?"

"Would you do something your mother asked you to do?"

Tony rolled his eyes. "These are different circumstances. No kid could ever learn to hack in a high secured database in the matter of three weeks. It is impossible."

"That is also another reason why she will be questioned," Fury said. "We wonder if she holds some sort of ability."

"What kind of ability? I see nothing wrong with her except the fact that she has a psycho mother."

"I agree with you, but with how she caught on to knowing codes and even combat so quickly, you never know."

"You are taking this out of proportion. She could just be a fast learner."

"That too." Fury opened the door and looked at Tony. "Are you going to stay until you get to see her?" Tony hesitated before nodding. "Wait here."

The cold room left her uneasy. Dents marked the four metal walls, scratches following it. Lessa couldn't imagine what could have triggered the cause of the dents and she didn't want to know.

Her legs swung back and forth while she sat, waiting to be questioned. She already had an entire conversation mapped out in her head. She would say some random stuff, they would believe her. But things weren't that simple. Her lies could be detected.

The heavy door swung open as Agent Sessions walked in, unarmed nor holding anything. He smiled at Lessa and took a seat across from her at the table. "How are you holding up?" He asked her.

Lessa shrugged. "Alright. I'm ready to go home is all. I miss my friends."

"You'll be back home in no time."

"Once we are finished," Lessa agreed.

Agent Sessions smiled and folded his hands. "Can you tell me from start to finish of the time you spent with your mother?"

Swallowing, Lessa looked down at her feet. "I can try." After a breath, she told him everything. She was scared to tell the agent, but she knew she had to. Lessa had really no other choice if she wanted to go home. He calmed her, after being the only one nice and caring back at the house when her mother escaped, S.H.I.E.L.D. wasn't that bad from what she could tell. And what she had saw and read already could be the tip of a massive iceberg of secrets and lies, acting and games.

Agent Sessions sat silently and listened to Lessa talk, absorbing all her words and her body language as she spoke. That was another thing Lessa was grateful for. If any other agent sat in the room and questioned her, she wouldn't have said as much as she did. Her story had a lot of dry spots with endless hours of waiting in abandoned houses or on a laptop. Lessa kept her eyes on her shoes the whole time, glancing up every now and then at the agent, making sure he was still listening. An invisible weight lifted off of her shoulders once she was finished.

"Thank you for telling me, Alessandra," Agent Sessions thanked.

"It's Lessa," Lessa corrected, almost choking on her words. "Just call me Lessa."

Agent Sessions stood up and headed to the door. "Alright, Lessa. Sit tight for a few more mintues and then I will come back to get you, okay?"

Lessa nodded and felt tears well up in her eyes once the door sealed shut. This was all her fault. Everything was her fault. If she hadn't agreed to go with her mother, she wouldn't be sitting in the room, in S.H.I.E.L.D., right now. No. Lessa would be at home with the other girl, chatting and breaking up arguments between Lexi and Emily. The weight fell back on her body.

A sob escaped her. She pressed her palms against her eyes and took a deep breath. She needed to stop thinking about them until she gets home. She needed to supress the memories until she sees them again with her own eyes. Her emotions took over and she sobbed and sobbed until her body ached. She crawled off of the chair and onto the floor where she curled up into a ball, pressing her forehead into her knees.

Through her sobs, the door opened back up. A pair of arms scooped her up and took her out of the room and carried her down the hall. She fell asleep on the way to their destination.

What do you think is going to happen now that Lessa is in S.H.I.E.L.D.'s custody? What would you like to see happen?

Thank you for reading!