Nikki's eyes opened to the sound of her bedroom door creaking open. "Kiddo? I brought you some breakfast."
Nikki didn't respond a moment, her brain still coming around to the fact she was in control again. She didn't say anything, just sitting up and swinging her feet onto the floor to make eye contact with Tony. He handed her a tray and she took it, looking at the food and back up at him, tears pricking in the corners of her eyes."Aw, c'mon kid. I didn't want to. But young alphas and omegas literally can't give actual consent their first time. They just can't."
Nikki tried to speak and couldn't, looking down at the food and back up at Stark a second time. "Please eat." Finally allowed, she let herself pick up a fork and began to do as she was asked. The sausage was salty and warm and juicy too and-
"Please..." Polly whispered, her life draining rapidly from the wound in her neck. "Please forgive yourself this one day, Nikki." Her blood was salty and warm and tasted like sweet death as it slid down Nikki's throat. Nikki didn't hear Polly, not really. She was starving. She hadn't eaten real food in a week or had blood for nearly twice as a long as that. Then Polly died, and the exact moment her heart stopped rang in Nikki's ears.
Nikki shouted and launched the food in her hands at the wall, her eyes full of tears again as her vocal cords finally found her. "I don't think you're going to find Polly." She said and pulled her knees up to her chest, fully herself again.
"Oh kiddo...I-"
"I don't want to talk about it." Nikki said. "You wanted to send me to school right? I heard you talking in my sleep state. Please...anywhere but...Please let me out."
Tony was surprised she'd heard him but regained his composure fast. "Well then." Tony checked the time. "You have thirty minutes to get dressed and prepared."
Nikki went over to the closet and glanced in, seeing a bunch of clothes that seemed like they'd be hers. Lots of athletic wear and dark colors, with abundant sources of leather and open cut tops. Bringing one to her nose, Nikki gently sniffed. It smelled deeply of people she imagined had to be her parents with how familiar and similar the scent was to her own. Nothing. Not even a flash of memory.I held onto my memory of Polly. How could I not know my own parents after all that? She dressed in a denim jacket with a Dishonored T-shirt below it and some black jeans. Then she grabbed the red converse sneakers Tony had put in her closet at the bottom. She hesitated at her bathroom door before slipping in, grabbing the scissors and starting to cut her long hair.
x
When Nikki stepped back at to where Tony waited, he was surprised to see how much she had changed in thirty minutes. "Your hair-"
Nikki shrugged. "I like to kickbox and do other sports. Long hair is kind of a bad idea. So I did an elongated pixie cut with shaved sides."
"But those kinds of martial sports are highly regulated. Hair pulling is a disallowed move." Tony kept up the conversation as they went outside and got in large black car together. "Happy, meet Nicole. She prefers Nikki. Nikki, meet Happy. He's my driver among other things."
Nikki grunted at the man in the front seat, nodding at him. "Well, Tony I'll be honest with you here. I didn't exactly enjoy my kickboxing matches on the legal side of things. I like the underground fights where people can actually get hurt. And stand up to me if I hold back just a little."
"When did this hobby start?" Tony looked a little troubled.
Nikki had to think about this a moment. "I think it was shortly after the onset of womanhood. I was...thirteen when I attended my first match. And I put that man on the ground in five minutes so I got to fight another and then one more after that."
"Was this about the money or-"
"No." She resolutely cut him off. "I just liked doing it. It was one of the first times I truly realized I was in a whole league of my own. But that soon made me desperately lonely. So I began to drink wolfsbane concoctions before my matches. I handicapped myself every time and still it never came to a struggle. So I got more and more reckless over the years. It probably helped Hydra capture me, in the end. It's also how I know I was betrayed. They had to have had help to get me." Nikki was quiet for a moment. "Strange the things that come to me in jagged-edged fragments. Yet I can't remember the face of my father or mother."
x
Peter watched Nikki climb out of the expensive car Happy was driving. More than a few eyes in the front parking lot turned toward her. "Dang." Ned said, looking Nikki up and down from beside MJ. "That is one h-"
"Ned." MJ quietly scolded. "Pete is that-"
"The girl Mr. Stark wanted me to show around." Peter kept quiet about the rest, the fact he was an omega and she was an alpha and that they were apparently destined for each other. "Please Ned, be careful." Peter warned his friend. "She's been...nothing short of tortured, abused, and taken apart mentally. I don't know if she's ever been flirted with. Or had friends." Nikki saw him and started wading through the crowd to get to him.
"What's she want with Penis Parker?" Peter heard Flash whispering to his girlfriend of the week. "With a body like-"
From the quick flick of Nikki's eyes to the side, Peter knew she'd heard his bully. Before she could decide to turn toward him and do as alphas do, Peter met her in the middle with his friends. "This is Ned and this is MJ. They're my closest friends."
He watched Nikki flick her eyes over them, gaze lingering on Ned for a brief moment before she turned her full attention on MJ and began to seriously gauge her. As was her way, MJ kept her cool and nonchalantly smiled back. "Sup."
"Nicole." She said as way of introduction. "But I prefer Nikki." She tore her eyes from MJ with some reluctance to check over Peter. Her gaze made his body warm and tingly, and he was suddenly very thankful for his suppressants and scent blockers. "Pete, how long has that guy been calling you Penis Parker?" There was a hard edge of dangerous anger simmering below her surface.
"Flash is just a regular bully." Peter tried to both shrug it off and remind Nikki she could probably atomize the guy with a single punch if she wasn't careful.
"All through junior high, right up to this point." Ned blurted and Peter felt a wave of exasperation at Ned's loose lips. What would Nikki do?
"Hm." She said and left it drop. "What do you usually do first thing in the morning, Pete?"
"Pete?" MJ was looking from Peter to Nikki now, her expression critical as she attempted to decode the relationship there. Stop it! There isn't one. Not...yet. "I thought you hated that nickname."
"Pete loves it." Nikki said, her eyes swiveling back to MJ. "I can hear his heart pick up every time I say it." Peter felt a blush rise to his face and he started to push Nikki inside the school.
"Let me show you my favorite breakfast menu hacks." He hurriedly said, speaking over MJ as she digested what Nikki said so nonchalantly.
"You can hear his heart beat changing?" To Peter's horror Nikki gently tugged free from him and turned to face MJ and Ned in the hall.
"Better we do this now, Pete. If they're your friends, we'll be seeing a lot of each other." She reached around them to lock the front door, just for a moment. "Ned, MJ, I'm not a regular human."
"A mutant." MJ said smartly.
"Wrong." Nikki said. "I'm much worse." She sounded sad and Pete felt a flush of soft anger that Nikki hated herself so much. "I'm a supernatural creature. There is a small, but important distinction there."
"I'm sorry...how is having magic worse?" Ned was puzzled.
Nikki gave him an approving glance. "Knew I sensed something slightly extra about your blood. But yes. It is worse, because I am extremely dangerous. Not only am I a unique blend of several supernatural types, I am a Hydra escapee."
"Hydra?" MJ asked giving Peter a quick glance and seeing he was unsurprised by all this, a fact she filed away.
"The opposite of the Avengers, for convenience sake. They stole me two years ago and did horrible things. That is all I will say on the matter, except I was rescued by an ex-Avenger and Stark sent me to protect his intern so I don't go stir crazy during my recovery." Nikki swept her gaze over them. "Questions?"
"Yes." MJ sounded concerned. "Why'd Tony Stark send a trained killer to a school of defenseless children?"
Nikki winced at this. "Fair enough." She thought a moment. "Probably so I can remember how to be a school aged girl again?"
"Guys...I'd like breakfast." Pete gave the two females his puppy eyes and Nikki melted instantly, unlocking the front door and smiling at him.
"Then let's go, Pete. Gotta keep genius fed." Whew. That was close.