The Life of Hadley Maximoff

The Mission is Where?!?!

It has been a year since Shield and Hydra's downfall. I am now eight years old. The rest of the Avengers and I have taken down quite a few Hydra bases lately. Since the Avengers formed as a team this past year, I have been back and forth between the Avengers Tower and the compound in which we all have rooms.

It's Sunday afternoon, and I am chilling in the compound living room on the main floor with Nat, Steve, Clint, Bruce, and Thor when Tony walks in and says, "Team, we have a mission." "Where?" I say curiosity building inside me. "It's in a small rundown country probably as big as New York. The people there are pretty poor. But anyway, you've probably never heard of it. It's called Sokovia."

Upon hearing how Stark described my old country, I go ghostly pale, and tears roll down my cheeks rapidly as I run out of the room. As I run out of the room, I hear Nat start to yell at Tony. Since the compound has an elevator and stairs, I teleport to the top of the stairs since I want to hear what Nat says. Hearing about Sokovia brought back a lot of memories, the good, the bad, and the ugly. A few extra tears escape my eyes as I think about them.

Nat yells at Tony and says, "Tony! Hadley is from Sokovia! Would you like me to talk about your home country like that?! No! You wouldn't! You have no idea what memories she is probably thinking about because of you! Sokovia is where she got brutally experimented on, where she lost her family, and where she had to live on the streets and fend for herself at five years old! You will be lucky if you haven't scared her off to who knows where given the fact that she can teleport!" then Nat storms out of the room, probably to find me.

I'm tempted to teleport away but something stops me. I'm not sure what it is but that something is making me stay rooted to the top of the stairs.

I hear footsteps approaching the entrance to the stairs, and I see Nat there. She walks up to me and hugs me tight, and says, "Hadley, I am so sorry that Tony doesn't pay attention to other people's backstories. And that he also doesn't care about hurting other people's feelings. You don't have to go if you don't want to. We could have Sam or Pepper come over and watch you. Or I could stay here or...." "Nat, it's fine. I'll go. I can't have you or anyone miss a mission because of me," I say, cutting her off. Then I cry into Nat's chest.

After sitting with Nat for another minute, I wipe away my tears and take a shaky deep breath and walk downstairs and back into the living room with Nat right behind me.

If I had the ability to control the weather based on my mood, there would be big thunder clouds over me right now.

"Hadley, I'm sorry. I completely forgot," says Tony. I roll my eyes and mutter, "Typical." "What was that?" says Tony. "Nothing," I say. Tony gives me a look that says "really?" I pause before adding. "Tony. You know my name. Not my story. You've heard what I've done. Not what I've been through. If you were in my shoes, you would fall at the first step," I say. "Well, enlighten me then. Nat highlighted a few things," says Tony. "Tony, do you want to know why I keep my distance from you? Why don't I go near you as often as I do everyone else? Why I hate talking to you? It's because you killed my parents. Your bomb destroyed my apartment three years ago and killed my parents. For two days, my siblings and I were trapped by one of your bombs, which was three feet from our faces. It had the Stark Industries logo on it. The memory of that will be forever burned into my mind. You're the reason that I don't know where on the planet my siblings are or if they're even alive. So the fact that I'm on a team with you is hard for me. But to hear you talk about my home country and its people like that is a whole other level. My family could barely get by. We didn't have much, but we had each other. My siblings and I knew that, but everyone in Sokovia was in the same boat, so it wasn't a big deal. But to hear that from you, a billionaire stings." I stop talking to let everyone process what I said.