ADITI
I sipped at my coffee, a blanket around my shoulders, watching the others. Alina was sat next to me on one side, Clint on my other. I wasn't a fan of all this attention, and I could feel their curiosity, their confusion.
"So what you're saying is," James Rhodes said, hand on chin, "Aditi's powers were transferred into Alina."
"And Axel." Alina added. I'd been introduced to everyone know. I didn't watch the news, my parents kept me away from anything superhero related in case I got any ideas, so I wasn't very knowledgable on the Avengers.
"Right, but you don't have the same powers?" Rhodey continued, clearly speaking the thoughts of everyone else.
"No." Alina replied. "I don't quite understand that. They seem to change slightly from person to person once they get transferred. I don't know where my light manipulation comes from, and the first time I met Axel she sort of indicated that they weren't able to figure that out either, but she did tell me my test results were used for some of her powers."
"Did Cog mention anything else?" Steve Rogers asked me, his hands clasped together in his lap.
Alina nudged me slightly. "He's talking to you." She whispered.
I felt my cheeks go hot. I wasn't good at speaking in front of a lot people, I could feel it when they judged me, I knew their reaction to my words no matter how well they tried to hide it.
I tucked a piece of hair behind my ear. "She said that 232, Alina, her body had been able to take," I paused, closing my eyes, trying to remember the exact words that had been said, "take the base abilities and change them to suit her needs. That they wanted mutating enhancements. It might have something to do with her genes."
Alina nodded. "That makes sense. I wanted to heal the other girls in the lab, so my body gave me that ability. I wanted to make the scientists suffer like they made us suffer, so I was able to transfer pain. I don't understand the light and dark still though." She sighed. "I think, perhaps, they can change them manually before they're transferred, but not have the person's body change them automatically to perfectly suit what they need the powers for."
"Was it only girls in the lab?" This was Tony Stark. I'd known him before though. I remembered reading about his company in the news.
"At first there were boys, but it ended up being mostly girls. I think girls take on powers better, it's why Axel managed to have so many complicated ones." Alina wondered aloud. "It also explains why they want Roara, because she has so many, they want ones that form or change when needed and they want more than one. It's all about power."
I glanced at Peter. He hadn't looked how I'd expected him to, with wavy brown hair and a sweet face. I'd expected him to look hardened somehow. He was still being hit with waves of grief.
"When they transferred Aditi's powers to me," Alina continued, "I think I got some of her personality too, at least at first. But she can't heal people, at least not physically, and I can't use her powers of empathy."
"Axel also took powers from the other girl, Miriam." Vision noted. "Do we know what's happening with her?"
Clint shook his head.
"Ah." Vision replied. I liked Vision. He was calmer than the rest, focused, and it was easier to rest on his emotions than the others because they felt less jumbled. James, or as I now knew him to be Bucky, still felt more difficult than the others, more extreme.
"It's all coming together." Steve said to himself, more than the rest of us. "They take the girls for testing when they're younger if they have powers, hold the abilities somehow, and place it into other people."
Alina nodded. "It must be how they can pass it onto more than one person."
"It's clearly the putting it into someone else that's causing them issues." I looked at where the voice had come from. Bruce Banner was walking into the room, papers in his hands. I hadn't seen him since he'd turned into the Hulk. I still felt the anger, all around him, but it was diluted. It was as though he had a choke hold on it and wasn't letting it go. "I've been looking at the science of how they're able to do that, and I think I'm close. The information I need is in their labs though, it's in their diffuser. The memory chip Ro got for us is useful, but I'd need to take it apart. There are probably other things they use as well."
Nobody spoke as Bruce seated himself on a couch, passing his findings to Tony Stark, who began flipping through them. "This technology would be advanced." Mr Stark muttered. "And expensive."
"When Tony says something is expensive," Rhodey looked round at us, eyes wide for emphasis, "you can bet your ass it's expensive."
"How did they get the funding?" Natasha asked.
"The two people who might know aren't here right now." Wanda said. "Roara had a long talk with Gunn, and Loki viewed their operations for months."
"Loki wasn't allowed much information." Alina explained. "He might know, but he might not."
Steve leant forwards, "Well they aren't here right now so that's not a route we can take. That's got to be our next mission. Finding out how they have funding, where it's coming from."
"Even if we stop their funding, and stop their ability to produce and transfer more power," Vision speculated, "we will probably have to still face the agents that they've already put through the process. We don't know how many that is."
"So we need to find out about funding, work out how large their organisation is, anything else?" Alina sighed. "Invite them round for dinner? Reduce Tony's ego? Get Steve to listen to One Direction?"
"It's not that impossible." Bruce insisted.
"Hey." Steve gave Alina a side-eye. "I listened to One Direction! I just wasn't a fan."
"Bruce, we get it, you want to take them down, we all do, but maybe this approach isn't the best." Rhodey crossed his arms.
"What else do you expect us to do Rhodey? They're always one step ahead when it comes to everything else." Alina countered. "I'm not saying Steve's wrong. I'm just saying it's going to be hard. They're secret, we have no way in. But, God I'm going to hate myself for saying this, Steve's right. Now we need plan, a proper plan. We can't just keep trying to attack them as they come up, waiting for their move. We need to write down everything we know about their leadership, low level officers, tactics that we've already seen. We need Aditi to write down her experiences with Gunn, we need to work out how they found her, how they found the others. My hunch is they have a way into our system. We can't keep going on the defensive. We need to get one step ahead of them." She rubbed her fingers against her temples. I could feel her mind working through her emotions, cutting through everything else, like a sharp knife moving through a mist.
"Steve." She looked up, Steve looked back. "Do we still have that map of hierarchy we found at the house they near the building site, the one they took Roara from, there was a Cog listed right?"
"There was. And we do." He replied.
"Right I want that. I want all footage we have of their sites. I want to go back to England and get all we can from that house, search it top to bottom, whatever they've left there, if anything, we take it and we analyse it. I'm talking fingerprints, photos, dust particles. The fucking lot. I want to go back to where they had the diffuser too, in Austria."
"They've moved it-" Clint began. I glanced at him as Alina cut him off. She was on a roll now. My uncle threw his hands up in defeat.
"I know they've moved it, Tony mentioned that to me a while back, they moved it before Roara was even out of her coma, that's why we didn't go back. But I don't care, we go there, we collect what we can, we bring it back to the lab. And we send a team to Australia, to the site they had there. These were all decoy sites, they're toying with us, but we'll never know where they fucked up unless we check. Human error is always there. Isn't that right Tony?" She looked at her uncle, her dark eyes fixed on him, her fists clenching and unclenching.
"There's always room for human error." He agreed, grinning from ear to ear. The look of pride on his face was one I didn't think Alina would forget, but right now her emotions weren't reacting to it. I could see they all respected Alina, taking in every word. These people, Tony and Steve especially, I could tell they were used to calling the shots. They worked as a team. But sometimes even teams needed leaders. Right now that leader came in the form of a muscular, ferocious, black girl and she was absolutely killing it. It was so strange, though, wonderful, but strange. Out of all of the team, we were the only two girls of colour and some of the youngest in the room. And yet the room was silent when we spoke.
"I want everything, and I mean everything. We find out what bank accounts they were using to purchase this stuff. Nat." She turned to the redhead across from her. "They'll probably get their equipment under the radar, you can find that right?"
"Consider it done."
"Bruce," She looked at him, eye ablaze, "are you sure your calculations are correct?"
"I don't have 7 PhD's for nothing Ali." He replied, nodding towards the papers in Tony's hands.
"I don't see a single mistake here." Tony replied. "Though I want to go through some of this with you. Alina are you going to come with us to the lab?" He asked.
"Of course, I couldn't leave you two morons to figure this out on your own." She smiled and stood up. "Right. We'll organise who goes where, and what we're doing first. I want to talk to Maria Hill, she'll be able to organise all our information. And I want it on paper, nothing on a computer, do you understand me?" She glanced at all of us. "We know Cog can manipulate technology and we can't let them know our findings. We're going to use letters to communicate, it might not be as efficient, but it's the only way."
"You know what, I think she's just stolen my job." Steve stage whispered to Nat.
"And Bucky," Bucky looked up for the first time in the conversation, eyes locking with Alina's, "I know Thor will be out looking for Loki right now so that's covered. I want you to look for Roara. Family is family. We are her friends and this is her home." With that she left the room, the door swinging shut behind her.
There was a moment of awe hanging in the atmosphere.
"Right." Tony got up, pointing a finger gun where Alina had just walked out. "If anyone needs me I'll be taking orders from a girl half my age." He followed her out the door.
"You know." Rhodey said quietly. "I don't think that man takes orders from anyone."
"Apart from Pepper." Wanda corrected him. "But normally they have a lot of screaming matches too."
"Don't worry," Bruce got up as well. "I'm sure there'll be a lot of them too," he called over his shoulder as he left.
I looked around the room. Steve had pulled out a small notebook and begun to write things down. He glanced up at me, and I felt the small shock he felt as he realised I'd been watching him.
"Sorry." I said, trying to keep my embarrassment to a minimum. "But what should I do?"
Steve glanced at Clint who shrugged. Steve Rogers cleared his throat. "What do you parents think?"
"They didn't want her involved in anything superhero." Clint spoke for me. "But I talked to them when they were here, and they want to talk to Ti first before they make any decisions."
I looked at Clint. "They're coming back tomorrow right?"
Clint pulled me into him with one arm, giving me a side hug. "Yeah. Straight from work." Then with his knuckles he rubbed my head.
"Ow!" I batted his arm away. "I'm already uncoordinated from all the drugs I've been given." I mumbled, putting my hair right. "I don't want to have to explain to my parents that you gave me a concussion as well."
"So I guess," Captain Rogers brought me out of my little aside with Clint, "you'll stay here until a decision has been made. We can relocate your family if your house isn't safe."
"Already done." Clint shrugged. "They had a safe house set up already."
I remembered the safe house. We'd been sent to it once or twice before. It was a nice place, a cabin in some woods, away from people. Stocked up with food and clothes and board games. I thought it was like a fun vacation the first time we'd gone.
"What about school?" Peter asked me.
"I'm homeschooled." I said quietly. "They took me out of normal school after some incidents happened."
"What kind of incidents?" Steve asked me, glancing up for a second as he continued to write in his notebook.
"I broke a boy's arm in middle school by accident." I took a sip of my coffee, trying to ignore the slack jaws around the room.
"How?" Rhodey asked.
At the same time Steve asked, "Why?"
Peter just said, "Cool."
Clint gave me a little squeeze around the shoulders, telling me it was okay to answer. "I don't know exactly, it's how Alina can apparently do it. I just wanted it to snap, so it did, from the inside." I dropped my gaze. "He'd been bullying me. Said I smelt weird because of the spices we cook with at home and the incense we used. Told me to go back to my country, even though I'm from Philly. My Dad's from India you see, New Delhi. He's the best cook I know, makes the most intricate cakes you've ever seen. Called me some names. It wasn't the first time, but I wanted it to be the last." I glanced up at Clint.
"They took her to get tested after that and decided to home school her." He explained. "I introduced her dad, Kanan, to my sister and they hit it off immediately. We met each other in the field over in Istanbul years ago, we got holed up together in an apartment for a week, and when he came over to America to work I introduced him to some of my family."
Natasha nodded. "Kanan's a good guy. Got exposed to some radioactivity though, it's what caused Aditi's powers."
I looked between them, frowning. "I thought my Papa was a journalist? How does Natasha know him so well, I thought she'd only met him twice, one time at that family vacation in Florida where you had to wrestle with that alligator, and the other at Thanksgiving?"
Clint made a face that said, uh oh, and his emotions suddenly went, uh oh, and I realised he had definitely just said something he should not have said. He pulled his arm from around my shoulders awkwardly and looked at me. "He is a journalist."
"Clint." Natasha said in a tired voice, her face in her hand.
"He is a journalist, nobody lied there, but undercover journalist and undercover operative can be very similar jobs." He gave me a look and a shrug that said please don't tell your Dad but honestly you were going to find out anyway.
I sat still, lips pressed together, face in some sort of shock. Maybe deep down I'd always known. I mean what kind of journalist gets exposed to radioactivity?
I took a deep breath. "Okay. If he was a spy-"
"Never said spy-"
"If he was a spy, then he can't stop me working with the Avengers." I announced. It was less of an announcement and more of a quiet statement. Okay it might have been closer to a whisper.
"Talk to you parents first." He told me in a harder tone than before. Conversation closed I guessed.
Steve stood up and as he went to walk out the door stopped behind me. He clapped a hand on my shoulder. "I respect someone who stands up to bullies. So does Roara. I think you'll fit in well here."
The evening was somewhat chaotic after that. My parents did a classic parent move and left some of my school work with him for when I woke up. He told me if I did it all he'd do some archery practice with me though, so it wasn't all bad.
Tony ordered takeout for dinner and I got some vegetable noodles. I'd found a quiet table in the main room where I laid out my work. My massive psychology textbook were wide open in front of me, as I was doing an essay on nature versus nurture. I was writing notes with one hand and spearing a piece of carrot on a chopstick with the other when Peter came to sit down beside me.
"Homework night?" He asked, opening his own textbooks.
I nodded mutely and speared a piece of broccoli. I must have read this case study about 16 times but it just wasn't going in.
"What are you working on?" He asked. I turned my textbook so he could see. "You do psychology?" I nodded.
He turned his textbook so I could see. "I've been doing this calculus problem since this morning. I just can't seem to concentrate on it though." No wonder, I thought, you're grieving your friend.
"I'm not good at calculus." I replied softly. "I can help you with English though."
"Actually." He opened his school bag and rummaged around, pulling out a slightly dog eared copy of Sense and Sensibility. "Can you help with this?"
I nodded, taking it from him and flicking through his pages. He had doodles everywhere, little webs drawn into the corners of pages, and suit diagrams similar to the one he'd worn earlier in the margins. I smiled and shook my head. "You're very bad at annotating."
He laughed awkwardly, scratching the back of his head. "English isn't my strong point."
I pulled his work sheet over to me. It wasn't a hard essay, only about power dynamics between the characters. I underlined some key quotes and showed him the annotations I was writing down for him as I did it. I felt a memory surface from a dream I'd had about five weeks ago. Roara had read this when it came out, in the 1800s. Pride and Prejudice too. She'd been going by the name Anna back then. She'd read them as the rain poured down around her cottage, sat by her hearth, flipping through the pages to get to her favourite chapters, there had been a man there but his face had been in shadow. From his voice I think it must have been Thor, the big guy with long blonde hair. There had been a girl too, a bit younger than her, who she'd taken in from the rain. That was how I knew she'd been going by the name Anna, because she'd introduced herself to the girl and said she could stay the night but needed to be out by morning. The girl had fallen asleep quickly.
"How many children do you take in on nights like these?" The man had asked.
"Too many for my own good." Anna had sighed, closing her book. "Are you brooding?"
"Brooding?"
"Has it been too long between battles for you? You get like this if you haven't had a good fight for a while." She leant forward with a poker, moving some coals around on the fire and throwing another log on for good measure. "I just know what it's like to be scared and alone, that's all. It's a cold night and they need looking after."
"You don't ask who they are?" The man said in a disapproving voice.
"What you think this girl is Loki in disguise? I could smell the prick from a mile away don't worry." Anna sighed and opened her book up again, not bothering to look around at her guest.
"No, I worry you get attached."
"I've learnt not to. I'm just a kind face in a heavy storm, offering food and warmth and shelter." She looked at the girl, slumped on a worn couch near the fireplace. Anna had given her some of her clothes to change into, and the child was now snoring softly.
"You could make friends you know." The man sighed. "Or you could come back to Asgard."
"Humans die, or grow old. It's better this way. Anyway, I've got you when you come and visit. Besides this is my home, not Asgard. It's where I belong. Now do you want some stew or not you big oaf?"
"Aditi?"
"Hmm?"
"You just wrote on my book 'do you want some stew or not you big oaf' and I don't get it." Peter was pointing to a section on the page.
I drew a neat line through it and shook my head. "Accident." I muttered.
"I only know one person who calls people a big oaf." Peter said quietly. "You said you get dreams, do you get any about Roara?"
I nodded. "She's been coming up a lot." I pulled a highlighter out of his pencil case and highlighted around a paragraph writing 'show of female competition'.
"You're a lot quieter now." Peter paused. "Are you alright?"
I felt my cheeks redden. "I'm just..." I had been in a collapsing building not 48 hours ago, I could do this, I could do this, I could do this, I could not do this.
"Are you okay?"
"Mmhmmm." I shoved a large amount of noodles into my mouth and chewed heavily. "NNNAGHHHH!" I let out a loud noise while my mouth was still closed.
"Aditi?"
Through my mouthful of food I managed to say, while pointing at the side of my mouth, "I nnewed my nneek."
"You chewed your cheek?" He tried to translate.
I nodded, shoving more noodles into my mouth and swallowing hard. Okay, I could do this. I could do this.
"I'm just quite shy." I explained, my voice barely above a whisper. "It's why I don't like talking and why when I do talk I do it so quietly. Don't worry, you're not saying anything wrong, I just take a while before I can have a conversation with someone." Especially when they're cute was what I did not add onto the end of that sentence. My ears were heating up now, I felt so humiliated. He was trying so hard to talk to me and all I was doing was nodding and shoving my face with noodles. Everyone else was running around, getting ready for their new missions, and he was taking the time out to be nice to me, though he did also have homework to do.
"Oh." He sat back, his pen tapping on the page in front of him nervously.
I hurriedly highlighted more of his text, my nose practically against the page.
"But you weren't shy before, because of the drug?" He guessed.
I nodded, furiously scribbling in his margins about the social hierarchy of women and the domination of legal and economic freedoms of men.
He nodded as well and pulled his calculus in front of him, writing down a long line of equations before scribbling them out harshly and writing some more. He was embarrassed, I could feel the shimmer of shame inside the inky mass of emotions, but still the overwhelming one there was grief. He'd lost two friends in one day and now he was trying to be my friend and he felt as though he was making a mess of it. But he really wasn't.
"Peter."
He looked up at me. "Yeah?" He had blue stains from his pen on his fingers.
"Do you need a hug?"
He stared at me for a moment, unsure of what to say, before nodding. I opened my arms up and pulled him in, holding him tightly.
"She wasn't afraid." I reminded him. "I would have known."