prologue "this is not a hero's story..."
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THIS IS NOT A HERO'S STORY, ISABELLE won't allow it. Forty-three days have passed since she was plucked from her home in the Upper East Side, trading walks past Saint Laurent on her way to school, to a room at the end of a corridor, with a tiny window, iron bars blocking most of the light trying to bleed through. Part of her worried she'd lose all of her freckles, in the forty days she was locked away by HYDRA... She didn't, she realised, when she was discovered three days ago by the Avengers; she had glanced down at her hands, saw the ginger freckles still marking her skin, and thought, Thank Satan.
Three days ago she was brought here, to Avengers Tower in New York. Her nanny Marie knows them — she doesn't know why, but she suspects it's something to do with World War Two, when Marie sold her soul to the devil in exchange for immortality, in order to survive the raid of Nazis after Princess Marie of Belgium. Isabelle used to ask Marie all of the time, what happened in the olden days... It would always be thrown back with, "Just be grateful there aren't any of those bad men left."
Isabelle sits in one of the rooms. She woke up a few hours once she'd arrived, with a hazy recollection of how she made herself known to the Avengers: she had used the last of her energy to coerce one of the guards into stepping too close to the iron bars making up the door. Crocodile tears ran down her cheeks, and just like that, the man felt bad, the man moved too close — and Isabelle grabbed his collar through the bars, knocking him out and grabbing the keys in the process.
Because here's the thing: she knows she's different. Once upon a time her father sold his soul to the devil for a child, and he was given the devil's own daughter. And she knows that HYDRA know who she is, too — as soon as she opened her apartment door, and the man in black addressed her as Morningstar, she knew something bad was going to happen. She didn't expect being kidnapped by fucking HYDRA being that, but is anything really surprising when you can turn into a fucking bat?
So they knew her powers. They knew of the myth of Moroi Morningstar, of the daughter of the devil that was essentially a vampire, feeding off of energy instead of blood, and they tracked her down. Even if she could fight properly, they had the precautions in place already. The worst was the handcuffs, made of iron, that burned her wrists every time they brushed against her skin.
... OK. When she says if she could fight, she means this: she normally can't. Isabelle doesn't know what they've done to this room, but for forty days she could feel her energy dripping away, piece by piece. When she managed to get a hold of that man, she didn't know what she was doing. She thinks it was some sort of fight or flight reaction, her body desperate to take something's energy. Like, she's always been superhuman (you can't be the devil's daughter without some power) but she's never used it, save for getting onto the middle school cheerleading team, or running a little quicker to get to class on time. But in that moment — Isabelle used all of the Satan given strength she had, ignoring the way her skin burned as it brushed past the iron bars to grab the man's collar. She was going to escape.
She had ran down the hallway. She could hear shouts, she could see the red glow of Wanda Maximoff's magic, and she ran. I'm getting out of here, she told herself, even though she could feel the energy in her body on the brink. She was exhausted. She caught her reflection when she ran out, and she looked terrible. Her skin was ice-white, so pale her veins were bright blue. She doesn't remember what else happened; all she remembers is fading in and out of consciousness, and crashing to the floor, and Captain America saying to someone, "Is this who we're looking for?"
It actually upsets her a little, because Isabelle loves Captain America. She always thought he was super cool — and this has got nothing to do with Marie (if anything, Marie thinks it's weird) — and this is how she meets her hero? By fucking fainting? Like, look. Isabelle has some sick powers. She can turn into a bat. And her favourite superhero ever doesn't get to see any of that? Fucking tragic, isn't it?
Her nanny was with them, when they broke into the HYDRA fortress somewhere in Europe. Apparently it took Marie five minutes to realise Isabelle had been taken. "You had hidden your necklace, you never go a second without it," she had told her, as she handed back the necklace to Isabelle. "I knew something was wrong, and I saw the mess in the hallway, I saw the security cameras..." Marie had smiled when she got to this part. "And I stormed into Avengers Tower, and demanded they get my little girl back."
Isabelle had smiled softly. Her fingers clasped around the necklace's stone, missing it. She felt wrong without it for those forty days, but she didn't want the bad men to get it, so she hid it before they spotted it.
So now, she sits in the room she's been given for the time being, until she gets better, and she lets out a sigh. She doesn't want this. Sure, she loves Captain America, but she's never wanted to be a superhero. For years she's been told about what will happen to her, as the daughter of the devil, if angels' children realise where she is, and she can't help it, she's scared by that. They all think she's evil, when she's not... She can just turn into a bat... And run faster than a Olympic athlete... And take someone's energy...
There's a knock at the door. Isabelle thinks it's Marie with a suitcase of her clothes, or maybe even the FedEx guy with the stuff she ordered to here, desperate for some sort of clothing that doesn't have the Avengers logo on it. So she goes, "It's open!"
And then Captain America opens the door, and Isabelle frowns.
"Uh, hi?" she says. This is weird.
"I wanted to check you were OK," he says. "I was speaking to Marie, and..."
"I'm not becoming a superhero," she says quickly, and she hopes he was going to suggest something about that, or else this is super embarrassing. Could you imagine? He's here, trying to say something like, What do you want for lunch? And she's like I DON'T WANNA BE SUPER LEAVE ME ALONE!
He looks confused. He shrugs it off, sure, but he looks confused by the stubbornness in her voice, as she shakes her head. A little kid, grown up in the world of superheroes, refusing the offer of becoming one of them. Of helping the Avengers.
"If anything I'm glad," says Captain America. "Or else I would've had to give you this whole talk about why you shouldn't be a superhero..." He smiles. "You've done the work for me, kid."
Now she's confused.
Isabelle frowns. "Oh... OK..."
OK, look. Here's the deal. You can't tell someone like Izzy that it's a good thing they don't want to do something. If anything, it makes Izzy think, Fuck you, yeah I can do that!
"So what do you do, normally? You go to school, right?"
Isabelle nods. For years she's attended Mary Immaculate... And for years she's avoided every mass they've held at the school's church, because of this little problem called Isabelle will burst into flames.
"Yeah," she says. "I've missed a lot, though... But Marie was talking to school, because they all think I was kidnapped for some political reason—" He nods, because obviously he knows about her father, best defence lawyer in the country turned Senator. "—so they're cool with it... Apparently they're still gonna let me go on the school trip, which is the best thing."
"School trip?"
"Skiing in Sokovia," she says with a smile.
"I've never been," he says.
"You could chaperone the trip," she remarks, already beginning to laugh. "That would be interesting. Captain America looking after some kids in the snow..."
He smiles. "Call me Steve."
Isabelle's stunned. She's friends with Captain America?
She's told that she's got to stay in Avengers Tower, just for a week, just so they can all make sure that she's fine. She spends most of it texting her friends, a scholarship kid called Riley, and Nate, the son of a dead superhero. Her older brother Elijah turns up of the third day, too, unable to get a flight from Cambridge, Massachusetts any sooner. "Dad can't get out of Washington," he tells her when he arrives, giving her a hug. "But I can take you to Times Square for dinner! We can pretend to be tourists, t-shirts and everything."
The next few days go by slowly. It's made easier by her brother being around, sure, but it still feels like weeks are going by, and all she's doing is sitting around. Apparently there's an evil robot the Avengers have to stop, and because Marie helped them once upon a time ago, she's been roped into it again. Now, it's just Isabelle and Elijah hanging around.
"I don't get why you don't wanna be a superhero," says Elijah. They're playing The Sims on one of the computers. They're trying to make Trisha Paytas. (Izzy is, anyway.) "I'd wanna be one."
"Well I don't wanna be one," says Isabelle, frowning. The thing is this: Elijah's got a different mom to Isabelle (Isabelle's died minutes after she was born) and apparently it was her mom that couldn't have a baby. So Elijah's normal. Isabelle isn't. "I don't want the angels coming after me. You've seen the stories about saints. They're creepy."
Elijah shrugs. They start to make a mansion for Trisha Paytas in The Sims. "Well, surely if HYDRA knew who you were, the angels would?"
Isabelle goes still for a moment. Shit, that's a good point... She frowns at him, and he's not even paying that much attention. That's the infuriating part about her brother sometimes. He doesn't even know how fucking clever he is sometimes. There's a reason he stumbled into Harvard without even trying. (That, and their dad's money, and a Photoshopped picture of Elijah on a rowing team... But anyway.)
But Isabelle isn't becoming a superhero. She isn't. This is not a hero's story. This is the story of a girl finding her feet in the world. This is the story of a girl that sure, is sort of the devil's daughter, but she's more interested in the next Met Gala than anything hellish. This is the story of a girl who just wants to be that — a normal girl. This is not a hero's story.
She takes up boxing in the meantime. This is not a hero's story, sure, but she's paranoid about being taken again, so at least she can do something proactive. She starts to box (and she's pretty good) and she still cheers for her school, hoping she'll get onto the high school team. She goes shopping with her best friends every Saturday and she buys everything Riley can't afford, but looks fantastic in. She has sleepovers with her friends, to keep the apartment noisy whilst Marie's busy with secret evil-robot stuff. Elijah goes back to college and her dad visits, but doesn't stay for long. Izzy tries not to get upset about it... So instead she and Riley get their clothes sorted for the Sokovia trip.
Everything goes back to normal. And that's all that Isabelle wants. A life where her main concern is getting the new Louis Vuitton bag, or getting booked into a facial before she goes on the trip. (Her favourite's the vampire one... Mostly because she thinks it's funny.) Everything is going to be normal, because why wouldn't it be? Isabelle is a normal teenage girl.
Everything is going to be normal, she repeats to herself as they board the plane, the news speculating a battle in Sokovia including the Avengers. She gets a text from Marie: I love you lots. Stay safe. Xo. And Isabelle frowns, and fights back her anxieties, and puts her earphones in for the duration of the flight. Judas by Lady Gaga plays. It's on a playlist called Ironic Satan songs.
Everything's going fine. Everything will be normal. Isabelle steps off of the plane and nothing seems weird. The mountains are snowy, like they always are... The airport staff are ushering them off the plane, like they always do... They go through security, their passports being checked, like what always happens...
And then she sees the TV.
CITY IN THE AIR, says the news report. She sees the Avengers fighting off drones. She sees the twins from when she was kidnapped, the boy and girl that showed her kindness. She sees Captain America fighting, helping someone onto the evacuation carriers. She tries to think, this is not a hero's story, but she can't help but feel guilty.
She remembers what Marie said about the evil robot, Ultron, some dick that wants to exterminate mankind, but especially the Avengers, because they're monsters. She remembers her own powers, how when she takes someone's energy, she can match their power, their strength. She remembers the amount of time's she's been asked the question: "Why don't you want to be a superhero?" She remembers her brother's response. "Well, surely if HYDRA knew who you were, the angels would?"
She looks up at the TV again.
You want a monster? Try Morningstar.
"Cover for me," says Isabelle to Nate and Riley.
The next few minutes are a blur. One second she's grabbing the black Saint Laurent from her suitcase, and the next she's pushing open the bathroom window. She closes her eyes, holds onto her necklace for emotional support, and she gets going. She wills herself into a bat, and she bolts through the sky, towards the city. She checked on her phone, it's an hour and a half from here. Won't take long for a vampire fucking bat to get there.
She reaches the city as it's high in the sky. She spots the Avengers, spots Ultron, and speeds towards them.
"This is exactly what I wanted," says Ultron to the Avengers, his army of robots standing behind him, as he floats in the air. "All of you against all of me... How can you possible hope to stop me?"
Like that, Isabelle turns back from a bat, landing in front of Captain America and Thor. She hears Marie let out a gasp, and whisper something in Dutch, her native language. She looks up at Ultron in the sky, and she thinks, maybe this is a hero's story.
Isabelle smiles. "With me."
Right ok SO let me explain real quick: part one is more or less what Izzy's movie would be if there was one, if that makes sense? So a lot of it will be Izzy's own adventures and mysteries to solve, but it will take place in Civil War then Homecoming. This prologue is sort of the introduction to Izzy as a character, same to how she would be introduced in the MCU? If that makes sense lol