Chapter Text
Lydia's P.O.V
I didn't know who or what I was before Sokovia got destroyed. I had spent the last years in captivity at a lab, if you can call that place a lab at all. I would be tested every single day. They called me a 'banshee', but the word made no sense in my mind. I had read about them but I always believed it was a myth.
Banshees scream as they feel death near them. Our cry is loud enough to crack and break glass; and it also stuns anyone around us. The celd I was at had been made 'banshee-proof', so I wouldn't be able to run away.
They would never touch me without leather gloves; at first, I couldn't figure out why, but it made sense after I tried to grab one of the so-called doctors' arm. Images of his entire life came to my head, making it hurt. After that, nobody touched me again without using some kind of protection.
Then, it all changed. Before the lab got utterly smashed, someone took me out of there. I would scream non-stop, as I could feel death all over the place. I was exhausted and in so much pain I could barely see anything. My own cry was making my brain hurt.
And then, he showed up. I hadn't seen him before. He was wearing some sort of costume and holding a shield. He carried me in his arms and I gently touched his face, which was bleeding a bit, as he was wounded.
The images came to my head as a storm: he used to live in Brooklyn. He joined the army and a scientist ran an experiment on him. He became a superhero. I got an image of him, watching somebody fall from a train. Even though he had been called 'Captain America', his real name was Steve.
"Steve...", I mumbled. He looked at me, confused. Right after that, I passed out.
When I woke up, I was in a hospital bed. Only... this place wasn't a hospital. It looked like a lab. I was about to scream, not because I felt death, but because I was terrified. There's a small difference between the cry a banshee makes when she is in control of herself (though we never are in control of ourselves) and the one she makes when she's just a scared girl. But before I opened my mouth, a stranger came close to me.
"Ssssh, Lydia. It's okay. You are okay now. You are safe", he said gently. He was in his early 40's. He had black hair, with few white strikes, and was wearing a pair of glasses.
I looked at him, not sure whether to trust him or not.
"Where am I?. Who are you?", I asked slowly.
"You are in New York. Lydia... we... We've seen the files they had in Sokovia. We are not 100% sure of what a 'banshee' is, but if you could tell us... Then, maybe, we could help you", he explained softly. "I'm... I'm Bruce. Dr. Bruce Banner. I wish I could reach my hand out to you, but I'm afraid of what you might see...", he sighed. He seemed sad.
"Let me see...", my voice sounded fragile and weak. "I haven't been able to make a choice of my own in a very long time, please... let me see. Whatever it is, it can't be any worse than what I felt in Sokovia".
Bruce looked at someone. I rejoined in the bed and looked around. We weren't alone in the room. There was plenty of people: Steve, another dark-haired man, a red-haired woman, a tall blonde guy with strange clothing and someone or something that looked as an android but at the same time, had some sort of humanity in him. They were all staring at me.
Bruce and the dark-haired man looked at each other.
"Please... I need to see...", I begged.
"It's too dangerous...", Steve said. "Lydia... how much of people's lives can you see?".
"I'm not sure... I have only seen yours and pieces from one of the doctors' while I was captive", I replied.
Back then, I wasn't sure how I was even able to do that.
"What did you see when you touched Steve?", the woman asked.
"I saw who he was... and who he became", I said, trying to remember. I looked at Steve "The serum... It changed you. And you... you have lost someone you cared about...".
Steve's face went pale as he looked right back at the woman. I don't know why, but for some reason, I felt it was something Steve hadn't told anyone about.
The blonde guy came closer. He was really big and he scared me a little. But the look on his face seemed gentle.
"Maybe her power only works on mortals. Let me try", he said as he looked at the others.
Mortals? Where was I and who were these people? I swallowed and looked at them. If they wanted me dead, they would have killed me back in Sokovia.
"May I?", he asked and offered me his hand. I looked at it and nodded, before grabbing it gently.
He wasn't even human. He was a demi-god. Thor Odinson. He had fallen in love with a human, named Jane. Most of the images I got were from her, but there was someone else. A green-eyed man. The word 'brother' was floating around, inside my mind. Loki. He was the God of Mischief. He had tried to destroy the entire city but Thor stopped him, alongside with everyone else in that room, except for the android. One of them... nearly died. The man Bruce had been looking at.
"You are Thor Odinson, brother of Loki...", I mumbled and I looked at him. His blue eyes were widely open. I looked at the dark-haired man "And you... you almost died, trying to save this city...", I said to him.
Then again, the room was filled in with silence.
"If she can see through a demi-god's life, then she can see through us all", the android said. He came to me and touched my face before I had the chance to do or say anything. He had been created from a vision, and that was his name. He defeated the creature that destroyed Sokovia.
That was all I saw and all I could explain.
"The more damaged we are, the more you see...", Vision said.
One by one, they came and let me touch them. I saw the horror from the past many of them had been through. I saw Tony's experiences with death, Natasha's past and her attempts to redeem herself and I saw Bruce. The Hulk. He didn't show me this himself, but Natasha did, as she had strong feelings for him.
That's how I met The Avengers.
I told them who I was and what I could do. They already knew most of it, from my files. We were still trying to figure out the part of me that could see into people's lives. The doctors assumed it was part of my nature. An extremely weird part.
S.H.I.E.L.D recruited me, as they said my skills could come in handy. From what I had seen, I knew what S.H.I.E.L.D once was, and what it had become after what seemed WW III. I was moved into the compound, where most of them lived, except for Tony, who had his own house. When I first arrived, I saw a familiar face.
"Wanda...", I said.
"Lydia!. Oh God... I thought you were dead!. Why didn't anyone tell me she was alive!?", she asked in anger and hugged me tight. I saw her brother. Pietro had died saving one of the Avengers. By the time she let go off me, there were tears in her eyes.
"You know her?", Steve asked.
"Yes!. She was in the same lab Pietro and I were. But, she didn't volunteer to become an enhanced one. She was captured. She was born with these skills, unlike the rest of us", Wanda explained and turned her face to me "If I had known you were alive...", she said and I held her hand. There was not much more left to see.
"You couldn't have known... It's okay... I'm sorry, Wanda", I said and she knew exactly what I was talking about.
"Nobody is going to hurt you now, Lydia. We promise...", she said. I looked around and found the whole group nodding.
For once, I felt like I belonged somewhere.