Chapter Text
Natalia Stark sat alone in the corner of a completely empty coffee shop, sipping her skinny chai latte. She was, of course, dressed in the cutest outfit money could buy, her long, curly, black hair pulled into a ponytail.
“Need anything else, Ms. Stark?”
Natalia glanced up and saw one of the baristas peering down at her. She shook her head and he left her be, enjoying the coffee shop that she had someone clear out so she could be alone. After the barista went back into the kitchen, she heard the clamor of metal followed by a thud. She thought nothing of it, especially considering the workers were rather incompetent in her eyes.
It wasn’t until she heard another barista panic followed by a silence and then a thud that she began to worry. She set her mug down and stood up, walking quietly to the doors of the kitchen and peered through one of the windows. There, standing over the bodies of the baristas, was a rather large man who was clad in all black clothing, his shoulders heaving from the physical exertion of taking down five people.
Natalia began to slowly back away when she bumped into someone’s chest and their arms were wrapped around her a second later.
“Goin’ somewhere, beautiful?” the man snarled and Natalia began to panic.
“Get your hands off me!” she struggled, succeeding in stomping on the man’s foot with her heel. The man yelped but tightened his grip on her, squeezing in an attempt to punish her for what she did.
“Can you hurry up and knock this bitch out already?”
At this, Natalia struggled harder and began screaming. She bit the man’s arm, but to no avail. The other man exited the kitchen, a soaked cloth of some sort in his hand. He pressed the cloth to her mouth and slowly but surely, everything went black.
When Natalia woke up, she was strapped down to a table, unable to move. She struggled all that she could but to no avail.
“Ah, my little pet has woken up,” a masculine voice snarled. Natalia’s eyes were finally able to focus and she took note of a man of average height with brown hair and bright green eyes. “Allow me to introduce myself, my dear. I am Dr. Wire, an experimental doctor who specializes in chemicals. To be more specific, the kind of chemicals that are intended to enhance and create the next evolution of human beings. What we’re going to do to you is give you an injection and run you through a few tests.”
“Why? Why me?”
Dr. Wire chuckled. “Why not you, dear?”
He stepped forward and, without warning, injected her with a clear substance, causing Natalia to scream in pain and flinch. She could feel her heart rate increasing as she began to panic.
“Quickly! Begin the first test!”
At this, two men unstrapped her from the table and yanked her up, dragging her across the dimly lit room and throwing her into a glass chamber that closed around her. Natalia pounded on the glass as hard as she could as the tank began to quickly fill with water. In a second, the water was up to her waist, then her chest, then her neck. Natalia screamed as the water began to close in on her face, crying as she finally took a deep breath and tried to stay alive.
The last thing she remembered was swallowing water, followed by nothing.
In the following days, the tests were increasingly more relentless. Natalia was left in a burning room, put into a tank that restricted her oxygen, shocked repeatedly, and even beaten. She sat curled up in a ball in the corner of the room that she’d been held in, tensing and un-tensing her muscles, unable to sit still and calm herself.
“Rise and shine my darling,” Wire drawled.
“Why.”
“Well, you’re the only subject that’s lived so far. You’ve got to be close to your breaking point.”
“Is that your goal? To kill me? Why? What did I do to deserve this?”
“Oh, sweetheart,” Wire chuckled, crouching down next to her and grabbing her face with a hand. “You were born.”
He let go of Natalia’s face and two of his men stepped forward, snatching her off the ground and dragging her towards the room she was given the injection.
“Let’s cut you open and see what changes we can make, shall we?”
Natalia struggled and screamed, dragging her feet in an attempt to slow the two men down but they simply picked her up and continued on. Natalia struggled harder, kicking and flailing, even sticking her legs out in an attempt to keep them from going through the door but to no avail.
Suddenly, Natalia felt a surge of power followed by a small stinging sensation. Without thinking, she flexed her hands and caused the two men who were carrying her to drop dead. She fell to the floor, breathing heavily and crying, not knowing what happened or why.
“Excellent! I knew it was just a matter of time before you unlocked your potential!”
Gunshots followed after Wire finished his sentence and he drew a pistol from his pocket. He tsked and shook his head, staring at Natalia.
“Well that won’t do now, will it?”
He grabbed her arm and pulled her to her feet, dragging the young girl out of the room. Natalia struggled but couldn’t figure out exactly how her new powers worked, which led her to follow the doctor as he led her to an exit. Natalia called out for help, hoping that whoever was in the lab would hear her and find them. They rounded a corner and were met with a locked door that the doctor promptly began to unlock, keeping his gun trained on Natalia so she wouldn’t try to run off.
“May I ask exactly where you think you’re going with my daughter?” a voice projected from behind them. Dr. Wire immediately grabbed Natalia, pulling an arm behind her back and pressing his gun to her temple.
“Now now, Mr. Stark. No one has to get hurt here.”
“I beg to differ,” Tony said, extending an arm of his suit. “Let my daughter go and I won’t have to kick your ass.”
It was then that Natalia felt the same surge of power again and she ground her teeth, wincing in pain and groaning.
“What the hell did you do to her?”
“Well, we were finding out before we very rudely interrupted.”
It’s all about your thoughts .
Think and then act .
Following the advice from an unknown source, Natalia carefully channeled her thoughts, feeling her hands heat up slightly as she raised her free hand to Wire’s head and pulled the air as hard as she could. The scientist dropped to the floor dead and Natalia collapsed, her shoulders heaving as she began to sob.
“It’s okay, I got you,” Tony comforted her as he scooped her up off the ground. “Rhodey, Wanda, I’ve got her. Let’s get going.”
Natalia sobbed harder, clinging to her father as tightly as she could, her breathing becoming more and more irregular and she began to endure a panic attack. And without another thought, she passed out again.