Chapter Text
The average human gains consciousness around the age of 2. The girl was consistently above average in everything she did, which includes gaining consciousness. She assumes that she had some sort of life before she became her present self, but her memory would make anyone think she started living around the age of 11.
The first thing she remembers are those strong arms she would grow so fond of, but then she was scared. She didn’t have enough energy to open her eyes, so her confusion took hold of her mind. Where was this person taking her? Who is this person? Where is she? Are they going to hurt her?
“It's okay. It's all going to be okay,” the voice calmed her thoughts as though it could read them. She was calm through the rest of the journey, all the way to the bed that the voice laid her in. Drifting in and out over what seemed like days, she heard multiple unrecognizable voices speaking about her.
“You should have seen it Tony, complete destruction all around her with her at the center untouched.”
“We should really try to find her parents.”
“Do not tell Fury about her. He doesn’t deserve another science experiment.”
“Finally another girl, thank god this isn’t a total boys club anymore.”
After what felt like a millennium, she woke up in a high-tech hospital room. Scared, she looked around to find a strange man sleeping in a chair next to her bed. What was he doing here? Was he here for her? Without moving an inch, the man spoke in a voice that she knew she could trust.
“We didn't think that you would ever wake up.” The man opened his eyes and sat up so the girl could get a good look at him. “Hi, I’m Steve. What’s your name?” The girl only stared at him. She didn’t know. “Do you know what your mom and dad's name are?” She didn’t know. “How old are you miss?” She didn’t know. “Can you speak?” She… could.
“...yes,” the girl said in the largest voice she could muster.
“Good,” Steve replied with a small smile. “Now are you sure that you don’t know your name?”
The girl nodded letting Steve know he was working with a completely blank slate.
“Do you want to choose your name?” The girl beamed at that opportunity. She looked around the room that had a perfectly manicured bouquet at the foot of the bed. In that bouquet was one lone purple flower.
“Purple.” The girl decided while pointing at the flower that inspired her. Her name was Purple now. Steve laughed at this. He knew he needed to help her along so she wouldn't regret that name later in life.
“How about Violet? It still means purple,” Steve said hoping to sway the little girl that decided her name was Purple.
“Okay. Hi, I’m Violet,” the little girl said as she offered her hand to Steve to shake it. Steve shook it without knowing the unspoken implications it came with. Steve and Violet would become inseparable. He would have to adopt her after months of not being able to find her parents, who most likely were lost during the Battle of New York. She would become his number 1 priority. He hated to do it, but she had to be sent away to a boarding school to keep her safe from Steve’s line of work.
During the fall of SHIELD, Violet got countless detentions for never getting off her phone. How could she not be on it? Her father was a fugitive of SHIELD. After everything recovered from the fall of SHIELD, Violet made Steve promise not to send her halfway around the world to ‘protect’ her. She could very easily protect herself. Steve agreed cause he knew if he sent her away again, he'd be hurting more people than he’d be saving. Vi is a force to be reckoned with after all.
Steve and Violet did what they thought they would never be able to do, they lived together like they were a normal family. They did this until Vi had an incident at school during the Ultron situation. Despite her being physically closer to Steve, her worrying for him never stopped, which led to the earthquake she caused the day Sokovia fell out of the sky. Luckily, her reputation was saved by local authorities who blamed it on the impact of the rubble from the flying city. None of the students saw her eyes glowing, for their eyes were glued to the TVs as they watched the city the Avengers were in fall from the sky. They had to pull her out of public school for the safety of the other students.
She couldn’t go back to being the outcast of her family. She trained hard to get keep control of her emotions 24/7. Nat taught her to keep calm during a fight, Bruce gave her all of his meditation tricks, and Steve helped her through it all by being the steady guiding light he has been for her. After months of getting herself back under control, Violet knew she was ready to go back to being a ‘normal’ teenager, but this time she needed a bit more of a challenge. She was taught countless things one-on-one by two of the greatest minds to ever live. A regular public school wasn’t going to cut it, she needed a “smarty pants” school as Tony called it. She needed a tech school and she got one. She got exactly what she wanted and more. She was getting to be a ‘normal’ teenager.
...
"What the fuck, Steve?"
"Hey! Language, young lady!"
It had been about a month since Violet had moved back in with Steve to go back to school and be a ‘regular’ teenager. The thing was, neither of them quite remembered or knew what being a ‘regular’ teenager meant. Steve had made Violet peanut butter cookies as a treat to celebrate her first day of school tomorrow. However, there was a slight problem with the cookies he had made. Violet had been the one to move into the kitchen and, as a prank, put salt in the sugar jar. However, the prank did not work to her advantage and got a mouthful of an extra salty peanut butter cookie.
"I have to admit, this is my fault. I thought switching the salt for the sugar would be funny,” Violet confessed to Steve’s dismay. “We should probably scrap these,” she said, gesturing to the cookies. “They’re only good if you want to overdose on sodium.”
“Violet, I spent an hour making these. I need reparations in the form of a noogie.” Steve then proceeded to playfully wrestle with her. Steve didn’t really care about the cookies; he just wanted her to be happy, but he did need revenge.
Violet had been combat training with Aunt Nat lately, so she lasted long enough to mess up his hair before he put her in a chokehold and began to give her a noogie.
"Uncle, Uncle!" Violet cried as she surrendered and admitted her defeat. Steve let her go, only to turn her around and pull her into a hug.
"I love you, kid. You know that right?"
"Yeah, I know. I love you too, Steve."
"Well, it's late. You should get ready for bed. You have an early morning tomorrow. Don't want to be late for the first day of school," He said as they pulled away from the hug.
"Yeah, I really should get to bed. I want to look good for all the boys tomorrow," Violet said as she teased Steve. He frowned.
"I better not be hearing about any boys until you are at least 50, young lady. You hear me? 50!" he exclaimed as Violet walked out of the room cackling because she loved Steve's reactions to her teasing him. She did end up going to bed eventually, but only as the clocks began to turn to 2 AM. She was just too excited to start her first day back at school. Midtown Tech did not know what was coming to them.
...
"Violet! You have to get up and ready for your first day of school," Steve said as he began to walk to Violet's room. Little did Steve know that Violet had been up for an hour now and was cooking pancakes in the kitchen for the both of them. "Violet Ruby Rogers, are you cooking?"
"Believe it or not, Steven Grant Rogers, I can do nice things for people every once in a while," Violet said to shut him up.
"Are you excited for your first day back to school?" Steve said, genuinely curious.
"Yeah, actually I really am. I think that this was a great idea. As much as I like to hang out with you old man, I do actually want friends my own age and a high school diploma. My connection to Tony Stark isn't going to get me everywhere in life. Some things I need to do without the benefit of nepotism."
"Well alright then," Steve said with a satisfied smile on his face. "Now give me some of those pancakes. I'm starving." Violet and Steve continued to eat in silence and cleaned up in that same comfortable silence. Violet went back into her room to make sure that she was fully ready for school. She was about to leave when she checked her outfit out one more time to make sure she liked it. Her maroon tent dress matched perfectly with her Doc Martens and gold jewelry. The fresh black manicure she had gotten with Wanda helped to tie the entire outfit together.
"You got this," Violet said to herself as she left her room. Steve hugged her and gave her words of encouragement as she walked out of the door to go to school. She walked the whole way to school with her head held high, breathing in the ’fresh’ New York City morning. As she walked up the front steps of Midtown Tech, she checked her phone to make sure she was at least 30 minutes early. Her heart dropped when she saw that she was only 25 minutes early. She ran to the office to pick up her schedule to make sure she could map out her entire day before her first-period class.
She had plenty of time to map her entire day and even got to her first-period class ten minutes before it started. Only one other person was there and it wasn't even the teacher. She saw the seating chart displayed on the board and sat in her seat. She and the other girl were sat at other ends of the classroom, which made Violet's plan to become friends with her next to impossible. To mask the awkwardness of the situation, she pulled out a book and started to read.
"What are you reading, Violet Rogers?" the mysterious girl asked.
"Umm, The Stand by Stephen King. How do you know my name?"
"That's a good book. I read that a few months ago, just some light reading. And you're sitting in Violet Rogers' seat on the seating chart," the girl explained. Violet looked at the chart and realized how easy it was going to be to remember everyone's name once they came into class. She made a mental note of the name of the girl.
"Well, Michelle Jones, what are you reading?" Violet questioned.
"The Painted Veil," Michelle quickly said.
"W. Somerset Maugham? That's some heavy stuff. Have you ever read Of Human Bondage?"
"I haven't yet, but that's next on my list. Have you read it?" She said this with a look of slight surprise on her face. Michelle hadn't expected her to know any of Maugham's work. Violet had the perk, however, to be adopted by a fossil.
"I read it a few months ago. I really liked it," Violet said, hoping Michelle would continue the conversation. They sat in silence for a minute before Michelle finally spoke up.
"Do you want some good book recommendations? I can give you some and we can talk about books sometimes," Michelle was very tense when she said this, so Violet knew that she was as nervous about this as she was.
"Yeah, I would really like that. I can give you my number," she said with a smile and gave Michelle her number. Violet was pleased with herself that she had already gained a friend and it wasn't even technically first period yet. The girls then sat in silence as the rest of the students shuffled to the class.
...
"Betty Brant?"
"Here," Betty answered the teacher's roll call.
"Emily Check?" Violet started to zone out knowing that she had some time before her name was called. She started to fantasize about the guy that sat next to her. His wavy, brown hair made her swoon. She had to make sure she wasn't looking at him or else he would think she was weird.
"Here," she felt the handsome boy say next to her. Damn, she thought. I forgot to catch his name.
"Violet Rogers?"
"Here," Violet said, making sure her voice didn't falter. She didn't want to be the person whose voice cracked on their first-day roll call.
"Rogers?" she felt the boy's voice whisper next to her. "Any relation to Captain America, Steve Rogers?" That's when Violet began to panic. What was she supposed to say? Yes? She decided to go with the prescribed answer she and Steve had come up with to protect her.
"Yeah, that would be funny wouldn't it?" Violet chuckled in a whisper not making eye contact with the boy next to her. She was kicking herself in her head. She had been so caught up in fantasizing about this boy that she forgot to catch his name from the seating chart.
"Alright class," the teacher's voice boomed. "I am your first-period chemistry teacher, Mr. Harrington. Instead of going over the syllabus and being a boring teacher, we're going to be doing class icebreakers!" Oh no , Violet thought, I'm going to actually talk to this kid. This is not going to go well.
"You guys should get to know who your partners are since you guys are going to be lab partners!" Violet zoned out for the rest of Mr. Harrington's presentation on how to do the ice breakers; she was freaking out.
"Alright guys, get to it!" Violet turned to face the boy who was to her left. As she turned, she saw his crooked smile look at her.
"So where do you think that we should start?" the boy said, looking at Violet curiously.
"The beginning, most likely. I wasn't paying attention to most of what he was saying," Violet confessed.
"Well, I'm cool with the beginning. How about introducing ourselves? Hi, I'm Peter Parker," he said, holding out his hand for Violet to shake.
"Hi," Violet said confidently. "I'm Violet Rogers."
"And no relation to Steve Rogers, right?" he asked coyly.
"As I said, it would be cool, but nope. We just share the same last name." She really didn't want to lie to Peter, but she knew that if she told him, it would quickly spread around the whole school and there goes her normal high school experience.
"Cool, cool, cool, well we should probably start on this ice breaker packet."
"Yeah, probably should," Violet said as she grabbed it looking for the directions. There was a list of a bunch of questions that seemed as if they were in an article called, “Top 25 Questions to Ask on a First Date”. “These questions look like stuff you would ask on a first date. What’s your biggest pet peeve? If you could have any superpower, which would you choose? What did you study in school?”
“Aren’t we still in school? This is a high school right?” Peter said, beginning to question reality.
“Yeah, we are. Hold on, I’m checking something,” Violet said as she looked up the article title she thought these questions would be on. Her suspicions were confirmed as she found an article that had the same questions in the same order. “Wait, bro. These are the same questions in the same order.”
Peter took the phone and started scrolling through the article while looking back at the packet.
“I wish I could say this is surprise, but with Mr. Harrington, you never know what he’s going to do or say,” Peter said, hoping to justify one of his favorite teacher’s behavior.
“Oh, a wild card. I’m guessing this won’t be a first period I’ll fall asleep in.” Violet would never fall asleep in class, but she is trying to relate to the youths she’s supposed to be a part of.
“No, it’s never a dull moment with him. So, what is your biggest pet peeve?” Peter said, trying to keep their conversation on topic because Mr. Harrington was starting to make his rounds to make sure the class was talking about what was on the packet.
“Pens that aren’t being used, but their tip is out. There is just something about it that bothers me. I guess that I think they’re drying out and they won’t work anymore, but I could never tell you exactly why I hate it,” she said. This was a sore spot for her because the entirety of the Avengers never caps their pens. Steve was the only one that started to cap his pens for Violet’s sanity. “What about you?”
“I hate it when people mispronounce words. In my head, it’s really not that hard to correctly guess the pronunciation of anemone, but I guess not even a fish that lives in them can pronounce it.”
“Nemo must have been really difficult for you to watch.”
“It was. No one ever understands. Thank you.”
“Oh, I never said I understood.”
“Wha-“
“Oh my god, Peter, I’m kidding. It was just funny watching you get so passionate about your hatred of a fictional, animated fish.”
“Oh,” Peter said. He hadn’t really thought it was funny, his hatred for this fish was deep seeded. He couldn’t remember the full details, but he does remember pooping his pants as a six-year-old when he saw the barracuda that killed Nemo’s mom. From that point, he decided to hold nothing but hate for Nemo. “We don’t have to talk about why I hate this fish. Let’s go to the next question. If you could have a superpower, what would you have?”
Still reeling from how fast Peter switched the conversation topic, Violet was disoriented by his question. She already had the superpower she wanted, but there was one person’s power she was always envious of.
“I would want Wanda Maximoff’s powers. Her telekinesis and mind manipulation are really cool. She’s also my favorite Avenger, so I feel like I have to choose her powers by default,” she said. When she and Wanda would spar, Wanda always won, so she felt that Wanda’s powers were cooler than hers.
“I would want super intelligence,” Peter blurted out as soon as Violet was finished. He didn’t want to interrupt her, but it was something he was really passionate about. “If I had super intelligence, can you even think of how many things I could invent to better the world? We could solve climate change, probably solve world hunger, and just make the world a better place.”
Woah, this kid is more optimistic than Steve on a sunny day, she thought.
“So basically you want to show up Tony Stark?” said Violet.
“That sounds like something Tony Stark would say. Wait, are you related to Tony Stark instead of Steve Rogers? Wow, I would have never guessed until you revealed yourself. You’ve really messed up now,” Peter teased with a smile Violet could only describe as cheeky.
The two teenagers joked for the rest of the period. As the bell rang, Violet did something she never knew she had the guts to do.
"It was really nice talking to you, maybe we can exchange some homework answers sometimes. What's your number?" For the first time, Peter looked like he was the nervous one. A pretty girl had never asked for his number before, even if it was just for homework.
"Oh, yeah, definitely. Well, um, my number is xxx-xxx-xxxx," Peter said, stumbling over his words as she put his number in her phone.
"Well, see you around Parker," Violet said as she walked out of the classroom door. Peter was left standing in the middle of the classroom, watching her leave.
"Holy shit, who was that?" Peter's best friend, Ned Leeds asked him.
"Violet Rogers, who just rocked my world."