Chapter Text
The heavy downpour silenced the sound of her footsteps on the wet sidewalk. Dodging the blinding glare of the headlights, puddles splashing up and dirtying her converse, she dove into a back alley. She fished for a worn key with a Coke bottle cap keychain, pulled it out of her pocket and unlocked the inconspicuous black door in the middle of the red brick facade.
It opened with a creak, and she stepped into the stairwell, locking it behind her. She walked up the rundown stairs, one floor, then another, until she reached her destination: a stained wooden door with the number 3a attached in gold plated shapes, the faint glue residue left of it suggesting that there was indeed a number two before them.
Unlocking the doors and locking them again when she entered in a motion that had become almost robotic after so long — a flick of her wrist here, pointing her finger there, and the items moved on their own accord — she crossed the tiny entry, hung her jacket on the wall and made her way over to the kitchen. There was mail on the table. A scattered pile of utility bills, a membership renewal and two more official-looking letters she assumed were bank statements. Mrs May, the landlady, must've taken the liberty of delivering it to the apartment.
She went through the items one-by-one, barely taking a glimpse at the receiver's address. The water bill for an 'Olivia Greene' was tossed to the other side of the table, right next to the City National Bank statement addressed to a 'Julie Wilson'. 'Emma Allen''s New York Times landed right in the trash can, and 'Holly Baker''s gym membership renewal joined it quickly.
Then, when she moved a flyer from a local small business out of the way, her fingers froze, brushing over the little plastic window, eyes tracing the shape of each individual letter. Iris Lane.
Iris Lane didn't exist anymore. She had burned with the lab when the S.W.A.T. team stormed the facility where she was being held, along with tens of other children. Gone, buried under the Lillys and Annas and Juliettes and the rubble of the ceiling from when the first bomb went off.
"Come, Iris," said Dr Madigan, one of the head experimenters, and guided the little girl to a seat. They hooked her up to several machines, sticking electrodes to her head. "Do you see that woman?”
Iris nodded her head. The woman sat opposite her had a blindfold over her eyes, tape over her mouth and a glass of water in her hand.
“Good,” Dr Madigan continued. “Now can you tell her to drop the glass in her hand?”
She hesitated for a moment before nodding again. Dr Madigan hummed in approval, crossing her arms behind her back and taking a step backwards. Iris’s eyes fluttered shut, and she tried to drown out all other sounds around her. She focused on the woman’s presence, peeling through the layers of her brain until she reached what she was looking for – the motor cortex, and, with only a small struggle, she overrode her thoughts, pushing one to the front of her mind — drop the glass.
It shattered on the floor, water spilling over the sterile white tiles. “Very good, Iris.” Dr Madigan scribbled something onto her notepad. “Again.”
“That’s a nice apartment you have here,” a voice said from the corner of the room, and Iris turned around, startled. With a rapid flick of her wrist, the two chairs at the dining table lifted in the air in a sharp motion, hovering steadily. “Do you usually not open your mail?”
There, by the window, stood a dark-skinned man with an eyepatch over one eye. He was wearing a long coat and overall looked like he had just entered a hotel room and was taking a look around.
“Who are you?” Iris demanded, hands raised in preparation. She had locked both doors behind her when she came home, and unless he came through the window…
“You don’t know me,” he responded, hands casually in his pockets. “But I know you.”
Iris looked from the badge on his coat and then to the letter on her table. Both bore the same eagle emblem. She shook her head. “No. You know who Iris Lane is. If you’re looking for her, she’s been dead for years. I’m not the same girl that was in the project.”
The man’s gaze traveled to the chairs. “I may not know who you are, but I know what you are capable of. And I know who you’re running from.”
“Good,” an approving hum came from Dr Madigan who was pacing behind her. The room was starkly silent and Iris could hear every step that the woman made, but she had other things to focus on.
In front of her, floating steadily in the air, was a small red, blue and yellow ball, much like the ones that she and the other kids played with whenever they had free time. She concentrated on holding it steady in the air, her arm outstretched.
“Very good.” Iris looked away for a moment and the ball stuttered in its motion, dropping for an inch before it steadied when she turned her attention back to it. “Now raise it a little.”
She nodded and with a slow motion of her hand, the ball lifted higher in the air, languid and steady. The scratching of a pen against paper told her that she had done something right.
“No,” she shook her head. She wasn’t sure if the man was a threat, but she didn’t drop the chairs, prepared to act if necessary. “I’m not running from anyone.”
“Really? You’re not on the run?” He raised his eyebrows and casually took a step towards her kitchen counter, where he picked up a cup. She could tell he didn’t believe her, for not even a second. “So why are you hiding in this rat’s nest?”
Iris didn’t relent. “Who are you?” She asked again, more pointedly this time, and hoped he would realise that she didn’t take kindly to being messed with.
He pulled a business card from his breast pocket and handed it to her. “Nicholas J. Fury, director of SHIELD. You heard of it?”
“I can’t say I have,” Iris replied, eyeing suspiciously both the man and his business card.
He scoffed, making an exaggerated gesture of handing her the card again. “Put down the damn chairs, girl.”
Iris, with an expression on her face that could probably best be described as flabbergasted, slowly lowered the chairs back down to the floor. She reached out tentatively and took the business card. In small letters it said: ‘Nicholas J. Fury, director of SHIELD. Avengers Initiative.’
“Avengers Initiative?” Iris asked out loud. “What is that?”
“You know, you really should’ve read the letter,” Fury pointed out and took a seat at her dining table. She got the notion that this was a usual Saturday night for him. “We sent it three days ago.”
“Yeah, well, I wasn’t home,” Iris countered. Unbelievable, she thought — he was gentle-parenting her like a schoolgirl.
Fury hummed, unimpressed, and leaned back in his chair. “The Avengers Initiative is a project I created as a response team, comprised of the most remarkable individuals humankind has to offer.”
“And… what do I have to do with this?” Iris furrowed her eyebrows.
“Can I finish?” Fury cut her off. She nodded her head, and he continued. “We at SHIELD — Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division, by the way — designed it to defend the planet from global threats beyond military capability.”
Iris nodded along to his words. Global threats? As far as she was aware, the biggest threat around there was inflation and the housing crisis.
“… Which brings me to my point,” Fury stated. “I want you to join the Avengers Initiative.”
Her eyes went wide. “Me? You’ve got to be kidding, I… I’m not a spy, or a super agent or whatever the hell you’re looking for.”
“No,” he agreed. “You’re not. Thankfully, that’s not all I’m looking for.”
He pulled a small device from his pocket and placed it on the table’s surface. When he tapped the button on the side, it projected a small picture into the air and Iris realised it was a digital projector of some sort.
The first image it displayed was a file that, upon reading the information, Iris learned belonged to Natasha Romanoff, a former Black Widow. She skimmed her resume — master of martial arts, marksman, acrobat, spy, assassin…
Before she could finish reading the impressive list, the hologram flickered to introduce her to a Clint Barton, one of SHIELD’s special agents, and, something she soon deduced from the video that played, an impeccable archer.
The next picture was hard not to recognise. Tony Stark, in all his glory, his arms wide open as he announced to the world that he was Iron Man. She remembered seeing the video years ago, in much worse quality on Mrs May’s TV.
How could Fury possibly think she was on the same level with these people? She turned to look at him.
His eyes were already fixed on her, studying her reaction to the projection. With a quiet click, it turned off. “This, and much more. This is the Avengers Initiative.”
“I still don’t understand what this has to do with me,” Iris shook her head. “I mean, I’m not nearly as smart or capable or talented as them, and I don’t understand why you would want me, of all people, to join your organisation.”
Fury opened his mouth to give his explanation, but she cut him off, gesturing to the door. “I don’t know what you want from me. Listen, you can just leave now and find someone else to recruit. I can’t do this.”
He clearly took the hint that she wanted him gone, but Fury only seemed to relax more into the chair. “That is exactly what I thought you would say. Why do you think I’m here?”
“To try and get me to join your team,” Iris replied. “And it’s not working.”
He tutted. “Let me rephrase that, Miss Lane. Why do you think I’m here, and not in the house of some high-lever SHIELD agent or another Red Room spy? Why do you think I’m here, in your apartment in some random back alley and not in the mansion of another billionaire?”
Now to that, Iris didn’t have an answer. She stood there, in the middle of the room, hand still slightly raised in the direction of the door. “I…” She said. “I don’t know.”
“I’m here,” Fury stated and stood up, approaching her with slow, careful steps. “Because you possess a skill set that is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. You’re not an assassin, or an agent or an inventor — but you’re gifted, and I want you to use that gift for the good of humanity. Tactical skills can be taught, money can be earned, but this?” He glanced to the chairs that she had lifted before. “This is something entirely different. You’re special, Iris.”
Iris swallowed hard. She’d been called different many times before, though never with a positive connotation.
“Is it not working?” Dr Madigan consulted one of the lab staff that was fumbling with Iris’s electrodes. The intern shook his head, repeatedly checking the display on the computer as he applied them to the girl’s temples.
“No,” he said. “We can’t read her brain waves, or activity, or anything. We… we can’t access her mind anymore.”
“What?” Hissed Dr Madigan, and crouched down next to Iris. “Iris? What is it, why can’t we hear your thoughts?”
The little girl shrugged. How was she supposed to know that instead of turning into a weapon that could control other people, her brain had protected itself by not letting them know what she was thinking?
“Damn it,” the doctor cursed and stood up, checking the computer again — nothing. “What happened? We gave her the same treatment, the same exercises, why should she be different?”
Iris met director Fury’s eyes, a quiet determination in her own. He sensed it, and she could see his head tilt just slightly in an encouraging gesture.
“I…” She began unsurely, but her head tipped into a nod without a second thought. “I want to join.”
The Initiative wasn’t just a team of talented prospects that would defend Earth from intergalactic threats — it was an opportunity for her to prove herself, to escape the gutter she was hiding in and learn to harness her powers in a way that wasn’t hurting people.
Nick Fury’s lips quivered in an almost imperceptible smile. He stood and offered her a hand, which she shook eagerly. “Welcome to the Avengers Initiative.”