Stark's Shadow

Chapter 3 - That Could've Gone... Better

"Good afternoon," The calm voice replies, "The tower is under attack."

"Please tell me this is a bad joke," I groan, "My head hurt too much to fight, Jarvis!"

"What is happening?" Wanda asks, waking up.

"Tower under attack," I tell her

"Let's go, then,"

"I can't do anything," I say, stopping Wanda, "I'll get in the way. I can't fight."

"You can't use your powers?"

"How did you know I have powers?" I ask, feeling panicked.

"I can read minds," Wanda explains, "You think about that a lot."

"Oh,"

"Yeah," She smiles, "Let's go,"

Wanda and I run into the shared living room, her fists red with magic, as I pull the shadows into a weapon I can use.

"What the fuck?" I hear someone say, I look over and see Bucky staring at us.

"What?" I ask, "Where's the attacker? Why are you so calm?"

"Oh, right," Bucky says with a tight smile, trying to hide his amusement, "Tony was just testing the alarm. He said it wasn't to wake you two up, but I also heard him complaining you slept past noon."

"I'm going to kill him,"

"Kill who?" Tony walks in, then looks at Wanda and me, "Woah,"

"Surprise," I say doing jazz hands.

"What's with all the, what even is this? Magic?" Tony asks.

"Something like that," I gesture for Tony to sit, "I have been meaning to explain, I was hoping to do so differently, but I guess there's no time like the present!"

Tony sits down. Wanda and Bucky sit with us. I don't call for the whole team because I know I can't handle that many people looking at me at once. I start telling my story, or what I remember of it. The kidnapping, then little bits of the pain I felt while I was, well, I'm not sure where. I remember experiments; on me and lots of darkness. But the story truly began after I escaped. I remember the violently bright lights of the room going out, lots of shouting, then the tug in my stomach; then I appeared in a dark alleyway.

"I remember that part," Tony says hardly above a whisper. I could tell he was piecing things together, "You moved through shadows?"

"Yes," I respond. Tony gives me a nod, and I continue.

I hadn't known what happened at first, and it kept happening. I spent about a year just vanishing into the shadows, I spent that year terrified of the dark. I never quite got over that. Slowly I began to learn to control the shadow teleporting. I got to finally figure out how to get home, I couldn't travel the whole distance, I'd die of exhaustion. I could do little bits at a time, but I had to hide from people wherever I went, I knew I wasn't safe. I had found a tracking device in me, but it was close to a major artery so I didn't want to risk cutting it out myself. I had a memory of what happened when another girl tried that. It was horrific. So I spent lots of time hiding. Eventually, I found a doctor to remove the tracker. By then I had discovered a lot more. I could solidify shadows, which was useful for when I had gotten tracked down. I can turn a person's shadow into a physical being, almost like in Peter Pan, except the shadow was solid and able to move wherever like a human. I could phase into shadows, still seeing what is going on and move within the shadows, but unable to be seen. I met someone who called what I do shadow magic, which was fair, it was something like that.

"So, is that like the dark arts?" Bucky asks, "Like what they did in those wizard movies the spider-kid made Steve and I watch?"

"No," I say, "This isn't evil. Darkness doesn't equate to evil, just like light doesn't mean something is pure or good."

Bucky nods, "Makes sense,"

"What else can you do?" Wanda prompts, which gives me a feeling she's reading my racing mind.

"When I phase into shadows, I can move faster than I can out of the shadows, and dark telekinesis, which is just like regular telekinesis but whatever I'm moving is surrounded in shadows," I respond, "It took a long time to learn all I learned, so I can't promise there isn't more than I have yet to learn,"

"Naturally," Wanda says, "You can never be sure of anything in life,"

"I'll let you all know if I discover anything else,"

Slowly the conversation fades away, and we all go off to do nothing else. I find a few people and inform them of my abilities, just without whole the story. I manage to cover the fact I hadn't mentioned it sooner saying I wanted to be sure I could trust everyone would believe that just because I had dark magic that I wasn't evil.

I went back to my room after catching everyone up. It was past midnight at this point, and I still felt like shit from the night before, so I just went to bed.

A/N: Sorry this chapter wasn't my best, I'm tired but I didn't want to make Olive carry that secret, I'm trying to make this a happier fic, no deep dark secrets. I hope you all enjoyed it!

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