Sweet Zoe Jane

Chapter 1 - Zoe's POV:

I sat in the old plastic blue chair and waited for my name to be called. I was growing rather impatient and tried to rub some of the sleep out of my eyes. How long did it take to see a doctor here? Seriously. I hate emergency rooms. Why bother having an emergency room if nobody is going to act like it's an emergency? I finally get fed up and march over to the nurses desk.

"Can I help you?" she asks me lazily.

"I'm trying to see a doctor, it really is an emergency," I say as I stand on my tip toes to see her clearly over the counter. She turns around and grabs a clipboard that has papers attached to it. She hands it to me.

"Have your guardian fill these out," she says in a monotone voice. I roll my eyes at her.

"Miss, that's kind of the problem," I say as I try to keep myself calm. Now was NOT a good time to loose control. She looks me over with a raised eyebrow.

"How old are you?"

"Four," I say calmly.

"So where are your parents? How did you get here?"

"I walked," I said, completely ignoring her first question as my hands started to shake.

"And your parents?" The nurse in the white jacket pressed.

"I think she's dead," I say quietly. She freezes and stares at me in shock. "Someone came in our house and my mommy told me to run so I went out the back door but then there was a really loud bang and I went back and my mommy was bleeding and we didn't have a phone so I came here," I finished with tears in my eyes. I blinked them back, though and clenched my hands into fists. Mommy had always told me to be strong.

"What about your dad?" The nurse says. I shrug.

"Never knew him," I dismiss. "I found this, though, before I came here," I showed the nurse a paper that had mine and my mommy's name on it as well as some others that I didn't recognize. The nurse took it and read it, and her face got even more pale. She folded the paper back up and gave it back to me and I tucked it back into my pocket. She got up and walked around the desk to me.

"Sweetheart," she says as she kneels down to my height. "I'm going to take you to get checked out in a back room and I'm going to call a friend of mine, okay? And they might have to ask you a couple questions but they're going to take care of you, okay?" I nodded as she stood up again and took my tiny hand in hers and led me to an empty room. She handed me a hospital nightdress and helped me change and left, closing the door behind her. I crawled on top of the bed and sat with my legs swinging over the edge. A little while later the nurse came in with a man. He was tall and had an eyepatch and he was scary looking. I shuffled on the bed nervously and refused to look straight in his eye. Well his good one anyway.

"This is Nick Fury, he's going to arrange for someone to take care of you, okay?" The nurse said to me. I glanced at her and then back at the floor. I nodded quickly. The man pulled out a phone and left the room. "What's you're name?"

"Zoe," I say. "Zoe Jane." The nurse smiles when I look up at her.

"That is a beautiful name," she says. I smile back at her. Then the tall man walks back in and looks at me before bending down to my size.

"I have a friend of mine that's going to come and pick you up," he says. For a tall scary man he had a calm and gentle voice. "His name is Clint. Clint Barton and he's on his way. He's going to look after you. Is that alright?"

"What if the bad guys come back for me?" I ask him as I pull out the note and give it to him. He reads the note and hands it back to me and holds my tiny hand in his gigantic one.

"Clint won't let that happen," he says as he looks me straight in the eye. With his one eye. I never talked to a man in an eyepatch before. "He will protect you." I nod and he straightens up before saying something to the nurse that I couldn't hear and the nurse nods and he leaves.

"Sweety, why don't you lie down for a little bit until Mr. Barton gets here?" She says as she pulls a blanket out of a closet behind her. I take the blanket with a nod and lay down on my side. She leaves and turns the light off but leaves the door open a tad. I focus on the light on the floor because my mind starts drifting back to seeing my mom on the ground all covered in blood. A tear slips down my cheek and I use the blanket to angrily brush it away. Before I could help it, my eyes close and I fall into a dark and deep sleep.