the new avengers initiative | applyfic [au]

chapter one: a burst of flames

THE NEW AVENGERS INITIATIVE
CHAPTER ONE: A BURST OF FLAMES

a/n: it hasn't been reflected in her form yet, but i decided to change petra's backstory a bit to further differentiate her from mcu peter and give more meaning to her relationship with Tony. it will mostly be revealed through backstories. thanks for your patience besties. (:
if you're enjoying the book so far, be sure to vote and comment, and follow me if you aren't already. happy reading!

PETRA HADN'T HEARD from Fury since that first day. Truthfully, she wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Fury disappearing usually only meant two things:

1.) He was tired and resting somewhere with his wife. Not likely. Petra was pretty sure they only did that only once every twenty years.

2.) The world was ending in another catastrophic event. Incredibly likely. This happened at least once a year.

But the way she saw it, if Fury hadn't come to find her yet, then things couldn't have been that bad. If anything, it just meant that the B Team was handling it. (Was calling S.H.I.E.L.D the B Team kind of rude? Probably, but oh well. Where were they when the world was crumbling? Where was S.H.I.E.L.D when Thanos was metaphorically fucking the world? Where was S.H.I.E.L.D when an alternate Norman Osborn was ripping everything away from her like Klaus Mikaelson ripping someone's heart from their chest? They'd barely even been there when the skrull attacked. Yeah, some agents they were.)

At this moment in time, Petra was sketching at the kitchen table. (May had once insisted that she take art classes as some form of 'balance.' Turned out, she liked it well enough. Or maybe she liked it because May was no longer here and she needed something to feel alive, either way.) She could see Liz from where she sat, and that seemed to translate into her art in that moment. Sleep Token's The Summoning blasted in her ear drums as the pencil scratched across the page, loving marks turned violent out of frustration. (J Orvis's version was good too, but she had always much preferred the original. Something about the heavy and angry guitar compared to the acoustic spoke more to her soul.) "Oh, and my looove, did I mistake you for a sign. From. Goood? Or are you really here to cast. Meee. off? Ooor maybe just to tuuurn. Me. Oooon? Caaauuse these. Days... I would be lyyyin if I told you. Thaaat... I didn't wish that I could. Beee your. Man.. Ooor maybe make a good. Giiirl. Bad." Petra found herself singing loudly along to her favorite verse of the song as she sketched. It wasn't like she had a bad singing voice or anything of the sort. (In fact, it was actually quite good) That didn't make this any less obnoxious though.

"I've got a river runnin right into yoouu. I've got a blood trail, red in the bluuue. Something you say or something you do, the taaaste ooof theee diviiine. You've got my booody, flesh aaand booone. The sky abooove, the Eeaarth belooow. Nothiiing to say and nowhere to gooo, the taaaste of theee divi-i-iiine." At some point, the sketch had been completely forgotten and there was just Petra and her air guitar and her favorite song. When she looked up again, it became abundantly clear that Liz had stopped whatever she was doing to look at Petra, something that she rarely did. Petra was sure that she could count on one hand the amount of times that she and Liz had made eye contact in the year that they'd lived across from each other. But Liz was smiling at her, and how she had missed that smile. Liz's smile was dazzling, the way her lips, as full and soft as rose petals, curved upwards to reveal perfect teeth, as bright as the stars themselves. Or maybe Liz was just something ethereal, the way her copper skin was almost golden in the sunlight this way, the loose tendrils of dark hair that swept across her forehead, the twinkle in her eyes that were nearly the color of the night sky.