Beautiful Ruins

Chapter 3

"She's going to kill me" a voice says distantly, I blink seeing a bright light that makes me shut my eyes immediately.

"Relax, Peter, she won't hurt you" a voice says, I don't know this voice, but it sounds like a man. Of course Peter was the first voice, that makes sense.

All the events come flooding back to me and I remember Peter drugging me after revealing he was working with the avengers. My heart begins to race, am I in Stark Towers? The mission I was sent on literally sent me to the perfect place for Peter to kidnap me.

I can feel restraints against my wrists and ankles, not that it matters much. There's no way I'd be able to escape from Stark Towers, all the avengers live here as well as probably half of shield and possibly Nick Fury.

"I kidnapped her, she's going to seek revenge" Peter says, I'm restrained down and he's still afraid of me? I guess I am the better fighter. Normally I would seek revenge but I'm smart enough to know I can't do anything here without risking having to go up against all of the avengers. "I kidnapped someone" Peter says quietly.

I open my eyes, glancing around. It looks like I'm in a hospital room, I look around and frown as I see several avengers. Steve Rogers, Tony Stark, Natasha Romanoff, and Bruce Banner are all sitting in chairs. Peter Parker is standing in the corner, looking afraid. His eyes meet mine and he quickly looks away from me.

I don't say anything, not wanting to be the first one to speak. Steve wordlessly undoes the restraints, sitting back down when he's finished. "Your powers won't work here." Even if they did, I'm still no match for the four of them.

"You fooled everyone" I say to Peter, who's still refusing to look at me. Magneto's favourite was a spy all along, I might've had suspicions, but I never, ever considered the possibility he was working with the avengers.

"I wasn't-"

"Peter, do you mind leaving for a while?" Natasha asks, interrupting him. Peter practically runs out of the room. I raise an eyebrow, I had no idea he was that scared of me, if I hadn't been kidnapped, I'd probably be laughing.

"No matter what you do, I-"

"We don't torture children, so you don't need to worry about that" Bruce Banner interrupts. I'm not a child. I guess they can't really call themselves heroes if they're torturing people for information.

"What do you know about your parents?" Steve asks, I turn to face him. Do they know about my mission? If I found out someone was planning to kill me, I would kill them before they had the chance.

"My parents?" I ask, realising what he asked. "Nothing, Mystique raised me." Sometimes the easiest way to get information is by giving little pieces of harmless information, it can make people lower their guards.

"Yes, but she's not your biological mother" Steve says, looking at me. I look away. Tony and Natasha haven't said anything, and both aren't making eye contact with me. They both look shaken, like they've received surprising news.

"Obviously" I reply, if she was I'd be able to shapeshift. Besides, she was born with her powers, I got mine through experiments. My speed and strength were always above average, but I wasn't born with any other powers.

"Tony and Natasha are your biological parents" Bruce says straight away. I stare at him and raise an eyebrow. How stupid does he think I am? I glance at Tony who is still looking down at the ground, then at Natasha who looks up at me. A sinking feeling creeps into my body and my chest starts to feel tight.

"Is this your plan to get information out of me?" I ask, trying to push the sinking feeling away, but despite my best efforts my chest continues to tighten and my palms feel sweaty.

There is no way I am the daughter of two avengers. Why would they abandon me and then fifteen years later want me back? I've also never heard of Natasha and Tony hooking up and Mystique has a lot of information on the avengers.

"You're infertile" I remind Black Widow, remembering what I learnt about her time in the red room. She can't have children, they said it was the only thing that could be more important or something so they made sure they didn't get the option. "Also, you're trying to tell me the x-men didn't notice you had a baby bump?"

"We believe somebody harvested Natasha's eggs when her procedure was done, then fertilized them using Tony's-"

I hold up a hand to silence Steve. This is the stupidest plan they've come up with, did they really think I would believe them and then happily join them? I open my mouth to speak but Tony hands me a piece of paper, finally looking at me.

I glance at it, my heart dropping. DNA results that confirm Tony Stark and Natasha Romanoff are my parents. I hand it back to Tony without looking at him. I know this could easily be faked, but something deep, deep inside tells me that it could be true. Tony and Natasha seem genuinely shaken up by the news.

This could have been why Mystique and Magneto decided to send us to kill Tony, even if Peter had succeeded instead of me, Tony would still be dead. Was the next plan to then kill Natasha so if I ever found out, it wouldn't matter?

"Peter overheard Magneto discussing it" Natasha says quietly. "We believe he planned it so the x-men could experiment on you after you were born to give you powers, to create someone strong enough to help them defeat the avengers."

I don't say anything, still not meeting any of their eyes. I don't know what this means, but it doesn't have to mean anything. Sharing DNA isn't enough to make us family, it won't immediately make us one happy family.

"What do you want?" I ask, I might be trapped here but that doesn't mean I'm going to agree to become an avenger and spill all the x-men secrets I know. "How do you even know Peter's telling the truth?"

I can't believe I underestimated Peter, this entire time he was spying on all of us, gathering intel and probably telling the avengers every little thing that happened. I wouldn't have stood a chance if I'd made it inside, they would have known all my powers already and figured out how to beat me. I guess I would be in this position even if Peter hadn't drugged me.

"The results show you're our child" Tony says, sharing a look with Natasha. "And Peter would never lie to us." Peter's obviously capable of lying and manipulating people, even somebody as smart as Magneto. Granted, he apparently used to play chess with a telepath so he can't be that smart.

"Can we have some time with her?" Natasha asks Bruce and Steve who both nod and leave the room without saying anything.

I suddenly wish they would have stayed; I don't want to be alone with my 'parents'. "This doesn't make us family." My loyalty is still to the x-men, I just hope I can find a way to escape soon. I am already so over being kidnapped.

"We know" Natasha says calmly. "But we want to get to know you, we had no idea you existed until Peter told us, even then we didn't fully believe it."

"But science doesn't lie" Tony adds, the people testing the results can lie though. I don't know much about DNA tests but I can imagine it's pretty easy to alter if you're in the lab with the results. Or even just print off a fake piece of paper, I could do that.

"What do you want with me?" I ask, facing Tony. He'll be easier to read than Natasha, she's a trained spy, whatever slips out of her will be intentional. "I'm not joining the avengers."

A part of me wonders if I should pretend to join, pretend to be happy with my newfound family, but I know they're not stupid. Natasha will easily see through me; she'll see I'm just playing along so I can escape and go back to the x-men.

Somebody opens the door and I sigh. Nick Fury, I have heard a lot about him, and I didn't particularly want to ever meet him. He might not be an avenger, but I get the feeling he's more dangerous than any of them, he knows how to turn people inside out, to manipulate people.

"Can I speak with Storm?" he asks.

I cannot tell who I'd rather be in a room with, my apparent parents or Nick Fury. I decide both options are equally terrible.

"Sure" Tony says, standing up and walking out of the room. He waits by the door as Natasha stands up. She glances at me, but doesn't say anything, just turns her head and walks out with Tony.