The Youngest Avenger

Chapter 3 - Entering SHIELD

The car was like a beetle: shiny, black and rounded. It scuttled around the debris, making everyone scatter. Coulson held the door open and gestured for me to get in.

"Isn't there a thing about not getting into stranger's cars?" Although my point was valid, I climbed into the vehicle anyway. The leather was cold against my hot skin, making me shudder. It seemed wrong for something so clean and bright to be in the middle of a place of such mass destruction.

As we pulled away, I watched my house get smaller and smaller until eventually I couldn't see it any more. Tears rolled down my cheeks, and I realized I was the only one left. My parents were dead. From now on, I was going to have to look after myself, and this was just the beginning.

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We'd been driving for twenty minutes before I worked out where we were headed.

"Are we going to the Military Base?" I tilted to the side, craning my neck to read the road signs. Refocusing my eyes, I allowed the warmth to go over my face. Everything became clearer and I became aware that it was not a one off- I could control my body with my mind. Permanently. That was why Agent Coulson was here, and why I was in a car travelling to a military base. It was so surreal. It was like in comic books, when you know the superhero is going to get in trouble because of their powers. Was I going to get arrested? I was in a stranger's car, anything could happen. I noticed the car was starting to slow. Staring out of the window, I saw a security booth with a barrier. A shiny plaque on the booth read "Unauthorized persons will be placed under immediate arrest." I could see the guns the officers were carrying. Being arrested no longer seemed like the worst thing that could happen to me.

"Stop here." Coulson instructed, stepping out of the car. He pulled out what looked like a wallet from his jacket pocket. The sun glinted off the badge in his hand. The look on the guard's face told me he was obviously not just an average soldier. The barrier was up so fast I barley saw it move. Coulson jumped back in and we continued. I lost track of how many barbed wire fences we passed, with at least three more security stops along the way.

The base itself looked like a blue concrete block. It squatted on the neat grass, protected by its barbed wire cage. As I stepped out of the car and suddenly knew how lab rats felt. Feeling trapped, claustrophobic and slightly nauseous, I tried to control the bubbling panic in my stomach.

"This way please miss." Coulson stood in front of the doors to the building I was going to affectionately call 'the brick'. I looked at the doors. They were the same shade of bluey-grey that Tia's were. Except she didn't use them anymore. She was dead. They were all dead.

"I don't want to go in." I stated blankly. I felt suddenly dizzy; my breath coming in short bursts.

"I need a medic out here!" Coulson shouted into the watch on his wrist. Everything was far away and I could feel the air crashing down on my head. I curled up into a ball on the floor, pressing my hands over my ears. I felt the tarmac on my knees and face, pressing into my skin. Focusing on how much it hurt, I tried to blank everything else out: the noise, the presence of people, everything I could sense, but I had become horribly aware of every detail. Everything screamed to be noticed by my heightened senses.

You can change. A voice in my head said. You can make it all go away. Make it all quiet.

So I let the warmth go over my eyes and ears, destroying neural links; making me deaf and blind. Calm washed over me, so numbing that I rolled over and sat up. Everything was quiet and dark. I was safe at last.