Moving Too Fast (Quicksilver X OC)

Chapter Ten: Car Ride

Violet

"You haven't had any more fainting spells or felt ill since you left?" Helen clarifies. I've been at the Avenger compound a few hours at this point and, frankly, it's a bit exhausting. I know that it's for my health, but I'm tired of answering questions.

According to Helen, when she was going over some of my charts and scans from two weeks ago she noticed an abnormality in the level of some kind of neurological response (I won't even pretend to understand exactly what it was). Apparently, if left unchecked, I could have a brain hemorrhage or seizures that could end up killing me. "I've felt fine since I left the hospital. If Natasha and Quicksilver hadn't shown up today I wouldn't have even known that something's wrong with me." You know, unless I were to go into a spontaneous seizure and die or something.

"Your brain activity's still a odd right here--" She uses a slew of terms I don't understand as she describes what I'm seeing on my brain scans. There's a patch of color that she tells me is too active -- to prevalent -- while a different patch is essentially glitching, shifting between being too active and not active enough. I recognize the hippocampus as the hyperactive region, which I only know because of high school health class. If I remember right, it has to deal with memory and emotion, which would make sense considering what Wanda did to me.

"So, what does this all mean for me?" I sigh. "I need to get going. I have dinner reservations with my brother and friend in an hour." I glance at my phone -- Kaylee decided we'd go to our favorite Italian place and it's a good forty-five minutes from where I am, according to Natasha, though I'm not exactly sure where "here" is.

"With your permission, I'm going to give you some drugs." Helen gives me a smile that doesn't quite touch her eyes. "I'm also going to ask that you stay here overnight so I can monitor your neuroresponses to sleep and various stimuli. After that, we'll see."

"Why don't I feel anything if there's something wrong with me?" I ask, shifting on the white leather chair in Helen's office.  It's more comfortable than a traditional doctor's office, but it's still got that over-clean white and chrome feel to it. "Shouldn't I notice something different."

"Not necessarily. If it progresses that's still a possibility, but I would just feel very lucky if I were you." Dr. Cho taps at a screen to minimize the image of my brain she'd pulled up. "I apologize about all of this, by the way. I'd love to just send you in for normal medical treatment, but we're trying to understand Wanda's powers and we can't be sure something won't happen that a normal doctor wouldn't be able to treat."

"And you don't want any more bad press." I theorize. The brief hesitation in Helen's step tells me I'm right on the money with that guess; for weeks after the Sokovia incident there was a lot of press about how the Avengers were heroes, but there was also a lot of press about how they'd helped to destroy an entire community... with a few mentions of other places they've left destroyed, like New York. "If word of what happened to me gets out, you'll have people all over your asses."

"Yes, that too."

Ten minutes later I'm ready to leave, but I realize that I didn't bring myself here. Natasha had driven me. I freak.

I'm escorted into the main living room by Helen, who hadn't left my side for security reasons, and the men I know to be Vision, Captain America, and Quicksilver, as well as the lovely but deadly Black Widow, look up at me.

"How is she?" Natasha asks. It seems to me like the five of them had been in the middle of some kind of debate, as they all have to lean back from each other and are on the edges of their seats. Plus, none of them have anything in their hands. I wonder what they were talking about.

"For now, alright. Nothing imminent, but I'd like to keep a bit of an eye on her." The doctor reports. No one says anything, they all just nod, but I detect a hint of relief coming from Cap and Quicksilver -- their shoulders relax a bit. "Can one of you find a guard that's able to bring Ms. Eden to town and bring her back when she's done?"

I hadn't even thought about the issue of figuring out how to come back, so I'm glad Dr. Cho thought about it.

"I'll take her," Pietro volunteers. I'm not entirely sure how that makes me feel. "I have nothing else to do and have been meaning to get out of the compound anyway."

"Then hurry up, we've got to--" I squeak when he's suddenly right there in front of me, car keys swinging from a single finger on his left hand. Captian America bursts out laughing at my reaction and even Natasha rolls her eyes with a bit of a smile, but it's Pietro who has the most entertained look on his face. He's hiding a ghost of a smirk and, though I want to be a little annoyed, his eyes are so playful that I can't quite hold face.

"What? You said to hurry up."

"I suppose I did," I chuckle, recovering from my metaphorical heart attack. "Let's go. I'm going to be late."

The car ride is much less awkward than I expect it to be, though the first few minutes are filled with a dense silence. He breaks the quiet before I do.

"What are you studying?"

"Hmm?" I respond, jolted out of my own head and back to reality.

"At your university." He clarifies, eyes not wavering from the road. Ironically, I note, he's actually a good driver. If you'd asked me before now, I'd have bet money that he'd be a speeder.

"I'm taking a few other classes for fun, but I'm focusing on computer science and engineering. I haven't really decided what I want to do when I'm older." I tell him, then look his way. "What about you? Have you always been... like you are? Did you ever have other plans?"

"There are not many options in Sokovia." Then, almost as an afterthought, he adds: "Probably even less so now." As though he'd never made the addition, he continues. "Tony Stark helped to kill my family. My sister and I were... experiments. I haven't been like this for as long as you'd think."

"Tony Stark as in Iron Man Tony Stark?" My brow creases. "He's an--"

"--Avenger, I know." He finishes. "There is always more to a story than you'd think."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bring up something like that." I apologize softly. He shrugs it off, but he does seem older when he talks about Sokovia.

"I miss it because it's where I'm from, not because I want to go back." Pietro sighs, scratching the back of his head as he tries to find the words to explain how he feels. "My life -- and my sister's -- are much better here."

"It's not exactly the same thing, but I understand missing something without wanting to go back." I sympathize. I'm surprised by how naturally the conversation's flowing now. "I was born in Michigan." I lift my hand out of habit and point to my home town on my make-shift map. "My parents still live there and I had a good life, more-or-less, but it wasn't my home. I love New York."

For the rest of the trip we're easily engaged as we talk about our favorite landmarks and tell stories. Most of Pietro's little tales are from since he's come to America, but despite the short time frame he's chock-full of them. I haven't laughed so hard in forever; the Avengers might seem all high and mighty when they're kicking alien and/or robot ass, but apparently they can be fairly ridiculous. There is one time that I ask about his sister, but I think they're still fighting because he switches the topic pretty fast. Other than that brief little hiccup, though, I don't think the conversation's very forced.

I surprise myself by being almost disappointed when we pull into a parking structure. I think he would've just dropped me off in front of the restaurant, but by the time we get there I realize we never talked about pickup plans, so we pull into the structure and park.

"Just text me," he suggests, and picks up my phone, rapidly typing away for a few moments before handing it back to me. "I think I'll walk around. It's a nice night."

"Thank you, Pietro." And I mean it. "For everything. You know, you're not half bad." He smiles a little and I lean forward over the center console to give him a hug, an impulse gesture, really, and a thank you.

And, of course, that's the moment there's a tap on the passenger's side window. "Vi?!"