THE NEWBIE

New power within

Mom drove silently to Shield Headquarters and mom and I didn't say a word on the ride. She dropped me off and drove off to meet one of her bossy girlfriends. I remember when I was little, Mom had her 30th birthday party (two years late) and one of her girlfriends came up to me while I was playing with my superhero action figures (yeah, I was a tomboy, so what? Are you judgin' me?) and wearing my paint stained overalls. She squatted down beside me and quietly ripped my Aqua man figure out of my hand with her sharp claws for nails.

"Shouldn't a girl be wearing a dress on her mother's birthday? Shouldn't she have her hair brushed? Shouldn't she be making polite conversation with adults instead of playing with these ragged toys?" She sneered.

"Daniella, darling! What is this wretched child doing, with spoilt behaviour and unkempt clothing?" She called out to my mom.

Mom didn't know exactly how to respond. So she just chuckled with the rest of her snotty friends and behind their backs, gave me a 'sorry' look.

Anyway, ever since I have detested my mother's friends. You'd think she would ditch em' for her own child but what does she do? She sticks with them for five years and insists that I come to gatherings with her. I will not change myself to make anyone happy. I don't care who I embarrass. Heck, I would go and do the Macarena with green skin right now in the middle of a busy New York street!

I arrived at S.H.I.E.L.D and made my way into Nick's office and saw him sitting grumpily, staring into space.

"You look happy" I said, breaking the silence.

"Yeah, I do. Tony and I have organised for you to be at the training area, well now. In fact you are quite late".

"Okay, okay i'm sorry. Where is the training area?"

"One level below, turn left then turn right when you see the giant glass office and tell Tony that you are there".

I proceeded to the training area and Tony let me in. It was a huge garage type storage space jazzed up with heaps of sporting equipment and electronic stuff that I had never seen before. There was a small room next to it with a coffee machine, a couch and was enclosed from the area. That must have been the 'safety' room.

"Hello Jessica, welcome to the S.H.I.E.L.D training area. This is where we'll find out all your abilities".

Ha, more like disabilities.

"Okay Stark, thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule to assist me. What should I do first?"

"Not problem, Jessica. Anything to immerse myself in new talent! Today we will be focussing on your general combat skills, nothing too out of the ordinary. So why don't you start by punching my hands?"
Tony wore those special padded hand 'punchers' and I readied myself to do the best I could. This was awkward as I have never really punched anything in my life! It was out of the ordinary for me, despite what Stark had said and I could not believe that my life had the opportunity of changing forever in the matter of three days!
I clenched my fist until my knuckles protruded and threw it at Tony's right hand. He barely flinched. This is going to take a while...
"Try again. This time a little harder." Stark said almost mockingly.
I threw it once again.

"More force"

Again.

"Harder, I want to feel like I have actually been hurt!"

And once again

"No! More force" Tony grew irritated.
I threw the punch again, this time with a lot more force, well at least, I thought so.
"Okay... Try again" Tony said as if he were discovering something. "That time was great. This time, I want you to think about any wrong that has happened to you at some point in your life. Bottle all that unresolved anger and try again."
Well, this was going to be fun.
I thought about all the bullies in my life that had ostracised me for being intelligent. I thought about Mr Zachary's endless lectures. I though about my mother's snooty friends who had looked at me like I was an alien for not being lady like when I was a mere child. I thought about how I had been humiliated all my life and was reduced to science, which is great by the way but not the same as friendship and relationship. I thought about how awesome this punch was gonna be.
Suddenly, this surge of power jolted though my spine. My skin started to turn green and blotchy, just like before. My eyes started to have a green glow to it which was odd, since I am brown eyed. I threw the punch and to my surprise, Stark was slammed into the warehouse wall at least 20 metres away from where I was standing and he had looked like every bone in his body crumbled.
Stark gradually got up and weakly limped towards my direction. To save him some trouble, I walked over to him myself.
"What's next Stark?" I said enthusiastically contrary to Tony's condition.
"Coffee time...that's enough for today"
"Bbbut we literally did five punches including the mega one. Shouldn't we work on stealth or something?" I whined.
"Jessica, I have trained enough people to say that you don't need training. There is someone I would like you to meet, so if you would follow this poor, old and damaged man".
I followed him out into the staff cafeteria. My skin started to return to its normal colour, thankfully.
Stark brought me to a tall, slender man with chocolate brown hair. He was middle aged and looked tiresome.
"Jessica, I'd like you to meet a friend of mine. Jessica, this is Dr Bruce Banner. He plays a vital role in our team, both mentally and physically".
"Pleasure to meet you, Jessica" He said proudly.
"No, the pleasure is all mine. Tony, why would you like me to meet this man?" I asked behind Dr Banner's shoulder.
"He is a renowned doctor. I think he'd like to meet you."
"Oh. okay."
Banner shuffled his feet nervously. It was almost like he was going to ask me a personal question and was debating about whether he should do it or not.
"I heard about your...um situation. I hear that Fury offered you a position on the Avengers team."
Just then, Fury strolled in casually and interrupted our conversation.
"No actually. Tony offered."
"Jessica, we should probably call it a day." Tony said tiredly.
Just as Tony was limping back, Nick grabbed me by the arm and pulled me back.
"No one hears about this Miss Doberman. Nobody. Do you understand me?"
I nodded sheepishly.
"Continue training with Tony for the next few months. Next week, I want you to meet the rest of the team."
"You mean like, the Avengers?!!" I squealed in excitement.
"No, I mean the X-Men, YES I MEAN THE AVENGERS."
I travelled home excitedly, relieved that there was no school and that there was training instead.