Bloom

Chapter 1: The mission

~ Six years later ~

"Happy birthday, Viv!" agents at S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters spoke as I passed by. I thanked them with a small smile and headed straight to the training room, prepared to ignore yet another celebration of me living another day. I sighed as I unzipped my bag to take out a bottle of water, a small flower, some dirt, and an unlit match. I'd learned to control my powers but I made it a point to push them to the limit. It was good practice and stress-relieving. I took off my black jacket and sat criss-crossed, closing my eyes and opening them again to reveal my now electric green eyes compared to my previously brown ones.

  A familiar sensation shot through my hands as I slowly passed them over the objects I'd placed in front of me and there was brief shaking around me as the water had now come out of the bottle and had began spinning around me with the dirt, speeding faster and faster the more I concentrated. The more I tried to channel all of my elemental powers at once, the more powerful and useful I became to headquarters.

  As the flower grew into bigger sizes, it's stem elongated and began to spin around me like the water and the dirt and I opened my eyes, my concentration never wavering as I picked up the unlit match. Focusing harder than I've ever focused before, I saw small sparks. Come on, Vivian. Focus! There was another flicker and another after- "Vivian Dune, Viri, my child. How long have you been here, exactly?" Tony Stark asked, wandering over to me, making me lose my seemingly unbreakable concentration.

  I cursed under my breath in attempts to clean my stuff up. Tony raised a brow and picked up the match I'd been trying to light, staring at it. "You never take a break, do you? Not even when it's your birthday," he commented. "I have to keep training," I muttered, slightly annoyed. "And it's good that you do but you do realize that, once again, it's your birthday meaning you could, I don't know, have fun?" he said flicking the match at me. I caught it quickly and sighed. "What, hasn't someone of your age taught you the meaning of that word? You do realize you don't have to grow up so quickly-" "I know," I snapped, lighting the match. I gasped before extinguishing it.

  "I know, but I can't risk that when it comes to missions," I grumbled, throwing the match away. "Come on. You've been in that little phase of yours ever since I met you. It's okay to act like a teen every once in a while," he said genuinely. I looked up at him and sighed, shaking my head. "It's not that easy-" "Well, you deserve to behave like a teen considering your age so that's exactly what I'm going to do. Pack your things. You're going on an undercover mission," he announced, putting a hand on my shoulder.

  "Undercover? For what?" I asked, confused. "Well, there's this rookie we need to keep an eye on. A few on the team and I think it would be a good idea for you to do so and maybe teach him more of the ropes on working for S.H.I.E.L.D. after you've become close enough," he said. "And this relates to being a teen in what way, exactly?" I asked and I'd never regretted asking such a question in my entire life.

~~~

  Tony's great idea was to send me to New York, Queens to be exact. All so I could watch over the one and only Spider-Man. Don't get me wrong, he seems like an interesting sort but I do not fancy going to high school. I've been homeschooled since the lab incident but from what I heard and saw on TV occassionally, high school was not a very fun place. People getting in your business, the differentiating and intimidating popularity scales, the insecurity issues, the drama, all of it. I wanted another mission but I was not expecting this one to be on my list as my birthday gift.

  The next day, I was said to leave to an apartment where I'd be living alone (that being the only upside) and whenever there'd be a problem, Stark just told me to call Happy in order to keep things from getting ugly but we all know his relationship with answering his phone sometimes isn't that great. They were really concerned over this Spider kid if they're willing to go through this amount of trouble, I suppose. As I threw the last sweater I had into my bag, I took a look at my now, very small, empty room I had at headquarters and sighed. This was all the comfort I'd ever known and now I was leaving it.

  I leaned against the wall lingeringly until Happy came in, telling me it was time to go. Here goes another mission, I suppose.