The Captain (The Attolian #1.5)

Chapter 3

Two and a half hours later and a butt-load of homework, I move on to lunch. I typically sit alone at lunch since word got out that I was the kid in Chicago, but no one knows my true identity since Fury doesn't make me wear my ID.

I still get looks when I'm walking with my trey of food by the adult-agents. Nick Fury ordered everyone to be nice to me even though I caused great destruction to one of the largest cities on Earth.

I find myself in the corner of the room, which is fine with me because it gives me time to do my homework that my teacher had given me. I jumble through my bag looking for my folder but stop when I hear someone coming up to me. I look up and smile once I see that it is Ava.

"May I sit?" She asks, pointing down to the seat next to me, I nod and smile because this has never happened to me. "Alright so how was training?" She asks before she takes a bite out of her sandwich.

"It was pretty good, I worked on hand-to-hand combat. How about you?" I ask taking out my math homework.

"Good, they made me work on my powers." She says.

"They're not powers," I say quietly, "they're abilities, there is a difference."

"Well, I worked on my abilities and on my fighting stances." She says as she takes out her own sheet.

"Wait, how long have you been with S.H.I.E.L.D.?" I ask taking another bite of my sandwich.

"A month, you?"

"Year today," I sigh remembering that night a year ago, "I was offered to join the Initiative, and I took it since I had nothing better to do."

"Why do you think you were offered it?" She asks wide eyed.

"I don't know, I don't have too much control over my abilities." She gives me a look 'what do you mean' and I continue. "Whenever my emotions get out of control, I do things."

I see a flashback, me screaming over my sister and seeing a burst of purple light come out of me. Debris falling as Iron Man carries me away. I comeback to the present when I feel a touch on my shoulder. Ava is standing there with a scared look on her face.

"Are you OK?" She asks. "Your arms and eyes are glowing."

I look down at my forearms and hands and see them have green flames wrapped around them. I take deep breaths and let the flames disintegrate. I look back at Ava and smile letting her know that I am alright. She nods and sits back down, we go back to our math sheets, but I see her give me a quick glance every few minutes.

I look up at the clock and realize I am running late to my meeting with the psychiatrist. I quickly pack up my things and say goodbye to Ava. She then quickly packs up to move on to her next thing in the day. I run out of the cafeteria and on to my meeting.

As I'm running down the hall, I begin to make excuses in my head on why I am running late. I round a corner almost running into Ms. Romanoff.

"Woah, if you can still run like that then I didn't work you hard enough." I laugh, awkwardly I may add as I begin to walk away to my meeting with my psychiatrist, Ms. Romanoff grabs me. "I'm actually heading that way." She says turning serious all of a sudden.

We walk to the room, which consisted of me asking many questions on why she will be joining us but with no answers. She makes a hard right which wasn't the right way to the room. She motions for me to follow and I do. She walks me into an elevator and presses floor 50. The doors close and we stand there in silence.

"Will you please tell me why you are bringing me to Director Fury's office?" I ask.

"You'll see." I hate when she does that 'you'll see' stuff. I fix the strap on my backpack as we stand there in silence.

The doors open and Fury is standing there, he looks angry when he sees us entering.

"You're late." He growls as he moves back behind his desk.

I don't respond and neither does Ms. Romanoff. I see Coulson in the corner of the room behind Nick's desk, I awkwardly wave to him and he waves back. Fury gestures for us to sit down next to my psychiatrist and another man who I don't know the name of. I study him as I sit down. He has brown hair and is wearing all black. I smile because Ms. Romanoff sits next to him, they must be dating.

"Alright, I'll make quick introductions," Fury begins, "this man over here," he gestures to the man sitting next to Ms. Romanoff. "is Clint Barton, Barton, Grace, Grace, Barton." Fury gestures his hands between us, I do a small wave and Barton does one back. Fury then continues. "Now that I got that out of the way, I am going to go to the main point of this meeting." He leans against his desk, he seems to be very uncomfortable about this. From what I've learned from Ms. Romanoff, it that people want you to pay attention to other things when they don't feel comfortable with a situation. I smile waiting for the news. "After discussing with your trainer and you psychiatrists, we have come to the conclusion that you will be sent to a S.H.I.E.L.D. ran cabin, it will help with your mental health. I understand that this may be a lot to take in but we have done as much as we can to help you.

"You will have someone drop off your meals and check in with you once a day. The cabin has an encasing which will protect you and others around you from losing control of your abilities. I understand that this may be a lot to take in, but let me just warn you that you are leaving tomorrow to go to the cabin." He finishes and stops to see my reaction. I don't give him one, I try not to at least, I feel a lump form in my throat but for once I am able to push it down. Ms. Romanoff raises her eyebrow at me and so does the guy next to her.

"OK." Is all I am able to say. Nick looks at me, and seems shocked at my simple answer. He collects himself and nods.

"OK, Grace you have until tomorrow to get your things together." He says then dismisses us. I basically jump out of my seat and run to the staircase instead of the elevator. I ignore Coulson, Ms. Romanoff, my psychiatrist, I ignore all of them. I run down the staircase as thoughts fill my head.

'They don't want to deal with you.' 'You are useless, no one can help you.' 'You killed thousands of people, they don't want a monster.' ' You are the reason for the destruction over Chicago, that's why you don't have any friends."

I reach my floor and run to the room they provided me. I shut the door before anyone could hear me. I let go and collapse to the floor, tears blur my vision and purple wisps surround my arms as I try to stifle the sound and calm down. I pull myself up onto the bed, curl into a ball, and let the tears stream down my face.