Reborn From The Void

Chapter 1 - Waking Up

(Your POV):
My eyelids were heavy, but I finally managed to blink them open, suddenly overwhelmed by a bright light. The first thing that crossed my mind was that I was dead. It would certainly account for the fuzziness of my mind and the fact that I had no awareness of my body.

But as my vision finally came into focus, I realized that I wasn't dead. Not unless the after life was lit by those long rectangular lights found on the ceilings of school buildings and hospitals. I must have been back at H.A.M.M.E.R. base, perhaps I was having more experiments done? But why couldn't I remember?

My eyes scanned what I could see of the room, which mostly consisted of the ceiling and a thin line of the walls below, the rest obscured by my supine position. Awareness spread to the rest of my body, but all I could register was that it felt like led. I struggled to lift my head and, after a minute of struggles, managed to prop myself on my forearms so that I could get a better view of the room.

It wasn't anywhere that I recognized, it reminded me of a cell with all of the walls being made of a see-through solid material. The bed I was resting on appeared to be the only piece of furniture enclosed inside with me, in addition to a device that was monitoring my vital signs. Outside of the room there were a number of screens that I suspected had something to do with me. There was also a bench, where a man that I immediately recognized sat.

Realizing that I had awoken, Stark stood from his seat and stepped towards that edge of the cell, "(Y/N), it's good to see you conscious. The wound you received was quite severe."

I frowned at him, not remembering having gotten any wound and not knowing why my enemy had saved me, "where am I?"

"You're safe in the Avengers Tower, we figured that this would be the best place for you to recover."

"What happened? How did I get wounded?"

He tilted his head slightly, "you don't remember? They did warn me that it may take you a while to readjust once waking, but I would think getting stabbed by your boyfriend would stick out in your mind."

"My boyfriend?" I repeated as scenes began to flash through my mind. The last of which was Spider-Man, or rather my boyfriend, Peter Parker, plunging a knife into my body. "Peter stabbed me?! But that means... shit, where is he? I need to talk to him."

I scrambled to get out of bed, but Tony quickly spoke, "I don't think seeing Peter is the best thing for you to do right now, he needs some space. You did conceal your true identity from him for years, surely you can understand how he is feeling."

My face fell as I nodded, "I didn't want him to find out like this."

"How did you think he was going to find out? You clearly weren't going to tell him so did you think you could keep it from him forever?"

I felt my cheeks heat up as I gazed down at my hands, "I wasn't planning on telling him, I was going to leave after graduation. Fake my own death, that way neither the Avengers nor my family would come looking for me."

As I spoke about my parents, the memory of stabbing my parents flashed before my eyes and I began to wonder if it was true. Had I really killed them? Had I just pitted H.A.M.M.E.R. against me? Was H.A.M.M.E.R. even surviving without my parents leading them?

"Your family? You mean the two people you killed outside of the graduation hall? How much do you really know about them, may I ask?" Stark inquired causing me to roll my eyes.

"If you are about to tell me that they run a secret criminal organization as though it's new information to me then I am afraid that I am going to have to disappoint you there. I work for them, I know exactly what they were up to."

"Yes, we'll get to H.A.M.M.E.R. in time, but I was referring more to the fact that they aren't actually your parents," Stark spoke and I controlled the ripple of surprise that passed through me. Besides, that wasn't really a shock, had I really believed that my mother would suffer through a pregnancy when she could simply steal or adopt a child and have the same result?

Realizing that I wasn't going to react verbally, Stark continued on, "and you're not the only child. There were eight other children before you, all adopted from the same location. Your parents must have had an in with them, otherwise their frequent adoptions would have turned heads. Do you know what happened to the other children?"

I shrugged, "they were probably too weak. I was raised with telekinetic powers, they must have done the experiments before I was old enough to remember them. The ones before me must not have survived them."

"And you don't care about this in the slightest? Eight children were killed by your parents because they didn't have their formulas right and you're ok with that?"

"Progress takes sacrifice," I automatically repeated the words my parents had often told me. Besides, it wasn't like that was the worst of their crimes, nor was it the worst of mine.

Stark seemed taken aback by my nonchalant nature, a familiar pleasure rising up in me as he saw me for who I was. Or perhaps it was who I was made to be. But he pressed for more information, "So they raised you to be their minion?"

"I was to be the saving grace of H.A.M.M.E.R., one with the power to take on any threat. The Captain America of our age. Then of course all of these other superheroes began cropping up and suddenly I wasn't special anymore. But I became more necessary because I was the only one who could stand up to the growing and unchecked power of the Avengers."

"Yet you haven't taken any of us down. Wouldn't that be something your parents would want? If you start killing us off, there is less of a threat posed to your organization."

"They never told me to kill any of you," I lied, knowing that I needed to conceal how weak Peter had truly made me. "However, I could have killed you if I had had the orders for it. I managed to capture Captain America, didn't I?"

"But he didn't stay captured long."

"That wasn't my problem. I just brought him to the rendezvous point and if they lost him after that then that was on them. I had a date with Peter."

Stark took a step closer, "ah yes, Peter. He was also one of your targets, wasn't he? So not only did you disobey your parents by never capturing him, but you also got romantically involved with him. They must not have been too happy about that, I would've thought that your training would have taught you better than that."

I bit my lip, "Peter was... a lapse of judgement. Clearly now I am paying for it, if I hadn't fallen for him Spider-Man would be dead right now-"

"And the Avengers would have gone after you, so you probably lucked out in this situation."

"You never would have caught me," I argued, knowing that I would have escaped, one way or another. Besides, wouldn't death be better than my current situation?

But how could I regret my relationship with Peter? He taught me how to live, how to feel. With him, life was worth something. Even with it ending in disaster, could I really say that I wish I had never fallen for the adorable, dorky boy that had had the misfortune of becoming my physics partner?

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(A/N): Hi, I'm actually really proud of this cover? The original thunderbird photo was not as clear as I would have liked but I actually am pretty happy overall and that is something new. But anyway, here's the first chapter of the final book! And to start it off, the shocking revelation that you survived getting stabbed! Hope you enjoy!