Mia didn't know what she expected when Director Fury pushed a set of unmarked double doors open, but she certainly didn't expect what she saw.

The room was large and well appointed, boasting glass separators that doubled as screens for various scientific formulas and blueprints. The way the graphs moved and recalibrated reminded Mia of the way a huge body of water ebbed and flowed on a particularly windy day. In the center of the room, lounging on the couch with his feet up and his hammer at his side, was the Norse God, Thor. He was wearing blue jeans and his hair was down around his shoulders, some of the golden strands covering part of his face. He appeared to be sleeping, though she wasn't sure how he managed to sleep through such chaos. His fingers twitched and idly Mia wondered what gods dreamt of.

There was rock music playing from a set of speakers in the corner. Four out of five of the mounted TVs were on, each one broadcasting a different program, some of which she had never seen before, and nearly every single light in the room was on, casting a vibrant yellow glow about the place. The far wall was completely glass with dark iron panes separating the plates and Mia could see the distant clouds alight with the flaming luminescence of sunset.

Beneath one of the several mounted TVs, Tony Stark was poised to shoot, wearing only the forearm of his suit, aiming at a smiling Steve Rogers who had his shield held at chin level and was crouched to absorb a blow that didn't come. Both wore civilian clothes and had an air about them that seemed almost normal. As if they were simply old friends and nothing more. Steve egged Tony on in a bawdy tone, but Tony refused to be needled into firing, and their good-natured argument raged on.

The Russian woman, Natasha Romanov, was sitting on a barstool near the pair, elbows resting casually on the black granite bar behind her as she milked a half-forgotten martini. Her eyes, prior to registering other people in the room, had been watching Tony and Steve. Now, they were focused on Fury and the young woman he had with him, glinting with curiosity, though she made no move to alert her compatriots. Above Natasha on the small balcony, perched like a cat watching the street from a living room window, was Clint Barton, dressed in all black and also very quietly focused on Mia. She had been able to feel his eyes the moment the doors opened, unlike the woman's, whose glittering green stare came later.

That only left Dr. Bruce Banner, who she couldn't immediately locate; the other five were so present that they distracted from the dark-haired man standing across the room behind one of the many separators. He was calmly swiping images on the screen left and right, pulling up 3D models with just hand gestures and she was sure she'd never seen anything like it. He didn't look very terrifying, or even like he'd get angry enough to fly into a homicidal rampage, but she knew better. There was a beast inside him - one that mirrored the beast inside her. She made a mental note to stay on the doctor's good side.

"Nice to see you lot getting some work done," Fury bellowed, his voice immediately catching the attention of all in attendance, stunning them into stillness for a moment. He reached out and swiped his finger casually against a glass pane to his right, typing in six characters and effectively cutting off all noise in the room. When the moment passed, it wasn't Fury they were focused on, it was the woman standing next to him and about two steps back. Her hesitation to enter the room further was apparent in the set of her shoulders and the furrow in her brow. Thor had risen to his feet too quickly for someone who had been asleep seconds ago, Banner peeked his head from around the glass, the two black clad assassins stood should to shoulder, sizing her up quietly, while Tony and Steve took a couple cautious steps forward, all traces of playfulness wiped from their expressions. Mia did not miss the brilliant glow of light coming from the palm of Tony's suit and Steve no longer held his shield with the cool confidence of a man who knew there was no present danger.

Fury, noticing the tension forming in the room, clasped his hands behind his back and smiled, gliding toward the center of the sitting area so he was right in between the Avengers and the lone woman.

"I'd like to introduce you to Mia Stone," he said, sweeping his arm around to gesture at Mia who stood stock-still. Her wide grey eyes jumped from face to face, assessing the situation. She deducted no one was behaving hostilely enough to attack, so she forced her mind to relax. She didn't want to appear to be on the defense, though she could not help the way her muscles instinctively coiled, like a rattlesnake would just before striking.

When no one said anything, Fury continued, pacing around the room as he spoke.

"She was extracted from the Mountain Ranges of Gansu, more specifically the Min Mountains, where she was abandoned and left for dead 3 days ago -"

"She looks pretty spritely for being on the brink of death 3 days ago," Tony interjected, never once taking his eyes off Mia. Fury's head turned in Tony's direction, fixing him with a wilting stare before he answered.

"That's why she's here, Stark. Mia is unique. Her survival proves that." As Fury was speaking, Dr. Banner was slowly walking toward Mia, hands clasped together in front of his stomach as if he wanted to touch but was holding back. His eyes were bright with the spinning of wheels inside his head and his mouth was agape, staring at her like she was the second coming of Christ.

"MADI," he whispered, once again interrupting Fury's speech. Fury looked over his shoulder at Bruce, this time, a smile splitting his face.

"Yes, Dr. Banner. MADI." Fury rested his fists on his hips, squaring off in front of Mia while Bruce advanced slowly on her. Seeing the fear in her doe-like eyes and the way her whole body seemingly vibrated with the sudden need to run, he unclasped his hands and put them up, palms exposed and fingers spread wide.

"I'm not going to hurt you," he said, his voice firm and calm and Mia took a small breath to steady herself, though the pricking at the back of her neck screamed at her to escape. "But what's inside you," he said, pointing his finger at her head, "is a feat of science unlike anything I've ever seen."

Tony snorted and crossed his arms against his chest, clearly underwhelmed by the great feat of science standing in front of him. Bruce glared hot daggers in his direction and Mia watched the Russian woman stiffen. It was an almost imperceptible movement, but Mia noticed her rock forward on the balls of her feet, positioning herself in the direction of a clean getaway should the need arise. Tony, obviously not wanting to press Bruce any further, yielded and focused his attention back on Mia, this time, narrowing his eyes at her as if the harder he looked at her the more sense the whole encounter would make. She wanted to tell him it wouldn't.

"If you're all done?" Fury asked, having moved back over to stand near Mia. When Bruce had begun his advance toward her, Fury found himself taking small steps in her direction, ready to plant himself in between the pair if Banner really wasn't as composed as he promised. He was leaning against the wall at her side, arms crossed and face impatient. All six heads rotated in his direction, expressions masked but earnest to know what was going on. "Good." He pushed himself up off the wall and reached out to grab Mia's upper arm, pulling her gently her alongside him into the middle of the room so everyone could get a good look and get it out of their systems. She flinched at the sensation of his fingertips pressing into her skin but didn't resist. Since she had been fished out of the snow like a popsicle, Fury had been the only person she knew she could trust, and that was a stretch, but he was all she had at the moment.

"Mia is the product of an experiment preformed by a covert Chinese Intelligence branch of the Ministry of State Security." Across the room, Thor shifted his weight on his feet, processing with a quiet calm that Mia could feel resonating from him, though his stance was subtly threatening. "Miss Stone here was teaching English to Mandarin-speaking students when the school she was teaching at was suddenly quarantined, though no trace of disease was found in or around the premises. Turns out," Fury started, releasing Mia's arm and turning to address those standing on his other side, "The Chinese were in need of a guinea pig for their science experiment and set their sights on Mia." Mia flinched, knowing he was only giving them the bare bones of the story.

A month before she was abducted from her teaching post, she had been casually seeing a strikingly handsome Chinese doctor named Jet Ming. They met at a charity benefit for education in China - one of the only black tie galas she had ever attended in her life. Maybe it was the champagne, but Jet had charmed her, acting the part of the perfect gentleman. He was sincere, compassionate and polite and in a country where she knew no one, Mia started to let her guard down.

In the weeks that followed, Jet became increasingly controlling, jealous of anyone who even glanced in Mia's direction. His need to control her overwhelmed her to the point where Mia cringed at the sight of his name lighting up her phone screen. The perfect gentleman was gone, and in his place was a secretive, manipulative monster. He told her nothing about his job yet he demanded to know everything about hers. Through the little bits and pieces she gleaned from overhearing him on the phone with work, she got the strange feeling he wasn't telling her the whole truth about who he was and what he did. Weeks later, she couldn't kick the feeling and unable to suffer one more second with Jet, Mia broke it off, being as gentle and calm as she could manage while he thundered and raged, his face turning an alarming shade of red. The last thing he said to her before disappearing was 'This isn't the end.'

When hoards of black clad shadows descended upon her quiet school, Mia knew Jet had made good on his last words. They came in through the windows, shattering glass around the children like drops of frozen rain, drawing blood from exposed legs, arms and hands. Mia found herself running into the thick, throwing herself in front of the children she could grab onto, pushing them back against the wall, under desks and out into the hallway before she was subdued by iron grips. Several sets of hands latched on to her, pushing her down to the tile, zip-tying her hands behind her back so tightly her fingertips tingled immediately. She screamed for help but no help came. She felt a cold prick in her neck and felt the rush of liquid shoot into her veins. Her screams dissipated, and no matter how hard she fought, her traitorous eyelids closed against her will, plummeting her into blackness. They didn't bother with anyone else and in five short minutes, they had all disappeared, Mia in tow.

Hours later, when her eyes flickered open, she remembered seeing nothing but blinding white light. When her eyes adjusted to the point where she didn't need to squint anymore, a smiling face appeared over her. It was Jet and he had a venom in his look that burned Mia's skin.

"Hello, little white flower," he murmured and for the first time, she noticed that she was strapped to an operating table, dressed in nothing but a white surgical gown. "I'm going to make sure you remain awake. I wouldn't want you to miss a single second of the new life I'm giving you." She couldn't move or speak but she felt hot tears rolling out from the corners of her eyes, wetting her chestnut hair at the temples and creeping into her ears. He laughed once he saw her realize she was trapped in her own mind. She remembered the sound - a sharp, hollow bark - and how it pierced through her almost painfully.

He hadn't been bluffing. She remained awake throughout the entire procedure. When they flipped her onto her stomach, when they yanked her hair away from the back of her neck with such force she saw bright lights at the corners of her vision. They spoke Cantonese so she couldn't understand what they were saying but she was in so much agony she wouldn't have been able to register anything correctly anyway. By the time Jet had applied his scalpel to her neck, she was looking through blurred vision at a puddle of tears on the ground below, the need to scream nearly overwhelming. She prayed she would pass out from the pain, but knew they had given her something to prevent such blissful relief.

After the device was in and they had stitched her back up, they flipped her over, hovering above her as if their heads were floating. She thought the worst was over. Nearly half a dozen faces, mostly hidden by surgical masks, watched her lie in quiet torture, unable to utter a syllable. Suddenly, a white-hot pain lashed out; she could feel it rushing through her body, stretching and reaching and grasping until she felt it all over. It was like a steel rod had erected itself against her spinal cord, gripping the underside of her skull and sliding like fingers into her brain. She felt it everywhere, like it was splitting her bones apart and wrenching on tissue and muscle and she couldn't escape it. What was worse were the eyes glaring down at her. Though their mouths were covered, she could tell they were grinning, she could see the glee in their eyes and she could see her own face, tear-stained and wrought with pain, staring back at her, reflected in their black stares.

Two days later, when she had fully recovered, Mia was presented to a man she'd never seen before as he sat behind a large mahogany desk in full military attire. He shouted something in Cantonese, and Mia was astonished to realize she understood. After that she remembered a lot of yelling, a gun to her head, and then, nothing.

When the blackness subsided she felt gripping panic, flashing back to being strapped down on an operating table with no way to move. It was Fury's face that appeared over her, concern furrowing his brow, drawing his lips tightly together.

"You're safe now. You're going to be alright." A sob wrenched itself from her throat; he was American. She had been saved.

All eyes once again flickered over to Mia and she shook her head slightly, as if this simple gesture would free her from the torment of her memories. She felt like an ant would under a hot magnifying glass, burning in a blinding ray of sunlight that she was unable to escape. There was a dramatic pause in which Fury let his words sink in. When he was satisfied he finally had control of the conversation, he turned to Bruce.

"Dr. Banner has been tracking progress of this device. They call it codename MADI. It stands for Memory and Data Implant and in the wrong hands, it could create a devastating ripple effect." Mia cringed. The way Fury was talking about the thing inside her head made her feel like she was some sort of destructive machine that needed to be contained. A week ago she had been a normal person teaching at her normal job living her normal life. Now she was dressed in government issued clothing, kept under surveillance night and day because she was a flight risk and found herself standing in the presence of Earth's Mightiest Heroes. When she had told Director Fury that even they couldn't save her, that the damage was done, he had unflinchingly responded, "I don't need them to save you. What I need is another player on my team."

What authority did she have to turn them down? It was either join them or be captive by them, there was no other way. That didn't mean she wasn't wary, however. She was certainly not the hero type and she most definitely was not a genius billionaire. Mia was convinced she had nothing to contribute to the team except for what was implanted in her head, fused to her spinal cord all the way down to the very base. But that wasn't her. It didn't define who she was, and she wouldn't let it.

But she didn't know how to control it and that scared her to her very core.

Please share thoughts! Thank you in advance :)