Scottie pressed through the radio channels as she tried to find a station that was playing her favourite music. She was doing everything in her power to distract herself from the fact that all of her family and friends were heading off to fight another battle.

Sighing as she finally settled on a channel, she looked down to be met with Pepper's face popping up on her phone screen. Taking a deep breath, she accepted the FaceTime call as the strawberry blonde's panicked voice rang through the car.

"Scottie, Tony called me," Pepper spoke on the screen with concern written across her face. "When will you get here? I should have sent Happy."

Scottie shrugged, knowing that she had planned a detour before going to the tower.

"I'm stopping off for some lunch in Queen's but I'm safe Pepper," the girl said, a slight detachment in her voice that Pepper knew without question was from not being allowed on the mission.

"Okay, just please let me know when you're on your way back," the strawberry blonde begged at her almost daughter, smiling relived down the FaceTime call as she waited on a confirmation from the blonde. Scottie nodded, exchanging goodbyes with the woman as they both hung up and ended the call.

The driver in the front of the car had yet to say a word, something that Scottie didn't see anything wrong with. She actually kind of liked that. Most of Tony's drivers were overly chatty from having to put up with the billionaire and she hated small talk, so it was nice to finally be able to enjoy some peace and quiet even if it was just for a moment.

Noticing that they had made it into Queens, she motioned for the driver to pull over at the side of the road. Reaching into her pocket and rummaging around for a second she let out a satisfied huff as she felt her fingers grasp on the 100 dollar bill that she usually kept on her.

Reaching out and sliding it across the partition to the man, he raised his eyebrows as he took the bill from her hand.

"I'll be back in forty minutes," she murmured, making sure that the man understood what she was trying to tell him. "You stay here, have a power nap or watch some Netflix I don't care, but I'm going to get a sandwich and have a nice stroll of Queens."

Not waiting for a reply, the girl jumped out of the car and began to stroll down the street. She had been in Queens many a time over the years and had stumbled upon the small sandwich joint a long time ago. While her visits were hearse as she had became a reasonably noticeable public figure (since it had been figured out by the press that she was one of the original Avengers after Tony had collected her from her hide out in England), she still tried to visit whenever she could.

Entering the shop, she smiled warmly at the man who greeted her with open arms. The man raved in Italian as he smiled warmly at her across the counter. She noticed another man at the side of the shop look up as she entered, he was simply browsing the different types of meat on display.

"It's been a while!" He exclaimed, throwing his hands up with a playful smile as the young avenger bounced on the balls of her feet with joy at the excitement of getting to have another of his famous sandwiches. "What can I get you today, Casey?"

She smiled at the use of her surname as she had a quick glance at the boards. "Delmar! A number five please, but hold the pickles," she murmured the last part as she thought about how she didn't happen to have any gym handy to keep the smell at bay.

He smiled in delight, barking an order to the man next to her as he turned his focus back to the blonde in front of him.

"How's your daughter?" She asked, noticing the way his eyes lit up at the mention of her.

"Oh she is fantastic! Perfecto," he praised, a proud smile across his face as he thought about his daughter. He went to continue his words but a breaking news headline on the TV running at the corner of the store caught both of their attention.

Scottie felt her breath catch in her throat as she saw the live images of the avengers on the screen. Her team were out there, putting themselves in danger as always without a moment of hesitation and here she was, eating a sandwich without a single care in the world.

She felt guilty that they were out there and she was here - but that wasn't her fault. She had been told not to come and that she wasn't cleared for duty after her previous outburst. There was nothing she could have done.

"A false call?" Delmar mumbled, bringing her back to the moment before them and taking her head out of her cloudy thoughts. "That is unhelpful!"

She turned to the TV to judge what the man had said and her eyes narrowed in confusion as Tony appeared to be confirming exactly what Delmar had just said. The billionaire's face held the same confusion that rested on Scottie's at the possibility of them receiving a fake call about Hydra when it should have been impossible.

And just like that, she felt the hairs on the back of her neck begin to rise. Something suddenly seemed very very out of place.

A click was all it took for her to register that the sudden coldness on the back of her head was a barrel of a gun. Delmar seemed to widen his eyes from in front of her, holding his hands up in surrender as another gun seemed to focus on her from the man that had been making her sandwich. She guessed that the gun at the back of her head must belong to the man who has been browsing meats when she came in.

Feeling her panic set in, Scottie noticed the tingle in her hands begin to start. Trying to stop it as she knew that it would most likely end in Delmar getting hurt, she clenched her hands into tight fists as she tried to regain her heavy breathing.

When the first gun was fired, her control snapped.

______

"Peter! Come look at this!" May yelled out as she turned on the news, having just received a message from one of her friends at FEAST that there had been an accident only a few blocks away.

The boy came sliding into the room, a hoodie half on his body as he heard the urgency in her voice.

"Aunt May? What's wrong?"

"Apparently there's been an explosion at the deli you love with that sweet old man," she started, her eyes furrowing as she looked at the TV. Jumping suddenly as she heard the front door slam, a sigh left her lips as she realised that the boy she was the legal guardian of had taken off - most likely to the crime scene.

_____

Scottie heaved as she lay on the ground, smoke still surrounding them all from the blast that she had just caused. She could only hope that Delmar was not injured. Gasping for breath as she rolled on to her stomach, Scottie's eyesight began to refocus as she noticed a pair of thick black combat boots stomping through the smoke towards her. Casting her eyes up slowly as her head tried to stop ringing, she felt her eyebrows furrow at the sight of the woman in front of her.

She had never seen this woman in her life but she knew that she worked for Hydra instantly. The red octopus embroidered into the breast pocket of the bulletproof vest she wore only confirmed that. Her mouth was pulled up into a vicious snarl but Scottie could see that there was already triumph in her eyes.

"You just killed two of my best men," the woman snarled, delivering a blow to the side of Scottie's rib cage that sent her rolling back in pain. The girl yelled out in shock and hurt as she heard a solid crack from the connection, making her consider that she now had a broken rib.

She tried to scramble to her feet, only just managing as the woman continued to prowl towards her aggressively.

"You know, I was surprised this plan worked. I knew the fake call to an old Hydra base would call the Avengers out but I really wasn't sure if they would leave their pet all alone and defenceless," she continued, almost spitting the word pet out at Scottie like an insult. "But then again, you've never really been a part of the team, have you?"

Scottie felt her energy rise as she lunges forward for the woman, catching her off guard. The blonde's fist smacked across her face without a moments hesitation and provided a satisfying crack against her jaw. Scottie continued to throw herself against the woman, all of her thoughts out the window as she allowed her body to run purely on her senses.

What a mistake that was. Her emotions overwhelming her allowed for her to not notice the knife that the woman had clutched tightly in her hand until the metal had been swiped across her side, through the fabric of her t-shirt and straight through her skin. The girl screamed out in pain as she clutched her side in shock, her lips parting slightly as she felt the warm blood pool down her fingers.

"It's such a shame that SHIELD have wasted your potential. All those years of prepping you to follow in the footsteps of Captain Danvers and now look at you, nothing more than a stupid girl who can't even control her powers," the woman spat, her hand coming up to slice another wound across the flesh on Scottie's face.

Scottie let out a short howl of pain as she crumbled. The blaring and burning sensation in her side had rendered her useless, and the thick red blood coating her hand as she held it against the would was doing nothing to slow the blood pooling around her. Her vision in her left eye was clouded with the thick red blood from the gash across her head, and she was beginning to feel light headed from the blood loss. Despite this, something about the words that the woman was sprouting caused Scottie to suddenly feel cold and useless.

"Oh, that's right! They never told you, did they?" The HYDRA agent snarled, looking at the girl with fake pity in her eyes. "It was never HYDRA who promised to cure you - it was SHIELD. They hoped that exposure to the mind stone would allow for you to become the Earth's mightiest weapon. And why wouldn't it? You were the perfect candidate; extremely intelligent, popular, athletic... you really had it all."

Scottie blinked, the words seeping into her conscious as she tried to process what the woman was saying. She didn't want to believe it - but she couldn't stop herself. She was sure that a part of her had always known the truth about how her powers really came to be.

"NO!" Scottie yelled, gasping from where she was lying on the ground as she tried to ignore the words falling from the woman's lips. Her palms had began to burn against her own skin as she tried to stop the bleeding but there was nothing she could do.

"Maybe it's time to ask Nick Fury exactly how out of all the terminally ill teenagers in the world, 'HYDRA' scientists managed to pick you for the experiment? Oh well, it's too late for that now. Tony Stark took everything from me and now I will finally get to take everything from him, starting with you and then moving on to his beloved Pepper Potts."

Scottie gasped as she clutched the gaping wound on her side. The girl tried to drag herself across the hot ground on her stomach but a simple kick to the back had her sprawling flat out to the ground again. She was viciously rolled her, coughing as blood splattered from her mouth and on to her chin. Great, she thought, she was definitely internally bleeding somewhere.

The thick black boots scratched the gravel beneath them as her blurred eyes watched the smoke almost part for them. Heaving as her eyes tried to focus, she watched as the woman crouched down beside her. Her calloused hand was mockingly gentle against her battered face and Scottie looked up with nothing but pure hatred in her eyes.

"So, Scottie Casey, any last words before you die?"

"Hey! Weird shell suit lady!"

Scottie blinked in surprise, not registering the words that suddenly rang out around them. The woman shared her sentiment, looking around confused at the high pitched teenage voice that had interrupted them. A sudden thud to their left had both of their heads turning to look at the icebreaker.

Scottie raised an eyebrow in confusion as she looked back to the Hydra goon. The woman looked back at her with the same emotion, confusion also present on her face.

"Is he with you?" Scottie asked, just wanting to check if she had an ally or not.

"No, I thought he was with you," the woman growled back, reaching to pull out a gun from the waistband of her cargo pants. She clicked the safety off, aiming it directly at the man.

The interrupter looked ridiculous. Dressed in an oversized onesie with swimming goggles perched over their eyes, Scottie couldn't help but wonder why this person ever thought red and blue and a onesie was a good look for them.

The girl yelped slightly as the boy/man/thing shot out a white substance and it stuck to the HYDRA agent's face. Squinting, she noticed it looked more like a spider web than anything else - something that confused her a lot.

As she heard the two begin to fight, her eyes travelled back down to the dark red blood that she was covered in. Holding her hand up in the light so that she could see it, Scottie gulped as she realised that this was maybe it.

She felt the panic fully start to kick in. There was so much she was still to do. She hadn't gotten Tony to ever sign off on her adoption papers - not that she needed them now that she was above eighteen. She hadn't got to watch Tony propose to Pepper just like how he had told her before he would one day. She hadn't had the chance to properly apologise to the team for running away and for hiding her condition from them. She hadn't got to tell Wanda she was falling for her, because oh god she was.

Through blurry eyes, she noticed a blur speeding to her side and dropping to its knees. Warm, clammy hands gripped on to her own as they pushed against the bleeding wounds on her body, frantically trying to keep her eyes open.

"Hey, Scottie right? The medics will be here any second, please hold on!"

"Tell... tell Tony I'm sorry..."

"Hey stay with me, you're going to be okay," the boy muttered, the goggles having moved to reveal blue eyes that stared directly into her own. Scottie felt everything begin to drift away. "I've got you, it's going to be okay. Just don't close your eyes! HEY! HEY! PLEASE STAY WITH..."