Veronica Barnes: Trained to Kill

V.

Date: 1/3/2016
Location: Tony Stark's Plane, somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean

The plane commandeered itself, Happy sitting in front of Veronica with first-aid supplies. "This is going to hurt," he warned her.

She shook her head. "I've had worse, believe me."

Happy sterilized a tool and began digging around in the wound, searching for the bullet. Peter scrunched his nose up, looking.

"I'm sorry," Tony spoke. "None of this makes sense. What...What the hell happened to you."

She sighed, the bullet Happy removed going into a metal dish with a dinging sound. "Would you like me to start my story from the beginning, Mr. Stark?" He nodded as if it was a stupid question and she tried hard not to roll her eyes. "I was born to my mother and father on January 15th of 2001. My mom approached Bucky, my dad, in his cell room in 1998, two years after he himself had thawed from the ice and was being held by HYDRA. She proposed the idea that she had found a way to get word to Captain America that he was still alive, and that he was being held by HYDRA. She needed his consent first, but she would sneak into his room each night and they would try to get her pregnant..." she looked at Peter who looked like he'd rather never have had to hear this story. "Therefore I was conceived in 2000, and born in 2001. I was raised for two years in Long Island, New York. HYDRA, while torturing my father, found out about my existence and raided the facility where I was being protected. With them was my...my father. They drug me away, and...and my dad shot my mother in the face in front of me on my second birthday. I was raised by them in the facility in Russia. This scar on my cheek..." she moved her hair out of the way to show them, "...was just one of HYDRA's many persuasion methods. I was taught to build a bomb at the age of five, could shoot without blinking at the age of six. I did my first kill at ten which was when I was given my first tattoo." She pulled up her sleeve, unwrapping the bloodstained linen from it to reveal the cut going down her arm and the the sleeve of petal tattoos.

"That-that's a lot of tattoos," Peter swallowed and Veronica nodded.

She turned her head to Tony. "Each night I would sneak from my room to go to the communications room where I'd watch movies, read books; things normal teenagers should do. When I turned on the computer back a few months ago I saw an article on 'The Avengers', and the second I saw the name 'Bucky Barnes' I remembered who I was, and I snapped out of my trance. I planned for months how I would get word to you, Mr. Stark, so I could help you take down every last HYDRA facility there is."

Tony nodded his head. "I like your enthusiasm. But first, you will be enrolled into a school, and do, as you said, 'normal teenager things.'"

"Mr. Stark, where will she stay?" Peter whispered to him. "Where will Elizabeth stay?"

Tony's eyes moved over to the little girl on one of the couches sleeping with a blanket over her, then looked back to Veronica who now had Happy cleaning and stitching the laceration on her arm. "They will stay in a foster home somewhere in New York so I can keep an eye on them..."

"No," Peter insisted. "Just...Just let me talk to Aunt May. I can...I can maybe convince her to let them stay with us or at least Veronica..."

"Kid, I know you want to help," Tony inquired. "But I highly doubt your aunt would want a trained assassin living in your apartment..."

"She needs to be with someone she trusts," he replied, looking over at Veronica as she stood up, walking to the back room to change into clothes that weren't blood-stained. "I'm the one who found her. She trusts me. Just...Just let me talk to May. Let her meet Veronica. I think she'll understand."

Date: 1/3/2016
Location: Forest Hills, Queens

          "Absolutely not," May whispered.

"Aunt May please..."

"You leave, have Tony Stark call me on my personal cell phone to tell me you're with him on a flight to RUSSIA, and then show back up with a girl--a trained female hit-man assassin, and ask if you would let me allow her to stay under my roof with us?! No."

Peter ran his hands through his hair. "I-I found her hiding in a building in an old run-down town after being held and tortured in a basement by the people who raised her, May..."

Veronica shook her head and stepped forward, lighting grabbing ahold of his arm. "Peter, it's okay," she smiled. She turned back to the little girl standing by the couch. "Come on, Elizabeth," she grabbed her hand and began out the door behind Tony and Happy. "It was nice meeting you, May."

The door shut behind them and Peter looked at Aunt May with pleading eyes. "Please, Aunt May. I promise they won't take up too much space..."

She let out a sigh. "Fine, go catch up with them."

He smiled and hugged her quickly before bolting out the door and running down to the lobby where they were getting into the car. "I convinced her," Peter panted slightly from the running, looking at Veronica. "Come on, I've got school in four hours. So do you."