Imagine that you're born to be something, everyone knows what you're destined to be long before you do, they know your purpose and your future because it would be a waste not to use the abilities you were given. You were born with a power that grants no flexibility, if you were strong there would be so many more ways to utilize it, there are so many superpowers like that, flying takes away the need for a car and mind reading can be useful in almost any situation. But you're not that lucky. You're a healer, your job opportunities are restricted to supportive roles on the sidelines, it's a waste of your abilities if you were anywhere else. You're a waste if you did anything else.
You don't want to be what you were made to be, but you have to be, or you're wasting your talents, you're letting people suffer when you were made to help them. You are so so important to the whole, but you're always in the background with your reach being so limited. You will never get the glory, the appreciation, the role you would rather have. It's not due to your lack of trying, but because everyone around you thinks you should be something else. Why would you want to be anything other than what you are?
Everyone forces you to be what you were made to be, except one. There is one person out there who sees that there's more to you than the simplicity of your power. They know you're more complex than the crystal clear destiny everyone else seems to see. They teach you to be free of the expectations of others and the limitations of your talents. but in the end you're just a plaything to them, a secret enemy kept close to keep you away from the truth. You love them, they love you, you help them, they hurt you, you stick around because they're the only one who believes in you.
When it goes too far, you have to force yourself to stand on your own and defy the fate you were molded to fit into ever since it was discovered you were special.
This is an oc fic featuring my ocs Rosalia and Artemis who are sisters, Rose has powers. Artie does not. They both work for SHIELD.
Rose was just barely used to her job at SHIELD when Hydra destroyed everything. She was happy with what she was doing. She was helping people and with all of SHEILDâs reach, she could help the people who needed her most. She had the resources to do all the research she desired and was allowed to see classified information from scientists just like her. It was a dream until it wasnât.Â
She was in her lab when it happened. She was studying an Asgardian blood sample and comparing it to a human one. She shouldâve been using her time more wisely⊠Why look at alien blood when the silent clock was counting down.Â
She heard the gunfire before she knew what was going on. She grabbed her emergency pistol from under her main desk, she was still a trained SHIELD agent after all. She wasnât a field agent but she knew the basics and could defend herself if she needed to. It was something her powers wouldnât help her with. They were useless in this kind of situation. What good was glowy healing hands when she was being shot at.Â
Footsteps were getting closer. There was muffled yelling beyond her walls. She didnât have much time. There was one door, it led to the main hallway where the attackers were coming through. Her best chance was to hide.Â
She ran as quietly as she could to the back of the room where some mostly empty cabinets were. She hoped that she was small enough to squeeze inside. Sure, it wasnât a good vantage point but she was on the index and they would know that she was there and that she could be a target. She didnât want to go out fighting, there was still so much she could do. She doubted that they would take their time searching every crevice for her, she was still just a healer. It didnât feel like that was part of Hydraâs gig.Â
She had just gotten into position when the main door was kicked in rather violently. There was a main man in the front who ordered the others to search the room. Roseâs heart sank. She cocked her gun in the chaos and prepared to fire and get out of there as swiftly as possible. Her chances of escaping were low. She didnât have enough ammo to take out the whole room and she wasnât a perfect shot. Her chances of survival were dwindling.Â
The footsteps were getting closer, one by one cabinet doors were being haphazardly ripped open, each getting nearer to her hiding place. She did her best to control her breathing but there was a reason that she didnât want to be a field agent, she was not good in absolutely terrifying situations. She hated how much her hands shook on her gun. She had to keep her finger off of the trigger to prevent an accidental misfire.Â
She took a few deep breaths as the banging of wooden doors got nearer. Time felt like it was going so slowly, though the nearest baddie was only a few cabinets away, it felt like an eternity before they got to hers. She gently rested her finger on the trigger and let herself take a second to see who was going to be on the other side. All she saw was a familiar red badge depicting a skull on top of several tentacles and she knew exactly what was going on.Â
After she pulled the trigger, things seemed to get a little crazy. She slid out from her hiding place and used the man she had shot in the shoulder as a kind of human shield. She threw the poor nazi into the closest of his colleagues and shot at the Hydra agents closest to her.Â
It didnât take long for them to react. The room erupted in deafening bangs and yells. Rose rolled behind a metal column and vaguely recognized a painful burning in her thigh.Â
âYouâre not a fighter Doctor Dawn, this isnât a fight you can win.â The main guy bellowed from behind her.Â
âAnd what do you expect me to do,â Rose hissed, âPraise the name of hydra and surrender my rights to fascist ideals?âÂ
âOh of course not. I just thought Iâd try to make it easier. Youâre coming with us, whether youâre full of holes or not. You know youâre potential has been wasted here, imagine what you could do without SHIELDâs limitations.â The man purred creepily.
âYou donât know me, Iâm not going to do things just because I can. Some people have a hint of moral obligations.â Rose looked around her half of the room, she only had a few bullets left and Hydra wanted her alive, otherwise, they wouldâve taken her down easily. She was astoundingly outnumbered.Â
âThis is your last chance to give yourself up, all in one piece. You know that you have no choice, donât you have any sense of self-preservation?âÂ
âSelf-preservation isnât my strong suitâŠâ Rose muttered as she placed her hand on her wound, it had stopped bleeding and was already closing. Soon, standing should be only a little bit painful rather than impossible. She just needed to keep him talking for a tiny bit longer.Â
âWhy,â She asked, âWhy do you guys want me? There are people who can cause natural disasters and turn into any material they touch. Iâm just a doctor. Wouldnât you want to use your evil resources to get them rather than waste a good team getting a defenseless healer? That is if this is a good team and not just a bunch of cowards who were given guns.âÂ
âYou underestimate your value to us. Imagine an unkillable army, soldiers who cannot be damaged by bullets, no need for armor or shields⊠itâs beautiful isnât it.âÂ
Rose laughed. She laughed as she carefully got to her feet, leaning heavily on the metal pillar shielding her.Â
âI canât do that? What do you think I am? A god?âÂ
âYou could be.âÂ
âThere arenât meant to be gods in this world. Even if it was possible, I donât want to make an unkillable army, and if you think me a god, you canât bend a god to youâre twisted will. I think thatâs part of the whole omnipotent being bit.â Rose tested a lean on her injured leg and readied her gun.
âYou wonât get the luxury of a choice.â the man said grimly.Â
Rose stepped out of her hiding place and pointed her gun at the main military man. Before she could let out another word, she was hit with a tiny pinprick, to small to be a bullet. She only had enough time to look at the projectile before all her strength was seeping out of her. Seemed to be an enhanced tranquilizer. She collapsed to the ground and felt a massive collar be locked around her throat before her vision completely blacked out. Â
Just like that, it was over. Her freedom was gone in the blink of an eye. She didnât know if anyone would be willing or even left to attempt to save her.Â
***
Artemis was undercover when Hydra made their move. She had just dyed her short hair brown and curled it, painted on more freckles on her cheeks, and hidden several types of weapons in her casual clothes. It was honestly one of her favorite parts of her job. Creating a character, pretending to be someone else, blending in, she liked it more than the whole fighting part. Even if she was pretty damn good at the fighting part.Â
When Hydra emerged from their wretched ashes, Artemis was alone. She started the day on a mission but it didnât take her long to realize that she was being hunted.Â
It started with a strange flash from a window from the apartment building across the street. Call her paranoid but she immediately left eyeshot of the window. She took out her own sniper rifle and took off the specialized scope. She used it as a kind of telescope and turned on its x-ray feature and adjustable zoom to identify if someone was after her or if she was just imagining it.Â
She was not imagining it. There was a person in a high window with a gun, trying their best to conceal themselves. Artemis put the scope back on her rifle and took out an acid green colored tube of lipstick, of course, it wasnât actually lipstick. She was a spy. She uncapped it and used it to trace around the concrete on a nearby brick. There was a minute of soft sizzling before she slid out the brick as if it had just been laid.Â
She pointed the barrel out of the new hole in the wall and wasted no time as she aimed and fired. The loud streets dampened the sound of the bang and she replaced the brick before getting out of there before anyone had a chance to figure out that something was up.Â
It was on the news all day, SHIELD had fallen, theyâre secrets exposed, and Hydra was back. Of course, some of that information was passed to her by an old friend but most of it was very much public.Â
But Artemis didnât care about her job, her livelihood, her kill count being on display for anyone to look up on google, no. Her sister was right at the heart of it, and due to her status as a glowy super-human, she was very much in trouble, if not dead. Sure it would be stupid to not keep her alive, but Hydra wasnât known for their mercy.Â
Artemis could disappear, she could get away from Hydra easily, but she wasnât going to. Not while her sister was in their clutches.Â
It took a few Hydra agents but eventually, Artemis found one that knew something that she cared about. Where they were keeping the important prisoners. Their enhanced prisoners. It turned out that they had a prison boat in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. One heavily equipped to deal with even the Avengers. Bingo.Â
Artemis was ready for a rescue mission.Â
***
Time was odd in her cell. The lights were always on, there was always a guard outside of the glass, Roses internal clock was the only thing hinting at the time and that had always been a little unreliable. They give her food once a day, if it could be called food, and itâs time always seemed to fluctuate. Every once in a while they would try to convince her to join them. They spoke of a perfect life, of power, of wealth but she would always say no. And she would pay for it. Usually, they would fill her body with voltage or try to brand her, but she would heal before the next day. Rarely even leaving a mark. At most a gunshot would become a scar no larger than the size of a freckle.Â
The bulky shock collar had started to become normal. Her hair, which was normally held in a tight bun or a professional ponytail, was wild and untamed falling down her shoulders, some in front of her face. She couldnât move it, her wrists were cuffed together, only uncuffed for meals or occasional trips to shower.Â
Every moment alone, she spent inside her own head. Every moment wasted in a bright blank room when she could be helping people or not being in a cell. She thought about her sister, whose whole life was uprooted at the fall of SHIELD, but Rose was sure she could handle herself, she had never known anyone more capable. Still, she was worried. Their family had been complicated, and accidentally working for the same secret organization had been the most perfect coincidence. It took a few years but they got close again, rejecting childish resentment and competition.Â
But Artemis wouldnât come for her, she had never made a decision based on feelings before and was very unlikely to do so. If she came, it would take weeks at least and a well thought out attack or something of that nature.Â
Although since she couldnât use her powers, they were just building up inside her. Her own healing factor had sped up just by not healing people constantly. Her power had nowhere to go after she had gotten used to using it so much during the day.Â
She was filled with energy that had nowhere to go. She was trapped in several ways, none of them very fun. She had to get out, no one was going to save her, they would be stupid to try.Â
It turned out someone was stupid enough to try. Someone so wonderfully stupid to care about her.Â
Against the odds, her sister was there, silently taking out a guard with ease. Her cheek was bleeding and bruised and she had the most feral look in her eyes, it was kind of scary. Artemis, who was calculating and calm at all times, who put so much thought into every decision she made, had left everything she had left to find her. Rose couldnât help but smile.Â
Artemis took the shock collar remote from the guard and unlocked the cell door with a stollen key card.Â
âHey Rosie, Youâve looked betterâŠâ She quipped while taking a moment to figure out which button on the remote took off the collar.Â
âAnd youâve never looked better. Iâve never been so happy to see you come in and knock someone out.â Rose grinned.Â
âYeah, yeahâŠâ Artemis rolled her eyes and pressed a button that made the collar release a bunch of air. She gently took it off of her sister to see the deep indents that it made around her neck including the two electricity input and output spikes on each side of her throat. âJesus⊠that does not look very comfortable.âÂ
âImagine having to sleep in it.â Rose ripped her hands from the handcuffs behind her back and gently rubbed the sore parts on her neck. Once the pressure was removed, the bruises started to heal. She raised her hand to her sisterâs bloodstained face and had a record-breaking healing session. Even small wounds would take a minute or two but this time it took seconds and it was kind of mesmerizing to see the process.Â
âThanks.â Artemisâ face relaxed as the pain eased.Â
âItâs genuinely the least I can do. Iâm guessing that if you havenât been noticed, you just got noticed so uh, can we get out of here?â Rose left the cell and took a gun from the fallen guard.Â
âNo, I was planning on staying here foreverâŠâ Artemis grumbled. âFollow me, we have to get to the top deck.â
They almost made it up two floors before the first group of baddies came running towards them. Rose heard the frantic heavy footsteps on the metal floor before anything else and she cocked her gun. Her sister put her arm in front of her signalling for her to stop and let her deal with the problem. Rose nodded but stayed close anyway, partially because if her sister got hurt she would need to fix it and partially because she didnât want to feel useless.Â
Artemis caught the group by surprise and shot the front few guys before using one of them as a shield to defend herself from the other ones. She pushed them into the chaos and rammed her knee in the crotch of the closest guy. She wasnât superhuman like her sister but she worked hard and was pretty damn strong. She kicked the gun out the hand of the guy whose nuts she just crushed and shot the hand of the guy who was moments away from shooting her. The fight kept going like that, her being too fast to shoot at and at some point pulling out a knife.Â
Rose stayed out of sight and felt her blood run cold when she heard more footsteps. A lot more footsteps. They were going to get overwhelmed very soon. Even Artemis couldnât take out so many people.Â
The noise in the hallway stopped, Artemis finished the fight and looked a little winded. She walked back to her sister.Â
âDonât get tired yet. I heard more coming. I donât think we can fight our way out.â She said grimly as she waved her glowing hand over the injured parts of her sister. She had taken a few heavy hits.Â
âHow do you feel about elevators?â  Â
***
When Artemis mentioned elevators, Rose thought about riding the actual elevator. Not climbing up the shaft with an endless drop at any slight mistake. She guessed that this was why she wasnât a spy, it wouldâve been too nice to just ride the elevator. Everything just had to be hard.Â
They froze every time there was a noise and spoke in frustrated hushed tones whenever they had something to say. Like how not fun climbing up an elevator shaft in a massive prison ship was.Â
The grumbling stopped when the elevators started to move and the elevator shaft became less of a death pit and more of a death trap. Rose had managed to get on top of one of the moving elevators and kept trying to get Artemis to come with her before it was too late. She was perched on a slight ledge far enough away from the momentarily stopping elevator that it would take a miracle to jump the gap and make it. The window of opportunity was closing fast.Â
âJust jump! Iâll catch you!â Rose said frantically as she reached her hand out as far as it could go.Â
âThe fuck do you think I am? Captain America? Just go without me! Iâll catch up!âÂ
âI can literally catch you asshole, we donât have time for you to whine about it!â Rose hissed. Artemis wasted precious moments to roll her eyes and carefully maneuver her body to the adequate leverage to maximize her jumping range.Â
Then was the moment of truth. Artemis used all of her strength and flung her body at her sister as best as she could.Â
It was so close. For a moment, their fingers just barely touched, enough to grab at the ends. Enough to delay the inevitable for a moment.Â
âGo⊠Iâll meet you upstairs⊠okay?âÂ
âNo⊠I can get you up⊠just hold onâŠâ She said desperately. Artemis was already slipping one finger at a time. Rose had to keep her other hand on the elevator, any moment it would start moving again.Â
âItâs okay, let me go.â Rose wouldnât get the chance. Artemis slipped through her fingers.Â
Then she fell. She didnât even scream, but Rose did. In that moment, something flickered. For the briefest of moments, in the height of pure emotion, something within Rose changed. Her eyes glowed gold, her hair defied gravity and reflected light that wasnât there, and then it stopped. And she was left alone. She didnât even notice the moment of glowing potential.Â
She was going back for her sister. The long way.Â
***
It didnât take long for Rose to get caught, but that was kind of part of the plan. Kind of. She didnât have a fully fleshed out plan but she thought she had something at least. It was kind of hard to think after what happened. Artemis could be dead⊠no it would take more to kill her sister. She had never known anyone more resilient and with more pure will. She was like the John Wick of spies. Someone could break both of her legs and arms and she would still find a way to stand back up and wreck shit. A stupid elevator shaft wouldnât take her out. Hopefully.Â
Rose wandered around the halls. It wasnât like there was a map of the place. She felt like she was in a daze, time was slow and blurry. Every sound felt far away⊠in fact⊠everything felt far away. She couldnât focus. It could be the lack of food and water catching up to her but she doubted it.Â
She was surprised that she managed not to bump into any hydra agents, she had noticed that a bunch of the cameras in the halls had been broken or even completely ripped off. There were still bullet holes and subtle bloodstains on the walls telling her this ship used to be SHIELDs and it was part of the hydra resurgence. Right at the front lines. They didnât have enough time to fix everything and it was unlikely that some cameras on a prison ship would be a major priority for a reborn nazi organization. They were probably still getting rid of the bodies of the SHIELD agents they murdered.Â
Like Artemis, sure it was a little more distantly but if hydra hadnât emerged from the dark damp hell they came from then none of this would have happened.Â
The last thought made her growl audibly, which is not something she just did normally. She doesnât usually growl like a dog. She tightly balled her fists and decided that she couldnât just stand there to absorb what just happened, she was still in the nest of the people hunting her. She was likely moments away from being found out and captured or worse. She had to get her shit together before there was a gun to her head.Â
âYou seem a little lost Rosie.â A deep voice came from somewhere ahead of her, it sounded like it was coming from an old intercom, it echoed eerily in the empty halls. The lights flickered a bit before blotting out sequentially, adding to the horror movie atmosphere.Â
âDid you really think that weâd just let you go? No⊠no. Youâre much too useful for us.â The voice continued. Rose didnât say anything. She followed the voice to a touchscreen lock pad in front of a metal door and she didnât hesitate to slam her already tight fist into it. It shattered on impact and pieces of plastic and glass littered the floor.Â
âWell, someoneâs grumpy! At least let me finish my monologue! I worked too hard on it!â The voice continued further away. Rose didnât like being taunted. She was having a bad enough day as it was. She went to the next touchscreen pad and punched it. She just wanted the voice to stop.Â
âWe can keep doing this but property damage wonât fix your situation.â The voice grumbled from another further away speaker.Â
âWhat do you want from me!â Rose yelled into the empty halls.Â
âWe want everything you can give. But we are willing to negotiate. Weâll let your sister go if you surrender yourself to us.âÂ
âI thought negotiations required both parties to agree.â She said before she fully realized what had been offered. Her sister was alive, for now. That fact was both incredibly relieving and overwhelmingly anxiety-inducing.Â
âThat is our offer. Either she dies and we take you the hard way, or she lives and we get what we want. Simple.â
âWhere is she!â Rose demanded.Â
âDo you accept the deal or not?âÂ
âYes, just let me see her, please,â Rose said desperately.Â
âGood choice. There are people on their way to escort you to your sister. Thanks for doing business with us.âÂ
***
Rose was not glad to be back in cuffs and a godforsaken shock collar, but her sister was alive and would stay that way. That had to be something.Â
She could feel the cold metal barrels of guns at her back and neck, she was surrounded by heavily armored Hydra agents who had no qualms about handling her roughly. She tried to appear strong and defiant but she was sure that they could see her tremble. One twitch if the trigger finger and she would be dead. Probably, she didnât quite know the limits of her healing factor and she wasnât keen on finding out.Â
They turned a corner and there she was. Artemis was covered in blood and her left foot was pointing completely the wrong direction, but she was breathing and still had the sharp rage in her eyes. Right next to her was a stereotypical military man with a scar through his eyebrow and piercing his salt and pepper hairline.Â
âArtie! You have to let me help her.â Rose ordered at the man who she assumed had been the voice she had heard earlier.Â
âThat wasnât part of the deal. We let her go. Thatâs it. You should be thankful that we brought you to see her at all.âÂ
âIf you donât let me heal her, youâre going to regret it.â She snarled. The man laughed, it was harsh and mocking and going on for way too long. It made Rose even angrier.Â
âWhat are you going to do? Heal my arthritis? Youâre no fighter doc. Sheâll be dead before you even lift a finger.â The man spat in Roseâs face, she didnât wince and most of her energy went to keeping herself from ripping off the handcuffs and throttling the man until he turned blue. Although no one would see, a glow started to grow from the bones inside of her hands, illuminating her veins in a strange golden light.Â
âUnderestimating me isnât good for your health, I should know. Iâm a doctor.âÂ
âYou know what, Iâm sick of your attitude,â The man turned to the agents holding Artemis up, âKill the sister. Maybe that will make this easier.â There was a click of a gun cocking before Rose reacted.
âNo!â She yelled, but it was too late, the gunshot rang out and echoed among the silence and Artemis collapsed in a rapidly growing pool of blood. Rose felt like her bones were on fire, there was a blistering heat that encompassed every cell in her body. She could only hold it in for a couple seconds more. Just long enough for the man to look back at her and react in horror.Â
Her bones glowed like they encapsulated all the light from the sun and her eyes glowed with the same light. Her skull and veins were visible through her skin and her messy hair started to defy gravity and reflect the light coming from her skin. The supernova of rage would explode any moment, there was nothing she could do to hold it back, but she didnât really want to hold it back.Â
It was like an explosion was continually off and Rose was in the center of it. There was a blast of bright golden light that blasted the hydra bastards around her to the ground. There were screams, but Rose didnât hear them.Â
Thereâs that saying of âtoo much of a good thingâ that could apply. Too much healing meant bone where it shouldnât be, skin where it shouldnât grow, holes that shouldnât be cut off. Thatâs what happened to anyone in the blast zone. The agents around her had shards of bone growing together, winding and twisting as if making an intricate Celtic knot. The bone grew from ribs, skulls, femurs, any large bone grew grotesquely beyond its limits and the small connective bones grew together making a terrifying group of intertwining statues. And that was just the agents around her.Â
It took no effort for her to rip the handcuffs off, the shock collar was just as easy. She turned her head towards the uniformed man on the ground, trying to stumble away as his own body attacked him just by being in Roses presence.Â
All she could feel was rage towards this man. She was so tired of being restrained. By chains or by her own need to keep her feelings from impacting her work. She was so so tired of it. Her power was connected to her emotions and she had always had to keep them in check, but not now.Â
She walked steadily to the man trying to scramble away. His little rectangular glasses were broken and tilted on his nose. There was so much fear in his eyes. It made a strange scary little part of her happy.Â
âJust a healer, no good for fightingâŠâ She said, her voice was different, slightly non-human sounding. As if she was speaking as some ancient god, the kind whose voice could make an entire civilization fall to their knees.Â
âYou are right, this isnât much of a fight.â She knelt down to look the man in the eyes. âIf it was a fight, you would stand a chance.âÂ
âStop this!â The man yelled shakily, âIâll do anything!â He almost sobbed.
âYou will not speak,â Rose said as the skin around the manâs mouth began to close in, âYou will not see.â She whispered as she made his eyelids grow together. âYou will not hear.â She hissed quietly. His ears slowly grew together as she said her last words to him. âYou will be lucky to be saved, but you will not know. Actually, you would be lucky to die here. Iâm sure youâd never want to run into me again. You should be glad that I didnât just kill you for what you did to my sister. If anything, be fucking grateful.âÂ
She stood up, leaving the man on the cold ground. The room was quiet. No more screams. Only heartbeats. She didnât kill a single person. With enough skill and time, they could all be saved. She planned to send out a distress signal, they would be found. But that was all she could ensure.Â
The light faded. The flaming rage began to be replaced with empty sorrow and horror. She observed the room post-rage-explosion. She had never thought she was capable of anything like this. She had never thought that she could cause such⊠destruction. She breathed in a shaky breath and made herself look at her sisterâs body. She gasped when she saw the rise and fall of her sisterâs chest. She was breathing. She was still alive.Â
 âArtie? Artie!â Rose ran to her sister and looked over her. There was no gunshot wound. Roses blast had healed her completely. Her eyes fluttered open when her sister reached her.Â
âHey⊠whatâŠâ Artemis wheezed, but Rose was already holding her in her arms and sobbing uncontrollably. For a while, they just held each other. Eventually, they were ready to leave.Â
Rose was sure that hydra agents were still crawling in the ship but they stayed away from the sisters. There mustâve been some kind of surveillance of the event. They must know what happened somehow. Rose had no idea how but she was too tired, physically and emotionally, to care.Â
They left the ship with no problems. They boarded Artemisâ hidden ship, perfect stealth tech that could change from a boat to a fighter jet, only big enough for three people at most if they really squeezed in.Â
Rose sat in the co-pilotâs seat, though she wouldnât be any help. Her sister would be doing all the work. It was silent as they shot off into the sky and hovered above the clouds for seemingly hours. She was using the holoscreen to look at her emails and had just switched to her super-secret SHIELD account. A certain email caught her eye. Its subject line was âJob Opportunity for Former SHIELD Agentsâ and it was from Stark Industries. Rose smiled a little. Maybe her life wasnât over after all.Â
Andromeda put a hand over her mouth to keep herself from gasping. She was only a wall and an open door away from the discussion taking place. Her parents were just beyond that wall. They were Hydra⊠They didnât work for NASA or for some new space department of the government, no. They worked for the secret Nazi organization that had fallen into obscurity so long ago.Â
The facility was makeshift and thus not heavily guarded or under heavy surveillance. It was why she wasnât caught yet. She had just been exploring while she thought her parents were doing something boring. She didnât plan to find some deeply hidden government secret. She didnât plan to find anything at all. She just wanted to catch a glance at the newest spacecraft that her parents talked about.Â
She didnât plan on her world crumbling.Â
Her parents were the bad guys. Her mother, a tall proud Indian woman, who refused to wear anything other than a full saree and a pound of jewelry, wasnât an astrophysicist for NASA⊠no, she was part of a deeply embedded part of the government made up of Nazis. Her father wasnât the head engineer in charge of the most recent space-traveling equipment, he was a lead Hydra scientist.Â
Andromeda couldnât believe it. Her parents werenât evil. They were Indian immigrants with genius-level IQs that she just happened not to inherit. They spoke rapid-fire Hindi and their English was spoken with a heavy accent. They argued about music and food and wanted Andromeda to have more of a dating life, they had favorite movies and collected little things from everywhere they went. They werenât evil.Â
She was spiraling. The room was shrinking in on her. That was before the alarms went off. Red lights and screeching sirens filled the concrete halls.Â
Andromeda didnât think, she just ran. She didnât know where she was going, the only direction she recognized was âaway from hereâ. Her heart was beating in her throat so loudly that she could feel it even with the sirens.Â
There were too many halls that looked the same, she made so many random turns. She only stopped to avoid a heavily armed squadron of hydra security guards. After an eternity of running and hiding, she got to a room. It wasnât a research room, it wasnât filled with computers or partially finished machinery. It was a hanger with a single aircraft in the center.Â
It was like a rocket and an airplane fused together, it was like it was straight out of Star Wars. It had massive wings and almost just as massive thrusters on the top. It was white with an insignia of an eagle of the side.Â
She heard rapid footsteps behind her. She ran to the only place she thought sheâd be safe. Into the aircraft. The room was already a dead end, there was only one exit. The yelling got closer. She could recognize her fatherâs pleading voice in the chaos.Â
She had just enough time to slip into the ship before the men entered the room. The ship was big enough to fit a few dozen people but what really piqued Andromedaâs interest was the cockpit. It was too familiar. But she had never been in an aircraft like this before, she had only piloted a simulator at the Junior NASA camp.Â
The simulator. It was modeled after this aircraft. Every detail was the same. Had she been secretly being trained to fly this thing? The only thing different was the guns. It had them. The simulator was just for a fusion spaceship that she thought was completely theoretical. It was meant for exploration, it wouldnât need guns. But this one did.
Loud pounding on the metal door interrupted her train of thought and reminded her of her pure panic. There was muffled yelling, some from her parents, pleading with her to get out of the spaceship and that itâs okay and that sheâll be safe if she did but there was more yelling that directly contradicted that.Â
She wasnât going to give herself up, she didnât exactly have a choice. Hydra was so bent on not getting discovered that they wouldnât hesitate to kill some teenage girl that got in their way.Â
So instead of surrendering, she started the spaceship up and sat in the pilotâs seat with the co-pilots seat empty. There was several empty spacesuits in the back, but she wasnât prepared for an intergalactic flight. She didnât even know where sheâd go. Where would she even get help? From what she heard, Hydra was everywhere.Â
She decided to figure that out later. Once she was out of Hydras tentacles. She methodically flipped switches and pressed buttons that she was trained to press. The massive turbines started to spin and she could feel the rumble of the rocket engines. She put on the headset and adjusted the little microphone over her mouth. She pressed the button to open the sky door. She could barely hear the angry screaming from outside.Â
She had to take a breath and control her heartbeat before she pulled the lever back to do more than hover a dozen feet in the air. Before she managed to blast off into the sky, a transmission echoed through her display.Â
âYou can land the plane and surrender yourself or we wonât hesitate to blow you out of the sky.â A calm but grumpy male voice said through the intercom.Â
âIâm sorry, but I canât do that. I donât exactly believe any of you would be nice to me at this point and I donât feel comfortable in a world where Hydra is pulling the strings.â Andromeda said, her voice shaking a little as she pulled up a GPS system on a touchscreen monitor. The entire earth was displayed with dozens of glowing points for secret bases and government places to land.Â
âThere is no place on this earth where you can run from us, you can make this easier and make your sentence much lighter if you give up now.â The voice on the other said sounded frustrated. Andromeda noticed a little button on the side of the screen that seemed to be a little magnifying glass. She pressed it and grinned as instead of zooming in on the planet, the diagram zoomed out. Earth was a tiny speck with a handful of planets named on the screen. One pointed out an entire star system, âSkrull Refugee Systemâ. Well, Andromeda is kind of a refugee now⊠sheâs definitely not safe on her own planet. Hopefully, these Skrull guys didnât mind her joining the party.Â
âWell, then itâs a good thing that Iâm not planning on landing on this earth.â She set her targeting system to the main planet in the star system. At least she had a chance out there in the stars if she stayed on earth, there was no guarantee she would be able to avoid hydra.Â
âYou brought this upon yourself.â The voice said gravely as a video message popped up on her main screen.Â
âYou have one more chance, Ms. Starling.â A burly man said in the center of the screen. âLand the aircraft or consequences will be thrust upon you.âÂ
âConsequences come for us all. And theyâll come for you guys when the good guys in the government realize that theyâre being run by fucking Nazis.â She growled.Â
âThereâs no more Captain America Ms. Starling. Stop living on fantasies. We already run the world, we just have the mercy to let you live in it. Your parents, however, must pay for your crimes.â The camera panned out to show a dozen armed people around her parents who were now being forced to kneel on the ground with guns to their heads.Â
Andromedaâs blood went cold. She didnât even have time to beg before the shots made her ears ring and her parents collapsed on the floor in a pool of their own blood. The video cut out and she couldnât move. She had to force herself to activate the thrusters. She was still in shock when she exited the atmosphere minutes letter.
She shook for thousands of miles after she left the earth. She was in shock and had to push herself physically to take the steps that she needed to take to survive in space. She sluggishly put on a spacesuit and tucked her long black braid into the helmet.Â
She desperately tried to control her hyperventilating as she now had limited oxygen and wasnât quite sure of the readiness of her spacecraft. It wasnât even near fully stocked besides a full fuel tank, likely for test flights. There was no food, the water was at a minimum and had no circulating filtration. The bed didnât have a pillow or a blanket and Andromeda only had what she came with which was the clothes off of her back and whatever was in the pockets of her silver jacket.
To avoid confronting what had just happened, Andromeda looked at the schematics of the ship, apparently, the engine was powered off of the stolen power from some cube thing called a tesseract that was in the custody of some government agency that Hydra had already infiltrated.Â
It was hours later when she completely broke down. Everything collided with her all at once and it felt like it was crushing her. But that could also be contributed to the rapidly decreasing stabilization of the spacecraft. As she plummeted towards her destination, the structural integrity of the ship was decreasing drastically, the pressure and the destabilization of the oxygen made Andromedaâs vision go dark long before impact. Her last thought before it happened was a brief moment of thankfulness that she would die with her own choices and that she might be able to see her parents again.Â
Fortunately or unfortunately, she woke up after an indeterminant amount of time. There were hours of barely reaching consciousness for a moment before the darkness overtook her again. There were only moments, images. Laying on the ceiling of the spaceship, covered in blood. Being carried away by green hairless humanoids. Talking in some language unlike anything she had ever heard on earth. A soft bed. Strange lights. Purple fluid being pumped into her bloodstream with a clear tube. Pain⊠lots of pain, burning pain, electrifying pain, blinding pain. She just wanted it to be over.Â
She fully woke up in what seemed like a medical bed. It was much different than what she had experienced on earth, but it wasnât that different. Her head ached and her vision was fuzzy. Her body just felt strange and off. She couldnât figure out why or what was specifically off.Â
As her vision cleared, she began to recognize what was going on around her. There was a green, almost reptilian figure working on a hologram of what seemed like an image of Andromedaâs body with glowing purple starting to color her veins and incomprehensible information on the side. There was a machine to her side pumping opaque purple fluid into a clear pipe going into the skin in her arm.Â
The room was clean but not excessively complex, there were no windows or curtains, just a gray metal door, and the medical console being manned by the alien figure. It wasnât like she wasnât expecting to see aliens but it was still a pretty strange sight. Strange in a fascinating way, Andromeda definitely thought it was super cool to be likely one of the only humans to be in contact with aliens. And the aliens seemed to be nice as she was still alive even after crashlanding into their planet and seemed to be receiving medical attention.Â
Suddenly, her situation collapsed back on her like a mountain being dropped from the sky. She wheezed in a breath as tears filled her eyes. The alien (woman?) at the glowing hologram turned around as she noticed Andromeda awake and struggling to breathe.Â
âYou are safe terran. You do not have to worry.â The Alien woman said calmly, surprisingly enough, in English.Â
âIâm sorry, I had nowhere to goâŠâ Andromeda whispered, for some reason, her voice was hoarse and scratchy.Â
âYou have no reason to apologize. You are not the only one like that here. Now rest. You still have thirty-seven percent of your blood fusion to go. You will feel better when itâs finished.â The alien woman messed with the machinery currently injecting purple liquid into her. She suddenly felt very light-headed and tired. It only took a moment for her to fall back into comfortable darkness.Â
The alien woman was right, the next time she woke up, she felt better than she had ever felt. She felt strong and refreshed. She felt new. Her head was lighter, which turned out to be partially because her long hair had been cut to implant what the alien doctor said was a translation chip or something. This wasnât the only change though.Â
It turned out that the purple liquid which was now coursing through Andromedaâs veins changed her in more physical ways. All of her hair on her body turned a bright white and when she looked into the mirror, she saw that her once dark brown eyes turned violet. Her skin tone was even slightly cooler as the color of her blood had completely changed. The little veins in her eyes were shades of purple instead of red or pink.Â
The alien woman told her that they had gotten to her after she had lost a lot of blood and they had to adjust their own to be compatible enough to be transfused. Apparently she reacted strangely with the blood formula and it physically changed her in unforeseen ways. This left alien scientists and doctors mystified and incredibly interested.Â
The Skrulls, whose enhanced blood was now coursing through Andromedaâs veins, were a shapeshifting race of aliens who were constantly under attack by blue humanoid aliens called the Kree. This was why they had several refuge planets. The system of planets was shared with other survivors of the Kree, including humanoids of all neon colors and even aliens who could pass as human. Â
Andromeda was given a makeshift shelter with a handful of other aliens, some feminine, some masculine, some gender non-conforming. Mostly green reptilian Skrulls, but also an androgynous alien with bright pink skin.
It took her a while to get used to her new life, thank goodness aliens were a good distraction from major trauma. Life was simple, everyone worked together to survive. There were hunters who went into the wild planet and brought back strange alien creatures for food, there were farmers who grew crops and saved them up to ration them out every day. There were shelter builders and doctors and cooks and caregivers for children and dozens of other essential jobs that everyone wordlessly participated in. Andromeda tended to drift towards hunting and assisting the medical team. She had several first aid courses under her belt and alien physiology was fascinating to her.Â
She was also being considered as a co-pilot for rescue missions. They didnât have too many people who could fly a ship and who was willing to leave stability to willingly risk their life. Naturally, Andromeda volunteered for the job. Her life was exciting and different but after so many months, it had begun to be monotonous. Every day was the same. The infinite vacuum of space sounded much more fun.
It was during her first rescue mission when she realized how much she had changed. She was stalling in the co-pilots seat, ready to take off at a momentâs notice when an alert pulsed through her high tech monitor. She wasnât supposed to get out of the ship. She was just a pilot. But if the distress signal was going off, that meant that the crew was captured or needed backup. Andromeda took the emergency gun from under her chair and stood up from her spot after putting the ship on stealth standby.Â
She crept off of the ship in her adaptable uniform that was derived from a defector of the Kree Star Force. The suit changed colors to blend into the dry red environment and created a mask around her mouth to breathe the planetâs gasses. She twisted her wrist and the gauntlet of the suit activated a flickering GPS system, pointing out where her teammates were.Â
She eventually made it to a small cliff in the orange rock that looked over the situation. Her teammates were surrounded by gunmen of the local oppressive government with a dozen unarmed civilians huddled in the center. There was some far away yelling but she didnât care to hear it. She just had to think of what she needed to do. Her skin crawled with adrenaline. Or at least thatâs what she thought it was.Â
No one had noticed her presence. She carefully aimed her gun at the closest bad guy. She had never been great with guns and she was a little far away for comfort but she really couldnât do much else. Of course, even with the most advanced targeting system she had ever worked with, she missed. At least it caused a bit of chaos.Â
The bad guys in bright blue uniforms looked around wildly for her but she had already ducked back behind the rock. The bad guys yelled and one of them called for someone to find the âidiot slug-fuckerâ. Andromeda wasnât sure about the accuracy of that translation but she didnât like the sound of it. Her skin crawled even more as a dominant yell echoed through the valley of rock. Â
âShow yourself or theyâre all going to be shot down!â She froze. She couldnât just sit there and ruin the mission and be the reason even more people are dying. She stood up from behind the scarlet stone and held her arms up in surrender. For some reason, her skin only crawled more. It was too bad humans werenât the most interesting beings in the universe, if she had wings like Nidaviliir Demons or durable and able to take out technology like a Remorath but she was only human. The most basic boring creature in the universe.Â
But she wasnât quite human anymore. After she was saved by the Skrulls, she became something else entirely. And it took this long for her to know the true effects of what had happened to her.Â
The feeling of her skin crawling went up her spine and stopped in between her shoulder blades. A strange feeling emerged from her back, not painful, not uncomfortable, in fact, it felt right. Behind her, flesh and feathers grew from her back and her spacesuit merged with her new growing limbs. Massive bright white iridescent wings expanded from her back, taller than she was and several times wider. She test flapped them once and was thrust about a foot off of the ground with barely any effort.Â
The strangest part was how natural it felt. It was like she was born with the wings that she had only just barely grown herself.Â
âTake it down!â the main bad guy screeched. Andromeda automatically shielded her body with her wings. She didnât know if it would do anything to whatever type of weapons they had but it was a purely instinctual reaction. To her surprise, the energy blasts bounced off of her wings like lasers off of a mirror.Â
Once the shooting stopped, she unfurled her wings and thoughtlessly dove off the cliff. She glided low to the ground and took out a handful of guys just by ramming into them. This was when all hell broke loose. Her teammates went after the bad guys who were focused on her and she reflected energy blasts with her wings so that they would avoid the people who were in harmâs way.
It only took a minute for the fight to be over, blue military uniformed bad guys lied motionless on the ground, most of the civilians were safe. There were injuries but the mission was a success.Â
âSince when have you been able to do that Starling?â Her Skrull co-pilot exclaimed.
âSince like, uh, three minutes ago?â She shrugged. She didnât really know how to undo the shapeshifting and her back had taken a hit or two in the fight. The wings felt heavier and more in the way than natural limbs at this point. She wanted them gone but she wasnât sure how to do that.
âMaybe you should be out here instead of just in the ship!â
âMaybeâŠâ Andromeda considered as they headed back towards the spaceship.Â
Everything else went off without a hitch. They left the planet without being attacked again, no one died on the way back to the refugee planet, everything was fine. Andromeda had to have her wings half-open as there was no other way to sit, she still couldnât figure out how to reverse it and was hoping that she could figure it out.Â
After helping the new refugees with their injuries and having a meal or two, she passed out, back and wings up, on her bunk. Surprisingly enough, her wings were gone by morning.Â
This was just the beginning of her journey. She wasnât just a refugee from earth, she wasnât a science experiment anymore. For the first time in a while, she felt hope that she could be more than what was expected of her.
Quick intros for my OCs as Iâm going to write about them and thereâs nothing you can do about it.
Rosalia Scarlett Dawn AKA Rose-Â
My main girl, healing powers, the MCU version of her was recruited by SHIELD right after she got her first PHD after she was caught studying alien biology, takes her a while to become an actual superhero as her healing powers were hard to convert into anything that she could put on the field, with help from her anti-hero/ villain nemesis who she has had sexual tension with ever since they shared a dorm in medical school but then she became unethical and ignorant of the people around her ergo turning into a bad guy. Rose is usually good and wholesome but she has a dark destructive side that was awoken after her nemesis used her powers on her. Rose is selfless to the point of not taking care of herself because any time spent not helping people with her powers is time wasted in her eyes and she tends to take medical cases that no one else can, usually pertaining to other powered people, aliens, magic illnesses, etc.Â
Roses Intro Sheet  - SHIELD & Hydra
Andromeda Starling-Â
Roses endgame girlfriend, shapeshifter, in the MCU she accidentally used a Hydra spaceship to escape the planet as her parents were both scientists involved with that kind of thing. She didnât really think it through and she ended up on a skrull refugee planet where she crash landed and had to be enhanced to save her life. Sheâs not good at teamwork and tends to be a loner as sheâs afraid to get close to people. She hates being bossed around and work with other people. She can do most on her own just fine. She hates having to admit she needs help with something. Sheâs a pretty decent pilot and prefers swords over guns. If she likes someone enough to become attached, she getâs very protective and even a bit clingy but that rarely happens.Â
Roses nemesis, she was subtly jealous of Roses powers so she secretly tried to recreate them, instead the outcome gave her powers that could reverse otherâs powers against them and make normal people ill. She became a virus in every sense of the word and even tech malfunctions around her. But her powers affect herself a little, making her go a little crazy over time and more willing to do fucked up things in the name of science. Yes she wears a plague doctor mask that helps her powers not affect herself. Her powers also heighten her negative feelings and only give her relief when she uses her powers on other people as it hates being restricted. Sheâs given up on being free of it and has embraced her role as a super-plague. Itâs actually kind of sad reallyâŠÂ
Adisa Crow Portrait - Nemesis TensionÂ
Phoenix AKA Maat (Matt) Ramses-
Necromancer goth mom, grew up an orphan with the sorcerers of Kamar Taj as her parents were wakandan sorcerers who died protecting the reality and the ancient one sensed her magic potential, however she wasnât great at the normal magic that they tried to teach her. She had to steal forbidden books about necromancy to really get a hold of her powers. She left the sorcerers and found others like her, connected to death, and she made a family. but eventually she would have to investigate her roots in wakanda and it may not be pretty. She inherited her parents relics, a gold sword with a hilt of wings and a gold helmet based on the helms of the egyptian pharaohs. Maat didnât quite work as a vigilante, she just was drawn to people that needed her help and she literally canât stop herself from intervening when humanity can be so terrible. Anyway she hates cops and abusers and rapists and all that and she does her best to help the people that they hurt.Â
Phoenix Portrait  - Open Helmet Idea - The magic relics
Diana Schmitt-Â Â
Trans girl mutant who can control and melt metal and glass, making her own weapons on the fly and using debris to her advantage. Her left arm and her right leg were frozen off by anti-mutant extremists and she makes herself prosthetics with her powers made of glass shards that she can use and layers of different kinds of metal with the outside being gold because she likes the aesthetic. Sheâs covered in scars from the torture and from her own forging projects. She loves making things and does her best to be positive and kind to other people but trauma is still trauma and superheroes arenât known for going to therapy. She has PTSD and gets triggered by excessive cold and dark places. She has to learn to confront her pain and move beyond it, while also going to therapy and stuff.Â
Diana Portrait - Pride Month Portrait - Early Intro Sheet
Guinevere Kaimana-
literally a mermaid who spent several decades under the water as a hermit and has water powers and electric eel levels of electric powers. (until sheâs at her most powerful but still not more than like some thunder in a tropical storm, she canât like summon lighting to strike people or anything.) In the MCU sheâs a mutant who left after her mutation out of fear of rejection and in my fantasy version of my OC universe sheâs a pirate mermaid princess. She figured out how to temporarily turn her tail into a tail shaped skirt and tattoos on her legs similar to fishnet tights. She canât stay human for very long and when sheâs human she has to be fully hydrated or she could die. She has an enemies to competitors to friends to lovers with Diana and itâs a very slow burn.Â
Gwen Pride Portrait - mermay
Alexandria Iriklitis-Â
Superhero therapist with a magic voice. Her singing can manipulate the emotions of anyone that can hear it, even through recordings and microphones and stuff, and eventually she can use it to control objects around her through levitation and even destroying the area around her if sheâs emotionally charged and loud enough (which happens when she goes temporarily deaf and thinks that she canât responsibly use her powers anymore.) She has to be very careful with her powers as music is already made to affect peoples emotions but with her powers, any miscalculation can be destructive. Someone may have bad memories of a happy song and elevate those bad feelings. So she usually depends on non-lyrical songs and her own improvisation skills. In my fantasy OC universe sheâs a magic bard thatâs drawn to chaos and flirts with everyone because sheâs a bard. She tries not to use her magic voice to make people do things they donât want to do, she tries to not rely on it to get whatever she wants.Â
Alex Portrait
Artemis Dawn-
Roses non-powered sister who is a SHEILD agent that struggles with living in her sisters shadow. They go through an arc of repairing their relationship and get to the point of being very close and killing for each other. Artemis specializes in sharpshooting, martial arts, and disguises. She uses makeup and clothing and wigs to completely change her appearance to a point where even the people that know her best wonât recognize her. In the fantasy AU universe she dresses up as a man to become a knight after being shamed out of her princess status. Sheâs a badass and deals with a major inferiority complex and has to prove that sheâs just as good as her superpowered sister. When hydra takes over shield, she has to save her sister from their clutches and causes Roses first power burst that kills the hydra agents by forcing their bones to grow together to turn them into grotesque body horror statues. Fun. Artemis has a cold hard exterior but softens up around her sister and it confuses her colleagues to no end. Not many people knew she could smile outside of a role.Â
Artemis Portrait
Unreleased art under the cut!
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