she hath no place to lay her head -- the citizen of the world (MCU - Avengers OC)
Anja Rakotoarisoa is lying listlessly on the floor of her room when they come for her.
They don’t even seem surprised to find her there, and she doesn’t care enough to stand up and greet the possible assassins come to see her. They would be the second ones today.
“Miss Rakotoarisoa,” says the man in a leather trenchcoat. “We’ve come to make you an offer.”
She chuckles mirthlessly. A less common greeting than outright violence, but not the first time she’s been propositioned. “Let me guess: you’ve heard of my talents and wish for me to contribute them to a greater cause?”
“That is right. Will you hear me out?”
Anja hums. “Might as well.”
Two days later she’s boarding the metal contraption they call the helicarrier. Two expressionless agents guide her to a meeting room, where the other so-called Avengers are supposedly trying to do something about the alien who killed about eighty people. Or more? The numbers blur in her mind. The debrief was very thorough. Too thorough, maybe.
“Ah, I see,” she says in accented English after she stares at the two shouting white people for long seconds. “I’m the diversity hire.”
She plops herself on the floor, her back to the wall. She closes her eyes. Counts her breaths.
The room has quieted, though she hears one or two voices spluttering. Clothes shift, indicating movement. The weird alien contraption at the centre of the table buzzes loud enough to give her the start of a migraine, and that’s not even saying anything about the general noise the helicarrier makes constantly.
“Hey, Cap’,” starts Stark. She recognises his voice from all the infomercials about his new technology business. His tone is snarky, likely responding to a comment made beforehand. Her sudden arrival seems to have calmed them a bit. “Have you seen the footage for that one? Because I sure haven’t. ”
The handler mentioned in the debrief says some kind of polite platitude about her being a last minute addition, vetted by the director himself. The blond dressed in the American flag asks about her skillset and background. He expresses some doubt about adding a random civilian to the team without informing them. Stark makes a joke, she thinks, but she doesn’t understand it. Her migraine is getting worse, the buzz of the thing at the centre of the table is deafening. When her hearing comes back, another man remarks he’s a civilian too.
Her teeth itch. Anja opens her eyes.
“Agent,” she says, “Fury promised me an inhibitor. Where is it?”
“Miss Rakotoarisoa, do you believe now is the time?” asks the man mildly.
“Tell you what. I introduce myself to the team and you fetch me what I joined for before I accidentally short-circuit the helicarrier.”
The tip of her fingers lights with electricity as she says so. She grimaces. “Sorry. I did say the problem was urgent.”
The agent nods and taps on his tablet. She turns to the team. The redhead, a spy and assassin, if she remembers her notes, is not there. The archer isn’t either, he was taken out by the alien. Then there’s some kind of scientist who was caught up in an experiment. A supersoldier. And Doctor Stark, the genius, billionaire, something, philanthropist.
“I’m Anja. Rakotoarisoa, from Tananarive, Madagascar. I was recruited for the same reasons this one was, I suppose,” she says, nodding to the scientist on the other side of the room. “An experiment gone wrong resulting in an enhancement has made me useful enough to be considered for this initiative. Now I can kill a man by touching him.” She pauses. “I say I can, but it’s more that I will. Do not think I’m joking. My body channels enough electricity to put down an ox at base level. Don’t touch me.”
“Great, so we have the God of Thunder and what, Thunderbird?” says Stark, raising an eyebrow.
Anja rolls her eyes. “I am Malagasy, Doctor Stark.”
“Huh, it’s been a while since I’ve been called doctor. Please keep doing that, I like it. Hm, but Tony’s a fine name, you can use it too. And I know, recognised your last name. I was guessing your work alias. You know,” he points at himself, “Iron Man.” Then at the blond patriot, “Captain America, “the scientist, “and that’s Hulk. Only when he’s angry, though. You can’t miss it, he’ll turn green and get a growth spurt. Then we’re missing Black Widow, and the alien terrorist’s brother has recently joined our team. No alias for him, he’s just Thor. So,” he leans forward, “you’re what, electrokinetic? Does that include some level of technopathy? Hey, do you want a job at the end of this? Think of all the fun science we could do together.” He claps his hands. “And other things, if you’re up to it,” he says with a waggle of eyebrows. "Though now that you’ve mentioned I’ll literally die if I try to touch you, I think I should abstain. I have a heart condition, you know. And what’s this about an inhibitor?”
“Stark! Let’s get back to business, shall we?”
Anja ignores the captain. She’s smiling slightly. The billionaire amuses her. “I am electrokinetic,” she confirms, “and I am supposed to be technopathic, that is, but I do not know enough about engineering to exploit it in a useful way. I was made to destroy, not create.”
Stark throws her a considering glance. The scientist with mild manner flexes his hand on the table. He understands better than the others what she means by that.
The captain disapproves. “Hey now, that’s no way to talk about yourself.”
“I am only stating facts. I was trafficked at the age of twelve. Snatched from the streets of my home city and sold to the wrong people. I don’t think you’d like to hear what was done to me, captain, but my power wasn’t honed for the greater good.”
Anja doesn’t know what good is. She’s only here for selfish reasons. She needs an inhibitor, and she needs a job. She can’t live a normal life and Nick Fury has given her the second best option.
“Yeah, you’re definitely hired,” murmurs Stark, his eyes sharpening.
“Electra is an employee of SHIELD, Stark,” says Fury, entering the room. He is followed by the redheaded spy Anja saw in the notes she was given, the Agent who is holding some kind of metal contraption and a tall and large blond man holding a hammer.
She raises an eyebrow. “Am I? I have signed no contract. I agreed on a trial period, nothing more. I told you I wouldn’t sign anything until you prove your inhibitor works.”
“What is this inhibitor, exactly?” asks the scientist.
Meanwhile, Stark murmurs that Electra is a boring codename, prompting an exasperated response from Captain America.
“As I said, I cannot touch people without killing them, nevermind pieces of technology. Director Fury promised he had a way to help me.”
“Agent,” says the Director.
The man nods and steps forward. She flinches when she realises the contraption in his hand is a metal collar. Her hands curl into fists, but she lets him put it on her. She hears Stark and the Captain protest.
The inhibitor closes around her throat. It sparks as it makes contact with her skin, but the reaction isn’t as dramatic as the time she tried to touch a phone. The agent turns it on somehow, touching a button on the front. Th thing activates promptly. She can feel it absorb the energy output. She hisses as it heats rapidly, the metal scalding her skin. She’s about to take it off when some kind of security seems to activate. The machine cools. It whirrs and keeps feeding on her.
She relaxes. The agent, who is kneeling in front of her, extends a hand to her. She puts her trembling fingers on his palm, and lets out a shaky breath when the only thing it does is mildly shock the man.
Anja laughs wetly. “Andriamanitra o,” she murmurs.
“You’re a human arc reactor,” breathes out Stark. “Fury, this inhibitor’s not gonna work on the long term, you must know that. I give it fourty-eight hours before it overloads.”
“I know, Stark, which is why as a consultant,” he emphasises, “of the Avengers, we will ask you to create a better device. In the meantime, Agent will have several inhibitors at his disposal.”
“Sure, I’ll do it,” he says, his eyes distant, as if he’s already thinking about what to do. “But, no offence, I’m not making it in the shape of a shock collar, if you don’t mind.”
Anja smiles at this.
Fury concedes the point. The discussion shifts to what they’re actually here for, at least for a time. Then another argument start between Stark and the Captain – who is apparently named Rogers –, then the two of them and Thor, who turns out to be a Norse God. Anja learns a lot about the people here.
She doesn’t understand why the discussion gets so heated, but she has no prior knowledge of these things.
She was a slave, then an experiment, then a failed asset. Once she killed her captors and crawled her way back home, she was Vazaha to her family, a foreigner. They had mourned her and didn’t understand this new person she had become, so her return from the dead was unwelcome. She made her living as a mercenary of sorts, killing traffickers, murderers and rapists in exchange for favours. A dingy apartment, enough food to survive, a library pass, the clothes on her back and being left alone. That was all she asked for. This half-life she’s been living for seventeen years has not been conducive to the development of her social skills.
She’s not sure if this is normally how these types of meetings are conducted. At least not until Doctor Banner shapeshifts.
By then she’s at least clued in that something is wrong.