Okay, new story, Think The Avengers, somewhat. This was a prompt given by Wheelie91

Also sorry to beachbum2960 that I haven't started the fic idea you prompted :/

Posted: 26/10/12

Prologue

THE LIMA POST

Tuesday 17th August 2010

STUDENT SURVIVES CRITICAL CAR CRASH

Rachel Berry, 16, student at McKinley High School, has miraculously survived a car crash that experts
say 'Should have taken her life'

Late on Sunday 15th August, Rachel Berry was returning home from a routine appointment, when her
car was crushed in a head on collision, not far from the high school the teenager attends. She was
found by a local who happened on the scene, what has been thought to be, only minutes after the
accident.

Miss Berry was taken immediately to Lime General ER. The doctors and nurses that attended to Miss
Berry said she had some heavy internal bleeding that they were able to stop but were surprised to
find the teenager had no broken bones. The student is currently comatose.

Neither of her parents are willing to answer any questions about their daughter yet.

Investigators discovered the teenager's car was hit by 2 others when examining the scene and Lexus.
No witnesses have come forward with information about the accident. Authorities are still trying to
track down the other 2 vehicles involved.

Read more on page 3...

Late October

The chime of the doorbell ringing was a welcome noise to the ears compared to the strange noises coming from the basement.

Roughly 3 weeks ago, a week after they got Rachel home she'd moved to the basement. They were so happy to have her back, alive and well and home, they were happy to let her get away with murder. So when she'd asked if she could move to the basement they were happy to let it happen. When she didn't ask for her furniture to be moved from her room to the basement they were worried but let it be. When she'd asked to remove the furniture, bar, and stage from the basement, they weren't entirely happy but its what their baby girl wanted, so they did it.

They left Rachel with a hollow basement, and that was the last time they saw it. They had no idea what had become of it now.

Her fathers grew increasingly worried when Rachel started leaving the house a week after moving to the basement. They'd been sure to get her a new car and had at first encouraged her to go out, to get her confidence back. But now she'd go every day, really early in the morning for a couple of hours.

Normally she wouldn't get back until they'd left for work so one morning Leroy stayed home and waited. Rachel said nothing, and only faltered in her step for a second when walking through the door with materials. Some of it looked like scrap metal and some refined new metals. He didn't know where she'd got them or what her plans for them were, before he could get any answers out of her she was locked in that basement again... all he could think was; at least she wasn't doing drugs.

He had tried following her on other occasions but failed. She must have known what he was trying to do and managed to escape his view each time. Hiram said to let it go, he had tried talking to Rachel, she'd just reassured him she wasn't doing anything illegal, she'd even managed to use one of those signature smiles. He trusted her, because it wasn't like Rachel to do something wrong.

Leroy was woken from his wandering thoughts when the doorbell rang for a second time. He passed the basement door and the often worrying noises coming from inside to answer the front door.

He was actually pleasantly surprised to see this visitor "Hello Finn" Leroy smiled as he opened the door wider to let the boy through "Please come in"

"Thanks Mr Berry" he replied as he ducked into the house.

"I haven't seen you for some time" he commented as he closed the front door

"Yeah" Finn bowed his head "I just wanted to give Rach some time, you know, since the accident and then the breakup" he muttered, he then looked to the father again "How's she been?"

"Um... I'm not sure. Ever since she became so active again I hardly see her. I feel like that accident changed her"

"You think so too? She spent so long trying to get me and breaks up with me the moment she gets out of hospital-"

"Finn, I'm going to have to stop you there; I'm the wrong person to talk to about that" he liked the boy, but he wasn't comfortable thinking about his daughter's relationships.

"Oh, sure thing Mr B. Anyway I just came round to give Rachel some school notes" he held up a few messy scrunched leaves of paper.

Leroy couldn't help but smile at Finn's effort, whether it was a genuine attempt to help Rachel to just an excuse to see her. "Sure I'll just get her" he started heading towards the basement door before remembering that was no good. He stopped at a newly installed device in the wall near the door and hit a button so he could speak into it "Rach, you have a visitor" he then released the button and waited

There was a disturbance over the inter-come as I came to life again "Sure, daddy, I'll be right up" they heard Rachel's reply before the inter-come cut off again

"Cool, when did you get that?" Finn asked while they waited

"Oh... Rachel installed it last week" he answered dismissively with a furrowed brow.

"Really? Building stuff wasn't really Rachel's thing" he muttered as he glanced at the floor and walls, not wanting to get glared at if he'd just insulted this man's daughter

"No" he agreed, getting Finn to look up "...but since we bought her home" he looked distant while rubbed the back of his neck, trying to relieve stress and worry "I don't know, she just stays down there, locked away. She's-" he stopped talking when he heard the various locks on the inside of the door slide out of place

They both looked to the door as it opened slightly and an almost unrecognisable girl slipped out. The expression on her face was next to blank; her messy hair was tied loosely in a pony tail. There were dark rings under her eyes and a few faint scars across her face; hopefully they would fade in time. She wore a black vest top and dark blue jeans; there was a faint layer of dirt and sweat on her exposed skin. Even Finn noticed how her arms were more toned than he had remembered them when he saw her in the hospital

Rachel just looked at the tall boy under heavy eyelashes "Finn... what are you doing here?"

"Rachel don't be rude to our guest" Leroy reprimanded over her shoulder

"Sure Daddy" she sighed

"I'll just leave you two alone" Rachel's eyes followed Leroy out of the room before she turned back to the tall intruder

"What are you doing here Finn?"

"I just came to see if you were okay Rach" she tried not to roll her eyes, she hated when he called her that, from anyone else she would have thought of it as an endearing nick name, but he used it so often when they had been dating in just over two months that it just sounded like he couldn't be bothered to use her whole first name any more.

"Well I'm fine so you can go now" she waved towards the front door beyond the tall boy as if a cue for him to leave

"Rach" he whined "You're not okay, you haven't even been at school and you've been home for a long time"

"I've been home for 4 weeks" she said dryly "I'm not ready to return to school just yet. But you don't need to worry about me. I'm busy so you better go now" she stepped round him to walk to the front door

"Wait" he grabbed her arm to stop her as she walked past "I bought you these class notes" he showed her the crumpled pages.

She snatched her arm away from his grip before cautiously taking the notes he'd made for her. It wasn't just Finn she had a problem with touching her, lately she didn't like any human contact, not since the accident.

"Um... thanks Finn" she scrunched up her face as she tried to read the scrawl. It looked like the person who wrote it didn't even have a clue what it meant "What subject is this?"

"Well that page" he looked at it "Oh yeah that one's from Math class... I kinda copied of Quinn... she seemed to know what she was doing better that Brittany"

He sat next to Quinn then? Did this mean he was back with her? Did it really bother Rachel? She'd been the one to break up with him "So you got back together with Quinn" she said, trying to hold back the accusing tone

"No" he shook his head furiously "Why would you think that?"

"Well you must have been sitting next to her to copy her work" Rachel shrugged, as she kept trying to decrypt the writing in front of her.

"Well, I'm not dating her... I only sat there because the teacher told me to move away from Mike and Puck... and Quinn's been really stress-y at school lately" he realised that was a bad idea, talking to the girl you like about another girl "Anyway I was kinda hoping we could give it another shot Rach, I thought things were great with us and then you-" he cut himself off as she actually looked up at him. He saw a scar he hadn't noticed before, under her eye, he wasn't sure why he'd missed it before as it seemed more prominent that the others. But it was a shock, seeing her so broken.

Even when she was lying in a hospital bed, breaking up with him, she hadn't looked so broken. But now she was run down, tired, scarred.

If you'd asked her though, and if she'd given you an honest answer, she'd never felt better since the accident. She was getting her confidence back again, she just had to learn how to not to feel this vulnerable anymore.

"Is something wrong?" she asked Finn as he continued to nervously stare at her face and the flecked scars, mostly were only visible because they were freshly free of scabs, that's what gave Rachel hope that they would fade, once the skin was exposed to sunlight again.

"N-No, nothing's wrong" he diverted his gaze to the floor "I just wanted to check in anyway, to make sure you're doing okay"

"I'm good, I'm getting better" she ducked her head to try and get his attention so she could see some of the honesty in her eyes

"Okay" he nodded but still didn't make eye contact with her "That's good if you mean it Rach"

"I do" she nodded reassuringly. She was getting better because she was working on something to help her get better, and to fix what went wrong, so it could never happen to anyone else.

"Good" he grinned that goofy grin "And when you're ready we can get back together" he added hopeful.

"No Finn" she had to stop this now, yes she had cared for him and wanted him for almost a year but not any more; her priorities had changed "I'm not going back to that with you. Things are going to change and, I'm sorry but, there isn't room for you with these changes"

"I don't understand" he shook his head

"I don't expect you too. I don't expect anyone to understand anything, but I'd like them and you to just accept what I say" she hoped Leroy, who was probably listening at the door from the next room, would hear and understand too. "Thanks for the notes" she waved the papers to emphasise them.

"It was no problem" he shrugged as he shoved his hands into his jean pockets.

She imagined it had been a complex problem for him to bother to take notes for her. She just opened the front door for him "See you later Finn" she added to prompt him to leave

"Oh right, yeah, see you soon Rach" he paused awkwardly in front of her "I-ah, I'd hug you but I don't want to hurt you"

He was being impossibly sweet, even though she wasn't interested, so she surrendered her defences for a second as a small smile slipped out onto her lips "A little hug won't hurt" she opened her arms for him and prepared to be smothered.

He was surprisingly gentle; in fact their bodies hardly touched, luckily for her, as he leant down and wrapped his arms round her "Take care Rach" he muttered in her ear before he pulled away again and just left.

She watched him walk away, a small guilty smile on her lips. She'd spent a year trying to get him and succeed only to drop him when some people would think she'd need other people the most. It didn't matter now though, it was over and she had some project to attend to in the basement.

.

It didn't take her long to get back into her rhythm. The basement of the Berry house had truly transformed. It was dark, secluded, just what Rachel wanted. The small cot bed in the corner, opposite the bottom of the stairs, was ideal for her to catch some sleep whenever she felt like it.

On the opposite side of the room she had her work area, with the tools and materials and her creation. On a table near that creation was another, a smaller one. It was an upgrade for the thing the doctors had put in her chest to keep her alive. This was better though, far more powerful and compatible with the bigger creation.

When she'd been in that accident something had woken within her. She was already capable of the mathematics taken in senior year, she could pass those finals without studying, no worries. But since the accident it awakened a new motivation; a motivation to build, create, protect.

Central to the room she had her computers. The computers were her eyes while hiding in this house. She could see when it was safe to head out to gather the materials. She could also hack like no 'authorities' in Lima could. She knew more than they did about her accident.

And now she stood in front of her creation, a skin made of metal just for her. She'd have it up and running soon. And then she could get the bastards that did this to her.

Okay so it's just short, just a prologue to try and get you interested.

Please tell me what you think...