Lucy learned quickly that hiding did not mean resting, because her body refused to go quiet, every nerve tuned to the city's heartbeat, every pulse of life around her tugging at something deep in her chest that felt like thirst mixed with static. She holed up in the shell of an abandoned apartment building, broken furniture and dust for company, and tried to sleep, but sleep came with dreams of hands reaching for her, of warmth flooding her veins, of voices calling her monster and miracle in the same breath.
She practiced control the only way she knew how, by touching dead things first, cracked concrete, rusted pipes, shattered glass, grounding herself, learning the difference between the cold emptiness of objects and the bright, dangerous pull of living energy. "You don't need it," she whispered to herself, pressing her palms to a wall until her skin tingled. "You're not starving. You're just scared." The wall, unsurprisingly, did not answer.
The city answered instead, with a deep, rolling boom that rattled windows and sent dust raining from the ceiling, followed by a crack of thunder that felt too sharp, too alive to be weather. Lucy's heart jumped, instincts flaring, and she moved before thinking, climbing broken stairs and pushing through a collapsed doorway until she reached a rooftop with a view of chaos unfolding several blocks away.
She saw him before she felt him, a tall figure surrounded by arcs of lightning, hammer spinning through the air like it had a mind of its own, slamming into metallic enemies that screeched and sparked. "That's… that's Thor," Lucy breathed, half in awe, half in disbelief, because Hydra had shown videos, had studied heroes like they were specimens, but seeing a god fight in real life felt different, heavier, louder, like the sky itself had chosen a side.
She should have stayed hidden. Every smart instinct told her to stay far away from that much power, because her body reacted to it like a starving person smelling food, and the pull made her knees weak. But then one of the metal drones broke through the fight and slammed into a nearby building, collapsing part of the structure and sending a wave of civilians running in panic.
Lucy didn't think about Hydra or files or hunger or fear, she thought about the way people screamed when they were about to lose something, and that was enough. She ran toward the noise, heart pounding, skidding to a stop as a piece of debris pinned a man's leg while sparks rained down around him. "Hey, hey, don't move," she said, voice shaking but steadying as she crouched. "I've got you. I think. I hope."
She grabbed the debris and pushed, muscles straining, and for a second it wasn't enough, until her skin began to hum and her body did what it always did when it needed more than it had. She didn't touch the man, not directly, but the air around them felt charged, and she pulled, not from him, but from the residual energy in the area, the leftover sparks, the crackling power in the air, and it flooded her just enough to give her strength she shouldn't have had.
The debris shifted, the man screamed, and then he was free. "Go," Lucy snapped, adrenaline sharp in her voice. "Run before something else falls on you." He didn't argue, limping away with wide, frightened eyes that followed her like she was something out of a story he didn't believe in.
That was when it hit her, a wave of power so massive it made her gasp, lightning crashing nearby as Thor landed hard, hammer striking the ground with a boom that rattled her bones. Lucy stumbled back, hands up on instinct, and for a split second, her skin lit faintly, reacting to the god-level energy like a tuning fork struck too hard.
Thor turned, eyes locking on her, surprise flickering across his face. "You," he said, voice like thunder wrapped in a person. "You carry something strange. Not Midgardian. Not Asgardian. Something in between." Lucy swallowed, heart hammering, because being noticed by a god was not on her survival plan.
"I'm just helping," Lucy said quickly, forcing humor into her tone because fear made her mouth reckless. "Or trying to. I don't have a hammer. I improvise." Thor studied her, eyes narrowing, not in anger, but in curiosity, and that somehow felt worse.
A drone lunged toward them, weapons charging, and Lucy reacted without thinking, stepping forward and grabbing the edge of Thor's lightning as it crackled through the air, not physically, but with something deeper, something inside her that recognized energy the way lungs recognized oxygen. Pain exploded through her nervous system, white-hot and blinding, and she screamed as lightning flooded her veins like fire and light.
Thor shouted, "Release it, girl," but Lucy couldn't, not at first, because her body clung to the power like it was drowning and this was air. For a terrifying second, she felt stronger than she ever had, faster, sharper, alive in a way that made the world slow down around her, and she hurled the energy forward with a raw, instinctive scream that sent the drone crashing in a shower of sparks.
Then the backlash hit. Lucy dropped to her knees, smoke curling from her fingertips, body shaking violently as her nervous system screamed in protest. "Okay," she gasped between breaths, half laughing, half crying, "note to self, lightning is not a snack. It's a whole bad meal." Her vision swam, and she nearly blacked out.
Thor knelt a short distance away, concern etched into his face. "You draw power into yourself," he said slowly. "A dangerous gift. Even for a god, such things have a price." Lucy looked up at him, eyes bright with pain and stubborn humor. "Yeah," she said weakly, "my return policy is terrible."
More drones swarmed, and Lucy forced herself to stand, legs trembling, body still buzzing with unstable energy that felt like it might tear her apart from the inside. "I can't do that again," she said, voice strained. "If I pull that much, I don't know if I'll come back." Thor nodded once, serious. "Then you will fight smarter, not harder," he replied. "Stay behind me. Use what you have, not what will destroy you."
They fought side by side for a brief, chaotic stretch, Lucy darting in and out, draining small bursts of energy from fallen drones, using it to boost her speed and strength in short, controlled flashes, learning in real time that her body had limits, that pulling too much made her shake, made her vision blur, made her heart race like it might burst. Every move was a gamble, every absorption a negotiation with consequences.
When the last drone fell, smoke and silence filled the street, broken only by distant sirens and crackling fires. Lucy leaned against a wall, breathing hard, sweat-soaked and shaking, and Thor stood nearby, watching her with a mix of respect and concern. "You are not a weapon," he said quietly. "You are a person with a storm inside her. Storms must be guided, or they destroy the land they touch."
Lucy laughed softly, tired and raw. "Trust me," she said, sliding down to sit, "I've been destroying my own land for a while now." Thor offered a small, solemn nod, then turned back toward the sky, because gods were needed elsewhere and Lucy was still just one girl in a broken city.
As he left, Lucy sat in the aftermath, hands trembling, heart pounding, and for the first time, she understood her powers not just as a curse, but as something that could be shaped, limited, controlled with discipline instead of desperation. She whispered to herself, "Short pulls. Small bites. No gods unless I want to fry," and despite everything, she smiled, because learning your limits was the first step to surviving your own storm.