Double update!!! whoop, whoop, whoop. I'm trying to get the book done by May 1st, which may be a familiar date to Avengers lovers.

Dont get too used to it though, I'm just trying to write a lot before school starts. Once it does, updates might even be pushed back to weekly... :( 

Edit: lokidottir

~Songs~

* Counting Stars- OneRepublic

* Highway Don't Care- Tim McGraw, Taylor Swift, & Keith Urban

Chapter Three

~Thea's POV~

I do not fight the four girls as they tear at me with their manicured nails. I know that if I try to, I will end up hurting them more than they could possibly hurt me. Plus, Max is mad enough as it is.

Five minutes later, when the bell rings, they leave me on the bathroom floor, scratched up and bleeding. Plus, my claw-raked arm is throbbing. Lugging myself off the cold tiles, I take out my phone, thankful it's not broken. I have a missed call from Kyle, as well as a text from him. He's wondering where I am. 

Kyle curses as I slide inside the front seat of his convertible for the second time in two days. "Thea, if you would stop getting yourself beat up, that would be amazing. What the hell happened to you?"

"Nothing." I mutter, turning away from him. 

"Why did you get in another fight?! This is the third one in two days. You do realize that you have an average of more than one brawl per day?"

There's silence.

"At least tell me you kicked their tails for doing this to you."

"I didn't fight them." My tone is clipped.

"You wha-"

"I. Did. Not. Fight. Them." I say shortly. "Max is already mad, and I don't need any more trouble. Now would you just drop it?" 

Kyle drops it.

*

I hear the two brothers arguing as I pack my suitcase. I've left the door open in my room, so their angry voices carry up the staircase. 

"She got herself beat up today because you told her not to fight anyone!" 

"Dammit, Kyle, I didn't mean not defend herself, I just meant not to pick a fight!" Max sounds exasperated. "I would've thought she would have a little more sense than that!"

"Well maybe next time, you could elucidate a little more." 

"Seriously. Elucidate?"

"Seriously. Misgiven instructions?"

"Ouch."

Silence, then Max speaks up, softer, so that I have to inch out into the hallway to hear them. 

"First the freak wolf that kills her horse and nearly her, now a bunch of angry senior girls. Not to mention the fact that she's heading to a funeral today. What else does the kid need?"

"A vacation." quips Kyle. 

"Thanks for your sincerity."

"I've never been more serious in my life." 

"That's saying something, because you've never been serious in your life."

"Ouch." 

More silence. 

"She's not sleeping well." says Max, who is speaking even quieter now. "She doesn't think we can hear her, but we can. Or at least, I can."

"My room's right next to hers, of course I can hear her. We can't do anything about it, not right now."

All right, so they can hear me in my tortuous sleep. Lovely, I thought that closing my door and crying into the pillow would be enough. Stupid ex-spies.

"Look, we're going to be in New York for a couple nights." says Max. "She might feel better there, it's more of her element."

"She's miserable." agrees Kyle. "There's no denying it." 

"IF YOU COULD STOP TALKING ABOUT ME, THAT WOULD BE FABULOUS."

I clap my hand over my mouth. I didn't mean to yell that out loud.

The silence is so loud, my ears are ringing. 

"AND IF YOU COULD STOP SPYING ON US FOR ONCE IN YOUR LIFE, THAT WOULD BE FABULOUS TOO." Kyle yells up the stairs. 

"Are you done packing?" asks Max, his head appearing below me, around the corner of the stairs. Unlike Kyle, he doesn't look or sound annoyed.

I give him a sour look. "No." 

"Then go finish. We're leaving in thirty minutes."

"Fine." I make sure to slam my door behind me. 

I'm nearly done packing. I just have to grab my black dress from the back of the closet, plus some of the various items on my nightstand. I almost leave the journal behind, because it's perfectly useless, but I change my mind half-way through. I also grab the frame of my family, some various pieces of jewelry, and Bryce's old baseball that he got two summers ago.

I make sure to remember to pack the emerald dagger. It saved my life last night, and I'm not about to leave it. 

*

Typically, the car journey from South Haven to New York city is more than eleven hours. But we want to get there earlier, which is why we fly. It's a little hazardous, seeing as I'm under a fake name, but for Max and Kyle, who are professional liars, it's easy. 

The plane ride is essentially silent, and I spend my time with my eyes closed, listening to music, looking out the window as we fly over the clouds, and tuning out the rest of the world. Apparently, I fall asleep, because when the gears of the plane touch down in New York City, I am leaning against Kyle's shoulder. 

"Wakey wakey, Sleeping Beauty," he teases, which earns him a punch in the arm. 

Tony has apparently gotten us a car, which takes us right to Stark Tower. As usual, Pepper is there waiting for us, all smiles. 

"Hello, Thea, how are you?" she says, giving me a one-armed hug. 

"Divine." 

She apparently misses my sarcasm, because she says, "I have your room all ready for you. Jack is still at school, but Clint is bringing him by later." 

"Ah, okay." I reply. I wonder how many of the Avengers are here. Definitely Tony and Clint, obviously. 

I manage to avoid contact with anyone as I ride the elevator to the fifth floor, where my room was. It looks practically the same as the last time I was at Stark Tower, nearly four months ago, although the blanket is now green instead of blue, and there are new green curtains. 

Jack hasn't texted me, so I assume that he's still at school. I guess his dad didn't let him play hooky today. 

One good thing about today is that I've gotten an email from the National Zoo, which is where Miraglo lives. Miraglo, by the way, is Miracle, the tiger cub from Indonesia. As it turns out, she was a he, so I dubbed him with the Spanish word for Miracle. They send me occasional reports, evidently because they're really happy that they now have a Sumatran Tiger in their stock.

Apparently, Miraglo is doing perfectly fine, so I close out of the Internet on my phone and look out the window. It's sunny here, unlike in Michigan, where it's raining cats and dogs. 

"Hey, kid, you didn't even come say hello. What's with that?"

I turn around to see Tony Stark leaning against the door way of my room. He looks exactly the same as four months ago too, and he's even holding a bag of chips. Typical. 

I raise an eyebrow. "Hi, Stark."

"Civilian life not any fun?" 

"It sucks." I say honestly. 

Tony nods sagely, as if he were expecting me to say something like that. "Well. We're all having dinner at five, so-"

He's interrupted by loud shouts from down the open hallways. "I guess Jack's back. Dinner. Five. Don't be late." 

Drumming my door rhythmically while eating a few chips, he vanishes around the corner. I roll my eyes. 

It takes about two minutes for Jack to make it up here, and he nearly knocks me over as he hugs me so enthusiastically. "THEA! You're back!"

"Yep..." I say, trying fruitlessly to get out of Jack's happy grip. "I'm here." 

Jack lets me go and looks down at me- I swear, this boy has grown even taller. "Wow. This is a lot different from Skyping every day." 

"Well yeah." I say, not knowing what else to say. After a few minutes of awkward silence, I say, "So. Who's congregated in this hallowed hall?"

Thankful for something to say, Jack replies, "Stark, Bruce, and Clint."

I'm surprised. "That's it?"

"Yeah. Thor is obviously in Asgard, and Steve is with Natasha doing something in Eastern Europe."

"And about that portal...?" 

"Right. I've been listening for information, and it sounds like it's in beta testing or something. Occasionally, it throws people into the wrong place. I think Bruce ended up in Calcutta at one point, but thankfully, the return trip is always accurate, so he got back okay."

"Where is it?"

"Fourth floor, in the lab. Which, by the way, is locked." 

"Can you-"

"I can try. I'm not Peter, obviously, but I know a thing or two."

"Right. Do they know you know?"

"I'm pretty sure everyone in this building knows about it. But at the moment, there's a lot going on, what with S.H.I.E.L.D. practically going under and Gwen Stacey and all of that." Jack's face falls. "I really liked Gwen."

"Yeah, me too." I say. "I've liked everyone who's died." 

*

Dinner takes place in the informal dining room next to the kitchen. Jack and I are late, earning us a patronizing look from Tony, which we heartily ignore. Clint's not coming, but someone else is.

I direct my attention to Bruce, who is talking to Kyle. He looks less harried than the last time I had seen him, and when he sees me, he smiles. "Hey, Thea, how are you?"

"Okay." I reply truthfully. 

"Found yourself in any fights recently?" he teases.

"You got me." I grin. "Although may I remind you that two of them were all defensive." 

"Looks like you got pretty beat up to me." comments Tony, who is helping Pepper carry various plates of food to the table. "Lost your edge?"

"It was a wolf!" I exclaim defensively. "A giant crazy-"

"That's not-"

Bruce holds his hand up, and both Tony and I fall silent. "Look at me, it's been five minutes and I'm already breaking up arguments. Anyway," he says, when I give him a cross look. "You and I are going to be having a talk about that wolf after dinner."

I'm confused. "But aren't we going over to Peter's house?" 

Pepper answers this question. "I don't know if that's such a good idea. Clint and Jack went by on their way here, and I think Peter just wants to be by himself for now."

"Didn't even let me see him." Jack reports sadly.

This piece of information makes me quite miserable, because I was looking forward to seeing Peter even under such unfortunate conditions. But I remember when my parents died, I had wanted to be by myself too (which didn't happen, but that's not the point). 

"Yeah." I say. "I understand." 

*

Jack has to go home after dinner, and I spend the evening with Bruce and Kyle, who are both doing some sort of techy thing in one of Tony's many labs. Since they're mostly talking in medical language, I just basically sit there, half on my phone, praying that Peter will text me back, half paying attention in case they bring up the portal. 

They don't.

An hour later, Bruce sits down next to me and questions me about the wolf. I tell him all I know, which isn't much. Bruce doesn't appear to know anything more than I do. "Looks like that portal's going to come in handy soon."

I skip over the portal part, deciding to come back to it later. "You think it's an alien or something that the Asgardian's would know?" 

Bruce takes off his glasses and looks at me with that scientist-look. "Well it's not your everyday pup, if that's what you're saying." He bends back down over what looks to be a table made out of a giant computer screen.

I resist the urge to say, "duh", but don't. Of all of us, Bruce is the easiest to not be snappy towards. His whole person screams calm.  "And this portal?"

Kyle rolls his eyes and then resumes looking at some one-celled organism from underneath a microscope. 

Bruce looks up at me shrewdly. "I'm pretty sure you already know about the portal."

I open my mouth and then close it. 

"And don't be getting any ideas." Bruce points his folded-up glasses at me. "The portal is still finicky, and you could end up anywhere in the nine realms. Anywhere, Thea." 

"What makes you think that I have any ideas?" I ask innocently. 

Kyle snorts.

"I don't think I even need to answer that," replies Bruce. 

*

That night, I lie down on my back, staring up at the ceiling with my eyes closed and the soft duvet over my body, warm over my shorts and tank top.

It's true that New York is the city that never sleeps, but as a native, I find all the noise soothing. The ever-present quiet in South Haven, Michigan had taken some getting used to. I listen to the cars honking, an owl hooting, faint blaring stereos, sirens, whip-or-ills, all mixing together to make a beautiful song. 

My phone buzzes next to me. Rolling over, I grab it from the night-stand, and smile as the alert says Peter. 

From: Peter

HP: 89833-8899-25615

I frown. 

To: Peter

what's that?

Buzz. Buzz. Two quick successions. 

From: Peter

u will need it if you want to get into the portal room and not get zapped to the wrong world. 

From: Peter

i gave it to Jack too. 

To: Peter

ok, um, thanks. how are you?

He doesn't reply. After waiting fifteen minutes, I give up, silencing my phone and lying my head back onto the pillow. 

I don't want to go to sleep right now and be subject to my nightly tortures. Instead, I get out the journal again. I didn't expect anything to be there, but just in case, I flip through each page carefully. Nothing new. The last time Thor had sent me anything was a month ago. 

Placing the journal back on my nightstand, I close my eyes tentatively, but then snap them open again. 

Groaning against the complications of sleep, I roll over, trying to get comfortable. Eventually, the   exhaustion from detention, the cat-fight, the flight, and the whole generality of the day forces my eyelids closed until I fall asleep. 

Immediately, the nightmares start, and subconsciously, I hope I won't wake anyone tonight.

*

~Nobody's POV~

A normal owl could not make a trip from New York City to Detroit in four hours. A car could not get from New York City to Detroit in four hours.

But this is not an ordinary owl. 

It alights on its designated perch in the old warehouse on the third story. This time, it is Archer who spots it first. 

"What news do you have, you old coot?" mutters Archer, running his hair through his perfectly coiffed hair. 

Videl, as if pulled into the room by a mental connection with the owl, enters and walks up to the owl. It clicks its beak twice. 

"Ah," says Videl, tossing a dead mouse to the ghostly owl. It snaps it up in its hooked beak, its yellow eyes blinking slowly. "A portal, is it?" 

Archer raises his eyebrows as Videl smiles, drumming his fingers on the hard-backed couch.

"Perfect." 

~~~~~~~~~

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~Sierra