Pranks, Planetary Wars, and Other Signs it's a Monday
AN: Hey, so this is technically a sequel to the story Stark High, but you don't have to read that to understand this story. I will explain what has happened in the first two or three chapters, so hopefully it won't be too confusing. Enjoy!
"Are you sure we should be doing this?" Anne asks. "I mean, won't we get detention if we're caught?"
"That's why we won't get caught," I reply, pushing a strand of my straight, black hair out of my eyes so I can see what I'm working on. The bucket is now almost full of silly string. All that remains is to balance it above the door to Mr. Huntsman's math class. A quick teleport up should leave it all set to spill on Liberty… or on me.
"Hey Anne, do you think I can teleport this silly string up to the doorframe without spilling it on myself?"
Anne pauses to think for a moment. "I'm not sure," she says, finally. "I haven't been paying as much attention to your power training as I should have. I'm sorry."
"That's ok, it's water under the bridge," I reply." Really, I'm just glad my best friend wants to hang out with me again. "I'm going to go with no, I shouldn't teleport up," I say, getting back to the pranking at hand. "I could probably do it, but I really don't want to ruin this awesome shirt," I say, gesturing to my blue, Ravenclaw t-shirt. It's both my favorite house in Hogwarts and my second favorite color. Black is my first favorite color, which is why I'm wearing black jeans and black-and-white shoes.
"Well, now that we've figured out I'm not teleporting up there, I guess we need to figure out how we will get it up there." I sigh. "I wish we had a ladder."
"I know where we can get one!" Anne exclaims.
I raise an eyebrow. "Really?"
"Yeah!" Anne replies. "I saw the janitor using a ladder to change a lightbulb last week. His supply closet is right over there," Anne says, pointing down the hall.
I grin. "Make a prankster out of you yet, I will, my Padawan," I tease, doing a poor impression of Yoda. In all seriousness though, Anne is a great friend. Most people would be horrified to discover their best friend is secretly Green Girl, the daughter of Bruce Banner/The Hulk. However, I'm not most people. I recently discovered I'm the daughter of Loki, and when the Avengers found out, they were less than thrilled. They just assumed that, because I have the same powers as Loki, I would be evil like him as well, but that's totally not true! Eventually, they realized the truth, that I'm not evil, I just like pulling some harmless pranks from time to time. Well, mostly harmless…
RIIIIIIIIIIING!
"Hurry up, Laura!" Anne exclaims from her hiding place, as the end-of-class bell rings. The bucket now in place, I hurry up and teleport the ladder back to the janitor's closet, then I teleport myself to our hiding place in the currently empty classroom across the hall to see what will happen.
Sure enough, mere seconds after the bell rings, Liberty quickly opens the door to the classroom, her straight, blond hair swooshing against her red-and-white plaid shirt in her rush to hurry onwards to her next class. Then, the bucket tips, and her shirt becomes silly-string colored!
For a moment, Liberty just stands there in shock. Then she screams "LAURA!"
"Liberty?" I gasp, pretending to be surprised by her messy appearance as I walk towards her.
"I KNOW YOU DID THIS!" she yells.
"Who, me?" I ask, trying to look innocent, but I end up laughing instead. Liberty's glare is a bit frightening, but totally worth it! Liberty Rogers, daughter of Captain America and Black Widow, is the obnoxious leader of the superhero team Anne and I are part of. Liberty tries to be perfect at everything, and is constantly criticizing everyone who puts in less effort than she does. That's why I've decided to make her the first victim of my prank war.
"Liberty?" a booming voice asks from inside the classroom. Seconds later, Sam comes running out and gasps! "WHO DID THIS TO MY LIBS?!" he bellows.
My Libs. Ugh. Apparently, they're dating again. Liberty and Sam have been dating on-again off-again since their first date at the Homecoming dance a few weeks ago. And when I say on-again, off-again, I mean that practically every day they're either breaking up or making up. It's so annoying to have to deal with them, especially since they're both on my superhero team. Samuel (Shocker) Thorson is, as his last name would suggest, the son of Thor, and also, annoyingly, my cousin. The reason he being my cousin is so annoying is because we're nothing alike. He's the quarterback of our high school football team who hates reading, a stereotypical dumb jock. I, on the other hand, am a nerd, and proud of it!
Sam then notices me. "LAURA!" He yells. "IF THIS IS YOU STARTING THAT PRANK WAR YOU KEEP TALKING ABOUT, I'M GOING TO PRANK YOU SO HARD THAT…"
I stop paying attention to Sam when another guy walks out of the classroom. Joe's brown hair swooshes around his face, he opens his nice, kissable mouth, and says "What the hell, Laura?!"
I can't help flinching, even though I know his anger is just pretend. The story that we told everyone is that we broke up after the Homecoming dance, but really, Joe is still my same, gorgeous boyfriend. I would love to be able to shout that Joe is my boyfriend at the top of my lungs, but right now I can't, for fear of our parents. Our dads don't exactly see eye-to-eye. My dad, Loki, once hypnotized Joe's dad, Hawkeye, into killing innocent people. Now, my dad doesn't want me dating "the offspring of that pathetic mortal", and to say Joe's dad would be furious to find out his son is dating me would be an understatement. That's why no one can know about our relationship but us.
Joe shakes his head. "C'mon Laura, that's not nice. Although… it is funny…."
"What did you say?!" Liberty huffs.
Joe shrugs. "How 'bout, instead of getting angry, you get even? You know, prank them back? I could help with that…." Joe suggests, locking eyes with me and grinning in a way that says You're on!
"You know what? I just might!" Liberty exclaims. Then she frowns. "Wait a minute, 'them'?"
"Anne's in on it too. She's watching us from that empty classroom." Everyone turns to look at Anne, whose eyes get an Oh shit! look to them, then back at Joe. Joe grins. "Told you I have Spy Senses."
"Anne!" Liberty exclaims, to which Anne quickly replies "It was Laura's idea."
"Gee Anne, way to throw me under the bus," I grumble.
"Well then, you can expect a whopper of a prank soon!" Liberty exclaims.
"From all three of us!" Sam yells.
"So keep on your toes," Joe finishes, his gaze showing the tiniest bit of a flirt, before it turns back to fake anger. The three of them then walk away to their next classes, Liberty grumbling about how much time she'll have to spend to get the silly string off. Anne starts to walk away to her next class too, but I stop her.
"What?" Anne asks.
"This prank war isn't over, not by a long shot! I'm going to try to get Noah to join our side, then maybe we can work out some new pranks over lunch."
"Or you could just let it go," Anne replies.
"Let it go?!" I reply incredulously. "No way! This is fun! Now, are you with me, or not?"
Anne hesitates a moment, before saying "Well… it is fun…."
"Great!" I exclaim. "See you later, pranker!" then head off to class.
As I take my seat, however, I realize that convincing Noah to join our pranking cause might not be so easy. For starters, I've barely talked to the guy since Homecoming, other than to say thank you for saving my life. It's not that I'm mad at him or anything. He seems like a nice enough guy when he's not too sleepy. I'm just not sure what to say to him. It seems like we have nothing in common, other than fighting crime, that is. Still, it can't hurt to try.
"Hey, Noah," I say, trying to hurry up and get him to join our side before Joe gets to class.
"What?" he asks, sounding tired as usual.
"Would you like to join Anne and I in pranking Liberty, Sam, and Joe? We're totally going to win, but only with your help."
Noah sighs. "Sorry, I have too many things to do."
"Oh, ok," I reply, disappointed, but more or less expecting that answer.
"Hey, thanks for offering though," Noah says, surprising me. "Some other time."
"Sure thing," I reply, smiling.
"'Sure thing' what?" Joe asks, sliding into the seat next to me.
"Nothing!" I exclaim, pretending to be angry.
"This wouldn't be about a certain prank war, would it?" Joe asks, looking back and forth between Noah and I suspiciously.
"Maybe, maybe not," I reply, trying to psych Joe out. Joe then turns to look at Noah, who is suddenly wearing a very good poker face, which causes Joe to look even more suspicious. Joe scrutinizes us for quite some time before he looks away, and when he finally does, Noah surprises me by giving me a wink. I guess he does want to help me win the prank war, he just doesn't have time.
I'm not entirely sure what's going on with Noah, but I can tell he's having some sort of trouble. Ever since I've met him, he's always been falling asleep in class. At first, Joe and I just figured he's lazy, and used to joke that he's a vampire, but now I'm not so sure. I found out that he works a lot, like, a lot, a lot. More than a typical high school student who's just working for a little spending money. I thought things would get better now that he's doing an internship with Stark Industries, but if anything, he seems to be more tired. I hope whatever trouble he's facing goes away soon. The fact that neither of Noah's parents are superheroes, yet he managed to build a fully-functioning Iron Man suit is pretty impressive. I want to see him become a successful superhero.
I also wish I could think of something to say to him. Come on, we must have something else in common besides being superheroes! Fortunately, I am saved from an awkward silence by the school secretary entering the classroom. "Laura Lakes, Joe Barton, and Noah Bolton?" The secretary calls. The three of us raise our hands. "Oh! You three are right in a row! Well, that makes it easier," the secretary chuckles. "I just got three phone calls excusing you from school. They're from an Uncle Fury, Aunt Hill, and Grandpa Coulson. If you could come to the office, I'll sign each of you out with your respective guardian."
The three of us exchange a quick worried look before following the secretary to the office. After me and my teammates defeated Ultron at our Homecoming dance, the media went crazy talking about us "High School Heroes" and how impressive we are, which made us worry that more supervillains would hear about us and try to fight us. That's when S.H.I.E.L.D. stepped in. They promised to look out for us and our non-superhero family members, but in return, we would be on-call for any really big battles that we might need to assist the Avengers with. If the leaders of S.H.I.E.L.D. are calling us out of school, that can't be good!
Nervously, I step into the office, where I am greeted with an awkward sight. Instead of wearing what they usually do, Director Fury is looking casual in jeans and a t-shirt, Maria Hill is also wearing jeans and a casual shirt, and Coulson… is wearing tan pants, a sweater vest, and fake grey hair?! Like, OH MY GOSH! I have to stop myself from laughing at how epic fail they are at pretending to be our normal relatives.
I don't feel like laughing anymore though once we are in the car. "WHAT?!" I yell, unable to believe what I am hearing. My teammates, including Liberty, Anne, and Sam, who were escorted out of school by three other S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, are shocked as well.
"You heard me right," Director Fury replies grimly. "These so-called 'Frost Giants' are trying to take over our planet, and your parents," he says, pointedly not looking at me "could use some help."
And here I thought math class would be the worst thing I'd have to face today. Did I mention I hate Mondays?!
To be continued…
Merry Christmas to people who celebrate it!