Open Your Eyes

Chapter One

Sam was missing. Again.

This had to be the tenth time that he was either late or absent from training. During these times, he'd turned his tracker off (how he managed to do that, Ava had no idea) and his communicator off. The first time, they'd worried that he'd been captured, or worse.

Spider-Man, Iron Fist, White Tiger, and Power-Man stood in the tri-carrier training room, unsure of what to do.

"Where IS he?" Fumed Tiger. "He said he'd be late, but not THIS late."

Fist frowned. "Maybe something came up. Something with his family." Ava remembered that Sam was one of the only ones out of them with a complete family. Mom, dad, sibling, the whole package. Ava would be lying if he said that she wasn't envious of Sam's family.

"Could be, but has Sam missed training so far?" Power-Man responded to his friend.

Fist's frown deepened. "No..."

"What if he was captured?" Tiger paced the room. She'd never admit it, but she did care about the younger boy. Sam was the youngest out of all of them, and the team had come to think of him as a little brother. "What if-"

Spider-Man interrupted her. "No. He said he was going to be late. I don't think he would have said that if he'd been captured."

"Well, maybe the villain threatened him, or- or..." Tiger trailed off. She knew he hadn't been captured. "What if...what if he left?" She said in a small voice.

Fist took a deep breath. "No. He wouldn't do that. Perhaps he is just late, later than he expected. Be rational, Tiger. Just start training without him."

Power-Man nodded. "He's right. Sam'll be back. We just have to wait."

That day, Sam had come back just when training was about to end.

As training wound down, the door to the training room was slammed open. Sam stood there, his helmet tucked under his arm, looking like he'd been through #*!. "Hey," he said with a crooked grin that didn't quite reach his eyes. "What did I miss?"

Tiger ran up to him, and pulled him into a hug. Sam gently squeezed out of her iron grip, his spiky hair even more wild than it had been before. "As much as I like hugs, that was completely unnecessary. You see me everyday."

She slapped him. "You little *****! Where were you?" She snarled, all traces of affection gone.

Sam ran a hand through his wild hair. "Umm...I was...busy." None of the team believed it for a second, but they all decided they would leave Sam to his secrets.

This had happened multiple times over the last few weeks, and they'd tried to question him, but all he'd said was "Family". So the team assumed it was a personal matter. But lately Ava wasn't so sure. Once when she was getting lunch at a small cafe on Saturday, she saw a blue flash light up an alley. She didn't want to jump to conclusions, but...

Throughout the week, she had seen similar things. Monday, when Sam was late for class, she could have sworn she saw the Nova Corps symbol in the clouds. On Wednesday, when she was out on a patrol with Peter, she saw a black-and-gold figure run into an office building that suspiciously looked like Sam. She didn't get a good look at the figure, but it looked like his costume.

Something shiny in the corner of her eye caught Ava's attention. She turned, to see a figure dressed in black, with some gold, dart into the Silver Building. Silver Corporations was a large bio-technology company specializing in eco-friendly technology such as water purifiers and compost mixtures. It was said they would soon rival even Oscorp and Rand Co.

She stared at the building for a few moments after that, looking at the large double door entrance where the figure had gone in. "Spidey?" She called out to Peter. "Did you see that?"

Peter swung over to Ava. "See what?"

She pointed to the Silver Building. "The person who went in."

Peter shook his head. "Who was it?"

Ava frowned under her mask. "I don't know. That's the thing. It...it looked a little like Sam."

"Isn't he on the tri-carrier?" Peter asked.

"He's SUPPOSED to be," Ava said, a hint of annoyance in her voice. She didn't like not knowing what was going on, and Sam was definitely keeping her in the dark on whatever he was up to.

Peter blinked, then starting to swing away. "It might have been nothing, Tiger. We've got a patrol to do, though. So let's do that first." Ava nodded. She shook her head, trying to clear the thoughts swirling through her head.

What the #*! was going on with Sam?

Now today, Friday, she hadn't seen anything yet. She had grown used to wondering, and even used one of the cork boards in her room on the tri-carrier as a suspicions board, with photos and red string and everything. Yet she still hadn't come to a conclusion.

Hopefully, tonight that would change. She was fed up with all the fleeting figures and lies. She wanted to know exactly what was going on. Tonight, whenever she saw Sam, she would corner him. She would take him to the Box (what agents called the adamantium, sound-proof, power-proof interrogation room) and figure out just what was going on.

Later that evening, when the teen heroes' day was winding down, she spotted Sam, helmet tucked under his arm, like all days. Except something about him, about his demeanor, from the nights where Ava swore she heard someone crying to his lack of care for his appearance all of a sudden, was different.

Sam was different, and Ava wanted to know why.

"Sam!" Ava said, running up to the younger hero. "Um, can I talk to you for a second?"

Sam turned to her. For a half second, she saw a complete stranger. A stranger that was Sam but was not Sam, because Sam wasn't utterly exhausted (if anything he was the laziest out of all of them), Sam wasn't terrified, Sam wasn't heart broken, Sam would never have that look on his face. A combination of exhaustion, terror, and sadness, all at the same time.

Sam would never feel those things, let alone show them.

Would he?