"Mommy, Mommy, look at what I did!" a girl of around six or seven exclaimed, holding something out in her hands. Her long blonde hair was up in two pigtails and her bright hazel eyes glittered with pride. The girl's mother, known as Cassidy Ryder, looked at the object in the girl's hands with shock.
"A-Aimee...how are you doing that? My flower garden was dead!" Cassidy had never been much of a gardener, but Aimee had insisted that they keep a garden. Aimee looked down at her hands, where the previously-dead rose was now thriving right in her palm.
"I picked it! But before that, I held out my hand and poof! The flowers were alive again!" Aimee chirped, unaware of her mother's barely-concealed distress.
'All right, Aimee..." Cassidy said, choosing her words carefully. "Why don't you go find your sister, and we can all go inside and have some sandwiches and lemonade, okay?" Aimee nodded happily, pink skirt bouncing as she jumped up and down.
"I'll get her!" she said, running off to where she knew her sister would be. There was a small lake not far from the fence marking the end of their backyard, where Aimee's sister tended to head on warm days such as this.
"Alexis! Alexis, time for lunch!" Aimee called, searching for her twin. "Alexis? Are you here?" she asked. There were Alexis' socks and shoes by the edge of the lake, but where was their owner?
Just as Aimee was about to scream for help, her sister burst out of the water a good 30 feet away.
"Hi, Aimee!" she exclaimed, swimming for shore. Aimee crossed her arms, unable to keep the frown on her face but still slightly angry.
"What were you doing?! You could have drowned!" Alexis looked at her older twin sister with an air of puzzlement.
"No, I couldn't," she replied. "Know why?"
"Why?" Aimee huffed as Alexis fixed her ponytail, which was dripping wet. Her green eyes sparkled with amusement.
"Because I can make bubbles around my nose and mouth," she whispered, a bit conspiratorial for her age. "I can breathe underwater, Aims!" Aimee brightened at this, eager to tell her sister what she'd been able to do.
"Guess what?! I made Mommy's flowers come back!" Alexis smiled.
"Did she like it?" she asked.
"I think so. She sounded a little scared, but I don't think she minded," Alexis nodded absently, stretching out her arms.
"Watch this," she suddenly said. She spread out her fingers and all the water from her swimming trip spiraled off her. Clear ribbons of water twisted and turned around her fingers and coiled up her wrists, her ankles, forming a sort of halo above her head. And then it flew up into the air, landing with barely a ripple into the lake. She now stood there completely dry, looking like she hadn't even dipped a finger into the water.
"Let's go, Sis!" Aimee whined, her stomach grumbling. Alexis sighed; she'd worked on that little trick for weeks.
"Okay, okay, I'm coming!" she exclaimed, taking off after her sister, who had already started running back to the small cream-colored house. "But I'll get there first!"
"No, you won't!" Aimee laughed, even though Alexis was right behind her. The two girls pelted down the gravel path towards home, giggling and shouting. When they reached the chipped white fence, Aimee slowed to open the gate. Alexis, on the other hand, simply clambered up and over the beams, barely breaking her pace. Aimee put her hands on her hips as Alexis turned to face her, grinning all the while.
"Sis, you're gonna hurt yourself doing that!" she exclaimed, determined to be the protective figure she knew big sisters to be. Alexis rolled her eyes.
"Still haven't!" She muttered childishly, following her sister inside.
"Girls, I need to talk to you about something important," Cassidy said, looking over at her daughters as they sat at the kitchen table. Aimee had all but devoured her peanut-butter-and-grape-jelly sandwich, while Alexis, opting for honey instead, chose to pull the crusts off first.
"What is it, Mommy?" Aimee asked. Cassidy ran her fingers through her chestnut-brown hair.
"Well, it's about those...special powers you have," Both girls perked up at this; their powers were of popular topic around the house.
"We've never talked about them anywhere except home, Mom," Alexis assured. Cassidy smiled; Alexis was always the one who knew when something was wrong.
"Thank you, honey, but that isn't it," she said. "I think maybe you should stop using them for a while." Judging from the twins' expressions, it was as if Cassidy had told them to cut off one of their fingers.
"But why, Mommy? We never hurt anyone," Aimee said.
"You tripped Billy Jenkins with a tree root at school," Alexis argued. "I know that was you."
"Now, Alexis, you haven't really been responsible with your powers, either," Cassidy chided. "Like making your hair turn bright green in the middle of the school day." Aimee giggled at Alexis, who guiltily sank a little lower in her chair.
"I didn't know it didn't change back yet..." she mumbled.
"But that's why I want you to stop using them for now," Cassidy pressed on, before either girl could get distracted. "You can't control them, and maybe if you stop using them they'll go away..."
"Why would I want them to go away?!" Alexis exclaimed.
"I want to keep my powers! They make us special!" Aimee shrieked. Cassidy sighed, resting her elbows on the table.
"Okay, but you can't use them. No grass powers, no shapeshifting, no more powers, even if others ones show up. Promise?"
"We promise," Alexis and Aimee chorused, albeit a bit reluctantly.
"Someday," Cassidy said, smiling at her daughters. "When you're older, I'll explain everything to you. Why we have to hide your powers, what happened with your father, everything. But right now, let's just pretend we don't have any powers. We just live in a normal house, with no secrets and no problems. Okay?" Aimee nodded eagerly, looking over at her sister, who sat there indifferently.
"What's wrong, Sis?" Aimee asked as Cassidy excused herself to go upstairs for a minute.
"Every house has secrets, Aimee," Alexis replied, with wisdom far beyond her years. "Our powers are this house's secrets. There might be more, too."
"Like why Mommy wants us to stop using them?" Alexis nodded.
"Something like that."
So here you have it, my latest story! Chapter one is already written, but with school starting back up I might take a little while to type it up and post it! The girls will be a lot older for the remainder of the story, this was just for a little bit of background and a little shot of their childhood. Read and review always, and see you next chapter!
Oh, yeah. I don't own anything except my OC's and my ideas. And my laptop. And all that fun stuff. But the Avengers? Sadly, no.