The broiling sun beat down on the worn pavement and radiated off of the cluster of buildings, hiking the temperature up another fifteen degrees. This heat demanded attention from the millions of New Yorkers that crawled the streets along with each and every single one of their pores. Freya, being being one among the many, sat at the bottom step of an old apartment building, glistening with sweat as she admired the flow of the chaos before her. Though it was the norm for the people who lived in this area, she could never grasp it. The rush of things, the perfect disaster which was TimeSquare. Here business people shouted into their cellphones, tourist snapped ridiculous photos, shopaholics rushed from store to store. That wasn't something she would ever find in her neck of the woods. No, no photos, certainly no businessmen, and she'd be damned if she ever once saw a tourist.
Truth be told, where she and her sister resided wasn't necessarily a friendly place. Empty downtrodden streets stretched out as far as the eye could see with people just as empty inside living on them. Passers by shouted crude comments at the poor souls who happened to be in the vicinity as car horns blared, drowning out the only too familiar vulgar music. Although that had never been much of a home to Freya Bryant anyway. You couldn't convince others of that though. To them should was and would always be a "no-good-dirty-rotten street rat", not that the girl would go out of her way to prove them wrong. If a street rat is what they claimed her to be, she was going to go out of her way to show them just how bad she could be.
For her and her sister both, this had become their normal. The world didn't like them, not in the slightest, and that was fine with them. Its not as if they owed the world anything anyways. It was dirty, and dumb, and ignorant as well as all of its inhabitants. At least in Freya's opinion, and truth be told that's all that mattered.
Freya exhaled slowly, leaning back propping herself up on her elbow and fished out the white and red colored pack of cigarettes peeping out of her left pocket. Popping one into her mouth, the girl then plunged a finger into her sock, quickly fishing out a box of matches and struck one, pressing the alighted flame against the cigarette that dangled between her lips. Her bright eyes flickered up to watch the images of the billboards, sneering ever so slightly at the advertisements. Progressive's Flo was plastered here and there. God how she hated Flo... Words could not even begin to describe the distaste she held for that woman...
"The truth is... I am Ironman."
Her brow furrowing, as she turned her attention to the sign just above progressive advertisement. She rolled her eyes as she saw Tony Stark's dumb face. It had literally been like a two years since he had come out to the public during that press conference. Why in the hell are they still playing it? Its not even that ground breaking, I mean being a some fucking vigilante dude doesn't cancel out the fact that you're a dick, she thought bitterly as she flicked her cigarette towards the pig-headed man's smirking face. With one final sneer, she rose to her feet and brushed the dust that clung to her off of her back.
Jamming her hands into the back pockets of her denim shorts, Freya started off down the street and into the tsunami of people. Silently, she cursed herself for taking this specific route home as she tried to ease along with the traffic. Keeping her small body close to the shops on her side, she casually eyed the shop windows as she shuffled along. Although trying her very best, the brunette was easily shoved and smashed in all directions by the busybodies surrounding her. Making a split decision, she ducked into the nearest convenience store and breathed out a sigh of relief. Glancing around the store, she hummed to herself quietly before proceeding into the aisles.
The small girl didn't take long to notice to unease her presence caused the store clerk to have. It wasn't the first time Freya had received a disapproving glare from a shop owner as she strutted about the aisles, admiring the items lined on the shelves. Of course, its not as if she didn't already have a reputation for being a "no-good-dirty-rotten street rat". However they were merely being dramatic, in her opinion. I mean, you 'borrow' a couple of things now and again, and suddenly that makes you a thief? Freya thought not. In the end she did return stuff, well not yet, but she would.
Casually running her fingers along a sleek small box, containing a small switch knife, she couldn't keep the small smile from twitching at her lips as she curled her fingers around it. A hand shot out of nowhere, clamping down on her forearm. The brunette's gut clenched, her eyes narrowing on the shop display window as her adrenaline was at its high. she closed her eyes, snapping them open to the sound of glass shattering. The display window lay in pieces, shards of glass littering the linoleum floor. Passers by screamed and fled, while the store owner was livid running over to inspect the damage and who had caused it, leaving Freya free to flee the scene. She smiled to herself wickedly, picking up the box she gave it a triumphant toss into the air before pocketing it. Shoving it into the back pocket of her shorts, she slipped out the back of the store and jogged off down the alley way until reaching an empty main street.
"Are you crazy?"
A small squeak sounded off on her right side as she rounded the corner. A short pink head bobbed up and down paired with a set of frightened blue eyes that stared up at Freya, that were all familiar to . "Seriously? What could you possibly have needed to cause that scene? And don't you dare look at me all innocent and say that wasn't you, eya," The girl's older sister, Fallon scolded while gripping Freya's forearm tightly.
"Come on it was only a bit of fun..." Freya rolled her eyes, giving her sister a small shove to the shoulder.
Fallon stared up at sister in her stern 'big-sister' way. Although... due to the amusing height difference of her being almost half a foot shorter than Freya, made it extremely hard to take serious at times like these. Her sister was such a cute little motherly ball of rage sometimes, she smirked and gave the girl a light pat on the head.
"One of these days, that mind of your is going to get you in some deep sh-"
Bang.
The gunshot rung out, rattling the two girls ears and shaking them to the bone. Freya's heart skipped a beat, sending the closest car's four windows shattering bursting into fragments intensifying the violent quiet which followed the shot. Whirling around, protectively grabbing onto Fallon, she surveyed the threat.A graying old woman stood there cane in one hand and pistol in the other, waving the pistoled hand around wildly. "You hood rats better get outta here 'fore I get the cops on ya! I know you're up to no good, so go be someone else's problem!" Her quivering New York accent managed to shout.
The knots in the girl's stomach settled at the sight, annoyed, but amused. And to think she thought they were in real danger. Oh please, an old lady how horrifying. Someone call the avengers cause this is a serious threat to society. She smirked, I mean how couldn't you. The old bat, you could practically hear the wrinkles in her voice. She was most certainly going to give herself a heart attack before her or her sister could. Rolling her eyes, she grabbed Fallon's hand in hers and started dragging their tired feet down the street.
The sun was reaching the highest point in the sky, as the two girls shuffled along the pavement peeping through store windows. Freya pushed her long brown hair back, reigning it back into a ponytail, while half paying attention as Fallon went on about God knows what at this point. Her sister had to have been the most distracted person she had ever known... and that was coming from Freya, which says a lot. It was like she had already forgotten about the day's earlier events, which didn't seem humanly possible, but whatever. That girl could talk like nobody's business, but no one else knew that of course. That side of her sister was reserved for Freya alone. Tiny snippets of the smaller girls' words broke through Freya's distracted attention. Something about the mention of movies, yada yada, so and so super hot, yada yada, we should sneak it, yada yada. Everything else seemed to slip in one ear out the other as the taller girls' dark eyes focused on the reflection of a shady black Lexus creeping slowly a few feet away in the shop window.
Keeping her eyes on the windows they passed, Freya, veered her sister to the right, chewing on her lower lip. The change of course however didn't faze the other girl, she continued chatting her eyes darting between Freya and her old Nintendo DS. A minute passed, then two and Freya began to relax, her paranoia settling. The black Lexus eased out of an alley just ahead of the girls causing her pulse to jolt, yanking her sister back and out of the way as the window between the girls and the car exploded.
"Run," the taller girl whispered to Fallon, taking her hand and sprinting off in the other direction and down an alley, her sister in tow.
Breathing heavily the two weaved in and out of alley ways, across streets, jumping fences, ducking into shops (before ultimately getting kicked out, that is). Wheezing and struggling for breath, Fallon and Freya darted down an short cut, and stumbled across a store back door. Freya, red in the face and deflated in the lungs, looked at her sister who echoed her own struggle and with one last glance back ushered her into the door. The dark of the room engulfed them, as she slammed the door shut with a heavy sigh and dropped with her back pressed up against it.
"Anyone want to tell me why in the hell it takes three highly trained agents and and a month to track down two stupid ass teenagers?"
Freya, glared into the darkness which surrounded them, hoping to pinpoint where the voice was coming from. To her side she heard her sister scoff quietly.
"Clearly, we aren't the stupid ones," Fallon spat under her breath, curling her fingers into the back fabric of Freya's t-shirt. Smirking nervously Freya silently agreed with the older girl. Loud light suddenly filled the room, sending the sisters squinting for their visions to adjust. Note to self, whoever this guy is he has absolutely never heard of a single thing called common courtesy. You know the thing you have that tells you to at least fucking warn someone before to burn their eyes out of their head? Yeah that.
A strange man, stood a few feet away from the two. He wore, well to be honest what the heck was he even wearing? This isn't Halloween, Freya judged silently, casting a look at Fallon. I mean, she was seeing this too, right? It's not just the brunette's own imagination. A large dark man stood in a thick black trench coat, combat boots, and to top it off an eye patch... No, this was just too ridiculous to be real, the Bryant girl decided with finality.
"Nick Fury, Director of s.h.i.e.l.d," The odd man introduced, skeptically eyeing them. "We know all about the two of you, in fact..." He paused, giving a nonchalant shrug before leaning against a towering stack of brown boxes. "You've been on our radar for quite some time now."
The younger girl cursed herself silently at the predicament that she had gotten Fallon and herself into. She was used to being the one to get them out of situations like this, well.. not like this, but you get the point. Freya found herself distracted, as she found her attention glued to his eye patch. Unconsciously she wondered if it bothered him as he casually leaned against a towering stack of brown boxes, flipping through a manila folder filled with papers. Did he have to turn his head to read all of the words...? was it even real? or was he just trying wayyy to hard to seem mysterious?
"However, the board of directors agreed that it would be smart to wait until you were ready. Until we needed you." Director fury finished.
Swallowing hard, Freya found her voice and squinted at the man. "Oookay, Patchey the pirate. Why would a bunch of big scary men, like yourself need us?" She scoffed crossing her arms over her chest, not feeling nearly as sure of herself as she was putting off. His face didn't even finch as he watched the outspoken girl, clearly not amused by her side comment.
"I'm not going to stroke whatever ego you already have, kid. It's already big enough by the looks of your file. so, no I'm not going to say that your special or any of that hallmark shit. Given the abilities the two of you possess though, you might have a big part to play before the end of this," the man responded, then cleared his throat.
"Id like to talk to you girls about The Avengers Initiative." The finality of his statement, left Freya confused.