Who is my father?
Chapter One
Hi. My name is Alisa, Alisa Rushman. My mum says her name is Natalie but nowadays I have no idea what's true and what's not. I have no idea who my father is, where I'm from or anything about me at all.
I used to trust my mother's judgement in everything, but nowadays I'm not too sure I can. Recently she's become distant, making me do all this weight and combat training, using knives. And other random objects, now I know how to kill a man ten different ways with a hair grip.
"Why?" I had asked her about a week in. "Why do I need to train? You're good, good enough to protect us both. I'm terrible at this. Why?"
And she replied "I'm going to die one day and people are already trying to get you. Until about thirteen years ago, and even now, I wasn't supposed to be living. From when I was five my life expectancy was 21. It's against all odds that I'm currently alive. You wonder where I go when your alone, I go and take out threats. Alisa, I have to keep you safe." She then pinned me in less than five seconds. And proceeded to teach me a few moves so it took ten. A month later and it still only takes thirty seconds, only that because I know some of her tricks. I don't think I would stand 10 seconds against a real attacker.
My mind is off, and as I come back to the present, sparring with my mum, I fall to the floor, my legs swept from underneath me. "Come on Alisa..." She whispers, presumably hoping that I'm not dead. My eyes are still closed, I don't want to do this anymore. "You're Hawkeye's daughter." I open my eyes as she takes her hand away from my neck, knowing I have a pulse. She doesn't seem to think that I heard her, and telltells me to chill, we've finished for the day.
After I've had a shower and gotten dressed, I find my laptop and fire up Google. Maybe this 'Hawkeye' is on the internet somewhere. Maybe it's my mum, but it does rather sound like a man's codename. Still, the way she's always on edge, looking out to see if someone's behind her,maybe she was part of a supper secret agency and had to leave because she had a relationship with another agent and got pregnant. That's ridiculous. And would never happen in two million and fourteen years.
Well Hawkeye's a man. And he's my father. That I know when I look at his picture. He's my dad. I have a dad. Who's alive. His page on Wikipedia says that he's an Avenger- why haven't I noticed this before? I know the Avengers don't get called out much, but when they do its all over the news. I next look up the Avengers webpage, wherwhere there is a grainy old photo of my mother, with this man that's my dad, the Hulk, Iron Man, Thor and Captain America. Jesus, mum was an Avenger. Her hair is red, but it's definitely her. She must have dyed it brown when I was born. I read the whole section on the original avengers, and at he end, it says, 'Hawkeye and the Black Widow were rumoured to have a relationship, but the Black Widow was kidnapped and Hawkeye has stayed, so this rumour may not be entirely correct.'
"Alisa?" Mum calls from down the hallway, her footsteps drawing nearer. I barely have time to close the browser, let alone delete the history. She says to me, "Come on, school." She means actual school teaching now, something she's been doing since she took me out of school at the age of seven, five years ago.
We hardly do maths anymore because I'm just as good as her, and half the stuff you don't really need in life any way, I can write, read and speak fluently in English, French, Spannish, Russian and German. I can also write and read Latin but would make mockery speaking it. Today's lesson is history. Yes, I only have one lesson a day, life's too short to waste it all on work. "So what do you want to learn the history of today?" All my history and geography lessons are like this, she chooses the subject, I'll choose the topic.
"I want to learn about the Battle of Manhattan." I say, knowing from Wikipedia and general background knowledge that this was where the Avengers were formed. "My old teacher mentioned it but I left before we got on to it." Have to make it sound plausible, right?
"Okay." She says, rather unsure, but not denying me a lessonlesson because that would make me realise something was up. See, thinking like a spy already. "Once there was a group called the Avengers, also known as Earth's mightiest heroes. They consisted of the Hulk, Captain America, a couple of master assassins, Iron Man and a Demi-God from another planetplanet called Asgard named Thor. A guy named Loki, who was Thor's adoptive brother, was bringing and army of these aliens called Chitauri. A secret agency called S.H.I.E.L.D. set up the Avengers persuading them to help them find this thing called a tesseract.
"There was a massive fight on the Helicarer, where they were based, in which two engines broke but the Cap and Iron Man got one back up again also it stayed in the air. The Hulk hulked-out and was forced off the carrier. One of the assassins knocked out the other and removed Loki's control of him. Loki escaped and Thor was thrown off the ship. The two of the four that were left were persuaded with bloody Captain America cards to go to Manhattan where the fighting was about to start. A wormhole opened and the Chitauri came, all hell broke loose. The others arrived. I won't make you endure the graphics of the fight but it ended when Ton-Iron Man took an explosive into the wormhole and all of them fell to the ground. I remember closing that portal, when Cap told me to, thinking Tony was never coming out."
"You?" I ask and she clamps a hand over her mouth.