Disclaimer: I do not own The Avengers, but I did create Henrietta and Dee.

Apology Note: I am so sorry it took me this long to update. I will try harder to keep up a steady flow of updates from now on. On all my active stories. Sorry again!

But thanks to those wonderful people who have reviewed, favorite, and/or followed! I really appreciate your support (and your patience)! :D

Enjoy and review, please :)


Chapter 2

About forty-five minutes after the Voice had made the call for food, Henry was sitting on the futon/couch thing with a root beer, her Thai food, and the file folder she had stolen from the Helicarrier she had broken into.

Roughly an hour and a half after that, Dee made her appearance back into the rest of her apartment only to discover that her friend was tensely hunched over numerous scientific papers which were all spread out across the coffee table. "Hey there, Henry. You doing okay?"

No response. Dee took in the empty take-out box and about seven empty bottles of soda and made her decision. "Alright, that's it. Get up." She hauled her friend up – who was doing a marvelous impression of Cameron from Ferris Bueller when he went semi-catatonic – and over to the wall which appeared to have a beautiful mural of London painted on it. "Jarv?"

"Yes, Miss Stark?"

"Open the blinds please." The mural faded away to reveal computerized glass windows which overlooked the New York City skyline from Manhattan. "Now the doors." The windowpanes compacted together and pulled to the side to allow the girls entry to the balcony. Dee hauled her still rigid friend out onto the balcony and over to the railing. "Thanks Jarv!" she called out to the AI.

"Nice view."

"Oh, so you're talking now, are you? Good." Henry may have said two words, but she still wasn't moving. "What did the files say? Informative, I take it?"

At this, Henry whipped her head around to face Dee. There was real hurt in her eyes. "Who experiments with Gamma radiation on a fourteen-year-old simply because some adult male mutated after previous experiments?"

"Umm…the military?" Dee wasn't trying to be snarky, really, she wasn't. She just was. It came naturally, and even when she was trying to be serious and a good friend – she couldn't stop it from coming out.

"Can you be serious for once?"

"I am being serious. It was the military who did this to you, wasn't it?"

"…Well…yes. But that doesn't mean you have to say it in that way."

"And what way am I supposed to say it, Henry? I'm trying here. Really. But you have to tell me more." Henry broke away from her friend and leaned against the balcony with her back facing the skyline.

"I know. I'm sorry. But this whole thing is just – " Except Henrietta never got to finish that sentence due to the extremely cool and extremely dangerous Quinnjet that came swooping over to their location.

A woman's voice boomed out over the loudspeaker. "Give up the files and surrender yourselves to SHIELD custody. Now."

"I told you so. Before you left on this whole stupid errand – I told you this was a bad idea. That you'd get caught, that the files would have a tracking chip, and that they'd show up for you eventually in something that appears to have been designed – if not built – by my dad. It would certainly explain why all of my interference tech hasn't blocked out the tracking signal on those files. Do you see what you've gotten us into?"

"What I've gotten us into? How many times have your schemes gotten us royally screwed over?"

"Hey! Calm down. There's no need to destroy Manhattan! Now go get the files." After a beat. "And my schemes have never gotten my dad involved!"


After being shoved inside, Henry grabbed the files and moments later, found herself suddenly standing in the loading bay of the Quinnjet. "Wh-how-Dee!" Not a moment later, there was a swirl of blue lights and the genius girl was standing next to her. Smirking.

Only Dee would humor in a situation like this.

Henry silently panicked. 'We're being taken into custody by a super-secret organization that doesn't exist. At least not officially. They're going to torture and interrogate us in some Siberian blacksight that also doesn't exist and we're never going to see the light of day again and-'

"You know, if you're going to panic and 'green out', would you at least mind not doing it in a flying tin can?" Dee. Leaning against the separation between the cockpit and the loading bay. And was she texting? 'Melt down averted. Thank god for annoying billionaire geniuses.' The panic that had been quickly building in Henry's gut stilled. Until she came to one very sobering conclusion. 'They might just skip the torture and kill us both once they've had their fill of Dee's talking…'

Without looking up from her two-year's-from-being-on-the-market Starkphone, the 21-year-old girl began her typical 'antagonize the as-of-yet faceless SHIELD agent' game. "Hello! We're in your loading bay, we have your files, and we want to be taken to your leader. No fuss, no muss." Beat. "Unless of course you want a fuss or a muss – what exactly is a 'muss', anyway? – in which case I'll just be on my way from now."

Henry just groaned. 'We are so dead.'

The cockpit doors slid open to reveal a not-so-friendly looking red-head and her equally serious blond partner. The red-head had her hand on her gun and the man was fingering his bow string reflexively. Dee looked up from her phone – finally – but unfortunately, the sight of the agents did nothing to make her more compliant.

If anything, it made her already growing patent-smirk grow even larger. If that was possible. 'Dead. Us. Dee, these two are going to kill us before they even have the chance to waterboard us.'

"They don't waterboard – that's the CIA. No, SHIELD has much more creative methods of torture. Don't you Agent Romanoff, Agent Barton?" A wry look crept its way into Dee's eyes.

'No. Just stop talking. Please.' Henry silently begged her friend. Unfortunately, Dee didn't catch the looks her friend was fervently shooting at her. Or maybe she did and just didn't care. Either one is plausible with Dee.

"Or is it Agent Barton and Agent Barton?" Henry resisted the urge to face-palm. "No? Nothing? No response? I'm actually a bit disappointed." Dee's expression shifted to a mock pout.

Dawning realization found its way onto the faces of the partners. Then, simultaneously, "Stark." It wasn't a question. And thankfully, Dee had the good sense to say nothing.

She was had that smug look on her face, though. Or maybe that's just how she always looks...

Dee handed over the files that Henry didn't even realize had been swiped out of her hand. She was too busy worrying that her friend would get them both killed. Actually, it would probably be more likely that Henry would be the one in trouble – Dee had a way of talking her way out of things that sometimes (but not always) got Henry included in the 'get out of jail free' card.

Neither agents registered facial expressions as they checked to make sure nothing was missing. Natasha just nodded and walked back to the pilot's chair. Clint started to move to the copilot's chair when his curiosity got the better of him. "How did you two get in here?"

Realizing that Barton wasn't turning around to strap them to the seats or put black sacks over their heads like in the movies, Henry felt calm enough to respond, "I was actually wondering the same thing…" 'I probably should have been wondering it longer, actually. It's probably how she got me out of the Helicarrier.'

With both people looking at her, Dee giggled at the question before answering, "Teleporter."

'She says it like it's the most obvious and simple thing in the universe.'

A thought must have occurred to her, though because her next words were, "Well I guess technically, it's a translocator since it doesn't split us up into a billion little pieces and then put us back together. I've been experimenting with the applied physics of the concept for a while now." At the blank looks she received from Henry and Barton she added, "It's sort of like in Star Trek." Clint's expression turned into that of a kid-in-a-candy-store, but Henry's eyes clearly questioned how she'd come up with the idea in the first place, so Dee elaborated, "I was both really bored and really tired one night. I think it was 3 a.m. And there was a marathon of the Star Trek movies – the ones with Chris Pine and his beautiful eyes – and I thought, 'Hey that could be cool.'"

Clint just looked dumbfounded and then muttered to himself, "Starks," before turning around and taking his place in the chair. Dee, still leaning against the wall, typed away on her phone for a few seconds before AC/DC's "Thunderstruck" started blasting through the jet's internal speakers.

Ignoring the sudden outburst of music, Natasha called back to the girl's, "Sit down, buckle up – we'll be on the Helicarrier shortly."

Looking over at her friend, who was currently banging her head about to the music, Henry asked, "Why aren't they treating us like prisoners?"

Raising one eyebrow, Dee stopped jamming out and looked over at the other girl. "Do you want to be treated like a prisoner?"

"Well, no. But –"

"They know we've already seen the place so, why blindfold us? And we're going on a somewhat-voluntary basis." She seemed to think about her words for a minute before, "Which should actually trigger a few alarm bells considering the last person they apprehended who went with relative ease ended up nearly destroying their big, fancy airship."

Rolling her eyes at the brunette, Henry sat down and buckled up. The music was still blaring in the plane. 'This is going to be a long night.'


Author's Note: Please review :)