Chapter 2

After arriving at Stark tower, Fury leads the two mutants down a relatively boring hallway to a not-so-boring room. He heaves open a set of double doors and says, "Meet your new team."

Aidan claps his hands then turns to leave, "Well, my work here is done!"

Fury drops a heavy hand on his shoulder, stopping him. He freezes and slowly turns around to face Fury. The director shakes his head and says, "Agent Yakamura, they are your team too."

Aidan at looks him dumbly, "…What?"

Fury repeats himself, "Agent, you are now a part of the Avengers."

The navy haired man pauses, blinking up at the taller man for a moment before his shoulders slump, "Fuuuuuck."

Aria sidles up to him, laughing at his misfortune, "You don't get to leave that easily, buddy." She then enters the room, dragging her new friend behind her.

"But I'm not a fighter!" Aidan whines, flailing to grab onto something to stop him from being dragged further. "Then you get to be a mediator," she replied cheerfully, swatting down his hands.

"I like to step back and let people handle their own thing."

She raised an eyebrow. "Then why the hell are you with SHIELD?"

The navy blue haired man shrugs. "Meh. I was bored and the pay is good."

At this point the two have stopped right inside the door. They stop bickering long enough to take in their surroundings, observing all of the people inhabiting the room. In one of the far corners of the rather spartan room, there are two men playing an intense game of ping pong. Aidan identifies them as Clint Barton and Steve Rogers. The two snark and jab at each other as they try to beat the other with fast, complicated shots. Not too far away in a lounge chair sat Black Widow, aka Natasha Romanov, reading a book as she cleans her guns. Aria looks to the other side of the room to find the scientist and the billionaire with their heads bent close together and whispering.

All of a sudden, a miniature Iron Man robot shoots up from the table. It does an awkward, fishtailing spin as it aims toward the new comers. Aria grasps Aidan and yanks him closer to her. She shots out her hand and the robot explodes three feet away from them. Bruce takes off his glasses and begins to clean them, "That was unexpected." While Tony mourns over his destroyed toy, "Little Tony!" Aidan ducks behind his slightly shorter companion, peeking out cautiously to make sure there were not going to be any more exploding projectiles.

Aria chuckles, "Nothing happened, you big baby. I protected you."

Aidan wraps his arms around Aria's neck, "My hero!" He gives her a sloppy kiss on her cheek. Aria flails dramatically, with her arms waving in the air and her feet kicking trying to get some sort of traction. "Get off me, you fiend!"

Aidan lets her go laughing. Aria darts and dives behind Bruce. She peeks out from behind him, "Keep your filthy hands off me."

Aidan pouts and stares at her with big eyes.

"Those eyes don't work on me, mister. I invented those eyes."

Bruce interrupts, "Umm…excuse me. Who are you?"

Aria looks up at him from under his arm and then looks around at the rest of the room. The Avengers stand at the ready. Natasha, Clint and Steve are ready to attack when a threat makes itself known. Tony stares at the strange new pair. She suddenly hugs him around the waist. Bruce stiffens and looks down at Aria with a look of panicked confusions. She just smiles brightly and unafraid. "Well, my name is Aria. And you are Bruce Banner. I am a big fan of yours, particularly when you turn into a big, green rage monster."

"I know, right!" Tony agrees with a big grin.

Aria lets go of Bruce and bounces over to Tony. She wraps him up into a hug too. Tony shrugs then gladly hugs her back.

Aidan stares at her indignantly and crosses his arms, "What is this crap?"

Aria looks at him from over Tony's shoulder, "I think they're cute." Aidan gasps, "And I'm not!?"

Steve interrupts the hullaballoo before Aria can reply, "Pardon me, but umm…who are you?"

"I'm Aidan Yakamura and this is Aria Whiteraven," Aidan responds to the Captain, gesturing to his female companion.

Steve introduces himself and the rest of the team, "I am Steve Rogers, leader of the Avengers. This is Clint Barton and Natasha Romanov," He points to the pair of agents standing to his left, "You already seem to know Bruce and the las—"

Tony interrupts Steve, "And I'm Tony Stark."

Aidan gives him a thumbs up and whispers, "Good for you."

Aria smacks Aidan in the shoulder, "Don't be rude."

He rubs the abused spot and whines, "I'm not."

Tony interjects and catches the attention of all in the room, "Well, I guess we should show the noobs to their rooms."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The sound of shuffling boxes, ripping tape, and grumbled curses fill the air in different parts of Stark tower. On one floor of the Tower, about three floors from the top, a lavender haired woman is swearing up a storm. She has already won one battle with packing tape but the war continues. When she manages to get it off one hand it sticks to another part of her body. By the end of it she is covered in tape.

"God damned mother fucking tape. To hell with you. Get off!" she yells in annoyance. She begins to rip and scratch at it until she is mostly unstuck.

Dogging semi empty boxes and ones that looked like a monster tore through them. She stacks books on the many book cases that surround the room. Aria also places knick knacks around the room, including statues of different gods and goddesses, figures of her own heroes such as Batman and the Green Lantern, and the puzzle box from the Hellraiser movies. She chuckles as she sets at the end of a cherry wood book shelf to be a book end and remembers when she first saw the movie.

She had been having one of her insomniac nights and was down in the common room of Professor Xavier's school watching crap television, consisting of infomercials and old soap operas. She had kind of spaced out, when she heard heavy footsteps in the hallway. She turned to see a shadow of a man in the doorway.

"What are you doin' up so late, kid?" asked a gruff voice.

"Watching a brilliant show," Aria says sarcastically as she points to the TV advertising for some glasses shaped binoculars

"No need to be snarky," the man grumbles.

"What do you want, Logan?" questions the fifteen your old girl as she turns her head back toward the television.

"Just heard noise. Why are you up?" Logan repeats.

"Could not sleep. I decided to watch TV and there is nothing on," the girl states.

Logan walks over to a shelf containing several DVDs and begins to search through them. "Have you ever seen Hellraiser?" Seeing the lavender haired girl shake her head, he replies, "You'll enjoy it. It's a horror movie."

Logan plops down on the opposite end of the couch, props his feet up in the coffee table and settles in for the movie. Both become engrossed in the gore filled scenes, not realizing that this would become a steady ritual to continue on for years.

Bringing herself back to the present, Aria looks around the room and decides she has done enough for the day. She shuffles away to make herself a mug of hot chocolate and to curl up in her window seat.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

In Aidan's suite, he unpacks more efficiently and gracefully. Wielding a box cutter, he easily slices through the tape and is able to quickly unload the boxes. As he empties them, Aidan collapses and piles them in a corner of the room for later disposal. He carefully pulls from the various boxes things of fox nature, from figurines to plushies. He places them all around the room, on the couch, on the book shelves, even little fox salt shakers on the kitchen table. After finishing, Aidan stands in the middle of his apartment with his hands on his hips, smiling at his success. He turns to one last box that seems to have been packed very carefully. Aidan moves toward it and begins to unpack the final objects on the only shelf to devoid of anything fox related. He removes a simple crystal bottle of perfume for the box and inspects it for any damage from transport. He smells the amber liquid and smiles fondly as he revels in the familiar scent of his mother's perfume. He gently places it on the wooden shelf and turns back to the box. The photograph that he pulls out of the box next is of a young Japanese woman with smiling green eyes and a wide grin staring straight at the camera.

Aiden sighs softly and clutches the frame to his chest. The blue haired male sits down in a chair and looks down at the photo. "I miss you, Mom," he whispers softly. He runs a finger over the picture and sighs again. He can still remember the sound of her laughter and the warmth of her hugs, before the cancer took her. He still feels a pang in his heart as he remembers the funeral. His father, powerful businessman that he was, had taken one look at him and told him harshly to stop crying. He said emotions made you weak. After that, Aiden had been forced to practically raise himself. From the age of thirteen, he was alone.

Aiden snaps himself from his reverie and blinks back tears. "Come on Aiden," he murmured to himself. "Now's not the time." He quickly placed the photo on the shelf then continued unpacking his things.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Aidan and Aria exit the elevator onto a communal floor to have dinner with the team. They look around and it appears they are the last to arrive. Already sitting at the table, the team waits for their new additions. Tony had begun to get impatient and reaches to serve himself food, when Natasha hurls a knife across the table at his hand to deter him.

"You will wait for our new teammates." Natasha says flatly.

Tony gasps as he cradles his hand against his chest, "Jeez, no need to take off my hand."

Aria begins to crack up at the door, "If I had known with was going to be a violent affair, I would have my sword."

All of a sudden lightning flashes against the sky and thunder rumbles loudly around the tower. Aria jumps and grips onto the back of Aidan's shirt.

Aidan turns to her and pats her shoulder, "It's alright. It's just a storm."

"Don't patronize me!" Aria smacks his hand away and looks out the window, "That is not a normal storm."

At this moment JARVIS chimes, "Sir, the storm seems to be centralized around the tower."

A loud crash comes for the roof, "Sir, you may want to go to the roof to receive your visitors."

Tony gets a confuse look on his "Visitors?"

The Avengers head to the roof to find a large mass huddled against the ground. Lightning flashes brightly and the form of Thor is shown. He cradles a form, protectively wrapped in his crimson cape, in his arms. He looks up suddenly to the gathered team and the cape slides back to reveal an unconscious and battered Loki.

"Help me."