"A teenage girl with daddy issues was your backup plan?" Banner asked in disbelief. Oh nice, I thought to myself. Daddy issues? Yeah I'll give him that one, but a teenager? How old did he think I was? Sixteen?

"She's not a teenager, she's 20" Tony pointed out, though completely ignoring the daddy issue remark.

"I'm 21" I said. I crossed my arms as all eyes in the room where on me.

"What? Since when where you 21?" my 'father' asked, sounding confused as he tried to count the years.

"It was my birthday last week" I said, trying to keep the venom out my voice, key word there, trying.

"And you wonder why she has 'daddy issues'?" Hawkeye mumbled.

"Fury, I do not think it is appropriate to involve a child" Thor stated, staring at me as if he were sizing me up.

"I've been on a couple of missions with Agent Evans" Agent Romanoff said "She's more than capable" thank you Natasha! You are now, officially my new favourite person.

"It was not your birthday last week" Tony said under his breath.

"Oh yeah?" I said to Tony "When is my birthday then?" I asked.

"It's ah… in…" Tony mumbled, scratching his head. I shook my head; it's not like I expected anything less. I felt the sudden need to punch something and hard, like a wall… or my father's head…

"This is not negotiable" Fury said "Agent Evans is now part of the Avengers"

Tony, Bruce and Thor all opened their mouths to say something, presumably to complain.

"Not negotiable!" yelled Fury over the top of them as he headed towards the door.

"Try not to kill him" Fury said to me.

"No promises" I mumbled "and you do realize that Lucious is going to kill you for taking away her partner?"

"I'll risk the consequences" Fury said rolling his eye as he exited the room.

I turned to face the others. Well this was awkward as hell. We all sat in silence, none of us knowing what to say.

"Well I guess there is no arguing with Fury once he's made up his mind" Captain America said, finally breaking the quiet.

"Welcome to the Avengers"

I sat in the cafeteria by myself just picking at the food in front of me. Where the hell was Lucious when I needed her most? She could always tell me the right thing to do, with her morals and all that crap. No, I told myself sternly. Don't rely on others, not even her. You'll only get yourself hurt.

Just then Agent Romanoff and Agent Barton sat down in front of me with their own trays of food. I raised an eyebrow at them in question. I had never really talked to either of the two Agents, I had been on a couple of missions with Romanoff and only one with Barton but that was at least a year ago. We knew each other well enough to acknowledge the other when passing each other but that was the extant of our relationship. I suppose now I was part of the Avengers that was going to have to change. I was tempted to laugh at myself, Lucious would be so proud of me, socialising and all.

"So how long have you known Stark was your father?" Natasha asked me grinning. I held back a sigh, and here comes the questions. I contemplated not answering as I lifted a blueberry and ate it but I knew if I did then it would only prolong the agony of the questioning.

"Since I was four" I replied, idly wondering how many questions she could come up with.

"I take it you two don't get along?" Barton asked me. Despite myself I laughed at this.

"Really? What give it away Barton?" I asked sarcastically with a grin on my face. Damn it Evans, I yelled to myself, you are not here to make friends. I sighed quietly. Distance yourself from others and you'll be safe. You were foolish enough to let Lucious into your life, don't let anyone else in.

"I can't believe I didn't notice" Natasha said, breaking my inner lecture.

"Notice what?" I asked confused, did I miss something here?

"That Stark's your father, you look so much like him" Romanoff continued. I glared at her slightly, a connection between Stark and I was not one I wanted.

"Sorry kid but she's right" Barton said, smiling. That was the only thing I could fault with Clint. He was an excellent assassin but he had this extremely annoying habit that he had formed on our mission of calling me 'kid'. "You look a lot alike, it's kind of obvious"

And… that's where my socialising ends. Right there, at the comments about how I look so much like daddy dearest. I looked at my phone, pretending that I had gotten a message.

"Oh, will you look at that" I said, pretending to sound disappointed. "Lucious needs me. Gotta go!"

Without waiting for either of them to reply, I stood up and quickly walked out of the cafeteria and down a corridor. I sighed as I twisted down the many corridors of S.H.I.E.L.D's base, the closest thing I had to a home. I really need to work on come up with better lies. Being an assassin you would think I would be pretty good at creating lies on the spot but no. The truth was that Lucious was currently on a mission in Fiji. I just hoped that Romanoff and Barton didn't know that.

As I stalked down the corridors, with no real destination in place I suddenly saw the one person I probably wanted to avoid the most right now. My father. Fantastic. I contemplated turning around so to not face him but considering that Captain America and the Hulk were also with him it might be a bit rude. Also the fact that we were now part of the same team and Fury had ordered me to 'play nice' it may be a reasonable assumption to try to get used to him. Try.

I nodded in their direction and walked up to them.

"Hello Miss Evans" Rogers said to me as I approached them. I glanced up at him, with his impressive height of 6'2" against my not so impressive height of 5'2" he easily towered over me. "It's a pleasure to meet you; I look forward to working with you" huh, so gentlemen did still exist nowadays. Or at least, he was polite enough to not say what he really thought.

"Nice to meet you Captain" I said, forcing a smile on my face "You too, Doctor Banner."

"Just call me Bruce, seeing how we're working together now" Banner said with an awkward smile. "And I'm sorry about what I said before, about the teenager thing"

"It's fine" I said "You're entitled to your opinion" it's just that your opinion is wrong and it sucks. "And call me Claire then" I said, hating it that I was giving him permission to use my name. Nobody called me Clarissa, let alone Claire, besides Lucious and even then that was a rare occasion when she used my nickname. First names, and definitely nicknames, were not something that assassins used on a regular basis.

"Well Claire I'm sure we'll be seeing a lot more of each other soon enough" Banner said. He and Captain America then headed in the opposite direction. What? Wait! Don't leave me alone with this jackass of a human! I was tempted to call after them but that would only show weakness, something that I was determined not to be.

I looked up at my father; even that bastard was taller than me at 6'1". Why the hell was I so short? Stupid genetics. My height, or lack off, was rather a sore spot for me and something Lucious gladly pointed out on a regular basis. We both stood there in silence, neither of us knowing what to say.

It had been 8 years since I last saw my father and 13 since we had been alone together. I used to imagine what I would say to him given the chance, but now that I had that chance I just stood there in silence.

"So how have you been lately?" Stark asked after a while.

"Oh yeah, pretty good thanks. How about you? You haven't gotten aids yet from one of your whores?"

"A jealous virgin, I see" Tony said smirking at me. I snorted as I continued to walk down the corridors, not caring if he followed me or not.

"Nah, I lost my virginity when I was 17"

"WHAT?"

Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed and favourite-ed the story! It means so much to me, I'll try to update at least once a day, and if I don't... blame school.