Authors Note: I know Hella (or Hell depending on what comic you read) rules Nifilehime. At least I think she does…. Anyway I know I'm messing with her but you didn't seem to mind it when I told Nick Fury to make an appointment. So… Yeah… You'll get some Fury in this one. And more Phil. So yes I know Hella has no reason to be messing with the Avengers Academy but stick with me, I'll get there. I still don't own anything. There's lots of plot and only one me, patience is a virtue. I own nothing.
2. Paintball and Mutates
The last thing Peter was expecting when he finally made it to the Academy and crawled in one of the first floor windows was an all out paintball war that seemed to be going on between two sets of siblings. Well he knew that they were siblings but it appeared family ties didn't extend to paintball. He jumped and clung to the ceiling as a purple paint pellet whizzed past his head hitting a corner near him with a resounding splat and a large purple stain.
"Reilly? Why are you playing paintball in the Academy?" A voice called from the area the shot had come from.
"We're testing a theory and I haven't finished the training rooms programming yet. Plus it looked like it was going to rain outside." An orange pellet sped toward the source of her voice and made a similar splat as it missed and hit a wall.
"Ha! You missed Phil!" A razz berry was blown in the direction of the orange pellet quickly followed by a rapid fire barrage of purple paint. They all missed Phil and Peter just managed to dodge.
"Only cause you keep moving Rei. Come on don't be a coward sis, come take your medicine like a big girl." There was a thunk and a shout of annoyance and minor pain from Phil then he laughed slightly.
"Druin, you're supposed to be aiming at them, not me. I'm on your team." Druin spoke sounding a bit frustrated.
"Aye, but are Lady Reilly and Lady Laura not our comrades as well? This sport is not very sporting." Phil sighed and Reilly shouted across the room.
"Friendly Fire doesn't count Phil, we agreed when he asked where the crossbow bolt goes remember? Now come on out and taste paint flavored defeat." She laughed, well cackled would be more accurate really. An unfamiliar laugh sounded from near Reilly's position.
"Who's that?" Peter called out; he was dressed in his Spiderman costume and wasn't too pleased at the idea of getting splattered like a bug on a windshield. He'd never get all the paint out of his costume.
"Shut it Webs, can't you see I'm trying to beat the crap out of my brother and his pointy eared buddy?" Peter ducked closer to the ceiling as a barrage of silver paint flew across what Peter now recognized as one of the rooms that were originally meant for spare living rooms. They hadn't decided what to do with all the space yet despite their constantly changing needs.
A clicking sound followed Druin's onslaught, signaling that his gun was either empty or jammed. Reilly laughed. The giggling increased in volume and a new voice spoke up.
"I'm Laura Light." Under his mask Peter raised an eyebrow.
"Druin's sister?" There was a noise that sounded like a muffled yeah then a gold paint pellet zoomed around Peter and a splat rang through the room that separated the teams. Reilly cheered.
"Spot on target Laura! You got him right in the chest from nine feet away around a corner! Though really you could have hit Phil that would have been a better shot." Druin stuck his head around the corner as Peter heard the girls high five.
"Lady Reilly speaks the truth, it would seem I have been bested in the ball of paint game. Thou art truly a marksman of remarkable skill my sister." Before Druin could continue to praise his sister a hand Peter recognized as Phil's grabbed him by the top of his protective gear, Reilly had clearly thrown the uniforms together last minute as they appeared to be made of scrap bits from discarded projects in her lab, and yanked him back around the corner. Phil only managed this because he caught the elf by surprise.
"How did you know that Rei? We agreed not to use any non regulation tech, just like Druin agreed not to use, how did you put it? Oh yeah 'that speedy elf thing' he can do." Laughter echoed from Laura's position as a purple paintball splattered the wall behind which the hand had yanked Druin. When Laura caught her breath she asked what Peter was still laughing about.
"That speedy elf thing?"
"Yep. It's a technical term." Reilly said completely serious. Laura burst into laughter again. Druin's head reappeared around the corner.
"Tis not as you say a technical term. Thou couldst not find a mortal word that was a correct reflection of my skill." Laughter was evident under his faked annoyance. The nose of a paintball gun appeared around the corner and a purple paintball missed him by inches as he ducked back behind the wall.
"Shut it pointy! Just cause there isn't an accurate scientific term for being able to run forty miles an hour and stop on a dime does not mean what I said wasn't technical. Also you're dead in game. Dead people don't talk, or dead elves for that matter!" Phil interrupted Druin's reply before he really got started.
"You're dodging the question sis."
"Am not! ALICI get me a target lock on my obnoxious brother!" Phil swore and fired a few rounds as his sister, clad in the same kind of mismatched protective gear as Druin but with the obvious addition of a set of goggles that had some kind of readout running though the lenses. Phil missed and Reilly rolled to a halt behind one of the plastic covered armchairs that were scattered around the room.
Peter was watching this with a sincere effort to hold in his laughter rapidly failing him. He was only seventeen, and while he and Druin were the only a year apart in age the elf tended to act a few years older than he was. Reilly and Phil were two years older than him and Phil always acted as the adult. Reilly had her better days. It was rare to see Phil let loose and this was the first time Peter had been there to witness it. Phil was really very fun to be around when he wasn't being stuffy.
Out of the corner of his eye Peter saw a flash of blond hair as someone dodged down the hall that lead to the room Phil and Druin were hiding in. Ok so Reilly really was a good strategist when she wanted to be. That or Laura was damn sneaky.
"Come get me Philly! You know you want to!" After a few more choice words aimed to annoy more than insult Phil could no longer resist and dove into the room, expertly avoiding the paint his sister let loose in his direction. Peter saw Reilly smile and understood fully.
"Don't fall for that!" He whispered like he was watching a really good slasher movie where the heroine had just gone into the basement armed only with a wooden baseball bat. In all truth the girl in the movie had a better shot at surviving than Phil as he spun on his knees to see a tall blonde girl, well tall from Peter's point of view, in paintball gear aiming her gun at him. He pointed his and she fired, landing her pellet in the barrel of his gun effectively jamming it. He had come up just a bit too high and was hit from behind on his shoulder by a splatter of purple paint. The blonde, Peter reasoned this was Laura, grinned at Reilly as ALICI declared the game over and the girls the winners.
"That was an amazing shot Laura, how did you know that would jam my gun though?" Phil asked taking off his own, unenhanced goggles. She shrugged.
"Part of my powers, I know everything about this kind of gun now. Never even seen one before today." Druin clapped her on her shoulder almost knocking her over with his enthusiasm. Then he looked up at Peter on the ceiling.
"Man of Spiders tis good to see you are well! How was thy day at the place you refer to as the black hole of education?" Peter shrugged crawling down one of the few paint free walls and held out his hand to Laura.
"Same really, boring as ever. I'm Spiderman. Nice to know Druin's found some family. So you've got powers." Laura nodded her eyes seeming to close off a bit.
"She's a mutant, cool huh?" Reilly said removing her own goggles. Then she whistled and three robots rolled into the room from various holes that had opened in the walls. Peter stared.
"Oh yeah you were busy with your internship over at SI, you haven't met the cleaning staff yet!" Peter looked at Phil who shrugged.
"She refused to hire anyone, so she built them." He gestured at the three robots in front of them. One had clearly once done service as a vacuum cleaner, at least the wheels had, another was hovering several inches off the floor and had several brushes and spray nozzles on its metal hands of which there were six. The last one was the smallest and seemed to hide behind Reilly a little as Peter looked at it. It had several different scanners and only one appendage that seemed to be a brush that sat in front of its mechanical chest.
"Useless that's Spiderman, he's a part of the team. Stop hiding behind me! Spidey this is Stupid, Idiot and Useless. Stupid does floors, elevators, stairs and because I needed someone else to do it dishes. Idiot does windows, ceilings he's really good with scuffmarks, mirrors, bathrooms and also dishes, in case Stupid is busy. Useless does walls, he's scared of everything hence his name." Reilly introduced the robots, motioning to each in turn as their name was mentioned. They seemed to have some small form of sentience for Stupid and Idiot turned and waved to the best of their abilities while Useless hid behind Phil's legs. Reilly clapped.
"Alright clean up this mess. There's a lot of paint around the house, get to it." The three cleaning robots zoomed off and Laura turned to Peter.
"So Spiderman, rumor has it you're a mutant like me." Peter shook his head and pulled off his mask.
"If you're going to be on the team you should call me Peter whenever I'm not wearing the mask. And not technically. You were born with the X gene, I don't actually have it." Laura looked confused. Reilly sighed.
"It took me three hours to explain this to him, please don't be as dense." She said gesturing vaguely in Druin's direction and poorly concealing her smile. He frowned but remained silent.
"You're a mutant, born with the X gene. Blame your dad, that's where you got it. Petey here went on some field trip or another to OSCORP and got bitten by a genetically enhanced spider, why the world needs those is anyone's guess. The spider was radioactive and its venom basically took a day to rewrite Peter's genetic code, he is actually part spider now. Which will look really weird on your next physical exam, I guess it's a good thing you aren't a football player." She had been walking though the nearly complete mansion as she spoke and led the others into her lab. She shrugged out of her protective gear and told the other three teen heroes to do the same.
"Got it?" Laura nodded. Reilly gave her a rare and genuine smile.
"Good, there's hope for you yet." ALICI cut in.
"Miss Stark?"
"Yes ALICI?"
"I've got the director a S.H.I.E.L.D. on the line. He says he wants te make an appointment, as ye have ignored Agent Coulson every time he tried te make one." Reilly grinned.
"At last results! Tell him I'm free tomorrow at noon, we'll meet for lunch. Somewhere quiet. I've got stuff today."
"'e wants te know what stuff miss." Reilly sat in her desk chair and spun around once grinning at them and making a shooing motion toward the door.
"Important stuff! I've got to log the results of that little experiment, make sure I adjust the settings on those goggles they glitched twice, check that the Tesachamber's machining the new helmet for the armor, finish the programming for the training room, find a place to put a paintball court and of course today's the Laser's final treatment! After today he'll just be Arthur Parks! Oh and before that I've got the Expo presentation for my hover bike. Schedules' full Fury, see you tomorrow." She hung up on him and laughed as she went to one of the biohazard showers set into the side wall. The real bathroom was too far away and she needed to get cleaned up.
She was going to have fun today, but even she didn't know how much.