Alexis burst into Aimee's room, a black-and-blue backpack slung hastily over her shoulders. Aimee was at her window, a light pink shoulder bag slung over her.
"What'd you pack?" She asked, turning around to face her sister as she wrenched the window open. After an exchanged glance, Alexis slipped out the window onto the metal platform. Aimee followed suit, dropping her bag down first.
"Notebooks, my laptop, phone, mp3 player, sketchpad, my favorite jeans and T-shirt, wallet, and the chargers for all my technology stuff. You?"
"Photo albums, my ballet stuff, extra clothes, and my license and stuff." Alexis nodded.
"I suppose it'll work. But where are we supposed to go?"
"I don't know," Aimee said, clambering down the ladder with Alexis right behind her. "We'll probably just head down to a subway station, jump a turnstile and catch a train out of here." Alexis jumped down from the ladder, landing on the pavement with a quiet thump. Aimee shot her a glare, climbing off the ladder a few moments later.
"And do you have any experience with jumping turnstiles?" Alexis asked casually, raising an eyebrow. Aimee adjusted her bag on her shoulder, unwilling to look her sister in the eye.
"I suppose I've sneaked out a few nights," she admitted. "Met some friends, wander around the city, go dancing...stuff like that." Alexis faked a disappointed sigh, shaking her head as they walked along.
"And you're supposed to be a good example for me," she tsked. "Bad form, Aims, bad form."
"Well, we wouldn't have to be resorting to my sneaking out if you hadn't pulled your shapeshifting stunt at school!" Aimee retorted.
"If they'd been watching the building three days beforehand, I don't think they knew." Alexis said, although she couldn't help but think of Markwood's phone call during class. "So are we just running from the house, or running, running? As in, get the hell out of Dodge running?"
"We're being chased by the government. I don't see why we should trust them. But you seem to trust Markwood."
"I trust Mr. Markwood the English teacher, not Agent Markwood of S.H.I.E.L.D. Whatever that's supposed to stand for."
"Let's just get out of here, okay?" Aimee asked, and the two girls began sprinting down the street.
"No cars. They must've thought they didn't need any backup." Alexis commented, looking over her shoulder.
"If they didn't have any backup, then what is that?!" Aimee screamed, pointing up at the sky. Against the night sky was what looked like a shooting star surging right towards them.
"I don't know," Alexis said. "But I don't like it..." She allowed her vision to enhance itself until she could make out the shape. "Aimee, we're in trouble," she said, voice rising.
"Why? What is it?" Aimee asked as they rounded a corner.
"Iron Man!" Alexis screamed as the superhero swooped over them, barely missing Alexis' hoodie and Aimee's shirt.
"They brought the Avengers as backup?! Why did they think they needed to?!" Aimee screamed.
"How should I know?!" Alexis asked, annoyance clear in her voice. "They probably thought Mom made S.H.I.E.L.D. out to be the bad guys, so we'd fight them,"
"And here we are, tearing like heck through the streets," Aimee said flatly. Alexis shrugged.
"Mixed them up, at any rate," she offered.
"Not for long! And when they catch up with us...! Why'd you get us into this mess?!"
"May I remind you," Alexis said, suddenly coming to a stop. "That this running-away thing was your brilliant idea. And you could help me instead of making me do all the work. Otherwise we might run into some problems."
"Like Iron Man chasing us?"
"Yeah, just like that," Alexis replied amicably as said hero landed just a few feet from them.
"All right, girls, you've had your fun," he said.
"Why, Stark, we thought with all the girls chasing you, it'd be refreshing for a few to be running from you, instead," Alexis said, smirking. Stark paused for a moment.
"That's good," he said at last, sounding a little surprised.
"Stay focused, Stark," a woman's voice said. "We need to get them back to base." Black Widow stepped out of the shadows, not showing any weapons on her. Frankly, that scared Aimee and Alexis twice as much.
"Don't you feel ridiculous, being called all the way here to handle a couple teenage girls?" Alexis asked, looking for the rest of the Avengers. They had to be around here somewhere...
"Sis. Not helping." Aimee muttered.
"At least I'm doing something," Alexis snapped back.
"All right! I'll try something!" Aimee hissed. She closed her eyes, balling her fists so hard her knuckles turned white. A low rumbling sounded from under the street as an ominous whooshing came from down the street.
"What was that?" Stark asked. Before anyone could answer, a large amount of vines burst out of the street, intertwining as they surged out towards the two Avengers. At the same time, a gust of wind almost blew them off their feet, although Alexis and Aimee were completely unaffected. Alexis looked over at her sister, eyes wide.
"Did you mean to do that?" she asked quietly as Stark and Black Widow attempted to fight off the vines while trying to stay on their feet.
"No...maybe...yes?" Aimee said. "I didn't think it would actually work!" she added as they continued running.
"Well, it did. And it was awesome." Alexis said. "Hey! If you're controlling earth and air, and that's what it looks like, then do you think I have fire, too?!" Aimee didn't bother hiding her shudder.
"Oh, please, no. Anything but that." she said.
"How come?" Alexis asked.
"In case you haven't noticed, Sis, you're a bit of a pyro." Alexis grinned.
"No arguments here," she said. The girls rounded a corner, not paying much attention to where they were going until they bounced off a wall and landed on the pavement. Alexis fell backwards, landing on her rear. Aimee wasn't so lucky; she'd fallen on her side and her entire right arm was scraped up.
"Oww..." Alexis groaned, looking up and belatedly realizing that it was no wall they'd run into.
"Thor! That's them!" Black Widow called, running towards them.
"Aimee! Move!" Alexis yelled, yanking her sister to the left as the Asgardian made a grab for them. They made to turn, but stopped short. Seeing the Hulk standing right where you needed to be had that effect on people.
"Any brilliant ideas, Sis?" Aimee asked, looking around. Alexis gave out a nervous, breathy laugh.
"Actually, I was hoping you could be the big sister this time..." she said.
"Had us going for a little bit, there," Stark said, walking up to them. Even now, leaves dutifully clung to his suit, weakly thrashing in vain attempts to stop him. "You do this? Nice job, Flower Girl."
"Yeah, but with all the damage those vines and windstorm caused...not to mention your stunt with the water pipes..." Black Widow said, gesturing to each girl in turn. Alexis raised an eyebrow, as if to say "Little?". "It's going to take a heap of explaining back at base. So if you're done playing hide-and-seek, why don't you come down to S.H.I.E.L.D. with us so we can find out how many abilities you two have?"
"You think we're just gonna come with you?! You haven't given us any reason to trust you! Why don't you just go crawling back to your boss until we decide we're ready?!" Aimee yelled, quivering anger in her voice.
"Aimee..." Alexis said quietly, casting a nervous glance around.
"What?" Aimee asked, rounding on her sister. "You're just gonna walk away with these guys?!"
"Stop putting words in my mouth," Alexis said defensively, crossing her arms. Aimee threw her hands up in the air.
"We don't even know why they want us! It could be some sort of...I don't know, some scheme or something!"
"Aimee, you're hysterical." Alexis said, voice quavering. She was normally calm when her sister got like this, but she was genuinely scared right now.
"All right, she's had her say. Let's take them in."
"No!" Aimee screamed, lunging for the only weapon she could see; Thor's hammer. Her fingers curled around the handle, wrenching it free. And while this alone was a surprise, the true shock of the evening was sure to follow soon after.
Instead of being unable to lift Mjolnir, Aimee was able to easily swing it around.
"How...?" Thor asked, voicing the thoughts currently running through the other Avengers' heads.
"Get away from me and my sister," Aimee snarled. She turned to Stark, who was apparently standing closer to Alexis than Aimee was okay with. "Get away from her, or you'll know a whole new meaning to 'getting hammered'." Before Aimee could make good on that threat, however, a tranquilizer-tipped arrow flew out of nowhere, striking Aimee right in the thigh. "Ow..." she mumbled, sounding confused. Then she slumped to the ground, fast asleep.
"Perfect timing, Clint," Black Widow said after a moment's pause.
"Sure thing, Natasha. Should I get the sister, too?" Alexis visibly paled at this.
"No, she shouldn't be a problem," Natasha replied. "Alexis, isn't it?"
"Y-yeah..." Alexis managed to reply. To her immense surprise, Natasha smiled a little bit.
"I've heard quite a bit about you from Markwood. Why don't we go talk this over?" Alexis looked at the now-complete Avengers team surrounding her.
"Call me crazy, but something's telling me I don't have much of a choice," she said matter-of-factly.
All right, here's the next chapter. Sorry if anything was botched to the point of disgust, but, well, that's me. All things considered, I think I did a fairly decent job.
Now, before someone goes off on me about the whole Mjolnir thing (believe me, I know somebody will), it IS said that one can lift it if one is worthy. So for whatever reason, Aimee was obviously deemed worthy, at least at that moment in time.