A/N: Thank you so much for all of the follows and favorites. Don't even get me started on the wonderful reviews. They make me tear up a bit. I'm so glad people enjoy my humor. In fact, every time I get an email on my phone for another alert on my story I squee and do a little happy dance...I'm no longer allowed to check my phone in Wal Mart. Oh please, like I'm the weirdest person in there. In fact, while I was killing time in there today for my dad to finish his dental appointment I found a Stan Lee look alike and stalked him through the store. ...probably shouldn't have admitted that. Anyway, Disclaimer: Day four of my search for the rights to the Avengers continues, but the elusive beast has kept slipping through my clever traps. (translation: still not mine) Enjoy the chapter!
Samantha looked down at her phone and cursed. She thought she had more time. There was now only 40 minutes or so until her roommate, Amber, got home. She was only 2 miles from the house; she could probably make it there in time to change and get everything ready for their girls' night in. It was Amber's idea anyway, something about "wanting to spend time together" and "threaten me with a knife all you want, you're not getting out of it". She had told her while in the middle of practicing in the basement.
They were actually best friends; a lot of people asked if they were related, mostly because of the odd friendship dynamic. They had lots of mock fights and used such affectionate terms as "whore" and "bitchface" for each other. It was just their humor.
She got home in about fifteen minutes or so and walked around the side of the house. She paused while wrapping up her headphones; something was off. There wasn't any unusual cars parked nearby, but she knew something was different. A small smile on her face, she continued around to the kitchen door. Whoever it was hadn't made a direct move on her yet, and really, what could they do?
Sam opened the door and grabbed a water bottle from the fridge, noticing both that someone had taken one of her sodas and that the cat had also been let in. "Could I offer you a drink," she called over her shoulder casually. "Water, tea, another soda maybe?"
The Avengers glanced around at each other and Clint guiltily eyed his nearly empty can on the coffee table as the girl, Samantha, walked into the room with her water.
"No, thank you," Steve replied as Tony said, "I'll take some rum."
"Fresh out," she said without missing a beat.
"You're an underage college student. Where's your stash," he asked.
"Oh, alcohol and I are no longer on speaking terms. It was spreading lies about me, you know how it is. Facebook drama," she said.
Everyone cracked a smile except for Steve, who didn't quite understand the joke. She made herself comfortable on a small ottoman, which was pretty much the only seat left, and took a long swig of water.
"Miss Harper-," Steve began.
"You can call me Sam," she said as she screwed on her bottle cap.
"Sam, we want to talk to you about what happened a few days ago in a warehouse outside of Baltimore," he finished.
"I figured as much," she replied.
"You don't seem that surprised to see us," Natasha noted.
"Considering what I do in my free time I've learned to pretty much just kind of go with whatever happens. Honestly, at this point, I'm amazed stranger things haven't happened yet," she shrugged.
"Stranger than having the Avengers in your living room," Clint asked.
"Well, I found a goat in the hall closet once, but that's a story for another time."
"Could it have been because you don't lock your door," Bruce asked.
She turned to look at him. "I'm not too worried about anyone that could be stopped by a locked door."
"Yet you lock your basement," Natasha pointed out.
"That's mainly to keep children and nosey friends out."
"And your roommate...," Natasha trailed off.
"Oh, she knows. She goes down there sometimes. She can't do any real damage besides the basic self defense I made her learn. Wait, I take that back. She killed one of my punching bags the first time she tried my throwing knives. At least she can hit the target now," she laughed. That explains the marks around the target, Natasha thought.
The little calico slipped out from the kitchen and jumped onto Sam's lap, where it started to purr loudly.
"Nice cat," Steve said.
"Thanks. Her name is Pita."
"Like the bread," Clint asked, amused.
"No. It's actually an acronym for pain in the ass," she said and everyone cracked a smile; even Steve couldn't help it. It was infectious. "There's another cat that wanders in now and then. We named her Super cali fragilistic expi ala docious."
"Do you really call her that," Bruce asked, eyebrows raised.
"Of course not. That would be ridiculous. We call her Soup."
"Right. Not ridiculous at all," Tony said. "Speaking of which, nice scrapboo-," he cut off when Steve glared at him.
"Yeah," Sam replied, drawing out the word. "That's all Amber's stuff. She got her own room so that she could stop breaking things in the basement."
"I'm sure this is her's too," Clint said with a serious face as he held up the plastic shield. Sam actually blushed a bit.
"Well, thank God you didn't push the secret button to reveal the false back of my closet with the Iron Man voodoo doll and ring of candles. That would have been embarassing."
"So you admit that it's your's," Clint pointed out before Tony could do something typical.
"Yes," she sighed. Steve was fighting the urge to blush as he avoided eye contact with everyone. "But my birthday is actually on the 4th of July, so it's a given. All of the stuff in my closet I got from friends for my birthday."
"Cap's birthday is actually on the 4th as well," Natasha said.
The conversation was brought to a halt as a car pulled up the driveway. A teenage girl with similar hair hopped out of the driver's seat with a few grocery bags. "That's Amber," Sam said just before she came in the kitchen door.
"Oh Sammy-pie," Amber called out in a sing-song voice from the kitchen. "I've got a present for you. It's another matching friendship necklace for you, since you keep misplacing them." Several of the people in the living room began laughing, including Sam, and Amber walked in.
She gave Sam a death glare. "If this is an elaborate plot to get out of girls' night I'm locking you in the basement freezer."
Sam rolled her eyes. "Oh no. A locked freezer. How will I ever escape," she dead panned. Amber hit her on the shoulder.
"It's not her fault, miss. We dropped in without any notice," Steve felt compelled to say.
"I'm sorry, are you..." Amber trailed off first looking at Steve, then Tony, and fully taking in the other occupants of the room. She focused back on Sam. "What did you do now that you actually got the Avengers here?"
"Uh, first thing's first," Sam said. Amber sighed and handed her a five dollar bill. "Second of all, who knew facebook posts were taken seriously? You post one thing about an elaborate plot to take over the world-"
"I'm sorry, what," Clint interrupted.
"Bad sense of humor brought on by boredom and lead paint. You get used to it," Amber explained.
"Right. Why don't you go study for that trig final. Upstairs," Sam said pointedly at Amber, who stuck out her tongue and went upstairs.
"Why did she owe you five bucks," Steve asked. He still couldn't wrap his head around this girl.
"Oh, that. My fortune cookie the other night said 'you will have unexpected visitors'. We decided a while ago that every time we got one that was right we got 5 dollars. Anyway, what exactly can I help you with?"
"We have a few questions for you. For example, where you learned to fight like that," Natasha said.
"Or how you escaped through a closet," Clint added.
Sam nodded to herself for a second before answering. "I taught myself how to fight. Figured a lot of it out through experience. As for pulling a Houdini...it's a gift, you could call it."
"Would you mind explaining that?"
"It developed a few years ago." Sam started to lose her casual appearance as she became more uncomfortable with a subject. "Teleportation, you could call it."
The room was silent for a few beats before Bruce said,"You mean, you can just transport yourself from one place to another?"
She sighed before blinking and suddenly vanished, the air where she used to be appearing sllightly hazy, like it would be above a sidewalk on a hot day. They saw her walk back in from the kitchen and lean in the doorway.
"That explains a bit," Clint said slowly.
"Yep. I also heal pretty fast," she said in a quiet voice.
"How did you get these abilities," Bruce asked while leaning forward. He seemed very thoughtful.
"I can't remember any sort of freak accident or anything. I know when I was seven I fell off my bike and hurt my ankle pretty bad. But before anyone found me it was completely fine. I never told anyone about it."
"And what, you just rode your bike home into the sunset like everything was fine," Tony asked.
"Of course not. I just fell off my bike. I walked it home."
"Interesting," Bruce continued, ignoring Tony. "Do you know anything specific about it?"
"Only that it's something in my circulatory system, but it oxidizes rather quickly."
"Perhaps we can continue this discussion another time," Natasha said. She had made up her mind at this point. "We have a proposition for you."
"I'm listening," Sam said. She wasn't exactly being courteous, but she was nervous. She had a feeling it was less of a proposition and more of a command. It set her on edge.
"How do you feel about joining us," Natasha asked while raising an eyebrow. Everyone's eyes were on Sam.
"I honestly did not see that one coming," Sam said after a moment. "I'm flattered, really, but I don't think I can. I'm not really a 'hero'."
"What do you call what you do in your spare time," Clint asked.
"Extracurricular activities," she replied in exasperation. "I mean, I'm a college student. I'm fine with helping out in my spare time but I never wanted to make a career out of it."
"We can work around that," Natasha replied easily. "We can have you enrolled at NYU right now, no questions asked, in the same classes you're taking now, online even. You'll have plenty of time for school. And SHIELD would pay you. It would be basically what you do now, just in New York, and you get paid to do it. Plus, when you graduate college you'll have made enough to do it debt free."
"Look," Natasha continued before Sam could cut her off," it's not exactly a bad deal. You stay in New York during the week, continue school, go on missions, and you can even pop back home on the weekends unless you're needed. It won't hurt to try one semester."
The room was quiet as Sam processed her arguments. She did have to worry about working off student loans, and she didn't want to put more pressure on her parents. Finally, she let out a deep breath and looked around the room.
"One condition," she said. "One of you gets to explain to Amber."
A/N: Side note: stupid fanfiction is having issues with the second cat's name. grrr. Yes, I gave Sam some special abilities. Sorry if you didn't agree with that, but in my defense I had it planned out all along. I know it's kind of a slow start to the Steve/Sam part of the story, but they're going to get a few cute little scenes in the next chapter, I promise. I'm all for Steve having one of those sickly sweet, first love types of romance, so I figured it deserved an innocent little start. Thoughts on the subject? Let me know in the reviews. You guys are awesome!