A/N: Sorry for the lack of updates, for some reason parts of this were just super hard to write and I've been busy showing horses and doing music stuff lol. Hopefully I'll be back on the almost-regular updating schedule soon :) Please remember to review!
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4: The New Kids
She spent another four days looking for Ruby by herself, both online and in the real world. Nothing turned up. Online was always going to be a bust – the thing about hackers was that their accounts and files were always locked up tight, and unless they left you a way in for emergencies, only a better hacker could help you. In the real world, Imogen had an address, a phone number, and their old meeting place that was probably now under HYDRA surveillance in case either of them came back. All three came up empty anyway – no one in or out of her apartment in weeks, nothing but builders at their meeting place, and no texts or calls from her number. Either Ruby had gone deep underground, or HYDRA had caught her.
It was only on the fourth day, over two weeks after Ruby had disappeared, that she even thought of using JARVIS – well, FRIDAY now. Did it matter? As far as she could tell, they were the same program. She'd used JARVIS sparingly in the past, when Ruby had failed to come up with anything useful on the leads they'd been chasing. She didn't dare use him for all of the work though, not when there was no way to tell if his privacy setting was actually private (she was still pretty sure Stark had access to everything JARVIS heard or saw, whether it was supposed to be private or not), but he was more than useful for the odd thing or two they just couldn't quite figure out.
She went through the front this time, the Stark Industries reception, purposely pushing right through the middle of a group of cosplaying Avengers fangirls. Female Captain America turned and gave her a look of icy hatred that Steve Rogers would never have been able to pull off. Female Hawkeye was too busy staring at her shirt to join in. Apparently, she liked Hawkeye t-shirts just as much as dressing up as him. Idly, Imogen wondered what she would do if she knew Hawkeye was the one that bought her the shirt.
The receptionists let her through without a second glance, thanks to FRIDAY and the magic of facial recognition. As the elevator closed she caught a glimpse of Female Captain America through the glass front of the building. Her glare had gotten even more intense, somehow. Imogen resisted the urge to wave.
"JARV – uh, FRIDAY?" she asked the empty elevator once she was well on her way up the building.
"Yes, Miss Haylock?" the Irish AI replied smoothly.
"You have a privacy mode like JARVIS used to, right?"
"I have all the functions JARVIS does," the AI confirmed. "Would you like me to switch to privacy mode?"
"Yes," Imogen said, and then waited a beat. "I need you to find a girl called Ruby Radford."
"Is there anything else I should-" The elevator stopped and a portly businessman in a suit stepped on, glancing at her in disdain before pushing the button for an office level two floors up. The AI remained silent. Annoyed, Imogen glared at the man's back and wished he would have just taken the stairs. He could do with the exercise, from the size of his stomach.
The elevator dinged and opened to his floor. He shot Imogen one more disgusted glance as he got off, and then finally he was gone.
"Who was he?" she asked the AI as the elevator started moving again.
"That was Robert Price, a major share-holder of Strata Networks," FRIDAY answered. "Are there any other details I should include in my search for Miss Radford?"
Imogen hesitated. "She's a hacker, so you could look for her online, and she lives in an apartment in the Bronx. The address is on my phone. There's a picture of her there too. You can get that stuff, right?"
"I already have. I will search right away," the AI promised, just as the doors opened on the Avenger's common area.
The room seemed empty at first glance. And then a voice right next to her asked, "What are you looking for?"
Imogen jumped and stumbled out of the elevator in shock, turning to face Pietro, who was the last person she'd expected to see today. He was in the elevator, leaning back against the wall with a grin that gave her the impression he was laughing at her.
"You know it's rude to spy on people, right?" she grumbled, trying hard to regain some of her dignity.
"I wasn't spying," he said, and stepped out of the elevator too fast for her to see. "Just passing. What were you talking about?"
He was behind her again, forcing her to turn to face him. "It's none of your business." Abruptly, she decided she was done with this conversation and pushed past him, stalking off towards the kitchen.
He was back at her side faster than was humanly possible. "Are you an Avenger?" he asked, falling into step beside her.
"No," she snapped, wishing she could shake him.
"You look like an Avenger," he informed her.
She eyed him speculatively. "Is there a specific look Avengers have?"
He shrugged. "Pretty face, American, living in a big city. And the old man says he is teaching you to fight."
"Not all the Avengers are American," she pointed out, and chose to ignore the rest of it.
"They might as well be." From his voice, she got the idea that he didn't hold a very high opinion of America.
"Aren't you an Avenger?" she asked.
"No," he replied, very definitely.
Imogen struggled for a response, but abandoned the mission as she entered the kitchen. He wasn't forthcoming with any more information, and she didn't care enough to ask. She made a beeline for the fridge instead; she'd made the mistake of not eating lunch before she came to the Tower and she'd hoped maybe she'd be able to filch food out of the kitchen here. The fridge was all but empty though, and so were most of the cupboards, except for a few boxes of cereal and several jars of jam and spreads (and no bread to put them on).
"What are you looking for?" Pietro asked as she closed the last cupboard and resigned herself to cereal for lunch.
Imogen paused on her way back to the breakfast cupboard. "Food?" she replied, like it was obvious. "Not that there's any left in here. If you're making a list of requirements to be an Avenger, you should add 'big eater' to the list."
"Why don't you go down to the city and buy food?"
"Because I don't want to spend money on food," she explained.
His face lit up, like a lightbulb switching on over the top of his head. "If you will help me get out of this tower, I will buy you food out there?" he proposed, waving a hand towards the windows, which boasted a stunning view of the buildings of Manhattan and Central Park in the distance.
She was focused on him rather than the view. "Help you get out?" she repeated suspiciously. "What does that mean?"
"The old man, he will not let me leave," he complained, and Imogen silently cursed herself for falling into that trap. "Keeps saying I should rest, but I do not need rest. I want to do something."
"Yeah, that sounds like terrible advice to give someone that was basically dead a couple weeks ago," she said, rolling her eyes.
He frowned. "How do you know that?"
"I'm friends with Clint," she reminded him, gesturing towards her Hawkeye t-shirt. "He spent a lot of time in Medical waiting for you to wake up."
"Oh." He grew still for almost five seconds, thinking about it, and then sprung back to life again. "So? We will go?"
She rolled her eyes again, but considered it. They were guaranteed to get into trouble at some point during his hare-brained scheme to 'escape' from the Avengers, which she wasn't really looking forward to. But she was hungry for more than just cereal, and maybe if she busted him out for the fifteen minutes it would take to find a café and order food, he would stop following her around.
"Fine," she relented, much to his delight. As she left the kitchen, she noticed a growing red stain on his shirt. "You'll have to stop bleeding first though."
He looked down in surprise, apparently not having noticed he was bleeding at all. "Izdrust," he said, which sounded a lot like swearing, and lifted his shirt.
A wound dressing covered the entire left side of his lower abdomen; carefully, he peeled the blood-soaked pad of cotton away to reveal two small bullet wounds that looked like they'd recently had stitches removed, and were currently red and angry and bleeding.
"What the-" Imogen stuttered to a halt as he wandered over to the bin, dropping the dressings into it. "Why are you even walking around with two bullet holes in your stomach?"
"Two?" He scoffed. "I have more than two. These ones just bleed the most."
"No one in this place knows anything about medical care," she muttered to herself, like she wasn't just as bad as the rest of them, as she went back to the kitchen for the first aid kit that was kept there.
"I know plenty of things," he called after her, just for the sake of arguing.
Imogen ignored him until she got back, dropping the medical kit on the table next to him. "If you know so much, you can bandage yourself up," she told him smugly.
"You do not want to do it for me?" he replied, just as smug.
Her eyes narrowed. "I'll get you a shirt," she said, and left the room before she could lose any more verbal battles.
Clint's room was conveniently close to the common room, and his clothes were always kept on the floor rather than in drawers or cupboards, so she just borrowed a shirt from him rather than bothering to go and find someone to ask for one. Like a complete dork, he owned a bunch of Hawkeye shirts just for himself, and she made sure to grab one of those rather than any of the plain, discreet ones that were scattered around the place. She'd been thinking it was sort of unfair that he hadn't bought these new kids his own shirts yet, but this would more than make up for it.
When she returned, Pietro had already disposed of his old shirt and was almost done covering up his wounds again. She might have noticed then that he was attractive, but she was too busy staring at the other bullet holes that she hadn't noticed before.
She counted six fresh bullet wounds straight out, not including the two that were just bleeding. Some were stitched and covered in gauze and tape, while others were almost healed, just ugly lines in his skin. The more she looked, the more bullets she could count – and that was only the ones she could see.
"How-?" she began, but stopped short when he grabbed the shirt out of her hands.
"Metal men," he answered shortly. "Guns." With some difficulty, he pulled the shirt over his head and suddenly they were all gone again, except for one angry scar on his wrist. "Ask your friend Mr Stark." He sounded angry, but it wasn't directed at her. Briefly, she wondered if that was the only fight he wanted to pick with Tony Stark.
Her empty stomach chose that moment to remind her of her priorities. "Are you sure you should be going out with…that?" she asked, gesturing towards his stomach.
"I want to leave," he told her firmly. "I think that is enough, no?"
Imogen considered again ditching him and going alone, or staying and eating cereal instead, but ended up shrugging and agreeing anyway. If he collapsed on the sidewalk or something, she decided, it wasn't her fault.
"This way, then," she said, and turned promptly on her heel towards the elevator.
"That is no use," Pietro said, trailing after her. "The computer, she will not let me go."
"Well, I don't know how else you think we're going to get downstairs," Imogen snapped back. "I'm not taking the stairs just for you." Pietro's face twisted unhappily as she hit the button to call the elevator. "You're not the only one Clint has tried to trap in here before. Don't worry about it."
He still didn't look happy, but he didn't argue any further, just followed her into the elevator and watched her push the button for the ground floor.
"Mr Maximoff is not permitted to leave this building," FRIDAY said as the doors slid closed, holding the elevator still.
"He's not leaving," Imogen replied. "Just going down to the ground floor and back with me."
"Your previous conversation suggests-"
"It's rude to spy on people, FRIDAY," she interrupted impatiently. "And you can't tell me Clint banned Pietro specifically from going down to the ground floor."
The AI went silent for a long moment, and then finally the elevator hummed to life. "If Mr Maximoff tries to leave the building, I will have to inform Mr Barton," she informed them as they began to move.
Imogen thanked the heavens for Clint's lousy instruction-giving and the computer's ability to exploit loopholes. "Report away," she muttered, reminding herself once again that the blame was solely on Pietro when Clint inevitably caught up with them.
"You-" Pietro stopped himself short before he could say anything incriminating. Like FRIDAY didn't know exactly what they were doing. Imogen didn't bother letting him know it was safe to talk. The silence was much too welcome.
The AI reluctantly let them out at the ground floor, with just one more warning about Pietro leaving the building. "How did you trick it?" he asked as they escaped into the busy reception of Stark Industries.
"There's no way Clint left actual clear instructions," Imogen replied. "I just pointed out the loopholes. Tony told me how to do it last time I was locked up in there with an injury."
Pietro said something in response but she stopped listening as she looked to the left and spotted Female Captain America again, staring at them through the glass. Female Hawkeye was still right by her side, and she was almost better at staring than the other one. The group hadn't budged since she'd last seen them; like they were expecting an Avenger to use the public entrance to the Tower.
And then she remembered who she was with. "No one would recognise you as an Avenger, right?" she asked Pietro, watching the fan group out of the corner of her eye.
"I am not an Avenger," he said, and she immediately stopped to turn and look at him with a disapproving glare. "What? I am not. Why would it matter anyway?"
Imogen rolled her eyes and went back to not looking at him. "Maybe because the Avengers are minor celebrities, and being stalked by weirdos like them-" She paused to jerk a thumb at Female Captain America and her friends, "-isn't my idea of fun?"
He shot a curious glance at the fangirls. "What, you are scared of some girls?" he teased.
"I'm not-" Imogen stopped, forced herself to take a deep breath, and then gave up. "Whatever. If they mob you, I'm leaving you here to die," she said instead. "Clint can rescue you."
"Fine, we will stay away from them," he grumbled, and moved so fast to grab the door that for a second he was nothing but a blue blur in front of her. She was pretty sure now that super speed was his thing – she'd seen enough bad superhero movies and met enough Avengers now to figure it out for herself, even if he hadn't explicitly told her – and that he wasn't afraid to flaunt it, even in places where it would only bring him strife. Idly, she wondered what kind of powers his sister wielded, because there was no way she was normal if he was like this.
To her chagrin, Female Captain America was waiting for them outside the door, a pasty smile stuck to her face. The rest of her gang hung back, close enough to witness the drama but far enough away that they could pretend not to have anything to do with it. "Excuse me," she said to Pietro, purposefully ignoring Imogen. "Are you – were you in Sokovia? With the Avengers?"
"Why would I have been in Sokovia?" Pietro said slowly.
Female Hawkeye stepped forward to even out the odds. "Nice accent," she said with a smile that was much more genuine than the other girl's.
"Mulțumiri," he replied, and of course he couldn't just say it in English.
"Sounds like Sokovian," Female Captain America added suspiciously.
Another girl came up, this one with tiny cardboard wings painted black and red sticking out from behind her back and a pair of goggles perched on her forehead. "You look like that guy who died saving that kid," she blurted out before the others could stop her.
Pietro froze, and Imogen decided then that she was done with this whole thing. "Alright, I'll be back later to say 'I told you so'," she said abruptly to Pietro and stepped away. "Tell Clint to text me if I have to buy flowers for your grave."
"What?" Pietro said but she was already walking away as fast as she could. They wouldn't maul him or anything. And Clint would be down soon to usher him back into the safety of the Tower.
Though she'd decided she didn't care anymore, she couldn't help but look back as she reached the corner of the Tower. To her surprise, the girls were all milling around in confusion.
She figured it out just as she ran into someone who was directly in front of her. Imogen turned back around as Pietro staggered sideways, catching himself with the help of a nearby wall. He was doubled over and breathing in short, sharp gasps, clutching at his side.
"What the hell?" she exclaimed, not really sure how to help him.
"This was not…a good idea…" he managed to choke out between breaths.
"What, letting you come out here? Obviously."
He pulled himself up straight just so that he could give her a withering look. "If you had not left me, I would have been fine."
"No," she interrupted, holding up a finger. "I warned you. This has nothing to do with me."
"That is not what Clint will say when he finds us," Pietro argued. "When he walks out that door in a few seconds."
Imogen stared at him. "Whatever," she said with a shake of her head. "I'm going to get lunch." For the second time today, she pushed past him and walked away down the street.
Not to be outdone, he followed doggedly, still breathing hard. What was it an indication of, she wondered, that he was so obviously putting himself in pain just to be out of the Tower? That he was born to be an Avenger, probably. None of them were capable of waiting for an injury to heal before they started pushing themselves again.
"Why do these people like the Avengers so much?" he asked as they turned a corner and headed towards Central Park.
"They've saved the world like, three times," she reasoned, spotting a café just up the street. "There was an alien invasion right here on these streets, so…"
"The places that they leave behind do not think they are heroes."
"New York doesn't mind them."
He shook his head. "Only because they live here."
Imogen ducked inside the café and he followed. It was a busy little place, but quick, the people behind the counter taking orders and running out coffees in record time. "You say that like you don't like them," she commented as they joined the line.
"I don't," he agreed.
"Then why did you join?"
"I haven't decided yet," he corrected her. "About joining."
"What about your sister?"
His face darkened. "She says she is an Avenger now. But I think she will not stay."
Imogen didn't know what to say to that, so she just fell silent, waiting for their turn to order. She'd just chosen one sandwich (and Pietro two), when he told her, "I do not have money, by the way."
"I thought we agreed you were paying," she threw at him, already reaching for her own cash (which was technically Clint's seeing as she had yet to find a job or career or really anything related to money that she wanted to do).
"Maybe I will another day," he said as she paid.
She grabbed the sandwiches off the counter. "What, when you refuse to join the Avengers and you're unemployed and probably deported? Sure."
"Deported?"
Imogen nodded. "You can't tell me you're a citizen of the United States."
"Why would you think that?" he asked, feigning innocence.
She pushed him towards an empty table outside the café, dropping down into the chair across from his. "Other than the accent and the unemployment, you were basically dead about a week ago." He was too busy unwrapping a sandwich to reply so she abandoned the conversation and began eating her own, but she barely got two bites in before a shadow fell across her and she was forced to look up to see who had disturbed them.
Clint stood over them, of course, lording it up with sunglasses and his hands stuck in the pockets of a shiny new leather jacket someone had bought for him. "I'd better call Tony and tell him his AI is broken," he said dryly. "I'm sure I remember telling her to make him stay put." He jerked his head at Pietro, who was doing his best to ignore the archer's existence.
"You told her not to let him out of the building," Imogen said between bites. "But you never said he couldn't go down to the ground floor."
Clint visibly deflated. "I hate computers," he muttered childishly. She laughed and took another bite of her sandwich. "I didn't even know you two were friends."
"We're not," Imogen corrected him through a mouthful of food.
"I said I would buy her a sandwich," Pietro explained, and he sounded way too pleased with himself.
"So after meeting for like five minutes a week ago, you bonded over causing me pain and ran away together?" Clint surmised in a dry voice.
"Don't make it sound like a crappy romance novel," Imogen sighed.
"You betrayed me," he shot back. "I'll do whatever I like."
She rolled her eyes and went back to her sandwich, not deigning to answer. "You worry too much, old man," Pietro said, when it became clear she wasn't going to say anything more.
"I don't worry enough," Clint corrected him. "The doctors said to rest, Pietro. That doesn't include wandering off down the street or accidentally bleeding out in front of that group of girls outside the Tower."
Pietro scoffed. "I am not even bleeding," he said and gestured towards his stomach, which was a very bad idea.
Clint frowned. "Why are you wearing that shirt?"
Pietro looked down at the faded Hawkeye symbol emblazoned across his chest and shrugged. "She gave it to me." He pointed across the table to Imogen, who scowled back.
"He was bleeding," she added when Clint's gaze turned to her. She only felt a little guilty about throwing him under the bus.
"Izdrust," Pietro muttered. She could feel his eyes on her but steadfastly ignored him.
"This is why you're supposed to rest," Clint began with what sounded like a lecture. "And you-" Without warning, he turned on Imogen. "What are you doing bringing him out here?"
She wasn't cowed by his accusations. "I was hungry, and he said he'd buy me lunch," she replied bluntly. "Which was a lie anyway, but whatever."
"Do you go out with every random boy that offers to buy you a sandwich?" he demanded.
"You know him!" she pointed out in exasperation. "He's not in very good shape to murder me. And anyway, you can't just keep people locked up in the Tower. It's a free country."
"It's for his own good," Clint insisted. Behind him, Pietro pulled a face.
"Well, you'll be happy to know I'm never doing it again," Imogen said as she finished off her sandwich and leaned back in her chair. "This has been way too much trouble to be worth it."
"Good," the archer said firmly, but he didn't sound completely satisfied. His arms were still crossed, and he had an unhappy look on his face that seemed to have become permanent sometime in the last twenty minutes. Or perhaps it had become a fixture during the last few weeks and Imogen just hadn't noticed; he had been in a dark mood since Sokovia.
"We're going home now," he said abruptly, before she could come to any conclusions. Pietro's face darkened as he said it, but Clint was onto him immediately. "Don't even think about arguing. It's for your own good."
"I think I can decide what is good for me," Pietro protested.
"No you can't." Clint dragged him up out of his chair and shoved his remaining sandwich into his hands. "Come on, Imogen." Sighing, she got up and followed them, watching from behind as Pietro muttered something under his breath and then threw off Clint's grip on his arm. Clint replied – she didn't quite catch the words – and something he said made the boy pull a face and drop back to walk with her instead.
"Maybe we should run away," he said half to himself, his eyes on the archer's back.
"What, so that Clint can yell some more? No." Her reply was blunt and she wasn't even looking at him, much to his displeasure.
"You are frightened of him?" he taunted her. "You listen to everything he says?"
"What? No." Her lip curled in disgust. "Would I have broken you out of the Tower if I did?"
He shrugged. "One thing, it means nothing."
She blew out a sigh, and turned to glare at him. "Look, you want to be mad that Clint caught onto your genius plan to follow me around, you feel free to do that, but don't come over here and take it out on me."
He stared at her for a moment, obviously not expecting that kind of response, and then huffed angrily and left her alone, striding out after Clint to start another argument with him instead. Imogen shook her head at his antics and followed along behind, happy to be left out of…whatever that was. She had her own problems to deal with, without getting caught up in his as well.
oooooooooo
Imogen was almost glad to go home at the end of the day, when she was finally able to escape and return to the task she'd originally come here to complete. Her afternoon had turned into a session of archery practice and beating Clint at video games, all while Pietro avoided both of them, too busy sulking about their short adventure at lunchtime to join in.
Since it was past office hours by the time she left, the elevator was empty when it finally came to pick her up. "FRIDAY?" she said as the doors closed, turning to hit the button for the ground floor.
"Yes, Miss Haylock?" the AI replied.
"Did you find anything on Ruby?"
"That information was requested on privacy mode," the Irish voice informed her. "Would you like me to remove this setting?"
Imogen frowned. She'd never been given that answer when she'd asked before. Unless-
"Who is Ruby?" Pietro asked behind her as she turned around. She didn't even jump, already knowing he would be there.
"Why are you following me?" she demanded instead. He was unperturbed, leaning back against the way with his arms crossed and a small smile playing on his lips. "It's rude to stalk people," she added. "And creepy."
"I wasn't following you," he insisted. "I…wanted to say sorry. For being mad at you."
"So you decided to follow me into the elevator instead of talking to me outside."
He shrugged. "Who is Ruby?" he asked again.
Imogen sighed. "Just someone I know. Why?"
"Like a friend?" His smile widened. "You do not have friends. The old man told me. He thinks you and Wanda should be friends, because you don't have any."
"You shouldn't listen to Clint," she told him. "Clint doesn't know what he's talking about."
"And is your name really Sparrow?" he asked. "If you were an Avenger, I mean."
She frowned at him. "No," she told him firmly. "That's just a dumb name that Tony calls me sometimes."
"It is not so bad," he said, and she couldn't tell if he was joking or not.
The elevator slid to a halt at floor 5, and opened to an empty room. "This is as far as I can allow Mr Maximoff to go," FRIDAY informed them. Pietro rolled his eyes and muttered something under his breath. Even if she'd been able to make out the words, Imogen was pretty sure he wasn't speaking English.
"Enjoy prison," she said as he stepped out of the elevator. "Maybe if you sit still for a few hours you'll get out faster."
Pietro made a noise of disgust and turned to frown at her, but the doors were closing before he could think of a witty retort and then he was gone.
"Tell me about Ruby," Imogen demanded as soon as the doors were closed, slumping against the nearest wall.
"I have found video footage from street cameras of a woman identified as Ruby Radford being chased down and grabbed by an unidentified male. Further footage shows the man's vehicle heading straight for the police blockade currently surrounding Orizon Pharmaceuticals, then turning back and driving four hours away from the city to an address in Everett, Pennsylvania."
"Can I have the address?"
"I have already sent the locations and footage to your phone," FRIDAY informed her smugly as the elevator began to move.
