Pepper was out grocery shopping when Tony texted her. She didn't check her phone right away, first selecting a carton of blueberries that were in good shape and adding them to her cart. Only once she was waiting in the checkout line did she finally pull her phone out of her back pocket to check her texts. She had one new message, from Tony.

I need the spare room on the Avengers floor cleaned out by dinner time.

That was it, no explanation. Knowing she would get no further details without pushing for them, she texted back.

Why?

The little dots appeared.

I'm bringing home a guest.

Pepper raised an eyebrow.

A guest who will be staying in the tower on the Avengers floor? We have plenty of working spare bedrooms.

The dots appeared again.

This one is gonna be kinda permanent. I'm bringing a kid home.

Pepper took a few moments to respond, moments her mind took to imagine exactly why Tony was bringing home a kid. The first thought that popped into her mind was that perhaps one of Tony's one-nighters from before he became Iron Man had been fruitful, and now Tony had discovered he had a son or daughter and was bringing the mini-Stark home.

Who exactly are you bringing home?

The dots didn't appear right away, indicating either Tony was distracted or he was thinking through his response.

Can't say too much now, easier to explain in person. It's Avengers business.

Pepper didn't know whether to be relieved or concerned. She settled for both.

I expect a full explanation when you get home. I gtg, love you.

The dots were quick to appear one more time.

I'll explain to everyone tonight. Love you too.

Pepper pocketed her phone and paid the cashier, carrying the bags out of the store and puzzling over Tony's 'guest.' If he had to explain to everyone, that meant that this so-called 'Avengers business' was not known to the Avengers. Sighing, Pepper resolved to just wait and see what Tony was up to.

Skyler had been returned to her cell after Tony Stark had finished interrogating her. Considering how much he seemed to already know about her, she wasn't sure why he had felt the need to interrogate her himself, but he had, and she was now puzzling over said interrogation as her paws carried her in circles.

It occurred to Skyler that she had now met half of the Avengers. Huh. Who woulda thought.

Anyway, why did everyone have such an interest in her? Perhaps this was fairly standard SHIELD protocol, considering the fact that she was a Hydra agent. If she could even be called an agent. More like pawn.

Aaand there her mind went, sidetracking again with details that were not currently relevant.

Back on focus, the teen was 98% sure that Stark didn't typically interrogate SHIELD's prisoners. Romanoff and Barton, maybe. They were agents, after all. Though, they probably only interrogated the really difficult prisoners. In which case, Skyler should be flattered that Fury thought the duo was needed. But interrogations just weren't Stark's style.

Who would be next? Captain America? With her luck, perhaps. Then she'd meet Thor, then Banner, and everyone would have a party.

Wow, someone was feeling sarcastic.

It's because, after having schedules and routines for so long, I'm in someplace new. I could predict things before, find the patterns. I don't know what's happening here.

Skyler had always liked order, to an extent. She hadn't been super into planning out everything and keeping tight schedules, but she had liked to have an idea of what was going on when. It made life easier, more efficient. She had liked having her calendar filled in, and she had liked to be on time for things. Free time was an entirely different matter, in which Skyler preferred to just go with the flow and do what she felt like doing, but when it came to school and extracurriculars and big events she had liked things planned and orderly.

Then, after the incident, she had used a vague sort of order to stay sane while Hydra shaped her into a weapon. Skyler had learned to roughly keep track of the days by what training exercises she performed, or what experiments were performed on her. Since science is exact, the gaps between experimentation sessions were pretty much the same every time. Same with rotating through training exercises. The only real unknown variable was the missions. Even missions could, at least timing-wise, be predicted based upon how long she went without food. If Hydra was starving her, it meant a mission was coming up. The missions were how she earned meals.

But now, Skyler didn't have four years worth of observation and patterns to help her figure out what was coming next or even what time of day it was. Or what day it was in general. When had she been brought here in the first place? That, of course, brought her back to the question of how she was brought here. Surely SHIELD hadn't just marched into the Hydra base and walked out with a prized experiment.

A faint noise brought Skyler briefly out of her thoughts, long enough for her to note the bowl of oatmeal that sat on a tray along with a cup of water, a spoon, and a napkin placed just inside the door to her cell. Skyler ignored the offered meal. It could be poisoned (however unlikely that was) for all she knew, and despite the fact that she despised Hydra, she didn't trust SHIELD yet.

Amidst her musings, Skyler noted the yet her mind had pinned to the end of that statement. A small word, but tinged with a bit of... Was that... Hope?

Tony strolled through the corridors of SHIELD after his discussion with Fury, on his way to collect the kid. He had already gone back to the tower briefly to check in on how the cleaning was coming, and discovered that Pepper had convinced Happy to help her clear out the spare room. She had then insisted that Tony give her enough information about the mysterious kid he was bringing home for her to decorate. ("You can't just bring a kid to the tower and give them an empty room. It has to be decorated tastefully. Simple enough for him or her to add their own touch, but homey enough for him or her to feel welcome.") So Tony had informed his fiancé that he was bringing home a 16 year-old girl who could turn into a wolf. Pepper, to her credit, didn't seem at all surprised by the kid's apparent powers (she lived in the same building as the Avengers, after all), and decided that greens and blues were the way to go.

Tony had left Pepper to her decorating, and after stopping for a sandwich at a café down the street, had returned to SHIELD HQ and all but ordered Fury to hand over the kid. After a fairly brief conversation (which, my dear readers, you read in the last chapter) Tony had left the director and set off to find the kid.

Tony swiped a card over a key pad, unlocking the door that lead to the containment unit. Put simply, the prisoner level. Whistling cheerfully, the billionaire walked casually over to the cell he knew held the prisoner he was looking for. How did he know this? The same way Tony Stark knows everything he knows about top secret stuff.

Pressing a button on the tablet he had swiped from an agent (the poor agent would probably get into a boatload of trouble for loosing said tablet), Tony released the energy shield that served as a door.*

"Sup Balto."

Skyler paused in her pacing when she heard the release of the shield. Upon looking up, she discovered none other than Tony Stark leaning casually against the wall at the entrance to the cell. What's he doing here?

"You're probably wondering what I'm doing here."

Skyler flicked one of her canine ears, confirming his assumption.

Tony watched her for a moment. "Are you gonna, you know, turn back into a human?"

Skyler just continued to stand there and stare at him.

"I'll take that as a no."

Ya think?

"Anyway, I had a little chat with the pirate, and I have some good news."

The pirate? Oh, he must mean Director Fury. I suppose the eyepatch is bound to invoke some sort of nickname. Skyler dared to picture the stoic man (she hadn't actually met him, just seen a picture) with a hat and a parrot on his shoulder. It was actually quite amusing to think about. But what was the good news Tony claimed to have? Our definitions of good news are probably very different.

"You're moving into Avengers Tower."

Skyler stared at him for a minute, processing the sentence and briefly wondering if she had heard correctly (of course she had, she was a wolf after all). Then, she started laughing. While still in wolf form. If you have never seen a wolf laugh hysterically, know that it is a rather disturbing event to witness.

Tony, for his part, wondered whether Skyler was currently dying. He had just enough time to wonder how exactly a person gives a wolf CPR when he realized that she was actually laughing. "I know that I'm a funny guy, but what exactly are you laughing at?"

Skyler waited until she could breathe properly to turn into her human form. "That was great. Thank you. I haven't had a joke to laugh at in a long time."

"I wasn't joking."

The smile disappeared from Skyler's face, suspicion instead decorating her features. "What do you mean?" She asked cautiously.

"Exactly what I said. I'm bringing you back to the Tower, where you will be residing for the foreseeable future."

Though her features were fairly schooled by this point, Skyler's tone was still laced with suspicion. "Why?"

Tony hadn't actually expected the kid to ask many questions. He had kinda figured that she would just be happy to get out of a cell. But it seemed he had figured wrong, and this would be a bit more difficult than he anticipated. "I figured you were probably tired of cells. Plus, I like you."

Skyler tried to see what ulterior motive Stark might have. Perhaps SHIELD wanted to test how loyal she was to Hydra by putting her right into the perfect position to spy on the Avengers. But why would the Avengers agree to such a potentially risky plan? It didn't make sense. It didn't make sense for the Avengers to want her in their tower at all, no matter the ulterior motive. And it was highly unlikely that Stark was just being compassionate. That wasn't really like him. His comment about cells struck a chord though. She was tired of cells. She wanted nothing more than freedom, freedom from cells and Hydra's bidding.

Tony took her silence as a cue to continue. "Well? You coming or not?"

It occurred to Skyler that this was actually a great opportunity. If she was in the same building as the Avengers, the chances of Hydra trying to reclaim their favorite lab-rat were significantly less. She would be better protected in the home base of the Earth's Mightiest Heroes than anywhere else.

SHIELD might have an ulterior motive, but so did she. "Alright."

The grin on Stark's face seemed genuine enough. "Good. Now let's go, before we all get old standing here in the dungeons."

Skyler stepped out of her cell, following the already on-the-move Stark. However, as they neared the end of the hallway, a problem arose.

"Hey, mind if we take the stairs?"

Tony turned his head to look at her, raising an eyebrow, already pressing the elevator call button. "Use that primitive contraption when we could use this marvelous invention? No thanks."

"I've been in a box all day, I could use the exercise."

Stark sighed laboriously. "Fine, go have your fun on the stairs, I'll meet you on the ground level. But don't move too slow."

Skyler couldn't believe that the man was letting her wander off unaccompanied, given her status as 'highly dangerous' and all, but she would ignore Stark's blatant disregard for common sense at the moment since she didn't have to deal with an elevator. She trotted over to the staircase just as Tony stepped into the elevator, then proceeded to climb them two at a time. She actually made it to the correct floor at the same moment Tony stepped back out of the lift, and she wasted no time hurrying back to his side. The last thing she needed was to have a suspicious SHIELD agent tase her or something for being an unaccompanied prisoner loose in a government facility.

As the pair walked towards the exit, Tony shoved a jacket, baseball cap, and pair of sunglasses at Skyler. "We don't need any of your buddies recognizing you as we head to the tower," he explained. The teen didn't even bother wondering where Tony had gotten the items as she quickly put them on, tucking her hair up under the baseball cap to conceal it. She was most grateful for the sunglasses, which hid the unique coloring of her eyes.

Tony lead the way to his car (a fancy model that he had modified himself. Skyler, having never been into cars, could not name the model) which was parked in what Skyler was pretty sure wasn't actually a legal parking space. But the billionaire didn't seem to care, as he climbed into the drivers seat and gestured for Skyler to go ahead and get in the car already. She obliged, sliding in and buckling her seatbelt just as the car was put in drive.

Tony pressed a button, and AC/DC started playing through the speakers. Wincing slightly at the loud music, Skyler sighed. This was going to be a long ride.

I'm back! With chapter six for you all! And seven right behind!

A little heads up: after chapter 7 I'll be taking requests for scenes that you, my fabulous readers, would like to see. Like I mentioned earlier, I don't have every little detail planned out. Actually, for the most part I just have a few scenes planned out and a general plot line with which I am filling in the gaps. So, that leaves plenty of room for reader requested scene opportunities! I won't use all of your ideas right away, probably a couple here or there as I see fit. But get your scene ideas ready!

I realized that I probably should give you an idea of when this takes place. I tried looking for some MCU timelines, but didn't really find what I was looking for. Basically, this story takes place after the Avengers but before AOU, IM3, and TWS. For the sake of this story, we will say that New York happened in 2012 (something most people seem to agree on) and this story takes place in 2014. I figure that's enough time for the Avengers to all move in together. I originally planned for this story to take place in 2016, but a four year gap without any major events ( since I want this to happen before the three movies I mentioned) just didn't make sense.

Coming up Next: How will the rest of the Avengers react to Skyler's arrival?

*The energy shield thing is like the one used in Agents of Shield for those of you who don't understand what I meant by energy shield. If you still don't understand, send me a quick message.