Chapter 4-
Hello everyone! Thank you so much for all of the reviews and PMs! I'm sorry it's taking me forever to respond to them, I'm doing my best!
Happy extremely late Birthday to TheForgottenPrincess. :)
Happy New Years. :)
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KnowInsight: Thank you for the continuity error. It's been fixed. :)
To keep you busy until I reply,
Shall we? :)
The Living Room
Don and Leo's Apartment
"So…" Donovan turned to Sarah. "You wanted to know my secret…"
Everything exploded all at once.
Water rushed from Sarah's hands, slamming Donovan into the wall. Lycan tackled him from there, pinning him. Lycan's ears became pointed and he snarled as fangs grew, claws extending from his fingers. Lane figured that the boy's werewolf abilities probably enhanced his strength and speed, because he moved with expert efficiency and leapt like an animal, pinning Donovan with brute strength.
"Bitch!" Donovan growled, dark blonde hair plastered to his forehead as he sputtered, coughing up water.
Lane turned and Wren and Scarlett were gone, the door to Leonel's room nearly snapping at the hinges at it opened. Carrie dropped to the floor clutching her head, crouching and closing her eyes tightly. What had she said her powers were? Feeling emotions?
Lane started forwards, only to feel a hand land on shoulder. He was pulled backwards and turned around quickly to come to a rough landing on his knees. He let out a noise of pain, hands raising. He lifted his head to see Sarah holding one hand at him and one at Donovan, uncertainty clear on her face.
Leonel exited his room in a stumble, wincing at the bright light as he left his dark cave of a room.
"What's going on?!" Leo demanded, blinking reddened eyes—Lane figured he hadn't slept a lot on the run, so he was probably sleep deprived. His eyes stopped at Lane, but he was shoved forwards by Wren. "Hey! Get your hands off him!" Leo snapped at Sarah, and Lane couldn't stop his heart from lifting. "Donovan what the hell did you do?!" growled the speedster loudly, turning angrily to his brother.
"I didn't do anything, you jerk! What? Did you sleepthrough that?!" Donovan returned furiously from his place, pinned on the floor.
Leo faltered almost unnoticeably, "No! I can't sleep through all the friggin noise you make!" He answered, laced with sass. He'd taken his red leather jacket off, and must've fallen asleep in the rest. He was wearing just a black and yellow zebra stripe muscle shirt, the sleeves cut extremely deep, along with his black skinny jeans—torn up from the crash. He was wearing his Converse, the bottoms unusually shaped because of his super speed.
"All the noise I make?! You're always talking! Everyone can hear you!" Donovan shot back, voice growing with each insult, steam sizzling from the water covering his hands.
"Man, you are such an asshole. I saved your life! Your LIFE, Donovan! And what do I get? A friggin mess!"
"I saved your ass more times than you can count, which," Donovan chuckled sarcastically. "Actually isn't that much." He titled his head cockily.
"Jerk!"
"Bitch!"
"Hooker!"
"Coward!"
"Drunk!"
"Kleptomaniac, Schizophrenic—"
"Drunk, slut, vain, self-obsessed! FIGHT ME!" Leo screamed angrily, attempting to charge at his brother only to be held back with Wren's firm grip.
Donovan rolled his eyes. "I would challenge you to a game of wits, but I don't want to embarrass you." he returned slyly, plastering a fake grin on his face afterwards.
Leonel gaped, "You asshole." He said, just above a whisper.
Lane glanced at Carrie as they argued, watching her flinch and wince. "Guys! Stop arguing!" he barked. She cringed, but opened her eyes thankfully as the boys silenced and looked to Lane with equally pissed gazes. "They know now, so you have a whole lot of explaining to do."
And the noise exploded again.
"No! That's insane! They don't deserve it!" Leo shouted, voice coming out high-pitched and blurred together.
"No way!" argued Donovan stubbornly. "That's our crap! Back the f—"
"There are children around," recited Wren calmly.
Donovan glared, looking directly at Fia. "Back the fuck off!" Fia's face contorted into minor annoyance.
"Okay we need to figure this out," sighed Lycan, jostling as Donovan attempted to buck him off. "There's an innocent dude that needs our help! Remember?!"
Scarlett nodded. "He's right. We need to be heroes and help him."
"Heroes don't exist anymore," Donovan grumbled, laying his head down sideways on the floor and seemingly losing interest in the topic as he stared off at random wood panels in the wall. "If they do, well, Leo and I aren' ."
Leonel frowned, and Lane saw his eyes wander off to somewhere only he saw. "Y-Yea." He agreed reluctantly.
It was Fia that took action, much to Lane's surprise. She crouched by Donovan's face and forced him to look at her. "Listen you d—" she huffed, biting her tongue. "—you Stupid. Heroes do exist. They're called Captain America. Hawkeye. Black Widow. The Hulk. Tho—"
"Hate to break it to you, but the Hulk is no hero," Donovan sighed. "And neither is B—"
Fia smacked him upside the head without hesitation and he glared up at her with the eyes of a devil. "Shut up." She said sternly. "He is a hero. Him and Thor, andIron Man, and Fireman, and Police Man. They all are. Firemen saved my family. You know what that makes them? Heroes. So don't say crap about it. Got it?!" Fia demanded. She huffed and stood, turning around to face the others. Lane watched her face of confidence drop and fear fill it, but she didn't show Donovan, instead marching into the kitchen and pulling out a pack of oreos. "So are we gonna go save this guy?" Her face eased. "'Cause we're kinda superstupids right now, and we need to be superheroes."
Donovan sighed loudly. "Fine! Jesus! Just." He huffed again. "Let us up. Then I'll answer your questions.
~AVENGERS~
Unknown Location
Romeo looked at the floor unsurely.
He'd been in the room for nearly an hour.
It had to have been.
He hadn't been counting but…Yea, it'd been a long time.
The room was maybe twelve feet by twelve feet with one table in the middle of the room. It reminded him of government movies he'd watched as a kid, back in France.
The 18 year old's heart almost stopped when the door opened. He ran a tongue over his chapped lips and unintentionally glanced at the empty plastic cup on the table. He blinked his large green eyes and watched a man walk into the room.
The man wore strange orange-tinted sunglasses and a nice tailored suit. This confused Romeo, because he was inside and sunglasses weren't usually required. The man sported unique facial hair and had an aged but immature sort of feel around him.
He silently grabbed the only other chair in the room and dragged it over to the table, flipping it around and sitting on it backwards, eyes glued to Romeo. Romeo swallowed thickly and the man waved the two guards outside the door. They closed the heavy metal entrance and Romeo heard locks hiss.
"Do you know who I am?" the man asked, voice low and filled with intelligence. Romeo took notice of the scars and scratches about his face.
The French boy shook his head reluctantly, earning a raise of the eyebrows.
"Wow. That's new." The man reached up and removed his sunglasses, slipping them into the breast pocket of his suit and revealing brown eyes. "What disconnected corner of the world are you from?" He rambled something else that didn't translate.
"Paris, France?" Romeo responded, hoping he'd heard the question right. This man was intimidating.
"Paris!" the man whistled in surprise. "Huh. Well, welcome to New York." He laughed, like he'd said a joke. "Sorry for such a crappy welcome wagon, but, ah, you seem to have crashed a plane."
"That wasn't me!" Romeo disagreed quickly.
"Unfortunately for you, that's exactly what the guilty one would say," sighed the man. "Tony Stark." He announced, as if he'd read Romeo's mind. "And don't worry, I'm gonna have my best guys run some tests, check you out. See if we can dig up any security footage back at the wreckage. Get some fingerprints. Put you in the system, and—"
"The system?" Romeo repeated, pulling his hands back towards his lap and feeling the handcuffs press at them.
"My own little project," Tony nodded. "You did hear what happened here in New York, right?"
Horrible pictures of death, destruction and a man with a glowing staff ran through Romeo's head. He nodded quickly. "Yes."
"Well, after that I began working on a program. A system that could pick out the good ones from the bad ones." He smiled like he was sharing a secret. "I'm thinking of calling it 'Ulton'. Catchy, huh?"
"A categorizing system?" Romeo furrowed his brows.
"You realize your plane was attacked by aliens, right? And that the government knows that? That they're blaming it on you because they don't know what else to do?"
Romeo didn't reply.
"Ever heard of Iron Man?" Tony inquired. Romeo nodded and then raised his eyebrows.
How had he not made the connection? "Tony Stark." He repeated from before, gaping. "Iron Man! You're Iron Man!"
Tony smirked. "The one and only. Sorry kid, we'll have time for autographs later. Right now we're gonna start up the whole 'proving you innocent' thing. You might get a bit of jail time for the whole 'shooting the officer' thing, but other than that—"
"Wait, what?" Romeo demanded, shocked. "No. I can't. It wasn't—I didn't mean—"
Tony's eyes softened and then hardened once more. "Yea, you can actually. 18. Legal adult here in America. That plus assaulting an officer means jail time." With one fluid motion, Tony was standing and the chair was swung around and pushed in. He slipped on his sunglasses. "My guys'll be in in a second so hold tight."
And with that he was gone, the only thing remaining of him being the sound of the door closing.
~AVENGERS~
The Living Room
Don and Leo's Apartment
"Are you kidding me?" Leonel muttered, wincing as his bed sheets were tightened around his ankles. He was laying on his side, hands tied behind his back and ankles bound together. Lane had been released with reluctance and now stood in the kitchen near the island, appearing on edge with the whole situation.
"You're joking right?" Donovan agreed, glancing at his brother as Sarah walked back in with everyone's wet clothes from earlier and began tying them in damp knots around his fists, which were zip tied together.
Scarlett crossed her arms.
"No," replied Sarah firmly. "Your sister, her name is Livia, right? She murdered your younger sister? Why?"
Donovan grinned, loving her fearful eagerness. "Woah, babe, slow down, I—"
Before he could finish his quip, Scarlett watched Sarah backhand him across the face. His head snapped sideways and slowly came back, dark grey eyes meeting Sarah's as Donovan moved his jaw this way and that.
"Kinky," he mused.
"Shut up and answer the question," Sarah snapped sharply. She crouched down. "I don't want to believe that you're a bad person, Donovan. I really don't. So if you'd prove me wrong right about now, I'd appreciate it." She finished tying the knots and stood. "Livia murdered your younger sister. Why?"
Donovan exhaled through his nose, teeth locked together. He stared at her for a moment before speaking up again, tone dead serious. "Because she was jealous."
"Of your sister? Why?" Scarlett chimed curiously.
"Because my sister was the good girl of the family. Our parents loved her. She was too…innocent…I dunno, something about her just…irked Livia. One day, after school…she snapped…"
Scarlett looked back over at Leonel, who seemed awfully interested in the carpet, eyes dull.
"Long story short, she cut open our sister and…" Donovan also stared at something no one else could see, a small smile crawling onto his face as he looked down with sad eyes. His brows furrowed for a split second, as if he was considering something. "Well…Leo and I stopped her. We got the knife and I…" his eyes narrowed, like he was struggling to remember. "I killed her."
Scarlett bit her lip. She couldn't imagine it. Sure, Donovan seemed to be a bit of a…you know, but killing their sister? It's impossible.
"Our mom walked in," Donovan's features softened. "She saw us and assumed that Leo had killed Angelica, and that I had killed Livia unprovoked. I took Leo and ran. The police came. They sent Mom to a mental ward."
Scarlett looked back to Leonel. He was paler than usual, and she assumed that he would start withdrawal again if they didn't wrap this up. He wasn't crying per se, but appeared more so disconnected from reality, lost in thought. As she watched, he blinked a few times and twisted himself, getting to his knees. He looked up with an almost concerning smile. "Three and a half combined years in therapy and psych-ward, two trips to jail, and two trips to juvie, and here we are." He chimed almost proudly.
Donovan looked at his brother with mild concern, but focused back on the group. "Satisfied?"
Scarlett answered for all of them. She trusted them. Why? She had no idea. But she did. "Yes."
"Yes?" Lane asked in disbelief, letting out a breath of relief as his entire body relaxed.
"Yes?" Lycan double checked, frowning as his fangs sank away.
"Yes?" Fia frowned uncertainly.
"Yes…" Carrie and Kriselle spoke in unison, with equal relief that the whole thing was over.
"Yes," Wren nodded.
"Pack up," Sarah commanded, reluctantly taking charge. "Everyone." She looked at Carrie, who had been uncertain about joining them. "We're heading for Romeo."
~AVENGERS~
Living Room
Don and Leo's Apartment
The team had gathered back in the living room.
Kriselle sat at the far end of the sofa. Lane was cozily placed in between her and Scarlett, although he leaned forwards, elbows on knees.
Carrie had taken to the recliner, legs crossed. She had a book in her lap, but it remained unread as her focus remained on the conversation. Fia had perched on the armrest next to her, looking exhausted but determined.
Lycan was nearly asleep, head rested on Wren's lap. Wren had one hand in Lycan's hair, sitting on the carpet and leaning back against the sofa. Leonel sat back a ways, perched on the kitchen island and tapping his hand so fast that Kriselle worried he's break his fingers. His eyes were darting around and she could tell he'd be high again soon.
Donovan and Sarah stood next to each other in the middle of the room, although Kriselle didn't know if this was because of trust or the opposite. Either way, they seemed to be on the same page and have the same goals.
The television had just announced the facility that Romeo was being held in. It was some Stark building with high security, but Donovan brought up that with all that's going on it'd be minimal.
Sarah sighed, "—so, after everyone's rested for half an hour, we'll head out. Leonel will find us a vehicle. Preferably a Van or SUV of some sort. After that, Leo can run, Don offered to use his motorcycle as a scouting vehicle, and I can ride with him. That drops us three seats. Who here can drive?"
No one raised their hands. "And, no, you don't need a license." Hands shot up like fireworks. "Good. Scarlett, I want you driving the Van or SUV. Wren, you're passenger. I need someone with a game changer if things go bad. That's you. There should be enough room for Lycan, Fia, Carrie, Kriselle and Romeo in the back. Lane is sticking back here and will be in contact the entire time via Carrie's phone, since she's opted out of fighting for now. Carrie will work as a getaway driver, and will wait for when we return with Romeo."
"After that we head back. Most likely we'll be chased, so be on your toes and ready for anything. We might have to ditch another vehicle. Leo can carry someone if worst comes to worst," Donovan looked to his brother, who nodded after a moment. "Fia? Are your wings under control?"
"I…I think so…" nodded the girl. "I can probably carry someone small, like Lycan."
Lycan nodded in thanks.
Sarah crossed her arms in approval, "Wren? Your flight? You can carry someone, right?"
The Asian tilted her head. "Yes. I'll meditate while everyone rests. I think I could manage Kriselle and Scarlett if it comes to it."
"That just leaves Romeo…" commented Kriselle with a frown.
Donovan pressed his lips together, thinking hard. "Then let's just hope that things go according to plan."
Kriselle felt an dissatisfied feeling rise up in her stomach, but stood up nonetheless when the meeting was dismissed.
Lane exited, leading Lycan and Wren up to his room. He'd offered the two a place to sleep for now, and they'd be doubling up until something better could be thought up. Meanwhile, Donovan and Lane would be sharing Donovan's bed, platonically—as had been made abundantly clear by Lane.
Kriselle didn't know if it was the unbelievable choice to trust Donovan and Leo, or just some love for kids hidden deep deep down within the teen, but Donovan had blown up an air mattress in his room and offered it up for Fia and Carrie, and then blown up another mattress in Leonel's room for Kriselle and Scarlett. Sarah claimed she would pack for a bit and then crash on the upstairs couch, meanwhile Romeo would take the downstairs couch if all went to plan and he wasn't a grade-A jerk.
Kriselle sighed, getting to her feet. It was going to be a long half an hour.
~AVENGERS~
Leonel's Room
Don and Leo's Apartment
"Come on, I'll keep an eye on you and you get a free extra pair of eyes." Scarlett sighed, pulling her hair back in a ponytail and locking it there with a rubber band provided by Carrie.
"No, you get a free ride and I get one hundred and thirty pounds extra to carry, and sore feet," Leo returned with a grumble, closing the door behind them and ducking down to grab his pills from under the bed.
While most had taken the half an hour to rest, Leo had taken to reviving his high. Scarlett, disapproving, had followed him and worriedly asked to join him on his trip for a vehicle.
"I'm one-bloody-eighteen, thank you very much," snapped Scarlett, crossing her arms and rolling her eyes. "Come on," she dropped her voice, even though she knew the others couldn't hear her. "You were so out of it, Leo. You need someone to help you stay focused."
Leo glared at her, turning his head sharply. "I am focused!" he snapped angrily, eyebrows furrowing but quickly lifting as he realized his tone. He seemed to shake it off and turned back to his meds, leaving Scarlett staring in surprise.
She stood in silence as he pulled the box from under the bed.
"I'm going to go grab my coat." She announced almost pitifully.
"Yea. Okay." He nodded, looking put out as he pulled a bottle and avoided her gaze as he popped a good amount of pills in his mouth.
A few minutes later, Scarlett desperately clung to his back. She'd grabbed a blue hoodie and a pair of spare black Aviator goggles that Leo had laying around. Speak of the devil, they must've been going a good 90 miles per hour and he had nothing protecting him except for the goggles on his head and a crazed tight lipped smile on his face.
They came to an abrupt halt, and if not for Leo holding tightly to her legs, she would've gone shooting over his shoulder and onto the ground. Instead, he neck snapped forwards quite painfully and she gasped in surprise. He dropped her and she landed easily on her feet, bringing a hand to her neck.
"You think this'll work?" Leo turned to her with bright eyes.
They were in the middle of a parking lot, a Walmart lit up at the other side. The pick-up truck was large, black, with tinted windows and a large sturdy bed. Scarlett tilted her head.
"It looks like it'll get the job done," she nodded.
"Great. Ride complete. Let's go."
Next time the action will pick up. :)
I hope you all enjoyed and drop a review if you have the time. ;)
Recap : Don and Leo's past! Tony Stark has Romeo! Scarlett and Leo have found a vehicle! :)
Till next time.
-AG