Disclaimer: I own nothing but the satisfaction I feel after I post each chapter. Muse: I'll be taking that, snatches it away. Well maybe not that either, that bites. Out pity, you should review me and tell me what you think.


Chapter 28

"Uncle Thor," I said happily jumping my uncle and hugging him. He stiffened before hugging back ten times as enthusiastically. Which was when I realised, I hadn't actually hugged him before.

"I missed you," he said, even going so far as to swing me around like a child. My ribs aced in protest but I didn't tell him to stop.

"You need to be debriefed," Fury said interrupting the moment, "I want to know how exactly you and Stark made it off the Helicarrier."

"And I want a little blue box that's bigger on the inside and can travel anywhere in time and space," I said scathingly, "It ain't happening, so man the fuck up."

"You will," he started to demand but I snorted.

"Bitch please," I said before threatening him, "I can and will tell Darcy were to find you and I promise that you will be positively blinded with the enthusiasm she will show at seeing you again." Uncle Thor snorted, understanding the non-verbal, 'Cause she'll rip your fucking eye out… again.'

They left pretty soon after that and we ate dinner together. Pepper showed up and that was significantly awkward. Mostly because it was obvious that she was regretting the break up, but was to proud to admit it. I didn't mind Pepper, to be quiet honest if she and Tony got back together I'd be happy for him…. I just thought the bitch deserved to suffer a little first.

After dinner Tony and I began to include the magick's coding into the tower and began a full upgrade of the systems. Not to mention Phase 2. In our defence, neither of us were what one could be called stable or normal. So Phase 2 wasn't as outrageous as it sounded.

Well as un-outrageous as safe house to lock all the Avengers up in to stop them from fighting in the final battle of the Titan war can be called. I know that a lot of people would have spilled the beans about the half-Greek demigod aspect of there lives if it meant getting war aid. The only thing is that we were forbidden from interfering in the affairs of other Parthenon's and vice versa. I myself was an affront against ancient laws. The only reason I hadn't been struck down by the power behind those laws was because both parties were unaware and could be held blameless.

"So I was thinking, what if we did this?" Tony asked me. I gazed at the screen with horror, awe and amusement.

"We did it," I said, forcing blandness into my tone, "We cracked the dimensional coding." Which meant that we truly could make things bigger on the inside, or taller on the inside. The possibilities were endless.

The first time we tried it, we blew the top floor of the lab. The second, we managed to contain it to a single room. The thirty-second we only lost our eyebrows and the forty-seventh time we did it. Construction on Phase 2 continued on.

For Clint, and me things got harder. Hiding the injuries, the disappearances, the guilt, pain and trauma that was just piling up on top of us as the war progressed further. We were running out of time. I made sure I kept calling Luke, we needed the info, and I couldn't leave him to go through this alone.

Then I suppose the final step of the end came, my sixteenth birthday. The funny thing was that I had completely forgotten about it.

"Is that really the date," I asked, Tony nodded. My face went dead pale as all the blood drained out of it, I started to shake and coldness permutated every inch of my body. I could feel myself on the verge of hyperventilating, despite being in a kitchen full of people.

"Yeah, why?" Clint asks crunching away at his cereal noisily. I fight back my fear, not easy but with Clint in the room I couldn't let him see me scared. Not when there was a chance that my decisions might make or break his life.

"Today's my sixteenth birthday," I said softly. Knowing exactly what that entailed, he dropped his fork. The others looked surprised, and I was slathered with 'Oh my god, really's?' and 'Why didn't you tell me's?'

It wasn't a date I wanted to remember and the team kept throwing around ideas of what we should do to celebrate. Uncle Thor looked like a kicked puppy and I cussed under my breath.

"Why did you not tell me your day of birth?" he asked sadly.

"In the beginning I thought that it wouldn't matter, that I'd be home with mom by now," I said with a shrug, "Then I just got so busy here that I didn't even think about it until I heard the date." The last part was a total lie; I had been counting down until this day. I couldn't help but feel sick at how relived I felt. It was time. The waiting game was over. All of it was finally going to be over.

"So what did you usually do on your birthday?" Steve asked. I managed a smile.

"Mom would prank me, waking me up at an obscenely early hour," I said fondly, "And I'd have blue pancakes for breakfast. Everything we ate on my birthday was blue. We'd open my presents and then we'd go out for the day, when we got home we'd watch a gazillion movies, staying up till morning and always finishing with 'A nightmare before Christmas'"

"Your mom did all that?" Natasha asked disbelievingly. I raised an eyebrow.

"Are we going to have to have the conversation where I smack your head into the table and I call you a bitch again?" I asked referring to our first meeting, "I know that not many of you understand, but my mom loves me."

"I'm sure Loki does," Uncle Thor said, in a tone of voice that made it apparent that he thought it should be obvious. We went to eat blue food in central park, they giggled as I told them why blue food was important. When mom got sick once I was so unhappy that I managed to turn all the food blue until she got better.

"I am so, so sorry," Clint said softly, giving me a hug in one of the short scenes of privacy we got that day.

"Yeah," I said thickly, "Me too. Be ready to go."

"You to," he said nodding. That night, as we watched 'A nightmare before Christmas' Tony and I implemented our Phase 1 conversation. He started talking about his Malibu house and how it overlooked the beach.

"Cool," I said imagine the beach, "Can we go?" The result was a resounding negative, because hey, the world was going to hell and even the mortals were noticing. They claimed that they needed to stay in New York in case there was an attack because even if the attacks were global, it was obvious that whatever it was was starting here. They were right…. I wish they weren't.

Then the lights went of, flickering the tower into darkness for a single moment and then the table was filled with presents. A completely blue cake with matching candles, the lit flames somehow also blue sat next to them.

"Mom," I whispered, they started to sing happy birthday.

"Make a wish," Bruce encouraged me, and in spite of the day I just had, or the idea that mom remembered and sent me my presents from everyone…. I still wished what every lonely scared little girl wishes for.

I wish my mom were here.


Is anybody else pouting for her? I am as I write this. Final battle is imminent and as you will have read there will not be any help. Is anyone going crazy trying to figure out what Phase two is? Good! I'll give you a hint, it was Doctor Who inspired.