Chapter 36 - The Party

Appearing as the guest of honour at a party was exhausting. This was as much as Minnie could tell as she made her obligatory circuits around the room and spoke to everyone who had turned up especially for her. She was glad to see her friends again and hugged them all tightly as they pretended not to be surprised that she had actually turned up. When she saw Steve she blushed a little but they both pretended that what had happened whilst Reaper was in control had never happened and they both ignored the slightly cold look that Tony gave them. She was introduced to Sam who broke the tension a little and Minnie decided she liked him very quickly when he made a joke at Steve's expense which made them all laugh.

She thought that it would have been easier to slip back into the persona of being a person of influence but she had to admit that it came with its challenges. She felt crowded, like everyone was after something from her, everyone wanted to be seen with her as a confidant or friend. She had forgotten the demands of celebrity and it wasn't something she had ever particularly enjoyed throughout her teenage years. Her father noticed her lost look partway through the evening and made a beeline for her, putting his arm around her shoulders and guiding her towards the bar.

'Alright, kid, now you're officially, legally allowed to drink, you've got pick of the bar.' he said and she looked at him with slightly wide eyes.

'Oh wow, you mean it?' she asked sarcastically as they joined Steve and Thor at the bar but they were busy talking to some older men.

'Don't give me that lip young lady,' Tony replied drily before leaning on the bar and turning to her. 'So, what was it you were drinking behind my back all this time? Making me out to be an irresponsible parent and condoner of the breaking of the law?' he asked and she shrugged.

'To tell you the truth I've never actually drunk alcohol before.' she told him as Steve and Thor turned to join their conversation.

'I'm sorry, repeat that?' he asked, genuinely shocked as he put a hand to his ear as if to hear her better.

'I've never seen the appeal of it!' she defended herself. 'And besides, it's not like I've had much opportunity to go to teenage ragers or whatever.'

'How do I know? You've not exactly been a home-nest kinda girl.' Tony said drily and Minnie felt a stab of guilt in her chest as she realised he was right, she had upped and abandoned him a bit. 'This is honestly the most disappointing thing you've ever said to me.' he said and she realised he was joking so laughed but Steve butted in.

'You can't exactly be mad at her for not breaking the law, Tony.' Steve said but he was smiling.

'On Asgard we begin training our young in a rigorous drinking regime from the age of ten, I had my first drink at the age of six and from the ages of roughly twelve to fourteen I wasn't sober at all.' Thor said joyfully with a grin before taking a large swig of the drink in his hand and the other three stared at him in dumbfounded silence for a moment before Tony shook his head as if in a daze and turned back to the bartender.

'Give her something light, something to start her off. Gin and tonic, she's probably a G&T girl, like her mother.' he said and Minnie's thoughts wandered back to the video and how happy her parents had looked together. She gave her father what she hoped was a sympathetic smile as he handed her the drink and she looked at it for a moment. It looked just like sparkling water, she didn't imagine anything that looked like it could just be carbonated water could really be that bad. She decided to go all in and took a large drink of it before coughing and spluttering as Tony took the glass off of her.

She coughed for a few more moments and tried to catch her breath as her throat burned and Tony and Steve laughed at her.

'That's disgusting, why the hell do you people drink alcohol it's gross.' she finally managed to gasp and Tony held out the glass.

'You've gotta finish it, it'll just go to waste otherwise.' he tutted and she grimaced.

'I'll finish it for you.' Thor offered and took the glass from Tony before downing the drink in a few gulps. The other three watched him in dumbstruck silence for the a few seconds whilst he downed the drink without batting an eyelash and then placed the glass down on the side with a smile before looking around at them.

'What?' he asked and they shook their heads in disbelief.

Minnie continued to make her rounds through the party, speaking to people she needed to speak to, laughing at the right moments and asking the right questions and quietly sipping at her soda. In spite of everything she found herself enjoying the party, the time went on quite quickly and soon people were beginning to leave and it was just the team left behind along with Hill and Helen Cho.

'Okay so you don't like spirits,' Natasha said to Minnie and held out a beer. 'Try this.' she suggested and Minnie grimaced again, she doubted she would find this much nicer. 'It's not great, but it's better than something heavy. Maybe we should try you on a martini or something?' she suggested and Minnie shook her head.

'Or maybe I can just not drink alcohol?' she suggested and they booed her.

'Come on, just try it.' Clint urged her and Minnie sighed before taking a swig of Natasha's beer and, funnily enough, not liking it.

'It's just so gross.' she groaned as they laughed at her again and she handed back the beer.

Over the course of the evening she had tried other liquors, she had been given shots and taken sips of multiple drinks and now her head was buzzing pleasantly and she felt sleepy as she sat back in her seat and watched her friends talking. They were trying to lift Thor's hammer or something, she was unsure of what was really happening. She didn't want to still be considered the kid who tagged along so she fought against sleep and forced herself to sit forward and act like she was engaged with the conversation but in reality she just felt tired and wanted to go to sleep even though every time she blinked or closed her eyes the room seemed to spin.

She realised slowly that she was tipsy and that this feeling wasn't perhaps so awful, it didn't mean she had liked any of the alcohol she had tasted but not much had gotten her to this state so at least she wouldn't have to endure much of it.

Thor stood up and picked up his hammer, twirling it expertly as he looked around at them in turn.

'Perhaps you're just not worthy?' he suggested and everyone groaned at him as Minnie laughed but their laughter was cut short by a high pitched squealing noise. Minnie put her hands over her ears and closed her eyes and when she opened them again she suddenly felt much more sober and her head was pounding slightly, like she could feel her brain throbbing inside of her skull. Reaper could sense something was wrong and was itching to get out but Minnie kept a lid on her, mentally promising to let it out if she should need to.

She stood up slowly and followed everyone else's gaze, a mangled mess of a robot was stood on the other side of the room, staggering slightly like it was drunk on itself. It took her a moment to realise what exactly this was but once she did her face paled and she kept her mouth tightly clamped shut.

She could barely take in what they were saying She could barely take in what they were saying around her, her eyes were fixed solely on the mess in front of her and she realised that he had woken her fathers vision.

She felt a bristling in the air and tried to brush it off, she knew what it meant, a fight was coming and Reaper wanted to be let out to fight but she couldn't let that happen. She fought against the instinct to let go and focused on pulling together all of her strength for the fight to come but in her focus on herself she became distracted from the situation. A few seconds later she was pulled back into her reality but it was a moment too late as new robots were flying straight at her and she froze, she didn't have a chance to react.

Luckily, Steve flipped the table they were stood in front of up to protect them and grabbed Minnie around the waist when he saw that she wasn't moving. The two of them flew back and rolled together a little with the momentum of their movement. When they came to a stop there was a brief moment as they continued to hold onto one another before they shared a look of embarrassment and jumped up to join the right again, forgetting their shame and choosing to tackle it later at a more convenient time.

Minnie hadn't been in a fight in a long time and she felt painfully out of practice. She had all of these different, conflicting instincts flying around her head and on top of it all Reaper was trying to push out to protect her. She kept her walls firmly up and searched quickly for the nearest robot to fight, Steve was already long gone, off fighting something somewhere else. She took a deep breath and forced herself to calm and just give into who she had once been, the fighter.

One of the suits came flying towards her and she ducked and spun to catch it as it whizzed past her. She gathered her light and shot it at the robot so that it went flying back but her light hadn't been powerful enough and didn't blast the hole through the metal suit like she had intended. The suit appeared a moment later with a vengeance and caught Minnie off guard as she looked around wildly for her father. Out of sheer luck she moved slightly at the last second and the suit clipped her side instead of catching her head on but it was faster than she was and turned in an instant to blast at her with its own bright light. Midway through moving to retaliate, Minnie was caught squarely in the chest by the blast and was propelled backwards and up onto the terrace. She hit the wall hard and then slid down to a slumped heap on the floor. The robot was apparently satisfied because it moved on, leaving Minnie groaning and trying to catch her breath, she felt like her chest was on fire.

She coughed and spluttered for a few more moments before she pulled herself up onto her arms and surveyed her body for injuries. Her arms and body were bruised, pretty badly in some places but nothing worse than bruises. She also felt a bruise forming on her forehead above her left eye and a cut swelling her bottom lip. She grimaced at the thought of having to deal with these injuries but focused her attentions on getting back to being of some help. She stood up slowly and then shook her arms a little to get some feeling back into them before the adrenaline kicked back in, but by this time the fight was slowing to a halt as the rest of the team took out the robots and only the mangled mess was left.

She saw her father crawling towards the stairs and propping himself up, he looked badly injured and fear and concern for him clouded everything else in Minnie's vision. She ran to the stairs and stumbled down the stairs as quickly as she could move but the structural integrity of the steps had been damaged during the fight and she slipped on some debris and down the last few steps leaving a new pain up her back and down her side but she ignored it as she appeared at her fathers side. She took his injured arm in her hands and examined the wound, he allowed her, she probably knew more than he did but he couldn't help but notice that she was injured herself.

She ignored what was happening around her as she focused on the cut to her fathers arm, it didn't look like it had damaged any veins but the lighting was bad and it would need definitely stitches. One single, haunting line brought her back from her focus and she froze as she looked up. Ultron had been disseminated but as he faded away he sang a line that Minnie recognised too well.

There are no strings on me...

She stopped breathing for a moment as she stared at the spot where Ultron the first was lying in pieces and she was aware of her fathers eyes on her so she forced herself to meet his gaze. He was looking at her with alarm in his own eyes and they didn't need to speak a single word to communicate that they both knew exactly what had happened and who was to blame here.