Chapter 6

Unfortunately, Ali didn't have time to run and hide since they had already seen her. As luck would have it none of the Year 9's knew Ali so they at first only glanced at her. When Monsieur Dupont started speaking to her in his harsh angry tone though, they all turned their heads to stare at her.

"Ali what on Earth are you doing here! You were not invited on this trip since yours is next month. Also, according to the register I took yesterday it said that you were supposed to be sick. You don't look very sick to me!"

Clint's prank had not turned out the way he wanted it to. He had wanted to embarrass Ali in front of some of her teachers, but he had not taken into account how Monsieur Dupont would react. He had no idea that he was so mean.

Ali was cursing Clint in her head. She knew what she had to say but he had gotten her into so much trouble and had given her the attention that she didn't want.

"I live here."

She sounded a lot more confident than she felt.

There were 8 teachers all together including Monsieur Dupont so thankfully he wasn't the one to question her statement.

"What do you mean you live here?"

Mr Michael didn't sound angry at Ali, at least not yet anyways. The rest of the teachers all had looks of confusion on their faces apart from Monsieur Dupont who was fuming.

"My mum works here and since she works practically every day and works really late, she was offered a floor to live on. So, me and my sister moved in with her. Also, Hawkeye is my mum's childhood friend so that helped too."

She heard her French teacher scoff in the background while many of the Year 9 students were looking at her with disbelief or jealousy. There was no way that this was going to be kept quiet.

Ali still wanted to get out of there as quickly as she could. Any questions she answered would just lead to more questions being asked.

Clint was still in the vents above her though he was starting to back away towards the fork in the vent just outside the room.

As quickly and as sneakily as Ali could she blocked his exits with ice. Making her eyes stay brown which caused her headache from earlier to reappear. She quickly pushed her ice block so that Clint was forced to back up. The ice only stopped moving when he was in the vent directly above her. She stepped sideways before saying with an air of confidence,

"How would you like to meet my Uncle?"

Just as she said it, she quickly used her powers to slide the panel that Clint was sitting on back as fast as she could.

Clint ended up falling to the floor and landing on his face. He quickly bounced up to his feet with his cheeks red with embarrassment.

He tried desperately to look cool as he saw the stares from everyone in the room but failed miserably. Luckily for him everyone was too busy trying to get over their shock that Hawkeye was standing right in front of them.

Ali took the silence as her opportunity to not only threaten Clint but also to prove that they knew each other.

"Seriously!?"

"Shouldn't I be saying that to you since you just made me fall to the floor?"

"Do you want me to tell mum?"

"You wouldn't."

"FRIDAY can you tell..."

"Fine! You get one favour."

The favour was just what Ali needed since she had used up all of the ones that Clint had already given her. Each one meant that Clint had to do anything that Ali wanted him to. Last time it had been to not tell her mum that she had gone to the training room at midnight on a school night.

Clint's appearance distracted everyone but not long enough for Ali to make her escape and leave her Uncle with 240 13–14-year-olds and 8 teachers.

"This still does not explain why you are not in school!"

Fortunately for Monsieur Dupont, Clint was not in a bad mood. If he had been then Ali's French teacher would probably have ended up getting arrows fired at him and Natasha would end up being told.

"I fainted on Wednesday and fell on my wrist so sprained it. My mum wanted me to stay home for the rest of the week and anyone who tried to argue with her would probably have gotten a knife to the throat."

Clint gulped since what she had said was absolutely true though no one had actually tested the theory. All the Year 9's and the teachers all thought that Ali was being dramatic. Only Ali's drama teacher Mrs Miller thought anything of it.

Before more questions were asked Clint quickly turned himself and Ali so that their backs were facing the people there and started walking towards the exit.

Clint was too busy trying to figure out how to stop Natasha finding out about what had happened to realise that he hadn't even said any sort of goodbye greeting, but Ali had so she said it for him.

"Hope you have a nice tour!"

Once the break room was out of site both Ali and Clint practically sprinted towards the nearest grate in the ceiling before climbing into the vents.

Both Clint and Ali forgot all about Ali's sprained wrist as they sped upwards towards the restricted floors.

"I am going to have a word with that teacher with the French accent before he leaves."

"No, you are not! He is like that with everyone, and it isn't a big deal so don't tell mum."

Clint looked thoughtful for a moment. Natasha would probably back him up and allow him to threaten this French teacher if he told her. However, the glare that Ali was sending him and the knowledge that she would tell Natasha about the prank if he did, stopped the idea from being a possibility.

"I need a computer."

"Are you even supposed to be typing with a sprained wrist?"

"Do you want mum to look at the security tapes?

"There is one in Bruce's office. He was called to a meeting with some of the interns here to help them out, so he won't be in his lab."

The two headed towards the labs which were a few floors above the break room. The journey was possible through the vents, but every time Ali placed her hand on the floor of the vent a searing pain shot up her arm. Soon a dull pain replaced the dull ache that she had whenever she rested her wrist.

Clint seemed to notice the pain in Ali's face even though she was trying desperately to hide it because after only a few minutes of crawling through the vents he had dropped out of them through a grate. Ali followed him and they both made their way to the private lab floor via the stairs.

Climbing the 7 flights of stairs to the labs become a competition of who could get to the lab floor first. Ali won and was not even put off breath once she had finished the climb. Clint was only a flight of stairs behind her but looked like he was about to collapse onto the floor.

"Come on slow coach! We need to erase the security footage!"

That seemed to get Clint moving.

FRIDAY it seemed had already opened the locked door in front of them for them, as when Ali pulled on it, it easily slid open.

The door opened up right next to the elevator. They had to pass Tony's lab first. Luckily for them Tony was playing his favourite music so didn't even notice them as they quickly walked past the glass walls of his lab.

Once they were stood outside of Bruce's lab they were no longer in Tony's line of sight.

Clint shoved the door roughly, as he just wanted to quickly erase the evidence, but the door wouldn't budge.

"Give me your phone!"

Ali had all but shoved him out of the way of the door and was now holding her hand out to him.

"What! Why?"

"Do you want to get in there or not?"

Well for Clint that was an easy answer.

As soon as he had handed his phone over, Ali got to work. Within 30 seconds she had access to FRIDAY's code and within 2 minutes the door was unlocked.

Erasing the footage could only be done on a computer though so she handed Clint's phone back to him as the two raced over to Bruce's computer.

Ali already knew the password so just typed it in. From there it was easy to access the security footage, but it took Ali a little longer to delete it since she had to erase it from all hardware and databases.

The sigh that escaped Ali's lips brought a smile to Clint's face and was the only indication that she gave him that she had completed the task.

"Now we just have to hope that mum hasn't seen it."