Chapter 7

For the rest of the day, both Ali and Clint were silent. They were watching everybody else to see if they gave off any indication that they had seen the footage. Nobody did but Natasha kept giving the two suspicious glances.

Several things made her suspicious that something had happened or was going to happen, but she could not, for the life of her, work out what they could be up too.

The rest of Ali's time at home was spent watching the others but after about a day she felt safe to stop as she was pretty sure that nobody knew anything about what had happened.

When Ali returned to school on Monday morning, she still had a brace on her sprained wrist and the rumours hadn't spread yet but by lunch practically the whole school had heard it. Each one had heard something different but the general gist of it was the same.

Ali had already told Maya over texts what had happened and since she was the only one to know the truth, she was the only one to defend her though she did hear Peter defending her when she passed him in the corridor. Both Mia and Abby clearly thought that she was lying when Ali tried to tell them that she did live at the tower, so they all tried to avoid the subject.

Even the teachers gave her disbelieving looks when they heard her trying to confirm some of the rumours. It seemed that the teachers who had gone on the trip hadn't told anyone what had happened or the teachers themselves didn't believe her even though she had proved it to them. Monsieur Dupont made it completely clear and obvious that he still didn't believe when she turned up for his lesson on Monday morning which was her first lesson with him after the incident.

A week went by and Ali managed to convince her mum to let her take the brace off since her arm was practically healed. On the last day of the school week, school trip forms were handed around Ali's tutor group. Each year got 2 trips and there was usually a trip that lasted several days and one that was a day trip.

It seemed like the world came crashing down around Ali as she read where they would be going on their one-day trip. The top of the sheet held the location of where they would be going,

THE AVENGERS TOWER

The whole of her family was going to embarrass her if she went and if she didn't then all of her classmates would think that she was lying when she had been confirming the rumours.

Maya patted her sympathetically on the shoulder while silently laughing in the seat next to her. Ali let out a groan and put her head on her arms.

"Maybe it won't be as bad as you think it will be."

Ali gave Maya a look and Maya just burst into more laughter. So much for a sympathetic friend.

The rest of the day was spent with both students and teachers sending her smug looks and even Mia and Abby looked happier. Nobody had the guts to say anything to her face, but Ali heard a lot of whispers and conversations stop whenever she walked by.

Everybody noticed that Ali was worried when she came home from school. Ali hadn't told anyone about the rumours or the looks she was getting from those at school. Not even Clint knew, and he was the one who caused the rumours.

The letter for the trip was buried at the bottom of her bag which she then took into her room. She knew that she needed to show that she wasn't a coward and go on the trip, but she didn't want to inform her family about it. Ali could easily forge her mum's signature but the watch on her wrist tracked her movements and so would alert everyone to the fact that she wasn't at school as soon as she left the school premises. That meant that she had to tell someone.

Over dinner Ali stayed silent and only gave half-hearted answers to any questions she was asked. She was too busy trying to decide who she should tell about the trip, to focus on what was going on around her.

Pepper wasn't part of the Avengers and would not tell the others about the trip, but she couldn't do anything about the tracker in Ali's watch. Her mum could prevent the alert, but she was more likely to plan something or tell the others.

In the end Ali decided to tell her mum.

On Friday's it was movie night, and everybody would usually go to bed late. They would all get into their pyjamas before the first movie started. Ali and Natasha had created a hand signal that only the two of them understood. It told Natasha that Ali wanted to speak to her privately and after noticing Ali's strange behaviour Natasha was worried.

Both of them excused themselves to get their pyjamas on and Natasha snuck into Ali's room to see what she wanted.

As soon as Ali saw Natasha close the door behind her she held out the trip form and started to speak,

"Canyoupleasesignthisandnottellanyonethatmyschooltripistohere. Please..."

Natasha had caught the gist of what Ali had said and was smiling out of relief but also because the situation was hilarious.

"Slower. I didn't understand any of that."

"Can you please sign this and not tell the anyone that my school trip is to here and I know for a fact that you didn't need me to say it again!"

Natasha took the piece of paper from Ali's hand and grabbed a pen from here desk before signing her signature. She still didn't completely understand why Ali wanted to go on the trip since she knew the layout of the building by memory but just assumed that Ali wanted to miss some school.

"Signed."

"And you won't tell the others?"

"I won't tell them but if they find out on their own then that won't be my fault."

"With that she walked out of the room with a grin on her face and left Ali to change and think of all the possible ways that she could prevent her family from finding out about the trip.

She spent the next few weekends creating protocols with FRIDAY and creating an alert so that a message would pop up on her watch whenever one of her family members was two rooms away from her. Ali also inserted trackers into their shoes and mobile phones before creating an app on her watch which would use the trackers and CCTV (from FRIDAY) to show her exactly where in the building they all were.

The day before the trip Ali felt that she had done all she could to prevent her family from spotting her on the field trip, though she knew that there was no telling what her mum had in store for her.