Chapter 32

The rest of the day was spent with Ali introducing her family to everyone she had met so far at the SHIELD base.

Over the next few days Ali divided her time between spending time at the tower and being with her sister and Grandad and the rest of her SHIELD friends.

Her SHIELD family did come over to the tower occasionally but since they never knew when they might be needed for a mission it was always easier for Ali to go over to their base.

She would always go to the base with at least one member of her family and one of them was almost always her Mamma.

The actual door which they could enter through also got shown to them so that they no longer had to crawl through the vents to get in though Ali still used the vents there for pranks.

The days sped past with Ali now only getting nightmares every other night. School started for her on the Thursday and today was the Wednesday before school and Ali was trying her hardest not to think about it.

She had managed to completely ignore this dreaded day for almost the whole summer but now that it was stating her in the face, she could no longer ignore it.

She had said goodnight to her family over 2 hours ago and it was now almost 10pm. Ali knew that she had to sleep but her brain just wouldn't turn off.

In the end she just pulled out a book and started reading.

The next morning Ali works up and rolled over only to hear several thumps as the books that she had been reading the night before fell on the floor.

She groaned and covered her eyes before getting up and making her way over to her wardrobe where her new school uniform was.

It all felt a little big once she had put it on, but she knew that she would grow into it.

Ali walked out of her room and made her way to the kitchen with a hairbrush and hairbands in hand. Her family were all sitting in the sitting room although half of them looked half asleep and weren't even dressed yet.

Both Tony and Clint were cradling their coffee like it was the most precious thing in the world. Only Clint, Wanda, Natasha and Bucky were dressed.

Wanda was going to the same school as Ali, as she had been doing since she first joined the Avengers, but because she was a Year 11 and in her last year of school, she would be going into school a little later. Wanda went by the name Wanda Barton as nobody knew Hawkeye's real name. Ali would also be going by this surname as, after all, she had deemed the two of them sisters but also Barton was a more common surname than Romanoff.

Upon seeing Ali, Natasha had started making her, her favourite breakfast of frosted flakes.

Ali walked over to Clint and held out the hairbrush and hair bands. Clint put down his coffee on the table in front of him and took the hair bands and hairbrush from Ali before putting her hair into 2 French plaits that stopped just below her collarbone.

After a game of truth or dare Ali had discovered that Clint was extremely good at doing people's hair and so he had become her personal hair-styler, not that he knew it yet.

Once her hair was done Ali went over to the counter and started eating her breakfast.

Tony had finished his work on the bracelet and phone a few days ago and Natasha had just been waiting for the perfect opportunity to give them to her little girl but now seemed as good as any.

She pulled them both out of her pocket and put them on the counter.

Ali looked up from her breakfast when she heard something being put down in front of her. She saw a watch and a phone.

"These are yours. I would like you to always wear the watch. It acts as a normal Fitbit, but you can also send messages on it and if you ever need one of us then hold the screen for 5 seconds and then we will all be alerted and come. The phone is just a phone, but Tony did upgrade it though, so I am not entirely sure of what he did to it."

Ali looked in awe at the presents in front of her before pressing on the home button on the phone. Once the button had scanned her fingerprint it unlocked the screen.

Ali clicked on WhatsApp as it said that she had 7 notifications. They were all from her SHIELD family wishing her good luck for school. She texted them back a thank you before slipping the phone into her inside blazer pocket after deciding to explore what was on it after school.

She put the watch on her wrist and started tapping the screen. It acted much like an Apple Watch but was a completely different shape.

After Ali had put her gifts away, she went over and hugged Tony and Natasha to say thank you. They were both slightly taken aback but looked pleased by her response.

Looking at the time Ali realised that she only had 10 minutes before they were supposed to leave so dashed into her room to quickly brush her teeth and grab her school bag.

Once she had reappeared in the sitting room it was time to go. Both Natasha and Clint were going to drive her halfway to school and she was going to walk the rest of the way.

Ali had tried to convince them to just let her walk the whole way like Wanda did, but they wouldn't let her since Wanda would not be walking with her so in Ali's opinion this was probably the next best thing.

They got into the car which Ali had officially started calling the family car since it got used so often and started the 5-minute drive to Ali's new school. If she were to walk there it would only take her 15 minutes.

After 4 minutes in the car, it seemed to Ali that her Mamma and Uncle were going to drive her right to the gate and Ali was not having that so after 30 seconds of arguing and pleads the car stopped halfway up the road that the school was located on.

Ali said her goodbyes quickly as she knew that if she didn't hurry then she would be late, and she was not going to be late on her first day. She hurriedly got out of the car and pulled her backpack onto her back.

She started walking up the road and heard it when the family car pulled out of where it had parked and started driving away.

Ali felt so nervous and so lonely as she walked up the road.

To get to the gates of the school she would have to cross the road so instead of doing it later when she was nearer the gate, Ali decided to do it now.

She looked both ways before crossing the road. She had just reached the middle of the road when she heard a car, so she ran the rest of the way across it. Unfortunately for her she had completely forgotten about curbs.

Ali had just reached the path on the other side of the road when she tripped.

She could see the path getting closer and closer to her face but knew that the only way to stop herself from falling would be to use her powers and she was not going to be thought of as a freak after only her first day.

Her eyes were closed, and she was ready for the impact of the concrete path but felt nothing. She knew she hadn't used her powers because she always felt it when she did that, but she had stopped falling.

There was a hand on her shoulder and a hand on her arm and these seemed to have been the things that had stopped her becoming injured.

She opened her eyes and quickly stood up with the help of who ever had saved her. Turning around she saw a boy that couldn't have been much older than her.

He had brown curly hair and brown eyes and was wearing the same uniform as her. The uniform seemed too big for him just like hers.

"Are you all right?"

Ali didn't know why but she seemed to have gained some confidence from meeting this boy so said,

"Yep, thanks. What year are you in?"

She blamed her confidence on the adrenaline that she had from almost falling over.

"Year 7."

"A newbie too."

Ali smiled at him and he smiled back. Seemed like she had already made a friend. They started walking back towards the school while asking each other twenty questions.

"What's your name?"

"Peter. Yours?"

"Ali. Short for Alice."

Technically it wasn't a lie since the documents that her Mamma had forged did say that her first name was Alice and not Ali though Ali could be short for Alice.

"Favourite colour?"

"Red."

"Blue."

By the time the two reached the gate they were both smiling at each other.

The school was massive. The gate that they had walked through was obviously the back gate since it led to a car park.

They walked through the car park and came to a concrete path. Right in front of them was a box shaped building that had at least 3 floors. The path walked a long side that building and stopped at a door.

Peter opened the door for them both and they stepped into a hallway. The hallway connected the 3-floored building to a massive hall.

They had been told beforehand to meet outside the hall so they both walked towards it but followed the path as it led them back outside.

Again, it was Peter that opened the door for her, but Ali wasn't really paying attention.

There were so many people outside of the doors. She knew that there were 8 classes of 30 in each year but knowing the numbers and seeing it in person were two different things.

Ali could see what appeared to be the main entrance to the school from where she was standing.

There were 8 teachers dotted around the concrete area outside and each were holding up a different sign.

They were supposed to head to the sign that was their Tutor group and Ali was disappointed to see that Peter had started walking towards the sign which said 7Z.

Ali was in 7A and she already knew from hacking into the school website and emails and from talking to Wanda that each year was split into two. So 7A, B, C and D would all have classes together while 7W, X, Y and Z would have all their classes together. This meant that Ali wouldn't have Peter in any of her classes.

Peter seemed to have realised this too as he turned back to her and said,

"Good luck. I hope I see you around."

"You too."

Ali walked off to the 7A sign. Just as she got there the school bell rang and everybody quickly got into a line. Ali made her way to the back of it and stood behind a girl with long flowing, blond hair. She seemed to be one of the tall people in the year and was way taller than Ali but then again Ali was one of the smallest.

The lines started to walk silently into the hall and soon Ali's line followed the others in.

The hall had rows of chairs and Ali's line walked up to a row of chairs at the back before taking a seat. Since Ali was on the end of her line she only had to sit next to the blond girl.

A teacher which Ali had already identified as the head of her year started talking. All the information that she said Ali already knew so she started to analyse her surroundings.

There were 2 exits out of the hall and the walls were to smooth to climb up. There were just over 240 students in the hall, 8 tutor group teachers, 2 deputy heads, the headteacher and the year 7 head of year in the hall.

Everyone in the hall were to distracted by what was being said to notice that Ali wasn't paying attention.

20 minutes later, the assembly was over, and they were allowed to leave a tutor group at a time.

Ali's group left first, and their teacher led the way down the corridor and up two flights of stairs, too the 3rd floor of the main building. The classroom that they entered was called S9.

Already on the board was a seating plan and so Ali quickly made her way over to her seat.

She was the first student to enter the classroom and so watched everyone else find their seats. They all seemed out of breath from the stairs.

The seat next to her was taken by the second person to enter the room and the only one that looked only slightly out of breath.

She was the girl that had the blond hair and was the one that Ali had stood behind in the line.

Nobody spoke as everyone else took their seats and the teacher called the register. The teacher then introduced himself as Mr Smith and told as that we had to find out 5 things from the person sitting next to us before he let us play a game.

Mr Smith was one of those bubbly teachers who would always walk around the classroom and never sit still.

The class broke out into a quiet chatter after he had finished talking and Ali could see the person sitting next to her turn to face her.

"I am Maya, I have a cat called Sparkle, I like netball, I have a younger brother and this summer I went to Spain."

Ali decided to break the silence which she had been in since she had said goodbye to Peter and said,

"I am Alice, but I prefer being called Ali, I have two older sisters and loads of uncles and aunts, I love rock climbing, I know some self-defence moves and I don't have any friends here."

Maya smiled at Ali.

"Well now you do, you have me."

Ali face also broke into a grin. Maybe school wouldn't be so bad if she had Maya as a friend.