So after a bit of feedback, I've decided to go on with adding the H20 girls to the story. Hopefully I write them correctly, please no hate if I make a mistake.


"So where are you two going for your honeymoon again?" Pavatti grinned, poking me in the shoulder as we walked down the hallway towards the door. I scowled at him, but lost my composure and laughed.

"Australia, but it's not a honeymoon! We just kissed!" I giggled. Pav poked me harder.

"You two may as well be planning the wedding!" He stuck his tongue out. I returned the gesture. Glancing down at the sketchbook in his arms, I raised an eyebrow.

"You gonna start drawing us?" I asked. Pav's face twisted into a forlorn expression. He swept a hand through his cotton candy mohawk.

"Well I never!" He exclaimed in a British accent, "I am an artist, you bimbo! I don't draw you, I use illustration to convey complex emotion surrounding your relationship with Pendragon!"

"What complex emotion is there, then?" I asked as we stepped into the chilly winter air.

"I ship this so hard." He said bluntly, returning to an American accent. I barked a laugh.

"Oi!" I heard Pendragon's voice call. I turned and looked up. So did several other girls. They had been asking me about him ever since he started showing up to walk me to the Shield car. I smiled.

"Pendragon, dearest!" I said in a flowery tone, and jogged to him with the gait of a woman in a Victorian romance movie. Either catching on to my plan, or just plain happy to see me, he gave me a kiss on the mouth. I heard several girls gasp in frustration. Score!

"So what was that about?" He asked in a low voice.

"They've been asking about how to make the first move on you, I needed to mark my territory."

"With kisses?"

"Yes. Kisses." Pendragon laughed and gave me another one for good measure. Pavatti was holding back manic laughter as he approached.

"Did you see their faces?" He snorted, "They looked like you'd just kicked a baby!"

"Human or animal?" Pendragon asked.

"Both." Pav responded.

"Mutant." We all concluded at the same time, before nearly collapsing in a fit of giggles.

"So…" Pendragon gasped, wiping tears from his eyes, "You ready to pack?" I nodded, dabbing at my own wet eyes.

"Aw, so soon? It's not even officially winter break yet!" Pav whined, still catching his breath. Poor guy's asthma must be acting up.

"We need to get moving, it's not just a vacation; we're going to be on official business." Pendragon explained. Pav nodded, then glanced around dramatically.

"For the government, right?" He whispered. I nodded, sharing his exaggerated look-about. Shield didn't actually know we were going to look for mermaids in Australia, Tony and Steve did, and they had no intention of letting Fury ruin stuff again. I hugged Pavatti good-bye, then hopped in the Shield car.

"So," the agent chauffer began, "You guys are travelling to Australia?"

"Yeah," I said before Pendragon to get evasive, "We've been training so hard, it's only fair that we get a break, especially since I've been juggling schoolwork with managing this buffoon." Pendragon scoffed, but the agent nodded, buying into the story.

"It sounds like fun, especially in the winter. It's warm there right? Hemispheres and all that. You guys prefer warm weather to cold, yeah?" The agent was intent of carrying the conversation.

"Yeah," We said at the same time, bluntly enough to end the talk right there. It felt like hours before we made it back to the Tower.

"Hey!" Steve Rogers smiled when we walked into the main sitting room.

"Steve!" I shouted, excited about the surprise visit. I sprinted across the room, and tackled him. Or tried to. He was too big and heavy for me to knock over, but my glomp successfully off-balanced him.

"Oof!" He gasped, rocking backwards slightly. Pendragon and Tony chuckled at my excitement. Regaining his composure, the old veteran managed to remove me from his person, patting me on the head instead of risking being squished again.

"You didn't think I was going to let you go off to the other side of the world without saying goodbye first, did you?" He asked, grinning from ear to ear. Oh, I missed that smile.

With Pepper, Tony, and Steve's help, packing everything we needed for the mermaid "hunting" expedition was easy. Tony's former bodyguard Happy would drive us to the airport under the impression that he was just driving a couple of kids, no merpeople. He was a weirdly suspicious person, overly so. He'd been skeptical of my connection to Stark when Pendragon and I moved in, less so of Pendragon because of his (now former) job at Shield.

The morning of the flight was pretty easy. We threw some clothes on, ate a quick breakfast, then hopped in the car with Happy to the airport. We caught the flight without issue, and thanks to the generosity of one Tony Stark, a flight with no connections to worry about.

"Excited?" I asked Pendragon after we'd taken off. It was still dark outside, and my eyes were still drooping. I'd have plenty of time for a nap, since the flight would take nearly 24 hours. Pendragon nodded sleepily. I wiggled down to a more reclined position and snuggled into his shoulder. A flight attendant gave Pendragon a couple of blankets, one he threw over me, and the other on himself. Letting his head rest on mine, we both closed our eyes and let the ambient sound of the plane lull us to sleep.

The flight was pretty boring, despite the books that I had brought. Pendragon was typing away at a computer that Tony had given us, so that we could keep in contact. He'd installed Jarvis into it, so that the AI could keep watch for any attempt at a Shield hack. After a couple of meals, that were very much off schedule (they were served in accordance to the time zone's current time, not the one we were used to) some movies on the laptop, and another long nap, we made it to the Gold Coast.

Bleary-eyed, we caught a cab to a small town by the ocean where several mermaid sightings had been reported over the past few decades. A couple such sightings had occurred within the year. Paying the driver (plus a tip), we stumbled into the shorefront rental house Tony had paid for. We took turns in the bathroom getting changed and brushing our teeth before crawling into the king sized bed. I instinctively moved to the far edge, letting one leg dangle. I was out the moment I closed my eyes.

Blinking wearily, I looked over at the alarm clock. 9 am. Morning. So much for jet lag. I started to stretch, but stopped short when I realized there was something warm pressed against my back. Sneaking a glance behind me, I discovered that, in his sleep, Pendragon had wrapped his arms around my middle and pulled me away from the edge of the bed. And he was still deeply asleep.

I blushed furiously, the fog of sleep had lifted instantly and my mind was running through several ways to untangle myself before he woke up. Before I could settle on a plan, Pendragon stirred slightly, but only enough to pull me closer and hug me tighter before he began to snore softly again. I carefully rolled onto my back, and he responded by nuzzling into my shoulder.

My initial embarrassment fading, I smiled at my sleeping boyfriend. His face was relaxed, peaceful. Long pale lashes rested on his cheeks, fluttering lightly. Normally messy hair was a wild puff of blond, locks wrapped around his face and pressed to his neck. His soft lips were parted slightly. I felt a warm fuzzy sensation growing in the pit of my chest. I bit my lip, trying to keep my smile from growing.

Luckily for my bladder, he woke up about 10 minutes later, surprised that I had allowed him to hug me in his sleep for so long. We spent the morning coming up with a plan. Laptop Jarvis (L.J.) had discovered several local superstitions relating to an island off the coast of the town, Mako. Some said it was haunted, others say it's bad luck. But people mostly stayed away because of all of the sharks.

"If the mermaid here is anything like me, she'll be wary of potential enemies," I explained, gingerly sipping a hot chocolate, "If word reaches her that two foreigners are snooping around, she'll want to keep an eye on them." Pendragon's eyes lit up.

"If she's keeping an eye on us, then she'll need to follow us-"

"Or get her friends to do so for her," I finished, "Either way, we can then figure out where to look once we know what social group is more suspicious of us." Pendragon nodded in agreement, running his fingers through his hair. He looked up, meeting my eyes.

"So where do we start?"

"Excuse me, sir?" I asked a shaggy, blond-haired boy in a silly fishing hat at the local marina. He startled, nearly loosing his grip on his fishing pole.

"Ah, sorry," I grimaced, "I didn't mean to scare you."

"No, no it's alright!" The boy blinked, "What do you need?"

"What can you tell me about that island over there?" I asked, pointing to Mako. Better to feign ignorance than to play all my cards in one go. He didn't need to be made aware of how much I already know.

"That would be Mako Island, it's surrounded by sharks though, people never go there." He shrugged casually.

"Have you ever gone?"

"Once or twice." Interesting.

"Have you ever seen any small caves? Ones with water in them, and an opening that the moon can peer through…" The boy choked on air, alarmed by my description. Very interesting…

"No!" he shouted, "No, no, nothing of the sort!" I tilted my head, staring him down from the corner of my eye. He sunk down in his seat, trying to escape my gaze. Luckily for him, Pendragon was watching this play out from a distance. He strode over casually, and put a hand on my shoulder.

"Darling, if he doesn't know then maybe someone else will," he said smoothly, smiling wide, "Do you know anyone who might be able to take us there?" he asked the boy.

"Uh…" he said, squinting his eyes at us. Pendragon ignored him.

"My name is Pendragon, and this is my girlfriend Jacqueline," Pendragon continued, "We're visiting from the states." The boy nodded at us, suspicious.

"Lewis," he said, "And I don't know of anyone that can help you, sorry." He shrugged, turning around to continue fishing.

"Hey, there's someone over there that we could ask," Pendragon pointed to another boy with short black hair tinkering with a small motorboat, "Let me do the talking this time, okay?" I nodded, but made sure to dramatically scowl at him and cross my arms. He chuckled in response, kissing the top of my head.

"Pardon me," Pendragon asked the dark-haired boy, "I'm new around here and I have a few questions I'm hoping you can answer." The boy looked up suspiciously. How paranoid are the teens in this town?

"Yeah? What do you need?" The kid responded quickly.

"I'm curious about that island over there, Mako was it?" The boy tensed up, "Anything interesting I should know about it?"

"Yeah, it's surrounded by sharks," He said, "It's off-limits, you should stay away." I tilted my head to the side as I listened, biting my lip.

"Any particular reason it's off-limits?" Pendragon asked, the boy didn't respond, "Do you know of any small caves on the island, preferably, waterlogged ones that moonlight can get into…" The boy dropped his tools suddenly, startled by the question.

"No, I can't say that I know of anything matching that description." He said, now radiating paranoia, "Why are you so interested in Mako Island? I saw you over there talking to Lewis, what do you want from that place?" My turn to steal the thunder. I strode gently to Pendragon's side.

"We just want to look," I said, but the boy didn't seem any less wary, "My name is Jacqueline, this is my boyfriend Pendragon. If you haven't guessed, we aren't local. Do you think you'd be able to give us a ride out to Mako?" I smiled sweetly, hopeful.

The boy opened his mouth, but before he could respond a girl stepped past us and stood next to him. She had narrow eyes, an expression of permanent suspicion. She had blonde hair that fell down over her shoulders in waves.

"Zane, I need to talk to you." She said softly, but harshly. Her eyes turned to us.

"Some privacy would be nice?" She said with a frown, very strongly hinting that she wanted us to go away. I smiled at her, and nodded. Pendragon and I turned and walked toward the parking lot. The two teens started to talk quickly at each other when we were out of earshot. There were a couple glances in our direction, but not many.

"Do you think that's enough?" I asked.

"Hmm?" Pendragon asked, staring thoughtfully at Mako Island.

"Now that we've made it aware that we're going to be snooping, do you think that the mermaid will come to us?" I looked up at my boyfriend's clear blue eyes. He smiled at me, throwing an arm around my shoulder.

"I think so. Feel up to a swim to the island?" I grinned. Glancing around showed us that the three teens weren't paying attention to us. Quickly, we dove into the water, and took off towards Mako.