Two chapters in two days? Must have been replaced by aliens...not really, just taking a break from gaming and being emotionally destroyed by Infinity War inspired me.
I do not own Marvel, I'm just playing in their sandbox
Yet another yawn escaped Cale as he stepped off the bus and onto campus, earphones blocking out the mundane noise of everyday life and coffee in hand to make it just that little bit more bearable. Instead of taking one of the agency cars like he did everyday, he decided to get Natasha to drop him off and take the bus so he could spend some time alone with his thoughts. Life had been stupidly hectic lately, between the lessons he was getting at school, his secret lessons with Loki and his other life as a SHIELD agent, Cale was starting to think that burning the candle at both ends was going to be his undoing.
His first class for the day was physics with Professor Bretts before he had a two hour gap until his next class. Cale should have known something was off when he entered the classroom, the gawking and angry looks that he was getting were all kinds of strange but he just brushed them off, they were looks he'd been getting from the day Tony dropped him off. He turned his music off and yanked his headphones out of his ear, it was only then he realised that the room was deathly silent. "Ah-Jake, what's going on?"
Jake Reilly was probably the only student that Cale could tolerate in this sea of hormones and stupidity. It also helped that he was really, really cute and was always up for a chat with the socially reclusive dork. He cast a sideways glance at Cale and scowled, "don't talk to me freak."
Now that threw Cale off more than he thought it would have. "Jake-" He barely managed to miss the punch flying at the back of his head, years of training kicked in and Cale spun around, grabbing the fist before it could land it's intended punch. "What the fuck?!" he snapped, glaring at the football jerk who had just tried to king hit him.
"My mother died in that fight!" he growled. "You and the rest of the Avengers are a goddamn fucking menace Turner!" It probably said something that this guy knew his name but Cale didn't know his.
"What are you talking about?" Cale demanded to know, letting go of his fist and stepping back incase the guy tried to strike him again. It wasn't as if he couldn't defend himself but the hairs on the back of his neck were starting to stand up and he nearly jumped when Jake got up from his seat with his phone.
"They're talking about this," he hissed. Jake practically threw his phone at Cale, his pale green eyes were practically on fire at this point. "You're one of them, the Avengers, aren't you?"
Cale took the phone, his face about as blank as stone but internally he was freaking out. Had his cover been blown already? Fuck Fury and Nat were gonna kill him, he was supposed to be laying low. His eyes grew wide at the camera footage of him landing on the ground with a Chitauri on his back. The familiarity of the memory flooded over him, the alien ripped off his mask and Cale blasted him away with a burst of green energy. He watched himself walk back over to the mask and pick it up before putting it back on and launching off the ground into the air.
Fuck he was well and truly screwed at this point.
When he hit the pause, all the colour drained from his face when he realized that clip had been uploaded onto the online student notice board. Cale handed Jake his phone back whilst his brain tried to figure out how to process this, he had to get out of this room, suddenly it felt like it was going to choke him. "Jake-" Before Cale could say another word, the teenager punched him right in the face. Whilst it hurt physically, the emotional pain he got from it was more than Cale would have expected.
"Get the fuck out of here before the rest of them start landing punches!" Jake sneered. He pushed Cale back and sat down at his desk, looking away from him.
Caelum Turner would not let them see him crumble, no sir. He ignored the blinding pain in his face as he made a point of slowly leaving the classroom, at this point he knew that most of the campus knew. The stares he was getting were either gawks of wonder or glares of rage.
Shit, shit, shit. What the hell was he gonna do? Maybe he should call Tony? Tony was out and proud as Iron Man but he was also a multi-billionaire and could fix any damage he caused by throwing money at it. Cale rushed along the walkway and eventually found himself in an isolated part of the campus, he leant back against the wall to give himself a minute to compose himself before unlocking his phone to search for Tony's number. "Tony this is Cale, I need you to call me back as soon as you fucking can, someone compromised my identity and the whole campus knows!" He hung up and shoved his phone back in his jacket pocket as emerald sparks jumped off his skin.
Fuck the fucking internet. Now that it was online, there was no way that the damage could be undone.
"Wow you really are like a giant human battery aren't you?" Cale looked up to see another student mark a place in her book before snapping it shut and getting off the bench she sat on. She tucked a strand of bright blue hair behind her ear and gave him the once over with an arched eyebrow. "Don't take this the wrong way but you're kinda scrawny for one of the Earth's defenders."
"Excuse me?!" Cale growled. He honestly didn't know how to take that, she didn't look angry at him or appear to be gawking. "I'm kinda in the middle of something that has nothing to do with you so leave me alone."
"First of all, this is my spot," she responded. "I come here when dealing with the hormonal idiots becomes too much and I was here first. You're kinda arrogant aren't you?" She tucked her book under her arm and grabbed her bag off the bench, "just cause your Harry Potter doesn't mean you get to be a jackass." She shoved the book in her bag and slung it over her back as Cale's phone started to ring. "If I were you, I wouldn't look at the comments on the video, they're downright nasty and borderline disturbing...I think it takes courage to be a hero and step up at the risk of your own life."
Cale hit the answer button when he saw Tony's name flash across the screen. "Um...thanks...I think?"
"See you around Caelum Turner." She made her way down the walkway and stopped at the end, "name's Amelia by the way. You never need someone to talk to, you'll find I'm a really good listener."
He nearly jumped ten feet in the air when he heard Tony shout his name on the other end of the phone. Cale pressed his lips together and lifted the phone to his ear. "Yeah Tony?"
"I'm at the student pick up with Happy, you're lucky I was on my way home from an early morning meeting," Tony told him. "Get your ass here now Cale. I've already called Fury to let him know what's happened. JARVIS is working on the footage but now that it's out there."
"Yeah, yeah I know," he sighed. "Once it's there there isn't a way to get it down. See you in a few minutes Tony." Cale hung up and practically raced through the lesser known corridors of the college campus until he spotted Tony's town car at the student pick up zone. He got into the car without taking note of the small crowd that had gathered and slammed the door behind him. "Tony I am so sorry!"
"What do you have to be sorry for?" Tony asked him as Happy started the car. "You didn't upload the video did you? But the damage is done now, we can't undo it. What we can do is damage control. Stark Tower Happy, Pep's gonna meet us there. " The man had his eyes practically glued to the screen of his phone as his fingers tapped away at a message so he could start that damage control he was speaking about.
Cale sat back and groaned. "This was not how I wanted my day to start. I did everything Nat and Clint taught me, I kept out of sight, I never used my powers in public and some little fuckwit uploads this to the online notice board just cause they can? Fuck them and the unicorn they rode in on. Stupid mortals."
Tony looked up from what he was doing. "Stupid mortals?" he quoted.
Caelum Matthew Turner your Loki is showing.
"Sorry, I guess I'm just tired and this is the icing on the cake." The last thing he needed was for the team to know he was hanging out with Loki in his dreams. Although thanks to the God of Mischief, Cale's powers were growing and he had a better, more stable grasp on them. The other night he'd managed to go the whole night without being dragged to the god's dreams, but the following day Cale was drained and too weak to get out of bed. It was a catch twenty-two really. The teenager sat back and stared out the window so he could watch the city as it went by, he stayed silent the entire trip, listening to the radio and Tony as he worked on controlling the fall out from this situation.
When they arrived at Stark Tower, Cale followed Tony into the lift that took them straight to the floor where the billionaire kept his private apartments. "Dump your stuff on the sofa and help yourself to a drink in the kitchen," he instructed as he called someone. "Fury will be here soon with Nat so we can figure out what is going on. For now, I think it's best if you get comfortable, you're gonna be here a while."
Tony left Cale standing in the middle of the room, leaving the teenager with no choice but to go and get that drink that was suggested to him. He took his jacket off and dropped it with his things before heading into the kitchen. By the time he'd managed to find the herbal tea and make himself a cup, a helicopter had landed on the helipad just outside the door. Cale crossed back over to the sofa and sat down beside his things as Fury came in with both Natasha and Maria Hill following him. "Director Fury."
"Care to explain this clusterfuck that I'm being bombarded with Caelum?" Fury demanded to know. "And explain to me who the hell Jake Reilly is to get that kind of footage in the first place?"
Cale stared at him with wide eyes and his jaw dropped. "Jake uploaded it?!" he asked him.
"That's what the data says," Tony answered as he walked back into the room. "Judging by the look on your face kid, you certainly know who he is. But that's not the problem."
"The problem is what you're gonna do with me now that everyone knows who I am," Cale sighed. He pinched the bridge of his nose, "what are you going to do?"
"Well for starters, you're moving in here," Tony answered before Fury could. "And you don't get to say yes or no in the matter Cale."
"Why?" Cale demanded to know. "I know you've been trying to get me to live off-base for a while now-"
"It's not that Cale," Natasha cut him off. "You're out now and there is nothing that we can do about it but the location of the base needs to be kept a secret. So moving you here to Stark Tower is the best and safest idea instead instead of the SHIELD facility. We're not trying to get rid of you Cale but it's better this way. You know it is."
"You can't all just decide this behind my back!" Cale argued. "That's just….that's just wrong and unfair." Despite the situation, he was pretty pissed off with choices being made behind his back.
Fury arched an eyebrow. "Wrong and unfair. Well toughen up kid, life ain't fair and you need to learn you don't always get your own way. You're moving in with Stark whist I try and smooth things over with the college if you want to keep going."
"Of course I want to keep going to school." Honestly Cale was surprised by the words that came out of his own mouth and if anyone ever asked him why he said them, the teenager would deny it every damn time. "Fine, dammit, you win. I'll move in here if that's gonna make it better," he growled at Tony.
"Great, Clint's coming with your stuff," Natasha told him. "You'll see it's better out here. You can be a proper teenager as best you can Cale." She clapped him on the shoulder affectionately and smiled in that typical Natasha fashion. "This will all work out, trust me."
Cale was pacing backwards and forwards across the room as he tried to wrap his head around what happened yesterday. It was well after midnight before the teenager managed to get himself to sleep, the day had managed to get worse as it progressed and eventually the teenager had to get JARVIS to automatically delete any emails that weren't from the usually subjects.
When he'd fallen asleep, he'd felt that telltale pull but tonight Cale was too tired to fight the dream walking. He was surprised to find that he wasn't in any of the usual places but instead the farm where his father had raised him until HYDRA came. This kind of crap was not what he needed to deal with today.
"Well this is different. A farm...how boring and quant." The trickster leant against the back of the sofa in the rusticly decorated living room with books scattered about. When Cale didn't take the bait, Loki straightened up and watched him walk to one side of the room then walk right over to the other side. "There seems to be something on your mind Caelum."
"No shit Sherlock," Cale scoffed. "I've just had a shit day and I was not looking forward to lessons where I get yelled at and called a foolish mortal. Someone I trusted betrayed me by posting a video of my secret identity online. The Battle of New York, I lost my mask and they found it. So I'm on house arrest and it fucking sucks." He sighed and stopped in the middle of the open sliding doors that lead out onto the deck. "What lessons do you have in place for me today?" he asked, not wanting to talk about his shit day anymore.
Loki crossed the room and stood beside him. "I'm going to teach you about Asgard's hidden paths between the realms."
