A/N: Serious warning guys, we've got some mild sexual content in this chapter, so I just thought I should give you all a heads up before you read on. Not to mention a 'not so surprising' appearance from someone I know you've been excited to see appear in this story. Thanks to everyone who's reviewed so far, I'm seeing a lot of support for Phoenix which is awesome, but she has a bit more to deal with in this story as do all the characters. But shush, spoilers. As always, please read, review and enjoy.
Natasha felt like giving the kids a day to adjust was necessary given the circumstances. Each of the kids had been sent to their rooms after Natasha gave them all a vicious talking to about their behaviour, which left a couple of them trembling in fear.
Natasha and Clint then sat outside Phoenix's bedroom, begging her to come out, but receiving silence as their answer. After four hours she finally emerged, and it took another five hours before she could speak, but blatantly refused to talk about what had happened with Heather. Natasha was just grateful she hadn't thrown herself out a window.
Phoenix didn't interact with the other teenagers until the next morning, when Natasha practically dragged them all out of bed shortly after dawn broke and lined them all up in the training room. Thankfully Maria had put together gym clothes, suitable for training, for each of the kids.
Clint stood beside her, looking up and down the row of dishevelled and exhausted teenagers with a raised eyebrow. Natasha had tried her best to line them up in an orderly fashion, but all of them except Phoenix had huddled together on one side of the room, while Phoenix stood by herself on the other side of the room.
Clint turned to Nat with his arms folded. "They need a name."
Natasha looked at him strangely, with her forehead creased. "Do you mean a team name?"
"Yeah that's exactly what I mean," he responded, nodding eagerly. Natasha opened his mouth, obviously going to argue but Clint spoke first." We can't exactly keep calling them 'The Kids' can we? We need something to identify them as a group."
Natasha looked them up and down, turning back to Clint and scoffing, she motioned a hand in their direction. "Look at them Clint, what hope do they have of ever being a team? We're not training the Avengers 2.0 here. They can barely stand to look at each other."
Overhearing the conversation, Heather piped up from where she was standing. "She's right we're not a team," Heather looked the most lively out of all of them, but the lines under her eyes were darkest. "We're not even superheroes. We're just a bunch of experiments."
Clint clapped his hands together triumphantly and grinned, much to the confusion of both Natasha and Heather. "Well there it is then. You're The Experiments."
The newly named Experiments looked around at each other, silently communicating on their feelings towards the new name. Most of them didn't appear to have a particular hatred towards it, except Heather. She huffed, and flared her nostrils. "That's a stupid name," she muttered.
"I like it," Phoenix spoke up from the corner of the room, smiling at Clint.
Heather scowled, which only increased Natasha's positive attitude towards their new name. Clint looked extremely smug as Natasha glanced over at him, she rolled her eyes in silent response and directly faced The Experiments. They seemed to have woken up over the past couple of minutes, which meant it was time to begin.
"You each possess a unique skill due to whatever serum you were injected with," Natasha stated the fact, and several of the kids looked down at their feet in shame. At the word serum, Phoenix tensed. "Due to your gifts, you are extremely desirable to all enemy forces, because they will want to use you as a weapon."
"Hydra already knows about your existence to some degree," Clint took over explaining for Natasha. "You need to learn how to defend yourself against enemy threats, and that is why you are here. So we can teach you how to protect yourselves."
The Experiments looked around at each other, silently communicating for a second time that morning. Natasha watched them look around at each other, Mark shook his head and Heather who glared at him in response. Josh and Bella shared a look, before both of them communicated with Heather.
Natasha watched in astonishment. From what she understood, all of The Experiments had not been together in one room since Heather had been present in the Tower when Phoenix and the other Experiments had attacked to deliver a warning on behalf of Doctor Blake.
They were communicating in the same way Natasha and Clint did, and the only reason the two of them could do that was because they had worked together for so many years. To communicate silently, with only glances to illustrate what they were saying, required an emotional bond that developed over several years. The Experiments were more closely linked than they realised.
When none of them spoke, Natasha motioned to the centre of the room where she had strategically placed a circular platform, roughly 4 meters in diameters and was roughly half a meter in height. "Go stand on that, and show us what you can do."
Her command was met with several confused and stubborn glances, so she pointed to Phoenix and gestured for her to stand by her side, which she did so without hesitation. "Phoenix will give you a demonstration so you know what I'm talking about."
Phoenix nodded in understanding and took to the centre of the room, standing on the podium and awaiting a command from Natasha. Natasha checked to make sure The Experiments were watching and they gave Phoenix her cue. "Begin."
Phoenix took a ready stance and ignited a flame in her hands. Moving her hands around in a martial arts movement, the flames moved with them, dancing around her as Phoenix moved. Phoenix thrust her hands forward, the flames shooting out from her palms, creating a trail of fire that circled around Natasha and Clint.
Phoenix moved her hands backwards towards herself, the fire changing it trajectory, it flew back to Phoenix, coating her arms before it faded away to nothing. Natasha signalled to Clint with one hand as Phoenix moved into another ready stance. Clint lifted his bow, arrow at the ready and fired.
The arrow's trajectory sent it flying towards Phoenix's shoulder. Phoenix moved her hands, and with a flame sparking in her palms, she swiftly jutted her hands to the left. The rush of air from the fire blew the arrow too far to the left, so it bypassed Phoenix entirely and harmlessly flew past her.
Clint fired three more arrows and Phoenix executed a similar moved each time to deflect them away from her body. Natasha gave her the cue to finish after the third arrow and Phoenix jumped down from the podium, walking to stand beside Natasha.
"That's how you do it," Natasha looked at Phoenix proudly before addressing The Experiments. "Now does anyone want to volunteer?"
They all looked at each other uneasily, but after a minute no one stepped forward so Natasha turned to Clint. He smirked and pointed to Joshua. "Joshua, let's go buddy. Up on the podium."
"He prefers Josh over his full name," Phoenix turned to Clint and corrected him. "The same goes for Marcus, Samuel and Isabella. They go by Mark, Sam and Bella, those are their nicknames."
Bella and Sam shifted uncomfortably at being named personally by Phoenix, while Josh looked extremely angry, Mark was the only one that didn't take it the wrong way, and actually looked surprised that Phoenix had remembered the facts about their names.
Clint shrugged and went along with the request, instructing Josh to get up on the podium which he did, but was obviously reluctant to the idea. He stood on the podium and looked at Natasha and Clint with his face scrunched up and arms folded.
"I don't know what you expect me to do," Josh huffed as he spoke bitterly. "My ability doesn't help me to defend against arrows."
"Just give us a demonstration and we'll go from there," Natasha fought the urge to roll her eyes.
Josh sighed dramatically and unfolded his arms. He seemed to realise that he could not argue against Natasha, so he exhaled a deep breath and tightened his face in concentration. Then, just like that, Josh vanished, and he became completely invisible.
Natasha had experience with retro-reflection panels and other devices that made certain object invisible. What Natasha saw, or rather what she didn't see, was something completely different. Usually, when using invisibility as a camouflage, you would be able to see the outline of a person or thing when they moved, if you looked closely enough. No matter how carefully Natasha scanned her surrounding, she couldn't see any sign of a shape or movement out of place.
"Impressive," Clint commented, sounding genuine as he looked around the room, searching for any sign of Josh. "Where are you anyway?"
"Over here," he called out from behind Natasha and Clint, appearing on the other side of the room, turning off his invisibility like it was a switch. "Am I done now?"
"Sure, go stand back in the line," Clint waved him away and Josh gladly resumed his place in the line next to Heather. Clint looked up and down the line, eventually settling on one face, Clint pointed to Bella. "You're up next, let's go."
Bella hesitated, but showed less resistance in taking to the podium. She struggled to stand on it, being the shortest, it took her a minute to lift up her leg and push herself onto the raised platform. Bella stood there for a minute awkwardly, unsure of what to do. Someone from behind her obviously egged her on, because Bella nodded in determination.
She raised her hands, palms upwards toward the ceiling, and within seconds a black mist began seeping out of her hands, soon she was engulfed by a black mist. The mist was so dark all light was completely purged from it and Natasha couldn't see through it.
The mist began spreading, and soon it was around Natasha's feet, creeping upwards towards her. Natasha wasn't sure how to react, the blackness moving towards her seemed eternal, and a small degree of panic sparked in Natasha's chest that she would be engulfed by this eternal darkness.
Bella obviously saw that the people around her were growing fearful so she made a movement with her hands, and the mist faded away until it had completely vanished. However Bella was not done yet, she held up a hand and clicked her fingers together.
The room was purged of all light as darkness flooded the room in a swift motion, making it impossible to see anything. Natasha was flooded with a sense of Déjà vu as she remembered back to when The Experiments had attacked the Tower, and Bella had used the exact same technique to enable them to break in and catch everyone by surprise.
Light returned to the room after a little less than a minute and Natasha breathed in relief once she could see again. Bella looked embarrassed as she stepped down from the podium and hurried back to where she had been standing earlier.
Clint seemed to have been affected heavily by Bella's power, looking ahead of him darkly, at nothing in particular. He came to his senses and corrected himself, looking at The Experiments who had still yet to give their demonstrations. He pointed to Mark and signalled him forward. "Ok Mark, show us what you've got."
Mark cracked his knuckles and stepped forward. Cockily, he strutted towards the podium and placed his foot onto it, stepping upwards in a leaping motion. He spun around and motioned to Clint in a 'bring it on gesture'. "Come on, fire some arrows at me."
Clint turned to Natasha, with a raised eyebrow, checking that he had permission from Nat before fulfilling Mark's request. Behind Natasha, Sam was chuckling while Heather and Bella shared an annoyed glance. Phoenix looked at Mark, intrigued by his actions.
Natasha gave Clint the all clear with a nod of her head, and he drew an arrow. Clint fired, and Mark moved like a blur, running at an impossible speed, he ended up on the other end of the room in a second. He grinned proudly, and gestured to Clint to keep the arrows coming
Shaking his head at Mark's arrogance, Clint drew another arrow. Yet again, Mark used his supernatural speed to run from the arrow and avoid being hit. Natasha watched as Clint fired five more times, each time Mark continued to get more and more insufferable.
Clint drew his eighth arrow, and winked at Natasha before fixing Mark with a devious smirk. As predicted, when Clint fired, Mark ran. However Clint had figured out Mark's pattern, and at the last minute, had aimed his arrow in a different direction.
The arrow hit Mark square in the chest, mid-run, and bounced off him. He stopped, and shell-shocked, looked down at the arrow on the ground with his mouth in an O shape, and then looked up at Clint, extremely stunned. "You hit me," he actually sounded like he hadn't expected it at all.
"Oh relax. The arrows are rubber tipped, they're not going to hurt you," Clint sighed, looking to Natasha with a satisfied grin, before turning back to Mark. "You gave it your best shot kid, but you're movements were predictable. You might wanna work on that."
With a hand over the spot on his chest where the arrow hit him, Mark moved back to where he was standing, his mouth opening and closing as he struggled to comprehend what had just happened. Natasha heard a soft and light, high pitched laughed coming from her right, and turned to see Phoenix with a wide grin on her face, and laughing.
Natasha looked at her in happy disbelief, and shared this expression with Clint, who looked extremely pleased, and smiled at Phoenix. She stopped laughing after half a second, smiling back at Clint, she put a hand over her mouth and bit her lip.
Clint mood significantly improved, he looked over the remaining two Experiments and pointed at Sam. "Alright let's go, up on the podium."
Sam looked hesitant, but shrugged, and walked up to the podium and stepped onto it. He looked like he was at a loss for what to do, and rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. "I'm really not sure what I'm supposed to do," he admitted honestly.
"What can you do?" Natasha asked. "In your own words, how would you describe your ability."
"Uh, basically I control electricity," he spoke, and then decided that wasn't quite right and corrected himself. "No I control electric charges, or electrical currents. I'm really not sure." An idea seemed to occur to him after a second and he looked up at the lights.
Sam squinted his eyes in intense concentration, focusing entirely on the ceiling lights. They began flickering, and as Sam progressed their flickering ceased, and they gradually grew brighter until Natasha actually had to look away because it was burning her eyes. The lights returned to their normal brightness as Sam focused his attention elsewhere.
He raised a hand dramatically, and as he brought his arm down in a sharp motion, a bolt of lightning came down from the ceiling and struck to the left of Sam. It seemed to strike closer to Sam then he had intended, and he jumped away from it in shock.
He chuckled nervously as he stepped down from the podium, mumbling an awkward apology as he passed Natasha and Clint on his way back to stand beside Bella again. "They're difficult to aim."
Natasha and Clint shared a glance, before looking at the remaining Experiment who had yet to participate in the demonstration. "Heather," Clint pointed to her. "Lucky last, come on, up on the podium."
Heather flicked her hair over her shoulder and folded her arms, quite determinedly rooted to the spot where she stood. "I refuse to take part in this freak show," she spoke flatly, bitterly glaring at both Natasha and Clint. Although at the word freak, she took a particular note of looking pointedly at Phoenix.
Natasha kept an eerie calm to her mannerisms, while Clint was struggling to keep a lid on several snide remarks he wanted to direct towards the girl, particularly in defence to Phoenix. "What we're doing here Heather, is trying to get some sense of what your abilities are, so we can teach you how to correctly use them," Natasha spoke in a factual tone.
Heather debated Natasha's words, and huffed angrily when she discovered that she had no quick retort to what she had said. "I'm not getting up on that podium like a show pony. I have telekinesis, it's not exactly a complex ability," she snapped. "Besides, you've seen what I can do already."
Natasha accepted what was Heather's best attempt at a peace offering. Clint turned his back to Heather and murmured to Natasha. "I thought she enjoyed putting herself on display for everyone to see."
Natasha hid a smirk, and looked at the six teenagers laid out in front of her. The Experiments. Natasha sighed and shook her head. Training them was going to be a nightmare.
For Natasha it had been a spectacularly long and tiring day. Give her thirty armed Arab bandits with a secret payload of dynamite that they were moving to Syria any day, but six dysfunctional teenagers with superpowers? Not exactly a situation Natasha enjoyed.
She nearly sat down in the shower when she turned on the amazingly warm water. One of the best things about the newly christened Avengers Tower was the heating system. She stood with her eyes closed for a minute, letting the water trickle down her back and the steam from the heat fog up the glass around her.
Natasha stood there for a minute, having a rare moment to herself where she could be distracted and relax. That moment ended when she opened her eyes saw the silhouette of a person through the foggy glass, watching her on the other side of the shower door. It didn't take long for Natasha to analyse the person's body shape and identify them.
"Are you going to stand out there and watch, or are you going to come in and join me?" Natasha asked him with a smirk gliding across her face.
As she spoke, she tried her hardest not to turn around and look at him, instead she faced the showerhead and let her face be pelted with the hot water. She heard him enter, and felt him place his hands gently on her hips, pulling her backwards until she felt her skin brush against his.
"You know it's rude to stare at people while they shower," Natasha murmured, teasing him slowly as he nipped at her neck playfully.
"And you know it's rude to have hot, steamy showers without me," he responded, whispering into the crook of her neck. He hands traced lower, past her hips, gently gliding across her bare skin. Natasha placed her hands over his, grabbing them and pulling them upwards, wrapping his arms around her waist.
Clint grabbed her tighter by her waist, turning her around so she faced him, he pushed her up against the glass wall of the shower. He stared at her for a second, smiling as he pushed a strand of wet hair behind her ear. Natasha bit her lip, and cupped his face in her hands, pulling his mouth down until their lips connected.
The kiss became more intense as Clint pressed against Natasha and she slid up the wall. She wrapped her tight legs around the midsection of his body and began kissing him from above, her tongue deepening the kiss. Clint smiled in pleasure behind the kiss, and held Natasha tighter, his fingers digging into the bare skin of her back.
Natasha broke away from his mouth, breathing heavily, she smirked down at him, satisfied to see the pleasured look on his face. She bit her lip and he exhaled a husky breath. "Bedroom," he suggested with a cocky grin and Natasha returned his expression.
"I thought you'd never asked," she slowly traced one finger down his lips and past his chin, travelling further down his chest, teasing him lightly. Slowly, Natasha unclenched her legs and slid down off his body, her feet lightly hitting the ground.
With a swift movement, Natasha turned off the taps that kept the shower running, and grabbed Clint by his hands, physically yanking him out of the shower and pulling him into the bedroom. He stood just before the foot of the bed, and Natasha pressed herself against him, fiercely pressing her lips against his, their tongues travelling deeper into each other's mouths.
Natasha broke away from the kiss, and shoved him onto the bed. Clint fell backwards onto the bed, and laughed and Natasha climbed on top of him and slowly lowered her mouth down towards him. Natasha arched her back as she kissed him again, and then slowly leaned forward, their skin meeting as her body came down on top of his.
Clint lost his patience and didn't want to go slow anymore. He grabbed her hips and pulled her down hard, their bodies pressed against each other. Natasha put her hands on his chest, and while pinning him down she grinned slyly. "We probably shouldn't be doing this right now," she whispered.
"Do you want to stop?" Clint asked letting his hands drop from her hips.
Natasha grabbed his hands and put them back where they had been earlier. "Of course not," she scoffed.
Clint grinned and pulled her back on top of him, so they were completely pressed up against each other, with barely any space to breath. Their bodies moved together naturally, fitting together perfectly as they passionately traced their hands over each other.
A knock on the door slapped them both back into reality with a sudden jolt. Natasha sat up, unaware that she was straddling Clint as she stared at the door with a stony expression. Clint sighed in annoyance. Natasha began slapping his chest as she still stared at the door.
"Get out of sight," she hissed at him. Reluctantly, Clint sighed, rolling off the bed, in the opposite direction to the door, and hit the floor with a 'thump'. Natasha rose to her feet and looked around for something to put over herself.
As Natasha grabbed a towel to wrap around herself, whoever was outside knocked on the floor again. Clint looked up over the top of the bed, curious to see what was happening, but ducked back down again as Natasha moved to open the door.
Tony did a double-take when he saw Natasha wearing nothing but a towel, and it took him a minute before he could form words. "Um," he looked Natasha up and down before shaking his head to force himself back to reality. "I'm looking for the Hawkman, have you seen him anywhere?"
"Not since earlier today," Natasha shook her head and leaned against the door, while keeping one hand holding her towel in place.
Tony fell for the lie far too easily and nodded. "Wonderful. I've looked everywhere for the guy but he's got to be hiding in the vents or something," he sighed, annoyed that he still had yet to find Clint. "If you do see him, please inform Katniss that the new arrows he requested from me are ready to be tested."
"I'll let him know if I see him," Natasha smiled as she watched Tony give her one last up and down looked before he walked away, and closed the door very quickly once she was satisfied he had moved far enough away.
Natasha threw the towel across the room as she turned around to look at Clint, who had laid himself out on the bed, waiting for Natasha to finish her conversation. They stared at each other for a while, until they both began laughing.
It was a cold night, a light wind was rustling the trees on the edges of a dark clearing. Empty, at least until a sound like a blasting rush of air pierced the silence of the night. A man appeared in the clearing, seeming to be a dark spirit that had come to life from the darkness.
The man appeared, leaning forward on one knee, head bent towards the ground. Slowly he looked up, observing his surroundings with a dangerous glint in his eyes. The man rose to his feet, dark hair falling in his face. He wielded a golden sceptre in his hands, which rose to a height taller than him, and glinted in the light of the moon.
Loki observed his surroundings. "Earth," he grinned devilishly. "How good to be back."