Chapter 2

Emily smiled and leaned back in her chair, putting her hands behind her head in a very relaxed manner.

"Emily…what the heck is that?!" Natasha asked, leaning forward and pointing to her right arm. Emily looked where she was pointing and saw that she let her sleeve slip down past her wrist, showing an articulate but simple black dragon tattoo that spiraled down her arm, ending with its head at the bottom of her wrist.

"Ya know, I don't fully know myself. I've had it since I can remember and all I know is that once, when I got really mad, it glowed funnily." Emily answered, pulling up her sleeve so everyone could see it all.

"Huh, you got any other tattoos or rebellious 'marks' I never knew about? Well, besides your wrist and ankle tattoos." Clint asked, grabbing her arm and pulling it across her so he could see it better.

"Maaaaybeee," Emily answered, dragging out the vowels. Clint just looked at her.

"You better tell me. I will find out."

"Well, come by my room later and I'll show you," Emily said as she winked at him and got up to check out her room. She heard Clint chuckle and knew he got it, with being oh-so close, Emily and Clint always joked about being "lovers" and calling each other "baby" or "sexy" or saying provocative comments like what Emily just said. It was just a joke. Always. When she reached her room, Emily immediately closed the door and flopped on the bed, before she knew it, she was asleep.

Emily jolted awake at the sound of knocking coming from her door. Whoever's knocking is gonna get it, and maaaan they're gonna get it bad. Emily thought to herself. She opened the door to find Clint.

"Of course it would be you who would wake me up."

"Sorry, didn't mean to interrupt your beauty sleep, God knows you need it." Emily then proceeded to playfully punch him in the arm and went over to sit on her bed. Clint followed, closing the door behind him.

"Fury told me to get you, he said for you to be down there ASAP." Clint said as he turned to leave.

"Damn Fury, an hour at the job and I'm already getting missions."

"Get used to it sweetheart," Clint said chuckling.

"Director Fury," Emily greeted, "Clint told me you wanted to see me." Fury turned away from a monitor to look at the girl, standing there with her hip jutted out.

"Yes, I want you to go and recruit your friends, Sarah Mason and Evelyn Fink. Next to you they're two of the smartest people in the US and we can use all the brains we can. I will give you two days and if you're not back by then we will all come find you and, if needed, drag you out. Understood?"

"Sir, yes sir." Emily said sarcastically and lazily saluted him. On the inside she was bursting with joy at getting to see her best friends again. She rushed to her room to pack, and then borrowed a jet to go recruit Sarah and Evey. She arrived in the local town very late at night and decided to rent a room in a hotel for the night since the ride to the town took nearly a whole day, which left her with only one day to recruit them.

"EMILY!" Emily looked toward the source of the shout to see her best friend running down the driveway, her long, brown, wavy hair flowing behind her.

"SARAH!" Emily shouted back as she jumped out of her car to run into a bear hug with her friend.

"Ah, I've missed you so much! Look at you! You dyed the tips of your hair blood red!" Sarah said.

"I know! I've missed you too! And yeah, do you like it?"

"No, I don't like it at all…I love it!" Sarah and Emily laughed as the started walking inside Sarah's small house she shared with the trio's third member, Evelyn Fink, or Evey, as she likes to be called.

"Eve! You'll never guess who's here!" Sarah shouted upstairs to her friend.

"Who? Aw, never mind, I'm coming." A voice shouted back down. Then Emily heard footsteps coming down the stairs and turned to see her other best friend.

"Emily! Wow, you look different! Wait, it's just the hair, isn't it?" Evey said.

"Yep, and I see you changed your hair too! Now going for the platinum blonde bob look?" Emily teased, hugging her friend.

"Yeah, you know me, once a blonde, always a blonde," Evey said, winking at Emily. The three of them walked into the kitchen and sat down to eat since Sarah had just made lunch which turned out to be their all-time favorite food, mac 'n cheese.

"So Em, what brings you to our humble abode?" Evey asked.

"Well, I'm now an Avenger-long story-and my boss, Fury, asked me to recruit you guys into S.H.I.E.L.D since you're so smart," Emily answered. Eve and Sarah looked at each other first, then both at Emily.

"Fine, but on one condition," Sarah started, "you have to have fun and party with us tomorrow since we haven't hung out in forever." Emily pondered this condition for a short while before answering.

"You guys drive a hard bargain, but I guess I have no other choice than to say yes." Emily finally said, a little bit of sarcasm hinting in her voice.

"Great! It's a club called The Zip at eight 'o clock tomorrow, be there or be square!" Eve said, as the girls finished their meal. Afterwards they hung out together and talked until they realized it was already one in the morning, then they decided to part ways, and sleep.

"Emily has over run her two day limit on this mission and is not answering her phone, so there is no contact to her," Fury said, debriefing the other Avengers on Emily's circumstance.

"Shouldn't we go look for her? She might be in trouble and we are very near to the town she's at," Steve said, a hint of worry and concern in his voice.

"Yes, that's why I called you all here. I've decided to send Stark, Barton, and Rodgers down to find her and bring her back, drag her back of you have to. Understood?" Three 'yes's were responded to Fury and everyone split up, Tony, Clint, and Steve all headed to a jet. By the time they had arrived in the town, it was getting close to midnight. They didn't find Emily, nor her friends, at their house, but after asking around they found out about the party at The Zip, so they decided to check there. Needless to say, the three Avengers were more than surprised at what they saw when they entered the club. The club itself was dark, only lighted by multiple neon lights swerving through the crowd, which was all in a cluster on the dance floor, drinks everywhere. But what shocked them the most was the person right in front of them, on the edge of the lit-up dance floor. It was Emily, and she was wearing a very short, very revealing, and very tight red cocktail dress, with a beer in one hand. The other hand was resting on the hand of a man she was grinding a little too dirty for their taste with that was slowing going up and down her thigh and his other was wrapped around her waist with the hand again a little too low for their liking. But to the Avengers' horror, she looked to be having the time of her life. Tony went up, grabbed her arm, and dragged her over, completely ignoring the protests of her dancing partner.

"What the hell were you doing?!" Clint shouted, barely hearing his own voice above the pounding music.

"Well I was havin' some fun," Emily slurred. That was obviously not her first beer. Just then Sarah came up and put her hand on Clint's shoulder to calm him down.

"Relax, she didn't come here to blow you guys off, she came because we told her we'd come with her if she had fun and partied with us for a night," Sarah explained.

"She's drunk, isn't she," Tony asked, more like stated.

"We agreed beforehand that I would be their designated driver," Sarah said.

In the middle of their talking though, no one noticed that Emily escaped and went to get yet another beer and continue dancing. This partner, however, wanted to do a little more than just dance, and Emily didn't want to. Steve noticed this and walked over to where they were.

"Excuse me sir, but I don't think this lady wants to go that far with you," Steve said as he gently grabbed Emily by the arm and started to drag her away until he was stopped by the man turning him and punching him square in the jaw. Steve fell and let go of Emily who gasped and immediately lost her drunkenness to bend down and help Steve up. The man wasn't having any of it though, and knowing that he was drunk past all consciousness didn't help at all. He attempted to punch Steve again, but he grabbed the man's incoming fist and punched him back. Next thing anyone knew, fists were flying everywhere, and a full-out club fight had started. Tony, worrying about Emily turned towards her just in time to watch her get accidently punched so hard she blacked out and fell back into Tony's arms. Tony carried her bridal-style out of the club to meet up with Clint who was already outside with Sarah and Evey. Steve soon came stumbling out, multiple bruises and cuts adoring his face and arms.

They let Sarah and Evey grab their things from their house and the group took off back to HQ, not a single word being said the entire time.
* * * *

Emily heard voices. She had just woken up and her eyes were still closed, but she heard them. Heck, who couldn't? They were screaming very loudly.

"Ugh, will someone get me some milk, tacos, and four asprin? And quit yelling, it's too loud," Emily complained, just wanting this hangover to end. She felt the spot next to her on the bed collapse as someone sat down. It was Tony, looking a little worried. Emily looked over him to see the entire Avengers team crowded into her tiny room, though Clint and Steve were standing by the door and away from her, both never making eye contact with anything but the floor. Tony ushered everyone else outside the room and he closed the door, walking back over to the bed and sitting down next to her.

"You had us all worried there, that guy punched you pretty hard and he got you right in the temple. Clint and Steve have been worried about you most though," Tony said. "Steve even refused to get looked at or sleep, all he wanted to do was be with you. He got banged up pretty bad and won't let anyone help." Emily sighed.

"Why are you all so worried about me? You barely know me," she questioned.

"Probably because Clint talks about you nonstop and we all practically know you through him. Though I guess you don't know us hardly at all. But I can tell you that Steve definitely has taken a liking to you with all the stories and pictures from Clint."
"Oh, and how would you know? Been stalking him lately, Tony?" Emily said teasingly.

"Every day, doll," Tony winked, "but I may have overheard him saying something…"

"Hmm, so Steve likes me…I guess it's a good thing I like him back, huh? Well I guess I should go talk to him, thanks Tony." She got up to leave.

"Oh and sweetheart, if you ever want to party, I'd be more than willing to help you out," Tony said, winking at her. She rolled her eyes, knowing perfectly well Tony's "Playboy" personality; she was, after all, an ex-Playboy bunny. But like hell would anyone ever find out besides Clint, who already knew and would tease her multiple times.

She walked out of the room and turned down the hall to go eat first and then find Steve and talk to him. As she was eating her tacos and drinking milk, Sarah and Evey walked in.

"Really, Em? Tacos and milk, for breakfast? That's a bad combo," Sarah said.

"Tacos and milk are hangover food, Sarah. You'd know if you ever got drunk enough to have a hangover," Evey replied, sticking her tongue out at Sarah.

"Yeah, welwe Sarwa," Emily said with her mouth full of food. "And asprin helps a ton too, just an FYI." The three friends laughed and reminisced about last night's party, then Emily left to find Steve. As she was walking down the hall with everyone's rooms, she spied an open door and heard the familiar sound of Steve's voice echoing out of it. She walked to the door and opened it a bit more to she Steve standing shirtless in his bathroom, looking into the mirror trying to clean off a nasty cut on his forehead.

"Here, let me help you," Emily said as she walked in and towards Steve.

"It's fine ma'am. I've got it." He replied, not even turning to look at her. Then he winced and gave a short yelp as he touched the cut wrong. Emily shook her head with a smile on her face and grabbed the towel out of his hands.

"Sit down on the toilet seat," she said as she got the towel wet and took out a bottle of rubbing alcohol, some cotton balls, and a box of Band-Aids. When she turned around though, he was still standing, so she gently pushed him down.

"Now stay there and hold still, this is going to sting." She wetted a cotton ball with a tiny bit of rubbing alcohol and started to gently clean the cut. Steve winced and pulled away, starting to get up and protest about 'him doing it himself.' Emily, yet again, pushed him down, but this time sat on his lap, straddling him, to keep him from even attempting to get up again.

"I'm only doing this to keep you down. Now I know this is going to hurt a lot, but it's deep and needs to be cleaned first so quit protesting!" Steve shut up immediately. Emily leaned forward and cleaned the cut, Steve wincing only at first before getting lost in her beautiful baby-blue eyes and thinking of cute she looked when she was concentrating on something.

"So why'd you do it? Why did you punch the guy?"

"He wasn't treating you how you deserve to be treated, and he wouldn't stop when you asked him to."

"I was fine. I can handle myself next time, thank you very much."

"Oh yeah, it looked like you were handling the situation just fine."

"For your information I was..." She trailed off as she finished applying the bandage and looked down, getting caught in his gaze, the both of them realizing how very few inches separated their faces.

"Fine, but I'll never let another man touch you or treat you like that ever again…"

Steve started to lean in and Emily closed her eyes, her heartbeat picking up pace as his soft lips pressed against hers and she kissed him back immediately. His arms wrapped around her waist as hers traveled up his chest to have one hand rest on his shoulder and the other get tangled in his hair, pulling him closer to her. His tongue glided across her bottom lip, asking for entrance but she decided to play hard-to-get and keep her mouth closed firmly, smiling slightly into the kiss. He bit her bottom lip and she gasped, giving him a chance to slip his tongue in, which he took. His hands slid lower to rest on her hips as the kiss deepened. Suddenly Emily pulled apart and looked into his eyes, biting her lip. Just that picture of her made Steve shiver and want her even more.

"I-I should go…" Emily said as she started to get up, but was stopped when she felt a hand grab her wrist and turn her around so her back was touching the door. His arms were on both sides of her head, and she looked down, a slight blush on her cheeks at the events that just happened. With his right arm still in front of her, preventing her from leaving, he put a finger under her chin and tilted her head so she had no other choice but to look up at him, since he towered over her at least a good couple of inches, and look him in the eyes. And they both melted, captivated by each other's gaze.

"Don't leave me. Ever." Steve said, and Emily just nodded, to in a trance by his eyes. He leaned down and kissed her again, this time not getting a fight when he asked for entrance. The kiss grew more passionate and he lifted her up and held her against the door, her legs wrapping around his waist naturally as his hands slid barely up her shirt. Clint, who had seen everything since they forgot to close the door, was furious and bounded inside and separated them, despite their protests. He grabbed Emily by her upper arm and started dragging her out. Emily struggled against him but Clint was stronger and taller, giving her very little chance of escape. She looked back at Steve, a slight blush and an apologetic look in her eyes as she mouthed 'I'll come back later' and he nodded, a smile on his face that he was able to make her blush like that.

Clint dragged her to her own room where he threw her on the bed gently. He looked at her for a while, taking in her flushed face, bruised lips, slight blush, messed up hair, and dreamy look. His instincts as a brother were going mad at how his little sister kissed, if you could even call that kissing, a man.