A new chapter is up yay! It is scary, yet relieving writing this story because I know the story will go from start to finish. Why is it scary? It is scary writing this because despite of all of the Agents of Shield, the Marvel films I have watched, and all the other fanfics I have read, I still feel like I am going to screw up the canon characters. But it's a fanfic right? So many things can happen in fanfiction!

As I continue to write this story, I figured out that it might not be very long. As an estimate to how long it will be, my estimate is roughly less than twenty chapters depending on how much happens within each chapter and the amount of editing I do. Thank you for your support on following and even favoriting this story! I really, really appreciate it! And even though I replied to the only comment on this story, I am sure if you are reading this by now you already figured out it's not exactly like the musical. Of course, I did start it off that way but that is how this story started off fo rme in my head and where I gained the inspiration to sit down and write all of this.

Thank you for reading!

Disclaimer: I do not own any rights to Marvel and Annie or it's characters. The girls in the foster home and Ceri are based on the orphans from the musical Annie.

Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Tony kept procrastinating against seeing if the girl was alright. She hasn't been back to the tower screaming her head off at all, so it has to be a good sign. Right? He kept himself busy working with J.A.R.V.I.S. and every now and then with Pepper on the tower, shaping it up to be the new Avengers Tower. He felt it suited right to name and design the building after the team instead himself.

But Jennifer and Alessandra Perez still lingered in the back of his mind. He had encountered many people that was suspicious ever since the battle in the city, but why did they catch his attention? He swore he sometimes saw them outside of his tower. Hell, just then he swore he saw the kid's foster mom outside...

He wasn't hallucinating.

Outside was none other than Ceri Torres, Lessa's foster mother, screaming up at his tower by the entrance. Tony groaned and told J.A.R.V.I.S. to let her through the door but not anywhere else. He went down to meet her.

"Tony Stark where is Alessandra?" Ceri screeched at him in the lobby. Her worn face reddened with fury and it looked like she hadn't slept in days from the bags under her eyes. And the rumpled jeans and blouse she wore that looked as if it she put it on in a rush.

Tony rose an eyebrow. "What do you mean? I haven't seen the girl since I took her back home."

Ceri let out a deep raspy laugh and staggered towards Tony with a pointed finger. "Don't play with me. Alessandra is not home and I heard the girls mentioning how she was coming back here. Now where is the kid?"

"Uh," Tony was at a loss of words. His stomach sank at the wake up call that his uneasiness that he felt about the whole situation with the girl felt. "She's gone?"

"Yes. I already called the police if you were wondering and nothing," Ceri growled. "I have searched myself too all over this goddamn city to find no Alessandra running around with that worthless dream of hers. She is in this building and I know it."

"Look, I apologize, but I would have known if she was somewhere here." He swallowed not knowing how else to continue.

The fury in Ceri's face vanished and she burst into tears. Covering her face with her hands, she wept. "I never thought I would be distraught over her after all the trouble she caused. You know, I know all the history of the other little girls and why they are in the system, but nothing on her," she choked out between sobs. "She just appeared out of nowhere with a couple of social workers on my doorstep. I just - I just..." Walking up to Tony, she laid her forehead on his shoulder and continued to cry into her hands.

The action caught Tony by surprise and he stood frozen. He was terrible at trying to comfort people, let alone someone close to him. Now there he was standing in the small lobby of the what is to be the new Avenger's Tower with a strange woman sobbing on his shoulder. "When was the last time you saw her?" He asked.

Lifting her head, Ceri wiped her tears away with the back of her hand. "Two days ago after she came home."

Tony thought back to the previous day with Lessa standing outside his tower. "Not even yesterday?"

"No. Usually she just disappears during the day, but she always comes home once it gets dark outside. I don't think she even realizes that I notice her returning, but I do!"

"Okay, okay. How about you go home, keep an eye out and let the police do their work."

"Will you help find her?" Ceri asked.

Tony hesitated, but nodded. "Yeah I will."

Smiling, Ceri threw her arms around him, causing him to stumble back. "Thank you so much!"

"You're welcome. You can let go now." He unwrapped her arms from around his neck and held her at arms length. With one last smile and word of gratitude, Ceri left the building.

Once the door closed and locked, Tony didn't move. The footage from outside of the tower replayed in his mind. Jennifer looked back at Alessandra as she ran away and disappeared and now Alessandra disappeared as well. They have to be connected. Now it's up for Tony to figure out how and where they were. NO one shoud bring a child into the mess of the unnatural world that the Avengers faced everyday.

Jennifer took Lessa to her temporary home a few hours away from Manhattan. It was strange for Lessa to see the countryside after living in the city for all her life. It was foreign to her. The two were there in a blink of an eye that caught Lessa off guard. Jennifer didn't explain how they had gotten there in less than a minute and Lessa didn't want to ask just yet.

The home was small and a little run down. The bathroom, kitchen, and small room that Jennifer gave Lessa wasn't clean and it made Lessa want to clean for once. There were two rooms on either side of the short and narrow hallway. The carpet had a yellow tinge to it and Lessa knows by the color it wasn't intended to be that way. The walls were also a bit yellow with lots of markings on it all throughout the house and the kitchen had little food in it.

By the time she was trying to get comfortable on the cot Jennifer had set up, she began to regret her choice on coming. How could she just leave like that without even considering the promise that she made to the other girls? What about little Angie who has looked up to Lessa and depended on her to help her with her homework? Who would stand up for her against Lexi?

A few hours beforehand, "dinner" came in two boxes from a take-out restaurant in the city. Jennifer said that they were going to travel around. Lessa asked why there were going to.

"I need you to help me with very important things, Alessandra," Jennifer said as she twisted her noodles with a platic fork.

Lessa took a bite of chicken and swallowed. "What kind of things?"

"Very important things that will change the world for the greater good." Jennifer smiled warmly at her daughter. Lessa felt uncomfortable when she smiled at her. Whatever the "things" were, made Lessa also uncomfortable. But she shrugged it off. Jennifer was her mother and children can trust their mothers. Right?

Lessa wasn't so sure as she stared at the cracked wall in the tiny room. They planned to be there for a few days once Jennifer finished a "thing." Lessa wasn't needed for that luckily, but Jennifer reassured her that she will help for whatever they were going to next.

They moved around five times in the matter of three weeks. The chores that Jennifer sent Lessa to do scared her. She had to sneak in buildings, steal objects,lie, run from the police, and learn how to hack and steal files from S.H.I.E.L.D.

"It's for the greater good," Jennifer always said. "You will see how in the future. The world will be at peace and there will be no more bad people."

Lessa mentally scoffed at her choice of words. Despite reminding Jennifer her age, her mother still always talked to her as if she was seven and not eleven. Over the past three weeks, Lessa had learned how do things she never even dreamed of learning. She could hardly believe she could do any of those in the matter of three weeks, but she did. Lessa didn't know what to think of it but her mother praised her all the time.

"WHat is S.H.I.E.L.D., mom?" Lessa asked one night.

Setting down the papers she was looking over, Jennifer was silent.

"Mom?"

A dark look grew in Jennifer's eyes during the silence that made Lessa regret asking. She covered herself with a thin blanket on the cot.

"Do you remember the story about the organization that I told you when we first met?" Jennifer finally said.

Lessa nodded. "Yes."

"S.H.I.E.L.D. is that organization. The people who run it have twisted sick minds. S.H.I.E.L.D. was founded on the idea to help and saves people from abnormal threats. For example, alien invasions and... and people with abnormal abilities. If they suspect or find out anyone with abilities they strip their family from them and perform tests on them while locked away."

"What kind of tests do they do?" Lessa whispered, taking all the information and relating it to the many files she had recovered.

"Terrible ones no living being should ever go through. And it's our job to help take them down along with others working inside the walls of the organization." Jennifer clenched her teeth as she spoke. Over the time her daughter traveled with her, Jennifer tried to remain calm and nuetral. Her wall started to crack as she spoke of S.H.I.E.L.D.

That was all Jennifer spoke of S.H.I.E.L.D.

With the software on a computer she retrieved one day, Lessa typed in her old address for a satellite view. Of course it was just a picture and she couldn't see any of the girls, but it made her home sick. She missed home so badly. She missed being sassy with Ceri and the late night talks with the girls. That, and her stupid plan to ask Tony for the promise she made to the girls didn't work at all. She may never ask him.

Lessa absorbed the image in her mind. She remembered the detail of the brick building and the street she played on knowing it would be the last time she it.

Lessa swallowed the lump in her throat hoping it wouldn't be the last time after what her mother had planned to do the next day.