I couldn't wait to get to this chapter.
Year Four: The Not-Final Exam Part One
Nineteen Years Ago - Barton Household
"So, here's the plan," four-year-old Xavier starts.
He and his friends look at the top of the pantry shelf where there sits a box of Avengers-themed cereal, even featuring Ant-Man and the Wasp after recent team missions with them went public. Clint managed to get a box and won't let Merida or even Natasha open it. It had all their parents at fun cereal pieces, their weapons and blast shapes as marshmallows, and each box had a toy of one of their parents.
Clint wouldn't open the box, much to Merida's begging. So now there are seven pairs of eyes looking up at a box they couldn't reach.
"Apollo and I will be the base of a pyramid," Xavier says, "or the triangle-looking thing."
"Pyramid," Daniel clarifies. "You'll probably need a base of three."
"Right. So then Angela joins us."
"Why do I have to be the base?" Angela frowns. "You and Apollo always use that chance to beat me up. Why can't I make a plan?"
"Cause you don't know what a pyramid is."
Angela glares before she launches herself at Xavier and pummels him to Merida's kitchen floor. Apollo steps over them to grab an opened box of Pop-Tarts that was on the lower shelf. He looks at the fruit flavour for a moment, hesitating since it's not his go-to flavour, but shrugs before helping himself. A Pop-Tart is a Pop-Tart regardless. He'd offer one to the others but why would he share? A Pop-Tart is still a Pop-Tart.
"I just wanna see the toy," Emily says. "Merida and James have a higher chance of it being their parents. Like 25% more each." She looks over at Daniel who's already smiling at her. She grins a little. "My parents won't buy me sugary cereal, even if my dad's face is on the box. Maybe that's why Mom won't buy it."
"Dad said the toy in our box was of him," Merida says. "He wouldn't get any other box."
"How would he know?" James asks. "They don't say who's the toy on the box."
Merida shrugs. "He just does. Okay, I have a plan."
Before Merida explains, she leaps on Apollo and climbs him like a spider monkey to get onto the counter. Apollo coughs, choking on his Pop-Tart and spitting it out when Merida kicks the back of his neck on her climb. She stands on the counter, looking at the top shelf with no other plan. She looks at her toy bow in her hand and forgot her quiver of rubber suction cup arrows in her room.
"Wait, I know how to fly," James states.
-o-
Present Day - Academy Training Archipelago - 8:47 AM
After short notice of an impromptu field practice drill, Angela, Xavier, James, Merida, and Daniel sit in a quinjet all in SHIELD training uniforms and armed. Angela ties her hair back as Merida tweaks one of her arrowheads to pass the time. Xavier watches Daniel type a lab report next to him as James sleeps on Xavier's shoulder. Across from them are their SOs. Bonnie and Iyu chat amongst themselves while BV minds her business with a novel and Nine peers over her shoulder to read along. Apparently, Vander was meeting them there.
Once they're starting to land, the SOs are up first. BV stands in front of Daniel, waiting for him to finish a thought before he closes his laptop and hands it to her. They step out of the quinjet as a group and see a SHIELD headquarters building in the middle of a vast tropical island and various subset buildings nearby. It almost resembles a hotel resort. Various trees litter the island filled with rocks and sand. There are higher elevation points further out and the ocean surrounds them.
"I should've worn sunscreen…" Merida mutters, squinting her eyes.
"Welcome to the Academy's Archipelago, one of our more advanced training areas," Bonnie introduces.
"I can't say anything," Bonnie mutters. "I've never been here before."
Nine looks around. "I did some research here once. Gorgeous this time of year."
"Avenger babies, we'll practice as a team," Iyu says. "Not a whole team, but close enough. Where's Vander?"
As if on cue, Vander walks out of the main SHIELD building on the island. He holds open the door and Iqadi walks out with Emily behind her in the same SHIELD training uniforms as them. They know Emily probably made a fuss about the ugly uniforms, but she has an iced coffee to appease her. She smiles widely as she runs over to Daniel and kisses him on the cheek. He holds her face for a moment before kissing her quickly.
"Most of the band…" Xavier mutters.
"Nicer than SHIELD Island," Vander comments about the archipelago. He claps Xavier's shoulder. "You'd never want to go to that one."
"Noted," Iqadi responds.
"Oh no, I say only about Stark being here," Xavier says.
"You wanted movie shit, so here," Iyu responds.
"I never said I wanted movie stuff."
James puts up a hand. "I did."
Angela laughs. "Movie stuff sounds fun."
"Are we grading them on this?" Nine asks. "Whatever this is. I ignored the email."
"This is an assignment?" Iqadi asks. "I thought this was for amusement and practice."
Emily raises her iced coffee. "If this is one, can I get a transfer credit?"
"I'll look into that," Bonnie responds, "only cause you haven't bothered me yet."
Emily nods as she cheers her drink to Bonnie.
"Welcome to your panic room," Iyu says, oddly smiling which makes Merida uncomfortable.
Iqadi smiles the same way. "How exciting."
Iyu glances at her. "I like her."
"Didn't you watch the video I sent you of her beating up the Rogers twins?" Bonnie asks.
"Let's rewatch it while the kids are running amuck."
Merida, Angela, and Xavier all look at each other, trying to figure out what they're doing here. Their email just said to show up at the docking building at 6 AM in their training uniforms and gear. Daniel had to borrow one from James since he doesn't have one. They didn't even know that Emily and Iqadi were showing up.
Emily saunters over to Xavier. "I made you something."
"What?" He asks, scared of what it could be.
Emily hands over her iced coffee for him to hold. She takes off one of her bracelets and clips it onto his wrist.
"I'm doing a project on holographic technology and density with malleability," Emily explains. "You know, tools to use in the medical field or the battlefield. It's not the real thing, but it's close enough."
Emily pushes a button on the bracelet and a holographic shield lights up in front of them. It looks static like you could phase your hand through, but Emily smacks it and it's hard metal.
"Not exactly vibranium but I've fired guns and went at it with a chainsaw with no damage," she explains. "This is still a prototype, though."
"I like it," Vander says.
Xavier looks at it, moving his wrist around to see the shield move. "Wow, Stark, I don't know what to say."
"I'd like a report when you're done using it solely for improvements."
Daniel walks over to his SO. "BV, what am I supposed to do here? I didn't even do my field test."
BV shrugs. "That's what I told the other agents alongside Stark frolicking around the globe and Princess Iqadi having her own specialized training."
"And?"
"You'll adapt and restrategize," Vander says.
BV points at him. "That."
"You'll run into a series of tests along the island," Bonnie explains. "There's no time limit or destined path to follow."
"Have fun!" Nine yells.
-o-
They weren't given any instructions except to start trekking through the island. There wasn't even a carved path in the ground so they just walked straight ahead, heading uphill. Emily finished her iced coffee before they started so she could leave her cup with Vander and then hold Daniel's hand.
"You've never been here before?" Iqadi asks.
Xavier shakes his head. "Nope."
"We all got an email last night saying we were going on a little excursion," Angela explains.
Emily laughs. "You had a week's notice? They called me this morning."
"As with me," Iqadi says.
"What kind of tests are they going to make us do anyway?" Merida asks. "Cracking opening coconuts or building sandcastles?"
"Making smoke signals," James suggests sarcastically.
"Building campfires."
"Hunting," Iqadi says, "fighting feral wildlife."
"Foraging for food," Angela adds. "Distinguishing poisonous berries."
Merida groans. "I fell asleep in that class."
Xavier nods. "Me too."
James laughs. "That class made me hungry."
"We all purposely bought berry pies after," Daniel says. "Blueberry, strawberry, whatever a boysenberry is."
Iqadi perks. "Oh, I like a boysenberry pie."
"If Apollo were here, he'd be bored already," Emily says. "He'd wonder when the test would happen and complain if it was too simple and a waste of his time."
Daniel sighs. "Britney would've pushed him off a cliff and called him a waste of time."
They walk silently, all thinking that it's been four years without a single word from the Asgardians. Most of the band is back together as of now. They've reached a point where they don't know how to talk about their absence since they don't know what to say or do about it.
They reach an opening in the trees and all step out to a cliffside overlooking the ocean at the edge of the island. A salty breeze whips past them as they look ahead at a skinny beam connecting two islands on the archipelago with the rushing ocean below. It's the view they saw from the island's headquarters which they can't spot from high up anymore.
"Lucky none of us are afraid of heights," Angela says.
"Are you insane?" Emily asks. "We can barely stand straight on flat ground without the wind teetering us all around."
"I'm flying," James states.
Iqadi rolls her shoulders back. "As will I, but I will calm the winds down from the other side."
James shrinks as she whitens her eyes and summons the winds in her open palms. They both soar over the cliff's edge and land, him growing back to his normal size.
"Fucking flyers," Merida grumbles. "Britney would've just magicked across, maybe punted Apollo. Hell, she would've magicked us."
Iqadi opens her arms, bringing them back at her sides and the winds calm.
"Hold on," Merida says.
Merida fires an arrow across the stretch and secures itself onto a tree. Merida stabs the other end into a tree on their side. She grabs Angela's grappling belt buckle and extends the rope to clip it onto her arrow's wire. Xavier, Daniel, and Emily copy.
"It'll help with balance and if any of you fall over, they should stay tethered," Merida explains. She pauses. "Wait."
Merida fires another arrow into the same tree and it sticks. She backs up and takes a running start off the cliff, calling herself to the arrow and swinging across, climbing the other cliffside before being pulled up by James.
"Fucking flyer," Xavier cusses. "Alright, let's go."
He opens an arm to the bridge. None of his friends move.
"Me?" Emily asks. "Hell no. You go first, team leader."
Xavier looks at her. "Stark-"
"Emily-" Daniel tries to interject before Emily glares at him.
"Oh, not you too," Emily says sternly.
"Fine!" Angela exclaims. "I'll go first."
Angela peers over the edge before taking a step on the creaky wooden bridge. She takes small steps, barely lifting her feet before feeling Daniel step on behind her followed by Stark and then Xavier.
They manage to walk halfway silently since Stark's too scared to speak, but then the winds and ocean waves pick up. They teeter, holding onto their cables.
Iqadi screams as she tries to regain control but a chopper flies in. Agents rappel out and storm in on the other side. James shrinks and starts blasting as he flies ahead and Merida loads her bow.
On the bridge, the chopper flying in starts firing at them. Xavier whips the holographic shield as Angela, Daniel, and Emily start running across. Being further ahead, Angela unclips herself and jumps the rest of the way, hooking her legs around the agent's shoulders before using her upper body to spin them to the ground.
Merida swings her bow before using it to hook an agent onto her. She leaps forwards to barrel-roll him off the cliff (he'll be fine; it's a test) and catches herself on the edge to climb back up.
Iqadi fires lightning at the chopper, filling the sky with dark clouds.
The bridge is being worn down by the rapid gunfire, strings being unwoven and splinters shooting up. Xavier sees a final thread holding up a side. He quickly looks ahead and lunges forwards with the shield, knocking Daniel and Emily onto the other side as the bridge collapses. The chopper flies off and Iqadi stops the lightning. Her eyes turn back to brown.
Daniel coughs and readjusts his glasses as Xavier. He looks over at Emily and she nods, signalling that she's okay.
"Love football," Daniel grumbles sarcastically.
"Let's go," Xavier says as he starts running into the jungle.
-o-
As they continue walking, Angela and Xavier start discussing strategies on how to pass this weird test. Iqadi keeps her eyes on the sky, tracking cloud patterns. Daniel walks by her side, listening to her cloud rambles since he would rather be anywhere else. Merida and James conspire about what other stupid tests will happen here.
Emily takes another step and feels her other foot catch onto something, probably her stupid SHIELD-standard laces untied and caught onto a branch. She told Vander this training uniform was ugly and this is a reason. Emily turns back and sees both of her feet submerged in the mud at her ankles, slowly delving up to her knees.
She can't move. Stupid quicksand.
"I should've sent the Academy to voicemail," Emily mutters. "Hey, guys! Found the next stupid test!"
They all turn around and Daniel immediately runs over before James grabs him.
"Watch where you step!" James yells.
Daniel leans forwards and grabs her arms, trying to pull her out. Angela and Xavier eventually take over for it not to work. Emily's down to her waist as Iqadi tries to use the winds to help and James fires at the quicksand. Even when Merida used her bow to try and pull her out, no budging.
"My arms will break off!" Emily cries.
"SHIELD wouldn't kill her," Iqadi reasons. "Let her go. She'll find us."
"What?" Emily asks.
Daniel nudges Iqadi. "Are you insane?"
"It's manmade," Iqadi reasons. "I'm not going to break her arms over this. Besides, if they wanted to kill any of us, it'd be Merida or James."
Those two aren't even offended because she's right.
"No! Emily!" Daniel yells.
"We can think of something else," Merida suggests, still pulling on her bow.
Emily now has sand up to her neck. "Not a lot of time."
Angela exhales sharply, breath shaking. "Xavier-"
"Did we have a fucking class on quicksand?" Xavier responds.
"I'm so sorry for this," James says.
He shrinks and fires rapidly at everyone so they would jump back. Merida lets go of her bow meaning she lost grip on Emily. James fires non-stop at the quicksand surrounding Emily, bursting holes in it that quickly fill. Once he's close enough, he flies through one of them just as Emily sinks through.
"Oh god…" Daniel mutters, starting to panic and pace. "I hate it here."
"Shockingly, quicksand wasn't on my movie shit list," Merida states.
"If the quicksand was manmade, then let's think of this like plumbing," Xavier guesses.
Iqadi nods. "It's a system. A test. They probably wanted to split us up anyways."
"I don't care about that," Daniel says.
"Probably wanted to gauge some reactions too." Xavier gestures to Daniel glaring at him. "Remember the Trolley?"
"Fuck the trolley."
"Let's go. They'll be fine," Angela says.
"When have we ever said anyone was fine with Stark and Pym?"
Angela pauses. "Tomorrow."