5. Avengers (5)

          When I walked in, I was going to lie on my bed but passed my mirror. I stopped to look at myself in it and inspected my features. How could I not have noticed it before when we looked so similar? I had his face shape and his eyes. Blue-green eyes. The only physical differences were my brown hair and build. I smiled to myself, thinking about how I now knew that I was my father's look-alike. I continued to think about our similarities and realized that even our personalities were quite similar. Feeling a little better, I decided to return to the control room and maybe stop by where Uncle Clint was.

When I arrived at the room Uncle Clint and Aunt Natasha were in, I almost bumped into Steve, who was suited up. Aunt Nat and Uncle Clint were walking out too.

"Hey, Kiddo," Uncle Clint started.

"Uncle Clint, are you ok? What's going on?" I begged for information.

"We're going to stop Loki," Aunt Nat explained. Steve put a hand on my shoulder and spoke,

"We could use someone in here that knows what we're doing."

I smiled at him and nodded. We all walked toward the hangar to the Quinjets after Aunt Nat, Uncle Clint, and Steve had grabbed all their things. The three heroes picked a Quinjet and walked inside while I waited right outside. An agent had been in there and tried to stop them,

"Hey, you guys aren't authorized to be in here."

"Son," Steve started, "Just don't."

I giggled, and the agent left the Quinjet with a sour look on his face. I shouted out to Uncle Clint, Steve, and Aunt Nat,

"Be careful! And Steve."

He walked closer to me, "I know we don't know each other that well, and we don't really know what our relationship is, but I do know that I would be very relieved and happy if you came back alive." I stumbled a bit on my words, scared that he was going to say that he didn't want anything to do with me. To my surprise, though, he chuckled,

"Don't worry, Katie. I found out this morning that I have someone very important to stay alive for."

I shyly smiled and backed away as Uncle Clint started the Quinjet. I headed toward the control room as quickly as I could. When I got there, I saw that Uncle Nick and Aunt Maria had already found out that Loki had been found. He spotted me and noticed I was feeling better,

"I'm assuming things are going well with your father?"

I nodded and went to help Aunt Maria get the communications back up.

I was incredibly worried about Aunt Natasha and Uncle Clint, and I was also incredibly worried about my newfound father. All the agents returned to their stations in the control room. As usual, I stayed by Uncle Nick and watched everyone else working. I wished that I was old enough to actually help out. I was smart, and I had gifts like my strength and force field abilities, but I was still too young. Everything was going to work out, I believed in the Avengers with everything in me. I continued to watch the news footage as well as the other agents. Things weren't too bad so far. Then Aunt Maria came up to us,

"Sir, the council is on."

Uncle Nick stood up straighter and proceeded to pull up the video call. I didn't want to be rude, so I tried to ignore the call, but it was an important and extremely worrying topic.

"Director Fury, the council has made a decision," a council member stated.

"I recognize the council has made a decision. But given that it's a stupid-ass decision, I've elected to ignore it."

"Director, you're closer than any of our subs. You scramble that jet-"

"That is the island of Manhattan, Councilmen. Until I'm certain my team can't hold it, I will not order a nuclear strike against a civilian population."

"If we don't hold them here, we lose everything."

"If I send that bird out, we already have." Uncle Nick hung up and turned away from the screens to pace a little. I let out a sigh of relief, and when Uncle Nick faced the screens again, held his hand. He squeezed my hand and got back to work. The Avengers started losing their lead in the battle, and I began to slightly panic.

"Sir, we have a bird in motion!" Aunt Maria yelled, "Anyone on the deck, we have a rogue bird. We need to shut it down! Repeat, takeoff is not authorized."

Uncle Nick pulled me with him, and we ran to the deck. He grabbed a shoulder-fired missile launcher, and we continued to rush toward the deck. We saw the jet taking off, and Uncle Nick hit the tire and part of the lower side. I used my power to contain the fire to that one jet. All of a sudden, a second jet began to take off. I attempted to throw a force field ball at it but realized it was already too far. We both went back inside, and Uncle Nick tried to reach Mr Stark,

"Stark, do you hear me? You have a missile headed straight for the city."

"How long?" Mr Stark asked.

"Three minutes, max. The payload will wipe out Midtown."

I immensely hoped Mr Stark would be able to save the city and stop the missile. Uncle Nick and I returned to the control room and viewed the news feed. We watched as Mr Stark eventually guided the missile through the portal. Everyone cheered, and I was relieved but still worried that Mr Stark had put himself in danger. I could tell Uncle Nick was thinking the same thing.

Mr Stark had fallen out of the portal just as it was closing and survived. I was so happy that I jumped up to hug Uncle Nick. We were all cheering, and I was so proud of the Avengers. Later that day, once I had gotten cleaned up, Uncle Nick walked into my room, "Agent Katie, you need to pack."

"Pack for what?" I was highly confused.

"It so happens that Captain Rogers has offered that you stay with him for a few days. If you would like to, that is."

"Really?" I grinned from ear to ear and felt like I would explode.

"Yes. You will be flown down to meet up with him in New York and go with him to his apartment for the weekend. And, if you both feel comfortable, you may even end up staying longer."

I was super happy and excited. "Katie, I am sorry we didn't tell you, but it was for your safety. We thought that if anyone outside of S.H.I.E.L.D knew who you were, then you would be in danger."

I walked up to Uncle Nick and hugged him.

"There's nothing to be sorry for. You did it for a good reason," I told him. When he left, swiftly, I packed all the things I had in my room on the helicarrier and assumed I would get the other things I would need later. When I was about to get on the jet, I turned and hugged Uncle Nick tightly. He chuckled,

"I'm not going anywhere, Katie."

"I know. This is just for everything you have done for me."

He hugged me back tighter.

Once I met up with Steve, he had also changed and gotten cleaned up. I wanted to hug him but held back as I still didn't know where we were yet. I had my stuff in a backpack on my back and spoke first,

"So, does this mean you might feel qualified?"

"Yes," he chuckled, "But we're doing this together and seeing what happens."

"It's perfect, no matter how we do it."

"I'm glad, but we have to do one more thing with the team first."

I was confused but followed Steve and sat on his motorcycle. I wrapped my arms tightly around his waist, and we were off. We came to a park, and Mr Stark's car and a S.H.I.E.L.D car were parked on the side of the road. Everyone gathered around, and I realized that Loki and Thor were taking the Tesseract back to Asgard. We were all serious as we watched Dr Selvig place the Tesseract into a canister Thor had. All stood in a circle, we watched as Thor and Loki each took an end of the canister. I stood close to Steve's side. Thor gave us all a nod before he and Loki were transported to Asgard with the Tesseract. Steve grabbed my hand, and we took a few steps backwards, watching them beam up. When they were gone, everyone said their goodbyes. Steve shook Mr Stark's hand, and I copied his actions.

"See you later, Munchkin," Mr Stark said, making me giggle. Dr Banner and Mr Stark got into Mr Stark's car. I hugged Aunt Nat and Uncle Clint and said goodbye, then I followed Steve back to his motorcycle. I held his torso tightly as we rod to his apartment. He took a quick glance back at me, and I smiled, ready to see where life would take us.