Why Me? (An Avengers Wrong Number)

Dallas

I'm now back in America with only Steve. We're on a covert mission. Where you ask? Dallas. Dallas, Texas.

We were assigned fake names of course. His was "Ryan Killian" and mine was "Minnie Killian." Odd choice but oh well. We were pretending to be a married couple.

Did you see it?

No?

Look again.

See it now?

Still nope?

Let me repeat it.

We were pretending to be a married couple.

See the were?

Here's where everything went kinda wrong.

"Hey, honey! I'm home!" Steve shouts.

I run down the hall to give him a hug. My neighbor's looking through the window and looks extremely jealous.

"How was work?" I ask sweetly.

"Oh, y'know, so and so," he says a bit dejectedly.

"Well, I know what will cheer you up," I say, smirking and pulling him inside.

We eat ice cream, and biscuits, and watch the Disney movies.

One and a half hours later, we get a knock at the door.

"I'll get it," Steve says pausing the movie and getting up.

I hear the conversation from where I'm sat.

"Hey," Steve asks.

"Vladimir Kumar, I'm your neighbor," the man says in a distinctive accent.

"Ryan Killian," Steve sticks his hand out to greet him.

"Me and the misses were wondering if you and yours would like to come over right about now and eat with us," the man says.

"Of course, let me tell my wife," he smiles. "MINNIE!"

"Yes, dear?" I ask, almost materializing by his shoulder.

"We're going to dinner with the Kumar's our neighbors," he tells me.

I smile at the man, "Of course, we'll be over in a bit. Just let us get changed first."

"Of course," Vladimir says, "we're on the right. See you soon."

Steve puts on a tight Under Armour T-shirt and jeans instead of his "work" clothes. Like a suit would ever be his work clothes. Spandex all the way!

I put on a summer dress, one I can hide a knife under. That may be important later.

We arrive at the Kumar's.

"Penny Kumar," "Penny" says in that same distinct accent.

"Ryan Killian," Steve introduces himself.

"And who's the lovely lady?" she asks, looking at me, the smile all but vanishing from her face.

"My lovely wife, Minnie," Steve's says, and then kisses me on the lips to add effect.

"Come on in," she gestures.

We sit around the table. The door leads straight to a lounge and then through an archway to a dining room. There's three doors, two solid, one glass. The glass one leads to a study. I point that out to Steve.

"What do you study?" he asks Mr. Kumar.

"You seem like a nice guy so imma tell you the truth," Mr. Kumar says.

"Thank you," Steve thanks.

"Superheroes. There's a reason they're all there and there's a reason they should all be gone," Mr. Kumar explains, a bit angrily. "I mean, have you seen the new one? No information on them at all. They were active 9 years ago or something and then here they come in defeating and the working with the Avengers?"

I look down and purse my lips.

"Have you found any information on them?" Steve asks, politely. "Stuff that others don't know?"

He smiles. "The others call them Verdict. She, and it's a she, speaks in a French-English accent and she's great friends with the head of the Avengers. She's really impressive, I mean, her mission reports and stuff. Looks pretty too."

"French-English?" Steve asks, his mind racing at a million miles an hour.

"An accent that your lovely 'wife' has, Cap," Mr. Kumar smirks.

Steve looks at me wide-eyed and Mr. Kumar is trying to get up on the other side of the table.

Before anything super interesting happens, there's a knife to his throat preventing him from moving.

"Who are you?" I threaten.

"Vladimir Kumar. I didn't lie about that," he says, very obviously terrified.

"What do you do for a job?" I say, still threatening.

"IT," I push the knife closer to his throat. "Okay, sorry, sorry, sorry. I work in research for the Hero Termination Co."

"What's it's front?" I ask, not very politely.

"The Mall of America," he gasps, looking at the knife very close to killing him.

"Welp, thank you and good bye," I say. He looks confused, the knife didn't move. He then looks at his chest where the knife is sticking out. He falls to the ground comically.

"Grab her," I tell Steve. "We need to go back to New York."

"I am going with no one," Penny protests. I just knock her out and start cleaning my knife on my dress.

"Y'know that was actually pretty nice pretending to be married to you," Steve reflects.

"Well maybe next time, you won't have to pretend," I say.

"What does that mean?" he asks, the words processing.

I just laugh, pat him on the back, and walk out the door.