Metallic Lights {Metallic Charms Book #3}

Chapter 32: Back Together

Chapter 32: Back Together

~~~~~~~~~~~{Noel’s Point of View}~~~~~~~~~~~

Three days after the discovery of the mortal knowledge that Klaus Adler was, in fact, trying to hunt down the Avengers and kill them unless he received me in Chicago wearing a pretty red ribbon around my neck and a card hanging off my waist like I was some kind of sick and twisted present, (okay, I exaggerated a little bit there, admittedly) Director Fury finally left his office.

All the Avengers had been called back in and been sentenced to lockdown. Clint, Natasha, Sky, Starlie, Bruce, Thor, Steve –and even Jane- had been ordered to return to Headquarters. They weren’t allowed out of the building. All packages had to be checked by security before they were handed over to them. All personnel that spent the day guarding them had been quadruple checked by Fury himself. The only person who was absent from this whole lock down was Tony Stark. He was a ‘special case’ apparently. After hours on the phone arguing to Fury, the Director finally conceded that Tony would be allowed to stay in his own Malibu Mansion as to not alarm the public, provided that his usual security be replaced with S.H.I.E.L.D members and special operations agents until they found the sick-o who was threatening all of us.

Needless to say, if I’d had even the slimmest chance of being forgiven by the guys before now, it had completely been ruined by this.

“Why don’t we just hand her over?” Starlie snapped. “She’s not an Avenger. The public won’t care. They won’t even know she’s missing.”
“If there’s something this guy wants, Banner, we can use it to our advantage.” Clint glared at the blonde anger-filled bombshell. I had to admit, I wasn’t the biggest fan of being talked about as a ‘thing’ by my own brother, but I understood what both of them were saying.

“I asked Fury already.” I spoke up, causing the two to quieten down. The three of us, and Steve, were sitting in one of the lounge/break rooms on the seventh floor, staying well away from the windows. “I asked him if I could give myself up to keep you all safe, but he said the same thing as you, Clint. And I agree. As much as I want to keep you all out of harm, for some reason, I’m the only thing this guy wants and we can play that for our own gain. We can buy time, track him down. Danielle already gave us hints about where he might be –who this guy might be hanging around with.”

“Yeah. More Hydra scum-bags.” Steve piped up. “Blasts from my past with Stark’s new technology.”

I sighed. Steve was definitely not my biggest fan either, right now. I could understand why he wouldn’t have been on the ‘save Noel’ bandwagon a few months ago when I was a ‘traitor,’ but now, hadn’t I proven myself to be, well, me? And at the very least, not evil? But after everything, Steve still couldn’t trust me. Not even slightly. I didn’t even think he liked me all that much anymore.

“Where is Stark, anyway?” Starlie grumbled, as if she were reluctantly changing the subject.
“In Malibu.” I rolled my eyes. “With Pepper.”
“Asshole.” Starlie leaned back in her black leather upholstered chair.

“I know, right?” I agreed.
Starlie smirked a little, probably just as surprised as I was that we actually agreed on something. “Why does he get to stay at his home?”
“Because he’s Tony Stark.” Clint joined in, saying Tony’s name as if he were a fan girl.
“Man of the future! And Man of Iron!” Even Steve was in on it now, standing up from his seat and placing his hands on his hips and looking up at an angle, like he was doing the Superman pose.

Pretty soon, we were all at least giggling and for once, we weren’t arguing about anything. We were just sitting around, making fun of someone we all mutually disliked at that moment. Strangely enough, I felt like I was back in high school.