She's The Girl Who. || Avengers. [1]

vii. Family Dynamic

'She's the kind of girl that loves misty mornings, new flowers and unexpected rain showers.'-

The first few weeks Carter spent at the Avengers tower, she got to know everyone as more than 'The Assassin' or 'The God' .  

After the first week she finally on speaking terms with them all and had stopped referring to them as 'The Bastards who took away my freedom' and just started referring to them with names and nicknames.

Preferably nicknames.

It was rough from the start when Tony kept trying to get Carter to let him take her shopping for more clothes and things she needed, and when any of them asked about her abilities or brought up 'training'. 

Unexpectedly she actually got on best with Natasha and Clint. Even after her rocky first encounter with the assassin the two managed to get on well. 

Of course their curiosity sometimes got the best of them and they'd all question her about her past, something that only managed to piss Carter off.

But they just wanted some answers for the odd things she could do, and not to mention the wings that they still had no clue about.

One time she had been running through the living area to get to the kitchen and ended up being so close to running into Bruce that the scientist had tensed up awaiting impact.

At the last second Carter had dropped and slid straight through his legs before standing up straight again behind the man like nothing had happened.

Everyone had witnessed this and questioned her but Carter had just shrugged it of and mumbled about having quick reflexes.

She was well aware that Bruce had began listing everything abnormal she did, including her terrible eating and sleeping habits. Carter had lived on her own for almost three years now out on the streets and in abandoned buildings, that was one of the only things she'd told them about her past.

The only records they could find on a 'Carter' were one's that went cold when she was six and went missing. 

Natasha had convinced Tony not to ask his daughter about this as going missing at such a young age and disappearing for years was probably not something someone wanted to be quizzed on.

..........

So there she was, sat three weeks later with Clint, having a staring contest as they sat cross legged on a couch.

As the trained Agent's eyes began to water Carter grinned to herself, ignoring when she heard people enter the room behind her and Clint continued fighting to keep his eyes open.

"That's ridiculous." Clint grumbled as he blinked repeatedly, trying to get the moisture back into his eyes as Carter chuckled, still not blinking as she watched him look back up at her and his mouth dropped open.

"I don't even understand anymore!" He exclaimed as he stood and spread his arms out in a confused gesture as Carter finally blinked, turning to see Tony along with Natasha and Steve.

"I don't think any of us do." Steve mumbled with an amused smile as he passed by the couch and made his way into the kitchen, making his way straight to the fridge, followed into the room by the other four people he lived with the majority of the time.

"Ooh what's for food?" Carter asked as she skipped past Nat and jumped on Steve's back, looking over his shoulder and into the fridge -- that was empty -- and ignoring the looks they gave her due to her purposely bad grammar.

"That reminds me, Pepper was asking about if we're going to send you to school or not?" Tony asked as he walked across the room and sat at the bar, pulling out his Phone and completely missing the wide eyed look Carter sent towards Clint and Natasha as Steve stood up and walked to the cupboard before sighing when he realised there was no food there as either.

Carter had been introduced to Pepper half way through her third day in the tower and they got on fine, Pepper instantly began coddling Carter and treating her like a daughter which all of them were worried at first how Carter would react. She secretly enjoyed the new family dynamic but they didn't know that.

"Pizza?" Steve suggested as he looked over at the agents who were lazily leaning against the table next to one another.

"Is Banner going to have another fit when he finds out this is the fifth night in a row we've ordered take out?" Natasha spoke in amusement, causing Carter to snort as she slid of off Steve's back and sat one seat over from Tony who looked up and gave his daughter a smile.

Over the past three weeks the transition of bringing Carter into their crazy family had been surprisingly easy. 

When she'd realised they didn't actually have any malicious intentions, Carter found it a lot easier to become a part of their lives.

"School sounds like shit --" Carter began but was cut of when Steve coughed to indicate he didn't particularly enjoy the language, making both Carter and Tony snort in amusement. 

Over the weeks they had gotten used to the fact they were so similar and often said or did the same thing at the same time" -- But Pizza sounds great." Carter nodded her head along to her own statement.

"When did you last have take out before you moved here?" Natasha asked casually, they had all been asking subtle things like this to get information and Carter couldn't care less, she was just happy they stopped bluntly asking her 'Were where you?' or 'What happened to you'.

"Often, I guess there wasn't much else, plus it was much better than the crap that they used to feed me." The dark haired girl shrugged before looking up and seeing they were all hanging on to her every word.

"You said 'they'?" Tony asked slowly as he put his phone away, hoping to get some answers.

"The guys who kidnapped me?" She said looking at them all like they were stupid as they gaped at her. "Seriously? You didn't figure that out already?" She asked them like they were supposed to have already known this.

"I think it was more of hunch." Clint mumbled as he furrowed his brows in thought. "Do you know who they were?" He asked as he looked up at the others for assurance and received some short nods telling him that was alright to ask.

"I was like ten, all I saw was an octopus design, occasionally I would hear German mumblings as well as English but I never learnt the language." Carter mumbled looking down slightly before looking back up at them with her usual smirk "So Pizza now?" She asked hoping they'd drop the topic like usual.

"No! I wanna know more about these bastards so I can kill 'em all." Tony growled as he looked at his daughter and saw she now looked very awkward.

"Hydra." Steve grunted before leaving the room swiftly and heading towards the training room to take his anger out on something he couldn't hurt.

"Look, It's not something I really wanna talk about, but they took me in when I was little, said I had potential and had some guy train me in between experiments after they found out I was a mutant, that's why I'm not to fond of the wings, freak of nature and all." Carter finished with a frown as she stood and left the room, heading down the hall to her own room and sitting over by the window.

She hated remembering that time in her life, she'd never even spoken about it before. It wasn't a time she enjoyed. It wasn't a time when she was happy.

It was stolen time, time that was taken from her, destroying any hopes she'd ever had for a normal childhood.