The Widow's Daughter ✔︎

Chapter Twelve

We didn't leave for Russia right away, of course. By the time I'd cracked the code, it was at least ten at night, and Tony was taking his 'protective-dad-mode' very seriously. He sent me to bed, saying that I needed to have a good-night's sleep and that he didn't expect to see me awake until eight the next morning. 

I went off into my room, which was situated on my very own floor, halfway between Natasha's floor and Bruce's. My room was ginormous - probably bigger than my old house and the neighbour's combined. It had a massive window looking out onto the lush green lawn, which was shrouded in darkness right now. I looked around: the walk-in wardrobe had a variety of clothes that were in my size in it, ranging from battle leathers like Natasha's to fancy dresses with floompy skirts that I was pretty sure I would never wear. My en-suite bathroom had an en-suite of it's own, which I didn't think was possible, but, yet again, the Avengers never ceased to amaze me. 

There was a giant queen-sized bed and a bedside table which had two framed pictures on it. I picked the first one up and smiled, feeling warmth spread through my heart as I looked at it - it was a photo of my old family taken about a year ago, me sitting in the middle, my long red hair and pale skin a stark contrast to the darker-haired, Asian-skinned others. Taiga was sitting on my lap and squishing me into Emery, who was caught mid-laugh. Himara had a subtle smile on her face and Jeanne was glaring at Kellen, who was making a stupid face at the camera. Ashley looked like she was about to murder someone and only Jake's arm was visible. Everyone looked so normal, so full of life, that I felt tears begin to prick in the corners of my eyes. Did Jeanne and the others know that I was a killer, or was that just Himara? I didn't know, and that was the scariest thing of all: I knew that hippopotomonstrosisquipadaliaphobia was the technical term for fear of long words, and that banging your head against a wall for an hour burns 150 calories, but I didn't know my own family. And that made me scared.

I put the photo down and pulled out the second one. It made me laugh when I saw it: it was a framed photo of a selfie that I'd taken this morning at breakfast using Clint's phone. I was smiling my famous five-year-old smile, which would have looked cute if I hadn't had a big smudge of peanut butter on my nose. Bruce was doing the peace sign and wiggling his eyebrows. Steve looked downright confused because Wanda was doing the Mexican wave next to him. Thor was wearing Tony's sunglasses and Natasha was glaring at the camera from where she sat, brooding, at the end of the table. Tony was T-posing at the head of the table and grinning a grin that would have made even the hardest heart melt.

I put it back and smiled, unable to stop myself. This was my new family, I realised. My crazy, insane, saving-the-world superhero family. And I was their kid - their little Avenger, just like Nat had told me. I grinned and walked over to my bathroom, quickly showering and moisturising my face. Once my hair had dried, I caught sight of myself in the mirror and gasped.

My hair was red again. Understatement: it was even redder than before, being a deeper, darker crimson than it'd been before. I groaned - I'd been called a genius many times before, but it had never occurred to me that the brown dye would come out after one wash. I cursed and tried using my gift to change the probability of my hair staying red from 100% to 0%, but, for the first time ever, it didn't work.

I sighed and dragged a comb through it. I did look better with red hair, I had to admit: it brought out the small freckles on my nose and the grey-blueness of my eyes. It made me look more natural, and, I couldn't lie, it made me look relatively pretty. I didn't have any dye left so I just sighed again and flopped onto bed, fingering my locket like I always did before shutting my eyes and going to sleep.

I was awoken with a blinding light searing through my eyelids. I groaned and turned over but the light didn't go away, in fact it glowed even lighter. I opened my eyes, shocked when I realised that it wasn't daytime yet: one glance at my clock told me that it was 3:45am. I reached under my pillow, searching for the knife that wasn't there, and gasped when I saw the source of the light.