The Widow's Daughter ✔︎

Chapter Twenty-Seven

After the whole Tori-Holly drama with the file, everything went back to normal... well, as normal as life could be when you're a teenager with superpowers who was experimented on as a child by a Russian psychopath. 

I kept the watermelon USB hidden, stashed in the bottom of my massive walk-in wardrobe. Evie, Ben and Tina moved into the Avengers Tower, because the agents, no matter how hard they tried, couldn't find the assassin who killed Tori and S.H.I.E.L.D was concerned that they'd come after me or Evie. 

Peter stayed at the Avengers Tower for awhile, occasionally going back to Queens to visit his Aunt May and his flirty Star Wars obsessed friend Ned. We hadn't gone on the Larb date yet, but Peter was promising we'd go soon, booking a table for two at the restaurant.

Nat and I did a lot of mother-daughter-bonding stuff, mainly sparring with one another while telling amusing stories, and occasionally going shopping or bike-riding or stopping bad guys (mainly stopping bad guys). The best day out we'd had so far was when me, her and Evie had gone to North Korea and diffused a bunch of nuclear bombs with a ferret, a walnut and a stick of C4. She'd taught me a bunch of cool stuff too, like how to kill a man with a stick of uncooked spaghetti. 

Clint and Bruce had been in deep water when they'd told Tony they'd lost the USB. He'd screamed at them for an hour, which was incredibly awkward for the rest of the Avengers team - especially me, Evie and Peter, who had watched from the shadows and tried not to bolt out the door. Ben knew about our plot to go to Ireland now, which was annoying, because literally every single waking hour he was constantly hassling us about when we would leave. It had been a month since we'd found Holly's file, and, I had to admit, everybody was getting a bit stir-crazy. I'd been cooping myself up in my room, trying (and failing) in vain to crack the Kristoff Agnelsson code, and I knew that Evie was thinking of leaving, because all of her search history on her laptop had something to do with Kinsdale in Ireland.

It was the end of May and the weather was getting warmer. I'd just come out of a power-controlling lesson with Wanda and Evie had just finished a history lesson with Steve. Peter was hanging around with Tony, experimenting on a bunch of new models and Ben had just got back from his new school. We met in my room to debrief on our day. 

I was eating a croissant. "How's school?" I asked Ben.

"I'm doing eighth grade work now," Ben boasted, bouncing on my bed. "Even though I'm only eleven, but Mrs Jay says she thinks I'm smart enough. The eighth graders are kinda mean, but still. It's super cool."

"Sounds great, squirt," Evie said, smiling up at him from her spot on my floor. She was flipping through a travel brochure about Galway, the pages well-thumbed.

Peter was hanging upside down on the roof, doing his homework. "Hey, is that Daley's Bridge?" he asked, peering over Evie's shoulder at the brochure.

"Yeah," she responded, holding it up. "That's where Holly was last seen."

I sighed, crumbs shooting out of my mouth. Peter looked at me. "Kira, you can't just keep on ignoring the fact that we need to go and find Holly," he said. "I know you want to spend time with your mum, but seriously, we've been cooped up in this tower for a month now. This is the perfect time for us to leave. If your theory's correct, then this Kristoff Agnelsson could be getting even closer to Holly as we speak. He might even already have her!"

"North Korea was fun," I argued, taking a bite of the flaky pastry. "We haven't been completely cooped up."

"Yes, it was fun, but seriously. We have to find her." Evie looked determined and grumpy.

I looked to Ben for support. "Kiddo? You gonna help me out on this one?"

Usually Ben was my right-hand-man, my Number Two, but he sighed. "Kira the Spy, I think Evie and Peter are right. It's been a month now and even though I get to hang out with Captain America and Ironman and the Hulk it's getting a bit boring. I think we need to go to Ireland." He sat down on the edge of the bed, giving me an apologetic smile.