The Widow's Daughter ✔︎

Chapter Thirty-Four

I woke up to the sound of somebody playing Dua Lipa loudly in my ear.

I groaned, ramming my hands over my ears, not quite ready to wake up yet. "New rules," I grumbled. "Don't play loud music at 4 am."

"It's midday, silly," I heard a giggling voice say. I blearily opened my eyes and looked around sleepily to see Ben holding a Bose speaker and sitting on the end of my bed in the Avengers Tower. "You've been out for ages. I went through the entire playlist."

I grimaced and pushed myself up, looking at Ben's mischievous face. He looked completely normal apart from a long gash running across his left cheekbone and a Dora the Explorer plaster stuck on his ski-jump nose. "Hey, kiddo," I said, pulling him in for a hug. "You really scared me when we were in Ireland."

Ben laughed into my shoulder. "I scared you? Your sister turned out to be a psychopath! You literally went through hell and then you blacked out for three days! We totally thought you were dead! How can you ask if I'm OK?"

I shrugged, then winced as the events of Ireland came flooding back to me, everything from me almost strangling an old woman to having Holly turn out to be controlled by Ivan and Agnelsson. "Ripping of the bandaid straight away, it seems," I mused. 

Ben giggled. He opened his mouth to say something else but was cut off when somebody barrelled into me, a curtain of flying red hair as they grabbed me in a bone-crushing grip. I literally couldn't breathe and thought that I might be getting murdered, when I saw that the hugger was Evie. She was crying - sobbing in fact. "I thought you were dead," she hiccuped, squeezing me even tighter. "I totally thought you were going to die."

"Can't... breathe!" I croaked, my face turning purple as I prised Evie off me gently. "But it's good to see you, Evie. How are you?"

"HOW AM I?!" Evie looked gobsmacked. "YOU WERE THE ONE IN THE COMA!"

Just then, I saw more people come in. The entire Avengers collective flooded into my room, offering me equally painful hugs, the tightest of course coming from Clint and Steve. I clung onto them like my lifeline. I heard Thor chuckle. "Let the girl's mother come in, boys," he boomed. "She's been tearing her hair out for the past week."

I winced, my throat seizing up. Dammit. 

I saw a familiar head of fiery red hair move through the crowd and watched as my mother sat down on the end of my bed, her green eyes hollow in her pale face. "Kira?" she breathed. "маленькая птица?"

That was it. I felt hot tears spill from my eyes as I launched myself into her arms, my whole body trembling. Nat stroked my hair, soothing me in Russian. I buried my head in the crook of her shoulder and let my breath come out in sharp, hiccuping sobs. "Holly's... bad," I sobbed. "She went bad, Mum. And now... now she has F-Fury and...and..." I broke off, tumbling into tears again.

Nat smoothed my hair. "Out, all of you," she commanded over my shoulder. I heard the Avengers move away, grumbling no less, and shutting the door behind us. "Kira, what you did was stupid."

I couldn't believe my ears. I pulled back and sniffed, gasping, "W-what?"

"Yes!" Nat's eyes practically bulged out of her head. "You were stupid! What on earth were you thinking, stealing Tony's jet like that?"

"That's exactly the question," said a mechanical voice outside. I whipped around to see Mr Stark's flying Ironman suit hovering outside my window, his hands on his hips. "You owe me a new plane."

I winced. "Uh. Sorry?"

"It's OK, Kira," said Tony's suit. "I'll let you off this time as a warning. Next time I won't be so forgiving." With that, he flew away.