The Widow's Daughter ✔︎

Chapter Thirty-Five

Nat wasn't exaggerating. As soon as Peter and I had dropped down into our seats on the Avengers meeting table, the screaming had begun. In any normal circumstances, I would have made an incredibly witty joke about how my devastating attractiveness was causing everybody to have an outburst, but these weren't normal circumstances. My mother gripped my hand so hard I thought my bones might break as the last remaining Salvatores screamed their heads off at me from their see-through hologram-like prison at the head of the table.

Endie's fire was burning along his arms as he yelled bloody murder at me for supposedly "turning Holly bad." Addison kept on flickering in and out of invisibility, her tiny body shaking with anger. Afia's usually calm front was gone, replaced with one of pure hatred as she glared at all of us Avengers, and Todd looked a lot like a tiny angry garden gnome bent on murder.

"Now, now, children, calm down," said Tony, his voice an octave higher than it usually was. "We don't want everybody to go deaf."

"That's exactly what we want!" Todd barked, spitting on the ground then saying a not-very-nice word.

"Language!" Steve looked aghast. That only provoked the Salvatores to scream even fouler words.

For awhile everybody was just screaming at one another, even me. Me and Endie were locked in an angry yelling match which mainly consisted of saying really bad swear words and then cursing Nick Fury. Peter had lost his calm front and was screaming at Afia, who literally looked like she was going to explode with fury. Evie was being held back by Wanda and Tina. Green was starting to snake up Bruce's neck.

Clint must have noticed that because he stood up onto the table and screamed super loudly, "WILL EVERYBODY SHUT UP?"

Remarkably, we all stopped talking and turned around to face that certain bird-man. "Jeez, Clint," Bruce mused, the green disappearing. "That was... very unlike you."

"Yeah, well," Clint hopped off the table and snorted. "Any second later and you'd've gone all Hulk on us." He glared at the Salvatores, who scowled back. "You kids are clearly deranged."

Addison stepped forwards and put her hands on her hips, somehow still managing to look sassy even though she was a literal eight-year-old. "Excuse you, Mr Massive Bird Guy," she argued, "But you're deranged. Holly has not gone bad. I bet this is all just some big plot to lock us up again. We don't trust you." She blew a raspberry and stomped off to stand next to Afia.

Endie shrugged. "Addy doesn't speak for the whole group, but yeah. Holly can't have turned bad - she would do anything for us. Literally, anything. She's kind and smart and a little bit grumpy but we trust her with our lives, and it doesn't seem right that she'd just kidnap Nick Fury and take off without us."

I softened a little bit and opened my mouth to say something, but Maria Hill got there first. "Perhaps that was the old Holly, Mr McGuffin, but people change. We all heard her plan - she graced us with that helpful 'evil-overlord' speech while we were tied up in Fury's office, and we literally saw her jumping out of the window with him. If that's not a solid lead to say that she has gone bad, I don't know what is."

"Yeah," Ben sniffed. "I liked Holly too. She reminded me of a cooler version of Kira. But Maria is right - people do change. You Salvatores, of all people, should know that."

I was shocked - partly because of that very rude statement of how Holly was cooler than I was but mostly because Ben had just given the Salvatores a massive piece of wisdom. I swear, that eleven-year-old kid was smarter than I was, and that's saying something. I poked him in the ribs. "Hey, now," I chided. "I am very cool. Obviously much cooler than anybody else here."

Nat poked me in the ribs a lot harder than I'd done with Ben and cleared her throat.

I blushed. "Uh, except for Mum. She's cooler than all of you. The coolest ice cube in the tray."