Chapter Four
The Quinjet lands in the late afternoon, touching down on the landing pad on top of the Compound. Steve is waiting for them, leaning against a wall. He jogs over as the Jet settles, and he smiles at Lila as she steps out.
“Hey, Lila. I’m Steve. I’m sure Nat’s told you all about me, but it’s nice to meet you again.” He looks around. “Need any help with these?”
Lila’s about to shake her head no, still processing the fact that the actual Captain America is talking to her, when Auntie Nat pops her head out of the hatch.
“Yes, actually, that’d be great.” She hoists up two bags and hands them to him. “These have Clint’s old stuff. Can you take them to the storage room?” Pain flashes in Steve’s eyes, but he just nods and grabs the bags, putting them on his shoulders and stepping aside to let Natasha and Lila through.
“Pepper’s in the foyer!” He calls after them, already turning to walk down another set of stairs, “I think she has your rooms ready!”
Lila snickers as she starts down the stairs, glancing up at her aunt. “Foyer?” Natasha rolls her eyes.
“Tony designed this place. He goes a little… overboard, sometimes, but don’t worry. The actual living spaces are a lot cozier than his foyer. She leads Lila down a set of hallways and (thankfully) only one more flight of stairs, before they arrive in a wide entryway.
“Welcome to the foyer,” Natasha says drily, setting down her bags. Lila gasps a little as she looks around, because apparently her aunt wasn’t kidding when she said that Tony had gone overboard. There are side tables covered in Avengers memorabilia, and a huge light fixture dangling from the ceiling. The floor is tiled, though with what material, she has no idea. The walls are sleek and shiny, and everything looks very fancy and very expensive. Auntie Nat smiles at her as she takes it in, mouth partly open.
“I know, right? Don’t worry, this is mainly just for when any fancy government people come to visit. The rest is way less,” she waves her hand at the shiny walls, “this.”
Lila nods, feeling slightly less out of place. She hears a noise and looks up. There, walking towards them from the other entrance, is a woman with gorgeous orange-blonde hair and a StarkPad clutched tightly in her hands. She looks up at them and smiles, looking slightly distracted.
“Oh, hi, Natasha. You’re back, good. We’re having a meeting in an hour, but that should give you guys enough time to settle in a bit.” She looks over at Lila and smiles, a little sheepishly. “Hello, I’m Pepper, and you must be Lila. Sorry, I’m introduce myself properly later, but right now it’s a little,” she shakes her head. “Anyways, Nat, you’ve got your old room. Lila…” she pauses. “I wasn’t sure where to put you, so for now you’re in your dad’s old room. If that’s too much, or something, I can always move you,” she adds hastily, when Lila doesn’t respond, “but it’s right next to Nat’s, and I figured you guys would want to be together.” Natasha looks to Lila, because ultimately this is her decision. Lila takes a deep breath and nods, looking Pepper in the eyes.
“That’s good, thank you. It’ll be nice to be close to Auntie Nat, probably.” Pepper smiles at her, and then her StarkPad pings and she’s walking away, speaking rapidly to someone on the other end. Nat shakes her head with a fond smile, then shoulders her bags again and gestures for Lila to follow her. They walk through the entryway, and Lila follows Nat up a long set of stairs, pausing for Nat to press her thumb to a keypad.
“Fingerprint locks,” she explains over her shoulder, “To stop any nosy SHIELD agents from snooping through our personal spaces. We’ll get you keyed in at some point, but for now just ask someone if you want to leave the apartment space.”
Lila nods, not really sure where she would even go if she did leave. Natasha pushes open the door and gestures for her to go inside, so she does. She steps into an open living room, with a kitchen area near the far wall. There’s a table, a countertop, a sofa, some chairs, and a lot of blankets. She sees a Nintendo, hooked up to the giant TV screen, and there are controllers scattered around the space. Lila smiles at her aunt.
“You’re right, this does feel much cozier.” She walks further into the room, starting to notice the little things that show that the residents are no ordinary civilians. A dagger is laying on the table, and there’s some kind of floating ball on the counter. Natasha sees the dagger and sighs, going over to grab it.
“How many times,” she mutters, “have they been told to keep the weapons in the training areas?” She sees Lila staring at the knife, and holds it out for inspection. “We try to keep the work stuff away from the personal stuff, but the boys like to mess with each other,” she explains.
“It’s a pretty knife,” Lila says, because it is. Sleek and functional-looking, it’s gorgeous in a deadly kind of way. Not unlike her aunt, Lila thinks. She hands it back, and the knife vanishes somewhere into one of the secret pockets on Nat’s suit.
“It is,” Nat agrees. “Alright, we’re just down here. This’s my room,” she pauses in front of a door, “and this one’s yours.” She gesture to the door next to it. “This hall’s mostly for people who are only here part-time, so there’s a lot of guest rooms. I think right now theres more people in the permanent residence area, but Steve’s probably down here as well, and anyone else who’s coming from Wakanda.” She shoots a glance at Lila. “Mostly we’ll be downstairs figuring things out, I think, but if you run into anyone, just.. be respectful, I guess. I’m not worried, but we’ve got some interesting people on out side, so be prepared, I guess.” Lila nods, and Nat opens her door.
“Welcome to your dad’s old room, Lila.”
The inside is a lot emptier then she was expecting, to be honest. There’s a bed, and a desk, and a dresser, and a bookshelf, and presumably a closet, but there aren’t really any personal things anywhere. There’s a door next to the bed, and Lila peeks through it. Standard bathroom, though the shower and bath look very fancy. She looks back to see Natasha looking at her expectantly.
“It’s a lot emptier than I thought it would be,” she admits.
“Well, like I said, this is more a temporary room. We use them if we’re on longer missions, or need to crash after one, things like that. Since Clint was with you guys most of the time, and then he retired, it never really got used much. You can settle in as much as you want, okay?”
Lila nods, moving the duffels further into the room. Natasha says, “I’m gonna go downstairs now, okay? We’ve gotta start figuring out what we’re gonna do.”
“Do?” Lila asks. Natasha hesitates, then nods.
“Do. We’re gonna try and find Thanos and make him bring them back.”
Lila’s eyes widen, and she sits down abruptly on the bed. “Oh. Okay. Well, then, you should probably go down there.”
Natasha smiles teasingly. “I should, shouldn’t I?” She hesitates, and then sweeps Lila into a hug. “You gonna be okay?” she asks softly. Lila thinks for a moment, before pulling back and looking at her aunt.
“Probably not, no. Not for a while, I don’t think. But I’ll be as okay as I can be, I think.” She untangles herself from the hug and lightly pushed her aunt to the door. “Go save the world, okay? I’m gonna unpack.” Nat nods and gives her one last hug before walking swiftly out the door, already shifting back into work mode.
Lila stares at the door for a moment, the reality of what’s happening her. She’s in the Avengers Compound, and Captain America just helped her with her bag. She’s always known, in the back of her mind, that her dad and aunt are superheroes, and that they’re friends and colleagues with other superheroes and celebrities, but she’s never really gotten what that meant until now. She shakes her head, deciding to focus on unpacking like she said she would.
She unzips her duffels, setting about putting her clothes in the dresser. She has to stop for a second when she opens a drawer to see some of what must be her dads clothes, neatly folded and stacked. She sniffs a little and sets them aside, deciding to put them with the things she’d brought with her in one of the smaller drawers. Once the dresser in done, she puts her things away in the closet, coats and scarves and her Mom’s dress all lined up next to each other on the hangers. Her shoes go under them, and her brother’s baseball glove goes on the bookshelf, along with the books and the action figures. She puts her toiletries in the bathroom, and plugs her laptop in, setting it on the desk.
Once she’s done, the duffels go on the closet shelf, and Lila stands in the middle of the room, at a loss of what to do. She considers exploring the common areas, but she doesn’t feel quite brave enough to interact with any stray superheroes yet, so that’s a no-go. She stands there at a loss for a couple minutes, then abruptly realizes that she should check on the rest of the world.
She opens up her phone, and is flooded with messages, from news articles, friends, servers, and on and on. She gets to work answering, reassuring her friends that yes, she is alive, and seeing which of them are even still there. Thankfully, it seems like most of her online frineds (as though she had any others, living on the farm) have survived, at least the ones she was closest to. Scrolling through news sites and social media, she starts to get a picture of what’s happening. Unsurprisingly, the world is panicking. Everything is in chaos, and everyone seems to be asking the same question: What do we do now?
Overwhelmed, Lila decided she’s had enough outside world for today, and closes out of all the articles. She grabs her sketchbook, her headphones, finds a playlist, and starts drawing.
She’s not sure how much time passes, but eventually, there’s a knock on her door. She looks up, startled to realize that it’s dark outside. The room’s lights had turned on automatically at some point, so she hadn’t even noticed. She sets her sketchbook aside and opens the door.
Auntie Nat is standing there, now wearing a sweater and leggings. “Dinner’s ready, Lila. You ready to meet everyone, or do you want me to grab some and we can eat here?” Lila thinks it over. She’s not really ready to meet more superheroes, but she does want to leave the room, and she supposes if she’s going to be living with them, she should probably meet the other residents.
“Let’s go have dinner,” she says, and Auntie Nat smiles at her as she walks out into the hall.