The Field Trip Chapter 5
Mr Stark meets us at the elevator, Peter or spiderman is beside him in full suit and mask
‘oh, crap there’s loads of them’ I hear in my earpiece and grin, Val and I opened one transmitter to Peter recently so we can gossip privately about the others and plan epic pranks.
‘Underoos’ Tony calls out and the call gasp. He ushers us all into the lift while lamenting extravagantly
‘Good afternoon my name is Tony Stark, but you may know me as Iron Man, I brought and created this building and compound, and you will be touring it in a group accompanied by me. No not hand me things however feel free to ask questions-intelligent ones only though.’
With this the elevator pings
‘FRIDAY’ the billionaire continues not missing a beat ‘please warn those in the kitchen and lounge we are coming and to look, well, avenger-esque. Ah Red’ he adds, spotting me. I motion shooting myself at him. He raises an eyebrow and steps out onto the titled floor.
‘welcome to where the magic happens-or rather lives’
He leads the way through the first open corridor going to the lounge/kitchen first. He bursts open the door and Peter trails behind. Maria Hill, Cap and Carol Danvers are sitting on the sofa discussing the correct way to wear a cap-backwards or forwards but stop abruptly when we walk in.
‘Hey’ Carol states standing up and addressing the group ‘I’m Carol Danvers or Captain Marvel, this is Maria Hill who runs our part of SHEILD and you’ve met this Cap’ they state gesturing between them, Cap however seems to have had his share of teenage girls and retreats from the room
‘I gotta go sort some stuff with Banner and Shuri about my shield and vibrainium, nice to meet you girls’ he excuses himself politely and the everyone looks kind of sad until a pale grey cat pads into the room. A collective aww goes up and a few people crouch to the floor to stroke its fur
‘I didn’t know the avengers had a cat!’ one girl asks. Carol and Maria look like they might explode from laughter-they too have noticed the uniquely hazel eyes on the kitty.
‘we don’t’ I say pushing gently to the group I reach down and pick up the grey cat her fur is so soft and the white of ice streaked with the grey of steel. They look surprised
‘aww a stowaway’ one of them comments I laugh outright, and begin to tickle under the cats’ chin
‘of sorts’ I reply and the weight in my arm gains and Val switches back to human form, I laugh then turn bright red remembering they know about us and im now carrying the girl bridal style. I drop her on the floor.
‘guys meet Valkyrie’ I say gesturing to the shaking with laughter (still tracksuit clad) lump on the floor. I can practically hear their jaws hit the floor. Other than Thor’s hammer returning to him this is the only actual power they have seen today. I lightly kick her.
‘get up dude’ I laugh to and she clambers up
‘hey guys’ she smiles at the gang who are still collecting their wits ‘h…hey’ a few of them stammer.
Carol takes over ‘so we were planning on doing a bit of a Q and A then tour of our living areas and stuff?’ a few people nod, slightly star struck at being addressed by someone who can shoot gold glows from her fists.
‘I’ll take that as a yes then’ and the sofas move with the gold glow until they are laid in a line facing 3 armchairs. Val, Carol, and Maria take their seats and gesture for the others to sit opposite them. It reminds me of the press conference we attended in the aftermath of Ultron-masks hiding peter and I’s face as reporters nosed and camera’ flashed.
Carol gives me their signature side smirk as they spot me wafting around the back ‘hey Red’
‘Hey Auntcle Carol’ I laugh back and drag a stool from the kitchen counter over, plopping onto the edge of the first row.
Maria sits bolt upright like an Agent, carol sits like a normal human and Val sits sideways on the chair legs dangling over the edge like the raging lesbian she is.
‘right’ says Maria ‘who wants to begin’
Everyone whacks their hand up, I wince. Boy this is going to be a long session I think as I settle further into my chair. Maria picks JoJo first and she asks hesitantly
‘how did you all get your powers and join the avengers and things?’ Carol grins at her
‘good question, I got mine in a place crash, but kind of not because a super cool energy core exploded on me and I started to glow’ they eye me biting back a laugh ‘as did another avenger- Red Dawn, and then I joined the Kree force outside earth and crashed through a blockbuster in the 1990’s saved the world from an alien explosion and met Fury who introduced me to this nuthouse a couple of decades later, Val?’
‘huh’ Val obviously wasn’t listening ‘oh powers right’ she swings her legs round and sits like a normal human ‘I was always gunna be a Valkyrie from the moment I used my mum’s jade dragon fang sword as a toy, I didn’t find out about my shapeshifting until after The Fall; but, when I did Thor brought me here and I was put into a training programme with Spidey and Dawn, met Iris’ she grins at me
‘got adopted by my very dysfunctional happy family, a robot war later and here I am. Maria you’re up’ she looks at the SHEILD agent
‘I’m not an enhanced, I work for Fury and basically run the Avengers side of SHEILD, like Val I meant to come for a few weeks but loved it, met Nat and here I am-way too far into this to get out now…’ She brunette jokes and Val waggles her eyebrows before Carol calls out the next person to ask a question-its Izzie, I grimace to myself
‘What do you mean the Fall’
Crap. A flicker of sadness crosses Val’s eyes and she locks them with mine and says slowly.
‘908 years ago, The Asgardian throne was under threat from The Goddess of Death, Hela. As Valkyrie we were sent to stop her.
It was a massacre. I only survived because’ I wince, knowing she means Astrid, her eyes are clouded with tears, 900 years later and it still hurts like it was yesterday, I curse Izzie with my entire being but Val isn’t finished
‘I lost … everything, so Thor saved me and I had a purpose again, had a reason to live’ she finishes quietly shaking her head as if to get rid of the memory and tears ‘I was the last Valkyrie but I hope one-day our sisterhood will be re-founded, but for now, at least I’m doing good’
The room is silent for a few moments before the next questions are timidity asked, its 20 mins before another one is directed at Val
‘Can you change into any animal or just cats?’ she says in her whiny voice. She rises to the challenge
‘name one’ Val shoot back grinning
‘ring tailed lima’ the girl replies quickly smirking, I wonder how long she’s been trying to think of an animal that might stump her. But Val is gone in the blink of an eye and in her face a Lima sit, ring tailed and hazel eyed, a crackling comes through on the ear bud I wear permanently now.
‘damn, long tails are a bitch’ I hear translated in my ear. I snort as the animal jumps to the floor and scampers up to the island, tripping on her tail to prove her point. I snort loudly and the group turns to me.
‘ear bud’ I explain hurriedly ‘I can understand what Val’s saying in animal language or whatever’ but Lima Val is gone, and a wolf is in its place with silver fur and sharp teeth. She growls menacingly and all I hear over my ear bud is a ruthless giggle. She flips back quickly and falls backwards onto the chair.
‘I can do all of them I’ve tried, even a Pegasus that really confused Magina’ she registers the confused look on everyone’s faces ‘Magina is my Pegasus, each Valkyrie is bonded with a foal when they are born and we grow as partners-it’s a tradition really, but yeah-fishes, birds, I do love a good eagle’ she finishes and I smile to myself remembering the night of the first appearance of Ulton and TK.
The next few are simple ones age (Val, 1,576, Maria 26 and Carol 71, but all superheroes age uber slowly because of increased metabolism) Asking Carol to show off her powers (she hovers for a bit then hits blasts out the window) and asking Maria how she got into her job (went into law enforcement and rose up through the ranks after a chance encounter with Fury) Then JoJo is picked and looks at me weirdly before asking
‘Do you know Iris and why did she call you Auntcle’ Carol raises an eyebrow at her
‘Well, Red here is a close friend of sorts and she calls me Auntcle or Unctie because I am non binary. Anyone else?’ the superhero explains simply and the questions continued the funniest is when Kashuf asks what Spiderman’s like
Carol narrows their eyes at her ‘that’s confidential information, but what do you mean’
The girl stammers slightly ‘well, I just meant if he’s you know...’ she trails off awkwardly, but I step up, feeling slightly sorry for her, she is obviously very intimidated by the Captain
‘they wanna know if he’s hot’ I explain to my honorary auntcle they laugh outright and even Val cracks a small, but Maria is the one who replies
‘you do realise you are speaking to two lesbians and a like, 70-year-old galaxy saver’ she laughs but continues after she sees the schoolgirl turn red
‘I’d say very cute and innocent kind of, he’s slightly weedy but steps up well and is always kind and and cracks a joke’ she states slowly as if thinking about it gravely.
‘how do you tell if each other are angry or annoyed, especially Ms Romanoff, because well I suppose you’d all like to avoid an angry avenger’
Maria laughs ‘We all have our tells, Tony locks himself in his lab with Spidey usually and the others punch the hell out of a bag in the training room, but only one person knows Natasha Romanoff’s tell and can notice it’ the agent finishes mysteriously, staring at me. The class whip their head around and look at me
‘urghh’ I roll my eyes ‘Nat’s is really obvious-her index finger twitches, I’m not sure why, I think it’s because that’s the trigger finger, but it’s quite difficult to notice but you can definitely tell she wants to strangle someone if it does move’
The last one is from Libby
‘how did you all meet and how do you stay together without arguing or breaking up or something’ Val sits like a normal human again-a sign she is going to answer this one
‘we all love each other really, you met through Mr Fury and Tony who created the Avengers group. Really, we all spilt kinda-Spidey, Dawn, Al, Iris, and I kinda gang up on the others or Iris runs off to yell vines at Shuri. The rest split into pairs based on ability for training. We do argue-like I said we are a dysfunctional happy family and all families argue-sure ours have shields and hammers and weird glowing beams sent from fists but we’ve never broken up really, I’m pretty sure we never will because Tony would threaten or bribe us into staying’
By 1:30 the questions are running out and FRIDAY speaks up
‘Mr Stark wishes for me to inform you that lunch is served in the cafeteria and the tour can commence after food’
A small cheer goes up and Carol laughs
‘I’ll take that as a goodbye, see you for the tour kids’ the class files out but Maria calls me back ‘Red, stay back a bit’ when the last student leaves, she laughs
‘I felt like a teacher calling you back for eating in class’ she one arm hugs me ‘how today going?’ she asks kindly
‘Urm’ I reply ‘an AI told all my class mates my 2nd biggest secrets, cap threatened my bully with a spoon in a paid envelope and Shuri yelled Tiny White Girl and squished me in front of everyone. I then got abused by my teacher and saved by my girlfriend’
Maria looks slightly sad, but it was obvious she knew about the last fact
‘I wish I were Val so I could turn into a fly and get stomped on’ I yell as I run out the door after my group