Chapter 9
I had French first period on Monday with Madame Lyons. Stassia and I walked into the room. I looked around the classroom and saw Joey sitting in my usual spot. He hadn’t been in the French class during the period of French we had on Thursday. Joey caught me looking at him and smirked. It was evil and full of cunningness. He knew exactly who I was, and he knew exactly what he had done. I felt Stassia’s hand on my shoulder but nothing else. I just kept staring at Joey and he kept staring at me.
“I’m going to take her to Mrs Abernathy,” I heard Stassia tell Madame Lyons. I felt Stassia lead me away from the French classroom. As we got further away from the classroom I began to feel everything else.
“He knows who I am,” I mutter.
“He probably knows who we all are then,” Stassia said “Are you okay?” I shook my head.
“I just came face to face with the guy who murdered my family. I froze while he just sat there and smirked. He was in my seat too. He’s got to be toying with me,”
“Did you bring the papers for Mrs Abernathy to sign? Oh, don’t look all surprised – Tony mentioned that you were going to get her to sign forms that meant you could talk to her – and by extension us because he got Natasha to rework the papers to include all of us,”
“That’s… a really good idea. Should of thought of that,”
“I can’t speak for all of the team, but as far as I know you’re the only one who has been through a traumatic experience. You deserve to be able to talk to someone who has absolutely no connection to any one of us,” Stassia said, “Are you okay with getting to Mrs Abernathy on your own?”
“Yeah, I’m alright to get there myself. Take notes for me please – This is like the seventh French lesson I’ve missed,” Stassia laughed a little before turning around.
I knocked on Mrs Abernathy’s office door.
“Come in,” I heard her voice say. I opened the door. Mrs Abernathy was sitting at her desk, writing something on her laptop.
“Hey Mrs Abernathy. You said I could drop in when I needed to,”
“Abigail, hello. What a pleasant surprise. Please take a seat,” I took off my backpack and sat on the couch. I opened my backpack and took out the papers Natasha had prepared me. I held them up.
“What do you have there Abigail?”
“I need you to read and sign before I say anything else,” I got up and walked over to Mrs Abernathy’s desk and handed the papers to her, “Is it okay if I do my homework while I wait? Spanish is next period and I haven’t been able to finish this assignment,”
“Of course, you can Abigail, take as much time as you need,” Mrs Abernathy said as she took out her reading glasses.
“Your internship at Stark Industries isn’t really an internship is it?” Mrs Abernathy asked. I looked up from my Spanish textbook. I watched Mrs Abernathy sign a piece of paper and hold it out towards me. I put down my textbook and got off the couch. I took the papers from Mrs Abernathy and skimmed it, looking for all her signatures. Everything was signed.
“I do do the occasional stint over in the R&D department, but yeah it’s not really an internship,” I shrugged, “It’s a cover story for when I need to explain to someone why I can’t do something,”
“Did your parents know?”
“They apparently did. I told my grandparents. I needed to let them know why I had to stay in New York,”
“I’m assuming your guardian is also a hero,”
“I cannot deny nor confirm,” Mrs Abernathy laughed a little.
“What can I do for you, now that I’ve signed your contract?”
“I know who killed my family and one of them was sitting in my seat in French literally two days after someone gave me all the information they could on them. I know I freaked out – it was bad enough that a friend had to take me here,”
“I assume that this person doesn’t take French,”
“He hasn’t been at any of the French lessons I’ve been in. It may be a coincidence that he decided to transfer to a language class, but to sit in my seat and then smirk all while I can’t do anything but stare – that isn’t a coincidence,”
“How would he know where you sit if he hasn’t been in your French class?”
“Mrs Abernathy, believing something is just a coincidence and nothing else gets people in my line of work killed. He knows who I am, and I don’t know how,”
I’ll be the first to admit that talking to Mrs Abernathy for the two hours that I did after seeing Joseph in my seat was good for me. Not only did it give me a chance to talk about what I did with someone who had no particular interest in me, but it also helped me really deal with my grief and panic attack I had when I saw Joseph. The rest of the week went fast. I did all the make up test I needed to as well as whatever homework I had been assigned for that week. I fully moved into Clint’s apartment while my grandparents went back to their home in Dallas, informing Clint, and the courts, that they would get in touch re visitation rights. Between the previous weekend’s excitement and the amount of school I had, it was no surprise that it wasn’t until early Saturday morning that I was able to inform my team what I had learnt from Greenberg. Everyone, but Fe looked tired. It was probably because Stassia liked getting up at 5:30 most mornings while the rest of us barely got out of bed before 7. Getting everyone out of bed before 6 did not help my case.
“What’s up Slingshot?” Spider Man asked, yawning.
“I wanted to let you guys know what I learnt from Greenberg,”
“Who’s Greenberg?” Red Bolt asked.
“She means Galvon – Greenberg is his real name,” Gecko explained.
“W-why should we care if someone has… an alias? Is that the right word?” Ligero asked meekly. Out of my team, I had interacted with Ligero the least. When I had interacted with her, it had been awkward to say the least. Ligero always seemed anxious and on edge. I’m sure there was a good reason why she had become Vision’s sidekick. I’m sure there was a good reason why I had asked for her help on this mission. It probably had something to do with the fact she could manipulate gravity and she could fly unaided. Unlike half of my team who had to rely on things like hoverboards and webs to get around quickly .
“Because Johnathan Greenberg and John Galvon know what is going on. But only Greenberg is willing to share information,” I told my team, “And he told me why Blake and Joseph are attending a New York High School,”
“Do tell me it’s something good,” Red Bolt said.
“I’m sure it is,” Gecko sighed, “Slingshot doesn’t just call everyone at 6 o’clock on a Saturday,” I glared at Gecko’s hologram.
“I’ll have you know that I’ve been very busy this past week – I’ve only just caught up with school work,” I tell her, “Any way I need to tell you all this now before it’s too late. Joseph and Blake are posing as brothers Blake and Joey Hamilton. The Hamilton boys’ father is running for Mayor of New York City and let me tell you now that it’s not going to be pretty if he wins. Hamilton… I don’t actually know his first name oddly enough… is actually Harper Hayes, Joseph’s father and the current head of HYDRA,”
“What do you mean? it’s not going to be pretty if he wins?” Spider Man asked.
“Mind control all of New York, then the whole state, then the country and then, eventually, the entire planet. I don’t think he’s planning on going further at this stage,” I answered, “Which is why we need to stop him now,”
“And how do you think we should do this?” Fe asked
“We’re going to go undercover and be saboteurs of course. Hamilton has his campaign launch party tonight. We’re going to get in and see what Hamilton is like first. Then every event Hamilton puts on after that we sabotage it. It may put pressure on Hamilton’s opposition because everyone will believe its political espionage, but it may also help show to the general public that something has to be up,”
“If we want to cast suspicion off the other candidates then we should sabotage them, but less frequently,” Gecko said, deep in thought “While it may look like an anarchist, it would hopefully make it harder for Hamilton to get votes,”
“I suppose you have a plan for tonight?” Red Bolt said.
“Sort of. Fe, Spidey, remember that mission we went on together a few weeks ago? The one at the charity gala?”
“You mean the one where Tony got into a fight?” Spider Man said.
“I’m pretty sure Tony’s gotten into plenty of fights on mission,” Fe said, “But yeah, we remember,”
“Cool. I want to do something similar. Fe, do you think you can get Tony to give those earring comes he created to us?”
“I can probably get them to everyone by midday. Do you want the dress you wore to the gala?” I thought about it for a while. Hamilton probably would know by now that I was at the gala when Galvon was taken if his son had sat in my seat in the French classroom.
“Yeah, I think I will. You should too,” Fe nodded, “Red Bolt, Ligero. We’re going to split into teams of two. You guys should pick first,” Ligero took her time to think while Red Bolt jumped the gun.
“Spider Man. I’ll work with Spider Man,”
“Sounds like fun,” Spider Man said, “I’ll get in contact with you later in regard to how we’re getting there,”
“What about you Ligero?” I asked.
“I’ll… I’ll work with Fe,” Ligero said reluctantly.
“Cool,” Fe said. Knowing who was under the helmet, I knew Stassia would be beaming.
“That leaves me and you Slingshot,” Gecko said, “I’m assuming you’ll get all the finer details sorted for us,” I nodded.
“For now, I just need all of you to prepare for Blake and Joseph recognizing you. For most of us it will be an odd experience. I assume you two have the Stark Internship cover story?” I directed my last question at Red Bolt and Ligero. They both nodded.
“I think Tony Stark is going to send his interns who are the future voters to learn about politics,” I said, “That’s all I needed to talk to you about at the moment. I’ll call all of you guys at midday to give out the complete mission parameters. Gecko, do you mind have a private chat with me?”
“Of course not,”
“Okay guys, have a good day,” Everyone but Gecko echoed similar goodbyes and disconnected the call from their ends.
“What did you want to talk about Slingshot,”
“I’m thinking ahead of tonight. Blake has been at Midtown for two weeks now and you haven’t been there. It will be one thing to trip them up at the campaign launch, but it would be another to trip Blake and Joey at school,”
“What are you suggesting exactly?”
“I’m suggesting you stop avoiding reality and come out of your room and walk into Midtown with your head held high. Blake can’t do anything without revealing who he is. Nor can Joey,”
“I’ll think about it,”
“Mrs Abernathy is a counsellor at the school. I know that she has signed papers with the Avengers silence program. You’ll be able to talk to her should you need to,”
“I’ll think about it Slingshot,” Gecko cut the call short. I sighed. I knew letting Ligero and Red Bolt chose their teammate helped earn me their trust but sometimes I found Gecko to be annoying. We’d almost always been on at each other’s throats. In a friendly rival sort of way. Like me, Gecko had been in SHIELD training when it collapsed; she’d been in the class below me but everyone in my class had heard the rumour she would be fast tracked into ours. I lorded my Level 3 clearance over her Level 2 clearance whenever I could. Gecko always made a point that she was much better at the stealth part of spying then I was; and I always corrected her since I was marksman not a spy. But sometimes one of us (usually me) takes our friendly rivalry too far. Like the time when I spent a full 24 hours just speaking French. There was a knock on my bedroom door.
“I know you’re up Abs. Do you want breakfast, or do you want to go for a run?” I heard Clint ask. I touch my implant, retracting my glasses.
“We could run to that café two blocks over and get pancakes for breakfast,” I suggest, pushing myself up off my office chair.