Eli passed the phone over to Billy without complaint. He wasn’t exactly looking forward to explaining to his grandparents that he’d gotten his shoulder cut open and was now grounded at the Avengers Tower.
What were they going to do about school? He had his job at the library, too. Was this a grounding or a house-arrest?
It really wasn’t fair that the Avengers were throwing this at them while they were trying to recover. How were they supposed to debate properly while laid up in infirmary beds?
Eli glanced over at the Vision, who had semi-collapsed onto a chair next to Cassie’s bed. The android didn’t look like he was ready to voice any arguments, which meant that the only real back-up that Eli could expect would be Tommy. Probably not the best time and team to launch into a debate with Iron Man.
“Give us time to think it over.” He said. “In the mean time, what about school? Is this going to be another incident like at the Avengers’ Mansion where you locked us all up under the pretense of “training” us?”
Okay, so he was still holding a grudge about that. A little.
Cassie closed her eyes. Please Eli, don't mess this up for me... Had Iron Man not said the magic words of "grounded" and "staying here" (and were she not feeling totally drained) she would be yelling back about how the Avengers weren't doing anything to save them, there had been adults there (hell, Chamber had shown up, and that Mrs. Xanathos person had been scary enough) but there was no way she wanted to mess this one up. Grounded from home sounded a lot better than being grounded at home.
Cassie was going to say something but instead glanced over at Billy and bit her lip. She ought to focus on what to say to her mother instead. She could only hope her mom wouldn't put up a fight when she told her about this grounded thing. What's she going to tell Blake? Cassie wondered. She went over a rudimentary form of the possible conversation in her mind. "Spending the week at her friend's house." "What friends?" Stupid Blake.
"I want to know about the school thing, too," Kate said. She drank some of the water next to her bed in an attempt to stave off the hoarseness she knew was coming and continued. "As it is my dad's probably going to home school me from now on out of sheer paranoia, but if he has to call the attendance office to tell them I'm going to be out for however long because of an injury that might have been prevented if you guys had bothered to train us properly in the first place instead of being arrogant enough to assume that a group of determined teenagers was going to do as you ordered and go back to playing at normalcy, he will. Maybe you're not the one directly responsible for all of this, but you have no right to be all high and mighty when your neglect contributed to the current situation."
Satisfied, she took another drink of water. Whatever happened after, at least she'd told off Iron Man and felt justified about it.
Billy had the phone to his ear, listening very quietly to both his mother and Kate as they talked. He'd been right. Mom was gonna have kittens over this. They were coming as soon as they could get Mrs. X to watch the twins, come hell or high water.
That was when he told his mother, in very hushed tones, just who had showed up to rescue everyone.
That was when his mother had put his father on the phone. And his father had asked in a very quiet, very serious voice, to talk to Mrs. X. Billy knew that this was a tone of voice you didn't trifle with. "I don't know where she is. She was hurt, and they took her somewhere else. Uncle Auggie was with her."
And then there had been the silence. It had scared Billy, though he didn't exactly know why it scared him. It was just... something. It was something that said things had gone very, very wrong. And then his father had said that they would bring the twins along if they couldn't find anyone else, and that he would see Billy soon, and then he'd hung up.
Cassie looked around the room. Billy had called, Teddy didn't have any parents to call, Tommy... well she didn't know if he was still in contact with his parents or not, so that left Eli and Kate. And her. And she was not calling until everyone else had gone.
No one was speaking up. It looked like everyone else was thinking the same thing. "Kate?" Cassie asked. "Don't you need to call your dad?" Cassie gave her friend a look that she really hoped conveyed "I helped save you from that evil bug thing, please, please, please, help me in my fifteen minutes of need until my mom verbally tears me apart." As it is, she looked more like an impetulant, pouty girl.
Tommy had no use for the phone since he didn’t have anyone to inform of this latest development and so was content to watch the others call their parents and get yelled at. At least he was until Cassie started pouting; that was a little disturbing. Still, with the whole ‘Avengers grounding them’ thing, Tommy had to admit the whole situation was amusing in its absurdity.
At least he thought amusing was the word for being grounded by and with a bunch of people he didn’t know, like, or particularly trust (It was that whole obeying the law thing. In a technical sense he was supposed to be locked up and it was their job to make sure he stayed that way.) They were going to be stuck here, whether they liked or not, for being kidnapped, which was fine by him because he didn’t want to be going anywhere anyway. Either that or ‘Ironic’, but he wasn’t totally sure about the definition of ironic in the first place.
“So, you’re admitting that letting us wander around in public was a bad idea? Does that mean I was right and can go back to bed?” Tommy asked, tilting his head off to the side. He was going to assume it went without saying that he was against being ‘grounded’ with everyone else. Not the grounded deal so much, but the everyone else part of it.
Kate crossed her arms as she looked at Cassie. She wasn't really a fan of making her friend pout, but there were other priorities at the moment. "One of you better go before me, I need to figure out the best way to tell Dad that I still got hurt after promising him I wouldn't die."
The worst-case scenario had her locked up at home like an irate tower-imprisoned princess, while the best-case scenario would probably involve her dad hiring the best martial artists money could buy. It was the least likely, but how close could she get to it? Within moments, she was totally focused on the problem and unaware of anything else being said.
Cassie frowned. "I'm not in much better a position either." But Kate seemed to be off in her own world. Great. She sighed. "Eli?"
She wasn't in a cell with a forcefield and she didn't have an explosive, power controlling collar around her neck, but she felt almost as helpless as she was back under that giant praying mantis woman's prison. She knew it was stupid, that she shouldn't feel that way, but she did.
“Sure, I’ll go next.” Eli said, taking the phone from where Billy had let it drop onto the bed. He dialed and took a deep breath as it rang.
“Hi Grandma.” He said. “I’m okay. Mostly. But I’m going to be fine, really! Yeah. Yes. No, no, really, it’s okay.”
As Eli updated his grandparents on the most recent escapade, the Vision stared hard at his own knees as he thought about what Mr. Stark had said. While he was happy that the New Avengers were going to be taking the Young Avengers seriously (finally), he wasn’t sure that he liked the idea of giving up their self-control. The Young Avengers were over their sidekick stage, they had been since the incident at the Mansion that Eli had mentioned. It wasn’t like he thought that they couldn’t trust the New Avengers, but it didn’t seem fair that the New Avengers could claim them as sidekicks when they weren’t trying to be sidekicks anymore.
“Uh-huh. Yeah. Love you too. I’ll see you tomorrow. ‘Bye.” Eli ended the call and glanced over at Kate and Cassie. “Your turn, ladies.”
All of this calling to parents was not precisely helping Teddy with his own form of 'dealing'; if the Avengers weren't going to get to the point, and quickly, he'd rather just leave as it was. They'd had a damn long day -- another damn long day, on top of the last one -- and he was more than ready to get some rest.
Between Kate and Tommy, they accomplishing nothing but getting the team yelled at again.
"If we're just going to be calling our parents, then I'm going to my room," he said shortly, sliding off the edge of Billy's bed, leaving only wrinkled sheets in his wake. "I'm not hurt. I don't need to be here. And you guys," Teddy continued, giving his fellow teammates a patient look, coupled with a weary smile, "are just going to dig us in deeper if you keep pushing them. We don't really have any say in this, y'know?"
He was just grateful that the Avengers were, at last, considering doing something with them that didn't involve breaking them all up or forcing them to quit.
In the time Eli had been talking to his parents, she realized that going last would probably not be the best idea. Whatever was said last would be stuck in the whole group's mind, and she didn't want everyone to stare at her because of a yelling match with her mom. Besides, she'd better just get it over with.
Cassie stared at Teddy, and smiled. She really didn't know what to say to him. She should, she had lost her father but she hadn't talked about it to anyone except Mr. Stark, and right now, she didn't really want to. She didn't think Teddy did either.
"Alright." Cassie said to Eli. She waited for the phone to reach her, paused a moment, then dialed. When the call was answered, she nearly jumped. "Blake! Uhm, can I speak with my-" She bit her lip as her step-father chewed her out for her disappearance. "Yeah, I'm uh, sorry." She said flatly. "Can I just talk to mo- yes, I know. I- well that's not my fault! O.K., well, that is my fault but just- is that mom?" She breathed a sigh of relief when her mother got on the phone instead of Blake the jerk. "I'm fine, don't worry. I'm at the Avenger's Tower." She waited for what her mother's outburst to pass. "Actually I was kidnapped and they want me to stay here in case she comes after me again." Cassie closed her eyes. "No mom, I don't think the police can handle this one. It was a big bug woman." She paused. "Look mom, it's safer for me and it's safer for you." She didn't really care that it was safer for Blake too. "I'm going to be here for a while you can." She forced the words out of her mouth. "You can visit if you want, O.K.? ...You can tell Blake what happened, it's not like I've never been kidnapped before. Alright. Bye."
Jesus, well that was only slightly worse than getting thrown into a wall by a praying mantis. She waved the phone in Kate's direction. "Ready?"
Kate sighed. "Might as well get it over with." She took the phone from Cassie and called home, feeling a lot more nervous than she cared to admit.
"It's Kate, Dad. I'm--my cellphone got fried, how was I supposed to know you'd called? Something involving an EMP and--Dad, will you call Hawthorne and make up an excuse for me? I'm at Avengers Tower with my friends and they're not letting us leave until we're all fixed and the lunatic who kidnapped us earlier--until the lunatic who kidnapped us earlier is accounted for and we're all healed up... Some freaky foreign woman who had nothing to do with last night's incident..."
"I don't care if it was random," her father said, "after you get out of there you can forget about seeing any of those friends of yours ever again, they're obviously getting you into trouble."
"Daddy, please don't. This incident was completely random and I didn't break my promise anyway and they're my best friends, Dad! You might as well be saying I can't see you and Ava anymore... I know, but you can't protect me from everything. Not for very long... Yeah, Iron Man said to tell you you can come and see me... Could you bring me that book I need to read for English, too...? Thank you, Dad. I'll see you later... Bye."
Hanging up, Kate looked back up at the others in the room. "Anyone else?"
"I believe that's everyone except for Thomas," Captain America said quietly from his place leaning against the wall next to the door to the small infirmary ward, "and you can sit back down, Ted. What we have to discuss affects all of you."
He waited until the boy sat before continuing, looking at all of the kids in turn. "We told you our reasons before for not taking you in and training you. You know that we refused because you're kids, and we were trying to keep you out of danger. That you chose to continue to get yourselves into trouble is your own fault. We were hoping that you would pull yourselves out of this before you went past the point of no return, while you could still go back to living normal lives. You can play the blame game for as long as you want to; I really don't care about it. What happens now is what matters, Miss Bishop."
Here his glance dropped to the bed occupied by Billy and Teddy; his expression and voice did not change, despite the fact that his words were addressed to them more than to the others in the room. "It's too late for some of you to pull out now. We can't leave you alone anymore, and you need more protection than you realized. You chose to be Young Avengers, and now you know what the costs of that can be
"If you're going to keep on being Young Avengers, you'll be answering to us. That means you will be talking about this with your guardians, whoever they may be, and making sure they know the danger that you are putting them into, now. And when you've done that, then we'll talk about training. Not before."
What were they going to do about school? He had his job at the library, too. Was this a grounding or a house-arrest?
It really wasn’t fair that the Avengers were throwing this at them while they were trying to recover. How were they supposed to debate properly while laid up in infirmary beds?
Eli glanced over at the Vision, who had semi-collapsed onto a chair next to Cassie’s bed. The android didn’t look like he was ready to voice any arguments, which meant that the only real back-up that Eli could expect would be Tommy. Probably not the best time and team to launch into a debate with Iron Man.
“Give us time to think it over.” He said. “In the mean time, what about school? Is this going to be another incident like at the Avengers’ Mansion where you locked us all up under the pretense of “training” us?”
Okay, so he was still holding a grudge about that. A little.
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Cassie was going to say something but instead glanced over at Billy and bit her lip. She ought to focus on what to say to her mother instead. She could only hope her mom wouldn't put up a fight when she told her about this grounded thing. What's she going to tell Blake? Cassie wondered. She went over a rudimentary form of the possible conversation in her mind.
"Spending the week at her friend's house."
"What friends?"
Stupid Blake.
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Satisfied, she took another drink of water. Whatever happened after, at least she'd told off Iron Man and felt justified about it.
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That was when he told his mother, in very hushed tones, just who had showed up to rescue everyone.
That was when his mother had put his father on the phone. And his father had asked in a very quiet, very serious voice, to talk to Mrs. X. Billy knew that this was a tone of voice you didn't trifle with. "I don't know where she is. She was hurt, and they took her somewhere else. Uncle Auggie was with her."
And then there had been the silence. It had scared Billy, though he didn't exactly know why it scared him. It was just... something. It was something that said things had gone very, very wrong. And then his father had said that they would bring the twins along if they couldn't find anyone else, and that he would see Billy soon, and then he'd hung up.
"Anyone else want the phone?" Billy asked.
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No one was speaking up. It looked like everyone else was thinking the same thing. "Kate?" Cassie asked. "Don't you need to call your dad?" Cassie gave her friend a look that she really hoped conveyed "I helped save you from that evil bug thing, please, please, please, help me in my fifteen minutes of need until my mom verbally tears me apart." As it is, she looked more like an impetulant, pouty girl.
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At least he thought amusing was the word for being grounded by and with a bunch of people he didn’t know, like, or particularly trust (It was that whole obeying the law thing. In a technical sense he was supposed to be locked up and it was their job to make sure he stayed that way.) They were going to be stuck here, whether they liked or not, for being kidnapped, which was fine by him because he didn’t want to be going anywhere anyway. Either that or ‘Ironic’, but he wasn’t totally sure about the definition of ironic in the first place.
“So, you’re admitting that letting us wander around in public was a bad idea? Does that mean I was right and can go back to bed?” Tommy asked, tilting his head off to the side. He was going to assume it went without saying that he was against being ‘grounded’ with everyone else. Not the grounded deal so much, but the everyone else part of it.
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The worst-case scenario had her locked up at home like an irate tower-imprisoned princess, while the best-case scenario would probably involve her dad hiring the best martial artists money could buy. It was the least likely, but how close could she get to it? Within moments, she was totally focused on the problem and unaware of anything else being said.
((OOC: Damn you, Anna!))
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She wasn't in a cell with a forcefield and she didn't have an explosive, power controlling collar around her neck, but she felt almost as helpless as she was back under that giant praying mantis woman's prison. She knew it was stupid, that she shouldn't feel that way, but she did.
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“Hi Grandma.” He said. “I’m okay. Mostly. But I’m going to be fine, really! Yeah. Yes. No, no, really, it’s okay.”
As Eli updated his grandparents on the most recent escapade, the Vision stared hard at his own knees as he thought about what Mr. Stark had said. While he was happy that the New Avengers were going to be taking the Young Avengers seriously (finally), he wasn’t sure that he liked the idea of giving up their self-control. The Young Avengers were over their sidekick stage, they had been since the incident at the Mansion that Eli had mentioned. It wasn’t like he thought that they couldn’t trust the New Avengers, but it didn’t seem fair that the New Avengers could claim them as sidekicks when they weren’t trying to be sidekicks anymore.
“Uh-huh. Yeah. Love you too. I’ll see you tomorrow. ‘Bye.” Eli ended the call and glanced over at Kate and Cassie. “Your turn, ladies.”
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Between Kate and Tommy, they accomplishing nothing but getting the team yelled at again.
"If we're just going to be calling our parents, then I'm going to my room," he said shortly, sliding off the edge of Billy's bed, leaving only wrinkled sheets in his wake. "I'm not hurt. I don't need to be here. And you guys," Teddy continued, giving his fellow teammates a patient look, coupled with a weary smile, "are just going to dig us in deeper if you keep pushing them. We don't really have any say in this, y'know?"
He was just grateful that the Avengers were, at last, considering doing something with them that didn't involve breaking them all up or forcing them to quit.
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Cassie stared at Teddy, and smiled. She really didn't know what to say to him. She should, she had lost her father but she hadn't talked about it to anyone except Mr. Stark, and right now, she didn't really want to. She didn't think Teddy did either.
"Alright." Cassie said to Eli. She waited for the phone to reach her, paused a moment, then dialed. When the call was answered, she nearly jumped. "Blake! Uhm, can I speak with my-" She bit her lip as her step-father chewed her out for her disappearance. "Yeah, I'm uh, sorry." She said flatly. "Can I just talk to mo- yes, I know. I- well that's not my fault! O.K., well, that is my fault but just- is that mom?" She breathed a sigh of relief when her mother got on the phone instead of Blake the jerk. "I'm fine, don't worry. I'm at the Avenger's Tower." She waited for what her mother's outburst to pass. "Actually I was kidnapped and they want me to stay here in case she comes after me again." Cassie closed her eyes. "No mom, I don't think the police can handle this one. It was a big bug woman." She paused. "Look mom, it's safer for me and it's safer for you." She didn't really care that it was safer for Blake too. "I'm going to be here for a while you can." She forced the words out of her mouth. "You can visit if you want, O.K.? ...You can tell Blake what happened, it's not like I've never been kidnapped before. Alright. Bye."
Jesus, well that was only slightly worse than getting thrown into a wall by a praying mantis. She waved the phone in Kate's direction. "Ready?"
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"It's Kate, Dad. I'm--my cellphone got fried, how was I supposed to know you'd called? Something involving an EMP and--Dad, will you call Hawthorne and make up an excuse for me? I'm at Avengers Tower with my friends and they're not letting us leave until we're all fixed and the lunatic who kidnapped us earlier--until the lunatic who kidnapped us earlier is accounted for and we're all healed up... Some freaky foreign woman who had nothing to do with last night's incident..."
"I don't care if it was random," her father said, "after you get out of there you can forget about seeing any of those friends of yours ever again, they're obviously getting you into trouble."
"Daddy, please don't. This incident was completely random and I didn't break my promise anyway and they're my best friends, Dad! You might as well be saying I can't see you and Ava anymore... I know, but you can't protect me from everything. Not for very long... Yeah, Iron Man said to tell you you can come and see me... Could you bring me that book I need to read for English, too...? Thank you, Dad. I'll see you later... Bye."
Hanging up, Kate looked back up at the others in the room. "Anyone else?"
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He waited until the boy sat before continuing, looking at all of the kids in turn. "We told you our reasons before for not taking you in and training you. You know that we refused because you're kids, and we were trying to keep you out of danger. That you chose to continue to get yourselves into trouble is your own fault. We were hoping that you would pull yourselves out of this before you went past the point of no return, while you could still go back to living normal lives. You can play the blame game for as long as you want to; I really don't care about it. What happens now is what matters, Miss Bishop."
Here his glance dropped to the bed occupied by Billy and Teddy; his expression and voice did not change, despite the fact that his words were addressed to them more than to the others in the room. "It's too late for some of you to pull out now. We can't leave you alone anymore, and you need more protection than you realized. You chose to be Young Avengers, and now you know what the costs of that can be
"If you're going to keep on being Young Avengers, you'll be answering to us. That means you will be talking about this with your guardians, whoever they may be, and making sure they know the danger that you are putting them into, now. And when you've done that, then we'll talk about training. Not before."
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