Universal Headaches

Chapter 10

It only took a couple dozen signs proclaiming the obvious for Sutton to realize that they were, in fact, heading north. The last time she'd checked, north wasn't where they kept California. She sat up straighter in her seat and twisted to see out all the windows. Her first instinct was to ask where they were going, or if maybe Clint was lost, but she didn't want to ask a dumb question and look any more stupid than she already had.

Ok, she thought to herself, deduction time.

Mentally cracking her knuckles, she put on her imaginary Sherlock Holmes hat.

Clint was a trained assassin employed by S.H.I.E.L.D.; he obviously wasn't lost. That meant he was heading north with a purpose. So, what was of interest north when they'd all agreed the lab was their end game. Canada was north. Were they going to drive up and drop her off?

But Bruce had said they wouldn't leave her!

Her face felt cool all of a sudden. He'd said they wouldn't leave her for the feds to find. Did they think she'd be safe on foreign soil? Didn't they know Canada pretty much didn't even count as "out of country"? A tingle had erupted in her stomach as she berated herself and tried to calm down. What had assumptions ever done for her before? Instead, she calmly peered out the window and said calmly,

"so, can I correctly guess we're making our way to Canada?"

"To the border, yes," confirmed Natasha.

Sutton nodded to herself.

"For," she prodded further.

"The bank."

Seeing as how the answers where getting shorter and more terse Sutton was loathe to ask another one, so she didn't. Her Sherlock hat went back on and she tried to recall every spy and action movie she'd ever seen for clues. A few seconds later and she groaned in dawning realization.

"It'll cost more in gas than I actually have in my account," she complained. "If you wanted my life savings, you should have just let me pull it out in town. Andrea knows me there. She would have believed whatever excuse I gave her."

"This way," Natasha explained very slowly, "they might assume you've tried to run out of county."

Sutton let out a huff of annoyance, but sat back in her seat. Scratch the hopeful thinking that this road trip would only last a long day.

Oh no. They were going to get nice and cozy.

"If they bothered to take one glance at my browser history, I think it'd be pretty obvious how non-terrorist I am," she complained.

"Oh, we know," Tony scoffed. "Trust me."

Sutton's sudden glare snapped to the back of his head.

"Hey! I deleted all that the day after you guys got here!"

She had, hadn't she? Yes, she knew she had. It'd been in the short amount of time they'd let her have custody of her own laptop back. Tony pointed to the top of his head over the seat without turning around to face her.

"Genius. And, as if that wasn't enough," he then pointed two fingers at the front row couple, "espionage twins. Nothing on a computer is secret for you."

She really had no response to that except to whine about unfairness and privacy acts, so she huffed indignantly instead and sat back in her seat.

Despite the fact that Sutton found herself, quite literally, on a road trip with the Avengers that didn't negate the fact that after forty-five minutes of driving, you were done. Sutton really wished she'd thought to bring a book.