Vanished {Pietro Maximoff}

Chapter 4

Alex was like a deer caught in headlights, giant marshmallow stoppering her mouth as the bedroom door was flung open.

The six Avengers, as well as Rhodey and Maria stood in the door way and outside hall. Thor, who had been the one to kick the door open, had a small smile of relief on his face the moment he saw her.

Tony was barrelling towards her, even before Thor had gotten out of the way. He skidded to a halt before her and grabbed her arms, turning them over to examine them.

"You're alright. Oh my god, you're alright." He poked her cheek, as thought he was expecting some kind of camouflage that would fall away if he disturbed it. When that satisfied him that she was, in fact, real, he pulled her into a hug. Alex allowed it to happen, but it also only made her more anxious as the last time Tony had hugged her, it had been because they nearly died.

"Yeah, I'm alright. What's up?" Alex mumbled through the marshmallow. She looked more closely at the six people crowded at the front of her room. Thor had already left. Pushing Tony away from her, Alex questioned, "Why is Nat sweating?"

"Did you not hear anything? No one came in here?" Steve checked.

"No, it's just me and my Friends. Oh, J.A.R.V.I.S. is down, by the way." She said to Tony, whose look of happiness at her safety fell into concern again.

"What? He can't be."

"Well he is, wouldn't play me music."

"Goddammit Alex, I've told you not to use him for that. He's probably just sulking." Maybe there wasn't a life or death situation happening, if Tony was willing to snap at her.

"And he didn't alert me that you were in this hall. That's a feature you installed, unless it's been bypassed for some reason then J.A.R.V.I.S. is down." She noticed the somber expression on Tony's face too late, even if she didn't understand what it was for.

"Tony," Steve said carefully, placing a hand on his shoulder, "Ultron said he killed someone. We're all safe."

"Who's Ultron? And why did he kill them?"

"You don't need to know," Tony said, looking crestfallen at Steve's suggestion that his proudest achievement might be gone. "We should go tidy up the living room. I'd offer to do it alone but I need to go to the lab first."

Bruce nodded to Alex, but kept his distance like always, "Stay in here."

They left together, conversing quietly. Bruce's hand was on Tony's shoulder, the same way Steve's had been a few moments ago.

"Pà, what's happened?"

"Nothing." Steve looked down when he lied, something Alex had learnt from Natasha. He was distracted, glancing everywhere, but at Alex's question he still managed to drop his gaze to the floor for a split second.

"Dad?"

Clint shook his head, turning away from her.

"We should send her to Sam." Steve said, in a very loud whisper, to Natasha, who shook her head,

"It's safer for her here."

"If it was, we wouldn't have all come rushing to see if she was still alive."

"I'm not letting her go without one of us going with her." Clint risked a glance at Alex.

"Well it can't be you, I saw that fall you took, you were told to take it easy by Dr Cho. You're in no position to protect Alex."

"So she should stay here. With us."

"Sam can look after her, probably better than we can right now."