Blue Moon| Book 1 | An Avengers fan fiction series| *under editing*

31- Caught (*)

"Where are the sandwiches?" I ask, basically sleep-walking.

"On the table. And I don't know why you're so tired, you've been sleeping like a rock, haven't you?" Max is on the computer at the barstools.

I grab a sandwich and sit down next to him instead of Kyle (who gives me a poisonous look). I don't bother to tell him that last night was the first amount of real sleep I've gotten in a while. Instead, I ask him a question of my own, "What are you doing?"

Max sees me, apparently for the first time, and shuts the computer lid. "Just finished actually." When I give him a suspicious look he adds, "Don't give me that."

"I can give you whatever I want."

Snorting, Kyle walks up behind me and pulls my ponytail. I don't think he meant to pull so hard, but regardless, he pulls it so hard, it falls out of the tie. "Enough of your sass, young lady. Now go upstairs and do whatever it is teenagers do nowadays."

"Okay. So I'll just get out my phone that's incinerated in my now incinerated apartment and go on Twitter or something."

Exhaustion makes me sarcastic.

Kyle, who is always sarcastic or condescending, gives me a half-smirk, half devil-may-care look, which I take to be a sign to get out of there. Max shrugs at me, and I trudge up the stairs. As I walk in the bedroom, I hear them walk up the stairs to their computer lab or science playground or whatever it is.

Two minutes later, I'm bored of watching the rain patter on the window, sending little trickles of water down the glass. Thankfully, I'm saved by Max poking his head in my room, "I'm heading to town to get some groceries. Be back soon, and try to behave yourself."

"I'll try," I say, deciding not to mention how weird it is for him to be going to the store when it's pouring outside.

He rolls his eyes, but with a trace of amusement, and then leaves the room.

As soon as I watch the SUV pull out of the driveway, collapse on the bed, perpetually bored. I last exactly five minutes and twenty seconds before I head out into the hallway. I hear Kyle banging around in the kitchen, or in the living area office, but I don't really care.

I'm about to head downstairs, but the still-open stairs to the attic pique my interest. I glance towards the general direction of the stairway and then, deducing that Kyle is still busy doing whatever the heck he is doing, I tiptoe up the stairs. The last one creaks a little, and I freeze. Nothing happens.

Upstairs, the computers are humming along like usual, and I mosey through them, not really interested in them as much as really bored. Eventually, I come across a monitor that is on sleep mode. It's the only one like this, so I assume that's the one they've used recently.

I sit down on the swivel chair and pull myself up to the desk. I'm ninety percent sure the computer will be locked, but I'm surprised that, when I wave the mouse around to wake the machine up, it lets me log in as a guest. Weird.

There are two windows open, and the first one catches my eye, because it's two security camera stills on top of each other. They're grainy and not clear, with only a couple figures in the middle of a few others. I shrug and minimize the window.

The second one turns out to be more interesting. It looks like a sort of hyped-up version of e-mail, and based on the address, it's Max's. The way it's formatted is not by most recent but alphabetical by person, each aligned in a separate screen.

I pass through dozens of unfamiliar faces, most of them what I suppose are agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. or something. It's not until I get to Stark, Tony (with a brilliant picture of a smiling Stark), that I recognize someone. I click on the file, not at all troubled by what I'm doing.