"Nat! I'll be back in an hour!" you yelled from the front door of the tower, hoping that she would hear you, but not be so close that she would be able to stop you. Watching the stairs for her to make an appearance, you reached behind you to open the door, but rather than your hand connecting with glass, you felt the leather of her uniform and nearly jumped out of your own skin.
"Jesus, sis! You scared the crap outta me!"
"Where exactly do you think you're going, (Y/N)? We take off in three hours, and you know that Cap has a rule about leaving this close to a mission."
"It's only one hour. He won't even know that I'm gone if you keep your mouth shut."
Natasha eyed you suspiciously, trying to figure out what could be so important that you would risk pissing off Steve, also knowing that trying to stop you was really pointless. You had never followed your older sister's rules in the past, and you weren't likely to start following them now. "Okay, so what's in it for me?"
You searched your mind desperately for anything that would get her off your back so you could finally just leave. Normally anything that would get Stark off her back would work, but they were getting along pretty well, as luck would have it. If he knew that you were trying to sneak out before a mission, your overprotective best friend would team up with your overprotective sister in a heart beat. "I've got it! I'll get you a bottle of that Vodka that you can never find. I happen to have a connection," you smirked, confident in your triumph.
"You don't," she replied skeptically, "you're just trying to get me to back off."
"Well, yeah, that too. But I really do have a connection, and I'll have it here in an hour."
~~~
When you walked into the bar you were greeted immediately by Luke, shaking his head and holding a dark bottle with gold trim in his hands as if it were as fragile as a newborn. "You owe me three grand."
"Excuse me," you huffed, reaching out for the bottle but missing your grip when he quickly pulled it away, "but I don't owe you a damn thing. Are you forgetting who hooked you up with this prime location? Do you think it's easy to do business with Tony Stark under an alias? Maybe if you hadn't torched your last place you wouldn't be in this predicament. Give it to me." You reached out again, this time smiling as he relented and met your hand with it.
"You know that wasn't my fault," he groaned. "But you told me to keep this on hand for emergencies. How bad did you piss her off to need this?"
"I'm meeting up with Jess and the team flies out in a few hours. Rogers has rules and I needed to break one to get here," you sighed, looking at the ridiculously expensive bottle as you turned it over in your hands. "Nat's covering for me so this is a payoff."
"This must be pretty important then."
"I need Jess to feed my cat."
Luke's face went blank, looking at you with disbelief that you had basically just cost him three thousand dollars for a cat. "You're kidding, right?"
"Nope!" You flipped the bottle from end-to-end, hearing a small gasp from him as it landed firmly again in your hand. "Now, where is she?"
"Over there, starting without you."
You made your way over to the table, watching your friend take down two shots without so much as a flinch, assuming that one of them had been meant for you. "Jessica Jones, you know that it's rude to drink another woman's liquor. Especially right in front of her, when you know I can beat your ass into next week."
"You were late," she mumbled, not looking up at you as she poured another shot, "and there's no way in hell you could take me."
"No fighting in the bar!" you heard Luke yell from somewhere behind you.
"Aren't you supposed to be off somewhere with the Super Friends, anyway? And that megalomaniac buddy of yours?"
You shoved your free hand in your pocket and dug out your apartment key, flipping it over between your fingers as you held it in front of her face. "Well I would be if you didn't need my place so badly. It worked out pretty nicely that I'm gone for the next month while you fix up that hole of an apartment that you call home, huh?"
Jessica reached up and yanked the key from your hand harshly, sneering at you as she threw it on the table, "you don't even live there."
"No, but I can't bring my cat to the tower with me. Some little princess says that he's allergic to him, so I'm gonna need you to feed him while you're there." You turned to leave, but quickly spun back on your heel and pointed at her purposefully. "Cat food and water, Jess. Chinese take out and whiskey aren't really his taste."
"Then why the hell are you leaving this to me?"
~~~
"(Y/N)! Wait up!"
You stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, gripping the bottle of Vodka tightly and raising your arms slightly. A few seconds later you felt his tight grip around your waist and the strong gust of wind blowing your hair around frantically as you swung from building to building.
"Parker, I have places to be, you know," you huffed. "If you can swing us towards the tower, I'll listen until we get there."
"Have you talked to Mr. Stark yet?"
Peter had been nagging at you for weeks, trying to get you to talk to Tony about bringing him in so he could try to join the team, but you had been stalling, knowing that Nat would be watching you for the exact same thing and you didn't want any competition. "No, Pete, not yet. You need to be patient, okay? Let me get through this mission and then I will."
"She hasn't let you join yet? What's she holding out for?" He made the final swing and brought you both to land on the balcony of your room, leaving his hand connected to a web for a quick getaway if he needed. "Oh, man! If you can't get in with that power of yours, I don't stand a chance! Come on, (Y/N), you've gotta help me!"
"Pete, go."
He sighed loudly and gave in, jumping from the ledge and swinging out of sight. You looked down at the bottle still in your hand and grinned, knowing that this would get you extra points with your sister going into your very first mission with the team.
~~~
You quickly found that no amount of extra points would help you, and that this mission was a complete disaster. Everything was going well until the third week, when the team's cover was blown and an all-out battle had begun. The fight started out okay, given that you were outmanned and outgunned, but between Tony and Natasha trying to protect you, it quickly fell apart with no one following anything close to a plan.
"(Y/N), you need to release him! You're taking too much!" you heard Clint yell from behind you. With your power of aura manipulation you had taken ahold of one of the assailants, absorbing the life force from him to stop his attack on Steve, but when the Captain suddenly defeated the man on his own and there was no life to take, your power shifted to him and you were now struggling to stop.
"Don't you think I'm trying, Barton?" You watched with wide eyes as Steve dropped to his knees and you felt his strength flowing into you, making your power too strong to control. "Someone needs to break my bond! Nat, you need to take me out!"
Without even a second of hesitation, she lunged forward and punched you with all of her might, knocking you to the ground with the hard thud of unconsciousness. "Tony," she panted, "grab Steve so we can get the hell out of here." She summoned Clint to take you, watching with a sad expression when he threw your limp body over his shoulder; she watched helplessly as her only sister was laid on a bench in the jet and strapped in, waiting for any sign that you were coming back to wakefulness.
"Hey, I interfered," Steve said quietly, trying to reassure her. "I got in the way. This wasn't her fault, okay? Don't make any fast decisions."
"The decision was made the second that she asked me to do this to her." Natasha leaned forward and began to wring her hands in frustration, clearly growing angry with herself. "I'm not going to be in that position again, Steve. There's only one answer here."
~~~
"Hey, you're...back..." Peter faded, looking at your face for the first time, "holy cow, (Y/N), that's one heck of a shiner you've got there. Who got close enough to hit you?"
"My darling sister."
"Nat?" he gasped. "Nat hit you? On purpose?"
"Parker, what do you want?" you sighed, continuing to walk towards your destination. "I haven't had a minute free to talk to Tony, and honestly, it's really not high up on my list of things to do." You didn't mean for it to come out as harsh as it had, but it was out there now and you had no interest in apologizing.
"I just wanted to stop and say hi, that's all."
Well now you just felt even more awful, your bad mood being projected onto him when you didn't mean for it to. Ever since Natasha had voted against allowing you to formally join the team, you were in a constant state of anger, your own aura immune to your ability to control it.
"Oh, Pete, I'm sorry. I really am, I'm just in a terrible mood. Let's talk later, okay?"
He nodded silently and walked away, his hands deep in his pockets and his posture carrying the look of defeat. Even though your future on the team was all but history, you wanted to make good on your promise to help him, committing yourself to it the moment that you got back.
Before you could even think of that, you had someone that you needed to talk to; the one friend who always gave you the most honest advice and wasn't scared to piss you off with it when it wasn't what you wanted to hear. As you watched Peter walk until he was out of your line of sight, you pulled out your phone and dialed, taking a deep breath while waiting for the answer.
"Hello?"
"Hey, Matt, it's (Y/N). How about a drink?"
There was a brief pause from the other end of the line, followed by a faint chuckle, "it's only 10am, sweetheart. Don't you think that's a little early?"
"It all depends on the kind of day your having, and let me tell you something, Murdock, mine has been shit." You closed the line and looked down at the black bottle with gold trim that you had taken from your sister's room, wanting to smile at your skill of getting past the master spy, but finding only tears dropping from your eyes and onto the ornate label.
Part 2
"Don't you think maybe you've had enough, (Y/N)? Drinking your sorrows away doesn't really work, you know that, right?"
"Oh my god! You sound like my sister. If I wanted to hear that, I would've stayed at the tower." You slammed your empty glass down on the table and pushed it away. "Besides, I'm fine. I barely feel it," you stopped for a small hiccup escaped your lips, "at all."
Matt laughed out loud, standing from his seat and moving around the table towards you, reaching out to take your hand. "That's when it's the most dangerous," he paused, giving your hand a slight tug, "now, stand."
You wavered only very slightly, but felt steady on your feet when he pulled you up, knowing that you were passing his test despite his determination to be right. "You see? No, of course, you don't see. Anyway, I'm fine." Pulling your hand away, you grabbed the ornate bottle and closed it so that the small amount of liquor saved could still be given to Natasha. You wanted her to have it, you just didn't feel that she deserved a full bottle anymore.
"So, Matt, do you remember that conversation we had about six months ago? Before you got the cool name and fancy suit?
"I have some recollection, yes," he chuckled, knowing exactly where you were taking the conversation. "I figured that's why you stopped by today, (Y/N)."
"Great," you replied with a slap to his shoulder, "then suit up. You're training me in."
~~~
You had chosen what would become the slowest night in Hell's Kitchen to work with Matt, and you were bored. Working with the Avengers wasn't always action either, but in the tower there was always something going on that livened things up. The two of you had been sitting on the roof of an abandoned warehouse for the last hour, just waiting for anything to happen.
"I thought you said you had a purpose around here, Murdock," you chuckled, "I never knew it was as an ornament."
"Hey, smartass, not every night is action-packed."
You didn't reply, but laughed quietly, leaning over the edge of the building when you heard a familiar voice passing by, talking a bit too loudly on her phone. "Hey, I'll be right back," you said, hurrying down the fire escape to catch Jessica before she got too far away. "Jones!"
She finished her call and shoved her phone into her pocket, but continued to walk as you rushed up behind her to keep pace. "Hey, super friend, what's up?" she mumbled, looking around at the surroundings like she was searching for something in particular. "I'm working so make it fast."
"I wasn't aware that P.I.'s worked so out in the open. Not very private. I thought you wore all black to blend in?"
She finally stopped at turned to look at you, clearly frustrated that you had interrupted, and a bit annoyed that you were chastising her choice of attire. "Did you need me for something, (Y/N)? Or did you just drop by for this lovely chat that's about to get you punched in the face?"
"Oh, is that all it takes to get you riled up? A hit to the fashion sense?" you chided, dropping back with your hands up as if to prepare yourself to take a hit from her. "Well then bring it, baby. It's been a slow night and I could use the practice." At that moment, you realized that maybe Matt was right; the alcohol had affected you more than you thought, being dumb enough to actually taunt the strongest woman you knew.
Not only was he right, but he had been listening in. He must have perceived the threat from Jessica to be real, jumping down from the roof to land behind her. "Matt, not the best place-" you tried to say, but you were too late. She spun on her heel towards him and threw a hard punch to his chest, throwing him back and into a brick wall with a resounding hit. He slumped down to the ground, knocked out cold.
"Jess, what the hell?!"
"He jumped behind me, what was I supposed to do?" she replied, running over to him with you. "Oh, shit, is that who I think it is?"
"Matt!" You tried shaking him, but he didn't respond. "Matt, wake up!" When he didn't respond again, you pulled out your phone to call for help. The first call didn't connect, followed by the second and the third. "None of the team are answering, they must be on a mission," you said quietly to yourself, dialing one last time and sighing with relief when it was answered.
"(Y/N), what's up?"
"Bruce! Just the man I'm looking for! I need your help. My friend had an...accident and I can't wake him up. He's not the...'take me to the hospital' type, if you know what I mean..."
"Banner?" Jessica asked loudly. "You called the green guy? At least Stark could fly him out of here!"
"Don't you think you've done enough?" you asked, becoming exasperated with the entire situation. "Jess, just go. I've got this." You finished your call with Bruce and tried to think of how to get Matt there without being too obvious. It was dark enough to do it without too much attention, but carrying a grown man down the city sidewalks wasn't exactly commonplace, even for New York.
"Need a lift?"
"Jesus, what the hell?!" Jessica yelled, spinning around again to see a young man drop down from the sky to land behind you. "Holy shit, (Y/N), are you just collecting vigilantes now? Is this some kind of a sick habit?"
"What do you think you are?!"
Peter leaned over your shoulder to look at Matt, then up to Jessica and back to you. "Wow, (Y/N), you don't go small-time, do you?"
"And now you're here..." you groaned, "this is just fantastic. Were you watching me?"
"I'm always watching you," he replied, matter of fact.
"Creepy," Jessica whispered with a look of disgust on her face. "Hey, (Y/N), is this why you don't like my clothes? You prefer the red outfits?" she now smirked, looking from Peter to Matt. "Stark wears red too...but wait, Spangles is all blue..." she paused with wide eyes, reaching out to grab your arm with a small shake. "Are you not crushing on Flag Boy anymore?"
"You like Steve?!"
"Oh my god, we're getting way off track here," you sighed, standing with your hands out to stop them both. "Pete, can you lift him? I need to get him to Bruce."
~~~
As soon as you entered the tower with Peter and the still unconscious Matt, you knew that something was wrong. Bruce ran to meet you at the door with a frantic look on his face that sent a chill down your spine, seeing this from a man who rarely lost his cool. The tower was uncharacteristically dark and quiet and it just felt wrong.
"I tried to call you," Bruce panted as he met you at the door, pointing Peter towards the infirmary. Once he was safely out of earshot, the doctor grabbed your arms to be sure he had your full attention. "(Y/N), I just received an emergency call from FRIDAY. They're in over their heads."
"They didn't want me, Bruce. What do you think I can do? I'm obviously not good enough to do anything that would help. Why don't you go?"
"Your sister and your best friend are out there," he said sternly, in a tone that you hadn't heard from him before, "and I can't be around civilians, you know that. Now, you will get your butt on that jet and meet them. FRIDAY has the course laid in."
You pulled from his grip and nodded reluctantly, fully aware that there was no way for you to get out of this if he should decide that the Hulk would make his point better. He began his way towards the infirmary, and you towards the hangar, but he stopped short and turned to you with one final warning. "(Y/N), brush up on shape shifters on your way there."
~~~
When the jet door opened, Tony was there immediately and waiting for you. Or, at least it looked like Tony. His two metal hands reached out and grabbed you around your throat and lifted you in the air, throwing you back into the plane, sending you crashing into a rack full of the team's spare gear.
"I hope you don't think that you're going to be of any use to them," the false Tony said, "because we can't have any interference."
You quickly raised your hands and connected to him, draining away his energy as quickly as you could before he could reach you again. When the man laid lifeless at your feet, his body dropped the image of your friend, giving you relief that it actually wasn't him.
"Okay, this is bad," you whispered to yourself, running from the jet once again and wondering how you would know who were your teammates and who the enemy was if they were shifting like this last one had. You could hear a battle in the clearing just a few feet away and made your way there as fast as you could. Once you had them in full view, you stopped with a gasp at the sight and couldn't believe what you were seeing.
There were multiple copies of each Avenger, all fighting each other.
One of the Steve's ran towards you with his shield on his back and his hands raised, hoping that you wouldn't strike out. "(Y/N), it's me, I promise!"
You raised your hands anyway until you had firm proof to avoid the mistake you had made only moments ago. "What did you get me for Christmas last year?"
Steve stopped abruptly and looked confused for a moment, pausing to think of the answer. "Trick question. You weren't at the tower last year."
"Okay," you sighed, lowering your hands. "What the hell did you guys get yourselves into, Steve? I thought you guys were Earth's Mightiest Heroes or something like that."
"That's hilarious. What've you got?"
You looked around frantically at the group, trying to see Natasha and Tony, worried about where they were and if they were okay. You saw several of them, but they were just false images that gave you no comfort. What could you do that would help your team to know who to attack? You put your hand up to your comm and looked at Steve as you spoke.
"Guys, it's (Y/N). I'm gonna need you to follow my exact directions, no questions, okay?"
"Got it."
"Ready."
"(Y/N), why are you-"
"Shut up, Nat, just listen to her."
"Guys!" you groaned. "Listen, if I can focus, I might be able to highlight their auras."
There was silence for a moment, and Steve was giving you a quizzical look, but Tony was the first to understand where you were going with this. "Oh, I get it. We shoot at certain colors, right? Like, if my aura is red, don't shoot at red, because it might be me?"
"Basically, yeah, I guess that's the easiest way to think of it," you replied. "But auras can shift with your moods if they're strong enough, so I'm going to need you all to be as calm as you can so we don't have to worry who is who. You need to maintain your color while you fight, so you need to focus. Barton, that means you."
"Why are you picking on me?"
"She's right."
"Yeah, Hawk, hold it together."
"You guys make me crazy," you mumbled, shaking your head at Steve. You held your hands to him and focused on his energy, slowly creating a bright yellow haze around him. "Steve is yellow, guys." You closed your eyes and tried to focus on the rest of the team, feeling their energies around you.
"I'm kind of orangey-yellow," Tony replied.
"Turquoise doesn't seem very manly," Clint huffed.
"I'm pink?" Natasha scoffed. "How am I pink?"
"This is quite a lovely shade of violet," Thor added.
"Green looks good on you, (Y/N)," Steve said quietly with a small smile crossing his lips.
Your concentration was nearly broken by Clint, even after you had warned him to just focus on himself, when he called out to the group as you began to push your aura control towards the shape shifters. "(Y/N), you've got this! Look at that, they're all black! Wait, that's bad, right?"
"It's not good," you whispered, trying to maintain your control. "Could you guys hurry though? This isn't exactly easy."
Steve bounced on his heels and ran towards the group, joining the others to push into the battle again, now with renewed energy and focus to finish the assailants off quickly. You held your aura control as long as you could, waiting to hear that the team had prevailed. When Natasha joined you her aura had shifted to blue as she watched, waiting for you to release them all.
"You did good, (Y/N). I'm so proud of you," she said with a slight break in her voice. "I'm...I'm really sorry about...how things went last time. I was...wrong."
"You know what blue means, right?" you smiled at her as she looked down at the glow around her just before you released it.
"No?" she asked hesitantly with a skeptical look.
"It means that Romanoff has feelings. But don't worry, I won't tell anyone," you chuckled, pulling her in for a hug before the team had a chance to join you.
"Too late, we all heard it," Tony laughed over the comms.
"I'm shocked. Just shocked."
"This is the best thing I've heard all day."
"Aw, Nat. I really thought pink was your color."