****BTW:
Were gonna say this chapter takes place in late August because I want her to go to school soon. Once I'm finished with this book I'll edit it so the timeline makes more sense. Sorry!****
Knock! Knock! Knock!
The big brown door was swung open all the way, revealing a woman dressed in a cop uniform. The cop had blonde - almost white in the light - hair, she was holding a little redhead girl on her hip. The little girl seemed to hold a sassy attitude at the way her hand was on her hip and her lips were pursed, looking me up and down. I clutched the handles of my suitcases, nervous since I hadn't done this in awhile. I missed my dad, I just hope he wins custody of me, and soon.
"You must be Skylar Stark. Well come on in sweetie." The woman said with a bright smile. Even with the smile, the uniform was still unsettling. I nod my head, not bothering to return a smile and walked in with the social worker right behind me. I was surprised the cop lived in a brownstone house, those houses are fairly expensive especially in Manhattan.
"You came at a good time. One of the kids just left." The police women tells me. I nod my head. I was in a daze. I didn't think I would ever be going to a foster home again. This just tells me, I need to stop expecting good things to happen to me. It seems as soon as something good happens, it's ripped away from me as quick as it came.
The woman begins to go over my profile, the police officer just nods and steals a few glances at me. Her ears seem to perk up once we got to my police report.
"- Vandalism, underage driving, stealing." The social worker listed off. The woman's eyes got big and looked over to me.
"Oops?" I questioned with a nervous smile. She wasn't smiling.
"None of that will be tolerated under my roof, do you understand?" The woman commands with a stern glare. I was surprised she allowed me in the house. Usually kids with a police record go to a specific type of group home, a group home with other kids that have done crimes.
"Yes ma'am." I tell her and nod my head along so she gets the message.
"You'll have group on Tuesdays. And I'll be back in a two weeks to see how your settling in." The social worker, Anna Jacobs tells me.
"Thanks. I'll be attending MidTown School of Science and Technology right? Because that's where I was supposed to go before you took me away from my dad." I asked Anna with a raised eyebrow. Mrs. Jacobs had been my social worker for five years. My last two social workers couldn't find me a home because I was a little devil, so now it was Anna's turn. She rolls her eyes at the tone of my voice. I have a right to be angry, don't I?
"Watch the attitude. It took a lot of pushing to even get you in this house. And hopefully you'll be adopted, placed into a better family." Anna tells me calmly. She doesn't know Tony. Tony was the best family I could have and now she wants to find another for me. Well time to put the devil back on my shoulder.
"Not likely." I tell her simply with a glare. Anna hands over my reports to the police officer and leaves since her job is done and she doesn't want to deal with me anymore.
"Lilliana, can you show Skylar to her room please?" The police officer questioned, setting the small girl on the ground.
"I told you it's Lilly!" The girl insisted, stomping her foot and crossing her arms. She nodded her head, rolling her eyes in response to the loud outburst from the girl. The little girl took my hand and pulled me along upstairs, while I struggled to carry both of my luggage and hold the girl's hand. She pulled me into a room that seemed to be occupied with another teenager. The girl was hispanic with long black hair and brown eyes. She had been drawing in a notebook when her attention found me.
"I'm Skylar." I introduced. She closed her notebook and came to introduce herself.
"I know who you are. Your all over the magazines, I'm Julia Garcia." She told me and shook my hand. She didn't seemed to be fazed that my father was Tony Stark and I was glad.
"Lilly, how many times have I told you? Your not aloud in my room." Julia told the short girl and tried to push her out.
"Why?" The little girl whined. I had a little bit of sympathy for the little kid. Lilly just wanted to hang out with the big kids, that's what every little kid wanted.
"Because every time you come in my room you touch my stuff." Julia answered back simply with her head held high in determination. Lilly's eyes got glossy and she ran out of the room yelling "Abigail!" I guess that must be the police officer's name. My eyes quirked at the situation, Julia hadn't even said anything mean. I looked to Julia who was now rolling her eyes.
"She's gonna tell Abigail that I was mean to her and I'm going to get in trouble. She's a little demon." Julia said then stomped back over to her bad, sitting down with a huff.
"Maybe that's why she has red hair." I told Julia with a smirk, she nodded along laughing lightly.
"I think we're going to get along. As long as you don't go snooping in my stuff." Julia said, pointing a finger at me with a smile. I've never really had a friend who was a girl, besides Michelle. Michelle was a girl that went to my middle school and would most likely be going to my high school. She was smart and shared my passion of hate for people. I was her only friend and so I was granted with the rights to call her MJ.
I looked to my side of the room. It was small to say the least, nothing like my room in LA or at the Tower. It had a twin bed, a desk, a dresser, and a shelf. The bed was already made with a blue and red quilt on top of it. The desk and shelves were mostly bare, besides the scattered book or knik nak. I began to put away all of my clothes in the dresser. I set my computer on top of my desk along with my phone. I was fully done with unpacking, or so I thought. Light brown fur was sticking out of my suitcase, curious I picked it up. It was Mr.Bear, the teddy bear Tony had given me when I went to the hospital. I held him close to my chest, forcing the tears to not come out of my eyes. I let go of it and set it down on my bed when a note fluttered from its red bow. I picked it up, hesitant to read what it said. I opened it up and in the messy handwriting of a genius were the words "I promise - Dad". I let a tear slip from my eyes and held the bear tightly once more.
"You okay?" Julia asked, putting a hand on my shoulder. I quickly swept the tears from my eye and looked up at her with a smile that wouldn't reach my eyes.
"Yeah, I just miss my dad." I told her truthfully, hearing this she decided to give me a much needed hug.
"Time for dinner girls!" Abigail yelled from downstairs. Julia helped me up and we clambered down the stairs. Julia led the way into the kitchen, seeing as I had no clue where it was. We walked into a small kitchen.
"Dish yourself up girls." Abigail told us. I thought there was only three of us but apparently there was five. One seemed older and the other was probably younger. I grabbed a spoonful of mashed potatoes then laid gravy and corn on top of it.
"Can you get me some Daniele? I can't reach it?" Lilly said beside me to the girl that seemed to be older. She had dark hair with a single red stripe highlight. She seemed to be one of the stereotypical rebel girls. She had a mysterious vibe about her and a I don't care face. Someone to not mess with. I could already tell we weren't going to get along.
"Get it yourself." She said before sitting down at the table. I looked down at the little girl that seemed sad at Daniele's response.
"Do you want me to help you?" I asked the little girl. She looked up to me with big hopeful eyes and nodded her head. I dished up her plate till she smiled satisfied. I always had a soft spot for little kids.
"Thank you." The little girl said before running off to the dining table. I grabbed a glass of milk and sat down in between Julia and Lilly, since they were my only friends. Everyone seemed to dig in quickly and I was glad for that. At some homes you had to pray, I had never gone to church as a kid so I wasn't sure what to do and was always uncomfortable.
"So how bout we go around and say our full names, our age, one interesting thing about yourselves, and how long we've been here. Skylar, would you like to start?" Abigail asked with a smile. Hmm one interesting thing, I can fly. Probably shouldn't share that.
"I'm Skylar Stark, 14, obviously I just got here, and I like to read." I told them with a shrug towards the end. I wasn't sure what else could be said about me without it seeming like I was bragging or sounding really depressing.
"I'm Lilliana Williams, seven years old, I've been here for a few weeks, and I like food!" The girl giggled, digging into her mashed potatoes.
"I'm Julia Garcia, 14, I draw, and I've been here for four weeks." Julia said, blush invading her cheeks when she revealed the fact that she liked to draw.
"I'm Jamie Brook, 12, I would like to go into fashion when I'm older, and I've only been here for a week." An optimistic girl with a bright smile told us. She was wearing a bright dress with a homemade headband that actually looked fairly good. It was hard to be optimistic when your in the system, I wasn't sure how she could keep a smile on her face.
"Pass." The mysterious girl said sitting in her chair without a care. Daniele seems like a total buzzkill. Abigail rolled her eyes at the girls behavior and dismissed it as if it was something that happened often.
"Her name's Daniele Russo. She's fifteen, and been here for five days. I would share something interesting about her but she never opens up. My turn? My name is Abigail Johnson, thirty eight, I am a police officer if you couldn't tell. Well that's me." Abigail finished with a smile. She was kinda funny and sarcastic, most homes were serious and scary. This was probably my first home where things might be okay.
We finished eating after a lot of meaningless chatter, mostly coming from Lilly. Abigail told us that she had strict rules of bedtime at 9:30. My bedtime rules at my dad's place and at the other places was 'whenever you're tired go to bed'. I would be complaining that that was a ridiculous bedtime for a fourteen year old in the summer, but I wasn't planning on going to bed. I wanted to try my new suit out in action. The one problem was, I wasn't sure how to go about doing that with me and Julia sharing a room. And not to mention a cop living in the house. I'll have to wait till Julia is asleep then maybe...
---
I glanced around the room in my red flannel pajama bottoms and my black Nike sports bra. Julia seemed to go to sleep when she was told. But me on the other hand, I had been listening to music and reading. I looked at the clock on my dresser that read 10:30 p.m.
I got out of bed and grabbed my suit that I had stashed under my bed. My suit looked a lot like Natasha's catsuit but mine had a blue belt and blue stripes going up the side. I also had a blue mask that covered part of my face to where I wouldn't be recognized. It was kinda like the masks from the Incredibles just blue.
I put all of it on and managed to not make a sound then slid open the window right next to my bed. Since there was no fire escape I would have to fly down quickly so no one on the streets would see me. I looked both ways out the window, checking for anybody on the streets. The only living thing on the entire street was a small blonde dog in someone's yard across from my foster house. I swooped into the streets, startling the dog who began to bark at my sudden appearance.
"Shut up. Please." I begged the dog trying to coax it to calm down. If anything it started to bark louder. I looked behind me at the Abigail's Group Home For Girls and saw multiple downstairs lights come on. I sprinted down the street trying to get away from the police officer that would probably arrest a vigilante walking around on the streets. I walked down a couple more streets and nothing seemed to be happening in the streets of New York. I really wanted to get some action but that probably wouldn't be happening tonight. I had two things that needed to get done tonight:
1. Visit Peter.
2. Grab my gadgets and inventions from Avenger Tower.
I would have to do the second in secret and sneak into the building, which might be tricky considering two assassins, a super solider, a big green machine, and a genius billionaire who also happened to be the father I'm not aloud to have contact with, will all be there. I'm screwed. I decided visiting Peter will be the easiest and fun thing to do, so I'll start off with that. His house happened to only be two streets away from me, so I wouldn't need to fly to far away.
I flew up the fire escape to his window. I landed on the black stairs without a sound and tapped on his window. Usually his blinds were wide open but for some reason they weren't anymore. I just hope I found the right window. Surprisingly for it being around 10:50 the city was still filled with people walking around. It was usually like that in the summer with so many tourists, but right now it just seemed like a whole bunch of drunks and druggies. I knocked on his window again after not getting an answer. He can't seriously be asleep this early on a Saturday in the summer. I was tempted to just open the window, which I would have done before, but I decided not to because I haven't been around for 2 1/2 months.
"Excuse me, but I don't believe that's your house." A familiar teenage boy's voice said. I looked around me only seeing the people that were out before.
"Hello?" I asked hesitantly, looking up and down the building.
"Over here." The boy said again. I turned my head to the sound of his voice. And what I saw surprised me more than anything. It was that spider-boy or spider-ling guy.
"Your that Spider-Boy aren't you?" I asked him. He put his hands on his hips, his head rolled back in a groan of annoyance. Apparently many people got his name wrong.
"It's Spider-Man." He nodded his voice cracking slightly.
"With that voice crack I would say Spider-Boy was a better fit." I told him with a slight giggle.
"Sk- Who- uh who are you?" Spider-Boy asked with a stutter, trying to form his sentence I guess.
"They call me The Breeze." I told him with a casual shrug. I forgot all about being mad at him in LA for taking my city, I didn't want to be mad at him for some reason. He seemed familiar.
"New suit?" He asked but it sounded more like a statement.
"Yeah. So your not gonna kill me so you can be the superhero for New York, are you?" I asked gaining my senses on the situation and pushing away the familiarity of his voice.
"Well then I wouldn't be a superhero, would I? I was thinking we could share. Un-Unless your going to try and kill me?" He asked suddenly unsure of himself, taking a few steps back.
"Well then I wouldn't be a superhero, would I?" I told him responding with his same reason. He nodded his head and I could imagine him smiling under his mask as he laughed.
"Well I'm going to get going and try to find people that need some help. You can come with me if you want, but you gotta keep up." I told him with a visible smirk. I flew off to around central park listening for people in distress. I landed on a tall building, waiting for the Spider to land on the building as well.
"Down there. You see?" I asked him once he had landed on the roof next to me. He looked to where I was pointing and nodded. We took off towards the bank where about five people were being held hostage. Whoever invented a 24 hour bank is stupid. Apparently the police haven't been notified yet because I couldn't hear any sirens near by.
"I'll get the hostages safe, you web up the bad guys." I told Spider-Boy before sneaking up to the hostages.
"Be quiet. I'm going to get you out of here." I ordered them. If they so much as made a peep before they were webbed up, they would have a closer chance of death.
"Didn't anybody ever tell you it wasn't nice to take money from banks and threaten people?" Spidey asked before snatching all of there guns. I helped two of the hostages out and went back inside for the other three. One of the men were putting up a fight with Spidey and must not have felt like going down easily. I helped two more of the hostages out and glanced back at the other one. She was carrying a toddler boy in her arms. I almost slapped my head I felt so stupid. If I would have known the kid and the mother would've been the first ones out. The kid started to whimper slightly, the woman was trying to calm the boy down as much as she could, which wasn't a lot.
"Hey buddy, you look like a pretty brave boy. You might even be braver than that spider guy over there, definitely braver than me. I'm gonna need you to hold on for a few minutes, okay?" I asked the little boy. His green eyes brightened at my words and he nodded with a small smile. I guided the pair out when Spidey had gained the robbers attention. I gave the boy a fist bump which he returned with a bright smile. The woman thanked me over and over to which I just nodded with a smile. I walked back into help Spider-Boy. I had been so happy about the woman's gratitude, I didn't seem to catch the man behind me holding a gun to my head before it was too late. The barrel of the gun was pointed at my head and pressing into the skin slightly. I felt a drop of sweat roll down my face as I faced the man. He had a sickening smile on his face, as if he could be happy to be holding a gun to a 14 year old's head.
"Okay sir you don't-" I started before he cut me off with his yelling.
"SHUT UP! JUST SHUT UP!" The man yelled as the gun shook in his hand from nerves. I looked over to the Spider guy I had just met today. I gave him a warning look to stay back then looked back to the man in front of me. The gun was placed directly on the front of my forehead. My mind seemed to flash to memory's. Usually in this situation you would say it was my life flashing before my eyes, but it wasn't. My mind flashed to helpful memory's that would get me out of this situation. It flashed to a movie. The 5th Wave. It was the scene where the man taught her what to do when a guns being pointed at her. I sent a quick prayer of thanks to whoever was up there, maybe a Norse god, now that I know those are real. I looked back at the man and smirked. His hand was shaking even more, he seemed afraid to shoot a child. I grabbed the side of the barrel and his hand, I pushed them together and turned into him, jabbing into his stomach. He doubled over in pain. I swallowed loudly from what had just happened. It was all in slow motion. When I grabbed the gun and then his shaking hand. I unloaded the gun and tossed each piece to a different side of the room. The cops had finally showed up and I looked to Spidey. He nodded as if he understood exactly what I meant from a nod. He webbed the man up and we ran out the place before the cops came. I guess he had understood my nod or it was just obvious.
"You scared me back there. I-I thought you were gonna die." Spider-Man admitted shaking slightly. I rested my hand on his shoulder with a reach. He looked over at me, and I so desperately wanted to see his eyes. People say you can read people just by looking into there eyes, maybe that's why he wore his mask, not just his identity but he didn't want people to see the fear that ran through them.
"I would rather die helping people, and if someone has to die I would gladly take the bullet if it could help save just a few people." I answered honestly. He nodded, I could tell he thought the same thing, I don't know how I just could.
"With great power, comes great responsibility." I told him with a smile. Uncle Ben, Peter's uncle, used to say that.
"Exactly. When you can do things that we can, but you don't, and then the bad things happen, they happen because of you." He told me nodding his head in agreement. It was weird having someone that understood. I had the Avengers but they didn't understand like Peter did, we were vigilantes. It wasn't our job to help, we helped because we could.
"Well Spider-Man, if you want to fight crime again together, well that would be cool." I told him, starting to walk away. He grabbed onto my arm making me turn around to look at him.
"How will I find you?" He asked.
"Don't worry about it, I'll find you." I told him before flying off to the Avenger Tower. I landed at the back of the Tower and clawed my hands through my hair. I grabbed the handle, turned it, and opened the door. Immediately an alarm starting going off. That wasn't supposed to happen. Why the hell did that happen? I ran to the key code and began to press my name spelled with numbers into the device. It had worked at Tony lab so I don't see why it wouldn't work here. The devices screen turned green and the ringing stopped. I hope that bell didn't ring off through the entire building. I walked into the elevator and pressed the main level. I can only hope for no one to be in the living room or kitchen, because that would suck majorly. The doors opened to the main room and no one seemed to be in there. It was well past the time everyone went to bed so I guess that explained it. I walked past the kitchen and into the living room. My foot bumped into a glass table with a very expensive looking vase on top of it. I grabbed the vase before it fell off and held my toe with the other hand, hopping around in pain.
"Ow ow ow." I mumbled quietly. I set my foot down and flexed it out before setting the vase back down on the table, or what I thought to be the table. It was actually a three feet drop to the ground. Yeah, that didn't end well. The vase shards shattered everywhere. I looked up to the hallway with multiple Avengers coming out of it and sleepily rubbing their eyes. I stood there shell shocked, my eyes were wide and my mouth was just about the same. Natasha held a gun pointed at me with a stern glare. Déjà vu.
"Skylar?" Clint asked sleepily. Natasha lowered her gun as she realized who I was.
"What are you doing here?" Natasha asked, now fully awake, and placing her gun behind her.
"Are you okay?" Steve asked kindly.
"Yeah, totally fine. Just needed to grab some stuff." I told them, finally being able to muster up some words.
"How'd you guys know it was me?" I asked. My eyebrows were furrowed in confusion.
"Your mask is on your head, Skylar." Clint told me with a roll of his eyes.
"Ha, oh yeah." I chuckled awkwardly, tapping my head to feel it placed on my head. Then a bad thought came to mind.
"Tony's not here is he?" I asked quickly, my eyes were once again wide.
"No, he's in California still. He's going to court in LA since his lawyers were already there." Steve told me with a sad look in my direction. That look didn't help the feeling of promise that Tony gave me.
"Oh, well that's good. Right?" I asked with big hopeful eyes.
"He'll get you back Sky. It's only been a two days." Natasha told me with a stern nod. I nodded back unsure and passed by them to my room before I started to cry. I didn't like talking about being in the foster system because people always looked at you sadly and I didn't need any of that. I especially didn't want to talk about the Tony situation even if I did want to be informed with the progress.
I opened my door and it looked just like it had when I left, just dustier. I grabbed my yellow backpack that was sitting on my bed, I had it since I was eight. It was raggedy but it held together throughout the years. I walked over to my drawer with all of my gadgets. I packed my spy glasses, two walkie talkie watches, a black wrap around bracelet that shot Star-Wars-like lasers and it had my A.I. that I named Alex, I ended my packing with a couple of lock pickers that move around to hack into the lock. I was about to leave when my eyes caught onto the picture of me and Peter. I grabbed it off of the pin and stuffed it into my bag along with the gadgets. I walked back into the living room where the Avengers were sitting on the couch discussing something, they stopped talking immediately when the saw me. I love when people talk about me behind my back, don't you?
"Well I gotta go. Bye." I told them, heading for the elevator. I wanted to get out of there as quick as I could and I wasn't expecting to talk to any of them. I heard there feet leap up after me. I turned around wondering what they were doing when they quickly engulfed me in a hug.
"We love you Skylar and you can come around whenever." Natasha told me, holding my chin up so I looked her in the eyes.
"I love you guys too." I told them and squeezed another hug out of them before so I had to leave. I didn't want to promise them I would come because I knew I wouldn't till it was legally acceptable. I didn't want to get in trouble when I wasn't aloud to be in contact with Tony, but who knows, I am a rebel after all.
I FINALLY UPDATED!! SO SORRY FOR THE LATENESS DON'T KILL ME!!
And as always I have an excuse:
My family and I went on a trip that I had forgotten about. We went to like 20 states (*major exaggeration*) and we had to drop my brother off at his military school (he's not a bad kid, he just wants to go into the military when he's older.) So yeah as excuses go that was super lame, my bad dude.
I WATCHED IRON MAN 3 TWICE IN TWO DAYS AND I THINK I'M GONNA DO IT AGAIN CAUSE ITS SO MOTHER FLUFFING GOOD.
Well as always,
PEACE OUT BITCHES!!