05 || avengers arrest

"THIS WHOLE THING IS BULLSHIT. THANOS IS COMING, WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT."

- Avengers Facility, New York, April 2018-

The room separated into different factions, Sam and Rhodey starting to load the quinjet. Steve and Nat were silently discussing something about where they were going in the corner, Wanda taking care of Vision and trying to heal him and his wound.

But Alison? She was being babied by Bruce Banner.

As soon as they had finished talking, Bruce had not-so-politely escorted her back to the room she had been in (and almost bled out in) before, where the table that had originally been there had been replaced by a sofa. "You can't be up for very long, Alison." Bruce sighed, the doctor having a stern tone as he spoke. He forced her to sit down on the sofa, the girl giving a groan of irritation.

"Come on, Bruce." Alison protested, giving the man the biggest look of annoyance ever. "You know that I can handle it. Enhanced metabolism, right?" She tried to remind the man, who just gave her an irritated sigh.

"You might have a metabolism that rivals Steve Rogers', hell, it's probably even better than his, but that doesn't mean that these things heal overnight. Well, actually, we haven't proven it yet, and, theoretically it could- but still." Bruce rambled, running a hand through his bird's nest of his hair.

"Okay! So that means that I can go with you guys." Alison a greed with his last point, gesturing her left pointer finger at him, trying to withhold the wince that she made when she did so. It did her no good, however, as she gave a small hiss of pain and discomfort straight after.

"Yeah, no can do about that, kid." Rhodey appeared, probably done loading the quinjet with all of the supplies that they needed for the trip. "If Tony sent you back here to stay safe and take you away from the battlefield that they were probably about to walk into,  it was for a reason."

Alison could tell that there was no way of getting out of this, especially when Natasha and Steve made their way over to the adjacent room, still giving each other a wary look about whatever they were discussing seconds before. "And I suppose that you two have nothing good to add to this conversation, huh?"

"As much as having your skill set would assist us if it comes to it, we really don't need you to come with us if we're only going to get Vision's stone removed from him." Steve spoke, sounding like a leader, like he hadn't taken any time away from his position on the Avengers. "We need you guarding home base, being on the mend while the rest of us handle this."

"But you don't understand! I can help you. Who has the most knowledge of Thanos besides Bruce in this whole group?" She argued, looking to the rest of the group, who just gave each other glances of discomfort. "Exactly. And who has the connection to one of the inf-"

"Alison." Natasha gave her a cool and almost deadly stare, interrupting what could've been the game-changing sentence that swayed their opinions on the matter. "You're not going, and that's final. I want- we need you here. You know what I promised Clint, and what he promised to your mother, so you can bet your ass that I'm not going to break your mother's promise for you."

"We're still pulling the guilt trip card, eh?" Ali mumbled to herself,  giving one more sigh of exasperation before making up her mind. She would just find another way to get to wherever they were going without them. "Fine. I won't go. But that doesn't mean that when you get back that I'm not going to bitch about it."

"Great." Bruce almost collapsed from relief when the young superhero finally stopped protesting his recommendation, running the palm of his hand over his face to try and keep himself awake before turning to the rest of the group. "So where now?"

"Wakanda." Steve spoke sternly, nodding his head towards the door to the rest of the group as an indication to leave. "C'mon, our timeline's stretched thin, and we don't have a lot of time here. We need to get going."

The group slowly filed out of the room, Natasha being the last to leave. Turning around one last time, she gave the girl a small look of pity. "Don't worry, Skylar's here somewhere.  I'll  have FRIDAY send for her in a second." With that, she turned out of the room, leaving Alison alone  in the silence.

Alison wanted to scream.

She was alone in a place that was way too large of a space for just one teenager to fill, and, to make matters worse, with a best friend as a babysitter to her that was somewhere in the facility, nowhere to be seen. So that was a thing to consider, while she was sitting on a couch trying to recover from what felt like a hangover.

Sitting for what seemed like eons, deciding what to do, Alison finally decided on what was the most illogical decision, which was to wander around the facility, totally and utterly unmonitored. "FRI, where are the places that I can visit in the facility that I have clearance to?"

"Miss Marnell, I would advise against going anywhere in the facility in your current condition." The AI warned, getting a scoff as a comment back. Ah, so this was going to be another ask and not advise request, just like Tony did so often. "However, you do have access to the common floors, which you are located on now, the laboratory floor, the floor Boss has set up for you and Mister Parker, and the vaults."

"The vaults?" Alison muttered to herself, wondering why in hell Tony would ever give her access to the most precious place on the whole facility grounds. "FRI, why would Tony ever even think to give me access to the-"

And then it clicked.

Answering her own question, Alison gave a sigh, remembering through her hazy memory what Tony had told her to find on the facility grounds seconds before she left that donut-shaped ship. "Vault 17B." She whispered, shaking her head with a small laugh.

"Your guess would be correct." The AI agreed, her Irish voice sounding a little cheeky as she spoke her next words. "Miss Marnell, would you like to be taken down to the vault floors so you can access Vault 17B?"

"Wasn't it obvious that I wanted it, FRI?" Alison fired back, a smile slowly growing on her face as she carefully rose from her position on the sofa, giving a small wince as she did so. The wound  might of been stitched up, but that didn't mean that it hurt like hell.

"I suppose I was imagining that you wanted to go to the labs." FRIDAY fired back, able to keep up with the girl's witty response. "The elevator is just out these doors and down the hallway to the right. I'll broadcast a light signal to show you the trail of where  you need to go."

As soon as the AI spoke, the lights that were designated to lead Alison to the vault lit up, the colors ironically red,blue, and yellow. Giving a small laugh, Ali  shook her head  at the detail Tony had put into the AI. "Of course they had to be my colors."

"Boss thought it'd be funny if you needed to find something in the facility, the colors would match accordingly to the suit that he designed to you." The AI answered Alison's comment, tracking the girl as she slowly walked through the halls towards the elevator.

Walking into the elevator, Alison let out a heavy exhale, the world almost spinning around her. "FRI, you know the drill, I guess. Take me to the floor that  has the vaults, please." She steadied herself on one of the rails designed on the elevator.

"Will do." The silent sounds of the elevator moving up a few floors was heard,  the whirring of the contraption barely heard over the soft elevator music ( if it could even be called that, it was a selection of Tony Stark's favorite music, go figure) that echoed throughout the elevator. When the elevator finally reached the desired level, there was no ding, the doors just slid open to reveal a long hallway filled with... doors.

"FRI?" Alison questioned quietly, getting her answer in seconds when a designated light path shone towards the vault that she wanted to go to. Muttering her thanks, Alison slowly walked down the hallway, gripping to the poles on the sides of the walls Alison could only assume Tony had installed for Rhodey across the Facility.

Finally reaching the door labeled "Vault 17B", Alison gave a grateful sigh, seeing the door that was located on the left side of the hallway was just across the way from one called 17A. What was inside of that one, she had some ideas. Maybe because there was a Spider-Man logo on the label. Looking back at her vault's door, she saw that there was a pad to the right side of the door.

"In order to gain access to the vault, you need to have your hand scanned on the pad in front of you, and say your code word that Boss has left for you." FRIDAY informed Alison, seeing the girl confused in front of the vault's door. "Mister Stark said it would be the name of your youngest cousin on your mother's side."

Carefully placing her hand up to the pad, there was a soft blue light that ran over her palm before FRIDAY spoke again. "And now the password please, Miss Marnell." The AI instructed, prompting the teenager to say the key word.

"Nathaniel." Alison spoke without hesitation, hearing a small chime, the door in front of her swinging open. Walking inside the small area, her breath was taken away at the amount of things Tony had been able to fit inside of the vault.

"Access granted, Miss Marnell." FRIDAY spoke as she stepped foot in the door,  informing Alison of  something that she already knew. "Boss left a few items that he thought would be of use to you inside of the vault. Would you like a run through?"

Before Alison could even answer, another person did for her. "Nah, it's okay FRI. I can just do all the explaining for you. Or not. Because this teenager needs to go get her ass back to where it should be."  The voice cheekily stated, Alison turning around to see Skylar leaning just outside of the vault's door.

"Dude, what is it with you and sneaking up on me at the perfect opportunities?" Alison questioned, a smile  coming to her face when she saw her best friend again. She was trying (and failing) to change the subject away from where she should have been, wanting time to explore the vault in all of its technological glory. "Because I swear, every single time that I see you-"

"It might just be a Stark thing." Skylar coyly responded, a smile forming at the edge of her lips as she walked inside of the vault. "Although most of this tech? As much as Dad might like to think that it's his,  I helped engineer about seventy five percent of it."

"But that'd hurt his ego too much, now wouldn't it?" Alison chuckled, looking back at Skylar with the biggest smile that she could muster. "It's good to see you again. Although in these circumstances? Not so much."

"And that I would have to agree with." Skylar nodded, walking over to Alison and slinging an arm over her shoulder. "It's not everyday that the Avengers come waltzing into one of your many houses and tell you that you need to babysit your best friend because she's been stabbed through the stomach by an alien."

"What can I say?" Alison winced as she heard Skylar's voice raise with every word she spoke. Plan Distracion? Failed. "I think I just have a knack for pissing off space aliens and trying to get them to kill me." She flashed a small hesitant smile, wiping it straight off her face when she saw the upset look on Skylar's face.

"Ignoring the fact that you played off the fact that you almost died as a joke, we should really get back down to the main floor. Nat would have a heart attack and a half if she found out that you were roaming the halls of Avengers Facility right after you'd been knocked out by a cocktail of drugs that Bruce couldn't even list all the names of in a minute." Sky glared at her friend, seeing the confused look on her face when she brought up the drugs that Bruce had (not so kindly) administered to her. "And yes, I know about all of that. I had FRI fill me in on it all on the way down here."

"Sky-" Alison dragged out her name, pulling gently on her friend's arm. "C'mon. You know that I'm not just gonna sit around here and allow for the Avengers to go and fight a force that they don't even understand the full strength of. Especially with what I know and what I can do." Ali pleaded, giving Skylar a knowing  look when she talked about her powers.

"Okay, but what about the promise that you made Strange? Not to time travel anymore? You know that you can't break that promise if he told you that it could have worldwide implications that you couldn't even begin to fathom." Throwing her hands up when Alison gave her a strange look at her choice of words, Skylar just stared at her. "His words, not mine."

"Okay but if the world is ending already, do you really think that he'll care if I just go back in time to fix one little thing?" Alison questioned, getting the answer from the look that Skylar gave back. Which was a solid no, of course. "C'mon, Sky! This could be the one chance that we have to take down Thanos, and all the rest of Absinthe's crazy siblings. We could stop this thing, once and for all."

"And what if you can't, huh?" Skylar fired right back at Alison, gesturing to the vault around her. "What if- even with all of this tech that you have around you and all the things you know and can do- you still fail? What happens then? I can't let you go out there and know that my best friend is risking her life for something that has already almost killed her. Twice."

Her face dropping, realizing that Skylar wasn't going to back down, Alison sighed, slumping against a table that was located inside of the vault, items of use stacked on the table. "Sky, life or death, this is something that's going to affect everyone in the entire goddamn universe, so I don't really think that some vigilante from Queens getting almost killed twice is anything in comparison to what Thanos is trying to accomplish."

"And what would that be?" Skylar fired back, not believing that the life of her best friend was worth putting out on the line for some huge villain takedown that the Avengers had  probably already seen the likes of before.  "Please, do enlighten me."

"Thanos wants to kill half of the universe. Some sick, twisted way to balance humanity and the rest of the galaxy, I guess." Alison let out an unsteady breath, hearing the unwavering silence that followed after she spoke. "That's why I can't let this happen. I can't have everyone that I ever loved or cared about lives' on the line, and know that I sat around on my ass and did nothing when the time came."

Sucking in a breath, Skylar considered the options that she was given. She really did, all of them in all of their shitty glory. There was silence in the room as she thought about what she would decide to do, the only other evidence that Alison was in the room with her being  the soft breathing of her best friend. "No." 

"No?!" Alison whirled around from where she had been facing her best friend, not wanting to look her in the eyes. "How can you even say that? With what's at risk? With what's going on? You can't-"

"Yes. I can. As much as I've let you and Peter and everyone else that I know and love go out and risk their lives over and over again, this is where I draw the line." Skylar gripped the box that she was leaning against tighter, not wanting to think too deeply about how much it would hurt to lose the people she cared about already going out to fight. "Ali, you almost died. Died! I can't knowingly throw you back out there and know that I'm risking your life to try and stop something that I'm sure the others can handle." 

"Sky." Alison turned around, regathering her composure as she faced her best friend again. "I can't just stand by for this. So you either stand with me, or you stand out of my way. I can't just let this go on and not help if you're going to stand in my way." 

There was silence as the two best friends stared at each other, two divided sides- two different choices that had been made. 

 "For the record, I'm sorry, Alison." Skylar shook her head, pulling a icer back from the early SHIELD days out of the back of her jacket, aiming it at her best friend.  

"And I am too." Alison murmured, staring back at her best friend with pity in her eyes. "But you've made your choice, and I've made mine. And now we suffer the consequences." 

"And I can't let you stand in my way." 

<~*~>

NO WAY HOME HAS REVIVED ME AND IM CHANGING EVERYTHING TO WORK IT OUT THE WAY THAT I WANT IT AND TO MAKE IT MORE OF A COHESIVE STORY BITCHES

anyways I'm on winter break, finished with my last semester of high school that matters, and I am ready to kick some ass and start writing again

so basically, I'm back from my year hiatus, and I'm ready to start going again! 

support and hellos will always be accepted and feel free to comment your thoughts! I'll do my best to reply 

hope y'all enjoyed this chapter and I'll see you in the next one!

bye 

(: 

-ash