"I was beginning to enjoy Texas"

"I know you were. But I'm not gonna ask you to go to Egypt" Ophelia shook her head.

"But I wanna go! I want to see the Sphinx. I want to get trapped in a pyramid. I want to open a sarcophagus and unleash a curse on the world!"

"You have to stop doing drugs"

"Jokes on you, I've been two days sober"

Ophelia snorted and brought a hand up to her mouth. She stared at the screen on her laptop and shook her head at her friend Wade Wilson who she's video calling.

Shortly after Barney made them eat his cooking, Clint urged them to take Pepto-Bismol to prevent any stomachaches. They were then lead to some rooms where they can rest and clean up. Romeo and Ophelia took one room and one took a shower while the other one laid on the bed.

Ophelia already took a shower and so she decided to FaceTime her friend who's helping her locate someone. It's through the mercenary, Wade Wilson, that Romeo and Ophelia know Ulysses Klaue.

Lucky pushed the door open and jumped on the bed where Ophelia is laying down, her laptop in front of her.

"There's a doggo! Hi doggy!" Wade squealed and waved furiously through the camera. Lucky barked and pressed his black nose on the lense "he likes me already"

"I'm going to steal this dog" Ophelia whispered and looked over her shoulder to make sure no one is there to hear her.

"Scandalous!" Wade gasped "can I help?" Ophelia giggled and ruffled the dogs ears.

The bathroom door opened and Romeo came out dressed in clean clothes and rubbing the towel on his wet hair to dry it out. "I'm so tired" he yawned "I think I fell asleep in there"

"Dangerous activity, sleeping in the shower" Wade said "or is it sex in the shower?"

"I think its shaving in the shower. Have you tried that? You can slip and cut your leg open!" Ophelia argued.

"All shower tasks are dangerous" Wade nodded "anyway, the Keane business"

"Lets leave it for now" Ophelia sighed and passed a hand through her damp hair "we know he's in Egypt and he'll probably be there for a while"

"Usually you would jump on the chance on catching this guy. What's up, buttercup?" Wade asked Ophelia "are the Avengers turning grumpy Ophelia into a happy Ophelia?" He pouted and batted his eyelashes.

"Stop batting your eyelashes" Ophelia stopped him.

"And if anything, the Avengers are making Ophelia more grumpy" Romeo inputted as he sat down on the bed.

"Pretty sure I heard Tony call me Ophelia the Grouch, an hour ago" Ophelia muttered.

"Yeah, bummer" Wade said uninterested "well you two have fun hiding with the Avengers. I have important things to do"

"Like what?" Romeo furrowed his eyebrows.

"I'm in Dallas right now. You know what that means? Time to investigate if the JFK assassination was an inside job or not" Wade told his friends "I should have a YouTube channel, Deadpool Unsolved! I should collaborate with those two guys, Shane and Ryan and then–"

"Okay, goodbye" Ophelia ended the call and Wade's face was gone. She closed the laptop and pushed it aside as she dropped her head on the bed and Lucky laid down by her legs.

"I want to sleep" Ophelia whispered as her eyes began to close.

"Sleep" Romeo softly told her "who knows when will be the next time we get to sleep" he stood up and draped the towel over a chair to dry it out "or how long we'll be here. Are you sure you don't want to call your grandpa? Or maybe–" when he turned around, he saw that Ophelia already has her eyes closed. She quickly fell asleep and he doesn't blame her.

"Alright" he sighed and looked around the room "I wonder if Clint has cows?"

♔

"So, whatever you read out loud, it comes to life?" Barney asked the two young adults outside the house.

"Yes" Romeo nodded.

"Unfortunately" Ophelia mumbled.

"I've never heard of anything like that before" Barney said.

"Good. Stay away from the curse" Ophelia kicked the grass.

"She doesn't like it. What she can do" Romeo quickly told Barney.

"If she doesn't like it, why is she here?"

"Because of me" Romeo rubbed the back of his neck.

"Why?"

"Roo is my apprentice" Ophelia looked up at the man "I can't send him off to save the world if he's still learning"

Barney looked at Romeo, silently asking if its true and he nodded "but I can do something she can't. That's a plus"

"Hey, stop talking to them! I don't want you to scare the kids" Clint yelled at his brother from across the porch.

"I'm not going to scare them...right now. I was going to wait until night and we have a fire going on and we tell ghost stories" Barney told his little brother.

Ophelia giggled when the brothers began to bicker in a playful manner because they are of course, in front of Clint's kids. Ophelia took in a deep breath and felt much better after her nap. She walked down the steps of the porch and saw a red ball. She decided to kick it but what she didn't expect was to hear a loud smack, when it hit Steve in the face.

The brunette gasped and ran toward Steve, profusely apologizing, while the others standing at the porch, laughed loudly.

"I'm so sorry!" Ophelia apologized as she tried to reach out to Steve's face, but retreated her hands, not wanting to injure him more "sorry. I'm so sorry"

"It's fine" Steve said.

"I'm sorry. Are you okay?"

"Fine. I'm fine. It sounded worse than it felt, actually" Steve admitted. They could hear Clint cackling in the background and he had to hold onto the railing to keep from falling.

"I'm sorry" Ophelia continued to apologize.

"Do it again!" Romeo yelled from the porch.

"Do it to Barney!" Clint laughed.

"Do it to Clint!" Barney yelled.

"Do it again!" Romeo continued yelling.

Ophelia ignored them and turned back to Steve. "Are you sure you're alright?"

"Yes" he nodded "I'm fine. It's fine. Stop worrying" Steve smiled at the girl "the only good thing is that Tony wasn't here to see it. Otherwise he would've been in a similar situation as Clint"

"Yeah, where is that billionaire? He was just here chopping wood with you, you good looking lumberjacks" Ophelia looked down at the piles of wood on the ground.

"He's in the barn fixing a tractor" Steve answered.

"Huh" Ophelia gave a quick glance at the barn before turning back to the tall man before her "hey, can I ask you something?"

"The internet is very helpful, yes" Steve gave an automatic answer.

"What?" Ophelia slightly tilted her head to the side.

"Sorry, it's just normally when people ask me a question, its always about the internet" Steve explained to Ophelia.

"Oh. No, this isn't about the internet" she shook her head.

"Alright, then sure, ask away"

Ophelia took in a deep breath before opening her mouth and asking "how are you?"

"I already said that I'm fine. A little sore but–"

"No, I mean," Ophelia interrupted with a shake of her head "how are you? One minute you're in the 40's, the next you're in the 2000's. One minute you're fighting nazis, the next you're fighting aliens and robots. You had a life before all this, probably had a nice girl, I don't know" she shrugged "but now its all gone. It's just you in a completely different world from what you knew. I'm sorry if I'm making you feel bad, I just want to know, how are you?"

Steve stared at the young woman in wonder. He just met her the day before and she's already asking if he's alright. Not the everyday passing "how are you? How's your day?" Type of question, but rather a deeper and meaningful "how are you? Really?" The type of question that makes you take a deep breath before answering. The type that makes you gaze into the horizon as you think of a truthful answer to give.

No one has asked him how he is, how he's handling the changes, sure they ask but it's a surface question, not like Ophelia's. Ophelia, who he first thought of as mean and grumpy, just like the other Avengers thought of her, is actually caring and nice...when she wants to.

Steve took in a deep breath before opening his mouth to answer, but Ophelia beat him to it.

"Think about it. I know if I were in your situation and someone asked me that out of the blue, I would need time to think of an answer" Ophelia smiled sweetly at him "and honest answer, not some bullcrap someone wants to hear"

"You're actually a good kid, Ophelia Verona" Steve told the smiling girl.

"I don't think so. But thanks anyway" she kept smiling "you're a good person, Steven Rogers. Honest to your friends"

♔

Nick Fury had appeared at Clint's barn that day. Ophelia was surprised to see him there and restrained herself from smacking the eye patch off his head. She told him she didn't want to take part in anything and now she's in hiding. The media doesn't know about her and Romeo, but Ultron does and he can hunt them down.

Now that she thinks about it, it probably wasn't a good idea to use her computer since Ultron is on the internet. She'll make sure to place some sort of traps around the area, secure the place. Although, if she's hearing Nick right, then Ultron just needs time to do whatever it is he's doing, that's why he told Wanda to mess with their minds.

"My contacts all say he's building something. The amount of vibranium he made off with, I don't think its just one thing" Nick explained as he poured himself some lemonade.

"What about Ultron himself?" Steve questioned.

"Ah, he's easy to track. He's everywhere. The guy is multiplying faster than a catholic rabbit"

Romeo leaned over to Ophelia and whispered "what does that mean?"

"I don't know" she whispered back "it must mean there are catholic rabbits. Maybe the Pope has one" she answered.

"He's still going after launch codes?" Tony asked from where he threw a dart at the board on the wall.

"Yes he is, but he's not making any headway" Nick answered as he cut some bread.

"I hacked the pentagon's firewall in highschool on a dare" Tony showed off.

"Well I contacted our friends at the Nexus about that"

"Nexus?" Steve questioned.

"Its the world internet hub in Oslo, every byte of data flows through there. Fastest access on Earth" Bruce answered.

"So what they saying?" Clint inspected two darts in his hands.

"He's fixated on the missiles but the codes are constantly being changed" Fury informed.

"By whom?" Tony asked and moved his head back when two darts flew pass his face and hit the bullseye on the board. Tony narrowed his eyes at Clint who in turn shrugged.

"Parties unknown"

Barney was crashing their small meeting and also has darts in his hands. He decided to one up his brother and threw three darts, all hitting the target.

"I am still standing here" Tony told the Barton brothers.

"Your fault if you don't move" Barney shrugged.

"We have an ally?" Natasha asked Fury.

"Ultron's got an enemy. That's not the same thing" Fury clarified.

"Ever heard of the expression, the enemy of my enemy is my friend?" Ophelia spoke up. Heads turned to her "how do you think we know Klaue?" She motioned at herself and Romeo.

"Yes, how do you know him?" Tony stepped into the kitchen where the girl is sitting at the table with Romeo and Natasha.

"Now's not the time to question how or why two twenty-three year olds know a black market arms dealer" Steve narrowed his eyes at said twenty-three year olds.

"Wait, what?" Barney was intrigued by that information.

"Not the time" Clint stopped his brother. Ophelia smiled small and looked away.

"I might need to visit Oslo. Find our unknown" Tony told the team.

"Well, this is good times boss, but I was kinda hoping when I saw you, you'd have more than that" Natasha leaned back om the chair and turned to Fury.

"I do" he held a piece of bread and a drink in his hands "I have you"

"How very sentimental" Romeo muttered.

"Back in the day I had eyes everywhere, ears everywhere else. You kids had all the teach you could dream up. Here we all are, back on earth nothing with our wit and our will to save the world" Fury walked around the small kitchen bar and stood where everyone can see him clearly "Ultron says the Avengers are the only thing between him and his mission and whether or not he admits it, his mission is global destruction. All this laid in a grave. So stand. Outwit the platinum bastard" he sat down on a chair at the table.

"Steve doesn't like that kind of talk" Natasha smirked and turned to Steve.

"You know what, Romanoff?" Steve began.

"So what does he want?" Fury asked the group.

"Don't ask me, I'm not in this" Barney shrugged.

"What are you even doing here?" Clint asked in annoyance.

"Making sure my little brother doesn't get himself killed"

"Get out"

"I didn't even want to be part of your stupid group anyway" Barney mumbled as he walked out of the kitchen and turned a right to head upstairs.

"Brothers. They can he a pain, huh?" Ophelia sympathized with the archer.

"Tell me about it" he grumbled and took a seat on a chair.

"Ultron wants to become better. Better than us. He keeps building bodies" Steve answered Nick's question.

"Person bodies" Tony added "The human form is inefficient. Biologically speaking we're outmoded. But he keeps coming back to it"

Bruce slowly approached the table as he kept his eyes glued on a painting Lila made for Natasha.

"When you two programed him to protect the human race, you amazingly failed" Natasha sarcastically told the both men who created Ultron.

"They don't need to be protected. They need to evolve" Bruce spoke up "Ultron's going to evolve"

"How?" Fury asked.

"Has anyone been in contact with Helen Cho?"

"The comedian?" Romeo gasped.

"That's Margaret Cho" Ophelia told him.

"Oh"