Protector (EN)

Chapter 12

It was 5 o'clock in the morning. Definitely too early to get up. I tossed and turned in bed, but found no sleep. Great. Why does this have to happen now. Because I couldn't fall asleep, I got up and went to take a shower first. Finished with the whole morning routine, I changed my clothes. I put on a gray t-shirt and light jeans. Fresh socks still on and then I went to the kitchen and had breakfast at 6 o'clock. This was really not normal anymore, that I was up so early. I would sleep normally at least until 10 o'clock. So I ask myself.

~what's wrong with you~

Well anyway, now I was already awake and tired I was not now. Finished with breakfast I sat down on the sofa and turned on the TV. I left the first program on, finally I could expect nothing better now. Maybe I was still tired, because I noticed how my eyelids became heavier and I finally fell asleep.

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"Ms. Stark? Mr. Stark is calling everyone to the lobby. You better hurry because Mr. Stark is not in a good mood right now." Woke me up the AI. I took a quick look at the clock. It was nine o'clock. At least I could sleep for two hours, if not less.

"Does it matter?" I asked sleepily.

"Yes very important. He's about to snap" Jarvis warned me. Reluctantly, I got up and took the elevator to the lobby. This was going to be fun.

Once downstairs, I spotted the Avengers, who were looking chagrined. Whatever was going on, that didn't bode well.

"There you are." My dad sighed in relief.

"Yes why did you call for me?" I asked, but I knew I would have to wait with an answer.

"Good, now we are all here." Said Dad, rubbing his hands together. "We have a problem" my dad gave over annoyed.

"We? You always have problems." I joked. Apparently not a good time to joke, because I just earned a dirty look from my dad.

"Juli, this is serious." He hissed at me.

"If it's serious, why are you calling me out?" And raised my hands defensively in front of me. He ignored me countered. Is today the day of I-don't-answer-your-questions? Apparently it is.

"What problem do you ... um we ... have this time?" Thor then asked, drawing attention to himself.

"Someone has snuck into our system. Apparently not a rookie, because he's covering all his tracks, so I don't know who hooked into our system." Replied Dad in exasperation.

"How could you figure out that someone was hacking into the system?" Clint asked with interest.

"Files are showing up on my screen that weren't there before. It always says in big print, Warning, when it was in there. The system noticed when guests had visited the sytemz. But so far, there hasn't been a virus." Explained Dad.

"Do you know what this Haker was looking for?" Steve asked.

"As far as I could determine, he was trying to reprogram something. What exactly, I'm not sure. Apparently he was in quite a hurry. At one point he wasn't in our system two minutes." Answered my dad, leaning on the back of a chair no one was sitting on.

"Wait a minute... One time?" Steve asked in shock.

"Yeah, it's not the first time." Replied Dad. A brief silence. Steve took a deep breath.

"So he's not looking for a file or Top Secret information?" Steve then pecked further. Dad nodded.

"But our systems are so secure and well monitored, how could this happen?" Clint asked further.

"I assume it's someone who knew about it." Guessed my dad.

"So someone who works at S.C.H.I.E.L.D.?" I asked this time.

"How can you tell you're my daughter?" my dad asked me with a slight smile. I just shrugged my shoulders.

"Maybe because I'm highly intelligent" I answered his question. He smiled more. Somehow dad looked pretty beat up. He had very heavy bags under his eyes and looked like he hadn't slept in days.

"How long have you known?" I asked my dad. He sighed and then looked at me.

"You've known for a while, but tried to stop it from getting any further, but you were unsuccessful." I was able to draw out from his gaze. He then looked guiltily at the floor.

"Mr. Stark? Is that true?" Steve asked in shock.

"I tried, guys." Groaned Dad in exasperation.

"But you should have said so." Drove Clint angrily at my dad. "How did they even know there was something wrong?" He continued to ask, however.

"Jarvis told me. I don't keep an eye on our system, that's actually S.C.H.I.E.L.D.'s responsibility, but have failed in that." He said in a calm, angry tone of voice.

"Yeah, but so did they" Steve admitted disappointedly.

"Hey. No need to blame everyone now. We have to stop him from getting what he wants. So don't act like little kids now, blaming the other guy because your toy broke." I shouted at the boys' legs. Bruce smiled.

"Yes Juli is right. We should fix this together" Bruce preferred my opinion.

"Maybe Juli should take over as leader." Grinned Thor. Shocked, I widened my eyes and took a leap back.

"Oh I'm so sorry for commanding you degrees here. I'm really sorry." I apologized immediately.

Everyone started laughing.

"Much like her father, except she's still holding back." I heard Clint say.

"Alright, where do we start?" Steve asked after a while.

"I'd say S.C.H.I.E.L.D. shouldn't know about this for now. If Fury gets air about it, we can listen to something." Said Dad.

"So we're on our own?" I asked, a little exasperated.

"Schucki, we've always been on our own." Answered my dad to my question.

"Dad?"

"Yes my sunshine?"

"Can you stop that?"

"What, my bunny?"

"Dad I'm serious. This is just getting embarrassing." I asked my dad to stop.

"Oh, already?" Pouted my dad playfully. I just looked at him reprovingly and nodded in acknowledgement. I glanced briefly at the Avengers, who just smiled at me. I guess they all had to stifle their laughter. Actually, I didn't care, but we had something much more important in mind.