Not That Lucky

#17: Lots of Whiskey, and An Equal Amount of Blood

"I used to be afraid of the dark

Until I came to realize that

There are monsters

hidden away

Beneath a smile as beautiful as

the first morning rays

Only those are twice as dangerous

For they hide in plain sight

Because, unlike the ones

in your closet,

They aren't afraid of the light." –s.s.w

__________

"This guy says he's done PR for the Black Eyed Peas!" Peter said with wide eyes. He held the printed application up for me to see. In the past two weeks, I had managed to narrow down hundreds of applications into a final five. Their background checks had just come back clean which meant I was going to have to interview them now.

I squinted to look at the application and shook my head, "I'm not sure if that's a pro or con."

Peter shrugged and picked up a different application to look over. Tony had offered the kid after school lab space and he jumped on the chance. Now, every couple of days, he'd swing by to do science things. Today was one of those days, but the experiments or whatever it was they did, had gotten postponed for a mission.

"What kind of mission are they going on?" Peter asked.

"Steve said something about, like, knocking a HYDRA base off the map or—wait." I looked up from the work I was doing. "Are you supposed to know that? That might be confidential."

Peter raised an eyebrow, "Are you allowed to know that?"

"Touché, kid." I mumbled and went back to making notes on the applications. A few minutes passed and I heard Peter chuckling from across the table. I glanced up, expecting him to have found something funny in one of the applications, but instead he was looking at his phone. Peter began to type out a message with a grin on his face. I smirked, "Texting your girlfriend, Petey?"

Peter's eyes widened and rose to meet mine, a bright pink blush on his face, "W—What? No, no, no! She's not my girlfrie—I mean, I don't have a girlfriend."

"Aw", I rested my elbow on the table and grinned at him, "Do you have a crush?"

He shook his head rapidly, "No way, my only crush is my crushing anxiety."

Leaving my head against my hand, I tilted it slightly with concern, "You good, Pete? I have a therapist on speed dial. It's Sam, but he's decent."

Peter chuckled and gave me a comforting thumbs up. I shook my head and looked away. I found his quirky sense of humor to be hilarious, but I knew Tony was one joke away from actually getting the kid a non-Sam therapist. We worked in silence for the next few minutes. Peter had pulled out his books to work on some homework and I read over applicant #3. She was my favorite so far. Not much experience, but a good education. I wouldn't judge anyone based on their lack of experience. I mean, look at my ass.

A loud roaring sound, similar to a gushing waterfall, made me jump and whip around. Luckily, it was just Thor arriving. The colorful lights disappeared, and he walked away from his dedicated spot on the deck to step into the penthouse. That was the first time I saw and heard his arrival.