Hearts Collide

The Surprise

“I’m never doing that again,” Alex muttered to herself as she took aspirin and drank water.
“Never doing what again, exactly?” Tony asked out of the blue which caused Alex to jump slightly.
“Oh, God, dad. Don’t scare me like that. It’s too early for that.”
“Sorry,” Tony chuckled. “But where were you last night?” Tony asked as he noted Alex’s groggy appearance. “You look like you woke up with a hangover.”
“Haha. Very funny,” Alex scoffed. “I was playing video games all night,” Alex lied as she took another sip of water. “I also had a bunch of Monster so I didn’t sleep at all.”
“Umm…okay. I thought you were done with your hard-core gamer days,” Tony pointed out.
“I had nothing else to do,” Alex sighed. “Steve is on a mission and—”
“Really? I was wondering where he went,” Tony mumbled which earned him a slight glare from Alex. “Anyway,” Tony sighed, “are you going to join Pepper and me for dinner tonight?”
“No. I think I’ll just order pizza and play some more video games,” she answered.
Tony raised an eyebrow at her before he asked,
“You aren’t becoming a hermit because Steve isn’t here, are you?”
“What?” she responded defensively. “No,” she scoffed. “I always do that around the first day of school. Go ask mom,” she dared.
“No, it’s ok. Just don’t stay up all night and make sure you do your school work,” Tony said, trying to imitate an uptight parent.
“Is that supposed to be your attempt to be ‘dad of the year’?” Alex teased which made Tony turn around and face her.
“Is it working?” Tony asked wittily which earned him a soft laugh from Alex.
“A little,” she replied with a weak smile.
“Hey, Alex, is everything alright?” he asked as he placed a hand on her shoulder.
“I’m fine, daddy,” she answered as she leaned forward and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “I have to go to class now, I’ll see you later.”
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“No! No! No!” Alex shouted to the TV screen as she watched Kirby knock out her Pikachu. She huffed in frustration and took a large bite of her meat lover’s pizza.
“You skipped out on training to play video games and eat pizza?” a voice scoffed as someone entered the room.
“I’m doing homework, Clint,” Alex mumbled, pointing to the notebook and calculator that were lying on the coffee table.
“Right,” he sneered as he took a spot next to her on the couch.
“Want to play?” she asked as she handed him a remote.
“I want to know why you haven’t trained in four days,” Clint responded as the game began.
“I’m mad. I don’t feel like training,” she responded monotonously as she aggressively pressed the buttons on her controller.
“Are you mad at me?” Clint asked nonchalantly.
“No.”
“Then come and train with me,” he suggested as he made his Charizard attack Alex’s Princess Peach.
“Why?”
“Because I miss you,” he stated as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
“You mean you miss making me do a million pushups until my arms fall off?”
“That too,” Clint chuckled. “But seriously, come train with me. I promise I won’t go so hard on you today.”
“How about if you beat me, I’ll train today,” Alex suggested as she attacked Clint’s Charizard.
“Deal,” Clint uttered as a small smirk crept on his face.
“Wait,” Alex began as she gave Clint a strange look. “Why are you—ahh!” she exclaimed as Clint used his left arm to push her to the couch cushion and keep her there. “Clint, you jerk,” she mumbled as she attempted to free herself from Clint’s grip.
Within a few seconds, Clint was able to weaken Alex’s character and, when she was finally able to free herself, he delivered the final blow, knocking her out and claiming victory.
“I win,” he grinned.
“No, you cheated,” Alex huffed as she crossed her arms over her chest.
“Yeah, well, you didn’t say no cheating,” Clint pointed out as he got up from the coach. “Come on, let’s go.”
“W-wait,” Alex stuttered. “Did Fury put you up to this?” she sighed unsure if she was able to trust him.
“Why do you ask?” Clint inquired.
“I don’t know,” Alex sighed. “Fury’s been on my case for a while and after what I told him last time, I thought that this might be one of his schemes.” Clint chuckled softly, which caused Alex to ask, “What’s so funny?”
“I’m not the kind of spy that gets sent to do stuff like that. Usually Natasha is,” Clint stated. Alex giggled slightly and mouthed the words ‘of course’. “This right here, is me telling you ‘I kicked your butt in Super Smash Bros, let’s go train’.”
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“Fine,” she agreed, trusting Clint. “I’ll go.”
“37…38,” Alex huffed as she pushed her body weight off the floor.
“Come on, feel the burn,” Clint said monotonously.
“I felt the burn on push up 28. Now I have no feeling in my arms!” she whined collapsing to the floor.
“Come on, Alex. Two more,” Clint exhorted.
“Do you enjoy torturing me?” Alex bellowed softly. “And at least I did two more than yesterday.”
Clint chuckled softly before responding,
“Just a little and you did 40 two days ago; you’re slacking.”
“Whatever,” Alex mumbled. “Well, I’m done for the day. Same time tomorrow, bro?”
“Yup,” Clint answered as Alex left the training room. “Hey, Alex,” Clint began, “do you think that you could—”
“For the third time, Clint,” Alex affirmed, “I’m not going to make you anymore arrows.”
After she finished training, Alex took a shower, got dressed, and lied down on her bed. She grew bored and began flipping through photos on her phone. She laughed at the photo she took of the man wearing a panda suit at Union Square earlier that day and grinned at the embarrassing picture she took of Thor. She continued to look through photos until she came across one photo in particular: it was a photo of her and Steve that Pepper had taken a while back when they were singing at the karaoke club. Their hands were intertwined with each other’s and they were facing one another, smiling.
“It’s been a week, Steve,” Alex thought to herself. “Why aren’t you back yet?” Her thoughts were interrupted by a knock on her door.
“Come in,” she replied.
A few seconds later, Alex saw Pepper enter her room and she sat up.
“Hey, Pepper. How are you?” inquired Alex.
“Hi, Alex. I’m fine. Tony just wanted to know how you were doing.”
“I’m fine,” she sighed.
“You miss Steve, don’t you?”
“Yes,” she admitted. “But don’t tell my dad. I don’t want him to worry about me.”
“Alex,” Pepper began as she walked over to Alex’s bed and sat next to her, “Whether he admits it or not your dad’s always going to worry about you. You’re his daughter and he loves you.”
“I love him too. He should know that. I let him beat me at ‘Deadliest Warriors’ once in a while,” Alex joked which caused Pepper to let out a small giggle.
“Speaking of which, he told me to bring you downstairs to the living room.”
“Why?” Alex asked curiously. “I would have gone there on my own…eventually.”
“It’s a surprise.”
“Did he get me more video games?” Alex chirped excited.
“Go find out for yourself,” Pepper hinted before Alex left her room and dashed to the living room.
When she got there she saw Tony standing in front of the couch, the x-box set up, and pizza and soda sitting on the coffee table adjacent to the couch.
“Let’s see,” Alex mumbled. “Pizza, Soda, X-box. You got me new games that we could play together, didn’t you?” Alex asked smiling.
“Nope. Try again.”
“We’re going to eat pizza and watch movies on Netflix with the Xbox?”
“Mmmm, not exactly,” Tony answered.
“Then what’s the surprise?” Alex asked confused.
“Turn around,” a voice from behind her said. Alex turned around slowly. Her face went from that of confusion to awe.
“Steve,” she gasped. “When did you—?”
“I got back this morning when you weren’t here. So Tony and Pepper helped me set up this little surprise for you,” Steve replied as he walked over to Alex.
“Awww,” Alex cooed. “Daddy—”
“No. No. No,” Tony stated as he shook his head. “Don’t go all cutesy little girl voice on me. I wanted to take you to the Hall of Science, but Pepper said ‘No. She misses Steve; you should let her do something with him’. So we came up with this.”
“Really?” Alex scoffed. “You were going to take me to the Hall of Science? What am I? Eight? Can we go there on Saturday?” she said, whispering the last part.
Steve laughed at Alex’s remark as she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed his lips softly.
“Okay, I’m going to go now,” Tony said awkwardly as he began to leave the living room. “You kids have fun and no making out on the couch! Got it, Captain?”
“Yes, sir,” Steve responded as he wrapped his around Alex. When Tony had left, Steve asked, “Miss me much?”
“Yes,” she blurted which caused Steve to grin. “That’s not funny, Steve. You left me alone at the yogurt station. If I hadn’t decided to go look for you, God knows how long I would have waited there. Why didn’t you answer your phone?
“I’m sorry,” Steve apologized. “Fury called for me just as I was about to go there. He said he had an urgent mission for me. So I left then and there.”
“And you couldn’t leave a note, or a voicemail on my phone, or something?”
“Fury told me that he would tell you about my mission. Didn’t he?”
“Sort off,” Alex said as she rolled her eyes in displeasure. “Anyway, I don’t care about Fury or your mission. All I care about is spending time with you and eating that pizza,” she confessed which caused him to chuckle.
“Pizza and movies it is,” Steve confirmed as he kissed her softly.