Withered webs || marvel

15- Just turned fourteen

October 17, 2014

Irena who was now freshly 14 as of today finally exited her room at 10:30 am. She had been living with Natasha, Tony, and sometimes Steve and Sam at the Avenger's compound in New York since May. It wasn't easy to adjust to, but she managed to fit in just fine over time. The girl had grown two inches taller, now at 5'3, Her hair was longer, barely past her upper back, and her face had lost some of its childish chub that stuck to her cheeks.

She didn't go to school after a three-day battle with Natasha debating the matter. In the end, she won and got to stay in the compound doing her studies for 4 hours a day in a room dedicated just to learning that Tony had put in a week after the school verdict was finalized. It's not that Irena didn't want to make friends, she just couldn't.

The girl was so different she doubted she would ever be able to act "normally" around kids her age. No 14-year-old girl had over 90 different people's blood on her hands, most didn't have a single drop. High School was a rough place in general and for a kid who hadn't ever gone to normal school before, it probably wasn't the best place to start and Tony agreed.

Irena didn't mind barely leaving the compound, it was cool and had many things for her to do. Besides, she wasn't completely alone, she had Natasha. She and Natasha only left when it was essential besides their monthly excursions. Their covers were blown after Nat had uploaded all of S.H.I.E.L.D / HYDRA's information to the internet.

The plan was originally to run off and hide somewhere for a bit until things died down in the States but Natasha didn't want Irena to be running anymore, she wanted her to have a sense of normalcy in her life and that didn't involve living in the middle of nowhere in some European Country. 

Steve and Sam, whom Irena had grown extremely close with over time, visited in between their different manhunts in their attempt to find Bucky. Irena also had a phone, but Tony had programmed it to only have the music app, phone, facetime, messages, and single-player games. The numbers she had were his, Natasha's, Steve's, and Sam's. Of course, she had multiple of each as all of them had various burner phones.

Natasha was in the kitchen with Tony, Steve, and Sam, quickly attempting to finish her poor endeavor of a birthday cake when she heard F.R.I.D.A.Y lightly inform the group of adults the birthday girl had left her room. She rushed to stick the white fondant stars she had cut out earlier onto the dark blue frosted strawberry-flavored cake.

"Shit!" Natasha whispered as quietly as she could, scrambling to put the cake away for later as she plated the pancakes she whipped up only 10 minutes ago with again, pieces of cut-up strawberries.

They all dashed around the kitchen adding finishing touches to the room before Irena came down. Tony finished tying the balloons he reluctantly agreed to blow up, Steve scattered confetti all over the floor, table, and island, just like he had done to the entrance outside her room along with tie streamers above her door, and Sam put the rest of her gifts on the island in a neat formation.

Natasha had been up all hours of the night to ensure Irena's first birthday celebration of her went according to plan. It had to be memorable as Irena had only figured out through Nat in September what a birthday was and when she took place.

"Here, let me." Steve insisted as she took the plate out of Natasha's hand, topping the pancakes with whipped cream and chocolate chips before adding a single candle in the middle.

"Thanks," Nat replied as she hustled to grab the cheesy birthday hats, also decorated with stars, paper party horns, and confetti poppers she bought from Dollar Tree.

Natasha handed the rest out to the men before she gestured for Tony to follow.

"I am not putting this on," Tony argued while holding the hat in his hands and looking at it with a disgusted face.