Ghost - An Avengers Fanfiction

Chapter 20

"Wow."
"You said that already, Stark." Clint muttered, as he untangled his foot from the knee high grass they were standing in. Tony shrugged.
"It's even bigger than I thought it would be." He continued in an awed voice, his eyes never leaving the mansion in front of him.

Clint had to admit - the McGregor Mansion was definitely impressive. It was a solid building, made of pale sandstone bricks and a grey tiled roof. Clint could count at least 5 floors, and he could tell from the number of windows that dotted the mansions face, that there would be more rooms inside than he would care to count. The size of the building was really the only impressive thing about it though. Back in its day, Clint knew it would've been quite a beautiful place, but the whole place reeked of desertion and decay. The grey roof was caved in slightly on the left side, and the pale bricks were grey with years of dirt and grime. As far as he could tell, every window was boarded up completely, hiding the inside of the house from the rest of the world. A large ornate fountain sat in front of the decaying building, half of its winged stone figures crumbled and cracked. To top it all off, a mass of vines had grown up the sides of the mansion, completely covering the bottom two floors, with green tendrils creeping up toward the third floor windows. Overall, it looked like the mansion was being swallowed whole by the wild mass of vegetation that had once been the gardens of the property. Patchy, knee high grass swayed in the breeze, while here and there, Clint could spot a dead tree stump or a half-alive shrub. It had definitely been a number of years since anyone had set foot near this place.

"Clint, the kid is getting away."
Clint was pulled from his observations by Tony, who was standing beside him still. Clint looked out to the grass and realised Sophie had been walking toward the house and was already half way across the expanse of grass. "Come on then." Clint prompted Tony as they both started to make their way to the crumbling building, picking their way through the knee high grass.

"So Barton, what's the deal with the kid?" Tony asked nonchalantly.
Clint looked ahead, where Sophie was walking toward the mansion.
"What do you mean?" He asked, uncertain about what Tony was referring to.

"She's so.... weird, you know? Like, she barely talks, barely reacts to stuff. Even with those freaky eyes of hers, the kid's face is always blank. I thought teenagers were a bit more.... Emotional? Rebellious? She just does what she's told, and that's it. It's like she doesn't really have a personality?"
He questioned, sounding unsure of his assessment of Sophie. Clint just shrugged at him.

"Like I said, we can't compare her to what we know to be normal. She isn't just a teenager. She's a highly trained agent, used by Hydra for years. I don't know if they made her this way, or she's just acting this way because she doesn't trust us, but S.H.I.E.L.D. will work something out to help her."

Tony scoffed. "Yeah, like those suited monkeys know how to deal with a kid. No offence." He added quickly, shrugging at Clint. Clint just raised an eyebrow at him, then turned back to where Sophie was waiting for them at the front door.

Tony grinned and stepped forward, pulling a few vines away to reveal a glimpse of the large door. He grasped one of the brass knockers and tried to open the door, but with very little luck.
"Casper, where's the key?" He asked, a little bit impatient. Sophie looked at him blankly. "I don't have a key, Mr Stark. This isn't my house, I just sleep here." She answered.
"So how do you get inside the mansion?" Clint asked. Sophie turned and also fixed Clint with a blank stare. "I skip." She replied, as if it were obvious.
"You.... What?" Clint asked, even more confused.
"It's a name I use for my teleportation. When I was younger, I couldn't say teleport, so I would say skip instead. It's something that stuck." She explained quickly, her eyes glazed over as she thought back to when she was a child.

"Alright, so teleporting is skipping, gotcha. Now hurry up and get us inside." Tony called impatiently over his shoulder, as he tried to open the door again.