not like you → c . barton

[9]

Sitting in my room, waiting for midnight, is harder than you think. Seriously, I think Fury must've found out about our plan, because he kept sending Steve up to check on me. He did it once an hour, and it was really annoying. My bag was under my bed, and my heart was racing. I began pacing, biting my lip and nails. I looked at the clock, and time seemed to move backwards. It was 11:45, and Steve was still checking on me.

"I'm getting ready for bed," I lied, and he sighed on the other side of the door.

"Okay, but I wish you'd have let me in early so we could talk," he said softly, and he left me alone. I checked the time again: 11:55. Time to deploy.I snatched my bag from under my bed, went to my window, opened it, and began to climb out. As my body was halfway out of my window, my bedroom door opened, and in stepped Mom.

"Alex?!" her voice was raised, and I pulled myself onto the roof without answering.

"Alexandra Nicole Barton! You get back here, right now!" she yelled, but I was seriously climbing on the roof. Below me, I could hear talking, and then my mother's voice rang out.

"Alex is running away!" I could tell she was crying, because her voice was kinda shaky and it was cracking. That was when I knew that I had little to no time to get down and away from the house. I started to climb a bit faster, but I could hear someone behind me. I turned my head a bit, and saw Steve up on the roof. I'm not gonna lie, I started to freak out a bit.

"Alex? What are you doing?" he called out, but I ignored him. At this point, I was able to stand on the roof, so I did the stupid thing, and ran across said roof. But, with my bag on and the sort of uneven tiles, I stumbled a bit and fell off of the roof, and into that big tree I told you about.

"Alex!" Steve yelled, but I held back a groan and climbed out of the tree. With one last look at the house, and at Steve on the roof, I took off to the apple tree grove. My bag was hitting me in the back, making it hard for me to run, and I'm not the fastest person, mind you.

"Alex! Get back here!" I could hear Steve yell, but like in all of those running sequences you see in action movies, I didn't answer him. I kept going until I neared the grove, and, lo and behold, my friends were waiting. Diamond opened the back door for me, and I tossed in my bag before climbing in and shutting the door.

"Alex! Alex, what are you doing?!" Steve yelled at me again, catching up to us.

"Going to get our parents!" I yelled back, stupidly, I might add. He almost grabbed the car door, but Hank slammed his foot on the gas, and he drove off, leaving Captain America in the dust.

***

"You swiped your brother's I.D, too?" Jeb asked, and Hank nodded. I leaned back in my seat, looking outside. When I closed my eyes, I saw Steve's face, and the look he gave me. It was something like anger mixed with confusion and sadness. Come to think of it, I left my mother, my brothers and sister, and dad's friends all with the thought that something bad could happen to me, and I could die doing this. We could all die doing this. That could have been the last time Steve saw me, or I saw him.

"Alex? Are you okay?" Jeb asked, looking at me from the passenger's seat.

"What? Oh, yeah, I'm good. Just.... thinking," I said softly, and he nodded.

"So, we're en route to Seattle, where do we go first?" Diamond asked, and I bit my lip gently. Hank kept his eyes on the road, and I couldn't help but think of how cute he was when he was focused. If we all make it out of this alive, I think I'll accept his date offer.

"Cap once told me about a time when he and the Black Widow went to a mall to decode S.H.I.E.L.D info. Maybe we could try the same thing, only go and look up locations in Seattle that they might be held in," I offered.

"That's a long shot, but I guess we could try. There are a few pinpoint locations in Seattle that no one would look at twice. Guess we're on a crazy road trip now, huh?" Diamond asked, and we all nodded, yet again. I leaned back in my seat and looked out of the window again, biting my lip in thought.

"The Avengers were leaving in two days, but maybe they'll be leaving sooner so they can get there before us and stop us from doing anything stupid," I muttered, and Jeb turned to look at me.

"We've got no time to waste then, do we?" he asked.

"You're right. Come on, let's do this thing," I said softly, and the others smiled at me. This whole plan was still ludicrous, but at least we had faith in each other. That was all I could really ask for in a team.