The next Avenger - the new life of a "normal" Girl (english ver.)

Chapter 4: Heroes

The days went by extremely slow. Steve payed me a visit few times and some doctors kept track of my shoulder, but other than that I didn't really had much to do, except for lying in the bed, trying to kill some time.
As the sixth day of my boringness was nearing its end, the door opened and Steve came in with a bright smile on his face.
"Hey", I welcomed him, hoping for some distraction from literally nothing.
"Hello," he replied, "I've got good news for you."
I sat up, excited what it could be and looked at Steve impatient.
"You're going to be discharged.", he reported happily. Jubilantly, I threw my right arm into the air, finally I wouldn't be stuck here anymore. But unfortunately, Cap had to add something to his good news: "Don't crow too soon though... Your discharge only applies for the hospital wing. I'm afraid you have to stay a little longer on the Helicarrier itself for further monitoring." I was a bit disappointed, but everything would be better than this room, so I guess it was okay. "So, Let's get your things together, I'll show you we're you'll be staying from now on."
I jumped out of bed. With Steve's help we packed all of the spare clothes that were given to me. "Where are we going anyway?"
"You'll see", Steve answered meaningful, he threw the backpack with my clothes over one shoulder and approached the door.
I started following him through the carrier, it was the first time I got to see anything other than the hospital room I was in. It was the first time that I got an impression of how big this thing had to be. First, we went down a hallway, turning right at the end and entering an elevator. Two floors higher Steve turned left until we stood in a corridor with exactly ten doors.
"That's the Avengers-Area, ..." Steve tried to explain, but got cut off by me.
"Avengers?" I had the feeling that he had been just about to tell me what that was, but I couldn't wait.
"As I wanted to explicate to you just now, until Miss Impatient interrupted me", he laughed, " it's a group of.. well let's say special people, that I'm a part of, that protects the earth, if one isn't enough. We're a pretty new formed team, but we also managed to stop the Invasion somehow, so it should work. Oh yeah, and this is the place where you'll be staying."
"Seriously?"
"Seriously. Everybody has his own room, two are for guests, one of them will be yours. And then there is a storeroom and a bigger living area with a small kitchen."
I went through Steve's explanation in my head again. "So, there are six Avengers including you?"
He nodded and guided me to the second to last door on the right-hand side and opened it right away.
As I entered the room, I knew that I would feel a lot more comfortable here than in the hospital room. It was a rather big room with pleasant, light colours. At the wall opposite the door was a big bed with a night table next to it. Furthermore, the Room contained a wardrobe, a desk and a smaller cupboard that was embedded into the wall.
I pointed a finger into the direction of the smaller cupboard, puzzled about what its purpose was. "What's that for?"
"It's a weapon cabinet. Well, at least we're using it as such" Steve explained it as if it would be as normal as breathing air to have something like that in his bedroom, "Normally, all of our rooms have an individual furnishing, but every room has got the weapon cabinet, even though Stark and Banner don't really need one. Yours should be empty though." He walked towards it just to check if there really wasn't anything dangerous in it, while I threw myself onto the bed.
It was just as soft as the one in the other room. Nonetheless, as I looked around from my position and saw the Night table next to me. I sat up immediately, grabbing the book that lied on the table and took a deeper look at it. It was the book I just started reading at home, in my own room at my mother's house. I browsed through the book until I hit upon a bookmark. My bookmark.
Steve just stood at the weapon cabinet, watching me with an uneasy expression.
I knew he was hiding something from me. "Steve. Could it be a coincidence that my current book is right here, with a bookmark on the side I stopped at? With exactly the same bookmark that I normally use?"
"Weeelll...", he scratched his back of the head, "To be honest, SHIELD was at your place. Mainly to tell your mother that you wouldn't come home for a few days. They probably lied about the actual reason. Maybe that you got injured during the Invasion and had to be brought somewhere special where she can't visit you."
"That's not too far away from the truth", I muttered.
"Maybe not, but they definitely haven't told her were your actually are, and why. Anyway, they took some off your things as well, your mother herself gave them the book, saying you'd love to read, and that it might help you recover, if you have something to do."
Yeah, that seemed like something my mom would do. I could only imagine how she had to feel right know and immediately felt bad about her. Wait, how got Shield there in the first place?
"How does SHELD know where I live?"
"They knew your name... that's more than they need."
"Creepy."
"I agree", Steve approved, while changing the topic in the same breath, "But, I've got something more I'd like to show you. You want to come along?."
"Sure thing!"
This time we didn't have to walk a marathon to get to our destination. Just back to the beginning of the corridor to enter the first door on the left.
It was another big room, approximately four times as big as mine. On the left side was a modern kitchen, at the back was some sports equipment. The right half of the room was one big... chilling area. That's how I'd describe it. A lot of sofas a few armchairs and a TV. The thing was, these sitting accommodations weren't empty. I looked at five surprised faces.
Steve encouraged me to step inside the room. I made a shy handwave towards the five people still staring at me. Steve stood right beside me, starting to introduce these people to me: "These are Natasha Romanoff", he pointed towards the only woman of the group, "Clint Barton", he swung around to a serious looking man with short, blonde hair, "Dr Bruce Banner", this time he talked about a man with dark, slightly curved hair who seemed nearly as nervous as me. "Thor, who you already know," Steve still pointed towards the muscular man with long hair, " and..."
But before he could introduce the man with black hair, who was still missing and that I could name just by the looks of him, the billionaire himself stood right in front of me, shaking my hand. "Nice to meet you. If I may introduce myself: Tony Stark aka Iron Man."
I couldn't possibly not ask the next question. "Modesty does not seem to be one of your strong points, does it?"
To my surprise, the man didn't seem the least upset. "To be honest. No, it doesn't."
Steve ignored Stark and just started his introduction speech again: "Guys, this is..."
"... Summer Anderson", Stark ended the sentence, "Captain Americas personal hero."
I've never seen a smile as big as Stark had one right now.
I knew hardly anything about the Avengers, but since this was their area and they were six people in total, I was pretty sure that these were the people that saved New York last week. And I was pretty nervous sitting right next to those heroes.
The first one to talk to me after Stark was Dr, Banner. "I will watch over your shoulder starting tomorrow, if that is not a problem for you, I mean."
I had a slight smile on my face, hoping to distract from my nervousness: "No, not at all. Why would that be a problem?"
Dr Banner looked at me confused, as if it was clear what he meant, then he explained, sadder than before. "Because of the other one. Are you not afraid of him?"
That didn't really explain anything to me, and the fact that he spoke formal to me didn't make it any better. I just felt uncomfortable when people addressed me this way, nonetheless, I didn't want to throw that in in the middle of the conversation. "Which other one?"
"Our beloved Doc here turns into the Hulk, if he gets angry", helped Stark out.
"Thanks, Tony...really helpful" Banner muttered.
"No problem, Doc."
Now, even I understood. "May that as it is, that does not bother me at all. After all, your 'other one' helped saving New York, hasn't he?"
Dr Banner smiled at me a bit relieved. Bizarrely, I felt never ending anger rising up inside of me, that started to decrease after a while.
Nevertheless, I felt like this would be the perfect timing to threw something in the round. "But please do not talk as formal to me... I do not really like that... Steve can tell."
He nodded, while Stark was a bit surprised that I called Steve by his first name, what embraced into a great conversation. With the time, I got more and more loose, what also lead to me talking just as if I would talk to my friends what didn't seem to bother anyone. Especially not Thor who didn't seem to be great on formalities himself.
Time flew by until I finally said good night as I stood up, wanting to get some rest in my room.
"Come by my laboratory around ten o'clock in the morning, if you can, I'd like to get an overview concerning your shoulder", Bruce said.
I nodded as an answer.
Before I left the room, Steve's voice sounded behind me. "If anything comes up. My room is right next to yours on the right.
I nodded again.

Back in my temporary room, I needed some time to get the alarm clock working, but fell asleep right after, making a side note in my head to read my book tomorrow.