The Life I'm Running From

24\ I'm Not Volatile

The Avengers Headquarters in Upstate New York was—kind of disappointing actually. After you've seen New Rome and Olympus, everything seems sort of boring. Where were the arched ceilings? Golden pillars? The abstract art mosaics I never understand?

Instead of all that, there were endless corridors of high roofs, grey walls, and metal linings. It did have a lot of windows though.

I peered through the glass pane, observing the backyard of the Avengers compound. A small, silver jet with a pointed front landed on a pad. People bustled around to help the passengers disembark. Behind that was an archery range, fifteen firetruck red targets set up in a row. I couldn't see the bows from here but I was betting they were cooler than the ye-olden-times bows we used at Camp Half-Blood.

"Quinjets come in and out frequently," Peter said, nodding to the small jet on the landing pad. "I think they just mainly carry supplies. New weapons and stuff."

"Cool." My eyes flickered over to him. He was watching two workers carry crates out of the quinjet. When Dr. Banner had suggested someone give me a tour of the building, Peter had immediately volunteered. Then looked embarrassed at his quick response.

I was glad it was Peter showing me around. I knew him, and besides Dr. Banner who looked nice enough, he was the only one I would've wanted to spend an afternoon with. Yeah. It took a whole afternoon for him to show me the whole building.

Basically, the tour consisted of checking out the different workout/training rooms(definitely my favourite part), the corridors where the Avengers had bedrooms(I saw this weird floating guy with purple skin), the kitchens, different lounges, communications room, cargo garage, plus fifty other rooms I can't remember. We did run into a few familiar people though.

"Who's that?" I had asked Peter in the elevator. The doors were glass, so we could see the front entrance below, where a man with robotic legs was drinking a soda.

"That's Rhodey," Peter had replied. "His superhero name is War Machine. He was there, that night with Ravenyx."

I also saw the red-haired lady from that night. Peter informed me that was Natasha Romanoff, a former assassin. Apparently she had no powers, but could very easily disarm any of the other superheroes. I decided to keep my distance after learning that.

"So," Peter said, his eyes flickering to me, "did you like the tour?"

The glass was cool against my arm as I leaned against it. "Yeah. This place is pretty cool."

Peter nodded. I watched him open his mouth to say something, but his phone rang. It was the Star Wars theme. He said to give him a second, and answered the phone. I turned back to the view out the window.

I couldn't hear the other side of the conversation, but I got Peter's side: "Hey... yeah, we just finished... no that's fine... right now?... k, we'll be there in a sec..."

My fingers tapped against the glass as Peter pocketed his phone. "They want us in the main lounge. Ready to formally meet the Avengers?"

Eh, I guess sooner is better than later.

I followed Peter down the halls, noting every turn and staircase. If I was staying, like Dr. Banner said, I needed to know my way around here. But of course I didn't plan to stay. There was no way I was hanging around superhero central for longer than I needed to.

The main lounge was big—large enough to accommodate every superhero that lived here at the same time. At the moment, only half of the team was staying in the building. And that included Peter, even though he said he was out and in. There were long windows on one wall, giving us a clear view of the sun starting to dip in the sky. Several glasses of water were on a clear glass coffee table. The carpet was white—making me feel like I should've taken my shoes off before I stepped on it. Whoops.