The Unknown

Chapter 57: Justice For The Marked

"You'll never guess what just happened in our class," Clint said as he and Natasha walked through their portrait and into the Avengers common room area where Tony was tinkering with a laptop, probably trying to improve it being in the magical community while Steve was sat reading and Bruce seemed to be marking work.

Natasha went to sit on the couch across from Bruce and Tony and crossed her legs as she leaned back, and Clint sat next to her when Steve asked, "what?"

"That soldier that's always with her-" Bruce interrupted.

"Akio," he said, "we heard his name yesterday".

"Yeah, him," Clint continued, "we were training today, and it turns out Dahlia has already been trained, is still in training. She managed to flip me over onto the ground and knocked the wind out of me".

Tony smirked as he took a screwdriver out of his mouth and said, "you got beat up by a teenage girl, Legolas".

Steve then questioned, "I thought she didn't have their strength?"

"She doesn't," Natasha said, "she used his own weight against him, you could tell from the positioning in her feet".

"He told us we were training her wrong," Clint added, "that we were training her like the rest and that she shouldn't be coddled, that she was a part of a royal warrior bloodline. Told us that we need to adapt magic into the Hogwarts kids fighting, before he swung a sword at Dahlia's head".

"What?" Tony said shocked, "thought he was there to protect her?"

"She's his student," Clint shrugged. "He says he knows her training and knew that she'd dodge it and grab his dagger in the process. They fought the rest of the lesson, with swords and hand to hand, he's gonna get her killed training like that".

"Maybe that's for the best," Steve said and everything else they were doing was forgotten as the other four Avengers looked at him shocked that he would say that. He sighed and said, "just listen, like you said she's his student and she's of a royal bloodline of a warrior race. Maybe to them that means something, maybe training her that way helps her. If she is skilled, then he really knows how to train her. He doesn't seem like he'd want to hurt her and I hardly see her sister putting someone in charge of her training who would hurt her. Maybe her being of royal blood makes her special in a way or he wouldn't have mentioned it. Maybe she is stronger and faster than any of us thought-"

"Or were told to believe," Natasha said and as they all looked to her she shrugged, "what?"

"Natasha," Bruce said sighing.

"What?" she continued, "Thor led us to believe we were coming here to find a kid who was pure evil with a sister who kills with her touch. We were going to talk to her and if we had to, remove her and let Thor take her back to Asgard. It seems only one part of that is true and even the whole 'sister kills with her touch' doesn't seem as evil as Thor made her out to be. We weren't supposed to come here and forcibly remove a kid who's done nothing wrong and who is the prophesised saviour child of this whole community. This whole thing, all the way back to Loki's kids being taken, is messed up".

"She's got a point," Tony said as he pointed to her, "we've been lied to since before we even got here, think if it was one of our kids? I know we agreed to work with Thor until this whole Voldemort thing is over for the kids but let's be honest, we can't trust a word he says now. When I told Pepper what happened, she said she doesn't want him anywhere near Anna until she gets the full story and the truth from him in person. I hardly blame her".

"And after?" Bruce asked cautiously, "we're a team, or we're supposed to be. What happens after we go back to our normal lives?"

"I'm not working with him," Clint said, and everyone looked to him, "I mean it. Even as my time as a man for hire, I had rules, one of them was I'd never kill a kid. I know she stabbed herself, but Thor didn't even blink when she said killing her on Asgard just for being Loki's kid was one of the options. I'm not having a man like that watching my back".