CH. 1

The alarm clock jolted Liz awake and sent her running to the computer. She had to check her emails to see if Happy replied to the hundreds of messages from yesterday.

She needed to tell him what she saw. No emails. She checked her phone. Nothing. She ran down four flights of stairs into the mailroom and checked the mailbox. Nothing.

Mrs. Watson was in the lounge of the apartment complex coming back from her morning walk. “Glad to see you're still busy with those long walks, Mrs. Watson. You must have walked all of Brooklyn by now!”

“Probably three times over by now, hun,” Mrs. Watson laughed as she slowly moved up the stairs with the help of her cane.

“I don’t doubt it, ma’am, you’re in better shape than I am,” joked Liz.

“You’re damn right, sweetie, my days as a nurse in World War II taught me to value my health, something you should do. Take a day off and get some rest,” Mrs. Watson yelled as Liz closed and locked her mailbox.

Liz smiled, “Have a good day Mrs. Watson but don’t walk too far because there have been some robberies over by the bridge lately. Stay safe!” She pushed open the heavy glass doors and waved goodbye to the old lady.

“I’d love the chance to kick some ass anyway, darling, don’t worry about me,” Mrs. Watson was almost up the stairs as she swatted at Liz, dismissing her concerns.

Brooklyn was on edge these days because of the robberies. It was all over the news 24 hours a day. People were saying the FBI was going to come down soon and investigate.

Liz jumped on the bus to head to school, “I heard there’s some kind of secret relic Mr. Stark is hiding in Brooklyn this month before his new building is finished. It’s so valuable he didn’t want to keep it at Avengers headquarters, that's the first place those robbers would look,” two women were whispering a few rows back.

Liz jumped off at her usual stop and ran up to the front of Midtown High. She pushed open the heavy wooden doors at the entrance and checked her watch as she sprinted down the long hallway to the decathlon conference room.

Good. One minute to spare before she was supposed to meet and debrief her team on their jobs for Nationals next week. The tournament had come so soon. She was glad to be captain and took her job very seriously, but it demanded so much from her sometimes she forgot to enjoy being on the team like she used to.

She was finally a senior, and she got everything she wanted. She was captain of the decathlon team, president of her school, head editor of the Midtown High yearbook and she even maintained a 4.0. Although, the most exciting part of it all was the Stark Internship.

But, she couldn’t help but feel lonely. She didn’t have any really close friends. She stretched herself so thin that she didn’t have time to hang out with her peers. It didn’t matter though because Liz knew she was doing bigger things and couldn’t get distracted, not now.

She quickly walked to the front of the classroom and managed to greet everyone on the team through heavy gasps of air.

“Right on time, as usual. I told you, MJ,” Peter laughed as Liz set her papers on the front desk and smiled.

“Slow down, Liz, I want to sketch you. This is the most distressed I’ve seen you all week,” MJ surprisingly let go of Peter’s hand to grab her sketchbook. Those two were attached at the hip ever since he finally got the courage to ask her to homecoming.

“Yeah, I don’t know how I do it. I must have superpowers or something,” Liz quipped while transcribing important information on the chalkboard.

“As you all know Nationals are next week and I’m supposed to reveal the starting lineup to you all today,” Liz turned around to face her teammates. She hated this. They all deserved to start during the decathlon. Every single person worked so hard this year and they had all contributed to the shared success of the team.

“Peter, Ned, MJ, and Abraham,” Liz winced a bit awaiting everyone’s reactions, especially Flash.

“Of course Penis Parker and his friends are all starting, what about everyone else?” Flash threw his hands up urging Liz to challenge him. He did have a point. Peter, MJ, and Ned were all close friends and usually started together.

They had such a good dynamic, their intelligence complimented one another. Peter was a wiz at chemistry, Ned had science and tech down, and MJ knew history and math better than anyone Liz had ever met. They were a great team, although it did look a lot like favoritism at first glance.

“Flash, the people I have chosen to start the competition have earned their spots and you know it. Maybe you should study more if you want a starting position,” Liz felt anxiety sweep through her as the words trailed from her mouth. She knew she had to be firm with her team in order to be a good leader. She read that in the last two coaching books.

The bell rang, sending Liz onto her next train of thought, her first-period class was honors calculus. That was easy though. She probably didn’t even need to go to class. There were other things on her mind lately.