Claire crouched behind a billboard, but it wasn’t helping. Iron Man, or the changeling pretending to be him seemed to know wherever she went. Every time she portaled, he’d turn around and head for her in seconds.

What if he is Iron Man? They were dead, they were dead twice over. They wouldn’t even get a chance to run away. Would she go to Juvie? Real prison? What would her mother think? Claire tried to stop hyperventilating and think. If she could stop Iron Man, then they could escape. Nobody else could track her portals. But she had to knock him out of the sky…

She looked up at where he was, coming towards her. If she could…

Before she could convince herself it was a bad idea, Claire created a portal.

And appeared right above Iron Man, falling forward, her legs locked. She’d hit him right in his ba—

She struck and agony flared up from her legs, a crack sounding from her ankle, and all Iron Man did was dip slightly, a surprised curse coming from him. Claire had planned to grab him, create a portal while she was riding him, so she could portal him away, but now her legs felt like they’d been broken and she was skidding off his side—she threw one arm up, trying to grab him as the staff flew out of her other hand.

For a second, she held on to him, and then, with an ugly popping sound and more pain than she’d ever felt, her arm was pulled out of its socket. Claire screamed in pain and terror as she spun through the air.

Tony barely had a chance to react to the warning when the girl hit him. His armor had survived everything from Chitauri to high explosive tank shells—he barely felt her land on him, the only real sign the slight increase of his repulsors, but then she screamed and fell, and suddenly inertia was working against Tony—he braked for all he was worth, spinning down after her.

Some thought that Tony’s only gift was building suits. But not one man in a thousand could have piloted the Iron Man suit. Tony’s mind spun equations, inertia, weight, how fast he could get to her, how fast he could hit her without killing her.

And the answer was simple. He could grab her, but they’d both go into a wall, and unlike Tony, the kid wasn’t armored. And if he stopped full strength, she probably wouldn’t thank him for the third degree burns.

“Clint! I’ve got a pickup for you!” Cap would be better, but Cap had dance partners. Tony fired a volley of missiles, close enough to distract the bomb-chucking lunatic, far enough to not hurt him, and in that moment, Clint looked up, saw what was happening and moved. “She’ll be coming in by the sidewalk, fast and she’s hurt.”

“Gotcha!” Clint said, and ran, moving to where he needed to be.

Tony reached out, and just a few dozen feet grabbed Claire, ignoring her sob of pain and put everything he could into killing the velocity and getting her to go where she needed to go. Clint was there and… He let her go in time for Clint to grab her, tucking and rolling, protecting her from the pavement, her lighter body carrying a lot less energy than Tony.

Then Tony put everything into breaking…

“Well, I didn’t hit the building,” he said. Of course, the store display was now cheerily burning from his jets. “Jarvis, remind me to send a check to the owners.”

“Of course sir.”

Clint took the girl into the roll. It hurt, but then, he was used to it. She was making little gasping noises, she hadn’t taken any heat or neck trauma. That was—

“GET AWAY FROM HER!”

Clint moved. You heard that kind of tone from someone who was beyond being reasoned with, who would kill anyone who got between them and their loved ones. They had a chance to stop this and he wasn’t going to fuck it up.

“Oh God, Oh God, Claire! Claire are you alright?!” Jim had dropped his sword as he fell to his knees by her. “I can’t move you, you could be hurt!”

“I, Jim help me stand—” Jim tried and lifted Claire up, but the moment she put weight on her left ankle she sobbed in agony and fell into him.

“It’s broken, I can’t move my arm—” Claire said, biting her lip to try and keep from sobbing again.

“We can use the staff. Vendel can--”

“I—I lost it. I lost it,” she said. “I screwed up, Jim, I’m sorry—”

“Jim.” Jim looked up and snarled, his face contorted as his sword reappeared in his free hand.

Steve didn’t say anything. Then, he got down on one knee, and put the shield down. He stood back up and undid his helmet, pulling it to the side. “Nobody wants a fight. I think we all made mistakes, but Claire needs help and believe me, we’ll give it.”

“What if you’re changelings!” Jim said, his eyes wide, flicking from one to the other as he kept trying to put his body between the Avengers and Claire, the girl barely able to stand on her single good leg.

“They are not!” Thor said, as he, Toby and Arrrggghhh came out. Draal and Blinky looked at him.

“Arrrggghhhh?” Blinky asked.

“Asgardian,” The troll replied.

“I—Great Merlin, the last Asgardian to meet us was during Kyra the Noble’s term, I—” Blinky stared, “But what of the others?”

“Use Gaggletack?”

“I…” Blinky looked around, then nodded. “It seems, old friend as if the force of arms has failed us.”

“What’s a Gaggletack?” Clint asked.

“A tool made of cold iron, used to reveal some forms of mystical illusion,” Thor said. “I wasn’t aware they still existed on Earth.”

“They are rare, but since our conflict with the—”

“Throw it to me first,” Natasha said in the ‘we don’t have time for a lecture’ tone. “Claire needs treatment.”

“Yes, of course,” And moments later, a horseshoe was tossed to her. Nat grabbed it in one bare hand. “Satisfied?”

“Yes,” Blinky said.

Clint filed that one under ‘way too innocent for his own good’. If Clint had to worry about iron, you could bet he’d have flesh colored gloves handy.

But Natasha quickly moved towards Jim, hands out in the “I’m harmless” poise, carefully working to not spook the boy. Jim kept trying to see everything around him without taking his eyes off Claire. Claire was biting her lip, but even so, he could hear her stifled sobs. She was in pain, and she was still sounding angry for screwing up, at least in her mind. Both teens had tears running down their face, Claire from pain, Jim because Claire was in pain, Clint bet.

And it said something about their experiences that Claire was able to stifle her sobs from a dislocated arm and possibly broken ankle.

“Okay,” Natasha said as Clint took his turn with the magic whatever it was. “I think we need to get her to a sickbay for the ankle…”

A gold and crimson form came rocketing back, Claire’s staff in his hand. “Let me check,” Tony said, his helmet retracting. He looked pale. Tony had issues about people, especially kids getting in danger. Having a girl almost kill herself fighting him probably wasn’t doing him any good.

Walking to her, he knelt down with a fine lack of care for Jim’s personal space.

“Jarvis?”

“A minor ankle fracture sir.”

“Well, God protects idiots. Can we do something about the pain?”

“Not yet,” Natasha said. “Not until we get her to the carrier. I don’t want to risk shock.”

“Not an idiot…” Claire said, trying to sound defiant, but the snot and tears on her pale face ruined the effect.

“Really? Then what were you trying to do?”

“Tony,” Cap said.

“I was trying to knock you off balance, and then get my arms around you and fly you into a portal across town so I could—” Claire hissed in pain. “Get us away.”

“Not a good plan. You weigh what, 90 pounds, soaking wet? You hit me at about 25 miles per hour, and you’re lucky you have a minor fracture instead of shattered legs. Were you out… Doing whatever you do when you were supposed to have your applied physics course?”

“We don’t have an applied physics course!” Clint noticed Natasha touch Jim on the shoulder and direct him to hold Claire tight. She gently took Claire’s dislocated arm and waited.

“Okay, how about common sense, you know, the ‘I probably shouldn’t teleport five hundred feet straight up onto Iron Man without a parachute’ variety?”

“I didn’t have a lot of time to thi—Ohgod!!!” Claire’s angry words dissolved into a moan of pain as Natasha expertly re-socketed the arm.

“Thanks for distracting her, Tony.” She said. “Your arm should be fine, but it’s going to be sore for a while.”

“I… Thank you.” Claire sniffled. “I really—”

“Sometimes we don’t get the luxury of thinking about the best thing to do and have to go with the plan we can make on the spot,” Steve said. “But we need to get you all to a place where we can talk.”

“Yeah, Fury wants us on the carrier yesterday and…” Tony paused. “Lots of incoming emergency services. Fury’s sending some clean-up, but he wants to see the kids.”

“I…” Claire bit her lip. “I can walk.”

“No.” Arrggghhh walked over and picked Claire up, tucking her into his arm, supporting her leg and injured arm like an adult might an infant. “I carry.”

And that’s not the weirdest thing you’ve seen, but it’s definitely in the top ten.

“I…” Suddenly there was a flash around Jim, the Avengers tensing, and then he was the skinny 16 year old Clint had taught PE do while he was undercover. His face had rapidly purpling bruises on it, and he was limping. Worst was the look on his face a cross between My screwup is irrecoverable and I let down my friends. “I’m sorry. I thought you were… Well, if I’d just talked, I—Claire wouldn’t be—” he fell silent and swallowed.

“She’ll be fine,” Cap said. “And we need to get you looked at as well. You and your friend were too good for me to go easy on you.”

“And that’s a compliment,” Natasha said as the quinjet flew overhead, preparing to find a landing spot.

“Wait!” Jim said. “My mom. Draal has been guarding her. Can he…”

His mom needs a bodyguard?

“Sign of trust?” Tony said. “I got no problem, what about you, Cap?”

“No problem,” Steve said, and the kids and trolls relaxed fractionally.

And then they were heading to what Clint expected would be one of Fury’s more memorable explosions, especially when the part about disguised trolls came to the fore.