Millie pulls the door to Mr. Stark's lab open, but the moment she does, someone shouts. "Duck!" After a split second of thinking there is an actual duck, Millie squeals and crouches down to the ground. She feels something graze over the top of her head, then looks at the wall behind her. A giant scorch mark lays right where her head would have been.

      Millie looks into the room with wide eyes and finds Tony Stark standing there, mouth agape and Bruce Banner next to him, equally as horrified. Millie sees the Iron Blaster on Tony's hand and scoffs. He hides it behind his back with a sheepish look. "Oops." Millie stares at them for a moment, then pulls herself to her feet. She glances back at the scorch mark.

      She was so close to becoming a Millie-barbesque.

      "Are things always this chaotic in this tower?" Millie asks flabbergasted. Bruce sighs sadly and nods. "Unfortunately." He turns to Tony. "Take the gauntlet off before you take another intern's head off." Tony obeys, then Millie's eyes go wide. "Another?!"

      Neither of them supply her with an answer.

      "I forgot you were here." Tony says as he sets the blaster on the table. Millie huffs and swallows hard. If it weren't for him being an Avengers and Tony Freakin' Stark, she would be screaming her head off. Wait... That's a bad choice of words. Very, very bad choice of words.

      Bruce turns to Millie and smiles. "You must be Millie. I've heard so much about you from your sister." Millie smiles proudly and nods. "That's me." Bruce walks over to her and shakes her hand. "It's a pleasure to finally meet you." Millie smiles at him. "Back at you. Molly has always been amazed by your work." Bruce makes a face and tilts his head slightly. "You understand it? My work?"

      Millie snorts and shakes her head. "No. I'm not nearly as smart as Molly." Millie smiles a bit. "The sibling titles go by the smart one, the casual one, the lazy one, the anti social one, the pain in the ass, the two angels and then the spoiled baby." Bruce chuckles and nods. Tony walks over to them with a smirk.

      "Sorry about nearly blowing your head off." Millie gapes at him for a moment then shrugs. "Eh, I get the feeling it's a normal thing here."

      "It is." A voice from behind Millie says. She whips around and her jaw drops when she sees Black Widow. Suited glory and all. "Woah." Millie breaths. "Molly was right. I might pass out." She mutters to herself. Natasha smirks and crosses her arms. "Millianna Marie Maverick." Millie cringes at her full name. "Age 16, homeschooled." Millie's eyes go wide and Natasha continues. "Seven siblings. I wonder what that's like."

      Millie instantly scowls. "Hell." She groans and rolls her eyes. "Especially Mike." Natasha smiles at Millie then looks at Tony. "Fury wants to talk to you later about the mutants." Millie stills and doesn't notice Natasha's eyes flicker to her. Tony sighs. "Well, tell the pirate I'm busy showing my new employee the ropes." Natasha nods and leaves the room as briskly as she came.

      Millie looks at Tony. "I'm your new employee?" Tony nods at her then walks over to his lab table. "Yeah, whatever." Millie shares a look with Bruce who shrugs. "C'mon kid. If you're going to be our team manager, you'll need to know the essentials: what kind of pizza everyone likes." Millie makes a face. "How is that essential information?" Millie asks as she walks over to Tony.

      "Nobody wants to meet the hangry Avengers."

☁

      In an unknown location a man bursts into a room resembling an office. He is decked in dark armoured clothes with a helmet hiding his face. He walks up to the desk in the room and places a file on it. "Am găsit una." He says. "O fată tânără." The chair in front of the agent spins around revealing a man, his face hidden behind a black mask with red lining in it. (I found one. A young girl.)

      The man in the chair takes the file and opens it, skimming over the information. "Mutaţie?" He asks as he stares at the girl's face. Her piercing blueish grey eyes stare back at him. "Necunoscut. Încă lucrăm la asta." The agent tells him. The man in the mask hums, his cold eyes the only thing visible through the mask. He hands the file back to the agent. (Mutation?) (Unknown. We're still working on it.)

      "Luați-o pe fată, dar vreau să știu ce poate face mai întâi." The agent nods and turns to leave the room, but the masked man stops him. "Cum ai găsit-o?" He asks. The agent turns to him. "Alunița de la S.H.I.E.L.D." The man nods and the agent leaves, closing the door behind him. (Take the girl, but I want to know what she can do first.) (How did you find her?) (The mole from S.H.I.E.L.D.)

      The man rests her elbows on the table and spins the ring around his finger. The gold glints in the room's dim light which creates an early feel to the room. The man narrows his eyes, a dark, emotionless glint in them. He's planning something. Something evil.

☁

      Millie huffs as she enters the Maverick household. Stark had tested her an endless amount of times on ridiculous topics. When she took this job, she thought it would entail going through paperwork, or boring stuff. She never expected to have to know every Avengers food preferences, favorite ice cream flavors, or what protein bars everyone liked.

      Not that she was complaining. Being the Avengers person caterer was way cooler than doing paperwork. The way Stark drilled the information into her brain was what made her so weirded out. It was like life or death if she didn't get the multiple questions right.

      "Mom? Dad?" Millie calls out. There is no answer. Millie looks at her watch. 3:37. Her parents are probably still picking her siblings up from school. Millie blows a raspberry and walks down into the basement where the food cabinet is. She pulls a ramen packet out and as she starts walking out something catches her eye.

      Millie cranes her neck from where she stands. On the far end of the basement is the fuse box. Which is strange because the fuse box is out in the garage. Mason once managed to blow all the fuses in the house while Millie had school and had to fix it herself so she knows it's out there. "What?" Millie asks quietly as she walks over to it.

      It's partially open, meaning someone had touched it. Millie pulls it open and sees a fuse panel. She frowns, however when she sees the scrape marks on the inner part of the metal. Millie creases her brows and reaches up to the fuses, grabbing one of them and pulling. The fuse panel pulls forward, making Millie blink in surprise.

      Millie pries it open all the way and finds a hidden compartment. In it lies a box lying on its side. Millie pulls it out and sits on the ground. She pulls the lid off and raises an eyebrow at the stack of files. On the front of each of them is a symbol of a bird with it's wings at its side. Millie pulls the first one out and skims the information over.

      "Hugo Barrock." She reads. A photo sits in the top coroner of the file and Millie observes it. It is a normal photo of a boy about her age, except his eyes are vibrant neon green. Millie raises an eyebrow, then her eyes find the giant red lettering on the second page. 'TERMINATED'.

      Millie sets the file aside and looks over a few more. She sets them around her, all open to the photo page and all of them reading 'TERMINATED'. Finally she reaches the bottom of the box where there are about 10 files which do not sport the red letters. Millie stares in shock at the last one. 'Millianna Marie Maverick'.

      Millie's breathing begins to become uneven as she looks around at the other files. Realization hits her like a brick. "Mutants." Millie hears the front door open and close. "Millie! We're home!" Millie gasps and begins stuffing all of the files back into the box.

      She throws the lid on. The basement light flicks on. Millie shoves the box back into its hiding place. Footsteps begin descending down the stairs. Millie closes the fuse box hidden compartment, then rushes over to the food cabinet. "Millie?" Milo calls out.

      Millie whips around to face her father. Her heart races in her chest. "What are you doing down here?" He asks. Millie grits her teeth and raises the ramen packet in her hand. "Got hungry." She takes off up the stairs past him. Milo looks after his daughter for a moment, then looks over at the fuse box. He walks over to it, pulls the hidden compartment open and looks inside.

      He nods seeing the box safely inside. He closes the hidden door, then the door to the fuse box, clicking the lock shut. He walks up the stairs, flicking the lights off.

☁

      Millie slams her bedroom door shut and locks it behind her. She tosses the ramen packet aside and her chest rises and falls rapidly as she sits on her bed. She couldn't believe what she just found. Millie looks over at her laptop and grabs it. She types in Hugo Barrock and her jaw drops when she finds a missing persons file.

      Millie then types in all the names from the files that said 'TERMINATED'. Every last one of them have gone missing within the past two years. "Oh my god." Millie whispers as her hand reaches up to her mouth. "I think I'm going to be sick." She gags, then nods. "Yep." Millie throws her bedroom door open and runs past Mackenzie and Max as she runs to the bathroom.

      Not even bothering to shut the door, Millie begins vomiting in the toilet. It couldn't be a coincidence. With her parents' talk she overheard a month and a half ago, and the box of missing mutants in the basement, Molly saying Millie wouldn't like whatever their job really was. It all added up. Her parents were up to something and it had to do with all those mutants.

      One of them being her.

      Millie could be next on the list. She could be the next 'TERMINATED' mutant.

      "Millie?" Kayden asks as she walks into the bathroom and rubs Millie's back. "Are you okay?" Millie shakes her head. "No." She starts. "I don't think I am." Millie says with horror.

- author's notes -

the plot thickens