It All Started In A McDonald's...

"Did Ned just ask Peter what the Hulk smells like?" MJ asked, looking up from her book, effectively distracting me from my sit-ups.

I stopped, mid-sit-up, and pushed my hair out my face, with a questioning look on my face. I looked over at Peter and Ned, a few mats away from us, across the gym. Then back at MJ, who was watching them. "Maybe. It's Ned. He's weird."

Then I heard the guy reply to his own question, saying, "I bet he smells nice."

Right. OK. I needed MJ's attention now. Ned had been asking Peter questions all day after last night's big reveal, hence the reason MJ and I hadn't hung out with them today. Not that we usually did, but I didn't want MJ to get even more suspicious than she already was. That wouldn't be good. "Hey, MJ. You aren't going to get a good workout by just lifting your book in the air."

She turned to me, signature unimpressed look on her face. "I'm stretching my eye muscles too."

"Any excuse," I said, rolling my eyes (or exercising my eye muscles, I guess), jumping up to my feet, holding my hand to her, which she took and I pulled her to her feet. "Come on, we're going to do a proper work-out."

This is where my Avengers routine would come in useful. Me and Peter had such an advantage over every single kid in this room because we'd actually been taught by the real Captain America, not just the one on the videos. And he made us work hard.

"Don't make me do star jumps again," MJ complained, frowning at me, giving me the dead-brown-eyes look. I gave her the even-deader-than-usual dead-green-eyes look.

"Star-jumps are the best, don't argue," I said, but I found my mind working through the rest of my Avenger routine for something else which she could actually do. A hundred star-jumps was only a brief warm-up, after all. I looked around the room for some inspiration, my eyes landing on the climbing ropes hanging from the ceilings. Flash was at that station, showing off by bragging that he could get to the top when no one else could. Well, it was easy peasy for me (the ones in the Avengers training centre were twice the height) so I could at least wipe the smirk off Flash's face, but for MJ? Well, maybe she could do it. If not I got to humiliate her and Flash in front of everyone in the class anyway. "Ropes it is."

Oh, I guess another bonus means it gets us out of earshot of Peter and Ned which means less suspicious MJs. That too.

"You think I could climb that?"

I pouted at her with a sorrowful expression in my eyes. "Not with that attitude."

"Hey, loser, what are you doing here?" was what I was greeted with when I rocked up to the station. I didn't pay him any attention to annoy him, just tested the rope by tugging slightly. OK, pretty immovable. Now I was being poked in the back, so, since I couldn't be arsed with turning around, I just tilted my head all the way back so Flash's face appeared upside down.

"Yes, Flash?" I said, through a fake smile. "May I be of assistance?"

"What are you doing here? There's no way you can climb that," Flash said, and I laughed at the super funny joke. It was definitely a Loki-inspired laugh. "What's so funny?"

I really wanted to say, "Your face," but it didn't seem very mature. So I settled with, "Your idiocy." Still not very mature of me.

Oh well. I was sixteen, I didn't need to be mature yet.

"I'm not an idiot," Flash said, immediately. MJ spluttered a laugh behind him, quickly turning it into a very exaggerated cough when we looked at him. He looked back at my grinning face and said, "Race to the top. You on?"

Aw, hell yes. He was making a fatal mistake. I was Rogers-and-Loki-trained.

I spun around, flipping my head to see everything the right way around, then spat into my hand and grasped his in a handshake. I loved doing that to see the look of disgust on his face. "You're on, shitbag." I released Flash's hand and turned to my bestie. "MJ, you time, OK?" I said.