Problem Child 18: the kidnapping

Mercy didn’t take her home, obviously. As soon as she was confident that Captain Marvel had been convinced, the humanity shucked right off of her. Mercy relaxed into her normal feline posture, fluid and cruel. She would, Aiko thought, have been a pretty decent shinobi in another life. 

She also turned the car in a different direction, somewhere that Aiko had never been before.

Aiko slouched in her seat and sighed. At least she was in the front seat and had a good view of her kidnapping. No one else ever let her sit up front. “Is this because I said my Mom told me not to take assassination orders from Mr. Luthor?” she asked tiredly. There didn’t seem to be much point in playing too dumb. Mercy already knew that Aiko was a lot more insightful than she pretended to be.

Graves snickered. “That was dumb,” she said meanly. It was clear that she had a bit of a sadistic streak, pulling her mouth into a smirk. “Put a target on poor helpless mommy.”

Aiko snorted at the concept of her mother as a damsel in distress. She was civilian as fuck in this iteration, but at the core, she was still the original badass bitch. Dad wasn’t too pathetic either. Natty… Well, he was seven. He would be with one of their parents, so he would probably be alright. Probably?

Ugh. Unfortunately, he was kind of a helpless little baby and resistant to her tutorship. So far, all she had managed to teach him was to throw a punch and to barf up a big blast of violent air that would throw someone across a room. 

The driver glanced at her with a slight frown at the snort, but she didn’t ask what that meant. “You’re a lucky little girl,” she changed tacts. “You’ll be living with Mr. Luthor from now on.”

Aiko gave Mercy a sideways look. She sounded jealous. 

‘This lady has issues.’

“And my family?” Aiko kept her voice bland. She needed to find out what was going on and Mercy was her only option right now to get the party line. They would lie if it suited them, but it would have some correlation to reality.

“Will be staying with us as well. So lucky,” Graves repeated. She turned without using her signal, which meant Aiko didn’t have time to read the green road sign they were following. 

That was probably meant to keep her in line, but it was genuinely good news so far as she was concerned. A lot of people would have killed her parents immediately in order to gain control of her– Danzo certainly would have. He ran a tighter operation than this. Ugh. Civilians.

But that was for the best.

‘If I know where they are, I can act.’ Aiko leaned against the window, letting the cool glass squish her cheek out. She was getting a bit sleepy, honestly. Bit unfortunate. She fought down a yawn. Damn her reliable bedtime. This incident was going to go on her next presentation to her parents, petitioning for more control of her own schedule– it was dangerous to be unable to stay awake in her line of work! A yawn wrenched her mouth all the way open.

“Disgusting,” Mercy muttered to herself, voice full of disdain. “Don’t get saliva on my car.”

…Aiko very seriously considered deliberately drooling. But no. She wasn’t going to antagonize these nitwits just yet. “Sorry, Miss Graves.” She covered the next yawn. “I’m just sleepy.”

It was obviously true, after all, and a bit disarming.

‘As soon as I know where we are going and where my family is, I’m going to murder the fuck out of you,’ Aiko silently promised. ‘And then Mr. Luthor, and then I will be the President of the USA and probably the Luthor Corporation.’ 

She kept that litany in mind as they made their way to a private airport and onto a plane staffed with a bunch of tall, pretty ladies with bland expressions. No one spoke. Like, at all. 

This was only her third time being on a plane, and it was different from their family trip to see cousins overseas. There was no safety demonstration, visit with the pilot, or other customers. Mercy stalked away to the back and started smoking heavily. Aiko was guided to a seat at the front, far too large for her, which reclined fully. It seemed pretty expensive. 

Aiko fell asleep and woke up just in time to push away a hand from her shoulder. 

“Time to go.”

She sniffled and wiped at her face. Her blinks were gummy, despite her attempts to wipe away the detritus from the dry and smoky air. The plane door opened and unfolded down to sleek metal stairs onto a black tarmac. Aiko climbed down gingerly, legs heavy and tingling from sleep. Mercy slunk down behind her silently. 

The night air was chilly, but not intolerably so. The sky was… weirdly clear. Aiko lifted her face to stare at the stars. It wasn’t as clear as the unobstructed night sky from Konoha, but it was the most diamond-bright she had ever seen the stars in this universe. The only other light was the faint halo from warm streetlights in the distance. 

Apparently, that was where they were going. 

“…this isn’t what I expected,” Aiko said quietly, as white picket fences came into sight. 

Mercy said nothing. A motion activated porch light flicked on when a man stood up. A familiar voice called out. 

She ran fully into him. Dad bent a bit to grab her and then let Aiko spider her limbs around his torso. She was crying a little. So was he. 

The door flung open and Mom came out. “You!” She flung herself off the edge of the porch to join the hug. “They said-“ she sniffled, her face red with fury and feelings. She picked both Aiko and Dad up with a squeeze. “Mr. Luthor said he’d extract you, but-”

Wait, what?

“Our house got blown up!” Nathan reported excitedly. He was in footie pajamas on the doorstep, the heathen. “A man with big huge arm muscles came to kill you with a GUN and then Mr. Luthor’s scary lady friend was there and she said we can move again!” He jumped up and down, stomping on the entryway and carelessly messing up the rug. He was also flexing in a way that was probably meant to illustrate a muscular assassin. “It’s our house now! Another new house!!”

Aiko froze. She turned her face to look back at Mercy, who was wearing her disguise as a human person with empathy again. “That’s right,” she said kindly. “You’ll be safe here, safe from the outside world until you’re educated and strong enough to deal with the dangers out there.” 

Oh. Haha, fuck.