Jim, Claire, and Toby were hurrying along to the bridge. Blinky and Aaarrrggghhh were waiting for them.

“I bet they’re both part of the Janus Order,” Jim muttered.

“Jim, everyone who shows up at school can’t be part of the order!” Claire said.

“Of course, they can, and who would think that a totally hot nurse was actually a troll?” Toby mentioned. “I, of course, was able to get her whole life story with my smooth ways.”

“Was this after you face planted in PE?” Claire asked. “Our new coach…” she shuddered. “I’d never think that anyone could be harder than Coach.”

“Yeah, but some of those exercises,” Jim said. “I mean, they’re really good. I think we should incorporate them into our drills at the Heroes Forge. So, what was her life story?”

“Oh, um, she went to a private school, did some stuff in Europe—you know she’s been to Budapest?”

“And?” Claire asked.

“And… Oh, she asked me about some stuff. I had to tell her, you know, where I was born, how we do things, some of the reasons I’m late, my favorite game, why you guys are my—”

“In other words,” Jim said. “You told her everything…”

“Not about our trollhunting!” Toby said. “I kept that quiet.”

“But I really would like to hear about it,” a female voice said as the nurse stepped out into the street in front of the three kids. She wasn’t wearing the normal white uniform, being dressed in dark, tight clothing, and the way she stood…

Like a fighter, Jim thought, as Claire and Toby moved away from him. They’d all talked about what they’d do if the Janus Order tried to take them out, and Jim found his gaze seeking out shadows as if anyone else was moving in on them.

“You come here a lot, and then you vanish,” she said. “It makes someone curious.”

Shit. They want our horngazel. It’d be the gateway to Trollmarket.

“You’re with the Janus Order,” Jim said.

“What?”

“For the glory of Merlin, Daylight is mine to command!” Seconds later, the armor materialized around him, and then Claire and Toby pulled out their own weapons. “You’ve done enough to my mom, you’re not getting us!”

Shit. Natasha was used to working with, and against, the pros. The guy who would smile and talk to you, knowing that violence was an instant away.

She’d gotten too used to it, and she had expected these three to behave the same way. Except now she was increasingly convinced that whatever powers they had, whatever situation they were in, they were teenagers without a lot of experience.

And that meant they had the teenage ability to not just step over the line, but leap right over it on their way to a bad decision. “Clint, I could use a little assistance,” she called. She could take them out, but the kid looked like he knew how to use that sword, Toby had a hammer out (and where had it come from?), and she had no idea what Claire’s staff could do except that it was giving her ugly Loki flashbacks. Which meant she wasn’t sure she could stop them all without hurting them, and the Black Widow did have some children’s blood in her book—but she was damned if she was going to add to it.

“Going for Claire,” Clint said. The other two had tools they could understand.

Claire was the unknown, the most dangerous.

The girl barely had a chance to notice when Clint’s arrow exploded into a net of fibers, wrapping her arms tightly against her body.

“Jim!” she cried out as he spun around to leap over her, a shield forming on his arm. But then, just as Natasha ran for them, a hole opened up in the ground, and the three just fell through the ground, the portal sealing shut behind them.

Dammit! “Widow to everyone, the girl has a portal generator of some kind. No sign that it has mind control properties like Loki’s scepter, but use extreme caution.”

“Gotcha,” Stark fell silent, then “A second portal opened just a block away. They’re going for the bridge.”

“I can cut them off,” Steve said.

“Be careful, Cap,” Tony said. “No reason to think they can’t open a portal and dump you out about five hundred feet in the air. ETA 30 seconds.”

When the three popped out just a block from the bridge, Jim bent down and started sawing through the web with one of his daggers.

“This is tough,” he muttered. His daggers could slice though metal, steak (not that he would admit to using a sacred artifact when he couldn’t find the steak knife), and thick ropes—but this web was tougher than any of them.

“Who were those guys?!” Claire said. “I didn’t even see where the arrow came from.”

“Goblins? Goblins use crossbows,” Toby said, his flaming hammer out, the short kid looking back down the street as Jim got Claire to her feet.

“I don’t know, but let’s run.”

“I could try to port—”

Jim shook his head. “No. If they follow us to Trollmarket, you’ll need all your strength, and I think we’ve lost them.”

“Son, I think there’s been a mistake. We’re not your enemy.”

The three teens looked up at the end of the road where a man was standing in the light of a streetlamp, between them and Trollmarket.

And gleaming in the light was a shield that everyone in the world knew about since the Battle of New York.

“Captain… America?” Jim said and hated the way his voice squeaked at the end.

“The same.”

“No way!” Toby burst out. “What are you doing here?”

“Trying to find out what’s going on in the town—like those portals, Ms. Nunez.” His voice was calm, the kind of voice that made you want to trust him.

Like Mr. Stricklander’s voice. The voice he’d used to trick his mother into tying her life to his, to use her against Jim.

“No. You’re a changeling,” Jim said. “We know about Stricklander!”

“Your principal.” The fake America shook his head, that same disarming, treacherous smile on it. “I’m afraid we don’t. But if we all just calm down and talk about it, we can—”

And that was when a roar erupted from the street, as a fence exploded out in fragments, and a blue and green form rolled into the street, focused on the changeling.

Draal the Deadly had arrived.

And the changeling moved, faster than anyone Jim had ever seen, spinning around and letting his shield fly into the Troll, knocking him to the side, opening Draal for a kick that unbalanced him. Then the shield ricocheted off of a street light, back into the grip of the changeling. He sighed, and Jim heard him mutter, “right, we have to do this the hard way.”

And then there was a gold and crimson armored form that came rocketing down the street, and behind it, the formerly clear skies were starting to cloud over, thunder rumbling through the air.

I think I may have fucked up… But they couldn’t just surrender—the changelings would get them—even if these were the real Avengers, what if they were changelings or some of the police were? What if they didn’t believe him about his mom and hurt Stricklander?

Jim bit his lip. “Guys,” he said. “Don’t try to fight—just get to Trollmarket, and once we get there, we can… figure out what to do?”

“Do what?” Claire said, eyes wide, face pale. “Hide? Run away from home? Jim, if these are—”

“I know, but we can get time to… Think of something. Just go for the portal. I’ll delay them.”

“No,” Claire said. “We’re with you.” She put herself to his side, checking against any enemies coming from that direction, while Toby did the same to his left, the three forming a triangle. “Arrrggghhh and Mr. Blinky will hear this, they can be here soon, and we can all fight our way to the gate. We’re not leaving you behind…”

And then, things got a little too busy to talk.